Shrikenator Dreads Lose by a Nose...er Tentacle Thing

If you have been following my writing this week, you know I have been taking a look at a Dread Heavy Codex Marine list again.  After some thought, I found what I thought to be a fairly interesting and possibly competitive list.  I have come to think of it as my Shrikenator Dread list.  You can see the list I decided on below.

MotF-100pt.
Kayvaan Shrike- 195pt.

Rifleman-125pt.
Rifleman-125pt.
10 Terminators-thunder hammer/storm shield- 400pt

5 marines- las/plas razorback-165pt.
5 marines- las/plas razorback-165pt.
5 marines- las/plas razorback-165pt.
5 scouts- sniper rifles, missile launcher, camo cloaks- 100pt.

Dreadnought-MM/DCCW with heavy flamer, pod-150pt.
Dreadnought-MM/DCCW with heavy flamer, pod-150pt.
Dreadnought-MM/DCCW with heavy flamer, pod-150pt.

I got a chance to play most of a game on Vassal last night to try the list out.  In all, I think it worked pretty close to what I thought it would.  I got to play a Tyranid army that was pretty competitive from what I know about Nids.  It had:

Hive Tyrant-HVC, Hive Commander, Lash whip/Bonesword, Paraxysm, Leech Essence- 220

3 Zoanthropes 180
3 Hive Guard 150
3 Hive Guard 150

Tervigon- Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Catalyst, Onslaught, Cluster Spines- 210
10 Termagaunts 50
7 Genestealers-Toxin Sacs- 119
7 Genestealers-Toxin Sacs- 119

7 Genestealers-Adrenal Glands- 119

20 gargoyles 120
4 Raveners- rending 140

Trygon- adrenal glands 210
Trygon- adrenal glands 210

We played sieze ground with pitched battle deployment.  We rolled up 4 objectives for our game.  I won the roll off and gave first turn to my opponent. Unfortunately, because I am getting old and have to take care of a baby that doesn't care if I'm tired, I had to cut the game off after turn 4.  That said, it felt like a full game and I had a good time. 

For this game, I knew I had to keep the nids contained and try to get my terminators into them while my fire support went for their MCs and Elite choices.  This worked out to some degree, but ultimately, I just couldn't cause the wounds on the MCs that I needed to and the Zoanthropes failed perhaps 3 saves the entire game.

Below you will see how the game went.

As you can see, it was going to be a fight for the midfield as the objectives were placed in order to pull us to the center of the board. My opponent seemed to know what he was doing as he deployed centrally, layering units to gain cover saves where possible. I deployed trying to shield my razorbacks from as much incoming fire as possible, not knowing the hive guard don't need line of sight and that I get no cover from them.  Ugh.  Otherwise, you can see my primary fire base in the upper lefthand ruin that my MotF bolstered to give everything a good cover save.  Shrike and his terminator combat squad infiltrated forward to line up for assault against the trygons while the other combat squad was going to slow pull left to support.  It was my hope to use pods to close off the right side of the table, forcing my opponent to move left into my fire support.

After turn 1, you can see that this was basically working.  My pods came in to cordon off the right "alley" and use their flamers and meltaguns to deplete his zoanthropes and hive guard.  Unfortunately, my opponent's 3++ saves were golden and I did no damage to the zoans while I took out a handful of termagants and a single hive guard.  His Hive Tyrant was able to stun my left razorback and that was about it. 

Turn 2, is where I realized that I should have deployed my dreads in my battle line to serve as support and simply drop the pods empty for cordoning. The zoans and hive guard made short work of my two dreads popping them super easy.  As a matter of fact, with the exception of the one razorback that kept getting stunned or shaken, my opponent had ridiculously good damge table rolls the whole game.  By the end of turn 2, my terminators and Shrike had accounted for the unit of gargoyles and a spawned termagant squad. In both cases, my opponent showed that he knew what he was doing by using those units to block access to his trygons, hive tyrant, and tervigon, all of which would have been fairly easy to kill with my terminators, I believe.  In this turn, he also got a single squad of stealers in and popped a rifleman dread.  I then shot them to pieces with the MotF, scouts, and remaining rifleman. 

Massive assault ensues, with two stealer units and two trygons assaulting Shrike's squad and about 20 termagants assaulting my other squad.  Through 2-3 turns of combat, Shrike's squad is slowly whittled down, but they do well to mess up those units' advance.  The other terminators likewise die to torrents of wounds, but also slowly whittle down the termagants. 

In the final turn, my opponent moves forward to claim/contest objectives.  I respond, but can't do enough damage to the zoanthropes, trygon, or stealers on the left side and end up losing 1 objective to 0. 

This game was a real learning experience.  I don't have much experience against Nids.  There aren't many Nids players in my area, so I came in with a distinct lack of knowledge.  To compound the issue, my army has a distinct weakness at taking out hordes.  My three pod dreads have flamers and I have a bit of dakka, but not enough to seriously do the damage needed.  I think I may have been too defensive with my tac squads and razors as well.  Had I moved them up earlier, I might have walled off a couple of the objectives near me. Alas, you live and learn. 

So, game 1 with the Shrikenator Dreads is chalked up to a learning experience.  I would love to hear any comments you might have about what you think about the game. 

Other Battle Reports:
Space Wolf Razorspam vs. Horde Orks- a Vassal Report
Sanguinary v. Grey Knights
Vulkan Ain't No Joke
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