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)

I build the list to counter knights, and was thinking this would be a good test of it. The list far outperformed my expectations.

My list:

Spoiler:

Jormandr Spearhead (+1 CP)
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: Psychic Scream *Warlord: Insidious Threat (3” ignore cover bubble)
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: The Horror

Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC)
Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC)
Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC)

Behemoth Supreme Command (+1 CP)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Catalyst, Onslaught (or Paroxysm)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Paroxysm, The Horror Relic: Ymgrl Factor
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Catalyst, The Horror
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: Catalyst

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.

As Foretold wrote:
Hello fellow Nid players!

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!

 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.

The mind control magus made the Chainsword knight punch the double gatling cannon knight taking him down to 6.

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.

 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?

 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.

tag8833 wrote:
Went 4-1 at a GT (ended in 5th place) I played 3 Castellan lists. Think I've cracked the code on THE meta list.

My List:

Spoiler:

Jormandr Spearhead (+1 CP)
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: Psychic Scream *Warlord: Insidious Threat (3” ignore cover bubble)
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: The Horror

Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC)
Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC)
Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC)

Behemoth Supreme Command (+1 CP)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Catalyst, Onslaught (or Paroxysm)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Paroxysm, The Horror Relic: Ymgrl Factor
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Catalyst, The Horror
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: Catalyst

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.

 Xenomancers wrote:

tag8833 wrote:
Went 4-1 at a GT (ended in 5th place) I played 3 Castellan lists. Think I've cracked the code on THE meta list.

My List:

Spoiler:

Jormandr Spearhead (+1 CP)
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: Psychic Scream *Warlord: Insidious Threat (3” ignore cover bubble)
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: The Horror

Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (HVC, DS, BM, ES, SC)
Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC)
Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC) + Carnifex (2 TL-Devs, BM, ES, SC)

Behemoth Supreme Command (+1 CP)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Catalyst, Onslaught (or Paroxysm)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Paroxysm, The Horror Relic: Ymgrl Factor
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Dev, TS, AG) Psychic: Catalyst, The Horror
Neurothrope Psychic Powers: Catalyst

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.

 Amishprn86 wrote:


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

 Zimko wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:


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?

 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

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Zimko wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:


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.

 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

 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.

 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)

Tyran wrote:

 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.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Tyran wrote:

 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.

 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.

3+/6+++ = 13.333 wounds
2+/0+++ = 13.333 wounds
2+/6+++ = 11.111 wounds

Thats why i said it.