In the finest tradition of Ridley Scott, these 2 forces take the field, rolling for an Eternal War: Crusade mission, but eschewing Night Fighting (which favors the Tyranids) and tactical objectives. Mysterious Objectives did come into play, but mostly had no effect.
The armies: Troops and strategy
Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken:
overall plan is to drown the enemy in troops and grab objectives while they're fighting. The flying model will shoot vehicles and the 2 Carnifexes will overwhelm the enemy's high armor with multiple shots (24 in total!). Grey Knights have force weapons which can cause instant death, so I'll need to keep my large expensive models away from them. Greg was very excited when I mentioned this.
Using a bound army with Endless Swarm [gaunts and warriors come back to life from off the table if you roll a 4+] and Hive Fleet Detachment [reroll instinctive behavior. Remember that most Tyranid creatures can't get too far from a synapse creature or they revert to instinctive behavior (can eat each other, run, or mindlessly attack)!
Winged Hive Tyrant is the Warlord (synapse creature)
I gave him a Heavy Venom Cannon and Electroshock grubs for killing vehicles a twin linked devourer with brainleech worms for general killing. Flyijng will keep him safe, except from the StormHawk.
For psykik powers, I rolled Paroxysm and the Horror (neither of which are much use against Grey Knights) and rolled Mind Eater as a warlord trait (2 points for killing a character in a duel)
Tervigon is the second HQ (synapse creature). He can spawn more gaunts each turn and factors heavily into my strategy.
30 Termagaunts in 3 units
30 Hormagaunts in 3 units
3 Warriors (provide synapse)
1 Venomthrope to provide cover with his spore cloud (though wouldn't you know it, I forgot to put him on the table)
2 Carnifexes with 4 twin linked devourers with brainleech worms (24 high strength shots)
2 Zoenthropes (provide synapse and psykik powers)
2 Lictors (Heavy attacks but made of tissue paper. Do not need synapse and I'm hoping that they can get close enough to kill a vehicle and help guide the Mawloc to annihilate a squad)
1 Mawloc (can deep strike from off the board and his attacks punch through armor. I'm taking a chance with him, since if he misses he will most likely be killed).
Grey Knights Chapter:
This is briefer because I don't know GK as well. They are tough, durable, hit hard, have psykik powers, and are expensive. most of them will . He is taking the Brotherhood formation, which can grant teleportion to each unit and can make his reserve units (i.e. flyers) come in on turn 1 (also bonuses for psykik powers).
1 Librarian in Terminator Armor (level 3 Psyker) is the HQ. Lots of space magic powers, which can crush large amounts of troops.
10 Terminators in 2 units (1 psilencer each). The quintessential Grey Knight. Force weapons and psykik powers too. Only a 1 in 6 chance to kill them if you don't have armor piercing (only my Mawloc does), so weight of numbers will be important to overwhelm them. The psilencer has 6 high strength shots and force (can be instant death).
10 Strike squad members with 1 psilencer each in 2 units. Smaller armor (1/3 change to kill) but cheaper and also have force weapons.
1 Stormraven Gunship. This flyer will come in and kill whatever it aims at while evading fire. Good thing there's only one
1 Dreadnought- Heavily armored walker with lots of firepower. Strategy will be to camp on an objective and shoot whatever comes close.
1 Dreadknight- Oh boy. This behemoth is not a vehicle, but is incredibly tough, has force weapons, and a personal teleporter which can shunt it 30" once per game. Will most likely teleport behind me and try to kill mt Tervigon.
The Battle- Turn 1
Playing on a new board- "flower field"! And using Revolutionary War terrain, mostly conferring a 4+ cover save.
Tyranids opted to go first, but Grey Knights stole initiative. Not good for Tyranids, as the GK are set up to counter their formation and they get to go first. Both armies deployed in a line, but Tyranids infiltrated the 2 Lictors (assassins) behind a wall nearby. They will try to use their abilities to guide the Mawloc in.
However, disaster struck as not only did the GK flyer fail to come in, but the GK's Librarian in attempting to use lots of dice to activate his psykik powers (Terrify and Shreik) on the Lictors failed to protect himself from the Perils of the Warp and was destroyed by the Empyric Feedback. Greg decided that the Psykik phase was over.
In the shooting phase, all GK's in range and line of sight fired on the Lictors and killed one. On the Tyranids turn, the whole army moved forward, the Tervigon's spawning belly pumped out 6 new Gaunts with Fleshborer Beetle rifles, and the Flying Hive Tyrant (Flyerant) shot at the Dreadnought and failed to wound.
The Battle- Turn 2
Here's where things got interesting. Though the Stormhawk flyer failed to come in again, Greg deep struck a unit of Terminators behind the Tyranid lines and cast Hammerhand and Force (instant death) on them. They then fired a Force Psylencer on the Tervigon and killed him right away (I decided not to surround him with troops because I didn't want them to get in the way of him spawning new troops- big mistake!).
The synaptic backlash destroyed a large number of the gaunts around him (her?) and the loss of synapse destroyed the new unit of gaunts, who fled off the table in fear.
In addition, the Lictor was killed by the Dreadnought (who took Mysterious objective #1- Sabotage with not enough power to hurt the Dreadnought), and the 2nd squad of Force terminators shot at the Hive Tyrant (luckily both wounds were saved). Strong opening from the GK, but the Tyranids prepared their response:
As the Terminators reveled in their victory, the Carnifexes turned and opened fire, slaying 4 Terminators due to the sheer number of shots overwhelming their armor saves. Furthermore, 2 units of Termagaunts reversed course and assaulted the Terminator. Though they lost one of their number, the remaining Terminator made his armor saves and survived
On the other side of the table, disaster struck as the Mawloc entered and completely missed the second squad of Terminators. Failing his instinctive behavior, he gnaws on own leg but his armor saves him from doing damage.
The Battle- Turn 3
As turn 3 began, the Stormhawk finally zoomed in and blasted the Hive Tyrant, causing 2 wounds. Due to grounding rules, he fell from the sky and suffered another wound.
The surviving Terminator squad cast Force (instant death) on themselves, losing one of their number to Perils of the Warp, and assaulted the Mawloc killing him (though he took 2 more with him).
On the other side of the board, the DreadKnight made his move, shunting behind the swarm, successfully casting Sanctuary (4+ invuln), and attempting to kill the Zoanthropes.
This would have caused half my army to run due to instinctive behavior, but lucky for me they made their invulnerable saves. The remaining GK forces fired on the advancing swarm and killed 1 Hormagaunt and wounded 1 Warrior. While the Strike Squad took objective #3, the remaining Terminator survived the 15 gaunt assault and killed 2. ^&*%!
On the Hive's turn, they all continued their advance, though all the Zoanthropes' psykik powers were denied (stupid amount of dice the GK's are allowed!). However, the again swooping Tyrant flew behind the Dreadnought and killed him with his Devourers (the cannon turned out to be useless- the internet was right). The advancing Carnifexes shot at the Strike Squad and killed 2.
The nearby hormagaunts and termagaunts responded to the DreadKnight with an assault
While they would only do 1 wound for the rest of the game, the 2 units would successfully tarpit the monster, keeping him away from the nearby objective. The Zoanthropes were forced to stay behind to watch these 2 combats (otherwise, all Tyranids out of synapse range would most likely run away). The score was now 2:1 Grey Knights (1st blood, 1 objective [and one more close at hand] vs 1 objective).
The Battle- Turn 4
As the final turn began, all GK units cast Force and prepared to charge. The Stormhawk dropped into Hover mode and disembarked a Strike Squad
, who would run and shoot (they can do that) 2 Warriors (causing 2 wounds). The Stormraven had flown out of shooting arc to hit the Warriors, and then would fail to wound the Zoanthropes (whew). The second Strike Squad shot Force weapons at the Carnifexes, who thankfully made their 2 saves. The remaining combats (DreadKnight and 1 Terminator) whittled down the attacking Tyranids, but no wounds were made on the GK.
In addition, the Terminators moved to take back Objective #1 and passed their armor saves against the Sabotaged objective. Score is now 3:1 GK
Finally, Tyranids moved to take objective #3. The Hive Tyrant dropped to glide mode and moved to within 12" of the table edge to take the point for Linebreaker. He fired on the Strike Squad guarding objective #3 killing 2, and the Carnifexes finished the job by killing 2 in shooting and then mopping up the rest on a successful charge (4 Hammer of Wrath hits).
The remaining combats did not cause any GK casualties
Still Alive!
Final score: Tyranid victory 3-2 (Linebreaker and 2 objectives vs First Blood and 1 objective)
Hard fight and congrats to Greg for an excellent fight from the Grey Knights.
Final thoughts: The way for Tyranids to deal with GK is definitely force of numbers. Genestealers instead of the Lictor/Mawloc combo would have been a better idea. Also, Twin linked Devourers with Brainleech Worms for Carnifexes and Tyrants are the way to go- they successfully destroyed more units on the board than any other weapon (4 Terminators, 1 Dreadnought, 4 Strike Squad members). Do not bring Bio-Cannons. Do protect your Tervigon from deepstriking units. Be mindful of the number of dice used for psykic tests, as Perils of the Warp is a real concern (it wiped out the GK's leader in 1 turn!).Take the flowered tablecloth off the table before play. Remember all your models (though the Venomthrope wouldn't have made a huge difference, as I planned to bring him away from the Tervigon anyway).
Thanks for reading! This brings my score to 2:0 Tyranids (I'll write up my previous battle against Space Wolves later). Any new challengers?
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