Blood Angels vs Tyranids 750 points.

Popped down to Gloucester GW yesterday and had a quick game of 40k with a nice chap (can’t remember his name sorry but I’m rubbish with names) I brought 750 points of Blood Angels. The army list I was intending on using for the Cities of Death League next month. He managed to come up with a 750 point Tyranid army from a huge army he had just completed.

The lists were roughly:

Blood Angels

HQ – Librarian with Jump Pack.

Elite – Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack, Hand Flamer, Power Weapon

Troops – Tactical Squad (10) Flamer, Missile Launcher

Assault Squad (5) Melta Gun, Sgt with Powerfist, Plasma Pistol

Assault Squad (5) Flamer, Sgt with Plasma Pistol

Scout Squad (5) Heavy Bolter

Tyranids

HQ – Hive Tyrant, (death spitter, lash whip I think) with 3 Tyrant Guard (boneswords)

Troops – Tyranid Warriors (3) not sure on weapons, no ranged though

Termigaunts (30) flesh borers

We set the table up for a Cities of Death game but decided to just play a standard mission.

We rolled Dawn of War and Annihilation.

Things went badly from the start for me. Tyranids deployed first and dominated the centre of the table, Tyrant and Guard on my right, Gaunts in the centre and the Warriors on my left. I decided to deploy my Tactical Squad in the centre at the back and infiltrated my scouts to his rear table edge keeping my Assault units and characters in reserve.

Turn 1.

Tyranids – Warriors and Gaunts turn to confront the Scouts, both units run and end up aprox 8 inches away, no shooting, no assault. The Tyrant and Guard advance towards the Tactical Squad and take two down with some precise shooting from the Tyrants Death Spitter.

Blood Angels - The scouts are doomed but they decide to engage the Warriors at ranged combat doing 0 wounds. (10 dice all crap!). The Tactical squad (also doomed) make a stupid move sort of away from the Tyrant, rapid fire and would one Guard.

Turn 2.

Tyranids – Gaunts and Warriors advance on scouts, the Gaunts take down two with shooting and the Warriors munch through the rest in the assault phase although the scouts do take one of the down and wound another. The Tyrant and Guard advance and chomp down the remains of the Tactical squad in the assault phase. I have no units left on the table (there was some debate as to if this was the end of the game but as I still had units in reserve the game was still on).

Blood Angels – Ok so I can’t really win but I will see what I can kill. I make my rolls for reserves, no units arrive this turn (honestly I rolled so many ones it was unbelievable)

Turn 3 -

Tyranids – All units move back towards the centre of the table.

Blood Angels – I roll again for the decent of angels,The unit with my Librarian turns up and I deploy it to the rear of the enemy behind the Gaunts and the Warriors, (far too close as it turns out) I get zero out of the shooting phase and can not assault. The second unit deploys but scatters into the swarm of Gaunts, rolls a 6 on this mishap table and goes back into reserve!

Turn 4 -

Tyranids – The Warriors and the Gaunts munch through the Librarian and his unit with no problems.

Blood Angels – The Sanguinary Priest seeing the demise of the Librarian and his squad decide to deploy some distance away from the enemy and in cover. using a run move to spread out.

Turn 5 -

Tyranids – All units move towards the last remaining Assault squad, the Tyrant and retinue smashing their way through the central ruin.

Blood Angels – Jumping out from cover the Marines do a suicide attack on the whole Tyranid army. Downing over half of the Gaunts in a torrent of Flamer, Bolter and Chainsword madness. The Gaunts however do not run due to the sigh of their Tyrant looming over the shoulders of the Space Marines.

We rolled for random game length and the game continued.

Turn 6 -

Tyranids – Well the Tyrant moved in and between it and the Gaunts the Marines got chomped.

Final Result:

Blood Angels 0 - 6 Tyranids

Aftermath – after shaking hands with my opponent I went through the list of things I did wrong.

1) Deployed my starting units in stupid places. The scouts were dead the moment I placed them on the table, the tactical squad wasn’t much better either.

2) Didn’t roll for Red Thirst (I keep forgetting this)

3) Deployed my first Assault Squad too close to the enemy. Again I have made this mistake a couple of times.

4) Didn’t use a single Psychic power. This is the first time I used a Librarian and need to be confident about the rules.

5) Underestimated the effect of a large unit.

Well you live and you learn. I will be tweaking my army list for the start of the league as I didn’t really have anything that can take down big monsters and I will focus on using my units far more effectively next time.