Rev. Leviathon/Kronos tyranid list

[khyz0r]

Hey all, i need some list advice for next tournament. I started with a Jormy Warrior/Exocrine based army with tyranocytes using pods to drop either in. This was backed by Kronos Hive guard detachment keeping my deployment objectives safe. It didnt do too well in my first games only winning 1 of 5 but could easily been 3/5 losing 2 games by 1 point. This was 2019 ITC rules, but next one is 2020 ITC rules which will be more favourable. Big losses were to Eldar flyer and mech eldar going 2nd on both, so im thinking to increase my gunline durability with maleceptor/malenthrope. Which has brought me to thess two lists. Let me know what u which is more allcomers.

Jormy battalion
Tyrant, wings, adrenal, MRC, HVC,toxin
Warrior Prime, adrenal, DSpit, BSwords
1x3 rippers
1x8 warriors, adrenal, DSpit, BSwords
1x8 warriors, 2x VC, 6x DSpit, Talons
Maleceptor

Kronos Battalion
Malenthrope
Nuerothrope, Warlord
3x3 Rippers
1x6 Hive Guard
3x Exocrine
1x Tyranocyte, DSpit

So im considering getting 4-5 Zoanthropes with psychic Scream, cause they are durable and who doesnt like 3d3 MWs and more synapse. But to do this, either i lose an Exocrine or unit of warriors, maybe even pod. My thoughts are it is worth it and drop an exo cause 3 with only 1 pod could be a problem in deployment. I could also go all Kronos, but then will lose free cover and cost me 2CP to prepare positions for 2+/4++ monsters and 3+ warriors... The Jormy spell means i can save a CP to get RRs to hit on tyrant when drops in. And my previous tests showed Jormy Exos not good enough, they need RR1s to be effective.

Any thoughts anyone?

[khyz0r]

Or should i forgo the Jormy fleet, and make the warriors Leviathon for more durability on the 3 wound models? Also means I can't lose cover ability when advancing/charging or vs armies that ignore cover??

[khyz0r]

Well I made the decision to remove a blob of warriors for Zoan's. The threat of these vs. Flyers, Marines and Aeldari is genuine, and when in the Malantrhope/Maleceptor bubble as my screen they will be hard to shift down but have additional 4d3 potential smites per turn. The Warriors and the Pod while fun are probably the least threat, whereas an extra Exo is always good to add another firing lane. Also chances are I want to adapt my Hive Guard with ignore -1/-2 AP which meant 1 of the warrior blobs would be easier to pick off without the adaption. 1 unit can be protected with unyielding chitin, and adaptation if required, or i can buff the tyrant. I decided to give Leviathon a go since half my earlier games were against armies that ignored cover. I also felt I needed to advance/charge warriors in previous games which meant they lost their cover saves so I figured the 6++ always being on would be more effective, especially in conjunction with strat to reduce damage by 1.

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Tyranids) ++
Hive Fleet: Kronos

Neurothrope: Power: Smite, Psychic Scream
Neurothrope: Power: Smite, Warlord, Symbiostorm, RELIC: Resonance Barb
Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm
Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm
Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm
Hive Guard: 6x Impaler Cannon
Zoanthropes: 4x Zoanthrope, Power: Smite, Horror

++ Spearhead Detachment +1CP (Tyranids) ++
Hive Fleet: Kronos

Malanthropes
Exocrine
Exocrine
Exocrine

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Tyranids) ++
Hive Fleet: Leviathan

Hive Tyrant: Adrenal Glands, Heavy Venom Cannon, Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Smite, Catalyst, Paroxysm, Toxin Sacs, Wings
Tyranid Prime: Boneswords, Deathspitter
Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm
Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm
Tyranid Warriors: 8x Adrenal Glands, Deathspitters, Boneswords
Maleceptor: Massive Scything Talons, Power: Smite, Onslaught

[khyz0r]

First practice match went pretty good vs Aeldari soup; Drukhari venoms, Grotesque/talos, and Crimson Hunter Airwing. Rolled off Nexus Control ITC Mission, and I was given defender. I rolled Frontline Assault and Dawn of War, so I chose Frontline and deployed the 3x Exocrine castle bottom right corner, with Maleceptor, Malenthrope and Zoanthropes screening them on an objective. There was 1 large ruin centre of my deployment so i setup the warriors in the ruin, and hive guard behind them, and the Flyrant. Secondaries I chose were Big Game, Gangbuster and Behind Enemy Lines.

He marched everything forward but really only targeted my Exocrine's with the Airwing units. Using the Maleceptor strat to reduce strength, and prepared positions I was able to come out pretty reasonably with only 1 Exocrine lost. My reply with smites, and shooting was amazing. I used Symbiostorm on an Exocrine, and popped Pathogenic Slime which got Vected. Allowing me to pop 2 planes with shooting Exo's and double shooting hive guard. The last plane was mauled by the flyrant with ease due to Murderous Size! I also did some wounds to wracks who took up King of the Hill positions. Kill More, Hold same. Turn 2+ without his planes he couldnt get a kill, and I just layed waste into his Grotesque's, and Venoms. Protected my HG with Rippers from charge, but it was basically game over as I managed to get 2 Ripper squads into his backline objective being held by 5 wracks, and Flyrant offering synapse to secure Hold More and Behind Enemy lines for the rest of the game. Kill more was easy since I was so resilient against his non alpha units.

Drukhari is not a hard matchup for nids though, but still a good start and happy with my change so far.

[N.I.B.]

Good job. I'd go with Lashwhips on the Warriors, it's so much better protection for a gunline like yours.

[khyz0r]

I don't really want to put them in a spot where if they were charged they are going to die and thus only get a 1 time use from them. By running the deathspitters, u can in most cases get some shooting before they are needed in combat. And hopefully I'm the one doing the charge so I don't need to fight on death.

[garg]

I guess the idea is to swap the bone swords to lash whip and bone sword. I feel you don't have much screen against melee.
The lash whips can help stop an opponent consolidate into the next row. They don't have to always be on screen duty but in certain matchups it could be useful.

[khyz0r]

They are a screen option, just like the Zoan's and the rippers.  I mean maybe I could have both worlds by going lashwhip and the deathspitters.  That way I am only losing 9 attacks but guaranteeing they get to swing.  Thx for the feedback, ill consider after Ive played the current round of games i have to use this list with.  

[No One]

Yeah, never drop the DS, that was not the suggestion.

[khyz0r]

Well first game vs Ravenwing big success. I was abke to control the centre of map in a Dawn of War deployment as attacker. Opponent ran 30 intercessor, some aggressors, a pack of black knights, deathwing and the usual characters support.

Turn 1 i shut the aggressors down and picked off intercessor units. My resilience wasnt tested in reply as he tried to push forward and hide units.

Turn 2 using strat to move and double shoot Exo with Symbiostorm i was able to get sight of his black knights approaching and smashed them without them doing anything. I popped my maleceptor strat and weathered all the shooting easy enough. His deathwing were able to get into combat against it and wrap my out of formation exo. Both tanked the charge and came out sfill looking strong.

Turn 3 i fell the maleceptor out of combat and kept him close to taunt the deathwing. Exo was trapped though so smites rained down on them but couldnt free my bug. Shooting unfortunately hit Azraels 4++ aura, even with double shooting hive guard and 2 exo's could only get 1 kill. However i tarpitted the knights who couldnt pile in/consolidate due to basing one with my exo and the rest stuck in 2" cohesion formation with the furthest guy closest to my maleceptor so he couldnt retreat back to combat with comrades without all of them falling back.

Made up that move on the spot, it was glorious, and bought me a round to finish them with smites! With few attacks my exo tanked again, and then as i said i smited them and rained fire killing all his intercessors. Warriors and flyrant took centre and it was game over, mop up time. Scored 35-14.

[khyz0r]

My second test was a success, vs a Tau Triptide/Railside list. He won the roll off, chose to be defender and rolled ITC Mission 1 and Hammer and Anvil map. Strangely he chose to reroll the map here, and we ended up with Search and Destroy deployment. Naturally I castled up in a large ruin in my deployment zone (see LVO map guides for layout), and my warriors and Exocrines on the front line with my Malenthrope buffing all of the Kronos models. Secondaries I chose big game, butchers and recon. I chose butchers cause I had to kill drones and firewarriors to stop him scoring objectives, and big game because if i didnt kill the riptides at some point, they would certainly table me.

In turn 1 I killed some drones and firewarriors. Was also able to get some smites directly onto an Ion-tide which was front and centre in his ruin, with everything else basically hidden inside or behind the ruin. Totalling forgetting Tau's special rules, I ignorantly charged my warriors into a unit of fire warriors touching the wall to secure recon and another objective point near his deployment zone. However, for the greater good meant he could shoot his Iontide into my warriors, so naturally I popped reinforced chitin to reduce damage by 1. However, his Iontide had the new prototype gun which was 3+d3 damage, and with counterfire defence system (which you don't normally see) I didnt realise he could hit on 5's and re-roll overwatch hits. So my strat was useless, and I lost 4 warriors to the charge, ouch! In reply he was able to kill all but 1 warrior and wrap him with his infantry to protect them from being shot. He also concentrated fire at the Maleceptor to remove my -1 Strength buff while ignoring my -1 to hit. This is the first instance where I am questioning whether the Maleceptor should also be Kronos for the -1 to hit as I am always deploying him with the Exocrines, rather than being Leviathon for 6+++.

Turn 2 though I was able to kill some more firewarriors with smites, and his Iontide with Hive guard removing drones again, and Exocrines hitting him directly. I am also now starting to get the bonus with my ripper deepstrikes all over the board. I also had 2 units in each zone for recon, however my single warrior didnt survive combat and needed him to get 2 recon points here. I was not worried though, cause with a Riptide down already, I was confident I could win the attrition war now. In his turn he killed my Tyrant, but failed to secure a few kills like my Zoanthrope unit left with 1 model, an Exocrine with 1 wound left after railsides did 10 damage! His Coldstar fusion's also failed to kill 3 rippers on an objective, preventing him getting a postman point. So all up, a few things went my way securing me alot of primaries and deny secondaries.

In Turn 3 I killed Shadowsun, his Coldstar, and all his strike teams leaving him with 2 riptides, railsides, and a drone unit basically. He shot back and did about average and conceded at this point. A big win, 39-15. Next tasks are against harder counters to me list though, with 2 guard players and an ork horde. I am a little worried about being outranged, and not have enough guns to kill all the models on table. We shall see.

[khyz0r]

Alright, I just had a really good game vs an Ork meta list consisting of 3 Battalions. Evil Sunz with Warboss, Big mek /forceshield, 90 boys; Deathskulls with 2x Big Mek Shokk Assault (1 Warlord with Shokker), 30 Gretchin, 6 Smasha's; and lastly Bad Moons with 2 Runtherd, 2 Wierdboy, 70 Gretchin, and 15 Tankbusters. Things did not go my way for pre-game results, with him winning the roll off and choosing to be the attacker. I rolled Hammer and Anvil and Frontline Assault so I choice H&A to make use of the long deployment of 24" meant he was not likely to get a charge off turn 1. The mission rolled was 2. Cut to the Heart, which has 3 objectives and he placed his priority objective in the open where his smasha's could see; very bad news for me as my engineers were now visible to incoming fire. Literally any other mission I could of been safe behind the ruin. Before game I chose Resonance Barb on my Nuero warlord, and range relic on my tyrant. I gave heroic intervention on my warriors, and healing on my tyrant for adaptive physiologies. Secondaries he choice Big Game Hunter, Recon, and Engineers (nominating 1x 20 Grots). I chose Reaper, Butchers Bill, and Engineers (Maleceptor, Ripper units). The LVO layout meant we each had a big ruin at the head of our deployment zone so I used the ruin to hide all of my army from his Smasha's. I potentially made a mistake here, giving him the ruin with the 3rd floor as he could see my Tyrant wings through the 2nd floor windows.

I popped the Maleceptor strat at the start of the turn to give -1 to strength on the impending tankbuster rockets. In turn 1 he moved exactly as i thought with all 90 boys, using 2 units at the front, one in the rear. He da jumped his tankbuster unit near my objective where my hidden gunline were in range with exocrine and maleceptor. He starting with his Shokk Assault guns into my tyrant and reduced me to 3 wounds, without catalyst or -1 to hit he was vulnerable and I had to use a RR to make enough saves to keep him alive on 3 wounds. But his tankbuster shooting decided the game here and then in both our eyes, as he used More Dakka! and shoot twice with his he was able to kill BOTH my engineer rippers with the Squigs, and my Maleceptor. I weather the storm with the first volley taking 3 wounds, but the 2nd volley was massive with 9 wounds going through out of 15 (hitting on 5's, exploding more shots, and wounding on 4's. The More Dakka strat here meant even if i was Kronos with the Maleceptor he still would of hit on 5's, and he simply rolled way above the average and I didn't get enough 4++/6+++ saves. I had decided to not prepare positions as I wanted to encourage him to go after my Exocrines since the Maleceptor had an invul but alas it wasn't to be. So no Engineer points for me, boo hoo! In my reply I killed the tank busters easy enough with smites and shooting. I killed 30 boys in the centre of the table no problem and wounded both his other boys with a volley of Hive Guard to each. This was above and beyond what I hoped for in reply, as I was still able to keep his boys above half for greentide even though he tried to fail morale on 1 unit to get this strat off. Neither of us got hold more/kill more as I shot him off the objective.

In turn 2 he started to get smash's into a position to hit more than just screening rippers, and he was able to da jump a unit into charge range of my objective while the other unit was able to charge into my ruin and hit my Zoans as I was hoping him to do. However, I made a critical error here also as my Tyrant was heavily wounded and I wanted to keep him alive to get into combat and heal him I put Catalyst on him instead of the warriors. Naturally he saw my warriors as a threat and managed to kill 5 of them even though I used the strat to reduce damage by 1 (I actually forgot to apply it!). If I had of had catalyst on them, I would of potentially saved at least 2 more which meant when I heroically intervened into his boys from the 2nd floor to the ground level I could of wiped the unit in his turn. However I lost my tyrant, 2 units of rippers, and a couple of Zoans tagging my Hive Guard. In reply I fell back with the Hive Guard out of combat in the hope I could do more damage to them by shooting at them, and the other boy unit charging them with my warriors which were no longer in combat due to models remove and take back my objective. If I managed to kill enough here I could then attempt a double shoot on his Warboss, however I didn't so I finished the boys on my objective in combat. Turn 2 Orks got kill more, hold more, bonus and was racking up the secondaries.

Turn 3 things started looking up for me as I killed more and held more with a brave move to kill his warboss and big mek taking the middle objective with my Prime after I lost last my warriors. Unfortunately turn 4 I lost an Exo and used my last CP to double shoot the Hive Guard into a blob of 30 Grots, however I failed to kill the unit due to the Runtherd helping their leadership to lose d3 models and he lost 2 of 3 models left. My opponent got kill more here due to luck, and the final turns were swings to me but alas without any Engineers it was 23 (7secondary) to 26 (11secondary). As I said, not going first and the mission ruined my Engineer choice. There was no other viable manuever Secondary to choose, which I am normally strong in but his list counters this.

Apart these game thoughts, I really could of used my Tyrant and Warriors to be KRONOS here. The Deathspitters exploding hits on 5's and double shooting meant they could kill a boy unit on their own each turn. Also the Maleceptor and Tyrant getting -1 to hit would of made a real impact on his Shokk Assault Guns. I think this is more important now than 6+++ saves. However is the extra shooting worth more than the potential to reroll 1s to hit/wound for the Leviathon strat if the warriors and hive tyrant work together in melee, to keep them Leviathon? What do you all think???

[No One]

khyz0r said:

However is the extra shooting worth more than the potential to reroll 1s to hit/wound for the Leviathon strat if the warriors and hive tyrant work together in melee, to keep them Leviathon?

I don't think the strat's ever worth anything. The warriors and the flyrant don't really want to go after the same target, and I don't think that's even going to come up that often to consider it worthwile.

Now, is the awkwardness of the mal survivability bump worth giving up the 6+++? Eh, probably not. I also don't see symbio or rr 1s worth swapping (yes prime buffed warriors get a lot of dakka. So does an exo, or hive guard: outside of specifically Orks, how often's the warriors going to be the better choice?). For both, maybe??

[khyz0r]

I have used the strat once when i charged multiple units of intercessers holding a centre objective. So it does have uses, but it is situational. But I do think the Malenceptor has more survivability with a -1 to hit compared to 6+++. He already has a 4++, and the problem weapons are going to be d6 damage, or flat 3+ weapons that can 1 shot him. Having an extra 2 wounds on average with 6+++ is not as good as reducing the number of saves I have to make.

[No One]

Less 'is it a survivability bump', and more 'how much do you have to fit in a 3" bubble'?