Putting the First Feather in the Cap

I took my newly modified verison of the Valhallan Immortals out for a test drive last night and finally got my first win!  Suffice it to say that I am stoked.

I played a Nid player on Vassal and he started the game by saying, "Can I take a odd list?"  I said sure because my list is fairly odd as well. This is what he took:

HQ

Tyranid Prime- 80

Elites

3x Zoans, pod with TL Deathspitter- 230

Deathleaper- 140

Troops

3x Rippers- 30

3x Rippers- 30

Heavy

3x Carnifex, Frag spines - 495

3x Carnifex, Frag spines - 495

3x Carnifex, Frag spines - 495

Total- 1995

As you can tell, this is not a good list at all.  It is far from optimized, BUT it has 9 carnifexes!  Yikes.  That freaked me out a little. 

I took:

HQ
MotF-pw/pistol, harness
Captain- bike, relic blade, storm shield, meltabombs

Elite
Dread- 2x TL autocannons
Dread- 2x TL autocannons
Dread- 2x TL autocannons

Troop
10 man Tac squad- missile, flamer, sarge with combi-melta, meltabombs, rhino (combat squadded)
10 man Tac squad- missile, flamer, sarge with combi-melta, meltabombs, rhino (combat squadded)
Bike Squad- bolter bike, 2x melta bikes, sarge with fist, multi-melta attack bike

Fast
Landspeeder Tornado- multi-melta, h. flamer
Landspeeder Tornado- multi-melta, h. flamer

Heavy
Ironclad, DCCW/h. flamer, Seismic Hammer/melta, pod
Ironclad, DCCW/h. flamer, Seismic Hammer/melta, pod
Ironclad, DCCW/h. flamer, Seismic Hammer/melta, pod

2,000pt.

We played sieze ground with 5 objectives and Dawn of War. I won the roll and made my opponent go first.  This mission screwed him over pretty bad because he had two 3 man units of ripper swarms to claim objectives.  Those are terribly easy to kill, even if one is being babysat by a Prime (who was completely naked, no upgrades).  So, this looked like an autowin for me as long as I didn't play like a moron or as long as those fexes didn't get across the board to me to rip my army apart.  It was a game of 5 units, my three troops versus his 2 troops.  In the end, all of my other stuff was expendable as long as I could keep his big meanies away while I dealt with his troop choices. 

So here is the big reveal.  I have a pic of the game in turn 7.  We actually stopped at Turn 6, but my opponent wanted to play it out for fun.  I decided to go for it.  What you see if midway through Turn 7.

For deployment, he decided to put his prime with ripper swarm and solo ripper swarm in the ruin on the far left.  I put two combat squads with bolters and missile launchers in the building in the upper right which I bolstered with my MotF.  He had his fexes come on Turn 1, while the leaper and zoans reserved.  I had my rifleman dreads and bike squad come on Turn 1 and reserved everything else to deny any easy kills.

The first few turns went quickly as I find they normally do in dawn of war scenarios.  My opponent's Prime and rippers went to ground to gain a great cover save, His fexes entered the bottom of the table, one unit on the left of the trees, one one the right, and one on the far right board edge.  At this point, I knew he had taken the bait of my two missile launcher combat squads.  His first two turns consisted of the fexes moving up and running.  The prime and swarms stayed put. 

My first two turns saw my dreads enter the board in the upper left hand corner getting into firing positions to start smacking down his fexes.  My bikes came onto the table on my extreme left board edge and moved along the edge to get to his ripper swarms as quickly as possible.  My two ironclads podded on.  The first one hit home south of the ruin with the ripper swarms.  The second one aimed for the north side, but deviated north almost to the board edge. Both sought to close with the rippers quickly to help flush them out of the building.  In turn 2, my bikes were in range to shoot then assault the ripper swarm with prime, while the bottom ironclad help toast some with his heavy flamer.  2+ cover save my butt. The bike squad ended up offing 1 ripper unit and the prime with only the loss of the bolter biker. 

My dreads were able to kill off  1 carnifex from the left squad and knock 3 wounds of another before they finally got into my southern ironclad.  He was held up by assaulting rippers.  I couldn't do enough damage to be free of them and get away from the carnifexes.  He died, but took a carnifex with him while the remaining carnifex was summarily destroyed by intensive autocannon fire.  

On the right flank, I ended up dropping a pod onto an objective to 1) contest should it survive, and 2) provide bait to keep the carnifexes away from my left flank where my troop choices were.  The ironclad inside ended up getting shot by the spore.  The bottom missile combat squad was attacked by the death leaper that deepstriked into their building while the top squad got shot up by zoans and then failed morale and booked it off the table.  In the end, I sent in both of my speeders to that corner to keep the zoans busy.  One scattered onto terrain, failed the dangerous terrain and wrecked.  The other survived and was the zoans' plaything for a turn or two. 

In the end, his remaining two carnifex squads started to cross the board towards my units, but two failed instinctual behavior tests caused them to veer back to the right side of the board, buying me time.  In the end, my rhinos came on and one claimed the upper lefthand objective, one contested the lower lefthand objective due to the deathleaper going back into reserve and then deepstriking close to it.  My shooting couldn't finish him off.  The bike squad meandered around the board edge after killing the prime and company and ended up claiming the bottom center objective.  So, in the end, a 2-0 victory.  I may even have been able to whittle down the second carnifex squad as it was down to 2 fexes by the end of the game. 

Ultimately, I saw a few things in this game.

1) The bikes are starting to be my MVPs.  They rocked this game.  I am going to start toying with all bikes and 6 dreads.  I think that would be solid. 
2) In contrast, the speeders just weren't doing it for me.  I think I could replace the two with 3 multi-melta attack bikes and I would be set. 
3) Heavy flamers on the ironclads paid out way better in this game than storm bolters have.  I haven't really needed the grenades on them so I think it was a fair trade. I also like having all three in pods.  It puts them in your face very quickly. 
4) Autocannons rock!  I know that they take out light mech well, but when you are pumping 12 shots a turn into targets, they tend to fail saves with regularity.  I love the 3 rifleman dreads more than their old missile/TL lascannon setup.  I won't be going back to that. 

In the end, I think that this list really does well with objective games, primarily due to the ability to throw non essential units in the way to prevent my troop choices from dying.  I also think I was helped along by a severely unoptimized list from my opponent. 

So, there you have!  The first win of what I hope are many more to come as I continue to tweak the list. I would love to hear comments about what went on, how you like the list, and what you think might improve it.