Thursday, April 4, 2013

BatRep: 1k Nids vs. Nids


Last month, I played in my local store's 1k tournament. The games use Book missions and deployments, with 1 hour of play time plus 15 minutes for set up. I am using VASSAL to map the battle, but this was one of my first times using it, so I apologize for any oddities, like the green quadrant deployment zone.

In the first game, I was matched up against one of two other Tyranid players (out of 10 players total).

 vs. 

For this game (and the entire tournament) I used the following list:

Flying Hive Tyrant (Warlord - -1 to Reserves) w/TL devourers (x2), Iron Arm, Haemmorhage
Tervigon w/toxin sacs, crushing claws, and 3 powers on Biomancy (Iron Arm, Endurance, Haemmorhage)
12 Termagants with Devourers (Devilgants)
15 Hormagaunts
10 Gargoyles
Trygon
Biovore



I had intended to bring a Zoanthrope, but forgot him at home, so had to settle for a biovore and an extra psychic power on the Tervigon.

Game 1 I drew another Tyranid army. He had:

Flying Hive Tyrant w/TL devourers (x2), Enfeeble, Smite
Tervigon (Warlord - Redeployment) w/toxin sacs, adgreal glands, and 2 Powers on Biomancy (Enfeeble, Warp Speed)
3 Hive Guard
Doom of Malan'tai in a Mycetic Spore
Tervigon w/toxin sacs and 3 Powers on Biomancy (Iron Arm, Haemmorhage, Warp Speed)
10 Gants

The deployment was Vanguard (diagonal), with Emperor's Will as the mission - 2 objectives. He deployed first and I chose not to try to steal initiative.

Deployment:


Turn 1:

He mainly up after spawning two squads of 10+. The Troop Tervigon pooped out, but the HQ didn't roll doubles and was fine. The hive guard managed to score two wounds on my Trygon, who had been enfeebled, while the remaining shooting only took out a couple gargoyles.

Bottom Turn 1:

My Tervigon spawned about 12 termagants on the objective and pooped out with doubles. I moved up and fired the devilgants, flyrant, and trygon at his flyrant, hoping to ground him and charge him with the Trygon. I scored two wounds but he passed all three grounding checks. The only other shooting was the gargoyles firing at the termagants in front of them, killing a few.

Turn 2:

My warlord trait came into effect, preventing the Doom of Malan'tai dropping in this turn. His HQ Tervigon spawned another 10+ gants without incident. The previously spawned gants moved up while the new ones took their place on the objective. The Troop Tervigon and two squads of gants moved up on my left, while the flyrant swooped over the trygon, vector striking him and doing another wound, with another two from the rest of his shooting, taking the trygon down to 1 wound. The leftmost gant squad fired on the hormagaunts and killed several (though I forgot to include it in this turn's screen shot). In the assault phase, the tervigon and gants charged the gargoyles, killing four in return for a wound on the tervigon and two termagants.

Bottom Turn 2:

My flyrant flew over behind his lines while the Tervigon looped back to follow the flyrant, once again hoping to ground him and charge him. The Trygon and devilgants moved up on my right, and hoped to charge the termagants, but ended up killing too many from shooting to get in range. Meanwhile, the flyrant killed one hive guard with less than stellar shooting. The hormagaunts did ok, despite their reduced numbers in combat, while the gargoyles were wiped out for first blood, taking a few termagants with them.

Turn 3:

With the time warning being called just before the turn began, we both knew Turn 3 would be the last, so tactics changed a bit accordingly. The Doom of Malan'tai dropped in near the devilgants and Trygon. His Tervigon that had been in combat moved up behind the hormagaunts to charge, along with the sole survivor of the termagant squad. Meanwhile, his flyrant switched to gliding and went over to within 3" of my objective to contest it and hope to force my termagants off of it. In the shooting phase, lots of shots went for my flyrant, but to no avail. The doom's power went off but I passed both LD checks with the devilgants and the trygon. His flyrant opened up on the termagants and killed several, which ended up putting him out of assault range (due to a very poor roll) by under an inch. The Tervigon charged in to the beleaguered hormagaunts, wiping them out.

Bottom Turn 3:

I glided my flyrant over to contest his objective while my tervigon moved up the hill to confront his flyrant. In the shooting phase, the devilgants got out of range of the doom, but the Trygon, having hoped to charge, failed his Ld check by 8 and died. Shooting actually managed to take his warlord Tervigon down to one or two wounds, just inches from my flyrant, but I chose not to charge in order to keep contesting the objective. On my side, the Tervigon charged the flyrant, took two wounds, and then managed to smash him down, clearing my objective and giving me a 3-1 victory.

I hope you enjoyed my first battle report: I honestly don't get to play very often, but I hope to post up battle reports regularly. I promise that armies besides Tyranids will get involved at some point. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know so I can improve the next time around.

2 comments:

  1. Turn 2 and your opponent vector strikes the Trygon with his Hive Tyrant and then shoots it with the 6 remaining Devourers, any explanation why? The only reason to trade 12 twinlinked st6 shots for 6 twinlinked st6 shots and D3+1 st6 hits is for the denial of cover save on the vector strike [which didn't apply in this case] or if you want to vector one target then shoot another. Personally I don't see why they did that.

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    1. I can't say for sure. I could have been mistaken and that he shot at something else and the other wounds were caused by other shooting - it's honestly been a while. Thanks for pointing that out, though!

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