Thursday, January 08, 2015

Alladin's (Pseudo) Bat-Rep #1 - 1500 pts Tyranids vs Eldar

So here it is, my first battle report! I am calling this a "pseudo" bat-rep because:
  1. I am missing lots of information, as my main focus during the game was to get comfortable with the rules, and
  2. The game itself was called at the top of Turn 3, due to timing (and the fact that it didn't look like the outcome would change all that much).
 
It was a 1500 point game, pitting my Tyranids vs Eldar. My opponent brought a pretty fair list, and mine was the one posted on the Hive Fleet Ceryx page. His list was something along the lines of:

Autarch (?) on Jetbike with 3 other Jetbikes
5-6 Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent
5-6 Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent
5-6 Warp Spiders
6-7 Swooping Hawks
Wraithknight
1 unit of 3 Eldar Walkers?

All in, a varied list of units with no repetition aside from the two Wave Serpents.

We played Maelstrom of War, Mission 6 I believe, which means we deployed diagonally. The table had a decent amount of terrain, including a big Sanctum Imperialis placed diagonally, splitting our sides in half, plus at least one 2-storey building on either side and some low hills interspersed. I would have liked a bit more to keep my guys covered, but we worked with what we had.

I deployed first, keeping my Crone and Tervigon in reserves (Tervigon Outflanks due to Hive Commander). I feel that I deployed poorly, ultimately creating a bottleneck with my Hormagaunts which prevented my Carnifex from being too mobile. I also deployed a bit defensively with my Termigant blob, neutering their use as well.  I tried to shield my important guys with the LOS blocking terrain, in case I went second. My Zoans were basically just behind my troop blobs, making sure they toed the line.

His deployment was unremarkable, with the Wave Serpents behind the same LOS terrain, his Jetbikes and walkers behind them, and the Wraithknight on a far table edge, chillin' like a villain.

I ended up going first. This turn was basically a waste for, as I moved my gribblies feebly across the board. The Hormagaunts and Carnifex went toward his Wraithknight, hoping to block it in and tie it up for a few turns. The Mawloc just sat around waiting to Burrow on Turn 2. The Termigants and Gargoyles shuffled about nervously, and my Hive Tyrant valiantly flew forward, parked in front of the tall Sanctum building, and eyed one of his Wave Serpents.

The Psychic Phase was fun, as he only had 3 Dice and I had 5-6. I believe that I actually counted wrong since, upon second reading, I found that each Zoanthrope brood (even if it is only one model) counts as ML2, which means it should have been 8-9 Dice (depending on whether or not Tervigon was deployed or not). I may be wrong, and will revisit that section again.

For my powers, I managed to roll at least one Catalyst, 2 Onslaughts, 1 Paroxysm, and 1 Horror. On this first turn I got Catalyst through on my Tyrant (and the Gargoyles hanging out near him), as well as Paroxysm on the Wraithknight. However, in the process, my Tyrant suffered Perils, losing a wound (but luckily not getting grounded). This was the first bit of bad karma for me.

For my Shooting Phase, only my Tyrant was in range, so I unloaded on the poor Wave Serpent. 12 attacks, twin-linked. 11 Hits. Bam. I felt reeeally good. He decided to Jink, as he was out in the open. I rolled to glance/pen. I think I ended up with 5-7 successes. I *still* felt reeeeally good. That jink? He saved EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

Not even a scratch. $#%*& me. I ran with the rest of my guys (but without actually knowing the run rules, or the move through cover rules, OR the fleet rules, so basically I ran on the spot) to finish my turn.

 I think I ended up with 3 VP based on the Mission Cards.

For his first round, he did some moving about, nothing notable. For his Psychic phase, he cast Invisibility on one of his troop units. I think he sent his Warp Spiders to attack some Hormagaunts, and fired some templates at my Hormagaunt/Carnifex blob from his Walkers, which removed a few Hormagaunts and one wound off my Fex. He then shot at my Carnifex with his Wraithknight and put two more wounds on him. Finally, his stupid Wave Serpents attacked. One targeted my Hive Tyrant. All said and done, he put 2 more wounds on the guy. I now had to roll for grounding - if I failed, he would be dead. Luckily I passed - my first bit of good karma. The other Serpent could not see my Tyrant, so I think they fired at the Gargoyles? Not sure, lost a few at some point.

By the end of his turn, he managed to do a fair bit of damage, but only one VP.

Second round: Both my Tervigon and my Crone come in from reserves. The Crone Vector Strikes the Wraithknight (shedding a wound), stopping behind a ruined building on his end of the board. The Tervigon appears on the opposite board end, where his Jetbikes were hanging out. Outflank was quite useless with this deployment type and not sure if I would use it again on my Tyrant. (Of course, I forget to roll for my Tervigon spawning, so I lose out on some backup) For the rest of my guys, my little guys move generally toward his guys, the Mawloc Burrows, the Carnifex takes his sweet ass time, and the Hive Tyrant makes a Hail Mary (stupid move) and runs right dab into his mass of Wave Serpents/troops/Walkers.

Psychic Phase: Can't really remember. I think I cast Paroxysm on his Wave Serpent (stupid, as BS is so low anyway) and did not get Catalyst off this time for some reason. I got an Onslaught though (but forgot to use it so meh).

Shooting Phase: The Tyrant shoots at another Wave Serpent. 11 Hits again. This time, 8 Wounds. More Jinking. However his luck doesn't hold, and before I am half-way through my dice, I have dealt enough penetrating hits to blow the sucker up. This is my second (and last) bit of good karma, and really it's just getting even for the crappy first round of shooting. At this point, I think there were still troops in the vehicle, but I think my opponent forgot to roll for wounds after the explosion (I believe this is done? Could be wrong, but he is new too, so I don't begrudge this kind of thing). All in all, I know that the Tyrant is basically done next turn. The Crone fired its Tentaclid at the other Wave Serpent, and I can't recall if it did anything useful. The Tervigon fired her Stinger Salvo and Electroshock Grubs at the Jetbikes. I managed to get rid of one biker and put a wound on his Autarch. No big deal. That completed my second round.

I believe I gained 1 VP somehow, bringing my total to 4,

For his second round, there was a bit of shuffling in the movement phase, mainly his Warp Spiders and Swooping Hawks jockeying for better position, and his Jet Bikes ran away from my Tervigon's Claws and toward an Objective he needed. Shooting was a joke, he destroyed one of my Hormagaunt Blobs, as well as my Hive Tyrant AND Carnifex. And based on his Objective Cards, he gained like 9 VPs. First Blood, Slay the Warlord, 3+D3 for having 3 units in my deployment, plus 1VP each for killing a Psyker and a Flyer.

So now the count was 10-4 for him, and me without my 2 biggest sources of firepower.

My third round was pretty uneventful, just trying to keep my guys going forward. The Mawloc had a decent Terror from the Deep, almost wiping out his Dire Avengers, my Termigants finally shot something (and wounded one Jetbike), not sure if I even fired any Tentaclids - actually I rolled on the IB chart and got the result that did not allow me to shoot, though I think I didn't roll for leadership to evencheck if I had to roll on the chart. I tried charging with some Hormagaunts and my Gargoyles, but was denied both times, and that was that.

Zero VP's for me that round. Whomp Whomp.

At this point, we had already played for over 3 hours (I know, ridiculous, but we both needed a lot of time to consult the rulebook, although it was mainly me), and we decided to end it due to time. He would have mopped the floor with me in his Shooting Phase, what little I had left.

So that's that. It was really fun, but kind of a bummer outcome for me. I think if I had destroyed his Wave Serpent in the first round, I would have been a bit better off. Also, if I actually knew the rules for my units, and took advantage of them, it may have been closer. I probably lost 6-12 inches of ground with my Hormagaunts because I wasn't running them properly, and this would have put more pressure on him. I was also playing the Tyrant too aggressively, as if it was 6th edition and he could land and assault in the 2nd round. I will do better next time.

I don't think his list was fundamentally better than mine, so I can't blame that. He did have some pretty sweet (and relevant) Tactical Objectives, which really helped him rack up the points in the second round, but he just played a bit tighter overall and went for the objectives.

Anyway, that concludes my first bat-rep. I have a rematch scheduled in a few days, where I will tweak my list a bit to include a Venomthrope (he has little/no ignores cover shooting, I believe), as well as a few other tweaks. Will post that a bit later!

2 comments:

  1. On the wave serpent...in 7th edition, you can only "Blow up" a vehicle with an AP2 or AP1 weapon. (unless it's open topped) Otherwise you just end up wrecking it.

    I think your bat rep is an excellent example of "keep playing the same list till you know it". I think you were your own worst enemy here, with forgetting certain rules and such. (not spawning termagaunts was a huge one!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I guess I was being a bit "forge the narrative-y" with my post, as I didn't actually cause it to explode or anything. I just wanted that guy dead so bad that in my mind I imagined a nuclear type explosion going off as my Brainleeches pinged off his armour. Haha.

      I will have to keep playing this list (or similar iterations) because I currently have no other models to substitute, but you have a good point. Even if it is consensus that my list is sub-par (which it likely is, I never built it with gaming as my first priority), I lost this game due to my inexperience with the game and Tyranids in particular.

      If I played the mission, and I played to the strengths of my list, it may have been a closer game for sure.

      Delete