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Do you think it is possible [not optimal] to run a list with literally no shooting elements? I was thinking of something like this

HQ Typhus 230

T Zombies x 30 130

T Zombies x 30 130

T Zombies x 30 130

T Zombies x 30 130

T Zombies x 30 130

FA Spawn (MoN) x 5 180

FA Spawn (MoN) x 5 180

FA Spawn (MoN) x 5 180

HS Maulerfiend 125

HS Maulerfiend 125

HS Maulerfiend 125

Since you've made the list, it's obviously possible.

I don't think the list is particularly good (it's hugely weak to walkers and MCs), but I can definitely see it rolling over some people. When you get right down to it a lot of people don't bring the tools to deal with that many wounds. You will have a tough time attacking objectives, though.

Oh yea, it's possible. I run a melee only tyranid list, and there is really nothing that can stand up to it in full swing.

Unyielding Hunger, could you give me a coppy of your list and also what do you regularly play vs and do they play competetive?

If you got a non-shooter that can handle flyers, maybe that could work.

But as it is, just a pair of jets will ruin your day.


(not that your "zombie apocalypse" list don't look fun to play against actually, spammy as it is...)

I don't think flyers would do enough damage to this horde. I would have thought that this list would do well in objectives as the enemy would have to deal with 15 spawn and 3 mailers pushing forward, followed by a tide of zombies

As long as you do not meed ark eldar or possibly tyranids I think this could work.

or someone who REALLY loves TFC

You CAN be successful but I doubt you'd be successful regularly.

In my opinion an army needs to take a combined arms approach to every game of 40k. Used to lose every game with my All Assault Orks and kept wondering why. Soon as I added in some big guns and lootas for fire support and suppression my army finally scored wins on the regular. There are three phases in every turn. An army that makes the most of each phase will beat an army that only makes the most of one, in my opinion.

DooDoo wrote:
Do you think it is possible [not optimal] to run a list with literally no shooting elements? I was thinking of something like this

HQ Typhus 230

T Zombies x 30 130

T Zombies x 30 130

T Zombies x 30 130

T Zombies x 30 130

T Zombies x 30 130

FA Spawn (MoN) x 5 180

FA Spawn (MoN) x 5 180

FA Spawn (MoN) x 5 180

HS Maulerfiend 125

HS Maulerfiend 125

HS Maulerfiend 125

This is about as good as a non-shooting list can get, but it's still not that good. It is very hard to kill for some armies, but some other armies will steam roll it while laughing all the way. It will struggle with some objective missions also.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Oh yea, it's possible. I run a melee only tyranid list, and there is really nothing that can stand up to it in full swing.

As a general rule of thumb anyone that says nothing can stand up to their list is usually lying, because there is no such thing as an unbeatable list, and if there was it wouldn't be an all combat army in 6th edition 40k.

Actually that list is pretty amazing. The spawn are beasts with fleet, so they will crush anything that is armor 11 and down, and will destroy monstrous creatures since being toughness 6 they can't die to one hit unless it's instant death.

The zombie tar pits will hurt anyone who can get charged by something else, but if the zombies pile around then it is basically a tar pit.

As for the list, I would suggest making 5 teams of 20 zombies and one team of 30 for typhus.

Yes it can tarpit very well. But it can't take objectives well (Zombies are too slow), is very vulnerable to shooting (T3 5+ FNP is not tough), and isn't very killy at all. Games will come down to total rock-paper-scissors match-ups, which is not good for an all-comers list.

A purely assault army is a extremely unbalanced army build. It can still win games, but is really prone to list mis-matches. Your list in particular I can actually see doing well against a lot of armies. However, against the better, more balanced armies, I see this list as full of fail. You will win in casual play against casual players, but you will struggle in competitive play against savvy generals with more balanced lists.

So my answer is yes, you can be successful without shooting against the general populace, which BTW I feel is the majority of gamers. However, this type of list will fail against the more competent and experienced players with more balanced lists.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
(T3 5+ FNP is not tough).

Its pretty damn tough when you field 180 of them...the mere amount of bodies to chew through will be the bane of you, as S6 and above guns to deny the FnP are really not pumping enough shots to put a dent on these numbers, and regular guns will lose 1/3 of their wounds to the FnP. (and taking them on in melee will take AGES)

Zombies are possibly the best cost/livability ratio unit in the game...


Back to the list in general, I think the intended path to win is to just swarm toward the opponent and prevent him from doing anything useful as he is forced to keep his distance from the advancing tide of bodies.

Can work well in some missions, just watch for relic games.

Boomwolf...the zombies are like a bad verson of wytches. As a DE I can tell you that 10 wytches only survived through atrition because they kept killing the opponents. While the 20 zombies are a good buy for the points (they really really are) I do not know how dangerush they are. Mass rapid fire from one full squad, some blast templates and in the end followed up by CC should decimate them quite fast. (CC happens doubel as fast since you are righting in both players rounds.)

In the sugested list it would be more a matter of doing damadge controll on the fast spawns, followed by easaly dealing with the maulfiend. As a tyranid player I can tell you that the sugested list is lacking in timing. Slow zombies will just be laging behind. If the oponent has a lott of High S weapons only he might be in trouble. But now...not so mutch I think.

I am pretty shure my DE and tyranid standa lists should be abel to deal with them. My SW drop pod list...not so shure, but I would give it a 50/50 at the least.

Like Niiai said above, certain armies can nuke that list easily. Dark Elder razor wings with the stock missiles will instakill t3, negating your FNP. And massed poison darklance and dissie shots will murder anything else, with no fear of retaliation since DE gunboats can keep skipping out of melee range.

I would say against any mechanized list this army would be weak but vs footsloggers it could be pretty effective.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
(T3 5+ FNP is not tough).

Its pretty damn tough when you field 180 of them...the mere amount of bodies to chew through will be the bane of you, as S6 and above guns to deny the FnP are really not pumping enough shots to put a dent on these numbers, and regular guns will lose 1/3 of their wounds to the FnP. (and taking them on in melee will take AGES)

Zombies are possibly the best cost/livability ratio unit in the game...

They're as survivable as Guardsmen in cover, but nobody would call those survivable, and they usually have similar numbers. That's not to mention that those Guardsmen can actually do stuff for only a point more also.

As for S6 guns not doing enough shots, you must be playing a different game to everyone else. When you see S6 in a competitive list, you see a lot of S6 or greater. Eldar are a good example, pumping out nearly 100 S6 shots from your standard list. A new one I've seen people using lately in BA RazorPred Rush with lots of Assault Cannons, which can put out ~36 S6 shots TL each turn. GK Razorback SPAM while not that great is still used and puts out 18 S6 from the Razorbacks which is backed up by lots of S7/8 on top of. Multiple Dreadknights also are the other mass form of S6 in this game. Then you have Necrons with their insane amount of S7. There's Imperial Guard with their multiple blasts. Dark Eldar can put out a lot of S6/7 large blasts along with Blaster shots a turn, and even Venom SPAM could work through the army fairly handily.

Note that many of these are some of the more popular armies also, which means they will be encountered more often. Another thing that a lot of those examples enlighten us on also is how without the Maulerfiends the list can't do much against Mech-SPAM, and most mech lists can take down 3 Maulers with ease.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Back to the list in general, I think the intended path to win is to just swarm toward the opponent and prevent him from doing anything useful as he is forced to keep his distance from the advancing tide of bodies.

Can work well in some missions, just watch for relic games.

That's a path to draw, not a path to win, because in case you haven't noticed, with this given tactic you also end up with nothing else you can do. You also cannot throw your whole weight of Zombies at the opponent to hold them up ever as you need to hold onto your own objectives. As for being forced to keep their distance, given the power of shooting in 6th ed., that's exactly where most armies are going to be already.

There's not a lot more to say on the topic though, jy2 articulated the point perfectly above.

I came up with the list as something that would be fun for my friends to play against. It reminds me of a zombie apocalypse movie where you see if you can survive the tide. After I put it down on paper, I began to wonder if it could actually work. Dealing with 45 T6 wounds that are fast, along with 3 mailers could be difficult

Zombie horde- fun, hilarious, but really T3 5++ isn't that tough

 Niiai wrote:
I do not know how dangerush they are.

Niiai, english be your second language(AFAIK), so don't take it the wrong way, but that is the greatest misspell ever (dangerous )
beware the DANGER RUSH
I just keep hearing danger zone with the lyrics tweaked to danger rush since i read that xD
And this thread being all about a full melee army. Sounds like someones trying to do the danger rush xD

Jihallah, the norwegian flag and the word dyslextic should be a hint. ;-)

I will say this for the list: T6 beasts are the things of gold that tyranids would REALLY love to have. I like ravaners and I am a bit envius...

To the OP, if you want to do an all melle army I would sugest to look towards Tyranids. Gargoyles in particular are funn. With AG and TS. East up everything like acid.

DooDoo wrote:
I came up with the list as something that would be fun for my friends to play against. It reminds me of a zombie apocalypse movie where you see if you can survive the tide. After I put it down on paper, I began to wonder if it could actually work. Dealing with 45 T6 wounds that are fast, along with 3 mailers could be difficult

Well there's no denying it will definitely be fun for anyone to face whatever the match-up and definitely has the rule of cool, especially if you were to model the Maulers like Nemesis or a Super Mutant Behemoth. The Spawn and Maulers can be tough, but are very match dependant. In a balanced list you have things to mitigate this, but not here. So either the Spawn and Maulers will win you the game or lose you the game I would wager.

 Jihallah wrote:
Zombie horde- fun, hilarious, but really T3 5++ isn't that tough

Glad someone agrees.

It would be funn to play against. But the jobb of collecting and painting that many models to be funn to play against a few times seems like a waste. I would sugest doing so with a tyranid army, that way you can keep within the theme of a fast mellee horde and still exspand the amry later on.

As a general rule: 6th edition was kind to shooting-based armies and unkind to assault ones. (there are piles of exceptions i'm sure people could make, but that is the trend i've noticed).

In that light, you'll have an uphill struggle with that sort of list vs fliers especially, but in general anything with the range to shoot them repeatedly without putting themselves into assault range of your hordes. (and/or vehicles, i don't think zombies crack vehicle armour all that well (read: at all) so your maulers and HQ would have to do 'all' the heavy lifting).

Given most 6th ed lists are going to feature at least some things detailed above that your list will be severely handicapped against, I'd suggest as an all-comers list that you take it back to design.

That aside: it seems like it'd be fun as hell to run a bunch of cheap hordes of zombies at people to see if you can overwhelm them with sheer numbers; so if you have the models? Give it a go, and be sure to post a halloween themed battle report after.

`The Blood Angels are fairly assault oriented. I usually only do 1-3 shots per game as my Assault Marines and Death Company are too busy running during the Shooting Phase.

Go make some Angry Marines. They don't really shoot but, rather, choose to miss so the enemy lets down their guard for an assault. Its that or they throw their guns at the enemy.

Template and Blast Weapons will shred an army that is this slow. A Wall of Death from a full Burna squad seriously hurts and can bury you in wounds, even if you are using a massive hoard like this.

Haha. Burna boys vs Zombies ^_^

Or sisters with flame tanks

Niiai wrote:Haha. Burna boys vs Zombies ^_^

BoomWolf wrote:Or sisters with flame tanks

Or a full-on-marshmallow-scorching Baal Pred

I did not mention it earlier because I do not know the codex will enough so I am not shure how it would handle the fiends and the spawns, but the chaos heldrake in hoover mode with the S6 Torrent flame template would just be having a fieldday with all the zombies providing it arives earli enough.

I think we cleared the subject that flamer spam would be hilarius against it

The zombies may be slow but the spawn and maulers will be in assault on turn 2