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To everyone else who responded, thanks for the appreciation for the towering wall of words and taking the time out to read it, I've been meaning to write something definitive on Zoanthropes for a while now as it's been a hot topic for a while, constantly popping up and still the source of much confusion. It is all just my perspective of course, however I do try to back up all my definitive perspectives with fairly irrefutable logic hope the guide helps put a few Nid players back on even footing with their opponents.


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 Ian Sturrock wrote:
So, interesting to see big mobs of Stealers (20-odd, presumably including a Broodlord) get mentioned. I realise this may well only be theoretical, and may also not be very competitive... but how would you go about building a list around a big mob of Stealers?

Step 1: Take a lot of Stealers. Too little is easy to mitigate the hell out of the entire investment by chewing through them in the early game. They need to be the core of your list to work. Genestealers require a heavy investment of support to work at all, and work best in higher numbers, so there is no reason not to spend every spare point on them once you cover your bases. They are a very "in for a penny, in for a pound" style unit. Your blob needn't be one large unit, MSU will probably get larger returns for greater spread, better abuse of infiltrate. Forcing more Markerlights helps as well.

Step 2: Take pinning, your Stealers are paying a bundle for their I6 but do not have assault grenades, forcing GtG with pinning is the only way around this. Luckily we have possibly the best pinning jn the game, Living Artillery, Shrikes with Barbed Stranglers, even taking a 6 Broodlords for "The Horror" combined with Deathleapers Assassins formation -1 LD bubble.

Step 3: Take at least 1 Venomthrope. This is a given for Nids, but even more critical here. Not only do they rely heavily on cover saves with their paperthin and easily ignored armor save, they can also easily abuse the Shrouded, by electing to Go to Ground when shot at, and keeping a squad of Synapse (often the Warriors, even the ones from Living Artillery) just out of range, they can claim a 4+ cover save out in the open, 2+ cover save standing behind something, then have the Synapse unit walk into range in your turn, provide Fearless making you ignore the effects of GtG, allowing you to move up, back out of Synapse to either charge or rinse and repeat next turn. Taking a screen of some nature is strongly worth considering for this purpose as well. Possibly both if you melt a small squad and your Synapse jocky are Shrikes. Venomthropes also defend your investment with defensive grenades and making them counts-as in terrain, to help in multiple ways against the counter-charge. They are so good here that you should strongly consider 2 or even 3.

Step 4: Take some anti-tank. You can put glances on most transports in assault with Stealers - if you can catch them in good time. You don't want to auto-lose to a couple of Landraiders either, or even have no means of dealing with just 1. Your Stealers are glass cannons, and your army won't live through the game if you can't throw them into combat ASAP, nor if you win all your possible combats and have to sit around trying to GtG on objectives vs a vehicle heavy list. Flyers being a severe weakness. Compare the survivability of 30 stealers to 40 Termagants. Then think about how quickly you've seen 30 man squads of Terms chewed through before. Crones fill the Anti-tank and anti-Air role well, and they are cheap. Hive Guard are obviously a strong pick for their ability to manhandle transports and ignore jink (on Flyers as well). Tyrannofexes are nice for cheap eGrubs, and super durable mobile cover for Stealers as well as being able to block Line of Sight to a Venom, however you'll probably need something to deal with flyers. Some combination to your taste (and meta) of the above 3 is probably your best bet. You probably want to stick to one Flyrant for your mandatory HQ, as the second one is even more overpriced than usual if you aren't dependant on it's Synapse (which you aren't). Playing your first one super careful including HIGHSPEEDSPACEMANUEVRES such as flying him off the board until hostile Flyers arrive, is probably better than taking a second one over say a Crone and squad of HG.

Step 5: Deploy and use infiltrate wisely. I can't tell you much more than this, as it's per game by game basis and you'll have to make a call. E.g you want to use it to get as close as possible, as safely as possible. You probably don't want to deploy outside of Venomthrope range verse say a wall of Marines on the DZ with Heavy Bolters and Vindicators, but it's probably going to be worth it to close the massive gap as much as possible against Tau deployed entirely backfield, who would likely ignore your cover regardless. Anything else is in between, decide what to do each game.





Stealer shock is fun and rewarding, and most games feel as though the outcome relied heavily on your decisions as opposed to the dice. I'm going to post some photos of my heavily converted Stealer army once I get the charger for my camera. I feel as though it's about time I proved I'm not just a grizzly old strategist and shared my love for the hobby and the bugs with you guys

It sucks for Warriors, EW would be great for them. However the reason they are picked now and not in 5E codex, in 5E we had many good Synapse creatures. Flyrants, Zoanthropes, Tervigons, Swarmlord, Shellrants, Tyranid Prime.

In 6E, EVERY SINGLE ONE of these was given a massive nerf. Flyrants got off the easiest. The bulk of the rest are complete trash tier. This is what makes Warriors playable. Terrible codex writing.

Just so I'm keeping up here - exactly how are Warriors better than Shrikes against Eldar or Tau, other than saving you the points of a Termagant squad of course?


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Also, the whole S8 weapons counter Warriors thing is a bit Of a mmyth. S8 blasts do. For 180 pts, 6 Warriors take as many Melta hits to kill as a Tyrannofex for the same price. Melta and Lascannons do not invalidate your Warriors, you are no worse off than had you taken almost any of our other MCs. The real issue is S8+ blasts who will wipe and entire squad in a shot. People need to actually think about why models are bad and not just regurgitate trash.

You are paying 80 pts to open up room to blow more points on a Haruspex and an extra Venom/Zoanthrope. If you are doing it to deliberately handicap yourself for the spirit of fun, thats exactly what it will achieve. I think it will struggle even in non competitive games, even though the rest of your list is very solid.


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@LORDFIEND

Very pretty models! Even though you played the rule wrong, doesn't change that it can happen. I think the Maelstroms are silly tbh, I mean there is always going to be some luck involved even in 6E objectives, maelstrom just feels like it can dish out unbalanced battlefields. But could be much worse however

I wouldn't say every single one of those units were nerfed. Flyrants and zoans definitely got a buff. But the rest, yeah.

Flyrants you can make a case for. Maybe to some, 30 pt reduction and 1 grounding test per turn outweighs losing all rolls on Biomancy, being able to glide into combat the turn after a swoop, losing precision shots, having your Vector Strike nerfed into useless or one step from it, having their Smash get the same treatment, Devourers losing their check, and Old Adversary upgrade no longer giving Preferred Enemy bubble.. I guess that's all subjective though, I would be more than happy to pay 30 pts and take more grounding tests in return for all that crap back. Especially seeing how nice Flyrants WS is, but I digress. Remains a nerf in my book though.

The Zoanthropes though - I just can't see it. How the hell can you call these things buffed? The 10 pt reduction and a free roll on our new table? Look a bit deeper than the surface, the new table is mostly crap for them and they traded out the utility option of THREE rolls on Biomancy for it. Warp Lance as a power got worse, both in strength and reliability. Then they got BoS, all or nothing nature making Warp Lance even worse than before, the best thing about them was taking 3 and getting a couple or even one AP1 lance get through for a good roll to explode - no longer is this an option. Well, that's assuming they still had their option of pods, which was so good for them that it was auto include. Nope, this has all been nerfed, and they are relegated to Synapse pegs, which they do 10 pts cheaper but 5x worse with their crap tier Power options, as their only role. It's arguable that they got buffed in this role in the sense that the Elite slots opened up, but given that Warriors still do this better or equally well 9 times out of 10, and that they lost everything else that made them good in 5E, and then add to all this that any power they cast is easier to deny than before (even if not overly so), then I just can't see how these have been anything but undeniably nerfed. If you are telling me you would not swap the current ones out of the codex for last editions 60 pt ones, that do everything it does but better, but can also provide roles like dropPodding, mobile, more reliable to cast and hit with, AP1 Warp Lances for brilliant anti-tank,that could all cast their powers reliably without eating 6 Warpcharges per Lance, could take a Biomancy roll on each, etc, then I don't know what to say to that - more power to you I guess.


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But Objective Secured is the main thing warriors have going for them over Shrikes. The ability to park yourself on an objective, even if only with one straggler and completely deny it to all bar enemy troops is somewhat important in a game where of the two 'types' of missions there are over 50% of them are objective focused.

Before I begin, it was a genuine question, not a "personal crusade against you". Such a thing does not interest me in the slightest.

The Armor Save thing makes perfect sense, thank you. Although I'm sure it's doing very little against Tau.

The Objective Secured, not so much. I don't know about you but I'd prefer to have the mobility to make it into combat with either Tau or Wave Serpents a turn earlier (or at all), as opposed to sitting around trying to contest an objective with Warriors against either race.

I don't think it's all that clear cut which would be more effective on the battlefield vs both those races tbh, both would have their merits.

Paint frowns on the Carnifexes head carapace to represent that

Drop the Trygon IMO. Quick question, what exactly is it that you want it for? From there it's easier to tell whether you need to keep it or whether something could do it's job better.

2x2 Lictors can get to combat quicker, more reliably, and still throw down heavy with the units mentioned. I think if a single Trygon is in threat range of either a WK or a Riptide, your opponent is either killing it, taking it to low enough HP to lose the combat, or just straight moving out of it's threat range. Ofc Lictors are a costly $$ purchase from GW and not something a lot of people have laying around. Exocrine does really well against most of them, but honestly - taking a blob of TS Gargs will cost a similar amount, be harder to deal with and faster than a Trygon, and at the very least knock something out of the fight with great haste.


But I do think you could just take 200 pts of just about anything though and probably get better results than a Trygon, e.g. even 50 Termagants just provides a perma tarpit for anything mentioned (even multiple things), effectively knocking them out of the fight until you reinforce the combat with an MC or 2 of your own.

Dakkafexes probably don't fill the role of the Trygon, so you might want to take out the other thing you were considering removing for them if you want to take them (they are pretty swell). However I'd definitely consider rethinking that Trygon regardless.

1) I really like being able to use gaunts to speed bump or corral an enemy unit

Thing is, 3 Warriors can do this as well. With 9 T4 4+ wounds S4 attacks they stand a better chance to do it more resiliently than Terms against anything without a Fist, while likely doing a lot more damage them and striking first. As well as having much better combat upgrades. Well, much better upgrades in general.


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Then I guess it's a play style difference jy because my experience is exactly the opposite. I was actually prone to running 9 in 5E, they were so versatile and I loved them. Nowadays they are a very very niche pick for me, but I see the value of Dominion apparently has a big effect on your play style. It's probably something I should have mentioned in my Zope Analysis, but I literally forgot it - that's how little effect the option of Dominion has had on my games. This is probably a play style difference but I'd still much much prefer to play within the 6" restriction difference between Warriors natural Synapse compared to Zopes dominion range (assuming succesful casts), simply for the fact that 1 is adding something (a lot) more to my army than just the Synapse. I can't from my perspective see how losing all that excellence for a change in roles (a role that it already could do) is a buff. If you never played them in 5E I can see how you might view it otherwise, but I think very few would share that experience, just speculation though. Just a question for you to mull though, Are you sure that the reason you are playing Zopes now is because they have gotten buffed, or has the need for having a Synapse peg in your army just increased?


Oh, forgot the BS4 on the Flyrants - that is a good one actually. I think there's something else that got better on them too although I can't think of it right now. The benefits of ML2 perhaps. Not sure. Doesn't outweigh Biomancy for me, but I do concede that this one can be argued. As I said however, these guys got the lightest end of the stick when it came to the rebalancing of Synapse creatures, I mean we all still use em regardless right?

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Tyranid powers are actually quite good, and now both the flyrant and the zoan gets 3 of them! How is that not a buff? I can tell you that I'm not missing Biomancy that much, but to each their own.

Now your zoan basically gives 18" synapse as opposed to 12" back then. He is perfect as a beacon of synapse in your backfield and although the model is tall, he isn't really all that hard to hide. Plus now, he is scoring as well. As for Warp Lance, I mainly used it as an "attack of opportunity" rather than as a go-to offense. If a tank gets close enough, I will shoot at it but I've never played the zoan as an aggressive tank-hunter so the drop from AP1 to AP2 isn't really a big deal, at least not to me.

This. All this.

The Tyranid psychic powers aren't to be sniffed at. The fact ALL our Psykers got one for free because of the fact we only use one Discipline and that one power is the one we had to make a choice to take before is a huge boon. Dominion for free?

Not to mention that Witchfire powers do not stop you shooting/running in your shooting phase - which makes Zoeys more mobile and makes the dakka Flyrants even more terrifying should they get Warp Lance - you can Warp Lance a small squad with a blast template or a vehicle with the Lance itself and then open fire at another choice target in your shooting phase.

Zoeys...aren't aggressive. They're threats. They're an 18 inch bubble of 'Are you sure you want to park that vehicle there?" that a lot of people will respect and avoid, simply because...though the chances are low, they don't want to risk them. Against anything bar a Ork or SM transport a Zoey can make its points back easily with that one lucky hit. And people know it.

Low level players will be the only people letting a Zoanthrope restrict their movement.

A threat is not what they are, especially since the comparison is to a unit with 9x S4 WS5 attacks, Devourer (or Deathspitter) shooting, and and a S4 AP5 pinning blast, they actually do threaten a lot more points worth of models than 1 lucky Hull Point here and there.

The fact that Witchfires don't count as shooting do nothing for Zoeys.

I never said that the Psychic table is trash for Flyrants. You are saying that. I said that it's a trash tier table for Zopes. Flyrants have excellent mobility and can make much BETTER use of every single roll than Zoeys can, even if some of them are still less than ideal.

I backed up the statements with statistics math and hard logic as to why Zoanthropes powers suck. You saying that they are nothing to be sniffed it, doesn't change the fact that if you only have 1/5 good rolls and 4 trash or highly situational powers, that they will be worth their points one out of 5 games with the exception of highly situational events taking place.

As you said, they aren't at all aggressive, but this suggest that they might be tankier than the alternative, which they aren't at all, and all they add for this trade off is the POSSIBILITY of 36" bubble instead of 24", which seems quite ample. Throwing points away towards a possibility at further Synapse seems ridiculous to me. A possibility that eats Dice from your Flyrant, to even have a positive chance, and can be denied if it's critical. Sure, it's an "oh gak" option if something goes wrong. Considering Shrikes and Warriors have a larger natural bubble due to multiple model count, almost to the distance gained by Dominion, Shrikes can match and OUTRANGE the Synapse projection in a single direction, with the guarantee of not having to cast it. And most games the Dominion range won't even be necessary considering that everything they are providing to, with that 24" circle, is generally moving at the same speed, and we aren't exactly a "fan out and cover more ground army" like White Scars, considering our reliance on supporting assaults, close range weaponry, and AoE bubbles like Venomthrope, Living Artillery & Synapse itself. 12" projection in every direction seems quite ample.

Considering the power level sacrificed from your army by taking Zoeys, I think that taking the risk of Synapse not being large enough is better than taking that same risk with a POSSIBILITY to avert it, IF the unit in question is within a 6" margin of course, at the cost of taking a a list -50 pts per Zoanthrope.

All this aside, it's really doing absolutely nothing to mitigate the negative effect of the IB rule on your army, a point which has been entirely ignored with the whole dominion argument. You are still just making your army weaker for the purpose of Synapse with Zoeys, the point of Warriors and even Shrikes is providing Synapse WITHOUT weakening your army.

Nice write up roxor, I think you just about covered everything, I think from there people can form an accurate opinion on which one is better. E.g. Reading that list to me says that Warriors are the hands down better choice, while your interpretation. Is that they are about even. What you have there Is a fair list of FACTS there and the rest is open for interpretation, everyone will take their own from it, and it does differ from situation to situation. Zoeys are the right choice in certain lists.


One or two things I will mention though - Warriors are WS5 with the attacks and wounds of 3 TAC marines each, and only 1 point worse in the save, for 2/3 of the price, and don't get weaker per wound lost only every 3. They do not fold in combat, it's where they want to be - however obviously not against anything with a Fist ! Fists and equivalents definitely won't make for a cost effective engagement most times. However in other situations, they thrive in combat.

Also worth mentioning that as a plus to Warriors is that they take a troop slot, which we generally have to just spend minimum points filling with min sized mandatory troops as is. So replacing one of these really helps mitigate their cost, even if it's not specifically netting you any free points.

Upgrades are definitely not worth mentioning as a negative to taking Warriors over Zopes, they are OPTIONAL, Zopes have none, and some of the upgrades are actually really good. Deathspitters being the main one.

Being able to benefit from Flyrant Outflanking should also be listed as a benefit,


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I also don't think it's fair to list S8 shooting as a disadvantage to picking the Warriors, if you aren't going to list say bolster fire as a disadvantage to Zoeys. 2 Zopes die to 4-5 S8 shots. 3 Warriors die to 3. If you give them a screen or cover of some sort combined with a Venomthrope, it becomes 9 - this is an option Zopes don't have, their resilience is already all built off the same save, at which point they just become 50 pt Warriors with no guns. Yep. Their "mandatory cover" is not actually that mandatory, trading a little bit of resilience against S8 out in the open, for a LOT more firepower. With cover on both squads however the Warriors become more than twice as durable as Zopes. This means Zopes have about 150% the durability of a Warrior against S8 natural saves, under cover saves it swings back Waariors way, giving them 200% the durability of the Zopes. It's not even a bad cost effective ratio for you even without cover, we really need to dispel this myth, as natural Warriors are more durable to S8 shooting than Tervigons, Dakkafexes, Exocrines, Hive Tyrants (assuming they hit). P much all the popular MCs except for Mawloc . You don't even want to know how much better they are at eating Lascannons than crap like Trygons or the Swarmlord. Tyranno's are an interesting one, but if they get their save they are obviously tankier, however if their AT weaponry is also AP2, well, you are once again going to live longer with the same amount of points in Warriors On the subject in the opening statement of bolter or light arms, 2 Zopes will take 24 hits, 3 Warriors will take 36. That's a 150% increase to durability the Warriors way.

Tl;dr compared to Zoanthropes, Warriors are no less durable to S8 shooting than Zoanthropes are less resilient to light arms. The Warrior can however be played to increase his durability in both these fields at little to no cost (we all run Venoms). Their durability is comparable at best, or otherwise slanted towards the Warriors. Being more resistant to light arms also helps keep up your saturation - they may not be High toughness per se, but if they weather just as many light arms shots as our MCs, and even more S8 ones (which they do) than they may as we'll be. I'm going to share a bunch of math soon and put the statement about Lascannons/Melta counter Warriors to bed.


It also needs be mentioned that S8 blasts heavily counter Warriors.
Although S8+ blasts are not hugely common you will run into them even if it's not likely to be every game (or even every second, or third), but this is THE way that points investments into Warriors can be denied by your opponent, one blast can wipe an entire squad. Cover saves ARE mandatory against Vindicators. Luckily between gribble screens, MC screens / LoS blocking, and Venomthropes, we got cover saves by the bucket full.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
One Lascannon/Krak wound suffered by a XXX unit is a YY point (minimum) loss.
Dakkafex 37.5
Tervigon 32.5
Warrior 30
Haruspex 32
Exocrine 34
Dakka Flyrant 57.5

However, you also have to account for how much it will affect the performance of that unit.

In all the above cases apart from the Warriors a Lascannon/Krak wound does nothing to hamper the effectiveness of the unit it is placed on. The loss of a single wound does not reduce the fire output of a dakka flyrant or fex, the spawning of a tervigon or the firepower of a exocrine.

But such a wound on a Warrior brood reduces the brood's overall effectiveness - it reduces their synapse footprint, reduces their fire output (potentially by a lot if you were unlucky enough to have the Barbed Strangler be the closes to the enemy) and can possibly take them off an objective for a turn (if you were only just within range).

This is true, they lose firepower per shot. this is why Warriors aren't as POWERFUL as our MCs. This is an inherit advantage that MCs have over infantry units,You would in all honestly likely be better off with a Dakkafex, if Synapse wasn't important. However it is, and the point of the comparison to MCs was to invalidate the statement you keep making, that Las/Melta counters Warriors, when really the overall points efficiency is no worse than shooting S8 at any MC and they still provide Synapse to the last man, making them a Synapse platform more durable than any of those MCs, even if they do lose firepower per wound. They still have better overall durability, and that Synapse stays up to the last guy (In the case of say a Dakkafex, if they eat 4 Lascannons shots the entire unit is dead, the Warrior is still standing, so the added efficiency mitigates this a little and sort of let's it work both ways). Even down to the 1 Warrior with a strangler and it still has countless more times they strength of even both remaining Zoanthrope (although one of the 2 stands a 2/3 chance of being dead after the same amount of S8 shooting, and are both gonna be extra dead by the time you are down to one Warrior if you kept em cover'ed).

Luck doesn't put the Warrior with the Cannon closest to the enemy - stupidity does. It's really not hard to put the middle Warrior behind the other two. The exception is deep striking melta, but they are highly likely to be killing the entire squad regardless. If they do somehow snipe the Cannon, rest assured that armies who love to DS into Tyranids are one our best match ups, and units that do it will never be cost effective, just off the nature of OUR army. We all have crazy amounts of firepower that we often can't use for a turn or two, and when we can it's often not against the ideal targets E.g. their AT weapons. Every unit brought to us mitigates our natural range disadvantage, I'm sure any of you who have played against drop pod Marines probably wondered why it was so easy for us even tho they got the alpha, the answer is they were essentially paying points to give us all the mobility we've ever needed.

 CKO wrote:

Asmodas wrote:
@CKO. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you just say that you don't own any Tyranid models, and had never played the army?

Yes, that is correct I do not own any models and have never played the army I only mention Hive Fleet Newt and Hive Mind to my post to add flavor. Does that some how make my comments or contribution to the thread less viable than others? You only have a handful of post does that somehow make your opinion on things irrelevate? I think not.

My personality type is analytical, I have spent several hours studying the codex and inspecting the internet for valuable information and I believe I know alot about the codex. I have read this thread, warseer thread, jy2 article and battle reports, frontline gaming articles, incontrol's battle reports, and hivemind I know for a fact that I have put more time, effort, and energy into learning the anatomy of Tyranids than the average player. Now all I need to do is start using my friends models and proxying to get battlefield experience, which is vital. In my current list I have one variable but I believe that the unit in question will do what its intended purpose is, besides that everything else already has a stamp of approvable by several battle reports. If I have said something that hasnt made sense please tell me!

I think he was probably referring to your last post, it made it sound as though you were saying you won all the time with Tyranids, when I think you were just talkin about how the game works in general.

I will also recommend that you get out and play some games. Theory is great on paper, but unless you have amazingly gifted foresight (and you do not), you will start discovering a bunch of things didn't work as you planned and you will either immediately see why, or have to ask yourself why, and every time you work one of these things out, you will improve as a player.

I would recommend sharing experiences in here or asking advice on theory for those that do have the experience, as coming in here with no actual experience or models and telling people that Living Artillery is overrated because "Nids can't outshoot other armies" or that there is no unplayable units in the dex and we just aren't seeing the Synergy, well go out and prove it. At the very least to yourself. Take an army of Hormagants, Trygons, Pyrovores, Haruspexes, led by the Swarmlord, and mixed in with whatever you feel Synergizes well with them, see how you perform against anything with a half competitive list. I'm all for finding the true strength overlooked on some units where it is less than blatant - but sorry, but some units are just trash, and as you play more games with them you will begin to understand why, if your analytical diagnosis hasn't already told you why. It's not about he fact that something may have been better last dex, it's about the fact that it sucks NOW.
Don't get me wrong, the initial expectations content in your original post I found interesting and amusing, and it will be interesting to see where it leads you with time and experience on which units completely outclass others for their roles (because some do) a but you have to LET this happen, getting out there and playing, and actually doing proper analysis on whether a unit is worth it's points, not just whether or not it is capable of fulfilling a role. Because at the moment you are playing catch up and trying to talk strategy off theory, with and against people who have done all the same theory but also have a lot of experience. I'm not trying to be elitist: but there's nothing more annoying than that guy who comes in regurgitating everything he's read on the internet, telling us which strategys do and don't work, just because the majority of opinions found online said so.

Also, I personally think FrontLine Game is crazily overrated source of strategy knowledge. They put together nice Battlereps, this does not make them the best people to listen to for strategic advice. Same with bloggers, being a consistently entertaining write or provider of content, are doesn't make your Tervigon perform any less terrible when you chuck it in your Skyblight list. You mentioned inControl, while definitely one of the bigger faces of Tyranids, but he in particular has glaring mistakes in his builds and gameplay.

Use your brain and form your own opinions - as I will GUARANTEE that the bulk of what you will read has not had a lot of thought put behind it, and is mostly just the majority's surface level opinion, or the regurgitation of it by the masses. Sometimes this is accurate - Trygons cost nearly double what they should, there isn't much you can do with this. However a lot of things do change when you start putting decent thought into them and running the numbers. I think the whole Warriors against S8 shooting argument a few posts up is good proof of this.

Keep in mind 40k doesn't have professional level gamers. The closest we have is bloggers both interesting and competent enough to develop a following. However there is no real medium for professional players going deeper than surface level and debunking a lot of surface-level analysis, as you see happen in other forms of competitive gaming. 40k is a constantly evolving game with a lot of untread competitive ground for a lot of the middle tier armies. It's up to you to delve past the barrier of the group-think.


This isn't fully directed to you CKO, just more generalised, hopefully a lot of people will take something out of this for their own game, and not let the barrier of the sheep mentality that comes with doing everything they've read and been told to do, and not doing anything they haven't, hold back their gameplay any longer. Because that's what it does. If you put the work in yourself to finding other whether there is more to a matter than surface level opinions, well even if there turned out not to be, you've lost nothing and gained confirmation. Even I am still slowly discovering more as the need or situation arises that results in me looking at a unit from a different angle. This is how we improve.

At first look, It seems like a heavily CC oriented lost, that needs more focused CC like the Tyrant guard and less crashing heavy WS3 monsters like the Tervigon, or volume of WS3 attacks like Termagants. If I had to recommend something, it would be dropping the 3X10 large squads of Terms, incubator might add slightly to your percentage of Gants spawned it multiplyd equally to your chances to tie. Over an extended period of time it's no actual net gain. At the cost of 30 Gants, which you will already have an abundance of, it could be more focused CC like maybe Lictors or Shrikes, or even more Tyrant Guard. In fact I think the entire list could benefit largely from more of anything if you can find points elsewhere, at the moment it's a big strong war of attrition of S3 and S6 in volume of WS3 attacks, with no faster, directed, point to the broadsword. Other than Flyrants who will have a hard time making it into combat alive as obvious "shoot me" buttons. Especially since you currently need to use then to Synapse your 60 Terms + spawns, who should NEVER be in range of the Tervigon feedback. They might be suicide units, that doesn't mean we can afford to throw their points in the trash for nothing.

Ductvader did a calculation of their compared efficiency to other common standard infantry, and found that 12/30 was the optimal number of Gants for max efficiency. Now, I don't know exactly what the maths was and what variables such as range or cover saves (both very relevant to Nids), and it was only built to encompass their efficiency with the relevance of other infantry level equivalent point dumps I believe. Although he promised me a month or two ago to P.M. Me the math and still hasn't come through (*shakes tendril angrily towards Ductvader*) it's as good to go off as anything, as he's likely put more thought into it than anything else.

I'd say your other options are full 30man 90 devourer shot unload coming off a hive commander outflank, or 15/30 with a meatshield per Gant (or forcing them to deal with half the squad before getting any extra returns), 20/30 for extra aggression cheaply still with a 10 W shield. At the very least I wouldn't run a less than 10 out of every 30 with Devourers. Adds 20 shots for very little or risk. 15 devil gants in a 30 man squad is giving you the firepower of 60 standard Gants total, doubling their firepower for 60 pts (half the cost if a new 30 man squad).

Now bear with me, as about to post sharing some statistics of my own regarding the cost effeciency of Devilgants in firepower, relative to other units not just Termagants.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To start with, to mark the progress and evolution of the Hive we will look at Devilgants in their last iteration

240 pts got you 20 deepstriking Devilgants in a pod. With the PE bubble that you should always endeavour to place around the Gants landing zone, puts 20 wounds on T4, 27 on T3. All saves allowed.

For 265 pts (marginal difference) 30 outflanking Devilgants put 22 wounds on T4, 30 on t3. Even narrowing that down to 240 pts gives you still more wounds, thanks to the new point reduction of both gants and devourers.
at the cost of the reliability of a drop pod of course.

I think its safe to say devil gants remain largely the same, with a knock to consistency in their role with the less of pods, and Flyrants being easier to kill thus less reliable Synapse for their side of the field. They do have 10 more wounds however, and as such lose less firepower per wound, and can tarpit/assault better in a pinch, while being a harder unit to counter-assault by your opponent at the same time.

All these differences are quite marginal however, I'd say they are at a very similar level of power.


This doesn't really help us at all but I think comparing the currently less popular option to last editions competitive version is worth the time to digest. I think its also worth noting that unlocking Tervigons troops is no longer anywhere near as important as it once was take that facts relevance to Devilgants in both editions however you choose.

Now we know Devilgants are a risk/reward aggressive unit, and it would be nice to know how they match up firepower wise at points effeciency against some other common infantry like firewarriors dire avengers, DE warriors, etc. Dakkafex too. Should always compare to dakkafex. Tag#s is a great contributor, coming through with such math in a few similar situations now. Perhaps if he sees us asking nicely he'll come through again? =}

Love the hit and run - but while it's a nice bonus I think lack of frags means using the formation for pinning is more important. DLAB combined with 6 broodlords gives you a good pin chance, and the ever opposing Living artillery is a good option.

I don't miss toxin sacs that much. Due to the glass cannon nature of stealers I'd much rather have 120% bodies and attacks on the field, than sacrificing even more durability for more cannon. It's not a good change, but it affects me none for stealers.

I'm also not even sure Flyrant is the right HQ for Stealershock (I know, inconceivable right!?). They have trouble using their mobility as the biggest and least durable MC threat on the field, their Synapse is hardly relevant, and the cost difference between him or a Prime is like 15+ Stealers, very relevant.

I'm currently using a 6 Hive Guard as a screen, they are the cheapest source of T6 wounds next to Mawlocs and Tyrant Guard, provide a much larger screen, and help deal with both vehicles and units in cover, Genestealers natural counters if you will ~_~ +Venomthrope its a 3+ cover save, GtG for 2+. Tyrant Guards are a good option too, slightly cheaper T6 wounds than Hive Guard except with a 3+ save.

I think it's important to have something points efficient to throw into say a "Fist" heavy squad, or at least S8+ attacks. Looking for suggestions. The Tnid Prime is good for this, I think with Boneswords for challenging Marines. Something to throw at a TEQ assault squad would be nice. Melee acid blood Flyrant jinking his way into combat, would be nice if he could rely on his iniative. With a pinning Exocrine it's a strong consideration still. Also considering a Gargoyle blob. Any other suggestions/opinions?

I hope those Fleshborer Hives are magnetised :(

I want to put TFex in my list just because of how popular Orks or and it's the most fun thing in the world to onslaught a TFex in the centre into range of a bunch of stuff on the DZ edge against an army with no deny dice and just templating havoc while keeping him wrapped in Gargs

my god those templates wreak havoc once you get eGrubs into range as well.

I magnetised my Tfex but my magnets suck. I think I have to glue him up. At least I can rest assured that Rupture Cannon won't be useful for at least 2 years, if ever.

So they put the Dimea in Fast attack, even though he's slower than our troops (horms, outflanking, ds rippers), slower than 2 our HQs, and two of our Heavys? Could they have not given him Deepstrike lol? Or does he have it and I missed it?

As it stands, they are what Trygons should have been, without DS. Sorry but CC MCs just aren't reliable, that is a lot of points to waste.Haruspex didn't work for a reason, same reason nobody in the history of anything takes Carnifexes as anything but a gunboat.

With DS however they are great.

Like how Trygons used to be, you probably should take 3 or none, as strength in numbers is critical here. 1 Will die, 2 wont do enough damage, 3 secures the investment.


And the games that you get MoA these things will be very strong.

You know why Dakkafexes are good? Because they don't waste 600 pts of your army when you DON'T get MoA.

Its really a shame. If these things were given 12" move (they are FA after all) or some form of entry method, at the cost of any of those clunky ass special rules, I'd find a way to run 3, I miss the Trygon a lot (and I am actually a fan of the new model itself.

The idea of 6" assault MCs has been proven and tried as bad. Carnifexes CC at least provide some role - avoidable assault but map control bubble against tanks that we have little to no capabilities against, combined with being one of if not THE best dakka platforms in the book. What is this guys role? An avoidable assault bubble of infantry death? Sorry, but that's practically what every Tyranid unit already brings to the table. Doubling down on it is not a sensible competitive option.

coredump wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Ductvader did a calculation of their compared efficiency to other common standard infantry, and found that 12/30 was the optimal number of Gants for max efficiency.

I would be very interested in seeing that math. I can even guess what assumptions he was making to reach a conclusion like that... It doesn't really seem like an answer math could get....

240 pts got you 20 deepstriking Devilgants in a pod. With the PE bubble that you should always endeavour to place around the Gants landing zone, puts 20 wounds on T4, 27 on T3. All saves allowed.

For 265 pts (marginal difference) 30 outflanking Devilgants put 22 wounds on T4, 30 on t3. Even narrowing that down to 240 pts gives you still more wounds, thanks to the new point reduction of both gants and devourers.
at the cost of the reliability of a drop pod of course.

First, you sort of 'hand wave' the assumption of PE; which I think was more than a trivial matter. It could be done, but it also often meant limiting where the flyrant and/or gaunts went. But, I think that is a minor matter really.

I did a similar calculation when the codex came out. I used to run 15 Devilgaunts in a pod, and for the same points, I could not get 30 gaunts with 18 devourers. This gave me *more* shooting potential, and I could still lose 15 'ablative' wounds before cutting into my '6E' offensive baseline. It makes it a bit harder to target things like long fangs and other 'backfield' units... but being on the board also means they can provide a cover save for others, and potentially start shooting on turn 1.

I think its also worth noting that unlocking Tervigons troops is no longer anywhere near as important as it once was take that facts relevance to Devilgants in both editions however you choose.

Not sure if I completely agree.
If you are CAD limited, getting the Terv out of the HQ makes way for the flyrants.
In any case, it is still nice to have an OS TMC instead of 'just' scoring.
Unlocking means 30 gaunts + terv = 315pts. To not unlock means 2 gaunts + terv = 275 points.... you aren't really saving that much.
And in line with this thread... if you want to run devilgaunts, you want largish broods anyway, That way you have 'enough' devilguants and still have 'enough' ablative wound fleshgaunts.

I don't often respond to posts like this as it is an unnecessary writing style that forces a similarly structured response, which is less than ideal for me to attempt to replicate on a phone screen half the size of my palm. Also, I find that more often than not, people structure posts as such to give them free reign to ignore context, and take individual statements out of it for the sake of being right by making someone else wrong. Just in my experience.


However, I'm just going to respond to your quotes in numerical order, and you can match it up to the relevant post.

Quote #1 - I too would like to see the math too as I strongly stated, this wasn't intended to be anything other than anecdotal, merely sharing the eventual conclusions of a user who did put more time and thought into than many others did. I personally won't FULLY trust the process until I see it myself, a message I'm still waiting on, but as I said, it's as good a starting point as any, and I have picked it up as my standard. Here's what he shared with me in a personal message:


Looks to me as though his math was fairly in depth - and oh his process even predicted your response any further issues here, take them up with duct as I can't answer them, I was merely sharing his findings when the topic was brought up. You might not have found them relevant but I'm sure it's possible someone else has, as I certainly did.


Quote #2 - ok well if you thought dropping 240 pts worth of one of the most Synapse dependant units in the codex outside of Flyrant range was ever going to be the best way to play it, than I don't know what to say to you. As always - more power to you friend. I personally always endeavoured to place my Flyrant in range of them, and not just for Synapse, as I showed in my previous post that PE bubble gave 20 of them the firepower of about 29. Very relevant when it's a unit that you expect to get the most out of the turn it arrives, less the second and none the the third. You only needed that Flyrant there a single turn to get often UP TO double the damage out of them (about 150% shooting buff for the first turn + Synapse for next turn will just about double your output if even half the squad survives). The other fast Synapse option, I never found it a good idea to rely on Zopes for their Synapse, who needed to be much more careful with their positioning, plus had a scatter of their own, unlike Swooping a Flyrant up, but I guess it was an option.
So sure, PE wasn't guaranteed if their side of the board was too risky, but this is an unlikely situations, especially compared to the current situation of landing on the suboptimal side of the board 33% of the time, which might leave you out of range of the ideal target, or at worst out of range of everything you can even hurt. This is far more crippling than a loss of PE, and although unlikely, no more so than not having PE was in 5E. For either of these to happen would take an unfortunately turn of uncommon events.

As for the comments on squeezing a number into a squad with wounds, this clearly was not what I was comparing. I agreed its added utility for Termagants in general, and discussed its use in different stages of my post. The comparison was between the effectiveness of a max sized Devildrop in both editions, not the slotting in.of Dakkagants to a set fraction of a gant squad, as its obviously not possible :S


Quote #3 not interested in having this argument. The statement was that unlocking Tervigons as troops is less important. This is pretty undeniable, as Tervigons suck ads now, but even if you feel they are still good, they definitely got WORSE, thus the need for scoring Tervigons is much LESS now. As I also said, you can take the relevance of this fact however you like as there will be differing opinions to how relevant that was and has been on the choice to take Devilgants, I specifically added this to avoid being trolled into the argument that diehard Tervigon supporters seem to love wasting everybody's time with, but I did feel the statement itself was worth remembering.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
Good Lord...

The Dimachaeron seems...horribly redundant in itself.

An entire page of special rules? Really now? Did it really need a special subtype that seems to conflict with its existing subtype's own rules?

Hey you, take a dangerous terrain check for leaping. Oh, wait, Monstrous Creatures have MTC so autopass. Yay foresight!

The fact every weapon seems to have to be a new weapon with a new paragraph of monstrously redundant special rules and AP values to ramp their cost - hey, let's make them all AP2 despite them being only on this monstrous creature with smash. That'll make the points totally worth it! Let's give them all these horribly awkward special rules with seemingly more dependant terms and conditions than a ponzi scheme!

The lack of Fearless on it as well...well, that's not going to sit pretty. Not only is it in a Fast Attack slot competing against other things but it needs a constant Synapse babysitter now. And doesn't really move that fast to be honest.

I still can't understand the point of Leaper as a sub type. Why not just give it jump? Or why not just give it bounding leap ala Hormagaunts?

They're really trying too hard with this thing.

I've never agreed with you more. It's not only poorly designed, but also poorly written. You just nailed a lot of the poor writing, even though the gameplay design is equally poor.

I can't place my finger exactly on why, but the news of the Dimae has left me feeling... Insulted. It had so much potential and then they went and made a conscious decision with the leaper rule to find a way to make it Jump and MOVE NO MORE THAN 6". They are deliberately trying to force this Haruspex-esque style of play down our throats. They had the potential to do something right and at the same time fix a mistake or two - instead they deliberately try to pigeonhole this into the same, boringass style of MC that gets looked over, e.g walking Tyrant, Haruspex, CC Carni, etc. Like "hey guys now you're DEFINITELY going to want to do this gak, we gave it incredible WS, 8x S8 attacks, and some unique CC special rules!". No. The concept is flawed. 6" move speed, no transport, no entry method. We even don't care if it can kill Abaddon 6 times over before combat starts. You think anyone would take Abaddon on foot?

Yeah. Insulted and annoyed. It's a shame cause the model, but - BOYCOTTING. Put some real effort into design instead of trying to sell models off what I'm sure they envision are cool special rules.

Mawlocs are amazing. Smash nerf hurt them, as they were so cheap and mobile a couple really threatened Vehics. AG makes them ace skimmers and transports however. They are still the cheapest source of MC wounds in the dex while putting alot of hurt on... Everything.


There is not no point to running Lictors with them. Mawlocs are all assault once they hit the board, Lictors are able to support them quite well being one of the only things that will really be there in time, in combats against things Mawlocs get bogged down against. Mawlocs do have hit and run however, and It's possible that Shrikes do this better, but Lictors and Mawlocs do synergise well, and the perfect accuracy blast call down into combat is just a bonus. It's mainly if you are already running DLAB - mamakes Mawlocs a good pick.

Running Mawlocs I like at least two Crones - these are your best chance to pop a Vehicle with key infantry inside, BEFORE a Mawloc comes down, and also have AP4 cover ignoring for things hiding from Mawloc blast in the ruin.

Mawlocs do a lot - before 7th I think they were the best unit in the dex. Now not as good but still very good. I don't think coming piecemeal is a good idea try use units that threaten at the same time like Flyrants and outflanking Devilgant drops. Be sure to play Flyrants supercareful early turns, using range and jink to stay alive.

That's my take on them.

Hmm is it possible that is the intended interpretation of it? 6" extra move if you use Leaper in movement phase?

Might explain why they are in the FA slot.

Otherwise it seems pretty gak.

I'll be picking up 3 if it gets clarified that way (when I get the money :( )

It'll need some serious confirmation as I'm not willing to take the risk that it doesn't actually play as such until I do.

Coredump is very much on the ball. There seems to be an influx of very poor reasoning on this page, to which I will contribute some opinions shortly.



I understand a lot of people WANT the Dima to work and WANT to play it regardless of how good it is (I'm strongly in the first category), but pretending and twisting it into something it's not by using thinly veiled logic hurts more than it helps. Some people I think have made genuinely mistakes, some I think might be in denial. The ONLY WORSE MODEL AVAILABLE TO TYRANIDS is the Swarmlord.
Pyvores? Better.
Trygons? Better.
Haruspex? Better.


This guy, while in a similar category as the above, is the EPITOME of everything that tricks Tyranid players into losing games and thinking they have a dex that can't compete with top tier armies. He is probably one of the worst investment of points available to us. More to come.

Here's my post on why we need to stop pretending this guy is good, as well as how he should be played if you insist on using him. These quotes are just picked up from thoughts throughout the last page or so.

He's a huge fire magnet. Not only is the guy scary in combat, but the model is big and scary as well. He'll draw a lot of fire, so better have those venomthropes/malanthrope close by.

How is this a plus to the model? He's a huge firemagnet, yet pays more per wound than Tyrannofex. Dima has the defensive stats of a Mawloc (who also draws alot fire) and yet spends 3-4 turns of shooting on the board before he even threatens anything (compared to the Mawloc who threatens almost EVERYTHING before he hits the board, and continues being a threat from that point onwards up until he dies) and yet, costs nearly 150% the price of a Mawloc. If the Dima guy is drawing fire - its a bad thing. If he dies before he makes it into combat, you have lost on the trade. For every 2 wounds he takes in shooting is an extra Mawloc wound you could have had (just an example).

Vs armies that prefer to turtle up and remain stagnant, flyrants and a crone or two will be putting early pressure on their lines as the gladiator approaches.

So not only are you breaking up your army in piecemeal, you are basically just saying "ok well here is 400 pts of my army doing nothing except making run moves for the first 3-4 turns of the game, but its ok because I have other things doing pressure instead". What you should be doing is just taking all the things that do put on pressure, piecemeal aside just the decision to include this guy over a good model is watering down your army better than nothing else bar the Swarmlord.

I find it funny that since 7th edition dropped, infiltrating with Master of Ambush has been a legitimate tactic for getting things in range fast, but now people don't seem to want to like the D, no one has mentioned using it?

Master of Ambush is not something you build your list around having every game. You build a list with models who gain hugely with MoA - you build a list with models that still tear gak up every game MoA or not. Dakkafex is a great unit, mobility or not he has a consistent 24" projection from his starting point every turn, more with Onslaught (far more common than MoA). Dima would benefit hugely from outflanking, and definitely be playable. Outflanking is still no Deepstrike however, much easier to play around, and being that you'd have to take at least 2 Dimas to stop your entire investment getting shot down turn 1 regardless, its a risky move to make. If I was assured MoA each game however, I'd have a go at playing 3. It's literally all these guys would need. However they don't have it consistently. You will have MoA less than 1/3 of the time. Those 2/3 games, you lose.

In a typical game both armies move towards one another - this thing will see assault more regularly than some of you might think.

Every single army in the game outranges us. Even Orks have a shooting range advantage on us. If you are not playing Nids, and your opponent doubled down on this weakness, by sinking 400-600 points into a couple of copies this guy - why the hell would you run directly at your opponent? It maka no sense. To highlight this flaw from a competitive perspective - you will never make it into combat with Eldar, you will never make it into combat with Tau or AM. Against these armies, packing even one Dima is an auto-lose. You now just sunk even 200 points into a creature with likely no return on - you will never even catch anything in Eldar or DE, they don't ever have to kill it. Against other shooty armies, best case scenario, you sacrifice all your aggression for a unit that threatens nothing till turn 3 (BEST case scenario gets you a turn 3, but often turn 4 against these armies), where they either choose to deal with it there and then, as you have been playing an army with a handicap of somewhere between -200 and -600 points for the first 3 turns, they likely have plenty of units left capable of dealing with it. Or they just let it wreak havoc for a turn or two. Better hope it deals 200 points of damage.

Now, to a varying degree as you go down the ladder of shootiness to choppiness ratio, you will start to have slightly improved chances to make it to combat, against the less shooty armies. But when I say slightly, I mean slightly. There is no reason to play against a Tyranid list doing this except by doing anything bar moving back to max range, shooting, rinse and repeat, and letting him gain on you a couple of inches every turn dependant on his run move. Hoorah for giving him Fleet I guess. At least this guy isn't an autolose vs Blood Angels, like he is against Eldar (hoorah!).

This is why Gargoyles are his best friend. FOR GAMES AGAINST ARMIES IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS LADDER, closer-ranged firepower but not forced to assault you regardless (probably mostly Space Marines & CSM), they are cheap fast units to catch gak, tie it up in combat for a turn, and let him catch it. Ideally, the best way to run him would be with as many MSU Garg squads as possible, so that while he already puts in work against Blood Angels and Khorne Bezerkers lol (i.e. two armies you needed absolutely no help against ), he might actually be able to do something in a more midtier match up. Still would be a nightmare for hurting your army so many points in unreliability, auto-lose in most games, and not worth his points in durability in ever, but at LEAST he stands the CHANCE to maybe make his points back in SOME midtier match ups. Someone else touched on the concept here, and gets it:

This is, once again, assuming best case scenario, and that you are playing against an army who couldn't afford to deploy too far back. Then again, you are (well, would hypothetically be, if it fit) dedicating a lot of points to supporting a lot of other points, I don't know how it would play out in practice, but if it was easily denied by deploying backfield, you can bet a lot of good players will do it if it's the right choice.




I think the key to playing with him if you were for some reason forced to play one (or just couldn't help yourself from lining GW's pockets no matter what poop they serve up on your platter) would be to make sure EVERYTHING else your army is a threat, that doesn't get hampered by units deploying backfield, or even makes your army benefit from it. Examples are, Biovores for the range, FMC's for the speed and projection, and stuff like using Hive Commander to outflank a blob of Warriors and Devilgaunts, spammed Mawlocs, etc etc, I'm sure you can use your imagination to find units that fit these categories. Units that benefit from backfield deployment like Biovores are good because it keeps them very safe, Dima will deal with anything that sticks around to deal with them (this was still the case in regular Tyranid lists of course tho, with Biovores deploying behind a wall of bugs, but at least this way you can have the same effect while playing a reserve army). FMC's are acceptable, just because they don't necessarily get hurt too much by range issues, and may even find benefits from enemy units being clumped, by use of their templates. Units that benefit from them being backfield are outflanking, as prime targets are likely on both board edges, as well as the fact that its harder for your opponent to punish you for outflanking/deepstriking, and of course, coming piecemeal if they have less early game threats due to not being able to deploy them centrefield safely, while you aim for a big turn 2 alpha.

This is how I would recommend playing the Dima. However, while this sounds nice on paper, it's unlikely to ever be worth its points. You are basically just providing that same wall of CC threat that Nid's always have in a brick, just in the manifestation of a single unit capable of hurting anything who wants to test him. But 200 is a lot for one. And because he isn't extra durable, you do need at least 2 or this threat doesn't exist. Your opponent doesn't "lose out" if this thing draws fire. 200 points for 6 wounds is not a good ratio. It is a tradeoff for aggression and massively versatility on units like Carnifex and the Exocrine. For this guy however, its just one more setback that he really did NOT need. And all this said, its not likely to consistently have the effect you are hoping for, even against good players. Most armies can deal with 12 T6 wounds in two turns, its one of the issues we face in general as Tyranids. I think as a whole, the concept is just flawed. Taking a Dima in your list, is the wrong way to play the Dima. This is probly the best way to make light of a gak situation. In practice, still might not do anything, as the concept behind making him "not suck as much" isnt even foolproof, but its better to hope for than nothing. Also, if you are allowed to take FW you can probably take dual CAD, just spam Mawloc's and these guys and you might win a game although its gimmicky as hell lol.

 N.I.B. wrote:
From the Tyranid Hive

So I emailed forge world about the dimachaeron and have just had a response!

My email was:

Hi Forge World Team,

So I'm just flicking through my new imperial armour book and had two questions regarding the Dimachaeron rules- hope you can answer!

Question 1. As per the leaper rule, if a Dimachaeron assaults a unit in cover- does it strike at it's normal initiative 6 or is it slowed by difficult terrain? The wording suggests that as it moves freely and OVER terrain, it would not be effected.

Second query is I notice that it does not have the fearless USR. Is this an oversight? All other Tyranid mc's have the Fearless USR so just abit odd that this one doesn't.

One last thing, why is this a fast attack choice if it only moves 6? It's very slow! Maybe errata in a 12 inch move? Go on. I'll buy one if you do!

Best regards.
Simon
"

The response I was met with was the following:


Hi,
Thank you for your email. The answers to your questions are as follows -

1. When using Leaper the Dimachaeron is affected normally by charging through difficult terrain, but does get the other listed benefits.

2. This is not an oversight. It is not a mindless killing machine, it is willing to fall back, re-group and attack again. Plus it is Leadership 10.

3. Its movement is correct. It was believed that Fast Attack was the correct section for the creature to be in, with regards to its abilities.


If there is anything further we can do to assist you, or if you have any queries about the information we have requested or provided, please telephone us.

Regards,
Forge World

While #1 was to be expected, #2 and #3 is a bunch of fail.

Good messages from the hive, thanks a bunch for sharing N.I.B.

Also I actually lol'ed @ "Maybe errata in a 12 inch move? Go on. I'll buy one if you do!"

He doesn't have what it takes to make the army competitive enough against the top armies. However, that doesn't mean he isn't a good unit either.

Certainly doesn't. The fact that he doesn't have what it takes to make our army competitive enough against bottom tier armies it what means he isn't a good unit.

Well, any excuse for me to run the dimas will do.

Yeah. And let's stop pretending it's anything other than this.

CKO making this split between assault and shooting is where you need to tighten your strategy up and bring it together as one, in a cohesive effort. This whole "we don't have the firepower to outshoot other armies so why bother trying" thing is really misguided, in a Mexican stand off with all units in range, we actually have so much Dakka it's insane, we outshoot Tau by a margin ignoring range penalties. Assault is a tool we must use - it can add extra damage in a turn, tie up enemy units from shooting, hold them for something else to get into range, pile in supporting assaults to win any combat. Our Dakka units have a combat advantage on practically every army except heavily assault based armies who are generally great match ups anyway due to the nature of such short ranges high power weaponry. The Tyranid design is actually a good one for the most part, however dedicated assault MCs like Harry n Dimmy do not mesh well with this. It sacrifices firepower, mobility, AND durability, for one of two big silly assault that it will likely rarely see. Doubling down on assault with him is bad. Stealers can get away with it, they sacrifice both durability and firepower but gain on mobility with Infiltrate / outflank practically securing their big assault for the second turn. Trygons back when they were good, worked because while only being equally durable as Dimmy, they had Deepstrike to put them anywhere and everywhere on the map, securing assaults. Comparing them in a vacuum and saying the Dimmy is stronger than in assault is ignoring what you are actually getting with the model, and not a fair discussion at all. As is ignoring a points value.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CKO wrote:
I use the assault phase plain and simple. I dont have a problem with shooty nidzilla list its a good list. Its an archetype rock, paper, scissors both you and your opponent will know how to beat you. I throw curve balls and slow balls, the tactic that is used to beat this:

Flyrant
Flyrant

Ripper Swarm
Ripper Swarm

X amount of Dakkafexex

Living Artillery or Skyblight Formation

Will have a hard time beating my list.

A lot of what you said here is off base, but not least of which is the part where you said your list will beat a Skyblight or Dakkafex Artillery list. These two lists are practically the hardest counter available in the game to assault based armies after Cron air. Now consider that you are playing the SLOWEST assault army in the game which incidentally, hits the least hardest in combat out of anything you could call an assault army / assault list.

Sorry, but your list will lose sooo hard against other standard Nids, it's where they excel. And I mean, you will get more victories vs Tau and Eldar, combined. And you won't see a whole lot wins vs them either, but standard Nids is THE worst possible match up in the game for assault Nids, after Flyer Spam.

I think it's time you followed my advice and went out and play tested some of your statements befor parading theory as fact. Theory is important in 40k as nothing is ever "assured", but at the moment as a self-confessed new player of Nids without a single game under your belt with them, you do not have the game sense or knowledge regarding them to do this accurately - and it shows. Not being elitist, but the fact is, your theory has massive holes in it that you would discover after merely a single game of testing it, and the way you deliver it as if it's a hard proven and tested fact results in you contributing negatively to competitive discussion.

You can keep saying it's a threat, but it doesn't make it one. The name of the build with multiple of these in it should be called "minimum threat overload".



I think I'm done with the subject though, I have nothing else to contribute, any response to this would likely be just pointing towards some of my other posts, as it's all already been said, and largely ignored. Anyone who wants to play it, feel free. The model sucks, bigger and hungrier does not equal better, just ask the Trygon and the Swarmlord. But meh the initial hype is sure to muddle peoples opinions on it. At least the model is really cool (if unimaginative) I couldn't fault anyone for wanting one of these on the shelf. He definitely is in the "fun n cool" category with Swarmy, Old One Eye, stone crushers, etc. models that are really powerful but really unreliable and overpriced, and rely LARGELY on your opponent being a bad.

Possibly buffed in miniscule ways at best like a slight meta shift, for your standard choppy-units-in-vehicles assault armies.

For us however, the major changes to 7E assault are wings getting nerfed for assaults FMCs, and Smash getting destroyed. I'm not sure how 7E benefits us in assault, but I'm tired ATM and might just be struggling to recall key changes. P sure we got nerfed tho >


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wilson wrote:
I've run the Dima in a game against marines and it worked pretty well! Got a couple of things wrong with the weapon load out. ( crazy amounts of rules for one unit to take note off so please forgive my mistakes!)

Check out for yourself if you like! I won't post any spoilers

http://www.40kbrawl.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/40k-brawl-1750-tyranids-vs-iron-hands.html?m=1

Nice BR. I think Marines are one of the best match ups where Dimmy can find itself as I mentioned in my post, however it's situational as fast Grav/a healthy amount of AT will just make him an overpriced Fire magnet... I typed that out before reading the battle report, looking at your opponents list I thought you were going to be at a massive disadvantage for bringing him. However, in practice... Your opponent moves up the board, conciously puts himself into charge range, then proceeds to ignore it for it the rest of the game, in favor of prioritising the Crones & a Zoanthrope! This is possibly the absolute worst target priority he could have made other than focusing on the freaking Termagants! Wait, they were reserved - yep this was literally the worst target priority possible. Worth noting that the turn they arrive he fires Plasma Cannons and the Stormtalons at the 2 10 man Gant squads while you had Flyrants & Exocrine on the field unengaged as well! He also proceeds to leave Bikes in charge range of the Dimac, the first three turns of the game. Not even learning his lesson after feeding the first squad of Marines to it. I can understand being unfamiliar with a new model not in your army and it's possible this worked to your favor, but judging by many of this guys decisions I don't think it would have made a difference. Using the prescienced Grav bikes to focus the Crone and not the doubly expensive far more threatening and easier to kill Flyrant, not taking advantage of bikes expensive mobility by focusing an FMC at all instead choosing to split fire spreading a couple of wounds between many, choosing to leave the Crone on a single wound, not using the mobility for anything at all leaving himself in charge range, on turn 3 still continuing to focus the practically Harmless remaining Crone, etc etc. I noticed your bloggers touched on the fact that he was silly for not even firing a shot at the Dimac, but that was just the half of it, your opponent used his entire army to practically minimum effeciency for as far as I could track it (can't really imagine what that board looked like lategame, but I think the only thing he did in the early game that made sense was presciencing the Bikes. Wasted it ofc, but was good recipient for the buff).


That being said, I found your writing style enjoyable and your BR style fun concise visual and easy to follow. I'll definitely be tuning into your blog, wouldn't mind reading a good BR like that again and seeing how the Dimmy fares against a slightly (or vastly) higher level opponent.

Also, the paintwork on your Biovores makes them look like quadriplegic Wraithguard. And I'm being serious lol.

You infiltrated the Dima, with the mobility of bikes the only reason that you were able to charge but him not shoot is due to his bad positioning. Also possibly LOS but that's more due to you using what I believe is the head of a Trygon as your counts-as. I believe the official model is much taller right. Also, while not dedicating another unit to finishing off the Crone payed off for him, this was strictly due to you rolling a clutch ass fail on a grounding check, and still a bad play. Plus he should have been prioritizing the Flyrant over the Crone. well really, anything over the Crone except infantry lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jifel wrote:
Maybe he meant quadruped, not quadriplegic?

The report itself was very well done, it was nice to see the "Dima" in action! Very good game.

Hmmm I believe I did lol. This phone is 1 excellent example on Japanese design. Small keypad sleek design and sucks at English.

Look at those Biovores tho lol - I immediately saw doggystyle Wraithguard for some reason


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"wheel-barrow race" wraithguard to be pc


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"Wraceguard"