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My list

HQ
Swarmlord 280
Guard 60
Tervigon- AG TS Cat 195

Elites
3 Hive Guard 150
3 Hive Guard 150
5 Ymgarls 115

Troops
10 gaunts 50
10 gaunts 50
5 stealers 70
5 stealers 70
Tervigon- stuff 195
Tervigon- stuff 195

Heavy
2 Biovores 90
2 Biovores 90
2 Biovores 90

His list

HQ
Mephiston

Elites
5 Termies- 3 THSS 2 LC
Land Raider Redeemer- multi melta
1 Sanguinary Priest

Troops
5 assualt marines- flamer power weapon
Land Raider- multi melta
5 assault marines- melta lightning claw
las plas razorback
5 assault marines- melta lightning claw
las plas razorback
5 assault marines- melta lightning claw
las plas razorback
5 assault marines- melta lightning claw
las plas razorback

That's pretty much it.

We rolled Kill points pitched battle.

I won the roll for first and took it

I deployed my 3 tervigons in the center, with swarmlord in the middle of them. 1 unit of gaunts got deployed in fron to be a screen, 1 sqaud of hive guard got put a little to the left of my force, the other a little to the right, 1 squad of biovers went into each flank of the table. My ymgarls were hidden in a piece of terrain that was off to the flank of the board, my stealers were out flanking, 1 squad of gaunts was in reserve.

He deployed with his 2 land raiders in the corner, and the razorbacks all next to each other in the center, about 8" up the field. /Nothing was particlarily close to the building my ymgarls were in.

My Turn 1
I move up, put FNP on some mosters, run a unit of hive that was out of range, and shoot another unit at a razorback and explode it. Biovores launch templates accross the field killing 2 assualt marines.

His Turn 1
He moves his land raiders up 12" at me, they are about 20" away. Mephiston flies behind a land raider. His land raiders unload what they can into my hive guard and fail to do any wounds thanks to cover. His lasplas back focus on a tervigon and bring it to 2 wounds.

Score: 1-0 tyranids

My Turn 2
I try to move my squad of biovores and tervigon that are close to the raider and mephiston, but I don't get far enough since I'm in difficult terrain. My ymgarls come up and move in for a charge against the 3 marines. My other stealers come on but since they have no good targets they hide in the back. I move my lines away from the land raiders and mephiston and keep my gaunt wall. Then my hive guard move up and explode 2 more razorback! My biovores launch templates and kill about 3 more marines, and 1 squad runs off the table. My ymgarls charge the 3 man squad and morph for toughness and kill them all.

Score 5-0 tyranids

His Turn 2
His land raider with assault marines runs 12 sideways and unloads flamer goodness and charges the ymgarls killing them. The termie raider moves 12 and unloads termies. Mephisto flies 12 and prepares to charge a tervigon. Shooting doesnt do much. Mephiston needs a 5 for difficult to make the charge but he fails on a 4. The termies multicharge and kill the tervigon and the biovores.

Score 5-3 tyranids

My Turn 3
Gaunts show up and hide. Swarmlord moves out and charges mephiston, giving himself furious charge, and kills the bastard. He did however lose his guard and took 2 wounds, luckily I stopped the force weapon with shadow. The rest of my army shuffles away from the termies and blows of the last razorbakc with the hive guard. A bunch of templates later 4 or 5 marines are dead, and 1 squad decided to run off the table.

His Turn 3
His termies prepare to charge swarmlord. By the way the have a sanguinary priest attached. His marines in the back field move up away from the table edge, and the land raiders move a little and try to trap me between them and the termies. He manages to finish off the tervie with 2 wounds left. Termies charge swarmlord and I kill 1 hammer termie and die. Bad rolls right there.

Score 8-6 tyranids

My Turn 4
I move further from the termies and manage to escape his 12" bubble of threat. I also shoot up some more marines and reduce 1 squad to 2 guys.

His Turn 4
1 land raider immobilizes itself on terrain. The other moves 12 behind me. The termies move and run and get scarily close.

Score 8-6 tyranids

My Turn 5
I spawn 14 gaunts but roll double. They totally surround the termies with them, then they shoot and cause 5 wounds, 1 for each termie and 1 for the priest, termies pass their saves, priest fails and fails the fnp. I finish the last 2 marines with shooting.

His Turn 5
He unloads all his shooting into the hive guard and brings one squad to 3 wounds. After that his termies anhilate my gaunts.

Score 10-7 tyranids

My Turn 6
I'm pretty sure I have this, I'm up 3 at turn 6. But I play it safe and try to minimize his charge damage. I move the squad of 3 hiveguard to right in fron of his termies and shoot them a lot and kill one.

His Turn 6
He plays it smart and tank shocks my last 2 hive guard with the land raider so that they are closer to the termies. The he launches a las cannon, multi melta, and heavy bolter, at my biovores and kills 1 and wounds the other. The other las cannon shoots the small squad of hive guard and kills one. The redeemer assault cannons the biovore and kills him, and flames the hive guard down to 1 wound. His Termies multicharge the 3 hive guard and 1 hiveguard. I go first and do nothing, he has his hammer termie kill my 1 hive guard, then his other 2 lighning termies do 3 wounds to the 3 man hive guard squad. I lose by 4, and have to take 4 4+ saves on my 3 hive guard wounds. Well I failed 3.

Score 10-10 and the game ends. A great, close game, and a good learning experience.

Very interesting - thanks for sharing! You make some list choices that I wouldn't (really small 'stealer squads, for example), and I enjoy seeing how they work.

yermom wrote:I deployed my 3 tervigons in the center, with swarmlord in the middle of them. 1 unit of gaunts got deployed in fron to be a screen, 1 sqaud of hive guard got put a little to the left of my force, the other a little to the right, 1 squad of biovers went into each flank of the table. My ymgarls were hidden in a piece of terrain that was off to the flank of the board, my stealers were out flanking, 1 squad of gaunts was in reserve.

He deployed with his 2 land raiders in the corner, and the razorbacks all next to each other in the center, about 8" up the field. /Nothing was particlarily close to the building my ymgarls were in.

You almost certainly know this, but the way your phrased this part leads me to ask: you know that Ymgarl are placed after deployment, right?

Gaunts show up and hide. Swarmlord moves out and charges mephiston, giving himself furious charge, and kills the bastard. He did however lose his guard and took 2 wounds, luckily I stopped the force weapon with shadow.

Mephiston alone is the reason my Swarmy's guard always has a lash whip. No chance for Paroxysm to reduce the number of in-bound swings? Majority WS 9 is a nice reason to stick with a single guard, but sometimes your opponent's dice don't care.

Truth be told Janthkin I wasn't compeltely certain about my ymgarls placement, and since I didn't have my book with me I decided not to risk cheating my opponent and placed them after deployment. Thanks for confirming though.

Agreed that lash whip is invaluable against mephiston, and my tweaked version of this list now has it . I did manage to get paroxysm off, but between rolling well and unleash rage he just didn't care.

Nice BR and that must have really sucked last turn when you failed 3 of 4 saves. Oh well.

Will this be your list for colonial btw?

I'm curious what your take is on the biovores? I see them being great anti-horde, but in general I would just go for more stealers than biovores especially in a Swarmlord and tervigon list. You can buff the resilience of the units with FnP and you can give them re-rolls to hit and wound in cc with poison and the Swarmlord throwing out Preferred enemy...more than enough to take on huge numbers. Poison stealers also rock TH/SS termies.

A nice read, cheers for the report.

Lukus83 wrote:Poison stealers also rock TH/SS termies.

Poison TERMAGANTS rock TH/SS termies, when the Swarmlord is along.

Lol, true, true. But what's better than poison stealers or poison termagants...poisoned stealers and termagants!!

Very true Lucus.

As far as biovores go, I like them. They felt lack luster in power, but they were cheap. And I think the reason to bring them is because let's say if I had a tyranofex, the cost of all my biovores, he would only be able to threaten 1 thing a turn as opposed to 3. He would also not contribute to my long range anti infantry. As much as tyranids excel at anti infantry, we do so up close. If we aren't able to get up close than the infantry will live. Biovores let you hit infantry from far away which is quite valuable.

I don't think this will be my colonial list. It worked and I liked it, but I feel like there is more I could do with my nids to tweak them out,

Don't get me wrong, I think biovores can do well in certain builds. Like you said hitting infantry at range can thin troops tremendously before you get close enough to assault. But for me when you include the Big S I find he works better with stealers. He buffs their cc ability (as do the tervigons) and allows them to outflank more effectively with the re-roll for sides and +1 to reserves.

Good luck with the list and I look forward to seeing how you tweak it. I'm currently trying out a stealer spam list with HG and tervigon support...the stealers are proving rock solid.

Why Biovores against marines? WHY!?! :(
lol xD

Lukus I see what you're getting at. I once tried a list that was 1 tervigon as HQ, 3 units of zoeys in spods (to deal with land raiders, and 8- poison stealers at 2k. I played 1 test game and got rolled over and gave up on the list. It might work, I can't really discount it after 1 test game, but I just don't think it;s for me. Personally everytime I try large groups of stealers they never do well.

matthewbland- It's a tournament list that I was testing against whoever I could find. It's probably better I played marines. I think it's pretty obvious that they would wreck house against orks or other nids, but I wanted to see if they could pull their weight against marines as well.

Lukus83 wrote:Lol, true, true. But what's better than poison stealers or poison termagants...poisoned stealers and termagants!!

Poisoned and Adrenal Gland Gargs of course!



On Topic, Great battle report. Great to see such a close battle with the Blood Angels, and you doing so well against all that Mech. I haven't tried Ymgarls in a while, I may have to give them another shot, they always seem to preform well in the Battlereports I see.

Ymgarls are pretty good I have to say. Though I think I need a bigger unit to make it work better.

yermom wrote:Ymgarls are pretty good I have to say. Though I think I need a bigger unit to make it work better.

I've found 7-8 to be the sweet spot for Ymgarls - enough to handle most things you want to jump out and eat, while not wasting bodies whom your enemy is going to shoot to death, anyway.

I'll try experimenting around with that size brood. Thanks Janthkin.

Don't worry I know everyone's playstyle is different. Go with what works for you.

I feel that it would help your list to get a t-fex in there. Drop the HQ tervigon and 1 unit of stealers for a t-fex with rupture cannon. Reallocate the biovores to 2x3 and then drop some tervigon "stuff" for lash whips on your tyrant guard. Now you've got a lot more punch at range as well as a way to take down AV14.