I went down to Parramatta Games Workshop on Sunday to meet up with some of the readers/writers on 3++ and ended up playing against Messenger of Death's Black Templars twice. The 1st game (which we got pictures of courtesy to Jason) was a white wash. Tyranids dropped four tanks in T1 (out of 14) and I had a turn where I didn't fail a single cover save. Dice work like that sometimes. It was capture & control, spearhead where I won the right to choose who went first. Que mech going before foot armies so I can actually hold objectives but in the end, the combination of excellent shooting, MCs in combat and an outflanking Tervigon made it 2-0 heading into Turn 5 and we called it there.
MoD had never really played against a proper Tyranid list so learned a lot of things in that game (i.e. Hive Guard > you). Combined with really good dice on my part he only managed to drop some Gants (which kept coming back), the Prime and a single Hive Guard. Onto game 2...
Dawn of War, Seize Ground, 4 objectives and once again I won to choose who went first. Step forward please Black Templars. Whilst doing this on both occasions gave MoD a better chance of killing my stuff before it got a chance to shoot which would ultimately limit my output against 14 tanks, I needed to be able to hold objectives in both cases and one would not expect a Tyranid army to drop 14 tanks (including 6 rhinos and 3 speeders) to stop tank shocks on objectives I held. So by going second he could tank shock to his heart's content and I could still do something about it in my turn.
With that in mind Game 2 was much better than Game 1. My dice were still pretty good but MoD's movement was much better if still needing in improvement. The right side of the field was weight with more objectives than the middle or left so he put most of his mobile mech (Rhinos) on that side. This is fine for mech as it can easily re-mobilise (post coming soon) but he never did so I was able to hold the left objective with little trouble. With some good rolls again I was able to stop most of his mech and then engage some MCs in combat on the right. We had to end Turn 5 (we knew this going into said Turn) as the store was closing and it ended 2-0 my way. If the game had gone on it would have still likely been a Tyranid victory though more than likely the count would have been 2-1.
All in all some good games and I hope MoD learned a lot with some list advice. It was great to meet him as well as some of the other readers and see the Kirby dice in action. I'm waiting for pictures from Jason but we didn't get any of Game 2 which was far more interesting and a painted army versus grey mech is boring to look at regardless :P.
Here are the lists:
Tyranids:
Hive Tyrant w/TL-Devourers, LW/BS, Leech Life, Paroxysm, Hive Commander, Old Adversary
Tyrant Guard w/LW
Tyranid Prime w/LW/BW, Toxin Sacs, Rending Claws, Regeneration
3x2x Hive Guard
2x Tervigon w/Catalyst, Adrenal, Toxin, Cluster Spines
2x10x Termagants
2x Tyrannofex w/Rupture Cannon, Cluster Spines, Dessicator Larvae
1745 points
Black Templars:
EC w/AAC
3x Dreadnought w/Assault Cannon
3x5x Initiates w/flamer, MM, Rhino
5x Initiates w/meltagun, MM, Rhino
2x5x IST w/2x meltaguns, Rhino
2x Typhoons
1x MM/HF Speeder
2x ACLC Predators
1750 points
