My force:
Pask, Battle Tank, Multimeltas, Lascannon
Company Commander
Conscripts
Infantry Squad, Lascannon
Custodian Guard
Commissar
Venerable Contemptor Dreadnought, Kheres Assault Cannon
Punisher, Heavy Bolters, Heavy Bolter
Venerable Land Raider
Shadowsword, Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Enemy Force:
Swarmlord
Tervigon
Termigaunts
Termigaunts
Hormagaunts
Hive Guard
Old One Eye
Toxicrine
Trygon Prime
Melee Carnifex
Melee Carnifex
Melee Carnifex

We were playing The Scouring, and I chose deployment pattern, selecting Hammer and Anvil. He put out all his guys right along the front line, with the Swarmlord and Tervigon right in the middle, flanked by the two Termigaunt Squads, and the Carnifexes anchoring his left, my right, of the line, and his Trygon in reserve and Hormagaunts in its tunnel. I made a line of Conscripts across the front of my deployment zone, with my Shadowsword in the back right corner, my Infantry Squad on a hill towards the rear-left, the Punisher and Dreadnought front and center, 4" behind the conscripts, the Land Raider in front of the Shadowsword, and Pask trailing a safe distance behind the Punisher.

We roll to assign the major and minor objectives, and my home objective ends up the major objective and my forward objective ends up the minor objective.

I spend a CP and successfully seize the imitative from him, netting me first turn.

IG 1: Conscripts move up 6" on the right and center, taking over my natural expansion objective [the one in the no-man's land close to me], but stay back on the left, forming a dogleg in my line. The Punisher and Dreadnought move up into the corner of the conscript line, still staying dutifully 4" behind the Conscripts, and the Land Raider moves up around a rocky outcropping separating my right flank from my center and left. Conscripts shoot a squad of Termigaunts under First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire!. Guardsmen shoot the Swarmlord under Bring it Down!, doing nothing. Punisher shoots the same Termigaunts the Conscripts shot under Gunners, Kill on Sight!. Pask fires on the Swarmlord and gets 5 shots, erasing the Hive Guard and putting a small dent on the big guy himself. The Venerable Land Raider fires its Twin Heavy Bolter at the same Termigaunt squad as the Punisher and the Conscripts, and it's Twin Lascannons at the Swarmlord, reducing the big guy to 2 wounds. I fire the Dreadnought at the Swarmlord, because I want to save the Volcano Cannon for the Tervigon or the 'fexes, but it doesn't manage to strip the last two wounds. At this point, I notice that there's a single Termigaunt left from the squad I had been shooting at that I didn't notice before, hiding underneath the Carnifexes, all I have left if the Shadowsword, and my Heavy Bolters are out of range. I fire my Lascannons at the 'gaunt and the Volcano Cannon at the Swarmlord, killing both with a CP re-roll, and that's the end of my first turn.

Tyranids 1: The unmolested 'gaunt squad scurries back to secure his home and forward objectives, the Tervigon stays near his forward one, and the rest of the army advances at full speed. The Trygon burrows up on the left flank, in the crook of the dogleg, and the Hormagaunts come rushing out of the tunnel. He uses Onslaught on the Toxicrene, allowing it to charge. The Toxicrene charges the Conscripts first right in the center in front of where my Punisher and Dreadnought are, followed by the Trygon into the left of the line and the Hormagaunts right into the dog-leg area, behind where the tank is, packing in 30 things in about 8" of frontline. The Hormagaunts lead, killing off a huge number of guys, but I remove them from the far right flank where the conscripts aren't embattled, then when I reach the Toxicrene, I remove from the far left near the Trygon. It almost kills the Trygon out of combat, but fortunately doesn't, and while it kills itself out of combat and some of the guys near the Hormagaunts, it can't reach the Lascannon team with its consolidation. The Toxicrene goes last, and I can't afford to let it kill itself out of combat because it will reach the tanks if it does so, and it fortunately doesn't. That ends his turn.

IG 2: The dozen surviving Conscripts fall back, forming a thin diagonal line between the outcropping separating the center from the right flank and the Lascannon squad's hill, where the Company Commander and Commissar also are. The tank and Dreadnought fall back to behind the Conscript line. The Land Raider unloads the Custodians and backs up, barricading the path between the outcropping of rocks and the right edge of the board. The Custodians move forwards, towards the Carnifexes. The surviving Conscripts act under Get Back in the Fight! to kill a small number of Hormagaunts, and the Infantry Squad use First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire! to thin out the Hormagaunts much more significantly. They put their Lascannon shot into the Trygon prime, doing nothing. The Punisher acts under Gunners, Kill on Sight! to rip up the Hormagaunts. The Shadowsword uses a CP to get a good number of shots out of the Volcano Cannon, and vaporizes the Trygon Prime on the spot. It uses it's Heavy Bolters to shred the Hormagaunts further. I had allocated the Lascannons to fire at the Trygon, so their shooting is lost. Pask unloads on the Toxicrene with all his weapons, since he's now in Multimelta range, and pulverizes it. The Land Raider shoots Old One Eye, taking off a little bit of his health. The Custodians shoot a 'fex, actually doing a not-terrible amount of damage. The Custodians charge all the 'fexes, which turns out to be a hilariously bad idea, and try to focus down the wounded one, but don't even manage that, and are wiped out by the Carnifexes' retaliation. I thought they could kill one, and at least hold the others for a turn, but nope, Carnifexes are scary. The remaining four Hormagaunts die from battleshock, and that's the end of my turn.

Tyranids 2: The Carnifex killblob and Old One Eye moves to attack the Land Raider, and advances. The Tervigon stay carefully in range to give Onslaught. There's no shooting phase, and the Carnifexes charge the Land Raider, followed by Old One Eye using a CP to make sure they both succeed, deleting it, and consolidate to be perilously close to the Shadowsword, but still more than an inch away. That ends his turn.

IG 3: Pask moves closer to them to get within half range on the Multimeltas because it's now or never for killing the 'fexes. Punisher stays in place, and the Dreadnought comes around to help and charge the Carnifexes if he has to in order to save the Shadowsword. The conscripts move back forward to re-secure my natural expansion objective. I unload everything into the Carnifexes, Pask kills one, the Infantry, Dreadnought, and Punisher work together to kill one, and the Shadowsword kills off Old One Eye with its Volcano Cannon and finishes the one the Custodians had been beating on with its Heavy Bolter array. That's the turn, and the game, because the Tyranids concede with all their heavy hitters dead and not nearly enough units remaining to out-score me on objective.


In retrospect: I would have traded all 800-odd points of Custodians for additional artillery and tanks. A Command Vanquisher would have matched or exceeded the Land Raider for fewer points, and it goes without saying that anything would have been more effective than my Custodian Guard squad. I did make a bad play with them there, but I would much rather have had Wyverns and Manticores. The Dreadnought should also have been traded for a second Punisher, hands down. The Shadowsword and Pask were hands-down amazing. The Conscripts did their job well too. Additional screening, perhaps a second layer of conscripts or, because I don't think I can fit in more conscripts effectively on the tabletop, strategically-placed infantry squads, will be required in the future, and I was fortunate all his Hormagaunts were concentrated in the dogleg region and packed in so heavily, because otherwise they would have been able to spill past and reach my tanks with their 6" consolidation.