OK, here's a game that we had at Matt's place when the Whiz was filled up with 40kers and Magic players

Lists are from memory and from looking at the pics but this is what I think we had.

Matt's IG:

500 HQ Company
650 Russ Company
450 Infantry Company with Heavy Weapons, Snipers and Ogryns
450 Infantry Company with Heavy Weapons, Snipers and Ogryns
100 Sentinels
150 Hydra
250 Manticores
500 Warhounds
3050 (Commissars in everything but Manticores and Warhounds)

Dave's 'nids:
900 6 Assault Swarms
100 1 Attack Swarm

900 12 Guant Clusters

700 4 Assault Spawn Clusters
250 2 Carnifex Clusters

150 6 Genestealers
3000

Board was 40" so we went corner to corner. That makes things real interesting for the bugs. Sorry for the lack of layout shots, there's one in Turn 3 but that's about it.

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Dave

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Turn 1
Strategy: Matt

The Manticores sustain on Assault 1, taking a warrior and 3 guants out.


Infantry 1 attempts to march but fail and simply move up.


Assault 1 attempts to marshal after the Mantiocres barrage but fails and merely regroups gaining two guants back.

The Russ double of the stealers, laying a BM.


Assault 3 marches towards Russ only to have the HQ double on them taking out a gaunt.


Assault 2 Marches towards Sentinels to have both the Sentinels and Infantry 2 sustain on it, taking out a warrior and 5 gaunts.


Assault 4 marches towards the Russ.


The Hyrdra advance of Assault 2 but only lay a BM.

Assault 5 marches between Assault 2 and 4 to have the Warhounds advance on Assault 5 and take out 5 Gaunts gnd a malfactor.


Assault 6 marches towards left flank.


The Ssealers march towards Russ and HQ and put them in ZoC.


Attack advances on Sentinels, take one down.


End Phase
Everything but the Sentinels rally, and all brood creatures are returned to the table.

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Turn 2
Strategy: Matt

The HQ advances on GS and breaks them while the Russ sustain on Assault 4 and pretty much wipe it out barring 2 warriors and a malfactor.


The Attack swarm engages both the Sentinels and Hydra, wiping them out.


The Manitcores sustain of Assault 4 and break break it.


Infantry 1 doubles on Assault 5, laying a BM.


Assault 3 marshals and moves towards Russ.


Infantry 2 sustains on the Attack swarm, taking out the proxy-fex and breaking it, they don't move.


Assault 5 marches to behind Assault 3.


The Warhounds sustain on the Attack Swarm and take out 2 Carnifex.


Assault 1 marches up to Assault 2 which marshalls.


Assault 6 marches up left flank.


End Phase
Everything but the Attack Swarm rallies (ARG! should have moved it). All the uncommon find themselves back on the table except for a cluster of Carnifex. 5 Guants are also unspawned.

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Turn 3
Strategy: Matt

The layout on the third turn (sorry I forgot about these for earlier turns):


Manticores sustain on Assault 6, taking out a warrior and some guants.


Infantry 1 sustains on Assault 2 and lays a BM.


Assault 5 advances on the HQ.


Assault 3 engages the HQ and Russ, 6 guants and 2 warriors are lost to 4 guardsmen, 3 Chimera and 1 Russ. Both sides roll rediculously low and the 'nids pull off a win by 1 (3-2).


Infantry 2 sustains on Assault 6, taking out some more guants.


Warhounds sunstain on Assault 2.

Assault 4 marshals and moves towards an objective.


Genestealers march towards HQ and Russ, putting the HQ in ZoC


Assault 2 advances on Infantry 1 while Assault 6 engages Infantry 2.


Two Warriors, 6 Guants and 1 Haurspex go down, while the Commander, 4 Heavy Weapons, and 6 Guardsmen go down. Nids are up by a +2 in the end (guard had less BM and outnumbered 2 to 1) but only win by 1 (7-6).



End Phase
We didn't do any rallying or spawning due to time.

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And then what happened...  

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Bugs won it 2 (T&H, TSNP) to 1 (BTS). One of the objectives for T&H was close to being contested so much so that I would have rolled off for it, although due to time Matt did not contest. Rallying and spawning information along with army lists will be forth coming, my notes are at work.

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Dave

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OK, lists are up. I'll see about getting the next report up. In the mean time here's my thoughts for my games:

Spawning when Regrouping

This is helpful (when you must hold) and adds a tactical edge to spawning. I'm still trying to think up situations where this would be open to abuse but so far I'm drawing a blank.

Mobility

OK in my book.

Relentless

Still think +1 to Engage and Rally was fine. +1 to March would be nice.

LV Warriors

Not liking this, nor the 20cm move. They're getting sniped way to easy. Matt's gotten BTS 2 for 2 now. I can count on one hand the number of times I and my opponents have gotten BTS (combined!) before this change. The 20cm move makes the swarms too fast and Warriors aren't as fast as gaunts in the fluff. 9.1 stats get my vote.

1/2 Casualties for Gaunts

Definitely not needed. I used to have to worry about going into an assault with no BM and BMs on my opponent (the combined armed/tactics that are really stressed in Epic). Now all that seems to be a wash considering that most of my casualties don't matter.

List Thoughts

I think the LV warriors and more expensive Gaunts are effecting the composition of a playable list. Compared to earlier lists 9.2 doesn't stress a horde of tooth and claws. I fielded half the number of gaunts I usually do, and a lot more AVs to soak up AT fire for the Warriors. With the exception of these two changes I think 9.2 is pretty good though.

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Nice batrep, Dave.  

I'll post one soon as well. Similar results but different conclusions on some points.  



Gaunts are not that much more expensive : Termagants used to be 75pts and Hormies 50 pts. Now both are at 75pts but Hormagaunts have 2CC attacks and both have received the "half-casualties" rule.

A 25-pt difference (even on a core cluster) doesn't make the "horde of tooth and claws" go away, I think.

LV Warriors

Not liking this, nor the 20cm move. They're getting sniped way to easy. Matt's gotten BTS 2 for 2 now. I can count on one hand the number of times I and my opponents have gotten BTS (combined!) before this change.

You've had a hate-on for the 1/2 Gaunt Casualties ever since it was added, but then again I've had a hate-on for Light Vehicle Warriors, so live and let live.

If your rolling over opponents with Gaunt formations, then I presume you where walking over them before, the 1/2 Gaunt Casualties isn't an auto-win assault, not even close. Nids should always expect heavy casualties (due to no armour save) with Gaunt formation assaults, even if they initiate them.

@Hojyn - If your opponents have to go through 12+ gaunts to get to the warriors after the first turn I'd be surprised. I've had broken warriors running around without any gaunts at the end of the second turn many times. Getting BTS against nid's never seemed more difficult than with any other army, but rather just took a different approach.

@Jeridan - I never said it was an auto-win though. I said it makes the other assault resolution bonuses a wash. Going in with no BM and BMs on your opponent doesn't really matter anymore. Nor do I have to go in with huge formations to keep the outnumbering bonuses from piling up.

If I had a choice, I'd rather win assaults with the Tyranids though combined armed tactics and weight in numbers rather than just through the application of a special rule that makes winning assaults easier for me.

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Squats 2019-10-17