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Gatekeeper wrote:
What are you all using to take out an enemy HQ? Swarmy is the only one who can fight in CC with his "invuln" save. Do you just try to shoot them to death?

Experimenting with the Red Horror for that. Being able to do challenges helps. High weapon skill and 6 attacks on the charge helps. The fact that a 80pt model has the ability to ignore FNP, armor saves, wounds and EW is pretty big.

Same thing I've used since 6th edition dropped. Precision shots from Flyrants.

Nice - i plan on running him as well.

I meant to do a batrep but forgot to take pictures until turn 3, so i just scrapped the idea. Instead I'll post here with a bat-recap I had monday night:

1750 points

My list:
Swarmlord, 2x guard
Hive Crone
Hive Crone
Hive Tyrant - wings, 2x TL Dev, Regen
3x Warriors, 2x Deathspitter 1x Barbed Strangler
10x termagants
17x hormagaunts
15x gargoyles - AG
Exocrine
Mawloc
2x Biovores
Zoanthrope

His list:
Chaos lord of slaanesh, axe of blind fury (is that even legal?)
Daemon Prince of tzeench, wings, black mace
5x chosen with flamers, land raider
2x10 noise marines with blastmaster and flamer thing, 2x Rhinos with havoc launchers
Defiler
Heldrake

The game type was scouring and the deployment hammer & anvil. I won first turn and took it, he seized the initiative.

Turn 1 he was able to bring a crone down to 4 wounds but couldn't get the last off it. He knocked 1 wound off an exocrine with a havoc launcher, and killed a few gaunts. His daemon prince and flyer were in reserve. (i had reserved my 10x gants and 3x warriors). My half of the turn i swooped up, vector struck and drool cannon'd some noise marines (he had the infiltrate D3 warlord trait). the flyrant slagged a rhino for first blood.

turn 2 only his daemon prince arrived, his land raider disembarked the chosen who flamed most of my hormagaunts to death and killed the last 5 in assault. DP tried some psy powers but failed due to shadows. On my turn the mawloc arrived, as well as the babysitters in the backfield. Mawloc scattered, killing only 2 noise marines. hive tyrant took out another rhino, exocrine killed some marines. Swarmlord and his guard assaulted the chosen, he punked the chosen sergeant while the others whiffed on the T. guard.

Turn 3 - his heldrake came on and used the baleflamer to kill some gargoyles. It wounded the exocrine but i saved with FNP thanks to a hyperslime river (note: this will come into play later). His chaos lord made all the invuln saves in a challenge vs swarmlord, and his DP assaulted and rolled a '1' on the daemon weapon, so stayed locked in cc with a zoey. My turn the wounded crone left the table, while the other one fired off some tentaclids at a heldrake, glancing it twice. The flyrant sat in the hyperslime and assaulted a land raider -immobilizing it. in melee the swarmlord finally killed the chaos lord, and the tyrant guard finished off the chosen - they consolidated towards the deamon prince/zoanthrope combat. His DP killed the zoey and moved towards my biovores (who had been missing most of their shots this game, or failing to wound with the ones that hit).

Turn 4- his DP assaults the biovores, and AGAIN rolls a '1' for attacks. his defiler keeps cracking battle cannon shots but only killing a few little bugs at a time due to area terrain cover. On his turn the tyrant auto-hits and destroys the land raider, taking a wound in the process. My turn i cast paroxysm on the defiler and roll a '3', making him WS/BS 0! I assault, auto-hit, but only cause him to be immobilized. Locked in CC. Crones vectorstrike/tentaclid the heldrake to death. Swarmlord needs a 7" charge to reach the DP's base and rolls a 6, so no charge. The DP kills the biovores and consolidates towards my termagant unit, holding a 3 pt objective. BTW mawloc has been stuck in hyperslime since it arrived turn 2 - it failed leadership to charge twice and once failed to roll enough distance to make CC.

Turn 5 - his DP assaults termagants killing 9 of them. Noise marines plink shots off at mawloc and do a wound. Other squad of 3 shoots at the gargoyle unit and drops them down to just 1 model. Thanks to swarmlord + dominion it is still in synapse. The hive tyrant destroys the defiler in CC. My turn - crones take up position on objectives - they're scoring in this mission. Exocrine finishes off one unit of noise marines, mawloc finally makes into CC with other unit - whiffs on attacks. Locked. Swarmlord successfully charges DP locked in CC with 1 termagant, challenges him. DP, as has been his trend, again rolls a 1 for attacks. I only cause 2 wounds and he makes both his invul saves. we roll and game goes to turn 6

Turn 6 - not much left for him to do, all his units are in CC or dead. Mawloc/noise marine combat is a slapfight. Swarmlord takes 2 wounds from daemon prince but instant-kills the prince in return. We call game there.

Crushing victory for tyranids - however my opponent made tons of mis-plays and had some really bad dice with his daemon weapons. I wouldn't take the batrep as a airtight defense for the codex, but i will say that I felt during the game that i certainly had tools to manage the challenges in front of me. Vs an optimized DE/Eldar list or TauDar list i don't think i would be so confident, but i'm always willing for the challenge.

I'll take pics and do a proper batrep at some point. Promise.

Nice report, interesting to hear of someone using mysterious terrain for a change.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
My turn i cast paroxysm on the defiler and roll a '3', making him WS/BS 0! I assault, auto-hit, but only cause him to be immobilized.

FYI - Maledictions can't reduce characteristics below 1, so the Defiler should have been WS/BS1.

 xttz wrote:
Nice report, interesting to hear of someone using mysterious terrain for a change.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
My turn i cast paroxysm on the defiler and roll a '3', making him WS/BS 0! I assault, auto-hit, but only cause him to be immobilized.

FYI - Maledictions can't reduce characteristics below 1, so the Defiler should have been WS/BS1.

I believe Paroxysm also states "to a minimum of 1"

But that's minor in the outcome.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
I meant to do a batrep but forgot to take pictures until turn 3, so i just scrapped the idea. Instead I'll post here with a bat-recap I had monday night:

1750 points

My list:
Swarmlord, 2x guard
Hive Crone
Hive Crone
Hive Tyrant - wings, 2x TL Dev, Regen
3x Warriors, 2x Deathspitter 1x Barbed Strangler
10x termagants
17x hormagaunts
15x gargoyles - AG
Exocrine
Mawloc
2x Biovores
Zoanthrope

His list:
Chaos lord of slaanesh, axe of blind fury (is that even legal?)
Daemon Prince of tzeench, wings, black mace
5x chosen with flamers, land raider
2x10 noise marines with blastmaster and flamer thing, 2x Rhinos with havoc launchers
Defiler
Heldrake
...
Crushing victory for tyranids - however my opponent made tons of mis-plays and had some really bad dice with his daemon weapons...

That CSM list looks seriously lacking in firepower. Does he have much success with it?

I'm eyeing a very similar list to yours (Flyrant + More Gaunts instead of Swarmlord) as soon as I get my Flyers ready to go. Is this the first time you've run it?

Is anyone else rocking people's world with Deathleaper?

Running mine against Tau, I take half the army's shooting almost every game with him. Honestly, All I really do with him i run circles around Fire Warriors and drop off spore mine presents...he's the best distraction ever.

DP rolling triples 1s in melee is really bad luck .

 ductvader wrote:
Is anyone else rocking people's world with Deathleaper?

Running mine against Tau, I take half the army's shooting almost every game with him. Honestly, All I really do with him i run circles around Fire Warriors and drop off spore mine presents...he's the best distraction ever.

The Deathleaper can be a pain to deal with, however with Tau being an army that sits back and hides behind a gunline, there are two units I have had great success against them so far. Mawloc's just wreck Tau, and the Tau players at my store complain so much about it , as they think it's unfair that something like that can hit them so quickly and do so much damage, which I laugh at because it's hilarious to see Tau players say something is op when there book is insanely powerful in this shooting edition. The other unit that I recently had success with is an outflanking unit of 9x Warriors, 1x w/1x Barbed Strangler and 8x Deathspitters, as it puts out a lot of shots and it's something that an opponent cannot ignore, allowing your army time to cross the battlefield.

So far, I am 3-0 vs Tau with my Tyranids, as 2x times I played the Riptide spam list and won due to by just focusing there troop choices and taking the objectives, which many Tau players I have played against or have watched play also complain about as they say it takes the fun out of the game.......... don't ask why they think that . the 3rd game was when I tried out the outflanking Warrior unit against a Tau army with a lot of Fire Warriors and infantry units, and it was pretty epic as I did a ton of damage once i outflanked him and my Mawloc raised hell on his battle-line, ending in a Massacure to me .

As for my comments on the Tau. I don't hate Tau players, but while some are ok, most I have met are the most annoying, arrogant power-gamers who just want to kick peoples teeth in and it's fun to watch them squirm lol.

@tetrisphreak

Yeah, don't know how he had a Slanneshi Lord with an Axe of Blind Fury, only those with the MoK can take it.

Out of curiosity why didn't you just burrow your Mawloc out of the slime?

 Rommel44 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Is anyone else rocking people's world with Deathleaper?

Running mine against Tau, I take half the army's shooting almost every game with him. Honestly, All I really do with him i run circles around Fire Warriors and drop off spore mine presents...he's the best distraction ever.

The Deathleaper can be a pain to deal with, however with Tau being an army that sits back and hides behind a gunline, there are two units I have had great success against them so far. Mawloc's just wreck Tau, and the Tau players at my store complain so much about it , as they think it's unfair that something like that can hit them so quickly and do so much damage, which I laugh at because it's hilarious to see Tau players say something is op when there book is insanely powerful in this shooting edition. The other unit that I recently had success with is an outflanking unit of 9x Warriors, 1x w/1x Barbed Strangler and 8x Deathspitters, as it puts out a lot of shots and it's something that an opponent cannot ignore, allowing your army time to cross the battlefield.

So far, I am 3-0 vs Tau with my Tyranids, as 2x times I played the Riptide spam list and won due to by just focusing there troop choices and taking the objectives, which many Tau players I have played against or have watched play also complain about as they say it takes the fun out of the game.......... don't ask why they think that . the 3rd game was when I tried out the outflanking Warrior unit against a Tau army with a lot of Fire Warriors and infantry units, and it was pretty epic as I did a ton of damage once i outflanked him and my Mawloc raised hell on his battle-line, ending in a Massacure to me .

As for my comments on the Tau. I don't hate Tau players, but while some are ok, most I have met are the most annoying, arrogant power-gamers who just want to kick peoples teeth in and it's fun to watch them squirm lol.

Ensuring that all units hit the enemy lines at the same time seems to be a bigger and bigger deal.

On that: thinking of mixing deathleapers assassins, swarmy, a hive commander flyrant, 3x spore mines, triple mawloc, (about 1530 pts there.)

Swarmy's reserve bonus should mean there are 10+ units in the enemy's face turn 2.

I've been considering getting Tyranids for some time (stupid army ADHD...) and have figured that with the new book now's as good a time as any.

We play almost entirely at 1500 at my local club, so I'm considering the following list as a starting point:

Hive Tyrant
- Wings, Two Twin Brainleech Devourers, Hive Commander

Tyranid Prime

30 Termagants
- 15 Devourers

10 Termagants

15 Hormagaunts
- Adrenal Glands

Tervigon
- The Miasma Cannon

Two seperate Venomthropes

3 Carnifex
- All with two Twin Brainleech Devourers.

The idea (obvious though it may seem) is for the Flyrant to play early disruption on targets of opportunity without making itself an easy target, especially focusing on transports and vulnerable harassment units, before going after fliers when they start showing up. Meanwhile, the Tervigon outflanks and forms a cannot-ignore wrench in the opponent's plans while the main force advances as a self-supporting group. The Tyranid Prime plays a key role here as a very survivable Synapse node, joining the Carnifexen to act as bodyguards who don't really need to pay too much attention to their charge.

I've got a few points to play around with (40 to be precise) and I'm currently thinking this should be one of the following:

- Another ten-man Termagant unit.
- The Norn Crown on the Prime, to allow for a slightly less concentrated force
- Regeneration on the Tervigon plus an extra gribbly or two.

I'd appreciate feedback, both on the list as a whole, and on the viability of a Prime Carnistar like this forming the centre of a battle line in a competitive setting. Admittedly my local playgroup isn't too competitive, so I may be a little soft in my thinking, and I am wary of the massive bullseye on this unit - having one unit provide Synapse for the entire army and be the primary damage-dealer / softener feels like it could be dangerous... But if that is a concern, the Prime doesn't have to sit in that unit, does it?

Aelyn wrote:

I've got a few points to play around with (40 to be precise) and I'm currently thinking this should be one of the following:

- Another ten-man Termagant unit.
- The Norn Crown on the Prime, to allow for a slightly less concentrated force
- Regeneration on the Tervigon plus an extra gribbly or two.

I'd appreciate feedback, both on the list as a whole, and on the viability of a Prime Carnistar like this forming the centre of a battle line in a competitive setting. Admittedly my local playgroup isn't too competitive, so I may be a little soft in my thinking, and I am wary of the massive bullseye on this unit - having one unit provide Synapse for the entire army and be the primary damage-dealer / softener feels like it could be dangerous... But if that is a concern, the Prime doesn't have to sit in that unit, does it?

I came up with a very similar 1850pt list to this recently. My thinking was to put the Prime with the Termagants, giving it more ablative wounds and presenting less of a bullseye unit for heavy weapons. Have you considered using Gargoyles instead of Hormas? They should help to screen things as you advance and can tarpit pretty well under synapse.

Also it's probably worth putting a Thorax Swarm on anything taking the Miasma Cannon, to double up on 2+ wound templates.

xttz wrote:Nice report, interesting to hear of someone using mysterious terrain for a change.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
My turn i cast paroxysm on the defiler and roll a '3', making him WS/BS 0! I assault, auto-hit, but only cause him to be immobilized.

FYI - Maledictions can't reduce characteristics below 1, so the Defiler should have been WS/BS1.

Ah! Thanks for that. No, paroxysm doesn't mention a minimum of 1 in the codex but we never thought to check the BRB. I'll inform my opponent of that mistake I made.

Dozer Blades wrote:DP rolling triples 1s in melee is really bad luck .

It really was! The funny thing is it actually prevented me from shooting the DP with my tyrant and exocrine, or vector striking it. So it kind of helped him until it happened vs swarmlord.

Grimskul wrote:@tetrisphreak

Yeah, don't know how he had a Slanneshi Lord with an Axe of Blind Fury, only those with the MoK can take it.

It's fine - we all make mistakes and I messed up with paroxysm.

Eldercaveman wrote:Out of curiosity why didn't you just burrow your Mawloc out of the slime?

All he had were 2 units of noise marines that had 3 and 4 models left. I figured going directly into CC would handle a unit faster and keep them from shooting.

 ductvader wrote:


Ensuring that all units hit the enemy lines at the same time seems to be a bigger and bigger deal.

On that: thinking of mixing deathleapers assassins, swarmy, a hive commander flyrant, 3x spore mines, triple mawloc, (about 1530 pts there.)

Swarmy's reserve bonus should mean there are 10+ units in the enemy's face turn 2.

I think a fortification with comms relay would be better for this type of idea. Gives you a place to hide your stuff that cannot reserve and a better chance at making things come in when you need them (8/9 with reroll vs 5/6 with swarm).

Couldn't you combine the relay with the swarmlord?

Reserves that come in a a 2+ that let's you reroll 1's... seems as good as you can get for success.

We've found our re rollable 2+!!!!

omerakk wrote:
Couldn't you combine the relay with the swarmlord?

Reserves that come in a a 2+ that let's you reroll 1's... seems as good as you can get for success.

Yeah...but a 97% chance with both compared to an 89% chance with just a comms...or if you're just doing it for swarmy, you're already coming in at 83%...

If you've taken swarmy for himself, you really don't need a comms.

So, hammering together rough ideas for what I am wanting to go with and what I fancy painting up.

Flyrant - Twin Twin Devourers, Hive Commander
Flyrant - Twin Twin Devourers

2 Venomthropes
1 Zoanthrope
1 Zoanthrope

30 Termagants - Spinefists, 10 Devourers
20 Hormagaunts
Tervigon - Outflanking
3-4 Warriors - Devourers, 1 Barbed Strangler
5 Genestealers and Broodlord - more outflanking

Crone
15 Gargoyles
3 Shrikes - Twin Boneswords

3 Dakkafexes
2 Biovores
Exocrine

Pointwise? Not worked out. Subject to tweaking. Probably looking at about 2k which is fine for me.

I like this...we have outflanking threats, a solid airforce, some solid mid-range firepower and a wall of meat that is a threat as well.

Reasons for each?

Flyrants - obvious, also best anti-flyer option 'nids have at the moment.

Single Zoanthropes - to spread the Synapse bubble really
Venomthrope Brood - for a mini cover bubble - the Carnifexes and Exocrine are going to advance with these guys.

Naked Hormagaunts - an expendable meat shield, nothing more. Designed just to push forward with the flying circus and hit the lines to tie things up for the meat to hit home.

Crone - S8 Vector strikes. Seriously. That is a bargain to me. Automatic S8 AP2 hits? That'll write off combat squads or small squads of T4 multi-wounds (Nobs, Suits). Heck, it'll even write off vehicles.

Biovores - Saturation of spore mines plus I want to paint my 3rd ed. babies so much!

 ductvader wrote:

omerakk wrote:
Couldn't you combine the relay with the swarmlord?

Reserves that come in a a 2+ that let's you reroll 1's... seems as good as you can get for success.

Yeah...but a 97% chance with both compared to an 89% chance with just a comms...or if you're just doing it for swarmy, you're already coming in at 83%...

If you've taken swarmy for himself, you really don't need a comms.

I've now beaten Tau twice running a Lord of War while he was running Trip Tide , I used the barbed hierodule and a ADL with Swarmlord and 1 guard. Beside the big boys is a venomthrope, who has a quad gun. Exocrine and Tyranofex chain out and move forward to deal with any mid range threats.

The 12 STR 10 shots with PE from Swarmlord are deadly!

At 1850 points you can fit in 30 outflanking devilgaunts with a prime which come in a 2+ turn 2. You've got a 24" death zone, and a 48" threat range.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
So, hammering together rough ideas for what I am wanting to go with and what I fancy painting up.



Crone - S8 Vector strikes. Seriously. That is a bargain to me. Automatic S8 AP2 hits? That'll write off combat squads or small squads of T4 multi-wounds (Nobs, Suits). Heck, it'll even write off vehicles.

Wait, I thought vector strikes were AP 3.

It is AP3.

rigeld2 wrote:
It is AP3.

Still good enough for what it does. My bad, since it's on a FMC, so, Smash and all. Actually, let's mention that. It's an I5 FMC. You can still happily chuck it into a small unit and let it chomp about as well.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
It is AP3.

Still good enough for what it does. My bad, since it's on a FMC, so, Smash and all. Actually, let's mention that. It's an I5 FMC. You can still happily chuck it into a small unit and let it chomp about as well.

Except any unit with krak grenades will eat it's lunch.

The Crone is amazing though, IMO.

It also adds saturation with the Flyrants.

Yes. I've loved my crones in every game I've used them.

Good troop options? Minimum sized squads of horms to be effective? If you've got a venomthrope, can you justify fielding smaller squads of 10 or 15?

've now beaten Tau twice running a Lord of War while he was running Trip Tide , I used the barbed hierodule and a ADL with Swarmlord and 1 guard

Wow 565 points for a model with almost identical stats to a WK (in that he can be killed as easily). I'm not impressed with the model. A Trygon with Miasma Cannon puts out as much damage for 270 points.