Battle Report: Tyranids vs. Grey Knights (Draigowing) - Golden Throne Round 1

With 6^th edition out for just over a month, I headed to San Jose, California for the world’s first ever sixth edition GT. The tournament would be six rounds over two days with a win/loss format using the book missions. My review of the event can be found here. I brought a 1500 point Nidzilla list;

Hive Tyrant (Warlord/Wings/Twin-Linked Devourers x2/Hive Commander)

Tervigon (Onslaught/Catalyst/Cluster Spines)

Tervigon (Catalyst/Cluster Spines)

10 Termagants

2 Carnifex (Twin-Linked Devourers x2)

Trygon (Toxin Sacs)

Trygon (Toxin Sacs)

My round one opponent is Bobby, his Draigowing, and their Tau allies.

Draigo

1 Paladin (Thunderhammer)

10 Paladins (Apothecary, 3 Hammers, 3 Halberd, Banner, Stave, 4 Psycannons)

Shas’o (AFL, Missile Pod, 2 Shield Drones, Blacksun Filter, FNP)

3 Shas’ui (Team Leader, Flamer/Missile Pod, Blacksun Filter, 2 Shield Drones)

7 Fire Warriors

Bobby had some pretty sweet Tau conversions;

It was clear that Bobby is a fun guy and not being WAAC. He expressed that he wished he had enough Tau to just play with them, but as he did, not he brought Draigo along.

Deployment is dawn of war with crusade (3 objectives) as the mission. My strategy with Draigowing is to utilize spawned gants as a walls between me and them. The deathstar can only take out one unit a turn. My goal is to position them so that it is only free gants they are able to attack.

Objectives are yellow.

I get to place two objectives, splitting them up so as the Draigowing will be restricted in how far it can reach. I also win the roll to go first, I deploy strongly in the skyshield. I plan to bring both my reserved gants and a trygon onto the left objective. The trygon will be there to prevent a deepstriking solodin from causing problems. I reserve the other trygon so that if Draigo comes forward I will be able to have a monster in his backfield.

Bobby reserves the soladin and the fire warriors. The crisis suits and commander are in the building with the deathstar nearby. All of the mysterious objectives are Shatterfields, reducing the charge range by half.

Tyrant Powers: Iron Arm and Warp Speed.

Tyrant Trait: Furious charge in his deployment.

Draigo Trait: 1VP for characters killed in challenges.

First turn is nightfight. Bobby doesn’t sieze.

Nidzilla 1

My tyrant shoots up the flank and shoots the suits. They pass all of their saves. I make one large gant squad but get doubles. I forgot to spawn with the other. With the suits out of carnifex range I fire ineffectively on Draigo.

Draigo 1

Bobby moves Draigo toward the tyrant. It would be a longish charge, but I would rather just not get grounded. I get hit six times by paladin shooting and take two unsaved wounds while staying airborn. The suits don’t hit.

Nidzilla 2

I am lucky he didn’t get first blood off my gants. I need to take out the suits to get that point. My tyrant glides, shoots the suits (killing two drones), and then charges. Bobby challenges my tyrant. I do two wounds, but his commander FNP’s them both off. Meanwhile my Tyrant takes a wound and loses combat. We forgot to shoot overwatch and I didn’t make him check for fear. The carnifex unit shoots and does two unsaved wounds to the paladins (one goes on Draigo). I get my gants on the left side but only one trygon. I choose to put it on the right in front of Draigo. If he goes toward it (originally placed left of Draigo) then my home base will be safer. Unfortunately it scatters toward the very place I want to keep him unit away from. The other tervigon spawns and gets doubles.

Draigo 2

Draigo separates from the paladins and charges the gants. He takes a wound from overwatch. The unit was barely in synapse. The paladins shoot the trygon, not missing a single shot, and kill it by forcing a huge volume of saves. He gets the solodin in on the left, but luckily misses holocaust. I need to get a trygon over there fast. My tyrant does two wounds on the suit, but it passes its leadership.

Nidzilla 3

I don’t get my trygon in again, even with my +1 to reserves. The black gant squad moves to block the paladins. The carnifex unit does two more wounds to the paladins. The left gants shuffle so they have cover but can still shoot. They fail to hurt the solodin. My Tyrant does two more suit wounds, causing them to flee off the table. He consolidates away from the paladins.

Draigo 3

Bobby moves the paladins back so they will be able to shoot my tyrant. First though he shoots the fire warriors. He does one wound and I fail my save, how unclimactic. The paladins charge both gant squads. Because I am fearless and a few survived he keeps both GK units safe from my shooting. Did you know that paladins have assault grenades even though they are terminators? Neither did my gants. Truth be told I forgot to have him halve his charge range from the objective. My gants run off the table.

Nidzilla 4

Things are looking bad here. I drop the other trygon on the left. I need to kill the soladin so he doesn’t hold that objective. I move my HQ tervigon up as a roadblock to keep the paladins distracted. If I get a six inch run on the carnifex unit along with onslaught then I can shoot the fire warriors and still make it a game, but I only roll two inches. The paladins finish eating my gants.

Draigo 4

The soladin moves to hide. He thought about charging me, but decided he would rather have me charge him so I would also be at I1. He is able to multi assault the carnifex unit and the tervigon. He gets a big consolidation into my face.

Nidzilla 5

The trygon kills the solodin and my troop tervigon gets as far back as possible while being within 3” of the objective.

Draigo 5

I concede here as the end result is clear.

Draigowing wins!

Containment has always been my strategy for Draigowing, so only getting two spawns really hurts. It also was surprising how well the suits held up. Passing all but two saves from 2 rounds of tyrant shooting didn’t change the game with the challenge, but it did set the tone for that engagement. If I did anything different it would be to put the turn two trygon on the left side rather than the right. I had enough containment gants to wait for the next trygon to come, and having a left trygon would have mean I would have been able to take care of the soladin before it got rid of my gants. That would have at least turned it into a game. I also could have (and should have), deployed the troop tervigon on the left side. I could have bubble wrapped it with spawned gants and then used spawned gants and my reserve gants to hold the right side. The downside here is that it is less gants for bubble walls, but obviously that didn’t really come into play in this game with me spawning poorly.

Edit-It also appear I did not think of smashing in the combat with the crisis suits. That was pure fail on my part and could have seriously changed the game.

Coming up next: Loganwing with skyfire bonusfun!