Tyranids at the Tourney; Battle report 1

By TheGraveMind

So by the end of three rounds, I had gone 2-1. Not bad for what I considered a sub-par list from the Tyranid codex.


My list was the following.
Alpha Warrior; bonesword/lashwhip, scything talons, toxin sacs, and adrenal glands
Hive guard x2
Hive guard x2
Death leaper
Gants x10
Tervigon; stinger salvo, toxin sacs, adrenal glands, catalyst
Warriors x6; scything talons, deathspitters, Barbed strangler
Raveners x5; scything talons, rending claws.
Trygon prime
Tyrannofex; rupture cannon, cluster spines, desiccator larvae (like there is any other way to run them)
Biovores x3

A general thrown together list, mixed elements of roles, and mostly things I had, coupled with what I managed to through together the night before. OK, on to the battles.


As everyone was setting up when we got there, I grew a little concerned. Three mech Eldar, wolves, Grey knights, Mech Blood angels, Vulkan. Some really good mech armies, that I wasn't to confident about playing against. Random pairings were assigned, and I went to my table, confident that I would bring my A-game and put up a good fight for this tournament.

Game 1
Hive fleet Zhuran vs Deathcompany

First mission was dawn of war with 5 objectives. center of table and center of each quarter. He won to go first, and held everything back. Redeemer and Jump assault troops would come on Turn 1.
His list was
Astorath the grim
priest with jumppack
priest foot with power weapon
Furioso in droppod
Deathcompany x5; Thunder hammer, Inferno pistol
Lemartes
Deathcompany x5; Power weapon, inferno pistol
Assault squad jump packs x10; flamer, melta powerfist
Assault squad foot; Flamer, melta, powerfist and inferno pistol
Redeemer

Since he held everything back, I took full advantage of dawn of war deployment. I placed my warriors and Alpha behind cover right up on the center objective.  I screened them with my unit of gaunts.

Turn One: His redeemer rolled up 12, and shot with the assault cannon, doing a wound. Assault marines jumped up next to it, and Dread drop podded in. It took the safe approach and deployed behind the drop pod. All of my stuff comes on, sans Death leaper of course, and I'm only in range after night fight with one hive guard, who fail to hurt the droppod.

Turn Two: His power weapon DC and Grim scattered a full 6" right nest to my warriors. The other squad with lamartes hit right where they were. Now even without the 6" scatter, I think he played them a little two aggressively. He should have aimed for about 12" back, so on the next turn they could jump and assault. His Assault marines jumped up, flamed and assaulted the gaunts, trying to clear the screen to the warriors.
I then moved everything up, and opened fire. Tyrannofex and biovores laid down blast templates on that thunder hammer. Dealing a wound to lemartes and kill three of the five DC. Hive guard shot into the squad and killed lemartes. Phew! The warriors fired full force into the DC, and prepared to assault. The other Hive guard fired into the dreadnought, but I kept forgetting it was a Furioso and not a death company Dread. AV13 saved it each time. I fired into the assault squad with my Trygon prime, and killed one guy. The Tyrannofex assaulted the DC, and killed the last two. The warriors assaulted in, Grim made his invuln against the Alpha, and the warriors killed down to all but one DC. Oh, and raveners made it up to the assault squad, got a rending on the priest, another rending and one more marine from wounds. His powerfist missed with both attacks.

Turn three: Most of his units were locked in combat, so there wasn't too much for him to do. I had gotten lucky and pulled off the assault against his army. Unfornutatly my Trygon hadn't ran as far as I had hoped. He was supposed to be on the right flank of the raveners, protecting them from the dread assault. He assault with the dread, and because of furious charge killed all 5 raveners, which were busy killing three more marines. His redeemer moved around the center terrain, and unloaded the troops who were about to assault in to save Grim from the warriors. They failed their terrain test and didn't make the distance. His dread and surviving assault marines consolidated back away. Didn't want to get to close to the trygon.
I pushed some gaunts to my left onto an objective, and moved the trygon up to center. The Alpha did a wound to Grim, and Grim did one wound to Alpha, 5 other warriors failed to kill the single DC.

Turn Four: He moved the Furioso back to assault my trygon, and the Assault marines back up. If you notice there are only 3 jump packs left, from the five that survived the raveners. I forgot to mention Death leaper appeared in the center terrain and got two rending flesh hook hits. His other marines moved up to assault the warriors. The droppod fired at the trygon, rolling two 6s to wound, pass both saves. The furioso fires his melta, misses. Fires his storm bolter, again two 6s to wound. Fails a wound. Those storm bolters are going to be the death of me. He assaults gaunts with the three marines, killing all but two. The dread does another two wounds, and I take off both arms and immobilized it.
The Alpha finally kills Grim, his fresh assault squad assaults in, killing 4 warriors. And that is with out the powerfist Sargent that he lost to Biovore barrage. The last DC still doesn't die. Time is being called, bottom of turn four. Nothing I can really do, I assault the three marines to contest the middle with even more gaunts. All combats hold, and I win 1 to 0 objectives.
I was very afriad of that Redeemer, but he held it back, and moved it 12 each time, so he only ever fired the assault cannon. He had some bad luck, and always failed the saves on his powerfist or special weapons, even with FNP.

He got around 600 VP, and I got a little over 1,100 VP. A good start to the tournament I felt.