Sporocyst good again?

[montytrygon]

Heyho bugs and critters.

I had a 2000 points game at tuesday against Eldar and brought a sporocyst to fight.
Sadly he stole my Initiative and it got the enemie first blood, but it took 21 Jetbikes with Shuriken cannons and a wraithknights 2 shots with wraith cannon to kill it, while it was also doomed (psy to reroll wounds on ab unit)

So i Was pretty surprised by its survivability.

If he didnt stole my Ini, the Sporocyst would have been a huge pain in the ass for him, because it is denying an objective and spawning 3-6 sporemines every turn wich could reach 3" to the enemies on the first turn.

This was quite cool for 104 points.



So now the deal.
Im planning on taking 3 in a fortification detachement allongside 2 Battallions.

They dont need synapse, so now the real question: WHICH HIVE FLEET IS THE BEST AND WHY?

I ran jormungandr and the 3+ made the cyst rly durable.

But i can see use for other traits.

Kronos for rerolling a lot of 1s. Also enables the anti Psy stratagem near the enemy lines

Kraken, so your Mines gotta go fast.

Leviathan for extra survivability


Which one would u use?



btw the shooting twice stratagem is hillarious on 30 devilgaunts with the trygon bomb.
they shot 2 units of bikes (6 and 7) and killed 5 wraithblades after overwatch and caustic blood in CC.

[nikh]

That's cool to hear, I love the look and idea of Sporocysts but never heard anything good with them. I'm surprised they fired at it for so long, I feel like most people would just avoid them. As for best fleet, for the Sporocyst specifically I'd say Kronos. It'll always get the reroll and if I'm remembering correctly, they put out a lot of shots.

[Jbizzy]

Depends on what you want it to do, try and kill stuff or just sit there and survive? Try each fleet out and let us know.

Also cool to read about how much more effective devilgaunts are.

[voltaire26]

Kronos is definitely the best! Not only do you get the re-roll 1's on them, but since they drop near your opponents side of the board, you can make use of their anti-spells Strategem even if you don't go first! Good to hear some positives on these things!

Did they drop 15 points in the codex?

[Jbizzy]

I like voltaire26 points. Chance at psychic denial all over the place!

[nikh]

Can Sporocysts deny? Last I heard they were synapse resonators that didn't have the synapse rule unless another unit was nearby

[voltaire26]

Sporocysts themselves can't deny per say, but they do have this:

The Deepest Shadow (1 CP): When a Psyker within 24" of a <KRONOS> unit tries to manifest a psychic power, it can only roll one die for its psychic test.

[nikh]

Nov 10, 2017 20:31:45 GMT voltaire26 said:

Sporocysts themselves can't deny per say, but they do have this:

The Deepest Shadow (1 CP): When a Psyker within 24" of a <KRONOS> unit tries to manifest a psychic power, it can only roll one die for its psychic test.

That's some trollzy (please do not swear) right there, love it 

[Jbizzy]

I like a Mawloc for Kronos too. Pop him up in the enemy face to do MW, distract and be a beacon for The Deepest Shadow.

[c4790m]

Nov 10, 2017 20:31:45 GMT voltaire26 said:

Sporocysts themselves can't deny per say, but they do have this:

The Deepest Shadow (1 CP): When a Psyker within 24" of a <KRONOS> unit tries to manifest a psychic power, it can only roll one die for its psychic test.

Oh dang, that’s sexy. Too bad they don’t also convey SitW too though, you could use them to create a battlefield wide -1 psyker net before the game. 
We can take unaligned fortification too can’t we? Any worth running to stop the sporocyst feeling lonely?

[montytrygon]

Next game i go for Kronos.

Now the weapon question.

venom canon is garbage because 100 points more and bs 5+

Id say go for stranglers, but deathspitters gained 24" now...
and most enemies dont have that much units with 10+ Models.

The problem with Kronos is its 4+ now.

The model is huge, so you rarely benefit from cover.

I liked them as a Screen/denying midfield objwctives.

Maybe camp 1 in a ruin far away (with objective marker) and floot it with spores to claim this ruin yours?

[seeg]

i'm actually quite excited to try sporocysts as well. I'd say keep it cheap with deathspitters and use kronos or jormung depending on ur local scene.
using them as a screen, deepstrike denial, objective sitter or kronos forward synapse and stratagem enabler sounds really versatile for 104 points. certainly wont be cutthroat competitive but for anything less than that i dont think it'll be a waste of points the way the old maleceptor or toxicrene was.

[nikh]

Do they still have that ridiculous hull-mounted weapon rule? Where the army with no vehicles was forced to shoot like a vehicle?

[shadowfinder]

Nov 11, 2017 3:03:12 GMT nikh said:

Do they still have that ridiculous hull-mounted weapon rule? Where the army with no vehicles was forced to shoot like a vehicle?

No that's gone. All weapons fire where you want.

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

Nov 11, 2017 0:11:29 GMT montytrygon said:

Next game i go for Kronos.

Now the weapon question.

venom canon is garbage because 100 points more and bs 5+

Id say go for stranglers, but deathspitters gained 24" now...
and most enemies dont have that much units with 10+ Models.

The problem with Kronos is its 4+ now.

The model is huge, so you rarely benefit from cover.

I liked them as a Screen/denying midfield objwctives.

Maybe camp 1 in a ruin far away (with objective marker) and floot it with spores to claim this ruin yours?

I think the only reason you would run it with Kronos is to allow it to be a candidate for The Deepest Shadow; it's sort of an after-thought that it can re-roll 1's to hit with it's weapons. Speaking of, don't pay out all those extra points to give it anything other than Deathspitters. Even with a re-roll 1's to hit, it's still BS5+ and it's not going to do much damage in the way of shooting. The spores it produces will probably do more damage over the course of any game.

With the right set-up and positioning, a Sporocyst (or any spores it produces), a warlord with the Kronos warlord trait (Soul Hunger), Shadow In The Warp and The Deepest Shadow stratagem will have things like Primaris Psykers, Librarians, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Farseers, etc. killing themselves when they fail their casting... and they will fail; you can almost guarantee it. Guess how many times a model is going to successfully manifest a power with a Warp Charge value of 7 power with a single D6? Or how many times a model is going to successfully manifest a power with a Warp Charge value of 6 while eating a -1 from Shadows In The Warp? Nothing is more gratifying than watching a knife-eared witch or a Tzeentchian master of sorcery get trounced at his own game with such an easy combo to set up.

Speaking of spores, that brings us to another issue. If you want to make the most destructive use of your spores, you'll run the Sporocyst in a Kraken fleet. The obvious movement benefits of Kraken are a boon to slow-movers like Spore Mines and Mucolid Spores; and Mucolid Spores that are moving and advancing faster or even twice per phase are actually quite dangerous.

Lastly, they're big and the enemy will shoot them. Shooting at a Sporocyst is not shooting at other, vastly more dangerous things in your army. That's a win all by itself, imo. People might say they won't, but when it starts pooping a conga line of spores into their personal space, they'll start shooting at it. Things like Sporocyst and Tervigons don't seem like a problem until you make it one for your opponent. Just my two cents.