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Hey guys. I promised I'd get another batrep done this weekend, using a list that was night and day from the gant farm list I batrepped earlier. Well Nash was kind enough to let me beat up on him again, this time using mostly his own models .

Ok, the lists...

Face eater nids...

alpha warrior with death spitter, adrenal glands

3x zoanthropes in a pod

3x zoanthropes in a pod

deathleaper

4x warriors with deathspitters and adrenal glands in a pod

11x genestealers with toxin sacs

9x genestealers with toxin sacs

10x genestealers with toxin sacs and scything talons plus a broodlord with scything talons

mawloc

mawloc


Nash's witch hunters list...

palatine with bra of fire
5x celestian retinue with 2x meltas in an immolator with smoke launchers, searchlights and extra armor

5x celestians with 2x meltas in an immolator with smoke launchers, searchlights and extra armor

5x celestians with 2x meltas in an immolator with smoke launchers, searchlights and extra armor

5x celestians with 2x meltas in an immolator with smoke launchers, searchlights and extra armor

5x storm troopers with 2x plasma guns

5x storm troopers with 2x plasma guns

platoon command squad with autocannon and 2x flamers
infantry squad with autocannon and commissar
infantry squad with autocannon
infantry squad with autocannon
heavy weapons squad with autocannons
heavy weapons squad with autocannons
heavy weapons squad with autocannons
heavy weapons squad with autocannons
heavy weapons squad with autocannons

exorcist

immolator with smoke launchers, searchlight and extra armor

immolator with smoke launchers, searchlight and extra armor

Ok, 5 objective seize ground, like all my first games with a new list. Nash got to place the first objective, and went dead center but close to deployment edge, I was trying to place objectives near short table edges for genestealers to get to them.

I won the roll and chose to kick. Nash deployed with a dual firebase that was separated by a wall of 5 immolators. His exorcist and three of his HWS deployed on the short edge far away from the objective I placed, making me have to choose between killing them or scoring the objective with my genestealers. His deployment and the two turns of moving looked like this...




And after all the moving....


Alright... Nash has popped smoke all over, but his exorcist didn't buy it (silly 3rd edition codex) I joined the warriors with the alpha then rolled reserves. I got the warriors, one zoanthrope unit, two mawlocs and the 11 man genestealer unit and the broodlord unit. The genestealer units split... broodlords unit arriving near the exorcist firebase and the 11 strong genestealer unit arriving next to an objective. My pods both landed around where I wanted to. My zoanthrope pod landed just in front of the exorcist, and the warrior pod landed in the pocket behind nash's blocking immos.

For an army with CC punch, I had a pretty spectacular alpha, the zoanthropes blasted apart the exorcist, the warriors blew up a storm trooper immolator, the warriors drop pod managed to shake another one. Even bigger was the zoanthrope drop pod which managed to insta-kill an autocannon, this was huge because it opened up a dual charge for the broodlords unit, in the assault phase the broodlord got to two autocannon HWS, and the 11x genestealer unit got to the left-most storm trooper immo.

Mawloc entry #1


Mawloc entry #2. I used this point specifically to push Nash's immo as close to the table edge as I could to set up a stealer charge.


Zoanthrope and broodlord arrival on left flank... yes that is a tomato can. That zoan that s all by himself is just resting there, the hill is too steep for his top-heaviness.


Genestealer and mawloc arrival. The stealers and mawloc death from below did everything you could do to a tank without wrecking it.


Warrior arrival...



Ok, top of turn 3, Nash goes to work... His shooting removes the warriors completely off the playing surface. Also, quite a bit more genestealers than I'd like were burned off table as well. Both units are still at fighting strength, but now my eyes are firmly fixed on keeping them protected, he cut through quite a bit of my troops...

What warriors?


Bottom of 3, I get one more stealer unit. Deathleaper has refused to come in, making me roll reserves like just some regular stiff.

I cinch in the stealer flankers, and head right for the surviving firebase, with some hot fleet rolls, it looks like both units will make it to someone, and the fresh unit that just arrived is going to take over on the immobilized immolator on my right flank. The other mawloc charges the palatine's retinue. They go invulnerable on him and he ends up losing combat, losing a total of two wounds.

The mawloc and the stealer unit consolidate after wrecking a ten man infantry squad...


Top of 4 and Nash is hell bent to knock out my stealers, He gets the broodlord down to himself and one other stealer, and gives the 11 man unit a morale test as well, which they pass. other than that he insta-killed a tomato can, and said go. In CC his celestians hung on against the mawloc.

Bottom of 4, the hammer falls. Well, Nash didn't have enough gas left in the tank to wipe out my stealers, and I have enough maneuver room to declare a couple dual charges. So as long as my zoanthropes keep their amazing performance going, I should be sitting pretty. My last zoanthrope unit shows up and so does old deathleaper.

What was that?


Second zoanthope unit drops and pops!


In the assault phase, this ugliness was happening to the witch hunters....



The last stealer unit that entered has killed off the storm troopers and their immo, and has consolidated to this objective.




After we wrapped up those assaults it appeared to us that the learning was done, and I was heading for a table sweep. So it was called. Again, Nash hasn't been following the nid rumors, so he is just walking into a bunch of unknown units. I helped him with target priority, but certainly a big problem with his list is how static it is. It would have fared much better against my foot nid list I batrepped a couple days ago, but he just got completely enveloped, and his super high model count didn't account for as much because I was actually equipped for CC.

This was majorly educational for me. There were some units that I thought were going to be stars that were just ho-hum, and there were some guys that really shined. Lemme just go through the army list.

alpha warrior and warrior squad in pod - Although these guys got taken out super fast, they did have the alpha strike capability to kill off a vehicle on landing. They just landed right on the front door of Nash's main firebase and were pretty doomed. Meltas were working this unit painfully hard, just like you would imagine. Nash figured out pretty quick to put the strength 8 on zoans and warriors and spore pods and to put the autocannons on the MCs and genestealers. All in all, I'd take it again, as its a pretty good place for the alpha warrior to go in a list like this. And I feel liek in an all reserve list, the alpha warrior beats out the winged hive tyrant and the parasite pretty handily.

zoanthropes in a pod - Uh, YES! these guys were fantastic. As good as the hive guard were in my other batrep, with death leaper breaking psychic hoods, they gain a bunch more reliability, and that strength 10 lance with ap1 was exploding tank after tank with ease. 3+ invulnerable is just enough protection to save yourself against a sprinkling of squad meltas, and it is so nice to not have to hug the pod to give yourself a cover save. Top tier excellent unit in a pod.

deathleaper - Well, he was a real bust this game. When you field him you are fielding him for 140 points of anti-psychic hood. His actual existence on the playing surface was pretty pointless this game. it would have been nice to have him show up on turn 2 so that i could have actually used his +1 reserves. He came in so late that all he really did was take one rear shot at an empty immo with his flesh hooks. I know this one game isn't going to be a good judge for him, but I'm kind of pissed that I feel like I have to buy him to shut down psychic hoods to make my zoans work versus marines, because it looks like in many games, thats all hes really gonna be doing. And that is 140 points of shutdown. You could almost field two more zoans in a pod for his cost. I'll give him a couple more tries, especially versus a thunder hammer termie unit with librarian in land raider, which is probably the single most frightening unit I can think of for nids.

genestealers - I'm not an old school nid guy, so I don't know a lot about the history of this unit... but I'll say that I was pleasantly surprised by the toxin sac stealer. A good troop choice for a reserve army like this one. I ran one as 11 and one as 9, to see what size I like better.... 9 was ample.

genestealers with scytals and broodlord - way, way overkill. I don't know what I saw in the broodlord. I used one of his psychic powers, and it had no impact, he costs damn near three more stealers, and id have purchased them in a heartbeat over him. His -1 leadership ability is for the purposes of morale tests only, so he isn't a death leaper stand in. There was a point where Nash looked like he was going to be able to knock out all of my troops, and i was thinking that Im definitely needing another stealer unit, and I'll be cutting the broodlord and scytals on this unit to make room for it.

Mawloc - The biggest dissapointment of the night. His underground blast marker hit vehicles twice, and did nothing, I was constantly evaluating whether or not to reburrow for another blast, but kept thinking I'd rather lock Nash's shooty army down in CC. So I continually opted to charge instead, I had to pass a couple of instinctive behvaior tests, which was added silliness, and then once in combat, the non-rerollable WS3 attacks were erratic. The squishy units I wanted to pop up under were all so close to the table edge that I risked a mishap just looking at them. I originally liked them fro their last turn objective popping and blocking, but since you have to set that up a turn early, and have no guarantee on when the game will actually end, that combo seems more of a pipe dream to me. I'd have much rather preferred trygons in this slot here.


So, that is the other extreme of nids. We looked at the "I'm T6 or T3, you won't be insta-killing me and I'm a tough wall of meat" list, and here is the "oh my god the sky is falling, please not in the face!" list. One is completely sturdy, but predictable and vulnerable to CC, the other is oppositley unpredictable for both players, but has some hard hitting alpha striking shooters mixed in with some efficient CC units that are arriving non-traditionally.

Now that I've seen both of these goal posts, I will hopefully be able to work on a list that works for me. One that has elements of attack, but also contains a core of sturdy MC wounds and shooting.

Thanks for reading.

Ro-tel is better, it has diced green chilis in it.

Interesting report. I've enjoyed all the reports you've posted in regards to playtesting lists. Very good reads.

One question: I'm assuming you played the rule correctly with the Death Leaper; no +1 reserves until he is actually on the table? Sounds counter intuitive if he's in reserve.

I thought the S10 lance power was AP2, not 1?

Good report, seems to be many viable builds in the new nids codex, and they seem to work like they should, scary and alien

Nice battle report! What was the deal with the WH player's deployment, though? Is there something I'm missing? I see a juicy wall of heavy weapon teams on his right-hand side, with no infantry to screen them or shield from assault-- they were predictably murdered. I understand his concerns with keeping Genestealers away from the objectives, but sacrificing multiple high value units to do so doesn't seem wise to me.

Since the deathleaper can disappear and reappear the next turn without a roll why not start him on the table? Just a thought. Of course we're not sure that's an option yet but it seems like it would be a pretty good idea, especially against this army as you could find him a nice place to hide for two turns to get your +1 and then disappear and reappear near the fight to help out.

I'm also going to be going back and forth on the mawloc/trygon issue and am trying to set up a bunch of practice games to figure out a list as well. Those are my biggest toss up right now.

so was the spicy tomato a stand in for toxic miasma? heartburn = toughness check. cool report. i'll be trying out an all warrior and one tyrant list on wednesday (with a few spore mines thrown in to round off the points).

Hulksmash wrote:Since the deathleaper can disappear and reappear the next turn without a roll why not start him on the table? Just a thought. Of course we're not sure that's an option yet but it seems like it would be a pretty good idea, especially against this army as you could find him a nice place to hide for two turns to get your +1 and then disappear and reappear near the fight to help out.

I'm also going to be going back and forth on the mawloc/trygon issue and am trying to set up a bunch of practice games to figure out a list as well. Those are my biggest toss up right now.

Yeah, he'd be great on table as he is constantly under the effects of night fight. And then his reserves rule would actually work.

Unfortunately, the translation of german i have seen states that he always begins the game in reserve.

I will look again, hoping that its different. Because I'd absolutely run him on table so that I'd get a great reservs arrival.

Great report. Maybe the Broodlords would have been more useful against a close combat oriented army like SW... Thoughts? This list is fairly close to what I envision I will build. I am curious... If you had dropped something to make room for a winged Tyrant how do you think that would have performed? I think deathleaper is a must take if you decide to field Zoies, as you mentioned the leaper is needed to shutdown imperial hoods.

Great batrep bro!

G

Excellent batrep as always. Good info and observations.

And I feel liek in an all reserve list, the alpha warrior beats out the winged hive tyrant and the parasite pretty handily.

Yeah the cost of the alpha warrior is very enticing. His boost to warriors is substantial as well. Not as sexy as other options but a damn fine choice.

deathleaper - Well, he was a real bust this game.

I am with you on this one. Expensive, takes up a premium elite slot and is fragile in the extreme. I am hoping having so much control on where he shows up mitigates his fragility somewhat. He and the lictors really get hurt by the 5ed assault rules -- with no way to clear kill zones they are not great assaulters anymore.

genestealers - I'm not an old school nid guy, so I don't know a lot about the history of this unit... but I'll say that I was pleasantly surprised by the toxin sac stealer. A good troop choice for a reserve army like this one. I ran one as 11 and one as 9, to see what size I like better.... 9 was ample.

Sounds about right. I've played unit sizes of 6-12 of the current ones and found 8-9 to be best. large enough to pull off multi-charges and also take some casualties but small enough to hide when need be. I've been wondering if more in a unit would be needed with 5+ save instead of 4 but probably not. May need more units of them though (as you are seeing).

genestealers with scytals and broodlord - way, way overkill.

Broodlord (and a big unit of stealers) might be the key to cracking those hammer units for this type of list, but seems mostly like a damage soaker. Early rumors had him giving frag nades but since that turns out to be false I am liking him alot less.

Mawloc - The biggest dissapointment of the night.

I've been on a roller coaster with this guy as the rumors come trickling in -- one moment he seems like awesome sauce (hit and run MC that has an auto hit AP2 blast), next he seems meh (he'll need hit and run cause he won't be winning very many assaults with WS3 A3, he mishaps on immpassible and friendlies, etc). I think you are right, more often then not the trygon is going to be worth the extra points.

Since the deathleaper can disappear and reappear the next turn without a roll why not start him on the table?

Unless the english varies from the german, both lictors and leaper must start the game in reserve.

Illumini wrote:I thought the S10 lance power was AP2, not 1?

AP1 according to german codexes that have arrived in stores.

Fetterkey wrote:Nice battle report! What was the deal with the WH player's deployment, though? Is there something I'm missing? I see a juicy wall of heavy weapon teams on his right-hand side, with no infantry to screen them or shield from assault-- they were predictably murdered. I understand his concerns with keeping Genestealers away from the objectives, but sacrificing multiple high value units to do so doesn't seem wise to me.

Remember, Nash had 15 autocannons in 5 units, and only three units of 10 guardsmen with which to bubble wrap them. Two of his five HWS and his PCS were carefully wrapped behind the infantry screens. the last thing you want to do when fighting a drop army, especially a CC drop army, is bunch up together. So he created two fire bases. I do this all the time with IG. There weren't any objectives in that corner, so he didn't commit any of his infantry squads over there, they needed to be at table center. And the PCS needed to be next to the infantry squads for FRFSRF. I'm of the opinion that nash had way too many HWS. But, given his army list, I believe that was the correct deployment.

Look at it this way. I arrived with the broodlords unit, the zoanthropes and their pod, all over on that flank to engage. I killed an exorcist and ultimately three HWS. The broodlords unit never got to his infantry squads at table center, and they got killed off by the games end. My pod was insta-killed by sisters with meltas, and my zoanthropes only killed one more immo after the first exorcist. They were alive but unable to contest any objectives. So 450 points of my army killed 350 points of his, and then i lost 290 points of it in the bargain.

The only maneuver snafu that Nash had was his leftmost immolator being within charge range of my outflanking stealers (although my mawloc pushing it even closer helped me). He is still tuning his list however, and i wouldn't argue that it couldn't be better.

Yeah, I was picturing using the Mawloc's template against troops mainly. Killing 84% of the MEQs you come up under would at least seem to be pretty sweet, as opposed to a strength 6 hit against a vehicle.

Shep wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Nice battle report! What was the deal with the WH player's deployment, though? Is there something I'm missing? I see a juicy wall of heavy weapon teams on his right-hand side, with no infantry to screen them or shield from assault-- they were predictably murdered. I understand his concerns with keeping Genestealers away from the objectives, but sacrificing multiple high value units to do so doesn't seem wise to me.

Remember, Nash had 15 autocannons in 5 units, and only three units of 10 guardsmen with which to bubble wrap them. Two of his five HWS and his PCS were carefully wrapped behind the infantry screens. the last thing you want to do when fighting a drop army, especially a CC drop army, is bunch up together. So he created two fire bases. I do this all the time with IG. There weren't any objectives in that corner, so he didn't commit any of his infantry squads over there, they needed to be at table center. And the PCS needed to be next to the infantry squads for FRFSRF. I'm of the opinion that nash had way too many HWS. But, given his army list, I believe that was the correct deployment.

I would consider two autocannon units and a platoon command to be markedly inferior to three autocannon units and an Exorcist, orders or no orders. I agree that his HWS to infantry ratio was poor, but I would characterize that deployment in this game as a massive error. In fact, as soon as I saw the picture of that deployment, I assumed that he was going to lose the game. It seemed to me like he was setting himself up for a guaranteed turn 2 assault, which indeed proved true. I'm surprised to see you advocating not bunching up-- the conventional wisdom seems to be to "castle" against Deep Strike armies, and that technique has worked well for me in the past. Deploying on the sides of the board seemed additionally poor because of your outflanking elements.

Shep wrote:Look at it this way. I arrived with the broodlords unit, the zoanthropes and their pod, all over on that flank to engage. I killed an exorcist and ultimately three HWS. The broodlords unit never got to his infantry squads at table center, and they got killed off by the games end. My pod was insta-killed by sisters with meltas, and my zoanthropes only killed one more immo after the first exorcist. They were alive but unable to contest any objectives. So 450 points of my army killed 350 points of his, and then i lost 290 points of it in the bargain.

Earning your points back isn't really a very useful idea anymore, especially not in objective missions. Though it can be OK as a quick heuristic and as a means, it still lets you down from time to time-- this seems to be one of those times. You destroyed more than 50% of his long range firepower, including his only long range low AP weapon, in exchange for one unit of Genestealers. Definitely a good trade in my book.

Thank you for the battle report. Great job.

Just curious why only 1 Exorcist on the Sisters side? Usually 3 of them is the norm.

Immo spam armies often take HS Immolators instead of Exorcists. In my opinion this army tries to be both an immo spam army and a stand-and-shoot list and kind of fails at both. The firebase elements make the list too static, negating the main advantage of the Immolators, and there aren't enough vehicles to achieve true target saturation.

Fetterkey wrote:I would consider two autocannon units and a platoon command to be markedly inferior to three autocannon units and an Exorcist, orders or no orders. I agree that his HWS to infantry ratio was poor, but I would characterize that deployment in this game as a massive error. In fact, as soon as I saw the picture of that deployment, I assumed that he was going to lose the game. It seemed to me like he was setting himself up for a guaranteed turn 2 assault, which indeed proved true. I'm surprised to see you advocating not bunching up-- the conventional wisdom seems to be to "castle" against Deep Strike armies, and that technique has worked well for me in the past. Deploying on the sides of the board seemed additionally poor because of your outflanking elements.

Leave the exorcist out of the list of things that "could be protected". Zoanthropes have a mishap free pod arrival and 18" range. If my pod didn't scatter badly, that exorcist was dead anywhere. Either his bubble wrap isn't far enough forward and I land outside the wrap but in 18" or his bubble wrap is pushed out too far and I land inside the wrap.

I lost game 4 of the WWSO on table two because of a "castling" misplay. I deployed in a castle versus a nearly all drop podding logan based space wolf list. The number of multi-charges I allowed was unacceptable, and my counter-maneuver was blocked off by enemy models. It was a game I should have won, and I lost it because I was bunched up. Had nash attempted to not have anything within around 17" of either board edge, that only leaves him with 38" of width. He had 7 immolators, 33 foot guardsmen and 16 heavy weapons teams to deploy. That is just completely impossible to not block your own lanes of fire with immolators, or give up basically two quadruple charges from either flank on turn 3.

In my opinion, dual firebase (if you have primarily 48" range weapons) is the safest way to defend against vertical envelopment. YMMV

Fetterkey wrote:Earning your points back isn't really a very useful idea anymore, especially not in objective missions. Though it can be OK as a quick heuristic and as a means, it still lets you down from time to time-- this seems to be one of those times. You destroyed more than 50% of his long range firepower, including his only long range low AP weapon, in exchange for one unit of Genestealers. Definitely a good trade in my book.

Yeah I hesitated to use the 'get your points back' argument.

The main problem was not Nash's deployment. It was the fact that autocannons totally suck against nids. They don't instakill my pods, warriors, or zoans. They don't wound on a 2+ or punch 3+ armoragainst MCs, they do decently against genestealers, but certainly not better than a heavy bolter or any template, And nash had over-invested in them. He had 7 flame tanks, of which only four survived my arrival on turn 2. And then he has a bunch of guns that are designed to kill light transports with a slight anti-infantry back up plan.

I certainly wouldn't put that loss on his deployment. And I would definitely rethink any list I had that spammed autocannons without taking any lascannons or flamer filled chimeras come january 16th.

I don't think autocannons necessarily suck against Tyranids-- forcing the opponent to take saves from 48" away is never really that bad-- but missile launchers and lascannons are definitely better. My own Space Marine army has a mix of auto, las, and missile, plus some melta in case the Land Raiders come to play. Flamers or plasma would probably be better in my special weapon slots against nearly all opponents, but there are a small minority of armies against whom the melta is absolutely mandatory. Hoping to roll CC hits or relying on 1-2 long range conversion beamer shots and various las/missile fire isn't much of a plan against one Land Raider, much less more than one. I think the new Tyranid codex may certainly change the way IG heavy weapon composition works, but I'm thinking my own army's weapon loadout will remain largely similar.

I agree that Nash was fighting an uphill battle with that list against yours, but I think his deployment was less than ideal as well.

Q1) Maybe the Broodlords would have been more useful against a close combat oriented army like SW... Thoughts?

Q2) If you had dropped something to make room for a winged Tyrant how do you think that would have performed?

* I think deathleaper is a must take if you decide to field Zoies, as you mentioned the leaper is needed to shutdown imperial hoods.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Q1) Maybe the Broodlords would have been more useful against a close combat oriented army like SW... Thoughts?

Honestly, Nid players should just be terrified of space wolves and space marines. I'm not sure the BL helps.

The broodlord is slightly more expensive than 3 toxin stealers. They have equivalent wounds, and his added toughness won't come into play until the unit is down to just him and one other stealer. 3 toxin stealers put out 9 attacks on the charge, 6 hits, for a total of nine chances to rend after poison re-rolls. They probably kill two marines on the charge, maybe 3. Broodlord gets five strength 5 attacks on the charge, hitting between 3 and 4 times, and maybe getting one rend. He certainly doesn't put out offensively like an equivalent number of genestealers. So it has to be about his psychic powers. The -1 leadership power turns out its only for morale tests in the assault phase, so it isn't going to be a deathleaper replacement. And the hypnotic eye thing would help defensively speaking I suppose, but would only work out favorably points wise if you shut down a model that can kill three genestealers per turn.

There are some other game situations that aren't covered, and some synergies that he has that I can't really theoryhammer. But it doesn't look like he is any more helpful than just adding more genestealers.

Green Blow Fly wrote:Q2) If you had dropped something to make room for a winged Tyrant how do you think that would have performed?

I have had some conversations about the warriors and the alpha. They really were too fragile, and they aren't my favorite HQ. Just too hard to get cover out of a pod and too easy to insta-kill. The winged tyrant might not be the answer either though. Its so pricey, and with only 4 wounds and no invulnerable save, it is going to constantly die on arrival. I can only imagine how it would go down, since I haven't used him, but the flyrant just seems to easy to kill for too many points. For my serious nid lists, I think I am always going to have a 'starts on the table' element. tyrants with guard, hive guard tervigons and termagants Can all have cover saves and form a good walking firebase. Take insight on the tyrant and you can call in some timely reserves from stuff like genestealers, trygons and podding zoanthropes.

Fetterkey wrote:I don't think autocannons necessarily suck against Tyranids-- forcing the opponent to take saves from 48" away is never really that bad-- but missile launchers and lascannons are definitely better. My own Space Marine army has a mix of auto, las, and missile, plus some melta in case the Land Raiders come to play. Flamers or plasma would probably be better in my special weapon slots against nearly all opponents, but there are a small minority of armies against whom the melta is absolutely mandatory. Hoping to roll CC hits or relying on 1-2 long range conversion beamer shots and various las/missile fire isn't much of a plan against one Land Raider, much less more than one. I think the new Tyranid codex may certainly change the way IG heavy weapon composition works, but I'm thinking my own army's weapon loadout will remain largely similar.

Well the 48" range is of course worthless against Shep's list. Everything was on top of me leaving either a single turn or zero turns of shooting. I made the list a while back envisioning myself blowing up Rhino's and Chimera's with 19 Autocannons. Now I'm facing a list with a bunch of 6 toughness creatures and outflanking genestealers. Not the best of matchups and not really tuned to the metagame.

I agree that Nash was fighting an uphill battle with that list against yours, but I think his deployment was less than ideal as well.

Both of these statements are true but I think the deployment was the best it could be based on the flawed list. I suppose I could have just crammed the entire platoon and all the fire support into a single corner and pray for bad outflank roles as well. The reality is I had too many HWS and not enough ways to screen them all along with the exorcist. Using HWS to screen the Exorcist is appropriate considering the alternatives but also completely inefficient. This is the fault of my list construction more than the deployment. Ideally infantry screen both the HWS and exorcist. The sheer volume of HWS prevents this from occurring.

Fetterkey wrote:Immo spam armies often take HS Immolators instead of Exorcists. In my opinion this army tries to be both an immo spam army and a stand-and-shoot list and kind of fails at both. The firebase elements make the list too static, negating the main advantage of the Immolators, and there aren't enough vehicles to achieve true target saturation.

I've played a more dedicated Immo spam list in the past and haven't had much success, particularly against gunlines like Tau or IG. The concept of just moving forward on turn 1 and simply saying "go" doesn't bode well with me. Ironically I did the same thing in this game, but for reasons truly out of my control. At least with some fire support I have the option to do some damage on turn 1. The concept behind the fire support is pop vehicles prior to flamer attacks. I think in my list I simply had too much of it and not enough follow up. Not that it mattered in this particular game.

This list needs a reworking no doubt, however I wouldn't dump the fire support entirely (or even the AC). But I would shave the HWS, up the melta count (perhaps switch to TL HF to TL MM), and try to cram in a few more immolators.

Either way that isn't really the point. The bugs were the stars here. I'm just the Washington Generals right?

NWO ruled!!!

G

I have had some conversations about the warriors and the alpha. They really were too fragile, and they aren't my favorite HQ. Just too hard to get cover out of a pod and too easy to insta-kill.

I think you where just a little over aggressive with their deployment this game. They should have arrived in the ruins closet to the objective and waited for their time to strike.

When I ran them I loved them, in cover with a Tervigon giving them FNP, and the Alpha giving you wound allocation and the ability to take that odd high strength hit. They where very resilient in that regards. I like the Alpha as a good cheap HQ unit.

Regarding winged Tyrants, my experience with the new codex is limited to one game. However, in that game it avoided taking damage on the deep strike thanks to my being (overly) aggressive with my other drops. When you have other MCs, Zoeys, Warriors, etc. podding in right on top of you and shooting, you tend to focus on that and not the non-shooting Tyrant 14" away. My Tyrant expired later, but after dealing out a lot of punishment and boosting other units with the WS1/BS1 whammy.

My Trygon was the only unit left to enter in turn 3, which ended up being a boon for similar reasons. With the scrum going on in my opponent's deployment zone, there wasn't much in position to shoot at it in the turn after it arrived. I also greatly benefited by having basically every deep strike/drop land on target.

When the Tyrant comes down, I think you can try to use pods for cover and/or the whammy to shut down, say, a Long Fangs unit in position to pop it, for instance. But even with reserve bonuses, random reserve rolls and DS scatters would seem to make the winged Tyrant a dicey strategy. And I dunno that it makes any sense to semi-suicidally DS a bunch of stuff into a bad position just so that my MCs deploying a little further out can avoid taking punishment.

I'd like to try a reformulated army and try some more conservative drops in conjunction with a somewhat beefed-up ground element.

I am a big fan of the Alpha Warrior as a second HQ and have had success running him in my test games... same reasons as Mahu stated.

G

Shep wrote:The broodlord is slightly more expensive than 3 toxin stealers. They have equivalent wounds, and his added toughness won't come into play until the unit is down to just him and one other stealer. 3 toxin stealers put out 9 attacks on the charge, 6 hits, for a total of nine chances to rend after poison re-rolls. They probably kill two marines on the charge, maybe 3. Broodlord gets five strength 5 attacks on the charge, hitting between 3 and 4 times, and maybe getting one rend. He certainly doesn't put out offensively like an equivalent number of genestealers. So it has to be about his psychic powers. The -1 leadership power turns out its only for morale tests in the assault phase, so it isn't going to be a deathleaper replacement. And the hypnotic eye thing would help defensively speaking I suppose, but would only work out favorably points wise if you shut down a model that can kill three genestealers per turn.

There are some other game situations that aren't covered, and some synergies that he has that I can't really theoryhammer. But it doesn't look like he is any more helpful than just adding more genestealers.

Several good points, but there is one other thing to consider about the BL. Obviously the 3 Stealers will do more damage than him if they all make it to combat, but over turns 1-2 (or 2-3, whenever) the BL can eat a couple stray wounds without reducing the combat effectiveness of the unit. It takes 3 wounds allocated to him with failed saves to eliminate his 5 attacks, whereas each of those 3 wounds would have eliminated 3 of the attacks if he were replaced by 3 Stealers. Now I don't necessarily know if that's enough reason to take him over equivalent Stealers, but it's something else to consider.

Now this is assuming his total cost is around the same as 3 toxin stealers. The info I found seems to imply that cost is the additional cost to upgrade a Stealer to him (like a Vet Sgt from old books, or like the current price to upgrade something like a Horror to the Changeling). If that's the case, then he's around the cost of 4 toxin stealers, which is even harder to justify. I playtested him and thought he was awesome...before I heard about the loss of Inhuman Strength. Now I'm thinking you're better off with more Stealers.

Shep wrote:Nash's witch hunters list...

palatine with bra of fire

Is this WISYWIG?

Certainly if properly modeled. Green stuff is yer friend indeed.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Certainly if properly modeled. Green stuff is yer friend indeed.

G

I think Doc Thunder has the market cornered.