Ok here's the one I've been mulling over. It's a close variant to the last 3.
Tervigon (HQ) ts, ag, cat, cs
Hive Guard x3
Hive Guard x3
Doom of Malanti + mycetic spore
20 Genestealers + ts
20 Termagants
Tervigon + ts, ag, cat, cs
Raveners x3 + rending
Raveners x3 + rending
Tyrannofex + rc, dl, cs
Tyrannofex + rc, dl, cs
Let's discuss...
Similar to previous lists, I'm looking for a lot of anti-mech shooting, thus the 6 hive guard (12 str8 per turn) and tyrannofexes (4 str10 per turn). My current mindset is also that hive guard alone are not enough for competitive anti-mech. The abundance of fast vehicles between BA and DE as well as av14 always leaves me wishing I had more shooting than hive guard. There again is the justification for two tyrannofexes.
Two tervigons and gants are always my scoring core and support. Nothing comes close for scoring units and synapse. I've never lost an objective game due to lack of scoring units with this core.
So then I need assault/counter-assault, and disruption. I'm not too worried about anti-horde with gant spawns of my own and the 4 pie plates and 2 flamers that come with my monsters. I'm on a genestealer kick right now and always in large groups. I haven't played without 1-2 big units ever since I tried it once. With cover and FnP, 20 genestealers really do accomplish miracles. They may not always "get their points back", but they will crush any unit you assault, and can play close to intercept more mobile incoming assault units.
One big assault isn't quite enough IMO, and supergant spawn aren't always killy enough. I thought about a trygon since they hit good and hard with high str and rerolls and fleet is nice. I get hung up on lone trygons though in competitive lists though because they go down fairly easy for a MC and then you lost that one tool. Instead, I went with two small units of raveners. They're faster, higher init, more total attacks, and rending can still flip transports and tear through armor. They're so fast that I can throw them into the same assault if 3 models won't be enough. Yeah, str 8 kills them, but they get cover a lot easier than a trygon. One trygon and 6 raveners both functionally have 12 wounds in cover. Raveners also have a better chance (albeit slim) of catching a runaway transport.
This core of the army brought me to my final decision. Long fangs and lootas still worry me. Raveners and genestealers can both reach them turn 2-3 with good rolls, but a smart opponent can block the moves. I needed something that can kill backfield infantry units that hive guard and tfexes probably won't be shooting. I like ymgarls and have used them a lot, but we have no control over competitive tournament terrain , and a canny opponent can still minimize their effectiveness.
I decided to go with the DoM. It can take out models from more than one unit when it lands and turn around and pie plate another with cataclysm. It's a lot harder to mitigate a mycetic spore dropzone than it is to block area terrain hiding ymgarls. If I'm really smart with my genestealers, raveners, and gant tarpit units, I can tie up the str8 shooters when the DoM arrives to keep it alive and work some magic. Either that or use them to create a pocket to drop the spore into for maximum carnage. Of all the options I considered, I feel the DoM was most capable of heroic results, putting this list from competitive fighting for close wins to competitive with the possibility of tabling opponents or massacres. If I can take out str8 shooting and tie up str8 cc with my genestealers and gants, literally nothing will stop the DoM from going up to str10. At 90pts, the DoM is a unit that can quite feasibly rake in 4-5x his points in casualties.
Anyways, this is the ONE. Like Neo in the Matrix. I'll be sticking with it and playtesting extensively with no plans to change it up unless some giant glaring weakness hits me in the meantime. I went out and bought another ravener box last night, trimmed, and assembled them all in one evening. My second tyrannofex is converted except for a few bitz that I'm still trying to buy/trade for. I've also painted several more genestealers to a level that exceeds my previous paint jobs IMO. All-in-all, I'm pretty stoked about this list and upcoming games so hopefully I can get some batreps up soon.
Thoughts? Criticisms?
The new build looks more efficient. But why the 20 man unit of termagaunts? Why not crushing claws on the tervigons for the same points?
ReplyDeleteCrushing claws have paid off since making my army list.
To be more clear. Why not minimize the termagaunt unit to 10 gaunts and use the extra 50 points to upgrade the Tervigons to have crushing claws in addition to their other upgrades?
ReplyDeleteI suppose I could do that. The question is which would benefit the list more? The extra d6 attacks can be nice, but I usually keep my tervigons out of the action. Ws 3 and init 1 don't make for many happy endings for tervigon CC, even with extra attacks. As such, you probably never want a tervigon to take on another MC or heavy infantry such as terminators or nob squads. I tend to prefer termagants for MEQ and light infantry, taking atvantage of furious charge, poison, and counterattack. I can spend 50pts for 2d6 extra tervigon attacks, or 20 extra termagant attacks and 10 extra bodies. That gives me more bubblewrap, a more resilient scoring unit, and more difficult KP to collect.
ReplyDeleteYou could be totally right with claws being better. I rarely let my tervigons get into combat, but perhaps I would get more out of them if I did.
I'll have to playtest some games with 20 gants and then claws and get back to you.
Hi hyv3mynd! Love the new list with the inclusion of the DoM. Please post some batreps with it when you play test it. I would love to see how specifically that unit works out for ya!
ReplyDeleteAlso list looks great except that there are only 2x Synapse points in a 2k list. I understand that the Stealers don't need it but with a SW player or any SM with ML's spamming they can take out 1 of those Tervigons a turn fairly reliably if that's all they focus first on. Of course if it has a cover save it will be better off but still... 2 points of synapse worries me.
Goodluck though and may the hive mind me with you :P
Oh also just to throw this out there...
ReplyDeleteI've been wanting to toy around with a list for fun recently but I don't have the right models for it and I'm not sure how it would fare. It was kind of just thought up real fast for fun but I'll leave it here with you since you did mention your love for 20x broods of Stealers. (Which you introduced me too and now I'm addicted also, probably why this idea spawned into my mind lol)
2 x Primes
2 x HG
2 x HG
2 x HG
1 x Tfex w/ Rupture Cannon
1 x Tfex w/ Rupture Cannon
20 x Stealers w/ Poison
20 x Stealers w/ Poison
19 x Stealers w/ Poison
Simple. Easy. Deadly. :) Stealer shock's main problem is anti tank so I thought, let me start with a base of our best anti-tank and then fill it to the brim with Stealers. Hah.
Yeah, that looks like a fun list. I'm probably a hopeless tervigon addict at this point. I've never played a list without them.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to see how your list performs also so LMK if you playtest it with batreps. It has a lot of genestealer bodies, but are they resilient enough to hold objectives without FnP?
Let me know how this goes for you w/ this main list. I am curious if the Raveners cut it for you or if taking shrikes instead?
ReplyDelete~Lackeylsk
Here's the thing with raveners. They're cheaper than shrikes. At 35pts each, they have more attacks, better init, and greater threat radius than 35pt shrikes. My list is pretty short on points, so I don't have a lot to kit out shrikes atm.
ReplyDeleteFirst game was a successful test run. I'm working on the batrep right now. I have another match Friday against either orks or blood angels. If it's orks, I'll have another batrep on the way.
Cool. Awesome to hear I really do enjoy your batreps. You do a great job with batreps.
ReplyDeleteDo you post on WC forums any?
~Lackeylsk
@ martino ~ I actually like the crushing claws idea after playing a game. You can get more results from tervigons by having them less afraid of CC tarpits.
ReplyDeleteI threw one of them at a cannoness during my playtest game to tie her up. We ended up killing each other after many turns locked. If I had the claws, the tervigon would have won. I've swapped them in for my next match.
@ Christopher ~ What are the WC forums?
I love your blog, and I always feel a little douchey telling someone who's probably a better player how to tweak their list - especially when it's a fairly radical tweak like mine - and I know you've already responded to a Shrike comment, but hear me out...
ReplyDeleteDrop Doom and spore, 5 genestealers, and 3 gaunts = 230pts
Convert your two scytal ravenorsx3 broods (210pts) into 2 4-bug Shrike broods with paired boneswords,ag and ts (440pts [230+210])
Now, on paper/theoryhammer (and in truth) you're losing a lot. Doom, a potential game changer + a net 2 wounds and 13 attacks.
In practice however Doom rarely (less than 10% of the time in my own experience) performs well and is two easy kill points. 3 gaunts is neglible, especially as you can spawn more. The deepest cut, imho, is the 5 genestealers.
Although this might not be as bad as you think becuase as a unit they are now easier to hide, and more importantly you'd be surprised how this screws with opponents target priority (always a good thing as it forces errors). Every competant player knows he's got to put some hurt into that 20-bug genestealer brood. But it's suprising how often opponents won't torrent a 15 bug groop (or at least not as bad). In my games about the same number of genestealers end up makeing it to assault one way of the other.
Also you don't have quite as much vehicle killing, becuase while Shrikes with ag's can still pen rear armor 10 they are not as good/stong as rending and can't take on dreads, etc.
Now what do you gain? You may have lost a net 13 attacks (10 high initiative rending toxin attacks), but now all 24 of your shrike broods attacks are power weapons that can cause instant death instead of only rending on 6's. These power weapons typically hit on 3's (rellrolling on 1's) and wound on 4's (re-rolling). With the ag's you still have initiative 5 for the charge (all you really need) and on the charge you'll also re-roll wounds on toughness 5 models.
Meaning deathstar units, independant chars. and things like Bloodcrushers of Khorne, Nob Bikers, and Thunderwolf cav. will now get stomped by you.
Yes, they are vulnerable, but good cover saves + 3 wounds + speed means that you force your opponent to pour either crazy firepower at them or dirvert important high strength guns away from your tervigons and t-fexes.
Also they give you extra synapse which saves you from late game disasters, they can fly+run to contest objectives/taple corners. They let you make other psykers lives difficult with sitw without backfiring (i.e. without shutting down our own important pyschic powers as the Shrikes have no powers unlike tervies and tyrants)
Anyways, sorry for the long rant/wall of text, but you should try at least one fun game like this just with proxies just to see if it works for you. I know I'm biased but my shrikes rarely let me down. They wipe tac. sqauds and dev. squads off the map. They cripple or destroy almost every "power" unit (notable exceptions include th/ss assault termies). I think the better tactical flexibility and overall kill power is well worth the added cost.
All good points. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, that's exactly what I'm looking for. I'm no expert, but I do fancy myself a fast learner so any and all shared experiences are helpful.
ReplyDeleteI've actually been pondering the weakest links in my current lists, which I agree are the raveners and doom.
I ended up going a totally different direction, but I'll post up my new concept for your review.
I do like shrikes a lot. I've used them on several occasions before I started writing batreps. The problems I encounter with them are basically the same as the raveners. They are both close combat specialists, but won't survive to reach close combat if your opponent doesn't want them to (speaking in a competitive environment). Also, if the dice gods smite your attacks, a single fist or hammer model can do 6 wounds to your unit towards resolution. The lack of grenades is also upsetting.
I'm not saying shrikes or raveners are bad, they are quite good. I do think their weaknesses can be exploited moreso than some other combat specialists.