Chaos Space Marine Analysis and List Building: Part Four

This series of posts has been composed a few paragraphs at a time over the last week as I have begun the journey of learning a new book, and play style, as I move away from tyranids this next tournament season. Rather than changing previous ideas or reworking this post I have left it as is. I feel that is shows the process I use while creating and testing lists as well as providing insight behind why I am and will continue to make the list building choices I have been. This is part four of four interconnected posts.

This next week a prep league for a GT in my area (and adepticon too) will start up, and after not being able to answer Grey Knights and select Imperial Guard build with my Tyranids I have spent the last few weeks seeing if building up (and converting) a Chaos Space Marine army would be a viable choice for Adepticon. This decision was not fully about simply being competitive and winning, as there are a lot of things that this book gives me to try and convert on top of allowing me to paint in a grimy gory style I have wanted to try, but being at least as good with Nidzilla seems a reasonable standard. I now believe I have found a list that meets both of these requirements.

  

The List

Typhus

33 Cultists

10 Cultists

10 Cultists

10 Cultists

Heldrake (Baleflamer)

Heldrake (Baleflamer)

6 Havocs (4 Lascannon)

6 Havocs (4 Lascannon)

6 Havocs (4 Lascannon)

Masque

9 Flamers of Tzeentch

5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle

Aegis Defense Line (Quad Gun)

The only small change after two games was dropping three cultists for an extra guy in the last havoc squad. It is a pretty simple list. Mass lascannons give me a big presence in terms of ranged firepower and by turn two most games I have three units with flame templates that ignore the armor of most everything, plus a Herald that allows me to move my opponents units into the right position to be hit by said templates. It also has five scoring units that all have FNP and are fearless.

More after the jump...

Battle Report: Tyranids vs. Grey Knights (Draigowing) - Golden Throne Round 1

With 6^th edition out for just over a month, I headed to San Jose, California for the world’s first ever sixth edition GT. The tournament would be six rounds over two days with a win/loss format using the book missions. My review of the event can be found here. I brought a 1500 point Nidzilla list;

Hive Tyrant (Warlord/Wings/Twin-Linked Devourers x2/Hive Commander)

Tervigon (Onslaught/Catalyst/Cluster Spines)

Tervigon (Catalyst/Cluster Spines)

10 Termagants

2 Carnifex (Twin-Linked Devourers x2)

Trygon (Toxin Sacs)

Trygon (Toxin Sacs)

My round one opponent is Bobby, his Draigowing, and their Tau allies.

Draigo

1 Paladin (Thunderhammer)

10 Paladins (Apothecary, 3 Hammers, 3 Halberd, Banner, Stave, 4 Psycannons)

Shas’o (AFL, Missile Pod, 2 Shield Drones, Blacksun Filter, FNP)

3 Shas’ui (Team Leader, Flamer/Missile Pod, Blacksun Filter, 2 Shield Drones)

7 Fire Warriors

Bobby had some pretty sweet Tau conversions;

It was clear that Bobby is a fun guy and not being WAAC. He expressed that he wished he had enough Tau to just play with them, but as he did, not he brought Draigo along.

Deployment is dawn of war with crusade (3 objectives) as the mission. My strategy with Draigowing is to utilize spawned gants as a walls between me and them. The deathstar can only take out one unit a turn. My goal is to position them so that it is only free gants they are able to attack.