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2015/05/31 15:20:09
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
tag8833 wrote: Took my Flying circus out against a pretty strong Newdar list yesterday.
The Newdar list looked like this:
Spoiler:
CAD:
Autarch w/ Bike + Shard of Anaris
6 x 5 Scat Bikes.
Crimson Hunter
Wraith Knight w/ Double D's
Seer Council:
Farseer w/ Bike
Farseer w/ Bike
5 Warlocks
We were playtesting the ITC missions. I thought that due to the ITC nerf to D I could get away with Null Deploy using a Bastion + Void Shield + Comms Relay to help me with reserves. I went 2nd. The Wraith Knight Killed my Bastion in 2 rounds of shooting. My opponent also had -1 to reserves as their warlord trait.
Reserves screwed me epically. Lots of stuff didn't come in until 4. It sucked.
I ended up killing all but 1 of the scat bikes, but The seer council only lost 1 warlock and the Wraith Knight was untouched. Meanwhile I ended with 1 Flyrant, 1 Crone, and 2 Lictors. I tied the EW, and won Maelstrom by 1. He got all 3 Tertiaries, so I won 4 to 3. I hate scat bikes so much, but I wasn't expecting the Seer council to be so dominant. They were casting 5-6 powers a turn, and denying every spell I tried to cast with their rerolls.
If you think that's nasty, I played a Warhost last weekend that ran two Seerstars. Both were invisible and unkillable the whole game I swear! I did manage to win on tertiary after tieing primary and secondary, but even hitting on 6s he managed to Shriek two Horrified Flyrants to death and a TFex... Eldar psychic shenanigans are brutal. I got one power off all game!
2015/05/31 15:20:13
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
tag8833 wrote: Took my Flying circus out against a pretty strong Newdar list yesterday.
The Newdar list looked like this:
Spoiler:
CAD:
Autarch w/ Bike + Shard of Anaris
6 x 5 Scat Bikes.
Crimson Hunter
Wraith Knight w/ Double D's
Seer Council:
Farseer w/ Bike
Farseer w/ Bike
5 Warlocks
We were playtesting the ITC missions. I thought that due to the ITC nerf to D I could get away with Null Deploy using a Bastion + Void Shield + Comms Relay to help me with reserves. I went 2nd. The Wraith Knight Killed my Bastion in 2 rounds of shooting. My opponent also had -1 to reserves as their warlord trait.
Reserves screwed me epically. Lots of stuff didn't come in until 4. It sucked.
I ended up killing all but 1 of the scat bikes, but The seer council only lost 1 warlock and the Wraith Knight was untouched. Meanwhile I ended with 1 Flyrant, 1 Crone, and 2 Lictors. I tied the EW, and won Maelstrom by 1. He got all 3 Tertiaries, so I won 4 to 3. I hate scat bikes so much, but I wasn't expecting the Seer council to be so dominant. They were casting 5-6 powers a turn, and denying every spell I tried to cast with their rerolls.
In testing, list building etc, scatter bikes have proven to not be as bad as everyone feared, it's the seers that will be a pain. With new runes and 3 plus to cast powers, the eldar player shouldn't have an issue getting a lot of his powers off.
2015/05/31 17:43:47
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
Just finished 4-1 at the UK Games Expo in a VERY competitive field, overflowing with Eldar. Finished 5 the in the end, with the top 4 being Eldar,Eldar, WolfStar, Eldar.
My games were, Eldar, Astra Militarium, Tau, Imperial Knights, Astra Militarium.
jifel wrote: If you think that's nasty, I played a Warhost last weekend that ran two Seerstars. Both were invisible and unkillable the whole game I swear! I did manage to win on tertiary after tieing primary and secondary, but even hitting on 6s he managed to Shriek two Horrified Flyrants to death and a TFex... Eldar psychic shenanigans are brutal. I got one power off all game!
krootman. wrote: In testing, list building etc, scatter bikes have proven to not be as bad as everyone feared, it's the seers that will be a pain. With new runes and 3 plus to cast powers, the eldar player shouldn't have an issue getting a lot of his powers off.
What are you guys talking about? Scat bikes are 100% exactly what I expected. I've played them 4 times against nids and 3 times against Orks. Hands down they are the most game changing unit since I've been playing 40k. I would rather play nothing but seerstars 100% of the time. The main effect of the seer star was boosting the scat bikes, and debuffing my stuff if you take away the scat bikes they become laughably easy to beat at least in the missions I tend to play.
Unkillable stuff is a fun killer. Seerstar and Wraith Knights clearly count. But it is hyper-point-efficient, Super Shooting, Super mobile, Super Scoring scat bikes that have changed the face of 40k.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/05/31 17:48:58
2015/05/31 18:11:18
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
jifel wrote: If you think that's nasty, I played a Warhost last weekend that ran two Seerstars. Both were invisible and unkillable the whole game I swear! I did manage to win on tertiary after tieing primary and secondary, but even hitting on 6s he managed to Shriek two Horrified Flyrants to death and a TFex... Eldar psychic shenanigans are brutal. I got one power off all game!
krootman. wrote: In testing, list building etc, scatter bikes have proven to not be as bad as everyone feared, it's the seers that will be a pain. With new runes and 3 plus to cast powers, the eldar player shouldn't have an issue getting a lot of his powers off.
What are you guys talking about? Scat bikes are 100% exactly what I expected. I've played them 4 times against nids and 3 times against Orks. Hands down they are the most game changing unit since I've been playing 40k. I would rather play nothing but seerstars 100% of the time. The main effect of the seer star was boosting the scat bikes, and debuffing my stuff if you take away the scat bikes they become laughably easy to beat at least in the missions I tend to play.
Unkillable stuff is a fun killer. Seerstar and Wraith Knights clearly count. But it is hyper-point-efficient, Super Shooting, Super mobile, Super Scoring scat bikes that have changed the face of 40k.
Yes Scatbikes are good, and I must preface this by saying I haven't fought a Scatterbike heavy list, but they aren't 100% broken from what I have heard. They are just as fragile as before, whereas a Jetbike Seerstar is never going to fail a power vs Nids. So many dice passing on 3+ with rerolls is insane, and they can pretty much guarentee that they'll have fortune or invis, plus will have Conceal. I don't care about damage output nearly as much as I care about my ability to kill a unit. Jetbikes are the same as before with more guns and a small price bump. They are really good I'm sure, but in my two games vs NewDar I've been able to kill his Jetbikes. It's the seer stars that wouldn't die.
2015/05/31 18:19:03
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
Hmm going by battlescribe it's a maximum of two...
Idk for sure though, I refuse to buy the Craftworlds Codex to give my DE a boost;.
One thing I do know is that they would be a unit as a whole (and can't leave) so if you deny one power(!) then your opponent can't attempt to manifest that same power again.
YMDC = nightmare
2015/05/31 20:09:16
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
With regards to the Seer Council, I've had experience both playing as and against the Seer Council, and I must say that it is much better than I thought, especially if they get the right powers.
The configuration that I played against (and also that I run) is this:
Farseer Skyrunner - Shard of Anaris
Farseer Skyrunner
5x Jetlocks
Baharoth (either as CAD or as a Living Legends unit).
In 2 test games against Tyranids, they got both Invisibility and Fortune (ouch!)
So why is it so good?
1. With both Invis and Fortune, it is nigh impossible to kill. Best to just ignore it and focus on the rest of the army.
2. It is extremely reliable in casting it's powers.
3. It also has a very good chance to stop any of your crucial powers with 2 re-rollable Deny attempts (1 per farseer). It can shut-down (or at the very least, greatly impede) other psychic armies.
4. You cannot kill it. With Baharroth, you can't even lock it in combat due to his Hit-&-Run.
Yes, it cannot split up (other than Baharroth). However, it doesn't really need to. With essentially a 48" move per turn, you use it to deny multiple objectives. This makes it really good in denying ITC Maelstrom Secondary objectives unless you have ObSec units. Also, while it can't do anything to flyers (flyrants), it can still dominate by killing everything else on the ground. Protect/jinx is pretty handy in making a unit easier to kill by lowering its Armor save. Malanthrope protection is negated by Reveal so that the rest of the Eldar army can bypass our 2+ cover. The seer council is really, really good not as a purely offensive machine, but as a board control unit and force-multiplier for the army.
In the 2 games I played (Eldar vs Nids), we split the games 1-1. Nids won one game by killing the rest of the Eldar army. Then the psychic deathstar had to split off Baharroth on T5 to go for objectives. The game then went onto T6 and bugs were then able to tie up the deathstar with 2 flyrants (though they did lose 1 flyrant in the assault).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Frozocrone wrote: Hmm going by battlescribe it's a maximum of two...
Idk for sure though, I refuse to buy the Craftworlds Codex to give my DE a boost;.
One thing I do know is that they would be a unit as a whole (and can't leave) so if you deny one power(!) then your opponent can't attempt to manifest that same power again.
You can get more than 2 farseers very easily. You need another 1 farseer if you are running the Windrider Host detachment, or you can get it by running a normal CAD along with the seer council.
Yeah, not being able to leave the unit makes the seer council slightly easier to handle, but not by much. It can still contest multiple objectives at a time.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/05/31 20:12:31
tag8833 wrote: Took my Flying circus out against a pretty strong Newdar list yesterday.
The Newdar list looked like this:
Spoiler:
CAD:
Autarch w/ Bike + Shard of Anaris
6 x 5 Scat Bikes.
Crimson Hunter
Wraith Knight w/ Double D's
Seer Council:
Farseer w/ Bike
Farseer w/ Bike
5 Warlocks
We were playtesting the ITC missions. I thought that due to the ITC nerf to D I could get away with Null Deploy using a Bastion + Void Shield + Comms Relay to help me with reserves. I went 2nd. The Wraith Knight Killed my Bastion in 2 rounds of shooting. My opponent also had -1 to reserves as their warlord trait.
Reserves screwed me epically. Lots of stuff didn't come in until 4. It sucked.
I ended up killing all but 1 of the scat bikes, but The seer council only lost 1 warlock and the Wraith Knight was untouched. Meanwhile I ended with 1 Flyrant, 1 Crone, and 2 Lictors. I tied the EW, and won Maelstrom by 1. He got all 3 Tertiaries, so I won 4 to 3. I hate scat bikes so much, but I wasn't expecting the Seer council to be so dominant. They were casting 5-6 powers a turn, and denying every spell I tried to cast with their rerolls.
Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes against that type of seer council list (Seer Council + CAD). Really, you can't do much against the council itself and the WK. The best way to beat them, though, is to just go after their fast troops. These types of battles usually end up being very close battles if you target prioritze correctly.
tag8833 wrote: Took my Flying circus out against a pretty strong Newdar list yesterday.
The Newdar list looked like this:
Spoiler:
CAD:
Autarch w/ Bike + Shard of Anaris
6 x 5 Scat Bikes.
Crimson Hunter
Wraith Knight w/ Double D's
Seer Council:
Farseer w/ Bike
Farseer w/ Bike
5 Warlocks
We were playtesting the ITC missions. I thought that due to the ITC nerf to D I could get away with Null Deploy using a Bastion + Void Shield + Comms Relay to help me with reserves. I went 2nd. The Wraith Knight Killed my Bastion in 2 rounds of shooting. My opponent also had -1 to reserves as their warlord trait.
Reserves screwed me epically. Lots of stuff didn't come in until 4. It sucked.
I ended up killing all but 1 of the scat bikes, but The seer council only lost 1 warlock and the Wraith Knight was untouched. Meanwhile I ended with 1 Flyrant, 1 Crone, and 2 Lictors. I tied the EW, and won Maelstrom by 1. He got all 3 Tertiaries, so I won 4 to 3. I hate scat bikes so much, but I wasn't expecting the Seer council to be so dominant. They were casting 5-6 powers a turn, and denying every spell I tried to cast with their rerolls.
If you think that's nasty, I played a Warhost last weekend that ran two Seerstars. Both were invisible and unkillable the whole game I swear! I did manage to win on tertiary after tieing primary and secondary, but even hitting on 6s he managed to Shriek two Horrified Flyrants to death and a TFex... Eldar psychic shenanigans are brutal. I got one power off all game!
Fortunately for competitive play, most of the larger tournaments only allow for 0-1 of each formation/detachment so you won't see too many double-seer councils (unless it is a seer council formation + farseers and a warlock conclave pseudo-seer council from normal CAD or the Windrider Host detachment).
But with that said, I don't think that dual-seer councils is necessarily better. Good luck playing against 60 ObSec marines in drop pods or the Culexus for the double-seer player. Rather, I think 1 seer council and a more balanced Eldar build is much better as a TAC Eldar build.
Eldercaveman wrote: Just finished 4-1 at the UK Games Expo in a VERY competitive field, overflowing with Eldar. Finished 5 the in the end, with the top 4 being Eldar,Eldar, WolfStar, Eldar.
My games were, Eldar, Astra Militarium, Tau, Imperial Knights, Astra Militarium.
Would love to hear a brief summary of your games.
Yeah, you're going to see Eldar dominate the tournament field even more than they did before with serpent-spam IMO.
jifel wrote: If you think that's nasty, I played a Warhost last weekend that ran two Seerstars. Both were invisible and unkillable the whole game I swear! I did manage to win on tertiary after tieing primary and secondary, but even hitting on 6s he managed to Shriek two Horrified Flyrants to death and a TFex... Eldar psychic shenanigans are brutal. I got one power off all game!
krootman. wrote: In testing, list building etc, scatter bikes have proven to not be as bad as everyone feared, it's the seers that will be a pain. With new runes and 3 plus to cast powers, the eldar player shouldn't have an issue getting a lot of his powers off.
What are you guys talking about? Scat bikes are 100% exactly what I expected. I've played them 4 times against nids and 3 times against Orks. Hands down they are the most game changing unit since I've been playing 40k. I would rather play nothing but seerstars 100% of the time. The main effect of the seer star was boosting the scat bikes, and debuffing my stuff if you take away the scat bikes they become laughably easy to beat at least in the missions I tend to play.
Unkillable stuff is a fun killer. Seerstar and Wraith Knights clearly count. But it is hyper-point-efficient, Super Shooting, Super mobile, Super Scoring scat bikes that have changed the face of 40k.
I will say this. Both scatterbikes and the seer council are grade-A a$$hole units to play against. While the seer council IMO has gotten slightly better (they were already very good before), the scatterbikes have gotten better by leaps and bounds. Yes, the scatterbikes are killable, but if even 1 biker lives til Turn 5, then he still has the potential to single-handedly win the Eldar player the game. They (the scatterbikes) MUST die at all costs. The seer council is just a glorified (though very effective) distraction unit. The scatterbikes are the ones who will win you the game in most cases.
krootman. wrote: So my buddies and I did some nova testing today, First game was my Necron (durcurion) dark eldar list (corpse theif claw) vs bugs
Was a fast game, durcurion is a difficult enough match, but the corpsetheif takes away any hope of board control, we called it on turn 3.
So we began to discus different ways for nids to fix some bad match ups for nova, durcurion being one of the worst currently. First off the more I have used//played against mawlocs lately the more I feel they just don't do enough. The idea came that if we added obsec guants to the list then you can play the cumulative missions and take advantage of obsec.
We changed the list to the following
Cad//levi
5 flyrants, 3 20 man guant units, 2 deep striking rippers, 4 lictors, malenthrope, 3 mucloids
This time i ran normal durcurion to help my buddy test vs a more likely matchup, we called it on 5, but it was much closer then the previous match up, the obsec really gives bugs alot of play in nova missions. We also realized you can take an ally detachment as your 3rd source in nova format, which means we can ditch the levi cad and drop the mines. In formats like Killadelphia and nova they just bleed points and honestly are not worth it. The guants also help give the flyrants some board presence
You break it down this way because killing a detachment or source is a 2ndary in nova now.
So with the death of the wraithknight from competitive play, I really really like 5 flyrants, I think between 5 flyrants, and crons murdering tau, you are ok with the tau matchup.
We kept the lictors for things like thunderfires, d cannons, etc that can eat your guants. Lictors disrupt scoring on nova missions pretty well. Finally they are great for making sure your rippers dont scatter.
It needs more testing but I think it has alot of promise, it seems like a good starting point for the nova format. I do however want to try deathleaper brood somewhere down the line for nova format as well.
I like where you're going with all those ObSec bodies. With the new Necrons and with the trend veering away from ObSec, this may be the return of the troop tervigon or just massed ObSec Tyranid troops.
I'm going to have to re-evaluate my Nova list very carefully, but probably not until after the ATC. Just a couple of notes:
1. Unfortunately, not all tournament formats (i.e. the ITC) allows for dual CAD and so we are stuck with non-ObSec troops for Leviathan.
2. Your 3x20 list is lacking in backfield Synapse IMO. Most of the time, flyrants will be too far forwards and relying on only 1 Malanthrope might by a recipe for disaster against certain armies. I would consider dropping 1 lictor and some gants to try to fit in a 2nd, separate Malanthrope.
3. I still shudder when going up against Decurion, especially if they spam Flayed Ones. Those FO's will go through our hordes like a hot knife through butter.
BTW, dropping 2 rippers for 1 lector only reduces your KP by 1.
They have a rule that you get a bonus kill point if you eliminate a FOC role. If you change 2 units of Rippers to Mucolids you won't have any scoring "Troop" roles, and so there is no way for an opponent to get that bonus from you.
It is one of their mechanisms to discourage you from running a balanced list. As a Tyranid player, you are going to have HQ, and you are going to have Elites. But you can get away without Troops, LOW, and either Fast or Heavy.
Interesting. I overlooked that rule.
SonsofVulkan wrote: Yeah I'd drop cypher for another librarian for the extra WC.
Cypher also provides Shrouding for the unit. Plus, I can split him off and he is highly effective at taking out MSU units.
Basically, I am trying to build the list to rely less on psychic powers. Instead of having to cast Shroud for cover or Gate to get out of combat, now I don't need to risk those powers failing to go off or being denied. And if I fail H-&-R, well, there is always Gate to fall back on.
Oh, and BTW, Cypher is a F-U to the Culexus. Hah, I get cover to your AP2 shooting and you can't lock me up in combat.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2015/05/31 21:35:52
I was testing the termagant blobs with Krootman, and I agree the 3x20 needs dual malanthropes. Unfortunately NOVA restricts FW to 0-1 units. I think 2 x 20 termagant squads can have the desired effect and still function with one malanthrope. Tthrowing dominion on a tyrant if need be is also an option.
This idea came about when trying to crack decurion with pure Tyranids. Still working on that puzzle.....
2015/06/01 13:04:49
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
tag8833 wrote:
What are you guys talking about? Scat bikes are 100% exactly what I expected. I've played them 4 times against nids and 3 times against Orks. Hands down they are the most game changing unit since I've been playing 40k. I would rather play nothing but seerstars 100% of the time. The main effect of the seer star was boosting the scat bikes, and debuffing my stuff if you take away the scat bikes they become laughably easy to beat at least in the missions I tend to play.
Unkillable stuff is a fun killer. Seerstar and Wraith Knights clearly count. But it is hyper-point-efficient, Super Shooting, Super mobile, Super Scoring scat bikes that have changed the face of 40k.
So scatter bikes are no different, then drone star, i knights with reroll invs, flying hive tyrants etc, just a really really good unit, the difference is they are already being figured out and are not living up to the hype. The issue with scatter bikes, is with out wks they really don't give you any kind of board control. Even with jet seer star in the list (which lost fleet btw, so they are not as good at multi charging as they were before) they can't establish any form of board control because they die when looked at. Especially when you have 3-5 flying tyrants.
I really don't think you will see as much eldar dominance as you think. I have been conferring with alot of other top eldar players and tbh most have switched to other armies. Thats not to say they are not good, just saying in my, and some others opinion, they are not as ultra competitive as the old book was.
jy2 wrote:
I like where you're going with all those ObSec bodies. With the new Necrons and with the trend veering away from ObSec, this may be the return of the troop tervigon or just massed ObSec Tyranid troops.
I'm going to have to re-evaluate my Nova list very carefully, but probably not until after the ATC. Just a couple of notes:
1. Unfortunately, not all tournament formats (i.e. the ITC) allows for dual CAD and so we are stuck with non-ObSec troops for Leviathan.
2. Your 3x20 list is lacking in backfield Synapse IMO. Most of the time, flyrants will be too far forwards and relying on only 1 Malanthrope might by a recipe for disaster against certain armies. I would consider dropping 1 lictor and some gants to try to fit in a 2nd, separate Malanthrope.
3. I still shudder when going up against Decurion, especially if they spam Flayed Ones. Those FO's will go through our hordes like a hot knife through butter.
1) yea we are just testing nova format as that's the next large gt we are playing.
2)So with 5 flyrants being able to cast dominion (LOLOLOL IT FINALLY HAS A USE) and a malenthrope I don't think there should be an issue, however there are cheap synpase options if it becomes an issue.
3) Honestly flayed ones are not the worst vs bugs, units of 3 wriaths with scarab backup shred through guants just as quickly as flayed ones accept they are faster.
We considered the troop terv, but it just cost too many points for what it brings, it also dies just as easily as a malwoc and the squishyness of a malwoc was the reason we cut them in the first place.
997Turbo wrote:I was testing the termagant blobs with Krootman, and I agree the 3x20 needs dual malanthropes. Unfortunately NOVA restricts FW to 0-1 units. I think 2 x 20 termagant squads can have the desired effect and still function with one malanthrope. Tthrowing dominion on a tyrant if need be is also an option.
This idea came about when trying to crack decurion with pure Tyranids. Still working on that puzzle.....
Hahaha Hi dallas, didnt know your user name on here whoops. I think im going to pick up a 5th tyrant this week and take this list out for a spin as well.
2015/06/01 15:31:34
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
tag8833 wrote:
What are you guys talking about? Scat bikes are 100% exactly what I expected. I've played them 4 times against nids and 3 times against Orks. Hands down they are the most game changing unit since I've been playing 40k. I would rather play nothing but seerstars 100% of the time. The main effect of the seer star was boosting the scat bikes, and debuffing my stuff if you take away the scat bikes they become laughably easy to beat at least in the missions I tend to play.
Unkillable stuff is a fun killer. Seerstar and Wraith Knights clearly count. But it is hyper-point-efficient, Super Shooting, Super mobile, Super Scoring scat bikes that have changed the face of 40k.
So scatter bikes are no different, then drone star, i knights with reroll invs, flying hive tyrants etc, just a really really good unit, the difference is they are already being figured out and are not living up to the hype. The issue with scatter bikes, is with out wks they really don't give you any kind of board control. Even with jet seer star in the list (which lost fleet btw, so they are not as good at multi charging as they were before) they can't establish any form of board control because they die when looked at. Especially when you have 3-5 flying tyrants.
I really don't think you will see as much eldar dominance as you think. I have been conferring with alot of other top eldar players and tbh most have switched to other armies. Thats not to say they are not good, just saying in my, and some others opinion, they are not as ultra competitive as the old book was.
It really isn't fair to compare the likes of the jetbike to units like deathstars, Imperial Knights and flyrants. Scatterbikes aren't meant to be super-resilient mini-deathstars nor are they meant to even remotely suggested to take their place. Rather, they were meant (or designed) to be a vulnerable, guerilla-tactic unit that you have to protect but who can also win you the game if played properly. They aren't as great in Progressive-style missions where they have to expose themselves each turn (for that, dires in ObSec wave serpents would be the better choice), but they are just deadly in Eternal War missions where they can play the waiting game until Turn 5. Plus, it is only 51-81-pts for a unit of 3 and 3 is all you really need. For that price, they are really, really good, especially if you use them in the role that they were designed to play.
It's just that, fortunately for us bug players, we have the perfect tool to deal with the scatterbikes. Other armies? Maybe not as fortunate.
As for "top Eldar players" switching armies, that isn't necessarily due to the new Eldar codex not being as competitive as before. When the new Decurion Necrons came out, I sort of stopped playing them for a while (at least not competitively) because I didn't think they were as competitive as they were in the previous edition. Now look at how much Necrons are flourishing in tournament play. The new Eldar are still just that - very new. I think that the UK Games Expo (the one where Eldercaveman just went to) is a better indication of how well Eldar will be doing once the very good players start running them competitively. BTW, Eldar went 1st, 2nd and 4th over there.
jy2 wrote:I like where you're going with all those ObSec bodies. With the new Necrons and with the trend veering away from ObSec, this may be the return of the troop tervigon or just massed ObSec Tyranid troops.
I'm going to have to re-evaluate my Nova list very carefully, but probably not until after the ATC. Just a couple of notes:
1. Unfortunately, not all tournament formats (i.e. the ITC) allows for dual CAD and so we are stuck with non-ObSec troops for Leviathan.
2. Your 3x20 list is lacking in backfield Synapse IMO. Most of the time, flyrants will be too far forwards and relying on only 1 Malanthrope might by a recipe for disaster against certain armies. I would consider dropping 1 lictor and some gants to try to fit in a 2nd, separate Malanthrope.
3. I still shudder when going up against Decurion, especially if they spam Flayed Ones. Those FO's will go through our hordes like a hot knife through butter.
1) yea we are just testing nova format as that's the next large gt we are playing.
2)So with 5 flyrants being able to cast dominion (LOLOLOL IT FINALLY HAS A USE) and a malenthrope I don't think there should be an issue, however there are cheap synpase options if it becomes an issue.
3) Honestly flayed ones are not the worst vs bugs, units of 3 wriaths with scarab backup shred through guants just as quickly as flayed ones accept they are faster.
We considered the troop terv, but it just cost too many points for what it brings, it also dies just as easily as a malwoc and the squishyness of a malwoc was the reason we cut them in the first place.
FO-spam is a very competitive Necron build (like Flesh Hound spam). IMO, it's even better than wraithspam Necrons, and this is coming from someone who has been playing wraithspam ever since 5th Edition to now. The Canoptek Harvest formation costs you about 370-pts for 1 spider, 3 scarabs and 6 wraiths with whip coils. A unit of 20 FO's only costs 260-pts but puts out a heck a of better punch than the wraiths in CC. Where wraiths have the edge is the speed, the ability to punch through AV11+ vehicles (FO's will easily glance AV10 vehicles to death) and the ability to hurt super-tough units like wraithknights. Where FO's outshine wraiths is in pure offense (100 attacks on the charge vs 24 for the wraiths), better resiliency to low AP weaponry, no single point of failure (kill the spider and the wraiths lose RP) and of course, they are cheaper, thus allowing you to get more into the army. BTW, in the ITC format, you can't spam the Canoptek Harvest formation due to the 0-1 limitations on all formations/detachments, but you can spam FO's because it is considered a detachment unit as opposed to a detachment formation.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/01 15:47:17
jy2 wrote:I like where you're going with all those ObSec bodies. With the new Necrons and with the trend veering away from ObSec, this may be the return of the troop tervigon or just massed ObSec Tyranid troops.
I'm going to have to re-evaluate my Nova list very carefully, but probably not until after the ATC. Just a couple of notes:
1. Unfortunately, not all tournament formats (i.e. the ITC) allows for dual CAD and so we are stuck with non-ObSec troops for Leviathan.
2. Your 3x20 list is lacking in backfield Synapse IMO. Most of the time, flyrants will be too far forwards and relying on only 1 Malanthrope might by a recipe for disaster against certain armies. I would consider dropping 1 lictor and some gants to try to fit in a 2nd, separate Malanthrope.
3. I still shudder when going up against Decurion, especially if they spam Flayed Ones. Those FO's will go through our hordes like a hot knife through butter.
1) yea we are just testing nova format as that's the next large gt we are playing.
2)So with 5 flyrants being able to cast dominion (LOLOLOL IT FINALLY HAS A USE) and a malenthrope I don't think there should be an issue, however there are cheap synpase options if it becomes an issue.
3) Honestly flayed ones are not the worst vs bugs, units of 3 wriaths with scarab backup shred through guants just as quickly as flayed ones accept they are faster.
We considered the troop terv, but it just cost too many points for what it brings, it also dies just as easily as a malwoc and the squishyness of a malwoc was the reason we cut them in the first place.
FO-spam is a very competitive Necron build (like Flesh Hound spam). IMO, it's even better than wraithspam Necrons, and this is coming from someone who has been playing wraithspam ever since 5th Edition to now. The Canoptek Harvest formation costs you about 370-pts for 1 spider, 3 scarabs and 6 wraiths with whip coils. A unit of 20 FO's only costs 260-pts but puts out a heck a of better punch than the wraiths in CC. Where wraiths have the edge is the speed, the ability to punch through AV11+ vehicles (FO's will easily glance AV10 vehicles to death) and the ability to hurt super-tough units like wraithknights. Where FO's outshine wraiths is in pure offense (100 attacks on the charge vs 24 for the wraiths), better resiliency to low AP weaponry, no single point of failure (kill the spider and the wraiths lose RP) and of course, they are cheaper, thus allowing you to get more into the army. BTW, in the ITC format, you can't spam the Canoptek Harvest formation due to the 0-1 limitations on all formations/detachments, but you can spam FO's because it is considered a detachment unit as opposed to a detachment formation.
I must admit I have yet to play against Flayed Ones (ever...) but I feel like their reduced toughness compared to Wraiths is their drawback. Yes, a full health unit inflicts more casualties, but your chances of getting a full health unit on are very low. This is a Tyranid thread, so as a Nid player I'm much more afraid of Wraiths. After all, why not just use our huge amount of ap 4 weapons to thin that herd? Biovores Crones and Tyrannofexen should all inflict massive casualties (by Decurion standards) on Flayed ones, whereas we have no units that can efficiently target wraiths. Plus, wraiths are much faster and so we will struggle to avoid them reaching us in Close combat, and they can react much better to our speed.
2015/06/01 15:56:21
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
I must admit I have yet to play against Flayed Ones (ever...) but I feel like their reduced toughness compared to Wraiths is their drawback. Yes, a full health unit inflicts more casualties, but your chances of getting a full health unit on are very low. This is a Tyranid thread, so as a Nid player I'm much more afraid of Wraiths. After all, why not just use our huge amount of ap 4 weapons to thin that herd? Biovores Crones and Tyrannofexen should all inflict massive casualties (by Decurion standards) on Flayed ones, whereas we have no units that can efficiently target wraiths. Plus, wraiths are much faster and so we will struggle to avoid them reaching us in Close combat, and they can react much better to our speed.
Oh, man, I've played against FO-spam and they are tough as sh*t to deal with. 4+ save backed up by 4+ RP means that each guy has a 75% chance to survive your firepower. That means 1 flyrant will only kill 2 FO's a turn. 2 only! Now imagine facing 3x15 of those f*ckers. FO's just give Necrons such dominant board control it isn't even funny! Infiltrate onto/near objectives and then move onto them and laugh as we struggle to get them off. Also, you can't tarpit them as they will go through any of our gribblies so fast it isn't even funny. They will also easily kill any of our MC that does not have a 2+ save with relative ease. It will be because of Necrons where you will see the return of the Tyranids of old - tervigons, gribblies, biovores and the Living Artillery Node.
Of course in a balanced Necron list, I could run 1 Canoptek Harvest formation and 2 units of FO's to get the best of both worlds.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/01 15:57:58
I must admit I have yet to play against Flayed Ones (ever...) but I feel like their reduced toughness compared to Wraiths is their drawback. Yes, a full health unit inflicts more casualties, but your chances of getting a full health unit on are very low. This is a Tyranid thread, so as a Nid player I'm much more afraid of Wraiths. After all, why not just use our huge amount of ap 4 weapons to thin that herd? Biovores Crones and Tyrannofexen should all inflict massive casualties (by Decurion standards) on Flayed ones, whereas we have no units that can efficiently target wraiths. Plus, wraiths are much faster and so we will struggle to avoid them reaching us in Close combat, and they can react much better to our speed.
Oh, man, I've played against FO-spam and they are tough as sh*t to deal with. 4+ save backed up by 4+ RP means that each guy has a 75% chance to survive your firepower. That means 1 flyrant will only kill 2 FO's a turn. 2 only! Now imagine facing 3x15 of those f*ckers. FO's just give Necrons such dominant board control it isn't even funny! Infiltrate onto/near objectives and then move onto them and laugh as we struggle to get them off. Also, you can't tarpit them as they will go through any of our gribblies so fast it isn't even funny. They will also easily kill any of our MC that does not have a 2+ save with relative ease. It will be because of Necrons where you will see the return of the Tyranids of old - tervigons, gribblies, biovores and the Living Artillery Node.
Of course in a balanced Necron list, I could run 1 Canoptek Harvest formation and 2 units of FO's to get the best of both worlds.
A very interesting Necron meta you have! Over here in the Sunshine state, the most successful Necron builds have been based arround Destroyer Cults and one Wraith formation. And while I can understand why Flayed Ones are dangerous, I feel Nids have enough AP 4 weapons to actually hurt massed Flayed Ones pretty badly. I know if I saw 3x15 I would drop a TFex by one and throw two Crones at the other... Enough ap 4 and they will fall!
2015/06/01 16:11:05
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
I must admit I have yet to play against Flayed Ones (ever...) but I feel like their reduced toughness compared to Wraiths is their drawback. Yes, a full health unit inflicts more casualties, but your chances of getting a full health unit on are very low. This is a Tyranid thread, so as a Nid player I'm much more afraid of Wraiths. After all, why not just use our huge amount of ap 4 weapons to thin that herd? Biovores Crones and Tyrannofexen should all inflict massive casualties (by Decurion standards) on Flayed ones, whereas we have no units that can efficiently target wraiths. Plus, wraiths are much faster and so we will struggle to avoid them reaching us in Close combat, and they can react much better to our speed.
Oh, man, I've played against FO-spam and they are tough as sh*t to deal with. 4+ save backed up by 4+ RP means that each guy has a 75% chance to survive your firepower. That means 1 flyrant will only kill 2 FO's a turn. 2 only! Now imagine facing 3x15 of those f*ckers. FO's just give Necrons such dominant board control it isn't even funny! Infiltrate onto/near objectives and then move onto them and laugh as we struggle to get them off. Also, you can't tarpit them as they will go through any of our gribblies so fast it isn't even funny. They will also easily kill any of our MC that does not have a 2+ save with relative ease. It will be because of Necrons where you will see the return of the Tyranids of old - tervigons, gribblies, biovores and the Living Artillery Node.
Of course in a balanced Necron list, I could run 1 Canoptek Harvest formation and 2 units of FO's to get the best of both worlds.
A very interesting Necron meta you have! Over here in the Sunshine state, the most successful Necron builds have been based arround Destroyer Cults and one Wraith formation. And while I can understand why Flayed Ones are dangerous, I feel Nids have enough AP 4 weapons to actually hurt massed Flayed Ones pretty badly. I know if I saw 3x15 I would drop a TFex by one and throw two Crones at the other... Enough ap 4 and they will fall!
Initially, I started off running the Canoptek Formation + Destroyer Cult (the DC is very common here as well). Now, I'm in the process of switching over my wraiths to FO's (working on my FO's). They are a lot harder to kill than I thought. I had a game where I went after 1 unit of 18 FO's with 3-4 flyrants, 2 hive crones and 2 harpies with stranglethorn cannons (this was 2500). I thought I would easily wipe them out, but after all of my shooting, I managed to to kill only half the unit. To be fair, the Necron player rolled above-average on his RP rolls, but it is just crazy how good they are in the Decurion even when you've got weapons that ignore their saves.
Mark my words. FO's aren't as common as wraiths, but IMO, they are potentially better. They don't have a chokepoint like the spider for the wraiths. You drop a few FO's and they are still very dangerous. You drop a couple of wraiths and then their offense goes down tremendously. If it is purely 20 FO's (260-pts) vs 6 whip coil wraiths (258-pts), I'd go with the FO's any day. That's how good I think they are.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/01 16:14:02
Really happy to hear that, the #1 power gamer switched to Ncerons after his Heldrake spam list got trashed by Necrons. He's going with Canoptek Harvest and Annilation formation and completely disregarded Flayed Ones (even brings a Nightscythe but the Necron ground force is so good you don't even need AA).
Spyder is eh without reanimation, when playing Orks I just chuck a bunch of die at it and it's removed after the end of wounds. Same with Nids.
YMDC = nightmare
2015/06/01 16:50:23
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
tag8833 wrote:
What are you guys talking about? Scat bikes are 100% exactly what I expected. I've played them 4 times against nids and 3 times against Orks. Hands down they are the most game changing unit since I've been playing 40k. I would rather play nothing but seerstars 100% of the time. The main effect of the seer star was boosting the scat bikes, and debuffing my stuff if you take away the scat bikes they become laughably easy to beat at least in the missions I tend to play.
Unkillable stuff is a fun killer. Seerstar and Wraith Knights clearly count. But it is hyper-point-efficient, Super Shooting, Super mobile, Super Scoring scat bikes that have changed the face of 40k.
So scatter bikes are no different, then drone star, i knights with reroll invs, flying hive tyrants etc, just a really really good unit, the difference is they are already being figured out and are not living up to the hype. The issue with scatter bikes, is with out wks they really don't give you any kind of board control. Even with jet seer star in the list (which lost fleet btw, so they are not as good at multi charging as they were before) they can't establish any form of board control because they die when looked at. Especially when you have 3-5 flying tyrants.
I really don't think you will see as much eldar dominance as you think. I have been conferring with alot of other top eldar players and tbh most have switched to other armies. Thats not to say they are not good, just saying in my, and some others opinion, they are not as ultra competitive as the old book was.
It really isn't fair to compare the likes of the jetbike to units like deathstars, Imperial Knights and flyrants. Scatterbikes aren't meant to be super-resilient mini-deathstars nor are they meant to even remotely suggested to take their place. Rather, they were meant (or designed) to be a vulnerable, guerilla-tactic unit that you have to protect but who can also win you the game if played properly. They aren't as great in Progressive-style missions where they have to expose themselves each turn (for that, dires in ObSec wave serpents would be the better choice), but they are just deadly in Eternal War missions where they can play the waiting game until Turn 5. Plus, it is only 51-81-pts for a unit of 3 and 3 is all you really need. For that price, they are really, really good, especially if you use them in the role that they were designed to play.
It's just that, fortunately for us bug players, we have the perfect tool to deal with the scatterbikes. Other armies? Maybe not as fortunate.
As for "top Eldar players" switching armies, that isn't necessarily due to the new Eldar codex not being as competitive as before. When the new Decurion Necrons came out, I sort of stopped playing them for a while (at least not competitively) because I didn't think they were as competitive as they were in the previous edition. Now look at how much Necrons are flourishing in tournament play. The new Eldar are still just that - very new. I think that the UK Games Expo (the one where Eldercaveman just went to) is a better indication of how well Eldar will be doing once the very good players start running them competitively. BTW, Eldar went 1st, 2nd and 4th over there.
At the Expo, it was alot of top players switching TOO Eldar, and not the other way round. The players who finished 1 and 2, were previously known for their Farsight bomb, Necrons and Daemons around here. They also drew their last game against each other on top table their list's were roughly
1st Place
2 Farseer
4 medium sized units of scatter bikes
Wraithknight
2 squads of spiders
1 Hawks
4 D Cannon battery's
Mission - Kill Points Deployment - Vanguard
First Turn - Eldar
I deploy my Venomthrope in a Bastion which was in my deployment area, with 4 Hive Tyrants behind it, Mucoloids all deploy out of sight, everything else in reserve.
He moves around his skimmers to get line of sight on to my Flyrants, his Nightspinner immobilise itself in a ruins.
Eldar get perfect timing off on the Lynx and guide on one of the Hornets.
I messed up with my deployment, thinking he had the hellstorm torrent Lynx, my mistake which costs me 2 Flyrants, the bastion and my Venomthrope, 1 Flyrant loses 3 wounds and one is untouched by the end of his shooting.
My first turn I fly off the untouched Flyrant, to guarentee I have some reserves Turn 2! My wounded flyrant goes super aggresive up the field, and puts catalyst on himself, before dropping a hornet.
His turn 2 is entire army unloads into my 1 wound Flyrant, and between jink saves and FNP I don't take a single wound
After this point my memory is a bit blurred, but I think all my reserves come on and proceed to take down his easy skimmers. and only lose one more unit for the whole game, I think it was the third Flyrant.
jy2 wrote:
It really isn't fair to compare the likes of the jetbike to units like deathstars, Imperial Knights and flyrants. Scatterbikes aren't meant to be super-resilient mini-deathstars nor are they meant to even remotely suggested to take their place. Rather, they were meant (or designed) to be a vulnerable, guerilla-tactic unit that you have to protect but who can also win you the game if played properly. They aren't as great in Progressive-style missions where they have to expose themselves each turn (for that, dires in ObSec wave serpents would be the better choice), but they are just deadly in Eternal War missions where they can play the waiting game until Turn 5. Plus, it is only 51-81-pts for a unit of 3 and 3 is all you really need. For that price, they are really, really good, especially if you use them in the role that they were designed to play.
It's just that, fortunately for us bug players, we have the perfect tool to deal with the scatterbikes. Other armies? Maybe not as fortunate.
As for "top Eldar players" switching armies, that isn't necessarily due to the new Eldar codex not being as competitive as before. When the new Decurion Necrons came out, I sort of stopped playing them for a while (at least not competitively) because I didn't think they were as competitive as they were in the previous edition. Now look at how much Necrons are flourishing in tournament play. The new Eldar are still just that - very new. I think that the UK Games Expo (the one where Eldercaveman just went to) is a better indication of how well Eldar will be doing once the very good players start running them competitively. BTW, Eldar went 1st, 2nd and 4th over there.
So I have been in the minority about my feeling with scatter bikes, but in a 3 source format I really feel they are not the end of the world like everyone are making them out to be. You are right they are new, but the more I try to make an eldar list I like, the less I like it. The funny thing is I was experimenting with durcurion crons about a month prior to killadelphia and the uk games expo since i had my killa list set and I knew my eldar didnt work with the codex change.
jy2 wrote:
FO-spam is a very competitive Necron build (like Flesh Hound spam). IMO, it's even better than wraithspam Necrons, and this is coming from someone who has been playing wraithspam ever since 5th Edition to now. The Canoptek Harvest formation costs you about 370-pts for 1 spider, 3 scarabs and 6 wraiths with whip coils. A unit of 20 FO's only costs 260-pts but puts out a heck a of better punch than the wraiths in CC. Where wraiths have the edge is the speed, the ability to punch through AV11+ vehicles (FO's will easily glance AV10 vehicles to death) and the ability to hurt super-tough units like wraithknights. Where FO's outshine wraiths is in pure offense (100 attacks on the charge vs 24 for the wraiths), better resiliency to low AP weaponry, no single point of failure (kill the spider and the wraiths lose RP) and of course, they are cheaper, thus allowing you to get more into the army. BTW, in the ITC format, you can't spam the Canoptek Harvest formation due to the 0-1 limitations on all formations/detachments, but you can spam FO's because it is considered a detachment unit as opposed to a detachment formation.
Again I was on the flayed one bandwagon about a month ago. I started with 4-6 min units, but I kind of fell off using them, frankly they are too slow and they still can get wittled down by small arms fire to the point where they are not super effective in combat. Honestly tho their speed was what did it in for me. Then I went back to wraiths, but 6 seemed too many for what you want them to do. I am really really enjoying spamimg the crap out of min harvest formations right now in durcurion which you can do in nova.
Like you said tho you cant spam harvests in itc, but you can spam flayed ones, however in that format I think id lean more towards a durcurion//necron cad with scarab farm, backed up by 2 min wraith units and 2-4 units of 5-7 flayed ones. Especially considering the itc scatter bike nerf made scarabs alot better.
My current nova list has 3 harvests, a reclmation legion with a bufed tb unit, and the 5 talos formation which is silly good.
A list some of my buddies and I are toying around with is eldar cad, seer formation, and levi for a seer star, 3 ejb units, and your standard 3 flyrant 3 mucloid formation. I feel like theres a good amount of tool box things you can do there and some silly psy combos you can do with flyrants and seers.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eldercaveman wrote:
At the Expo, it was alot of top players switching TOO Eldar, and not the other way round. The players who finished 1 and 2, were previously known for their Farsight bomb, Necrons and Daemons around here. They also drew their last game against each other on top table their list's were roughly
1st Place
2 Farseer
4 medium sized units of scatter bikes
Wraithknight
2 squads of spiders
1 Hawks
4 D Cannon battery's
Mission - Kill Points Deployment - Vanguard
First Turn - Eldar
I deploy my Venomthrope in a Bastion which was in my deployment area, with 4 Hive Tyrants behind it, Mucoloids all deploy out of sight, everything else in reserve.
He moves around his skimmers to get line of sight on to my Flyrants, his Nightspinner immobilise itself in a ruins.
Eldar get perfect timing off on the Lynx and guide on one of the Hornets.
I messed up with my deployment, thinking he had the hellstorm torrent Lynx, my mistake which costs me 2 Flyrants, the bastion and my Venomthrope, 1 Flyrant loses 3 wounds and one is untouched by the end of his shooting.
My first turn I fly off the untouched Flyrant, to guarentee I have some reserves Turn 2! My wounded flyrant goes super aggresive up the field, and puts catalyst on himself, before dropping a hornet.
His turn 2 is entire army unloads into my 1 wound Flyrant, and between jink saves and FNP I don't take a single wound
After this point my memory is a bit blurred, but I think all my reserves come on and proceed to take down his easy skimmers. and only lose one more unit for the whole game, I think it was the third Flyrant.
Final score 6-4 on kill points to the Tyranids!
I'll add the rest of the reports tomorrow.
Interesting, but your meta over there is quite a bit different then here, and its hard to translate from 1850 to 1650 as those 200 points make a huge difference in list construction, also I dont know what missions you use so I would assume they lend themselves to mobile shooting armies. I do really like 2nd place eldar list on there tho.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/06/01 17:00:38
2015/06/01 17:26:23
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
Frozocrone wrote: Really happy to hear that, the #1 power gamer switched to Ncerons after his Heldrake spam list got trashed by Necrons. He's going with Canoptek Harvest and Annilation formation and completely disregarded Flayed Ones (even brings a Nightscythe but the Necron ground force is so good you don't even need AA).
Spyder is eh without reanimation, when playing Orks I just chuck a bunch of die at it and it's removed after the end of wounds. Same with Nids.
FO's really don't get enough press/notoriety. No one ran them in the previous edition and a lot of people still don't know how truly good they are. Wraiths, on the other hand, everyone knows about them and how good they are. But the FO is a dark horse unit that will surprise a lot of people, especially if they've never really played against them before.
I actually had a quick 500-pt 3-way battle against 2 other ork players. I ran a D-lord + 20 FO's (only 450-pts actually). 1 ork player ran 2x30 boys + characters. The other ran a nob-squad with multiple power klaws in a trukk (and S5 AP4 combi-flamers for all his nobs!). I ended up tabling both and lost only about 5 FO's or so at the end. My nob opponent was just shocked when he assaulted me with his nobs, only to lose more than half of his nobs (and with FNP) before he could even strike!
Eldercaveman wrote: At the Expo, it was alot of top players switching TOO Eldar, and not the other way round. The players who finished 1 and 2, were previously known for their Farsight bomb, Necrons and Daemons around here. They also drew their last game against each other on top table their list's were roughly
1st Place
2 Farseer
4 medium sized units of scatter bikes
Wraithknight
2 squads of spiders
1 Hawks
4 D Cannon battery's
Mission - Kill Points Deployment - Vanguard
First Turn - Eldar
I deploy my Venomthrope in a Bastion which was in my deployment area, with 4 Hive Tyrants behind it, Mucoloids all deploy out of sight, everything else in reserve.
He moves around his skimmers to get line of sight on to my Flyrants, his Nightspinner immobilise itself in a ruins.
Eldar get perfect timing off on the Lynx and guide on one of the Hornets.
I messed up with my deployment, thinking he had the hellstorm torrent Lynx, my mistake which costs me 2 Flyrants, the bastion and my Venomthrope, 1 Flyrant loses 3 wounds and one is untouched by the end of his shooting.
My first turn I fly off the untouched Flyrant, to guarentee I have some reserves Turn 2! My wounded flyrant goes super aggresive up the field, and puts catalyst on himself, before dropping a hornet.
His turn 2 is entire army unloads into my 1 wound Flyrant, and between jink saves and FNP I don't take a single wound
After this point my memory is a bit blurred, but I think all my reserves come on and proceed to take down his easy skimmers. and only lose one more unit for the whole game, I think it was the third Flyrant.
Final score 6-4 on kill points to the Tyranids!
I'll add the rest of the reports tomorrow.
Thanks for sharing. I'm actually surprised that there wasn't the seer council in the top lists. Wow! Seems like the Aspect Host (2 spiders + 1 hawks), which I predicted was also very, very good, made it to the top 2 lists. I think the 2nd place list could have been even better had only he split up his units of bikers from 3 units to 6 (but maybe I am guessing because every mission incorporates Kill Points into them?).
Yeah, when the top US players start running Eldar competitively, you're going to see tournament results a lot more like this one.
Looking forwards to the rest of your summaries, even if you don't remember all that much.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/06/01 17:30:44
So I have been in the minority about my feeling with scatter bikes, but in a 3 source format I really feel they are not the end of the world like everyone are making them out to be. You are right they are new, but the more I try to make an eldar list I like, the less I like it. The funny thing is I was experimenting with durcurion crons about a month prior to killadelphia and the uk games expo since i had my killa list set and I knew my eldar didnt work with the codex change.
You're right. Scatterbikes aren't the end of the world. But then, why should an 81-pt unit be the end of the world?
IMO, I don't think you should make the scatterbikes the focal point of the offense. Rather, they should complement your offense, whether it be the Seer Council, the Aspect Host, pure-MSU or wraithguard-spam. I think that is when you get the most bang out of them. They are already a very high-priority target. Now when you make them the focal point of your offense as well, it is a no-brainer what the opponent will go after. However, throw in other units as well - spiders, swooping hawks, wraithguards in serpents, flyers, hornets, D-artillery, etc. - and now you obfuscate target priority for your opponent. Suddenly, they've got more pressing units that they are forced to deal with and now your bikers have a lot more breathing space. That is when they work best IMO. For only 405-pts, you can get 5x3 scatterbikes and now you've still got 1445-pts (in a 1850 list) to build the rest of your army offense. There isn't any other troop choice in the game that can beat the utility of the scatterbike and the benefits it provides to its army.
jy2 wrote:
FO-spam is a very competitive Necron build (like Flesh Hound spam). IMO, it's even better than wraithspam Necrons, and this is coming from someone who has been playing wraithspam ever since 5th Edition to now. The Canoptek Harvest formation costs you about 370-pts for 1 spider, 3 scarabs and 6 wraiths with whip coils. A unit of 20 FO's only costs 260-pts but puts out a heck a of better punch than the wraiths in CC. Where wraiths have the edge is the speed, the ability to punch through AV11+ vehicles (FO's will easily glance AV10 vehicles to death) and the ability to hurt super-tough units like wraithknights. Where FO's outshine wraiths is in pure offense (100 attacks on the charge vs 24 for the wraiths), better resiliency to low AP weaponry, no single point of failure (kill the spider and the wraiths lose RP) and of course, they are cheaper, thus allowing you to get more into the army. BTW, in the ITC format, you can't spam the Canoptek Harvest formation due to the 0-1 limitations on all formations/detachments, but you can spam FO's because it is considered a detachment unit as opposed to a detachment formation.
Again I was on the flayed one bandwagon about a month ago. I started with 4-6 min units, but I kind of fell off using them, frankly they are too slow and they still can get wittled down by small arms fire to the point where they are not super effective in combat. Honestly tho their speed was what did it in for me. Then I went back to wraiths, but 6 seemed too many for what you want them to do. I am really really enjoying spamimg the crap out of min harvest formations right now in durcurion which you can do in nova.
Like you said tho you cant spam harvests in itc, but you can spam flayed ones, however in that format I think id lean more towards a durcurion//necron cad with scarab farm, backed up by 2 min wraith units and 2-4 units of 5-7 flayed ones. Especially considering the itc scatter bike nerf made scarabs alot better.
My current nova list has 3 harvests, a reclmation legion with a bufed tb unit, and the 5 talos formation which is silly good.
A list some of my buddies and I are toying around with is eldar cad, seer formation, and levi for a seer star, 3 ejb units, and your standard 3 flyrant 3 mucloid formation. I feel like theres a good amount of tool box things you can do there and some silly psy combos you can do with flyrants and seers.
You could run FO's as MSU, but IMO they just aren't as effective when you do so. They need staying power. IMO, you should run them in squad sizes of 10 or more. If you're running multiple FO units, then have at least 1 larger squad and you can run the rest as MSU. Why is this? Because once you get to below 5 FO's, they really aren't perceived as a threat anymore because they just aren't as effective against anything other than other MSU units. But running larger units and they have staying power and are a threat to infantry, MC's and light tanks as well.
Yeah, they are slower than wraiths. You do have to take that into consideration when running FO's. Play the area denial game and put them close to objectives. Then watch your opponent run away from them. Or if you are also running the Destroyer Cult, then you can play the FO's more aggressively and have the destroyers/heavy destroyers stay with the objectives.
Your list is good, but if you swap out your 3 harvest formations for 3x18 FO's + the Corpsethief formation, holy ships! That is one helluva denial army! I'd hate to play against that army in KP missions. Of course its drawback is that it is also a very slow army.
@jy2, nova is all about speed this yr, masssed flayed ones honestly wont kill to much. I see what you are saying about a larger unit as an area denial anchor and at 130 for a 10 man unit, I could see myself trying one somewhere down the line, but those harvest formations are such money. Now im very early into testing so everything is subject to change.
Will you be making it to nova this yr?
2015/06/01 19:51:06
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
krootman. wrote: @jy2, nova is all about speed this yr, masssed flayed ones honestly wont kill to much. I see what you are saying about a larger unit as an area denial anchor and at 130 for a 10 man unit, I could see myself trying one somewhere down the line, but those harvest formations are such money. Now im very early into testing so everything is subject to change.
Will you be making it to nova this yr?
Yeah, I'll be going to both the Invitational as well as the Open.
Perhaps we can get a rematch in. Just right now, I'm not sure what I'm bringing yet.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/01 19:52:19
I'm curious what you are fielding in your flayed ones list. We tested out a list with decurion with zahn, 10 warriors/20warriors/immortal/3 tomb blades. We added flayed ones - 3x15 and a living tomb for shenanigans(obelisk, monolith). Against nids the obelisk is a bit of a beast. It realy creates a nifty no fly zone and hurts anything on the ground anyway.
All of that fits into a 1850 list, BTW.
2015/06/02 00:46:31
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
Hey everyone I got some questions for you all. First off I have gotten my hands on 18 warriors. I plan on using them at some point since I have them and I am wondering what the best load out would be for two full squads? I might make one in each group a prime and put both groups in Tyrannocytes. Sure there may be better tactics for nids, but if you were to use 18 tyranid warriors, what would you kit them out to be?
2015/06/02 00:59:31
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)
Lord Scythican wrote: Hey everyone I got some questions for you all. First off I have gotten my hands on 18 warriors. I plan on using them at some point since I have them and I am wondering what the best load out would be for two full squads? I might make one in each group a prime and put both groups in Tyrannocytes. Sure there may be better tactics for nids, but if you were to use 18 tyranid warriors, what would you kit them out to be?
If I wanted to use 18 Warriors, I would take three squads. One as a 3 man, barbed Strangler LAN supervisor unit. The second, a big ol unit in a Pod like what you had planned, and finally a unit of Shrikes. Seriously, if you have any spare wings or want to buy a Garg box, Shrikes are SO worth it compared to Warriors. Now, if you want to take large squads, then you're doing it to assault with. At this point, be they Warriors or Shrikes, then I would buy a single Lashwhip/BS for every three models in the unit, and smatter in some Rending Claws. At this point you do really want to keep the unit cheap as possible so I wouldn't reccomend Poison or anything else. Simply take the unit, buy a few Boneswords and use it as an assault support unit. OR, if you are going for more of a backfield support role, I would buy a Biocannon and two sets of Rending Claws for every three models in the unit. Note that this could be simply a minimum 3 man squad with a Strangler and some claws. Very good as a shooty unit that has ObSec and can support your backfield. Well, as good as you can get with Warriors. Warriors are in general not at all the best troops you can take, but I would certainly recommend Shrikes as a unit that tends to do better than their Rep online would suggest.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/06/02 01:00:34
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