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I'm sure we will see a large amount wholesale nids go on ebay very soon :p

How does deep striking for the Mawloc work exatcly? Can you just say I am going to deep strike on top of a unit?

Yes, CKO, that is kind of the point. It deepstrikes and displaces a Large Blast when it erupts from the ground.

I understand the tactic I did not know if the rules permitted it, I was wondering if you can do this with all units that dont have to worry about mishaps?

Picture of one in my gallery.

CKO wrote:I understand the tactic I did not know if the rules permitted it, I was wondering if you can do this with all units that dont have to worry about mishaps?

sure you can, but since no other unit but a mawlok could be placed in such a way it would be destroyed.

I see where you are going with this, drop pods and such /can/ mishap, but have a rule specifically stating that when they scatter, you reduce the scatter by enough to avoid the mishap.

assuming it hit, you can't reduce the scatter, and the model cannot be placed, you would still mishap, if the unit was immune to mishaps, you still can't place models within 1" of an enemy so it would be destroyed, mawloc avoids this due to moving the enemies out of the way before it is placed.

Are we seeing any units that are "must haves?"

I've not been seeing anyone mention them but gargoyles are ridiculous units and am surprised when i see lists that do not include them.

The Tervigon seems to be everyones MVP that and Deathleaper are both unit that are really so powerful at what they do that you should take them.

Also, deathleaper is pretty good at messing with vehicles.

I think Zoies are a must have unit since heavy mech is the current meta then throw in the Deathleaper as added insurance versus anti psychic enemy units, so I'm planning to run two squads of two Zoies (probably in pods) plus the ubèr Lictor for the boost.

I also see Trygons as an excellent close combat monster that can add synapse plus the Alpha version can shoot well too.

As Mahu has said I am also a big fan of the Alpha Warrior with a retinue of Warriors coming in via a spore.

If you build your army correctly you won't have to rely upon synapse, basic instincts are not quite as bad now but it can still take you out of the game if you aren't careful. So I definitely see a place for genestealers... They can operate independently, outflank and fleet. I think you need three to four units to make them work. I stil think there is a place for taking a Broodlord, yes it's less attacks than three more syctal stealers but the Broodlord is T5 so he can soak up a couple S8+ shots. To me it's just a matter to design your bug list such that there is room for him.

Tyrants are expensive. The best thing I see them bringing to the table is that they can be built as force multipliers.

I don't think anyone has come up with the next generation cookie cutter list but I'm sure we'll see one within the next few months. Hopefully there will be more than one viable build, which I think will most likely be the case.

G

Well, this reply is going to be long... and is pretty much a thread hijack, but this is where the good nid discussion has migrated it seems.

I am up to three really bad beats against mech armies now. We are now rolling for missions, and I've experienced a spearhead and a dawn of war, and neither of those were pretty for my beloved hive guard.

Somnicide figured out nids halfway through our space marine game, and was able to just about beat me. I think we tied with me having a VP advantage. I then faced a space wolf army that was mechanized and my "close combat" units were embarrassed right off the table, and then I've fought Nash's most tuned version of his IG/witch hunter list twice, and he has officially figured out all of the 'wacky' nid units. He is now unbeatable with any of my experimental hybrid lists.

It's amazing how I forget basic tenets of 40k when I'm testing to make a new list. Long range anti-tank is king, period. The net best thing you can take is short range anti-tank. There are also almost zero units in game that can consistently kill vehicles that don't want to be killed in CC. Every tourney player worth his dice knows this stuff. I have a feeling that playing against my tuned IG list would be much WORSE than witch hunters...

Nash reminded me of how I helped him make tourney winning ork armies. I mercilessly destroyed every versin of orks he threw at me with my full mech IG army until he finally bought a rokkit in every slot, took his 30 lootas and either had a full kan wall with rokkits or 5 rokkit battlewagons. Now we split our games, and orks can survive 5th edition tables.

Thanks to tonight's curb stomping, it has dawned on me that although there are a lot of mid tier fun units in the nid book, that'll be great for fun games/apocalypse/planetstrike/cities of death... I have to prepare to face 12+ vehicle armies that can shoot the piss out of me. I have made what I think will be the first and most obvious solid tyranid tourney list... it is way less fun than I was hoping, I had to eliminate a lot of units that I was hoping for, and I'll only play it for tourney prep or at a tourney.

Before I show it off, I want to keep the spirit of Mahu's thread intact, so I'll give my final "what I've learned" unit by unit. I'll only list units that I've played at least one game with here. Be warned, there could be some hyperbole here.... but if you disagree, keep in mind that i've already played 6 full games against tough players, I'm not just theory-hammering this.

HQ

hive tyrant - Since his reserve rule only works if he survives until turn 2, understand taht against any army with even remotely respectable shooting (every tourney army you'll face except demons) this guy is literally a 230 point BS3 lascannon. He shined in exactly one game, where he was able to give preferred enemy to two units of supergaunts. I'm giving up on him for now. He was helping me lose in every game I faced against mech.

tyrant guard - way overcosted at 60 points. Does not have the statistics necessary to warrant his cost. Also it is very quickly to get sucked into the void of 'keeping the tyrant alive'. My last list variant wanted to keep "hive commander" in play so badly against gunline, that i ended up buying all three tyrant guard. That means I bought a 350 point BS3 lascannon.

tervigon - Pretty solid. I was down on it for a bit, and my opinion of it is still grounded in reality. I amnot beaming over this unit. It scares the HELL out of scrubby players, which I don't need help beating, but if your opponent is a regular 40k player and owns a nid codex, he is going to know what to do if he sees these on the table. I think this is the best HQ choice, and probably the best troops choice, for what I want my HQs and troops to do, which is just to survive. Would I rather have troops and HQ that had excellent mid to long range anti-tank? Absolutely, but thats not the nid book.

ELITES

zoanthropes - well, a drop pod with three super meltagunners? Ok, I'll take it. Not because it's a fun unit to play with, but because I have been get owned so viciously by exorcists and vendettas that I absolutely need something to shut them down asap. IG shoots far too well to assume you can weather 3 rounds of shooting and kill off their vehicles with midrange shooting.

hive guard - In the games where I could draw my opponent in to me they were excellent, top tier. Also, in every pitched battle I played I would call them the superior unit in the codex. Then I played dawn of war and spearhead. In both cases their short range came up and bit me on the ass. 66% of their missions they won't have a shot they want for probably the first two turns, people who play versus IG already know that that is far too late.

deathleaper - he might actually make my list at some point, it will be soloey based on particular metagame. Here's my final take on him. Take his d3 leadership away and he is pyrovore level of unplayability. His pheromones will only have a 50/50 chance of having any game impact at all, and his actual tangible impact as a model is limited to finding the rare unit that he can charge. For psychic hood disruption, taking a third zoanthrope accomplishes the same effect, overwhelm the hood, kill the land raider, then clean up. The null zone librarian is so ridiculously popular in LA and arizona, that he might just make it. But it is 140 points of insurance against 2 out of 16 codexes. Runes of warding still shuts me down, deathleaper or not.

TROOPS

First off, when i say that the troops suck in this codex, I don't want anyone to thnk that I mean that Robin failed in writing the book. I am of the opinion that everyones troops suck in 40k, and I have a very low opinion of armies that spend more than 750 points on troops. They are supposed to suck, because they can something that no other unit can do. Its better to focus on the survivable troops, and leave the killing to more capable units in other slots. With no access to missile launchers or lascannons, meltaguns or multi-meltas, then i'm looking for short ranged counter-assault and survivability. And to spend as little on that as I can. Trying to purchase a troop in the nid codex for the purposes of destroying enemy units is ice skating uphill, I don't know why I didn't just understand that before I tried.

genestealers - brace for hyperbole. No frag grenades? They are on the shelf, for a long, long time. I charged a 10 man grey hunter unit with 10 poisoned stealers, one of my stealers was going to have to pass through the corner of a ruined building... this triggers a test, this means my initiative was 1. 30 attacks at I4 later, I'm out my 170 point genestealer unit. I ran them naked as well, and outflanked into two vehicle charges, once into an immolator that I needed 6s to hit.... forget it. I was all lined up nice and neat for the unscathed immolator to fry the unit right off the table. Next was an exorcist that only move 1". Well, I couldn't permantently destroy that consistently either. And was unceremoniously flamered off table. They are a strictly anti-nfantry unit. And in the game I'm playing, thats not acceptable.

hormagaunts - Although also a strictly anti-infantry/MC unit I actually never got mad at these guys. In a different metagame, where mech wasn't as good as it was, or with nids having a bit more shooting, these guys are excellent. Once I squared off against good opponents, I couldn't keep synapse up with the speed of the homies, and they'd get turned into instincitive leadership 5. and then handled. When you go instinctive on turn 5, and rush off the objective to charge an empty rhino, you lose. I'm not giving up on this unit, but I just can't see them thriving in an environment where there are heavy flamer toting transports for 55 points available almost without restriction.

termagants - without tervigon? worst unit in codex. With tervigon? probably all the counterassault you'll need to take and hold objectives. Take them, take a tervigon and then protect the tervigon.

warriors - nothing long range enough (regular venom cannon is a terrible gun) to entice me to take them on foot, not survivable enough for my playstyle coming out of a drop pod. They have the potential to make the lists of competitive players, but I want to get those devourers onto transport vehicles, on side armor of chimeras, and every army you face is going to have enough firepower to either torrent down all of your wounds or just insta-kill you out with spare meltaguns that they don't actually need against your army. gearing a troop choice up for CC doesn't add up. I don't want my troops getting themselves killed off, and you can't really make a warrior unit that can realistically tackle bloodcrushers or thunder hammer terminators, so just don't try, IMO.

FAST ATTACK

I actually haven't played with any fast attack, but after playing with units that have comparable damage output and survivability, I am confident in my opinions of some of the units.

raveners - why robin? why didn't you let me buy adrenal glands. tis is probably my biggest shock and dissapointment in the whole codex. this unit went for an automatic 15-of list core, to a "fun games" only unit. It sounds unbelievable that a single pip of strength can do that to a unit, but in a world of rear armor 10 vehicles, strength 4... rending or not, doesn't give you enough damage for you to not get wiped out to counter-shooting. It pains me, but I am not interested in this unit.

gargoyles - In another meta-game, where full mech didn't exist, what a fun unit. How long ago was everyone so hot on the stormboys? and they had a powerklaw! infantry can't charge tanks, and if you can't kill them on the charge, and you dont have a heavy weapon or a meltagun, then in how many games are you going to be fielding an impotent unit?

harpy - 170 point twin-linked lascannon? I'll take a pass. I wonder how thats gonna match up to the three twin linked lascannons IG gets for 130.

spore mines - maybe with extra points, but as of right now, I havent really felt like I have "extra points" just floating around. They are a fun little annoyance, but they don't hurt mech other than to annoy them, and i need every point I can spend.

HEAVY SUPPORT

carnifex - It was my MVP versus raider spam, but in all of the games I played against gunline it was a 195 point lascannon. I have an answer to land raiders elsewhere, so unfortunately, I have to shelf this guy for a while. Although he is very costly, I would compare him favorably to a lascannon dreadnought. More expensive for sure, but i think ultimately more survivable. The trick with the dreadnought is that he can be fielded in a list that has access to a very respectable amount of long range shooting, and when you draw opponents in, his counter-charge is excellent, the carnifex even more so. But nids just can't draw that many armies in. Aggressive space marine armies and demons are about the only thing that have to get that close to fexes. Thats not enough armies for me to be able to field him.

mawloc - I have said in a couple other batreps that this guy is not very good at all in comparison to the trygon. His only purpose is when you want to field a thrid trygon but you are 20 points short

trygon - well, my latest playtest with a full three trygons and 'hive commander' in play showed me what i needed to see. The ugly truth that 6 t6 wounds with a 3+ armor and no cover are NOT enough against a modern, tuned mech army. its just pure math, a combinaton of plasma, melta and heavy support heavy weapons can just take it down, when you get two in one turn, one of them gets to charge, kill a tank that is guaranteed to cost much less than half of its own cost, and then get taken down in the following turn. It's just not functional for me. Its a real shocker too. You need to be able to make saves against IG style firepower. Just taking a wound for every wound applied gets you off table before you've even done something.

tyrannofex - Laughs at missile launchers, which is pretty much THE heavy weapon of 5th edition, also has LONG RANGE ANTI-HEAVY TANK! I need that! a LOT!!!! Exorcists, hydras, manticores, predators, land raiders, every one of these things was trashing me in my test games. the faster I can get rolls on the vehicle damage table on things like vendettas, exorcists, multi-rokkit battlewagons the more liely I'll have an army left by turn 3.


So IMO, thats the dirty truth. The codex has tons of mid-tier fun as hell units, and most casual players will have countless variations with which to play, but mech is freakin GOOD. And you have to bring serious respect for it if you want to play a tourney version of nids....

Ok, my list.... this will give my IG army a run for its money, and it has definitey not given up its matchup against marines...


HQ

tervigon - catalyst, toxin, adrenal, crushing claws

ELITE

3x zoanthropes, mycetic spore

3x zoanthropes, mycetic spore

3x zoanthropes, mycetic spore

TROOP

24x termagants

tervigon - catalyst, toxin, adrenal, crushing claws

HEAVY SUPPORT

tyrranofex - rupture cannon

tyrranofex - rupture cannon


The name of the game is to dominate the table center with the two tervigons and the huge supergant unit. The joy is that in dawn of war I can deploy two MCs and a 24 model screen on table, walk on with tyrranofexes and wait for my zoans to drop in. Spearhead doesn't ruin me because my only anti-tank shooting that I'll deploy on table has 48" range, I'll go dominate the table center with tervigons and supergants, shred transports with my railguns and even more once I get my zoans to come down.

The vehicle containing your psychic hood is getting targeted on turn 1 by tyrranofexes, if it gets successfully killed, then the zoanthropes can land further back and attempt to snipe at the corners of the exposed unit with warp blast, or just land farther away and blast apart the rhinos with warp lance. I'll be keeping a shadow in the warp over rune priests if at all possible, and concentrating firepower on whatever transport he is in with the rupture cannons, once his vehicle is dead, he'll be picked apart by warp blasts that pass his runic weapon.

IG will be losing at least one vendetta a turn, and if I can get at least one zoanthrope unit down on turn 2, then i should have all three dead by turn 3. thats about the only ap2 long range firepower that people have been taking lately with IG except for the occasional executioner. Once the ap2 long range stuff is dead and gone, then killing FNP tervigons or 2+ save tyrannofexes gets a lot harder. If I get first turn, you better reserve your vendettas, and you better hope you roll well on reserves.

24 counter-attacking poisoned furious charging termagants put 18 wounds on THSS before they swing. And there are more behind them. Without rupture cannons you could say that there would be less gants because you'd unload with your LRC, but with 4 rupture cannons targeting it for 2 turns before you can charge, can you guarantee that it will even be alive?


Will my list lose some games to space marines/space wolves/IG. Absolutely, but it is so clearly the best option to fight those three armies that it isn't even a contest.

A change I may potentially make due to my current metagame would be -1 zoanthrope unit and +1 deathleaper. Its pretty techy... and he has pissed me off quite a bit before. But on a good day he can shut down eldrad, rune priest, and librarian, and he can safely challenge space marine scouts, eldar pathfinders, tau pathfinders, imperial guard heavy weapons squads and space marine combat squads without sergeants. He can also brave 50/50 combats versus space marine thunderfire cannons, tau crisis suits and space wolf long fangs. There may be enough of those units, and enough librarians, eldrads and rune priests to make him better than another zoanthrope. If I did include him, that frees up 80 points, if I cut two termagants I would field 3x3 spore mines and call it a day.

Ok, wow, did i type a lot or what. My apologies for the hijacking of Mahu's thread. I'll give it back now. Haha, feel free to disagree with me everyone, I have never been a closed minded poster, but if you do take the tyranid CC route, beware mechanized armies and beware of dawn of war and spearhead.

On the one hand, kind of a downer... On the other, Woo I already built a T-Fex with Bio Cannon over a week ago!

It is so strange to see a Nid army that feels like.....foot Tau

One wonders about how to survive facing a demon army, or turn 2 trukk assault armies, or is that dealt with by the meta? It just doesn't look like that much of a meta-game shifting army when it have to do all this to survive fairly standard all mech army. It also still look like it'd have a not so easy match up against distributed lascannon mech marines even before tuning...if the plan is to silence lascannons early.

It sounds like Nidz are not survivable enough. Wouldn't using deep strike/tunneling/outflanking and gaunt screens help?

G

I like your synopsis Shep. Though I must say I'm disappointed with your review on mawlocs and trygons. I had planned on filling my HS slots with them (though the T-fex is tempting). I must say though that at our FLGS we tend to play less competitive games so perhaps their effectiveness won't be so much of an issue.

I'm very happy with what you said about hormagaunts though. I'm tempted to create (and it's already on paper) a shock list. Dump a load of stuff in pods right into their lines and just leave a tervigon and some gaunts in reserve to claim my own objective (if it is indeed an objective match). Podding units would include a lot of hormagaunts, a tervigon, a tyrant (though I'm really not sure about him yet), deathleaper, 2 mawlocs and a trygona alpha. What do you think...would it be enough to disrupt tau/ig gunlines?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I should mention tat I'm planning on using the swarmlord...Either that or some warriors with the alpha variant.

Interesting post Shep. Especially that the Tyrranofex is something you rate highly.

@Shep I have been seeing similar posts on YTTH. The Hive Guard unfortunately don't ignore the most common forms of cover for mech...smoke and mech shield walls...that made me a sad panda. My only question is the rupture cannon really that good seeing as it isn't a railgun (not BS 4 or TL, and not AP1). Against cover you only have a 25% chance of scoring a hit and a 12.5% chance of rolling on the damage table against AV14 (LR and Leman Russ). Against a rhino with cover, you have a 25% of rolling on the damage table. Have you playtested with the unit? Can it even reliably stall mech's mobility or shooting while you wait for your Zoes to land? How good are Tervigons and TFex in a scrap if they get charged (or need to charge) by termies, TW or BC?

TBH, when I look at Shep's proposed list, it makes me wonder about how effective it will be I just don't see it having enough staying power. Even with the Tervigons, will there be enough troops to last through the game? It's not that I'm doubting Shep's abilities at all, it's just that I'm wondering if maybe the codex still just can't reliably handle mech armies?

I'm with GBF in that maybe Nids have to leverage more of their deployment options and try to overload on T2+?

I think people in general put too much emphasis on landraiders. Sure they are a big threat but then again you are not going to see them every game. If you overcompensate then it leaves holes elsewhere.

I think the new Nidz are one army that will do better the less you spam units (troops & Zoies in pods being two exceptions).

G

I don't get the hate for Raveners. If they were s5 they'd be penning on 6's, glancing on 5's. s4 with rending has them penning on 6's, not glancing at all. Is the loss of glancing hits really so devastating? In my experience it's the pens that kill the vehicle. They can even pen rear armor 11 tanks if the Guard get cheaky.

Don't worry about hijacking this thread, I am happy that the "truth" is coming out in it.

I will try and keep my reply short:

There are a few points I disagree with you on, this may be based on local meta-game and my personal experiences, but here we go.

1. I still am not a fan of the reliance on the Tervigon. This may be just me, but you play a dangerous game with them. In order for them to fully capitalize on all their buffs, you essentially need to maintain that Gaunt screen within 6", the downside is that Gaunts are not tall enough to adequately screen the creature and give it a cover save, so I have been preferring to run midsized creatures like Zoenthropes on the ground to give them that cover save. I also found that fielding non-gaunt troops can expand my coverage area for objectives. But when you start running things that compacted, it ain't hard for land raiders to tank shock through the gaunts and land Terminators onto the Tervigon, then you take a lot of your Guants with it. Not fun. I have found one to be sufficient. I can advance it up with the rest of my ground forces and buff units where I need to, Or I can sit on my castle in cover and use the rest of my force to keep pressure on my opponent. That is just me.

2. Genestealers, I agree they are a mixed bag, and the lack of a frag grenade option hurts them, but I have been seeing them as good defense against armies that can be more aggressive then Tyranids. I would rather "hide" a unit of Genestealers in my back field, wait till Logan and his crazy bunch gets popped out of their transports, and throw a combined charge of Gaunts and Genestealers at them. I think one "5th edition" practice people have gotten into is ignoring the actual infiltrate and scouts rule, and just going to outflanking as the only option for these units. Genestealers are flexible to outflank when needed (like I did to my IG opponent in a spearhead mission where I was sure to and did get, two Genestealer units right on his door step), but has anybody thought of actually deploying them as infiltrators? That's crazy talk! You can do things like in Dawn of War put them right in key places, like table edges .

3. I will say this and people will disagree with me, give me a Carnifex in a pod over a Trygon any day. There is a simple reason to this, with a Trygon, I have a big model that can scatter right out into the open and just ask to be shot to death. You could probably mitigate that with Regeneration, but that is a long shot at best. However, with a Carnifex in a pod I have night on garunteed cover, and about the same shooting on the turn it arrives. I think the thing that makes the Carnifex unique to the other heavy choices is his strength. So I have been having pretty good success with a Screamer Killer in a pod that shows up on a heavy Mech flank using the pod and my enemies own models to give me cover saves and deny the full gun line shooting at it, and then I just start walking through tank lines. Sue it will go down eventually, but you have to deal with other things on top of that too.

4. I am finding you really have to be conservative where you place the Death Leaper. Showing up on top of any enemy unit will ensure his quick end. I would rather put him 12 or so inches in or beyond cover away from his target and put other threats in my opponents face to hopefully distract them from putting a lot of fire power at him. Then between move through cover and fleet, I can use him to hit foot based scary shooting units.

Can't they just shoot a lascannon at your pod, ID it, and remove your cover?

40kenthusiast wrote:I don't get the hate for Raveners. If they were s5 they'd be penning on 6's, glancing on 5's. s4 with rending has them penning on 6's, not glancing at all. Is the loss of glancing hits really so devastating? In my experience it's the pens that kill the vehicle. They can even pen rear armor 11 tanks if the Guard get cheaky.

The time I see this making a difference is when you are unfortunate enough to not roll any pens. Something that isn't beyond the realm of possibility. I don't remember how many base attacks raveners have. If it's only 3+1 for charging then there is a very real possibility you do not score any pens if the vehicle moved the prior turn (about 6.5 hits). It would be unlucky but not uncommon. Even with 4+1 attacks (about 8.1 hits) there will be times you get no pens, but you will probably have 2-4 glancing hits. Depending on the vehicle, getting a weapon destroyed is enough to render (heh) it combat ineffective. Don't have time to do the math on vehicles moving fast right now.

It may not seem like much but I think over time those extra glances would definitely make a difference.

Can't they just shoot a lascannon at your pod, ID it, and remove your cover?

Think about where that Lascannon is coming from, wherever it is coming from, that means a unit not shooting at the Carnifex. And you also have to take into consideration that you can also more easily place a Carnifex in cover off of a pod, so using both keeps it alive during a shooting phase. If it hits one tank that costs equal to it's own points cost it pays for itself.

Plus if you have multiple pods and things like Warriors supporting it. And you try and hit a flank that limits the shooting coming at you. All that adds up to your opponent not being able to remove that threat in a turn of shooting. And you are right behind them with your walking and outflanking element.

After my game on Saturday (where I only lost by a single kill point, and that was mostly due to my own mistakes), my friend commented that because I was able to put him almost instantly on the defensive, that gave me the slight upper hand I needed.

I think the new Nidz are one army that will do better the less you spam units (troops & Zoies in pods being two exceptions).

I agree with this, Nid lists are more about synergy and multiple different ways to handle things then they are about "that one super unit" or "unit X is good, lets spam it".

I still see a place for every unit in the codex. I still don't think there is a bad unit. It's all about what you are taking also in the list to support it. How does unit A help unit B help unit C. You stagger and overlap different units and you get a winning strategy. There will be a big adjustment time for people with this book, and I guarantee you that the "internet logic" will be that Tyranids suck for at least the next 3 months. But just wait.

Just a quick FYI, I'm the player Mahu tested against. The one correction to my list is that it was Chenkov, not Harker and the Medusa was actually a Manticore.

Therion wrote:
Now that I'm thinking of it, I very clearly remember the Mawloc rule saying: Every unit hit by the template suffers wounds equal to the number of models in the unit. I'm pretty certain of it, but like I said I'll check back in this thread in about 14 hours and correct my mistake if there is one. If I read it wrong it must be in the end of the sentence, like, 'equal to the number of models in the unit <that were displaced>' or something and I just didn't read it to the end.

German translation can be a bit fishy, I made that experience too.
The german wording is still overly complicated as I've said. It roughly says that "every unit touched by the template receives as many hits as there are models in the unit that are touched by the template". Believe me, the german language is capable of some crazy grammar and sentences (as you can sometimes see reading german-english like mine) and this one is hardly comprehensible. Maybe you haven't read the last part of the sentence.

@Shep: Thanks for the thought, very informative. At the moment, I try to work out some army lists that can be fully melee. As you've said, I think I will have serious problems against mech-lists. Maybe I can use some of the various ambushing units (liktors,genestealers, trygons) to keep the enemy occupied until my second wave arrives but I seriously doubt that, especially due to the hefty point costs monstrous creatures now have.

Sad thing about the Raveners. If they had double scything talons and rending claws they would have been pretty interesting imo. But being a hardass like myself, I will surely get some on the field just for the theme. Maybe I can report some success...

Greets
Schepp himself

German translation can be a bit fishy, I made that experience too.

It was my mistake, I re-checked today. Like I guessed, it just continues to explain only the models touched by the template are affected.

Nice analysis Shep. I don't think relying on so many T4 W2 models like Zoanthropes is going to be a succesful strategy though, and I'm not as big of a T-Fex fan as you are. I do like the approach you've taken with troops and HQ though. You only have 2 troops choices, but you will have a minimum of 4 scoring units each game nevertheless. Keeping the troops section cheap allows you to spend more points elsewhere. I'm just not yet sure whether your choices elsewhere are the right ones, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I can definately see the range being an issue with Hive Guard sometimes, although you might be exaggerating the problem a little. The move of 6" and fire to 24" is a 30" reach which is usually enough, and if it isn't you run nearly 10" on the first turn and on the second turn you have your 30" reach once again. Regardless, the range issues of the Hive Guard gives my 6x las/plas Razorback SW a glimmer of hope that the tanks might actually still be useful even against 6-9 Hive Guard.

CaptKaruthors wrote:Just a quick FYI, I'm the player Mahu tested against. The one correction to my list is that it was Chenkov, not Harker and the Medusa was actually a Manticore.

My bad.

Upside Nids have against the Manticore? You still get FNP against it on your MCs.

After playing against Mahu with the new nid codex, my general observations regarding the codex remains the same. The power shift in the codex is a lateral one at best. Sure there is some buffs in some of the units, etc. but it is balanced with the lack of invuln saves or getting 2+ saves on the table. Additionally, the CC in the army is good in numbers (lots of attacks hitting all at once), but falls short of expectations on smaller 1vs1 engagements. Wound allocation can make combats more attrition heavy for the bugs, because they can't take advantage of it like other armies can (that and their saves are garbage), which means they may win the combat, but the losses the bugs have sustained will be hard to deal with as the game goes on. It will be a challenge for the bugs to keep up any momentum. The loss of frag grenades is huge, and I for one like that. Too many units were getting free frag grenades, that it made deploying in covered areas pointless at times. Nids will have to literally send waves of cheap units to lock down units in cover so the following units can charge with no negatives, or use the variety of deployment options to literally attack the opponent from all sides, limiting their options. In my game vs. Mahu, the mission literally changed to a breakout style mission since standing and fighting was going to end me quickly. Leaving some units in reserves is a huge help vs. bugs so you can reinforce or move away much easier. Once a player commits to a certain area, the reserves can respond accordingly. I would highly recommend people consider reserves when facing a bug army of any kind. Those are just my thoughts. While I have only played one game vs. the bugs, I have pretty much figured out what I need to do with my IG to beat them.

People really need to start turning to Drop Podding Venomthropes with a Alpha warrior. Why yes, I can give my Trigon a 5+ cover save and make him less vunerable to assault. Oh and add 20 Genestealers to that. Merry Christmas.

6-9 hive guard is no match to the horror that is SW ML spam....with 3xLF and Logan WG CML termie troops with >20 ML shots per turn. Many IG lists have 3xvendettas and thats 9TL Lascan, add in another dozen autocannon shots and a manticore which is far more output than hive guard. Compare, 2xS8 shots vs 4xS7 shots for 20 points more, and both can be taken in units of three, but the latter have across the board range. If it is shooting up rhinos, we know which works better.

Nids just isn't "that shooty" for its points and slots. The main edge nids have is that MCs don't stop shooting until killed, and small bugs kill reasonably well. If your army can't survive nid shooting then it'd get alpha offed board by IG....