1000pt Khorne Army versus Tyranid Bug Horde

[Warsmith Aznable]

So I went down to my local game store and the owner introduced me to the regulars. One was nice enough to give me an instructional game, because up to this point it's just been me and my buddy Jon puzzling it out by ourselves. I played a 1000 point list that I just happened to have because I put it together to fight Jon's "55th Armored" Imperial Guard army. My opponent had Tyranids, so it wasn't an ideal list, but it did better than I thought it would.

 

What I'm doing here is an experiment in my battle reporting. I took a bunch of photos for the first battle report I did, but running around taking pictures is time consuming and gets in the way of playing. The last time I played Jon I took notes because people asked for more technical detail to go along with the story part, so I figured that what I would do was make a map like the military tactical manuals have when you study historical battles or tactics. I'm using this CSMvNids game to see how it all pans out. I don't have notes from this game, so some of the info may be spotty, but mostly I just want to post these maps to get feedback on its effect.

 

I played my homebrew army, "The 4th Wælheim Free Company (Mechanized)", a gloriously orange and black themed Chaos Marine army.

I had a Chaos Lord with Bloodfeeder Axe for HQ

A Chaos Dreadnought for Elite

Two Squads of 8 Khorne Berzerkers with Power-fist, Melta-bomb carrying Champions for Troops

One Squad of 3 CSM Bikers with Melta-bomb carrying Champion who probably had a fist and melta-bombs too, but the list isn't in front of me

One Squad of 5 Lesser Summoned Daemons

 

My opponent played a Tyranid army, and had all kinds of stuff that I have no idea what it was. He had two HQ choices that squirted out more troops every round, a squad of tentacled things that emitted a poison gas cloud of some kind, a squad of three psychic elite things, and a seemingly unending supply of bug troopers.

 

The dice gave us "Annihilation", I won the initiative role, we set up, and then he rolled to seize the initiative from me and won. Here is how the table looked at the start of the festivities:

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/CSM-v-Nids-rd001.jpg

 

Like I said, I didn't take notes so the following report details are going to be very general.

 

In the opening moves of the game he surprised me with his two HQ units giving birth on the battlefield. He added two squads of basic trooper bugs to his army and moved everything forward. I charged my Rhinos straight up the center, my Lord riding with 1st Squad, sent my Dreadnought, labeled with a D on the map, moving away from my Rhinos and up toward his elite squad to take bring his plasma cannon to bear. My bikers, labeled with a 7 on the map, I sent hauling ass in a wide left hook in an attempt to flank him and target his HQ "baby factories".

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/CSM-v-Nids-rd002.jpg

 

The middle part of the game it was my turn to surprise him. He knocked out 2cnd Squad's Rhino with a mobility kill, but was frustrated because I still had weapons to hose his troops with. 1st Squad's Rhino disembarked its troops and then Tank Shocked its merry way through his left wing of battle. The 1st squad "Bone Eaters" on the map, was lead by by Lord and his Bloodfeeder Axe, who unleashed a tidal wave of destruction with chain-axes and bolt pistols. The 2cnd Squad, "Spear Shakers" on the map, disembarked and entered into ferocious CC with a squad of his 'nids.

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/CSM-v-Nids-rd003.jpg

 

My joy ride with the bikers was blocked by his spawned troopers, and a fight broke out between them on my far left flank. My Summoned Lesser Daemons, "Hanged Men" on the map, eventually found their way to the battle field and entered in support of the Bone Eaters squad. The Bone Eaters were slaughtering everything within axe range, eventually wading through the bugs to take out one of his HQ critters, but the Spear Shakers didn't have the same luck. All their luck was apparently concentrated in one Berzerker, who managed to frustrate my opponent by staying alive despite impossible odds far longer than he should have, helping out the Bone Eaters by tying up a couple of his bug mobs and elite squad. Forn Valtyr, my dreadnought (it means "old dead god"), managed not to do anything rash until he was closer to the enemy than his own mates, pulling a Fire Frenzy in the 3rd round and blasting a couple of his elites and troopers off the table.

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j91/montismo/CSM-v-Nids-rd004.jpg

 

In the end-game phase my Rhinos were destroyed, both being exploded by psychic attacks of some kind, but they survived longer than I expected them to and managed to whittle away at his troopers with their bolters. The 7th Squad (my bikers) chewed up a couple of his spawned units but only managed to completely take out one of them before finally going down. My opponent sent the survivors scurrying into the woods to hide, sitting out the rest of the battle out of range to deny me the chance to score by killing them. This sort of thing hadn't occurred to me before, because when I play I have a running story in my mind, so my army prosecutes the mission the way I think the 4th Wælheim really would. But that's neither here nor there, what the above picture doesn't show is the number of models left in the squad, so the Bone Eaters aren't really in as bad of shape as the map seems to suggest. Each of his surviving units was nearly exhausted, and the Bone Eaters still had my Chaos Lord and most of the squad left. Poor Forn Valtyr was targeted by the remaining elites and blown up before he had the chance to assault anything, though his plasma cannon did take its toll.

 

The game was ended on a dice roll and the final tally stood at 4 to 5 in the Tyranids favor. My opponent was very kind to take his time to explain all the rules as we went along and displayed an admirable amount of patience with me. He said he was relieved when the game ended because he had been trailing in kill points right up until the very end and believed my Lord and his remaining Berzerkers would have tipped the score in my favor again in the next round. I don't know exactly, but the Bone Eaters were doing very well throughout the game so I believed him.

 

The 4th Wælheim Free Company once again made The Hidden King proud, taking many skulls for the Skull Throne and spilling whatever it is the Tyranids use for blood for the Blood God. "To Wælheim, to Wælheim! Blood! Blood! Blood!"

[Shas'o R'Vre]

I think one of the main reasons you lost this battle is your armies kill point distribution. Your daemons and bikers are both small units, resulting in two nice easy killpoints for the 'nids. Had the points from those gone into, say, a Defiler, Daemon Prince or another Lord and more Zerkers, you could have reduced your killpoints whilst maximising your strength.

 

Against 'nids, often the best strategy is to tie up the little bugs with a Dread or Defiler, then go for the big bosses with your Marines/Zerkers/Princes/Lords. This kills off the big stuff that can really hurt you, whilst stalling or killing the expendable bugs with something they cannot damage.

 

Very nice, Old Skool style Batrep, similar to the old White Dwarf ones.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I think one of the main reasons you lost this battle is your armies kill point distribution. Your daemons and bikers are both small units, resulting in two nice easy killpoints for the 'nids. Had the points from those gone into, say, a Defiler, Daemon Prince or another Lord and more Zerkers, you could have reduced your killpoints whilst maximising your strength.

 

I'm very new to the game, so I hadn't ever really thought about things like kill points before. When building a list I've been considering "what do I have painted?" and "what do I want to try next?" and "can this unit do something neat?". I just like my daemons and bikers models, I guess, and this list reflected the fact that I had been itching for the chance to see them on the table. I also had the idea that the bikers could quickly get up on his my friend's scary Leman Russ variants and melta-bomb maybe one of them, and that the daemons would drop in just in time to help with close combat on Guard infantry.

 

Against 'nids, often the best strategy is to tie up the little bugs with a Dread or Defiler, then go for the big bosses with your Marines/Zerkers/Princes/Lords. This kills off the big stuff that can really hurt you, whilst stalling or killing the expendable bugs with something they cannot damage.

 

I sort of had the opposite idea for the Dreadnought in this game. For starters I placed him where he was so that I could immediately start moving him away from my other units. Paranoia I guess. My idea was that the Berzerkers would get stuck in with his troops and probably do better than them in close combat, which they were, there was just a couple of things about close combat (not to mention the whole "I create more units" thing he had) I didn't know at the start of the game. It was my hope that the Dreadnought could move around those trees and blast his elite squad. Another thing I didn't know was that you could shoot through the woods, so I was trying to bring him around into a clear line of sight first. My opponent mentioned the distance on his weapons at one point, probably puzzled that I wasn't shooting, but I didn't pick up on it. I was under the impression that you could shoot into woods at units who were hiding in them, but not through them at units on the other side of them. But that's why I went there, to get the instruction.

 

Just got the defiler put together a couple days ago, and I will keep your advice in mind.

 

Very nice, Old Skool style Batrep, similar to the old White Dwarf ones.

 

Thanks! With a little bit of rest I can see some of the mistakes I made in drawing the map and labeling units (I was very, very tired when I did it), but this was an experiment and I think it was a valuable one, because I'm getting ideas for how to make it better and go faster next time I do one.