Flying Nids vs Howling Gryphons

So last week I talked about how I'm going to try and do my best with my neglected Tyranid army.  Well, I've stayed true to my word, and I've been frantically assembling Gargoyles like a mad man.  My friend Britton volunteered to be my first soiree into the new edition with my bountiful bugs. After much plotting and conspiring (thanks to Nick and Pete), I've come up with what I think is a pretty foul list, or at least one that is effective enough, while being fun to play:

Parasite of Mortrex

3 Hive Guard 3 Hive Guard Doom of Malan'tai in Mycetic Spore

11 Termagants 11 Termagants Tervigon with Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, and Catalyst Tervigon with Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, and Catalyst

20 Gargoyles with Adrenal Glands 15 Gargoyles with Adrenal Glands 15 Gargoyles with Adrenal Glands

Carnifex with dual twin-linked Devourers Carnifex with dual twin-linked Devourers

Total: 1850

My general plan was to overwhelm the opposition with numbers, force feeding them Gargoyles until they choke.  I knew that I would be facing flyers, so I loaded up on Hive Guard and Dakkafexes (plus they're handy any time really). While they have a short range, I can use my large number of troops to corral the flyers into places that will be in range of the guns.

Britton on the other hand was running a drop pod marine army with just an insane number of scoring units, plus a trio of Storm Talons:

Pedro Kantor

10 Sternguard Veterans: in a Drop Pod 10 Sternguard Veterans: 3 Combi-plasma, in a Drop Pod 5 Sternguard Veterans: 5 Combi-plasma in a Drop Pod

10 Tactical Squad: Multi-melta, meltagun, sergeant with combi-melta, in a Drop Pod 10 Tactical Squad: Multi-melta, meltagun, sergeant with combi-melta, in a Drop Pod

Stormtalon: Cyclone missile launcher Stormtalon: Cyclone missile launcher Stormtalon: Cyclone missile launcher

We rolled for Warlord traits, he got one to get extra VP's from killing characters, while I got the ability to Outflank the Parasite along with his big unit of Gargoyles... Which I foolishly did.  To continue the trend of bad ideas, I swapped all my powers on the Tervigons for Biomancy and failed to get anything which had any affect on the game... Sigh.  So, with my forward synapse off the board and my Tervigons deciding against giving out FNP this game, we began!

Early in the game, it was looking pretty gruesome for Pedro and friends.  My massive horde of gargoyles was surging forward, with everything else behind, basically covering up most of the board with blue chitin.  He dropped his marines far back, taking as much advantage of the distance as he could, while shooting down anything that got close enough.  The Doom of Malan'tai (Britton's least favorite Nid), accounted for the death of 15 Sternguard, before subsequently getting punched in the face by Pedro.  Not having any FNP in my army was hurting me, as was having my biggest block of gargoyles and the Parasite, get stuck outflanking on the far side of the board.  I totally forgot you couldn't assault out of reserve, or I would have never used that power, c'est la vie.

By the end of the game, all that was left was a giant blob of gargoyles still, plus the Parasite.  Britton spent all of his firepower killing off anything I had that could score, as he was painfully low on marines (less than 5 left on the board).  We were playing the BAO scenario, and somehow ended in a tie, regardless of how you cut it.  He had one objective, I had KP, neither of us had our C&C, plus I had all the bonus points.

So that's only one game in with my new bugs, but I have to say, I'm enjoying the Tyranid airforce thus far!