catalyst2 | Battle #22 (Reply)

Tonight was 1500 points against Sean's Tyranids with Dawn of War deployment on Capture and Control mission. The last time I played against Sean I said to him that I beat him because he stood back and I shot him to hell before he even got to me. With Dawn of War deployment, I was sure he'd line up as far forward as possible and attack. Instead, he deployed as far back as possible "to avoid getting shot to hell" and consequently got shot to hell again!

Turn 1 and the night fighting rules played hell for both of us with Sean missing everything and me only getting the occasional potshot in.

Turn 2 and Sean's hesitancy came home to haunt him. Not one of his units was in assault range but almost everything was in shooting range for me. When the smoke cleared, he had lost two small gaunt squads, 23 of 25 gaunts in his "without number" squad, one squad of warriors and one squad of genestealers. In addition, both his Hive Tyrant and his carnifex were down to two wounds. The look on his face as the snipe squad picked away at the Hive Tyrant's wounds was amusing.

Turn 3 and his shooting was surprisingly effective, taking out the Thunderfire cannon, a Razorback and 3 marines. Flanking genestealers also destroyed the TL Lascannon on the Predator. The most peculiar thing now happened as his assault phase was totally ineffective, given that this is usually where 'Nids do the damage. The techmarine, now free of the Thunderfire moved over to the Predator and promptly repaired the destroyed lascannon - the first time I have ever manged that! Next turn, it would be able to fire that weapon. In the meanwhile, the lascannon sponsons took out a warrior and combined bolter rapid fire from two combat squads took out the other two warriors. His Hive Tyrant continued to advance in the centre, an entire ten-man tactical squad rolling a handful of dice with nothing more than 1's and 2's in the whole thing. The scouts took one more wound off the Hive Tyrant whilst the Dreadnought (drop-podding with it in this game is not particularly effective as a tactic) killed the last genestealer on that wing.

Turn 4 and two mistakes saved me from major damage by assault. Irritated by the two combat squads in the centre, Sean fired the Hive Tyrant and Carnifex at them, causing one casualty only. The problem was that both squads were out of assault range for those targets yet the carnifex could have got the Land Speeders and the Hive Tyrant could have got the Tactical squad in the centre. Both 'Nids were to pay the price later. His second infiltrating genstealer unit did get to the Speeders, immobilising (and thereby destroying) one and destroying one weapon (Sean chose the assault cannon, surprise, surprise!) Of course, when he went to assault with the carnifex and Hive Tyrant, I had to remind him that he had to assault the same unit he shot. His "without number" gaunts came back on and promptly fled, there being no synapse creature within range of them. His ravener finally got on the board but on the "wrong side" for him as it was right next to the drop pod/Dreadnought/sniper squad/tactical squad line up on my right and centre respectively. The shooting/assaulting error now came back to haunt him as the Predator took the last wounds off the carnifex, the speeders killed off the ripper swarm, the Hive Tyrant died at the hands of the Dreadnought, the Deathwind ML killed his ravener, the sniper squad and Whirlwind combined to kill to kill 19 of his "without number" gaunt squad. The gaunt squad was still within 3" of his objective so he still held it (though I'm not entirely sure if gaunts out of synapse can hold an objective).

Turn 5 and the gaunt squad (all 6 of them!) were all that was left on the board so the turn was very brief. I fired my Whirlwind and he went to ground but still failed all 6 cover saves!

Result was victory to me by one objective to nil.

What I learned today:
1) I think I said this last time but, as long as I hold my nerve and don't lose sight of my targets, Tyranids can be beaten. Admittedly, my opponent made at least three really major errors which turned the course of the game in my favour but that was in part to the harassing fire he had experienced from all directions as he came into assault range on my lines.
2) The Techmarine can actually repair tanks!
3) Land Speeders and 'nids really are a lethal combination. The ability of speeders to pour a volume of fire into a target is quite extraordinary - it either destroys entire units with poor armour saves or takes wounds off good armour save units (like the carnifex) by sheer volume of fire and resulting numbers of saves.
4) I am almost certain I said this last time but Whirlwinds and 'nids are also a really lethal combination. Apart from the first turn when night-fighting was happening and it couldn't make the range, the Whirlwind hit every turn, two being direct hits and the other two being very small scatters. Those large blasts into big squads of gaunts is just havoc.

My W-L-D record is now 17-5-0