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Hey all~

Well I went into 'Ardboyz this weekend with a mediocre list just looking for 3 good games. I wasn't expecting a win as I only own about 3,000 points in models total, but I ended up qualifying with 2 minor wins and 1 massacre. I do have to say that my local group plays a lot of comp tourneys so there weren't many powerspam lists and not a single guard army.

Anyways, here's my list and some brief reports.

HQ: (Deathstar)
Tyrant w/ Paroxysm, leech essence, BS/LW, Scytals + Old Adversary, Armored Shell, Regen, Hive Commander
3 Tyrant Guard + LW's
Tyranid Prime + BS/BS, TS, AG, Rending, Regen

Elites:
3 Hive Guard
3 Zoanthropes + Mycetic Spore
2 Venomthropes

Troops
16x Termagants
16x Termagants
2x Tervigons + Catalyst, TS, AG, Claws

Fast:
Harpy + tl Heavy Venom Cannons

Heavy:
2x Trygons
1x Tyrannofex + Rupture Cannon

Game 1 vs Blood Angels

My opponent had:
Mephiston
Assault Terms (3th/ss, 2lc) in a LR Crusader
Dread with Blood Talons in Drop Pod
Dread with 2x twin linked autocannons
4x assault marine squads (6 man) with one melta each and one pw, each in razorback with tl assault cannons
1 devastator squad with 4 missiles
1 devestator squad with 4 plasma cannons

I started out feeling pretty good knowing my deathstar could potentially make Mephiston ws1 init1 and instakill him, but I was still facing 5 tl assault cannons, 4 missiles, 4 plasma cannons, 4 meltas, 2 tl autocannons. That's a lot of shooting. We placed all 5 objectives in an X pattern, and all with the minimum 12" spacing. My plan was to try and stretch as many 'gant units as I could to double cap objectives.

Turns 1-2 were positioning and trading fire. I popped one Razorback and stunned several others. He claimed a couple wounds off my MC's, but I saved a lot between armor, cover, spore cloud, and catalyst. When Mephiston got close, I paroxysm'd him and he backed off for a turn.

Turns 3-4, my opponent threw his terminators into both my Trygons and we pretty much wiped each other out. I then moved my deathstar into the middle of all objectives and he multi assaulted me with 2 assault units and Meph. To my horror, he passed all his leadership saves against instadeath and his powerweapon sargeants rolled many 6's to wound.

After the dust settled, I had 2 Tervigons left, Tyrannofex, Hive Guard, and a few Gants. Mephiston was still up and he had between 1 and 3 marines left from each assault unit. One sarge had fled combat, rallied, and jumped in the LR on a read objective. Meph and 3 assault marines held the center. I had 10 min left in the round and my last turn to make a difference. I moved the T-fex up and between the cannon, stinger salvo, flamer template, and 6 hive guard shots, I was able to remove his central scoring unit. I then ran and stretched out my gants to claim 2 objectives.

I ended up with 14-10 minor victory.

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Game 2 was vs Space Wolves

Njal
2x Rune Priests - JoTWW, Lightning, Hurricane
A bunch of Wolf Guard - 4 with Njal (2 PW, 2 TH/SS) 2 terminators with cyclones in with the Long Fangs, 1 in each Grey Hunter unit with PW
4 Grey Hunter units each with one PF, one with the d6 attack thingy, one melta and one combi-melta, each in a rhino
2 long fang units with a total of 9 lascannons and 1 missile
Land Raider

This was a bear of a mission for me. All he basically did was sit and shoot me as I ran across the board.

Turns 1-2, I advance and pop one rhino and stun some other vehicles. He has a total of 11 lascannons, 3 missiles, 3 psykers shooting, 4 meltas, and 4 combi meltas so he lays down a rediculous amount of fire. My deathstar build has 3 wound allocation pools, cover behind gants, feel no pain, one 2+ armor and the rest 3+ armor and he had trouble choosing targets. He tried to take out my venomthropes but I make cover saves, tries to shoot the deathstar and does a few wounds.

Turns 3-4, I'm hitting his lines with Trygons and my Deathstar. I take out one priest and one unit of hunters. My deathstar kill all the wolfguard with Njal and he flees, leaving my deathstar to get shot to shreds. I think we ran out of time at the end of 4.

This mission was VP's plus bonuses for HQ kills and Table Quarters. He had outkilled me 1341 to 1642, but a difference of 375 or less was a draw (10pts). I had annihilated his scoring units and still had 2 tervigons and many gants so I claimed two table quarters and another minor victory at 12-10.

------

Game 3 was against Dark Angels

Samael
Librarian
2 venerable dreads one in a pod
2 biker units with 2 meltas
1 assault bike with multi melta
LR Crusader with Assault Terms 3 th/ss 2 lc
Predator Annihilator
3 Tac Squads 2 lascannons 1 plasma cannon all in Rhinos

I knew this game was going to be a gift versus an outdated codex and with each vehicle giving 3 killpoints. It was pretty much a full-on massacre with me losing both Trygons, Zoans, and Spore and tabling my opponent.

I ended the day with 49 points and undefeated for 3rd place. Eldar took 2nd and another 'Nid list took 1st. Now that I actually qualified, I'm going to have to get some 'arder 'nid models and put some serious planning into the semi's. I'll take my camera to the next round also =)

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for sharing! Interesting build - how do you find the Harpy?

To my horror, he passed all his leadership saves against instadeath and his powerweapon sargeants rolled many 6's to wound.

This is why I use the Swarmlord instead of a normal Tyrant. Also, giving preferred enemy to a unit of 15 genestealers, or 20 gargoyles, or even just the Swarmlord himself, is a lovely thing.

True, but my Tyrant has 2+ save which is invaluable against krak missiles and regen which Swarmlord can't take.

Also Old Adversary gives everything within 6" preferred enemy instead of choosing 1 unit during your turn for the Swarmlord.

The harpy was just a filler to get me to 2500. It didn't do much except a few stuns, immob's, and popped weapons off vehicles. Now that I'm in the semi's, I'll probably invest in 3 carnifex's and jockey the list a bit.

Swarmlord ftw...

I did ok with my army, getting 2 massacres for and one against. Swarmlord killed..roughly in order thru the day :

2 Storm Ravens GAME 1

8 Terminators GAME 2

5 BA Honor Guard all tooled up GAME 3
Astrorath
Mephiston
3 Death Company.

He was awesome.

No doubt Swarmlord is pretty good. In my 3 games however, I faced a total of 7 missile launchers, 7 assault cannons, 16 lascannons, and 6 plasma cannons. My HQ deathstar drew fire from a mojority of those each game taking a total of maybe 8 wounds from shooting between proper allocation, cover, FnP, armor saves, and regen.

Swarmlord just doesn't survive like that against shooting.

hyv3mynd wrote:No doubt Swarmlord is pretty good. In my 3 games however, I faced a total of 7 missile launchers, 7 assault cannons, 16 lascannons, and 6 plasma cannons. My HQ deathstar drew fire from a mojority of those each game taking a total of maybe 8 wounds from shooting between proper allocation, cover, FnP, armor saves, and regen.

Swarmlord just doesn't survive like that against shooting.

And that's a large part of the differences in our list styles - I don't run anything like your Deathstar. But results like you saw against Mephiston are exactly the reason I use him (plus a single lash whip guard), instead of a normal Tyrant. For everything else, there's poisoned genestealers, or the two Tyrannofexen might try jumping up and down on them.

I'm not trying to convince you, or suggest your choice is somehow "wrong;" merely noting a difference. There's a lot of variability in Tyranids still, and the more shared experiences we get, the wiser the Hive Mind grows.

Congrats man! I wish I could have made it out, I was itching to try out some really mean DE stuff. Was it Jay's Nids that won?

Yeah dude.

As far as the field went, many of the armies were just 2500pts and not necessarily "Ard". As such, I didn't get slaughtered like I expected allthought I did lose more units in both game1 and game2 than my opponent but still eeked out 3 wins with objectives and table quarters.

Jay's list was a mean one tho. 3 Tervigons, 5 Carnifex's, 6 Hive Guard, Trygon, Venomthropes, and gants. I guess he was just lucky that he didn't face one of the 3 SW players as he had about 1600pts in init1 JoTWW food.

Congrats on making it to the semis.

So how many of your guys did Jaws take out?

I don't really believe in a "deathstar" nid list, but if you're going to do one, might as well use the best - the Swarmlord. A little too expensive for my taste but in this age of Mephiston-led BA's, worthy of consideration. I myself prefer to run with 2 dakkarants, each w/Old Adversary and 1 tyrant guard w/lash whips. Too bad I didn't bring my nids to the 'Ard Boyz.

I didn't end up losing any models to the SW player with Njal and 2 priests due to JoTWW. Njal failed his first roll due to SiTW, one priest was attached to longfangs and casting lightning every turn, and the third I popped out of a rhino and assaulted/killed same turn with a trygon.

Njal did end up getting a JoTWW off when he was broken and fleeing, but I passed 4 tests.

As far as the Swarmlord vs. Tyrant discussion, my Tyrant build is superior in the function and playstyle I use as it's applied in our local meta.
1. OA is a 6" bubble during every turn of the game and with all the MC's I run, I can keep about 75% of my army in it at all times. Swarmlord's ability is only applied to 1 unit and only during your assault phase.
2. Tyrant with armored shell and regen is 100% more survivable against shooting than Swarmlord and 'Ardboyz draws in more shooty armies in our local group.
3. I attach a Prime with dual boneswords so between that, the tyrant, and 3 rending guards the unit is plenty killy. The only time they performed under my expectations it was due to dice rolls.

FWIW, there were 4 Tyranid players out of 16 total at our prelim's; 2 used Swarmlord and 2 didn't. The two who didn't use Swarmlord both placed in the top 3.

Nice My list was a death star kind of like yours. My harpy did wonders though. taking out a vendicator dread and soul grinder... in CC!

hyv3mynd wrote:I didn't end up losing any models to the SW player with Njal and 2 priests due to JoTWW. Njal failed his first roll due to SiTW, one priest was attached to longfangs and casting lightning every turn, and the third I popped out of a rhino and assaulted/killed same turn with a trygon.

Njal did end up getting a JoTWW off when he was broken and fleeing, but I passed 4 tests.

In that case, the SW army was a major fail. Not talking about you passing the 4 tests, but of him only getting 1 jaws off.

hyv3mynd wrote:
FWIW, there were 4 Tyranid players out of 16 total at our prelim's; 2 used Swarmlord and 2 didn't. The two who didn't use Swarmlord both placed in the top 3.

I find the Swarmlord good against hammer armies, or armies that are mainly assaulty. Then he gets to kill a lot. Against shooty armies like Guard, Tau or even shooty marine variants, he usually doesn't make his points back.

jy2 wrote:

hyv3mynd wrote:I didn't end up losing any models to the SW player with Njal and 2 priests due to JoTWW. Njal failed his first roll due to SiTW, one priest was attached to longfangs and casting lightning every turn, and the third I popped out of a rhino and assaulted/killed same turn with a trygon.

Njal did end up getting a JoTWW off when he was broken and fleeing, but I passed 4 tests.

In that case, the SW army was a major fail. Not talking about you passing the 4 tests, but of him only getting 1 jaws off.

Possibly true, but without a good batrep with pics or vassal maps, it's hard to picture how things went down.

Mission #2 from the 'Ardboyz packet was spearhead deployment and since he was all shooty, he deployed into his corner. I also took the first turn. I had a very long screen of gaunts stretched in front of my entire force. If I remember right, on t1 I stunned the Rhino with one of the runepriests and Njal used Hurricane on my screen of gaunts. T2-T3 I popped that rhino and assaulted the Priest with a Trygon and they simul killed each other. At this point, Njal failed his leadership for JoTWW and then I charged his unit with my deathstar.

I think we only finished 4 turns, but my targeting priority was on the two psykers I could reach in the time limit. Yeah, I sacrificed a 200pt. Trygon to take out one priest, but he could have done a lot more damage to an army with so many MC's. My opponent was also unexperienced versus Tyranids and didn't have a good grasp on how the units and special rules worked so he wasn't playing super aggressive.

I guess if I was playing on JoTWW, I'd put the priests in drop pods so I could fire it off turn 1 where I needed it most.

hyv3mynd wrote:
Possibly true, but without a good batrep with pics or vassal maps, it's hard to picture how things went down.

Mission #2 from the 'Ardboyz packet was spearhead deployment and since he was all shooty, he deployed into his corner. I also took the first turn. I had a very long screen of gaunts stretched in front of my entire force. If I remember right, on t1 I stunned the Rhino with one of the runepriests and Njal used Hurricane on my screen of gaunts. T2-T3 I popped that rhino and assaulted the Priest with a Trygon and they simul killed each other. At this point, Njal failed his leadership for JoTWW and then I charged his unit with my deathstar.

I think we only finished 4 turns, but my targeting priority was on the two psykers I could reach in the time limit. Yeah, I sacrificed a 200pt. Trygon to take out one priest, but he could have done a lot more damage to an army with so many MC's. My opponent was also unexperienced versus Tyranids and didn't have a good grasp on how the units and special rules worked so he wasn't playing super aggressive.

I guess if I was playing on JoTWW, I'd put the priests in drop pods so I could fire it off turn 1 where I needed it most.

I see. Too bad for the SW player and good job on your part to take out his RP's.

I brought my Space Wolves to the 'Ard Boyz and would have loved to play against Janthkin's nids, who ended up taking 1st. Alas, no nids for me. Even though I had brought RP-spam and a mix of drop pods and rhinos, I wouldn't necessarily always drop my Jaws RP's into a nid army - it would depend on the nid deployment. A smart nid player should castle up and deploy his SitW units near the peripherals of his army against a drop-pod RP list so that when I drop, I'd be taking my psychic tests on 3d6. In such a case, I risk failing and losing both my RP and the unit he was with.