Tyranid Tournament Report - Octoberfest

Octoberfest and Mayhem run by Tolworth First Founding are the tournaments which really started it all for most of us over here at death or Glory. And to a certain extent its responsible for Death or Glory as a whole.
So time for a history lesson! These tournaments are primarily team events. Which have their own missions and scoring system, meaning that you need to win big to get the max of 20 tournament points. For the past 11 years 2 teams emerged as the regular contenders to the crown, and both have had their ups and downs as well as numerous name changes*.

It was these two teams which merged together to become Death or Glory as we are today. However, every Mayhem and Octoberfest tournament we split back off into our original faction to wage the eternal struggle! Lets just say that between us we could probably fill a good sized room with trophies from these events!

SO this time round I decided that I wanted to use Tyranids as they have become pretty competitive again as James Ramseys 3rd place at the Brighton GT Heat will attest to and they are an army that I really enjoy playing with, which is the two most important boxes ticked. Ill run through my games and results, but first, the list:

HQ – Hive Tyrant (warlord), 2 x twin linked devourers with brainleech worms, toxin sacs, wings, old adversary, paroxysm, leech essence - 295

HQ – Hive Tyrant, 2 x twin linked devourers with brainleech worms, toxin sacs, wings, old adversary, paroxysm, leech essence - 295

Elites – 2 hive guard 100

Elites – 2 hive guard 100

Elites – The doom of malantai, spore pod – 130

Troops – 10 termagants - 50

Troops – 10 termagants - 50

Troops – tervigon, catalyst, cluster spines, toxin sacs, adrenal glands - 195

Troops – tervigon, catalyst, cluster spines, toxin sacs, adrenal glands - 195

Fast Attack – 18 gargoyles, toxin sacs - 126

Heavy Support – Trygon, toxin sacs – 210

Total 1746

Game 1 vs Vulkan Hestan space marines with imperial guard allies

This was a kill points game and everything went exactly to plan, I went first so the Hive Tyrants started swooping and the army began to advance. Not much happened in my first turn. In his turn Vulkan cane down in a drop pod with a sternguard unit and so did a dreadnaught. The dread killed a Hive guard and Vulkan brutalised my poor gargoyles. The sternguard split off to hang around the guard lines.
My turn 2 and the doom and the trygon appeared and began to steamroller his back lines, the tyrants got stuck in and although the doom did die to a meltagun shot, the bugs swiftly tabled the opponant for the loss of the doom.

Game 2 vs Necrons.

An objective based game which had 3 relics as per the rulebook. And boy, was this necron army a pain to do any significant damage to. My opponent was Franco Marrufo who is quite a prolific tournament player up in the northern wastes of the UK.  He had The Stormlord, Nemmesor and Obyron and 3 units of 20 warriors. Each warrior unit had a cryptek and royal court lord, each unit could veil and each unit had a res orb. I couldnt take these guys down, one turn I put down 13 warriors and 10 got up... So I gave up on that pretty quickly and just collected relics with tervigons. The only weakness to his army was that he could do very little to the T6 monstrous creatures. He in the end had to settle with linebreaker as his only points of the game.

Game 3 vs Space Wolves with imperial guard allies

Friday nights evening out and excessive drinking had caught up with me and I thought I was going to die just sitting at the table. But the bugs soldiered on. Everything which could go wrong in this game did but the bugs held on and managed to get 5 points. I dont even remember what mission this game was... Thats about the extent of my memory of this game...**

Game 4 vs Grey Knights***

Like a boss.

Still table 2. Kill points. A typical 3 psyflemen, 2 big units of purifiers and then 5 units of grey knights with psycannons in razorbacks led by 2 inquisitors. Kill points and I got first turn. He chose deployment zones... The tyrants went straight for the psyflemen and did nothing turn 1, the rest of the army advanced. Due to the terrain he couldnt target the tyrants with much and his first turn a unit of hive guard died. Turn 2 and he had 2 dead psyflemen with only my trygon turning up. His turn 2 he cast warp quake lots and de wagoned and shot me up. The trygon went down to 10 armour saves**** and the rest of his shooting was pretty ineffectual. My turn 3 and the tyrnats were in combat as were most of my other units, the doom dropped in the right place and destroyed a purifier squad with leech life and then the other with cataclysm. I love the doom. The last psyfleman then killed him out of spite.***** The bugs then went to work and the grey knights were tabled by turn 5.


Game 5 vs Grey Knights

Table 1. 5 objectives. Interesting army, not what you would usually expect to see but played by a very good player. The core was a big unit of terminators, grand master and coteaz. They proved to be a massive pain in the ass. He stole the initiative and some amazingly poor saves meant my warlord went down. He shunted a dreadknight in my face and burnt some gaunts. My turn 1 both tervigons spawned and drowned the dreadknight in poisonous gaunts and he fell in a single round of combat. after that it boiled down to my gargoyles losing to 8 purgation marines (yes the gargoyles charged and caused 14 wounds, and only 3 marines dropped.) at least they kept them in combat for a while. My last tyrant killed the rest of the army apart from the terminators which were ground down by gaunt waves and tervigons. The tyrant got back on turn 5 to finish them off and the game ended with 2 purgation marines left. Big win for the bugs.

Game 6 vs Tau with Eldar allies

Table 1. I was in the lead by a good margin at this point, so a draw would win me the crown. But then I get Sharan Reddys Tau. With Eldrad. This game came down to who got the first turn, and luckily it was me. I threw 2 tyrants in his face along with the gargoyle flock. He did manage to drop a tyrant from the sky on turn 1 but couldnt kill it. Turn 2 the doom and trygon were in his lines along with the 2 tyrants and gargoyles, it was a slaughter. Another big win for the bugs.

So, the results? I came home in first place****** and my team took the coveted best team award. The Death or Glory team B^ took best painted and best sports, and being cheeky one of us even won the raffle, a Death of Glory clean sweep!

So what did I learn? Biomancy on Tyrants is always the way forward, T9 Tyrants are not anything to be trifled with. Id drop toxin on the tyrants and I'm unsure about the Trygon, so 230 points freed up. Im thinking ill take some biovores as we were seeing a fair few large units of guard and orks about, leaving me with 140 points, or 240 if its an 1850 game. I think ill need to have a bit of a think on that.


* Yes one team has had the upper hand there for the past few tournaments, and no I wont tell you who is in what team!
**I regret nothing... except maybe asking the cabbie how much it would cost to take me to Isenguard...
***A certain team of arch rivals and fellow death or glory members regretted a lot this morning... Not as much as franco though who was so broken he couldnt make it in for the first game.
****One was not amused
*****Bitch.
******About bloody time too! 11 years of trying and all...
^Oh thats right bitches