Monday, January 10, 2011

1500 Pts Tournament - Practice Game 5

Well, I got to play the following scenario:

Scenario 2:Set-up: Nothing unusual

Deployment: Dawn of War

Primary: Achieve more kill-points than your opponent

Secondary: Starting your turn 4 or one of your later turns (only needs to be one), have a scoring unit above 1/2 starting strength completely within 12" of your opponent's table edge. If your game does not go to 4 turns, Have a scoring unit above 1/2 starting strength with 12" on your opponents table edge at the end of the game.

Tertiary: Prevent your opponent from meeting the secondary objective
Space Wolves List was as follows (from memory and rough):

Rune Priest x 2
Grey Hunters x 2 in Rhino
Wolf Guard x5 in Drop Pod
Long Fangs x 5 + Wolf Guard with Dual Cyclones
Lone Wolf x 2

Tyranids List as follows:

Tyrant (2)
-BS & LW
-HVC
-Old Adversary
-Armored Shell

Tyrant Guard (2) (one for each Tyrant)

Tervigon (2)
-AG & TS
-Cluster Spines
-Catalyst

Termagants (10) x 2
Hive Guard (2) x 2
Yealers x 7

Deployment:

Space Wolf player wins roll off and decides to go first.  Decides everything will simply walk on as he does not want his Rhinos to only have 1 of the Rune Priests.

Tyranids:  Nids will walk on.  In retrospect this may have been a mistake as it cost me the secondary and gave my opponent tertiary due to some bad run rolls for gaunts.  However, had I deployed far up with a Tervigon or Termagants I may have not made it forcing the Long Fangs to walk on that side...  something to think about I guess.

Turn 1:

Space Wolves:  Walk in on my right side, right to left are Long Fangs behind some roots, Rhino with GHs and Rune Priest, Lone Wolf, Rhino with GHs and Rune Priest, Lone Wolf.  Wolf Guard in drop pod deepstrike towards the center of the table but still on his side.

Tyranids:  Walk on my right to left is Tgants, Hive Guard, Tyrant and Guard setup to give cover to everyone then a mirror image of that on the other side with the two Tervigons as far as I can put them from Rune Priests while still in range for FNP on the Tyrants.  On this turn I am lucky enough to roll for night fighting and pop the Drop Pod and the second Rhino which contains the Priest with Jaws.

Me 2(4)  Him 0 - Parenthesis is because his lone wolves are alive.

Turn 2:

Space Wolves:  In the movement phase, does a little shuffle getting the Jaws Priest in the other Rhino after the Rhino has moved closer to the center of the board.  Lone Wolves and GH squad move straight for my lines and run, the other rune priest stays behind for some living Lightning action.  Wolf Guard move towards my lines and are almost here.  In the shooting phase Living Lightning sees 1 Hive Guard dead and the other wounded (couldn't make my damned cover saves lol).  One of my Tervigons Survives Jaws nothing else of note.

Tyranids:  Shuffle back a bit to try to counter assault with Tyrants, move back Hive Guard and Gaunt Units to delay assault from the wolf guard and get closer to the Tervigon for AG and TS.  In the shooting phase, the other Rhino bites it.  Various saves are made by Wolf Guard, GHs.

Me 3(5) Him 0

Turn 3:



Space Wolves:  In the movement phase, wolf guard get unlucky and move out of cover with a very low roll compromising their ability to assault.  GHs are stuck behind them so choose to remain in cover but tactically move out to the edge of the cover.  Lone Wolves make a bline for the middle combats about to erupt.  The GHs in the open keep making a bline for my table edge (Secondary Objective).  In the shooting phase, Jaws sees 1 Tervigon dead with 3 1's for the explotion against Tgants (whew) and Tyrant survive.  Living Lightning sees nothing.  Everything else that can run does so.

Tyranids:  Reshuffle for counter attacks with Tyrants and Tgants in the middle of the table to get in range for Pyroxism.  My right side is pretty much lost to me as there is nothing I can do to stop the onslaught coming from the GHs onto my lonely hive guard and termagants.  I would have moved into position to assault with Hive Guard to try to pull away from my table edge but I would not be able to have a back up shooter to ID the rune priest in the center and would most likely die and give the opponent an extra D6" towards my lines.  I should however have moved my Termagants and engaged to attempt to delay their arrival but being that it was Kill Points I didn't want to, going to have to clean up my act on that.

I generate 2 broods both of 10 with no doubles (I'm going to have to come up with a better counter to these assholes than generating more fucking kill points ugh).  I already had 10.  So, 30 Termagants move towards the wolf guard.  Remaining Tervigon moves into position for Poison and Adrenal Glands, as do the Tyrants for Old Adversary.  In the shooting phase Tyrants WS1/BS1 the Wolf Guard and the GHs (Major Failure on the Runic weapon and wolf tail talisman yay!).  The Hive Guard team that is intact Insta Kills the Rune Priest in the center.  With that out of the way the lone Hive Guard fails miserably at wounding the GH squad coming towards my edge.

In the combat phase after 60 attacks from Termagants with Reroll to hit needing 3's and wounding on 4's with rerolls due to poison the 4 wolf guard are left with making 12 saves each.  I kill all but 1 (not a single 1 on 12 dice!  Son of a bitch!).  This combat being stuck has the potential to screw me pretty bad.  Wolf Guard fails counter attack swings twice kills two gaunts and makes leadership for losing by 2.

Me 3(5) Him 1

Turn 4 (due to acting as if we were in the tourney time constraints will make this the last turn)

Space Wolves:  In the movement phase The central GH unit moves out of cover ready to counter assault on the Termagants (they are still WS1/BS1).  Lone Wolves finally make it to where they would be able to charge next turn even though there isn't one (perhaps baiting me into killing one since they were on my way).  The bline GHs now have to contend with some rough terrain and BARELY get enough distance to be inside of my deployment zone.  In the shooting phase Living Lightning sees nothing.  In the combat phase the central GHs assault the 3 Termagant units.  In the ensuing combat the 3 Termagant units are still up but with 5 or less models each and the wolf guard terminator still alive.

Tyranids: 

Yealers come out finally!  I had picked the central piece of terrain.  They pop on the edge the move through cover towards the GHs that just came out the previous turn ready to counter assault.  One of the Tyrants is able to make it to that assault so he moves there.  The other one is unable to blocked by the Lone Wolves.  In the shooting phase the other tyrant and all the Hive guard shoot at the GHs to no avail.  In the combat phase the Yealers choosing attacks as the morph since there are no further turns and the Tyrant make quick work of the GHs minus a powerfist guy between the power fist and the remaining wolf guard I lose a unit of gaunts.  The powerfist guy ends up dying to no retreat.

Me 4(6) Him 2

Summary:

So I was wining primary which is 10 points, he got secondary 7 and tertiary 3, a draw!!!  I was just unable to get those termagants on the left to run fast enough!

P.S. I know this reads rushed I got to start taking more pics which will help with the details.

1500 Pts Tournament - Prep and Practice Games 1 - 4 Thoughts

The last tournament at my LGS was 2500 hosted as a mini ard boyz.  Now we are doing one per month starting back at 1500.  I have been able to get in 4 practice games so far but sadly have only gotten practice against only 2 different armies:  Space Wolves, and Tau.  In those 4 games I've changed my list 5 times.

Doing a tournament a month is actually very nice.  The group of players have gotten to know each other at least a little better and of course it's fun to be almost certain to get good practice against different armies.  Moving to 1500 points has been quite a challenge for me mentally.  I too look through the interwebz to find terms such as "scaling" in reference to how well an army "grows".  I still don't know I understand what this refers to besides maybe to how "easy" it may or may not be to simply add units / upgrades to a current list.  I have not found much on how to "decrease".  So, with that said I took this as an excersice not only on how I would build a list I'd like to play but how would I build a competitive list if I was someone else?

I play against Space wolves, and Tau quite a bit.  After that I got some good games in against Blood Angels, Eldar (Mech/Foot), and some CSM just not at 1500.  Those practice games have allowed me to see some pretty "nice" lists and how many vehicles / troops / shots to expect at different point levels.  Of course at 1500 I've been limited to practicing against Space Wolves and Tau so Jaws, Krak missles, and Railguns have played a pretty big part on my list changes.

My nid lists have gone from two units of 10 stealers with Brood Lords no tyrants to Tyrant and 2x TFexes back to stealers with Tervigons and Harpys etc...  Believe it or not the stealer lists were quite good and enjoyable.  At the end of the day the stealers lost out because I'm unable to get the quality AT that I want in lists with them (although I'll be touching on my "stealer" lists later).  For example the only points left at 1500 after taking what I consider healthy unit of genestealers, were only enough to buy Harpys and with Railguns around I reconsidered.  Another unit that has surprisingly done well for me to deal with Long Fangs / Devs or applicable to Pathfinders / Scouts etc... has been the Ymgral Stealers.  They have done well for me disrupting enemy movement, deployment, and shooting.  So now a days at least in my 1500 point lists there is at one unit of yealers.

All this rambling has lead to the following list:

Tyrant (2)
-BS & LW
-HVC
-Old Adversary
-Armored Shell

Tyrant Guard (2) (one for each Tyrant)

Tervigon (2)
-AG & TS
-Cluster Spines
-Catalyst

Termagants (10) x 2
Hive Guard (2) x 2
Yealers x 7

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Revamped 2500 Point list - Shooty

Ok, so I've revamped the 2500 list for the Dec 11th tournament.  While the first one I made was fun for me it was too objective based and didn't really take the vehicle spam meta into account very well.  Without delay here it is:

Hive Tyrant
-HVC
-BS&LW
-OA
-Tyrant Guard w/LW

Hive Tyrant
-HVC
-BS&LW
-OA
-Tyrant Guard w/LW

Hive Guard x 2
Hive Guard x 2
Yealers x 7

Tervigon
-TS&AG
-Cluster Spines

Tervigon
-TS&AG
-Cluster Spines
Termagants x 10
Termagants x 10

Stealers x 6
-TS
Stealers x 6
-TS

Harpy x 2
-HVC
-Cluster

Tyrannofex x 2
-Rupture Can
-Cluster
-2+ Larvae

So the list has 6 36" guns two of which are Twin-Linked, 4 shots per unit of Hive Guard at 24 which are decent anti transport, some disruption for units like Longfangs/Devastators in Yealers/Stealers, and a couple of FNP givers as well as T6 Objective Holders and troop spawners for Objective missions (only one mission is objective based).  All in all I think this is list is not bad.  Including the stealers seems to bring up a lot of hate on the interwebz but I've been using them with great success, whether that is due to good use of them or them not being dealt with properly by my opponents does not really matter, they are performing very well.

I have considered dropping the guards from the tyrants to boost up other units maybe 2 x 3 Hive guard or broodlord for stealers but they are just way too fragile without the guard.  Also been thinking about switching the Tfexen for some Carnifexes with HVC and TL Devs.  They are cheaper and have anti infantry as well in the form of the Devs as well as actually being better in combat as well as handling drop pod dreads better in my rear lines...

Friday, December 3, 2010

2500 Nids for Mini Ard boyz

So, I have a tournament coming up (they are monthly at my LGS) on Dec 11. No comp, no paint, no sportsmanship, basically a miniature Ard boyz.

Here is the list I was planning to take.  Doing some reworks that I'll post later but would like your thoughts on this:

Swarmlord
-2 Guard with whips

Tyrant
-Wings, Hive Commander, Old Adversary, 2 TL Devs

Tervigon
-Cluster, Catalyst, AG, TS

Tervigon
-Cluster, Catalyst, AG, TS

10 Termagants
10 Termagants
5 Stealers
5 Stealers

3 Hive Guard
2 Zoans + Pod
Deathleaper

2 Trygon Primes + AG
1 Mawloc

Now, I know it looks like a "mess" but basically Swarmlord holds the centerline while Winged Tyrant, Zoans, Trygons, and Mawloc have the option to Deep Strike and disrupt enemy lines.  The list has a +2 to reserve so very good chance they all come in.  Stealers are there for the off chance that terrain supports a nice inflitrate otherwise outflank scare the opponent's deployment.  I actually use them conservatively as objective holders that need no synapse.
thoughts?  Questions?

Monday, November 8, 2010

Intro and Tournament Prep

So.... new to blogging about my nids but been playing them for about two years. Like I've said for my other blogs. I am taking the "journal" approach to the blogs. Hopefully people will find some of my journal entries enlightening or entertaining. The list below is what I usually take to tourneys minus a tfex and some minor adjustments as I normally play at 1850 however this one is
at 2k:

Hive Tyrant
-Sword and Lash
-TL Devourers
-Adrenal Glands
-Armoured Shell
-Leech Essence & Paroxysm
-Tyrant Guard w whips x2

Hive Tyrant
-Sword and Lash
-TL Devourers
-Adrenal Glands
-Armoured Shell
-Leech Essence & Paroxysm
-Tyrant Guard w whips x2

Tervigon
-Cluster Spines
-Adrenal Glands
-Toxin Sacs
-Catalyst

Tervigon
-Cluster Spines
-Adrenal Glands
-Toxin Sacs
-Catalyst

Termagant Brood x10
Termagant Brood x10

Hive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2

Tyrannofex
-Rupture Cannon

Tyrannofex
-Rupture Cannon

I'm pretty comfortable running this list and it has done well for me however, the scenarios were released early and with all the objectives it makes me wonder if I should tweak it with some objective contesting tricks.. stealers... deathleaper...  thoughts?