Hive Fleet Conqueror: Conquering the Gladiator

After 2 months of blood and sweat, finally the Conqueror Conquers them all, taking home the bacon as this year's Gladiator Champion (John Cena's intro music playing in the background... "♪You can't see me my time is now...♪"... too much wrestling). Among all 40++ players that joined the league, only the top 8 went in for the finals; the top 2 for each of the 3 sectors and 2 wildcards. Here's a link for the rules in this year's Gladiator: Rules


The Spawning:


Before the start of the tournament, I have been playtesting my 60 genestealer list to represent my tyranids in Gladiator 2k11. But I think the list was kinda 'meh' because it was just genestealers and hiveguards, and doesn't represent the true strength of the army which is synergy. So I changed my list and built around my favorite killer of them all, the Swarmlord. so here was the final list I submitted:

Swarmlord: 280
2 tyrant guard: 130
- lash whip and rending claws

Tervigon: 195
- toxin sacs, adrenal glands, catalyst, cluster spines

18 termagants: 90

11 genestealers w/ broodlord: 250
- toxin sacs

3 hive guard: 150

3 zoanthropes: 180
spore: 40

8 ymgarl: 184

If you know me, I love genestealers, for the past 2 years I have been playing with 60 or so genestealers as part of my army, I even went to last years Gladiator finals with my all stealer list with no guns, but unfortunately my luck stopped on the second round. So I went outside of my comfort zone and try a new concept.



I'm not used to playing tyranids without tons of genestealers as my speartip. So, I read tons of articles from tyranid hive, dakkadakka, heresy-online (oddjobs' article), and hyv3mynd (synaps3.blogspot.com, best tyranid blog to have ever read) to learn on how to properly and effectively utilize each unit. I playtested with my list a couple of times until I get used of how each unit work.

The devouring
It's time!!! February 5, 2011, first week of the Gladiator, but unfortunately I wasn't able to play the first mission due to work. It all started on the second week, here are the links for my first 2 games:

VS Imperial Guard
VS CSM

I ended up with 1 win and 1 lose for my first 2 games, and got a 3 game winning streak afterwards. Here are the links for my 3 games:

VS Pre-heresy CSM
VS CSM and Salamanders

The streak ended when I fought against Kerwin and his Space wolves, but I never got to make a battle report for this one and my last game against J-soon's crimson fist. So I'll just give a quick recap on what happened on my last 2 games before the finals.

Against kerwin's SW:
The mission was for week 6 (check out mission I played against the salamanders under "VS CSM and Salamanders" link). Both my ymgarls and genestealers went for his longfang while my other units are dancing with death against the lasers of doom. We went for turn 6 after his thunderwolves was able to kill my termagants claiming the middle objective and consolidated to take the center. I can go for a tie if I ran my swarmlord or go for the win if I assault the 3 remaining thunderwolf with lord, since it's just a one point difference between a draw and a lose, so go for break and went short by a millimeter to reach his twolves with my swarmlord, giving him a 5-3 victory.

The last game was against J-soon'c crimson fist, check the link for week 7 mission(look for the week 7 mission). My Swarmlord was on the rampage killing Cantor and 5 LC terminators, 2 squads of tac marines, and a landraider, failing to wipe him out as a single rhino survived the combat against my swarmlord. It was a 16-2 victory for the Conqueror.

I went second overall in our sector and managed to grab a spot for the final 8.

The Conqueror:
April 9, 2011, the top 8 players slugged it out on a single elimination game using this scenario:



2011 Warhammer 40,000 Gladiator Finals
April 9, 2011
Lito's Battle Bunker

In The Coliseum

I see before me the Gladiator lie
He leans upon his hand - his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony
-Lord Byron

Victory Conditions:
Simple. Have more Gladiator Points or Kill Points than you opponent at the end of the game.

After deployment, BUT BEFORE THE START OF THE GAME, flip a coin. If it's heads use the Gladiator Point System to determine the Victor. If it's tails use the Kill Point System.

Game Length:
Game 1 - 6 Turns
Game 2 - 6 Turns
Game 3 - 7 Turns

Deployment:
Players flip a coin and call it. Winner chooses whether to deploy his entire army first and go first or deploy second and go second following the deployment given below:

Game 1 – Dawn of War
Game 2 – Pitched Battle
Game 3 – To Be Revealed

Mission Special Rules:
All Games– Reserves, Infiltrate, Scouts, Deep Strike

Good Luck to All. smile.gif Spectators of course welcome!
Remember registration up to 8:50 am tomorrow. We'll start at 9:00am.

The Grand Dic


Here are the representatives for the gladiator finals:

Galleria sector (the Basterds, we's reprezent!!!):
Emcee Castillo - Space wolves
Ian "kuneho" Siongco (moi) - Nids

Bunker Sector:
Jeff Jongko - Space wolves
EJ lim - Death wing (he's the only newbie that went to the finals, kudos to him)

Team EYOT sector:
Paolo Lapa - Orks
Lucas Jacinto - Dark eldar (GT 2k10 Best General)

Wildcards:
Sunny Yu - Nids
Freddie yu - SoB with IG (GT 2k10 best overall)

Browse through the link if you want to know each list:
Finals list

After knowing each list, the army that I'll be having a problem will be against the DE and emcee's all terminator loganwing army, hoping not to play against them on the first round. So the random pairings were made. Here were the first pairings:

Emcee (SW) vs Lucas (DE) - Emcee won with KP (Emcee has only 6 KP in total, 6-5 victory for the wolves)




Jeff (SW) vs Sunny (nids) - Sunny won with most gladiator points




paolo (orks) vs Freddie (SOB) - Paolo won with KP




All four tables have good amounts of terrain with a mix of blocking LOS terrains. So, I have to take advantage of the terrain to pull out a win whoever my opponent would be.

The Execution:
First game against Ej's Deathwing using gladiator points:


That's me with the brown/orange shirt
Ej has 4x5 man assault terminators with CML and has 1 unit that has banner and apothecary, belial, and 3 vindicators.It was a game of bad rolls for both of us, me for getting perils 4x and him getting bad rolls for his shooting. For the first time, my tervigon never stopped spawning termagants for the whole game which basically is one of the key factor of my victory, blocking and shooting. My swarmlord didnt do much and was killed by belial and gang but managed to whittle them down to 2 termies (only the CML termie with banner and regular th/ss termie survived) and belial. 2 of his vindicators were wrecked by turn 2 while the remaining one got weapon destroyed.

All of my termagants soften up one squad of terminators at a time before I assault it with my toxin stealers. In the end the only remaining unit wass his weaponless vindicator. It was a great game and victory for the nids.

Second game: VS emcee's logan wing space wolves

Ok, I can fight his list if there are objectives in the game, but with Gladiator points, he can just stay in one corner, sitting in terrain, and shoot me to death. He had 2x10 man terminators, mostly with power weapon and storm bolters with 2 CML each. logan and a rune priest in one squad, then a wolf priest with saga of the hunter and another rune priest in the other squad. He got first turn and deployed both units in cover. How do I pull out a win against this list? Simple, I took advantage of blocking LOS terrains and shoot him down with my hive guard unit.

After 6 turns, it's still a draw. So we go for a sudden death that went up to turn 9. Whoever scored the highest Gladiator point in a player turn wins. I just need to kill of 2 terminators to put his units to half and get half of the unit's points to seal the deal. He kept shooting at my swarmlord and gang with FNP, who kept shrugging off ML and living lightning wounds. And on the 9th turn, shooting from my zoanthrope and hive guard managed to reduce one unit to half that won me the game....

The Lord of the Swarm:


Final game against Sunny Yu with his all reserve Nids. He managed to seal a win against Paolo's orks. He has a flying tyrant with single BL devourer, with OA and HC, trygon prime, mawloc, 3x8 genestealers, 7 ymgarls, 16 toxin hormas, and 2 zoanthropes on pod. My plan was to stay on terrain and let him come over to me.

During this game, the only key mistake I did was I didn't able to fully occupy the terrain where his ymgarls went dormant, who managed to assault my tervigon on the second turn. My Swarmlord Proved to be the king of the swarm. it killed the mawloc, the remnants of the ymgarl, depleted hormas, and a small squad of stealers, who, did great in this game, not just providing the kill, but also supporting the little critters around him.

The another key factor of my win was utilizing the proper use of termagants for blocking. I was able to block the prime's path to avoid him assaulting my zoanthropes, who, with the help of the hiveguard, managed to reduce the prime down to only 1 wound. After the dust settles, what remained in my army was my Swarmlord with his 2 buddies, and my 3 hive guards. Sunny was left by an unwounded tyrant and a wounded trygon prime. It was a 1 Gladiator point win for me and was held as the Gladiator 2k11 champion.

I would like to extend my thanks to all the players who participated in this awesome tournament and to all of my opponents... till next year's Gladiator... the swarm will be waiting.