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Chris and I got a game in recently. Believe it or not, 3000-pts per side is one of our smaller games. We normally play Apocalypse and some of our games include:
This time, we decided to just have a large game of regular 40K. All Chris has been working on lately was his bugs and wanted to give them a test run. As for myself, I brought out my Nurgle Chaos army. I didn't bring an ultra-competitive army. Rather, I just used all my (nicely) painted guys.
4x Chaos Bikers - Mark of Nurgle, Legends, 2x Plasmas (Ork proxies)
5x Chaos Spawn - Mark of Nurgle
Heldrake
Daemon Prince - 3+, Mark of Nurgle, Breath of Chaos, Wings
3x Obliterators - Mark of Nurgle, Veterans of the Long War
3x Obliterators - Mark of Nurgle, Veterans of the Long War
3x Obliterators - Mark of Nurgle, Veterans of the Long War
The last objective (in the Chaos deployment zone).
Tyranid psychic powers:
Walkrant: Iron Arm, Life Leech
Flyrant #1: Endurance, Life Leech
Flyrant #2: Endurance, Warp Speed
Tervigon #1: Iron Arm, Endurance, Life Leech
Tervigon #2: Iron Arm, Life Leech, Hemorrhage
Typhus: Plague Wind + another power
Warlord Traits: not very useful
Tyranid deployment. Trygon primes and devilgants in reserves.
Chaos deployment. I use the zombies to surround and protect the oblits, who are scoring in this mission. Zombies also act as a screen for the plague marines.
Tervigon Perils but successfully casts Iron Arm. He is now S7 / T7.
Tervigon spawns 6 gants and craps out. Flyrants swoop forwards.
The other tervigon spawns 15 gants without rolling doubles. Bugs advance.
Both flyrants focus on the oblits and kill 1.
Chaos 1
Spoiler:
I get the wrong daemon wave in. That means no Epidemius this turn. That means none of the kills this turn will count towards the Tally.
Daemon Prince drops behind the bugs. He scatters away.
Chaos mobilizes.
I focus my entire army into his tervigon....9 lascannons and a bunch of plasmas....and only do 2W to his tervigon! WTF!!!
Tyranids 2
Spoiler:
Thanks to Hive Commander and the Warlord trait that lets you re-roll reserves, everything comes in from reserves.
I can tell you that it's quite intimidating to see all those bugs right at your doorstep.
Flyrants swoop.
Tervigon spawn another 6 gants. Nids then move.
180 devourer shots combined with Prefered Enemy from the flyrants lay waste to 2 full squads of plague marines, 15 zombies and 1 plague marine from the 3rd (and last) squad.
Tyranids also get First Blood.
No assault yet.
Chaos 2
Spoiler:
Epidemius comes in. I deepstrike them into his deployment zone to try to draw some of the tyranid threat away from my main force.
I am hoping to max out my Tally this turn.
Ku'gath comes in as well and almost scatters off the table.
Helturkey zooms in, vector-striking and doing 2W of damage to a trygon.
Chaos movement. Typhus breaks off from his unit and goes after the gants.
DP swoops, prefering to go after the devilgants in an attempt to bump up the Tally.
Twin-linked plasmas in double-tap range from the oblits and double-tap plasmas from the Nurgle bikes wipe out both trygon primes.
I easily max out the Tally just in shooting, killing 35 devilgants and putting 1W each on 2 separate mycetic spores.
Chaos spawn then charges the trygon prime. For my Mutated Attacks, I get the best of 2D6 attacks. I believe I manage to put 2W on the trygon and he kills 1 spawn (+1W on another).
Typhus assault the gants. I believe he takes 1W to Overwatch and then kills 5 gants.
Chaos manages to come back somewhat this turn. The flyrants are still alive and deadly, though I did manage to take out 2 trygon primes and 40 devilgants. More importantly, I've maxed out the Tally....though the effects won't take until the beginning of my next turn.
Tyranids 3
Spoiler:
Tervigon and gants go after Epidemius.
Tyranid movement. Flyrant prepares to charge Typhus. The rest of the army will go after my DP.
The other flyrant glides behind my heldrake and strips it of 2 Hull Points. He would have brought it down had I not made 2 5++ saves.
Focus-fire takes out my DP.
Gants and tervigon assault Epidemius' unit (after shooting down 1 plaguebearer in the Shooting phase).
Flyrant smashes Typhus to the ground before he even has a chance to strike. Also, gants kill 1 plague marine.
Gants charge into the trygon-spawn melee.
Together, they kill another 2 chaos spawn while only losing 1 gant.
Gants also assault my zombies, killing 2.
Finally, gants and tervigon wipe out Epidemius and unit!!!
Very rough turn for Chaos, losing Typhus, the DP and Epidemius all in 1 turn.
Chaos 3
Spoiler:
Overview of the bottom of Turn 3.
During the turn, I make an illegal move. Heldrake goes into Hover mode and vector-strikes his flyrant, putting 3W on him.
Oblits then shoot down his flyrant.
Oblits and plasma-bikers also shoot down his other flyrant who has not had the chance to go into swooping mode yet (it just got out of assault with Typhus).
Heldrake burniates 6 gants (burniate....is that a word? Oh well).
1 zombie survives from the middle squad.
Trygon wipes out the chaos spawn.
Killing those 2 flyrants made it somewhat easier to bear, and now my opponent does not have anything that can really hurt my heldrake. Now I just have to deal with 2 tervigons, 1 trygon, his Warlord and a lot of gants.
Tyranids 4
Spoiler:
Overview of the top of Turn 4.
Tervigon spawns another 5 gants and goes sterile.
The bugs advance towards Chaos.
Gants shoot down 5 zombies. Dakkarants puts 1W on an oblit.
Bugs shoot down 1 biker as well.
Trygon assault the plaguebearers on an objective and kill 3.
Devilgants finish off the plague marine.
Chaos 4
Spoiler:
It is during my Turn 4 where we realize that I played the heldrake wrong. Thus, as a compromise that we both agreed on, I just removed my heldrake from play. Basically, the heldrake crashed into the flyrant in mid-flight and both perished in the explosion.
Zombies advance.
Ku'gath goes to help out the plagues.
Bikers start making their ways toward the tyranid objective.
Oblit shooting against the tervigon fails miserably. I don't think I even put 1W on it! Every other TMC drop like flies against my oblits but those tervigons are just plain invincible!
Damn random charge lengths! #%&*%#!!! Ku'gath fails to assault the trygon.
Zombies multi-assault 2 units of gants to tie them up. They only kill 1 from each unit but then lose 5 zombies.
Finally, his trygon prime wipes out my plaguebearers.
Tyranids 5
Spoiler:
Overview of the top of Turn 5.
Tyranid movement. Tervigon go after the oblits.
Trygon prepares to kill the bikers.
This time, his dakkarant shoots down both oblits from the top squad.
Trygon does not need to assault. Shooting my the trygon, gants and mycetic spores finish off the bikers.
More gants charge into the zombie melee. They kill another 5 zombies.
Tervigon assaults the oblits and smashes 2 of them to death. Oblits whiff with its power fist attacks (yes, all 6 of them).
Chaos 5
Spoiler:
Ku'gath goes after his trygon prime. Zombies head for an objective.
Shooting actually kills it before Ku'gath can assault.
More zombies die in assault.
Tervigon finishes off the obliterator.
There will be 1 more turn.
Tyranids 6
Spoiler:
Overview of the top of Turn 6.
Tyranid go for objectives.
Gants finish off the zombies.
Chaos 6
Spoiler:
Ku'gath goes after the tyranid objective. Zombies go to claim an objective.
Oblits finally shoot down one of the tervigons. The explosion takes out 3 gants.
Gants then fail morale and run off the objective.
Now that Ku'gath does not need to go contest the objective, he goes after the spores. Shooting and then assault kills off both spores.
However, bugs have got First Blood, Warlord, Linebreaker and 3 bonus points for killing heavy supports. Chaos have only got 3 points for killing the trygon primes.
Victory to Hive Fleet Invicta!!!
This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2012/12/15 18:37:17
Is this the 3rd battle that the nids have won in a row? I think it's time to retire the Epidemius Nurgle list.
All the zombies do is tie up things and die, and sometimes they don't even do the first thing well. Typhus seems to have no combat prowess at all, basically giving the nids a free point every game cause he's a chump. And even when all goes according to plan and the tally is on full blast, the damage seems less than impressive. And that's IF everything goes right. Gotta get your preferred wave in, gotta get the tally up, gotta make sure Epidemius doesn't die, and then you have to be in a position to use the tally effectively.
*bursts though room with axe* HEEEAAARRRS JHONNY!!!
Good report I enjoyed reading that.
However I would recommend that you may want to change your list as well because while you maybe playing with a zombie army which is an assault horde heavy army it dose not really do well against another that dose the same as its primary function, I would say use two Helldrakes with bale flamers in your next list I tried them in a tourney just recently and they were a joy on the board, also try Forge fiends just for the MC and a few pie plates where ever you can fit them.
just trying to help, yes epidemus tally is nice but it could be somewhere else instead of having more zombies, for example use 30 cultists with auto guns behind an aegis defence line with a quad gun, I can garunte his gaunts will have a tough time chewing though that .
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/12/15 20:14:18
gpfunk wrote: Is this the 3rd battle that the nids have won in a row? I think it's time to retire the Epidemius Nurgle list.
All the zombies do is tie up things and die, and sometimes they don't even do the first thing well. Typhus seems to have no combat prowess at all, basically giving the nids a free point every game cause he's a chump. And even when all goes according to plan and the tally is on full blast, the damage seems less than impressive. And that's IF everything goes right. Gotta get your preferred wave in, gotta get the tally up, gotta make sure Epidemius doesn't die, and then you have to be in a position to use the tally effectively.
Seems like Typhus really bites.
It's still early. No need to retire them yet. I'm just getting started.
Chaos is not an easy army to play, especially when you go up against some of the better armies. They are kind of like the older daemonhunters - challenging to play and rewarding when you actually win. Yes, tyranids are actually pretty good in this edition. Most of my losses have come against the bugs and when I do play my bugs, they tend to dominate. I am finding that bugs run by a competent general are a tough, tough matchup for CSM. It's not unwinnable, but bugs can dominate most MEQ armies with the exception of Space Wolves Rune Priest/missile-spam armies. You almost need to have a mistake-free game against a good nid player in order to have a chance at winning. In this game, I made the mistake of under-estimating the offense of the little guys and they chewed through Epidemius and his unit. Had I deepstruck them more conservatively, I could have very well won the game. Chaos spawn would then be wounding his trygon prime on 2+ and ignoring their armour saves and my guys would have benefited from 3+ FNP. Also, I should not have assaulted his gants with my zombies. Instead, I should have stayed in cover and let them try to assault me through difficult terrain.
I also didn't bring a really competitive Nurgle-CSM list. Instead I brought less optimal units (like the 300-pt Ku'gath and 230-pt DP) mainly because I wanted to play with my nicely painted models as opposed to bringing a lot of proxies for a more highly-optimized list.
Nurgle-CSM can work. You just need to make sure you build a solid TAC list before you throw in Epidemius and allies. If your list revolves solely around Epidemius' Tally, then it will be destined to lose, especially against the better players with more balanced lists. However, if you bring a solid army, with Epidemius' Tally only as a bonus, then you are bringing a more balanced lists that stand a better chance against the other armies.
However I would recommend that you may want to change your list as well because while you maybe playing with a zombie army which is an assault horde heavy army it dose not really do well against another that dose the same as its primary function, I would say use two Helldrakes with bale flamers in your next list I tried them in a tourney just recently and they were a joy on the board, also try Forge fiends just for the MC and a few pie plates where ever you can fit them.
just trying to help, yes epidemus tally is nice but it could be somewhere else instead of having more zombies, for example use 30 cultists with auto guns behind an aegis defence line with a quad gun, I can garunte his gaunts will have a tough time chewing though that .
Yeah, I agree. This list wasn't highly optimized as I wanted to give my seldomly-used-but-nicely-painted models a spin. I also didn't really want to proxy to bring a more optimized lists (except for the Nurgle bikers, which I didn't mind proxying because I wanted to try them out). The double-dragons is definitely a very good Chaos combo and is what I would bring if I wanted to be more competitive. Also, if I wanted to go more competitive, I would have dropped the 2 monstrous creatures, the 5-man plague squad and perhaps the bikers and brought 1 more heldrake, 3-6 more Nurgle oblits and the rest would be plague marines.
I prefer the maulerfiends over the forge fields, and I will probably give them a try when I get the models (but it won't be anytime soon). MoN nurgle cultists are ok, but they start getting real expensive real fast. 30 MoN cultists with autoguns come out to 220-pts! For that, I could get another heldrake or unit of oblits. At higher points games (maybe 2.5K), I will consider the MoN cultists but at 2K or less, I prefer to keep my core units (zombies, plague marines, heldrake, chaos spawn and oblits).
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/12/15 22:15:13
Nice report, hard game for chaos...
first turn without any kills, and wrong daemons wave hurt
I'm not convinced by typhus though, in the end i'd rather use a biker lord.
Unlocking zombies is nice; however they're just a giant tarpit and have neven proven really effective. If playing with daemons allies; maybe nurglins or even more plaguebearers would be more interesting.
Yeah, first turn was harsh...but not because my wrong wave came in. Rather it was because of cold dice by me and hot dice by my opponent. I fired 9 lascannons and about 8 plasmas at him only to do 1-2 wounds. That is not a failure of the list, but rather, a failure of the dice.
Eventually, I may give a biker lord a try. That would then entail revising my list almost completely, dropping Typhus and the zombies and adding more bikers. Right now, Typhus and zombies is still new for me. The role for them is more of an "anti-assault" role, holding back the opponent so my shooting has more time to do more damage and to raise the Tally. Normally, Typhus would do well, with his main weakness being monstrous creatures who smash and massed force weapons....but these are the types of attacks that would kill most any other character anyways.
The reason I am holding back on nurglings or more plaguebearers is because I want my CSM list to be fully functional without the Tally. That means to minimize on the daemon allies and to maximize on the Chaos troops. At 2K or below, this is how I will run the Tallyman but at 2K+, I will consider bringing in more daemons.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/12/16 15:59:40
Because I was trying to divide his forces. Otherwise, they would have overwhelmed my chaos marines and overrun my objectives. I was also making a play on the tyranid objectives. It was a somewhat risky play but the payoff could have been big. Had my plaguebearers with Epidemius survived, next turn they would be wounding his tervigons on 2+ with no amor saves. Kill the tervigons and I could have collapsed his side of the table. Without tervigons, and thusly synapse, his gants would have problems holding any objectives. And if my plaguebearers survived until my next turn, good luck trying to kill 5++/3++ FNP guys.
But then my plaguebearers failed almost every single 5++ and 5+ FNP to his gants and got wiped out. I took a gamble but it didn't pay off this time.
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
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Night Lords (40k): 3500pts
Klan Zaw Klan: 4000pts
