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https://youtu.be/pWOrgKnmxIw

Oof, sad to see my Orky bois get spanked so hard by the bugs. I've played that Tempest of War mission before and that random mission rule I feel hits us particularly hard since we often rely on deepstriking units to get where we need to be given how slow we generally are outside of specific units (I played Speedmob with it once and it killed me that I couldn't redeploy my shokkjump dragstas or deffkoptas onto objectives). You came against a particularly nasty Nid list and you had a couple of really bad bouts for rolling dice at certain key points that led to the result you were looking at. My main suggestion is to consider swapping out the Ork boyz for a trukk for one of the Meganobz units and make one of them trukkboyz for extra threat range during a waaagh and a good reserve counter punch unit your opponent has to be wary of. Then you take the points saved and put it into Beast Snagga boyz to put into your Kill Rig. Regular boyz are pretty underwhelming unfortunately, and even with Goffs and WAAAGH! buffs, I feel that Beast Snaggas do more than them.

I like Venomthropes, but they've never been something I would see as a lynchpin of success. I hadn't considered though that they literally cut the efficacy of Ork shooting in half. That's quite harsh, and I can see why even just three of them were a big problem. Equally problematic was the clever use of Biovore sporemines. I've never liked the models GW has made for Biovores (all three versions), so they're one of the few Tyranid things I don't own. I have fielded them using 'Counts As' models - the spawn points from the old Battle for McDonald's box - and I consistently forgot to fire them almost every turn. That was the last book, so maybe I'll give 'em another shot with the new book.

And speaking of things I don't own, Pyrovores are another Tyranid unit that I don't own (plastic, please GW?), did they do anything? You seemed to get into their midst pretty quickly. I was expecting a more devastating alpha strike from them. Did you know that, due to a weird quirk of the rules, they used to nuke the entire table when killed in previous editions?

Also, it was fun listening to how perplexed you are at the durability of Tyrant Guard. They're Tyrant Guard, their job is to tank incoming fire!

I have some follow-up questions:
1. Other than delivering the Pyrovores and Zoeys, did the Tyrannocyte contribute anything else to the game?
2. Not your army, so not something you would need or could keep track on, but did the Tyranids make use of the Synaptic Imperatives, specifically that wonderful 'Warp Shielding' ability that Zoeys get?
3. Did the Tyranid player make use of the daisy-chain psychic power ability that they get via Synapse creatures?
4. Did the Parasite do anything? It's a curious unit, what with it being a synapse creature that's very fast and can fly, but it's not exactly sturdy or very fighty.
5. You were quite threatened by the Tyrant, but did the Maleceptor make much of an impact? Yes, it's dangerous and tough, but it appeared that other units were doing more.

I can't say I'm unhappy to see Tyranids winning. They're the first army I ever got (alongside Ultras), and I like that they finally have a Codex that isn't a complete waste of time.

Overall, a fun report against a very different 'Nid list than the ones we're used to hearing about. Please play them again soon.

 Grimskul wrote:
Oof, sad to see my Orky bois get spanked so hard by the bugs. I've played that Tempest of War mission before and that random mission rule I feel hits us particularly hard since we often rely on deepstriking units to get where we need to be given how slow we generally are outside of specific units (I played Speedmob with it once and it killed me that I couldn't redeploy my shokkjump dragstas or deffkoptas onto objectives). You came against a particularly nasty Nid list and you had a couple of really bad bouts for rolling dice at certain key points that led to the result you were looking at. My main suggestion is to consider swapping out the Ork boyz for a trukk for one of the Meganobz units and make one of them trukkboyz for extra threat range during a waaagh and a good reserve counter punch unit your opponent has to be wary of. Then you take the points saved and put it into Beast Snagga boyz to put into your Kill Rig. Regular boyz are pretty underwhelming unfortunately, and even with Goffs and WAAAGH! buffs, I feel that Beast Snaggas do more than them.

Thanks, yes the Meganobz in a truck is something I need to try out, maybe next time I use Orks. And I do have 10 'savage' looking boyz that I can proxy as Beast Snaggas so that's a good idea too. I've never put anything in the Kill Rig yet, which is definitely a waste.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I like Venomthropes, but they've never been something I would see as a lynchpin of success. I hadn't considered though that they literally cut the efficacy of Ork shooting in half. That's quite harsh, and I can see why even just three of them were a big problem. Equally problematic was the clever use of Biovore sporemines. I've never liked the models GW has made for Biovores (all three versions), so they're one of the few Tyranid things I don't own. I have fielded them using 'Counts As' models - the spawn points from the old Battle for McDonald's box - and I consistently forgot to fire them almost every turn. That was the last book, so maybe I'll give 'em another shot with the new book.

Yeah he could basically cover most of his army in -1 to hit, with the Venomthropes themselves protected behind obscuring terrain. As for the spore mines, they were just so annoying to deal with because they can be so deadly if you just run into them, so you need to shoot them, then they score you no points for killing them ever, block your movement - and he didn't even particularly tech into them. It seems if they wanted to Nids could blanket the table with these things and still have plenty left in their 'actual' army.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And speaking of things I don't own, Pyrovores are another Tyranid unit that I don't own (plastic, please GW?), did they do anything? You seemed to get into their midst pretty quickly. I was expecting a more devastating alpha strike from them. Did you know that, due to a weird quirk of the rules, they used to nuke the entire table when killed in previous editions?

That does ring a very vague bell! The ones in the centre didn't do much but the 6 that got out of the tyrannocyte killed most of a unit of Meganobz, then the Deff Koptas, I think. They didn't seem mega scary especially as their damage 2 flamer was nullified by my Ramshackle (which I just now realised I forgot with the Deff Koptas ), but it's their decent damage output combined with their SOLID stats and combat ability that's a bit of a headache. 5 wounds, toughness 5, 3+ save, Infantry (so they're 2+ in cover), and I just looked at their combat too, they have 5 S6 power sword attacks so they're pretty scary to any less-than-stellar units trying to harass them. At 40 points each for that kind of staying power and versatility they seem a bit crazy actually.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Also, it was fun listening to how perplexed you are at the durability of Tyrant Guard. They're Tyrant Guard, their job is to tank incoming fire!

True, but I expected 7 S16 AP-3 D3+3 damage attacks to kill more than one That was Catalyst though, I think he just rolled hot for his 5+++'s and I ended up with tons of wasted damage.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
1. Other than delivering the Pyrovores and Zoeys, did the Tyrannocyte contribute anything else to the game?

Think it was just the Pyrovores it delivered. Not really, it just plinked a few wounds off units here and there, and soaked up a turn of shooting from the Koptas (which I think was more due to poor rolling and the Venomthropes than anything special about the Tyrannocyte).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
2. Not your army, so not something you would need or could keep track on, but did the Tyranids make use of the Synaptic Imperatives, specifically that wonderful 'Warp Shielding' ability that Zoeys get?

Oh yeah, he definitely had a lot of synaptic imperative stuff going on, I just don't remember what it was each turn or what it did. Couldn't tell you if warp shielding was used unfortunately.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
3. Did the Tyranid player make use of the daisy-chain psychic power ability that they get via Synapse creatures?

Definitely, I remember being a bit put out at one point because he was casting stuff with something that was out of deny range of my Kill Rig, but it was going off from something really close by, so there was nothing I could do about it. I knew Tyranids could do this though so I wasn't too annoyed, but it did feel a bit... irksome

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
4. Did the Parasite do anything? It's a curious unit, what with it being a synapse creature that's very fast and can fly, but it's not exactly sturdy or very fighty.

Not really, I thought it just flew over Ghaz and did a few mortal wounds, but I'm not sure there's a way for it to do that (the game was a couple of weeks ago so I'm not 100%) - it may have just flapped around for a bit before being run over by the Scrapjets.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
5. You were quite threatened by the Tyrant, but did the Maleceptor make much of an impact? Yes, it's dangerous and tough, but it appeared that other units were doing more.

It killed most or all of the Ork Boyz in the centre in turn 2 with it's psychic powers, but tbh any other unit could have easily done that. It didn't get chance to do much else because Ghaz killed it turn 2. However I think he just wanted to it be a big dangerous thing in the centre to lure me into running into it to deal with it, which is exactly what I did

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I can't say I'm unhappy to see Tyranids winning. They're the first army I ever got (alongside Ultras), and I like that they finally have a Codex that isn't a complete waste of time.

Definitely, I don't think they're all that mental all things considered, after the recent nerfs, it's just that a) Orks are a bit worse for wear, b) it's a strong codex with tons of options, and c) my opponent was a stellar player (you may have noticed the objective markers were 'Team England'). I've played him before (not vs Nids) and won a handful of times though, so it's not impossible!

Weirdly, Tyranids were the first 40k army I ever collected to, way back in 3rd edition.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Overall, a fun report against a very different 'Nid list than the ones we're used to hearing about. Please play them again soon.

Although I'd definitely like to play Nids again (I have another friend that collects them so that's a certainty, actually), the odds of facing this particular army are low unfortunately as my opponent was pretty set on selling his Nids after that game - in a way he was using them as 'one last hurrah' before he sold them!