Taking pure Hydra to a GT

[deviousdonut]

Other moment of note. Draigo cast hammerhand on paladin squad. Periled and took 3 wounds. Then charged the haruspex, 1 shot it and acid blood took out another 3 wounds. Then gaunts charged draigo and the caustic blood strat killed him when he cut through 6 gaunts.

[murderfiesta]

Loved seeing your list posted as getting 3rd!

I noticed in the final list you actually piloted you didn't keep any reinforcement points in reserve for the Hydra stratagem. What changed your mind and how important did the re-roll to hit in melee from the Hydra hive fleet trait end up being for you? If your plan is to be tanky rather than killy there doesn't seem to be a ton of good reasons outside of the new Hydra spell and the Hydra warlord trait to run Hydra over Leviathan, Jormungandr, or a custom hivefleet (6++ on gaunts/goyles + Metamorphic regrowth for all units regenerating 1 wound each turn, maybe?). The Hydra warlord trait is good if you've lost a lot of wounds, but is also super high variance for how many wounds you get back.

I still have to watch the stream to see how you piloted the list, I just have the questions since the stated goal was to run a list to take as much advantage of Hydra things as possible competitively but I wonder where that line is between fully leveraging the Hydra abilities and making compromises for the sake of winning competitively.

[deviousdonut]

The point of the list was to base it around the death shriek ability with gaunts. Basically if they shoot me I have all my defensive buffs. If they punch me the combo of death shriek and caustic blood strat hurts them back. It didn't work out as hoped because all my opponents minus grey knights just shot me anyways and didn't leave their castle. I rolled snake eyes into another 1 on the 1 turn it would've mattered for death shriek against the gray knights. The reroll hits is really strong on the stealer blobs but you could get the same affect by just having a broodlord nearby. I advanced almost everything quite a bit in the early game so I don't think jorm would help but definitely leviathan would be strong. I'm trying out behemoth this weekend at a small rtt to give a little more offensive punch

[murderfiesta]

Are you running the exact same list as Behemoth? If not would you mind sharing? I completely understand if you don't want to publicize it before the tournament, I'm definitely curious to see what additional kind of craziness you're cooking up though.

I think for your style of list Gorgon might actually be quite good if you're looking for something a bit more killy, but you'd need to find ~90 more points. Toxin sacs for Termagants are 1 ppm. The Gorgon stratagem causes Toxin Sacs to inflict additional wounds on 5+ instead of 6+. Gorgon hive fleet power is re-roll 1s to-wound, and the Gorgon spell is friendly models within 9" of the caster get an additional -1 AP. All of that together makes a unit of 30 termagants actually a reasonable threat to Primaris in melee (30 attacks will hit with 15, wound with ~5, and outright kill 2.5 Intercessors since they'll go to 4+ armor save). Additionally, the restriction on Termagant replacement by Tervigons is that the Tervigon can only replace models with Fleshborers - there are no restrictions on the biomorphs! So the replaced termagants would still have the toxin sacs. It might a non-starter, but there's also potentially an argument to be made for giving the Tervigon the Gorgon relic (+1 toughness after the first round in which it takes wounds - combined with Maleceptor it means Repulsor Executioner with Laser Destroyer is wounding Tervigon on 4+) with the warlord trait for -1 damage after the first round in which it takes wounds.

[deviousdonut]

I am running a very similar list. I kept the defensive buffs, and warriors stealers and gaunts. I traded out the haruspex and tervigon for double relic flyrants. Both with murderous size. One has reaper the other scythes of tyran. Wings adrenal glands and toxin sacs. With the +1 to wound psychic power I'm triggering 9 flat dmg on reaper on a 5+. Spend the strat to reroll wounds you're looking at an average of 17 wounds to a repulsor or knight punching once. Scythes of tyran does even better averaging 18 damage to the same chasis. And both can hit flyers so would help against my teammates list who has just been dominating the local Meta.

I've looked at Gorgan a fair amount, the fact that the psychic power affects all hive fleets not just Gorgan makes for some really interesting possibilities. I also was trying to find 80 points to throw toxin sacs on one unit of stealers cause if they are the unit that's slingshot turn 1 and the +1 to wound strat they are suddenly hurting everything in the game on a 5+ and that's at - 4 for 2dmg. I couldn't find the points so I instead gave it to the warriors. 4 boneswords per warrior looks badass as you just have a bunch of mini Swarmlord running around, but also 45 attacks with +1 to wound also takes out a knight in combat when they have toxin sacs. And obviously they're just flat better against infantry

[murderfiesta]

That's definitely a crazy amount of damage from the Tyrants once you stack on the Behemoth spell, Warp Charge 7 seems problematic though if you don't have the Resonance Barb. Did you swap in more hormagaunts to replace some of the termagants in the new list? It seems like they'd be better suited to the aggressive style and bonuses Behemoth gives, especially with how many things they can tag at once given a 6" pile in and consolidate for only 1ppm more.

I've been thinking about the full melee warriors since CA2019 and PA dropped. 26 ppm for strictly melee warriors has always been a little offputting to me since they're so slow even with Swarmy slingshotting them around unless they've been Onslaught'd, but against some lists the Unnatural Reactions adaptive physiology (can Heroically Intervene 6") could be an exceptionally rude surprise especially if they're sitting on the gaunt blobs that melee lists would inevitably need to charge into.  Have you seen success with the full melee warriors?  Is it just a matter of "give the enemy enough targets and the warriors will eventually get there as a third wave attack/clean up crew"?

[deviousdonut]

Honestly I've only played the pure melee warriors in behemoth with a trygon so they have an 8" rerollable charge. I paired that with the adrenal webs adaptation and they pile in 2d6.

In this list I kept them with the guns they had in the Hydra list but gave them toxin sacs in case they do find themselves in melee. I don't have the resonance barb but I do have a Maleceptor with +1 to cast. And I'm probably giving the behemoth power to every tyrant including Swarmlord. And there's the new strat for Maleceptor to know everyone's powers

[kyokotsu]

How often were you able to roll for Death Shriek? Seems like it would be hard to get all those models within 6 of the Tervigon.

[deviousdonut]

I just kept the gaunts around the tervigon cause yeah keeping everything would've been way too difficult. I did probably 7 wounds with it over the tournament. 4 of those were to a doomsday Ark which was funny but most games the tervigon died before a single gaunt. Which is why I'm switching it out. I do think the trick could work really well if a lot more melee focused armies become top tier but as it currently is I fought 3 marine gunlines. Necrons. Eldar wave searpent chassis. And grey knights

[No One]

deviousdonut said:

4 boneswords per warrior looks badass as you just have a bunch of mini Swarmlord running around, but also 45 attacks with +1 to wound also takes out a knight in combat when they have toxin sacs. And obviously they're just flat better against infantry

Double boneswords doesn't work for...reasons.

Q: If a model has more than one ‘pair’ of boneswords, does
it make 1 additional attack with one of those pairs, or 1
additional attack with each of those pairs?
A: 1 additional attack with one of those pairs.

[deviousdonut]

Wow. I must have missed that one. Glad I 3d printed 72 boneswords and didn't fish for bits. Thankfully I Havnt played it at an event yet so only cheated against friends lol.

Thanks GW!

[murderfiesta]

How did it go with the Behemoth list? I saw there was another Behemoth/Kronos list that did well recently (https://www.40kstats.com/coastalwargaming)

[deviousdonut]

The behemoth list took 2nd the next weekend rtt. I lost in the finals to the same grey knight list I lost to at genghiscon. The flyrants died really quickly but they killed their points before they did

[cypren]

So Deviousdonut, whats your current Behemoth list? Tired looking it up on 40k stats but just got an error

[kazetanade]

Feb 20, 2020 0:54:04 GMT deviousdonut said:

I just kept the gaunts around the tervigon cause yeah keeping everything would've been way too difficult. I did probably 7 wounds with it over the tournament. 4 of those were to a doomsday Ark which was funny but most games the tervigon died before a single gaunt. Which is why I'm switching it out. I do think the trick could work really well if a lot more melee focused armies become top tier but as it currently is I fought 3 marine gunlines. Necrons. Eldar wave searpent chassis. And grey knights

Just a note on Tervigon based strategies -

The Hydra list worked mostly because of the good pilot if not mistaken (ie none of us can repeat your results, probably), death shriek is pretty horrible and hydras coming in start has play but limited good play in it.

In my mind, best Terv play is with Terv/Male/Mala and Kraken relic, 120 Gants, and HG/Exo for some support damage. Sprinkle Broodlords for melee countercharged potential. Can replace HG/Exo for Zoeys if kill pressure isn't required.

Alternative play with GSC if early kill pressure in HG not needed, flood with that 60-80 infantry that either shoot really well or charge really well.