1000 Pts Tournament IG Ally

[zoat]

Hey guys, maybe you have some cool thoughts on this

In a month I will visit a big tournament with my fellows. Its a 2vs2 2000 Pts each team-tourney. 3 games, up to 30 victory-points for completely painted armies and another 60 points for 3 total wins.

Now the funny part for me as a nid player: My teammate plays Imperial Guard, in my opinion the best codex by now. He brings in 1 Vendetta, 1 Leman Russ, 1 Manticor, 2 Chimeras and lots of plasma.

Now for my 1000 Pts, that should complement that as good as I can.
So far I had 3 ideas:

Psyspam:

HQ:
Swarmlord 280 Pts
1 Tyrant Guard (Lash Whips) 65 Pts
Flyrant (2 Devourers) 260 Pts

Elite:
Doom + Pod 130 Pts (or 2 Zoanthropes?)

Troops:
10 Gaunts 50 Pts
1 Tervigon (ST/AG/TS, 3 Powers) 215 Pts
___
1000

SL did very well the last few times I played him. Can be a great
punch together with the flyrant and a lot of tanks and flyers of my
ally.

Nidzilla:

HQ:
Flyrant (2 Dev) 260 Pts

Troops:
10 Gaunts 50 Pts
1 Tervigon (AG/TS, 3 Powers) 210 Pts
10 Gaunts 50 Pts
1 Tervigon (Claws, AG/TS, 2 Powers) 220 Pts

HS:
Trygon (TS) 210 Pts
___
1000

2 Tervs can't be wrong with objective-missions. But last time there
was a Killpoint-mission and Troops counted 3 Pts. We won against
another Tervspam-List by 15 Points back then.
Think I've to wait for the final missions.

Deepstrike:

HQ:
Flyrant (2 Dev, HC) 285 Pts

Elite:
Doom + Pod 130
5 Yealers 115

Troops:
10 Gaunts 50 Pts
1 Tervigon (Claws, AG/TS, 2 Powers) 220 Pts

HS:
Trygon 200 Pts
___
1000

3-4 units behind the enemies line at turn 2, if I roll no 1. But
Flyrant and Gaunts have to survive 1-2 rounds of shooting.

Please tell me which list you would choose and if anything can be improved on that^^

[FTGTEvan]

I would lean toward your 'Zilla list since it ironically has the most models. The only change I might make with that list is give the Crushigon 3 powers so she has better chances for IA or Warp Speed to make her even nastier in combat. The other, more vanilla Terv would then be more for camping, and maybe even keep Catalyst and Dominion on her to ensure she gets good buffing powers. Just a thought and a minor tweak. I'm not sure any of the lists would be bad.

You could also, in the psyspam list, potentially get away with dropping a flyrant (normally sacrilege, I know) and swap him for a 210 point terv and gants. Particularly if your IG ally fits a quad gun or icarus in his list somewhere for more AA.

[zoat]

That's a good point with swapping the powers of Crushigon and Tervigon, thanks VTAeries!
My teammate likes this list the most, too. So I think I'll give it a try.

[zoat]

Okay, yesterday we had a testgame and now we have figured out the best list for me

HQ:
Flyrant (2 Dev, Hive Commander) 285 Pts

Elite:
Doom of Malantai + Pod 130 Pts

Troops:
14 Gaunts 70 Pts
1 Tervigon (AG/TS, 3 Powers) 210 Pts
14 Gaunts 70 Pts
1 Tervigon (Claws, AG/TS, 3 Powers) 235 Pts
___
1000

As you can see I took the Nidzilla-List but swapped the Trygon for the Doom and some more powers and gaunts. Why?
We found out the cheesiest combo Nids and IG can do at such a tournament (and for tournaments just the best is good enough).

My ally now plays 1 Vendetta, 1 Leman Russ Plasmatank, 1 Manticor, 2 chimeras and some Veterans. All solid units if he doesn't have his bad luck like yesterday where they all died except for one troop-choice and our combo-unit.
But our nice combopart is the chimera tank with that IG psyker-unit that can drop the Ld of any unit within 36" by 7-8! And now imagine the DoM dropping in next to that unit, also equipped with Psychic Shriek.
Do I have to tell you what happened to that Stormshield-Terminators stucked in battle with my gaunts?
Yesterday we played against Black Templar/Grey Knights and had a draw due to bad luck of my mate, but all in all we're very confident with our lists. I've got around 5 extra units of gaunts throughout the game and wouldn't it have been for battlefield-quarters to wholly dominate but objectives I'm sure we would have won.
But the Doom did so great! In the last turn he ate a dreadknight and command-terminator-squad in a single shooting phase.

[FTGTEvan]

Nice! Sounds good. Let us know how the tounrament goes!

[zoat]

Okay, my final list I send to the organizators looks like this:

HQ: Dakka Flyrant (HC/OA) 310
Elite: DoM + Spore (DS) 140
Troops: 10 Termagants 50
10 Termagants 50
Tervigon (ST/A/T/3 Powers) 215
Crushagon (A/T/3 Powers) 235

My IG ally throws in: 2 Chimeras with Plasma-Veterans, Vendetta with HQ veterans (Melter and Flamer), Leman Russ Executor, Manticor and the Psyker Battle Squad for our combo.

The missions will be:
1. Killpoints with HQ being worth 3 points, Troops 1 (1 point per Tervigon^^) and all the other ones 2. I have to watch out for anything that can hit the Flyrant here. It's a pity the mycetic spore is worth 2 points, but I have to risk that when deepstriking the DoM.
But flying HQs and hard hitting Troops are perfect for this first game

2. 1 Victory Point per goal:
- Killing half of the enemies army (per FOC)
- Winning more challenges (denied counts as loosing)
- Holding one objective (2 in this mission)
- Holding one quarter of the table alone
I gave the Flyrant Old Adversary to make him more durable for challenges, for that was the only point we had issues with in this mission. Should work now if its not a that hard hitting charakter.

3. Objective mission with 7 objective markers in the middle of the table.
With 2 Tervigons really no problem for me

Nightfight in the first and third game, every objective is mysterious. No secondary missions like first blood.

The tournament is this weekend. I'll let you know how it worked for me Any hints for winning the missions I've missed?

[zoat]

Okay, here are the results:
We made place 9 of 20 with the first game a total defeat, the second one a total victory and the third one a draw. And I am very happy with that outcome The missions were as described above, here are the short battle reports.

1st vs Necrons and Grey Knights
Le Croissant-flyer spam. 5 Night Scythes with Troops, one Stormraven and an Aegis-fortification in the other corner of the board. What could we've done about that?! We tried anything to deny their limited way of flying with gaunts and to do as much damage with Flyrant and Vendetta, but my only anti-flyer force killed himself by casting Iron Arm with Snake Eyes and the vendetta came on Turn 4. Really bad luck on that one. Just 1 Tervigon and some gaunts survived after 6 turns of pain.

2nd vs Orcs and Imperial Guard
6 tanks with AV14 front, 10 tanks total! Ouch! But luck on our side this game. Our opponents were totally drunk (they decided to drink a beer everytime one of their tanks explodes and lost their first game devastatingly) and didn't hit with the important weapons. So my Tervis just ran forward, popped all their heavy vehicles and ate the squishy content for desert. My ally did barely nothing that game^^ We tabled them turn 5.
Winner of the day: DoM! First time Cataclyst did anything for me! It popped two tanks and defeated the warlord-Psyker of our IG-opponent in a challenge. Just great!

3rd vs Dark Eldar and Black Templar
Venom-Spam, Land Raider Crusader and Vindicator! Yeehaw! But due to our opponent was just a judge jumping in for a missing team, the game ended turn 4 (3h time-limit) and at that time my IG ally rescued the day for me by flaming the troops of our opponent away from the mission-objectives to force a draw. In the end I was left with one Tervigon and some Gaunts (and I rolled Armor Saves like a god for my MCs!). Not a very surprising survival-rate for me but an exciting game nevertheless^^

Conclusion: We needed more Anti-mech for sure! But also we needed more luck with the match-ups ... but I am happy with the outcome, as I said before.
I saw just one other Nid-player (allied with Necrons with 3 crossaints -_-) with a list like that:
HQ: Flyrant (1 Devourer and STs)
Elite: 1x 2 Zoanthropes
Troops: 2x10 Gaunts and 2x Tervs with just TS and 1 additonal Psychic Power
HS: 1x 3 Biovores

We had a little discuss about our lists during the first break. First he asked me why I took 2x TL Devourers on the Flyrant, because he rather uses Vector Strike than 12 shots. But I think Vector Strike is rather situational ... I used it just two times since playing 6th ed (and I played many games). Most times I think 6 more shots S6 are better and there's no need fore AP3. But I agree my Flyrant was much too expensive and died much too fast any game. Hive Commander is an autotake for me for the 2+ reserve rolls and the possibility to outflank a Tervigon is great (though we didn't do it in the tournament once ...). Just Toxin Sacs on the Tervs aren't that good, I think. Okay, due to smash a Terv doesn't need additional strength, but I really needed the S4 for my Gaunts against all that tanks! And thanks to 3 Powers I always had Iron Arm and Endurance on my Tervigons.
I wonder how his walking Zoans turned out and also the Biovores. I don't like Biovores very much, they disappointed me every game. They could've helped in game 1 and 3 perhaps but I doubt they would've win the game for us.
Hmm, I'd like to play against the other list^^ I could rely much more on Iron Arm like him and a Crushagon should beat the hell out of his Vanilla-Tervs. My flyrant could unload 12 shots on the other FMC also when he's not in the right ancle to perform a Vector Strike. And the doom ates Biovores and Gaunts for breakfast. Would've been an exciting game!

[gigasnail]

vector strike is nice, when you can set it up to use it. because it relies on positioning and you have limited maneuverability as a swooping FMC it's not always an option. none of the other options on a flyrant are worth taking, and X2 devours doesn't stop you from vector striking.

flyrants are fragile if you just run them up the center. keep them in area terrain (they get cover just like anything else, keeping a toenail in area terrain gives them a 5+ and hiding them behind ruins gives them a 4+) and out of LoS of as much as possible. HC and OA i don't normally put on one flyrant. it does start to stack up points. in your list you only have 1 thing deep striking (the doom), i'd forgo HC at all and skip outflanking a tervigon.

AG/TS on the tervigon aren't for the tervigon, they're to buff the gaunts. you really need both on them.

[zoat]

I totally agree with you on the upgrades for Flyrant and Tervigon, gigasnail. I was just fascinated how the other player came to the conclusion his choices were better. I doubt he knows this forum^^

That point with the cover save for the swooping flyrant in area terrain led to a little discussion during the second game. My opponents didn't believed me in that, and due to time limit (and my superiority) I didn't want to convince them and stop the flow of the game.
Do you know a certain page in the BRB or FAQ I could show them next time?