Space Wolves (Champions of Russ) vs. Tyranids (Invasion Fleet) – Pariah Nexus Battle Report

Hello everyone!

In this battle report, I was fortunate enough to test out the new Champions of Russ Detachment rules in a Pariah Nexus game against Tyranids! I am scrambling to get this list painted in time for the Tacoma Open in mid-July, and so I apologize for the occasional proxy and the multitude of unpainted models.

My list is one of three variations that I’m currently testing.

It is:

The variations I’m considering are dropping the Bladeguard Veteran Squad, the Lieutenant With Combi-Weapon, and the Pelt of the Balewolf enhancement and bringing in a 5 man unit of Assault Intercessors and Bjorn the Fell-Handed.

Alternatively, I could cut the whole Ragnar package, put 10 Wulfen in, and put a unit of Infiltrators in.

Sadly, too much variation on that isn’t really feasible at the moment due to the time constraints of the Tacoma Open being in less than a month.

I was playing against my regular opponent Chris who had something like this:

Hive Tyrant on Foot (Played by the Swarmlord)
2x Maleceptor (Bases with AoS Gore-Gruntaz)
2x Exocrine
Tyrannofax
Psychofage
Screamer Killer
Neurotyrant w/ Gaunts
Mawloc
Gargoyles x3
Lictor
Deathleaper

We were playing Mission E from the Pariah Nexus tournament companion, which is Take and Hold (Hold up to 3 objectives for 5 points each in your command phase) paired with Prepared Positions (free go to ground and heroic intervention on battleline units), Hammer and Anvil Deployment, and the 7th terrain layout.

We both chose tactical objectives. I chose to start in the Saga of Warriors Born for sustained hits and access to advance and charge.

I won the roll off and opted to deploy first to deny his Lictor and Deathleaper a place to go in the middle. He chose to deep strike the Mawloc, the Lictor, and one Gargoyle unit. I put Logan into deep strike.

From top to bottom my deployment is Gladiator Lancer (back left), Lieutenant (Hiding in the terrain), all three Thunderwolf units, with the BGV and Ragnar (played by Darth Vader) behind – this was a mistake – and Scouts in the middle. I have a final Gladiator on the bottom edge.

His deployment from top to bottom is Exocrine, Maleceptor, Gargoyles, Gaunts with Neurotyrant, Hive Tyrant, Maleceptor, Tyrannofax, Gargoyles with a Psychofage behind, and the final Exocrine. There’s also a Screamer Killer we both forgot about that comes on in a second.

I won the roll off and had to go first!

Round 1:

I drew Extend Battle Lines (Control your home objective and one No Man’s objective) and Sabotage (Do an action in terrain, get more points if it’s in your opponents’ deployment zone).

This was a very fast, very conservative turn. My combi-Lieutenant hid out in the top terrain out of Line of Sight and controlled the objective. My Scouts backed up and Sabotaged the terrain feature in the center, and my Gladiator on the top scooched up to take shots at the Maleceptor that I could see, doing a few damage to it.

His secondary draws were less favorable, with Recover Assets (do actions in Deployment, No Man’s Land, and/or enemy Deployment for points next turn) being doable but Assassinate looking pretty bad.

He moved forward conservatively, and I moved my Lieutenant backwards to stop from being shot at. His Exocrine and Neurotyrant both Recovered Assets, and a couple pot shots went at the top Lancer which weathered the storm handily.

My scouts finished their action and then went back into Reserves.

Round 2:

I scored 5 points on Primary here, and drew Assassination (Kill a Character) and Area Denial (Have a unit wholly within 6″ of the center while nothing enemy aligned is).

I decided to expose two units of wolves here, putting them up to take control of both center objectives and do some damage. I reserved my Scouts along my back edge to deny the Mawloc a deep strike, and then at the end of my movement Chris used Rapid Ingress to put his Lictor unhappily close to my Lieutenant.

I’d chosen his top Exocrine as my Oath’s of Moment target because if I killed it his Recover Assets failed, but it lived handily through the one Gladiator that could get on it. I charged into his Maleceptor and Gargoyles in the middle, and used a cheeky pile in to get two Wolves onto the Deathleaper as well. I was able to use my Thunderhammer battle leader to polish off the Maleceptor (it was at sub 5 health after shots from the Gladiator and wolf attacks), killed the Deathleaper, and obliterated the unit of Gargoyles.

I chose to drop Area Denial because my units are frankly too big to really be wholly within 6″ of the center, but I did score Assassinate.

At the end of this turn, I’d killed a monster with a character, so I unlocked the Saga of the Beastslayer.

Chris finished Recover Assets, scored 10 points on Primary, and drew Cull the Horde (discarded, I didn’t have any 20 model units), Marked for Death (Opponent picks three units, if you kill any of the three score points), and had held onto Assassination from the prior round.

I picked my Scouts, my Bladeguard Veterans, and my backline Thunderwolf Cavalry unit as the Marked targets. That secondary is so bad.

His army surged into the middle, and between every gun shot and melee attack from his monsters, he killed all but one center Thunderwolf Cavalry grunt and both characters. Due to critical precision, the Battle Leader with the Thunderhammer was on 2 wounds.

However, like a dork, I piled into his Gargoyles with the unit after fighting with them, and the Gargoyles did the last damage to the remaining cavalry grunt.

Also important but unmentioned, the Lictor was able to walk up and make the 7″ charge into my Lieutenant, killing it and piling into my Gladiator for Assassinate.

I did manage to mostly kill the Hive Tyrant this turn, but I was stuck in pretty good now.

I also got to unlock Saga of the Bear thanks to the Battle Leader being a boss.

Round 3:

I scored 10 on Primary, even through Shadows in the Warp going off this turn, and drew both Bring it Down (Kill monsters and vehicles, get points) and No Prisoners (Kill stuff, get points) which was a lovely combination of things to see.

The plan this turn was pretty simple – kill the Hive Tyrant, kill the second Maleceptor, obliterate the Gargoyles.

I dropped Logan out of deep strike and screamed something about fighting better at the army. I used the fall back and charge stratagem on the big engaged unit in the bottom of the table, and moved the last unit up the board at the top.

Both of the remaining characters from the middle unit – Harald and the Thunderhammer Battle Leader – fell back to fight the next turn.

The Mawloc dropped in, forcing battleshocks and damage on the top Thunderwolves and the Bladeguard Veterans, but they both passed.

My big guns whiffed pretty good here, but I made up for it by doing work on the charge. The entire unit of Gargoyles fell apart to literally Ragnar, the Thunderwolves up top killed the Maleceptor easily and took the zone control to equalibrium, and then a combination of Thunderwolves and Bladeguard Veterans killed off the Hive Tyrant.

The Tyrannofax stubbornly hung on for dear life, but was at exactly 6 wounds when my damage 3 weapons swung into it and…promptly made all of his 5+ saves. Womp womp.

Chris drew Sabotage (action on terrain, score points) and Bring it Down (kill vehicles and monsters, score points). He also scored five on primary.

The Mawloc moved up to fight the top Thunderwolves, the Screamer Killer rumbled up to fight as well, and the Tyrannofax sat there.

His guns did some chip damage, and then his Screamer Killer and Mawloc took out four Thunderwolves. We tied in the center, the Exocrine failed its battleshock test against the Pelt of the Balewolf up top, and he shipped the turn back to me.

Round 4:

I scored 15 on Primary thanks to the Exocrine being battle shocked. I drew Establish Locus (Literally teleport homers) and Defend Stronghold (Control home objective at end of opponents’ next turn for points).

I had a weird turn, where I undercommitted and overcommitted in a lot of places. The Gladiator up top shot the Lictor with everything it had and killed it. The Scouts came down in the deployment zone and made me a Locus for points.

Charges brought all the remaining mid-board bugs to low single-digit health but couldn’t quite seal any deals. That said, I was still controlling every objective, had the Neurotyrant unit engaged, and was pretty happy sending it back.

Bugs killed wolves, things are a bit muddy here. I was able to heroically intervene into the Psychofage when it charged in and kill it with the Thunderwolves.

After staring at the board state for a minute, Chris called it there as the Screamer Killer was at 1, the Exocrine was at 5, and the bottom Exocrine was about to get charged by a +1 AP, Lance, Sustained, Lethal hits unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry the next turn, which it was not going to survive.

We drew up what we would have drawn, and called it a game.

My big takeaways having played 2 games with Stormlance before this is that Champions of Russ is a lot killier than Stormlance. The extra AP and sustained hits from the strat and saga respectively make each thunderwolf unit capable of taking down most models in the game, and that’s extremely interesting.

Harald/Thunderhammer Battle Leader didn’t really get to do much spectacular work, but I think it’s a solid combo and Harald tanked a Screamer Killer for multiple rounds on his own with no issues.

I’ve got another report against Deathguard coming soon with a variation on the list where I drop the Bladeguard Vets and Lieutenant for Bjorn and some Assault Intercessors, and then after that I’m going to try a variation with Canis Rex instead of the tanks and Ragnar unit.

Thanks for reading, see you next time!