2k Harridan ALL IN triple detachment

[zimko]

I've played the Kraken/Kronos list to death. (Kronos patrol, Kraken battalion with double dimas and devgants). I love the damage output of Kronos. The Dima can be hit or miss. Swarmlord is always reliable. Devgants are great.

I have never liked the role of the Flyrant in that list. He's a decent unit but just OK for how much he costs. Sometimes, the Kronos guns are just not enough to take down a hard target and you end up being overwhelmed. I can reliably go 3 and 2 at a GT with that list.

So recently I wanted to dive into the big boys. I took a Hierophant to a GT and went 3 and 2 (there's another post here talking about that list). But now I want to try the Harridan. After 6 games with the Hierophant, I found that alone he can't reliably kill 2 Drukhari raiders with ranged attacks. That is a minimum requirement to defeating Drukhari and it showed because both my losses at the GT were against Drukhari. I also recently lost to my friend's Drukhari list using a Harridan for the same reason. You just have to crack open those cans from ranged so that your melee elements or devgants can kill the contents. Otherwise, the Drukhari player will get to pick and choose his combats (Incubi to slaugher Dimas, Wyches to slaughter devgants...etc).

So now I'm left with a delima. The Harridan is great in so many matchups, but he needs more ranged help. This means taking Kronos. However... I feel like the Dima/Swarmlord combo is a very important threat to have. So here's my attempt at throwing it ALL IN.

Kronos Patrol
- Neurothrope: WARLORD, Resonance Barb, Symbiostorm 95
- 3 Warriors: Scy Talons 51
- 6 Hive Guard: Enhanced Resistance 270
- Exocrine: 170
Kronos Super Heavy Aux
- Harridan: Dermic Symbiosis
Kraken Patrol
- Swarmlord: Onslaught, Catalyst 240
- 21 Termagants: 20 Devourers, 1 Flesborer 145
- Lictor: 37
- Lictor: 37
- Dimachaeron: 255

2000 pts and 8 CP

Where is it weak? Screens and obsec/scoring
Where is it strong? Scaring the (please do not swear) out of my opponent.

It has everything scary about Tyranids in one list. There's the threat of a 40" move from the Dima to charge something your opponent doesn't want charged. It has Hive Guard which can shoot whatever they want in range. It has the Exocrine which is a great space marine killer. It has 20 devgants, which are not as potent as the usual 30 devgants but are still a threat to units like wyches. And of course it has the Harridan, who is a scary unit on it's own but now has the potential of getting symbiostorm.

I still have the 2 Lictors and a unit of Warriors to try and get Retrieve Octarius. I hope that with so many large threats, these units can get the secondaries done. 

[beetlejuice]

It’s not the same but a scythed dule instead of dima would make your to the last targets less exposed (harridan, hive guard and swarmlord instead of dima). You can’t bully backline in the same way but 2x12” move + opp adv/onslaught +charge is still fairly mobile even with a clunky base and not ignoring terrain. More of a counter charge unit/midfield holder, decent overwatch too.

I’d try it your way first but if you have trouble scoring it could be an option.

[zimko]

Sept 17, 2021 14:12:04 GMT beetlejuice said:

It’s not the same but a scythed dule instead of dima would make your to the last targets less exposed (harridan, hive guard and swarmlord instead of dima). You can’t bully backline in the same way but 2x12” move + opp adv/onslaught +charge is still fairly mobile even with a clunky base and not ignoring terrain. More of a counter charge unit/midfield holder, decent overwatch too.

I’d try it your way first but if you have trouble scoring it could be an option.

I like that idea. It's something I'll consider after a game or 2. In either case, in a game where To The Last is a decent option, this list is still good for 10 points. A Dima, while usually suicidal, has survived games for me before. Just depends on matchup.

[zimko]

I took this list to a local tournament, modifying it by removing the 3 Warriors and 20 devgants to add 2 units of 10 hormagaunts, 3 rippers and a unit of 10 regular termagants. This gave me much better time scoring.

I went 1 and 3 at the tournament. Won vs Necrons but lost against Death Guard and the new Orks.

I'm honestly not feeling the Harridan over the Hierophant. The Harridan doesn't deal enough damage in my opinion, and being unable to hold objectives also hurts a lot. But I'll get back to that after the brief on each game.

Against Death Guard the Harridan's shooting at flat 4 damage was quite effective against their terminators, but it was a good mission for Death Guard (5 objectives) and I couldn't stop him from maxing primary. The final score was 91 to 87. I missed 5 points on Primary for turn 2 because I only had a flimsy gant unit on my second objective and couldn't get anything else over there in time, which gave me 40 points for primary instead of 45, costing me the game. I couldn't help but feel that if I had a Hierophant instead, I could have easily sat him on a second objective scoring me 10 points on that turn. As it was, my opponent shot off my gants with deep striking terminators and there was nothing I could have done to stop it.

Game 2 vs Necrons. My opponent brought an un-optimized fun list with only 10 models. 3 Doomscythes, 2 Doomsday Arcs, 2 Command Barges, 1 Stalker, 1 Monolith, and 1 other skimmer who's name I don't remember but it looked like a larger Command Barge. On turn 1 the Harridan split fired at the Doomscythes and killed 1 and badly wounding another. But with a stratagem, that Doomscythe acted at full efficacy. I did a scattering of wounds on other stuff with the Exocrine but the Hive Guard were outranged. (A common theme with Hive Guard. My opponents know of them and always make sure valuable targets are well out of range for at least turn 1.) In the end tho, my opponent's units were just too slow. I was able to shoot him down and outscore him. At the end of the game, he only had 3 models remaining.

Game 3 vs Orks. So the new Orks are devestating. I was tabled by turn 3 and it was all done with shooting. He took 2 Aircraft that each had 2d6 shots at strength 9, ap -2 (-3 for 2 turns with waagh), damage d3+3... plus another gun with d3 shots, strength 8, ap 5, damage d6, and then another 12 shots at strength 6, ap 2 damage 1. Being aircraft, one of those got an angle to shoot at my Hive Guard and killed 4 of them on turn 1. Thanks to the new waaagh giving all Ork vehicles +1 to their AP... I only got a 6+ save on the Hive Guard.
Oh and that same jet killed a unit of 10 termagants... and when an Ork kills a unit with shooting, all other Orks in the army get +1 to hit for the remainder of the phase. (The BS of a jet is 4+)
On top of these 2 jets, they also had Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies... each are 90 points and come with.... 9 wounds, T6, 5++ save for 1 turn (overloaded kustom forcefield)... 2d6 shots at 36" range, ignore LOS, strength 5, ap 3, damage 2. This weapon gets +1 to hit at all times (BS 5+). Plus another weapon at 18" range that is identical to the previous but only 1d6 shots.
Then there are Megatrakk Scrapjets for 90 pts with the same defensive profile as the Rukkatrukk but different weapons. These bring volume. 2 guns with Dakka 10/6 (like rapid fire but with 10 shots instead of doubling to 12), strength 5, ap 1, damage 1. Then also a 24" rokkit cannon with 3d3 shots, strength 8, ap 3, damage 3.

These vehicles are nuts. The Harridan split fired and killed 4 of them in 2 turns before getting hosed down out of the sky by a bombardment of rokkits and shrapnel. The Exocrine killed 1 plane. The Dima killed the Warboss but that doesn't turn off the waaagh once it is started. An Ork army can fit an asinine number of these vehicles into a 2k list and there's nothing Tyranids can take that can survive this nonsense for more than a few turns. It's honestly the most lopsided game I've ever played in 9th edition. And his list wasn't even that optimized.

The only game he lost is because a previous game ended before turn 5 and he went second against White Scars, so he lost out on an easy 15 points at the end. We do pairing randomly now between similar win/loss records instead of with battle points so I got the lucky draw against Orks because we were both 1 and 1. But I'm glad I got to experience this mess first hand so I'm not as surprised at a larger tournament.

Anyway, Harridan vs Hierophant? I want to Hierophant back on the table. Being able to hold an objective with him, and that flamer to deter chargers, is such a nice bonus for only 150 pts more. Losing 'Hard to Hit' isn't a big deal IMO. So much stuff just doesn't care about -1 to hit. Plus I can hide 2 units of Hormagaunts in the Hierophant's belly to use for Engage and objectives later in the game, that's always a nice little bonus too. And then on top of all that, having 6 attacks instead of 5, plus 10 extra smaller attacks is another nice perk for that 150 pts. The movement of the Harridan barely mattered. It might have given me a couple extra Engage pts but that's about it.