Warpcon 2012 Game 2 - Mike's Nids

All that the Nids deployed...

So after my win in game one I was paired off with Mike (this year's ETC Team Captain) and I knew this wasn't going to be easy as I had gone into the game with a W/D/L record of 0/1/1 against him with the last coming at the hands of his Eldar at game 5 of Gaelcon.

Mike's list was what you would call unconventional for a Tyranid list: No Hive Guard, Gaunts with Devourers, 3 Tervigons and the Swarmlord with a Tyrant Guard bodyguard. And Stealers. Lots of them including two units of Ymgarls. So I guess the idea was to rush me, weather the storm of the first (painful) round of combat and buy time by pinning my army down in combat, with the Ymgarls crawling out from under Tayto wrappers to help join in the gangbang before the bigger bugs arrived.

Well, I had a plan for that...

Warpcon 2012 Game 1 - Pat's Nids.

Warpcon has been and gone and it was a laugh (as always) and I ran with my Wolves (as always) and I managed to take a few pics along the way while facing a variety of opponents: Nids twice (oh Jaws, how I love thee), Templars (not Hugh), Grey Knights and finally Daemons.

Game 1 - Pat's Nids
This was my first time meeting Pat and I figured it would be tougher than it looked because it didn't have as much Jaws-bait as I would have liked: only 1 Tervigon and 2 units of Hive Guard were available and they were likely to hang out of range while everything else bombed forward. That everything else was a Hive Commander Flyrant, a Trygon Prime, 2 big Broodlord Stealer units (with Poison), the Doom of Malantai in a Pod, a big unit of Hormagaunts with Poison, Gargoyles, some Gaunts and a unit of Hive Guard hiding at the back.

Nid Pics: Tervigon

I took these a while ago and meant to add them up sooner but I forgot about them. This bad boy is a Tervigon made from the Carnifex sprue with the sacks on its back made from rolled-up balls of green stuff.

There's two of these in the army, as well as two Tyrannofexes. Its nice to see people not listening to forum groupthink.

When I get a chance to take pics of the entire army I will. Oh, and 1:11pm on 1/1/11. Kewl.

T-Fex Batrep 2

Well this was game two against Mike's Foreskin and his Wolves. (Peurile, I know). This was the first game with the amended list of the Trygon and extra Hive Guard model so I was wondering how I'd fare.  Mike's list has been in a state of flux with a new list being created every week but he managed to stay in one place long enough to come up with:

Logan
2 x Dreads with Twin Las and Missile (note: this is not a Cyclone Missile)
3 x 6 Wolf Guard with 2 Combi-Meltas, Power Weapon and Fist
7 Wolf Guard with 2 Combi-Meltas, 2 Power Weapons, Fist, TDA with Chainfist and Storm Shield
2 Rhinos
Lasback
Predator with Sponson Lascannons
Land Raider Redeemer with Multi-Melta

T-Fex Batrep 1

Seeing as I'm doing things arseways I might as well be done with them as my time with the Nids draws to a close and I want to go back to fiddling with the Wolves (grow up).

The first game was against Jonny's Marines painted up as Legion of the Damned while the second was against Foreskin's Logan Wolves. Jonny had been playing with his Marines for ages and wanted to try something different so he ran with a Marine-heavy army with Pods and Rhinos while Mike is still chopping and changing his Logan list.

It was after the first of these games that I realised that the trio of T-Fexes had to go...

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.

The Tyranidsaurus Fex

Well we've all seen lots of Nid players running multi-Trygon lists (in fact I reckon they're the most popular Heavy slot there) and they tend to do the same thing over and over: get to combat and scythe through stuff or get shot down/pucked around without having a significant effect on the game.

Having read various pieces arguing over the use of T-Fexes (like the one on the right that I ripped from Dakka) and seeing a very mixed reaction to them I'm going to stick my neck out and say they're actually quite a good unit and give Nids something that they're often sorely lacking: Long-Range Anti-Tank firepower.

Brocon Game 1

So the week after Conclave I got to return to Limerick and my old stomping ground of Casteltroy where UL can be found. This was Brocon's inaugural year and we were expecting something good as there was a large group of people pre-booked. This tournament used the ETC scoring system of 15/10/5 +/- VP system.

32 turned up on the Sunday for 40k: 2 were too hungover, 4 got stuck in Cork after their lift bailed and some others had work commitments. Still, a decent turnout for a first-time tournament. This was the last tourney that would take place before the ETC and the entire Irish team showed up for practice with their lists. There were spot prizes for people beating a player on the team during any round so this was an added incentive for everyone else to get one over on them.