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Also an issue with Harlequins, no side board.

Death guard can go into a game against Harlies and sub out the fifth generic plague marine for five walkers that can chump block charges and/or counter charge.

Harlies can switch some weapons around.

You guys use pistols with your Harlequins ? I'm trying to advise our Harlequins player here and it seems to me the best general loadouts would be 6 Players with Kisses or 7 with Embraces when facing MEQ. Pistols will most likely never be shot and I believe it's better to have one more Player than a few pistols.

The Scenarios at Annihilation do not use the scouting phase.
That said, the distance between deployment zones was not always standard.

In one - running battle - there was literally 0" between deployment zones at one point - and you couldn't exactly ignore it, because there was an objective within 3" of that point....

locarno24 wrote:
Tyranid player #3 was a Leader specialist Tyranid Warrior Gunner with a Venom Cannon and 19 Termagants with Fleshborers (one veteran and one a scout).

I didn't see the Harlequins in action, but I gather it was high-powered pistols a-go-go. There were (as you can tell) a lot of death guard players, and fusion-pistol-to-the-face is a pretty good answer to disgustingly resiliant...

Tyranid player #1 had more of a mix of units - primarily hormagaunts as the lil' gribblies and I'm pretty sure at least one lictor - but still basically a mix of a small number of big guys and a synapse-commanded swarm.

Thank you Iocarno24 for the information! Death Guard seems like such a resilient faction I can see why everyone wanted to play them. My biggest concern was what do they do against mobs of infantry.

Does the Harlies 3D6 charge over rule having to be within 12" of a target to even declare the charge in the first place?

MaxB wrote:
Does the Harlies 3D6 charge over rule having to be within 12" of a target to even declare the charge in the first place?

They already have a charge range of 18" for their baseline rule of charging 3D6.

xadmar wrote:

locarno24 wrote:
Tyranid player #3 was a Leader specialist Tyranid Warrior Gunner with a Venom Cannon and 19 Termagants with Fleshborers (one veteran and one a scout).

I didn't see the Harlequins in action, but I gather it was high-powered pistols a-go-go. There were (as you can tell) a lot of death guard players, and fusion-pistol-to-the-face is a pretty good answer to disgustingly resiliant...

Tyranid player #1 had more of a mix of units - primarily hormagaunts as the lil' gribblies and I'm pretty sure at least one lictor - but still basically a mix of a small number of big guys and a synapse-commanded swarm.

Thank you Iocarno24 for the information! Death Guard seems like such a resilient faction I can see why everyone wanted to play them. My biggest concern was what do they do against mobs of infantry.

Zealot specialist + Flail of corruption. If you encounter infantry 'bunched up' it's as near as damnit three automatic kills when that thing charges in.
Against guard that goes double, because they're IMPERIUM and Death To The False Emperor goes off (plus Killing Frenzy at the same time if you have a spare CP and are feeling like proving a point!).

Poxwalkers are cheap and expendable enough to get to objectives and form a 'wall' your opponent has to chew through (because they need to outnumber them on the objective). They're faster than they look because without guns you might as well advance if not charging.

Essentially, most of the Death Guard I saw at the top end tables:


3-5 poxwalkers block off stuff, whilst plague marine fighters follow up and smash stuff to paste. Flails seem broadly better than cleavers, although the latter is still scary. Champions were a mixed bag; a few with plagueswords, a few with power fists and a few lurking at the back with plasma guns

Cheap hordes with ways to ignore morale do very well in killteam when backed up by higher values models that do the killing.

The mechanics for survival versus points paid does favour the hordes e.g. the injury roll in addition to the 8th ed. mechanics on AP

Admittedly I've only played four games so far with my Primaris Deathwatch (Tyranids, Tau, Scions and Genestealer Cults)
I've found the Scions were the hardest to play against, that annoying AP on the hotshot lasguns. It's the only game I've had a model go out of action.

Are Thousand Sons good if you don’t use Tzaangors with them? I own a box of Rubrics so if I can make a good team out of them then I’d be pretty happy

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Are Thousand Sons good if you don’t use Tzaangors with them? I own a box of Rubrics so if I can make a good team out of them then I’d be pretty happy

They are worse without Tzaangors. Tzaangors are a bargain for 7pts, they have good weapons and are resilient enough to not die vs normal weapons.

Chaos - of any faction - do best leveraging their ability to field both astartes and 'cheap' units (cultist/tzaangor/poxwalker) in the same kill-team.

Thousand Sons are nasty, but I'd always take a mix of heavy units and chaff over a 'pure' kill team.

That said, there's no reason a pure team can't do well - especially one going heavy on warpflamers (which is much better equipped for crowd control!)

Ah interesting to know, thanks. Seems a comfortable spot for points is to have an aspiring sorcerer, 3 rubrics with some upgrades and 3 tzaangors

I've been enjoying just the marines (sorcerer + heavy cannon guy + three more with flamers). They seem to do well on their own.

My best teams have been a Scout list with a few Snipers, missile launchers and an Auspex, and Death Guard with Blight Launchers. Planning to build a Great Cleaver Plague Marine soon. I also have an all Kommando Ork team that is super fun and plays well to Missions, but struggles near the end game, as is the way with Orkz.

hvg3akaek wrote:
I've been enjoying just the marines (sorcerer + heavy cannon guy + three more with flamers). They seem to do well on their own.

Oh, don't get me wrong. They're better with tzaangors, but still viable by themselves.
That bloody rotor cannon is murderous against anyone whose kill-team has decent armour, and every so often, the icon can be game-winning.

The Nova and Warhammer Weekender / Annihilation missions seem to favor horde builds for a few reasons:

- Objectives are primary VP source. More bodies = easier to score as a general rule.

- More bodies = target saturation = even with efficient model removal, you can only kill so many per turn.

- Games end at the end of turn 4. If the horde player is even slightly clever they should be able to swamp objectives and shut down shooting (via melee) at least most of the turns.

Thousand Sons are strong.
Powerful psychic mortal wound options,
Their bolters are better.
2+ save.
Warpflame weapons.
Other things I can’t think of now, but seem super strong.

The sorcerer can cast into combat / even if he is in combat too right?

Psychic phase is independent of shooting and fighting yes. That said, depending on the wording of the smite you will likely have targeting restrictions.

You guys thoughts on Gellerpox in regular KT games ? My V8 nemesis (Nurgle fan) wishes to play with them next time I face him, and just reading their datasheets they already look anti-fun (like all Nurgle armies tbh) with their native -1 to hit on some models, DR and mortal wounds because they exist.

 Aaranis wrote:
You guys thoughts on Gellerpox in regular KT games ? My V8 nemesis (Nurgle fan) wishes to play with them next time I face him, and just reading their datasheets they already look anti-fun (like all Nurgle armies tbh) with their native -1 to hit on some models, DR and mortal wounds because they exist.

They're quite pricey for those rules and aren't top of the game. They aren't too bad but they aren't as bad as they seem, especially with all the bugs being easier to take out of action. What faction are you playing?

I think Death Guard make it to the top three (or one?). They have the option to run cheap blockers around solid gunners/fighters. They have a weapon set that can respond to any killteam roster without needing to use more than ~12 slots on their own roster. For instance, if you see a Tyranid roster with several flavors of warrior and genestealer but NOT 17 termagants, you know not to bring the flail in on that particular mission, regardless of what the actual Nid killteam ends up being from that player's list of options. That roster flexibility also helps when it comes to actually playing on the table's presented to you. If it's all LoS blocks, then you can go super melee heavy and throw a veteran spewer in on top (first turn pre-move to put them in LoS of potential chargers). They have a truly ridiculous shooting phase with two blight launchers. Even if you hit on 5's (which you shouldn't be but still) you'll probably land one shot from each, wound on 2's rerolling 1's in most cases (or in every case with a demo spec), AP-2 means it is unlikely they make the save, then give them D3 damage.

Then, on top of all of that, every model gets a "free" 5+ shrug on wounds.

I play AdMech and Drukhari, and the less fun games I've had were against DG, they're just so boring. Poxwalkers are just annoying and do nothing else, and a great deal of the arsenal from the PM is way too powerful, with auto-rerolls and such, combined to their absurd resilience.

GW looks to be basking in their new Nurgle creations and want people to buy them (can't blame them for selling minis) so they give them funny names and busted rules whenever they can. From a few games I've watched they're even more anti-fun in AoS with their -4 to Hit with some combos.

 Aaranis wrote:
I play AdMech and Drukhari, and the less fun games I've had were against DG, they're just so boring. Poxwalkers are just annoying and do nothing else, and a great deal of the arsenal from the PM is way too powerful, with auto-rerolls and such, combined to their absurd resilience.

GW looks to be basking in their new Nurgle creations and want people to buy them (can't blame them for selling minis) so they give them funny names and busted rules whenever they can. From a few games I've watched they're even more anti-fun in AoS with their -4 to Hit with some combos.

Really wish they'd follow that up with busted Primaris rules

I've got Gellerpox on the back burner, seem like fun to play. However the more games I get in with other teams - including my legacy CSM team - the more being combat-focused seems pretty bleh if you don't move fast and hit really hard, particularly with the ability to strand a charger the turn after if you get initiative on them. Last night I spent a game with my CSM combat specialist (with a chainsword lulz how do melee weapons work) being kited by a Death Watch bro and then doing nothing once he was allowed to charge. I'm not sure I want to relive that on a larger scale with G'pox, especially with being even slower and hitting on a 4+, even if all their combat weapons are better than a chainsword or power armored glove.

Still want to run the muties, just might be focusing on other teams for my weekly games and gettin' gud before heading down a particularly skew-y hole.

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:
I've got Gellerpox on the back burner, seem like fun to play. However the more games I get in with other teams - including my legacy CSM team - the more being combat-focused seems pretty bleh if you don't move fast and hit really hard, particularly with the ability to strand a charger the turn after if you get initiative on them. Last night I spent a game with my CSM combat specialist (with a chainsword lulz how do melee weapons work) being kited by a Death Watch bro and then doing nothing once he was allowed to charge. I'm not sure I want to relive that on a larger scale with G'pox, especially with being even slower and hitting on a 4+, even if all their combat weapons are better than a chainsword or power armored glove.

Still want to run the muties, just might be focusing on other teams for my weekly games and gettin' gud before heading down a particularly skew-y hole.

- Salvage

I don't even think the skew is the real problem. The problem is they're just worse Deathguard. Same statline, less mobility, no access to shooting, no choice of weapons, no choice of specialists. Gellerpox and Starstriders are fine against each other but fall apart pretty quickly against the core factions.

I spent some time yesterday angsting over how to face DG with any of my current or planned teams, and I just don't know what the answer is that isn't more DG. So I took a deep breath and decided to make some cool models and just play more games, preferably not against DG if possible - which should be doable, as there's not too many right now in the local meta.

- Salvage

So are tyranids not worth playing?

 Boss Salvage wrote:
I spent some time yesterday angsting over how to face DG with any of my current or planned teams, and I just don't know what the answer is that isn't more DG. So I took a deep breath and decided to make some cool models and just play more games, preferably not against DG if possible - which should be doable, as there's not too many right now in the local meta.

- Salvage

I actually won my first game against DG last night with Starstriders. I was the defender playing feint. I ignored the blight launcher and leader to focus down the rest of the army. His poxwalkers went down turn 1 so he didn't have cheap guys to blow up the objectives I couldn't contest. However the win was still pure luck as we tied in victory points, and tie goes to defender. My combat spec had 2 flesh wounds (each spec dead gives attacker a VP) and he failed the roll to make it go to turn 5. I don't think I would have lasted another turn.

Don't Starstriders have 7 specialists? Awkward side effect in Feint! But nice work, well played. I have to imagine that every victory with Starstriders tastes sweeter than most

Playing Gellerpox tonight for the first time, most likely against Grey Knights or Orks. If it's GK it'll be the rare matchup where they go up against a daemon - or two, since I've got two Glitchlings

- Salvage