1850 Ravenwing with IG allies BatRep vs Tyranids

[mabeibefunny]

Hi fellow brothers,

So I played an 1850 game vs Tyranids yesterday and once I found out what my opponent had, it was basically my worst nightmare. Since starting with Ravenwing I have always had trouble vs air, and yesterday had me fighting 2 Flyrants, a Harpy & a Crone, and a Harridan(which is super super big, has T8, 8 wounds, and 2 beams that can split fire Str10 6 shots from its eyes or something like that).

So, here is my list, and his, and the ensuing battle:

Mine:

Sammy

Libby

-Bike

-PFG

-Lion's Roar

Command Squad

-+2 units(So a total of 5)

-Dakka Banner

-RWGL

-Apoth

RWAS

-Bikerx3

RWAS

-Bikerx3

RWAS

-Bikerx3

KnightCommander Pask in a Punisher Russ(for those of you who don't know, Knight Commander Pask gives his Russ rending shots and BS4; a Russ is AV14 Front, AV13Sides, AV11 Rear 3HP and the Cannon is Str5 Heavy 20[now rending ])

-I gave the Russ a Lascannon front sponsor, Plasma Cannon Side sponsors, and a Heavy Stubber(Str4 AP6 Heavy 3)

Now if I take Pask, I have to take at least 1 other tank in his squad, so I took the Russ Demolisher(av14 front, 13 sides, 11 rear, the cannon is S10 AP2 Ordinance 1 Large Blast)

-Same loadout as the Russ with Lascannon, Plasma Cannon, and HStubber

Vendetta

-additional Vendetta

Veterans Squad

-Two of them combined to make an auto-cannon

Aegis D line w/ Quad Gun

So his loadout was:

Flyrant

-Twinlinked Devour

Flyrant

-Twinlinked Devour

Harpy

Crone

Harridan

3 squads of 10 Gargs

3 Squads of 3 Rippers

I am assuming the theme of his list was to be flying, and he origionally planned to have his list be for 2,000pts with another Harpy or crone, which gave him some silly formation that allows his Gargs to go back into reserve with a 4+ once the squad is killed. Since we were dropping down to 1850, he took out one of his 3 Harpy/Crones from his list, but I let him keep his ongoing gargs to reserves rules(stupid, I know) just to have fun.

So, start of game he deploys first, and places everything except the gargs, rippers, and HQ Flyrant on the board in a line on the back edge. Essentially I am facing 3 FMCs and 1 GFMC to try and kill. The game was Crusade, and we had 5 markers to capture. I intentionally placed them near eachother in the middle of the board, so by the time they were all down, there was one marker in ruins on his side, one on my side, and 3 in almost a triangle in the middle.

Once he deployed, I placed my aegis/quadgun around a ruins on the left side of the board(which contained a marker) and hid my vet squad within. Then I placed my Russes on either side of my RW mob right in the middle, which I kept tight together because I noticed that he really only had 1 creature with blast, the rest were targeted shots(albeit super strong ones), and I really wanted everything under my PFG. I placed my Vendettas in Reserve.

Turn one, I fail to sieze the initiative, and everything he has guns for the left side of the board, where he shoots at my Pask, and Quad gun/Vets. He gets his psychic power off on my Veterans in the building(the one that reduces BS, Paroxisism or something) so they are now at BS1(great) and he kills several of my vets and gets 1 wound on the Quad. He also happens to get 3 hits on my Pask, one of which being a pen. So I accidentally roll all 3 dice to save(thanks PFG) but accidentally forgot that one was a pen, but since I saved 2 and failed one, we decided that we roll for whether or not the point lost was a pen or a glance. 1-4 would be a glance, representing the 2 glancing hits, 5-6 is the pen. He rolls.... 6... he rolls on the pen table... Weapon destroyed.... he rolls for which of my 5... yes 5! weapons is destroyed...... Punisher cannon.. Now if you have not noticed already, my list as a major problem right now, and that is the points I have sunk into the 2 Russes, and the majority of their shots(the Demolisher cannon on one russ, and 2 plasmacannons on each tank are useless vs flying because they are blast). Now that my punisher is gone, I am starting to feel a little worried, but I go on.

Bottom of Turn one, I am starting to move my bikes away from his flying creatures to try and have him choose my quadgun/vets or my bikes etc. I try to snap fire everything I got at the flyrant, and guess what, Mr. Pask, with his lone lascannon, shoots his BS4 at the Flyrant, gets a hit, and gets 1 wound... unreal... Then I unload all the dakka I have at the Flyrant, and get 1 more wound on(I am not targeting the Harridan because I really cant do anything against it until my Vendettas come on, and the Flyrant is my next biggest threat) and once I do that, I use the remaining shots to shoot at the Harpy(he Jinks and makes all of his saves if any were needed).

Now the turn ends, his Flyrant takes the grounding test....FAILS...takes the hit...FAILS... and takes another wound... not so bad

So on to turn two, he does his reserve rolls....EVERYTHING except the HQ flyrant comes on. so 3 squads of 10 gargs come on, 3 ripper swarms come on... now he is a little afraid of my bikes, so he places his gargs on his rear objective, in the middle of the board but a little closer to his side than mine, and the rippers are placed inbetween. The third sward of gargs touch down near the front of my bikers on his side of the board. Now the psychic phase, rolls, I do not try to deny, and gets a boosted synapse range. Then he rolls for the Paroxy thing to reduce my BS, PERILS, rolls on chart, 1 wound! The ensuing round is much like the first, his gargs and rippers cant do anything because they are basically out of range, he guns at my Pask and takes him out, and takes out my quadgun and all but 2 of my Vets.

Bottom of turn two, my vendettas come on, and since Pask is in a squad of 2, there is no first blood, so I quickly blast his flyrant out of the sky, getting that last wound on him and getting first blood(remember his HQ is in reserve, so this flyrant only gives my first blood, not slay the warlord). Then I take advantage of the ripper swarms and gargs infront of me, unloading my bolters at the gargs, and the talons at the rippers(the talons are str 7 vs the T3 of rippers, so I can instant-death them instead of having to worry about dealing with their multiple wounds). I wipe out a garg squad, but he rolls a 5, and the whole squad of 10 goes back into reserve. I kill a ripper squad of 3 by insta death, and the other russ almost wipes out another Garg squad that was in the middle, 3 remain.

As of right now, I am on 3 markers, and have first blood. He has 2 markers, and linebreaker.

Top of turn 3, his Gargs that were killed but sent into reserve instead come back in with a good roll, but his HQ flyrant does not. Now he focuses all his attention onto my Vendettas, and takes out 2 HP on one. He sends his Crone off the board into reserve as well(I think it had 1 wound by now from fire? I am still unsure as to why he did that). His gargs he drops infront of my vets, but they scatter back a ways, so he just runs them closer, planning to charge the last two hiding in the building and to take that marker(I really tried to hide them so that he might forget they were there =) hehe). He then starts to unload on my other tank, and takes out that cannon as well(crazy pen rolls for him, but the PFG really saved my butt).

Now at the bottom of turn 3, I am starting to think, if I can wipe his troops, and just stay alive, I might be able to out score him by the end. The Harridon is out of the question, I cannot kill it, and it has FNP(really!?), so I move forward, towards the ruins at the rear of his base where a squad of rippers and gargs are sitting by a marker. I am now at linebreaker and I repeat my last round basically. I finish gunning down the garg squad in the middle, he makes his roll, they are back in reserve at full strength again(sigh), I shoot at the gargs and rippers at the rear, destroy another ripper swarm, and hit a few gargs. Now my tank shoots guns at the new garg squad that has arrived by my vets and take them down to 2 or 3.

So by the end of turn 3, all of my RW bikers are unscathed, my vet squd is reduced to 2 men, my quad gun is gone, Pask is gone,my other Russ lost its main cannon, and one of my Vendettas has 1HP left. So far I am doing better than I expected, and we are now in turn 4.

His gargs come back in, and his flyrant is now on the board along with his Crone. He has most of his major creatures on my side of the board where my vendettas are also. His new squad of gargs are placed to the right of my remaining 2 vets, presumably to take that area over, the remaining 3 are also there, and the 8 or so of the other squad are in the back of his base on his marker. So I have 2 of the 3 markers in the middle(one that was taken by the gargs is not open), one in the ruins, first blood, linebreaker. He has 1 marker and line breaker. During his turn(he is no longer trying to use his psychic powers now) he finishes off my remaining tank, and my vendettas promptly(although his harpy is dead now). His gargs that just arrived run closer to my vets. and the remaining 3 on the other side of them were out of synapse range and had to go-to-ground from instinctive behavior(lucky me! I get to keep the marker for longer).

Now I am starting to feel like I have a good chance to maybe get a win. It is the bottom of the 4th, I have all my bikes, and if I can wipe out his gargs, it will be mine to take. I split Sammy from my squad, zip over towards his new garg squad. I move my knights towards the ruins where my vets are to take out his remaining 3 or so gargs, and move foward 2 squads of RWAS right infront of his rear gargs. The other RWAS I start to move towards the middle to take the open objective. I have now lost two of the middle objectives I initially had, but reclaimed one with Sammy's move over towards his new gargs; the other 2 middle ones are open. I fire away. Sammy does good damage with the cannon on the new gargs. My knights are out of range to do anything, and my RWAS kill all but 2 of his rear gargs. I then charge with Sammy into his remaining gargs, kill 3 of them, no hits in return(now only 2 gargs are left, which is perfect because they are stuck, cant be sent into reserves again, and I can wipe them next combat).

Now at turn 5.

He drops all 3 of his FMC to the ground, and his Harridan unloaded his shots onto my RWAS at the rear of his base. He takes one of the RWAS out, jumps his Flyrant into the middle marker, the harpy is moving towards the vets squad to help the few gargs that are left and also claiming the middle marker that Sammy left last turn to get to the squad of gargs(the 3 that were GtG and the other 2 in combat with Sammy). The crone sat on the other middle marker to capture it. In combat, Sammy finishes off the remaining gargs.

Bottom of turn 5

My libby splits from the knights, and shoots/charges the GtG gargs(killing them). Sammy shoots, charges, and kills the Harpy in combat(also getting one of the middle markers). The knights blast to hell the grounded flyrant(which actually I didnt want to do, I wanted to take him down to maybe 1 wound, charge, and kill him to put me onto the marker(but I get slay the warlord). I finish off the rear gargs and get that marker also.

End of the 5th turn. I have the rear marker with the 2 vets, Sammy reclaims the marker from the Harpy, and my RWAS is on the marker in the ruins on his side of the base. We tally points, he no longer has line breaker, so he has 1 point from the crone on his marker, I have 5 from the 3 markers, frist blood, and slay the warlord. We decide to call it a game, even though we rolled for additional rounds and he had 2 more squads of gargs that he sucessfully rolled to put into reserves to place on the table.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed how long I survived againse his army, even though it was almost all flying. I mostly tried to ignore his air, and the new jink rules really complicate things for him because of the forced snapshots next turn. I also had some luck with him targeting my tanks and quadgun vs my bikers this game. Personally if I were him, I would have unloaded on my knights and libby/sammy from the start until Vendettas came in(thats 2 rounds of firing). His creatures are so strong I doubt my quad gun would do much harm against him, and just the sheer number of strong shots would make life difficult for me to survive his firepower on my knights. Although that would also leave my Pask to use his cannon on them, which might be a big problem also, with the shots being rending.

Thanks for reading, if you have any thoughts or suggestions for different strategies please let me know! I am always trying to change and improve my game!