The LATCS Event, Tyranids Win!

On Monday the LATCS Podcast guys hosted a tournament (sort of) at Battlegrounds, our local store.  I say sort of, because the prizes were not dependent on your placing in the tournament.  There was an entry fee of $5 which put you in a drawing for several prizes.  I hadn't played a game of 40k in over two months due to all my Fantasy preparations, and the events of the 'Ard Boyz semifinals left me soured on over-competitiveness so I decided to just take a "whatever" Tyranid list.  That meant I took whatever I had painted or mostly painted, or even just converted.

Here's what I took.  The tournament was 1500 points.

Parasite of Mortrex

2x Hive Guard
Doom of Malan'tai (I used my Malanthrope)
Mycetic Spore

11 Termagants
Tervigon
10 Genestealers + Broodlord

Harpy
30 Gargoyles (I borrowed these)

Tyrannofex (I used my Barbed Hierodule)

The missions were a bit unusual.  Each game had 5 objectives and what are called "Destruction Points."  For every 200 pts killed, you get one destruction point.  It doesn't work like victory points in that you have to kill the whole unit; if you kill one model from a squad its points add into the Destruction Point total.  It's an unusual system and I have mixed feelings on it.

The third facet of the missions was the secret objective.  With this one, you drew a secret objective out of a hat and tried to accomplish this during the game.  I really liked this idea, it was a lot of fun.

My first game put me up against the frakkin' toasters, the Necrons.  The Tyrannofex took out his Monolith on the second turn and pretty much sealed the game.  The Doom didn't show up until turn 4 and then proceeded to mop up with his blast.  I won although it was not a large victory.

My second game was against Deathwing.  I have been playing against Deathwing for a very long time so I knew exactly what to expect.  He was running an all-foot Deathwing list.  We all know how much Tyranids love foot lists.  I tabled him, the first time I've tabled someone in a very long time and got all possible battle points.

My previous victory gave me enough points to contend for first.  I was tied in battle points with the other Tyranid player.  His list was a Mycetic Spore list with everything capable of arriving via Deep Strike.  The final scenario screwed with Deep Strike in that you always scatter even if you rolled a hit.  Mycetic Spores mitigate most of that problem, but it kept some of his units away from mine a bit longer than they would have otherwise.

The battle was a hard-fought bloody combat.  I had more shooting than him, and we both had the Doom of Malan'tai.  His killed a few gargoyles and mine killed two of his pods instantly so he was up to 10 wounds immediately.  My gargs and the Parasite charged him and finished him off in one round.  My Doom chased down some scattered Warriors and took a few turns to finish them off.  He had a Trygon Prime in my flank that was chewing up my units.  I fed it Termagants for two turns but then he got my Tyrannofex.  I charged a mass of Termagants into it boosted by the Tervigon's Adrenal Glands and Toxin Sacs and nearly killed it.

In the end I held more objectives and my opponent got more Destruction Points, while neither of us got our secret objectives.  So we tied for first place.

I like the scoring system that they used though I think that they could have used a bit more mission variety concerning the 5 objectives that were used every round.  As it was I think it was a great success for the LATCS Podcast's first event.  It wasn't the most competitive of tournaments, but it wasn't supposed to be.  I had fun and learned a lot about Tyranids.  I also got some Black Library books as a door prize.