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2017/06/04 21:48:51
Subject: First Through Fourth Impressions (4 games of 8th Ed Nids)
Retrospective Edits: (things I was unsure of while playing)
1) It's been pointed out that Swarmy does allow you to advance with his second move, but you're not immune to charging restrictions unless you have onslaught or are just genestealers
2) You do consolidate at the end of combat regardless of whether you are still in combat or not
3) Your "reserved" units still count as being deployed so they take up a deployment turn (thankfully this did not wind up affecting first turn order even if we had done it properly - I basically just nerfed my own deployment)
Game 1: 77 power levels, vs the Inquisition + Custodes
Spoiler:
Mission: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Dawn of War
His list: Custodes Land Raider
2 Chimeras
5 Custodes
1 Penitent Engine
1 Inquisitor
1 Techpriest?
And the dudes who rode in the chimeras (I'm not very familiar with the distinctions between acolytes, etc. they're all biomass to me)
My initial thoughts on the game: is it possible to play a game with power level over 9000? Let it be so
He won the roll for deployment, so he placed the first unit. This wound up being crucial, since I believe that when you deploy a tank, you simultaneously deploy the guys inside, so we both wound up having exactly 4 units to deploy, so he went first. I naturally failed to seize.
I won't go too much into the details of the game because this is long enough but he deep struck the Custodes turn 1 and charged swarmy (whoops they don't have deep strike any more we learned later). Normally this would have been great for me, but 4 lascannons hitting on 2's from his land raider had robbed swarmy of 10 wounds prior to the fight starting, and he had first activation. The 2CP order interrupt is after 1 unit that charged goes...so couldn't do it. I could have used a re-roll to roll swarmy's invuln....but I forgot because I'm bad. First blood slay the warlord. After that, my Tyrant stayed locked with them for about 3 turns, killing only 1 (his invulnerable saves were on fire and I forgot to ever cast smite because I'm bad).
On the other side of the planet, my Genestealers and trygons started ripping through his tanks, but I can't roll 6's to save my life. They eventually went down but afterwards, I didn't have enough to finish off his land raider. He wound up tabling me with it, but we played it that the tanks couldn't be locked in combat (wrong) and when he fell back, he could shoot with the tank normally (also wrong I believe). So I lost on both fronts and was tabled turn 5 with his land raider and Custodes standing strong. Land raiders are hard to kill, even more so when they have a 2+/5++ and ignore wounds on a 6+ after that. Wow!
Post - game thoughts: A difficulty for us still seems to be anti-armor. Most everything being strength 6 is rough (woe is us). Rending claws help and so does old one eye, whom I now think is worth including on his own merits, even if he doesn't have any friends to buff nearby.
Game 2: 50 Power levels, vs Space Wolves
Spoiler:
Mission: Purge the Alien (why do people always want to do that one to start?)
Deployment: Search and Destroy (new one where you deploy in a quadrant of the board but can't be within 9" of the center point of the board)
Initial thoughts: He was going to go second, barring a seize. I like this new ability to make your list have the ability to go first most of the time, especially because the more units you have in reserve, the more likely you are to go first. Suits my alpha strike Nids play style perfectly. Of course, the counter to that is that your opponent can deploy the bulk of their force after you finish, giving a lot of tactical head fake options. Tons of strategy in deployment. Thankfully for this mission, I knew he would be sitting in the far corner to delay my assaults as long as possible, so there wasn't much guesswork or the ability for him to outsmart me in the deployment phase.
He failed to seize and we begin. I decided to just weather a turn of shooting with my tyrant guard and moved swarmy twice with swarmy's ability. Adrenal glands on the tyrant guard is so crucial. And it's great that swarmy's ability happens in the shooting phase after all other movement is done. Lots of advancing and it much else. Held swarmy and my flyrant back just enough to stay within range of the tyrant guard.
His shooting was really ineffective with catalyst up on my tyrant guard (which he correctly identified as the unit to shoot). He basically ignored my genestealers because he thought they were too far back, and his HQ and thunderwolves and blood claws were bubble wrapped with the fenrisian wolves in the farthest corner to deny me the ability to charge when I got there.
Unfortunately for him, on turn 2 I moved my genestealers twice with swarmy's ability. Not sure if they can advance while swarmy moves them but I've heard some people say they can. I haven't done it but even without that, that's still 16 + d6" in a turn. WOW! Like they can charge turn 1 in standard deployment with decent odds in some situations. So they got like 20" of total movement and totally flanked around so that they were able to pile in on his fenrisian wolves and engage them, as well as the dreadnought, which the genestealers finished off with ease (but smite did a ton of work on also - mortal wounds are sick!) Swarmy hit the tac squad with my flyrant and my lictor, whom had popped up that turn and made his charge, making short work of them as well.
At that point, he realized that he had boxed himself into a corner. His thinderwolves and wolf lord were actually getting move blocked by his bood claws so that he couldn't charge any of my units with any of them, and he conceded. This was because there is no end of turn pile in. You only pile in when you activate your unit to swing.
End of game thoughts: my opponent had some good tactical deployment ideas (about three of them actually) but botched the execution on two of them and was unpleasantly surprised with respect to the third one (my genestealer double move spoiled was would otherwise have been good positioning by him). It is at this point that I realize that Tyranids are actually lightning fast. You can play them with big bugs shooting *coughtwoexocrinescough* but the speed with which they can close on the enemy is literally unprecedented. I haven't tried the harpy or the hive crone yet, but assuredly I will. You could literally have an army that has the possibility to turn 1 assault with the entire army that also has the ability to go first 5/6 of the time or so. Welcome to 8th edition, where you either respect assault as a viable strategy or you become biomass. When's the last time you could say that?
Game 3: 2000 points vs Ynnari
Spoiler:
Mission: Emperor’s Will
Deployment: Dawn of War
His list:
2 farseers on jetbikes
2 2 man skyweaver squads
2 3 man reaver squads
Yncarne
Wraithlord
Wraithlord
I think there were 6 units of Scatbikes? They all had 3 guys in them. There were a lot of Scatbikes.
My list:
Swarmy
Flyrant (scytal, RC, ag)
Flyrant (scytal, RC, ag)
Old One Eye
Pre-game thoughts: this ought to be a real test. Ultimate mobility in Ynnari bikes and I have 2 guns that I paid points for under duress with my Trygons. Can melee Nids work against a list that would have literally aced me off the map last edition had I tried to run it? One thing that I don't like is the lack of reference for what keywords mean things (like fly, etc). I think part of the issue is that a lot of times we are referring back to 7th edition with units being relentless or things like that. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a total reset - units aren’t relentless just because they’re bikes or MC, etc unless they have a rule that says they can fire a heavy weapon and move without the penalty. This affected his list of course, and we talked about it after the game saying that the shurikan cannon is probably going to be better in this edition due to the fact that his jetbikes will be able to move and shoot them without the -1 to hit penalty. (Someone please correct me if I’ve missed something and bikes aren’t subject to the -1 to hit rule for heavy weapons). In any case, whether he should have been hitting on 4’s or 3’s with his scatbikes wouldn’t have affected the outcome of this game.
He had a billion more units to deploy than me to clearly I had the initiative, barring a seize. He decided to set up his army entirely in one half of his deployment zone, and made no effort to make me go the long way across the board to get to him. His assumption was that his soulburst actions would generate enough offense for him as his units died.
He was wrong. A turn 1 hive tyrant charge without the swarm lord’s move ability plus a turn 1 trygon charge plus a turn 1 gene stealer charge (with the swarm lord’s move ability) proved to do a lot of horrible things to him. The Yncarne popped up in front of my one hive tyrant that couldn’t assault (but had smited a bike unit to death). Multi-charges against his bike units were brutal. I charged 4 bike units with my genestealers (2 wounds each on the jetbikes is nuts now!) and although one escaped because he was able to fall back with his soul burst ability, I killed the other two and brought the last one down to 1 wound. Soulbursting out of combat is absolutely huge, especially since his bikes just don’t care about falling back. Really negates a lot of multi-assaults, but again he can just fall back anyhow with no penalty due to the fly rule. The trygon rolled absolutely horribly against his Yncarne, taking it down to one wound (I really really need to learn how to use my re-rolls for things like d6 damage, etc, which is really sad because I played Fateweaver a ton last edition. I should really know better by now).
On his turn, he tried to focus down my hive tyrant but it lived with one wound. His yncarne had gained a couple wounds back from his dying friends and managed to chop my Trygon’s head clean off. He shot some genestealers but I made good saves. My alpha strike really neutered a lot of my offense and him using most of his shots on my hive tyrant, wounding on 4’s, really meant that he didn’t kill much at all of mine.
Turn 2 my second hive tyrant came into combat, a unit of tyrant guard came over to help out my dying hive tyrant with 1 wound left (effectively giving him 10 wounds again so long as I could make a 2 + look out sir) and the swarm lord went to hunt down some stragglers who thought they could run away. The second squad of genestealers hit hit back lines with Swarmy’s double move ability and it was effectively over. We played out that combat phase but it was clear it was over at that point and he conceded. Mortal wounds and rending had made quick work of the wraithlords that he had hoped would keep me locked in combat and away from his bikes and his soulbursts were like drops in the ocean.
Post-game thoughts: If you told me how one-sided this affair was going to be at the beginning, I absolutely would not have believed you. In fairness, he made a few tactical mistakes (mostly in deploying in such a way that it was like a multi-charge buffet) but with 2 trygons, each carrying 20 genestealers, he really didn’t have many options without sacrificing his soulbursts almost entirely. I just can’t believe that a pure melee army beat one of the top tier lists from 7th edition. Nerfing soulburst to only be one activation per unit death was huge. I think it’s still strong, but my army does exactly what Aeldari are terrified of - getting in its face before it has a chance to thin down the herd. I like that both strengths and weaknesses of armies are highlighted now.
Psychic defenses are really important. Both of us had the ability to cast and deny powers, although obviously his abilities were superior to mine. But this game was very different than the other 2 games I played, where previously I could cast with impunity, more or less. Every army really needs to have a parker or two, or else you’re leaving yourself open to a world of hurt. It may not FEEL awesome casting a generic power like smite, but let me tell you - the effects are awesome. And I bet more faction specific stuff is coming soon with the codes releases.
Game 4: 50 Power levels vs Dark Angels
Spoiler:
Mission: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Dawn of War
His list:
Sammael (not in his land speeder)
Apothecary on bike
Ravenwing Champion on bike
6 regular bikes (1 with plasma I believe?)
8 black knights
Land Speeder
My list:
Swarmy
Exocrine
Trygon
20 Genestealers
Pre-game thoughts: Plasma used to be a big enemy of Tyranids, and now with even less cover to hide behind plus the ability for big guns like missile launchers to do d6 damage per wound, my big bugs aren’t going to be happy. Which is pretty much all of my bugs in this list. But my Genestealers are still going to show up and hopefully wreak some havoc.
Thankfully, he had to deploy one of his units first, which allowed me to set up my exocrine in range of one of his bike squads on turn 1, and he failed to seize on me. Two big changes for ravenwing (and anything that jinks) are that:
1. Jink is a 5+ invuln now, not 4+ cover
2. You can only gain the save if you advance on your previous turn, which means that you don’t get any alpha-strike protection
So he failed to seize on me, but he did deploy well. And this is where the exocrine just took over. The hitting on 3’s and shooting twice is absolutely spectacular. What an MVP. Did 6 wounds to the bikes, killing 3 of them because they each have 2 wounds. Then went and checked the profile on the exocrine and saw that each hit does 2 damage!!! First blood to the exocrine!
Swarmy ran up like a man and used his ability on himself (because I stupidly forgot to make it so that he would be able to be in range of my Genestealers for a guaranteed charge). But hey, Swarmy needs some action too so it wasn’t all bad. I was set up for turn 2 charges for sure. Unfortunately ,both my Trygon and my Genestealers failed their charges (command point re-roll didn’t even help).
On his turn, he went straight man mode and decided to completely ignore my Trygon and my angry horde of Genestealers and go for Swarmy. Since his volume of fire guys had bitten the dust, it made some sense. And in any case I was taunting Sammael so hard. The swarm lord wanted him bad. But he had the land speeder with missile launchers and a lot of plasma shots. He even went for the super-charged version of plasma to do double damage (killing one of his guys in the process. He almost killed his ravenwing champion with it, but he had some nice re-rolls of 1 to hit so that saved his bacon). In between all of the plasma and the land speeder, Swarmy was lain low, down to 4 wounds. The black knights and Sammael and the ravenwing champion charged in, and swarmy had to take it all before he could swing (I only had one command point left). I used said command point to save a wound that would have killed Swarmy and I passed! Swarmy was down to one wound. He swung but Sammael made some good saves and my only roll on a d6….a 2. Womp.
On my turn, the exocrine decided to move into range of the Land speeder, only hitting on 4’s and with only 6 shots, but I got 3 wounds through. BAM! Dead land speeder. My genestealers and the trygon charged in to help Swarmy, and in the psychic phase I manifested smite on an 11, doing d6 mortal wounds to Sammael! The roll was a 5, finishing him off with a vengeance! With the Genestealers I swung, finishing off his black knights. He used two command points to swing with one last act of desperation against Swarmy, and I am sad to say that being all out of command points, I was unable to keep him alive. But the rest of the biomass was consumed and the Hive Mind will just reincarnate him elsewhere.
Post-game thoughts: I know everything is a lot less durable but the bikes really felt it. To be fair, the exocrine seems like their worst nightmare, and I think in most other situations they would be a lot more durable. In combat, Swarmy’s invulns were just too hot to handle. Clearly the MVP of this game by far (although the exocrine definitely did the most heavy lifting. I was just happy that the Swarmlord took down Sammael). Yet another unchecked psychic phase made a big difference in the game. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t think that the psychic phase would have a very big impact on the game because of how they changed it….well I was wrong. Also, the 5++ on the hive tyrants and Swarmy now is absolutely amazing and makes a lot of sense that they would have some extra hive mind protection. Really goes a long way towards keeping them alive, and with catalyst on top of that and some tyrant guard....well you have a rather durable killing machine.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/04 21:49:13
2017/06/05 03:00:52
Subject: First Through Fourth Impressions (4 games of 8th Ed Nids)
Great write up, I will be definitely be taking all this knowledge into account for my first games of 8th later this week. Any thoughts on smaller point levels where a Swarmlord or multiple MCs aren't practical?
2500 Nids
1000 CSM
2017/06/05 03:52:18
Subject: First Through Fourth Impressions (4 games of 8th Ed Nids)
I don't know how small "smaller" is, but swarm lord cleaned up shop at 930 points (the 2nd game) and my opponent said he thought it was unfair that I used him at such a low points value, even though Swarmy only fought 1 round of combat. He thought the move twice thing was too OP for low points. I like MCs and small unit count armies because you go first 5/6 of the time.
But honestly, I think everything is viable now. I might grab a venomthrope for smaller points games to protect your gribblies, but it's tough because you need 3 now. That's a lot of points for -1 to hit. I think at small points I'd have lictors and or deathleaper roaming around with Old One Eye trying to murderize stuff.
2017/06/05 06:28:25
Subject: First Through Fourth Impressions (4 games of 8th Ed Nids)
Man, thanks for writing these up!! Great to get an insight into a good few games. Sounds like they were a lot of fun.
Looks like Swarmlord is just too good to pass up with the double move.
I can't wait to get on the table and try some stuff out..Exorcine + Tyrannofex should be fun!
\m/
2017/06/05 07:41:35
Subject: First Through Fourth Impressions (4 games of 8th Ed Nids)
Setting up a unit in reserves still counts as setting up a unit for deployment, and thus who goes first
"'players must agree how they are going to select their armies, and if any restrictions apply to the number and type of models they can use."
This is an actual rule in the actual rulebook. Quit whining about how you can imagine someone's army touching you in a bad place and play by the actual rules.
Freelance Ontologist
When people ask, "What's the point in understanding everything?" they've just disqualified themselves from using questions and should disappear in a puff of paradox. But they don't understand and just continue existing, which are also their only two strategies for life.
2017/06/08 01:55:00
Subject: First Through Fourth Impressions (4 games of 8th Ed Nids)
DarknessEternal wrote: Setting up a unit in reserves still counts as setting up a unit for deployment, and thus who goes first
See retrospective edit #3
what if it was in a transport? Do you deploy the vehicle then also deploy the unit inside or do they go together? I understand you're nids so this is less of a concept on your army,
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/08 15:37:14
2017/06/08 19:40:13
Subject: First Through Fourth Impressions (4 games of 8th Ed Nids)
DarknessEternal wrote: Setting up a unit in reserves still counts as setting up a unit for deployment, and thus who goes first
See retrospective edit #3
what if it was in a transport? Do you deploy the vehicle then also deploy the unit inside or do they go together? I understand you're nids so this is less of a concept on your army,
With vehicles, or in my case the Trygon tunnel, you deploy the unit "inside the vehicle", or "inside the tunnel" at the same time, so it only takes you one "turn" of deployment to deploy those two units. Helps a lot when you're trying to go first.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
koooaei wrote: Have you also noticed that whoever goes first usually wins? Alpha strikes are very strong in 8-th.
I wonder if that will change as the meta adapts. I can't imagine that go first win game will be something that happens all the time once armies adapt (and going second in objective missions is still a big deal).
That's actually why I like the current version of my list a lot - most of the important stuff is either deployed in a tunnel or protected by a lot of Tyrant Guard, so I really wouldn't mind going second against a lot of lists, especially if they're trying to castle up against my alpha strike like they should.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/06/14 03:11:47
