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pinecone77 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

Razerous wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
Almost tempted to see what folk could come up with at 1500 points here - bearing in mind that Escalation is allowed (though I'd not be fielding any superheavies). And I know there are Baneblades and Stompas present...

Spoiler:

Dual Flyrants
3 Single Zoeys
2x10 Termagaunts
Exocrine
(Skyblight)
3x 10 Gargs
2x Harpies
1x Crone

= 1465

I still think Zoeys are amazing and always underestimated. Exocrine & zoeys fill the ap2/3 gap left by the rest of the army. Plus synapse.

Zoeys aren't as good as they would seem on the surface. They have to make a psychic test which they fail 1/6 of the time. Then the opponent has a deny the witch which can easily be buffed by many armies, but even the basic deny the witch is going to knock out 1/6 of the zoey's shooting. Then they have to roll to hit, which they will miss 1/3 of the time. Then they have to roll to glance or pen which they will fail 1/6 of the time (because they don't have speed to get back or even side armor). Also they will kill themselves in two turns 1/36 of the time, and more often if they manage to make it to turn 5.

So their effective armor penning is: 5/6 (psychic test) * 5/6 (deny the witch) * 2/3 (roll to hit) * 5/6 (roll to glance / pen) = 250/648 = 38.58%. That isn't very good, especially given that they move slow, and can only shoot within 18". You would be better off with Crones. Haywire missiles hit 1/2 of the time, and glance or pen 5/6 of the time with an effectiveness of 5/12 = 41.67% plus a crone is harder to hit, can fire 2 missiles, can vector strike, and can Smash. Still not great, but way better than Zoeys, and way more reliable because the opponent can't get deny the witch buffs.

Minor nit pick, but you're tossing numbers around...you fail the roll 3 in 36, or 1 in 12.....not 1 in 6

You are right. Basic math fail. Added where I should have multiplied.
So to correct my zoanthrope percentage:
11/12 (psychic test) * 5/6 (deny the witch) * 2/3 (roll to hit) * 5/6 (roll to glance / pen) = 275/648 = 42.44% which actually makes it slightly better than the crone missile.

I would still pick a Crone, because of the added mobility, but give me a crone that can fire 2 warp lances instead of tentaclids, and I would take that.

Meh, I'm still not sold on Crones, especially over Zoeys. Zoeys can't be all but killed as soon as they enter play by a Quad Gun.

 The Shadow wrote:
Meh, I'm still not sold on Crones, especially over Zoeys. Zoeys can't be all but killed as soon as they enter play by a Quad Gun.

That's the thing about Monstrous Creatures, as long as they have one wound left they are still alive at full damage ability.

Here's some funny numbers. The chance that your crone will die from a quad gun interceptor shots (assuming BS4) is about 8%. If you're playing with any kind of intelligence, you'll put your Crone with at least a toe in cover (or figure out how it can get a 4+) and that chance drops down to about 1%.

Basically, a lot has to go wrong for the Tyranid player to lose a crone to a quad gun from interceptor.

Completely anecdotal but I played with 2 x Zoey's last night long table edges and 5 x objectives against Necrons. They rolled the horror, which I should of but didn't swap for Dominion.

Warp blast missed every time and they were redundant Synapse as I had warrior's in the back field.

To be fair If I had of taken Dominion I might of saved my 8 man strong unit of Hormagaunts who killed themselves because I forgot to measure to make sure they were in 12"..

Has anyone tried Endless Swarm combo'ed with the Trygon Tunnel? That seems fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
Interesting - though the situation I am looking at sadly had no Formations allowed for the sake of the league (but he allowed Escalation. -_- < My face...)

If this is the case I would go FMC heavy (if you can). There is very little non-blast Strength D and you might do well against that meta.

 AdeptSister wrote:
Has anyone tried Endless Swarm combo'ed with the Trygon Tunnel? That seems fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
Interesting - though the situation I am looking at sadly had no Formations allowed for the sake of the league (but he allowed Escalation. -_- < My face...)

If this is the case I would go FMC heavy (if you can). There is very little non-blast Strength D and you might do well against that meta.

I think a ways upstream I posted a "concept army" called "Endless Tunnel Assault"....you might check it out for ideas


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Shadow wrote:
Meh, I'm still not sold on Crones, especially over Zoeys. Zoeys can't be all but killed as soon as they enter play by a Quad Gun.

Yeah, Zoey vs Crone is a "style " issue mainly. Though you can get 3 Zoeys for the price of one Crone, and have a few points left over. Split into 2 Broods (1 of 2x, 1 of 1x) and that is two rolls for Powers of the Hive Mind!

They're about equal on survivability, as Fliers face special anti-flier weapons....and Zoeys are fairly robust.

So...if you have Zoeys, and like them, play Zoeys. If you have Crones and like Them, well you know...

This is a list some of my buddies worked out.

Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings. 230
Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings. 230
Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings. 230

10 Hormagaunts 50
10 Hormagaunts 50

20 Gargoyles: adrenal glands. 160
20 Gargoyles: adrenal glands. 160
20 Gargoyles: adrenal glands. 160
Hive Crone 155
Hive Crone 155
Harpy 135
Harpy 135

1,850 points

We really like the adrenal glands and slightly bumped up Gargoyles. The adrenal glands for fleet is great and let's them hurt rear armor 10 if needed.

The 3 Flyrants combined put out 36 TL BS 4 Str 6 shots, that hurts everything (nearly) to make sure that crucial target always dies. Well, most targets, you get the point.

The hormagants hopefully done eat themselves bad enough to not take objectives in the backfield, and with the +3 in run fast when needed. You could easily out gaunts in there to free up 20 points for upgrades.

The Zoeys are okay, but backfield synapse in this kind of army is kinda wasted.

 timwrightii wrote:

Spoiler:

This is a list some of my buddies worked out.

Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings. 230
Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings. 230
Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings. 230

10 Hormagaunts 50
10 Hormagaunts 50

20 Gargoyles: adrenal glands. 160
20 Gargoyles: adrenal glands. 160
20 Gargoyles: adrenal glands. 160
Hive Crone 155
Hive Crone 155
Harpy 135
Harpy 135

1,850 points

We really like the adrenal glands and slightly bumped up Gargoyles. The adrenal glands for fleet is great and let's them hurt rear armor 10 if needed.

The 3 Flyrants combined put out 36 TL BS 4 Str 6 shots, that hurts everything (nearly) to make sure that crucial target always dies. Well, most targets, you get the point.

The hormagants hopefully done eat themselves bad enough to not take objectives in the backfield, and with the +3 in run fast when needed. You could easily out gaunts in there to free up 20 points for upgrades.

The Zoeys are okay, but backfield synapse in this kind of army is kinda wasted.

If you aren't running backfield synapse, might I suggest genesteelers over HGaunts. Or perhaps a Warrior brood + a min squad of Tgaunts for the same price. I feel like it is worth it for 5 Gargoyles.

It depends on the rest of your armies composition and tactics you want to be available.

For an endless swarm army, Zoanthropes will provide better synergy acting as both anti-tank and synapse along with possible buffs. For an army with several FMCs already I'd go with Crones for their synergy because synapse is not as important, the're decent for ant-vehicle and can keep up with the rest of your main attack force. They are different tools for different jobs that happen to share anti-tank capabilities and similar survivability. Other than those two things they are so completely different I say they're not really comparable. The question with that in mind is not 'which is better?' but instead 'which one complements my army better?'.

When is the third dataslate scheduled? I am hoping it will allow me to field as few models as possible. So far the Living Artillery is my best bet.

At 2000 points there are 3 things that are a must in my opinion in a flyers list:

3 Flyrants
3 Venonthorpes
60 gargoyles
20 Termagants

then I would suggest to buy a fortification to hide in or behind

In my case that is 2x Vengance Weapon batterie cause of the 4+ they give to the units behind (2+) with the venoms and the ap3 large blast that this army lacks.

After that fill in the flyers you feel like.

The 3 Flyrants played carefully using cover and Venomthorpes should be more than enought synapse for the whole game, 3 Venomthorpes are in my opinion the Key of this new codex.

The other potential weakness of our codex, the scoring troops are solved with the gargoyles so you can focus in the game itself and forget about been taken away your troops. with 60 gargoyles returning on a 4+ tervigon is no longer necesary.

Every single unit in this army SHOULD be within 6`` of a Venonthorpe in the first 3 turns of the game unless you go first, enemy have a lot of reserves and plan to fly out in turn 2 with your FMC to return in 3rd. Otherwise there is no reason why with a little bit of carefull positioning you shouldnt have all your sweeties behind a 3+/2+ cover safe for most of the game.

Naw wrote:
When is the third dataslate scheduled? I am hoping it will allow me to field as few models as possible. So far the Living Artillery is my best bet.

Given the release dates for the previous 2 slates, I would expect #3 to preorder in the 3rd week of March for download on the 29th.

Edit to add:

So while I'm at a keyboard I thought i'd recount with the group what happens with tyranids when you DON'T optimize your list. I'll preface this quick blurb - My tyranids have been mostly undefeated by my current gaming group throughout 6th edition (see sig), so every once in awhile I will take softball lists on purpose just to see what happens. Last night was one such list..

We're restarting our local campaign (nothing narrative, more of a league really) and the weekly game was set to 1000 points. My first list for this was:

Flyrant
Flyrant
Crone
Crone
Harpy
10x Termagants
10x Termagants
Warriors

No formations, just pure codex cutthroat FMC @ 1000 points. It would have been brutal. But then i looked and said, is this the list i want to bring in a casual setting? So i completely flip-flopped and instead of bringing a mediocre list, I took instead:

Warrior Prime, LW/BS, ST, Frags
5x Genestealers
5x Genestealers
5x Genestealers
5x Genestealers
2x Carnifex, ST/ST, AG
2x Carnifex, Barbed Strangler/TL Devourers x1


I played a grey knight army running Draigo and paladins, with an inquisitor, a vindicare, and a jumping dreadknight. To make a long story short, i saw where it was heading, assaulted draigo with my carnifexes (which he promptly instant-deathed) and i conceded on turn 2. My turn 3 I would have started with 4 min-genestealer squads and nothing else on the table while he held the 4, 3, and a 2 pt objective from the scouring. It was brutal. Interestingly enough i'm not too sussed over the loss because I never expected to win that matchup anyhow. I think i'll challenge him to a rematch and bring the Flying Circus now. Haha.

A quick side-thought here about fighting an Imperial Knight. Now, obviously they are big, nasty MC hunters and want to make use of their Strength D swords.

If a Knight charges a Tervigon, or a Tyrant, or a Tyrannofex with Electroshock Grubs, does the Knight then not automatically take D3+1 Haywire hits automatically from Overwatch, and actually fails to get its 4++ (since it's not the Knight's opponent's shooting phase)?

Not an ideal situation of course, but it certainly sounds like a cheap way to strip a few Hull Points (maybe even kill the Knight if you've wounded it a bit with VS etc).

Xyptc wrote:
A quick side-thought here about fighting an Imperial Knight. Now, obviously they are big, nasty MC hunters and want to make use of their Strength D swords.

If a Knight charges a Tervigon, or a Tyrant, or a Tyrannofex with Electroshock Grubs, does the Knight then not automatically take D3+1 Haywire hits automatically from Overwatch, and actually fails to get its 4++ (since it's not the Knight's opponent's shooting phase)?

Not an ideal situation of course, but it certainly sounds like a cheap way to strip a few Hull Points (maybe even kill the Knight if you've wounded it a bit with VS etc).

d3, not d3 + 1, but yes it is a potentially effective weapon. Take a knight with say 2 HPs left, and it will not want to charge any MC with EGs. Haywire weapons are our best hope against Knights. Also keep in mind that a Knight that dies to Overwatch explodes where it originally was, not in base combat.

It has been argued deeply in other boards.... If you are using a Tyranid Flying Circus and you really should in any competitive enviroment, the best way to deal with knights is ignore them totally. They can do few vs flyers so basically they are 400 gimped points in enemy army. focus your flyers again the rest of his unnits, try to play conservative out of their melee range in case they put you to ground and engoy the massacre. In the last turn if you really feel like multiassault the knight with all your sweties.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Of course you can haiware him a little with hive crones and dakka it to death with your high movility flyers on 6´s, but I would really forget it and focus the rest of the army. Your oponent is using this super heavy hard to kill unnit because he wants you to spend a couple of shooting turns on him. Dont play his game, play yours.

Sandokann wrote:
It has been argued deeply in other boards.... If you are using a Tyranid Flying Circus and you really should in any competitive enviroment, the best way to deal with knights is ignore them totally. They can do few vs flyers so basically they are 400 gimped points in enemy army. focus your flyers again the rest of his unnits, try to play conservative out of their melee range in case they put you to ground and engoy the massacre. In the last turn if you really feel like multiassault the knight with all your sweties.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Of course you can haiware him a little with hive crones and dakka it to death with your high movility flyers on 6´s, but I would really forget it and focus the rest of the army. Your oponent is using this super heavy hard to kill unnit because he wants you to spend a couple of shooting turns on him. Dont play his game, play yours.

1 knight isn't the problem.... well it is because we suck at dealing with Mech in general, but the real problem is when we start seeing 3-5 knights on the table. What is our answer to that? Spend 2-3 turns killing one while all of our troops die, and then concede on turn 3 when the remaining knights just hang out on objectives, and we acknowledge that we can't dislodge them?

There is no way you can lose a game vs such a bad list 3 knights mean that you can ignore half of his army the first 3 turns, focus on the rest, then concentrate in 1 knight each turn. To be honest they are far from point efficient, thought they got a nice model and every1 that had read Mechanicum will die to use his own Equitus Bellum.

Sandokann wrote:
There is no way you can lose a game vs such a bad list 3 knights mean that you can ignore half of his army the first 3 turns, focus on the rest, then concentrate in 1 knight each turn. To be honest they are far from point efficient, thought they got a nice model and every1 that had read Mechanicum will die to use his own Equitus Bellum.

Good to know. Do they have mostly blast and template ranged attacks or something? Haven't seen their specs yet :( but that's what I've heard.

2-shot battle cannons, large blast meltas and heavy stubbers.

Sandokann wrote:
There is no way you can lose a game vs such a bad list 3 knights mean that you can ignore half of his army the first 3 turns, focus on the rest, then concentrate in 1 knight each turn. To be honest they are far from point efficient, thought they got a nice model and every1 that had read Mechanicum will die to use his own Equitus Bellum.

3 Knights moving 12" per turn will be on you by Turn 2 / 3 at worst. Once you get a face full of the D x3 it's over for your bugs unless you're flying.

Xyptc wrote:
A quick side-thought here about fighting an Imperial Knight. Now, obviously they are big, nasty MC hunters and want to make use of their Strength D swords.

If a Knight charges a Tervigon, or a Tyrant, or a Tyrannofex with Electroshock Grubs, does the Knight then not automatically take D3+1 Haywire hits automatically from Overwatch, and actually fails to get its 4++ (since it's not the Knight's opponent's shooting phase)?

Not an ideal situation of course, but it certainly sounds like a cheap way to strip a few Hull Points (maybe even kill the Knight if you've wounded it a bit with VS etc).

This is a very important point, and Electroshock Grubs should be an auto-take for any of these units if you know you're facing Knights.

It's worth pointing out though that the Ion Shield is only repositioned in the shooting phase, it can be used in any phase providing it's not against melee attacks. In theory there's nothing to stop it saving overwatch hits providing it's facing the same direction as the target being charged.

Well, it certainly explains why the 'nids got the new Elecrto-Gun option for Hive Guard.

Wakshaani wrote:
Well, it certainly explains why the 'nids got the new Elecrto-Gun option for Hive Guard.

It is 18" range blast. So, in order to use it, you have to be in range that the knight can charge you on its next turn, and you can't overwatch. I think the Impaler cannon might be just as good against knights, which is to say, only a little good, but at least it doesn't require LOS, and has a little better range.

If a Knight is charging a unit of hive guard...you're still pretty okay as an army.

Yep. I don't see knights in cc unless they need to be. I added electroshock to everything in my list, btw.

-Skyblight Simple -

2x Hive Tyrant, Wings, 2 TL Devourers, Electroshock Grubs 480

Venomthrope 45

Tervigon, Electroshock Grubs 205
30 Termagants, 10 Devourers 160

2x Hive Crone 310
2x Harpies, TL Heavy Venom Cannon 280

2x 10 Gargoyle Brood 120
15 Gargoyles, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs 150

One less Hive Tyrant. Funny thing. Everyone was complaining that Flyrants were over-costed, harpies were meh, crones were situational. Now the whole is obviously greater than the sum of its parts.

Scoring regenerating contest-a-proof Gargoyles.

I think the regenerate (and the contest-a-proof) rules are just icing, the ability to take mobile troops (as always, in any decent army) is key here.

This then means it is not a 'Oh, you could've got a Troop Tervigon for those two Crones'...

So, has anyone looked into the other Formations?

Some of don't feel like buying 60 gargoyles.

The Living Artillery formation is awesome for allowing extra Heavy Support units. I can finally field my Mawloc and Biovores in the same list and still have the slots to run my two Carnifices solo instead of in a brood. Twin-linked Biovores and a pinning Exocrine with twin-linked blast is just icing on the cake.

 ductvader wrote:
So, has anyone looked into the other Formations?

Some of don't feel like buying 60 gargoyles.

Lots of eyeballs at the heavy support one, as an Exocrine and three Biovores are bopth awesome and the Warrior tax isn't so bad, with the barbed strangler. These are things you mostly want anyway, but leave your precious heavy support selections open. Take a pair of these and let templatey death rain down from afar while people go, "How are Tyranid out-ranging me?!"

Endless Swarm is dripping with potential, and with a minimum cost of 360 points, it's simple to take two while still leaving half your points from a normal game for stuff that kills while the Endless take care of objectives. Kill the last guy? No problem, they're back. Don't kill them? No problem, I have an objective. EIther way's good for you.

The Warrior synapse bubble's getting the least eye-time I think. *I* like it, because I dig Warriors and my style's very much old school, and it gives you some crazy good Synapse bubbles, allowing you to do more outflankery with Raveners and Gargoyles, creating an entirely different way to play than the single Synapse blob. It's the sleeper of the set.

The Tervigon one is hit or miss, with most people unhappy with it as it doesn't give you a *scoring*, Troops-based Tervigon. There's some play with it, but it'll wind up being set aside, IMHO.

The air force is where everyone's drooling, with visions of triple Flyrants with double-down Dakka in their mind. I'm wary, simply because I'm risk-averse and don't like flying tyrants, but by far and away it seems to be the option of choice.

Wakshaani wrote:
Lots of eyeballs at the heavy support one, as an Exocrine and three Biovores are bopth awesome and the Warrior tax isn't so bad, with the barbed strangler.

The Artillery formation should really be taken with a Venom Cannon, as you're basically twin-linking it for extra precision AND getting Pinning on it, which is the main benefit of the Barbed Strangler.

Wakshaani wrote:
The Warrior synapse bubble's getting the least eye-time I think. *I* like it, because I dig Warriors and my style's very much old school, and it gives you some crazy good Synapse bubbles, allowing you to do more outflankery with Raveners and Gargoyles, creating an entirely different way to play than the single Synapse blob. It's the sleeper of the set.

The formation really suffers from the general overcosting of Warrior upgrades, and especially the Prime itself. It starts at ~400pts for a bunch of models that don't really add much to your army besides Synapse - their shooting is mediocre and getting them viable for melee costs a further fortune in points. They don't even help to fulfill your minimum troop requirement.
Maybe OK for niche lists (such as squeezing in a Prime when you want 2 Tyrants), but nothing exciting.

Wakshaani wrote:
The Tervigon one is hit or miss, with most people unhappy with it as it doesn't give you a *scoring*, Troops-based Tervigon. There's some play with it, but it'll wind up being set aside, IMHO.

There's nothing to stop the Tervigon from scoring, the 30 guant rule says "in your army" rather than in a detatchment. Unfortunately the formation is a waste of time because the upgrade is poor - you get a slightly higher average spawn rate but with a higher chance to roll doubles and menopause thanks to the forced re-roll. It should have just allowed the player to re-roll any single die from the 3D6.

Wakshaani wrote:
The air force is where everyone's drooling, with visions of triple Flyrants with double-down Dakka in their mind. I'm wary, simply because I'm risk-averse and don't like flying tyrants, but by far and away it seems to be the option of choice.

I'm of the same mindset - I don't really like FMCs and won't be buying the models I need to use that formation, despite having lots of Gargoyles. Hopefully the 3rd dataslate will do nice things with Carnifexes, Tyrannofexes and Hive Guard...