Tyranids (Octarius) vs Orks 2000pt Written Report

[stormcoil]

Hello Hive Mind! Today we have another battle report where I test out the new Tyranid rules from Octarius against an ork speed waaaaagh. Check it out here:


www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/qkkbxp/tyranids_octarius_vs_orcs_2000pt_written_battle/


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

[kazetanade]

I only caught a small thing - you can't redeploy the Warlord with redeploy, and our WLT strat is giving WL a 2nd WLT, not a 2nd character.

You caught Maleceptor not buffing whole army anymore, so no need to bring it up again.
But yea,
with AdM and Orks making use of these Fliers so much, double HG feels bad to me because we lose so much when they die.

The resilience of 3 warriors surprised me a lot there. I expected squigbuggies to perform better than that. 5 couldn't bring down 3 warriors is a big deal - really good bait. If he went straight for the Kronos HG or Neuro ,it might have been a diff story..

Good pickup on the squidbuggies as key targets. I don't know if you knew or just went right, but killing squidbuggies takes a lot of bite out of a Freebooterz list..

I'm surprised he didn't have any killrigs or Squigosaurs. The main Ork list I've had to tech for is bringing 2 Killrigs, 3 Dakkajets, 1 Wazbom, some mek guns, around 6-9 buggies and action monkeys. Killrigs are much scarier IMO compared to wBossses.

How do you feel about the Zoanthropes now that you've got to try most of the other main new toys? Still worth bringing?

[zimko]

I'm strongly considering Tyrant Guard after these reports. They are indeed the same speed or faster than Genestealers when advancing, deal a decent amount of damage, but so much more durable. In this matchup in particular, a unit of genestealers would be one of the first units targeted and probably would have been wiped sooner than the warriors since blast weapons would get their full number of attacks on the genestealers initially. But Tyrant Guard are just too durable to waste that kind of firepower on. And we need that melee threat to tie up shooting units. Plus they can survive overwatch.

I'm sorry your opponent gave up so early on game 1 but I am glad to have seen game 2 where you went 2nd. This kind of Ork list is the big boogyman right now that so many people are complaining about. I hate this meta of 'if you go second, this army will kill at least 25% of your army' but that's where we are.

[stormcoil]

Oh, I see what I did there, moving the malanthrope and it had both warlord traits. Easy enough fix in the first game, no need to have the malanthrope over where it was, it was just to put the pressure on.

The only reason the warriors lived was the dense terrain and the -1 damage strat. Normally the warriors would have been dead. One thing about freebooterz is that with how they work once they start shooting they pretty much have to keep going at the same target until it is dead.

I needed the squigbuggies and wazbom dead as they were hitting on 4s (5s after terrain/malanthrope). Once I got rid of his bs 4 it became really hard for him as he kept needing to hit on 6s.

As for his list, I think you will find it is closer to what has been winning GTs lately. Check out the latest few goonhammer articles where they cover the top orc lists. His list looks a lot more like those. In my groups the killrigs have not done well. They let orcs bleed secondaries to thousand sons, it doesn't let them take abhor, it gets stuck up on terrain, and has picked up the nickname "melta bait" in my group. But if they are working in your local meta than be sure to account for them.

Zoanthropes are good if you want to go psycher heavy, at least one with the link. However, swarmlord + tyrant guard is surprisingly tough for people to deal with as it is a lot of tough wounds wherever I want them. They do die if they get focused, but it takes a lot more work than killing a unit of genestealers for the exact same cost. Vulnerable to different weapons, but normally the kinds of weapons that threaten tyrant guard are the sorts of weapon platforms that hive guard eat on, so the two units really synergize together.

[zimko]

That's awesome. Are you sure about the Kronos detachment? In this game you had dense cover to sit in with the entire detachment but if the deployment was different... they'd have no dense cover and the freebooterz shooting would have taken out even more on turn 1. Though I suppose GW terrain has dense on table edge.

[stormcoil]

Nov 1, 2021 20:12:52 GMT zimko said:

That's awesome. Are you sure about the Kronos detachment? In this game you had dense cover to sit in with the entire detachment but if the deployment was different... they'd have no dense cover and the freebooterz shooting would have taken out even more on turn 1. Though I suppose GW terrain has dense on table edge.

I didn't like how much cp it took for me to run two leviathan units in my game against space wolves.  That said, going just leviathan does save you some cp and you can drop the cost of the neurothrope for something you want more.  I like being able to have two units of hive guard with exploding 6s though, and you can only do that with a kronos patrol.  All that said, I DO think you can make pure leviathan work.  And pure leviathan gives you more options for overlapping buffs (like with the maleceptor).

My group is basically only playing with GW terrain now.  It is what it is.  At least the boards feel pretty well balanced when you use it.

[stormcoil]

Nov 1, 2021 19:59:28 GMT zimko said:

I'm strongly considering Tyrant Guard after these reports. They are indeed the same speed or faster than Genestealers when advancing, deal a decent amount of damage, but so much more durable. In this matchup in particular, a unit of genestealers would be one of the first units targeted and probably would have been wiped sooner than the warriors since blast weapons would get their full number of attacks on the genestealers initially. But Tyrant Guard are just too durable to waste that kind of firepower on. And we need that melee threat to tie up shooting units. Plus they can survive overwatch.

I'm sorry your opponent gave up so early on game 1 but I am glad to have seen game 2 where you went 2nd. This kind of Ork list is the big boogyman right now that so many people are complaining about. I hate this meta of 'if you go second, this army will kill at least 25% of your army' but that's where we are.

I'd say proxy them for a game and see how you like them (tyrant guard).  They are different but bring some real advantages.  They do require leviathan buffs to really work though, which is a downside.

I liked them enough that I bought more since the book came out.  When I started this I only owned 5 of them, and I have since bought a box and built a 6th.

[zimko]

I already have 3 built and can easily magnetize 3 of the Hive Guard to give them crushing claws when I want them to be Tyrant Guard. Tho they won't have the shoulder fins. I'll try it out. I feel like having a resilient melee unit is just what we need for our 'gunline' tyranids. Warriors kind of fulfill that role but they just aren't lethal enough.

The most important aspect of Tyrant Guard in my opinion is that they're very hard to alpha strike. Genestealers just collapse to anything that can shoot them.

[stormcoil]

Nov 1, 2021 20:31:14 GMT zimko said:

I already have 3 built and can easily magnetize 3 of the Hive Guard to give them crushing claws when I want them to be Tyrant Guard. Tho they won't have the shoulder fins. I'll try it out. I feel like having a resilient melee unit is just what we need for our 'gunline' tyranids. Warriors kind of fulfill that role but they just aren't lethal enough.

The most important aspect of Tyrant Guard in my opinion is that they're very hard to alpha strike. Genestealers just collapse to anything that can shoot them.

This has been my experience as well.  I hate how fragile genestealers are any time I go second.  See also my space wolves game


As for your point about us needing durable melee, I agree completely.  This is why I raved so much about how the tyrant guard were filling the exact hole my army had in my game against the thousand sons.  It opens up so much more when your meleee unit isn't threatened by bolters or assault cannons.

[zimko]

I'm looking at putting everything in Levi, dropping rippers, neuro, 1 hive guard and 1 devgant to add a flyrant with HVC, MST and -1 to wound relic. The MVC is just to fish for Hunter's Prey (or is it Hunter's Drive? Whatever the strat is that gives 3d6 charge if a synapse unit shoots something) since Tyrant Guard may be making some long charges while the MST is just to make him a bit more lethal if I want to charge an aircraft or character. He can also activate the Levi strat for reroll 1s to hit and wound for the Tyrant Guard if he can reach the same target as them in melee.

Dropping 1 Hive Guard I think is acceptable since that unit will only be able to get a +1 to hit buff. It can go after wayward objective campers or finish off vehicles that didn't quite die.

My local terrain doesn't have dense cover in every deployment zone like GW terrain so I really don't want to dip into Kronos.

[No One]

I roll the dice the first time, and then I pick up all the 1-5s as I am just fishing for 6s, roll again and then count up the 5s and 6s.

Keep the 5s: only fish with prime or hitting on 2s (i.e. not devilgants). You're turning your hit into 2/3 of a hit.

If I knew I was going to kill it so hard I might have split fire.

Probably, but only since you were double tapping: most of the time you'd probably not kill either, and considering they don't bracket in anything relevant until 3 wounds left...

Hmmm, not sure how I feel about this one.

I think they were mostly right, but may have had a chance: there's not much relevant shooting there. Could maybe have fallen back, focused down the t-guard with everything (maybe proccing off the Kronos warriors?), kommandos tagged the gaunts (but risky 'cause overwatch). And then you've still probably got 12 HG: less buffed, and maybe there's some luck in shooting and the warriors die to mekguns, wazzbom+scrapjet kills the t-guard, and then dakkajet kills the hive guard. But also there's no/less defensive buffs, and Swarmy's just sitting nearby.

I then go to use encephalic diffusion on my maleceptor to create a bubble of -1 strength as well. I notice to my horror that the strat has been changed in the new book from effecting "friendlies" to only effecting "hive fleet". Well, if the maleceptor can't help kronos no point in spending the cp, so I let him continue.

It's start of the turn unless they changed that?

but he tells me that -1 to hit is worse for orks.

*looks at Freebooterz snowball* Yes but no on that.

Anyway, good stuff! Orks very much feels like a match up where it's mostly just a 50/50 T1 roll off, but good to see the hit negs blunted the snowball to allow you to close it in your favour. Still not sure how I feel about the t-guard (seem reasonable for sure, but reasonable vs optimal?)

kazetanade said:

The resilience of 3 warriors surprised me a lot there. I expected squigbuggies to perform better than that. 5 couldn't bring down 3 warriors is a big deal - really good bait. If he went straight for the Kronos HG or Neuro ,it might have been a diff story..

Good pickup on the squidbuggies as key targets. I don't know if you knew or just went right, but killing squidbuggies takes a lot of bite out of a Freebooterz list..

I'll sort of disagree with this: squigbuggies output is actually pretty meh. 2d6 S5 -2 D2? It's just OK, it's the ignores LoS and innate +1 that makes it good, to target weak units and proc freebooterz. But outside silly things to have on board (e.g. rippers/lictors) we don't really have much in the way of easy T1 procs for them. Warriors? -1 D, even with no buffs you'd need >3 squigbuggies (or probably 3 with one being nitro) to get the kill on average. Terms? Similar story. Chuck in mal/dense/'cepter and they can't really secure the easy kills. Arguably the correct targets (outside easy plane kills) because they can freely get to the HG. But once you move into LoS, scrapjets win, even without Freebooterz.

Where I think it might have been a mistake was going for the procs, rather than just going for important kills: dump all the squigbuggies into HG and you kill most, wazzbom to clean up (or first for blast), now you've got your proc and can snowball and a more important unit's dead anyway. Alternatively, wazzbom/mek guns/right scrapjets into warriors to try and start the chain/get lucky respectively.

stormcoil said:

I didn't like how much cp it took for me to run two leviathan units in my game against space wolves.

Unless you're going all Kronos, pure Levi is (sort of) cheaper CP, because you don't spend the CP on the det. The 2nd Levi unit doesn't cost CP (unless you're burning the 2 CP for Kronos, which...don't). It's just flurry, which you were using anyway because you still had a Levi HG. The thing for me is it also saves 95 pts on a neuro, which I think can be worth, but not when it's basically just giving rr 1s (which you can still get with WLT) over just flurry in Levi. I think either can work depending on list, but with mal/'cepter, I really don't think you half measure it.

[stormcoil]

Nov 2, 2021 5:47:48 GMT No One said:

Unless you're going all Kronos, pure Levi is (sort of) cheaper CP, because you don't spend the CP on the det. The 2nd Levi unit doesn't cost CP (unless you're burning the 2 CP for Kronos, which...don't). It's just flurry, which you were using anyway because you still had a Levi HG. The thing for me is it also saves 95 pts on a neuro, which I think can be worth, but not when it's basically just giving rr 1s (which you can still get with WLT) over just flurry in Levi. I think either can work depending on list, but with mal/'cepter, I really don't think you half measure it.

Thank you for all of your thoughts.  I am debating on pure levi vs the split.  If I go pure levi then my maleceptor actually has 3 options of units to buff with reroll damage instead of just 2, and the whole army can potentially benefit from the -1 str when I go second on a bad matchup.  If I went pure leviathan though I'm not sure I would go with two units of warriors, I might drop the second unit of warriors and the neuro to pick up a broodlord again with his link (which I really like on tyrant guard or swarmlord).  I agree I think the biggest problem with the kronos patrol is the cost of the neurothrope more than the cp.

[brianb9999]

I think you've convinced me to try tyrant guard, gotta bust out my ~5th edition little beetle boys. Think I'm going to try 2 tyrannofex with 1 unit of hive guard, I like how resilient they are in leviathan with maleceptor Strat. I used to like having them contest midfield objectives...now I can reroll damage as needed and make them obsec. The possibilities abound!

[kazetanade]

No One the right play for the Orks there is for Nitro + 2 squidbuggies into the Kronos HG to start - but no one thinks that unless they know our army inside out.

And also yes, squidbuggies are one of the keys precisely because they start the chain consistently - the Male/Mala + only big units is hard tech to vs them but otherwise they would have picked up those 3 man warriors or 10 man gargs or 10 man terms etc. If you remove squidbuggies, it becomes much harder for them to proc said freebooterz snowball to get started, they basically rely on their hard hitter to get it started so what's left doesn't scare you as much.

stormcoil I would say go full Leviathan. If leveraging the Maleceptor, you don't want a piece that's not able to benefit from any buffs whatsoever. (But likewise, I hate on double Levi HG as its basically just a back up unit most of the game with relatively low impact for its cost). That Kronos HG doesn't really cost us 270 - it costs us 270+95+75, which is way too much for the little bit of damage uptick we get from Kronos rr1s and 2nd explodes.