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

At 1850, what's the sweet Godzilla nids list?

 

The shooty one with 5-6 carnifaxes each with 2 twinlinked devourers. 5-6 squads of 12 gaunts and a pair of hive tyrants with venom cannons to kill vehicles.  I have faced this army twice at RTT's and I have been smoked twice.  I have seen that army play 9 games and it has never lost.

BTW, the army does also have 2 squads of raveners and a squad of zoanthropes.

Darrian

Moz's list is very solid
WHT with +str and 2 tl devourers +bs, warp scream
HT with VC and tl devourer +bs, warp scream
3 elite fexes with 2 tl devourers, +bs
3x6 genestealers with ec
3x12 spinegaunts, one scuttles
2 vc/bs heavy fexes with +bs
3 zoanthropes with warp scream, 2 with warp blast one with synapse

My 1500pts list

HQ:
Winged tyrant with all CC biomorphs. duel talons + Shadows 204pts

Walking tyrant with VC/dev, ES, TS, Scream 165pts + 2 Guard with lashwhip 90pts (249pts)

Elite:
DevilFex 114pts
DevilFex 114pts
DevilFex 114pts

Troop:
8 Spinegaunts 40pts
8 Spinegaunts 40pts

Fast:
Ravener 40pts
Ravener 40pts
Ravener 40pts

HS:
3*Zoans 195pts (warp blast & scream, psychic scream)
Carnifex VC/BS, ES, FH, Spinebanks 154pts
Carnifex VC/BS, ES, FH, Spinebanks 154pts

Lately I have noticed that I don't need the warp field on the winged tyrant but I do need a 5th scream or shadows in the warp, kind of leaning towards shadows atm as even with 4 screams eldar seem to pass that fortune check with their reroll.
Though that 5th scream does make all the difference, have yet to decide which is better as the 5th power.

Stealers and scuttling spinegaunts the likely additions for 1850, another 3 raveners are also a very likely candidate.
I cannot imagine going to battle without atleast 3 raveners (3*1) They are often the MVPs of the army.

(last 3 game tournament they took out 2 dev squads and 2 tac squads and this is by sending 1 rav at a unit!)
Also they are faster than the stealers and this is a huge asset.

Something else that I have been going back and forth with is the 5th wound on the HS fexs, you want it against armies like DE, Eldar and so forth but against other armies you don't want it, sometimes you would rather the HS fexs draw fire than the elite fexs, quite often actually. Other times you really wish you had the 5th wounds.

I've had trouble against Ulthwe, have yet to turn off that fortune and nothing in the army really beats the council in CC, you either send in the MCs and hope you do more wounds than you lose so the enemy runs or you try to mass them with everything in which case it is hard to win the combat as they will just go after your gaunts and ravaners which are easy to kill.

Hmm. I've also heard some talk of gargoyle escorts to Winged HTs that might be an option at 1850 where they aren't at 1500.
They are pretty nasty, and can shoot or close combat effectively, as well as tying things up, as well as being fleet of wing.

Have to lose out on the raveners, but is 3 units of 1 ravener really that good? Surely you could find the points for 3 more, and have 3 units of 2. Double the hitting power, double the survivability (arguable, as 1 squad can probably still kill 2 of them).

Any thoughts on those suggestions?

Other than 1 or 2 guant squads for tying things up, I think stealers would definitely be the way to go.

3 units of 1 ravener is amazing. Mostly because you have to dedicate an entire squad to killing one tiny model, or it'll screw your game up by killing a dev squad or a tank at a bad time.

A mate of my group plays a very successful godzilla list @ 1750:

- Walking Tyrant, VC/BS and 2 guards
- Flying Tyrant with all goodies
- 3 Devilfexes
- 2x 8 Termagaunts actually
- 2/2/1 Ravenors
- 3x VC/BS Uberfex (T7, W5, Sv2+)

Personally I would drop a (elite-)fex or two for more Ravenors and/or some Zoas with Psychic Scream but this is just my style

As long as you don't get escalation the army works very well.

@vsurma:
I couldn't disagree more on dropping the Warpfield on the flying Hivetyrant or your idea of getting the HS fexes shot at instead of the elites. But I play at 1750p and the game is (IMHO) completly different at this level. When your elite Fexes are out of cover, I will shoot them no mater if your HS fexes are easy prey or not. But because your HS Fexes are very weak compared to the 208p variant they will die fast once after the elitefexes are gone. Same problem goes for the 3+ Hivetyrant. He just dies much faster to Assault cannons and Heavy bolters than the 2+ version.
Also you may shut down the fortune for a turn but you take more wounds in CC against the council or similar troops (High-S, no Powerweapons). By now I just charge the council with my 2+ Tyrant to tie them up for a very long time and maybe set them running because of the Zoanthrophes. The 3+ Tyrant won't last that long and is more likely to draw combat so they won't have to test.

But thats just my thoughts. As I said before: The game changes a lot when you compare Armies at 1500p and 1750p (or 1850p)level. Maybe we could discuss this in a different threat (because I don't want to steal mauleeds thread )

Have to lose out on the raveners, but is 3 units of 1 ravener really that good? Surely you could find the points for 3 more, and have 3 units of 2. Double the hitting power, double the survivability (arguable, as 1 squad can probably still kill 2 of them).

Likely addition once going over 1500pts, there is no spare room at 1500pts really.

The thing is that squads of 1 are not a fun target for the opponent, some don't really fear it enough to bother firing even a min tac squad at them (not that I present them as targets in the first place)

Hitting a flank you are normally attacking first with 5 rending attacks, then taking back 3-casualties of hit on 4+ wound on 4+ allow save attacks. As such a ravaner tends to do pretty well against min sized tac squads, even better against softer things that are foolish enough to want to hit back.

Yes adding anohter 1 to each squad will be great though.

Last tournament what happened in 1 game was 1 rav charged a dev squad while another charged a tac squad, both killed their targets alone! (ok they where having a good day) after this the 1 wound rav (he lost one in the combat) is a sitting duck in the open yet the only think able to shoot them is a 4 HB dev squad, my opponent actually shot the squad at the rav! (not that this was neccisarily a bad idea mind you) but it worked for me as it meant 5-6 stealers behind the rav where left alive.

I normally run them behind the MCs so they won't get shot up before CC.

Yea unfortunately almost all tournaments here are 1500pts, there will be a 1750pts one soon though, also I don't have too many good opponents round my area to test things out with, 0 good marine players, best opponent is eldar so the dynamics of those games is really different.

Btw I actually used 2*8 terms at the GT instead of spines just because I don't actually own and spinegaunt models.. Was doing my best to keep it wysiwyg (rather pointless as I didn't score the full points for it anyway....can't remember why atm)

Oddly enough they did alot more than spines would have, the living ammo on the gaunts was awsome, again they where a defensive unit so where almost always at full strength before they shot and assualted something, living ammo was responsible for a few terminator kills.

I've always seen a Lictor as a handy tool for Godzilla armies. Overpriced, yes, but Improved Comms is nice to have with all those TMCs. Plus he does about the same thing as a Ravener. Zoeys always looked a little moot to me since you can just take stealers or rippers to get around not having synapse on the board turn one in escalation. For 1500, you can definitely cram in Lictor(s)/Raveners on top of seven TMCs...you just can't give them all the biomorphs too. (beyond +1 W, +1 BS)

the toughest godzilla list i saw went something like this.
1 walking HT with gaurds and 12 shots(twin linked dev ?)
1 flying HT with twin linked dev and 1 close combat weapon
3-6 carnifex gunboats
everything else was genestealers of various flavors.

the stealers would fleet while the gunboats just launch tons of high strength shots while advancing.
it was brutal, because you have to pick apart the stealers before they hit your lines at full stregth, meanwhile the gunfexes & guntyrant are dropping tons of high ST shots. the flying HT was running support shots at hidden vehicles or attacking small lone squads.

so HT's carnifex and genestealers were all that was needed.

I don't like Lictors too much, you lose a elite fex to take the lictor! 2 fexs tend to do about half of the damage 3 would do.

If there are alot of escalation missions then the lictor is worth a thought, most I have had is 1 game per tourny with escalation so for me it has not been worth it.

Imo a lictor is normally worse than a single ravaner, twice the cost, 1 less attack, higher S and has that nifty reroll abiility. I just prefer ravs as they are normally alot faster aswell.

Zoans are for warp blast and scream, who knows, you might even pop a DP someday.

I don't think troops that require synapse have to much value in most zilla lists however it is worth noting that you do not always need synapse, my gaunts start on the table in escalation while the synapse is in reserve, they just sit behind cover and wait, nothing wrong with that.

I'd like to point out that this is supposed to be ideal at 1850 points, so the information on 1500 or 1750 is not really the question being asked in the original post.

On that note, I think the lictor is sort of a must to counter escalation. The zilla list has a huge vulnerability to escalation. Their models that start of the board tend to be slow and heavy, their main close combat models start on the board and cannot be protected as easily, if you use stealers. You need to get the MCs out there and fast.
On the other hand, I believe Raveners count as beasts, so the min guant troops list could actually start with everything but the zoanthropes off the board for escalation, and that is certainly another option. I would still inlude the lictors just to ensure that most of it comes on the board at the same time.

Maybe 2, or if you are going with the second method, 3 as you have more points than using stealers.

Seems like possibilities.

I've been very unimpressed with the new lictors. Every time someone tried to use them against my normal shooty list, I simply fill the terrain that he'd want to deepstrike into and he's forced to come in somewhere else and hoof it.

Yeah, they are really bad that way, the only reason to include them is to counter escalation. They are simply not as good as Raveners

If you roll a lot of escalation your screwed anyway. You loose at least a turn of shooting, your elite-fexes and CC Tyrant need much longer to get into combat and your gaunts may run away. Against a smart opponent with balanced list try to get a tie but this does only work if you roll a good mission.

As H.M.B.C. tries to point out:
Play the strength of your army and don't try to make up their weakness.

in some lists they're worth it, a friend uses a bug swarm with 2-3 squads of hormagaunts, 2-3 squads of cheap spine gaunts.

the problem with the lictor is it gets owned by the powerfist in the 2nd round of combat

the lictors give him re-rolls for hormagaunts coming off reserve, but also have hit & run. so what he likes to do, is use the cheap gaunts to walk forward and soak shots, by the time they get charge range he can charge at the same time as the lictor hits hopefully.

then he hit & runs out of combat, the enemy is stuck with synapse'd cheap gaunts for a turn, stopping him shooting, the combat is size 2 so the lictor can hide behind it, and then the lictor can even recharge or move on to something else.

it works well for him in that list, but i think in godzirra you probably need the 3x elite slots for the fexes

the problem with the lictor is it gets owned by the powerfist in the 2nd round of combat

And here I was thinking the problem was it losing to IGsmen the turn it assualts them! it does you know!

I thought I found the prime target when I assualted a large squad of guardian defenders that were spread out so only 4 where in the kill zone......1 dead guardian and 1 dead lictor later.........

They just never did much for me, They are nice for instakilling IG commanders and tau ethereals but that is about it really.

I guess the Zoey's could be worth it...but you give up a Gunfex with twice the range, higher toughness, only one less wound and a lower points costs to take them. Your call - if you insist on spineys with godzilla, you're stuck I guess. Keep in mind you only get an 18" range on the Psychic Choir effect, nothing pins, and if you throw in a significant screening unit the effect is good for about one turn before assault is iniated, plus your army would then become more "combined arms" than Godzilla.

If you dink Lictors, I'd really support taking a page from yak (I believe) and running barbed strangler/talons on the elite fexes. 36" hurts a lot less than 18" when you show up on turn four, even if you're a little less reliable at kicking out the dakka. Plus, it's as good as a missile launcher against tanks.

Posted By vsurma on 03/10/2006 3:19 PM

the problem with the lictor is it gets owned by the powerfist in the 2nd round of combat

And here I was thinking the problem was it losing to IGsmen the turn it assualts them! it does you know!

I thought I found the prime target when I assualted a large squad of guardian defenders that were spread out so only 4 where in the kill zone......1 dead guardian and 1 dead lictor later.........

They just never did much for me, They are nice for instakilling IG commanders and tau ethereals but that is about it really.

I really hope that is hyperbole. Do they really do so poorly on the charge? I imagine raveners would not be much better, you only get 1 extra attack.

Just personal experience, not sure why a rav of mine can survive alot longer, sometimes even take out squads on their own and lictors get their asses spanked by anyone... Still the fact that the lictor costs 2 times as much as a ravaner, is generally slower at arriving and alot slower after that, that and the fact that the enemy can make it very difficult for a lictor to ever get an assualt off....

I'd rather stick with ravs, the lictor is really paying ALOT for that reserve reroll. not only the price but you are forced to sacrifice a carnifex for the lictor/s.

I suppose if I knew 50% where escalation I might have to consider it, unlike most armies that start in reserve nids are rather slow.

I guess the Zoey's could be worth it...but you give up a Gunfex with twice the range, higher toughness, only one less wound and a lower points costs to take them. Your call - if you insist on spineys with godzilla, you're stuck I guess. Keep in mind you only get an 18" range on the Psychic Choir effect, nothing pins, and if you throw in a significant screening unit the effect is good for about one turn before assault is iniated, plus your army would then become more "combined arms" than Godzilla.

The Barbed stranglers pin, other guns can force the enemy to fall back (course marines don't really care)
I don't run the spines up front myself, that would not help you much anyway as MCs can be targeted while ignoring the smaller targets.

The main effect is to force enemies to fall back, occasionally pin and to fail psychic tests.

Though I have had no good past experiences with shutting the seer councils down, My best bet might be to take a 10 man ripper squad with carapace to tie them up for awhile.

What do you other Zilla players do against those 30+ member councils??

Posted By vsurma on 03/11/2006 2:44 AM


The Barbed stranglers pin,

*smacks head*  All right, -5 LD makes a lot more sense,  having just re-read my dex.

Hmm, few Ulthwe around my area...well, you can't really assault them and can't really outrun them. The trick I guess would be to avoid bunching your big bugs out, scatter them around the table so the council is forced to chase after isolated targets if it wishes to assault. The big bugs look - on paper - like they'd be reasonably resilient against their Psyking. You could throw points into Shadow in the Warp to slightly hinder their shooting. The Psychic Choir plus careful positioning of Tyrants could ( they fearless?) make it harder for them to assault. The rerollable save makes every single shooting attack except for psycannon math out poorly against them. I guess my only real input is Shadow in the Warp since it increases the odds he'll fail some tests - if he fails enough you *may* have a turn in which a pitched firefight between the council and all your big bugs maths out well, which would be an opportunity to whittle away some eight-point grunts - kill enough of them and you'll get 1/2 points for the souped-up seers.

Atm I am going with 4 screams and shadows as I tried just 4 screams last tourny (winged tyrant with warp field) and the eldar had no problem passing those fortune tests.

I don't really like to scatter normally, the 3 wraithlords, avatar, 3 vypers and the starcannon platform guardians also in the army make it rather dangerous to scatter the army, not only do I lose the los blocking protection of the MC wall but I also give the vypers a chance to overwhelm 1 target at a time and recieve no return fire.

I don't think the council is fearless but then again they don't have to assualt the tyrants, they can assualt something else and consolidate into the tyrants but that is definately something I will have to remember next time, Tyrants have the Horror power which is almost always forgotton. Putting the tyrant up front with -4 to their ld means it will be a tad harder for them to make a succesful assualt. They do have 15/36 chance to pass that ld6 test with a REROLL though.

10/36 with 5 screams though..... Wonder if that shadows is actually better than another scream or not.

The best plan I have been able to come up with is to wait untill they get close, shooting the guardians and vypers untill that time, then move the choir into range, shoot the fexs at them hopefully forcing a pin test or 2 on -4/5 ld, then forcing them to make the fortune test again on -4/5 ld (them being pinned in best case scenario but rather unlikely) then forcing them to take another test to pass the Horror test to assualt the tyrant.

That said this would mean the tyrant would be the only one within 18" of the council which is rather difficult given that the screams have 18" range, I would have to have both tyrants and the 3 Zoans in range.

Ideally I would be so good at judging distances that they would need a fof roll of 6 to pull off the charge but honoestly I am not near good enough at estimating distances!

My other option is throwing 10 rippers with carapace at them, 30 5+ save wounds might take them a moment to chew through but they will do it eventually!

Turning off the fortune, attacking a flank, winning combat and running them down would be ideal
Never happened yet though.
I don't really have any better ideas at this time.

In fact what does ANYONE without 2 hoods do against the council?

I played Ulthwe with my Necrons and Marines.

Necrons:
Use destroyers to kill as many as possible, use warriors as bait and hit them with the deceiver (~24 men council dead by turn 4).

Marines:
I must admit I have a hood (you can only use one hood to block a power even if your force has more than one) but I always fail to shut the fortune down when I need it.  So I shot them with heavy bolters and assaultcannons to soften them up and attack them with Terminators and my 2+ librarian.

The council *hates* 2+ Armor save and lots of S6 fire.  Always works for me

BTW try to kill the "Morale re-roll" ASAP.  I always use torrent of fire against this guy and once he is gone it gets much easier.  Maybe it takes some time in shooting but it can be archieved fast in CC when you choose your target well.

Necrons:
Use destroyers to kill as many as possible, use warriors as bait and hit them with the deceiver (~24 men council dead by turn 4).

I would have to assume you got lucky here though, deceiver has a weak save! not many witchblades needed to bring down a deceiver really. Also 24 models is not to bad yet, for another 110pts he can throw in another 10 models/wounds.

Though anything that ignores the councils saves is likely to have a better chance than anything else, I can see that working.

2+ saves right, well sounds like decent advice though I am not sure how this will help my nid army, fexs have so few attacks they are no good even with 2+, can only have 2 tyrants and taking 2+ on the winged means 1 less psychic power.

Decent advice though I am not sure how I could incorporate it into my own army really.

Never managed to torrent of fire 30+ council myself.

Does "torrent of fire" work in CC, so say 5 models in killzone and 6 wounds I can allocate within the kill zone?

The deceiver has a weak save but this is why you have to bait them with the warriors first. If you move them smart the deceiver will face not more than 2-3 Modells and maybe 1-2 farseers and when they pile in he just vanishes. I admit, he is just a peak and the destroyers/ warriors do the killing but I don't need to be lucky because I can choose my fights.

Maybe 24 modells doesn't sound that bad but IMHO he has the best of two worlds: plenty of support and a tough council. Some missions can't be won by a single unit and some units can cause havoc in this massive council. A decent BA army (with a good general) did the trick by attacking the council from different angles with terminators and a HTH squad. So only a few models could fight and pile in took ages until it was too late.

Torrent of fire works in CC and thats how the winged HT can get rif of the "Re-Roll". You need only 5 wounds on 5 modells to get the benefit of ToF.
If you want to use ToF while shooting the council try to use the range of your devourers. It is only 18" and so you can keep the bulk of the enemy out of range. The whole council may consist of 30+ models but if there are only 3 in range only they may die.

The fex and the winged HT is all you need. Attack from different angles and keep the council spread out. Remember to soften them up before you enter combat and always know which equipment they have (I once got cheated when a Ulthweplayer bought half his council Witchblades but used them for all his models. Killed my HT and this still makes me angry ^^).

A good point, well he IS the deceiver...sneaky bas***d

Good to know about the torrent of fire tactics, with my 18" range guns I really do need to practice becoming better at estimating ranges, could really help.

But still even if you manage to get that TOF to work he will still pass his save 3/4 times!

Was almost feeling hopeful

Just believe in your dice. 3 Dakkafexes can thin him out and prepare the council for the winged tyrant. Plus: If you kill his "precious" warlocks (those worth more than 11p) due to range he will get a bit nervous.

Last game I saw Ulthwe (15men but nevertheless annoying ) against Bugs the devourers killed two of the witchblade wielding warlocks. The Ulthweplayer tried to counter by putting all his cheat warlocks in the front but this was exactly what the bugs wanted. The next turn the winged tyrant attacked the rear and locked all witchblades in combat and hit the front with 2 ravenors. By doing so he got a lot of attacks and the ravenors were a bit safer than against those witchblades. It also created a nice piece of Size 3 Area terrain (the close combat) which allowed his HS Fexes to avoid most of the incoming fire. A nice move but tricky

When I play bugs I do not fear the council for fortune but for mind war. I tend to roll a "1" against his "6" But I think with the choir you have much better chances than with a 3rd HS Fex and our local player has a winning record against Ulthwe even with 3 HS Fexes.

Dakkafexs or Devilfexs as I like to refer to them are about the most powerful shooters you can find in the 40k universe for their cost but still only average 1.5 kills a turn (16.5pts of naked warlocks)

I don't think I can really shoot them down to any managable number, need to pull off some kind of trick to make them run to kill them. The 2+ Tyrant seems the best bet I suppose, Causing 1 wound while losing none himself might work unless the enemy takes the btb model away so no sweep. I suppose the tyrant would have to be init 6 (which mine is anyway)

Though I was just planning to drop the 2+ on my winged tyrant....

I need more games against them, no one plays ulthwe round here, I just run into it in tournies sometimes.

Last battle I charged everything at it but that didnt really work as they just killed gaunts so I never won a combat, the MCs while they stay alive do very little dmg when the enemy has a rerollable invul save.

Ravs are great, as are staelers if they are alive when it is time to attack.

Assualting the tyrant at one side and gaunts the other might get the enemy to move the witch blades towards the tyrant creating an opening for the ravs on the weaker flank but the 3 wraithlords and Avatar that join the battle a turn later don't make things any easier.

Posted By vsurma on 03/12/2006 3:03 AM
10/36 with 5 screams though..... Wonder if that shadows is actually better than another scream or not.

Ok, since you were wondering:
4 psychic screams (LD 6) = 34% chance to fail
5 psychic screams (LD 5) = 52% chance to fail

4 psychic screams and shadow = 64.89% chance to fail
5 psychic screams and shadow = 89.84% chance to fail


Seems shadow becomes rather good at stopping councils with their nasty rerolled leadership tests.


Lictors:
I get *some* success out of them by using 3 at a time, and charging the same squad with all 3. You can usually clear your combat zone with 12 rending attacks, and that lets you hit and run out before the enemy has it's pile-in move.
Obviously you hit and run into cover, and it's rare a player bothers to shoot lictors in cover, letting you do the same thing again in your next turn.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think they're *fab* or anything, but if there are no ethereals or basilisks around I use them this way and they perform reasonably well.