Tyranids at Local RTT

I got to play in an RTT yesterday over in Tampa. They used the NOVA mission format which I enjoyed - it's similar to the BeakyCon mission format except that if you win the primary objective you win the mission - if you draw on the primary then secondary is the first tie breaker and tertiary is the second tie breaker. I like the BeakyCon mission better because it really eliminates bad matchups as I'll explain below.

As it turns out all three games were versus good friends I often play so we are very familiar with each others' armies. The first game was versus Chris Winan's Imperial Guard and the primary objective was kill points. Deployment was Dawn of War. As you've probably guessed I brought my Tyranids - which I had to tweak a bit to scale down to an 1850 point list. Kill points versus shooty mech armies are a bad matchup for my Tyranids and Chris was smart, castling his army in one corner of his deployment zone making sure to keep all his armor beyond the range of my Hive Guard. You do have to win by at least a margin of three kill points to grab that objective so the NOVA system does give you a bit of a break in that regard... Still it was not enough for me though and my dice let me down on some key rolls. I suppose I could have played it very conservative and castled as well hoping that my Tyrannofex could pop enough tanks for the win or force a tie breaker on objective markers. I did manage to win the secondary (objective markers) and drew on the tertiary (table quarters)... Every little bit can count.

The second game was versus Mat Douthat's Space Wolves which features a Wolfstar lead by two Wolf Lords. We play each other a lot during the week nights and I've posted some batreps here. We are fairly even in our games and the last time I played Mat at an RTT I lost a very close game versus his Grey Knights. The primary was objective markers and NOVA uses five - one in the center of each table quarter and one in the center of the table. Deployment was Pitched Battle. Mat decided to hold his entire army in reserve at the last moment which came back to bite him as his Wolfstar did not come in from reserves until the fifth turn and his Long Fangs did not arrive until the fourth turn. So it was a fairly easy victory as my Hive Tyrant had a field day since there were no SW units that could really hurt him. I scored the primary, secondary and tertiary this game - moving back up in the rankings.

The third and final game was versus Scott Lester's Grey Knights (three Stormravens loaded for Grizzly Bears). Scott and I have played lots of games at local RTTs so I knew I would have to play smart. The primary was table quarters, secondary was objective markers and the tertiary was kill points. Deployment was Spearhead. This might sound like a bad matchup for my army and it is in many ways but my goal was to play the mission and not worry about trying to kill lots of Grey Knights. Again I faced an army that I only had one unit that could touch his armor (my Tyrannofex) - Scott was smart and kept the fliers all close together, moving flatout and casting the Shrouding with his Librarian inside the central Stormraven... It doesn't get much easier than that in my opinion.

I had to hope I'd get in one lucky shot before his Stormravens could shoot down the Tyrannofex using PotMS... He did make a mistake one turn and got too close to my Hive Guard (hiding behind a bunker... Heh) - I scored one penetrating hit then rolled a 1 on the armor penetration table... Oh well. I knew that Scott was focused on blasting my Tyranids and keeping all his infantry embarked in the Stormravens meant he could only hold a relatively small number of objective markers and at most be in three of the four table quarters. I brought in my genestealers behind cover in the table quarter beside my deployment zone hugging the board edge and going to ground for the 3++... Sometimes it is more important to make your saves than inflict wounds. I also dropped my Zoanthropes over beside the genestealers to act as a distraction and draw fire. The fifth turn rolled around and I decided to take a calculated risk moving my Prime and his Warriors along with my termagant brood out from behind cover into the adjacent table quarter (note I went second this game). I then rolled to see if the game would end and up popped a 2! A quick count showed we were tied on table quarters and a lone Broodlord stood defiantly beside an objective marker while there were no Grey Knights beside any... A close win for the Tyranids... But wait... NOVA has six fixed turns - someone earlier (not the TO) had told me it was five turns then random game length... Geez what a disappointment. I conceded the game then as I had already moved a lot of my units and didn't think it would be kosher to ask to move them back again and replay the fifth turn. It was my fault as I should have more closely read all of the mission rules... It is what it is and now I know. Hee. No big deal really.

So I ended up with one win and two losses - all three games were versus the Big Three - Imperial Guard, Space Wolves and finally Grey Knights. I know some of my detractors will say that this is proof my army is not competitive BUT stop to consider all three games were versus friends who know my army inside out - Imperial Guard took 1st place and Grey Knights took 2nd place. Scott had told me his army was designed to deal with my Tyranid army. So I'm not discouraged and look at it as part of the learning experience. If I had known it was six turns maybe I could have won the game versus Grey Knights - as I pointed out Scott was very intent upon killing Tyranids. Most players won't have these kind of advantages in my opinion. Sure anyone who is a smart player will figure out how to counter my army but I don't think it's necessarily that easy for people unfamiliar with my brand of Tyranids.

It was a fun day playing three games with good friends and overall a well run tournament. I like the NOVA mission format but still favor the BeakyCon method since I think it provides a more equal setting versus the various armies people are playing now. On a final note my good buddy John Lennon brought his Tyranids as well and went 2-1... Pretty cool.

Devilgants vs. Purifiers

No this is not another batrep... Heh.

Let's take two units from two totally different codices and compare the them. One unit is selected from the Tyranid codex which is often said to be the worst codex released during fifth edition (there is some contention for Dark Angels though for sure). The other unit is selected from the Grey Knight codex which is often said to be the most broken over the top codex ever released. How can we compare the two?

The devilgant is a termagant armed with a devourer which basically doubles the cost of the model - why would anyone ever do that? The devourer is a S4 three shot 18" ranged assault weapon. A large brood of devilgants can generate a large number of shots and has decent range (24" = 18" range + 6" move). I like to run my brood in a mycetic spore so I can isolate small squads and shoot them. The spore makes it relatively easy to target an exposed unit which I'll discuss in more detail below. To me and the way I play my army (no Tervigons) the devourer is the better choice compared to the stock fleshborer.

Purifiers have access to all of the best options from their codex for very cheap. Let's also assume for the sake of this discussion that the Grey Knight army has Crowe (which is often the case) so the Purifiers are a scoring unit (i.e., troop) as well.


Here are the two configurations I have chosen for each unit based upon experience:

15x termagant - devourers & mycetic spore

5x Purifier incl. Keeper of the Flame - 2x psycannon, halberd & daemonhammer (KotF) & rhino

There are certainly a myriad of other options - especially for the Purifiers - I chose these since the points for each are similar in cost, this is a standard build I often see for Purifiers and this how I run my devilgants. The familiarity makes it easier for me to compare them.

Both units cost are in the same neighborhood for the points, both are troops and both have a form of transportation. That's about at close as they get for the purpose of comparison without scratching the surface. The Purifiers are both a jack of all trades and also are a master in all ways - they can shoot down anything and excel in melee for a moderate cost. On the other hand the termagants are only good at shooting infantry units in an offensive mode. While the mycetic spore lets you place the devilgants where you need them the most (barring an awful scatter) it is also an easy killpoint. The five man squad of Purifiers is the quensential unit from the viewpoint of min maxing for 5th edition. If the two units were to face off versus each other in melee it's quite clear the Purifiers would quickly come out on top while suffering minimal losses.

If we take a couple of steps back and compare each unit as a part of its army then we can draw more relevant conclusions and to me these are more important when it comes to analyzing competitive play. If we just compare them in a vacuum then we are obviously missing out on the bigger picture... For instance while Purifiers are inherently fearless the same can be said about the devilgants if they are within range of synaspe. Fifteen fearless devilgants in cover can be hard to shift unless you are willing to engage them in assault then your assault unit might quickly fold versus a counter attacking enemy dedicated melee unit such as genestealers. To engage the devilgants in melee means that you are willing to expose a unit to following counter attacks. Depending upon the circumstances I'd be more than willing to trade a big brood of devilgants to bait an enemy unit... It's just like chess when you sacrifice one piece to gain a strategic advantage.

Another piece of the larger equation which accounts for more variables is how much time and effort does your opponent require to eliminate the brood - the longer it takes the more effort they must expend. Fifteen devilgants in cover that are fearless and have gone to ground can stick around a long time and they can hold an objective all the while. If they are strategically placed on the table you can force your opponent to make tough decisions - the harder the decision the more likely your opponent is to make a mistake. Capitalizing on your opponent's mistakes can lead to victory. Of course we should consider that the opponent might have some templates (e.g., flamers) nearby so either we need to keep the termagants spread wide apart or following along with the philosophy that discretion is the better part of valor it might be the wiser decision to place the termagants a safe distance away. You have to weigh the potential risk versus the loss and then decide what you think is the best course of action. There is little if any value throwing away a unit with no gain.

Time is a big factor and more so as the game continues to progress. The longer your unit can survive equates to more effort on the part of your opponent to eliminate that threat. Every turn the devilgants continue to stick around can be more ticks of the clock in your favor. I've won my share of games because one or two devilgants made it to the end of a game and held an objective.

So devilgants have the ability to perform multiple roles—obviously the same can be said about Purifiers and even more so. Tyranids are meant to be played as a synergistic army—most units rely upon some sort of support from another unit to accomplish any given task. It is this aspect more than anything else that can make Tyranids perform at a competitive level. This is the reason why I feel confident versus Grey Knights, Imperial Guard and Space Wolves... Not because I'm playing someone who doesn't really know what they're doing.

Each squad of Purifiers is comparatively an army of one - they don't need the level of support required for a brood of devilgants and from a strategic point of view that is one of the big reasons why they can and do often win games. In my opinion neither is better... One is better than the other in the hands of those that play them correctly depending upon the prevailing circumstances.

Now finally let's revisit the topic of the devilgants versus the Purifiers. Let's assume that the Purifiers have disembarked for whatever reason and for the sake of this discussion let's also assume the Purifiers disembarked for a valid reason (OH GAWD PLZ NOES !!!). If the devilgants arrive the following turn they can land in close enough proximity to the Purifiers and shoot them with their mighty devourers:

45 S4 shots @ BS3: 22 hit & 11 wound:

The five man squad of Purifiers should roughly suffer 4 unsaved wounds and they'll most likely lose one or both psycannons and the Keeper of the Flame. So while the devilgants have not wiped the Purifiers they have rendered them fairly useless and under many situations it wouldn't be all that hard to pick off the lone Purifier now. The trick of course is to create a set of circumstances that lures your opponent into disembarking the small squad of Purifiers—of course you could just use brute force and crack open the rhino via shooting (e.g., Hive Guard).

In conclusion the devilgants are good at picking off small isolated MEQ units. They can be highly survivable if placed in cover as well and hold objectives. On the other hand the Purifiers can be more fragile due to their small size. So while hands down the Purifiers are the overall better unit that doesn't necessarily mean that the devilgants aren't worth their points as well. Overall you should look at how each unit integrates with its parent army to best utilize them.

Tampa Bay 40k Team Tourney Batreps • Armada Games

Hi all !!

I was over in Tampa yesterday to play in the team tourney - 1500 points per player so 3000 points per team. My partner (John Lennon) and I were planning to run two Tyranid armies but found out upon arrival that teams couldn't use use the same codex... Luckily I had my Grey Knights in the car so I quickly put together a Draigowing army featuring three Venerable psyflemen dreadnaughts. John's army featured a Flyrant with Ancient Adversary, two Tervigons, two full broods of Hive Guard, gargoyles and lots of gaunts. I had planned to run a Tyranid army with three broods of Yrmgarls and large genestealer broods with Broodlords... Oh well it was not to be.

The reason why you couldn't play two armies from the same codex is that at their last team tournament two brothers showed up with Bugz and were fielding the Doom in both lists which turned out to be quite the terror. I also heard that in general people didn't like certain combos teams were using for dual codex armies.

It turned out that the Draigowing-Tyranid alliance was quite powerful though so all was not lost. The three Venerable brother dreadnaughts were a true terror to behold gunning down lots of armor and infantry over the course of the three games.

The Battle for Stones River

A player’s recap

Well the BFSR has come and gone and I am left wondering what happened. The tournament was great. Anything run by Jason Dowdell is the standard to which all other tournaments should be held. I could go on and on about how good the tournament was. But that is not the purpose of this article. No, this one is going to deal with my play in this great event and some things I need to improve on.

My opponents lists were Grey Knights, Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar and Necrons. A good mix for my Wolves. Now I did an article a couple of weeks ago on my preparation for the tournament and the decision to go with my Space Wolves as opposed to my Grey Knights. This proved to be a mixed bag as my Wolves faced two match-ups in the Guard and Dark Eldar that they simply could do nothing against. The Guard army smashed me from go and I could not move for the whole game. Simply too much shooting for me to contend with. The Dark Eldar did the same thing; too much shooting for me to resist and still have a viable army to fight with. In both of these games the GK’s would have had a little more resilience that my Wolves did not.

My list in a nutshell was this:

Wolf Lord: T.Wolf, WTN, RA, FB/SS, Saga of Bear.
Rune Priest

x3 Wolf Guard one of which was Arjac

x8 Grey Hunters in a Drop Pod

x8 Grey Hunters

x5 Grey Hunters in a Razorback with Las/Plas

Land Raider

x5 Long Fangs with ML’s

x4 Thunder Wolves

That list without all the wargear. I ain’t going in to all that. Now how I play it is this. Arjacs joins the unit in Drop Pod. I advance the T. Wolves up in a line where I will deploy the Pod. Hopefully making opponent choose between the two units on shooting. They provide much HTH punch into my opponents lines. I then use the Raider, Razorback and Long Fangs to hit priority targets until the T. Wolves make it into contact. This works well most of the time (until my cursed dice end all hope but that is another article). It is a small compact force. Now some personal notes. I refuse to spam. I hate the multi Razorback, x3 Longs Fangs, multi Rune Priest lists. They are not Space Wolves at all and are useless in my opinion.

So here are some thoughts. Some things that I will need to address for the future. In both of the aforementioned games I got shot off the board. None of the HTH I brought to the game ever had a chance of taking care of business as it was intended. I am sure my deployment could have been better but still this build could not stand up to sustained fire. Now one could say…two bad match-ups don’t ruin a list. This is true but I think I can make this one better and still have some success against these ultra shooty armies without becoming a Spam God. Losing Arjac and tweaking some things might let me add some more targets… I mean units that can get into the face of some of these armies. I love to mix it up. I just got to come up with some ways of making that happen quicker.

My record was 2-2-0. I was exactly 30th out of 67 players. My soft scores were tremendous and that is what helped me move to the middle of the pack. My issue is that if I had pulled some points from the middle games then I could easily have pulled a top 15 finish for the day. All in all, I had fun but I am disappointed in my performance. I know I could have done better. My list needs work no doubt about it. I am now onto Adepticon preparation. The 40k Championships and the Combat Patrol are beckoning.