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A Harridan and Skyblight. Add winged stuff if you have more points.

That is the only way I can think of playing nids in this moment.

 Tyran wrote:
A Harridan and Skyblight. Add winged stuff if you have more points.

That is the only way I can think of playing nids in this moment.

...

...why?

 ductvader wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
A Harridan and Skyblight. Add winged stuff if you have more points.

That is the only way I can think of playing nids in this moment.

...

...why?

Because he clearly has 7th edition in front of him and had enough play time with it to make a reasonable and rational decision on what will be the competitive Nid net list.

I was just planning on running waves of rippers + harridan.

 Ifurita wrote:
I was just planning on running waves of rippers + harridan.

For those with escalation, how much is a harridan, in Zoanthropes?

 ductvader wrote:
Is anyone else seeing the value of the zoanthrope in this edition? 2 warp charges and synapse on a creature that rarely uses its powers (unless onslaught/catalyst) early game anyways...and gets dominion for free

Actually, has it even been mentioned that all our psykers get dominion for free in addition to their powers? Boss.


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Everyone's talking about how additional psykers just turn into batteries...but we have excellent batteries.

Yes! I am loving the Zoanthrope potential now!

So has it been confirmed that we can ally with ourselves so we can get 4 groups of them if we wanted? Or is unbound the only way?
In either case, I still want to try them out.

Even when bound, you can even take double, triple and quad level of charts, as long you meet the required HQ and troops.

Also...might have to get me some marine pods now that we can use allies.


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such is the tyranid way right?....haha...thought of running a tyrannic veteran force and sandwiching my opponent between them.

 jifel wrote:

 Ifurita wrote:
I was just planning on running waves of rippers + harridan.

For those with escalation, how much is a harridan, in Zoanthropes?

14.7

And worth every one.

I've been thinking about building a Wrecker Node anyway, so this may well provide that little push I need to go ahead and buy four more Carnifexes.

Non-Walkers are now hit on their rear armour in melee, so almost everything bar Monoliths and Land Raiders are still going to be toast if you charge in an average MC. Walkers are more of a problem, but then again it was dangerous charging a lot of our MCs into combat Walkers already so I don't think this is as bad as it seems. Hose with Devourers, Bio-plasmic streams, Haywire and Crone strikes as normal.

I have gotten a lot of joy out of a winged assassin Tyrant in recent months (Adrenals + Reaper), largely through being very careful with it (make it the Warlord, don't rush it forward) and striking key targets so not charging the turn you change flight modes isn't that much of a nerf to that playstyle. It is a huge nerf to the flexibility of the Devourer-armed Tyrant though, which could dance around hosing units and then charge whenever you liked more or less. A bit sad for the Harpy too, because that Sonic Screech is actually pretty handy.

I'm going to try and cram in as many games as possible in the next month with my normal list though before I start making changes, hopefully to get a nice feel on how my favourite units have changed.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Even when bound, you can even take double, triple and quad level of charts, as long you meet the required HQ and troops.

I've been saying that for 2 days, now. Sheesh.

I'm telling you guys, forget the old 40k. Let battle forged and unbound forces clash at-will. The game will move on as it ever did. Just enforce wysiwyg and the abuse and shenanigans will police themselves. Who the hell buys 10 hell drakes just to win toy soldiers? (Then auto-loses turn 1 for no models on the board)

Unbound is a footnote...like the "choose to use whatever rules you want" footnote thats in whatever edition.

I'm sure it won't even be the norm as tournaments will probably just say forged and put an end to shenanigans.

Not saying unbound is bad...just that it "most likely" wont stick as the go-to.

We've got some big changes ahead...excted to see what happens to the book. I am catching aspects of our book that I believe were intended for some of these new rules.

One particularly happy thought is that Move Through Cover would seem to no longer drop your Initiative.

Could this herald the return of the Genestealers... ?

Crones are also actually a little better when VSing fliers now too.

Okay...decided to be a little fluffy in my escalation league...my Broodlord's hunting pack is beating the crap out of people.

Showing up in dilapitated buildings and ruins is just money...like a slower form of ymgarl.

Just wondering, what's everyone's thoughts on the Deathleaper as an HQ? I'm entering a tournament in a few weeks with sever limitations on HQ points (max of 200) and was thinking of running a Deathleaper or Tyranid Prime as my Warlord choice.

If Tyrant Guard don't count...consider a walkrant. But a prime is good and deathleaper is good...but not as a warlord.

Xyptc wrote:
One particularly happy thought is that Move Through Cover would seem to no longer drop your Initiative.

Pretty sure that was completely debunked.

Crones are also actually a little better when VSing fliers now too.

1 less hit (d3 instead of d3+1) and sure it's AP2 - but the damage chart moved up one as well, so overall... a nerf - but only slightly.

Xyptc wrote:
One particularly happy thought is that Move Through Cover would seem to no longer drop your Initiative.

Could this herald the return of the Genestealers... ?

Crones are also actually a little better when VSing fliers now too.

MTC does not say it ignores that penalty, as rigeld mentions. Until the assault section of the book says something similar to, units charging at full movement, attack at full initiative, we're still attacking at I1. The bright side of this is, less area terrain may mean less difficult terrain.

Putting together a general summary of things so far. Shout up if you have anymore.

~General~
[BUFF] The FOC is just a formality now, opening up use of lots more Elite / HS slots.
[BUFF] Rippers are now super-scoring. Yay.
[BUFF] We can take allies! (just). Gentlemen, commence the Genestealer cults...
[BUFF] Grounding tests are much more reliable. Failed tests also mean you can't be blown apart with every weapon on the board, and are only vulnerable to being charged.
[NERF] Vector strikes do much less damage to ground and slightly less to air, but gained AP2 making them better for beating TEQs.
[NERF] No more area terrain cover.
[NERF] No more attaching Primes to Carnifex broods.
[NERF] Nids can't deal with AV13+ reliably without Lords of War, or tons of Zoanthropes. We're really going to struggle with super-scoring Land Raiders.

~Psychic~
[BUFF] All Tyranid psykers get Dominion in addition to their normal rolls, which is helpful.
[BUFF] We generally get a decent amount of warp charge thanks to Tyrants, and can spam cheap Zoanthrope broods for more
[BUFF] Zoanthrope broods can use 2 powers per turn now
[BUFF] Warp Blast/Lance can be used in addition to other shooting attacks

~Assault~
[BUFF] Charges are more reliable thanks to nearly everything gribbly having Move Through Cover.
[NERF] Smash took a major nerf. Crushing Claw Fexes are the best option for killing heavy armour in melee (if you can get them there alive).
[NERF] FMCs can't assault on the turn they change flight mode, but can still assault after failing a grounding test.

~Shooting~
[NERF] Our only weapon able to one-shot AV13+ at range is Warp Lance - HVCs effectively had their damage roll penalty restored and won't cut it anymore.

~Lords of War~
[BUFF] D-weapons were pretty majorly toned down. Hierophants have a better chance of surviving a Revenant or Warhound now. Don't forget Venomthropes for them - or better yet, use the transport upgrade to carry them around with a huge radius. Hierodules will still evaporate on turn 1 because they're overpriced garbage.
[BUFF] Harridans are the shiznit. Seriously. With the grounding test change there are very few skyfire weapons that can scratch them. Harridans are our only serious counter to anything Knight-sized and larger, so if you play against super-heavies you should really acquire one.

I do love how rippers single-handedly might have gone from our worst to our best troop choice.

So our FMC no longer get cover from area terrain? That is unfortunate, and means that the venomthropes are now more critical than ever. It does make sense though. Do gargantuan creatures still get it?

But yeah, with Lords of War, we probably have some of the best escalation models out there. ESPECIALLY if the hierophant can get 3+ cover from carrying a venomthrope in area terrain. LOLZ

By the way, I did spend some time with the new book (not too much, I've got a hierophant to build!) and I wanted to confirm some things that I checked on (in the event that they haven't already been beyond doubt)

1) Vector strikes - 1 against ground targets, d3+1 against flyers, just as rumored. AP 2, ignores cover
2) FMC can't assault after changing flight mode
3) FMC can assault if grounded the previous turn
4) grounding is only 1 3+ check at the end of the shooting phase
5) smash is only a single attack (I would have to check the wording about getting a charge bonus; didn't think about that at the time)
6) Swarms are no longer non-scoring


To de-bunk a few notable ones:

1) snap-fire is unchanged, not -2 BS
2) no consolidate into combat

What makes rippers so good now? I have 11 stands of them that are busy holding up the tool box lid. Do they provide cover to units behind them?

Some of the best?

The Heirophant still melts in concentrated D-strength fire, you're going to want a Harridan so you can avoid getting nuked off the board.

They have objective: secured and have a lot of wounds. You see less actual s6 than most people realize, meaning that much of the time you will need to go through all of their wounds, and if you utilize cover correctly, it's like having 3 gants. The reason why this is nice is because you don't lose anything until the whole base is dead, and at 4.333 points/wound it's not bad. They can also deep strike for the same cost as a gargoyle, which is arguably worse, but you don't need to run skyblight for that unit to have objective: secured. They are also natively fearless even outside of synapse and will typically do what you want them to do outside of synapse (so long as they don't eat themselves). I'm not going to run out and buy a bunch, but that's mostly because I am running skyblight, and prefer to have the synapse of warriors as my troop support.


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 Kain wrote:
Some of the best?

The Heirophant still melts in concentrated D-strength fire, you're going to want a Harridan so you can avoid getting nuked off the board.

Ok, and to be clear, what doesn't "melt in concentrated D-strength fire"? My point is that it can take cover saves now (which, again, might be as good as 3+ or 2+ with night fighting) which significantly makes up for their lack of an invulnerable save, meaning that they can withstand MUCH more strength D fire than they previously could since cover is now allowed.

For the record, though, I do have a Harridan. And I can't WAIT for it to wreck.

I don't have a Harridan, but I'm happy these dudes will see some action at last

luke1705 wrote:
They have objective: secured and have a lot of wounds. You see less actual s6 than most people realize, meaning that much of the time you will need to go through all of their wounds, and if you utilize cover correctly, it's like having 3 gants. The reason why this is nice is because you don't lose anything until the whole base is dead, and at 4.333 points/wound it's not bad. They can also deep strike for the same cost as a gargoyle, which is arguably worse, but you don't need to run skyblight for that unit to have objective: secured. They are also natively fearless even outside of synapse and will typically do what you want them to do outside of synapse (so long as they don't eat themselves). I'm not going to run out and buy a bunch, but that's mostly because I am running skyblight, and prefer to have the synapse of warriors as my troop support.


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 Kain wrote:
Some of the best?

The Heirophant still melts in concentrated D-strength fire, you're going to want a Harridan so you can avoid getting nuked off the board.

Ok, and to be clear, what doesn't "melt in concentrated D-strength fire"? My point is that it can take cover saves now (which, again, might be as good as 3+ or 2+ with night fighting) which significantly makes up for their lack of an invulnerable save, meaning that they can withstand MUCH more strength D fire than they previously could since cover is now allowed.

For the record, though, I do have a Harridan. And I can't WAIT for it to wreck.

I don't think a Heirophant can survive a Warlord Titan's ire.

And that's a thing I actually have to worry about.

Multiple warlord titans.

Sometimes even Imperator Titans (yeah I have those kinds of friends).


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 xttz wrote:
I don't have a Harridan, but I'm happy these dudes will see some action at last

You mean the Heirophants right?

Because the Heirodule still loses assault to Darnath Lysander and Ironfather Smashfether.

So... consider this.

Psykers are allowed to shoot as many witchfire powers as they want against different targets. This no longer effects the ability to shoot all your weapons.

A Tyrant rolling Warp Blast and Psycic scream is now one of the best alpha strikes in the game! Not to mention once you fly up first turn, Blast then Scream then Shoot your devs your opponent will make sure he hits the ground in his shooting phase leaving you free to charge in yours!!

Massive massive bonus!

bodazoka wrote:
So... consider this.

Psykers are allowed to shoot as many witchfire powers as they want against different targets. This no longer effects the ability to shoot all your weapons.

A Tyrant rolling Warp Blast and Psycic scream is now one of the best alpha strikes in the game! Not to mention once you fly up first turn, Blast then Scream then Shoot your devs your opponent will make sure he hits the ground in his shooting phase leaving you free to charge in yours!!

Massive massive bonus!

All very true statements.

 ductvader wrote:
Is anyone else seeing the value of the zoanthrope in this edition? 2 warp charges and synapse on a creature that rarely uses its powers (unless onslaught/catalyst) early game anyways...and gets dominion for free

Actually, has it even been mentioned that all our psykers get dominion for free in addition to their powers? Boss.


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Everyone's talking about how additional psykers just turn into batteries...but we have excellent batteries.

Yep, one of the best in the game now. ML2 with 3 powers is awesome, such a great force multiplier now he has a reliable 18" synapse can be fairly easily hidden and is able to provide 2 dice to the pool with early game onslaught or catalyst.

It's a good time to have him running around...



So with the critical nerfs to FMC's, I feel like adrenal glands and Trygon's may have a new purpose. But theres now simply no way to justify a flying Tyrant with a Reaper, even in fun games, which sucks because I really liked that particular Tyrant.

I just cant fathom the 1 smash attack only that still has to roll to hit.

Crones just went way out of style...to me they were the silver lining of our codex, and now not so much. : /

 Iechine wrote:
It's a good time to have him running around...



So with the critical nerfs to FMC's, I feel like adrenal glands and Trygon's may have a new purpose. But theres now simply no way to justify a flying Tyrant with a Reaper, even in fun games, which sucks because I really liked that particular Tyrant.

I just cant fathom the 1 smash attack only that still has to roll to hit.

Crones just went way out of style...to me they were the silver lining of our codex, and now not so much. : /

I think you'll find them useful still. Playing them differently does not make them bad when others will also be playing their armies differently.