Tyranids vs GK: Om nom nom!

[DWest]

Over the weekend I played my Tyranid horde against a GK Purifier list at 1500 points and pretty thoroughly crushed the Tin Cans. I gather the conventional wisdom is this is unusual, and so I'm trying to figure out if I did something really right, my opponent did something really wrong, or should I just keep on rolling as-is.

The Lists
=====
Tyranids:
HQ: Tyranid Prime (Adrenal Glands, Pair of Boneswords, Scything Talons)
TR: Termagants (10)
TR: Termagants (10)
TR: Tervigon (Toxin Sacs, Catalyst, Cluster Spines)
TR: Genestealers (10; Toxin Sacs; Broodlord w/ Scything Talons)
TR: Ripper Swarm* (3; Spinefists)
EL: Hive Guard (3)
EL: Zoanthropes (2)
EL: Venomthropes (2)
FA: Spore Mines* (3)
HS: Carnifex (2x T-L Brainleeches)
HS: Trygon (Prime, Adrenal Glands)

*I was trying these units out to see how they worked.

Grey Knights:
HQ: Castellian Crowe
TR: Purifiers (10; 2 Psycannon, 2 Incinerator, 5 Halberds, 1 Daemonhammer; Rhino w +1 Storm Bolter)
TR: Purifiers (10; 2 Psycannon, 2 Incinerator, 5 Halberds, 1 Daemonhammer; Rhino w +1 Storm Bolter)
FA: Stormraven (T-L Multimelta, T-L Assault Cannon)
HS: Dreadnought (2x T-L AC, Psybolts)
HS: Dreadnought (2x T-L AC, Psybolts)
HS: Dreadnought (2x T-L AC, Psybolts)

I don't have a copy of the GK list on hand, and I think there was one other unit on the field, but I cannot remember what.


The Match
======
The match was played on a 6x4 table set with mostly low area terrain; the objective was Nick-the-Heretic (i.e. Seize Ground with spare Chaos Marines as objective markers, set in a <> pattern on the table) and the deployment was Dawn of War.

I won the rolloff and set up first; I fielded 2 Troops only; the Tervigon and one Gaunt screen. The Tervigon was hugging a bit of high cover ~6" in, and the Gaunts were a bit forward. Stealers outflanking, Trygon deep-striking, Rippers in reserve (hopefully coming out of the Trygon hole). Spore mines were dropped to make the opponent's terrain inconvenient.

The GK player elected to start with nothing on-board. He then seized the Initiative.

GK Turn 1: The Dreads walk in and step on my Spore Mines, Crowe rides in on the Stormraven and the rest of the troops roll up, making a solid clump in the center of the field.

Tyranid Turn 1: The bugs swarm onto the table, the Prime blobbing in with the squishy Venomthropes, who hide behind the Tervigon's bulwark. Hive Guard also hug terrain in the same area, and Zoanthropes hustle up behind a ruined tower. The Carnifex is sent Running forward to make a meat-wall for the Tervigon and given Catalyst. Termagants are rushed as far forward as possible w/o leaving the Venomthrope or Tervigon bubbles.

GK 2: The Dreads move forward. Psybolts ahoy! My dice mistook the Carnifex's shiny plates for an Armoured Shell and refused to roll above a 2. Still with FNP he absorbed enough bullets to keep anybody from taking potshots at at the Tervigon. Rhinos spread out center and right toward objectives. Stormraven drifts into the left 1/3 of the board to watch over the objective there.

Nid 2: My dice remember where they kept their pips and the Trygon burrows up right behind one Psyfleman and the Genestealers come on in line with the Stormraven. Everybody scrambles forward as fast as they can, and the Tervigon puts Catalyst on herself and dumps out a pack of Gaunts to hold the rear objective. The Trygon lights up the back armor of the right-hand Dread and explodes it. However, the Genestealers get only 1" for Run and so are out of reach of the Stormraven.

GK 3: The remaining Psyflemen turn and blast away at the Trygon as do the Psycannon wielders in the right-hand Rhino, which stays put near the Trygon to get maximum shots. The Big Bug loses 4/6 Wounds but stays alive. Meanwhile, the Genestealers face the full wrath of the Stormraven, losing 5 regulars and the Broodlord who had 4 Mindstrike missiles land directly upon him. Genestealers roll an 11 on Ld and run for the hills. The other Rhino lets rip with its' Storm Bolters and the 2 Psycannoneers inside at the Gaunt screen; 4 or5 die after Venomthrope saves.

Nid 3: Still no Rippers. Oh well. Tervigon plops down another pile of Termagants, summoning 14 (2 more than I have models for) and rolling a double in the process. Gaunts move forward and spread out toward right-hand objective. Trygon slithers into position behind the Rhino, while the Genestealers run away only 3". This comes into handy as the Zoanthropes move up and rally the stealers with their Synapse radius. Tervigon takes Catalyst again. Hive Guard blow open the right-hand Rhino, and the Zoanthropes can just reach the Stormraven. Here my low-rolling dice skill comes in handy as I sneak two Warp Lances in under the Reinforced Aegis of a nearby Dread. Down comes the Stormraven in a flaming heap. Genestealers run and then pounce on Crowe, piling enough Wounds on him for him to fail one. Crowe's whirlwind claims a victim in return and we're locked in. The Trygon pounces on the Purifiers who bailed from their Rhino. Flame Knight goes to cast Hammerhands and succeeds, but pops his head off in the process, rolling 1-6-1 for the psychic test. The remaining 4 halberds have no luck piercing the Trygon's hide and in return he cuts down 4, the GK player discarding the flamer and psycannon models to keep his melee models around. Daemonhammer squeezes in a Wound. No Retreat! saves are passed.

GK 4: One Dread and the squad in the objective-holder Rhino let loose on the Tervigon, applying 3 Wounds, a good show but not enough, while the other Dread finally notices the Prime and friends getting close and gives them a dose. One Venomthrope makes its' cover save, one goes splat! and the Prime takes his 2 like a champ, receiving only 1 Wound. The right-hand Purifiers poke the Trygon to death while Crowe and the Genestealers hold a competition for who can roll more 1's. No change there.

Nid 4: Ripper swarms to the rescue! They enter via the Trygon hole and . . . whiff terribly against the Purifiers. I preemptively declare a charge in order to speed them on their way to the Bucket of Shame where they could keep my Chaos Raptors and Striking Scorpions company. Tervigon takes Catalyst again, Hive Guard stun the middle Dread, Zoanthropes perform as expected against the left-hand Dread (i.e. nothing). The Gaunts are run forward to make room for the Prime to run toward the stunned Dread. The Turn 3 Gaunts and the Tervigon let loose on the Purifier squad in revenge for their fallen Trygon, picking off one more. In the Assault phase, Crowe turns his sword over to read the handy instruction placard on the back and then slaughters the Genestealers, consolidating toward the Dreads.

GK 5: With the Prime up front, the stunned Dread fails Fortitude and remains silent. All the remaining fire is directed at the Tervigon, who cops 2 more but is still hanging on with a single Wound.

Nid 5: The noose is tightened around the top objective and the Purifiers in their Rhino. Tervigon takes Catalyst, the right-hand Gaunts consolidate around the right-hand objective, keeping in Synapse with the Tervigon but out of chain-reaction range. Prime turns toward Crowe. The Hive Guard un-tin the last Purifier squad, killing a couple in the process. Gaunts press forward and shred a couple more, and then the Tervigon coughs up a Stinger Salvo, claiming another victim. One of two Warp Lances go off, enough to explode the left-hand Dread. The smallest Gaunt squad assaults the last Dread to tie it up and the Prime rushes Crowe. Crowe does Rapier Strike, gets only 2 swings, wounds with 1, then the Prime gets the kill. Then Crowe passes his shenannigans roll and takes the Prime with him on the way out.

Turn 6 fails its' saving throw and fails to appear. What can I tell the guy to do differently next time, or should I leave at least one Grand Master shaking in his shoes at the thought of fighting the Great Devourer?

[celestialatc]

My advice: I'm not sure if taking three dreads is a good idea at 1500 points. They are great anti tank but against a Tyranids player, one or two at this point level.

I might have miss it but did your opponent remember to use Cleansing Flame at all? It's the purifiers main strength against hordes. It's that extra attack before combat starts! I don't see you mentioning he used that power. And since you did not take Shadow of the Warp, he was free to use his powers all over!

Get rid of the incinerators. They hurt you more then help you. Everytime I have used one, smart opponents just take guy from the front and I lose out on a charge. I know they are free but he probably could have used more halberds.

My big advice is more purifiers. At least 3 squads and then you can add in the dreads. And the Storm raven could have used plasma cannons for an extra plate on your guys, did the assault cannon do anything all game?

[DWest]

I might have miss it but did your opponent remember to use Cleansing Flame at all?

Crowe never popped Cleansing Flame; the player has a tendency to forget Crowe is a Purifier too.
The first Purifier mob only got into 2 CCs; one with a Trygon and one where I threw away the Rippers so I didn't have to come back to that side of the table to get them later. The Rippers did get Cleansed.

And the Storm raven could have used plasma cannons for an extra plate on your guys, did the assault cannon do anything all game?

For some reason, SR Plasma Cannons don't get used hardly ever in the local meta. The Assault Cannons did eat up a few Genestealers before coming down.

[DarkLink]

Three Dreadnoughts may be a bit too much, and psyrifle dreads aren't particularly good against 'nidz so in this case I would stick with two.

Storm Ravens kinda suck, at least for GKs. They're very expensive and very fragile compared to many of the other units. I've only ever seen them taken to carry Death Cult Assassins, which are point for point the choppiest unit in the codex.

Dropping those gets you enough points to buy another unit of Purifiers, easy.



Also, Incinerators are never worth it over psycannons. Always take psycannons on infantry, always. Especially against 'nidz and the like where you'll maybe get one turn to shoot it and then get assaulted.



Lastly, and most importantly, Grey Knights should never be inside a vehicle unless there is a good reason. You have Storm Bolters and Psycannons for a reason. Unless you really need to book it to an objective or protect a squad that's taken heavy casualties, don't bother with actually getting in your vehicles. In fact, I don't take Rhinos anymore even though I use 10-man squads. I use Razorbacks, so that my vehicles can actually contribute to the fight.

[DWest]

Also, Incinerators are never worth it over psycannons. Always take psycannons on infantry, always. Especially against 'nidz and the like where you'll maybe get one turn to shoot it and then get assaulted.

Wait, Purifiers can go 4 Psycannons in 10? I thought my opponent had 2 Psy and 2 Incinerator because that was the max of each type. If so, I will pass that along.

Also, what would you recommend doing with Crowe, if ditching the Stormraven?

[Denied]

Yeah your opponent had a non optimized list for what he was playing. I have never lost to a Nids player with my purifiers, and math-hammer says the same thing.

A single squad of 5 purifiers could multi-charge every Termagant in your list and obliterate them. Easily. Cleansing Flame and I6 Halbreds (2 base swings 3 on the charge force weapons)= dead gants.

I actually have a fairly competent Nids player in my local gaming group who I have played several times and it is a rarity that I don't table him, even with shadow in the warp causing me to test on 3D6 I get off a good amount of psychic powers. Even without them its barely a fair fight for his army since I have assault weapons EVERYWHERE and I have Force Weapons EVERYWHERE and Nids have no way of dealing with these things well.

You might be saying "Oh but I could do the Monstrous Creature Spam and now I have tons of T6 models on the board with 4 wounds each" To which I reply "Rad Grenades + Hammerhand (or FW activation) = Monstrous what now?"

The worst thing that happens to me is when he fields The Doom of Malan'Tai in a Spore and drops in to an area where I have tons of guys out side of their vehicles so they all have to take LD tests on 3D6 and I fail and then doom is all like Ah look I am like St10 with 10Wounds, then I say hey look your still T4 and my psyfilemen look at you and say bye bye. Its a one turn hurt, but some times its a big one.

[DWest]

Does your local player run Venomthropes? Because they make the Gaunts a little scarier in close combat -- any unit of Termagants who connects to the 6" aura (Unless I've missed it, I only need 1 model in range of the aura to extend power to the whole unit, like Sang Priests) gets Defensive Grenades and inflicts Dangerous Terrain on all models who assault. That takes away the assault bonus at least, might get a couple of Purifiers on the way in depending on dice luck ('1' was a very popular number for this game, on both sides).

Looking back, I think a real mistake was bringing the Dreads hard forward each turn. This gave me enough room on turn 2 to Deep Strike the Trygon into a back arc. I supposed he could have piled out the right-hand Purifiers and shot up the Trygon, then charged, but with no Hammerhands, the dice spread has barely 1 Halberd wound going in, and 5/12 chance to activate Force Weapon in Shadows range.

With the non-performance of the spore mines and the rippers, I think it's time to scratch up a Mycetic Spore and bomb in my Zoanthropes (well, Zoanthrope and Confused Terminator -- need to order a second brain bug). Anyone have any experience with the optional weapons on the Spore? any of them good, or should I go stock standard and add more Gaunts to my screens?

[plawolf]

The list building was where he went wrong the most.

I struggle to justify the points for a Stormraven when I have something it could transport. To buy it for one guy is just nuts.

The least he could have done was combat squad one of the purifier squads and zoom a 5 men all halbert squad up the field in the SR to cleansing flame the crap out of as many of your units as he can and keep you tied up in your half of the table a little longer for him to get more shots off.

He could have done that with Crowe, but a 5 men squad has a far bigger footprint when you spread them out, so you have a good chance to get a multicharge off.

But in honesty, a stormraven is rarely a good idea under 2-2.5k. Get more bodies with the points saved.

The guys hiding in rhinos was also a classic generic marine mistake. Get out and blast the bugs with SB and psycannons. If they get charged, thats why you are paying the big bucks for cleansing flame and psycannons for. And yes, always go all psycannon when you can.

The best use of rhinos against bugs is to act as mobile road blocks to screen off some of his units. Alternatively, use them as battering rams and try to tank shock the bugs back from your guys.

[Denied]

Does your local player run Venomthropes? Because they make the Gaunts a little scarier in close combat -- any unit of Termagants who connects to the 6" aura (Unless I've missed it, I only need 1 model in range of the aura to extend power to the whole unit, like Sang Priests) gets Defensive Grenades and inflicts Dangerous Terrain on all models who assault. That takes away the assault bonus at least, might get a couple of Purifiers on the way in depending on dice luck ('1' was a very popular number for this game, on both sides).

His most recent list have, but honestly say a single 6 man Purifiers squad (It's how I run them with only 3x Halbreds) runs into a squad of lets say 20 gants, I start off with Cleansing Flame (as long as I am not near a shadow in the warp it is getting off even with Shadow it drops me to a roughly 50% chanse of getting it off. This will inflict 10 wounds on average you save like 1 maybe 2. Then I swing with my hlabreds hitting on 3 wounding on 3 so even if I only get 6 swings (not charging) I drop an additional 3 gants at I6. Then my I4 swings go off your left with like 4-5 gants . The still only hit on 4's and wound on 4's so only 1/4 of your swings land home and I get armor save's from them so go go 3+ armor. Now I finish off your last couple of guys with my Daemon hammer and consolidate. Oh I had to take dangerous test hmm I run only 6 guys so you kill one, look I still win.

This is not a game you win. The simple answer is your opponent put together a bad list and played it wrong. Which just goes to show how even with a "broken" codex like Grey Knights inexperienced players are still bad.

[celestialatc]

Also, what would you recommend doing with Crowe, if ditching the Stormraven?

Crowe should be hiding out behind a rhino or razorback you bought for another squad on turn one. Then jump in and stay in the razorback on your turn.

I usually use him to protect dreadnoughts in the back field....which you said your opponent kept moving up. Unless he made them scoring (which he did not because you need a Grand Master for that) then there is almost no reason to move auto cannon dreads up the board. It's a 48" reach, it will hit something!

I learned with crowe that he is a little bit better then what I thought, if a large out flanking party comes up in the back I can use cleansing flame and then just defensive stance with him. He hopefully gets one attack and then can reroll his armor saves...it's pretty sweet. He becomes a tar pit for a turn or two.