Small Battle report - Tyranids vs Daemons 1750 pts

[polkadragon]

No pictures this time, apologies. If I ever find a decent Vassal tutorial, I might add some screenshots

Daemons (Mathieu) vs Tyranids (myself) 1750 points

Nids:

* Flyrant; 2 x TL Devourer
* Hive Tyrant; 2 x TL Devourer, Armoured Shell
* 3 x Hive Guard
* Tervigon; Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
* Tervigon; Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
* 14 x Devilgaunt (Devourer)
* 14 x Devilgaunt (Devourer)
* Carnifex; 2 x TL Devourer
* Carnifex; 2 x TL Devourer

Daemons
* Herald on chariot
* Herald
* 9 x Flamers
* 9 x Flamers
* 7 x Screamers
* 7 x Screamers
* 6 x Screamers
* 5 x Plaguebearers
* 5 x Plaguebearers
* 5 x Fiends

CSM allies
* Chaos Sorceror
* 5 x Chaos Space Marine + Rhino

Aegis Defense Line + Quad Gun


Mission:
* Table Quarters deployment
* 3 objectives (2 on the non-taken table quarters, 1 smack in the middle)
* Primary: objectives
* Secondary: Troops & Fast Attack destroyed
* Tertiary: First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker

Mathieu wins the toss and choose to make me go first, logical.

Tyranids deploy close together, meaning to spread out towards the first objective and for the rest hang back, trying to whittle down the Daemons as they arrive. Warlord Trait for the walking Hive Tyant is -1 to reserves, which is great of course.

Daemons deploy the Aegis defense line with Quad Gun, and a Rhino with the CSM + Sorceror in it nearby.



Tyranids turn 1
---------------
Everything advances a bit, Flyrant swoops up. Tervigon and Gaunts advance towards the first objective 'above' them.
Shooting, only the Flyrant is in range, and he unloads on the Rhino, destroying it. First blood for the Tyranids, the CSM make their leadership test without any problem.

Daemons turn 1
---------------
First wave of Daemons shows up, 2 units of Screamers, one unit of Flamers, one unit of Plaguebearers near the objective closest to them, both Heralds drop in as well. No mishaps as most of the Daemons drop within 6" of the character with the Mark. Flamers hide for now.
Herald mans the Quad Gun, most things that can shoot try to ground the Flyrant. Grounding tests are passed, but armour saves aren't and the Flyrant loses 2 wounds...
Screamers use their turboboost rule to get in the Tyranid ranks, only one of them can do a flyover, but he does kill about half of a Devilgaunt unit...

Tyranids turn 2
---------------
Screamers are now highest priority, so intact unit of Devilgaunts unload 42 devourer shots into them. When they are joined by the Carnifexes, one unit of Screamers is gone. The other unit also receives a good amount of firepower, but about 4 of them still live to cause havoc. Walking Hive Tyrant shoots down two of the Chaos Space Marines in the Aegis.
One Tervigon poops out 8 Termagaunts. The other poops out 12, but rolls doubles.

I make Stupid Mistake nr 1, and glide the Flyrant down to assault the Herald on his chariot. Problem is, the Herald already dies through the Flyrant shooting and now the Flyrant stands there looking like a fool. At least his Warlord is dead now too. The 8 generated Termagaunts charge the Screamers in terrain and get their asses handed to them, they all die and only do one wound or so.


Daemons turn 2
--------------
The Fiends come in from reserve.
Flamers shuffle up a bit, ready to pounce next turn.
As predicted, everything shoots at the Flyrant and he explodes.
Screamers in the Tyranid backyard charge the Hive Guard and kill them.


Tyranids turn 3
---------------
I make Stupid Mistake nr 2 and set up a Tyranid Firing Wall, with Devilgaunts, a Carnifex and the Hive Tyrant, all too close together...
One Carnifex unloads on the Fiends and kills 2 of them. The other shoots the Screamers and together with the Gaunts and Tervigon, manages to wipe them out.
The Tervigon on the top grabs the mysterious objective, turns out its the "+1 cover" variety.

Daemons turn 3
--------------
Last unit of Screamers come in and turbo-boost up, taking two wounds off the middle Carnifex.
Second unit of Flamers comes in, but mishap. They are delayed.
Last unit of Plaguebearers comes in as well, right by the centre objective (a skyfire nexus - woot).

Flamers on the table jump up and make optimal use of my mistake by flaming my Tyranid Firing Wall. All 14 Devilgaunts die, and the Carnifex and Hive Tyrant each receive 2 wounds. It could have been worse tbh.

Fiends charge the middle Carnifex, overwatch kills one of them, but the remaining three roll more than enough rending wounds to kill the Fex.

Tyranids turn 4
---------------
Hive Tyrant and Carnifex shoot the Flamers, killing 3 or 4 of them.
Two units of Gaunts and the Tervigon move up towards the Screamers to try and lock them down. Shooting only kills one of them though. The two remaining Fiends die through Fleshborer fire.

Assault: I sacrifice the Carnifex to charge through the Wall of Death of the Flamers. He dies, as predicted, but at least the Hive Tyrant is now in combat with the Flamers and kills 2 of them.
The Gaunts and Tervigon get stuck in with the Screamers, slowly whittling them down.

Daemons turn 4
---------------
The last reserve comes in, the Flamers who mishapped earlier. Mathieu makes a daring Deep Strike attempt, and succeeds, landing right in front of my top Tervigon and his gaunts!

The CSM and Sorceror start to move out of the Aegis Defense line.

The Flamers flame the top Tervigon. Due to some bad rolling, the Tervigon survives with 3 wounds though!

In combat, the other Flamers lose a few of their number vs the Tyrant, they wound him as well, but he saves.
The other combat sees the Screamers try and kill of the Tervigon, but they only do one wound. Some of their numbers die again, dragged down by Gaunts.

Tyranids turn 5
---------------
The Gaunts and top Tervigon charge the Flamer unit, 6 gaunts die due to Wall of Death.
Not much other movement, everything is now locked in combat.

The Hive Tyrant is down to his last flamer, hopefully the game won't end too soon
The Screamers do a last-ditch attempt to kill the Tervigon, but there's too fews of them left.
The Gaunts and Tervigon kill a bunch of Flamers, combat continues.

Daemons turn 5
---------------
The Sorceror tries to Gate of Infinity towards the Tyranid objective, but Shadows in the Warp stops it!
Combat finally sees the Nids come up on top, the Flamers get killed by the Hive Tyrant, the Screamers die as well.


We roll for variable game length, and the game continues into turn 6! Which is lucky for the Tyranids, as for the moment they have no objective while the Daemons have two!

Tyranid turn 6
--------------
The Hive Tyrant moves to the centre to contest the middle objective from the Plaguebearers.
The Tervigon runs back to the Tyranid objective. The Gaunts charge the Chaos Space Marines + Sorceror and lock them.
The Tyrant shoots and assaults the Plaguebearers, and kills them all.

The top Tervigon finally finishes off the Flamers.


Daemons turn 6
---------------
Not much left to do, the Quad Gun tries to remove 3 wounds of the objective-holding Tervigon, but fails.
In combat, some Gaunts die and two CSM die. The Sorceror continues fighting.

We roll again for variable game length, and the game goes into turn 7. However, since its getting late and the Tyranid victory can only get bigger in turn 7, we decide to call it a day.

Final tally after turn 6:
* Daemons, 1 objective, 3 troops + FA killed = 6 points
* Tyranids, 1 objective, 5 troops + FA killed + First Blood + Slay the Warlord = 10 points

It doesn't get much closer than this.

Lessons learned:
* The new Daemons are kickass, shoot Flamers and Screamers down as fast as you can!
* I should have played more conservatively, keeping out of range. Not always easy to remember when playing Nids.
* Flamers and standing close together are bad.
* Devourers and Preferred Enemy and twin-linked give you a sick amount of rerolls

[nalathani]

Thanks for the write up. Just an FYI, you can't re-roll more than once, so you can re-roll from twin linked OR preferred enemy but not both. There aren't any deamon players where I live, so I never get to see them. Would like to some day.

[polkadragon]

Yes i know about the rerolls, just pointing out the large amount of rerolls, either from twin linked or PE.

Daemons are competitive for sure now, was a good player as well. The good news is, Tyranids are well equipped to handle them. My opponent called my list one of the hardest he'll probably face in an upcoming GT. And even then, I made some mistakes which made the end result closer than it probably should have been.

[fragile]

I have a question about your mistake #1. If the Herald was in a chariot, you could not shoot at him. You had to shoot the chariot, since it is a transport vehicle. How did Herald die?

[polkadragon]

Hm, guess we both misplayed it then, because neither of us knew it was a transport vehicle.

Mind you, I would have preferred this scenario, because then I could have blown up his chariot and get locked into combat with the Herald, keeping my Flyrant clear of shooting the next turn ;D

[apaosa]

Your list doesn't mention OA on the Tyrants but you refer to Preferred enemy for Devourers.

Something else is irking me about the game... But I can't place it yet...

[polkadragon]

The Tyrants both have OA, 'full' list can be found at thetyranidhive.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=tyranidlists&thread=40330&page=1

Sorry the reports irks you, be sure to let me know what it is, if you find out.

[apaosa]

Nah, the report was great and I'm sure we all appreciate the post.

Something is itching the back of my brain about something the demon player did... Lemme see if I can find it. The irk was about a play or tactic.

Found it I think... Isn't the Mark/Icon from CSM specifically for Terminators and Lesser Daemons?

[polkadragon]

Hmm, no idea really, haven't really played against Daemons/CSM that much.

Anyone with more knowledge on the subject?

[Jasta]

apaosa is correct, the CSM Icons only work for CSM termies and CSM codex lesser daemons. I have a CD army and have run CSM allies and thought about this tactic but rereading the rule, I and everyone I play with agrees, that they only work for CSM units.

However, it does say lesser daemons, which could open the argument that bloodletters, daemonettes, etc.. could use them as they are technically lesser daemons, but the daemon entry in the back of CSM is titled "lesser daemons" so I believe that they are only referring to those.

[rpricew]

Nice batrep... thanks for sharing. If you get a chance snap a photo of the board and army to put up with your list! We all love to see pictures of armies and games!

[eugee]

Nice report, very interesting.

[bebe]

I recently played my Daemons against Nids as well.

Fateweaver 333
The Blue Scribes 130
Herald of Slaanesh,, Unholy Might, Soporific Musk, Pavane of Slaanesh 95
8 Flamers of Tzeentch, Pyrocaster (Scribes here) 189
8 Flamers of Tzeentch, Pyrocaster 184
5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 75
5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 75
5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 75
5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 75
15 Deamonettes of Slaanesh 210 (Sherald here)
6 Screamers of Tzeentch 150
6 Screamers of Tzeentch 150

Shadow in the Warp never hampered me a bit with this list and I manged to pavane twice. Also breath is quite nasty for Nids. Pavane and breath are a mean combination. Fateweaver is bad for Nids. I make a lot of extra saves due to his re-rolls but he is also a big annoyance. Now I did not run over my opponent but I did not have nearly as much trouble playing without allies. I don't find allies that useful yet for Daemons. Flyers are going to do us harm (and Nids harm) regardless - one AGL does not an anti-flyer build make. At 2000 I add a Slaanesh DP loaded up as an extra flyer - works quite well.

I think you did really well overall. Daemons are not an easy match up for Nids. I think your opponent used too few troops and daemons at 1500+ should always take the 'Weaver. He really overloaded on screamers, fiends and flamers - which is pretty scary for sure. I use my troops to grab objectives and tar pit. I have enough that I can reliably do that ... learned that playing Nids, lol. At Nova Daemons made the final table. Fateweaver and Blue Scribes were in the list - they are the new hotness for good reason.

Nids are still an army I enjoy playing but I enjoy playing against them even more as I know all the tricks. Your list is very interesting. Lots of T6 wounds to make life hard on an opponent. I like it. What psychic powers did you use if any?

[polkadragon]

Thanks bebe. My psychic powers were all very lackluster, I rolled biomancy for the Tyrants and Tervigons, and didn't get Iron Arm, Enfeeble or Endurance on any of them... That's the way random powers go sometimes I guess...

As for the list I'm happy with it, I might consider dropping the Hive Guard and a few Devilgants for a 3rd Dakkafex and see how that goes.