Red played a pick-up game in which she brought her Ynnari up against a modified version of the Broodlord and Spore Mine list she encountered earlier in the year.

My List

Using the old pre-codex rules, the new 2000 point list I decided to take really centered around trying to work in the Shadow Spectres and Dark Reapers. I increased my amount of Fire Dragons, although only having fifteen meant I needed something else to fill the other half of a Wave Serpent, making me spring for a squad of five Dire Avengers.

Battalion Detachment

• Farseer Skyrunner
• Warlock Skyrunner
• Autarch
• Guardian Defenders x10 + Heavy Weapon Platform
• Guardian Defenders x10 + Heavy Weapon Platform
• Dire Avengers x4 + Exarch
• Dark Reapers x4 with Exarch
• Dark Reapers x4 with Exarch
• Wave Serpent with Twin Bright Lances
• Wave Serpent with Twin Bright Lances

Vanguard Detachment

• The Visarch
• Shadow Spectres x5 + Exarch
• Fire Dragons x9 + Exarch
• Fire Dragons x4 + Exarch

The Opposing List

My opponent brought a Battalion and 2 Outrider Detachments filled with an interesting assortment of Tyranids, although the largest part of his army was Spore Mines. If anyone remembers, this was the same guy who brought a similar Spore Mine centered list during one of our previous tournaments, although he has since modified his list to make it a little different since then.

• 5 Broodlords
• 5 sets of 5 Genestealers
• Lictor
• 3 sets of 3 Spore Mines
• 11 singular Spore Mines
• Swarmlord

The Game

Since neither of us really cared what we ran, we pulled some cards out of the Open War set and got Field of Glory – one objective is placed in the center of the table and each player then places an objective in their own deployment zone – and Orbital Debris – each player can deal mortal wounds to one squad if they roll well enough. Amusingly, we entirely forgot Orbital Debris throughout the whole game, and after my opponent picked Dawn of War deployment, we place the objectives almost immeidately across from each other. (In the picture that will follow, one is on the skully chaos hill, another is in the trees off to the left, and the last is in the near tower with my Dark Reapers.)

Deployment

Since we did the standard take turns deploying thing, and I got to place first, my opponent pretty much forced me to put down everything before he started deploying on the board. Since he had 14 squads of spore mines alone, he placed as many squads in reserves as he could after dropping two spore mines near the objective on his side to mildly influence how I placed.

What we ended up with can be seen in the below picture. I placed my Dark Reapers and Autarch in the tower with my objective marker, a squad of guardians hiding near the base to discourage assaults. Then, the rest of my army deployed in a tight knot behind the largest chunk of terrain I could get. You may notice the amusingly out of place Plasma Cannon marines; I was in a rush packing my army and forgot both of my Bright Lance Heavy Weapon Platforms. Oops… at least my husband was happy enough to lend me a few Devastators.

On the other side of the board, my oppoent dropped a squad of genestealers on his forested objective, the Swarmlord slightly in front of them; while, the rest of the army array in a line against my blob deployment. The Broodlords staged in a forest with a set of genestealers, almost entirely obscured by a large bridge, out in front.

Turn 1

Even with the +1 to the roll to go first, I lost, rolling a 1 as my dice are wont to do. Thus, my opponent advanced pretty much his entire army across the board, dropping one of the squads of 3 mines just in front of the Swarmlord and a number of the singular mines 12″ away from the guardians beneath the Dark Reapers. The Swarmlord attempted, but thankfully, failed to command the spore mines to move again, although he then smited 3 wounds onto a Dark Reaper squad out of frustration. One of the Broodlords then cast Horror on one of my Wave Serpents to give it a -1 to hit.

Knowing the charge would come soon even if I kept my distance, my entire army – except the Visarch – began moving forward, the Fire Dragons and Dire Avengers disembarking their transports. The Spectres, within flamer range of a number of mines, killed all of the spore mines that immediately threatened them before soulbursting to kill a faraway squad of genestealers. My Fire Dragons then killed another set of genestealers, soulbursting to kill one of the Broodlords behind; while, every single Bright Lance in my army refused to do anything, rolling either a 1 to hit or a 1 to wound. Still, the Dark Reapers and Autarch whittled the Swarmlord down to 1 wound remaining.

Turn 2

With the Eldar now close, the Tyranids began their charges. The Lictor arrived in the top of the tower since enough Dark Reapers were gone to leave it space, and although he tied all three squads into combat, the spore mines that hit the reapers from the rear allowed me to pull casualties in such a way as to push them out of combat. Down below the tower, a spore mine charged the guardians, although their overwatch killed it and allowed them to shoot at the swarmlord, who saved every last wound arrayed against him from the hail of shurikens (the bright lance missed again). The rest of the mines then made it in, allowing the swarmlord and a squad of genestealers to make it into combat unhindered. The scattered broodlords and genestealers then charged, the smaller set of Fire Dragons killing 4 genestealers out of one squad in overwatch by some fluke of luck while the Shadow Spectres flamered one whole broodlord to death. One broodlord killed 4 Fire Dragons out of the large squad while another wiped out the Dire Avengers, allowing the small Fire Dragon Squad to Soulburst fall back. The swarmlord and genestealers then dropped the guardians to a meer 3 models remaining, morale destroying them entirely.

In response, most of my army fell back. The Autarch stepped aside to let the Dark Reapers finish off the Lictor, the resultant Soulburst killing the Swarmlord as well. The Fire Dragons and Shadow Spectres wiped out all but one broodlord and a small set of genestealers, although the Visarch then leapt from his transport to lead a charge that would see only two sets of genestealers and some spore mines left on the table. Since the spore mines could not hold objectives, my opponent then conceeded; he had no way of winning if he only had two very small units capable of holding the three objectives.

Conclusions

Although the main trick of the Shadow Spectres did not work against this list, they still put out an impressive amount of firepower, the Dark Reapers following closely behind. Amusingly, the spore mines seemed much less awful than they did last time I faced off against them; actually having some make it into combat and explode showed me exactly how much damage they could do, which was surprisingly little. I am sure that larger squads of the things would have been pretty awful since that would have meant multiple D3’s worth of mortal wounds, but one at a time left them pretty low on the target priority list.

Overall, I am left wanting more Dark Reapers and Shadow Spectres, and although plastic aspects seems like it will not happen anytime soon, at least I can be certain that Forgeworld will not stop stocking their signature Aspect Warrior anytime soon. If I can snap up any when they finally come back in stock again though is another issue entirely.