DGG Battle Report Tyranids V Space Wolves

Time for another club battle report and with the new Tyranid army inbound I was looking forward to taking them out for a spin!

My list 

2 Tervigons  Iron Arm /leech   & Endurance / Hemhorage

Swarmlord  Leech / Iron arm / 

Flyrant

2* Zoanthropes (puppetmaster/ Endurance and 2 crap powers)

20 Gargoyles

Trygon

7 Ymgarls

10 gaunts

10 gaunts in pod

Space Wolf force was

2 Rune Priests one with Divination Prescience/foreboding and Jaws/ lightning

Drop pod with combi melta squad

2 10 man tac squads one in rhino

2 land speeder with multi - melta / flamer

Drop pod and 10 man tac

2 squads of long fangs

Dreadnought

3 thunderwolves

Mission was in the style of the BAO 2 missions played concurrently - with  Emperors Will and The Relic and setup of vanguard strikes .  I have played these variants a few times and I find it brings a little more balance to the game... you are never quite out of it!  Both of us place our emperors Will objectives in buildings (just left and right in the below photo.

Fig 1 - Tyranid setup

The Tyranids setup aggressively in the center using the spore forest for cover... they look hungry!

Fig 2 Wolves setup

The wolves counter putting their tac squads in the center (one in Rhino) the long fangs hold the right flank from cover (building / forest)

Turn 1 central advance

The Tyranid pour forward... psychic powers are a bit of a fail with 3 of my creatures wounding themselves!
On the plus side Puppetmaster does go off and manages to cause a landspeeder to meltagun the Dreadnought for first blood. The hive mind can cause you to do strange things.
On the right flank the wounded Flyrant  jumps forward and takes out  some long fangs. The Devourer worms cause the 2 remaining fangs to run back. ATSKNF will get them straight back into it.

Turn 1 Drop pod strike

The grey hunters and the rune priest drop deep and aggressively taking the iron arm tervigon out in one shot and the feedback kills half a dozen gaunts. A few of the Gargoyles get plinked by the tac squads - FNP and cover help them stay in the game.

SW turn 1 - bolters at the ready

Tyranid  counter charge

The Swarmlord does not take kindly to tinmen causing the ground to open under his buddies and charges in with help from the flock of Gargoyles. The swarmlord challenges and splatters the offending rune priest.

Tyranid turn 2 - Ymgarl strike

The Ymgarls appear in the right hand forest and jump both squads of the Long fangs - taking some casualties on the way in. The Thunderwolves lose one of their number from the Flyrant but prepare to counter charge.
In the center the Trygon assaults the troop unit holding the emperors will objective - slicing and dicing them without a wound.  The thunderwolves flub some of their attacks and the ymgarls are fortunate to survive.. help is on the way as in the wolves turn the central tac unit are wiped out and the Tyrgon moves close to the ongoing combat.

SW turn 3 Grab the Relic

Also in turn 3 the other drop pod arrives and the marines get out and grab the relic

In addition this turn a spawned gaunt squad are killed (and the remaining tervigon menopauses) by the disembarking second troop unit.

On the left flank it takes the swarmlord a while to take his boneswords out of the remains of the rune priest but he continues to work through the marines (who in turn kill some gargoyles)

Nid turn 4 - my what shiny teeth you have

In nid turn 4 the tervigon heads straight for the relic peering around the droppod which he then charges and wrecks.

Nid turn 4 - Ymgarls Trygon and flyrant kill them

The last ymgarl takes some marines out and the trygon comes in and mangles some more. The flyrant chooses to hit the remaining runepriest.... just surviving a force sword but eventually killing him.
The swarmlord and his buddies finish off the drop tac squad and turn back towards the objective the left and right flanks closing in like jaws onto the relic.
But the marines are not done yet and krak grenades  at the ready they charge the tervigon and over 2 turns they kill her with the wolfen going rend crazy too- she explodes and kills most of the gaunts nearby... for a moment things look better for the marines.

Cruuunch

The Zoanthropes just act to stop the marines on the objective running away - pinning them in combat while the other monsters close in. In a flurry of blood and claws the marine numbers are dramatically reduced. The future looks to contain gene soup...

SW turn 5 Final stand!

The final marine wolfen squares up to the Trygon...it ends predictably.... another annal written in the heroic history of the space wolves.