HH 2.0 The Kyroptera: VIIIth Legion Tactica

[SkimaskMohawk]

2 hours ago, Galron said:

Currently painting a force, once I get the blue right, of 30k and 40k terminators. I might use the chaos terminators with less silly shoulder pads. I dont know what to do about the twin trophy racks. On one hand, night lords out of all the legions would be sporting them. On the other hand nothing says 40k chaos like giant spikey bits. Also converted a Night Raptor from a chaos raptor. Once you sand down the spikey bits and use the less mutated parts, standard marine shoulder pads and non-chaos heads, they look pretty good and sizewise are on par with the new power armor guys instead of the super slender dudes that FW sells. That and if I wanted, I could buy two squads of 10 for what FW sells for 10 and have about 50 bucks to spare. Just have to 3D print some chain glaives. 

 

If you already have access to printing you might as well just print raptors out entirely. I did 10 using Helforged miniatures and it cost me ~$40 from my buddy.

[Brother Sutek]

That's a dangerous option for me. I promised myself I'd finish my Alpha Legion, Death Guard and Dark Angels before starting a new army. Lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Galron]

Mine is finishing(again) my IW army, and simultaneously building a Night Lords terror assault and Dark Angel drop pod armies. Got the scheme down pretty good for DA. Still working on NL. Just a Levi away from the IW.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I finished up my initial unit of contekar and decided to try out a sevatar-pride list again. It's kinda bad, with most of the weaknesses shored up by dreadnoughts, but that's just kinda a symptom of trying a theme with some last edition models. 

 

Real quick rundown of the list:

 

• Sevatar in a 3 man tartaros command squad  w/ claws
• Talon of contemptors, one w/gravis melta+fist, one w/ 2x fist
• Squad of 2 rapiers w/shatter and fire. And night vision
• 7 contekar w/ volkites and night vision
• 2x 5 recons w/ snipers and auguries
• 5 cataphractii w/ fists, trophies, and night vision
• 5 cataphractii w/ spears, combi plas, trophies, and night vision
• 1 javelin w/ cyclones, melta, night vision
• Leviathan w/ melta, claw, phosphex, and volkite

Felt fine enough; 5 scoring units, lots of potential for deep strike or just fighting up the board, pinning and fear, and a bunch of brutal and melta for quality units. Playing my world eaters buddy again, and rolled blood feud.

 

The mission aside, the cataphractii really showed their strengths at turning plasma cannons and rad missiles into wasted points. Due to some spectacularly bad rolling,  2 of the fist guys were able to kill 4 rampagers, and the bolters from the combo unit put 3 wounds on angron. The contekar deepstruck solo and also put in some work; they gunned down angrons unit and put some wounds on him, which set up a triple charge from my double fist contemptor, them and Sevs command squad. I then failed some charges and learned a really dumb mechanic about ICs being left alive, so angron nuked the dread, but sevatar caught back up to him and did another 3 wounds in a challenge. So some good stuff; unlike the terror marine lists, nothing felt bad to use or like an anchor.

 

The biggest issue with pride is that you kinda need fire support, and that means either dedicated Raiders (so no deepstrike), or dreads. Just not a lot of build variety, even if it is fun; maybe daemons can be a nice little alternative when they have something other than brutes to offer.

[Galron]

Why the 2 units of Catas and not one big unit? One to eat intercept?

No Night Raptors? Odd choice.

Did you not transport Sevie and his command squad? How did they get anywhere?

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well I wanted my two compulsory troops to score, something that's only allowed for Legion tartaros and cataphractii, not all terminators. I also tend to prefer MSU and the flexibility it gives me; a brick of 10 has to be in the same spot and only threatens the units around it. Two units of 5 can be across the board and engage more enemy units.

 

 

I didn't take any raptors for a few reasons. They overlap a lot with contekar, and I'm both tired of my Raptor focused list, and had just finished painting the contekar. Wanted to focus on terminators with sevatar and pride and tried to make things a bit different.

 

And I transported the command squad on foot lol. We tend to play with a lot of LoS blocking on the ground floors, so i was able to lurk close to the front without being las'd or charged by angron. Him choosing dreads for blood feud also kinda dictated what he prioritized, allowing the unit to hit combat pretty unscathed. 

[Carnivore]

This is probably a stupid question, but I was just messing around on BattleScribe and I noticed on your Terminator Command Squad entry you can now choose Escaton Power Claws for the Standard Bearer and your Chosen. Was this FAQed to be an option and I missed it, or is it just a coding error on BattleScribe’s part? Just curious as I’ve had some luck with the Escaton on my Praetor and I’m all for using Legion specific stuff whenever possible so long as it doesn’t hideously underperform (Headsman’s Axe, I’m looking at you).

[SkimaskMohawk]

I noticed this too when making my list for last week and checked to see if i was misremembering things. I wasn't; escatons are locked to independent characters.

[NinjaBadger7]

Hey all :)

 

I'm currently building up my NL force and been reading the previous comments on this thread. I've noticed that tactical squads aren't really been taken up particularly in TA lists - and they just not worth it?

[SkimaskMohawk]

The thing with tactical squads is that they're very cheap and good at filling compulsive slots, but unless you have a specific plan for them they tend to not do much. 

 

So another Legion might invest ~400 points into a couple of blobs that push up a bit and then just stick on the objective with stubborn, spitting out a fury whenever they can, and generally being a nuisance the opponent has to eventually commit to. Fists with their +1 to hit, death guard with move and fury, iron hands with their -1 STR, word bearers with corrupted, etc...They're all annoying to either be shot by or to try and clear out instead of other units. 

 

So whats the plan during terror assault? Is it to do the same thing and benefit from the opponents -1 to hit and possibly lower leadership? Do you use these juicy units on the points to bait a trap for your opponents melee units, and counter charge them after they've overextended? Or do you realize that recons with snipers synergize far better with terror assault, and just fill your compulsory slots with raptors or terror Marines?

[SyNidus]

So i've been playing around with the idea of running a moritat with my raptors in order to take advantage of the rad grenades. This comes out of having fought against Gal Vorbak, who, we just seem to bounce off of. 

Something like this:

Moritat - Jump Pack, Thunderhammer, Refractor, 2x Plasma Pistols, Bloody Murder - 180

 

It may seem like a lot of points for 1 model, but I was thinking that this guy with his thunderhammer, plus the delegates also toting a thunderhammer, even in a 5 man raptor squad, would be able to do some damage, even to a unit like gal vorbak. That being said, I know the ideal solution to close combat monsters like that is to shoot them.

But the trade off is that i have to swap him out for a vigilator (who usually goes with my seekers). What do you guys reckon?

Edited March 21, 2023 by SyNidus

[Brother_Angelus]

Chainfire preventing the unit from charging would put me off. It's a lot of points for 7 bodies.

[Galron]

7 hours ago, SyNidus said:

So i've been playing around with the idea of running a moritat with my raptors in order to take advantage of the rad grenades. This comes out of having fought against Gal Vorbak, who, we just seem to bounce off of. 

Something like this:

Moritat - Jump Pack, Thunderhammer, Refractor, 2x Plasma Pistols, Bloody Murder - 180

 

It may seem like a lot of points for 1 model, but I was thinking that this guy with his thunderhammer, plus the delegates also toting a thunderhammer, even in a 5 man raptor squad, would be able to do some damage, even to a unit like gal vorbak. That being said, I know the ideal solution to close combat monsters like that is to shoot them.

But the trade off is that i have to swap him out for a vigilator (who usually goes with my seekers). What do you guys reckon?

Could the moritat even join the Night Raptors? They dont have bitter duty do they?

[SkimaskMohawk]

9 hours ago, SyNidus said:

So i've been playing around with the idea of running a moritat with my raptors in order to take advantage of the rad grenades. This comes out of having fought against Gal Vorbak, who, we just seem to bounce off of. 

Something like this:

Moritat - Jump Pack, Thunderhammer, Refractor, 2x Plasma Pistols, Bloody Murder - 180

 

It may seem like a lot of points for 1 model, but I was thinking that this guy with his thunderhammer, plus the delegates also toting a thunderhammer, even in a 5 man raptor squad, would be able to do some damage, even to a unit like gal vorbak. That being said, I know the ideal solution to close combat monsters like that is to shoot them.

But the trade off is that i have to swap him out for a vigilator (who usually goes with my seekers). What do you guys reckon?

 

The sad fact is the Night Lords special units can't really go toe-to-toe with other legion's special units; we gotta stack the odds as much as possible. Gal Vorbak are a very dangerous unit for Raptors (and especially Terror Marines) to try and fight. Natural I5, Ap3, Bulky 3, can't get run down, FNP, combo potential from the rites and characters, etc... 

 

If you charge with equivalent points of raptors (so 6 with a 10 point melee weapon) you can look to do about 6 wounds through the FNP. But they hit back at initiative and kill at least one guy from rend/instant death  and however many wounds you can't tank on the seargent. Doesn't sound too bad until subsequent rounds has your attacks and initiative fall off and the GV hit first. If they charge they just gobble up the unit.

 

Dropping their toughness to get the instant kill going is probably the best way to fight them if you really want to get em in melee. But try to engage them with terminators or something that can blunt the weight of their ap3 attacks. 

 

Or take a psyker and instant death them to the ground. Force staff lets you hit at I6, and you can charge it up to wound on 2s and explode them. Some of the ranged weapon powers can really hurt them too, like void darts. 

[Galron]

So Night Raptors, if not running them bare, what is better, Chain Glaives or paired lightning claws? Currently working on mine and trying to figure out the most efficient method of building them.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Claws are the best for most cases. The most amount of attacks, while still having shred and rending/breaching to fish for ap2, and a low strength to give you more opportunity to get those rerolls in the first place.

 

Daemons are what change stuff a bit, as their high toughness and lack of 2+ saves make glaives more reliable.

[SyNidus]

12 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

The sad fact is the Night Lords special units can't really go toe-to-toe with other legion's special units; we gotta stack the odds as much as possible. Gal Vorbak are a very dangerous unit for Raptors (and especially Terror Marines) to try and fight. Natural I5, Ap3, Bulky 3, can't get run down, FNP, combo potential from the rites and characters, etc... 

 

If you charge with equivalent points of raptors (so 6 with a 10 point melee weapon) you can look to do about 6 wounds through the FNP. But they hit back at initiative and kill at least one guy from rend/instant death  and however many wounds you can't tank on the seargent. Doesn't sound too bad until subsequent rounds has your attacks and initiative fall off and the GV hit first. If they charge they just gobble up the unit.

 

Dropping their toughness to get the instant kill going is probably the best way to fight them if you really want to get em in melee. But try to engage them with terminators or something that can blunt the weight of their ap3 attacks. 

 

Or take a psyker and instant death them to the ground. Force staff lets you hit at I6, and you can charge it up to wound on 2s and explode them. Some of the ranged weapon powers can really hurt them too, like void darts. 

That's a fair point. I've already got a Librarian in the mix. Moving away from Gal Vorbak as a target, part of me is wondering if there is any real utility for the moritat and/or destroyers in a Night Lords army. Are there any other targets for which we would actually need the rad grenades? I can see rad grenades being quite useful for a Lightning Claw toting raptor squad.

[SkimaskMohawk]

9 hours ago, SyNidus said:

That's a fair point. I've already got a Librarian in the mix. Moving away from Gal Vorbak as a target, part of me is wondering if there is any real utility for the moritat and/or destroyers in a Night Lords army. Are there any other targets for which we would actually need the rad grenades? I can see rad grenades being quite useful for a Lightning Claw toting raptor squad.

 

Well the rad grenades are used to either make it easier to wound, or to break instant death thresholds.

 

Night lords kinda generally can have an easier time wounding already with our main squads (if you're taking blobs instead of msu). Further, a lot of the special weapons have both breaching and shred, which tend to want lower strength to fish for the 6s. I personally like it when my raptors don't trigger ATfM, so they can go for more rends.

 

That leaves instant death. Power mauls are pretty easy to jam on raptors if you want the standard combo, but glaives also hit the STR 6, and are also verrry common on some of the older armies from 1st where glaives were really the only special option. 

 

So taking a moritat with the raptors is a possibility (since the wording of Butter Duty allows ICs to join units without it), and then opens up the possibility for the guy to split off and chain fire something.

 

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

So today I learned that pinning takes away both scoring and denial. 

 

This is kinda funny, as I've basically played all my games with a handicap, as I usually have 6 core units that can cause pinning through shooting (2 recons, 2 rapiers, 2 javelins). My tournament list had curze with his map-wide pinning, and then went from a vigilator to 2 telepathy librarians and 2 Scorpiuses for even more. 

 

Now it sucks, because while I'll probably never touch a tely librarian again, I really like curze. He makes the theme feel so much more complete in terms of synergy, has great output, and I generally enjoy the character. But I don't feel good taking him knowing that pinning strips scoring and denial. 

[SyNidus]

6 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

So today I learned that pinning takes away both scoring and denial. 

 

This is kinda funny, as I've basically played all my games with a handicap, as I usually have 6 core units that can cause pinning through shooting (2 recons, 2 rapiers, 2 javelins). My tournament list had curze with his map-wide pinning, and then went from a vigilator to 2 telepathy librarians and 2 Scorpiuses for even more. 

 

Now it sucks, because while I'll probably never touch a tely librarian again, I really like curze. He makes the theme feel so much more complete in terms of synergy, has great output, and I generally enjoy the character. But I don't feel good taking him knowing that pinning strips scoring and denial. 

Wow, I did not know that! That's very interesting indeed.

I get where you're coming from in terms of your list. I would suggest you have 2-3 different flavours of list ranging from hardcore tournament list to newb friendly. That way you can choose which list to bring.

And I wouldn't feel bad if I were you - every legion has their "Cheese". It's just that ours is not so obvious/straightforward.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea, I'm definitely having more whatever units into my lists, as I'm getting especially bored of my tournament list. I had a game of 3000 on Thursday where I took 25 terrors and some contekar. Actually managed to outflank 10 of them without the unit dying to reactions, and then the other 15 fought a dreadnought to a standstill....until the turn my opponent failed 5 out of 11 saves lol. 

 

Some funny stuff all in all. They're a good murder-screen for dreads or other more brittle units, but I still wince every time I lose a dude since they cost so much lol.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I've been thinking a lot about the night lords Inductii since the leaks on the weekend.

 

From what we got, it's a despoilers unit that has CCW with breaching 6+, a lower leadership seargent, and the ability somehow gang up on challenges. Presumably they lose Heart in the exchange, but might lose Spite just in case it can combo too much with bloody Murder and the penchant for pinning and character sniping. But even ignoring both rules, they're 10 points per model for breaching 6+.

 

For context, a base squad of terrors averages 2.9 dead marines on the charge (without bloody Murder). 110 points of Inductii average 2.8 breaches and 1.7 failed saves on the charge (also without bloody Murder or spite). On full buffs the terror marines go to 3.7 failed armour, while the Inductii go to 4.7 breaches and 3 failed armour. The Inductii just out damage the terror marines, the one thing they were somewhat decent at. And they score. 

 

So I'm pretty happy to get a fragile damage unit that doesn't feel terrible to lose models on. Terror marines can be weird pseudo supports in rhinos, since every other role they have is covered. Or interceptor bait for the deepstrikers I guess.

[SyNidus]

On 5/24/2023 at 10:32 AM, SkimaskMohawk said:

I've been thinking a lot about the night lords Inductii since the leaks on the weekend.

 

From what we got, it's a despoilers unit that has CCW with breaching 6+, a lower leadership seargent, and the ability somehow gang up on challenges. Presumably they lose Heart in the exchange, but might lose Spite just in case it can combo too much with bloody Murder and the penchant for pinning and character sniping. But even ignoring both rules, they're 10 points per model for breaching 6+.

 

For context, a base squad of terrors averages 2.9 dead marines on the charge (without bloody Murder). 110 points of Inductii average 2.8 breaches and 1.7 failed saves on the charge (also without bloody Murder or spite). On full buffs the terror marines go to 3.7 failed armour, while the Inductii go to 4.7 breaches and 3 failed armour. The Inductii just out damage the terror marines, the one thing they were somewhat decent at. And they score. 

 

So I'm pretty happy to get a fragile damage unit that doesn't feel terrible to lose models on. Terror marines can be weird pseudo supports in rhinos, since every other role they have is covered. Or interceptor bait for the deepstrikers I guess.

Unfortunately, I've not had the chance to see the Inductii leaks. But that sounds pretty awesome and they definitely sound more interesting than sticking more tactical squads into my army for scoring units.

[Gorgoff]

1 hour ago, SyNidus said:

Unfortunately, I've not had the chance to see the Inductii leaks. But that sounds pretty awesome and they definitely sound more interesting than sticking more tactical squads into my army for scoring units.

https://www.goonhammer.com/horus-heresy-space-marine-inductii/

 

;)

 

[SyNidus]

4 hours ago, Gorgoff said:

https://www.goonhammer.com/horus-heresy-space-marine-inductii/

 

;)

 

Cheers for this.

Looking at this...I actually really really like this, being able to gang up on an enemy character in challenge is pretty flavourful. And if we get to swing at i10, that's even better, give em a couple of Chainblades and you'd be hitting with a lot of breaching attacks before they get a chance to swing. And if just one of those gets through, you could be looking at Sgt down.

In terms of actual tactics, I think they still function the same way despoiler squads do.

Personally, I'm not sure how I would fit them in my current list, if the game moves towards more progressive scoring style missions (where having more line units becomes even more crucial), then I'd be looking to include a squad in my list. Though, seeing as how my list is a mechanized list, I'm not sure how well they would fit in as they'd have to ride in a rhino.

EDIT:

So I've had a chance to look at the actual rules, they keep Spite. But I'm not too keen on the fact that every model HAS to swap their chainsword for Killer's Blades (basically, breaching 6+ combat knives). This means that we won't be able to swap in 2 of the squad's chainswords for power weapons.

It's a bit of a sidegrade. On one hand, the 2 guys ganging up on the enemy character hit at initiative 10...which could be amazing if you manage to get the unmodified wound of a 6 for their 6 attacks (1A base + charging + 2CCW). There's a chance of them cutting down the character and freeing up your sgt to be able to put his own attacks into the enemy squad. Also, it is arguable to the killer's blades aren't too bad for this role because even if you swapped for power weapons (with a normal despoiler squad), none of the power weapons provide native AP2 (except for the axe, which defeats the whole purpose of striking at I10). 

Might still have to give it a try. 
 

Edited May 29, 2023 by SyNidus