Null deployment - as good as it gets

[N.I.B.]

Dec 22, 2011 14:27:03 GMT henshin1 said:

Thanks for that update nib!
I don't quite see how genestealers can get first turn charge though.. I know they can make infiltrator moves but can they make scout moves?

Actually it's not an update per se if you're thinking about the rumours, the info has been out for 6 months, but you're welcome

Genestealers are Scouts. Deploy as normal 24" from enemy. Make your pre-game 12" move. Then you have first turn, and up to 18" charge distance. omnomnom

[Xenos]

Yeah I mean the Doom is under-priced at the moment. 130 points if he's in a spore, on the turn he comes down he can kill a bunch of terminators and then explode a tank. Then he absorbs the enemy's S8 shots that he can weather with his 3++ save. As much as I love him, he is a ridiculous bargain.

Also, can't you deploy the Genestealers 18 inches away with Infiltrate?

[N.I.B.]

Doom might be a little bit undercosted (in a codex filled with overcosted units), but he's not a 'ridiculous bargain' unless your only opponent is all infantry and you don't play with terrain were you can get cover saves. Sounds more like opponent fail.

He drops turn 2 or 3, possibly scatters badly, inflicts 1.5 wounds on average against Ld9 before cover saves and invulnerable saves. Then he dies after 3 S8 hits. What he does bring to the table is disruption, mind games and potential (and another SPORE!).
In my experience he always dies the turn after he deep strikes, because he gets focused by your scared opponent. If he couldn't even affect the game the turn he dropped (because of 3D6" scatter within 6") he would be soo not worth it.
But as I think of it, you could still deploy the spore 6.000001" from enemy units and take the normal 2D6" scatter - half the time you should bounce back into range, the spore special rules limits the scatter. And if you roll a hit, you place Doom up to 3.5" from the spore and well into the 6" range. It will depend on the detailed wording of the new rules.

Also, can't you deploy the Genestealers 18 inches away with Infiltrate?

Yes, look at my summary on the previous page. No change from today, apart from they will possible get Veil(2) which translates to Night Fight at 2D6x2”, if Infiltrated.

My bad about Scout, I thought Infiltrate automatically conferred Scout to units, so no first turn charges for stealers. Still, I’ll be happy with Veil(2)

[N.I.B.]

Hmm, thinking about that 'Shock Troop' from the rumours. Imagine if we get that on Mycetic Spores?

Shock Troop: always rolls a single D6” under 18” in a deep strike, a hit is a hit.

Would be sweet, and it would make this list much better.

Had another game tonight, bagged another nice win against Black Templars, this time against a meched up variant with Assault Terminators in a Landraider (with Blessed Hull!), three Landspeeder Typhoons, a couple of Laspredators, 3 Rhinos with dudes in, a couple of hitty characters, army wide Preferred Enemy and Ld 10. Haven't played in a while so I made a pretty big mistake with two Dakkafexes and allowed them to be combo-charged by the Terminators, plus forgot about that cheesy move in my shooting phase that Templars can do if I shoot at them and they take a casualty, which cost me a bigger win.

I'm making a few small changes to the list, mainly taking out a few Genestealers to make room for Broodlords - it adds both tactical depth and survivability. I'm also considering going back to double Devourers for the Tyrant - in a couple of the missions in the next tournament, we start counting objectives from turn 3. So there's a big chance that my Tyrant will act as a synapse anchor in my backfield, and I wont be in close combat much.

[clobbersaurus]

I really like the idea of this army style. I'd love to read/see some full on battle reports. Nib, what are your thoughts on using warriors in pods as troops?

I wrote a quick 1850 list: flyrant+2devs, 2 zoans in pods (x2), 3 warriors two deathspitters venom cannon (x3), devilfex in pod (x3).

[N.I.B.]

Battle report, oh no.... been a long while since I did any, but since I’ve gotten a few requests and I feel like writing, I'll try to recap the latest game.

I met doomarn's Black Templars the other day in training for a tournament were our mission was that the match points are divided between two objectives and kill points, according to a chart were if you have 17 units or more, your units are worth 0.45 kill points. You can score a maximum of 6 match points total from kill points.

Objectives start to count at the end of the second player's turn 3 were you get 1 match point if you hold your own objective, 1 point if your opponent IS NOT holding his own, and 2 points if you hold HIS objective (for a total of 4 match points maximum). And you check and score the same in the last turn of the game for a total of 8 match points from objectives.

A difference of 0 match points gives a 10-10 result for tournament points, 1 difference gives a 11-9 or 9-11 and so on for a total of 20-0 on one end of the scale. Very hard to score 20-0 in most missions.
Other than that, this tournament sports the following special rules:
* Units inside transports cannot hold or contest objectives
* Dedicated transports cannot contest objectives
* Immobilized vehicles cannot contest objectives
* Units not in coherency cannot hold nor contest objectives

Random game lenght, pitched battle deployment.

Terrain was about 25%, not much blocking LOS but decent area terrain and a few impassable pieces. We put down our objectives in pretty much opposite corners.

I won the roll to go first, and gave it to doomarn. He put down most if his army in the right (from my side) corner around his objective, except the Landraider with Terminators and a Rhino with marines and a Marshal (who provides army-wide Ld10), and a min-sized squad with lots of heavy weapons, he put them in the center.
He reserved all his fragile Landspeeders because he know what Dakkafexes can do to them, and he wanted to turbo-boost them to contest my objective in turn 3, while dominating his own to get a head start and be able to ease-mode sit back and just pick me off for the second half of the game.

Turn 1.
Black Templars shuffled around a bit.

Tyranids were busy blotting out the astropath with Shadow in the Warp, and fetching coffee.


Turn 2.
He had some bad luck turn 2 when all three Landspeeders arrived from reserves, which meant I would get to alpha strike them. He put two on my side and moved far enough to get a 4+ cover save. Shuffled around some more.
(Another thing I like with null deployment, is the mind games. Because it’s so hard even for experienced players to estimate the threats, depict how the Tyranid units will arrive and be positioned - sometimes your opponent gets nervous from the odd situation and anticipation and starts to second-guess himself, forgetting things like Smoke, game objectives etc. doomarn remembered to smoke everything though).

In my turn 2, I got everything onboard except 1 brood of Zoanthropes, both Devilgant broods and one Dakkafex, in other words the statistical average (1/3 of 11 deployments ~4).
One Genestealer brood came in from the right and the other I got to choose, so I put them both on the right, headed straight for his objective.
I put down Doom next to another squad of 5-6 marines on the right.
Zoanthropes went for the Landraider but scattered badly back towards my side.
Here I made a mistake and put down both Dakkafexes too close to each other (sometimes hard to avoid when scattering) just behind his Landspeeders, but I wanted both to get to fire on the center squad of marines on foot.
I brought Flyrant on in my left corner, close to my objective.

In the shooting phase, the squad in the right rolled below 11 and thus resisted Spirit Leech. Doom further embarrassed himself by trying Cataclysm which scattered and he suffered 3 wounds, so down to 1 wound for no gain…
Doom’s Mycetic Spore got a flank shot on a Laspred and got a Crew Shaken, so at least some successful suppressing fire.
Both Genestealers ran to get better positions around a Rhino (standing still) next to his objective.
I judged Zoans to be out of range and ran them instead, which turned out to be the right call (we checked).
The Dakkafex spores shot at the nearby Landspeeders and netted a Shaken result on one (I forgot about their Deathspitters!)
Both Dakkafexes turned their attention to the squad in the center of his deployment zone, skulking down behind a huge barrel, and wiped them out in a hail of Brainleech Worms.

Genestealers assaulted the Rhino in his right corner, and my other brood opted to go for a nearby Landspeeder instead. Both were successful, the Landspeeder was wrecked and the Rhino exploded and took a couple of stealers down. Unit inside passed pinning test but lost a few models.


Turn 3.
Black Templars, doomarn made a big mistake here and forgot about the turn 3 mission objective, he just flew them out on my left side to pop a few shots with the speeder which could still shoot. Obviously he should have turbo boosted them down to sit on my objective.
Landraider moved forward and disembarked the Terminators in front of my Dakkafexes (doh!).
One Laspred tank shocked Genestealers, his right-most Rhino with Emperors Champion and 8 marines tank shocked my other stealer brood, both passed the morale check. (At this point I think he was still reluctant to have his Champion unit leave the Rhino because of the Tyranid units that had still to come down and alpha strike).

Central Rhino with Marshal started to move towards my objective, but it had to make a detour thanks to spores being in the way (I tried taunting him into a tank shock but he would have none of that!).

In the shooting phase I think Doom absorbed a couple of Marines, and I could save the few shots that landed on him. There was too much going on and too much damage done to the Templars to really focus him down. I think I lost a Dakkafex spore to shooting in this turn, Doom’s spore was also shoot down and I lost all Genestealers that had killed the Rhino, except for the Broodlord, who passed his morale check.

The five Terminators assaulted both Dakkafexes and a spore and took them out with a mix of Lightning Claws and Thunder Hammers (Black Templar Assault Terminators are probably the baddest mother-f***s in the game, thanks to army-wide PE) but not before losing a couple of their own.

Tyranids – both Devilgant spores came down, plus the last Dakkafex, but not the Zoanthropes (rolled a ‘1’). I put one unit of Devilgants around my objective, placed to deny any Landspeeder contesting shenanigans in later turns. The other went a bit closer to the Landspeeders, to get their shots in.
I put the last fex close to his objective, sadly he stumbled on a hedge and lost a wound…
I positioned Doom to get both remaining units on foot within his grasp, on the right. Genestealers moved around the wreck of the Landspeeder to avoid dangerous terrain, and prepared to assault the remaining squad behind the impassable pillar next to his objective, while staying within claiming/contesting distance.
Flyrant flew up to shoot and charge at least one of the Landspeeders.
Zoans moved towards the Landraider.
Lone Broodlord entered the exploded Rhino, positioned within charge distance but still within 3” of the enemy objective.

In my shooting phase, Doom went nuts on the unit behind the pillar, killing them all (back on 6 wounds) and leaving my Genestealers without good targets. The other squad in middle of the exploded Rhino made their test.
But after the Dakkafex and his spore was finished with them, only 1 dude remained (he passed his special morale check and stayed close to his objective).
In the center, Zoans both passed their multiple checks to get off psychic power, hit and pen the Landraider (as it had Blessed Hull it’s immune to the Lance effect and I needed 5+ to pen instead of 3+). Cue snake eyes on the vehicle damage table… which he ignored, of course. I hate that table. Roll on 6th edition!
On my left, Devilgants shot off the missile launcher from one Landspeeder, Flyrant did nothing.

Assault saw my Broodlord om-nom the last marine on the right, claming his objective. My other brood assaulted a Predator but did nothing.
I could only land one hit in close combat with my Flyrant on a Landspeeder. Thanks to Scything Talons I rerolled but got another ‘1’. Still, S6 and 2d6 against AV10, one hit should be enough right? Que another snake eyes… did I mention I hate the to-hit table too? Roll on 6th edition!

Turn 4.
Black Templars - his Emperors Champion with friends disembarked and moved towards my Dakkafex and lone Broodlord and their Rhino tank shocked my Stealers, who passed their check.
Predators moved around a bit, Landspeeders backed away to shoot the Flyrant and try to take away my Synapse around my objective. Terminators embarked the Landraider again and moved back to help with the situation around his home objective. Marshal with friends drove their Rhino flat out towards my objective.

In the shooting phase he could finally kill off Doom (I missed the last lascannon save, otherwise his Champion unit would’ve been in a bad, bad place!) and he riddled my Genestealers with some dakka, but I could allocate a couple of wounds on their Broodlord to lose none of their number.
Flyrant took two missile wounds from a Landspeeder and the

In the assault phase Emperors Champ with 8 friends could finish off my Dakkafex and Broodlord for no damage in return.

Tyranids – second Zoanthrope brood came down, I put them in the center with good targets around. I brought back my Flyrant to greet his Marshal’s Rhino, and positioned Devilgants to deny Landspeeder landing space and shooting lanes towards the Rhino (or rather, to it’s content). My first Zoan unit moved towards the Marshal Rhino to get rear shots off.
My remaining Stealer brood moved around the pillar in the right corner to hopefully get within charge distance on the Champion squad.

In the shooting phase I made another rather big mistake – I forgot that he can abuse that damn Black Templar special rule that allows him to move 1D6” towards the enemy at the end of the enemy shooting phase if he suffers a casualty, and so I shot and killed one dude with my spore. My Genestealers ran towards them, but as the cowardly Templars ran back (and a bit towards my spore) I was stranded in front of the Landraider and preds, and my stealers were doomed.

First brood of Zoans exploded the Marshal Rhino and a few marines died, but they passed the pinning test. Second brood exploded a Predator. Deathspitter spore supressed a Landspeeder.
The Marshal plus remaining squad all died in a hail of Devourer worms (60 S4 shots plus 6 TL S6 shots). Never got a chance to Paroxysm them.
In the assault phase I sent in my Genestealers against the Landraider, as there was still a chance for the Broodlord to glance it, sadly I couldn’t hit (needed 6’s).


Turn 5.
Black Templars had to secure their objective now and contest mine or at least stop me from claiming it.
Landspeeders could draw a bead of fire through a building my Flyrant hid behind so they moved up a bit, while the damaged one covered the other behind.
Champion with friends moved towards my Genestealers and the Landraider turned around to drop off the Terminators on the newly arrived Zoanthropes.

After some sub-par shooting, I still had two Genestealers and my Broodlord left, which put doomarn in somewhat a dilemma – would he risk charging off his Champion’s squad from the objective in perhaps the last turn?
My Flyrant suffered another wound after a ‘2’ armour save on a Stormbolter shot.

doomarn decided to charge and killed off my last stealers without receiving much damage, consolidated back on the objective.
Terminators combo-charged Zoanthropes and their spore, doomarn positioned them skillfully to have the Lightning Claws model not in btb with any of my models and thus killed the spore with the Claws before it could strike. I made some saves and one Zoanthrope survived.

Tyranids – My first Zoans moved towards his objective and prepared to drop Warp Blasts on the Champion Templars hugging his objective next to the pillar in the right corner.
Flyrant moved up and would try to take down the Landraiders with help from one Devilgaunts unit.

Unfortunately I couldn’t destroy any of them in spite of several glancing and penetrating hits, since he passed all cover saves and my damage table rolls were too low.
My Zoans were on fire and landed both shots for 12(!) Warp Blast hits on the last remaining marine squad. Receiving 9 wounds, there was a really nail biting moment as he went to ground to at least get 6+ cover saves. He put two wounds on Emperors Champion (2+ save) but more important managed to keep a troop model alive, rolling a ‘6’.

In the assault phase my Flyrant was out of range and the Zoanthrope denied the Terminators the kill, with his Warp Field.

We rolled and the game ended. Calculating, I won the objectives with 5-1 and he had the upper hand in kill points at 5-4 so it was 9-6 to Tyranids, which with the difference by 3 translated into a 13-7 victory.

*phew*

This report took me more than two hours to write, hope you enjoyed it.

[Illithid]

Sounds action packd Nib - well done on the win. Very interesting read.

[N.I.B.]

Thanks, to summarize how the table looked like at the end of the game -

Black Templars had a couple of Landspeeders left, one crippled, near my objective. Had we gone on he would've had a good shot at killing my Tyrant with the one that had missiles left (we actually rolled for it and he failed to wound )
He also had in the center of the board 3 Terminators who probably would be able to finish off my Zoanthrope and a Landraider. In the right corner he had a Predator, a Rhino and Emperors Champion plus one marine.

I had the Tyrant and 2 x 10 Devilgants around my objective (with accessable cover save) and 1,5 broods of Zoanthropes. It was a bloody and enjoyable game.

I think this null deployment list excels in objective games were the number is limited to 2-3. More than that, and I'm spreading my limited troops too thin.

Also have in mind, that in my region we don't play pure kill point games at all.

[Jabberwocky]

Your game rules certainly work well with your list; I think you've optimized quite nicely for them.

I've played BT a few times and they've never used that d6 run thing on me! Didn't even know they had it.

I really liked your battle report, thanks for taking the time to write it up!

[N.I.B.]

Yeah, doomarn is a good player, he's meticulous and always has some ace hidden in his sleeve And he knows Tyranids inside out, from our years of playing.
The tournament which missions we play, also has a match with 5 objectives, which is probably more challenging. But I've won the games so far with this list.

[N.I.B.]

So, got a chance to play against Eldar tonight, which was fun, only had a single game against them before. I wanted to test my list in the most difficult mission I'm expecting next tournament - 5 objectives each worth 2 points in the last turn, and the player that has scored the most kill points get a bonus 2 points.
Dedicated vechicles cannot contest and units has to be disembarked to claim or contest.

My opponent was mostly meched up - Eldar, 4 transports, 2x5 Fire Dragons, 2x10 Avengers?, 1x5 Avengers?, 2 War Walkers units (2 and 3 strong), one tank, 2 units Jetbikes with Warlocks, 2 Vypers.

I lost the roll to start so he gave it to me, naturally, which made things harder. He reserved everything but the transports and Vypers, which was a good play, and cast Fortune on them.

Don't want to go into details, enough to say that I controlled the objectives in the quarters pretty good, had spores on every one. Doom did nothing except act as target saturation, Zoanthropes were amazing, took out Eldrads ride so I could lit them up with Devilgaunts, Dakkafexes owned the battlefield.
In the end I won objectives by 2 to 1 and had more kill points (13 to 7) so I got a 14-6 victory. Had we gone on to turn 7 I would have tabled him.

[Illithid]

Really enjoying reading this Nib! Keep the updates coming!

[emoge]

I'm with Illithid, keep the stories and updates coming! Really enjoying reading how this null deployment is going and soon as I get a hold of some spore pods I'll be trying out your list or something similar ^_^

[Jabberwocky]

Mass fire really decimates Eldar, especially devilgants. Their transports are also so vulnerable in the rear that S6 can easily wreck them.

How did you find synapse with your list being spread over the objectives? Did lurk hurt you at all?

[N.I.B.]

The transports were AV 12 except in the rear, two of them were left at turn 6 when it ended, he also had a unit of 10 warriors, 3 rallied Fire Dragons and one immobilized War Walker without weapons.
I had Flyrant, 3 Dakkafexes, a unit of Devilgants, 1 lone Broodlord, 1 full Genestealer unit and 5 Mycetic Spores left.

I took out two vehicles with Zoanthropes, one with Dakkafex (shoot then charge), Flyrant killed a squad of Walkers in combat and finished off a warrior unit. MVP goes to the Dakkafexes and Zoans. The Devourers with -1 to Ld made a real difference on the morale checks.

Synapse was ok. If Genestealers show up before Devilgants, which table edge they come in on decided were you put down the rest of your troops in mission like this one, were you have one objective in each quarter plus one in the center.

Both Genestealer broods came in on my right, so I put the Devilgants on the left objectives, each unit guarded by a unit of Zoanthropes.

I put down Dakkafexes on the right objectives and in the center, without synapse, as it usually doesn't matter whether they fail their IB test - they just do what they would do anyway, walk towards the closest enemy. And this match was no exception, the Dakkafexes failed 5-6 IB tests without negative consequences for me.

In the last turn synapse was a factor, as I could've failed a panic test on my Gants sitting on an objective, when they were tank shocked - Zoans were dead and my Flyrant was badly placed.