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 luke1705 wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Don't know if its been mentioned yet, but is the shooty variant of nids better than the melee variant? Or what?

Wish it weren't so, but shooty >>> melee

What do you mean by shooty >>> melee?

Shooty is greater than, greater than, greater than melee. Means shooting is way better.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Shooty is greater than, greater than, greater than melee. Means shooting is way better.

Oh! Thanks!

Or, to put it another way, playing assaulty Nids is kind of like playing mono-Khorne daemons - it can work, but you're fighting an uphill battle.

If you prefer a League of Legends reference (and if not, I do enough for the both of us) it's like playing AP Tristana. It could technically work. It's been done before. But unless you're Plat and everyone you're playing against is silver, it may be a bit of a struggle due to her kit and the current meta.

Anyone else think that a Carnifex should have the vehicle rules? I mean, a Carnifex is a walking tank! Here's how I think it should look

Unit composition: 1 Carnifex
BS: 3 Front armour: 13 Side armour: 14 Rear armour: 12
Transport capacity: None
Biomorphs: 2 pairs of scything talons
Special rules: Instinctive Behavior (Feed), Fearless.
Living Battering Ram: Can tank shock a unit, and inflict D3 Hammer of Wrath attacks
Options: Same as in the Codex, with these exceptions:
It can only take one monstrous bio-cannon

Thoughts? Improve upon it if needed.

Um what?
I don't expect them to, but if GW make any of the TMCs into Walkers over Riptides and Dreadknights, I will flip multiple tables. Tyranids are the one army that deserve MC status for all their big toys.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Anyone else think that a Carnifex should have the vehicle rules? I mean, a Carnifex is a walking tank! Here's how I think it should look

Unit composition: 1 Carnifex
BS: 3 Front armour: 13 Side armour: 14 Rear armour: 12
Transport capacity: None
Biomorphs: 2 pairs of scything talons
Special rules: Instinctive Behavior (Feed), Fearless.
Living Battering Ram: Can tank shock a unit, and inflict D3 Hammer of Wrath attacks
Options: Same as in the Codex, with these exceptions:
It can only take one monstrous bio-cannon

Thoughts? Improve upon it if needed.

Very un-Tyranid-like to have a Tyranid tank. All of their "tanks/transports" are actually just MC's. Better to keep it just as an MC and give it a special rule like Tank Shock or something.

 jy2 wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Anyone else think that a Carnifex should have the vehicle rules? I mean, a Carnifex is a walking tank! Here's how I think it should look

Unit composition: 1 Carnifex
BS: 3 Front armour: 13 Side armour: 14 Rear armour: 12
Transport capacity: None
Biomorphs: 2 pairs of scything talons
Special rules: Instinctive Behavior (Feed), Fearless.
Living Battering Ram: Can tank shock a unit, and inflict D3 Hammer of Wrath attacks
Options: Same as in the Codex, with these exceptions:
It can only take one monstrous bio-cannon

Thoughts? Improve upon it if needed.

Very un-Tyranid-like to have a Tyranid tank. All of their "tanks/transports" are actually just MC's. Better to keep it just as an MC and give it a special rule like Tank Shock or something.

I like that better.

Lol ! Most players wish tanks were monstrous critters so they can't be one shotted.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Lol ! Most players wish tanks were monstrous critters so they can't be one shotted.

Yup right up to the moment you watch an army of MC's get insta-gibbed by GK with all those force weapons.

Heh, Tyranid big models.... are big creatures. They fit monstrous creature tag perfectly, and make a lot of sense compared to some other "monstrous creatures"... I agree with Frozocrone

barnowl wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Lol ! Most players wish tanks were monstrous critters so they can't be one shotted.

Yup right up to the moment you watch an army of MC's get insta-gibbed by GK with all those force weapons.

Then give them either EW or Gargantuan status, (or some other special rule), but making them vehicles is a terrible idea.

Altought many people have asked some sort of unified rules for MC and vehicles.

I look at my opponent's vehicles and think "damn, if only a Carnifex was that hard to kill...", and they look at my monsters and think "damn, if only my Predator was that hard to kill...". Funny really.

What we're really doing is looking at Imperial Knights, Riptides and (meh) Wraithknights thinking "why do the humanoid non-monster armies have the best giant monsters?".

Basically the Tyranid "monsters" need a big overhaul to make them back into the destructive beasts they should be. They don't all have to have the broken combination of speed, resilience and lethality the Wraithknight has, but at least two out of three would be nice.

Carnifexes for instance should be tough and killy. Trygons fast and killy. Currently, they do none of the above outside of the twinlinked Devourer role.

 Tyran wrote:

barnowl wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Lol ! Most players wish tanks were monstrous critters so they can't be one shotted.

Yup right up to the moment you watch an army of MC's get insta-gibbed by GK with all those force weapons.

Then give them either EW or Gargantuan status, (or some other special rule), but making them vehicles is a terrible idea.

Altought many people have asked some sort of unified rules for MC and vehicles.

Only rule I really wanted back in the last codex drop was for synapse to give EW again. That would solve so many 'nid problems.

Interesting


text removed.
Reds8n

barnowl wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

barnowl wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Lol ! Most players wish tanks were monstrous critters so they can't be one shotted.

Yup right up to the moment you watch an army of MC's get insta-gibbed by GK with all those force weapons.

Then give them either EW or Gargantuan status, (or some other special rule), but making them vehicles is a terrible idea.

Altought many people have asked some sort of unified rules for MC and vehicles.

Only rule I really wanted back in the last codex drop was for synapse to give EW again. That would solve so many 'nid problems.

There were some rumours that Synapse is bringing back EW as well, though I admit that I haven't seen anything concrete.

edit.
reds8n

That was a rumour made by the FaceBook Tyranids group apparently.

Just waiting for 2016 Q1 tbh

 jy2 wrote:

barnowl wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

barnowl wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Lol ! Most players wish tanks were monstrous critters so they can't be one shotted.

Yup right up to the moment you watch an army of MC's get insta-gibbed by GK with all those force weapons.

Then give them either EW or Gargantuan status, (or some other special rule), but making them vehicles is a terrible idea.

Altought many people have asked some sort of unified rules for MC and vehicles.

Only rule I really wanted back in the last codex drop was for synapse to give EW again. That would solve so many 'nid problems.

There were some rumours that Synapse is bringing back EW as well, though I admit that I haven't seen anything concrete.

edit.
reds8n [/quote

If ti happens my warrior lists will be back on the table so fast. The old 2 wound EW Warriors and Shrikes were so much better than the current 3 wound non-EW ones.

So, when I read the OP, I see the word Vanilla associated with some units. What does this Vanilla term mean in this case?

Vanilla means the stock unit without any upgrades.

With the exception of giving the works to the flyrants and deep strike to rippers, I think I run almost all my units completely vanilla now. With the advent of big things that can delete expensive units with relative ease, I think that going MSU is one of our army's strengths with our great mobility (with certain units) and the ability to have pretty cheap units that are pretty durable for their cost, in the absence of ignores cover of course.

Hello all,

Has anyone played against the Stormsurge lately? I came back from college and played in an RTT, and this thing just blew my mind. My opponent was running it with Velocity Tracker and EWO, and it threw out an insane amount of damage. Now granted, my list only had 2 Flyrants in it as it was advertised as a holiday fun/fluff event so my list was fairly suboptimal, but this thing threw out insane amounts of damage. 8d6 skyfire S5 shots a turn was crazy, not to mention 2 S10 large blast that can instant kill a Crone. I ended up losing the game by 1 point (who else knew that Ethereals dont give up an extra VP anymore?) and my opponent had 3 units left, one the Stormsurge, but I found that I very quickly ran out of damage-dealers when my opponent had killed both my Flyrants by turn 2 and took my crones out soon after.

What are people seeing as ways to kill this thing? MSU didnt work for me very well here as my opponent can shoot this sucker twice, at all different targets. I did manage to assault it with some Rippers and tie it up for a little bit, but by then it had already done a ton of damage to my army. I am playing this opponent again next week and will be bringing a much more competitive list (no holiday spirit this time!) so I'll let you guys know what I come up with. Right now, I'm thinking just paroxysm and Scream this thing so it's less effective, and see if I can chip a few wounds off it. If he gets low on wounds I may start concentrating Flyrants on it, but I still think it's not very efficient to shoot at until Broadsides/Skyrays/Sniper Drones are all dead.

The Stormsurge (and Tau overall) is still tough for us to deal with. Fotunately taking VT on the SS IMO isn't going to be very common - most SS players will probably opt for the 4++ instead - but that really depends on whether the meta there is flyer-heavy.

Really, the best way to deal with the SS is to dakka the crap out of him, either with flyants or dakkafexes in pods. Paroxysm helps, but against the new Tau, almost anything on the ground will be dead. Unfortunately, unless Nids get better ground resiliency (that is not reliant on cover), flyrant-spam is and will continue to be our best chances against the new Tau.

 jy2 wrote:
The Stormsurge (and Tau overall) is still tough for us to deal with. Fotunately taking VT on the SS IMO isn't going to be very common - most SS players will probably opt for the 4++ instead - but that really depends on whether the meta there is flyer-heavy.

Really, the best way to deal with the SS is to dakka the crap out of him, either with flyants or dakkafexes in pods. Paroxysm helps, but against the new Tau, almost anything on the ground will be dead. Unfortunately, unless Nids get better ground resiliency (that is not reliant on cover), flyrant-spam is and will continue to be our best chances against the new Tau.

Yeah my opponent counters flyers a little heavily with his TAC lists since he knew I'd be there and a few other locals run flyer lists, but lets hope thats not common. I'm also really hesitant to shoot a Flyrant/Fex at the Stormsurge as a Dakkafex averages 1 wound, and a Flyrant is only slightly better.

Another trick to watch out for is Darkstrider on a Tidewall Railgun. This makes the target -1 toughness and so a S10 Railgun shot will ID a normal MC. I saw this coming when I Podded a Tyrannofex in, and so I managed to get Darkstrider to go to ground, but with markerlights he managed to hit my TFex anyways and took him out immediately, a huge blow to my army. In that case I'm still thinking that the best way to deal with this combo is to flame Darkstriders unit with Crones/TFexs and try and force them to go to ground.

Interesting thought, Darkstrider has infiltrate yes? As per the new FAQ, she can only join a unit that has infiltrate on that shield wall. So that suggests stealth suits or pathfinders. Both of those are super susceptible to your crones, flyrant w/electroshock grubs, T-Fex in a pod. All of those templates conveniently ignore cover, so there would be no point in "going to ground". Also, isn't darkstrider T3? Would not the T-fex acid spray insta-gib if it hits? Assuming a failed armor roll.

As to dealing with tau in general. I'm trying to go the far other way from MSU. Using endless swarm and spore field. I do have a lot of units, but I have high model count with over 100 models on the table. Due to escape hatch I'm going to be on your side with hormagaunts instantly (due to super run) Multiple units of spores are around due to infiltrate. Opponent is forced to fire at too many high model units. If they do die, they have a 50/50 chance of returning.

Storm surges in particular. Those are nasty. Likely a primary target of anything that I could get there. Gaunts, gants, a lucky dimachaeron? I haven't faced one yet, so I cannot say for sure how that works out. It is only toughness 6, so virtually anything in the tyranid arsenal has the potential to hurt it.

Darkstrider was attached to a fire warrior squad, as he was deployed normally not with the infiltrate rule. And yes he dies to flaners easily, but due to bubble wrap I could only get him with Torrent so didn't kill him, only most of his squad. At that point I put a Flyrants firepower into him and forced him to ground but didn't quite finish the unit. I'm confident that I could take him out with my normal lists though, what concerns me is the prospect of two Stormsurges with Skyfire and the inevitable Broadside/markerlight support they'll have.

 seapheonix wrote:
Interesting thought, Darkstrider has infiltrate yes? As per the new FAQ, she can only join a unit that has infiltrate on that shield wall. So that suggests stealth suits or pathfinders. Both of those are super susceptible to your crones, flyrant w/electroshock grubs, T-Fex in a pod. All of those templates conveniently ignore cover, so there would be no point in "going to ground". Also, isn't darkstrider T3? Would not the T-fex acid spray insta-gib if it hits? Assuming a failed armor roll.

As to dealing with tau in general. I'm trying to go the far other way from MSU. Using endless swarm and spore field. I do have a lot of units, but I have high model count with over 100 models on the table. Due to escape hatch I'm going to be on your side with hormagaunts instantly (due to super run) Multiple units of spores are around due to infiltrate. Opponent is forced to fire at too many high model units. If they do die, they have a 50/50 chance of returning.

Storm surges in particular. Those are nasty. Likely a primary target of anything that I could get there. Gaunts, gants, a lucky dimachaeron? I haven't faced one yet, so I cannot say for sure how that works out. It is only toughness 6, so virtually anything in the tyranid arsenal has the potential to hurt it.

Darkstrider does not have Infiltrate (and neither do pathfinders). What he has is Scout and a special rule that says he can only join fire warriors and pathfinders.

Actually as the Surges don't have Blacksun Filters and low initiative so blinding venom on Gargoyles could be quite effective.

X078 wrote:
Actually as the Surges don't have Blacksun Filters and low initiative so blinding venom on Gargoyles could be quite effective.

In my next game I'll actually be packing some Gargoyles (as part of a Skytyrant swarm) and I believe I'll be able to take out the Stormsurge with it, but once I get Gargoyles in close combat it won't be much of a problem as it'll be tarpitted for a long time anyways, unless of course my opponent simply blows away all of my gargoyles with Tau firepower.

 jifel wrote:

X078 wrote:
Actually as the Surges don't have Blacksun Filters and low initiative so blinding venom on Gargoyles could be quite effective.

In my next game I'll actually be packing some Gargoyles (as part of a Skytyrant swarm) and I believe I'll be able to take out the Stormsurge with it, but once I get Gargoyles in close combat it won't be much of a problem as it'll be tarpitted for a long time anyways, unless of course my opponent simply blows away all of my gargoyles with Tau firepower.

A good Tau army will excel in taking out deathstars or especially against mini-deathstars like the Skytyrant formation, especially if he is running the Hunter Contingent of a unit of Stormsurges. That's 8D6 S5 shots that will be ignoring cover thanks to Markerlights, or 16D6 shots if he is running a unit of 2. IMO gargoyles or other large Tyranid swarms will be next to useless against them unless you are running multiples of these hordes (a la the Endless Swarm formation).