Being an Ultramarine player, it seemed only appropriate to take the Blue Boys along!
Adam, the owner of Titan Games had come up with a scenario - an inquisitor had found himself in the middle of a Tyranid invasion, and needed to leave the planet quickly.
The Ultramarines despatched Chaplain Cassius and his Tyrannic War Veterans, with support from the local Imperial Guard armoured company and a detachment from the Raven Guard, to rescue the Inquisitor and retrieve the information...
The players (I'm on the right - the devastatingly handsome chap in the middle)
A Lictor Comes to chomp on the Devastators holding the tower!
Target Acquired!
Lots of dice needed for those 'Nid assaults.... 56 in one assault!
The Ultramarines held the landing pad... So the 'Nids demolished the building instead to get to them!
Standing firm in the face of a Genestealer horde scittering it's way across the battlefield!
Two minutes later the Leman Russ took out the Trygon!
In the end, even though the Inquisitor died, the Imperial forces prevailed, killing Synapse creature after Synapse creature, and reducing the Hive Lord to bug juice, ending the game with a 7VP lead!
POST SCRIPT:
There's a lot of grumbling online about how the new Codex: Tyranids is somehow 'lame', with underpowered units and other old powerful ones 'nerfed' lists from the previous edition. Now, I'm a player who likes to have balanced lists, rather than powergame. I also prefer there to be a bit of fluff to the army I'm playing.
If you look at the list I used today you'll see it's balanced, and plays to the fluff, but was also effective:
Chaplain Cassius
Terminator Assault Squad
2 squads of Sternguard
2 Tactical Squads
1 Devastator Squad
2 Storm Talons
Squad of Scouts with Sgt Telion.
I'm a firm believer that when writing the Codexes, the writers have a use for each unit in mind, each one supporting the other. To take a list that isn't balanced, to try and power game by using only certain units is to me, not how the game should be played.
The Tyranid IS different to the previous edition, and players will need to adjust their lists accordingly, to take into account the changes effectively. But this is the same for all armies when a new book comes out - at one time, I wouldn't have thought twice about taking a transport for each unit just to use as cheap cover, but with the changes to the vehicle rules and the inclusion of Hull Points, this isn't a viable strategy anymore, so I changed my lists.
To decry a codex on the day it's released, without first playing through to see what works and what doesn't is foolish at best, arrogant at worst.
Me? I liked the look of the new Tyranid stuff, and from the way they ate through my Ultramarines in Assaults I may just need to do a small force - just a small one mind ;-)
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject raised!
The Tyranid codex is just fine.
ReplyDeletePeople seem to have got that used to the new codices suffering from major power creep (which they complain about) so that when a balanced one comes along they don't know what to do with it (and then complain about it). The 'broken' stuff is gone and there's a few gaps which are obviously there for supplements to fill (and every codex from now on will have them so get used to it) but as far as I'm concerned it's the first decent codex job they've done in a while.
But I know how to write army lists...perhaps everyone else has forgotten how to ;-)