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2014/11/01 14:56:59
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
Noctem wrote: So what does everyone think of the Toxicrene and the Maleceptor? They both seem powersful. I'm leaning toward building the Toxicrene first, it seems like a great unit that may be useful in killing terminators, and riptides/wraithknights.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What do you guys think of this semi-competitive list? I face mostly Spave Wolves, but others as well.
This is for 1850.
2x Hive Tyrants with 2x Breainleech + Electrogrubs
Shrikes provide synapse as well, but I get when you mean cyber!
Sinful HeroI hadn't thought of adding a second Toxicrene by dropping the Mawloc and a few terms to add another Toxicrene. Seems pretty brutal!
The only other models I have besides these are Haruspex, 2 more brain-leech dev carnifexes, 1 more zoanthrope, and LoD models like scytal Hierodule and Harridan. Also have 40 Hormagaunts.
6400 Pts 4300 Pts 3200 Pts 2600 Pts
3080 Pts 30k 2460 Pts AoS Chaos Grand Alliance
2680 Pts AoS Sylvaneth
2014/11/01 15:05:32
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
SHUPPET wrote: I'm just curious what people think is the best 4 Flyrant list. Like, aside from the Flyrants, what is the best thing you would include with the limited amount of remaining points? I've seen some with Living Artillery, others just pumping the remaining points in Dakkafexes, I've seen something that looked like a mish mash of everything including units from both the above 2 lists, Gargoyles, and Mawlocs, maybe it was for balanced coverage. Just wondering what people think is the best use of the points after the Flyrants and WHY.
Well, in our meta (and most tournament metas here in the US as well), you can't take more than 2 detachments. Thus, no 4 flyrants + Living Artillery.
Personally for me, I like to take a list that is flexible and unpredictable. My lists usually have a very small core that starts on the table. The rest is either very fast or gives me the flexibility to position them almost anywhere where my forces need. Thus, the units I tend to run include:
Malanthrope (the foundation of my ground forces)
Deepstriking rippers
Mawlocs
Bastion
Beyond that, I sometimes interchange between the following units with my left-over points:
Dimachaeron
Gargoyles (usually goes with my Dimachaeron list)
Hive Crone
Dakkafexes
Biovores
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/01 15:05:55
Mission was a special sort of kill points: you nominated the two most expensive models in your army and they were worth 3 VP each. On my side, this was both Flyrants, on his side the Chapter Master and his Dreadnaught (super heavies were excluded). Line breaker and first blood were in effect as well.
Just the highlights of the game:
- even though I went first, I castled up around the Malanthrope first turn, to limit the damage his Alfa strike could do. This worked fairly well, even so Orbital Bombardment took out half of my LAN turn 1! A drop pod with Marines came into my deployment zone and killed 2 Shrikes. Due to some crappy saving on my part, the Flyrant Warlord took 3 wounds in turn 1 as well.
- in my turn 2 all Mawlocs refused to show up and only one Ripper did, and they misshaped back into reserves! Things started to get better however, when both Flyrants swooped up and forced a panic test on his Biker unit, causing them to flee the table, including his Chapter Master! I had that Warlord trait where everything with 12" on my warlord has to test on its lowest Ld. and it payed off big time here. The Crone swooped up as well and blocked the Knight, forcing him to go round, as well as stripping a hull point with a Tentaclid.
- turn 3 saw more drop pods with Marines and Dreadnaughts coming down, but apart from the Shrikes, not much damage was incurred. His Storm Talon unloaded on the Crone, forcing him to jink. The Land Speeders tried to strip the last wound from my warlord, but a lucky jink made him survive as well. In return, the Crone Vector Struck the Storm Talon, blowing it up and the Flyrant warlord killed a Speeder with his Vector Strike and flew off. Mawlocs came in, but scattered. In the Tyranids deployment zone, both squads of Marines were being engaged by the Malanthrope and the remnants of the LAN and the Shrikes, slowly whittling them down.
- turn 4, the Knight charged a Mawloc and ripped it in two! Was the only highlight for the Marines however, as they were dying everywhere. The warlord came back in and blew up the Dreadnaught. The Crone went gliding and stripped another hull point off the Knight from afar. The other Flyrant stripped two hull points off as well.
- turn 5 left only the Knight (on 1 hull point) and a drop pod alive, at which point we called it. Bug victory!
What have we we learned?
- Shrikes hit hard, but are just too squishy to keep alive. You could use them as a backfield protector, but seems wasteful to me. They are out.
- I love my Mawlocs but they really did nothing here. Since this is supposed to be a tournament list, and I want some reliability, I'll probably ditch the as well.
Based on that, what's your opinion of the next iteration of the list?
-- CAD Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings; electroshock grubs
Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings; electroshock grubs
30 Termagants Scuttling Swarm Tervigon
1 Malanthrope
Hive Crone
-- CAD Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings; electroshock grubs
tag8833 wrote: You spread them out, but not so far that you can't get to them. Against a deathstar you are giving up one objective a turn. You can't stop them, maybe slow them down with a wall of Gants or gargoyles. You've got to outscore them, that means having multiple units capable of scoring multiple objectives every turn in case those cards come up. Hormagants can do that every single turn. Rippers can only do that on the turn they come in. Also Hormagants are great at stealing objectives from deathstars because most deathstars aren't OS.
One thing I find is that against deathstars or more aggressive assault lists, your gribblies ( termies, hormies and gargoyles) will usually never get pass the middle. That is because you need them to fight against these units/armies. You need to use them either as screening units, tarpitting units or just to help out in assault. Thus, while ideally, you want them to go after the objectives, the reality is that usually, you can't because you need them to help stave off these types of armies. Now you may steal 1 objective point on the turn you screen out/assault, but your screening unit shouldn't live very long beyond that.
However, rippers are highly useful against these types of armies because:
1. Deathstars have problems moving around. They cannot be in multiple places at the same time so in most cases, they will ignore your ripper troops. Of course you will have to help support your rippers with flyrants but against deathstar armies, my strategy 90% of the time is to take out the support units anyways.
2. If the deathstar does go after the rippers, then they lose board control and you can push your army up the middle.
3. Against assault based armies, they will have to split up their offense if they want to go after your ripper troops. Say, for example, you go up against 50 daemonettes. You then drop 2 units of rippers on separate objectives. Now your opponent needs to either 1) ignore them and let you continue potentially claiming points for them or 2) send 20 daemonettes after them and now your main force only has to deal with 30 daemonettes instead of 50. The point is, it dilutes the strength of your opponent's army. Either he gives up those points/objectives or he breaks up his forces going after them, thus making his army slightly easier to deal with.
Hormagants average a 13.25" move. They have a deployment range that includes 1/4 of the board. They can basically get anywhere on the board in 2 turns except for deep in the opponent's deployment zone. Rippers have a similar range of mobility on turn 2 (if they happen to come in). You can drop them deep in the opponents deployment zone if you want, but generally they aren't going to accomplish much doing that. Once rippers are on the board, they average a 9.5" move (less than the minimum distance between 2 objectives). Significantly less, and they move that far much less reliably because they lack fleet. So by turn 3, Hormagants have been able to cover more ground than rippers, and that is without using any charge shenanigan. So if your goal is to reach distant tactical objectives, Hormagants are better able to accomplish it than rippers.
If you goal is to camp a single objective. Rippers are your better choice because you can keep them out of LOS easier, and they don't need babysitting as bad. That is why Rippers are all stars in Eternal war, and other low scoring formats.
I think of Hormagants as slightly inferior gargoyles. 13.25" move vs 15.5" move. +1 attack, OS, -1 PPM, but no blind, HOW or shooting. If gargoyles could fill your troop requirement it would be all gargoyles all of the time. My question to you is, would you take rippers over gargoyles in Maelstrom?
Again, that is being idealistic. In many games, you won't be able to get them past the middle, no matter how fast they can move. Play against the more aggressive armies and they will never get pass the middle. You need them to stay with and to protect your main forces less they get overrun. They will only ever be able to take objectives on your side. Play against drop pod armies and they probably won't even be able to really leave their deployment zones!
The only time they can advance is if you are playing against a less aggressive army (or a mainly shooty one) which prefers to stay away from yours.
You've already got almost all the components for Skyblight so why not just run it? Harpies actually aren't that bad and can be made usable. Besides, what's better than 60 gargoyles? 60 recyclable gargoyles! BTW, if you run skyblight, you can drop 1 unit of rippers (and some gargoyles) plust swap out 1 of your hive crones to get 2 harpies.
Flyrant w/Devs and Electro
Flyrant w/Devs and Electro
Venomthrope
Venomthrope
Zoanthrope
Ripper w/DS Ripper w/DS Ripper w/DS Mawloc
Allied:
Flyrant w/Devs and Electro
Crone
Harpy w/TL-HVC Harpy w/TL-HVC 16 Gargoyles
15 Gargoyles
15 Gargoyles
To be honest, the main reason is I own two crones and 1 harpy, and with less than a week to go I'd have to order a harpy and paint it in addition to already having to buy/paint 20 more gargoyles and do an entirely new display board while going to work full time. So Im trying to work with what I've got to chose from at home.
No worries, though I'm not sure what you mean by buy/paint 20 more gargoyles. Your original list had 60 gargoyles. The one I am recommending only runs 46.
3) What do you consider the main difference between Gargoyles and Hormagants that make Gargoyles "far superior" and Hormagants "crappy". The 2.25" per turn difference in movement? That does it for me, even with OS, and fleet, 2.25" per turn is significant.
Sorry, but I am not seeing how you get the 2.25" difference. Isn't the Hormagant run move take the highest of 3D6 (or am I getting this wrong)? How are you getting 13.25" for his movement again?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/01 15:49:15
Its a large, 7 round Nova style tournament. Tyranids can ally with themselves with no FW allowed.
If its one thing I learned from this past weekend at Mechanicon, its that while I love Carnifexes, I dont love slow units. In 5 games they were able to shoot collectively about 3 times. Charge twice when it mattered.
I know it depends on the matchup, but Im thinking about filling the missing 4th Tyrant with Crones.
Allied:
Flyrant w/Devs and Electro
Ripper w/DS 30 Gargoyles
Thats 60 gargoyles, 3 tyrants to alpha select units, 4 rippers scoring, two crones hitting vector strikes and carrying xenos off the board (with storm talon and night scythe deterrent) and extra venomthropes for Tau SMS to kill. What say you?
I don't blame you for liking Speed. But you can put Adrenals on your Carnifexen. I like to, but I often feel constrained by the budget.
What you have looks very nice. While Tau find Veno's amusing, nobody else does. How are you planning to run the Gargoyles? big Broods of x30?
The will of the hive is always the same: HUNGER
2014/11/01 15:55:33
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
Sorry, but I am not seeing how you get the 2.25" difference. Isn't the Hormagant run move take the highest of 3D6 (or am I getting this wrong)? How are you getting 13.25" for his movement again?
No, they run D6 +3'' (with fleet), so at worst they always get a 4 inch run.
2014/11/01 15:56:45
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
beardman3000 wrote: I am sure this has been said but I can not find it... how do you advise to beat spacewolves ? we will be playing maelstrom and I know he has :
Njall
group of wolf guard terminators with Arjac,
several longfangs or grey hunters
Thunderwolf (maybe?)
venerable dreadnought
and a landraider
this is all I can remember from memory
Kill his mobility. That means the landraider (with electroshock grubs, it shouldn't be too hard) and the thunderwolves. Then kill his troops. Ignore his mini-deathstar and just screen them out with gants or feed them sacrificial units.
You need mobility in your army so make sure you take some mobile units - flyrants, rippers, mawlocs, gargoyles and even the hive crone. The trick is to take out his mobility while retaining your own.
Sorry, but I am not seeing how you get the 2.25" difference. Isn't the Hormagant run move take the highest of 3D6 (or am I getting this wrong)? How are you getting 13.25" for his movement again?
No, they run D6 +3'' (with fleet), so at worst they always get a 4 inch run.
Ok, thanks. It's obvious that I haven't ran my hormagants for quite some time.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/01 15:58:20
Mission was a special sort of kill points: you nominated the two most expensive models in your army and they were worth 3 VP each. On my side, this was both Flyrants, on his side the Chapter Master and his Dreadnaught (super heavies were excluded). Line breaker and first blood were in effect as well.
Just the highlights of the game:
- even though I went first, I castled up around the Malanthrope first turn, to limit the damage his Alfa strike could do. This worked fairly well, even so Orbital Bombardment took out half of my LAN turn 1! A drop pod with Marines came into my deployment zone and killed 2 Shrikes. Due to some crappy saving on my part, the Flyrant Warlord took 3 wounds in turn 1 as well.
- in my turn 2 all Mawlocs refused to show up and only one Ripper did, and they misshaped back into reserves! Things started to get better however, when both Flyrants swooped up and forced a panic test on his Biker unit, causing them to flee the table, including his Chapter Master! I had that Warlord trait where everything with 12" on my warlord has to test on its lowest Ld. and it payed off big time here. The Crone swooped up as well and blocked the Knight, forcing him to go round, as well as stripping a hull point with a Tentaclid.
- turn 3 saw more drop pods with Marines and Dreadnaughts coming down, but apart from the Shrikes, not much damage was incurred. His Storm Talon unloaded on the Crone, forcing him to jink. The Land Speeders tried to strip the last wound from my warlord, but a lucky jink made him survive as well. In return, the Crone Vector Struck the Storm Talon, blowing it up and the Flyrant warlord killed a Speeder with his Vector Strike and flew off. Mawlocs came in, but scattered. In the Tyranids deployment zone, both squads of Marines were being engaged by the Malanthrope and the remnants of the LAN and the Shrikes, slowly whittling them down.
- turn 4, the Knight charged a Mawloc and ripped it in two! Was the only highlight for the Marines however, as they were dying everywhere. The warlord came back in and blew up the Dreadnaught. The Crone went gliding and stripped another hull point off the Knight from afar. The other Flyrant stripped two hull points off as well.
- turn 5 left only the Knight (on 1 hull point) and a drop pod alive, at which point we called it. Bug victory!
What have we we learned?
- Shrikes hit hard, but are just too squishy to keep alive. You could use them as a backfield protector, but seems wasteful to me. They are out.
- I love my Mawlocs but they really did nothing here. Since this is supposed to be a tournament list, and I want some reliability, I'll probably ditch the as well.
Based on that, what's your opinion of the next iteration of the list?
-- CAD Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings; electroshock grubs
Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings; electroshock grubs
30 Termagants Scuttling Swarm Tervigon
1 Malanthrope
Hive Crone
-- CAD Hive Tyrant: twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms; wings; electroshock grubs
I feel as though you lerned "too much" I agree on the Shrikes, they are hard to use, and are very vulnerable to alpha strikes. I like Mawloc, but they are a 'like them, or don't" kind of unit. If they don't work for you, then they don't. They are very good vs Gunline style forces though, but Gunlines are not so common these days.
Things in your new list I strongly suggest you look at; 1 put a Thorax Hive on the Tervigon, I would use Electro-bugs myself. 2 a LAN works best with a Shrouding baby sitter, so finding points to grab an extra Veno/Malan is a high priority.
The will of the hive is always the same: HUNGER
2014/11/01 17:02:55
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
My biggest problem with hormagaunts is that I can't risk getting a T1 hold up by fubbing the that move through cover roll. If I have to start 3" back after 1,2,3 roll, then I'm playing behind the game.
Gargoyles don't have this problem.
That's why I ended up taking rippers.
2014/11/01 17:43:57
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
2 Thunderfire Cannons
3-4 squads w/attack bike multi meltas and requisite grav spam
I feel like I'm leaving something out but I don't know what. I felt kind of bad because his list had essentially no anti-air and I told him going in that I only had brought the models to run this list. But he was a good sport and is always fun to play.
EDIT: The mission was purge the alien by the way. How oddly ironic. We just did straight eternal war due to being low on time
Short battle report, as the game was also short: I give him turn 1 and dare him to do something against shroudstar. This board had a decent amount of ruins so 2+ cover would be plentiful thoughout. His orbital bombardment whiffs on the bastion, rolling a 2 and then a 1 for his re-roll. Because he doesn't want to face multiple Dimachaerons (or probably any) in assault he focuses his fire on them but 2+ cover is pretty stupid and he also can't get his multi-meltas into range to do anything to the bastion.
On my turn 1, I pull the Malanthrope out of the bastion and into an adjacent ruin. Thankfully the Dimachaerons have freaking enormous bases, so they can move forward into a different ruin and still be within 6" of the Malanthrope, even after decent runs. Highlight of the game for me was my Flyrant zooming up and psychic screaming 4 bikes out of his squad (that's right, rolled a 12) and causing them to break off the board for first blood. Not that it mattered, as the other three Flyrants would do an AVERAGE of SEVEN HULL POINTS of damage to each Land Speeder, giving up second, third, and fourth blood.
It was pretty much over after that. The sicaran is not an AA platform and doesn't ignore regular cover for my ground units. The chapter master's squad did manage to take down a Dimachaeron (though he did some good work before going down). The other Dimachaeron didn't do much because we called the game on turn 3. The Flyrants had basically run amok and used volume of fire to kill most of his army.
Going into it, I pretty much knew what was going to happen as soon as I saw his list. I don't think mine was optimized to be honest - I am on the verge of dropping the Mawloc for a unit of screening Gargoyles to make the Dimachaerons happy on boards with less cover. His list of course was even less optimized - we already have a rematch set for when he gets his other 15 bikes ready. That's what I want to see
Small aside, it does sadden my heart to have a first-hand account of how good Tyranids are at killing Tyranids. Had a 750 point 2 v 2 game and randomly rolled for teams, so the Tyranids wound up being on opposite teams. The Dimachaeron got charged by a squad of 6 warriors and a prime (the prime had the bonesword/lash whip combo, giving him one chance to finish the bad boy off for good. Two hits....and NO sixes). Dimachaeron swings back angrily (getting a good roll for being outnumbered) and puts out SEVEN INSTANT DEATH WOUNDS. There were 7 models with a total of 21 wounds.....so I won combat by 21. Didn't get to sweep them (or use that I1 fnp) because, you know, they were already dead. This was naturally balanced out by a shameful combat in a different game where it took 2 full game turns to kill a wraithknight due to its 5++ (which it made 4 of) and due to a strength 10 instant death autohit still not being a death sentence apparently. I swear I roll more 1's to wound for that than I do in the whole rest of the game combined
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/11/01 17:46:06
2014/11/01 18:23:17
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
Sasori wrote: So, do we have a pretty solid verdict on the Dimchaeron now? I see it popping up every now and then.
I know the Malanthrope is a must take now.
I don't know that we'll ever have a complete consensus on him. He has some very good matchups, and can influence the course of the game, if nothing else as an area denial. He's kind of like the swarmlord from back in the day. Every inch more than 18 closer to him becomes exponentially more dangerous for 95 percent of the models on the tabletop. He does not like Nurgle instant death demon princes though. They suck.
The problem, somewhat like the Mawloc, is that when he doesn't work, he doesn't do much. I still think he can help you rack up the maelstrom points pretty well though because your opponent won't go near him. I'd be very much surprised to see him in a tournament winning list however, where the name of the game is "have little to no counters/bad matchups" and he decidedly does have some
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/01 18:48:16
2014/11/01 22:41:40
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
I'm thinking of using the Toxicrene model with the Dimachaeron rules. Hard to say for sure, if the Toxicrene ends up being great then I'd have to get a Dimachaeron regardless - but if given a choice between the two, what would you use?
tag8833 wrote: You spread them out, but not so far that you can't get to them. Against a deathstar you are giving up one objective a turn. You can't stop them, maybe slow them down with a wall of Gants or gargoyles. You've got to outscore them, that means having multiple units capable of scoring multiple objectives every turn in case those cards come up. Hormagants can do that every single turn. Rippers can only do that on the turn they come in. Also Hormagants are great at stealing objectives from deathstars because most deathstars aren't OS.
One thing I find is that against deathstars or more aggressive assault lists, your gribblies ( termies, hormies and gargoyles) will usually never get pass the middle. That is because you need them to fight against these units/armies. You need to use them either as screening units, tarpitting units or just to help out in assault. Thus, while ideally, you want them to go after the objectives, the reality is that usually, you can't because you need them to help stave off these types of armies. Now you may steal 1 objective point on the turn you screen out/assault, but your screening unit shouldn't live very long beyond that.
1) They can make it past the middle on turn 1. 2) You can't have it both ways. Either you NEED them to bubble wrap / tarpit / help out in assault against deathstars or you can do without any of that and take rippers. 3) Min squads of hormagants primary mission is to score points. It is tempting the send them in after a deathstar and get them killed, but you should resist that urge unless there is some thing that can be successfully tarpited (Knights, Centstar, Catacomb Command Barges). This was the big mistake I was making originally that led me to believe that Hormagants were a bad choice for troops.
jy2 wrote: However, rippers are highly useful against these types of armies because: 1. Deathstars have problems moving around. They cannot be in multiple places at the same time so in most cases, they will ignore your ripper troops. Of course you will have to help support your rippers with flyrants but against deathstar armies, my strategy 90% of the time is to take out the support units anyways. 2. If the deathstar does go after the rippers, then they lose board control and you can push your army up the middle. 3. Against assault based armies, they will have to split up their offense if they want to go after your ripper troops. Say, for example, you go up against 50 daemonettes. You then drop 2 units of rippers on separate objectives. Now your opponent needs to either 1) ignore them and let you continue potentially claiming points for them or 2) send 20 daemonettes after them and now your main force only has to deal with 30 daemonettes instead of 50. The point is, it dilutes the strength of your opponent's army. Either he gives up those points/objectives or he breaks up his forces going after them, thus making his army slightly easier to deal with.
The same strategy works with Hormagants, if you play them as objective scorers instead of blindly charging them at stuff. Plus hormagants are more survivable if they do get targetted, and can frustrate deathstars who want to kill them.
Hormagants average a 13.25" move. They have a deployment range that includes 1/4 of the board. They can basically get anywhere on the board in 2 turns except for deep in the opponent's deployment zone. Rippers have a similar range of mobility on turn 2 (if they happen to come in). You can drop them deep in the opponents deployment zone if you want, but generally they aren't going to accomplish much doing that. Once rippers are on the board, they average a 9.5" move (less than the minimum distance between 2 objectives). Significantly less, and they move that far much less reliably because they lack fleet. So by turn 3, Hormagants have been able to cover more ground than rippers, and that is without using any charge shenanigan. So if your goal is to reach distant tactical objectives, Hormagants are better able to accomplish it than rippers.
If you goal is to camp a single objective. Rippers are your better choice because you can keep them out of LOS easier, and they don't need babysitting as bad. That is why Rippers are all stars in Eternal war, and other low scoring formats.
I think of Hormagants as slightly inferior gargoyles. 13.25" move vs 15.5" move. +1 attack, OS, -1 PPM, but no blind, HOW or shooting. If gargoyles could fill your troop requirement it would be all gargoyles all of the time. My question to you is, would you take rippers over gargoyles in Maelstrom?
Again, that is being idealistic. In many games, you won't be able to get them past the middle, no matter how fast they can move. Play against the more aggressive armies and they will never get pass the middle. You need them to stay with and to protect your main forces less they get overrun. They will only ever be able to take objectives on your side. Play against drop pod armies and they probably won't even be able to really leave their deployment zones!
Don't be absurd. Against thunderwolves they run past the deathstar toward the backfield. Against Marine Bikes They inhibit the mobility by getting in the way while scoring objectives. Against Orks they ignore the boyz and kill the lootas and mek gunz. Against Drop pods they sometimes tarpit some marines (especially cents or sternguard) for a turn and then go on to score objectives. If a drop pod army decides to come in and alpha strike your hormagants instead of your flyrants, you've already won.
Hormagants are most valuable against aggressive armies because they can restrict the army's movement and steal objectives from the deathstars. In short they can disrupt an aggressive player's strategy. Rippers can't do that.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/01 22:43:04
2014/11/02 02:17:48
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
I think of Hormagants as slightly inferior gargoyles. 13.25" move vs 15.5" move. +1 attack, OS, -1 PPM, but no blind, HOW or shooting. If gargoyles could fill your troop requirement it would be all gargoyles all of the time. My question to you is, would you take rippers over gargoyles in Maelstrom?
And I suddenly feel like an idiot, as I was going to ask how you got a 13.25 move, and realized I have been forgetting the +3 on my runs about half the time.........
2014/11/02 04:25:16
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
SBG wrote: I'm thinking of using the Toxicrene model with the Dimachaeron rules. Hard to say for sure, if the Toxicrene ends up being great then I'd have to get a Dimachaeron regardless - but if given a choice between the two, what would you use?
I'm sure there will be a lot of people going back and forth proxying between the two. The Toxicrene has some benefits and some drawbacks over the Dimachaeron.
Benefits:
40 pts less
Actually more efficient at wounding T8 (though the Dimachaeron typically comes out on top again if there are more than 2 wounds due to his being ID)
Will put the same number of wounds on T7, as well as T6 if not during the round of a charge
Some form of ranged attack (with ignores cover and instant death on a 6 - screw you Nurgle daemon prince!)
Large blast w/ignores cover is definitely not the worst, also wounding on anything but
Native shrouding allows operation away from the Venomthrope or Malanthrope bubble
Since it's less than 200 points, you feel less bad about him being a counter-assault for an objective
Since GW has decided to show us (probably on accident) that intervening models do give cover regardless of 25% obscuration, he's loving that he'll never take worse than a 3+ cover save if you screen appropriately. To be honest, this is always how I read it looking at the rules but it didn't feel like RAI. Now I don't feel bad (and to be honest, it makes a lot of sense given how lackluster the codex was. They probably thought we'd be taking 3+/2+ cover on our big dudes until we were blue in the face)
Is not in the fast attack section
Drawbacks:
Not all of his attacks are instant death. To be fair, not all of the Dimachaeron's attacks are either, but against T4 they can be, and against higher toughness (6+), almost all of the actual wounds will be anyhow
The close combat profile is more reliant on getting a little help - this is where paroxysm really shines. On a 3+ for the D3 roll of paroxysm, he will be hitting most units on 3's instead of 4's. It can also often close the gap from 5 to 4. Really, 3 is just such a terrible WS for a close combat monster. So you can mitigate it somewhat, but the fact that it needs mitigating is most decidedly a con
Does not have fleet
Does not have a second set of close combat weapons (seriously GW? Those aren't rending claws??)
You will miss those extra D3 attacks for being outnumbered
Is in the heavy support section
Let me explain that last point in the Benefits section: say you are placing objectives and there is a ruin somewhere on the board (probably pretty likely). You place an objective outside of the ruin but within say, 12". Really 18 is acceptable but 12 is more reliable. You move the Toxicrene into the ruin, where he can happily sit and lie in wait, loving his 2+ cover. Then, your opponent needs to contest/score that objective. If he does so, you will go and murder that squad. Quite reliably, in all likelihood. So you can use the objectives to make them come to you, rather than trudging across the board, getting lit the hell up along the way. This is not my idea by the way. Comes from the Tyranid hive proboards - his username is Yoritomo
In conclusion, I definitely think (like the Dimachaeron) you can find lists that make him work. Will he win GT's? I'd love it but not likely. I think he's a cool model and I'll surely eventually get one. Crossing my fingers for a data slate/formation to make him see more table time, but he's certainly not unplayable by any stretch of the imagination
EDIT: Realized I never answered the original question lol. I think if I could only choose one, it would be the Dimachaeron. He's just the better beat stick and I would pay the extra points for it. My lists actively draw focus away from him, so he works pretty well. I would also probably use both before just using the Toxicrene, as I think they probably work well in tandem. That being said, at lower points limits I think the Toxicrene would really shine more. You don't really need the Malanthrope so you can actually run a list without him (gasp!) and save even more points.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/02 04:28:54
2014/11/02 04:35:54
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
Toxicrene has the advantage of being non FW, which most players in non competitive games would prefer. In addition, most east coast tournaments disallow FW.
He is also 5 wounds compared to a Carnifexes 4, and will usually have a 3+ cover save. He cant put out the firepower of a fex, but we now have (short) ranged instant death capability. 6 attacks with 3 hitting on average against most is nice on an MC that has poison 2+ with a chance to ID, we now have a more effective way to hurt Wraithknights and the like.
But he's still a slow moving MC. Will I trade a fex in my competitive lists for one? Maybe, in the sense that he's a more survivable, arguably more durable bullet magnet that hopefully draws fire fruitlessly away from my Tyrants, in addition to being a more effective backfield DS deterrent. He's a little more expensive, but he's also got more wounds and a much higher initiative.
With a 4+ save, non pw assault units can beat his ass. A tac squad with no pw does like 1.7 wounds to it, versus his 3 wounds. Barely beating a tac squad is pathetic.
Automatically Appended Next Post: With a 4+ save, non pw assault units can beat his ass. A tac squad with no pw does like 1.7 wounds to it, versus his 3 wounds. Barely beating a tac squad is pathetic.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/02 12:58:48
2014/11/02 14:08:56
Subject: Re:The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
There's a lot to like with the Toxicrene, but I doubt it will be making its way into any of my lists. 6" move is the bane to any assault based unit...not sure I can get over that.
Regardless, I love the Preditory Sentience rule, granting armorbane against open topped vehicles and/or any vehicle that's already taken a glancing hit. A very cool rule that could free up our Flyrants from HAVING to deal with LRs and Imperial Knights (though the Toxicrene being S5 base doesn't make it a slam dunk). It would be nice if the Toxicrene had access to Tyranid Biomorphs...
2014/11/02 14:36:30
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
I think of Hormagants as slightly inferior gargoyles. 13.25" move vs 15.5" move. +1 attack, OS, -1 PPM, but no blind, HOW or shooting. If gargoyles could fill your troop requirement it would be all gargoyles all of the time. My question to you is, would you take rippers over gargoyles in Maelstrom?
And I suddenly feel like an idiot, as I was going to ask how you got a 13.25 move, and realized I have been forgetting the +3 on my runs about half the time.........
The extra run is a critical part of hormagants. It was once I figured out that they should be running instead of charging most of the time that they started to work for me. Because so many people are unfamiliar with Hormagants, let me rundown the exact detail of the calculation.
Hormagants: Move: 6" (4.96" if going through cover)
Run: 4.25" (Average of a D6 is 3.5", but with fleet, if you reroll everything less than 4, you end up with an average of 4.25")
Bounding Leap: 3" (This is a hormagant special rule, extra 3" when running, and the reason they are better than termagants)
Total Move: 13.25"
Charge: 8.5 (Average of 2D6 is 7", but with fleet, if you reroll everything less than 4, you end up with an average of 8.5")
Total Move if you charge rather than run: 14.5"
Termagants: Move: 6" (4.96" if going through cover)
Run: 3.5"
Total Move: 9.5"
Charge: 7"
Total Move if you charge rather than run: 13"
Rippers, and Warriors have the same Movement speed, except Move through Cover which is 4.47" rather than 4.96"
Genestealers move like hormagants except they don't have bounding leap. So their total move if they run is 10.25, and if they charge is 14.5"
Bounding Leap and Fleet go farther. For instance, your chance of a 4" run with Fleet and bounding Leap is 100%. With only fleet it is 75%. With No Fleet it is 50%. So if the objective is 10" away, you will always make it with Hormgants, and only make 1/2 of the time with warriors or Rippers.
Another example. Odds of making a 10" charge with Fleet are: 42.6%. Without fleet the odds are: 16.7%
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voidwraith wrote: There's a lot to like with the Toxicrene, but I doubt it will be making its way into any of my lists. 6" move is the bane to any assault based unit...not sure I can get over that.
Regardless, I love the Preditory Sentience rule, granting armorbane against open topped vehicles and/or any vehicle that's already taken a glancing hit. A very cool rule that could free up our Flyrants from HAVING to deal with LRs and Imperial Knights (though the Toxicrene being S5 base doesn't make it a slam dunk). It would be nice if the Toxicrene had access to Tyranid Biomorphs...
He only gets Armourbane on his S3, Assault 1 Blast. Not going to pop many vehicles with that.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/02 14:38:54
2014/11/02 15:26:48
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
2 Thunderfire Cannons
3-4 squads w/attack bike multi meltas and requisite grav spam
I feel like I'm leaving something out but I don't know what. I felt kind of bad because his list had essentially no anti-air and I told him going in that I only had brought the models to run this list. But he was a good sport and is always fun to play.
EDIT: The mission was purge the alien by the way. How oddly ironic. We just did straight eternal war due to being low on time
Short battle report, as the game was also short: I give him turn 1 and dare him to do something against shroudstar. This board had a decent amount of ruins so 2+ cover would be plentiful thoughout. His orbital bombardment whiffs on the bastion, rolling a 2 and then a 1 for his re-roll. Because he doesn't want to face multiple Dimachaerons (or probably any) in assault he focuses his fire on them but 2+ cover is pretty stupid and he also can't get his multi-meltas into range to do anything to the bastion.
On my turn 1, I pull the Malanthrope out of the bastion and into an adjacent ruin. Thankfully the Dimachaerons have freaking enormous bases, so they can move forward into a different ruin and still be within 6" of the Malanthrope, even after decent runs. Highlight of the game for me was my Flyrant zooming up and psychic screaming 4 bikes out of his squad (that's right, rolled a 12) and causing them to break off the board for first blood. Not that it mattered, as the other three Flyrants would do an AVERAGE of SEVEN HULL POINTS of damage to each Land Speeder, giving up second, third, and fourth blood.
It was pretty much over after that. The sicaran is not an AA platform and doesn't ignore regular cover for my ground units. The chapter master's squad did manage to take down a Dimachaeron (though he did some good work before going down). The other Dimachaeron didn't do much because we called the game on turn 3. The Flyrants had basically run amok and used volume of fire to kill most of his army.
Going into it, I pretty much knew what was going to happen as soon as I saw his list. I don't think mine was optimized to be honest - I am on the verge of dropping the Mawloc for a unit of screening Gargoyles to make the Dimachaerons happy on boards with less cover. His list of course was even less optimized - we already have a rematch set for when he gets his other 15 bikes ready. That's what I want to see
Small aside, it does sadden my heart to have a first-hand account of how good Tyranids are at killing Tyranids. Had a 750 point 2 v 2 game and randomly rolled for teams, so the Tyranids wound up being on opposite teams. The Dimachaeron got charged by a squad of 6 warriors and a prime (the prime had the bonesword/lash whip combo, giving him one chance to finish the bad boy off for good. Two hits....and NO sixes). Dimachaeron swings back angrily (getting a good roll for being outnumbered) and puts out SEVEN INSTANT DEATH WOUNDS. There were 7 models with a total of 21 wounds.....so I won combat by 21. Didn't get to sweep them (or use that I1 fnp) because, you know, they were already dead. This was naturally balanced out by a shameful combat in a different game where it took 2 full game turns to kill a wraithknight due to its 5++ (which it made 4 of) and due to a strength 10 instant death autohit still not being a death sentence apparently. I swear I roll more 1's to wound for that than I do in the whole rest of the game combined
Thanks for sharing.
I am finding that our bugs actually match up well against Marine biker armies as long as you have that 2+ cover to survive his alpha-strike. Just don't charge into them unless its with the dimachaeron (or now probably the toxicrene as well). Especially ignore the Shield Eternal Chapter Master deathsquad in combat and just dakka the crap out of them. I usually beat them by killing all the individual troop bike units and just ignoring the HQ deathstar.
BTW, it's more like "how good the dimachaeron is at killing Tyranids".
Sasori wrote: So, do we have a pretty solid verdict on the Dimchaeron now? I see it popping up every now and then.
I know the Malanthrope is a must take now.
The dimachaeron is more of a playstyle-preference kind of unit than a competitive choice. Against the right army, he will absolutely wreck house. In 2 games I've had with him, he alone went through 900+ pts of Space Wolves and 1000+ pts worth of Nurgle. In other games, he did absolutely nothing but draw fire and die. In casual games, I absolutely love him as he makes the army feel not impotent in assault. He brings back not only respect, but fear, to assaulty nids. However, in competitive play, he'll die without doing anything to armies like Eldar, Tau, centstar Space Marines, biker armies and Mindshackle Necrons....which coincidentally are the top armies that you normally find in tournaments.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/02 16:21:18
SBG wrote: I'm thinking of using the Toxicrene model with the Dimachaeron rules. Hard to say for sure, if the Toxicrene ends up being great then I'd have to get a Dimachaeron regardless - but if given a choice between the two, what would you use?
tag8833 wrote: You spread them out, but not so far that you can't get to them. Against a deathstar you are giving up one objective a turn. You can't stop them, maybe slow them down with a wall of Gants or gargoyles. You've got to outscore them, that means having multiple units capable of scoring multiple objectives every turn in case those cards come up. Hormagants can do that every single turn. Rippers can only do that on the turn they come in. Also Hormagants are great at stealing objectives from deathstars because most deathstars aren't OS.
One thing I find is that against deathstars or more aggressive assault lists, your gribblies ( termies, hormies and gargoyles) will usually never get pass the middle. That is because you need them to fight against these units/armies. You need to use them either as screening units, tarpitting units or just to help out in assault. Thus, while ideally, you want them to go after the objectives, the reality is that usually, you can't because you need them to help stave off these types of armies. Now you may steal 1 objective point on the turn you screen out/assault, but your screening unit shouldn't live very long beyond that.
1) They can make it past the middle on turn 1.
2) You can't have it both ways. Either you NEED them to bubble wrap / tarpit / help out in assault against deathstars or you can do without any of that and take rippers.
3) Min squads of hormagants primary mission is to score points. It is tempting the send them in after a deathstar and get them killed, but you should resist that urge unless there is some thing that can be successfully tarpited (Knights, Centstar, Catacomb Command Barges). This was the big mistake I was making originally that led me to believe that Hormagants were a bad choice for troops.
I didn't know you actually ran min squads of hormagants? I thought you ran larger units? If going min-sized for objectives, wouldn't it be better just to get 10 termagants? While not as fast, the savings can get you the Egrubs on your flyrants.
In the case of MY army, yes, I actually don't need bubble-wrapping/tarpitting units....which is why I don't run hormagants or termagants currently. Basically, my core consists of the Malan in a bastion, some gargoyles and my dimachaeron. I really don't care if they get killed. However, should my opponent feel the need to push his units towards my gargoyles and the very deadly dimachaeron, then by all means, I will be glad. Gargoyles are mainly for trying to catch a unit and pin it down for the dimachaeron. They also daisy-chain to hold objectives on my side of the table as well as to provide screening cover for the dimachaeron for 3+ shrouded cover. But ultimately, when playing against assaulty deathstars and other assault-based armies, the job of my "core" is to lead them away from all of the other objectives so that my main forces - the flyrants and mawlocs and other flyers - can deal with their MSU troops on their objectives. I am perfectly willing to sacrifice my core in order to do this.
jy2 wrote: However, rippers are highly useful against these types of armies because:
1. Deathstars have problems moving around. They cannot be in multiple places at the same time so in most cases, they will ignore your ripper troops. Of course you will have to help support your rippers with flyrants but against deathstar armies, my strategy 90% of the time is to take out the support units anyways.
2. If the deathstar does go after the rippers, then they lose board control and you can push your army up the middle.
3. Against assault based armies, they will have to split up their offense if they want to go after your ripper troops. Say, for example, you go up against 50 daemonettes. You then drop 2 units of rippers on separate objectives. Now your opponent needs to either 1) ignore them and let you continue potentially claiming points for them or 2) send 20 daemonettes after them and now your main force only has to deal with 30 daemonettes instead of 50. The point is, it dilutes the strength of your opponent's army. Either he gives up those points/objectives or he breaks up his forces going after them, thus making his army slightly easier to deal with.
The same strategy works with Hormagants, if you play them as objective scorers instead of blindly charging them at stuff. Plus hormagants are more survivable if they do get targetted, and can frustrate deathstars who want to kill them.
Hormagants average a 13.25" move. They have a deployment range that includes 1/4 of the board. They can basically get anywhere on the board in 2 turns except for deep in the opponent's deployment zone. Rippers have a similar range of mobility on turn 2 (if they happen to come in). You can drop them deep in the opponents deployment zone if you want, but generally they aren't going to accomplish much doing that. Once rippers are on the board, they average a 9.5" move (less than the minimum distance between 2 objectives). Significantly less, and they move that far much less reliably because they lack fleet. So by turn 3, Hormagants have been able to cover more ground than rippers, and that is without using any charge shenanigan. So if your goal is to reach distant tactical objectives, Hormagants are better able to accomplish it than rippers.
If you goal is to camp a single objective. Rippers are your better choice because you can keep them out of LOS easier, and they don't need babysitting as bad. That is why Rippers are all stars in Eternal war, and other low scoring formats.
I think of Hormagants as slightly inferior gargoyles. 13.25" move vs 15.5" move. +1 attack, OS, -1 PPM, but no blind, HOW or shooting. If gargoyles could fill your troop requirement it would be all gargoyles all of the time. My question to you is, would you take rippers over gargoyles in Maelstrom?
Again, that is being idealistic. In many games, you won't be able to get them past the middle, no matter how fast they can move. Play against the more aggressive armies and they will never get pass the middle. You need them to stay with and to protect your main forces less they get overrun. They will only ever be able to take objectives on your side. Play against drop pod armies and they probably won't even be able to really leave their deployment zones!
Don't be absurd. Against thunderwolves they run past the deathstar toward the backfield. Against Marine Bikes They inhibit the mobility by getting in the way while scoring objectives. Against Orks they ignore the boyz and kill the lootas and mek gunz. Against Drop pods they sometimes tarpit some marines (especially cents or sternguard) for a turn and then go on to score objectives. If a drop pod army decides to come in and alpha strike your hormagants instead of your flyrants, you've already won.
Hormagants are most valuable against aggressive armies because they can restrict the army's movement and steal objectives from the deathstars. In short they can disrupt an aggressive player's strategy. Rippers can't do that.
I am wondering how are gribblies running past a deathstar (like the TWC) when in most likelihood, they will be forming a wall? When playing against a deathstar like a TWC, they tend to spread out to try to trap you. Thus, no matter where you go, they can get to you. In other words, they tend to form a wall when advancing so that they can easily go to the right or the left to catch "escaping" prey. And when I say "catch", I mean multi-assault that unit and whatever else is in front of them as the deathstar has a large foot print that can easily cover multiple units.
Against biker marines, they inhibit mobility by getting in the way. In other words, they screen out the bikers. Exactly what I was saying. Oftentimes, they have to help out the army by screening or tarpitting a unit.
Against orks, seriously? How are your gribblies getting past the wall of green tide to get to lootas and mek gunz in the ork backfield? That is something your flyrants and mawlocs can do, but not your gribblies (unless you can outflank them with Hive Commander).
Against drop pod marines, hate to break the news to you, but those marines and their drop pods are already on top of objectives. So yeah, your gribblies will be staying in your backfield and locking up those marines while trying to contest (and possibly score) those objectives that they are on. And even if they ignore those marines, guess what? They are going to get shot in the back by boltguns unless you want to assault 70-pt combat squads with your 240-pt flyrants, 150-pt dakkafexes or whatever.
"Hormagants are most valuable against aggressive armies because they can restrict the army's movement and steal objectives from the deathstars." In short, you are using them to screen out the deathstars to "restrict" them from advancing. That also means your gribblies aren't advancing towards their objectives as well. The only objectives that they are getting are the ones already on their side of the deployment half which they should be normally getting anyways.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2014/11/02 16:45:40
Voidwraith wrote: There's a lot to like with the Toxicrene, but I doubt it will be making its way into any of my lists. 6" move is the bane to any assault based unit...not sure I can get over that.
Regardless, I love the Preditory Sentience rule, granting armorbane against open topped vehicles and/or any vehicle that's already taken a glancing hit. A very cool rule that could free up our Flyrants from HAVING to deal with LRs and Imperial Knights (though the Toxicrene being S5 base doesn't make it a slam dunk). It would be nice if the Toxicrene had access to Tyranid Biomorphs...
He only gets Armourbane on his S3, Assault 1 Blast. Not going to pop many vehicles with that.
Doh...missed that Preditory Sentience was in his ranged weapon profile. Yeah...not a factor...
2014/11/02 21:30:20
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
tag8833 wrote: You spread them out, but not so far that you can't get to them. Against a deathstar you are giving up one objective a turn. You can't stop them, maybe slow them down with a wall of Gants or gargoyles. You've got to outscore them, that means having multiple units capable of scoring multiple objectives every turn in case those cards come up. Hormagants can do that every single turn. Rippers can only do that on the turn they come in. Also Hormagants are great at stealing objectives from deathstars because most deathstars aren't OS.
One thing I find is that against deathstars or more aggressive assault lists, your gribblies ( termies, hormies and gargoyles) will usually never get pass the middle. That is because you need them to fight against these units/armies. You need to use them either as screening units, tarpitting units or just to help out in assault. Thus, while ideally, you want them to go after the objectives, the reality is that usually, you can't because you need them to help stave off these types of armies. Now you may steal 1 objective point on the turn you screen out/assault, but your screening unit shouldn't live very long beyond that.
1) They can make it past the middle on turn 1.
2) You can't have it both ways. Either you NEED them to bubble wrap / tarpit / help out in assault against deathstars or you can do without any of that and take rippers.
3) Min squads of hormagants primary mission is to score points. It is tempting the send them in after a deathstar and get them killed, but you should resist that urge unless there is some thing that can be successfully tarpited (Knights, Centstar, Catacomb Command Barges). This was the big mistake I was making originally that led me to believe that Hormagants were a bad choice for troops.
I didn't know you actually ran min squads of hormagants? I thought you ran larger units? If going min-sized for objectives, wouldn't it be better just to get 10 termagants? While not as fast, the savings can get you the Egrubs on your flyrants.
I always run min squads unless I'm being fluffy or have 5-10 points left over. Generally Gargoyles are better, so if I'm running more than min squads of Hormagants, I should usually run more gargoyles instead.
Termagants are a bad choice in Maelstrom. They have crappy mobility compared to Hormagants, and can't screen because of that. They get in the ways of MCs too much. So basically they score less, Screen less, and control the board less. It is always worth upgrading a min squad of termagants to a min squad of hormagants. If you want to run more than a min squad, a mixed squad of Spinefist/Devourer Termagants can be pretty good in Maelstrom.
jy2 wrote: In the case of MY army, yes, I actually don't need bubble-wrapping/tarpitting units....which is why I don't run hormagants or termagants currently. Basically, my core consists of the Malan in a bastion, some gargoyles and my dimachaeron. I really don't care if they get killed. However, should my opponent feel the need to push his units towards my gargoyles and the very deadly dimachaeron, then by all means, I will be glad. Gargoyles are mainly for trying to catch a unit and pin it down for the dimachaeron. They also daisy-chain to hold objectives on my side of the table as well as to provide screening cover for the dimachaeron for 3+ shrouded cover. But ultimately, when playing against assaulty deathstars and other assault-based armies, the job of my "core" is to lead them away from all of the other objectives so that my main forces - the flyrants and mawlocs and other flyers - can deal with their MSU troops on their objectives. I am perfectly willing to sacrifice my core in order to do this.
"I don't use bubble-wrapping/tarpitting units" But "I run gargoyles" Brings me back to my original question. If you could take non-OS gargoyles as troops instead of rippers would you do so?
Also, a question begged by you description of your army (which you didn't build for Maelstrom). Do you think that an army chosen to compete with one type of mission is always going to be optimal when playing a different sort of mission? I don't. I run significantly different armies for BAO for straight EW (though the difference is small) and for Maelstrom (Big Difference). The bones are the same (Flyrants, Malanthropes, Gargoyles), but beyond that there are changes.
jy2 wrote: I am wondering how are gribblies running past a deathstar (like the TWC) when in most likelihood, they will be forming a wall? When playing against a deathstar like a TWC, they tend to spread out to try to trap you. Thus, no matter where you go, they can get to you. In other words, they tend to form a wall when advancing so that they can easily go to the right or the left to catch "escaping" prey. And when I say "catch", I mean multi-assault that unit and whatever else is in front of them as the deathstar has a large foot print that can easily cover multiple units.
I don't think TWC have been terribly successful, but there are two players I see who run them regularly. One runs about 8-10 TWC with a bunch of cyber wolves to eat wounds. He sometimes spreads out, but I usually deploy gants on one flank or the other in an effort to get past him. I use my flyrants on turn one to shoot up that flank of cyber wolves so that he has a harder time multi-assaulting the gants. If he really wants to kill the gants he can, but with my Gargoyles screening for the rest of my army, it means he is giving up on something more critical to me. The other TWC player runs smaller squad(s). Usually he runs them up one flank with dreadnoughts on the other flank. I just run the gants towards the dreds. Sometimes I tarpit one of them on an objective. OS wins the day. I don't think either are a very competitive strategy, and I've beat them both with pretty fluffy list. I would like to figure out a more competitive list to pass along to one of them and try out, but I haven't really seen any better ones than the one he is currently running which can demolish lots of things, but has few answers to Tyranids.
jy2 wrote: Against orks, seriously? How are your gribblies getting past the wall of green tide to get to lootas and mek gunz in the ork backfield? That is something your flyrants and mawlocs can do, but not your gribblies (unless you can outflank them with Hive Commander).
Same principle as thunder wolves. If he is bringing 4 large squads up the field at me, I deploy me Gants on a flank, and send my Dakkafexes / Exocrines / Biovores over there to demolish the large squad on that flank so that my gants can get through. Quite often then get a turn 2 charge on Lootas or Mek Gunz. Also the Ork players in my area still love the quad gun, so the gants are usually task with tying up whatever squad is using that. I haven't had any notable problem against orks. I ran into a Dread Mob player with a bunch of walkers that game me some trouble because of my fluffy list, but I won the game pretty easily. One important thing is the Mek Gunz have gretchin crew that T7 against shooting, but only T2 against assault. Hormagants and Gargoyles take them out better than flyrants, Exocrines or Dakkafexes.
jy2 wrote: Against drop pod marines, hate to break the news to you, but those marines and their drop pods are already on top of objectives. So yeah, your gribblies will be staying in your backfield and locking up those marines while trying to contest (and possibly score) those objectives that they are on. And even if they ignore those marines, guess what? They are going to get shot in the back by boltguns unless you want to assault 70-pt combat squads with your 240-pt flyrants, 150-pt dakkafexes or whatever.
1st things first. I don't reserve anything against drop pods, and I would recommend you don't either. If you are reserving stuff against drop pods besides maybe Mawlocs or rippers, you are doing something wrong. The drop pods are going to come in. When they do, they've got to make the choice.
Option 1) Alpha strike. Go after our valuable units like Flyrants. If they do this it is going to hurt. We are usually going to lose something, but all of those marines should either be dead or locked in close combat by turn 2.
Option 2) drop pod onto objectives. This is a much better choice against tyranids, and much more challenging to deal with. The problem isn't marines. A min squad of Hormies can tarpit a combat squaded tac squad plenty long for bigger stuff to come and clean them out. Gants should always be making sure that they are contesting objectives from the stupid OS drop pods or tac squads, but they aren't going to win you the game. That is going to be your bigger stuff. Rippers fare much worse in this scenario because they don't have quite as much mobility or staying power, and if the marines are going to cover up all of the objectives, they've kinda got to hide until they get cleared. They can tarpit a tac squad, but aren't as mobile to give up on one objective and move on to another if it isn't going to happen.
2014/11/03 08:08:03
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
@tag8833 I feel the main problem here when comparing you to jy2 is opponent sample size. Judging by your responses you appear to play a much smaller amount of opponents and you seem to be the dominant one out of your group which is skewing your success with certain units. Honestly if you're beating your opponents with fluffy list then you could probably beat them with almost any unit. jy2's sample size on the other hand is various large tournaments, the fine people at Frontline Gaming and many other areas.
You kinda lost me with this one:
tag8833 wrote: I don't think TWC have been terribly successful, but there are two players I see who run them regularly.
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2014/11/03 10:58:07
Subject: The Strengths of the NEW Tyranids - The Foundation for Competitive Tyranids (Knight Tactica p.177)
I don't think its about sample size and if you are talking logic it really shouldn't matter... Tag does have some less competitive opponents and does what we should all practice as higher level players and that is dumbing down his list and using lower tier units for the situation (while still composing a solid army so it's still fun for him too). It's clear that he has a lot of experience against high-level opponents as well, but regardless I prefer to fault the logic rather than the circumstances or the poster. All that being said, Tag didn't say anything to suggest that this opponent was lesser skill than him, just that the strategy didn't work too well against him, even to the extent that he could beat it with a less competitive build, this says nothing about his opponent, and his logic was mostly in relation to TWC themselves, who do not take 20 different opponents using the unit against you to comprehend strategically, and if there's something about them he's getting wrong, that should be what your counter-response includes. I too have found TWC (and tbh most things that runs straight at us - with a few exceptions like Knights) to not be too successful an opponent against us, for multiple reasons. I don't think telling someone that their "sample size is too low and jy2 plays more tournaments than you so it's his opinion we'll go with" is a good substitute for competitive logic, or a good way to breed healthy discussion. Jy2 is wrong, Tag is wrong, I am wrong, Luke is wrong, Strat is wrong, we all have room to improve our game regardless of how many tournaments we attend, so lets not let get elitist and start discounting people's opinions based on sample size instead of actually arguing against bad logic.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Except for maybe that one guy who kept trying to tell us all how we were building our lists wrong, explaining how Trygons and Haruspex are great units, while admitting that he has never played with or against Tyranids and was still building his army. He was freaking annoying.
jy2's sample size on the other hand is various large tournaments, the fine people at Frontline Gaming and many other areas.
Also this is not only an unhealthy attitude, but also incredibly bad supporting logic, it's not hard to find flaws in some of the strategy logic posted at FLG, they are popular for being a large resource and making good bat-reps and being a site with a lot of digestable content which is updated regularly. This does not make them strategy gods or even better at strategy than plenty of dakkanauts, nor does it make the people in Jy2's tourneys more than human, there is nothing to say that ANY of these people are better players than Tag in fact from what I've seen Tag has a much deeper understand of the game than them and I'd bet hes a lot better than the standard player at even high level tourneys. This, however, is once again just an opinion, but is a good example of why the relevant point of a statement should be whats being said, not who's saying it.
This message was edited 11 times. Last update was at 2014/11/03 11:12:16
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
So Im trying to work with what I've got to chose from at home.
I like to, but I often feel constrained by the budget. 
How are you planning to run the Gargoyles? big Broods of x30?
I agree on the Shrikes, they are hard to use, and are very vulnerable to alpha strikes. 
2 a LAN works best with a Shrouding baby sitter, so finding points to grab an extra Veno/Malan is a high priority. 
Thousand Sons 4000+
