Blog Wars 3 - Game 2 - Webway DE vs. Tyranids

My opponent for round two was Phil Waghorn who Matt and I had met at the GW Doubles when our Bloody Wolves had hammered their Tyranids. From practice games against Scott's Tyranids I knew that if I got the units I want when I want them I can make a mess of a Tyranid army as I usually have the initiative advantage. It would still be a hard slog and the Cleanse mission is difficult to take many points from without tabling your opponent. The advantage of this mission for my list is that the deployment really lends itself to webways as you can easily position them right near the centre. This coupled with the fact that nids list needs to come towards me to be effective meant I felt pretty confident. I again rolled a 4 for combat drugs which helped!

Phil's list had a hive tyrant, 2 zoanthropes, the deathleaper, a tervigon with termagants, 5 warriors with boneswords, a carnifex, mawloc and trygon. He kept the deathleaper in reserve and deployed the rest of his army spread across his quarter with the zoanthropes in the centre supported by the trygon and followed by the tyrant. Phil stole the initiative and advanced his army forwards. The trygon spawned 16 termagants but would produce no more. The zoanthropes failed one of their psychic tests and missed with their warp blast with their lance out of range. The mawloc burrowed to emerge next turn.

The haemos hopped out and dropped their webways as the venoms retreated to range with their trueborn still inside. The combination of the venoms and trueborn was enough to put wounds on the trygon and bring the carnifex down to a single wound which it only just held onto thanks to poor dice rolls from the splinter cannons. The tyranids responded with the carnifex trying to shoot down the venom but when that failed it ripped into it with it's massive claws. The zoanthropes again found themselves unable to use their warp lance as the venom's Night Shields protected it. The trygon made short work of the haemonculus whilst the other haemo was gunned down by some termagants. The mawloc emerged on top of the trueborn's venom but scattered off target.

A squad of reavers emerged from the portal and turbo boosted over the termagants who'd killed the haemonculus reducing them to a single lonely tyranid. The talos positioned itself to try and charge the recently emerged mawloc. The cronos incinerated some of the hormagaunts giving the wyches a pain token and then charged in to combat with the remaining gaunts resulting in a stalemate. The wyches decided to charge the trygon which had been reduced to a single wound by the trueborn/venom and finished it off with their agoniser giving the zoanthropes a reprieve. The other trueborn gunned down the carnifex but having to travel around the wreckage of the venom meant the talos couldn't prevent the mawloc from burrowing again.

The hive tyrant moved forward and used his paroxysm on the wyches that had slain the trygon. The warriors fired at the reavers and gunned a few down. The deathleaper appeared on the ledge above the venom and managed to immobilise it with its fire.

With everything but a single wych squad arriving in turn 3 I hoped this turn would tip the battle in my favour. The hellions screamed out of the portal and slammed into combat with the spawned termagants killing most off and losing a single one of their own. The newly emerged wyches went into combat with the hive tyrant after the venoms and trueborn had softened it up. They also engaged the hormagaunts to save the cronos (since the gaunts had toxin sacs and I5). The talos found itself with no targets so moved back towards the action. The trueborn hopped out of their immobilised venom and tried to instant kill the deathleaper who used it's stealth to keep it alive. The wyches managed to kill off the hive tyrant and the cronos killed off the remaining gaunt. The WS/BS 1 wyches killed off the zoanthropes despite their handicap (with help from the reavers' bladevanes). Meanwhile the wracks walked on from the board edge into cover to simply hold onto a quarter.

The mawloc emerged on top the reavers killing them all off with a perfectly timed appearance. The warriors tried to gun down some wyches but thanks to FNP they struggled. The trygon waded in on the hellion combat and despite surviving the hellions couldn't make their hit and run roll (rolling 6 twice in a row!) but it was too late for the termagants anyway.

The mawloc met a similar fate (in a similar spot) to the trygon with a combination of poisoned fire and agoniser blows easily toppling it. The wyches and wounded cronos headed in the direction of the warriors. The tervigon killed off the hellions who'd failed to get away. However, with the game reaching it's end Phil had only the deathleaper, trygon and warriors to stop me. The last squad of wyches came on from the board edge and with help from the reavers they killed off the trygon. The warriors eventually met the same fate shortly after the deathleaper giving me a tabling and maximum points. Thanks to the spawned termagants I even scored 1,830 VPs!

Conclusion

Phil didn't make a single regeneration roll for the entire game and this really hampered his monstrous creatures. With the volume of 4+ poisoned and dark light fire the big stuff wasn't hard to bring down and the tyranids reliance on CC was, once again, their undoing. Phil was pretty unlucky with his dice rolls and conversely I had more luck than I probably deserved.

The hellions were far from spectacular here with them struggling to kill termagants before the tervigon waded in. Granted FNP from the tervigon didn't help matters but they should've hit and run! The agonisers proved to be just as deadly as you'd expect with most of the combats being decided by the hekatrixes. The talos struggled to get involved in the game having come out too far from the action and being left high and dry when the mawloc burrowed.

The whole army worked well together but Dark Eldar vs Tyranids isn't really a fair fight so I can hardly claim any tactical superiority here!

With Frank Marsh and Andy Pattison holding each other to a draw on the top table after scoring 25pts each in their first game, I knew I'd be playing either Frank's wolves or Andy's IG. Neither of which would be an easy game for me.....