LoT Battle Report: Round 1: CSM v Tyranids

So Round 1 was against Ben Medbury who ended up placing 6th. His army was nicely painted and had some very nice custom banners. Army list was something like 2x2 Oblits, 3x10 CSM in Rhinos (2 were melta, 1 flamer w/Pfist), Dread, Kharn, Zerkers w/Pfist in LR. The first mission was all about getting into your enemy’s deployment zone with the secondary objective being 3 objectives up the midline of the board. I was a wee bit nervous entering the game having my first tournament game in…well yonks and knowing all of you would accept nothing less than 5 wins 0 losses and a plethora of headless corpses as I rage against comp… So to the battle (you can click on all of the pictures to get a bigger picture btw).

He won the roll off and decided to go first deploying his Oblits in opposite corners on top of buildings and his mech forces in the middle of the field where he could control the objectives and move in either direction if I refuse flanked. I refuse flanked to give him limited options on his far Oblits but needing to move into midfield for objectives would give him the range needed regardless. I deployed around a trench like thing to gain as much cover as possible with my Tyrant holding the center line as much as possible. Raveners were deep striking.

Deployment:

Turn 1 wasn’t too eventful as he moved forwards, popped smoke and dropped a couple wounds off a Tervigon with his Oblits. I spawned some Gants (pooped out on the left Tervigon) and started layering for what I assumed would be the inevitable Zerker/CSM assault. My Hive Guard were in range so I catalysed the front two gant Ranks and was able to explode one Rhino.

Turn One:

Turn 2 saw Ben move his CSM up some more and plonk his Dreadnought right in midfield to protect his CSM from any assaults which came along. His Oblits were able to drop my left Tervigon down to 2 wounds. I started to slowly move my MC up whilst still protecting them with Gant shields. I swung a Gant squad out towards the Land Raider to discourage a LR assault on anything but the Hive Tyrant (Lash whips FTW?) and cast Catalyst on 2 frontline gant squads again. My other Tervigon produced more Gants and I actually ran out of models…(time to kill some gants!). My Hive Guard were able to explode the other Rhino and luckily Immobilise the Dread. T-Fexes didn’t do much… I then threw one FNP gant squad at the CSM in midfield and thanks to trailing gants was able to get posion/adrenal and was able to down a couple of CSM whilst losing a few Gants myself. Combat ensued.

Turn Two:

Turn 3 saw quite a few cover saves passed on my wounded Tervigon and a couple of FNP’d gants dropped as Ben moved his remaining Rhino & LR into my deployment zone and onto an objective. This gave him 9 points in my deployment zone (scoring troops = 3 points, non-scoring = 1) and a controlled objective. I forgot to create more gants with my right Tervigon but sent one of the squads running forward in an effort to tie up the Oblits. My shooting wasn’t able to do much and took off a Dread arm + killed a couple of Marines. In my assault phase I charged another unit of Tervigon buffed Gants into the CSM which killed them but failed my charge on the Oblits (who were about 7” away).

Beginning Turn Four:

Pictures become scare from this point as we got interrupted for paint scoring. His Oblits flamed away a whole squad of Gants and he tied up a couple of other squads of Gants in midfield with his CSM. His LR & remaining Rhino CSM stayed put and his shooting Oblits couldn’t take down the 2 wound Tervigon (he’s made a lot of cover saves at this point). My turn saw my Raveners deep strike near the Gant combat in midfield and my Hive Guard finally dropped the final Rhino. On the right hand side the unwounded and unpooped Tervigon moved forward with Gants & the T-Fex to attempt to flood his deployment zone. In the assault phase I tied up the Oblits on the right with some Gants. The CSM/Gant combat continued.

If the game had ended Turn 5 it would of most likely have been a draw. As it was…the game kept on going after this turn. He attempted to kill small squads of Termagants with his Raider/Oblits but he only managed to drop a single 2 man squad. Gogo cover. Both combats continued at a merry pace. My shooting was pretty ineffectual though I finally dropped a wound from an Oblit (with non-ID weapons). My Tyrant & Raveners were able to finish off the CSM combat in the middle and more Gants moved towards Ben’s deployment zone.

Turn 6 saw little action as Ben again attempted to stop as many Gants from scoring as possible whilst not moving his guys out of my deployment zone. In Turn 6 I took the heavy offensive though. At the end of his combat phase I was able to drop his final Oblit on the right in combat and during my movement phase moved my wounded Tervigon & Hive Guard towards the immob’d dreadnought though my shooting would fail to kill it (last DCCW was removed though). My unwounded Tervigon & rest of the gants moved as quickly as they could into Ben’s deployment zone (the Tervigon has been pooping away all game btw) whilst the T-Fex down south checked out the CSM in my deployment zone. The Raveners also fleeted towards the remaining two Oblits to attempt to kill them in assault though this was unlikely due to power fists… Combat saw his Dreadnought exploded by my Tervigon (explosion wounded the tervigon…taking him down to 1W) and the Tervigon consolidated onto the objective. The southern T-Fex charged the CSM squad and dragged them out of my DZ but only managed one kill so they didn’t flee (pic at top of post). The Raveners charged 10” inflicted 2 rends and 5 wounds…4 fails later and the Oblits were dead but not before they Pfisted my guys into a pulp.

Turn Six:

As turn 7 starts all Ben has left are his Zerks, Kharn, LR & some CSM whilst I have complete domination of the board and 22 points in his deployment zone. We play out the final turn where he is able to crush my Tyrannofex in combat but my charging Hive Guard are able to kill a couple CSM which means I killed over 75% of his army. Game ends with me holding two objectives and contesting one and having more points in Ben’s deployment zone than he had in mine. 19 points for me out of a possible 20, good start.

This was a good game and thanks to the length I was able to pull out a large victory. If the game had ended on T5 it would have been a draw but as I silenced his guns the green & white tide overwhelmed him and a lot of gants ended up in his deployment zone. I thought he should of used his LR & Zerkers a lot more aggressively and he later told me he was trying to wrap around my army but didn’t want to assault my Tyrant and the gants hugging the Tervigon/Hive Guard were preventing an assault on them. As the game wore on he thought 9 pts in my deployment zone would be enough. I think if he had pushed me more where the Dreadnought was with his whole CSM force I’d of been in much more trouble. As it was, I was able to send single Gant squads at him until I could bring in a decisive blow. This also allowed me to advance upfield as I knew if I could get Gants/Tervigon into his DZ, I’d have a lot more points than him. Problem with this would of been the inevitable TMC assault but that's what these type of Nid lists are all about.

Sorry about the lack of pics towards the end. Ben was a great opponent and we had a crowd at the end o.O. He’d heard about 3++ which was nice and we chatted about later in the day and Sunday. In the end this was the only loss Ben suffered so go me ^^. Good game mate and well-played!