Welcome back for another tournament season!
Sorry for my inactivity over the last month or so, but never fear, that is all about to change, this year I have some new spicy ideas I will be testing and wreaking havoc across the Australian meta with.
Will that be with my beloved Tyranids? who knows ;) Watch this space in the coming weeks to find out what will be hitting the tables!
This year I want to try something a little different to engage some of the readers a little more,
once the tournament season is well underway in QLD I will be taking votes on the Godhammer Facebook page on what codex people would like to see me play for an upcoming event, I'll also throw together a detailed analysis on what I work through to select units from said codex for the upcoming event!
Look forward to hearing what codex you would all like to see get some action!
Friday, March 22, 2019
Friday, February 15, 2019
The Great Devourer
Welcome back guys/gals, last weekend saw the conclusion of Queensland Masters.
Shout out to dad #2 Josh McGowan for sorting this one out last minute, had another hardy run through the gauntlet running into the brick wall himself Mr. Simon Gojky for the title.
So Simon was running a slightly different version of his Cancon list, still using the grotesques but with some added shooting from the ravagers and some more wracks, I was running for the most part my normal carpet list, but I decided to do something silly like add another 90 gaunts to the horde, so yes, I was running 270 gaunts at this one. My reasoning for this was with the concern of the added anti horde hitting the meta with the bolter rule and people just adapting to the horde meta a little more, I thought is this actually going to be relevant if I just 100 models to the carpet. This turned out to be the right decision because even against probably my hardest matchup being orks, they just could not get through that many models quick enough, the attrition war has still been too hard for people to overcome when playing against the Hivefleet. In saying that, I expect the meta especially the top end of the meta to start really adapting to the horde, so as a horde player I will still carry my concerns regardless of the success the army has had.
So with the last 5 or so months of success since I picked up the Nids, Cancon winner, Queensland Master and held onto the undefeated streak, It hurt me to even say that Hivefleet Cuck will be entering retirement for the foreseeable future. Mostly because it truly is just far too difficult to not be incredibly burnt out after playing 5-6 months of 150+ models.
So with the new tournament season starting, ETC and ATC on the cards, what better way to pickup a new and flavourful army.
With this blog moving forward I would love some suggestions on what everyone would like to see from this blog in the new year or if you're happy to keep reading similar content to what I have been putting out there.
Shout out to dad #2 Josh McGowan for sorting this one out last minute, had another hardy run through the gauntlet running into the brick wall himself Mr. Simon Gojky for the title.
So Simon was running a slightly different version of his Cancon list, still using the grotesques but with some added shooting from the ravagers and some more wracks, I was running for the most part my normal carpet list, but I decided to do something silly like add another 90 gaunts to the horde, so yes, I was running 270 gaunts at this one. My reasoning for this was with the concern of the added anti horde hitting the meta with the bolter rule and people just adapting to the horde meta a little more, I thought is this actually going to be relevant if I just 100 models to the carpet. This turned out to be the right decision because even against probably my hardest matchup being orks, they just could not get through that many models quick enough, the attrition war has still been too hard for people to overcome when playing against the Hivefleet. In saying that, I expect the meta especially the top end of the meta to start really adapting to the horde, so as a horde player I will still carry my concerns regardless of the success the army has had.
So with the last 5 or so months of success since I picked up the Nids, Cancon winner, Queensland Master and held onto the undefeated streak, It hurt me to even say that Hivefleet Cuck will be entering retirement for the foreseeable future. Mostly because it truly is just far too difficult to not be incredibly burnt out after playing 5-6 months of 150+ models.
So with the new tournament season starting, ETC and ATC on the cards, what better way to pickup a new and flavourful army.
With this blog moving forward I would love some suggestions on what everyone would like to see from this blog in the new year or if you're happy to keep reading similar content to what I have been putting out there.
Friday, February 1, 2019
AND THATS A WRAP!
Alright guys/gals so most of you may already know the Hivefleet managed to take out Cancon 2019!
This was a pretty massive accomplishment being the biggest event i have played in to date and it truly was like running the gauntlet. 8 games over 3 days was a hell of a grind and to top it all off I believe I had one tough slog of a tournament run playing against Andy Bighead Armstrong, Matt #1 Morosoli, Hayden Hades Walduck, Jeremy Marigold Martino, and Leigh The Bull Abbey.
As tough as it was it is exactly what I wanted, I was there to prove my worth and to play all of Australia's heavy hitters and come out on top was perfect. The list worked exactly how I hoped it would playing into this meta though I did run into one of my major concerns being tau. That game was essentially just being shot for 6 turns while I tried to pick up a couple of fire warrior units and stay on top with objectives.
This was a perfect way to wrap up the tournament season with the Nids and a massive accomplishment for the Godhammer Gaming crew with a stellar performance across the board and it was definitely different and pretty exciting to show up the on the American's radar as they were tuning in on Downunder Networks stream over the weekend!
Moving forward I'm anxiously waiting to see what the GSC drop brings to my army but after Cancon it's safe to say I've got my mojo back with my favourite army after getting relatively burnt out a couple of weeks before Cancon. With QLD masters now one week away we'll see if I can keep the undefeated run going and power through this entire tournament season.
Next post I'll give a run down on what I decided to take to QLD masters and talk about how it went and what some of my meta concerns are which has taken a bit of a shake up with the bolter rule hitting the tables. For those of you who would like to check it out here is a link to Rd8 vs Leigh Abbey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFKOfUZNrTI&t=2824s&fbclid=IwAR19nYa8GB_wNyBIvdk8pa5snsyzQCA2h-gjwN1biEiObU0xzn51Je4FiuY
If anyone has any questions on something I haven't covered please feel free to message the Godhammer Gaming Facebook page to have a chat or discuss some lists!
This was a pretty massive accomplishment being the biggest event i have played in to date and it truly was like running the gauntlet. 8 games over 3 days was a hell of a grind and to top it all off I believe I had one tough slog of a tournament run playing against Andy Bighead Armstrong, Matt #1 Morosoli, Hayden Hades Walduck, Jeremy Marigold Martino, and Leigh The Bull Abbey.
As tough as it was it is exactly what I wanted, I was there to prove my worth and to play all of Australia's heavy hitters and come out on top was perfect. The list worked exactly how I hoped it would playing into this meta though I did run into one of my major concerns being tau. That game was essentially just being shot for 6 turns while I tried to pick up a couple of fire warrior units and stay on top with objectives.
This was a perfect way to wrap up the tournament season with the Nids and a massive accomplishment for the Godhammer Gaming crew with a stellar performance across the board and it was definitely different and pretty exciting to show up the on the American's radar as they were tuning in on Downunder Networks stream over the weekend!
Moving forward I'm anxiously waiting to see what the GSC drop brings to my army but after Cancon it's safe to say I've got my mojo back with my favourite army after getting relatively burnt out a couple of weeks before Cancon. With QLD masters now one week away we'll see if I can keep the undefeated run going and power through this entire tournament season.
Next post I'll give a run down on what I decided to take to QLD masters and talk about how it went and what some of my meta concerns are which has taken a bit of a shake up with the bolter rule hitting the tables. For those of you who would like to check it out here is a link to Rd8 vs Leigh Abbey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFKOfUZNrTI&t=2824s&fbclid=IwAR19nYa8GB_wNyBIvdk8pa5snsyzQCA2h-gjwN1biEiObU0xzn51Je4FiuY
If anyone has any questions on something I haven't covered please feel free to message the Godhammer Gaming Facebook page to have a chat or discuss some lists!
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Secrets Unveiled
Welcome back guys, as promised this week I'll go over a few of the lists I think are ones to watch out for at Cancon and what we could probably expect to see at the pointy end and how I feel about my list coming in.
So list number 1; The army everyone hates. 180 plague bearers being run by Leigh Abbey, so this army is quite clearly a great choice of list when playing in the ITC format whether it be the full extreme of 180 or anywhere from 90+ bearers, the resilience and damage from these 7 point objective secured units is just insane, as most of you would already know it is incredibly difficult to ever get kill one against this list let alone even contemplating hold more. The only way you will go toe to toe with this army in ITC is if your list has the ability to be able to push back and force him to actually work for his board control otherwise you are more or less playing out an already written story. This is definitely an army we can expect to see at the pointy end if not take the event out.
List number 2:
The not so new Ork horde! similar to the plague bearers this army has a pretty intimidating advance and can gain board control straight off the bat which is incredibly important in ITC, the difference with this one is the ridiculous fire power coming out of the mobbed up loota squads, for those of you who haven't been on the receiving end of this yet be grateful, 9 times out of 10 this unit is putting 100-150 str7 -1 Two damage shots into you with re roll ones to hit and generating extra shots on 5's. Some lists just cannot cop this sort of punishment for more then one turn and for some just one volley can be enough to wrap the game up especially being protected by my now most hated stratagem... Grotshield :(
On the plus side this is one of the few armies that can definitely put plague bearers on the ropes so hopefully these neat little Ork lists can put some of those filthy followers of Nurgle on their arse. This is definitely one to watch and i could almost guarantee we will see Orks within the top 10 at Cancon.
List 3:
This one has been around for a while and although i think it has lost a few teeth a lot of people still seem to be keen as mustard for the catachan horde + knight castellan. There's heaps of these lists most with a slightly different take on what is supporting it to suit their own play style I guess, I think some of the better players with these armies will still do quite well but I feel like most are going to fall over the ork and bearer hordes and possibly some of the ynarri lists depending on what they have supporting the catachan. Will we see these lists in the top 5? I don't believe we will but I do think they will do a number on some of the left field lists hoping to sneak through.
List 4:
Probably the most hated faction is about to hit the scene and hit it hard, and of course that faction is tau. There's probably nothing i hate more then having to just pick up half my army looking down the barrel of 9 broadsides but this is now a very real nightmare. Do I think these broadside/riptide lists will win events and or Cancon? No, however they absolutely have the potential to put some of the current top tier lists down pretty hard. A tau list i would genuinely back to win events is any sort of manoeuvrable tau, something like Hayden Manskie has submitted with his fire warrior and devilfish spam list, i absolutely love it, with the addition of some AP shooting this list could be absolutely incredible. I 100% expect to see tau in the top 10 possibly the top 5 as I think it is too soon for people to have adjusted to this meta of potent hordes with the added threat of ridiculous fire power you simply cannot build for it all.
List 5: The sleeper.
Played by one of QLD's heavy hitters, dad#2 Simon Gojky.
he has decided to go with something insanely resilient with a lot of hidden power and a nice bag of tricks, for those of you who haven't seen his list yet, he is running ;
Eldrad
warlock on bike
5 rangers
5 rangers
10 rangers
Troupe master
solitaire (hate this guy)
death jester
death jester
urien
haemonculus with vexator (also hate this guy)
5 wracks
5 wracks
5 wracks
10 grotesques
9 grotesques
9 grotesques
I personally think this list is amazing and has everything it needs to go the distance especially in an ITC format. I'm expecting Simon to grab himself a podium with this one if not take out the event. Multi wound units at the moment i think are really strong especially when given a 4++ and a FNP they really throw out any sort of plans in the shooting phase when trying to figure out where you might be after a turn of shooting, if those 4+ invos are hot your big scary guns aren't getting you out of trouble, and with hidden gems like smite + executioner and the bucket of snipers he can really get through those screens a lot quicker then you might expect, on top of that you will have the constant threat of the solitaire being able to reach in and pick up a few cheeky character kills which will definitely turn a game on its head especially against these plague bearer lists.
Looking through all these lists, contemplating some concerns, re thinking some strategies, I feel pretty good about the list I chose to take, I believe I can compete will all of these top lists with the bag of tech choices I have chosen to take and can commit to an attrition war against these daemon armies. Based on recent tournament experiences I back the strength in my Hivefleet so hopefully it has the guts to pull me through one more event.
for those who haven't seen my list yet this is the general gist of things
nurothrope
malanthrope
6 units of gaunts
2 biovores
broodlord
old one eye
3 units of rippers
patriarch
magus
primus
stealer bomb
The next post probably won't be until after Cancon and I will give you a run down of my games and how the Hivefleet measured up against the current 40k favourite factions.
So list number 1; The army everyone hates. 180 plague bearers being run by Leigh Abbey, so this army is quite clearly a great choice of list when playing in the ITC format whether it be the full extreme of 180 or anywhere from 90+ bearers, the resilience and damage from these 7 point objective secured units is just insane, as most of you would already know it is incredibly difficult to ever get kill one against this list let alone even contemplating hold more. The only way you will go toe to toe with this army in ITC is if your list has the ability to be able to push back and force him to actually work for his board control otherwise you are more or less playing out an already written story. This is definitely an army we can expect to see at the pointy end if not take the event out.
List number 2:
The not so new Ork horde! similar to the plague bearers this army has a pretty intimidating advance and can gain board control straight off the bat which is incredibly important in ITC, the difference with this one is the ridiculous fire power coming out of the mobbed up loota squads, for those of you who haven't been on the receiving end of this yet be grateful, 9 times out of 10 this unit is putting 100-150 str7 -1 Two damage shots into you with re roll ones to hit and generating extra shots on 5's. Some lists just cannot cop this sort of punishment for more then one turn and for some just one volley can be enough to wrap the game up especially being protected by my now most hated stratagem... Grotshield :(
On the plus side this is one of the few armies that can definitely put plague bearers on the ropes so hopefully these neat little Ork lists can put some of those filthy followers of Nurgle on their arse. This is definitely one to watch and i could almost guarantee we will see Orks within the top 10 at Cancon.
List 3:
This one has been around for a while and although i think it has lost a few teeth a lot of people still seem to be keen as mustard for the catachan horde + knight castellan. There's heaps of these lists most with a slightly different take on what is supporting it to suit their own play style I guess, I think some of the better players with these armies will still do quite well but I feel like most are going to fall over the ork and bearer hordes and possibly some of the ynarri lists depending on what they have supporting the catachan. Will we see these lists in the top 5? I don't believe we will but I do think they will do a number on some of the left field lists hoping to sneak through.
List 4:
Probably the most hated faction is about to hit the scene and hit it hard, and of course that faction is tau. There's probably nothing i hate more then having to just pick up half my army looking down the barrel of 9 broadsides but this is now a very real nightmare. Do I think these broadside/riptide lists will win events and or Cancon? No, however they absolutely have the potential to put some of the current top tier lists down pretty hard. A tau list i would genuinely back to win events is any sort of manoeuvrable tau, something like Hayden Manskie has submitted with his fire warrior and devilfish spam list, i absolutely love it, with the addition of some AP shooting this list could be absolutely incredible. I 100% expect to see tau in the top 10 possibly the top 5 as I think it is too soon for people to have adjusted to this meta of potent hordes with the added threat of ridiculous fire power you simply cannot build for it all.
List 5: The sleeper.
Played by one of QLD's heavy hitters, dad#2 Simon Gojky.
he has decided to go with something insanely resilient with a lot of hidden power and a nice bag of tricks, for those of you who haven't seen his list yet, he is running ;
Eldrad
warlock on bike
5 rangers
5 rangers
10 rangers
Troupe master
solitaire (hate this guy)
death jester
death jester
urien
haemonculus with vexator (also hate this guy)
5 wracks
5 wracks
5 wracks
10 grotesques
9 grotesques
9 grotesques
I personally think this list is amazing and has everything it needs to go the distance especially in an ITC format. I'm expecting Simon to grab himself a podium with this one if not take out the event. Multi wound units at the moment i think are really strong especially when given a 4++ and a FNP they really throw out any sort of plans in the shooting phase when trying to figure out where you might be after a turn of shooting, if those 4+ invos are hot your big scary guns aren't getting you out of trouble, and with hidden gems like smite + executioner and the bucket of snipers he can really get through those screens a lot quicker then you might expect, on top of that you will have the constant threat of the solitaire being able to reach in and pick up a few cheeky character kills which will definitely turn a game on its head especially against these plague bearer lists.
Looking through all these lists, contemplating some concerns, re thinking some strategies, I feel pretty good about the list I chose to take, I believe I can compete will all of these top lists with the bag of tech choices I have chosen to take and can commit to an attrition war against these daemon armies. Based on recent tournament experiences I back the strength in my Hivefleet so hopefully it has the guts to pull me through one more event.
for those who haven't seen my list yet this is the general gist of things
nurothrope
malanthrope
6 units of gaunts
2 biovores
broodlord
old one eye
3 units of rippers
patriarch
magus
primus
stealer bomb
The next post probably won't be until after Cancon and I will give you a run down of my games and how the Hivefleet measured up against the current 40k favourite factions.
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
The Road To Cancon
So with list submission for the biggest tournament of the calendar year around the corner what better time to share my thoughts on what I'm expecting to see at Cancon, some of my meta predictions and explain some of my concerns coming into an event like this.
My concerns:
As you could probably have guessed Hivefleet Cuck will be making another appearance at this one, though this may be the last time we see the nidlies on the table for a while. Taking Nids into an event like this I feel like is a bit of a risk as now with the much hated Tau back in the meta game and the release of the Ork codex the power from my alien friends is starting to take a slow decline. With an event around the 150 player mark accommodating at least 30 top tier players it is simply too hard to build a list that is so well rounded that you could comfortably say you can handle anything someone throws at me. Now this lead to quite a stressful process of building a list that I think would be able to hold its own, to do this I'm forced to guess/predict what some of these top players are more likely to bring to Cancon and rely on the backbone of my playing ability to hopefully stay on top of some of the possibly weaker players playing lists that are simply just good against tyranids.
My expectations/predictions:
With so many players all being in contention to taking this one out it is probably safe to say many of these lads will be trying to build a list to fight what might be the "norm" what happens here is that it becomes impossible to really know just what some of the heavy hitters will actually turn up with so it's far easier to generalise some of the top tier armies at the moment and be able to stay in the game against them. The common ones include;
Plaguebearer horde
Ynarri spears
Tzangor bomb + smite + daemons
Imperium soup
Knights
Orks (horde + lootas/meganobs)
This becomes a bit of a reoccurring issue as there is just too many drastically different arch types presented in the current meta and now even worse with the influx of Tau. The best way to compete at this event in my opinion is to pick 2 maybe 3 of what you might consider the strongest arch types at the time or maybe even just the most common and try to build a list to accommodate for those armies, some codexes can probably build a list that can actually fight all of that but you just have to be realistic with what you are playing. eg, I've conceived the fact that my nids just cannot handle all of that with minimal concerns so the "top 3" that i have picked out are;
Tzangor bomb + smites + daemons
Orks
Plaguebearer horde
Those three are what I belive to be the most potent In an ITC meta so I have built to hopefully be able to handle those armies quite well and like i said earlier rely on the backbone of my lists durability and my player ability to get me over the line against those other archtypes. Hopefully this all pans out how I am expecting but if not there was nothing else I could do. But with Cancon now looming the suspense of seeing just what the top tier players are bringing is growing.
The next post will be a break down of what I think of the lists from who I think will be the top 5 players at Cancon and who I think might really fly under the radar with a bit of a surprise list.
My concerns:
As you could probably have guessed Hivefleet Cuck will be making another appearance at this one, though this may be the last time we see the nidlies on the table for a while. Taking Nids into an event like this I feel like is a bit of a risk as now with the much hated Tau back in the meta game and the release of the Ork codex the power from my alien friends is starting to take a slow decline. With an event around the 150 player mark accommodating at least 30 top tier players it is simply too hard to build a list that is so well rounded that you could comfortably say you can handle anything someone throws at me. Now this lead to quite a stressful process of building a list that I think would be able to hold its own, to do this I'm forced to guess/predict what some of these top players are more likely to bring to Cancon and rely on the backbone of my playing ability to hopefully stay on top of some of the possibly weaker players playing lists that are simply just good against tyranids.
My expectations/predictions:
With so many players all being in contention to taking this one out it is probably safe to say many of these lads will be trying to build a list to fight what might be the "norm" what happens here is that it becomes impossible to really know just what some of the heavy hitters will actually turn up with so it's far easier to generalise some of the top tier armies at the moment and be able to stay in the game against them. The common ones include;
Plaguebearer horde
Ynarri spears
Tzangor bomb + smite + daemons
Imperium soup
Knights
Orks (horde + lootas/meganobs)
This becomes a bit of a reoccurring issue as there is just too many drastically different arch types presented in the current meta and now even worse with the influx of Tau. The best way to compete at this event in my opinion is to pick 2 maybe 3 of what you might consider the strongest arch types at the time or maybe even just the most common and try to build a list to accommodate for those armies, some codexes can probably build a list that can actually fight all of that but you just have to be realistic with what you are playing. eg, I've conceived the fact that my nids just cannot handle all of that with minimal concerns so the "top 3" that i have picked out are;
Tzangor bomb + smites + daemons
Orks
Plaguebearer horde
Those three are what I belive to be the most potent In an ITC meta so I have built to hopefully be able to handle those armies quite well and like i said earlier rely on the backbone of my lists durability and my player ability to get me over the line against those other archtypes. Hopefully this all pans out how I am expecting but if not there was nothing else I could do. But with Cancon now looming the suspense of seeing just what the top tier players are bringing is growing.
The next post will be a break down of what I think of the lists from who I think will be the top 5 players at Cancon and who I think might really fly under the radar with a bit of a surprise list.
Saturday, December 15, 2018
The Final Showdown
Welcome back guys, this week's post is all about my round 5 game against fellow ATC teammate Liam Hackett. Everyone at this event was anticipating Liam to do quite well with this all new and powerful force which is Orks, he was running a list that was considerably different to what would first come to mind when you think of the Ork horde which has been their standard throughout the editions.
Just to quickly outline what Liam was running so you all have an idea what I'm talking about when we go into detail;
Your standard pick of Ork characters, war bosses/weird boys
big unit of lootas
big unit of tank bustas
a tide of gretchin
and a 20 man mega-nob death star.. 7th ed is that you?
Now, going into this game i was feeling pretty uneasy about this match up after being exposed to what the Orks could do in round 1 against Luke Pearce. I think I could comfortably say if i hadn't played Orks round 1 I would have lost this game. Looking across the table to this match up is quite daunting, this Ork list has all the tools it needs to be able to get on top of the Nid carpet while having the damage output to really scare the Hive Tyrants and any of my other backfield shooting.
With the mega-nob unit dishing out a whopping 80/100 power claw attacks I knew the only chance i had here was to do everything I could to mitigate the damage coming out of this unit, that on it's own would not have been so hard if I didn't also have to find a way to shut down the other key units like tank bustas and lootas.
I was pretty confident I would be able to achieve this if i was to have first turn, this would mean he has less time to screen out the Hive Tyrant drop along with giving me an extra turn to really start minimising just where this mega unit could go, stopping Da Jump was never really an issue as i had the spore field, but funnelling this units movement with spore mines from biovores or just with gaunts keeping the mega unit away from my backfield was key here. Sadly this plan got turned on it's head when i lost the roll for first turn ( I had the +1)
So Ork turn 1 meant this "star" could get to where it really needed to be at the end of turn 1 just by moving and advancing as Evil Suns, Liam was also able to get a few shots off into the biovores and killing a couple which wasn't huge but i was happy i didn't lose any full units. I now had one turn to set up everything perfectly to take the charge from the mega unit. I don't think I've ever spent longer thinking before actually moving a model to set this up but i knew if i could do it in a way where all the models in his unit are splitting attacks amongst various gaunt squads I would be able to sustain this damage. Knowing the megaz were making this charge next turn i pushed forward as much as i could to start laying out some hurt on the gretchin to make sure i had some room to drop my flyrants in key spots, this even meant shooting all my biovores into them.. feels bad bro.
So with all gaunt squads interlocked as much as i possibly could, The Horror up on the mega unit i handed it back over to Liam. The megaz made combat this turn tagging all but one of the gaunt squads, this is where Liam really gave me some breathing space without knowing it, when the unit charged he stretched them out as far as possible to keep everything in my deployment zone, though in doing this during my next turn it meant the middle units that were all in combat cold fall back, i made sure all these models were outside of 4" now this means the models filling the gap in the middle of his unit could only pile in forwards leaving only 4 or 5 of the megaz in this 20 man unit to attack, after that it was essentially rinse and repeat and i would alternate which units were in combat as much as I could to just filter out his attacks. Because of the space that was created for the Tyrants this meant they could easily clean up his back field and Liam couldn't get the mega unit out of combat to handle this. Doing this meant i had taken away the 80+ shots coming out of the megaz every turn along with in combat with the horror they were only hitting on 5's so when I've made it so 3 megaz are hitting one unit and 2 maybe 3 hitting another he really isn't achieving anything which drastically impacts the KP differential. Game ended turn 5, 14-6 win to the Tyranids. A great game to end a tournament with and it's amazing to see this kind of talent coming through our scene.
Next on the cards is the build up to Cancon!
What will I be running? At the moment I have no idea, a lot of thought will be going into this one, but rest assured, Hivefleet Cuck will be making an appearance.
You'll be able to follow along with the tournament with who some of Australia's big names are picking as the favourites for this event and what they expect to show up from our good mates @Down Under Network. Check them out for some quality banter and of course the streams!
https://www.facebook.com/DownUnderNetwork/?epa=SEARCH_BOX
Just to quickly outline what Liam was running so you all have an idea what I'm talking about when we go into detail;
Your standard pick of Ork characters, war bosses/weird boys
big unit of lootas
big unit of tank bustas
a tide of gretchin
and a 20 man mega-nob death star.. 7th ed is that you?
Now, going into this game i was feeling pretty uneasy about this match up after being exposed to what the Orks could do in round 1 against Luke Pearce. I think I could comfortably say if i hadn't played Orks round 1 I would have lost this game. Looking across the table to this match up is quite daunting, this Ork list has all the tools it needs to be able to get on top of the Nid carpet while having the damage output to really scare the Hive Tyrants and any of my other backfield shooting.
With the mega-nob unit dishing out a whopping 80/100 power claw attacks I knew the only chance i had here was to do everything I could to mitigate the damage coming out of this unit, that on it's own would not have been so hard if I didn't also have to find a way to shut down the other key units like tank bustas and lootas.
I was pretty confident I would be able to achieve this if i was to have first turn, this would mean he has less time to screen out the Hive Tyrant drop along with giving me an extra turn to really start minimising just where this mega unit could go, stopping Da Jump was never really an issue as i had the spore field, but funnelling this units movement with spore mines from biovores or just with gaunts keeping the mega unit away from my backfield was key here. Sadly this plan got turned on it's head when i lost the roll for first turn ( I had the +1)
So Ork turn 1 meant this "star" could get to where it really needed to be at the end of turn 1 just by moving and advancing as Evil Suns, Liam was also able to get a few shots off into the biovores and killing a couple which wasn't huge but i was happy i didn't lose any full units. I now had one turn to set up everything perfectly to take the charge from the mega unit. I don't think I've ever spent longer thinking before actually moving a model to set this up but i knew if i could do it in a way where all the models in his unit are splitting attacks amongst various gaunt squads I would be able to sustain this damage. Knowing the megaz were making this charge next turn i pushed forward as much as i could to start laying out some hurt on the gretchin to make sure i had some room to drop my flyrants in key spots, this even meant shooting all my biovores into them.. feels bad bro.
So with all gaunt squads interlocked as much as i possibly could, The Horror up on the mega unit i handed it back over to Liam. The megaz made combat this turn tagging all but one of the gaunt squads, this is where Liam really gave me some breathing space without knowing it, when the unit charged he stretched them out as far as possible to keep everything in my deployment zone, though in doing this during my next turn it meant the middle units that were all in combat cold fall back, i made sure all these models were outside of 4" now this means the models filling the gap in the middle of his unit could only pile in forwards leaving only 4 or 5 of the megaz in this 20 man unit to attack, after that it was essentially rinse and repeat and i would alternate which units were in combat as much as I could to just filter out his attacks. Because of the space that was created for the Tyrants this meant they could easily clean up his back field and Liam couldn't get the mega unit out of combat to handle this. Doing this meant i had taken away the 80+ shots coming out of the megaz every turn along with in combat with the horror they were only hitting on 5's so when I've made it so 3 megaz are hitting one unit and 2 maybe 3 hitting another he really isn't achieving anything which drastically impacts the KP differential. Game ended turn 5, 14-6 win to the Tyranids. A great game to end a tournament with and it's amazing to see this kind of talent coming through our scene.
Next on the cards is the build up to Cancon!
What will I be running? At the moment I have no idea, a lot of thought will be going into this one, but rest assured, Hivefleet Cuck will be making an appearance.
You'll be able to follow along with the tournament with who some of Australia's big names are picking as the favourites for this event and what they expect to show up from our good mates @Down Under Network. Check them out for some quality banter and of course the streams!
https://www.facebook.com/DownUnderNetwork/?epa=SEARCH_BOX
Monday, December 10, 2018
The Reign of Terror Continues
Welcome back to The Hive Mind, in this post ill quickly touch on the most recent even which was Hero-con and my initial reaction on whats to come from chapter approved, some concerns i have moving forward with Nids along with some possible benefits.
So Hero-con was a two day tournament running ETC styled missions run by the infamous Josh McGowan, hats off for running a really organised event. For this event I went completely against what i have been saying about a particular unit in the nid dex for a long time, here's what i ran;
Leviathan Battalion:
Dakka Flyrant
Dakka Flyrant
Dakka Flyrant
3 rippers
30 gaunts
30 gaunts
5 venomthropes
3 biovores
3 biovores
2 biovores
Leviathan Battalion:
Nurothrope
Nurothrope
30 gaunts
30 gaunts
30 gaunts
and some left over points for spore field goodness.
Just quickly on how this list went, I played against;
rd1: orks (12-8)
rd2: Deathguard (18-2)
rd3: Guard (19-1)
rd4: Tau (20-0)
rd5: orks (14-6)
There you have it guys, Hivefleet Cuck continues its undefeated run.
This was a pretty neat spread of armies to play against, all of these lists were drastically different to each other even the two ork lists so that was all pretty refreshing. I'm still not sold on the flyrants as a unit in a tyranid army, i love the weight of fire they bring to the table for me but not for the sacrifice of 600 odd points that's so easily taken away from me.
Prior to this event I was genuinely concerned with how my list would fair against the new guys on the block being orks and I was 100% right in placing my concerns with them, that book is off its head. Despite the score being closer in game 1 I played one of the toughest games I've had in a long time against a good mate Liam Hackett, he was playing a meganob star ork list and it was honestly such a well constructed list, i take my hat off to him for this one. This game deserves its own little write up so I'll be making it the topic of the next post, stay tuned to hear about just how I manoeuvred to get the upper hand on this brutal ork list.
So Hero-con was a two day tournament running ETC styled missions run by the infamous Josh McGowan, hats off for running a really organised event. For this event I went completely against what i have been saying about a particular unit in the nid dex for a long time, here's what i ran;
Leviathan Battalion:
Dakka Flyrant
Dakka Flyrant
Dakka Flyrant
3 rippers
30 gaunts
30 gaunts
5 venomthropes
3 biovores
3 biovores
2 biovores
Leviathan Battalion:
Nurothrope
Nurothrope
30 gaunts
30 gaunts
30 gaunts
and some left over points for spore field goodness.
Just quickly on how this list went, I played against;
rd1: orks (12-8)
rd2: Deathguard (18-2)
rd3: Guard (19-1)
rd4: Tau (20-0)
rd5: orks (14-6)
There you have it guys, Hivefleet Cuck continues its undefeated run.
This was a pretty neat spread of armies to play against, all of these lists were drastically different to each other even the two ork lists so that was all pretty refreshing. I'm still not sold on the flyrants as a unit in a tyranid army, i love the weight of fire they bring to the table for me but not for the sacrifice of 600 odd points that's so easily taken away from me.
Prior to this event I was genuinely concerned with how my list would fair against the new guys on the block being orks and I was 100% right in placing my concerns with them, that book is off its head. Despite the score being closer in game 1 I played one of the toughest games I've had in a long time against a good mate Liam Hackett, he was playing a meganob star ork list and it was honestly such a well constructed list, i take my hat off to him for this one. This game deserves its own little write up so I'll be making it the topic of the next post, stay tuned to hear about just how I manoeuvred to get the upper hand on this brutal ork list.
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