Crusade help!

[iniquity]

So me and some friends have taken a step back from competitive play and are trying some crusade games. He plays custodes and I play bugs (duh). We are doing a kind of escalation type campaign through the crusade rules. He’s running a terminator army with a telemon and I just can’t touch it.

The games we played today were just terrible. I won one game where my entire army died but I score out on points and got... a weapon upgrade where my friend just filled up in secondaries and basically gained more from the game.

How do you even engage this army? You can’t kill the telemon, you can’t kill the terminators he just death balls up the map killing me. I tried tagging the telemon with the gants and it just murdered them I’m 1 round of shooting in his next turn.

My crusade force is in danger of just becoming exocrine spam with some hive guard, which isn’t what I want.

Is it case if I’m just doing it wrong or is it just impossible to make a
‘Casual list’ with out throwing every game one way or another?


My list:


++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Tyranids) [59 PL, 1,135pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Detachment CP

+ HQ +

Hive Tyrant [12 PL, 245pts]: Adrenal Glands, Heavy Venom Cannon, Monstrous Scything Talons, Power: Paroxysm, Power: Unstoppable Hunger, Scythes of Tyran, Toxin Sacs, Warlord, Wings
. Adaptive Physiology: Murderous Size

The Swarmlord [14 PL, 270pts]

+ Troops +

Hormagaunts [9 PL, 180pts]
. 30x Hormagaunt: 30x Scything Talons

Termagants [3 PL, 50pts]
. 10x Termagant (Fleshborer): 10x Fleshborer

Termagants [3 PL, 50pts]
. 10x Termagant (Fleshborer): 10x Fleshborer

+ Elites +

Haruspex [9 PL, 170pts]

+ Heavy Support +

Exocrine [9 PL, 170pts]
. Adaptive Physiology: Dermic Symbiosis

++ Total: [59 PL, 1,135pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

[beetlejuice]

You get free toxin sacs in crusade. 20 man behemoth genestealers with toxin sacs and 2D on 5+ might do something. Especially if you can give stratagem for -1 AP on the scything talons. Same with hormagaunts.

[iniquity]

Turns out my friend miss read a few of his stratagems. Most notably that “ancient sacrifice : half damage taken to adeptus custodes units” is actually only a -1 damage to dreadnoughts.

Having him use that every turn on his terminators was immensely frustrating! Nice to know it can’t be done, I’ll clean up the pile of salt.

[kazetanade]

When in doubt, ask for book.

[iniquity]

Sept 1, 2020 7:50:08 GMT kazetanade said:

When in doubt, ask for book.

Your advice is always so solid, ❤️

How are you doing with bugs at the moment?

[kazetanade]

Truthfully my last game WS with GSC, and I've been playing either IG or Salamanders since then. I'm mostly waiting out time for the new Necron codex to drop cuz I shelled out for Indomitus.

Most of my GSC/Nids lists would actually work but not give me good games right now, as we are seeing the rise of T1 resilient megapush and it isn't fun being either Nids or GSC because we lack the damage to deal with it, unless you really spec for it. We also lose the shooting matchup, and don't have the resiliency to stand on objectives unless doing an extreme skew.

I was still keen in that short period where we could do 1 mega Smite Zoey unit for general damage output, but when FAQ took that away it felt like max Exocrene or bust, and I don't have 3 Exocrene. Goonhammer and Art of War have both come up to Tyranid lists too, and it's basically triple Exocrene, HG, Zoeys, Ridgerunners, then as much chaff as you can manage to spoil people's scoring.

[LordPathos]

Hear me out; take out the Haruspex and put in Fleshborers.

Of the Hive variety.

On a Tyrannifex.

Use the Fleshborer Hive.

[iniquity]

Sept 1, 2020 10:39:15 GMT kazetanade said:

Truthfully my last game WS with GSC, and I've been playing either IG or Salamanders since then. I'm mostly waiting out time for the new Necron codex to drop cuz I shelled out for Indomitus.

Most of my GSC/Nids lists would actually work but not give me good games right now, as we are seeing the rise of T1 resilient megapush and it isn't fun being either Nids or GSC because we lack the damage to deal with it, unless you really spec for it. We also lose the shooting matchup, and don't have the resiliency to stand on objectives unless doing an extreme skew.

I was still keen in that short period where we could do 1 mega Smite Zoey unit for general damage output, but when FAQ took that away it felt like max Exocrene or bust, and I don't have 3 Exocrene. Goonhammer and Art of War have both come up to Tyranid lists too, and it's basically triple Exocrene, HG, Zoeys, Ridgerunners, then as much chaff as you can manage to spoil people's scoring.

It really feels like the rewarding finesse of the game has gone, maybe I’m just playing the game at too low of a level to come up with the huge skill plays that were planned in the movement phase and executed through out every phase of the round.

I’m a bit sad about it tbh.

[kazetanade]

Sept 1, 2020 17:13:30 GMT iniquity said:

Sept 1, 2020 10:39:15 GMT kazetanade said:

Truthfully my last game WS with GSC, and I've been playing either IG or Salamanders since then. I'm mostly waiting out time for the new Necron codex to drop cuz I shelled out for Indomitus.

Most of my GSC/Nids lists would actually work but not give me good games right now, as we are seeing the rise of T1 resilient megapush and it isn't fun being either Nids or GSC because we lack the damage to deal with it, unless you really spec for it. We also lose the shooting matchup, and don't have the resiliency to stand on objectives unless doing an extreme skew.

I was still keen in that short period where we could do 1 mega Smite Zoey unit for general damage output, but when FAQ took that away it felt like max Exocrene or bust, and I don't have 3 Exocrene. Goonhammer and Art of War have both come up to Tyranid lists too, and it's basically triple Exocrene, HG, Zoeys, Ridgerunners, then as much chaff as you can manage to spoil people's scoring.

It really feels like the rewarding finesse of the game has gone, maybe I’m just playing the game at too low of a level to come up with the huge skill plays that were planned in the movement phase and executed through out every phase of the round.

I’m a bit sad about it tbh.

Finesse is still there - I happenstance on Goonhammer's Blood Angel Faction Update for 9th and Stephen Box from Vanguard Tactics (I think?) has this really interesting list with 3 x Sanguinary Guards, 1 x Death Company, a bunch of troops, and support characters, which is a super fragile (by marine standards) but finesse list which will brutally murder anything that they manage to sink their vampire fangs into. 

Eldar and GSC lists are still extremely finesse to play as well, both existing on very effective use of tools to prevent scoring (killing them with Spears or blocking movement with Neophytes) and smart movements to both score and deny the enemy their strategies in general, while outputting the range damage to whittle them away. 

New Tyranid lists are pretty blunt weapon IMO, although you can make it more finesse and achieve similar things to what the GSC do (or do super skew and just block everything from moving the whole game). 

I think all armies have game now (some more than others obviously, some very painful game) and it's really about just finding a playstyle you like and playing the army that fits it, rather than playing an army about aesthetics and then not liking the gameplay. But I'm more of a gamer than a hobbyist so that's just one side of the coin. 

Except for GSC. Blood Angels are basically GSC but better in almost every conceivable way, doing almost all the same things, with better results, and more margin of error. The only thing that GSC can do that BA cant is throw 20 guys 3" away from you to block your movement (assuming you didnt just charge bikes or an Impulsor into them instead of doing 3" deepstrike). THAT, that really stings.