REMATCH: New Tyranids vs Craftworlds 2000pt written report

[stormcoil]

Hello Hive Mind! I've gotten lots of requests to post a battle report of a rematch against the eldar list I played about a month ago. Well today I'm happy to bring that to you. Yet again the souls of Ulthwe take on the Tyranids in a winner take all grudge match. Who will win this time?





Read the report here:



www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/uc0u2j/rematch_new_tyranids_vs_craftworlds_2000pt/





Let me know what you think and good luck in your future games! For the Hive Mind.

[piersonsmuppet]

Tyrant choices don’t seem optimal for Kraken. Shardgullet on a Flyrant is king in Kraken, Assault 3 pairs very well with the advance game. Second Tyrant would be better as a MBS Flyrant (Walkrant kind of works if short on pts) with the Kraken Relic and Adaptive Biology imo. A plain MBS is good enough on a super durable/mobile platform.



Edit: Two other questions rose to my mid after re-reading the action. Why the choice of Synaptic Tendrils instead of One Step Ahead on Neuro? If the Harpies are probably dead when losing the rolloff, why not screen with the Harpies?

Edit 2: I think if you deployed the Harpies where the Horms/Zoans were, hid the Horms behind the obscuring they were in, and used Tyrant fallback and charge to ensure you could get the horms to O1 the game would have been very different. Also, I’m starting to think Dermic is not great on Harpies when taking 2. Synapse on 1 keeps them both at a cool 19 PL for strat reserves if facing Alpha like this.

[zimko]

2 cp to put 2 harpies in reserves is a decent idea, especially against 3 fire prisms.

[stormcoil]

Yeah, maybe I should have screened with the harpies. I was thinking if I put them on the line then they would be dead to his fire dragons. I wasn't thinking they would be dead either way.

You could also spend cp to take them off the board, but then you lose their firepower turn 1 if you go first. Maybe worth it.

Honestly I think I'm just done with harpies. John Lennon just wrote an article on new nids and if you look at his sample list he doesn't have even 1 harpy. They are too squishy against my normal opponents and they basically need to make their points back in one turn of shooting half the time. I think I am going to try and pivot to using raveners for my speed. 12 raveners at 360 is about the same as 2 harpies at 340, and the harpies are more expensive if you give them buffs. But those raveners can be hidden turn 1 and on average do more damage than the harpies into almost every profile of the game.

[piersonsmuppet]

Apr 26, 2022 14:47:02 GMT zimko said:

2 cp to put 2 harpies in reserves is a decent idea, especially against 3 fire prisms.

I think it would work best with 1-2 other monsters w/o an invul, that way the Zoan imperative hits 3-4 monsters T2/3 and gives a large impact. 2 Harpies, 1-3 HVC fexes, and maybe a shardgullet or Exo should be able to hit hard enough when springing the trap that the counter punch can’t deal with it. Kraken probably isn’t the place for Harpies though, and I’m not really sure they have a place outside of Levi or Kronos (maybe Gorgon since the wound rr is more effective than hit rr for Harpies).

[piersonsmuppet]

Apr 26, 2022 16:20:15 GMT stormcoil said:

Honestly I think I'm just done with harpies. John Lennon just wrote an article on new nids and if you look at his sample list he doesn't have even 1 harpy.

Harpies still have goid play, they just aren’t the take two and win that initial impressions voiced and they definitely need to be in the right army. John’s list is interesting though it’s one that is banking on AoC making SMs much more popular. I don’t think Indirect changes and pseudo +1 Sv fixes SM enough for Nids to build around beating them, I think we are good into them in just about every single configuration. Personally I think there are a few design flaws in his list, but that may be because he is looking to score 100 and I only think along outscoring.

[Master Chief]

Harpies give the best in Leviathan armies as you can have 2 transnid 4+ and both of them in case you go second will go to 4++.

And other than that you'll also get to re roll some of those 6 big shots.

Leviathan is just maximising the Harpies.

[stormcoil]

Sadly in leviathan only one harpy gets transnid, the one you put synapse on. The other one is still being wounded on 3s. I know, I've run a lot of leviathan harpies and it hasn't been working against good opponents.

[piersonsmuppet]

Apr 26, 2022 20:43:16 GMT stormcoil said:

Sadly in leviathan only one harpy gets transnid, the one you put synapse on. The other one is still being wounded on 3s. I know, I've run a lot of leviathan harpies and it hasn't been working against good opponents.

I believe they were including the use of Indomitable Monstrosity on the one w/o Synapse. Still a poor plan since it relies on Warp Shielding being used to save just Harpies from an entire army.

[Master Chief]

Yes I was taking in account the use of Indomitable Monstrosity, and if you want to use Warp Shielding you should obviously have more than 2 monsters that will benefit from that, otherwise you just wasted 150 points on the Zoanthropes.

[piersonsmuppet]

Apr 26, 2022 21:04:49 GMT Master Chief said:

Yes I was taking in account the use of Indomitable Monstrosity, and if you want to use Warp Shielding you should obviously have more than 2 monsters that will benefit from that, otherwise you just wasted 150 points on the Zoanthropes.

I guess if you deploy your other monsters in front of obscuring you get more use from a T1 Warp Shielding when going second, doesn’t seem like a great play to me.

[stormcoil]

I get it, and I've played with it. I've even written reports on it. It just doesn't work well enough against tough builds or opponents. I think dual harpies is the sort of thing that is unbalanced in casual play where your opponent doesn't know how to drop 2 fliers a turn. I don't think it will even be normal in most nids tournament lists.

I think I'm going to see what I can do with minimal monsters. I think our monster builds are the same targets for weapons people already want to take to deal with custodes, tau, AoC terminators, etc. I want to see if I can take a build where every melta gun is wasted. It might not be possible. I'm thinking about it. Probably Kraken or Gorgon.

[piersonsmuppet]

That’s a fair assessment, I don’t plan on running Harpies either anymore either. However that is because I really want to run SL, and Carnifex are just a natural choice over Harpies when rr’s and Obsec are available. I think I’d still run two in Levi in a double Flyrant list for max pressure.

Minimal monsters could be very good, though you’ve got to deal with the fact that the opponent starts at an easy 15VP for No Prisoners and probably another easy 10VP+ for TTL. As long as the list can play aggressively into primary enough to make up the 25VP+ starting gap, I think it is a strong way to play in the current meta. I think Gorgon or Hydra is the way to go though. Both give our non-monsters the ability to punch up and increase our MW output. Kraken’s mobility is good, but w/ minimal monsters it seems like it would have trouble with T5+. Although, enough Obsec could mitigate that weakness.