40K Bat Rep: Angels of Death vs. Tyranids

We’ve got a really special battle report from Tim W. over at the Stupid Hammer podcast, with some gorgeous, fully painted armies: Angels of Death vs. Tyranids. For more great bat reps, check out the Tactics Corner!

Stupid Battle Report: 2K Tyranids VS Angels of Death

It’s a Battle of the Stupid Hammer Hosts. Tim’s Hive Fleet Fel Rana vs The Angels of Death, Blood Angels with Dark Angels allies. Will the Tyranids continue on undefeated or will Brian earn redemption? Only one way to find out!

Let’s set the tone shall we. We decided to play a mission from the new 40k Mission Catalog which you can find over here http://missioncatalog.com. We rolled up mission 1 with vanguard deployment. It should also be noted this was my first game on my new Game Mat from the folks at Tablewar and Frontline Gaming. I must say, it lives up to the hype. The mat looks good and yes, the rumors are true, dice roll very nicely on it.

We had the intention of playing another bugs on bugs rematch, but Brian left a few key models back at school. Since we we wanted to take some pretty pictures we pieced together a list from my collection. This is what we came up with:

Librarian: Epistolary; Blood Boil; Fear of the Darkness; Force Axe; Terminator armour; storm bolter. 180

Mephiston, Lord of Death 250

 

Death Company Dreadnought: pair of blood talons. 125

7 Death Company: Lemartes, Guardian of the Lost; power fist; thunder hammer. 345

5 Assault Marines: flamer; jump packs. 105

 

Stormraven Gunship: twin-linked multi-melta. 200

Librarian: Psyker (Mastery Level 2). 100

 

7 Deathwing Knights 327

• Land Raider Crusader: multi-melta. 290

 

5 Tactical Space Marines 70

1,992 points

[Tim wrote up the bat-rep, but I (Brian) will be commenting in bracketed italics. I was bummed that I didn’t have all my Tyranids, but I’m a sucker for brutal-badass-melee-Marines and Tim has two armies worth!]

Looking back over the list we did miss the points for the DA Librarian as he was in Terminator Armour. Its okay, I’ll allow it. [and he never actually rolled a save, so no harm no foul!]

On the Tyranid side of the table Hive Fleet Fel Rana landed with the following:

Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings; adrenal glands. 245

Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings; adrenal glands. 245

 

3 Tyranid Warriors: 2× deathspitter; barbed strangler; 3× rending claws. 125

30 Termagants: 20× devourer. 200

Scuttling Swarm Tervigon: cluster spines; shreddershard beetles. 210

 

Hive Crone 155

 

Carnifex Brood 0

• Carnifex: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms. 150
• Carnifex: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms. 150
• Carnifex: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms. 150

Tyrannofex: shreddershard beetles. 185

Tyrannofex: shreddershard beetles. 185

 

2,000 points

The Tyranids won the 1st turn and took it. I rolled the +6″ Synapse Warlord Trait, bonus. My Warlord also rolled up Catalyst and Dominion psychic powers. My other Flyrant got Dominion and Psychic Scream. My Tervigon also defaulted to Dominion instead of taking Psychic Scream.

I don’t remember what Brian rolled other than Prescience and taking the default powers on Mephiston. [Got some crappy Divination powers, rolled the Warlord that let me reroll Reserve checks. Score!]

Deployment:

 

 

The bugs deploy up front and center. I keep my warlord back and everything else on the line ready to move. I’m not too worried about an alpha strike from Brian, but keep the Warlord in the back just in case.

The idea here is the Gaunts will help screen the big bugs, the Crone and the Flyrant can move quickly so they are on the flanks. The Tyrannofexes are somewhat center to hold the line. The Carnifices are put up aggressively to rock and roll as they see fit. They are party animals and refuse to sit back. The Tervigon is way out on the flank to keep to synapse on the edges and poop out gaunts to the rightmost objective.

 

 

Brian’s deployment was much quicker.

 

 

 

There were some very slight proxies on Brian’s side. We proxied a Death Company marine with Plasma Pistol as Mephiston, The BA Land Raider is actually the DA Land Raider and the 5 troops in the ruins are a Tac Squad not an Assault Squad. Hey, I run Deathwing, I don’t have any DA Tacticals =D

The Land Raider is packed with the 7 Knights and the Librarian. Off the Table are 5 Assault Marines and a Storm Raven pack to the gills with Death Company, both Marines and Dreadnought. [Biding time until the Death Company arrive, trying to leverage the durability of the Land Raider early on to prevent Tim from doing too much damage]

Brian, being the gentleman that he is decides not to seize. We reveal our missions. Both of us choose to go Alternate, I choose to escalate Slay the Warlord and Brian chooses to escalate First Blood. There are four objectives in the middle of each table quarter and each player places one. I place one near the center piece of terrain, Brian places his behind the statue in his deployment zone.

Tyranid Turn 1:

 

 

Bugs do what bugs do and I do what I do, surge forward. I have an issue with a little thing called restraint. No guts, no Biomass!

Everything pushes forward, but with night fight not much happens. I shoot a couple Tentaclids at the Land Raider and cause a hull point. The Tervigon poops out 13 Gaunts, but with a double 6 and a 1 she is all dried up for the rest of the game. I’m set to take 3 objectives at the start of my next turn.

Angels of Death Turn 1:

Nothing exciting happens here. Brian plays it safe while he waits for his reserves to arrive. He puts one grounding check on the Crone but she passes and kills 4 Gaunts from the pooped squad.

Tyranid Turn 2:

 

 

Start of turn 2 and I collect 3 VP’s for sitting on objectives. What else? Bugs move forward again. The Crone manages another Hull Point on the Land Raider with a Vector Strike. Strength 8 Vector Strikes are nice! He also flames 4 marines, killing 2. Not picture is my non warlord flyrant who pushes towards the center player placed objective ready to contest it. I forget about Mephiston, will that cost me? Find out.

Angels of Death Turn 2:

 

 

Brian can’t get a point for the objective while the Hive Crone is contesting. On the reserve front all his toys come in. The Assault Marines deep strike on the his rightmost objective that the Gaunts are pushing towards. He flames them and shoots them. His flamer hits 5 or 6, kills… none! Turns out the flamer was loaded with mean words instead of promethium. The Bolt Pistols kill one though, so there’s that.

The big events of the turn happen else where. The Storm Raven shoots my forward Flyrant doing a wound, but he passes the grounding check. The Tac Squad force another grounding check, I pass. The Land Raider forces a 3rd and finally I fail. What happens when a grounded Tyrant meets Mephiston? Dead Flyrant. And that is first blood to Brian, except he escalated First Blood so it doesn’t really count, we forget this at the time. [The Land Raider was the guy consistently grounding MC this game — what a boss.]

Meanwhile the Land Raider moves up 6 inches and deploys its payload of Deathwing Knights. They give the Carnifices the stink eye. The Carnifices don’t like being given the stink eye so they overwatch causing 7 or 8 wounds, but that Terminator Armour is a tough nut to crack and Brian rolls like a boss, no wounds.

Brian proceeds to make the charge and kick the Knights into overdrive. Strength 10 AP2 here we go. Lucky for me, with no Prescience thanks to Shadow in the Warp, Brian rolls like crap. The whole unit manages to cause 5 wounds after my Feel No Pain saves from Catalyst. Missing 11 of 18 hits when you hit on 3+ does suck. This is why re-rolls are king people. Thanks to Storm Shields my Carnifices don’t do much damage in return, killing 2 Knights. [Math-hammer says that DWK cause 11.6 wounds on average, without Prescience!]

 

 

Tyranid Turn 3:

 

 

More VP’s collected. The Bugs continue their mission of pushing up the left side; securely holding it. The Gaunts with their Devourers kill all the Assault Marines on the objective leaving my poor Tyrannofex with nothing to shoot at. He puts a wound on Mephiston, but he easily saves it thanks to his Artificer Armour.

Things get a little more scary for the Storm Raven. The Warlord flies up dangerously close and takes away a hull point with his Devourers. The Crone starts heading back towards my edge a bit and with a max range (36″) shot with the Tentaclids puts two more hull points, and as a zooming flyer this is bad news for everyone inside. Brian’s dice redeem themselves by rolling two 5’s on his Jink saves! Dang it. Dang it dang it dang it! [t his was my dice leveraging out from the uber-fail Deathwing Knight charge!  This is the game changing moment. Thank the Emperor!]

The Carnifices and Knight combat is going slowly now, each of us do a wound or two here and there.

Angels of Death Turn 3:

 

 

Brian scores a VP for holding his back objective with the Tac Squad. The real trouble is the Storm Raven. It survived and is now able to run amok! It goes all hover on me, dropping a Death Company Dreadnought dangerously close to my Gaunts and drops the Death Company out towards my Warlord.

Would you like to know what a Death Company Dreadnought with Prescience does to a unit of 23 Gaunts? We had the fore-sight to realize that it wasn’t going to be good. We rolled it out to see how many it could have killed. How many do you think? Place your bets, take a guess, then watch the video to see how close you are.

 

YOUTUBE VIDEO IF YOU CAN/WANT TO ADD IT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvirEkEBik4

 

That’s a lot of dead Gaunts! So much for a tarpit, its more of a tar stain or smear now. Gaunts 0, Death Company Dread 23! [I was hoping some would survive to keep me from being assaulted by the T-fex next turn! Damn gaunts fails me even when they’re not on my side!]

On the other side of the table Mephiston wants to join the Carnifices party, but thanks to terrain fails his charge. The derpfest continues. [Mephiston’s unbridled badassery can only be stopped by small patches of rubble, it turns out.]

On a much sadder note for the Tyranids, Brian forces enough grounding checks on my Warlord to, well, ground him, then the loving, caring and nurturing Death Company charge in and splatter him. Sad days, sad days indeed!

 

 

Tyranid Turn 4:

 

 

With my full Gaunt squad a thing of the past I only collect two more VP’s for a total of 8, one away from the max of 9 allowed by the mission. I’m starting to realize I’m on the back foot despite my VP lead. I’m down to 3 wounds on my Carnifices, two Tyrannofexes, a couple Gaunts and a Tervigon and a Hive Crone. Meanwhile he has a Storm Raven a Land Raider, some pissed off Death Company, Mephiston, the DC Dread and some Knights locked up in combat. I decide to try to tie up Mephiston with the Gaunts for a turn while my Tervigon sits on the objective.

My Tyrannofex puts a couple wounds on the Death Company but my other Tyrannofex fails synapse and can’t charge the Death Company Dreadnought. Drats!

 

 

Angles of Death Turn 4:

 

 

Brian collects his 2nd VP. His Land Raider puts on the backup lights. There are some pissed off Death Company that want to get through. Everyone knows pedestrians have the right of way, especially when the pedestrians in question are homicidal, genetically enhanced super humans, that have lost all grip of reality, wearing power armor, pistols that fire mini rockets and the love child of a sword and chainsaw, not to mention the fact they are being urged forward by a maniacal zealot chanting all sorts of crazy “kill them all” battle hymns.

With the Land Raider out of the way they are free to charge and viciously maim the poor innocent Tervigon.

 

The amazing disappearing Tervigon! Now you see him…

 

 

Now you don’t!

 

 

The Knights barely make it out of the Carnifex combat, with only Librarian Timothy and Knight Master Rodrigo remaining. [All of Tim’s Deathwing are named… the guy named after me bit the dust so that psyker Timothy could vanquish his real-life counter part’s beast!] Mephiston cleans up the rest of the Gaunts and sets his pretty red eyes (I imagine them as red okay!) on the Tyrannofex.

 

 

Tyranid Turn 5:

 

 

Well that sucked, but I do max out on VP’s thanks to my Warriors. I’ve got a Hive Crone, 2 Tyrannofexes and 3 warriors left. I need this game to end. The Tyrannofex and the Hive Crone (out of Ongoing Reserves) flame the Death Company managing to put a wound on Lemartes. Me and Brian discuss the best way to get him to take just 1 wound on Lemartes making him go beast mode by only using Look Out Sir after he fails his first wound. Last time I help him!

 

 

On the plus side I do smash apart the Death Company Dreadnought with the Tyrannofex on the left flank who passes his Synapse check this turn. The other Tyrannofex on the right, realizing that he doesn’t stand much of a chance eating a charge from the Death Company, decides to take the wind out of there sails by charging them. Still suicided, but with 2 less attacks and no re-rolls I like those odds better. With all the attacks I manage to fail a few wounds and get run down. Sad days. [This was bad news for Tim — lesson to be learned: don’t help your enemy kill your models on your own turn!]

Angels of Death Turn 5:

Brian gets his 3rd and final VP from objectives this turn. He shoots all his crap at my Hive Crone, grounding it, making it a tasty snack for the Death Company.

 

 

The Storm Raven sets his sights on the warriors, and after unloading its payload leaves me with… all my warriors thanks to being in Ruins. Go Cover!

Mephiston continues his journey to my Tyrannofex. But once again he is foiled by terrain, another failed charge. [Avatar of slaughter, stopped dead in his tracks by a patch of grass…]

 

 

Does the game continue. A roll of a 4 says yes!

Tyranid Turn 6:

Well its not looking good for the bugs. I’m on 9 VP’s to 3 but have only managed 1 secondary VP from the Assault Squad Sergeant. for a total of 10. Brian has killed enough units to max out his escalated first blood and Slay the Warlord and will certainly be able to get Line Breaker for a total of 11. I need a miracle.

Its decision time. I know I can’t get away from Mephiston, do I push for Line Breaker and hope to survive with the Tyrannofex or do I charge to give myself the edge. Its an easy answer if you know me. Let’s charge that guy! First round I put a wound on him and save all returning fire. Still in it.

Angels of Death Turn 6:

The Storm Raven gives the Death Company a lift and puts all its fire on the Warriors. This time the missiles get through and kill two Warriors. Mephiston and the Tyrannofex face off for round 2. I do nothing to him, he gets a wound through, and rolls his force weapon… i’ts an 11! By the grace of the Hive Mind the Tyrannofex sneaks by for another round.

Does the Game Continue, a 5 says yes! Blast it all to the eye of terror!

Tyranid Turn 7:

 

 

The warrior rolls a 6 on his move through cover and hops on the top floor hoping that somehow he might deny an assault.

 

Mephiston and the Tyrannofex go at it again.

Mephiston manages to get a wound through again, but this time he successfully activates his Force Weapon. Nooooooo!

Angels of Death Turn 7:

Well, lets just say that when the smoke cleared the Death Company reached the Warrior, who, being a Warrior and they being Death Company, did not survive Lemartes’ bajillion (okay, that’s hyperbole, its actually 8) attacks on the charge at Strength 9 AP 4.

Good game Brian, good game. [Went to the midnight hour, but the Tyranid scum was eradicated!]

After Thoughts:

I made mistakes all over the place. The biggest being overly aggressive. Most of the time with Tyranids that’s not a bad thing. Every unit carries assault weapons with most being relatively short range. Plus with all the MC’s assault usually goes in our favor. I do favor shooting with this list while Brian wants to assault me. I should have done a few things different with my deployment. Mainly saving the Carnifices as a second wave unit with the Tyrannofexes out front with there durability. I should have also kept my Flyrants back and waited for juicy targets to shoot. Once Brian made the move forward I should have pushed back denying him charges as long as I could. Brian played a sound game and took advantage of my mistakes, as any good player does. Well played sir, well played.

[This was everything a 40k game should be: fun, funny, a nailbiter, and an all-around good time. My list was wacky – two melee super-units (Knights and Death Company), two melee super-solo’s (Dreadnought and Mephiston), two giant super vehicles, and two crappy deck chair troop units! Obviously skimping so much on troops was a bad plan, as I really shot myself in the foot w/r/t actually capturing objectives. It put me on the back foot all game! Despite the crappy dice on the Deathwing charge, I had some really lucky dice too – keeping the Storm Raven in the air, consistently grounding every FMC I needed on the turn I needed to, the game going all the way to Turn 7… Tim and I didn’t keep track of VP during the game, so I was convinced I needed to completely table him to win! What really let me pull it off was a skill I actually learned from playing Tyranids – matching the right tool to the right (Wright?) problem. Part of this is knowing the precise amount of force you need to fix a problem, so that you don’t over or under-commit. I felt that I leveraged my units well enough to successfully kill what I planned to kill each turn, without seriously over or under-committing.

My biggest mistake was taking so few troops! And probably relying too much on lucky dice – Lady Luck came through this time, but a few successive games and I have no doubt Tim would crush my elite assault army more times than not. Consistency is the key to winning tough games of 40k! Thanks for the great game Tim – I’m glad that I could curb the rampage of Hive Fleet Fel Rana. Still, the highlight of the day was getting to meet baby Oliver!]

~HobbyTimmy

[-Brian]