Bloomington Tourney Report

By TheGraveMind

So I've been on a Tyranid roll lately, and I decided to bring them to the Bloomington tournament. I hadn't had the time to paint the last few models like I thought I would have. So Instead I just reprimed a lot of them as I've been meaning to update their paint.

After I peaceful drive down to Bloomington I register and look at all who has come. Spaguatyrine is there with his wolves, Dodger brought his Daemons, Jrock is there with Albino orks, The Salamanders are even there. Oh boy, this is going to be a fun day. haha

Game 1 sets me up against Black templar. They are the wonderful looking ones featured from Rites of Battle. It is spear head deployment with Victory point win condition. He won the roll to go first and chooses his side. I'm looking at his army and thinking crap. THSS terminators, LR crusader, Vindicator with potms, venerable dreadnought, Emperors champion and everything has preferred enemy. It is a tyranid's worst nightmare.

On his turn he drives the Vindicator up 12" and fires into my forces, killing some gaunts and a ravener. His crusader kills about 8 gaunts from my left side, while his dread fires its assault cannon into the other side.

On my turn I am able to get a side shot on the vindicator and explode it. The other hive guard squad immobilize a rhino before my raveners and stealers assault it. My zoanthropes shake the Crusader.

His terminators jump out and assault the Zoanthropes and gaunts, while his emperor's champion and squads assault raveners and stealers. All of my stuff dies in combat.

On my turn I run my trygon up about to assault one of the squads, while I pile into his terminators with Bonesword warriors and Gaunts. My gaunts kill 3 terminators while my warriors kill one. From this point forward, my gaunts continue to out shine the rest of my army. My trygon rolls 2, 2, 2, for his move through cover and doesn't make it to combat.

Trygon gets shot and assaulted and died.

He brings a 10 man squad into the gaunts to try and save his Marshal, who is single handedly handling my army. My saving grace is that he's dice really are not liking him, He is failing cover saves, rolling 1s to wound with thunder hammers.

I realize it is a very close game and I'm probably down around 150vp, especially after losing the Trygon like that. I charge in my tervigon into one of the smaller squads to try and finish them off.

By this point I've wrecked one rhino, exploded another, immobilized the Dread. I decided to take my chances and try and get half points of the Land raider and keep shooting my S8 at it. I get lucky and glance every time, but never roll higher than a stunned on the results. My Tyrant and other Tervigon assault into the combat with his Marshal, and I win combat for a round. The Marshal continues to fight back, and finally dies, but not with out killing the Tyrant and the Tyrant guard. Thus gaining him another 300vp.

At the end of the game he has two squads at half strength, Emperor's champion, immobilized Dread and the Crusader.

On the other hand I have one Hive guard, one Gaunt (worth 25vp because he is the last member of the squad) and one Tervigon. Three models left. Pfew. I ended up losing by 530 VP. It was an extremely close game till the end, both of us with some bad moments of dice rolls.

Game 2 pitted me against Blood angels. Pitched battle with three objectives.

He wins the roll off but gives me first turn. I'm not going to turn that down. I set up centrally and wait to see what he deploys. His list has 20 Death company with bolters and a chaplain, an assault squad with chaplain and priest, and tacsquad with lascannon, two predators with lascannons, a vindicator and mephiston.

I knew this was going to be a game of chess, I needed to hit the his units with the proper counter unit at the right time. Ya, did I mention I'm horrible at chess?

I decided to run the Trygon over to his tactical squad in the corner, making him chose to either chase after him with mephiston or let him do his thing. On the other side I baited the DC with my genestealers for a few turns.

Mephiston was able to fleet and catch the trygon in one turn, and managed to put enough wounds on him to kill him out right....sigh.

My hive guard were out of range of just about everything else, so I fired into mephiston. I ended up putting three wounds on him just out of shooting. I tried to get a squad of gaunts into him to hold him place for a turn, but all 5 of his attacks killed gaunts, and I failed all 5 No Retreat saves. Grrr.

I Mephiston assault my raveners infront that some how failed to assault the vindicator infront of them. Some lived and managed to put a rend on Mephiston. Bottom of Turn 2 and Big M has 1 wound left. I can do it!

On my turn I assault mephiston with 20+ gaunts, stun the vindicator, and assault the DC with stealers. The stealers roll a 1 on their fleet, keeping the back guys in cover, so I'm striking at Init1. I lose 7 of them before I get to attack, and the last 2 run from combat back into terrain. Meph finishes off the Raveners for fear of rending. With rerolls to hit and wounding on a 4+ I put 10+ wounds on him, but he makes all of them. He will also continue to make 2 Psychic tests a turn on 3d6 and never peril.

Lascannons shoot at my big guys and kill off my tyrant guard. I assault the death company with my bonesword warriors, a squad who normally kill about 12 marines on the assault. I net 2 Death company.

He brings in the assault squad to help kill off gaunts. I counter with the tervigon and Tyrant. I win combat, Meph flees combat, only to rally, and assault my tyrant on his turn.

We've been fighting on the middle objective for 4 turns now.The death company are coming in on my side, and I'm bracing for impact but it isn't going to end well. Time is called, and I've held on to a draw. I haven't killed a single unit of his yet, and I'm almost tabled. That was not a fun fight, An enjoyable struggle, but man my rear was sore after that.

I'm 0-2 going into the last round, so I'm interested in seeing who I can lose to next. But I'm playing my tyranids, it feels right and I'm having fun so I'm still in a good mood.

Game three pits me against Blue (skull?) orks. Dawn of war with KPs. I put warriors in a front terrain piece, and infiltrate the stealers. Yes, it is the same table from game 1, but at least I got the other side. He deploys a 20 man slugga squad.

 Everything walks on, and then runs.

 I decided I might need help. The force is strong with this one.

He rolls on, Shoots my stealers and then assaults them with Dethkoptas. I win combat, consolidate toward him and then procede to multi assault lootas and tankbustas, running them off the table.

Mean while My raveners fleet forward and plow into the large ork squad. I had managed to give them FNP, so even going last I had a few left to start tearing through orks. He boss poled and stayed in combat.

At this point my camera died. He drove his trucks forward, and multi assaulted my warriors. I was able to kill the big mek, and then started popping Trukks. With out Powerklaws in his boy squads I managed to do well in combat for a while. His Warboss and nob squad did hold out for a good while, but waves of gaunts kept crashing into his army. My hive tyrant was way back in the far side not really doing anything.

By the end of the game, It ended around 17-6 in my favor. He was some what new to game, and only had started this army a little over a month ago. He was playing with the models he had, but to have that many orks painted to how well he had them all in a month is amazing at the least.

Over all I had a great time, and enjoyed playing down there. Jrock pulled out another victory and got first place.
My lessons learned.... Game 1, protect the Zoanthropes better if they are only my way to kill a Land raider.
Game 2, do not kill of the Tyrant Guard if he is the only model with a lash whip. If he had lived, I could have assaulted Meph and not to worry as much.
Game 3, Raveners are my favorite model/unit, but Biovores are still more effective.

So I'm going to put the Nids back on the painting station and try and get them looking a little better. I'll need to change up the list a little bit. The zoanthropes didn't do as much as I had hoped (as in nothing.)