1000pts Cult of Strife vs Tyranids

Well, what can I say. That went rather well *evil smirk*

I almost felt bad for the little bugs as I mowed them down. Anyway, this was a pretty friendly game between myself and friend, and our first match together where we have both had our codex, so I was pretty excited to see what we could do, as well as learning what the Tyranids were capable of in a smaller game.

Cult of strife -976pts

80pts    Lelith Hesperax - penetrating blades (Blood Dancer warlord), Helm of Spite relic
93pts    10 wyches - 2xHG, 1 Shardnet
154pts   10 Helions
216pts   1x3, 1x6 Reavers - 3 Grav talons, 3 Blasters

128pts   5 Scourges - 4 Blasters
145pts  RWJF - 2 Dissies, Splinter Cannon
85pts    Raider - Dark lance, shock prow
75pts    Venom - 2 Splinter Cannons


Hive fleet Kraken
2 Dakka/melee Flyrants - 1 being his warlord
1 Trygon prime
20 Termagants
20 genestealers
ripper swarms - (they did nothing and brought nothing to the fight)

We both had no idea what the other was going to use, however, when we both looked at what the other was bringing to the table, we both agreed that the Drukhari were in for an easier time as he admitted he had no clear list in mind.

The battle was a straight up last man standing, fight to the death. Lelith's favourite kind (or what I'd like to imagine her favourite fight to be)

Hammer and anvil deployment, with plenty of tall LOS blocking buildings. The Helions and Reavers sat behind whatever cover they could along the front lines, ready to assault. The Razorwing deployed along the left edge of the board, ready to start its sweeping strikes, I knew how much he hated my flyer, and pressumed the Flyrants would make it a priority.

I decided to use screaming jets with both the venom and raider, with Lelith in the venom and the 10 Wyches in the raider, whilst the Scourges did their thing from high up in the skies. His Trygon prime then burrowed deep underground, followed by his genestealers, ready for a deep strike at an opportune moment. The termagants were lined up neatly along his front lines along with his Rippers, and his Flyrants deployed along the same side as my Razorwing. He finished deploying first for the +1 to his roll, however rolled a one, (much to his frustration), whereas lucky me rolled a 6. First turn to the cult.

Turn one-

The jetfighter flew to the other side of the board, past the Flyrants and deep into his area. I was hoping he would focus his flyrants into the jet whilst I mopped up his small fry. I fired all of its weapons into the Warlord, but with his trait giving him -1 to hit, not much landed, and even the shots that did, didnt seem to phase the brute. The reavers flew over the buildings, only a few inches away from the termagant blob, the unleashed their splinter rifles at the little bugs, and their 3 blasters at the nearest flyrant. Nothing too amazing, but 3 small bugs fell to poison, and 2 wounds on the flyrant. I decided to keep the Helions back, awaiting the genestealers on turn 2. My friend smirked because he thought that I had forgotten about them in the movement phase and now they were out of range to shoot. Little did he know. In the charge phase, 6 of the reavers charged the termagants, and the trio charged the nearest flyrant, all making their charges. 2 more bugs are killed, and 1 more wound to the first flyrant.

The Tyranids were a little on the back-foot from the start and even more so with the bikers in their faces. The flyrants move away from the front lines and true to my predictions, both chase after the Jetfighter. The termagants decide to fall back for now instead of staying in close with the bikers. After shooting, smites, and two successful charges by the flyrants, they do significant damage to the flyer but leave it with 2 wounds remaining.

Turn two-

The raider and venom scream out of the webway behind his termagants, whilst the scourges land on top of a nearby building in range of one of the flyrants. Between their 4 blasters and the one in the reaver group recently in combat, they obliterate one of the flyrants, and leave the other with 4 wounds. The wounded jetfighter, tries firing after limping away from the other flyrants but nothing connects after dropping two tiers. The helions move up ever so slightly, not to miss out next turn and once again, keep back behind the reavers. Lelith's venom and the wyches raider shoot into the termagants killing another few. The reavers kill another 3 in the shooting phase. In the charge phase ( I remembered my grav talons this time, killing two more bugs), they make another successful charge and kill 3 more bugs in melee. In retaliation, he rolls well using a strat (caustic blood I think it was) causing me to take a 2 mortal wounds, killing a biker. Currently, he is only left with 3 termagants, some lost ripper swarms and a severely wounded fly-rant on the table.

He brings out his T.Prime along with his genestealers 9" away from Lelith's Venom and the wyches raider. He is already feeling like conceding but wants to make one last stand and try and kill the Lady of Knives. He doesnt bother moving his termagants anymore, they had been badly placed from the start and therefore punished. He leaves them to their fate. The wounded Flyrant finally finishes off the damaged jetfighter, but is too far away from anything else to be of any use. This is where the dice gods and insult to injury, and he fails his charge against the Venom with his genestealers AND the prime. He tries to now surrender knowing what is about to happen. I agree that the next turn will most likely table him and take the victory but we play out my final turn anyway, not all the blood has been spilt yet.

Turn 3-
Lelith decides to join in on the fun accompanied by the wyches as they all disembark 3" towards his genestealers. The scourges move up and finish off his straggler flyrant in a blast of darklight. The Helions spring to life and advance, enough to fly over the nearest genestealer. I use the flyby stratagem and kill 4 with mortal wounds. The Reavers fire everything into the prime and leave it stumbling with 5 wounds left. I decided for funsies that i would let the wyches and Lelith have fun up close instead of shooting. Lelith charges the prime and the wyches make the charge against the stealers. With all of Lelith's rerolls to hit and wound against characters, and her blood dancer trait, she absolutely butchers whats left of the prime. Hitting on 2's now with rerolls of 1 thanks to Lelith, the wyches land nearly all 50 odd attacks against the stealers, committing wanton slaughter and deleting them from existence. End of the match

I think my opponent just made odd choices from the word go. I didn't understand what he was trying to do with his list, it felt all over the place. Along with that, his deployment completely screwed him over, he was just sitting there as he was ripped to pieces. I still think the cult are amazing since the codex, and I love their style of play, but this just didn't feel fair at all.

We're going to try an 1850pts battle soon where he is going to ally with his girlfriends Orks to try and take me on, I can only hope its a closer fight than this one.

Nice report.

Using both his flyrants to chase one jetfighter was probably a bad choice. He basically withdrew 1/3 of his total points from the frontline to chase a single fighter.

Genestealers failing the charge is also a game changer. Genestealers don't look like much, but if they make it into CC you are up for bad times.

Yeah I agree, a fair amount of bad luck on his side with the genestealers. Id imagine it could have been different if he had first turn too, then he might have at least got some shots off, but between tying up the termagants and the flyrants being absent from the main fight, he was shut down pretty quickly.

He has struggled against the Drukhari every time we've played, he doesn't really know how to handle our speed and firepower and keep us locked down as nids. He messaged me the other day saying that he doesnt think nids can do anything against drukhari in a straight out war, so we are going to try an objective game next and see how that goes.

Well objectives do make it a much better game, in my opinion.
But drukhari are very good at those, due to speed snd cheap units.
But tyranids are rather strong, so should have a decent shot at a good game.

Perhaps hrlp him out w. List building? Or w. What to keep focus on in your army


And thx for the report, its always nice to read how others are us8 g their units

Well Rippers are actually really good, the problem with nids units like Gants and Rippers, you have to use them as movement/objectives and tie up units, they are extremely cheap and a throw away unit for those purpose, if you play them wrong they just die to pointless reasons.

Nids uses swarms to do things the MC's and Attackers cant, you spend a lot of points on Genestealers to do huge damage, so you take super cheap Ripper units (30pt troops) to hide and take objectives.

Rippers can also DS, you should never use them turn 1 unless its for an objective/body blocking, using turn 2-3 and DSing onto objectives behind the Genestealers is ideal.

Trygon Primes sadly are pointless, i'm guessing he took it due to lack of Synapse, but really he is only of the worst synaptic units in the nids book, you can do better with a Trygon and taking those saves points to get another unit (its 30pts difference for Synapse).


He just doesnt have the models (idk if he does, im assuming) or the experience yet, might want to go a bit easier on him.

Tyranids takes a lot longer to figure out than people think, its easier to play Ynnari (after you learn all the rules lol) IMO, Tyranids are the masters of placement, even more so than Harlequins, if you place/play them wrong you will lose your unit, unlike DE where if you lose a Ravager you still have another and RWJF's, Tyranids losing a unit loses more than just a unit, they lose ground/movement/placement.

The secret of nids is for every unit you bring you need 1 more unit to support that first one, and this goes with every phase

amishprn86 wrote:

Well Rippers are actually really good, the problem with nids units like Gants and Rippers, you have to use them as movement/objectives and tie up units, they are extremely cheap and a throw away unit for those purpose, if you play them wrong they just die to pointless reasons.

Nids uses swarms to do things the MC's and Attackers cant, you spend a lot of points on Genestealers to do huge damage, so you take super cheap Ripper units (30pt troops) to hide and take objectives.

Rippers can also DS, you should never use them turn 1 unless its for an objective/body blocking, using turn 2-3 and DSing onto objectives behind the Genestealers is ideal.

Trygon Primes sadly are pointless, i'm guessing he took it due to lack of Synapse, but really he is only of the worst synaptic units in the nids book, you can do better with a Trygon and taking those saves points to get another unit (its 30pts difference for Synapse).


He just doesnt have the models (idk if he does, im assuming) or the experience yet, might want to go a bit easier on him.

Tyranids takes a lot longer to figure out than people think, its easier to play Ynnari (after you learn all the rules lol) IMO, Tyranids are the masters of placement, even more so than Harlequins, if you place/play them wrong you will lose your unit, unlike DE where if you lose a Ravager you still have another and RWJF's, Tyranids losing a unit loses more than just a unit, they lose ground/movement/placement.

The secret of nids is for every unit you bring you need 1 more unit to support that first one, and this goes with every phase

Yeah I agree, I dont know too much about Tyranids apart from what Ive read about on 1d4chan... but they do seem difficult to master. I dont think I particularly went too hard on him, as I built my list just as for fun, I just got lucky with my rolls for damage every time my blasters got through.

He has been working on his lists for our future games and has even told me 'Im in for a rough time next one' when we play our 1500pt game next week. I haven't really though about what to bring, but I know he has a vast selection of models to pick from. Wouldn't surprise me if I see a bunch of Carnifexes next time as he said he's never had chance to use them. Im somewhat more limited on what I have so I just try to make the best of what I have to use for now

Its not about going hard, you can go easy and still table someone, if they always out position themselves, or chase the wrong targets its not going to work. His list is melee with so little models as well, he wasnt really bringing the right tools at 1k.

1k games for nids are weird, he should get some Hive guard or Fex's, something tough with some shooting to support his Melee. Its easier to support with shooting than melee if you are not using all the stratagems/kraken rules to the fullest.

I would have to agree with Amish - and I don't think him allying with orks is a good idea either.... He needs to get a better feel with his bugs.

If he has the models, can make some fairly nasty lists. TBH, I feel DE are a solid match-up vs Nids as poison very much helps vs the bigger bugs

I would suggest you help him with list building and figuring a strategy out - and if you need help too we can pitch in here lol

Yeah by all means, if you guys wouldn't mind pitching in I can give you a rough idea of what he has, he said he's is always interested in what other people might use in his situation.

Im not sure on exact quantities he has but I know he at least some of the following models

HQs
Broodlord
Neurothrope
Old one eye
Swarmlord

Troops
Genestealers (20-30)
Termagaunts (20-30)
Hormagaunts (20-30)
ripper swarms
3 Tyranid warriors

Elites
Haruspex
hiveguard
2 lictors
vemonthropes

H.Supports
3 carnifex
exocrine
mawloc
trygon/t.prime
tyrannofex

Transport
Tyrannocyte


So yeah he has quite a collection already, well over double my own collection and he has a lot to pick and choose from. If anyone could help out, that be awesome, if only to make the game more sporting for my ladies.

Oh yeah he has some good stuff.

Quick idea for a list:

Swarmlord
Neuro or Broodlord
2 x 15 stealers
20 Termagaunts
Trygon


Old one eye
Hiveguard
3 carnifex

That is a battalion and a Spearhead

Faitherun wrote:

Quick idea for a list:

Swarmlord
Neuro or Broodlord
2 x 15 stealers
20 Termagaunts
Trygon


Old one eye
Hiveguard
3 carnifex

That is a battalion and a Spearhead

Nice that'd be a good one to face, Ill send it over. Thanks

Unfortunately Lelith can't take any relics as she's a unique character, so she wouldn't be allowed the helm of spite

Mikoneo wrote:

Unfortunately Lelith can't take any relics as she's a unique character, so she wouldn't be allowed the helm of spite

Oh really?? I had no idea that wasn't allowed. I've been cheating then. Need to look closer at the rules me thinks..