The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Eldar Tactica p.318 & 319)

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**DarkStarSabre**

...Did you seriously miss the simple statement of no formations, but Tyranids are allowed to ally with themselves?

I'm pretty sure that was stated.

There is no good gravy.

There is only literacy.

**captnobvious**

Kain wrote:
PrinceRaven wrote:
You ran Old One Eye and a Prime in the same list?
Dakkafices are awesome, they're so versatile and actually out-damage other HS options against a lot of targets they're supposed to be good against.

And since Exorcines and Biovores can be taken out of the FOC, you can have both your dakkafexes and your plasma/spore mine spam.

The only problem is the mandatory warrior brood GW seems to think 90% of all Tyranid ground based formations need.

I really like the Artillery formation. It's seriously such a bonus to a set of units I'd play already. The Biovores need a synapse/flanking escort anyway, so the warriors aren't really a huge hindrance.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarkStarSabre wrote:
...Did you seriously miss the simple statement of no formations, but Tyranids are allowed to ally with themselves?

I'm pretty sure that was stated.

There is no good gravy.

There is only literacy.

TL;DR'd half of it. *shrug* Shizzle happens.

And gravy is delicious. Poutine and Loco Moco. Winz.

**Kain**

Also, I'm playing a "no points limit just fill the dual FoC and allies, six formation limit, three lords of war maximum" pseudo-apoc game for a campaign.

Would bringing as many living tides as possible be a douche move?

Some notes about my group: All armies can access all BRB tables for psychic powers, everyone can be battle brothers with everyone else so long as you can handwave it convincingly. You can ally with your own army.

captnobvious wrote:
Kain wrote:
PrinceRaven wrote:
You ran Old One Eye and a Prime in the same list?
Dakkafices are awesome, they're so versatile and actually out-damage other HS options against a lot of targets they're supposed to be good against.

And since Exorcines and Biovores can be taken out of the FOC, you can have both your dakkafexes and your plasma/spore mine spam.

The only problem is the mandatory warrior brood GW seems to think 90% of all Tyranid ground based formations need.

I really like the Artillery formation. It's seriously such a bonus to a set of units I'd play already. The Biovores need a synapse/flanking escort anyway, so the warriors aren't really a huge hindrance.

If only the Exorcine's range fit the Biovores a bit better.

DarkStarSabre wrote:
...Did you seriously miss the simple statement of no formations, but Tyranids are allowed to ally with themselves?

I'm pretty sure that was stated.

There is no good gravy.

There is only literacy.

I wasn't really talking to you I'm afraid.

**captnobvious**

Kain wrote:
Also, I'm playing a "no points limit just fill the dual FoC and allies, six formation limit, three lords of war maximum" pseudo-apoc game for a campaign.

Would bringing as many living tides as possible be a douche move?

Yes. Still awesome.

"Your unit of troops has died.....respawn in 3....2.....1...."

Kain wrote:

If only the Exorcine's range fit the Biovores a bit better.

It's fire adjustment. You have a different set of threats scaling at 12" intervals. 48, 36, and 24. I use the exo as the hinge to whatever assault formation I'm using as I sweep with whatever force I'm pushing with (stealers/lictors/gaunts). I used to do the same thing with Hive Guard. Oh and I was never afraid of floating spore mines into a combat that was already going on. "I killed 1 SM and 3 Hormagaunts, I'll consider that a net victory."

**Kain**

jy2 wrote:

Kain wrote:
I've come to the conclusion that a properly run Mechanized Dark Eldar (especially a Venom heavy one) list is just not possible for a Tyranid list to beat without hard-core list tailoring/dumb luck. Especially since their fliers are so murderous to anything with a toughness value; easily blasting skyblights out of the sky. But honestly, even with BRB powers back they'd still hack us apart like they always have since they got their latest book. Our poor range for shooting makes that range reducing bit of war gear especially brutal, while their speed makes catching them in assault next to impossible and they have the dakka to cut down hordes and the kit to gun down MCs. And even if you do catch them in assault; Dark Eldar units tend to be quite nasty in chopping distance.

Grey Knights are also a brutal match-up. While the loss of BRB powers pending a FAQ has killed off most psychic choir lists (which were the ones that the Grey Knights really screwed over), it turns out that being an army tailored against daemons also makes them very good against us as we're also an army with generally poor saves and AP/short ranged shooting, a mix of fragile cheap units and monstrous creatures, and a lot of psykers.

I'd avoid assaulting Dreadknights with any monstrous creature as they'll probably survive to punch back and instant death it, while their flamers are also nasty to hordes. Tie these up with cheap, fearless cannon fodder, but don't think you can ignore them, they're good against anything in the army. Storm ravens are a pain to bring down, and always try to get the guy with the nemesis thunder hammer out of the squad before assaulting them with a monstrous creature unless you want to watch your Trygon explode with the first hit.

Overall all our problems with these two armies remain from the last book and they remain abysmal match-ups. If their lists are tailored to kill Tyranids (not even your list, just tyranids in general), you may as well not play.

Actually, Tyranid FMC-spam can decimate DE under the right conditions. One of the weaknesses of DE is their anti-air. A dual flyrant/triple-crone Tyranid list is a competitive TAC Tyranid army. If they can get the first turn (and if the deployment isn't Hammer & Anvil), then nids can potentially cripple DE with a hard alpha-strike. Also, I normally run a venomthrope in a bastion so even if they aren't going 1st, you could survive a DE alpha-strike by hiding your FMC's behind the bastion and/or ruins (make sure to place the bastion near ruins) for 2+ cover.

Grey Knights are a mixed bag. I've played both Draigowing and Purifiers against Tyranids and while I did win, it wasn't an easy victory for the knights (my Draigowing would have lost had the game ended on 5!). Grey knights will also have problems against a lot of FMC's. Overall, I think the new bugs match up better against the knights in this edition better than they did back in 5th.

The problem is that the wife's dark eldar usually come with fliers whenever she knows I'm going to be taking FMCs. More than enough shots to ground or kill anything that flies with a wound count. They're extremely brutal.

Without House rules and homebrews, it becomes a game of chicken. If my flyrants and crones can come in last, I can get air superiority. If her planes come in last, I'm gonna get butchered.

As for the GKs, newer lists are mostly focused on Henchmen, Stormravens, DKs, and whatever from elites they think is cool. The Vindicaire rarely shows up against Tyranids as we don't have any particularly stand out wargear to snipe out nor vehicles to crack, but the others can be quite unpleasant.

Common henchmen I face or field are Jokaero to provide long-ranged fire, and Crusaders to tarpit enemies. Acolytes are for when they wish to spend as little points on troops as possible.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

captnobvious wrote:
Kain wrote:
Also, I'm playing a "no points limit just fill the dual FoC and allies, six formation limit, three lords of war maximum" pseudo-apoc game for a campaign.

Would bringing as many living tides as possible be a douche move?

Yes. Still awesome. "Your unit of troops has died.....respawn in 3....2.....1...."

Kain wrote:

If only the Exorcine's range fit the Biovores a bit better.

It's fire adjustment. You have a different set of threats scaling at 12" intervals. 48, 36, and 24. I use the exo as the hinge to whatever assault formation I'm using as I sweep with whatever force I'm pushing with (stealers/lictors/gaunts). I used to do the same thing with Hive Guard. Oh and I was never afraid of floating spore mines into a combat that was already going on. "I killed 1 SM and 3 Hormagaunts, I'll consider that a net victory."

36'' range from HVCs? I'd really only consider them worthwhile on Harpies who at least get them twin-linked. Carnifexes and Tyrants usually have better things to do with their arms.

**L0rdF1end**

So what do we think the ideal loadout is for the Skyblight formation?
To make best use for this and ensure a killpoint game doesn't screw you surely the best bet is to max out the Gargoyles?

To those who have tried it what has been working, what have you been accompanying the Skyblight formations with? It seems fairly obvious to include 3 Flyrants.

**xttz**

Just had my first game at a new club last night and went with a Nidzilla approach, including a Walkrant, 3 Dakkafexes, T-fex, Exocrine and a Trygon Prime. It was a very narrow victory (managed to kill his final troops unit with the last move of the game), and I made a few useful observations:

At various points most of my MC's made it into combat (although not always by choice). The Trygon was by far the star of the show in this category - everything it went near died. Even without the old ScyTal rerolls it outperformed Fexes and the T-Fex thanks to WS5 and lots of base attacks (7 on the charge). It really highlighted that Nid MC's need more than WS3 to perform in melee now they can't reroll anymore. I'll also be taking a Trygon Prime more often - it's a strong synapse unit that is able to pull its weight.

Hormaguants without re-rolls or upgrades are little more than bullet catchers. It took 3 rounds of melee for them to beat a marine combat squad they outnumbered heavily, and they still took a fair few losses during it. I'll probably only use these with the Endless Swarm in future, which is a shame as I really like them (and I have 60 all painted up).

Non-MC synapse is ridiculously vulnerable to just one or two bad saves. I managed to lose a pair of Zoanthropes to just 2 krak missile hits, breaking the centre of my line. Only a last minute Dominion from my HT saved things. My Warriors didn't fare much better despite a Venomthrope to help them. Only the MC synapse survived the game.

Kain wrote:
36'' range from HVCs? I'd really only consider them worthwhile on Harpies who at least get them twin-linked. Carnifexes and Tyrants usually have better things to do with their arms.

I found a HVC on a Walkrant was pretty effective yesterday. It damaged a LRC and blew up a Razorback, plus killed a bunch of Marines. I never rolled a hit on the scatter dice, but BS4 really made the difference in most cases. Only missed once in the whole game, and that was aimed at a single marine on the final turn. The only real weakness was that it was useless for anti-air duties later on, I should have equipped Devourers too.

**Kain**

L0rdF1end wrote:
So what do we think the ideal loadout is for the Skyblight formation?
To make best use for this and ensure a killpoint game doesn't screw you surely the best bet is to max out the Gargoyles?

To those who have tried it what has been working, what have you been accompanying the Skyblight formations with? It seems fairly obvious to include 3 Flyrants.

For when I want maximum flying circus, I do indeed go for even more added Flyrants while spending as little on anything else as possible; maybe throw in some crones too.

For my "skyfall" lists (maximum fliers) I first see about getting in as many skyblights as possible to maximize the FMCs, then see about biggening or tooling out the gargoyle broods.

For Apoc, I had a cool idea for a list I call the "Screaming Eclipse" that I turned into a homebrew formation later.

1-3 Harridans.

3-6 Flying Hive tyrants

6-12 Harpies

3-6 Crones

3-6 Shrike broods

9-18 Gargoyle broods

9-18 Skyslasher broods.

Now obviously out of Homebrew you'd want to leave the Skyslashers behind as they're terrible. The Harpies, Flyrants, and Gargs you can run in skyblight swarms, while the shrikes and slashers are for flavor.

Feel free to use Apocalypse formations involving our winged creations.

Now I will say that model spam Tyranid vs model spam Ork games are incredibly fun.

**ductvader**

SHUPPET wrote:
ductvader wrote:
tag8833 wrote:
1) Force Concentration: You are putting all your eggs in one basket. Lose that Tervigon on turn 1 or 2 and you are screwed. Lose it turn 4 and you are still probably losing that game.

Who kills Tervigons? I have had like 3 or 4 Tervigons die since the 5th Edition codex dropped. If you lost your Tervigon you played him wrong, or Iron Arm failed you in 5th Ed.!

Lol a lot of your posts suggest you play in no sort of competitive meta, but this one just confirms it.

Also, no matter how casual your setting, that logic is still terrible.

I resent this.

My meta is actually hypercompetitive.

I have to play fun lists because otherwise I would kill myself from all the Riptides/Wraithknights/Grav Centurions/Bikers/ and Daemons I face. The only "competition" I don't face on a regular basis is any kind of Necron.

When I started this game I played Daemonhunters...THE 40K HARD MODE...and that's where I learned survivability tactics that became a cornerstone of my bug ideologies, personally I don't think it's too hard to believe that I can defend a lone 6 wound T6 creature to great effect.

**tag8833**

PrinceRaven wrote:
You ran Old One Eye and a Prime in the same list?

I've been having some trouble blowing people out with my 'nids. Locals were starting to talk about 'nids as O.P. on the same level as Tau. I'm trying to underpower my list. I ran a stupid underpowered list with genesteelers and ripper swarms, but that was a little too far. My Old one eye list, on the other hand is about perfect to keep most games competitive.

Old One Eye.
Tyranid Prime (Regen, Reaper of Oblimax, Devourer)

2 Hive Guard (Impalers)
Venom
Venom

20 TGaunts (10 Spine, 10 Devourers)
20 TGaunts (10 Spine, 10 Devourers)
3 Warriors (2 Devourers, BS)
3 Warriors (2 Devourers, BS)

Crone

Dakkafex
TFex (e. Grubs, Acid Spray)
2 Dakkafexes

I add some shrikes if I need to go up to 2K. Drop 1 Dakkafex and the Prime to drop to 1500. It is a pretty underpowered list that lets me play as competitively as I want while keeping the games close. I'm 2-2 with it so far. Old one Eye is an abysmal Warlord choice. Hive Guard suck, and the way I kitted out the prime is way too expensive.

**rigeld2**

OOE can't be your warlord if you have a Prime - he's LD8, Prime is LD10.

**ductvader**

The Reaper isn't really well suited to the Prime due to the lack of AP2, so it should stay on your Flyrants and Trygon Primes f you're playing with it. And if you go melee, I personally always keep the scytals. The Maws Claws, BS/No LW, adrenal glands, flesh hooks are all good buys for him.

If you want to play, he gets the most use out of the ymgarl factor as well. (I took the Wings off my Parasite for this)

No matter how you kit a Prime...he's too expensive. So If you take one...give him loads of ablative wounds...I like him with horms, for fleet...or outflanking warriors or termagants.

Going with fexes just makes him a giant target for deathstars.

**jasper76**

If I could interject a question, are these formations part of the Tyranid codex, or are they apocalypse formations?

**notbriang**

tag8833 wrote:
PrinceRaven wrote:
You ran Old One Eye and a Prime in the same list?

I've been having some trouble blowing people out with my 'nids. Locals were starting to talk about 'nids as O.P. on the same level as Tau. I'm trying to underpower my list.

I don't even understand this statement. What list are you running that people are complaining Nidz are on the same Tier as Tau?

**PrinceRaven**

jasper76 wrote:
If I could interject a question, are these formations part of the Tyranid codex, or are they apocalypse formations?

They're taken as part of the Codex via Dataslates.

**jy2**

Kain wrote:

The problem is that the wife's dark eldar usually come with fliers whenever she knows I'm going to be taking FMCs. More than enough shots to ground or kill anything that flies with a wound count. They're extremely brutal.

Without House rules and homebrews, it becomes a game of chicken. If my flyrants and crones can come in last, I can get air superiority. If her planes come in last, I'm gonna get butchered.

As for the GKs, newer lists are mostly focused on Henchmen, Stormravens, DKs, and whatever from elites they think is cool. The Vindicaire rarely shows up against Tyranids as we don't have any particularly stand out wargear to snipe out nor vehicles to crack, but the others can be quite unpleasant.

Common henchmen I face or field are Jokaero to provide long-ranged fire, and Crusaders to tarpit enemies. Acolytes are for when they wish to spend as little points on troops as possible.

That's the case with ALL flyers. In an aerial dogfight, no matter the army, the one going 2nd always has the advantage. However, your flying bugs can survive that if you are willing to running a bastion. With the bastion and venom, if any of your flyers are in terrain within the venom's bubble range, you will be getting 3+ cover against enemy flyers (or 2+ if you are actually hiding behind the bastion). Then on top of that, you may be getting FNP from Catalyst as well if you are lucky enough to roll it. Just don't play as aggressively with them until the enemy flyers come in. Make sure that they stay within the venom's radius of protection.

There really isn't a shortcut against stormravens. You're just going to have to shoot it down with crones and flyrants (or hive guards if you're running them) or just ignore them for the time being and focus on the troops. If they get close enough, then vector-strike them with your crones. But make sure to keep them in venom range until the enemy flyers get into vector-strike range and then let her rip. Also, have some biovores in your TAC list if you play against henchmen a lot.

L0rdF1end wrote:
So what do we think the ideal loadout is for the Skyblight formation?
To make best use for this and ensure a killpoint game doesn't screw you surely the best bet is to max out the Gargoyles?

To those who have tried it what has been working, what have you been accompanying the Skyblight formations with? It seems fairly obvious to include 3 Flyrants.

Yeah, I always try to max out on my flyrants if possible. Run 2 crones and 2 harpies if you've got the points. As for gargoyles, I actually don't recommend making them too big. Otherwise, it actually becomes hard to recycle them. Probably 15 is a good size. I wouldn't go more than 20 max per unit. The venom and bastion is a must-take in all of my lists, skyblight included.

Kain wrote:
L0rdF1end wrote:
So what do we think the ideal loadout is for the Skyblight formation?
To make best use for this and ensure a killpoint game doesn't screw you surely the best bet is to max out the Gargoyles?

To those who have tried it what has been working, what have you been accompanying the Skyblight formations with? It seems fairly obvious to include 3 Flyrants.

For when I want maximum flying circus, I do indeed go for even more added Flyrants while spending as little on anything else as possible; maybe throw in some crones too.

For my "skyfall" lists (maximum fliers) I first see about getting in as many skyblights as possible to maximize the FMCs, then see about biggening or tooling out the gargoyle broods.

For Apoc, I had a cool idea for a list I call the "Screaming Eclipse" that I turned into a homebrew formation later.

1-3 Harridans.

3-6 Flying Hive tyrants

6-12 Harpies

3-6 Crones

3-6 Shrike broods

9-18 Gargoyle broods

9-18 Skyslasher broods.

Now obviously out of Homebrew you'd want to leave the Skyslashers behind as they're terrible. The Harpies, Flyrants, and Gargs you can run in skyblight swarms, while the shrikes and slashers are for flavor.

Feel free to use Apocalypse formations involving our winged creations.

Now I will say that model spam Tyranid vs model spam Ork games are incredibly fun.

Now that's a dedicated Tyranid player. 3 Harridans? Wow!

Methinks you should reduce the requirement for harpies down to 3-6 as well. I mean, c'mon....who's going to have 6 harpies as well as 3 crones in their private collections? Also, I recommend dropping the skylasher swarm to 3-18. Who in their right minds will want to own that many skyslashers?

jasper76 wrote:
If I could interject a question, are these formations part of the Tyranid codex, or are they apocalypse formations?

Formations such as dataslates (i.e. skyblight, living artillery node) are supplements you can download from GW for a price. It's their way to rip off more money from us.

The formation that Kain mentioned is a homebrew one.

The Tyranid codex has no formations.

notbriang wrote:
tag8833 wrote:
PrinceRaven wrote:
You ran Old One Eye and a Prime in the same list?

I've been having some trouble blowing people out with my 'nids. Locals were starting to talk about 'nids as O.P. on the same level as Tau. I'm trying to underpower my list.

I don't even understand this statement. What list are you running that people are complaining Nidz are on the same Tier as Tau?

He was being sarcastic.

**tag8833**

jasper76 wrote:
If I could interject a question, are these formations part of the Tyranid codex, or are they apocalypse formations?

There are 15 formations that are dataslates and essentially available to the normal Tyranid codex. Info Here:
http://natfka.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-first-look-at-tyranid-vanguard-rising.html
http://natfka.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-first-look-tyranid-invasion-rising.html
http://natfka.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-first-look-tyranid-onslaught-rising.html

ductvader wrote:
The Reaper isn't really well suited to the Prime due to the lack of AP2, so it should stay on your Flyrants and Trygon Primes f you're playing with it. And if you go melee, I personally always keep the scytals. The Maws Claws, BS/No LW, adrenal glands, flesh hooks are all good buys for him.

If you want to play, he gets the most use out of the ymgarl factor as well. (I took the Wings off my Parasite for this)

No matter how you kit a Prime...he's too expensive. So If you take one...give him loads of ablative wounds...I like him with horms, for fleet...or outflanking warriors or termagants.

Going with fexes just makes him a giant target for deathstars.

As I said, part of my list building process was an attempt to nerf myself. That is why I gave my prime a ranged weapon. But the ymgarl factor is an interesting idea.

I start him with a venom, then move him to either Carnifexes or Gaunts. I wouldn't put him with HGaunts because of Bounding Leap, except in the scenario where I'm trying to slingshot him into combat. Sometimes I run the prime with Gargoyles to slingshot him into combat.

If I suspect a reasonable death star I will switch to one of my more competitive lists. 8 Marines + Vulcan doesn't really qualify.

notbriang wrote:
tag8833 wrote:
PrinceRaven wrote:
You ran Old One Eye and a Prime in the same list?

I've been having some trouble blowing people out with my 'nids. Locals were starting to talk about 'nids as O.P. on the same level as Tau. I'm trying to underpower my list.

I don't even understand this statement. What list are you running that people are complaining Nidz are on the same Tier as Tau?

There are several factors going on. 1) I tend to run somewhat unbalanced lists, so I either win big or lose big. 2) I have very good target priority. 3) I play to objectives, while table talking the whole time as if I'm not even aware that it is an objective game. "My Mawlocs are going to eat those crisis suites", then turn 5 I bring them in on Kroot instead to contest an objective.

My most successful list is one adapted from ductvader's "Turn Two Tsunami" list: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/580517.page
My looks like this:

Spoiler:

I've also had good success with 3 Mawlocs + venom in a Bastion w/ comms + outflanking devilgaunts.
Sometimes I run 2 Flyrants + 2 Crones for a limited Flying Circus.
I also do well with Living artillery either as part of one of the above lists, or just in a list build around heavy supports.
I've rune the Endless swarm and done well, but those games can be slow and not as much fun.

My success is as much to do about matchups as anything. I still can't really crack Tau gunline (at best I win 15% of the time). IG gunline/mech gave me loads of problems (not sure if that will still be true now that Hydras are nerfed). But I do very well against Demons, Necrons, Orks, Eldar, and especially Marines though Iron Hand's Land Raider spam can be a challenge. Most of my Space Marine opponents are not running Min/Maxed competitive lists. And my only real Eldar opponent likes to run very fluffy lists. I've never seen a Seer Council, Demon Flying Circus, Wave Serpent Spam, White Scars Bikes, or Dark Eldar in any form. So except for being rolled once or twice by an Ovesa Star, I'm not in the most competitive meta. So my 2nd tier competitive 'nids seem pretty OP to many people, that is why I've tried to tone it down.

rigeld2 wrote:
OOE can't be your warlord if you have a Prime - he's LD8, Prime is LD10.

I think you are correct. Apparently I've been cheating. That is kinda dumb. In order to make OOE my warlord, I apparently have to take no other HQ's.

**xttz**

tag8833 wrote:

I think you are correct. Apparently I've been cheating. That is kinda dumb. In order to make OOE my warlord, I apparently have to take no other HQ's.

Looking at the list you posted, you just need to squeeze in one more Warrior brood to field a Synaptic Swarm. That would let you pull the Prime out of the primary detachment and let OOE be warlord.

**ductvader**

@tag

I generally put the Prime in a termagant squad and slingshot him forward on the tail end of a hormagaunt squad.

They move up faster with bounding leap, and then he gets to join the charge with fleet (adrenals).

**DarkStarSabre**

jy2 wrote:

That's the case with ALL flyers. In an aerial dogfight, no matter the army, the one going 2nd always has the advantage. However, your flying bugs can survive that if you are willing to running a bastion. With the bastion and venom, if any of your flyers are in terrain within the venom's bubble range, you will be getting 3+ cover against enemy flyers (or 2+ if you are actually hiding behind the bastion). Then on top of that, you may be getting FNP from Catalyst as well if you are lucky enough to roll it. Just don't play as aggressively with them until the enemy flyers come in. Make sure that they stay within the venom's radius of protection.

This - I've found that the Flyrants and Crones can't be too aggressive until your enemy brings his own flyers in. To be perfectly honest, keeping them back a few turns works out more beneficial for 'nids as well as they'll have likely advanced some of their infantry or elites forward and with a well placed Onslaught or two you can threaten them with multiple threats and just overwhelm them for target priority.

Aggressive Flyrants and Crones will suffer if you run out ahead...but if you wait a few turns, the enemy flyers come in and then everything surges forward at once it's heaps better.

Not a lot of enemies can cope with 4 flyers on their lines along with 1-2 other big MCs (or broods) that you choose to Onslaught forward that turn. I've seriously found that Tyranids benefit more from target saturation than most other armies - considering we already tend to duplicate broods it adds further survivability....

**Xyptc**

xttz wrote:

Hormaguants without re-rolls or upgrades are little more than bullet catchers. It took 3 rounds of melee for them to beat a marine combat squad they outnumbered heavily, and they still took a fair few losses during it. I'll probably only use these with the Endless Swarm in future, which is a shame as I really like them (and I have 60 all painted up).

Just out of interest, are they just regular Hormagaunts, or did you add any biomorphs?

**badula**

Tomorrow i'm gonna play a match at 1750 against chaos/demons army (dunno the composition but that's what he usually plays)

Spoiler:

with the artillery node obviously.....
i think it's gonna be fun

the idea is:
i camp an objective with warriors and biovores and maybe the termagants
i'll rush the exocrine into firing range (who cares of rerolls from LAN)
i'll start with both tyrant and the harpy in game (to use powers asap and the harpy to shoot at 36 range)
the venomthrope and the gants are situationals it depends on mission terrain and deploy i could use them to babysit an objective or meatshield for the exocrine the venomthrope acts as support where needed
crone starts in reserve her mission are dragons
lictor raveners and prime in reserve

the idea (with some luck) is to deliver a strike force into enemy's heart
if i can place trigon prime with glands and reaper with raveners as a shield i think i can bring pain!

we'll see

**xttz**

Xyptc wrote:
xttz wrote:

Hormaguants without re-rolls or upgrades are little more than bullet catchers. It took 3 rounds of melee for them to beat a marine combat squad they outnumbered heavily, and they still took a fair few losses during it. I'll probably only use these with the Endless Swarm in future, which is a shame as I really like them (and I have 60 all painted up).

Just out of interest, are they just regular Hormagaunts, or did you add any biomorphs?

They were just vanilla, I can never justify the cost of the upgrades on such easy-to-kill models. I think it would only be worthwhile on an Endless Swarm, when you at least have a shot to use those points again.

**tetrisphreak**

xttz wrote:
Xyptc wrote:
xttz wrote:

Hormaguants without re-rolls or upgrades are little more than bullet catchers. It took 3 rounds of melee for them to beat a marine combat squad they outnumbered heavily, and they still took a fair few losses during it. I'll probably only use these with the Endless Swarm in future, which is a shame as I really like them (and I have 60 all painted up).

Just out of interest, are they just regular Hormagaunts, or did you add any biomorphs?

They were just vanilla, I can never justify the cost of the upgrades on such easy-to-kill models. I think it would only be worthwhile on an Endless Swarm, when you at least have a shot to use those points again.

I take adrenal glands on my hormagaunts so they stay fairly cheap but can potentially damage most vehicles. I do the same on gargoyles but it typically benefits them more since they don't normally have fleet.

**PrinceRaven**

tag8833 wrote:
There are several factors going on. 1) I tend to run somewhat unbalanced lists, so I either win big or lose big.

"Win big or lose big" is Tyranids in a nutshell. We're so reliant on key units that if your opponent takes them out it all goes rapidly downhill.

rigeld2 wrote:
OOE can't be your warlord if you have a Prime - he's LD8, Prime is LD10.

I think you are correct. Apparently I've been cheating. That is kinda dumb. In order to make OOE my warlord, I apparently have to take no other HQ's.

This was why I questioned running both in the same list, as the only Tyranid HQ we can run with Old One Eye and still keep it as our Warlord is a Tervigon.

**shamroll**

On a different note, has anyone tried out a CC focused flyrant and had any success? I was thinking about trying one out in a small 1000 pt game.

The build I was thinking of was:
Flyrant + Reaper + regen + AG.
Expensive but it meant the flyrant was S8 on the charge so no need to smash to ID most opponents. Then Regen was for added survivability.

**ductvader**

shamroll wrote:
On a different note, has anyone tried out a CC focused flyrant and had any success? I was thinking about trying one out in a small 1000 pt game.

The build I was thinking of was:
Flyrant + Reaper + regen + AG.
Expensive but it meant the flyrant was S8 on the charge so no need to smash to ID most opponents. Then Regen was for added survivability.

Lose regen and you have the standard reaper tyrant.

Flyrants tend to die in one go..,regen is best left to tyrranos and the ocassional fex(es)

**captnobvious**

Kain wrote:
jy2 wrote:

Kain wrote:
I've come to the conclusion that a properly run Mechanized Dark Eldar (especially a Venom heavy one) list is just not possible for a Tyranid list to beat without hard-core list tailoring/dumb luck. Especially since their fliers are so murderous to anything with a toughness value; easily blasting skyblights out of the sky. But honestly, even with BRB powers back they'd still hack us apart like they always have since they got their latest book. Our poor range for shooting makes that range reducing bit of war gear especially brutal, while their speed makes catching them in assault next to impossible and they have the dakka to cut down hordes and the kit to gun down MCs. And even if you do catch them in assault; Dark Eldar units tend to be quite nasty in chopping distance.

Grey Knights are also a brutal match-up. While the loss of BRB powers pending a FAQ has killed off most psychic choir lists (which were the ones that the Grey Knights really screwed over), it turns out that being an army tailored against daemons also makes them very good against us as we're also an army with generally poor saves and AP/short ranged shooting, a mix of fragile cheap units and monstrous creatures, and a lot of psykers.

I'd avoid assaulting Dreadknights with any monstrous creature as they'll probably survive to punch back and instant death it, while their flamers are also nasty to hordes. Tie these up with cheap, fearless cannon fodder, but don't think you can ignore them, they're good against anything in the army. Storm ravens are a pain to bring down, and always try to get the guy with the nemesis thunder hammer out of the squad before assaulting them with a monstrous creature unless you want to watch your Trygon explode with the first hit.

Overall all our problems with these two armies remain from the last book and they remain abysmal match-ups. If their lists are tailored to kill Tyranids (not even your list, just tyranids in general), you may as well not play.

Actually, Tyranid FMC-spam can decimate DE under the right conditions. One of the weaknesses of DE is their anti-air. A dual flyrant/triple-crone Tyranid list is a competitive TAC Tyranid army. If they can get the first turn (and if the deployment isn't Hammer & Anvil), then nids can potentially cripple DE with a hard alpha-strike. Also, I normally run a venomthrope in a bastion so even if they aren't going 1st, you could survive a DE alpha-strike by hiding your FMC's behind the bastion and/or ruins (make sure to place the bastion near ruins) for 2+ cover.

Grey Knights are a mixed bag. I've played both Draigowing and Purifiers against Tyranids and while I did win, it wasn't an easy victory for the knights (my Draigowing would have lost had the game ended on 5!). Grey knights will also have problems against a lot of FMC's. Overall, I think the new bugs match up better against the knights in this edition better than they did back in 5th.

The problem is that the wife's dark eldar usually come with fliers whenever she knows I'm going to be taking FMCs. More than enough shots to ground or kill anything that flies with a wound count. They're extremely brutal.

Without House rules and homebrews, it becomes a game of chicken. If my flyrants and crones can come in last, I can get air superiority. If her planes come in last, I'm gonna get butchered.

As for the GKs, newer lists are mostly focused on Henchmen, Stormravens, DKs, and whatever from elites they think is cool. The Vindicaire rarely shows up against Tyranids as we don't have any particularly stand out wargear to snipe out nor vehicles to crack, but the others can be quite unpleasant.

Common henchmen I face or field are Jokaero to provide long-ranged fire, and Crusaders to tarpit enemies. Acolytes are for when they wish to spend as little points on troops as possible.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

captnobvious wrote:
Kain wrote:
Also, I'm playing a "no points limit just fill the dual FoC and allies, six formation limit, three lords of war maximum" pseudo-apoc game for a campaign.

Would bringing as many living tides as possible be a douche move?

Yes. Still awesome. "Your unit of troops has died.....respawn in 3....2.....1...."

Kain wrote:

If only the Exorcine's range fit the Biovores a bit better.

It's fire adjustment. You have a different set of threats scaling at 12" intervals. 48, 36, and 24. I use the exo as the hinge to whatever assault formation I'm using as I sweep with whatever force I'm pushing with (stealers/lictors/gaunts). I used to do the same thing with Hive Guard. Oh and I was never afraid of floating spore mines into a combat that was already going on. "I killed 1 SM and 3 Hormagaunts, I'll consider that a net victory."

36'' range from HVCs? I'd really only consider them worthwhile on Harpies who at least get them twin-linked. Carnifexes and Tyrants usually have better things to do with their arms.

36" range from the BS on the warrior brood. Gives another source of pinning. Hammer and anvil and all that jazz. Haven't run VC's or HVC's since.....I don't remember. It was about the time they changed them to be "VC's can only glance". 4th ed?

Your wife trolls you with Razorwings.....cue Nelson's "Ha Ha".

shamroll wrote:On a different note, has anyone tried out a CC focused flyrant and had any success? I was thinking about trying one out in a small 1000 pt game.

The build I was thinking of was:
Flyrant + Reaper + regen + AG.
Expensive but it meant the flyrant was S8 on the charge so no need to smash to ID most opponents. Then Regen was for added survivability.

He's not bad, the only issue is that the bonuses you get from running 12 twin linked shots outweighs the (comparatively) smaller bonuses that the extra melee equipment provides. Especially since you have access to some of the stronger melee based models in the game. Deathleaper/Lictors/Broodlords/Trygons/Mawlocs. Is more melee what you really need?

**Kain**

Having a spouse who shares the majority of your interests and is as passionate about them as you are is great.

She's also my most frequent opponent since I met her back when we were kids in 2e. We know each other's playstyles down to a T and share our collections.

And of course we're a very frequent team in doubles games.

I mostly run Tyranids, Necrons, Orks, and Chaos/Imperial armies in order of preference.

She mostly runs Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Imperial, and Chaos armies in that order of preference.

But as I said, ours is a joint collection, made out of what we have acquired over years and having too much disposable income/well to do parents who liked their kids playing a social and artistic game.

I particularly have fun with re-enacting the battle of Iyanden. Just grab a bunch of nid and eldar playing buddies and run a massive apocalypse battle (although getting Yriel to survive and have his duel with the Hive Tyrant is a pain).

My friends also have Octarius war campaigns, run on private sessions of vassal, in person, and on Dawn of War. (Titanium wars, Codex, or Ultimate Apocalypse mods required in addition to the Tyranid mod, though sometimes DoW II is used too).

And I'll repeat, Orks vs Tyranids is so much fun in apoc.

**captnobvious**

Kain wrote:
Having a spouse who shares the majority of your interests and is as passionate about them as you are is great.

Way to brag about it GEEZE!

Kain wrote:

She's also my most frequent opponent since I met her back when we were kids in 2e. We know each other's playstyles down to a T and share our collections.

And of course we're a very frequent team in doubles games.

Using boobs is cheating.

Kain wrote:

I mostly run Tyranids, Necrons, Orks, and Chaos/Imperial armies in order of preference.

She mostly runs Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Imperial, and Chaos armies in that order of preference.

But as I said, ours is a joint collection, made out of what we have acquired over years and having too much disposable income/well to do parents who liked their kids playing a social and artistic game.

OK, now you're super-bragging. Is that what they teach you where you come from!?

Kain wrote:

I particularly have fun with re-enacting the battle of Iyanden. Just grab a bunch of nid and eldar playing buddies and run a massive apocalypse battle (although getting Yriel to survive and have his duel with the Hive Tyrant is a pain).

My friends also have Octarius war campaigns, run on private sessions of vassal, in person, and on Dawn of War. (Titanium wars, Codex, or Ultimate Apocalypse mods required in addition to the Tyranid mod, though sometimes DoW II is used too).

And I'll repeat, Orks vs Tyranids is so much fun in apoc.

I'm not saying that EVERYONE is envious......but I imagine most are.

Real talk though, that's awesome. I can't get the Mrs. [aka Boss Funnpartz] to quite delve into an army yet. As it stands I might have her convinced to take up a brush. I tend to collect random mini's that I think are particularly well sculpted/look cool, even if they don't fit into an army (Maugen-Ra, Chaos Terminators, Drazhar, etc.) I'll have her paint on those. In the end, if nothing else, I'll make it like like that test they give to the Dahli Lama, where he picks an item from a selection and if he picks the right one, he wins! Same thing, except she can pick a favorite model and play that army. Well, it's similar anyway.
Sorta.

I also got a bunch of buddies in a group that get into all the games in the 40K universe. I got a rogue trader group, and we played the crap out of Last Stand in DoW2, (fantastic btw) among other things. Currently though, I've moved quite a bit away from home for a little while, so I'm on hiatus. Sad.

Anywho. To change the subject. How much "plays as" is too much? If I've got a board of Armorcast Exocrines "plays as" T-fex, 2nd edition Tyrants "plays as" Tyranid Primes, and 3 different models of Lictor? Is that too convoluted for Tourney play? I know in casual no one cares.