Against the Stumbling Hordes.

In a rare occurrence I was able to make it to the game night at Hobbytown where my Dark Eldar Kill Team faced off against the menace of Hivefleet Screech. I haven't played with Screech in what seems like ages, so I was very much looking forward to it. However, it was a strange game, as you'll see, so I will try not to get too in depth with this report and stick to the highlights.

Waiting....to die. 

The mission we selected was Head Hunt. Primary VPs are earned for slaying your opponent's Leader and Specialists.
We rolled for Leader Traits. I rolled and got Unsakeable Dedication to Duty which gives my Leader the Zealot special rule. Screech's Termagaunt Leader got Cunning Ruse.

Warzone: Hobbytown Hallway.

This mission's set-up quarters the table with a restriction that we couldn't place models within  9" of the center point.  Below was my deployment. As you can see I kept everything in the high ground.

Dark Eldar deployment.

Tyranids deployment concentrated on getting as many critters on the forward line as possible, with a few that were placed in Reserves for outflanking later in the game.

Tyranids deploy. i guess they're eager to die?

So with 20 Termagaunts and 15 Hormagaunts, I was out numbered 35 to 15.
>ulp! <

The Dark Eldar leaders, braced for the worst...

Turn one begins and....Screech immediately starts rolling for Instinctive Behavior due to his Hive Mind not having any presence. The Dark Eldar watched in stupified awe as most of the Termagaunts broke and ran for the table edge, or dove into cover. Only the Hormagaunts showed any interest in trying to eliminate my Kill Team. They leapt, fleeted and ran towards my line...

"Here they come..."

...and the Dark Eldar opened up, eliminating about 5 of the Hormagaunts. I finally got to utilize Reaping Volley on that Splinter Cannon and I must say I was impressed with it. If not for the cover, a lot more of the bugs would have been shredded...

Thinning their numbers.

Turn 2 and Screech was trying to get his troops back into line. A few Termigaunts ran off the table while others got their desire to kill back. The outflanking Specialists areived and hid themselves in the lower level of the ruins that my Leader was on top of. in the shooting phase the two Termagaunts with this group shot and killed 2 warriors in the ruins opposite of this position.

Outflanked and on the hunt.

A few Hormagaunts declared charges, and some died to the Overwatch shots but only one made it into combat but it ended up being a stand-off.

Charge!

Dark Eldar Turn 2, more stuff gets shot to hell, but the tally of stuff that has ran off the table has surpassed the Dark Eldar kill tally.

. 

My Specialist, Sybarite 2, went to the lower level with her blast pistol and and atomized a Hormagaunt Specialist while the warrior shot the other one, leaving just the termagaunt snipers.

"DIE ALIEN SCUM! ...oh, wait..."

The next pic showes the dead pile by the end of turn 2, although the DE can only take credit for maybe a 1/3 of the nid losses at this point.

And let I still felt  out-numbered.

Turn 3, more nids fled the field, but some were still sticking to their mission. One particularly determined Termagaunt scaled the tower and shot my Team Leader to death!

"Crikey! Not in the gut again!"

The Hormagaunts swarmed, ok, more like... ganged up on, The Dark Eldar in the other ruins, however my Power Through Pain was now granting me Feel No Pain (5+) which was keeping the Warriors from being wiped out, but the 'gaunts on the other hand were not so lucky.

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Things fell apart quickly, and before I knew it Tyranids were simply disappearing. Their force was now broken and failing break tests. Those that remained were botching Instinctive Behavior rolls and either hiding or running.

This is the  cluster that ran off the table on Turn 5.

Soon, the bugs were tabled. We didn't bother to try to calculate VPs, but I commend the bugs for doing what they could to get them!

The final dead piles.

Screech's experiment to sacrifice synapse creatures for weight of numbers went horribly wrong. In doing so he proved to us the value of synapse creatures. I suspect his next Tyranid Kill Team will be a completely different composition.