Thursday, April 1, 2010

Witch hunters vs Tyranids, 3/18/10

Played a game vs my brother Matt on a bit ago (yeah, really far behind). Matt is an occasional 40K player. He owns a decent amount of Tyranid models, and actually loves painting them, but I haven't been around a lot the last couple of months to actually play him. We finally got a chance to get a game in (and hopefully will get more!).

So my list. I don't have my desired list finished, but regardless, I wouldn't go that route against Matt. He doesn't really know much about how to play the game (and to be honest, neither do I), and really isn't taking an optimized list against me- just random things he likes. This means I took a lot of random things. Why not?

My list (2000 pts):
Canoness w/ bolt pistol, power weapon, book of st. lucius
-5 Celestian Retinue w/ 2 meltaguns, Sister superior w/ bolt pistol, close combat weapon
-Immolator w/ extra armor, smoke launchers
Grey Knight Grand Master w/ 5 Grey Knight Terminator Retinue, 1 with TH/SS, 1 with an Incinerator
Inquisitor (WH) w/ Bolt Pistol, Power Weapon, Psi-tracker,
-Veteran Guardsmen w/ flamer, VG w/ melta-gun, Penitent, 2 Sages
Vindicare Assassin
5 Celestians w/ 2 Meltaguns
5 Inquisitorial Storm troopers w/ 2 meltaguns
10 Battle Sisters
10 Battle Sisters
10 Sisters w/ Heavy Flamer, Flamer, Rhino w/ Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers
5 Dominions w/ 4 Flamers, VSS w/ Melta Bombs, Immolator w/ extra armor, smoke launchers
5 Seraphim w/ 2 hand-flamers, VSS w/ power weapon, bolt pistol
Immolator w/ Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers
Lance Strike
5 Retributors w/ 2 Multi-Meltas, 2 Heavy Bolters

I don't have Matt's list. You'll see kind of what he took in the pictures, however.

I have never been good against Tyranids, mainly because I have poor target priority vs them. You'll see in this game.

We rolled Spearhead Deployment, and of course Kill Points (I hate kill points :-\).

Deployment:

Matt deployed first:


Pretty crowded!

Mine:


Significantly less crowded. I was hoping to react to Matt's first turn, destroy a unit a turn with combined shooting and templates, and then win that way. Matt had a LOT fewer kill points is his army than I did, so I needed to be careful.

Turn 1:
Matt moves forward. Shooting accomplishes nothing, but his Carnifexes run up 6" towards my line.

I readjust, pulling the models closest to the Carnifi back a little, while moving the models on my right flank forward (towards a unit of Gargoyles). Shooting kills 9 Gargoyles (leaving 1!), and the Grey Knights shoot and kill 2 Genestealers.



Turn 2:
Deathleaper appears behind my sisters in the forest, the rest of his army advances on me. Imagine that.



Scary looking view from my side of the board.

Matt manages to wound my assassin with his warriors shooting. He then assaults the closes Sister squad with his 3 Carnifex squad, and completely wipes it out.

I move into position to do (hopefully) do some damage.



I kill the last gargoyle, a Carnifex, and a whole unit of Termagants with shooting.

The Grey Knight Terminators assault the Carnifex Brood. My Grand Master gets his force weapon to go off (2,3, and 5!) and kills one, the rest of the squad kills the other one. Really? All that killing for a single kill point? Oi.



Turn 3:
Tyranids continue to move up. As if that's a surprise. Tyranid shooting claims a single Sister.

Hormagaunts assault the Vindicare Assassin and an Immolator (they end up killing the assassin with no losses). The Hive Tyrant and the Genestealers assault the Grey Knight Terminators (and wipe them out, taking no losses :-\). Deathleeper kills 2 Battle Sisters, takes a wound in return, and the sisters hold.


A lot more sparse on my side of the board.

My entire army, in return, unloads on the Genestealers and the Hormagaunts. I wipe out the former, and take a huge chunk out of the latter. Not looking good.



Turn 4:
Tyranids continue to advance. Shooting kills two more sisters. In Assault, the Hive Tyrant assaults and wipes out my Retributor squad. The Tyranid Warriors assault a unit of sisters, and wipe it out. The remaining Hormagaunts assault my Celestian squad with the Canoness, killing all the Celestians, but the Canoness escapes (but is too close, and ends up running off the board). Deathleaper keeps fighting the sisters, trading a wound. Overall, not a pleasant turn.

aaaaand so on. I'll summarize the rest of the game. The rest of my stuff dies, and I kill the Deathleaper. Really. That's all I killed. I got crushed.

Afterthoughts:
Well, another loss at 40K. Seems to happen quite a bit. A few things I learned. First, I need to stop taking useless choices. The Assassin has never done me any good (although I think they are just so cool), and neither does the Orbital Strikes. I mean, I like taking fun things, but they are always just a huge point waste. Naked Sister squads really do me no good either. If only I had more Immolators assembled.

Second, I need better target priority skills. I focused a lot on killing Carnifexes, even knowing that I would be able to do a lot of damage in close combat. I really should've killed Genestealers. Also, I didn't fire anything at the Warriors the entire game. After Turn 4, they killed a unit a turn. I didn't have anything left to stop them. Those Meltagun shots should've been hammering them from the start.

Things to learn next game (sometime next week, hopefully). Need to assemble stuff to provide a better game!

4 comments:

  1. Some advice?

    - Lose the Grey Knights, Inquisitor, Assassin, Lance Strike, Seraphim squad (5-man squads never do anyone any good, ever) and Retributors. There, now you have points to work with.

    - Add in an Imperial Guard infantry platoon mounted in Heavy flamer+multi laser chimeras, some Heavy Weapons Squads (preferably ACs, maybe a Lascannon or two for anti-tank). Do NOT get out of the tanks.

    - Foot sisters are fail. Mount your 10-girl squads in either Chimeras or Repressors. Download the Imperial Armor update PDF's from Forge World for free Repressor stats; it's a Rhino with a Heavy Flamer , a storm bolter, and 6+1 fire points. NEVER GET OUT OF THE THE TANKS.

    - Drive away from the Carnifexes, and slay the little monsters with fire.

    - You want some great reading on how to improve your game? Check out

    http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/

    Read the articles, drink the wisdom. You won't be disappointed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Definitely need to drop some of the list. Drop the chaff, and upgrade the useful parts with more transports and special weapons. Part of that is just a lack of models assembled. Hopefully by next game I'll have a few more finished and ready to go. I love the Grey Knights though- but they really don't fit the style of the list otherwise :(.

    An infantry platoon is definitely on my 'to get' list. The extra bodies will be a huge help. The ranged firepower will probably help a lot more.

    The hope is to mount as many squads in Immolators as possible. The Battle sister squads will be changed to stormtroopers in Immolators, and the sisters will be used in the non-troop slots. That's the goal at least. Still, requires more Immolators :(.

    I won't be able to use the Repressor, sadly. I love it, but I don't think people here are willing to let me use a Forge World model/rules.

    Staying in the tanks... hmm... that might be advice I need to learn to use. I've always imagined tanks are just a way to get my girls in range quicker. Maybe that's just the wrong idea. hmmmmmm..... I will definitely give that a shot next game.

    I think ignoring the Carnifexes is good advice as well. I was VERY pre-occupied with them to start, which really threw me off of tackling the things I needed to win. *sigh. I'm just not that good at 40K, I think ;).

    I actually do subscribe to Stelek's site. I certainly TRY to harden my lists by his advice, but I don't have the money to build the armies to mech-up enough. At least not all my armies. Hopefully the sisters will continue to slowly grow. Then maybe I won't keep getting beat so bad.

    ReplyDelete
  3. To Asmo

    Firstly welcome to Dampf's Modelling Page. I have checked back on your Blog and wanted to comment on the great Ice or Winter terrain. I know it's the GW Gaming Table, but this is the first time I have seen it painted as Ice. It looks great, very well done.

    Tony
    http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Tony!

    I wish I could claim credit for it (since I prefer winter terrain anyway, to be honest). But it's just one of the tables at the local Games Workshop (in Glen Burnie, MD, US). The tables there are pretty nice, but not as good as the fully sculpted tables they used to have (including a much better winter table!).

    Also, I liked your blog, I'm really really really trying to push myself to paint and work harder on my miniatures, so following blogs (using google reader, which makes my life so easy) which feature great painting/modeling really help to inspire me :).

    ReplyDelete