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Red Corsair wrote:He is claiming the best chance from one SS in his army. In order to have a chance you need to combat squad which means there are at least 3 other pali squads that you can hit and force to make a moral check every turn... Yea sorry that's not very impressive... Also trying to apply math hammer to the army with the least models in the game is a terrible idea. Using statistics for 'Ard Boyz usually works when you don't total 25 models, if you roll poorly in one turn you may not have a chance to recover and see the mathematical average.

Mathhammer may sometimes be misleading. From the way my games have been going, I may as well take mathhammer and throw it out the window. My games have been anything but average. Then again, my perspective may be skewed as I tend to remember the extremes more than the average rolls (don't we all?).

Regardless, paladins are proving to be more resilient than I thought. I was a skeptic just like you at first. Then I played against them a few times and as them a few times. Wow...they really are a tough nut to crack. Sometimes you look at statistics and then you think, "these units aren't so such-and-such." Then you go play against such a list run by a general who knows what he's doing, and let me tell you, it is an eye-opening experience.

SabrX wrote:
Mathammer alone fails when you don't take into account terrain, TLOS, and tactics. jy2 posted battle reports, detailing turn by turn what would happen when two armies go toe to toe. Also, statistics fails because each pool sample is different in terms of skill, turn out, and competitive environment. It's 25 models with 2 wounds a pop and wound allocation, which is almost like double the number of single wound models. Only certain builds can totally dominate Draigo-wing, many of which are at a disadvantage in all three scenarios due to lack of scoring.

Right, mathhammer alone cannot tell the whole story. While you may be hammering out how many lascannons it will take to kill some paladins, what you aren't considering is that the psyfleman dreads and paladin psycannons may very well be firing at your "lascannon" units and incapacitating them as well.

Yes, mathhammer is a useful tool, but there are many other factors involved that may make those 25 models seem more like 50!

SonsofVulkan wrote:2500 SW lists should run lascannon/ML long fangs and spam more lascannon razorbacks. I'd would even throw in some TWCs and wolfscouts are too good to be not taken.

That SW list does not impressed....

Not everyone likes to run pure-MSU. My opponent opted not to run 6 lazorbacks because he wanted 3 larger hunter units in rhinos to house his rune priests and so that they can use their psychic powers out of it. Also, he was deciding between TWC or more shootiness. He finally opted for an ultra-shooty SW build, but just not with 6 lazorbacks.

There is more than 1 way to build a competitive SW army. Look at Tony Kopach's SW army from Nova. I happen to think that his (SabrX's) list was solid.

Red Corsair wrote:
BTW I am aware of the play by play and it doesn't change the fact that it was a soft SW list in the current meta and no offense but it was clear that this was not your usual army. I know when stats fail and if he is going to tell us that somehow draigo will soak all those shots from multiple combat squad in scenario 2, that's slowed.

So tell me why again would it be slowed for Draigo to soak up shots? Now I'm assuming Draigo is with the front paladin squad. Thus they will get no cover (yes, I'm assuming no cover for them). The other squads will then be behind Draigo's unit for cover or somehow positioned to be in some type of cover. Or worse case scenario, don't combat squad Draigo's unit and just combat squad the other unit, placing them behind Draigo's unit. Now would you rather fire at Draigo's unit, with only a 5++ Invuln but with allocation of wounds on Draigo, or would you rather fire at the combat squads behind him with 3+ cover?

Fact is, the only SS in that book is on draigo, and draigo can't be everywhere. The main weakness in that build is there lack of fearless in there squads, as I stated, target the other units with your las canons force moral and laugh when they fail.

Draigo doesn't need to be everywhere. He just need to be in the squad that needs him the most, which is usually the squad that won't get cover. As for the other paladins, yeah, I'll take my chances with 3+ cover.

Lack of fearlessness is always a concern. Honestly, if paladins were fearless on top of what they can already do, even I would call them broken. I'm glad they're not fearless. That means they have another weakness that can be exploited. It also means I need to play a little more strategically with them. A unit that's too good with hardly any weaknesses isn't all that fun to play.

But if they break, there's a good chance that they're going to regroup next turn. After all, they've got another 10-15 paladins nearby that will just massacre any unit trying to stay within 6" of them to keep them falling back.

Either way good luck jy2, if nothing else I hope these fun debates have helped inspire strategy. Both for you and your opponents I think as time goes on people will see that every list is very beatable/winable.

Thanks. I agree that every list is beatable and every battle winnable. It may be an uphill battle for some armies, but as long as your army is balanced and you are not an incompetent general, no game is a sure thing.

If I was playing this particular SW army against my Draigowing (or any other army out there), I would feel confident about my chances. While it is lacking on AP1/2 guns, it's got more than enough firepower to handle Draigowing, deathwing or loganwings. That's honestly how I feel about it.

great games jy2 keep em coming

I have to ask...which build do you think would be more appropriate for the Semi's? Both of your lists have won their battles so far, but would the Paladins have been so effective against the Sisters and would the Purifiers have been as effective against the SW? My guess is the Paladins would have struggled against the sheer amount of melta, but I look forward to your thoughts on the matter.

I think, given the specific scenario, the paladins would have beaten the bondage nuns, though perhaps not quite as convincingly. But I'm almost certain jv2's purifiers (unadulterated, please) would have mashed the Whimperers, but they'd have done it by different means and probably with more casualties.

On the maths, I think you need to know it but it's a guide to which units are potentially most dangerous to your list, not some kind of infallible rule with inexorable outcome. As SabrX said, terrain, LoS and a host of other factors come into play that modify the maths to a point where it's really only one factor amidst many. It's one reason I think paladins do well though - an opponent who is relying on what the maths say becomes (unconsciously) overconfident and makes too many assumptions. In my experience anyway. Also, a poorly, or even averagely played paladin list will get murdered and I think a lot of 'paladin lists are crap' opinion comes from facing off against weak and/or badly handled paladin lists.

Aldarionn wrote:I have to say your Space Wolves opponent had an extremely confusing list, and I think he played a poor game. Why were the Razorbacks attached to the Long Fangs and not the Grey Hunters that were going to embark in them? (Actually the better question is why didn't every unit have a transport? I'd rather field one less pack of Grey Hunters and one less Land Speeder for a pair of Razorbacks with TL Lascannons) Why did he deploy so close to the line? Why did he risk Njal so early rather than holding him back for Lord of Tempest's to properly ramp up. Njal is not a front line character until late in the game, and Draigo Wing is not an army you want to advance on.....at all. He would have done much better holding everything in the back corner and taking pot shots with Lascannons on either single Paladins, or whichever unit Draigo is NOT attached to, then flexing off to one side or the other as you advanced. Then again, your Rifleman Dreads did a number on his transports.

But then I'm not the one playing and I didn't actually see the game go down, so I really don't know the circumstances so perhaps I shouldn't be so critical. Just seems like some odd tactical choices though, especially going 2nd.

In his defense, he is not a SW player and this was the first time he was playing with what essentially was my SW army (though I normally use Ragnar instead of Njal and have more grey hunters as well). He did design the list himself with some input from me. Razorbacks belonged to the long fangs in the case of Dawn of War deployment. Footslog your long fangs and they will lose 1, maybe even 2 turns of shooting as they try to get within optimal position. However, with transports, you can be sure they will be in optimal position to start shooting on turn 2. Not every unit had a transport because 1) he wanted to maximize firepower (with the exception of the grey hunter units with his rune priests) and 2) he wanted to maximize scoring units for the Semi-final scenarios.

He risked Njal early because actually by that time, he already was so behind. I've already achieved positional dominance and was just killing the crap out of his vehicles. So it was basically one of those f*ck-it-if-I'm-going-down-I'm-going-down-fighting type of situations. By virtue of the Ard Boyz scenarios, you have to play aggressive. That's why IMO it bones static armies like gunlines if they can't get decent turns of shooting. Stay back to shoot, but when it comes down to the objectives you are way out of position in non-KP/VP games. And good luck trying to beat Draigowing in a KP game with a MSU army.

Grey Therion wrote:Thank you for another great battle report!

I think the Paladins would have had some trouble with the Sisters! List#2 however was perfect against them: you had longer range with your shooting and better close combat capability. Furthermore, since there was nothing over armor 13 dropping the assassin worked out well. With all the shooting and lack of invulnerable save the sisters were completely shut down!

I wonder why your opponent didn't use Repentia and squads of rending heavy bolters though and the small squads of 5 seemed awfully ineffective this game. As to where the fewer psycannons in a Paladin list would struggle with the Rhinos your mass psycannons made a mockery of the Ecclesiarchy's armor (Go Malleus)!

I think paladins would've definitely had a hard time against the sisters....that is, their older codex. With their newer codex, I'm not so sure, though they do pack a lot of S8 AP1 guns. But you're right about list #2 being a tougher matchup for the sisters. My purifier-dread list does very well against MSU-mech armies, and with the added bodies, I can now play more aggressively without having to worry as much about knights surviving to claim objectives.

The lost of stubbornness and invuln's have really hurt them big time. Most of the sisters died by sweeping advance. They used to be very good because as a short-ranged shooting army, they could withstand your counter-assault and actually tarpit you (IMO, they were actually a little too good at doing that). But now you've got a short-ranged army with little staying power.

My opponent didn't use Repentia and Retributors because he doesn't have the models. He wanted to experiment with a build closer to the older, competitive mech-spam sisters to see how competitive they still were. He'll probably try those other units in future games.

Lukus83 wrote:I have to ask...which build do you think would be more appropriate for the Semi's? Both of your lists have won their battles so far, but would the Paladins have been so effective against the Sisters and would the Purifiers have been as effective against the SW? My guess is the Paladins would have struggled against the sheer amount of melta, but I look forward to your thoughts on the matter.

Honestly, paladins may be a better fit for the Semi's. They've got potentially more scoring units (10 vs 8 for list #2) and much more resilient troops. However, what is just as important are the matchups, and I think my Crowe-purifiers may matchup better against a wider range of armies than the paladins. One thing though, it'll be easier for the paladin list to achieve Massacres and harder for the purifiers to get Massacred.

Artemo wrote:I think, given the specific scenario, the paladins would have beaten the bondage nuns, though perhaps not quite as convincingly. But I'm almost certain jv2's purifiers (unadulterated, please) would have mashed the Whimperers, but they'd have done it by different means and probably with more casualties.

Agreed.

On the maths, I think you need to know it but it's a guide to which units are potentially most dangerous to your list, not some kind of infallible rule with inexorable outcome. As SabrX said, terrain, LoS and a host of other factors come into play that modify the maths to a point where it's really only one factor amidst many. It's one reason I think paladins do well though - an opponent who is relying on what the maths say becomes (unconsciously) overconfident and makes too many assumptions. In my experience anyway. Also, a poorly, or even averagely played paladin list will get murdered and I think a lot of 'paladin lists are crap' opinion comes from facing off against weak and/or badly handled paladin lists.

Well said.

Good write up jy2. This was the worst match up for Sisters. Even after the updates, they are still vulnerable to ranged anti-mech shooting. Back in codex Witch Hunters, they could withstand assault to a certain degree. Thanks to Cruddace 's White Dwarf update, Sisters of Battle are now terrible in assault with no psychic defense. As a result, almost many of my got wiped out after getting massacred from after sweeping advance.

The current trend points toward Jacob with battle conclave and Immolator w/ Multi-Melta spam. I may try it out in the near future. In hindsight, even if I fielded battle conclave, jy2 would probably pick off their ride early on.

Overall, good game. I learned much about the strengths and glaring weaknesses of the new SoB White Dwarf codex. Your new list is more formidable compared to the one you fielded in Ard Boyz preliminaries.

There's been some changes to the scenarios. Keep in mind that these changes occured after my 4 test games. First of all, they changed Scenario #1 from Dawn of War deployment to Pitched Battle. Secondly, in Scenario #3, they changed it so that the unit must be entirely in a table quarter to claim it. Thus, if they end up in more than 1 quarter, then they don't claim any.

Now....who wants to see paladins trying to fight it out against tyranids for the middle (Scenario #2)?

Before we begin, I'd like to thank SabrX for being my play-testing partner in these games. SabrX is normally a Tau and Witch Hunter player, but to help me out, he also played a variant of my Space Wolves and Tyranids as well. Keep in mind that this is only the 2nd time SabrX has played my Tyranids. His main experience with them is from playing against them.

Then again, this is also my 2nd time playing a true Draigowing army as well (1st time was in the game against Space Wolves just before this one).

Also, there will be some proxying in these games, but I will try to keep it to a minimal. I don't normally run GK terminators/paladins nor do I run Draigo.


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Ard Boyz Practice Game #3 - Draigowing vs Swarmlord Tyranids


Grey Knights 2500 List #3 - Draigowing (My list)


The terminators with the cyclone missile launchers are my warding stave paladins. The red terminators are the ones with the Brotherhood Banners. Heavy weapon terminators (with assault cannons and heavy flamers) are toting psycannons instead. I used Lysander as Draigo and TH/SS terminators as my master-crafted daemonhammer paladins.


Draigo
Librarian - Might of Titan, Sanctuary, Shrouding, Warp Rift

Psyfleman Vendread - 2x TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo

10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo, Banner, Warding Stave, 2x MC-Hammers, 3x Halberds, 3x Swords
10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo, Banner, Warding Stave, 2x MC-Hammers, 3x Halberds, 3x Swords
1x Paladin - MC-Hammer
1x Paladin - MC-Hammer
1x Paladin - MC-Hammer

Psyfleman Dread - 2x TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo
Psyfleman Dread - 2x TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo


I decided to modify my original list slightly, dropping 1 soladin for some upgrades including psybolt ammo and master-crafted hammers.



2500 Swarmlord Tyranids



Swarmlord
1x Tyrant Guard - Lash Whips
Tervigon - Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs

3x Hive Guards
3x Hive Guards
3x Hive Guards

15x Genestealers - Toxin Sacs
15x Genestealers - Toxin Sacs
Tervigon - Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs
10x Termagants
Tervigon - Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs
10x Termagants

3x Biovores
3x Biovores
Tyrannofex - Cluster Spines, Dessicator Larvae, Rupture Cannon


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Scenario #2 - Kaptur da Flag!

Mission: This is an objectives mission but with only 1 sole objective in the middle. At the end of the game, the army with the most scoring units within 6" of the objective wins. It uses the Pitched Battle deployment.

Massacre = 5 or more scoring units than your opponent. Major Victory = 3-4 more scoring units. Minor Victory = 1-2 more scoring units claiming the objective than your opponent.

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Initiative: Grey Knights (3x now!)


-------------------------------------------------------------------


Deployment:

Draigo makes 2 dreads scoring with Grand Strategy - 1 regular and the vendread.


The Battle for Turtle Island!

My deployment:

Paladins combat-squad. I leave my 3 soladins (single paladins) in reserves. They will deepstrike.


Tyranid deployment. No reserves. Biovores and 1 squad of hive guards are hiding behind the buildings.


Both squads of genestealers infiltrate towards my left flank.

He fails to seize the initiative and we begin.


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Grey Knights 1

Paladins advance and spread out a little.


Instead of aiming for his stealers, tervigons or Swarmlord, I go after his shooting instead. Dreads and psycannons take out 4 hive guards (2 from each squad). Also, one of my dreads could see his partially-hidden biovores through the windows in the ruins. He proceeds to take out 2 biovores.

Right 2 combat squads run.


Tyranids 1

Genestealers advance. I believe he FNP's both squads of stealers. Tervigons don't spawn termagants just yet.


More tyranid movement.


Shooting puts 1W on a paladin here.


And another 1W there on my banner. I believe both shooting were from biovores.


The rest of his army runs/fleets.


Stealers attempt to assault. My librarian casts Sanctuary (out of Shadows range) and 1 squad loses 3 to dangerous terrain. The other squad of stealers fail to make it into assault.


Because they don't have grenades, stealers are attacking at I1 due to charging through terrain. BTW, his Swarmlord gave them Preferred Enemy. With re-rolls to hit and to wound (thanks to toxin sacs), they kill 1 paladin and put 2 wounds on 2 others. In turn, I kill 6 but thanks to FNP, maybe only 1 stealer dies to No Retreat.


Grey Knights 2

Draigo doesn't cast Psychic Communion. Only 1 soladin comes in from reserves. He would later fail to cast Holocaust due to Shadows.


Terminators advance. Librarian switches units and joins the one with the warding stave (cyclone missile launcher model) and banner (red terminator model).


This is a silly move on my part, but my scoring dread moves out into the open to try to get some shots off his hive guards.


I shoot and kill 4 out of 15 genestealers. I also shoot down both single hive guards.


In assault, I cannot finish off his genestealers, killing 5 after No Retreat, and we stay locked (he failed to cause a single wound).


Tyranids 2

Overview of the bottom of Turn 2.


Left tervigon gets diarrhea after crapping out 16 gants. Both genestealers and Swarmlord goes after my librarian's unit. At this point, I thought that my opponent knew about my Brotherhood Banner, but he did not.


Right tervigon spawns 8 gants. Tyranids advance.


Termagant shooting kills my soladin!


Tyrannofex immobilizes my scoring regular dread. Biovores then put another 2W onto my librarian's squad. Finally, despite LD6 due to Reinforced Aegis, the Swarmlord successfully casts Paroxysm on my librarian's squad, and I fail to hood it. So now if he assaults me, I'd be hitting him on 5's and wounding him potentially on 6's. On top of that, his Swarmlord has got a 4++ in close combat. It won't be easy to kill the Swarmlord.


Finally, he blows off both guns from my vendread with his hive guards (I actually lost 1 arm the previous turn from hive guard shooting).


My librarian successfully casts Sanctuary (he was just outside of Shadows range before the Swarmlord charged in). He loses 4 termagants charging Draigo's unit and 2 genestealers charging my librarian's unit. Tyrant guard is not able to get into base contact for assault this turn. BTW, he had cast FNP and Preferred Enemy on the genestealers. They do a ton of wounds, including 6 rends! Unfortunately for him, I allocate 4 of those rends on my warding stave and pass them all.


All in all, I only take 1W on Draigo's unit and lose a psycannon paladin from my librarian's squad. In return, I kill some termagants, his unit of 2 genestealers that were locked in combat with Draigo and a couple more genestealers from the larger unit.

To the shock of my opponent, I also force weapon his Swarmlord to death! I wounded him on a natural '6' and then he failed his 4++ invuln. I felt kind of bad that my opponent didn't know about the Brotherhood Banner. I would have warned him had I known, but I thought he was familiar with the GK codex. SabrX, my bad man. I should've told you.

With his genestealers seriously depleted and his Swarmlord gone, I knew he wouldn't be able to stop my paladins.


Grey Knights 3

1 soladin deepstrikes in and scatters away from the objective.


The last soladin also scatters away from the objective and almost mishaps onto my immobilised dread.


Grey knights advance. Weaponless vendread pops smokes while heading towards the objective.


Right paladins get ready to kill some gants.


Shooting kills off 2 hive guards (with my dreads), puts 1W on his tervigon and kills 2 gants.


My other unit of paladins charges into the librarian-paladin-genestealer melee.


Right paladins multi-charge both units of termagants....


....and wipe out all but 2.


On the left, I kill his tyrant guard, termagants and most of his genestealers. Because the right unit of paladins cannot pile into the combat with his 2 remaining genestealers, they just consolidate forwards.


Tyranids 3

Overview of the bottom of Turn 3. Now it's a matter of survival for tyranids.


He spawns a lot of gants from both tervigons, though I believe one of them goes sterile in the process.


Shooting kills 1 paladin and puts 1W on another.


The last hurrah. At this point, my opponent pretty much decided to go what-the-hey. He assaults Draigo's unit with the tervigon.


....but to no avail. I don't force weapon it to death, but it does die to No Retreat saves.


Finally, right paladins wipe out the 2 termagants.


Grey Knights 4

Overview of the top of Turn 4.

Soladins run towards the middle objective.


Draigo splits off from his squad. I shoot down a lot of gants to clear a pathway to his big guys.


Draigo assaults his termagants and kills a bunch. Paladins assault a squad of gants as well.


Here, my right paladins multi-charge both the termagants and single hive guard.


Other than Draigo's combat, I wipe them all out and consolidate back towards the objective instead.


Tyranids 4

My opponent is determined to take out Draigo.


Well....maybe not that determined.


Draigo does wipe out the tervigon who assaulted him.


With that we decided to end the game.


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I've only got 4 units within 6" of the objective (marked with the 4 dice). The 2 soladins are just out. He has no scoring units near the objective (the tervigon in the picture is the HQ one).

I made a couple of mistakes that cost me the massacre. I should have deployed all 3 soladins and rushed them towards the middle. I should have also moved the dreads towards the center as well. With 4 scoring units there, I do get a Major Victory. I also get +1 bonus for killing his HQ and +1 for controlling more terrain pieces than my opponent for a total of +19 points.




Major Victory to the Grey Knights!!!

Those Hive Guard should all have been hiding - they're some of the best shooting available for killing Paladins, and can reach the middle of the board without being that far forward.

I'm very interested in how this game goes, for obvious reasons.

Great reports as ever jy2; I'm unsurprised by the results so far to be honest (probably still would've got it wrong if there was voting though!).
Not been feeling well today, so I was really hoping you'd have some bat-reps up, which thankfully you have!

Great reports man; very interested to see how the Paladin's cope against Tyranids, the latter of whom are my favourite army to see in battle reports. The 'stealers seemed to be doing well against your pallies and with the number of termagaunts that can be crapped out, the scenario favours the nids IMHO.

Janthkin wrote:Those Hive Guard should all have been hiding - they're some of the best shooting available for killing Paladins, and can reach the middle of the board without being that far forward.

I'm very interested in how this game goes, for obvious reasons.

After the previous game where jy2 saved all but a few Paladins from against my Long Fangs and Landspeeder Typhoon's missile spam, I decided to play more aggressive, by going after jy2's 2 scoring dreadnoughts.

I got to say even though the Paladins are doing well I have a bad feeling about this game.

Great report so far!! Best part of my day at work.

SabrX wrote:After the previous game where jy2 saved all but a few Paladins from against my Long Fangs and Landspeeder Typhoon's missile spam, I decided to play more aggressive, by going after jy2's 2 scoring dreadnoughts.

I can understand the reaction, but the dreadnoughts are not quite as threatening to Tyranids - no vehicles to crack! Point the T-fex at them, and call it good.

That looks like jy2's standard take on 2500 pts of Tyranids; I'd have given you some Ymgarl, for hopping out of terrain and tying up 3+ of those dreadnoughts at once. Make him either reverse directions with some of those paladins, or else just write off that fire support for the rest of the game.

i did that once, i was playing MSU razor back spam grey knights, and he left all 3 psiflemen in a ruin by the short board edge, i had a brood lord and 7 stealers out flank, engage two, and over the next 4 turns they ate all 3 dread naughts.

Janthkin makes good points about the nids. But then again if SabrX is unfamiliar with them. I suggest running a game against Janthkins nids. It can only improve your game. No offense to SabrX intended, but if he is unfamiliar using them then mistakes will be made and certain tactics will be left on the shelf. In short Jy2 will be playing with a tactical advantage that might not be present in the semi's.

I'm really hoping that the biovores pin a unit of Paladins. That would make my day.

^ I agree, a common trend in these reports is that poor sabrx has been playing with an army he has no idea how to use. I think my favorite report so far was when jy2 played reecius footdar, but lets see how it pans out for sabrx he could pull an upset and shut us all up ; ) either way I think a game with janthkin should be arranged! I'd LOVE to get involved in these games but I live in Maine.... bit of a commute ; )

canadianone wrote:i did that once, i was playing MSU razor back spam grey knights, and he left all 3 psiflemen in a ruin by the short board edge, i had a brood lord and 7 stealers out flank, engage two, and over the next 4 turns they ate all 3 dread naughts.

That's one of my favorite tricks. I do that with Wolf Scouts. It is amazing that folks don't realize how easy it is to tarpit psy and riflemen.

Janthkin wrote:Those Hive Guard should all have been hiding - they're some of the best shooting available for killing Paladins, and can reach the middle of the board without being that far forward.

I'm very interested in how this game goes, for obvious reasons.

1) yeah, the hive guard *should* have been hiding but he did hide 1 unit of them. from the looks of the deployment, if he had hid all the hive guard behind LOS terrain (the buildings w/out windows on the bottom floor) then they'd have had to Move Through Cover >4" to be in range of the paladins who in turn moved maybe 4-5" up. Not a big mistake if you ask me.
2) it's a sad day when impaler cannons are "some of the best anti-paladin shooting" that an army can field. again, not bashing that it's a bad call (especially when it's very very very sadly true) but when people get a 2+ save against it...

Comments not related to the quote:
1) Doesn't look like those genestealers were in synapse range when they got chopped up in HtH. Most likely should have broken back into synapse. Again, close but I can count about 10 models (and extra space) between the paladins and Swarmy.
2) I think this game will be in the 'nids favor however...no vehicles to tank shock them away from the center of the board and alot of footslogging it through terrain to get multiple units up there. if the tervigons don't go down soon, then the x3 baby making nightmares will just keep cranking out layers and layers of babies.
3) I wish I had my 'nid codex to see if Swarmlord is immune to ID.

Practice Game #3 finished.

OMG why on earth did he throw away the Swarm Lord like that... Tough loss for the nids, I really do feel like they should have had it if they were played by a more experienced general.... About the banner, did he have a copy of your list and just not look at it/didn't know what it did? I face palmed for Sabrx when I saw he charged that brick of Banner/force weapons with the SL... I just.... epic face palm.... Fun looking game, someone here said they love games with nids, I have to agree they are so fun to watch...

Janthkin wrote:Those Hive Guard should all have been hiding - they're some of the best shooting available for killing Paladins, and can reach the middle of the board without being that far forward.

I'm very interested in how this game goes, for obvious reasons.

SabrX is just playing how I would normally play (against him and others), and that is aggressively. I don't leave hive guards in hiding. I usually advance them with the rest of the army until they're mid-field. Then they can go hide as they should have range to most of the units on the board, including the psyflemans.

Maybe if you're up to it next week, we can get a practice game in for the Ard Boyz.

Just Dave wrote:Great reports as ever jy2; I'm unsurprised by the results so far to be honest (probably still would've got it wrong if there was voting though!).
Not been feeling well today, so I was really hoping you'd have some bat-reps up, which thankfully you have!

Great reports man; very interested to see how the Paladin's cope against Tyranids, the latter of whom are my favourite army to see in battle reports. The 'stealers seemed to be doing well against your pallies and with the number of termagaunts that can be crapped out, the scenario favours the nids IMHO.

Yeah, tyranids should do well in this type of scenario. They've got a minimum of 9 troop choices here and very likely more. However, they need to play aggressively in order to have any chance of winning. They can't let the paladins have positional dominance or it is going to be a real uphill battle for them. So far, my opponent has been playing very aggressively so that is a good thing.

SabrX wrote:

Janthkin wrote:Those Hive Guard should all have been hiding - they're some of the best shooting available for killing Paladins, and can reach the middle of the board without being that far forward.

I'm very interested in how this game goes, for obvious reasons.

After the previous game where jy2 saved all but a few Paladins from against my Long Fangs and Landspeeder Typhoon's missile spam, I decided to play more aggressive, by going after jy2's 2 scoring dreadnoughts.

I would've played it that way also. Advance to threaten the dreads, but then focus on the paladins. And it kind of worked as it stopped me from advancing my dreads initially (which was what I was originally planning to do). It's just too bad that, as an experienced tyranid player as well, I wasn't going to let you insta-gib my paladins. Thus, they were the primary targets for my dreads (along with any pinning biovores that I could see).

primalexile wrote:I got to say even though the Paladins are doing well I have a bad feeling about this game.

Great report so far!! Best part of my day at work.

Part of my reports were done at work as well.

Janthkin wrote:I can understand the reaction, but the dreadnoughts are not quite as threatening to Tyranids - no vehicles to crack! Point the T-fex at them, and call it good.

That looks like jy2's standard take on 2500 pts of Tyranids; I'd have given you some Ymgarl, for hopping out of terrain and tying up 3+ of those dreadnoughts at once. Make him either reverse directions with some of those paladins, or else just write off that fire support for the rest of the game.

There are pluses and minuses to that strategy. Hide those hive guards (I did fire psycannons at them as well as dreadnoughts), and it's only 2 genestealers, Swarmy and some tervigons that I need to worry about. Advance them with your army and now I've got 3 more threats as well that I have to deal with. The idea is to saturate the enemy with threats. Also, those hive guards were to give his tervigons cover.

Anyways, even if he did wanted to hide them, he probably wouldn't have been able to hide them completely. I would've been able to see some of them with some of my dreads, just like I was able to see his smaller biovore models hiding behind the ruins through the window. Probably only when reduced to 1 model would I not be able to see them.

Yeah, SabrX built this tyranid list based on my army. Whereas I used 12 raveners and 3 troop tervigons in my last practice game against Bobby's Draigowing, he swapped out the raveners for genestealers and moved 1 tervigon to the HQ slot. I gave him the idea to run the toxin sacs stealers because I told him that's what some of the better, tournament tyranid players do. Unfortunately, my opponent had no experience with Ymgarls and was hoping to insta-pop my paladins with massed hive guards instead.

canadianone wrote:i did that once, i was playing MSU razor back spam grey knights, and he left all 3 psiflemen in a ruin by the short board edge, i had a brood lord and 7 stealers out flank, engage two, and over the next 4 turns they ate all 3 dread naughts.

That tactic would work on newer players, but it wouldn't work on more experienced veterans. It is easy to counter outflanking units with proper deployment. I did leave 1 dread near the corners, but if he wants to tie up my 135pt dread with his 255pt unit of genestealers, I'd be happy to oblige him.

If I was going up against Ymgarls, then I would advance my dreads along with the rest of the army. Thus, if they were to get assaulted, it would only take 1 turn for my paladins to counter-assault them. Since I only needed to reach the middle objective, it wouldn't affect my mobility too much to go back and wipe them out.

Lukus83 wrote:Janthkin makes good points about the nids. But then again if SabrX is unfamiliar with them. I suggest running a game against Janthkins nids. It can only improve your game. No offense to SabrX intended, but if he is unfamiliar using them then mistakes will be made and certain tactics will be left on the shelf. In short Jy2 will be playing with a tactical advantage that might not be present in the semi's.

I'm really hoping that the biovores pin a unit of Paladins. That would make my day.

We've been trying to do that (Janthkin and I) but so far, we just couldn't catch the right timing. I wouldn't say SabrX is unfamiliar with nids. He's played against this build several times (that's because it's essentially my build) so he does have some experience with it. As for me, I've actually got much more experience with nids than with Draigowing. Keep in mind that this is also only my 2nd game with them (Draigowing) just as it is my opponent's second game with nids. But yeah, I do have the tactical advantage of knowing my opponent's army inside-out.

And I'm really hoping his biovores don't.

To be honest, there weren't many places to hide the Hive Guards from TLOS. jy2 proved that by killing 2/3 Biovores hiding in the middle terrain piece. Despite my best efforts hiding the entire model, the Dreadnoughts were able to climb on top buildings and hills and spot one of the Biovores's base. Keep in mind that a Biovore is slightly smaller in size compared to a Hive Guard. Only bottom left and bottom right piece had decent TLOS blockage, but that would put them out of range from jy2's paladins.

As for the Swarmlord getting instant killed, it was my first time playing against the Banner. I don't know the GK codex and jy2 assumes I knew about its special rule before hand, which I did not. Geeze folks, it's not like I have picture memory and know every equipment, wargear, and special rule in all codices. The GK codex is rich with exotic wargear and units that defies conventional codices writing.

As often are with sneaky tactics, I was taken by surprise the first time I played against the Banner. I am now better prepared and won't make the same mistake next time. In hindsight, Swarmlord would have assaulted a unit without the banner and a unit of gaunts would bubble wrap him to prevent a unit with the Banner assaulting the Swarm Lord.

Despite the lost, I still believe Tyranids are a force to reckon with in Ard Boyz semi-finals. Scoring units matters and contesting non-scoring units don't have a major impact as they do in standard games.

I had a lot of fun using an army I don't normally play. Thanks again jy2, for lending me your models. It's nice to take a break from programming and play a few games. I wish you luck in your upcoming semi-final matches.

To the shock of my opponent, I also force weapon his Swarmlord to death! I wounded him on a natural '6' and then he failed his 4++ invuln. I felt kind of bad that my opponent didn't know about the Brotherhood Banner. I would have warned him had I known, but I thought he was familiar with the GK codex. SabrX, my bad man. I should've told you.

The Tyrant Guard should have eaten that solo wound. Remember that Swarmy is NOT an IC; he's just a member of the squad, so you can't target him separately.

It's a nasty list, and this mission plays very much to Paladins' strengths. Personally, I'm hoping all the Paladin players get matched up with triple-Demolisher IG for this mission.

@SabrX- just remember that in the BRB TLOS must be traced from the firing models eyes to the targets 'body' which they define as head, arms legs and torso. So piece of the biovores base isn't a viable target. I HIGHLY doubt that mattered but just thought I would mention this because the 'nids already get screwed by this description as you are not suppose to count weapons but there arms/guns are weapons ; )

While I think SabrX has done a great job playing unfamiliar lists, in this battle I think the tyranids needed an experienced commander to stand much of a chance, partly because of the mission. I wonder if the genestealer-heavy army I remember from one of your other reports might not have done better in SabrX's hands.

(I'm a bit unconvinced by some of these 'Ard Boyz missions - I mean I'm all for ringing the changes but I'd actually like to see a random draw from the three original missions plus the specific Battle Missions pertaining to each army, plus Cities of Death.

So say game one is one of the rulebook missions/deployments, randomly determined.
Game two is a random Cities of Death
Game three is a random battle mission from that book (that pertain to the armies in question of course).

That would mean you'd have to build to take into account a wide array of missions and not just three known in advance. But I suspect time taken to establish terrain would be a considerable obstacle.)

Anyway, that aside, good report, but the game was effectively over pretty early, which was a shame.

The key for nid lists is to stay within SotW range against GKs, especially if you run MCs. Overall nids codex is pretty weak and you have to be a very good general like Janthkin to do well competitively.

I feel that the paladin lists is just very inflexible. If good players start bringing back the classic dual vindicator Salamander or BA lists, all these deathstar/Wing lists will melt.

Artemo wrote: (I'm a bit unconvinced by some of these 'Ard Boyz missions - I mean I'm all for ringing the changes but I'd actually like to see a random draw from the three original missions plus the specific Battle Missions pertaining to each army, plus Cities of Death.

So say game one is one of the rulebook missions/deployments, randomly determined.
Game two is a random Cities of Death
Game three is a random battle mission from that book (that pertain to the armies in question of course).

Not sure if serious...

Battle Missions? Well, that would change the armies that show up something fierce. There is one SM one that is basically 'Whoever is the attacker wins'. Or the Chaos one where you recycle units until the game ends. Or the Daemons one where the game doesn't end until one side is tabled. I'm all for wacky missions but Battle Missions is not intended for competitive play. It would create a whole subset of list building to try to capitalize on which Battle Missions you are likely to get.

And don't Cities of Death have entirely different rules and stratagems, etc. I've never played CoD.

Well I was really just thinking aloud. But in all honesty, the crap Battle Mission ones could be tweaked, or they could simply select one in advance. CoD is different, certainly, but an all comers list should have no bother, surely. And I'm unconvinced unfamiliarity with a mission should be any more of a bar than unfamiliarity with a list (suppose I've never played Chaos or Eldar or Dark Angels and I turn up at a tournament and have to play them? No different to turning up and having to play an unfamiliar scenario really).

Anyway, not wanting to derail jv2's thread, i'll happily expound on this in Discussions or wherever if you like. But I won't reply further here. It was more of a sort of rambling aside anyway.

great reports! I'm considering going to semi's myself and this thread has really helped me see what other armies can do despite me not being able to get in the number of battles you do!

@SonsofVulkan- I agree with your remark concerning Wing builds but I think the main reason why these terminator heavy/wing style lists are seeming so good is because they are taking people by surprise. I mean, the meta was MSU so wolf lists and the like started maxing out missiles and auto-canons, and Las plas backs, so when lists of armor save 2+/5++ (or 3++) started showing up, yea it is screwing with those builds drastically. In most MSU builds you have one or maybe two AP 1/2 shots per unit which are easily assigned to the guy with a shield or what have you. I am curious as to what the new rules will state in regards to wound allocation and cover saves.

SabrX wrote:Good write up jy2. This was the worst match up for Sisters. Even after the updates, they are still vulnerable to ranged anti-mech shooting. Back in codex Witch Hunters, they could withstand assault to a certain degree. Thanks to Cruddace 's White Dwarf update, Sisters of Battle are now terrible in assault with no psychic defense. As a result, almost many of my got wiped out after getting massacred from after sweeping advance.

The current trend points toward Jacob with battle conclave and Immolator w/ Multi-Melta spam. I may try it out in the near future. In hindsight, even if I fielded battle conclave, jy2 would probably pick off their ride early on.

Overall, good game. I learned much about the strengths and glaring weaknesses of the new SoB White Dwarf codex. Your new list is more formidable compared to the one you fielded in Ard Boyz preliminaries.

Agreed. Sisters have it tough against an army that can both outshoot them at range and beat face in close combat. Taking away their survivability up close really hurts them.

Deathstar units in transports are really easy targets unless their transport is highly durable. In short, if it's not a land raider or equivalent, it's going to get shot down by a psyfleman grey knight build.

Red Corsair wrote:OMG why on earth did he throw away the Swarm Lord like that... Tough loss for the nids, I really do feel like they should have had it if they were played by a more experienced general.... About the banner, did he have a copy of your list and just not look at it/didn't know what it did? I face palmed for Sabrx when I saw he charged that brick of Banner/force weapons with the SL... I just.... epic face palm.... Fun looking game, someone here said they love games with nids, I have to agree they are so fun to watch...

He didn't know about the banners. He knew they gave +1A to the unit, but not about the force weapon auto-pass. I thought he knew and was thinking to myself, "wow, he sure is playing the Swarmlord very aggressively, especially charging him into the banner unit." Lol. When he did that, I should've realized that he didn't know about it. My bad. Usually, I don't like to surprise my opponent like that, but this one was an "accidental" surprise.

But it wasn't just losing his Swarmlord that did it. I was rolling well against his genestealers and made most of my invuln saves against his rending. If I had rolled a lot more average, I would've probably lost another 2-3 paladins. Finally, Sanctuary was huge. Instead of both genestealers units charging Draigo's unit (the unit without a warding stave) on Turn 1, Sanctuary caused one of his genestealers to fail their charge and allowed Draigo's unit to survive. Honestly, 30 toxin sac stealers, with Preferred Enemy on half of them, might have wiped out all but Draigo and sent Draigo fleeing.

SabrX wrote:
Despite the lost, I still believe Tyranids are a force to reckon with in Ard Boyz semi-finals. Scoring units matters and contesting non-scoring units don't have a major impact as they do in standard games.

I think so too, though venom-spam DE, banner-carrying paladins and triple-raven grey knights will give them some problems. Otherwise, your tyranid army will give other armies fits. I actually like this build a lot.

I had a lot of fun using an army I don't normally play. Thanks again jy2, for lending me your models. It's nice to take a break from programming and play a few games. I wish you luck in your upcoming semi-final matches.

It was my pleasure, and thanks for taking the time to play-test these builds.

Janthkin wrote:

To the shock of my opponent, I also force weapon his Swarmlord to death! I wounded him on a natural '6' and then he failed his 4++ invuln. I felt kind of bad that my opponent didn't know about the Brotherhood Banner. I would have warned him had I known, but I thought he was familiar with the GK codex. SabrX, my bad man. I should've told you.

The Tyrant Guard should have eaten that solo wound. Remember that Swarmy is NOT an IC; he's just a member of the squad, so you can't target him separately.

It's a nasty list, and this mission plays very much to Paladins' strengths. Personally, I'm hoping all the Paladin players get matched up with triple-Demolisher IG for this mission.

Wow, Janthkin catches everything about bugs. You are absolutely right. I'm rusty with my tyranid rules. According to the Tyranid FAQ's, the Swarmlord/hive tyrant isn't considered an IC in close combat. That means my opponent could've allocated the warding stave wound on the tyrant guard. It also means that the tyrant guard could attack despite not being in base with my units. Oops. Sorry, SabrX.

Though my MC-hammer had yet to attack....

Red Corsair wrote:@SabrX- just remember that in the BRB TLOS must be traced from the firing models eyes to the targets 'body' which they define as head, arms legs and torso. So piece of the biovores base isn't a viable target. I HIGHLY doubt that mattered but just thought I would mention this because the 'nids already get screwed by this description as you are not suppose to count weapons but there arms/guns are weapons ; )

Just FYI, my dread could see its hind torso (rear leg) as well as base of the smaller biovore because he (my dread) was in an elevated position.

Artemo wrote:While I think SabrX has done a great job playing unfamiliar lists, in this battle I think the tyranids needed an experienced commander to stand much of a chance, partly because of the mission. I wonder if the genestealer-heavy army I remember from one of your other reports might not have done better in SabrX's hands.

Maybe that was one of Janthkin's armies? His lists are notoriously stealer-heavy with a side of ymgarls, plus he is an awesome tyranid general to boot.

(I'm a bit unconvinced by some of these 'Ard Boyz missions - I mean I'm all for ringing the changes but I'd actually like to see a random draw from the three original missions plus the specific Battle Missions pertaining to each army, plus Cities of Death.

So say game one is one of the rulebook missions/deployments, randomly determined.
Game two is a random Cities of Death
Game three is a random battle mission from that book (that pertain to the armies in question of course).

That would mean you'd have to build to take into account a wide array of missions and not just three known in advance. But I suspect time taken to establish terrain would be a considerable obstacle.)

Anyway, that aside, good report, but the game was effectively over pretty early, which was a shame.

That may cause quite an uproar as well. With most of the larger tournaments, missions are usually published in advance so that there are no surprises to the players. If everyone could see the missions beforehand, then everyone should be on equal footing. So if you think scenario #2 would bone your army (i.e. if you're bringing a Tau list with just 3 min troop choices), then you can choose to change your list or bring an entirely different army altogether. People are already complaining about the "randomness" of scenario #3 even though some (ahem, I) happen to like it.

But usually, I think pre-determined book missions are some of the fairest missions. Nothing fancy, yet something everyone is familiar with.

SonsofVulkan wrote:The key for nid lists is to stay within SotW range against GKs, especially if you run MCs. Overall nids codex is pretty weak and you have to be a very good general like Janthkin to do well competitively.

I feel that the paladin lists is just very inflexible. If good players start bringing back the classic dual vindicator Salamander or BA lists, all these deathstar/Wing lists will melt.

It's true that you want to keep your units within Shadows in the Warp (SitW) range for nids. However, if you are running a genestealer tyranid build, that doesn't always happen. That is because with infiltration and fleet, genestealers very easily outpace their slower SitW counter-parts. Eventually, your Shadows unit will catch up, but there may be 1 or 2 turns that your faster units will be out of the protection of SitW. Of course, you can always hang your genestealers back a turn or so...but that will just let your opponent have an extra turn or 2 to shoot at them.

Yeah, Draigowing, like Deathwing and other terminator armies, is a somewhat predictable army. There's usually 1 optimal way to play them, and that is advance, shoot and then assault when you're able to. In that sense, they are "inflexible". However, unlike deathwing which I feel is truly 1-dimensional, at least Draigowing can shoot. Give them the proper support (i.e. psyflemen dreads) and they can actually shoot quite well as you go up in points.

With the popularity of paladins, we may well see a comeback for vindicators, though I don't expect them to live very long if there are psyfleman dreads around.

pretre wrote:
Not sure if serious...

Battle Missions? Well, that would change the armies that show up something fierce. There is one SM one that is basically 'Whoever is the attacker wins'. Or the Chaos one where you recycle units until the game ends. Or the Daemons one where the game doesn't end until one side is tabled. I'm all for wacky missions but Battle Missions is not intended for competitive play. It would create a whole subset of list building to try to capitalize on which Battle Missions you are likely to get.

And don't Cities of Death have entirely different rules and stratagems, etc. I've never played CoD.

My opinion is that the simpler, the better. Book missions are the best and most balanced as long as you don't keep having the same one. I also like Victory Points and Table Quarters as alternatives.

vercingatorix wrote:great reports! I'm considering going to semi's myself and this thread has really helped me see what other armies can do despite me not being able to get in the number of battles you do!

I'm glad. Both of my grey knight builds are definitely something you may see in the Semi-finals, so consider this your scouting reports.

BTW, what army did you use at the Pre-lim's?

Red Corsair wrote:@SonsofVulkan- I agree with your remark concerning Wing builds but I think the main reason why these terminator heavy/wing style lists are seeming so good is because they are taking people by surprise. I mean, the meta was MSU so wolf lists and the like started maxing out missiles and auto-canons, and Las plas backs, so when lists of armor save 2+/5++ (or 3++) started showing up, yea it is screwing with those builds drastically. In most MSU builds you have one or maybe two AP 1/2 shots per unit which are easily assigned to the guy with a shield or what have you. I am curious as to what the new rules will state in regards to wound allocation and cover saves.

Well, up until Deathwing got FAQ'd, I don't think these army types were ever considered really competitive. But with the new deathwing and now Draigowing and also because of the new psyfleman dreads, I also see a slight shift in meta. Now pure MSU isn't quite what it used to be, and honestly, that may be a good thing. Could it be that GW purposefully planned this to discourage MSU? Hmmmm....I think that would be an interesting topic for discussion.