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Traits: Heed the wisdom of the ancients
My armylist:
Epistolary with MC force weapon, Fury/Fear, termi armor
termi retinue with 2 AC, all furious charge
Epistolary with MC force weapon, Fury/Fear, termi armor
termi retinue with 2 AC, all furious charge
5 termies with 2 AC
5x 6 marines, las cannon, plasma gun
5 marines, las cannon, plasma gun
3 Dreads with AC, DCCW as heavies
vs
WHT with 2 twin devourers, strength
HT with venom cannon
8 spinegaunts scuttle
8 spinegaunts scuttle
12 hormogaunts
12 hormogaunts
6 stealers with carapace
6 stealers with carapace
3 winged warriors with rending claws
3 dakkafex
2 gunfex
3 zoanthropes with psychic scream, warp blast

Take and hold was the objective, gamma level
I deployed a refuse flank, deploying only on my right flank, with the six tac squads in the back, the three termie squads in front of them, the dreads on my left flank of the shooting phalanx being at the center of the board. He deployed with the three dakkafexes shielding the stealers across from my lascannon squads, his hive tyrant on foot shielding the winged one to their left, then on the left flank he had his warriors, his gaunts, gunfexes and zoanthropes.

He takes first turn, advances, fleets where able, and his shooting imobilizes one dread. I'm out of devourer range so he couldn't inflict the really heavy casualties. My turn 1, shooting kills the walking tyrant, puts 3 wounds on a gun fex, kills all but one of a squad of spinegaunts, and drops the other to 6.

His turn 2, he blows up a dread, fleets where able, and kills a few marines with devourer fire from the WHT. His stealers get into combat with one termi command squad, killing all but one termie and put a wound on the librarian. My turn 2 I kill the WHT, put 2 wounds on a dakka fex, kill the lone gaunt, a couple of the other squad of spine gaunts to bring them to four,  four of the other stealers go down and put a wound on the winged warriors. In combat he kills the librarian, but the other termie kills a pair of stealers and holds.

His turn 3, dakka fexes kill a tac squad, warp blasts wittle another down, and a dread goes down to a focused warp blast. in combat the stealers and a dakkafex assault the termi and kill him. They don't roll high enough to get into combat anywhere else. My turn 3, I shoot and kill a dakkafex, a gunfex, the stealers.

His turn 4, he assaults a leading squad of termies with his winged warriors and gaunts, he assaults my librarian with a dakkafex, and in shooting he whittles away some more tac marines. He kills a pait of termies, but the librarian/fex battle does nothing. My turn 4, send the remaining termies into combat with the warriors, killing them. The librarian kills the fex, shooting kills the last dakka fex, and puts a wound on a zoanthrope.

His turn 5, two focused warp blasts and my librarian is dead,
My turn five the zoanthropes die, and his gunfex dies. His remaining hormogaunt squad runs off the table with their instinctive behavior result.
No way my tac squads could take the objective, and I was down to two terminators and an imobilized can't move or shoot dread, but 4 tac squads were still above half and his force was gone from the table.

I probably should try and remember psychic hoods when my opponent does focused warp blasts. It was the big thing I'd forgotten.

Sounds like you used your shooting to destroy over 2/3rds of his army, and used your own hq squads as a speed bump, while your real threat the dreads and the tacs blew the hell out of everything they saw?

The hq's were speedbump baits, but the dreads didn't do as much damage as the 6 lascannon squads. With 6 lascannons, and for two turns six assault cannons firing I was able to blow most of the army away. Little bugs I tried to hit with Fury because d3 hits on 3-4 squads is a decent amount of firepower.

67 models in a nid list is tiny. At 2000 pts it's a crime.

If you oponent had done a little swapping - drop the zoanthropes and some dakkafexes for say 80 or 100 spinegaunts and traded the walking HT for a broodlord & squad he would have had a much better time getting across the board - you would have had to choose between shooting the big targets or getting bogged down in swarms of gaunts.

Now that I think about it and have read alot more of the tyranid tactics, it seems he didn't have his army set up to hit you in waves, he seemed to be trying to play a marine army with tyranids (doesn't work), alot of elitish units but none of the real filler guants. 

I think if I ever try a tyranid army, it will be designed to infiltrate with a broodlord with a gene stealer squad, along with some scuttling guants, and then the next wave will be alot of flyers with a few warriors armed with Barbed Stranglers, and the final wave will be scuttling gene stealers, all of this will be supported with a couple gun fex, (BS and VC?)

 

Posted By spasheridan on 12/15/2005 5:56 PM
67 models in a nid list is tiny. At 2000 pts it's a crime.

If you oponent had done a little swapping - drop the zoanthropes and some dakkafexes for say 80 or 100 spinegaunts and traded the walking HT for a broodlord & squad he would have had a much better time getting across the board - you would have had to choose between shooting the big targets or getting bogged down in swarms of gaunts.

This is a nidzilla army, hence the 7 MCs and the low model count.  Your advice is much the same as telling a deathwing player to take less terminators.

Unfortunately, a shooty marine list will own a Nidzilla list, no matter what config it takes.  It can't out shoot them and certainly can't get into assault soon enough.

None-the-less, it was a good read and informative.  Defintely shows the worth of taking a non-shooty winged tyrant (would have been better off getting into HtH then being a sitting duck).   Thanks for posting.

Can I ask about the wisdom of taking that many termies fighting nids? Rending is rending, and 2 termies (w/o ass. cannons) is the same cost as 1 speeder w/ donkey cannon which are a LOT harder for nids to hit/kill. That 5+ inv. save is great and all but nothing too special once you get your @$$ rended.

The Termies can pump out more shots, and are more durable vs. shooting. I wouldn't have taken the Furious Charge, but otherwise, they make a good firebase vs. anything up to Warriors that wanders into 24". Of course, for less points and more range, Devs with HBs would have been better, IMNSHO.