Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I love the drama of urban combat. I love the slow advance through crumbling city blocks, where any window could be housing enemy guns. I love the desperate melee to take a key position, every rule of proper fighting forsaken in favour of instinct and desperation. I love the Cities of Death.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I was reading through my book, devising cunning plans for my group's meeting this weekend when I got the urge to open this thread. I don't see a lot of people talking about Cities of Death on this board, so I thought we could for a change. I want to hear your stories, your plans and tactics. How do you change your army, and how does your opponent's choices effect your stratagems?

My Chaos Marines are very different for Cities of Death. My Predator and Possessed are forsaken for a Defiler and Chosen respectively. I don't take my regular mass of Lesser Daemons, as I've found such a terrain rich environment to strip them of their benefits. I do still take Rhinos for my infantry; they act as armed walls, forcing the enemy down the streets where my Noise Marines are set up, and disuading infantry who persist with their Havoc Launchers. With the Plunging Fire and Ammunition Store stratagems, the Noise Marines can make infantry's lives hell (reducing cover saves and re-rolling the To-Hit of my weapons). Once my enemy has been forced down streets I can easily hold, the majorty of my army deploys through the Sewer Rats stratagem and Infiltrating, hopefully catching the enemy between a rock and a hard place.

Now, tell me your stories of these dark places. Tell me of your experiences in the Cities of Death...

Thank god I thought that I was the only chaos player that used Possesed or chosen.
But on topic The biggest change I can see for both my chaos and my Eldar Is swaping all of my Heavy Weapons for more specials. Mabye storms instead of Defenders

My favorite Strategems are the engineers and the sewer rats (fluff and play wise).

15 Blood Claws coming up behind a building which a few combat squads of tac marines, and taking two out a turn was cool.

PotionsN'Balms wrote:My favorite Strategems are the engineers and the sewer rats (fluff and play wise).

15 Blood Claws coming up behind a building which a few combat squads of tac marines, and taking two out a turn was cool.

Combat Engineers for an MEQ army? I was looking at it, but the only effects that seemed useful were the detonation jammers and maybe the wirecutters. How well has it been working for you?

On a side note, has anyone ever tried to level the board? My 'Nid friend once took Preliminary Bombardment, Demolition and Wrecker stratagems against my Tau friend's Ammunition Storage, Rapelling Lines and Plunging Fire in an Omega level Urban Assault game. The Tau's plan was to deploy, hit and run, using his Devilfish to deploy his infantry into buildings, cutting the enemy's cover saves and leaving before the enemy could climb to the top. This backfired as the Carnifexi could destroy the majority of the buildings on the field (there were some good bombardment rolls). I think the Demolition Stratagem was a dud, but it didn't matter; the destroyed buildings made it difficult for the Tau to fight properly, restricting his army to fighting in the open street, leaving them extremely vulnerable. By the end of the game few buildings were left standing, and the Tau had fallen back to their objective building (also the Ammunition Storage buidling). The game ended as even that was brought smashing down, with a massive victory for the Tyranids. We used up almost all the cotton fluff in the house to properly cover the board that game.

Tyranids have a great advantage in a lot of the scenarios for cities of death. All tyranids have move through cover USR, which helps, and the option to take Flesh Hooks and scale vertical walls. The dense terrain also helps get them into assault range, which is pretty large for a lot of them (like hormagaunts with a 12" assault range and attack models within 3" instead of the normal 2").

To answer that side note: Yes. During a 4-player battle I partook in once, us 2 IG players vs. a Eldar and a Tau player, we took the siege shell stratagems and a couple demolisher tanks apiece and just straight leveled every building in sight to win a firesweep mission. It was quite entertaining watching Eldar Rangers and Tau Firewarriors tumbling out of towers as they were blasted apart by the might of Imperial Armor.

So I got back from my group's meeting today. I got two games in: first an uneventful massacre of mech Guard unsuited and ill-commanded for urban combat, but the second game was something out of the Black Library. It was a grudge match against my Tyranid friend (the same one from before), in an Omega level High Ground. He brought a stealer shock, while I have my Cities of Death standard. Given that he'll want to be the one attacking, I expect him to take Sewer Rats, wait for me to take the High Ground and try to close in from every angle. We start declaring stratagems: As I suspected he takes Sewer Rats, so I take Razor Wire and he takes Preliminary Bombardment so I take Plunging Fire. Then he goes and throws me a curve ball and takes Booby Traps. I am loathe to try and defend without an Ammunition Store, but I can't risk losing models key models, or being delayed due to damaged transports on the way to the High Ground so I am forced to take Combat Engineers.

Now, the objective building is sitting in a plazza maybe 6 inches off the center of the table, into the northeastern quarter. It has a clear killing ground everywhere except to the northeast, where it joins the rest of the city block. I roll a 6 for Dusk and Dawn. I deploy the (4) razor wire lines to make the entire field difficult terrain, trusting my Rhinos and Defiler to be able to hold the northeastern streets once I get there. He holds his entire army in reserve and places the (6) sewer entry points just outside the High Ground plazza. I lose the required roles forcing me into the southwestern quarter, and the preliminary bombardment stuns my lead Rhino, forcing me to drive around and through a ruin with a boobytrap and risk immobilizing my Rhinos. Of course in perfectly dramatic poor luck I get that lead Rhino immobilized (so much for Combat Engineers). If the Plague Marines are forced to go on foot, they might be caught in the open when the fighting begins, so I decide to keep the squad embarked and let the Rhino repair itself. Turn 2 rolls around and I finally get my convoy running again and make it to the edge of the plazza. Two 'stealer squads deploy in the northeastern quarter. Finally, turn 3 I make it to the High Ground, but my Rhinos can't get into position to block the streets. However my opponent has fantastically poor rolling and only a couple squads deploy, hidden out of sight in the northeastern and western quarters.

At the top of turn 3 I'm set up, with the Defiler in the center of the plazza, infantry deployed in the High Ground and Rhinos partrolling the northeastern blocks. Then ALL of his infantry show up. Since I'm not going to budge from my entrenched position, and he can't assault turn 3 ends with his monsters poised to strike the High Ground, while my near-forgotten Rhino's tracks are finally repaired. At the bottom of turn 4 his stealers come streaming in from all directions, crawling over ruins to get around my Rhinos and scrambling through the razor wire. My Marines meet them with a hail of bolter fire and noise. The Defiler's TL-Heavy Flamer kills an entire squad's worth of stealers in one shot before it swarmed over and torn to pieces. The Rhinos' Havoc Launchers force another Stealer squad to fall back. He must have lost half his army in that plazza, but he only needed a few Stealers to be able to take the High Ground.

The surviving Gene-Stealers force their way into the ruins, killing the Plague Marines on the ground floor. Sorcerer Nikolii waits at the far side of the ruins for his moment to strike and the Noise Marines continue their barrage. Nikolii unleashed the Winds of Chaos, and coupled with some luck, kills all the Stealers on the ground floor, while the Noise Marines manage to pin the squad just outside the entryway (they were an inch short of the Broodlord's Synapse). At the end of the 6th turn, the sun sets on the High Ground covered in Gene-Stealers trying to reach the corrupt defenders. The game continues, and at the top of turn 7 the long lost Rhino thunders into the blood drenched plazza, scattering the Gene-Stealers in its path. At this point there are only maybe 20 Gene-Stealers remaining, the Broodlord among them. Champion Goliath's Plague Marines deploy from the Rhino, his combi-flamer and their bolter rounds spueing into the Gene-Stealers. Nikolii emerges from the High Ground, summoning Winds of Chaos on the pinned Stealer squad before finishing off the stragglers in close combat. The Noise Marines fire into the Broodlord's retinue, killing them and putting him down to his last wound. With his last few Stealers he assaults my Plague Marines, who dispatch them with minor casualties. His Broodlord, however, charges Sorcerer Nikolii. I make two invulnerable saves, leaving Nikolii at one wound. He returns the favor, killing the Broodlord with his first stroke. And thus, the High Ground was held against the Gene-Stealer cult.

EDIT: I really have no idea why I wrote that all in present tense.

I played a pseudo-game of CoD with Tyranids myself, just got done about a half hour ago. It was at 1250 points. I say "pseudo" because we used all the rules and scenarios from CoD except stratagems, which we forgot to pick and declare in our haste to get the dice rolling.

I was playing against an SM player who had a full squad of regular termies (with an assault cannon), x3 full tactical squads, 1 dakka pred with lascannon sponons, and chappy in terminator armor.

My list had a broodlord and retinue of 5 stealers, 3 warriors, 1 lictor (just got him today so wanted to see how he fared), 10 stealers, 8 hormagaunts, and 2 carnifexes.

A huge center building was the objective, and we deployed in spearhead. I got first turn and deployed on my left side of the table, so I threw a carnifex and the stealers on my left, and a carnifex with the warriors and hormagaunts on my right in the middle. I infililtrated the broodlord and his retinue to the far right after the SM player deployed the majority of troops in the rear corner of her quarter.

Now luckily, when I got first turn, the infiltrating broodlord was behind cover and out of LOS so he was a mere 12" from the tank. After moving, a well-rolled fleet move put them within assault range and his retinue tore up the tank with rending claw attacks (helped by the toxin sacs I paid for them). It was quite a loss to lose that tank right off the bat, but I paid for it by having the genestealers and broodlord wiped away by tactical squad fire by my next turn.

The Carnifex and the Terminator squad collided, with the fleet genestealers cutting around behind the assaulting terminators and attacking them from the rear. It took 2 full turns of combat (meaning 2 of hers, 2 of mine) but my super'fex came out with a wound remaining and the stealers down by a mere 3 out of 10.

By then, the other carnifex had wrecked a tactical squad, and was working on the stalwart chaplain that joined in the fray. All those upgrades I spent on that 'fex paid off, as the upgraded toughness and wounds stat took a beating but kept the MC upright long enough to insta-gib the HQ choice.

The lictor decided to show up at the beginning of turn 4, and hopped a wall (thanks to his flesh hooks) and butchered a few marines before being cut down in assault. (he had already suffered a wound from deepstriking into area terrain)

She had deployed a tactical squad in a building near the middle of her quadrant, and they were just now exiting the large structure (it measured roughly 18" long and she had been rolling her difficult terrain poorly) and they found themselves sandwhiched between the victorious stealers and fex, and the arriving warriors and hormies. They were quickly slaughtered, but not before taking down the murderous monstrous creature with an extremely lucky roll in the assault.

The last squad, previously damaged by the lictor, was massacred quickly by the surviving carnifex, and cut down as they tried to flee in a sweeping advance. Wiping them out to the man by the end of my 5th turn. The hormagaunts had the building secure, so it looked like I had a major victory all around.





The morale of the story: don't put your tanks in the front where they can be assaulted by infiltrators . Seriously though, Tyranids can be really fierce in CoD, where their maneuverability can really shine. They all have Move Through Cover, which helps inside the buildings, and many of them have Fleet, which further gets them into assault range. Add in scary guys like infiltrating brood lords, rampaging carnifexes, and rending genestealers, and it gets a little ugly.

To counter this, control the fire lanes (for shooty armies anyway.), and make sure you put the hurt on as early as possible. Getting the first turn helps take the initiative out of their hands, as the smaller table is probably going to get them close by the end of their first turn. Preempt it before it happens.