Tyranids (Octarius) vs Space Wolves 2000pt Written Report

[stormcoil]

Hello Hive Mind! Today we have another battle report where I test out the new Tyranid rules from Octarius against a furious space wolves list. Check it out here:

www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/qhuqj2/tyranids_octarius_vs_space_wolves_2000pt_written/

Let me know what you think and good luck in your future games!

[kazetanade]

5 Dreads - that's a normally brutal list to go up against, and I haven't played against it myself.

Very good batrep and gameplan as usual - its good to see you're doing better with the damage orientated list.

A few things in my theory crafting so far that might be relevant:

-Leviathan buffs 1 thing to great heights, or 2 things to decent increase, or 3 things mediocre - so it lends itself well to waves of damage going out, so having a multi-turn action plan with a few key units works. Double devil, double GS both kinda fall under this header.

-If going 12 HG, I'm of the opinion to do 6 Kronos 6 Leviathan - 2+ rr1s exploding 6s feels really good, which you can then double with 3+ rr all exploding 6s for an extremely high level of output and a devastating alphastrike that you can only -stay out of range and don't score-, rather than stay out of sight hiding while scoring. 12 in Leviathan feels like overweight to me, as I don't like 12 HG intrinsically when the 2nd unit just feels like back up or dead weight (we know that 1 unit of HG is horribly priced for the output they get,
and they are only value when double shooting, so a 2nd unit has to have more damage output increase to justify).

- GS getting wiped out is a problem since mid 8th - Fliers, early charges, ILOS shooters like whirlwinds, etc. Your list was too lean IMO and had no defensive fallback at all. But that was also just getting caught out by an aggressive T1 play by a really savvy player who knows what kind of output that unit of incursors do. In my case, if I knew it was coming, I would have flipped around and load HG or TG into that front line and GS to the back, since those can absorb the charge a lot better with much less losses (or more likely for me and my lists, just load up fleshborers which I don't mind losing).

- devilgants on the board work as an amazing counter attack to people getting into your grill or into a more open midfield. Based on your map I would highly NOT recommend, but if it was more open, then Devilgants with +1 to hit, rr all, onslaught, and exploding 6s would actually bully alot of T4 or T7 chassis into submission. Vanvets are an example, and Dreadnoughts/Monster Mash are prime targets for devilgants. They would outperform HG with the same buffs into those chassis - they only perform very poorly into T5 elites or somewhat poorly into T6 9W buggy spam, specifically. You can get simple maths in my thread on Lists subforum.

- have not theorycrafted TG, but what you say about their weapons profile makes sense. I would say that the primary top competitive netlists encourage a high volume of 1D weapons, hence Genedtealers are in fashion if you can keep them safe, but TG as a specific tool seems really interesting. They would be pretty bad vs drukhari or AdM though.


Edit: I just looked at your table again to see where the GS were - one easy change you could have made was to keep the front row of GS alive and remove from the back instead, and have the front row stay 0.9" or approx 1" away from the wall. This way, because enemy models can't be physically placed within 1" (wall natural thickness makes within 1" impossible when done), they can't attack you through the wall - in this game, that meant the only unit that he could charge would have been SL, which would have ended very differently for him. This would have left you an easy kill on the top incursors thereafter, and allow you to screen the Erads coming in after that.

[No One]

stormcoil said:

Before the shooting starts we discuss how to treat mortal wounds from the contemptor. We don't see any rule directly on point about passing mortal wounds. There are some old 8th edition FAQs, but we aren't sure if they even still apply. In the end we agree that the mortal wounds can't be passed to the tyrant guard and will have to go on the catalyst save, but all the wounds from the regular weapons can be moved to the tyrant guard.

Why do you think MW would be different? T-guard are just 'lose a wound, don't lose a wound'. Note this does mean they don't stack with cat/Levi on the tyrant.

My opponent can't believe that all 3 macro plasma whiffed so badly. He really thinks that he should have killed or mostly killed the tyrant in that volley. I think that -1 to wound relic is necessary on a hive tyrant after seeing all those dice.

Macro plas are just OK ranged AT, more of a spike weapon that doesn't like invuls. Even without the -1 relic, with dense and cat you're looking at 4 wounds average.

Then his librarian swings and fails to do any damage.

You charged, so would be fight normal and thus go between.

He was careful to keep his wolves out of intervention range from my tyrant. He outnumbers me on the objective 2 to 1, so he scores 3 for direct assault and another 3 for stranglehold.

Obsec lasts till the start of your next command phase.

As for me, there were things I liked, things I didn't like, and changes I would make after this game. For things I liked... the devilgaunts are stupidly good with relentless fury to the point where it feels like an exploit to give them so many extra hits for 1 cp and I think it needs a fix. Perhaps upping the cp makes sense for units of 11+, although 1 cp doesn't seem too much for relentless fury on like 15 hormagaunts. I suspect what is needed to help balance the power is for devilgaunts to go back up in points to like 8 or 9 per model. Until this changes I want to start moving to taking 2 units of 30 devilgants, but it feels really overpowered and not good for the overall health of the game.

Eh, I'm not so sure: it feels a bit like a 'undercosted at 1/7, overcosted at 2/8': considering this is supposed to last us till Codex, it sort of depends a bit on where things end up, but unless there's big shake ups to bring the power level of the game down, it seems fine, just pushed to me. e.g. Skitarii are 8 ppm with a better gun, better body, and arguably better buffs. 9 is definitely no, especially since this is Leviathan only. When you consider delivery as well (and they're pretty mediocre without delivery), that was 5 CP. Well worth 5 CP, and a unit that then needs to be dealt with (though with no CP and no swarm leader, it's not super threatening shooting anymore), but still a considerable investment.

The bodyguard rule can lead to some pretty exploitive situations like what happened in this game, but I suspect that rule will change anyway when we finally get our codex.

...Yeah, um...*looks at updated bodyguard* that's not any better for exploitative situations, and is in fact worse.

Anyway, I think below covers most of it: the only other thing I want to comment on is the flyrant. Which feels...really hard to kill, but you're also investing a lot into it, with 2.5 WLT and a relic (.5 is because swarm leader's probably not going to be very helpful once the flyrant goes in). And I don't think it does enough to justify (I also disagree with the HVC over double scy tals for rrs and AP while being 20 pts cheaper, but if you're at that investment the shooting could maybe be better). -1 to wound feels sufficient, or at least it isn't worth the additional WLTs for -1 D: either they can dunk you (or at least combat kill), or...they can't and you're just too much of a bother and get ignored until their army is dead and they don't have the damage to close out anyway (like happened), or until your army is dead and then it doesn't really matter if they can't kill the flyrant because it just gets bothered if it can't get focused down.

kazetanade said:

-If going 12 HG, I'm of the opinion to do 6 Kronos 6 Leviathan - 2+ rr1s exploding 6s feels really good, which you can then double with 3+ rr all exploding 6s for an extremely high level of output and a devastating alphastrike that you can only -stay out of range and don't score-, rather than stay out of sight hiding while scoring. 12 in Leviathan feels like overweight to me, as I don't like 12 HG intrinsically when the 2nd unit just feels like back up or dead weight (we know that 1 unit of HG is horribly priced for the output they get,
and they are only value when double shooting, so a 2nd unit has to have more damage output increase to justify).

So, 12 hive guard give you output, redundancy (which is pretty nice since the 2nd is less efficient, so keeping one up keeps most of the firepower up), but I think the biggest thing is it spreads your threat. Not super relevant on HaA etc, but DoW being able to threaten both flanks is huge, especially since people often try to hide out of range. Then you can also double tap off the relevant one (and fury if needed). 12 with Kronos before was enough damage to win games against most lists if sustained, and warriors give that same in Levi now (with swarm leader and/or fury to give the difference). Kronos is still the better damage support, but it requires you to commit more points and CP upfront, when you're already committing quite a bit to damage that doesn't contribute in any other way. And if you can't score, screen and/or pressure to keep the HG up, you struggle (or lose if both).

somewhat poorly into T6 9W buggy spam

4+ save, they actually do pretty solid: IIRC same as HG (I know I've calc'd them at almost the exact same damage, but I'm not sure what buffs vs what buffs). Like, the damage output is really there if you can connect with all the buffs. Getting range and LoS, when you've got no good mobility options that work here? I guess if you've got good DZ terrain but nothing midfield could be solid, but that sounds just painful.

- have not theorycrafted TG, but what you say about their weapons profile makes sense. I would say that the primary top competitive netlists encourage a high volume of 1D weapons, hence Genedtealers are in fashion if you can keep them safe, but TG as a specific tool seems really interesting. They would be pretty bad vs drukhari or AdM though.

T-guard (as offence) feel like a tech piece for things that...don't really exist outside of Orks: multi-wounders usually have damage negs (dreads/DG), invuls (which hit stealers as well, but not quite as hard) and then you've also got stuff like transhuman for most of the T4 multi-wound. I guess GK are decent? And even into those good targets, stealers are usually/always better.

The advantage is that you're a decent bit more durable to low S/AP (and especially don't lose output as hard to non-marginal chip) and you can bodyguard Swarmy, but are also more vulnerable to multi-damage (which is more common on midfield brawlers, where you want to be if you're going for durability over glass hammer) and basically requires onslaught to get anywhere. Seems OK if you don't have the terrain to support stealers or have e.g. CWE meta, but if you don't have that then I don't think you've got the terrain to make t-guard work either.

[kazetanade]

No One For devilgants dropping out of the sky, it averages about for explody only, or 12D for reroll + explody (I think +1 also but not totally sure). For T5+ 3+. Assuming 4+, I think we're looking at 12W and 18W respectively. Devilgants with all buffs really outdamages nearly everything, losing only against Exos I think against 2+ sv T5 elites.

HG dont do as well as devilgants do, but its so hard to get devilgants in range when they need to be. HG are almost always in range. That would be the main thing.

[No One]

kazetanade said:

HG dont do as well as devilgants do, but its so hard to get devilgants in range when they need to be. HG are almost always in range. That would be the main thing.

Yeah, the main thing is threat range. HG have a lot, devilgants...don't, so sort of need strat reserve unless a counter shoot unit works (which is worse than counter-assault, because even if they're close for similar threat ranges, you need to worry about LoS, which melee doesn't). At which point you lose the crazy damage of full buffs.

And it was tesla+rrs vs Kronos+warrior link (though swarm leader+fury+warrior link accomplishes the same thing) that came out almost identical.

it averages about for explody only

Ah yes, an average of 'face' (I figured it out from copying, but was very confused for a while).

[forthehive]

Awesome report, love the details.

I got my 30 Devilgaunts ready for action. I'll try to bring em in with a lictor based on your battle report and that tasty leviathan strat. I have another lictor and ripper Swarms for engage and ROD. Maybe gargoyles with metabolic overdrive for engage points too.

My 6 hive guard for damage, broodlord for mastery, some warriors for bioweapon bond. All synaptic link buffs on either the devilgaunts or HG likely.

I like my neurothrope with resonance barb to sure more psychic buffs get off.

Not sure what else, ill just play test stuff depending on what size of games I play (1000-2000). Might run a tfex with acid spray as a distraction carnifex....I like them. Exocrine, which is another one of my fav.

I'd love to try a tervigon with its synaptic link buff for HG.

Lots of options now with octarius!

[garg]

Thanks for the battle report, i really enjoy them and well played.
One thing i didn't get is T3 where you debated damage reroll but instead you adrenal surge. I understood you only had 2 CP.