I recently participated in another doubles tournament at my FLGS. My partner was Chris, the same Tyranid player as in the last doubles tournament. As you may recall, I had a hard time writing the last doubles report because I only really played half the game. Fortunately, Chris has agree to co-write these reports with me so they should be more complete this time.
My list was:
Farseer
9 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent w/ twin-linked scatter lasers, shuriken cannon
5 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent w/ twin-linked scatter lasers, shuriken cannon
5 Fire Dragons
Wave Serpent w/ twin-linked scatter lasers, shuriken cannon
9 Warp Spiders
Chris' Tyranid list was:
Tervigon w/ catalyst, dominion, stinger salvo, toxin sacs,
3 Hive Guard
Doom of Malantai
Mycetic Spore
8 Ymgarl Genestealers
10 Termagants w/ fleshborers
10 Termagants w/ fleshborers
Trygon Prime w/ toxin sacs
Our opponents were both Necron players. I don’t know which list was which, so I’ll just present them as a single list.
Anrakyr the Traveler
Destroyer Lord w/ resurrection orb
10 Immortals w/ tesla
10 Immortals w/ gauss
Nightscythe
10 Immortals w/ gauss
Nightscythe
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
5 Destroyers
5 Destroyers
Monolith
Monolith
Our first mission was Scouring with Vanguard Strike deployments. Our opponents deployed first, with their infantry in the rear sheltering behind the twin Monoliths. The two squads of Destroyers and the Destroyer Lord deployed to sweep around our right flank.
We deployed with the Wave Serpents on the right and the Tervigon on the left, out of harm’s way. The Hive Guard and Warp Spider took our center so that they could react to the Necron flyers, while a thin line of Gaunts screened our army, setting up to hold the two objectives in our deployment zone. The unit on our right was placed strategically out of synapse in order to benefit from going to ground in the woods. When the objectives were flipped, we discovered that we only had a 1 and 2 point objective in our deployment zones, while the Necrons had a 3 and 4 point objective in theirs. We’d have to be aggressive to win this one.
Turn 1
The Necrons advanced across the table, the Monoliths and Destroyers leading the way. Most of their firepower was out of range, but the Destroyer’s gauss cannons stripped a hull point from my rightmost Wave Serpent.
Our turn started with the Tervigon rolling triple 6’s to spawn 18 Termagants. Sure, it couldn’t spawn any more but at least it gave us a large squad. Meanwhile the gants in front of the Tervigon moved out of the woods to try and take the central 3 point objective before the Necrons could move on it. The new giant unit of gants meanwhile moved into the woods to take their former place. My army shifted to the right, and my large squad of Dire Avengers and Farseer disembarked. In a hail of fire, all of the Destroyers, along with the Destroyer Lord, were killed. Unfortunately for us, the Destroyer Lord stood back up
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| That's a lot of gants! |
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| The Eldar counter-attack and wipe out the Destroyers. |
The Monoliths advanced again, blasting apart a number of Termagants. The Necron reinforcements arrived, zooming onto the left and blasting away at the Tervigon. Meanwhile, the Monolith blasted the Termagants advancing on the objective in the lake and summoned a squad of Immortals to help mow them down. Anrakyr took control of one of my Wave Serpents and used it to blast apart 4 Termagants (Sorry, Chris!). (Chris: Amazingly, despite Codicier Igantius’ sudden “betrayal,” my gants still held firm though and passed their fall back check.)
The Destroyer Lord advanced menacingly on the Dire Avengers…
… but assaulted my Wave Serpent instead. He completely shredded it.
We advanced again, trying to take the mid-table objectives. The Doom of Malan’tai arrived this turn, landing almost exactly where he needed to between the warriors and Anrakyr. However, he failed to cause any wounds via his spirit leech ability. The Ymgarl Genestealers also arrived this turn and assaulted the warriors on the 4 point objective. However, the opponents made some amazing saving throws and drew the combat 2 for 2. My Fire Dragons disembarked and destroyed the Monolith on the right, while my Dire Avengers concentrated their fire to kill the Destroyer Lord (again). He got back up (again).
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| The Fire Dragons destroyed one of the Monoliths. |
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| The Dire Avengers kill the Destroyer Lord for the second time. |
My Warp Spiders jumped forward and took out one of the Nightscythes, before falling back behind some cover. Once again, the Dire Avengers gun down the Destroyer Lord while my surviving Wave Serpent kills Anrakyr. They both stand back up again.
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| The Warp Spiders show their worth as an anti-aircraft unit, destroying a Night Scythe. |
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| The Necron Warriors fight the Ymgarls to a draw. |
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| That blasted Destroyer Lord takes out another Wave Serpent. |
Turn 3
The Necrons were weakened but still had a few tricks. The warriors and Anrakyr attempted to kill the Doom before it could soul leach them any further. Anrakyr used his strength 10 arrow on the Doom hoping to kill it but thankfully missed his shot entirely. Meanwhile, the Doom’s warp field held off the brunt of the Necron warriors. The remaining Night Scythe zoomed laterally across the table.
The Trygon arrived this turn, burrowing up near the Necron Warriors in the rear, to hopefully wipe out the Warriors. This proved to be completely unnecessary as our opponent failed his leadership roll for the Warriors spectacularly, allowing the Doom to wipe out the Warrior unit and get 6 wounds in the process, bringing him up to 7 wounds total. He then turned to shoot the immortals which were sitting on the central objective and blew up two with his Cataclysm ability, netting a loss of 1 wound. The Termagants advancing towards the two point objective failed their instinctive behavior test and were forced to lurk back into the woods towards the menacing Destroyer Lord. My Warp Spiders jumped across the table to attack the last Nightscythe, but the Hive Guard killed it first. The Warp Spiders, along with everything else in the center of the table, fired at the Immortals and managed to almost wipe them out. Unfortunately they managed to get back a decent number of them. Meanwhile the last remaining wave serpent fired at Anrakyr, who got back up after he was killed! The Fire Dragons ran toward the Monolith but couldn’t get in range. The Genestealers, finally remembering that they were supposed to be elite assault troops, won combat with the Warriors and killed them with a sweeping advance.
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| The Hive Guard take down the second Night Scythe, freeing up the Warp Spider to fire on the Immortals. |
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| The Ymgarls wipe out the Warriors. |
Turn 4
The Immortal squads from the Nightscythes came on from the back table edge and blazed away at the Ymgarl Stealers on the objective, killing all but one. The Monolith blasted the Hive Guard, but couldn’t kill any of the monstrous warriors. Meanwhile, Anrakyr teleported to the central objective (he was a scoring unit due to his Warlord Trait). Our opponent hoped to grab as many objectives as possible with the clock running down. Meanwhile the Destroyer Lord assaulted the termagants in the woods. He beat them and broke them but was unable to sweep them.
Time was running short, so we just had to secure our victory. The Warp Spiders, being scoring in this mission, jumped to hold the 3 point objective in the Necron deployment zone while the last surviving Ymgarl Genestealer contested their 4 point objective. My Fire Dragons ran within 6” of the last Monolith and fired their fusion guns, but I rolled this:
It survived, but it was still a clear victory for us. We managed to wipe out the Immortals and Anrakyr on the central objective, pouring all our remaining firepower into them. Meanwhile, the dire avengers finally made short work of the Destroyer Lord. Thankfully, this time neither lord got back up. The gants near the objective on our right rallied, somehow, and gave us the 1 point objective in our zone.
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| The final board. |
We got 10 points for the win and 4 points for bonus objectives (holding 2 table quarters, having more surviving scoring units, and have all our HQs surviving). It was a great way to start the tournament, but it meant that we would be paired up against the best teams from then on.
Lessons Learned:
1) Wave Serpents are amazing against the right targets. They simply mauled the Destroyers, which would have caused a lot of problems for all our Tyranid infantry.
2) In circumstances like this, were there are large numbers of enemy troops on the table, it is absolutely worth disembarking the Dire Avengers early to help take them out.
3) Chris: Synapse is both a boon and at the same time a curse. Without synapse the low leadership of the gants really becomes a problem if you want them to move anywhere, however being out of synapse greatly increases their survivability when they are lurking.