6th Edition Battle Report: Tyranids vs. Tau

The last round of my seven game marathon was against Julio and his Tau. Julio brought;

Commander Farsight

12 Fire Warriors with Pulse Rifles

12 Fire Warriors with Pulse Rifles

12 Fire Warriors with Pulse Rifles

8 Pathfinders (8 Markerlights/Devilfish with Burst Cannon and Pulse Carbine Drones)

Piranha (Fusion Blaster)

Hammerhead (Railgun and Pulse Carbine Drones)

3 Broadsides (3 Twin-Linked Railguns/3 Twin-Linked Plasma Rifles/Blacksun Filter)

3 Broadsides (3 Twin-Linked Railguns/3 Twin-Linked Plasma Rifles/Blacksun Filter)
 

I realize now that this list is illegal due to Farsight only allowing one unit of broadsides, but that obviously is after the fact now. He has a lot of high strength shooting, which of course scares my big bugs. Once I get across the table I should be able to handle his list, though it will be interesting to see how overwatch effects my charges. All that plasma may make me think twice about trying a long charge (note: it is almost always worth risking the long charge. If I don’t charge I am taking the shots anyways, and they will be at full ballistic skill rather than just BS1). I brought;

Tervigon (Onslaught/Scything Talons)

Tyranid Prime (Lashwhip/Bonesword/Scything Talons/Toxin Sacs)

2 Hive Guard

2 Hive Guard

Tervigon (Catalyst)

10 Termagants

2 Carnifex (Twin-Linked Devourers x2)

Trygon (Toxin Sacs)

Trygon

One thing I forgot to do was to swap out dominion on the tervigons for a different biomancy ability. Julio got the warlord ability that let him pick if nightfight was in play turn one, which he selected to have occur. I selected the Prime as my warlord and received move through cover for units within 12”. I completely forgot to use that. I should make a token to mark my warlord from now on so that I remember. In this report the unpainted tervigon is my troop while the painted one is my HQ. The random people in the background were friends and family of Julio. They all were fun making jokes and such. One of them was a fellow nid player.

The mission is Big Guns Never Tire and we are using Hammer and Anvil for the deployment. Not only does this mean there will be more space between us, but also that Julio can score with his heavy support. We roll for five objectives and thankfully I win the roll to go first.

I placed two objectives on the left (my board edge) one foot apart and six inches from the table edge. The terrain in front of them (black building at the top of the table) is line of sight blocking meaning that any gants behind it are safe from shooting. I placed my last objective on the top floor of the center ruin. Assuming Julio would be deploying further back than I was this objective would be difficult for him to reach due to it being several floors up in a ruin. It would also give cover to objective holders within his firing range. Julio place one objective in each building in his deployment zone. Farsight is in the top ruin with a unit of broadsides, the piranha, and two squads of fire warriors. The bottom ruin has the pathfinders in in. The reason he placed many fire warriors out of cover was because the ruins in his deployment zone did not have windows on the first floor; putting them in the open meant he would get more shots. I reserve my gants.

Tyranids 1

My HQ tervigon spawns a 10 gant unit rolling doubles. They proceed to hide behind cover on the back objective. This tervigon uses onslaught (allows me to both run and shoot) on the bottom hive guard. Troop tervigon spawns a large squad without getting doubles. They go into the center ruins. Catalyst is used on the bottom trygon. Everything shuffles up and gets cover. I am out of range to do anything offensively.

Tau 1

Julio moves nothing and opens fire. Markerlights target the bottom trygon upping fire warrior ballistic skill tand taking his cover away. He does one wound to the bottom trygon after feel no pain. One broadside team did 3 wounds to the top trygon and the other did three wounds to the HQ tervigon. 5+ cover really hurts.

Tyranids 2

My reserves come in my backfield. I now have two gant squads on the two objectives that are out of line of sight. I move the mid gant squad to the top floor of the objective. I then spawn a midsize gant squad (black), without doubles. I then move my troop tervigon to the second floor of the ruins (represented by its base. This is an illegal move. The rulebook clearly does not list monstrous creatures as being able to leave the ground floor. HQ tervigon uses catalyst on the trygon up top. My goal is to alternate FNP bubbles and switch which units are more out of cover to give incentives to Julio to shift his target priority. By making different units appealing to shoot at on different turns I can hopefully keep my battle line alive, though wounded, long enough to get some charges off and keep him off the center objective. The low hive guard unit stuns the hammerhead on a single damage result. Gant shooting kills one fire warrior in the red squad.

Tau 2

The gants I pulled out of cover were taken as bait, preventing the fire warriors from shooting at my trygon. On the top side I lose the Trygon, but thanks to FNP he took most of the fire from that side of the board. Fire Warriors do one wound to the HQ tervigon.

Tyranids 3

The troop tervigon goes to the top of the ruins, FNP’s itself and spawns seven gants (grey) getting doubles. I push them and the black gants forward. I need to push the fire warriors back so that they can not get to the objective in the center. Between the big gant squad in the ruin and the scoring tervigon with FNP I can reasonably weather the shooting (because most of it will be used on the Carnifex unit once they make their usefulness known). I make sure the entire top floor of the ruins is filled so that he can not flat out his skimmer there to contest. Bottom hive guard get two damage results and finish off the hammerhead from hull points. Gant shooting kills five fire warriors who fall back. The bottom trygon misses the charge on the devilfish. Top tervigon gives onslaught to the carnifex unit. They need three inches on the run to get to the broadsides…they get a four. I do three wounds. The tervigon uses its cluster spines and kills one fire warrior. The central broadsides save the wounds from the upper hive guard.

Tau 3

The fire warriors rally and kill a few grey gants, but they are in synapse so they hold. Pathfinders shoot the Trygon but he saves it all. One broadside squad only kills one carnifex due to cover (plasma was in range) and the other broadsides killed the upper hive guard unit. I am not using the prime for wound gimmicks due to the plethora of S10 shots on the table. Julio uses Farsight, who is out of the ruin now, and the fire warriors to finish off the HQ tervigon.

Tyranids 4

I move the two forward gant squads to where they have line of sight of the pathfinders. I force a morale test from shooting and they break. The bottom trygon assaults the fire warriors, killing them all and consolidating into the face of the mid broadsides. Bottom hive guard get a weapon destroyed on the devilfish. I take of the drones so the gants will not be pinned. Up top the Carnifex is able to shoot down the last three wounds from the top broadside unit. The prime separates and charges Farsight. I do two wounds and he does one. Farsight is not a pushover in close combat it turns out between his power weapon and invulnerable save.

Tau 4

Julio moves the topmost fire warriors around the prime and charges them in to protect Farsight. We each do one wound. Between the fire warriors in the ruin and the piranha blaster he does two wounds to the carnifex. The mid broadsides move back and fire, but only do two wounds to the carnifex. Pathfinders regroup.

Tyranids 5

Carnifex moves forward to soften the Broadsides up before the trygon finishes them. For some reason (could be because I have only slept three of the last 36 hours…) I forget about my lashwhip and the Prime and Farsight strike at the same time killing each other. Black gants move onto the lower right objective which is being contested by pathfinders. Julio concedes.

I had to play a tight game in this one. It helped that Julio did not focus fire, but even if he did, say killed the upper Trygon instead of splitting wounds with the tervigon, there would always be another monster in its place. I feel his biggest mistake was playing too defensive. He needed to push forward with his not static elements so that he could have contested the center. By not focusing fire on my central scoring units the best he was playing for was a draw. He could have also pushed the piranha forward. This could have either contested, gotten him a unit in my deployment zone, or even tank shocked the gants off my two back objectives.

As for my mistake on moving the tervigon into the ruins, if I would have known I would have stuck him behind the ruin within 12” of the gants and put FNP on them. Between going to ground, ruin cover, and FNP they are a big enough squad to hold on the objective. I also could have marched him onto the lower right objective and chased out the pathfinders.

End of the day lesson: 6^th is something new and not all is what it appears. Hammer and Anvil against Tau with Big Guns Never Tire is bad on paper but it can be won. One win on my part does not make it natural law, it is just an observation on what can be done.

Mistake alert! I was so focused on 6th edition rules I never rolled for instinctive behavior on the two gant squads holding my backfield objectives. That is a big no no. My game plan should have shifted instead to camping my troop Tergigon in the back on one and putting my reserved squad on the other and then sending all spawns forward to the middle. I would have had to be less aggressive with the HQ tervigon to keep synapse on the center gants.