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All the Space Marine armies that I'd actually have fun playing are somewhat ineffective, so after some paint scheme tests I might give Nids a try. Here are two pretty standard lists with some MCs and enough Gaunts to have a solid mass advancing towards the enemy. I think they'd be fun. Comments on the effectiveness?

Tyranids 1.5K

HQ:
-Hive Tyrant
BS+1, S+1
Venom Cannon, TL Devourer
Psychic Scream

-2 Tyrant Guard
Scything Talons, Rending Claws

-Hive Tyrant
BS+1, S+1, Toxic Miasma
2 TL Devourers, Implant Attack
Winged, Psychic Scream

Elite:
-Carnifex
BS+1
2 TL Devourers

-Carnifex
BS+1
2 TL Devourers

Troops:
-10 Gaunts
Spinefists

-10 Gaunts
Spinefists

-10 Gaunts
Spinefists

-10 Gaunts
Spinefists

-10 Gaunts
Spinefists

-10 Gaunts
Spinefists

Fast Attack:
-Ravener
Scything Talons, Rending Claws

-Ravener
Scything Talons, Rending Claws

Heavy Support:
-Carnifex
BS+1, W+1
Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler

-Carnifex
BS+1, W+1
Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler

-2 Zoanthropes
Warp Blast, Synapse

Total: 1500p, 72 models.

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

HQ:
-Hive Tyrant
BS+1, S+1
Venom Cannon, TL Devourer
Psychic Scream

-2 Tyrant Guard
Scything Talons, Rending Claws

-Hive Tyrant
BS+1, S+1, Toxic Miasma
2 TL Devourers, Implant Attack
Winged, Psychic Scream

Elite:
-Carnifex
BS+1
2 TL Devourers

-Carnifex
BS+1
2 TL Devourers

-Carnifex
BS+1
2 TL Devourers

Troops:
-16 Gaunts
Spinefists

-14 Gaunts
Spinefists

-14 Gaunts
Spinefists

-14 Gaunts
Spinefists

-14 Gaunts
Spinefists

-14 Gaunts
Spinefists

Fast Attack:
-Ravener
Scything Talons, Rending Claws

-Ravener
Scything Talons, Rending Claws

-Ravener
Scything Talons, Rending Claws

Heavy Support:
-Carnifex
BS+1, W+1, Flesh Hooks
Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler

-Carnifex
BS+1, W+1, Flesh Hooks
Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler

-3 Zoanthropes
Warp Blast, Synapse

Total: 1850p, 101 models.

The lists are perfect then?

Yes, yes they are.

I don't like either list. This army shines at playing to turn 6 and having a bunch of wounded fexes while the opponent has no army.

With 100 gaunts, you're gonna spend most of your game moving gaunts (and thusly make it to turn 4-5 any time you are time-limited)

Genestealers bunched behind monsters is the way to go dude.

Also, I find WS4 and T7 is really, really good for the big fexes. Cheap and wonderful. The list of things affected:
-pulse rifles
-plasma of all kinds (Tau plasma wounds you on 5's!)
-autocannons
-missile launchers
-starcannons
-pulse lasers
-powerfists (reduced to hit on 4s, wound on 3s versus 3's & 2s)
-meltaguns


Yak ran the numbers on T7 I think, but man...for 20 pts (12% of your points) you effectively increase your lifespan by far more than 12%.

I understand the time constraints but that only means I have to think quicker and move the models faster. For the record, I think Genestealers are a pretty horrible idea because then the enemy will be concentrating all their firepower on models that only move 6" per turn and there is no pressing need for them to start firing at truly expendable models. For example when your opponent has 22 BS4 lascannons you really want him to shoot at Gaunts instead of MCs. When they shoot Gaunts, a lot of lascannons and plasma guns aren't firing at the MCs. If they aren't shooting at the Gaunts, they will die. Secondly, taking 100 point units that can effectively be wiped out by a single Land Speeder Tornado sounds completely idiotic when the Codex is filled with resilient and points effective units. It's also a sad fact that Genestealers aren't really any better than Daemonettes in close combat, but they are much harder to get there. In my opinion Genestealers have no real role in a Tyranid army that has 7-8 MC's and 3 (or more) Raveners. If you manage to tie up the enemy and swamp them with fearless S3 attacks for a turn or two, you're going to win when your monstrous and rending models charge.

If you look at for example the 1850p list you see that I have 11 single (units of 1) models occupying 9 force organisation slots (3 elite 3 fast 3 heavy), and this is of course the most effective way to keep your force mobile and survivable. I'm not going to start upgrading MCs with T7 or 2+ saves, or adding more Raveners to Ravener squads, unless we're playing 2000 points or higher, because at these lower points limits this would mean dropping another unit just to make another one slightly tougher or bigger, and that's a grave mistake indeed.

I knew as soon as I posted that you'd get a response.

Who has 22 bs4 lascannons? A 3000 pt marine army playing against your 1500pt bug list? If so, why would they ever shoot at gaunts unless they were denied targets of MCs? They can use their heavy bolters, flamers, assault troops, etc, on the gaunts. Who are only fearless if you shepherd them with synapse.

Do you really think a landspeeder tornado is going to even consider shooting genestealers? They get close enough to your wall of dakkafexes and watch what happens. That's right, 8 shots, 6 hits, 3 glances, dead landspeeder every time like clockwork. I laugh when I see anyone carrying a landspeeder within twenty feet of my army box.

Genestealers are BEHIND YOUR MONSTERS by 3-6" or more.They will not get hit by tornados. Spinegaunts, however, are in front of you because you have to use them to tarpit, and therefore they will eat all of your opponent's firepower with no method of your dakkafexes protecting them.

Tarpitting is not what you need, with this list, either. When an opponent can charge spinegaunts, kill most of them and then kill the rest in your turn, then charge your MCs next round, that SUCKS. And it will happen to you over and over and over again.

I don't think you're grasping the utility of genestealers, and are further not grasping how big of a pain in the ass a hundred gaunts clogging your deployment zone, taking up your valuable deployment spots, slowing your game down, and being used as an assault springboard are.

Wait til you get a table quarter mission and someone plunks a dude down in the front of his deployment zone (6" away from the center). You have to deploy 100 gaunts before you get to 5 of your MCs and where the hell do you put your MCs?

What's your plan in escalation with 100 gaunts and 3 zoeys on the board, instead of 12-16 genestealers and 3 zoeys?

There's just so many reasons this list is better as a low model count list.

IW can easily get 22 lascannons, and no, when they take them they won't have heavy bolters flamers and assault troops available to them. So when they do fire at Gaunts they sacrifice a lot of lascannons.

First of all you seem to have no clue what you're talking about since you haven't even read my lists. Neither one has 100 Gaunts or even close. Secondly, I have yet to see a tournament Marine army that has the ability to charge further than 13" (and thus get the jump on Gaunts) and wipe 50 of them out per phase. If your opponent is packing insane amounts of jump packers, obviously you then don't have to send the Gaunts to their deaths without support, since there's no hurry for you to get anywhere. Secondly, it's obvious the Space Marine players you've played against have no clue how to use their Tornados. Regardless of what you may think, Tornados aren't cruise missiles.

Escalation is really simple. Keep the Zoeys behind pieces of area terrain and snake forward with Gaunts, keeping some models within synapse range. Alternatively, lurk in terrain with 4+ cover saves and wait for the big guys to show up. Regardless of what you pick for your army, escalation always slows down the attack.

Conclusion? No there aren't any reasons why low model Tyranids would be better if you can have the same amount of MCs and support them with 60-100 totally expendable wounds. Especially as the models you're using are overpriced and undergeared Genestealers.

Taking 22 lascannons is foolish. It leaves you open to this kind of tactic, and is therefore slowed. Also, obliterators have heavy bolter options if you recall (as I'm sure you do). If they feel like it they may at leisure kill your gaunts, then kill all your MCs with twinlinked plasma when they get close.

You have 60 gaunts or 86 gaunts respectively. 86 is fairly close, and 60 is a crapload still.

How exactly do you use your tornados? Teleport them with the powers of your mind? They only move 12, man. If they move within 24" of a dakkafex without L3 terrain intervening, they are dead. Period. Furthermore:

Tornado versus genestealers in 5+ cover (neglecting rends), - Assault cannon kills 1.48 and heavy bolter kills .88. Congratulations you've killed fewer than 3 genestealers even with rends and sacrificed an 80 pt model to do it. Want a trophy?

for the record, I run
1 x 6 stealers with carapace
1 x 8 stealers with carapace
1 x 8 spinegaunts

No one ever gets to shoot at anything but T6 or T7 monsters in my list unless I feel like annoying them with gaunts to distract them for a turn.

Posted By Longshot on 09/03/2006 8:39 AM
Taking 22 lascannons is foolish. It leaves you open to this kind of tactic, and is therefore slowed. Also, obliterators have heavy bolter options if you recall (as I'm sure you do). If they feel like it they may at leisure kill your gaunts, then kill all your MCs with twinlinked plasma when they get close.

You have 60 gaunts or 86 gaunts respectively. 86 is fairly close, and 60 is a crapload still.

How exactly do you use your tornados? Teleport them with the powers of your mind? They only move 12, man. If they move within 24" of a dakkafex without L3 terrain intervening, they are dead. Period. Furthermore:

Tornado versus genestealers in 5+ cover (neglecting rends), - Assault cannon kills 1.48 and heavy bolter kills .88. Congratulations you've killed fewer than 3 genestealers even with rends and sacrificed an 80 pt model to do it. Want a trophy?

Look, people use 9 Obliterators, 6 CSM squads with las/plas and a couple of Predators with Daemonic Possession, and FYI this isn't foolish in any way if you want to win games. Anyway, 9 heavy bolters only kill 75 points of Spinegaunts per turn, but when the Obliterators are within 25-30" they will cause 5.5 wounds on an MC, which means killing a 113-190 point model, and putting 1.5 wounds on another one. You want the Obliterators shooting at the Gaunts, believe me.

It's nice you added cover saves for all your Genestealers. I don't know what kind of tables you play on, but they're certainly not GT tables. For the record, a Tornado kills about 70 points worth of Genestealers (extended armor) in one volley. It only kills about 20 points of Spinegaunts, and about 30 points worth of damage on a Dakkafex. Of course people don't have one Tornado, they have three or six. All in all, you're just throwing points away, and all your advice screams carelessness.

In the Chicagoland area we have been using the Godzilla list since the summer the new bugs came out. Many players have tried all different versions of the 'Zilla and this is what we have found.

Carapace stealers are superior to gaunts in every way. Therion is right, stealers only move 6 inches a turn, then fleet of foot d6 and assault 6 for a possible 18" charge range per turn. The idea is to maximize your speed by taking as many 6-stealer squads as possible.

Against lots of heavy bolters and assault cannons, hide the stealers behind MC's in the beginning and let them shoot out at the appropriate time to give your opponent to many targets they NEED to shoot at all at once.

No one needs to shoot a 10-man gaunt squad. Let it do whatever it wants and slaughter it in HtH with a throw away squad. You can still have Oblits shoot over the combat at the fexes as the 8-man missile/fist troop squad stands in front and soacks up the gaunts. One Lord counter attacks and away go the gaunts. Not everyone has to shoot at gaunts, but everyone needs to shoot at stealers. That is the way to ensure your MC's survive.

Now make that a unit of stealers and a ravener and the marine line will disintegrate. Stealer are much better than Daemonettes. Better WS, better initiative, better toughness and better save make for a much better unit all around.

I prefer to make my opponents most common weapon (usually the bolter) as ineffective as possible. Carapace stealers will hold up very well to bolter fire compared to gaunts.

Try it your way. I'm not saying it won't work. I'm saying taking 4-5 six- carapace stealer squads is much better. The Gaunts won't even be able to launch forward very far before they are out of synapse range of everything but the flying tyrant. This could cause the tyrant to be placed in a precarious position and exposed to 22 lascannon shots.

I say remove the Gaunts and Zopes, they are not as good unless they are warp blast/psychic scream and used as a psychic shield for the the walking tyrant, and add all carapace stealers. Your first escalation game you'll be glad you did.

In escalation you'll then deploy your Genestealers that won't do anything at all except hide, won't have a screen available to them, and will be shot to death especially if the opponent has any fast units. What advantage did you gain exactly by having Genestealers instead of Spinegaunts and Zoanthropes? I'm saying this now, I will never, ever use 20 point models that die in droves to the most common sustained fire guns in the game. If you plan on taking down the 22 lascannons 6 plasma guns army by trudging forward 6" per turn with your Carnifexes and hiding behind them with a few Stealers and attempting a turn 4 assault, you will fail, because you won't have any Carnifexes left after turn 3 simply because you didn't do anything to the opponent's shooting ability. Additionally, if you are suggesting to sacrifice 600 points of Genestealers so that your A2 Carnifexes can make close combat, I can say that if you're ever winning games with that strategy, the wins won't be by a large enough margin to win tournaments.

Stealers better than Daemonettes? Don't make me laugh. You're comparing a unit that is pretty much the best target in the whole game for heavy bolters and assault cannons to a unit that will practically always enter close combat without losing a single model, often already during turn 2, not to mention having a lot more rending attacks point per point. Finally, I'm not sure what you expect 60 Gaunts to achieve. They cost 300 points and thus are 20% of the Tyranid force. Their job is to die so that the rest of the force can survive. Chaos Space Marines or Daemon Princes counter-assaulting to wipe out some Gaunts is an excellent scenario for Tyranids. If you can't grasp this simple fact after testing 'all the possible Tyranid variants' for a year, I'm speechless.

Thanks for the input though. I just don't like to use point sinks.

I'm glad you asked for the effectiveness of your army list and then trash the very opinions you solicited. My advice to you would be to stay home and play 40k. If you ever happened to come to Adepticon, the largest 40k tournament weekend on the planet, you wouldn't do very well.

Stealer never have to lurk in escalation.  Since they are leadership 10 and not subject to instinctual behavior checks, stealers give you the option of taking it to an enemy army in the first turns of escalation.  Stealers give you an option, gaunts do not.

I guess where you're from there is never any terrain, nor actual game objectives, for any heavy bolters and assault cannons to ever have trouble shooting at every single model the Tyranid army has on turn 1. Speaking of which I guess an army with all assault cannons and heavy bolters would always go first to.

On top of that you apparently face a great deal of armies where you're from with tons of heavy bolters and assault cannons that also have 22 lascannons in them because that seems to be your answer to why only gaunts can work. 

Where you're from I guess Daemon summoning always works on turn 2, Icons are never destroyed before summoning occurs and the scatter dice always hits dead on. I apologize for not understanding the dynamics of hometown tournament 40k play.

Your army is unbeatable. The Gaunts are all powerful. I can see why terminators, obliterators, vehicles, Greater Daemons, skimmers, dreadnoughts, and most importantly enemy Godzilla lists would fear gaunts and not care about stealers. What could a stealer do against those units that a gaunt couldn't do.

A bitter American? That's fresh. Are you feeling offended that a European isn't listening to your bad advice?

You need to work on your reading comprehension skills a bit. I asked for comments on the effectiveness, and I was told that 20 point A2 4+ SV footslogging models are great and vastly superior to the cheapest wound in the game (Spinegaunts). However, these two players advocating Genestealers didn't manage to convince me with their reasoning, so I haven't changed my mind. This is a normal discussion at the army lists forum.

As far as Adepticon goes, I believe I would do very well, just like I do in Europe. My last tournament game loss was more than two years ago, although I admit I haven't been playing Tyranids, or playing much at all lately. I don't know what the size of my e-peen has do with this thread though. Still, since you're asking for it, I believe people play much harder lists in the UK than anywhere else. You only have to look at the armies that win GTs each year in each country and you see a huge difference.

Your sarcasm is entertaining. However, keep in mind that the best anti-Gaunt argument I've heard so far is that it takes time to move the models around. For example, posters above tried to argue that Gaunts suck in escalation, but didn't offer any proof why Genestealers would do any better. Believe it or not, I'd be happy to hear it.

This army is not unbeatable, because Tyranids never are. However, when you ignore Gaunts and only take elite units you will fall horribly short against certain armies that have absolutely no problems dealing with shooty MCs.

EDIT: I see you edited the nationalist statements away. Well done. I can't see why you would want to take the fight to the enemy with two to four units of Genestealers in escalation though. Most if not all of the enemy army will be on the table, and if I'm not horribly mistaken the mastermind plan was to hide the Stealers behind the Dakkafexes. Besides, Gaunts do give the same (stupid) option as long as there are some area terrain on the table for the Zoanthropes to hide behind. Still not convinced.

Darth is a bit off on the tactics, but right that genestealers are better at least The stealers should lurk/chill and wait for the TMCs to show up unless they have a very good reason to do otherwise.

Try it your way. When you don't do very well because you lose to dedicated assault armies, you'll remember this discussion.

I have no fear against any shooting army that doesn't have 9 obliterators. I'll simply outshoot them and make them test on LD5 fairly shortly, while tying their shootie units up with raveners. Even with all those oblits, I have 3 raveners to soften them up with and a squad of 8 spinegaunts and a flying Tyrant with implant attack.

When you run into a serious assault armyyour list is going to be just utterly owned. 40 assault marines is game over for you, especially if they have a couple flamers. They'll hit your tarpit, wade through it for 400-600 vps at no cost to themselves, and then start shallacking TMCs with impunity. A drop pod army will utterly shred you -- mine would have you for lunch anyway. No genestealers, no serious CC tyrant, no HTH threat, not enough scream.

I know you used to be the massive awesome list jockey or some crap, but this list is a joke, and completely inept against anything but the 9 oblit army (which I am not convinced it would beat).

Posted By Longshot on 09/04/2006 12:33 AM
Darth is a bit off on the tactics, but right that genestealers are better at least The stealers should lurk/chill and wait for the TMCs to show up unless they have a very good reason to do otherwise.

Try it your way. When you don't do very well because you lose to dedicated assault armies, you'll remember this discussion.

I have no fear against any shooting army that doesn't have 9 obliterators. I'll simply outshoot them and make them test on LD5 fairly shortly, while tying their shootie units up with raveners. Even with all those oblits, I have 3 raveners to soften them up with and a squad of 8 spinegaunts and a flying Tyrant with implant attack.

When you run into a serious assault armyyour list is going to be just utterly owned. 40 assault marines is game over for you, especially if they have a couple flamers. They'll hit your tarpit, wade through it for 400-600 vps at no cost to themselves, and then start shallacking TMCs with impunity. A drop pod army will utterly shred you -- mine would have you for lunch anyway. No genestealers, no serious CC tyrant, no HTH threat, not enough scream.

I know you used to be the massive awesome list jockey or some crap, but this list is a joke, and completely inept against anything but the 9 oblit army (which I am not convinced it would beat).

Since the Stealers will lurk/chill they do exactly the same thing as Gaunts, so saying they're better in escalation was a blatant lie.

If Nids are as poor as you say, I'm glad 'dedicated' assault armies don't exist anymore in the tournament scene. Why? Because they lose so horribly to everyone else.

9 Obliterators is standard for all IW armies these days, so not fearing armies that don't have 9 Obliterators is a moot point. I totally fail to see how 3 Raveners, a flying Tyrant and 8 Spinegaunts a will soften them up if my 3 Raveners, flying Tyrant and 85 Gaunts couldn't do it. I guess this is Longshot logic(tm).

I think your Dreadnought Pod army is one of the weaker Pod armies around so I can't see where this hype is coming from. Get out of your garage and win a GT or two and then get back to us, because it sounds to me you're just building predictable gimmick lists and then calling them omnipotent. Who are you trying to convince? Also, you saying that I don't have a serious CC Tyrant is ludicrous, since I have all the necessary upgrades except that instead of 2 extra attacks on the charge I shoot 12 times before I charge in. This is a better setup in every scenario.

This list is a joke? Man you're more sad than I thought. You have one concept of a Tyranid army, and when someone fields the exact same list but instead of two point sink units fields 300 points of points effective wounds, the list becomes a joke. You need to have your head examined. Before you do that however I don't think there's anything else you need to add. Thank you.

Play it a few times buddy. A few stealers is much easier to hide than 60-90 gaunts.

Armies focused on assaulting definitely still exist and they do just fine. They probably can't win tournaments reliably but that doesn't mean you won't face an army with a half-dozen powerfists.

9 obliterators is standard? Maybe in magic fairy happy land.

My pod list involves 5 powerfists, 6 flamers and 2 heavy flamers, as well as a fair number of meltaguns and assault cannons and multiattack marines. A guy with a very similar list to mine won Adepticon if I recall. It's hardly a gimmick list.

In smaller games, the shootie Tyrant might very well be better. But he's not going to kill squad after squad of obliterators with 3 attacks...and nothing else in your army presents a threat to them.

If you think it's perfect, build it and play it. I think you'll find it unsatisfying, slow-playing, horribly annoying to deploy, and generally not that great compared to a list with a lower model count.

Posted By Therion- on 09/03/2006 8:22 AM
IW can easily get 22 lascannons, and no, when they take them they won't have heavy bolters flamers and assault troops available to them. So when they do fire at Gaunts they sacrifice a lot of lascannons.

IW can get 22 Lascannons at 1850, but at the expense of all else. Why would anyone field an army like that?

BYE

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 09/04/2006 5:28 PM

Posted By Therion- on 09/03/2006 8:22 AM
IW can easily get 22 lascannons, and no, when they take them they won't have heavy bolters flamers and assault troops available to them. So when they do fire at Gaunts they sacrifice a lot of lascannons.

IW can get 22 Lascannons at 1850, but at the expense of all else. Why would anyone field an army like that?

BYE

I don't know. Probably because they'll still have 9 Power Fists/Heavy Bolters/Flamers and a decent amount of Bolters/Bolt Pistols, and a Chaos Lord/Hero. Of course some IW armies would 'only' field about 15 lascannons and 6 plasma guns, and some close combat forces or additional sustained fire troops, but eventually in a hardcore environment the Godzilla Nids will walk into that wall of las/plas death.

Thanks for comments Longshot. Only thing I don't understand is why you think 9 Obliterators is so rare. Why would anyone 'not' field 9 Obliterators? They're not that hot anymore since they can be instakilled, but strange as it is when you take 9 of them and use cover to your advantage (to limit incoming fire) and move in a bunch, noone can really engage them with lascannons anymore without being destroyed in a split second. Firepower that mobile combined with possessed mobile Predators is great. It's also very difficult to drop on this army, since they have a number of counter strategies available, along with 15 rapid firing (mostly twin-linked) plasma guns.

Posted By Therion- on 09/04/2006 11:35 PM

I don't know. Probably because they'll still have 9 Power Fists/Heavy Bolters/Flamers and a decent amount of Bolters/Bolt Pistols, and a Chaos Lord/Hero.

I'd love to see this wonderful Iron Warrior list Therion.

BYE

So that you can copy it? Look, it's really not that hard, you can make your own! Here's how to do it: Open your Army Builder, select CSM: Iron Warriors, and start clicking!

DP - Stature, Speed, Aura, Furious Charge, 2x CCW, Frags
The Rat - Dark Blade, Speed, Infiltrate, Frags
3 Obliterators
3 Obliterators
3 Obliterators
5 CSM - Las/Plas
5 CSM - Las/Plas
5 CSM - Las/Plas
5 CSM - Las/Plas
Predator - TL Lascannon, 2x HB, Daemonic Possession
Predator - TL Lascannon, 2x HB, Daemonic Possession
Predator - TL Lascannon, 2x HB, Daemonic Possession
Predator - TL Lascannon, 2x Lascannons, Daemonic Possession

...comes to a total of 1850p exactly just off the top of my head, created in about 4.6 seconds. 17 lascannons, 4 of them twin-linked, 6 heavy bolters, 4 plasma guns. Naturally if the enemy is the type (Eldar for example) this list can also opt to have 8 lascannons, 15 heavy bolters, 4 plasma guns. If you are close and a MEQ or a TMC, of course they can also have 8 lascannons, 13 plasma guns, 6 heavy bolters. Nine flamers also clears out a lot of Gaunts if necessary.

You can add a lot more guns (lascannons and plasma guns - you can get 26 and 5) to it if you want, but right now it also has two counter-assault units that wipe enemies. Like I said, this is just off the top of my head. Oh and by the way there's always four or five of these armies in the top10 of UK GT. This season there's going to be more than that actually, since Ulthwé and Alaitoc won't occupy the other 5 slots anymore.

Posted By Therion- on 09/05/2006 2:29 AM
created in about 4.6 seconds.

And thats reason number 3 why IWs are so popular nowadays in a no comp environment.

There are quite a lot of these armies around the UK GT scene, only a few go the whole hog with 9 obliterators but all bar one or two have at least 6. So thats a lot of lascannon dakka. And most have 3 predators with the ever popular twin las/heavy bolter combo and a couple of squads with deck chairs, score cards and a lascannon. So in 1500pts you're looking down the barrels of at least 11 lascannons if the opponent wants to.

Posted By Fallen Angel on 09/05/2006 2:45 AM

Posted By Therion- on 09/05/2006 2:29 AM
created in about 4.6 seconds.

And thats reason number 3 why IWs are so popular nowadays in a no comp environment.

There are quite a lot of these armies around the UK GT scene, only a few go the whole hog with 9 obliterators but all bar one or two have at least 6. So thats a lot of lascannon dakka. And most have 3 predators with the ever popular twin las/heavy bolter combo and a couple of squads with deck chairs, score cards and a lascannon. So in 1500pts you're looking down the barrels of at least 11 lascannons if the opponent wants to.

...and that's exactly why pure monster Nids and Dreadnought/Speeder Space Marines have no hope of winning the tournament ever.

Im pretty sure heat 1 was won by a Space Marine army with a mixture of predators/speeders/dreadnaughts and they did quite well at other heats.

But yeah i agree with you in part. If you go to the UK GT, you need a contingency plan against IW spam as if you're going to win it, id say you'd have to play at least two of them.

Posted By Fallen Angel on 09/05/2006 2:55 AM
Im pretty sure heat 1 was won by a Space Marine army with a mixture of predators/speeders/dreadnaughts and they did quite well at other heats.

But yeah i agree with you in part. If you go to the UK GT, you need a contingency plan against IW spam as if you're going to win it, id say you'd have to play at least two of them.

What the lads at Warhammer Forum have been saying for a while now is that Tau with maxed Broadsides and Shield Drones, and of course other Chaos armies with Siren princes do very well against even the most hardcore IW armies. The problem of those Tau and Siren armies of course is that they have to be able to beat everyone else too in order to get a game with the Obliterator Cults.

I guess we just never see that kind of list down here man. No one runs iron warriors like that, because so many other people play slowed foil armies that give pure shooting armies fits with a bad table - and maybe they are just too stupid to do it. It's a sick list. And I don't think spinegaunts v. stealers is gonna change anything. 90 gaunts will probly get mowed promptly as would stealers.

Completely diverting the topic away in true Flame On fashion, i think tau should do pretty well full stop against spam IWs. As long as the tau player doesnt do anything stupid with his railheads, he only needs to move them from behind cover when he can be sure of killing what he shoots, otherwise its up to all the JSJ trickeries of the crisis to do the killing. THe problem with broadsides is that one game out of 6 is probably against a combat army and no doubt a fast one, which broadsides are a lot less useful against as you have no sub option, no mobility and no skimmer status to try and block off assaults. Meh, we'll see, im pretty confident a couple of my mates taking tau this year will get up there and abouts.

Back on topic, if you're planning to play against IWs, i'd just go for it and take a lot of little ones as well. If you can manage to get a winged hive tyrant in place up field without it getting shot up too much (not that hard the way the tables are nowadays), it can provide forward synapse for you to swarm the obliterators and tie them up and stop their shooting, enabling the fexes to blast the preds. Of course it all depends on terrain really and how many firelanes you can get whilst in 4+ cover (for both sides really). Its definitely a game that im looking forward to playing once i get my gojirra nids built up.

With 100 gaunts, you're gonna spend most of your game moving gaunts (and thusly make it to turn 4-5 any time you are time-limited)

Wait til you get a table quarter mission and someone plunks a dude down in the front of his deployment zone (6" away from the center). You have to deploy 100 gaunts before you get to 5 of your MCs and where the hell do you put your MCs?

Regarding movement, you just have to play quickly. It's really not that hard with some practice. There are some short memories on here...people forget that some of the really strong Tyranid tournament lists in v3 had 150+ models, and those armies got it done. I previously attacked this problem by creating movement trays for my GT army...although they were so-so as move trays (terrain always gets in the way), they worked GREAT as deployment trays. And deployment is really where a Tyranid army can lose some valuable time. And BTW, I recently discovered Gale Force 9's TAC template, and it's great for making all those 6" moves.

That's a good segue into the point about MCs and deployment. All that situation really requires is for you to fill in Gaunts and leave open spots for the MCs. It's not that hard...just requires some thought...which is a comment that can go for hordey Tyranid play in general.

I don't want to wade into this too much because I've said my peace on some of these subjects before. Yes, hordey Tyranids got harder to play with the v4 codex. And after being initially critical of Godzilla lists, I've definitely come around on them and understand how and why the standard build works. But IMO, calling Therion's lists DOA is awfully shortsighted. One hundred models and 7 MCs still has a lot going for it in the hands of a good player (as much as I hate to paraphrase Pete Haines).