New Year's Eve Bash!
My wife and I have developed a tradition on New Year's Eve. She typically works that night, so I go to a local gaming store, The Game Matrix, and join their annual festivities. They have a potluck buffet-style dinner (they provide the turkey and ham) and there's open gaming of all kinds all night long. I eat, hang out and play games until 11:45, then I dash over to Marissa's work and kiss her at midnight! It's the best of both worlds. I get to game and I get to be all romantic when the time comes!

Kickin' it Old School!
I pondered whether I should bring my Tyranids or my Tau (the DeathWing are very definitely not ready yet.) I eventually settled on the Tyranids, but I wasn't sure what type of army to bring. The Swarm is pretty much dead in 5th edition, due to No Retreat Wounds, so that was off the list. I thought about my Genestealer army, but that just didn't quite feel right. I also considered my Godzilla list, but that didn't quite feel right either. I finally settled on a very old school swarmy list, with lots of Gaunts to take casualties and some big bugs and a few Genestealers to bring the killing. As I was putting the list together, I remember a rule of thumb that I and a couple of friends came up with back when these types of swarm were more common. It was that you needed about 80 Gaunt-equivalents per 1000pts in the army. (Hormagaunts and Scuttling Gaunts are worth more than 1 regular Gaunt, since they close the distance faster and prevent more shooting.) With that in mind, I put together lists at 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000pts; featuring 40, 80, 120 and 160 Gaunts respectively. I then filled in a little bit of antitank and Monstrous Creatures, plus a unit of Genestealers. (I wanted to use more than 1 unit of Genstealers in the 2000pt list, but I didn't have enough Troops slots!) So then I got a bite to eat and hung out.

There were already 2 games of 40k going on, so I watched them while I waited for someone else to show up, or for one of them to finish. Some very cool paintjobs were on display, and there was a decent variety. I saw Imperial Guard and Tau and Space Wolves and Chaos Space Marines. After a couple of them had finished and sat around for a bit, I asked if anybody wanted to get in a game. One of them said he'd take me on and went to get his stuff. Unfortunately, I forgot to write down his name, and I've managed to forget it in the past week. If you are reading this, sorry about that, but email me your name and I'll make sure it gets included here. I do remember that he was glad I wasn't playing a Godzilla army, as one of his friends has one and he plays against it frequently.

Game: Kill Points, 12" Deployment Zones.Totalling up our armies, he had 10 KPs and I had 13.

Crimson Fists Space Marines
Pedro Cantor, Sicarius, 2x Tactical Squad(Lascannon/Melta/Power Fist) 2xSternguard Veteran squads in Drop Pods (2xHvy Flamer, all the rest have combi-meltas). Terminator Assault Squad in a LandRaider. (I don't have his list, so this is partially guesswork)

Tyranids
184 Hive Tyrant BS4 S6 Warp Field, VC/TL-Devs
184 Hive Tyrant BS4 S6 Warp Field, VC/TL-Devs

113 Devilfex 1:Carnifex BS3 2xTL-Devourer
113 Devilfex 2:Carnifex BS3 2xTL-Devourer

160 32x Gaunt: Spinefists
160 32x Gaunt: Spinefists
160 32x Gaunt: Spinefists
160 32x Gaunt: Spinefists
160 32x Gaunt: Spinefists
240 12x Genestealer Brood: Feeder Tendrils, Scuttlers

65 Zoanthrope: Warp Blast/Synapse 148 Gunfex 1: Carnifex: Bs3, VC/BS
148 Gunfex 1: Carnifex: Bs3, VC/BS

1995pts

Deployment
He sets up first and goes first (While it's an old habit for me to go second, I chose to do so because I was concerned that he would set up in a way that would mess up my deployment.) He basically forms something of a Split Deployment with his Tactical squads on opposite ends of his Deployment Zone and puts the LandRaider in the middle. I deploy more centrally, but with the size of my force, I have a few units straight across from each of his deployments. It's fairly uninspired, but with that many Gaunts and that much concern about Synapse, it was the safest bet. An alternative that didn't occur to me until later might have been to load one side up with the Gaunts and Synapse, and the other side with the Carnifi. Or simply load all one one side and rely primarily on plinking the other Tactical squad away with my limited firepower. If I play more games with an army like this, I'll have to give it more thought.

Deployment

Turn 1
Crimson Fists: 1 Drop Pod drops right in front of my lines, roughly centered. The LandRaider rushes up a little to my right of his Drop Pod. The Sternguard Vets use their flamers and bolters, killing the bulk of the 23 Gaunts that died this turn.

Tyranids: Gaunt shooting kills 3 vets, Monstrous Creature shooting kills 5, and 1 more dies to Gaunt assault.

End of Turn 1

Turn 2
Crimson Fists: The LandRaider (Redeemer pattern) kills 9 Gaunts and 3 die to the Lascannon squad on my left.

Tyranids: Gaunt brood 1 (my far left) got lucky on both of it's Fleet rolls, so it manages to get the charge on the Tactical squad across from it. Gaunts kill 1 Tactical Marine and lose 8, then lose another 6 to No Retreat Wounds. (Ouch! Did I mention that the Swarm army is dead under 5th edition rules.) The other Gaunt squad kills the remaining Sternguard Veteran, while a Carnifex puts a talon through the side of the Drop pod to shut it down for good.

This is where my notes fall apart. As usual, I got so wrapped up in the game that I forgot to take notes, so I have to rely on my pictures and memories.

End of Turn 2

Turn 3
Crimson Fists: The Redeemer Tank Shocks my Gaunts, then flames them, then the Terminators jump out and assault them. Massive deaths result, and I lose more to No Retreat.

Tyranids: Trying to be cagey, I move my Hive Tyrant so that the Gaunts are out of Synapse range (hoping to avoid the No Retreat Wounds. This time when the Terminators win, I roll poorly and they roll well, catching and killing my poor Gaunts. 3 of my Carnifi converge on the LandRaider, blowing it up on the very last attack. On the other side of the board, Gaunt Brood 2 charges into the Tactical squad that Gaunt Brood 1 is trying to grind down.

End of Turn 3

Turn 4
Crimson Fists: The Remnants of the Terminator squad charge into the nearest Carnifex. Meanwhile, the unengaged Tactical squad fires at the 4 remnants of the Gaunt brood that tangled with the Sternguard Veterans, killing two of them before they lose themselves in the trees. (This board and the one on my far left both represent forests, which I didn't actually realize until sometime during turn 1.)

Tyranids: The Carnifex's brethren come to it's assistance, killing the remainder of the Terminators and Sicarius (I think, I didn't pay close enough attention as to which was Cantor and which was Sicarius.)

End of Turn 4

The Walls are Closing In

Turn 5
Crimson Fists: 2nd Drop Pod finally arrives, unloading more Sternguard Veterans and their Flamers and combimeltas. They shoot my badly Wounded Carnifi and then charge in.

Tyranids: The Tyrant that's been watching the combat on my left belatedly realizes it should be doing something, so it moves in and finishes off the Tactical squad finally.

End of Turn 5

Turn 6
Crimson Fists: The Sternguard Veterans move up and flame and shoot most of my remaining Gaunts.

Tyranids: At this point, my opponent points out that we've both forgotten about my Outflanking Genestealers for the whole game. They appear and roll well on their Fleet, charging into the remaining Tactical squad and Cantor. The few remaining Gaunts shoot back at the Veterans (along with the Tyrant and the Zoanthrope) and kill off all but two of the Veterans.

End of Turn 6

End of Game Center

End of Game My Right

Game ends
Counting up Kill Points: I had 5 left (Tyrant, Zoanthrope, 3 Genestealers and 2 Broods of 1 Gaunt) out of 13. My opponent had 3 left: Cantor with 1 Wound left, 2 Sternguard Veterans and an immobilized Drop Pod. That means he ended up with 8 Kill Points from me, and I got 7 from him. It was such a close game that I actually thought I'd won for about an hour or so, then I did the math and realized he had ended up with more than me! I thanked him for a good game, packed up my models and drove over to kiss my sweetie at midnight. A good end to a good year.

Challenges and Remedies
It was definitely a challenge moving so many models, though I didn't do too badly. If I go back to large armies like this, I might have to steal a move from a fellow Tyranid player that I know online. He leaves the front of the unit where it is, moving the back bugs up to replace the front line. He just measures from the front line, then places bugs from the very back there, filling in until they are spaced right. It basically means moving about half as many models, which makes pretty good sense.

Using the Gaunts properly was also a challenge. Unsupported, Gaunts will typically lose fights (badly, even!) While they can win if they outnumber better than 3:1, at less than that, they start fading fast due to No Retreat Wounds. The remedy for this is to provide combat creatures that can join them after the first turn and provide killing power for them. If my Left Tyrant had joined the combat earlier (which it easily could have) I would have had many more Gaunts left over. Even without Genestealers, Carnifi using the Run rule can get in about a turn behind Gaunts, which should be enough to conserve a good number of Gaunts. Sadly, I'm not used to being able to run with my Carnifi, so I didn't make good use of this.

Keeping my Eyes on the Prize
I definitely played this game as if I was distracted. I was excited that it was New Year's Eve and that I was finally getting a chance to play a game (it's been far too long!) and I also haven't played this style of Tyranids in a while, but those are ultimately just excuses. I didn't join my Tyrant in the combat for several turns, I totally forgot the Genestealers, I forgot to write up my notes for my battle report (I usually get past turn 2!) and I lost sight of the objective of the game: Kill Points. If I'd had my head in the game, it would have been child's play to blow up the 2nd Drop Pod. This is something I'll really need to remedy as I start playing with my revamped DeathWing army. Tyranid armies generally have enough bodies to recover from losing focus (this game for example, I lost 158 Gaunts and 5 Monstrous Creatures and 9 Genestealers, yet was only 1 KillPoint behind my opponent.) I think I may start by using a mechanical remedy. I'll put together more details on this later, but I think I'm going to improve my notes _and_ my game focus by putting together game cards. Each card will represent a single turn. Before the game I'll write down the game objective and all of my army units on each card. Then I can just take a quick look at the card to remind myself of the objective and I can quickly jot down what each unit does on each turn.

If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know

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