2k Pure Kraken Competitive and fun

[zimko]

My Kronos/Kraken list is pretty much fully developed and has no more room for changes without significantly changing the list. So I decided to try a mono-kraken list that could handle the current Admech meta forming in my local environment while still being able to take on Drukhari.

Kraken Battalion
HQ
- Hive Tyrant: Wings, Adrenal Glands, Resonance Barb, Warlord, Heavy Venom Cannon, M. Rending Claws, Onslaught, Psychic Scream - 210
- Swarmlord: Catalyst, Paroxysm - 270
Troops
- 10 Hormagaunts - 60
- 10 Hormagaunts - 60
- 20 Termagants: Devourers - 140
- 30 Termagants: Devourers - 210
Elites
- Lictor
Fast Attack
- Dimachaeron - 230
- Dimachaeron - 230
Heavy Support
- Barbed Hierodule: Dermic Symbiosis - 275
- Barbed Hierodule: Dermic Symbiosis - 275

Not having Kronos obviously loses a decent amount of firepower. But, 2 Barbed Hierodules and a Flyrant with a Venom Cannon is still enough to crack open a transport or two, and to threaten other long range shooting. For admech specifically, it's enough to kill a flyer or lascannon chicken walkers. 

I had a lot of success with 50 devgants in my last Major. Admech tech-priests are afraid of them and every drukhari unit is afraid of them. Space Marine variants are not afraid of their shooting, but 50 obsec bodies is still very useful against them.

Resiliency is key to this list. In most of my games, if I didn't go first then my opponent was either too far away to be able to kill anything, or could only focus down 1 big monster (usually the Exocrine because i had to deploy him somewhat exposed to be effective). The Barbed Hierodule though was either ignored or barely scratched. He absorbed so much damage that having 2 of them would be overwhelming.

Best of all though, is this list is so much easier to play than the kraken/kronos list. I don't need to worry about Hive Guard positioning and how I need to babysit them. I don't need to play footsie with my opponent's LOS ignoring shooting. I can just plunk the big boys down and surround them with gants.

For secondaries, it has easy access to the triple 'dont interact with your opponent' secondaries. Engage on All Fronts, Scramblers and WWSWF (Swarmlord and both Hierodules). Making the Hierodules WWSWF messes with target priority for the opponent. They're the hardest unit in the army to kill, and yet are worth a lot of VP for me if they live.

[kwisatzhaderach]

Looks like a really solid list.
I'd been playing around with something similar but I had a unit of Hive Guard in lieu of another Dimachaeron, and one less unit of Devgants.
However, I think your version is far superior since it's all in one detachment, as you noted.

Of note, it does seem like Admech are losing some of their scouting abilities so that should be an interesting development, even if they do seem to be getting buffs out the wazoo (like they needed them) everywhere else.

[puppylaser]

Any reason you took Kraken instead of Levithan? I haven't had much use for Kraken since 9th Edition, especially with the Swarmlord's double move. Also, any reason why you gave the Swarmlord Catalyst? I feel like the Resonance Barb Hive Tyrant would have better chances of getting it off.

How did the Barbed Hierodules go? Any better than just taking the Scythed Heirodules?

[zimko]

Kraken provides so much more speed for the termagants. A unit of Levi gants could at most move 12" but most likely only moving 8 to 9 inches. A Kraken unit is averaging 11 inches, and has the potential to go 18"... basically twice the movement. This gives them a really good tactical advantage for clearing smaller units that are hiding in terrain, and getting obsec bodies onto objectives.

The double advance stratagem also opens the possibility for both Dimachaerons to reach melee on turn 1 if the opportunity arises.

As for the Tyrant powers, it's more of a personal choice. With the Flyrant's mobility, I like to have the ability to deal extra mortals with him. He can place himself in a good location to smite/scream a character that the Swarmlord wouldn't be able to reach. Onslaught of course MUST go off and is thus required on the res barb tyrant. The Swarmlord is the most likely unit to become a 'tarpit' monster, so I like to keep Catalyst on him so that he can always cast it on himself when needed.

Barbed Hierodules provide pretty good ranged firepower. Without their long-range guns, my opponents would have free reign to deploy and move wherever they want without worrying about obscuring terrain, because I would have nothing long ranged to hide from. I would definitely use Scythed Hierodules if their flamers were Assault weapons. Without the ability to advance and shoot, they are effectively unable to do anything for a turn. And depending on terrain, they may be zoned out of the fight for 2 turns. 48" range guns on 8" movement platforms can't be outranged.

I've used the Barbed Hierodule before in a Kraken/Kronos list at 2 GTs now. It's a great unit that is hard to shift and has consistent damage with Dermic Symbiosis. So I want to try 2.

[zimko]

Assuming the leaks are true, and I think they are, then this is the adjusted army list:

Kraken Battalion
HQ
- Hive Tyrant: Wings, Adrenal Glands, Resonance Barb, Warlord, Heavy Venom Cannon, M. Rending Claws, Onslaught, Psychic Scream - 210
- Swarmlord: Catalyst, Paroxysm - 240
Troops
- 10 Hormagaunts - 60
- 10 Hormagaunts - 60
- 20 Termagants: Devourers - 140
- 30 Termagants: Devourers - 210
- 18 Genestealers - 234
Elites
- Lictor - 37
Fast Attack
- Dimachaeron - 255
Heavy Support
- Barbed Hierodule: Dermic Symbiosis - 275
- Barbed Hierodule: Dermic Symbiosis - 275

1996 total

I'm in a discord with the top Admech players as they theorycraft the new codex and it looks like they're going to be playing a lot of T3 infantry. That makes Genestealers more attractive to me. And since Dimachaerons went up 25 pts, I figured I'd try replacing a Dimachaeron with Genestealers.

[piersonsmuppet]

What about shifting the numbers to have the 2nd Devgant unit at 29 and the GS at 13? You lose 20/15 WS3+, 4S, -1AP attacks, but gain 27 BS4+, 4S (w/ rr1's), 0AP shots. I still think it will be tricky getting 18 GS into engagement or 1/2 of 1/2, so the loss of bodies might not be huge. They also become easier to hide, and can still do some good work T1 if needed. I think Devgants would carry more weight into a T3 meta, the rr1's to wound are almost as good as -1ap. More opportunities to get full use out of SMA is a welcome bonus too.

Thinking out it, they fill such a similar role that I question whether just having more Devgants is better. The only real advantages I see is that they benefit from SL, no need for onslaught, and can reposition if wiping an isolated unit, but I'm not convinced they will outdo Devgants moving ~16". Couple that with SMA being 1CP cheaper than AS and Devgants not being bound by charge limitations, and GS look even less appealing imo. Behemoth is the big winner from GS pts drop imo, but Kraken's GS still look meh to me. I think if you want to run GS in Kraken, the fleet power might be more important than Scream to help ensure most of the 18 GS bodies actually get into combat.

[zimko]

They each have their merits on offense. With the new points cost of genestealers, we can almost directly compare 2 devgants to 1 genestealer. 6 shots vs 4 attacks. Strength 4. One rerolls 1s to wound. The other can reroll 1s to hit IF the target only has invul saves (wyches and harliquins). AP 1 vs AP 0 and some AP 3 and 4s mixed in. So it really depends on the target you're attacking.

But defensively I think genestealers come out ahead. T4 and a 5+ invul makes up for the lack of total wounds (half the wounds roughly). And of course they're more mobile and have the option of overrun to hide after attacking.

I like both, so I want to have options during the game. I don't think either is a clear upgrade over the other anymore.

Hormagaunts though... I've been thinking about just straight up replacing them with genestealers. A min unit of 5 genestealers is only 5 points more than 10 hormagaunts, but is able to advance and charge and is T4 with 5++ but half the wounds. I'm tempted to try out small units of genestealers instead of hormagaunts so that they can skirmish better.

[piersonsmuppet]

I like that idea, especially in Kraken. The option to charge after advancing for more movement to an objective instead of only having MO for additional distance is good I think. GS are exactly equal to Horms in effective W's vs S4 w/ 1+AP, so most weapons that will come eithers way. So maybe the option (based on survival) to run them comes down to how much S5 or S4 0AP weapons occupy the meta vs S4 1+AP or S3/6 weapons.

[nidzy]

May 29, 2021 7:06:51 GMT zimko said:

Assuming the leaks are true, and I think they are, then this is the adjusted army list:

Kraken Battalion
HQ
- Hive Tyrant: Wings, Adrenal Glands, Resonance Barb, Warlord, Heavy Venom Cannon, M. Rending Claws, Onslaught, Psychic Scream - 210
- Swarmlord: Catalyst, Paroxysm - 240
Troops
- 10 Hormagaunts - 60
- 10 Hormagaunts - 60
- 20 Termagants: Devourers - 140
- 30 Termagants: Devourers - 210
- 18 Genestealers - 234
Elites
- Lictor - 37
Fast Attack
- Dimachaeron - 255
Heavy Support
- Barbed Hierodule: Dermic Symbiosis - 275
- Barbed Hierodule: Dermic Symbiosis - 275

1996 total

I'm in a discord with the top Admech players as they theorycraft the new codex and it looks like they're going to be playing a lot of T3 infantry. That makes Genestealers more attractive to me. And since Dimachaerons went up 25 pts, I figured I'd try replacing a Dimachaeron with Genestealers.

I hope you don’t mind I used this list tonight on a whim against a guy on my team playing Lucius admech set up to take advantage of the apparently busted things in the book. It was his second game with the army. Not sure if he is optimized but he’s a top 100 itc player with a great mind for list writing. I have been playing raven guard almost all of 9th and only have a few games in with nids so I was rusty. This list does kill admech really well. He killed all the bodies by t2 after he went first and we quit but i had a chance to win going second. I fought twice with stealers into rangers when I should have wrapped and and taxed his cp but more importantly failed to shoot twice with the gants to have crippled his squad of vanguard. I also failed catalyst on the stealers after I chose to reroll onslaught on the gants. In this context I should have saved it for the catalyst roll.

Anyway I thought I would share this as tax for snagging your list for a game

His list had (from haven’t read the book memory)

2 maniplus
Coteaz

20 vanguard
20 ranger

6 lascannonbutbetter ironstriders
10 pteraxii

20 electro priests (the fighty ones, deepstrike with Lucius)

3 bombers

[N.I.B.]

"This list does kill admech really well". Promising.
"He tabled me turn 2". Reality check.

[nidzy]

Jun 3, 2021 13:56:45 GMT N.I.B. said:

"This list does kill admech really well". Promising.
"He tabled me turn 2". Reality check.

He killed 100 gaunts in two turns which isn’t really that shocking. And he wouldn’t have done it that easily if I’d played the game adequately