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I'll be at the slaughter, see you then. I always like putting a face to a name here on Dakka.

Yeah, with target saturation I can see that you can force a player's hand.

God, those hive guard are criminally underpriced. They should be a minimum 75 points. But oh well, have to find a way around them.

Ogryns are looking more and more appealing for my Guard. I use them for fun and they always perfrom well against other for fun lists, but against things like Mawlocs, Gants and Tervigons they are actually a really good counter.

So, Shep, would you say that between the same core you'd take the Trygons+Mawloc over the T-Fexes?

Ok, thx for the explanation ,now I get the concept, a massive T6 army that overwhelming enemy fire power, I think this is some how close to the principle of last edition Zilla army, even some T6s are not MC, could be a good replacement for Zilla, cheers

Maybe the next thing I want to see is the performance when against horde or skimmer heavy list.

Good stuff Shep.

I had almost written off the Tyrgons (and variants) after lack luster performance in playtesting, though I think you stumbled on their true synergy.

I myself has started dropping the Tyrannofex as well. Mine can't seem to hit the brood side of the barn.

Are you going to be at Adepticon?

Reecius wrote:Ogryns are looking more and more appealing for my Guard. I use them for fun and they always perfrom well against other for fun lists, but against things like Mawlocs, Gants and Tervigons they are actually a really good counter.

Just keep them far, far away from Swarmlord

Mosg wrote:So, Shep, would you say that between the same core you'd take the Trygons+Mawloc over the T-Fexes?

Way too early to tell... Thats what I'm doing for the next set of games... I kitbashed two tervigons and to be honest I need a break before i start working on t-fexes. If it works out that thetrygons are as good or better, then I saved myself some headache.

Mahu wrote:I had almost written off the Tyrgons (and variants) after lack luster performance in playtesting, though I think you stumbled on their true synergy.

Lets hope so... I need to figure out if I can survive going second against that same IG army. I might need to hold the trygons and possibly even the mawloc in reserve (since vendettas can reach just about anywhere with that scout move) In my games against land raider marines I seem to always wish my tyrannofexes were trygons, but against typhoon and predator based marines I am certain i will miss my rupture cannon.

Mahu wrote:I myself has started dropping the Tyrannofex as well. Mine can't seem to hit the brood side of the barn.

I'm sure you aren't letting some statistical clumping cloud your view of the gun. I have found that it is an excellent shot for these targets... Hammerhead, typhoon, vendetta, predator, vendettas, hydras, manticores, fire prisms... basically every light weight, fast long range tank that will have its butt firmly placed at the table edge. What the rupture cannon does not do consistently is kill land raiders or leman russes. Your best bet on those might be to just get some CC going on them with MCs.

Mahu wrote:Are you going to be at Adepticon?

Adepticon is on my bucket list... but i haven't been able to make it yet, and it might be a while before i figure out how to get there. How do you guys travel with your armies? Do you carry them on the plane? Do you ship them ahead of time?

I'm bringing mine on. You can take two bags so I'm bringing my large Sabol case as well as a standard Sabol army transport case. When Battlefoam releases the 720 I'll probably pick one up to use as my airtravel bag.

I'm sure you aren't letting some statistical clumping cloud your view of the gun. I have found that it is an excellent shot for these targets... Hammerhead, typhoon, vendetta, predator, vendettas, hydras, manticores, fire prisms... basically every light weight, fast long range tank that will have its butt firmly placed at the table edge. What the rupture cannon does not do consistently is kill land raiders or leman russes. Your best bet on those might be to just get some CC going on them with MCs.

I agree, and I am not writting them off. Maybe you have to play a few games without something to learn the value of said thing. Hopefully I can put together another Battle Report this week. We start testing for adepticon.

Adepticon is on my bucket list... but i haven't been able to make it yet, and it might be a while before i figure out how to get there. How do you guys travel with your armies? Do you carry them on the plane? Do you ship them ahead of time?

This year, I am road tripping with a few friends. In past years though, I have just taken my Sabol Bag in as a carry on and checked the baggage with my clothes. It is interesting to say the least getting an army past security, but more often then not, they won't give you issues and you are sure not to loose anything.

What area do you hail from? All you need is a way there and a few days free

Anybody tried units of Lictors or Ymgarl stealers yet? Strikes me that those could be a very good firefighting sort of unit.

How are finding dawn of war deployments for the nids, especially without the tyrannofex's. I played a 1750 game against my buddy Dan running a similar list to yours (the 2 trygon version) in a DoW game last night with my marines and it was such an uphill battle for him as his hive guard couldnt get in range to shoot anything till turn 3-4

How are finding dawn of war deployments for the nids, especially without the tyrannofex's. I played a 1750 game against my buddy Dan running a similar list to yours (the 2 trygon version) in a DoW game last night with my marines and it was such an uphill battle for him as his hive guard couldnt get in range to shoot anything till turn 3-4

I am curious also. Dawn of war is a big reason why I am hesitant to rely on MCs and hivguard for anti-tank. Only test game I have gotten with the new rules was dawn of war and the 2 t-fexes were money. The hive guard couldn't do much until mid game and even then only had non-vehicle targets to engage.

It seems like all the abilities for Tyranids to Deep Strike or Outflank pay off in Dawn of War.

Just keep them far, far away from Swarmlord

Haha, very true!

Anybody tried units of Lictors or Ymgarl stealers yet? Strikes me that those could be a very good firefighting sort of unit.

Ymgarl stealers look like they could be amazing, but they just compete with such vital units. Hive guard and Zoeys (IMO) are really essential to a list. The stealers and lichtors seem like they are great but don't do anything other entries in the list can also do. Elites contains the best ranged anti tank units, and those are essential for Bugs.

Khornatedemon wrote:How are finding dawn of war deployments for the nids, especially without the tyrannofex's. I played a 1750 game against my buddy Dan running a similar list to yours (the 2 trygon version) in a DoW game last night with my marines and it was such an uphill battle for him as his hive guard couldnt get in range to shoot anything till turn 3-4

winterman wrote:Dawn of war is a big reason why I am hesitant to rely on MCs and hivguard for anti-tank. Only test game I have gotten with the new rules was dawn of war and the 2 t-fexes were money. The hive guard couldn't do much until mid game and even then only had non-vehicle targets to engage.

Nurglitch wrote:It seems like all the abilities for Tyranids to Deep Strike or Outflank pay off in Dawn of War.

The list I am offering up does indeed eat it a little bit on dawn of war. The only good thing about dawn of war is the shortened game length. In an objectives, playing a 4 turn game would probably help nids. dawn of war annihilation would probably be a disaster without t-fexes.

Like Nurglitch mentioned, you'll just have to deep strike with the heavies, come down in the right spots so you can't get ruined too hard by massed special weapons, its possible that my last 230 points could be spent on a significant amount of toxin stealers, not so much for pitched battle but more for spearhead and dawn of war. If you bring them on withthe twin-linked outflank roll in a line, you can protect trygons from bad scatters a little more, and crash a flank a lot better.

Dawn of war just looks really bad, make no mistake, but I think you just bite the bullet and deep strike, hope for some good run rolls on the hive guard, crash a flank and do nothing with swarmlord at all. I'll request a dawn of war for my next test game and see if i find anything else that might help us there. If the alternative is to not take hive guard, or to take podding thropes, I'd rather just have the disadvantage in dawn of war... hive guard are too good to pass on in both spearhead and pitched. As to the tyrannofex edging out the three big guys... that is definietly a possibility, I am holding out as long as I can though. I don't need another "shoot first" army. I have IG, tau and ultramarines.

Your 230 points could be spent on ymgarl stealers. I know they have a bad rep, but if you are saturating their lines with heavies it makes sense to get a couple of your opponents shooty units in cc before they can open fire. Or use them to open up transports and surround the exit points. Or stop that pesky PF from charging your mawloc.

Not trying to steal your thread but I have had great experience with saturating enemy lines with DSing stuff and using the stealers to tie up a hard unit and a winged tyrant to reduce BS on another.

Of course in my local meta only 1 player runs full mech (eldar) and he had trouble dealing with my trygons (though he did avoid them quite well). I have yet to have a go against IG but I'm optimistic. I'm learning to use the synergy of the list and the rewards are being reaped.

Shep-

If you have some free time, are you up for a game or 2 on Friday (Feb 12th)? I would like to get a little practice against the bugs before the Broadside Bash.

If not, maybe we can get in a game on Presidents Day or Tues?

Shep,
Spearhead deployment and the table quarters victory conditions really--almost perfectly--suited that Ork list. Why not deploy heavy reserves in this case and come in on the long table edges after the ork battlewagons and kans are bit more dispersed?

Blackmoor wrote:Shep-

If you have some free time, are you up for a game or 2 on Friday (Feb 12th)? I would like to get a little practice against the bugs before the Broadside Bash.

If not, maybe we can get in a game on Presidents Day or Tues?

friday would be cool after work... gimme a call next week, if you lost my # PM me

Shep, Really enjoy the updated list, the dual Trygons, are something of a scare factor for myself, as to the fact taht i have already fought one trygon with regenerate and it totaled a whole 8 wounds, an 8 wound Trygon, when it gets down to 4 wounds Regenerate becomes very good, but really enjoyed the list, would love to see more of your lists and battle reports great read.

Well it looks like hitting the enemy line hard and fast can work after all. I think two Trygons is about right. Anyways Shep it's great to hear you are making some significant strides with your army list design and tactics.

G

I think that nids NEED both speed and deployment options to work. A traditional line up and shoot/charge nid army is asking to lose every game.

If your still looking to fill 230 points, I would run 3 zoans in a cluster spine pod. Gives more anti tank, gives some backfield support if needed, synapse, and the pod actually makes a good objective contester considering the enemy loses vital s8 shooting to take it out.

I also have stuck a pod right in front of heavy shooting tanks, making the enemy have to kill the pod if they want to do anything with their tank. It can be a very good diversionary unit in that case.

As for your list, I am still trying to figure out how you run your trygons. Do you always intend to start them on the board? (except for games when deepstrike is obvious) I never considered a footslooging trygon before, I would take a second tyrant with a single guard instead. Costs a bit more, but has the same wounds, and will pretty much always get a cover save--and also grants bubble preferred enemy to BOTH the tervigons, and gives the option to outflank with a tervigon.

That said, I also made the decision to run toxin stealers in place of trygons for my army (though I only got 2 test games in so far). Any thoughts about adding a small 'stealer shock force in place of the trygon shock force? You said yourself the trygons dont get stuck in till turn 3 at the earliest, well 'stealers can almost guarentee assault on turn 2, and with infiltrate can almost always start in cover. They lose some anti-land raider ability, but I think they wreck transports pretty well.

Personal experience has shown me that eldar farseers shut down zoanthropes. Heck, even hoods can do the job, so it might be worth looking into deathleaper.

Of course if you aren't using tyrannofexes it can completely change the synergy of your list so you may have to fill other potential gaps that show themselves.

40kenthusiast wrote:Anybody tried units of Lictors or Ymgarl stealers yet? Strikes me that those could be a very good firefighting sort of unit.

I've used Ymgarls a few times. The text book example was in a game against Tau. One reason to take them was because I play a genestealer cultist army using the tyranid rules, so I really wanted some elite stealers. Another good reason was because I havn't aquired or modded many new models since the new list came, so I only have 3 zoanthropes to fill my elite slots with. However, I managed to make good use of the Ymgarls by dorming them in a piece of terrain that was quite far from where my main assault force was. So two Hammerheads were sitting nearby taking pot shots at my tervigon, feeling safe far away from my dangerous stuff. They got charged and destroyed. I was then (after consolidating behind one of the wrecks) pretty much safe from the bulk of his armys firepower for the next turn. And I had made sure there was a pretty big area of his tablehalf where he suddenly did not want to retreat his battle suits to. They kept their heads down for a turn to keep threatening the possible retreat zone, and then rushed to disrupt an objective holder.

They doesn't always work that good, but most of the time that I bring them they cause my opponent some worries because it is sort of her/his resposibility to avoid them, and I like to play mindgames. I expect them to do a one shot hit to destroy something dangerous, and then get shot to pieces. Most games they do this, some games I just get frustrated by them being so much less flexible than a drop pod, and they end up running for a round then getting shot up.

Mind you, my local meta is not very competitive. There are skilled players indeed, but we prefer some flavour and story to our games. And I don't really have to expect heavily mechanised armies, so I get by OK with only a squad of Zoeys, a squad of Ymgarls and some MCs as anti tank.

(sorry for the thread-steal...)

Khornatedemon wrote:How are finding dawn of war deployments for the nids, especially without the tyrannofex's. I played a 1750 game against my buddy Dan running a similar list to yours (the 2 trygon version) in a DoW game last night with my marines and it was such an uphill battle for him as his hive guard couldnt get in range to shoot anything till turn 3-4

winterman wrote:I am curious also. Dawn of war is a big reason why I am hesitant to rely on MCs and hivguard for anti-tank. Only test game I have gotten with the new rules was dawn of war and the 2 t-fexes were money. The hive guard couldn't do much until mid game and even then only had non-vehicle targets to engage.

Oh boy did i take a beating from IG this weekend when they went first. It was so bad that I am rethinking a few things. I might completely give up a loss to every guard player that i cant seize the initiative against. Or I might have to bring back the t-fex. Also, every guard army I have written in the last 3 months can consistently kill 6 hive guard that haven't been catalysted yet. in fact, at 2k points any guard army can kill 6 hive guard AND take a full 6 wounds off of an MC in a single round of shooting! The fact that after your hive guard are wiped, a slow moving nid army has to move and run and then take that firepower AGAIN is too much. Manimal tabled me in 2.5 turns, I had the honor of killing one suicidal CCS before I was tabled. I'll talk more about that game down a bit further.

I grappled the shoggoth wrote:I think that nids NEED both speed and deployment options to work. A traditional line up and shoot/charge nid army is asking to lose every game.

Well, as of yesterday... forget the alternate deployment options. INAT has done the predictable, and pretty much shut down another armies capability of starting completely off-table. Hive commander doesnt stack and doesnt work when off-table. So prepare to have either a hive tyrant or swarmlord deployed on table if you want to use any mycetic spores... and against IG, that means there is a target on table. if thats all you put down that was a threat, he'll be dead long before you get his +1 anyway. The single option presented to nids when versing a gunline is to target saturate. No sense reserving a trygon if you've already got 6 hive guard, two tervigons and a swarmlord on table. Just set him up with the rest and get that guaranteed turn 3 charge. Same would go with a dakka fex. Just get those shots going on turn 2 at the front armor rather than waiting for reserves to show up. Even zoanthropes more consistently get a turn 2 shot when deployed on table. Now they might be a high enough priority target to pod... but the concept still stands...

But some good news from INAT... They just put the swarmlord into the top slot of CC uberness... I'll be building around him unless GW contradicts their ruling...


Ok, so... that "IG going first" game... like i was saying earlier, if you don't go first, you don't have hive guard. That might be ok if you've got a plethora of other stuff thats going to be punishing vehicles on the bottom of turn 1. But our only real options there are the venom cannon and the rupture cannon, and both versions of the venom cannon are terribad. The t-fex has the very useful and respectable rupture cannons, and is also packing a template weapon and a large blast weapon in a really hard to kill package. I am currently pretty sure that i want three t-fexes if i feel like I'll be facing maximum overdrive, IG, witch hunters tau or any other gunline. All those armies can 'peace out' the hive guard with no problems thanks to the plethora of autocannons or missile launchers they have access to.

As i was mulling over what to do to get even a 30/70 matchup against gunlines when i lose first turn, I came up with two ways to go...

The first way, is just to ratchet up the resilience factor even more... Ditch hive guard for a third t-fex, bring in venomthropes and possibly switch into a single pod full of zoanthropes if needed. Something like this at 2k points has already held up better against top of one shooting from IG on paper...

swarmlord
3x tyrant guard with boneswords
venomthrope
venomthrope
venomthrope
tervigon with crushing claws adrenal glands toxin sacs and catalyst
tervigon with crushing claws adrenal glands toxin sacs and catalyst
10x termagants
10x termagants
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines

Remember if you don't have the table time versus nids that the t-fexes aren't hammerheads, they deploy on the line of scrimmage with all the other MCs and they are coming at you. The only difference between going against a gunline and going against an aggressive army is that they will have a termagant screen against the aggressive army... against the gunline the tervigons will save gants for charges.

The other way to go against a gunline i have been mulling over is to just crash the lines with EVERYTHING on turn 2. Go with more fragile models, try to stay completely immune to missile launchers and autocannons, and overload the typical anti-mech load-outs...

parasite of mortrex
10x genestealers
10x genestealers
10x genestealers
10x genestealers
10x genestealers
10x genestealers
25x gargoyles with adrenal glands and toxin sacs
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines

Gargoyles leap over infiltrating genestealers on bottom of one and give them cover as they move forward, and the t-fexes get 6 strength 10 shots. Next turn, there are probably four more strength 10 shots coming... plus a potential 7 charges, 6 of which will wreck any armor 10 rear vehicle that didn't move cruising speed.

Problem with this list over the other list, is that I have no idea how it will do against an opponent that actually wants to mix it up with you. No matter who you fight, you have a lot of hard hitting CC in both lists. But the first list has a deathstar, the second one will have some problems versus elite CC...

So what do you guys think... just give up the bad matchups to gunlines? Or build for that matchup and then test against demons and land raiders after i found something that gets some respect versus IG?

Nids rip demons apart from my experience. Watch out for tallyman though, he can give you all kinds of fits. Kills off a gaunt squad and something else and suddenly your trygon just got spanked by 6 plague bearers.

Question?

Why give the Hive Guard Boneswords? There's the Power Weapon effect, but doesn't the Swarmlord already have that? Wouldn't you be better served by Lashwhips?

Can't argue about IG. As I said before, what Rob Baer's mech IG gunline did to my army at the Cabin Fever tourney was just indecent. Five HG and my Zoeys were dead almost instantly, and that pretty much sealed the game. I coulda done a few things better and my army could have included a better mix with more prep time, but really I was absolutely trumped if I faced him and he and I even joked about that on the previous day.

I'm gonna add in some deployment flexibility for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (I had very little for Cabin Fever), but realistically it's not going to make a difference against a tuned IG army run by a good player with the right targeting priority.

So in the short-term, I'm gonna concede some beatdowns to IG. My attempt to crack the gunline nut will be a long-term thing. I think your line crash list is a good attempt, given the VERY disappointing INAT rulings regarding reserves. I think you'd certainly have to "general" your way around certain other matchups, but at least you're trying to give the IG player a game. Disembarked flamers will be painful, but at least you'd have the eggs cracked.

Nurglitch wrote:Question?

Why give the Hive Guard Boneswords? There's the Power Weapon effect, but doesn't the Swarmlord already have that? Wouldn't you be better served by Lashwhips?

It's really a byproduct from the "upgrade character" ruling by INAT. Just to refresh... they ruled that the swarmlord can join and leave the unit freely as if he was an independent character... but while joined, he is not independently targetable. So this means i am free to siphon off a controlled flow of power weapon wounds or thunderhammer wounds that would normally be hitting the tyrant guard, and take 4+ invulns against them. I wouldnt risk taking them all, but i can keep tyrant guard in the fight longer, survive the initiative five attacks and then unleash some very high quality attacks.

Another element as to why i chose that, is that you have to keep in mind the difference in the tyrant and guard interaction. I think so many people are used to the tyrant and guard being glued together at the hip that they forget that the tyrant guard is a completely self-sufficient unit. When not facing enemy deathstars, doing a saucer separation with the unit and taking on two enemy units rather than smashing a 505 point unit into a rhino is going to be the best way to keep them out of the points sink catagory...

When looking at it this way, i decided to ask myself, would i pay 195 points for a unit of three T6 2 wound models with lash whips and rending claws? probably not. Would i pay 225 for that same unit with power weapons that could potentially cause instant death (certainly a threat to nobs and thunderwolf cavalry). I think I would.

Not to say that lash whips aren't a good choice when points are short... its just that if I did want the option to make it two units, I definitely pony up for power weapons.

I like your lists and your will to thwart IG guns lines. With all those Initiative 1 MC's - I would feel compelled to include a Deathleaper?

Something like this:

Swarmlord
3x tyrant guard with boneswords
1x venomthrope
1x Deathleaper
3x Zoanthropes in pod
1x tervigon with crushing claws adrenal glands toxin sacs and catalyst
1x tervigon with crushing claws adrenal glands toxin sacs and catalyst
10x termagants
10x termagants
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines

kaiservonhugal wrote:I like your lists and your will to thwart IG guns lines. With all those Initiative 1 MC's - I would feel compelled to include a Deathleaper?

Something like this:

Swarmlord
3x tyrant guard with boneswords
1x venomthrope
1x Deathleaper
3x Zoanthropes in pod
1x tervigon with crushing claws adrenal glands toxin sacs and catalyst
1x tervigon with crushing claws adrenal glands toxin sacs and catalyst
10x termagants
10x termagants
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines
tyrannofex with rupture cannon and cluster spines

I like your list... I'm not in the pro-deathleaper camp, though. It'll take a LOT to sell me on him. If he hard-countered Jaws i'd consider it, but he lowers its pass rate by a mere 8% 33% of the time, and even when you win the lottery and get the -3, the rune priest still has a 55% percent chance to pass. The rest of that 140 points you bought on death leaper just does nothing... I've been aggressive with him, I've been careful with him. At some point, he is going to have to get close to something if you want to get some use out of him, and right after he does get close, he gets taken out. At least in each of the half dozen games I've played with or against him in.

Your zoanthrope swap for a t-fex is not a bad call. I could see that being a possibility. Right now I need to see exactly how good the t-fex is, and if i want the one shot wad-buster zoanthropes, or if the re-usable consistant survivability of the t-fex is the better investment.

My opponents are gaming the zoanthropes even more than before just by charging them in CC. One would hope you'd draw some heavy weapons fire after landing in order to justify how close you were on arrival, but the smart players are just not even wasting a single bullet and just charging with a combat squad. Marines have 3+ invulnerables too when fighting zoans. if i can't get over to support the lone zoanthrope unit, that might have just shot into a KFF or smoke based cover save, or might have been hooded/rune weaponed to oblivion, then they aren't going to put up the same score by end of game that a t-fex would have gotten.

Those are just my reasons why i wouldn't go that route. not reasons why the list you suggested isn't a good one.