Tyranid Review: Troops

Hey guys, I'm back with another part in my review of the new Tyranid codex. This time, I'm going to break into the Troops - namely Gaunts and Gargoyles this part.

Termagants
These are the bread and butter of a good swarm. I recall once upon a time, the MC spam lists tried to avoid having great piles of these guys, but it is by far the most efficient expenditure of points you can have. You need target saturation, and even if it isn't much, a 20 gant squad for 80 points is something that needs to be dealt with and if left alone, can either swamp units or simply exist to score. They are very flimsy, dying in droves with no save to damn near anything, even getting mowed down by guardsmen flashlights with nothing but a 6+ to save them.

Be very careful with charges. Over watch can wreck these critters, and losing 2-3 to rapid fire is often enough to shore up the required charge roll and make success less likely. Once in combat, they can do some damage on the charge but flail ineffectually in following rounds of combat, so don't rely on them winning much unless they face terrible opponents (like fire warriors).

Hormogaunts
I love these, based on fluff, and crunch. The skittering tide bounding across the field is fearsome indeed, and on the board it will be something to be reckoned with. At one point more then a Termagant, or two termagants if you give them Toxin Sacs, the Hormogaunt is a cheap and versatile assault unit. They boast modest combat ability bare, able to reliably put a hurt on any basic troops choice and threaten low model count/low attack level specialists such as Crisis Teams, Marine HQs that don't have a high-powered combat escort, Tac squads, Dire Avengers, etc. With 3 attacks on the charge, and Bounding Leap, they absolutely force a threat starting turn 2. Bounding Leap is the main beauty here, as they retain fleet, but also gain a permanent +3" to every Run move. That makes the average, with Fleet re-roll, 7.5" or there around, giving these guys turn 1-2 movement close to that of Jump infantry. Combined with Toxin Sacs, these guys put a huge threat out there to anything not bearing a coveted 2+, and can be counted on to tear down anything they get into combat with so long as they hold some numbers. Alternatively, Adrenal Glands can make them a massive threat to any vehicles, with a long charge range and a mass of attacks, a unit of Hormogaunts can reliably glance any rear AV10 vehicle into scrap in a single charge . The problem, of course, is very low survivability, and expense. They remain pricey for what you get, at 100 for 20, or 160 for 20 poisoned, that can be easily wiped off the board by massed bolter fire. I personally recommend they be taken as a single unit of 20, bare, to be used as a front line screen that, using the huge first turn move+run, forces the opponent to use up valuable early game firepower on one of your cheap, disposable threats instead of your tyrants and carnifexes.

Gargoyles
I know, these are fast attack, but they fall under the Gaunt heading in the Codex, and I include them for that reason. Please keep in mind this is NOT a scoring unit.

These guys took a big hit in the form of Blinding Venom. Instead of automatic wounds on every 6 to hit, they now may opt to swap out all their attacks for a 6+ poisoned blind attack at strength 3. That is a massive nerf, and the increased cost of biomorph upgrades means they are now best run as a fast, cheap, and ultimately disposable screen unit. They are fully capable of damaging units, but they are no longer the rampage they were, so do not count on them to destroy the enemy front line. Use them as a replacement for Hormogaunts, or a cheap distraction unit to deep strike in turn 2 or 3 and disrupt the enemy units.
If you want a fast reaction unit, they are very survivable in your backfield, able to move quickly into cover and out of line of sight, and they can use their fast movement to form a powerful quick-response fire fighting unit, or late game denial.

The Swarm Feeds: 1500 point Battle Report vs Eldar

I did a pre-codex release battle in preperation for a tournament I'm attending on the 18th. Big Guns Never Tire on Hammer and Anvil deployment, Eldar first turn. The lists:

Tyranids:
HQ
Hive Tyrant, wings, dual Devourers, rolled Iron Arm, Warp Speed

Elites
3 x Hive Guard

Troops:
2 x 15 Termagants
2 x Tervigon, Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Extra Power (rolled endurance and lifeleech, Life Leech and Enfeeble)

Fast Attack:
2 x 10 Gargoyles, Toxin Sacs and Adrenal Glands

Heavy Support:
2 x Biovores
Trygon, Regeneration

Eldar:
HQ
Farseer, witchblade

Elites:
Fire Dragons x5, Waveserpent w/ scatter laser

Troops:
2 x 10 Guardians, with Bright Lance, Wave Serpent
5 Rangers

Fast Attack:
5 x Warp spiders w/ Exarch and fast shot

Heavy Support:
Wraithknight, bare
2 x 2 Warwalkers, scatter laser and bright lance

Turn One:
Eldar
He lead off with turn one, being very slow, only his 3 serpents and rangers on the board. They killed ~10 termagants, and shuffled a bit.
Tyranids
I got my flyrant stoked with iron arm and endurance before flying him over to the rangers. He could not Vector, unfortunately, but it still put him in range of the waveserpent bearing the warlord. Combined fire from the biovores and the flyrant got the rangers for First Blood. One hull point done with the Hive Guard. My first Tervigon spawns 8 and plugs, the second spawns 8 and continues for next turn.

Turn Two:
Eldar
Deep striking Wraithknight rolled a mishap, and I got to place. I put him in the middle of 2 units of spawned gaunts, and laughed as my gribblies closed in. His outflanking warwalkers came in in his deployment zone and hammered shots at my flyrant, but feel no pain and the need to snap shot saved him, along with all the other wave serpent shooting.
Tyranids
My Tyrant rolled up S and T 9, putting me in a position to vector strike the HQ serpent to death, which I failed miserably, rolling 1 to pen. A unit of gargoyles charged, inflicting 2 hull points. My Hive Guard wrecked a serpent bearing guardians, and the Biovores whiffed. Ended free up the Farseer unit for next time. Trygon continues moving virtually unopposed up the board in the centre, but he's well out of range to charge or shoot. My Tervigon spawns 7 and plugs. My gaunts charge the wraithknight and deal a singular wound.

Turn Three
I'm getting a little hazy on turns now so I'm just describing things in vague order
Here was a big turn, as my Tyrant shrugs off the majority of fire. That failure to kill him really spelled the future doom, as my gargoyles ravage his warp spiders and my biovores demolish guardians left and right. He did kill one with the surprise of the spiders. My Trygon and Tyrant kill off the fire dragon serpent, and tey in turn help to bring my tyrant down to 1 wound, before he starts healing from it will not die. My tervgon dies to his wraithknight after 2 turns of assault, but brought it down to 1 wound where he eventually falls to the poisoned Gaunts on the final turn. My Hive Guard destroy both units of war walkers in turns 4 and 5, and my tyrant and trygon kill the last 2 infantry units on the board for a clean table.

Thoughts:
Reserves really hurt armies opposing a wide spread tyranid list, as denying the board is easy and sweeping up can only really be stopped by mass anti-infantry fire. I'm happy with the way my list performed, though I may consolidate the 2 gargoyle squads to make them better at standing up to combat strength. Likewise, I may cut some costs and make my Trygon a Prime for added range and another tough synapse point.

As always, please subscribe at the side of the page, followers keep me posting new stuff!

Adventures in Air: My new Airbrush!

Yeah, I finally took the plunge, and over Christmas, I received a 2 gallon, 1/5 horsepower compressor with a line regulator, and an Iwata Neo gravity fed dual action airbrush!

I am very impressed with the way a local hobby center handled my inquiries and questions, they were incredibly helpful and informative. Anyone living in the Ottawa area should check out The Hobby Centre, near the costco on merivale road. Excellent guys there.

I'm going to be playing around with my brush all day, I'll post photos and first thoughts after I prime some models!

Rolling Dice: If This Is Your Plan, Stop!

Today's is a very short post on a problem I've noticed in the burgeoning local community: people don't plan beyond rolling dice. The movement phase and assault phase are all about getting to dice tossing. The entire game boils down to fistfuls of dice and a roughly even chance of whose army rolls better. I'm going to break my broad, sweeping advice into two segments: Strategy and Tactics.

Strategy

Strategy is often a broad term, so I'm going to narrow this down to my purpose and the context in which this post (and indeed this blog) will use it. Strategy is the overlying principle or principles which a player will use to design their army and set their goals. In essence, strategy is isolating what factors you are going to control in order to win battles, whether it is by having a rock solid defensive line which you will use to deny secondary objectives and control the board, and therefore at least some primary objectives or if it is by fielding a mobile, versatile force that will rely on denying the enemy access to the tools and opportunities they rely on for victory. Strategy is primarily the building of your list and the deployment of your army based on the set objectives of each battle.

The Practical Application: Strategy is about sitting down and deciding what it is you want your army to actually do. It is about thinking beyond "well, a battle tank is awesome so I'll take three!" and starting to look deeper, such as "with three battle tanks I can effectively deny an attacker line of sight and assault lanes to a large section of the field, and lay down a large area of heavy fire support to control my chosen area." It is planning units around more then just the damage they can deal, but around how, where, and when they can deal or prevent that damage and how you can use that to win.

Tactics

Tactics, unlike strategy, do not revolve around a cleverly written list and the over-arching plan to win. Tactics are smaller-scale, and based upon the use and manipulation of individual units to gain immediate advantage in the battle. So, for example, strategy is planning to have your troops near the opposing side to go for Line Breaker at the end, while a tactical decision is moving your predator down the flank to get side armour shots should the enemy advance. This is the part of the game that most people focus on, and while easier to achieve competence with, it is just as difficult to master. Planning your movements and assaults around a coherent strategy is important, just as making sound tactical decisions as you implement that strategy  is important. Some basic tactical decisions that should be coming up every game, and actually taking a moment to think them through is what makes the difference between my decisive victory or head-shaking defeat:

• Use of Cover vs Retaining Mobility
• Maintaining Force Coherency (not stretching too thin)
• Comparison of Weights of Fire (ensuring my forces will apply more pressure then theirs)
• Use or Denial of Objectives (don't just focus on one or two,have a plan for all of them!)
• Controlling Assault (using mobility and planning to decide when and where assaults occur)

Long story short, go into every battle with a plan, and then don't lose sight of that plan in favour of a quick strike at an inconsequential target. Find your strategy, and hone your tactical awareness to ensure you don't inadvertently threaten your own plan. Too many warlord get cocky, advance too quickly and get good models killed for vainglorious bloodlust!

BangBang's Batreps: Episode 1: Necrons vs Iyanden

Here's the first of three I have filmed, the other two require editing and I'm still playing with conversion software to prevent the lagging and the poor quality. My new software I'm doing Episode 2 with will hopefully fix these issues!

Please do enjoy, and feel free to leave comments below!

Dark Eldar: The One-Shot Cannon

Dark Eldar, in my experience, are singularly powerful in their ability to dish out focused punishment. Even tau and leafblower guard can have trouble matching the concentration of force that the mobile, fast, and deadly Dark Kin can bring to bear. Note, that I know a vehicle heavy guard list can put down more high strength hits then anyone else, but Dark Eldar can put all of their hits exactly where they want them to be better then anyone. I'll break down the three keys to success in my raiding force style of play.

1) Mobility
The Dark Eldar have two main assets in this regard: The Venom and the Raider. Both are fast open-topped skimmers with a powerful weapon. The raider boasts 10 man transport capacity and a Dark Lance, capable of cracking transports with ease and giving you a 50-50 at taking a point off a tank. The Venom carries only 5 men, but brings 2 splinter cannons - or 12 poisoned shots at BS 4 - to bear on anything within 36" even after it moves 12. My favourite part, however, is that unlike rhinos and razorbacks, these transports don't render your powerful shooting units (a kabalite squad with splinter cannon lays down 15 BS 4 Poisoned shots at 24") useless while inside. You can bring squads right where you want them, focusing the power of your full force against a fraction of the enemy's without sacrificing turns to pure movement. That ability to stack the odds to ensure your force is always overpowering compared to the forces that may be arrayed against them is one of the things that makes the Dark Eldar so tough to face.

2) Firepower
At 170 points, a Kabalite squad of 10 with a splinter cannon and a raider can fire a dark lance at one target (a transport, in the case of a mechanized list, or a tank if there are exposed infantry) in order to free up a target that the 15 poisoned shots coming to follow can ravage. Math wise, they put out 5 wounds to be saved, regardless of toughness, or 8 if in rapid fire range, which is damned impressive for the cost. Add that they have a 30" potential movement if their transport flat outs, are scoring, and gain feel no pain if they kill anything, and you have my MVP.

For less points, you can drop four Trueborn with Blasters in a venom for a similar cost, which while more fragile (once the transport is gone these are just waiting for any kind of attention before falling over) allows you to put out a similar number of poisoned shots (12 at 36") but gives you more tank stopping power with 4 dark light weapons. I use them as tank hunters, targeting the venom at either the occupants of the transport my dark light took or an infantry target of opportunity. Regardless, open topped vehicles loaded with hungry warriors lays down a huge curtain of fire for cheap.

Our heavy support, which I only bother counting as Ravagers, Razorwings, and Voidravens, put down huge swathes of hits and wounds, the specifics of which I'll leave to the big guns tactica upcoming. All of our army shares the same trait with few exceptions: they lay down huge amounts of fire on the move.

3) Initiative
This is what I call the ability to control the battlefield and proactively direct the flow of battle. That is to say, you can decide when and where combat, predominantly assaults but you may also control how and when shooting happens. This is done through the combination of the two above traits, but I feel it is important enough to count on its own. Ensuring your mobile fire platforms are positioned for an aggressive move towards a portion of the opponents field, or defensively to make sure that if they have first turn you can minimize their potential damage and maximize your maneuverability in the following turn, if the key to keeping the initiative in the battle. This is especially effective against static armies, like gun lines, and against medium speed assault armies, like infantry blobs (tyranids come to mind). Both allow you to move around the battlefield and focus your forces in such a way as to give your army the advantage in any combat that unfolds.