Batrep: Back to the Angels!

Just got in a good 1750pt scrap yesterday with a new BA list I've been working on - Double Death Star!

HQ
Librarian

Elites
Chaplain
Sanguinary Priest
5 Assault terminators - 4 with Lightning claws, 1 with hammer and shield, in a Land Raider Redeemer with multimelta and extra armour

Troops
5 Assault marines with Sgt power weapon and a meltagun, in a Lasplas Razorback
5 Assault marines with Sgt power weapon and a meltagun, in a Lasplas Razorback
5 Death Company, 2 with power weapons, 1 with power fist
Death company Dreadnought with Blood talons and magna grapple

Heavy Support
Stormraven with TL assault cannon, Typhoon launchers and extra armour
Predator with autocannon and lascannon sponsons

The Land Raider Redeemer holds the Assault Terminators, Sanguinary Priest and Librarian. The Stormraven delivers the Death Company, chaplain and the DC Dreadnought. The idea is generally to use the Stormraven to deposit a lot of Death Company Anger right in the middle of the enemy to cause as much havoc as possible, then smash whatever's left with the Terminators.

Edwin's Unholy Nidzilla list
HQ
Swarm Lord
Winged hive tyrant with 2 pairs of scything talons and Hive commander


Elites
The Doom of Malantai in a Mycetic Spore
3 Zoanthropes in a Mycentic Spore

Troops
12 Termagants
11 Termagants

Heavy Support
3 Trygon Primes with adrenal glands

Mission: Capture and Control (1 objective in each deployment zone)
Deployment: Spearhead (table quarters)
Tyranids have the first turn.
Terrain is mostly clear with a few buildings and bits of area terrain here and there.

Tyranids reserve everything, I put my whole army on the board to wait for the onslaught...

Turn 1
Tyranids - Nothing. Everyone's in reserve!
Blood Angels - I scoot the bulk of my army forward 12", with one Razorback hanging behind to camp on the objective. The Predator sits behind my LR Redeemer, with it's rear armour firmly placed against the Redeemer's back, in case those Trygons pop up behind me...

Turn 2
Tyranids - Between the winged tyrant and the Swarmlord, everything came in on a 2+, so the WHOLE Nid army came in, Termagants from each flank, Trygons burst from the ground, 2 behind the Blood Angels and one in the middle, the Doom of Malantai, the Zoanthropes and the Winged Tyrant to the front and throughout this stunning assault, the Swarmlord, strode in from the Nid table edge. A horrific deluge of fire from the Trygon Primes' containment spines wrecked one Razorback and exploded another. The Zoanthropes attempted to fire their Warp Lances, but the Librarian managed to use his psychic hood and dispel all three shots.

Blood Angels - The Storm Raven swung back round to deliver the Death Company and the Dreadnought into the Trygons behind me. One assault squad made for a brood of Termagants that strayed too close beside the 2 Trygons, the other backed away together with the LR Redeemer to make use of the 6" Feel No Pain + Furious Charge bubble afforded by the Sanguinary Priest within to attack the middle Trygon in concert with the Terminators and Librarian. The Predator moved to take pot shots at the Doom.

Shooting mostly did nothing but the Stormraven and DC Dread managed to knock a couple of wounds off one of the rear Trygons. Assault was much more satisfying. One Assault squad charged the Termagants to my right, the DC Dread charged one Trygon Prime, the Death Company charged another and the other assault squad charged another together with the Terminators. All the Trygons and the termagants were wiped out a the cost of only 3 Death Company marines! That's 800 points of Nids wiped off the board in 1 assault phase!

Turn 3 to End
The rest of the game, not so interesting. What else happened?
- The Winged Tyrant cast Paroxysm on the Terminators and wiped them out over 3 rounds of combat, then blew up the LR Redeemer, before succumbing to concentrated firepower from the Stormraven and Predator.
- The Doom of Malantai fell to a shot from the DC Dread's magnagrapple (yay, instakill!). The DC Dread then immobilized itself on difficult terrain and spent the rest of the game raging.
- The Zoanthropes fell to abuse from the Redeemer, Stormraven and Predator.

This left me with one measly assault squad to camp on my objective together with an angry immobile Dreadnought nearby, and he had a Swarmlord to babysit the Termagants on his objective. If the game could go on ad infinitum, I suppose I could have picked away at the remnants of his army with my Stormraven and Predator, but the game ended and it was a hard-fought draw, with laurels nudged in the general direction of the Blood Angels for having more points left alive on the table than the Nids.

Afterthoughts
This was my first game against a very experienced and truly vicious Nidzilla player, so I was pretty chuffed with how things turned out, but more than anything else, I was well impressed with the sheer amount of damage my list could dish out with a good, mass charge. 3 Trygon Primes in one assault! That's just insane!

Were there any major mistakes by either player? For me, I don't really think so, though perhaps I could have kept my Razorbacks back-to-back in Turn 1. That would have seriously upped my chances of surviving the initial onslaught of Tyranid Turn 2 and who knows? Maybe I could have gotten in a shot or 2 with my Razorbacks... On his part, I'm not sure what he could have done. Having his first Zoanthrope salvo shut down by the Librarian was plain unlucky. I think his big mistake was not being more aggressive with the Swarmlord. That thing is a monster in close combat and I think he could have tabled me if he just continued to march it straight into my army and pop a can of whupass.

Just before this game I had another one with a significantly less experienced Nid player. Even then, it was quite enlightening to find out the limits of what 5 Assault Terminators could do, exactly. The lesson was this: Just stay the hell away from Tyranid HQ choices. Between Paroxysm, Lash Whips and all the other monstrous nastiness they have, Assault Terminators (as I'm playing them, with 4 claws and 1 hammer) are just better used elsewhere, like shredding Nid tank-beasts, such as Trygons, Carnifexes, Tervigons, and Tyrannofexes. And even then, that's only IF I can charge them with the influence of the Sanguinary Priest.

Would I change anything about this list? Right now, I'm thinking of keeping the 2 Death Stars (Stormraven full of DC, Redeemer full of Terminators) and fiddling about with the rest of the list. But what to do? More staying power? More dakka? Scouts? Dakkapreds? Assault marines? I dunno. For the moment, I'd like a couple more games against some other opponents before I figure out what this army needs. Until then, there's painting to be done!