Hive fleet cataclysm battle reports

[able]

Been playing a series of 30 pp games against my little brother's Tau and Necron forces, with pretty good results. Mostly just thrown together lists, with some deliberately picked as bad match ups to see what we can do in bad situations. I'll post a few more reports, but I'll start with the one where the gaunts got to show off their party piece. We were playing a single objective in the middle that you get a VP for starting and ending your turn with it secure (a good amount of my success is probably down to how well this suits tyranids). Anyway army lists:


Tyranids:

prime
OOE

30 gaunts
5 warriors (let me have them for 7 PP, because they were a basic unit)
3 ripper swarms

Necrons:
piles of infantry with cryptec
3 scarab swarms


Turn 1 was tyranids first, everything moved forwards, ending just shy of the objective. The ripper swarm deep striked to sieze it for next turn. Not much shooting, and if hit a few warriors. Necrons move their scarabs in to contest the objective, (big mistake) and open fire at the warriors, killing 3. Scarabs charge the rippers, and some die. Tyranid turn 2 is everything moving forward, with token fire, and then charge phase. Everything charges at the scarabs, and ends up as far forward as possible. Only 1 gaunt ends up in combat with the scarabs, the rest being 6"-8" in front of them (with coherency konga line), close to the main necron line. The warriors kill the scarabs, making the main necron force the closest target to the gaunts. They then do their pile in consolidate combo (chargers always get to fight) to cover the 10" remaining to the main necron force. They are able to get into combat with everything! 1 stays behind for synapse, and the necrons beat on them, killing ~12. Necron turn 2 they stay in combat, trying to kill the gaunts before OOE gets close. Fight phase they kill another ~12, leaving just a few stragglers to do nothing in return. Tyranid turn 3 OOE, the warriors and the prime make it into combat, and are able to chew through a unit and a half. Necrons concede.

I love the fact that gaunts can end up in combat from 24"+ away, while not taking overwatch fire if there is a fragile enemy in between.



I have to say that the surprise performer has been the ripper swarm. I have taken one at least in every list, and they have never failed to do something. In one game it was sit on a flank and shield my prime from Coldstar fire, and another it was diverting drone fire away from my main force, so it is not exactly huge, but they have always done something worth 33 pts.

[meavar]

One minor thing of note.
While you always get a fihthing phase with your charging unit, you cannot attack a unit you did not declare a charge against. Thus while you could get the warriors into combat, they could not make any attack against them (not sure if you played it like this or attacked with your gaunts). But yes good placement and carefull destruction of units can really slingshot units forward, since you effectively get another 6 inch movement to the closest enemy.

[able]

yes, they don't get to fight, but it is not like gaunts are going to kill anything anyway . They used their consolidate to get into combat rather than their pile in (which just got them close), so even if they had not charged they would not have gotten to fight. They pile in and consolidate to get an extra 12" on their move + charge (cause gaunts), and large brood size means that they can be miles away from the unit they actually charged. The point was that I denied his entire army a shooting phase, and the only unit he could CC on was the expendable gaunts. OOE was free to saunter up the field.

[gigasnail]

Doing that will win you games.

[mattblowers]

Aug 7, 2017 13:12:35 GMT meavar said:

One minor thing of note.
While you always get a fihthing phase with your charging unit, you cannot attack a unit you did not declare a charge against. Thus while you could get the warriors into combat, they could not make any attack against them (not sure if you played it like this or attacked with your gaunts). But yes good placement and carefull destruction of units can really slingshot units forward, since you effectively get another 6 inch movement to the closest enemy.

Just declare a charge against anything you might remotely get close to. You can declare all the charges in the world, you only need to make one. If you take a CC oriented list a tactic an opponent will use is to declare a charge against everything that might get close. Bezerkers have to do this in order to attack, wipe out a unit, consolidate, pile in, and then in their second time of fighting attack and wipe out another unit. If you don't declare a charge against a unit, you can't swing at it. Nothing says you have to reach all the units and you can't move within 1" of a unit that you didn't charge. The negative is that you eat overwatch from all of them.

[gigasnail]

Yup.

[able]

Annoyingly you can only declare charges on units within 12", which is relevant to a gaunt that can end up piling in on a target up to 20" away from where it started. On the other hand, you don't get gaunts in combat to kill stuff anyway, so I find it is often better to pile in on undeclared targets and give up your attacks than eat more overwatch than you have to.

[gigasnail]

With hormagants, for sure. Other units have more punch and you may need to apply it.

[kazetanade]

I wasn't aware that there is a max distance for declaring charges. Are we sure on that one?

[gigasnail]

Yes. Even units like the brass scorpion that charge 3d6" do not have an exception to the restriction to a charge within 12"

[No One]

able said:

Annoyingly you can only declare charges on units within 12", which is relevant to a gaunt that can end up piling in on a target up to 20" away from where it started. On the other hand, you don't get gaunts in combat to kill stuff anyway, so I find it is often better to pile in on undeclared targets and give up your attacks than eat more overwatch than you have to.

Heck, it also means you can't roll well (or have only just managed to make it in range of a squishy target) and kill off enough that they can dodge out of combat after casualties/morale (morale is potentially a big one if applicable, since it happens after consolidate).

[able]

So, lesson for the day, do not let the Tau player set up the map... 

I know he didn't do it on purpose, but we learned a lot about what makes a good map for tau, and a bad map for an assault based army such as tyranids. 1000pt game. We had one side of the map set up to be quite open and exposed, with the other having "lots of cover". I was dubious, because the sight lines looked pretty good, and the spacing between pieces of cover seemed quite inconvenient for my movement rates. I deployed almost all my forces on the cover side, and was aiming to get my gaunts into combat ASAP (while still safely), and then use their pile ins to pull the exposed side units into combat. Turn 1 was a little bit of tactical error on my part (slight understatement, but I still think it would have gone badly). I moved my gargoyles too far forward, and they were slightly in front of the one piece of high cover on the map. This exposed them to pathfinder marker lights as well as a squad of fire warriors (they could see one ). He rolled well, and got the full 5 marker lights. Then he opened fire with his drones, boosted by a drone controller, and 5 marker lights. The brood just evaporated. He did roll well here too. OOE took a heavy hit from longstrike, which I was expecting*. The hills we were using were about 1cm lower than OOE, so there was literally nowhere on the map for him to hide. Turn 2 went as badly, with my warriors not getting anywhere near, and the gaunts failing a charge badly. It was always going to be tricky, because the locations of the cover meant that they either started in the open, or faced a long charge.
The gaunts melted, OOE took another 7 wounds from Longstrike, and I conceded there.

Suffice to say, gun drones hurt.

[kazetanade]

Table issues my friend.

[able]

Another interesting game yesterday. A three way 1000pt maelstrom against GK and necrons. Grey knights brought some interceptors and a dread knight captain, while the necrons brought illuminator, some warriors, lychguard, a shard, a spider, and some deathmarks. I brought 2 flyrants, OOE, a prime, some warriors, 2 min units of gaunts and gants, and a ripper swarm. The board was 3x2 2' squares with tons of line of sight breaking cover and an objective in each. I was deployed in a corner square, the GK deployed in the middle square of the other side, and the necrons deployed with a square between us. GK went first, and drew a secure objective 2 card and secure and defend objective 1. Objective 2 was the corner beside me, and an interceptor squad drop in to seize it. The rest of the knights stayed hidden, waiting for the necrons to not all be sitting on objective 1, with one squad using their power to shoot through walls to snipe some gaunts. The squad that dropped in cast vortex of doom, which did 3 wounds each to my prime, a tyrant, gants, and a unit of gaunts. They also fired, but pretty ineffectively. Necrons went next, and drew some pretty useless cards. Can't even remember what they were, but he dropped all 3 at the end of the turn. They advanced towards me, at necron speed.
My turn 1 was pretty successful. I drew secure objective 2, meaning I was going to be rewarded for dealing with the grey knight squad. Both flyrants and 2 squads moved to deal with them, and between the smites, deathspitters, and rending claws they were dead by the end of the turn. First blood, and control of the objective. The rest of my forces moved up towards the necrons, save for a squad of gants sitting on my objective. I achieved another objective here too, but I can't remember what it was.
GK turn 2 they redeployed a unit behind the necrons, which was interrupted by the deathmarks who then got really lucky with their shooting and killed half the squad. They also disrupted the GK planed drops, by suddenly being within 9" of where they wanted to drop. Only one more squad could get in, and they dropped the deathmarks down to 1 cron in their turn. In retaliation the necrons unleashed the shard on the GKs, and they just sort of evaporated. The rest of the crons kept covering the ground towards me, aiming at the objective between us. Only the illuminator was in a position to fire, and took 5 wounds off OOE. The deathmarks got 1 cron back, and they hid to hope to get more next turn.
My turn 2 I drew a defend objective 5 card, which was in the GK deployment, and a master the warp. OOE, the gaunts, and the warriors moved up to take the objective between myself and the necrons, while hiding. The necrons would need to come into guaranteed CC range to shoot or take the objective, and next turn I would be able to get my tyrants into position to concentrate on them too. The plan was for the fight to be fast and bloody, to mitigate the reanimations. My non warlord tyrant took the objective in the now empty GK deployment, while the rest of the gants formed a thorough deep strike screen at my back. The rippers dropped in ~14" in front of that tyrant, which meant that between my forces 2/3s of the board was screened. My warlord cast catalyst for the victory point, despite being out of sight of anything. I opted not to charge with OOE, because I didn't think he would be able to kill a unit entirely, and there is no point in half measures against necrons. This proved a mistake.
GK turn 3 was about as effective as the rest of them. Their remaining dread knight and lord dropped in in the only place available, which was painfully close to the shard. They did some decent damage to it, but failed both charges. The shard eventually won out here, but not this turn. Meanwhile the rest of the necrons went on the offensive against my position, and while they could not get into position to fire, they were all able to charge OOE! Turns out that lychguard are serious about their CC, finishing off OOE handily, before piling into the gaunts. The rest of the warriors were able to make a mess of the gaunt squad, leaving 2. The deathmarks secured an objective they were near, putting them in the open.
Tyranid turn 3 I drew blood and guts and overwhelming firepower. My tyrants did a relay on objective 5, with my warlord holding it while the other went deathmark hunting. This proved unneccesary, as the rippers advanced far enough to do the job anyway (I should have moved them first). I had realised that I could not actually fight the necron death ball, but I hoped that my warriors would be able to kill the warrior unit in CC, which meant committing both the warrior brood and the prime. By leaving the gaunts in combat I was able to avoid the necron overwatch, but it meant that there was no way to keep the lychguard out of combat. My hunting tyrant opted not to smite, as there was far too much of a risk of killing the unit which would deny me a VP! He did manage to wipe the unit with his deathspitters, and the warriors almost were able to deal enough damage to be able to surround the necrons (at least denying them a reanimate). It was not to be though, and the lychguard killed the prime easily. The warriors survived for now, while the gaunts still kept everything in combat.
GK turn 4 had the dreadknight going after the shard, while his other master went after my hunting tyrant. He didn't get close enough to do anything other than smite though, which it managed to deny. Necron turn 4 consisted of the shard skirmishing with the dread knight, bringing it very low, while the rest of his forces dealt with the warriors. They were able to kill all but one, and the lychguard managed to get out of combat with the gaunts by smart casualties and pile ins. My turn the last warrior fell back, to try to draw some necrons the other direction, while my two tyrants linked up a 'safe distance' away from the lychguard, before smiting and shooting. Holding 3 objectives got me supremacy this turn. I had assassinate too, but decided that the GK with a hammer was too dangerous for the injured hunting tyrant, and the other was out of range this turn. I tried to horrify the Lychguard just to be safe, but the GK master decided to deny. Catalyst went off on my warlord though.
The GK grand master on foot found himself miles from anything, so didn't do anything, while the dread knight smited. Closest target proved to be my last warrior with 1 wound, so he died. It tried to charge the shard, but failed. The necron shard finished off the dread knight, while his warriors had gone to help if required (they proved not to be). The surprise that they pulled out this turn was that a lychguard reanimated 2" in front of the rest of them, shortening the charge by 4"! They were able to engage both my hive tyrants, and killed one, while doing 4 wounds to my warlord through tenacity and catalyst. My turn 4 consisted of full retreat. Everything that could hide was now hiding, with the 2 objectives on my side of the board secure, and a sacrificial ripper swarm keeping objective 5 secure in front of the lychguard for a VP.
GK turn 5 consisted of a single grand master on his own sitting on an objective he did not need.  The lychguard chewed through the rippers, but their objective control came too late. They now controlled 3 of the 6, but didn't have forces to control more. Very little happened from this point on, and tyranids won on points. GG.

So, comments. Rippers outdid themselves again. It might have been because of the sparce forces on the map, but when my tyrant needed to jump on a free objective they were able to prevent deep strikes within about 25" of him. They could have jumped on a secure themselves, but they actually were more useful guaranteeing a defend, while keeping a tyrant safe. On flyrants, they shone hard too. Between mobility and being able to kill stuff at range, with psykic, and melee, they are able to achieve almost all the objectives. This is huge if you draw priority orders. Priority orders master the warp is basically 4 free victory points. They are not worth their points in a straight up fight, but their mobility allows them to pick their fights effectively (except against basalisks). If the enemy is having to split up to get points, that can be used to punish. 10 gant units also did their job admirably, being able to sit on objectives and screen for each other. I made a serious mistake not simply running from the necrons when I decided I wasn't committing everything, and committing everything would probably have been a mistake too. I should have done my best to avoid them, and force them to split or only be on one objective at a time. Fighting a death ball seems a mistake for us, other than genestealer alpha strike lists. Necron infantry are seriously slow, but reanimations gives units an extra 3" move effectively. Fighting them actually speeds them up!

I'm not sure how much of these lessons will carry, as the lists my opponents took were slack for what they needed to do (move for the necrons, and survive for the GK), and having 3 players confused things. The main lesson I have learned is that killing stuff is actually not that important in maelstrom, and that backing away is sometimes the better option even with CC units. I am finding that the threat of CC is often what does the work, rather than actually getting into CC. The key seems to be avoiding taking too much damage while securing points, and not forcing engages that are unfavourable.

[No One]

Wall of text .