Thankfully the Asuryani are strong enough to make up for me being a bit braindead
Nurgle’s Blessing has finally found me, and I’ve been stuck inside with the dreaded COVID. Thankfully either the third round of vaccinations or the chicken I sacrificed to the Dark Gods seems to have had some effect, and I’m feeling… alive. Alive enough to play plenty of 40k games over TTS, but not quite up to full writeups for them. So today you get a nice condensed summary of my last 5 games, with some pretty pictures and analysis but without the wordcounts of my normal reports. These were mostly played while I was sick, so there are some questionable plays and the odd rules errors, but that’s not that different from my normal gameplay anyway. With that, let’s dive right on into game number 1!
Game 1: Mech Ulthwé v Death Guard
I can relate to these models
This game saw me running the Asuryani mech list I ran here,
while Matt brought along a massive deathball of Death Guard terminators, with
20 Plague Marines in Rhinos, a few characters/Spawn and a Contemptor loaded for
ranged death.
Playing on Tear Down Their Icons, I picked To the Last,
Retrieve Nachmund and Engage, while Matt picked Stranglehold, Warp Ritual and
Investigate Signal. Two clear gameplans, with my Aeldari aiming to skirmish at
range while the Death Guard looked to dominate the centre.
That’s more or less how the game played out, with my ranged advantage seeing Matt lose several units a turn to massed lance firepower, while his Terminators stubbornly clung onto points.
I dropped a Falcon with
Dire Avengers into his backfield, where they scored me points on Engage, the
Tertiary and RND while harassing his objective holders. The big blobs were
slowly whittled down, and things were looking pretty good.
There were some complications, with a unit of Deathshroud that dropped down in my backfield, made a charge, and killed a Wave Serpent and Warlock while denying me my objective.
The Daemon Prince also went on a rampage
and killed some Fire Dragons, but I was eventually able to bring down both mobile
threats. With their deaths, I was able to exert all my force on the centre and
almost table Matt for a relatively close 83:64 win.
It really spoke to the resilience of the Death Guard with AoC that they were able to survive a list like mine wailing on them for 5 turns. I was also pretty convinced by this game that my list needs more chaff and throwaway units, to keep me scoring well even when I want to sit back and fire. Moveblocking those Terminators with Vypers Turn 1 would have been a massive play, and I wish I’d had that option.
Game 2: Mech Ulthwé v Leviathan
Tyranids
All the classics, and some Termagants too!
This game was meant to be the third game between Owen and I
for our Asuryani v Tyranids series, but for various reasons it didn’t end up
making the cut. I was running about the same list as before, but with the Crimson
Hunter cut for some Rangers, Vypers and a War Walker. Points > guns. Owen had
a relatively unconventional Leviathan list, with all the hits (Harpies,
Tyrants, a Maleceptor and the support crew) backed by a Tervigon and a big
squad of Termagants. These theoretically have good application in a hostile
meta, as they’re a frustrating target for an army of big guns and can easily
have ~15 brought back every round. Stack the Leviathan min-Transhuman and a 5++/5+++, and they should be really hard to shift.
We played Abandoned Sanctuaries, leaning into Owen’s plan to
capture the middle early. For Secondaries, Owen went for To the Last on his
Tyrants and Tervigon, and Stranglehold and Warp Ritual as ever. I went for Bring
it Down for obvious reasons, then Engage and RND to take advantage of my
mobility.
The game started with me going first and committing hard to Owen’s right flank with War Walkers, the CTM Prism and both Falcons.
This paid
off, as I killed one Harpy and the Maleceptor, while badly wounding the Tervigon
and wiping her whole brood of ‘gants! Owen’s counterattack was relatively
lukewarm, and I soon started to just roll him up from that right flank. There
were lots of dramatic moments, and the Tyranids stayed ahead on
the scoreboard for awhile, but by Turn 3 I was solidly in control of the game.
Some horrendous luck against the Venomthropes did give Owen
a chance to hurt me back, and the scoreline ended up relatively close (83:70). But
it was a game that never really felt in doubt after the first turn, for all
that the Tyranids worked to keep scoring in defeat.
This game was interesting, because it really did make me
think that perhaps the Tyranids have a bad matchup against builds like this. I mean,
they really should, as it’s been pretty tailored to beating them. But in
general, it seems like a list with massed, long-range anti-tank is in a
surprisingly winnable position against the ‘Nids. This implies that perhaps the
meta can adapt to them to some extent, although the depth of the book means the
bugs may just adapt right back. Interesting.
Game 3: Mech Ulthwé v Deathwing
With the success of the mech build proven against Tyranids, I
wanted to try it out against some other recent tournament winners. So Matt
volunteered to try a ‘whoops all Deathwing’ build that won a recent GT, featuring
20 Deathwing Knights, 20 Relic Terminators and some support characters. Matt
had never played Deathwing, but we figured a list like this surely couldn’t be
too hard to run, right?
Rolling up Tear Down their Icons again, Matt picked Strangle, Raise Banners and Oaths, while I went for the same Engage/RND/TtL combo I used against the Death Guard. Matt went first, leaving 10 Relic Terminators in reserve and ten more on his backfield objectives while surging forward with the 20 Knights and the characters onto the centre.
In return, I shot them a ton, but my whole army proved unable to kill more than 7. Ouch. Baharroth straight up murdered the Apothecary though, which was funny.
Good screening and some deepstrike charges saw Matt largely keep me out of his quarters, aside from my Vypers darting in to score Engage. I began to pick up his Relic Terminators and kept whittling down the central blob, but Matt was able to score three 12’s on Primary in a row. Another long bomb deepstrike from some Relic Terminators threw my backfield into jeopardy, and my counterattack left one alive (with ObSec) to flip my objective. Damn.
My big
attack against the other Relic Terminators on Matt’s objective also fell one
model short, giving big points swings to Matt.
My equivalent swing was a lone Ranger surviving the massacre of his squad to plant a bomb in Matt’s backfield, while the Terminator in my backfield died to a War Walker’s melee to save me a critical 4 points. Finally, on Turn 5 I was able to effectively table the Deathwing, score a bunch of Primary and nearly max my Secondaries.
At the end, I’d outscored Matt on Secondaries but he’d
outscored me on Primary, giving us a dead-even 87:87 draw!
This game was super interesting, and I found the Deathwing
plan surprisingly effective. We both thought they’d be shot off the table, and they
really just weren’t. I still feel like it’s missing a few more ways to reach
across the table and stop me doing my thing, but being able to just say ‘I’m
scoring 12 on Primary for the first four turns. You can write that down now’ is
pretty crazy. I’d be interested to see how it does against something like
Tyranids, who love it when their food comes to them, but honestly maybe the
Deathwing could handle it. All those mortal wounds would really hurt though,
especially against double Maleceptors.
The Asuryani list did well here, but honestly I think I’m
done with it. It’s super good against Tyranids, but the inability to really
play the game until the end doesn’t suit my style. I don’t like having a
gameplan of ‘table your opponent and win a close victory at the end.’ It’s
strong, but it feels like all my games are one bad turn of luck away from a
defeat (or draw, in this case).
Hail of Doom Asuryani v Deathwing
To that end, I jumped onto the Hail of Doom train. People
are saying it’s the best way of playing Asuryani, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. So I
shamelessly stole Nick Nanavati’s Dallas list, changed like six minor things
(more Hawks, a D-Cannon, some Shining Spears and no Wraithlord) and was ready
to go. I figured I’d find out my own take on the list after playing it at its
best, after all. Matt was still super interested in that Deathwing list, and
wanted to see how it’d do against the pinnacle of the metagame, so we were off
to the races.
Playing on Death and Zeal, I went for Engage and RND to
leverage my mobility and high unit-count, and To the Last on the Jetbikes,
Hawks and Baharroth because I don’t think Matt can kill them if I bother to
screen. Matt picked Strangle/Banners/Oaths, because it’s a similar map to last
time and his plan is basically the same as before.
This time around I go first, and start things off with a big Eldritch Storm right in the middle of Matt’s army. Sadly I fail two of the three actions to empower it, but it still kills lots of Deathwing and makes me happy.
I follow that up by zooming to the outer objectives and blasting him a
lot, killing about ten Knights in total. Matt responds by plodding up the field and
claiming three of the five objectives as his own.
My second turn sees the firepower of the list really turn up, wiping the first Knights squad and crippling the second to leave me in control of the middle objective. Matt's reserves arrive to reclaim the middle and kill a bunch of Swooping Hawks, but over the next couple of turns I’m able to blast them off the field while preventing them from doing too much damage to my critical pieces.
My big Hawk unit is finally killed after I foolishly sent them
off to Matt’s backfield, but I’m able to table the Deathwing in Turn 4 and
score a pretty decisive 91:44 win.
Honestly, this game kind of made my jaw drop a bit. I love Ulthwé, and I think it supports a lot of builds really well, but Hail of Doom shuriken spam is just so strong. My firepower was crazy, so much of it was fairly uninteractive, and I had so many units that I could safely commit to a point to screen or hold an objective. It felt like I just had so much stuff, all of which moves pretty fast and hits pretty hard, that I could do whatever I wanted and still blast Matt off the field.
I can really see how this list took
Nanavati to an 8:0 at Dallas. I’m sure there were no other factors involved,
and it was entirely due to the strength of the list. Not the player. Just the
list.
The flipside of this is that the matchup felt very bad for
the Deathwing. When your gameplan is ‘stand in the middle and don’t die’ and
your opponent can cripple you by Turn 2, life is hard. Hail of Doom seems to
thrive off sandpapering down armies that can’t pressure it effectively, and that
makes it hard to be one of those right now. If Hail of Doom takes off post-Dallas,
I expect the Deathwing-equivalent builds to fall.
Game 5: Hail of Doom Asuryani v Kraken Tyranids
Owen was back for yet another rematch, this time with
another Dallas list in the form of John Lennon’s Kraken pressure army. It’s packed
full of Pyrovores and other medium bugs, with only the Hive Tyrants and two
Maleceptors as big stuff. My list was basically unchanged from last time,
because if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and this list is only broken in the
good way.
We were playing the Scouring, so both of us took
Stranglehold as a matter of course. Owen doubled down with Warp Ritual, as well
as To the Last on his 5 Tyrant Guard and two Tyrants. I opted for No Prisoners,
as Owen’s list lets me max it pretty comfortably, as well as RND for want of a better
third pick.
Owen’s big decision at the start was how much to commit. The terrain wasn’t especially favourable to staging much of his army forward, and he thought I’d probably win a slow, ‘pick at each other’ kind of game, so the Swarm moved up en masse.
Basically everything charged forward to the middle, and the Flyrant zoomed forward with the Kraken strat to kill something. I then denied Onslaught after Owen forgot to keep any casters outside 24” of my front Warlocks, so the Flyrant used Encircle having killed absolutely nothing. Two CP well spent.
In my turn I Eldritch Stormed to put wounds onto much of his army, then made an incredibly dumb positioning error. My massive jetbike deathball, worth 270 points and carrying most of my firepower, got committed to be a frontline.
I was thinking I needed them within 24” of the Venomthropes
because they were the only squad that could reliably pick them up in one go, but most of
my firepower was going through dense cover anyway, so the Venomthropes were
doing nothing. Even if that wasn’t the case, exposing my most
important unit to kill Venomthropes was not my best call. I blame COVID-brain
for this one.
At any rate, my firepower does perform, picking up all the Raveners and 5 Pyrovores. That’s a crazy amount of damage! Of course, the Maleceptor clap back sees me basically pick up the whole shuriken bike squad, which was… predictable.
The Tyranids push forward and give me a four on Primary, but I’m then able to hit back on the next turn by bringing in most of my reserves.
Shooting clears the remaining five Pyrovores and the Gargoyles,
but doesn’t quite bring down the central Maleceptor, while the Banshees and
Shining Spears narrowly fail to kill the Hive Tyrant and the Spears leave the
other Maleceptor on its middle bracket.
On his turn, Owen throws forward the next wave in the form
of Tyrant Guard and Warriors, and basically clears me out of his half, while
butchering the Hawks with the Flyrant. My turn sees the characters, vehicles
and Dire Avengers continue to whittle Owen down, with the Flyrant and
one Maleceptor falling and the Walkrant and Tyrant Guard both barely scraping
by. Still, Owen’s careful screening and target priority meant I wasn’t able to
RND in his half, and had no real options for doing so by the end.
Further counterattacks from the Warriors reduced me down to a
shell of an army and kept my Primary low, but on the final turn I was able to clear them and finish all the TtL targets, for a 78:67 victory at the
end.
This game was super interesting. On the one hand, it was really
close to the finish, with big swings back and forth as we hacked away at each
other. It was a game between two top-tier armies, and it felt tight until the
very end. Exactly how Warhammer should be.
On the other, it made me a bit concerned that Hail of Doom might be a bit too much. The list has so much subtlety and so many clever tricks, in the hands of a good player it’s capable of incredible things. More worryingly, it managed to win this game against a competent opponent with a meta list, even while being piloted by an absolute baboon. I did just about everything wrong this game: I exposed my two most valuable units early on and lost them for very little in return, and I allowed myself to get bogged down in a close-range war of attrition against a Tyranids list built for that.
I think I did well to keep my
characters safe to let them win the game for me, but aside from that I think I
was solidly outplayed. By a meta Tyranids army. And I won. On a board and
mission that largely favoured Owen. I think that says a lot about this list.
Take all of the above in the context that I have spent the last 3 months playing pre-nerf Voidweavers and Tyranids. I think Hail of Doom might be a little much.
At any rate, I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of short-form battle reports. I really enjoyed these games, and was glad of something to do while I coughed my lungs up.
Pictured: me and my household
I hope you found them interesting to read, and let
me know if you enjoyed this format. Do you think Hail of Doom is as obnoxiously
strong as I’ve found it? Does ‘whoops all Deathwing’ still have legs in a meta
where it dominates? And are the Asuryani the only thing standing between us and
total Tyranid dominance? Let me know in the comments or on Reddit, and I’ll get
back to you when I can.
Until next time, may your army always be strong enough to make up for your misplays!
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