Inter-store tournament

After more or less one month without visiting my local GW store, I paid it a visit last Friday, with the idea of arranging a game (with my tyranids) against anyone wanting to. As I got in, a new advertisement hanging from a wall attracted my attention. It read something like “New WH40K Campaign: Fist of the Emperor”, and was an event organised by some hobby stores of the area (GW and non GW). These events are rather infrequent where I live, and it gives me the opportunity of enjoying at least twice games per month, so I knew I have been very, very lucky to know of this on time, because I had to fill in my entry on Monday the latest. The very Saturday I was back in the store, with a copy of my army list and the money for the registration.

Both this inter-store championship and my list – and the way – I play with tyranids have already been mentioned before, so I will just make a mental exercise of reminding myself what I have to do (I’m not a frequent gamer, so this reflection is more than necessary). Well, I have this terrifying beast of Hive Tyrant and his tyrant guard, who remain yet to be beaten in close combat. These will advance relentlessly towards the enemy through cover (if possible), and will be backed by a zoanthrope and some units of gaunts (about 30 gaunts), and maybe the Dakkafex too. This will give my opponent a clear objective to shoot, won’t it? Meanwhile, the warriors will take a nice firing place and spit acid death over the battlefield, and some other gaunts (about 30 again) and another zoanthrope will hold back to take objectives and that stuff. Two Carnifexes with barbed stranglers and scything talons will hold back for the first turns (if possible, in cover) firing and weakening infantry squads, and then will advance while firing to exploit the holes made by the kamikaze assault group and hopefully cause havoc in the enemy lines (this tactic worked sooo well in my last game that I want to repeat it as many times as possible). The Broodlord and his retinue will outflank the enemy, working at the same time as a bait/fire magnet that if manages to reach an objective, will probably chew it up completely.

That’s mostly all. I tried to keep it simple in general terms, but if I face an army that I know that will kick my ass if I play in this way, I’ll try to think of an alternative. My main “Plan B” is negating a possibly disastrous deployment by reserving everything, although this is a very risky tactic, useful only if I play Kill Points missions (my weakest with this army list). Anyway, the best way of improving my tactics is playing games, so I’ll try to learn something from every one of them; and hopefully in a few months I’ll be a hard challenge in the battlefield for any opposing general.

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Army List – Hive Fleet Nidhågg

HQ

- Hive Tyrant: all kind of close combat directed biomorphs, scything talons, bonesword & lash whip, Psychic Scream. Retinue of two tyrant guards
- Broodlord: feeder tendrils, toxin sacks, flesh hooks and reinforced carapace. Retinue of six genestealers

Elite

- Tyranid Warriors (5): toxin sacks, reinforced carapace and scything talons. Deathspitter (4) and barbed strangler (1)
- Carnifex: enhanced senses, twin-linked devourers (2)
- Carnifex: scything talons and barbed strangler

Core units

- Spinegaunts: three units of 10
- Termagaunts: two units of 10, one unit of 11

Heavy Support

- Carnifex: a more resilient one. Scything talons and barbed strangler
- Zoanthropes (2): Warp Blast and Synapse Creature

Total: 1.500 points, six scoring units (good!), sixteen kill points (d’oh!)