Thursday, August 12, 2010

T-Fex Batrep 3

So I've been espousing the merits of the Tyrannofex as has Kirby over on 3++ in order to combat some of the internet stupids that are claiming the thing is a write-off. That these are also the same people that complain about the Nid book in general isn't a great surprise...

Since I'd claimed they were useful I figured that I had to put my money where my mouth was and give them a run-out and see if they were any good, or if I was simply talking through my hole. I've got 3 games up where the list evolved over time and this one is the latest game with a T-Fex list I would recommend so that's why its going up first and not chronologically.



Prime with Lashwhip & Bonesword

Deathleaper
2 x 3 Hive Guard

2 x Tervigons with Catalyst, Toxin Sacs
2 x 10 Termagants

2 x T-Fexes with Dessicator Larvae, Cluster Spines and Rupture Cannon
Trygon with Adrenal Glands

I added the Trygon in after Pinball Wizard in another post said the army needed a combat boost or would simply draw lots of games. A game with a Marine army drove that home - I reckon I only won because Lysander and co failed a Ld test early on and spent the game being herded off the board. (I'll post that one later). I realised that I had nothing to even tie him and his friends up for a single turn as they were well able to saunter through any of my units relatively quickly even with the Prime attached. So I got a game in against Ivan and his Guard.

His list from memory was:
Company Command Squad with 4 Plasma guns in Chimera with Heavy Flamer

6 Choir Boys in Chimera with Heavy Flamer

Melta Vets in Chimera with Heavy Flamer
Melta Vets in Chimera with Heavy Flamer
Flamer Vets in Chimera with Heavy Flamer

3 Vendettas


2 Hydras
Manticore
2 Medusas


We rolled Annihilation/Dawn of War and he went first. This was his deployment, with a side shot. From my L to R:
Manticore, Choir Boys, Vendettas up front, Flamer Vets, Hydras, Melta Vets, Medusas, Melta Vets, CCS


I put everything into reserve. Guard are a shooty army. Take away up to 40% of its shooting effectiveness and you stand a good chance of surviving to reach combat: losing 2 turns of shooting in a 5 turn game makes Guard suffer as they lose so much of their ranged threat.


His stuff floated and moved about for his first 2 turns when all of a sudden...
Peek-a-boo!
If the Trygon wore clothes I'm sure he'd be tearing them off and waving his bits to attract more attention.While screaming. Which was needed. Thanks to a spate of good rolling I had all my reserves bar the Gaunts turn up on Turn 2. My 'deployment' from L to R was:
Tervigon, Tervigon, Prime with Hive Guard, T-Fex, T-Fex, Hive Guard


The idea was to pack a flank and have much of the Guard firepower out of range and force them to come to me. Here you can see I'm facing only half the Guard army giving me much better odds of coming out on top. Despite my superior firepower I only manage to shake a Vendetta.

It boosts away in its turn while the Flamer Vets move up to torch Deathleaper in the central ruins while the Trygon realised that only blowing a Multilaser off a Chimera wouldn't suffice and let him exposed. Very exposed indeed. Still, while that fire-magnet jackass was drawing attention to himself it enabled my Tervigons to reproduce like rabbits, although one got its ass clogged.


The T-Fexes joke about the Tervigon's baby daddy's new problem...
You can see the Trygon stick his tongue out at the Guard in this pic but he is blown away by the response as the swarm looks on.


In my turn 3 I manage to pull a Vendetta from the sky but only immobilising it and destroying 2 weapons denies me a Kill Point. In his turn 4 the Flamer Vets move to where Deathleaper was while the Guard open up on the huddled swarm and start to put the hurt on the Hive Guard by killing one in each squad and wounding a T-Fex while my response in my turn 4 is to pump out more Gaunts and start to push forward aggressively with the Hive Guard and start bagging vehicles: immobilising a Chimera and shaking a Valk can hardly be counted as a success though.

Ivan's 5th turn saw him move up some Chimera squads to get him some BBQ critters and deal a bit of damage to the T-Fexes and Hive Guard reducing them to a solitary model each. Thankfully the Manticore's Rockets had underperformed all game scattering or failing to wound on 2's so Deathleaper managed to avoid an ingominious death after he reappeared in my big block of ruins.

Rule question -When the Storm Eagle Rockets are fired and you get more than 1 shot, do you place the first 5" marker, scatter that and then flip the marker according to the Scatter die for the next shot(s) or do you place each one at the original point targeted and treat each as an entirely seperate shot? I've been playing it as the former so when the first shot scatters off the board the other shots are wasted as you can't flip the marker back onto the board.

My turn 5 saw the T-Fex bag a Vendetta at range and the Hive Guard open up a Chimera to expose the tasty morsels inside to Hive Rape:



Before...
...And after
I was hoping the game would end but alas it continued and Ivan put paid to one of my Hive Guard squads and the injured T-Fex. Thankfully I'd remember to have the Prime join a big blob of Gaunts a turn earlier to stop him being killed too.


Turn 6 rolled round and the lone Hive Guard was given a choice: take on the damaged Vendetta for the easy Kill Point and risk being caught in the open for Turn 7 or go after the Medusas and try to bag them with help from the T-Fex. I went for the latter as a bird in the hand is...a fucking Kill Point. I

had a better chance of destroying it with 2 S8 shots and 3 s5 combat attacks if I got desperate whereas the Medusas would be able to do allocation shenanigans to make it very difficult to bag both of them in one round. The Hive Guard bagged the damaged flyer with shooting while the T-Fex wrecked the last Vendetta.


Thankfully after this the game ended and after counting up I had won it by 2 KP.


After the game we agreed that his deployment had let him down - he had to spend 3 turns moving his Medusas to get into range while 2 Vets and the CCS in Chimeras had very little to do for the game as they tried to get into range.


I'm left wondering about the Trygon. Would I be better served dropping him for a pile of outflanking Genestealers or does he do enough to attract attention away from the T-Fexes and Hive Guard to keep them shooting long enough to justify their continued inclusion? He goes give me a nice counter-attacking unit that can at least hold stuff up and allow the shooty stuff to keep plugging away from distance while he goes down (heh).


I'm happy with the list overall though and I think that the list is better for the T-Fexes inclusion as their ranged threat gives the Nids the long-ranged punch they're normally sorely lacking. I have some more batreps to add up to show how they perform and on the evidence I will present I reckon that 2 is the most you can pack into 1750 point games.

3 comments:

  1. Well for starters I'd have dropped old mr. Trygon on your left as well. As you said you were only facing half the army for a few turns which was well played but you overrode that by throwing the Trygon away essentially. Putting on the left would have put serious pressure on the guard to get their target priority going and only luck would've seen him ride out turn 3 without taking losses.

    What I think it does show is that although it doesn't have to be a trygon, having something across the board other than deathleaper (yay) has served you well. Also you can potentially go without using 3 doggyfexes even though the list might be better served with the third. Food for thought.

    Oh and an honourable mention for me! Moving up in the world.

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  2. The Guard left you mean? He would have died even faster then as he would have brought the CCS' Plasma and 2 Melta Vet squads into range. I reckon dropping him near terrain and running into it to get a Cover Save from Lascannons would have forced the issue further and possibly left him alive to get stuck in the following turn.

    I don't think the 3rd T-Fex is missed that much simply because I now have something to stop them getting bogged down in combat beyond Gaunts. The Trygon also gives the list more speed and is a higher priority target than the T-Fexes so he serves his purpose as a distraction allowing the other things to get into position and start firing.

    Honourable mention: there's a first time for everything. ;)

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  3. Nah I meant your left but I wasn't entirely sure what the hell was there. If it was the plasma doom you say it was then it's understandable but otherwise I'd have lobbed him in the left corner and played peekaboo with the guard moving towards you. though the running thing is prob best. 1 turn of cover from those damn lascannons is handy. but you do need to be two up to get away with that.

    I was wondering how handy he would have been if you kept him with the boys? Yes he's wasted but I wonder would his combat smashiness combined with hordie goodness be enough to discourage all the spec weapons from advancing towards you, effectively taking a few hundred points out of the game? You could be pooping shots at birds and hydras all the while. food for thought.

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