Tuesday 13 November 2012

Picking Warlord traits for Tyranids

My current list has a Flyrant that usually takes the warlord spot.

The Flyrant is kitted out with Devourers and
So what is the best set of traits to give him - my estimations are as follows
Ratings for each are out of 5, 5 = awesome, 0 is completely useless

Command  
Inspiring Presence                          Fearless everywhere  0
Intimidating Presence                     Nice but only a few units it makes a big difference with  3
The Dust of a thousand worlds       Meh  most nids have it anyway   1
Master of the vanguard                  Can be handy especially for big bugs   3
Target Priority                               Old advisary is better but better range here   2
Coordinated assault                       Speeds up assaults a little    3


Personal Traits
Master of Defence                   Flyrants rarely stay in own deployment zone.     - 1
Master of Offence                   Flyants do occasionally charge things    -2
Master of Manoeuvre              Don't really need this but keep em guessing   - 2
Legendary Fighter                   Awesome.. challenge the weakling get a VP, can win games    -5
Tenacity                                  Useful  but requires careful movement   -4
Immovable object                   Awesome .. who doesn't like a scoring boss!   -5

Strategic Traits
Conqueror of cities                 A little table dependant but very good if right table - 3 or 5
Night Attacker                       Nids love to close in while it is dark   - 5
Master of Ambush                 Outflank for assault units is pretty poor now   -  2
Strategic Genius                     Re-rolling reserves is good for holding gaunts back or bringing on flyers- 4
Divide to conquer                  Very good for Nids if opponent is dependant on reserved firepower  - 3
Princeps of Deceipt               Meh  deployment zone limitation makes this weak   - 1

Overall 
Command   12
Strategic traits  19
Personal traits 18 or 20

So that helps a little command is not worth taking...In most situations  I would pick personal as it has a better upside but if the table was heavy ruins then I would be tempted to roll strategic as that slightly weights things in your favour!

Roll well Folks





Sunday 4 November 2012

DGG Battle report: The Biobomb takes on Celestine


Heh all,

The biobomb had its first proper test against a few tanks today.
Darragh was back from Germany and brought his Sisters with Guard allies out to play! A list he has been doing well at german Gt's (3 top 5 places from last 3 tourneys)

I put 3 powers on all the tervigons and rolled powers as follows (just listing those I used )
Hive Tyrant 1 Iron Arm  Haemorage
Hive Tyrant 2 Endurance Haemorage
Tervigon 1  Endurance, Warp Charge
Tervigon 2  Iron Arm
Tervigon 3  Iron Arm
Zoans 1 Iron Arm, 2* Enfeeble, 2* Leech
Zoans 2 2* enfeeble, 2* leech
Doom  Iron arm

This is what things looked like at the start


The dominions scouted forward shortly after to see if they could jump some of the big dogs before the psychic wall went up. The guards first turn was uneventful killing a handful of gaunts in my center and on my left flank.
An Interesting observation for me here was that in the lengthways mission that firelines are alot easier to manage as the angles are just so tight.

In response to the Devilgaunts opened up on the left flank blob, killing 7 (even with good saving and going to ground). Everyone is always surprised by them, especially when backed up by an enfeeble  and the preferred enemy aura from the tyrants.
The flyrants had both swooped forward from behind cover and one of them got first blood by destroying an immolator with his brainleeches. the dominions inside.
One of my Tervigons craps out on a 4 Boo! And they then fail a 6 " charge. the others only manage a 6 and a 7 respectively... not exactly the endless horde you would hope for

Turn 2
The Nids are already closing fast so darragh backs off and blasts the right flank tyrant (he with Iron arm up) with everything he can and takes a wound from him. Celestine kills a few more gaunts and continues to make a nuisance of herself.
Another tervigon  craps out this time on a mighty 6
The left flank flyrant tear chunks out of the left flank  guard squad helped ably by the devilgaunts leaving a lone lascannon team. The right flank flyrant explodes a rhino. But suffering from occasional stupidity as I do I forgot to move her.

Turn 3
The guard back off again, except for celestine who parks beside  my home objective and kills a few more gaunts but does take a wound this time for that pleasure.  The chittering hordes start to close in around her though... not sure if she can kill them all. She is up to about 18 kills so far though so not doing badly!!


Turn 4
I actually did a half decent job of talking through this turn... practice makes perfect... so


At this point I was well positioned with turn 5 coming up and firmly holding both of the left flank objectives with unwounded tervigons sitting on both, the big momma tervigon sitting on a 3rd with sisters who could only attach grenades to her optimistically (T8 at this point).

Turn 5

The guard blob kills the black tyrant and takes pasting in return from the grey tyrant. The 3rd trimester tervigon on the right flank is joined closely by the doom who kills another few sisters (I think she is up to about 14 sister kills + a few guardsmen.) The brown tyrant joins in the fun and the last few sisters make a break for it only to be smashed in 2 by the chasing tyrant.  I now hold 2 of 3 objectives.

Turn 6
Celestine the wagon that she is gets up but my home objective is swarming with gaunts so she decides to contest the second mid flank by shooting and charging the tervigon sitting on it. She fluffs her wound roles though and takes a smash from the tervigon which hits once but fails to wound. D'oh.  In my turn she does 5 wounds but the tervigon has endurance up so saves 2 .
The tervigon smashes her again in the nid turn  but her invuln keeps her alive

On the right flank the guard blob charge the tryant and the doom. The tyrant rolls well on his precision striking and  kills some gun crew for extra wounds, probably should have focused on the Comissar though as killing him would be alot more useful. The doom kills off some of

Turn 7
The 3rd trimester Tervigon fails to kill the tank sitting on the objective, The tyrant kills the  Comissar in combat and the Doom sucks in some more souls ( mainly the power axe guys which was nice). The guard platoon command is heading for the table edge in what looks suspiciously like fear but is likely simply some tactical brilliance luring the tyrant into a killzone.  The Tyranids hold back and consolidate their positions


Result win for the Biobomb against tough opposition.
Other observations include:

  • With 26 powers  to roll there are alot of useful ones floating around. Also worth observing that against T3 opposition some of the more uninteresting powers  (e.g. Haemorage) become a bit more useful. 
  • The aoe of preferred enemy on the tyrants is just awesome I love it.
  • enjoying trying to do video bat reps... will get better I promise :)