9th Edition Tyranids vs Iron Hand Battle Report (Text/Image)

[stormcoil]

I have put together a simple text and image battle report of Tyranids vs Iron Hands. You can find it here:

www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/ixfhri/tyranids_vs_iron_hands_9th_edition_battle_report/

[kazetanade]

Great Battle report yet again.

This table terrain is actually really good. It's got a load of LOS block from DZ to DZ, and even from the middle down so deepstrikes that aren't self-sufficient have issues.

Point of note: Eradicators aren't actually that good vs T8 by themselves, unless you have Salamander rerolls and/or Melta +1 buff. Likewise, Grav drop is hyper efficient but requires rerolls and good positioning. Bladeguard are pretty pointless on walking IH unless he runs an impulsor up (which is worth trading that 2nd droppod Grav for). Your competitive friend wasnt playing a cohesive list and more of a hyper pts efficient list, and I wouldn't expect it to do well on any game not a western shootout. Some tweaks would make it a lot more effective (read: cohesive) such as bringing in an impulsor, bringing a 2nd Capt to be fast smash (since he's got 2 detachments anyway, based on CP to start), or landspeeders and scouts to better move and dominate the board for objectives. I personally wouldn't work with Eradicators and would bring one of those quad Las FW dreadnoughts to substitute since he's IH.

On your side of things a few things caught out :

- No rr1s on Kronos if you moved.
- Pathogenic Slime is 1cp, not 2.

I was playing a similar list to you last night but swapping warriors and mawlocs for 60 Gaunts total - the Idea being that a big block of 30 can do move blocks really well (they don't reach far enough without SL + MO, sadly) and having 30 guys just to run interference on enemy trying to claim objectives.

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Unfortunately I got I strongly disagree handed to me candidly by Eldar, with a combination of Doom Jinx Laser Lance's and shuriken fire making mince meat out of both Gaunts and Zoeys in very short order, and Protect Fortune basically soaking all of 1 Exo and all of 1 double shooting HG, to kill 3 models.

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I felt that one of the biggest problems this style of list faces is very mobile and decently tough melee units that can keep us down in our deployment zone. Smites help mitigate a lot but are prone to failure, and while they've been amazingly tanky through and through, I've just had difficulty really making it work the way I want it to (very big threat unit that is hard to take down and does consistent damage - they don't). But that could just be me having trauma damage from Shining Spears and Impulsor Bladeguard rushes.

The mawlocs in your list represents something very interesting conceptually, which I'd like to take on for more consideration. I tried them before and although I like their map presence, I felt like there wasn't enough punch to really do anything with them, and the tyranid army didn't have enough things to really support the mawlocs with. The weakness is in their damage bubble being only 2" from base, making it hard to hit more than 1 or max 2 units, and they're not exactly that great at disabling the enemy's ability unlike the 2cp 20 man block of GSC coming in.

All in all very decent play, with a list that conceptually works well for today's environment. I'm not sure I like it personally, as warriors aren't holding up to the Melta and plasma and Demolishes etc etc that I've been seeing in games. Maybe as a trick unit that people haven't exp before, or in a meta with no smash and a lot less melee than before. But in which case I'd run as unit of 9. But whether I like the list is immaterial to how well you've been doing, and it's always good to see people doing well with this army. Kudos man.

[stormcoil]

Thank you for the very detailed feedback! Lists are always in flux and being worked on.

The games I started playing after this one I dropped one mawloc for two units of horms for the extra speed and to be a multiwound screen against multidamage weapons. My most recent game for the first time I dropped the warriors all together. I've gone from running two units of 9 both with enhanced down to not even using them at all. They sort of take the same space as the zoanthropes but are not as useful. With the points from the warriors I have been toying around with running 3 units of 10 gaunts and 2 units of 10 horms. It gives some meaty chaff to sit in front of the zoans, and makes people even less likely to have spare firepower to take on my rippers and lictors that are scoring me the points.

I really miss running two mawlocs though. I've also played around a bit with behemoth trygons, but too many of my opponents are too good at screening and I feel like even when I make the charge with a trygon I'm just hitting garbage. And they absolutely don't have the utility of the mawloc.

Eldar may indeed be a hard counter for me. I've been open that this list works really well in the specific meta I play in, which is about a dozen guys most of which run marines, with a harlequin, death guard, custodes and admech/knights thrown in. I've always beaten harlequins quite badly because he can't handle my mortal wounds and I ignore his haywire damage, but he is also running pure harlies. Craftworlds have a very different set of tools which I believe could dismantle this list.

But it is about testing and evolving. I know lots of people can't play right now so I feel like theory-crafting is becoming even more popular and I'm not sure that's healthy. You will learn more about your list playing 3 games then you will with 100 hours of daydreaming about what might work.

All the best with your future lists and in your coming games!

Edit:  Wait, pathogenic slime is only 1 cp!?!  What?  That can't be.  Also, yeah, I shouldn't have rerolled on the hive guard the turn I moved to screen, good point.  In the end it made no difference to the game, but I don't like to make mistakes like that.

Double Edit:  Just checked.  In my codex, page 119, it says pathogenic slime is 2cp, like I have been playing it.  Please tell me there is an FAQ or something that made it just 1 cp though.....

[beetlejuice]

Good write up. On turn 3, were you equidistant to both units after he pulled models to smites on the right flank with your 2nd exo? Otherwise instinctive behaviour might have been in play (but maybe didnt matter if eradicators were closest). Also, I get that your opponent tilted but from the sounds of it he tries to cheese and netlist as much as possible. If tyranids are so op, just buy and commision the same list? If someone picks up a trash list and rapes your spes mehrines broken units then he should really evaluate his own skill. Also, his list is still playing 8th edition with indomitus units and wasn’t really competitive imo (just look at how poorly he scored both primaries and secondaries)

[vejby]

These battle reports are both encouraging and inspiring, but I cannot help feel that your opponents were perhaps not playing at their best.

In all the games I have so far had with similar lists against marines, screening out lictors to deny scramblers, or killing zoanthropes through weight of numbers of shots have not been all that difficult. Terrain may be a factor, but it still seems that these tyranid lists are horribly vulnerable to cascading failure if just one crucial action fails or the opponent reads your list and thereby your intentions.

I am by far not a good player, so my experience is anecdotal, but it would be interesting to read reports from the games where the list did not deliver.

[brianb9999]

Sept 22, 2020 6:41:57 GMT stormcoil said:

Double Edit:  Just checked.  In my codex, page 119, it says pathogenic slime is 2cp, like I have been playing it.  Please tell me there is an FAQ or something that made it just 1 cp though.....

Sadly, no, it's 2 CP like it's always been...

[kazetanade]

..... I have played it cheap for an entire edition and no one ever noticed. Huh.

[iniquity]

I wish i could have been there to see the screening turn and then chest bump you amongst a sea of rusty, salty iron hands tears.

Keep on devouring.

[stormcoil]

Sept 22, 2020 8:08:20 GMT beetlejuice said:

Good write up. On turn 3, were you equidistant to both units after he pulled models to smites on the right flank with your 2nd exo? Otherwise instinctive behaviour might have been in play (but maybe didnt matter if eradicators were closest). Also, I get that your opponent tilted but from the sounds of it he tries to cheese and netlist as much as possible. If tyranids are so op, just buy and commision the same list? If someone picks up a trash list and rapes your spes mehrines broken units then he should really evaluate his own skill. Also, his list is still playing 8th edition with indomitus units and wasn’t really competitive imo (just look at how poorly he scored both primaries and secondaries)

On turn 3, after the smite casualties I was closer to the eradicators which I shot.  However I would have been willing to just take the instinctive behavior penalty and shoot south to try and kill just one more bladegaurd to claim the objective if two had been alive.  Taking an objective away in my mind was more important than killing his killy units, especially as the eradicators were out of position.

[stormcoil]

Sept 22, 2020 8:17:45 GMT vejby said:

I am by far not a good player, so my experience is anecdotal, but it would be interesting to read reports from the games where the list did not deliver.

This is a good idea.  The next time I find time to do a report I may indeed choose one of my losses.  The losses often teach more than the wins.  However, you will then probably see me not playing my best game....

[nidzy]

My group has played that hive guard ignore all cover. Is this wrong? Shouldn't you be ignoring the -1 dense cover from those woods?

[stormcoil]

I'm pretty sure hive guard only ignore the save bonus from cover, not the -1 to hit.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Sept 22, 2020 14:17:55 GMT stormcoil said:

Sept 22, 2020 8:17:45 GMT vejby said:

I am by far not a good player, so my experience is anecdotal, but it would be interesting to read reports from the games where the list did not deliver.

This is a good idea.  The next time I find time to do a report I may indeed choose one of my losses.  The losses often teach more than the wins.  However, you will then probably see me not playing my best game....

Reporting if you don't play your best game is not an issue. If you know what went wrong, you can report on that. If not we can help analyze the loss. Other times, a loss could just be a hard counter or luck. It's still good to analyze what went wrong or what could have changed the outcome.

[nidzy]

Sept 22, 2020 16:19:51 GMT stormcoil said:

I'm pretty sure hive guard only ignore the save bonus from cover, not the -1 to hit.

Can you direct me to that? I am not arguing, I just don't want us to play it wrong because we currently are playing it the other way.

[zimko]

Sept 22, 2020 18:09:52 GMT nidzy said:

Sept 22, 2020 16:19:51 GMT stormcoil said:

I'm pretty sure hive guard only ignore the save bonus from cover, not the -1 to hit.

Can you direct me to that? I am not arguing, I just don't want us to play it wrong because we currently are playing it the other way.

It's in the "Rare rules" section. They clarify that models that 'ignore armour save bonus of cover' will only ignore the armour save bonus of cover while rules that say 'ignore cover' will ignore everything from cover. Hive Guard's rule says 'ignore armour save bonus' of cover so it does not ignore Dense Cover.