Tyranid Battle Report!

Over the weekend I finally managed to get my first game in with the new Tyranid Codex. I couldn’t really decide which type of list I wanted so I figured I would just throw down all my big bugs and see how it went. I played against my friend Jason who has an amazing look Nurgle Army. We have had a few battles in the past and it has always been a tight game and I figured this would be more of that.

 

The Lists - 1500pts

Tyranids

HQ
Hive Tyrant - wings, dual twin linked brainleech devourers - onslaught, paroxysm
Hive Tyrant - bonesword/lashwhip, scything talons - onslaught, paroxysm, warlord trait - rolled on the Nid table so I basically forfeited my warlord trait
2 Tyrant Guard

Elites
Venomthrope

Troops
30 Termagants
Tervigon - cluster spines - catalyst

Fast Attack
Harpy - heavy venom cannon

Heavy Support
Mawloc
Mawloc
Trygon

Nurgle Demons

HQ
Ku’Gath - miasma of pestilence
Herald of Nurgle - greater loci of fecundity
Herald of Nurgle - greater loci of fecundity

Elites
3 Beasts of Nurgle

Troops
20 Plague Bearers - icon
20 Plague Bearers - icon
9 Nurglings
9 Nurglings

Fast Attack
6 Plague Drones

Heavy Support
Soul Grinder - mark of nurgle, baleful torrent

The Game

We rolled up the Crusade for our mission (D3+2 objectives) with the first table set up (12” deployment). After taking turns placing the objectives I noticed there was a cluster of 3 objectives to my left so I figured that is where I was going to put the base of my army. My game plan was to have my walking Hive Tyrant escort my Tervigon (who has catalyst) and all the gants on that side of the board to help cover those 3 objectives while I use literally everything else in my army to distract Jason and disrupt his forces, hopefully pulling him away from those objectives. He set up with all his fast units on the flanks as well as his soul grinder helping book end his army. He placed all his PBs and Nurglings in the middle of the board facing the handful of objectives he was targeting. He used his Nurglings as a screen to help give his PBs a 3+ cover save due to shrouded. He also put his two heralds into the PBs to make sure they had FNP.  In the very center of all of that was Ku’Gath for support who I later found out is a freaking MONSTER, puts almost everything in my army to shame in hand to hand. 

Turn 1

I ended up stealing the initiative, so I went about moving all my models into place and getting as many of my spells up as I could. I cast catalyst on the large Termagant unit and Onslaught on both FMCs just in case I needed that extra bit of movement.  Once I got to my shooting phase I started looking at Jason’s army and trying to figure out where the best place to put my Str 6 Devourer shots. I figured it would be a waste on the PBs as they would have shrouded and FNP and the Drones have 3 wounds each and I would only be wounding on 3’s. Most of his Nurglings were out in the open though and are only T3 so my Devourers will Instant Death them all, so that is what I did. The first round of shooting killed 6 full bases. The Harpy shot his venom cannon and did virtually nothing as venom cannons are maybe the worst heavy weapon in the game (still).

Jason’s turn mostly consisted of moving his forces into position. After his initial move I realized I had made a bit of a mistake in how I positioned my army. Basically I moved my Termagants a little bit too far forward which left them open to a charge from the Beasts of Nurgle. He needed to roll a “10” to charge my Termagants and naturally did it on the very first roll. In the shooting phase he rolled Wrath of Khorne which ended up putting two wounds on my Tervigon and then he rolled a “6” for the number of str 6 hits on my Harpy. He ended up wounding almost all of them and I made all but 2 saves. In total on 8 units he ended up roll a “6” on three of them and never rolled less than a “5” for the number of hits lol. I could already see where this game was headed (or at least I thought). He rolled up the attacks for the Beasts of Nurgle and they ended up getting 17 attacks between the 3 of them doing a whole bunch of damage to the gant squad. Because my squad was spread out so far I got barely any attacks back in return. Fearless though saved my bacon as everyone just consolidated inwards.

Turn 2

One of the main differences I noticed between the 6^th ed Codex and the  5^th ed Codex is how they removed virtually all the synergy between the Tervigon and the Termagants which is a real shame. So, instead of getting 30ish poison attacks on the Beasts of Nurgle I ended up going with my standard str 3 which means I won’t be doing a whole lot of damage. I realized that if I just left the Beasts to do their own thing they would just chew through that squad so I had to deal with them. I moved my Tyrant over to help deal with that threat and cast Paroxysm on the Beasts of Nurgle reducing them to WS 1 to help limit the damage they do. I rolled for reserves and only 1 of my 2 Mawlocs came in which was the second major changed I noticed (again, not for the better). For some stupid reason you can’t burrow turn 1 anymore so if you want them to come in on the second turn you have to put them into reserve which makes them way less reliable. With the Mawloc that came in I ended up scattering off my intended target but Jason just had so many plague bearers it still hit something. I didn’t end up killing everything under the template but I did do enough to make sure I could place him. I continued to murder his Nurglings with my Flyrant which was just doing whatever he wanted thanks to Jason having no AA. The Harpy dropped a spore mine, did virtually no damage and the venom cannon hit, doing virtually no damage. My Trygon got a charge on the second Nurgling Squad doing a bit of damage (all his attacks IDs them) which brings up the 3 major change. While the Tyrgon is still *fine* you really do notice the removal of re-rolls on all his attacks as it does greatly affect his damage output. The Tyrant and co. almost completely killed the Beasts of Nurgle after he lost combat and rolled on his instability check.

Jason was now faced with a Trygon and Mawloc right in the middle of his core army with a few of his units reduced to WS 1. Ku’Gath was still mobile though and Jason decided it was time to put an end to the irritating Mawloc. Ku’Gath tried to cast miasma of pestilence and shadow in the warp cancelled that out (made him LD 6, he rolled a 9 for his spell). He moved in with 7 attacks all hitting on 3s and wounding on 4s but only managed 2 wounds on the Mawloc. The Mawloc then hit and run getting ready to burrow next turn. The PBs on the right side joined forces with the Nurglings to assault the Trygon which Jason didn’t realize was a massive mistake on his end. Taking my cue from 5^th ed fearless units I decided to attack the Nurglings as each unsaved wound would count towards -4 to his instability check. After combat was finished he had to make 2 checks at -6. Each time he rolled high then with Ku’Gath re-rolled it to a “3” so he only took one wound on each unit and came dangerously close to restoring the Nurgling squad that only had one base left to 9 bases.  The Warlord Tyrant finished off the last of the Beasts in CC and moved towards the Defilier that had moved up to try to kill the Venomthrope (naturally rolled a 1 to wound but killed a whole slew of gants instead). He lastly moved the Drones around to put them in a spot to charge the following turn. Jason managed to blow up one of his own heralds on the Warp Storm table which made me happy.

Turn 3

My 2^nd Mawloc still hasn’t appeared (rolled a 1 for reserves…again) and my first Mawloc burrowed. I cast Paroxysm on both PB squads to limit their effectiveness in CC. I shot with both the Harpy and the Tyrant at the second PB squad not doing much damage. I moved all my free Gant units as well as my Tervigon to capture the 3 objectives that are close to me. I charged the Soul Grinder with the Tyrant and his guard and managed to wreck the Soul Grinder before he was able to fight back. The Trygon and PBs were locked in combat with neither side accomplishing much. At this point in the game I had things fairly contained for Jason’s troops. Sadly at this point in the game we had to call it as families were calling.

After looking at what was left and the fact that both Mawlocs were coming up next turn and I hadn’t lost anything we were both pretty confident that the Tyranids would have won the gameg.  Ku’Gath was a real concern having T7, 7 wounds and an invlun save plus being an absolute monster in CC but we still figured he couldn’t kill my entire army with just him. 

Final Thoughts

The Good: Despite all the doom and gloom there are some really decent things with the new codex. I really liked the new powers. Paroxysm is a fantastic power as is Catalyst. Both were used all game and really helped out. To be fair I was playing against a CC army that was primarily WS 3 so it was pretty easy to make them WS1, they also had no shooting which helped my cause as well. The pricing on a lot of things was also really nice. I added up everything and compared them to a list made with the 5^th edition book and I saved enough points to buy the Harpy. I also really think foot slogging Tyrants are a lot more viable then one would give them credit for. Mine in 3 turns managed to kill 3 beasts of Nurgle and a Soul Grinder and was about to start in a PB squad before the game ended. He was fairly well priced and it was great having two psychic powers. I really liked the set up I had with the Gants and the one Venomthrope. I feel that the Tyrant with his guard is big enough to actually screen a lone Venomthrope to help keep the shrouded going. The Flyrant was decent but I don’t think that was a very good test of his (or the Harpies) abilities since there was no AA. I bet anything once you have something that can shoot them their effectiveness goes way down. 

The Bad: Mawlocs. I know people will think I am high but here me out. For me I have never taken a Mawloc for the actual damage it does the turn it comes up. All I ever used it for (to incredibly good effect) was a disruption/distraction unit. While the damage IS nice and it means if it does hit it will typically do something, I just hate how unreliable it is and how limited its choices are for targets (living, weaker, single wound units basically). Not being able to burrow on turn 1 is a huge blow to this unit especially since they removed virtually all our methods of altering reserve rolls. This game I only had one Mawloc see the field. Also, if Jason had made just ONE more save my Mawloc would have misshaped. The old Codex would have had BOTH Mawlocs in his deployment zone and both would have just bunched everything together for other unit’s blast weapons. I think for 140pts he is still worth the points though as he has the cheapest Points to Wounds ratio for any Monstrous Creature in the codex. I just think he is not as good as people are making him out to be.  I also really noticed the loss of all Synergy between the Gants and the Tervigon as well as the Synergy of the Venomthrope to units outside of shooting.  I know not a lot of people liked the Venomthrope in the last book but universally I thought it was actually better in the old codex. While shrouded is a significant upgrade to its aura the loss of defensive grenades and units taking dangerous terrain tests when assaulting friendly units within its aura is very noticeable. I also think that none of the issues with this unit were actually addressed and I really don’t feel it’s any more viable then it was before. The fact that it’s a small unit (max of 3 models) that only are T4 and 2 wounds with virtually no save make them virtually effortless for many armies to remove making them almost a waste of points to take especially since they provide such a huge buff.

I was really hoping to be surprised by some stuff, like to see certain things make sense once you get it on the battle field. Sadly I didn’t notice any of this. It really does feel like it’s just playing the 5^th ed codex with a bunch of special rules missing and the majority of the options have gotten weaker. I really don’t think there is anything “hidden” or that we are “missing” that will be revealed with some play testing like people had with the Eldar. I think this book is as shallow and weak as people first think when looking at it. This book will see about as much diversity in lists that people take as the last book I think, except instead of seeing Tervigon Spam it will be all about dual flying hive tyrants, a venomthrope, tervigon w/ 30 gants and probably 2 crones. I have literally never seen a codex/rule book for ANY game system that failed to address the major failings/issues of the previous book LESS than this one has, which is incredibly disappointing. I mean…NO changes to the Pyrovore? How in God’s name can that happen lol? Regardless though I am going to keep plugging away using the book as I love my army too much to have it sit on the shelf. What will happen though is past the Tyrant Guard boxed set I purchased with the codex before I read the rules I will probably avoid buying anything for this army and just focus on finishing what I have.