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Hey guys, played 2 1850 games today and I was rather unhappy considering my list was supposed to be "tournament competitive".
My list:
HQ
Flyrant w/dual BL devs, hive commander
Elite
3 Hive guard
9 Ymargl stealers
Troops
10 termagants
10 termagants
Tervigon w/stinger salvo, toxin sacs, three powers, crushing claws
Tervigon w/stinger salvo, toxin sacs, three powers, crushing claws
Fast Attack
20 gargoyles
Heavy Support
3 Biovores
Trygon
Trygon

The SW/SM list that worked me over....from memory, I don't know if it's exact and. Don't know wargear, but it doesn't matter.
Logan (with long fangs)
5 wolf guard with combi plasma? And 3 additional in terminator armor
5 wolf guard with a mix of combi plasma and 3 additional terminator armor
Long fangs all with multimeltas
Dreadnought with assault cannon and CCW
5 scout snipers
5 scout snipers
Thunderfire cannon
Thunderfire cannon
10 stern guard with librarian in terminator armor

So pretty straightforward....all SW enter first turn by drop pod assault...actually all infantry are in pods minus scouts, even dread was in one...Thunderfire cannons deployed well out of reach with scouts.

Mission was relic, table deployment hammer and anvil...first turn goes to the marines.

I thought, to avoid losing too many mc's first turn so I reserved both Trygons, and outflanked a Tervigon...should have probs reserved Flyrant too.

Let's just say game was over first turn. SW arrived. Thunderfire cannons killed ~ 10 of my screening gargs, then the SW murdered the tyrant, Tervigon, all the gargs.

Reserves came in piecemeal until turn 3 when Ymargls decided to join the battle. So after beginning of turn 4 I called it. Tyranid loss.

The thing that bothers me the most is this was borderline my best list for all comers and I didn't even scratch him. I think I killed 1 wolf guard and both Thunderfire cannons.

Can anyone help me understand how I am supposed to play against this type of assault? Being that I am entering a tournament in ~ 3 months I'd like a fighting chance instead of a major fail every time...

Thanks guys I appreciate the help ahead of time.

Reserving Everything was likely a tactical error, this seems like a solid list.
The TFCs would present issues, you'd have likely wanted spore pods to get troops to them asap

roxor08 wrote:
Hey guys, played 2 1850 games today and I was rather unhappy considering my list was supposed to be "tournament competitive".
My list:
HQ
Flyrant w/dual BL devs, hive commander
Elite
3 Hive guard
9 Ymargl stealers
Troops
10 termagants
10 termagants
Tervigon w/stinger salvo, toxin sacs, three powers, crushing claws
Tervigon w/stinger salvo, toxin sacs, three powers, crushing claws
Fast Attack
20 gargoyles
Heavy Support
3 Biovores
Trygon
Trygon

The SW/SM list that worked me over....from memory, I don't know if it's exact and. Don't know wargear, but it doesn't matter.
Logan (with long fangs)
5 wolf guard with combi plasma? And 3 additional in terminator armor
5 wolf guard with a mix of combi plasma and 3 additional terminator armor
Long fangs all with multimeltas
Dreadnought with assault cannon and CCW
5 scout snipers
5 scout snipers
Thunderfire cannon
Thunderfire cannon
10 stern guard with librarian in terminator armor

So pretty straightforward....all SW enter first turn by drop pod assault...actually all infantry are in pods minus scouts, even dread was in one...Thunderfire cannons deployed well out of reach with scouts.

Mission was relic, table deployment hammer and anvil...first turn goes to the marines.

I thought, to avoid losing too many mc's first turn so I reserved both Trygons, and outflanked a Tervigon...should have probs reserved Flyrant too.

Let's just say game was over first turn. SW arrived. Thunderfire cannons killed ~ 10 of my screening gargs, then the SW murdered the tyrant, Tervigon, all the gargs.

Reserves came in piecemeal until turn 3 when Ymargls decided to join the battle. So after beginning of turn 4 I called it. Tyranid loss.

The thing that bothers me the most is this was borderline my best list for all comers and I didn't even scratch him. I think I killed 1 wolf guard and both Thunderfire cannons.

Can anyone help me understand how I am supposed to play against this type of assault? Being that I am entering a tournament in ~ 3 months I'd like a fighting chance instead of a major fail every time...

Thanks guys I appreciate the help ahead of time.

It is usually preferable to reserve nothing if you can. You want to present as many targets as possible and force him to make choices. Don't piecemeal your army for him. Did he know he was playing Tyranids? Because that list does not seem good as an all comers list.........

iGuy91 Pretty much hit it on the head. Reserving a small portion of your force like that did more hindering than helping. With less stuff on the table for him to focus on, his target priority was easier to see.

And from what youve told us, the dice gods seemed to be on his side today.

Though, you had the right idea. Next time, throw your Tervigon out with outflank and make it a high priority. He'll either sink lots of points worth of shots into it, or risk it getting ugly fast.

i think if you reserved nothing at all as suggested by the others, you would have reached your own first turn with 2-3 MC still alive and he would be in charge range. you would then have been able to choose which units you needed to tie up/kill and done some serious damage as he doesnt appear to have anything to stop your MCs once they get into assault.

Aggressive pod armies can be brutal. Take what area terrain you can and hold out for the first turn. Generally most of the oomph is gone by second turn.
Don't split your forces . Place little room between what you think will be primary targets so pods can't land where they would like to

Seems to me that the OP list was builts to kill you.

5 wolf guard with combi plasma? And 3 additional in terminator armor
5 wolf guard with a mix of combi plasma and 3 additional terminator armor

?

Thunderfire cannon
Thunderfire cannon

Not going to see these items in a regular 1850 list or a comp list at that...

Tarval wrote:
Not going to see these items in a regular 1850 list or a comp list at that...

This really doesn't match my experience. I frequently field 1-2 Thunderfire Cannons in 6th edition and have found them to be quite effective in competitive play. Thunderfire Cannons were often panned in 5th edition thanks to their vulnerability, but in 6th edition they have become much harder to kill and hence far more powerful.

I'm with Kingsley,

I would be surprised if you didn't start seeing more of them, T7 ,a respectable armour save, multiple weapon profiles and a free techmarine?

Whats not to like? I'm tempted to Spam 3 of them and see what happens!

This guy did not know he was playing Nids...I know it wasn't a good matchup for me, and he is an experienced player so in those respects I was on an uphill battle already.

It was a mistake to reserve all...I see that now...I saw it as attempting to preserve my MCs but I should have thought about it more in saturation.

As far as his list, it seems legit and very powerful, even if I did have 1-2 of my MCs survive his first turn, I would have extreme difficulty killing what arrived...In everyone's experience is this something that is commonly seen in tournaments?

Maybe if I played against him again...

The only honourable thing to do now is commit ''Hari Kari''.

I only see two scoring units in that list. That's really not a good idea at 1850 pts. The Space Wolf guy, I mean.

How many drop pods are we talking about? 5? Because 2 of those have to come in as reserves.

Martel732 wrote:
I only see two scoring units in that list. That's really not a good idea at 1850 pts. The Space Wolf guy, I mean.

How many drop pods are we talking about? 5? Because 2 of those have to come in as reserves.

Yep he had his dread and the stern guard came in from reserves.

Again, I'm not taking anything away from him or his list....I haven't played competitively before and I'm trying to gauge if this is something I should expect. I am likely going to tweek this list a little more before it's final. Likely dropping the Crushing Claws on the Tervigons for either another Hive guard to make 2 broods of 2. Possibly drop the biovores for Doom because both games I played (both were drop pod lists the one not mentioned was a BA drop pod list) biovores couldn't shoot because the enemy were too close to my gants (I'd risk murdering full gant squads).

Should I even gauge these last 2 games as a "typical" Meq tournament list?

Sadly the Wolves list with Grimnar and a longfang pack of multi melta's deployed by drop pod is doing the rounds in my local gaming club.

Its not the easiest thing in the world to deal with, so I can understand the keeping the MCs off the table initially.

The sheer level of Plasma doom the army can chuck out is impressive and combined with Rune priests, they don't even get hot that often (annoyingly).

Most important thing isn't to get too bummed out about the result, the Space Wolves list you've described is a well rounded one that would do well against a spread of armies.

So there's no shame in taking one to the chin, just as long as you've taken something away from it (the reserves thing for example)

Play it again, this time with everything on the table. I would imagine you will do a lot better. Things I hate as a Nid player are people who hide in thier deployment zone and shoot me up as I close - those who drop pod in so I can batter them by turn two I am normally pretty happy about.

Use the gargoyles and gants (40 of them can take up a lot of room!) to bubble wrap the MCs so they can't get into decent plasma/melta range. Fine, they kill off your shields in a turn but then your good stuff goes to town. If you go first, then you can spread them out even further and take up even more room (spawning from both tervigons) giving them less options for an aggressive D/S. Getting those biomancy powers off before they turn up can also be extremely helpful.

Shouldn't drop pods be a major liability against *Tyranids*? I mean, you want to stay away right? I know Logan can come down and fire long fangs, but then shouldn't they just be swarmed under? This Space Wolf list seems like it has a huge alpha strike and then....... not much.

Few things:

1. The reserves thing people mentioned already, that was the big thing.

2. Bubble wrap your Tervigons/other MCs with the termagaunts. Dont forget to spread them too, although also a SM playe rmyself (and lover of all things TFC, though just 1, 2 is too many for TAC lists), if you keep 2 inch spacing between your guys the small blast can only really hit one guy at a time. So.. make use of that.

3. A good use of gargoyles is one long line in front of your nid blob. They'll die but provide cover for everything else. Dont forget they can also deep strike too! (though for the love of all that is holy, RUN afterwords, otherwise your clustering will get blown apart)

4. I still argue a flyrant is not a good leader, too easy to take down. They are amazing to have, but get a armoured shell hive tyrant with devourers. Lose the ymgarls to help pay for it .Then your flyrant can be the big flying distraction of doom that he's so good at being without worrying about giving up a warlord VP.

You bunker hard if they have pods.
give them only areas to ds that minimize their effectiveness and can maximize your effectiveness.
I would have put everything on the table that way you can wreck his day with what ever survives.
Keep the flying tyrant in reserve so he can be all flying when he comes in.

FMCs dont have to be in reserve to start out swooping (flying), they can start on the board so.

I'd like to know what you guys think of changes that I am thinking about making to the list:

HQ
Flyrant Dual-Devourers, Old adversary
Hive tyrant-Dual devourers, Hive commander, Armored shell
-1 Hive guard

Elite
DoM-Mycetic spore
x3 Zoans-Mycetic spore
x3 Zoans-Mycetic spore

Troops
10 Termagants
10 Termagants
Tervigon-Stinger salvo, Toxin sacs, all 3 powers, crushing claws
Tervigon-Stinger salvo, Toxin sacs, all 3 powers, crushing claws

Fast attack
20 Gargoyles

What I like about this list is I can absorb missiles with the armored tyrant, and if I roll Iron arm, majority toughness can be better than 6. Both Tervigons run CC for tank crushing (if necessary) but the Zoans should give me consistent high armor destruction plus they can blast any marines out of tin cans.

I've also included DoM in this list for additional worry for the opponent.

Let me know what you guys think of this one.

Do people just not use gaunts or genestealers anymore? This list doesn't seem that scary in hand to hand, especially for an army like Space Wolves.

Can the Hive Tyrant weapons pop light armor? If so, you probably won't need 6 zoanthropes. Zoanthropes are basically to kill land raiders right? Everything else you can swarm with rending claws or someting like that I think.

nearly awesome!

just.. why zoanthropes?

Better to get 3 hive guard and 3 biovores instead.

Why?

Hive guard give you some str 8 shooting that cant be really easily given a cover save too, so it helps against tanks and just ID stuff

Biovores give you barrage sniping for cheap, which is pretty key.


Martel: this list is.. balanced in CC. I mean, hive tyrants are still pretty darn scary in CC, as are tervigons, and there is a good amount of swarm (gargs after all auto wound on 6s to hit and also poison gives them 4+ wounds afterwords).


The problem with stealers is that, although they are awesome, their 5+ save and lack of assault grenades means that unless the enemy is out in the open and the stealers get the charge... they are going to die. A better save or assault grenades would make them a lot more useful, but as it stands they are just a relativly squishy shooting target.

Do gargoyles have rending claws now? If so, that's pretty nice.

So I know genestealers have never been what they were in 2nd edition. What about gaunts? I know they don't let you have a Tervigon as a troop, but what about 2 termigants, 2 gaunts, 2 tervigons?

I'd highly, highly recommend at least one squad of zoanthropes. They are you multimelta equivalent. LR's can be a real problem, and every army needs a solution. I don't see any room for the Tyrannofex, either

well, no, but if they hit on a 6 then they automatically get a wound. you get a save against the wound, but they can still generate (especially with the init 10 extra attacks) a lot of wounds.

You mean.. hormagaunts? they arnt as good as termis, mostly because termis get poison from their tervigon mommies, which makes them a lot more brutal in CC.

Hormis again suffer the problem that they are just as frail as termigaunts, but we can poop out those and we cant poop out hormis. Thus hormigaunts serve the same purpose as gargoyles (swarm that's decently scary in CC and meant to tie up units till the big boys get in), but gargoyles are much faster and thus, the way to go.

Tyrranofex's are overcosted :/

We dont really have many issues with LRs because of smash. Str 10 ap2 will chew through LRs like nobody's business, and we have what, 4 mcs for that purpose? one of which is flying? zoanthropes primary use now is for the psychic power Objurwhatever mechanicum t does a haywire hit (for anti-flyer) and generally more psychic abilities. Thus they dont really need a pod since they should be with the rest of th eswarm anndd... they're still just pretty darn squishy. They're unreliable and just not great. Doom is a rockstar, but in general hive guard are better than zoanthropes, and biovores give critical barrage sniping.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Consider this:

for 180 you get 3 zoans, 6 powers, and thus if you trade them all in you should expect to get 1 zoan with Obj Mechanicum.

So that zoan has to then pass the test (potentially tough) and be able to be in LOS of the flyer for his hit, which is most likely a glance.


Orrr.. for 150 you get 3 hive guard which dont have to have LOS, no psychic test, and you should expect 1 hit out of 6 shots. Sure the odds to glance are lower, but the odds to pen are better, and you also get 6 str 8 shots against any ground target in a pinch. And ur 30 points cheaper, more wounds, and can hide wherever you want. Not needing LOS is huggeee.

Oh, I didn't know you could make termigants poisonous. I haven't seen a Tyranid list in a long time.

It might be cost prohibitive, but the zoanthrope lance attack is still pretty nice against heavy armor, because in the cases of the LR, your monstrous critter can assault the passengers instead of the tank.

So it sounds like the kinda trash canned hormagaunts and genestealers. Kinda sad in a way.

Id suggest something like this:

HQ
Flyrant Dual-Devourers
Flyrant Dual-Devourers

Troops-
Tervigon+2powers+CC
Tervigon+2powers+CC
x10 Termies
x10 Termies

Elites-
3x Hive Guard
3x Hive Guard

Heavy-
2x DakkaFex.
or
2x Trygon.

Why dual flyrants Lord? did you read my post about the dangers of them as your warlord?

Armoured shell tyrants are great at not dying/absorbing a lot of fire/taking down whatever they need too. 1 of each!

The trick is not to put them in overwhleming danger, flanking and aiming to pick off units is what they are best used for. Don't use them like they are the Hulk

Also boosting them with Biomancy and Telekine Dome power from the Telekenisis dicipline helps survival. The idea being that between the Flyrants and the Tervigons you should have enough buffs to make a game changing impact.

If you face SW or Eldar that can create some problems for you but the list above is still very strong with shooting to not be too much of an issue.

Lists like the above example have been doing well in tournament play, most competetive builds now include double flyrant. If I went to 1850 with thi list i'd add the Doom for sure.

well,a ctually, most competative lists have had the swarmlord and a flyrant, or just the swarmlord

But I still argue for the armoured shell/flyyrant combot, either way.

Not correct Largo, There was a Tournament recently called warp quake, the list had 2 Flyrants. In all lists I've seen run at tournment level are running 2 Flyrants. The Nid list won the tourny.

One flyrant alone isn't competative since the opponent can deal with one flying target, double them up ftw.