Tyranids VS. Tau and the return of Sniper Megafex!!

Last week I got in a game against Scott's E-swat Tau army. (For those of you unfamiliar, E-swat is an anime series that involves a bunch of powered armor suits. It sounds pretty cool, and Scott follows the theme by having something like 10 Crisis suits plus some Broadsides in his army. It makes for a very mobile, but small force with a lot of firepower.) In last week's battle, I was experimenting with two things. I was trying to use cover more and I wanted to try out a very strongly defensive Carnifex with an eye toward having it absorb most of the Tau firepower and then regenerate it back. The cover was such a success that Sniper Megafex (what else would you call something with a Twinlinked Venom Cannon, Toughness 7, 5 Wounds, 2+ armor save and Regenerate?) was essentially ignored, taking perhaps 1 Wound the whole game. That's not much of a return on those 253pts! I resolved to try Sniper Megafex again without the cover to see if it was a worthwhile idea.

His List:
I don't know all the Tau stuff, but he had approximately 9 Crisis suits, mostly equipped with Plasma and Missile pods and Shield Drones. (I hate Shield Drones! :) ) He also had 3 Broadsides and 2 units of FireWarriors. One of his suits had the cluster munitions weapon (large blast template that ignores cover saves) and another had the 5 shot S3 minigun thing. (Hey, I'd don't play Tau, I just eat them!)

My List...
156 Hive Tyrant BS4 S6 2+Sv 2xTwinlinked Devourer, Psychic Scream
156 Hive Tyrant BS4 S6 2+Sv 2xTwinlinked Devourer, Psychic Scream

113 Carnifex BS3 2xTwinlinked Devourer
113 Carnifex BS3 2xTwinlinked Devourer
113 Carnifex BS3 2xTwinlinked Devourer

128 8xGenestealer
144 9xGenestealer

40 1 Ravener RC/ST
40 1 Ravener RC/ST
40 1 Ravener RC/ST

195 3xZoanthrope (Warp Blast/Psychic Scream)
253 Carnifex BS3 T7 W5 Sv2+ Twinlinked Venom Cannon, Regenerate

1491pts

The Plan
The plan was to put this army into a tight wedge formation with Sniper Megafex in the lead to soak Wounds that would kill my other guys. When we got close enough to enemy lines, the Genestealers and Ravs could charge out and mince them in close combat. All the while, my 10 Twinlinked Devourers would be pounding away at them and the Psychic Screams would make sure that they ran when they took casualties.

Deployment:
I lost the roll for this one, so I set up Sniper Megafex first, a little to the left of my center. Scott put down his first Broadside unit all the way in the opposite corner. When I went to place my Zoanthropes, I considered placing them opposite his Broadsides, but then decided that I'd do better with all my bugs in a tight wedge like I planned. If he set the rest of his units up on the far side, I would have had to either split my deployment or take a very long walk to get to them. Fortunately, he placed most of the rest of his army directly across from mine, with the exception of one unit of 3 Crisis suits, that were on the other side of the large central building in his deployment zone. Placing the Raveners at the end, I considered placing them out to one flank (in cover across from the Broadside unit) or the other (closer, but with some cover along the way to the main Tau lines.) I ended up deciding to play them conservatively and stuck them behind my other units. Scott commented here just how similar our armies looked. Despite the boxiness and right angles of the Tau and the Spines and Scythes of my Tyranids, he was right. We both have a lot of big guys with guns and a couple of small squads of troops. Of course, his squads of Troops are fire support and mine are close combat support, but he had a good point!

I won the roll to go first, but I knew I was out of range of most of his stuff and I would just be moving into his range without getting much use out of it, so I let him go first. Below is a closer view of my deployment. The Carnifex perched on top of the building is actually supposed to be inside the building on the ground floor, but 5 ton Hissing Cockroaches have a hard time fitting in Imperial buildings!

Turn1
The Tau split their fire this turn, partly due to the Broadside unit that was way off to the side. Sniper Megafex took a single Wound from most of the main lines, while a couple on the edge and the Broadside unit managed to take out one of my Devourerfexes. Being partly out of range, the Tau then used their assault move to move closer.

The Tyranids moved forward and concentrated their fire on the Crisis team in front of them. They swatted down both Drones and killed off Shas'El Sudo and Shas'Vres Magus and Graygum. The remaining fire swatted down another couple of Drones in preparation for next turn.

Turn2
The Tau concentrated more on Sniper Megafex this turn, though a few shots went after my Zoanthropes that were now exposed where the Devourerfex had been. After all the shooting stopped, Sniper Megafex had taken 1Wound! One of my Tyrants had also taken a Wound due to a failed target priority roll from one of his flanking Crisis teams, but Sniper Megafex (that's just fun to say!) absorbed almost all the firepower!

The Tyranids continued advancing and concentrating fire. This time they took out Shas'O Doonan and also Shas'Uis Pani and Saudi.

Turn3
Now the Tau really had to work! They poured fire into Sniper Megafex, knowing that if they didn't cause 3 Wounds this turn, he'd have the chance to regenerate before next turn. They did indeed cause all 3 Wounds and mighty Sniper Megafex fell with a roar. The opening in the lines allowed the Tau to shoot 4 Genestealers out of the unit of 9, leaving them just over half.

The Tyranid line continued to advance. They fired into the Broadside on this side of the table (Briaros) and killed him. They also shot down 6 out of the 8 FireWarriors that were firing from the ruined central building, and finally, they took down the Shield Drones from the Crisis suits on the other side of the Central building. Smelling the fear and blood, Genestealers and a Ravener poured out from behind the shield line and slammed into the untouched unit of FireWarriors, killing a lot and then running them down. The Zoanthropes and a Tyrant and the Raveners had moved more diagonally this turn, breaking up the shield wall (since there was nothing left in front of them) and turned toward the far side of the board, this brought them well within range of the Crisis suits there and killed Shas'Ui Helman and panicking the other two into running. One Ravener had been close enough to charge, but couldn't catch them once they ran. The picture below is something Scott noticed, where the center Genestealer has his claw resting on top of a FireWarrior's head. I'm not sure if it's just about to crush his skull, or if it's holding him by the head while he swings his arms in a vain attempt to strike back!

Turn4
Shas'Vre Shamala and Shas'Ui Doric do not rally and run straight off the board. At this point, the Tau are left with 2 FireWarriors and 2 Broadsides. Scott called the game here, though I think he could have killed another one of my Monstrous Creatures and some Genestealers and gotten some more Victory points.

Final Score: Tau 366 Tyranids (about) 1250

Experimental Results
Sniper Megafex was a success, even though he died. He absorbed an awful lot of shooting, even though he didn't regenerate, and the shooting would have been more effective against one of my other creatures. The 2+ save helps against Missile Pods, the T7 helps against plasma and the extra Wound and Regneration (if it worked!) help against Railguns. I'd say that Sniper Megafex was worth the extra 90pts this game. I'm sure that he saved me at least one more dead Carnifex or something. His weapon isn't terribly impressive versus Tau, but I prefer to take all-round lists and some people actually have vehicles! In addition, if it made it through an armor save, the S10 Venom Cannon would instakill any of his characters. In fact, this had actually happened the night before when I took a pot shot on a Daemon Prince of Khorne and sent him back to the Warp on turn 1. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, it pays for all the other non-vehicle or low-vehicle games where the big lug does little or nothing! I'm not sure if I'll continue giving him all those upgrades or not. It did work in this game against this opponent, but I'll have to experiment to see if it's worthwhile in the long run.

What happened?
Well, this is a fairly nasty army against Tau, what with their relatively low Leadership and my Psychic Screams. In addition, Scott divided his fire. Even though he did shoot a lot at Sniper Megafex, there was always a team or two that were shooting at something else. Note that in turn 3, when he had less than half of his army left, they still managed to put three Wounds on Sniper Megafex! If he had concentrated on one MC at a time, I'm sure I would have lost at least a couple more. (I admit, target priority rolls do mess this up, but even taking failed priority rolls into account, I would have definitely lost more of my Monstrous Creatures.) In addition, I think he could use that assault move more effectively. For example, on Turn1, he moved his units forward to get them into range. I would have been moving into range during my turn, so it wasn't necessary and probably got him too close with some units so that they couldn't get far enough away later. Although there wasn't much terrain in this game, if he had used some of his movement to get behind cover (not just in it, since the bulk of my shooting still lets him take armor saves) it would have helped a lot. For that matter, simply moving units that had been stripped of their shield drones behind ones that hadn't might have helped. While my stuff has Leadership 10, I do still fail a target priority test once in a while. Finally, if he had split his deployment a bit (with movement and range he could still have concentrated his firepower) he would have forced me to either abandon my compact wedge or to take on only part of his army, which would mean a longer game and (due to the speed of my movement) probably result in fewer dead guys on his side.

I've been thinking that the next time we play, I'd like to offer to play his Tau while he plays my Tyranids. We'd have to give each other pointers and reminders about our armies, since we are both fairly unfamiliar with the other. We'd just swap lists and go at it. If I was going to play this game over again, but as the Tau, I'd do a few things differently.

Assuming Deployment was roughly the same, I'd use my first turn assault moves to spread to either side of where the Tyranid wedge was. There was cover on both sides, but almost nothing in the middle. From that vantage point, I should be able to use the Jump/Shoot/Jump effect to good advantage, jumping out to concentrate my firepower and jumping back behind cover to keep myself from getting killed. I'd also try to stay at the edge of my range. Yes, Plasmas are twice as effective at 12", but Tyranid Devourers and Psychic Screams have a 6" move and an 18" range. Even though I wouldn't be able to stay totally out of range, I'd limit the number of Psychic Screams that could effect one unit and I'd also be limiting the number of Monstrous Creatures that could concentrate on one unit. Between limiting concentration of fire, jumping behind cover and having shield drones, I feel pretty confident that I could do well. I don't know that I could win the game, but I think I'd have a chance. If I stayed out on the sides as the Tyranids advanced, pretty soon I'd have a shot at the Genestealers and Raveners and Zoanthropes on the second line. Aside from the Zoanthropes, these are easier targets and give away a fair number of victory points.

So there you have it, folks. More biomass for Hive Fleet Scylla, and some thoughts about what to do with it. Remember, the Tau aren't just good eating, they're Greater Good Eating!

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