Battle Report 13 Company vs. Hive Fleet Render

So Marc and I had our first day time gaming session today. The end result was a solid victory for the Tyranids. We played a loot counter mission and ended up having 5 counters. The battle went down in this fashion, his twin linked devourers, barbed stranglers and venom cannons took a fearsome toll on my forces. However his third turn assault of genestealers and tyranid warriors bounced off like they ran headlong into a brick wall. This was mainly due to the fact that my gameplan was to hunker in cover while wittling down the genestealer/warrior ranks and wait for the impending assault. Because he didn't buy any of his guys flesh hooks I got to swing at I10 and was able to kill all of his troops. So basically we fought the battle to a draw, but I only had 5 scoring units to begin with, and by the end all were below half strength. Plus he could afford to leave two raveners, or a pack of stealers on an objective across the board whereas I just couldn't afford that. Marc captured two objectives and the 700 pts swung the draw into his major victory, but all in all I felt ok, I had made a few mistakes, mainly in deployment, but felt that I accomplished my gameplan. If only I had enough long range firepower not to take so much damage from the carnifexes and hive tyrant. Also the gate let me down big time. Seeing that I was going to be hard pressed to capture many objectives, I tried to gate a unit of plasma gun toting Grey Slayers or to the hive tyrant on it's last wound and spray away. However I deviated out of rapid fire range and basically just sacrificed a squad for nothing, but I feel like it was a risk I had to take. What do people think about the addition of some bikes to the list? It's the only thing I can think of that might give me to mobility and firepower.

I think bikes are a great distraction, but seem they are a lot of points. Kind of like my Vypers, and Skimmers. That is going to the next units I add to my army. 3 Vypers with 6 Shuriken Cannons, ewww...deadly, or dead <shrug>

Hopefully as we all start playing a little more and do some of these other missions, I think having more scoring units in your army will be key to either winning or losing a battle. I know some ppl think that if they kill most of your army and lose or draw it is a good game, but my personal opinion is that if the objective is loot counters, captured bunkers, comm towers, etc... that if captured it is more of a challenge than to just make a army that is full of elites that annihilates your opponent.

I dont really know where I was going with that whole soapbox thing but, just to say I know that to annihilate a army does win objectives and a game, but it also makes for very linear game play.

And in closing..."Good job Marc for whipping the shit out of the damned 13th" and John let me know how the bike thing works if you try it and when I try the vypers maybe we can work on some bike tactics together, because I have never used them.

moved to Bat Rep forum!

will be back later to read...

OK back. Agree with Chad's soapbox comments (another reason why Apocalyspe will be great, the more objective driven our games the better I say). Bikes are a very very good option in the 13th in my opinion.

Like Chad said, bikes are not the easiest unit in the world to play, but can be very rewarding. I say try em out, just know that they aren't going to win you games.

They do make for good distractions (24" move with a 4++ save a T5 is nothing to sneer at).

They make very very good objective grabbers (again 24" move in the last turn, with 4++ save and T5 is hard for your opponent to dislodge).

They can put a T5 power fist in position pretty quickly (Bike squads sit in a special place in 40k, they are one of the only units that work better if they are kitted out for multiple roles).

Lastly they can put some deadly firepower in position quickly (melta guns are nice here).

Can you get attack bikes? They fit the fire power role even better than the regular bikes. With a quick 24" zip up the flank and then a turn of survival for a nice big boom from the Multi Melta hitting a tank (similar to piranhas in a Tau army).

Just my 2cents, good job against the Nids. Takes a few games against them to discover the right target priority balance. Seems like you got the main jist of it though. Kill the Genestealers!!

My wife stopped home for lunch on turn 4 and shut the garage door sealing us off from the AC thus putting John in an uncomfortable sauna and distracting his attention.

All part of the master plan

It was a good game for sure. I never played the Secure & Control with 5 markers before. Just because I'm a technical arse munch I'll have to correct John. Sauna like conditions still taking its toll I suppose I had scoring units within 6" of 4 markers John so a 1400pt swing (Stealers on your far right, Ravenors again on your right, nobody had the center, Warriors in the building rubble and the Carnifex on your far left) Thats why I did not charge your remnant squad of Power Fisting Wulfen at the end. That and I want nothing to do with anyone marked with a Wulfen.

The game itself was all going to plan on my end until I tried to take the center. A combined charge of 6 Stealers and 3 Warriors bounced off of his squad Wulfen. His next turn shooting saw the end of my center Carni and 3rd center Stealer brood. So much for that marker.

My left was holding as I camped Genestealers out on one marker and withdrew some Raveners to a 2nd one while the Tyrant was hosing squads. Johns dice were on fire until it came to his saves. Once he failed 7 out of 9 3+ saves. Ouch! The 12" move to bear those 18" guns makes a difference.

My right camped on a rubble marker with another Ravener, Warrior brood, 2 Carni and Broodlord. I deviated from plan with my Devourer Carni and foolishly walked him into the open hoping for some shots. With 6" moving 18" shooting Carni you really need a plan and stick to it. Though the 3rd Carni stumbled down the board edge and claimed a marker his value came in the Barbed Strangler. He couldn't miss and slowly helped reduce squads below 50% strength.

So lessons learned would deffo be the Flesh Hooks. I tossed my spare points in upgrading the Broodlord and Tyrant where I'll shuffle those around into Warrior hooks.

I think your army is fine John. Maybe a character on a bike yet the Termie Armour is pretty cost effective. A 2nd pack of pups?

Yeah, this wasn't too difficult cause the stealers had a 5+ save, so it made the most sense to pour bolter fire into them. The heavy weapons went after the carnifexes mainly because the tyrant hid behind area terrain from them until turn 5 when it popped out to devour them. I was thinking that Hive Fleet Render might have some difficulty against an army that can actually bring tanks. The venom cannons can only glance and are BS3, the fexes are slow and can be outmaneuvered. The only good tank killer is the tyrant who will roll S6 +2D6 for being monstrous, however if positioned right, this will bring it into view of your whole army for shooting. So now I'm going to look at points values and see how I would fit bikes in.

Yep, armour is huge problem. Terrain would be key.

The Carni are slow but Monstous and the Tyrant is Monstrous but designed for anti Infantry. Ah well..

There is always Rending vs armour