1k Kroot Surprisingly Strong

[Tawnis]

So I joined up with a local league recently and wanted to play something outside of my usual faire of Space Marines or Necrons. I love the Kroot lore-wise and since it was a casual league that allowed Legendary units, that sealed the deal for me. I didn't think I would do all that well TBH, I mostly just built it for fun, but it's been crushing it so far. Here's the list:

 

1 Battalion Detachment: Dal'Yth Sept (Sept traits sadly do not effect Kroot units):

 

HQ

 

1 Ethereal on Disk with 2 Marker Drones: 80pts. 

WT: Gunship Diplomat, Relic: Seismic Destabilizer.

 

1 Ethereal on Disk with 2 Marker Drones: 80pts. 

 

Troops

 

60 Kroot Carnivores in squads of 10: 360pts.

 

Elites

 

2 Shapers with Pulse Rifles: 50pts.

 

4 Individual Krootox: 112pts. 

 

Fast Attack:

 

12 Kroot Hounds: 72pts.

 

6 Knarloc Riders in squads of 3: 180pts.

 

Heavy Support:

 

1 Greater Knarloc: 65pts. 

 

Total: 999 Points.

 

So, there are two main features to the army that makes the army pretty solid:

 

First, it's their maneuverability. 7" Pregame move on the Carnivores, then 7" regular. 12" on the hounds, 7" on the Knarlocs with auto 6" for advance. Shapers can even take a 1CP Stratagem to give them aura re-roll advance rolls if that's not enough. Basically, turn one, you can get well across the board and onto any relevant objective. 

 

Second is their numbers and surprising durability for their points. The main weakness to the Carnivores is their 6+ save and Ld 6. An Ethereal nearby protects them with both a Ld 9 aura and a 6+ FNP. Putting them in cover helps too, with the aid of the Hidden Hunters stratagem giving a Kroot unit in cover -1 to be hit and +1sv over and above what is given by the cover itself. 

 

Between the Knarlocs and Hounds trying up anything of concern, the army gets in fast and locks down the objectives long enough to ensure a victory even if the opponent manages to fight through it all by the later turns. 

 

So here's a very brief overview of how the army has done so far. I played 3 preliminary games before the league officially started, all at 1k points. 

 

Game 1 vs Blood Angels: He went first and conceded on his turn two. We played center ground and I got on all 4 objectives by the end of my first turn preventing him from scoring; I also killed his 300+ pt Repuslor Executioner with a my 65 point Greater Knarloc and about half if an assault intercessor squad trying to contest an objective. After a failed charge from his Sanguinary Guard out of deep strike on turn 2, he hadn't taken a single objective and scooped up his models. (Though he was super nice about it and asked to play again sometime.) We did't total the points since it ended so early, though I had maxed out on all my scoring so far and it didn't look like it would change. 

 

Game 2 vs Astra Militarum: So he played an all tank army fitted with lots of Plasma Cannons that seemed kitted out to take on Space Marines. He didn't have much chance as he simply couldn't roll enough dice to kill all the Kroot and so much of my stuff was ObSec that he couldn't contest the objectives. I scored a perfect 100 that game. (My first time ever.) 

 

Game 3 vs Tau (Farsight Enclaves): For this one, while grabbing the objectives, my Knarlocs and Hounds ran into his Riptide and Crisis Suits, trying them up for the first two turns while I took out his infantry with an ocean of Str 4 shots from my Carnivores. By the time the Knarlocs were dead, he'd lost all his infantry and much like the Gaurd player, just didn't have enough dice to dislodge the remaining Kroot from the objectives. I scored 99 points that game. 

 

So then the league started in earnest and was structured like so: Game 1: 750pts. Game 2-3: 1,000pts, Game 4-5: 1,500pts, game 6: 2,000pts.

 

League Game 1 vs Custodes: (I cut 20 Carnivores, 3 Riders, 6 Hounds, and a Disk). Easily the hardest game fought so far as it was damn near impossible to kill his models (except for a Hero Krootox that killed 2 custodian guard by himself with some exemplary dice rolling). Much like the other games, I grabbed the midfield turn one in an attempt to choke him out. It essentially turned into a giant brawl on a midfield objective that lasted until the end of the third round with him trading a unit of custodian guard and a few wounds off his captain and dread for over half my army. His use of the Grim Responsibility and the Emperor's Auspice Stratagems prevented an absurd amount of damage that game. However, by the time he'd cleared all that out, I was too far ahead on points for him to make a comeback, though he did close the distance significantly finishing with a score of 82-71 (The original score was 95-71, but I realized afterwards I accidentally selected two secondareis from the same group, whups). 

 

So yeah, that's the story of the (as of yet) undefeated Kroot army. I've been really happy with it so far and am looking forward to the rest of the league. If I could change anything, I would cut a unit of Carnivores and a Disk (Spending 1 CP for the extra WT: A Ghost Walks Among Us to compensate for the movement loss) to add another Greater Knarloc. Those things are just so points efficient, but they are damn near impossible to find as they were discontinued so long ago. 

 

I'd love to hear what you think of the army and any other improvements that could potentially be made to it.  

Edited October 19, 2021 by Tawnis

[Xenith]

Thanks for the reports, and a super interesting list/army. It seems to play like Tyranids, though if your kroot are 6pts each with a 24" gun, then they're far better than gaunts at 5pts with a 12" gun! Shaper/synapse at the back to provide fnp and leadership, winning through swarming objectives and not necessarily killing. I like it! 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Xenith
typo...

[Tawnis]

5 Games and still undefeated. Played against Necrons today. 

 

He ran a Command Barge, The Nightbringer, a Technomancer, 20 Warrior and 10 Flayed Ones. We played the Re-supply mission from GT2021. I took the Stranglehold, Banners, and Secure Landing Sites (the mission secondary). He took the two Necron ones, Code of Combat and Purge the Vermin, as well as Secure Lading Sites.

 

He got the first turn and advanced into the midfield with his whole army (but kept the Flayed Ones in Deep Strike). He killed my Greater Knarloc, 8 hounds, 1 Krootox, and a few Carnivores in Shooting. My turn 1 I made the questionable spending of 2CP to auto pass morale on my hounds (not a tonne of Stratagems I have access to at all Kroot) and threw everything I had into his warriors, shooting all my guns and charging the hounds and both Knarloc Rider units into them. 19 were dead after a failed Ld. I also got on all three midfield objectives. However I was only able to banner up two objectives as he'd gotten midfield ahead of me. 

 

Turn 2 he brought in his Flayed Ones, but failed the charge and re-roll. The Nightbringer got into the center killing and handful of Carnivores and a Shaper with powers but wiffing in Melee only taking a 2 wounds off a rider and 2 off an Ethereal. (However he made up for it by saving all 5 of my Knarloc Riders D2 swing backs on 4 ups.) His command Barge cleared out most of the right flank, but I had just enough left to hold the objective. On my turn, I fell back my riders and Ethereal. picked off the remaining two warriors (one came back from the Technomancer), a couple of Flayed ones, his Technomancer, three wounds of the Nightbriner and two off the barge. At end of turn I held all 5 objectives.  

 

Turn 3 he got his flayed ones into combat finally, chopping up one of my carnivores after loosing two in overwatch. The Nightbringer took finished off my Ehtereal and two riders, while his barge toasted the other Ethereal still holding down the east objective. Knowing that the midfield objective would be the first one gone (and taking a banner with it), I moved the two squads I had there out, one contesting the objective is command barge was on and another moving on the Flayed ones, I took 3 out in shooting, but the last 2 held. I held 2 of (what was about to be) the 4 remaining objectives at the end of the turn.

 

Turn four his Flayed Ones charged my lone rider on their objectives, dealing two wounds but dying to the crack back. The Nightbringer intercepted obsec carnivores on the way to help taking out one of the two squads and the barge cleaned up the squad that moved to contest its objective that was about to disappear. Knowing where he was at and how far in he was, my opponent conceded. 

 

Final score: 87-34. I missed 3 points on Stranglehold end of turn 3, and only got 5 on banners as he beat me to the midfield. He maxed Code of Combat for 15, but only got 5 from primaries, 4 from Purge the Vermin, and 3 from Secure Landing Sites. 

 

Takeaway: The Nightbringer and command barge were scary, but could only mathematically kill so many models. Turn two showed me that I could kill the Nightbringer if I really tried, but it would be a risk, and at that point, it wasn't obsec and I was more concerned with the Flayed ones who were pushing the most important midfield objective so I focused on them instead. Once anything that could contest objectives was dead, there wasn't much he could do other than kill 10-20 models a turn, but when you have 91 models on the table, you've got plenty to spare. I did only have 20 models left at the end of it all. 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Tawnis

[Tawnis]

Game 6 done and another win for the Kroot, this time against a Salamanders army that had me pretty scared when I saw it hit the table. He ran: Adrax Agatone, a Librarian, a Chief Apothecary, 5 Aggressors with flamers (yikes), 7 Eradicators with Melta Rifles, and 5 Intercessors with Bolt Rifles. We played Forward Push.

 

While I think we both had a solid change of winning from the outset, the game was essentially decided by the end of turn 1. I knew that if I couldn't kill the Aggressors I was done for, those flamers with the Salamanders buff would just rip right through me. He got the first turn, but I moved up some Kroot with their pre-game move to make a tantalizing target for the Aggressors that was just out of their range. On his first turn, he moved them out of cover to burn the squad down while taking out my Greater Knarloc and a pair of Riders with his Melta Rifles. On my turn, I threw everything I had into the Aggressors. Even thought they were backed by the Apothacary between shooting and assault I managed to just barely clear them all off the table, leaving his Apothecary with nothing to heal/revive. 

 

At the end of the round he looked at the table and said "huh, I don't think I can win now" just due to the number of bodies I had left and his strong but limited shooting, which was very much the case. We still played it out and I walked away with 97 VP, however had my even one of those Aggressors lived (with the Apothecary healing it and reviving another), I could have seen things turning out VERY differently. 

 

So that's it for the ALL Kroot army, next round is 1,500 points and I'm out of Kroot models. I've been trying to decide between one of two ways to go for the next round. 

 

For sure I'm taking a Farsight Enclaves Detachment with: 

1 XV8 Crisis Commanders with 3 Fusion Blasters, 1 Shield Gen, and 2 Shield Drones

WT: Hero of the Enclaves, Relic: Fusion Blades.

 

What I'm debating is either moving two Krootox into this detachment as a vanguard and going with:
6 XV8 Crisis Suits with 5 Fusion Blasters, 8 Plasma Rifles, 5 Shield Gens, 2 Marker Drones (-2 Kroot Hounds for points)

Or, going all in on the infantry aspect with a patrol detachment of: (Again -2 hounds for points) 
20 Breachers each with the Invul Drone and Shield Drones.

5 Fire Warriors with no drones

5 Pathfinders with 1 Ion Rifle

While the Crisis team gives me much more firepower to down elite and heavy units, I've gotten by pretty well with just ignoring those, taking my lumps and focusing on their troops. I think this will leave my carnivores much more vulnerable if I don't play it exactly right. 

The infantry route give me much more of the same, more bodies to lock down the objectives, more marker lights to make my shooting all the things much better and some decent stopping power with the Breachers. Either they'll absorb a lot of the fire first, or they'll be able to dish out a decent amount of firepower with their close range weapons/stratagems. The Breachers back up the Carnivores advancing up the board and are also covered by the Ethereals (yes that works even though they are different "Septs", I make sure) while the fire warriors and Pathfinders back up the Krootox in the backfield. 

 

I'm leaning towards the latter with brining in the battlesuits in the 2k version, but I'm still undecided for the moment. 

[Tawnis]

Game 7 is in the bag and with some Farsight Enclaves assistance, the Kroot are victorious again, this time against the Death Guard. I decided to go the route of additional infantry rather than the crisis suits and the logic of just more obsec bodies was sound as once again, I couldn't be removed from the objectives fast enough. Though the addition of the Breachers, Fusion Commander, and more markerlights allowed me to punch back a lot harder than in previous games. 

 

He ran the big boy himself, Mortarion, a Malignant Plaugecaster, 2 units of 10 Poxwalkers, a unit of 5 Plauge Marines, a Tallyman, a Foul Blightspawn, 5 Blightlord Terminators, and 2 Plagueburst Crawlers. 

 

We played Surround and Destroy: I took Stranglehold and Raise the Banners like usual, and decided to gamble on the mission secondary Surround Them as there wasn't much else that looked like it would score me very high. He took Strangelhold, To the Last, and the Death Guard Specific Spread the Sickness. I reserved my Crisis Commander while he reserved his Terminators. I got the first turn and pre-game moved up all my Carnivores. 

 

Turn 1: I got pretty much everything into the midfield. Weary of Mortarion in the middle of his deployment zone, I swung all my Knarlocks and hounds along the far left flank to keep them away from him, but to bait him to that side specifically. I left behind my strike squad and a pair of Krootox on one objective and my Pathfinder and two other Krootox on another. I bannered up all four objectives I now had and took a few pot shots that killed off a handful of Poxwalkers and a Plauge Marine.

 

On his turn one he contaminated an objective, then brought back his Poxwalkers with a stratagem and took Mortarion right onto my left objective (loosing two points from a FTGG overwatch that was out of his range to turn off), he cut down what was left of two squads of Kroot I had on it, but my Shaper still stood, contesting the objective. My Knarloc also went down after both his Plaugeburst Crawlers and his Foul Blightspawn poured their fire into it. 

Turn 2: I decided just to ignore Mortarion, concede the midfield objective and push into the back to go for Surround Them. I got a little overzealous with my shooting and cleared off the poxwalkers I wanted to charge, but managed to make a long bomb charge into his Tallyman and just barely tag the objective. One of my Breacher squads cleaned up all but one of his Plauge Marines, while on the other side of the table, I got smart and killed all but one of his Poxwalkers, and put the ret of my shooting into his Malignant Plaguecaster and charged the Carnivores into his Poxwalker to secure the other backfield objective. My Crisis Commander came down just barely in between his two Plaugeburst Crawlers, taking 5 wounds off one in shooting, then charging it and taking another 4 wounds off with his Fusion Blades. 

 

On his turn two, he was left with few models remaining, Mortarion, one free tank, a couple characters, and his Terminators, just coming in. Mortarion continued to crush the left flank taking out another full squad of Kroot and my Warlord, who were shielding my Breachers from his charge. The free tank and his Fould Blightspawn managed to clean up most of my hounds and a pair of riders, but I still managed to hold the backfield on the left. The right was down to two squads of Carnivores in melee with his Malignant Plaguecaster and not too much happened there. His Terminators managed a couple kills in shooting, but failed their charge out of Deep Strike and the re-roll. 

 

Turn 3: I shifted around a few things, but mostly just held onto what I had. I did move what was left of both squads of breaches out to take on the terminators, dealing 8 unsaved wounds after they were all marker lighted up. I pulled back my Commander and used Mont'Ka to shoot the other Plagueburst Crawler, taking it down to 5 wounds, then finished it off by charging it with the Fusion Blades. I also plinked 2 more wounds off Mortarion with some shooting that couldn't go anywhere else. 

 

On his turn, Mortarion cleared out the last of the Knarloc Riders, securing one of his backfield objectives, the Terminators moved up and killed a few in shooting, but sadly, once again failed to charge anything. His Malignant Plaugecaster finally died in close combat to the Carnivores after taking a total of 9 of them with him (from 3 rounds of combat at psychic). His remaining Paluge Marine died to overwatch attempting to charge a squad of Breacers. 

 

Turn 4: My Crisis Commander Shot and Charges his last Plagueburst Crawler, but he made all his 5+ invuls, and I inflicted no damage. I poured my infantry fire into the Terminators, almost finishing them off, but leaving one at a single wound. 

 

He fell back his Plagueburst crawler and brought Mortarion down onto my Crisis Commander and just barely managed to one shot him through the drones. His terminator failed to charge again. Much like like Plauge Marine his Tallyman died to overwatch trying to charge some Breachers. 

 

Turn 5: I cleaned up his Terminator and Plagueburst crawler with my remaining Breachers and just held fast on objectives. He could have run onto some objectives and got 10 more points but he new it was over and went down swigning, cutting up another Ethereal, and the remnants of a Breacher and Kroot squad with Mortarion and his Foul Blightspawn. 

End game score was 100-28. This could have been a little higher for him as he could have gotten +10 on his last turn. He missed contaminating a couple objectives that could have gotten him +3 more if he'd rolled 4+ or taken D3 mortals on his last Plague Marine. Had he not taken stranglehold and gone for Assassinate, he could have needed +10 for three characters and my warlord. 51 at least seems like less of a blow out and wouldn't have functionally changed anything about the game. Also, he could have reduced my points a fair bit if he'd brough his Terminators into the backfield and cleared out one of my objectives, thus preventing me from getting Surround Them. (Incidentally I only reported 99 as I didn't realize banners scored at end of game as well, which would also have given me 100 in my previous game too.) 

Having the Breachers protected by the 5+ invul and shielded by Kroot in front of them really allowed them to punch back really hard, and did a lot of the Heavy lifting against his units, while the Fusion Blades turned out to be pretty solid when combined with the re-rolls from Hero of the Enclaves. Going to run that again next game and we'll see if it stays around for the 2k when I have less CP to play with. Taking out his Poxwalkers early was a huge deal, it removed most of his obsec and if they'd gotten into my squishy Kroot, they would have just kept replenishing their numbers and could have overwhelmed me. 

So that was game 7, two games left to go. I'm really hoping to test my mettle against Drukhari before this league is over as I've never played against them before and they sound like an army that can match me for speed. 

Edited November 29, 2021 by Tawnis

[Charlo]

You're an absolute her for running this. Top job!

[Tawnis]

So, the Kroot are officially in the finals, though sadly not in the way I would have preferred. My opponent didn't show up for our scheduled match and there wasn't a day I had available to reschedule before the end of the round, so I was given the win by default. I do know there was a Drukhari player near the top as well from what I heard from some other players, so fingers crossed that will be my final match, would love to test the Kroot against them. 

However, I didn't want to go without a game to talk about, so I arranged another 1000 point game with a friend of mine who wanted was is still pretty new, but wanted to go up against the Kroot that I won't shut up about. XD To help balance out the skill gap, we played the Mission Ascension which disallows pre-game moves, to give a bit of a handicap. I also helped him design his list to counter mine to see how well I'd do against something designed against me. Here's what we came up with for him to run what we had available for his Custom Space Marine Chapter. 

 

Patrol Detachment

Chapter Tactics: Bolter Fusillades, Long Range Marksmen. 

 

HQ

Captain in Gravis Armour with MC Bolt Rifle / Power Sword (WT: The Imperium's Sword.)

 

Troops

Intercessors x5 with Bolt Rifles, Plasma Pistol / Power Sword.

Assault Intercessors x5, Plasma Pistol / Power Fist.

Heavy Intercessors x5 with Hellstorm Bolt Rifles & Hellstorm Heavy Bolter.

 

Elites

Terminators x5 with Hvy Flamer (Would have gone with Agressors, but neither of us own any and we're big on WYSIWYG.)

Apothecary (Relic: Pergatius)

 

Fast Attack

Inceptors with Assault Bolters x3

 

Heavy Support

Eradicators x3 

 

I took Banners, Stranglehold, and the mission specific, Ascension. He took Banners, No Prisoners, and Ascension. He also got the first turn and decided not to Deep Strike anything. I did manage to Deploy my Great Knarloc well enough away from his Eradicators that I had high hopes it would actually get to do something this game. 

 

On my left flank he had is Captain, Apothacary, Eradicators, and Hvy Intercessors, center he had his remaining Intercessors, and on the right the Terminators and Inceptors. I had my Knarloc Riders on the left (to bait him into deploying the Eradicators there) and my Great Knarloc and Hounds on the far right. Krootox held the back middle objective with solid LoS and Carnivores were everywhere as ususal. 

 

Turn 1: 

He moved everything up, but wasn't close enough to grab any of the midfield objectives and shot out 2 of my Knarloc Riders and a handful of my carnivores and a single Krootox, but I had a lot in cover and didn't take too many casualties. 

My turn one, I did the Kroot thing, moved everything up, advancing where necessary and bannered up all three midfield objectives, though I was just barely in range of the center after some poor advance rolls. I threw a bunch of fire into his Eradicators, and after failing a 9/10 3+ saves after re-rolls and only keeping 1 alive due to his Apothacary's 6+ FNP, I thought I could finish them off before he could revive any models so I charged my Karloc Riders into them. Now he rolled amazing though (5 5+'s)and I didn't do any damage, while his Captain intervened and cut my riders to pieces, only leaving one left on two wounds. On the right, some shooting with both my Great Knarloc and a squad of Carnivores brought down one of the Inceptors, and my Hounds were able to charge them and kill a second one. 

 

Turn 2: 

Between his Hvy Intercessors, and his charging Captain, he cleared out a large portion of my left flank while his Apothecary and revived Eradicators finished off my rider. I held the objective, but only by the skin of my teeth. He took the center, knocking over my banner and killing off the few carnivores in range with his Assault intercessors, but because of some creative unit placement on my part, he would have gone past the objective had he charged me, and elected to stay put. On the right, he shot my Great Knarloc with the Terminators and then finished it off in Assault (One day it will do something again XD), while my hounds killed his last Inceptor. 
For my turn, I cut my losses on the left objective and fell back my 7 surviving carnivores to the midfield. I took down 3 of his Assault Intercessors in shooting and reclaimed the center objective. (Killed a full one with 2 6's on my seismic destabilizer XD). On the right, I knew I just had to tie up the Terminaotrs since they weren't obsec and he had nothing else in range. I charged one squad of carnivores in to eat the overwatch and then my hounds as well. (The melee on the right objective would last for the remainder of the game. Had we access to Aggressors, this likely would have turned out very differently.)

 

Turn 3: 

He bannered up the left objective while pushing into the center. His Eradicators knocked off a pair of my remaining Krootox, and nearly finished off another squad of Carnivores between his Intercessors all shooting. He charged in to the fleeing carnivores, and I plinked 2 wounds off his Captain with FTGG, but I doubted I'd manage to down him by this point. With all my heavy hitters pretty much dead, I just had to hold on. 

My turn three, I fell back the unit in combat with the Assault Intercessors and tried to finish them off, but left the Sargent with a single wound remaining. I did manage to knock off a Hvy Intercessor with my last Krootox though. I killed a single Terminator, but was loosing a fair few models in the process though I still managed to barely hold three objectives at the end of the turn.

 

Turn 4 

He took down my last Krootox, clearing me off my backfield objective, and pushed harder into the center, clearing out a handful of carnivores and my marker drones, but was just shy of securing the objective after I killed his Assault Intercessor Sargent and one of his Hvy Intercessors. 

I fell back a unit of 4 remaining carnivores and was just able to get them in cover behind my backfield objective to re-secure it. Things were looking grim on the right flank even though, so I ran my last free unit of Carnivores into the melee to keep the objective locked down (but not before taking out an intercessor in shooting) and managed to bring down a second terminator.  

 

Turn 5

Was mostly cleanup for him at this point, he shot nearly everything else off the board, but didn't have quite enough to clear out the right objective. This was the end of the midfield for me, as he finally secured the objective in the fight phase, killing everything except my Warlord, and mopping up most of what was left on the right flank.

 

At the end of the game all I had left on the table were my 2 Ethereals, a single Marker Drone, and 6 Carnivores (split between a squad of 2 and 4.) 

 

So final score, Kroot: 86, Space Marines: 69, really close game, there were couple times I held and objective by just one or two bodies, so a few rolls a little different could have really changed the outcome. I feel like having Agressors over those Terminators would have tipped the balance and given him a win. (Though he did make A LOT of saves with them and the lower save on the Aggressors would have mattered, though I'm not sure by how much. I certainly would have focused them over the Inceptors early on, so I guess it is still hard to say.)

 

Lastly, I wanted to update you all on the final list. A unit of 9 Crisis suits will be joining the team for the 2k point finals as follows:

XV8 Crisis Battlesuits x9: 225 points (2CP Veteran Cadre Upgrade, 1CP Cross Linked Stabilizer Jets).

7 Fusion Blasters: 105 points

12 Plasma Rifles: 96 points

8 Shield Generators: 40 points

4 Shield Drones: 60 points. 

 

To make that fit, I'm going to cut one of the drone units form the Breachers and just clump the two units close so they can both get the 5+ invul from a single drone. I'm also strongly looking at cutting the Fusion Blades and just having my Commander hang back, though dropping him into the backfield with the ability to melee was really good before (would have really liked to try it out again before deciding), I'm just not sure it's 2CP good now that I'm taking the Jets and using an extra 2CP for Vet Cadre, that would put me down to starting with only 4CP.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Tawnis

[Tawnis]

Final match of the league is done. I played against Thousand Sons. He took 1 Infernal Master, 2 Sorcerers, and 1 Exalted Sorcerer. 1 unit of 10 Scarab Occult Terminators, and another of 5. 2 Hellbrutes, 3 units of 5 Rubric Marines, one with all Warpflamers. A unit of 5 Chaos Spawns and 2 units of 1. We played The Scouring, he took the secondaries Stranglehold, Assassinate, and Warp Ritual. I took the Stranglehold, Banners, and the mission secondary, Strategic Scan. 

Turn 1: He rolled the first turn and teleported his Infernal Master, 10 Terminators, and the 5 Warpflamers into the center. He moved the rest of his forces onto his two objectives and unloaded a torrent of fire, killing about 30 carnivores, 5 of my riders, and 4 breachers, as well as a handful of drones. On my turn 1, I knew my screen wouldn't last much longer and had to clear out the center. I moved what I could spare onto my two side objectives and used my characters to banner and scan while I threw everything else into the middle. With full markers lights, I was able to wipe out most of it in shooting, killing 8 of the 10 terminators. (I made a big mistake here, forgetting to roll 2D6 and choose this highest for my Fusion Blasters, otherwise I likely would have killed all 10.) I charged my Great Knarloc into the Terminaotrs, killing one with 3 mortals, but then wiffed the attack and left the Sorcerer alive. A unit of 5 hounds took a miraculous 3 wounds off the Infernal master, but couldn't quite kill him. I used my other unit of hounds to eat the warpflamers overwatch and then charged my battlesuits into them, using the Furtious Assault Stratagem to inflict 7 mortals, and took another 2 off them in combat, again leaving the sorcerer alive with a single wound. 

Turn 2: He teleported his Infernal Master of combat, performed the ritual then teleported him to safety behind his lines. The other two he kept in combat, smiting my guys. This is where I realized my inexperience against Thousand Sons as he started using psychic powers so snipe my characters performing actions and finish off my Great Knarloc, I got banners up on both sides, but my shaper scanning the objective went down. He follow up shooting that cleaned up most of my remaining carnivores (removing my obsec from the center objective) and after bumping up his Terminators in the psychic phase, charged my remaining units on my right objective, killing my Shaper that was scanning and knocking over my banner. For my turn, I moved my Ethereal over to my objective to scan it while using my remaining Kroot as meat shields, I fell back my Crisis suits and dropped in my Crisis commander, using Mont'ka to allow them to shoot. They took down a Hellbrute that was moving to the center as well as a squad of Rubric Marines that were moving up. I shuffled my breachers over to the right and unleaded into the Terminators, taking 2 down. Post shooting, I realized my second big mistake. I should have advanced my breachers within range of the objective and dropped my commander in range to Mont'ka both them and the crisis team, realising I'd loose the objective, I sadly had to charge them in to contest it and just hope they would live. My last rider and shaper joined a unit of 4 carnivores in attacking the Terminator sorcerer in the center and managed to finish him off as well.

Turn 3: He moved up his unit of spawn in the back to try and tack back the center, but otherwise was content to just sit back and use psychic powers and shooting to wear me down, and it was finally really taking it's tool. Though my Ethereal barely survived to scan the objective, most of that flank was now gone. Mortals ate through my remining drone screen and downed 3 of my 6 crisis suits. Shoting took out my Knarlc rider and the remnants of my carnivres, save the 4 in the center and my breachers were slowly getting chopped up. Even so, I did manage to barely hold three objectives, giving me a big 15, and keeping me in the game (he was still only managing 5 a turn). I moved my crisis team, and remaining Kroot into the center, and tried to shoot down the spawn, but only managed to knock off 2 of the 5. I had my last Shaper scan while shielding him with my Carnivores. 

Turn 4: Here's were the lack of being able to kill his Psyker characters really showed, he quickly sniped out my Ethereal, then through everything into my suits, rolling really well and downing all of them. The spawns cleaned up the carnivores, but my Shaper did get the scan off. For my turn, I did my best to try and re-take the center, bringing in my Crisis commander and last marker drone, then killing a spawn in shooting to secure the objective. The breachers barely held on, still holding the right objective by a single model. 

 

Turn 5: And then the fat lady sung, I didn't have much left, and the rest fell to psychic powers and shooting, though he still only got 5 VP on objectives that turn. 

 

So, final score 20/20 on primaries, but he held me off secondaries much better, 69-49 was the final score with the Thousand Sons claiming victory. 

 

I really feel like my two misplays cost me the game there (and/or not getting first turn, but that one's not up to me XD). Had I finished off that terminator in my first round of shooting, my Greater Knarloc would have been able to tag the Infernal Master and finish him off. That would have cut down on psychic attacks for the whole game, removed one of his three Warp Rituals, and given me 2 objectives on my turn 2, so 10 points made up right there. If I hadn't hat to charge my breachers and had actually managed to clean up that objective, it would have been game changing for sure, even with the mess up in the middle, that was my biggest blunder for sure. I think taking a unit of Stealth suits to forward deploy to screen out things like the teleport shenanigans would be really good too. 

 

Even so, the game was super close and I had a blast. Learned a lot in the process too. Not sure how I can counter this in the future having no pysicic defense against attacks in my buffing/objective units, I guess just avoiding action objectives and trying to go for other ones will have to do. 

Thanks to everyone who was interested enough in all this to stay tuned for the whole thing, I hope you had a good read. I'll post a new list once the new codex drops. I'm really looking forward to all the Kroot buffs!  
 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Tawnis

[Xenith]

Well done on getting to the final, and sorry about the loss.

 

That said, the Thousand Sons list/gameplay seems sketchy. You couldn't share a copy of the list, could you? 

 

Thousand Sons, if they're Cult of Duplicity, can teleport 2 units per turn for 1 turn, then 1 per turn after that. Teleporting 3 in turn 1, then the Infernal Master twice in a later turn is not possible. You can warptime/temporal surge them, to let them move twice, but it doesnt help with performing actions/being on objectives. You can put a unit in deepstrike reserve for 2 cp, but they cant arrive until T2, and you can make a unit infiltrate/advance deploy for 1CP, but it doesn't look like he did that.

 

Similarly, healing is a cult of time thing - they can heal 2 models per turn - one within 6", and then for 1CP you can heal a model in your unit if you pass a psychic test on an unmodified 9+ - if he ever healed 2 models in one turn, while teleporting all game, then this was illegal. 

 

Likewise, in turn 2, if he teleported the infernal master out of combat then performed a psychic action, the teleport had to be with the relic umbraelific crystal in the command phase. If the master cast teleport on himself, then he cannot perform a psychic action. If another model cast teleport on the infernal master to move him out, then the 2 unit near him couldn't smite you like they did, and he couldn't then teleport himself away afterwards.

 

Similarly, with the character sniping, there's only 3 spells that can do that, firestorm, gaze of hate and dark blessing, the latter of which has a 6" range, or 12" with a ritual, and requires a toughness test. Firestorm and gaze are great for snping characters, but it's super unlikely that they would be on the terminators and flamer rubrics. You can only smite or doombolt a character if they're the nearest target. TS can also always add an extra D3 mortals to any smite or witchfire, so a single firestorm cast on a 9+ will on average do 5 mortals to a target of your choice within 18". 

 

Sorry if that's a bit salty, there just seems to be too much wrong stuff happening with the TS list. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Xenith

[Tawnis]

Well done on getting to the final, and sorry about the loss.

 

That said, the Thousand Sons list/gameplay seems sketchy. You couldn't share a copy of the list, could you? 

 

Thousand Sons, if they're Cult of Duplicity, can teleport 2 units per turn for 1 turn, then 1 per turn after that. Teleporting 3 in turn 1, then the Infernal Master twice in a later turn is not possible. You can warptime/temporal surge them, to let them move twice, but it doesnt help with objectives. You can put a unit in deepstrike reserve for 2 cp, but they cant arrive until T2, and you can make a unit infiltrate/advance deploy for 1CP, but it doesn't look like he did that.

 

Similarly, healing is a cult of time thing - they can heal 2 models per turn - one within 6", and then for 1CP you can heal a model in your unit if you pass a psychic test on an unmodified 9+ - if he ever healed 2 models in one turn, while teleporting all game, then this was illegal. 

 

Likewise, in turn 2, if he teleported the infernal master out of combat then performed a psychic action, the teleport had to be with the relic umbraelific crystal in the command phase. If the master cast teleport on himself, then he cannot perform a psychic action. If another model cast teleport on the infernal master to move him out, then the 2 unit near him couldn't smite you like they did, and he couldn't then teleport himself away afterwards.

 

Similarly, with the character sniping, there's only 3 spells that can do that, firestorm, gaze of hate and dark blessing, the latter of which has a 6" range, or 12" with a ritual, and requires a toughness test. Firestorm and gaze are great for snping characters, but it's super unlikely that they would be on the terminators and flamer rubrics. You can only smite or doombolt a character if they're the nearest target. TS can also always add an extra D3 mortals to any smite or witchfire, so a single firestorm cast on a 9+ will on average do 5 mortals to a target of your choice within 18". 

 

Sorry if that's a bit salty, there just seems to be too much wrong stuff happening with the TS list. 

It happens, I learned more form that loss than most of my wins put together, not sad about it at all. (For one, take a unit of Stealth suits to screen out teleport shenanigans and the like). I'll be back even better next time.

 

I don't have a copy of the exact list. I don't know Thousand Sons very well, so I'll recall the best I can, but I may be misremembering some key details.

 

If I recall correctly, three of his sorcerers had the Sorcerous Façade Psychic power. He mentioned that it was a favored stratagy of his to drop a blob in the center to secure objectives and to do the warp ritual. 

 

No, he only healed a single Terminator. 

 

Yes, he used the relic in the command phase, then a psychic action to perform his secondary, then a CP to cast again and teleport away. 

 

He was using Firestorm and Gaze of Hate. The objectives were close enough to each other that he could reach me with his HQ's on his other objectives and he was using the extra D3 mortal to ensure kills. 

 

Not at all, it's hard to tell from the outside. I've played with sketchy people before, but this guy was on the level. We both made a few mistake in the game, so it wasn't perfect my any means. He let me take back a few things, and likewise I did the same for him. We were competitive about it, but kept it all casually so. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Tawnis

[Xenith]

Yea, no worries if you both had a good time and didn't come away feeling robbed. Just Thousand Sons are a sneaky, finicky army with a lot of interactions/combos to set up, and use rules that most players will never go near (i.e. psychic actions).