And now we’ve come to the no picture batrep which is sad since this was the table that had the best terrain out of all 3 J. This round is a great example of how sometimes unoptimized lists can just have your number.
Round 2 can be found here: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/jotww-can-suck-it-local-rtt-batrep_03.html
Round 3
Deployment: Spearhead
My List:
Parasite
Prime w/Dual Bone Swords
2 Lictors
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
15 Genestealers
14 Genestealers
10 Genestealers
19 Hormagants
5 Raveners w/Rending Claws
5 Raveners w/Rending Claws
20 Gargoyles w/Adrenal Glands & Toxin Sacs
Opponents List:
Lash Prince
Lash Sorceror in T.Armor
6 Terminators w/H.Flamer and Combi-Weapons galore
8 Khorne Berserkers in a Rhino w/PF + Flamer & Melta
10 Chaos Marines in a Rhino w/PF+2 Melta
5 Lesser Daemons
Predator w/AC-LC
2 Obliterators
Defiler
So my opponents list is just a mash of units he threw together based on a theme from the newest Night Lords novel Blood Reaver (Which was very good I must say having finished it just a few days ago.). The biggest issues I see are the Lash. I only have 1 decently fast Shadow to keep his powers from running all over me. Add in Spearhead (which is the longest run for my fellas) and a St8 Ordnance for use against my Raveners and I’m a little leary.
So he wins the roll to go first and takes it. He puts his “base” 12” in on the left hand back corner next to a building while I put mine in the far corner since I just don’t want him to be able to get it at all. He deploys mostly centrally but back a little farther from the closest point to me in a layered defense. He also starts his terminators and sorcerer in reserve. I naturally deploy right up on the line w/my hormies providing cover for everyone and prepare to slog up to him. I infiltrate 2 units of stealers, on into each empty table quarter as close as they can get and outflank with the small squad of 10.
I attempted to seize but failed and my opponent goes first. He shifts everything to my right and jumps his Prince for LoS to my Genestealers in that table quarter. He then lashes them over halfway into the open and proceeds to pound on them, killing half the squad. He also takes a wound off the Prime and a Hive Guard w/his Predator. On my turn I move my Genestealers up to the building in the upper right table quarter to block most of the LoS of his forces (even though he can lash me into the open) and move the rest of my forces up. I immobilize a CSM Rhino and that’s pretty much it.
Turn two sees my opponent failing to get his termies and then finishing off the Genestealers in combat w/his prince. It also sees me lose a Hive Guard from the squad and take a few Gargoyle and Hormagant casualties. On my turn I fail to get my stealers unit that’s in reserves but the Lictors come in and deploy in cover on his left flank and the rest of my forces move up again. I blow up his predator w/my Hive Guard and I charge the immobile rhino w/the Parasite and crew and nearly glance it to death but alas it had an extra weapon. My hormagants charge his prince to keep lash out of the game for a turn and hold.
Turn 3 still doesn’t have my opponents terminators come in. But it does have him debarking a 10 man squad from the immobile Rhino and moving up his defiler to assault. He also shifts his Oblits over to bail his prince out. My opponent then goes on to smoosh my Parasite with his defiler and kill off both my Hormagants and Gargoyle squads. However this has left some scary elements of his exposed. I move my 15-man genestealer unit up to assault his Defiler while positioning a ravener squad with assault options and prepping the other one to charge the 10 standard CSM that got out this turn. I get my outflanking Genestealers but the dips come in on the wrong table edge and just kinda move on. I also shift my Lictors to assault a rhino that is already 80% boxed in by my opponent. Hive Guard kill a Rhino but fail to do anything else. I charge in. Genestealers and a Ravener squad going for the Defiler while the other 5 Raveners go after his CSM Squad. The lictors also assault the Berserker Rhino. The Genestealers manage to knaw off both of the defilers CCW’s (thank goodness) but the Raveners fail to accomplish anything against it. My other Raveners however have a field day against the CSM squad and kill the whole unit while only losing a single model. They however roll a 1 or 2 for their consolidate and so are stuck in the middle of his forces.
Turn 4 has his Terminators come in. They deepstrike in the lower right table quarter and lash my Genestealers in closer to them to burn and purge them. He also gets his baby daemons who come in in the top left quarter and move out toward his base a little bit. His Berserkers get out and prepare to kill off the lictors. His prince and oblits head back and prepare to eat the Raveners while the other 10 man squad gets out to lend a hand at it. I lose the Ravener squad, Lictors, and all but one of the genestealers that outflanked. However I finish off his defiler and get a decent consolidate move. On my turn my still 15 strong Genestealer unit prepares a multi-charge on the less daemons and Berserkers while Raveners move up to work over his last 10 man squad. I pop all but one rhino this turn with my HG and keep moving them forward, away from Termies that just landed. My turn sees the death of his berserkers, less daemons, and 8/10 of his CSM including his champ. But the hold.
Turn 5-6 is pretty much clean up. My big genestealer unit winds up holding his “Base” and while he finishes off my Raveners between them and the prime I also finish off all of his units in his army except for the termies and sorcerer in my back field. I wind up taking 25/30 BP’s which pushes me into 1st by around 5-10pts or so.
In this game my opponent made a critical mistake not keeping both lashes on the field. He also was more afraid of the stealers than the Raveners. Not saying it would have made a difference since the stealers munched everything they touched but he could have cut down on my threat range by starting with my raveners. We both had some pretty epic poor rolling but it was in the bag once my genestealers and raveners got into his lines.
Overall this was a fun tournament w/16 people at a nice little location. It was run well and since it started at 8:45 we were done by 5pm which was very, very nice. As far as my army went I’ll be dropping the lictors. The 6 Hive Guard are fine at 1,850 so I won’t be adding to that but the lictors need to go. I’ll also probably be droping the Horms to standard gaunts and taking the upgrades off the Gargs. This will give me 190pts to play with which might turn my Prime into a HT w/ Dual Devs and a TG w/Bone Sword but we’ll see. I might also flush out my troops to add another unit as I found myself quite light on troops in this tourney. Either way not a bad showing for a no-MC Nid army. Thoughts fellas?
