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kaiservonhugal wrote:I want to try this at 2000 points:

2 Primes with Deathspitter and Swords
60 Genestealers with Adrenal Glands
60 Hormagaunts
9 Hive Guard


Typically the guants would screen and the stealers would deliver the kill cut - against AV14, I reverse it, sacrificing stealers and then letting the Gaunts chew up the insides.

The Primes escort the Guard and are centrally located in the Swarm.

There is most likely a gunline "punisher" list that incorporates gargoyles and mass genestealers. The idea would be to set around 140 models down that can all declare charges against vehicles on turn 2. you deploy out of IG heavy flamer range, and then HOPEFULLY wreck or stun around 5-6 tanks on turn two. Gunlines take too many single shot weapons to realistically remove your models fast enough, so on paper, it works...

Unfortunately, we're looking for a tourney style list. And in time-limit games, taking a 140-180 model army that needs to declare multiple CCs per game is a bad way to go against a gunline. they can get their VPs early, shrug off your initial attempts at destruction, and play a 3-4 turn game for the win.

My solution to beating gunlines when playing club games or home games has been pretty simple. if you aren't tourney prepping, and warning me beforehand, don't bring that kinda list to a friendly game

I like your club method Shep

I went with Hormaguants over Gargoyles because they score.

Shep wrote:

kaiservonhugal wrote:I want to try this at 2000 points:

2 Primes with Deathspitter and Swords
60 Genestealers with Adrenal Glands
60 Hormagaunts
9 Hive Guard


Typically the guants would screen and the stealers would deliver the kill cut - against AV14, I reverse it, sacrificing stealers and then letting the Gaunts chew up the insides.

The Primes escort the Guard and are centrally located in the Swarm.

There is most likely a gunline "punisher" list that incorporates gargoyles and mass genestealers. The idea would be to set around 140 models down that can all declare charges against vehicles on turn 2. you deploy out of IG heavy flamer range, and then HOPEFULLY wreck or stun around 5-6 tanks on turn two. Gunlines take too many single shot weapons to realistically remove your models fast enough, so on paper, it works...

Unfortunately, we're looking for a tourney style list. And in time-limit games, taking a 140-180 model army that needs to declare multiple CCs per game is a bad way to go against a gunline. they can get their VPs early, shrug off your initial attempts at destruction, and play a 3-4 turn game for the win.

My solution to beating gunlines when playing club games or home games has been pretty simple. if you aren't tourney prepping, and warning me beforehand, don't bring that kinda list to a friendly game

It's the time constraints on tourney play that make it hard. I was going to suggest you try a 120 Glanded Hormie list, Shep (plus 3x pods of 2x Zoanthropes), but moving that would be annoying.

(Deployment can go easier; you need deployment trays for large armies. You can move off of them post-deployment, but you need to be able to put down 10-20 models at a time, already spaced out.)

Thats a good idea at least one of the movement phases will be accellerated that way

The SW and Marine lists look really tough, however here in the Chicagoland area we play 1850pts and less. On top of that we almost always have one mission where KP are primary victory points and those lists look like they would have trouble in those missions. A list that does very well in 2/3rds of the game is nice, but not a tourney winning army list.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that those IG lists give up KPs easily.

I just wonder how they can win a KP game against Jetseer's. They would seem to lose more KP's in 1 round of HtH then they could recover all game. I can't go to a tourney around here without 2-3 seer councils running around.

DarthDiggler wrote:I just wonder how they can win a KP game against Jetseer's. They would seem to lose more KP's in 1 round of HtH then they could recover all game. I can't go to a tourney around here without 2-3 seer councils running around.

Yeah foot orks and demons are also armies that partial mech gunlines will struggle to win annihilation missions against.

The gunlines i posted aren't even close to tourney unbeatable... What they are really good for is a testing tool...

if you design an army, and wonder if it will be a good one.... a great first step is to vassal it against one of those gunlines. If you get tabled by the end of turn 2, then you need to scrap it...

because what that means, is maybe against a choppier list you don't get tabled, but you aren't going to be playing for wins either...

My IG army has manticores, fleet officers and astropaths and many times they have PBS, because they are making metagame considerations. My space wolf armies have land raiders and lone wolf/wolf lord surprises hiding behind land raiders, my SM armies have THSS terminators. Those are the 'real' lists. Thats less firepower, but more chance to win a tourney. These gunlines just accurately demonstrate what kind of heat a 'foot' army has to eat before they can get across table.

Armies that don't plan to get that first shot in from a drop pod or deep striking, need to be able to eat insane amounts of shooting in tourney 40k. Without armor 14 transports, nids just can't do it. Unless I missed something. they need to vertically envelop, and if you don't believe me, run against one of those gunlines

Thanks for clearing that up. I would agree with your assessment. I also agree about Nids having to 'vertically envelope' their enemy. The Nid lists we are working on try to deep strike or outflank their core elements. It can be a hit or miss proposition, but that is still better than taking 1-2 rounds of shooting from those lists.

It does appear that in this strategy the Nid begin to play like a daemon army, which I know people were not looking forward to.

Yeah... I've been following this stuff here along with trying to come up with some ideas myself, and the more I think about it, Nids just can't deploy on the table and rush Mech armies ala 4th edition Nids. I really think their strength was supposed to be the deployment options/reserve games. However, a lot of stuff prevents that from working the way its supposed to: Hive Commander/Lictor's not working off the table, Trygon's ability being a letdown, no Spore Pod assault (which can be good and bad), etc. Had those been tuned slightly better, I think Nids would be a very smashmouth, in-your-face army that could break gunlines. As it is now, they either serve as target practice or come in too staggered to be a real threat.

Gornall wrote:Yeah... I've been following this stuff here along with trying to come up with some ideas myself, and the more I think about it, Nids just can't deploy on the table and rush Mech armies ala 4th edition Nids. I really think their strength was supposed to be the deployment options/reserve games. However, a lot of stuff prevents that from working the way its supposed to: Hive Commander/Lictor's not working off the table, Trygon's ability being a letdown, no Spore Pod assault (which can be good and bad), etc. Had those been tuned slightly better, I think Nids would be a very smashmouth, in-your-face army that could break gunlines. As it is now, they either serve as target practice or come in too staggered to be a real threat.

Or just cheaper big bugs, any decent MC will cost you as much as a land raider, and dies so much easier.

My solution in recent testing has been Swarmlord + Hive Tyrant for +2 reserve stacking, each with a tyrant guard, set up with a tervigon behind a 30 strong gant screen. The 2 different tyrants dont get shot up too badly thanks to limited wound allocation and cover saves. I have 6 hive guard and 3 zoans in a pod, along with 2x10 toxin stealers. This is 1850

So far, that is the maximum amount of pressure I can put on the enemy. The stealers will infiltrate, hopefully in cover, simply to be very convincing targets for gunlines on turn 1. My back line will likely all run turn 1, unless the hive guard are in range, just to get closer. Turn 2, I hope I still have the +2 to reserves, bring down the pod, and the elite units all start shooting. The MCs likely are running still, and the stealers, if alive, will be charging lead elements on turn 2. Turn 3, if my MC core is still at near full strength thanks to the sacrifice of the stealers and zoan pod, I should be lining up assaults.

In taking my current list to 2k points, I would either add another tervigon by breaking up the termagants, or another 10 stealers. Both add threat to the enemy that is present on turn 1, the stealers from turn 2 assaults and the tervigon from potential gant farming. Other than these two units, I cant think of anything that adds real turn 1 threat. Raveners with rending claws, or dakka drop fexes could be good turn 2 threats, Raveners must deploy behind gants for cover which can slow them down and drop dakka fexes arnt on the board, thus focus the enemies turn 1 attention to my other units.

All I know is that I am very, very thankful that we have one good FOC slot, the elite slot. Without the elite slot units I think the nid book would be worthless for tournies.

As an aside, did anyone notice that we simply traded t6 8 shot s6 elite dakka fexes for t6 6 shot s8 hive guard units? About the same points too, and hive guard in 5th are about as good as the dakkafex in 4th ed (when glances could kill!)

Its time for a time out!

You guys amaze me sometimes, you dont have to destroy 12 transports you dont have to fixate on anti-tank. All you have to do is claim more objectives at the end of the day or have more kill points. That means you place your objectives as close to theres as possible move your blob closer and closer, you cant take out t 6 6 wounds creatures with the same weapons to take out large swarms. Focus on surviving and controling large areas of the board with the swarm and claiming objectives.

DevianID wrote:My solution in recent testing has been Swarmlord + Hive Tyrant for +2 reserve stacking, each with a tyrant guard, set up with a tervigon behind a 30 strong gant screen. The 2 different tyrants dont get shot up too badly thanks to limited wound allocation and cover saves. I have 6 hive guard and 3 zoans in a pod, along with 2x10 toxin stealers. This is 1850

I kind have the same idea ,here is mine

HQ
Swarmlord +Tyrantguard 340pts

Elite
Hive Gurad X3 150pts

Hive Gurad X3 150pts

ZoanthropeX3 180pts

Troops
Genestealers+ToxinSacs X9 153pts

Genestealers+ToxinSacs X9 153pts

Genestealers+ToxinSacs X9 153pts

Genestealers+ToxinSacs X9 153pts

Genestealers+ToxinSacs X9 153pts

Fast
Gagoyles+ToxinSacs+Adrenal Glands
X20 160pts

total 1745pts

basicly everything doesnt shoot will reach the enemy by turn two, could drop one brood of genes for a Mawloc, if they drive flat out then they cant shoot back, and besides flamer everything jumps out vehicle will be eaten by genes.

I think that people will have to accept that tyranids need 140+ models to compete. Playing against them almost exclusively in the last 3 weeks has led me to believe that Tyranids key to success is to literally swamp you with so many models that it literally chokes your opponent's army from maneuvering. More often or not, my IG have to fight a breakout mission before I actually play the mission. Units that I think are great are somehow missing from lists I've been seeing on the internets and playing locally:

Gargoyles
Ripper Swarms
Raveners
Hormagaunts
Termagaunts with devourers

All of these units have the ability to drop on your doorstep and/or move quickly.

CaptKaruthors, I notice a distinct lack of Ymgarl genestealers in your post. Is that because you do see them a lot or because you don't think they fit? Apart from the Yealers, I agree completely with what you are saying. A lot of meta these days is about bringing enough ati tank, which is of course makes swarms stronger. Many lists cente around a deathstar unit, wich will become a bit hampered by not having a target that is clearly worth their points and risks being bogged down in dozens of fearless critters. I think the reason for the lack of smaller creatures in popular lists is because the tyranid community is still adjusting to the general nerf that MCs got, and big models with new rules tends to draw more attention than a slightly reworked 6p troop model.

On a related subject, it seems to me as if the tyranid codex has a lot more synergy effects between units than codexes usually have. Rules have wordings like all friendly units within 6" or have effects-greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts-stacking like Aura of Despair + Shadow in the Warp. IF this is indeed a conscious design choice, I am all for it. I'd like to see more codexes go that way. It gives players more meaningful choices. However, I think those effects are a bit too cautiously applied for the tyranids.

Part of the problem with synergy in armies is that they tend to lock in patterns. Look what's happened around here: People notice the synergy between Tervigons and Termagants and then suddenly it's like these are "mandatory" units in an army. Or take the Lash of Submission/Obliterator combination as another synergy that crowded out all the other options in the codex.

Plus there's the factoring in of points-cost. If one unit doubles its effectiveness in the presence of another unit, then how do you balance that combination with other combinations so that players have the largest number of live options available.

Another part of it is explicit synergy vs implicit synergy. Units or models with rules that explicitly affect other units, like the Kustom Force Field, or Fortune, have explicit synergy. Implicit synergy is more to do with how the basic rules relate models to each other. Units with template weapons have a synergy with transport tanks because the tanks can Tank Shock enemy units into clumps for more hits from the templates, for example.

One example of that in the Tyranid Codex, I think, is the number of pinning weapons that make up for the lack of grenades, and then grenade-substitutes for the sort of things you'd have to hit Fearless troops with anyways.

Call it beating the same drum as others on this page I guess. I'm new to tyranids and I think someone said something earlier about a fixation with MCs carrying on from the previous codexes. (codices?) Again, as I am new to nods but not the game I've been running 2k pt builds with the only MCs I have are trygons and mawlocs with just bunches of cheap swarms upgraded with adrenal glands.

I know that tourny play won't be easy with the sheer number of models, but pound for pound I've had MUCH more success against all lists, including iterations of tourny tuned gunlines, with swarms than I have with MC heavy lists. I'll try to record some batreps in the future. The basic ideas are the same though. I don't care if you kill 20-30 models in turn 1, because I have still have a whole bunch that are closing and outflanked genestealers and deep striking MCs.

Yepp, I agree completely with you Nurglitch. Implicit synergies is something that needs a lot more thought in this game. The lash+oblit combo is imho an excellent example of badly or unimaginatively playtested synergy. GW really needs to hire a bunch of slightly autistic gametesters, or even better start using public playtesting of their rules. MMO companies have understood the value of letting actual players do beta testing for them a long time ago.

On a very general note about game design: Synergies should give a bonus that is noticeable but that does not stack or multiply indefinitely. As a very rough illustration I'd say anything that increases or decreases effectivity of a gaming piece (such as a unit in 40k) by around 10-15% as a passive ability and around 25% as an activated ability that can be countered in some way (like a psychic power behaves in 40k for example) runs a very small risk of breaking the game.

Points cost should be calculated as if a lot of, maybe even maximum, synergy is applied to the unit. Consider the obvious synergy of a squad of DE wyches and a raider transport. The wyches should have a significantly lower points cost if they did not have reasonable access to a transport vehicle. If a player wants to be stupid and not apply this synergy to her available units, that is a valid choice to make, but that player should loose. Because a game should be won by making intelligent choices, and by playing with an element of chance.

Further on, there should be meaningful choices to be made. In an ideal world the points costs are a part of this. In practice the 40k points costs tends to drive players to not at all take certain units that would be interesting to play if only the points cost were lower. Other meaningful choices could be what equipment to give to a unit with limited slots for them. Heavy weapons available to IG is an example of a good application of this. Both autocannons and lascannons are all viable alternatives for your heavy weapon teams, and they are alternatives that makes a lot of difference.

I'm btw very happy with how the tyranid codex handles assault grenades by not having them, but instead giving other tools, quite often to other units. It makes for much more interesting games. It also makes it meaningful to deploy in cover for protection against assaults, wich adds another meaningful choice to the opponent of the tyranid player.

One synergy that was nearly there is the broodlords Aura of Despair. It could have been allowed to stack with devourers, pinning and things like the psychic scream. As it is, it works with SitW and it can help you break a unit on your assault (wich you hardly ever wants to do).

The problem with swarm is that you dont have efficient tool to open armour box, if gaunts can carry melta,who will bother heavy vemon cannon on MCs?

Swarm is annoying,but those anti-vehicle ability still lies on some key units, which still give opponent targets to destroy first, after that is tank-shock the rest off objective.

The difference between nids and other armies in 40k is that nids dont have melta in every slot ,nids dont have any transport vehicle, only demon is similar to nids in this case ,but they have iSv ,Enternal warrior and 50% auto depoly first turn, what nids have now are some overpriced MCs and small ones who can hardly harm armour targets.

Given that most vehicles have AV10 rear armour, and that units like Dreadnoughts and AV14 all-round is comparatively rare, Tyranid swarms have plenty of anti-vehicle (as opposed to anti-tank) if you consider stuff like Genestealers, Raveners, and other stuff with Rending Claws and/or Adrenal Glands.

[rant] Not that I've ever put much stock or hope into the PR material that GW disguises as "strategies" on their official homepage, but this error made me wonder. In the Tyranid psychic power tactica pdf I found this phrase: You could try using a Genestealer Broodlord or two to bring down the Leadership of nearby enemies before unleashing The Horror or Psychic Scream. *sigh* it seems like I was not the only one that thought that was a good idea... [/rant]

Mellon wrote:[rant] Not that I've ever put much stock or hope into the PR material that GW disguises as "strategies" on their official homepage, but this error made me wonder. In the Tyranid psychic power tactica pdf I found this phrase: You could try using a Genestealer Broodlord or two to bring down the Leadership of nearby enemies before unleashing The Horror or Psychic Scream. *sigh* it seems like I was not the only one that thought that was a good idea... [/rant]

I think in the rule "until the end of the following player turn" means the end of the same player(nids player)'s next turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:Given that most vehicles have AV10 rear armour, and that units like Dreadnoughts and AV14 all-round is comparatively rare, Tyranid swarms have plenty of anti-vehicle (as opposed to anti-tank) if you consider stuff like Genestealers, Raveners, and other stuff with Rending Claws and/or Adrenal Glands.

as others said before use a 200pts unit takes down a 40pts transport ,then get flamed next round is not a efficient way to deal with armour.

ED209 wrote:
I think in the rule "until the end of the following player turn" means the end of the same player(nids player)'s next turn.

Interesting interpretation... I can see this being the idea, and it makes for some tricky synergies and combos that needs to be activated on one turn and then used the following. But I think, RAW, that the end of the following player turn (BRB p9) is when the tyranid opposing player has completed its player turn.

Mellon wrote:

ED209 wrote:
I think in the rule "until the end of the following player turn" means the end of the same player(nids player)'s next turn.

Interesting interpretation... I can see this being the idea, and it makes for some tricky synergies and combos that needs to be activated on one turn and then used the following. But I think, RAW, that the end of the following player turn (BRB p9) is when the tyranid opposing player has completed its player turn.

I will agree with you in RAW case, lets see how GW slaps its own face this time

Hehehe. My guess is that they will errata Aura of Despair to be usable earlier in the tyranid turn. I bet you five internets ;-)

200 pts for a fourty point transport? If used appropriately you won't hit that many models, unless of course you are a group of burnas with ALL flamers. I've used swarms of hormagaunts to take down a transport. Funny part is, and people know this if they think about it. If you surround that transport entirely with 20+ models (which is easy to do with hormies.) and crack it, that unit is gone. No room for emergency disembark, just poof. The trick with swarms is manuevering while taking fire for best execution of your plan, not the opponents.

The problem with swarm is that you dont have efficient tool to open armour box, if gaunts can carry melta,who will bother heavy vemon cannon on MCs?

I've seen tyranids in every incarnation of the game. When have they ever had an efficient tool to pop tanks? The answer is never. Massed attacks of anything that can hurt AV10 rears works. Just the logistics of your opponent moving his units becomes problematic if you are swarmed.

CaptKaruthors wrote:

The problem with swarm is that you dont have efficient tool to open armour box, if gaunts can carry melta,who will bother heavy vemon cannon on MCs?

I've seen tyranids in every incarnation of the game. When have they ever had an efficient tool to pop tanks? The answer is never. Massed attacks of anything that can hurt AV10 rears works. Just the logistics of your opponent moving his units becomes problematic if you are swarmed.

I've never played nids so I can't speak from experience with that army but I do play orks and I know that attempting to assault vehicles with flimsy troops, even with a power klaw usually doesn't end well. You're not guaranteed to even destroy the vehicle, if you do you might be taking explosion wounds, and worst of all you don't get a consolidate. You're now bunched up for a variety of blast and template weapons at point blank range often without a cover save.

Nash is right. A horde of Hoppies can take out a chimera, but they are then bunched up for the flamers. FnP on the hoppies could go a long way to helping with that.