My first matchup was vs Eldar and a 'non-douchey' list, owned by Ray who was a really nice guy that I'll hopefully be playing with a lot in the future. This
was a fun game. Objectives and Kill points as the primary.

Spiritseer
Eldrad
Wraithguard
Wraithknight
3x Wave serpents (Scatter laser x2, Brightlance)
Rangers
Dire Avengers
Fire Dragons (!)
Warp Spiders
Guardians w/heavy weapon (I think it was a starcannon, dont recall)

I went first and he was unable to seize. My psychic powers stayed the same all day, mostly Pyschic scream, the horror, and Onslaught.
Only rolled catalyst once all day (of course).



Our setup. His forces in the back right are wave serpent bound.


My turn one hit very hard. I onslaughted the middle crone so she swooped and ran right up to 4+ save guardians. Left crone took down
some Warp Spiders. Eldrad's Wraith unit lost a lot of bodies to Devourer fire. The guardians would break and run, giving my FB.


His response brings down a Warlord Tyrant on the far right with Ranger fire, but not before SitW interfered with his casting phase.
A crone is brought down, and two wounds are dealt to the other but she stays in the air.


My newbie mistake here was vector striking the Wraithknight with both Crones, despite having told myself to ignore it for the duration of the
game. I do inflict wounds. The Tyrant flies hard legal (Wouldnt stand properly on the hill so thats why is facing is 'illegal' in the pic). Middle
arrow moves up, Tervigon comes on and spawns, and 1 Mawloc doesnt clear out Eldrad's unit so she mishaps to the far back. I make the
mistake of not bubble wrapping the Tervigon properly with her spawn.


He counters, inflicting many wounds on the Tervigon (which the Knight wound finish of in CC) and unloads the Dragons and WS to take down the Tyrant,
but he survives.


My new Gant squad would make all of their leadership checks when out of synapse. Flyrant goes off the table, and his spot is replaced with
two angry Crones. T-fex moves up, Warriors continue to move towards the left objective, and my massive gant blob controls the middle and
sets their sight's on Eldrad. The flame templates and torrents would melt away the Fire Dragons, and reduce the Warp Spiders to two.


WS's go to pick a fight with my gants. The Wraithknight fires on the T-fex, and then makes an 8" charge to fist fight. The Fex would not survive
the slap fight. He consolidates towards the bottom left objective. Not pictured so well is the 30 gant squad swarming towards Eldrad.


Tyrant is back on. I make a mistake here and fire on a WS, when I should have finished off Eldrad with his Wraithguard and Seer's gone.
Mawloc comes in off target but close enough to where I need her. Other Mawloc goes after the Rangers to clear them off their objective.
More vector strikes and flame templates finish off another Dire Avenger group.


Warrior brood disappears beneath Knight strikes. Eldrad would finally die to the massive swarm.


Crone flies to flame some Rangers, Mawloc moves to assault them and get them off the objective. Gants own the left objective, and the
middle group consolidated and ran back to the middle objective. Tyrant heads up to pop the gants back into synapse. I stretch the brood
out the middle to be in synapse and hold the middle.

With the knight being unable to contest both objectives, we call it. I think I had 11 kill points to his 5, and Im ahead on objectives. I have
FB, Warlord and Linebreaker, maxing out my points in the first round.

I was excited for this round because the opponents list was pretty tough. It was a Crisis and Broadside filled nightmare with plenty of
Pathfinders and Firewarriors. A Buffmander was his Warlord as well as an Ethereal. The two broadside units were all missile pods,
then there was a Fusion Crisis team, Missile Crisis Team, and another group plus the Commander's unit. Without a Riptide I a little fear
but some confidence in my ability to pop the suits with my Crones and get into melee. The Skyshield posed little trouble for my fliers, and the
two outflanking Kroot units should run in to solid resistance when they come in. My opponent is Scooter, one of the employees at Dropzone MD
and he is a hilarious dude who was really fun to play with who kept me laughing. At this point we were both tied for the lead.



My deployment is much the usual, prepared to be seized on but able to rush in all directions with the spear up the middle.


I knew I needed to be prepared to lose some units first turn. Little did I know that I was about to roll one of the worst games of my life. See how I
have Crones there?


Now I dont! I failed literally every single save on every single unit, from armor to jink to grounding, I failed all tests. Not even Catalyst's FNP
rolls. My opponent couldnt believe it and neither could I, I am used to Tau gunline but this was an extremely disheartening turn.


To help improve my mood, not a single one of my three reserve units come in. I'm not sure if I made the right choice here, but I moved my
Psychic scream equipped tyrant into the middle and cast PS, hoping to get easy wounds off of four units and then assault and hide in
the Broadsides. At this time, I was unaware of the ethereal (newbie mistake) and that the tests would go off on 10's, so I failed to deal a
single wound. The other Tyrant moved up hoping to hide in combat as well.

Of course the Tyrant breaks the Broadsides who flee and fail to escape. The other Tyrant fails his 5" charge. Sitting ducks now.


I dont have many photos of his phases, but for the most part his army was point and click. This isnt an insult to Scooter because he's a great
player with any army and this was a store army anyway, he'd probably win with anything. Without being able to get in there and disrupt on turns
1 and 2, I'm feeling pretty much doomed and can only hope to scrape together a solid hold on my Emperors Will objective.

Tervigon comes in and Mawloc scatters safely. Everything else moves up with Warriors holding back to control the point.



My other Mawloc doesnt clear her target, and mishaps...of course I roll a 1, killing her. Spawned gants shoot and assault the outflanked Kroot unit
who break and run. Tyrannofex backpedals to melt a unit of Kroot with his acid spray but cant assault. Tervigon assaults and destroys the Firewarriors
in the back left corner.

His next round of shooting would kill the Tervigon off, who would synaptic backlash most of her spawned children. Tyrannofex takes a lot of saves but
is brought down by AP1 fire with the cover save of the Venomthrope being negated. And all too crushingly my Warrior brood gets taken down as well
with poor saves.

Having no synapse and only Gants/Venom remaining, I concede. His Crisis suits are in range to contest my Emperors will even if they miraculously
survived all of the shooting without breaking and running (Or failing synapse checks).

Besides knowing about the Ethereal, there wasnt too much I would have done differently in this game. I simply had my main offensive broken too quickly,
and not being able to capitalize on the first go. My hope of being in the top three with Tyranids was broken so fast. In my opponent's words, I 'got screwed'.

Having been crushed in the last round, I was not surprised to have fallen down to table 4. My opponents army was a strange one, most notably he brought
Typhus (!). Large marine groups with Slaneesh powers granted ignores cover (the noise marine weapons right?), two Maulerfiends, and a Helldrake. Even
Lucius the Eternal shows up. I forget the name of the tentacly things that you roll for in close combat, but he had four of those as well.
Mission was Relic and four corner objectives.

Truth be told, although I knew little of his army, I didnt have much to fear. My warlord trait even gave +1 to his reserve rolls, making it likely to keep the air support
off the field long enough for me to mop up. My plan is simple, vector strike everything and ignore the expensive units.


I set up first, but he successfully seizes. In his first round of shooting he inflicts some wounds with a blast weapon on the Tyrant and Tyrannofex which ignores
cover, but beyond that I lose a Gaunt or two.


I rush up the middle. The angles let me enjoy some vector strikes and close proximity flames with the Crones, and I pump even more fire
into Lucius' marine unit. Suffering mass casualties, only Lucius remains giving FB.

He moves up with Typhus and the Maulerfiend, sending wounds out but failing to capitalize. My 1 wound Tyrant survives and without any massed fire going towards
anything flying, the skies remain ruled by Tyranids.


Vector striking everything that I can, they slowly fall to the AP3. I immobilize one of the Fiends in the backfield, and the other pushes up to my midfield.
My gaunt blob is assaulted by the Tentacly things, but they are fearless and the numbers can prevail. One Mawloc comes in to wound and mishap into the corner.



In an iladvised move, he rushes the Warrior squad to try and break the synaptic hold. One falls immediately in the first round of combat. Typhus' unit joins the
battle in the middle, no one has grabbed the relic. In the backleft are his casualties. Tyrannofex turns around to aid his tiny friends. One of my crones comes back on the
board. The Tyrants finish off the Maulerfiend in the back and assault the Marines in the middle. They all fall.



The Warriors die, but the Tfex will avenge them shortly with smash attacks. Lucius is killed in close combat by the Tyrant in the building, he had tried to sneak in to finish
him off. The Gaunts in the middle are killed off and Typhus' unit grabs the relic, but they quickly find themselves alone and surrounded by big bugs. Typhus breaks off
and assaults the Tfex, with his psychic weapon instakilling him.The Helldrake does finish off my Warlord Tyrant, but he is quickly avenged...


...with Vector strikes and Tentaclids. The Maulerfiends stay on the field as wrecks. The relic holding marines are cut down by the Tyrant, dropping it where it was from the
start. Typhus moves to assault the Mawloc as well. He is now the last of his army. My Tervigon sends her offspring to capture an objective and to secure the other herself.
My flyrant will defensively move off the board.

The game actually continues to turn 7. Typhus kills everyone in CC, making magical saves. He gets wounded by a termagant blob in overwatch, and is finally finished off
by my Tyrant coming back on the board and shooting him dead. I have the Primaries and objectives, as well as linebreaker, FB and STW.