Another report of Imperial Fists vs Tyranids. This time we decided for a smaller point limit of 3000 and long table edge deployment, both due to the small size of the table, with our last game feeling too cramped and focused in the center.

I decided to try a list where my deployment zone is left completely empty. I only place two small garrisons on the table (Scouts and Land Speeders) and all the rest is either deployed from orbit or onboard an aircraft.

While the Tyranids occupied almost their entire deployment zone (in addition to a swarm of Genestealers hiding in the woods) the Imperial Fists had only two scouting formations deployed as garrisons: Land Speeders and Scouts.

TURN 1

The game opens with Biovores shooting an indirect salvo at the Land Speeders placing several blast markers thanks to Disrupt. The speeders then proceed to assault the Genestealers that were waiting right in front of them, wiping them out.

Another Tyranid swarm pops out from their deployment zone and destroys one speeder. Scouts react by moving out of the ruins and onto the road to attack and take out one base from it.

As their next move the Tyranids try to outflank the marines with one of their small swarms. This manoeuvrer is intercepted by a detachment of Terminators landing in a Thunderhawk. While the swarm loses the ensuing assault it survives as one broken unit of Tyranid Warriors escaping towards the marine lines. The Terminators though victorious suffer heavy loses and become broken as a result, retreating towards the nearest trees.

One of the big Tyranid swarms advances, allowing the titanic Dominatrix leading it to unleash it’s whole ranged might upon the marine Scouts only to see them come out of the inferno miraculously unscathed thanks to some lucky rolls.

On the other end of the table a huge air assault by the marines targets the biggest swarm. Assault Marines, Devastators and Predators Destructors (so much more fitting for this role than the Annihilators) unload from the Landing Craft and dig into the flank of the Tyranids. The swarm is broken, but only loses worthless fodder Gaunts while the marines suffer small but painful losses.
After that another small swarm slips right next to the newly deployed marines and advances to the planetary defence battery.

The final marines play of turn 1 was the orbital operation of bombardment and drop pod deployment of two tactical formations. One of those began immediate assault on the broken survivors of the previous marine attack but they were unable to wipe out the tough and fearless Hive Tyrants, only managing to push them back.
The other tactical formation proceeds to advance into the ruins and take a few potshots at the Tyranid swarm that just moved into the city area.

At first glance by the end of turn 1 the Tyranids seem to be evenly matched if not overpowered by the marines. But their losses are only superficial and the first turn is always their weakest, especially if they haven’t fully deployed or swarmed yet…

TURN 2

Before the second turn even starts the Tyanids swarm, increasing the size of all of their synapse swarm formations, almost making up for the losses they suffered so far. And not only that, but they also deploy their hidden forces, three Trygons with some Ravener help in the ruins and five Lictors in a forest next to them, right in the middle of the Imperial Fists 5th company.
This puts enormous pressure on the marines, forcing them to deal with the threat before it can get into close combat range.

The marines take the initiative by doing a double activation of shooting followed by assault on the Lictors, eradicating them all.

The Tyranids in turn take a double action to put a lot of shooting pressure on the Land Speeders eventually breaking them and forcing them to retreat.

The Devastator squads move around a forest to shoot the small swarm still occupying the planetary defense guns putting a blast marker on them. This combined with an assault initiated by a Landing Craft reduces the formation to a couple broken Tyranid Warriors than nonetheless survive to swarm another day.

The medium swarm led by a Dominatrix assaults the scouts exposed on the road and to everyone’s amazements loses that fight due to being mostly out of melee range and some very unlucky rolls.

The Trygons move towards their table edge and an assault between them and a Tactical formation ensues. Marines win this one and the Trygons are broken, but lose only the expendable Raveners.

The slightly replenished remnants of the Tyranid formation initially attacked by the Terminators takes a triple move towards their home objective and are subsequently assaulted by the Thunderhawk that just landed to pick up the one surviving Terminator unit. To my despair it looses the assault and is destroyed as a result. I think this unit might be much better at shooting than assaulting.

With the Landing Craft taking off with one of the Tactical formations turn 2 is concluded. Two big surprises of the end phase is that both the Land Speeders and the Dominatrix’s swarm failed their rally rolls, remained broken and will be unable to act in the third turn.

TURN 3

Turn 3 opens with a lot of action near the two objectives located in the city ruins. With fire support from the Predators two Assault Squads manage to push back some lone Tyranid remnants from the ruins only to be overrun by an incoming swarm. This leaves the objectives in xenos claws so a nearby Devastator formation rushes over to contest them.

Over on the other end of the table an equally furious engagement erupts for the control of the Tyranid home objectives. The Landing Craft deploys a Tactical formation that finally wipes out one small swarm. This is not enough to take control of the objective though as Biovores move in to contest it. A couple potshots from the last remaining Terminator Squad is not enough to push them back.

After a couple more insubstantial activations the turn ends in a draw with neither side being able to score any objectives. We didn’t have the time to play a fourth turn but from the large table presence of the Tyranids (and this is before they even swarmed) it was clear to us that Tyranids would have won in the long run.

Conclusion

Stemming the tide of the Tyranids coming towards the city was a big challenge for the heavily outnumbered Imperial Fists, which is just how the Warhammer setting would have them! Even though I was slowly losing for the whole game it all felt perfectly fitting. Marines deploying from the sky, performing surgical strikes on a mass of xenos that felt utterly unstoppable, suffering small but steady losses that they can at some point no longer recover from.

On top of that the table setup only helped to deepen the immersion in this narrative. I think I finally nailed down how to use the terrain I have to maximum aesthetic effect, placing building a bit apart from each other and clumping trees into smaller and larger forests spread over the whole table.

One thing we’d change in the setup would be to make the objective contesting range smaller. A range of 15cm means it’s very easy to take two objectives with one formation and as a result the game most often focuses on taking the enemy home objective and the objective closest to it. We’ll probably try 10cm range next time and maybe spreading the objectives out a bit more.

List-wise I felt very happy with changing my Predator Annihilators for Destructors, the focus on assault fits my list much better. It was also the first time I used Terminators and the Thunderhawk but sadly due to some bad decisions and dice rolls they failed to make an impression. Hopefully next time they will perform better.

Easily my favourite NetEA game so far!