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The Armchair General Strikes Again! Recently, I played a rather large game against a couple of other players. Nick and I had arranged a game and were just getting ready to play when James came in looking for a game. We figured we could include him, so we kicked around a couple of scenario ideas and decided the simplest would be to have 2 players on one team and 1 on the other. Since I was the one with the most available models, I became the solo team. (Yay, I'm team captain, uh...) After figuring out what I had available (My Tyranids, naturally) it came to 3464pts, so they split that number between their Guard and Space Marines. I used 2 Flying Tyrants, 6 Lictors (3 were proxies) 2 Twin Vfexes, 100 leaping Gaunts with S4 I5 and Scything Talons, and 72 Genestealers. This is more or less a combination of my two standard Tyranid armies. It was a lot of bugs lined up ready to go. We randomly rolled a mission and got Recon, then chose the Omega level, using all the special rules. Although I had a few successes, the game was a total rout in their favor and not many of my models even made it into combat. So, what happened? While I was looking back over the game trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, I was reminded of my Armchair General series. (Okay, it's a series now!) I decided to Armchair General myself, in the hopes that not only will I not repeat my mistakes, others may learn from them as well. Ultimately, it was a case of Two Great Tastes That Don't Go Great Together. What Happened: Escalation meant that half my army started in Reserve and walked on from the back table edge, leaving the other half of my army unsupported. Each army individually was prepared to deal with Escalation, but the plans didn't mesh with each other. My Genestealer army deals with it by having all the Genestealers and the Lictors starting on the board, so it's only the TMCs that are effected. My Gaunt army deals with it by having pretty much everything start off the board, so the enemy can't shoot at anything, then all the Gaunts leap on together. Unfortunately, that meant that my Gaunts weren't there to occupy the enemy during the first couple of turns, and by then they were too late to help. What I could have done better: Army Selection: We were using proxies. I could have just doubled my Genestealer list and it would have worked out much better. They dealt pretty handily with the 72 Genestealers I had on the board, but not enough to have wiped out twice that number. I probably could have gotten 50-60 Genestealers into their lines and they wouldn't have lasted long after that happened. That said, could I have done anything different or better with the same army list? Deployment: A little more hiding behind terrain would have helped my Genestealers survive longer. I'm so used to having lots of Genestealers that it didn't occur to me there were about twice as many guns pointed downrange as usual. While I did take advantage of cover, I probably could have done a lot more, particularly if I didn't want to just rush for their lines. Turn 1&2: If I had been content to move my Genestealers up behind cover (mostly, this wasn't completely possible) to coordinate with the anticipated Gaunt charge, I would have been much better off. Waiting an extra turn or two for the Gaunts to arrive and come fleeting in would have really changed things a lot. I could have hidden most of my Genestealers behind terrain that blocked Line of Sight, keeping them safe. As it was, I followed my usual protocol of rushing forward, planning on the Lictors to keep the enemy occupied. Again, it didn't really occur to me that I was facing twice the normal amount of guns. Turn 3: I Should have held off on my first Tyrant assault. I could have coordinated with the 2nd Tyrant and more Gaunts on Turn 4, followed by Genestealers on Turn 5. At a guess, I'd probably have had about 48 Genestealers and 2 Hive Tyrants hitting the lines on turns 4 and 5. That would have pretty much collapsed their combined armies. Sure, there'd be some Rapid Fire as some of the Broods Massacred their opponents and were caught outside of combat, but it would have just been death spasms, as that amount of damage would have torn the heart out of their armies. So, lessons learned? Think through your army list, particularly if it is a bit different than you normally use, and consider how the most dangerous special rules (such as Escalation, since it has often caused problems for my Tyranids) effect the current list. Support your strikes and coordinate them so the army works together cohesively. Looking back on it, my biggest problem was my familiarity with both lists, which kept me from seeing how different they were. One of those "Couldn't see the forest for the trees" times. Ah well, now that I know this, I'll consume their biomass next time! If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |