Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

BigPig comes up to take the Tyranid Challenge against Reecius' Mighty, Mighty Footdar! This is a rematch of a game we played when Eldar came out in 6th against 5th ed Nids. That game was a barn burner and resulted in a narrow victory for the Footdar. Will this game be different?

Two games in a row the opponent makes mistakes... and still wins.

Yeah... the Tyranid Codex sure is fantastic.

*sigh*

NIce report

Great game !

@HBMC

Yeah, I screwed up BIG TIME both games against excellent, seasoned tournament Nid players and still won! Hahaha, so unfair, I deserved to lose both games.

Nids are UBER weak. You have to be a top level player, and be lucky in addition to playing a flawless game to win with Nids. =(

@Fiendus and Dozer

Thanks guys! BigPig is a pleasure to play, such a good opponent.

Hey Reecius, with all of these threads popping up lately about changing 40k and taking the game and core rules its self into the hands of the community, I would be really interested to hear what your take is on changing 40k and perhaps see what you and your crew could come up with to make a better game. Tournament and organization veterans like yourselves could likely do a better job than GW, and perhaps than what has been seen here on the forums in the proposed rule section in my opinion.

Aside from that, really good video, its always better when its a close game.

We've been talking about it a lot, lately. Such a gakky job though, right? Why the hell don't they just take game balance into consideration?

That is a task that would be chaos without strong leadership. Everyone would argue endlessly about what to do, etc. You would need a core group that sat down and got it done. I know of a lot of fixes that I could think of off the top of my head that would make a lot of codecis more balanced and they;d be very simple, too.

 Reecius wrote:
Nids are UBER weak. You have to be a top level player, and be lucky in addition to playing a flawless game to win with Nids. =(

I think what saddened me the most is how your opponent ended up in a situation where he couldn't leave that ruin. The Zoey was keeping his army together, and the Venomthropes were giving them better saves, but if he walked out or the ruin at any point then insta-lose. Tyranids are now an army that should actively avoid engagements with the enemy and wait for late game objective graps, and that's fething appalling.

It should also be noted that in the last two games the Tyranids have only had a chance of winning if the game ended then and there. Who wants to play an army where the best chance of winning is if the game ends early?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
Nids are UBER weak. You have to be a top level player, and be lucky in addition to playing a flawless game to win with Nids. =(

I think what saddened me the most is how your opponent ended up in a situation where he couldn't leave that ruin. The Zoey was keeping his army together, and the Venomthropes were giving them better saves, but if he walked out or the ruin at any point then insta-lose. Tyranids are now an army that should actively avoid engagements with the enemy and wait for late game objective graps, and that's fething appalling.

It should also be noted that in the last two games the Tyranids have only had a chance of winning if the game ended then and there. Who wants to play an army where the best chance of winning is if the game ends early?

This is why I think the strongest Tyranid build is going to have a Tyranid Prime with a Norn Crown in a Bastion. That's an 18" radius (24" if you get the right warlord trait) that you will always have because Dominion can fail and gives you much more room to work with. The only thing that puzzeled me about the report was I saw he had Gants about 1"-2" away from the Relic so why not just pick it up? I'm sure it wouldn't have changed much but I just didn't understand it.

So the best Tyranid strategy is an overpriced Tyranid Warrior using a quirk of the rules due to sitting in a building. A building, mind you, that the Tyranid player bought as part of his army.

I think I can hear Andy Chambers crying from here...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So the best Tyranid strategy is an overpriced Tyranid Warrior using a quirk of the rules due to sitting in a building. A building, mind you, that the Tyranid player bought as part of his army.

I think I can hear Andy Chambers crying from here...

This is the best way to protect a decent sized bubble of synapse. It's either this or watch as your opponent picks off your synapse creatures one by one and soon after your non-synapse units become unpredicatble doing whatever a d6 tells you.

 y0disisray wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So the best Tyranid strategy is an overpriced Tyranid Warrior using a quirk of the rules due to sitting in a building. A building, mind you, that the Tyranid player bought as part of his army.

I think I can hear Andy Chambers crying from here...

This is the best way to protect a decent sized bubble of synapse. It's either this or watch as your opponent picks off your synapse creatures one by one and soon after your non-synapse units become unpredicatble doing whatever a d6 tells you.

Having to play at a 200(?) point disadvantage just to have your army not kill itself is terrible game design.

 Eldarain wrote:

 y0disisray wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So the best Tyranid strategy is an overpriced Tyranid Warrior using a quirk of the rules due to sitting in a building. A building, mind you, that the Tyranid player bought as part of his army.

I think I can hear Andy Chambers crying from here...

This is the best way to protect a decent sized bubble of synapse. It's either this or watch as your opponent picks off your synapse creatures one by one and soon after your non-synapse units become unpredicatble doing whatever a d6 tells you.

Having to play at a 200(?) point disadvantage just to have your army not kill itself is terrible game design.

Look I didn't write the Codex and to sit there and just complain about it's design does nothing for the competetive Nid players. This is what Nid players have to play with for a long time now so I think it's time to look at what is positive out of this book. I see a competetive build out of the dex and it involves what I recommended but it is just an opinion.

So, Nids are looking more and more like a mid-tier list, rather than the tier-3 deadbeats we all originally thought they would be.

Edit: Sarcasm alert by the way.

I'd still really like to invest in 'Nids. But the problem is, I'm not a top-tier player. I don't have the skill to make them work. I still think the best way to go is to drop the best thing in the codex (Twin Flyrants) in favour of more of the mediocre synaspe creatures such as Warriors and Primes. I think Spamming synapse creatures is probably the only way to avoid that big clump of nids in the mid-to-late game.

 Reecius wrote:
@HBMC

Yeah, I screwed up BIG TIME both games against excellent, seasoned tournament Nid players and still won! Hahaha, so unfair, I deserved to lose both games.

Nids are UBER weak. You have to be a top level player, and be lucky in addition to playing a flawless game to win with Nids. =(

@Fiendus and Dozer

Thanks guys! BigPig is a pleasure to play, such a good opponent.

I keep saying Nids is 40k on hard mode, and considering you are beating them while making mistakes just proves how poor the list is.

And honestly, that Eldar list was pretty 'Meh' considering what you can do.

 Reecius wrote:
We've been talking about it a lot, lately. Such a gakky job though, right? Why the hell don't they just take game balance into consideration?

That is a task that would be chaos without strong leadership. Everyone would argue endlessly about what to do, etc. You would need a core group that sat down and got it done. I know of a lot of fixes that I could think of off the top of my head that would make a lot of codecis more balanced and they;d be very simple, too.

It would be easier then you'd think by simply taking pancake edition 40K and amending it to add fliers and readdressing broken USR like infiltrate and characters, interceptor etc etc and the mess that the allies matrix is.

There are enough units immune to the bad side of synapse you can avoid these problems with a good build and it can be a strong army. Tyranids can generate lots of shooting which is really good in this edition.

 Reecius wrote:
We've been talking about it a lot, lately. Such a gakky job though, right? Why the hell don't they just take game balance into consideration?

That is a task that would be chaos without strong leadership. Everyone would argue endlessly about what to do, etc. You would need a core group that sat down and got it done. I know of a lot of fixes that I could think of off the top of my head that would make a lot of codecis more balanced and they;d be very simple, too.

I would be willing to give Reecius40k™ a try if you dare to post up your ideas in the Proposed Rules forums. I know I'm not alone either!

 y0disisray wrote:
This is the best way to protect a decent sized bubble of synapse. It's either this or watch as your opponent picks off your synapse creatures one by one and soon after your non-synapse units become unpredicatble doing whatever a d6 tells you.

I'm not disagreeing with you - you make a sound logical point and I'm sure that would work in-game. I'm just pointing out how sad it is that we've reached that point with the Tyranids, where their army is so hamgstrung due to terrible Codex design that an effective strategy that stops your army from falling apart involves buying an overpriced unit to put into a fortification, and we're talking about Tyranids and not Guard.

I agree on the bad design choices. But, Ray is right, better to make the most of what we have, or somehow agree to change it. I was thinking (just as an idea, nothing we are saying we will do at all) to allow any Nid player a free Tyranid Prime with Norn Crown that doesn't take up a FoC slot. Just to encourage people to actually take the army!

Dozer is right too, that some of the MCs ignore a lot of the bad stuff, but they can find themselves unable to assault. Lame.

@Ravenous

Yeah, my army was pretty tame, really. Nothing too crazy for what Eldar can do, as you pointed out.

@Ultimentra

Thanks for the vote of confidence! But it would definitely have a different name if that were to occur, lol, Reecius40K would make me sound like a pompous douche! haha, but honestly though, that is flattering and I appreciate the kind word.

We'll see what shakes down but if GW keeps gaking on us, we will have to do something.

Correction, Reece, it'd make you sound like more of a pompous douche.

In all seriousness though, with your experience (and that of a few others here), I do reckon you could do a pretty good job with some revisions to 40K (or just Tyranids specifically). You've clearly got your oddly-voiced head on straight and you know what you're doing, so that's a good foundation to work from.

I'm looking forward to watching this report, but from the comments, I'll just say that I'm not ready to bury Nids yet...

Nids not being able to hang with Eldar or Tau is one thing. But from the few bat reps against marines I've seen so far, they've done quite well. And let's face it, a lot of gamers still play marines!

They might not be top tier, but hey, neither are most current codexes

@RiTides

We'll do Marines vs. Nids next! I will play Marines, I am curious to try that match up, too.

@HBMC

Lol! Haha, yes, perhaps more of the same!

And yes, I do have a funny voice, been that way since day 1.

But thanks, and we have talked about a tournament FAQ to the books to "fix" problems, this comes up every time GW drops a turd on us, but I think it will come to the point that people are ready to walk away from the game for that to stick.

I honestly think a few changes to each codex are all it would take to bring balance to the force. Just a few, small changes here and there and it's game on, IMO. 6th ed flirts with greatness, it's just a few key rules interactions that cause so many problems.

 Reecius wrote:
I honestly think a few changes to each codex are all it would take to bring balance to the force. Just a few, small changes here and there and it's game on, IMO. 6th ed flirts with greatness, it's just a few key rules interactions that cause so many problems.

Completely agree with this! The smallest changes can make a huge impact ie..

1. Fearless models (and HQ's) completely ignore synapse
2. SITW range is extended with synapse

Small changes, much better book.

3. Warrior's can be added to unit's like royal court characters... I wish!

I have some ideas for a Competitive Players Edition: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/575591.page, but you just might have the pull to get people to try it! Use my ideas, combine it with your own and get cracking!

How did the Snipers using a heavy weapon Battle focus? Thought they couldn't do that?

They Snap Fired.

Just read the rule again and you are right, they cannot do that. I unintentionally cheated! Oops.

No biggy. Just because it was tight at the ened, I suppose it could have mattered. But probably not.