Post by zimko on Apr 5, 2021 7:40:02 GMT
I want to give the Hierophant an honest try in competitive games. It's width is able to fit barely inside a 10" deployment zone so it doesn't have to sit idle for a turn on any deployment map. It has fly and 10" move so it can move over buildings and sit on buildings (or rather, it's bulk is hovering over a ruin while it's toes are touching the ground).
My only opponent that I can practice against is an avid Drakhari player who is also competitive and has a new codex to learn. So our games are slow and we talk everything out but that just means the game is more fair and there's no 'gotchas' because we're learning a new codex.
Game 1
My List:
Super Heavy Aux Detachment -3 CP
Kraken
- Hierophant
Battalion 0 CP Kraken
- Neurothrope: Catalyst, Resonance Barb, Warlord
- Swarmlord: Onslaught, Paroxysm
- 20 Devgants
- 10 Hormagaunts
- 3 Warriors: scything talonsx2
- Lictor
- Lictor
- Dimachaeron: Accelerated Digestion
- Dimachaeron: Accelerated Digestion
Drakhari List:
I don't remember the name of the detachment, it's the raid thing.
- Archon
- Succubus
- Succubus
- Haemonculus
- ~10 Wracks
- 5 Wyches
- 5 Bloodbrides
- 6 Incubi
- 6 Incubi
- 5 Incubi
- Venom x6
- 5 Reavers
- 5 Mandrakes
- 5 Scourges with Heat Lances
- Ravager: Dark Lances
- Ravager: Dark Lances
Patrol
- Drahzar
- Warriors: Blaster
He had a variety of warlord traits and relics that make his character hurt in melee, I don't know what they were. His kabal lets him reroll a die for every unit or something like that. At the end of the day they're pointy eared fragile glass cannons.
Mission: Surround and Destroy
My Secondaries: Scramblers, Assassinate, Grind Them Down
His Secondaries: Banners, Take Em Alive, Engage
I'm going to try and do the picture thing. I like that format. So credit to the guy that does that on reddit. I'm only using MS Paint so it's not going to be as pretty.
Terrain: Dark Gray is obscuring ruins. Light Gray is non-obscuring ruins. Light Green in the middle is forest.
My Deployment: I placed the Hierophant as close to the middle as I could. The ruin there isn't completely solid so I was able to place him partially in the ruin. The Swarmlord and one Dima I placed in the far right corner. Other Dima I placed next to Hierophant. Neurothrope and Hormagants are inside the left ruin with solid walls to block LOS. Warriors are on right objective. Devgants are inside the Hierophant. Lictors in reserves.
His Deployment: Venoms are full of infantry. Mandrakes on left objective. Wracks in middle ruin out of LOS. Reavers on right side with a Venom full of wyches and a Succubus. Middle Venom has Warriors in it.
Top Turn 1: I win rolloff. So winning the roll-off is a big advantage for me. For one, my opponent made a mistake deploying so much of his stuff so close together. I deployed the Swarmlord early so he thought that there was no way I could make a charge that far if he deployed in the far corner. But as he's about to find out, Dimas can reach anything I want, no matter where they or the Swarmlord are deployed. Secondly, because he wants rerolls on the Ravagers, one of them is poking out from behind the obscuring terrain instead of just hiding behind the center ruin. So the Hierophant can easily delete one. And of course, going first with Dimas is just good on this deployment map.
Movement: I spend a CP to double advance the left Dima and get a 5. So that's 22 inches of movement. The Neurothrope does NOT have Onslaught, but for 1 CP I give him access to all the powers that the Swarmlord has, and use Onslaught on the Dima after moving up a little bit to get within 18". The Heirophant moves 10" to put himself on the middle objective and to get LOS of the Ravager. Dima on the right moves 12" and the Swarmlord moves up a little behind him to give the Dima a boost and still stay far enough away from anything that could threaten him. The Warriors stay put in and deploy scramblers in my deployment. Hormagaunts shift a little to give the Neurothrope space.
Psychic: 1 CP to give Neurothrope access to Onslaught. Use on left Dima. Catalyst on Hierophant. Swarmlord has nothing to do.
Shooting: Swarmlord launches Dima at Reavers. Heirophant takes d3 Mortal Wounds to get +1 to wound on his shooting. I roll a 1 for damage, and then a 5 to ignore it. Hot. He unloads 16 shots at the Ravager. My opponent spends a CP to give him -1 to hit. After invuls, 5 wounds make it thru doing a total of 15 damage. Scratch 1 Ravager.
Charge/Fight: Left dima multicharges 2 Venoms and Mandrakes. Succeeds. Right Dima charges Reavers. Succeeds. Right Dima mostly wiffs and only kills 2 Reavers. They pass their strength check. I was really hoping for feel no pain there but oh well. Left Dima splits his attacks between the Venoms and kills both with reroll to wounds. Mandrakes pass their strength check. Again was really hoping for some FNP but can't rely on it. The 2 venoms I popped had a Succubus, 5 bloodbrides and 6 incubi. 1 incubi died. He was forced to spend 2 CP to emergency disembark 6" so he didn't lose more. I decide to save the CP here and not fight twice. I'm holding 3 objectives, with a Dima's toe on 2 others (preventing him from deploying banners). Fighting twice just wouldn't gain me much for 3 CP.
Bottom Turn 1: Movement: Everything gets out of the left side venoms to kill the Dima. 1 Venom advances into my side of the board for Engage. Mandrakes disappear to deep strike next turn. Ravager 2 moves into range of right side dima but has to expose itself to do it. Middle Venom moves to right side objective. Right Venom unloads wyches and Succubus to charge Dima while the Venom advances into my table quarter for Engage. Wracks roll a 1 for advance, CP reroll into a 1. So they can't even reach the middle objective where the Hierophant is. Instead of exposing themselves, they move to the ruin wall in order to advance next turn onto that objective. Since he didn't want to just hand me that 3rd objective, he decides to move a Venom to it so he at least contests it. The Reavers on the right side fall 'back' onto the middle objective. He is unable to deploy banners because the Dimas are both touching an objective.
Shooting: Ravager rolls poorly and only wounds the right side dima once and I pass my save. Pistols and a Venom manage to knock of 4 wounds though. The Warriors inside the Venom do another 2 damage. The left side Dima absorbs all the pistols fine. The Venoms had to advance to get where they are so they can't shoot since their weapons are either Heavy or Rapid Fire. So that was a good shooting phase for me.
Charge/Fight: Everything charge the left dima. Wyches and Succubus charge the right dima. The left Dima can not interrupt because he can't fight until all other units have faught (incubi thing). He fights first with the Succubus on the right Dima and does 6 wounds. She then falls back after she fights so I can't kill her (apparently they can basically overrun without needing to be 3" away). I decide to interrupt anyway because I want to make sure that dima lives with as many wounds as possible. I kill 3 wyches with melee (gaining 3 wounds, putting me at 9) and then kill the rest with mortals, giving me permanent FNP. That's what I was hoping would happen. I then consolidate into the succubus so that if I fight again, I can pile-into the Venom. Drahzar BY HIMSELF kills the left side Dima... wtf. That guy is a beast. I'm left with a tough question though. I only have 3 CP left so I can either fight twice with the right side Dima, potentially removing a Venom and Succubus OR fight as a die with the left side Dima, potentially killing Drahzar, a Succubus and some Incubi with mortals. I decide that I want to remove his mobility and go for the Venom. What I've learned from playing against Eldar in general is that if you remove all their mobility (bikes and transports) then they become a lot easier to manage. So I let the left dima die without fighting. I fight again with the right Dima and split his attacks between the Venom and the Succubus (putting tail into Venom). Only 1 wound made it thru to the Venom dealing 4 damage, but then the tail finished it off. The Succubus failed 1 save and died. Giving me my first Assassinate points. 5 Warriors and the Hamonculus deploy from the Venom.
Points after 1: I have 3 for Assassinate, 3 for Grind Em Down, and deployed scramblers in my deployment zone. My opponent has 3 for Take em Alive, 3 for Engage and no Banners deployed. 6 to 6
Top of Turn 2: I get 10 for Primary.
Movement: My plan here is pretty simple. Destroy all the mobile units, then clean up. He only has 3 Venoms, a Ravager and 3 bikes that are highly mobile. So if I can get rid of all those this turn then I should be able to control the primary objective and prevent him from getting points for Engage. So I move the Dima to the right side Venom. I move the Swarmlord towards the 3 bikes on the middle objective. Hierophant moves to the left so that he can charge the Middle Venom, use his Torrent on the left Venom and shoot his primary guns at the Ravager. Neurothrope moves so that he can smite the left Venom because I want to make sure it dies. I decide it's not yet time to deploy the Devgants. I want his infantry to come out more. They're perfectly safe inside momma Hierophant. A Lictor arrives in the top right corner to deploy scramblers inside his deployment zone.
Psychic: Catalyst on Hierophant, Smite left Venom for 2 wounds. Swarmlord casts smite on right venom for 1 wound.
Shooting: Hierophant does everything I want him to do. His main guns delete the Ravager easily. His torrent deletes the left Venom easily. He does deal 2 wounds to himself though in order to get +1 to wound all those things. Swarmlord pushes himself towards the Reavers to guarantee a charge.
Charge/Assault: Right dima charges Venom. Swarmlord charges Reavers. Hierophant charges Venom. All targets get deleted. I use the 1 CP I gained this turn to overrun with the Hierophant back to basically where he started in order to make it a difficult charge for the Incubi to reach him. This turned out to be a HUGE play. Overall this turn went great. I destroyed all his mobility and ranged firepower and limited what he can do to me.
Bottom of Turn 2: He scores 10 for primary.
Movement: All his units can advance and charge from turn 2 onwards because of combat drugs, but he keeps rolling poorly for advances. He can finally deploy 2 banners this round and does so. His incubi are only able to get close enough for 9" charges. The wyches and succubus though are much faster and are able to get plenty close enough to the Hierophant to both charge and avoid overwatch if I had any CP to do it with. The wracks are also able to come out and get close enough to charge. One incubi unit stays back to deploy banner. The Archon moves moves forward to give reroll 1s to the newly arriving Scourges. The Scourges arrive behind the Incubi, able to shoot the Hierophant. The hamonculus on the right side deploys a banner. And the warriors just move to shoot the Lictor. His Mandrakes arrive in my deployment zone middle ruins.
Shooting: Warriors delete Lictor. Mandrakes shoot at my Warriors, killing 1 and wounding another. All his infantry advanced so they can't shoot their pistols. Scourges shoot at the Hierophant and manage to do nothing, mostly because they're -1 to hit since they moved.
Charge/Fight: Wyches, Succubus and Wracks charge the Hierophant. Incubi all fail their charges. I can't interrupt so he fights first with everything. After all was done, between my T8 5++ save and 5+++ FNP, he only did 4 wounds to the Hierophant putting him at 28 wounds remaining. The succubus fell back so I couldn't kill it. In return I put my 6 main attacks into the wyches and 10 attacks into the Wracks. The wyches passed all their 4+ invuls, and 3 wracks died. But then I rolled for the mortal wounds that the Hierophant does after he fights and kill 3 wyches but none of the wracks.
I score another 3 points for Grind em Down, nothing for Assassinate, and deploy scramblers in his deployment zone. He scores 3 for Engage and deployed 2 banners but nothing else. We each got 10 for primary. 19 - 16
Despite how 1 sided this is looking at the moment, he could still pull this out with points. So we keep playing.
Top Turn 3: I score 10 for Primary.
Movement: Now its time for the Devgants. They deploy 3 and move 6 to get into position for shots at the Succubus and the Scourges. They rolled poorly but those Scourges have high damage potential and they're fast so I want them dead. And the Succubus like all his characters do lots of damage, and they net me 3 points for Assassinate. The Dima moves into position to deal with the top right objective. The Swarmlord with him to help. A Lictor arrives on the middle objective to deploy my last scrambler. The Warriors run away from the mandrakes. Neurothrope moves to smite wyches (no LOS to succubus).
Psychic: Wyches die. Hierophant gets Catalyst.
Shooting: Heirophant dumps all his shots into Wracks and kills all but 1. He chooses to remove all models in engagement range. Devgants split fire and delete the Succubus and the Scourges. Swarmlord gives the Dima a boost over the wall.
Charge/Fight: Dima charges warriors. He can't quite multi charge the character. All the Warriors in top right die. Swarmlord and Dima hold the objective and remove the banner.
Bottom Turn 3: He scores 10 for Primary. 1 for Banner.
Movement: Incubi move up to charge Devgants and Hierophant. Drazhar goes for the Hierophant. The lone Wrack moves back to continue to hold the objective with obsec. Mandrakes move to the left where they can get LOS to the Devgants (he was afraid of overwatch and wanted to thin them out). The lone Hamonculus does nothing because he doesn't have any special weapons. He just stays on the objective to force me to remove him if I want to keep that objective and move my monsters away.
Shooting: Mandrakes kill 11 devgants.
Charge/Fight: 2 units of Incubi and Drazhar charge the Hierophant. 1 unit of Incubi charge the Devgants. The Devgants are wiped out. The Hierophant, after many attacks and many saves and FNP rolls... comes down to the last attack. I use a CP reroll to save him with 1 wound remaining. In return, the Hierophant puts all his 6 damage attacks into Drazhar, and his 10 other attacks into one of the incubi units. That incubi unit loses 3 models. Only 1 attack made it thru Drazhar defenses, and that would have killed him but he has -1 damage and 6 wounds. So he's left with 1 wound and I have no CP to Implant Attack. BUT WAIT, I could finish him with a 5+ mortal wound. Nope. He's still there. Oh well. At least the Hierophant gets to live to shoot another phase. A mortal wound does kill another Incubi so he's left with 1 model in that unit. He auto-passes morale with combat drugs on turn 3+.
Not killing the Hierophant was really bad for him. We continue to play but there's not much left he can do. I score 15 for Primary on turn 4, and 10 on turn 5 to max it at 45 points. He does manage to kill the Hierophant but not before Drazhar gets killed by the Hierophant's shooting. He does kill my Neurothrope and Hormagaunts by the end of the game, but is unable to do anything else. My Swarmlord runs all the way across the board to kill a unit of Incubi on Turn 4. Then he charges the Archon on turn 5 on the top left objective, but the Archon passes all his 2+ invuls. He manages to hold 2 at the end of turn 5 for 10 more points, putting him at 40 for primary. But banners hurt him a lot. We decided that scramblers would have been better, but even with scramblers he wouldn't have been able to win because I get so many points for Grind Em Down and Assassinate. Grind Em Down is basically an auto-take against an MSU army like his. And with 5 characters, most of which want to be in melee, assassinate is easy points too.
End of game points: 89 to 72 Tyranids win
So obviously the Hierophant worked well this game. He single handedly killed both Ravagers, 2 Venoms, Drazhar, 9 Wracks, 5 Wyches and 4 Incubi. And he successfully held 20 Devgants until the opportune time to deploy them allowing me to kill 5 Scourges and a Succubus. Going first helped a lot. If my opponent went first then the Ravagers could have killed a Dima, and the Venoms would have been more spread out so I couldn't remove them so easily. He'd also be able to coordinate a bigger charge against the Hierophant, possibly killing it in one fight phase rather than losing so much stuff to it. So I'm not convinced the Hierophant is worth it. But it was certainly fun to play.
I'm thinking about trying a different Hierophant list next time. Instead of pairing him with 2 Dimachaerons and Swarmlord, I want to try pairing him with 2 Barbed Hierodules and either zoanthropes or more gaunts. I haven't finalized the list yet but I hope to play again soon.
My only opponent that I can practice against is an avid Drakhari player who is also competitive and has a new codex to learn. So our games are slow and we talk everything out but that just means the game is more fair and there's no 'gotchas' because we're learning a new codex.
Game 1
My List:
Super Heavy Aux Detachment -3 CP
Kraken
- Hierophant
Battalion 0 CP Kraken
- Neurothrope: Catalyst, Resonance Barb, Warlord
- Swarmlord: Onslaught, Paroxysm
- 20 Devgants
- 10 Hormagaunts
- 3 Warriors: scything talonsx2
- Lictor
- Lictor
- Dimachaeron: Accelerated Digestion
- Dimachaeron: Accelerated Digestion
Drakhari List:
I don't remember the name of the detachment, it's the raid thing.
- Archon
- Succubus
- Succubus
- Haemonculus
- ~10 Wracks
- 5 Wyches
- 5 Bloodbrides
- 6 Incubi
- 6 Incubi
- 5 Incubi
- Venom x6
- 5 Reavers
- 5 Mandrakes
- 5 Scourges with Heat Lances
- Ravager: Dark Lances
- Ravager: Dark Lances
Patrol
- Drahzar
- Warriors: Blaster
He had a variety of warlord traits and relics that make his character hurt in melee, I don't know what they were. His kabal lets him reroll a die for every unit or something like that. At the end of the day they're pointy eared fragile glass cannons.
Mission: Surround and Destroy
My Secondaries: Scramblers, Assassinate, Grind Them Down
His Secondaries: Banners, Take Em Alive, Engage
I'm going to try and do the picture thing. I like that format. So credit to the guy that does that on reddit. I'm only using MS Paint so it's not going to be as pretty.
Terrain: Dark Gray is obscuring ruins. Light Gray is non-obscuring ruins. Light Green in the middle is forest.
My Deployment: I placed the Hierophant as close to the middle as I could. The ruin there isn't completely solid so I was able to place him partially in the ruin. The Swarmlord and one Dima I placed in the far right corner. Other Dima I placed next to Hierophant. Neurothrope and Hormagants are inside the left ruin with solid walls to block LOS. Warriors are on right objective. Devgants are inside the Hierophant. Lictors in reserves.
His Deployment: Venoms are full of infantry. Mandrakes on left objective. Wracks in middle ruin out of LOS. Reavers on right side with a Venom full of wyches and a Succubus. Middle Venom has Warriors in it.
Top Turn 1: I win rolloff. So winning the roll-off is a big advantage for me. For one, my opponent made a mistake deploying so much of his stuff so close together. I deployed the Swarmlord early so he thought that there was no way I could make a charge that far if he deployed in the far corner. But as he's about to find out, Dimas can reach anything I want, no matter where they or the Swarmlord are deployed. Secondly, because he wants rerolls on the Ravagers, one of them is poking out from behind the obscuring terrain instead of just hiding behind the center ruin. So the Hierophant can easily delete one. And of course, going first with Dimas is just good on this deployment map.
Movement: I spend a CP to double advance the left Dima and get a 5. So that's 22 inches of movement. The Neurothrope does NOT have Onslaught, but for 1 CP I give him access to all the powers that the Swarmlord has, and use Onslaught on the Dima after moving up a little bit to get within 18". The Heirophant moves 10" to put himself on the middle objective and to get LOS of the Ravager. Dima on the right moves 12" and the Swarmlord moves up a little behind him to give the Dima a boost and still stay far enough away from anything that could threaten him. The Warriors stay put in and deploy scramblers in my deployment. Hormagaunts shift a little to give the Neurothrope space.
Psychic: 1 CP to give Neurothrope access to Onslaught. Use on left Dima. Catalyst on Hierophant. Swarmlord has nothing to do.
Shooting: Swarmlord launches Dima at Reavers. Heirophant takes d3 Mortal Wounds to get +1 to wound on his shooting. I roll a 1 for damage, and then a 5 to ignore it. Hot. He unloads 16 shots at the Ravager. My opponent spends a CP to give him -1 to hit. After invuls, 5 wounds make it thru doing a total of 15 damage. Scratch 1 Ravager.
Charge/Fight: Left dima multicharges 2 Venoms and Mandrakes. Succeeds. Right Dima charges Reavers. Succeeds. Right Dima mostly wiffs and only kills 2 Reavers. They pass their strength check. I was really hoping for feel no pain there but oh well. Left Dima splits his attacks between the Venoms and kills both with reroll to wounds. Mandrakes pass their strength check. Again was really hoping for some FNP but can't rely on it. The 2 venoms I popped had a Succubus, 5 bloodbrides and 6 incubi. 1 incubi died. He was forced to spend 2 CP to emergency disembark 6" so he didn't lose more. I decide to save the CP here and not fight twice. I'm holding 3 objectives, with a Dima's toe on 2 others (preventing him from deploying banners). Fighting twice just wouldn't gain me much for 3 CP.
Bottom Turn 1: Movement: Everything gets out of the left side venoms to kill the Dima. 1 Venom advances into my side of the board for Engage. Mandrakes disappear to deep strike next turn. Ravager 2 moves into range of right side dima but has to expose itself to do it. Middle Venom moves to right side objective. Right Venom unloads wyches and Succubus to charge Dima while the Venom advances into my table quarter for Engage. Wracks roll a 1 for advance, CP reroll into a 1. So they can't even reach the middle objective where the Hierophant is. Instead of exposing themselves, they move to the ruin wall in order to advance next turn onto that objective. Since he didn't want to just hand me that 3rd objective, he decides to move a Venom to it so he at least contests it. The Reavers on the right side fall 'back' onto the middle objective. He is unable to deploy banners because the Dimas are both touching an objective.
Shooting: Ravager rolls poorly and only wounds the right side dima once and I pass my save. Pistols and a Venom manage to knock of 4 wounds though. The Warriors inside the Venom do another 2 damage. The left side Dima absorbs all the pistols fine. The Venoms had to advance to get where they are so they can't shoot since their weapons are either Heavy or Rapid Fire. So that was a good shooting phase for me.
Charge/Fight: Everything charge the left dima. Wyches and Succubus charge the right dima. The left Dima can not interrupt because he can't fight until all other units have faught (incubi thing). He fights first with the Succubus on the right Dima and does 6 wounds. She then falls back after she fights so I can't kill her (apparently they can basically overrun without needing to be 3" away). I decide to interrupt anyway because I want to make sure that dima lives with as many wounds as possible. I kill 3 wyches with melee (gaining 3 wounds, putting me at 9) and then kill the rest with mortals, giving me permanent FNP. That's what I was hoping would happen. I then consolidate into the succubus so that if I fight again, I can pile-into the Venom. Drahzar BY HIMSELF kills the left side Dima... wtf. That guy is a beast. I'm left with a tough question though. I only have 3 CP left so I can either fight twice with the right side Dima, potentially removing a Venom and Succubus OR fight as a die with the left side Dima, potentially killing Drahzar, a Succubus and some Incubi with mortals. I decide that I want to remove his mobility and go for the Venom. What I've learned from playing against Eldar in general is that if you remove all their mobility (bikes and transports) then they become a lot easier to manage. So I let the left dima die without fighting. I fight again with the right Dima and split his attacks between the Venom and the Succubus (putting tail into Venom). Only 1 wound made it thru to the Venom dealing 4 damage, but then the tail finished it off. The Succubus failed 1 save and died. Giving me my first Assassinate points. 5 Warriors and the Hamonculus deploy from the Venom.
Points after 1: I have 3 for Assassinate, 3 for Grind Em Down, and deployed scramblers in my deployment zone. My opponent has 3 for Take em Alive, 3 for Engage and no Banners deployed. 6 to 6
Top of Turn 2: I get 10 for Primary.
Movement: My plan here is pretty simple. Destroy all the mobile units, then clean up. He only has 3 Venoms, a Ravager and 3 bikes that are highly mobile. So if I can get rid of all those this turn then I should be able to control the primary objective and prevent him from getting points for Engage. So I move the Dima to the right side Venom. I move the Swarmlord towards the 3 bikes on the middle objective. Hierophant moves to the left so that he can charge the Middle Venom, use his Torrent on the left Venom and shoot his primary guns at the Ravager. Neurothrope moves so that he can smite the left Venom because I want to make sure it dies. I decide it's not yet time to deploy the Devgants. I want his infantry to come out more. They're perfectly safe inside momma Hierophant. A Lictor arrives in the top right corner to deploy scramblers inside his deployment zone.
Psychic: Catalyst on Hierophant, Smite left Venom for 2 wounds. Swarmlord casts smite on right venom for 1 wound.
Shooting: Hierophant does everything I want him to do. His main guns delete the Ravager easily. His torrent deletes the left Venom easily. He does deal 2 wounds to himself though in order to get +1 to wound all those things. Swarmlord pushes himself towards the Reavers to guarantee a charge.
Charge/Assault: Right dima charges Venom. Swarmlord charges Reavers. Hierophant charges Venom. All targets get deleted. I use the 1 CP I gained this turn to overrun with the Hierophant back to basically where he started in order to make it a difficult charge for the Incubi to reach him. This turned out to be a HUGE play. Overall this turn went great. I destroyed all his mobility and ranged firepower and limited what he can do to me.
Bottom of Turn 2: He scores 10 for primary.
Movement: All his units can advance and charge from turn 2 onwards because of combat drugs, but he keeps rolling poorly for advances. He can finally deploy 2 banners this round and does so. His incubi are only able to get close enough for 9" charges. The wyches and succubus though are much faster and are able to get plenty close enough to the Hierophant to both charge and avoid overwatch if I had any CP to do it with. The wracks are also able to come out and get close enough to charge. One incubi unit stays back to deploy banner. The Archon moves moves forward to give reroll 1s to the newly arriving Scourges. The Scourges arrive behind the Incubi, able to shoot the Hierophant. The hamonculus on the right side deploys a banner. And the warriors just move to shoot the Lictor. His Mandrakes arrive in my deployment zone middle ruins.
Shooting: Warriors delete Lictor. Mandrakes shoot at my Warriors, killing 1 and wounding another. All his infantry advanced so they can't shoot their pistols. Scourges shoot at the Hierophant and manage to do nothing, mostly because they're -1 to hit since they moved.
Charge/Fight: Wyches, Succubus and Wracks charge the Hierophant. Incubi all fail their charges. I can't interrupt so he fights first with everything. After all was done, between my T8 5++ save and 5+++ FNP, he only did 4 wounds to the Hierophant putting him at 28 wounds remaining. The succubus fell back so I couldn't kill it. In return I put my 6 main attacks into the wyches and 10 attacks into the Wracks. The wyches passed all their 4+ invuls, and 3 wracks died. But then I rolled for the mortal wounds that the Hierophant does after he fights and kill 3 wyches but none of the wracks.
I score another 3 points for Grind em Down, nothing for Assassinate, and deploy scramblers in his deployment zone. He scores 3 for Engage and deployed 2 banners but nothing else. We each got 10 for primary. 19 - 16
Despite how 1 sided this is looking at the moment, he could still pull this out with points. So we keep playing.
Top Turn 3: I score 10 for Primary.
Movement: Now its time for the Devgants. They deploy 3 and move 6 to get into position for shots at the Succubus and the Scourges. They rolled poorly but those Scourges have high damage potential and they're fast so I want them dead. And the Succubus like all his characters do lots of damage, and they net me 3 points for Assassinate. The Dima moves into position to deal with the top right objective. The Swarmlord with him to help. A Lictor arrives on the middle objective to deploy my last scrambler. The Warriors run away from the mandrakes. Neurothrope moves to smite wyches (no LOS to succubus).
Psychic: Wyches die. Hierophant gets Catalyst.
Shooting: Heirophant dumps all his shots into Wracks and kills all but 1. He chooses to remove all models in engagement range. Devgants split fire and delete the Succubus and the Scourges. Swarmlord gives the Dima a boost over the wall.
Charge/Fight: Dima charges warriors. He can't quite multi charge the character. All the Warriors in top right die. Swarmlord and Dima hold the objective and remove the banner.
Bottom Turn 3: He scores 10 for Primary. 1 for Banner.
Movement: Incubi move up to charge Devgants and Hierophant. Drazhar goes for the Hierophant. The lone Wrack moves back to continue to hold the objective with obsec. Mandrakes move to the left where they can get LOS to the Devgants (he was afraid of overwatch and wanted to thin them out). The lone Hamonculus does nothing because he doesn't have any special weapons. He just stays on the objective to force me to remove him if I want to keep that objective and move my monsters away.
Shooting: Mandrakes kill 11 devgants.
Charge/Fight: 2 units of Incubi and Drazhar charge the Hierophant. 1 unit of Incubi charge the Devgants. The Devgants are wiped out. The Hierophant, after many attacks and many saves and FNP rolls... comes down to the last attack. I use a CP reroll to save him with 1 wound remaining. In return, the Hierophant puts all his 6 damage attacks into Drazhar, and his 10 other attacks into one of the incubi units. That incubi unit loses 3 models. Only 1 attack made it thru Drazhar defenses, and that would have killed him but he has -1 damage and 6 wounds. So he's left with 1 wound and I have no CP to Implant Attack. BUT WAIT, I could finish him with a 5+ mortal wound. Nope. He's still there. Oh well. At least the Hierophant gets to live to shoot another phase. A mortal wound does kill another Incubi so he's left with 1 model in that unit. He auto-passes morale with combat drugs on turn 3+.
Not killing the Hierophant was really bad for him. We continue to play but there's not much left he can do. I score 15 for Primary on turn 4, and 10 on turn 5 to max it at 45 points. He does manage to kill the Hierophant but not before Drazhar gets killed by the Hierophant's shooting. He does kill my Neurothrope and Hormagaunts by the end of the game, but is unable to do anything else. My Swarmlord runs all the way across the board to kill a unit of Incubi on Turn 4. Then he charges the Archon on turn 5 on the top left objective, but the Archon passes all his 2+ invuls. He manages to hold 2 at the end of turn 5 for 10 more points, putting him at 40 for primary. But banners hurt him a lot. We decided that scramblers would have been better, but even with scramblers he wouldn't have been able to win because I get so many points for Grind Em Down and Assassinate. Grind Em Down is basically an auto-take against an MSU army like his. And with 5 characters, most of which want to be in melee, assassinate is easy points too.
End of game points: 89 to 72 Tyranids win
So obviously the Hierophant worked well this game. He single handedly killed both Ravagers, 2 Venoms, Drazhar, 9 Wracks, 5 Wyches and 4 Incubi. And he successfully held 20 Devgants until the opportune time to deploy them allowing me to kill 5 Scourges and a Succubus. Going first helped a lot. If my opponent went first then the Ravagers could have killed a Dima, and the Venoms would have been more spread out so I couldn't remove them so easily. He'd also be able to coordinate a bigger charge against the Hierophant, possibly killing it in one fight phase rather than losing so much stuff to it. So I'm not convinced the Hierophant is worth it. But it was certainly fun to play.
I'm thinking about trying a different Hierophant list next time. Instead of pairing him with 2 Dimachaerons and Swarmlord, I want to try pairing him with 2 Barbed Hierodules and either zoanthropes or more gaunts. I haven't finalized the list yet but I hope to play again soon.
