Fudal at Open War 15 – Game 2

After the success of game one against Steve's Necrons I found myself on table 1 matched up against Tim King's Tyranids. Not a match-up I'm used to worrying about but the list I'm rocking isn't really geared up for MC mashing any more and Tim's list was more than a little bit 'zilla. As always, my list can be found here.

Game 2 vs Tyranids

Tervigon w. Catalyst

Hive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2

Tervigon w. Catalyst
Tervigon w. Catalyst
Termagants x10
Termagants x10
Genestealers x10

Trygon w. Adrenal Glands
Trygon w. Adrenal Glands
Trygon Prime w. Adrenal Glands

Mission: 4 objectives with 12” deep, L-shaped deployment in table quarters

A combination of things happened here which lost me the game. Firstly I was up against a really good player, secondly I probably panicked a little bit because I did not feel I had the right tools for the job. As a result my target priority went to pot and the chance I had to kill something before the MCs started to gain Feel No Pain at the top of turn 1 was lost, I split my Baals rather than focussing on wiping out the infiltrated 'steelers and keeping the tanks out of MC range (hindsight is a bitch).

By the bottom of turn two he was on my with all of his really nasty stuff, the Hive Guard were in range to take out my Dreads with the Riflemen both blowing up and the Furioso ending up immobilised. The Trygons were poised to cut a bloody mess through my woefully inadequate assault units and the Tervigons were parked firmly on objectives and I could not see a sensible way of shifting them.

Then something unexpected happened, Mephiston went berzerk and my usually shocking dice started to work in my favour. Don't get me wrong this was not anything that was going to swing the game back in my favour but Meph certainly started to make things look a little less one-sided (all-be-t only for a short while). Basically I did not seem able to fail a psychic test on 3D6 (Shadows in the Warp) and Meph was able to Force Weapon two Trygons in two turns.

Ultimately it was to no avail because the Prime go involved, Meph started to fail his psychic tests and the 'stealers were in charge range. That was pretty much the end of Meph, but again I was surprised at how effective he could be and at this point I'm really beginning to realise that I should probably stop being so surprised.

In the end I was not able to kill enough of the big nasty stuff before he got to my lines and I was over-run, Meph delayed the inevitable for maybe a turn but I was tabled at the bottom of turn 5. This is only the second time I've been on the top table at a tournament and only the second time I have been tabled in a tournament. I'm just not able to play at that level and I'm comfortable with that, I'm just glad that Tim was such a good opponent and that the experience did not sour the remaining game of the day.

When I got to my table though and I saw it was a Daemon list with 8 Crushers and two units of 6 fiends thought I could feel the little grey clouds gathering over my head. My true bogey army was across the table from me and I was not feeling optimistic about a strong end to the day!