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 luke1705 wrote:
Well I just started a thing in YMDC about whether Searchlights stack (not sure IMO). Still very good even if they don't

You should re-read the Artillery Battery special rule. They're treated as separate units once they deploy (so watch out for those KP missions too). And the keywords are separated. The crew are infantry and the weapons themselves are vehicles and artillery. So you can give orders to the guardsmen (who btw can fire their own weapons every turn) but they're not conferring their firing bonuses to the weapons. They just need to be "nearby to operate". So I don't think orders can ever be given to artillery. The only thing you can do is grab Yarick and let them re-roll 1's. Sabre batteries are much better and cheaper even if they don't stack

If so, it means the Wyverns definitely pull just a bit ahead on the desirability meter too. Still, we're probably quibbling over a 10% efficiency gap here, and in either case, good, hidden artillery with even one 20pt "fake Markerlight" is as delicious a long-range screen-killer, as competitive 'Nids could ever wish for. :-)

luke1705,
I actually field 2 units of Hive Guard, and 2 Exocrines for my long ranged shooting. I also field a large unit of termagaunts and gargoyles which can get in range pretty easily and do decent damage at range.
I don't go for turn 1 charges or deployments very often and instead sit back with my longer ranged shooting inside a void shield to soften targets up a bit and use my gargoyles to move forward to do some damage and draw some fire.

I've found this to be sufficient against most things baring Stormraven spam and Dark Eldar.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:


If so, it means the Wyverns definitely pull just a bit ahead on the desirability meter too. Still, we're probably quibbling over a 10% efficiency gap here, and in either case, good, hidden artillery with even one 20pt "fake Markerlight" is as delicious a long-range screen-killer, as competitive 'Nids could ever wish for. :-)

Was my conclusion as well. Still, Taurox Primes are ahead of both. Hitting on the same with a "mere" 38" threat range, and on a turn where it doesn't move (turn 2+) hitting on 3's (or 2's with the marker lights) is good enough. But even without shred, it still puts out so many more shots. It's consistently at 20 for the main gun, which is great because you'll never get bad rolls and it's still 6 above the average for the wyvern.

But effectively you get 31 bolter shots, 8 of which are rend -2. I'd have to check out the wounds per point vs T4, where the wyvern has the greatest advantage, but I don't see it coming out ahead for the wyvern. It's not too many fewer points.

Something that I also don't like about the wyvern is that you give the enemy a cover save bonus when you indirect fire. So that cuts down on your kill percentage if you're trying to hide.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SideshowLucifer wrote:
luke1705,
I actually field 2 units of Hive Guard, and 2 Exocrines for my long ranged shooting. I also field a large unit of termagaunts and gargoyles which can get in range pretty easily and do decent damage at range.
I don't go for turn 1 charges or deployments very often and instead sit back with my longer ranged shooting inside a void shield to soften targets up a bit and use my gargoyles to move forward to do some damage and draw some fire.

I've found this to be sufficient against most things baring Stormraven spam and Dark Eldar.

Yeah and that's a solid fire base. As you've said, it won't beat stormraven spam but it sounds like a great TAC list. My point was that the only way we compete against stormrave spam is by list tailoring, and that list would lose to most other lists in the game. So I'd probably just not worry about it. If you come up against it in a tournament, them's the breaks. Take the L and win the next game

Fragile wrote:
Truthfully, I would go with bodies and psykers to and play objectives. With Venom / Malanthrope support, those Flyers are hitting on 5s. Add in the Horror and Mass Hypnosis and 2 of them are hitting on 6s. In 2k points flood the board with bodies and try to get smites off. Against that type of list I would avoid big monsters, unless you know you have adequate terrain. Exocrines in Ruins with Malantropes are resilient.

They are hitting on 3+, so a venom/malan knocks that down to 4+ and a power puts it to 5+.
Honestly our best bet is to mind control one and make flyers shoot each other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Best part about this is that if Girlyman is around you do reroll hit and wound, since it is still a friendly ultramarine model.

Spoletta wrote:

Fragile wrote:
Truthfully, I would go with bodies and psykers to and play objectives. With Venom / Malanthrope support, those Flyers are hitting on 5s. Add in the Horror and Mass Hypnosis and 2 of them are hitting on 6s. In 2k points flood the board with bodies and try to get smites off. Against that type of list I would avoid big monsters, unless you know you have adequate terrain. Exocrines in Ruins with Malantropes are resilient.

They are hitting on 3+, so a venom/malan knocks that down to 4+ and a power puts it to 5+.
Honestly our best bet is to mind control one and make flyers shoot each other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Best part about this is that if Girlyman is around you do reroll hit and wound, since it is still a friendly ultramarine model.

No it isn't... A model you're controlling is treated as yours for the duration of the control, so it isn't friendly to their own buffs.

Mathammer wise, devilgants and Flyrants are our two most points efficient damage on Stormravens. Both require a delivery mechanism/redundancy to get close enough though, either a Trygon Prime (probably best for synapse) for the gants, or a Tcyte for the Tyrant. But I lean devilgants as they are a lot less risky, as they don't rely on you getting smite and a charge off.

In any event, practically I think they way to play VS such a list would be to exploit the 20" minimum move the ravens have. With big blobs of gants and Gargs you threaten them with shooting if they want to get in range to shoot themselves, and Gargs threaten the charge - easily if you have Swarmy to catapult them forward. With some good spacing you leave the Ravens nowhere to go but their own deployment zone (and even then they will be forced to turn and come out of it T2 at least due to the 90 degree turn arc). You force them to come nearer to you so you can pose a threat, or to hover, which is where your trygon tunnels full of genes come in!

Oh, the one thing I overlooked was Spores - Meiotic are doubly as points efficient as either of the two above! Challenge is actually getting them close enough to do anything though. I suppose if you Infiltrate them as close as you can, then you might be able to squeeze the ravens towards you?

Are Hive Guard really that good? Neither of their guns feel that inspiring, though I guess there's not that much shooting in the army that isn't on big monsters.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Fragile wrote:
Truthfully, I would go with bodies and psykers to and play objectives. With Venom / Malanthrope support, those Flyers are hitting on 5s. Add in the Horror and Mass Hypnosis and 2 of them are hitting on 6s. In 2k points flood the board with bodies and try to get smites off. Against that type of list I would avoid big monsters, unless you know you have adequate terrain. Exocrines in Ruins with Malantropes are resilient.

They are hitting on 3+, so a venom/malan knocks that down to 4+ and a power puts it to 5+.
Honestly our best bet is to mind control one and make flyers shoot each other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Best part about this is that if Girlyman is around you do reroll hit and wound, since it is still a friendly ultramarine model.

No it isn't... A model you're controlling is treated as yours for the duration of the control, so it isn't friendly to their own buffs.

Don't want to turn this into a YMDC thread, but in 8th there is no such rule and that power doesn't say anywhere that you control the unit.

Requizen wrote:
Are Hive Guard really that good? Neither of their guns feel that inspiring, though I guess there's not that much shooting in the army that isn't on big monsters.

Compared to our other options? Yes. Basically them, an exocrine, biovores, a harpy or a hierodule are our ranged high strength/long range options.

Compared to pretty much any other army? They're rather unimpressive


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't....think you get Girlyman's buffs, but I could see that being FAQ'd either way

Requizen wrote:
Are Hive Guard really that good? Neither of their guns feel that inspiring, though I guess there's not that much shooting in the army that isn't on big monsters.

They are decent and they fill a role we don't have many options for. I've ran 6x Hive Guard, 2x Exocrine, and a pair of Warrior squads with Venom Cannons and Scyth. Talons as a fire base a few times, and it has worked out well.

As for Hive Guard, the Impaler Cannon totally feels worth the extra 9 points over the Shockcannon, right? The MW against vehicles seems pretty lackluster compared to the reliable number of shots, better range, and better profile.

Requizen wrote:
As for Hive Guard, the Impaler Cannon totally feels worth the extra 9 points over the Shockcannon, right? The MW against vehicles seems pretty lackluster compared to the reliable number of shots, better range, and better profile.

I found that the Impaler Cannon has a lot of utility against elite units. Reliably putting 3-4 wounds on things like missile launcher marines at -2 AP, no cover, is more useful than it looks at first glance.

Hive guards are better then ever. 36 range. High S, Hits on 3+, does not need line of sight, -2 armour and 1d3 damage. Yes yes yes. Quite good, not amazing.

how the hell does BioFlail work? I mean, assuming for a second that we say its only applying its bonus to itself...

does it REPLACE all your attacks with 1 for each model?

does it give you EXTRA attacks based on the number of models?

or does it MULTIPLY each attack with the Flail to roll to hit against each model around you?

 SHUPPET wrote:
how the hell does BioFlail work? I mean, assuming for a second that we say its only applying its bonus to itself...

does it REPLACE all your attacks with 1 for each model?

does it give you EXTRA attacks based on the number of models?

or does it MULTIPLY each attack with the Flail to roll to hit against each model around you?

How it is written I would say when you make a attack with it you make the number of attacks equal to the number of duders in range (kinda like a weapon that does D3 attacks) it is absolutely broken..

what I believe they were aiming for was more like some older weapons where you forgo your attacks and just make the number of attacks equal to the duders in range

so you saying it multiplies, number of attacks by number of surrounding models?

GodDamUser wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
how the hell does BioFlail work? I mean, assuming for a second that we say its only applying its bonus to itself...

does it REPLACE all your attacks with 1 for each model?

does it give you EXTRA attacks based on the number of models?

or does it MULTIPLY each attack with the Flail to roll to hit against each model around you?

How it is written I would say when you make a attack with it you make the number of attacks equal to the number of duders in range (kinda like a weapon that does D3 attacks) it is absolutely broken..

what I believe they were aiming for was more like some older weapons where you forgo your attacks and just make the number of attacks equal to the duders in range

You'll also see that it doesn't even specify the attacks is generates have to be used on the flail itsself. Such messy worded weapon

babelfish wrote:

Requizen wrote:
As for Hive Guard, the Impaler Cannon totally feels worth the extra 9 points over the Shockcannon, right? The MW against vehicles seems pretty lackluster compared to the reliable number of shots, better range, and better profile.

I found that the Impaler Cannon has a lot of utility against elite units. Reliably putting 3-4 wounds on things like missile launcher marines at -2 AP, no cover, is more useful than it looks at first glance.

I'm running 2 units with impalers and 2 units with shock cannons and I must say that Shock Cannons seem very good against vehicles and you can then focus Impaler Cannon fire on elite units as said above. Most dmg I've done with Shock Cannons was 15 wounds to a Stormsurge with 3 Cannons. Also last game my Shock Cannons killed 3 Necron flyers...although I admit that range on those guns can sometimes be a little problem so you'd have to advance and take -1 to hit with them, onslaught of course helps here.

 SHUPPET wrote:
so you saying it multiplies, number of attacks by number of surrounding models?

Yeah how I read it...

Carni has 4 atks

is surrounded by 10 duders within 2"

uses all 4 attacks with frail

get 40atks total...

Some mathhammer for all.

*Note I used the +1 to hit modifier on all Barbed Strangler shots as it was assuming we were always shooting at +10 models.

The Horrors are crazy durable but they're also the only ones here without a way to bypass LD. Tyrannofex looks good on paper but he's all 18'' range and standing still is not going to be an option 70% of the time.

x2 Dakkafex with x4 Devourers each = 194 points

6.67 Conscripts per turn
6.67 Ork Boys per turn
5 Brimestone Horrors per turn
3.33 Brimestone Horrors with Changeling buff per turn
8.33 Kroot / Hounds / Gants per turn
6.67 Poxwalkers per turn

x2 Dakkafex with x4 Deathspitters each = 218 points

8.33 Conscripts per turn
8 Ork Boys per turn
5 Brimestone Horrors per turn
3.33 Brimestone Horrors with Changeling buff per turn
10 Kroot / Hounds / Gants per turn
6.67 Poxwalkers per turn

T-Fex w/ FBH & Stinger Salvo standing still = 213 points

11.11 Conscripts per turn
13.78 Ork Boys per turn
8 Brimestone Horrors per turn
5.33 Brimestone Horrors with Changeling buff per turn
13.78 Kroot / Hounds / Gants per turn
10.67 Poxwalkers per turn

T-Fex w/ FBH & Stinger Salvo having moved = 213 points

5.56 Conscripts per turn
6.89 Ork Boys per turn
4 Brimestone Horrors per turn
2.67 Brimestone Horrors with Changeling buff per turn
6.89 Kroot / Hounds / Gants per turn
5.33 Poxwalkers per turn

x9 Warriors with Devourers = 216 points

6 Conscripts per turn
5.63 Ork Boys per turn
4.5 Brimestone Horrors per turn
3 Brimestone Horrors with Changeling buff per turn
7.5 Kroot / Hounds / Gants per turn
6 Poxwalkers per turn

x6 Warriors with Devourers + x3 Warriors with Barbed Stranglers = 249 points

7.89 Conscripts per turn
8.42 Ork Boys per turn
5.33 Brimestone Horrors per turn
3.75 Brimestone Horrors with Changeling buff per turn
8.75 Kroot / Hounds / Gants per turn
7.11 Poxwalkers per turn

x9 Warriors with Deathspitters = 249 points

7.5 Conscripts per turn
9 Ork Boys per turn
4.5 Brimestone Horrors per turn
3 Brimestone Horrors with Changeling buff per turn
9 Kroot / Hounds / Gants per turn
6 Poxwalkers per turn

x6 Warriors with Deathspitters + x3 Warriors with Barbed Stranglers = 270 points

8.89 Conscripts per turn
10.67 Ork Boys per turn
5.33 Brimestone Horrors per turn
3.75 Brimestone Horrors with Changeling buff per turn
13.50 Kroot / Hounds / Gants per turn
7.11 Poxwalkers per turn

Awesome work dude. Add Devilgants please

Great data!
What also would be interesting to see is the pointcost/wound!

Those are some very useful numbers! If you have some spare time could you run a Tyrannocyte? x5 Spitters, Venoms, or Stranglers. I am pondering using one to drop in a Carnifex, or Tyrannofex...I figure those extra 5 shots might be helpful.

I would be very surprised if the bio flail wound up getting FAQ'd to mean that you can multiply your attacks by the number of people around you. Would love it if that were the case, but I highly doubt it. Not saying that's not a valid reading; just that I would be literally shocked if GW said, "yep that's what we meant". Most likely, I think it either replaces all of your attacks or you need to allocate 1 attack to make it work, giving you 3 other attacks (assuming you took the thresher scythe)

 SHUPPET wrote:
Awesome work dude. Add Devilgants please

Correct me if I'm wrong. Did some mathhammer of the top of my head here.

30 gants x 3 shots = 90 shots - 45 hits - 22,5 wounds - 7,5 saves - 15 dead - 240 pts

Played a game earlier today with my Nid AM gunline list. The most current iteration:



Game recap:



Thoughts after the game:

I'm glad that I got to play against an aggressive assault list, as I felt that my bubble wrap unit was a point of weakness in my list. Would be interesting to play an assault army that could clear out my screen better (aka I still think I might need a stronger screen, but 2 units and 33 bodies still isn't awful). Other things I'd still like the optimize: would like to upgrade the company commander to a lord commissar for 20 more points to give the conscripts effective morale immunity, but I'd rather not give up a search light to do so. If I had the going first advantage of the ability to deny first blood when going second (I have neither) it could be worthwhile, but as is, I don't see the pros outweighing the cons. Loved the AM units. Taurox Primes are beasts, and that was through the stupid cover of darkness. Often I had to move them to get within 18", so they were hitting a lot on 4's and they were still all stars. Almost did 3 wounds to a Trygon on overwatch The earthshakers suffered greatly due to the mission (always shooting from over 18" away meant mostly hitting on 5's, but they still performed well). If I played a normal mission, each could be hitting on 3's if I spent my flashlights there and managed to go first (or my opponent shot other things). In general, if that was worst case scenario performance, I'm very happy with them.

Only 4 CP is a little rough but I think prioritizing what's most important to use it on is the skill to develop for 8th. In general, I think the list is pretty strong. The fire base support is just so critical to Nids, although I didn't get to test clearing out screening units with my shooting, as his list had none.

 luke1705 wrote:
Played a game earlier today with my Nid AM gunline list. The most current iteration:

Spoiler:

Swarmy
2x Tyrant guard w/rending claws, scything talons, AG

20 Genestealers
20 Genestealers
3 Rippers

Trygon w/3x scything talons, toxinspike, bio-electric pulse, AG
Trygon w/3x scything talons, toxinspike, bio-electric pulse, AG

Commissar

3 Taurox Primes w/Gatling cannons, 2 hot shot volley guns , heavy stubber

23 conscripts

1 sabre weapons battery, searchlight
2 Sabre weapons batteries, searchlight
3 x Earthshaker Cannon

10 neophytes

4 command points

Game recap:

Spoiler:

Played against another Nids player. He had 36 Stealers (only 1 Trygon) a broodlord, malanthrope, swarmy, a stone crusher fex, Dimachaeron and Barbie. Mission: cloak and shadows (maelstrom). This was interesting because shooting at over 18" gave -1 to hit. I could spend 1 CP a turn to negate that against 1 of his units, but this wound up being moderately problematic throughout the game.

Quick synopsis: he went first, I opted not to seize. Barbie cooked two flashlights turn 1, the Dimachaeron double moved and charged my conscript screen, as did the Trygon. The stealers coming out of the Trygon failed their charge. (The new dawn of war deployment). The conscripts lost some more to morale but didn't die. They fell back, allowing me to shoot the Dimachaeron and charge him with Swarmy. The earthshaker cannons took the Trygon down to 2 wounds, the flashlight I had left mitigated cover vs the 20 man unit of stealers. Because I had to move 2 Taurox Primes, it took all 3 of them shooting to finish off the unit, but they did. Swarmy double moved a squad of Stealers; the other squad of my Stealers flanked and charged his second unit of Stealers, killing them. The stealers that Swarmy double moved took the stone crusher low but didn't kill him, and were also able to multi assault the malanthrope. By the end of turn 3, he had only the hierodule left, and I had lost basically only 1 squad of stealers and some conscripts.

I thought you would require one complete GSC detachment to enable an AM detachment, or are you using the -1CP detachment as the bare requirement?

Yep barebones detachment. I don't think they add a whole ton to my army; while the guns of AM do

Thanks for the report!
For me personally the list is really too much AM and too little Tyranids. It might be that the AM parts add a lot to your army, but at what cost? You are barely playing Tyranids anymore....

But this is just my personal preference.

Zande4 thank you. Those are some very good numbers. Hopefully they will progress the debate further then just saying warriors and carnifex repeatedly.