They seem pretty successful with 5 of the top 16. Is it meta, format, or something else?

Flyrants, Mawlocs, and Mucolid Spores seem to be the most common units.

https://spikeybits.com/2018/03/40k-adepticon-championship-top-16-lists-revealed.html

The missions help as does the terrain (Adepticon tends to be pretty light without a ton of LoS blocking).

It's about time! Been waiting for the competitive Nid players to start flexing their competitive muscle.

Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

Flyrant spam has been strong, but it's dependent on the missions and the setup. These lists aren't new. These are the same lists that couldn't crack the top 50 at LVO.

Except maybe the guy who is running 5 tyrants and a ton of imperial guard. That list grosses me out in so many ways.

Not very surprising, I don't think. Hive Tyrants are obviously overpowered, they're fairly resilient to things like Dark Reapers and Blood Angels Captains, and they have excellent tools for shutting down psychic powers.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

Nids can be played in so many ways competitively. The ability to deep strike 3+ flyrants and bring along support with a trygon is really dominant in my group. The only army I have trouble with is eldar with shining spears and reapers.

Mawlocs are crap though. Not sure why anyone would bring one. Probably for objective grabbing or something (because they can deep strike right next to an enemy unit). Things that i never really play for. I table armies in 3-4 turns with nids. Probably would run out of time in a tournament and lose on points though. Which is why tournaments are a really bad indicator of army power level.

People think the Eldar codex is strong; but it's not really that oppressive - it's just that Dark Reapers are a problem, and people translate that 1 unit = entire codex.

Same thing's happening with Orks; 1 decent unit (Boyz) = entire codex is fine.

It's easy to make that case for a lot of armies. The good unit in the Tyranid codex is the Flyrant. What are these lists without flyrant spam? Is the tyranid codex fine?

I hope highlander becomes a thing. I'd love to play in highlander tournaments, if only they would gain popularity.

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

I imagine a lot of people chose their list knowing that there was a risk GW would dump the FAQ on them before the tournament; it was only this last week they confirmed on Facebook that they would be waiting.

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

I didn't realize there was a decided on nerf yet, what is it?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

I didn't realize there was a decided on nerf yet, what is it?

None known yet, but people bet on the FAQ coming out before the tourney.

We should findout next week I believe was last roumer, its mostly speculation so far. However reapers are so busted even eldar players are calling for nerfs, which will probably hurt eldar tournament placing, buy also given that GW have introduced the first hard limit to units in the tau dex some are expecting the faq to be the wider rollout of this rule. Which given the amount of flyrents that might be justified.

People have allready stoped buying Dark Reapers on ebay for inflated prices. Everyone is quiet, waiting for the nerf to arrive.

If it doesn't, the prices of Dark Reapers on ebay will explode even more.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

I didn't realize there was a decided on nerf yet, what is it?

Most likely MRC no longer being free. They really shouldn't be free because they are better than the option that costs 20 points. However - i don't expect it will change much.

If you really wanted to nerf the tyrant you would remove it's ability to deep strike (This is really why it's taken anyways). I'll still take 3 of them at +20 points each. NP.

Ice_can wrote:
We should findout next week I believe was last roumer, its mostly speculation so far. However reapers are so busted even eldar players are calling for nerfs, which will probably hurt eldar tournament placing, buy also given that GW have introduced the first hard limit to units in the tau dex some are expecting the faq to be the wider rollout of this rule. Which given the amount of flyrents that might be justified.

They stated at AdeptiCon the FAQ is finished and will be presented after AdeptiCon so its either this Sunday (highly unlikely) or next.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

I didn't realize there was a decided on nerf yet, what is it?

None known yet, but people bet on the FAQ coming out before the tourney.

Unlikely the case - once lists are submitted they would be immune from the changes in CA otherwise every list would be invalid.

Otherwise they could just bring 2 list and if reapers wernt nerfed they could just bring their busted reapers still.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

I didn't realize there was a decided on nerf yet, what is it?

None known yet, but people bet on the FAQ coming out before the tourney.

Unlikely the case - once lists are submitted they would be immune from the changes in CA otherwise every list would be invalid.

Otherwise they could just bring 2 list and if reapers wernt nerfed they could just bring their busted reapers still.

Actually this isn't the case. Lists are legal per content published before a specific cut-off. AdeptiCon's cut off was the first weekend of March so people would have known if the FAQ was being used before submitting lists. I think the main reason you didn't see them is the ACon missions don't favor them as heavily and that people were expecting them to be counter built in the meta.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

I didn't realize there was a decided on nerf yet, what is it?

there isn't, but many of these players expected it to drop after list deadline but before the event.

Hive Tyrants would be better served with the commander treatment rather than a nerf. It's the same overall effect but doesn't punish people who were playing Tyranids in a more balanced manner to begin with.

And if MRC are 20 points, everyone will just take MST, d6 damage is a no brainer.

You'll notice most of these people weren't even using claws anyway. They were using 2x Twin Devs, for 24 shots. Because even fully degraded a tyrant still hits on 4s in shooting.

 Marmatag wrote:
Hive Tyrants would be better served with the commander treatment rather than a nerf. It's the same overall effect but doesn't punish people who were playing Tyranids in a more balanced manner to begin with.

And if MRC are 20 points, everyone will just take MST, d6 damage is a no brainer.

I agree with this - a limit of 1 per detachment would be a fine limit on HTs. They're still strong and a viable a unit, the game just doesn't handle 7 of them at a time well.

I'm sure we are gonna see a generalised commander nerf in the FAQ. Hive Tyrants, Daemon Princes, etc...

I saw a few people suggesting that nids would step up when the eldar were nerfed after the last tournament. Props to them for picking the right horse, if not the right time.

They are going to want to beware getting 'tau commandered' at this rate.

Damn that 8 dark talon list.

Stacking minus penalties to hit better be on GWs radar by now. That list looks like no fun to play against. Orcs can't even shoot it.

I'll be disappointed if the following units don't get some sort of adjustment in the FAQ:
Reapers
Shining spears
Guardsmen
Flyrants
Hive Guard (that shoot twice strat is bonkers)
Dark Talons
Cultist (if IG infantry squads are a problem these are too)
Fire Raptors
mortar squads
grad strat + aquila

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Hive Tyrants would be better served with the commander treatment rather than a nerf. It's the same overall effect but doesn't punish people who were playing Tyranids in a more balanced manner to begin with.

And if MRC are 20 points, everyone will just take MST, d6 damage is a no brainer.

I agree with this - a limit of 1 per detachment would be a fine limit on HTs. They're still strong and a viable a unit, the game just doesn't handle 7 of them at a time well.

Totally agree. I don't think GW playtests with 7+ of any unit, regardless of role, on the table.

In truth they should consider adjusting the rules so that things are more in line with how they play test. If they have this silent intended use case, just make it RAW. We all want a balanced game. As a Tyranid player I would be fine with a "rule of 1" for repeated HQs. Any duplicate HQ must come in a separate detachment.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Hive Tyrants would be better served with the commander treatment rather than a nerf. It's the same overall effect but doesn't punish people who were playing Tyranids in a more balanced manner to begin with.

And if MRC are 20 points, everyone will just take MST, d6 damage is a no brainer.

I agree with this - a limit of 1 per detachment would be a fine limit on HTs. They're still strong and a viable a unit, the game just doesn't handle 7 of them at a time well.

Totally agree. I don't think GW playtests with 7+ of any unit, regardless of role, on the table.

In truth they should consider adjusting the rules so that things are more in line with how they play test. If they have this silent intended use case, just make it RAW. We all want a balanced game. As a Tyranid player I would be fine with a "rule of 1" for repeated HQs. Any duplicate HQ must come in a separate detachment.

Indeed fluffwise all our HQs except primes are really a rare sight.

Well i was saying that rule should apply to all armies.

 Marmatag wrote:
Well i was saying that rule should apply to all armies.

It would give me a reason not to take both my princes in my TSons detachment (which as of right now there is no reason not to).

Even as an avid CWE player I wouldn't mind the restrictions on spiritseers/autarchs (Farseers and warlocks are too much of a lynchpin that holds the codex together to be limited in that fashion)

Just how many farseers are you taking in per detachment at the moment?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Hive Tyrants would be better served with the commander treatment rather than a nerf. It's the same overall effect but doesn't punish people who were playing Tyranids in a more balanced manner to begin with.

And if MRC are 20 points, everyone will just take MST, d6 damage is a no brainer.

I agree with this - a limit of 1 per detachment would be a fine limit on HTs. They're still strong and a viable a unit, the game just doesn't handle 7 of them at a time well.

Totally agree. I don't think GW playtests with 7+ of any unit, regardless of role, on the table.

In truth they should consider adjusting the rules so that things are more in line with how they play test. If they have this silent intended use case, just make it RAW. We all want a balanced game. As a Tyranid player I would be fine with a "rule of 1" for repeated HQs. Any duplicate HQ must come in a separate detachment.

I just hope this GW is learning how people list build, and can incorporate it as part of play testing, I realise its probably a tine/cost issue but seriously they need to balance for the way people actually play.

 Galas wrote:
I'm sure we are gonna see a generalised commander nerf in the FAQ. Hive Tyrants, Daemon Princes, etc...

I totally support this.

 Marmatag wrote:
Hive Tyrants would be better served with the commander treatment rather than a nerf. It's the same overall effect but doesn't punish people who were playing Tyranids in a more balanced manner to begin with.

And if MRC are 20 points, everyone will just take MST, d6 damage is a no brainer.

You'll notice most of these people weren't even using claws anyway. They were using 2x Twin Devs, for 24 shots. Because even fully degraded a tyrant still hits on 4s in shooting.

No weapon for a Hive Tyrant can deal d6 damages.

Maximum unmodified is 3 flat damages.

Ice_can wrote:

I just hope this GW is learning how people list build, and can incorporate it as part of play testing, I realise its probably a tine/cost issue but seriously they need to balance for the way people actually play.

I know right?

Ultimately i think that most of us agree here this is a detachment issue more than an individual army balance issue.

And the argument about warlocks and farseers? No, i don't buy it. People want to spam low cost options to get more miles out of their points.

I like the variety in the styles of the top 16 lists... however, the general spamminess of many of them is pretty disconcerting.

I do love some of those Chaos lists tho; especially the one thats basically a whole nurgle demons army with Ahriman and some PBC's tacked in. Great seeing Gnarlmaws represented in 2 of the lists too!

Can someone post a link to the missions?

The closer you are to book missions, the more spam is encouraged.

Recall, Flyrant spam sucked at LVO.

http://www.adepticon.org/wpfiles/2018/201840KChampDraftScenarios.pdf

Well that kind of explains a significant part of it. I don't like that scoring at all, specifically the heavy emphasis on killing and kill points.

Did orks come anywhere on that list?

Not in the top 16

 Zid wrote:
I like the variety in the styles of the top 16 lists... however, the general spamminess of many of them is pretty disconcerting.

I do love some of those Chaos lists tho; especially the one thats basically a whole nurgle demons army with Ahriman and some PBC's tacked in. Great seeing Gnarlmaws represented in 2 of the lists too!

Yep the spam is lame and the real winner lists are the ones like Nick's (Typhus/Ahriman/Abaddon) that have multiple tools at his disposal.

Matt Schuchman has a cool list. 14 Tyranid Warriors and a Prime!

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Zid wrote:
I like the variety in the styles of the top 16 lists... however, the general spamminess of many of them is pretty disconcerting.

I do love some of those Chaos lists tho; especially the one thats basically a whole nurgle demons army with Ahriman and some PBC's tacked in. Great seeing Gnarlmaws represented in 2 of the lists too!

Yep the spam is lame and the real winner lists are the ones like Nick's (Typhus/Ahriman/Abaddon) that have multiple tools at his disposal.

How was Nick's list not spam (6 units of Cultists and 3 units of Pox Walkers was most of the army)?

 Imateria wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Zid wrote:
I like the variety in the styles of the top 16 lists... however, the general spamminess of many of them is pretty disconcerting.

I do love some of those Chaos lists tho; especially the one thats basically a whole nurgle demons army with Ahriman and some PBC's tacked in. Great seeing Gnarlmaws represented in 2 of the lists too!

Yep the spam is lame and the real winner lists are the ones like Nick's (Typhus/Ahriman/Abaddon) that have multiple tools at his disposal.

How was Nick's list not spam (6 units of Cultists and 3 units of Pox Walkers was most of the army)?

And magic supported tzaangors. It wasn't a one trick pox walker list. The cultists could stand on their own as well as the pox walkers and tzaangors.

 Marmatag wrote:
Hive Tyrants would be better served with the commander treatment rather than a nerf. It's the same overall effect but doesn't punish people who were playing Tyranids in a more balanced manner to begin with.

And if MRC are 20 points, everyone will just take MST, d6 damage is a no brainer.

You'll notice most of these people weren't even using claws anyway. They were using 2x Twin Devs, for 24 shots. Because even fully degraded a tyrant still hits on 4s in shooting.

This guys has 7 FHT with claws and devs

https://miniheadquarters.com/rosters/details/3-adepticon-tyranids

so does this guy

https://miniheadquarters.com/rosters/details/3-adepticon-tyranids-by-nick-rose

This guy doesn't - hes playing a really different style list though - GSC with a shadowsword
https://miniheadquarters.com/rosters/details/3-brood-brothers-by-chris-blackham

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

Malarky. No one self-nerfed themselves in a competitive tournament of this scale. You see these lists because they are the best at this event.

10 total Dark Reapers in the top 8 is because that's how good they are.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Wow, and only one Eldar. Maybe that'll tone down some of the salt...

Or not. It IS the internet, after all.

People are playing it less because of the impending nerf. Literally all of the Eldar players I know have been practicing with the Reaper nerf in mind.

Malarky. No one self-nerfed themselves in a competitive tournament of this scale. You see these lists because they are the best at this event.

10 total Dark Reapers in the top 8 is because that's how good they are.

The eldar in the top 8 has 15 dark reapers and 8 shinning spears. A pretty good showing of the OP's of the codex.

Just a tournament without ITC secondaries massively changing what units are viable or not.

 Ordana wrote:
Just a tournament without ITC secondaries massively changing what units are viable or not.

And with very little terrain. There was almost no LOS blocking terrain, and players took turns deploying what little terrain there actually was. The lack of terrain changes how the game plays as much as the missions used, imo.

Another thing to note is that there where a couple other very good players that ran the Flyrant spam list and did not make the top 16. I am not sure the Flyrant calls for a nerf I think if given time the meta will shift to take care of flyrant spam one way or another. However when comparing the Flyrant to a Daemon prince its is pretty lopsided (for a very similar cost).

 Ordana wrote:
Just a tournament without ITC secondaries massively changing what units are viable or not.

Changing which set of house rules you strap onto the core game engine changes which lists have advantages? Shocking!

Got me wondering. Would the flyrants list do extremely badly on the champion itc format. May be not as dominant like in Adepticon or ETC rules but would they still be strong?

Can anyone link the top 32?

Deshkar wrote:
Got me wondering. Would the flyrants list do extremely badly on the champion itc format. May be not as dominant like in Adepticon or ETC rules but would they still be strong?

They might have a slight edge in secondaries, but holding objectives would be really hard.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Deshkar wrote:
Got me wondering. Would the flyrants list do extremely badly on the champion itc format. May be not as dominant like in Adepticon or ETC rules but would they still be strong?

They might have a slight edge in secondaries, but holding objectives would be really hard.

Couldn't the mawlocs / flyrants fly from objectives to objectives and fight on em?

Deshkar wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Deshkar wrote:
Got me wondering. Would the flyrants list do extremely badly on the champion itc format. May be not as dominant like in Adepticon or ETC rules but would they still be strong?

They might have a slight edge in secondaries, but holding objectives would be really hard.

Couldn't the mawlocs / flyrants fly from objectives to objectives and fight on em?

Yea, but all it takes is a few models alive to remove their control. They can certainly be all over the board and it depends how good those devourers can be. Personally they give me no trouble, but I haven't seen that many yet.

Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Ferrus126 wrote:
Another thing to note is that there where a couple other very good players that ran the Flyrant spam list and did not make the top 16. I am not sure the Flyrant calls for a nerf I think if given time the meta will shift to take care of flyrant spam one way or another. However when comparing the Flyrant to a Daemon prince its is pretty lopsided (for a very similar cost).

Objectively speaking the flyrants do need a point increase.
Considering how much stuff they do and the durability, they are overshadowing too many other selections. You either have many overcosted selections, or an undercosted one, the latter is easier.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Not much large LOS blocking terrain. That was huge. The meta has also swung heavily in favor of high ap weapons, which flyrants ignore with their 4+ invul save. Finally, the top tournament players often jump factions based on netlists, so they tend to focus on lists with a smaller variety of units. Last time it was dark reaper spam, this time will be flyrant spam, byt he time a FAQ rolls around they will have already swtiched to the next spam list.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Not much large LOS blocking terrain. That was huge. The meta has also swung heavily in favor of high ap weapons, which flyrants ignore with their 4+ invul save. Finally, the top tournament players often jump factions based on netlists, so they tend to focus on lists with a smaller variety of units. Last time it was dark reaper spam, this time will be flyrant spam, byt he time a FAQ rolls around they will have already swtiched to the next spam list.

A few other points:

1) They can charge flyers
2) 12 Assault S6 AP0 shots each at BS3
3) Most were Leviathan for 6+++ on top of the 4++

Their melee is a little anemic at S6, but they get rerolls to wound with MRC and when they wound on a 6 then they go to AP6 and 3 damage PLUS one damage for toxin sacs (also only on a 6).

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Not much large LOS blocking terrain. That was huge. The meta has also swung heavily in favor of high ap weapons, which flyrants ignore with their 4+ invul save. Finally, the top tournament players often jump factions based on netlists, so they tend to focus on lists with a smaller variety of units. Last time it was dark reaper spam, this time will be flyrant spam, byt he time a FAQ rolls around they will have already swtiched to the next spam list.

Wouldn't lack of LOS block terrain favor gun line armies? No where to hide from the guns?

Just seems like we are jumping to conclusions here. There is probably a more realistic reason somewhat you like suggest. Everyone finds out what the "top players" are doing and just emulate it.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Not much large LOS blocking terrain. That was huge. The meta has also swung heavily in favor of high ap weapons, which flyrants ignore with their 4+ invul save. Finally, the top tournament players often jump factions based on netlists, so they tend to focus on lists with a smaller variety of units. Last time it was dark reaper spam, this time will be flyrant spam, byt he time a FAQ rolls around they will have already swtiched to the next spam list.

Wouldn't lack of LOS block terrain favor gun line armies? No where to hide from the guns?

Just seems like we are jumping to conclusions here. There is probably a more realistic reason somewhat you like suggest. Everyone finds out what the "top players" are doing and just emulate it.

The thing is Flyrants deepstrike, so they hide from the first turn of shooting and then drop in with their own admirable levels of shooting to clear the major threats to themselves. Terrain definitely plays a part in how good Flyrants are.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Are they?
It takes 13 Guided Dark Reapers shooting at a Doomed Hive Tyrant with a 6++ to kill it. (on average)
There were people during LVO saying that the Eldar lists were countered by Flyrant's. This event would seem to back that up.

And I refer you also to the ICT rules which significantly change what units are good or not to explain difference in top armies at ICT tournaments and everywhere else.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Not much large LOS blocking terrain. That was huge. The meta has also swung heavily in favor of high ap weapons, which flyrants ignore with their 4+ invul save. Finally, the top tournament players often jump factions based on netlists, so they tend to focus on lists with a smaller variety of units. Last time it was dark reaper spam, this time will be flyrant spam, byt he time a FAQ rolls around they will have already swtiched to the next spam list.

Wouldn't lack of LOS block terrain favor gun line armies? No where to hide from the guns?

Just seems like we are jumping to conclusions here. There is probably a more realistic reason somewhat you like suggest. Everyone finds out what the "top players" are doing and just emulate it.

It is primarily due to the missions/scoring at Adepticon versus the LVO. At Adepticon the secondary objective was this: "Every 100 points worth of enemy units destroyed by the end of the game (rounded to the nearest 100) is worth 1 Victory Point." (http://www.adepticon.org/wpfiles/2018/201840KChampDraftScenarios.pdf) 7 or so Flying Hive Tyrants is the bulk of those Tyranid lists and they are quite tough to take down. It is why hard to kill monsters and massive hordes dominated.
.
Moreover, the tertiary objectives (you had to choose 5 each game) are significantly different from the ITC Champions missions and less punishing for Hive Tyrants. For instance, in an ITC champions match against 7 Hive Tyrants you would almost always max out Headhunter, Kingslayer, and Big Game Hunter.

 Ordana wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Are they?
It takes 13 Guided Dark Reapers shooting at a Doomed Hive Tyrant with a 6++ to kill it. (on average)
There were people during LVO saying that the Eldar lists were countered by Flyrant's. This event would seem to back that up.

And I refer you also to the ICT rules which significantly change what units are good or not to explain difference in top armies at ICT tournaments and everywhere else.

You do realize Adepticon is also a pretty hard deviation on 'normal' 40k right?

Can you give an example of a setting where flyrants don't do well?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ordana wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Are they?
It takes 13 Guided Dark Reapers shooting at a Doomed Hive Tyrant with a 6++ to kill it. (on average)
There were people during LVO saying that the Eldar lists were countered by Flyrant's. This event would seem to back that up.

And I refer you also to the ICT rules which significantly change what units are good or not to explain difference in top armies at ICT tournaments and everywhere else.

So a list with 30 dark reapers 10 being ynarri could easily kill say...3 flyrants a turn - could even kill 1 the turn they drop in with a little luck? A tyrant shooting at -1 to hit reapers in cover kills....less than 1 reaper and being screened by rangers - this is the best case scenario against for the tyrants.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Are they?
It takes 13 Guided Dark Reapers shooting at a Doomed Hive Tyrant with a 6++ to kill it. (on average)
There were people during LVO saying that the Eldar lists were countered by Flyrant's. This event would seem to back that up.

And I refer you also to the ICT rules which significantly change what units are good or not to explain difference in top armies at ICT tournaments and everywhere else.

You do realize Adepticon is also a pretty hard deviation on 'normal' 40k right?

Well yeah "normal 40k" lol.

ETC, ITC = nether of these are normal 40k.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can you give an example of a setting where flyrants don't do well?


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 Ordana wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can someone explain in detail why they think flyrants did well at this event but not others?

IMO the lack of eldar lifted the Nids. Eldar are really great at blasting flyrants off the table.

Are they?
It takes 13 Guided Dark Reapers shooting at a Doomed Hive Tyrant with a 6++ to kill it. (on average)
There were people during LVO saying that the Eldar lists were countered by Flyrant's. This event would seem to back that up.

And I refer you also to the ICT rules which significantly change what units are good or not to explain difference in top armies at ICT tournaments and everywhere else.

So a list with 30 dark reapers 10 being ynarri could easily kill say...3 flyrants a turn - could even kill 1 the turn they drop in with a little luck? A tyrant shooting at -1 to hit reapers in cover kills....less than 1 reaper and being screened by rangers - this is the best case scenario against for the tyrants.

Bolded the important stuff. Dark Reapers do not scale linearly, your 30 dark reapers would take down a couple of them, and then 20 of them would easily die, because 2 units are left without protections (rules of one), without cover (nid stratagem) and without alaitoc trait (easily shot at closer than 12").

Even the previous scenario is surreal. Doom and guide against the faction with the highest psy protection in the game? Good luck! Oh, incidentally your targets will not be there for your first turn of shooting, good luck with that too!


Flyrant lists were born exactly to counter Eldar, it just turns out that they are good against everything else too.

 Xenomancers wrote:

So a list with 30 dark reapers 10 being ynarri could easily kill say...3 flyrants a turn - could even kill 1 the turn they drop in with a little luck? A tyrant shooting at -1 to hit reapers in cover kills....less than 1 reaper and being screened by rangers - this is the best case scenario against for the tyrants.

You won't have doom on more than 1 Tyrant and you won't have guide on any but 10 of the reapers. Reapers don't scale terribly well and the Reaper Launcher isn't strong against the Tyrant (most Reaper spam run 3ish 3 man units with reaper launchers in addition to one larger unit). Additionally getting the casts off against Tyranids isn't as easy as several over armies and Flyrants won't be available to be shot at in the first turn. And finally reapers won't be in cover and the large unit (i.e. the one that needs to die first) won't have an innate -1 because they'll be Ynnari rather than alatioc. I can tell you from personal experience that 2-3 Flyrants shooting in that unit absolutely evaporates it.

flyants are heavily countered by eldar. Let me break it down for you.

3 units of rangers prevent the turn 1 charge. Flyrants are terribly bad at killing things with 2+ saves in shooting - this is going to be practically every unit in the eldar army (it's mostly reapers and shinning spears).

Flyrants drop in - kill probably 0 reapers because they are in serpants (except for 1 huge ynnari reaper unit that will be parked greater than 18 inches off the front line (so they can use forwarnering) They will seriously hurt a tyrant when it comes in. Tyrants kill rangers. Then reapers and spears put a huge hurting on the tyrants. Remaining tyrants will not be able to hang. Like - it's not even close.

 Xenomancers wrote:
flyants are heavily countered by eldar. Let me break it down for you.

3 units of rangers prevent the turn 1 charge. Flyrants are terribly bad at killing things with 2+ saves in shooting - this is going to be practically every unit in the eldar army (it's mostly reapers and shinning spears).

Flyrants drop in - kill probably 0 reapers because they are in serpants (except for 1 huge ynnari reaper unit that will be parked greater than 18 inches off the front line (so they can use forwarnering) They will seriously hurt a tyrant when it comes in. Tyrants kill rangers. Then reapers and spears put a huge hurting on the tyrants. Remaining tyrants will not be able to hang. Like - it's not even close.

You do realize that the 7 Flyrant list played and beat a reaper and spears list in the top 8 right? To further clarify the Flyrants aren't doing their damage in close combat, they're doing it via shooting and once the big Ynnari unit is gone? Its game over.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

So a list with 30 dark reapers 10 being ynarri could easily kill say...3 flyrants a turn - could even kill 1 the turn they drop in with a little luck? A tyrant shooting at -1 to hit reapers in cover kills....less than 1 reaper and being screened by rangers - this is the best case scenario against for the tyrants.

You won't have doom on more than 1 Tyrant and you won't have guide on any but 10 of the reapers. Reapers don't scale terribly well and the Reaper Launcher isn't strong against the Tyrant (most Reaper spam run 3ish 3 man units with reaper launchers in addition to one larger unit). Additionally getting the casts off against Tyranids isn't as easy as several over armies and Flyrants won't be available to be shot at in the first turn. And finally reapers won't be in cover and the large unit (i.e. the one that needs to die first) won't have an innate -1 because they'll be Ynnari rather than alatioc. I can tell you from personal experience that 2-3 Flyrants shooting in that unit absolutely evaporates it.

How does one get within 12 inches of a unit that is screened by a unit with a net range of over 18 inches when you drop in from deep strike and a shooting range of 18? You can't. Even then reapers in cover even without the -1 are exceptionally durable agains ap-0 weapons. Still only average a single kill without the -1 to hit. Meanwhile every 8 wounds on a tyrant from a dark reaper kills it.

And in regards to "the best psychic denail" Shadow in the warp range is 12 - you will never get that bonus turn 1 (which is your only chance to kill the eldar before mega buffed shinning spears evaporate your army) You probably wont even get a chance to deny the spells on the spears because the farseer casting on them isn't within 24 inches of any of your tyrants.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

So a list with 30 dark reapers 10 being ynarri could easily kill say...3 flyrants a turn - could even kill 1 the turn they drop in with a little luck? A tyrant shooting at -1 to hit reapers in cover kills....less than 1 reaper and being screened by rangers - this is the best case scenario against for the tyrants.

You won't have doom on more than 1 Tyrant and you won't have guide on any but 10 of the reapers. Reapers don't scale terribly well and the Reaper Launcher isn't strong against the Tyrant (most Reaper spam run 3ish 3 man units with reaper launchers in addition to one larger unit). Additionally getting the casts off against Tyranids isn't as easy as several over armies and Flyrants won't be available to be shot at in the first turn. And finally reapers won't be in cover and the large unit (i.e. the one that needs to die first) won't have an innate -1 because they'll be Ynnari rather than alatioc. I can tell you from personal experience that 2-3 Flyrants shooting in that unit absolutely evaporates it.

How does one get within 12 inches of a unit that is screened by a unit with a net range of over 18 inches when you drop in from deep strike and a shooting range of 18? You can't. Even then reapers in cover even without the -1 are exceptionally durable agains ap-0 weapons. Still only average a single kill without the -1 to hit. Meanwhile every 8 wounds on a tyrant from a dark reaper kills it.

And in regards to "the best psychic denail" Shadow in the warp range is 12 - you will never get that bonus turn 1 (which is your only chance to kill the eldar before mega buffed shinning spears evaporate your army) You probably wont even get a chance to deny the spells on the spears because the farseer casting on them isn't within 24 inches of any of your tyrants.

Sure man, you know everything. The proof is in the pudding though - the Flyrant list beat the exact list you're talking about so apparently it isn't so obvious as you think.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
flyants are heavily countered by eldar. Let me break it down for you.

3 units of rangers prevent the turn 1 charge. Flyrants are terribly bad at killing things with 2+ saves in shooting - this is going to be practically every unit in the eldar army (it's mostly reapers and shinning spears).

Flyrants drop in - kill probably 0 reapers because they are in serpants (except for 1 huge ynnari reaper unit that will be parked greater than 18 inches off the front line (so they can use forwarnering) They will seriously hurt a tyrant when it comes in. Tyrants kill rangers. Then reapers and spears put a huge hurting on the tyrants. Remaining tyrants will not be able to hang. Like - it's not even close.

You do realize that the 7 Flyrant list played and beat a reaper and spears list in the top 8 right? To further clarify the Flyrants aren't doing their damage in close combat, they're doing it via shooting and once the big Ynnari unit is gone? Its game over.

That's not the same list that domianted LVO - I don't even believe it had rangers. It had 2 kabalite squads and a 17 man gardian which I'm sure was held in reserve to deep strike. It was also pretty light on the reapers.

I don't know anything about these matches - I only know what the top 8 lists were and I've looked at all of them.

Also - don't get me wrong - the tyrant is an amazing unit. It is not a counter to eldar in any way though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

So a list with 30 dark reapers 10 being ynarri could easily kill say...3 flyrants a turn - could even kill 1 the turn they drop in with a little luck? A tyrant shooting at -1 to hit reapers in cover kills....less than 1 reaper and being screened by rangers - this is the best case scenario against for the tyrants.

You won't have doom on more than 1 Tyrant and you won't have guide on any but 10 of the reapers. Reapers don't scale terribly well and the Reaper Launcher isn't strong against the Tyrant (most Reaper spam run 3ish 3 man units with reaper launchers in addition to one larger unit). Additionally getting the casts off against Tyranids isn't as easy as several over armies and Flyrants won't be available to be shot at in the first turn. And finally reapers won't be in cover and the large unit (i.e. the one that needs to die first) won't have an innate -1 because they'll be Ynnari rather than alatioc. I can tell you from personal experience that 2-3 Flyrants shooting in that unit absolutely evaporates it.

How does one get within 12 inches of a unit that is screened by a unit with a net range of over 18 inches when you drop in from deep strike and a shooting range of 18? You can't. Even then reapers in cover even without the -1 are exceptionally durable agains ap-0 weapons. Still only average a single kill without the -1 to hit. Meanwhile every 8 wounds on a tyrant from a dark reaper kills it.

And in regards to "the best psychic denail" Shadow in the warp range is 12 - you will never get that bonus turn 1 (which is your only chance to kill the eldar before mega buffed shinning spears evaporate your army) You probably wont even get a chance to deny the spells on the spears because the farseer casting on them isn't within 24 inches of any of your tyrants.

Sure man, you know everything. The proof is in the pudding though - the Flyrant list beat the exact list you're talking about so apparently it isn't so obvious as you think.

I'm just breaking it down. We know the unit capabilities. We know the rules of the game. You cant deep strike within 9 inches. So a screening line of rangers will prevent turn 1 charge on any important unit. We also know that reapers are -1 to hit at 12 inches and will therefore have that buff turn 1 against flyrants. We know that SITW is 12 " range and eldar spells have 24 inch range - therefore eldar will get their normal cast number. We also know that shinning spears don't even need to deep strike against this list - they start on the board and counter charge the tyrants automatically with 22" range move and charge ability.

So we essentially have a situation where eldar will get to shoot at the tyrants twice before they get to do any meaningful damage and they take shinning spears directly to the face at the same time. This is pretty much an auto-lose situation.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
flyants are heavily countered by eldar. Let me break it down for you.

3 units of rangers prevent the turn 1 charge. Flyrants are terribly bad at killing things with 2+ saves in shooting - this is going to be practically every unit in the eldar army (it's mostly reapers and shinning spears).

Flyrants drop in - kill probably 0 reapers because they are in serpants (except for 1 huge ynnari reaper unit that will be parked greater than 18 inches off the front line (so they can use forwarnering) They will seriously hurt a tyrant when it comes in. Tyrants kill rangers. Then reapers and spears put a huge hurting on the tyrants. Remaining tyrants will not be able to hang. Like - it's not even close.

You do realize that the 7 Flyrant list played and beat a reaper and spears list in the top 8 right? To further clarify the Flyrants aren't doing their damage in close combat, they're doing it via shooting and once the big Ynnari unit is gone? Its game over.

That's not the same list that domianted LVO - I don't even believe it had rangers. It had 2 kabalite squads and a 17 man gardian which I'm sure was held in reserve to deep strike. It was also pretty light on the reapers.

I don't know anything about these matches - I only know what the top 8 lists were and I've looked at all of them.

Also - don't get me wrong - the tyrant is an amazing unit. It is not a counter to eldar in any way though.

What? The list was:

2 Farseers
A Warlock
3 Units of Rangers
2 Wave Serpents

Yvraine
Bike Autarch
9 Reapers
8 Spears
17 Guardians
2 units of 5 Kabalites

Spiritseer
3 units of 3 Reapers

The LVO winner was:

Farseer
Spiritseer
Warlock
3 units of Rangers
2 Wave Serpents

Farseer
3 units of 3 Reapers

Yvraine
Autarch on Bike
Spiritseer
5 Kabalite Warriors
6 Kabalite Warriors
16 Guardians
9 Spears
8 Dark Reapers

They're nearly identical man.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
flyants are heavily countered by eldar. Let me break it down for you.

3 units of rangers prevent the turn 1 charge. Flyrants are terribly bad at killing things with 2+ saves in shooting - this is going to be practically every unit in the eldar army (it's mostly reapers and shinning spears).

Flyrants drop in - kill probably 0 reapers because they are in serpants (except for 1 huge ynnari reaper unit that will be parked greater than 18 inches off the front line (so they can use forwarnering) They will seriously hurt a tyrant when it comes in. Tyrants kill rangers. Then reapers and spears put a huge hurting on the tyrants. Remaining tyrants will not be able to hang. Like - it's not even close.

You do realize that the 7 Flyrant list played and beat a reaper and spears list in the top 8 right? To further clarify the Flyrants aren't doing their damage in close combat, they're doing it via shooting and once the big Ynnari unit is gone? Its game over.

That's not the same list that domianted LVO - I don't even believe it had rangers. It had 2 kabalite squads and a 17 man gardian which I'm sure was held in reserve to deep strike. It was also pretty light on the reapers.

I don't know anything about these matches - I only know what the top 8 lists were and I've looked at all of them.

Also - don't get me wrong - the tyrant is an amazing unit. It is not a counter to eldar in any way though.

What? The list was:

2 Farseers
A Warlock
3 Units of Rangers
2 Wave Serpents

Yvraine
Bike Autarch
9 Reapers
8 Spears
17 Guardians
2 units of 5 Kabalites

Spiritseer
3 units of 3 Reapers

The LVO winner was:

Farseer
Spiritseer
Warlock
3 units of Rangers
2 Wave Serpents

Farseer
3 units of 3 Reapers

Yvraine
Autarch on Bike
Spiritseer
5 Kabalite Warriors
6 Kabalite Warriors
16 Guardians
9 Spears
8 Dark Reapers

They're nearly identical man.

Didn't see the ranger in the list when I looked at it. Even so - a single game can be chalked up to bad dice rolls. It's pretty easy to show that the flyrants are at a serious disadvantage against a competive eldar list.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Didn't see the ranger in the list when I looked at it. Even so - a single game can be chalked up to bad dice rolls. It's pretty easy to show that the flyrants are at a serious disadvantage against a competive eldar list.

Sure and its also easy to show that when you start factoring in the Mawlocs clearing zones for the Tyrants that a well played Flyrant list will demolish the 'LVO Eldar' archtype. This is all 40k in a vacuum - currently we know that 7 Flyrants did in fact beat the Eldar list.

The mawlocks are a pretty expensive solution to kill 5 rangers but I guess they can get that done pretty effectively. Wouldn't work on wave serapnts - I bet the eldar player didn't realize that.

That's all that matters - crack the shell of the nut.

Shadow in the warp is 18".

Also, reapers have one turn of shooting, after that they are stuck in melee turn after turn, with only one being able to shoot due to the stratagem (until CP last).

Shining spears evaporate against tyrants.

We are also forgetting 7 psykers worth of mortal wounds.

No, this matchup is really bad for Eldar.

There are a few ways Tyranids can mitigate the advantages of Alaitoc reapers.

1. Heightened Senses: One of the 24shot Tyrants will hit at 3+ always (Warlord Trait)
1.1 The above Tyrant will shoot twice (2CP)
2. Digestive Denial: One piece of terrain will not provide cover for this game (2CP). As this is done pre game, this stratagem can be used multiple times, potentially negating all cover for the reapers. If the tournament offers few terrain (which it did), multiple reaper units may sit in the same piece.
3. As mentioned before, the list may try to use Mawlocs (in the movement phase), to make a dent into the Ranger cover, to get into 12". It may also try and use non-Flyrant units for this. With the kind of scoring here, there is no real rush to get them in turn 1.

HMint wrote:
There are a few ways Tyranids can mitigate the advantages of Alaitoc reapers.

1. Heightened Senses: One of the 24shot Tyrants will hit at 3+ always (Warlord Trait)
1.1 The above Tyrant will shoot twice (2CP)
2. Digestive Denial: One piece of terrain will not provide cover for this game (2CP). As this is done pre game, this stratagem can be used multiple times, potentially negating all cover for the reapers. If the tournament offers few terrain (which it did), multiple reaper units may sit in the same piece.
3. As mentioned before, the list may try to use Mawlocs (in the movement phase), to make a dent into the Ranger cover, to get into 12". It may also try and use non-Flyrant units for this. With the kind of scoring here, there is no real rush to get them in turn 1.

This one is for infantry only, but the other ones work.

Not that it's really hard, 1 tyrant shooting at reapers without defenses scores 4-5 kills.

Spoletta wrote:

HMint wrote:
There are a few ways Tyranids can mitigate the advantages of Alaitoc reapers.

1. Heightened Senses: One of the 24shot Tyrants will hit at 3+ always (Warlord Trait)
1.1 The above Tyrant will shoot twice (2CP)
2. Digestive Denial: One piece of terrain will not provide cover for this game (2CP). As this is done pre game, this stratagem can be used multiple times, potentially negating all cover for the reapers. If the tournament offers few terrain (which it did), multiple reaper units may sit in the same piece.
3. As mentioned before, the list may try to use Mawlocs (in the movement phase), to make a dent into the Ranger cover, to get into 12". It may also try and use non-Flyrant units for this. With the kind of scoring here, there is no real rush to get them in turn 1.

This one is for infantry only, but the other ones work.

Not that it's really hard, 1 tyrant shooting at reapers without defenses scores 4-5 kills.

Right, I edited 1.1 in without thinking. :/
Maybe a list that REALLY wants to counter the reapers could bring the deathgaunt bomb with a Mawloc and use it on those. But probably not very competetive against other lists.

Spoletta wrote:

HMint wrote:
There are a few ways Tyranids can mitigate the advantages of Alaitoc reapers.

1. Heightened Senses: One of the 24shot Tyrants will hit at 3+ always (Warlord Trait)
1.1 The above Tyrant will shoot twice (2CP)
2. Digestive Denial: One piece of terrain will not provide cover for this game (2CP). As this is done pre game, this stratagem can be used multiple times, potentially negating all cover for the reapers. If the tournament offers few terrain (which it did), multiple reaper units may sit in the same piece.
3. As mentioned before, the list may try to use Mawlocs (in the movement phase), to make a dent into the Ranger cover, to get into 12". It may also try and use non-Flyrant units for this. With the kind of scoring here, there is no real rush to get them in turn 1.

This one is for infantry only, but the other ones work.

Not that it's really hard, 1 tyrant shooting at reapers without defenses scores 4-5 kills.

Pretty tall order for a list that has very few command points.

Best way to address the Flyrants is to count the wings as taking up a pair of arm slot it shouldn't be able to take 4 weapon. Every other winged Tyranid has the wings as a pair of limbs from their 6. Count the wings as including a pair of Scything Talons. That should help address the issue of them turning into attack helicopters.

Also have the Flyrant a Flyer for the purpose of FOC, done.

 stonehorse wrote:
Best way to address the Flyrants is to count the wings as taking up a pair of arm slot it shouldn't be able to take 4 weapon. Every other winged Tyranid has the wings as a pair of limbs from their 6. Count the wings as including a pair of Scything Talons. That should help address the issue of them turning into attack helicopters.

Also have the Flyrant a Flyer for the purpose of FOC, done.

If they were Scytal equivalents then they should cost much more.
I think that they should be the same scything wings of the harpy. User -2 d3.

Counting the wings as weapons would effectively destroy that unit, and it would never see the table again. Are you serious


Automatically Appended Next Post:
No one was complaining when Tyranids finished 54 at LVO, with Orks finishing 55.

It's not like Flyrant spam was new at LVO, numerous flyrant spam lists were there.

Spoletta wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
Best way to address the Flyrants is to count the wings as taking up a pair of arm slot it shouldn't be able to take 4 weapon. Every other winged Tyranid has the wings as a pair of limbs from their 6. Count the wings as including a pair of Scything Talons. That should help address the issue of them turning into attack helicopters.

Also have the Flyrant a Flyer for the purpose of FOC, done.

If they were Scytal equivalents then they should cost much more.
I think that they should be the same scything wings of the harpy. User -2 d3.

Shows how many times my Harpies have seen action, I always forget about those. Yeah, those would work.

 Marmatag wrote:
Counting the wings as weapons would effectively destroy that unit, and it would never see the table again. Are you serious


Automatically Appended Next Post:
No one was complaining when Tyranids finished 54 at LVO, with Orks finishing 55.

It's not like Flyrant spam was new at LVO, numerous flyrant spam lists were there.

I doubt it would be the end of the Flyrant, it would still offer a great deal, psychic powers, mobility, durability, and all the while being good at dealing damage either through ranged attacks or assault. I play Tyranids and I would still take mine, I haven't spammed the model as I find spamming units to be as bland as dishwater

Tyranids were in a very bad place in 7th aside from the one list that worked. That was 4 units spammed, one of which was the attack helicopter Flyrant. Seeing it spammed again in 8th is annoying, the Tyranid codex is full of good choices now, yet still they are being overshadowed by the Flyrant. This alone shows that something needs to change. The game, even at tournament level should promote variety.

So because spamming flyrants has been getting its ass kicked at every major event, but then suddenly has ONE good showing, at a format that very clearly favors them (good luck earning kill points on Flyrants), they deserve to have half of their weapons removed? No...

I also play Tyranids, and this change proposed is the dumbest thing ever.

It was stated in another thread that they have been doing very well at non ITC tournaments since january. Its been stated that it is ITC's secondary opjectives that make flyrent spam non viable in ITC rules tournaments, not flyrents being week.

 Marmatag wrote:
So because spamming flyrants has been getting its ass kicked at every major event, but then suddenly has ONE good showing, at a format that very clearly favors them (good luck earning kill points on Flyrants), they deserve to have half of their weapons removed? No...

I also play Tyranids, and this change proposed is the dumbest thing ever.

My proposal doesn't remove half the weapons, it simply aims to bring the rules into line with the model and the rest of the winged Tyranid design.

It also makes the Flyrant a complete no brainer, nothing else in the Tyranid codex comes close to the Flyrant as it is. It is a case of internal balance.

Ice_can wrote:
It was stated in another thread that they have been doing very well at non ITC tournaments since january. Its been stated that it is ITC's secondary opjectives that make flyrent spam non viable in ITC rules tournaments, not flyrents being week.

Yeah Flyrants have been winning ETC tournaments left and right in Europe. They aren't the most broken thing ever but they deserve some kind of nerf.

 stonehorse wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
So because spamming flyrants has been getting its ass kicked at every major event, but then suddenly has ONE good showing, at a format that very clearly favors them (good luck earning kill points on Flyrants), they deserve to have half of their weapons removed? No...

I also play Tyranids, and this change proposed is the dumbest thing ever.

My proposal doesn't remove half the weapons, it simply aims to bring the rules into line with the model and the rest of the winged Tyranid design.

It also makes the Flyrant a complete no brainer, nothing else in the Tyranid codex comes close to the Flyrant as it is. It is a case of internal balance.

Okay so your proposal literally does remove 1 of 2 weapons, that is half.

What makes the Flyrant a no-brainer is that the rest of our HQs are pretty weak, or hilariously overcosted.

Should Nemesis Dreadknights be nerfed for the sake of internal balance with the GK codex? Of course not. Your assumption is that the Tyranid codex is in a good place without the Flyrant. It is not.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
It was stated in another thread that they have been doing very well at non ITC tournaments since january. Its been stated that it is ITC's secondary opjectives that make flyrent spam non viable in ITC rules tournaments, not flyrents being week.

Yeah Flyrants have been winning ETC tournaments left and right in Europe. They aren't the most broken thing ever but they deserve some kind of nerf.

Which is why they should get the 1 per detachment rule that Commanders got. There is no need to ruin the effectiveness of a model for those of us who aren't spamming them.

I don't think the issue is a particular model being spammed; its the spam in general. Obviously we have seen that differing formats of missions results in various units power going up or down accordingly. LVO saw spamming PBC's and Dark Reapers becoming a thing, Adepticon saw spamming Flyrants, cultists, and the Dark Angels flyer, its just.... spam is an issue. Period.

And I get that people want to play what they want; but for the game to be competitive, there has to be limits in place. It would be like League of Legends allowing you to play 5 of the same hero in any given game.... they do it for lulz, but man does it sure break the game!

I would play in a rule of 1 tournament, where no unit can be repeated. But that isn't the standard because at the end of the day, there is no clear definition of spamming, and everyone who claims to be opposed to it, actually does it without thinking. Formalize an anti-spam rule and you'll find that it's a bit harder than you think.

 Marmatag wrote:
I would play in a rule of 1 tournament, where no unit can be repeated. But that isn't the standard because at the end of the day, there is no clear definition of spamming, and everyone who claims to be opposed to it, actually does it without thinking. Formalize an anti-spam rule and you'll find that it's a bit harder than you think.

Its hard for many Codices to operate with only a single unit of "whatever." But yes, spam is pretty prevalent, especially when someone discovers a strong combo or works with the way they play. Thats why I think that limiting the number of times a unit can be taken in an army, period (for example, 0-3 times for an HQ) may be a solution. You'll still get people spamming certain things, but it won't be the "be all, end all" that we see, where people only spam a single option ad-nauseum. JUst an idea.

 Marmatag wrote:
It's easy to make that case for a lot of armies. The good unit in the Tyranid codex is the Flyrant. What are these lists without flyrant spam? Is the tyranid codex fine?

I hope highlander becomes a thing. I'd love to play in highlander tournaments, if only they would gain popularity.

Ah yes let's screw some factions completely with artificial restrictions. Always a good idea!

tneva82 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
It's easy to make that case for a lot of armies. The good unit in the Tyranid codex is the Flyrant. What are these lists without flyrant spam? Is the tyranid codex fine?

I hope highlander becomes a thing. I'd love to play in highlander tournaments, if only they would gain popularity.

Ah yes let's screw some factions completely with artificial restrictions. Always a good idea!

Yeah, I would just quit playing 40k at that point. My Blood Angels army uses 3 Devastator Squads instead of vehicles, for the sole reason that I just think Devastator Squads are cool. I like my crappy Tactical Squads riding in Rhinos, none of this would be possible in a Highlander type game, and that seems bland to me.

It is too easy for a Guard army to be made up of one of each type of Leman Russ and just laugh as Marine or almost any other army has zero counter to it.

 Marmatag wrote:
Hive Tyrants would be better served with the commander treatment rather than a nerf. It's the same overall effect but doesn't punish people who were playing Tyranids in a more balanced manner to begin with.

And if MRC are 20 points, everyone will just take MST, d6 damage is a no brainer.

You'll notice most of these people weren't even using claws anyway. They were using 2x Twin Devs, for 24 shots. Because even fully degraded a tyrant still hits on 4s in shooting.

That\s busted method of balancing though. If unit isn't brokenly good for points no harm in spamming. If it is people will max out on them anyway. Only scale of issue reduced but problem still is that it's too good for it's points. It also scales poorly.

Such # limitations are good for FLUFF reasons but balance wise it's at most bandaid to limit damage rather than actually fix the issue. Is so with tau, is so for others if GW is lazy enough to do that rather than fix the problem.

The power of the tyrant spam (or most spam reallly) does not only come out of the 'brokenness' of the unit.
It also is the result of overloading the opponents army with a certain type of target (here: high resistance, multiwounds, ++save), while presenting no other suitabe target.

So an army may be equiped to deal with 1-3 tyrants and then have some other weapons that are good at dealing with differnt targets.
But now there are only tyrants, so half of the army has no suitable targets to fire at.
For the spammer this is like facing half an army, because he can just ignore parts of it and shrug it off. And of course he will focus his own attacks on the dangerous part of that army, so the effect only gets worse in the following turns.

This is not exclusive to tyrants, the same goes for spamming only flyers, tanks, swarms and so on.
The unit being spammed does not have to be broken, to have this effect.

Nerfing that unit to the ground only punishes every player that would like to play them in a balanced setting.
If it was nerfed so much, that it is OK in a spammed form, it will be completely useless in a balanced setting.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
It is too easy for a Guard army to be made up of one of each type of Leman Russ and just laugh as Marine or almost any other army has zero counter to it.

Eh, that would depend on the phrasing of the Highlander rule - after all, technically there is only the Leman Russ Battle Tank, which has options for turret armaments. They all (other than the Tank Commander, I guess) fall under one datasheet.

If they filled out that selection to a squadron of three, and took both a Tank Commander and Pask, the most you'd be facing is five Leman Russ variants.

...I'm not sure now whether that agrees with your position or not

Never really understood the scare-mongering and calls for nerfs whenever someone wins a tournament with a spam list. Competitively, this game is about spam and knowing what to counter. Outside tournaments which only a tiny fraction of people actually play in - it quite rare otherwise nobody ends up wanting to play against you for being "that guy".

The results here are not representative of the wider game. Mission types, scoring methods, terrain and anticipated lists all dominate the outcome and since the last big tournament, nothing much has changed between Eldar and Tyranids - the big difference were the points just mentioned.

Instead of screaming "nerf" - perhaps we should be screaming "buff". Which armies didn't make a showing or get very far? Which units were simply outclassed or are never worth taking? If GW had any sense - they would address those issues rather than simply having boxes on their shelves gathering dust because nobody wants to play such a useless army. How many new players read about the armies and pick Eldar over Orks because they see how good they are at tournaments at spamming? How many will start with Tyranids over Ad Mech for the same reason?

As for the big question - how do we stop spam lists in tournaments? The tournaments themselves are to blame. Make the missions as random as possible so that people are not making an army for one mission, but instead need to bring an all-comers list. There will still be some spam, but a lot of the typical spam armies will be undone on some of the different mission types and ultimately not win.

GW really needs to slap the 0-1 Pr Detachment limitation on a few more armies, which only seems reasonable giving these results.

FunJohn wrote:
GW really needs to slap the 0-1 Pr Detachment limitation on a few more armies, which only seems reasonable giving these results.

Sure if it is accompanied by actual fix to problem rather than band aid that simply putting 0-1 per detachment would be.

tneva82 wrote:

FunJohn wrote:
GW really needs to slap the 0-1 Pr Detachment limitation on a few more armies, which only seems reasonable giving these results.

Sure if it is accompanied by actual fix to problem rather than band aid that simply putting 0-1 per detachment would be.

Nah, look at Tau commanders. If they would have made crisis suits worth taking, that would have fixed itself. At this point what is good for the goose is good for the gander. 1 tyrant per detachment.

 quickfuze wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

FunJohn wrote:
GW really needs to slap the 0-1 Pr Detachment limitation on a few more armies, which only seems reasonable giving these results.

Sure if it is accompanied by actual fix to problem rather than band aid that simply putting 0-1 per detachment would be.

Nah, look at Tau commanders. If they would have made crisis suits worth taking, that would have fixed itself. At this point what is good for the goose is good for the gander. 1 tyrant per detachment.

Precisely my point. they didn't fix commander issue either. They just bandaided it. Crisis commanders are still too good compared to crisis suits. The 0-1 was bad idea there, it's bad idea here. Fix the issue. Don't bandaid symptoms.

tneva82 wrote:

 quickfuze wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

FunJohn wrote:
GW really needs to slap the 0-1 Pr Detachment limitation on a few more armies, which only seems reasonable giving these results.

Sure if it is accompanied by actual fix to problem rather than band aid that simply putting 0-1 per detachment would be.

Nah, look at Tau commanders. If they would have made crisis suits worth taking, that would have fixed itself. At this point what is good for the goose is good for the gander. 1 tyrant per detachment.

Precisely my point. they didn't fix commander issue either. They just bandaided it. Crisis commanders are still too good compared to crisis suits. The 0-1 was bad idea there, it's bad idea here. Fix the issue. Don't bandaid symptoms.

But at this point it's expectation management. Do I think they will fix the Tau issue? Nope, in their minds they already did. So at this point I'll take the same treatment for tyrant over them doing nothing about that list.

Sumilidon wrote:

The results here are not representative of the wider game. Mission types, scoring methods, terrain and anticipated lists all dominate the outcome and since the last big tournament, nothing much has changed between Eldar and Tyranids - the big difference were the points just mentioned.

What is the wider game tho? That's what i find near infuriating about tabletop, it's impossible to get a balance discussion going when even the highest profile tournaments don't play with the same rules, nwm the thousands of FLG tournaments... it's like comparing football and handegg ... or i guess handegg and rugby... yeah you got two teams trying to move a ball around a field but the differance is night and day.
I wish GW would just nut up and after some playtesting and thinktanking would 1) create and run their own damn league like blizzard and riot and valve do 2) realease rules for "competitive-play" format to go with narrative and maybe matched, if not just outright replace matched ... things have DEFINETLY picked up in 8th, with faqs and codexes essentially being hotfixes and patches. Ofc GW considers itsself a hobby store / miniature company first and formost and go with a "to big to fail" attitude. ANYTHING besides modelling is an afterthought.

Tho again, since the new CEO took over pre-8th things have only gone up and up and up to bringing back old games, not only from a tabletop perspective but also as in the PC space, necromunda is due to launch, Mordheim was GOOD, vermintide is... awsome from the outside looking in, just suffers from "small dev" syndrome. BFG Armada was quite good , again, sans online balancing problems and BFG Armada 2 is looking good so far. Then there's mechanicus wich looks like fething XCOM IN 40K!!! ... Hell for the first time in.... ever?! Model bundles actualy SAVE you money... what a novelty huh?

I KNOW i'm in the minority, but i just want the damn game to go digital tbh ... go as far as imbeding models with RFID tags if you have to , to be able to use them online, with the MASSIVE popularity of 8th to just go digital so we can have a trully GLOBAL (not just Canada NA UK taking up most of the playerbase with some stragglelers around the rest of Europe, germany mostly and a few hardcore aussies) with a unified competitive ruleset. I mean you hear FLG goes on constantly about making tournaments as STREAMABLE as possible, imposing strict rules on for one the presentability of armies and for another introducing stopwatches to move game along so audiences can get an actual game not a staring contest.

HMint wrote:
The power of the tyrant spam (or most spam reallly) does not only come out of the 'brokenness' of the unit.
It also is the result of overloading the opponents army with a certain type of target (here: high resistance, multiwounds, ++save), while presenting no other suitabe target.

So an army may be equiped to deal with 1-3 tyrants and then have some other weapons that are good at dealing with differnt targets.
But now there are only tyrants, so half of the army has no suitable targets to fire at.
For the spammer this is like facing half an army, because he can just ignore parts of it and shrug it off. And of course he will focus his own attacks on the dangerous part of that army, so the effect only gets worse in the following turns.

This is not exclusive to tyrants, the same goes for spamming only flyers, tanks, swarms and so on.
The unit being spammed does not have to be broken, to have this effect.

Nerfing that unit to the ground only punishes every player that would like to play them in a balanced setting.
If it was nerfed so much, that it is OK in a spammed form, it will be completely useless in a balanced setting.

Overloading a certain kind of resistance is a viable strategy - there is nothing wrong with that. When that resistence is too cheap - it becomes a problem. I can tell you right now if FHT was 220 points per instead of 193 - people wouldn't be bringing 7 of them to a tournament.

HMint wrote:
The power of the tyrant spam (or most spam reallly) does not only come out of the 'brokenness' of the unit.
It also is the result of overloading the opponents army with a certain type of target (here: high resistance, multiwounds, ++save), while presenting no other suitabe target.

So an army may be equiped to deal with 1-3 tyrants and then have some other weapons that are good at dealing with differnt targets.
But now there are only tyrants, so half of the army has no suitable targets to fire at.
For the spammer this is like facing half an army, because he can just ignore parts of it and shrug it off. And of course he will focus his own attacks on the dangerous part of that army, so the effect only gets worse in the following turns.

This is not exclusive to tyrants, the same goes for spamming only flyers, tanks, swarms and so on.
The unit being spammed does not have to be broken, to have this effect.

Nerfing that unit to the ground only punishes every player that would like to play them in a balanced setting.
If it was nerfed so much, that it is OK in a spammed form, it will be completely useless in a balanced setting.

This guy gets it.

 Marmatag wrote:

HMint wrote:
The power of the tyrant spam (or most spam reallly) does not only come out of the 'brokenness' of the unit.
It also is the result of overloading the opponents army with a certain type of target (here: high resistance, multiwounds, ++save), while presenting no other suitabe target.

So an army may be equiped to deal with 1-3 tyrants and then have some other weapons that are good at dealing with differnt targets.
But now there are only tyrants, so half of the army has no suitable targets to fire at.
For the spammer this is like facing half an army, because he can just ignore parts of it and shrug it off. And of course he will focus his own attacks on the dangerous part of that army, so the effect only gets worse in the following turns.

This is not exclusive to tyrants, the same goes for spamming only flyers, tanks, swarms and so on.
The unit being spammed does not have to be broken, to have this effect.

Nerfing that unit to the ground only punishes every player that would like to play them in a balanced setting.
If it was nerfed so much, that it is OK in a spammed form, it will be completely useless in a balanced setting.

This guy gets it.

What does he get? I can do the same thing with tactical terminators...Am I going to annihilate my opponent? . Rhetorical question obviously. The issue is the unit cost is wrong. It's like bringing a 2300 list against a 2k.

The full deep strike army is also problematic - it's always been problematic. how to fix? Instead of unit restrictions for deep strike (50% of units must start on table) Change to 50% of points must start on the table. Pretty hard to abuse that.

The unit is only costed incorrectly if you accept that Adepticon is indicative of game balance. I reject that assertion wholeheartedly.

I do not feel the Flyrant is undercosted in its current form. In a mission with proper secondaries & progressive scoring not based on kill points, and on a table with actual terrain, the Flyrant is a good unit but not OP.

No one takes a walking Tyrant. Why? Because without mobility, and the survivability of being held in reserve, Tyrants suck. It's not like they get a better save, or better weapons when they have wings. Fly in general makes things better in 8th edition.

HMint wrote:
The power of the tyrant spam (or most spam reallly) does not only come out of the 'brokenness' of the unit.
It also is the result of overloading the opponents army with a certain type of target (here: high resistance, multiwounds, ++save), while presenting no other suitabe target.

So an army may be equiped to deal with 1-3 tyrants and then have some other weapons that are good at dealing with differnt targets.
But now there are only tyrants, so half of the army has no suitable targets to fire at.
For the spammer this is like facing half an army, because he can just ignore parts of it and shrug it off. And of course he will focus his own attacks on the dangerous part of that army, so the effect only gets worse in the following turns.

This is not exclusive to tyrants, the same goes for spamming only flyers, tanks, swarms and so on.
The unit being spammed does not have to be broken, to have this effect.

Nerfing that unit to the ground only punishes every player that would like to play them in a balanced setting.
If it was nerfed so much, that it is OK in a spammed form, it will be completely useless in a balanced setting.

I disagree with the bolded part. If the effectiveness (performance relative to cost) of the spammed unit has no bearing on the overall effectiveness of the army you would see TAC spam marine lists at top tables. Instead you see spam fire-raptors (guess why...)

The truth is undercosted/overperforming units when spammed break the game more than just simple target saturation. Unit with is 3x baneblades is a problem because they are a good unit. Reaper spam is another one. If the majority of the points spent on your army are one type of unit that unit is probably too effective (either its offense is unbalanced to the point that different targets no longer mater or it is resilient to too many types of opponent offense).

Flyrants present both issues. Their dakka/psychics are good against most targets and their 4++ with t7 and a FNP they are super resilient for the cost. Throw in deepstriking and you have a criminally undercosted unit that only isn't spammed in ITC because it gives up too many secondaries.

The "I want overpowered units because I don't spam them" argument is weak. I brought up the problem facing flyrant spam when the Nid codex dropped. It's obvious that it is undercosted. Sucks that the rest of your HQs are terrible but you don't fix that problem by giving an army one auto-include to make up for the short comings of the rest of the dex.

 Marmatag wrote:
The unit is only costed incorrectly if you accept that Adepticon is indicative of game balance. I reject that assertion wholeheartedly.

I do not feel the Flyrant is undercosted in its current form. In a mission with proper secondaries & progressive scoring not based on kill points, and on a table with actual terrain, the Flyrant is a good unit but not OP.

No one takes a walking Tyrant. Why? Because without mobility, and the survivability of being held in reserve, Tyrants suck. It's not like they get a better save, or better weapons when they have wings. Fly in general makes things better in 8th edition.

"In a mission with proper secondaries & progressive scoring"
There is no such thing. Also - I don't think tyranids care about objective points - they just want biomass.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The unit is only costed incorrectly if you accept that Adepticon is indicative of game balance. I reject that assertion wholeheartedly.

I do not feel the Flyrant is undercosted in its current form. In a mission with proper secondaries & progressive scoring not based on kill points, and on a table with actual terrain, the Flyrant is a good unit but not OP.

No one takes a walking Tyrant. Why? Because without mobility, and the survivability of being held in reserve, Tyrants suck. It's not like they get a better save, or better weapons when they have wings. Fly in general makes things better in 8th edition.

"In a mission with proper secondaries & progressive scoring"
There is no such thing. Also - I don't think tyranids care about objective points - they just want biomass.

Yeah, that's how you make an happy tyranid girlfriend, indeed!

More seriously, with my nids i always win on objectives, our troops are simply too good at it. (Standard GW missions in my area)

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The unit is only costed incorrectly if you accept that Adepticon is indicative of game balance. I reject that assertion wholeheartedly.

I do not feel the Flyrant is undercosted in its current form. In a mission with proper secondaries & progressive scoring not based on kill points, and on a table with actual terrain, the Flyrant is a good unit but not OP.

No one takes a walking Tyrant. Why? Because without mobility, and the survivability of being held in reserve, Tyrants suck. It's not like they get a better save, or better weapons when they have wings. Fly in general makes things better in 8th edition.

"In a mission with proper secondaries & progressive scoring"
There is no such thing. Also - I don't think tyranids care about objective points - they just want biomass.

Yeah, to be honest, to say that Flyrant spam isnt good in the special ITC house rules and special missions and because of that it shouldnt be balanced for normal W40K is... thats not how it should be done.

I think Flyrants cost too little atm largely because of their 4++.

Shrikes also have two weapons options + Wings.

Martel732 wrote:
I think Flyrants cost too little atm largely because of their 4++.

They were absolute garbage with a 5++, so...

That's because 33% to ignore an attack is gak, but 50% is really good.