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 Frozocrone wrote:
What are the best things to put inside a Tyrannocyte? My current list (posted in Army Lists) has Exocrine, Dakkafex and Zoanthrope should I roll Psychic Shriek. Are these three viable occupants for Pods?

Of those I'd opt for the Dakkafex as the best candidate, as it gets the most out of it due to the low range on its guns. The Exocrine is a reasonable alternate choice though as it allows you to circumvent cover to get the most out of its Ap2. I'd only put Zoanthropes in the pod if they are in a brood for the additional shots and survivability. A single Zoanthrope dropped in the midst of the foe doesn't usually do much in my experience, but a brood can at least tarpit stuff if psychic powers go awry.

tag8833 wrote:

You might be able to tailor to beat a specific tau list. For instance, running 90 Gargoyles will usually neutralize Riptides and broadsides pretty effectively, but those lists are either unbalanced and lose to most other things, or just not fun to play because of the high model count.

I'm not sure if I'd consider 90 Gargoyles to be an especially high model count, particularly compared to say a green tide or guard blob...

tag8833 wrote:

Coldsteel wrote:
Important safety tip:

It's really, really hard to beat shooty tau using a Lictor Shame list on a mostly bare board. Especially when most of your psychic rolls are 1 and 4. Just got blown off the board by Firebase Cadre combined with Farsight Bomb and a Skyray in the final round of a tourney. Mawlocs all scattered and didn't kill a thing. Lictors fell to Ignores Cover.

Any thoughts on strategy? I planned to keep things off as long as possible, but the primary mission was deteriorating objectives and each turn lost meant big points for the opponent. I burned 4 Lictors to kill the Skyray, which at least gave the Flyrants a chance.

Sincerely,
Punching Bag

Tau have all of the answers to Tyranids. Firebase Cadre and Farsight bomb aren't even the most scary they can offer. 3 Skyrays + Buffmanderstar is more scary yet. You might be able to tailor to beat a specific tau list. For instance, running 90 Gargoyles will usually neutralize Riptides and broadsides pretty effectively, but those lists are either unbalanced and lose to most other things, or just not fun to play because of the high model count.

Until either Tau or Tyranids get a new codex, I don't think this is going to change, and rebuilding your list to counter a specific Tau list can be a dubious proposition.

One very, very important thing is to always try to pin (the Horror) any unit joined to buffmander. Coupled with a good Tyranid list, and you can usually avoid being tabled.

Yeah,I agree, though for me the key part of the post is almost no terrain. Having the final come down to beating Tau with little to no terrain is a pretty poor showing by who ever put the Tourney on. Who wouldn't struggle? Drop Pod Marines? That is just a poor match, and no amount of fixing can change that.

pinecone77 wrote:
Yeah,I agree, though for me the key part of the post is almost no terrain. Having the final come down to beating Tau with little to no terrain is a pretty poor showing by who ever put the Tourney on. Who wouldn't struggle? Drop Pod Marines? That is just a poor match, and no amount of fixing can change that.

My experience with Tau is that they generally care very little about terrain. They tend to be pretty fast and outrange pretty much anything Tyranids have to offer. Also, Buffmander gives ignore cover, and Marker lights give ignore cover, and SMS give ignore cover, so you don't get cover saves very often.

On the other hand, thanks to Shadowsun, and the fact that the Move-Shoot-Move, they can exploit terrain much better than we can. Killing marker lights and suites with a 2+ cover save is a real pain. My worst case matchup against Tau is usually on tables with multi-level ruins so that Tau can claim immunity from Mawlocs, which are one of our few answers to farsight bomb or buffmanderstar or Broadsides.

Building ruin? It is not indestructible! Just attack the building instead of the unit on top of it. Mawloc can destructible the building. It is in mawloc datasheet where you can swallow the building. And most building rule are in page 110, but I can't find ruins armour value datasheet..

Ruins don't have AV and therefore can't be destroyed.

And no, Mawlocs can't eat Ruins. Nor can they swallow buildings.

tag8833 wrote:

pinecone77 wrote:
Yeah,I agree, though for me the key part of the post is almost no terrain. Having the final come down to beating Tau with little to no terrain is a pretty poor showing by who ever put the Tourney on. Who wouldn't struggle? Drop Pod Marines? That is just a poor match, and no amount of fixing can change that.

My experience with Tau is that they generally care very little about terrain. They tend to be pretty fast and outrange pretty much anything Tyranids have to offer. Also, Buffmander gives ignore cover, and Marker lights give ignore cover, and SMS give ignore cover, so you don't get cover saves very often.

On the other hand, thanks to Shadowsun, and the fact that the Move-Shoot-Move, they can exploit terrain much better than we can. Killing marker lights and suites with a 2+ cover save is a real pain. My worst case matchup against Tau is usually on tables with multi-level ruins so that Tau can claim immunity from Mawlocs, which are one of our few answers to farsight bomb or buffmanderstar or Broadsides.

All true, but I can kill marker lights, but that does not Matter in the absence of terrain. The biggest issue in my mind is usually a lack of LOS blocking items, the lack of which definitely favors some Codex more than others.

If I want a good match, I need to prepare a level playing field, and a field that favors one kind of play more than another is not level. Do I think Tau are a tough fight for us? Who does not? But I don't consider them unbeatable by a long ways.

Consider as an example this Tau vs Tyranids show down...Lictor shame vs Tau; the field is numerous small Mawloc sized islands surrounded by...hmm "lava", each island also has a piece of terrain my Lictors can exploit. Fair? I certainly don't think so.

So setting a field that heavily favors long range gun battle is a sub standard way to determine a champion. It is "OK" as one of several matches, but not for a final.

 Iechine wrote:
Is there anything rule wise preventing tyrant guard from a CAD joining the Tyrant of a Skytyrant formation?

The Tyrant Guard can't join a Hive Tyrant, it's the other way around. But as a Hive Tyrant can't leave the Skytyrant unit due to the Monstrous Flock rule, he can't join the Tyrant Guard unit until all the Gargoyles are dead.

 N.I.B. wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 fartherthanfar wrote:
Hi everyone, I keep on seeing people mention the spore mine clusters as a decent option but in my mind they are so much worst then the mucolid spore (less str in the blast, worst ap, no shrouding, unable to harm flyer, average of same points).

What is the advantage of the spore mine cluster over the Mucolids?

Also great for null deployment armies as they don't give up anything and lets you reserve your important units and not be "tabled" (assuming you hide them).

While nice, it's not an advantage Mucolids have over Spore Mines. Both have the Living Bomb rule.

True, but mucolids can't hide as well as spore mines can.

 N.I.B. wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Thanks. With regards to some of the units on his list:

Dimachaeron in Spore - I like this unit. Dima by himself isn't very reliable performance-wise, but put him in a spore and his value to the army shoots way up. I think dima-spore is actually a viable competitive Tyranid build.

The single pod was for the Neuro brood, not the Dima (it was deployed as normal).

I agree with tag8833 on podded Dimas, I just don't see it. Charge turn 3 or 4. Turn 5 with a bit of bad luck. Until mid-late game it's not contributing to target saturation and has zero area threat projection. Especially bad if Maelstrom missions were you need boots on the ground, and early.
I do love the model and it's rules (apart from its abysmal move - tell me how a Maulerfiend is twice as fast? Look at those legs FFS!) but if I would field one, it would be starting on the table.

Dima in a pod works in a null deployment-type list. He doesn't need to contribute to target saturation in such a list because there is basically no good targets for the opponent in the first place. Basically, you don't give the opponent any viable targets in the early game other than flying flyrants or the malanthrope with 2+ cover or out of LOS. With him on the table, you are actually giving the opponent a much easier target to kill than the flyrants. Thus, in a sense, you are actually reducing target saturation with him deployed naturally - he is a high-priority threat who is actually much easier to kill than the other Tyranid threats. Dima comes in for directional board control (i.e. wherever you need him to "control" the table as opposed to the predictability of him just moving forwards from your deployment zone). And while he doesn't have as many turns to be effective offense-wise, he becomes much more survivable as the opponent has less turns to shoot at him, all while taking damage from flyrant shooting. But even still, he has about as great a chance for a Turn 3 assault as a foot-slogging dima but with much, much better survivability (assuming he comes in on T2, which should be possible with reserves-manipulation tactics that should be commonplace in a null-deployment Tyranid list).

And while he doesn't actually have a pod in that list, at least it's good to have the flexibility to be able to start him off in the pod should the need arises.

tag8833 wrote:
Dima in a pod = Dima on a turn 3 charge at the earliest. That means Dima contributes for roughly 1/2 of the game. I don't really see it. I've tried it about 8 times, and I've either lost the Dima on the turn he arrives, or he arrives so late that the battle was already mine, and gets to be a horrendously overpriced objective sitter.

Well, he is still a high-priority target and some armies can still finish him off with just 1 turn of shooting. I can definitely see how you had the results that you had. But having only 1 turn of shooting at him gives him a much higher chance to make it into assault than having multiple turns to shoot at him.

 Wilson wrote:
Dima in a pod didn't work for me either -it's either too late to the game or is gunned down before it can do anything.

people say it is good distraction, ammo bait but i mean cmon - so is a mawloc and thats 60 pts cheaper.

How do people rate sling-shotting tyrant guard with a meleeflyrant? is that viable? I've been sat at my desk rolling dice trying to work out whats better out of 3 tyrant guard and a melee flyrant or a sky tyrant formation.

what are peoples thoughts -which ones more durable?

sky tyrant are better vs grav (which is heavily spammed in my meta) where as tyrant guard would be better vs high strength(that doesn't cause ID) although I don't have experience with the latter.

I believe that a Hive Tyrant is our best/ most reliable CC unit in the game as it's the only one that can get into combat by T2.

toxicrene and dima are nice but podding them in / walking them up the board is far too unreliable.

EDIT:

Or for a cheaper option - prime with lw, bs and toxin sacs in a unit of gargoyles? Sling shot into and issue challenge? Anyone tried this?

Im uber pro bone sword cause i REALLY hate riptides and wraithknights

I don't see how you "slingshot" a melee tyrant with tyrant guards. Personally, I much prefer 30 gargoyles to 3 tyrant guards. They're better against one of the more competitive builds (centurions) and you can easily string the gargoyles back to malan/venomthrope range. Gargoyles are also better against units that we traditionally have problems with - wraithknights and Imperial Knights. But the main question really is this - do you want to take up your 2nd detachment on the Skytyrant formation? Most tournaments in our neck of the woods have a 2-source limit.

Personally, I think a melee walkrant is a waste of time, but more power to you if you like a challenge.

BTW, if you really want to go with a melee-rant + tyrant guards, then go with the Swarmlord.

 Wilson wrote:
so what;
Flyrant -wings, LW,BS,AO,Toxin sacs, Talons - 255

Tyrant guard x 3 - Adrenal glands 165

Total 420

BTW, in such a configuration, the unit loses out on Fleet because the flyrant doesn't have Fleet. The guards do, however, get Furious Charge.

Coldsteel wrote:
Important safety tip:

It's really, really hard to beat shooty tau using a Lictor Shame list on a mostly bare board. Especially when most of your psychic rolls are 1 and 4. Just got blown off the board by Firebase Cadre combined with Farsight Bomb and a Skyray in the final round of a tourney. Mawlocs all scattered and didn't kill a thing. Lictors fell to Ignores Cover.

Any thoughts on strategy? I planned to keep things off as long as possible, but the primary mission was deteriorating objectives and each turn lost meant big points for the opponent. I burned 4 Lictors to kill the Skyray, which at least gave the Flyrants a chance.

Sincerely,
Punching Bag

Psychic powers like the Horror or Paroxysm will help a ton against Tau. Flyrant-spam will actually do better against Tau than Lictorshame, but Lictorshame can still work against Tau, especially if you have BLOS terrain to work with (if not, then it'll be a really uphill battle). In a battle I had against Tau, I kept on casting Paroxysm on his skyrays, thus preventing him from shooting with them for a few turns (didn't want to waste his missiles on BS1-2 shooting). You can do the same to skyfiring riptides. Also, directional fire is very important against the Farsight-bomb. I can usually murder his bodyguards by positioning my flyrants away from the tanking 2+ suit/commander and using Egrubs to eat away at the drones, especially if they are getting 2+ cover from Shadowsun in ruins.

But my main strategy is board control against Tau. Try to keep them detained in their deployment zone, keeping them busy fighting off your flyrants, while your lictors/rippers/whatever take objectives. That is how I mostly beat Tau. It isn't easy, but it is much easier than the pre-Leviathan days. Also, if your opponent doesn't pack in enough skyfire in his TAC list, then he will have trouble with flyrant-spam Tyranids.

 Frozocrone wrote:
Null Deploy with the Flyrants, get everything bar some Spore Mines manning objectives off the board, deploy out of Line of Sight, bring a Bastion to assist in this. Deploy out of range of SMS and block line of sight to weapons. Turn 2, get everything on with the Comms Relay, DS onto the Broadsides without Scatter due to non-scatter Lictors, Flyrants move up and Paroxysm the Skyfiring units (Skyray and co). Turn 2 should be where you do damage.

I would have had a good game against Tau with my 1250 Lictor Shame list but the dice were against me and was Seized, so my Flyrants took wounds. Followed swiftly by a Perils and failed Grounding.

Has anyone else had success with a Malanthrope? In all my games I don't seem to have much success with it. Against Tau, well that's to be expected. But I just faced off against Raptors which had a Scorpius w/ Battle of Keylek. Caused wounds for days with Lias and the Scorpius and probably the Legion of the damned.

EDIT: What are the best things to put inside a Tyrannocyte? My current list (posted in Army Lists) has Exocrine, Dakkafex and Zoanthrope should I roll Psychic Shriek. Are these three viable occupants for Pods? I fielded a similar list earlier today with an additional Dakkafex and other things in place of the Tyrannocyte and Bastion and while I won (Rippers too stronk), the list never really got out of the Deployment zone, except for Flyrants and DS units.

These are the units I prefer to put in a spore - dimachaeron, dakkafex, tervigon, tyrannofex, zoans/neurothrope and the Swarmlord. Exocrine has enough range that I usually prefer to keep him back and advancing while in range of the malanthrope. I don't run zoans/neuro in a pod, but if you run them, they are definitely better off in a pod than on foot.

tag8833 wrote:

Coldsteel wrote:
Important safety tip:

It's really, really hard to beat shooty tau using a Lictor Shame list on a mostly bare board. Especially when most of your psychic rolls are 1 and 4. Just got blown off the board by Firebase Cadre combined with Farsight Bomb and a Skyray in the final round of a tourney. Mawlocs all scattered and didn't kill a thing. Lictors fell to Ignores Cover.

Any thoughts on strategy? I planned to keep things off as long as possible, but the primary mission was deteriorating objectives and each turn lost meant big points for the opponent. I burned 4 Lictors to kill the Skyray, which at least gave the Flyrants a chance.

Sincerely,
Punching Bag

Tau have all of the answers to Tyranids. Firebase Cadre and Farsight bomb aren't even the most scary they can offer. 3 Skyrays + Buffmanderstar is more scary yet. You might be able to tailor to beat a specific tau list. For instance, running 90 Gargoyles will usually neutralize Riptides and broadsides pretty effectively, but those lists are either unbalanced and lose to most other things, or just not fun to play because of the high model count.

Until either Tau or Tyranids get a new codex, I don't think this is going to change, and rebuilding your list to counter a specific Tau list can be a dubious proposition.

One very, very important thing is to always try to pin (the Horror) any unit joined to buffmander. Coupled with a good Tyranid list, and you can usually avoid being tabled.

Lol. It's ironic, but it's actually Tau who needs to tailor their list to beat our more competitive ones. And 3 skyrays is NOT a great Tau build. It's great against flyrant-spam, but just mediocre against a lot of the other competitive armies. I wouldn't run more than 2 skyrays in a good TAC Tau list. Broadsides are a lot more useful against most armies than the skyrays.

Podded Zoanthropes do sound tasty, but way too many dice for my liking.

I've had a chance to use the Exocrine in a couple of matches now and I have to say it's probably going to be auto-include if I'm not running Mawlocs (which I usually don't), particulary with how well it's performed. Frequently kills Riptides, blew up a Rhino for me so that my Dakkafex could kill the troops that were on my objective, even shot down a Stormtalon haha. It just does too much for me.

So here is a review for the OP; it saddens me to see it not have a dedicated write up when all of the other HS options do.



I do hope I've not missed anything..

Thanks Frozo.

Will add it into the main tactica.

 jy2 wrote:

Lol. It's ironic, but it's actually Tau who needs to tailor their list to beat our more competitive ones. And 3 skyrays is NOT a great Tau build. It's great against flyrant-spam, but just mediocre against a lot of the other competitive armies. I wouldn't run more than 2 skyrays in a good TAC Tau list. Broadsides are a lot more useful against most armies than the skyrays.

I submit that your Tau meta is night and day different from the Tau meta I've seen in the competitive scene. You and I have gone several rounds on the viability of skyrays, but I would offer that the highest placing Tau army at LVO included 2 Skyrays: http://www.torrentoffire.com/6650/anatomy-of-the-list-tauanids

I don't think your impression that Tau need to tailor to beat competitive Tyranids is in touch with reality. One of the locals who went with me to LVO ran buffmanderstar with no Skyrays. He played against 13 Hive Tyrants and Killed 12 of them. The survivor came as a result of a ruling that Shadows in the Warp affects Riptides & Crisis Suites. The only time I've ever seen a Competitive Tyranid list beat a Competitive Tau list is when I've pulled out a game vs a netlisted Tau list played by a guy who was new to it, and had never faced Tyranids before.

Skyrays aren't that good IMO. I've actually not lost to a list with 2+ Skyrays. I have lost to lists with lots of HYMP broadsides though - repeatedly.

TBH, my biggest worry is Necrons, not Tau.

rigeld2 wrote:
Skyrays aren't that good IMO. I've actually not lost to a list with 2+ Skyrays. I have lost to lists with lots of HYMP broadsides though - repeatedly.

I think you are falling into the trap of comparing 3 Broadsides to 1 Skyray. Because Skyrays are laughably undercosted, that comparison isn't a fair one. The difference between Skyrays and Broadsides is that Skyrays are much harder to kill, they can completely take away your save (Broadsides can't), and they can support other units with markerlights.

Lets do some math. 3 Skyrays with SMS cost about the same as 5 Broadsides with HYMP & SMS.

Killyness
VS Flyrant Flying with a 2+ Jink.
3 Skyrays - 7.85 wounds on the 1st turn, and then fewer as the game goes on. 2nd turn is 5.49. After that it is 1.19 per turn with 4 Marker tags to buff whatever else is in the Tau army. 2 Rounds of shooting easily kill 3 flyrants.
5 Broadsides - 2 Wounds per turn as long as they have range, LOS, and don't die. It will take them 6 turns of shooting to kill 3 flyrants. (Those numbers were Armor. Only 1.36 if 2+ Jink save)

VS Carnifex in 2+ Cover
3 Skyrays - Sames as the flyrant. 7.85 1st turn fewer as the game goes on.
5 Broadsides - 5 Wounds per turn as long as they have range, LOS, and don't die. (Those numbers were Armor. Only 3.33 if 2+ Cover save)

VS Lictors in 2+ Cover.
3 Skyrays - 3 dead lictors. They have the firepower to kill many more, but can only shoot at one each.
5 Broadsides - 3 Dead Lictors if you land in LOS. Otherwise only 2 Dead.

VS Barbed Heirodule in 2+ Cover.
3 Skyrays - 3.06 wounds 1st turn. 2.69 2nd turn. Finish it off on 3rd turn if it isn't already dead.
5 Broadsides - 1.67 wounds per turn. It will take 4 turns of shooting to kill it. (Those numbers were Armor. Only 1.11 if 2+ Cover save)

Now lets look at survivability
Skyrays are 13/12/10 with 3 Hull points and Jink (can get +1 Jink for 15 points, but I rarely see it)
Broadsides are T4 with 2 wounds and a 2+ save.

So lets assume devourers are shooting at side armor for a comparison.
To kill 3 Skyrays it will take 10.13 rounds of shooting at them from a flyrant. It goes down somewhat if you use E.Grubs, and way down if you get back armor, but even if you shoot at nothing but Back armor it will still take 6.75 rounds of shooting from a flyrant.
To Kill 5 Broadsides it will take 6.75 rounds of shooting at them from a flyrant assuming they pass all of their leadership tests.

So lets look at Bio Cannons.
To Kill 3 Skyrays (front armor) it will take 6 rounds of shooting for a Barbed Heirodule to kill them.
To Kill 5 Broadsides it will take 4.17 rounds of shooting.

Also note that our offensive psychic powers are much more effective against Broadsides, and that Broadsides have a tendency to fail leadership and run off the table.

Lastly scoring.
This is why Broadsides were better in 6th. Now that everything can score, Skyrays give Tau a highly mobile and durable scoring unit when their offense is not needed. Broadsides can't offer that.

I'm not saying that Broadsides can't beat us. They can, especially if they have marker light support (or buffmander), but honestly anything in the Tau codex can beat us with marker light support. Skyrays just happen to have that markerlight support built in, and work as an incredibly durable platform for dishing it out. They aren't the most broken thing in the Tau Codex (Buffmander), but they are absurdly undercosted, and built to kill nids.

I really do want to hear about these games where you beat 3 Skyrays running nids. I've only done it once, and that came about because my Barbed Heirodule killed 2 in his 1st round of shooting thanks to hot rolling for me, and cold rolling for my opponent.

tag8833 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Lol. It's ironic, but it's actually Tau who needs to tailor their list to beat our more competitive ones. And 3 skyrays is NOT a great Tau build. It's great against flyrant-spam, but just mediocre against a lot of the other competitive armies. I wouldn't run more than 2 skyrays in a good TAC Tau list. Broadsides are a lot more useful against most armies than the skyrays.

I submit that your Tau meta is night and day different from the Tau meta I've seen in the competitive scene. You and I have gone several rounds on the viability of skyrays, but I would offer that the highest placing Tau army at LVO included 2 Skyrays: http://www.torrentoffire.com/6650/anatomy-of-the-list-tauanids

I don't think your impression that Tau need to tailor to beat competitive Tyranids is in touch with reality. One of the locals who went with me to LVO ran buffmanderstar with no Skyrays. He played against 13 Hive Tyrants and Killed 12 of them. The survivor came as a result of a ruling that Shadows in the Warp affects Riptides & Crisis Suites. The only time I've ever seen a Competitive Tyranid list beat a Competitive Tau list is when I've pulled out a game vs a netlisted Tau list played by a guy who was new to it, and had never faced Tyranids before.

Ah, Justin Cook's list. In all fairness, his list was built to combat flyrant/flyer-spam in mind. It's not just 2 skyrays, it's also skyfire riptides and 3 flyrants! Basically, he is swapping out his broadsides for flyrants, only flyrants are better because they are much more mobile and come with built-in skyfire and psychic powers.

I am not disputing the fact that skyrays are good. They are good, especially against flyrants. They are mediocre against most other stuff, but for only $1.15, they are cheap enough to be a reliable support unit. You get a lot of bang for the buck, but they are not an offensive stand-out like the broadsides are.

Congrats to your friend for doing so well. I really cannot comment on his games as I don't know the caliber of his opponents nor the circumstances of the games, but his performance is totally reasonable. Tau, especially in the hands of a capable veteran, is still a very tough matchup for bugs. I myself lost my last game to a Tau player (actually, it was Paul McKelvey, the guy who won the ITC Overall as well as ITC Best Tau) and he didn't even bring that much skyfire. He did, however, bring 6 broadsides, of which 1 unit was hiding in an AV14 bunker, and he did get 2 Skyfire Nexus objectives and I only managed to get 1 Catalyst between all of my flyrants. But later (weeks later), I had a rematch against him where he ran 2 skyrays and 6 broadsides and was able to exact revenge thanks to 2 Paroxysms which I kept casting on his skyrays.

So no, Tau do not need to tailor to beat Tyranids. However, against flyrant-spam, IMO a normal Tau list with little skyfire is at a disadvantage unless they get a little lucky in the game (like getting 2 Skyfire Nexus objectives and/or bugs getting bad psychic powers and mawlocs misshaping and then dying ). In such battles, I actually think Tyranids have the upper-hand unless the Tau player incorporates more skyfire into his list. Skyrays are great for this because they are dual-purposed units. They are great against flyer-spam but they are also decent as support units, especially after they "blow their loads".

Oh, and here's a game where a competitive Tyranid list does ok against a "competitive" Tau list.

1850 Competitive - Jy2's Pentyrant Tyranids vs Skyfire Tau





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
TBH, my biggest worry is Necrons, not Tau.

LOL! I worry about both. They are on the 2 polar extremes and it is so hard to prepare for both.

Necrons have the resiliency to outlast our firepower.

Tau has the potency to table us with their firepower.

It's like 5th Edition nids all over again. Back then, the 2 polar extremes we had to worry about were venom-spam DE which could shoot us to death or the Grey Knights who could actually outshoot us as well as kill our MC's in close combat with force weapons as well.

As one of cooks regular sparing partners, I can tell you that list can be pretty brutal. When we were testing for lvo, from talking to some of our west coast friends and reading the boards, flyrant spam seemed like it would be a thing so we tested vs it for a good bit, which turned out to be a correct assumption as we all played our fair share of flyrants.


Most of the games I have played my bug list are vs tau, and while I have won maybe 1 game out of 5, all of them were very close. Bugs just struggle mightily in missions where you are forced to play maelstrom.

On a side note, my favorite thing to do in all of 40k currently is shoot lictors at the rear of a skyray and ask the tau player if they would like to jink ))

So - considering trying an unbound list for once.

I wanted to try and come up with a Tyranid version of a Knight Lance - essentially a pure Overlord Swarm, or as close to it as I can get at 1875, which is the Throne of Skulls points value.

Anyway, Assuming you're only taking supporting units once you can't fit in additional bio-titans, there are only a finite number of possible lists, essentially:

Hierophant (with Biomorph) plus Hierodule (either subspecies) or Harridan

Three Hierodules (either subspecies)

Two Hierodules (either subspecies) plus Harridan


I'm not sure which would be best. A Hierophant limits you to a single other gargantuan, and two units strikes me as too few to fight a Maelstrom game effectively* - not sure what other people think?

On the other hand, Hierophants are terrifying units to face. Expecially with Incendiary Ichor they're nigh unstoppable in assaults, even by other superheavies - or you've got the various weapon biomorphs to give it a bit more tactical flexibility if you plan to hold the range open. Flak Spines strike me as probably the least scary weapon - essentially a 6 shot quad-gun, and probably not enough to seriously impact something like a fire raptor. The plasma hellstorm is much scarier, and the spore barrage can make a mess of hordes - something biotitans otherwise have trouble with. A transport sac packed with either genestealers or a venomthrope is a possibility - although the latter strikes me as not being an especially nice thing to do (on a par with kustom force field protecting a Stompa). I guess you're paying a lot for it, though, and it is one of the few ways to make a bio-titan somewhat resiliant to the inevitable graviton weapons that seem tailor-made to kill them.

Barbed hierodules seem like good line units. Two or three of them do a good number on Imperial Knights - if you can put a knight in a crossfire between two units with biocannon, it can only present its shield to one of them, and you've got decent odds of shredding it in a single turn of fire. Knights obviously slap hierodules silly in assaults most of the time, but if they don't kill you before you can strike, 5 attacks (or especially 6+hammer of wrath) stand a reasonable chance of bringing down a damaged knight, so they have to treat you with more caution than they do most units.

Scythed hierodules have the big advantage of burning people out of cover. Biocannon have trouble digging people out of a building, and whilst assaults can do that, you don't want biotitans bogged down in combat if you can avoid it - maelstrom of war games generally require you to remain mobile.

Harridans are exceptional units, and my only complaint is that I don't already own one. Their points cost is huge, but they can rip apart many times their own weight in enemy fighters without much trouble.


Anyway, has anyone had a try with an overlord swarm or anything similar? I know that you can throw a lone Lord of War into a Tyranid list and it performs well if supported - largely because there's nothing really comparable to the Biocannon elsewhere in the bug's arsenal (except maybe the rather sucky rupture cannon), but how about a primarily lord of war force?



Spare points - if I have spare points, it'll depend how many and what's in the army, but my default assumption would be lictors. Lictors are cheap, and really good at snatching objectives in maelstrom of war games - when gone to ground, they're a bugger to dig out, and they do a nice line in killing tanks and heavy weapon squads which are an army's normal weapon of choice against titan-class units.

* Effectively enough to enjoy playing and have a non-trivial chance of winning. I'm not trying to make a world-beating tournament killer.

Jy2, did you ever put up those BatReps from when you took 5 Flyrants to the LVO? I haven't had a chance to use it myself, I'm looking for some insight to share with my ATC teammates.

 jy2 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
TBH, my biggest worry is Necrons, not Tau.

LOL! I worry about both. They are on the 2 polar extremes and it is so hard to prepare for both.

Necrons have the resiliency to outlast our firepower.

Tau has the potency to table us with their firepower.

It's like 5th Edition nids all over again. Back then, the 2 polar extremes we had to worry about were venom-spam DE which could shoot us to death or the Grey Knights who could actually outshoot us as well as kill our MC's in close combat with force weapons as well.

We can defeat Tau, it's hard and it depends on the lists but we can win.

I still have no idea how we can defeat Necrons.

tag8833 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
Skyrays aren't that good IMO. I've actually not lost to a list with 2+ Skyrays. I have lost to lists with lots of HYMP broadsides though - repeatedly.

I think you are falling into the trap of comparing 3 Broadsides to 1 Skyray. Because Skyrays are laughably undercosted, that comparison isn't a fair one. The difference between Skyrays and Broadsides is that Skyrays are much harder to kill, they can completely take away your save (Broadsides can't), and they can support other units with markerlights.

Lets do some math. 3 Skyrays with SMS cost about the same as 5 Broadsides with HYMP & SMS.

Killyness
VS Flyrant Flying with a 2+ Jink.
3 Skyrays - 7.85 wounds on the 1st turn, and then fewer as the game goes on. 2nd turn is 5.49. After that it is 1.19 per turn with 4 Marker tags to buff whatever else is in the Tau army. 2 Rounds of shooting easily kill 3 flyrants.
5 Broadsides - 2 Wounds per turn as long as they have range, LOS, and don't die. It will take them 6 turns of shooting to kill 3 flyrants. (Those numbers were Armor. Only 1.36 if 2+ Jink save)

So you don't have a buffmander in those numbers with the Broadsides? Just curious.
And I've literally never seen those wound counts from a Skyray. 6 one shot missiles, right? Could you explain your math there?

I really do want to hear about these games where you beat 3 Skyrays running nids. I've only done it once, and that came about because my Barbed Heirodule killed 2 in his 1st round of shooting thanks to hot rolling for me, and cold rolling for my opponent.

I don't remember exact details - one game I know I flanked his Skyrays and killed 2 on my turn 1 (I went first). He opted not to jink with the first one and my first Flyrant got the 3 HP off of 11 hits. The second one jinked but he fail 3 saves out of the 5 I caused between the 2 Flyrants shooting it.

Another game there was tons of LoS blocking cover and I could get my Flyrants to his lines unseen by most markerlights.

The broadside units I typically face have a buffmander and are sitting in an AV14 bunker... so survivability goes to the Broadsides in that scenario.

rigeld2 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:
Killyness
VS Flyrant Flying with a 2+ Jink.
3 Skyrays - 7.85 wounds on the 1st turn, and then fewer as the game goes on. 2nd turn is 5.49. After that it is 1.19 per turn with 4 Marker tags to buff whatever else is in the Tau army. 2 Rounds of shooting easily kill 3 flyrants.
5 Broadsides - 2 Wounds per turn as long as they have range, LOS, and don't die. It will take them 6 turns of shooting to kill 3 flyrants. (Those numbers were Armor. Only 1.36 if 2+ Jink save)

And I've literally never seen those wound counts from a Skyray. 6 one shot missiles, right? Could you explain your math there?

Well, each skyray has 2 networked markerlights. That is 6 Markerlights total. They are BS 4 with skyfire if they choose. Therefore 4 Markelights will hit. At that point 2 of the Skyrays will take Ignore cover and fire all 6 of their missiles. 12 Total shots. 8 of them hit, 5/6 of those wound, and you get no saves for a total of 6.66 wounds. Meanwhile the SMS kicks in another 1.19 wounds.

Turn two you've got only 6 missiles less, but you still have 4 tags. So 2 tags to ignore cover and 2 to raise to BS 6. That means 5.17 of the 6 missiles hit and 4.30 wound. Add in the 1.19 from SMS and you have the Turn 2 totals.


Now lets talk about actual game experience. 3 Skyrays have to shoot one at a time. So Skyray 1 fires at flyrant 1. If it gets 2 tags (44% chance) it shoots all of its missiles and ends up doing 3.73 wounds to that flyrant. If not, it saves its missiles, and Skyray 2 shoots at that Flyrant. It puts the 2nd and possibly a 3rd tag on it. If it only got 2 then it shoots its misiles and that flyrant ends up taking 4.12 wounds. If it gets 3 total tags, then it ups the BS on the misiles and instead does 4.99 wounds to that flyrant. Then the final Skyray shoots at another flyrant. If it tags it twice it shoots all missiles and does 3.73 wounds. If it only tags it once, it shoots only a single missile, and does 1.14 wounds to flyrant 2. Statistically, one of the skyrays will get 2 tags, and if you are lucky that skyray is the 2nd one to shoot, and does overkill to a flyrant. However if that is the case, then they still have most of their missiles left, and can shoot the one without missiles 1st to guarantee tags.

rigeld2 wrote:
So you don't have a buffmander in those numbers with the Broadsides? Just curious.

If you join buffmander to broadsides they get substantially more killy. however if you join buffmander to Shadowsun a Missiles commander, Marker lights, and crisis suites you've got yourself something much more kill than broadsides that is fast, stupidly hard to kill (Marker lights with a 2+ cover save), has objective secured, and can assault and kill any flyrant that happens to get grounded nearby.

 jy2 wrote:
Ah, Justin Cook's list. In all fairness, his list was built to combat flyrant/flyer-spam in mind. It's not just 2 skyrays, it's also skyfire riptides and 3 flyrants! Basically, he is swapping out his broadsides for flyrants, only flyrants are better because they are much more mobile and come with built-in skyfire and psychic powers.

I'm not sure where you are coming from here. Justin considers this list a TAC list. He managed to beat quite a few good armies that weren't Flyrants with it. Tau do 2 things very, very well. Skyfire and interceptor. Those upgrades are so cheap, and they can be taken on units so durable, any Tau list that doesn't include skyfire and interceptor on at least a few models is not a very good TAC list.

 jy2 wrote:
Congrats to your friend for doing so well. I really cannot comment on his games as I don't know the caliber of his opponents nor the circumstances of the games, but his performance is totally reasonable.

He did play BigPig, and overall 3 of his opponents were in the top 20.

vs Justin Cook The skyrays were definitely the deciding factor. They were using marker lights to tag up buffmanderstar and missiles to kill suites. He still would have had a chance if buffmanderstar hadn't spent the whole game pinned from the horror. Justin's advice to Richard after the game "More Skyrays" which also happened to be my advice pre LVO. Richard was more concerned with a Kill point denial army, so it was just a skyfire misiles commander, and a skyfire burstide for anti-air, and lots of missile suites for anti Mech/MC. Plus 10 Twin linked marker lights.

 jy2 wrote:
Oh, and here's a game where a competitive Tyranid list does ok against a "competitive" Tau list.

1850 Competitive - Jy2's Pentyrant Tyranids vs Skyfire Tau

A game that has neither buffmander nor skyrays, and thus is a pretty atypical Tau build for competitive play. Off the top of my head I've been beat down 5 times by Tau at Tourneys. 3 of the 5 had Skyrays, and 5 out of the 5 had buffmander joined to either Suites or Broadsides. I've also been at 2 Tourneys where Tau took the top spot. Both of those Tau players had both buffmander and a Skyray in their list. Just a note. Skyrays are great at killing Wave Serpents, Marines, Deamon Princes, Crisis Suites, and Wraith Knights. They aren't a flyrant only model. The main MC they struggle against are Riptides and Dread Knights because of the 2+ armor. They also run out of missiles if asked to deal with imperial knights, though 3 skyrays can take out 1 imperial knight fairly easily (buff BS instead of Ignore cover).

 Tyran wrote:
I still have no idea how we can defeat Necrons.

Depends on the list, and depends on the missions, but agreed.

tag8833 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:
Killyness
VS Flyrant Flying with a 2+ Jink.
3 Skyrays - 7.85 wounds on the 1st turn, and then fewer as the game goes on. 2nd turn is 5.49. After that it is 1.19 per turn with 4 Marker tags to buff whatever else is in the Tau army. 2 Rounds of shooting easily kill 3 flyrants.
5 Broadsides - 2 Wounds per turn as long as they have range, LOS, and don't die. It will take them 6 turns of shooting to kill 3 flyrants. (Those numbers were Armor. Only 1.36 if 2+ Jink save)

And I've literally never seen those wound counts from a Skyray. 6 one shot missiles, right? Could you explain your math there?

Well, each skyray has 2 networked markerlights. That is 6 Markerlights total. They are BS 4 with skyfire if they choose. Therefore 4 Markelights will hit. At that point 2 of the Skyrays will take Ignore cover and fire all 6 of their missiles. 12 Total shots. 8 of them hit, 5/6 of those wound, and you get no saves for a total of 6.66 wounds. Meanwhile the SMS kicks in another 1.19 wounds.

Hang on. You can't fire all markerlights and then fire all missiles. Your math is wrong based on that alone.

A single Skyray can fire 2 markerlights, hitting with 1.3 markerlights. We'll say 1 of them hits twice and the others hit once. Which means only one can ignore cover.

@rigeld2, Why can't the Skyray fire all markerlights and all missiles? Any vehicle type (short of flyers) only need to remain stationary to fire all weapons.

Saythings wrote:
@rigeld2, Why can't the Skyray fire all markerlights and all missiles? Any vehicle type (short of flyers) only need to remain stationary to fire all weapons.

What he meant is that you must complete the shooting of 1 skyray at a time. You fire its markerlights and then fire its missiles. You can't just pool up the markerlight hits from all 3 skyrays and then distribute them for all the missiles to ignore cover. Thus, on average only 1 skyray will be ignoring cover, not 2.

@jy2, that makes sense! Thanks

My brother just switched his main army to Tau, #nidprobs

tag8833 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Ah, Justin Cook's list. In all fairness, his list was built to combat flyrant/flyer-spam in mind. It's not just 2 skyrays, it's also skyfire riptides and 3 flyrants! Basically, he is swapping out his broadsides for flyrants, only flyrants are better because they are much more mobile and come with built-in skyfire and psychic powers.

I'm not sure where you are coming from here. Justin considers this list a TAC list. He managed to beat quite a few good armies that weren't Flyrants with it. Tau do 2 things very, very well. Skyfire and interceptor. Those upgrades are so cheap, and they can be taken on units so durable, any Tau list that doesn't include skyfire and interceptor on at least a few models is not a very good TAC list.

Oh, I agree it is a TAC list, and a very good one also. However, he slightly tailored his list to the "meta", which he thought would be flyer-heavy. No different from 5th edition marine lists packing a lot of melta in a vehicle-heavy MSU meta back then. Justin anticipated the meta and it turned out very well for him. But let's say if the meta was different - for example, if the meta was Necron-decurion-heavy - I don't think you will see those skyrays in his list. Good players adjust to the meta (unless they impose self-restrictions due to personal tastes).

In any case, there is a difference between East Coast-West Coast players. In the west, we tend to rely more on riptides and markerlight support for our anti-air. East Coasters do tend to run more skyrays.

tag8833 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Oh, and here's a game where a competitive Tyranid list does ok against a "competitive" Tau list.

1850 Competitive - Jy2's Pentyrant Tyranids vs Skyfire Tau

A game that has neither buffmander nor skyrays, and thus is a pretty atypical Tau build for competitive play. Off the top of my head I've been beat down 5 times by Tau at Tourneys. 3 of the 5 had Skyrays, and 5 out of the 5 had buffmander joined to either Suites or Broadsides. I've also been at 2 Tourneys where Tau took the top spot. Both of those Tau players had both buffmander and a Skyray in their list. Just a note. Skyrays are great at killing Wave Serpents, Marines, Deamon Princes, Crisis Suites, and Wraith Knights. They aren't a flyrant only model. The main MC they struggle against are Riptides and Dread Knights because of the 2+ armor. They also run out of missiles if asked to deal with imperial knights, though 3 skyrays can take out 1 imperial knight fairly easily (buff BS instead of Ignore cover).

rigeld2 wrote:
Hang on. You can't fire all markerlights and then fire all missiles. Your math is wrong based on that alone.

A single Skyray can fire 2 markerlights, hitting with 1.3 markerlights. We'll say 1 of them hits twice and the others hit once. Which means only one can ignore cover.

Read the next paragraph, and you will see that I dealt with that:

 jy2 wrote:
It did have a buffmander-lite, only he runs Iridium, CCN and drone controller and he joins a unit of marker drones. I don't think you are quite aware of how incredibly effective this unit actually is. If you were to play against it, I'd bet you'd be surprised. And yes, I have played against the buffmander joined to suits and broadsides before so I can compare the 3 configurations. But anyways, different strokes for different folks.

Buffmander as a tank for markerlights that raises their BS and Twin links them is OK. One of the fluffier players that I face regularly runs that (though he prefers Sniper Drones, and runs that way more often). It is far less effective than Buffmander joined with markerlights AND Crisis Suites. The suites get ignore cover, and monster hunter / tank hunter, and can fire at different targets than the markerlights. Also, note that much of what Buffmander gives to Marker lights to buff them (tanking, Higher BS) is also granted by a Skyray.

Its like saying that taking 1 TL Devourer on a Hive Tyrant is good, and it is, but playing against flyrants that each have 1 TL-Devourer isn't the same as facing a Tyranid list where Hive Tyrants have 2 TL devourers.

tag8833 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
Hang on. You can't fire all markerlights and then fire all missiles. Your math is wrong based on that alone.

A single Skyray can fire 2 markerlights, hitting with 1.3 markerlights. We'll say 1 of them hits twice and the others hit once. Which means only one can ignore cover.

Read the next paragraph, and you will see that I dealt with that:

Spoiler:

tag8833 wrote:
Now lets talk about actual game experience. 3 Skyrays have to shoot one at a time. So Skyray 1 fires at flyrant 1. If it gets 2 tags (44% chance) it shoots all of its missiles and ends up doing 3.73 wounds to that flyrant. If not, it saves its missiles, and Skyray 2 shoots at that Flyrant. It puts the 2nd and possibly a 3rd tag on it. If it only got 2 then it shoots its misiles and that flyrant ends up taking 4.12 wounds. If it gets 3 total tags, then it ups the BS on the misiles and instead does 4.99 wounds to that flyrant. Then the final Skyray shoots at another flyrant. If it tags it twice it shoots all missiles and does 3.73 wounds. If it only tags it once, it shoots only a single missile, and does 1.14 wounds to flyrant 2. Statistically, one of the skyrays will get 2 tags, and if you are lucky that skyray is the 2nd one to shoot, and does overkill to a flyrant. However if that is the case, then they still have most of their missiles left, and can shoot the one without missiles 1st to guarantee tags.

How does Skyray 1 firing with 2 lights (to ignore cover) do less wounds than Skyray 2 firing with 2 lights (to ignore cover)? (3.73 wounds vs 4.12 wounds)

rigeld2 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
Hang on. You can't fire all markerlights and then fire all missiles. Your math is wrong based on that alone.

A single Skyray can fire 2 markerlights, hitting with 1.3 markerlights. We'll say 1 of them hits twice and the others hit once. Which means only one can ignore cover.

Read the next paragraph, and you will see that I dealt with that:

Spoiler:

tag8833 wrote:
Now lets talk about actual game experience. 3 Skyrays have to shoot one at a time. So Skyray 1 fires at flyrant 1. If it gets 2 tags (44% chance) it shoots all of its missiles and ends up doing 3.73 wounds to that flyrant. If not, it saves its missiles, and Skyray 2 shoots at that Flyrant. It puts the 2nd and possibly a 3rd tag on it. If it only got 2 then it shoots its misiles and that flyrant ends up taking 4.12 wounds. If it gets 3 total tags, then it ups the BS on the misiles and instead does 4.99 wounds to that flyrant. Then the final Skyray shoots at another flyrant. If it tags it twice it shoots all missiles and does 3.73 wounds. If it only tags it once, it shoots only a single missile, and does 1.14 wounds to flyrant 2. Statistically, one of the skyrays will get 2 tags, and if you are lucky that skyray is the 2nd one to shoot, and does overkill to a flyrant. However if that is the case, then they still have most of their missiles left, and can shoot the one without missiles 1st to guarantee tags.

How does Skyray 1 firing with 2 lights (to ignore cover) do less wounds than Skyray 2 firing with 2 lights (to ignore cover)? (3.73 wounds vs 4.12 wounds)

Because Skyray 1 fires its SMS. 1 SMS does 0.39 wounds. So Skyray 2 does 3.73 wounds + the 0.39 wounds done by skyray 1.