Blood Ravens versus New Tyranids, 2000 points

[templargdt]

So I played my buddy Marc last weekend with his new Nids that he's building in our FLGS Battle Missions league. We rolled up the Tyranid "Wave Assault" mission in the book.

 

Basically, four objectives spread among the center of the table, and the defender starts on the board only. Nids enter from any of three table edges not belonging to the defender, and must divide up his list between the three sides (he rolls from which part enters first.) Nids automatically go first.

 

My initial impression was this was a bad deal for the Nids, since he'll be entering piecemeal and will allow me to concentrate fire and kill priority targets first. Also was my first game against new Nids, but I'd read the codex so I had an idea on what I wanted to do. Marc had gone 3-0 with the list so far, and I'm trying out my newly completed vanilla terminator squad in my 2K list. I was looking forward to the challenge.

 

The Lists:

 

Blood Ravens 3rd Company

Captain Gorden Thomas (Vulkan counts as)

 

5 Assault Terminators (thunder hammers)

- Land Raider Redeemer (multimelta)

 

5 Terminators (Cyclone Missile Launcher, Chainfist)

 

Ironclad Dreadnought 'Ancient Peter' (meltagun/heavy flamer)

- Drop Pod

 

Tactical Squad (meltagun, powerfist, Missile Launcher)

- Rhino

 

Tactical Squad (meltagun, powerfist, Missile Launcher)

- Rhino

 

Tactical Squad (meltagun, powerfist, Missile Launcher)

- Rhino

 

2 Attack Bikes (multimeltas)

 

2 Land Speeders (multimeltas)

 

Tyranid Swarm

The Swarmlord

 

Old One Eye

 

Trygon

 

The Doom of Malanti in a Spore Pod

 

Tervigon (Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands)

 

8 Tyranid Warriors (Barbed Strangler, Lash Whip/Bone Swords)

 

16 Gene Stealers

 

16 Hormagaunts

 

16 Hormagaunts

 

16 Termigaunts

 

Table Set Up

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/47cefc0b7685.jpg

 

I combat squaded my tacs with the missile launchers in forest cover, with the meltagunner and sergeants in their Rhinos, along with Thomas and the Assault termies in the Redeemer. Bikes and speedders hid behind the Rhinos and trees, while the regular terminators were in reserve waiting to deep strike and ancient Peter was readying to drop pod assault.

 

Turn 1 Nids:

Marc gets the chunk of his list coming in from my opposite table edge consisting of the Tervigon, Trygon, genestealers and one of the hormagaunt broods. The little bugs rush forward while the Trygon moves in front of the Tervigon behind some trees to make sure it's got cover to spawn a bunch of Gaunts. The Tervigon casts "Dominion" to extend his synapse and that's it.

 

Turn 1 Blood Ravens:

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/03e967978e35.jpg

 

Ancient Peter slams down to earth and strides out of his drop pod to the left of the genestealers covering the left flank of the Tervigon and Trygon. I move the redeemer up six inches towards the Trygon, shuffle my Rhinos to clear lines of fire and move my bikes and speeders to multimelta range.

 

I open fire and a meltagun, five multimeltas and a twinlinked assault cannon later (with two rends!) The Trygon falls over dead. The heavy flamer on Ancient Peter also cooks five genestealers while hitting the Trygon. My small arms fire and frag missiles from my combat squads takes out five hormagaunts. Not bad. I pass the turn.

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/183492028a28.jpg

Marc's Tervigon is still a work in progress so we just had the base there except when required.

 

Turn 2 Nids:

Doom doesn't arrive yet.

 

The Swarmlord, Old One Eye and 16 Hormagaunts arrive on the my left flank. Marc pushes the big bugs at the corner of the left/top table edge into a forest to threaten my Ironclad while the gaunts rush forward close to my table side, where I've only got a combat squad with missile in a forest holding that flank.

 

The Tervigon spawns 13 gaunts, which I find out can spawn 6 inches from him, move, shoot and assault. Ah ha. I knew the Terv was good, but it's really got to die. The genestealers form a wall to try and cover the tervigon from Peter and the Redeemer, while the 1st wave Hormagaunts charge hell for leather towards my line. The tervigon casts 'dominion' again.

 

Marc shoots the terivgon's stinger salvo at one of my Rhinos, glances and immobilizes it. Nice shot! One of my missile combat squads takes fire from the newly spawned termigaunts and lose two guys. They fail their test and fall back eight inches towards my board edge. The hormigaunts charge my attack bikes and cause a wound, but lose three of their own, along with 2 'no retreat' wounds.

 

Turn 2: Blood Ravens

The Terminator Squad doesn't arrive.

 

I gun the Redeemer towards the tervigon and unload Captain Thomas and the Assault Terminators. Peter moves right up to the Genestealers. I drop a tac combat squad out from the immobilized Rhino and move to assist the guys on my left flank under threat from the outflanking hormagaunt brood, while unloading another tac combat squad to deal with the spawned gaunts and the third dismounts to assist the bikes in the assualt. I fly the speeders up to cover the genestealers in heavy flamers.

 

Shooting from the speeders and Peter clear the way for the assault, eliminating the stealers plus putting two wounds on the Tervigon. My tacticals and the flamestorm machine spirited on the Redeemer kill 9 spawned gaunts. On the left flank, frag missiles and bolters pull an epic fail as Marc makes about 12 of his 14 cover saves.

 

I combine assault the Tervigon with Peter, Thomas and the Assault Terminators. The Tervigon is dead before the Thunderhammers can swing. I consolidate everyone as far away from the Swarmlord and Old One Eye as possible. I charge the remaining four spawned gaunts, who kill a bolter marine before I wipe them out. Finally, the bikes plus tacs lose one tactical marine before wiping out the first rounds hormigaunts.

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/6a2e3a5f834a.jpg

So far so good...

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/f3b18fa15af6.jpg

Incoming!

 

Turn 3 Nids:

The Doom drops in the middle of my board. My first experience with the Doom, I've heard it's good. We'll see. The Swarmlord and Old One Eye tear through the Forest towards ancient Peter, and the left flank gaunts rage (out of synapse) towards my combat squad holding the left forest. The last of Marc's Nids enter on my right flank, he's got his Warriors mixed in with a hormigaunt brood to give mutual cover.

 

The Doom does it's thing, and it's impressive. He kills all the marines but the sergeant from the squad that just wiped out the spawned gaunts, plus takes a wound from the attack bike squad, killing the wounded bike. He then drops a Strength 8 AP 1 pie plate on Vulkan and the assault terminators. I had spread out enough he only catches 3, and two fail their save. The weapon on the spore pod wrecks one of my speeders. Not bad.

 

The left hormagaunts charge into the missile combat squad. I kill two before he swings, and he wipes out the combat squad. He consolidates out behind the forest.

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/d56c07f3c3fc.jpg

 

Turn 3 Blood Ravens:

I forget to roll from my termies to come in. Gah.

 

I load up my surviving left flank combat squad into the Redeemer and flat out move towards the left flank gaunt brood. The Assault Termies and Thomas move towards the Doom (and away from the Swarmlord!) Peter moves towards to spore pod. My immobilized Rhino repairs itself and I take out five of the outflanking left side hormagaunts. My shooting (fromt most of the army) kills the Doom after it fails a krak missile invulnerable save. I take out five of the outflanking left side gaunts and incinerate a single Warrior that fails it's cover save against the Speeders multimelta. Peter assaults the spore pod and kills it, consolidating towards the Warriors.

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/7d90d49a734b.jpg

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/973e325209d6.jpg

 

Turn 4 Nids:

 

The Swarmlord and Old One Eye run towards the objective rich center of the table. The left flank gaunts rage against my Redeemer, and the right flank termigaunts and Warriors advance through cover towards the right side objectives. The warriors hit a missile launcher combat squad with a barbed stangler large blast, but I make all my saves. The surviving land speeder takes a pair of glancing hits from the termigaunts guns, but cover saves them both.

 

Turn 4 Blood Ravens:

 

The Terminators arrive! They deep strike in my backfield with some good fields of fire against the remaining Nids.

 

I adjust my Redeemer to line up a really nice, 9 gaunt deep Flamestorm shot. The lone sergeant from one of my combat squads blasted by the Doom hops into a Rhino to preserve a scoring unit. I adjust some Rhino positions along with Capt Thomas and the Terminators; my bike moves to get a better shot at the Warriors while my speeder lines up a nice heavy flamer target with the termigaunts. I hope to eliminate the scoring units on my flanks, kill old one eye with my assualt termies and Thomas and then have a least one more objective than the Swarmlord can contest.

 

On my left flank the Flamestorm kills seven hormigaunts; they break and run towards his board edge, out of the fight. The Speeder kill several termigaunts and I destroy two warriors between the attack bike and the terminators.

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/289eae045703.jpg

The Top half of Marc's Swarmlord broke off at this point, so it was just the bottom half advancing.

 

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/templargdt/April%202010/fb150af7e3a7.jpg

 

At this point, Marc calls the game. I'm about to destroy his last two scoring units and most of my Blood Ravens are intact.

 

Post Game Wrap Up:

Well, that was a blast! I think it was a tough scenario for Marc; if all his Nids had been advancing down the field simultaneously I think I'd have been in a lot of trouble! As it was I was able to pick off his stuff piecemeal like I had hoped. MVP of the game for me was Peter, I love the Ironclad coming down in a pod and killing stuff.

 

The Doom deserves the hype. Its really points efficent; it and its pod killed something like 215 points worth of stuff and abosrbed pretty much my entire army's fire for a turn.

 

Overall, I think the Nids are a solid army. If I had had to choose between shooting the Tervigon, Old One Eye and the Swarmlord plus dealing with all the little bugs at the same time I'd have been in a world of hurt.

 

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this batrep!

[mughi3]

Great report and glad to see some pics. your right on target priority. the new nids really need to work together.

 

we have 2 local nid players. one went warrior/pod themed heavy and the other MC heavy. both are solid lists but the MC one is far harder to kill. to many multi-wound T6 things that need to die.