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Just because Talonis posted some clarifications.

To answer a few:

Broodlord's Hunting Pack: Its 1 brood lord for the formation, not army... my mistake I typed that wrong.

Deathleaper's assassins brood: The -1 Ld does not stack on it's self. The rule "Paranoia and Ill Discipline" - any enemy unit within 12" of one or more models from this formation suffers a -1 penalty to their Leadership Charcteristic.

Manufactorum Genestealers: I would say you can not include Broodlords in this formation, the formation restriction is that the Manufactorum Genestealer Broods may not take additional Genesealers. However you could put a case forward saying that your adding a brood lord, not a genestealer... but we all know that a brood lord is a genestealer beefed up.

All formations belong to the Tyranid Faction, so no one else can ally or use them
My understanding is that these formations are completely separate from your FOC, and unless mentioned no limit on the amount you can take (of course Deathleaper being Unique means you couldn't take multiple)

This is a good way to include Deathleaper without taking up a HQ choice too.

Read more: http://thetyranidhive.proboards.com/thread/45107/info-new-dataslate?page=7#ixzz2rMDCe9Yf

Deathleaper's Assassin Brood looks like a real gem here, six individual Lictors all up in your opponent's grill, with a cloud of -1 Leadership.

I'll also be trying out the Broodlord's Hunting Pack as well.

Together with some elements of the codex itself, we have the makings of a pretty viable vanguard-themed force I think.

Wow, seems like Christmas is one month late this year...

Suddenly, my genestealers feels a lot less depressed!

A few more clarifications. Nice that the Assassin Brood all gets PE (characters). That might be an auto-include. It also looks like the hunting brood can outflank from a ruin or building.


1. LICTOR FOREST BROOD:
1 Brood of 1-5 Lictors
Special rules: While in forest they have Shroud instead of stealth and can infiltrates up to 6 inches away from an enemy (In forests).

2. MANUFACTORUM GENESTEALERS
5 Genestealer broods
Special rules: They have hit and run and when infiltrating in building or ruins you can infiltrate up to 6 inches away from an enemy.

3. DEATHLEAPER’S ASSASSIN BROOD
5 Lictor broods and Deathleaper
Special rules: They have preferred enemy for characters and independent characters and all enemies have -1 to Ld when in 12 inches of any unit in the formation.

4. BROODLORD’S HUNTING PACK
3 Genestealer broods (with one and only one Broodlord)
Special rules: When entering from reserves they can enter in any unoccupied building or any ruins as long as they are at lease 6 inches away from an enemy. Also they have preferred enemy against a single chosen enemy unit.

5. GARGOYLE BIO-BOMBS
3 Gargoyle broods and 3 spore mine clusters
Special rules: If formation spore mine is 6 inches to a formation Gargoyle it can move 6 inches and runs and charges as normal (no half movment)

Read more: http://thetyranidhive.proboards.com/thread/45289/overview-vanguard-data-slate#ixzz2rMe9aGFk

Hey, jy2, is your next part in depth analysis (already done on Eldar and Necrons) going to be on Nids?

Ok so here's a question -- do the genestealers taken as a formation or the manufactorum broods count as troops? As in, are they scoring and do they take up troop slots?

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Ok so here's a question -- do the genestealers taken as a formation or the manufactorum broods count as troops? As in, are they scoring and do they take up troop slots?

It has been answered somewhere else that that are under the Troop choice in the Dataslate, perhaps implying that yes, they do score. Which is awesome.

Yup. Already thinking of fitting in some factory genestealers in my lists now.

Looks like disruption is the focus of those formations. Basically shove some units right up to the enemy and make them have to make some tough decisions, and hopefully give the rest of the swarm a turn or two of taking less damage.

 ductvader wrote:

 Abandon wrote:

 Iechine wrote:
So...about that Trygon and Reaper... Any thoughts?

I used a Trygon Prime + Reaper in a tourny last week and then again in a casual game two days ago. It's great if you can get into melee with a tough unit as it's likely to kill a Wraith Knight before it even gets a chance to strike with I7 + ID on 6's + rerolls to wound + 7 attacks on the charge and no armor saves. For me that's worth it because those and Melee Daemon armies are fairly common for me to see in my games. Getting it into CC is the problem as a wise opponent will usually avoid it like the plague and try to gun it down from a distance. Even that serves a purpose though with proper threat saturation.

Is it worth it's points? Depends on what force you face BTH. The 3 Vendetta IG army at a 1250 limit will not care about it. With or without the Reaper the Trygon dies just the same to shooting, their troops die all the same in CC and it won't help you bring down any zooming flyers.

It will help you bust tanks, kill assault marines, Daemons, etc. so it depends on your meta, your style of play and your other unit selections.

All in all I'd say it ups his CC effectiveness by 0-50% depending on whats across the table from you. The question is do you really need to increase you Trygon Primes melee ability? Like I said, It's worth it for me but I can't answer that for you and that's a bit to many points to shrug off as 'extra'.

I think Toxin Sacs is about all you need for most of your troubles here.

In most cases your right. What are the odds you going to encounter units that will pose a challenge to a Trygon Prime with TS in CC? I do fairly often but that has more to do with my regular opponents bringing Iron Armed Daemon Princes and the like. The threat of ID changes the the opponents tactical options and is worth the 45 point price tag to me. Is it generally worth it to everyone? Probably not.

I would like to add though that that initiative increase coupled with ID is often the difference between taking one or more wounds in a fight and walking away(consolidating) unscathed. A Trygon Prime with TS will still get murdered by a Wraith Knight in CC where as if he had the Reaper instead it would quite likely ID the Wraith Knight without losing any wounds.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Yup. Already thinking of fitting in some factory genestealers in my lists now.

I'm picking up another brood lord and lictor...I'm one shy of each for the hunting pack and assassin force...and they sound like buckets of fun

damn. formations. my area doesn't support it in tournaments.

Wait, is it only formations? Not a true supplement like Tau, etc have received?

 Bulldogging wrote:
Wait, is it only formations? Not a true supplement like Tau, etc have received?

Nope...it's a dataslate...the rumor is that supplements are dead...GW announced something to the effect of the investment not seeing such a great return

so after a week of reading this gigantic thing........

Toxin Sacs have been understated or missed so far. You can still re-roll missed to wounds because our strength 6, will most likely be higher than their toughness. But you start adding all the biomorphs to any MC and they are no longer cheap. For dedicated CC beasts, I think it's a great weapon (was greater when you could re-roll hits and wounds)

I also agree with the numerous above comments that the tfex is great for the price, I just have a hard time finding room for it in something that works with the rest of the list.


Also what are your takes on shadow in the warp? The first description in the front says -3 for any character near a model with SITW; however, the back "summary" says -3 for each model with SITW. So cumulative?

And yet still no rumors about new plastic kits for lictors/deathleaper/old-genestealers/broodlord announced ?

Am i missing something ?

A friend and I pored over the contents of the codex tonight as he is a veteran of many Tyrannic campaigns.

We dissected the units for about three hours before committing anything to paper. here was our thought after that:

220 Flying Tyrant (Hive Commander)
285 Swarmlord
196 30 Termagaunts (19 x Devourers)
210 Tervigon (Cluster spines, Electroshock Grubs)
162 9 Skyslashers
90 2 VenomThropes
150 3 Zoanthropes
130 5 GeneStealers+ Broodlord
130 5 GeneStealers+ Broodlord
165 3 x HiveGuard
120 3 x Biovores
140 Mawloc

1998pts

Took a while to work this out. We moved units in and out of the matrix to see which ones would do the thing we most wanted them to do and when we would want it. Pretty torn over the Hive Tyrant vs. Hive Crone but we finally decided on the Hive Tyrant. That was an area we talked about a LONG time. The Psyker powers of the Hive Tyrant were a big selling point though. Tyranid Psyker powers are pretty awesome and the more chances you get to give out FnP or to pin the enemy, the better. Its marginal performance against multiple flyers will have to be offset by what it contributes in defense.

Effectively the way it works is that the Broodlords will infiltrate and pin units down (using The Horror). The Zoanthropes roll for a second power may also yield The Horror, though many of the powers would be very good, as they will be helping to provide Synapse and they can do a lot to protect the various broods around them if need be.

We wanted something to counter the Eldar shinanigans with their Serpent hulls, so we included a unit of Hive Guard to help us bring down one or two of those. The fact is, those things can really take on a LOT of things and provide first blood pretty well if given a chance.

The Biovores are just a FANTASTIC tool. It's really amazingly worthwhile to take them. For one, it's a barrage, so yet another chance to pin the enemy (seeing a theme?). For two, for those who've read the rules, it can pump out an incredibly awesome and almost guaranteed blast of great power if it fails initially to do its duty. Talk about a fun unit. AP 4 is awesome against so many armies as well. Interesting tactics came to light while we discussed what a MISS would allows us to do and it was pretty fun to think about. You dont HAVE to ram the spores into anything. They can just form a fence when needed. They can also be used to slow enemy movement, cut off flyer movement and so on. It just has a lot of uses.

The Mawlocs function is fairly obvious: try to intentionally force the mishap so your weapon can go off twice, potentially killing any singular target you want. The important one preferably. Things like Riptides will care LESS, but they won't NOT care entirely! Against Markerlights, and other high value targets it will be immeasurably useful and if the enemy does not kill it, it gets to do it all again. If its not killed, it provides cover and forces the enemy to fire on it. If pinned the enemy may find that more difficult.

Venomthropes are there to protect the brood with Stealth. Der. not much else to say honestly. In a fight with hordes if they survive, they do do a fair amount of potential damage although... That's probably hoping for a lot.

Skyslashers are the spearhead. They can be empowered by the Broodlord and are a serious amount of wounds to get through. High powered weaponry will be forced onto them rather than higher toughness targets for a round to try and double them out, which is a boon to the army. Optionally the enemy might fire behind them to hit Termagaunts BUT if they do, its 3+ saves at worst for intervening models and the Venomthropes, plus of course the Skyslashers are still there and threatening. Also, that leaves less shots to go into my Synapse.

The Hive Tyrant makes the Tervigon outflank, and in effect, allows its babies to have done the same. Great for objective stealing and surprising the enemy flank as well as affecting their deployment. All kinds of plus's. The Swarmlord ensures it and the mawloc come on in turn 2 and keep on coming. This effectively gives the army 5 troops choices. the Swarmlord has an immense radius of Synapse, which will help in the round after reserves arrive since Synapse is not checked on units newly arriving from reserve.

All in all I was pretty pleased with the concept. Anti-horde control for zombi armies is well under control. MEQ armies will find the army more than a match in melee and the availability of dual chargers and fleet units will mitigate the effects of overwatch. The lack of AP 3 is a bit of a blind spot and MEQ will not wilt easily under the shooting, but of course they are Tyranids...

One thing we didn't explore as much yet because we want to see what happens, is whether it makes sense to do two units of Sky slashers instead of one. Not too sure about that part. I think testing will give us a good guess. he plans to give it a whirl tomorrow.

I'm confused what the Swarmlord is doing in that list besides being a 285 point reserves tax that will get focussed down once the Venomthropes and Flyrant are dead.

Not sure you considered that : for the same cost of your 9 skyslashers you can get 30 gargoyles which are good at pretty much everything you said skyslashers are. Could be a bigger threat for your opponent though cause he will surely take those down before getting tarpited.

Also huge fan of Swarmy not sure he will fit in really good (waiting for playtesting).

Also you're going towards some kind of pining theme, did you consider adding Harpy ? could fit in well i guess !

 PrinceRaven wrote:
I'm confused what the Swarmlord is doing in that list besides being a 285 point reserves tax that will get focussed down once the Venomthropes and Flyrant are dead.

Ah. Some thoughts on that since we did discuss it.

You will notice that turn 3 is when it can be charging quite assuredly at the latest So what happens is this: The enemy in his wisdom will try to kill the Synapse because thats what he's been told to do.. But that's not so easy. Range can be an issue. Also, There's a high likelihood in this list that they will be FnP (6 rolls on the Psyker table). Second, a high chance of cover saves from terrain, Night fighting (50% of the time in turn one) and of course the Venomthropes. So while the enemy is certainly wise to try to kill the Synapse, the trouble is its a little slower in round 1 to do. A LOT of round ones are uninteresting affairs with First Blood being the key prize.

The other trouble: Skyslashers are at about the 27.5 inch mark in turn 1? So There is going to be a limit to how many units can truly fire at the synapse targets before being silenced for a little while by fearless Swarms. Now I am fully aware that enemies can actually kill the swarms. Oh yeah. if they focus down on them, they might make it through 27 wounds if firing the higher Str stuff into it or else sadrificing a lions share of the firing into it to save bigger shots for bigger game. I cant speak for what the enemy will do, knowing there are 5x9= 45 STR 4 attacks coming on the charge from the Skyslashers. My guess though is that turn one and two will be heavily occupied with handling the matter. If not, well...

We cannot foresee every possibility and its easy to say "Well horde because hordes" to which someone says "Yeah but Manticore because D3 Large Blasts". That gets us nowhere. What we can do is fill the view screen with so many insects that the enemy ignores the closest only at his own discomfort. Saturating it is a sure way to dictate where the fire is going.

So the Swarmlord is awesome. That is why he's in the list. At first we went with a Hive commander and Hive Crone but ater thinking it through we realized how indiffeent the points were and how much easier the Swarmlord can survive enemy fire like you're talking about. There was just 20 points separating our original Flyrant and the Swarmlord and after thinking about it we came to the conclusion that for 20 points, we were getting a hell of a lot that mattered if we made our Crone tougher (i.e. made it a flyrant) and with Psyker awesomeness and deployment shenanigans while making our actual Tyrant a ton tougher and more synergistic.

Many is the tale and battle report of the Flyrants being disassembled by a grounding check and a few shots. its a cliche. They are so exposed all the time. This allows him to absorb way more fire and preserve the scoring units that matter longer. He's not cheap but he's a level 3 Psyker and his Shadows in the Warp is cool, especially when its effects are applied to the targets of Broodlords and such.

This gave us a maximized chance of getting the powers we wanted as well. No small thing since the army depends so much on the approach. His Synapse range is big, and he he can protect the army early on against pre-emptive threats (for example, deep strikers or shunting DreadKnights albeit he's probably in no hurry to fight an Instant Death Weapon but he might be able to stop it from working). He's a load in combat and he doesn't lose often. Cant win em all though. No one can.

As far as I understand it the Genestealers taken in the formations would operate outside of the FOC and therefore would not be scoring as they're not technically Troops if taken in a Formation.

Skwii wrote:
Not sure you considered that : for the same cost of your 9 skyslashers you can get 30 gargoyles which are good at pretty much everything you said skyslashers are. Could be a bigger threat for your opponent though cause he will surely take those down before getting tarpited.

Also huge fan of Swarmy not sure he will fit in really good (waiting for playtesting).

Also you're going towards some kind of pining theme, did you consider adding Harpy ? could fit in well i guess !

Gargoyles were on my mind. 27 Gargoyles might make sense for the same cost and we talked about it. Definitely a good suggestion. Same wounds, but more versatility in the Gargoyles. We chose Skyslashers for their one advantage: fearless without synapse, as they do run ahead of the army, so it can matter. The Fearless aspect is their big plus. Also, they dont lull you into shooting when you shoulda charged. Might not wanna fire 27 gaunts at the expense of the charge and generally the job of this unit is to threaten the charge. if someone goes after synapse they need to know its not going to stop that swarm...which makes them that much more apt to kill the swarm and not other stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Enceladus wrote:
As far as I understand it the Genestealers taken in the formations would operate outside of the FOC and therefore would not be scoring as they're not technically Troops if taken in a Formation.

It isn't a formation.

Enceladus wrote:
As far as I understand it the Genestealers taken in the formations would operate outside of the FOC and therefore would not be scoring as they're not technically Troops if taken in a Formation.

They are listed as troops in the dataslate.

Minor technical question, is there any way I can buy and access this dataslate without needing an iOS device or a Mac?

I want to make use of the dataslate, but I don't particularly want to buy a new phone, computer or tablet at the moment to do so...

Xyptc wrote:
Minor technical question, is there any way I can buy and access this dataslate without needing an iOS device or a Mac?

I want to make use of the dataslate, but I don't particularly want to buy a new phone, computer or tablet at the moment to do so...

Just buy the eBook version... I have a feeling it's marginally cheaper, too.

Not overwhelmed by the dataslate, it should cost 20% less than it does for the number of pages, too. But the Broodlord Hunting Packs do improve stealers, and are usable, while the Deathleaper Assassin brood is fun, and presumably frees up HQ and Elite slots.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Enceladus wrote:
As far as I understand it the Genestealers taken in the formations would operate outside of the FOC and therefore would not be scoring as they're not technically Troops if taken in a Formation.

They are listed as troops in the dataslate.

Interesting... Makes them a little more appealing!

How about this list:

Dakka flyrant - 230
Dakka flyrant -230

1 x lictor

5 x genestealers with brood lord -130
5 x genestealers with brood lord -130
5 x genestealers with brood lord -130
5 x genestealers with brood lord -130

Mawloc
Mawloc
Mawloc

Deathleapers brood
1 x deathleaper
5 x lictor

Comes in at 1830. Anything the broodlords hit will be at -3 LD for pinning tests, precision mawloc strikes everywhere and everything starting on the board can be in combat turn 2

Interesting approach Jancoren. Strikes from a lot of different angles. I'm not convinced that the Flyrant is at all durable in the list though. Losing Biomancy was a big deal - there is no way they last long these days.I have to say the list looks like a 40k Unorthodoxy one though. All the different elements of flexible deployment and surprise.

Terror from the Deep wrote:
How about this list:

Dakka flyrant - 230
Dakka flyrant -230

1 x lictor

5 x genestealers with brood lord -130
5 x genestealers with brood lord -130
5 x genestealers with brood lord -130
5 x genestealers with brood lord -130

Mawloc
Mawloc
Mawloc

Deathleapers brood
1 x deathleaper
5 x lictor

Comes in at 1830. Anything the broodlords hit will be at -3 LD for pinning tests, precision mawloc strikes everywhere and everything starting on the board can be in combat turn 2

Pretty much a win or bust list - I like it!

 ductvader wrote:

 Bulldogging wrote:
Wait, is it only formations? Not a true supplement like Tau, etc have received?

Nope...it's a dataslate...the rumor is that supplements are dead...GW announced something to the effect of the investment not seeing such a great return

Uh, where is this stated? I have not seen anything about supplements being dead, and seems to be the exact opposite of the way things are going.