Anyway, on to actual content. My FLGS ran a 2000 point tournament at the end of July. Busy as I was, the last one was immensely fun, and I wanted to see if I could repeat my previous success. With two Force Org charts allowed, I decided to let all three of my Tyrants come out to play. Apologies for any inconsistencies - I'm going on memory and saved pictures at this point.
The List
HQ:
Hive Tyrant w/ Armored Shell, TL BL devourers x2, Tyrant Guard - 300
Hive Tyrant w/ Armored Shell, TL BL devourers x2, Tyrant Guard - 300
Hive Tyrant w/ Wings, Scything talons, TL BL devourers, Toxin Sacs - 255
Elites:
2 Hive Guard - 100
Troops:
20 Termagants - 100
20 Termagants - 100
20 Termagants - 100
Tervigon w/ Stinger Salvo, Dominion, Catalyst, Toxin Sacs - 185
Tervigon w/ Stinger Salvo, Dominion, Catalyst, Toxin Sacs - 185
Fast Attack:
20 Gargoyles - 120
6 Raveners w/ Scything talons and Rending claws - 210
Heavy Support:
1 Biovore - 45
Pretty similar to the last list, but swapping out a Biovore and my Warriors for a winged Tyrant. I haven't been impressed with the Warriors in many of my games - while they've been useful, the core list has plenty of troops, and they don't add much in the way of speed or offensive capability. I was hoping the Tyrant would do both.
Game 1
Here I am facing off again against a familiar army - Thomas and his Black (Red) Templar.The scenario used Vanguard strike deployment, with 5 objectives placed in an X pattern across the board.
Round 2 was an altogether different beast. My opponent, Dave, fielded 6 Wave Serpents, (with a mix minimum sized Dire Avenger and Guardian squads plus one group of Wraithguard), 2 Fire Prisms, and a Farseer escorted by Jetbikes. The scenario was old fashioned Dawn of War and and kill points.
Deployment, shortly before Eldar turn 1. I knew the Hive Guard would be essential to stripping hull points from the Serpents (and high value targets), but there was no LOS blocking terrain for them to hide behind. |
Tyranid turn 3, after the shooting. There seem to be a few Tyranids missing... |
The beginning of Eldar turn 4. The Eldar are behaving as I predicted... but there aren't nearly as many Tyranids alive as I was hoping. |
At this point things were looking grim. I was pretty far behind on kill points and surrounded, but I was hoping if I could kill off the units in the upper right and keep my Tyrants alive, there was still some hope. I also lucked out in that that Raveners failed to wipe out the Wraithguard in my assault phase, and would likely finish the job in the Eldar turn. This gave me the chance to bag another kill point and potentially catch any vehicles that tried to sneak around the flank.
Eldar turn 5... we're completely surrounded. There's no way they can all escape! |
The above picture pretty neatly sums up how the rest of the game went. The remaining Tyrands rushed the right flank and tore it to pieces, but it wasn't enough. The remaining Eldar units ground me down, with my last unit (the Warlord Tyrant) finally going down in turn 6. The game ended in a 17 -6 route for the Tyranids.
Game 3
This one ended up being a Tyranid mirror match, on both my table and the one adjoining. This scenario was Hammer and Anvil, with 2 player - placed objectives. My opponent, Andrew, fielded a walking Tyrant with TL devourers, a winged Tyrant with the same, a Harpy, a Tervigon, Trygon, two units of three Zoanthropes(one walking, one in a spore) 3 Hive Guard, and a large group of devourer-armed Termagants.
My turn 3, I think. Unfortunately, my Hive Guard lost the game of chicken and got nuked by his. |
Andrew's Zoanthropes and Trygon both came in on his turn. His Flyrant Vector struck mine on the way to killing my Biovores (which it miraculously failed to do). Even more miraculously, it was grounded by Termagant fire, and promptly tarpitted for the rest of the game. In the center his walking Tyrant, Tervigon, and Hive Guard advanced towards the Chaos shrine in the center while the Trygon made his appearance directly behind my line. Realizing the other Tyrant had Toxin sacs and he didn't, my Warlord bravely hid behind a spawned group of Termagants and joined his clone in covering the Trygon in devourer fire. Meanwhile my Flyrant continued forward, shooting up the foot slogging Zoanthropes and hoping that the opposing Harpy was feeling lucky.
The rest of the game consisted of me locking his units in assault or outright killing them. One Tervigon and the remnants of the Gargoyles stopped the surviving Zoanthropes cold, his Flyrant stayed locked in assault with Gaunts, his Harpy shared the same fate after being grounded by a lucky Stinger Salvo, and his Tervigon was eventually bracketed by both Tyrants and torrented down. Ultimately my objective was surrounded by Termagants, while his was unclaimed (although still vehemently Denied by the walking).
Overall I was pretty happy going 2-1 and placing around 6th place. Adam, my final round opponent from the last tournament, placed 4th after battling back from a draw in the first round. For the life of me I cannot remember who won third place. Second place went to the Eldar player from my round 2 game, who barely eked out a win against Tau in round 3. First place went to a Sisters of Battle force with Grey Knight allies, who faced off against Space Wolves.
As far as the list goes, I was pretty disappointed with the Flying Tyrant. While speedy, it was extremely fragile compared to its walking counterparts. In the first game it was able to pull its weight, but it was relatively useless in the 2nd game, and more an annoyance in the 3rd. Part of its lack of impact in the 2nd game was user error, but only part. The first time it failed a grounding test it was as good as dead against that much high strength shooting.
I'm still not sure what I might have done differently in Game 2. In retrospect it might have been better to send the Raveners and Flying Tyrant into the left flank to try and corral the Eldar more effectively. Unfortunately I didn't think of it at the time, and I'm still not sure if it would have made a difference. I still don't have satisfactory answer to the amount of firepower that many Wave Serpents can put out. More Hive Guard are part of the answer, but they won't be enough on their own...