First game, first win!

[topaxygourouni]

Finally got to play my first game! Alas, it was not the promised 3k but a 1850 instead vs Eldar. My usual record against this player was something along the lines of 1-15 or so before. Nobody of us used a really strong list. I tried to play a little bit of everything to see how it goes, so he tailored his list accordingly. in short the lists were:

Eldar:

Farseer + Spiritseer in unit of 20 storm guardians, 2 power weapons, 2 fusion guns, 2 spear things that wound on 2+. Farseer also wounds on 2+.
Wave Serpent (scatter laser + small gun) + 10 guardians + suriken catapult platform
Wave Serpent (scatter laser + small gun) + 10 guardians + suriken catapult platform
5 x rangers
Wave Serpent (scatter laser + small gun) + 5 x fire melta gun dudes
6 x warp spiders
6 x warp spiders
Wraithlord + 2 flamers + 2 brightlances
Wraithlord + 2 flamers + 2 brightlances

Tyranids:

2 x Flyrants, TL devourers
25 x hormagaunts
25 x hormagaunts
24 x termagants + 8 devourers
3 x warriors + heavy weapon
2 x venomthropes
2 x Lictors
2 x Zoanthropes
3 x raveners + rending
Tyrranofex + acid spray + thorax swarm (shred+rending)
2 x Biovores
Trygon Prime + miasma cannon

I got to play second but siexed the initiative. We rolled 6 for the deployment and 5 on the scenarios. I found a little rock enough to cover my venomthropes from his wave serpents and built all my army around them. Biovores behind venomthropes behind the wall, and 2 x flyrants behind a tyrranofex behind 2 zoanthropes behind termagants. On their right the raveners behind hormagaunts. All the units above were in range of the invisible venomthropes. On their left I put my 3 warriors behind a bunker and next to them my other hormagaunt unit. Then I put 2 lictors infiltrating out of his line of sight.

Tyranid turn 1.
I march my army forward. Tyrants fly 24" in front of him, hormagaunts move + run ahead. Termagants and tyrranofex get onslaught on them. Termas run only 1", can't shoot. Tyrranofex runs a mighty 5" and his acid spray kills 4 storm guardians. Raveners move to the right, venoms move behind the tyrranofex, lictors stay in hiding. My left hormas run an impressive 9". In the shooting phase, my biovores shoot down 2 warp spyders, tyrants open fire upon a wave serpent, botch and only do 2 hull points of damage.

Eldar turn 1.
Flying your flyrants in rapid fire range of guardians is a HUGE mistake. Eldar disembarks all his troops, casually casts 4 spells on his units while whithin the shadow in the warp and the slaughterfest commences. Both flyrants fall down on their first roll and subsequently get killed. Wraithlords march up against the two horma units (one each), 2 x flamer them up and then they both charge the ramains. The rest of his shooting was slightly underwhelming, he tried to shoot at the biovores but the 3+ cover was just too good. Even against the holo shields, 4+ armor and 3 wounds each was huge. Anyways, I am left with only 2 synapse units in the game and they are both toughness 4.

Tyranid turn 2. The magic turn.
Trygon Prime comes out next to a guardian unit. Raveners fail their IB and fight each other. My army moves ahead. The hormagaunts are locked in combat with the wraithlords. He only kills 2-3 a turn, I cannot wound him,we both are fearless. In the shooting phase, magic ensues. The trygon prime + miasma cannon completely decimates a guardian unit. The tyrranofex uses his spray + thorax and kills all but 4 storm guardians with the help of the biovores, the termagants and the warrior's cannon. Biovore blasts also kill 2 fire dragons + 3 rangers.Rangers get pinned. The zoanthropes warp lance against a warp prism and kill it! Hurraj first clear kill of my zoanthropes since ever! Lictors come out of hiding, warriors hide behind the termagants next to the venomthropes.

Eldar turn 2.
Wraithlords are locked in combat forever. His spirit seer fails to cast. In his shooting, spyders get the trygon prime down to 1 wound left, guardians + fire warriors do 4 wounds on the tyrranofex. One of the wave serpents kills my zoanthropes, the other one fires at my warriors ( my last synapse) but 3+ cover saves the day. Then his fire dragons charge my tyrranofex to hit it with melta bombs. Tyrrano casually fires off his double wall of death and kills all of them at once

Tyranid turn 3.
Trygon prime gets behind a warp prism, fires it up then smashes it dead in combat. Lictors run and charge on the last remaining warp prism and rip it up also. Raveners roll their ld and run forward, but they are already late to the party. Tyrranofex shoots at the last remaining guardian unit and evaporates it. Termas kill 2 more storm guardians, their unit loses morale and runs away, along with the farseer. Biovores + warrior blast kill 3 warp spyders from the intact unit of 6. By the end of the turn, eldar has lost his warp prisms, his guardian units, his farseer + spiritseer are fleeing and his wraithlords are locked in a combat they cannot win. All he has left are 2 units of 3 spyders. He proceeds to kill my trygon prime and tyrranofex and then scoops the game.

End of turn 3, massacre win for the tyranids!

Things I learned.

> Raveners ALWAYS go in the middle of the army to affect them with multiple synapse. Maybe shrikes + adrenal + rending will do the same job instead.
> Tyrranofex + thorax and trygon prime + miasma completely WRECK the opponent if they are xenos. Too many templates, too much ignoring cover.
> If I kept my flyrants behind instead of rushing them forward, I would have them alive. On the other hand, I would give him the opportunity to target my biovores/venomthropes earlier. Kind of a double edged sword, they did nothing for me but they kind of pushed me towards victory.
> If you find a spot to field your venoms and they are out of LoS from the enemy, it is virtually IMPOSSIBLE for them to kill ANY of your units on turn one.
> Venomthropes biggest boon is that it allows our flyrants to be deployed on the field even if the enemy plays first. This makes our army a HUGE deal faster.
> Having your MSU units of 3 warriors ,2 biovores and 3 raveners with a 3+ cover save seriously messes up with the enemy's head. It really made no difference if I siexed initiative or not, there was nothing my opponent could kill on turn one even if they played first.
> I only rolled paroxysms and onslaughts for my spells on all my casters and my tyranrs died turn 1. But overall I think our lore is quite useful for our army. Plus, zoanthropes lancing out a warp prism will always make you happy.

I tried to play synapse heavy (2 flyrants, warriors, zoanthropes, trygon prime). Even if my tyrants died turn 1 and zoas on turn 2, I did not feel threatened at all. My warriors with a 3+ cover save against an army that doesn't have str 8 weapons look kind of invincible while out of guardian range. Plus our army now deals SO much more damage that we can counter their kills with our kills and reduce their shooting.

So that's about it. Maybe I will get one more game this week.

[gigasnail]

@venoms remember that if one of his farseers had rolled perfect timing, they would have just ignored your venoms and shot the piss out of you.

[topaxygourouni]

Jan 20, 2014 23:06:11 GMT gigasnail said:

@venoms remember that if one of his farseers had rolled perfect timing, they would have just ignored your venoms and shot the piss out of you.

Farseer was in a storm guardian unit. Even if he rolled the perfect timing and even if he had joined in a different unit (which one, really?), it would give ONE of his units no cover save in a game where I played first and he had no guardians left by the end of turn two. His first turn he used up almost all of his shooting to kill the tyrants and second turn he had no guardians left save maybe 5-6. Farseers can't join wave serpents can they?

[gigasnail]

no, but waveserpents sheild ignores cover and is a bunch of hits all on its own. the point wasn't that you did anything wrong (looked like a fun game), but to remind folks not to put too much stock in venoms. once people understand what they do, they may as well come with a flag that says FIRST BLOOD! on it.

[topaxygourouni]

that's correct. But i put my venoms out of line of sight of everything so he could not shoot at them. Plus wave serpents holo shields have ap- values. Even if you get no cover saves, you get your normal armor. In case of the biovores and the warriors who took the shield punishment, it was enough to survive.

Biovores with 3 wounds now are awsome. Just the thought of those 6 wounds with a 3+ cover and a 4+ armor behind a sea of cithin made my oponent kind of ignore them and they punished him for it. That and the fact that on his turn one he had 2 flyrants in his face.

It was a fun game. Had a few lucky and unlucky wild rolls that affect the game a lot. For example, rolling to go second, siezing the initiative, having both tyrants fall down on the first hit suffered, rolling the 3+ for the trygon prime, all these were just wild rolls that could go either way and could change the outcome of this combat entirely.

Some final notes. With venoms on the field, it actually makes no difference if it's night fighting or not, since night gives stealth/shrouded. It is actually better to move them up to within 24" range of the enemy to benefit from both venom + stealth night fight rules for great benefit. Also, if you have no big terrain to conceal your venoms, you can put 1 tyrranofex standing in front of 2 flyrants. Fielding then warriors behind the tyrants and then the venoms, you can actually make it so the opponent cannot even see the venomthropes. And I can tell you it is practically impossible to bring down a tyrranofex with 2+ armor and 3+ cover.

[gigasnail]

it's very difficult to do without being able to ignore both cover and a 2+ save. neither of these things are exactly rare.

glad your game went well though, it's nice to pull a win out when it looks like the game is taking a swirly on turn 2.

[brassangel]

Jan 21, 2014 0:16:53 GMT gigasnail said:

no, but waveserpents sheild ignores cover and is a bunch of hits all on its own. the point wasn't that you did anything wrong (looked like a fun game), but to remind folks not to put too much stock in venoms. once people understand what they do, they may as well come with a flag that says FIRST BLOOD! on it.

So don't play units you want to play, or that are good because an opponent will know what they do?

In theory, that's what they will do. I have yet to have it happen, even when they are gunning for the Venomthrope.

You can sit in every thread and talk about perfect counters all day, but this Tyranid codex can present a lot of questions that the opposition has very little time to deal with.

[gigasnail]

My opponent just flanked and focused the venom down turn 2 (might have been 3) after he relized what it did. Ymmv obviously.

[gigasnail]

the point i'm trying to make (obviously, poorly) is not that there is some SUPER SECRET COMBO THAT IF THEY JUST TAKE THIS WARGEAR, WE'RE BONNNNNEEEEED! it's that the things that negate some of our linchpin units are the things people are already taking in their regular lists.

[afewveiws]

what gun gets through BOTH a 2+sv and a 3+cv?

there are many that get through one or the other but haven't seen any that gets through both.
keep in mind that "barrage" doesn't ignore cover, it determines cover from the center of the blast, the venoms Cloud effect works regardless of angle.

[gigasnail]

anything ap2 with perfect timing.

[WestRider]

Or AP2 with Markerlight Support. And it doesn't completely ignore it, but the Imperial Guard Order Fire on My Target drastically reduces the effectiveness of that 3+ Cover Save. And I think there are at least a couple of Chaos powers that are AP2 Templates.

[DukeMantis]

Im intrigued to know if you field Venomthropes Gigasnail

[gigasnail]

sure do.

[Hive Bahamut]

Wraithscythes? Liquifier gun on lucky AP roll, legion of the damned plasma, anyone with divination, 90% of tau. Probably a few more.