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This isn't a tactics article as such, but more of a pitch for feedback. I've never run Typhus, and I've not yet run Plague Zombies, but looking at the way that the meta has shifted, I'm thinking that Typhus wrapped in Plague Zombies might be a decent counter to Riptides and Wraith Knights.

Looking at the big picture...

1) Plague Zombies are 4 points ea., so they're cheap as dirt. They make a fantastic tarpit for eating smash attacks from MCs.

2) Wraith Knights and Riptides are not Characters. As such, they can't challenge or accept challenges. So the Zombie-Wrapped Typhus unit is free to take punches on the Joes, and let Typhus lay into them with Manreaper.

3) I'm not really up for the Mathhammer, but...

Assume Typhus is charging a Riptide:

Zombies swing and probably do nothing.

Riptide swings and pulps up to 3 Zombies, and not a single feth was given.

Typhus swings. 3 + 1 + D6 attacks. Assume 3, so 7 attacks hitting on 3's wounding on 4's. But, if any of those attacks sneak through, his Force Weapon will punk the MC rather handily. If Typhus generates Gift of Mutation,

7 attacks, 4.6 hits, 2.333 wounds. If not nova'd, the Riptide takes 1.5 wounds and gets Force Weaponed. If Novaed, it takes .78 wounds. If that sneaks through, though, it's goodnight Riptide.


With the Wraith Knight, it's not quite as good a proposition since it's got higher T. However...

Assuming those same 7 attacks, you get 4.6 hits, .76 wounds, and unless the thing has an Invuln, it should stick. Still not half bad.



What do you think...is Typhus wrapped in Zombies a decent counter to Monstrous Creaturehammer?

How do you expect typhus and a unit of cultists that can only move 6" a turn and can't run to catch a wraithknight with a jump pack and a riptide with a jet pack?

 BarBoBot wrote:
How do you expect typhus and a unit of cultists that can only move 6" a turn and can't run to catch a wraithknight with a jump pack and a riptide with a jet pack?

This. It could be decent for controlling the board though. Just don't expect to catch one unless the opposition is incompetent or wants you to.

Board control. Pin them with spawn or infiltrated zombies via Huron.

You can't charge the turn you infiltrate. You move 6" and no further while the wraithknight jumps 12" and then shoots and runs d6" with battle focus. The riptide moves 6" shoots, then moves another 2d6".

You will never catch them... Unless your opponent is a complete noob.

This is coming from someone who has run typhus with zombies since the dex dropped.

You will not pin them. You could roadblock them with this strategy.

Are you telling me that spawn won't catch them with a 13-24" threat range?

The best bet to hunt MCs is probably Heldrakes or bikes.

You realize your talking about playing against tau and eldar... 2 of the most shooty armies.

Spawn will never make it to combat.

 BarBoBot wrote:
You realize your talking about playing against tau and eldar... 2 of the most shooty armies.

Spawn will never make it to combat.

So what's your solution, don't play?

Not quite... I would (and do) use typhus and zombies for something they can actually achieve, not as a jump pack flying monstrous creature hunter that is too slow to catch them.

If your thinking that spawn will make it to combat, your not seeing the whole picture.

1. Spawn have no save, so they rely on cover.

2. Tau and eldar have mass shooting that ignores cover. (Markerlight, serpent shield)

Every wound done is a wound lost with no save. The high toughness of the spawn is no match for the high strength eldar shooting, or the mass S5+ shooting from the tau.

 BarBoBot wrote:
Not quite... I would (and do) use typhus and zombies for something they can actually achieve, not as a jump pack flying monstrous creature hunter that is too slow to catch them.

If your thinking that spawn will make it to combat, your not seeing the whole picture.

1. Spawn have no save, so they rely on cover.

2. Tau and eldar have mass shooting that ignores cover. (Markerlight, serpent shield)

Every wound done is a wound lost with no save. The high toughness of the spawn is no match for the high strength eldar shooting, or the mass S5+ shooting from the tau.

So, solutions. How do you handle Wraith Knights and Riptides with CSM?

You ignore them. They cost almost 300 points each but only have 2 guns to shoot. They don't really kill much on their own.

Focus on taking out their troops so that they have to focus on killing typhus and his zombie horde to prevent you from taking objectives.

 BarBoBot wrote:
You ignore them. They cost almost 300 points each but only have 2 guns to shoot. They don't really kill much on their own.

Focus on taking out their troops so that they have to focus on killing typhus and his zombie horde to prevent you from taking objectives.

That's a reply from the internet (tm). If your opponent's list consists of 3x Wraith Knights and 1 Riptide, you can't exactly ignore them. You can kill their troops, but what does the rest of your army do?

Impossible to get any more specific without knowing the list.

With my list I have 7 obliterators and 2 Heldrakes that do most of the shooting, and zombies/plague marines to seek objectives.

If your running against a list with 3 wraithknights and a riptide, they don't have many more models in their army, and not nearly enough shots to kill hordes of zombies and plague marines.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 BarBoBot wrote:
You ignore them. They cost almost 300 points each but only have 2 guns to shoot. They don't really kill much on their own.

Focus on taking out their troops so that they have to focus on killing typhus and his zombie horde to prevent you from taking objectives.

That's a reply from the internet (tm). If your opponent's list consists of 3x Wraith Knights and 1 Riptide, you can't exactly ignore them. You can kill their troops, but what does the rest of your army do?

A strong opponent would not even let the troops be hit until late game with a combination of reserves and smart placement. I agree in that a list must have a way to deal with these threats to be competitive in today's metagame.

I could see a good use for the typhus + zombies. Use them as area denial to control the board. You can then use the heldrakes to remove troops nearly at will and the oblits, termicide plasma/melta, and biker lord with daemon weapon (the new ones look nice) + MoN spawn to kill the hard target like wraithknights/riptides.

At the point of 3x wraithknight + riptide your opponent has spent ~900 pts on those units which he cannot allow to come near your mid field tarpit. His remaining army should be seriously anemic.

The new black legion supplement has a really good ID weapon in it. It is expensive but on a nurgle biker lord any and all MC will die.

 ansacs wrote:
I could see a good use for the typhus + zombies. Use them as area denial to control the board. You can then use the heldrakes to remove troops nearly at will and the oblits, termicide plasma/melta, and biker lord with daemon weapon (the new ones look nice) + MoN spawn to kill the hard target like wraithknights/riptides.

At the point of 3x wraithknight + riptide your opponent has spent ~900 pts on those units which he cannot allow to come near your mid field tarpit. His remaining army should be seriously anemic.

The new black legion supplement has a really good ID weapon in it. It is expensive but on a nurgle biker lord any and all MC will die.

Doesn't it reduce you to 1 attack?

The way I see Typhus being used in this case is to bully MCs. Riptides can be a pain in the ass to your objective holders, but there's only so much table available even for jump infantry with Battle Focus or JSJ. Some of the deployment options simply don't allow enough "board" that the thing can continually retreat. Likewise, normally a Riptide or Wraithknight would be happy about engaging a CSM squad as there would be very little threat to it. Typhus changes that, and having a bunch of chumps on hand helps with overall board control - if he doesn't swing in round 1, he'll get there eventually.

Shoot you are right about the hand of darkness. Scrap that.

Still a MoN lord w/ MoN spawn would be much more effective at catching and killing either of those units.

I understand where you are coming from with the Tyhus + zombies. It may even work against the 3 WK + Riptide player as they lack the points to add much else into their list. If they did bring serious RoF weapons to the table though your "horde" will get trimmed to the point they can no longer attempt to deny any significant part of the board. As part of an overarching strategy I can see it working but as the sole counter, probably not.

BTW has anyone tried a MoN bike sorcerer with Spineshiver Blade and force weapon? (obviously in a MoN spawn/biker unit) Seem like it could be really good with using 1 attack for the daemon weapon and then the remaining 2+d6 attacks with a force weapon to try and get some ID through. An axe would almost ensure the death of a riptide in a single turn if you manage to catch it, nova shield or no.

This could be a useful tactic in a list that has *lots* of cultists to fill the board up, and not just Typhus' Plague Zombies. As was previously mentioned there's only so much board room even for jetpackers, but you really need to be able to spread out to force this kind of play. You'll also need a way of making the other cultists Fearless - Dark Apostle seems one good bet as 100 points isn't too much when you consider the points you're saving with the big units.

The idea is that if you can catch the MC with Typhus' unit you can take it out. If you catch it with another unit, that unit will tarpit it for the rest of the game unless your opponent has something that can break it out of combat (very unlikely with Tau in particular). They might even be able to take a Riptide out with the sheer number of attacks and more than a little luck (they should at least give it a Wound or two in the long run).

There are drawbacks, though... this kind of list is very vulnerable to big templates and blast markers which Tau have access to a lot of. You may well find that by the time you're up close, you don't have enough models to force the positioning. You also have to pick your remaining units very carefully to be able to take on other kinds of armies, as cultists can be tarpitted themselves - pile-in moves mean that if your opponent has a unit that can keep them busy without falling to them, their board footprint won't be very big at all. They're also absolutely useless against flyers and all but the flimsiest of vehicles. You then have to pull all this off without access to other HQs if you're taking the Dark Apostle.

Couldn't you just put him with regular cultists because theyll be fearless either way? That way you can run.

Is the Manreaper fleshbane?

Warhammer isn't played on an infinite surface. Nor over infinite time. all of the waveserpents, wraithknights and riptides I've ever killed was in CC with FC Poisoned gargoyles and termagants. They can't run forever and in my experience turn 2 or 3 is the turn when a CC army's main wave should be breaking on the opponent.

Thatguyoverthere11 wrote:

Warhammer isn't played on an infinite surface. Nor over infinite time. all of the waveserpents, wraithknights and riptides I've ever killed was in CC with FC Poisoned gargoyles and termagants. They can't run forever and in my experience turn 2 or 3 is the turn when a CC army's main wave should be breaking on the opponent.

So you could catch a Jump MC with Jump Infantry? Pain me surprised...

Otherwise, there is only one good answer to the Riptides and the Wraithknights: Nurgle Obliterators. Have 9 of these neat guys, get 2-3 Baledrakes, fill the rest with Cultists, take an alibi HQ (like a cheap Sorcerer) and you have a good army.
In 1750 points it would look like this:
- Sorcerer
- 4x20 Cultists
- 3x Baledrakes
- 3x3 Obliterators (Nugle, VotLW)
- Aegis with quad gun

Other than this, you can try Maulerfiends or if you feel lucky, Flying Daemon Princes w/Biomancy.

Honestly, if you ever want to run an offensive zombie swarm, you NEED to run Huron for infiltration.. minimum take 4 troops of 30 and hope you get the max roll for infiltration (3units) along with Typhus in one of the zombie squads...

It's not the best vs shooti armies, but I have made my Ork friend cry

 AtoMaki wrote:

Thatguyoverthere11 wrote:

Warhammer isn't played on an infinite surface. Nor over infinite time. all of the waveserpents, wraithknights and riptides I've ever killed was in CC with FC Poisoned gargoyles and termagants. They can't run forever and in my experience turn 2 or 3 is the turn when a CC army's main wave should be breaking on the opponent.

So you could catch a Jump MC with Jump Infantry? Pain me surprised...

Otherwise, there is only one good answer to the Riptides and the Wraithknights: Nurgle Obliterators. Have 9 of these neat guys, get 2-3 Baledrakes, fill the rest with Cultists, take an alibi HQ (like a cheap Sorcerer) and you have a good army.
In 1750 points it would look like this:
- Sorcerer
- 4x20 Cultists
- 3x Baledrakes
- 3x3 Obliterators (Nugle, VotLW)
- Aegis with quad gun

Other than this, you can try Maulerfiends or if you feel lucky, Flying Daemon Princes w/Biomancy.

Nurgle Obliterators aren't very good at taking out Wraith Knights. First of all, Heavy Wraithcannons will double them out, so all they have is a 5++ or cover to protect them. Second, Obliterators' best weapons aren't really doing all that hot against the Wraith Knight. Assuming you fire Lascannons on the first turn of shooting, 6 will hit, 4 will wound, and only 2.6 wounds will stick unless it's fortuned, in which case, only 1.7 will stick. Next turn, that number drops to 3 wounds assuming you're stuck firing Multi-Meltas, with 1 or 2 sticking.

They really aren't all that great at killing Riptides either. They'll wound easier, but if the Riptide nova charges, they're trying to get past a 3++. Meh...Baledrakes also suck against Riptides.

In 5th edition I ran the 9x Obliterator 2x Lash Sorceror, Plague Marines to taste build. It was great then, because of lash, but it isn't the answer to the current meta in 6th edition.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

GoliothOnline wrote:
Honestly, if you ever want to run an offensive zombie swarm, you NEED to run Huron for infiltration.. minimum take 4 troops of 30 and hope you get the max roll for infiltration (3units) along with Typhus in one of the zombie squads...

It's not the best vs shooti armies, but I have made my Ork friend cry

Yeah this is necessary. In this case perhaps the answer is Typhus and Huron in a unit of Cultists, that will never infiltrate, and 2 or 3 units of Plague Zombies that will always infiltrate. This gives the cultists more mobility relatively to the Plague Zombies, while housing your special characters. Infiltration really does mitigate much of the problem posed by SnP. You *should* get there T2 or T3, and if they're shooting up 300 points worth of Plague Zombies then they aren't dealing with the rest of your threats.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Nurgle Obliterators aren't very good at taking out Wraith Knights. First of all, Heavy Wraithcannons will double them out, so all they have is a 5++ or cover to protect them. Second, Obliterators' best weapons aren't really doing all that hot against the Wraith Knight. Assuming you fire Lascannons on the first turn of shooting, 6 will hit, 4 will wound, and only 2.6 wounds will stick unless it's fortuned, in which case, only 1.7 will stick. Next turn, that number drops to 3 wounds assuming you're stuck firing Multi-Meltas, with 1 or 2 sticking.

They really aren't all that great at killing Riptides either. They'll wound easier, but if the Riptide nova charges, they're trying to get past a 3++. Meh...Baledrakes also suck against Riptides.

No matter what you bring from the CSM codex, it will have the same problems against these units. The Obliterators are only better because they can actually fight through the attrition if you are lucky, and can be useful against opponents without a Wraithknight/Riptide/equivalent.