Double Tyrant vs. Death Guard

It’s been about a month since my last experimental game, and in that month I’ve been sick twice, my practice partner has been sick twice, and we’ve basically not been able to line up for a game.

That means I’m not practicing with the lancer in this report as I flat out did not have enough time to figure out if I like the list with it in or not, and instead I’ve got the not quite most recent update of my double tyrant list that I’m practicing here. I’ll talk about changes at the end of the report.

As usual, I’ve got my good friend Chris and his Death Guard to spar with. Here are the lists:

The Death Guard list is specifically designed to give up as little on Bring it Down and Assassinate as possible while still being relatively scoring efficient.

We played Scenario B, which is Priority Targets with Hidden Supplies on Search and Destroy deployment.

I opted to take Tactical Objectives as a test, since I’m going to be doing that against most armies I imagine. Chris took Teleport Homers and Bring it Down.

I lost the roll off for both deployment and going first, and we deployed as follows:

Chaos Knights, top to bottom:
Karnivore x2 with the Flamer Harpoon Tyrant

Tyrant with Volcano Cannon, Two more Karnivores to the right, and the Brigands at the very bottom.

Death Guard:
Plagueburst Crawler x3
Mortarion
Cultists
Nurglings
Rhino with Ten Marines

Chris kept most of his list in reserves, while I kept two units of Nurglings.

Round 1: Death Guard

Chris moved the Cultists up with scout to hold the center right objective during his command phase, giving him a sticky objective there. He also moved his Nurglings up a bit and deployed a Teleport Homer in the center.

He was over-aggressive with the Rhino, putting it bottom right.

All three Plagueburst Crawlers combined did a couple damage to a Karnivore.

Round 1: Chaos Knight

I drew Area Denial and Capture Enemy Outpost round one.

To accomplish Area Denial, I put the damaged Karnivore in the direct center of the table, and spread out the rest of my guys to deny deep strikes into my deployment zone next turn. I also moved a Brigand longways down the bottom edge of the board.

My Tyrants cleaned up the Nurglings and the Rhino, and then my Havoc Launchers took out some Cultists and some Plague Marines.

I charged my Brigand into the remaining Plague Marines in order to deny Chris 5 points on Primary here, and killed one with Tank Shock, suffering a few damage on the backswing.

I discarded Capture Enemy Outpost for a CP.

Name	Primary	Secondaries
Chris	NA	3
Jaden	NA	5

Round 2: Death Guard

Chris had two War Dogs in his face and decided both needed to die. I kept him to 5 points on Primary.

The Lord of Virulence dropped down where it could see a lot of things to give the Plagueburst Crawlers +1 to hit and ignore cover on their mortars.

Mortarion decided to move up and cause problems, and the Cultists (who had passed their battleshock test) moved up and performed a Teleport Homer.

Typhus and Deathshroud popped in at the mid-left.

All the shooting in his list conspired to barely take down the Brigand on the bottom side.

Mortarion charged the Karnivore in the middle and killed it.

Round 2: Chaos Knights

I drew A Tempting Target and Engage on All Fronts. I also scored 10 on primary.

I lined up a bunch of things here, with Karnivores needing re-rollable 8s to get into the top Plagueburst Crawler, a re-rollable 9 to get to Mortarion, and a re-rollable 6 to get into the bottom right objective and take it for A Tempting Target.

I also dropped Nurglings into my deployment zone to screen out the Beast of Nurgle I knew was coming, forcing Chris to use Rapid Ingress to get it down for next turn.

My shooting phase was a bit of a hot mess. I rolled pretty well on hits and wounds with the first tyrant, but I rolled double 1s for the Gheiststrike Missiles on damage for Mortarion, and Mortarion made about 50% of his feel no pains (he took 5 from the Warpshock Harpoon for example).

Then, the other Tyrant and Brigand completely whiffed, leaving the big guy on 4.

My charge phase was a complete and unmitigated disaster. I missed the re-rollable six in the bottom. I missed the charge into Mortarion as well, and then I squeaked an exact roll to get into the Plagueburst Crawler up top, killing it.

I decided to discard A Tempting Target because I was never going to get to the bottom right zone again, but I did max out Engage on All Fronts.

Name	Primary	Secondaries
Chris	5	12
Jaden	10	10

Round 3: Death Guard

Chris scores 10 on primary (we both do for the rest of the game), and has a really simple game plan of “kill all the war dogs I can”.

He first deep strikes in his remaining models, putting a unit of Plaguebearers top (he couldn’t put them on the objective because Tyrants stop that within 12″ and I’d measured that ahead of time) and the other unit on the bottom right objective. He also put the second unit of Deathshroud behind that top ruin.

The Rapid Ingressed Beast of Nurgle hops into my deployment zone and puts down a Teleport Homer.

He is able to shoot down the top Karnivore with his Plagueburst Crawlers, and the bottom Karnivore half dies to a Grenade Stratagem.

Next Mortarion charges the center Karnivore, killing it, and the Plague Marines charge the Karnivore, leaving it on one and then dying on the clapback.

Round 3: Chaos Knights

I managed to score 10 points on Primary once again, and got Cleanse and Secure No Man’s Land.

I tried to move my all-but-dead Karnivore onto the center right objective to take it back and Cleanse, but the Overwatch from the Plagueburst Crawler took it out.

Instead, my remaining Brigand moved centrally and Cleansed. I put the second unit of Nurglings down by the top Tyrant to Cleanse that objective as well.

The Flamer Tyrant killed Mortarion and about half a unit of Plaguebearers, but the other one completely whiffed, doing zero damage to literally anything.

Name	Primary	Secondaries
Chris	15	25
Jaden	20	20

Death Guard Round 4:

Chris scored 10 on Primary. He moved around a little bit, and dropped another deployment zone Teleport Homer.

With relatively little to shoot at, most of the firepower went into the Brigand, which managed to survive on half health. He charged it with the Plagueburst Crawler, and did another damage or two.

Round 4: Chaos Knights

I scored 10 on Primary again, and drew Investigate Signals and No Prisoners.

My Flamer Tyrant and Brigand both whiffed horribly and failed to kill the Plagueburst Crawler in front of the Brigand, but the top unit of Plaguebearers went down.

The long range knight couldn’t shoot into combat with the Plagueburst Crawler, so it turned its awesome firepower on the Lord of Virulence, Cultists, and Beast of Nurgle.

Both of the first two died, but I whiffed every hit roll on the Beast of Nurgle and it survived as well, which was a disaster.

I did manage to max out No Prisoners, and my Nurglings got me two points on Investigate Signals.

Name	Primary	Secondaries
Chris	25	29
Jaden	30	27

Round 5: Death Guard

Chris scored 10 on Primary again. Between his two Plagueburst Crawlers, and some good damage rolls, the Brigand went down and he shipped the turn to me after scoring another Teleport Homers in my Deployment Zone and locking my Flamer Tyrant in melee with his Deathshroud.

Round 5: Chaos Knights

I drew Deploy Teleport Homer and Storm Hostile Objective. I burned my only CP to discard Deploy Teleport Homer, and drew Bring it Down instead.

At this point, I had done some slightly erroneous math, as I had not factored the last three points from my Brigand dying into my calculations. By my math, Chris was going to score 15 points on end of game points for Primary and I was going to score a maximum of ten. I thought I had a relatively easy 9 points on secondaries, so all I needed to do was move into the center objective, kill the Plagueburst Crawler, and win 96-93.

However, with the extra three points he had scored from Bring it Down, that would in fact tie the game.

I had a way to handle this as well believe it or not, but it was less likely to work.

Chris had 20 OC of Plaguebearers on the center right objective, and I could get an 8″ charge on the unit with my long range Tyrant.

If the Flamer Tyrant could kill the Plagueburst Crawler, Chris hadn’t controlled that objective in the command phase his prior turn, so he would not control it. If I could whittle down the Plaguebearers enough and then make an 8″ charge with the Tyrant, I could take that zone, and we would both score 10 points at the end of the game instead of him scoring 15. This would have made his end score 91 points and my end score 96.

I hadn’t realize that though, so I went with the “tie the game” plan. I fell back with the Flamer Tyrant, taking the zone from the Plagueburst Crawler. Then I shot it with every single attack the Tyrant with the Volcano Cannon had. Mind, this PBC was on 2 wounds.

I left it on 1.

And with that, the game was over, 92 – 96.

92-96
Victory for Death Guard!

Post-Game Thoughts:

I had really forgotten how much I hate tactical secondaries as knights with big knights. Aside from that though, I spent a lot of time figuring out what I could have done differently here.

I probably should have led with my Flamer Tyrant instead of War Dogs, because Mortarion is almost certainly not killing it in one round of combat (doesn’t even bracket it on average I think).

I also might have been able to position more aggressively with the Karnivore on turn 2 so that it needed a 7 or 8 inch charge on Mortarion (he rolled 8 twice needing a 9), in which case the big Primarch almost certainly dies and I don’t lose that War Dog.

At the end of the day though, I feel like I positioned fairly well and had a number of improbably things happen to critical parts of my game plan.

Turn 2, a six inch re-rolled charge is (0.7222+0.2788*0.7222) = 0.9235, or 92.4% to work, and if that goes off I score 5 points and almost certainly do NOT lose that Karnivore the following turn.

That same turn, the Karnivore charge into Mortarian to finish him off was about a 67% to work. Either of those things happening would have dramatically changed the game.

Finally, the final turn, even with the -1 to hit stratagem, the ranged Tyrant is about 90% to kill the 2 health Plagueburst Crawler to tie up the game.

I’m reasonably confident that if any of these high probability things pan out, I’m in a likely position to win the game, and that feels pretty good.

This isn’t to take anything away from Chris – he played an excellent game, with the only real notable mistake being exposing the Rhino on turn one for virtually no reason. It did make me overcommit a Brigand, but it cost him a lot more investment and I think overall it was a mistake. Putting Mortarion up allowed his PBCs to follow aggressively behind, and they contributed a lot more to the game than I was expecting.

Future List Changes:

After a fair amount of agonizing, what I’m deciding to do is downgrade both Brigands to Stalkers with Thermal Spears and Slaughterclaws. This does a couple things. First, a list this small can’t really afford models that aren’t capable of fighting things in melee, and Stalkers are pretty good at that.

Second, it allows me the 40 points to put the Panoply of the Cursed Knight on the Flamer Tyrant. This is a big change (it worsens incoming AP by 1) as it means that against things like Lascannons the big guy is saving on 3s in cover now which is moderately silly. It takes AP-5 to get him onto his 5+ Invulnerable save in cover, which means he can play fairly aggressively at the point of the spear.

I’m going to get one more practice game in before an RTT this coming weekend. I may play this new list, or I might finally put a Lancer on the table. We’ll have to see.

Until then, thanks for reading, and we’ll be back again with more reports and analysis (Custodes matchup – it be changing) soon.