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A trigon is probably statistically just as good at taking a landraider in cc than a carnifex. it has 7 attacks that reroll misses as well.


honestly , the tyranids really do not have great antitank. They have like 3 units that can do anti armour duties, the hive guard, tranny, and zoanthropes. Everything else is meh.

Also, alot of the shooting weapons specifically lictors fleshooks are ap - which means they get a - on the damage chart.

Steelmage is right...spores don't get the Drop Assault rule. They just have their own version of inertial guidance. I think perhaps playtesting will be more accurate and meaningful after we all get the English version of the rules. Like Mahu, I'm confident that builds and combos will keep emerging for a while.

In my next game I'm going to give Biovores a try. I thought they were a stinker when I first heard their profile, but it seems like they should have some decent synergy with Hive Guards for a reasonable price. Steelmage is right...spores don't get the Drop Assault rule. They just have their own version of inertial guidance. I think perhaps playtesting will be more accurate and meaningful after we all get the English version of the rules. Like Mahu, I'm confident that builds and combos will keep emerging for a while.

In my next game I'm actually going to give Biovores a try. I thought they were a stinker when I first read their profile, but it seems like they should have some decent synergy with Hive Guards for a reasonable price.

Lyracian wrote:
I think Gargoyles and Hormogaunts are about as good as each other in combat. HG score, but Gargoyles get better movement (since they effectivly always run 6") and can shoot. Like Zoanthropes they also make it easier to give Monsters cover saves.

Personally I think Winged Warriors are better than Raveners as it gives you Synapse and better movement.

Agree with the hormagants and gargoyles, tough choice which is good. I like tough choices.

To the winged warriors vs. raveners topic: Note that winged warriors have to pay 5 points for a rending claw update because they cannot switch their gun for free like their walking cousins. I see advantages for the raveners in a terrain heavy environment with their move through cover special rule. Still, if you can't provide a basic synapse screen for the raveners or need synapse for flanking units then warriors are probably the better choice.

Greets
Schepp himself

Green Blow Fly wrote:The Tranny has a combination of shooting attacks.

G

Ok, that's just wrong...

...though, it does conjure to mind some interesting conversion ideas....

@ steelmage, gorgon: I will double check in the codex and with my opponent to see if we've been playing it wrong. We've all been going off the store's preview copy but we could have totally missed it or made a bad assumption.

Landraiders aren't the end of the world. TMC can shred them like tinfoil in cc. Try to look at the big picture. Hiveguard can smoke transports which to me is more important.

G

A couple of my observations from playtesting the german leaked codex this week:

Lictors do not give a bonus to reserves until they are on the table. They cannot come onto the table until at best turn 2 (if you're lucky). So for a little more than a zoanthrope's point cost, you're basically buying a teleport homer, and reserves on 2+ by turn 3 (again if you're lucky). Spend one third of the points on the tyrant's ability instead.

Dropzilla, as it will be known, is not a very strong build unless you have massive 4+ rolls on turn 2. Otherwise, as happened to me, your pods come in slowly but surely and get shot to pieces by concentrated marine fire before the troops inside have a chance to do anything.

Also, raveners, while having a good combat profile, are absolute ass if they take more than 3 wounds in one shooting phase the turn they deep strike. With no synapse on the board (again caused by bad reserve rolls on dropzilla) they ran completely off in 2 turns after failing a morale check.

Next time i will try podding my zoeys only, scrapping the lictor with a deathleaper, and cutting some gaunts to make up the point differences where necessary. Also, devilgaunts are my new favorite troop choice. 90 18" s4 shots per turn? Yes, please!

One can look at Tyranid Shrikes (the correct name for winged Warriors) and immediately dismiss them thanks some obvious issues. But personally I think their offensive upside is so great that it deserves a *thorough* playtest.

I agree with Shep that Ravs not getting toxin sacs or adrenal glands was a huge letdown. That really holds them back. But then the design decision might have been made to create some differentiation with Shrikes. That's been a problem for the medium bugs in the past...too much overlap.

Now I was thinking of using 20 Devourer Gaunts at 200 points and hoping tp pop them out after a few Trygons land as a backup. Does this work well? I'm thinking a few squads of Termagaunts, a Tervigaunt, a Deathleaper, two Zoans in a pod, a few Trygons and a kitted out Hive Tyrant with some Guard. A simple 1500 list.

The trouble with trying to time your reserves is the same trouble i had last night: reserve dice are finicky. I for one would like to see the english translation tell me that i can hold specific units in reserve specifically to use the trygon tunnel, thus taking a bit of randomness out of the whole thing. However, i don't foresee that happening.

Lash whip is basically hte new ubér grenade.

G

When I first ready the codex this is one of the first things I noticed and I wanted to throw up. I understand and agree that frag grenades are too prevalent in the 40k universe. But one army shouldn't pay the price for it. It isn't just a matter of not getting a 'free' upgrade, it is that there is essentially NO options at all. For a traditional assaulty army that to me is a gross omission. If they wanted to limit it, that's fine. For example, make it so genestealers only get the equivalent with a brood lord. Or make a tyrant or other MC grant it to one unit. Heck, I'd even take the old catalyst where you still get your attacks when a model dies but before it's removed. It is a big loss and is very disappointing to me.

Sorry. I'm not shedding any tears for the poor tyranid players that have the cheapest troops of any army...and can take units that make more.

Well, don't expect me to shed tears for poor IG players who can field more mech than any other army, given that all mech is undercosted and disproportionately powerful in 5th Ed.

Mech is not disproportionately powerful in 5th edition. It was disproportionately weak in 4th edition. Besides, mech armies aren't even all that great-- in my opinion, semi-mech armies are actually stronger.

tetrisphreak wrote:A couple of my observations from playtesting the german leaked codex this week:

Lictors do not give a bonus to reserves until they are on the table. They cannot come onto the table until at best turn 2 (if you're lucky). So for a little more than a zoanthrope's point cost, you're basically buying a teleport homer, and reserves on 2+ by turn 3 (again if you're lucky). Spend one third of the points on the tyrant's ability instead.

Dropzilla, as it will be known, is not a very strong build unless you have massive 4+ rolls on turn 2. Otherwise, as happened to me, your pods come in slowly but surely and get shot to pieces by concentrated marine fire before the troops inside have a chance to do anything.

This is my biggest fear for any heavy spore pod and/or outflanking list, that it is unreliable. Getting your units on the table piecemeal is death for tyranids. Even with a tyrant it doesn't look reliable enough for my tastes.

The new lash whip is the worst idea I've ever seen ... let's make everyone who gets into melee with tyranids have absolutely no chance of winning. Already have superior toughness and strength, so let's give them a power weapon and allow them to go first against everything except Banshees and Wyches that rolled the "Always go first result". Seriously GW, remove head from booty, this is getting out of control. Oh and just to make sure this army is invincible, let's give them a unit that shoots str8 indirect weapons that hit on 3+ and can pen armor. Oh and don't forget to give them str4 ap4 ordnance barrage to slaughter any troops not in transports. Who comes up with this nonsense? An army that can force you to assault it but once you do you get owned? I thought every army was supposed to have a weakness not be frikkin invincible ...

slickpcm wrote:The new lash whip is the worst idea I've ever seen ... let's make everyone who gets into melee with tyranids have absolutely no chance of winning. Already have superior toughness and strength, so let's give them a power weapon and allow them to go first against everything except Banshees and Wyches that rolled the "Always go first result". Seriously GW, remove head from booty, this is getting out of control. Oh and just to make sure this army is invincible, let's give them a unit that shoots str8 indirect weapons that hit on 3+ and can pen armor. Oh and don't forget to give them str4 ap4 ordnance barrage to slaughter any troops not in transports. Who comes up with this nonsense? An army that can force you to assault it but once you do you get owned? I thought every army was supposed to have a weakness not be frikkin invincible ...

*points, laughs*

Most of the units that should be in melee with Tyranids strike last anyway, so it doesn't matter as much as you think. Overall the Tyranid codex seems balanced, if unusual, and I'm certain that it will shake up the game. At the same time, though, I don't think it's going to be the god list that everyone appears to be afraid of. Like the Space Marines, Imperial Guard, and Space Wolves were, this Codex is definitely being overblown before release.

CaptKaruthors wrote:

When I first ready the codex this is one of the first things I noticed and I wanted to throw up. I understand and agree that frag grenades are too prevalent in the 40k universe. But one army shouldn't pay the price for it. It isn't just a matter of not getting a 'free' upgrade, it is that there is essentially NO options at all. For a traditional assaulty army that to me is a gross omission. If they wanted to limit it, that's fine. For example, make it so genestealers only get the equivalent with a brood lord. Or make a tyrant or other MC grant it to one unit. Heck, I'd even take the old catalyst where you still get your attacks when a model dies but before it's removed. It is a big loss and is very disappointing to me.

Sorry. I'm not shedding any tears for the poor tyranid players that have the cheapest troops of any army...and can take units that make more.

Guardsmen tie with termagants for price. Conscripts are cheaper. Also, guardsmen get Orders and can hop into metal boxes that make them entirely immune to Tyranids.


And said guardsmen get free grenades.

Fetterkey wrote:Mech is disproportionately powerful in 5th edition. It was disproportionately weak in 4th edition. Besides, mech armies are great and semi-mech, which still has alot of mech in it, is good too

Fixed your quote. They swung the pendulum the other way, rather than balancing the issues between mech and horde.

wyomingfox wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Mech is disproportionately powerful in 5th edition. It was disproportionately weak in 4th edition. Besides, mech armies are great and semi-mech which still has alot of mech in it is good too

Fixed your quote. They swung the pendulum the other way, rather than balancing the issues between mech and horde.

Nope. If you played in Third Edition, you know what powerful mech is *really* like. Fifth is a good balance between Third (mech way too good) and Fourth (mech quasi-unplayable).

Nurglitch wrote:
*points, laughs*

Now, now we can be nicer than that. At least offer the poor man some cheese to go with his whine.

Honestly slickpcm, every codex looks like this for a month or so before and after it is released. Once that's over, the horrors of the invincible Str6 AP 3 flamer, the unbeatable 6 point boy, or the 100 man guard blob settle into their actual power levels. No Tyranid army will be able to present you with all of those threats at the same time. Learning a new target priority will only improve your game in the long run. And when sparkly vampires on thunderbats worry you, perhaps you'll look back on the fears you had over the Tyrannosaurus-fex and laugh.

slickpcm wrote:The new lash whip is the worst idea I've ever seen ... let's make everyone who gets into melee with tyranids have absolutely no chance of winning. Already have superior toughness and strength, so let's give them a power weapon and allow them to go first against everything except Banshees and Wyches that rolled the "Always go first result". Seriously GW, remove head from booty, this is getting out of control. Oh and just to make sure this army is invincible, let's give them a unit that shoots str8 indirect weapons that hit on 3+ and can pen armor. Oh and don't forget to give them str4 ap4 ordnance barrage to slaughter any troops not in transports. Who comes up with this nonsense? An army that can force you to assault it but once you do you get owned? I thought every army was supposed to have a weakness not be frikkin invincible ...

Wow... that's some pretty serious knee-jerk overreaction there buddy. Watch out for the end of the world in 2012...

Thanks for the sarcastic remarks guys, don't know what I'd do without them.

@Gitzbitah: Actually I did play a test game against them with my CSM and the only real problem they presented was I was forced to assault them. Basically, after I got in their faces, I was countercharged by 3 Lashwhip/Bonesword warriors who killed 4 of my 10 CSM(average rolling) but I returned 2 autokilling pfist shots in their grills(well above average rolling) and then beat down the normal one with regular attacks so going last obviously wasn't devastating. Then the uber tyrant got into it with another 10 man CSM unit and he completely stomped them, but I guess that's to be expected. Couldn't for the life of me kill his dang Hive Guard but I hear you on the target priority thing. The only thing I was disappointed about in the whole fight was those str8 shots popping my rhinos, and the fact that i failed a ton of armor saves from those str4 ap4 barrages. However, when my initiative 6 Lash Prince got into melee with the Hive Tyrant and I found out I had to go last that was way lame as he tore me apart without me getting a chance to return fire. The worst thing was how much fire I had to pour into those dang Zoanthropes with their nonsense 3+ invul save of which he made every single one, specifically against all my str8 defiler/meltagun shots(ugh). Nothing really overpowered here I guess, was just venting about an army that forces you to get close and then countercharges you.

Last I checked, I didn't see any IG players being disappointed about being able to field more mech. It is what it is.

wyomingfox wrote:Well, don't expect me to shed tears for poor IG players who can field more mech than any other army, given that all mech is undercosted and disproportionately powerful in 5th Ed.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Guardsmen tie with termagants for price. Conscripts are cheaper. Also, guardsmen get Orders and can hop into metal boxes that make them entirely immune to Tyranids.

Conscripts also have lower stats and an inferior weapon compared to termingaunts. Orders are a nice bonus, but not uber either...and who said IG in chimeras are immune to tyranids? My chimmys died just fine to the bugs.

And said guardsmen get free grenades.

And is pointless. They should be free since even with them...they are most likely striking last since most units have a higher initiative than they do...but nice try though.

I dunno. I have 11 separate units that can ID a T4 target in my 2,000 point Space Marine army, and could quasi-trivially upgrade that to 16. Most of these do so at 48" range. Most also move and fire. Killing a single pod is easy, at which point we're looking at doing 4 wounds instead of 6. The math is simple-- killing the pod not only nets extra VP/an extra KP, but halves the Carnifex's defensive capability. Are pod Carnifexes tough? Sure, but they're nothing special. One isn't frightening at all-- in fact, I can probably kill two in a turn if sufficiently pressed to do so. Now, to be fair, that will draw a lot of my fire away from the main Tyranid army, but I definitely am more afraid of a Trygon than a drop Fex. Hiding behind your pod really doesn't seem like a reliable tactic, and I don't even have Mystics. In the end I think 6 wounds is better than 4, and by enough to really make a difference.

OK, if I am deep striking a Carnifex in a pod against a Space Marine gun line, there are two things I am doing.

1. Deploying in or behind cover

2. Concentrating on a flank. Preferably the one with the most units in it.

Let's assume the worst case scenario, you have 16 Lascannons in your army. That is assuming that my Zoenthropes, Hive Guard, Tyrannofex, etc. didn't at least stun or minimize the amount of Lascannons you can bring to bear, that also includes the Bioplasma Shots and the 5 Str. 6 shots from the pod as it lands. So if we are assuming your best case scenario, we will also assume mine. I was able to place the two Carnifexes I take in a list and the pods in or behind decent cover (which isn't hard if I deploy extremely close to a piece of terrain). So to kill the Pod you will have to be able to hit them and wound them, which in and of itself is a 27% chance per Lascannon. So statistically is will take 4 Lascannona at most to kill a pod. To take out a Carnifex, is roughly the same chance per wound, so to put dow it's 4 wounds you have to realistically send all 16 shots at it.

Now Dice are a factor here, can you shoot 4 Lascannons at a Carnifex and kill it. Yes, but that is assuming you are hitting and wounding with every shot, and I am failing every cover save.

Think about it realistically, when you see Carnifexes a turn away from hitting your tanks and the pods they came in on, what are you going to concentrate on? The Pods? I don't think so.

It still plays into my strategy if you concentrate on the Carnifexes. I will gladly take the loss of a Carnifex, if it means that the rest of my stuff get across the table.

Fetterkey wrote:

wyomingfox wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Mech is disproportionately powerful in 5th edition. It was disproportionately weak in 4th edition. Besides, mech armies are great and semi-mech which still has alot of mech in it is good too

Fixed your quote. They swung the pendulum the other way, rather than balancing the issues between mech and horde.

Nope. If you played in Third Edition, you know what powerful mech is *really* like. Fifth is a good balance between Third (mech way too good) and Fourth (mech quasi-unplayable).

Yes they did. I was playing when 3rd came out. Mech had rhino rush, but transports were also easy to destroy and were comparitively expensive. Also, you couldn't move AND double tap in 3rd, so transport fire power was half. Oh and blast templates' strength were not halved when the center hole wasn't over the hull.

Plus there were so many nuisances that helped horde in 3rd (some that got axed in 4rth and the rest were axed in 5th. Blocking line of sight terrain. The beauty of consolidating in nearby squads after winning CC (Can't remember but I think you could even consolidate after blowing up a tank)...not to mention that if one won an assault one could overrun his opponent, wipe out his unit and move 2d6 up the board. Nid horde units could do what they were suppose to do, tie up enemy squads and grind them down through attrition (not instantaneously vanish do to huge LD modifiers or fearless wounds like in 5th). MC were still cheap point for point. MC got easy cover. Sorry, but Nids did quite well in 3rd.

Fifth in comparison is hardly a good balance. Yes, mech still can't rhino rush...well except for LR. But Mech gets cover saves, huge improvements on the damage table, and transportees no longer get auto pinned when thier tank finally goes boom (which in 4rth was the saving grace to walking up and killing your transport in CC). Oh and in 4rth and 5th edition, vehicles kept getting cheaper points wise. There is a reason that 5th edition battles look like parking lots.

slickpcm wrote:

@Gitzbitah: Actually I did play a test game against them with my CSM and the only real problem they presented was I was forced to assault them. Basically, after I got in their faces, I was countercharged by 3 Lashwhip/Bonesword warriors who killed 4 of my 10 CSM(average rolling) but I returned 2 autokilling pfist shots in their grills(well above average rolling) and then beat down the normal one with regular attacks so going last obviously wasn't devastating. Then the uber tyrant got into it with another 10 man CSM unit and he completely stomped them, but I guess that's to be expected. Couldn't for the life of me kill his dang Hive Guard but I hear you on the target priority thing. The only thing I was disappointed about in the whole fight was those str8 shots popping my rhinos, and the fact that i failed a ton of armor saves from those str4 ap4 barrages. However, when my initiative 6 Lash Prince got into melee with the Hive Tyrant and I found out I had to go last that was way lame as he tore me apart without me getting a chance to return fire. The worst thing was how much fire I had to pour into those dang Zoanthropes with their nonsense 3+ invul save of which he made every single one, specifically against all my str8 defiler/meltagun shots(ugh). Nothing really overpowered here I guess, was just venting about an army that forces you to get close and then countercharges you.

Ouch! Yeah, that really sucks. I remember the first time I ambushed a Necron Deceiver with my Callidus, and discovered that I was now completely unarmed. And the first time I tried to stop a Deceiver with a TH/SS unit... sometimes there's just no substitute for the school of hard knocks. I'm fairly sure I'll get beaten by the new nids a few times before I can tell a tervigon from a trifex, there are just too many MCs to keep straight right now. Naturally, they all have their weak points and their strengths- but it will take me some time to figure out what those are, and memorize them well enough to employ them in a game.

It sounded like you were overreacting to the new codex- but I've vented about a great many things myself. I doubt I'll be so calm the first time I get consumed by the hive mind.

slickpcm wrote:when my initiative 6 Lash Prince got into melee with the Hive Tyrant and I found out I had to go last that was way lame as he tore me apart without me getting a chance to return fire.

It's not Tyranids being OP, it's you not asking what stuff does.

Mahu wrote:Think about it realistically, when you see Carnifexes a turn away from hitting your tanks and the pods they came in on, what are you going to concentrate on? The Pods? I don't think so.

If killing the pod means that the Carnifex loses 50% of its resilience and gives me an extra KP, the pod dies first every time.