I enlisted my son to make up a Tyranid force for a battle as I was aching for some 'verse', and he was more than happy to comply. The first list he brought me was terrible as he still wasn't keyed into the force-building rules for 8th edition, but his second attempt was quite scary (I was proud). It consisted of 2 battalions, giving him a huge number of command points. Unfortunately, he forgot about those points and many other special rules that would have seen things go a bit different for him. But that's where training and knowledge come in! Here's what he brought:
2000 Point 'nids
Battalion (Kronos):
HQ- Prime with deathspitter and scything talons
HQ- Prime with 2 sets of scything talons
Troops- 3 units of 3 Warriors, each with 2 deathspitters, a barbed strangler, and scything talons
Troops- 1 unit of 15 Termagants
Heavy- Exocrine
Elites- 2 units of 4 Hive Guard
Battalion (Behemoth):
HQ- Swarmlord
HQ- Broodlord
Troops- 2 units of 10 Genestealers and 1 unit of 5
Heavy- Trygon
I brought a really harsh Ultramarine army, because who doesn't like beating a 12 year-old? More than anything, I wanted to see how this particular army would work out, and I was disappointed insofar as the battlefield really limited what I could do. But the army performed admirably, mostly because I have the experience to use them and some because Hellblasters are broken!!! Here's what I brought:
2000 Point Primaris Ultramarines (that's right, I'm niche-ing a monodex army!)
Battalion:
HQ- Capt Acheron
HQ- Primaris Librarian
Troops- 3 units of 5 intercessors, all armed with bolt rifles
Vanguard:
HQ- Primaris Lieutenant with pwr swd
HQ- Primaris Chaplain
Elite- Primaris Ancient
Elite- 4 Aggressors with flamestorm gauntlets
Elite- Redemptor Dreadnought with all the bells and plasma-based whistles
Transport- Repulsor with las-talon, twin lascannons, onslaught cannon, fragstorm, krakstorm, and an icarus missle pod
Spearhead:
HQ- Lieutenant with auto bolt rifle
Heavy- 3 units of 5 Hellblasters with plasma incinerators
We rolled up the mission and deployment and it turned out to be the good 'ol "Kill and 12". Excellent- I like basic. The typical secondary objectives were in play and we'd get a victory point for every unit that we destroy. As a training lesson for my son, he needed to understand the mission more than the killing potential of his force. So this opportunity with a couple of pretty hard armies was a joy to me.
The battlefield before deployment:
I have a buddy that complains at me constantly that I need more LOS-blocking terrain in our games, so I shelved the Cityfight stuff and busted out the Planetstrike terrain. That made my son very happy because he loves that stuff. See the Fortress of Redemption taking up the middle of the battlefield? That blocked everything and made a huge difference in the game. There's a reason I call this the "Battle for Benny Hill", as you'll see. And if you don't know what I'm talking about when I mention 'Benny Hill', go here.
Deployment:
I placed everything in a thin line across the front, making sure that there wasn't a 9" gap for his Trygon and Genestealers to sneak into. I put my Hellblaster cohort around the bastion and then stationed the Intercessors across the line. While I don't normally play with a wide front, I needed to show the need to account for those sneaky infiltrators and deep-strikers in the game. My son, on the other hand, concentrated his firepower to his right, hoping to pop the Repulsor that he is deathly afraid of (it's done a number to his armies in the past) and placed the Genestealers to the opposite flank, planning on using his speed to 'close the door' on me. Meanwhile, his Warriors took up station in the middle, having options. The first mistake that he made was moving his Swarmlord to the Genestealer flank. This immediately reduced the threat to me. Had Swarmie stayed in the middle, I would have played much more cautiously. Knowledge of thine enemy goes a long way...
I was lucky and won the roll-off for first turn, which I was more than happy to take advantage of. My army isn't so-called Alpha-strike, but it has the potential to be and I wanted to see how much damage it could put out.
Turn 1
In my turn, I retreated all of my Intercessors to my left, basically running away from his fastest threat. My Hellblasters up high and my Repulsor took aim at the Exocrine and brought it down to three wounds left. My dreadnought put a wound on the Swarmlord, being out of range to tap the Exocrine and finish it off. The rest of my army that could see pumped hot bolt shells and plasma into the nearest unit of Warriors and earned First Blood.
His first turn saw him rush everything forward (he never used his Hive Command ability (or whatever it's called) to get that extra movement from Swarmie, which helped me quite a bit) except his Hive Guard and Exocrine. With those, he punished my Repulsor, putting enough wounds on it to bring it down a level and halve its move. Ouch!!! Otherwise, he couldn't do much else.
Turn 2
My second turn saw me continuing to move my army away from the flank and laying down more firepower. The Hellblasters finished the Exocrine and the Repulsor took down another unit of Warriors. Intercessors either dashed for the cover of the plasma cohort or climbed onto the Fortress to shoot down a number of the Termagants. By this point, I felt like I was being cowardly, which was the smart thing to do against the xenos !
His second turn saw some more shooting coming my way, with Hive Guard putting yet more wounds on the tank and Termagants plus warriors knocking out an Intercessor. Those two wounds make a huge difference sometimes! He brought in the Trygon and subsequently failed the charge and took wounds from overwatch, but another unit of Genestealers was able to make it into the Dreadnought. Uh oh...
Turn 3
This is the turn where things really got out of hand. My army continued its advance away from the oncoming 'nid swarm, using the Fortress as a great blocker. The dreadnought retreated from the Genestealers and allowed my Intercessors to gun them down, while also gunning down a couple more next to the Trygon, wounding the Trygon, and preparing for another charge. Intercessors leapt form the fortress and attacked the gaunts, finishing them off and getting more Kill Points. The tank continued to glide toward the shooting line and put some firepower into the Warriors, but did nothing of note. I figured the 13th's luck was finally running out...
His turn was horrible. His Hive Guard put a huge amount of firepower into the tank and brought it to one wound. Even Warriors lending their firepower couldn't finish it off. His Trygon and Genestealers tried to spit at and charge the Dreadnought, only to fail and take more wounds. The Psychic Phase saw Swarmie and the Broodlord Perils and take wounds. To make matters worse, his Warriors charged the Intercessors that killed the 'gants and killed them down to one wound. One wound!!! He lost at least two victory points just from my ridiculously good saves and failed charges. Bad turn for the 'nids...
Turn 4
By this turn, it was obvious that I was running away with the win. But I had to keep the pressure on and continued my advance. The wounded Repulsor crept around the corner of the fortress and finished off another unit of Warriors after the Aggressors and company disembarked and flamed half of the closest Hive Guard to death. Intercessors and surviving Hellblasters repositioned to put some firepower into the oncoming flank, and more Hellblasters crawled up the fortress walls to shoot down one of the Primes. The dreadnought even pumped some plasma along with the Hellblasters up high to finish off the Trygon. By this point of the game, I was simply getting more victory points.
The Tyranids, meanwhile, charged the remaining Prime into the Hellblasters on the fortress and killed half of them and the Genestealers and Broodlord charged the dreadnought and made very short work of it (those massive scything talons are vicious!). The best moment of the entire game was using the Hive Guard to finally take down the tank, earning his first Kill Point. It was a moral victory for my son, but obviously too little too late.
Turn 5
Not too much happened in this turn. My Aggressors trundled toward the other unit of Hive Guard and punched them to death while the Chaplain and Lieutenant charged and finished off the nearest squad. That eliminated all the firepower the Tyranids had. Hellblasters retreated from the Prime and shot it down, and the Intercessors that were ordered to sacrifice themselves took a few Genestealers out before the charge.
His final turn saw him move up and finish off that pesky Intercessors, but nothing else as I had wiped almost everything else out. If this mission had been named "Exterminate", it wouldn't have been inappropriate. I won, 16-5.
From Turn 1 onwards, I had the Benny Hill music in my head as my army played 'run-away' from the xenos while shooting down units with excessive firepower. I used the Fortress of Redemption as a wall to keep them from getting to me and I imagined running across the fields to escape the evil villain- like a Benny Hill episode!. It may have been a massacre, but it was at least comical while illustrating how strategy can make all the difference.
The advise that I offered was that he should have played in the center, with a bubble of claws in front of the back-line of guns and use his speed to cross the Fortress and prevent me from ever being able to avoid him. I won, not because my guys were more powerful but because I stayed away from everything that was a threat (except those broken Hive Guard- so good!). I literally outmaneuvered his Tyranids with my slightly slower Primaris forces. More, he didn't take advantage of the Swarmlord's placement or special movement-gift rule and didn't use nearly enough strategems (while I recycled almost all of mine with ridiculously good rolls on my warlord trait). The army list didn't suck, but his strategy and tactics weren't the best for this mission.
No more running around for the next battle as he's been the victim of that trick now. My son knows my army's rules almost as well as I do and is learning his (he hates Ultramarines because of the mean things I do with them), so his knowledge is growing. This battle was a fantastic training exercise that may come back to bite me really hard very soon. And I can't wait for my son to be that prepared commander to meet any challenge the 'boys in blue' throw at him...
I figured it was time for me to actually play 40k again, and it felt so good- funny, even! How have your games been going?
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