I managed to get a game with the list mentioned in the first post. My opponent played Titan legions, with 2 reavers (one with double gatling blaster and 5 shot plasma gun, one with 5 shot plasma gun, 4 shot plasma gun and the melta cannon, both with inspiring), 1 Warhound with 2 Vulcan Megabolters, a Warhound pack with 4 plasma guns, a unit of Forge Knights and 2 lots of Thunderbolts.
The game started fairly well- I was able to hug a lot of cover, keeping most of my Hive Swarms and War Engines safe. The Thunderbolts disabled the Biovores very quickly, with the Tyranid AA doing nothing. I spent most of the first turn marching or doubling, setting up as many assaults as possible. The Exocrines took one lot of plasma and broke, not rallying for the rest of the game. I sacrificed a Harridan to take all of the Warhound Pack's plasma shots too (it saved a Hive Swarm that was in a good assault position). The remaining Harridan was broken by being hit with a Melta Cannon (it tried to hide, but could still just be seen after the Reaver doubled).
The second turn things went very pear shaped. The Thunderbolts didn't reappear, and played no more part in the game (my opponent always has terrible luck with them). I used the Hierodule to blast marker a Reaver, before assaulting with the Genestealers. No damage was done, and 5 genestealers were squashed. The supporting Hierodule stripped some shields, and I lost the combat horribly. That Reaver then wiped out the Hierodule with a storm of plasma and titan killer melta weaponry. I continued trying to hurt that Reaver (the BTS), and set up another supported assault with two Hive Swarms (including the Dominatrix, though only for FF- my opponent wasn't silly enough to get close). I stripped all shields and did ~4 damage, losing a lot of gaunts in return. The Reaver broke and easily doubled to safety. The second reaver unleashed a lot of shots against a Hive Swarm in cover (the one with the Tyrant), and wiped out all the gaunts, but did nothing else (I was very lucky). The plasma Warhounds took advantage of the hole in my line to march down into my back field- with 75cm he was easily able to stay out of assault range of anything meaningful. My Lictors, which had popped up near his double-bolter Warhound launched an assault- 4 sniper hits, 1 damage done (on 6+ RA). I managed a crit, but as always it was pretty meaningless for a Warhound. 3 Lictors were squashed in return (3 dice needing 4+), and the last suffered severe overkill from a supporting Reaver. Dice were very much against me there. My opponent still was still making use of his range, unsurprisingly, so I advanced, doubled or marshalled where appropriate, slowly drawing closer and laying BMs (in the futile hope he may fail to activate or rally). I did launch one fairly silly assault on the plasma Warhound Pack, using the Hive Swarm with Warriors and Carnifexes. Only 2 Hormagaunts could reach base contact, but I thought I had enough other advantages. All of my attacks managed 1 damage and 1 shield down, before ~5 gaunts were squashed (yes, from 6 dice needing 4's). My squad broke and went back to support my Blitz.
Turn 3 I was very lucky to win initiative, and with a recently recharged plasma and gatling Reaver too close for comfort I set about making an assault. The Dominatrix and (now termagant heavy) entourage moved up to lay BMs and provide support fire. She stripped 2 shields in the process. I retained and assaulted with the remains of the Tyrant Hive Swarm- 2 Hormagaunts, 1 Termagant and all the heavy hitters. I think I managed 2-3 damage (no crits), before losing everything in base contact (ie. all but the lone Termagant stand) (yes, that's 6 hits on 6 dice, needing 3's, followed by 4 failed 4+ RA saves). The supporting dominatrix and friends did nothing. Unsurprisingly the lone Termagant evaporated, as did the Dominatrix when the Reaver activated. At that point I had lost my BTS, and my opponent easily held his DtF, and threatened my Blitz and TSNP (8 plasma shots from the Warhounds wouldn't have done good things to my Blitz guard, and though I could have easily stopped TSNP there was no reason to unless other gambles paid off). I moved my severely wounded Harridan up to contest his Blitz, despite the likely suicide. Surprisingly, the Harridan survived the Knight's assault, but was broken. With that I lost any chance of making it to a 4th turn, not that that would have helped me anyway (through casualties and broken units my opponent equalled me in activations, so there was no point in delaying the flight of the Harridan).
Overall, it felt like this game was an uphill battle from the outset. Tyranid AT is poor, and even more so when they must always double to close the range gap. The Dominatrix was terribly vulnerable to all of the plasma, though I think I did a great job protecting it as long as I did (and when it did die it was because an assault that should have been in my favour failed spectacularly). The Hierodule was an unfortunate loss- I was obviously overestimating it and the 'Stealers. The Thunderbolts were out of my control, and it was only by luck that they didn't appear much more. I set up as many supported combats as I could, but feel like the dice failed me (I tended to roll average hits and my opponent average saves, but he rolled excellent hits and I made no saves). I'm not too surprised by that- I was often rolling buckets of dice, but looking for 5's, which is always rough. My heavy combat hitter monsters managed a few charges, though that wasn't easy. My opponent could easily have kept me at bay with range if I hadn't been lucky on Turn 3 initiative. When they did reach combat the dice were again woeful. This seems like a very high risk army, I just never managed to see any of the high reward, though I feel I did as well as possible in many cases.
How would people suggest tackling Titan Legions with Tyranids, keeping in mind that my opponent and I don't list-tailor? At the end of the game my opponent pointed out that I spread damage around a lot and I needed to concentrate it- both Reavers were down to ~2 hull points. I pointed out that being giant, fast, fearless, well-armoured vehicles I never had a chance to follow up a successful combat- he could easily flee far out of range of my assaults, and shooting was near useless (I did manage to get 2 hits from 2 shots once, despite needing 7's, but the 4+RA save was made, as usual). Whenever serious trouble arose he could (and did) marshall his shields back, and move more than 20cm away.
Lessons for next time: I will drop the Exocrines and Zoanthrope. the -5cm move is terrible, the shooting not good enough, and the AA pretty useless. Other than that, I want to try against a more regular type of opponent (though Titans will be a common opponent of mine).
Later I expect to face Tau, and I'm pretty much at a loss there. Planes with TK weapons will put paid to any War Engines when my AA is so poor, and lots of skimming tanks will seriously weaken my assault ability. That'll be a report for another day.
|