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I've envisioned dropping the 3 lictors along a flank, just behind Gargoyles or Raveners as those units move up. It gives the Lictors cover from most shooting and helps to overload one side of the table vs. the enemy. The Lictors don't always need to shoot their fleshhooks when they come in. The possibility of getting all those str 6 rending attacks into the mech lines is to nice. Drop the Lictors behind a Trygon if nned be. They don't always need to be placed into true cover to be effective.

Lash of Submission is the psychic power bugs should fear the most. It will move Gant screens away from the Tervigons and send the wrong bugs into the teeth of Oblit plasmacannons or Berzerker charges. The Deathleaper can help in that regard, but most Chaos lash lists run 2 HQ's with lash.

But one little str8 pie would remove so many points-worth of warriors on 2's.

If it hits, it's killing three Warriors, if you have no cover. Not really That bad.

You don't need to drop the Warriors into the teeth of a str 8 pie plate. They also get a chance to run after the drop don't they? That can help mitigate the potential damage. I really don't see to many Guard Russ' anymore. We're talking about Medusa's and marine vindicators as the biggest threat to insta-kill the Warriors. Two units deep striking Lictors can help shut down for a turn.

Bugs have another psychic defense and they can spread it around - it's Shadow in the Warp. Sure it's the same range as rapid firing but if you spread synaspse throughout your rank and file it's going to help. You can field a lot of synapse creatures with the new codex and even go so far as to build a list that has no units with instinctive behavior... That might be going a bit overboard but then again maybe not. Not having to worry about rolling for instinctive behavior in the latter stages of the game could be the difference between a win and a loss.

Anyways back to a squad of three lictors versus just fielding the Deathleaper... Sure three lictors has some things going for it. What I like about the Deathleaper is versus some opponents it's going to get in their heads and they'll worry about it, which could lead to second guessing. The same can be said about three lictors but the Deathleaper is better at it since he can yoyo on and off the table. Sly Marbo is another unit that gets inside people's heads and makes them worry. Lictors in general can make it very hard for an opponent to shoot them and if they overfocus, shooting a lot at the lictor(s) with low odd of success then they aren't shooting at your other units. I will mainly field the Deathleaper for the psychic defense and because I think he is a great counter to IG in general. Psychology can and should be a big part of the game.

G

See, once I start going reserve-heavy, I feel like I'm gonna be dropping Shadow all over them anyway. Deathleaper might make more sense in a sloggy army that can't bring Shadow into play quickly, but then I get concerned that it doesn't synergize well otherwise. Although I suppose "Where'd it go" makes it harder to come to grips with than your ordinary lone deep striker in a sloggy army.

I've found Gargoyles are golden as a moving screen at the very least. Their visual profile provides lots of LOS blockage and their speed prevents them from slowing up the rest of your slogging stuff. The latter was an eternal annoyance with 3rd and 4th ed swarms. Too often your front stuff rolled the "1" on the fleet roll while your second or third rank rolled the "6".

I would like to know why people are advocating the tyrannofexes. I understand that it's a S10 shot (x2) at long range. I also understand that zoanthropes are decidedly vulnerable to psychic hoods (though mitigated somewhat by deathleaper) and that hive guard have issues with range, therefore making the tyrannofex look optimal.

In my line of thinking why not take 2 or 3 trygon primes along with 2x3 zoanthropes and deathleaper. TBH it's not the tanks that scare me. 1 large pie plate or 2 doesn't make much difference to a 6 wound model. It's the transports containing double tap plasma once I DS in. Zoanthropes can open up the transports then the primes unleash 12 S5 shots into the hapless unit...each. In my 2k list I also include a tyrant and 3 biovores for the +1 to reserves and more long range troop killing. There's a lot of extra buffs of course that can be used. Give the tyrant wings then DS in and give BS1 to those heavy weapons/special weapons. Outflank a tervigon and he can hopefully give FnP to protect against massed infantry fire if there's a blob of infantry of multiple MLs.

And remember that zoanthropes are quite resilient with the 3++. It's not easy to take out 18 MC wounds as well as 6 3++ save units in 1 turn, which is pretty much all you will have.

Just my 2cents.

You need something to take out or threaten LRs before turn 2.

It's going to be hard for most armies to take out landraiders before the second turn and impossible if they start in reserve. I know people are scared to death of armies featuring 2+ landraiders but really how often do you really see them? They are out there that is for sure though.

G

If you're whole army is in reserve (or at least the majority I don't see the need to deal with the landraiders so quickly. You can avoid where they come on with the stuff that can't scratch it. The stuff that can takes it out (zoanthropes), then you open fire with pretty much everything at the contents, as well as reducing their WS and BS to 1. That uber unit of termies isn't looking so great now.

I should be testing my 2k list next week to see how it plays out. Currently the biggest weakness I see is dice rolls. If you don't roll majority 3+ for reserves first turn for several key units your other stuff gets hammered. Will get a better feel for the other weaknesses once it's on the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oops. Second turn, not first.

Gornall wrote:I've been following this thread closely and have a couple of thoughts:


Like GBF, I think an "in-your-face" reserve list ala demons might be the best bet. The problem is trying to make sure they don't come in piecemeal. I was thinking that maybe stacking a Hive Tyrant with Swarmlord might be a useful (if expensive combo) as they use different rules to modify the reserve roll, making it stack. Further, Swarmlord allows you to reroll outflanking rolls which could help. Probably prohibitively expensive, but it's an idea I've been bouncing around.

Per the Codex, two regular Hive Tyrants with Hive Commander stack their +1 to reserves for a +2 total and each allows a seperate unit to outflank.

Green Blow Fly wrote:It's going to be hard for most armies to take out landraiders before the second turn and impossible if they start in reserve. I know people are scared to death of armies featuring 2+ landraiders but really how often do you really see them? They are out there that is for sure though.

G

I guess I'm the monster under the tale, then
I play 2 Raider CSM as my primary army, and I've gotta say that against 2 T-fex I'll reserve up and wait for Termicide to hit them (kill one, wound the other) before putting Raiders on the table and bombing for the Tervigons and gaunts. I just can't run the very decent risk (~1/3) of one of my Zerk squads getting dumped out on the table turn 1 or 2. I'd much rather have Zoans drop and kill my Raiders than have Zoans dropping templates on my exposed Zerks (along with getting Gaunt mobbed, Paroxysmed, etc. ).

And it's much better to make Raiders start in reserve than having them spending a couple turns shooting MCs for the Nid player.

Boy did I have an awesome weekend. I played 5 games with the new nid codex. Three against and two with. Manimal just came over and we spent a sunday beating up the codex with some very mean unfriendly armies.

First, a disclaimer. We weren't playing a fluff campaign, we weren't making up our own missions, we weren't playing cooperatively. We were playing 'best general' style tourney play. There are some really cool really fun units in the codex, but unfortunately with Nids, there has proven to be only one functional archetype when facing nasty mech lists. If your neighborhood isn't as cut-throat as mine, you'll likely think I'm overstating certain things. And if you aren't a tourney guy, then just go buy whatever suits you. All units in the nid dex have synergy, but when you are facing either 2+ land raiders filled with thunderhammer terminators or 12+ armor 12 shooty vehicles with IG, you just can't take anything but anti-armor.

And no, close combat did not work out for armor kill. We tried it 3 times, I was piloting the list once, yes we were careful, yes we tried to get cover, and no, we weren't able to not get tabled with a pure CC army.

Ok, in case you want to see the lists... here were the 'control' lists...

librarian null zone avenger
6x THSS terms
6x THSS terms
10x marines flamer missile rhino
10x marines flamer missile rhino
2x MM attack bikes
2x MM attack bikes
land raider crusader with multi melta and extra armor
land raider crusader with multi melta and extra armor

and

CCS with 4x melta astropath and fleet officer in chimera with heavy flamer
10x PBS in chimera with heavy flamer
PCS 4x flamer chimera with heavy flamer
infantry squad heavy bolter chimera with heavy flamer
infantry squad heavy bolter chimera with heavy flamer
HWS autocannons
HWS autocannons
veterans 3x melta chimera with heavy flamer
vendetta with heavy bolters
vendetta with heavy bolters
vendetta with heavy bolters
manticore
manticore


They might not be your favorite build types, but its not really up for discussion whether or not they are "hard" lists, IMO.

Ok, Manimal and I were testing two distinct types of nid list. One of them worked. After it got tweaked it immediately was competitive, and the other was un-workable and scrapped.

Every workable list concept we conceived by the end of the testing started with this 830 point core.

3x hive guard
3x hive guard
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
tyrranofex with rupture cannon

If you are a tourney player, and you use army builder, just create a file with those four units on it and save it as "tourney list template".

Look, I wish it wasn't true, We tried 9 zoans, we tried 6 zoans and deathleaper, competent mechanized opponents will trade you a transport for each zoan unit you put down. You have 2 units or 3, they have 12.

Ok, I can't really batrep the games but I'll tell you how our winning list actually outshot IG, and how the gant farm engine completely shut down two land raiders full of space marines.

Here is the list that actually outshot IG.

3x hive guard
3x hive guard
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
3x zoanthropes
tervigon adrenal glands toxin sacs crushing claws catalyst
tervigon adrenal glands toxin sacs crushing claws catalyst
30x termagants
30x termagants

I was playing IG at the time, and here is what happened. Turn 1 I attempted to kill a t-fex. I know that once my vendettas are dead, my chance of killing a t-fex drops to zero. Catalyst gets put on hive guard, and go. I put some wounds on a tyrranofex with vendettas, I lose a vendetta. Turn 2, I almost finish off a tyrranofex and lose another vendetta. Turn 3 one t-fex dead, all vendettas dead. Ok, you know what wasn't fun during that time? Shooting at coversave having FNP hive guard with multi-lasers and autocannons. The wounds I was able to cause on them from "fire on my target' HWS were the only ones that seemed to stick. They can handle ALL KINDS of IG shooting. My manticores were dry on turn 4, all vendettas dead, and I was looking at a fresh T-fex, and a unit of 1 hive guard and a unit of 2 hive guard. The game was about to get late. I had a firm grip on one objective, the nids clearly had two, and a mass of gants were moving up, screening a tervigon into midfield. My CCS with meltas and my vets with meltas were going to be trying their hardest to drop the tervigon after I burn away the gants, but there were way too many fearless models in play, and my second objective was easily blocked.

To make it clear, nids don't outshoot IG shooting on a turn by turn basis... they outshoot IG armies on a game by game basis. It was close, and with the addition of more lascannons I could easily make it a game, and dice can always fall differently, but understand that the core that I posted was vital to that win.

When that same IG army faced my "all drop" army with 3 trygons, 15 raveners with deathspitters and 10x warriors with deathspitters plus tyranid prime. It was an absolute embarrassment. Turn 2 two trygons showed up as did a 5 model ravener brood. The trygon and raveners both got amazingly lucky and killed a chimera each on their turn of shooting. Then I said go. Two WHOLE trygons and an entire 5 man ravener unit were handed back to me before IG turn was over. Nothing weird about the dice either. its just... like that.

Ok, what about marines you say? Well, that same list that won the test game against IG went up against marines twice. Since I had already played the gant farm engine against marines before, I knew exactly how to trip up manimal in the first mission. Marines ended up winning on kill points. Later on in the day we played it again. Although the t-fexes were unable to kill off my land raiders, I was unable to get a clear tank shock past the gant screen. In previous games with land raiders, the land raider is able to casually unload full salvoes into gants until you finally outstrip the engine, then you are free and clear to charge a tervigon or t-fex and end the game. With two t-fexes and potentially a zoanthrope unit, you are on a clock. It might be a while, but every turn there is a chance that your land raider is popped. That means you have to make a move early, which also means you are probably going to have to charge something you don't want to charge. In the case of the second game, I had two choices... get out with both termies and charge one 20 man gant unit, easily exploding it and then receiving a charge from the other 20 man unit and two freshly created gant units... or splitting my charge each unit taking on a separate gant unit, hopefully winning with both, then hopefully the tervigons both get bad rolls and doubles to boot.... I chose the latter, and ultimately, was never able to get back into the land raiders. I ALMOST killed a t-fex with my bikes and land raiders before I lost the bikes, and then one of my MMs got blown off of my other land raider, and my tac squads just got controlled at that point. The nids didn't have to catcth them, they just had to head to objectives. Tac squads are no match even on a lucky day to a fresh crushing claw tervigon.

Something for all budding tervigon players to learn right now.... trust me on this one. Do NOT make babies just because you can. You need to have the threat of a fresh unit ready for an emergency situation. In the first test game, manimal was just trying to poop out an intimidating model count. I wasn't intimidated, because i've seen the gag before. So he had this ridiculous crush of models that he didn't need in front of his tervigons. Now he wasn't able to move the tervigons where he wanted, and he doubled out on both tervies. With the knowledge that he can't make more, I was able to know exactly where each termagant unit was going to be. I received a crappy charge from a termagant unit, and after winngin it, there was a wide open lane to a tervigon for my thunderhammer termies. The next time around, Manimal didn't make anything until he needed it. With 60 gants in play, he had plenty of depth to block all land raider doors post tank shock. After I made my play for his tervigon, I switched and unloaded on his gant unit, and also moved up two tac squad flamers and my avenger librarian was lurking as well. Manimal can count, and he can see that I have enough template to clear a tervigon charge lane next turn, and so then and only hen did he make a unit. It was good too because he doubled out after making it. He re-sealed off his MCs and i was out another turn, or forced to charge something i don't want to charge. Use progenitor as a defense mechanism. Not as a way to make an unusable and unwieldy amount of guardsmen.

Ok, one more bit about the hive tyrant, and i feel really sad saying this. Preferred enemy is a fantastic bubble option, and the stranglethorn cannon is a passable weapon option for a preferred enemy engine, but at his cost, the tyrant needs to be a passable counter-cc unit. He certainly is in casual games, but the sad truth is taht in cut-throat tourney lists, the only CC units that you see at the top tables are absolute face rapers. Thunderwolf cavalry, bloodcrushers and thunder hammer terminators are the only three that really come to mind. The crappy thing about them is that they all just bounce the tyrant. He doesn't have an invulnerable save, and they all do. I know Ive been telling you guys to get the tyrant, and I hope you'll all forgive me... but he is a no-go.

There is a bright side however.... Believe it or not, swarmlord is in! His preferred enemy is both worse and better, he is unable to have a 2+ save, but he can actually ruin all of those units I mentioned. Taking down their ridiculous storm shields or 5+ invulnerables, instant deathing the thunderwolves, taking 4+ saves against their weapons, and dropping paroxysm on them makes him the ultimate counter-assaulter. Using that same shooty core I mentioned earlier, I was able to make a choppy nid list. And I kept my promise to the guys that wanted me to make hormagaunts work.

Check out the "choppy" nid army.

3x hive guard
3x hive guard
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
swarmlord
2x tyrant guard
7x genestealers with toxin sacs
25x hormagaunts with toxin sacs
25x hormagaunts with toxin sacs

Swarmlords 18" synapse bubble keeps the speedy hormies happy for longer, the genestealers show up sooner and on the side you wanted... the hive guard are still screened until they can get to table center and find cover, and the t-fexes will just be opening up transports for hormies from turn 1.

this list loses when you have that day where you just can't get a 'destroyed' result on your penetration dice, which is unfortunate. But the swarmlord is really the ultimate "sit down" unit for versing uber CC killers, and rather than preferred enemy-ing the hormies, he will likely drop furious charge on them instead so that they can use their scything talons to great effect.

25 furious charging poisoned hormagaunts kill 28 orks at initiative 6.

It seems to me that the tervigon is all that termagants really want... but hormagaunts love some hive tyrant action. the gunline wall is slow and steady zombie grind down, and the swarmlord hormie rush, while less consistent, is much more direct and quick in its killy-ness. But both versions need a minimum of transport opening capabilities, or they are sunk.

Any thoughts or questions on other unit interactions... just let me know.

Sooooo... You're saying it's a good thing I enjoyed building my first T-Fex?

Shep wrote:3x hive guard
3x hive guard
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
tyrranofex with rupture cannon

My group found this as well. We have not play tested to the extent you have however.

We also believe that death leaper is very good, but we have also thought about just having 3 zoans out there like you used.

I love the batreps shep. You have done an extremely good job and deserve a pat on the back.

Shep, were the vendettas in reserve for the ig list? If you bring down 6 zoanthropes and 2/3 trygon primes in against them I see them getting toasted when you arrive in your spod. After that the IG list looks likes it lacks low ap guns to take out the multiple MC's in their midst.

Marine list looks nasty. Null zone would most definately screw up the zoanthropes there, but still...with trygon support after they knock out the landraiders the termies are then going to be hit by 24-36 shots from the trygons. Again, without their uber units at their disposal they lack the punch to knock out the MC's running rampant through their lines.

My 2k list looks something like this. Bear in mind that it's an allcomers, but it could be tweaked to be more competitive

Tyrant
wings
Hive commander

Deathleaper

3 zoanthropes in a pod

10 gaunts

tervigon
catalyst
crushing claws

10 gaunts

tervigon
catalyst

20 gargoyles
poison, furious charge

20 gargoyles
poison, furious charge

Trygon alpha

Trygon alpha

3 biovores

The trick is to DS most of your units into their lines and obliterate the threats to the MCs. I see a couple of units in both the IG and marine lists that would need to be eliminated (IG vendettas, SM termies). Vendettas are easy enough if you use the thropes, For marines I would have to drop my gargoyles for another unit of zoanthropes. Drop both landraiders and mince the contents with the trygons. Maybe get a kill or 2. Then hit one of the terminator units with -1WS/BS and watch them crumble in assault against your trygon.

I know it relies on reserves and dice rolls can screw you, but if it works it should do wonderful things...On paper at least.


Also...I think the tyrant now is definately a support character more than anything else. He has cool stats and a load of options and abilities, but with no inv. save he just doesn't seem to cut it as the cc monster he used to be (not that he had one before...but he still seemed better).

Shep wrote:a freaking book on nids.

Well, that's a shame, but not much more than I had expected. A one-dimensional core really cripples high-level play IMO

Makes me glad I have 14 Lascannons in my upcoming Guard.

I really have to say that all the sharing of your playtesting that you do is great-it really helps those with less time and no high-level regular opponents (like me ) to get their acts in order as the meta changes.

3 Cheers for Shep!

So here's my concern... are the new nids basically equivilent to CSM where only slight variations of one basic core are viable?

That was my immediate impression as well from what Shep's saying.

At least the variations for this differ in playstyle

Actually, the new nids remind me of some descriptions of fantasy Vampire Counts. "Let me raise 500 skelletons, HA! Charge me now!!!"

only instead of zombies you are filling the field with Gaunts

Shep's core is based off extreme mech guard and dual LR TH/SS termy squads. Which is something you do sometimes see at higher tables. Though in a 5 game tournament scenario you'll see half of those nasty lists knocked out of the running in round one since most events use their version of "comp" to do the first round pair ups.

Though I appreciate what I'm seeing from Shep in his testing I doubt that I'll be running T-fex's at all. I won't say I'll never do it cause we know what happens when you say never but you'll never see me without at least 6 Hiveguard.

Gornall wrote:So here's my concern... are the new nids basically equivilent to CSM where only slight variations of one basic core are viable?

Not at all. There is hardly a unit in that codex that isn't going to see use, but in the environment Shep is playing, even one or two percent better means that you need to take that unit instead.

Shep wrote:Boy did I have an awesome weekend. I played 5 games with the new nid codex. Three against and two with. Manimal just came over and we spent a sunday beating up the codex with some very mean unfriendly armies.

Ok, one more bit about the hive tyrant, and i feel really sad saying this. Preferred enemy is a fantastic bubble option, and the stranglethorn cannon is a passable weapon option for a preferred enemy engine, but at his cost, the tyrant needs to be a passable counter-cc unit. He certainly is in casual games, but the sad truth is taht in cut-throat tourney lists, the only CC units that you see at the top tables are absolute face rapers.

There is a bright side however.... Believe it or not, swarmlord is in!

Thanks for the report. Nice to see one of the special characters made a list. I am glad I play against more casual opponents as I will be running with the Stranglethorn/Preferred Enemy Tyrant as my main HQ. Not that I think he is the best; I just want to use the models I have.

Sad to here your Drop army failed. Do you think a drop army without Monsters might work? Lots of Warriors, Zoanthropes, Gaunts & some outflanking Genestealers. Perhaps it will need a T-fex or Bioplasma Fex for anti-land raider support.

I played a game today where the key players to the game were:

Tyranid Prime with Toxin Sacs, Bonesword/LW, ST.
He kept the Warriors at WS6 BS4 and the results from that were fantastic. The Warriors themselves were Toxin + Rending + Devos and Bonesword/LW + Devos. These are really great units.

The Deathleaper is always a good buy. Zoeys are fantastic and even Carnifexes were well worth it. Take 3 Dakkafexes with Regen in a Brood and they'll dish out so much punishment it's amazing. 36 shots at S6 with re-rolls to hit makes chop liver out of MEQ.

A Hive Tyrant is pretty good too. Give him Hive Commander, Old Adversary, Strangethorn (S6 Large Blast, Pinning.. amazing..), Regen and you're good to go. Always take him with Tyrant Guard with Lash Whips to make sure everything strikes last when engaging you.

Believe it or not.. Venomthropes are really good vs assaulty armies. I was playing SW today and I ran my Ragnar list into a bunch of Nids with Venomthropes.. Wolf Howled with 3 Grey Hunters packs + Ragnar's units and did minimal damage.. (and even lost a bunch to Dangerous Terrain). I got counter-charged next turn by Tyranid Warriors and boy did it get ugly. A complete reversal to how things were supposed to go. Even taking 2 of the Venoms for 110 points total covers a TON of space on the battle field. Six inches means you only have to touch a unit and it'll give it the 5+ cover, the defensive grenades and the dangerous terrain test to all assaulters. With a 2" coherency, you can literally spread it across a 14" zone of can't touch this. I strongly suggest you guys look into this unit.

Shep while I enjoy your batreps I think it's a bit soon to define a core. I mean there are a lot of other good players out there as well as yourself. I am going in the direction of all reserve but I want to hear what other people have to say.

G

Hey Shep - Did you try out Screamer-Killers? I ask because Ill only field one Tyrannofex - Im using the Hierodule model. For the second Fex - I was going to use Screamer Killers in a pod as a substitute.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shep - for that Hormagaunt list....

How about this:

3x hive guard
3x hive guard
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
Venomthrope
Prime

265 points cheaper than the Swarmlord plus guard - the Thrope gives the Fexes cover saves. The Prime gives 3 T5 ablative wounds to them as well.

With the 265 points - add a unit of Zoanthropes for some added Synapse. 85 points left over to plus up the troop slots. Or just toss in the 3rd Tyrannofex....

Adding more chances to the Vehicle damage table may make that Hormagaunt list more reliable....

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the amount of games in with the Nidz, I would have liked. I only got 2 (well 2 and a half, but I made so many mistakes in a game I reracked half way through).

I will say one thing. Space Wolves own your mom when it comes to Tyranids. I don't know if Shep had the opportunity to play against a competitive Space Wolves list yet but, they are definitely the army that is giving me fits right now. I played a game against them yesterday and took plenty of pictures for a Batrep which I plan to have posted tonight.

Overall, I am happy with my current list, it does have some weaknesses, but works well in my local competitive environment.

In keeping with the tradition of this thread, I will do a unit by unit breakdown.

Here is my current list:

Hive Tyrant with old adversay, hive commander, paroxysm and life leech, stranglethorn cannon, lash whip and bonesword, 2+ armor = 275
3x zoanthropes in a pod = 220
Deathleaper = 140
10 termagants = 50
tervigon with catalyst, crushing claws, toxin sacs and adrenal glands = 220
9 Genestealers = 126
9 Genestealers = 126
9 Genestealers = 126
Carnifex w/ Bioplasma, Frag in a pod = 225
Carnifex w/ Bioplasma. Frag in a pod = 225
Tyrannofex w/ Rupture Cannon = 265

1. Hive Tyrant - Don't beat yourself up with this Shep, I believe he is still a strong choice. The 2+ save is huge for this guy, and I think his preferred enemy skill is better then the Swarmlord. The Stranglehorn cannon is still a little meh, but I honestly can't think of a better upgrade, as leaving him with just Scything Talons seems a waste. Both games he may have shot it twice and it did very little. But until I get more test games in, he will stay. Seriously, the 2+ save was the only thing keeping him alive and in game against the Wolves, his downfall though was a bad roll on the initiative test from a Jaws of the World Wolf. His reserves ability is a life saver as well, though the Swarmlord get that anyway.

2. Zoenthropes - I like them in a Pod. I was able to surgically strike them each game. I had trouble with my actual penetration rolls, but they work fine. And I am finding them, plus a Tyrannofex, plus Carnifexes in a Pod to be all the anti-tank I need.

3. Deathleaper - Really tricky to use, he dies way to easily, but then again I may still be doing stupid things with it. I thought about him going back in reserve against the space wolves, but kept him in to mess up difficult terrain rolls when grabbing objectives was an issue, didn't stop a lone wolf from having his way with the Deathleaper though. His reduction of leadership is still the only reason you take him, but having my space wolf opponent have shadow of the warp and the deathleaper reducing the Rune Priest to leadership to 8 and still the Rune Priest being able to cast JofWW not once but twice, taking out a Tyrannofex and the Hive Tyrant (over 600 points) by turn three hurts, and hurts badly.

4. Termagaunts and Tervigon - One game I generated 33 Gaunts across 3 units. Second game she made 5 and complained to me about not doing enough around the house. I fell in love with Crushing Claws on her, thank you for that Shep. I agree, with Shep, It's necessary to have a good sized Termagaunt unit on the table by turn one, especially in Dawn of War. I made a mistake with her and didn't set up my screen properly, but the one unit of 10 Gaunt counter attacked the Logan lead Terminator squad and wiped out the Terminators on sheer number of wounds, it was fantastic. Logan eventually won the combat, but only had a single wound left.

5. Genestealers - still love them, they add a much needed CC element to my force I am finding. Their success or failure all depends in what you do with them during set up. In the my mission againt the guard in Dawn of War, I opted for them to just come in via Reserves, they where able to get in under my gaunt screen and contest hold objectives while assaulting tanks trying to get the drop on me. Tell you what, Genestealers with FNP makes Banewolfs a sad panda.

6. Carnifex - Basically, now that I look at these as suicide units, they have preformed much better for me. Against the wolfs they single handily shut down the Long Fangs firepower, which is huge against that army. Againt the Guard, they where able to tie up the flank with the most crazy on it. I still like them for what they do. Show up, drop a respectable amount of firepower, pray to live, and start taking out tanks.

7. Tyrannofex - I still like him, but he preformed horribly these past two games. Against the IG, over 6 turn he didn't hit once and against the wolves he died on turn two to JofWW. He is in for the time being, though.


So far I am happy with my performance. Considering I have played maybe 5 (?) games with the codex and only two with my current list, I think having two close draws in not necessarily bad. Both games would still have been draws if they ended on turn five, when you take into account this against an IG list that was tailored to fight against regular Adepticon winners, and a Space Wolf list that won 4 RTTs in a row, that's not bad.

The only change in my list I am contemplating is possible dropping one ot two Genestealer units and upping the Termagaunst to 20, and taking a unit of 20 Hormagaunts.

I am finding our only real answer to those crazy assault units is Gaunts. Even the Swarmlord is iffy at best, I have seen him fall to many times to Nob squads, Wolf Guard, etc. in others playtesting to consider him an option. He only has 5 attacks, that makes him "ok" against thunderhammer terminators. Problem when he comes across Powerklaw nobs in a Battle Wagon, they have plenty of ablative guys to take his hits, and then they throw 20+ powerclaw attacks at him. Logan Terminators are hard because, you are either putting our attacks at Logan and the Terminators are killing you or vice versa.

However, you take that same super unit and you put 10, 20 gaunts on them with at least Adrenal glands, and you are just forcing so many wounds on them it's not even funny. Even a regular Hive Tyrant can counter assault those units after you dragged half of them down by shear weight of bodies.

Just what I have been finding.

Green Blow Fly wrote:Shep while I enjoy your batreps I think it's a bit soon to define a core. I mean there are a lot of other good players out there as well as yourself. I am going in the direction of all reserve but I want to hear what other people have to say.

Absolutely, That's just my core for now. In sharing this stuff with you guys, I'm not trying to come off cocky. I have more faith in Robin's codex writing than I do in my list building. But I haven't been able to get anything with T4 working and the trygons haven't had a single game where I was glad I fielded them. I am counting on other people finding list combos that work, and then stealing those ideas. But until that happens, I need the no-brainer anti-tank shooting, and i'll use the easy-mode method of protecting that shooting from assault.

As soon as you or anyone else breaks mech with something other than t-fexes, zoanthropes or hive guard please let me know right away. I have been buying all sorts of nid models and i really want to make them all work.

Mahu wrote:I am finding our only real answer to those crazy assault units is Gaunts. Even the Swarmlord is iffy at best, I have seen him fall to many times to Nob squads, Wolf Guard, etc. in others playtesting to consider him an option. He only has 5 attacks, that makes him "ok" against thunderhammer terminators. Problem when he comes across Powerklaw nobs in a Battle Wagon, they have plenty of ablative guys to take his hits, and then they throw 20+ powerclaw attacks at him. Logan Terminators are hard because, you are either putting our attacks at Logan and the Terminators are killing you or vice versa.

If you put paroxysm on your target, and give yourself preferred enemy, then he may only have 5 attacks, but that is likely 4 or 5 models removed. In the case of the nobs, every nob he touches is dead. The 5+ invuln goes to crap with his bonesabres, and he instant deaths each one he wounds. They need 5s to hit him, even with a waaagh banner, and he'll cut half of those power klaws with blade parry. If there is an 800 point fresh nob biker unit that you haven't even started working on yet, then i ould hope that it would beat the swarmlord. since it costs almost triple what you paid for him. As long as any kind of hormagaunt is available you can pin some power klaws in place with charges, and then the swarmlord will be taking even less attacks.

The terminators shouldn't really be killing you in the logan set up, because you should have probably B2Bed them with some scraps like hormagaunts. Then if logan steps to you one on one, you put him to sleep maybe take a fearless wound on your hormas (or you gave them furious charge and just straight up won combat).

I'm now contemplating a picket screen on that swarmlord hormagaunt list I posted. either a 10 man hormagaunt unit or a ripper swarm. Something that will explode when charged, so that the huge hormagaunt unit can benefit from furious charge and so i can maneuver swarmlord so that he can base someone. If you have a 25 man hormie unit, and it gets charged, it is possible after defender reactions and pile-in's that the swarmlord won't have an open space to join the combat. that's dangerous.

The only reason I'm contemplating ripper swarms for this duty is that they have the lowest wound per point breakdown. Flamers are a wash, they take double wounds but have so much fewer models on so much bigger bases, instant death is slightly a problem, but hurricane bolters don't really clear them out as fast as say a 20 man termagant unit. Half as fast in fact.

Much more later, for now gotta get back to work

What I'd like you to comment on is whether you think this (the list you played)...

3x hive guard
3x hive guard
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
tyrranofex with rupture cannon
3x zoanthropes
tervigon adrenal glands toxin sacs crushing claws catalyst
tervigon adrenal glands toxin sacs crushing claws catalyst
30x termagants
30x termagants

...is a good all around tournament list, and whether you rate its chances of actually doing well? I like the list a lot, but can it beat any other types of armies than the ones you tested it against? I've said this in this very same thread before, but how does the above list deal with fast moving assault units that will be in close combat with something from turn 2 onwards, like TWC or Nob Bikers? What about Chaos Daemons, etc? I can't really see anything in the army that won't just vaporise in a single turn in close combat, and Nids don't have the benefit of being able to hide inside cheap transports for the first assault phase.

This whole thread is about experiences, and I thank you Shep for playtesting the crap out of this codex. I very much appreciate your findings.

Like I said, I think you should at least proxy a Space Wolf army to playtest against as I think they are the one codex we will have the most trouble with, and I will have a Batrep up tonight for your reading.

Jaws is a killer, and you will notice the lack of a Deathleaper almost immediately.

Here is my next test list, see how this one fairs:


Hive Tyrant w/ Bonesword-Lashwhip, Stranglehorn Cannon, Old Adversary, Hive Commander, 2+ Save, Life Leech, Paroxysm = 280
3 Zoenthropes in a Pod = 220
Deathleaper = 140
20 Termagaunts = 100
Tervigon w/ Catalyst, Crushing Claws, Adrenal Glands, Toxin = 200
20 Hormagaunts w/ Toxin = 160
9 Genestealers w/ Toxin = 153
Carnifex w/ Bioplasma, Frag in Pod = 225
Carnifex w/ Bioplasma, Frag in Pod = 225
Tyrannofex w/ Rupture Cannon, Regenerate = 295

Basically I went from 10 gaunts in my initial screen to 40. I pushed myself to put toxin on the Hormagaunts though my instinct it to keep them cheap. I put regeneration on the Tyrannofex because I did some test rolls in my first game, and he would have goten back 4 wounds if he actually had regeneration. So that may be one of those YMMV things. I can still outflank with two units if the need calls for it. And I have 2+ save Hive Tyrant and Tyrannofex to sheild the Tervigon.

Look for my report tonight, I made a few mistakes, but you will see what I am up against.