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Got my fingers crossed that he hasnt found this thread then :-)

Plus the Heldrake rolls to see if it can gain back hull points due to It Just Won't Die. When does it get to roll for that - at the start of its movement phase?

Apologies for all these questions - total newb im afraid but eager to learn

BrudeUK wrote:
OK so here is currently what i'm thinking for the army :


sorcerer level 1, term armour, combi bolter, force stave, spell familiar = 97

2 x 10 cultists (9 x autoguns in each) = 118

Heldrake = 170

Havocs (4 x AC) = 115


Dropped the lone Oblit in favour of the increased firepower of those 4 ACs which also have a good chance to take the Flyrant to ground. Still unsure what weapon to put on the Heldrake - there's a good argument for both in my eyes. The flamer will obviously be great for toasting his ground troops whereas the AC has Skyfire and so has a better chance at bringing his Flyrant down even with a BS of 3.

You did the points for the Sorcerer slightly wrong. The way you have him kitted out right now, he should be 100.

Since the nid guns go right through the tshirt save of the cultists, you want to hide your cultists most of the time. That makes their guns not very useful. Plus they stink at shooting and they're S3 guns. The beauty of the cultists is that they are cheap. Dumping points in them negates their purpose.

I would recommend to lose the autoguns. Then drop the spell familiar and pick up a second level on the sorcerer. This will give you 2 rolls and thus a higher chance of getting something useful. I think the chance to get a good power outweighs the loss of predictability in getting the power to work with the familiar. Also, give the sorcerer a force axe. That increases the chance of doing an unsavable wound to the Flyrant.

Roll on telephathy and you might get terrify which will work wonders against his gribbles and you might also get invisibility to make a unit more survivable from shooting.

Also for cheap autocannon conversions you can use heavy stubbers. Most IG players will have a ton of these lying around. Then use bolter arms that are drilled through to make them hold the "autocannon" with some plastic rods that you cut. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

Lookin' good.
Ready to lay down some firepower.

bogalubov wrote:

BrudeUK wrote:
OK so here is currently what i'm thinking for the army :


sorcerer level 1, term armour, combi bolter, force stave, spell familiar = 97

2 x 10 cultists (9 x autoguns in each) = 118

Heldrake = 170

Havocs (4 x AC) = 115


Dropped the lone Oblit in favour of the increased firepower of those 4 ACs which also have a good chance to take the Flyrant to ground. Still unsure what weapon to put on the Heldrake - there's a good argument for both in my eyes. The flamer will obviously be great for toasting his ground troops whereas the AC has Skyfire and so has a better chance at bringing his Flyrant down even with a BS of 3.

You did the points for the Sorcerer slightly wrong. The way you have him kitted out right now, he should be 100.

Since the nid guns go right through the tshirt save of the cultists, you want to hide your cultists most of the time. That makes their guns not very useful. Plus they stink at shooting and they're S3 guns. The beauty of the cultists is that they are cheap. Dumping points in them negates their purpose.

I would recommend to lose the autoguns. Then drop the spell familiar and pick up a second level on the sorcerer. This will give you 2 rolls and thus a higher chance of getting something useful. I think the chance to get a good power outweighs the loss of predictability in getting the power to work with the familiar. Also, give the sorcerer a force axe. That increases the chance of doing an unsavable wound to the Flyrant.

Roll on telephathy and you might get terrify which will work wonders against his gribbles and you might also get invisibility to make a unit more survivable from shooting.

Also for cheap autocannon conversions you can use heavy stubbers. Most IG players will have a ton of these lying around. Then use bolter arms that are drilled through to make them hold the "autocannon" with some plastic rods that you cut. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

NO keep the familer as you have to take in the fact your rolling under "shadow in the warp" when near monsterous creatures, that rule forces you to roll 3 dice for psychic tests drasticly increasing your fail rate and chances of taking perils. And seeing as one of the best powers to use against the nids is Psychic scream which is primaris you dont need lots of levels to go hunting for good stuff.

secondly the sorcerer, if the tyrant decided to take a swing at him in melee combat he dies axe or no, and you only get 2 attacks so his chances of wounding a tervigon with it are also low but not impossible and you can kill him outright with it being a force weapon

Psychic scream has a 12 inch range. So you'll have to test on it within shadows of the warp. Then you'll have to roll a hit with it. Then the Flyrant will get to deny you on a 4+ as he's a lvl 2 psyker. Then after all that, the Flyrant is Ld 10. So that's a lot of things that need to go right for that power to work. It's not the end all be all of anti-Flyrant defenses.

As for the close combat weapon choice. The weapon being unwieldy is not important. The Flyrant has a higher initiative already and to top it off he comes with a lash whip stock. That means that anyone in the combat against him will be going at I1 either way. So you might as well go for a weapon that increases your strength and goes through his armor. Then if you have a warp charge you can try to instant-kill him. But honestly, if the Flyrant made it into close combat, you're probably in trouble.

bogalubov wrote:
Psychic scream has a 12 inch range. So you'll have to test on it within shadows of the warp. Then you'll have to roll a hit with it. Then the Flyrant will get to deny you on a 4+ as he's a lvl 2 psyker. Then after all that, the Flyrant is Ld 10. So that's a lot of things that need to go right for that power to work. It's not the end all be all of anti-Flyrant defenses.

As for the close combat weapon choice. The weapon being unwieldy is not important. The Flyrant has a higher initiative already and to top it off he comes with a lash whip stock. That means that anyone in the combat against him will be going at I1 either way. So you might as well go for a weapon that increases your strength and goes through his armor. Then if you have a warp charge you can try to instant-kill him. But honestly, if the Flyrant made it into close combat, you're probably in trouble.

All Tyranid psykers are level one, except the Swarmlord.

and seriously this was desigend to kill the tervigon not a flyrant, i know hes also LD10 but its hard to wound him anyway so every wound counts

 Carnage43 wrote:

All Tyranid psykers are level one, except the Swarmlord.

Thanks for the catch. I mistook them rolling twice for being lvl 2.

Thanks for all your advice guys - as ever its greatly appreciated

A lot of what I have read points towards the fact that the Flyrant is an absolute beast and whatever load out he takes he's going to end up causing me problems. Therefore can I ask for all your tips on taking him out please. I have a Heldrake and Havocs and massed gunfire from the cultists and yet im still feeling very twitchy about the next match.

Also a quick question about the Lash Whips ability to reduce my units I down to 1. I read somewhere this only applies to models in the unit that are in base contact with the Flyrant at the start of the Assault and that any other models which pile in arent subject to the reduction. Any thoughts on this?

Honestly, the turkey is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of killing the flyrant. If it comes in turn 2, you will most likely be able to vector strike the flyrant. Then it's just a matter of how many attacks you get. If you get 4, there's a small chance you will kill him outright. Then you can feel free to kill the rest of his units at your leisure.

If you are truly worried about him. Take the hades autocannon for the drake. Then you get to vector strike him. He takes a grounding test. If he remains in the air, you hit him with the cannon. Even if he saves the wounds he takes another grounding test. Then shoot him with the havocs. A high likelihood of another grounding test there.

The benefit of the hades autocannon is also that all your fury from turn 2 did not kill him, you will get to shoot him the following turn. If you have the flamer, you will need two turns to turn around to vector strike the flyrant again. The autocannon has the 360 firing arc and can nail him again on turn 3 instead.

Also, if you think that he's going to assault you at the start of turn 2 or turn 3, use the previous turn to split the sorcerer from the havocs. He'll wipe one of those units and then be available for shooting in your turn again.

whats more i belive (im not sure) that flyrant is a character and you are forced to chalenge him with your champions, tyrant will kill a squad in cc but as he first has to go through a champ and then the squad you can tie him up for a few turns, allowing the drake to try potshot the tervigon, as far as i know you cant vector strike people in cc but i dont have my rulebook so check

Ok - so our second game happened on Thursday. Once again we werent playing any objective based game choosing just to get our heads round the basics first. I chose 3 500 point armies and rolled to see which one I'd use - wholst he went with his melee Flyrant, Tervigon and gants. The army I ended running was :

Lord with SoC and Force Axe

2 x 10 cultists

Havocs with 4 ACs

Heldrake with Baleflamer.

So on the run up to the game the main concern I had was his Flyrant. This proved to be unfounded as after a series of (by his own admission) poor choices I took the Flyrant out on turn 2. 3 wounds from the Havocs and 1 from the Heldrake VSing on arrival - which was made even sweeter as he had rolled Iron Arm! His Tervigon was a different kettle of fish, spawning gants for fun - he hadnt rolled doubles even by the time he got killed off.

Was a fun game - we are still very much learning but getting there. Other than the Flyrant being killed off early the stand outs of the game were :

The Havocs dying in the first round of assault due to some awful rolls I lost all 5.
The Tervigon and Lord killing each other simultaneously as they fought at the same initative step
The sheer amount of Nids that ended up nicely burnt and crispy due to the Baleflamer - thanks to all who suggested I take such an awesome weapon instead of the AC
After making a mistake and showing the Heldrakes backside to 2 full units of gants and his Tervigon managing to survive the ensuing shooting!

So the Heldrake may be here to stay - but there are a couple more armies I want to try first at this points level before we move up to 750.

Cheers for all the advice and comments guys - youre all making these early games run a lot smoother :-)

BrudeUK wrote:

Lord with SoC and Force Axe

Be more specific? A Chaos Lord cannot take a force axe. Did you mean Chaos lord with a demon weapon of some sort? Or did you mean Sorcerer with Force Axe?

The Havocs dying in the first round of assault due to some awful rolls I lost all 5.

Honestly, this is no surprise. As soon as your heavy weapon guys are in melee they are as good as dead anyways.

The Tervigon and Lord killing each other simultaneously as they fought at the same initative step

See above, weapon issues. Also, to activate the force weapon (if you were indeed a sorcerer) you would have been under shadow in the warp, so would have needed to pass the psychic test on 3D6....basically a 50/50 chance there.

The sheer amount of Nids that ended up nicely burnt and crispy due to the Baleflamer - thanks to all who suggested I take such an awesome weapon instead of the AC

The sad thing is, it's even MORE effective against non-tyranids, and it's damn effective against nids.

After making a mistake and showing the Heldrakes backside to 2 full units of gants and his Tervigon managing to survive the ensuing shooting!

A mistake, maybe, and you should learn from it, but remember it will take 54 S4 shots on average to remove 1 hull point. 162 to kill it totally on average. Exposing your back side when you have 2+ hull points left to 15-20 gaunts isn't all that risky, especially if you are doing it to line up a juicy shot.

So the Heldrake may be here to stay - but there are a couple more armies I want to try first at this points level before we move up to 750.

Going by your opponent's....trends...I'd expect a second tervigon or a Doom of Malantai in a pod in the next 250 point jump....if not a second winged tyrant.

I always run my havocs with Mark of Nurgle, and 2 extra bodies in the squad to take wounds before losing the big guns. Works really well for me. Still work better if deployed in cover as a smart enemy will know to take em out in the first few turns...

 ChaosCrusader wrote:
I always run my havocs with Mark of Nurgle, and 2 extra bodies in the squad to take wounds before losing the big guns. Works really well for me. Still work better if deployed in cover as a smart enemy will know to take em out in the first few turns...

Not saying it's a bad idea, but you just paid ~47 points for almost zero damage increase. With a standard weapon loadout that like a 33% increase in cost. My rule of thumb is; "Don't spend points in defensive upgrades unless they are obscenely good for their points", and MoN and extra bodies don't really fit that criteria.

You shouldn't be spending points making things survive longer when you can be spending them on killing the enemy faster in my opinion.

 Carnage43 wrote:

 ChaosCrusader wrote:
I always run my havocs with Mark of Nurgle, and 2 extra bodies in the squad to take wounds before losing the big guns. Works really well for me. Still work better if deployed in cover as a smart enemy will know to take em out in the first few turns...

Not saying it's a bad idea, but you just paid ~47 points for almost zero damage increase. With a standard weapon loadout that like a 33% increase in cost. My rule of thumb is; "Don't spend points in defensive upgrades unless they are obscenely good for their points", and MoN and extra bodies don't really fit that criteria.

You shouldn't be spending points making things survive longer when you can be spending them on killing the enemy faster in my opinion.

This...with those points you're almost half way to another squad with double the damage output.

I'd agree with extra bodies OR MoN but not both.