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A lot of those formations took a hit just from 7E appearing so soon after them. Most of the troop-heavy formations (Genestealers, Warriors, Tervigon and guant ones) had pretty weak bonuses to start with, and now definitely don't compensate for the loss of Objective Secured. Several formations also let you work around FOC limitations, but 7E makes the FOC far less restrictive anyway.

The amount of missed opportunities on the formations is annoying. Bioblast Node could have made Rupture T-Fexes actually viable against vehicles, but instead they get an unnecessary anti-infantry boost and a USR they can't use. Incubator Node actually makes the Tervigon less reliable as the ability isn't optional. Tyrant Node makes you buy extra Guards, but does nothing to make them more useful than just ablative Tyrant wounds. Warriors could do with a lot of boosts, but synapse range isn't really one of them.

The only point I disagree with there is the Wrecker Node... with our anti-armour abilities weakened melee Carnifexes are one of the more reliable options. Anything that buffs their HoW ability can only be good.

Back in the bastion days I used to have them pop up in my midfield bastion from reserve...or maybe that was manufactorum...iunno

Didnt get much of a response a few pages back, but Im still debating these two lists.

Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro

Malanthrope
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood
Termagant x 10

Carnifex w/devs
Carnifex w/devs
Carnifex w/devs
Mawloc

Vs this list (Removal of a fex and gants + 28 gargoyles and AG on mawloc)

Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro

Malanthrope
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds

14x Gargoyle Brood
14x Gargoyle Brood

Carnifex w/devs
Carnifex w/devs
Mawloc w/Adrenal Glands

My issue deciding is looking back over the past couple tournament games, different lists benefited more against different opponents (Duh!). So the question ends up being who am I more likely to run into over a 5 game GT that has multiple CAD, FW and LoW authorized?

Against opponents Devourers cant hurt efficiently (AV13 walkers, Wraithknights) gargoyles are great and can tarpit or capture objectives. Against drop pod lists or bikes, weight of firepower probably trumps maybe locking a unit up for one turn.

In the end, is it really firepower that trumps all?

What made you decide to include the Mawloc, Lechine? I know they are a very cost effective source of T6 W6 and have a nice delivery/disruption platform, but some games they can really whiff bad. I'm just curious what your reasoning is, maybe I need to take another look at Mawlocs!

Mobility, blob destroyer, has hit and run, affects opponents movement, quickly threatens castling, lots of reasons. Its true she can whiff but she also deep strikes multiple times a game to either hit threats or grab/deny objectives at the last minute.

incubator node is bad because you spend all these points on troops yet get absolutely no OS from it, neither gaunts, spawned gaunts nor tervigon have it

or has this been fixed?

tag8833 wrote:

 syypher wrote:
What does the living artillery formation do? Where do you get the data slate for this?

Living Artillery
1 Excocrine, 3 Biovores, 1 Tyranid Warrior Brood and comes with Organic Bombardment which gives all ranged weapons pinning and the ability to re-roll scatter dice on blast and barrage weapons.

It comes as part of this: http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Dataslate-Tyranid-Invasion.html

Does the pinning bonus include weapons that are not in the Living Artillery data slate?

 syypher wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

 syypher wrote:
What does the living artillery formation do? Where do you get the data slate for this?

Living Artillery
1 Excocrine, 3 Biovores, 1 Tyranid Warrior Brood and comes with Organic Bombardment which gives all ranged weapons pinning and the ability to re-roll scatter dice on blast and barrage weapons.

It comes as part of this: http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Dataslate-Tyranid-Invasion.html

Does the pinning bonus include weapons that are not in the Living Artillery data slate?

No. Formations only grant their bonuses to units within the formation itself. It's part of the perk of the formation.

The downsides of formations is, because they count as 'seperate' from your main force org chart that means no Objective Secured....

Which hits us pretty hard as some of the ones seeing use in 7th (apart from Skyblight) were strongly troop focuses. Manufactorum Stealers and Endless Swarm in particular. It also worsens some of the less favourable formations - Tervigon Brood Node and Synaptic Swarm in particular.

Don't forget that 'all ranged weapons' includes the Warrior's devourers/deathspitters and bio cannon. S5 Deathspitters with pinning is pretty sweet as well.

Thank you!

How do you guys normally run all your FMCs as far as placing them on the board or off? If you stay on you can go flight mode but can risk getting shot down without the need for getting 6s... But if you start off your severely weakened because of how many FMCs your running..

What do you guys do generally?

 syypher wrote:
Thank you!

How do you guys normally run all your FMCs as far as placing them on the board or off? If you stay on you can go flight mode but can risk getting shot down without the need for getting 6s... But if you start off your severely weakened because of how many FMCs your running..

What do you guys do generally?

I very, very rarely reserve a FMC. Usually I can deploy them in range of a Venom with some cover giving them a 3+ or 2+ cover save. If it is a 3+, and I really fear for them I will Jink for a guaranteed 2+ so long as I haven't lost the venom. If that isn't good enough to keep them alive turn 1, you should look into adding void shields, or you might have deployed too close to tau.

tag8833 wrote:

 syypher wrote:
Thank you!

How do you guys normally run all your FMCs as far as placing them on the board or off? If you stay on you can go flight mode but can risk getting shot down without the need for getting 6s... But if you start off your severely weakened because of how many FMCs your running..

What do you guys do generally?

I very, very rarely reserve a FMC. Usually I can deploy them in range of a Venom with some cover giving them a 3+ or 2+ cover save. If it is a 3+, and I really fear for them I will Jink for a guaranteed 2+ so long as I haven't lost the venom. If that isn't good enough to keep them alive turn 1, you should look into adding void shields, or you might have deployed too close to tau.

Does the Malanthrope do what the venom does? A lot of people replacing vemoms for them... Where do you get the digital book for the new Malanthrope rules too?

It's Imperial Armour 4, version 2. I don't know if they're available in a digital format, however. Forge World will have the hard copy available

SBG wrote:
It's Imperial Armour 4, version 2. I don't know if they're available in a digital format, however. Forge World will have the hard copy available

FW?! That stuff takes forever to ship and forever to arrive to the US.. and S&H is expensiveee... damn :/

Is this the correct one? http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/New_Stuff/IMPERIAL_ARMOUR_VOLUME_FOUR_THE_ANPHELION_PROJECT_SECOND_EDITION.html

That's the one, and the malanthrope is now all the perks of the Venomthrope, plus synapse, plus t5 and 3+ save.

Yeah, it's awesome. Costs less than 2 venomthropes, too.

So with the new assassins data slate out i'm now thinking that maybe a horrific allegiance is required?
First of all, look at the rules for the new Culexis, taken from BOLS;

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/08/40k-codex-uber-assassins-wow.html

Culexis
Cullexus, WOW is now the boss he/she should always have been.....the only time you'll take psykers is to put bullets in his gun... 12" psychic blank bubble just nerfed invisibility to hell and once he can see you, you're going to have a psychic nightmare.....Psychic Death Stars meet your nemesis.

Life Drain- CC attacks ignores armour, instant death on a 6, instant death on any wound caused to a psyker (sorry tyranids).

Psychic Abomination - Psykers at -3Ld with 12", no warp charges generated within 12", powers only cast on a 6 within 12", invalidates blessings and maledictions within 12"!!!

Etherium war gear - attacks vs. culexus made at BS and WS 1 (though he also causes fear?)
Animas Spectrum - Similar to before one shot per mastery level within 12", but can now be boosted with up to 3 unspent warp charges. The mastery level thing does stop people from building brotherhood batteries though, as brotherhood of psykers count the unit as mastery level (x). The Animas Spectrum is 18" S5 AP1 assault X.


Now think about this;
Hive Tyrant within 6( range for Psychic Scream) of X Psyker - 3 LD from Shadows

Infiltrate a Culexsus Assasin within 12 ( staying 12 inches away from the Hive Tyrant, tricky I know.) - 3LD

That's already a psyker at - 6 LD so you if you psychic scream at them - that could be pretty brutal as it stands but if you really wanted to take it up a notch you could add in death leaper for a further D3 on the LD of a single character.

And what exactly does that achieve though?

 SHUPPET wrote:
And what exactly does that achieve though?

what does that achieve?
psychic scream at potentially -9LD?

Only works if the unit is made entirely of psykers. Otherwise they will use that Ld for the roll.

I guess, and for the games one of your 2 Flyrants don't roll Psychic Scream, your list is just hurt however many points that thing costs, and can no longer take a formation. Not to mention the numerous other situations that could easily turn this into wasted points

coredump wrote:
Only works if the unit is made entirely of psykers. Otherwise they will use that Ld for the roll.

Not true, you target the unit yes but say there was a Psyker in that unit and it happened to have the highest LD then it would be effected.

e.g Coteaz in a unit of marines
Psychic scream @ -5 LD on the unit.
-8 with a Calexus Assasin.


with the rise of Psykers in the game I don't see how this is a bad idea.
granted it can be situational and if you come up against Tau or Necrons its XXX points wasted on the Calexus but he's still pretty difficult to hit and a scoring unit.

It's a bad idea not because Psykers aren't guaranteed opponents (although this doesn't help), its a bad idea because the chance of rolling Scream, casting it, and then applying it with all the LD mods in effect, seems horrendously low. Even the cards all went your way 50% of the time (they won't) that's 50% of games where you have thrown away your formation, and likely the cost of this guys points, which is likely going to cost you the game.

I'm going to try it.

 Iechine wrote:
Didnt get much of a response a few pages back, but Im still debating these two lists.
[snip]

I like the second list better, but maybe swap the Mawloc for a third Carnifex. I like Mawlocs, but given the rest of the list I'm not sure you will really get much out of him him given you have four flying Tyrants up in the enemy's face and a third Carnifex will give more raw killing power (especially against high toughness/AV threats). Also maybe consider dropping one of the Ripper swarms for some more Gargoyles (should yield another 6-ish). I've found they work best in units of ~20 or so. Any less than that and they get gunned down too much to really tarpit anything significant for long and the added bodies help with bubble wrapping your slower moving units.

 Wilson wrote:
So with the new assassins data slate out i'm now thinking that maybe a horrific allegiance is required?
First of all, look at the rules for the new Culexis, taken from BOLS;
[snip]
Psychic Abomination - Psykers at -3Ld with 12", no warp charges generated within 12", powers only cast on a 6 within 12"

How much you willing to bet that's what they are going to do to Shadow in the Warp when the 7th edition book rolls around? Definitely fits with how it is described in the fluff...


Anyway, the league is restarting next week at 500 points. I have not had much experience at such a low point value with the 6th edition book so any advice would be welcome.

List #1: [Field Tested - 1 win, 1 loss]


First test-list basically made with what I already had with me that was both based and fully painted. It worked out fairly well in the Maelstrom missions thanks to the Hormagaunts, but I'm a bit concerned about what to do if someone decides to be cheeky and bring a flyer, as only the Exocrine can really even attempt to hurt one... Also I did find lethality was a bit weak with this one, as the Hormagaunts don't have enough numbers to do anything other than objective grab (which they did well, to be fair).


List #2: [Untested]



Same idea as above, but with Termagants instead. Bit more swarmy (which I like), but really slow moving and no warlord traits...

List #3: [Untested, Unbound]


This is my "mean" list. Unbound is allowed at our group, but most people run normal armies for Objective Secured (only one person has managed to win with an unbound list so far since 7th has dropped, and in all cases the games were close so...). List has lots of fast-moving threats, though scoring might be a bit of an issue without OS and the two flying monsters. Not sure if I want to bring this though, as the purpose of the new point bracket is to encourage some of our new players to come play on league nights. As such, two flying monsters might be a bit overwhelming for someone who has just started their collection (not to mention in general).

 Strat_N8 wrote:

 Wilson wrote:
So with the new assassins data slate out i'm now thinking that maybe a horrific allegiance is required?
First of all, look at the rules for the new Culexis, taken from BOLS;
[snip]
Psychic Abomination - Psykers at -3Ld with 12", no warp charges generated within 12", powers only cast on a 6 within 12"

How much you willing to bet that's what they are going to do to Shadow in the Warp when the 7th edition book rolls around? Definitely fits with how it is described in the fluff...

Nope. I'll bet GW would prefer "Shadows in the Warp" be exactly the way it is (nearly useless, and contradictory to the fluff), because if they wanted it fixed in the way you suggest, they would just FAQ it. The only reason not to FAQ it would be raging incompetence, and a lack of respect for their customers.... Well now I've convinced myself. You are probably right.

Just have the IA4 second ed... I want to know your tough about the new rules for the Mieotic Spore. I look at them and I found it not so bad but easy to kill.

Second list is a lot better Strat.

If unbound is allowed just take 2 regen Tyrannofexes and a Zoanthrope, your entire army is cost effective Terminator wounds, likely regenerating, with insane anti-infantry potential, excellent AT with eGrubs + assault, and over the top durability. If other people are running battle forged you are unlikely to lose to anything that you could otherwise beat at all with this list.

In fact I think Tyrannofex is great at 500 points. Tervigon is considerable but quite an investment, walking Tyrant is another cheaper option to consider if you want to jam something beefier in a battle forged list. I really like the second list however and think I'll give it a go at 500 pts this weekend, except maybe eGrubs over the extra gants

 Iechine wrote:
Didnt get much of a response a few pages back, but Im still debating these two lists.

Spoiler:

Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro

Malanthrope
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood
Termagant x 10

Carnifex w/devs
Carnifex w/devs
Carnifex w/devs
Mawloc

Vs this list (Removal of a fex and gants + 28 gargoyles and AG on mawloc)

Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro
Flyrant w/devs electro

Malanthrope
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds
Ripper brood w/ds

14x Gargoyle Brood
14x Gargoyle Brood

Carnifex w/devs
Carnifex w/devs
Mawloc w/Adrenal Glands

My issue deciding is looking back over the past couple tournament games, different lists benefited more against different opponents (Duh!). So the question ends up being who am I more likely to run into over a 5 game GT that has multiple CAD, FW and LoW authorized?

Against opponents Devourers cant hurt efficiently (AV13 walkers, Wraithknights) gargoyles are great and can tarpit or capture objectives. Against drop pod lists or bikes, weight of firepower probably trumps maybe locking a unit up for one turn.

In the end, is it really firepower that trumps all?

I prefer List #2. Gargoyles are a great utility unit, especially for the times when S6 shots just aren't enough. I think it makes your list more TAC, whereas the first list is more about firepower. In any case, I am a sucker for versatility and I feel that List #2 is slightly more versatile/flexible.

 fartherthanfar wrote:
incubator node is bad because you spend all these points on troops yet get absolutely no OS from it, neither gaunts, spawned gaunts nor tervigon have it

or has this been fixed?

Yeah, it's been nerfed because none of the units in it have ObSec.

Then again, the trend is more formations and less ObSec. With the new 2 codex supplements out for Orks and Space Wolves, none of them have ObSec, but that doesn't mean those formations are bad. I think we really need to look into these formations again and not to just simply dismiss them.

 Wilson wrote:
So with the new assassins data slate out i'm now thinking that maybe a horrific allegiance is required?
First of all, look at the rules for the new Culexis, taken from BOLS;

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/08/40k-codex-uber-assassins-wow.html

Culexis
Cullexus, WOW is now the boss he/she should always have been.....the only time you'll take psykers is to put bullets in his gun... 12" psychic blank bubble just nerfed invisibility to hell and once he can see you, you're going to have a psychic nightmare.....Psychic Death Stars meet your nemesis.

Life Drain- CC attacks ignores armour, instant death on a 6, instant death on any wound caused to a psyker (sorry tyranids).

Psychic Abomination - Psykers at -3Ld with 12", no warp charges generated within 12", powers only cast on a 6 within 12", invalidates blessings and maledictions within 12"!!!

Etherium war gear - attacks vs. culexus made at BS and WS 1 (though he also causes fear?)
Animas Spectrum - Similar to before one shot per mastery level within 12", but can now be boosted with up to 3 unspent warp charges. The mastery level thing does stop people from building brotherhood batteries though, as brotherhood of psykers count the unit as mastery level (x). The Animas Spectrum is 18" S5 AP1 assault X.


Now think about this;
Hive Tyrant within 6( range for Psychic Scream) of X Psyker - 3 LD from Shadows

Infiltrate a Culexsus Assasin within 12 ( staying 12 inches away from the Hive Tyrant, tricky I know.) - 3LD

That's already a psyker at - 6 LD so you if you psychic scream at them - that could be pretty brutal as it stands but if you really wanted to take it up a notch you could add in death leaper for a further D3 on the LD of a single character.

A couple of things to keep in mind.

Assassins will be Come the Apocalypse allies for bugs, meaning that the Culexus will also affect Tyranid psychic performance. Get your flyrants too close to the Culexus and he will be having problems getting his psychic powers off as well.

Secondly, make sure your local meta - or rather, your local tournaments - allow CoA allies. In friendly games, it's probably ok. But just check with TO's in your area if you are thinking of running this combo in a local tournament. Here in the Western USA, most tournaments that follow the BAO rules will not be able to run CoA allies.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

Anyway, the league is restarting next week at 500 points. I have not had much experience at such a low point value with the 6th edition book so any advice would be welcome.

List #1: [Field Tested - 1 win, 1 loss]

Spoiler:

HQ: 1x Hive Tyrant with Scything Talons, Stranglethorn Cannon

TROOPS: 10x Hormagaunts
TROOPS: 10x Hormagaunts

HEAVY: 1x Exocrine

First test-list basically made with what I already had with me that was both based and fully painted. It worked out fairly well in the Maelstrom missions thanks to the Hormagaunts, but I'm a bit concerned about what to do if someone decides to be cheeky and bring a flyer, as only the Exocrine can really even attempt to hurt one... Also I did find lethality was a bit weak with this one, as the Hormagaunts don't have enough numbers to do anything other than objective grab (which they did well, to be fair).


List #2: [Untested]

Spoiler:

HQ: 1x Tervigon with Crushing Claws

TROOPS: 15x Termagants
TROOPS: 15x Termagants

HEAVY: 1x Exocrine

Same idea as above, but with Termagants instead. Bit more swarmy (which I like), but really slow moving and no warlord traits...

List #3: [Untested, Unbound]

Spoiler:

HQ: 1x Hive Tyrant with Wings, 2x Devourers, Electroshock Grubs

FAST: 10x Gargoyles
FAST: 10x Gargoyles
FAST: 1x Harpy with twin-linked Heavy Venom Cannon (in-case-of-Quantum Shielding)

This is my "mean" list. Unbound is allowed at our group, but most people run normal armies for Objective Secured (only one person has managed to win with an unbound list so far since 7th has dropped, and in all cases the games were close so...). List has lots of fast-moving threats, though scoring might be a bit of an issue without OS and the two flying monsters. Not sure if I want to bring this though, as the purpose of the new point bracket is to encourage some of our new players to come play on league nights. As such, two flying monsters might be a bit overwhelming for someone who has just started their collection (not to mention in general).

Are you set with those lists? Can you change them? And are FW allowed?

I'd recommend running something more like this:

With Forgeworld:

Dakka Flyrant - Egrubs

Malanthrope

10x Termagants
10x Termagants

2x Biovores


Without FW:

Dakka Flyrant - Egrubs

10x Hormagants
10x Termagants

Exocrine





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Tervigon + termagants are no worse than deepstriking rippers who are no worse than 10 termies + 10 hormies. It all depends on what type of play-style you like. How instance, if you play a walking, shooting tyranid army where most of the bugs are advancing together, than taking screening units to also provide cover makes sense. If you are playing in a meta where you need a lot of ObSec units to combat other ObSec armies, then the tervigon makes a lot of sense. Or if you are playing a denial army like Skyblight where the majority of your army is in the air and there really are no ground targets for your opponent to pick off, then deepstriking rippers really make sense. It's not so much which troops are the best, it's really which troops are the best fit for the playstyle you want to play.

Actually, Tervigon+Termagants are much worse than deepstriking Rippers, who are much worse than two 10man squads of termies / horms. It's not all about playstyle, this is 40k, not all models are made equal and the balancing was very subject to human error. The only playstyle that encompasses taking a Tervigon at 2000 points, is "friendly". Rippers aren't as bad as Terriblegons sorry Tervigons, because they don't waste many more points than Terms, but Terms at least fill a role for 40 points a squad and give two points bonus cover to any of your MC's except any FMC's are too tall. The synapse-less scoring is so overrated, how many other armies do you see wasting points on useless troop choices just for this. They only really make sense in Skyblight imo, for a combination of reasons, least of which being target priority as it really isn't an investment that matters hugely either way (80 points of Termagants or 90 of Rippers, do you really need to build around keeping them alive?), its mainly because the Termagants won't be providing cover to anything relevant (a Venomthrope generally), and they will probably always be out of Synapse, making Rippers the next best option in this regard. Then again, Skyblight in general is just kneecapping the potential of the codex, so the fact that they work in Skyblight does not necessarily make them any more competitive in my eyes.

I will say Tervigon is good at 750-1000 points, where the Spawned Gants are much more relevant. Any higher and the effectiveness drops off, any lower and the investment cost is too much. He has his use. It's not in 2000 point games however :/ talk about liability.

I don't know what your problem is with the tervigon. He must have burnt out spawning on the very 1st turn with you in your games or something. You need to show him some more lurv.

In the previous edition, the tervigon was just OP. He was so good it wasn't even funny. In this edition, while he did get nerfed greatly compared to previous edition, he's still a decent unit. Just being a T6 6W ObSec unit that acts as a Synapse anchor in your backfield (or even midfield for the more aggressive 'gons) gives you a decent foundation for your homebase. And while it gets pricey with another 30 termagants, that's another 30 fearless bodies that will discourage many opponents from going after your objectives.

Add to the fact that he now gets 2 psychic powers, can take crushing claws and egrubs for some respectable AT and can be outflanked and you get a unit that is actually quite flexible.

You just need to design your list around the tervigon as a foundation and not to just include him as an afterthought to your list.

Thank you guys for all the help! It's been really good hearing all the view points from the more experienced Nids players here in the group! Makes me A LOT more confident when I'm buying models to start my army off into the 1850 range.

I got another question... I'd like to know if there was discussion on this in depth already, if so, what was the "summary" of it all.

Q: Devourer Termagants 10-15 per unit vs Deep Striking Ripper Swarms for Troops @ 1500 and @1850? It seems like you get a lot more punch out of the rest of your list but loose a lot of objective secured. What have you guys been running/testing and how successful was it?

I like that Termagants can actually do good work against regular troops, but I wouldn't really say they are a tarpit unless I run a HUGE squad of them but I'm planning to run just 10-15 per squad. Then, I also like that Rippers + DS is only 45pts which allows me to fill up the rest of my 1850 list with 1760 of punching power.

Thoughts?

I think 2 3 man units of Warriors with a cannon each for the same price outclasses it in practically every manner. Crushing Claws being a terrible upgrade, and Tervigon being one the most cost effecient units to shoot at in the dex even makes eGrubs unreliable.

I think he was overpowered last edition, underpowered this one - I do however think he is actually balanced at <1000 pts where his spawns add a larger percentage to your army size, his versatility is more relevant and his durability more tanky.