So Dave and I finally managed to get a game in (well, two.) It was 1500 points, his Deathwing versus Hive Fleet Ossuary.
I opted to use the same list as I've being using all along, but in light of the last game I took out one unit of Hive Guard and substituted them for two Zoanthropes in a Spod armed with a Deathspitter. And I was glad I did, as the Deathwing consisted of two Crusader Land Raiders and three squads of terminators (there was an Apothecary in there - hellish, hellish things giving the units they’re with Feel No Pain) plus a Librarian and Belial. So without the Zoanthropes I'd have only had the Tervigon as a tool for opening them up. Well, that and a fence.
Yes, that's right! The first game was Annihilation with Spearhead and Dave, having won the toss, chose for me to deploy. One quarter of the table was hemmed in with ruins and fences, so the Land Raiders were forced to set up behind them. First turn kicks off, and they roll forward. Making the difficult terrain test, the raiders got snake eyes disabling both of them. I was rather chuffed with that bit.
The rest of the game involved me charging towards the terminators. I was a little confused why Dave was so eagerly charging his Deathwing forward, and it took me a while to realise they were armed to the teeth with close combat weapons. I managed to wipe out his guys, leaving me with the Land Raiders. It was close, though. His land raiders were still weapons capable, and as the turns rolled by I had only a narrow corridor on the table that my greeblies could hide in where his Hurricane Bolters, Assault Cannon and multi-melta couldn't fire. I nevertheless got the win.
The second game was also Annihilation (Pitched Battle set up this time.) One Crusader took centre and I set up as far away from it as possible. The rest of the troops spread across the board, with the second Land Raider in the centre. Some Deathwing deep struck in, on the other side from where I set up (I just couched myself in a corner with a hormogaunt defensive line, and then charged.) During the game I took a beating. The spawned termagants were useless. I think their only purpose is to give my foe a kill point in return for a temporary shield. The Stealers, however, did wonderfully. They mowed through one unit of terminators, charged to the middle of the field and chomped on both Belial and the Librarian. 9 Stealers? 124 points. The corpse of Belial of the Dark Angels to be shared around my Hive Fleet? Priceless. (And, for the record, Belial tastes of chicken. Chicken covered in victory.) My Zoanthropes took *ages* to come in, not appearing until turn 4. They decimated one of the raiders, and had a stab at the second one. But, man, those things missed too often and failed to get a penetrating hit with one of their shots (and the Tervigon, too, managed in the first game to land one close combat blow, and roll piss poor on armour penetration; and did the same thing in the second game.) I'd complain about bad luck, but Dave did ruin two raiders on a fence... In sum, though, they did their bit and soaked up a lot of fire. Zoanthropes are an excellent buy. Anyhow, the game ended up as a draw. I think I might have been in with a good chance on the next turn if it’d gone a little longer. (Although we forgot the librarian's Feel No Pain rolls, so I'm thinking Dave probably had a good chance of winning if he’d remembered.)
I should've done a full Battle Report, but forgot my camera. Next time. But I did learn a few things. First, Hive Guard are no substitute for proper anti-LR action. Those glancing hits are far too crap to be effective, and the chances are you won't even get that with the Guard on any given round. The Zoanthropes are an invaluable buy, and my experience with the Eldar has unfairly soured me on them. The Spod also seems like a nice idea at the moment - it's portable deep striking terrain that, twice, forced Dave to spend a shooting action taking it out so he could get his Line of Sight back. I'll keep it for now, and really look forward to modelling the tentacles and deathspitter.
I'm starting to really see that the 300 points I've paid for the Shrike isn't the best deal. Again, they proved not to be the killer melee unit I thought they were. Almost every Deathwing had power gloves and thunder hammers, so it was instant death all round when they got into combat. I'm really seeing what buying a power glove earns you - they were the problem with the orks and are the problem here. So I'm moving the Shrike to the 'you won't necessarily stay on my army list forever' slot. Not that I’m so rash to get rid of them immediately or anything - I just need to bear in mind that power gloves will gobble them, and also bear in mind that most armies *don't* equip every infantry foot-soldier with one of the goddamn things.
I'm getting more experience with choosing what to deploy, and what to place in reserve. Although in this game it was mainly a no brainer. What's the point of deploying tyranids that can't do diddly squat until I've opened the Land Raider up? This was a good idea throughout, although mainly because it turns out that termagants and Hormogaunts are just kill points on legs.
And, again, the warriors failed to get stuck in. The first game they hid behind a hill for a turn, the second turn they were out of Deathspitter range, and by the third turn they couldn't do anything for I managed to quickly engage the Deathwing in close combat with the rest of my army and equally quickly realised how bad an idea it would be to send my Warriors in against those instant-death dealing machines. So they hung around the periphery. The biggest value they had was charging at the last minute to three termagants hunkered down in a forest taking shelter from the assault cannon the Crusader was blasting out. They managed to just keep them in Synapse Range. In the second game they shot a few times, but were on the far side of the board again. Once they helped finish off the terminator squad up that end (which was mainly executed by the Stealers rather than them) they just couldn't get back into the action. I think next time I need to think about sticking them more in the centre of the field, terrain permitting. I keep saying that to myself, and just keep failing to do it.
Anyhow: in sum, good fun all round. We plan to go to the GW Store later this week, and see how that goes...
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