Astmeister wrote: All of the above mentioned take a couple of turns killing a knight. And tyranids do not have the option for Las cans in every squad.
We can focus fire down a Knight in 1 turn, we have stratagems for MW's +1D, etc... Hiveguard or Exocrine shooting twice is pretty powerful, Shockguard shooting twice could easily kill a knight alone. If I remember its average of 12 shots, 8 get through 4 damage from those 8 and 4 MW's if you dont roll any 6's, so 8-9 wounds (going off memory and really fast math). So you could do 16-18 wounds with just 1 unit, sure its la 230pts unit and you used 2CP, but its well worth it to kill a 400pts+ unit lol, well besides the Knight Castellan, but at least 1 unit can take away 50-75pts of its wounds (they will most likely use the +1save stratagem)
Or a OOE/Stone Crusher Fex lol.
Exocrine can't shoot twice, also he may as well be Warriors firing Deathspitters against a unit with T8 and 4+ invul.
double shooting shock guard should do 21 wounds i think
double shooting impaler guard does just 8
you could combine enough things and maybe do it i guess
Astmeister wrote: All of the above mentioned take a couple of turns killing a knight. And tyranids do not have the option for Las cans in every squad.
We can focus fire down a Knight in 1 turn, we have stratagems for MW's +1D, etc... Hiveguard or Exocrine shooting twice is pretty powerful, Shockguard shooting twice could easily kill a knight alone. If I remember its average of 12 shots, 8 get through 4 damage from those 8 and 4 MW's if you dont roll any 6's, so 8-9 wounds (going off memory and really fast math). So you could do 16-18 wounds with just 1 unit, sure its la 230pts unit and you used 2CP, but its well worth it to kill a 400pts+ unit lol, well besides the Knight Castellan, but at least 1 unit can take away 50-75pts of its wounds (they will most likely use the +1save stratagem)
Or a OOE/Stone Crusher Fex lol.
Exocrine can't shoot twice, also he may as well be Warriors firing Deathspitters against a unit with T8 and 4+ invul.
double shooting shock guard should do 21 wounds i think
double shooting impaler guard does just 8
you could combine enough things and maybe do it i guess
If it doesnt move it can. Or am i mistaking?
Oh I thought we meant Double Shoot strat. Their regular "doubleshoot" is more like a regular shoot anyway, because they pay more than their worth for the ability to do so. On the move it's more like a 1/2, or even 1/3 shoot when factoring in the B.S. penalty.
The Exocrine using his natural double shooting, pay's 210 pts or whatever to deal 1.3 wounds to a Knight, for example.
A Hive Tyrant with HVC and RC does 9.3 damage against a regular 5++ Knight. I did not consider the Yrmgarl Factor or Toxin Sacs.
The problem is that he will be stomped to death immediately.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With Toxin Sacs and Ymgarl Factor (using +1 A) he does 11.5 damage.
Only Toxin Sacs does 10.2
Automatically Appended Next Post: But a Trygon with Ymgarl Factor (+1 S) does already 8.7 damage in melee.
Astmeister wrote: A Hive Tyrant with HVC and RC does 9.8 damage against a regular 5++ Knight. I did not consider the Yrmgarl Factor or Toxin Sacs.
The problem is that he will be stomped to death immediately.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With Toxin Sacs and Ymgarl Factor (using +1 A) he does 12.3 damage.
A good opponent will probably spend a CP to take the 4++ relic I think. However these things combined with enough sources of damage and they may not get a chance to swing back and kill
Against tyrant thus 5++ h2h relic + strategem would be more of effect probably. Of course that eats relic from him which depending on what knight we are talking about could be big bummer for him.
Kinda hard to find a niche for them in a Tyranids list imo. High strength melee infantry isn’t really covered by anything Tyranids have, but what are they going after that Genestealers, Warriors, or Tyrant Guard couldn’t? Not to mention Carnifexes, Hive Tyrants, Toxicrenes, or Trygons?
Kinda hard to find a niche for them in a Tyranids list imo. High strength melee infantry isn’t really covered by anything Tyranids have, but what are they going after that Genestealers, Warriors, or Tyrant Guard couldn’t? Not to mention Carnifexes, Hive Tyrants, Toxicrenes, or Trygons?
I've heard some chatter that Tyranids, broadly, are having trouble taking down IK (is that the consensus?). Not saying I'd necessarily recommend Abominant + Aberrants in all cases, but depending on what strats, etc., come GSC's way, could be viable.
Kinda hard to find a niche for them in a Tyranids list imo. High strength melee infantry isn’t really covered by anything Tyranids have, but what are they going after that Genestealers, Warriors, or Tyrant Guard couldn’t? Not to mention Carnifexes, Hive Tyrants, Toxicrenes, or Trygons?
I've heard some chatter that Tyranids, broadly, are having trouble taking down IK (is that the consensus?). Not saying I'd necessarily recommend Abominant + Aberrants in all cases, but depending on what strats, etc., come GSC's way, could be viable.
We’re still at least a couple months out for that codex, but if Knights are the target wouldn’t you take a minimal cult detachment for an IG detachment with a Shadowsword? Depending on points of course.
Kinda hard to find a niche for them in a Tyranids list imo. High strength melee infantry isn’t really covered by anything Tyranids have, but what are they going after that Genestealers, Warriors, or Tyrant Guard couldn’t? Not to mention Carnifexes, Hive Tyrants, Toxicrenes, or Trygons?
I've heard some chatter that Tyranids, broadly, are having trouble taking down IK (is that the consensus?). Not saying I'd necessarily recommend Abominant + Aberrants in all cases, but depending on what strats, etc., come GSC's way, could be viable.
We’re still at least a couple months out for that codex, but if Knights are the target wouldn’t you take a minimal cult detachment for an IG detachment with a Shadowsword? Depending on points of course.
Shadowswords are laughably terrible against Knights, because the Castellan will pick it up in one shot. In return, if the shadowsword goes first, it's probably not dropping a 3++ knight. But, if you struggle against Knights the GSC psychic powers make a world of difference.
Kinda hard to find a niche for them in a Tyranids list imo. High strength melee infantry isn’t really covered by anything Tyranids have, but what are they going after that Genestealers, Warriors, or Tyrant Guard couldn’t? Not to mention Carnifexes, Hive Tyrants, Toxicrenes, or Trygons?
I've heard some chatter that Tyranids, broadly, are having trouble taking down IK (is that the consensus?). Not saying I'd necessarily recommend Abominant + Aberrants in all cases, but depending on what strats, etc., come GSC's way, could be viable.
Well GSC Psychic powers are so good that the infantry is easy to take, if you have the models, some big bois with Hammers, or Drills can slam a IK hard, and it's extra fun if you Mind Controll it (the Knight) into gibbing one of his units first,
For "pure" Tyranids, I'd recommend a Trygon or two with Adrenals. They could even bring in some infantry to assist. Just toss in extra wounds from Mortals, and shooting and you have a fair chance to tear it down.
Shadowswords are laughably terrible against Knights, because the Castellan will pick it up in one shot. In return, if the shadowsword goes first, it's probably not dropping a 3++ knight. But, if you struggle against Knights the GSC psychic powers make a world of difference.
Yeah this is issue with shadowsword idea. If you run up against knights with castellan that thing can let shadowsword shoot you first and it will STILL kill shadowsword first. Castellan is like designed against shadowsword and the kind. Well at least in 2k and lower games. In big games castellans start to lose their relative strength.
Shadowswords are laughably terrible against Knights, because the Castellan will pick it up in one shot. In return, if the shadowsword goes first, it's probably not dropping a 3++ knight. But, if you struggle against Knights the GSC psychic powers make a world of difference.
Yeah this is issue with shadowsword idea. If you run up against knights with castellan that thing can let shadowsword shoot you first and it will STILL kill shadowsword first. Castellan is like designed against shadowsword and the kind. Well at least in 2k and lower games. In big games castellans start to lose their relative strength.
Astmeister wrote: If you take sanctuary. But i assume most castellans will take ion bulwark and the 2+ save.
If you see CC threats to your Knights... you spend the 1 CP and take the Sanctuary. It's possible your opponent doesn't see them, and doesn't take it, but I think that's relying on him making a mistake, and I think good Knight players at this point know when to take what they need
Here warlord traits, relics etc are written pre tournament as default but can be changed before game. Thus if he sees good h2h threat he could change 2+ or cawl's wrath to santuary
In ITC I think your Relic is static, but I know you can use your Bounty stratagem at the start of the game similar to other pre-game strats, and grab whichever relic you like in addition, thanks to stratagem.
Tactical Reserves states that : "Finally, any unit that has not arrived on the battlefield by the end of the third battle round in a matched play game counts as having been destroyed."
What about a Mawloc that burrows? from a RAW pov, the Mawloc already arrived on the battlefied, its only it decided to leave it.
I would say same logic applies as with say da jump t1. They were deployed so irrelevant they leave and enter again(despite beta rule preventing arriving on t1 outside own dz. But as you were already there it's enough)
I think it isn't so much dead as still waiting for more information to drop. The Abominant looks very interesting from what has been previewed so far, but without knowing points and the rest of their statline it is hard to do much more than theorycraft.
Aberrants themselves got a huge boost from the power pick change. I think they are potentially going to be a good alternative to buzzsaw Acolytes for a flexible armor cracking squad compared to their current role of pure armor cracking. The biggest drawback Aberrants had before was that they were inept dealing with infantry tarpits attempting to keep them from their "real" targets, requiring that they be held back until a path could be cleared for them. Now Power Picks offer both ablative bodies for the Hammer-rants and chaff clearing potential. Also, they are a much more appealing target for Might From Beyond, as they gain effectively 2 extra attacks instead of 1.
For Tyranids, I think Acolytes might still be better as a general melee squad since they can get more ablative bodies between the heavy weaponry and are troops for scoring and unlocking command points via battalions. If you want a minimal investment into GSC though, Aberrants require less support to do their work (don't need Might from Beyond or Icon of Cult Ascendant to wound T8 targets on a 3+) and are probably going to be more cost efficient in monetary terms (3 of each weapon in the kit compared to 1 of each heavy for Acolytes).
As one last caveat, I think the Abominant is going to be a big factor in how popular Aberrants end up as allies. Aberrants are fairly unique within the GSC army as "heavy infantry" while both allies have similar units of their own (Ogryn for AM, Guards and Warriors for Tyranids). If the Abominant turns out highly competitive I can see random squads finding their way into allied lists that otherwise might not consider them to take advantage of the Chosen One ability.
SHUPPET wrote: Stratagems can be used whenever, so you can take Sanctuary by using the CP for a Relic strat
No, it is specified in the rules packet (canon 40K format).
Any stratagem that is used "Before the game" must be signed on the list. They call the relic stratagem speficically as an example of this.
Hey Spoletta, I can't find it, and it clashes with what the FLG guys who helped write it were saying a week or two ago on podcast - would you mind linking me, because if you're right I'm going to email them for clarity.
Indeed, now you are free to change relics every game.
No doubt, that clears up the confusion. So back to the topic, seems we can count on a good Knight player having 4++ in CC (at least in the case of solo Knights or ones that rush up field).
Match 1 - vs Astra Militarum + Adeptus Ministorum (a bit)
Scenario: A fairly standard scenario here, with an objective in the middle of each of the table corners worth one point per turn, and one in the dead centre worth two.
Opponent's List: A really fun list. The standard 6 Guard units, a few heavy weapon teams, two basilisks, and some suicide-Scions. The fun bit was three Chimeras with flamers all around, and there flamer sentinels. The flamers made it more than a gun line, and were really a perfect counted to my Genestealers. And Celestine!
Opponent's Attitude: Awesome!
Game Breakdown: I went first, moving my Genestealers and Hive Tyrants up with the Venomthropes. There was very little line of sight blocking terrain, so the Malanthrope stayed with the Hive Tyrants. I put my Rippers in deep strike, which I very quickly realised was a mistake. I could have started racking up major points from turn 1, but instead the Guardsmen got their first, meaning the Rippers couldn't deep strike near the objectives. The gene stealers killed a few guardsmen squads, but quickly got shot up, particularly by all the flamers. The Hive Tyrants soaked up a huge amount of firepower, and really tanked it out until the last turn. Celestine charged right into my lines turn 2, and quickly died. She then resurrected in the back corner behind me, but thanks to some good Hive Tyrant shooting and psychic shennanigans she was the closest target to my Hive Tyrants, which promptly squished her for good. My warlord died to some bad positioning from the suicide Scions, which also promptly died. No real loss as he had minimal psychic. The game was very close, and I could have eeked out a tie, but I stupidly shot a Sentinel sitting on an objective, instead of charging a Hive Tyrant into him, thus securing me that objective. We had to stop after turn 3 as the time ran out - the fate of people running two swarm armies.
Result: Loss, 12-13
Match 2 - vs Grey Knights
Scenario: One point for every unit in your enemy's deployment zone at the end of each turn, two if you run it off the opposite table edge. A scenario made for Kraken!
Opponent's List: Three Dreadnights, two Ass-cannon Razorbacks, two squads of Termies, Termie Warlord, three squads of Grey Knights. He started with the Termies and the Grey Knights in deep strike.
Opponent's Attitude: Super awesome! Hell of a nice guy!
Game Breakdown: My opponent went first, but didn't move forward, ensuring he was out of range for everything first turn. I then ran my Genestealers and Hive Tyrant forward. My Tyrants wiped out a Grey Knight Squad, although with no psychic success. I blew up one of his razorbacks, and my Genestealers got a lucky charge and smushed a Dreadknight. Turn two he deep strikes in all the guys, next to my Hive Guard and Warlord, who I stupidly left exposed. My Warlord gets killed, but my Hive Guard proceed to hold up two Grey Knight Squads and one Terminator squad (in combat!) for three odd turns. Unfortunately this was all in my deployment, so he was racking up the points. However, despite his amazing ability to teleport his Dreadknights around the battlefield, my deep striking the four rippers into his deployment meant that my point score really started taking off. Some lucky terrain meant I could land my Hive Tyrants around his exposed warlord (he failed his charge) meant that I could shoot and smite him to death without fear of retaliation. He conceded after turn 4. However, I neglected to appreciate that in the following two turns I could have got at least 20 more points, but I didn't report that to the organisers. I could, perhaps, then, have got a better result in the tournament overall.
Result: Win 23-10 (before concession)
Match 3 - vs Adeptus Mechanicus
Scenario: You place two objectives in your opponent's deployment, choose one in secret as a primary objective, and then two points for each secondary held at the end of the game, and five for the primary, with bonus points for extra units in your opponent's deployment.
Opponent's List: Cawl, two HQ guys, a few Rangers, 6 of those plasma vacuum cleaner robot things, and a squad of six Castellan Robots. Sorry, I'm not familiar with Ad Mech :(
Opponent's Attitude: Awesome! By his own admission he's almost exclusively a painter, and doesn't really play.
Game Breakdown: Not much to say about this one. I tabled him by turn 3. Genestealers flew up and got some nice charges, and Hive Guard took out the plasma vacuum cleaner things turn 1. His robots then cleaned up all of my Genestealers, but my Tyrants + Hive Guard then proceeded to pick apart his robots. Still a fun game, though!
Result: Win 20-0 (tabled)
Overall Result: Equal 5th out of 21
Overall Thoughts: The cool thing was that I came equal 5th with my best mate at the tournament, so that was nice. My other mate came second, but he was playing Eldar, so that neither counts as a real army, and, as an Eldar player, he doesn't even count as having a soul. Of the lists above me I know No. 1 was Drukhari, No. 2 was Alaitoc (as I said), and No. 3 was Elf Soup. Don't know what 4 was. And my mate who came equal 5th played Tau, and therefore has a soul. I had a really great time, particularly as this was my first tournament ever. After hearing some questionable things here about tournament players' attitude, I was so pleased to see everyone was just as nice as anything. Having returned to the game a year ago after a ten year break since 3rd, and having a somewhat limited usual play list, it was so nice to get to play armies that I don't usually, and particularly some that just didn't exist back when I used to play.
I was the only Tyranid player at the tournament, and so I garnered I decent level of interest, particularly from people interested in how Nids are going following the institution of the Rule of Three. Having played, and mostly lost, against my friend's Tau for practice I was beginning to regret taking Nids, but now I see that that was more a Tau issue than a Nids one (Nids just being very bad vs Tau). As for my thoughts on my list, the anti-psyker elements of my Kronos detachment, and particularly my Warlord trait just never came up; Shadows of the Warp did all the work vs Grey Knights, where this was all most in play. I think that if I were to re-build my list I would make it all Kraken. The re-rolls of 1s for the Hive Guard was not worth the more consistent -1 to hit. As for how I played, I was proud with how well I deployed, as deployment is usually my weakest point in playing. I still think I need to improve keeping things in the -1 to hit bubbles, and I need to keep my backline more safe. However, I think my use of Genestealers and particularly Hive Tyrant was on point. The Hive Tyrants particularly remained just inside smite range, but just outside counter-attack range, and only closed in for their own charge. Having been quite used to losing my Hive Tyrants in every game I played when testing this list (vs Tau and Eldar mainly), I was amazed that I only last one in all of the games I played. But then such is the nature of Tau.
Nice report. Since this is a tactics thread, I'm going to suggest a strategy for you that may have won you the game against AM.
You say that your genestealers ate a few squads, then were shot off the board. Did you consider taking a squad 'hostage'? Or even a tank hostage? If there are 2 or more units near each other, declare a charge against all but 1 unit. The unit that you don't declare a charge against will be your hostage. (especially good to do this to hellhounds so they can't fire overwatch)
During your charge move, only 1 model needs to end it's move within 1" of a unit that you charged. The rest can move in whatever direction you want, as long as they maintain coherency. For this move, you should string some genestealers (at least 3) towards your hostage unit, making sure you end your charge move more than 1" away, but close enough that a pile-in and consolidate move will get them into melee range.
Then you fight. You wipe out the squads that you charged. Meanwhile, the genestealers that are near the hostage unit, use their pile-in and consolidate to surround a single model from that unit. The goal is to prevent them from falling back. It only takes 3 models to prevent any round-base model from falling back. (4 for a hellhound or chimera vehicle). Since you didn't declare a charge against that unit, you can't fight them, and they can't remove the locked model.
Now on your opponent's turn, all those flamers are useless. During his fight phase, you can fight and kill the hostage unit. Whether it dies or not doesn't matter, the goal is to just survive another turn. With Kraken, you can fall back and do this over and over again. AM gunlines with lots of infantry are a genestealer's best friend.
If there aren't two units near enough to each other, then you can still accomplish this with Overrun and Adrenalin Surge. This is of course very expensive at 4 CP but if that's what it takes to save 19 genestealers from dying then it is worth it.
Indeed, now you are free to change relics every game.
No doubt, that clears up the confusion. So back to the topic, seems we can count on a good Knight player having 4++ in CC (at least in the case of solo Knights or ones that rush up field).
Edit - confused about relic/warlord traits.
Not sure why anyone would take CC invo over a huge relic gun. Even vs a CC army I'd prefer to have a relic weapon than a CC invo.
Zimko wrote: Nice report. Since this is a tactics thread, I'm going to suggest a strategy for you that may have won you the game against AM.
You say that your genestealers ate a few squads, then were shot off the board. Did you consider taking a squad 'hostage'? Or even a tank hostage? If there are 2 or more units near each other, declare a charge against all but 1 unit. The unit that you don't declare a charge against will be your hostage. (especially good to do this to hellhounds so they can't fire overwatch)
During your charge move, only 1 model needs to end it's move within 1" of a unit that you charged. The rest can move in whatever direction you want, as long as they maintain coherency. For this move, you should string some genestealers (at least 3) towards your hostage unit, making sure you end your charge move more than 1" away, but close enough that a pile-in and consolidate move will get them into melee range.
Then you fight. You wipe out the squads that you charged. Meanwhile, the genestealers that are near the hostage unit, use their pile-in and consolidate to surround a single model from that unit. The goal is to prevent them from falling back. It only takes 3 models to prevent any round-base model from falling back. (4 for a hellhound or chimera vehicle). Since you didn't declare a charge against that unit, you can't fight them, and they can't remove the locked model.
Now on your opponent's turn, all those flamers are useless. During his fight phase, you can fight and kill the hostage unit. Whether it dies or not doesn't matter, the goal is to just survive another turn. With Kraken, you can fall back and do this over and over again. AM gunlines with lots of infantry are a genestealer's best friend.
If there aren't two units near enough to each other, then you can still accomplish this with Overrun and Adrenalin Surge. This is of course very expensive at 4 CP but if that's what it takes to save 19 genestealers from dying then it is worth it.
Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately I didn't really have the chance to take a unit hostage, as you say, but it might have been for lack of paying attention. I will be sure to next time I play!
Also, just re: your last point, my understanding is that Overrun allows you to move as if it were the movement phase ... but this means that you can't charge. And you can't end within an inch of an enemy. This, plus the fact that Adrenaline Surge specifically says that it allows a unit to fight 'again' suggests to me that this strategy doesn't work. Loved to be proved wrong, though!
Zimko wrote: Nice report. Since this is a tactics thread, I'm going to suggest a strategy for you that may have won you the game against AM.
You say that your genestealers ate a few squads, then were shot off the board. Did you consider taking a squad 'hostage'? Or even a tank hostage? If there are 2 or more units near each other, declare a charge against all but 1 unit. The unit that you don't declare a charge against will be your hostage. (especially good to do this to hellhounds so they can't fire overwatch)
During your charge move, only 1 model needs to end it's move within 1" of a unit that you charged. The rest can move in whatever direction you want, as long as they maintain coherency. For this move, you should string some genestealers (at least 3) towards your hostage unit, making sure you end your charge move more than 1" away, but close enough that a pile-in and consolidate move will get them into melee range.
Then you fight. You wipe out the squads that you charged. Meanwhile, the genestealers that are near the hostage unit, use their pile-in and consolidate to surround a single model from that unit. The goal is to prevent them from falling back. It only takes 3 models to prevent any round-base model from falling back. (4 for a hellhound or chimera vehicle). Since you didn't declare a charge against that unit, you can't fight them, and they can't remove the locked model.
Now on your opponent's turn, all those flamers are useless. During his fight phase, you can fight and kill the hostage unit. Whether it dies or not doesn't matter, the goal is to just survive another turn. With Kraken, you can fall back and do this over and over again. AM gunlines with lots of infantry are a genestealer's best friend.
If there aren't two units near enough to each other, then you can still accomplish this with Overrun and Adrenalin Surge. This is of course very expensive at 4 CP but if that's what it takes to save 19 genestealers from dying then it is worth it.
Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately I didn't really have the chance to take a unit hostage, as you say, but it might have been for lack of paying attention. I will be sure to next time I play!
Also, just re: your last point, my understanding is that Overrun allows you to move as if it were the movement phase ... but this means that you can't charge. And you can't end within an inch of an enemy. This, plus the fact that Adrenaline Surge specifically says that it allows a unit to fight 'again' suggests to me that this strategy doesn't work. Loved to be proved wrong, though!
If you're using Overrun, then you fought something and killed something. And yeah, you must end the move outside of 1 inch. But Adrenaline Surge only requires that the unit fought to be used. They did fight something, so they are an eligible target. So you activate them to fight again, they pile-in 3 inches to lock something in combat... fight (probably skipping this since you most likely did not target this unit for a charge)... then consolidate another 3 inches to make sure you really surround that target, preventing them from falling back.
Astmeister wrote: A Hive Tyrant with HVC and RC does 9.3 damage against a regular 5++ Knight. I did not consider the Yrmgarl Factor or Toxin Sacs.
The problem is that he will be stomped to death immediately.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With Toxin Sacs and Ymgarl Factor (using +1 A) he does 11.5 damage.
Only Toxin Sacs does 10.2
A little extension of this math. A TL Devourer averages .89 vs a knight, and a HVC averages 1.78. But if you use pathogenic slime the Devourers average 1.78.
In CC a Tyrant with RC's and TS will do about 5.13 + 0.19 for the stupid tail.
So I'm seeing about 7.10 on average without psychics.
The 1st Smite will statistically do about 1.90 which gets the total up to 9.00 If you add in a psychic scream for 1.78 you get all the way up to 10.78.
Now this might blow your mind, but let's look at a double scything talon flyrant.
We do 0 in shooting. 5.17 for the St + 0.19 for the stupid tail.
But if we use the Voratious appetite strategem we do 8.62 for the Scything Talons and 0.31 for the stupid tail for a total of 8.93 without psychics. Add in psychics for 12.61
Lets pretend we are Behemoth and use the Brute force strategem for 0.83 more. Now fight again, and you'll get a total of 21.06. That isn't all the way dead, but it's pretty freaking close if you are willing to spend 5 CP on it. Let's say that the knight does indeed kill you before you can swing again. Popping Death Frenzy will still get you 5.36 for a total of 18.80 having spent 4 instead of 5 CP. That about what you can expect from a Blood angel's hammer captain.
Old One eye can solo a knight. Swarmy too, though he has to get a bit lucky.
One tragic thing is to consider how awful a Hauruspex is vs a knight. It's going to do about 4 damage with it's attacks. If you are lucky it will do about that much again when it dies to the knight's attacks. That is worse than a squad of 28 Hormagants with Toxin Sacs (same price) which do 4.23 unsaved wounds to the knight have a few strategems that let them do more, and don't die to the knight in a single round of combat
Astmeister wrote: A Hive Tyrant with HVC and RC does 9.3 damage against a regular 5++ Knight. I did not consider the Yrmgarl Factor or Toxin Sacs.
The problem is that he will be stomped to death immediately.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With Toxin Sacs and Ymgarl Factor (using +1 A) he does 11.5 damage.
Only Toxin Sacs does 10.2
A little extension of this math. A TL Devourer averages .89 vs a knight, and a HVC averages 1.78. But if you use pathogenic slime the Devourers average 1.78.
In CC a Tyrant with RC's and TS will do about 5.13 + 0.19 for the stupid tail.
So I'm seeing about 7.10 on average without psychics.
The 1st Smite will statistically do about 1.90 which gets the total up to 9.00 If you add in a psychic scream for 1.78 you get all the way up to 10.78.
Now this might blow your mind, but let's look at a double scything talon flyrant.
We do 0 in shooting. 5.17 for the St + 0.19 for the stupid tail.
But if we use the Voratious appetite strategem we do 8.62 for the Scything Talons and 0.31 for the stupid tail for a total of 8.93 without psychics. Add in psychics for 12.61
Lets pretend we are Behemoth and use the Brute force strategem for 0.83 more. Now fight again, and you'll get a total of 21.06. That isn't all the way dead, but it's pretty freaking close if you are willing to spend 5 CP on it. Let's say that the knight does indeed kill you before you can swing again. Popping Death Frenzy will still get you 5.36 for a total of 18.80 having spent 4 instead of 5 CP. That about what you can expect from a Blood angel's hammer captain.
Old One eye can solo a knight. Swarmy too, though he has to get a bit lucky.
One tragic thing is to consider how awful a Hauruspex is vs a knight. It's going to do about 4 damage with it's attacks. If you are lucky it will do about that much again when it dies to the knight's attacks. That is worse than a squad of 28 Hormagants with Toxin Sacs (same price) which do 4.23 unsaved wounds to the knight have a few strategems that let them do more, and don't die to the knight in a single round of combat
Very nice.
The Tyrant is still very expensive and can just reliably charge in 2nd turn. I would rather use 8 Aberrants with Hammers for this job. They kill a Knight!
But 8 of them is the same cost of a Tyrant............ Might as well get Hive Guard if you want to kill it on turn 2. At least with Hive Guard and other support you will kill it turn 1.
How does a reaper of obliterax + hvc and adrenal glands HT stack up to knights? I really like the swarmlord but feel that may be a better return on investment.
A single Castellan in a detachment of it's own with points always held to Rotate Ion Shields, is the most common and currently most powerful showing of IK in the meta, and is what we should be running calcs against as a baseline.
Amishprn86 wrote:But 8 of them is the same cost of a Tyrant............ Might as well get Hive Guard if you want to kill it on turn 2. At least with Hive Guard and other support you will kill it turn 1.
Not sure how you got these numbers.
6 HG = 12 shots SMA = 24 shots 3+ to hit + reroll 1's = 18.66 hits S8 to T8 = 9.33 wounds 2 Damage per wound = 18.66 wounds 4++ Invul = 9.33 wounds a turn
And that's at the cost of 2 CP a turn for double shooting. These things have 28 wounds. Hive Guard are going to need a LOT of other support to drop a Knight in a turn (like, it would take a total of 30 Hive Guard AND Single Minded Annihilation to only JUST do this, probably more to do it consistently).
Astmeister wrote:8 Abberants with Hammers do the following damage against a regular knight without Inv in the fight phase:
regular 16
with primus 21.3
with primus and might from beyond 32
with might from beyond 24
I think you really probably should factor in Sanctuary. It's one thing to think maybe Knights would prefer a different relic vs a mixed army, but anyone who doesn't take Sanctuary vs an army with a full squad of Aberrants waiting in ambush with a magus and a primus, is just wilding out and I doubt anyone will ever do it twice lol.
If they don't have an Invul you can use Aberrants for turn 1 ambush and sink a Knight before it can do anything, which I think will be great vs multiple Knights especially if they can't screen them well. And you can always hold them till the screen is down. They'll die the next turn but they'll have made their points back I think. I'm definitely going to be playtesting Abberants, but I'm still putting together my GSC detachment for now.
Astmeister wrote:And that does not take into account that GSC will soon get a codex with stratagems like "fight twice".
Confirmation on that? Also, remember that the Knight gets to fight back before you can fight for a second time, so if they are getting this stratagem, that second fight is going to be a lot weaker...
Automatically Appended Next Post: In the case of rotating ion shield with sanctuary, I think that the knight is nigh unkillable in one turn.
Your post just said Hive Guard so I didn't think you were talking about ShockGuard. I think at 24" range and requiring LOS it's much harder to apply this reliably and is basically a suicide unit at best, that has to start on the board too. They definitely hit hard, but they might not even be that great in application, especially when you consider all the other match ups where they are not going to be able to make their points back over the course of a game like Hive Guard do. Just my thoughts.
SHUPPET wrote: A single Castellan in a detachment of it's own with points always held to Rotate Ion Shields, is the most common and currently most powerful showing of IK in the meta, and is what we should be running calcs against as a baseline.
Amishprn86 wrote:But 8 of them is the same cost of a Tyrant............ Might as well get Hive Guard if you want to kill it on turn 2. At least with Hive Guard and other support you will kill it turn 1.
Not sure how you got these numbers.
6 HG = 12 shots SMA = 24 shots 3+ to hit + reroll 1's = 18.66 hits S8 to T8 = 9.33 wounds 2 Damage per wound = 18.66 wounds 4++ Invul = 9.33 wounds a turn
And that's at the cost of 2 CP a turn for double shooting. These things have 28 wounds. Hive Guard are going to need a LOT of other support to drop a Knight in a turn (like, it would take a total of 30 Hive Guard AND Single Minded Annihilation to only JUST do this, probably more to do it consistently).
Astmeister wrote:8 Abberants with Hammers do the following damage against a regular knight without Inv in the fight phase:
regular 16
with primus 21.3
with primus and might from beyond 32
with might from beyond 24
I think you really probably should factor in Sanctuary. It's one thing to think maybe Knights would prefer a different relic vs a mixed army, but anyone who doesn't take Sanctuary vs an army with a full squad of Aberrants waiting in ambush with a magus and a primus, is just wilding out and I doubt anyone will ever do it twice lol.
If they don't have an Invul you can use Aberrants for turn 1 ambush and sink a Knight before it can do anything, which I think will be great vs multiple Knights especially if they can't screen them well. And you can always hold them till the screen is down. They'll die the next turn but they'll have made their points back I think. I'm definitely going to be playtesting Abberants, but I'm still putting together my GSC detachment for now.
Astmeister wrote:And that does not take into account that GSC will soon get a codex with stratagems like "fight twice".
Confirmation on that? Also, remember that the Knight gets to fight back before you can fight for a second time, so if they are getting this stratagem, that second fight is going to be a lot weaker...
I think you missed my point, my point is for the same cost you can take out large amount of wounds vs Knights on turn 1 where the same points in melee units wont even touch the knight, giving other units in our army, you "could" take it down turn 1 much more reliably than Abberants.
And to add, if you deal 20 wounds turn 1, at least you have a 100% chance to kill it turn 2.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In the case of rotating ion shield with sanctuary, I think that the knight is nigh unkillable in one turn.
Your post just said Hive Guard so I didn't think you were talking about ShockGuard. I think at 24" range and requiring LOS it's much harder to apply this reliably and is basically a suicide unit at best, that has to start on the board too. They definitely hit hard, but they might not even be that great in application, especially when you consider all the other match ups where they are not going to be able to make their points back over the course of a game like Hive Guard do. Just my thoughts.
They only make sense with a Tyrannocyte or Jormungandr delivering them I guess. Since they are not very expensive, they will probably make their points back against most armies with vehicles.
Automatically Appended Next Post: FIY
Trygon with Yrmgarl Factor (+1S), Toxin Sacs and Voracious Appetite vs Knight with 4++ in melee
7.99 damage
Automatically Appended Next Post: If the knight does not have a Inv in melee he will suffer 13.2 damage!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Did someone see this interesting horde army from Wargames Con?
That's like the 4th time I've seen a different take of this list of hordes plus 3x 4 Zoanthropes in tournament. Guess there must be something to it. I don't have the models to build it but I guess if you block people in with weight of bodies you can just repeatedly hit them with the psychic nuke stratagem?
BoLS has a writeup about how the list works. In principle I think the normal Smites are better with the Zoanthropes, since they are doing 2D3 each for a total of 6D3.
Yep its the Normal Horde nids list that has been around for a bit.
The odd thing is he went full Tgants even with Kraken, most i;ve seen had 2 Battalions; Kronos with Neurothrope, Malanthrope, Zoands, and Kraken with Hgants and Neurothropes.
I think i personally like full Kronos if going full Tgants, tho i understand he wanted to move them fast with the better movements, but IDK what would actually be better.
Its just Horde to protect characters, take bjectives and not die, and Smite/GSC to kill the few important units, as powers dont care about character rule and invuls.
It all depends on the missions. In ITC, that list won't do much except get 2 points a turn for holding objectives and occasionally a point for killing something. In book missions or missions where holding objectives i worth more than killing, it'll do great.
SHUPPET wrote: That's like the 4th time I've seen a different take of this list of hordes plus 3x 4 Zoanthropes in tournament. Guess there must be something to it. I don't have the models to build it but I guess if you block people in with weight of bodies you can just repeatedly hit them with the psychic nuke stratagem?
Zoanthropes are a natural fit in a swarm list for synapse coverage as they are a very unappealing target for anti-tank weapons and a very appealing target for high rate of fire weapons, so they add to threat saturation instead of diluting it. Smite itself also lends itself well to horde play, since it can target foes in melee they can't use your swarms against you to hide.
Zimko wrote: It all depends on the missions. In ITC, that list won't do much except get 2 points a turn for holding objectives and occasionally a point for killing something. In book missions or missions where holding objectives i worth more than killing, it'll do great.
And yet that list is clearly of ITC, or he wouldn't have those x19 gants.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With 6x smites, don't they hit a wall with the smite beta rules?
Zimko wrote: It all depends on the missions. In ITC, that list won't do much except get 2 points a turn for holding objectives and occasionally a point for killing something. In book missions or missions where holding objectives i worth more than killing, it'll do great.
And yet that list is clearly of ITC, or he wouldn't have those x19 gants.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With 6x smites, don't they hit a wall with the smite beta rules?
The Zoans will try to use the stratagem to do 3D3 MW's to X amount of units, then the 2-3 Smites, after that, then yes they will, but they also have Psychic Scream, Catalyst, Horror, etc.. they are not just casting 6 smites each turn.
Zimko wrote: It all depends on the missions. In ITC, that list won't do much except get 2 points a turn for holding objectives and occasionally a point for killing something. In book missions or missions where holding objectives i worth more than killing, it'll do great.
And yet that list is clearly of ITC, or he wouldn't have those x19 gants.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With 6x smites, don't they hit a wall with the smite beta rules?
The Zoans will try to use the stratagem to do 3D3 MW's to X amount of units, then the 2-3 Smites, after that, then yes they will, but they also have Psychic Scream, Catalyst, Horror, etc.. they are not just casting 6 smites each turn.
Zimko wrote: It all depends on the missions. In ITC, that list won't do much except get 2 points a turn for holding objectives and occasionally a point for killing something. In book missions or missions where holding objectives i worth more than killing, it'll do great.
And yet that list is clearly of ITC, or he wouldn't have those x19 gants.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With 6x smites, don't they hit a wall with the smite beta rules?
The Zoans will try to use the stratagem to do 3D3 MW's to X amount of units, then the 2-3 Smites, after that, then yes they will, but they also have Psychic Scream, Catalyst, Horror, etc.. they are not just casting 6 smites each turn.
Problem is that both zoans and neuros cast 2 powers but know only one, so they indeed smite each turn. I didn't count the stratagem though.
They streamed that list twice. The most interesting thing watching him play was that the gants were on movement trays, and he didn't seem to be measuring them before moving. Just sort of eyeballing it. Had he gone 1st against Nick he would have stood a better chance, though with Nick's endless psychics, and shoot twice / move twice / fight twice gimmicks, I'm not sure he wins even them. It seems like the only counter to nick's army is a shooting army going 1st and killing the shining spears. If you can counter his psychics you've got him too, but realistically that probably isn't going to happen. It feels like he casts 20-30 psychic powers per turn, and he so rarely fails any.
Spoletta wrote: Problem is that both zoans and neuros cast 2 powers but know only one, so they indeed smite each turn. I didn't count the stratagem though.
Also, with neurothropes reroll 1 psychic test and another regular CP reroll the can jumpstart that smite towards a 11 or 12 result -> d6 mortal wounds.
Zimko wrote: It all depends on the missions. In ITC, that list won't do much except get 2 points a turn for holding objectives and occasionally a point for killing something. In book missions or missions where holding objectives i worth more than killing, it'll do great.
And yet that list is clearly of ITC, or he wouldn't have those x19 gants.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With 6x smites, don't they hit a wall with the smite beta rules?
Uhhh... no. It's not for ITC. The x19 gants mean nothing if you have 6 units of 30. He probably took units of 19 because he ran out of points, and just wanted each unit to have the same number of models in the second battalion.
The point to all this. Every tournament is going to have different winning lists. You have to cater your list to the missions. This termagaunt spam list is catered for a mission that can be won with just holding objectives. The smites kill some stuff but not quickly. I'm sure it would do well using book missions as well.
I just want to point out that I know it's not the same thing, but an extremely similar build was one of the heavy lifters for the American team in this years ETC championships this month, and they ended up winning the event.
Indeed, I haven't seen the ETC missions. The team events in general though are an anomaly all on their own. Each player on a winning team usually has at least 1 or more losses. There's a lot of rock-paper-scissors strategy involved in the pairings.
Zimko wrote: Indeed, I haven't seen the ETC missions. The team events in general though are an anomaly all on their own. Each player on a winning team usually has at least 1 or more losses. There's a lot of rock-paper-scissors strategy involved in the pairings.
This seems to be not the case of the american team this year. I heared somewhere (BoLS?) that their lists were pretty much TAC lists.
Nick wrote an article somewhere, but I can't find it. He talked about each match and how things went down. Each pairings they have some people that 'eat the sword' for the team by facing an army that they have very low hopes of defeating. Their only goal in those games is to earn SOME points and not get completely crushed.
There's a lot of insight to be gained from this stuff. I don't know what the perfect list for ITC is or what the perfect list for NOVA will be. But then again, I don't put as much time into it as Nick does.
Be that as it may for team events, that was not that case with this Tyranid list. Sean Nayden said that their IG/BA/Knight list and that Tyranid list, were their two powerhouses all day who they just threw at lists knowing that they'd grab a win. Andrew Gonyo's AdMech was who they threw to wolves when they needed to do that.
Zimko wrote: Despite that, the tyranid list went 4 and 2 at ETC. Tony's Guard went 6 and 0.
Which stands to reason, considering they were both getting thrown at the toughest lists, and one was the strongest combination of the top 3 Imperium detachments they could build, and one was just Tyranids. Tony's was designed to be their all star, and every other list came second to that, and that was their process in building their composition. They were surprised by the Nick Rose Tyranid list themselves but in testing found it to be strong and on their day it was one of their strongest choices for when they wanted a win.
This is all from the mouth of team captain Sean Nayden BTW.
Feels like board control Tyranids could lock up the low model count Deathguard fairly easily. The list has 3 vindicators for crying out loud. What am I missing?
Feels like board control Tyranids could lock up the low model count Deathguard fairly easily. The list has 3 vindicators for crying out loud. What am I missing?
Could be a game where dice happened? ETC uses maelstrom missions after all. If Nick was tasked with killing fortifications or holding objectives on the far end of the board while his opponent had to kill psykers and have 3 units in his own DZ, I can see why the Death Guard would win. But yes, in an ITC mission I would expect the bugs to win that game 9 times out of 10.
tag8833 wrote: They streamed that list twice. The most interesting thing watching him play was that the gants were on movement trays, and he didn't seem to be measuring them before moving. Just sort of eyeballing it. Had he gone 1st against Nick he would have stood a better chance, though with Nick's endless psychics, and shoot twice / move twice / fight twice gimmicks, I'm not sure he wins even them. It seems like the only counter to nick's army is a shooting army going 1st and killing the shining spears. If you can counter his psychics you've got him too, but realistically that probably isn't going to happen. It feels like he casts 20-30 psychic powers per turn, and he so rarely fails any.
Movement trays isn't weird(I have for orks. Great help) but not measuring? Were the moves clearly less than M value if opponent didn't protest then?
So, having Tooth and Claw in hand I'm thinking the Abominant might surpass Magi as the go-to HQ for allied GSC detachments. They are very tough (T5, 5 wounds, 5+ FNP, -1 damage suffered per wound, regains D3 wounds back per turn, and Unquestioning Loyalty for a 4+ to pass wounds to another GSC infantry unit), hit like a truck (3 WS:3+ S12, AP-3, 3-6 damage attacks with 6's to hit causing 2 hits due to his Chosen One ability and his having the Aberrant keyword), and an augment for Shadow In the Warp with another -1 to casting attempts bubble (so -2 with both) for only 10 points more than a Neurothrope…
Just got back from an ITC Primer event. My first 2k games ever, second tournament, and definitely had never looked at the tactical objective cards before.
I went 1-1-1 for the day tying DE, beating Necrons, and getting tabled by Orks.
Strat_N8 wrote: So, having Tooth and Claw in hand I'm thinking the Abominant might surpass Magi as the go-to HQ for allied GSC detachments. They are very tough (T5, 5 wounds, 5+ FNP, -1 damage suffered per wound, regains D3 wounds back per turn, and Unquestioning Loyalty for a 4+ to pass wounds to another GSC infantry unit), hit like a truck (3 WS:3+ S12, AP-3, 3-6 damage attacks with 6's to hit causing 2 hits due to his Chosen One ability and his having the Aberrant keyword), and an augment for Shadow In the Warp with another -1 to casting attempts bubble (so -2 with both) for only 10 points more than a Neurothrope…
I agree that it looks promising. I'm thinking of a anti-Knight squad. Hammer time, plus some Smites, and extra shooting just might take a Knight down too far to be effective...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
stalkerzero wrote: Just got back from an ITC Primer event. My first 2k games ever, second tournament, and definitely had never looked at the tactical objective cards before.
I went 1-1-1 for the day tying DE, beating Necrons, and getting tabled by Orks.
Wow did the Broodlord suck. Swarmlord was kind of meh too. 300 to catapult the Genestealers just didn't seem worth.
The Tyrannofex again we're the MVP of the day. Even the Flyrants didn't really perform well shooting or melee.
Really need to decide if I need two battalion or if I drop one HQ and run a single battalion and spearhead with 3 Tyrannofex.
Congrats on getting a tie off of DE, as they are all the hotness right now. I don't much like Swarmy I think if you want to include her, you need to build the list around that. I am glad to hear Tyranofexen are workable, as I've always liked them.
I think I would have swapped the Swarmy for a Winged Tyrant (assuming you have the figs) and tried a Kronos Brigade. I've been thinking that MSU Kronos Warriors just might be a cool thing to try.
stalkerzero wrote: Just got back from an ITC Primer event. My first 2k games ever, second tournament, and definitely had never looked at the tactical objective cards before.
I went 1-1-1 for the day tying DE, beating Necrons, and getting tabled by Orks.
Wow did the Broodlord suck. Swarmlord was kind of meh too. 300 to catapult the Genestealers just didn't seem worth.
The Tyrannofex again we're the MVP of the day. Even the Flyrants didn't really perform well shooting or melee.
Really need to decide if I need two battalion or if I drop one HQ and run a single battalion and spearhead with 3 Tyrannofex.
Grtz on playing and i hope you had fun.
How did the T-fex's do?
I stopped taking Swarmlord, b.c equal points in Genestealers just gets me more wounds and more attempts to charge, better board control, more troops, etc.. I do miss out of 4++ copare to 5++, but Multi-damage weapons are now pointless, the worst part is less powers, but again i already have Neurothopes/Tyrants/Zoans, I dont really need the extra smite or anything.
He is still fun for casual games for sure, just not for tournaments.
weaver9 wrote: Generally speaking would you all to advise a Tfex with Rupture Canon, or equivilant points in Hive Guard?
They do the same damage vs a Rhino
If you dont move and both are in range
Tfex: Vs Rhino 5.84 wounds with 6 shots
HG: Vs Rhino 5.93 wounds with 5HG/10 shots
Same points, same damage, the difference is 1 can hide 1 can not. So it really comes down to you.
Personally i like HG better b.c they can hive behind a wall and deal damage, i like my Tfex with Acid Spray b.c turn 1 i rush it up field towards the middle objective(s) within range to shoot it, and they have to kill not only my troops but the Tfex to claim the objective, even at 1 wound left the Acid Spray Tfex shoots at full strength b.c it aut hits, the 18" range is crazy good for a flamer that does 4D6 hits (14hits on average).
Actually the big difference is SMA, it's really the most important factor there and means one unit of HG can literally have the shooting of 2, not sure how that didn't get a mention.
Also, Acid Spray Tyrannofex's wound profile is very important, the flamer goes from S7 all the way to S5, far from full strength
SHUPPET wrote: Actually the big difference is SMA, it's really the most important factor there and means one unit of HG can literally have the shooting of 2, not sure how that didn't get a mention.
Also, Acid Spray Tyrannofex's wound profile is very important, the flamer goes from S7 all the way to S5, far from full strength
But against infantry thats not to big of a deal, wounding on 2 vs a 3 (or 3 to 4) when you have 14 hits isnt much different compare to hitting on 5+ with 6 shots, with a weapon like the Rupture cannon, thats an important weapon to hit so you dont want it missing. But with Kronos you could make it re-roll 1's.
And dont forget tho, you can make its Damage +1 for 2CP, Always 2D flamer weapon at 18" that could be 4D is important to think about as well.
SHUPPET wrote: Actually the big difference is SMA, it's really the most important factor there and means one unit of HG can literally have the shooting of 2, not sure how that didn't get a mention.
Also, Acid Spray Tyrannofex's wound profile is very important, the flamer goes from S7 all the way to S5, far from full strength
But against infantry thats not to big of a deal, wounding on 2 vs a 3 (or 3 to 4) when you have 14 hits isnt much different compare to hitting on 5+ with 6 shots, with a weapon like the Rupture cannon, thats an important weapon to hit so you dont want it missing. But with Kronos you could make it re-roll 1's.
You literally just said he shoots at full strength even on 1 wound, that is wrong, being able to shred tanks and flyers is a massive boon, he loses this with his wound profile and youre then only pointing him at infantry to get his money's worth.
And dont forget tho, you can make its Damage +1 for 2CP, Always 2D flamer weapon at 18" that could be 4D is important to think about as well.
OK so now you're back to pointing him at tanks? Seeing as most infantry dont really give a crap? Then the wound profile matters. You do this stratagem when he's at full strength too for even greater returns, it's also made weaker by the wound profile dropping.
Put whatever spin you like on it, but his wound profile is most definitely important.
Basically if your opponent doesn't have a solid answer to a T8 monster or has cold dice, 2 acid spray tfex will deal some serious damage.
The problem is that you can't play in a competitive RTT without encountering a super heavy that will kill one (at least) per turn, or Eldar Hemlocks + Reapers, which will also kill one per turn. All of this from out of range.
Acid Spray is a very good weapon if you don't run into its hard counters. But, you probably will. And, as mentioned, if it gets degraded to strength 5, that's a pretty dramatic reduction against T6 and T7, which is a lot of things.
SHUPPET wrote: Actually the big difference is SMA, it's really the most important factor there and means one unit of HG can literally have the shooting of 2, not sure how that didn't get a mention.
Also, Acid Spray Tyrannofex's wound profile is very important, the flamer goes from S7 all the way to S5, far from full strength
But against infantry thats not to big of a deal, wounding on 2 vs a 3 (or 3 to 4) when you have 14 hits isnt much different compare to hitting on 5+ with 6 shots, with a weapon like the Rupture cannon, thats an important weapon to hit so you dont want it missing. But with Kronos you could make it re-roll 1's.
You literally just said he shoots at full strength even on 1 wound, that is wrong, being able to shred tanks and flyers is a massive boon, he loses this with his wound profile and youre then only pointing him at infantry to get his money's worth.
And dont forget tho, you can make its Damage +1 for 2CP, Always 2D flamer weapon at 18" that could be 4D is important to think about as well.
OK so now you're back to pointing him at tanks? Seeing as most infantry dont really give a crap? Then the wound profile matters. You do this stratagem when he's at full strength too for even greater returns, it's also made weaker by the wound profile dropping.
Put whatever spin you like on it, but his wound profile is most definitely important.
I never said anything about tanks, i think i said the opposite actually, i use it to kill units like Shiny Spears, Grots, etc.. You cant even kill a Venom in 1 2D6 hits at full str without extra CP's, compare to killing 5 Shiny Spears and units a like.
Being St 5 compare to Str 7 does hurt a bit yes, but against many units it doesnt matter, its still wounding on 3+ no matter what, so no its not wrong.
If you like it hunting Tanks, sure go for it, but literally HG deals the same wounds to tanks, even against -1 to hit ones, i'd rather it keep important foot units units at bay and make sure no one is touching an objective.
I never said anything about tanks, i think i said the opposite actually, i use it to kill units like Shiny Spears, Grots, etc.
So you're spending 2CP to do extra damage against a unit you are already killing in 1 hit 66.6% of the time anyway, and act like this is better than +1 to wound on all your autohits? Well alright. Sounds to me like another example of something that is just also weakened by the Tyrannofex losing wounds, but spin it how you need to.
Amishprn86 wrote: Being St 5 compare to Str 7 does hurt a bit yes, but against many units it doesnt matter, its still wounding on 3+ no matter what, so no its not wrong.
I mean, that's literally the opposite of what you said to begin with, so yes, it was wrong, but okay.
Amishprn86 wrote: If you like it hunting Tanks, sure go for it, but literally HG deals the same wounds to tanks, even against -1 to hit ones, i'd rather it keep important foot units units at bay and make sure no one is touching an objective.
The point is, you can do both. Losing an entire targeting profile on a unit that has only 18" range and wants to remain stationary to apply it's damage, is a big difference. Trying to sell it as though it's wound profile doesn't matter is just a vast misunderstanding of the unit.
Anyway, I'm bailing out of this one. I think everyone else realises that S7 flamer is significantly stronger than a S5 one, and not the same as "firing at full strength" at all.
My acid spray Tyrannofex are always, always my MVP.
Because of the sheer number of shots an unnmoved Tyrannofex can put out (and re-rolling 1s as Kronos) they tend to be pretty versatile. In Orks I use them to mow down troops, against Knights they do decently, and against DE they do really well against the vehicles if they try to get in range for the troops.
I just want to talk about what I was saying about the meta being really bad for us right now...
Chapter Tactics just did a podcast covering stats of the winrate of every army in the competitive scene over the past month and a half, as a primary faction.
Result's are as you may expect, with Ynnari, Knights, DE, and Guard at the top of the pack, most hovering around 55% win rate.
Down to the bottom we have a few power armor armies (which, as the guys on the podcast and the stats collector both agreed, you ALWAYS have to take into account will be lower because they attract thematic players and things like "Imperial Fist mains" etc like no other army).
But after that, right near the bottom, at 40% winrate mark, we see both Tyranids and Necrons neck and neck for worst performing Xeno dexes. Now Necron's are considered one of the worst dexes out right now... so I think this statistic provides an interesting look into how hostile the meta is for us right now with those two armies that counter us being so powerful
SHUPPET wrote: I just want to talk about what I was saying about the meta being really bad for us right now...
Chapter Tactics just did a podcast covering stats of the winrate of every army in the competitive scene over the past month and a half, as a primary faction.
Result's are as you may expect, with Ynnari, Knights, DE, and Guard at the top of the pack, most hovering around 55% win rate.
Down to the bottom we have a few power armor armies (which, as the guys on the podcast and the stats collector both agreed, you ALWAYS have to take into account will be lower because they attract thematic players and things like "Imperial Fist mains" etc like no other army).
But after that, right near the bottom, at 40% winrate mark, we see both Tyranids and Necrons neck and neck for worst performing Xeno dexes. Now Necron's are considered one of the worst dexes out right now... so I think this statistic provides an interesting look into how hostile the meta is for us right now with those two armies that counter us being so powerful
Play Nids Soup horde list, it does well, 200+ bodies with good enough damage and many powers to cast.
Tyranids are doing bad b.c many of the units are not good in "this meta", but that doesnt mean the meta wont change literally in the next month or 2, i would wait, GW is at Nova and are releasing new code'x and a CA literally within the next few months.
jifel wrote: I think he is saying that nerfs are incoming for the BA/IG/IK lists that were all over the place. After all, the final is IG/BA/IK vs IK/IG.
Yeah the Command Point Battery is about to get straight up annihilated, watch. I expect it to get hit by the end of the month. I am unsure of how many points changes we will see, they may try to restrict the batteries and see if that tones down the overperforming Imperium units instead of just adding 20 points to each of them.
jifel wrote: I think he is saying that nerfs are incoming for the BA/IG/IK lists that were all over the place. After all, the final is IG/BA/IK vs IK/IG.
jifel wrote: I think he is saying that nerfs are incoming for the BA/IG/IK lists that were all over the place. After all, the final is IG/BA/IK vs IK/IG.
Yeah this, sorry if it wasn't clear.
It was clear
It just said "nerfs incoming" in a Tyranid tactics thread, which could have meant multiple things, hence why I asked for clarification. Not a big deal for anyone involved.
So I finally picked up a Hive Crone/Harpy kit last night and I was curious what people thought was the better option cause I'm torn on which to build with it.
Astmeister wrote: So what would Tyranids need to get out of the meta swamp?
Some dependable hard hitters that can take out something like a Knight. We Nids used to use first turn charges to tie stuff up, now we have to wait a turn, and we can't withstand the withering fire power. Adding in GSC is about the only trick we have available. Basicly "Nid soup"
If cover was more useful that would help. Also bringing some units up to snuff, like Lictors, and Tervigons. Warriors, and Hormagaunts likely need a minor buff to work (Hormies ought to cost 4 each I believe), and we'll be back in "the mix".
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh , and our flyers, they need some work, likely "just" a point break, but they lack flavor, so adding something more would be nice.
Karang029 wrote: So I finally picked up a Hive Crone/Harpy kit last night and I was curious what people thought was the better option cause I'm torn on which to build with it.
Astmeister wrote: So what would Tyranids need to get out of the meta swamp?
I think our mid range is solid but we lack good long range, and oddly enough I feel like we lack good CC options.
Genestealers are great, but t4 5++ melts to bolter fire and are mostly good at killing MEQ (which exocrines or dakka fexes are also good at, but at range).
I think we need some extra layers of protection, or heavier hitting melee units.
Astmeister wrote: So what would Tyranids need to get out of the meta swamp?
I think our mid range is solid but we lack good long range, and oddly enough I feel like we lack good CC options.
Genestealers are great, but t4 5++ melts to bolter fire and are mostly good at killing MEQ (which exocrines or dakka fexes are also good at, but at range).
I think we need some extra layers of protection, or heavier hitting melee units.
Our long range is weak by codex design, but we indeed lack big CC hitters. I'm not saying that we should have stuff that breaks a knight face on, that's LoW territory. But something that can scare it a bit would be nice.
Astmeister wrote: So what would Tyranids need to get out of the meta swamp?
I think our mid range is solid but we lack good long range, and oddly enough I feel like we lack good CC options.
Genestealers are great, but t4 5++ melts to bolter fire and are mostly good at killing MEQ (which exocrines or dakka fexes are also good at, but at range).
I think we need some extra layers of protection, or heavier hitting melee units.
Our long range is weak by codex design, but we indeed lack big CC hitters. I'm not saying that we should have stuff that breaks a knight face on, that's LoW territory. But something that can scare it a bit would be nice.
As far as it goes, you really can't get a more aggressive CC heavy hitter than a full unit of Aberrant with Hammers brought in with a Primus. The issue I think is they have a larger footprint and no jump compared to Imperial or even Aeldari options.
I'm currently painting up a Scythed Heirodule, I'm planning to protect it with Malanthrope, and probably make it Leviathan. Swarmlord for Catalyst, Onslaught, and double movement. Numbers look pretty good if you can get it into CC with a Knight, especially if you Fight Again strat on it, should one shot a Knight, and it's cheaper than one. Gonna try deal with screens with a horde of ambushing Cultists. I have no idea how it's going to play, but should be fun.
The Scy Hierodule only does 7.3 damage to a knight with 4++ (which we agreed on he will have). And he will get worse if he takes damage. So you need first turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Only if the knight has no inv the Hierodule will do about 14 damage a swing.
Astmeister wrote: The Scy Hierodule only does 7.3 damage to a knight with 4++ (which we agreed on he will have). And he will get worse if he takes damage. So you need first turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Only if the knight has no inv the Hierodule will do about 14 damage a swing.
if those numbers are accurate then nmind Hierodule is even more garbage than I thought
He's been sitting in the sprue for a while so I was looking for a way to use him now that im building him but its probly not worth if you're right
We just need units like Haruspex to be better, why is it hitting on 4+ with such little attacks? its only going to get 1-2 wound rolls in, for a 200pt melee only MC its very weak.
Im fine with Nids not having Good long range Long range shooting, every army needs a couple holes in them, but our MC should be very scary in melee, a Scout Power lifter shouldnt be equal in melee compare to a 200pt monster for only 45pts..... (i know its D3 vs D6 damage, but you can take 3 of them and its way more damage and 18 wounds vs 12 for 135pts vs 198pts)
As it stands genestealers seem like the only thing that can really hurt knights huh? I'm surprised massive rending claws aren't more useful, but I suppose the issue with nids right now is that the big titan guns are hard countering your usual monsters/tanks. Same with the DE meta really, both factions wreck your flyrants and fexes.
barboggo wrote: As it stands genestealers seem like the only thing that can really hurt knights huh? I'm surprised massive rending claws aren't more useful, but I suppose the issue with nids right now is that the big titan guns are hard countering your usual monsters/tanks. Same with the DE really, both factions wreck your flyrants and fexes.
Well the belief as of right now for Knights atm is you either kill it or you ignore it. Nids can ignore it just fine, kill everything else and take objectives.
I recently tested a list with 360 fearless Black Legion/Alpha Legion cultists that I believe should do very well with ITC scoring against knights. Yeah, they max out Reaper by T2, but there are literally not enough bullets for them to wipe out enough cultists to prevent my army from maxing Recon, Ground Control, and likely Behind Enemy Lines, while also controlling most or all objectives on every turn except T1.
Could Tyranids do something similar with an extreme "paper" list like that one?
Bastion deploys at edge of deployment zone with Genestealers and maybe the neurothropes inside.
Shokk Guard use the Jormander strategem to come in with the Raveners (possibly Impaler guard as well if they can't be hidden or are facing shining spears).
Hive Tyrants Deploy? out of los behind the bastion. As someone that has used a bastion for this purpose I wouldn't expect to fully hide all 3, probably only 1.
A few questions
Spoiler:
Why not a full unit of 20 Genestealers?
Why the odd number of gants?
Do you think Hive guard ever deploy inside the bastion?
barboggo wrote: I recently tested a list with 360 fearless Black Legion/Alpha Legion cultists that I believe should do very well with ITC scoring against knights. Yeah, they max out Reaper by T2, but there are literally not enough bullets for them to wipe out enough cultists to prevent my army from maxing Recon, Ground Control, and likely Behind Enemy Lines, while also controlling most or all objectives on every turn except T1.
Could Tyranids do something similar with an extreme "paper" list like that one?
Very Easily, 3 Neurothrope HQ's with Lots of 20-30mans, Tyranids has 4-5man gant units as troops, so its not hard at all.
You can easily get 180 models just in 1 Battalion for 800pts (1000pts with 3 HQ's), and they all can use CP well, so take 2 Battalions with a Malanthrope as the 4th HQ for some -1 to hit, a couple Zoanthropes as well for powers/damage.
For 1500pts you have 270 models with 4 HQ's and 13 CP's, that leaves 500pts for damaging units or Allies, you can easily get lots of Zoanhropes or GSC with Magus.
here isa 2k list i would take currently to a IK/BA/IG ITC tournament
3 Neruothropes
1 Malanthrope
30 Hgants
30 Hgants
30 Hgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
4 Zoanthropes
4 Zoanthropes
4 Zoanthropes
Thats 270 models with 6 Psykers, a good 50% of it -1 to hit (tho IDK if thats best, i just like -1 to hit to keep my models on the table longer)
With Horror and malanthropes/venomthropes it’s pretty easy to neuter a knight’s offensive power against critical targets. With a 3 knight list, the biggest threat is still the guy with the relic gun. A Kraken tyrant can jump up the board to Horror him while being relatively safe with his own -1 hit relic. In some cases it might be useful to make the Tyrant your warlord, just to bait out wasted shots against a -2/-3 to hit slay the warlord target.
Amishprn86 wrote: We just need units like Haruspex to be better, why is it hitting on 4+ with such little attacks? its only going to get 1-2 wound rolls in, for a 200pt melee only MC its very weak.
Im fine with Nids not having Good long range Long range shooting, every army needs a couple holes in them, but our MC should be very scary in melee, a Scout Power lifter shouldnt be equal in melee compare to a 200pt monster for only 45pts..... (i know its D3 vs D6 damage, but you can take 3 of them and its way more damage and 18 wounds vs 12 for 135pts vs 198pts)
I'm starting to think GW's design policy when it comes to Nids is - 'Tyranids are hard to balance, they can field so many different monsters, which will be OP if they are individually good. The safe solution is to make them bad'. IIRC Reece said something to that effect, a good while back.
barboggo wrote: I recently tested a list with 360 fearless Black Legion/Alpha Legion cultists that I believe should do very well with ITC scoring against knights. Yeah, they max out Reaper by T2, but there are literally not enough bullets for them to wipe out enough cultists to prevent my army from maxing Recon, Ground Control, and likely Behind Enemy Lines, while also controlling most or all objectives on every turn except T1.
Could Tyranids do something similar with an extreme "paper" list like that one?
Very Easily, 3 Neurothrope HQ's with Lots of 20-30mans, Tyranids has 4-5man gant units as troops, so its not hard at all.
You can easily get 180 models just in 1 Battalion for 800pts (1000pts with 3 HQ's), and they all can use CP well, so take 2 Battalions with a Malanthrope as the 4th HQ for some -1 to hit, a couple Zoanthropes as well for powers/damage.
For 1500pts you have 270 models with 4 HQ's and 13 CP's, that leaves 500pts for damaging units or Allies, you can easily get lots of Zoanhropes or GSC with Magus.
here isa 2k list i would take currently to a IK/BA/IG ITC tournament
3 Neruothropes
1 Malanthrope
30 Hgants
30 Hgants
30 Hgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
30 Tgants
4 Zoanthropes
4 Zoanthropes
4 Zoanthropes
Thats 270 models with 6 Psykers, a good 50% of it -1 to hit (tho IDK if thats best, i just like -1 to hit to keep my models on the table longer)
You can take 45-50 less gants for 3 Magus
That's more or less Nick Rose's ETC list, although he base it in GSC Neophytes and splashes Nids for Hormagaunts. It got him a couple of wins in the Nova Invitational, and best GSC player in the Open bracket at #31. He still lost to AM/BA/IK.
Mind control is counter tho.... If you can Mind control the Knight you waste the Missile and you shoot their unit next to the knight killing a unit for free.
Amishprn86 wrote: Mind control is counter tho.... If you can Mind control the Knight you waste the Missile and you shoot their unit next to the knight killing a unit for free.
His list still lost is the point. This helps but isn't some tactic that changes the meta for us.
Amishprn86 wrote: Mind control is counter tho.... If you can Mind control the Knight you waste the Missile and you shoot their unit next to the knight killing a unit for free.
His list still lost is the point. This helps but isn't some tactic that changes the meta for us.
And he (if i read it correctly) beat another list just like it. Just b.c he lost this one list doesnt mean he cant win.
We already talked about the best way to counter it as nid tho, thats to ignore it or use it to help you win.
Not every army can counter everything, some are weak to knights, others are weak to hordes, the fact that he did beat a Knight/IG list is proof you can beat them. Nice comes down to it also, you can lose a game and do everything right and counter them completely all because you failed a few dice roles and they didnt.
Amishprn86 wrote: We already talked about the best way to counter it as nid tho, thats to ignore it or use it to help you win.
One person wondered if we could counter them like this, and you alone assured that we would, not much of a discussion was had lol. It is probably one of the better ways to be able to play the match up, but let's not overstate the conclusion yet, we are still trying to discuss it.
Is this a fact at all? You just posted that you weren't really sure, and it's not what I heard their captain Sean Nayden say at all. Any sort of source on this, this should be easy to iron out?
Amishprn86 wrote: is proof you can beat them. Nice comes down to it also, you can lose a game and do everything right and counter them completely all because you failed a few dice roles and they didnt.
They same holds true for regular lists. Look, you're the person who's saying that this list changes the meta for us and that the showing at ETC is proof of anything, and while it's up in the air if that's right about the list, ETC showing certainly doesn't support the conclusion you are making.
That isnt Nick beating a IK/IG/BA list? I might have read the information wrong, let me know if thats the case.
And i said "able to beat" that doesnt mean every person is able to nor will always be top 10, in tournaments you ALWAYS have to get lucky with match-ups, dice roles, etc...
Im saying Nids will start to do better in tournaments, never did i say they will always win them
That isnt Nick beating a IK/IG/BA list? I might have read the information wrong, let me know if thats the case.
That is him indeed him doing it. You were saying it happened at the ETC however, but this game is from NOVA, which is why I couldn't find it. But he also lost immediately after to the same Castellan Gaurd BA style list, so it's not really indicative of anything
Amishprn86 wrote: And i said "able to beat" that doesnt mean every person is able to nor will always be top 10, in tournaments you ALWAYS have to get lucky with match-ups, dice roles, etc...
Im saying Nids will start to do better in tournaments, never did i say they will always win them
I know what you said, I quite clearly responded to exactly that and didn't alter it in any way to say anything else. Unlike exactly what you've just done. Where did I say you will always get top 10 in every tournament, and always win every tournament? Literally all I said is that your evidence given so far did not support your claims that it's a counter to the things destroying us in the meta, because the only example provided (before this post) was an event where it lost to this very list. This shouldn't be this difficult.
Automatically Appended Next Post: My opinion: As I mentioned a few pages ago I personally think the list is very strong and capable. But to add to that, that I'm not convinced that it turns our losing matches upside down yet or even that it balances them up. While it is possible, I just haven't seen the evidence nor a convincing argument for it yet. The Catachan detachments naturally deal pretty well with the horde, and mind control with Magus will have some sort of impact, but 9 games outta 10 not the magical-christmas-land steal-a-castellan-and-shoot-down-a-tank-with-it impact that some people seem to expect it to.
I must have misread then. We'll see how it proceeds in time. At Nova it went 1 for 1 against AM/BA/IK so not yet really indicative of anything. Anything can win a single game against anything, we'll see what can do it consistently.
GSC Battallion (+5 CP)
Magus Psychic Powers: Mind Control
Magus Psychic Powers: Mass Hypnosis
Neophytes
Neophytes
Neophytes
Round 1:
Spoiler:
vs Tau. Player new to tourneys. Riptide, ghostkiel, 3 Broadsides, 16 drones, 15 fire warriors, cadre fireblade, 2 Tau commanders, Hammerhead, 2 FW Crisis Suites.
Mission: Kill Points
Deployment: Pointy Hammer and Anvil
I deep struck the Tyrants, Neophytes, and Mind Control Magus. The carnifexes deployed on the line. He deep struck the Commanders, and infiltrated the Ghost Kiel. The rest of his army was clustered in the middles except for the Broadsides and Hammer head which were spread out.
I got 1st turn, smited the Ghostkiel to death, used a CP to cult ambush in some neophytes with the mind control magus. Neophytes shoot some drones to death. Magus mind controls the Riptide, and shoots and kills a broadside, and then I cast The Horror on the Riptide. Dakka fexes kill 2 of the fire warrior teams. Cannonfexes kill the 2 FW crisis suites, and some drones. He double nova charged the Riptide, and moved it forward aggressively. Shoots and does NOTHING. Not quite nothing. 4 wounds to a carnifex, and killed 7 of the neophytes. Turn 2 I smite the Riptide down to 2. Drop the Tyrants, and kill the hammerhead, and remaining broadsides. I actually didn't even shoot my carnifexes at him, because I didn't want to run up the score. His turn, he drops the commanders, and kills a carnifex. My turn 3 I table him.
The only unit I lost this game was a single carnifex. KP total 1997 to 117. Holy cow.
Round 2:
Spoiler:
vs Tyranids: 17 Zoenthropes, Neurothrope, Malanthrope. 3 Behemouth Tyrants, Patriarch, Magus, 3 Neophytes.
Mission: ITC champs with 6 objectives.
Deployment: Pointy Dawn of War.
Mildly a mirror match. Because He didn't have much shooting I deployed everything. Screened the front of my army with the neophytes, deployted the carnifexes back a bit. Spread out my characters so he couldn't linebreaker bombard. He deployed in a cluster in the middle but deep struck his hive tyrants, patriarch, Magus, and neophytes.
He goes 1st. Deep strikes in the Tyrants. Smite kill a bunch of neophytes. I'm able to deny a couple spells, and he fails a couple. He shoots a unit of neophytes down to 1, and I use CP's to auto pass moral so he doesn't kill a unit or get 1st strike. On my turn I send my Tyrants forward aggressively. He has 1 unit of zoenthropes up front screening his warlord neurothrope. I manage to smite 2 of the 6 dead. A couple dakkafexes have to shoot one of his tyrants because they can't see the zoeys, but everything else shoots those zoeys, and I kill them down to 2 which isn't enough to prevent me from charging in with the flyrants, and killing the neurothrope warlord, then I fight again, and kill the Malanthrope. Pretty intense.
Turn 2, he brings in the neophytes, spends 2 to bring in the patriarch close to my warlord. I left a little zone open in my backfield just big enough for the patriarch, and he rolled a 5 on cult ambush. Lots of attempts to cast spells, but without the reroll 1's, and with all my denies, he barely gets any off. His flyrants go aggressively after my carnifexes. They kill 2, and tie up 2 more. Patriarch fails to kill my warlord. I bring one flyrant back to mess with his, and try to smite a 5 wound flyrant off of a Carnifex, but only end up doing 4 to it. Dakkafex kills his neophytes. Cannonfex puts 5 wounds on a flyrant. I charge in with a fex hoping to mortal wound the last off of his flyrant, but fail to do so, so I use the behomouth strat to charge my tyrant into his and the patriarch. I mortal wound the flyrant to death, then fight and kill the Patriarch. My other 2 flyrants Kill a zoey each in CC.
Turn 3, He leaves combat with his zoeys, and smite one flyrant down by 5 wounds. His Tyrants charge my tyrant, but One is Horrored. And they only do 3 wounds to me thanks to some clutch invuls, and a reroll. I swing back and kill the wounded flyrant. It's looking bleak. He is down to 8 zoeys, a wounded Flyrant, and some neophytes. I smite his flyrant down a few more wounds. Then shoot and kill 3 of his remaining zoeys My flyrant engaged with is flyrant finish it. Another flyrant kills a zoey. Another flyrant kills some rippers to hold 5 of the 6 objectives. He's got very little left at this point and concedes.
Final score 35 to 11 me. Wow. I thought this was a really bad matchup for me. But those neophytes screening me for a turn, and getting his warlord early was huge.
Round 3:
Spoiler:
VS Knights: 1st or 2nd best knights in the ITC last year. Crusaders (Gatling, RFBC), Gallant, Styx, 2 Taurox Primes (Gatling), 3 units of plasma scions, 2 Tempestor primes, 1 Command squad with plasma.
Mission: ITC champs with 5 objectives.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
I deploy my carnifexes a little deeper than normal to make sure he cant turn 1 charge me. Characters behind them. Deep strike my flyrants, neophytes, and Mind Control magus. He Deploys the knights in 1 corner, and the Tauroxes full of scions in the other, and a few scions in deep strike. For the 1st time, I don't get the +1 to go 1st. He wins the roll off, and decides to go 1st. Which is fine by me, because most of my stuff is out of range, and he can't charge. me. Tauroxes make me take a couple saves, but I make them. Knights fire into a dakkafex. I make most of my safes, and it loses 2 wounds. Yes. his entire army only did 2 WOUNDS to me on turn 1. I spread out my carnifexes a bit. Try to run my magus into range to mass hypnosis a knight, but roll a 1, so I use him to screen my backfield against scion deep strikers. Because he moved up in a clusters His Styx and Gallant are right next to each other (base to base). So I spend a CP to roll 2 dice on cult ambush for a magus and some neophytes. Roll a 5. I bring them in right in front of the knights, move the neophytesm d6" to form a solid wall connecting 2 pieces of terrain and movement blocking the center of the table. I fail mind control with a reroll. BOO. Smites take a few wounds off each knight, and I use the Horror on the Crusader. My dakkafexes have range problems, and have to split their fire between the knights. But they do decent work, putting a few wounds on each knight with pathogenic slime getting me 6 wounds on the Styx. Cannonfexes try to kill a Taurox and fail. BOO. Still, I held more, because he is so tightly clustered in the middle.
Turn 2, he dumps scions out of the tauroxes, and plink a couple wounds off of carnifexes. The Crusader moves around the terrain to line up a charge, but the Styx, and Gallant just move up to my movement blocking neophytes. He shoots the Crusader into a carnifex hitting on 5's, and does no damage, but a Taurox prime manages to kill my neophyte screen. Apparently the Gallant gives a +2 charge aura. Turning his changers into a 7", 9", and 8". He makes all 3.. So the Styx charges and kills a carnifex. The Gallant charges and kills my mind control Magus. BOO. And the Crusader charges 2 dakkafexes, and does nothing. I decide the flyrants are going to kill the gallant. I spread out the carnifexes on objectives, fall back from the crusader, bring in some neophytes on objectives. Smite a bunch of wounds off the knights. Put Mass Hypnosis and the Horror on the Crusader. Put Paroxism on the Gallant. Dakka fexes kill all the scions. Cannon fexes kill a Taurox. The Flyrants all multicharge the Crusaders and gallant. Apparently he can spend a CP to turn knights into tau, so his Styx gets to overwatch all 3 flyrants as they charge. Doesn't do much to me. Flyrant 1 takes the Gallant down to 5. Flyrant 2 takes it down to 1 HP. UG! Flyrant 3 splits it's attacks on the Gallant and the Crusader, and finishes the gallant (8 wounds) and does some to the crusader bringing it down to 11. The Gallant uses a strategem to fight after it dies, and beats a flyrant down to 2. Crusader takes another flyrant down to 6. I only have 5 CP left. I opt not to fight again which is a mistake.
Turn 3, he leaves combat. Deep strikes in his remaining scions. They kill one unit of neophytes, and take a wound off a flyrant. His Styx fails to hurt the badly wounded flyrant thanks to making a bunch of invuls and a reroll. Crusader has to finish it. Styx and crusader both charge in. Styx kills a wounded flyrant, then I interrupt to take the Crusader down to 1. It swings back and does nothing. On my turn I put all of the smites into the Styx, and kill it. But it uses a strategem to shoot after it dies, and kills my last flyrant. Dakkafex kills the Crusader. Other dakkafexes kill scions. I have one squad of neophytes in position to kill the final scions ready to shoot, and then charge them, but we get a hard dice down.
At this point. All he had left was a Taurox prime, and 5 scions that were about to get killed by neophytes. So I would have easily tabled him at the bottom of 4.
Final score: 17 to 13. I HATE, HATE, HATE!!!!! 2 hour rounds at 2,000 points. It is nutty to expect games to finish if either player is marginally slow. We only needed 10 more minutes to finish this one, and I did finish the other two, so I have confirmed that my list plays much, much, much faster than previous lists I've run.
Final Thoughts:
Spoiler:
There were 2 3-0 players. I got #1 overall by 7 battle points.
Dear lord was my list effective. Way, way beyond my wildest expectations. That being said I didn't really face the meta list. So I'm not positive I have something.
I've won RTT's before, but I've never won them by effectively tabling all of my opponents by turn 4.
Dakkafexes are better anti-tank than I gave them credit for. The one who uses pathogenic slime normally does 4 to 6 wounds. I thought I had a list with durability that wouldn't die easily, but I underestimated the effective offensive output. These 3 tourney games are in keeping with my practice games. I'm so happy to have found a low model count army that I think is effective.
GSC Battallion (+5 CP)
Magus Psychic Powers: Mind Control
Magus Psychic Powers: Mass Hypnosis
Neophytes
Neophytes
Neophytes
Round 1:
Spoiler:
vs Tau. Player new to tourneys. Riptide, ghostkiel, 3 Broadsides, 16 drones, 15 fire warriors, cadre fireblade, 2 Tau commanders, Hammerhead, 2 FW Crisis Suites.
Mission: Kill Points
Deployment: Pointy Hammer and Anvil
I deep struck the Tyrants, Neophytes, and Mind Control Magus. The carnifexes deployed on the line. He deep struck the Commanders, and infiltrated the Ghost Kiel. The rest of his army was clustered in the middles except for the Broadsides and Hammer head which were spread out.
I got 1st turn, smited the Ghostkiel to death, used a CP to cult ambush in some neophytes with the mind control magus. Neophytes shoot some drones to death. Magus mind controls the Riptide, and shoots and kills a broadside, and then I cast The Horror on the Riptide. Dakka fexes kill 2 of the fire warrior teams. Cannonfexes kill the 2 FW crisis suites, and some drones. He double nova charged the Riptide, and moved it forward aggressively. Shoots and does NOTHING. Not quite nothing. 4 wounds to a carnifex, and killed 7 of the neophytes. Turn 2 I smite the Riptide down to 2. Drop the Tyrants, and kill the hammerhead, and remaining broadsides. I actually didn't even shoot my carnifexes at him, because I didn't want to run up the score. His turn, he drops the commanders, and kills a carnifex. My turn 3 I table him.
The only unit I lost this game was a single carnifex. KP total 1997 to 117. Holy cow.
Round 2:
Spoiler:
vs Tyranids: 17 Zoenthropes, Neurothrope, Malanthrope. 3 Behemouth Tyrants, Patriarch, Magus, 3 Neophytes.
Mission: ITC champs with 6 objectives.
Deployment: Pointy Dawn of War.
Mildly a mirror match. Because He didn't have much shooting I deployed everything. Screened the front of my army with the neophytes, deployted the carnifexes back a bit. Spread out my characters so he couldn't linebreaker bombard. He deployed in a cluster in the middle but deep struck his hive tyrants, patriarch, Magus, and neophytes.
He goes 1st. Deep strikes in the Tyrants. Smite kill a bunch of neophytes. I'm able to deny a couple spells, and he fails a couple. He shoots a unit of neophytes down to 1, and I use CP's to auto pass moral so he doesn't kill a unit or get 1st strike. On my turn I send my Tyrants forward aggressively. He has 1 unit of zoenthropes up front screening his warlord neurothrope. I manage to smite 2 of the 6 dead. A couple dakkafexes have to shoot one of his tyrants because they can't see the zoeys, but everything else shoots those zoeys, and I kill them down to 2 which isn't enough to prevent me from charging in with the flyrants, and killing the neurothrope warlord, then I fight again, and kill the Malanthrope. Pretty intense.
Turn 2, he brings in the neophytes, spends 2 to bring in the patriarch close to my warlord. I left a little zone open in my backfield just big enough for the patriarch, and he rolled a 5 on cult ambush. Lots of attempts to cast spells, but without the reroll 1's, and with all my denies, he barely gets any off. His flyrants go aggressively after my carnifexes. They kill 2, and tie up 2 more. Patriarch fails to kill my warlord. I bring one flyrant back to mess with his, and try to smite a 5 wound flyrant off of a Carnifex, but only end up doing 4 to it. Dakkafex kills his neophytes. Cannonfex puts 5 wounds on a flyrant. I charge in with a fex hoping to mortal wound the last off of his flyrant, but fail to do so, so I use the behomouth strat to charge my tyrant into his and the patriarch. I mortal wound the flyrant to death, then fight and kill the Patriarch. My other 2 flyrants Kill a zoey each in CC.
Turn 3, He leaves combat with his zoeys, and smite one flyrant down by 5 wounds. His Tyrants charge my tyrant, but One is Horrored. And they only do 3 wounds to me thanks to some clutch invuls, and a reroll. I swing back and kill the wounded flyrant. It's looking bleak. He is down to 8 zoeys, a wounded Flyrant, and some neophytes. I smite his flyrant down a few more wounds. Then shoot and kill 3 of his remaining zoeys My flyrant engaged with is flyrant finish it. Another flyrant kills a zoey. Another flyrant kills some rippers to hold 5 of the 6 objectives. He's got very little left at this point and concedes.
Final score 35 to 11 me. Wow. I thought this was a really bad matchup for me. But those neophytes screening me for a turn, and getting his warlord early was huge.
Round 3:
Spoiler:
VS Knights: 1st or 2nd best knights in the ITC last year. Crusaders (Gatling, RFBC), Gallant, Styx, 2 Taurox Primes (Gatling), 3 units of plasma scions, 2 Tempestor primes, 1 Command squad with plasma.
Mission: ITC champs with 5 objectives.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
I deploy my carnifexes a little deeper than normal to make sure he cant turn 1 charge me. Characters behind them. Deep strike my flyrants, neophytes, and Mind Control magus. He Deploys the knights in 1 corner, and the Tauroxes full of scions in the other, and a few scions in deep strike. For the 1st time, I don't get the +1 to go 1st. He wins the roll off, and decides to go 1st. Which is fine by me, because most of my stuff is out of range, and he can't charge. me. Tauroxes make me take a couple saves, but I make them. Knights fire into a dakkafex. I make most of my safes, and it loses 2 wounds. Yes. his entire army only did 2 WOUNDS to me on turn 1. I spread out my carnifexes a bit. Try to run my magus into range to mass hypnosis a knight, but roll a 1, so I use him to screen my backfield against scion deep strikers. Because he moved up in a clusters His Styx and Gallant are right next to each other (base to base). So I spend a CP to roll 2 dice on cult ambush for a magus and some neophytes. Roll a 5. I bring them in right in front of the knights, move the neophytesm d6" to form a solid wall connecting 2 pieces of terrain and movement blocking the center of the table. I fail mind control with a reroll. BOO. Smites take a few wounds off each knight, and I use the Horror on the Crusader. My dakkafexes have range problems, and have to split their fire between the knights. But they do decent work, putting a few wounds on each knight with pathogenic slime getting me 6 wounds on the Styx. Cannonfexes try to kill a Taurox and fail. BOO. Still, I held more, because he is so tightly clustered in the middle.
Turn 2, he dumps scions out of the tauroxes, and plink a couple wounds off of carnifexes. The Crusader moves around the terrain to line up a charge, but the Styx, and Gallant just move up to my movement blocking neophytes. He shoots the Crusader into a carnifex hitting on 5's, and does no damage, but a Taurox prime manages to kill my neophyte screen. Apparently the Gallant gives a +2 charge aura. Turning his changers into a 7", 9", and 8". He makes all 3.. So the Styx charges and kills a carnifex. The Gallant charges and kills my mind control Magus. BOO. And the Crusader charges 2 dakkafexes, and does nothing. I decide the flyrants are going to kill the gallant. I spread out the carnifexes on objectives, fall back from the crusader, bring in some neophytes on objectives. Smite a bunch of wounds off the knights. Put Mass Hypnosis and the Horror on the Crusader. Put Paroxism on the Gallant. Dakka fexes kill all the scions. Cannon fexes kill a Taurox. The Flyrants all multicharge the Crusaders and gallant. Apparently he can spend a CP to turn knights into tau, so his Styx gets to overwatch all 3 flyrants as they charge. Doesn't do much to me. Flyrant 1 takes the Gallant down to 5. Flyrant 2 takes it down to 1 HP. UG! Flyrant 3 splits it's attacks on the Gallant and the Crusader, and finishes the gallant (8 wounds) and does some to the crusader bringing it down to 11. The Gallant uses a strategem to fight after it dies, and beats a flyrant down to 2. Crusader takes another flyrant down to 6. I only have 5 CP left. I opt not to fight again which is a mistake.
Turn 3, he leaves combat. Deep strikes in his remaining scions. They kill one unit of neophytes, and take a wound off a flyrant. His Styx fails to hurt the badly wounded flyrant thanks to making a bunch of invuls and a reroll. Crusader has to finish it. Styx and crusader both charge in. Styx kills a wounded flyrant, then I interrupt to take the Crusader down to 1. It swings back and does nothing. On my turn I put all of the smites into the Styx, and kill it. But it uses a strategem to shoot after it dies, and kills my last flyrant. Dakkafex kills the Crusader. Other dakkafexes kill scions. I have one squad of neophytes in position to kill the final scions ready to shoot, and then charge them, but we get a hard dice down.
At this point. All he had left was a Taurox prime, and 5 scions that were about to get killed by neophytes. So I would have easily tabled him at the bottom of 4.
Final score: 17 to 13. I HATE, HATE, HATE!!!!! 2 hour rounds at 2,000 points. It is nutty to expect games to finish if either player is marginally slow. We only needed 10 more minutes to finish this one, and I did finish the other two, so I have confirmed that my list plays much, much, much faster than previous lists I've run.
Final Thoughts:
Spoiler:
There were 2 3-0 players. I got #1 overall by 7 battle points.
Dear lord was my list effective. Way, way beyond my wildest expectations. That being said I didn't really face the meta list. So I'm not positive I have something.
I've won RTT's before, but I've never won them by effectively tabling all of my opponents by turn 4.
Dakkafexes are better anti-tank than I gave them credit for. The one who uses pathogenic slime normally does 4 to 6 wounds. I thought I had a list with durability that wouldn't die easily, but I underestimated the effective offensive output. These 3 tourney games are in keeping with my practice games. I'm so happy to have found a low model count army that I think is effective.
Sounds good. You have MRC on the Flyrants I assume?
Not regretting taking Behemoth over Kraken?
Regarding Pathogenic Slime, at which point do you use it? Pre-saves, or post-saves? I know some players (like Juice from The Long War) pop the strat after the opponent has failed his armour/invo saves, which I think is incorrect. If you break it down, you can choose to roll saves one at a time, which is what you would want to do if a Tyranid opponent waited to pop Pathogenic Slime on you.
I like Behemoth, especially if you are DSing, AG with an 8" charge with re-rolls and a CP re-roll (I know you cant use both at once, but the 2 options) you can easily get a Flyrant into combat.
Regarding Pathogenic Slime, at which point do you use it? Pre-saves, or post-saves? I know some players (like Juice from The Long War) pop the strat after the opponent has failed his armour/invo saves, which I think is incorrect. If you break it down, you can choose to roll saves one at a time, which is what you would want to do if a Tyranid opponent waited to pop Pathogenic Slime on you.
Certainly worth considering do you want to slow down game by using it post-saves if you are hard pressed on time. You do that once, opponent decides he's not fast-rolling(which is optional) so will roll them one at a time. Which negates your post-save advantage quite a bit AND takes more time. If he struggled with the 2h 2k limit anyway...
SHUPPET wrote: I think the main point is that it's not a counter to the Knight lists or the meta that's running around bodying Nids right now
Rose's ETC list has ~230 mostly fearless bodies, backed up by Smites. That list won 19-1 against the French Ynnari list (and winner of the singles event, with a perfect 100/100 score).
Sean Nayden said team USA were surprised by the Nick Rose Tyranid list themselves but in testing found it to be strong and it was one of their strongest choices for when they wanted a win, along with Kopachs Imperium soup. Andrew Gonyo's AdMech was who they threw under the bus when they needed to do that.
Rose and Kopach clashed in the Nova Invitational semifinals were Kopach edged him out, hence it 'lost to Knights'. To be fair Rose squashed the same-ish list in the quarter finals. I don't know what he faced in the Open tournament.
Edit - Rose's list was the second highest scoring of all ETC lists, when it comes to weighted leaderboard (strenght of schedual, or Dorner points). #1 list in ETC in that category, was the Polish Tyranid Genestealer spam.
SHUPPET wrote: I think the main point is that it's not a counter to the Knight lists or the meta that's running around bodying Nids right now
Rose's ETC list has ~230 mostly fearless bodies, backed up by Smites. That list won 19-1 against the French Ynnari list (and winner of the singles event, with a perfect 100/100 score).
Sean Nayden said team USA were surprised by the Nick Rose Tyranid list themselves but in testing found it to be strong and it was one of their strongest choices for when they wanted a win, along with Kopachs Imperium soup. Andrew Gonyo's AdMech was who they threw under the bus when they needed to do that.
I know - I was the one who said this first. You just quoted my own words from a few pages ago back to me lol
here and here:
SHUPPET wrote: Tony's was designed to be their all star, and every other list came second to that, and that was their process in building their composition. They were surprised by the Nick Rose Tyranid list themselves but in testing found it to be strong and on their day it was one of their strongest choices for when they wanted a win.
This is all from the mouth of team captain Sean Nayden BTW.
SHUPPET wrote: Sean Nayden said that their IG/BA/Knight list and that Tyranid list, were their two powerhouses all day who they just threw at lists knowing that they'd grab a win. Andrew Gonyo's AdMech was who they threw to wolves when they needed to do that.
I know the list is strong, I've been saying that. What I was saying is that it may not be enough to really turn a losing match-up upside down. I'm also not saying that it's NOT able to do this either, just that the evidence given for it at the time didn't really support the conclusion being presented.
tag8833 wrote: Took out my Carnifex list to a 20 person RTT today. It was a Knight heavy event. 22 knights present (though 5 of those are armigers)
Sounds good. You have MRC on the Flyrants I assume?
Not regretting taking Behemoth over Kraken?
Regarding Pathogenic Slime, at which point do you use it? Pre-saves, or post-saves? I know some players (like Juice from The Long War) pop the strat after the opponent has failed his armour/invo saves, which I think is incorrect. If you break it down, you can choose to roll saves one at a time, which is what you would want to do if a Tyranid opponent waited to pop Pathogenic Slime on you.
I do run MRC on all 3 flyrants. There is no doubt that Behemoth is better than Kraken for the army I'm running. I need to deep strike those flyrants if my opponent has shooting. For instance against the Knights, if I had been Kraken I don't kill the Gallant, and have to drop the flyrants 1/2 way across the table to prevent them from being murdered by the knights.
I do use pathogenic slime after I see how many armor saves my opponent has failed. It happens "In the shooting phase" I don't know why fast dice would ever be an issue with that. Far as I could tell I could shoot carnifex A, then shoot carnifex B then go back and use pathogenic slime on Carnifex A so long as it is still the shooting phase. I don't do that for added bookkeeping, but I don't know why I couldn't. I'm pretty confident that is how GW plays it on their Twitch stream as well. I might be imagining it, but I remember a time that Kari used it on an Exocrine after saves were taken. There was discussion in chat afterwards, and she justified it the way I just did: "It was still the shooting phase".
tag8833 wrote: I do use pathogenic slime after I see how many armor saves my opponent has failed. It happens "In the shooting phase" I don't know why fast dice would ever be an issue with that. Far as I could tell I could shoot carnifex A, then shoot carnifex B then go back and use pathogenic slime on Carnifex A so long as it is still the shooting phase. I don't do that for added bookkeeping, but I don't know why I couldn't. I'm pretty confident that is how GW plays it on their Twitch stream as well. I might be imagining it, but I remember a time that Kari used it on an Exocrine after saves were taken. There was discussion in chat afterwards, and she justified it the way I just did: "It was still the shooting phase".
So if you do that this is what smart opponent will do. He declares he doesn't do fast rolling. So he rolls save. Fail. "Do you use strategem?". If you do then he can roll rest and it's same as if you rolled before. If you don't use...Well that's 1 wound that didn't benefit from strategem.
And if you start shooting with carnifex B then carnifex A is over and damage is marked. You can use it but doesn't change damage.
So yeah you can use after saves but if you don't use it after failed save before opponent rolls next that damage is already done and recorded. Won't be boosted retroactively.
tag8833 wrote: I do use pathogenic slime after I see how many armor saves my opponent has failed. It happens "In the shooting phase" I don't know why fast dice would ever be an issue with that. Far as I could tell I could shoot carnifex A, then shoot carnifex B then go back and use pathogenic slime on Carnifex A so long as it is still the shooting phase. I don't do that for added bookkeeping, but I don't know why I couldn't. I'm pretty confident that is how GW plays it on their Twitch stream as well. I might be imagining it, but I remember a time that Kari used it on an Exocrine after saves were taken. There was discussion in chat afterwards, and she justified it the way I just did: "It was still the shooting phase".
So if you do that this is what smart opponent will do. He declares he doesn't do fast rolling. So he rolls save. Fail. "Do you use strategem?". If you do then he can roll rest and it's same as if you rolled before. If you don't use...Well that's 1 wound that didn't benefit from strategem.
And if you start shooting with carnifex B then carnifex A is over and damage is marked. You can use it but doesn't change damage.
So yeah you can use after saves but if you don't use it after failed save before opponent rolls next that damage is already done and recorded. Won't be boosted retroactively.
This. Declare no fast rolling. One failed save - 'do you want to pop your strat? No?'. Rinse and repeat. It looks to me as the situations were I as a Tyranid player most would want to pop this strat are 'Gotcha!' situations that can be avoided just by rolling saves one at a time. Otherwise it's a gamble for the Tyranid player.
SHUPPET wrote: I think the main point is that it's not a counter to the Knight lists or the meta that's running around bodying Nids right now
Rose's ETC list has ~230 mostly fearless bodies, backed up by Smites. That list won 19-1 against the French Ynnari list (and winner of the singles event, with a perfect 100/100 score).
Sean Nayden said team USA were surprised by the Nick Rose Tyranid list themselves but in testing found it to be strong and it was one of their strongest choices for when they wanted a win, along with Kopachs Imperium soup. Andrew Gonyo's AdMech was who they threw under the bus when they needed to do that.
I know - I was the one who said this first. You just quoted my own words from a few pages ago back to me lol
Haha, yeah I lost track were it came from. Don't think it's intended as a Knight killer tho.
tag8833 wrote: I do use pathogenic slime after I see how many armor saves my opponent has failed. It happens "In the shooting phase" I don't know why fast dice would ever be an issue with that. Far as I could tell I could shoot carnifex A, then shoot carnifex B then go back and use pathogenic slime on Carnifex A so long as it is still the shooting phase. I don't do that for added bookkeeping, but I don't know why I couldn't. I'm pretty confident that is how GW plays it on their Twitch stream as well. I might be imagining it, but I remember a time that Kari used it on an Exocrine after saves were taken. There was discussion in chat afterwards, and she justified it the way I just did: "It was still the shooting phase".
So if you do that this is what smart opponent will do. He declares he doesn't do fast rolling. So he rolls save. Fail. "Do you use strategem?". If you do then he can roll rest and it's same as if you rolled before. If you don't use...Well that's 1 wound that didn't benefit from strategem.
And if you start shooting with carnifex B then carnifex A is over and damage is marked. You can use it but doesn't change damage.
So yeah you can use after saves but if you don't use it after failed save before opponent rolls next that damage is already done and recorded. Won't be boosted retroactively.
I don't agree with your RAW interpretation, and wrote a long response to it, that doesn't belong in this thread and should be in YMDC instead.
Functionally, I'm just going to wait until an Opponent makes that sort of argument, and then let a TO rule over it. It's definitely a point where reasonable people could disagree. I included it in my email that I sent to the FAQ team as an item that I would like clarified. I used to clear with TO's that I could use it after saves, but everyone always said yes, so I don't bother any more. I've been challenged about it in games, but my opponents always read the stratagem and agree with my interpretation. If someone wants to get really gamey about it and try to roll saves one at a time, I'll either let them because 1 or 2 damage usually doesn't matter that much or call a judge.
My opinion is that the Exocrine and Tyrannofex need a bit of help right now. Hive Guard outshine them so dramatically thanks to the Single-Minded Annihilation strat. The Rupture cannon TFex especially since it is so abysmal at killing imperial knights which should be something it does well. So I would love to see the strategem clarified and changed to this:
"Before a TYRANID MONSTER shoots in the shooting phase, use this strategem to DOUBLE the damage done by it's attacks for the remainder of the phase."
With that change I'd still use it, and it would improve Tyranid Army diversity substantially. People might start looking at the gun beast monsters again instead of only playing Hive Guard.
ETA. If we made the change above, and Onslaught let you shoot after falling back, it would completely fix both the TFex and Exocrine in my opinion.
GSC Battallion (+5 CP)
Magus Psychic Powers: Mind Control
Magus Psychic Powers: Mass Hypnosis
Neophytes
Neophytes
Neophytes
Round 1:
Spoiler:
vs Tau. Player new to tourneys. Riptide, ghostkiel, 3 Broadsides, 16 drones, 15 fire warriors, cadre fireblade, 2 Tau commanders, Hammerhead, 2 FW Crisis Suites.
Mission: Kill Points
Deployment: Pointy Hammer and Anvil
I deep struck the Tyrants, Neophytes, and Mind Control Magus. The carnifexes deployed on the line. He deep struck the Commanders, and infiltrated the Ghost Kiel. The rest of his army was clustered in the middles except for the Broadsides and Hammer head which were spread out.
I got 1st turn, smited the Ghostkiel to death, used a CP to cult ambush in some neophytes with the mind control magus. Neophytes shoot some drones to death. Magus mind controls the Riptide, and shoots and kills a broadside, and then I cast The Horror on the Riptide. Dakka fexes kill 2 of the fire warrior teams. Cannonfexes kill the 2 FW crisis suites, and some drones. He double nova charged the Riptide, and moved it forward aggressively. Shoots and does NOTHING. Not quite nothing. 4 wounds to a carnifex, and killed 7 of the neophytes. Turn 2 I smite the Riptide down to 2. Drop the Tyrants, and kill the hammerhead, and remaining broadsides. I actually didn't even shoot my carnifexes at him, because I didn't want to run up the score. His turn, he drops the commanders, and kills a carnifex. My turn 3 I table him.
The only unit I lost this game was a single carnifex. KP total 1997 to 117. Holy cow.
Round 2:
Spoiler:
vs Tyranids: 17 Zoenthropes, Neurothrope, Malanthrope. 3 Behemouth Tyrants, Patriarch, Magus, 3 Neophytes.
Mission: ITC champs with 6 objectives.
Deployment: Pointy Dawn of War.
Mildly a mirror match. Because He didn't have much shooting I deployed everything. Screened the front of my army with the neophytes, deployted the carnifexes back a bit. Spread out my characters so he couldn't linebreaker bombard. He deployed in a cluster in the middle but deep struck his hive tyrants, patriarch, Magus, and neophytes.
He goes 1st. Deep strikes in the Tyrants. Smite kill a bunch of neophytes. I'm able to deny a couple spells, and he fails a couple. He shoots a unit of neophytes down to 1, and I use CP's to auto pass moral so he doesn't kill a unit or get 1st strike. On my turn I send my Tyrants forward aggressively. He has 1 unit of zoenthropes up front screening his warlord neurothrope. I manage to smite 2 of the 6 dead. A couple dakkafexes have to shoot one of his tyrants because they can't see the zoeys, but everything else shoots those zoeys, and I kill them down to 2 which isn't enough to prevent me from charging in with the flyrants, and killing the neurothrope warlord, then I fight again, and kill the Malanthrope. Pretty intense.
Turn 2, he brings in the neophytes, spends 2 to bring in the patriarch close to my warlord. I left a little zone open in my backfield just big enough for the patriarch, and he rolled a 5 on cult ambush. Lots of attempts to cast spells, but without the reroll 1's, and with all my denies, he barely gets any off. His flyrants go aggressively after my carnifexes. They kill 2, and tie up 2 more. Patriarch fails to kill my warlord. I bring one flyrant back to mess with his, and try to smite a 5 wound flyrant off of a Carnifex, but only end up doing 4 to it. Dakkafex kills his neophytes. Cannonfex puts 5 wounds on a flyrant. I charge in with a fex hoping to mortal wound the last off of his flyrant, but fail to do so, so I use the behomouth strat to charge my tyrant into his and the patriarch. I mortal wound the flyrant to death, then fight and kill the Patriarch. My other 2 flyrants Kill a zoey each in CC.
Turn 3, He leaves combat with his zoeys, and smite one flyrant down by 5 wounds. His Tyrants charge my tyrant, but One is Horrored. And they only do 3 wounds to me thanks to some clutch invuls, and a reroll. I swing back and kill the wounded flyrant. It's looking bleak. He is down to 8 zoeys, a wounded Flyrant, and some neophytes. I smite his flyrant down a few more wounds. Then shoot and kill 3 of his remaining zoeys My flyrant engaged with is flyrant finish it. Another flyrant kills a zoey. Another flyrant kills some rippers to hold 5 of the 6 objectives. He's got very little left at this point and concedes.
Final score 35 to 11 me. Wow. I thought this was a really bad matchup for me. But those neophytes screening me for a turn, and getting his warlord early was huge.
Round 3:
Spoiler:
VS Knights: 1st or 2nd best knights in the ITC last year. Crusaders (Gatling, RFBC), Gallant, Styx, 2 Taurox Primes (Gatling), 3 units of plasma scions, 2 Tempestor primes, 1 Command squad with plasma.
Mission: ITC champs with 5 objectives.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
I deploy my carnifexes a little deeper than normal to make sure he cant turn 1 charge me. Characters behind them. Deep strike my flyrants, neophytes, and Mind Control magus. He Deploys the knights in 1 corner, and the Tauroxes full of scions in the other, and a few scions in deep strike. For the 1st time, I don't get the +1 to go 1st. He wins the roll off, and decides to go 1st. Which is fine by me, because most of my stuff is out of range, and he can't charge. me. Tauroxes make me take a couple saves, but I make them. Knights fire into a dakkafex. I make most of my safes, and it loses 2 wounds. Yes. his entire army only did 2 WOUNDS to me on turn 1. I spread out my carnifexes a bit. Try to run my magus into range to mass hypnosis a knight, but roll a 1, so I use him to screen my backfield against scion deep strikers. Because he moved up in a clusters His Styx and Gallant are right next to each other (base to base). So I spend a CP to roll 2 dice on cult ambush for a magus and some neophytes. Roll a 5. I bring them in right in front of the knights, move the neophytesm d6" to form a solid wall connecting 2 pieces of terrain and movement blocking the center of the table. I fail mind control with a reroll. BOO. Smites take a few wounds off each knight, and I use the Horror on the Crusader. My dakkafexes have range problems, and have to split their fire between the knights. But they do decent work, putting a few wounds on each knight with pathogenic slime getting me 6 wounds on the Styx. Cannonfexes try to kill a Taurox and fail. BOO. Still, I held more, because he is so tightly clustered in the middle.
Turn 2, he dumps scions out of the tauroxes, and plink a couple wounds off of carnifexes. The Crusader moves around the terrain to line up a charge, but the Styx, and Gallant just move up to my movement blocking neophytes. He shoots the Crusader into a carnifex hitting on 5's, and does no damage, but a Taurox prime manages to kill my neophyte screen. Apparently the Gallant gives a +2 charge aura. Turning his changers into a 7", 9", and 8". He makes all 3.. So the Styx charges and kills a carnifex. The Gallant charges and kills my mind control Magus. BOO. And the Crusader charges 2 dakkafexes, and does nothing. I decide the flyrants are going to kill the gallant. I spread out the carnifexes on objectives, fall back from the crusader, bring in some neophytes on objectives. Smite a bunch of wounds off the knights. Put Mass Hypnosis and the Horror on the Crusader. Put Paroxism on the Gallant. Dakka fexes kill all the scions. Cannon fexes kill a Taurox. The Flyrants all multicharge the Crusaders and gallant. Apparently he can spend a CP to turn knights into tau, so his Styx gets to overwatch all 3 flyrants as they charge. Doesn't do much to me. Flyrant 1 takes the Gallant down to 5. Flyrant 2 takes it down to 1 HP. UG! Flyrant 3 splits it's attacks on the Gallant and the Crusader, and finishes the gallant (8 wounds) and does some to the crusader bringing it down to 11. The Gallant uses a strategem to fight after it dies, and beats a flyrant down to 2. Crusader takes another flyrant down to 6. I only have 5 CP left. I opt not to fight again which is a mistake.
Turn 3, he leaves combat. Deep strikes in his remaining scions. They kill one unit of neophytes, and take a wound off a flyrant. His Styx fails to hurt the badly wounded flyrant thanks to making a bunch of invuls and a reroll. Crusader has to finish it. Styx and crusader both charge in. Styx kills a wounded flyrant, then I interrupt to take the Crusader down to 1. It swings back and does nothing. On my turn I put all of the smites into the Styx, and kill it. But it uses a strategem to shoot after it dies, and kills my last flyrant. Dakkafex kills the Crusader. Other dakkafexes kill scions. I have one squad of neophytes in position to kill the final scions ready to shoot, and then charge them, but we get a hard dice down.
At this point. All he had left was a Taurox prime, and 5 scions that were about to get killed by neophytes. So I would have easily tabled him at the bottom of 4.
Final score: 17 to 13. I HATE, HATE, HATE!!!!! 2 hour rounds at 2,000 points. It is nutty to expect games to finish if either player is marginally slow. We only needed 10 more minutes to finish this one, and I did finish the other two, so I have confirmed that my list plays much, much, much faster than previous lists I've run.
Final Thoughts:
Spoiler:
There were 2 3-0 players. I got #1 overall by 7 battle points.
Dear lord was my list effective. Way, way beyond my wildest expectations. That being said I didn't really face the meta list. So I'm not positive I have something.
I've won RTT's before, but I've never won them by effectively tabling all of my opponents by turn 4.
Dakkafexes are better anti-tank than I gave them credit for. The one who uses pathogenic slime normally does 4 to 6 wounds. I thought I had a list with durability that wouldn't die easily, but I underestimated the effective offensive output. These 3 tourney games are in keeping with my practice games. I'm so happy to have found a low model count army that I think is effective.
I just listened to the Bif podcast and heard Nick Nanavati talking about the exact topic of the horde Nid list. His opinion is that it's a very strong list, but the Guard/Knight meta list has natural options to deal with it, with their own mini horde of S4 2A Catachans. His words about the GSC detachment specifically as well: "You take mind control, and you're like 'Mindcontrolling a Castellan this sounds so cool!', but I feel like with all the screens and the pressure, you never actually get there. When you do it's like... oh my god." Strong in theory, but inconsistent in practice. Basically, he just mirrored everything I said the other day, so I guess that's a pretty strong perspective there.
A returning player looking to jump back into 8th edition with none other than Nidzillas!
Now I have very little knowledge in list building so any help would be great.
Spoiler:
Hive Fleet: KRAKEN - Battalion Detachment -
HQ:
Hive Tyrant - Warlord
+ Wings
+ Monstrous Rending Claws
+ Two Devourers with Brainleech Worms
+ Adrenal Glands / Toxin Sans
* Powers: Catalysyt / The Horror
* Chameleonic Mutation
* Instinctive Killer
Tyranid Prime + Boneswords
+ Deathspitter
+ Adrenal Glands / Toxin Sans
TROOPS:
3 units of 3x Tyranid Warriors * All Warriors have:
+ Bonesword & Deathspitters
+ Adrenal Glands / Toxin Sans
ELITES:
Hive Guards + 3x Hive Guards with Impaler Cannon
HEAVY SUPPORT:
Tyrannofex + Rupture Cannon
That puts me at 992points.
Wasn't too sure if the Hive Fleet is going to help overall but I thought it'd be best for the Hive Tyrant.
Our LGS is starting up a small league and looking to enter with this if it seems decent.
Was wondering if anyone could suggest changes before I make actual purchases
A returning player looking to jump back into 8th edition with none other than Nidzillas!
Now I have very little knowledge in list building so any help would be great.
Spoiler:
Hive Fleet: KRAKEN - Battalion Detachment -
HQ:
Hive Tyrant - Warlord
+ Wings
+ Monstrous Rending Claws
+ Two Devourers with Brainleech Worms
+ Adrenal Glands / Toxin Sans
* Powers: Catalysyt / The Horror
* Chameleonic Mutation
* Instinctive Killer
Tyranid Prime + Boneswords
+ Deathspitter
+ Adrenal Glands / Toxin Sans
TROOPS:
3 units of 3x Tyranid Warriors * All Warriors have:
+ Bonesword & Deathspitters
+ Adrenal Glands / Toxin Sans
ELITES:
Hive Guards + 3x Hive Guards with Impaler Cannon
HEAVY SUPPORT:
Tyrannofex + Rupture Cannon
That puts me at 992points.
Wasn't too sure if the Hive Fleet is going to help overall but I thought it'd be best for the Hive Tyrant.
Our LGS is starting up a small league and looking to enter with this if it seems decent.
Was wondering if anyone could suggest changes before I make actual purchases
Thank you!
Well, if you plan on running lots of Warriors, take a good look at Leviathan. Depending on your "meta" Kronos would work well because you look to be a mostly shooting list. Jormongandr is also a strong choice for a "Gun-Nids" list and it gives a strong Beta strike option when you add units (Tunnelers) Good luck! And welcome (back) to the Hive Mind!
With that much stationary shooting and synapse, yeah Jorm or Leviathan would be better than Kraken for you.
A malanthrope or squad of venomthropes would help survivability for future purchases. Also, consider the acid spray over the rupture cannon for your Tyrannofex. Synergizes with your other gun, frees up some points and it’snasty against hordes and big things alike.
jifel wrote: Yeah the Command Point Battery is about to get straight up annihilated, watch. I expect it to get hit by the end of the month. I am unsure of how many points changes we will see, they may try to restrict the batteries and see if that tones down the overperforming Imperium units instead of just adding 20 points to each of them.
They really just need to say that if you take allies you do not get warlord traits or relics, that'll quash a lot of the stupidity of the IG battery being in every single army.
GSC Battallion (+5 CP) Magus Psychic Powers: Mind Control Magus Psychic Powers: Mass Hypnosis
Neophytes Neophytes Neophytes
Round 1 (Titan):
Spoiler:
Opponent playing Revenent Titan. 2K points. One Model army. Mission is 4 end of game objectives.
He got 1st turn. He killed 1 carnifex, wounded a 2nd. He was so far away only my Venom cannons could get to him, but I did do 6 wounds. Turn 2, he realized he couldn't shoot me to death, so he moved towards me. Shot one carnifex to death, charged and killed a 2nd. I decide this is the turn so everything moves into optimum range. I cast all 8 possible smites, and fail all 8. But that doesn't matter because my shooting takes it down to 3 wounds, and my flyrants assault and finish it.
Total losses 3 carnifexes.
Win Tyranids.
Round 2 (Tzeentch)
Spoiler:
Opponent playing bloodletter bomb, Tzangor bomb. Chaos Predator. 2 Chaos las vindicators, 20 of the archers on disc, Airimon, 3 oblits, chaos lord with jp, and some heralds.
Mission was kill points (the points value of units killed).
He deployed his tzangors. Got 1st turn. He killed 1 carnifex, wounded a 2nd. On my turn I kill around 20 Tzangors. Mind control a vindicator to shoot at the pred (6 wounds), kill some cultists, and make his bow guys -2 to hit (which really frustrated him).
He drops his bloodletter bomb and kill a carnifex, and traps another. I deny basically all of his psychics. His oblists throw all their shots into a neurothrope and fail to kill it. On my turn I drop everything. one unit of neophytes rolls a 6 so they move to assault his tanks. I assign each tyrant a herald that I expect them to kill. Make the Bloodletters -2 to hit, smite a bunch of stuff dead, and shoot the rest of the tzangors, and 1 of the oblists dead, but all 3 flyrants fail their charge. Thankfully, the neophytes lock down the tank.
He moves a bunch of stuff back to try and get my neophytes off his tanks which he does. He shoots the bow guys, and oblits into a flyrant, and fail to kill it. Khorn herald assaults a neurothrope and fails to kill it. Make the bow guys and the bloodletters each -1, smite a bunch of bloodletters dead, and the herald. Charge airimond, and 2 tanks, but fail to kill him. Smite the chaos lord to death, charge the oblits, and kill 1. Shoot about 1/2 of the bow guys to death, and kill a bunch more bloodletters in combat.
It's basically over for him. What offense he has, he puts into a wounded flyrant who survives with 1 wound. I finish the bow guys, the oblit, the blood letters. So he's still got a arimond, 2 tzeech heralds, and his tanks. We have to call it on turn 4 due to time, but it wasn't going to get better for him.
I killed 1154 points of his army. He killed 583 of mine, so I win handily. His total kills: 30 neophytes, Magus, 3 Carnifexes.
Round 3 (Castellan #1):
Spoiler:
He had: Castellan, Gallant, Tank Commander, Manticore, 60 guardsmen, 2 Helverins.
Mission: The Relic (Yes unmodified relic played at a GT)
He got 1st turn, I deployed kinda deep because I was afraid of his Gallant. He moves the gallant towards me, moves guardsment onto the relic, and then usese move move move to get them back in his zone. Shooting kills 1 carnifex and wounds a 2nd. He used his missile to kill my mass hypnosis magus (boo!) He is burning through command points, but regenning them all via CP Farm. I go, and since the Gallant is in my zone I drop 2 tryants next to it. I bring in my mind control magus next to the helverins. Fail mind control. I shoot the relic holding squad, and 1 other squad of guardsmen to death. Shooting, and smites take the gallant down to 3, and the 2 tyrants finish it in CC.
His next turn another infantry squad picks up the relic and uses move move move to move it deeper into his zone. He kills my neophytes, but the mind control magus survives, backs his castellan up, and kills a flyrant, and wounds a 2nd. On my turn I drop in my final flyrant next to the helverins, but make a mistake and put him more than 24 from the Castellan so I can't use the horror on it. Neophytes come in by Helverins, and roll a 6. The rest of my army move up. Kill 2 more infantry squads, Kill a Helverin, take the other down to 2, and charge it with neophytes. Magus fails mind control again. The Tyrant who suvived last turn gets into combat with a company commander, the unit with the relic, and the tank commander. I thow all my attacks at the company commander, but he makes all his invuls.
I realizes we are running low on time, so start urging my opponent to speed up, but he is a very diligent player who likes to measure each guardsmen he moves, and doesn't want to be rushed. He falls back with the relic to put it basically in the back corner of his deployment zone. Falls back with the Tank commander, shoots the castellan and kills the wounded flyrant, and hurts the unwounded one. On my turn, my Magus gets within 12" of the Castellan mind controls it, and shoots it at the manticore, and the Tank commander. I fail to kill either, because my dice are cold. Uggg. I kill the last of the infantry, and the other helverin. And I charge my neophytes into a company commander, trapping him so that he can't fall back.
We have about 10 minutes left in the round, and My opponent says we don't have enough time for another turn. While I agree with him, I don't think we need to take a full turn. I have 5 neophytes left that can't be shot, and for me the only question is if he can kill them in assault with his company commander and the knight. He says he plans to shoot the flyrant. I say "Sure, you shot the flyrant, and it died". He insists that he doesn't play partial turns. I think he's got the game anyways, but in case I can pull off a miracle with the neophytes, I really want him to roll out the close combat. We are both fairly set in our positions, so I call a judge. Judge is fairly harsh, tells my opponent "You can refuse to roll it out, but if you do, you are being an a-hole." That is harsher than I would have been if I were the judge. The judge in an effort to keep my opponent happy gives us a 15 minute extension to the round.
So my opponent does his movement phase, and I realize that between his two tanks he can just movement block me, and I can't get the relic anyways. So I concede.
I have a few thoughts on this game. #1 We ended on turn 3 (top of 4 technically). That isn't great. #2 He had a 1 wound manticore, a 2-3 wound tank commander, a company commander, and a castellan with 24 wounds left. Meanwhile I had 6 carnifexes, all my neurothropes and a magus left. I was going to table him. Definitely not turn 4. Probably not turn 5, but by turn 6, he would have been tabled. #3 The Relic sucks as a tourney mission. #4 He ended going undefeated (2nd place). Good on him.
His total kills: 25 neophytes, Magus, 1 Carnifex, 3 hive tyrants.
Round 4 (Castellan and Friends).
Spoiler:
He had Renegade Castellan, Renegaed knight with 2 RFBC's. Renegade knight with 2 Gatling, and renegade knight with chainsword and gatling.
Mission was kill points. With a gimmick that doesn't really matter.
He got 1st turn. He deployed super deep. Shot and killed a carnifex, and wounded another. On my turn, I moved foward with evrything but was out of range except for 1 Venom cannon. But I did bring in my mind control magus, and sent my other magus into return to the shadows. The mind control magus made the Chainsword knight punch the double gatling cannon knight taking him down to 6.
His 2nd turn he moves out next to a tall building. He kills the neophytes and magus, and 1 more carnifex. On my turn I drop the flyrants on top of the building for shorter charges, and get most of my army into range of the castellan, between smites, and shooting I get it down to 4. I also use Mass Hypnosis on the double battle cannon knight. I charge in (making it with 2 flyrants), and kill the Castellan.
His shooting is all into tyrants. He doesn't kill one, but then assaults into the 2 on the ground, and finishes one which explodes and puts a few wounds on the knights and the other flyrant. For the 1st time, all of my shots are in range. I smite and shoot the chainsword knight to death, and put mass hypnosis, and the horror onto the double battle cannon knight. I also manage to reduce him in CC.
He is in a bad way, one knight is hitting on 6's (reduced, the Horror, mass hypnosis), the other is hitting on 5's (reduced twice). He does manage to finish a wounded flyrant, but then I table him.
His total kills: 10 neophytes, Magus, 2 Carnifex, 2 hive tyrants.
Round 5 (Castellan #3):
Spoiler:
Opponent had Castellan, 2 Helverins, 3 Custodes shield captains, 3 basalisks, Harker, 30 guardsment, and a Compnay commander.
Mission was 6 objectives.
My opponent was a bit hung over from the night before, and had just taken a tough loss to my round 3 opponent. He was a little distracted.
He got 1st turn. Moved the Helverins and custodes really aggressively forward. But I had deployed a bit back so that they couldn't assault me. He shot and killed 1 carnifex and wounded another. He used the shieldbreaker missile to kill my warlord. Rolled a 1 to hit (rerolled for house raven), rolled a 1 to wound (rerolled for house raven), rolled a 1 on damage (rerolled for house raven), and killed him. UGGG! On my turn I dropped in a flyrant so I'd have a psychic scream on the table to help vs custodes. I moved a carnifex to tarpit the helverins (1 carnifex could get both). The rest of my army moved to engage the custodes. I brought in my mind control magus. Mind controlled the Castellan, and killed 1 helverin got rid of his missiles, and got the other helverin down to 2 which my carnifexes finished. However, my smites were pretty weak, and he used a cp to deny one, so I only got 1 custodes down to 3, 1 down to 6, and 1 down to 5 (shooting from carnifexes. I also killed 20 guardmen I was able to charge a carnifex into 2 custodes, and then bring in my flrant to the 3 wound one. The flyrant (using a reroll, and implant attack) killed the 3 wound custodes, who swung after he died and killed the carnifex freeing up the other shield captain. The one shield captain I didn't charge tried to swooping dive into 2 dakkafexes. Overwatch did nothing.
His castellan backed away from my magus, killed a carnifex, and put 8 wounds on the hive tryant. His basalisks finished a wounded carnifex. His shield captains put everything they had into a neurothrope, but failed to kill it. I brought in one flryant to help with the custodes, and another to put the horror on the castellan. My mind control magus rolled a huge run move, and managed to mind control a castellan again, but just then cos players came by for pictures, and my opponent left the table to get a prop, and when we came back I forgot completely to resolve the mind control (Doh!). It's OK. I put the Horror on the castellan, and smited one shield captain to death. I also killed the last guardsmen. I then charged one flyrant into a company commander (failing to kill him), and my other flyrant charged the shield captain who made all his saves.
At this point my opponent took a long, long look at the board trying to figure out how he could win this game. We knew this was our last turn. Not enough time left. Finally, after much consideration he started his turn. Move the Castellan onto an objective. The company commander onto an objective, and harker onto a 3rd. The custodes had obsec on 1 more, but was in combat with the flyrant. He shot the castellan's melta guns into my wounded flyrant, but failed to kill it. Then he shot everything else into a carnifex, and failed to kill that. (Hitting on 5's with the castellan), then charged the castellan into my neophytes and killed a bunch but not all (I took casualties so I could be disengaged). On my turn I moved my wounded flyrant to contest the objective held by the castellan, my other flyrant moved up to kill harker. My last 2 neophytes moved to obsec the objetive away from the company commander, and the rest of my army smited the shield captain to death. I had 5 controlled objectives, and was contesting the 6th for an easy win.
His total kills: 8 neophytes, Neurothopre, 3 Carnifex.
A few final thoughts - The only game where I lost 1/2 of my army was Castellan #1, and he lost more than I did. - I had board control in every game except for against Tzeentch, and I kinda had board control in that one. - Relic and kill points are dumb tourney missions. - None of my games made it to turn 5. 2K points is just too much to play in 2.5 hours. - Holy *bleep* jormandr carnifexes are good at not dying. I went 2nd in every single game, and never lost more than 1 carnifex on turn 1. I never lost more than 3 of my 7 in any game. - I feel confident in saying that if my games had all made it to turn 6, I think I would have tabled all of my opponents. - There was a Ad Mech + Custodes assault based army that I suspect would have given my list some trouble, but I've overachieved with it in every matchup so far. - I'm still worried about the version of THE meta list that comes with hellhounds.
I hate your third round opponent. Meticulously slowplays, and then tries to refuse you playing out what little time you have left after he's done measuring 60+ Guardsmen individually, even with all the odds in his favor. He was literally trying to leave the game with you only getting two turns in and him three. Don't discount the possibility that the judge saw him do Something similar in the first two rounds, regardless I don't think he was too harsh at all. That's a real dick move to pull at a tourney.
Sounds like you misplayed Mind Control. It only allows you to shoot 1 model at 1 unit or make 1 cc attack with 1 model at 1 unit. It's very specific on that.
Never-the-less, excellent games. Were the missions regular book missions?
Zimko wrote: Sounds like you misplayed Mind Control. It only allows you to shoot 1 model at 1 unit or make 1 cc attack with 1 model at 1 unit. It's very specific on that.
Never-the-less, excellent games. Were the missions regular book missions?
You are right. I BADLY misplayed that. I even read through the rules together with my 1st castellan opponent to make sure I was doing it right.
Well, that stinks. So massive asterick over my performance I guess. I probably still win the games, but not in such a walkoff way.
Just to contextualize, playing it correctly would have helped me in game 3, because I would have killed a thing instead of just wounded it. In Game 4 I would have mind controlled the doubled BC knight instead, and shot it at something. But I doubt it would have reduced one of the knights all the way down to 6, so that might have made a significant difference in my opponent's favor. I feel most bad about that one.
In game 5, it would have taken alot more shooting to kill the 2nd helverin, and the shield captain wouldn't have taken any wounds probably. He made so many invuls thanks to a couple rerolls that he barely took any, and it probably wouldn't have mattered much, if I'd remembered to resolve the 2nd mind control it would have netted out in my favor.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
SHUPPET wrote: I hate your third round opponent. Meticulously slowplays, and then tries to refuse you playing out what little time you have left after he's done measuring 60+ Guardsmen individually, even with all the odds in his favor. He was literally trying to leave the game with you only getting two turns in and him three. Don't discount the possibility that the judge saw him do Something similar in the first two rounds, regardless I don't think he was too harsh at all. That's a real dick move to pull at a tourney.
So I failed to make turn 5 in all 5 of my games. 2 of them I had tabled my opponent. But I'm not willing to put the onus on slow play entirely on my opponent. If you play a slow player in round 1 you played a slow player, but if you play a slow player 5 rounds in a row, you are the slow player.
He wasn't trying to get top of turn, and leave me with no bottom of turn. He was trying to end on turn 3, and I wanted to end on turn 4.
His moving and screening was meticulous for Eldar, but I wasn't playing eldar, so the exact positioning of one guardsmen wasn't important, but he was very practiced about it, and wanted to do it that way.
I don't begrudge him that, I mainly disagreed that we had to play the entire turn 4. There were many things that wouldn't impact the outcome of the game, and those things didn't need to happen.
He was a reasonable and fair guy, we just got into an unfortunate situation that happens alot when playing 2.5 hour rounds at 2K points.
One of the challenges in that game is that he asked me not to use the GW dice app. Which slowed me down shooting somewhat. We also had terrain that was very onerous, and had to debate line of sight frequently. It was the same table I played on in round 5, and we also had lots of LOS discussions, and positioning issues because of the awkward terrain pieces in the middle of the table.
Mind Control is very confusing, has its 1 melee attack, but it can instead shoot, if a unit has 8 guns... well it can shoot all 8, so oddly worded. I see it being 1 weapon in the GSC codex.
It's probably not a factor in your meta, How do you think your list would hold up to hordes, especially assaulty ones like horde Nids or Boys? I'm thinking it may find struggles there
GSC Battallion (+5 CP)
Magus Psychic Powers: Mind Control
Magus Psychic Powers: Mass Hypnosis
Neophytes
Neophytes
Neophytes
Round 1 (Titan):
Spoiler:
Opponent playing Revenent Titan. 2K points. One Model army.
Mission is 4 end of game objectives.
He got 1st turn. He killed 1 carnifex, wounded a 2nd. He was so far away only my Venom cannons could get to him, but I did do 6 wounds. Turn 2, he realized he couldn't shoot me to death, so he moved towards me. Shot one carnifex to death, charged and killed a 2nd. I decide this is the turn so everything moves into optimum range. I cast all 8 possible smites, and fail all 8. But that doesn't matter because my shooting takes it down to 3 wounds, and my flyrants assault and finish it.
Total losses 3 carnifexes.
Win Tyranids.
Round 2 (Tzeentch)
Spoiler:
Opponent playing bloodletter bomb, Tzangor bomb. Chaos Predator. 2 Chaos las vindicators, 20 of the archers on disc, Airimon, 3 oblits, chaos lord with jp, and some heralds.
Mission was kill points (the points value of units killed).
He deployed his tzangors. Got 1st turn. He killed 1 carnifex, wounded a 2nd. On my turn I kill around 20 Tzangors. Mind control a vindicator to shoot at the pred (6 wounds), kill some cultists, and make his bow guys -2 to hit (which really frustrated him).
He drops his bloodletter bomb and kill a carnifex, and traps another. I deny basically all of his psychics. His oblists throw all their shots into a neurothrope and fail to kill it. On my turn I drop everything. one unit of neophytes rolls a 6 so they move to assault his tanks. I assign each tyrant a herald that I expect them to kill. Make the Bloodletters -2 to hit, smite a bunch of stuff dead, and shoot the rest of the tzangors, and 1 of the oblists dead, but all 3 flyrants fail their charge. Thankfully, the neophytes lock down the tank.
He moves a bunch of stuff back to try and get my neophytes off his tanks which he does. He shoots the bow guys, and oblits into a flyrant, and fail to kill it. Khorn herald assaults a neurothrope and fails to kill it. Make the bow guys and the bloodletters each -1, smite a bunch of bloodletters dead, and the herald. Charge airimond, and 2 tanks, but fail to kill him. Smite the chaos lord to death, charge the oblits, and kill 1. Shoot about 1/2 of the bow guys to death, and kill a bunch more bloodletters in combat.
It's basically over for him. What offense he has, he puts into a wounded flyrant who survives with 1 wound. I finish the bow guys, the oblit, the blood letters. So he's still got a arimond, 2 tzeech heralds, and his tanks. We have to call it on turn 4 due to time, but it wasn't going to get better for him.
I killed 1154 points of his army. He killed 583 of mine, so I win handily. His total kills: 30 neophytes, Magus, 3 Carnifexes.
Round 3 (Castellan #1):
Spoiler:
He had: Castellan, Gallant, Tank Commander, Manticore, 60 guardsmen, 2 Helverins.
Mission: The Relic (Yes unmodified relic played at a GT)
He got 1st turn, I deployed kinda deep because I was afraid of his Gallant. He moves the gallant towards me, moves guardsment onto the relic, and then usese move move move to get them back in his zone. Shooting kills 1 carnifex and wounds a 2nd. He used his missile to kill my mass hypnosis magus (boo!) He is burning through command points, but regenning them all via CP Farm. I go, and since the Gallant is in my zone I drop 2 tryants next to it. I bring in my mind control magus next to the helverins. Fail mind control. I shoot the relic holding squad, and 1 other squad of guardsmen to death. Shooting, and smites take the gallant down to 3, and the 2 tyrants finish it in CC.
His next turn another infantry squad picks up the relic and uses move move move to move it deeper into his zone. He kills my neophytes, but the mind control magus survives, backs his castellan up, and kills a flyrant, and wounds a 2nd. On my turn I drop in my final flyrant next to the helverins, but make a mistake and put him more than 24 from the Castellan so I can't use the horror on it. Neophytes come in by Helverins, and roll a 6. The rest of my army move up. Kill 2 more infantry squads, Kill a Helverin, take the other down to 2, and charge it with neophytes. Magus fails mind control again. The Tyrant who suvived last turn gets into combat with a company commander, the unit with the relic, and the tank commander. I thow all my attacks at the company commander, but he makes all his invuls.
I realizes we are running low on time, so start urging my opponent to speed up, but he is a very diligent player who likes to measure each guardsmen he moves, and doesn't want to be rushed. He falls back with the relic to put it basically in the back corner of his deployment zone. Falls back with the Tank commander, shoots the castellan and kills the wounded flyrant, and hurts the unwounded one. On my turn, my Magus gets within 12" of the Castellan mind controls it, and shoots it at the manticore, and the Tank commander. I fail to kill either, because my dice are cold. Uggg. I kill the last of the infantry, and the other helverin. And I charge my neophytes into a company commander, trapping him so that he can't fall back.
We have about 10 minutes left in the round, and My opponent says we don't have enough time for another turn. While I agree with him, I don't think we need to take a full turn. I have 5 neophytes left that can't be shot, and for me the only question is if he can kill them in assault with his company commander and the knight. He says he plans to shoot the flyrant. I say "Sure, you shot the flyrant, and it died". He insists that he doesn't play partial turns. I think he's got the game anyways, but in case I can pull off a miracle with the neophytes, I really want him to roll out the close combat. We are both fairly set in our positions, so I call a judge. Judge is fairly harsh, tells my opponent "You can refuse to roll it out, but if you do, you are being an a-hole." That is harsher than I would have been if I were the judge. The judge in an effort to keep my opponent happy gives us a 15 minute extension to the round.
So my opponent does his movement phase, and I realize that between his two tanks he can just movement block me, and I can't get the relic anyways. So I concede.
I have a few thoughts on this game.
#1 We ended on turn 3 (top of 4 technically). That isn't great.
#2 He had a 1 wound manticore, a 2-3 wound tank commander, a company commander, and a castellan with 24 wounds left. Meanwhile I had 6 carnifexes, all my neurothropes and a magus left. I was going to table him. Definitely not turn 4. Probably not turn 5, but by turn 6, he would have been tabled.
#3 The Relic sucks as a tourney mission.
#4 He ended going undefeated (2nd place). Good on him.
His total kills: 25 neophytes, Magus, 1 Carnifex, 3 hive tyrants.
Round 4 (Castellan and Friends).
Spoiler:
He had Renegade Castellan, Renegaed knight with 2 RFBC's. Renegade knight with 2 Gatling, and renegade knight with chainsword and gatling.
Mission was kill points. With a gimmick that doesn't really matter.
He got 1st turn. He deployed super deep. Shot and killed a carnifex, and wounded another. On my turn, I moved foward with evrything but was out of range except for 1 Venom cannon. But I did bring in my mind control magus, and sent my other magus into return to the shadows. The mind control magus made the Chainsword knight punch the double gatling cannon knight taking him down to 6.
His 2nd turn he moves out next to a tall building. He kills the neophytes and magus, and 1 more carnifex. On my turn I drop the flyrants on top of the building for shorter charges, and get most of my army into range of the castellan, between smites, and shooting I get it down to 4. I also use Mass Hypnosis on the double battle cannon knight. I charge in (making it with 2 flyrants), and kill the Castellan.
His shooting is all into tyrants. He doesn't kill one, but then assaults into the 2 on the ground, and finishes one which explodes and puts a few wounds on the knights and the other flyrant. For the 1st time, all of my shots are in range. I smite and shoot the chainsword knight to death, and put mass hypnosis, and the horror onto the double battle cannon knight. I also manage to reduce him in CC.
He is in a bad way, one knight is hitting on 6's (reduced, the Horror, mass hypnosis), the other is hitting on 5's (reduced twice). He does manage to finish a wounded flyrant, but then I table him.
His total kills: 10 neophytes, Magus, 2 Carnifex, 2 hive tyrants.
Round 5 (Castellan #3):
Spoiler:
Opponent had Castellan, 2 Helverins, 3 Custodes shield captains, 3 basalisks, Harker, 30 guardsment, and a Compnay commander.
Mission was 6 objectives.
My opponent was a bit hung over from the night before, and had just taken a tough loss to my round 3 opponent. He was a little distracted.
He got 1st turn. Moved the Helverins and custodes really aggressively forward. But I had deployed a bit back so that they couldn't assault me. He shot and killed 1 carnifex and wounded another. He used the shieldbreaker missile to kill my warlord. Rolled a 1 to hit (rerolled for house raven), rolled a 1 to wound (rerolled for house raven), rolled a 1 on damage (rerolled for house raven), and killed him. UGGG! On my turn I dropped in a flyrant so I'd have a psychic scream on the table to help vs custodes. I moved a carnifex to tarpit the helverins (1 carnifex could get both). The rest of my army moved to engage the custodes. I brought in my mind control magus. Mind controlled the Castellan, and killed 1 helverin got rid of his missiles, and got the other helverin down to 2 which my carnifexes finished. However, my smites were pretty weak, and he used a cp to deny one, so I only got 1 custodes down to 3, 1 down to 6, and 1 down to 5 (shooting from carnifexes. I also killed 20 guardmen I was able to charge a carnifex into 2 custodes, and then bring in my flrant to the 3 wound one. The flyrant (using a reroll, and implant attack) killed the 3 wound custodes, who swung after he died and killed the carnifex freeing up the other shield captain. The one shield captain I didn't charge tried to swooping dive into 2 dakkafexes. Overwatch did nothing.
His castellan backed away from my magus, killed a carnifex, and put 8 wounds on the hive tryant. His basalisks finished a wounded carnifex. His shield captains put everything they had into a neurothrope, but failed to kill it. I brought in one flryant to help with the custodes, and another to put the horror on the castellan. My mind control magus rolled a huge run move, and managed to mind control a castellan again, but just then cos players came by for pictures, and my opponent left the table to get a prop, and when we came back I forgot completely to resolve the mind control (Doh!). It's OK. I put the Horror on the castellan, and smited one shield captain to death. I also killed the last guardsmen. I then charged one flyrant into a company commander (failing to kill him), and my other flyrant charged the shield captain who made all his saves.
At this point my opponent took a long, long look at the board trying to figure out how he could win this game. We knew this was our last turn. Not enough time left. Finally, after much consideration he started his turn. Move the Castellan onto an objective. The company commander onto an objective, and harker onto a 3rd. The custodes had obsec on 1 more, but was in combat with the flyrant. He shot the castellan's melta guns into my wounded flyrant, but failed to kill it. Then he shot everything else into a carnifex, and failed to kill that. (Hitting on 5's with the castellan), then charged the castellan into my neophytes and killed a bunch but not all (I took casualties so I could be disengaged). On my turn I moved my wounded flyrant to contest the objective held by the castellan, my other flyrant moved up to kill harker. My last 2 neophytes moved to obsec the objetive away from the company commander, and the rest of my army smited the shield captain to death. I had 5 controlled objectives, and was contesting the 6th for an easy win.
His total kills: 8 neophytes, Neurothopre, 3 Carnifex.
A few final thoughts - The only game where I lost 1/2 of my army was Castellan #1, and he lost more than I did.
- I had board control in every game except for against Tzeentch, and I kinda had board control in that one.
- Relic and kill points are dumb tourney missions.
- None of my games made it to turn 5. 2K points is just too much to play in 2.5 hours.
- Holy *bleep* jormandr carnifexes are good at not dying. I went 2nd in every single game, and never lost more than 1 carnifex on turn 1. I never lost more than 3 of my 7 in any game.
- I feel confident in saying that if my games had all made it to turn 6, I think I would have tabled all of my opponents.
- There was a Ad Mech + Custodes assault based army that I suspect would have given my list some trouble, but I've overachieved with it in every matchup so far.
- I'm still worried about the version of THE meta list that comes with hellhounds.
Personally I think the fex are better as levi. 6+ FNP is much more reliable than +1 armor as it is much harder to ignore. Plus it gives you the freedom to advance (this can mean the difference between shooting or not with a lot of shots)
And I honestly don't understand how castellan isn't killing 3 fex a turn.
GSC Battallion (+5 CP) Magus Psychic Powers: Mind Control Magus Psychic Powers: Mass Hypnosis
Neophytes Neophytes Neophytes
Round 1 (Titan):
Spoiler:
Opponent playing Revenent Titan. 2K points. One Model army. Mission is 4 end of game objectives.
He got 1st turn. He killed 1 carnifex, wounded a 2nd. He was so far away only my Venom cannons could get to him, but I did do 6 wounds. Turn 2, he realized he couldn't shoot me to death, so he moved towards me. Shot one carnifex to death, charged and killed a 2nd. I decide this is the turn so everything moves into optimum range. I cast all 8 possible smites, and fail all 8. But that doesn't matter because my shooting takes it down to 3 wounds, and my flyrants assault and finish it.
Total losses 3 carnifexes.
Win Tyranids.
Round 2 (Tzeentch)
Spoiler:
Opponent playing bloodletter bomb, Tzangor bomb. Chaos Predator. 2 Chaos las vindicators, 20 of the archers on disc, Airimon, 3 oblits, chaos lord with jp, and some heralds.
Mission was kill points (the points value of units killed).
He deployed his tzangors. Got 1st turn. He killed 1 carnifex, wounded a 2nd. On my turn I kill around 20 Tzangors. Mind control a vindicator to shoot at the pred (6 wounds), kill some cultists, and make his bow guys -2 to hit (which really frustrated him).
He drops his bloodletter bomb and kill a carnifex, and traps another. I deny basically all of his psychics. His oblists throw all their shots into a neurothrope and fail to kill it. On my turn I drop everything. one unit of neophytes rolls a 6 so they move to assault his tanks. I assign each tyrant a herald that I expect them to kill. Make the Bloodletters -2 to hit, smite a bunch of stuff dead, and shoot the rest of the tzangors, and 1 of the oblists dead, but all 3 flyrants fail their charge. Thankfully, the neophytes lock down the tank.
He moves a bunch of stuff back to try and get my neophytes off his tanks which he does. He shoots the bow guys, and oblits into a flyrant, and fail to kill it. Khorn herald assaults a neurothrope and fails to kill it. Make the bow guys and the bloodletters each -1, smite a bunch of bloodletters dead, and the herald. Charge airimond, and 2 tanks, but fail to kill him. Smite the chaos lord to death, charge the oblits, and kill 1. Shoot about 1/2 of the bow guys to death, and kill a bunch more bloodletters in combat.
It's basically over for him. What offense he has, he puts into a wounded flyrant who survives with 1 wound. I finish the bow guys, the oblit, the blood letters. So he's still got a arimond, 2 tzeech heralds, and his tanks. We have to call it on turn 4 due to time, but it wasn't going to get better for him.
I killed 1154 points of his army. He killed 583 of mine, so I win handily. His total kills: 30 neophytes, Magus, 3 Carnifexes.
Round 3 (Castellan #1):
Spoiler:
He had: Castellan, Gallant, Tank Commander, Manticore, 60 guardsmen, 2 Helverins.
Mission: The Relic (Yes unmodified relic played at a GT)
He got 1st turn, I deployed kinda deep because I was afraid of his Gallant. He moves the gallant towards me, moves guardsment onto the relic, and then usese move move move to get them back in his zone. Shooting kills 1 carnifex and wounds a 2nd. He used his missile to kill my mass hypnosis magus (boo!) He is burning through command points, but regenning them all via CP Farm. I go, and since the Gallant is in my zone I drop 2 tryants next to it. I bring in my mind control magus next to the helverins. Fail mind control. I shoot the relic holding squad, and 1 other squad of guardsmen to death. Shooting, and smites take the gallant down to 3, and the 2 tyrants finish it in CC.
His next turn another infantry squad picks up the relic and uses move move move to move it deeper into his zone. He kills my neophytes, but the mind control magus survives, backs his castellan up, and kills a flyrant, and wounds a 2nd. On my turn I drop in my final flyrant next to the helverins, but make a mistake and put him more than 24 from the Castellan so I can't use the horror on it. Neophytes come in by Helverins, and roll a 6. The rest of my army move up. Kill 2 more infantry squads, Kill a Helverin, take the other down to 2, and charge it with neophytes. Magus fails mind control again. The Tyrant who suvived last turn gets into combat with a company commander, the unit with the relic, and the tank commander. I thow all my attacks at the company commander, but he makes all his invuls.
I realizes we are running low on time, so start urging my opponent to speed up, but he is a very diligent player who likes to measure each guardsmen he moves, and doesn't want to be rushed. He falls back with the relic to put it basically in the back corner of his deployment zone. Falls back with the Tank commander, shoots the castellan and kills the wounded flyrant, and hurts the unwounded one. On my turn, my Magus gets within 12" of the Castellan mind controls it, and shoots it at the manticore, and the Tank commander. I fail to kill either, because my dice are cold. Uggg. I kill the last of the infantry, and the other helverin. And I charge my neophytes into a company commander, trapping him so that he can't fall back.
We have about 10 minutes left in the round, and My opponent says we don't have enough time for another turn. While I agree with him, I don't think we need to take a full turn. I have 5 neophytes left that can't be shot, and for me the only question is if he can kill them in assault with his company commander and the knight. He says he plans to shoot the flyrant. I say "Sure, you shot the flyrant, and it died". He insists that he doesn't play partial turns. I think he's got the game anyways, but in case I can pull off a miracle with the neophytes, I really want him to roll out the close combat. We are both fairly set in our positions, so I call a judge. Judge is fairly harsh, tells my opponent "You can refuse to roll it out, but if you do, you are being an a-hole." That is harsher than I would have been if I were the judge. The judge in an effort to keep my opponent happy gives us a 15 minute extension to the round.
So my opponent does his movement phase, and I realize that between his two tanks he can just movement block me, and I can't get the relic anyways. So I concede.
I have a few thoughts on this game. #1 We ended on turn 3 (top of 4 technically). That isn't great. #2 He had a 1 wound manticore, a 2-3 wound tank commander, a company commander, and a castellan with 24 wounds left. Meanwhile I had 6 carnifexes, all my neurothropes and a magus left. I was going to table him. Definitely not turn 4. Probably not turn 5, but by turn 6, he would have been tabled. #3 The Relic sucks as a tourney mission. #4 He ended going undefeated (2nd place). Good on him.
His total kills: 25 neophytes, Magus, 1 Carnifex, 3 hive tyrants.
Round 4 (Castellan and Friends).
Spoiler:
He had Renegade Castellan, Renegaed knight with 2 RFBC's. Renegade knight with 2 Gatling, and renegade knight with chainsword and gatling.
Mission was kill points. With a gimmick that doesn't really matter.
He got 1st turn. He deployed super deep. Shot and killed a carnifex, and wounded another. On my turn, I moved foward with evrything but was out of range except for 1 Venom cannon. But I did bring in my mind control magus, and sent my other magus into return to the shadows. The mind control magus made the Chainsword knight punch the double gatling cannon knight taking him down to 6.
His 2nd turn he moves out next to a tall building. He kills the neophytes and magus, and 1 more carnifex. On my turn I drop the flyrants on top of the building for shorter charges, and get most of my army into range of the castellan, between smites, and shooting I get it down to 4. I also use Mass Hypnosis on the double battle cannon knight. I charge in (making it with 2 flyrants), and kill the Castellan.
His shooting is all into tyrants. He doesn't kill one, but then assaults into the 2 on the ground, and finishes one which explodes and puts a few wounds on the knights and the other flyrant. For the 1st time, all of my shots are in range. I smite and shoot the chainsword knight to death, and put mass hypnosis, and the horror onto the double battle cannon knight. I also manage to reduce him in CC.
He is in a bad way, one knight is hitting on 6's (reduced, the Horror, mass hypnosis), the other is hitting on 5's (reduced twice). He does manage to finish a wounded flyrant, but then I table him.
His total kills: 10 neophytes, Magus, 2 Carnifex, 2 hive tyrants.
Round 5 (Castellan #3):
Spoiler:
Opponent had Castellan, 2 Helverins, 3 Custodes shield captains, 3 basalisks, Harker, 30 guardsment, and a Compnay commander.
Mission was 6 objectives.
My opponent was a bit hung over from the night before, and had just taken a tough loss to my round 3 opponent. He was a little distracted.
He got 1st turn. Moved the Helverins and custodes really aggressively forward. But I had deployed a bit back so that they couldn't assault me. He shot and killed 1 carnifex and wounded another. He used the shieldbreaker missile to kill my warlord. Rolled a 1 to hit (rerolled for house raven), rolled a 1 to wound (rerolled for house raven), rolled a 1 on damage (rerolled for house raven), and killed him. UGGG! On my turn I dropped in a flyrant so I'd have a psychic scream on the table to help vs custodes. I moved a carnifex to tarpit the helverins (1 carnifex could get both). The rest of my army moved to engage the custodes. I brought in my mind control magus. Mind controlled the Castellan, and killed 1 helverin got rid of his missiles, and got the other helverin down to 2 which my carnifexes finished. However, my smites were pretty weak, and he used a cp to deny one, so I only got 1 custodes down to 3, 1 down to 6, and 1 down to 5 (shooting from carnifexes. I also killed 20 guardmen I was able to charge a carnifex into 2 custodes, and then bring in my flrant to the 3 wound one. The flyrant (using a reroll, and implant attack) killed the 3 wound custodes, who swung after he died and killed the carnifex freeing up the other shield captain. The one shield captain I didn't charge tried to swooping dive into 2 dakkafexes. Overwatch did nothing.
His castellan backed away from my magus, killed a carnifex, and put 8 wounds on the hive tryant. His basalisks finished a wounded carnifex. His shield captains put everything they had into a neurothrope, but failed to kill it. I brought in one flryant to help with the custodes, and another to put the horror on the castellan. My mind control magus rolled a huge run move, and managed to mind control a castellan again, but just then cos players came by for pictures, and my opponent left the table to get a prop, and when we came back I forgot completely to resolve the mind control (Doh!). It's OK. I put the Horror on the castellan, and smited one shield captain to death. I also killed the last guardsmen. I then charged one flyrant into a company commander (failing to kill him), and my other flyrant charged the shield captain who made all his saves.
At this point my opponent took a long, long look at the board trying to figure out how he could win this game. We knew this was our last turn. Not enough time left. Finally, after much consideration he started his turn. Move the Castellan onto an objective. The company commander onto an objective, and harker onto a 3rd. The custodes had obsec on 1 more, but was in combat with the flyrant. He shot the castellan's melta guns into my wounded flyrant, but failed to kill it. Then he shot everything else into a carnifex, and failed to kill that. (Hitting on 5's with the castellan), then charged the castellan into my neophytes and killed a bunch but not all (I took casualties so I could be disengaged). On my turn I moved my wounded flyrant to contest the objective held by the castellan, my other flyrant moved up to kill harker. My last 2 neophytes moved to obsec the objetive away from the company commander, and the rest of my army smited the shield captain to death. I had 5 controlled objectives, and was contesting the 6th for an easy win.
His total kills: 8 neophytes, Neurothopre, 3 Carnifex.
A few final thoughts - The only game where I lost 1/2 of my army was Castellan #1, and he lost more than I did. - I had board control in every game except for against Tzeentch, and I kinda had board control in that one. - Relic and kill points are dumb tourney missions. - None of my games made it to turn 5. 2K points is just too much to play in 2.5 hours. - Holy *bleep* jormandr carnifexes are good at not dying. I went 2nd in every single game, and never lost more than 1 carnifex on turn 1. I never lost more than 3 of my 7 in any game. - I feel confident in saying that if my games had all made it to turn 6, I think I would have tabled all of my opponents. - There was a Ad Mech + Custodes assault based army that I suspect would have given my list some trouble, but I've overachieved with it in every matchup so far. - I'm still worried about the version of THE meta list that comes with hellhounds.
Personally I think the fex are better as levi. 6+ FNP is much more reliable than +1 armor as it is much harder to ignore. Plus it gives you the freedom to advance (this can mean the difference between shooting or not with a lot of shots)
And I honestly don't understand how castellan isn't killing 3 fex a turn.
Jor is basically the same vs single damage weapons, and worst against Multi-damage weapons, but if you are Catalysting them then its always worst unless they go first and target them 1st, tho its not always best to Catalyst your fex's but i do it a lot and i feel its a good pick a lot of the time.
Also about the Not killing more than 1 fex, It normally can kill 2 b.c damage doesnt spill over it is possible to have 1-2 bad rolls (yes only 1-2) to only kill 1 and then just wound the other, sure its only got a 6+ save, but if you save just 1 6+ thats HUGE. In theory the Relic should kill 1 no matter what tho, 2D6 shots with 3D is insane, I would go in thinking 2 will die every round from it.
Now all that is Unless you Catalyst it. 6+ with 5+++ can make it so only 1 will die, but then you just shoot the others, and kill them off.
Amishprn86 wrote: Also about the Not killing more than 1 fex, It normally can kill 2 b.c damage doesnt spill over it is possible to have 1-2 bad rolls (yes only 1-2) to only kill 1 and then just wound the other, sure its only got a 6+ save, but if you save just 1 6+ thats HUGE. In theory the Relic should kill 1 no matter what tho, 2D6 shots with 3D is insane, I would go in thinking 2 will die every round from it.
Now all that is Unless you Catalyst it. 6+ with 5+++ can make it so only 1 will die, but then you just shoot the 2, 2man units and kill them off.
2 should die unless they had bad rolls
I Agree looking at it on paper. However, in my games that isn't how it went down. They always split up the Volcano lance and the Plasma super gun. One or the other always failed to kill it's target. Either they missed (4+ to hit) or they failed to wound (3+) or they just didn't do enough damage. Also in Castellan game 1 he didn't overcharge the gun because he was afraid of getting hot on 2's.
This is roughly what I remember (though I could be wrong). Castallan 1: Volcano lance kills a carni. Non-overcharged plasma does 4 wounds, but I save one and take 6 damage. Shieldbreaker cannons do nothing because of Jormandr Castallan 2: Renegade knight, so no raven strat or relic gun, but he did have a a reroll failed hits strat. Volcano lance gets 2 shots, he rerolls it to a 2. Fails to even hit. Plasmagun kills a carni. Shieldbreaker cannons do nothing because of Jormandr Castallan 3: Volcano lance gets 3 shots, but only hits once, it does 5 damage to a carni. Plasmagun kills a carni, but he takes 2 mortal wounds doing so. Shieldbreaker cannons do nothing because of Jormandr
All 3 players were cursing their dice. They were used to Castellans killing entire armies, not 1 or 2 things. It reminds me of the Blood angel / inquisition list I ran at the end of 7th that could kill riptide wing. People would start blaming their dice every game, because their easy win button wasn't working.
8 wounds with -1 to hit is oddly difficult for a castellan. With average dice they should kill 2 easily. But if they spike low on either gun, they can fail to finish the 2nd one, and if I do stick a 6+ save it drastically reduces their damage output.
ETA, I did Catalyst either a flyrant or a Carni every turn unless I failed. In my Tzeech game he ended up shooting or fight a catalsyt carni a couple times because of positioning and line of sight.
Now all that is Unless you Catalyst it. 6+ with 5+++ can make it so only 1 will die, but then you just shoot the 2, 2man units and kill them off.
2 should die unless they had bad rolls
Are you under the impression that Catalyst affects more than 1 carnifex from a brood?
Wish it did.
No its 1 unit, carnifexs are not a unit, but if they shoot it its 8 wounds of 5+++, thats 2-3 rolls, easily will live though 1 gun (not the relic). The relic will kill a Fex no matter what.
With 7 Carnifex's on the table with -1 to hit, 1 with 5+++ and all with 6+ saves at least, in theory there is a chance just one will die each turn, but again, odds are 2 will die just from the knight.
SHUPPET wrote: It's probably not a factor in your meta, How do you think your list would hold up to hordes, especially assaulty ones like horde Nids or Boys? I'm thinking it may find struggles there
The Tzeech army was fairly hoardy (around 130 models).
I think I do fine against some hoards. Dakkafexes are golden gods at killing hoards. I've gone 2-0 vs orks in practice. But he isn't running a really competitive ork army. Just lots of boyz and weirdboyz.
My bigger fear is hoards that can also threaten my monsters. So the Nick Rose hoard with all of their ability to tarpit my carnifexes, and smite my tyrants is a concern of mine. I probably don't do very well against it.
I designed the list to fight knights, and specifically, THE meta list. I'm thinking I'd struggle pretty good playing against the Other meta list. Because Ynnarri Dark reapers should have no problem killing 2-3 carnifexes a turn, and generally seem to interceptor a flyrant to death (despite the math on that not working out on average dice).
It worked really good at this event where there were far more knights than players. If they clean up the garbage that is the knight codex, then it probably works less good.
Xenomancers wrote: I pretty much only put catalyst on my warlord tyrant.
I really like that list above though. I don't do GSC but that is a nice answer to castellans.
In general I catalyst a squad of Genestealers, the Warlord, or any other Flyrants, in order of priority. Otherwise I agree.
If I found myself Catalysting Carnifexes consistently, I'd have to question my choice of powers. There's not a lot of ways I can imagine that being a great decision tbh.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm on my second unit of 6 HG (already have Impaler Cannon unit obviously). I've magnetised up the gun tip but it just looks so ugly. Any reason not to just glue it up as Shock Cannons in people's opinion? Or is more HG than 6 possibly going to come back in the meta for us ever in anyone's speculation?
Xenomancers wrote: Personally I think the fex are better as levi. 6+ FNP is much more reliable than +1 armor as it is much harder to ignore. Plus it gives you the freedom to advance (this can mean the difference between shooting or not with a lot of shots)
+1 armor is always better unless they completely ignore armor. On carnifexes this means that Jormungand is better than Leviathan against everything except ap -5 or better.
Xenomancers wrote: Personally I think the fex are better as levi. 6+ FNP is much more reliable than +1 armor as it is much harder to ignore. Plus it gives you the freedom to advance (this can mean the difference between shooting or not with a lot of shots)
+1 armor is always better unless they completely ignore armor. On carnifexes this means that Jormungand is better than Leviathan against everything except ap -5 or better.
Xenomancers wrote: Personally I think the fex are better as levi. 6+ FNP is much more reliable than +1 armor as it is much harder to ignore. Plus it gives you the freedom to advance (this can mean the difference between shooting or not with a lot of shots)
+1 armor is always better unless they completely ignore armor. On carnifexes this means that Jormungand is better than Leviathan against everything except ap -5 or better.
Not against multi damage weapons of same ap.
Specially against multi damage weapons of same ap.
Image a wounded Carnifex with 3 wounds left that gets hit with a melta. Jormungand Carnifex needs to save a single 6+ save. Meanwhile Leviathan does not save, so the Carnifex suffers 4 wounds, so to stay alive it needs to make at least 2 6+ FNP.
Its actually the same, but the Leviathan can also have cover.
If there are 12 Shots starting turn 1 till turn 3 against your Fex's and on average they all do 3 damage, hitting on 3+, wounding on 3+ to keep it simple.
Amishprn86 wrote: Its actually the same, but the Leviathan can also have cover.
If there are 12 Shots starting turn 1 till turn 3 against your Fex's and on average they all do 3 damage, hitting on 3+, wounding on 3+ to keep it simple.
Carnifexes are slow monsters, with limited range on their guns. If you want to get cover, your best bet is Jormandr. There are few realistic game situations where you'll be able to count on cover.
Let's do a little math. Number of melta wounds to kill it. Jormandr: 8 Wounds * (6 / 5 save) * (1 FNP) / 3.5 ( damage) = 2.74 Melta wounds to kill a carnifex. Leviathan: 8 wounds * (1 save) * (6/5 FNP) / 3.5 ( damage) = 2.74
So against melta they are equal (though the distribution might be a little favorable one way, I'm not sure how to calculate that.)
The number of Autocannon wounds to kill it. Jormandr: 8 Wounds * (3/1 save) * (1 FNP) / 2 ( damage) = 24 Autocannon wounds to kill a carnifex. Leviathan: 8 wounds * (2/1 save) * (6/5 FNP) / 2 ( damage) = 19.2
The number of bolter wounds to kill it. Jormandr: 8 Wounds * (6/1 save) * (1 FNP) / 1 ( damage) = 48 bolter wounds to kill a carnifex. Leviathan: 8 wounds * (3/1 save) * (6/5 FNP) / 1 ( damage) = 28.8
Realistically, the reason Jormandr is better is because of AP 1 and AP 2 weapons. Not only are you taking less damage, but if you CP reroll 1 failed wound against a Helverin it saves you 3 damage. CP rerolling a single FNP for a 6+ isn't a great idea.
Because knights are kings of the meta, Jormandr is usually going to be better. Helverin Autocannons, The Shieldbreaker Cannons on the Castellan, Rapid Fire Battle Cannons, and Gatling Cannons, you are better off with Jormandr. If suddenly the meta becomes all Hellblasters then Leviathan is probably the best choice. If you want to play assaulty carnifexen, then you want to go leviathan.
There is also something important about choosing Jormandr if running a list like mine. It means carnifexes have nothing to worry about from small arms fire. So the only guns that are useful against my army as deployed is anti-tank. Because most armies have some anti-tank, and some small arms, it makes it as if my army doesn't have to face my opponent's entire fire power on turn 1. Leviathan wouldn't be nearly as good for my particular list.
I think I do fine against some hoards. Dakkafexes are golden gods at killing hoards. I've gone 2-0 vs orks in practice. But he isn't running a really competitive ork army. Just lots of boyz and weirdboyz.
Don't worry about orks then. You just described competive ork army. Boyz by the bucketload and then some more boyz! About only thing besides boyz worth fielding are grots and kustom mega kannons neither which is essential
Amishprn86 wrote: Its actually the same, but the Leviathan can also have cover.
If there are 12 Shots starting turn 1 till turn 3 against your Fex's and on average they all do 3 damage, hitting on 3+, wounding on 3+ to keep it simple.
Using Catalyst on a single Carnifex when you're running 3 or more is a colossal waste of Catalyst. They simply don't need to shoot the one with Catalyst.
Leviathon also assumes that a Synapse creature is babysitting your Carnifexes, and the Carnifex have to stay close together. With Jorm, they can move around independently and only need to worry about IB, which has a much larger range for Synapse than Leviathon's 6+++.
Zimko wrote: Using Catalyst on a single Carnifex when you're running 3 or more is a colossal waste of Catalyst. They simply don't need to shoot the one with Catalyst.
Leviathon also assumes that a Synapse creature is babysitting your Carnifexes, and the Carnifex have to stay close together. With Jorm, they can move around independently and only need to worry about IB, which has a much larger range for Synapse than Leviathon's 6+++.
Yep Leviathan pretty much requires you to run Warriors, or spam Zoeys for the close Synapse coverage.
Yeah I tried a few Leviathan list, didn't like it. The synapse requirement is too restrictive imo, even when I ran a small blob of Warriors, Prime and Flyrants, I couldn't fully utilize my Carnifexes.
What does IB have to do with Levi/ vs Jorm? IB is almost meaningless on both of them and affects them both equally?
With Jorm vs Levi you also have to consider things like... Levi can gain a cover save from being played well - and still have 6+FNP. 6+FNP can be taken from mortal wounds - can be taken in CC and still available when you advance (pretty huge in an army where almost every weapon is assault). The only thing that interests me about jorm is the ability to tunnel with raveners. Beta deep strike ruined this though.
Xenomancers wrote: What does IB have to do with Levi/ vs Jorm? IB is almost meaningless on both of them and affects them both equally?
With Jorm vs Levi you also have to consider things like... Levi can gain a cover save from being played well - and still have 6+FNP. 6+FNP can be taken from mortal wounds - can be taken in CC and still available when you advance (pretty huge in an army where almost every weapon is assault). The only thing that interests me about jorm is the ability to tunnel with raveners. Beta deep strike ruined this though.
Levi requires your carnifexes to be shackled to the synapse due to the 6" range of their 6+++ buff. IB was brought up because one might say that carnifexes are already shackled to synapse due to IB... but since IB negation has a range of 24" and doesn't really affect Carnifexes that much anyway, that's not really the case.
And a 'good general' can not always get cover with carnifexes. It's extremely rare that cover can be obtained via the normal 'wholly within terrain' and '50% obscured' requirement given to monsters unless your opponent is just an immobile gunline. If that's the case, you should win anyway.
Xenomancers wrote: What does IB have to do with Levi/ vs Jorm? IB is almost meaningless on both of them and affects them both equally?
With Jorm vs Levi you also have to consider things like... Levi can gain a cover save from being played well - and still have 6+FNP. 6+FNP can be taken from mortal wounds - can be taken in CC and still available when you advance (pretty huge in an army where almost every weapon is assault). The only thing that interests me about jorm is the ability to tunnel with raveners. Beta deep strike ruined this though.
Levi requires your carnifexes to be shackled to the synapse due to the 6" range of their 6+++ buff. IB was brought up because one might say that carnifexes are already shackled to synapse due to IB... but since IB negation has a range of 24" and doesn't really affect Carnifexes that much anyway, that's not really the case.
And a 'good general' can not always get cover with carnifexes. It's extremely rare that cover can be obtained via the normal 'wholly within terrain' and '50% obscured' requirement given to monsters unless your opponent is just an immobile gunline. If that's the case, you should win anyway.
I wouldn't call it extremely rare. I would expect it to be happening basically every game - especially turn 1. Especially now that your own units give you cover save bonus if you are standing on a pebble.
Xenomancers wrote: What does IB have to do with Levi/ vs Jorm? IB is almost meaningless on both of them and affects them both equally?
With Jorm vs Levi you also have to consider things like... Levi can gain a cover save from being played well - and still have 6+FNP. 6+FNP can be taken from mortal wounds - can be taken in CC and still available when you advance (pretty huge in an army where almost every weapon is assault). The only thing that interests me about jorm is the ability to tunnel with raveners. Beta deep strike ruined this though.
Levi requires your carnifexes to be shackled to the synapse due to the 6" range of their 6+++ buff. IB was brought up because one might say that carnifexes are already shackled to synapse due to IB... but since IB negation has a range of 24" and doesn't really affect Carnifexes that much anyway, that's not really the case.
And a 'good general' can not always get cover with carnifexes. It's extremely rare that cover can be obtained via the normal 'wholly within terrain' and '50% obscured' requirement given to monsters unless your opponent is just an immobile gunline. If that's the case, you should win anyway.
The worst part of Levi is the 6" synapse, i'm guessing GW thought it would be OP if you got it for just being in synapse, really does suck.
Xenomancers wrote: What does IB have to do with Levi/ vs Jorm? IB is almost meaningless on both of them and affects them both equally?
With Jorm vs Levi you also have to consider things like... Levi can gain a cover save from being played well - and still have 6+FNP. 6+FNP can be taken from mortal wounds - can be taken in CC and still available when you advance (pretty huge in an army where almost every weapon is assault). The only thing that interests me about jorm is the ability to tunnel with raveners. Beta deep strike ruined this though.
Levi requires your carnifexes to be shackled to the synapse due to the 6" range of their 6+++ buff. IB was brought up because one might say that carnifexes are already shackled to synapse due to IB... but since IB negation has a range of 24" and doesn't really affect Carnifexes that much anyway, that's not really the case.
And a 'good general' can not always get cover with carnifexes. It's extremely rare that cover can be obtained via the normal 'wholly within terrain' and '50% obscured' requirement given to monsters unless your opponent is just an immobile gunline. If that's the case, you should win anyway.
The worst part of Levi is the 6" synapse, i'm guessing GW thought it would be OP if you got it for just being in synapse, really does suck.
yeah ofc it's stupid - because every other iteration of the rule gets it for nothing. Good thing it's not hard to have a nuero or hive within 6" of all your carni.
Fluff. The reason Leviathan has a 6+ FNP is because its synaptic control is so great that Tyranid creatures continue fighting even after suffering massive damage.
So the rules reflect the lore by having a synapse requirement. But IMHO it should be extended to normal synapse range.
Tyran wrote: Fluff. The reason Leviathan has a 6+ FNP is because its synaptic control is so great that Tyranid creatures continue fighting even after suffering massive damage.
So the rules reflect the lore by having a synapse requirement. But IMHO it should be extended to normal synapse range.
Yeah, I'd be a lot happier if it was just "in synapse" easier, to remember, more organic to the flow of play.
For me leviathan is a best fleet tactics among all. 6+ increases survivability of your units by 20% no matter what. Thats just awesome. Kraken on 2nd place. Jormungarl on 3rd.
-Sentinel- wrote: For me leviathan is a best fleet tactics among all. 6+ increases survivability of your units by 20% no matter what. Thats just awesome. Kraken on 2nd place. Jormungarl on 3rd.
You might want to check your maths. For starters 6+++ is 16.666%, not 20%. Furthermore you don't always get that full benefit either. Basically to get max usage your model cannot suffer more damage from hit than it has wounds. If your genestealer(1W) suffers wound from D2 weapon you need to roll 2 dice BOTH rolling 6 to save it. If you roll 1 it's useless. Zip. Nada, nothing. So against D2 weapons your genestealer actually has only 1/36 survivability boost. Vs D3 1/216...(me I don't even bother rolling my 6+++'s with 2+ damage for 1 wound models. The 1/36 boost is not worth the time it takes to roll 2 dice say 15 times)
Obviously issue becomes better with bigger targets but even then hive tyrant with 2 wounds left suffers lascannon hit causing 4 wounds. Even if you roll 2 6's it's useless. So again it was not flat 16.6666% increase.
I’d have to disagree, the Leviathan stratagem is pretty strong and easy to get off. It’s one of the few stratagems that can affect multiple units, and pretty much our only way of getting rerolls. Charge something with a couple packs of genestealers and a flying tyrant and it’s not gonna be happy.
-Sentinel- wrote: For me leviathan is a best fleet tactics among all. 6+ increases survivability of your units by 20% no matter what. Thats just awesome. Kraken on 2nd place. Jormungarl on 3rd.
You might want to check your maths. For starters 6+++ is 16.666%, not 20%. Furthermore you don't always get that full benefit either. Basically to get max usage your model cannot suffer more damage from hit than it has wounds. If your genestealer(1W) suffers wound from D2 weapon you need to roll 2 dice BOTH rolling 6 to save it. If you roll 1 it's useless. Zip. Nada, nothing. So against D2 weapons your genestealer actually has only 1/36 survivability boost. Vs D3 1/216...(me I don't even bother rolling my 6+++'s with 2+ damage for 1 wound models. The 1/36 boost is not worth the time it takes to roll 2 dice say 15 times)
Obviously issue becomes better with bigger targets but even then hive tyrant with 2 wounds left suffers lascannon hit causing 4 wounds. Even if you roll 2 6's it's useless. So again it was not flat 16.6666% increase.
Actually its 20% survivability boost, my math is ok. Reasons is that models you save with FNP can roll it again.
Simple example:
36 wounds model without 6+++ suffers 36 wounds. Model is dead.
36 wounds model with 6+++ suffers 36 wounds. It makes 6 FNP rolls. You have to do another 6 wounds to it. He saves 1. In case he saves it (1\6) you have to do another wound to it. Totally you did 36 + 6 + 1\6 = 42.2 wounds, thats 20% increase to survivability.
You are right about 1 wound models though. But if opponents shoots at gaunts with damage2 weapons, i will be pretty happy cause it didn't hit my monsters.
-Sentinel- wrote: Simple example:
36 wounds model without 6+++ suffers 36 wounds. Model is dead.
36 wounds model with 6+++ suffers 36 wounds. It makes 6 FNP rolls. You have to do another 6 wounds to it. He saves 1. In case he saves it (1\6) you have to do another wound to it. Totally you did 36 + 6 + 1\6 = 42.2 wounds, thats 20% increase to survivability.
You are right about 1 wound models though. But if opponents shoots at gaunts with damage2 weapons, i will be pretty happy cause it didn't hit my monsters.
You still ignore the fact it's not just 1 wound model. EVERY MODEL will not have flat out benefit. Hive tyrant with 2 wounds left. Suffers lascannon that causes 4 wounds. Even if you roll 2 6's that's useless. This drops the benefit you have. Nobody, nobody, NOBODY always gets EXACTLY damage up to W model. More than that always works.
And not many models have 36 wounds...Sure the average boost goes closer to your statement the more wounds it has but then all those 4, 5, 6, 8 wound models the increase suddenly DROPS. Your 6+++ isn't effectively 6+++ save but more like 1/36, 1/48 etc.
FNP is NOT flat increase. Period. That's not how the rule works.
And the game has so many D2+ weapons even on anti horde weapons(knight stomps and avenger cannons for example) this will come with stealers as well. Tyranids aren't some super special exception in that regard where knights for example don't stomp your stealers.
Badablack wrote: I’d have to disagree, the Leviathan stratagem is pretty strong and easy to get off. It’s one of the few stratagems that can affect multiple units, and pretty much our only way of getting rerolls. Charge something with a couple packs of genestealers and a flying tyrant and it’s not gonna be happy.
So 1 fly and 1 non-fly re-roll hits of 1, yes that is good, but i dont think its better than the others, Jormungandr can give units DS, that alone can be huge, Behemoth can do MW's, 4-5 MW's IMO is better than 4-5 more hits, its instant wounds, Kraken is just amazing (i shouldnt have to say why), and Kronos can stop some insanely powerful powers from going off, like Ynnari power Word of the Phoenix (the double action one).
Its not bad, but the point was the others IMO are better, given the other traits are a bit easier to work with and arguably better, and having arguably better stratagems, this is why i dont think Leviathan is in the top 4-5 traits at all.
Sure it is good to deny psykers, but its bonus benefits to units that have to stay immobile to fire, so basically Rupture Cannons, Impaler Cannons, Exocrines and that's it.
Similarly Behemoth is pretty much only useful to deepstrike melee.
If you ask me it is Kraken >= Jormungand > Leviathan > Kronos >= Behemoth > Hydra >= Gorgon
Ehh - to me Levi and kraken are the stand outs and I prefer Levi because defense is what the army needs. Jorm is kind of okay but since it doesn't buff FHT - I will never use it.
Sure it is good to deny psykers, but its bonus benefits to units that have to stay immobile to fire, so basically Rupture Cannons, Impaler Cannons, Exocrines and that's it.
Similarly Behemoth is pretty much only useful to deepstrike melee.
If you ask me it is Kraken >= Jormungand > Leviathan > Kronos >= Behemoth > Hydra >= Gorgon
Never said kronos is top, i said its better than Leviathan, Kraken/Jormungandr is best IMO. Traits+stratagem for sure its one of the top 3.
PS: Small Detachments still count, if i take a small Kronos detachment, its most likely will be taken over Leviathan, i'm not talking about army wide, we can have 3 Fleets in one army.
Sure it is good to deny psykers, but its bonus benefits to units that have to stay immobile to fire, so basically Rupture Cannons, Impaler Cannons, Exocrines and that's it.
Similarly Behemoth is pretty much only useful to deepstrike melee.
If you ask me it is Kraken >= Jormungand > Leviathan > Kronos >= Behemoth > Hydra >= Gorgon
Never said kronos is top, i said its better than Leviathan, Kraken/Jormungandr is best IMO.
Traits+stratagem for sure its one of the top 3.
PS: Small Detachments still count, if i take a small Kronos detachment, its most likely will be taken over Leviathan, i'm not talking about army wide, we can have 3 Fleets in one army.
I do not count small detachments, Hive Fleet Adaptations are supposed to be army wide buffs. Sure you can always take small detachments and they will have a place in a competitive list, but that does not make a generally lackluster adaptation into a good one.
Badablack wrote: I’d have to disagree, the Leviathan stratagem is pretty strong and easy to get off. It’s one of the few stratagems that can affect multiple units, and pretty much our only way of getting rerolls. Charge something with a couple packs of genestealers and a flying tyrant and it’s not gonna be happy.
So 1 fly and 1 non-fly re-roll hits of 1, yes that is good, but i dont think its better than the others, Jormungandr can give units DS, that alone can be huge, Behemoth can do MW's, 4-5 MW's IMO is better than 4-5 more hits, its instant wounds, Kraken is just amazing (i shouldnt have to say why), and Kronos can stop some insanely powerful powers from going off, like Ynnari power Word of the Phoenix (the double action one).
Its not bad, but the point was the others IMO are better, given the other traits are a bit easier to work with and arguably better, and having arguably better stratagems, this is why i dont think Leviathan is in the top 4-5 traits at all.
Actually you reroll hit AND wound rolls of 1, on all units attacking that target. It is a huge buff.
Leviathan lists can be really effective, but you need to build around it. You need warriors, gargoyles and lots of hormagants to support big stuff. In general they are beta strike lists with a good mix of big and small bugs.
I would rather have the 6+++ FnP over the +1 AS. There is too much AP and multi damage weapons. The 6+++
Also, pretty sure a 3+/6+is the same chance. BUT you also get an Extra roll. Yea statistically it doesnt matter, but if i have another dice roll I always prefer that.
So looking at the big faq it seems we have dodged the bullet or nerfbat completely I think. Many other armies have strat costs increased and rules changed we seem untouched.
Our biggest issue(which is kind of a non issue as everyone has it now) is the no 1st turn ds. This will effect our shootie flyrants and ds bombs when people encroach on our deployment zone. And it hurts our GSC allies (but here's for hoping for good things in their soon to be codex).
Quite a big buff for nids, we weren't exactly banking on the first turn shooting to do the work for us, but having full cover turn 1 makes a lot of stuff much better.
We do have one unit which like to shoot a lot from turn 1, but it also happens to ignore cover.
And until the GC codex our most popular (only) allies lost the first turn exceptions for reserve plays, so there's a nerf if you enjoyed your Genestealer alpha strike or turn 1 Mind Control.
Flyrant nerf (can't Fly over units in the Assault Phase).
Pathogenic Slime must be called at the start of the shooting phase (as expected).
Instinctive Behaviour inside buildings (as most of us already played).
But relatively speaking, probably a buff for us, seeing how Drukhari and Knights can't easily CP farm, and army wide 2CP cover turn 1 for all. Kraken loves it!
Agreed. I think the army wide cover can be nice. Now we don't have to worry about getting MC into area terrain and 50% obscured to get cover. Can put that big bad MC right on the front line in an open field with everyone else.
Sporocyst's deployment options states that instead of placing it on the battlefield, it can wait and during the first battle round (so after deployment), but before the first turn begins (so no waiting until turn 2), it can come down.
With the new FAQ, anything that is not on the table during deployment, cannot arrive in the first battle round.
Unless changed, Sporocyst's deployment option is currently illegal in matched play, meaning it has to deploy with the rest of your army and has to sit on your side of the field and spawn 3" movespeed mines from there, and can no longer be used to do anything it was designed to do like be a midfield synapse peg or harass/zone with spores.
In other words, hope you guys are happy with the shift of another of our good units being moved over to the "narrative match only category"! Must be good being a narrative player.
SHUPPET wrote: Sporocyst's deployment options states that instead of placing it on the battlefield, it can wait and during the first battle round (so after deployment), but before the first turn begins (so no waiting until turn 2), it can come down.
With the new FAQ, anything that is not on the table during deployment, cannot arrive in the first battle round.
Unless changed, Sporocyst's deployment option is currently illegal in matched play, meaning it has to deploy with the rest of your army and has to sit on your side of the field and spawn 3" movespeed mines from there, and can no longer be used to do anything it was designed to do like be a midfield synapse peg or harass/zone with spores.
In other words, hope you guys are happy with the shift of another of our good units being moved over to the "narrative match only category"! Must be good being a narrative player.
I will just play it as usual, since i do not play tournaments anyway. There is something between matched and narrative.
Well, if we are playing rules as writen, codex always overrides the BRB, and b.c it wasnt faq'ed like everything else, you will still play it as it is now.
It might be or might not be meant to change, since its a Fortification they may treat it differently,, we should send them the qeuestion via FB/Rules team email (40kFaqs).
Amishprn86 wrote: Well, if we are playing rules as writen, codex always overrides the BRB, and b.c it wasnt faq'ed like everything else, you will still play it as it is now.
What? By this logic the FAQ has literally no effect because all the rules it overwrites are in codexes. This is not how the FAQ works at all lol
Amishprn86 wrote: Well, if we are playing rules as writen, codex always overrides the BRB, and b.c it wasnt faq'ed like everything else, you will still play it as it is now.
What? By this logic the FAQ has literally no effect because all the rules it overwrites are in codexes. This is not how the FAQ works at all lol
Example, OW is only on a 6+, DA can get some OW on a 5+, this is a rule that overrides the BRB.
You cant run aa nd change, Tyranids genestealers can run and charge, this overrides the BRB You cant Disembark after moving, but yet Harlequins has a rule that lets one
Etc....
If they Add a rule, example, Units can not come from reinforcements turn 1, and they Faq many units to adhere to these rules, those Faqs are part of their codex now, but if they didnt change all of them, then you would still play the rules the datasheet would say, if it says to deploy turn 1, then you deploy turn 1 regardless of what the BRB says.
Otherwise NO special rules would work, no Ignore cover, no Ignore LoS, no run and charge, etc...
The FAQ overwrites everything dude lol. Otherwise, if Sporocyst can ignore the deepstrike FAQ rules literally everything can. If you need further understanding of the FAQ, take it to YMDC and argue what technicalities you think you have in there, because as it stands it's not relevant in here, and I'm just trying to talk about playing a unit by the rules.
Doesn't the Sporocyst get by this as it doesn't arrive in the first battle round anyways? FAQ mentioned several times units that can arrive mid-game, which the Sporocyst doesn't. Don't have codex on me at the moment, but there might be an exception here.
Insectum7 wrote: Doesn't the Sporocyst get by this as it doesn't arrive in the first battle round anyways? FAQ mentioned several times units that can arrive mid-game, which the Sporocyst doesn't. Don't have codex on me at the moment, but there might be an exception here.
Specifically says it doesn't arrive till the start of the first battle round, and then has to deploy in this time, but before starting the first turn.
GSC Battallion (+5 CP) Magus Psychic Powers: Mind Control Magus Psychic Powers: Mass Hypnosis
Neophytes Neophytes Neophytes
Round 1:
Spoiler:
My opponent: Khorne Demon Prince, a bunch of chaos space marines. 1 squad rubrics. Chaos raptors, abbadon, Sorcerer, 2 hellbrutes and 2 rhinos.
Mission: ITC mission #2 (3 objectives). Deployment: Dawn of War
Looking at his list you can see why it wasn't much of a game. I tabled him at the bottom of turn 3.
Round 2:
Spoiler:
My opponent: Knight Atrapo (more people should take this). Culexus, 2 Tank Commanders, 2 Punisher Russes, 3 Battle cannon russes, 2 Wyvrens, 3 infantry squads, and Company commander. One important note, his BC russes are a fw varient with a co-axial stormbolter that makes them twin linked, and he had the guard command point farm.
Mission: ITC mission #3 (4 objectives in a diamond) Deployment: Hammer and Anvil.
This is one of the closest games I've ever played so it gets a bit more detail in the batrep.
I went into this game grossly overconfident. There was a big line of sight blocker at the edge of my deployment zone, and I was able to deploy my entire army out of line of sight from the majority of his. He deployed his punishers on the flanks, and zoned his entire deployment with russes, screening the front with infantry squads.
Turn 1: I lost the roll off to go 1st, and made a critical error attempting to seize, because I siezed. Because of the big terrain piece I had to split my army up. 4 Carnifexes, and 1 neurothrope left, 3 Carnifexes, and 2 neurothropes to the right, I have to run my dakkafexes to get range, but I do, and they kill all but 2 of the guardsmen who he spends CP to keep alive. Heavy venom cannons take 6 off a tank commander. On his turn his knight moves some crazy insane distance. I feel like it was 14" plus 2D6" advance for a total of 22 inches, and moves from the middle of his backfield to within an inch of the carnifexes on my right flank. He pops a strat to reroll all to hit, and then shoots and kills a dakkafex, and because he killed it with a specific gun, he gets to shoot that gun again and does 6 to another dakkafex. Wow. OK. His lemun russes finish the wounded carnifex, and kill another dakkafex on the other flank. In all my games with this army I've never lost 3 carnifexes to turn 1 shooting before. So now my neurothropes including my warlord are standing about 4" in front of a knight who can charge after moving 22" thanks to a strategem. He stomps on my warlord, but Thanks to a Command point reroll he only takes 3 wounds. Then he uses some strat that on a 4+ he does D3 mortal wounds. It goes off, but even with a command point reroll it only does 1. Whoo. That was close. Still it's the most powerful alpha strike I've ever seen, and was made worse by my stupid decision to run all of my dakkafexes.
Turn 2: I'm not feeling good about what went on 1st turn. I've go nowhere to drop neophytes, so they stay in reserves. I do drop all 3 flyrants against the knight. I hit the knight with The Horror, Mass Hypnosis, and attempt to smite him 6 times, and psychic scream him once. Then shoot all of my shots into it. He pops a strat to give it a 3+ invul, and another to give it a 5++ against mortal wounds. So at the end of all of that he still has 14 wounds. Not really a problem, I charge in all 3 flyrants (made all 3 charges). He pops a strat to give the knight a 4++ in cc. I swing, and only manage to do 4 wounds to him in CC. He swings back, and despite hitting on 6's manages to put 6 wounds on a flyrant, I am able to pile in and trap the knight in CC. That did not go as planned, but at least my flyrants are safe from shooting, and should easily kill the knight on his turn. On his turn he shoots a dakkafex to death, and one of the cannon fexes. I just can't make a 4+ to save my life. His culexus charges into one of my flyrants which is a bummer, but I can manage so long as I kill the knight. Nope. Thanks to the 4++ in CC I only manage to stick 8 wounds to it, and now I've got a culexus screwing with my psychics. Bummer. At least the knight failed to hurt me back.
Turn 3 I have to drop the cultists, and he has zoned me so well, the best I can do is drop them against the punishers. So I do that, and happen to roll a 4's on their cult ambush rolls. Mind control a punisher into a russ and do a wound. Manage to finally smite the knight to death, but my flyrants are so far out of position that they can't do anything but charge the culexus, so they do. One of the cultist units makes an 11" charge on a russ which is a big deal because it gives me enough distance to pin that russ between my cultists and the table edge so they can't be shot. I also make the charge into the other punisher but can't pin it. All my tyrants swinging into the culexus do nothing, but I do pin it into CC for another round of safety from shooting. On his turn, he kills one squad of neopytes, but finally I make a few 4+'s and both carnifexes survive (one is down to 1). On hist turn I swing into the culexes. 1st tyrant does a wound, but he saves it. 2nd Tyrant does a wound but he saves it. 3rd tyrant does 1 wound with his normal attacks, and he fails a save even after a reroll, but it only does 2 damage, so it all comes down to the stupid no good tail on the final tyrant. Hits, wounds, fails his save, and the tail is vindicated. I'm now totally happy flyrants have to spend 1 of their attacks on stupid tails. I honestly don't know what I would have done if that tail hadn't killed that culexus.
Turn 4. For the 1st time, I feel somewhat in command. I've lost a pile more points than he has, but I've got 3 freed up flyrants ready to do some work against russes, and they set to their task. The flyrant each pick a russ to go after, but one of them has a long charge to his, so he ends up double teaming a closer russ. My squad of neophytes that is out in the open joins the combat with the pinned punisher, and stretches onto an objective as they do, so I will forever hold that objetive, and get hold more from here on out. The carnifexes even turn on a bit and manage to finish the wounded tank commander. So I kill a punisher, a tank commander, and drop one other russ down to 4 wounds. On his turn he Finishes the wounded flyrant, finishes the wounded carnifex.
Turn 5. My 2 living tyrants each pick a russ and kill it (one is the last tank commander). My last carnifex charges and tarpits one more russ. So he just has 1 able to shoot on his turn. However that russ and the Wyvrens manage to kill one of the flyrants which is a huge bummer. still, I kill more and hold more.
Turn 6. My neurothopres smite one russ to death, and my last flyrant charges but fails to kill the final russ. On his turn all he's got is the wyvrens, and they shoot and do 2 wounds to my flyrant, so I kill more, and hold more.
This was a close one, at the end I had a good score, but several critical things had to go my way and did. I took this army for granted, thinking my carnifexes would easily kill his screens, and my neophytes would hug russes until the flyrants got there. That knight Atrapo is nuts. nuts! I'd almost rather face a castellan. He did about what a castellan does to me in shooting, plus he moves 22" and can charge afterwards. That is nuts.
On the plus side. My list performed exactly as it needed to. It had all the tools to overcome some ice cold dice early, and a significant tactical mistake (attempting to sieze).
Round 3:
Spoiler:
My opponent: 3 tzzeench princes, 1 khorne prince with a big ax, bloodletter bomb, big unit of pink horrors, big unit of tzangors, 2 sorcerers, a tzeentch herald, airimon, 2 min units cultists.
Mission: ITC mission #4 (5 objectives we place them.) Deployment: Dawn of war.
I deploy my flyrants in my backfield, and then my neurothorpes in front of them, and my carnifexes in from of them. I screen with 1 unit of neophytes. He puts cultists plus one tzeench prince on one flank. A unit of cultists on an objective on the other flank, screens his entire army with pinks, puts the tzangors in the back, and all his characters in the middle. I win the roll of, and make him go 1st. He teleports his tzangors across the table, smites on carnifex with his prince on the flank, and buffs the tzangors, but all of the rest of his smites would go into my neophytes, and he needs those neophytes to be charged. He charges in rolls an 11 which becomes a 13 thanks to 2 seperate +1 gimmicks that gets him into the neophytes and one carnifex. They kill the neophytes, and fighting twice manage to take one carnifex down to 2 trapping it, and ties up another fex. I move 2 dakkafexes, and a flyrant up on the right flank. Bring in a Magus, roll a 2, so he ends up over there. too. I'm really careful to make sure the carnifexes are screening the Tyrant and Magus, with a neurothrope holding the other side. Then I move the neurothrope like an idiot. Thankfully, the forces on that flank kill the cultists, and the DP over there which turns out to be the warlord. I used pathogenic slime on the Dakkfex, and actually killed it early enough that my flyrant got to shoot some pinks. Most of my other smites fail, but I do kill a handful of tzangor, and then charge in 2 tyrants, and a carnifex. Do a few more wounds, he's down to 6, but uses CP to auto pass moral. Which means he holds more and gets the bonus.
Turn 2 the bloodletters arrive right where I feared them most, and kill a flyrant and the magus. He smites a carnifex down to 2, charges in a kills it with a DP which consolidate into another but is now out front of the screen. He ties up a dakkafex with nurglings trapping it, and his tzangors are down to 3, but that is enough to still be in CC with my flyrants, and get him the bonus. I leave combat with the flyrants to go kill bloodletters. And I bring in some cultists with the magus intending to steal an objective from his pink horrors, but roll a 5, so I decide to shoot them into the bloodletters instead. My last squad of neophytes goes to confronts some cultist on an objective in the corner. After some cultist on cultist violcence that objective eventually falls to me, but not this turn. My flyrants + Neophytes kill the blood letters. I think I had some help from one carnifex. The other carnifexes shoot up the pinks, and I smited the Demon prince that was out front to death. So He gets hold more and the bonus. Nobody gets kill more. At this point I think I'm trailing by about 6-7 points on the scoreboard.
Turn 3. His Korne prince goes to kill a carnifex on the flank where the bloodletters were, and his last tzeentch prince goes to kill a carnifex in the middle. He lands a sorcerer in the corner to get recon, linebreaker, and I had marked it for death. My magus, and one hive tyrant kill the khorn prince, while my other flyrant goes to kill a sorcerer in the middle. I finish off the nurglings, and smite the Tzeench prince down to 2.
Turn 4. Arimon, and his tzeench prince go try to kill a magus, and a flyrant, but the flyrant lives. I send one flyrant to finish Arimon, and another to finish the last demon prince. I advance a dakkafex to get los on the sorcerer but only do 1 wound. Thankfully Arimon, and tzeench prince, and the last pinks die, so he is down to just that one sorcerer.
Turn 5. He charges the sorcerer into a wounded carnifex but fails to kill it, and I table him.
A few final thoughts. - My final tourney score was 3100 which is exactly the same as the other 3-0 player. He had a marginally better SoS, but they just split the prize money between us. - It's been nice playing this list. Too bad GW decided to kinda blow it up with the latest FAQ. Reserves not able to come in on 1 is quite a blow to it. - Dakkafexes are golden gods of screen clearing. - I need to find 50 points somewhere to add another 10 neophytes so I can screen a bit easier. - I'm Leaning towards dropping a flyrant and neurothrope for some aberrants, and a primus.
Insectum7 wrote: Doesn't the Sporocyst get by this as it doesn't arrive in the first battle round anyways? FAQ mentioned several times units that can arrive mid-game, which the Sporocyst doesn't. Don't have codex on me at the moment, but there might be an exception here.
Specifically says it doesn't arrive till the start of the first battle round, and then has to deploy in this time, but before starting the first turn.
GSC Battallion (+5 CP)
Magus Psychic Powers: Mind Control
Magus Psychic Powers: Mass Hypnosis
Neophytes
Neophytes
Neophytes
Round 1:
Spoiler:
My opponent: Khorne Demon Prince, a bunch of chaos space marines. 1 squad rubrics. Chaos raptors, abbadon, Sorcerer, 2 hellbrutes and 2 rhinos.
Mission: ITC mission #2 (3 objectives).
Deployment: Dawn of War
Looking at his list you can see why it wasn't much of a game. I tabled him at the bottom of turn 3.
Round 2:
Spoiler:
My opponent: Knight Atrapo (more people should take this). Culexus, 2 Tank Commanders, 2 Punisher Russes, 3 Battle cannon russes, 2 Wyvrens, 3 infantry squads, and Company commander.
One important note, his BC russes are a fw varient with a co-axial stormbolter that makes them twin linked, and he had the guard command point farm.
Mission: ITC mission #3 (4 objectives in a diamond)
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil.
This is one of the closest games I've ever played so it gets a bit more detail in the batrep.
I went into this game grossly overconfident. There was a big line of sight blocker at the edge of my deployment zone, and I was able to deploy my entire army out of line of sight from the majority of his. He deployed his punishers on the flanks, and zoned his entire deployment with russes, screening the front with infantry squads.
Turn 1: I lost the roll off to go 1st, and made a critical error attempting to seize, because I siezed. Because of the big terrain piece I had to split my army up. 4 Carnifexes, and 1 neurothrope left, 3 Carnifexes, and 2 neurothropes to the right, I have to run my dakkafexes to get range, but I do, and they kill all but 2 of the guardsmen who he spends CP to keep alive. Heavy venom cannons take 6 off a tank commander. On his turn his knight moves some crazy insane distance. I feel like it was 14" plus 2D6" advance for a total of 22 inches, and moves from the middle of his backfield to within an inch of the carnifexes on my right flank. He pops a strat to reroll all to hit, and then shoots and kills a dakkafex, and because he killed it with a specific gun, he gets to shoot that gun again and does 6 to another dakkafex. Wow. OK. His lemun russes finish the wounded carnifex, and kill another dakkafex on the other flank. In all my games with this army I've never lost 3 carnifexes to turn 1 shooting before. So now my neurothropes including my warlord are standing about 4" in front of a knight who can charge after moving 22" thanks to a strategem. He stomps on my warlord, but Thanks to a Command point reroll he only takes 3 wounds. Then he uses some strat that on a 4+ he does D3 mortal wounds. It goes off, but even with a command point reroll it only does 1. Whoo. That was close. Still it's the most powerful alpha strike I've ever seen, and was made worse by my stupid decision to run all of my dakkafexes.
Turn 2: I'm not feeling good about what went on 1st turn. I've go nowhere to drop neophytes, so they stay in reserves. I do drop all 3 flyrants against the knight. I hit the knight with The Horror, Mass Hypnosis, and attempt to smite him 6 times, and psychic scream him once. Then shoot all of my shots into it. He pops a strat to give it a 3+ invul, and another to give it a 5++ against mortal wounds. So at the end of all of that he still has 14 wounds. Not really a problem, I charge in all 3 flyrants (made all 3 charges). He pops a strat to give the knight a 4++ in cc. I swing, and only manage to do 4 wounds to him in CC. He swings back, and despite hitting on 6's manages to put 6 wounds on a flyrant, I am able to pile in and trap the knight in CC. That did not go as planned, but at least my flyrants are safe from shooting, and should easily kill the knight on his turn. On his turn he shoots a dakkafex to death, and one of the cannon fexes. I just can't make a 4+ to save my life. His culexus charges into one of my flyrants which is a bummer, but I can manage so long as I kill the knight. Nope. Thanks to the 4++ in CC I only manage to stick 8 wounds to it, and now I've got a culexus screwing with my psychics. Bummer. At least the knight failed to hurt me back.
Turn 3 I have to drop the cultists, and he has zoned me so well, the best I can do is drop them against the punishers. So I do that, and happen to roll a 4's on their cult ambush rolls. Mind control a punisher into a russ and do a wound. Manage to finally smite the knight to death, but my flyrants are so far out of position that they can't do anything but charge the culexus, so they do. One of the cultist units makes an 11" charge on a russ which is a big deal because it gives me enough distance to pin that russ between my cultists and the table edge so they can't be shot. I also make the charge into the other punisher but can't pin it. All my tyrants swinging into the culexus do nothing, but I do pin it into CC for another round of safety from shooting. On his turn, he kills one squad of neopytes, but finally I make a few 4+'s and both carnifexes survive (one is down to 1). On hist turn I swing into the culexes. 1st tyrant does a wound, but he saves it. 2nd Tyrant does a wound but he saves it. 3rd tyrant does 1 wound with his normal attacks, and he fails a save even after a reroll, but it only does 2 damage, so it all comes down to the stupid no good tail on the final tyrant. Hits, wounds, fails his save, and the tail is vindicated. I'm now totally happy flyrants have to spend 1 of their attacks on stupid tails. I honestly don't know what I would have done if that tail hadn't killed that culexus.
Turn 4. For the 1st time, I feel somewhat in command. I've lost a pile more points than he has, but I've got 3 freed up flyrants ready to do some work against russes, and they set to their task. The flyrant each pick a russ to go after, but one of them has a long charge to his, so he ends up double teaming a closer russ. My squad of neophytes that is out in the open joins the combat with the pinned punisher, and stretches onto an objective as they do, so I will forever hold that objetive, and get hold more from here on out. The carnifexes even turn on a bit and manage to finish the wounded tank commander. So I kill a punisher, a tank commander, and drop one other russ down to 4 wounds. On his turn he Finishes the wounded flyrant, finishes the wounded carnifex.
Turn 5. My 2 living tyrants each pick a russ and kill it (one is the last tank commander). My last carnifex charges and tarpits one more russ. So he just has 1 able to shoot on his turn. However that russ and the Wyvrens manage to kill one of the flyrants which is a huge bummer. still, I kill more and hold more.
Turn 6. My neurothopres smite one russ to death, and my last flyrant charges but fails to kill the final russ. On his turn all he's got is the wyvrens, and they shoot and do 2 wounds to my flyrant, so I kill more, and hold more.
This was a close one, at the end I had a good score, but several critical things had to go my way and did. I took this army for granted, thinking my carnifexes would easily kill his screens, and my neophytes would hug russes until the flyrants got there. That knight Atrapo is nuts. nuts! I'd almost rather face a castellan. He did about what a castellan does to me in shooting, plus he moves 22" and can charge afterwards. That is nuts.
On the plus side. My list performed exactly as it needed to. It had all the tools to overcome some ice cold dice early, and a significant tactical mistake (attempting to sieze).
Round 3:
Spoiler:
My opponent: 3 tzzeench princes, 1 khorne prince with a big ax, bloodletter bomb, big unit of pink horrors, big unit of tzangors, 2 sorcerers, a tzeentch herald, airimon, 2 min units cultists.
Mission: ITC mission #4 (5 objectives we place them.)
Deployment: Dawn of war.
I deploy my flyrants in my backfield, and then my neurothorpes in front of them, and my carnifexes in from of them. I screen with 1 unit of neophytes. He puts cultists plus one tzeench prince on one flank. A unit of cultists on an objective on the other flank, screens his entire army with pinks, puts the tzangors in the back, and all his characters in the middle. I win the roll of, and make him go 1st. He teleports his tzangors across the table, smites on carnifex with his prince on the flank, and buffs the tzangors, but all of the rest of his smites would go into my neophytes, and he needs those neophytes to be charged. He charges in rolls an 11 which becomes a 13 thanks to 2 seperate +1 gimmicks that gets him into the neophytes and one carnifex. They kill the neophytes, and fighting twice manage to take one carnifex down to 2 trapping it, and ties up another fex. I move 2 dakkafexes, and a flyrant up on the right flank. Bring in a Magus, roll a 2, so he ends up over there. too. I'm really careful to make sure the carnifexes are screening the Tyrant and Magus, with a neurothrope holding the other side. Then I move the neurothrope like an idiot. Thankfully, the forces on that flank kill the cultists, and the DP over there which turns out to be the warlord. I used pathogenic slime on the Dakkfex, and actually killed it early enough that my flyrant got to shoot some pinks. Most of my other smites fail, but I do kill a handful of tzangor, and then charge in 2 tyrants, and a carnifex. Do a few more wounds, he's down to 6, but uses CP to auto pass moral. Which means he holds more and gets the bonus.
Turn 2 the bloodletters arrive right where I feared them most, and kill a flyrant and the magus. He smites a carnifex down to 2, charges in a kills it with a DP which consolidate into another but is now out front of the screen. He ties up a dakkafex with nurglings trapping it, and his tzangors are down to 3, but that is enough to still be in CC with my flyrants, and get him the bonus. I leave combat with the flyrants to go kill bloodletters. And I bring in some cultists with the magus intending to steal an objective from his pink horrors, but roll a 5, so I decide to shoot them into the bloodletters instead. My last squad of neophytes goes to confronts some cultist on an objective in the corner. After some cultist on cultist violcence that objective eventually falls to me, but not this turn. My flyrants + Neophytes kill the blood letters. I think I had some help from one carnifex. The other carnifexes shoot up the pinks, and I smited the Demon prince that was out front to death. So He gets hold more and the bonus. Nobody gets kill more. At this point I think I'm trailing by about 6-7 points on the scoreboard.
Turn 3. His Korne prince goes to kill a carnifex on the flank where the bloodletters were, and his last tzeentch prince goes to kill a carnifex in the middle. He lands a sorcerer in the corner to get recon, linebreaker, and I had marked it for death. My magus, and one hive tyrant kill the khorn prince, while my other flyrant goes to kill a sorcerer in the middle. I finish off the nurglings, and smite the Tzeench prince down to 2.
Turn 4. Arimon, and his tzeench prince go try to kill a magus, and a flyrant, but the flyrant lives. I send one flyrant to finish Arimon, and another to finish the last demon prince. I advance a dakkafex to get los on the sorcerer but only do 1 wound. Thankfully Arimon, and tzeench prince, and the last pinks die, so he is down to just that one sorcerer.
Turn 5. He charges the sorcerer into a wounded carnifex but fails to kill it, and I table him.
A few final thoughts.
- My final tourney score was 3100 which is exactly the same as the other 3-0 player. He had a marginally better SoS, but they just split the prize money between us.
- It's been nice playing this list. Too bad GW decided to kinda blow it up with the latest FAQ. Reserves not able to come in on 1 is quite a blow to it.
- Dakkafexes are golden gods of screen clearing.
- I need to find 50 points somewhere to add another 10 neophytes so I can screen a bit easier.
- I'm Leaning towards dropping a flyrant and neurothrope for some aberrants, and a primus.
Thanks for posting this tournament report. I really like your list. I've been looking into carnifex lists lately and this one seems solid. Too bad about the faq ruining GSC for now. Just got to hope codex fixes things. While waiting I guess I'll start getting some fexes.
With the new 'first turn cover' stratagem, I really like the biovores. Did some tests against a 4 knight + ad mech lists and those pesky spore mines are golden. Move the biovores and get -1 to hit, shoot an extra time with 'stratagem' and thats 8 spore mines deployed in front of the knights outside 3 inch. Thats 4 knights only able to move forward 2 inch.
Knights could try to kill those biovores but then the wont be shooting at the zoanthropes and with 4 wounds each and within malanthrope bubble (-1 to hit) thats not that easy. If I get first turn I would drop spore mines in front of knights, and move the hormagaunts forward outside 12/14 inch range. Next turn move the hormagaunts forward outside 1 inch in front of the knights and block them again. At some point you got a badly wounded knight (-1 to hit), one other knight hypnotised or horrified (-1 to hit) and if you keep everything within the malanthrope reach the can only shoot with a 5+ to hit.
Against any other army I would not take biovores but with all these knights walking around I like the movement blocking.
Interesting. Im not sold on biovores since the went up to 50 points. Everyone is always talking about moving them to get the spore mines. Yeah they CAN be useful, but a lasgun puts an end to them. I would much rather just hit what I am shooting at and cause the mortal wound. Thats the problem though, 50 points for a single mortal wound. That is crazy expensive. 450 points can get you 9 hive Guard....
Also what are the hormies for? I personally find they are really just a distraction that force you opponent to shoot them, rarely get any decent amount of damage out of them. MIght be better just sticking to termies all around.
I wonder if it would be better to just spend 450 points on spore mines stait up.
Biovore shooting all 5 rounds of combat assuming it doesnt die, then you have 9*5= 45 shots, some of those biovores are porbably gonna die though. Granted spore mines are easy to kill, maybe try some DS or Kraken movement or Swarmlord tricks. Also use Venomthropes to shroud them. Im just thinking out loud.
The second you're up against someone not running multiple Knights those Biovores are costing you a lot of points
Automatically Appended Next Post: This FAQ nerfed Nid Genestealers as well. You used to be able to infest them to dodge Mortars for example to you could bring them in turn 1 and clear out the threat with your Flyrants etc, and then pick up from turn 2 as usual.
Now it's just gimped, not moving out of your deployment zone until turn 3 is just way too slow that you may as well just deploy them. Also I'd your opponent gets 2 turns in first they may even be able to kill your Stealers in the movement phase without firing a bullet just by moving a unit of two in range of the nodes, or at best severely limit where you can come down. Really sucks because now they have the worst deepstrike in the game and basically just have to weather it no matter what.
SHUPPET wrote: The second you're up against someone not running multiple Knights those Biovores are costing you a lot of points
Automatically Appended Next Post: This FAQ nerfed Nid Genestealers as well. You used to be able to infest them to dodge Mortars for example to you could bring them in turn 1 and clear out the threat with your Flyrants etc, and then pick up from turn 2 as usual.
Now it's just gimped, not moving out of your deployment zone until turn 3 is just way too slow that you may as well just deploy them. Also I'd your opponent gets 2 turns in first they may even be able to kill your Stealers in the movement phase without firing a bullet just by moving a unit of two in range of the nodes, or at best severely limit where you can come down. Really sucks because now they have the worst deepstrike in the game and basically just have to weather it no matter what.
Yup, but honestly after the First FAQ that changed the Pheremone trail lictor trick, then the changes to Hive COmmander swarmy ability after DS, and finally the T1 DS rules in deployment zone T1 I have just been deploying my stealers on the front line anyway with a malanthrope and swarmy nearby.
With going second you can always use the cover stratagem now and get a 4+ on those GS to help offset some of the mortar spam as well.
Dynas wrote:Interesting. Im not sold on biovores since the went up to 50 points. Everyone is always talking about moving them to get the spore mines. Yeah they CAN be useful, but a lasgun puts an end to them. I would much rather just hit what I am shooting at and cause the mortal wound. Thats the problem though, 50 points for a single mortal wound. That is crazy expensive. 450 points can get you 9 hive Guard....
the can be worth it if you look at the 'wall' the can create but other than that they're too expensive.
Dynas wrote:Also what are the hormies for? I personally find they are really just a distraction that force you opponent to shoot them, rarely get any decent amount of damage out of them. MIght be better just sticking to termies all around.
First turn gives you one gaunt unit that moves faster (8inch) and with extra advance move (kraken stratagem) in combination with onslaught the could get a first turn assault + 6 inch pile in. Give them 'catalyst' and the can last for while.
Dynas wrote:I wonder if it would be better to just spend 450 points on spore mines stait up.
Spore mine units cannot deploy 3 inch in front of units.
Dynas wrote:Biovore shooting all 5 rounds of combat assuming it doesnt die, then you have 9*5= 45 shots, some of those biovores are porbably gonna die though. Granted spore mines are easy to kill, maybe try some DS or Kraken movement or Swarmlord tricks. Also use Venomthropes to shroud them. Im just thinking out loud.
Got a malantrope to give them -1 to hit. In combination with my 3x4 zoantropes the enemy need to choose what to pick. The probably want to kill 1 zoanthrope from each unit to grade down the smite damage. Rapid fire battle cannon that does 1 damage, 2 damage en then 3 damage only kills one biovore (4 wounds).
I was thinking about getting one single venomthrope model (aux detachment) just too keep back with the biovores. It is an easy 'first blood' for any indirect enemy fire tho..
SHUPPET wrote: The second your up against someone not running multiple Knights those Biovores are costing you a lot of points
True, but blocking movement could also work against other units. I don't like cheap drukhari armies with lots of splinter firing and flying units.
SHUPPET wrote: The second you're up against someone not running multiple Knights those Biovores are costing you a lot of points
Automatically Appended Next Post: This FAQ nerfed Nid Genestealers as well. You used to be able to infest them to dodge Mortars for example to you could bring them in turn 1 and clear out the threat with your Flyrants etc, and then pick up from turn 2 as usual.
Now it's just gimped, not moving out of your deployment zone until turn 3 is just way too slow that you may as well just deploy them. Also I'd your opponent gets 2 turns in first they may even be able to kill your Stealers in the movement phase without firing a bullet just by moving a unit of two in range of the nodes, or at best severely limit where you can come down. Really sucks because now they have the worst deepstrike in the game and basically just have to weather it no matter what.
Yup, but honestly after the First FAQ that changed the Pheremone trail lictor trick, then the changes to Hive COmmander swarmy ability after DS, and finally the T1 DS rules in deployment zone T1 I have just been deploying my stealers on the front line anyway with a malanthrope and swarmy nearby.
With going second you can always use the cover stratagem now and get a 4+ on those GS to help offset some of the mortar spam as well.
Yeah, I'm not saying Genestealer's are terrible or anything. Just that their deep strike equivalent doesn't work anymore which makes me sad. But being that it's only relevant when you're going second, it is offset by the stratagem, though that is 2CP.
With the new 'first turn cover' stratagem, I really like the biovores. Did some tests against a 4 knight + ad mech lists and those pesky spore mines are golden. Move the biovores and get -1 to hit, shoot an extra time with 'stratagem' and thats 8 spore mines deployed in front of the knights outside 3 inch. Thats 4 knights only able to move forward 2 inch.
Knights could try to kill those biovores but then the wont be shooting at the zoanthropes and with 4 wounds each and within malanthrope bubble (-1 to hit) thats not that easy. If I get first turn I would drop spore mines in front of knights, and move the hormagaunts forward outside 12/14 inch range. Next turn move the hormagaunts forward outside 1 inch in front of the knights and block them again. At some point you got a badly wounded knight (-1 to hit), one other knight hypnotised or horrified (-1 to hit) and if you keep everything within the malanthrope reach the can only shoot with a 5+ to hit.
Against any other army I would not take biovores but with all these knights walking around I like the movement blocking.
Good luck with that. It seems like an army that would struggle against some of the armies I like to run, but I'm not a knight player, and the last 2 events I've been to have had more knights than participants, so you might be OK. One thing to remember, while the biovores might damage knights more efficiently than most tyranid options, they still aren't likely to kill knights. You are hoping to survive them, not kill them.
With only 1 Malanthrope, I assume you are trying to move up the biovores alongside the zoenthropes? Is your event using the Cult Ambush nerf, or did it come out past the deadline?
Honestly with that list it might be better to go Leviathan. You double the survivability of the hordes with ample synapse everywhere. Depending on how your tourneys rule it, Sporocysts could be pretty great too. You’re already going whole hog on the mortal wounds plus horde, and the amount of spore mines being popped out could overwhelm anyone’s small guns.
tag8833 wrote: Good luck with that. It seems like an army that would struggle against some of the armies I like to run, but I'm not a knight player, and the last 2 events I've been to have had more knights than participants, so you might be OK. One thing to remember, while the biovores might damage knights more efficiently than most tyranid options, they still aren't likely to kill knights. You are hoping to survive them, not kill them.
True, but the tournament I'am attending got mostly 'objectives' focussed missions. I really want to keep those knights in check and keep scoring points.
My last tournament I took a nice aeldari armylist and the first battle was against an astra militarum army. My first turn I picked 3 maelstrom objectives and the where all in my opponents deployment zone. Then he picked 3 maelstrom objectives, also all in his deployment zone. 3 points ahead and we had to squeeze in a short 4th turn (3 hour battles) with me destroying 2/3 of his army but he winning with 14-6 points. I don't want that anymore. I need those gaunts and neophytes to go for the objectives and at least make sure I score points and won't get massacred.
tag8833 wrote:With only 1 Malanthrope, I assume you are trying to move up the biovores alongside the zoenthropes? Is your event using the Cult Ambush nerf, or did it come out past the deadline?
Biovores could move with the malanthrope but it depends on the terrain and possible indirect enemy fire. The can also pick a nice spot behind terrain in the back.
The tournament is in november so no first turn GSC ambush.
Badablack wrote:Honestly with that list it might be better to go Leviathan. You double the survivability of the hordes with ample synapse everywhere. Depending on how your tourneys rule it, Sporocysts could be pretty great too. You’re already going whole hog on the mortal wounds plus horde, and the amount of spore mines being popped out could overwhelm anyone’s small guns.
I would never trade 'kraken' for 'leviathan'. I need those zoanthropes to move fast to make sure I can use warp blast effectively and I need those gaunts to fall back from the knights and assault the troops behind them and start taking the objectives.
So I played Tyranids/GSC vs Space Wolves/IG today.
Spoiler:
Swarmlord
Neurothrope
Genestealers
Genestealers
Hormagants
Hive Guard
Exocrine
Abominant
Inconward
Primus
Neophytes
Neophytes
Acolytes
Aberrants
-----
Did well but the GSC group really didn't contribute anything. Cult ambush was a huge wildcard, and the acolytes weren't great. Maybe it was poor timing on my part. Would like to hear successful strategies/combos if anyone has then
I took the Swarmlord. I know, but it ended up being very interesting.
Swarmlord Summary:
Turn 1 he enabled a group of 16 stealers to move around 36" to get over terrain and behind a wolford hq and a runepriest (earning me first blood and slay the warlord t1).
Turn 2 he did the same thing to a smaller group of 12, and they ran around the enemy screen to kill Murderfang. He also smote and psychic screamed.
Opponents Turn 3 he died to a gunship and some lucky rolls.
Overall I think movement shenanigans won me the game, so I'm not THAT mad my awesome melee beast got taken out so quickly. He wasn't shot down earlier due to some LoS blocking terrain and the massive genestealer threat soaking up a lot of bolters.
Hive Guard and Exocrine also were mvps. Not sure which one more than the other. Would like to hear opinions on that. Do people take redundancies of either unit?
Were you playing with the new restrictions on GSC ambush (no turn 1)?
I find the Exocrine hard to get consistent but maybe it's my positioning. What he brings to a list isn't attractive enough for me to want to put the effort into getting familiar with him or try to finesse with him every game. Always interested to hear how he performed for people. Last game I played with him he did feth all.
Exocrines with +1 damage strats are a very reliable source of antitank. People swear by the hiveguard, but an equal amount of them are difficult to keep out of LOS and harder to screen. I think they’re popular mostly because you don’t have to worry about positioning, they can blow stuff up from anywhere. The exocrine has to be deployed very carefully, as you can waste a lot of shooting if the enemy is clever with hiding behind terrain.
Any case to be made for a rupture cannon tyrannofex? Or do people still avoid those?
I never ended up using the exocrine's bonus damage stratagem, as it was kraken abs had no rerolls to help ensure success... but maybe I could take my artillary in a kronos detachment.
And yeah, GSC came in T2. I got mixed results on the cult ambush table, causing my guys to not come in on an ideal spot. I actually think it may have been better to wait till T3 when the board has fewer enemy models on it, to allow them more ambush options.
Badablack wrote: Exocrines with +1 damage strats are a very reliable source of antitank. People swear by the hiveguard, but an equal amount of them are difficult to keep out of LOS and harder to screen. I think they’re popular mostly because you don’t have to worry about positioning, they can blow stuff up from anywhere. The exocrine has to be deployed very carefully, as you can waste a lot of shooting if the enemy is clever with hiding behind terrain.
In local metas they are equal, as soon as you go to a GT, with DE, CWE, Knights, etc.. the Exocrine just dies without doing much, thats why people take Hive Guard, they can stay out of LoS and not die while still doing damage.
Also, HG are BS 3+ S8 -2 D, where Exocrines are BS 4+ S7 -3 D2, having +1S and BS makes Hive guard even better. I honestly dont see any situation where the Exocrine is better vs vehicles .
Exocrine a Strat +1D, didnt move, re-roll 1's, double shooting
Vs BH Ravager: 7.78
Vs Rhino: 8.75 wounds
Hive Guard (4man equal points ish) didnt move as Kronos, Double Shoot Strat
Vs BH Ravager: 9.22 wounds
Vs Rhino: 11 wounds
These are both if at max damage output, but Hive guard can have more than a 4man, 4man is 24pts cheaper than 1 Exocrine and does more damage, can sit out of LoS
I am considering taking shrikes -- Any experience with them, and if so what kind of biomorphs? I'd also consider warriors + prime, but I like the shrike's speed to help deliver synapse/board control, along with a decent offensive unit.
When it comes to gaunts is there a "golden number" of bodies people take? I've had some success with 15-20 sized blobs of hormagants, but would like to hear more.
Lastly I'm in love with the Swarmlord, largely for Hive Commander allowing units to zip up the board. That being said he also is vulnerable to getting shot off by enemy anti tank. Any good distraction units that also serve a purpose people reccomend?
weaver9 wrote: Any case to be made for a rupture cannon tyrannofex? Or do people still avoid those?
I never ended up using the exocrine's bonus damage stratagem, as it was kraken abs had no rerolls to help ensure success... but maybe I could take my artillary in a kronos detachment.
And yeah, GSC came in T2. I got mixed results on the cult ambush table, causing my guys to not come in on an ideal spot. I actually think it may have been better to wait till T3 when the board has fewer enemy models on it, to allow them more ambush options.
It's pretty garbage. It's a lot better with the flamer. Even then it is still pretty garbage.
Exocrines are also garbage. Equal points of warriors or hive guard will always serve you better I think.
I am considering taking shrikes -- Any experience with them, and if so what kind of biomorphs? I'd also consider warriors + prime, but I like the shrike's speed to help deliver synapse/board control, along with a decent offensive unit.
When it comes to gaunts is there a "golden number" of bodies people take? I've had some success with 15-20 sized blobs of hormagants, but would like to hear more.
Lastly I'm in love with the Swarmlord, largely for Hive Commander allowing units to zip up the board. That being said he also is vulnerable to getting shot off by enemy anti tank. Any good distraction units that also serve a purpose people reccomend?
For me the number is 20. Or if you are ITC just make it 19.
10 Dev 10 flesh bore termis - good damage to chaff ratio.
20 Hormies - 100 points of if you ignore this you will never shoot again
3 and 9 man warriors both work pretty good too.
I don't really play gargs but I imagine they work best is 10-15 man units.
Can't stress this enough - These units are so much better as Leviathan.
In local metas they are equal, as soon as you go to a GT, with DE, CWE, Knights, etc.. the Exocrine just dies without doing much, thats why people take Hive Guard, they can stay out of LoS and not die while still doing damage.
Also, HG are BS 3+ S8 -2 D, where Exocrines are BS 4+ S7 -3 D2, having +1S and BS makes Hive guard even better. I honestly dont see any situation where the Exocrine is better vs vehicles .
Exocrine a Strat +1D, didnt move, re-roll 1's, double shooting
Vs BH Ravager: 7.78
Vs Rhino: 8.75 wounds
Hive Guard (4man equal points ish) didnt move as Kronos, Double Shoot Strat
Vs BH Ravager: 9.22 wounds
Vs Rhino: 11 wounds
These are both if at max damage output, but Hive guard can have more than a 4man, 4man is 24pts cheaper than 1 Exocrine and does more damage, can sit out of LoS
Have to point out that the exocrine does have BS 3+ when standing still.
Vs Rhino
Exocrine has 12 shots
8 hits + Kronos (4 / 6 * 2/3) = 8.44444 hits
S=T, so 4.22222 wounds
Rhino gets a 6+ save, so 4.22222 *5/6 = 3.51852
Using +1 damage stratagem, so 3.51852 * 3 = 10.55555 damage.
4 Hive Guard
8 Impaler cannon shots
5.33333 hits + Kronos (2.66667 / 6 * 2/3) = 5.62963 hits
S>T, so 3.75309 wounds
Rhino gets a 5+ save, so 3.75309 * 2/3 = 2.50206
Average damage on a D3 is 2, so 5.00412 damage
Using the fire twice stratagem, so 10.00823 damage
In local metas they are equal, as soon as you go to a GT, with DE, CWE, Knights, etc.. the Exocrine just dies without doing much, thats why people take Hive Guard, they can stay out of LoS and not die while still doing damage.
Also, HG are BS 3+ S8 -2 D, where Exocrines are BS 4+ S7 -3 D2, having +1S and BS makes Hive guard even better. I honestly dont see any situation where the Exocrine is better vs vehicles .
Exocrine a Strat +1D, didnt move, re-roll 1's, double shooting
Vs BH Ravager: 7.78
Vs Rhino: 8.75 wounds
Hive Guard (4man equal points ish) didnt move as Kronos, Double Shoot Strat
Vs BH Ravager: 9.22 wounds
Vs Rhino: 11 wounds
These are both if at max damage output, but Hive guard can have more than a 4man, 4man is 24pts cheaper than 1 Exocrine and does more damage, can sit out of LoS
Have to point out that the exocrine does have BS 3+ when standing still.
Vs Rhino
Exocrine has 12 shots
8 hits + Kronos (4 / 6 * 2/3) = 8.44444 hits
S=T, so 4.22222 wounds
Rhino gets a 6+ save, so 4.22222 *5/6 = 3.51852
Using +1 damage stratagem, so 3.51852 * 3 = 10.55555 damage.
4 Hive Guard
8 Impaler cannon shots
5.33333 hits + Kronos (2.66667 / 6 * 2/3) = 5.62963 hits
S>T, so 3.75309 wounds
Rhino gets a 5+ save, so 3.75309 * 2/3 = 2.50206
Average damage on a D3 is 2, so 5.00412 damage
Using the fire twice stratagem, so 10.00823 damage
Yeah i forgot about that, i thought i had the rules memorized, but I havent used him in a bit.
Given that, it still shows how well HG really are, they can sit out of LoS in cover all game, and now with the fly rule changed, units like Shiny SPears, Skyweavers, DP's, Talos, etc.. cant get to them through walls, they have to go over/around wasting movement, same for bubble wrap. So they are even more protected, and that 4man unit is still cheaper for same damage.
Took my Nids to a ~90 person ITC GT this past weekend. Did well enough on day 1 to be 10th and make it into the top bracket (they expanded it from 8 to 16 since we had 9 undefeateds). Out of the day 2 round, it was tougher sledding and I finished 11th overall.
I’m general, I found the Nids performed pretty well. Had a 1 point loss on day 1 to an Eldar player (member of team America) who took 8 wave serpents. Beat a pure IG gunline piloted by a good player pretty handily and also did well against a castellan + admech list, though admittedly the admech player had 2 drills and a fair amount of stabby chickens (which are good in general but he just lacked bodies). Did kill the knight on turn 2 though.
Day 2 was tough sledding in the top bracket, first getting matched vs a player I know locally playing Magnus and his closest 120 cultist friends with Abaddon and some princes. I messed up my first turn charge, which wound up losing me the game narrowly. To be fair, he would have messed me up pretty badly if he went first IMO, so that loss feels like a fair result on average, but I definitely could have pulled out the W. Beat a 90 plaguebearer chaos list handily and then got matched up against the same Eldar player from day 1 again! Guess when you’re in the same bracket, it’s less likely that you’ll avoid the same player. Was a super fun game but he was able to alpha me super hard and the game was functionally over from the word go.
All in all, it was a great event and I know I could have gone 4-2 with ease and 5-1 with a bit of luck. It’s good to know that Nids are still doing well competitively. And this was an exceedingly competitive tournament. If anyone would like to hear more about a particular matchup, I’m happy to expound upon it, and I’ll do a full write up in the near future, which I’ll share the link to once it’s published.
Amishprn86 wrote: Did they use the new FAQ rules for DSing? If so did you start the Flyrants on the table?
Yes and yes. Tbh, the flyrants weren’t really a big target priority turn 1. The venomthropes help a lot with that. In between the genestealers and them trying to kill either the hive guard or the Swarmlord, or me going first, I don’t think I lost a single flyrant turn 1. On top of that, keeping them off the board for 2 turns if I go second is pretty unacceptable IMO.
With a 16" move you are in business for turn 1 charge all the time with a tyrant. Onslaught makes it pretty reliable - it is nice to have a +1 to the advance and the charge.
Amishprn86 wrote: Did you take AG on them? I've been taking them on em, i like them a lot but IDK if it is needed when starting on the table now.
No they had two sets of brainleech devourers to pump out 24 shots a turn. Adrenal glands isn't worth it on those guys. If they're advancing, I've either played something incorrectly or it's a very long deployment. Charging happens, but only because there is very rarely any down side with the ability to fall back and both shoot and charge.
Amishprn86 wrote: Did you take AG on them? I've been taking them on em, i like them a lot but IDK if it is needed when starting on the table now.
No they had two sets of brainleech devourers to pump out 24 shots a turn. Adrenal glands isn't worth it on those guys. If they're advancing, I've either played something incorrectly or it's a very long deployment. Charging happens, but only because there is very rarely any down side with the ability to fall back and both shoot and charge.
AH yeah, I always play mine with 1 pair of guns and Melee. I like the melee part of them, since i place Kraken its even better, can move, shoot, charge, fall back, shoot, charge, repeat.
Amishprn86 wrote: Did you take AG on them? I've been taking them on em, i like them a lot but IDK if it is needed when starting on the table now.
No they had two sets of brainleech devourers to pump out 24 shots a turn. Adrenal glands isn't worth it on those guys. If they're advancing, I've either played something incorrectly or it's a very long deployment. Charging happens, but only because there is very rarely any down side with the ability to fall back and both shoot and charge.
AH yeah, I always play mine with 1 pair of guns and Melee. I like the melee part of them, since i place Kraken its even better, can move, shoot, charge, fall back, shoot, charge, repeat.
I also agree - it's cheaper to run 1 gun plus the OP as feth free claws with toxin sacs. Tyrants are amazing in melle - not sure why you'd give that up for 12 0 ap shots.
If you want 24 shots str 6 at bs3+- take a dakka fex.
The Kraken relic with all the dakka can deliver a very mobile, resilient and shoot unit with 24x BS3+ S6 shots. I don't think it's that bad. Top players often do it too
SHUPPET wrote: The Kraken relic with all the dakka can deliver a very mobile, resilient and shoot unit with 24x BS3+ S6 shots. I don't think it's that bad. Top players often do it too
Not bad at all. MRC is just better IMO. Better and cheaper too.
Cheaper sure but better? Not convinced. Do the math. 4 attacks. In a perfect world you hit all of them and wound on all of them (the re-roll to wound helps) but even hitting on 2’s and wounding on 3’s means you make them take 3 saves on average. The stuff you really care to kill often is either T7 or has an invuln save. Let’s say you’re going against something that’s T7 with just 3+ armor. You get 1.5 wounds through, so 4.5 damage, give or take. That’s nice, but just touching it in melee stops the unit from shooting. If whatever you’re attacking has an invuln, your average failed saves go down below 1 if they have a 4++.
TLDR, I’m really not that excited about doing 3 wounds to a Magnus (if his buffs aren’t up) or 6 wounds to a tank when just touching it stops it from working.
To be fair, the MRC are cheaper, but I’ve just found that the anti-infantry has been more important. Even with 40 genestealers and 30 hormagants, never have I wished that I had less anti-infantry. Maybe that’s just the local meta, but I’ve found the guns to be far more effective and I’ve not once looked back after I made the switch
Its really up to you tho, the fact that both ae viable options says something good IMO.
But from my POV.
Yeah and 12 shots dont do much more with 0 ap, at least having D3 and AP gives you real options.
I mean equal S/T with 3+ save means its 1.5 wounds with those extra shots, even at 4+ sv its 2.5 wounds. MRC vs same S/T and a 4+ invul are also 2.5 wounds, without that invul (say 5++) its already better.
If you really want you Tyrant to be Anti-Infantry, ok thats fine, but i rather have DakkaDex's, Hgants, Genestealers, etc.. and other things to do that, my Flyrants are jack of all, so i want to play them that way.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote: I default my tyrants to all ranged, simply because BS degrades better than WS.
Actually WS is a 2+/3+/4+ and BS is 3+/3+/4+ so WS degrades better.
Amishprn86 wrote: Its really up to you tho, the fact that both ae viable options says something good IMO.
But from my POV.
Yeah and 12 shots dont do much more with 0 ap, at least having D3 and AP gives you real options.
I mean equal S/T with 3+ save means its 1.5 wounds with those extra shots, even at 4+ sv its 2.5 wounds. MRC vs same S/T and a 4+ invul are also 2.5 wounds, without that invul (say 5++) its already better.
If you really want you Tyrant to be Anti-Infantry, ok thats fine, but i rather have DakkaDex's, Hgants, Genestealers, etc.. and other things to do that, my Flyrants are jack of all, so i want to play them that way.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote: I default my tyrants to all ranged, simply because BS degrades better than WS.
Actually WS is a 2+/3+/4+ and BS is 3+/3+/4+ so WS degrades better.
I consider the BS profile better. It means that the flyrant keeps the same performance until the last 3 wounds, where if needed you can just heal d3 and be back to full power.
Based on post FAQ feedback, I’m continuing to read/hear that knights are a major meta trend—how the hell do bids handle them?? Part of me wonders if investing in a horde might help. Granted, I do NOT want to play a horde at a GT...
By the way I prefer to have a hybrid tyrant capable of dealing some damages in close combat, specially if he is a kraken one and he has the chance to disengage and charge in the same turn.
For me 12 more S6 shots don't bring a lot in a list full of anti infantry stuff.
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah - just gonna tell ya straight up. MRC out damage 12 dev shots hitting on 3's at a pretty significant margin.
Vs a standard tank absolutely. Vs single wound t4 or t3 infantry? Not even close. Worth pointing out also that your opponent is not likely to let you assault what you want to unless you can clear their infantry screens, which are all the more important now that you don’t have fly in the assault phase. It’s actually not even a contest in my opinion as to what I’d prefer to take. But you certainly could try to use the tyrants for close combat and have other things shoot. It’s just that they won’t be able to contribute meaningfully to the game on turn 1, whereas a shooty flyrant almost always will be able to do so. I could kill all of the screens with double fighting Genestealers, but that flyrant still isn’t doing anything turn 1 with those claws. I’ve seen Ttranids be an army that can fizzle our near the end of the game, so front-loading as much efficiency as possible is, to me, extremely valuable, but YMMV
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah - just gonna tell ya straight up. MRC out damage 12 dev shots hitting on 3's at a pretty significant margin.
Vs a standard tank absolutely. Vs single wound t4 or t3 infantry? Not even close. Worth pointing out also that your opponent is not likely to let you assault what you want to unless you can clear their infantry screens, which are all the more important now that you don’t have fly in the assault phase. It’s actually not even a contest in my opinion as to what I’d prefer to take. But you certainly could try to use the tyrants for close combat and have other things shoot. It’s just that they won’t be able to contribute meaningfully to the game on turn 1, whereas a shooty flyrant almost always will be able to do so. I could kill all of the screens with double fighting Genestealers, but that flyrant still isn’t doing anything turn 1 with those claws. I’ve seen Ttranids be an army that can fizzle our near the end of the game, so front-loading as much efficiency as possible is, to me, extremely valuable, but YMMV
Depends, are they IG with a 5+ save and in cover? If so +12 S6 shots is only 3 dead.
In my experience GS and Devilgaunts can deal with the infantry. I think having the MRC on the Hive Tyrannt is a must, especially if your kraken, with the fallback, shoot, recharge ability.
If you are playing kronos on the HT, and don't move a lot then the double Devourers might be worth it, but you need to make sure you have something to pick up the lack of anti tank.
As for Knights, SMITE them with Neuro, zoan, also taking a GSC Magus and using mind control to have them kill each other is good. HT with MRC also do well.
Dynas wrote: In my experience GS and Devilgaunts can deal with the infantry. I think having the MRC on the Hive Tyrannt is a must, especially if your kraken, with the fallback, shoot, recharge ability.
I completely agree.
If you have a kraken or a behemoth tyrant, you should bring MRC because of their abilities to get in cc.
Dynas wrote: In my experience GS and Devilgaunts can deal with the infantry. I think having the MRC on the Hive Tyrannt is a must, especially if your kraken, with the fallback, shoot, recharge ability.
If you are playing kronos on the HT, and don't move a lot then the double Devourers might be worth it, but you need to make sure you have something to pick up the lack of anti tank.
As for Knights, SMITE them with Neuro, zoan, also taking a GSC Magus and using mind control to have them kill each other is good. HT with MRC also do well.
Devilgants are expensive with a delivery system (and aren’t super cheap for BS 4+ either, but at least they can pew pew twice). GS can absolutely kill infantry, but I find that the stealers want to make sure that they are killing something other than 4 point models on turn 1 in case you can’t wrap or the enemy has counter assault.
Smites are great against knights, but you have to kill the screens before you can smite what matters. Kronos is nice on HT for the anti-psyker warlord trait, but generally I prefer that on a Neurothrope anyways.
Can’t WAIT for the GSC Dex to see what new toys we have
dan2026 wrote: What are people's thoughts on Tyrant Guard?
Is it best to keep them stock (and cheaper) rather than springing for expensive crushing claws?
Not worth the claws. Adrenal glands is worth it though. They are basically always advancing and if you manage to pull off a charge with them that supports the swarm lord they might actually do their job for once.
They are absolute Garbage. Imagine Hellblasters, but you replaced the Plasma with... Scything Talons. And +1W. That's literally what Tyrant Guard are. Oh and they cost more. Trash unit that GW has shown no interest in fixing in like 15 years.
SHUPPET wrote: They are absolute Garbage. Imagine Hellblasters, but you replaced the Plasma with... Scything Talons. And +1W. That's literally what Tyrant Guard are. Oh and they cost more. Trash unit that GW has shown no interest in fixing in like 15 years.
Agree, i literally havent fielded nor even wanted to field them in over 8 years.
They could even bring in some infantry to assist. Just toss in extra wounds from Mortals, and shooting and you have a fair chance to tear it down. 
I'm thinking of a anti-Knight squad. 
I don't much like Swarmy 
I think if you want to include her, you need to build the list around that. I am glad to hear Tyranofexen are workable, as I've always liked them. 
I've been thinking that 
, and our flyers, they need some work, likely "just" a point break, but they lack flavor, so adding something more would be nice. 
