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Hey guys. Squeezed a game in last night against IG with my newest incarnation of nids... There has actually been a gap since my last post on the direction I am moving with nids. My last list with the genestealers and outflanking tervigon and t-fexes was tabled by IG last week, and so I went to 'tech support' one last time.

The concept I hit on during this last pass is something that I am embarrassed to even mention that I hadn't explored yet. It really should have been the absolute first thing i tried... We all were rightly complaining about how much of a cost increase all of our MCs got. That cost increase essentially bought them all 2 more attacks and re-rolls for all of their attacks. Rather than just embrace that upgrade, many of us were just buying up upgrades, guns, new weapons, and other things. The expensive MCs we re complaining about just got more expensive. That was why testing versus a gunline was so invaluable to me, because a gunline doesn't care how many points you spent on upgrades that don't keep you alive. They just laugh and kill you before you get to show off your cool upgrade.

So, with the rage in my heart of IG and their 12 vehicle armies, I decided to see how many 'real' MCs I could take (note: not harpies). I'll take the free re-roll everything, and focus on only spending points on T6 3+ save wounds, or more MCs. In doing that exercise, this list was born.

hive tyrant with dual scytals
3x tyrant guard

10x termagants
tervigon with catalyst and scything talons
10x termagants
tervigon with catalyst and scything talons
10x termagants
tervigon with catalyst and scything talons

2x carnifex
2x carnifex
2x carnifex

There is some basic synergy inherent in the list which is nice. Tervigons give catalyst to the carnifex and take a 4+ cover behind them... the hive tyrant takes a 4+ cover save from being behind gants. I got really excited when i noticed how completley impotent this made autocannons, and what a great nerf it was to missile launchers as well (cutting their output in half)

I didn't get a game in with the list, because it felt a little bit slow and didn't have any real tactical maneuver or maneuver control. So, shift a few points around and you get the same list concept with some shooting....

hive tyrant with dual scything talons
2x tyrant guard

3x hive guard
3x hive guard

10x termagants
tervigon with catalyst and scything talons
10x termagants
tervigon with catalyst and scything talons
10x termagants
tervigon with catalyst and scything talons

2x carnifex
trygon
trygon

I really got excited by the list, it uses the same cover + feel no pain concept, its about as resilient as you can go, casts a wide net and just grinds over the table, trapping and wrecking vehicles with MASS mc attacks.

So I threw that last one at this IG list, not an absolutely pure gunline, but its a take all comers tourney list that I use quite a bit. I had Somnicide pilot it.

CCS 4x melta astropath chimera

9x PBS chimera

PCS 4x flamer chimera
infantry squad autocannon flamer chimera
infantry squad autocannon flamer chimera
HWS 3x autocannon
HWS 3x autocannon
veterans 3x melta chimera
veterans 3x melta demolitions

valkyrie with missile pods
vendetta with heavy bolters
vendetta with heavy bolters

2x hydra
manticore
manticore


Ok, 5 objective sieze ground, pitched battle. IG places the first objective in an extreme corner. I place one objective on the center line about 6" from dead center. IG player places the caddy corner objective, then I place the other objective on the center line 6" from dead center in the other direction. Then IG just picks one of the two corners without an objective and places it.

Nids win the roll and choose to go first. they take the side that has two objectives in its corners. they deploy thusly...




A couple of proxies here. my unfinished swarmlord model is standing in for the scytal tyrant, and the backwards facing mawloc is my third as of yet unbuilt tervigon.

In response, the IG deployed like this...




No vehicle was past the 6" line which gave the hive guard 0 shots, and the flyers were wisely in reserve outflanking. The IG player also, wisely chose not to seize the initiative as he doesn't have his flyers and last turn in seize ground is pretty darn good.

Ok, top of turn 1. Catalyst goes off on the two trygons and the carnifex unit ,everyone moves forward 6" and then runs... no babies were made.

Good run rolls on my left flank...

Not so good on the right

Bottom of turn one... Som decides to just ignore the FNPed T6 3+ MCs and focus on killing the hive guard. He manages to kill 5 of them...

Top of turn 2. Catalyst goes off again on the same guys. No one makes babies. My lone hive guard shoots and manages to crew shake the melta vet chimera. Which might actually save me some wounds on my big daddies. the rest of the army move forward and runs again, widening the net so no one can escape.

Everyone is well within 12" of something

Psyker battle squad on the far left of pic is going to be moving away from the shadow in the warp

Bottom of turn 2 needs to be a big one for IG. Som rolls and gets the valkyrie and a vendetta, and gets the sides he wanted after some re-rolling. He moves up his CCS 6" and prepares to use their melta on my tyrant unit (who lost cover in the rush to get forward) he flings the shaken veteran chimera and the PCS chimera cruising speed to block my MC charges. That kind of shenanigans may have worked before I had these dual scytals installed, but it won't now In shooting he put a hurt on the tyrant, killing off one guard and putting a wound on the tyrant just with the CCS. The vendetta that showed up started working on the tervigons behind the lines. It was clear to me that Som was going after synapse, which was actually a pretty smart play. But it meant my trygons and fexes were going to go aggro all game. He put four wounds on my rightmost tervigon with shooting, and the valkyrie unloaded on one of my 'hanging out in the back' termagant units. The hydras put another wound on the tyrant, he finished off the last hive guard with multi-lasers/autocannons and said go.

Top of 3. IG wasn't really able to do that much with one vendetta still in reserve and having no flamer targets or decent multi-laser targets. Now it was going to be a nasty top of three for him to take. Everything in my army charged. My tervigons on the flanks both made babies and the wounded one crapped out. The central one didn't have anything good to do with his babies so he held off on making them. The freshly spawned termagants charged the two HWS teams and lost combat, but only by two. The hive tyrant charged the CCS chimera, over in the middle the carnifex unit charged the meltavet chimera and the trygon positioned himself to charge the PCS chimera while getting closer to the two infantry squad chimeras. I foolishly got pretty close to the chimeras with my freshly made termagants (I'm stilll used to them having adrenal glands) The tervigon on the left was also able to charge the PCS chimera although it wasn't really needed, and actually ill advised... that took the hanging out in the back gants out of synapse. The CCS chimera died but didn't explode, the mechvet chimera died and DID explode and the vets were pinned, and the PCS chimera died and exploded, the guys inside fell back off the table. A note on scything talons. I needed fours on one chimer and sixes on the other. The carnifexes were just NAILS all game on killing fast movers as you'll see. This list is really all about dual scytals. I wouldnt recommend any other config.


Bottom 3. Could have been worse for IG... they only lost three chimeras and their autocannons were tied up, but they still had their CCS with meltas, and all the flyers were alive. The third vendetta showed up, and ended up on the side Som wanted. Now that the hive guard were dead, he continued to hammer my synapse. The original vendetta killed off my rightmost tervigon, and caught one of the screen units in the 6" death-scream. But Som rolled low and i only lost 3. Up to this point his vendettas had been getting 3 hits on lascannons consistently, it was starting to scare me. When piloting nids, you need to see those vendettas only getting two hits more often than 3. Fortunately, this new vendetta never got more than 2 hits all game, so he didn't spoil the results. Lots of wounds got put on the middle tervigon, got him down to one wound left, and then started in with the desperation multi-laser shots to try and take him out, but he would last for another turn. One of the two infantry squad chimeras moved cruising speed between the carnifex and the trygon to attempt a breakout. (muhahaha, scything talons coming up!) I'll mention now that the manticores had been shrewdly putting blast on termagants that were also touching the tyrant or tervigons and killing off tervigons at a decent rate. However, they were pretty much totally underwhelming this game, and I'm very tempted to switch my IG list over to 3x2 hydra.... but enough about IG

Top of 4. I know the trygons can go down fast, so I'm not overconfident, but its looking like I'm about to shut down all of his troops choices except the veterans in valkyrie, and they are probably immortal. So I plan accordingly. Carnifex unit charges the cruising speed chimera, trygon charges the stationary chimera (I had a tough choice between that and the stationary hydra unit. I had to have faith in my 3+ armor and really shut down his troops. I didn't want them slipping away) The middle wounded tervigon becomes my hero by making 16 babies and crapping out! That was a huge wound Som couldn't put on me. The leftmost tervigon made another group too, a small one at 8 with no doubles. The hive tyrant detached from the guard and moved over to help smash up the HWS-termagant duel, and the rightmost trygon and the tyrant guard charged the CCS. I had a biggish termagant unit shoot at the formerly pinned melta vets and wiped them out. Both infantry squad chimeras were predictably wiped out, and the CCS managed to hold with 4 of 4 5+ refractor field saves. You might think that is a disaster for IG, but they weren't going to be shooting that trygon anyway, they were after my synpase to try and steal a tie.

Bottom of 4. Som moved vendettas a bit and killed off the middle tervigon, the hive tyrant and killed lots of termagants, who, without synapse were not long for this world. At this point he started working on the leftmost trygon with the spare shooting he had, I think he even managed to drop it in a single turn... guard with vendettas are straight up dangerous until the last turn of the game it seems. The tyrant guard broke free of the CCS as the hive tyrant wiped out the HWS, they linked back up again and started hoofing it to table center to get synpase plugged back in. The rest of the guard vehicles did what I always did with them to steal wins from players with inadequate anti-transport. They all moved cruising speed right towards the objectives, tank shocking as they went. Ready for a turn 5 party pooper.

Top of 5. the tervigon charged the hydras, and wrecked one (I still don't know if this was wise... my synapse coverage in table center was terrible at this point and I had about 32 termagants that needed guidance. I lost some movement to lurk in the next turn. But I seem to fail a lot of 3+ saves against autocannons for some reason, so I went for the tabling) The trygon on the right noticed that the vendetta had floated a bit too close in order to reach the middle tervigon with heavy bolters and so he was able to concolidate-move-run-charge it! The carnifex did and about face and headed right back to table center, where they planned to annihilate anything that tried to come in to contest my hard won objectives. Tervigon made another small batch of 7 but still didn't crap out. All the termagants near the infantry squads shot and charged them, leaving som with only the psyker battle squad and the demo vets as his infantry models. I'm feeling pretty good, but i know whats coming and its never a sure thing.

Bottom 5. Demo vets get out of the valkyrie and take over one objective, the valkyrie has a spot it can land where it can contest (that might have been a generalship mistake on my part) One of two manticores manages a tank shock that contests yet another objective, and one vendetta moves slow enough to shoot at my tervigon putting a mere 2 wounds on it.

If the game ends now I still have him 2 to 1. But it continues...

Top of 6. These turns are coming much faster and easier now. I manage to move my tervigon up and successfully get a dominion off, essentially locking the termagants in place. My carnifex charge the valkyrie and my trygon charges the manticore that made it to contest. I smashed up the valkyrie with the fexes, but the trygon managed to only immobilize. That scared me for a moment until I realized that I'd get attacks on him in his assault phase.

Bottom of 6. Som was really trying hard to cheese me out at all costs. And I thank him for it. I think he may have asked if I want him to concede, but I said that i thought this clean up operation was vitall important for my learning. He put his psykers into my termagants and two vehicle heavy flamers, trying to make them thin enough that they couldnt stretch to the two objectives they were stretching on to, but i had way too many for that, plus I went to ground so I wasn't going to need to move anyway. the vendetta fired once more at the tervigon, getting 2 more wounds.

...and the game continued.

Top of 7. Lets go ahead and kill off that last vendetta with my carnifex. I manage that with ease, and keep dominion up on the tervigon and stay as far away from the PBS with him as possible.

Bottom 7. The remaining manticore moves combat speed only in order to cause a morale test on my termagants if he manages to kill my tervigon with his lone hydra (which only had a heavy bolter left) and so wasn't contesting, then the hydra fired its heavy bolter needing to cause two wounds. He only gets one hit and i do a dance of joy. I should mention that I had been shotting at his veterans with cluster spines and fleshborers, but they were dug in tight and managed to score. But I firmly had 3.


This victory was sweeter than any I have had with nids... Not getting first turn would make this a much tougher fight... but i don't need to win every game I play against a good guard army, I'd just like to split some percentage close to 50/50. Looks like this list is awfully close. I already know how its going to far against less shooty armies. Good termagant tervigon management will allow me to dictate the charges, and I should be able to split my games against most other armies as well. i'll run through the units again, even though I'll tell you right now that I think this list is locked...

hive tyrant. At 10 points cheaper than my tervigon, and with WS8 and paroxysm and the dual scytals... i think this guy is a fine choice. He hits pretty hard, does much better when there is fighty infantry around than a tervigon, and looks cool. i really wish he had dominion though to be honest.

tyrant guard. Cheapest T6 3+ save wound in the codex. Not particularly great, but important to unlock the cover save for the hive tyrant, and some more wounds to make him not such an obvious choice. My least favorte unit in the list, but required nonetheless.

hive guard. i was really tempted to reserve them, if Som had outflanked his vendettas into range of a walk on table hive guard unit and lost the vendettas i would ahve been a hero, the problem might be that if i reserve them with first turn, then he may not reserve his vendettas. So utimately, I'll say that these guys are probably not going to do anything to gunlines, except draw fire for pretty cheap. They are going to be clearly awesome in the mid turns against mech eldar and other less shooty but more transporty armies. I'm sure marines will hate not being able to maneuver away from the MCs with rhinos.

tervigons. Vital. The FNP deterred any shooting into my three win condition units. Those three win condition units tore it up big time. Plus for once these guys aren't total pushovers as I now have a reliable argument free 4+ save for them. I was loving them a lot here.

termagants. It will take some getting used to, not having CC capable termagants. But I don't really need them for that, and i don't think anyone does. Just seed the table with tons and tons of these guys in objective games, shoot at infantry, charge weak infantry, you can charge combats you'll lose, just to lock something down for a turn or two.... block non-tank vehicles from contesting... Block charges to MCs so that you can dictate the terms of the assaults. They have real utility even without FC or posion.

2x carnifex. I think I would have liked 3 units of these had I had those points, but at least one unit is total gang-busters running right up the gut. Charging fast moving vehicles was a blast. Rolling 10 dice to hit 6s, then picking everything 5 or lower up and throwing it agian was ridiculous, I never got less than 2 hits, and each hit is an auto-pen that ignores smoke. They were just throwing chimeras and valkyries all over the place. With FNP and other priorities on the table, they were completely untouched, and with their wide footprint, they could change direction in a heart beat. I LOVED this unit. There is not a single upgrade I'd ever look at though. You need the scything talons, regeneration is crap, and the plasma was absolutely unneccesary and expensive.

trygons. The smaller cousin to the 2x carnifex unit. Slightly faster makes them better running up the sides, and they have more Jaws immunity, which, sadly, is important. Their higher initiative and weapon skill makes them kind of a half way point between fighty tyrant and tanky fex. 7 re-rollable strength 6 attacks were also quite capable of wrecking all kinds of tanks, much more efficiently than any nid shooting. Not as deadly to tanks as the fex unit, but by downgrading, I am able to pick up pretty much two units of hive guard. I like them a lot with feel no pain... without it... not so much.



Ok, I'm ready for thoughts on the game or the lists. And i'm ready for Mahu to say "i told you so" about hive tyrants. Although please note that mine are equipped radically differently than anyone else. I'm also ready for anyone advocating trygons to me to also say I told you so. I'm getting a CSM game in this week with the list, and I'll be looking to challenge a land raider SM list soon as well. I'm not really scared in either case (although with CSm I'm facing 9 lascannons again ugh!) If things go remotely well, I may be revising my whiny proclamations about nids. I really just needed a good dose of "learn to play" as the kids say, but even more importantly I (and many, many other people) needed to cure our cases of 'upgrade-itis'.

Thanks for reading!

He made a mistake outflanking the vendettas. Your nids have no long range shooting to speak of, and turns off the table are less shots fired before the nids hit your army. I know he had an astropath, but I fail to see what is gained by outflanking.

JourneyPsycheOut wrote:He made a mistake outflanking the vendettas. Your nids have no long range shooting to speak of, and turns off the table are less shots fired before the nids hit your army. I know he had an astropath, but I fail to see what is gained by outflanking.

Umm... not losing two vendettas to my 6 hive guard. I had first turn.

I'm not impressed. Jaws will tear this army apart from turn 1. Fatecrusher out combats you. Eldar, out maneuvers you. Swarm lord will walk through everything in your list without a second thought, although you can use your gants to prevent that if you're skilled. Don't even get me started on orks... And necrons will eat you for breakfast which is kind of sad. It's as good as a pure combat army gets. But a pure combat army has its limits, and a good tournament list it does not make.

yermom wrote:I'm not impressed. Jaws will tear this army apart from turn 1. Fatecrusher out combats you. Eldar, out maneuvers you. Swarm lord will walk through everything in your list without a second thought, although you can use your gants to prevent that if you're skilled. Don't even get me started on orks... And necrons will eat you for breakfast which is kind of sad. It's as good as a pure combat army gets. But a pure combat army has its limits, and a good tournament list it does not make.

K, respectfully disagree... and not too worried about proving the list on paper, I'll just keep posting batreps.

Jaws only has the fexes and the tervigons to target. Obviously my maneuvering will change. Multiple Jaws? I'm screwed. But jaws itself is a gimmick 'nid-hate' power that i won't expect to see a lot of. I wouldn't love to face a SW gunline I freely admit, but I wouldn't count me out with first turn.

I'll batrep demons soon... like you mentioned and like I have been practicing heavily, gant-tervigon control is vital to playing versus CC armies. I'm not going to let bloodcrushers charge my MC units for instance. Why would I do that?

Eldar outmanuever, but just like the three flyers in this list (all of which I killed) they will eventually have to commit in order to contest an objective. And I don't think a 'maneuverable' eldar army has the kind of firepower that I just faced down with IG. Its really about coralling vehicles into spaces that they can't escape your charge even with a fly-over... and its even harder for the 36" range firepower to effectively kite trygons, unless they are shooting at those trygons. I'd be MUCH more concerned with a firepower heavy eldar army.

That necron comment was absolutely silly. Necrons do nothing to me, 3+ save followed by fnp against destroyers? How many turns before they are phased out?

Swarmlord is very, very expesnive. He better chop right through everything, because he costs as much as two of my MCs. I'll feed him fearless gants all day. Same goes for any over upgraded hive tyrant. Putting devourers, hive commander, and wings doesn't get him killed any slower against a gunline. It just gets you one less MC in your list.

I've been following nid batreps. I see a lot of people that are having success fighting orks, nids, space marines, demons, CSM, with these expensive tricksy lists. What I haven't seen anyone really testing except myself and maybe a couple more people, is the true power house lists at tournaments. namely, the SW maximum over drive list, and the IG gunline. Like I spelled out before, taking upgrades, or 280 point special characters gets you tabled, when you are playing against someone who doesn't feel like spending any points on their own CC upgrades, or fighting you the way you want to fight.

I've run swarmlord against Blackmoor's GT winning foot eldar list. He was just handled so effortlessly, it taught me that he is too slow, too expensive, and not as scary to someone who can manage their own resources well and track when its safe to fight swarmlord.

I get more games against orks than any other race in 40k. This list actually came about partly to neutralize the effectiveness of loota fire on MCs. I don't see anything in a battlewagon list that gives me a fright except nob units (bikers and battlewagon riders) The challenge will be to manage that unit with tervigons and gants, long enough to win out. Kan based lists will have trouble as the kans will get shredded by trygons. Should be a fun close game against a good ork player, the words 'blowout' don't even enter into it... I'll batrep that one too.

Look.. I'm not calling 100% on any matchup, that would be egotistical and delusional. But nothing you have mentioned would be out of my reach to win, if I was focusing on how to win and using generalship. And I'll keep bringing picture batreps to show that.

Hey, when did I become "Mister Hive Tyrant"

"I told you so"

Yermom - I don't totally disagree with you, but I think you are being a little harsh and not taking into account the benefits of his strategy. As you can see with his report, his army can put across a large front, so it is really hard to out manuver, especially in typical objective missions where he has reliable scoring units on his objective. As far as Jaws is concerned, that assumes he isn't deploying totoally different, and Jaws doesn't like Hive Tyrants and Trygons because of their high initiative.

For my part, I have mixed feelings about this report and this list. To me it feels like hitting another "tentpole" of the codex, i.e. what happnes when you cram alot of scything talons down an opponent's throat.

Having said that though there are a few things I greatly appriciate, Trygons with FNP is an awesome idea and one of those things that should have been so obvious from the start that you feel dumb for not thinking about it. I had conversations with people in my gaming group lameting the Trygon not having some sort of invulnerable save, but FNP will do quite nicely.

For my part, I plan to put down the next set of playtests with the Zoanthrope heavy list and see how it fairs, now my opponents have had a chance to play it and know how to react to it.

I dunno man, you've always seemed pretty for real, so it's odd to hear things like calling shooty Max overdrive Space Wolves and shooty IG the "true power house lists at tournaments". Seriously, what do Space Wolves have over CSM? IG over Orks?

You've built yourself a list with no long range shooting, no speed, a fair amount of vulnerable KP, and proclaimed it superior to other's? How do you deal with a Death Star list in a KP mission (Death Star = local term for list built around notion that I have less KP's than you and mine are harder to take)? Ironclad Spam? How do you deal with the fact that if they move up a vehicle to block your progress on an early round you quite literally lack the movement to contest an enemy's objective in a corner to corner 2 objective draw fest?

I've always thought you had a lot to add to the discussion, and I was happy to hear your encouragement when I proposed my theory of Nids, but I think you've built yourself a bit of a soapbox here.

Also, not sure you've thought through the Necron thing as well as you might. I'd bet on the Crons. 3 Liths, corner to corner, walking up the field whipping the fexes while the destroyers target them and the Deceiver struts out playing goalie? Unless the Necron scrubs up and lets you see combat I don't get why you are confident.

I do agree, the way I phrased my point was kind of harsh, and so was the point itself. I've been having a horrible week, and I guess I let it get to me. I apologize.

Back to what I was getting at. I feel like eldar could just reserve adn then boost all game and contes objectives while picking at your tervigon. As you've said Maximum overdrive is the anti nid and is just an all around hard list to fight.

The more and more I look at your list the more I'm willing to actually believe it's quite powerful. The only issue is that when the tervies go down or you run out of gants vs a combat army, you are in serious trouble.

You raise a good point about swarm lord though, that I had not taken into consideration.

I have been on the other side of the table against many of Shep's playtest lists and have to say that this is the first one that target priority wasn't easy.

Yes, I could have started with the Vendettas and Valk on the table. The model is so freaking big that unless I send it in the far corners (which were occupied by my other ridiculously ranged shooting) that the hive guard would have been able to shoot if not on turn 1, then on turn 2 for sure and in return I might have netted one more MC but then been in a direction that he was heading anyway so would likely have needed to spend a turn moving 24" to get as much over his army as I could (assuming they survived the Hiveguard hate) so it feels like a wash to me.

This list I played has a TON of shooting and even so, I just couldn't stop the MCs from getting to my lines and when that happened it turned the paradigm of "you can't destroy fast moving vehicles in CC" into "really? reroll everything?!? oh hell."

I had a CHANCE to tie if the game had ended on turn 5 - one of my vehicles was literally a quarter inch out of contest range but I had to risk being tabled if there were more turns in doing so - which is what happened.

Do I think that the nid list is unbeatable? No. Do I think it was far more competitive against really shooty mech IG which is one of the builds that you can expect to see at the top tables of tourneys and GTs (at least in my area)? Yes.

As to fatecrusher owning it, I am skeptical. All of those termagants are poison and mass saves are what screws fateweaver. He needs to be near the action to give the crushers rerolls but then Tervigons will do an end around baby creation to start forcing those leadership checks. I probably should mention that I play fatecrusher and fairly often lately, so that is based on my experience. Sure, I might get hot and never fail a save. But it is almost as likely that I will take off after only taking a single wound.

JotWW spam will be the paper to this list's rock and Shep will just have to deal with that when it happens. Every army has their hard counter, especially when you start to spam things so that is something of a strawman. And JotWW spam is generally a pretty weak thing to base an army off of from what I have seen - there are so many hard counters that it isn't even funny (people still play mech, right?)

Oh and for what it is worth, I think that this is the first time I have lost to Tyranids, regardless of the army I have been playing (daemons, Crimson Fists, and IG).

yermom wrote:...a good tournament list it does not make.

Mahu wrote:For my part, I have mixed feelings about this report and this list.

40kenthusiast wrote:You've built yourself a list with no long range shooting, no speed, a fair amount of vulnerable KP, and proclaimed it superior to other's?

Yikes... not the reaction I was hoping for. Let me just be as honest about my current stance as I can here. I am really excited about this current batrep, because locally, within my own group, my gunline army, manimals IG army, and the space wolf army I am helping wolflordkjel build have been CRUSHING nids. I was not used to walking in to a new codex, talking about it extensively with my buddies, playing many games, and having really nothing to show for it. It was fun and frustrating to try everything and anything, but every time i thought I had something, manimal would come over, lay down an IG gunline, and table me. Its not a generalship thing when facing a back to the wall pure gunline, and so it was supremely frustrating. During this time, I was able to make lists that could beat dual raider THSS terms, I was making lists that could beat orks, but every time I'd step onto a table against a gunline, it was a pure unadulterated slaughter.

So admitting that its my own metagame that is dominated by gunlines should help a bit in understanding why this victory and this 'tech' please me. I mistakenly assumed that other nid players were having serious problems with gunlines, and it seems like many are not. It might be that they just don't face them that often, it might be that the gunlines they face are comprised of different 'less effective versus nids' guns, or it might be that they are doing something with their units that I am not. However that third one will be a hard sell. I've tried outflanking, I've tried podding (which worked but fell down against other assault based lists) and i tried just walking across the table. I tried 9 zoanthropes, I tried 9 hive guard and 2 t-fex, and i tried stealer shock.

Just once more, so you guys understand me. Getting a nid list together that can beat the kind of gunlines I've been dealing with, that theoretically can also handle more straightforward tactical armies has me majorly excited. it seems that at some point, my tone in the post put you all off, and must have read like "i have discovered the secret of tyranids, therefore i am awesome." Not my intention...

40kenthusiast wrote:I dunno man, you've always seemed pretty for real, so it's odd to hear things like calling shooty Max overdrive Space Wolves and shooty IG the "true power house lists at tournaments". Seriously, what do Space Wolves have over CSM? IG over Orks?

The "dominance" I mentioned was pure hyperbole, I was trying to get my point across about how nids are dominated by gunlines, and how I haven't seen a lot of testing outside of my own that really addressed the problem, but in my zeal I said something that was over-blown. Consider it retracted. But I would also like other people to consider testing against pure gunlines, which are popular lists, and let us all know what kind of successes and difficulties you've had.

40kenthusiast wrote:I've always thought you had a lot to add to the discussion, and I was happy to hear your encouragement when I proposed my theory of Nids, but I think you've built yourself a bit of a soapbox here.

Yeah, my nid lists have jumped around quite a bit... and what i really wanted to get across in this batrep, was what Mahu picked up on. Bucketloads of scything talon CC attacks can efficiently kill vehicles at any speed. And also, over-upgrading nid MCs is unwise, because they don't have 4+ invulnerables and immunity to instant death, and are therefore succeptable to being killed before they get to use their toys.

What i didn't want to imply, was that the way other people have been playing nids is "wrong" or "stupid". Looks like i managed to do that as well... My apologies.

40kenthusiast wrote:I dunno man, you've always seemed pretty for real, so it's odd to hear things like calling shooty Max overdrive Space Wolves and shooty IG the "true power house lists at tournaments". Seriously, what do Space Wolves have over CSM? IG over Orks?

They are newer and more balanced codices that tend to have a better battle-point showing at competitive tournaments.

You've built yourself a list with no long range shooting, no speed, a fair amount of vulnerable KP, and proclaimed it superior to other's? How do you deal with a Death Star list in a KP mission (Death Star = local term for list built around notion that I have less KP's than you and mine are harder to take)? Ironclad Spam? How do you deal with the fact that if they move up a vehicle to block your progress on an early round you quite literally lack the movement to contest an enemy's objective in a corner to corner 2 objective draw fest?

He's playing a codex that lacks a lot of those things. He has some speed because of fleet. Nids don't have great long range shooting. Period. It's a balancing mechanism in the codex. He's still running hive guard which aside from Tyranofexx is about as good as it gets. He's tried countless variants of tossing all the shooty nids into a list and it doesn't work very well.

Could his list be more mobile? Yes it could and you're right to point it out as a weakness. That doesn't mean the list sucks, it just means it might need to be tweaked. Or maybe he just concedes the weakness and you work around it the best you can (please see ork kan wall that's a quality list that isn't mobile either).

I've always thought you had a lot to add to the discussion, and I was happy to hear your encouragement when I proposed my theory of Nids, but I think you've built yourself a bit of a soapbox here.

He beat a good IG list without outflank hate and is pleased with the results and is sharing it with dakka.

Also, not sure you've thought through the Necron thing as well as you might. I'd bet on the Crons. 3 Liths, corner to corner, walking up the field whipping the fexes while the destroyers target them and the Deceiver struts out playing goalie? Unless the Necron scrubs up and lets you see combat I don't get why you are confident.

Why are we talking about necrons? Who plays necrons at the top tables? Necrons suck right now. Their codex is so antiquated. Sure maybe necrons can give a foot list trouble, but the reality is that you probably won't see them and even if you do the necron codex is so weak compared to the newer stuff that it just might not matter and you may just phase them out anyway.

Well Shep you seem to have stumbled on to the list I've been testing for the last bit .

I realize that sounds like I'm a know it all but I had to say it since it made me chuckle. But seriously I like the direction your army has taken. I was setting up something similar to this but with one less tervigon and more small bugs (including 15-20 gargoyles). I realized while building my list that I'm going to need a ridiculous number of wounds to overcome most of the more stagnant shooty armies out there and decided that 32+ T6 Wounds was the way to go too.

Oh and as for what do CSM have over SW I'll give you 10 internetz if you can beat my 2k Wolves w/any version of the chaos codex Wolves really are one of the nastier armies out there right now and I specifically built my Nid's with them in mind too.

Yeah... IG and SW >>> pretty much any other codex for all-comers. Yeah, each one has bad matchups, but I think far fewer than other codicies.

Oops! Meant to say SW instead of Nids.

since when do gaunts give carnifexs cover saves?>

Thanks for sharing, Shep. It's a positive result, certainly. I do wonder, though, what happens to your list in a Dawn of War scenario. Any thoughts? I look at the slow-moving 'fexes and shudder - they won't make it to the enemy until turn 4 or so, and your Trygons will have to chance deep strike or suffer essentially the same fate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

krusty wrote:since when do gaunts give carnifexs cover saves?>

They don't. The Carnifexes are running straight up the middle, with FNP from the Tervigons. The Tyrant picks up a cover save from the 'gants, by virtue of being attached to the Tyrant Guard.

Nice report. I definitely remember having conversations about "cheap and deep" bug armies. I think that you reached the same conclusion with these units. Fexes, while expensive, are still a great buy if you give them nothing but the basics. FNP on Trygons I've mentioned on several occasions, but was always was dissed because everyone was all about Tyranofexes. Somehow the shooting was too good to pass up. Dunno. I like your list a lot and would be similar to what I'd field if I wanted to play tyranids again. My IG list I think has a lot more flexibility than this IG list. Not that the IG list you faced is bad, but it suffers in some respects. All in all though, I'm glad you've found a contender. Mahu and I will be squaring off again this weekend, so I am sure he'll be posting his results as well.

Janthkin wrote:Thanks for sharing, Shep. It's a positive result, certainly. I do wonder, though, what happens to your list in a Dawn of War scenario. Any thoughts? I look at the slow-moving 'fexes and shudder - they won't make it to the enemy until turn 4 or so, and your Trygons will have to chance deep strike or suffer essentially the same fate.

I thought about dawn of war.... this idea I had for dawn of war was to focus on objectives... here are the three theoretical gameplans.

seize ground - This one there might be hope. My first instinct was to say 'oh crap' starting the game 12" further back from a gunline. But then i realized that for all intents and purposes, dawn of war cuts a turn out of the game. If I go second or play it fairly smart, i can make turn 1 essentially a non-turn. Meaning that gunlines are only going to get two rounds of shooting before they'll have to start moving cross-table to pick up objectives. I suspect I'll have some trygon and carnifex charges before the game is over. Those charges may lead to me just shutting down their ability to contest. The other army will claim the objectives that they managed to place within 12" of their table edge, and i would try to claim everything else. of course it may not work out that way if they overwhelm the table middle with contesters, but I'm hoping that a shorter game will give them less time to thin me out before they have to move up.

cap and control - this one will depend on my opponents list. I could try to reserve my hive guard and trygons, make holes for hive guard to come through, and then walk the rest on my own edge and completely shut down any chance they'll have to contest. if I'm up against a seriously respectable assault list, something with a couple of land raiders for example, I think i do the unpopular move and just place 2k points of models over my objective and auto-tie. That wouldn't be my favorite thing to do, and I'd only do it if I thought I needed every MC to fend off the land raiders.

annihilation - if they are shooty and not choppy, just shake their hand and take the beating. of course i'd give them the bum's rush, and hope for a 7 turn game, I wouldn't make a single baby... but I would expect that trygons and carnifex would be prioritized, and then the termagants, there is no way the tyrant and the tervigons get 6 kp from a smart opponent.

Don't get me wrong Shep, I am very pleased you are having positive results against a gun line.

IG and Space Wolves have been my primary opponents in all of my playtesting, I feel your pain.

I will try and put up an actual Batrep after my next wave of playtesting against IG.

What is this maximum overdrive SW list? Can anyone give me the quick list? Would make better comparison.

Thanks.

Basically 9 Las/Plas Razorbacks, 6 Squads of 5 GH's w/Flamers, 3 Squads of 3 WG w/2 Combi-Meltas, 3 Speeders, Rune Priest, and 3 Squads of 3 LF's w/2 ML's in Rhinos. Lots of shots but fragile if it doesn't go first against a lot of lists out there.

Sorry for jumping on ya man. I dunno, long day I guess.

I tried my Nids out tonight vs. Shooting marines.

Parasite of Mortrex: Killed 7 marines + a rhino, spawned 2 rippers which didn't do much. Useful as fast Synapse. B.
Tyranid Prime: Killed 3 Sternguard, useful as far up field synapse, C
2 units of 4 warriors w/Vcannon: Sat on objective, D but something of this sort is mandatory
15 Gargoyles: Killed nothing, provided cover saves, convoyed in Parasite
9 Raveners w/rending, Killed 5 man Marine unit and 8 man Sternguard unit + half of Lysander, then squashed by Lysander (B-)
Pyrovores, killed 6 Sternguard + other half of Lysander
3 Lictors: Killed enemy 10 man marine unit + rhino
5 Ymgarl Genestealers (killed rhino, out of position due to poor terrain decision)
Tyrannofex w/rupture cannon: Killed 2 rhinos + 5 Sternguard + immobilized a rhino

The game basically went that we rolled the drawfest, he had 3 units of 10 tac marines, 3 units of 10 sternguard pedro lysander and 6 rhinos. He sat in a house iwth his objective. I sieged it, but couldn't take it. He didn't come for mine.

Shep wrote:

JourneyPsycheOut wrote:He made a mistake outflanking the vendettas. Your nids have no long range shooting to speak of, and turns off the table are less shots fired before the nids hit your army. I know he had an astropath, but I fail to see what is gained by outflanking.

Umm... not losing two vendettas to my 6 hive guard. I had first turn.

Nothing a 24" scout move out of range wouldn't cure. Plus all but one hiveguard was gone bottom of 1.

Good game and battlereport shep. I fell your pain and understand your joy. I was a little stung by the Overdrive remark but I understand what you were saying now.

First off I love your first list, I wish I had the money to pick up all the fexen people claim to be selling away because they suck.


1 Have you thought about one 3 fex unit and 2 in spore pods for an in your face threat? (do you guys play being able to deploy empty pods?

2.While I think you list is great (I really do) There are some things that may concern me. Dedicated assault units that can hit a gant unit and MC and feed off of combat res, Pie plates removing bubble wrap (demolishers and what not), Hard-core shooting combat troops simply waiting in cover, cracking a landraider only to be terminatored to death next turn. Anti psy, shutting you down, and fast moving plasma bikes and such.



I played a list like this with my "Boner" Bonesword spam list list and found that it may have a weaknes to ID. My parasite was able to off a unprotected tervi and my warriors boned another to death (Insert bad joke about preggy nids here). Just be aware of assassination attemps.


As for max overdrive, I was able to beat it using

flyrants, one with H.commander and heavy venom cannon
yarg, stealers

zenomthrope

poding zoanthropes

deathspitting warriors

Gargoyles with Adrenal glands

T-fexs


What I did wasuse the gargoyls as cover, while the venomthrops gave the rest of the army cover. the naked hive tyrand entered the battle in turn two. and the one already on the field, who was wounded as I had placed so that my opponet thout it was going to head the attack, flew back behind the tyranofexen (giving them insured synapse while staying in HVC range. I was able to shake/stun enough tanks that I was able to CC some and force the others to move more than he wanted. Tough game though.

Hey there shep, all I have to say is Finally someone that sees the pure destructive power of dual scy tal fexes... I mean, any vehicle in range of these guys is just asking to be slaughtered.

In response to the Overdrive eldar giving this list trouble, I recently saw a game, with a tourny eldar transport list, and a nid list similar, but not identical to this. The eldar only managed to kill one full termagant squad and a single tervigon the whole game due to FNP and cover from various things. Oh and shep, he had x2 double fex squads, spread them out fully and the four of them managed to kill 5 transports lol.

The problem that many armies will have with a list like this is the sheer fact that it is similar to nidzilla, except three key and dead killy MCs are getting FNP a turn, while cover is being given to others. Not to mention the sheer number of termagants that tervs can crap out either in one turn, or in multi turns assuming they dont get doubles.

Kudos to you for doing this kind of list, I myself would honestly lose one of the hive gaurd squads and get another double fex group in there. 4 fexes with FNP is just silly.

I myself run an opposite list, mostly nid shooting, as I use my DOOMnids, but I have done funny stuff to keep my Hive tyrant alive like throughing him FNP on the frontline, next to a TFEX with FNP right next to him. 6 wound 2+ save 6T FNP is hilarious, and I dont have gaurd with my tyrant, i instead experiment giving him a 2+ save and FNP. Its funny watching my Tyrant and TFex just start mowing things down and just absorb fire all over the place

JourneyPsycheOut wrote:He made a mistake outflanking the vendettas. Your nids have no long range shooting to speak of, and turns off the table are less shots fired before the nids hit your army. I know he had an astropath, but I fail to see what is gained by outflanking.

I completelly agree, Outflanking the Vendettas was a horrible mistake, they have double the range of Hive Guard + Scout and those 6 TL LC would have made wounders on the first 2 turns, plus, like you said, the Hive Guard was all but wipped out on the IG first turn.

Edited because I thought about it some more: Also you say that Som didn't try and steal the initiative because the Vends where on reserve, this was another mistake I feel. When facing what is basically a pure CC army the gunline is going to need all the shooting time it can get, it was only a 1 in 6 chance, sure, but you've said it yourself, if you hadn't won first turn you would have had a much tougher fight on your hands!

Also, not trying to go too much OT here, but what kind of meta do you have that you still think that a PBS is mandatory? A DH Inquisitor with Psychic Hood is a much more common choice for most IG builds nowadays and would help a great deal against all your Psychic tricks...

Hulksmash wrote:Basically 9 Las/Plas Razorbacks, 6 Squads of 5 GH's w/Flamers, 3 Squads of 3 WG w/2 Combi-Meltas, 3 Speeders, Rune Priest, and 3 Squads of 3 LF's w/2 ML's in Rhinos. Lots of shots but fragile if it doesn't go first against a lot of lists out there.

This would be a list I could worry about, IF there wer no KP missions. I just can't see how it works in a KP mission.

It works by tabling the other guy. Remember, you only give up kill points if there are enemies left to take them.

BishopX wrote:It works by tabling the other guy. Remember, you only give up kill points if there are enemies left to take them.

Oh I see. It's a regional thing. Around here if you table someone you still need to complete the mission to win. If you table me, but I still end up killing more KP than you, I still win that scenario (or mission).

How do you think the list would fair if IG went first? You'd have no FNP on anyone to start, plus eating another full round of shooting before you cross the board... and as mentioned, I think it was a mistake for the vendettas to start off board.. The vendettas seriously outrange and can move faster than hive guard. Only poor positioning and range estimations would allow hive guard to shoot vendettas.

Mech gunline IG seems to be a hard match when you go first and just devastating when they go first.

Yeah, I admit reserving them may have been a mistake, but for the reason above it feels like a bit of a wash to me since I would have lost a turn later. Anyway, next time I will try them on the table. It is easy for me to not get attached to anything in the IG army since it is Shep's and I am just piloting it ;-)