Short Bat Rep

[nintura]

Played a casual game at 1,000 points today.  Only get 1 game in a month.  Deadlock was the mission with standard conditions, and 6 objectives plus cards.

TLDR:  Won 13-6.  A lot of my choices didn't seem to matter when it came to physiology and hive fleet adaptations.

VS:  Astral Militar.....Imperial Guard Tempestus with Bulgryns in vehicles.

List:
Swarmlord
Tyranid Prime w/ Boneswords, Spinefists, Toxin Sacs, Xenogenic Acid
30x Hormagaunts
30x Termagants
2x3 Rippers
6x Warriors, 4x Deathspitters, 2x Venom Cannons, Enhance Resistance
Lictor
Trygon w/ Monstrous Size

What a pillow fight game.  I left the rippers, Terms, Trygon, Lictor off the battlefield.  He left a handful of some infantry type.  For the most part, I made few saves, he made few attacks, a lot of running back and forth to cap objectives.  I got off to an early lead of 7 in my first round, with me going first.  30 man Gaunt squad was nice as it took most of his shooting and left around half alive.  The warriors got their day in the sun as they ignored the AP on every single weapon in his army I believe.   My opponent got some lucky shots in with a single melta hitting my Prime for 5.  4 Plasma guns over charging, and getting extra shots, while not losing a single model, managing to take off 8 wounds from the Swarmlord.  I made a few lucky charges which I'll cover below.

Swarmlord.  Sat on a backfield objective two turns in a row, never using his ability.  Late game when my opponent deep struck to take objectives, he made up for it by slinging himself.  All in all though not a very good 250 point investment, but hey I have him painted

Prime:  Did not do a damned thing all game.  Warriors made a charge, he failed.  They got separated.  He got knocked down to 1 life by a melta.  His buff helped a little with the venom cannons

Horms:  Bullet sponges.  They distracted a long time, killed maybe 3 infantry.

Terms:  Well....  they came in the Trygon tunnel as I needed someone and didnt' know if I'd need late game shooting for countering his deepstrike.  They ended up making a 10" charge to tie up and wrap one of the troop carriers with Bulgryns.  You know who didn't make that charge?

The Trygon.  Came in turn 2.  By end of turn 3, managed to move 6" and failed two charges.  In the last round he took out one of the transports that was doing the most damage to my units.

Lictor:  Did what I wanted.  He came in, made his charge, kept a transport with Bulgryns busy and prevented overwatch with their assault 20 guns.  WHich allowed the terms to wrap it.  They spent all game trying to kill it...

Rippers:  covered ground.  Took an objective.  Did nothing.

Pack Hunters and Spawns of the outer dark:  Neither really did anything.  Spawns helped once.  Pack Hunters helped with the warriors, but literally nothing else.  I think the terms managed one wound due to the -1 on that transport.

Enhanced Resistance.  Was amazing.  I lost one warrior all game.

Monstrous Size.  Helped when the trygon got into combat in the last round, while at 4 wounds....

[purestrain]

Warriors want kronos to upgrade their shooting or levi to make them a sustained obj grabber or meat shield.

I like low point games, thinking is more involved imo

[nintura]

Im not playing the meta. Never going to happen. I'm playing Hydra based and so my rules/choices will reflect that, or at least very similar. But I appreciate the insight.  Personally I think they need to get rid of ALL faction bonuses and keep each army unique in that way.  No 10,000 space marine chapters, just a generic one.  No Hive fleet differences.  This way it's a game of chess and not meta for the most part.

[zimko]

Removing faction bonuses would make armies less unique I'd think. Less variety. There's always going to be a 'meta' no matter what the rules are. A game of chess and not meta would mean removing all choices and every army having the same pieces. As long as there's a choice in what you take, there's a meta. Not chasing the meta is of course your choice.

[nintura]

Yes I know, I was just giving an example. but removing that massive number of choices bring the game balance and closer to being chess. Look at how it is now. Why play Salamanders for example when you have Iron Hands? Same points for every model and upgrade. So why? Why play Hydra when you have Kraken or Leviathan or Kronos? If you are going to give rules that affect all your models, you need to change the points for each model. And GW has shown they cannot balance the game at that depth.

[zimko]

It is a bad time to play Hydra. But Jorm, Behemoth, Kraken, Kronos and Leviathan are all competitive choices that are currently being used for various styles of armies. Removing those hive fleets would push every competitive tyranid list to a smaller set of units. GW has done a poor job with a few sub-factions (Iron Hands) but that doesn't mean they need to axe all sub-factions.