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 Traceoftoxin wrote:

Razerous wrote:
Does the Onslaught & Metabolic overdrive psychic power stack / synergise?

A(ny) unit moving twice, plus 2 advances (rolling an extra D6 for Kraken) then a charge is fantastic.. and costs a one-per-turn psychic power + 1 CP.

Thoughts?

I'd say no. Overdrive specifically says you can't charge if you use it.

Hmm because Onlaught = can do things (shoot etc) even if moved or advanced. However Overdrive is you can move again but can't do charging.

So even though, with Onslaught, you can charge even though you may have advanced, the moving & advancing for a second time from Overdrive still prevents you from charging.

It would be awesome though.

Played against Ad Mech tonight. He quit before his second turn. Hammer and anvil deployment, had hormagaunts within 12" of his board edge on my turn 2, tying up Castellans, with a handful of Genestealers still alive tying up some more kastellans after murdering Cawl.

Speed kills, boys.

I have a question. If I use the Tervigon's "Spawn Termagants" ability can I then play Pheromone Trail to cause that new unit to spawn anywhere I have placed a Lictor?

 BrotherGecko wrote:
I have a question. If I use the Tervigon's "Spawn Termagants" ability can I then play Pheromone Trail to cause that new unit to spawn anywhere I have placed a Lictor?

Currently yeah.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Played against Ad Mech tonight. He quit before his second turn. Hammer and anvil deployment, had hormagaunts within 12" of his board edge on my turn 2, tying up Castellans, with a handful of Genestealers still alive tying up some more kastellans after murdering Cawl.

Speed kills, boys.

Thats easy now when other players are not build to witstand this kind of armylist.Same ad mech list would also struggle against 3x 20 GSC genestealers coming out of hiding. Shooty armies always needed bubble wrap/speed bumps but now more than before.

Wanna kill a primarch or anything really in one turn?

Trygon 30 devilguants in next to what you want to go bye. Shoot 90 times into it rerolling 1s on wounds. Then use the shoot again stratagem. Next turn morty charges said squad, removes 18 gaunts and you use caustic blood and kill him. If you don't kill him, he's holding on by a thread because on average you are looking at 14 wounds.

Since i am mostly playing Kraken for its mobility and the fallback mechanics i just prefer over the others, i wondered if Gargoyles could do some more work than in prefious editions.

They all can fall back, shoot and charge each turn. Blinding venom will help a bit to negate the cc echo.

They can also hop over screens and block the retreatroute for enemy units. Maybe combine with flyrants.
In this context harpy and crone could be given a try too.
I will make up my mind for a possible list, and try it.
Suggestions?

My math says about 10 wounds after caustic blood. He has a 5+++, that also stops mortal wounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DaBraken wrote:
Since i am mostly playing Kraken for its mobility and the fallback mechanics i just prefer over the others, i wondered if Gargoyles could do some more work than in prefious editions.

They all can fall back, shoot and charge each turn. Blinding venom will help a bit to negate the cc echo.

They can also hop over screens and block the retreatroute for enemy units. Maybe combine with flyrants.
In this context harpy and crone could be given a try too.
I will make up my mind for a possible list, and try it.
Suggestions?

I think they're in direct competition with horms, but horms are troops. This matters for list building and obj stealing.

Besides that, I think fly is a huge advantage, and 4 more move is fantastic. They lose the massive pile in and consolidate, and cost an additional 16%.

If you can make them fit in a list, use them. I've had such good results with horms that I haven't felt the need to make them fit, but I think they can do the same job comparably.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
[...]
I think they're in direct competition with horms, but horms are troops. This matters for list building and obj stealing.

Besides that, I think fly is a huge advantage, and 4 more move is fantastic. They lose the massive pile in and consolidate, and cost an additional 16%.

If you can make them fit in a list, use them. I've had such good results with horms that I haven't felt the need to make them fit, but I think they can do the same job comparably.

I would take 1 full squad of gargoyles and homagaunts in addition for testing. In fact i could field 2 full squads of gargoyles, but one would be a full metal mayhem. I dont want to move this....

Edit:
The deepstrike mechanics now for gargoyles gives more flexibility, and can equalize the lack of the hormagaunts consolidation move. Has to be tested, but i think it can work.

 DaBraken wrote:

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
[...]
I think they're in direct competition with horms, but horms are troops. This matters for list building and obj stealing.

Besides that, I think fly is a huge advantage, and 4 more move is fantastic. They lose the massive pile in and consolidate, and cost an additional 16%.

If you can make them fit in a list, use them. I've had such good results with horms that I haven't felt the need to make them fit, but I think they can do the same job comparably.

I would take 1 full squad of gargoyles and homagaunts in addition for testing. In fact i could field 2 full squads of gargoyles, but one would be a full metal mayhem. I dont want to move this....

Edit:
The deepstrike mechanics now for gargoyles gives more flexibility, and can equalize the lack of the hormagaunts consolidation move. Has to be tested, but i think it can work.

I don't think the deepstrike is equivalent at all. If anything, I think the extra 4" of movement and fly is equivalent. DS is completely situational, and in the current meta almost all armies have some sort of counter DS tool that makes deploying on the board stronger, so you can abuse them. I can't imagine using DS very often on gargoyles, I'd way rather have them start on the field for flexibility. With kraken you'd have 16-18" of movement most of the time, which puts you right on top of the enemy. Hell, gargs get more mileage out of the double move stratagem, as they have more movement and fly. Unfortunately you can't catalyst before turn 1 movement, so no way to mitigate the damage unless you went leviathan, which would be a waste, imo.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

shogun wrote:

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Played against Ad Mech tonight. He quit before his second turn. Hammer and anvil deployment, had hormagaunts within 12" of his board edge on my turn 2, tying up Castellans, with a handful of Genestealers still alive tying up some more kastellans after murdering Cawl.

Speed kills, boys.

Thats easy now when other players are not build to witstand this kind of armylist.Same ad mech list would also struggle against 3x 20 GSC genestealers coming out of hiding. Shooty armies always needed bubble wrap/speed bumps but now more than before.

I think you misunderstand. I used his speed bumps to move myself further forward. He has to place screens to stop my deep strikes, so I use his screens to move further.

3x20 GSC genestealers would be very unlikely to get as far as the hormagaunts did. For one, on hammer and anvil, with screening units, you will be deploying 9" from his deployment line, at best. There is a decent chance that you will not roll a 5 or 6 on 4 dice (3 with reroll on one, this is the same odds as rolling 4x3+), leaving you exactly (or worse off) than deep striking tyranid GS, all for 25% more per model.

Sure, on a 6 you have a GS unit that deploys 9" away, gets 9-14" of movement, followed by charge, but that is not consistent, you are not likely to be fearless moving that far, and you are giving up a huge number of viable benefits for being <Hive Fleet>.

It's gambling with half of your army, a completely feast or famine playstyle, with almost no flexibility. On top of that, if you're using your charge to spread out massively and pile into the rest of their army with genestealers, you're not actually hitting anything with a hammer unit and it's going to get counter-assaulted and wiped out. Hormagaunts do the same thing, for 1/3 the cost.

For the same cost as 20x GSC GS you can bring 60x hormagaunts. When the mission is to just tie things up, why would you pay for GSC GS?

I haven't seen anyone bring enough small arms fire to kill 60/80 genestealers in one turn, especially if you have -1 to hit them and catalyst on one squad. With swarmlord backing them up you will be in the opponents lines either turn 1 or 2 depending on how far back he deployed.

Its funny cause if they focus on killing swarmlord then the stealers will murder them. if they kill stealers they might take out 40-50 of them at most and you should still have at least one full squad and some spares along with swarmy and a broodlord into their ranks.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
I've had such good results with horms that I haven't felt the need to make them fit, but I think they can do the same job comparably.

How do you use your horms? Any advice?

I'm seeing lots of folk talk about screening units and I can see the logic. I've already been using deep-striking units of rippers, held back in reserve, to surprise/disrupt charges or alter movement for a while now.

Between horms and terms.. I think the additional movement and 6" consolidation/pile is could be amazing.. even if I've had 0 experience with the latter mechanic.

I don't really see the niche of Gargoyles honestly: Hormagaunts cover the tarpit role better using their two attacks and improved pile in and consolidation.

I use both.
The gargoyles can DS, inflict some damage with shooting and then attempt a charge. Depending on what they charge they can also count on the blinding venom to limit casualties.
Hormagaunts are nice for frontal engagement, but Gargoyles offer more flexibility in the type of roles they can cover.
In particular with Kraken, they can tarpit one thing for a turn then retreat and tarpit something else. While hormagaunts get useless if their number drops too much (they need numbers for efficent pile in moves), gargoyles are always troublesome, until the last 2 or 3 models.

I got in a test game, and used Pyrovores to surprisingly good effect. Used the big Trygon/devilgant blob, and then jormungandr’d the pyrovores in front. They have 10” flamers so they can shoot out of reserves, and then function as a big wall to prevent charges on the gaunts. Wiping out pyros with shooting takes a huge amount of firepower and charging them is a losing proposition too, they’ll do too much damage compared to what killing them is worth.

Two questions ;

1. Best load out for a flying hive Tyrant? I’m thinking talons, devourers and adrenal glands & toxin sacs

2. Are Dimachaerons worth it?

 Wilson wrote:
Two questions ;

1. Best load out for a flying hive Tyrant? I’m thinking talons, devourers and adrenal glands & toxin sacs

2. Are Dimachaerons worth it?

Monstrous Rending Claws are soo much cheaper (i.e. 0 pts) are not that much worse. I would suggest get the cheaper options and buy more things elsewhere.

A lot of points - not sure how resilient they are to the big-bads. Str 10 isn't then impressive looking at the AP value. Just musings...

If you’ve paid Power Level and it’s all the same budget-wise, MRC maw-claws or MST of Tyran?

 Traceoftoxin wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

shogun wrote:

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Played against Ad Mech tonight. He quit before his second turn. Hammer and anvil deployment, had hormagaunts within 12" of his board edge on my turn 2, tying up Castellans, with a handful of Genestealers still alive tying up some more kastellans after murdering Cawl.

Speed kills, boys.

Thats easy now when other players are not build to witstand this kind of armylist.Same ad mech list would also struggle against 3x 20 GSC genestealers coming out of hiding. Shooty armies always needed bubble wrap/speed bumps but now more than before.

I think you misunderstand. I used his speed bumps to move myself further forward. He has to place screens to stop my deep strikes, so I use his screens to move further.

3x20 GSC genestealers would be very unlikely to get as far as the hormagaunts did. For one, on hammer and anvil, with screening units, you will be deploying 9" from his deployment line, at best. There is a decent chance that you will not roll a 5 or 6 on 4 dice (3 with reroll on one, this is the same odds as rolling 4x3+), leaving you exactly (or worse off) than deep striking tyranid GS, all for 25% more per model.

Sure, on a 6 you have a GS unit that deploys 9" away, gets 9-14" of movement, followed by charge, but that is not consistent, you are not likely to be fearless moving that far, and you are giving up a huge number of viable benefits for being <Hive Fleet>.

It's gambling with half of your army, a completely feast or famine playstyle, with almost no flexibility. On top of that, if you're using your charge to spread out massively and pile into the rest of their army with genestealers, you're not actually hitting anything with a hammer unit and it's going to get counter-assaulted and wiped out. Hormagaunts do the same thing, for 1/3 the cost.

For the same cost as 20x GSC GS you can bring 60x hormagaunts. When the mission is to just tie things up, why would you pay for GSC GS?

I'am not making a case for GSC-Genestealers, thats not the point. I'am just pointing out that there are more ways to get into the enemies face (before 8th edition tyranid codex) and the reason that this doesn't work in a competitive setting, is because of the 'get of my lawn'/bubblewrap units. The ad mech player will get that after a few defeats and starts to bring a few astra militarum units including some ratlings that can deploy midfield and take the first tyranid wave and stop it in it's tracks.

Not saying that speed isn't a good thing and hormagaunts could indeed have a place in a successful armylist. But I see a lot of tyranid-armylists that simply torpedo the units forward and just rely on speed and numbers. Just like the 6th edition drop-pod armies, at first it looked scary but when the enemy knows what you're going to do (because it's the only thing you do) it's easy to block.

Had a tourney today. Warzone atlanta missions (http://warzoneatlanta.com/assets/Mission-Primer-2017.pdf). I'll try to get some pics up later. Didn't get many cause playing a 150 model army means I've gotta move move move to get through 5 turns.

My list

Flyrants - 2x Dev, MRC, AG - Kraken Relic, Warlord
Flyrants - 2x Dev, MRC, AG

20 GS
20 GS
30 Horm

Malanthrope
2 Neurothropes

30 Horm
30 Dev gants
6 rippers

Trygon
Trygon

Round 1 vs Tyranids. Player wasn't a pushover, but I don't think he was a really competitive player. Seemed familiar to tournaments and knew the game.

He looked at my list and said, "Oh, wow we're running basically the same list..." and my heart dropped for a moment, I really was not excited to play against myself, it would be a very dangerous matchup. Of course, he finished his sentence with, "... except in reverse!"

He was running full krono shooty nids. Roughly

Malanthrope
6x Neurothrope (1 was warlord)

30 Terms, 15 dev
30 Terms, 15 dev
30 terms, 5 dev

3 Impaler Guard

Exocrine
Exocrine
Mawloc

Barbed Hierodule

Was deployment 1, spearhead assault. 2 objectives each (Give no ground! mission), 1 in your deployment zone, 1 outside your deployment but in your half. Secondary was killing 1/25/50/75% of your opponents total PL. I placed the on in my zone up in a building so mawloc couldnt get to it, just to the right of center by the edge of his half. He placed one just outside his deployment on my left, and one to the right a couple inched back into his deployment.

My usual deployment, GS mid, 30 horms on each side, mal in middle, neuro on each side, rippers up in the building in the back hiding on the objective. Tyrants, trygons, 20 GS and dev gants in reserve. He dployed with the 2 dev heavy term squads a little bit off the deployment line, about 24" away from me. One on each side, bubble wrapping everything. The other 30 man squad in the back so I couldn't come up behind. Neuro warlord and mal middle, both exocrines right behind, 2 neuros on each side and barbed on my left. Hiveguard far back left inside a building. Everything within his big bubble wrap.

I won first turn, but he seized. His shooting was mostly out of range, but exos and hives killed a decent number of stealers.

First turn I only got a 4" advance for GS, but still doubled it, needing an 8" charge. Horms on both sides moved up as usual. I dropped both flyrants right next to the malanthrope in the middle. GS and Devgants came up on left flank opposite the LOW. Hope was to bog it down then smash the gak out of it with smite and trygons.

I failed catalyst, even burning a CP to reroll (Historically I am less than 50% cast rate on catalyst, even with rerolls, and I probably roll same or worse on CP rerolls 70% of the time).Smite picked up a few gants, I think.

Shooting my devourer gants were pathetically bad. I ended up having to pour both flyrants, trygons and all the dev gants and didnt even kill 30 termagants, I think there was 1 left. I shot the termagants again, into a neurothrope. I lost a few because of LOS of the building I had to land near, but I think ~20 were firing. Average is like 5.77 damage.... I got THREE. So that was frustrating.

I then failed all of my charges, including an 8" charge where I rolled a 5 and a 2, which rerolled into a 1.

So, at this point I'm feeling like things aren't great. I have my termagants on his outside objective, my right horms on my right outside obj. No catalyst. ~30 GS left, and staring at almost the full fire effect of kronos that doesn't need to move.

Oh, and a LOW.

So, I got blasted pretty hard. 2 GS from the deployed squad live, I lose about half from the new squad (Which also gets his neuro back to full, huzzah!), non warlord flyrant dies (I make maybe 20% of my 4++), warlord takes like 1-2 damage, right horms get horrored and GS get paroxysmed.

Hierodule charges the GS trygon and the GS. Trygon gets dumpstered, GS roll like gak and only do a little damage.

SO THATS GREAT. One GS squad neutered, one is around half, I think. I'm down a flyrant. Dev gants are at 100%, but I need to stop his shooting ASAP I am down one of my flyrants.. I decide to play really risky, as I think we're teetering between one of us breaking, as he has a massive hole in his bubble wrap now, and I can't take another round of shooting.

I advance the malanthrope towards the right terms, get the right horms into charge range of the same terms, left horms get within charge range of the hierodule no prob. GS fall back towards his malanthrope+exocrines, terms move up. Warlord flyrant jumps over the central building and lands right next to his warlord neurothrope, the malanthrope, an exocrine and the termagants.

I fail catalyst again (With a reroll!), get onslaught off on the Malanthrope, fail the horror. Warlord doesn't manage to do any damage with smite, neuros do a little to the hierodule.

Shooting I put all 30 dev gants into the Impaler guard in cover. I just barely manage to kill two. Flyrant doesn't do anything, I think.

I charge the 2 remaining GS from behind a BLOS ruin into the right term squad to shut off overwatch, and the right horms into it as well, left horms and Trygon into the hierodule, termagants into the 2 neurothropes infront of them, Tyrant into Warlord Neurothrope and malanthrope and the GS into one of the neurothropes near the malanthrope.

With pile in, I manage to put flyrant on exocrine as well, GS on the other exocrine, termagants into the hive guard and the back 30 terms. I have now locked his entire army in combat except 2 neurothropes on his left flank.

I pop reroll wounds for the Trygon and he gets to work. Unfortunately I don't roll great on my damage, he rolls well on catalyst, and I get him down to just around or below half. Flyrant tries to wipe out his warlord, and does a whopping 3 damage. I know, I know, 3++, but needed to remove a smite and hopefully get his warlord while shutting down the exocrine. Termagants on left do jack gak except lock people up. Hormagaunts do maybe 1 or 2 damage to hierodule. Right horms kill ~10 terms, GS there kill 1 or 2, I think the mal whiffed or got knocked out of combat. GS eat a neurothrope I gain 1 CP (2-1 for using strat), pile into malanthrope as well

In return my flyrant gets put down to 8 I think. Both horm squads are fine. Trygon lucks out and only takes a tiny bit of damage. Terms lose a few. I lose both of the 2 man GS squad (Wow) to a handful of termagants. He blows 3 CP to adrenaline surge into my trygon and I survive with like 2 wounds.

Okay, so. Better. Well, not really. I failed to assassinate his warlord, and took a decent bit of damage in return. I still don't have catalyst. His Hierodule is still alive, and my Trygon is not feeling great (Tho I shorted myself the bonus ST attack every time I fought without thinking). I have like 7 GS hanging around with a malanthrope and exocrine, ~25 horms fighting ~15 terms, both my neurothropes, l~25 terms tying up his terms, impaler guard, and 2 zoanthropes. I have plenty of horde left, but very little killing power.

He brings in the mawloc on my Trygon and horms, does 1 to the Trygon and brings it down to 1. The Tyrant gets really messed up from smite spam, going down to like 2 or 3 wounds.

He finally kills the Trygon, and is down to like 5W on the hierodule. He kills like 2 of the GS. The horms do a good bit of damage to the terms, bringing them down to just a few models. At the end of the fight phase my Tyrant has 1W left and he rolls for the malanthropes' aura...

I make it! Huzzah!

So, I have a warlord tyrant who is about to die, 2 neurothropes facing 5 denies and like 5 GS left, for damage dealers. He has a hierodule in the bottom damage bracket, 2 exocrines at full, 1 impaler guard, 5 neurothropes and a mawloc. GEEZ.

We're running low on time, it's the top of 3. I do damage assessment. I'm not killing those Neurothropes. He didnt heal the warlord last round cause he didnt kill models, just beat up my tyrant, so he's still a bit weak. There's ONE termagant left from his left 30 man squad that keeps getting piled into, but not swung on (I keep forgetting it's there and dont declare it). The middle of the board has big ruins that his hierodule can't fit through, but there's enough space for his mawloc. If I can block that he can't get my outside objective. I still have termagants on his, so as long as I keep them conga lined to the neuros he can't take that back from me. The hormagaunts can take his deep objective because there's a large gap where his terms used to be.

I'm going to take all 4 objectives and hold them till 5. That's my plan. I'll get linebreaker, and atlanta allows first blood as long as both players have it in the same round, and we both got a kill in round 2. I should probably try to run my warlord away, but with only 8" I don't think I can get away from his zoanthropes. I'd rather go down swinging, I think I can shoot down his warlord and charge the malanthrope. Maybe deal 5-8 damage before I die.

So, I fall the flyrant back just a tiny bit. Fall back the right horms and move them into the gap the dead terms left. Right around the neurothropes, the obj, the exo and the backfield term squad. Horms fall back off the hierodule and move towards the middle of the board, while still staying able to charge him, the exocrine and malanthrope. The 5 stealers move to try to finish off the hierodule. With 2 smites and the stealers I should kill it. 15 attacks should get me 1-2 rends, and I should do 4 damage with smite. I move one neurothrope to block the mawloc from being physically able to pass between the ruins to get to my outside objective.

Psychic phase.... I don't risk casting on the warlord tyrant. I do 4 wounds to the hierodule, he has 1 left.

Shooting the flyrant whiffs. Guess we gotta get our footy claws dirty.

Assault the flyrant kills the neurothrope. Genestealers COMPLETELY WHIFF. Horms beat up the terms some more, lock everything in place, securing me the objective.

I realize I FORGOT THE MALANTHROPE. He was on the other side of BLOS and so I didn't move or charge with him. feth. That might have been enough to kill one of the other neuros, or pick me up the bonus if he had been present on the warlord. Well gak. I also could have used him to shield flyrant from smites if I had thought of it. Totally fethed myself there because I was rushing as time was coming down.

He swings back with mal and kills my flyrant. .

We have time for 1 more very, very fast turn. Hierodule can't get past neuros, charges and fails to kill 1. Mawloc charges and fails to do anything.

My turn I fall back and grab the objective with my neurothrope. I fail to kill the hierodule with my smites, of course.

Nothing else of note.

I win primary 18-0. I had not focused on secondary, and had only actually killed 2 neurothropes from his army. He had 2 individual terms left from both 30 man squads, 1 hive guard with 1w left, and 1w left on his hierodule. Meanwhile he had killed quite a lot of my army, so he scored big there. He had 2 teritiaries to my 3.

Total final score was like 25-13

Thoughts- I failed SO many important rolls. So. So. So many. Even with rerolls. I just couldn't get anything going this match. My opponent didn't roll amazing or terribly-he had some bad luck offensively with his hierodule, but didnt perils once and only failed maybe 2 abilities despite casting with 4-6 psykers twice a turn for 4 turns. Nothing critical he tried except the hierodule vs my trygon went poorly beyond a regular amount of variance. I really messed up not keeping track of the secondary, if I had been focusing more on it I think I could have put more attacks into the hive guard and finished those 2 termagant squads, which probably would have gotten me 2 more BP. If I had gotten ONE rend on the hierodule across 2 sets of swings with the stealers, that too would have put me up a bracket in the secondary.

It was nice to see how I could handle big screens-they weren't really a problem at all. If I had gotten just my 1 decent turn 1 charge off, the match would have gone much, much differently. Especially if I had gotten a 5 or 6 for the advance and a 8"+ charge, because then I would have been able to get the GS deep in there, possibly locking in place on a termagant. Regardless, it was a good primary for me, there was no way he was leaving his deployment zone, and with a super troops heavy army I have little trouble just shoving people off objectives and claiming them out from underneath them.

Game 2
Patrick McAneeny (ITC #6 SM player)

Playing
Guilleman
Tiggy
JP captain with teeth of terra

5 tac squads with las cannon
6 asscan razorbacks

Stormraven

Mission was 6 objectives (Aggressive recon), where you score them at the START of your turn, you can only score each once (2VP) and if you score an objective AFTER your opponent, you get 3VP. we had 2 objectives in each 4'x2' of the board. Deployment was vanguard. Typical deployment for me. He deployed very far back. He won the roll off and made me go first. I was actually okay with this, as I could advance to midfield and still be more than 24" away. If he wanted to shoot me he would have to move and shoot at -2. Even with rerolls, that means he'll lose 50% of his hits.

I move up into a central building with stealers, horms on flanks, rippers in back like 7" from an objective, hiding. I keep my reserves off. I want him to come to me. 24" is more than close enough for easy charges with stealers.

Catalyst fails. As usual. I have failed 4 of 5 attempts at this point in the tourney.

Turn 1 he moves everything up, mostly swinging left, including the stormraven moving way out in front on my left.

Even with the -2, he rolls pretty well, tons of 5s and 6s, just finishing off the left horm squad and killing a few from the right.

Ouch. More than I thought he'd do. I figured I'd lose ~25 and then slink off with the unit. Not happy I gave up FB, but that's the way it goes I guess.

My turn 2, I double time the middle GS up the board 18". Since he was firing on the horms he was actually closer than 24" to them, so I've got a nice, short charge. Horms on right advance. Malanthrope and neuros are right in the middle of the board. Both flyrants drop next to the malanthrope again-this is something I'm starting to like doing. -2 to hit on the warlord makes him an unappealing target. In this situation I'm also still 9" from the stormraven, so I can try to assault it to finish it if I fail to smite/shoot it down. Dev gants come up on left side, GS on right side.

Psychic phase I GET CATALYST OFF!!!! YESSSSSSS. On the main GS squad too! 20 man blob of stealers right on his doorstep with catalyst, it's the thing dreams are made of. 3/4 smites go off/aren't denied, along with psychic scream. All into the stormraven. I roll all 2s and 3s, including my warlord who perils on double 6s and takes 2. I throw the horror on guilleman because I don't really know what else to throw it on.

Shooting from the flyrants does a few wounds, then the dev gants finish off the stormraven with only 2 wounds overkill. The captain survives the crash, so I double tap into his face. He survives like 27 wounds with W1 left. Sigh. Trygon kills a tac marine in a building (Surprise!).

Central GS declare charges on two razorbacks. Overwatch is below average/catalyst pays off, and only one dies. I suppose he burned all his 6s on normal shooting! I get a solid charge distance, but not great, enough to make it to both razorbacks, but only completely surround one. The GS trygon fails his charge, taking a wound from overwatch, but the right GS actually make their charge on an 11.

Fight phase I surround 1 razorback and blow it up, killing all occupants. Other razorback takes a few wounds. Right GS squad piles into the two razorbacks in the back, though tiggy intervenes and does a little damage. I pop adrenaline rush to surround the one razorback I couldn't with my initial charge, but dont have enough movement to completely surround it, so I wreck it and the lascannon manages to fit. I pile into the next razorback and the lascannon.

Fantastic first turn. Stormraven, 2 razorbacks, 1 tac squad, 4/5 and 1/5 from two other tac squads. GS in his backfield with catalyst. He has lost most of his ability to get across the field safely (Razorbacks are easy to surround and lock in place), and thus his ability to score. He's also lost the ability to shoot with 3/4 razorbacks this turn. Now to start eating squads.

His turn 2 he disembarks everyone. He falls back everything in combat, but not nearly far enough (I did try to make it clear at the start I could fall back and charge with EVERYTHING). I think he assumed he would do more damage, or that I wouldn't keep piling into them. Regardless, he moved guilleman and 5 tacs right up to the catalyst stealers. Tiggy and some tac marines on the back right corner face off with the other stealers. JP captain leaps at my onslaught neurothrope.

Psychic he gets buffs off on guilleman.

Shooting eats up a lot of the catalyst stealers, but I think ~10 live. Right stealers get knocked down to about 12. All his lascannons fire into my warlord. Even at -2 and -3, he manages to put it down. Pretty bad saves by me and pretty good rolls by him.

Assault the catalyst stealers do very little (I think nothing?), but a few survive. The normal stealers don't get charged. The neurothrope survives with 1 wound! He blows 3CP to finish it off.

My turn 3 I move the devourer gaunts up, advance both trygons because they're too far to charge reliably. I realize I lost my only onslaught, and was in decent charge ranges after advance. feth. Hormagaunts move forward and to be positioned to charge the captain if I need to. I believe about 4-6 GS are left from the central group, the move off to the left to engage 2 razorbacks and a tac squad. Right squad is going to try to surround a model from the tac squad, keep more models on the objective, kill tiggy AND tie up the razorbacks and the squad up in the building. The flyrant jumps forward to help with shooting, smite and scream.

Catalyst gets blocked iirc. Scream and smite do some damage to guilleman, I think he's down to 5. I can only smite the captain so he gets it in the face and goes down.

Shooting, I can't remember what dev gaunts did. I think they shot at a tank for a few wounds because it was all they had range for. I probably should have advanced and still done gakky shooting but had better position. Tyrant kills a few tac marines, leaving 1 left upstairs.

Left GS lose 1-2 to overwatch, make combat with the marines and 2 tanks. After all my charges, I decide to check distance for flyrant to upper floor marines, 10", so 9" charge, 8 with AG. I give it a go and get 11, great! Right GS grab tiggy and marines, ready to pile into tanks.

GS on left Kill 4 marines, lose 2-3 to tank combat!!! I have to his lascannon out of combat to keep both tanks locked. He could have still fired after falling back, I figured 0 razorback shots was less painful than a single lascannon at -1. Right GS bring tiggy to ONE WOUND, and all the marines, keep the 2 razorbacks locked. I have like 2CP, I can't activate feeder tendrils to get more CP, but I can implant attack to finish tiggy off. I do, he dies. That's the second time I've finished a character with it, amazingly. Flyrant kills last of tac squad in building.

His turn 3, he falls back 1 razorback towards central objectives. 2 fall WAY back to his edge, and 1 moves to circle out from around where tiggy fell. Marines and Guilleman move up towards Trygon.

Shooting finishes my last 2 stealers from the central squad, picks up a few from the right squad, and dumpsters my hive tyrant. Even with negative modifiers, I cannot catch a break. My stealers were doing fairly well with 5++/5+++, but 4++ seems impossible for me. Trygon takes a fair bit of damage, as well.

Guilleman charges trygon and wipes it out.

My turn 4 Horms move up to go play with Guille, GS squad advances 6 to go play with some single lascannon marines and tanks, trygon goes to eat a marine. Dev gants move up to the tank trying to sneeki beeki my central objective. Shooting does a little to the central tank, dev gants pick up a lascannon devastator that I should have left for the trygon to bounce off of.

Psychic I smite guilleman for some damage.

Genestealers use a single lascannon marine as charge target to reduce overwatch, manage to get inposition to tie up both razorbacks in his backfield again. Horms go play with Guilleman, I think. At this point we are rushing hard to finish as much as possible as time is running low.

Basically I manage to wipe out all his tac marines, use dev gants to lock one razorback and zone another one out of getting to central objective. The zoned one gets linebreaker. My Trygon slaps the taste out of Guillemans mouth, despite getting critically wounded in the process, and shot to death when he came back to life (with only 1W). Genestealers also died in the process of killing Guilleman, I think. He lost his last wound to smite. Hormagaunts wrapped up his razorback that tried to sneak around on my right side.

I can't remember if I killed his fourth razorback or what, but it was somehow unable to fight.

I had gotten 2 VP off of 5 objectives, and 3 off another. He had 2 VP off of 1 objective. Because you only start scoring on turn 2, and I was on top of him before his second turn, I contested everything he tried to score besides that 1. I picked up 18 BP there. Secondary was a modified KP, where every 8 wounds a MODEL had made it worth 1KP (So 5 wound model is 1, 9-16 wound model is 2, etc.), with an extra KP for it being a char and another for LOW. This was figured out as what % of your army's KP you lost, and you got BP for 1/25/50/75%. We tallied it up, and I had 79% for him, and he had 77% for me. WAIT. I forgot I had rippers. Nope, he got 73.9%. Tertiary we both had linebreaker and warlord, he had FB. Final score was 31-14.

What a game. I figured this would be a great matchup for me based on list and mission. I wasn't going to forget KP this time either. My biggest fear was him wiping out my stealers turn 1, my reserves not making charges, then just getting horribly gunned down. Like a lot of guys, he really underestimated the speed of the army, but he literally couldn't engage me without putting himself in danger. If he had stayed castled turn 2, I would have advanced everything up to 25". Again, forcing him to either back up or advance. If he sat still it would have been even worse than this, because he would have had no shooting. If he moves forward and targets the GS, I double move and onslaught the horms and tie down all of his tanks, while bringing in all of my reserves. Every turn he doesn't advance is a turn he loses for possible scoring. He probably would have been best off doing this and then shooting the stormraven past me so I had to chase it, though even with 45" my neuros and flyrants would have been able to reach it, I think.

I don't think that 24" gunline will work against Tyranids without LARGE conscript screens, and even then, it's pretty questionable. GS/Horms move so fast, and dakkagants tear up screens. I'm really leaning towards more stealers on the board at the start.

Game 3
Alex Fennell

Iyanden Eldar
2x Farseer
1x Autarch

3x Wraithknight, 2 wraithcannon and 2 starcannon each

Mission is modified kill points primary (For whom the bell tolls), relic secondary. We roll hammer and anvil deployment.

So. I don't like this. I don't like this at all.

I'm going to win secondary while getting kited all over the board and getting gak on, then stomped to death when I actually engage.

Typical deployment for me. He deploys around a piece of terrain in a triangle so I can't possibly shoot his characters. He gets first turn.

First turn he dooms the stealers, guide and fortune on a wraithknight. Moves to my left side. Bunch of stealers die. THAT WAS FAST.

My turn 1 I bring stealers in just past center, dev gants on left. He intercepts the stealer's Trygon, I luck out and take 4 damage. Everything plows forward. Right horms are gonna go for relic. Flyrants both land next to malanthrope in the middle of the board. Beat up stealers (Around 7 left, I think) double time to about 7" from a farseer. Ruh roh, you left him too far forward.

I get catalyst off on my flyrant. With multi-damage weapons, I doubt it'll help the stealers. Onslaught on left horms

Flyrants both shoot and smite one of the knights, do a little bit of damage. Termagants shoot it up as well. All told I think I did Around 11 damage to the central knight,

I make charges with both stealers, small squad to farseer, big squad to knight. Both Trygons fail horribly on their charges (Booooo-urns). Horms make it to far left Knight.

Caustic blood on the horms. 7 stealers do like 7 wounds to the farseer... he makes like 6 saves and only takes 1 wound. feth ME. 10 stealers get to swing on the knight and I don't rend worth a gak, I think he takes maybe 3-4 damage total? Horms do 2 damage or so. He stomps around with the stupid relic that doubles his temper tantrum. I think 15 or so horms die, and like 12 genestealers. I pop adrenaline rush and do 10 wounds to the farseer, which he fails 6. Boom. First blood at the bottom of 1.

His turn 2

He falls back, shuffles around, blows up both Trygons and murders a bunch of stealers+hormagaunts. Fails all his psychic powers.

My turn 2

Jump the flyrants up at the now middle knight. It's taken like 3-5 wounds, I think. I move up all my neurothropes. I grab the relic and run like a bitch with the other horms.

Psychic I get catalyst off on warlord. I smite and scream and just lay into the knight. He takes like 4-6 more wounds.

Shooting puts him at ~15 wounds taken.

Both Tyrants charge in, and they really put the footy claws to him. He goes down! Huzzah!

His Turn 3

So I'm gonna get slapped in the dick for that. He moves the chars and a knight past my flyrants and 1 towards the dev gants.

Warlord goes away. Painfully. But bad rolling on his part meant it took way more than he wanted to use on it. My other flyrant gets away basically scott free, I think.

He charges terms and kills enough where I fall out of combat.

My turn 3

Oh boy! I'm really fethed now, boys! Not really, though. He's super exposed his other farseer+autarch. I move neuros and tyrant right next to autarch, terms so they can be closest to him. Smite+shooting+charge from the Tyrant kills the autarch and leaves the farseer with 1 wound left. relic is still running like a bitch.

His Turn 4

He finds that I've been pretty carefully using movement so he can't get past me with his jumps. He runs the farseer away (Tho no boost cause he had to fall back). The knights shuffled to my table-left. I luck out in shooting and my tyrant survives with 5 wounds left. He stomps the piss out of some more gants.

My turn 4

Neuros and tyrant shift with the knights, terms move to follow the farseer. U NO GO PLZ.

3 smites+scream, +shooting and assault finish off another knight, just barely. Terms get the last wound off the farseer.

His turn 5

His knight jumps into my close left corner, erases my tyrant.

My turn 5

Terms move over and plink a few wounds, I think I'm being clever and putting a neurothrope infront of the other by about 8" so he'll charge one and get slowed down. In reality I'm playing too fast and put them basically the exact distance of his base+1" on each side. GUESS WHERE THAT GOES.

I do my smites, he takes a little damage.

I roll, game goes on.

His turn 6

He flubs shooting, but crushes both neuros in assault.

My turn 6

I wave at him with the relic.

Game ends.

Because of modified KP rules for the mission, he gets a 14-3 BP victory on primary, I get secondary for 9 BP, tertiary we both have warlord, I have FB, he has LB. Final score is 18-16 for a super bloody, super close match.

We both made a huge mistake with positioning (My farseer, his neurothrope) that ended up costing us a lot. His dice were unarguably as bad as mine were my first game. I felt bad, because it was really costing him a lot, but, I needed every inch I could get. In an objective game, I would have loved to face that army, but in KP I was absolutely FORCED to try to kill him and IT SUCKED. Luckily it was modified KP, so I got a lot of bonuses against his stuff, but even still, what tough nuts to crack. If I had gotten even one of the Trygons into assault from DS that could have gone much differently, I think. A trygon averages like 10 damage against a Wraithknight (If you pop rerolls to wound), which was enough to kill the last wraithknight he had left standing at the end of the game. A tiny bit of luck (Rounding up on some of the odds) could net you 4 unsaved wounds, and like 14-16 damage.

I did question using Death Frenzy-but I wasn't sure what profile I'd use? I figured the lowest, at which point it doesn't seem particularly great.

Anyways, all told I had a great time. I got to play an unusual list that posed some interesting problems for me, and two exceptional players. We've got a GT coming up in a few weeks, I'll probably try to get some more paint on my bugs and see how I can do up there. I expect some stiff competition!

Nice battle reports. Can't wait for pics.

OP updated a little. Warlord traits listed, Wargear listed (started some descriptions and added some personal notes), wrote up a little tactic on Termagant Bombs.

Again, if anyone wants to contribute PM me the stuff. Just copy the format so I can copy/paste it to the OP.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Let's assume I advance 5" every time. 8+5 = 13", with Swarmlord, and doubling the advance (which I can do twice, because it's 2 separate phases)

I agree with everything you said but this. Kraken stratagem is in the movement phase only, sadly.

Oh, shoot - misplayed this.

In any case, I did some playtesting tonight. My learnings:

1. Anti-tank is a problem. I'm seeing some "leafblower" kind of meta out here a little bit. Can't really stand up to it if it's screened well.
2. 20x Squads of hormagaunts are problematic in kill points games. They're easily rendered impotent.
3. Devourer termagants coming in from reserves are excellent at removing screens.
4. There are some nasty matchups we will struggle with badly going the horde route.
5. We dominate in objective based games. My opinion so far.
6. Kill points, we do not fair as well.
7. A tyrannofex with rupture cannons might not be the worst thing in the world to have in a list - I will see.
8. Our targetable HQs / characters will be targeted. Running multiple hive fleets is a recipe for disaster.

 Marmatag wrote:

8. Our targetable HQs / characters will be targeted. Running multiple hive fleets is a recipe for disaster.

I knew this. We rely too much on our core rule auras. Multiple hive fleets probably only works going nid zilla but then you loose out on a lot of CP.


Side note, anyone try out red terror with the new codex yet? I imagine you will get the most bang for your buck in a Jorm list where you have many reasons to bring multiple raveners.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Had a tourney today. Warzone atlanta missions (http://warzoneatlanta.com/assets/Mission-Primer-2017.pdf). I'll try to get some pics up later. Didn't get many cause playing a 150 model army means I've gotta move move move to get through 5 turns.

My list

Flyrants - 2x Dev, MRC, AG - Kraken Relic, Warlord
Flyrants - 2x Dev, MRC, AG

20 GS
20 GS
30 Horm

Malanthrope
2 Neurothropes

30 Horm
30 Dev gants
6 rippers

Trygon
Trygon

Round 1 vs Tyranids. Player wasn't a pushover, but I don't think he was a really competitive player. Seemed familiar to tournaments and knew the game.

He looked at my list and said, "Oh, wow we're running basically the same list..." and my heart dropped for a moment, I really was not excited to play against myself, it would be a very dangerous matchup. Of course, he finished his sentence with, "... except in reverse!"

He was running full krono shooty nids. Roughly

Malanthrope
6x Neurothrope (1 was warlord)

30 Terms, 15 dev
30 Terms, 15 dev
30 terms, 5 dev

3 Impaler Guard

Exocrine
Exocrine
Mawloc

Barbed Hierodule

Was deployment 1, spearhead assault. 2 objectives each (Give no ground! mission), 1 in your deployment zone, 1 outside your deployment but in your half. Secondary was killing 1/25/50/75% of your opponents total PL. I placed the on in my zone up in a building so mawloc couldnt get to it, just to the right of center by the edge of his half. He placed one just outside his deployment on my left, and one to the right a couple inched back into his deployment.

My usual deployment, GS mid, 30 horms on each side, mal in middle, neuro on each side, rippers up in the building in the back hiding on the objective. Tyrants, trygons, 20 GS and dev gants in reserve. He dployed with the 2 dev heavy term squads a little bit off the deployment line, about 24" away from me. One on each side, bubble wrapping everything. The other 30 man squad in the back so I couldn't come up behind. Neuro warlord and mal middle, both exocrines right behind, 2 neuros on each side and barbed on my left. Hiveguard far back left inside a building. Everything within his big bubble wrap.

I won first turn, but he seized. His shooting was mostly out of range, but exos and hives killed a decent number of stealers.

First turn I only got a 4" advance for GS, but still doubled it, needing an 8" charge. Horms on both sides moved up as usual. I dropped both flyrants right next to the malanthrope in the middle. GS and Devgants came up on left flank opposite the LOW. Hope was to bog it down then smash the gak out of it with smite and trygons.

I failed catalyst, even burning a CP to reroll (Historically I am less than 50% cast rate on catalyst, even with rerolls, and I probably roll same or worse on CP rerolls 70% of the time).Smite picked up a few gants, I think.

Shooting my devourer gants were pathetically bad. I ended up having to pour both flyrants, trygons and all the dev gants and didnt even kill 30 termagants, I think there was 1 left. I shot the termagants again, into a neurothrope. I lost a few because of LOS of the building I had to land near, but I think ~20 were firing. Average is like 5.77 damage.... I got THREE. So that was frustrating.

I then failed all of my charges, including an 8" charge where I rolled a 5 and a 2, which rerolled into a 1.

So, at this point I'm feeling like things aren't great. I have my termagants on his outside objective, my right horms on my right outside obj. No catalyst. ~30 GS left, and staring at almost the full fire effect of kronos that doesn't need to move.

Oh, and a LOW.

So, I got blasted pretty hard. 2 GS from the deployed squad live, I lose about half from the new squad (Which also gets his neuro back to full, huzzah!), non warlord flyrant dies (I make maybe 20% of my 4++), warlord takes like 1-2 damage, right horms get horrored and GS get paroxysmed.

Hierodule charges the GS trygon and the GS. Trygon gets dumpstered, GS roll like gak and only do a little damage.

SO THATS GREAT. One GS squad neutered, one is around half, I think. I'm down a flyrant. Dev gants are at 100%, but I need to stop his shooting ASAP I am down one of my flyrants.. I decide to play really risky, as I think we're teetering between one of us breaking, as he has a massive hole in his bubble wrap now, and I can't take another round of shooting.

I advance the malanthrope towards the right terms, get the right horms into charge range of the same terms, left horms get within charge range of the hierodule no prob. GS fall back towards his malanthrope+exocrines, terms move up. Warlord flyrant jumps over the central building and lands right next to his warlord neurothrope, the malanthrope, an exocrine and the termagants.

I fail catalyst again (With a reroll!), get onslaught off on the Malanthrope, fail the horror. Warlord doesn't manage to do any damage with smite, neuros do a little to the hierodule.

Shooting I put all 30 dev gants into the Impaler guard in cover. I just barely manage to kill two. Flyrant doesn't do anything, I think.

I charge the 2 remaining GS from behind a BLOS ruin into the right term squad to shut off overwatch, and the right horms into it as well, left horms and Trygon into the hierodule, termagants into the 2 neurothropes infront of them, Tyrant into Warlord Neurothrope and malanthrope and the GS into one of the neurothropes near the malanthrope.

With pile in, I manage to put flyrant on exocrine as well, GS on the other exocrine, termagants into the hive guard and the back 30 terms. I have now locked his entire army in combat except 2 neurothropes on his left flank.

I pop reroll wounds for the Trygon and he gets to work. Unfortunately I don't roll great on my damage, he rolls well on catalyst, and I get him down to just around or below half. Flyrant tries to wipe out his warlord, and does a whopping 3 damage. I know, I know, 3++, but needed to remove a smite and hopefully get his warlord while shutting down the exocrine. Termagants on left do jack gak except lock people up. Hormagaunts do maybe 1 or 2 damage to hierodule. Right horms kill ~10 terms, GS there kill 1 or 2, I think the mal whiffed or got knocked out of combat. GS eat a neurothrope I gain 1 CP (2-1 for using strat), pile into malanthrope as well

In return my flyrant gets put down to 8 I think. Both horm squads are fine. Trygon lucks out and only takes a tiny bit of damage. Terms lose a few. I lose both of the 2 man GS squad (Wow) to a handful of termagants. He blows 3 CP to adrenaline surge into my trygon and I survive with like 2 wounds.

Okay, so. Better. Well, not really. I failed to assassinate his warlord, and took a decent bit of damage in return. I still don't have catalyst. His Hierodule is still alive, and my Trygon is not feeling great (Tho I shorted myself the bonus ST attack every time I fought without thinking). I have like 7 GS hanging around with a malanthrope and exocrine, ~25 horms fighting ~15 terms, both my neurothropes, l~25 terms tying up his terms, impaler guard, and 2 zoanthropes. I have plenty of horde left, but very little killing power.

He brings in the mawloc on my Trygon and horms, does 1 to the Trygon and brings it down to 1. The Tyrant gets really messed up from smite spam, going down to like 2 or 3 wounds.

He finally kills the Trygon, and is down to like 5W on the hierodule. He kills like 2 of the GS. The horms do a good bit of damage to the terms, bringing them down to just a few models. At the end of the fight phase my Tyrant has 1W left and he rolls for the malanthropes' aura...

I make it! Huzzah!

So, I have a warlord tyrant who is about to die, 2 neurothropes facing 5 denies and like 5 GS left, for damage dealers. He has a hierodule in the bottom damage bracket, 2 exocrines at full, 1 impaler guard, 5 neurothropes and a mawloc. GEEZ.

We're running low on time, it's the top of 3. I do damage assessment. I'm not killing those Neurothropes. He didnt heal the warlord last round cause he didnt kill models, just beat up my tyrant, so he's still a bit weak. There's ONE termagant left from his left 30 man squad that keeps getting piled into, but not swung on (I keep forgetting it's there and dont declare it). The middle of the board has big ruins that his hierodule can't fit through, but there's enough space for his mawloc. If I can block that he can't get my outside objective. I still have termagants on his, so as long as I keep them conga lined to the neuros he can't take that back from me. The hormagaunts can take his deep objective because there's a large gap where his terms used to be.

I'm going to take all 4 objectives and hold them till 5. That's my plan. I'll get linebreaker, and atlanta allows first blood as long as both players have it in the same round, and we both got a kill in round 2. I should probably try to run my warlord away, but with only 8" I don't think I can get away from his zoanthropes. I'd rather go down swinging, I think I can shoot down his warlord and charge the malanthrope. Maybe deal 5-8 damage before I die.

So, I fall the flyrant back just a tiny bit. Fall back the right horms and move them into the gap the dead terms left. Right around the neurothropes, the obj, the exo and the backfield term squad. Horms fall back off the hierodule and move towards the middle of the board, while still staying able to charge him, the exocrine and malanthrope. The 5 stealers move to try to finish off the hierodule. With 2 smites and the stealers I should kill it. 15 attacks should get me 1-2 rends, and I should do 4 damage with smite. I move one neurothrope to block the mawloc from being physically able to pass between the ruins to get to my outside objective.

Psychic phase.... I don't risk casting on the warlord tyrant. I do 4 wounds to the hierodule, he has 1 left.

Shooting the flyrant whiffs. Guess we gotta get our footy claws dirty.

Assault the flyrant kills the neurothrope. Genestealers COMPLETELY WHIFF. Horms beat up the terms some more, lock everything in place, securing me the objective.

I realize I FORGOT THE MALANTHROPE. He was on the other side of BLOS and so I didn't move or charge with him. feth. That might have been enough to kill one of the other neuros, or pick me up the bonus if he had been present on the warlord. Well gak. I also could have used him to shield flyrant from smites if I had thought of it. Totally fethed myself there because I was rushing as time was coming down.

He swings back with mal and kills my flyrant. Fuckin' eh.

We have time for 1 more very, very fast turn. Hierodule can't get past neuros, charges and fails to kill 1. Mawloc charges and fails to do anything.

My turn I fall back and grab the objective with my neurothrope. I fail to kill the hierodule with my smites, of course.

Nothing else of note.

I win primary 18-0. I had not focused on secondary, and had only actually killed 2 neurothropes from his army. He had 2 individual terms left from both 30 man squads, 1 hive guard with 1w left, and 1w left on his hierodule. Meanwhile he had killed quite a lot of my army, so he scored big there. He had 2 teritiaries to my 3.

Total final score was like 25-13

Thoughts- I failed SO many important rolls. So. So. So many. Even with rerolls. I just couldn't get anything going this match. My opponent didn't roll amazing or terribly-he had some bad luck offensively with his hierodule, but didnt perils once and only failed maybe 2 abilities despite casting with 4-6 psykers twice a turn for 4 turns. Nothing critical he tried except the hierodule vs my trygon went poorly beyond a regular amount of variance. I really messed up not keeping track of the secondary, if I had been focusing more on it I think I could have put more attacks into the hive guard and finished those 2 termagant squads, which probably would have gotten me 2 more BP. If I had gotten ONE rend on the hierodule across 2 sets of swings with the stealers, that too would have put me up a bracket in the secondary.

It was nice to see how I could handle big screens-they weren't really a problem at all. If I had gotten just my 1 decent turn 1 charge off, the match would have gone much, much differently. Especially if I had gotten a 5 or 6 for the advance and a 8"+ charge, because then I would have been able to get the GS deep in there, possibly locking in place on a termagant. Regardless, it was a good primary for me, there was no way he was leaving his deployment zone, and with a super troops heavy army I have little trouble just shoving people off objectives and claiming them out from underneath them.

Game 2
Patrick McAneeny (ITC #6 SM player)

Playing
Guilleman
Tiggy
JP captain with teeth of terra

5 tac squads with las cannon
6 asscan razorbacks

Stormraven

Mission was 6 objectives (Aggressive recon), where you score them at the START of your turn, you can only score each once (2VP) and if you score an objective AFTER your opponent, you get 3VP. we had 2 objectives in each 4'x2' of the board. Deployment was vanguard. Typical deployment for me. He deployed very far back. He won the roll off and made me go first. I was actually okay with this, as I could advance to midfield and still be more than 24" away. If he wanted to shoot me he would have to move and shoot at -2. Even with rerolls, that means he'll lose 50% of his hits.

I move up into a central building with stealers, horms on flanks, rippers in back like 7" from an objective, hiding. I keep my reserves off. I want him to come to me. 24" is more than close enough for easy charges with stealers.

Catalyst fails. As usual. I have failed 4 of 5 attempts at this point in the tourney.

Turn 1 he moves everything up, mostly swinging left, including the stormraven moving way out in front on my left.

Even with the -2, he rolls pretty well, tons of 5s and 6s, just finishing off the left horm squad and killing a few from the right.

Ouch. More than I thought he'd do. I figured I'd lose ~25 and then slink off with the unit. Not happy I gave up FB, but that's the way it goes I guess.

My turn 2, I double time the middle GS up the board 18". Since he was firing on the horms he was actually closer than 24" to them, so I've got a nice, short charge. Horms on right advance. Malanthrope and neuros are right in the middle of the board. Both flyrants drop next to the malanthrope again-this is something I'm starting to like doing. -2 to hit on the warlord makes him an unappealing target. In this situation I'm also still 9" from the stormraven, so I can try to assault it to finish it if I fail to smite/shoot it down. Dev gants come up on left side, GS on right side.

Psychic phase I GET CATALYST OFF!!!! YESSSSSSS. On the main GS squad too! 20 man blob of stealers right on his doorstep with catalyst, it's the thing dreams are made of. 3/4 smites go off/aren't denied, along with psychic scream. All into the stormraven. I roll all 2s and 3s, including my warlord who perils on double 6s and takes 2. I throw the horror on guilleman because I don't really know what else to throw it on.

Shooting from the flyrants does a few wounds, then the dev gants finish off the stormraven with only 2 wounds overkill. The captain survives the crash, so I double tap into his face. He survives like 27 wounds with W1 left. Sigh. Trygon kills a tac marine in a building (Surprise!).

Central GS declare charges on two razorbacks. Overwatch is below average/catalyst pays off, and only one dies. I suppose he burned all his 6s on normal shooting! I get a solid charge distance, but not great, enough to make it to both razorbacks, but only completely surround one. The GS trygon fails his charge, taking a wound from overwatch, but the right GS actually make their charge on an 11.

Fight phase I surround 1 razorback and blow it up, killing all occupants. Other razorback takes a few wounds. Right GS squad piles into the two razorbacks in the back, though tiggy intervenes and does a little damage. I pop adrenaline rush to surround the one razorback I couldn't with my initial charge, but dont have enough movement to completely surround it, so I wreck it and the lascannon manages to fit. I pile into the next razorback and the lascannon.

Fantastic first turn. Stormraven, 2 razorbacks, 1 tac squad, 4/5 and 1/5 from two other tac squads. GS in his backfield with catalyst. He has lost most of his ability to get across the field safely (Razorbacks are easy to surround and lock in place), and thus his ability to score. He's also lost the ability to shoot with 3/4 razorbacks this turn. Now to start eating squads.

His turn 2 he disembarks everyone. He falls back everything in combat, but not nearly far enough (I did try to make it clear at the start I could fall back and charge with EVERYTHING). I think he assumed he would do more damage, or that I wouldn't keep piling into them. Regardless, he moved guilleman and 5 tacs right up to the catalyst stealers. Tiggy and some tac marines on the back right corner face off with the other stealers. JP captain leaps at my onslaught neurothrope.

Psychic he gets buffs off on guilleman.

Shooting eats up a lot of the catalyst stealers, but I think ~10 live. Right stealers get knocked down to about 12. All his lascannons fire into my warlord. Even at -2 and -3, he manages to put it down. Pretty bad saves by me and pretty good rolls by him.

Assault the catalyst stealers do very little (I think nothing?), but a few survive. The normal stealers don't get charged. The neurothrope survives with 1 wound! He blows 3CP to finish it off.

My turn 3 I move the devourer gaunts up, advance both trygons because they're too far to charge reliably. I realize I lost my only onslaught, and was in decent charge ranges after advance. feth. Hormagaunts move forward and to be positioned to charge the captain if I need to. I believe about 4-6 GS are left from the central group, the move off to the left to engage 2 razorbacks and a tac squad. Right squad is going to try to surround a model from the tac squad, keep more models on the objective, kill tiggy AND tie up the razorbacks and the squad up in the building. The flyrant jumps forward to help with shooting, smite and scream.

Catalyst gets blocked iirc. Scream and smite do some damage to guilleman, I think he's down to 5. I can only smite the captain so he gets it in the face and goes down.

Shooting, I can't remember what dev gaunts did. I think they shot at a tank for a few wounds because it was all they had range for. I probably should have advanced and still done gakky shooting but had better position. Tyrant kills a few tac marines, leaving 1 left upstairs.

Left GS lose 1-2 to overwatch, make combat with the marines and 2 tanks. After all my charges, I decide to check distance for flyrant to upper floor marines, 10", so 9" charge, 8 with AG. I give it a go and get 11, great! Right GS grab tiggy and marines, ready to pile into tanks.

GS on left Kill 4 marines, lose 2-3 to tank combat!!! I have to his lascannon out of combat to keep both tanks locked. He could have still fired after falling back, I figured 0 razorback shots was less painful than a single lascannon at -1. Right GS bring tiggy to ONE WOUND, and all the marines, keep the 2 razorbacks locked. I have like 2CP, I can't activate feeder tendrils to get more CP, but I can implant attack to finish tiggy off. I do, he dies. That's the second time I've finished a character with it, amazingly. Flyrant kills last of tac squad in building.

His turn 3, he falls back 1 razorback towards central objectives. 2 fall WAY back to his edge, and 1 moves to circle out from around where tiggy fell. Marines and Guilleman move up towards Trygon.

Shooting finishes my last 2 stealers from the central squad, picks up a few from the right squad, and dumpsters my hive tyrant. Even with negative modifiers, I cannot catch a break. My stealers were doing fairly well with 5++/5+++, but 4++ seems impossible for me. Trygon takes a fair bit of damage, as well.

Guilleman charges trygon and wipes it out.

My turn 4 Horms move up to go play with Guille, GS squad advances 6 to go play with some single lascannon marines and tanks, trygon goes to eat a marine. Dev gants move up to the tank trying to sneeki beeki my central objective. Shooting does a little to the central tank, dev gants pick up a lascannon devastator that I should have left for the trygon to bounce off of.

Psychic I smite guilleman for some damage.

Genestealers use a single lascannon marine as charge target to reduce overwatch, manage to get inposition to tie up both razorbacks in his backfield again. Horms go play with Guilleman, I think. At this point we are rushing hard to finish as much as possible as time is running low.

Basically I manage to wipe out all his tac marines, use dev gants to lock one razorback and zone another one out of getting to central objective. The zoned one gets linebreaker. My Trygon slaps the taste out of Guillemans mouth, despite getting critically wounded in the process, and shot to death when he came back to life (with only 1W). Genestealers also died in the process of killing Guilleman, I think. He lost his last wound to smite. Hormagaunts wrapped up his razorback that tried to sneak around on my right side.

I can't remember if I killed his fourth razorback or what, but it was somehow unable to fight.

I had gotten 2 VP off of 5 objectives, and 3 off another. He had 2 VP off of 1 objective. Because you only start scoring on turn 2, and I was on top of him before his second turn, I contested everything he tried to score besides that 1. I picked up 18 BP there. Secondary was a modified KP, where every 8 wounds a MODEL had made it worth 1KP (So 5 wound model is 1, 9-16 wound model is 2, etc.), with an extra KP for it being a char and another for LOW. This was figured out as what % of your army's KP you lost, and you got BP for 1/25/50/75%. We tallied it up, and I had 79% for him, and he had 77% for me. WAIT. I forgot I had rippers. Nope, he got 73.9%. Tertiary we both had linebreaker and warlord, he had FB. Final score was 31-14.

What a game. I figured this would be a great matchup for me based on list and mission. I wasn't going to forget KP this time either. My biggest fear was him wiping out my stealers turn 1, my reserves not making charges, then just getting horribly gunned down. Like a lot of guys, he really underestimated the speed of the army, but he literally couldn't engage me without putting himself in danger. If he had stayed castled turn 2, I would have advanced everything up to 25". Again, forcing him to either back up or advance. If he sat still it would have been even worse than this, because he would have had no shooting. If he moves forward and targets the GS, I double move and onslaught the horms and tie down all of his tanks, while bringing in all of my reserves. Every turn he doesn't advance is a turn he loses for possible scoring. He probably would have been best off doing this and then shooting the stormraven past me so I had to chase it, though even with 45" my neuros and flyrants would have been able to reach it, I think.

I don't think that 24" gunline will work against Tyranids without LARGE conscript screens, and even then, it's pretty questionable. GS/Horms move so fast, and dakkagants tear up screens. I'm really leaning towards more stealers on the board at the start.

Game 3
Alex Fennell

Iyanden Eldar
2x Farseer
1x Autarch

3x Wraithknight, 2 wraithcannon and 2 starcannon each

Mission is modified kill points primary (For whom the bell tolls), relic secondary. We roll hammer and anvil deployment.

So. I don't like this. I don't like this at all.

I'm going to win secondary while getting kited all over the board and getting gak on, then stomped to death when I actually engage.

Typical deployment for me. He deploys around a piece of terrain in a triangle so I can't possibly shoot his characters. He gets first turn.

First turn he dooms the stealers, guide and fortune on a wraithknight. Moves to my left side. Bunch of stealers die. THAT WAS FAST.

My turn 1 I bring stealers in just past center, dev gants on left. He intercepts the stealer's Trygon, I luck out and take 4 damage. Everything plows forward. Right horms are gonna go for relic. Flyrants both land next to malanthrope in the middle of the board. Beat up stealers (Around 7 left, I think) double time to about 7" from a farseer. Ruh roh, you left him too far forward.

I get catalyst off on my flyrant. With multi-damage weapons, I doubt it'll help the stealers. Onslaught on left horms

Flyrants both shoot and smite one of the knights, do a little bit of damage. Termagants shoot it up as well. All told I think I did Around 11 damage to the central knight,

I make charges with both stealers, small squad to farseer, big squad to knight. Both Trygons fail horribly on their charges (Booooo-urns). Horms make it to far left Knight.

Caustic blood on the horms. 7 stealers do like 7 wounds to the farseer... he makes like 6 saves and only takes 1 wound. feth ME. 10 stealers get to swing on the knight and I don't rend worth a gak, I think he takes maybe 3-4 damage total? Horms do 2 damage or so. He stomps around with the stupid relic that doubles his temper tantrum. I think 15 or so horms die, and like 12 genestealers. I pop adrenaline rush and do 10 wounds to the farseer, which he fails 6. Boom. First blood at the bottom of 1.

His turn 2

He falls back, shuffles around, blows up both Trygons and murders a bunch of stealers+hormagaunts. Fails all his psychic powers.

My turn 2

Jump the flyrants up at the now middle knight. It's taken like 3-5 wounds, I think. I move up all my neurothropes. I grab the relic and run like a bitch with the other horms.

Psychic I get catalyst off on warlord. I smite and scream and just lay into the knight. He takes like 4-6 more wounds.

Shooting puts him at ~15 wounds taken.

Both Tyrants charge in, and they really put the footy claws to him. He goes down! Huzzah!

His Turn 3

So I'm gonna get slapped in the dick for that. He moves the chars and a knight past my flyrants and 1 towards the dev gants.

Warlord goes away. Painfully. But bad rolling on his part meant it took way more than he wanted to use on it. My other flyrant gets away basically scott free, I think.

He charges terms and kills enough where I fall out of combat.

My turn 3

Oh boy! I'm really fethed now, boys! Not really, though. He's super exposed his other farseer+autarch. I move neuros and tyrant right next to autarch, terms so they can be closest to him. Smite+shooting+charge from the Tyrant kills the autarch and leaves the farseer with 1 wound left. relic is still running like a bitch.

His Turn 4

He finds that I've been pretty carefully using movement so he can't get past me with his jumps. He runs the farseer away (Tho no boost cause he had to fall back). The knights shuffled to my table-left. I luck out in shooting and my tyrant survives with 5 wounds left. He stomps the piss out of some more gants.

My turn 4

Neuros and tyrant shift with the knights, terms move to follow the farseer. U NO GO PLZ.

3 smites+scream, +shooting and assault finish off another knight, just barely. Terms get the last wound off the farseer.

His turn 5

His knight jumps into my close left corner, erases my tyrant.

My turn 5

Terms move over and plink a few wounds, I think I'm being clever and putting a neurothrope infront of the other by about 8" so he'll charge one and get slowed down. In reality I'm playing too fast and put them basically the exact distance of his base+1" on each side. GUESS WHERE THAT GOES.

I do my smites, he takes a little damage.

I roll, game goes on.

His turn 6

He flubs shooting, but crushes both neuros in assault.

My turn 6

I wave at him with the relic.

Game ends.

Because of modified KP rules for the mission, he gets a 14-3 BP victory on primary, I get secondary for 9 BP, tertiary we both have warlord, I have FB, he has LB. Final score is 18-16 for a super bloody, super close match.

We both made a huge mistake with positioning (My farseer, his neurothrope) that ended up costing us a lot. His dice were unarguably as bad as mine were my first game. I felt bad, because it was really costing him a lot, but, I needed every inch I could get. In an objective game, I would have loved to face that army, but in KP I was absolutely FORCED to try to kill him and IT SUCKED. Luckily it was modified KP, so I got a lot of bonuses against his stuff, but even still, what tough nuts to crack. If I had gotten even one of the Trygons into assault from DS that could have gone much differently, I think. A trygon averages like 10 damage against a Wraithknight (If you pop rerolls to wound), which was enough to kill the last wraithknight he had left standing at the end of the game. A tiny bit of luck (Rounding up on some of the odds) could net you 4 unsaved wounds, and like 14-16 damage.

I did question using Death Frenzy-but I wasn't sure what profile I'd use? I figured the lowest, at which point it doesn't seem particularly great.

Anyways, all told I had a great time. I got to play an unusual list that posed some interesting problems for me, and two exceptional players. We've got a GT coming up in a few weeks, I'll probably try to get some more paint on my bugs and see how I can do up there. I expect some stiff competition!

Thanks for the battle report. Good to see a competent bugs player can smoke some high level tournament players and lists.

I played in a casual doubles tournament today and I basically managed to solo both my enemies as my admech buddy locked down his bots behind LOS blocking terrain and killed 4 stealth suits all game.
Anyway, I am really enjoying some of the movement shenanigans thats bugs can do. I think the movement phase is the most fun phase of the game and bugs have a lot of options there that make it fun to play.

Tyranofexes with rupture canons seem fairly essential if you are facing a lot of tanks or other high wound/ high toughness units.

Tyranids have nothing else shooting wise that can do enough damage.

Has anybody tried DS'ing 30 gargoyles with the swarmlord in a tyrannocye for the double move to fly over screening units and charge tanks and whatever turn 1?

 killerpenguin wrote:
Has anybody tried DS'ing 30 gargoyles with the swarmlord in a tyrannocye for the double move to fly over screening units and charge tanks and whatever turn 1?

The biggest issue with gargs is their footprint and fragility.....will they fit between the layer of bubble wrap and the soft chewy center? Otherwise I think Homagaunts fill the niche quite well with their 6" pile in/consolidate.

Honestly I think Gargs might be a great option on the board.... they look intimidating as hell and move like lightning with Karaken they can roll the 3d6 for adv making them even faster and they can fall back shoot and assault again also blinding venom can help.... finally they are relitivly cheap at 6ppm though I think too pricey if you add AG though you almost want to anyway. They have a huge footprint which can really mess with opponent fliers..and they can also assault said fliers which is nice. Their only real drawback is being a fast attack if they were troop they would be nearly auto include.

What was the time gap between the release of the Eldar or IG/AM codex and the release of the codex-specific FAQ?

Just curious, a few key question I'm waiting on for Nids!

(Hoping.. just maybe.. I can spend 3CP and not spend a further massive bunch of points for units I could have fielded anyway, with the Sporemine stratagem)

Razerous wrote:
What was the time gap between the release of the Eldar or IG/AM codex and the release of the codex-specific FAQ?

Just curious, a few key question I'm waiting on for Nids!

(Hoping.. just maybe.. I can spend 3CP and not spend a further massive bunch of points for units I could have fielded anyway, with the Sporemine stratagem)

It's been 2-3 weeks, typically.

FWIW they've consistently FAQ'd this sort of thing to affirm that they mean what the rulebook says (Chaos and AdMech top-up stratagems don't cost points, Guard reinforcement stratagem does). They also changed the wording of the Spore Mines' rules, and the only difference between the new wording and the old wording is that index Spore Mines would be free with the stratagem.

Dionysodorus wrote:

Razerous wrote:
What was the time gap between the release of the Eldar or IG/AM codex and the release of the codex-specific FAQ?

Just curious, a few key question I'm waiting on for Nids!

(Hoping.. just maybe.. I can spend 3CP and not spend a further massive bunch of points for units I could have fielded anyway, with the Sporemine stratagem)

It's been 2-3 weeks, typically.

FWIW they've consistently FAQ'd this sort of thing to affirm that they mean what the rulebook says (Chaos and AdMech top-up stratagems don't cost points, Guard reinforcement stratagem does). They also changed the wording of the Spore Mines' rules, and the only difference between the new wording and the old wording is that index Spore Mines would be free with the stratagem.

Are you suggesting.. it;s looking bad for spore-mine lovers?