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PLC wrote:Fair call....re the lootas, the klaw is less of a problem....nid players are already usually pretty good at removing casualties so PF etc never get to strike.

Pete

It's not an independant character claw...a trooper (one of the 20+) from the squad is in Base to Base, that claw will be hitting.

That depends on who charged....if the Nid charged and follows the rules of engaging enemy, then he can more often than not engineer the situations that by removing 1-2 bases a squad PF/PK is left unable to strike.

Of course if the Nid player just shovels his bases in he gets what he deserves.

Jayden63 wrote:To protect against Lootas I'd consider that one bug that hides in terrain at deployment. Lootas are going to be deployed into cover. Its probably going to be pretty obvious which cover once the table is set up. Lootas stuck in HTH arn't shooting anything.

Except orks will always fill whatever terrain they like (or more precisely will make it impossible to place any model in that terrain without coming within 1" of the orks). The lictor is useless if there's no good terrain to place him into.

Your talking 10-15 models for this unit. If your deploying more than one unit into the same terrain and they some how use up all of the terrain, then they are probably pretty packed in and blast template targets. Most terrain isn't all that big to allow you to spread out and still be covered. But needless to say, lootas will proably always be priority targets, even when using a nid list.

@Mauleed, Please do us a favor and show up at the GT's in 08. Oh, and please bring your new Orks. I am very excited to face these monsters of yours.

Darrian

Thank you, I am flattered

Because it's so original. I have never seen a Zilla List with Genestealers in action, but I heard it was big in the US untill people realised it sucked and started using Gaunts instead like the rest of the world.

So, since so many people are talking about BS3 Barbed Stranglers being effective against Orks, do you think Nid lists should use 3 Gunfexes, or 2 Gunfexes and 3 Zoanthropes?

Therion wrote:

Thank you, I am flattered

Because it's so original. I have never seen a Zilla List with Genestealers in action, but I heard it was big in the US untill people realised it sucked and started using Gaunts instead like the rest of the world.

So, since so many people are talking about BS3 Barbed Stranglers being effective against Orks, do you think Nid lists should use 3 Gunfexes, or 2 Gunfexes and 3 Zoanthropes?

In Europe you play 1500pt games. In US we play 1750-1850 pt games. Genestealer Nids are powerful at those numbers and do very well. It is still one of the most powerful lists in the Chicagoland area.

Nids should be packing 3 Gunfexes at all times, imo.

I prefer to use 3 zoeys when I use my gaunt swarm due to synapse issues. After turn 1, the zoeys put out a pretty decent amount of firepower and because it is either AP3 or AP2 it does give opponents pause. When I play stealer shock, I definitely go with the 3 gunfexes.

Darrian

Darrian13 wrote:@Mauleed, Please do us a favor and show up at the GT's in 08. Oh, and please bring your new Orks. I am very excited to face these monsters of yours.

Darrian

I'll be at Baltimore with 90% certainty. And I haven't built a single model yet, but I'm still going to school 5 people with them.

Jayden63 wrote:Your talking 10-15 models for this unit. If your deploying more than one unit into the same terrain and they some how use up all of the terrain, then they are probably pretty packed in and blast template targets. Most terrain isn't all that big to allow you to spread out and still be covered. But needless to say, lootas will proably always be priority targets, even when using a nid list.

15 lootas, deployed 1.5" apart in a square of 3 rows covers and area of about 13"X13", which is going to deal with most of the area terrain you'll see, and still not leave the unit particularly vulnerable to blasts.

Great Ed, well I guess I will have to fit Baltimore into my travel plans for 08. If they allow challenges in round 1, I'll be one of your 5 schoolies.

Darrian

If they don't, there's always friday night.

Man... this conversation is making me REALLY sad I have never played 'Nids, and only played Orks once. I am really tired of shooting Plague Marines with the Sisters.
(I get a little tired of picking Tau bits out of my hair and chainswords too, but eh, still fun )

mauleed wrote:So lets do the math of the sluggas vs. the genestealers and compare to above.

First sluggas vs. 12 genestealers with 4+ saves

The sluggas don't get any shots off, so all 12 stealers hit them. We'll say since there are 12 models that there are 24, including the klaw, in the kill zone.

I note you automatically assumed the stealers get the charge with no damage prior. I doubt that is quite so automatic. Whilst they have the advantage in having fleet every turn, the ork player will also have his fleet move. Keeping that fleet move for the crucial turn will make the stealer charge far less assured and more down to player skill.

If the orks chage, then sticking with 24 orks that can fight, you get 9 dead orks, and 9 dead stealers, leaving 3 vs 21. There is in fact a not insignificant chance of the stealers being wiped in that 1 charge especially if they get even more in kill zone (if all in kill zone then average = kill all stealers), either way 240 vps for 0 given up would be on the cards.

Even if the sluggas can't charge, there is still the almost certain chance that they can shoot before hand. In order to set up the charge the stealers need to be close enough to 12" away in order to be reasonably certain they make the needed fleet roll (other wise see above). If they are that close on the turn before then the orks will be close enough to move and shoot their sluggas and rockits (which i imagine are a given, and bring the orks to a similar point cost as the stealers). 26 sluggas and 3 rokkits are likely to bag about 3 stealers leaving only 9 to charge. That changes the maths to about 10 dead orks and 4 stealers (assuming 18 orks can fight based on your original 2 per stealer). That leaves round 2 as 5 vs 20. The stealers are not even reaching the half vp gained on average (though theres a reasonable chance they will) where as they gave up all 240vps.

Shootas are more extreme, if they get to shoot before hand - range 18 makes that likely, but terrain or MC wall may prevent it, then they are likely to win but on the other hand they lack the CC umph to do well if they don't shoot. sluggas may be a bit tougher to get the optimal situation but also don't give stealers such an easy ride either.

Second: sluggas vs. 2X20 spinegaunts.

Again, with the 12" range, no shots before the gaunts hit. And with all these models, everyone fights.

Spine guants are bad against sluggas, though in the situation you describe they'd probably do better all shooting rather than charging, as that avergaes 10 kills without any attacks back, and although the orks get to charge, the spinegaunts have a better chance of of scoring half VP as they will still kill some orks taking the charge. They also have the possibilty depending on angles of attack of the orks only being able to charge 1 unit and then getting shot again by the second unit, in which case the gaunts will be fairly sure of half VP. Of course that was probably not the best example, as i still can't see sluggas giving up rokkits, in which case a point for point example would have had a few spine gaunts - 49 in total (making half VP gain almost a certainty).

Of the basic troops the hormies are probably the more interesting, largely as they are almost always going to get the charge (waagh or not) and they offer the possibility to use leaping to manipulate the kill zone to pack in more hormies to fewer orks than normal. Against 30 orks, pk nob and 3 rokkits you get 24 basic hormies, they will kill about 10 on the charge but that may leave only 8 or so orks left to attack back. The +1ws hormie is nasty, you get less hormies (and less orks in kill zone with good play) but averge more kills - 12 dead ork on first contact. The +1ws +1str is probably more upgrades than I'd feel comfortable with, but it is a real ork killer. With only 18 of them for the same points as the orks you can possibly kill all the orks in the kill zone on the charge (15 on average charge). NB that assumes that an optimal hormie charge in that case would be just 5 bodies up front the rest packed behind within the 3" leaping zone, i've no doubt that would be hard to achive in practice, but for a good player offers some interesting possibilites.

CC warriors are not to hot against orks, if you give them leaping to get into combat their efficiency goes out the window, if you don't they can get charged by sluggas, which whilst they will kill quite a few orks, the orks furious charge will do a pretty goog number on the warriors.

Shooty warriors are much more interesting, T/L deathspitters are not bad against hordes, you can get 7 such warriors for the cost of the 30 ork mob. They outrange (whilst being mobile) either shootas or sluggas, and if the orks don't spread out they will get hammered by 4-6 blasts a turn.

It seems to me that combining a lot of blast weapons with fast cc punch presents two diverse problems for the Orks. Blast weapons make the Orks spread out, while the fast cc punch makes the Orks want to bunch up so they insure getting the most cc return attacks. Tyranids seem the best army to present these two different situations to the Orks. Though I'm not sure Hormagaunts and Warriors is a winning combination against anything else.

I think the traditional Zilla list will be fine with maybe adding some large gaunt screens. What I am wondering is will Genestealer shock be able to hold it's own as it's more CC oriented.

I haven't played with my orks in ages.. but this used to be one of my favorite fights. nidz vs orks is always a bloodbath and rarely predictable

should be fun

NaZ

I'd still pack the zoanthropes. The screamfest (-4 to -5 ld all around) is going to make the orks run in droves at 10-11 orks instead of run in droves at 6 orks.

Longshot wrote:I'd still pack the zoanthropes. The screamfest (-4 to -5 ld all around) is going to make the orks run in droves at 10-11 orks instead of run in droves at 6 orks.

In 5th edition, a Barbed Strangler hit on an Ork unit with ~12 guys remaining means it's most likely pinned (Lootas will never fire a shot). It will be up for debate whether you just want more pinning weapons instead of the choir. I'm more and more starting to agree with mauleed that mobs of 20 are too small. That however means that Orks can't get as many klaws as they thought. They can't get as many scoring units as they wanted either, although the ones they do get are big.

I think the traditional Zilla list will be fine with maybe adding some large gaunt screens.

What do they use to wipe out the huge Ork mobs though? Big bugs lack the amount of attacks to do the job fast enough, and relying solely on Stranglers and Devourers isn't good.

puree wrote:
Shooty warriors are much more interesting, T/L deathspitters are not bad against hordes, you can get 7 such warriors for the cost of the 30 ork mob. They outrange (whilst being mobile) either shootas or sluggas, and if the orks don't spread out they will get hammered by 4-6 blasts a turn.

Is it even possible to take T/L anything with warriors? I highly doubt that. Nowhere in the codex does it say buying two of the same weapons for the warriors makes them twin-linked, or we'd see T/L venom cannons and barbed stranglers everywhere. I've also never seen an official warrior with anything other than the usual weapon + cc weapon combo.

I would call shenanigans on that too. Besides, only monstrous creatures can fire more than one weapon a turn.

Darrian

mauleed wrote:Good point. Note to self: warboss kills elite fexes, koptas or stormboyz kill flyrants.

Don't waste your time with an Elite Fex unless you have no other safe options.

Go for the big fish with the Warboss, get the Heavy Gunfex's - even if you die in the process you still will kill more than the Boss's points cost with just one dead Gun Fex and if you do it right you can probably kill 2 with him before he bites the dust. Anything after killing the single heavy Fex is just gravy.

When we were playtesting the new codex I ran a large unit of ardboyz for fun. 20 to be exact. They aren't really that expensive compared to the old ones, and they are a menace to any hormagaunts out there. A huge horde of gaunts charged them without him realizing what they were, and totally bounced off of them. It was decent rolling on my part, but I took out an equal sized gaunt horde without losing an ork. It entirely changed the momentum of the game at that point.

I probably wouldn't field them against most armies, but they are quite deadly to gaunts.

Luebbi wrote:

puree wrote:
Shooty warriors are much more interesting, T/L deathspitters are not bad against hordes, you can get 7 such warriors for the cost of the 30 ork mob. They outrange (whilst being mobile) either shootas or sluggas, and if the orks don't spread out they will get hammered by 4-6 blasts a turn.

Is it even possible to take T/L anything with warriors? I highly doubt that. Nowhere in the codex does it say buying two of the same weapons for the warriors makes them twin-linked, or we'd see T/L venom cannons and barbed stranglers everywhere. I've also never seen an official warrior with anything other than the usual weapon + cc weapon combo.

Besides, only monstrous creatures can fire more than one weapon a turn.

You need to read the dex better then - it states that any tyranid that carries two of the same ranged weapon counts them as twin linked. Warriors with T/L deathspitters, devourers, etc is perfectly legal - and firing a T/L weapon only counts as firing a single weapon so not being a TMC is irrelevant. What the heck is an 'official warrior'?

The VC/BS is a little more debateable depending on how you interpret the explicit rule about 1 warrior may carry a VC/BS. BUt spitter/devourers/fleshborer are quiite fine.

puree wrote:

Luebbi wrote:

puree wrote:
Shooty warriors are much more interesting, T/L deathspitters are not bad against hordes, you can get 7 such warriors for the cost of the 30 ork mob. They outrange (whilst being mobile) either shootas or sluggas, and if the orks don't spread out they will get hammered by 4-6 blasts a turn.

Is it even possible to take T/L anything with warriors? I highly doubt that. Nowhere in the codex does it say buying two of the same weapons for the warriors makes them twin-linked, or we'd see T/L venom cannons and barbed stranglers everywhere. I've also never seen an official warrior with anything other than the usual weapon + cc weapon combo.

Besides, only monstrous creatures can fire more than one weapon a turn.

You need to read the dex better then - it states that any tyranid that carries two of the same ranged weapon counts them as twin linked. Warriors with T/L deathspitters, devourers, etc is perfectly legal - and firing a T/L weapon only counts as firing a single weapon so not being a TMC is irrelevant. What the heck is an 'official warrior'?

The VC/BS is a little more debateable depending on how you interpret the explicit rule about 1 warrior may carry a VC/BS. BUt spitter/devourers/fleshborer are quiite fine.

Hey cool, you're right - I just reread that part. With official warriors I meant ones shown in the codex, white dwarf etc - I've never seen a warrior painted by the 'eavy metal team that carries more than one ranged weapon. Thanks for clearing that up!

@puree, Actually, you might want to read the codex again.

Page 30 Tyranid codex "A creature with 2 or more ranged bio-weapons may only choose to fire one of them per shooting phase unless it is a monstrous creature, in which case two weapons may be fired."

Page 37 Tyranid codex "Only one Tyranid warrior per brood may take a barbed strangler or venom cannon." It is clear that the word "a" denotes a singular and not a plural.

Shenanigans.

Darrian

Darrian13 wrote:@puree, Actually, you might want to read the codex again.

Page 30 Tyranid codex "A creature with 2 or more ranged bio-weapons may only choose to fire one of them per shooting phase unless it is a monstrous creature, in which case two weapons may be fired."

Page 37 Tyranid codex "Only one Tyranid warrior per brood may take a barbed strangler or venom cannon." It is clear that the word "a" denotes a singular and not a plural.

Shenanigans.

Darrian

I take it you are specifically on about VC/BS. Which I pointed out was more debateable. But spitters/devourers etc are fine (and spitters are what I was initially talking about) - they become twin-linked and are therefore a single weapon.

edit - I suppose if you wish to argue that they don't become a single weapon then that isn't much different, they became twin-linked so i'll fire 1 rather than both twin-linked weapon. Either way I get the same effect, a single twin-linked weapon, or 2 twin-linked weapon of which i can only use 1.

By the way, since you're talking about bio-weapons and biomorph enhancements, does it say somewhere that you may only take the Toxin Sacs enhancement only once, or that the benefits don't stack?

But spitters/devourers etc are fine (and spitters are what I was initially talking about) - they become twin-linked and are therefore a single weapon.

So, are you saying a Warrior unit with TL Devourers would be useful? For 114 points they get 12 shots at S4 that re-roll misses and wounds, but are awfully fragile. I guess it's not so bad if you want some extra synapse.

Therion wrote:By the way, since you're talking about bio-weapons and biomorph enhancements, does it say somewhere that you may only take the Toxin Sacs enhancement only once, or that the benefits don't stack?

But spitters/devourers etc are fine (and spitters are what I was initially talking about) - they become twin-linked and are therefore a single weapon.

So, are you saying a Warrior unit with TL Devourers would be useful? For 114 points they get 12 shots at S4 that re-roll misses and wounds, but are awfully fragile. I guess it's not so bad if you want some extra synapse.

I didn't comment on the usefulness of T/L devourers - only that they are legal. Though I'd take 16 S3 shots for just 2 pts more over the S4 ones, 2 extra wounds as well. Living ammo makes S3 better than normal S4 in most circumstances.

You may only take any biomorph once. So that covers toxin.