He's been using the Nids for a few months now, has done a lot of Theory-hammer, and likes to use a lot of unexpected Nid tricks that you don't read about on the internet very often...and above all, is an incredible player that thinks things through far better than I do. I was not very confident going in to this game!
I showed up with only my 1750 and "old" 2000 (with Incubi). Way back here I discuss switching out the Incubi for some Trueborn in Venoms at 2k, and we decided to test this...I had an issue getting the Venoms I ordered from an Online Vendor, so was using some of Sean's Storms as Venoms.
As it turns out, Sean is also doing some theory-testing of Nid builds, so was proxying heavily...quarters are Termigants, paper ovals are Tervigons, Lictors are Tyrant Guard, the Cronos Pain Engine is The Swarmlord. Probably some other proxy too, but you'll get the gist
We did a Nova-style game, where the deployment was Dawn of War, the Primary was Objectives; Secondary Quarters; and lastly Kill Points.
Sean's list, as I remember it:
The Swarmlord with 3 Tyrant Guard
Tervigon
2x 2 Hive Guard
10 Termigants
Tervigon (Troop)
~15 Genestealers + Broodlord
2x Tyranofexen with The Big Gun
I don't know what addon body parts or bodily functions all the big monsters had, forgive my ignorance, but I don't even know what most of them do anyway!
I was using this:
Baron Sathonyx
Haemonculus
3 Trueborn (Blasters) Venom (xtra Cannon)
3 Trueborn (Blasters) Venom (xtra Cannon)
16 Hellions (1 upgrade to Helliarch)
3 Wracks in Venom (xtra Cannon)
5 Warriors (Blaster) Venom (xtra Cannon)
5 Warriors (Blaster) Venom (xtra Cannon)
5 Warriors (Blaster) Venom (xtra Cannon)
3x 6 Reavers (2 Heat Lances)
and The Ubiquitous 3 Ravagers (Dark Lances, Flickerfields)
I'm still really undecided on having the Incubi or the two Trueborn units. Against some opponents, the Incubi are better; against others, the Trueborn. It's judging which is which, and deciding which I need the help against that's the trick for me!
Sean's list looked to be trying to shit out more little gaunt units than I could get rid of while the big T6 meanies kill me. I figured I needed to shut down his ability to pop my airplanes (Tyranofex and Hive Guard), take away troops so he can't score (Stealers, Gants & Tervigon) and not get in to melee with The Swarmlord. I intended to ignore that deathstar, as it's painfully slow and can absorb a fuck-ton of punishment. The Genestealers I figured I'd drive the Hellions at, who should be able to beat them up on the assault.
My memory is fuzzy here (I was choking down some McDonalds and trying to get my guys out of their box), but I think Sean won the roll and chose to go first. He deployed some Gants and both Tervigons (one troop, one HQ). The Troop Terv was way off on the left of the board, while the gants and other were just to the right of middle.
I deployed my Hellions scattered around and up in a ruin. Then he deployed the giant Stealer unit...and managed to get them about 14-15" away all out of line of sight, ready to hit me first. Yikes! I tried to seize to prevent early disaster, but failed.
His first turn the stealers moved up ready to hit the Hellions. The rest of the bugs walked on, with the Swarmlord coming in on the right of his line, the Tyranofex and Hive Guard coming on centrally. The Troop tervigon made some gants and pooped out, while the HQ one (near my Hellions) made more, too. The stealers needed a 3 or so on their run, and got it with ease, and smashed in to the Hellions. We went simul, but the Tervigon had given the Stealers FNP, I think I only killed 2 as they hit me, and killed all but a few of the Hellions, who along with the Haemonculus ran like bitches, getting away luckily.
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| The Genestealers surprise the unwary Hellions! |
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| The Big Bugs look for something to kill! |
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| The Hellions fight back as best they can... |
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| ...but few are left standing, the rest eaten by bugs! |
So I have one thing going for me here, and that's the Haemi being stuck with the Hellions means they move slow, and can't go over other models. I'd rolled the free pain point drug (so didn't need to have the Haemi with them anyway, but was on auto-pilot), so they had 2 at this point. If I could somehow get them to stay on a turn and finish off a unit for their 3rd Pain Point, they'd become Fearless and stay in it!
So to that end, I brought on vehicles to form a wall that they couldn't run through, forcing them to run length-wise down the table. As six Venoms lined up to shoot at the Genestealers, the Reaverrs came on with Bladevane attacks, killing many Genestealers.
The Venoms opened fire, all finding the bugs despite the dark, and sadly with a round of bad dice on Sean's part wiped them out before the Hellions could shoot! Damn!! Still, I was rid of a big threat...not a bad trade, really.
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| Where'd all the Genestealers go?! |
On Sean's second turn, the Big Bugs with Big Guns took aim, and got Immobilized and Weapon Destroyed on two different Venoms. The Hive Guard were still out of range, so ran up behind the building at the middle of the table. The HQ Tervigon made some more gants, and those along with the ones made last turn charged in to one of the Reaver squads. Sadly for the Gants, Reavers with FNP are no joke, killing several gants and winning combat, killing a few more.
On my second turn, I saw no good way to get the Hellions their third pain point, so gave up my wall. The Trueborn moved forward 12 and got out, hoping to gun down some big bugs. One of the unengaged Reavers did Bladevanes on the gant screen in front of the Swarmlord, while another just zipped over to mid-table to threaten hive guard or the other tervigon and gants on the left. Shooting did what I hoped...the HQ Tervigon was destroyed, which killed off the last of the Swarmlords bubblewrap. One of they T-Fex was destroyed. And two of the Hive Guard (one from each unit) were destroyed. The Baron jumped in to the melee with the Bikes. One unit of Gants was destroyed, the other survived with just a few models, and the Baron was unable to get in to the fight , so consolidated behind one of the Venoms.
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| Venoms eat the Termigants; Trueborn move to mid-table. |
Sean's third turn started with the Tyrant Guard shuffling over to try a "weak" assault on one of the Reaver squads, hoping to hit them with just one bug and stay tied up thru my shooting. The remaining Hive Guard and T-Fex were able to stun a Ravager, and took out two Troop Venoms! Ouch! The Assault went better than Sean had hoped, he killed 3 of my bikes, the other three fled and got away, rallying next turn.
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| Venoms dropping like flies! Bye-bye, Hellions! |
My third turn, the Reavers moved around to get shots on and assault the last Hive Guard, along with the Baron. The Hellions finally ran away. The Ravagers moved to shoot at the last T-Fex. The last mobile Troop unit went Flat Out in position to hit the left objectives or middle. My Splinter firepower was greatly reduced, I had some shots at the Tyrant-star (for lack of anything else in range) that did a few wounds, the T-Fex took 3 wounds, and the Hive Guard were wiped out.
We were running out of time, so our 4th turn was a quick abbreviated one. His Tyrant-star hit Reavers and Trueborn, wiping them out and consolidating towards the middle objective but fell short. The surviving Gants bubblewrapped the back left objective, while the troop Tervigon sat on the bottom left.
I had the bottom right objective, ran troops on to the middle objective, and contested the Tervigon objective with a flat-out Venom for a 2-1 win!
Yeah! Then I took one of Seans' Manufactorums! I'm now up to 9 tiles...I need 10 to win. Sean's back down to 8, so I've got a slim chance. I need to get a game in this weekend while he's away at Templecon! :)
Thanks for the great game, Sean!
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