Hello,
since there was a small argument about what should be discussed in the big Tactica Tyranids thread, I wanted to open a new one.

This thread here is meant to be used to discuss about Tactics and Unit Reviews of Hive Fleet Tyranids. So please keep the thread free of any allies such as GSC and AM.


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I am starting the thread with a unit, which was not discussed so much in the other one

Hive Crone
The Crone has been a respected FMC in 7th edition, which was quite good at destroying enemy flyers. GW has designed the rules in 8th to hit on the same spot. Unfortunately they failed imho!
If you take a look at the combined melee and shooting power of the Crone now, you will see that the results against flyers are not amazingly good. Against T6 flyers the Crone does something beteween 3.5-4 damage, while T7 flyers like the infamous Stormhawk or Stormraven are even more bullet proof against them. Of course you can roll hot dice and achieve something between 9-12 wounds, but it is much more likely that you end up doing 0-1 wounds.
However, the Crone can do other thingss for only 156 pts, which makes it one of the cheapest flyers in the game. It has a movement stat of 30 inch (fly) making it alsmost twice as fast as a Flyrant. On the contrary the Crone does not have the typical flyer rules like Airborne, Supersonic or Hard to Hit. This has some advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:
- Melee against ground troops
- Melee against flyers
- no 90° turning necessary
- can shoot when falling back
- low minimum movement
- almost no problem with manoevering or flying off the board

Disadvantages:
- no -1 to hit for shooting
- can be charged by ground forces
- generally slower than normal flyers

The disadvantages are really nasty for the Crone, especially if you consider that it only has T6 and a 4+ Save. It is dying rather quickly and is not even save from regular infantry.
You should not forget, however, that the 30 inch movement of the Crone and the melee capabilites against ground forces are huge. This means it can easily do a first turn charge against artillery, heavy weapons teams etc. Only bubble-wrapping and her big base can come in the way. Against shooty armies with a few models the Crone can be pretty good. For example, she can reliably neglect the shooting of a 4 LasCan Predator and even damage it. Same is true for Snipers, Heavy Weapons Teams, Devastators, Razorbacks, Dark Reapers etc. The infantry heavy weapons are even easy feeding for the crone...
Of course this job can also be done by a much cheaper Lictor, however he just has a chance of about 59% for a charge and the Lictor is not very good against tanks or heavy infantery. Whereas the Crone can be huge against Centurions or Devastators.
So I would say that the Crone is not really shining in her usual job: Killing flyers. However it can be a good tarpit unit, can ping of a couple of wounds against vehicles and units and is reasonably cheap.
She cannot alone kill flyers of course, but in combination with a Flyrant she can be a good double-tap unit.


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And another one stolen from a german forum.

Meotic Spores
They basically act in the same way as normal spore mines. However, they have a distinct deployment type. Instead of normal Spore Mines they do not come as "deep striking units" on the field. The Meotic Spores are placed directly before the first game turn 12 inch away from any enemy. That also means you already know, who will have the first turn.
Furthermore you can directly go 3 inch with the spores and even charge, which is impossible with normal spore mines. Using Onslaught you could even go 3+D6 inch and still able to charge. On average they will be only 5.1 inch away from enemy units with it, which is a pretty descent chance for a charge. Using the Swarmlord you do not even have to risk overwatch, but you can simply advance twice. Remember that any spore mines just have to be closer than 3 inch from an enemy to blow up at the end of the charge phase. This does not mean, you have to charge!
This can be very good against enemy units with strong overwatch capabilities, like the Hemlock Wraith Fighter or other units with auto-hit weapons.

So is this worth anything? Well you could place a unit of 9 Meotic Spores for 162 points. This means 162 points for a suicidal unit but for a unit, where the enemy can often not even react to. It does on average a total of 18 Mortal Wounds. This will kill every tank in the game including Land Raiders and even cripples a Knight. Not even talking about throwing hot dice there... It can btw even be good against things like Stormravens, as long as you know that you are going first. But beware of the damn Primarch granting Rerolls on all overwatch fire. In this case you will need the Swarmlord!

Counter tactics:
Well as usual you should just bubble-wrapp your juicy units. However the Tyranid player can destroy the bubble-wrap before and not all units have proper bubble wrapping...

Ive been really interested in the use of spores I hadn't considered meotic spores I'll check out their entry.

I think the normal Spore Mines as well as the Mucolid Spores are all viable.
They can both be dropped and can restrict the movement of the enemy forces. You just have to remember that they will not have a huge direct impact on the game. They might end up being only psychological warfare for your oponent.
However the problem for me is that the Mucolid and the regular Spore Mines are very similar. I do not see them fullfilling different roles.

Also a unit of Biovores is probably the better source of Spore Mines, since he can basically fire an infinite amount and also put them were they are disturbing enemy movement.

But... the Mucolid and Spore Mines can be used very well to unlock the brigade detachment very cheap.

Is it not worth starting with a few spore mines on the board to inhibit deep strikes given the ridiculously cheap points cost?

Well... I think that depends, if you want to unlock the Brigade.
Otherwise it of course also depends on your overall list, but the price for 3 Spore Mines is 30 pts. For 40 pts you can get 10 termagants more. So I would not say that their pts cost is neglectable. Better are maybe the Mucolids, because you can buy them as single models for 20 pts and they are not produceable by Biovores anyway.


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Another unit, which has not been covered so much in the other thread. Please tell me, if someone wants to talk about other units specifically.

Pyrovores
Okay, they are probably the most improved unit in the Tyranid arsenal. However, I think they are still not really good or in any way necessary.
They are much cheaper, lost the terrible explosion mechanic and have a very decent flamer weapon. They actually have a Heavy Flamer (S5 DS-1) with 10 inch range. Also they are quite good in putting wounds on high armour save targets with their melee attacks. And one should not forget that they are faster than they first look like with their weapons, because they can almost always advance and still fire the flamers with full effect.
However, I find them quite underwhelming running up the table. They are still far from being fast and also loose one flamer for every model which is dying. This means that I just see them beeing viable as a backfield clearance unit, which you quite frankly do not really need with Nids or coming in with a Tyrannocyte.
The problems with the Tyrannocyte are manifold: They are pretty expensive, making it a bit of a joke to transport 3 models with flamers for around 100 pts in a Pod costing around 140+ pts. After dropping in the Pyrovores still have probably one shooting phase before they die. This is 3D6 and can very well end up being just 4-6 hits. For a "throw away" unit with a total cost of 240+ pts with Pod this is pretty underwhelming. Even if they make it to melee in the same phase, they will most likely do some wounds and afterwards die. In the end it is just 3 models with mediocre staying power.
I would most of the time recommend using 20 Devilgaunts instead of the three Pyrovores.

So overall I think that they are still pretty unnecessary.

Just a thought guys - all of this talk is still welcome in the other thread. You're welcome to continue it here in the context you desire, but it certainly would contribute to all Tyranid armies.

In my opinion, it's probably better to stand united than divided. Even saying something as simple as "how might we accomplish this using no allies?" is a valid question that we did explore some pages back (spoiler alert: we didn't really come up with any awesome ideas, hence allies). But the passion to create a new thread is great and I'm sure would contribute to the original one.

 luke1705 wrote:
Just a thought guys - all of this talk is still welcome in the other thread. You're welcome to continue it here in the context you desire, but it certainly would contribute to all Tyranid armies.

In my opinion, it's probably better to stand united than divided. Even saying something as simple as "how might we accomplish this using no allies?" is a valid question that we did explore some pages back (spoiler alert: we didn't really come up with any awesome ideas, hence allies). But the passion to create a new thread is great and I'm sure would contribute to the original one.

Agree with this. it's all nid tactics. everyone is free to bring up everything. Though if you wanted a unit by unit comparison there was this thread - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/727222.page - started by unyielding hunger with a better format for it.

 Astmeister wrote:
Well... I think that depends, if you want to unlock the Brigade.
Otherwise it of course also depends on your overall list, but the price for 3 Spore Mines is 30 pts. For 40 pts you can get 10 termagants more. So I would not say that their pts cost is neglectable. Better are maybe the Mucolids, because you can buy them as single models for 20 pts and they are not produceable by Biovores anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another unit, which has not been covered so much in the other thread. Please tell me, if someone wants to talk about other units specifically.

Pyrovores
Okay, they are probably the most improved unit in the Tyranid arsenal. However, I think they are still not really good or in any way necessary.
They are much cheaper, lost the terrible explosion mechanic and have a very decent flamer weapon. They actually have a Heavy Flamer (S5 DS-1) with 10 inch range. Also they are quite good in putting wounds on high armour save targets with their melee attacks. And one should not forget that they are faster than they first look like with their weapons, because they can almost always advance and still fire the flamers with full effect.
However, I find them quite underwhelming running up the table. They are still far from being fast and also loose one flamer for every model which is dying. This means that I just see them beeing viable as a backfield clearance unit, which you quite frankly do not really need with Nids or coming in with a Tyrannocyte.
The problems with the Tyrannocyte are manifold: They are pretty expensive, making it a bit of a joke to transport 3 models with flamers for around 100 pts in a Pod costing around 140+ pts. After dropping in the Pyrovores still have probably one shooting phase before they die. This is 3D6 and can very well end up being just 4-6 hits. For a "throw away" unit with a total cost of 240+ pts with Pod this is pretty underwhelming. Even if they make it to melee in the same phase, they will most likely do some wounds and afterwards die. In the end it is just 3 models with mediocre staying power.
I would most of the time recommend using 20 Devilgaunts instead of the three Pyrovores.

So overall I think that they are still pretty unnecessary.

Yeah based on that I'd rather have MSU of Termegants (not hormogaunts I'd say)

Far more useful and as you say points wise...yeah I think spores only happen from Biovores for me


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 Lance845 wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Just a thought guys - all of this talk is still welcome in the other thread. You're welcome to continue it here in the context you desire, but it certainly would contribute to all Tyranid armies.

In my opinion, it's probably better to stand united than divided. Even saying something as simple as "how might we accomplish this using no allies?" is a valid question that we did explore some pages back (spoiler alert: we didn't really come up with any awesome ideas, hence allies). But the passion to create a new thread is great and I'm sure would contribute to the original one.

Agree with this. it's all nid tactics. everyone is free to bring up everything. Though if you wanted a unit by unit comparison there was this thread - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/727222.page - started by unyielding hunger with a better format for it.

That was a great thread but he seemed to drop off the map. Shame as you say the format is excellent.

 luke1705 wrote:
Just a thought guys - all of this talk is still welcome in the other thread. You're welcome to continue it here in the context you desire, but it certainly would contribute to all Tyranid armies.

In my opinion, it's probably better to stand united than divided. Even saying something as simple as "how might we accomplish this using no allies?" is a valid question that we did explore some pages back (spoiler alert: we didn't really come up with any awesome ideas, hence allies). But the passion to create a new thread is great and I'm sure would contribute to the original one.

I can also post this stuff in the big Tactica Tyranids. As I also mentioned I am a bit concerned that this might split the Nid players to much.
The problem I have with the discussion about allies such as AM and GSC is the following: Most very active people are apparently talking about very competitive things. This means at the moment talking about allies a lot. For me this means that all the other discussions about real Tyranids stuff will be swallowed in the many other postings about competitive stuff featuring allies.
Btw I also play GSC and consider them great allies for Tyranids. But in the end I do not want to play AM + GSC + (maybe Tyranids) and also do not want to discuss this tactics super much.

So I do not generally have a problem with it. Maybe the structure of the threads is not really benificial, because the people cannot selectively look at the things they care about.

Btw part 2: The other guy is right that my things until now here more or less belong into the unit review thread. I can put them there again, but I wanted to also talk about some strategies here.

Whatever... I am at the moment not really sure if it will work out using the other thread for both positions. I will think about it.


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Jaq Draco lives wrote:


Yeah based on that I'd rather have MSU of Termegants (not hormogaunts I'd say)

Far more useful and as you say points wise...yeah I think spores only happen from Biovores for me

I have not decided on whether or not I would MSU Termas and such personally. I think you lose the benefit of the moral immunity and good staying power and also do not gain so much. The Termas are so cheap that you can easily just take 20+ models. Hormas as 10 body units could work as objective grabbers, but also they could not work at all.
At the moment I think that MSU Terma/Hormas might not be the way to go but rather use big units. But maybe people with more gaming experience can say something about it?

 Astmeister wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Just a thought guys - all of this talk is still welcome in the other thread. You're welcome to continue it here in the context you desire, but it certainly would contribute to all Tyranid armies.

In my opinion, it's probably better to stand united than divided. Even saying something as simple as "how might we accomplish this using no allies?" is a valid question that we did explore some pages back (spoiler alert: we didn't really come up with any awesome ideas, hence allies). But the passion to create a new thread is great and I'm sure would contribute to the original one.

I can also post this stuff in the big Tactica Tyranids. As I also mentioned I am a bit concerned that this might split the Nid players to much.
The problem I have with the discussion about allies such as AM and GSC is the following: Most very active people are apparently talking about very competitive things. This means at the moment talking about allies a lot. For me this means that all the other discussions about real Tyranids stuff will be swallowed in the many other postings about competitive stuff featuring allies.
Btw I also play GSC and consider them great allies for Tyranids. But in the end I do not want to play AM + GSC + (maybe Tyranids) and also do not want to discuss this tactics super much.

So I do not generally have a problem with it. Maybe the structure of the threads is not really benificial, because the people cannot selectively look at the things they care about.

Btw part 2: The other guy is right that my things until now here more or less belong into the unit review thread. I can put them there again, but I wanted to also talk about some strategies here.

Whatever... I am at the moment not really sure if it will work out using the other thread for both positions. I will think about it.


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Jaq Draco lives wrote:


Yeah based on that I'd rather have MSU of Termegants (not hormogaunts I'd say)

Far more useful and as you say points wise...yeah I think spores only happen from Biovores for me

I have not decided on whether or not I would MSU Termas and such personally. I think you lose the benefit of the moral immunity and good staying power and also do not gain so much. The Termas are so cheap that you can easily just take 20+ models. Hormas as 10 body units could work as objective grabbers, but also they could not work at all.
At the moment I think that MSU Terma/Hormas might not be the way to go but rather use big units. But maybe people with more gaming experience can say something about it?

I was just thinking they are so damn cheap you could take big units and small units. And not really worry if they get shot off the board as they won't be shooting at something else (in my case I've got around 57 genestealers so I'll be running swarmy plus 2x20 for at least an attempt at first turn charge)

There are rippers as well for back field. The low profile of the model makes it really good for hiding in terrain. Have you thought much about Rippers?

I am just getting into the game again and really like the Tyrannofex with rapture canon model.

With shooting his gun 2 times when not moving and using command points for a reroll, the weapon doesn't seem too bad to me. What do you experts think?

My issue with the Tyranofex is he almost always has to move. the Exocrine's extra range just helps him get the double shots easier.

As for spore mines, deploying them on their own is exactly how I use them. It eats up an opponent's unit's turn to get rid of them. It's a cheap way to keep a unit from moving and shooting for a turn.

For our fliers, I really do like them both, but haven't had a chance to play either of them yet. They seem like they would work far better in pairs than just single.

Anyone have any thoughts on the Maleceptor? I definitely haven't seen anyone talk about it on the other thread. I know the OP talked about it being better in 8th edition, but has anyone got any first hand accounts of it being played in 8th?

Jaq Draco lives wrote:


I was just thinking they are so damn cheap you could take big units and small units. And not really worry if they get shot off the board as they won't be shooting at something else (in my case I've got around 57 genestealers so I'll be running swarmy plus 2x20 for at least an attempt at first turn charge)

There are rippers as well for back field. The low profile of the model makes it really good for hiding in terrain. Have you thought much about Rippers?

You can absolutely try small units of Gants. The problem seems to be their bubble-wrapping ability. They die quickly and with the big and dangerous melee units, you have the disadvantage that they can easily used to slingshot the mean units into your squishy stuff inside the wrap. And since split fire is a thing, I do not think that most armies would waste so much shots killing them anyway.

I have not thought much about Ripper swarms, since I do not think it is necessary. They are amazing!
They are perfect for grabbing objectives, have a decent staying power, are very cheap and thus perfect to fill troop slots for Brigade and such. I mean it hit them slightly that they have to come in on turn 3, but that is not a real problem. In Maelstorm they seem even better.
I think that you could spend points leftover on Rippers any time you want. The question is, if you want to take more than 1 unit, since the army has so many good and cheap units besides Rippers as well.
On a sidenote: Lictors are just 11 points more and are even harder to shift. As long as you do not need troops, you can also consider them. Of course they do normally fullfill a completely different role. And that is tarpitting heavy weapon teams (we need a new word instead of tarpitting. I vote for bitch-slapping ;-))


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warwarwar wrote:
I am just getting into the game again and really like the Tyrannofex with rapture canon model.

With shooting his gun 2 times when not moving and using command points for a reroll, the weapon doesn't seem too bad to me. What do you experts think?

My 2 cents:
You only ever want to take a Rupture cannon T-Fex against T8 units. And even then it is often better to use something else to kill the Tank/Whatever like 20 GS with Tox Sacs.
The T-Fex involves a massive amount of lucky dice rolling, which makes it very unreliable. You can easily take off 10 Wounds on a Land Raider with it, but also completly fail to do any damage a turn. If you compare it to a LasCan Predator it is actually performing worse in most of the cases. I mean when all of the shots of the T-Fex hit, it is brutal. But the same is true for the Predator...
So it is actually quite bad in my oppinion, however it has the niche of being the only good far range heavy tank hunter in the whole codex.

Ive never tried the Tyrannofex but at that points cost there shouldn't be any question of its ability and there does seem to be

Maleceptor
The Maleceptor is also in the row of one of the most improved units of all Tyranids.
Is it viable: Yes!
Is it necessary: No!

The Maleceptor is suprisingly one of the most durable MCs in the Tyranid arsenal. It gained a 3+ Save and T7 and still has its 5++. This can actually be a big deal, since most anti Monster/Tank weapons will wound models with T7/8 equally well, but will get pissed about the 3+/5++ combination.
The speed is en par with the other MCs from Tyranids and it can almost always advance, since it is just using Psi most of the time. This makes it reasonably fast and slightly faster than the rest of the MCs.
With lucky dice rolls you can even do stuff in melee with it! You could kill a medium tank in a single round of combat with S7 and D6 Wounds.
The only real reason to take the Maleceptor is its Psi abilities. The Nova ability is imho a bit underwhelming, just doing 1 Mortal Wound to mostly everything in range. It has several problems:
- very low range
- just 1 wound
- you cannot use psi in the same turn
It will not be very game changing and is very hard to apply to more than one unit at a time.

Maybe the hidden jewel of the Maleceptor is its ability to use psi powers with +1 to cast! This means that you have roughly a 27% chance of doing D6 Mortal wounds on the nearest enemy, which you can probably choose since the Maleceptor is quite fast. When you then use a CP to reroll the wound dice, this can be downright brutal. Remember that it is of course also very hard to dispell a high result on smite.
I think that they can really be major damage dealer if you bring them in pairs or even 3 Maleceptors. However, you have to remember that Psi can always be dispelled and is quite unreliable. Couple this with the high cost of the Maleceptor and you have a unit which can be a bit of a gamble.
Unfortunately the Maleceptor does not contribute too much to the army, which we absolutely need. He can be nice, if you have to take down flyers e.g. but it is not clear to me if he would perform better than 4+ Zoanthropes. And these I would also not consider really necessary in most lists.

Yes I read and almost instantly dismissed the Maleceptor, mainly it just didn't gel with my particular army units but as you say it seems like a gamble.

It may get better when we have more powers to choose from.

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
It may get better when we have more powers to choose from.

This is indeed true. However, I doubt that there will be a super amazing power where you desperately need the +1.
I also believe that the new codex Tyranids is very far away and when it introduces new powers, the Maleceptor will likely be quite different from now. So this is a bit of fortune telling...

 Astmeister wrote:
Maleceptor
The Maleceptor is also in the row of one of the most improved units of all Tyranids.
Is it viable: Yes!
Is it necessary: No!

The Maleceptor is suprisingly one of the most durable MCs in the Tyranid arsenal. It gained a 3+ Save and T7 and still has its 5++. This can actually be a big deal, since most anti Monster/Tank weapons will wound models with T7/8 equally well, but will get pissed about the 3+/5++ combination.
The speed is en par with the other MCs from Tyranids and it can almost always advance, since it is just using Psi most of the time. This makes it reasonably fast and slightly faster than the rest of the MCs.
With lucky dice rolls you can even do stuff in melee with it! You could kill a medium tank in a single round of combat with S7 and D6 Wounds.
The only real reason to take the Maleceptor is its Psi abilities. The Nova ability is imho a bit underwhelming, just doing 1 Mortal Wound to mostly everything in range. It has several problems:
- very low range
- just 1 wound
- you cannot use psi in the same turn
It will not be very game changing and is very hard to apply to more than one unit at a time.

Maybe the hidden jewel of the Maleceptor is its ability to use psi powers with +1 to cast! This means that you have roughly a 27% chance of doing D6 Mortal wounds on the nearest enemy, which you can probably choose since the Maleceptor is quite fast. When you then use a CP to reroll the wound dice, this can be downright brutal. Remember that it is of course also very hard to dispell a high result on smite.
I think that they can really be major damage dealer if you bring them in pairs or even 3 Maleceptors. However, you have to remember that Psi can always be dispelled and is quite unreliable. Couple this with the high cost of the Maleceptor and you have a unit which can be a bit of a gamble.
Unfortunately the Maleceptor does not contribute too much to the army, which we absolutely need. He can be nice, if you have to take down flyers e.g. but it is not clear to me if he would perform better than 4+ Zoanthropes. And these I would also not consider really necessary in most lists.

Thanks for the input! I've been wanting to try him out, but never know what best roll it's going to play in a Tyranid Fleet. My first attempt will be hopefully this week. My plan is to use Maleceptor, Swarmlord and a full unit of Tyrant Guard carried in via Tyrannocyte and hopefully roll a flank with them. Having the Maleceptor should provide both beatstick and backup onslaught should Swarmy fails his roll.


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 Astmeister wrote:

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
It may get better when we have more powers to choose from.

This is indeed true. However, I doubt that there will be a super amazing power where you desperately need the +1.
I also believe that the new codex Tyranids is very far away and when it introduces new powers, the Maleceptor will likely be quite different from now. So this is a bit of fortune telling...

Of that I have no doubt

 Third_Age_of_Baggz wrote:


Thanks for the input! I've been wanting to try him out, but never know what best roll it's going to play in a Tyranid Fleet. My first attempt will be hopefully this week. My plan is to use Maleceptor, Swarmlord and a full unit of Tyrant Guard carried in via Tyrannocyte and hopefully roll a flank with them. Having the Maleceptor should provide both beatstick and backup onslaught should Swarmy fails his roll.

I hope you are aware of the fact that you will have to use 3 Tyrannocytes for your plan? This means you are dropping 1000 pts with just 3 units of which one (the swarmlord) is a reasonable fighter. Also in matched play you can only try to cast Onslaught once per turn.

Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

A1: I think a Prime is only ever justified, if you need another HQ choice for Detachment reasons and play a lot of Warriors. Maybe 9 are enough, maybe even 6 can be enough. The problem is that he had the niche of being the cheapest HQ, but now the Malanthrope is much better. And for the 100+ points you can easily buy 3-4 additonal Warriors, which will have more effect on the game than +1 to hit from the Prime.

A2: Venom cannon! It is actually quite good and pretty decent in pinging off wounds from mid to heavy vehicles, which we lack anyway. I would not take Spinefists unless you want to be very assaulty with the Warriors (also they are too expensive). Devourer is the cheap an nice version, however the Deathspitters are basically low range Heavy Bolters. That can be quite scary!

Warriors
I think the Warriors are very though to rate. They can be very important and usefull, but can also be totally unnecessary.
First of all I think they are not really usefull in the recently en-vogue all-assault armies. Secondly I think that Warriors are a allrounder unit in an army of specialists. This is a bit weird and makes them hard to integrate.
Since they are allrounders, I would also not try to specialize them. You could play them as pure assault or pure shooty units, but other units can do this better. So make them allrounders and give them a shooting weapon and Rending Claws or even Lash Whip + Boneswords (just 2 pts!). With these they can also fill the niche of having decent melee capabilities against MEQs and also can shoot with small anti-tank weapons and heavy Bolter equivalents (Deathspitter and Venom Canon).

So I would play them in the following way:
3 Warriors
1x Venom Canon, 2x Deathspitters, 3x Lash Whip + Bonesword, Adrenal Glands
94 pts

You can make them bigger, but this reduces your Synapse coverage, while increasing the melee capabilities. I am not sure if it is worth it.

I would probably use them in armies which are not all-assault, foot-slogging TAC armies and armies with a solid fire base of Exocrines, Biovores or Hive Guard. In all occassions the Malanthrope is still a big competitor for a unit of Warriors, but the Warriors have the advantage of enhancing your shooting. I would take both.

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Absolutely. Warriors with Deathspitters or Devourers are some of, if not THE most cost efficient source of Synapse in the Dex. If you have a Prime with them they start matching with Fleshborer Tyrannofex's for damage except without the movement restriction, and a much more really powerful combat. Warriors are an absolutely excellent unit. Just don't waste points on the heavy weapons, Venom Cannons are less effective than Deathspitters vs basically everything and the Strangler is even worse.

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Absolutely. Warriors with Deathspitters or Devourers are some of, if not THE most cost efficient source of Synapse in the Dex. If you have a Prime with them they start matching with Fleshborer Tyrannofex's for damage except without the movement restriction, and a much more really powerful combat. Warriors are an absolutely excellent unit. Just don't waste points on the heavy weapons, Venom Cannons are less effective than Deathspitters vs basically everything and the Strangler is even worse.

I disagree regarding the Venom Cannon. It is on average better against T6/7 and equally good against T8. Also you can still roll 3 shots, which makes it slightly better than the Deathspitter. Also it just costs 1 pt more than the Deathspitter and has double the range, which is often very important. I would always take as many as possible!

I am finding I am losing my 3 man squad of warriors first turn..

but then then carnifex do go across the board and smash face

So when I play I am thinking my lists needs some of the following elements:

Ranged support: This will almost always mean my 6 hiveguards, depending om point size. They will need synapse. Perhaps 3 bare warriors or a lone zoanthrope.

A strong core: Probably a tervigon with devilgaunts. Perhaps some counter charge units like warriors or ravaners. Perhaps a tyranofex. Perhaps a venomtrope.

Backline disruption: Probably a trygon/trygon prime, 2 mawlocks and something in the tunnel. Warriors or devilgaunts. I considered ravaners here as well, but if your oponent shoots away the synapse and assault the ravaners there will be trouble.

Objective grabbers: A couple of units of ripper swarms. I am unsure about these as it will almost always make me go last.

Idependent agents: I feel like the mawlock already fits this, but the mawlock lacks punch. Perhaps some dakkafexes.

That would be my general army, and i can scale it up and down based on points. Thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GodDamUser wrote:
I am finding I am losing my 3 man squad of warriors first turn..

but then then carnifex do go across the board and smash face

3 man squads of warriors can be good in smaller games. But in larger once I would keep then fairly cheap. Perhaps a venom cannon. The reason if you oponent wants to kill them he can.

Warriors can be better in larger groups as the weak once die out first.

 Niiai wrote:
So when I play I am thinking my lists needs some of the following elements:

Ranged support: This will almost always mean my 6 hiveguards, depending om point size. They will need synapse. Perhaps 3 bare warriors or a lone zoanthrope.

A strong core: Probably a tervigon with devilgaunts. Perhaps some counter charge units like warriors or ravaners. Perhaps a tyranofex. Perhaps a venomtrope.

Backline disruption: Probably a trygon/trygon prime, 2 mawlocks and something in the tunnel. Warriors or devilgaunts. I considered ravaners here as well, but if your oponent shoots away the synapse and assault the ravaners there will be trouble.

Objective grabbers: A couple of units of ripper swarms. I am unsure about these as it will almost always make me go last.

Idependent agents: I feel like the mawlock already fits this, but the mawlock lacks punch. Perhaps some dakkafexes.

That would be my general army, and i can scale it up and down based on points. Thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GodDamUser wrote:
I am finding I am losing my 3 man squad of warriors first turn..

but then then carnifex do go across the board and smash face

3 man squads of warriors can be good in smaller games. But in larger once I would keep then fairly cheap. Perhaps a venom cannon. The reason if you oponent wants to kill them he can.

Warriors can be better in larger groups as the weak once die out first.

Your planned armylist sounds reasonable and also quite nice as TAC. Of course you have to remember that the list is only suitable for objective grabbing. You cannot overrun most enemy lists with such a force and have to play objective based.
I would like to see a list!

Ablative Warriors are possible, but most often they seem like a waste of resources. In the end you can take a lot of units for cheap in the Tyranids arsenal, which can make a big impact on the game. Some more warriors as sacrifices are likely not super necessary. But I think it might be worth a try. At least more cheap Warriors make the unit more scary in melee and their shooting is also quite nice.

 Astmeister wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Absolutely. Warriors with Deathspitters or Devourers are some of, if not THE most cost efficient source of Synapse in the Dex. If you have a Prime with them they start matching with Fleshborer Tyrannofex's for damage except without the movement restriction, and a much more really powerful combat. Warriors are an absolutely excellent unit. Just don't waste points on the heavy weapons, Venom Cannons are less effective than Deathspitters vs basically everything and the Strangler is even worse.

I disagree regarding the Venom Cannon. It is on average better against T6/7 and equally good against T8. Also you can still roll 3 shots, which makes it slightly better than the Deathspitter. Also it just costs 1 pt more than the Deathspitter and has double the range, which is often very important. I would always take as many as possible!

And it can also do 1 shot. On average it rolls 2. But you are right, this one actually isn't that bad. I forgot that the true bad one is the Heavy Venom Cannon, not worth it over double Deathspitters

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Astmeister wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Absolutely. Warriors with Deathspitters or Devourers are some of, if not THE most cost efficient source of Synapse in the Dex. If you have a Prime with them they start matching with Fleshborer Tyrannofex's for damage except without the movement restriction, and a much more really powerful combat. Warriors are an absolutely excellent unit. Just don't waste points on the heavy weapons, Venom Cannons are less effective than Deathspitters vs basically everything and the Strangler is even worse.

I disagree regarding the Venom Cannon. It is on average better against T6/7 and equally good against T8. Also you can still roll 3 shots, which makes it slightly better than the Deathspitter. Also it just costs 1 pt more than the Deathspitter and has double the range, which is often very important. I would always take as many as possible!

And it can also do 1 shot. On average it rolls 2. But you are right, this one actually isn't that bad. I forgot that the true bad one is the Heavy Venom Cannon, not worth it over double Deathspitters

Yes, it is unfortunately bad. Though I even consider it for Fexes and even Walkrants, because we have so few alternatives for long ranged AT. Also they look cool... super big gun!

 Astmeister wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
So when I play I am thinking my lists needs some of the following elements:

Ranged support: This will almost always mean my 6 hiveguards, depending om point size. They will need synapse. Perhaps 3 bare warriors or a lone zoanthrope.

A strong core: Probably a tervigon with devilgaunts. Perhaps some counter charge units like warriors or ravaners. Perhaps a tyranofex. Perhaps a venomtrope.

Backline disruption: Probably a trygon/trygon prime, 2 mawlocks and something in the tunnel. Warriors or devilgaunts. I considered ravaners here as well, but if your oponent shoots away the synapse and assault the ravaners there will be trouble.

Objective grabbers: A couple of units of ripper swarms. I am unsure about these as it will almost always make me go last.

Idependent agents: I feel like the mawlock already fits this, but the mawlock lacks punch. Perhaps some dakkafexes.

That would be my general army, and i can scale it up and down based on points. Thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GodDamUser wrote:
I am finding I am losing my 3 man squad of warriors first turn..

but then then carnifex do go across the board and smash face

3 man squads of warriors can be good in smaller games. But in larger once I would keep then fairly cheap. Perhaps a venom cannon. The reason if you oponent wants to kill them he can.

Warriors can be better in larger groups as the weak once die out first.

Your planned armylist sounds reasonable and also quite nice as TAC. Of course you have to remember that the list is only suitable for objective grabbing. You cannot overrun most enemy lists with such a force and have to play objective based.
I would like to see a list!

Ablative Warriors are possible, but most often they seem like a waste of resources. In the end you can take a lot of units for cheap in the Tyranids arsenal, which can make a big impact on the game. Some more warriors as sacrifices are likely not super necessary. But I think it might be worth a try. At least more cheap Warriors make the unit more scary in melee and their shooting is also quite nice.

HQ:
Tervigon, massive scything tallons, stinger salvo 250
Tyranid prime, venom cannon, bone swords 113

9 tyranid warriors, 6 devourers, 3 venom cannon, 3 bonesword 243
20 Termagaunts, 10 Deathspitters 120
17 Termagaunts, 10 Deathspitters 108
3 ripper swarm 33
3 ripper swarm 33

Elite:
1 zoanthropes 40
6 3 hive guards, 6 impaler cannon 288

Heavy support:
Mawlock, dispencible maw, prehencile tail, 3 pairs of scything tallons 105
Mawlock, dispencible maw, prehencile tail, 3 pairs of scything tallons 105
Trygon Prime, bio-electric pulse with containment spines, 3 pairs of monstreus scything talons, toxinspike 211
Carnifex, bone mace, 4 devourers with brainleech worms 98

1747

The smaller unit of termagaunts goes in the Trygon, with the 2 mawlocks.

Tervigon, Prime, Termagaunts and Warriors walk up the table.

6 Hiveguards stick with the Zoanthrope. They might have to move at some point.

Carnifex wanders alone.

Ripper Swarms grab objectives.

It's a good enough list. Fun to play with all the different models. It is probably an alternative to the 'kill everything list'. I have no plan vs flyers.

 luke1705 wrote:
Just a thought guys - all of this talk is still welcome in the other thread. You're welcome to continue it here in the context you desire, but it certainly would contribute to all Tyranid armies.

In my opinion, it's probably better to stand united than divided. Even saying something as simple as "how might we accomplish this using no allies?" is a valid question that we did explore some pages back (spoiler alert: we didn't really come up with any awesome ideas, hence allies). But the passion to create a new thread is great and I'm sure would contribute to the original one.

TBH, I like having this in a separate thread. I am going to be running a pure Tyranid army since I have enough units left to buy to complete my Tyranids and I can't afford to support another faction since I also play CSM. Not to mention I have no desire to buy any AM stuff as it's not really my style. Tactics with allies, while great for a lot of people, just give me posts to slog through that don't hold much interest for me. I am still following the other thread to be sure, but I think this one may have more for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Astmeister wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

A1: I think a Prime is only ever justified, if you need another HQ choice for Detachment reasons and play a lot of Warriors. Maybe 9 are enough, maybe even 6 can be enough. The problem is that he had the niche of being the cheapest HQ, but now the Malanthrope is much better. And for the 100+ points you can easily buy 3-4 additonal Warriors, which will have more effect on the game than +1 to hit from the Prime.

A2: Venom cannon! It is actually quite good and pretty decent in pinging off wounds from mid to heavy vehicles, which we lack anyway. I would not take Spinefists unless you want to be very assaulty with the Warriors (also they are too expensive). Devourer is the cheap an nice version, however the Deathspitters are basically low range Heavy Bolters. That can be quite scary!

Warriors
I think the Warriors are very though to rate. They can be very important and usefull, but can also be totally unnecessary.
First of all I think they are not really usefull in the recently en-vogue all-assault armies. Secondly I think that Warriors are a allrounder unit in an army of specialists. This is a bit weird and makes them hard to integrate.
Since they are allrounders, I would also not try to specialize them. You could play them as pure assault or pure shooty units, but other units can do this better. So make them allrounders and give them a shooting weapon and Rending Claws or even Lash Whip + Boneswords (just 2 pts!). With these they can also fill the niche of having decent melee capabilities against MEQs and also can shoot with small anti-tank weapons and heavy Bolter equivalents (Deathspitter and Venom Canon).

So I would play them in the following way:
3 Warriors
1x Venom Canon, 2x Deathspitters, 3x Lash Whip + Bonesword, Adrenal Glands
94 pts

You can make them bigger, but this reduces your Synapse coverage, while increasing the melee capabilities. I am not sure if it is worth it.

I would probably use them in armies which are not all-assault, foot-slogging TAC armies and armies with a solid fire base of Exocrines, Biovores or Hive Guard. In all occassions the Malanthrope is still a big competitor for a unit of Warriors, but the Warriors have the advantage of enhancing your shooting. I would take both.

Man, did I build my Warriors all wrong when I got them.....

 Niiai wrote:


HQ:
Tervigon, massive scything tallons, stinger salvo 250
Tyranid prime, venom cannon, bone swords 113

9 tyranid warriors, 6 devourers, 3 venom cannon, 3 bonesword 243
20 Termagaunts, 10 Deathspitters 120
17 Termagaunts, 10 Deathspitters 108
3 ripper swarm 33
3 ripper swarm 33

Elite:
1 zoanthropes 40
6 3 hive guards, 6 impaler cannon 288

Heavy support:
Mawlock, dispencible maw, prehencile tail, 3 pairs of scything tallons 105
Mawlock, dispencible maw, prehencile tail, 3 pairs of scything tallons 105
Trygon Prime, bio-electric pulse with containment spines, 3 pairs of monstreus scything talons, toxinspike 211
Carnifex, bone mace, 4 devourers with brainleech worms 98

1747

The smaller unit of termagaunts goes in the Trygon, with the 2 mawlocks.

Tervigon, Prime, Termagaunts and Warriors walk up the table.

6 Hiveguards stick with the Zoanthrope. They might have to move at some point.

Carnifex wanders alone.

Ripper Swarms grab objectives.

It's a good enough list. Fun to play with all the different models. It is probably an alternative to the 'kill everything list'. I have no plan vs flyers.

That looks like fun, if you play reasonably casual games.
The Tyranid Prime cannot have a Venom Cannon though. Also I suggest that you always take full squads of Termagants, if you use the Tervigon. 17-20 can be killed way too easily and the enemy will do that, if he sees a Tervigon behind them! I also would split up the 6 Hive Guard into 2 units.


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 Battlesong wrote:
Man, did I build my Warriors all wrong when I got them.....

I don't think anyone ever build them with Lash Whip + Bonesword. But it is quite nice now. But you can still use rending claws instead. They are also fine and have certainly advantages. If you have the choice, I would still take the LS + BS. They fill a niche in Tyranid arsenal and rending claws are plenty available.
Also Warriors can be played very differently. You can even field 6-9 units with a mixture of melee and shooting. However, I think that your list has to be specifically designed for this to work. Because in normal tyranid rush armies, this is not really worth it.
In a list like the one upstairs... it might be good though. But these are certainly not tournament winning lists, but can be decent against a lot of things.

 Astmeister wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Battlesong wrote:
Man, did I build my Warriors all wrong when I got them.....

I don't think anyone ever build them with Lash Whip + Bonesword. But it is quite nice now. But you can still use rending claws instead. They are also fine and have certainly advantages. If you have the choice, I would still take the LS + BS. They fill a niche in Tyranid arsenal and rending claws are plenty available.
Also Warriors can be played very differently. You can even field 6-9 units with a mixture of melee and shooting. However, I think that your list has to be specifically designed for this to work. Because in normal tyranid rush armies, this is not really worth it.
In a list like the one upstairs... it might be good though. But these are certainly not tournament winning lists, but can be decent against a lot of things.

My Warriors are all over the place, though, I have a few with paired boneswords, a couple with deathspitters, one with LW/BS, and, I think, 4 with Venom Cannons. I also have a mix of the really old warriors with the square bases all the way to the newest kit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyway, I want to ask what loadout everyone is finding most advantageous on their Carnifexes? Do you go full CC, full dakka, or a mix of the 2?

Hive guards: It will be bad to split the hive guards into 2 units. They can split fire, and the more units the bigger the chances of going second.

Gaunts: I only have 20 of them with devourers. I have many regular once after 5th edition.

Warriors: I like the whip and bonesword, but taking them on all 3 or 9 warriors is to much. I would rather just take it on the one with the venom cannon.

Prime: I did not know the prime could not take a cannon. That makes him less exciting.

Dakkafex: What is the best guns to take on him? are some of them better cost to damage ratio?

Any suggestions for making the list i posted above more competetive?

 Battlesong wrote:

 Astmeister wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Battlesong wrote:
Man, did I build my Warriors all wrong when I got them.....

I don't think anyone ever build them with Lash Whip + Bonesword. But it is quite nice now. But you can still use rending claws instead. They are also fine and have certainly advantages. If you have the choice, I would still take the LS + BS. They fill a niche in Tyranid arsenal and rending claws are plenty available.
Also Warriors can be played very differently. You can even field 6-9 units with a mixture of melee and shooting. However, I think that your list has to be specifically designed for this to work. Because in normal tyranid rush armies, this is not really worth it.
In a list like the one upstairs... it might be good though. But these are certainly not tournament winning lists, but can be decent against a lot of things.

My Warriors are all over the place, though, I have a few with paired boneswords, a couple with deathspitters, one with LW/BS, and, I think, 4 with Venom Cannons. I also have a mix of the really old warriors with the square bases all the way to the newest kit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyway, I want to ask what loadout everyone is finding most advantageous on their Carnifexes? Do you go full CC, full dakka, or a mix of the 2?

For warriors, I am unconvinced that LWBS is that great. If I wanted my warriors to be in combat I'd probably just make them Shrikes (or maybe bring them with a Trygon). In that case I can see the point of sticking them on at least a few so they can attack if killed when charged. But only a few - I think it's rare you're going to be putting your synapse in a position to be eradicated in one go! On backfield shooters, like mine will usually be, I think keep em cheap is the mantra, as I expect them to die to shooting far more often than they make melee. That said, if I have the spare points, no reason not to, but there are other things I would prioritise there. Basically I think they're more points filler than auto-take imo.

For fexes I think melee variants are 100% outclassed by the stonecrusher. So unless you fancy converting one up I would advise putting at least one if not two sets of deathspitters on it. Personally I think I am leaning two with a thresher tail, but that version does somewhat need screening.

Belisted. Even in your backline senario it is not unlikely that something can get back there. Most armies have something that moves fast or can deep strike. In one of my games some chaos terminators teleported back there. In these senaries have a bone sword and whip for 2 points is not that bad.

That being said I do not think backline warriors are the best use of them outside of synapse. Are you running 3 warriors with 6 scything tallons?

 Niiai wrote:
Belisted. Even in your backline senario it is not unlikely that something can get back there. Most armies have something that moves fast or can deep strike. In one of my games some chaos terminators teleported back there. In these senaries have a bone sword and whip for 2 points is not that bad.

That being said I do not think backline warriors are the best use of them outside of synapse. Are you running 3 warriors with 6 scything tallons?

It's not vanishingly unlikely, no, but you should have bubble wrap for your synapse if you know there are deepstrikers around, or lock them out of dropping behind your warriors with positioning. I'd be interested to see some math on melee attacks from common deepstrikers from other armies, to see how many warriors they are likely to actually kill (then take that many LWBS). But no, if you can spare the points I agree, may as well LWBS. I'd just be inclined to take things like Bio-plasma on Fexes or bulk up squads first!

I am likely going to be doing 2xDev/DS (haven't decided), 1x VC on my backfield guys, with Scytal unless I have extra points.

I also think someone mentioned putting the LWBS on your VC guy in that squad - which imo is a bad idea, if only one/two gets killed you remove the DS first, so unless it's been shot down to just the VC guy already, he's not the one you want to be taking off first in melee.

All that said, I honestly don't especially like Warriors this edition - they are certainly fine, but as backfield synapse Malanthropes and Primes outclass them due to character and fill HQ slots for cheap; as melee threats Shrikes are imo superior. So they're a bit of a jack of all trades; not the most durable synapse, not the most quick and killy. I guess support fire with synapse in the package is the niche really, which is why I am leaning towards DS/VC on mine.

Can I get some advice from my Hive Fleet brethren. I have a very bizarre collection of Tyranid models and was wondering what you guys think my next few purchases should be to get to a semi-competitive level. Not in a NOVA/Gencon way but more local tourney wise. One caveat, no FW models.....no way I can afford that stuff. What I have:

2 Hive Tyrants One wit LW/BS and HVC, one with wings, but no other arms attached yet
1 Tervigon w/Crushing Claws
1 Broodlord
10 Warriors, various loadouts
34 Genestealers
41 Hormagaunts
25 Termagants, some w/devourers, but I don't remember how many
29 Gargoyles
1 Lictor (usually use as Deathleaper)
3 Zoanthropes
1 Biovore w/2 mines
1 Trygon
4 Carnifexes, 1 w/dual ST, 1 w/ST and Crushing Claws, 1 w/Claws and HVC, and 1 with 2 devourers and 2 open arm slots

As you can see, it's pretty much all over the place. Any advice is appreciated!

Benlisted wrote:


For warriors, I am unconvinced that LWBS is that great. If I wanted my warriors to be in combat I'd probably just make them Shrikes (or maybe bring them with a Trygon). In that case I can see the point of sticking them on at least a few so they can attack if killed when charged. But only a few - I think it's rare you're going to be putting your synapse in a position to be eradicated in one go! On backfield shooters, like mine will usually be, I think keep em cheap is the mantra, as I expect them to die to shooting far more often than they make melee. That said, if I have the spare points, no reason not to, but there are other things I would prioritise there. Basically I think they're more points filler than auto-take imo.

For fexes I think melee variants are 100% outclassed by the stonecrusher. So unless you fancy converting one up I would advise putting at least one if not two sets of deathspitters on it. Personally I think I am leaning two with a thresher tail, but that version does somewhat need screening.

First of all: LWBS is the same cost as rending claws. However LWBS is very niche in the army and quite good against MEQ, while RC is everywhere due to the ever present Genestealers.
Also in the backfield as a babysitter, the Warriors will probably go to combat against a lot of opponents. Just look at the deep striking Scion squads with 2-4 Plasma. Everyone plays them and they are pretty good against a solid backfield shooting bases made of Exocrine, Biovores, Hive Guard. Two of these units can even be hidden behind terrain and thus the AM player will want to drop Scions to burn them out of their hidding place.
And I am also pretty sure that the deep striking guys will not shoot at the Warriors when there are the aforementioned things in the backfield. Unlike the old days, you cannot shut the backfield of Nids down, just by killing the synapse. So if the Warriors are standing there with Scions closeby, you will probably try to eat them in melee. So why not take RC, LWBS or even double BS? SC are also okay, but against a lot of threads, the rest performs better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Niiai wrote:
Hive guards: It will be bad to split the hive guards into 2 units. They can split fire, and the more units the bigger the chances of going second.

Gaunts: I only have 20 of them with devourers. I have many regular once after 5th edition.

Warriors: I like the whip and bonesword, but taking them on all 3 or 9 warriors is to much. I would rather just take it on the one with the venom cannon.

Prime: I did not know the prime could not take a cannon. That makes him less exciting.

Dakkafex: What is the best guns to take on him? are some of them better cost to damage ratio?

Any suggestions for making the list i posted above more competetive?

The problem with 6 Hive Guards in a unit for me is that you cannot hide them properly. And thus you lose one of their great strengths.

I would play a Carnifex with 2x Deathspitter and Scy Tals. I do not like to loose his melee capabilities. Besides the damage potential from the Deathspitters is not nearly as exciting as they look on paper. I did a lot of maths on them and they are actually kind of meh. They seem to be good against light-medium vehicles, but the problem is that vehicles have almost three times the amount of wounds now. And against infantry the Dakkafex is also just mediocre, I think.
I would even play him with Heavy Venom Cannon, but I am a casual gamer anyway....

So I just had my first game with Tyranids and first game of 8th.

It wasn't a properly put together list it was just 1500p of what I had. I went up against Draigo paladins interceptors and 2 autocannon las dreads.

Tabled by Turn 3 everything wiped out.


Swarmlord - broodlord

20 genestealers
20 genestealers
10 genestealers
3 warriors (forgot I had another 3 but they did little but hold an objective anyway)

Exocrine - Trygon Prime

The only thing that performed well was swarmlords ability to catapult genestealers into combat and the Exocrine who even when crippled reliably made back its points in one turn of shooting. The rest of the Genestealers were to slow moving up the board, the stormbolters that seemed to have reroll everything thanks to Draigo demolished my squads, 40 shots at a time with reroll to hit so even overwatch was deleted multiple models

The rest of the genestealers are just too slow to advance on a gunline, and as he said even if I brought another exocrine, his dreads can sit 48 inches away and be shooting at them.

So I'm aiming for a 2000p list and quite frankly I'm a little stumped. I know running 50 genestealers just isn't that good an idea. The GK can shoot a gak ton of shots and then be pretty good in combat after that.

Use gaunts to keep his units from shooting while your stealers move up the table.

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
My issue with the Tyranofex is he almost always has to move. the Exocrine's extra range just helps him get the double shots easier.

As for spore mines, deploying them on their own is exactly how I use them. It eats up an opponent's unit's turn to get rid of them. It's a cheap way to keep a unit from moving and shooting for a turn.

For our fliers, I really do like them both, but haven't had a chance to play either of them yet. They seem like they would work far better in pairs than just single.

I feel the acid spray Tyrannofex is a great unit-aircraft weapon. No need to worry about the Hard to Hit rule and it hits at 18''. People are saying flamethrowers are good against flyers, this is that on steroids.

 Astmeister wrote:

 Third_Age_of_Baggz wrote:


Thanks for the input! I've been wanting to try him out, but never know what best roll it's going to play in a Tyranid Fleet. My first attempt will be hopefully this week. My plan is to use Maleceptor, Swarmlord and a full unit of Tyrant Guard carried in via Tyrannocyte and hopefully roll a flank with them. Having the Maleceptor should provide both beatstick and backup onslaught should Swarmy fails his roll.

I hope you are aware of the fact that you will have to use 3 Tyrannocytes for your plan? This means you are dropping 1000 pts with just 3 units of which one (the swarmlord) is a reasonable fighter. Also in matched play you can only try to cast Onslaught once per turn.

Oh yes, yes I do know I will be using three Tyrannocytes. 1172 pts to be exact.

As for casting, I wasn't aware of the only one time per power. So the rule of one is in 40K now too huh? Guess I'll need that book after all...

 Battlesong wrote:
Can I get some advice from my Hive Fleet brethren. I have a very bizarre collection of Tyranid models and was wondering what you guys think my next few purchases should be to get to a semi-competitive level. Not in a NOVA/Gencon way but more local tourney wise. One caveat, no FW models.....no way I can afford that stuff. What I have:

2 Hive Tyrants One wit LW/BS and HVC, one with wings, but no other arms attached yet
1 Tervigon w/Crushing Claws
1 Broodlord
10 Warriors, various loadouts
34 Genestealers
41 Hormagaunts
25 Termagants, some w/devourers, but I don't remember how many
29 Gargoyles
1 Lictor (usually use as Deathleaper)
3 Zoanthropes
1 Biovore w/2 mines
1 Trygon
4 Carnifexes, 1 w/dual ST, 1 w/ST and Crushing Claws, 1 w/Claws and HVC, and 1 with 2 devourers and 2 open arm slots

As you can see, it's pretty much all over the place. Any advice is appreciated!

I think you can make a good TAC list with that. It will not win tournaments, but perform well enough in casual games.
Exocrines are big winners in 8th edition. You should buy want of those. The amount of food walking stuff also points in the direction of a unit of venomthropes.


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Jaq Draco lives wrote:
So I just had my first game with Tyranids and first game of 8th.

It wasn't a properly put together list it was just 1500p of what I had. I went up against Draigo paladins interceptors and 2 autocannon las dreads.

Tabled by Turn 3 everything wiped out.


Swarmlord - broodlord

20 genestealers
20 genestealers
10 genestealers
3 warriors (forgot I had another 3 but they did little but hold an objective anyway)

Exocrine - Trygon Prime

The only thing that performed well was swarmlords ability to catapult genestealers into combat and the Exocrine who even when crippled reliably made back its points in one turn of shooting. The rest of the Genestealers were to slow moving up the board, the stormbolters that seemed to have reroll everything thanks to Draigo demolished my squads, 40 shots at a time with reroll to hit so even overwatch was deleted multiple models

The rest of the genestealers are just too slow to advance on a gunline, and as he said even if I brought another exocrine, his dreads can sit 48 inches away and be shooting at them.

So I'm aiming for a 2000p list and quite frankly I'm a little stumped. I know running 50 genestealers just isn't that good an idea. The GK can shoot a gak ton of shots and then be pretty good in combat after that.

Grey Knights might be tough, because they can shoot and melee. But both the exocrine and the trygon should be fantastic against them. I think you have a problem in just putting one unit of genestealers immediatly at the enemy via swarmy, then a second wave and the backfield. This is far too easy to counter. I think you should normally avoid first turn charges, unless you can tie up very vulnerable strong shooting units (where GK are nowhere close) or if you can do a lot of first turn charges at once.


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 benlac wrote:

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
My issue with the Tyranofex is he almost always has to move. the Exocrine's extra range just helps him get the double shots easier.

As for spore mines, deploying them on their own is exactly how I use them. It eats up an opponent's unit's turn to get rid of them. It's a cheap way to keep a unit from moving and shooting for a turn.

For our fliers, I really do like them both, but haven't had a chance to play either of them yet. They seem like they would work far better in pairs than just single.

I feel the acid spray Tyrannofex is a great unit-aircraft weapon. No need to worry about the Hard to Hit rule and it hits at 18''. People are saying flamethrowers are good against flyers, this is that on steroids.

Acid spray is good against flyers. However it can just shoot twice if you did not move (flyers will use that), they lose strength when the T-Fex is damaged and just have -1AP.
Overall I assume they are overrated against flyers, but since we do not have a lot of stuff against them anyway... why not?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW: I added a poll, about whether or not we should keep this thread.

If you vote for yes, it will stay as it is.
If you vote for no, we will stop this thread and combine the stuff with the "old" Tyranid Tactica thread again.

Explanation:
We opened this thread, because the feeling for some arose that it would be nice to have a thread just about Tyranids without any alliies. The reasoning was that the general thread was increasingly suggesting a lot of GSC and AM alliies.

Lol Astmeister you really know your gak because that is exactly what happened.

The problem with trying to pull that ripcord and get it all together is that he can gate up to my troops with virtually everything and delete them and those dreads really put the hurt down on big wound creatures (12 wounds is nothing)

That being said when he did hit the exocrine, at 3 wounds it still killed 6 marines in one shot despite the lower BS which obviously hurt him a lot given there wasn't that many units on the board.

Just gave me a heck of a lot to think about.

I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.

 Niiai wrote:
I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.

Thank you! I am currently setting up a GSC/AM/Tyranid list but it doesn't belong in a tyranid discussion when its literally new codex new rules we should at least try and figure out some codex only armies.

 Niiai wrote:
I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.

Literally, the only person in the entire Tyranids thread to even bring up Hydra's, is me. The only other person to comment on them, Luke, said they wouldn't work. And I haven't been answering "every question" with "get Hydras", I only posted my own list including them, right next to a pure all Nid list, and said I wasn't sure which one would perform better SPECIFICALLY in a meta with Stormraven spam. A list that I've since moved on from. Because I too like to discuss this game and my armies.



If you are going to complain about something, make sure it actually exists, because that's not even close to an accurate description of that thread at all.

I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.

While that is not the current opinion on the Tyranid thread, it is an inevebilaty. The competetive threads tends to push towards playing the best units in large quanteties. The best unit is aøways the one who is under costed for what you get. The way spamming works in warhammer you need to build in redundancy in your list to stop your opponents spam.

We are already mapping out the 'best units' in the tyranid codex. Best unit to kill unit x. Best unit to kill unit x per points invested. Se the warrior vs carnifex disucssion where devilgaunts came out on top.

Then we start comparing unit x from our list with unit x from cultist list. Already the consetus is that regular genestealers are good (sucks to be you ravaners) but that genestealers from the cultist list is just better because of the ambush. Already lists are sugested where you splash for cultist ambush genestealers.

Then the FAQ came in where the cultist can take imperial guard (astra something?) units, meaning we start scouting a 3rd codex for a good unit.

Next some tournament reports will start coming in. Storm raven spam + gulliman will do good. Hydras will be sugested as a counter. The regular nid codex does currently not have any good flyers.

And even if 'I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.' is not literarly true, I never meant it to be. I meant it as a methaphore as all of the units in our codex will be compared to two other codexes as well. I will not be buying 3 different codexes. I will not buy any IG units. I will not buy any cult units. I have a lot of nids from 5th edition. I want to play with these. I do not want suggestions that I should get unit X from such and such because it is a system of bad internal balance. If I wanted that, I would be playing a different game with better game balance, like Mtg. Heck even heartstone has better internal balance then GW. I play my nids to have fun, although I do like to play a good army.

So to summarice, and read this methaphorically Shuppet:

I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.

 Niiai wrote:
I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.

While that is not the current opinion on the Tyranid thread, it is an inevebilaty. The competetive threads tends to push towards playing the best units in large quanteties. The best unit is aøways the one who is under costed for what you get. The way spamming works in warhammer you need to build in redundancy in your list to stop your opponents spam.

We are already mapping out the 'best units' in the tyranid codex. Best unit to kill unit x. Best unit to kill unit x per points invested. Se the warrior vs carnifex disucssion where devilgaunts came out on top.

Then we start comparing unit x from our list with unit x from cultist list. Already the consetus is that regular genestealers are good (sucks to be you ravaners) but that genestealers from the cultist list is just better because of the ambush. Already lists are sugested where you splash for cultist ambush genestealers.

Then the FAQ came in where the cultist can take imperial guard (astra something?) units, meaning we start scouting a 3rd codex for a good unit.

Next some tournament reports will start coming in. Storm raven spam + gulliman will do good. Hydras will be sugested as a counter. The regular nid codex does currently not have any good flyers.

And even if 'I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.' is not literarly true, I never meant it to be. I meant it as a methaphore as all of the units in our codex will be compared to two other codexes as well. I will not be buying 3 different codexes. I will not buy any IG units. I will not buy any cult units. I have a lot of nids from 5th edition. I want to play with these. I do not want suggestions that I should get unit X from such and such because it is a system of bad internal balance. If I wanted that, I would be playing a different game with better game balance, like Mtg. Heck even heartstone has better internal balance then GW. I play my nids to have fun, although I do like to play a good army.

So to summarice, and read this methaphorically Shuppet:

I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.

the fact that you think it's an "inevitability" when it's been brought up by one person, responded to by one other, and agreed upon as both as a bad option and will likely not even be mentioned again, is kind of interesting. Do you know something we don't, or are you just doom saying for the hell of it?


What you don't want is a thread where allies are allowed to be considered. That's fine. What you portrayed, was a thread where all we are doing is discussing which AM units to take to be competitive, which is far from the truth. The thread has over 1100+ posts in it. To my knowledge, TWO people to date have talked about which specific AM units to include.


"every answer is get Hydras" lol

Look up the word methaphor in a dictionary because you stil do not know what it means.

If not hydras then something else. There is always a unit undercosted, particurarly if you can choose from 3 codexes. See my example about nid genestealers vs cult genestealers.

 Niiai wrote:
Look up the word methaphor in a dictionary because you stil do not know what it means.

If not hydras then something else. There is always a unit undercosted, particurarly if you can choose from 3 codexes. See my example about nid genestealers vs cult genestealers.

Which is as I said. You don't want a thread where the discussion of allies is an option. Which is fine, this is what you have now. There is zero need to imply that all we do in there is tell everyone to spam Hydra's, whether "metaphorically" or not, is utter nonsense.

I liked it better when you two were arguing over at the OTHER thread! Leave this one alone!

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
So I just had my first game with Tyranids and first game of 8th.

It wasn't a properly put together list it was just 1500p of what I had. I went up against Draigo paladins interceptors and 2 autocannon las dreads.

Tabled by Turn 3 everything wiped out.

So I'm aiming for a 2000p list and quite frankly I'm a little stumped. I know running 50 genestealers just isn't that good an idea. The GK can shoot a gak ton of shots and then be pretty good in combat after that.

GK are tough. So are custodes. Broodlords are nice because they can't be targeted and can do mortal wounds. Your idea with the gene stealers was a fine one, but because you can't cult ambush, you need Trygons. It's kind of like "no child left behind", but for gene stealers.

Trygons can be decent at killing elite infantry since they typically wound on 3's, and they're not bad against vehicles, even though the wound on 5's because they have so many attacks. But a squad of GK will shred through them. D3 damage is rough. Not as rough as instant death used to be, but still not good for Mr. Trygon.

GK are actually pretty vulnerable to volume of fire. A tyrannoctye or the Tyrranofex with the billion shot gun wouldn't be bad. A Tervigon spawning a bunch of Gants would be even better. Grab a blob of 30 with say 10 devourers. Replace the stock ones as they die. Would recommend even "reserving" a squad or two to let the tervigon spawn some more as the game goes on.


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 Niiai wrote:


So to summarize:

I would like a thread where every awnser is not 'Get Hydras'. So yes, keep the two threads.

I think we're probably beating a dead horse at this point. This thread exists. If people are going to make meaningful contributions to Tyranid Tactics, that's great. Glad it helps people. If its purpose is to keep complaining about other people using allies....not really my cup of tea.

That's actually the problem I have seen with too many monstrous creatures. It's too easy to pick them out and hit them with multiple wounding weapons. I think a mix of units almost always works better. Some of the big guys, some of the little guys, some melee and some shooting.

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
That's actually the problem I have seen with too many monstrous creatures. It's too easy to pick them out and hit them with multiple wounding weapons. I think a mix of units almost always works better. Some of the big guys, some of the little guys, some melee and some shooting.

This is how GW intends you to play the game. If your opponent is going to play the game the same way, you're totally right. But this is the essence of the divide between players who say "I want a competitive list", where competitive to them means having roughly a 50% chance of beating their opponent and players who say "I want to play a list that can do well at a tournament"

The issue is that at the upper tournament level, you're not going to do well with an army like you described.

For example, say your opponent has 10 lascannons in his army. I would expect a well-rounded list to have somewhere in that neighborhood of anti tank weapons. What if you don't bring any monstrous creatures? What does he shoot at? Maybe some hive guard or a lictor. What if you don't bring any of those even? What if all of your models are either single wound or are characters that can't be targeted?

Suddenly, your opponent's lascannons are just really overpriced heavy bolters. The efficiency of many of his weapons goes down drastically.

This is why genestealers are so good right now. They have an invulnerable save, so any weapon that should ignore their armor save is just paying a bunch of points to be a really expensive bolter.

I'm not saying "go forth and buy Genestealers". But this is the essence of why spam works - not because those units are super OP OP (it helps if they are obviously). But take the storm raven list, for example. An individual or even two storm ravens? Eh. I've got lascannons for that (I mean we don't but most armies have something like that that kills tanks, whether they fly or not). Suddenly, though, even if I kill one, there's 4 more where those came from and they can kill all of my heavy weapons that threaten them. It's actually a list building strategy called redundancy. If you have 1 unit that can deal with flyers, and say you go second and they kill that unit. Well, then you've got a problem.

TLDR: Buy more Hydras

In all seriousness, though, just make sure that your list has redundancy. You don't need 5 of every unit, but you need to make sure that you don't just have 1 unit that can kill tanks, or just 1 unit that can kill terminators, etc. It's even worse if that 1 unit is the only unit that can do both of those things then you're really toast if it dies.

I noticed this today with Termagants
They do not all have to have the same weapon. So if you only got 20 with devourers, that's fine, just add in 10 with fleshboars. You save some points and get some cannon fodder.
I like to pop them out of a Trygon Prime hole. But running up tthe board with fleshboar or spike rifle fodder mixed in can save some points.

In fact, pretty much all Tryanid units can take a mix of weapons. So its probably worth it to throw in some models with the cheapest gear. Like in a warrior squad, always have a model with 2 Scything talons whos job is to take the first salvo of shooting wounds.

----------------------

I'll be following this thread because the other one was started at begining of June before 8th edition was released - so annoying to have to read through rumor/spoiler information that gets the rules wrong. Its bad enough that there is already a post in this thread with a guy trying to equip his termagants with deathspitters.

---------------------

Note: Doing comparisons to genestealer cults is fine because obviously different strategies and lists get some insight like "if you run all infantry the go with GSC because then you get ambush", basically like the post above this one has stated.


But if you want to full on talk about GSC then its best to go to that thread.

 luke1705 wrote:

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
That's actually the problem I have seen with too many monstrous creatures. It's too easy to pick them out and hit them with multiple wounding weapons. I think a mix of units almost always works better. Some of the big guys, some of the little guys, some melee and some shooting.

This is how GW intends you to play the game. If your opponent is going to play the game the same way, you're totally right. But this is the essence of the divide between players who say "I want a competitive list", where competitive to them means having roughly a 50% chance of beating their opponent and players who say "I want to play a list that can do well at a tournament"

The issue is that at the upper tournament level, you're not going to do well with an army like you described.

For example, say your opponent has 10 lascannons in his army. I would expect a well-rounded list to have somewhere in that neighborhood of anti tank weapons. What if you don't bring any monstrous creatures? What does he shoot at? Maybe some hive guard or a lictor. What if you don't bring any of those even? What if all of your models are either single wound or are characters that can't be targeted?

Suddenly, your opponent's lascannons are just really overpriced heavy bolters. The efficiency of many of his weapons goes down drastically.

This is why genestealers are so good right now. They have an invulnerable save, so any weapon that should ignore their armor save is just paying a bunch of points to be a really expensive bolter.

I'm not saying "go forth and buy Genestealers". But this is the essence of why spam works - not because those units are super OP OP (it helps if they are obviously). But take the storm raven list, for example. An individual or even two storm ravens? Eh. I've got lascannons for that (I mean we don't but most armies have something like that that kills tanks, whether they fly or not). Suddenly, though, even if I kill one, there's 4 more where those came from and they can kill all of my heavy weapons that threaten them. It's actually a list building strategy called redundancy. If you have 1 unit that can deal with flyers, and say you go second and they kill that unit. Well, then you've got a problem.

TLDR: Buy more Hydras

In all seriousness, though, just make sure that your list has redundancy. You don't need 5 of every unit, but you need to make sure that you don't just have 1 unit that can kill tanks, or just 1 unit that can kill terminators, etc. It's even worse if that 1 unit is the only unit that can do both of those things then you're really toast if it dies.

Imho you are right and not right at the same time.
It is very good to bring everything in redundancy. Your example with something killing tanks and killing terminators is fine. But you cannot bring 2-3 unit which can handle all of this like terminators, tanks, flyers, mass infantry. At least you cannot do that with spamming any tyranid units. That is why I think that all-in Genestealer armies will fail at every tournament at some point. (with all in I mean 75%+ of GS)
The other problem is that some armies have so amazing models, which can handle literally everything at once that they can do this tactics. 5 Stormravens is such a thing: They can kill everything from Conscripts to terminators to Knights. And they are very hard to kill themselves.
However, I again do not think that this is valid for Tyranids. A more mixed approach for them will be better. It also seems like jifel is also bringing a rather mixed force with heavy GS, some Termagants and shooting stuff. And he apparently knows how to play tournaments. It would be nice, if he could enlighten us at some point about his list...

Remark:
I think that Niiai did not want to bash the alliies guys in the first place, but wanted to simply give a reason why he voted for yes? But I might be wrong...
So let's focus on tyranid tactics and not fence fighting for once, okay?

This is hilarious Shuppet can't even let it go in this thread. Dear lord man you have a problem.

Luke I think you are right. More Trygons but even then, not sure I'd make it work.

One thing I would say is the Exocrine even though not that tough in the face of Las Cannons with 3 wounds STILL was taking out marines. It was the only thing in that list that really worked and when he doesn't have that many units he can't afford to be taking wounds like that was slinging out. The deployment can hurt you with 36 range but - was still the MVP in that match so two would have been great. That is the only decision I'm sure of in a pure Tyranid list.

The Termegant/tervigon seems like a solid really annoying thing to fight against and I think putting down 30 wounds is going to trouble a lot of people but the GK using GOI could have done it. Especially combined with autocannon dreads putting down 14 wounds or something BUT...if they do that they aren't shooting at anything else and that infantry is then exposed to the exocrines.

That might be a possibility but I'm not sure how it would fit in with any kind of list synergy.

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
This is hilarious Shuppet can't even let it go in this thread. Dear lord man you have a problem.

Luke I think you are right. More Trygons but even then, not sure I'd make it work.

One thing I would say is the Exocrine even though not that tough in the face of Las Cannons with 3 wounds STILL was taking out marines. It was the only thing in that list that really worked and when he doesn't have that many units he can't afford to be taking wounds like that was slinging out. The deployment can hurt you with 36 range but - was still the MVP in that match so two would have been great. That is the only decision I'm sure of in a pure Tyranid list.

The Termegant/tervigon seems like a solid really annoying thing to fight against and I think putting down 30 wounds is going to trouble a lot of people but the GK using GOI could have done it. Especially combined with autocannon dreads putting down 14 wounds or something BUT...if they do that they aren't shooting at anything else and that infantry is then exposed to the exocrines.

That might be a possibility but I'm not sure how it would fit in with any kind of list synergy.

from what I've seen, he was not the one continueing it in here... drop this pettiness, insults like that are not welcome on Dakka.

 ShredderShards wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
This is hilarious Shuppet can't even let it go in this thread. Dear lord man you have a problem.

Luke I think you are right. More Trygons but even then, not sure I'd make it work.

One thing I would say is the Exocrine even though not that tough in the face of Las Cannons with 3 wounds STILL was taking out marines. It was the only thing in that list that really worked and when he doesn't have that many units he can't afford to be taking wounds like that was slinging out. The deployment can hurt you with 36 range but - was still the MVP in that match so two would have been great. That is the only decision I'm sure of in a pure Tyranid list.

The Termegant/tervigon seems like a solid really annoying thing to fight against and I think putting down 30 wounds is going to trouble a lot of people but the GK using GOI could have done it. Especially combined with autocannon dreads putting down 14 wounds or something BUT...if they do that they aren't shooting at anything else and that infantry is then exposed to the exocrines.

That might be a possibility but I'm not sure how it would fit in with any kind of list synergy.

from what I've seen, he was not the one continueing it in here... drop this pettiness, insults like that are not welcome on Dakka.

We left that thread, why is he here? It was a throwaway comment that didn't need to spawn off again but still relevant when we had a poll running on whether to keep this thread. Is it not enough that people wanted Tyranid only threads created a new one? Should this one get shut down as well? Are we not allowed to have a separate thread? Looks like it.


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Not that I see the need for a poll, if the thread is no good it will die of its own accord.

Jaq Draco lives wrote:

 ShredderShards wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
This is hilarious Shuppet can't even let it go in this thread. Dear lord man you have a problem.

Luke I think you are right. More Trygons but even then, not sure I'd make it work.

One thing I would say is the Exocrine even though not that tough in the face of Las Cannons with 3 wounds STILL was taking out marines. It was the only thing in that list that really worked and when he doesn't have that many units he can't afford to be taking wounds like that was slinging out. The deployment can hurt you with 36 range but - was still the MVP in that match so two would have been great. That is the only decision I'm sure of in a pure Tyranid list.

The Termegant/tervigon seems like a solid really annoying thing to fight against and I think putting down 30 wounds is going to trouble a lot of people but the GK using GOI could have done it. Especially combined with autocannon dreads putting down 14 wounds or something BUT...if they do that they aren't shooting at anything else and that infantry is then exposed to the exocrines.

That might be a possibility but I'm not sure how it would fit in with any kind of list synergy.

from what I've seen, he was not the one continueing it in here... drop this pettiness, insults like that are not welcome on Dakka.

We left that thread, why is he here? It was a throwaway comment that didn't need to spawn off again but still relevant when we had a poll running on whether to keep this thread. Is it not enough that people wanted Tyranid only threads created a new one? Should this one get shut down as well? Are we not allowed to have a separate thread? Looks like it.


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Not that I see the need for a poll, if the thread is no good it will die of its own accord.

I'm one of the main people who said to make this thread. Since this thread went up I've been in here both reading AND contributing.

I responded to a completely unnecessary sideways comment made in here that was utterly incorrect, and now I'M the one who "can't let it go"? And now you are throwing personal insults at me?

You are so clearly biased and are just being toxic about this no matter what, this is three threads running now. You literally entered the last thread just to tell people that if they are going to play competitively they should just quit the game. What is the matter with you dude? Wish we could just discuss the game but apparently that's too much to expect from certain members of this site.

Can we stop it with the meta posts? There are two threads. If you wanne discuss it make a 3rd thread doscussing it in the general forum. In the meantime lets talk tacticz.

I was wondering how peoole feel on target saturations. Is it a good for idea to bring a nidzilla list or a non MC list to negate regular weapons or multiwound weapons? In the non MC list you can just grab primes with adrenal glands as your synapse. Just pile up on gaunts of both kinds and garagoyles. Just watch what those lascannons can do then.

Reading the comments from a 3rd party perspective.

SHUPPET comes off as reasonable

Jaq Draco Lives comes off as toxic, I have no idea why you've taken personal offense to everything SHUPPET says.

I'd honestly be embarrassed at some of the stuff you've posted.

@Niiai while it's all good to tell people to stop with nonsense and get on topic, you should lead by example. Not have your say then forbid others from having theirs. Not to mention the hyperbole in your comments is a little ridiculous.

If any of you actually want to stay on topic in either of these threads it's easy. Don't reply to the off topic post, ignore them. They'll die of there own accord.

For target saturation you definitely want a mix. Nids rightfully so once again have the cheapest MCs in the game. We can bring lots of big bugs and little ones in the one list. I'm having a lot of success with throwaway 20 man Hormagaunt squads, DS Trygons w/ warriors and a Scythed Hierodule with SL in the backfield.

People tunnel vision hard on a Hierodule, with SL it can move 36'' a turn + a 3d6 minus the lowest roll charge. No one bubble wraps perfectly and it can move over infantry. Trygons are insane at melee in their own right. They may be squishy but no one is shooting at them with a Hierodule in their face.

nvm


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I'm not posting anymore off topic so let's drop it. As I did on the other thread

After seeing how easy it is to strip wounds I'm of two minds on the dimachron

The dimachaeron is good but I feel that you really need to catalyst him and Swarmlord slingshot him into combat so he can get his 5++ ASAP. Otherwise, he's just another sad Trygon with too few wounds and no save against the stuff that wants to kill him. That being said, once you HAVE the 5++ and FNP rocking, then you're really cooking with salami.

New weird idea against Stormraven spam

Heirophant
2x 10 Termagants

Could work on a team tournament, to have a counter against knights and the Stormraven spam.

Some tournaments are talking about banning models with 30+ wounds. I think it would be unlikely that most events would allow a Hierophant at 2k. And you're correct that it would only work in a team event like that. Taking that to a tournament would likely result in you going winless.

Honestly, the Hierophant is not about winning, it is about having a lot of fun in the process.

 luke1705 wrote:
The dimachaeron is good but I feel that you really need to catalyst him and Swarmlord slingshot him into combat so he can get his 5++ ASAP. Otherwise, he's just another sad Trygon with too few wounds and no save against the stuff that wants to kill him. That being said, once you HAVE the 5++ and FNP rocking, then you're really cooking with salami.

Having just played a Dimachaeron against a Primaris+Termie list, I am really not feeling him. I managed the optimal situation of getting him into melee T1 almost unscathed, and then getting the Invuln up. However, he failed to even eat a whole squad of Primaris, then got tied up and whittled down by Storm Shield termies, against which he did very little. I feel like 6 attacks, even hitting on 2+s and wounding likely on 2-3, is frankly not enough, he can only kill a max of 6 models and the sort of multiwound stuff he wants to charge is likely going to have a decent invuln. But even if it doesn't, he only has -2 AP and he might end up rolling a 1 on the D3 and not even killing a primaris. I feel like what you pay for is the speed - the 12" is certainly nice, but he just isn't durable enough, nor killy enough, I found.

 Niiai wrote:
Can we stop it with the meta posts? There are two threads. If you wanne discuss it make a 3rd thread doscussing it in the general forum. In the meantime lets talk tacticz.

I was wondering how peoole feel on target saturations. Is it a good for idea to bring a nidzilla list or a non MC list to negate regular weapons or multiwound weapons? In the non MC list you can just grab primes with adrenal glands as your synapse. Just pile up on gaunts of both kinds and garagoyles. Just watch what those lascannons can do then.

I think that something like Nidzilla and all-in infantry does not work as good as before.

Nidzilla was hurt by the fact that you can often wound the monsters on 5+ with ordinary guns. Also the anti-tank weapons like LasCans are very good against them and can kill a Carnifex in two shots. Besides the Fexes got cheaper, but also a Dakkafex is much worse now and the other monsters are quite expensive.

All-in infantry can imho just work with a lot of Genestealers and other 1 wound models. But it is not good when you have some multi wound infantery like Hive Guard and such. You will normally want to have plenty of them, but they are also easy prey for the AT weapons. So you do not cancel the effectivness of the AT weaponry at alll.

Benlisted wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
The dimachaeron is good but I feel that you really need to catalyst him and Swarmlord slingshot him into combat so he can get his 5++ ASAP. Otherwise, he's just another sad Trygon with too few wounds and no save against the stuff that wants to kill him. That being said, once you HAVE the 5++ and FNP rocking, then you're really cooking with salami.

Having just played a Dimachaeron against a Primaris+Termie list, I am really not feeling him. I managed the optimal situation of getting him into melee T1 almost unscathed, and then getting the Invuln up. However, he failed to even eat a whole squad of Primaris, then got tied up and whittled down by Storm Shield termies, against which he did very little. I feel like 6 attacks, even hitting on 2+s and wounding likely on 2-3, is frankly not enough, he can only kill a max of 6 models and the sort of multiwound stuff he wants to charge is likely going to have a decent invuln. But even if it doesn't, he only has -2 AP and he might end up rolling a 1 on the D3 and not even killing a primaris. I feel like what you pay for is the speed - the 12" is certainly nice, but he just isn't durable enough, nor killy enough, I found.

Just what I feared. He might be good situationally but just not good enough. I'm really only feeling the love for multi wound models that are reliable and/or carry buffs (as mathammer wise I don't think they are durable enough). Exocrine and perhaps Tervigon, Swarmlord, Biovore (for the cheapness not really a monster but a pain to remove)

What do people think of the swarmlord with tyrant guards? With the swarmlord you can use trygons, have them pop up, and then use the swarmlords abilaty to move the trygon, and then make a charge. Seems like a very good way to make a big threath bubble. The trygon is at it's best when it is in CC with the opponent at full wounds. If you winn the fight at the end of his CC step you can probably charge something else.

Edit:

Come to think of it, raveners with rending tallons might be better for this. They have a move of 12. And they cna multi charge.

Swarmlord moves 9, runs at least 1, has a range of 6 for his abilaty (so say 5 because you have to be within 6) raveners has a move of 12, and then you can charge at least 2, and you need to be 1 inch close.

That is a threat range of at least 30. Seems quite good.

Jaq Draco lives wrote:


Just what I feared. He might be good situationally but just not good enough. I'm really only feeling the love for multi wound models that are reliable and/or carry buffs (as mathammer wise I don't think they are durable enough). Exocrine and perhaps Tervigon, Swarmlord, Biovore (for the cheapness not really a monster but a pain to remove)

I think you're selling the Dimachaeron a little short. He's definitely good. If I was grading units and GSC genestealers were an A+, the Dimachaeron would definitely still be a solid B+, maybe an A-. You really can't get all that much more for only 200 points. I think the trap is sending him in unsupported. If he's the only thing up the table after turn 1, yeah he's going to get focused down and die, invuln or no invuln, FNP or no FNP. FWIW though, I'm ok with my opponent dedicating themselves to killing a T6 3+/5++, FNP'd model with a bucket of wounds.

He can't deal with 3++ models but nothing in the game can really do that effectively. It's best to send in cheap units with volume of fire, ideally with -1 rend against terminators specifically, so they're taking their 3++, but we're not wasting more rend on them.

Anyone know some really cheap units that have a ton of close combat attacks that have -1 rend on their basic attacks who could also maybe even take an invulnerable save against terminators?

Nah guess we don't have anything that could deal with them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Niiai wrote:


Come to think of it, raveners with rending tallons might be better for this. They have a move of 12. And they cna multi charge.

Swarmlord moves 9, runs at least 1, has a range of 6 for his abilaty (so say 5 because you have to be within 6) raveners has a move of 12, and then you can charge at least 2, and you need to be 1 inch close.

That is a threat range of at least 30. Seems quite good.

It is. I've done the same thing with Genestealers, but if I were running Raveners, I would absolutely use Swarmlord on them. As long as you can deploy Swarmlord after whatever you want the raveners to charge, you'll get it. And even if you can't get swarmy in range (hammer and anvil or something) it's still a 9" charge. Save a command point for those boys and you'll make it roughly 50% of the time.

Or you could be like me and make 3 8" charge rolls in the same turn, 1 even using a command point re-roll

The reason for raveners over genstealers is because they have deep strike. This lets you be garantert a charge in a much bigger degree,

Thoughts on a Walking Tyrant? Is anyone considering them and what weapons would you take? What would you use it for?

I have no firsthand experience with a walking tyrant. But I would recomand some form of mellee weapon. It is also one of few BS3+ in our army, so maybe a strangelthorn or heavy venom cannon?

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Looking back at this one, I know I love having the prime involved, but my games have been fairly small so far. Prime stays near warriors, broodlord stays near genestealers, and that's about it.

But what do you guys think is typically better if taking the above mentioned 9 warriors.. 1 unit of 9, or 3 units of 3? Is more in the group usually better or worse?

1 group of 9 is better then 3 groups of 3. They are descent in mellee so you are not worried about them getting charged. When they start dying you can remove the bare moddels first, meaning special weapons survive for loger.

Tarendal wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Looking back at this one, I know I love having the prime involved, but my games have been fairly small so far. Prime stays near warriors, broodlord stays near genestealers, and that's about it.

But what do you guys think is typically better if taking the above mentioned 9 warriors.. 1 unit of 9, or 3 units of 3? Is more in the group usually better or worse?

Niiai wrote:1 group of 9 is better then 3 groups of 3. They are descent in mellee so you are not worried about them getting charged. When they start dying you can remove the bare moddels first, meaning special weapons survive for loger.

In this edition I think often bigger units are better. However, unless you have a quite immobile army you will often end up splitting your army up, and 3x3 units can cover a huge deal more ground in terms of synapse. Also easier to claim cover, and to hide them behind LoS terrain.

Astmeister (or others) would you give me your thoughts on Biovore.

I think Deepstriking is a big thing in this addition. And Tyranids lack of range. Now I know their damage output isn't great, guaranteed. Sometimes they'll pull good but not always, guaranteed disruptions or wounds. If targeting elite infantry I think they will pull their points back.

But a unit of 4 for a paltry 132 points will cover any backfield deployment and at T4 with 4 wounds are a little bit of a pain to get rid of.

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Astmeister (or others) would you give me your thoughts on Biovore.

I think Deepstriking is a big thing in this addition. And Tyranids lack of range. Now I know their damage output isn't great, guaranteed. Sometimes they'll pull good but not always, guaranteed disruptions or wounds. If targeting elite infantry I think they will pull their points back.

But a unit of 4 for a paltry 132 points will cover any backfield deployment and at T4 with 4 wounds are a little bit of a pain to get rid of.

Max unit size for Biovores is 3 I think.
My short review for them: Biovores are absolutely fantastic!
Long review can come later if anyone wants to know why i think that.

How are biovores fantastic? I would like to know more.

 Astmeister wrote:
Thoughts on a Walking Tyrant? Is anyone considering them and what weapons would you take? What would you use it for?

The strategy changes. With the BS 3 its great to give him a cannon. But since he isn't a flyer he can't fly away from combat and shoot. So you basically give him long range cannon, and stay out of deny witch so you can cast your 2 psychic powers. If you give him a second shooty weapon then you might as well give him fly. So you give him a melee weapon and charge in for support or to mop stuff up.
Not that great considering the cost.

 Astmeister wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Astmeister (or others) would you give me your thoughts on Biovore.

I think Deepstriking is a big thing in this addition. And Tyranids lack of range. Now I know their damage output isn't great, guaranteed. Sometimes they'll pull good but not always, guaranteed disruptions or wounds. If targeting elite infantry I think they will pull their points back.

But a unit of 4 for a paltry 132 points will cover any backfield deployment and at T4 with 4 wounds are a little bit of a pain to get rid of.

Max unit size for Biovores is 3 I think.
My short review for them: Biovores are absolutely fantastic!
Long review can come later if anyone wants to know why i think that.

Biovores work best if your strategy gives you the opportunity to make the most out of the floating mines. If you can prevent the enemy to use cheap lasgun/bolter fire to take down the mines, then the either have to use big guns to take them down or take a floating mine in the face. Also getting an enemy unit in close combat prevent them from using overwatch shooting against each individual mine.

Biovores
At the moment Biovores can shoot without needing line of sight and do Mortal Wounds when they hit.
They share the place with Hive Guard of being the only artillery in the Tyranid arsenal. Where the Hive Guard is the raw power version of artillery, the Biovores are much more specialized and sneaky.
Unlike all previous editions the Biovores are not good against weak infantry swarms. Rather they are very good at reliably pinging off some important wounds from very heavy targets or other artillery tanks or heavy weapons teams (preferably Devastators).
So I often read that they do too few damage making only 1-2 on average. But they can put this nearly anywhere on the field and extremely reliable without being afraid of any retaliation! Also if you compare them with most other units from the Tyranids, which unit can really say that it puts down reliably 1-2 wounds off even the hardest targets like Magnus or an Imperial Knight? For me the way to use them: You use them at the end of all the other shooting from your army to get rid of the important wounds! If a Leman Russ is 1-4 wounds above it's stat changing wound count in the end of the shooting phase... hit em with the biovore mines! Decreasing the stats of an expensive model in the opponents army can be huge.
There is however a reason, why you will often not use the tactic above. That is the insane movement denial capability of the Spore Mines. If you miss, you can place some Mines next to the enemy unit you shot at. So you could in principal walk with the Biovores to make them hit on -1 with their heavy weapons and block the movement of a tank for example. Of coures a lot of units will not be completely blocked by the spore mines, but as long as they got slowed down this might already be worth it. Remember that the enemy cannot shoot the mines before their units movement...
So all this comes for a unit which has a size of 1+ and a prize of 36 pts. On top of that the Biovores have 4W 4+ Save and will most likely be in cover and out of line of sight, having a 3+ Save.

I don't see any reason not to take them in most lists, unless you have a very special build or going all out attack.

But do the mines that miss really deny that much movement? Most armies have small arms fire, they can just pop them or walk around then. You make a 3" cicle they have to avoid, that is it.

The cost of that wounds is also ver high. One model deals and averadge 0,5 wounds each round. That is very expensive compared to other units, most notably the hive guard.

 Niiai wrote:
But do the mines that miss really deny that much movement? Most armies have small arms fire, they can just pop them or walk around then. You make a 3" cicle they have to avoid, that is it.

The cost of that wounds is also ver high. One model deals and averadge 0,5 wounds each round. That is very expensive compared to other units, most notably the hive guard.

Mine 27 biovores really deny a lot of movement (see picture below). I like it when my tyranid army can go; 'you know what, I'am just going to shoot for a few turns before I deepstrike the rest' I combine them with devourer gaunts to make sure I got enough anti-infantry also.

 Niiai wrote:
But do the mines that miss really deny that much movement? Most armies have small arms fire, they can just pop them or walk around then. You make a 3" cicle they have to avoid, that is it.

The cost of that wounds is also ver high. One model deals and averadge 0,5 wounds each round. That is very expensive compared to other units, most notably the hive guard.

Imagine a standard unit of a tank or 5 models.

That unit has a general footprint.

Now pick a line, with points representing spore mines. Each mine cannot have units move within 1" and the mine can move & charge a (admittedly) short distance. With only a few mines you can cover a large area. Granted, by targeting units, you will be deploying Biovore launched mines in proximity and might not be able to get optimal positioning but still, you achieve two (three?) things;

1) Movement denial - physically preventing units to move within 1" of an enemy mode. Great success!

2) Decision Apathy - You are causing your opponents to make more decisions and thus more mistakes. You are interrupting the game plan with extremely low amounts of effort.

3) Boo factor - Overreacting to a perceived threat. Can work quite well too! If we're being really fair, any amount of shooting on the shooting output from a 36pt model, which may have already effected the above two points, is really good. Average unit size is what, 100pts-150pts? Good return!

 Niiai wrote:
But do the mines that miss really deny that much movement? Most armies have small arms fire, they can just pop them or walk around then. You make a 3" cicle they have to avoid, that is it.

The cost of that wounds is also ver high. One model deals and averadge 0,5 wounds each round. That is very expensive compared to other units, most notably the hive guard.

There is even another thread in the forum here under general. An Ork player (I guess) is seeking for help against Biovores. What he says that his opponent is usually blocking his Battle Wagons with Spore mines. Because you can just put them on the edges of the front of the Wagon and he cannot go through the mines any more, because he has to stay 1" away during movement.
Of course he can try to go around, but it will be a long circle he has to take.
Or what about you want to block a certain way for a unit, because your own unit would get a charge otherwise?

Hive Guard: They are better damage dealers against light targets, but against T8 things they are not that good. Against an Imperial Knight 3 with Impalers deal 1.33*D3 damage. Against Magnus and such they are even worse. They are also more expensive, since you can buy 4 Biovores for the price of 3 Hive Guard.
And as I suggested the Hive Guard are a serious competitor, but they serve a bit different purpose. They cannot do all of the movement shenanigans at all additionally.

OK, I am convinced.

But it seems like you need at least 3 or them, probably 6 so that you can make some wounds and drop some spores. You need a lot of them if you want to down something from the get go, but it sounds like the disruption is better then the actual damage, although the utilaty of both is good.

Are regular spore mines good under the same logic?

Or the harpy?

Speaking of them, are there any easy way to convert biovores?

shogun wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
But do the mines that miss really deny that much movement? Most armies have small arms fire, they can just pop them or walk around then. You make a 3" cicle they have to avoid, that is it.

The cost of that wounds is also ver high. One model deals and averadge 0,5 wounds each round. That is very expensive compared to other units, most notably the hive guard.

Mine 27 biovores really deny a lot of movement (see picture below). I like it when my tyranid army can go; 'you know what, I'am just going to shoot for a few turns before I deepstrike the rest' I combine them with devourer gaunts to make sure I got enough anti-infantry also.

What the heck did you make those out of?

 Niiai wrote:
OK, I am convinced.

But it seems like you need at least 3 or them, probably 6 so that you can make some wounds and drop some spores. You need a lot of them if you want to down something from the get go, but it sounds like the disruption is better then the actual damage, although the utilaty of both is good.

Are regular spore mines good under the same logic?

Or the harpy?

Speaking of them, are there any easy way to convert biovores?

Regular spore mines have to stay away from enemy units pretty far. So they are not as usefull but also quite cheap to fill fast attack slots, if you want to go for a brigade.
The Harpy is in its own right quite nice. However it is not really an auto-include in any way. It can be nice as a cheap AT plattform, to stub vehicles in melee and to drop mortal wounds on characters.
Converting Biovores has been covered in some threads here in the forum. I think the easiest way is to use Hive Guard and just glue their guns on the back.

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Personally for me. Warriors work best out of a Tyrannocyte (just a little bit more expensive than a prime) - and unfortunately you can not get a prime in there. However - If you are going to walk a big unit of warriros up the feild a prime is totally worth it.

I likem best with death-spitters. They also really need catalyst so best to not take another unit that needs it as well if using them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
TBH the standard Venom cannon is trash.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Personally for me. Warriors work best out of a Tyrannocyte (just a little bit more expensive than a prime) - and unfortunately you can not get a prime in there. However - If you are going to walk a big unit of warriros up the feild a prime is totally worth it.

I likem best with death-spitters. They also really need catalyst so best to not take another unit that needs it as well if using them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
TBH the standard Venom cannon is trash.

Do you find the the synapse of the Warriors to be this important or why don't you use Raveners for the deep striking thing? I would prefer Raveners under most circumstances tbh.

 Astmeister wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Q1: Does 9 warriors justefy a prime?

Q2: Venom cannons or stranglethorn cannons? Spinefist, devourer or what's-it's-name as regular guns?

Personally for me. Warriors work best out of a Tyrannocyte (just a little bit more expensive than a prime) - and unfortunately you can not get a prime in there. However - If you are going to walk a big unit of warriros up the feild a prime is totally worth it.

I likem best with death-spitters. They also really need catalyst so best to not take another unit that needs it as well if using them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
TBH the standard Venom cannon is trash.

Do you find the the synapse of the Warriors to be this important or why don't you use Raveners for the deep striking thing? I would prefer Raveners under most circumstances tbh.

The biggest drawback of raveners is the 5+ save. The 4+ save gives you reasonable suriviability even in the open vs a lot of weapons. Put them in cover and they aren't going anywhere for a while without some heavy fire power - and if they are drawing heavy fire they are doing their job IMO.

Also yes - I totally utilizer the synapse function of warriors - it allows me to use my flying hives (I usually have at least 2) to ether go aggressive on a flank away from my stealers and terms - or move to an objective without abandoning my gaunts.

Interesting. I see the point. Just for the synapse you could of course also use the Trygon Prime. But I agree that 9 Warriors in the backfield of the enemy can be potentially nice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Walking Hive Tyrant:

I have a weakness for them, as you can see at my avatar. Normally he did not do anything spectacular, but was at some point beating the crap out of some units.
So I would also play him in the following configuration:

Hive Tyrant
Heavy Venom Cannon, MRC, Adrenalin Glands, Toxin Sacs

3x Tyrant Guards
RC+ST, Adrenalin Glands

That is of course a rather silly HQ + Elite choice, but I am casual gamer anyway and hope to ping some wounds off a tank with the HVC.

I am currently thinking of even adding 1-3 Carnifexes with ST and HVC to have a ridiculous AT shooting base. LOL

Any thoughts on that except "Astmeister you are an idiot!"?

It's just very inefficient. Hive guard do the same job much better for fewer points, as does the exocrine of course and even biovores will do more wounds for less points.

When i will lose i can at least say that it was the Tyrants fault. ;-)
Besides the HVC could do 9 damage in one round of shooting and i will be the king.

Tyrant is the best place in the ermy for the heavy venom cannon. I think it is good with a backup of other ranged weapons. Let it rip with the cannon. If you get lucky and do a lot of wounds you can down something with the backup of the other ranged weapons.

The tyrant is good. Good in mellee. Shoots. Has 2 psykick powers. Seems neat. No idea for the cost to benefit ratio.

 Astmeister wrote:

 Battlesong wrote:
Can I get some advice from my Hive Fleet brethren. I have a very bizarre collection of Tyranid models and was wondering what you guys think my next few purchases should be to get to a semi-competitive level. Not in a NOVA/Gencon way but more local tourney wise. One caveat, no FW models.....no way I can afford that stuff. What I have:

2 Hive Tyrants One wit LW/BS and HVC, one with wings, but no other arms attached yet
1 Tervigon w/Crushing Claws
1 Broodlord
10 Warriors, various loadouts
34 Genestealers
41 Hormagaunts
25 Termagants, some w/devourers, but I don't remember how many
29 Gargoyles
1 Lictor (usually use as Deathleaper)
3 Zoanthropes
1 Biovore w/2 mines
1 Trygon
4 Carnifexes, 1 w/dual ST, 1 w/ST and Crushing Claws, 1 w/Claws and HVC, and 1 with 2 devourers and 2 open arm slots

As you can see, it's pretty much all over the place. Any advice is appreciated!

I think you can make a good TAC list with that. It will not win tournaments, but perform well enough in casual games.
Exocrines are big winners in 8th edition. You should buy want of those. The amount of food walking stuff also points in the direction of a unit of venomthropes.

Thanks for the advice. I just look to have a chance to win. I think I'm going to the FLGS tonight for the first time in about 3 years, so I'll get to see where the meta there is at. I was thinking an Exocrine as well, but I also had Hive Guard on my mind. Thanks for the advice!

Hive guard is also very good in most lists.

I don't see the hype behind the exocrine. It basically can't move. If you move it you are losing you lose half your shots and 2 bs and only has 36" range.

In a gun line army I think this could work okay but as nids - it's never going to be in range of anything they don't want you shooting. It's really not hard to kill ether. If it's your main source of shooting count it dead turn 1.

Walking Hive Tyrant becomes a Support multipurpose unit. Totally need some Tyrant guard with him.

He's inefficient of course, but does not suck. ....which for us casual players is all we want - a unit to not suck! Lol.

If I was walking down the road of a tyrant I would take the swarm lord, because he unlocks neat things for your army. So much things you can use him for. While he has no ranged attacks he does have 2 pshykick powers.

I don't play special characters in general.
The exocrine is very good i think. It is very unlikely that you will have nothing in range of it. If it shots double, it is one of the best guns in the entire game.

Someone asked how to convert Biovores? Its the same fella in this thread who has a gak ton who said you convert them by buying Hive Guard and putting the cannon on the back and a little extra work voila.

I'm sure it was him, either way its a good idea. Because whilst not expensive at 25 quid a model, 33 for 3 is way better.

I have borrowed a mathhammer weapon stats sheet from www.3plusplus.net and updated it with some Tyranids weapons. There might be some mistakes but you can take a look at it, if you want. It's in Excel and all kudos go to the guys at www.3plusplus.net for creating the sheet.

 Astmeister wrote:
I don't play special characters in general.
The exocrine is very good i think. It is very unlikely that you will have nothing in range of it. If it shots double, it is one of the best guns in the entire game.

Nah - I don't think it's even close to the best weapon in the game for the price - I'd take a quad las pred over it any day of the week. That's not even a very good tank ether. Consider a tau broadside puts out 8 str 7 ap -2 D3 damage shots and 8 str 5 ap -1 shots at 30-36 - plus it can be upgraded to shoot on the move - It also costs less than the exocrine. I think the only reason this thing gets any consideration because it's in the nid codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Astmeister wrote:
I have borrowed a mathhammer weapon stats sheet from www.3plusplus.net and updated it with some Tyranids weapons. There might be some mistakes but you can take a look at it, if you want. It's in Excel and all kudos go to the guys at www.3plusplus.net for creating the sheet.

Ehh - this gives you some indication as to how much damage a weapon can do - but whats more important is damage per point on the model. In stationary mode it's certainly a good weapon and a pretty versatile one BUT it's damage per point is nothing special being 216 points.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Astmeister wrote:
I don't play special characters in general.
The exocrine is very good i think. It is very unlikely that you will have nothing in range of it. If it shots double, it is one of the best guns in the entire game.

Nah - I don't think it's even close to the best weapon in the game for the price - I'd take a quad las pred over it any day of the week. That's not even a very good tank ether. Consider a tau broadside puts out 8 str 7 ap -2 D3 damage shots and 8 str 5 ap -1 shots at 30-36 - plus it can be upgraded to shoot on the move - It also costs less than the exocrine. I think the only reason this thing gets any consideration because it's in the nid codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Astmeister wrote:
I have borrowed a mathhammer weapon stats sheet from www.3plusplus.net and updated it with some Tyranids weapons. There might be some mistakes but you can take a look at it, if you want. It's in Excel and all kudos go to the guys at www.3plusplus.net for creating the sheet.

Ehh - this gives you some indication as to how much damage a weapon can do - but whats more important is damage per point on the model. In stationary mode it's certainly a good weapon and a pretty versatile one BUT it's damage per point is nothing special being 216 points.

I don't see how the Broadside weapons should be better than the Exocrines. The 12 shots with DS-3 and 2 Damage are well worth the points.
I also just included the Weapon lookup table, so that everyone can benefit from it. It was not for the purpose of promoting the Exocrine.

Astmeister, given you started this thread, if you are willing I'll set up a format similar to the fella who started that other thread with the unit summaries for the OP and send it to you for each individual unit summary. What do you think? He had the best idea...then he was gone! "Unyielding Hunger"

An expected amount of wounds from a shot is very good while playing. You can make educated guesses with it.

From a list building standpoint you need to know averadge wounds per point paid for the unit.

From a truly comprehensive xl sheet there should be a way to calculate the survivabilaty of the unit as well.

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Astmeister, given you started this thread, if you are willing I'll set up a format similar to the fella who started that other thread with the unit summaries for the OP and send it to you for each individual unit summary. What do you think? He had the best idea...then he was gone! "Unyielding Hunger"

If you mean that I should copy my "reviews" in the thread than I can surely do that. But beware of the fact that I am a casual gamer after all.

seems like damn good advice so far, and the format he came up with, spoilers and summaries was boss.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't see the hype behind the exocrine. It basically can't move. If you move it you are losing you lose half your shots and 2 bs and only has 36" range.

In a gun line army I think this could work okay but as nids - it's never going to be in range of anything they don't want you shooting. It's really not hard to kill ether. If it's your main source of shooting count it dead turn 1.

36" is a lot more range than you think. Set up a central fire base and go to town. T8 is great for durability and he has a ton of wounds. It's not the BEST shooting in the game, but it is unprecedented levels of good shooting for Tyranids, and more than a few other armies would definitely like to have this statline as annadsdition to their arsenal. But yeah if you move it more than once a game...something has gone wrong

 luke1705 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't see the hype behind the exocrine. It basically can't move. If you move it you are losing you lose half your shots and 2 bs and only has 36" range.

In a gun line army I think this could work okay but as nids - it's never going to be in range of anything they don't want you shooting. It's really not hard to kill ether. If it's your main source of shooting count it dead turn 1.

36" is a lot more range than you think. Set up a central fire base and go to town. T8 is great for durability and he has a ton of wounds. It's not the BEST shooting in the game, but it is unprecedented levels of good shooting for Tyranids, and more than a few other armies would definitely like to have this statline as annadsdition to their arsenal. But yeah if you move it more than once a game...something has gone wrong

I've seen a couple of lascannons ruin an exocrine in short order, that deployment line which is basically hammer and anvil but with a point makes exocrines useless.

I still consider exocrines amazing but 36 hurts against a gunline, it might even be fatal. Situationally they are rubbish unless they have support with a list in that situation.

What do people use for synapse?

What do people think of 3 warriors with double scything tallons for 60 points?

I run a pair of Exocrine and they have always done well for me. If they are drawing a lot of fire, then that means the rest of my army is relatively safe. I run two units of 3 man warriors, two units of 3 man units of Hive Guard. and a crap ton of Termagaunts and Gargoyles along with the ever present Genestealers, Swarmlord, and Trigon Prime.

 Niiai wrote:
Tyrant is the best place in the ermy for the heavy venom cannon. I think it is good with a backup of other ranged weapons. Let it rip with the cannon. If you get lucky and do a lot of wounds you can down something with the backup of the other ranged weapons.

For more points it does less damage than the Deathspitter. If you are using it as artillery its wasted points for obvious reasons, so since you are advancing, the reasons to pick HVC over Deathspitters are very few.

 Niiai wrote:
What do people use for synapse?

What do people think of 3 warriors with double scything tallons for 60 points?

I don't see a real reason to field them. They are not much cheaper than using Devourers on them (12 pts) and just gain +1 A each. They also will not do a lot in combat.
As a cheap synapse the Malanthrope is also far better, while not being much more expensive.


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 SHUPPET wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Tyrant is the best place in the ermy for the heavy venom cannon. I think it is good with a backup of other ranged weapons. Let it rip with the cannon. If you get lucky and do a lot of wounds you can down something with the backup of the other ranged weapons.

For more points it does less damage than the Deathspitter. If you are using it as artillery its wasted points for obvious reasons, so since you are advancing, the reasons to pick HVC over Deathspitters are very few.

A lot of enemies know about the limited range of the Tyranids Dakka. So they keep tanks and heavy weapons out of reach. The HVC obviously reaches far enough.
Also a HVC is better against T8 normally. And it is of course a weapon involving a lot of lucky dice rolling, but so are all D3/D6 weapons. The reason while you still take LasCans is, because you can take so many of them that you put the fortune in your direction.
So I would not suggest to use a lone guy with a HVC. But maybe 1-2 Tyrants with HVC, 2-3 Fexes with HVC and a Harpyie could perform fine. Not amazing of course....

Oh and personally I never use my Walkrant with HVC as artillery. He was advancing and then smashing face at some point. But since a Walkrant is quite slow, I want him to do something really usefull while walking.

Anyway I do not think it is necessary to discuss HVC from a totally competitive point of view. But like the one guy pointed out: If it is usable and not terrible, it is good enough for casual gamers.

I like the Venom Cannon as a weapon choice on a Tyranid Warrior. It gives the unit a chance to drop a few wounds on a hard target at range. I've noticed that ever bit of damage adds up for us, especially at range. Having that extra damage has helped me drop weapons down a tier or helped me destroy them when needed. Typically, it is on my unit that babysits my Hive Guard and Exocrine.

I have noticed that my babysitting warriors do almost nothing all game long.

With default devourers they are out of range of everything unless its like Deep-Striking Terminators, and in that case they still aren't doing any damage.

I usually add a Vencom Cannon or barbed Strangler just to give them something to do, and it just seems like a lot of points to occasionally take 1 wound off a vehicle or force a MEQ save.

Yeah probably the Malanthrope is the better choice. He is slightly more expensive then very cheap Warriors, but also protects your backfield shooters.
However, if something is deep striking you are all on your own. The Malanthrope will not do anything usefull then...

 Niiai wrote:
What do people use for synapse?

What do people think of 3 warriors with double scything tallons for 60 points?

for 30 more points you can get a malenthrope. Probably better if you just want synapse because it also makes things harder to kill and warriors don't have good backfield firepower anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Heavy Venom cannon is great. It's potential damage is the highest - which is why I put it on all my tyrants. Nothing is more threatening to nids than unblemished artillery pieces. The ability to reach out and punch light vehicles with big guns on the back lines is INVALUABLE and this army lacks weapons that can do this.. 6 More str 7 shots that deal one damage at 18 inch are barely a a drop in the barrel compared to what 15 devil gaunt can do.

Carnifex
The Big One. The living Legend. The battering ram. Okay...
The most iconic of all Tyranid monsters is of course running around 8th edition as well. You want to know, if it is any good? That is actually a very tough question and I am not sure about this at the moment myself. But one thing can be said about it: It is the most flexible of all Monsters!

So you can play the Carnifex in about 20 different loadouts. What should you use? My advice on this: Do not play a Dakkafex. Either play a Stone Crusher Carnifex or a Gun & Claw Fex (shooting weapon and melee weapon). I might write a separate article on the Stonecrusher later.

Why not the Dakkafex anymore? It is absolutely not terrible. It is way cheaper than before, going from something in the 140-160 pts region down to 99-120 pts. However there a many things, which have gotten worse.
- Devilgaunts outperform a Dakkafex on nearly every occassion. Period.
- Tanks and Monsters have about 3 times the wounds as before. You cannot one shot a Rhino anymore with a Dakkafex and it was easy before!
- Tanks have an armour Save now. More sadness...
- the weapons do not have twin-linked anymore. This is dropping the hits from 9 to 6 for a Dakkafex.
- the Fex will suck in melee!

Okay the Dakkafex can still put about the same amount of wounds on an infantery unit, I give him that. However, there are also a lot of units with multi-wounds and also the new wound chart hit the Dakkafex against lots of infantry units (MEQs).

So I would play them with a melee weapon + any shooting weapon. Also give them Adrenal Glands and Bioplasma. And then if you just run 1-2 do not expect that they will be amazing. In big numbers 4+ they can be quite scary, but also still vulnerable.
Personally I would even rather play a Screamer Killer Fex (2x Scything Talons, Bioplasma) than a Dakkafex. However, the Dakkafex might be quite good in an all-assault army with lots of Genestealers. To have a concentrated firepower basis for clearing enemy chaff units and putting some damage on vehicles etc.
But in the end, you should see them more like the monstrous version of Gants. They are cheap, vulnerable and can be thrown away if necessary.

ive been running two tyrants with Hvc in my recent lists, on eon foot (with lw/bonesword..yes.not the best combo but im a big fan of the classic nid loadouts look) and one flying with scytals. So far, both have performed well beyond my exepctations.
.
I dont play very competitve games mind, but ive found the high strength and relatively longer range of HVCs to be very useful for softening up hard targets before the charge. Definately recommend a couple in any army.

 Astmeister wrote:
Carnifex
The Big One. The living Legend. The battering ram. Okay...
The most iconic of all Tyranid monsters is of course running around 8th edition as well. You want to know, if it is any good? That is actually a very tough question and I am not sure about this at the moment myself. But one thing can be said about it: It is the most flexible of all Monsters!

So you can play the Carnifex in about 20 different loadouts. What should you use? My advice on this: Do not play a Dakkafex. Either play a Stone Crusher Carnifex or a Gun & Claw Fex (shooting weapon and melee weapon). I might write a separate article on the Stonecrusher later.

Why not the Dakkafex anymore? It is absolutely not terrible. It is way cheaper than before, going from something in the 140-160 pts region down to 99-120 pts. However there a many things, which have gotten worse.
- Devilgaunts outperform a Dakkafex on nearly every occassion. Period.
- Tanks and Monsters have about 3 times the wounds as before. You cannot one shot a Rhino anymore with a Dakkafex and it was easy before!
- Tanks have an armour Save now. More sadness...
- the weapons do not have twin-linked anymore. This is dropping the hits from 9 to 6 for a Dakkafex.
- the Fex will suck in melee!

Okay the Dakkafex can still put about the same amount of wounds on an infantery unit, I give him that. However, there are also a lot of units with multi-wounds and also the new wound chart hit the Dakkafex against lots of infantry units (MEQs).

So I would play them with a melee weapon + any shooting weapon. Also give them Adrenal Glands and Bioplasma. And then if you just run 1-2 do not expect that they will be amazing. In big numbers 4+ they can be quite scary, but also still vulnerable.
Personally I would even rather play a Screamer Killer Fex (2x Scything Talons, Bioplasma) than a Dakkafex. However, the Dakkafex might be quite good in an all-assault army with lots of Genestealers. To have a concentrated firepower basis for clearing enemy chaff units and putting some damage on vehicles etc.
But in the end, you should see them more like the monstrous version of Gants. They are cheap, vulnerable and can be thrown away if necessary.

I was thinking its a cheap source of T7 and 8 wounds, that is reasonably survivable (I was looking at shooting dreads the other day and its not that easy, this isn't that far off a dread) but the problem is, they aren't that cheap with wargear and if they aren't going to perform a specific task well I think they are too expensive.

Out of all the models you've reviewed or I've tried the only two I've gained a 100% measure of certainty on is Biovores and Exocrines for my personal list.

Well the Exocrine and the Biovore are rock solid. The other things I talked about are overlooked at the moment, because they are not that good actually. I wanted to cover some stuff no one talked about yet.
The fex is very meh often, but can be worth it. But even if you compare it to a Dreadnought it seems way worse. And the dread is not considered strong.

On the note of the biovores and roadblcking with mines.

Could the ripper swarms be a good road block? They are fearly inexpensive, come with 3 wound, 6" move and deep strike. If the ide is to block big things, pop them down in front of the landraider or battlewagon turn 1. They need to kill it, or you move and charge the thing you block. Now they have to move and can't shoot etc.

Good targets would be rhinoes, land raider, battlewagons etc. around 100 points give you 27 wounds.

That is an interesting point Niiai even if it doesn't change the game you are messing with their plans. Which psychologically, is probably quite important, and they aren't that small a base size. I'd throw 33p to stop a LR full of Assault units going where it wants to go...but then you won't stop them moving forward 8", is that enough? You come in at least 9" away right?

Astmeister that was more or less my thoughts, I really actually wanted to like them but just couldn't get there. I'm pleased we have some absolute certainty on at least two units

I feel like our HQ section is pretty weak, with the exception of the Tervigon which I wasn't remotely considering until I realised how good it was. Never mind T8 and 14 wounds which is amazing, not weak, but the sustainability of the Terms with it make it a pain in the ass for the opponent. I think that might be more important than the more expensive SW who is weaker just for the ability to catapult a unit forward.

Niiai wrote:On the note of the biovores and roadblcking with mines.

Could the ripper swarms be a good road block? They are fearly inexpensive, come with 3 wound, 6" move and deep strike. If the ide is to block big things, pop them down in front of the landraider or battlewagon turn 1. They need to kill it, or you move and charge the thing you block. Now they have to move and can't shoot etc.

Good targets would be rhinoes, land raider, battlewagons etc. around 100 points give you 27 wounds.

The problem is that they come out 9 inch away from the enemy. So they are not the same like Spore Mines from Biovores. As speed bumps they could be good however, since they have a lot of wounds. The question ist, if Tyranids do need speed bumps?

Jaq Draco lives wrote:That is an interesting point Niiai even if it doesn't change the game you are messing with their plans. Which psychologically, is probably quite important, and they aren't that small a base size. I'd throw 33p to stop a LR full of Assault units going where it wants to go...but then you won't stop them moving forward 8", is that enough? You come in at least 9" away right?

Astmeister that was more or less my thoughts, I really actually wanted to like them but just couldn't get there. I'm pleased we have some absolute certainty on at least two units

I feel like our HQ section is pretty weak, with the exception of the Tervigon which I wasn't remotely considering until I realised how good it was. Never mind T8 and 14 wounds which is amazing, not weak, but the sustainability of the Terms with it make it a pain in the ass for the opponent. I think that might be more important than the more expensive SW who is weaker just for the ability to catapult a unit forward.

The Broodlord is one of the best HQs in the game. So we have that at least. The Tervigon is super expensive, but can be worth it if you play 2+ big units of Gants. The Malanthrope is imho amazing as well. The Flyrants are still very good, but are fragile too. Walkrants are of course not very good and a Tyranid Prime is very situational.

What is so good about the Malanthrope? What is its points cost like 85p? Because I suppose 85p gets rid of an HQ tax and the -1 to shooting is worth it.

Broodlord, is tough, and makes GS tough, if he gets the unit into combat.

The Malanthrope costs 90. He is a character with 9 wounds, so can hide behind units and not be targeted. He also has synapse and SFTW. And the stuff about the -1 you already said.

A bit of a side question. I am trying to convert a Malanthrope. Do anybody know how tall it is? I don't wanne make it to short.

It's up to a Trygon's neck

I can work with that, thankyou.

So I had some time on my hands and thought I'd do some ratings for each of our units. Feel free to agree or disagree, a lot of this is based on theory and not experience as obviously I haven't trialled everything (far from it). My rating goes from A (autotake) to F (why would you ever take it). As such there aren't many As but I have given out a ton of Bs/Cs. Interested to see what people think!


HQs
Hive Tyrant - C+
A jack of all trades, master of none. Main weakness is being targetable, so Tyrant Guard (and potentially Catalyst/Malanthrope support) become almost necessary if you want them to live past T1. One of our best options point for point against flyers, if you can get them there, and reasonable but not spectacular shooting, melee and psychic support. Not a terrible option, but not the best.

Swarmlord - A-
A beast in combat. Only lower ranked than Malanthrope and Broodlord due to his cost and the need to support him with either Guard or a pod.

Broodlord - A
Cheap, provides psychic support, a monster in combat, buffs our best unit and cannot be targeted. What's not to like?

Tyranid Prime - D+/C
With Malanthropes as cheap as they are and Broodlords performing a similar role better, little reason to take him unless massing warriors or short on points. If the Malanthrope goes up in cost, he will at least have a niche as cheapest HQ.

Tervigon - B-
Pretty pricey for what it does, but actually somewhat scary in CC and a big force multiplier for one of our most points efficient units, Termagants.

Malanthrope - A/C+
If he remains at current price, definite auto-take imo. Cheapest HQ and an excellent buffer, especially if FaQed to affect units. If his price went up to 200 to match his power level, I think he would drop to around a C+, still a solid option, but much more situational as a firebase supporter.

Old One Eye - C+
An absolute wrecking ball in close combat - the problem is getting him there. Needs a pod or Hive Commander support, and is liable to die if caught in the open due to being a massive target. Don't rely on the Fex buff, though it's nice if possible to pull off.


Troops
Termagants - A
Some of our most points efficient shooting is Devourergants. Not only this, they can be replenished by Tervigons, arrive via pod or tunnel, and serve as our cheapest bubblewrap. An excellent option.

Hormagants - C+
These are viable for sure, but I think outclassed slightly by Gargoyles. The 6" consolidate and pile in is their niche, which is fantastic in theory, but very hard to make best use of in practice. Still, they will a troops slot and are by no means a bad choice.

Genestealers - A+
Absolute blenders. These will kill almost everything they touch and are reasonably cheap to boot. Some sort of delivery mechanism is a good idea, be it pod, Trygon, or Hive Commander - as is several units for redundancy, as they are such a huge threat they will be shot at on the way in. Only slight issue is Cult stealers are arguably better (especially at 10pts, though that may be FaQed) with inbulit delivery, but that doesn't detract from Hive Fleet stealers' excellence in a pure list.

Warriors - B-
A solid option. Cheap synapse anchor with the option for decent firepower and melee that works out quite points efficient. Can be delivered via pod or Trygon if a more close range build is desired (but why not take Shrikes?). Can be targeted out easily, but now synapse isn't as essential they should be lower priority.

Rippers - A-
Cheapest troops option and fantastic for popping up on an objective where needed. The only reason they aren't higher ranked is Genes and Termas share the slot!


Elites
Tyrant Guard - B-
Weird one to grade - if taking Swarmy and/or Tyrants that are not podding in, these are nigh essential for them to live past turn 1. That's their job and they do it well.

Hive Guard - B+
Excellent support shooting with Impalers - not high output, but huge utility in ignoring LoS. Shockcannons are brutal against vehicles but you will likely require a pod or Trygon to get in range for a (somewhat suicidal) attack.

Pyrovores - C-
No longer the worst unit in the game! I still don't see too much of a niche though, they are effective infantry killers but require a pod/Trygon to get there and we have tons of other stuff that does that job.

Venomthropes - C/B (B+)
Outclassed by the Malanthrope at its current cost. If it goes up to 200 (or thereabouts) then they will become more viable as a cheap option. Bracketed rating is if undersized units are permitted, in which case a lone Venom becomes an extremely solid cheap -1 to hit bubble.

Zoanthropes - D+ (B)
Main boon is in being a hugely resilient synapse anchor. However, when characters are a thing, this isn't as great as it sounds. Arguably beaten in mortal wound output by Biovores in particular, due to their range (and ignoring LoS). Since you probably also want 5 in the unit as a buffer to retain the special rules, you're at equivalent cost to a Flyrant, who offers a less scary smite but on a more mobile platform that can also contribute in melee and shooting. However, a lone Zoan if undersized units are allowed is a great cheap source of a Psy power, smite and synapse, thus getting a B.

Maleceptor - E+
As with Pyrovores, no longer terrible! But still nothing to write home about. One mortal wound per unit has highest output VS hordes, who also don't care about a single mortal wound. Aside from that it has little going for it, for the price, that something else doesn't do better.

Haruspex - D
Vastly improved - now a tank with scary potential damage. But sadly it still doesn't have enough attacks to justify its massive points cost, it just won't do enough damage.

Lictor - C
A good cheap harrassment unit. That said, in units of only 1, quite vulnerable to strong overwatch, and might fail to wipe stuff out. Still good for harrassing 5 man squads and the like - he's a bully, basically!

Deathleaper - D+
Very similar to the Lictor, but for double the cost a rule that will prevent him being able to be placed VS a smart opponent is more bad than good.

Red Terror - C-
Only useful if running tons of Raveners - if you are, worth it as a buffer.


Fast Attack
Gargoyles - B+
In my opinion, the best fast tarpit unit we have. Huge footprint for cheap (can easily multicharge several units), big move, fly to get over and surround enemy models, preventing fall back moves, and a nice potential debuff.

Sky-slashers - B-
Perform a pretty similar role to Gargoyles. A much more damaging and high wound tarpit VS infantry due to high atks/wounds per base, though obviously worse against anything that does multiple wounds. Blocks less ground due to smaller unit size, however.

Shrikes - B
Literally just faster warriors. Strictly superior in that sense, but they cost a bit more and don't fill troops. If you don't need troops slots and can spare the points, no reason not to upgrade frankly. The main benefits I see, however, is the ability to keep up with fast things that need synapse (Shrikes are now one of the best quick synapse options in the dex) and being able to charge flyers, which we are in dire need of - and might actually deal them some damage!

Raveners - C+
Not a bad unit, but their role overlaps with Shrikes and Genes. Genes are more killy, but less durable and lack an inbuilt delivery mechanism. Shrikes are less killy and lack delivery, but crucially provide synapse to the rest of your army. Personally I feel having inbuilt delivery is the clincher for them as their niche.

Harpy - C+
Main role is being able to move 30" and charge something. However, it can't be too nasty or the Harpy will die, and an opponent worth their salt will have bubble wrapped the shooty stuff you want to tag. Still a very handy option to have though. I feel it outclasses the Crone with decent shooting, the option to dish out mortal wounds (potentially on characters) it flies over, and the Shriek for utility.

Crone - C
Very similar to the Harpy - exact same applies about 30" move shenanigans, though it is marginally better in combat. However, its other options are far worse in my opinion - tentaclids still only tickle vehicles, and the drool cannon is alright but not exciting. It is cheaper than a Harpy, but I'd rather pay a bit more and get more.

Dimachaeron - C-
Extremely quick and Str10, but that's really his main benefit. Relative to other monsters, only having AP-2 and D3 damage really hurts, as does only having T6 (since getting the Invuln up quick is far from guaranteed). He is best against moderate save (4-5+) very high T (7-8) units without too many wounds - which don't exist. Despite Str10, low damage and AP hamstring him against vehicles, whilst he doesn't have enough attacks to muder large numbers. Still, a very fast and scary distraction Carnifex.

Spore Mines - B-
Easier to hide than Mucolids, but less efficient in terms of mortal wounds per point. Clincher is more expensive min units.

Mucolids - B
20pt slot fillers, with great blocking potential and can't be entirely ignored due to mortal wounds. If you need more stuff in reserve, or to fill slots for cheap, these are your.. blobs?

Meiotics - C+
More expensive than the other two spore options, however, due to what is effectively Infiltration, they are fantastic movement/deep strike blockers, and pose a more scary threat of mortal wounds to advancing foes. Thus serve a different role, but one nothing else in the army does.


Heavy Support
Carnifexes - C
Received a big price drop and as such, are a lot better than they once were! However, barring VS elite infantry like Termies or Nid Warriors, they are outclassed in melee by the next option. This leaves dakkafexes as viable builds, and with the effective nerf (not doubling shots due to previously being twin-linked), these are not as nasty as they once were. Still, they can put out some nasty firepower, so are definitely still an option, and even melee fexes are slightly faster and cheaper than crushers.

Stonecrushers - C+
Absolutely brutal against both hordes (with the flail) and tougher stuff (with the claw). If you want a melee Fex, you'd be hard pressed not to want to go with one of these. The issue, as ever is getting them there. Whilst Monstrous Brood is nice to keep your drops down, it does mean Hive Commander only works on a single model. Generally, these guys will need a first wave to tie up the enemy while they make it in.

Trygon - B
The model itself isn't that great - definitely scary in close combat, but also deceptively fragile. However, the real benefit comes in its bringing a unit along in its tunnel whilst also serving as a melee threat. In general the Pod is a more versatile transport, allowing monsters, but the Trygon does allow for full 30 Gant/Gaunt squads to accompany it. It is slightly pricier, and whilst worse at shooting, is much more scary in general.

Trygon Prime - B-
Exactly the same as the Trygon, but with 1 more attack that isn't a tail one, double the shots (meh), and synapse - for a fairly noticeable increase in price. If short on fast synapse, you probably want to consider this, but otherwise, I would always go for a Trygon.

Mawloc - B-
No longer quite as destructive as he was in 7th, but an excellent sniper with mortal wounds, distraction Fex, and fall back preventer. Not the autotake he used to be (largely as we had no other good options), but a strong choice for a bargain points cost.

Toxicrene - D-
Cheap and his shooting and Miasma are devastating, particularly to large model count units. However, we have lots of things that kill infantry (and do other things), and he deterioriates really quite badly. Not awful, but one of our weaker options.

Exocrine - A
By all accounts provides pretty devastating firepower - probably our scariest shooting unit. It is very immobile, so be sure to position it well, and needs synapse and potentially -1 to hit buffs (hello Malanthrope) as he is a huge target. But at least its also T8! Might still be wise to bring two for redundancy though - it's that good.

Tyrannofex - D+
One of those cases of very close to being good. He is extremely tanky, which is why he costs so much, but his firepower just doesn't quite make it. Rupture cannon is potentially amazing, but is very CP thirsty; Fleshborer Hive and Acid Spray are too short range to easily make use of the non-moving bonus. If you can stand still, the hive in particular becomes a highly efficient infantry killer, but that's unlikely to happen.

Biovore - B+
A similar role to the Hive Guard with Impaler - indirect firepower. Less damaging on the face of it, but reliable mortal wound output for a cheap price. More important, arguably, is the utility of being able to drop spore mines to block enemy movement where desired (move so you have a 2/3 chance to!) Has come out very well from the edition change.


Fortification
Sporocyst - F
I just... really can't see why you would want to take one of these!


Dedicated transport
Tyrannocyte - B
Very similar role to the Trygon. The main benefit is being able to carry an MC - Swarmy or OoE being two solid options. Issue is, most struggle to make a 9" charge so melee monsters can be left out in the cold (unless you Hive Commander them of course). Can actually output a decent amount of damage VS hordes with 5 Barbed Stranglers too, if you want to pay for them.


Lord of War
Barbed Hierodule - C
Both Hierodules are decent now for the points. Barbie is nice in that his melee doesn't depreciate with damage, but his shooting is a bit lacklustre, having been downed to S8. It's a tough call to make, but i am leaning on the side of the Scythed version, purely due to more CC damage potential (when not <1/4 wounds).

Scythed Hierodule - C+
Pretty nasty in CC, but still isn't going to be soloing a Knight with ease. That said, he will smash most vehicles with relative ease. His gun is short range but pretty nasty. In general, since you probably want these guys in combat asap, I think to more choppy one is better.

Harridan - E
A more expensive Hierodule that can fly, but crucially is only S7 T7. And this I feel is its downfall - it's excellent to fly 30" into combat and deposit 20 Gargoyles out, but like the Dima, it just isn't quite nasty enough VS the stuff it needs to be, especially with the mediocre Bio-cannon. For the price, it should do more, essentially.

Heirophant - B-
Note: This costing is quite speculative and is with a mind to facing other similar titans in BIG games. In a normal game I would not recommend taking one! But in titan on titan comparisons, he comes out quite favourably, with absolutely brutal Macro shooting, and a ton of wounds, for a reasonable price (for a titan...) Unlike last edition when he was an overcosted mess liable to do little but die to D first turn!

I think your grating is very good.
Personally I would have rated some thing differently.

The major differences:

Maleceptor - D+ (can be okay)

Mawlocks - C (to situational and don't achieve enough)

Sporocyst - C (can be really nice, but seems too expensive)

I would have given Biovores an A as if there is any value to their utility and clearly there is, at 33p they are cheap enough to be an autoinclude to me

I would just correct the part where it says that biovores average more mortal wounds per point than a zoan, which is not true.

Spoletta wrote:
I would just correct the part where it says that biovores average more mortal wounds per point than a zoan, which is not true.

Yeah I know a few people have said they are quite unreliable in the damage they give out when you are on the table.

what is it 0.5 wound average per turn?

Yeah. Unless you move him. I supoose somebody wants to miss sometimes. Vs super heavies, battlewagons and landraiders etc.

I was thinking about another babysitter for the backfield shooting units.

What about that?

Hive Tyrant
Heavy Venom Cannon, Monstrous Rending Claws, Prehensile Pincer Tail
174 pts

Exocrine
3x Biovores
3x Hive Guard

The Tyrant is more expensive than 3 Warriors, but is way more potent in melee and has serious long range shooting. The melee is not wasted on him I think, because most armies will drop something in your backfield anyway to get rid of the firebase of Exocrine, Biovores and Hive Guard.

Of course you can also use a different fire base like 3x Exocrines, more Biovores or more Hive Guard for this...

I agree with pretty much all the ratings and the reasonings behind them.

Big one for me was you rating the Scythed Hierodule over the Barbed. Couldn't agree more, I've tested both using Swarmy to slingshot them and the Scythed is just far more deadly.

I think most people prefer the Barbed because of the gun but when you both play and mathammer these guys the Scythed puts the Barbed to shame.

The barb's gun for what the unit cost is louzy against flyers and vehicles. It has 5 attacks (6 RAW due to have 2 scytals but expect this to be FAQd) vs the Scythed's 8 attacks. The Scythed on average does 15 wounds to a Leman Russ or 12 wounds to a Landraider with its flamer and talons.

I'd say on its own it is probably a C+ but Swarmy and the Scythed together are undefeated for me. Get Hive Commander, Catalyst and Onslaught onto him and he's unstoppable

But the melee power of the scythed degrade, where the barbed stays the same.

 Astmeister wrote:
But the melee power of the scythed degrade, where the barbed stays the same.

Well not entirely true.

Discounting the fact that the Barbed's biggest draw is its shooting and it goes out the window quicker than the Scythed's melee

At 1-5 the thing is cactus anyway.

At full wounds it's 8 3+ vs 5 3+

At 6-10 it's 6 4+ vs 4 3+

So with RR 1s at 6-10 that's 4.5 vs 3.1 in favour of the Scythed.

At 1 - 5 it's 1.33 vs 2.33 in favour of the Barbed, however the Barbed is BS6+ at these wounds

Astmeister wrote:I think your grating is very good.
Personally I would have rated some thing differently.

The major differences:

Maleceptor - D+ (can be okay)

Mawlocks - C (to situational and don't achieve enough)

Sporocyst - C (can be really nice, but seems too expensive)

D+ puts the Mal on a par with Zoans, which I don't think is the case really. Mawlocs admittedly don't have huge impact, but like last edition its the threat they create that is useful - they alter the enemy's deployment and can block lines of retreat. Maybe unusable is a little uncharitable for the cyst, but for an immobile unit it does very little - I'd rather take some of the better imperial fortifications. I do think it is clearly the worst unit in our list, however.

Jaq Draco lives wrote:I would have given Biovores an A as if there is any value to their utility and clearly there is, at 33p they are cheap enough to be an autoinclude to me

I feel like Biovores value is tied to Hive Guard, who perform a very similar role. I wouldn't be surprised to see them creep up to an A- if their mine creation can be used for some as yet unforseen shenanigans, but I am inclined to say they are not that autoinclude as not every army needs what they provide.

Spoletta wrote:I would just correct the part where it says that biovores average more mortal wounds per point than a zoan, which is not true.

Ah, good catch! Though depending on model numbers the advantage is fairly minimal. I guess the range and LoS ignoring is the main thing.

Zande4 wrote:

 Astmeister wrote:
But the melee power of the scythed degrade, where the barbed stays the same.

Well not entirely true.

Spoiler:

Discounting the fact that the Barbed's biggest draw is its shooting and it goes out the window quicker than the Scythed's melee

At 1-5 the thing is cactus anyway.

At full wounds it's 8 3+ vs 5 3+

At 6-10 it's 6 4+ vs 4 3+

So with RR 1s at 6-10 that's 4.5 vs 3.1 in favour of the Scythed.

At 1 - 5 it's 1.33 vs 2.33 in favour of the Barbed, however the Barbed is BS6+ at these wounds

Barbed does outperform in melee on the lowest tier of wounds, but since they can both fire out of combat with infantry, I think scythes' total damage potential is still higher at that tier due to its autohitting gun, whilst barby is blindly slinging shots everywhere...

Players are all rating individual units and discussing about putting rending claws or talons on their hive tyrants. It all useless if you don't look at the compleet picture and the synergy between the different units that make an army. Doing the math on a hive tyrant setting is useless if it gets shot to pieces right away.

It's a lot of 'paper/rock/scissors situations anyway and it depends on the missions and 'meta' how things will evolve. A bunch of MC's running forward could make you win the mission (board control) but it will not win a tournament. In this edition the armies that could effectively wipe others of the board are the big winners.

GSC Genestealers are a great deal but every army can effectively make units deepstrike/reserve at a save distance. Astra M army only needs about 3 scout sentinals and those genestealers are better off deploying normally then using cult ambush. And after that the get shot to pieces.

Benlisted wrote:

Meiotics - C+
More expensive than the other two spore options, however, due to what is effectively Infiltration, they are fantastic movement/deep strike blockers, and pose a more scary threat of mortal wounds to advancing foes. Thus serve a different role, but one nothing else in the army does.

I got a shooty tyranid army and if I'am allowed forgeworld models then these are a must have so thats a A+ score for me. The create a 24+ inch bubble 'get of my lawn' bubble against deep strike/reserve units.

shogun wrote:

Players are all rating individual units and discussing about putting rending claws or talons on their hive tyrants. It all useless if you don't look at the compleet picture and the synergy between the different units that make an army.

Agreed - I think the main purpose of rating units is so people wanting to get into the army know whether basing it around, say, 3 toxicrenes, is a good or bad idea. The necron thread for instance gives a really useful set of at a glance info on the relative viability of the units. I was trying to do something similar. Obviously a more experienced player won't have really any use at all for such a crude measure!

Benlisted wrote:

Meiotics - C+
More expensive than the other two spore options, however, due to what is effectively Infiltration, they are fantastic movement/deep strike blockers, and pose a more scary threat of mortal wounds to advancing foes. Thus serve a different role, but one nothing else in the army does.

I got a shooty tyranid army and if I'am allowed forgeworld models then these are a must have so thats a A+ score for me. The create a 24+ inch bubble 'get of my lawn' bubble against deep strike/reserve units.

I agree again. As you say though, it's most useful as a keep-away for a shooty list, melee ones are less bothered by it. That said, maybe I was a bit low ooh the rating, especially compared to the other spores, though they do serve a different purpose.

Well without thinking through pros and cons of each unit you can't start thinking synergy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For instance I have a lot of genestealers with a trygon and swarmlord, I felt I needed more support in putting down obstacles/fire support so I add the biovore and extra exocrine.

Because I know they are good, swap out the swarmlord for a malanthrope to protect some back field and free up more points for a more combined movement synergy. That might all be a load of bollocks of course but its through thinking about units I got to that bollocks

shogun wrote:

Players are all rating individual units and discussing about putting rending claws or talons on their hive tyrants. It all useless if you don't look at the compleet picture and the synergy between the different units that make an army. Doing the math on a hive tyrant setting is useless if it gets shot to pieces right away.

It's a lot of 'paper/rock/scissors situations anyway and it depends on the missions and 'meta' how things will evolve. A bunch of MC's running forward could make you win the mission (board control) but it will not win a tournament. In this edition the armies that could effectively wipe others of the board are the big winners.

GSC Genestealers are a great deal but every army can effectively make units deepstrike/reserve at a save distance. Astra M army only needs about 3 scout sentinals and those genestealers are better off deploying normally then using cult ambush. And after that the get shot to pieces.

Benlisted wrote:

Meiotics - C+
More expensive than the other two spore options, however, due to what is effectively Infiltration, they are fantastic movement/deep strike blockers, and pose a more scary threat of mortal wounds to advancing foes. Thus serve a different role, but one nothing else in the army does.

I got a shooty tyranid army and if I'am allowed forgeworld models then these are a must have so thats a A+ score for me. The create a 24+ inch bubble 'get of my lawn' bubble against deep strike/reserve units.

If a Unit is just better with Option A than Option B, why should it not matter? I mean that does not change any synergy effects or something whatsoever.
There might be situations when you say: Hey, the HVC is better on the Tyrant in my army than the Deatspitters, because it fits better in my army concept and helps me mitigate my weakness. But apart from that I don't think it is irrelevant to talk about units and their loadout individually.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zande4 wrote:

 Astmeister wrote:
But the melee power of the scythed degrade, where the barbed stays the same.

Well not entirely true.

Discounting the fact that the Barbed's biggest draw is its shooting and it goes out the window quicker than the Scythed's melee

At 1-5 the thing is cactus anyway.

At full wounds it's 8 3+ vs 5 3+

At 6-10 it's 6 4+ vs 4 3+

So with RR 1s at 6-10 that's 4.5 vs 3.1 in favour of the Scythed.

At 1 - 5 it's 1.33 vs 2.33 in favour of the Barbed, however the Barbed is BS6+ at these wounds

That is very enlightening, thanks!

Has anyone played with a malanthrope yet? I think getting his bonus online could be very dificult.

And he is not very 'fighty'.

 Niiai wrote:
Has anyone played with a malanthrope yet? I think getting his bonus online could be very dificult.

And he is not very 'fighty'.

No, but I plan too and its simply to babysit behind a pair of exocrines and be a safe warlord (he can't be targeted unless someone deepstrikes behind which is why I'll have biovores there)

I think -1 to hit on two 220 odd monsters is a worthwhile way to spend 90 points really and since we need HQs and none of them are that good I'll go cheap (except broodlord he is ace)

Hmmm... if all our guns needs a special detachment for synapse, then we should perhaps calculate that into the cost of wounds per model.

Devil gaunts out of a trygon prime would come of worse then devil gaunts who walk in the synapse blob.

Yes I can see that, the only difference is devilgants out of a prime have waaaay more utility since they can do immediate damage potentially where opponent least wants it. You have to factor utility


I'll answer that question with a question of my own. Rippers are cheap at 33p, can steal objectives...auto include? Single unit of 33p? 3x3 units at 99p? 100p out of a list of 2000 is nothing really, good units for hiding in cover too. I've got one unit from forgeworld and damn its gorgeous...I'd love more!

Jaq Draco lives wrote:Yes I can see that, the only difference is devilgants out of a prime have waaaay more utility since they can do immediate damage potentially where opponent least wants it. You have to factor utility


I'll answer that question with a question of my own. Rippers are cheap at 33p, can steal objectives...auto include? Single unit of 33p? 3x3 units at 99p? 100p out of a list of 2000 is nothing really, good units for hiding in cover too. I've got one unit from forgeworld and damn its gorgeous...I'd love more!

It depends, does the rest of your units either drop in their face and wreck havoc or stay back and shoot? If you already drop 20 guants or genestealers in the enemies front line then those 3 extra models are not adding a lot. If you already got biovores or hive guards in the backfield then those rippers are not helping there. Playing 5/6 flying hive tyrants? Then you either win and are capable of flying towards the objectives in the end but if the get shot down it doesn't matter.

I would at least go for one unit to just claim that one objective that is out of reach.

Niiai wrote:Has anyone played with a malanthrope yet? I think getting his bonus online could be very dificult.

And he is not very 'fighty'.

Malanthrope is there for the -1 to hit bonus, so if you want to get the best out either use him for backfield protection or drop him in and give your assault units protection at the front.

Benlisted wrote:

If a Unit is just better with Option A than Option B, why should it not matter? I mean that does not change any synergy effects or something whatsoever.
There might be situations when you say: Hey, the HVC is better on the Tyrant in my army than the Deatspitters, because it fits better in my army concept and helps me mitigate my weakness. But apart from that I don't think it is irrelevant to talk about units and their loadout individually.

But now you are talking about your "army concept" and "mitigating weaknesses" so that's a way of looking at the complete picture that makes an army-list. But this topic is about 'tactica' and I read a lot of comments about 'what tool is better to have' but I don't read what the want to use it for. A Hammer is a great tool. We can discuss what kind of hammer is best for hammering, but it is useless for drilling a hole.

New FW Xenos FaQ is out! Malanthrope power level to 5, given fly and reworded to affect units. So basically confirmed our best HQ lol. Stonecrushers only give up 1(!) attack to use the flail, which is insane and one of the best interpretations we could've ended up with. Hierodules' scytals corrected, only scythes has two and gets that extra attack. Dimachaeron's double strength thing adjusted to 6s to hit as well.

The poll is over, so we are going to keep this thread.

The FW FAQ seems to be pretty good and clearing up everything.

power level 5...does that mean the points change from 90?

Nope. It just means he is power level 5.

Did anyone try the not so amazing units yet and wants to say a few words about them? Maleceptor, Haruspex and such....

I am on a painting mission, no place to play during the summer.

Toxicrene
The tentacled beast is now a Heavy Support choice. It has plenty of attacks, some very short ranged anti-infantry shooting and unfortunately low AP.
Does that make it good? No!

I actually think that the Toxicrene is one of the worst units in the entire Tyranid arsenal. It is meant to be used as mass infantery killer. First of all Tyranids do not really need this, because they have Genestealers, Hormagants, Termagants, Raveners etc. for this. Second the Toxicrene just has WS 4+ and AP -1 on most of its weapons. This means that the thing can kill about 3-4 Guard Infantry in melee, which is quite frankly underwhelming for a huge monster which should be good at killing infantry. Against heavy infantry or vehicles it just fails misserably, if you look at its naked stats.
Okay, it has one signature ability and that is "always strike first". This can be pretty nice, if you will be attacked by enemy units. But on the other hand: It is good against Orks, Guard etc. so where should at make a difference when 30 Orks attack it? It simply does not matter in most of the cases that it can strike first, because his sheer killiness is just too bad.
I think it would be good, if GW would have given it some kind of area attack like the Stone Crusher with his flails. But as it is, the Toxicrene seems to be pretty bad overall and not worth it.

 Niiai wrote:
Has anyone played with a malanthrope yet? I think getting his bonus online could be very dificult.

And he is not very 'fighty'.

It does not need to kill the unit / last model by itself, it can just watch and learn - and give you the bonus.
If you use it to support your assault units this should be easy.

And after supporting them for 1-3 turns and providing the bonus afterwards it may even die because it fullfilled it`s purpose + the bonus doesn`t need it to stay alive.

 Grotrebel wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Has anyone played with a malanthrope yet? I think getting his bonus online could be very dificult.

And he is not very 'fighty'.

It does not need to kill the unit / last model by itself, it can just watch and learn - and give you the bonus.
If you use it to support your assault units this should be easy.

And after supporting them for 1-3 turns and providing the bonus afterwards it may even die because it fullfilled it`s purpose + the bonus doesn`t need it to stay alive.

But yout oponent can just remove models leaving the malantrope with no one to fight. Come leadership test, no nom gor the malanthrope. This is of course on multibmodel units.

If i am gonne make carnifexes to be all comers against all units, I was thinking a ranged weapon and mellee weapon.

Probably 2 scything tallons and a ranged weapon. But what ranged weapon?

Devourer or deathspitter? Is the 6 points worth the s7 ap1?

I don't like the hybrid fexes. You either go all melee or all dakka.
The only possible hybrid is a gun+ crushing claws.

If you got a set of scythes, then it is really impossible for 6 points to not get a second set that increases your melee output by more than 45%.

How is the mellee output increased by 45% by getting one extra attack?

Oh that's right, you get the reroll 1 even without the double scythe. Rerolling and 1 extra attack equal 45,8%. 1 Extra attack equals 25% only.

My hybrid fexes have been ok (Deathspitter w/slimer, 1x ScyTal, Bone Mace, AGlands).

They're not expensive, have a nice pile of non degrading wounds, can sometime kill a marine or plink some wounds off bikes/vehicle.

In some ways they are distraction carnifex because for a cheap ~100 pts ish they are still T6 which makes a lot of bolters/gauss/lasguns start to suck. Then they end up with 2-3 dead MEQ's per combat phase...

The math can show you better, but for me that simply cannot be ignored by my opponent, who is usually spamming las cannons at my flyant.

Enemies don't want to sit in melee with a Carnifex that eats MEQs or destroy elite infantry with ScyTal's 3 damage. But they usually don't want to sit in rapid fire range either, leaving them in the awkward ~20-24 single shot bolter range, where we can still push the fexes up and get a few hits with Deathspitters.

Also, don't shoot BS4+ Carnifexes at marines in cover with a 2+, often re-rolling saves of 1 for whatever marine thing that is. You just waste shots. Instead put them somewhere you can remove bodies. I usually focus on holding objectives.

Spoletta wrote:
I don't like the hybrid fexes. You either go all melee or all dakka.
The only possible hybrid is a gun+ crushing claws.

If you got a set of scythes, then it is really impossible for 6 points to not get a second set that increases your melee output by more than 45%.

Ayyy don't use crushing claws. Complete noob trap. They're god awful against everything

But what gun on hybrid fexes? Deathspittet or devourer? I am discounteng strangelthorn and venom cannons (should I?). Having a hybrid fex seems far better then pure mellee fex, even if you run fewer times + adrenal glands.

Deathspitters all the way. The bonus strength is good but the -1 AP takes them over the devourers.

My question is, bone mace or thresher scythe? The scythe is actually quite useful against hordes and it doesn't force you to remove an attack from the scything talons against multi wound models.

DoggieDoo wrote:
My hybrid fexes have been ok (Deathspitter w/slimer, 1x ScyTal, Bone Mace, AGlands).

They're not expensive, have a nice pile of non degrading wounds, can sometime kill a marine or plink some wounds off bikes/vehicle.

In some ways they are distraction carnifex because for a cheap ~100 pts ish they are still T6 which makes a lot of bolters/gauss/lasguns start to suck. Then they end up with 2-3 dead MEQ's per combat phase...

The math can show you better, but for me that simply cannot be ignored by my opponent, who is usually spamming las cannons at my flyant.

Enemies don't want to sit in melee with a Carnifex that eats MEQs or destroy elite infantry with ScyTal's 3 damage. But they usually don't want to sit in rapid fire range either, leaving them in the awkward ~20-24 single shot bolter range, where we can still push the fexes up and get a few hits with Deathspitters.

Also, don't shoot BS4+ Carnifexes at marines in cover with a 2+, often re-rolling saves of 1 for whatever marine thing that is. You just waste shots. Instead put them somewhere you can remove bodies. I usually focus on holding objectives.

I think that fexes are T7.

 Zande4 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I don't like the hybrid fexes. You either go all melee or all dakka.
The only possible hybrid is a gun+ crushing claws.

If you got a set of scythes, then it is really impossible for 6 points to not get a second set that increases your melee output by more than 45%.

Ayyy don't use crushing claws. Complete noob trap. They're god awful against everything

Your math must be wrong again. Pretty sure that the crushing claws are better than ST against T7+.

what about Mawlocks? i watched Geoff "incontrol" video on you tube and he use two in his BAO list, im still unsure of them anyway.

mawlocks are great

Edit:

How should I tool out some carnifexes? I do not like magnets!

I want to make 2 hybrids, and 2 dakka.

The hybrid is 2 scything tallons, and one shooting weapon. I want these to be good all around-

The 2 dakka are made for shooting down things.

They should all fall withing 'distraction carnifex'. I know stonecrusher is best for the mellee only option. But I don't have the money to buy the from FW.

Contex: I am diving into my tyranid colextion from 5th/6th edition. I was in the prosses of building 2 tyranofexes when the real model came out. I am also converting back 2 tervigons to carnifexes.

 blackmage wrote:
what about Mawlocks? i watched Geoff "incontrol" video on you tube and he use two in his BAO list, im still unsure of them anyway.

I think their great but the fulfil a specific role in your armylist and you need other units to back them up. With great positioning the can do a nice amount of mortal wounds and still pack 8 attacks against infantry at only half the cost of a trygon, but with the same amount of wounds/3+ save. Also no enemy units can keep them outside 9 inch, the just drop in outside 1 inch everywhere. Enemy units moving away? Burrow and see you later.

The work best in a heavy MC-list but a lot of players go for the big genestealer units and then the really don't fit in.

The carnifex can be equipped for several different roles.
Some of this depends on whats in the rest of your army. Some of this depends on meta. And sometimes depends on points.

Monstrous crushing claws not really worth it. Strength 16 seems to be the magic number to get so you can wound T8 on 2+. Otherwise just deal with spamming +3 to wound.... Which isn't that bad, lol.
That -1 to hit is huge. Not sure why this got passed testing. But it looks cool.

Stranglethorn or hvc not worth it for the points. Maybe in smaller point games where it could be hard to take other more viable shooty units.

So if you want melee you should go with the 2 scything talons. Make sure to have a plan to turn1 charge with this guy. Bone mace or thresher scyth jist depends if you want to save 5pts and meta dependant.

4 devorers with thresher scyth tail makes a great attack spammer. Deathspitters obviously good but depends on if you want to save 12 points. And if plan to still get him into combat.

Bio-plasma attack. ...not really worth it but if you got 9 points on a shootyfex the go for it.


Lots of options.

I also have an opinion on Fexes with different loadouts:

The Crushing Claw Fex is certainly not good, but is better against T7+ than the ST Version.

Crushing Claws vs T7 3+ Save

4*1/3*2/3*5/6*3 = 0.74 wounds = 2.22 damage

2x Scything Talons vs T7 3+ Save

4* 7/12*1/3*5/6*3 = 0.65 wounds = 1.94 damage

And the Crushing Claws version is just 1 pt more. So it is definitely worth it against T7+. Also the Thresher scythe is really usefull with Crushing claws, because you will have two very different weapons against heavy tanks and light infantry.
Of course the Stonecrusher Fex is much better in melee against vehicles, but it has no shooting at all.

I would personally really try to run 2-3x Carnifex with Crushing Claws and HVC and a Fex with HVC. Of course they are quite bad, but they are one of the few things against heavy vehicles. And 4 HVC can do something against most tanks in the game on 36 inch as well. Also the HVC are much better against infantry than LasCans. So why not?

I am not running crushing claws on fexes.

The only place to have crushing claws in the army is on tyrant guards. Where they are S10 and hit on 4+.

Did we have a points breakdown on devourers vs deathspitters?

 Astmeister wrote:

Toxicrene
The tentacled beast is now a Heavy Support choice. It has plenty of attacks, some very short ranged anti-infantry shooting and unfortunately low AP.

It has always been heavy support.

 Astmeister wrote:

I actually think that the Toxicrene is one of the worst units in the entire Tyranid arsenal. It is meant to be used as mass infantery killer. . This means that the thing can kill about 3-4 Guard Infantry in melee, which is quite frankly underwhelming for a huge monster which should be good at killing infantry. Against heavy infantry or vehicles it just fails misserably

I don't think it is really intended to specialize against hoard infantry as much as just be a general purpose melee unit with tools to do a bit of everything while remaining fairly inexpensive (it is the cheapest T7 12W monster in faction). The only thing it has that really skews towards hoards is the Hypertoxic Miasma, since it gets more rolls with more models in range. The rest of its kit seem geared towards hunting middle toughness/multi-wound models, relying on the volume of attacks and universal ability to reroll failed to wound rolls to force wounds through so the D3 damage characteristic can insure kills.

For what it is worth, I haven't had an opportunity to run my Toxicrine yet. I have seen them used at our shop to good effect however, as one of our regulars fields one as part of his 'nidzilla list on a regular basis.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

 Astmeister wrote:

Toxicrene
The tentacled beast is now a Heavy Support choice. It has plenty of attacks, some very short ranged anti-infantry shooting and unfortunately low AP.

It has always been heavy support.

 Astmeister wrote:

I actually think that the Toxicrene is one of the worst units in the entire Tyranid arsenal. It is meant to be used as mass infantery killer. . This means that the thing can kill about 3-4 Guard Infantry in melee, which is quite frankly underwhelming for a huge monster which should be good at killing infantry. Against heavy infantry or vehicles it just fails misserably

I don't think it is really intended to specialize against hoard infantry as much as just be a general purpose melee unit with tools to do a bit of everything while remaining fairly inexpensive (it is the cheapest T7 12W monster in faction). The only thing it has that really skews towards hoards is the Hypertoxic Miasma, since it gets more rolls with more models in range. The rest of its kit seem geared towards hunting middle toughness/multi-wound models, relying on the volume of attacks and universal ability to reroll failed to wound rolls to force wounds through so the D3 damage characteristic can insure kills.

For what it is worth, I haven't had an opportunity to run my Toxicrine yet. I have seen them used at our shop to good effect however, as one of our regulars fields one as part of his 'nidzilla list on a regular basis.

That us interesting. I don't really see it being necessary in any way, but why not give it a try. I am biased, since i do not like the model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh btw:
1 Fex with HVC + crushing claws is actually 2 times better against T8+ tanks than the dakkafex with 2x Deathspitters.

Did a test game with my biovore army:

Broodlord
Malanthrope
2x 20 guants with 10x devourer upgrade each
2x tyrannocytes

8x3 biovores
3 Mawlocs (not in the picture/deep strike reserve)

3 mieotic spore mines

Broodlord + malanthrope in the middle of the biovore pack and termagaunts + tyrannocyte as a screen. Mawlocs in reserve

https://flic.kr/p/WEdFiY

Played against Magnus + 3x daemon prince + B'lakor + 50 brimstone/blue horrors + 3 exalted flamers + changeling + tzeentch hell drake

The great thing about this list is the fact that it forces the enemy to come to you. The enemy does not have a lot op anti-infantry shooting so my spore mines cannot be wiped of the board easily. Magnus (warp time) + hell drake could only assault my gaunt screen. Next turn the gaunts in cc with hell drake fall back and I shoot down the hell drake (in combination with deathspitter) + deploy 12 spore mines! You want to cast smite? My spore mine is the closest so you have got to pick him. Daemon Prince character I cannot choose to shoot? I shoot the unit in front of you and deploy 12+ mines.

I was very protective with my biovores against the Daemon princes but with 4 wounds each the can actually take a punch. 7 attacks, 6 hit, 4 wounds, 1-saved thats 3 wounds with 2 damage so 1 dead biovore and another one wounded. Then the fall back and the other biovores shoot him to pieces. If the don't, then the floating mines take care of it next turn.

2 Mawloc's did 5 mortal wound on Magnus, burrowed, and start killing horrors in the backfield.

Also like the tyrannocyte's for being able to fly in and out of close combat. The can keep stuff busy and fall back at the right time and let the biovores finish the job.

Next time I do a test game against some GSC Genestealers...!

good for you he played only 3 exalted, most top lists i saw plays at least 6 or more, in that case ur gaunt screen wont last long

shogun wrote:

Did a test game with my biovore army:

[snip]

Just as a thought, but what about perhaps replacing the Tyrannocytes with Sporocysts? Admittedly they cannot deliver Termagants or assault fliers, but they do pump out extra spore mines (or Mucolid Spores if desired) and count as synapse creatures while in synapse which would allow you to spread out a bit more for objective grabbing.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

shogun wrote:

Did a test game with my biovore army:

[snip]

Just as a thought, but what about perhaps replacing the Tyrannocytes with Sporocysts? Admittedly they cannot deliver Termagants or assault fliers, but they do pump out extra spore mines (or Mucolid Spores if desired) and count as synapse creatures while in synapse which would allow you to spread out a bit more for objective grabbing.

It's to static and the spore mines are only produced if the weapon misses a target within 9 inch. If there is an enemy target within 9 inch, it's got bigger problems. If I want more synapse I rather pick another malanthrope. Tyrannocytes give you options and only the guants I deep strike outside synapse range could be facing extra morale casualties. But I would only do that if their devourers did a number on the enemy first. Tyrannocytes also pack a nice amount of wounds and are capable of assaulting a strong close combat unit and keep it busy for on or two turns. The can also assault a unit first, lock it in close combat, and then the mines can assault without facing overwatch.

Against hordes I could deep strike the gaunts at the flank and shoot down a big amount of bodies. Then I shoot the biovores at the next infantry unit and block the path with mines so that the other infantry units cannot reach the guants and cannot move closer for rapid fire or pistol-shots etc.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

shogun wrote:

Did a test game with my biovore army:

[snip]

Just as a thought, but what about perhaps replacing the Tyrannocytes with Sporocysts? Admittedly they cannot deliver Termagants or assault fliers, but they do pump out extra spore mines (or Mucolid Spores if desired) and count as synapse creatures while in synapse which would allow you to spread out a bit more for objective grabbing.

I could see using one those in a game. I had the pleasure of playing my first game against the Sisters of Battle (OMG) last night and could have used one of those to bridge the gap in my synapse between my warriors and genestealers. Not to mention throwing down some mobile artillery anywhere on the board is going to be a headache for anyone in my opinion.


As for my first game, I did lose pretty hard by the 4th turn, but it was a great game. We used the Open War Deck (loved it) and the mission was The Comet with the twist being Acid Rain. (this is optimal situation for the Tyranids as far as I'm concerned. -1 to being shot at is awesome with Lictors and Venomthropes.) Geezuz that St. Celestine unit is beyond stupid good! Especially with those free Faith Rolls or whatever they were...

I want Sporocysts to be good, but I'm not sold on them. 5 Barbed Stranglers is really nice fire power, but their Spore Node is so short-range. If they could just spawn Mines, that'd be much better. They need something else to make them worth it - not sure what it is, and they are just too expensive for what you get.

From the bew faq today:

Page 242 – Understrength UnitsChange the second paragraph to read:

‘If you are using Power Ratings, you must still pay
the Power Rating cost as if you had a minimum-sized
unit, even though it contains fewer models. If you are
using points, you only pay the points for the models
you actually have in an understrength unit (and any
wargear they are equipped with).

An understrength unit still takes up the appropriate slot in a Detachment. If you are playing a matched play game, you can only include an understrength unit in an Auxiliary
Support Detachment.’

So if you want a lone venonthrope/zoanthrope that is -1 command point. Not sure if it is worth it.

 Niiai wrote:
From the bew faq today:

Page 242 – Understrength UnitsChange the second paragraph to read:

‘If you are using Power Ratings, you must still pay
the Power Rating cost as if you had a minimum-sized
unit, even though it contains fewer models. If you are
using points, you only pay the points for the models
you actually have in an understrength unit (and any
wargear they are equipped with).

An understrength unit still takes up the appropriate slot in a Detachment. If you are playing a matched play game, you can only include an understrength unit in an Auxiliary
Support Detachment.’

So if you want a lone venonthrope/zoanthrope that is -1 command point. Not sure if it is worth it.

It might not be worth it. But I only have 2 Venomthropes. So I have to do it, if I want to use them at all.

 rollawaythestone wrote:
I want Sporocysts to be good, but I'm not sold on them. 5 Barbed Stranglers is really nice fire power, but their Spore Node is so short-range. If they could just spawn Mines, that'd be much better. They need something else to make them worth it - not sure what it is, and they are just too expensive for what you get.

If the where capable of 'spawning' spore mines and/or mucolids, then the could have been nice. Let them deploy d3 spore mines within 9 inch or field 2xd3 spore mines and lose a wound.

Bring only Biovores and malenthropes, with perhaps a bubblewrap of gants. If you're playing anything with non-hover tanks you autowin by restricting their movement to the point of immobility, especially since you can move 0.001" to get -1 to hit on the biovores to spawn more mines.

Too many deployments, the enemy will start first and select a diagonal deployment. He can then position his models in a way that the 60" line that you can draw is insufficient to hold him back.

And anything with fly would always pass.

The more I've thought about it the more I'm convinced the Swarmlord is rubbish unless you are running something like a Dimachron. It would make a heck of a lot more sense if advancing catapulted characters forward as well.

And for 300 points I think he is pretty much awful. I hope they improve him in the forthcoming Tyranid book.

I'm going to purchase that Malanthrope and run that plus a broodlord. I haven't had any more games since last time but I was sitting painting thinking about it. You can do a heck of a lot with a spare 210 points. 6 Biovores for a start.

++ Supreme Command Detachment +1CP (Tyranids) ++

+ HQ +

Hive Tyrant: Adrenal Glands, Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Catalyst, Power: The Horror, Prehensile Pincer Tail, Two Deathspitters with Slimer Maggots, Wings

Hive Tyrant: Adrenal Glands, Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Onslaught, Power: The Horror, Prehensile Pincer Tail, Two Deathspitters with Slimer Maggots, Wings

Hive Tyrant: Adrenal Glands, Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Catalyst, Power: Onslaught, Prehensile Pincer Tail, Two Deathspitters with Slimer Maggots, Wings

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Tyranids) ++

+ HQ +

Malanthropes: Malanthrope

The Swarmlord: Power: Catalyst, Power: The Horror

+ Troops +

Genestealers
. 20x Genestealer: 20x Rending Claws, 20x Scything Talons

Hormagaunts: 30x Hormagaunt

Termagants
. 10x Termagant (Devourer): 10x Devourer
. 15x Termagant (Fleshborer)

+ Fast Attack +

Hive Crone: Drool Cannon, Scything Wings, Stinger Salvo, Tentaclids

+ Heavy Support +

Trygon: Bio-electric Pulse, 3x Massive Scything Talons, Toxinspike

+ Dedicated Transport +

Tyrannocyte: 5x Barbed Strangler

++ Supreme Command Detachment +1CP (Tyranids) ++

+ HQ +

Hive Tyrant: Adrenal Glands, Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Catalyst, Power: The Horror, Prehensile Pincer Tail, Two Deathspitters with Slimer Maggots, Wings

Hive Tyrant: Adrenal Glands, Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Onslaught, Power: The Horror, Prehensile Pincer Tail, Two Deathspitters with Slimer Maggots, Wings

Hive Tyrant: Adrenal Glands, Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Catalyst, Power: Onslaught, Prehensile Pincer Tail, Two Deathspitters with Slimer Maggots, Wings

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Tyranids) ++

+ HQ +

Malanthropes: Malanthrope

The Swarmlord: Power: Catalyst, Power: The Horror

+ Troops +

Genestealers
. 18x Genestealer: 18x Rending Claws, 18x Scything Talons

Hormagaunts: 30x Hormagaunt

Termagants: 20x Termagant (Fleshborer)

+ Heavy Support +

Exocrine: Bio-plasmic Cannon, Powerful Limbs

Trygon: Bio-electric Pulse, 3x Massive Scything Talons, Toxinspike

+ Dedicated Transport +

Tyrannocyte: 5x Barbed Strangler

which one better? exocrine or hive crone? I could consider to use a broodlord to replace malanthrope

What loadout would you guys suggest for a Hive Tyrant? Wings or walking, deathspitter och barbed strangler? Give me your ideas☺

wings 2 deathspitters and 2 rending claws

there are no deathspitters in the kit, where can I get them?

In the carnifex kit. :-)

thanks, although they are not available at stores now. A source told me GW are repacking a lot of kits for 8th, and thats why a lot of them aren't available now

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
The more I've thought about it the more I'm convinced the Swarmlord is rubbish unless you are running something like a Dimachron. It would make a heck of a lot more sense if advancing catapulted characters forward as well.

And for 300 points I think he is pretty much awful. I hope they improve him in the forthcoming Tyranid book.

Is Swarmie really that awful? Can't catapulty himself?

I thought as a Str8 beatstick he is pretty aweful and helps fill-out those higher-end damage thresholds.

I'm not actually convinced about a Dima tho, I'm thinking another Trygon & additional Stealers could do the same job, better

I'm torn on swarmie. On the one hand, he absolutely wrecks everything he touches. On the other hand, 300 points and he is surprisingly squishy, especially with the fire he draws. I'm finding myself take Old One Eye and a broodlord instead of him for only 2 points more, netting me buffs for two of my armies mainstays and two great melee characters

C4790M wrote:
I'm torn on swarmie. On the one hand, he absolutely wrecks everything he touches. On the other hand, 300 points and he is surprisingly squishy, especially with the fire he draws. I'm finding myself take Old One Eye and a broodlord instead of him for only 2 points more, netting me buffs for two of my armies mainstays and two great melee characters

Can the Swarmlord self buff, with Hive Commander?

Yes, it was specified by GW during the tyranid faction focus.

If you look at profiles to try to figure out why a certain character is a certain price, Swarmlord must be paying about 100 points for the hive commander ability.

Girlyman is 345 or so? He is heads and tails better than swarmlord. Might even beat him in a one on one match.

Unfortunately the Walking Hive Tyrant is still much worse than the Flyrant.
The latter is only some 30 pts more expensiive, is faster, can move over units and has no drawbacks. They could have said that just the Walkrant profits from the Tyrant Guard ability or given him a 2+ Save.

The way it is now, there is still no reason to take the Walkrant. Unless maybe you want to have a really cheap one or you just want to stay in the back an shoot.

I think the Swarmlord is amazing. Don't know why so many people consider him bad now. He is of course expensive, but you have to make sure that his Hive Commander ability is usefull, if you want to use him. The ability is clearly a game changer and a lot of people are very afraid of it.

 Astmeister wrote:
Unfortunately the Walking Hive Tyrant is still much worse than the Flyrant.
The latter is only some 30 pts more expensiive, is faster, can move over units and has no drawbacks. They could have said that just the Walkrant profits from the Tyrant Guard ability or given him a 2+ Save.

The way it is now, there is still no reason to take the Walkrant. Unless maybe you want to have a really cheap one or you just want to stay in the back an shoot.

I think the Swarmlord is amazing. Don't know why so many people consider him bad now. He is of course expensive, but you have to make sure that his Hive Commander ability is usefull, if you want to use him. The ability is clearly a game changer and a lot of people are very afraid of it.

Honestly i prefer the walkrants. I use a single tyrant in my list, and he is always the first target, due to the high cost/wound rate (18.4), and the fact that he is not affected by venomthropes (no forgeworld here). Wings would only increase the cost/wound rate, making him an even better target. He is a good chap without wings, with 2 powers and some shooting with reasonable durability.

Spoletta wrote:

 Astmeister wrote:
Unfortunately the Walking Hive Tyrant is still much worse than the Flyrant.
The latter is only some 30 pts more expensiive, is faster, can move over units and has no drawbacks. They could have said that just the Walkrant profits from the Tyrant Guard ability or given him a 2+ Save.

The way it is now, there is still no reason to take the Walkrant. Unless maybe you want to have a really cheap one or you just want to stay in the back an shoot.

I think the Swarmlord is amazing. Don't know why so many people consider him bad now. He is of course expensive, but you have to make sure that his Hive Commander ability is usefull, if you want to use him. The ability is clearly a game changer and a lot of people are very afraid of it.

Honestly i prefer the walkrants. I use a single tyrant in my list, and he is always the first target, due to the high cost/wound rate (18.4), and the fact that he is not affected by venomthropes (no forgeworld here). Wings would only increase the cost/wound rate, making him an even better target. He is a good chap without wings, with 2 powers and some shooting with reasonable durability.

You are my hero!
I also play a Walkrant with HVC + Scything Talons since 6th edition now.

What loadout do you have for him and do you advance and go into melee with it or does it stay in the backfield?

I tried both the scytals + spitters and the double spitters. No rending claws, for moral reasons.

The double deathspitter is nice because all the value of the walkrant is still intact even with 3 wounds left. If he survives the first turn, he positions himself in the second line and keeps supporting with firing and powers.

The scytal version was good in a game against necrons but not much more. If he has at least 6 wounds left when the second line hits, he assists in melee, if not he tries to stay alive and keep using powers as long as possible.

In fact he is mostly a psyonic, because when you have powers as strong as the nid ones, 180 points for 2 powers are really worth it. If he gest to kill something it is just a bonus.

Never tried HVC, are you enjoying it?

HVC was terrible in 7th but I played it anyway. Now i cannot play nids, because the minis are 1500 km away. I just have demons atm.
Do you field tyrant guard? I always used 2.

I have not played with the swarmlord, but I am gluing him up as we speak. I think he looks really good, but you need to build your force around him. You can't just add him to your list.

Having the swarmlord run turn 1 he moves at least 10", and then you pop up reserves 6" from him. What reserves depends a bit on your list. But the two obvius winners are Conga Line Raveners, or Genstealers in a trygin/trygon prime.

Raveners comes in a group of 9 with big bases, and have 12" move. 10" from the swarmlord, hive commander 6", 12" move that is a total of 28" often a garanteed charge first turn. If you need more range just conga line the raveners. Each 'conga' should ad around 4". Even if you go 3 conga deep that is an extra 12" for a total of 40". Should be able to charge most things.

Not genestealers can almost do a similar thing in a trygon. A trygon base is 4,5", you can deploy 3 in each direction, conga lining along the base adding up to meaning 10,5". They can run and charge, so a minimum move of 9". 10 + 6 +10,5 + 9 is a 31,5 " charge range at the minimum.

So with those two units you have a turn one charge, and a turn 2 charge. Turn 3 the swarmlord probably charges himself. Remember to cast catalyst on your attack unit to make sure it survives, the opponent probably tryes to fall back.

Also, if you have the range on the charge for this you can declear a charge against one unit. Once you make the charge with one model, you can move the rest of the models in the unit to the closest oponent, but it does not have to be the same unit. On the pile in move you can engage them then, avoiding overwatch. Perfect for attacking hellhounds and other flamer based oponents. If the oponent want's to shoot at you they have to fall back with multiple units.

It is not perfect and it has some or the problems with attacking in waves, and on the first turn.

In general, both the swarmlord and the hive tyrant is an army multiplyer. The regular hive tyrant is sadly on this edition only suplying psykick powers as his multiplying abilaty. Also, the swarmlord and hive tyrant is the only model in the game as far as I know, that has the option of buying extra wounds in the form of tyrant guard. This is massive meaning you can scale the swarmlord/tyrant upwards as the points increases. The more points in a game, the less chance one of your MC's survive focused lascannon fire.

I want to try 3 tguards, 2 with crushing claws and one with rending. The rending one lends his wounds to the walkrant, they have a good cost/wound. Then you let the tyrant die, powering up the remaining guards. Now with 3 attacks each, they can bring the hurt.

Total cost 155, but not giving them AG is a crime, so 158.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Works best with the swarmlord, where you can be sure that they will want him DEAD. With a walkrant they may switch target priority to something else, which is almost surely not going to be the guards, they are really though nuts to crack with those stats and being infantry (venoms and cover).

Swarmlord is one of the closest things to an auto-include I have. His melee threat and the attack vectors he can provide alone make him worth it. He is one of the most dangerous CC fighters in the game on his own, but being able to increase the threat of a unit at need is priceless to me.

The fact that right now we don't have auto-include means we have a really well done codex this time. Maybe not top tier, but that isn't important.

Right OK that is actually worth considering, Swarmlord with a 10inch move, trygon plus genestealers is a big threat but the problem remains that you are conga lining your army still allowing the opponent to pick off each threat a turn. The only other way is to go all reserves with GSC or Trygons etc.

I'm facing off against at least one knight tomorrow evening, should be fun.

Spoletta wrote:
I want to try 3 tguards, 2 with crushing claws and one with rending. The rending one lends his wounds to the walkrant, they have a good cost/wound. Then you let the tyrant die, powering up the remaining guards. Now with 3 attacks each, they can bring the hurt.

Total cost 155, but not giving them AG is a crime, so 158.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Works best with the swarmlord, where you can be sure that they will want him DEAD. With a walkrant they may switch target priority to something else, which is almost surely not going to be the guards, they are really though nuts to crack with those stats and being infantry (venoms and cover).

Thanks for the insight.
I don't think the Swarmlord is a good idea for that. He is way too expensive to just die and give Rage to the TG. On the other hand, they will shoot him anyway and as long as he can catapult something to the front, it might be worth it. You can even catapult the TG in front of him and let him die to get Rage.

Spoletta wrote:
I want to try 3 tguards, 2 with crushing claws and one with rending. The rending one lends his wounds to the walkrant, they have a good cost/wound. Then you let the tyrant die, powering up the remaining guards. Now with 3 attacks each, they can bring the hurt.

Total cost 155, but not giving them AG is a crime, so 158

Minor nitpick, but Tyrant Guard replace their Scything Talons when they take Boneswords or Crushing Claws. They always have the Rending Claws so the cost of the squad should be closer to the second price point before adding Adrenal Glands. The idea of filling the Elite slot up with Tyrant Guard squads is an interesting idea though, as the slots are plentiful and they do actually have fairly nice stats for infantry. Might be amusing to try bringing a ton of them via Vanguard detachments and have them stomp up the board like a bunch of angry mini-carnifexes with Tyrants in tow.

Have anybody had any experience with guns on raveners?

I am repainting my old 5th edition raveners and I was wondering of changing the chest. In 5th edition there where so many bad reasons for taking guns on them.

Come 8th edition and you can shoot after running, you can shoot at another unit then the one you are charging. Much has changed.

Is it worth taking guns on raveners? 8 points for a 'heavy bolter' is not so bad. Suddenly you have 9 extra heavy bolters in your army.

 Niiai wrote:
Have anybody had any experience with guns on raveners?

I am repainting my old 5th edition raveners and I was wondering of changing the chest. In 5th edition there where so many bad reasons for taking guns on them.

Come 8th edition and you can shoot after running, you can shoot at another unit then the one you are charging. Much has changed.

Is it worth taking guns on raveners? 8 points for a 'heavy bolter' is not so bad. Suddenly you have 9 extra heavy bolters in your army.

I don't own any Raveners. But having some extra Fire power is a good thing. My main "issue" with them was Synapse, and that is not so bad now...But( ) if you are not in Synapse, you can't choose what you shoot at...and it will most likely be the unit you want to charge.( ) so that might be a problem....


If I purchase some ( my army was stolen, along with most everything else I owned) I think I'll seriously consider Spine Fists....

So sorry to hear it was stolen. I have had things stolen on ocations, and it is not funn. Hope your insurance covers it.

I am planing on running them with shrikes to have synapse.

I think the debate for me at least is spine fists (4 s3 12" guns, 3 points) vs devourers (3 s5 Ap1 18" assault 8 points.) The one is a freaking heavy bolter. The other is afordable.

Putting devourers on shrikes is clearly a point sink of huge proportions. But perhaps Spine Fists could work.

Yep, I guess all I can say is play a few with each loadout to see.

But I wanne have my nids painted by end of august.

 Niiai wrote:
Have anybody had any experience with guns on raveners?

I am repainting my old 5th edition raveners and I was wondering of changing the chest. In 5th edition there where so many bad reasons for taking guns on them.

Come 8th edition and you can shoot after running, you can shoot at another unit then the one you are charging. Much has changed.

Is it worth taking guns on raveners? 8 points for a 'heavy bolter' is not so bad. Suddenly you have 9 extra heavy bolters in your army.

I actually just played a game this weekend with a squad of 6 Raveners with RC and Deathspitters. I wasn't terribly impressed with them sadly, but that may have been due to my target priority with them. I think they are best suited for taking out all forms of infantry (chaff to heavy specialists).

Unfortunately I believed that they would be able to kill off 1 of 2 Bloated Plague Drones along with the help of the swarmlord assaulting both of them. But with toughness 7 and disgustingly resilient, they failed pretty miserably. Next turn the drones just floated away from combat and a Defiler made it into CC with the Raveners.

Basically anything multi-dmg with Ap2 or better will absolutely decimate them. In that one round of combat he killed 5 of my raveners with 1 defiler.

I will most likely try running them again, but its hard to justify their cost when I could just throw in 16 genestealers instead.

Yeah. Ravaners are stuck in this odd place between shrikes, warriors and genestealers. Genstealers have 4 attacks same as the ravaner and the 5++. Ravaners cost almost twice as much, has 3 wounds and 5+, but can deepstrike, so synergi with the swarmlord.

Raveners should be really good in clearing bubble-wrap units. Due to their high number of attacks they are good against T3 5+ infantry. And since they can deep strike this is even better.
Thus I would play them with Spinefists. Deathspitters are good, but they are still pretty expensive for a T4 5+ unit.
They die so quickly.

I ran 2 units of 3 with deathspitters and the red terror in a tournament last week. They arrived along with a Trygon Prime with 20 devgaunts. They worked really well for me. They cleared ork boyz fairly well. I used them to force a land raider to be useless as I kept charging it over and over when it fell back. They screened my Old One Eye and Swarmlord from a 30man ork boy charge. 3 Ravaners ate their charge so that the rest of my army could wipe them on my turn. The Red Terror ate 2 big meks and was really annoying for my opponent to kill due to it being a character.

All in all, the Raveners did what I needed them to do. I needed them to deep strike and screen/kill/lock units so that my 20 devgaunts, Swarmlord, Flying HT and Old One Eye can eat things without dying in response. They locked up some basilisks on turn 2 thanks to 12" movement. On paper they're not spectacular but the value of Deep Strike AND 12" movement is underrated.

I won all 3 of my games in the tournament, but placed 3rd due to overall points. Two other people were also undefeated and they had slightly more points than I did (both were ork players... one had 180 gretchin).