Battle Report 2000 A.Militarum vs Tyranids - post nerf

[trashcan01]

MISSION 22 COVERSION - 2000PTS

Tyranids Jormungandr/Natural Camouflage:
- Walking Tyrant - Shardgullet and Heightened Senses, M.Bonesword & Laswhip
- Walking Tyrant - HVCannon and Pathogenesis, M.Bonesword & Laswhip
- Tervigon with Maw-claws
- Neurothrope (Neuroparasite)
- 2x 30 Termagants
- 1x 3 Venomthropes
- 1x 3 Tyrant Guard
- 1x 3 Zoanthropes
- 1x Parasite
- 2x 1x Carnifex - HVCannon, Talons, Enhanced Senses - RESERVES
Secondaries: Banners, Ritual, Bring it down!


Astra Militarum Cadia/Born Soldiers
- Castellan - Laurels of Command (issue orders during my turn)
- Command Squad - Finial (6" Aura for Core, ignore negative to hit modifiers, no dmg prevent (FNP))
- Primaris Psyker
- Tank Commander - Gatekeeper (72" Heavy D3+6 S9 AP-3 3dmg Blast, Turret Weapon), Tank Ace: Ignore Cover
- 6x 10 Cadian Infantry (few Flamers, the rest were Anti Tanks (Melta/Plasma?)
- 2x Leman Russ (Vanquisher aka Gauss with re-reoll to hit Tank Ace, Gatling with 3 Flamers and 5++ Tank Ace)
- 3x Armoured Sentinels (2x Flamers, 1x Plasma Cannon)
- 3x Chimeras (Flamers)
- 1x Valkyre (Lascannon, Hellstrike) - RESERVES
- 2x 3 Heavy Weapon Squad (Lascannons)
- 1x 5 Ratlings
- 1x Priest
- 1x Enginseer
- 2x Commisars
Secondaries: Boots on the Ground, Lasgun&Bayonet, Inflex.Cmd



As it should be, Tyranids won the roll-off and I went first. We both deployed a bit reserved.

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TURN1 As it should be, +2" move Imperative! 
Tervigon Spawned 10 Termies who managed to get to the center objective. Banner#1. One blob advanced together with my Parasite on the one flank. Banner#2. Second blob hugged the big ruin and threatened the second flank. Guard did the action for Banner #3. Catalyst went off, but the rest of the opponents army was too far away to do any damage. In shooting tho, I managed to take down Gatling Battletank using my "oh-so-dependable" HVC Tyrants.
Opponent did pop smoke for -1hit, had 5++ tank ace on him, but it did no help. The Russ exploded and sprinkled some moral wounds on a Chimera, Sentinel, Comisar and some basic Infantry.
Astra took control of their closer flank with one Flamer Sentinel, and moved 2x Chimeras to threaten Parasite and a big blob that protected him. Majority of his army was shooting on those Gants, and he managed to kill 29 of em. Parasite also went down. With nothing to shoot, Chimeras charged the sole survivor...aaaand missed all hit rolls. 2CP Morale autopass for the Termagant and we kept the objective and the banner!

P.S. I've made an experiment for some visual batreps... here is the result if you want to check it out. youtu.be/Sd-9I2DiRvI

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TURN 2 - Imperative 4++/5++
Tervigon and spawned blob cleared some screens that stood in the way of his Command Squad, Fexes came in from Reserves and shot some of the Heavy Weapon Teams, Tyrants shot at the tanks, but this time Emperor protected and Hive Mind rolled bad. No major kills, only some wounds all around. Tervigon charged and killed his Command squad. Chimeras killed my hero Termagant. 2nd big blob of Termagants charged the Flame sentinel and took control over the objective.
Due to my bad positioning, Tervigon ended dangerously close(st) to majority of the Anti-Tank firepower... and almost survived, last thing that shot him was a friggin Comissar with a pistol. I did TransNid on the Tervi, but Born Soldiers rolling 6s don't care about that. Valkyre came on board.

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Turn 3 - Imperative +1 Psy/Deny and 5+ against mortal wounds
Non-warlord Tyrant with the help of the Venomthropes won back the objective from Chimeras, but the Banner was torn down. My opponent was left with home objective. Also, other two tanks got gunned down, as did the sentinels and the 3rd Chimera.
Astra tried to make play on my backline, killing the Tyrant Guard but was out of reach to cap my home objective.

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Turn 4 - Imperative - Fall Back and Charge
Disengaged with the Termagants and made a run with the huge ObSec blob for my opponents home objective, killed off his threat to my backfield and at that time we stopped playing. (edit) My opponent saw that he can't win this game, I would have probably tabled him Turn 5.
We did a rough math and it turned out we were at (edit) Tyranids 93- 61 Astra Militarum. Even super behind on the primaries, the Guard secondaries are SO friggin easy to score.
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Conclusion - Aircrafts suck at AoO. Strategic reserves for FREE are great. Going first helps (huehue). Having untargetable reliable HVCs helps to win. I fear the teleporting Kasrkins next game.

[N.I.B.]

Jan 19, 2023 19:32:02 GMT trashcan01 said:

We did a rough math and it turned out we were at 93- 61.

Who had what?

[trashcan01]

Ah, sorry. 93 Nids - 61 Astra Militarum.


Nids Primary 45, Warp Ritual 12, Banners 12, Bring it down 14 = 83 + Battle Ready = 93
Guard Primary 20, Boots 6, Infl.Command 7, Las&Bayonet 8 = 41 + Battle Ready 10 = 51..and we figured he would score max 10 points if we played it till Turn 5, making his total 61.

[hiveoverall]

Nice batrep, and well done ! But honestly the astra mil list is really not optimized (or min/maxed as some say) at all, so don't read too much into the win, it will be a lot harder to win (not impossible though) against an optimized list (played by a comp player, which i don't think your opponent is, based on the list he played). Like don't go to any tournament thinking this will be the kind of stra mil list you will be facing.

[trashcan01]

I'm not saying Astra Militarum is easy mode based on my win alone, I'm just saying that despite them having (IMO) the strongest Codex at the moment, it does not mean that we just roll over and die.
I don't know how did you react to the latest nerf (points+rules+secondaries) but I've sunk really low. This victory came as a surprise and I wanted to share.

For the record, I completely agree with you on all points.

[Bohxim]

Oh, definitely painful to see my previous lists losing practically 2 units to right it back to fit in 2000p. Even at our peak most friendly games I played, I wasn't left with very many models so this is definitely gonna hurt. Of course I wasn't running super optimised lists like tournament ones but still..

[trashcan01]

This is exactly why I stick with Jormungandr. Venomthropes -1 hit "stacks" with Dense cover -1 hit; Even Termagants have 3+ save in cover. The amount of pain that needs to be invested in clearing them out is just insane. If you pop Catalyst on 'em it is even better.

Jorm models refuse to leave the board.


ALSO Tervigon Spawn + Endless Swarm Stratagem are friggin crazy if you want to string out your blob to contest an objective. Tri-pointing has never been easier. Even rolling minimum of 1 on Endless Swarm gives you 4 Gants which is over 6" footprint extension.

[Bohxim]

Sorry I'm confused. If you can clarify your previous post I'd be most appreciative.

You said the 2 "-1 to hit" stacks. But since the limit is only - /+1, wouldn't they stack only if the opponent had +1 to hit?(for example turret mounted weapons).

Also, why would termies get 3+ save? Natural camo only provides +1 to save when getting cover from terrain, which neither jorm or venomthropes provide. So they'd still be 5+ saves, albeit at - 1 to hit. No?

[trashcan01]

Ah, okay. Sorry for the confusion.


"STACKING" penalties
One is Dense Cover (either from terrain or Jormungandr Adaptation), the second one is just plain "-1 hit" from Venomthropes.
Yes, they are maxed at -1 but..

If the opponent has "Ignore Cover" the -1 hit penalty sticks because the Venomthrope aura is not "Cover".
Also, if the opponent has +1 hit, the "stacking" -2 gets reduced to -1 anyhow, and debuff is still present. For example - Tank turrets hit on 5+.

The only option for the opponent to bypass the hit penalty is to either stack +2 hit OR to have "Ignore negative modifiers to hit" (which Astra Militarum has for CORE, using a 6" aura from a relic).


SAVES clarification
Termagants get 3+ save, but not in the open, as you said. Outside of terrain provided cover they'd be just plain old 5+ easy pickings. That's why we use blobs.
It quite easy for a blob of 30 Gants to have at least 30% of the unit somewhere in terrain provided Light Cover (and to have them stringed back to Venomthropes).

As a defender you pick to which models are taking the saves.
If the opponent shoots with AP-3, I generally don't bother with saves and just remove the Gants outside cover, saving the Gants in terrain provided Light Cover for AP-2 or lower shots.

[Bohxim]

Ahh OK. I get it more now. Thx mate

Also, hey if they're shooting - 2 or - 3 at my termies that'll be great hah compared to the rest of my army lol

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Minor point: there are certain rules (maybe crusade only?) that are "can ignore any or all modifiers". In that case they could ignore the -2 to hit and keep their +1. Minor point but it could come up