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Great generalship and a neat report once again. When there are so many apparent broken aspects to 40K these days, it's amazing to see that it can still be a very tactical and intelligent game that really rewards a good player.

I'm so looking forward to getting back to the game, despite this new edition feeling so intimidating with the sheer silliness of some of rules and army list monkey business.

@Migsula
Hey Migsula, would be good to see you return to these forums more often. This edition is indeed silly and it is tricky to find a spot where games are challenging and fun as well. But it can be done :-)

@JY2
Awesome generalship again JY2. Amazed to see you pull out a win this game when your opponent had that much going for him.

A quick question, how many dice did he use for his summonings on average?

I tend to use 6 or 7 depending on the charges available and other needs, but it's pretty much a coinflip whether or not that amount of dice leeds to succesfull summonings in my experience. (BTW I know the chance involved and maybe Im a bit unlucky lately, but I find the variance in succes or fail quite large with 4+ dice rolls).

Cilithan

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I haven't seen one Nid army with a knight include any genestealers. You can do it but it's not fluffy - it's power gaming.

Exactly this. I have no problem with people gaming the system. 40k is a terrible tournament game to begin with. But it is rather insulting when people just so happen to splash the flavor of the month unit and then tell you it was a purely fluff decision. I'd rather they own up to it and just admit it fills gaps in there list and is strictly legal which is why they did it

In regards to the report I would just like to vote for more lictors! I love me some lictors and any report that sports alien ninjas gets my vote!

 migsula wrote:
Great generalship and a neat report once again. When there are so many apparent broken aspects to 40K these days, it's amazing to see that it can still be a very tactical and intelligent game that really rewards a good player.

I'm so looking forward to getting back to the game, despite this new edition feeling so intimidating with the sheer silliness of some of rules and army list monkey business.

While I admit certain broken combos do sometimes suck the fun out of the game, this game has been and always will be a very tactical game, especially when you combine the Maelstrom elements with the Eternal War missions.

Hope to see you back and probably at the LVO.

 Cilithan wrote:
@Migsula
Hey Migsula, would be good to see you return to these forums more often. This edition is indeed silly and it is tricky to find a spot where games are challenging and fun as well. But it can be done :-)

@JY2
Awesome generalship again JY2. Amazed to see you pull out a win this game when your opponent had that much going for him.

A quick question, how many dice did he use for his summonings on average?

I tend to use 6 or 7 depending on the charges available and other needs, but it's pretty much a coinflip whether or not that amount of dice leeds to succesfull summonings in my experience. (BTW I know the chance involved and maybe Im a bit unlucky lately, but I find the variance in succes or fail quite large with 4+ dice rolls).

Cilithan

Thanks. You can't under-estimate the general enough. Playing experience is a huge factor and that is usually the 1 advantage I have over many of my opponents.

He probably threw 5-6 dice on average for his WC3 powers. Can't believe he made (almost) every single attempt (might have missed 1, can't remember for sure). It was a case of exceptional dice rolling for him, especially when it came to his psychic powers.

Yeah, I usually roll 6-7 dice when I cast the WC2 Invisibility on my psychic armies, and I still fail probably at least once every game with them (I've even had games where I failed twice while rolling that many dice on a WC2 power!).

 Red Corsair wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I haven't seen one Nid army with a knight include any genestealers. You can do it but it's not fluffy - it's power gaming.

Exactly this. I have no problem with people gaming the system. 40k is a terrible tournament game to begin with. But it is rather insulting when people just so happen to splash the flavor of the month unit and then tell you it was a purely fluff decision. I'd rather they own up to it and just admit it fills gaps in there list and is strictly legal which is why they did it

In regards to the report I would just like to vote for more lictors! I love me some lictors and any report that sports alien ninjas gets my vote!

Sometimes, people will make up whatever reason to try to get a unit they like into an army they play. Whether it is power-gaming or just the fact that they loved the model (hey, a lot of people really like the IK model as well as their rules), it's really up to them and their meta. Who are we to tell them what they can or cannot do with their army based on fluff? There is just as much fluff supporting Tyranids having allies, but it is rather stupid that GW didn't let them (other than CoA allies, which really sucks). It's fine not to like it, but just remember that fluff is a tool that can be used to to support or to deny certain playstyles.

Fun bat rep. Congrats on the victory. Just a few minor b##ches. I notice you often say nothing about the Psychic phase...I'd like better if you did, as this is usually an important phase to me. And in this case it was a major part of the foes army.

Second, you never mentioned getting PE off of the Malanthrope...did you forget? Or did you just not mention it? The last thing that confused me was running the Mawloc into the kill-zone. My instinct would have been to burrow... Thanx if you get a chance to reply.

pinecone77 wrote:
Fun bat rep. Congrats on the victory. Just a few minor b##ches. I notice you often say nothing about the Psychic phase...I'd like better if you did, as this is usually an important phase to me. And in this case it was a major part of the foes army.

Second, you never mentioned getting PE off of the Malanthrope...did you forget? Or did you just not mention it? The last thing that confused me was running the Mawloc into the kill-zone. My instinct would have been to burrow... Thanx if you get a chance to reply.

Ok. I didn't get off that many powers because I either failed them or they got denied. In any case, my psychic phase really sucked in this game. My opponent, on the other hand, got off most of his powers, including his psychic shooting attacks from his DP against a couple of my units.

As for the Malanthrope's PE bubble, it didn't really play a major part in this battle (yes, I remembered about it). It was applicable in 2 battles - with my mawloc against the plague drones on my Turn 4 and when his lone plague drone attacked the malanthrope on his Turn 5. I think I had maybe 1 re-roll from PE with the mawloc and nothing with the malan combat.

In any case, I will usually mention something like this in my reports if it made a difference. Otherwise, you can assume nothing really happened with it. Just like my opponent's Warpstorm rolls. Nothing really happened except the turn it gave me quite a scare when my mighty Warlord flyrant almost turned into a Chaos Herald!

Oh, and the mawloc ran into the "killzone" so that if he assaulted me, at least my mawloc would get to attack first due to him assaulting through terrain. There was no way my mawloc could have gotten away from his assault with its run move. He couldn't burrow because he just came in that turn, mishapped and was placed in the "killzone".

 jy2 wrote:

pinecone77 wrote:
Fun bat rep. Congrats on the victory. Just a few minor b##ches. I notice you often say nothing about the Psychic phase...I'd like better if you did, as this is usually an important phase to me. And in this case it was a major part of the foes army.

Second, you never mentioned getting PE off of the Malanthrope...did you forget? Or did you just not mention it? The last thing that confused me was running the Mawloc into the kill-zone. My instinct would have been to burrow... Thanx if you get a chance to reply.

Ok. I didn't get off that many powers because I either failed them or they got denied. In any case, my psychic phase really sucked in this game. My opponent, on the other hand, got off most of his powers, including his psychic shooting attacks from his DP against a couple of my units.

As for the Malanthrope's PE bubble, it didn't really play a major part in this battle (yes, I remembered about it). It was applicable in 2 battles - with my mawloc against the plague drones on my Turn 4 and when his lone plague drone attacked the malanthrope on his Turn 5. I think I had maybe 1 re-roll from PE with the mawloc and nothing with the malan combat.

In any case, I will usually mention something like this in my reports if it made a difference. Otherwise, you can assume nothing really happened with it. Just like my opponent's Warpstorm rolls. Nothing really happened except the turn it gave me quite a scare when my mighty Warlord flyrant almost turned into a Chaos Herald!

Oh, and the mawloc ran into the "killzone" so that if he assaulted me, at least my mawloc would get to attack first due to him assaulting through terrain. There was no way my mawloc could have gotten away from his assault with its run move. He couldn't burrow because he just came in that turn, mishapped and was placed in the "killzone".

Cool, the Mawloc thing was bugging me ( ) Now it makes sense.

 jy2 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I haven't seen one Nid army with a knight include any genestealers. You can do it but it's not fluffy - it's power gaming.

Exactly this. I have no problem with people gaming the system. 40k is a terrible tournament game to begin with. But it is rather insulting when people just so happen to splash the flavor of the month unit and then tell you it was a purely fluff decision. I'd rather they own up to it and just admit it fills gaps in there list and is strictly legal which is why they did it

In regards to the report I would just like to vote for more lictors! I love me some lictors and any report that sports alien ninjas gets my vote!

Sometimes, people will make up whatever reason to try to get a unit they like into an army they play. Whether it is power-gaming or just the fact that they loved the model (hey, a lot of people really like the IK model as well as their rules), it's really up to them and their meta. Who are we to tell them what they can or cannot do with their army based on fluff? There is just as much fluff supporting Tyranids having allies, but it is rather stupid that GW didn't let them (other than CoA allies, which really sucks). It's fine not to like it, but just remember that fluff is a tool that can be used to to support or to deny certain playstyles.

Why can't a decision be made for multiple reasons? I was the first person to run a Knight with Tyranids (as far as I know), starting as soon as 7th came out. Yes, I knew that adding a Knight would significantly improve my army, but that doesn't mean I can't account for the fluff. I personally think that adding Necrons is even better for Tyranids than adding a Knight, but I tried to pick something that was at least possible with the fluff (see House Mortimer). Plus, I also liked the model. Would it be better to run an Allied knight if it was modeled as a very large Monstrous Creature? I've seen some very cool conversions, but I decided to run the actual model of a Knight because I do play in tournaments, and I didn't feel like running a model that may have questionable "Modeling for Advantage" problems if it wasn't the exact same size as a Knight, especially at something as major as the ATC.

So yes, the decision to add a Knight to my army was motivated by "what is good?", but when list-building, what decision ISN'T made with that in mind? Taking multiple Wave Serpents, Tigurius, or Space Wolf allies is just as much "power-gaming" as adding a Knight. I guess I am a Power-gamer? What defines a Power gamer anyways? Is this a good or a bad thing? I build lists to be as good as possible within the legal limits of Tyranids, but I'm pretty sure many people on this forum do that. I do stick with my Tyranids though, through thick or thin. Fortunately we are on the upswing right now, but we've had some rough patches too in the times since I bought my first gants in 6th grade.

@JY2: Sorry to distract from your thread, I just had to hop up on my soap box for a second there. Very entertaining BatRep though, I'd love to see your take on a Multi-spore list sometime!

No worries. Feel free to interject any time.

When it comes to competitive gaming, fluff takes a back seat to efficiency. I've never seen a top tournament player really try to justify his list with fluff (unless the fluffy list is also the highly optimized one a la screamer/flamer-spam Tzeentch daemons a couple of years back). Rather, it's all about the chemistry. Don't even sweat it, dude.

Nothing wrong with power gaming but don't expect us to buy into your bull crap fluff explanations.

Whoa, there....take it easy, buddy. Let's not start a flame war here that can potentially lock up my thread. If you've got any concerns, just PM me. It's all good.

 jy2 wrote:
Finally, I opt to assault the grinder with the dima. I choose the attack where I roll a 6, I get another attack at S10 AP1.

Not to take away from an otherwise excellent battle report, but the Spinemaw attack is only able to be allocated to infantry models (specifically infantry models without the Very Bulky rule). The Grasping Talons were still probably the better weapon to use though, since they still offer extra strength over the Sickle Claws.


Regardless, that was a nail-biter of a battle! In hindsight, I think you might have been better served by dropping the Dimachaeron in the midfield and using it to clear out some of the summons. The backfield didn't really have anything that would be truly threatened by it (Grinders being high armor vehicles and the GUO's happily lurking in cover where-in they would be able to swing first with their ID weaponry - didn't really have anything that could be used to hold them down a turn to disable the charging-through-cover penalty).

 Strat_N8 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Finally, I opt to assault the grinder with the dima. I choose the attack where I roll a 6, I get another attack at S10 AP1.

Not to take away from an otherwise excellent battle report, but the Spinemaw attack is only able to be allocated to infantry models (specifically infantry models without the Very Bulky rule). The Grasping Talons were still probably the better weapon to use though, since they still offer extra strength over the Sickle Claws.


Regardless, that was a nail-biter of a battle! In hindsight, I think you might have been better served by dropping the Dimachaeron in the midfield and using it to clear out some of the summons. The backfield didn't really have anything that would be truly threatened by it (Grinders being high armor vehicles and the GUO's happily lurking in cover where-in they would be able to swing first with their ID weaponry - didn't really have anything that could be used to hold them down a turn to disable the charging-through-cover penalty).

Thanks for the correction. I missed that part with the spine-maw.

"A spine-maw attack may target any infantry model that do now have the extremely bulky special rule...."

Funnily enough, as the rules are written, it can actually affect vehicles. The only exception are extremely bulky infantry. For the spine-maw attack to only affect infantry, it needs to say something like this:

"A spine-maw attack may only target any infantry model that do now have the extremely bulky special rule...."

But the next time I use him, I will confer with my opponent as to how he would intepret the spine-maw to work.


My goal with the dima was to try to keep his units in his backfield. I drop him midfield, it encourages my opponent to advance his units and that wasn't what I wanted. In this case, my dima can't control midfield because a GUO with Endurance + Balesword or Warp Speed + Balesword is much nastier than my dima in CC. By doing so, I would be conceding midfield to my opponent.

 jy2 wrote:

Thanks for the correction. I missed that part with the spine-maw.

"A spine-maw attack may target any infantry model that do not have the extremely bulky special rule...."

Funnily enough, as the rules are written, it can actually affect vehicles. The only exception are extremely bulky infantry. For the spine-maw attack to only affect infantry, it needs to say something like this:

"A spine-maw attack may only target any infantry model that do now have the extremely bulky special rule...."

But the next time I use him, I will confer with my opponent as to how he would intepret the spine-maw to work.

Hmm, that is an interesting observation. Admittedly, it would be quite easy to argue the rule it only gives permission to be used against infantry that lack the extremely bulky rule by virtue of its unique targeting rules and omitting other unit types in the description... Still, could be a useful trick depending on what the opponent thinks.

 jy2 wrote:

My goal with the dima was to try to keep his units in his backfield. I drop him midfield, it encourages my opponent to advance his units and that wasn't what I wanted. In this case, my dima can't control midfield because a GUO with Endurance + Balesword or Warp Speed + Balesword is much nastier than my dima in CC. By doing so, I would be conceding midfield to my opponent.

I understand, it just feels like it was a bit of a waste of the Dima. I'm not sure if it would have been a conceding of the mid-field though, as both of the GUOs were near the back of his deployment zone before the Dima came in and the only monster available in the midfield was his summoning prince (which I imagine he was probably not going to risk in an assault). Still, it helped win the game and that's what counts, right?

Edit: As a bit of an aside, neither nurgle MC has assault grenades anymore, correct? I vaguely remember our local daemon player complaining about their grenades being taken away when the current book dropped.

 jy2 wrote:
Well, necrons can generate scarabs and ghost arks can regenerate warriors. You know what? It'll be cool if there was a special monolith that just spits out warriors, teleporting them from deep within the tomb world. So instead of its particle whip, let's say it generates D6 warriors each turn at the expense of shooting and if you roll a '1', some type of inteference occurs which jams up the lololith and stops it from producing. That'll be pretty cool.

As for Tau, they can just ally in Eldar or Space Marines, who can do the summoning for them.

Necrons can generate scarabs and Tyranids can generate Termagants. Don't you use Tervigons? Not to mention the Mawloc's unique ability. What you want is homogenization because you feel that this asymmetrical game isn't fair.

ncie report jim!

 Wilson wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
It sure is. I'm against it. Some things should remain unique to an army, but whatever.

I strongly agree with that, man. I do like demons and they synergise well with Tyranids particularly but yeah, I don't like the summoning aspect of 7th. It's time consuming and silly to exceed the pts limit agreed. It takes away from a fair fight.

And yet, these summoning lists don't seem to be winning much. Seems more than fair as daemons are weak vs. shooting...but now after a few months of playing these I think summoning lists are just a marketing trap.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Thanks for the correction. I missed that part with the spine-maw.

"A spine-maw attack may target any infantry model that do not have the extremely bulky special rule...."

Funnily enough, as the rules are written, it can actually affect vehicles. The only exception are extremely bulky infantry. For the spine-maw attack to only affect infantry, it needs to say something like this:

"A spine-maw attack may only target any infantry model that do now have the extremely bulky special rule...."

But the next time I use him, I will confer with my opponent as to how he would intepret the spine-maw to work.

Hmm, that is an interesting observation. Admittedly, it would be quite easy to argue the rule it only gives permission to be used against infantry that lack the extremely bulky rule by virtue of its unique targeting rules and omitting other unit types in the description... Still, could be a useful trick depending on what the opponent thinks.

Yeah, definitely something that can be read either ways. This was how I read it.

1. Do your attacks. Roll a 6 to hit.
2. S10 autohit is triggered.
3. The part of "may target any infantry model that do not have the extremely bulky special rule" is an exception of what is not affected by this attack.

But I see your point of view as well. Definitely something to clarify with your opponent at the beginning of the game (or to check with a TO in a tournament).

 Strat_N8 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

My goal with the dima was to try to keep his units in his backfield. I drop him midfield, it encourages my opponent to advance his units and that wasn't what I wanted. In this case, my dima can't control midfield because a GUO with Endurance + Balesword or Warp Speed + Balesword is much nastier than my dima in CC. By doing so, I would be conceding midfield to my opponent.

I understand, it just feels like it was a bit of a waste of the Dima. I'm not sure if it would have been a conceding of the mid-field though, as both of the GUOs were near the back of his deployment zone before the Dima came in and the only monster available in the midfield was his summoning prince (which I imagine he was probably not going to risk in an assault). Still, it helped win the game and that's what counts, right?

Edit: As a bit of an aside, neither nurgle MC has assault grenades anymore, correct? I vaguely remember our local daemon player complaining about their grenades being taken away when the current book dropped.

Well, here you have the case of a great white shark, the dima, thinking he is all bad-a$$ and sh*t. He is the ultimate predator....until he comes up against an orca (the balesword GUO with psychic buffs). And now he has to keep his distance and wait for the right opportunity to strike. In any case, the orcas are drawn by their prey and will move up against it (if mid-field) or move back towards it (if in opponent's deployment zone). Now with the dima mid-field, I could go after his summoned units. However, in this case, I felt that I would also be losing board control if I let the GUO's advance. It might have gave my dimas some kills, which would have made him less useless, however, I think it would have also decreased my chances of winning IMO.

Correct, none of the daemon MC's, just like nids, have assault grenades. What they have are defensive grenades that takes away your charge bonuses when you do charge them.

 Quarterdime wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Well, necrons can generate scarabs and ghost arks can regenerate warriors. You know what? It'll be cool if there was a special monolith that just spits out warriors, teleporting them from deep within the tomb world. So instead of its particle whip, let's say it generates D6 warriors each turn at the expense of shooting and if you roll a '1', some type of inteference occurs which jams up the lololith and stops it from producing. That'll be pretty cool.

As for Tau, they can just ally in Eldar or Space Marines, who can do the summoning for them.

Necrons can generate scarabs and Tyranids can generate Termagants. Don't you use Tervigons? Not to mention the Mawloc's unique ability. What you want is homogenization because you feel that this asymmetrical game isn't fair.

Yup. It's not fair because every other army in the game can take non-Apocalpyse allies and every other psyker in the game can cast powers both from the BRB and their codex. Why are Tyranids the only army who can't? Fluff aside, it's an unbalancing game mechanic that, to me, is just plain stupid.

iNcontroL wrote:
ncie report jim!

Thanks, Geoff!

 D6Damager wrote:

 Wilson wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
It sure is. I'm against it. Some things should remain unique to an army, but whatever.

I strongly agree with that, man. I do like demons and they synergise well with Tyranids particularly but yeah, I don't like the summoning aspect of 7th. It's time consuming and silly to exceed the pts limit agreed. It takes away from a fair fight.

And yet, these summoning lists don't seem to be winning much. Seems more than fair as daemons are weak vs. shooting...but now after a few months of playing these I think summoning lists are just a marketing trap.

Well, they might not have won yet, but they have done remarkably well in tournament play. As a matter of fact, some of the GT winning lists incorporate some Summoning into them (i.e. Eldar farseers).

Now, a pure Summoning list may not necessarily be the best, but a good TAC list with elements of Summoning is a contender for the crown any time.

 D6Damager wrote:

 Wilson wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
It sure is. I'm against it. Some things should remain unique to an army, but whatever.

I strongly agree with that, man. I do like demons and they synergise well with Tyranids particularly but yeah, I don't like the summoning aspect of 7th. It's time consuming and silly to exceed the pts limit agreed. It takes away from a fair fight.

And yet, these summoning lists don't seem to be winning much. Seems more than fair as daemons are weak vs. shooting...but now after a few months of playing these I think summoning lists are just a marketing trap.

From what I understand, summoning list are unreliable as they depend a lot on the powers they get.

I don't see Lictor spam as all that scary to be honest. If the it wins another big event I'll be really impressed.

 Tyran wrote:

 D6Damager wrote:

 Wilson wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
It sure is. I'm against it. Some things should remain unique to an army, but whatever.

I strongly agree with that, man. I do like demons and they synergise well with Tyranids particularly but yeah, I don't like the summoning aspect of 7th. It's time consuming and silly to exceed the pts limit agreed. It takes away from a fair fight.

And yet, these summoning lists don't seem to be winning much. Seems more than fair as daemons are weak vs. shooting...but now after a few months of playing these I think summoning lists are just a marketing trap.

From what I understand, summoning list are unreliable as they depend a lot on the powers they get.

You can always get the Primaris, which is Summoning, so in terms of getting summoning powers, that is always reliable.

Where you will have problem is that it takes a lot of dice to summon units. On average, you would need 6 dice to cast a WC3 spell so you really need to make sure you have an adequate amount of warp dice in your army. The exception is Eldar, which can take a wargear that lowers the WC level of a spell by 1. Thus, for 1 Eldar psyker, it takes only 2WC to cast his summoning powers. But it is usually the amount of warp dice which is the problem, not the powers themselves.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I don't see Lictor spam as all that scary to be honest. If the it wins another big event I'll be really impressed.

Offensively, no, they are not scary.

What it is is a deceptively finesse army that is easy to under-estimate. A lictor by itself isn't scary at all, but when you have 20 different units all of a sudden in close proximity, snagging objectives and ready to assault next turn, that is when you will feel the pressure.

And then there are the 2-3 flyrants who now have freedom to roam around and to shoot at will because, all of a sudden, you've got a million MSU ground units to deal with.

You know me I run basically melee armies so not so scary. I think it's kind of a shock army.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
You know me I run basically melee armies so not so scary. I think it's kind of a shock army.

You know what you should be concerned about then? The Skytyrant formation backed by 3 flyrant Shield of Baal formation. Guaranteed to kill any biker army.

It looks good on paper and would be really tough to beat with bikes. Can't win em all.

No army can.

BTW, you can see my Skytyrant list in action in my next battle report:


1850 Rematch - Hive Fleet Pandora with Skytyrant Formation vs Chaos Daemons

Can't wait for that one !