Here's a quick recap of my game against Tom last night.
My list
HQ
Swarmlord 280
Guard 60
Tervigon- AG TS Cat 195
Elites
3 Hive Guard 150
3 Hive Guard 150
5 Ymgarls 115
Troops
10 gaunts 50
10 gaunts 50
5 stealers 70
5 stealers 70
Tervigon- stuff 195
Tervigon- stuff 195
Heavy
2 Biovores 90
2 Biovores 90
2 Biovores 90
His list
HQ
Mephiston
Elites
5 Termies- 3 THSS 2 LC
Land Raider Redeemer- multi melta
1 Sanguinary Priest
Troops
5 assualt marines- flamer power weapon
Land Raider- multi melta
5 assault marines- melta lightning claw
las plas razorback
5 assault marines- melta lightning claw
las plas razorback
5 assault marines- melta lightning claw
las plas razorback
5 assault marines- melta lightning claw
las plas razorback
That's pretty much it.
We rolled Kill points pitched battle.
I won the roll for first and took it
I deployed my 3 tervigons in the center, with swarmlord in the middle of them. 1 unit of gaunts got deployed in fron to be a screen, 1 sqaud of hive guard got put a little to the left of my force, the other a little to the right, 1 squad of biovers went into each flank of the table. My ymgarls were hidden in a piece of terrain that was off to the flank of the board, my stealers were out flanking, 1 squad of gaunts was in reserve.
He deployed with his 2 land raiders in the corner, and the razorbacks all next to each other in the center, about 8" up the field. /Nothing was particlarily close to the building my ymgarls were in.
My Turn 1
I move up, put FNP on some mosters, run a unit of hive that was out of range, and shoot another unit at a razorback and explode it. Biovores launch templates accross the field killing 2 assualt marines.
His Turn 1
He moves his land raiders up 12" at me, they are about 20" away. Mephiston flies behind a land raider. His land raiders unload what they can into my hive guard and fail to do any wounds thanks to cover. His lasplas back focus on a tervigon and bring it to 2 wounds.
Score: 1-0 tyranids
My Turn 2
I try to move my squad of biovores and tervigon that are close to the raider and mephiston, but I don't get far enough since I'm in difficult terrain. My ymgarls come up and move in for a charge against the 3 marines. My other stealers come on but since they have no good targets they hide in the back. I move my lines away from the land raiders and mephiston and keep my gaunt wall. Then my hive guard move up and explode 2 more razorback! My biovores launch templates and kill about 3 more marines, and 1 squad runs off the table. My ymgarls charge the 3 man squad and morph for toughness and kill them all.
Score 5-0 tyranids
His Turn 2
His land raider with assault marines runs 12 sideways and unloads flamer goodness and charges the ymgarls killing them. The termie raider moves 12 and unloads termies. Mephisto flies 12 and prepares to charge a tervigon. Shooting doesnt do much. Mephiston needs a 5 for difficult to make the charge but he fails on a 4. The termies multicharge and kill the tervigon and the biovores.
Score 5-3 tyranids
My Turn 3
Gaunts show up and hide. Swarmlord moves out and charges mephiston, giving himself furious charge, and kills the bastard. He did however lose his guard and took 2 wounds, luckily I stopped the force weapon with shadow. The rest of my army shuffles away from the termies and blows of the last razorbakc with the hive guard. A bunch of templates later 4 or 5 marines are dead, and 1 squad decided to run off the table.
His Turn 3
His termies prepare to charge swarmlord. By the way the have a sanguinary priest attached. His marines in the back field move up away from the table edge, and the land raiders move a little and try to trap me between them and the termies. He manages to finish off the tervie with 2 wounds left. Termies charge swarmlord and I kill 1 hammer termie and die. Bad rolls right there.
Score 8-6 tyranids
My Turn 4
I move further from the termies and manage to escape his 12" bubble of threat. I also shoot up some more marines and reduce 1 squad to 2 guys.
His Turn 4
1 land raider immobilizes itself on terrain. The other moves 12 behind me. The termies move and run and get scarily close.
Score 8-6 tyranids
My Turn 5
I spawn 14 gaunts but roll double. They totally surround the termies with them, then they shoot and cause 5 wounds, 1 for each termie and 1 for the priest, termies pass their saves, priest fails and fails the fnp. I finish the last 2 marines with shooting.
His Turn 5
He unloads all his shooting into the hive guard and brings one squad to 3 wounds. After that his termies anhilate my gaunts.
Score 10-7 tyranids
My Turn 6
I'm pretty sure I have this, I'm up 3 at turn 6. But I play it safe and try to minimize his charge damage. I move the squad of 3 hiveguard to right in fron of his termies and shoot them a lot and kill one.
His Turn 6
He plays it smart and tank shocks my last 2 hive guard with the land raider so that they are closer to the termies. The he launches a las cannon, multi melta, and heavy bolter, at my biovores and kills 1 and wounds the other. The other las cannon shoots the small squad of hive guard and kills one. The redeemer assault cannons the biovore and kills him, and flames the hive guard down to 1 wound. His Termies multicharge the 3 hive guard and 1 hiveguard. I go first and do nothing, he has his hammer termie kill my 1 hive guard, then his other 2 lighning termies do 3 wounds to the 3 man hive guard squad. I lose by 4, and have to take 4 4+ saves on my 3 hive guard wounds. Well I failed 3.
Score 10-10 and the game ends. A great, close game, and a good learning experience.
Very good battle report. If I read this correctly, the biovores aren't doing so bad in this game, they were able to help you pick up could kill points. Do you feel biovores are effective playing against the meta of MSU? Then again, your hive guards were able to open so much cans at the beginning which made a huge difference to biovores' effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteNot much answer to his land raiders running freely. I guess that's the trade off for switch out the Trygons. 2 raiders list isn't too common anyway.
Were 3 tervigons effective or over-killed? Of course, they are kings in objective games. In your past experience, did you always felt short on troops holding objectives with just 2 tervigons?
Very nice batrep - nice to see biovores used too. Good questions above; would you continue with 3 broods of biovores, or would 2 or even 1 brood be enough?
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to double check when you were shooting the biovores you were doing a mini IG and flipping the Templates rather then scattering for each one right?
ReplyDeleteI have thought biovores would be good to use against swarm like orks or other Nids since the biovore ability to flip templates when you have multiples in a single unit can be effective.
Great batrep. A strength of the new BA is the ability to surge ahead late in the game. You have to be very careful... Which you did quite well as Tom almost sniped the win in the final turn coming back from a deficit of three killpoints. Impressive on both sides. My only critique is the second landraider should have carried something more potent than assault Marines - I'd even consider using VV since they have access to all the best close combat options in general for SM. Also I'm not a big fan of the Lord of Death.
ReplyDeleteG
Firstly I just want to thank all of you guys for replying. It's really nice to see more people keeping up with my blog!
ReplyDeleteAlex- The biovores felt lack luster in power, but they were cheap. And I think the reason to bring them is because let's say if I had a tyranofex, the cost of all my biovores, he would only be able to threaten 1 thing a turn as opposed to 3. He would also not contribute to my long range anti infantry. As much as tyranids excel at anti infantry, we do so up close. If we aren't able to get up close than the infantry will live. Biovores let you hit infantry from far away which is quite valuable.
3 tervigons felt like overkill in this game. But, that said, 1 tervigon felt like overkill this game. I didn't want to spawn at all, and ended up spawning once. I also didn't want to get in combat with them either. Catalyst was never important since everything was a power weapon or ap good. Really they were just 600 point synapse creatures in this game. I'll have to test it a bit more before I give you a real answer with that.
Ghostin- Any biovores are better than no biovores. Honestly I played most of this game with 2 squads since, 1 unit just got charged by termies very early on. I could see myself running 1 squad, as my third heavy when I'm already taking something like 2 trygons. It would be about as effective as 90 points should be. Any number of biovores is good, but I dont know if they are good enough to become my go to heavy choice just yet.
Christopher- Honestly I didn't have my codex with me so I wasn't sure how to play it. In hindsight I'm sure I played this wrong but here's what I did. Tom and I agreed they were barrage, so could fire direct or indirect. If they fired direct than both templates scattered individually, if they fired indirect than I scattered the 1st template full distance, and then flipped he next one.
Please feel free to correct me if I played it wrong. It would be much appreciated,
Steve- Yeah Tom has really come along as a player in the past year. Also that's how I felt about blood angels back when I ran them 2 years ago. They were always fighting to the end. I've always though he should put a full 10 man assault squad in there for some more combat support, but he doens't need it all that much. He is toying around with the idea of adding scout bikers, but VV are good to for BA. Mephiston is sick haha.
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ReplyDeleteIt's cool bro. I have been wanting to test biovores for a long while now... I just don't have any models and running at $31 a pop they are going to be sitting back for a bit.
ReplyDeleteThey are a barrage weapon, not a G weapon so they can not be fired indirectly.
However since you can take multiple biovores in a unit.. this is where the little fun comes in.
The main rule book states that if you have more then 1 barrage weapon in the unit they are fired simultaneously and instead of shooting and scattering each shot you should:
-place first template > rolls for scatter as normal.
After that the additional shots from the same unit just roll the scatter di and flippity flop the first template, of course if you roll a hit just choose your placement even over the same spot is allowed.
So you are getting the mini IG destruction... and if you miss then you are just placing that many Sporemines on the field in a pretty large area.
I hope it works out.
Interesting batrep. I always enjoy reading them.
Let me know how that goes with the biovores. I wondered how much damage destruction they could bring for their cheap cost.
~Lackeylsk
Thanks man much appreciated! I'll keep on testing the biovores to see how they fair. So far I'm not overly inpressed but they didn't perform poorly. I think my expectaions might have been too high since I really wanted them to work. It is nice that they fill a roll that I didn't have filled before though.
ReplyDeleteI am just wondering if you take 3... since that is a large blast that is barrage if you can cause a fair number of wounds with consistency.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure I would take more then 1 squad of 2-3, since that competes with Tfex, and Trygons.
but the potential of putting wounds on a 30 man squad of orks could be awesome.
the BS 3 kinda makes it iffy.
The beauty is their low points cost and if they miss they still put threats on the table.
The downside is Tfex and trygons Rule the Heavy slot and are not cheap.
I usually can do quite a bit with my Tfex as I ususally shoot and assault with them. Letting them set back in the back is a waste of points. They need to be upfront with a 2+ T6, I always give them the 2+ wounding template also. I don't have time to deal with "possible" rends and the math hammer behind it is less then 1 kill difference so I would rather take my chances with the saves w/ more wounds dealt.
Keep me updated as I said I do want to test them... it is just going to be awhile.
~Lackeylsk
You are one of the top level Tyranid players who blogs on the web. For anyone who is serious about Tyranid, this blog is gold. Your thoughts, tactics and lists are good influence.
ReplyDeleteThat being said. When I was reading your bat rep, I noticed your 3 tervigons are struggling like mine during kill point missions. During that game, it felt like your list is lacking the assault powers to over-come BA; true that you have swarmy and some stealers. You were backing up the tervigons, moving your weaker assault units away from morphy and termies; that is a wise move. In the same time, he took advantage of that and catch up your weaker units.
Every time I played with more than 2 tervigons in my list, I struggled in kill point missions. You were able to manage a draw with that list, but for any lessor player like myself will be hard to achieve similar result.
As regarding to biovores, they do deserve more play testing because their potentials to clear some small units on objectives.
@Christopher
Why not proxy some biovores for testing?
Not sure of base size and haven't been in any hurry to try... however I guess I could. I think they are terminator base size or MC.. just haven't really looked into it.
ReplyDeleteI have been getting some new toys like deathleaper and working with varying lists that I can make with the models I have. I have a pretty good variety.
~Lackeylsk
It's terminator base size. The model cost per biovore is a little outrageous.
ReplyDeleteThanks Alex that means a lot I must say. And I think you're right about the tervigons. Any more than 2 gets too spammy and becomes a liability. I will keep testing to try and find what else works though.
ReplyDelete