Kronos at 2k

[ausnid]

So, with my Kraken list feeling light on now, and not wanting to run 30 gaunt blobs just yet, I was thinking if the following Kronos build:
I went with pathogenesis over shardgullet to build in a reroll on the venom cannon, and thinking that a bit of extra range when coupled with the adaptive trait means i might be getting to high ap anyway. I thought about swapping the adaptive to the 6s to wound give the ap shooting bonus, but kept the default setting. It starts with 1cp bust BattleScribe hasn’t built in the heroic stratagem for two tyrants yet.

Obviously it packs a punch at range, the tyrants will provide some melee capability if required, and I’d anticipate potentially using the strat reserves for free to drop some pyrovores on a flank in some match ups. I figure it will be blasting away, with the gargoyles and parasite maybe giving me a turn or two of objective grabbing/ interference to restrict opponent primary, and build my own. Secondaries could be banners, psi ritual/interro and something Killy.

Would love to hear comments/suggestions….thanks!

++ Arks of Omen Detachment (Tyranids) [95 PL, 2,000pts, 2CP] ++

+ Configuration +

Arks of Omen Compulsory Type: Elites

Battle Size [6CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)

Detachment Command Cost

Game Type: 5. Chapter Approved: Arks of Omen

Hive Fleet: Adaptive, Kronos

+ Stratagems +

Hive Predator [-1CP]: Extra Warlord Trait

Rarefied Enhancements [-1CP]: Extra Bio-artefact

Rarefied Enhancements [-1CP]: Extra Bio-artefact

+ No Force Org Slot +

Tyranid Prime [5 PL, 85pts]: Dual Boneswords, Venom Cannon

+ HQ +

Hive Tyrant [9 PL, 205pts, -1CP]: Adrenal Glands, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bonesword, Relic: Balethorn Cannon, Stranglethorn Cannon, Stratagem: Warlord Trait, Warlord

Hive Tyrant [9 PL, 210pts]: Adrenal Glands, Heavy Venom Cannon, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bonesword, Relic: Pathogenesis

Neurothrope [5 PL, 110pts]: Warlord Trait: Synaptic Tendrils

+ Troops +

Gargoyles [4 PL, 80pts]
. 10x Gargoyle: 10x Fleshborer

Gargoyles [4 PL, 80pts]
. 10x Gargoyle: 10x Fleshborer

Tyranid Warriors [4 PL, 120pts]
. Tyranid Warrior: Lash Whip and Bonesword, Venom Cannon
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword

+ Elites +

Pyrovores [2 PL, 40pts]: Pyrovore

Pyrovores [2 PL, 40pts]: Pyrovore

Pyrovores [2 PL, 40pts]: Pyrovore

Pyrovores [2 PL, 40pts]: Pyrovore

Tyrant Guard [8 PL, 135pts]
. 3x Tyrant Guard (Scything): 3x Two Rending Claws, 3x Two Scything Talons

Venomthropes [5 PL, 120pts]
. 3x Venomthrope: 3x Toxic Lashes

+ Fast Attack +

Parasite of Mortrex [4 PL, 80pts]: Warlord Trait: Alien Cunning

+ Heavy Support +

Exocrine [10 PL, 215pts]: Adaptive Physiology: Voracious Ammunition

Exocrine [11 PL, 225pts]: Adaptive Physiology: Dermic Symbiosis

+ Flyer +

Harpy [9 PL, 175pts]: 2x Stranglethorn Cannon

++ Total: [95 PL, 2CP, 2,000pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe

[ausnid]

Anyone?

[purestrain]

Jan 17, 2023 6:21:49 GMT ausnid said:

Anyone?

Looks solid, might need some defensive units to keep your exorcine from being bad touched.

Why patho on the 2nd tyrant instead of shardgullet?

[piersonsmuppet]

Shard is a meta choice as Pathogenesis avgs higher output vs a larger set of targets. Kronos giving Pathogenesis another AP swings it further away from Shard as an optimal choice.

For the list, I think it’s not battleforged. Only troops can be taken more than 3x, so 1 Pyro needs to go.

[ausnid]

Jan 17, 2023 18:06:21 GMT piersonsmuppet said:

Shard is a meta choice as Pathogenesis avgs higher output vs a larger set of targets. Kronos giving Pathogenesis another AP swings it further away from Shard as an optimal choice.

For the list, I think it’s not battleforged. Only troops can be taken more than 3x, so 1 Pyro needs to go.

Yeah, I’m a little undecided about patho vs shardgullet, and have gone patho for the reasons you outline - greater value against a bigger range of opponents. I did originally think of either some genestealers or a unit of ravs to provide some sort of counter punch melee, but not sure where I’d get the points…dropping the harpy may be the most obvious choice, but I want to see how it goes with the new flyer rules first.

Re the pyros, as I’ve made elites my compulsory choice I think I get 3 compulsorily plus 0-3 optional slots, so they should be right. Worst case scenario I can always just drop a slot by making one a unit of 2.

[piersonsmuppet]

Detachment slots are different from unit limits. Even though you have 6 elite slots, you can only take a max of 3 pyrovore units in strike force missions.

[ausnid]

Jan 18, 2023 1:49:50 GMT piersonsmuppet said:

Detachment slots are different from unit limits. Even though you have 6 elite slots, you can only take a max of 3 pyrovore units in strike force missions.

Ah, yep with you now. I'll just make one of them a unit of two, cheers.

[ausnid]

Well....that didnt go so well. Took the list to a teams tournie and went 0-1-2. Didnt get any practice games in and timed out on one so that didnt help, but it needs a bit of work.

Game 1 vs Custodes - two squads of jetbikes, jetbike captain, blade captain, telemon and a bunch of shooty guys and two little knights. He ran the trait of ignoring any negative to hit mods so the venoms were rather obsolete. Secure the relics mission. I took banners, interrogate and behind enemy lines (later was an experiment that failed).
I was actually reasonably confident going into this one, and he deployed relatively conservatively, perhaps concerned with my firepower. He needn’t have been. Everything was going ok until my second turn, where i basically unloaded my entire army into his weaker flank, and managed in total to finish off a knight on 4 wounds, and kill 2 shooty dudes on foot. I stopped counting the invuln saves after he made 8 out of the first 9 four ups . I also made some mistakes with my tyrant guard positioning which got one of the tyrants shot up. This was the game I timed out part way through turn 4, so it ended up blowing out a bit to 97 to 53 – I still had a fair bit left and but bouncing off in turn 2 really hurt, I only got 3 points for Behind Enemy Lines, and Interrogation got stuck at 6. In retrospect I could have pushed up harder with my tyrants in melee as an extra layer of insurance, but I had thought the shooting hive fleet could handle 6 sagittari.

Game 2 vs Grey Knights - 2 dread knights and a grand master, unit of 10 paladins, Draigo, 2 5 man flying/teleporting dudes, 10 'normal dudes' and 5 'normal dudes. Abandoned Sanctuaries – I took No Prisoners, Psy Interrogation (the tournie had ruled that the line of sight and within 24” requirements could be met by separate characters), and Banners.
I won first turn on this one and shooting was more in line with what I expected, taking out one of the 5 man squads hiding in a crater and killing off 7 of the paladins. Game ended up being a gradual war of attrition and I tabled him on my turn 5, but his ability to teleport around the board and wrack up secondaries VPs via the Shunting and Ritual GK secondaries, and my flubbing of Interrogation (only scoring a 3) meant I ended up with only a 4 point margin 73-69, not enough to count as a win.

Game 3 vs Chaos Knights - 2 big knights (one of which ignored all modifiers) and 7 little knights, all with extra wounds. Tide of Conversion – I took banners, BID and Interrogation. Again I went first and after blasting away had a grand total of 14 wounds taken off one of his big knights. This turned into a bit of a shoot out, which I ended up losing, while also getting cleaned up on Primary as I didn’t have anything that could get to and stand on a flank objective while soaking up firepower – the knights made a lot of 5+ saves and my tyrants were holding the middle. Highlight of the game was managing to take down the other big knight (his warlord), but essentially at the end of the game I had one exocrine and a neurothrope left, and he still had one big knight and 4 little ones. Ended up another big loss 96 to 47 ish.

So a few things for me to work on:

List wise, I want to drop the harpy to work another exo in. The exocrines did great work (except when hot save rolls stymied them) and with the exception of the Knight game where I lost one turn 2, were very resilient. The harpy died the turn after it came in during games 1 and 3, and while it was okay against the GKs, not being able to effectively use its mines, inability to hide it, lower damage guns (unless I upgrade to HVC) and weaker toughness means I think it’s got to go.

The pyros weren’t quite as good as what I’d hoped for. They didn’t have the best luck (against the Custodes I rolled 4d6 for the four big flamer shots and rolled four ones!) and while they were okay at holding home objectives they were two slow to do much else, even when coming in from reserve. I think I may drop 1 or 2 to free up some points.
Warrior gear will also be stripped back to save points.

I’m also going to look at whether I can squeeze a lictor in, and maybe sub out one of the gargoyle squads for some hormies. The gargs have such a big footprint, and hormies aren’t that much slower especially with access to the 6” advance strat, unless there is flying required. The extra pip of armour may also help – several times during the day my plans for shenanigans to grow back onto objectives from behind obscuring terrain were ruined by opponents killing the gargoyle squads on the dot with a single activation.

The lictor would allow for someone to sit on an objective in cover and not be shot from 12 away, and also to raise a banner and then leave the board via the lictor strat at the end of the turn. It also brings in behind enemy lines as an option, though still maybe not a strong one.

The prime I’m undecided on – the psychic imperative helped against grey knights, but the 24” range requirement of it is a little problematic. I might try to keep him in if I can to test further.
The parasite underperformed, but its not great into knights, and I made a positioning error against the GKs which saw it shot off the board, so it probably gets another chance in the list.

In terms of play/tactics, aside from the obvious more reps to speed up, I need to get better at getting the tyrants into melee without undue risk. They did good work generally when they got there, but without the more dynamic elements of raveners/screamer killers and flyrants I am used to playing, I need them to be active in multiple phases as much as possible.

I’m still trying to work out a solid secondary plan – banners is okay for 8-10 points (which is sadly not bad for nids), and kill ones usually end up okay, but I continue to struggle with a third choice (particularly depending on how psy interrogation gets ruled).

I also need to alter my primary scoring tempo too – with the faster builds there was more flexibility of being able to grab objectives late game or opportunistically, whereas with this build I can’t be as reactive. Still, I'm going to mess around with a bit more before I just go an lean into a tervi + gants or obsec monster mash list...

[piersonsmuppet]

Honestly, you may want to try a custom fleet with Heightened Reflexes and Territorial Instinct. Still being able to shoot your 4 blast cannons and giving yourself more obsec will do more than +4" range and an additional AP (considering you're struggling with ++ armies). You aren't using Nullnode and Symbiostorm doesn't do much for you, sticking with Kronos doesn't make much sense unless you find yourself using and causing MWs w/ the strat often.

Keep the prime if you change. Exos will be more comfortable w/in 24" if they can fallback and shoot. You also have Strat reserves to get them in range of low model armies like custodes/knights.

[ausnid]

Yeah I think youre right re: the territorial instincts. Symbiostorm was not unhelpful in moving an exo up to S9 (to tip shooting into T8 in my favour) but only on one platform I suppose. The fall back and shoot (at -1) is perhaps less something I need - local meta doesnt seem to have a lot of cheap stuff coming into just to tag things, and anything that hits an exo hard is likely going to have it bracketed before it gets a chance to fall back, so shooting likely to be compromised anyway. Will have to do some testing....

[piersonsmuppet]

Fallback & shoot is good for the Exos when playing them aggressively, they are a lot more vulnerable to being tied up from consolidation moves. If you can fall back & shoot, then they have to shoot/charge the Exos to deal with them.

If sticking Kronos for TI, I'd probably say 1 Exo and 2 Acidfexes would be better than 3 Exo.

[ausnid]

So, the hive evolves and a few weeks ago I went 2-1 with the following (summarised for ease of reading):

Hive Fleet: Adaptive, Kronos

Tyranid Prime: Dual Boneswords, Venom Cannon

Hive Tyrant: Adrenal Glands, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bonesword, Balethorn Cannon, WL

Hive Tyrant Adrenal Glands, Heavy Venom Cannon, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bonesword: Pathogenesis

Neurothrope [5 PL, 110pts]: Warlord Trait: Synaptic Tendrils

+ Troops +

10 Gargoyles
10 Hormies with AGs
3 warriors with talons and devourers

+ Elites +

Pyrovore
Pyrovore
Lictor
3 x Tyrant Guard (claws and talons)
3 x Venomthropes

+ Fast Attack +

Parasite of Mortrex: Alien Cunning

+ Heavy Support +

Exocrine Voracious Ammunition
Exocrine
T-Fex - Dermic Symbiosis

Had wins against Deathguard and Tau (without any crisis suits!), and a very narrow loss against a khorne demon list with Belakor, Phase Capped BT, and Skarbrand. The loss was the best game - although we identified that going first would be a huge advantage in the game (and I sadly didn't), it came down to the wire, with some pretty swingy dice on both sides (including my prime rolling box cars to survive a charge from Skulltaker). Ultimately I couldn't protect my castle for long enough and he was able to crack it and belt me in primary, despite me winning the secondary battle. My secondaries were generally banners and Psy Int, with a dip into grind them down, behind enemy lines and Bring It down depending on match ups/deployment maps.

Takeaways was that the T-Fex was a definite value add, held objectives and tanked damage all through the day (though he died in every game it diverted a lot of fire power from the rest of the army). The Monsters with Obsec wereclutch as part of this, though I am still think the 4" range and access to Kronos strat/spell is just okay. The issue is I just can't see a stand out alternative - not being able to fall back and shoot did come up in the demons match up, but would have done nothing across the rest of the games....I long for the days when you could switch out an adaptive element on a per game basis, a real casualty of GW's heavy hand with the nerf hammer.

Lictor was also a good addition, allowing for some untargetable actioning on the terrain features, and making better use of the free reserves in Arks also helped, particularly against Tau where I could reduce my army deployment footprint and protect against a potential first turn hammering.

On the flip side, I'm thinking it may be time for the prime and warriors to go. While the prime's exploding 6s imperative is okay, he's not doing much with his VC, and I'm finding that I'm not needing the synapse as the small gribblies are either off with the parasite or doing their own thing. I'd love to look at bringing in a carni option but am already at my heavy slot max, so am considering alternatives involving potentially a mawloc and another pyrovore (to really bring in a strong BEL game), or going into a Trygon or even Trygon Prime for a combat threat that may at the least serve as a distraction fex (albeit a pretty expensive one). Keen to hear the collective wisdom of the hive...

[No One]

ausnid said:

Takeaways was that the T-Fex was a definite value add, held objectives and tanked damage all through the day (though he died in every game it diverted a lot of fire power from the rest of the army). The Monsters with Obsec wereclutch as part of this, though I am still think the 4" range and access to Kronos strat/spell is just okay. The issue is I just can't see a stand out alternative - not being able to fall back and shoot did come up in the demons match up, but would have done nothing across the rest of the games....I long for the days when you could switch out an adaptive element on a per game basis, a real casualty of GW's heavy hand with the nerf hammer.

I think it's a good option to consider, essentially removing a lose condition of just being chain tagged with nothing you can do about it. Definitely Kronos is reasonable though with (I'm assuming?) acid spray on the t-fex.

On the flip side, I'm thinking it may be time for the prime and warriors to go. While the prime's exploding 6s imperative is okay, he's not doing much with his VC, and I'm finding that I'm not needing the synapse as the small gribblies are either off with the parasite or doing their own thing. I'd love to look at bringing in a carni option but am already at my heavy slot max, so am considering alternatives involving potentially a mawloc and another pyrovore (to really bring in a strong BEL game), or going into a Trygon or even Trygon Prime for a combat threat that may at the least serve as a distraction fex (albeit a pretty expensive one). Keen to hear the collective wisdom of the hive...

Agreed on the warrior/prime not doing much for you. As to what to bring instead...Don't bring a trygon, expensive and you've already got two walkrants for counter charge/midfield threat. Too squishy, no real delivery and pricey. If you really want, I think screamer-killer is almost objectively better.

Mawloc is something to consider, but BID exists. You're basically paying 125 pts to give your opponent 2 VP and a maxable secondary: yes you can flip an objective for a 4 VP primary swing, but that's really not worth. So you need to be very confident in that BEL gameplan, and even then it might only be 1 VP (if you've got options for a lictor), compete with flipping primary with midfield objectives if they're defending their home, and can just get incredibly shut down by guard and to a lesser extent SM. And it's not cheap for what it does IMO.

Something like DL/lictor, neuro (with encircle) just seem like giving similar options on BEL while giving you more flexibility. I've also been finding stealers quite solid for early banners/objective pressure, and can also do some screening work, but elite slots are pretty contested there. Or just shore up your kill gameplan, but not sure what'd be best for that: more pyros seems appealing with Kronos especially though? 'Cepter?