Post by brianb9999 on Jan 12, 2022 12:50:46 GMT
So I finally have a chance to recap my results from over the weekend bringing my Crusher Stampede to my first GT in 2 years. It was a 68 person event with a wide range of armies, with pretty much everything except Tau/GSC getting representation, including 5-6 Tyranid players. I finished 3-2, good for 25th place. Of note, Thousand Sons took down the event, and a triple Dimachaeron list came in third, beating out the likes of Brad Chester and Tom Ogden. I was mostly happy with my performance, though I completely misplayed game 3, which was definitely winnable, and realized after the fact that I got cheated in round 2. Ultimately, the blame falls on me for those 2 losses, but I was competitive in every game, and was really able to stick it to 2 opponents just by virtue of going first. Anyway, the list:
Flyrant: Warlord (Rampaging Beast), Wings, Adrenal glands, Monstrous Boneswords, Monstrous Rending Claws, Synaptic Barrier, Aggressive Surge, Alpha-leader Beast (swapped WLT for Murderous Size), Relic: Synaptic Hive Blades
Flyrant: Wings, Adrenal glands, 2x2 Devourers, Catalyst, Psychic Scream, Relic: Biomorphic Carapace
Swarmlord: Onslaught, Catalyst
3 Warriors: 2x2 Scything Talons, Bioweapon Bond
3 Warriors: 2x2 Scything Talons, Bioweapon Bond
3 Warriors: 2x2 Scything Talons, Bioweapon Bond
Haruspex: Murderous Size (maw)
6 Hive Guard: Impaler Cannons
Tyrannofex: Acid Spray
Tyrannofex: Acid Spray
Harpy: 2x Heavy Venom Cannon
Harpy: 2x Heavy Venom Cannon
1998 points
9 CP
I'm actually really happy with the list. However, though it was allowed for this event, I heard there might be a WTC ruling about not being able to swap the ALB WL trait for adaptive physiology, even though I only had 2 in the list. So I might end up swapping the haruspex for a Trygon in the future, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Game 1: Vital Intelligence vs Necrons
My opponent was running a warrior-heavy (70) Mephrit list with the Void Dragon, a Ghost Ark (I think), some scarab swarms, and characters interspersed. I took data intercept, engage, and TTL (Swarmlord, hive guard, shooty Flyrant). I got first turn, and executed my plan of just moving onto every objective, having the back unit of warriors data intercept, and just kill what I could. My plan was to get the murder Flyrant in and kill the ghost ark, buff his AP by 1, and overrun back since his list wasn't very fast or long-ranged. I realized after moving him to the middle and casting every buff on him that it had 10 warriors inside that could just pop out and ruin my plan. So I decided that since his Void Dragon was exposed, I could double shoot my Hive guard and charge with the Flyrant, using braking through to deal 3 mortals in the charge phase, and thus finish him in the fight phase. My opponent did not realize I could do this and I felt bad about not telling him about the Strat afterwards, but there's just so many rules to explain about Leviathan Crusher Stampede to someone not familiar with Tyranids. Anyway, the Flyrant finished off the Void Dragon, then died in the Necron turn to a hail of shooting, but the damage had been done. He was never able to recover and made the mistake of choosing banners while never being able to take the primaries away from me. 94-16 win to start day 1.
Game 2: Overrun vs Orks
I played against one of our local Ork enthusiasts who was bringing 3 kill tanks filled with meganobz and Boyz, as well as a warboss on bike, 3 rukkatruks, some MSU Stormboyz, and a few other scattered units. He ended up taking the Ork secondary Get the Good Bitz, which I trusted him on how it worked since we have played before, but realized after the fact that he should not have been able to do this on both of his home field objectives. This could have completely changed the outcome of the game, but I also could have been smarter about how I played and picked secondaries as I chose TTL, banners, and engage. Going second, I didn't lose much first turn, but it allowed him to position himself closer to me and hurt my chance at maxing banners. I think I needed to really go after the Kill Tanks after nearly destroying the rukkatruks, but I got caught trying to kill his small Boyz units to prevent Get the Good Bitz. So I was not able to trade efficiently, and when I was finally able to kill one of the tanks in combat, it exploded and prevented me from fighting and using my haruspex in the following turn, so the game quickly went downhill from there. This ended in a 94-46 loss for me.
Game 3: Secure Missing Artefacts vs Sisters
By this time, I wasn't feeling the greatest, and I was trying to keep it together to finish the day 2-1. I was up against a Sacresant-heavy list with Vahl, Celestine, Cannoness, preacher, 3 units of melta retributions, and a few battle sister squads. This was the new Priority Target mission with no mission secondary (and we were still using the rules for 2021 secondaries in all games) so I chose Stranglehold, TTL, and Warp Ritual. After getting first turn, capturing 4 objectives, and tanking a large amount of melta fire on his first turn, I picked up all the retributors on my turn 2 and was feeling pretty good. However, this was where the game turned, as I tried to ritual on turn 2, and it was ruled that he could use his 4+ deny Strat on the psychic action, canceling it (not sure if that is right or not). So now my smashy Tyrant was right at midfield, and I chose not to use breaking through on my haruspex, who bounced off the Sacresants as he made all 5 or 6 invul saves. On his turn, he announced that his Cannoness had the ability to create an aura of ignore invuls, and the murder tyrant got crushed without having a chance to do any damage. At this point, I was just trying to salvage as many points as I could, and ended up falling 82-56. I wish I had known about that aura, but also after the game I was kicking myself for not taking assassinate instead of Warp Ritual. I was planning to go punk Vahl on my turn 3 with the Flyrant, and I could've at least gotten everything but maybe Celestine. I also could have played on the perimeter rather than commit to the middle against an army that wants to be there, but it was also my first game against sisters in 9th. So I took my loss and hoped for the best on day 2.
Game 4: Sweep and Clear vs Drukhari
My opponent was running an "older" meta-style list with Obsidian Rose (I think, extra range on weapons) and Cult of Strife with 5 raiders, 2 venoms, Drazhar, Archon, Succubus, and a mix of good infantry. Knowing the missions ahead of time, I was a little concerned about this matchup because my plan going in was to take Stranglehold, Direct Assault, and TTL, and just play on half the board. However, this list was super fast and could screw me over by doing a similar strategy (and he did pick direct assault). However, he did remind me that his list gives up Grind very easily, so I took that instead of TTL, and...won the roll-off. Now he admittedly hadn't played much for about a year, but I thought his deployment was decent, as my hive guard were actually in front of my corner objective behind a wonderful obscuring ruin, but only had range to a venom and 1 raider. He did seem surprised that they ignored LOS, however, and had evidently been playing his dark lances as d6 damage on the first day because I had to remind him they were in fact much better. On my first turn, I shoved the haruspex onto the middle objective with all the defensive buffs, moved to one corner with harpy and tfex, moved other harpy to the far corner, and other tfex in dense with range to both middle and far corner objective. Had to burn 3 CP for exploding 6's and double shoot with hive guard to just barely kill the 2 vehicles in their rang (with shooting from both harpies as well). He decided to go after both harpies on his first turn and killed them both, but made no play for the middle, evidently not wanting to toy with the 3+/4++/5+++ haruspex sitting there, but denied my first turn grind. From there though, I never relinquished much board control, and after my hive guard again early finishing off the exposed infantry units, he was never able to do anything about them. Tyrants swept forward on turn 3, and let me tell you...Drukhari do not want to deal with them. Smashy Flyrant took out a Radier, then was charged by Drazhar and Incubi. Drukhari are much less scary against Crusher Stampede when forced to fight because their most damaging weapons are their guns. And they just die horribly when exposed, as the shooty tyrant picked up 4 units in one turn between psychic, shooting, and mortal wounds on the charge. I take a 97-47 win, only missing those first turn Grind points.
Game 5: Recover the Relics vs Thousand Sons
I had yet to face Tsons in 9th prior to this game, but just picked up my first box of Rubrics with the intent of building towards a 2000 pt list myself this year, so I am somewhat familiar with the rules. His list seemed pretty competitive, using Cult of Duplicity, 20 Rubrics, 15 SOT, 2 Volcons, Ahriman, and 3 other characters. This is the new Retrieval Mission, and again I win the roll to go first. In this one, you don't get the battle-forged CP unless you control an objective in no-man's land, but you get 2 if you control your opponent's. You also get bonus primary points for each unit you kill, up to 3 a turn. I took TTL, Stranglehold, and Assassinate (learned my lesson), and took a fairly conservative first turn, just moving big bugs on to objectives, shooting down a unit of rubrics and a lone spawn for 2 kill points. He responded with a pretty decent first turn, showing his psychic might by sending a bunch of mortals my way, killing (I think) a harry and the haruspex right away. As he took BID, I knew this was going to be a dogfight if he could keep up the damage. In the end, this is now of the closest, most intense games of 40k I've ever played, and my opponent was great the whole time. It came down to the final rerolled charge roll on turn 5...by him failing, my only 3 units left were importantly, Swarmy, shooty tyrant, and the hive guard, giving me 15 on TTL and a 77-75 victory. I was able to finish 3-2 and just won an amazing game that could have gone either way, so I figured that kind of made up for my day 1 failures.
This was actually my first .500+ showing with Nids at a GT, so I was reasonably happy with my performance. I executed my plan in most of the games, and was at least competitive in my losses. I'm holding my breath to see what happens to Nids in the next balance update, but right now I'm really enjoying this style of play and will probably be my go-to for the time being. I'd be happy to explain any game in more detail but this has already taken me an hour to write, so I'll leave it at that!
Flyrant: Warlord (Rampaging Beast), Wings, Adrenal glands, Monstrous Boneswords, Monstrous Rending Claws, Synaptic Barrier, Aggressive Surge, Alpha-leader Beast (swapped WLT for Murderous Size), Relic: Synaptic Hive Blades
Flyrant: Wings, Adrenal glands, 2x2 Devourers, Catalyst, Psychic Scream, Relic: Biomorphic Carapace
Swarmlord: Onslaught, Catalyst
3 Warriors: 2x2 Scything Talons, Bioweapon Bond
3 Warriors: 2x2 Scything Talons, Bioweapon Bond
3 Warriors: 2x2 Scything Talons, Bioweapon Bond
Haruspex: Murderous Size (maw)
6 Hive Guard: Impaler Cannons
Tyrannofex: Acid Spray
Tyrannofex: Acid Spray
Harpy: 2x Heavy Venom Cannon
Harpy: 2x Heavy Venom Cannon
1998 points
9 CP
I'm actually really happy with the list. However, though it was allowed for this event, I heard there might be a WTC ruling about not being able to swap the ALB WL trait for adaptive physiology, even though I only had 2 in the list. So I might end up swapping the haruspex for a Trygon in the future, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Game 1: Vital Intelligence vs Necrons
My opponent was running a warrior-heavy (70) Mephrit list with the Void Dragon, a Ghost Ark (I think), some scarab swarms, and characters interspersed. I took data intercept, engage, and TTL (Swarmlord, hive guard, shooty Flyrant). I got first turn, and executed my plan of just moving onto every objective, having the back unit of warriors data intercept, and just kill what I could. My plan was to get the murder Flyrant in and kill the ghost ark, buff his AP by 1, and overrun back since his list wasn't very fast or long-ranged. I realized after moving him to the middle and casting every buff on him that it had 10 warriors inside that could just pop out and ruin my plan. So I decided that since his Void Dragon was exposed, I could double shoot my Hive guard and charge with the Flyrant, using braking through to deal 3 mortals in the charge phase, and thus finish him in the fight phase. My opponent did not realize I could do this and I felt bad about not telling him about the Strat afterwards, but there's just so many rules to explain about Leviathan Crusher Stampede to someone not familiar with Tyranids. Anyway, the Flyrant finished off the Void Dragon, then died in the Necron turn to a hail of shooting, but the damage had been done. He was never able to recover and made the mistake of choosing banners while never being able to take the primaries away from me. 94-16 win to start day 1.
Game 2: Overrun vs Orks
I played against one of our local Ork enthusiasts who was bringing 3 kill tanks filled with meganobz and Boyz, as well as a warboss on bike, 3 rukkatruks, some MSU Stormboyz, and a few other scattered units. He ended up taking the Ork secondary Get the Good Bitz, which I trusted him on how it worked since we have played before, but realized after the fact that he should not have been able to do this on both of his home field objectives. This could have completely changed the outcome of the game, but I also could have been smarter about how I played and picked secondaries as I chose TTL, banners, and engage. Going second, I didn't lose much first turn, but it allowed him to position himself closer to me and hurt my chance at maxing banners. I think I needed to really go after the Kill Tanks after nearly destroying the rukkatruks, but I got caught trying to kill his small Boyz units to prevent Get the Good Bitz. So I was not able to trade efficiently, and when I was finally able to kill one of the tanks in combat, it exploded and prevented me from fighting and using my haruspex in the following turn, so the game quickly went downhill from there. This ended in a 94-46 loss for me.
Game 3: Secure Missing Artefacts vs Sisters
By this time, I wasn't feeling the greatest, and I was trying to keep it together to finish the day 2-1. I was up against a Sacresant-heavy list with Vahl, Celestine, Cannoness, preacher, 3 units of melta retributions, and a few battle sister squads. This was the new Priority Target mission with no mission secondary (and we were still using the rules for 2021 secondaries in all games) so I chose Stranglehold, TTL, and Warp Ritual. After getting first turn, capturing 4 objectives, and tanking a large amount of melta fire on his first turn, I picked up all the retributors on my turn 2 and was feeling pretty good. However, this was where the game turned, as I tried to ritual on turn 2, and it was ruled that he could use his 4+ deny Strat on the psychic action, canceling it (not sure if that is right or not). So now my smashy Tyrant was right at midfield, and I chose not to use breaking through on my haruspex, who bounced off the Sacresants as he made all 5 or 6 invul saves. On his turn, he announced that his Cannoness had the ability to create an aura of ignore invuls, and the murder tyrant got crushed without having a chance to do any damage. At this point, I was just trying to salvage as many points as I could, and ended up falling 82-56. I wish I had known about that aura, but also after the game I was kicking myself for not taking assassinate instead of Warp Ritual. I was planning to go punk Vahl on my turn 3 with the Flyrant, and I could've at least gotten everything but maybe Celestine. I also could have played on the perimeter rather than commit to the middle against an army that wants to be there, but it was also my first game against sisters in 9th. So I took my loss and hoped for the best on day 2.
Game 4: Sweep and Clear vs Drukhari
My opponent was running an "older" meta-style list with Obsidian Rose (I think, extra range on weapons) and Cult of Strife with 5 raiders, 2 venoms, Drazhar, Archon, Succubus, and a mix of good infantry. Knowing the missions ahead of time, I was a little concerned about this matchup because my plan going in was to take Stranglehold, Direct Assault, and TTL, and just play on half the board. However, this list was super fast and could screw me over by doing a similar strategy (and he did pick direct assault). However, he did remind me that his list gives up Grind very easily, so I took that instead of TTL, and...won the roll-off. Now he admittedly hadn't played much for about a year, but I thought his deployment was decent, as my hive guard were actually in front of my corner objective behind a wonderful obscuring ruin, but only had range to a venom and 1 raider. He did seem surprised that they ignored LOS, however, and had evidently been playing his dark lances as d6 damage on the first day because I had to remind him they were in fact much better. On my first turn, I shoved the haruspex onto the middle objective with all the defensive buffs, moved to one corner with harpy and tfex, moved other harpy to the far corner, and other tfex in dense with range to both middle and far corner objective. Had to burn 3 CP for exploding 6's and double shoot with hive guard to just barely kill the 2 vehicles in their rang (with shooting from both harpies as well). He decided to go after both harpies on his first turn and killed them both, but made no play for the middle, evidently not wanting to toy with the 3+/4++/5+++ haruspex sitting there, but denied my first turn grind. From there though, I never relinquished much board control, and after my hive guard again early finishing off the exposed infantry units, he was never able to do anything about them. Tyrants swept forward on turn 3, and let me tell you...Drukhari do not want to deal with them. Smashy Flyrant took out a Radier, then was charged by Drazhar and Incubi. Drukhari are much less scary against Crusher Stampede when forced to fight because their most damaging weapons are their guns. And they just die horribly when exposed, as the shooty tyrant picked up 4 units in one turn between psychic, shooting, and mortal wounds on the charge. I take a 97-47 win, only missing those first turn Grind points.
Game 5: Recover the Relics vs Thousand Sons
I had yet to face Tsons in 9th prior to this game, but just picked up my first box of Rubrics with the intent of building towards a 2000 pt list myself this year, so I am somewhat familiar with the rules. His list seemed pretty competitive, using Cult of Duplicity, 20 Rubrics, 15 SOT, 2 Volcons, Ahriman, and 3 other characters. This is the new Retrieval Mission, and again I win the roll to go first. In this one, you don't get the battle-forged CP unless you control an objective in no-man's land, but you get 2 if you control your opponent's. You also get bonus primary points for each unit you kill, up to 3 a turn. I took TTL, Stranglehold, and Assassinate (learned my lesson), and took a fairly conservative first turn, just moving big bugs on to objectives, shooting down a unit of rubrics and a lone spawn for 2 kill points. He responded with a pretty decent first turn, showing his psychic might by sending a bunch of mortals my way, killing (I think) a harry and the haruspex right away. As he took BID, I knew this was going to be a dogfight if he could keep up the damage. In the end, this is now of the closest, most intense games of 40k I've ever played, and my opponent was great the whole time. It came down to the final rerolled charge roll on turn 5...by him failing, my only 3 units left were importantly, Swarmy, shooty tyrant, and the hive guard, giving me 15 on TTL and a 77-75 victory. I was able to finish 3-2 and just won an amazing game that could have gone either way, so I figured that kind of made up for my day 1 failures.
This was actually my first .500+ showing with Nids at a GT, so I was reasonably happy with my performance. I executed my plan in most of the games, and was at least competitive in my losses. I'm holding my breath to see what happens to Nids in the next balance update, but right now I'm really enjoying this style of play and will probably be my go-to for the time being. I'd be happy to explain any game in more detail but this has already taken me an hour to write, so I'll leave it at that!
