Tournament Overview

So, it's been a busy summer with far less 40k news than I'd like. In my off moments I've been trying to perfect the Tyranids and experiment with various factions of Chaos - more on that later. The plan to do a unit by unit breakdown of the 'Nids seems pretty pointless now, as we're about two months from a new codex. 

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.

The start of Tyranid Turn one. The venerable dreadnought came out, let loose with its heavy flamer, then realized it was about to get dogpiled. Not pictured are a 5 man Tactical squad hiding in the top right building  and two full sized squads in Rhinos sweeping out of the Marine deployment zone and aiming for the (off-camera) lower right objective. 

The basic plan was to sweep forward, engulf whatever units tried to take the center, and hold the objective on the hill, the one by the dilapidated Bastion, and the one in the upper left guarded (but not held by) the Terminators and Landspeeder. I hoped that I would be able to ignore the flanking squads going for my rightmost objective and that my opponent wouldn't risk getting pulled off the objective by an assault.

The start of Templar turn 2. Between Vector Strikes, devourer shots, and Impaler shots, I assumed I'd have an easy First Blood on the Dreadnought. He took maybe a Hull Point, and I was forced to send in the Raveners to keep him from locking a Termagant brood and potentially taking away an objective.

Above my opponent is in the process of trying to thin out my Gargoyle assault screen. This was probable a mistake on his part. The squad inside could have tipped the balance in the center, but spent several turns waiting for a clear lane that never came. It also ensured that some of his heaviest weapons were plinking away at 6 point models. 

Tyranid turn 2, at some point in the shooting phase. Here the Templar deployment and timidity comes back to haunt them. The Flyrant is set to finish off the 5 man squad on his home objective, his flanking squads have run headlong into a Tyrant, and his hammer unit (LRC and squad) still have no good target in the center.

Skipping ahead a few turns. The Templar have been ground down unit by unit.  The LRC squad finally got out, but was unable to do anything but kill Termagants and Gargoyles (although it did destroy the squad I'd hoped to place on the Terminators' objective. The two flanking squads were ultimately caught between Hive Tyrants, while their target objective was taken by Gaunts.

Game 2

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.

My plan was relatively simple; bunch up in the center, wait to see which flank he tries to deny, and then push forward and trap as many of his skimmers as I can between the board edge and my MCs. It only partly worked.The Hive Guard were the first unit to die, torn apart by two Serpents firing their Shuriken cannons, Shields, and Scatterlasers. The rest of the Eldar force then concentrated on taking out the Termagants and on the left and the Gargoyles.

Tyranid turn 3, after the shooting. There seem to be a few Tyranids missing...

I hit back as hard as I could, but it wasn't enough. The entire swarm advanced, with the Tyrants trying to form cordon in the center. Between the 3 of them, they managed to bring down a pair of Wave Serpents on my opening turn. I gambled that the Flyrant would be able to tank a significant amount of his firepower. It didn't pay off. Instead of absorbing firepower, the Dire Avenger squad that had had its ride shot out from under it grounded her and the similarly disembarked Wraithguard finished her off. The Eldar vehicles began their shift to my left while methodically scything down units for kill points. 

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.

Deployment. Not pictured are a Trygon and a mycetic spore filled with Zoanthropes. Andrew, my opponent, was nervous about his synapse line, so placed his pretty far forward, where whatever was holding it could still support the units pushing into my deployment zone. Mine is hiding with some biovores behind the ruin in the top left.

Once again there was a simple plan: hold my objective, stop the other swarm with superior numbers in no man's land, and make a play for my opponent's objective if the opportunity presents itself. 

The end of my turn 1. I've made a hole in his devourer Gaunts on the left with my Biovores, but neither of us is close enough to really hurt the other. The Tyrant on the left managed to kill the Prime guarding the Zoanthropes across from him, but that was about it. Note the two units of Hive Guard on the right, both trying to stay 31" away from one another in the hopes that the other guy moves into range first.

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.

Final shot of the match, sometime in turn 4. The Trygon, despite losing half its wounds to the Tyrants' shooting, was on the verge of breaking free of the Termagants, and was only killed when the Tervigon joined the combat. Both the Raveners and Flyrant were eventually killed by the opposing Hive Guard and Tyrant, while my Tyrants and surviving Termagants held the line.

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...