First BattleReport - 1.5k Salamanders vs. Tyranids

Hey there!

A friend of mine asked me to play his Tyranids in a 1.5k battle after he got the new codex into his hands and wanted to try it out immediatley.
Before writing my list, I knew that he would play somethinhg like a Tyrant, a Trygon, some Genestealers, Warriors, Hive Guards etc. This in mind and trying not to write a cheesy, but more a style list I came up with this:

Captain
-Combi-Melter
-Lightning Claw

5 man Tac Squad
-Powerfist
-Razorback

10 man Tac Squad
-Melter
-Missilelauncher
-Combi-Melter
-Powerfist
-Rhino

10 man Tac Squad
-Melter
-Missilelauncher
-Combi-Melter
-Powerfist
-Rhino

6 man Terminator Assault Squad
-4x TH/SS

Dreadnaught
-MM
-HF
-Extra Armor


Dreadnaught
-MM
-HF
-Extra Armor

Vindicator

Vindicator

My friend's list was in the end something like (sorry, do not remember all of it correctly):

Hive Tyrant + 1 Tyrant Guard
2 Hive Guards
2 Zoanthropes in a Pod
3 squads of Genestealers (2 of them containing a Brood Lord)
3 Warriors
3 Ravener
Alphatrygon

We rolled for mission and got Capture and Control with Spearhead Deployment. I won the roll off and decided to go first, placing my objective in a ruin protected by two Combatsquad Marines with MLs. The rest of my army deployed to the center of the board to get in contact with the Tyranids early, only holding back a rhino (with a Combatsquad) and the Terminators to handle with outflanking Genestealers or deepstriking shit.
He placed his objective in his corner far away from me and only deployed his HQ and the Hive Guards, letting the rest of his army outflanking or deepstriking (the Warriors were able to outflank due to his Hive Tyrant).

Turn 1
My first turn was not verys spectacular, I just moved most of my army towards the middle of the board to stop the Tyranids and shooting a bit at the Tyrant without dealing any damage to him.

In his turn he Hive Guards wrecked my Razorback and all of his units (erhm ... his two units ...) moved into cover.

Turn 2
On my second turn I still didn't have a lot of targets to fire at and spread my army a bit to be able to react into every direction. One of my rhinos circled a large building where his Hive Guards had taken cover to get rid of them.

Turn 2 gave the Tyranids some of their reserves. A group of Genestealers entered the game on his own short side of the table and moved on his own objective. The Warrior brood entered the game on my short table side and both the Trygon and the Ravener deepstriked ahead of my army.
The Hive Guards stunned one of my Vindicators, the Tyrant immobilised one of the Dreadnaughts and the Warriors moved near my objective. The rest of the bugs mostly stayed in cover.

Turn 3
On turn 3 battle became much more intensive. My Vindicator blasted a shot towards the Raveners and eliminated the whole group. The Warriors got a lot of boltgun shots into their direction, which killed one of them, and were finally charged by my Terminators. They weren't able to even harm the Marines before they were blown apart.
On of my Dreads shot at the Trygon and gave him a wound with his MM (which was of course recovered by Regeneration the next turn...).

In the third turn the Tyranids got even more reserves in form of a Genestealer mob that came in on my side and immediatley charged my Terminators and the Pod with the Zoanthropes that blew off the cannon of one of my Vindicators.
The Trygon advanced onto my army and the Hive Tyrant wandered also in this direction.
Due to my nearly perfect Armour Saves none of my Terminators survived the Genestealer attack (failed 3 out of 4 Inv. saves for the Shields and 3 out of 4 normal saves ... love this).

Turn 4
My lonely rhino let out the Combat Squad that attacked those annoying Hive Guards.
The second rhino (with the next Combat Squad inside) and the other two Combat Squads fired at those Terminator-killing-Genestealers and killed all but three of them. The other CombatSquad killed one of the Hive Guards in CC.
The five man TacSquad with the Captain shot their Combi-Melters at the Zoas, killed one of them and charged the remaining one, finishing it finally of in CC.

The last missing Genestealer squad entered the board on my side once more and destroyed the rhino there, while the remaining three of the other squad struggled to finish of the weaponless Vindicator. The Hive Tyrant charged the Combat Squad in CC with the Hive Guard and killed those five Marines, while the Trygon ate one of the Dreads without any problems.

Turn 5
Thinking that this could be the final turn I concentrated at killing those damn Genestealers threatening my obejective. With 20 Marines fireing at them on short distance none of the bugs remained living. The Vindicator fired at the Trygon but wasn't able to hurt the monster. In the hope of another turn i speeded my last empty rhino towards the other objective to contest it on the next turn.

The Trygon killed the other Dread and moved towards my lines to contest my objective if there would be a sixth turn.
The Hive Tyrant and Hive Guard were both unable to stop my lonely rhino.

Turn 6
We rolled a six and so moved on to the next turn. I moved most of my Marines towards the Trygon to stop it from reaching my objective and was able to block its way. My rhino moved 12" onto the objective and hoped to remain unharmed.

The Trygon ignored my Marines and tried to run around them onto my objective, but it was to slow due to several terrain and could not reach it. None of the Tyranids was able to damage my rhino more than just stunning it.

After turn 6 the game ended 1-0 for me. We counted killpoints afterwards and it was a draw with 6 KPs on both sides (Zoanthropes+DropPod, Raveners, Warriors, 2x Genestealers - Rhino, Razorback, Terminators, Combat Squad, 2x Dreadnaughts).

Next time I'll make pictures or short videos of the battle and post them here as well, but forgot to take my cam with me this time, sorry guys. Hope you still enjoyed reading this battlereport.

Cheers Cleutin