We finally had this game a week late. I also completly forgot to take pictures or a detailed account of the game - but it was a disapointment anyway, the game was won by the Tyranids in the second turn (but they continued to see what would happen anyway).

The armies were arranged as follows
(disclaimer, minor discrepancies are a result of my memory, not a broken list!):

Imperial Guard:
Storm Troopers in Valkyries
Storm Troopers in Valkyries
10 Leman Russ
3 Baneblades with 3 Demolishers (BTS)
Capitol Imperialis with Infantry Company and Fire Support
2 Death Strikes
(note, the capitol imperialis is using Jervis rules for this model, not the 'counts as' Leviathan)

Tyranids:
4 Tyranid Warriors with Raveners
Harridan with Gargoyles
Genestealers
Tyrgon and 6 Raveners
3 Lictors
Dominatrix with Malefactor, Haruspex, 2 Trygon (BTS)
2 Winged Hive Tyrants, 2 Malefactors, 4 Termagaunts, 4 Hormagaunts
4 Tyranid Warriors, Hive Tyrant, 2 Haruspex, 4 Termagaunts, 4 Hormagaunts

Highlights follow.

Turn1
Tyranids all run forward as fast as they can and get within assault range of the Imperial Guard with most units. Imperial Guard open fire to try to do as much damage as possible to the approaching Tyranids. They devastate the formation in the centre and start to kill Synapse in it. The storm troopers move to counter assault when the inevitable happens as well as the tanks trying to get positions to minimise the assault potential of the Tyranids.

Turn2
Lictors drop near Deathstrikes and, as Tyranids win strategy roll, they assault and destroy them both. Then the winged tyrant swarm attacks the leman russ formation (IG player took gamble as he needed to protect Blitz - it never paid off and he was caught flat footed), destroys 5 tanks and wins by 3 - the Russes are out of the game. The dominatrix then doubles right upto the IG blitz and open fire on the baneblades, killing one. Baneblades open fire on Dominatrix unit, killing a trygon and then Stormtroopers assault it with baneblade support (clipping FF) - IG lose and fall back.

Situation - Tyranids have all their own objectives, IG Blitz, 2 IG objectives. IG have nothing.
Winged Tyrant swarm and Dominatrix are both near IG Blitz looking menacing. IG have Capitol taking advancing on objectives in centre while only the Baneblades are holding the IG line together.
The Tyranids had not even committed the Harridan, Raveners, or Subterranean swarm.
Game was basically over.

Yet again, the Tyranid tactic of triple in Turn1 and assault in turn 2 proves to be unstoppable. The IG really stood no chance. Part of this was definatly due to some poor tactical choices by the IG, but this might have only delayed the inevitable as the Tyranids are very fast (due to the fact that you care very little what casualties you take from 1 turn of firing before you assault and you BMs will not be on the unit anyway).

The Tyranids were winning assaults by significant amounts (3+ usually) and we do NOT play the gaunts count half rule (Tyranid player refuses to). Even when assaulted, they lost one by 1 point and won another by 1 point.

Imperial Guard players comments:
Blast Markers - no significant effect on Tyranids, main component of Epic and Tyranids ignore them mostly. They place very few BMs, then rally on a 0+ (1+ if enemy within 30cm - so still automatic) and remove any BMs meaning they are fine to assault.
This was his main criticism, but it is an important one. As you dont care about casualties it means you can just run at the enemy knowing your BMs are not going to be there and you can assault with a clean unit that outnumbers the enemy.
Again, we dont know how this could be changed that BMs are slightly more significant (to slow the Tyranids, not stop them dead) without gimping them too much.

Tyranids are proving to be a difficult army to beat, with some (including our Tyranid player) saying too difficult.

Exactly how many games are you basing this opinion on?

I am curious as to understand what the deathstrikes did. They have a very good chance of attaining a BTS against the Nids on their own.... of course positioning by the oppoonent may hamper this.

The IG player had alot of scouts. What were these doing? Effectively they could have prevented the lictors attacking the deathstrikes.

Also the valkyries could outmaneuvour the nids. They could maneuvour to create crossfire bonuses to assist the Leman Russ' and/or Baneblades. They could even be used to threaten the Blitzkrieg, Take and Hold, and They shall not Pass objectives therby forcing the nid player to double back. Are you sure these were used to their full effect?

The Leman Russ' on overwatch can really be a pain for Nids as well as they will get their shots in before the nids get within BTB.

Just a few ideas that I believe the IG had in their arsenal...

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We have had 5 games with Tyranids - 4 against marines and 1 against guard (Eldar or Chaos next, I think).

Deathstrikes could not achieve a BTS - there were 2 Trygons with the Dominatrix. As they are WE they would take the deathstrike hits (with the potential to be respawned).

The rest of your tactics rely on situation. What you need to understand is our Tyranid players primary tactic - give the opponent more fires than he has firemen. If you threaten with enough then your opponent cannot deal with them all - this is the thinking behind the 'triple turn 1' strategy. After turn 1 the Tyranid player had 5 formations he could assault with - he then won the strategy roll which sealed the IG doom.

Capitol Imperialis is a supreme commander.

And, yes, the baneblades did try to blast the dominatrix, but she hid behind a treeline after turn 1 and the start of turn 2 the lictors destroyed the deathstrikes.

Tyranids are easy to out manouvre, but the point is as staed above - more fires than firemen. A triple in turn 1 puts the Tyranids able to assault almost anywhere you could move units.

I did say the IG made some tactical errors, but I also think the Tyranid player has a sound strategy that is (so far) hard to beat. You pound one formation into dust and he assaults you with 3 more...

First off, thanks for the report, alakazam!

I'm assuming you're playing 3000 points here, as I'm not sure what the point value of the Capitol Imperialis is.  So, six activations at 3000 points is on the "very low" side of the activation cure; despite some of them being "hard" formations, most of them are slow, so that army is going go be disadvantaged against most armies.

If you are playing 3000 points, the Tyranids have a lot more Synapse creatures than they should, the army listed is about 125 points over the 1/3 limit.

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

It would be *extremely* helpful if you could post some pictures of your battlefield set up.

Okay, were the Stormtroopers actually assaulting here?  Garrisoned and/or with their high speed, they should've been able to dictate the assaults.  Against any of the above swarms, other than the Dominatrix, a bit of pre-assault fire prep from other formations has the Stormtroopers going in at a signficant +4 to resolution!  (+1 Enemy has more Blast Markers, +1 Your formation has no Blast markers, +1 Commissar, +1 You have more units)  Clipping one of those swarms to tag a couple of Gaunts puts you at a likely +5 to resolution... and since only the Synapse creatures in the swarms listed are fearless a lot of swarm is going to go *poof*.

If you already know how the Tyranid player is going to behave... you set traps for his swarms!  *laugh*

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

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

Yes, the six activations are very low and it was pointed out to him. We had by this point conceeded that the Tyranids were going to assault and he wanted the 'hard' units to be able to whether the storm - it never worked.
We are still looking for strategies that have a reasonable chance against this 'Nid assault. So far the best was the Marine game I posted where we fought to a draw.

Next time I will have a fully detailed batrep for you all so you can see the Tyranids in action. But it really is as simple as 'triple turn 1, assault turn 2' and ignore the incoming damage - you can afford to lose a formation.

No, the STs were not assaulting by this point but positioning for a counter assault - the situation was not right and the guard would probably have broken a formation but then would have died to the Tyranids - the IG player, at that time, did not think 'an eye for an eye' was worthwhile and, possibly to his error, bided his time.

He does not care about traps. You take out one swarm with a double activation - prep then assault. He ignores it and assaults you back with 2 formations. You take out one tyranid formation and lose two yourself  

Of course, that is not to say that it would not work (done it myself with Marines), just that the situation the IG player found himself in was not optimal. The IG were caught flat footed and the game was lost at the end of turn 1 when the Tyranids were in position. Lessons were (hopefully) learned.

Which sounds exactly how Tyranids would fight, so that's not, necessarily, a bad thing.

Does the IG player garrison his Stormtroopers?  If he does, they should be ready to assault the marching Tyranids in Turn 1!  Even without their Valkyries (if you want to save points), they can be strung out as "pickets" using their extended scouts zones of control, meaning the Bugs have to get through them before they can assault the "juicy parts" of the Imperial army.  You could even use Rough Riders or Sentinels for an even cheaper picket.  That would give the Guard army an additional turn of shooting.

And remember that if the Bugs are up-in-the-face of the Imperial Guard they're only spawning back a single D3 of points each turn... the Guard should be killing *way* more than that.

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

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

Yes, the 'speed bump' infantry was something he learnt in that game (was first IG vs Nids game). The IG only had 1 turn of shooting because the Tyranids won the strategy roll in turn 2 and, after the triple, was in range to assault with multiple units - so he did  

But he did kill a lot - he wiped out the genestealers and a the second big Tyranid formation (it was reduced to 5 models and had lost some synapse creatures). Alas, it was not enough.

The IGs big mistake was not seizing an assault attempt in the first turn to stop a second formation (though the first would not have taken as much damage as the rocket pods from Valkyries did much of that).

Given the Tyranid player had Lictors it probably would have been a good idea to bury the Deathstrikes in another formation so they couldn't get to them.