Okay, game played against miket and his EUK nids, super brutal game, due to a combination of phone batteries dying as well as having to stop and check rules more often as well as think a lot more, the picture taking basically stopped halfway through turn 2....

I took the list above but traded out an armoured company for a hellblade flight and chaos warlord in the termies, mike can share his list when he gets the chance, but in the meantime it was something like

2 harridans
2 trygon burrowing swarms
3 genestealer broods
6 (ish) swarms of termagaunts/gargoyles/hormagaunts

I forced corners, hoping to give myself more time to hit the nids before they boxed me in, also hoping they would bottleneck themselves, will add some early game pics

Turn 1

Deployment, due to our club insisting on making these stupid fixed terrain tables , ignore the lava, it's not there....


Hellblades kill a couple of genestealers


Retinue finishes the job and breaks them


Armoured company shoots up another genestealer formation


Harridan swoops (doubles) forward


and pops a rhino


Knights single and shoot half a swarm dead in a single volley with 9 hits

Now I've run out of pics...

the rest of the turn saw mike fail a frustrating number of activations so ended up a little strung out, air assaulting noise marines killed all the gargoyles on the above harridan and did one damage on the beast, breaking it, rather than use thawk#2 to recycle the noise marines I flew it around shooting stuff

Turn 2

By this point mike had massed 4 swarms right next to my knights, retinue and armoured company, he teleported a trygon swarm to the left of the nights, I bought in my terminators to threaten his intermingled genestealers and regular swarm, he then teleported his second trygon in to my right to threaten my chosen

I won initiative and summoned daemons and engaged the two swarms, wiping them out with kills and combat res (thanks to scoring 5 macro hits) I then retained and attempted to single my knights, but they failed, even with the re-roll and instead wiped out the half swarm they shot previously

Mike then engaged my chosen and wiped them out for no losses, he retained and engaged my retinue with the damaged rhino, wiping them out with genestealers, I tried to engage the second trygon swarm with the noise marines to drag in support fire from the knights, however he was closer to the knights and countercharged towards them, moving out of engage range, so the noise marines ended up stranded (I should have shot really, didn't think he'd run from the fight!)

The trygons then engaged the knights intermingled with the armoured company who thanks to being war engines, elected to firefight, killing all the raveners and damaging the trygon, the trygon survived on 1DC which bought in a lot of support fire from the BTS swarm, most of which was saved by the land raiders, one knight was destroyed and a second damaged, the knights won the combat ending up on 5 BMs

at the end of the turn, thunderhawks picked up the terminators and shot the crap out of the big BTS swarm in the process

Turn 3

Knights sustained fire on the BTS swarm, mowing 6 of them down, then terminators retained and engaged them, wiping them out and giving me BTS, unfortunately the thunderhawk was destroyed in the process....

Knights were then engaged and finally broken, by a harridan and swarm in support fire, they went down swinging and two survived

Mike then pounced on my terminators and wiped them out giving him BTS

At this point we had to call it a draw as it was late and we needed to get going, it would almost certainly have gone to turn 4, and I was probably in better shape overall than mike, having two untouched retinues, hellblades and an empty thawk as well as the broken knights, armoured company and noise marines, most of his army was broken and severely reduced in number, as well as a good distance from my blitz

Thoughts:

next time I use the list, I'm probably going to take 5-6 knights as my BTS, they were really rather good in this game, gunning down loads of tyranids (infantry outside of cover is pretty much their bread and butter though...) and soaking up several multiple-engagements, I found them pretty resilient and their ability to FF when engaged in 90% of situations is pretty powerful, for 300 points they're pretty much a no-brainer for me, and when they fail to activate, you can always take the blast marker and if they're untouched, it doesnt degrade their shooting power, they were fun to use and felt very powerful and dangerous, mike expended a lot of resources and managed to kill two, the knights probably killed around 30 units in the game between shooting and engagements, if they'd rallied on turn 4 then it would have been even more!

I messed up using the noise marines, they pounced on the harridan and broke it early on, but my decision to go after BTS with the empty thawk meant on turn 3 they were footslogging it and ended up being engaged and broken by a harridan

Overall I felt the knights were perhaps a bit too good, being war engines gives them lots of advantages anyway, but couple that with them being fast, shooty, nasty in firefight and pretty damn reslient, but I will say that they were spoiled for choice with all the low save infantry in the open!

the rest of the list seems reasonably balanced, hellblades are awesome... I've been itching to try some out for ages, the noise marines in thawk could have been used better, I'll try them out again sometime soon

I'll probably keep the list as it is for future games, but need to find the points to add a knight to make them BTS

I'm sure mike will be along with his thoughts and list at some point, hope this is of use!

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Thanks Simon! It does look like it was a brutal game (and that lava is migraine-inducing, heh). Yeah, keep testing those knights please. As noted above, using the knights as a BTS has led to a bit of difficulty for me as I'm concerned about giving up a victory condition through aggressive use. I think I'll try maxing out on the hell scourges though and see if they are the no-brainer choice.

I had a recent battle with Dave's steel legion, and the combination of death strikes and a shadowsword worked over the WEs pretty good. I took pictures but didn't record that débâcle. Anyway, the knights doubled up and prepped a mechanized company, the two scourges took deathstrikes in the rear (so to speak), which broke the formation, and the AV knights were unable to support the assault. After rallying the next turn, they doubled up again, and again lost a knight and were broken. Obviously, results vary.

If possible, a rundown of how EUK Tyranids differ them the E:A ones would be nice. Do they have significant amounts of ranged shooting or BP weapons for example?

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Mike is much more familiar with the EUK nid list in general and I confess to reading the playtests you guys have published but only glancing at the netEA list, I think mike is keen to try it though...

the EUK list has one very effective build and that is basically weenie horde.... using genestealers and tunnelers to keep the opponent busy until the swarms arrive, EUK nids lack swarming, but all gaunt-sized troops have the grot rule as long as a synapse creature is alive in the formation (usually tyranid warriors) so shooting at them can be very frustrating as you can mow down 5/6 stands and it's a single blast marker... they also have +1 to rally, and engage actions (which may or may not be the same as netEA)

Mike takes very little shooting, it's mostly very token, with the tyranid warriors and dominatrixes the only formations with ranged attacks, shooting did very little for mike in this game, the EUK list has access to barrage weapons but I've not faced them much

although it depends on who I was playing against, I'd generally feel quite comfortable using a BTS knight formation aggressively, the fact that I had 550 points of retinues free to sit and sustain on the few broken/reduced swarms that made it past the middle of the table, shows they are more than capable of dishing out the pain! they're very capable of running up and hitting hard, then supporting a retain-engage and removing any threats from the immediate area, fearless and a fast move means they don't take hackdowns and can leg it for cover if broken.... you only need 1 knight with 1DC remaining to deny BTS after all!! sure if I ended up against Ulani/minervans with lots of executioners and shadowswords I'd play them differently, but against most armies with a decent amount of troops, they're in their element really!

I really dislike cross-list comparisons, but compared to LR achilles which are 100+ points each, you get a lot for your 75 points, being war engines gives them a lot of advantages, with LOS blocking the only real downside, they can barge, choose to FF in engagements and really soak up quite a few hits, they also shred infantry when given the opportunity... if achilles were in the EC list, they wouldn't get a look-in

I'll have a play with them in a few weeks time (tourney next weekend) and try and take on something shooty or resilient and see how the list performs

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

The most significant difference I can see between the EpicUK and NetEA lists is the fact that in the EpicUK list, gaunts killed in engagements don't count towards combat res. that looks pretty huge to me. Though as kyuss says there is no swarming either, so once they're gone, they're gone

they don't count for shooting either.... you need to get at the poxy tyranid warriors, when they die the formation is hugely weakened

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

There doesn't look to be a lot of cover on that table for the bugs to hide in. The Knights are going to love an infantry horde in the open like that.

The MW toting Knight are scary when you're marines. You don't want to assault them, and the best you can hope for is catching them in a cross-fire. Orks had less issue with them. MW FF? Pffft, that's what Grotz are for.

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

12 pieces of area terrain as per rulebook, those flat brown panels are woods + grey ones are buildings we just didn't get our the trees+buildings to place on them

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www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

Ah, I assumed they were just hills.

We come from a terrain loving group, usually 12 terrain pieces grant cover and cover about 1/3 of the table when lumped all together. If there any hills that don't grant cover they don't count towards that.

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

okay, going to try the list out again tonight, been too busy to paint anything or fiddle with the list I'm afraid!

will report back tomorrow!

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

ok very quick report

took the same list as last time, faced Steve and his black legion

Turn 1

Steve teleported terminators in, won initiative, summoned daemons and wiped out a retinue, I engaged with air assaulting noise marines, wiped termies out except fearless obliterator, lost two noise marines

Steve then podded in some chosen, his barrage killed a stalker and pred from my armoured company breaking them, chosen summoned daemons, engaged second retinue and wiped it out again

I waited for him to move his second decimator then engaged the other with terminators in thawk, killed it, lost a terminator.. grrrr

His armoured company shot at my thunderhawk, breaking it with no damage, and this is why fearless thawks are so awesome apart from not being auto-destroyed from being broken within 15cm of an enemy, it flew off and only had 2 blast markers, whereas a marine thawk would have ended up with 4

My own chosen doubled into range and shot his chosen, then the knights doubled up and killed a few more, breaking them

none of my broken things rallied.....

turn 2

decimator singled up and vaped all the infantry and one rhino from my chosen, then his retinue summoned daemons and engaged my own, wiping it out, he killed a noise marine with his hellblades and wiped out my terminators with armoured company and retinue shooting, my knights killed some retinue and then took a good few hits from his armoured company, thawk collected noise marines, nothing broken rallied (grrrr)

Turn 3

I stalled as long as I could, but he broke my knights, I landed the noise marines on an objective in his half, and broke the only unit in range of them, I landed the other on my blitz to contest but he was able to break it for an exceedingly easy 3-0 win

Thoughts

I found the 1 elite+ 1support choice per retinue list structure quite restrictive, it doesn't feel very slaanesh-y or that chaos-y really, having to include 3 retinues limits the number of noise marine formations you can reasonably take too, having thunderhawks is great, but using them means you can't summon daemons, which takes a lot of the flavour away from the list if you go air-assault heavy

The knights were deployed badly on the extreme left flank and were largely ignored so they didn't get a very good test, I also had abysmal luck pretty much throughout, with 3 broken formations failing to rally on a 3, two turns in a row, Steve played well and had good fortune, basically taking out an activation with each of his for the first turn, he even forgot his pinpoint attack, which turned out to be unncessary in the end!

I'm having a break from playtesting for a month now, I have painting to get done, and I'd really like to play a few no-brainer games with approved lists for a while to practice my game and prepare for my next tournament at the beginning of April, I'm planning a couple more tests with this list around mid-May, who knows, I may even have something painted by then!

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Thanks for the report Kyuss! I appreciate the time and effort very much. Sounds like the traditional EC luck kicked in for you

On the list structure - an alternate way of getting noise marines is to replace standard SM units with them in the normal retinues. So, you could have them and a lord for leader duties, which is sometimes lost when there's the elite noise marine FM available. If you go the upgrade route, you'd have a two CSM units (one with a lord), and four noise marines. You could add a dread or a couple more CSM units if you were trying to max out the load of a t-hawk. Not as sexy as an all-noise fm, but you can make about half your total units in your retinues noise marines this way.

With the t-hawks and knights in there, I don't want to go too flexible with the list for balance reasons. Point taken though. Alternative suggestions on structure are welcome, within reason.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Looking to get a few more games in with the list in the next few weeks hope others are testing too!

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

After a long period of inactivity, I took EC 4.0 for a spin against Ruth's black legion. I did another playtest against BL that was consigned to the dustbin of history because of incredibly poor luck on turn 1... I experimented with a retinue/land raider heavy list, and gave up BTS in turn 1 to an air strike (you know, since LR have such poor armor saves ), and it was downhill from there.

Anyway, what's done is done. Here's the list I used on Wednesday:
Retinue, warlord, 3 rhinos, 305
Retinue, rhinos, stalker, 305
Retinue, 2 CSM, upgrade 4 CSM to noise marines, 325
Chaos thunderhawk, 200
Slaanesh knights, 1 hell scourge, 5 hell striders, 325
Hell talons, 225
Armored company, 8 EC predators, 1 stalker, 450
Noise Marine retinue, 6 noise marines, 3 land raiders, 525 (BTS)
Chosen, rhinos, pact, 170
Chosen, rhinos, pact, 170
Daemon pool: 2 lessor daemons
Total: 3000 points

HELLO My name is: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, 2995 POINTS
13TH BLACK CRUSADE BLACK LEGION (2014 Armybook Edition)
==================================================

RETINUE [365]
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), 4 Rhino, Chaos Warlord (Supreme Commander)

RETINUE [315]
8 Chaos Space Marines, (Chaos Undivided), 4 Rhino, Sorcerer Lord

CHAOS TERMINATORS [400]
(Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 4 Chaos Terminator, Obliterator, Chaos Champion

CHOSEN [125]
4 Chaos Space Marine Scouts, (Chaos Undivided)

HAVOC RETINUE [225]
4 Havoc units, (Chaos Undivided), 2 Rhinos, Sorcerer Lord

HAVOC RETINUE [225]
4 Havoc units, (Chaos Undivided), 2 Rhinos, Sorcerer Lord

DEFILER ASSAULT PACK [275]
4 Defilers, (Chaos Undivided)

RAPTOR CULT [315]
(Chaos Undivided), Chaos Lord, 8 Raptor

FERAL TITAN [275]
(Chaos Undivided)

FERAL TITAN [275]
(Chaos Undivided)

HELL BLADES [200]
3 Hell Blade Fighters, (Chaos Undivided)

I've attached two pics of the board at setup. The plastic turtles in the second shot are defilers. The t-hawk (formerly "snowflake", now painted up and named "the Shocker") had the upgraded retinue off board

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

So turn 1 went fairly normally. Both sides moved up, prepping for a turn 2 bloodbath. The knights, also newly painted (scheme shamelessly ripped off from Moredakka's brass scorpions), actually got to use a couple of MW shots on the defilers. The BL castled up, and brought in the termies with the oblits' AA shot in to guard against the t-hawk. The EC won strategy with a 6 and gained 2 daemons. Yay!

The only failures of note were the hell talons staying home instead of going on ground attack, and BL hell blades failing to CAP. Since my bombers couldn't prep a fm and the BL forces were pretty well mutually supporting, the Shocker made a desultory ground attack with its battle cannon and scuttled off in shame turn 1.

The attached pic shows the result of turn 1 movements pretty well. Both sides within engage range of each other, lots of potential for supported engagements on both sides. At this point I was thinking, "wow, I better get strategy next turn or I'm in trouble."

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

...and I didn't win strategy and I was in trouble. To add insult to injury, I rolled a 1 and then lost 3 daemons because slaanesh is the ficklest of the chaos gods. Took a pic of my one remaining daemon for posterity:

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean