More Night lord action - this time its Tyranids

Another week and some more battling going on, this time my regular opponent tried to organise a battle with one of the other guys in our gaming group but when they were not available we organised something quite last minute between the two of us. He wanted to bring 2000 points of Tyranids which I would face down with my Night lords.

Recalling how this panned out last time round when I was royally crushed I set about designing my force, I may well have over compensated for my armies ineffectiveness from last time as it turns out but memories of Mawlocs eating units, exocrine melting down my command squad and contemptors being mugged by monstrous creatures all factored in my choices.

I started off with the core using some of the models I have completed which I just love fielding.

Praetor and command squad on jetbikes for starters

2 contemptor mortis dreadnoughts

The fire raptor, of course, since it looks awesome.

I then picked three outriders simply because I am in the process of sorting out the models which I hope will look really cool and as such they needed to be used so I can try and get more out of them and get experienced in using them properly.

After that I decided I wanted to try using veteran tactical squads, I have of late been reading other tactica on the web and these have been extremely highly rated so I wanted to give them a go. I selected two units of 10, two of them were given heavy bolters with suspensor fields and the sergeant was wearing artificer armour. I also gave each unit a vexilla, this is something I do not normally do but having read some comments on the web I have been starting to reconsider my preconceptions about them – still not sure banners really fit the gang culture of the night lords. These two units would be my compulsory troops due to the praetor employing the pride of the legion right of war which was the only way I could really test these guys out properly.

The final addition to the force was a heavy support squad with 10 guys all armed with volkite culverins, the sergeant wearing artificer armour and carrying an augury scanner.

The veteran tactical squads would be given the sniper special rule and it would ensure that pretty much all of my fire power baring that from the outriders would be able to wound monstrous creatures although they would generally get armour saves and probably feel no pain as well meaning I was only really hoping to kill one or two in each shooting phase meaning by the time the nid’s charged (probably on turn 3) I was expecting to try and finish off 2-3 in close combat and that’s assuming there was not something like a horde of Hormagaunts which with their speed could potentially charge turn 2 and thus would have to be targeted early to prevent units getting tied up in close combat or butchered.

As it turns out my opponent had decided to be nice and also recalled a lot of the previous battles so opted to bring no flying monsters (he remembered how annoying the daemon flying circus was) and he also avoided mawlocs since he knows they are savage against units of expensive power armoured marines which the legion force tends to have in spades. He did also decide to bring some of the new Tyranid drop pods which in hindsight I should have expected but at the time I did not even suspect he had the rules for.

The net impact of these two methods of army creation - me trying to optimise to deal with the main nid threats while my opponent was removing those threats to make a softer list to try and ensure a balanced game – basically led to my force being pretty much perfect for mauling the force he had brought.

The nids brought the following

Hive tyrant with lash whip and bone sword in drop pod

Tervigon

2 trygons

2 carniflexes with twin linked devourers

2 hive guard

3 zoanthropes in a drop pod

6 ravagers

3 swarms of 3 bases of ripper swarms

Exocrine

With this force almost half of it would be starting in reserve and deep striking in which I was not expecting when I planned my force and it jacked up the impact of the augury scanner on the heavy support squad was a lot greater than anticipated.

We rolled the big guns never tire with standard deployment, the battlefield we had was set up for us and had not a lot of terrain, what terrain it had was generally low and not that concealing and to be honest was much better suited to fantasy than 40k and meant that my forces had amazing avenues of fire. We did discuss getting some terrain but since it would have involved tromping up and down stairs and we were both feeling lazy we did not.

I won everything during the pregame , choose table edge, got to deploy first and go first and my opponent failed to seize the initiative. I won’t go in to details but suffice by the end of my turn 2 my opponent had been tabled and he was not happy, my dice rolling was insane with the snipers getting tons of 6’s to wound which resolved at AP 2 and so they carved through carniflexes and the like with incredible ease.

It was so quick and one sided we decided to restart and try again, this time we rolled up the relic and go hammer and anvil deployment, I again got the warlord trait to give my opponent -1 on his reserve rolls, this time he did not get the trait to allow him to reroll failures on reserve rolls and he felt he was doomed from the start.

Here are some photo’s from the deployment, I did not take any after this since both armies were pretty proxy heavy but my central unit in the ruins was the heavy support squad which just had an insane field of fire and dominated the battlefield and their 18” interceptor bubble was basically meant when something large appeared I could pretty much remove it instantly with 40 strength 6 shots unless it could hide in some format.

I got first turn, just before that my outriders remembered to scout and rushed towards the relic, in my turn 1 the outriders completed their move on to the relic and everything I had opened up which resulted in a couple of wounds on the tervigon (I wanted to remove his synapse bubble and I hoped 40 volkite shots would do it but sadly his saves were pretty good). I managed to also get a wound on a carniflex and kill a couple of ravagers.

Nid turn 1 saw the outriders butchered in close combat and by shooting and I lost control of the relic to the ravagers and my opponent got first blood.

My turn 2 saw the fire raptor arrive (both games I got it on the first reserve roll) and I unloaded on the nids. A couple of ravagers were shot to pieces, the exocrine blown apart and that was about it with the shooting – I made the mistake of not moving the contemptors to ensure they got interceptor and then remembered it came with skyfire which made it utterly pointless and basically wasted a turn of shooting with them.

Nid turn 2 saw two ripper swarms, a trygon and the hive tyrant come down, my interceptor fire from the heavy support squad removed the trygon. Enemy shooting managed to put a wound on the standard bearer and two wounds on my praetor but achieve anything else and nothing was in charge range.

My turn 3 saw the fire raptor finish off the tervigon and the feedback from that killed four of the termegaunts it had spawned who then fled and got removed/forgotten. Massed firepower tried to take down the hive tyrant but I could only put three wounds on it.

Nid turn 3 saw another trygon appear along with the last ripper swarm but the zoanthropes which my opponent desperately wanted to try and deal with my contemptors refused to appear which only added to his frustration. Ripper swarms charged my heavy’s who obliterated them with volkite fire but that was the distraction to allow the hive tyrant to get in. The carniflexes tried to charge one of my contemptors but came in 1 inch short. Close combat saw the tyrant underperform and only win the fight by two and I managed to pass my leadership test to keep him locked there. Shooting did manage to get a few wounds on the command squad killed my carnabal sabre and then the last wound on my praetor saw a one for look out sir and then another one for the armour save and saw the praetor drop giving away slay the warlord annoyingly.

Night lords turn 4 saw the fire raptor go in to hover mode and unload on the carniflexes and kill one outright as well as using the side reaper cannons to obliterate all three bases in a ripper swarm. My remaining command squad whipped across to next to the hive tyrant fight to allow the banner to give fearless to the heavy support squad. My remaining shooting removed the drop pod, killed all of the remaining rippers, finished off the carniflexes and put 4 wounds on the new trygon.

Nid turn 4 saw the zoanthropes drop in next to the fire raptor, the trygon fled for cover. The zoanthropes managed to manifest warp blast and launched three lances towards the fire raptor, hit twice, penetrated twice and were jinked twice to massive frustration. The hive guard still sitting there fired at the fire raptor, got two more hits, two more penetrating hits one of which was jinked. The remaining hit immobalised the flyer which as it turns out was fine since it was not zooming at the time. The hive tyrant continued to slowly carve through the heavy support squad and I continued to fail to roll a 6 wound to at least try and kill it. 3 heavy support marines were left but still being fearless they held in there.

Night lords turn 5 saw me move to try and win the game, the jet bikes floated on to the relic, massed shooting took out the zoanthropes and their transport as well as finishing off the trygon as it had not been able to get out of line of sight. Close combat saw the hive tyrant fluff its lines and leave one of the heavy support marines (the sergeant) alive and he passed his break check to pretty much give me the game.

Nid turn 5  -  the nids only had 3 models on the table in the form of the tyrant and two hive guard, with the tyrant locked in combat during his turn and then certain to get shot to pieces in my next turn (if there was one) the game was pretty much over.

Not the best couple of games to be honest, my army in trying to counter the known threats of the tyranids had gone too far it seems and with the limited cover the nid’s never really seemed to stand a chance. This spawned a significant debate after the game were my opponent commented that he was going for softer lists to try and ensure fun games while I was continuing optimising the night lord list and we were getting towards a very competitive force. I think my opponent had expected things like the assault marines since they are painted and at 300 points they would have removed a lot of my ability to deal with bog monsters but as I pointed out they do nothing in that fight – he may expect me not to optimise but I cannot be expected to bring completely suboptimal choices. As it turned out though the main thing was that in taking the augury scanner for the heavy support marines against his army was insanely potent since my opponent had opted for a force which was 50% deep striking. From my point of view I felt I needed something like that because otherwise with some good reserve rolls my opponent could have had my force surrounded by monstrous creatures with me having one turn to reply, it could have potentially gone completely the other way.

This is I feel the main issue with deep striking forces, if it all turns up at once it is amazingly powerful and overwhelming but on the other hand when it turns up piecemeal it feels massively suboptimal and means you are fighting with substantially less points than your enemy has and it is telling.

Night lords against dark elder

Today I took my night lords off to try them out against the new dark elder codex. My opponent had hoped to bring a number of new toys to the fight but he had failed to get everything assembled in time. We had arranged to field 2500 points each which I was hoping would allow me to bring out the strength of the legion list as well as allowing us both chances to try out new things.

My army featured the following…

Praetor – jet bike, paragon blade, iron halo, digital lasers, trophies of judgement

Command squad – jet bikes, 3 x combat shield, 1 x chainglaive, 1 x power fist, 1 x charnabal sabre

Contemptor mortis dreadnought – 2 kheres pattern assault cannons

Contemptor mortis dreadnought – 2 kheres pattern assault cannons

Dreadnought – flamestorm cannon

10 tactical marines – additional chainswords, artificer armour, chainglaive, meltabombs, rhino

10 assault marines – power sword, power axe, artificer armour, thunderhammer

5 tactical support marines – 4 x volkite caliver

5 tactical support marines – 4 x volkite caliver

3 outriders – 1 x twin linked flamer

9 heavy support marines – 9 x volkite culverin, augury scanner

Fire raptor – reaper autocannon batteries

Sicaran battle tank

My opponent had a standard force org plus some guys from the grotesque circus supplement (or whatever the hell it is called).

I did take my camera but I was so focused on trying to avoid making blatant mistakes that I did not actually take any pictures so I am afraid there is no eye candy to support the battle report.

My opponent won choice of table edge, choice of deployment and basically everything in pre-game. We ended up with the battle where there is an objective in each deployment zone and they ended up being in completely opposite corners of the battlefield.

I failed to seize the initiative and off we went with the dark elder swarming forward ensuring that they would get in to a position to charge on turn 2 with Rakath bolstering the centre by ensuring they started the battle with feel no pain 6+, the combat drugs gave the jet bikes +1 toughness and the grotesques got the same from Rakath playing around with them. The dark elder shooting was aimed to cripple my firepower with the heavy bolter of the sicaran being blown off by a ravager (thank god the random weapon was not the accelerator autocannon) while the other opened up on my firestorm dreadnought and scoring three penetrating hits. I got a cover save from the grotesques between them and promptly passed all three saves. Additional splinter weapon fire managed to down one of the assault marines but that was it.

The night lords swung in to action aiming to tear apart as many of the dark elder as possible, the sicaran managed to gun down one of the ravagers while a contemptor managed to down drazor’s venom. The heavy support squad target a beast host and unloaded, with 20 wounds caused prior to deflagrate my opponent simply picked up all of the models. Other shooting saw a grotesque killed panicking his unit, another venom was blown to pieces and the flamestorm dreadnought managed to incinerate three bases of razorwings. I did manage to forget to scout my outriders which reduced them to comparatively moot for the battle but hey I cannot do everything right.

Turn 2 saw all of the dark elder reserves come in, the archon landed his raider through a webway portal behind the heavy support marines who activated their augury scanner and blew the transport to pieces but the archon and his court passed their pinning check spot on. A venom with four blaster wielders inside dropped in aggressively but scattered out of optimal range but remained safe. The mandrakes outflanked just in front of the outriders. The fleeing grotesques managed to rally on their leadership of 4. Shooting saw the outriders butchered to a man by the massed firepower of two troop squads and the mandrakes while the remaining ravager targeted the flamestorm dreadnought again and this time was unlucky and only caused a glancing hit. Three more assault marines were gunned down and they fled but then in what turned out to be a shocking move the beast host charged them, they pass their leadership check and rallied. The archons’ court murdered the heavy support squad with the medusa flamers doing a complete number on them – if only I had taken artificer armour on their sergeant who was the closest model. The jetbikes swept in to obliterate one of the tactical support squads. The blasters only managed to take an arm off the contemptor and aside from them did not achieve much.

Close combat saw the assault marines prove their worth and slaughter the beast host to a model for no losses while the tactical support squad were murdered by the jetbikes.

Night lords turn 2 saw the fire raptor stay off the battlefield, the assault marines moved to target the jetbikes while the flamestorm dreadnought and the jetbikes moved in to a position to support them. The one armed contemptor moved up to challenge for my objective and try and shoot down some of the incubi supporting drazor – I should have held off shooting and charged instead but I got carried away with the idea of shooting the elder to pieces. The second ravager was riddled with holes from the intact contemptor and the rhino began moving up towards the elder objective. The flamestorm incinerated a couple of the jetbikes. The assault marines managed to get in and butcher another 3 jetbikes for no loss before the dark elder did a hit and run leaving them stranded in front of a nasty grouping of dark elder assault specialists. The venom with blaster troops on board somehow managed to avoid being blasted apart by the sicaran with its flicker field.

Turn 3 saw the dark elder pounce on the assault marines, the shooting from splinter weapons managed to get a couple of wounds on to my praetor (2 unsaved after 7 wounds taken). The assault marines were slaughtered before they were actually able to make an attack when they found themselves being mobbed by the archons and his court, the incubi with drazor and rakath and his grotesques but they had definitely earned their before being butchered. The remaining jetbikes swung in on the flaemstorm dreadnought hoping their cluster caltrops would do the damage but failed and watched one of their number incinerated on the charge and another smashed down by the dreadnought close combat weapon. They held and opted to stay in the fight (in fact my opponent rolled for hit and run, failed and then asked why he tried to roll and tying up the dreadnought was essential at that stage with it able to flame half the dark elder army)

The blaster venom swept forward and disembarked its guys to try and remove the one armed contemptor as it was sat on the night lords objective and was not something it was going to be easy for the remaining dark elder forces to shift, 4 shots only hit once and that one rolled a double 1 for the penetration roll and achieved nothing

Night lords turn 3 saw me carefully consider matters and then decide to hold true to the principals of the night lords and run away from that close combat potential. The fire raptor arrived and managed to take a hull point off a venom as well as gunning down a member of the archons’ court.  The one armed contemptor and sicaran combined to slaughter the blaster armed troops to remove that threat. The Praetor and his jetbikes turbo boosted away to completely avoid the enemy forces. The rhino pushed rapidly forward and the contemptor moved up in support. The flamestorm dreadnought managed to crush the remaining two jetbikes but losing the turn of shooting meant they sold their lives well. The remaining tactical support squad unloaded on the two rallied grotesques and killed one routing the survivor again.

Dark elder turn 4 saw the archons’ court charge the flamestorm dreadnought, survive the overwatch fire and managed to get the sufficient amount of glancing hits to wreck the dreadnought. Drazor managed to pull off a long range charge and get on the contemptor, managed to get 5 hits and glance with 3 of them and I managed to fail all of the axiomatic saves and thus lost another venerable walker in the turn. The mandrakes unloaded everything they had on the jetbikes in front of them but I managed to somehow pass all of the saves to keep them intact. The fleeing grotesque rallied again.

Night lord turn 4 saw the fire raptor move in to a central position, kill a few of the dark elder around the objective and put another wound in to the archons’ court. The contemptor dreadnought  and rhino moved hell for leather forward to swamp the elder objective with models and to get away from the pursuing elder. The sicaran tried to down drazor and failed to completely. The praetor and his lads hammered in to the mandrakes and butchered them without loss.

Dark elder turn 5 saw the elder move everything to try and shoot down the jetbikes as they were definitely the most valid threats but even with two venoms and two units of warriors they only managed to put a wound on the standard bearer. The archons’ courts charged as fast as they could across the open ground but were still out of charge range. Drazor charged the sicaran and managed to get two more glances on that to wreck it as well, furious charge paying dividends in his attempts to get something from the battle. Drazor and Rakath firmed up their control of the night lord objective. The last grotesque charged the rhino but failed to do anything to it.

Night lord turn 5 saw the rhino power forward and disgorge 10 tactical marines on the dark elder objective, concentrated firepower removed all of the dark elder warriors, killed the grotesque, killed all but two of the archon’s court and the corpses included the archon himself. The game continued.

Dark elder turn 6 saw the remaining court members charge the contemptor to try and tie it up while the last intact venom moved flat out to get to contest the dark elder objective  - since I was using the age of darkness force organisation chart I did not get objective secured so he had to hope it survived for the turn and the game ended in order to get the win.

Night lord turn 6 saw the tactical marines unloaded with fury of the legion and take down the venom which guaranteed me the win of the battle.

Final score was one objective and linebreaker each, I also had first blood and slay the warlord to get the win.

So overall I managed to eke out first out and out draw with the nights lords, I have won battles with them when I have had allies like the guard or the necrons but this is the first time they have won outright on their own and I was pretty pleased with my play, aside from a couple of minor mistakes like forgetting scout on the outriders I think I played well and the main thing is when it counted I managed to keep sight on the objectives and not do something silly like charging the praetor and his command squad in to the core of the dark elder army in the hopes of killing the opposing general since I would have lost mine as well.

MVP for me was the assault marines, they took a charge and slaughtered the foe without any problems and then butchered half a unit of toughness 5 eldar jet bikes all without loss, yes they lost 4 guys to random splinter fire and they were butchered when they were charged by the opposing warlord and two special characters plus supporting units.  But the fact that my opponent committed so many models to dealing with them and that draw them out of position to have a massive impact on the rest of the battle was amazing and really won the fight for me. It would have never have happened if my opponent had not made the mistake with charging them when they were running but he did and it allowed them to shine in the battle.

The sicaran was pretty solid but nothing exceptional really, it worried my opponent but very quickly his forces were in combat so his transports were not as critical as they could have been. The flamestorm dreadnought is something I really like as it poses some very different questions to my opponent, if he pushes forward to get to grips with my shooting forces they are having to walk in to the face of some exceptionally nasty firepower and it gives me something else which ignores cover.

The heavy support squad did sick levels of fire but they are exceptionally expensive for what they do, I think 5 of them for 185 points might be an option but more than that is over kill and to be honest they are competing with fire raptors, sicaran’s and the like for the heavy support slots and I am not sure they do enough to win that competition.

The tactical support squads were ok but I do not think they do all that much, they are cheap even if they cannot be my compulsory troops – it may be that 5 of them, 4 with flamers in a rhino for 135 points is actually a massive boost for the army especially as it would allow me to deal with enemies in cover a little more effectively.