2k Play to the Missions

[zimko]

I've played a few experimental lists now (posted on this forum) such as Genestealer sling, Flyrant Spam and Mortal Wound spam. So now I think it's time to fine tune a list built for 9th missions. First, here's the list I have in mind.

Battalion: Custom Fleet: Adaptive Exoskeleton (6++ to terms, horms and gargs), Membranous Mobility (-1 to hit in melee for units with fly)
HQ
Malanthrope, Warlord - 135 pts
Neurothrope, Psychic Scream - 95 pts
Troops
22 Hormagaunts - 132 pts
22 Hormagaunts - 132 pts
10 Hormagaunts - 60 pts
10 Termagants - 50 pts
10 Termagants - 50 pts
10 Termagants - 50 pts
Elites
Lictor - 37 pts
Lictor - 37 pts
4 Zoanthropes, Onslaught - 180 pts
6 Zoanthropes, Catalyst - 270 pts
Fast Attack
29 Gargoyles - 203 pts

Patrol: Kronos
HQ
Neurothrope, Symbiostorm, Resonance Barb - 95 pts
Troops
3 Ripper Swarms - 36 pts
3 Ripper Swarms - 36 pts
Fast Attack
3 Meiotic Spores - 60 pts
Heavy Support
Exocrine: Dermic Symbiosis - 170 pts
Exocrine: Dermic Symbiosis - 170 pts

To play to the mission, you need ob sec troops. I learned that no matter how resilient your models are, if they're not ob sec then you can easily be forced to only getting 5 pts a turn on the primary. So I've included 8 ob sec troops, 6 of which are infantry. You also need bodies. If both players have obsec on an objective, then total number of bodies wins. Thus I've included a decent number of bodies. The Gargoyles, despite not being ob sec, can also body block with their fast movement and largish bases, and as long as at least one ob sec troop is on an objective, then the number of gargoyles counts towards holding that objective.

Normally, the play for such a detachment is to go Leviathon for 6+++. However, I think 6++ is going to come out better. For one thing, you dont need to stay within 6" of a synapse creature (granted this wont be hard though). But more importantly, 6++ works much better on multi-damage attacks which are very common in melee. Most of the 'brawlers' used by Imperium and Chaos all have multi-damage melee attacks which makes Leviathon's 6+++ almost non-existent. A 6++ though will possibly make the difference between a squad being wiped, and having just that 1 ob sec model still alive at the end of the turn. The only downside with this fleet trait is that Zoanthropes won't benefit from it. However, Membranous Mobility makes up for this by making the Zoanthropes more difficult to kill in melee. It also helps the Gargoyles in melee by essentially always having their ability active (and lets it face it, that ability never activates where you want it anyway). So altogether I feel like this custom fleet is better for overall resilience than Leviathon. If I were using Warriors then Leviathon would be the play... but I'm not so here we are.

The Kronos detachment of course includes 2 Exocrines who's main job is to kill units that will do the most damage to the swarm. The Meiotic Spores give me board presence vs infiltrators and make a nice platform to use the Kronos Stratagem from. 

For secondary objectives, the 2 Lictors and 2 Ripper Swarms will get me the most points. Scramblers is a very easy 10 points with Lictors. Engage on all Fronts or Linebreaker are an easy 8 to 15 pts. The third secondary objective is a bit more risky and may depend on the mission. If the mission has an objective based secondary then it will probably be preferred. But if it doesn't, then I'll probably take Psychic Ritual. The Neurothrope in the first battalion is ideal for Psychic Ritual. He can be protected by the Zoanthropes and little gribblies, and his power isn't important. I've had good luck with Psychic Ritual so far. Zoanthropes are exceedingly annoying to kill and are usually easily able to protect the Neurothrope for 3 turns. So that accounts for all 3 secondaries.

Thoughts on the hive fleet choice? Spot any other easy to achieve secondaries?

[cmob208]

Quick question: Why are the zoanthropes split 4 and 6? My gut would be to have them 5 and 5 to avoid blast and be able to spread them out more.

[zimko]

I haven't had trouble with blast and I think blast is a non-issue. If I can tempt my opponent to throw blast weapons at a unit of 6 zoanthropes rather than the gaunts/gants then I'll be happy with that since I'll only need to endure the blast rule until 1 zoanthrope dies.

But as for why 4 and 6... My last list was 3 units of 5. The Zoanthropes were quite resilient. But when it came to dealing mortals I had a lot of low rolls. It feels bad only doing 2 or 3 mortals when you could do 5 or 6. So for the same price as 2 units 5 (producing 4d3 mortal) I felt like increasing their damage output a little by making them units of 6 and 4 (3d3+3 mortals). It's only a slight increase but I dont think I lose much doing it. Being able to stretch them out was only really useful for getting on multiple objectives, which isn't their job in this list. Their main goal is to protect the Neurothrope and provide resilient bodies for the center of the board or a single midfield objective.

It also makes it easy to decide which to cast Catalyst on. If my opponent sees a unit of 6 with Catalyst vs a unit of 4 without... they may just settle with trying to wipe out the smaller unit. Or if they do decide to go for the larger unit then Catalyst will be more effective with more wounds to save.

[beetlejuice]

If you’re not that heavily invested in pack hunters, which you rightfully shouldn’t be since horms hit on 4+ and wounds most things on 5-6+ so even with ap1-2 they don’t kill much, you could consider membranous mobility instead. It gives more protection to you zoans when they get charged by bladeguard veterans and other big brawlers. It also protects your gargoyles if you rush them forward with metabolic overdrive to body block and they are likely to get charged by intercessors etc. Should give you more staying power on objectives which is what this list is all about. Leave the killing to exos and smites.

[zimko]

Sept 10, 2020 18:53:50 GMT beetlejuice said:

If you’re not that heavily invested in pack hunters, which you rightfully shouldn’t be since horms hit on 4+ and wounds most things on 5-6+ so even with ap1-2 they don’t kill much, you could consider membranous mobility instead. It gives more protection to you zoans when they get charged by bladeguard veterans and other big brawlers. It also protects your gargoyles if you rush them forward with metabolic overdrive to body block and they are likely to get charged by intercessors etc. Should give you more staying power on objectives which is what this list is all about. Leave the killing to exos and smites.

That is a good point. I will do this. Updating list.

[zimko]

After some playtesting, I've changed this up a bit. I want gargoyles to work but I missed the ob sec and I didn't feel like their speed made up for the extra cost. I also missed having a melee beatstick for counter-charges. So I made room for Swarmlord to give me both a beatstick and utility. I also changed the hive fleet to include reroll advances. The 6++ on gaunts worked really well for me. I swapped out the Malanthrope for Venomthropes and removed the smaller unit of Zoanthropes to make room for Swarmlord.

Battalion: Custom Fleet: Adaptive Exoskeleton (6++ to terms, horms and gargs), Hypermetabolic Acceleration (Reroll advance rolls)
HQ
The Swarmlord, Onslaught, Psychic Scream - 270 pts
Neurothrope, The Horror, Warlord - 95 pts
Troops
19 Hormagaunts - 114 pts
18 Hormagaunts - 108 pts
20 Termagants - 100 pts
20 Termagants - 100 pts
20 Termagants - 100 pts
20 Termagants - 100 pts
Elites
Lictor - 37 pts
Lictor - 37 pts
6 Zoanthropes, Catalyst - 270 pts
3 Venomthropes - 99 pts

Patrol: Kronos
HQ
Neurothrope, Symbiostorm, Resonance Barb - 95 pts
Troops
3 Ripper Swarms - 36 pts
3 Ripper Swarms - 36 pts
Fast Attack
3 Meiotic Spores - 60 pts
Heavy Support
Exocrine: Dermic Symbiosis - 170 pts
Exocrine: Dermic Symbiosis - 170 pts

I would rather have all the gaunts be termagants but I currently only have 80 termagants with fleshborers. So I'll keep using hormagaunts for now.

[hungryone]

Nice list, but do just one battallion: drop the exocrines and a neurothrope. Add 2 packs x3biovores + 1 broodlord.
Then relax and wait for enemy.

[zimko]

Hmm, the exocrines are crucial imo. Without them I have 0 ranged threat and my opponent can just walk wherever they want without fear of reprisal. With the Exocrines I can create fire lanes and remove threats. Biovores dont do enough damage to kill anything. They can block movement but there are plenty of units with fly that dont care about spore mines.

[brianb9999]

Sept 25, 2020 13:36:00 GMT zimko said:

After some playtesting, I've changed this up a bit. I want gargoyles to work but I missed the ob sec and I didn't feel like their speed made up for the extra cost. I also missed having a melee beatstick for counter-charges. So I made room for Swarmlord to give me both a beatstick and utility. I also changed the hive fleet to include reroll advances. The 6++ on gaunts worked really well for me. I swapped out the Malanthrope for Venomthropes and removed the smaller unit of Zoanthropes to make room for Swarmlord.

I am trying to adapt my gaunt carpet list from 8th to 9th, using the same hive fleet (6++, reroll advances), and I like where your list is currently. I dropped down ~210 gaunts in one of my first games of 9th, dismayed that I could barely fit them in the smaller deployment zone. I'm wondering what you think the magic number of gaunts is, keeping Thin Their Ranks in mind - do you go with about 120, or just way over 150 and just go all in on bodies? I'm actually leaning toward less because I had almost no killing power with my list and almost nothing on which to spend my CP. I'm leaning towards putting the Swarmlord back in as well.

I think the gaunt horde plus support is probably one of our stronger builds right now, but an army with lots of anti-horde shooting or Horde Orks may be a problem. I'm going to try several lists myself (and wish I had a second exocrine bc I think they're incredibly important right now).

[zimko]

I haven't found the magic number of gaunts but units of roughly 20 feels good. It's big enough that they take a significant amount of volume to kill, and small enough that movement and coherency is manageable. I try not to worry about what secondaries I give up to my opponent. No matter what tyranid build you go with, there's going to be a 'kill' secondary that gives up a lot of points. So I just don't try to build my list around, instead focusing on how I can achieve points.

[N.I.B.]

Do you usually pursue Engage On All Fronts in the first turn? If so, how? Swarmlord can push a sacrificial unit past midway. There's also the option of Metabolic Overdrive for a second unit (preferrably Hormagaunts) to check all 4 quarters turn 1. But units of ~20 models doesn't strike me as sacrificial.

[zimko]

Sept 28, 2020 10:42:55 GMT N.I.B. said:

Do you usually pursue Engage On All Fronts in the first turn? If so, how? Swarmlord can push a sacrificial unit past midway. There's also the option of Metabolic Overdrive for a second unit (preferrably Hormagaunts) to check all 4 quarters turn 1. But units of ~20 models doesn't strike me as sacrificial.

Usually I prefer Linebreaker. Rippers and Lictors can achieve linebreaker quite easily for 8 points at a minimum. 

But if I were to go for Engage On All Fronts, I'd try to get 3 quarters on turn 1 if the unit (or units with metabolic) could also reach an objective or move-block the enemy. Then rely on Lictor/Rippers for the 4th quarter on turn 2 and 3. But again, all that effort will get me 8 points by the end of turn 3, and I think Linebreaker is just easier.

[N.I.B.]

Gotcha.

[zimko]

I love having the backfield disruption with the 2 Lictors. I want to try a Mawloc in that role as well. So to fit one in, I'm removing the Venomthropes (who math says isn't going to save a whole lot of guants vs rerolling shooting anyway, also this will allow me to spread out more) and removing 1 unit of Rippers to add a Mawloc and 2 hormagaunts. That leaves me still with 4 deep strikers that can achieve 8+ points for linebreaker. But it upgrades one of those deep strikers from Rippers to Mawloc, which will be an excellent distraction I think. Plus he'll do more damage than 3 rippers and can't be screened out.