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 xttz wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Unless Astra Militarum get an army-wide special rule that actively screws them over they'll still be better off than Tyranids.

All Astra Militarum infantry units must include a Commissar. Whenever an infantry unit is required to take a morale test, the Commissar immediately executes D3 models. If the test is failed, he executes a further D6 models and the test is re-rolled.

So it's a race. Can the commissars kill off the AM troops before the Tryanids eat themselves. LOL

The Tyranid lists were identical.

Dakkaflyrant

Venomthrope

Tervigon (Shreddershard Beetles)
30 Termagants
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler)

2 Carnifex Brood (Stranglethorn Cannon, TL Devourer)



My dakkaflyrant killed 3 StormTalons in the whole event. I believe my partner did about the same. The stormtalon was probably the most common unit at Adepticon.

Those shreddershards were pure money for bikes/podded troops, and enemy tyranids.

The Warriors are great because they're dangerous and synapse but not dangerous enough for your opponent to prioritize them.

The fexes murderfaced bikes, marines, tanks, everything. They get the same treatment as the warriors...not priority enough to be killed immediately so they just keep moving up slow and blasting away until they deliver a killing blow.


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 xttz wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Unless Astra Militarum get an army-wide special rule that actively screws them over they'll still be better off than Tyranids.

All Astra Militarum infantry units must include a Commissar. Whenever an infantry unit is required to take a morale test, the Commissar immediately executes D3 models. If the test is failed, he executes a further D6 models and the test is re-rolled.

Are you sure he isn't leading hormagaunts who are out of synapse?

I used to be scared of these guys. But now I think I'm totally fine.

 ductvader wrote:
Tervigon (Shreddershard Beetles)
30 Termagants
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler)

Interesting that you dropped so many points on Troops. Were your Tau teammates going light on troops and letting you score objectives?

I rarely spend more than that on troops playing at 1850.

tag8833 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Tervigon (Shreddershard Beetles)
30 Termagants
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler)

Interesting that you dropped so many points on Troops. Were your Tau teammates going light on troops and letting you score objectives?

I rarely spend more than that on troops playing at 1850.

You rarely spend more than 500 pts on troops at 1850? What else are they supposed to run? You might make a case for dropping the warriors, but the tervie and Gant-tax seems pretty standard.

 Sinful Hero wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Tervigon (Shreddershard Beetles)
30 Termagants
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler)

Interesting that you dropped so many points on Troops. Were your Tau teammates going light on troops and letting you score objectives?

I rarely spend more than that on troops playing at 1850.

You rarely spend more than 500 pts on troops at 1850? What else are they supposed to run? You might make a case for dropping the warriors, but the tervie and Gant-tax seems pretty standard.

Its not uncommon for me to run something like this:
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler)
15 HGaunts
15 HGaunts
15 HGaunts
clocking in at 300 points
or
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler) -> from living artillery
10 TGaunts
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler)
10 TGaunts
280 points
or
exactly the troop loadout he ran. Only he ran it at 1000 points, and I run it at 1850.

At 1500 points I usually only have 3 troop options, and my most common is:
Tervigon + E. Grubs
30 Tgaunts
With the 3rd troop being a gaunt squad I expect to spawn.

3 Troops at 1500, 4 Troops at 1850 has always worked well for me. I've always had some troops remaining at the end of a game. I played one game where a Drop pod army tried to target my troops, but I won that game handily by targeting his troops right back, and contesting his only end game objective.

Unless I'm outflanking it, a Tervigon usually doesn't do as much damage as a base squad of warriors with a barbed strangler, because my meta is so gunline heavy, and I need firepower from my points to compete. Mawloc + 10 spinegaunts > Tervigon. Especially since the mawloc's burrow ability makes it pretty useful in contesting enemy objectives. Also, for whatever reason, the Tervigon tends to draw a lot of fire from opponents, where as they rarely even shoot at gaunts or warriors.

Makes sense to me. Thanks for the info.

I have found a single Tervie to be great if you are playing a walking list, the additional cost pays itself for the cheaper gants, and a 30gant strong brood with some Devourers can throw a considerable firepower, as a poor Fateweaver experienced first hand.

I hope the Guard book doesn't get the same treatment as the Nids codex, I hope that people have learnt from that experience not to completely hammer something only to turn around 2 months later and say ohh we figured out how to win with them...

tag8833 wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:

You rarely spend more than 500 pts on troops at 1850? What else are they supposed to run? You might make a case for dropping the warriors, but the tervie and Gant-tax seems pretty standard.

Its not uncommon for me to run something like this:
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler)
15 HGaunts
15 HGaunts
15 HGaunts
clocking in at 300 points
or
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler) -> from living artillery
10 TGaunts
3 Warriors (Barbed Strangler)
10 TGaunts
280 points
or
exactly the troop loadout he ran. Only he ran it at 1000 points, and I run it at 1850.

At 1500 points I usually only have 3 troop options, and my most common is:
Tervigon + E. Grubs
30 Tgaunts
With the 3rd troop being a gaunt squad I expect to spawn.

3 Troops at 1500, 4 Troops at 1850 has always worked well for me. I've always had some troops remaining at the end of a game. I played one game where a Drop pod army tried to target my troops, but I won that game handily by targeting his troops right back, and contesting his only end game objective.

Unless I'm outflanking it, a Tervigon usually doesn't do as much damage as a base squad of warriors with a barbed strangler, because my meta is so gunline heavy, and I need firepower from my points to compete. Mawloc + 10 spinegaunts > Tervigon. Especially since the mawloc's burrow ability makes it pretty useful in contesting enemy objectives. Also, for whatever reason, the Tervigon tends to draw a lot of fire from opponents, where as they rarely even shoot at gaunts or warriors.

The troops are one of the worst unit selections in our dex. The hardest part of Tyranids is juggling how much points to put into scoring units and how much points to put into good stuff (Flyrants, Crones, Mawlocs, Exocrines, Carnifex, T-Fex, Biovores, and Venomthrope being the core). Outflanking devilgants are no substitute for a pod, not only are they extremely unreliable in that they are very synapse dependant, short ranged, and could come onto the battlefield anywhere making it even easier to kill them, but they are also easy for your opponent to play around, not a good combination. Tervigon's are OK but have little damage output and rely on termagant rolls to make them worth their points, and if killed early game feel like a lot of points wasted (taking a 30 man gant squad which I do not see as free because I would NOT have taken it otherwise + 195 pts), and making them too much a liability for my liking. Being that I also want to keep my 30 man termagant squad AWAY from the Tervigon, means I need more Synapse sources too, which is ok because I generally want to be up front with the gants but backfield with the Tervigon, however two troop choices down and I have zero mobile synapse, which is generally what I want. Putting all your eggs in the Flyrant-Synapse basket not only screws with the positioning of a unit that you are paying big prices for its mobility, but I also find Flyrants to be pretty squishy, glass-cannon-esque 4W units who do need their mobility to survive but sometimes even that isn't enough to keep them up for long, it's a real possibility. I find myself mainly using troops for squads of min sized warriors. Point for point 6 warriors cost the same and are about as survivable as Tervigons except for S8 BLASTS. S8 shots still do just as much damage to each, 1 kills a warrior one takes a Tervigon wound, you still have 5 of each left. For anything lower you are sitting at about the same survivability, for every extra two wounds you take for having T4 instead of 6, you have an extra 2 wounds that the Tervigon doesn't. The only difference is generally the 4+ armor save which should be fixed by a venomthrope early game and hopefully won't be too relevant. On the flipside of the coin, the good part is I can split Warriors up into MSU, broaden my Synapse coverage, take a long range weapon on each, and make it harder to knock out 6 warriors in one round of shooting. Their own shooting is also obviously far nicer than Tervigons, especially with deathspitters on at least one unit. The only other troop choice that ever really interests me is min sized termagant squads for filling in FOC or cheap backfield scoring. Will still generally only take one of these.

If you do take Termagants in 30 units, I would not run more than 10 with Devourers. These troops would be so good if not for IB, and Synapse was not so hard to come by.


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bodazoka wrote:
I hope the Guard book doesn't get the same treatment as the Nids codex, I hope that people have learnt from that experience not to completely hammer something only to turn around 2 months later and say ohh we figured out how to win with them...

A. The guard book looks badly handled, but no where near as badly as ours. GW really needs to put more time into codex releases though.
B. if there is anyone turning around saying that about the Nid codex, then they are absolute idiots for complaining in the first place. The book is no stronger or weaker than it ever appeared at first glance.
C. most of the hammering was (or should have been) about the lack of diversity and the loss of units that we had models for, not the strength of the book, and this "hammering" is still just as accurate today
D. the main reason people starting winning a couple of months after the codex, is because skylight was released a couple of months after the codex

 SHUPPET wrote:
A. The guard book looks badly handled, but no where near as badly as ours. GW really needs to put more time into codex releases though.
B. if there is anyone turning around saying that about the Nid codex, then they are absolute idiots for complaining in the first place. The book is no stronger or weaker than it ever appeared at first glance.
C. most of the hammering was (or should have been) about the lack of diversity and the loss of units that we had models for, not the strength of the book, and this "hammering" is still just as accurate today
D. the main reason people starting winning a couple of months after the codex, is because skylight was released a couple of months after the codex

A. I have a little beef with over arching relative terms like "badly handled" which probably means something specific to yourself but insinuates that the whole codex is poor and is chewed up and regurgitated by people. What do you mean by "time into codex release" ?
B. http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2014/01/12/prove-me-wrong-on-nids/ "but so far, it feels like this book is extremely weak - See more at: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2014/01/12/prove-me-wrong-on-nids/#sthash.BWZf0gqE.dpuf" http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2014/03/26/tyranids-doin-work/ "I think we may have finally found a list that works for the poor bugs - See more at: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2014/03/26/tyranids-doin-work/#sthash.NWOZfxC1.dpuf"

Would you be calling Reece and the other guys from FLG idiots?

C. Nope. the hammering was predominately centered around the lack of competitiveness to the point where I honestly believe if we had of been given a couple of harder hitting units the hate would of been allot less.
D. SkyBlight, and FWIW as many people complained that they had to buy a dataslate to do it and/or were not allowed to use formations in there FLGS, the article above also does not use any formations and apparently still "wins more games than it looses" which is a far cry from "this codex is worse than Orks"

 SHUPPET wrote:
The only other troop choice that ever really interests me is min sized termagant squads for filling in FOC or cheap backfield scoring. Will still generally only take one of these.

I actually think HGaunts are slightly better than TGaunts for min sized scoring units. They cost 10 points more, but the extra 3" of mobility has changed the outcome of a surprising number of games.

You guys are going in to be in for a real treat.

I just came back from Adepticon and I am happy to say that Tyranids were very welly represented at Adepticon. They might not have made it into the Championship rounds, but there were a lot of people bringing bugs.

And there are a lot of eye candy also. Soooo many nice armies. Enjoy.




Jay Woodcock's bugs.


Conversion city.




I soooo like the bright bugs. You can see them from a mile away.












"InControl" Geoff's yellow bugs.



The last 2 photos are from the team tournament, consisting of:

Dakka Detachment #1

Yakface
Blackmoor
Janthkin (ATC teammate of mine)
Centurian99 (ATC teammate of mine)


Overall, the competitive theme for most of the Tyranid armies included:

Flyrants
Venomthrope
Hive Crones (or Hive Crones + Harpy)
1 Tervigon
Mawlocs

Goddamn, does everyone there just have amazingly painted armies?

Those paint jobs are absolutely gorgeous, I can't find a single complaint. Even the canned response of "THIN YOUR PAINTS" doesn't seem to apply.

A+ grade work.

Also tried some living tides over a few days. The list is a little confused on what it wants to do besides model spam, but you will never be tabled outside of apoc. You probably will get your rear end handed to you in purge the alien though.

I'm a bit surprised that the list worked as well as it did though. I was apprehensive about dumping 3k points on something that wanted to be shooty, assaulty, MC spammy, Infantry Spammy, and Flying circusey all at once.

The Lictors continue to disappoint but honestly stealthy infiltrator units and flankers have had a bad run in 40k as a whole as of late. So the Lictors can be miserable with Kommandoz, Mandrakes, Genestealers, Flayed Ones, space marine scouts, ratlings, stealth suits, stormtroopers, and the like.

The deathleaper having a warlord trait that suggests it's a character assassin when it's one power fist away from being splattered also doesn't help. But hey, the Vindicaire is also far better for vehicle popping and Invulnerable save stripping than he is for actual assassination so it all balances out.

Back to the tide; getting Hormas to be effective is really pricey, and the lost of rerolls on ones hurts a surprising deal. It's a significant dip in killing power, and is especially noticeable on bigger bricks. Hypergaunts (Hormies with AGs and TSacs) still remain too pricey, but at least catalyst is good on them. Termas themselves got better by being cheaper, mixing and matching guns, and fixing other options for them. Their support however, has worsened. While the Tervi and Terma combo was hit hard, it's still good, just incredibly painful points budget wise and the tervi itself is much worse at support (also sucks to be you if it dies). The main reason reason to have it is to park six regenerating t6 wounds with a meq save on an objective. The synapse, spawning, and psychic abilities are really just a bonus.

Formations that give out slotless venomthropes are to be treasured because shrouded is just that worth it. Sit in area terrain and suddenly termas have MEQ saves, or your carnifex now sneers at krak missiles. Combine with catalyst if possible for best results.

Beautiful armies, thanks for the pics! Wish I could have gone.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but no dataslates at Adpeticon and highest Nid player was 26th with next at 37th and then 95th ... Seems that competitively the dataslates are the only way for Nids to compete properly and without them we have a distinctly lower tier codex.

Looking at army pics and there seems to be a large sea of flyrants, crones, termagants and then a mix of other units. FMCs, certainly without dataslates, is the only real way to compete at all unless you totally outplay your opponent.

Codex is not good, it is uninspired, and while I continue to work hard to get my Nids to work I am realistic about where the codex sits. You may be able to boss some games away from the serious stuff, but when you get to the main tournaments Nids just can't compete over a 6 game tournament ....

 SHUPPET wrote:
Goddamn, does everyone there just have amazingly painted armies?

Adepticon is more about fun, friends, painting and modelling than actual playing...but that's what you get out of a "con"

Jay Woodcocks bugs there were the ones I played against...it was by far my favorite game...Da Wreckin Boyz are hilarious.

EDIT: PS: If you're in the area next year...remember to go to Giordanos for pizza and Rock Bottom for some excellent microbrews.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Goddamn, does everyone there just have amazingly painted armies?

I was thinking "does everyone own an airbrush these days", lol.

A tad bit off topic, but, this shot:



He's using standard foamboard for a display board for the minis with nice base-sized holes for everything to fit in. I've been wanting to do that but I can't figure out how to get those great circle cuts for bases.

What the heck do you use for those?

If it was me...I'd use circular bits with a hand drill...and then glue another board to the bottom of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
...oh is it foam?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Goddamn, does everyone there just have amazingly painted armies?

I was thinking "does everyone own an airbrush these days", lol.

IDK. It seems that if you're going to be painting Nids (and you're not Nard) you should be using an airbrush. The process is simply much more consistent and eases the painting of gradients which is key to making Tyranids look great.

 ruminator wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but no dataslates at Adpeticon and highest Nid player was 26th with next at 37th and then 95th ... Seems that competitively the dataslates are the only way for Nids to compete properly and without them we have a distinctly lower tier codex.

This. 'A good showing for Nids' translates to 'there were some nicely painted Tyranid armies in the event'.

Its sad to say that the only competitive fix for Tyranids is the potential auto inclusion of everything into perhaps what might become 7th edition where things like dataslates are the norm.

Gargs that can score a contested objective is certainly a big big boost in the right direction.

 N.I.B. wrote:

 ruminator wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but no dataslates at Adpeticon and highest Nid player was 26th with next at 37th and then 95th ... Seems that competitively the dataslates are the only way for Nids to compete properly and without them we have a distinctly lower tier codex.

This. 'A good showing for Nids' translates to 'there were some nicely painted Tyranid armies in the event'.

LOL. Where a tactics thread resorts to "look at the nice painted army" then there are obviously some issues with it's viability on the tabletop.

I'm just happy that, despite how "subpar" the community may think of Tyranids, people are not discouraged to take out their bugs to a major gaming event. That really is the main point of this thread - to let people know that Tyranids aren't as bad as most people think and to encourage people to give the bugs a chance in competitive play.

I consider the "success" of bugs at Adepticon not in how high they placed, but rather, by how many people were willing to run them at such a large tournament.

There were a ton of bugs there...around the same number as if not more than necron or daemons.

 jy2 wrote:
I'm just happy that, despite how "subpar" the community may think of Tyranids, people are not discouraged to take out their bugs to a major gaming event. That really is the main point of this thread - to let people know that Tyranids aren't as bad as most people think and to encourage people to give the bugs a chance in competitive play.

I consider the "success" of bugs at Adepticon not in how high they placed, but rather, by how many people were willing to run them at such a large tournament.

Well said. Me too. Good to see the Hive Mind's grip is as strong as ever. It's not about winning fights honestly, I never once cared if we would be a tournament placer or not - and I'm guessing that anyone who built a bug army with the current models has the same mindstate, since they have been consistently underpowered during.

It's about sticking the fear of the Shadow right up their Warp holes =D

 jy2 wrote:
I'm just happy that, despite how "subpar" the community may think of Tyranids, people are not discouraged to take out their bugs to a major gaming event. That really is the main point of this thread - to let people know that Tyranids aren't as bad as most people think and to encourage people to give the bugs a chance in competitive play.

I consider the "success" of bugs at Adepticon not in how high they placed, but rather, by how many people were willing to run them at such a large tournament.

I'd consider it a success if you were doing well with the bugs Jy2 and actually took them to Adepticon.
No offence dude but the fact that you didn't take Nids says a lot.
I'm pretty sure if you wanted to take them you would of insured to have them ready for the event.

 ductvader wrote:
There were a ton of bugs there...around the same number as if not more than necron or daemons.

The Tyranids were always one of the most popular armies. Fifth or sixth I believe if you consolidate all the marine books into one.