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Place a unit of warriors and/or a dakkafex in reserve, hope I get the tunnel up before they arrive. It's not reliable as it depends on the trygon popping up first.

It'd devote a lot towards this strategy but running a pair of trygons could in theory have you deploying and shooting in their rear zone 2nd turn with back up arriving 3rd turn which is a full turn ahead of footslogging and prevents you from being hit by long range fire on the way in. May not prove to be viable but it might be worth experimenting with. The 6 inch foot print is larger enough to squeeze another MC out of, or a tyrant and his guard.

DS the trygon do his shooting if he survives and is alone with no synapse you can pop warriors out the following turn which gets him out of his IB funk and moving.



It'd be weird/dumb but if the crones or harpies left the table for some reason (into ongoing reserves) they could come back via the tunnel? I have no idea if there's any practical application for that though.

@ Paulson

The crone/harpy out of the tunnel trick could be used for vector striking I guess or get to the other side of the board safely since they are SUPER squishy for an FMC

And if it doesn't work, you've got 270 points (minimum) of Warriors in your backfield doing nothing. Or, alternatively, they arrive exactly where you want them, shoot something and... then what? Besides die next turn, that is.

I am just unwilling to bank on the "roll +3 on first model, under 3 on second roll, next turn roll +3 on same model" strategy. Second turn if you don't get a trygon or you do get the Warriors, you're now behind instead.

Few comments having used the new codex in 2 matches now:

Gotta have that mid range synapse...

Zoans are literally the BEST synapse unit in the codex now, being the only unit to come with an invul save and 2 wounds a piece makes 3 the ideal midfield synapse unit. Need to reread their rules as far as coming stock with warp blast, but I believe you can sub that power out for dominion after rolling for their second power...could be wrong, but I don't remember seeing any restriction to subbing out that power for the primaris.
This still only gives them a 1 of 5 chance to grab catalyst, but every other power(other than the nova save for extreme circumstances) works quite well with them. Paroxysm is awesome for shutting down High fire power low model units like broadsides, wraithknights and riptides. It is close to the best defence against the ranged ID attacks from wraithknights. They are also the only real unit where dominion works well to keep the majority of the army in synapse.
Offensively, the warp blast is quite good, sad if you fail the one and only LD test, but three BS4 lance shots wrecks vehicles and 3 S5 ap3 blasts levels marines.

use 2 units of these, never looked back.

I also use two tyrannofexes stock, still trying to decide if regen is worth it (I am leaning towards no), but 175 points for these guys is a steal. Manage to get either catalyst, onslaught or both on these guys and man oh man do they level infantry. I used them in the last book with acid spray, and used to use them with dessicator larvae, but I have recently been trying shreddershard as rending with shred is pretty great.

Still on the fence with hive guard... point increase and reduced BS really hurt them... but gaining pure "ignores cover" is damn good against skimmers.

devilgaunts are still good and cheaper! Hurray!

Having so much trouble justifying venomthropes... army-wide shrouded is very nice indeed, but as you guys are well aware of, there is just SO much ignores cover in the top armies these days, and unless completely blocked from line of sight against (or really just F'ed against smart missiles) these guys will never last more than a turn without a prime attached.

Anyways, just some thoughts...

Jeebus that was a longer post than planned, sorry about that!

Ok, so i had a game against chaos.

Tyranids
Hive tyrant x 1
Mawloc
16 x turmagaunts
15 x hormagaunts
Rippers x 5: tunnel swarm.
3 x warriors.
1 x carnifex
7 x genestealers
Chaos
12 x cultists
10 x cultists
daemon prince
Helbrute (I've lost my DV stats sheet so we used it as a chaos dread.)
5 x terminators
10 x marines.
chaos lord
Well, the mawloc killed eight cultist on turn one, then was assaulted by the daemon prince. The daemon prince took three turns to kill it, wit the help of the lord, mawloc did two wounds back.
Rippers deep strike and daemon prince assaults them.
Genestealers outflanked and assaulted by terminators, after a few turns, two stealers are left and all terminators dead.
Genestealers assault the last four cultists, one more stealer dies, all cultists dead. The chaos lord kills the last stealer. Daemon prince assaults carnifex and KILLS IT IN ONE TURN! But, the daemon prince gets assaulted and killed by the hive tyrant.
Helbrute does one wound to the hive tyrant (multi melta) and the gaunts and cultists shoot each other, with most hormagaunts now dead and only two cultists left. Tyrant assaults helbrute, and wrecks it.
Tyrant kills lord.
Now all that's left is
Hive tyrant, 2 horms, 8 turms, 3 warriors,

2 cultists, 10 space marineS.
By the end of next turn I win.


Okso.

Rippers losing a wound has really hurt them, they now last only a fraction of what they used to.
Mawloc was good ( was my first turn using him).
Gaunts were meh.
Carnifex was piss poor, didn't kill anything, although daemon prince did have power sword.
Tyrant was really good, I dint use any psychic powers.
Genestealers did good, although I was lucky with where he put the terminators.
Warriors were meh.

Both of those lists seem horridly unoptimized and the csm list was even worse than the nids list

Looked like a WD Battle Report army - lots of randomly selected units with various upgrades and weirdly variable unit sizes.

Wow, the fur on end in this post is almost too much to be believed. I have to say that OP codexes are really not going to make the game any fun to play. I am glad this codex is not broken, and it is not OP. In my neck of the woods, games are being won by Smurfs, crazy right. I have seen screamer stars go down, I have seen riptide/battle suit spam lose, and I have seen guard mech take no prize at all. But that is only in a 18 player RTT. The big GTs are totally different. Now, how many of those GTs are there and how often? LVO and BOA are once a year? Say what you want, but those are not really the norm. Again, I can only speak to my back yard. In these parts the player is really the deciding factor. It is not like the old 4th ed days where Necrons brought grieve and Eldar Psyker powers were OP.

I really wish the next codexes are more like this one. I hope people can start playing the game and leaving the arm chair quarterbacking to professional sports. I just ran a game with 3 Harpies, 3 Tervigons, 3 thirty Termigaunts, and a prime in a warrior unit. I was able to jump out turn one and smoke a raider, TL HVC are good, but at 5s to glance, I got lucky. I was hit hard in return, but regen really saved me and again, I was lucky. The wave on wave of haunts was really too bunch for his infantry so in the end, having MCs sitting in cover on objectives was a winner. So my take is to be a bug, run at his prize unit turn one and do as much as you can. The shadow of the warp makes most armies that rely on powers less of a threat.

Ok, the game was a blast, for both sides. My feeling is that 'nids are are not going to be showing up in big numbers any time soon. People want easy builds and they just don't exist. People say the FMC are squishy and they are. I got an extra turn with regen and luck, things I don't reccomend a player rely on. I was fine with synapse, but I play Orcs and Goblins so I am use to funny units doing funny things. I don't think the talk of reserving is anything but crazy, maybe one trigon, but waiting for half your big heavies to show is crazy talk IMHO.

I plan on playing a real combined arms list next. So, one Tervigon, one 30 Termigaunt unit, one harpy, one croon, a HGuard unit, a Flyrant, some genestealers in outflank, a venomtrope, and some carnifexes with whatever points I have left over. I think there might be something in that, but I will post my idea after it has been tested, that way no one can say I was blowing smoke.

I will say this too, making this game balanced when it is this complex is near impossible. I have been playing since 4th and in my area, it has seemed to be the most balanced yet. That has no hard evidence, it is just a feeling. I really hope people start playing the bugs and telling us what they got out of it.

Ok, have at it.

You know, the only thing that I feel that is 100% perfect in the new codex is the Fall of Shadowbrink, it is just excellent to have Chaos Daemons vs Tyranids battle and see how those 2 races have a WTF moment when meeting the other.

 A GumyBear wrote:
Both of those lists seem horridly unoptimized and the csm list was even worse than the nids list

Also forgot about hit and running out of combat with the mawloc.
Used the Mawloc on cultists instead of ANYTHING ELSE.
Who charges genestealers with ANYTHING?

OMG, low level play makes my brain hurt.

Can the Mawloc not smash at S10? I don't understand how it did two wounds to between a chaos lord and a Deamon prince without instant killing either of them.

 Carnage43 wrote:

 A GumyBear wrote:
Both of those lists seem horridly unoptimized and the csm list was even worse than the nids list

Also forgot about hit and running out of combat with the mawloc.
Used the Mawloc on cultists instead of ANYTHING ELSE.
Who charges genestealers with ANYTHING?

OMG, low level play makes my brain hurt.

Mawloc has hit and run?
Fuuu.....
I wanted to see what the mawloc would do in close combat as again, it was my first time using it.
We buy what looks cool, half his cultists were LOTR orks.
He didn't know about rending, he's more in the hobby for modelling than anything else.

 Carnage43 wrote:

 A GumyBear wrote:
Both of those lists seem horridly unoptimized and the csm list was even worse than the nids list

Also forgot about hit and running out of combat with the mawloc.
Used the Mawloc on cultists instead of ANYTHING ELSE.
Who charges genestealers with ANYTHING?

OMG, low level play makes my brain hurt.

Well I personally appreciate the input from a casual gamer's perspective, it's interesting to know where a large portion of the community may stand.

Also, why be so arrogant and rude. No call for it.

He's not wrong though. Even non-competitive players such as myself find the idea of non-cohesive "bitsy" lists full of randomly selected units frustrating.

Why is nobody mentioning the fact that "The doom of Malan'tai" has been scrapped from this dex?

badkamer1 wrote:
Why is nobody mentioning the fact that "The doom of Malan'tai" has been scrapped from this dex?

It's been mentioned quite a bit. Sadly the response is always the same:

"Anyone who took it is just a WAAC power-gamer!"

Seems having a real discussion about the legitimate failings of this book is quite a difficult thing given all the inane attempts to defend it. "Wait and see". "Stop whining". "Use Tactics!".

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Why is the tenteclid a "terrifying prospect for flyers"? They pen on a 6 and Crones are BS3 to boot. You'll be taking less than one hullpoint off a flyer per turn on average without vector striking.

- - - - - -

The best bright spot I see for 'nids is the big middle finger they give to psychic deathstars. Deathleaper+Shadow in the Warp equals a leadership 5 psyker on average (4 for a perfect roll on the d3).

First, tentaclids are 360 degrees. Getting behind the flyers isn't unlikely. Second its str 5, not just haywire. And of course I see no reason not to vector strike thus saving tentaclids for other targets if need be. The tentaclids can glance or penetrate two times each, potentially. Thats pretty good. I'd take a pair, myself.

Cool , only your crones are huge models and are getting battered from turn 1 on by opponents skyfire units and they will be the first on the table so flyers will get a round of shoting on them first. the only thing they counter "good" is other FMC

 paulson games wrote:

 A GumyBear wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzkYbJj4-Ns&feature=youtube_gdata_player 

New nids batrep by frontline gaming incase you hadnt seen it, this really reinforces the amount of stupid the nids codex is (its nids vs orks and I'm sure you can guess the outcome)

That's actually one of the videos I'd been thinking of when I made my comment, in their games the flyrant and crone has been front and center leading the charge while the rest of the army is playing catch up. They are amazing at reaching the rear of the field but I think maybe they are dropping that bomb a turn to soon and they'd also benefit with a second crone as it'd bring a bit more force to the rear at the same time. Right now he's splitting his forces into two smaller ones in effect, the fliers try and immediately harass but quickly die as they don't have quite enough punch but die while the rest of the army advances and get shot at the next turn. If there was a second flier it or rear striker it'd raise their threat level.

Not sure if it'd be enough to get around the other units being synapse f-ed but it'd be worth trying IMO.

This is so true. It was an unfocused 'nids list vs a fairly efficient Ork list (he ran Trukks, it was otherwise optimised). Having Swarmy meander up the board while the flyrant did all the heavy lifting was silly; it might show us that Swarmy isn't very good, but I wouldn't have run him with no support whatsoever, even on the old Codex.

Getting one flyrant in an enemy's face without support was never a winning move; you could get away with it if you an Iron Arm in the past. I think these days if you run one, you need to run two; we'll be running two flyrants, two crones, gargoyles and a Mawloc. Granted, it's still an uphill struggle; in the old days, with Hive Commander and Spores, we could unleash two carnifexes and the doom at the same time the flyrant hit and one tervigon outflanked. Losing that plus one to reserve rolls is another massive pain.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 paulson games wrote:

 A GumyBear wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzkYbJj4-Ns&feature=youtube_gdata_player 

New nids batrep by frontline gaming incase you hadnt seen it, this really reinforces the amount of stupid the nids codex is (its nids vs orks and I'm sure you can guess the outcome)

That's actually one of the videos I'd been thinking of when I made my comment, in their games the flyrant and crone has been front and center leading the charge while the rest of the army is playing catch up. They are amazing at reaching the rear of the field but I think maybe they are dropping that bomb a turn to soon and they'd also benefit with a second crone as it'd bring a bit more force to the rear at the same time. Right now he's splitting his forces into two smaller ones in effect, the fliers try and immediately harass but quickly die as they don't have quite enough punch but die while the rest of the army advances and get shot at the next turn. If there was a second flier it or rear striker it'd raise their threat level.

Not sure if it'd be enough to get around the other units being synapse f-ed but it'd be worth trying IMO.

This is so true. It was an unfocused 'nids list vs a fairly efficient Ork list (he ran Trukks, it was otherwise optimised). Having Swarmy meander up the board while the flyrant did all the heavy lifting was silly; it might show us that Swarmy isn't very good, but I wouldn't have run him with no support whatsoever, even on the old Codex.

Getting one flyrant in an enemy's face without support was never a winning move; you could get away with it if you an Iron Arm in the past. I think these days if you run one, you need to run two; we'll be running two flyrants, two crones, gargoyles and a Mawloc. Granted, it's still an uphill struggle; in the old days, with Hive Commander and Spores, we could unleash two carnifexes and the doom at the same time the flyrant hit and one tervigon outflanked. Losing that plus one to reserve rolls is another massive pain.

Yeah, I also noticed he had his gaunts behind the zoanthropes and the swarmy. That doesn't look right.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
He's not wrong though. Even non-competitive players such as myself find the idea of non-cohesive "bitsy" lists full of randomly selected units frustrating.

He may not be wrong that it gives him a headache but he is wrong to deride someone for how they choose to play the game.

You can't complain you find their way of playing frustrating while also suggesting people shouldn't complain about WAAC/tourney play without it edging toward hypocrisy...

Now, my thoughts on the dex (From the point of view of a fairly casual meta with very diverse armies):

It's okay, I think it's about where it was before. We lost out in some areas (Biomancy, how I'll miss you) but gained in others in terms of points drops. I like the fluff for the psi powers as since the Nids are from outside the galaxy why would they share powers with the natives.
Fluff wise I also like the new IB, all the Nid stories have the death of synapse breaking the swarm and in previous editions this wasn't true, now it really will break you.
100 gaunts for 400-500pts as well as the cut price Carnifex broods let you really thicken out your numbers and create a real horde feel.

I don't think I'll ever understand the huge points increase on Primes but hey, you take the good with the bad. Personally I look forward to driving my horde forward with a regenning Dakkatyrant with 3 guards, losing Old adversary is a shame but will will adapt and consume.
I'm still having fun with the game and this codex won't change that, in fact I think I shall enjoy the next few months/year more as I try out all the new combinations I dream up.

I used to enjoy a more competitive environ though I no longer do so I will say this in regards to it:
Clearly the GW writers are not writing 40k as a competitive ruleset, by design or lack of skill (I'm not touching which it is with a 10ft pole), if that's what you want it would seem you want something different to the writers. At some point you will need to decide whether you wish to continue in the hobby because after all it should be bringing you fun and entertainment, if it isn't doing that maybe it's time to cut your losses and move on.

No game is ever completely balanced, there is always a top list/build/playstyle in no holds barred competition, currently that's Tau-dar/Eld-Au. If you dislike GW's direction vote with your wallet and feet or houserule it.

Now I say this with all due respect, this is not a "Suck it up or GTFO" post, but if you aren't having fun you need to act, either to houserule, sell up or change your expectations.

 Tyran wrote:
You know, the only thing that I feel that is 100% perfect in the new codex is the Fall of Shadowbrink, it is just excellent to have Chaos Daemons vs Tyranids battle and see how those 2 races have a WTF moment when meeting the other.

Really enjoyed that myself. Loved the conclusion that powers in the warp are plotting revenge. Oddly enough chaos might save the imperium.

I read that today. Very cool section.

If only cool fluff made the rules better.

 Dunklezahn wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
He's not wrong though. Even non-competitive players such as myself find the idea of non-cohesive "bitsy" lists full of randomly selected units frustrating.

He may not be wrong that it gives him a headache but he is wrong to deride someone for how they choose to play the game.

You can't complain you find their way of playing frustrating while also suggesting people shouldn't complain about WAAC/tourney play without it edging toward hypocrisy...

I agree, it's very elitist, why can't he have his opinion? Also, there is a difference between non-competitive and casual - tbh it was actually one of the more interesting posts I read, whether he played the units the correct way or not. I more or less know exactly how the new units are going to play out competitively, I can work that out by reading them. I am curious how this release affects a casual player, because like it or not the bulk of the people buying the models fit into the category of either casual players or modellers, and I'm glad the opinions outside the competitive scene are also negative meaning that hopefully almost everyone shares the correct opinion that this release is gak, thus more books & models globally being returned / not bought, by possibly the bulk of the customer base which means far more than any amount of opinions posted on dakkadakka.com forum by angry high level players. Plus, every competitive player has an opinion and he thinks his is the right one (incl myself). It was very nice for me to be able to hear of how a random list of models built from the new nid dex performed for him, no its not at all relevant to the competitive scene, idgaf. Shooting down such opinions with "WOW LOW LEVEL PLAY MY HEAD HURTS BECAUSE OF HOW BAD YOU ARE" is such arrogant bs, if you don't care about the post just ignore it.

 sgtpjbarker wrote:
Wow, the fur on end in this post is almost too much to be believed. I have to say that OP codexes are really not going to make the game any fun to play. I am glad this codex is not broken, and it is not OP. In my neck of the woods, games are being won by Smurfs, crazy right. I have seen screamer stars go down, I have seen riptide/battle suit spam lose, and I have seen guard mech take no prize at all. But that is only in a 18 player RTT. The big GTs are totally different. Now, how many of those GTs are there and how often? LVO and BOA are once a year? Say what you want, but those are not really the norm. Again, I can only speak to my back yard. In these parts the player is really the deciding factor. It is not like the old 4th ed days where Necrons brought grieve and Eldar Psyker powers were OP.

I really wish the next codexes are more like this one. I hope people can start playing the game and leaving the arm chair quarterbacking to professional sports. I just ran a game with 3 Harpies, 3 Tervigons, 3 thirty Termigaunts, and a prime in a warrior unit. I was able to jump out turn one and smoke a raider, TL HVC are good, but at 5s to glance, I got lucky. I was hit hard in return, but regen really saved me and again, I was lucky. The wave on wave of haunts was really too bunch for his infantry so in the end, having MCs sitting in cover on objectives was a winner. So my take is to be a bug, run at his prize unit turn one and do as much as you can. The shadow of the warp makes most armies that rely on powers less of a threat.

Ok, the game was a blast, for both sides. My feeling is that 'nids are are not going to be showing up in big numbers any time soon. People want easy builds and they just don't exist. People say the FMC are squishy and they are. I got an extra turn with regen and luck, things I don't reccomend a player rely on. I was fine with synapse, but I play Orcs and Goblins so I am use to funny units doing funny things. I don't think the talk of reserving is anything but crazy, maybe one trigon, but waiting for half your big heavies to show is crazy talk IMHO.

I plan on playing a real combined arms list next. So, one Tervigon, one 30 Termigaunt unit, one harpy, one croon, a HGuard unit, a Flyrant, some genestealers in outflank, a venomtrope, and some carnifexes with whatever points I have left over. I think there might be something in that, but I will post my idea after it has been tested, that way no one can say I was blowing smoke.

I will say this too, making this game balanced when it is this complex is near impossible. I have been playing since 4th and in my area, it has seemed to be the most balanced yet. That has no hard evidence, it is just a feeling. I really hope people start playing the bugs and telling us what they got out of it.

Ok, have at it.

I can agree with everything you're saying here, but the downside is they've already put out at least one codex that has piles and piles of OP things, there in the Eldar.. I only know because a friend is a hardcore Eldar player. My big issues are the little changes... like adjusting "Units within __ inches" to "MODELS within __ inches" for everything from Synapse to Venomthrope forcing us to cluster all of our models together in such a way that we become template fodder. It's going to be a VERY trying type to be a tyranid player, and though I'm willing, I am not looking forward to anything but testing to see if it really is broken down or not.

Tsunai wrote:

 sgtpjbarker wrote:
My big issues are the little changes... like adjusting "Units within __ inches" to "MODELS within __ inches" for everything from Synapse to Venomthrope forcing us to cluster all of our models together in such a way that we become template fodder. It's going to be a VERY trying type to be a tyranid player, and though I'm willing, I am not looking forward to anything but testing to see if it really is broken down or not.

Bear in mind that for Shouded, if one model is within 6 inches all models in the unit get Shrouded (BRB). I am not sure about FNP, etc, will have to check.

Tsunai wrote:
My big issues are the little changes... like adjusting "Units within __ inches" to "MODELS within __ inches" for everything from Synapse to Venomthrope forcing us to cluster all of our models together in such a way that we become template fodder.

What frightens me more is the fact that the people who made those changes might not even appreciate just how much they changed the rule, and take a really flighty "Oh just play it the way we meant" attitude which is 100% the wrong attitude to take to writing rules.

Tsunai wrote:


I can agree with everything you're saying here, but the downside is they've already put out at least one codex that has piles and piles of OP things, there in the Eldar.. I only know because a friend is a hardcore Eldar player. My big issues are the little changes... like adjusting "Units within __ inches" to "MODELS within __ inches" for everything from Synapse to Venomthrope forcing us to cluster all of our models together in such a way that we become template fodder. It's going to be a VERY trying type to be a tyranid player, and though I'm willing, I am not looking forward to anything but testing to see if it really is broken down or not.

Doesn't work like that in 6th. In 6th ed, usually when a single model is affected by something, the whole unit is affected as well.

"Shroud" is an example of this. SnP, iirc, is another.

I can't decide wether or not to be offended TBH.
I stated clearly that we had models we like the look of, not models nessacerily good in-game.
I mean seriously, we woke up at ten in the morning and went
Literally: "dude, wanna get a game in before you have to leave?"
"yeah, you wanna use marines or 'nids?"
"I'l use nids, you use marines and your chaos."
It was the most casual game I've had, it was also fun.
You know, FUN. Where you do seme thing you like, not something that will win.
Damn. I mean, I was just trying to give my experience and opinion.