Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 jy2 wrote:


Battle report completed!


1850 iNcontrol's Tyranids vs Jy2's Eldar

I don't like the swarm lord... such a point sink, he should of brought another flyrant and maybe would of won.

Just done my battle report- http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/648978.page#7840493

I think Tyranids deathstorm formation combined with venomthrope is brilliant! Unless I do it wrong...

I'll post this while it's still frsh in my mind.

Just got home from the Alamo GT. I ran the following:

Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
mucolid
mucolid
mucolid
rippers
rippers w/deep strike
dakka fex in a pod
t-fex in a pod
venomthrope

I played against:

Game 1 Clan Raakun
Game 2 Tervigon Nids
Game 3 Quadflyrant (almost a mirror match)
Game 4 Grey Knights/Imp Knight
Game 5 Grey Knights

So matchmaking was a bit skewed to say the least.

Game 1 I squirreled a bit with my target selection and got outscored big time, lost 19-1
Game 2 I failed 4 armor saves/fnps first round of shooting. Made a comeback, and tied 10-10
Game 3.........well shize. 4 Flyrants, mucolids, lictor, and 3 mawlocs. He got first turn, I didn't seize. He took 2 flyrants down to 1 wound with great rolling. Then I periled a full wound Flyrant. After that it went steadily downhill lost 19-1

Day 2
Game 4 was some redemption. Imp Knight, Dreadknight, 5 man Termie squad, paladin blob with draigo and stern. I went second, only the imp knight on the board. All 5 flyrants go for him. Boom, down to 3 HPs. 2nd turn his dreadknight comes in nearby the knight. My dakkafex danger close drops next to his dreadknight and hits spot on! I start off by encircling the imp knight. Warp lance him in the side, he fails his invul, I pen, and get the d3 HP...roll.........3! Ok, so what are 5 flyrants, a dakka-fex, and a pod to do? Pop a dreadknight that is. Had to wheel around, flew past the blob and popped draigo ;-) Finally came back around and 1 warp lance, t-fex template, and 36 dev shots later his termies are gone. Win for me 19-1
Game 5...Another Grey Knight guy?!? Oh well...3 Dreadknights, 2 Storm Ravens, strike squad and a draigo blob. I roll 4 warp blast powers ;-) I go first, he doesn't seize. I paroxysm a dreadknight down to 1 BS/WS...then warp lance/dev shot the other dreadknight off the board. Storm ravens come on. Takes all 5 flyrants to pop one...ugh. After that though, pop the other raven, t-fex mishaps and he places him in the corner. I kill a few termies and wipe his strike squad that was obj camping, he concedes. win 19-1


So I finished 2 wins, 2 loses, and 1 draw. Not too shabby for my first GT I suppose? Still need to get better target priority going on, and maelstrom will always hurt this list. Might drop the t-fex as he was relatively unremarkable. Thoughts on that? I might mess around with him and run this list a few more times before making changes. Nut yeah, flyrants are still boss, and facing another flyrant list just gets funny/dumb/sad/1st turn wins...lol

If you guys have any questions let me know and I'll answer as best as I can remember, bit tired right now.

 dan2026 wrote:
I have a question as to how the Tyranocite and Sporecyst's guns work.

Monsterous creatures have a 360 line of sight, so do all 5 of its guns fire at the nearest unit? Even though some of the guns will technically be pointing in a different direction.

I am also curious here.

 dan2026 wrote:
I have a question as to how the Tyranocite and Sporecyst's guns work.

Monsterous creatures have a 360 line of sight, so do all 5 of its guns fire at the nearest unit? Even though some of the guns will technically be pointing in a different direction.

SBG wrote:

 dan2026 wrote:
I have a question as to how the Tyranocite and Sporecyst's guns work.

Monsterous creatures have a 360 line of sight, so do all 5 of its guns fire at the nearest unit? Even though some of the guns will technically be pointing in a different direction.

I am also curious here.

RAW is very simple. If there is only 1 unit that is closest to all the guns, then all 5 guns will fire at that unit. If there are 2 units in close proximity, with 1 unit being closest to 2 guns and the other unit closest to 3 guns, then the t-cyte will splitfire at those 2 targets with the respective guns. With true RAW, it has a 360 fire arc since it is a MC.

However, Adepticon and the ITC (and any tournament that uses their rulesets) have both houseruled it in their FAQ's to have only a 45 degree firing arc for each gun.

 SonsofVulkan wrote:

 jy2 wrote:


Battle report completed!


1850 iNcontrol's Tyranids vs Jy2's Eldar

I don't like the swarm lord... such a point sink, he should of brought another flyrant and maybe would of won.

Geoff just brought his TAC list, the one that he won Best Tyranids with at the BAO 2014 and also the one that he has helped popularized in competitive play. Personally, I agree with you and would swap out Swarmy for a 4th flyrant, but Geoff has done quite well with Swarmy as a force-multiplier unit (Prefered Enemy to Barbie is pretty darn good!) as well as a board control unit and bodyguard. BTW, our match was unplanned (which is one of the reasons why I didn't bring my camera). He just happened to be there with his army and so I asked him for game. Thus, we both brought TAC armies without any expectations of who or what we were going to face.

SBG wrote:

 dan2026 wrote:
I have a question as to how the Tyranocite and Sporecyst's guns work.

Monsterous creatures have a 360 line of sight, so do all 5 of its guns fire at the nearest unit? Even though some of the guns will technically be pointing in a different direction.

I am also curious here.

So, the "Rules as Written" answer is that each gun shoots the closest model in range and Line of Sight. Since MCs have 360 degrees of Line of Sight, each gun will all have line of Sight to the closest target. For MCs, range is measured from the base and guns don't have a fixed position so the closest unit to the base is the closest enemy unit to all of the guns. In short, by the Rules as Written, all 5 guns will always target the same unit, the closest one.

Now, I would recommend checking FAQs on this for specific GTs if youre going to one. I believe the ITC has ruled on it in more of a RAI fashion. There is an alternate view that RAW all guns still have 360 degrees LOS, but will fire at the closest unit to each gun individually, so they can fire at the closest to the gun if theres a few close targets, or at a single unit if it's the closest to all of them.

Callylove wrote:

Just a quick update to the ones who may be interested in how this tournament went.

We played doubles, and since we were only six players we had a singles table as well. We doubled the VPs from the singles table to keep up with the points from the doubles table for tie breaker. It was a weird tournament setup, but that’s how you need to do it sometimes when so few people show up.

I made a last minute change to the list and took out the Zoanthrope and Mucolid for another unit of Hormagaunts. My list looked like this:

Flyrant
Malanthrope
11 Hormagaunts
12 Hormagaunts
Dakkafex
Exocrine

I didn’t feel it was a very strong list, but I was hoping to have some fun and win a few games.

Game 1 with Imperial Guard vs. Eldar and Orks

Spoiler:

We played kill points, they went first and there was no night fighting. Turn one the Eldar Farseer went for Psychic Shriek and succeeded with one die, I tried to deny it with eight dice but couldn’t, and he rolled a triple sixes for First Blood onto my Hormagaunts. In the shooting phase, he shot with his seven Scatter Bikes and some Shuriken Bikes and took down my Flyrant and Malanthrope and three wounds off of my Carnifex. My saves rolled horribly and I knew we were going to lose but we played it out for the victory points. My teammates Imperial Guard could obviously not stand against Nob Bikers as they ran through squads after squads.

Game 2 with Eldar vs. Eldar and Imperial Guard

Same Eldar opponent as before, but with my last teammate as his teammate. My teammate is a very good Necron player, but this time around he took his Eldar with him. We go first and prepare an alpha strike against our opponents.

Turn one we killed a few Windriders and some Guardsmen. Although we didn’t do too much damage we were feeling pretty safe, having a lot of meaningful targets in their face. My teammate flat out his Wave Serpent carrying Wraithguard and I brought my kind-of-deathstar up the field. Their turn they did a wound to my swooping Hive Tyrant with two Lascannon platforms and I failed my jink save. He took a wound from grouding check. Nothing else of note happened. Our turn two my teammate convinced me that charging my Flyrant into his Windriders with his warlord and challenging him was the play, although I was set on going into ongoing reserves. I consider it for some time but decide that he probably knows what he was talking about and charge. My Hormagaunts took the overwatch and he accepted the challenge. His two attacks hit and wounded, and I managed to fail both my armor saves. I did one wound back.
Their next turn they shot my Malanthrope (failed five out of seven armor saves) and Carnifex.

So we went from a convincing lead to a devastating loss.

0-2

The next two games is coming up later.

Ouch! Assaulting the bikes with your flyrant was a gamble that could have paid off big-time, only the dice just wasn't on your side. Painful when that happens.

Looking forwards to the rest of your report!

 felixcat wrote:
I'm actually thinking that the playing field is getting leveled. There are some very difficult match ups for Eldar, BTW. I watched a drop squad skitarii list (used flesh teafer allies) take Eldar apart early and the game before the Eldar could recover fully and control the game which had started. One more turn would have been bad for the skitarii but they got lucky and ebded turn five.

I also saw Tyranids beat decurion with orkinstar. Orekinstar beats a lot of builds but is bad against heavy flyer lists which the Nid list featured.

I think Eldar will be strong but I think that every list has its counter now and really that makes for an interesting meta.

Wait til you see a good general running Eldar. Eldar can be beaten, but in a capable General's hand, it is really tough to do so. Watch out for Matt DeFranza's Eldar which he is running at Killadelphia (Seer Council, Windrider Host, 3 WK's!!!) or my own teammate, Grant GTA who is running a really nasty list (combining Eldar, Skitari and Blood Angels!). Yeah, no list is invincible. Any list is beatable. What makes Eldar so good is that it is a very forgiving army, just like Necrons were last edition. Eldar could be getting their a$$es handed to them (like mine were), but then still win the game.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iechine wrote:
Solid first round at Killadelphia, tabled my opponent. However there are some scary lists here, my low experience and midlevel list are in for a rough tourney.

So how'd you do? Who won? Was it Matt Defranza's Eldar or the Pentyrant player?

Fill us in when you have the time.

 foto69man wrote:
I'll post this while it's still frsh in my mind.

Just got home from the Alamo GT. I ran the following:

Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
mucolid
mucolid
mucolid
rippers
rippers w/deep strike
dakka fex in a pod
t-fex in a pod
venomthrope

I played against:

Game 1 Clan Raakun
Game 2 Tervigon Nids
Game 3 Quadflyrant (almost a mirror match)
Game 4 Grey Knights/Imp Knight
Game 5 Grey Knights

So matchmaking was a bit skewed to say the least.

Game 1 I squirreled a bit with my target selection and got outscored big time, lost 19-1
Game 2 I failed 4 armor saves/fnps first round of shooting. Made a comeback, and tied 10-10
Game 3.........well shize. 4 Flyrants, mucolids, lictor, and 3 mawlocs. He got first turn, I didn't seize. He took 2 flyrants down to 1 wound with great rolling. Then I periled a full wound Flyrant. After that it went steadily downhill lost 19-1

Day 2
Game 4 was some redemption. Imp Knight, Dreadknight, 5 man Termie squad, paladin blob with draigo and stern. I went second, only the imp knight on the board. All 5 flyrants go for him. Boom, down to 3 HPs. 2nd turn his dreadknight comes in nearby the knight. My dakkafex danger close drops next to his dreadknight and hits spot on! I start off by encircling the imp knight. Warp lance him in the side, he fails his invul, I pen, and get the d3 HP...roll.........3! Ok, so what are 5 flyrants, a dakka-fex, and a pod to do? Pop a dreadknight that is. Had to wheel around, flew past the blob and popped draigo ;-) Finally came back around and 1 warp lance, t-fex template, and 36 dev shots later his termies are gone. Win for me 19-1
Game 5...Another Grey Knight guy?!? Oh well...3 Dreadknights, 2 Storm Ravens, strike squad and a draigo blob. I roll 4 warp blast powers ;-) I go first, he doesn't seize. I paroxysm a dreadknight down to 1 BS/WS...then warp lance/dev shot the other dreadknight off the board. Storm ravens come on. Takes all 5 flyrants to pop one...ugh. After that though, pop the other raven, t-fex mishaps and he places him in the corner. I kill a few termies and wipe his strike squad that was obj camping, he concedes. win 19-1


So I finished 2 wins, 2 loses, and 1 draw. Not too shabby for my first GT I suppose? Still need to get better target priority going on, and maelstrom will always hurt this list. Might drop the t-fex as he was relatively unremarkable. Thoughts on that? I might mess around with him and run this list a few more times before making changes. Nut yeah, flyrants are still boss, and facing another flyrant list just gets funny/dumb/sad/1st turn wins...lol

If you guys have any questions let me know and I'll answer as best as I can remember, bit tired right now.

I would drop the Tyrannofex, he doesn't do a lot for me either. I'd suggest some AP2 (Exocrine or Mawloc) in your list, probably the Mawloc.

 jy2 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iechine wrote:
Solid first round at Killadelphia, tabled my opponent. However there are some scary lists here, my low experience and midlevel list are in for a rough tourney.

So how'd you do? Who won? Was it Matt Defranza's Eldar or the Pentyrant player?

Fill us in when you have the time.

I finished in 18th with second best Tyranids. Matt ended up beating Pentyrant.

The other Tyranids were all at least 4 Tyrants, mawlocs, lictors and Crones. I'm extremely happy and surprised with how my list did. I took pics of all the games and a lot of armies, I will summarize them later. I played Iron Warriors, Krootman's Eldar, Drop Pod Bloodangel/Grey Knight, Tau Firebase, Skiitari w/SM, and Wolves w/IG.

My biggest take away is that my Melee tyrant was all star MVP. I kept a tally of his murdering spree: 2 Landraiders, 10 man chaos SM, Maulerfiend, Wraithknight, 14+ Grey Knight, 3 Broadside/6 shield drone/Crisis suits, 3 Onager Dune Crawlers (squadron), and a massive chunk of Fenris wolves and IG. I'm never leaving home without him, at no point did he not have a role to play or an inability to get in to combat. For the most part, his presence gave me huge board control.

 Iechine wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iechine wrote:
Solid first round at Killadelphia, tabled my opponent. However there are some scary lists here, my low experience and midlevel list are in for a rough tourney.

So how'd you do? Who won? Was it Matt Defranza's Eldar or the Pentyrant player?

Fill us in when you have the time.

I finished in 18th with second best Tyranids. Matt ended up beating Pentyrant.

The other Tyranids were all at least 4 Tyrants, mawlocs, lictors and Crones. I'm extremely happy and surprised with how my list did. I took pics of all the games and a lot of armies, I will summarize them later. I played Iron Warriors, Krootman's Eldar, Drop Pod Bloodangel/Grey Knight, Tau Firebase, Skiitari w/SM, and Wolves w/IG.

My biggest take away is that my Melee tyrant was all star MVP. I kept a tally of his murdering spree: 2 Landraiders, 10 man chaos SM, Maulerfiend, Wraithknight, 14+ Grey Knight, 3 Broadside/6 shield drone/Crisis suits, 3 Onager Dune Crawlers (squadron), and a massive chunk of Fenris wolves and IG. I'm never leaving home without him, at no point did he not have a role to play or an inability to get in to combat. For the most part, his presence gave me huge board control.

Awesome work Lechine, always nice to see people mixing things up.

How do you feel your list would fair against WolfStars or New Eldar?

Would be interested in a tactics for using your super beast!

It depends on the mission type, honestly. I really liked this format, I think the new Eldar would have been a struggle but I also feel like its not impossible. Without any real experience against WolfStar, I cant really say how it would go.

I'm slowly but surely doing a summary over here, I'll throw my ideas about him in there.

Zach's Killadelphia Summary

Today for our weekly casual league I'm trying out the dreaded Maleceptor in a Neural Node formation.

What? Yes. I'm actually fielding one that i bought, assembled, and painted over the weekend. It's mostly an excuse to try out the new neuro/zoanthrope en masse.

My list is:

Neural Node:

Maleceptor
Zoanthrope Brood (2x Zoey, 1x Neuro)
Zoanthrope Brood (2x Zoey, 1x Neuro)
Zoanthrope Brood (2x Zoey, 1x Neuro)

Combined Arms Detachment:

Hive Tyrant (Wings, 2x Devourer, ElectroGrubs)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, 2x Devourer, ElectroGrubs)

Mucolid Spore x1
Termagant Brood (10x Fleshborer)

Malanthrope

Carnifex (2x Devourer)

Total - 1500 points

My opponent is a decent player who I usually win against. He's been doing really well in our group with his Khorne Daemonkin army lately, so this will be a test for me to see if i've still got it.

His list is prettymuch a Blood Host using the SlaughterCult, Gore Pack, and a Bloodstorm with a Soulgrinder added in.

Daemon Prince (wings)
1x5 Khorne Dogs
1x5 Possessed
2x8 Bloodletters
2x5 Bikers
2x5 Raptors
1x5 Warp Talons
Heldrake
Soul Grinder

So his MO will be getting across the table to me quickly. If i roll well with Spirit Leeches and Warp Blasts I should be able to take out his MSU units, while the flyrants tackle the DP and rear armor of the Daemon Engines.

I'll check back in after the game and let you all know how the Neural Node actually did. Wish me luck.

 Iechine wrote:
It depends on the mission type, honestly. I really liked this format, I think the new Eldar would have been a struggle but I also feel like its not impossible. Without any real experience against WolfStar, I cant really say how it would go.

I'm slowly but surely doing a summary over here, I'll throw my ideas about him in there.

Zach's Killadelphia Summary

I like your list Zach. I feel that it has a lot of the units needed to take on some of the newer lists - drop pod skitarriii, eldar, daemonkin. I will be testing out the cc flyrant as well although 325 points is really steep to field a fully kitted out one.



I think a tervigon has uses now. ObSec is very important and board control also helps quite a bit. I also feel dual Mawlocs is the path to follow if you are playinjg them at all. However, if going cc there are options that may be better.

Hey thanks. Honestly the only thing I am taking a second hard look at in my list is the Mawloc. She did absolutely terrible in all 6 games, only really contributing strongly in the last one. Not once did she come on target.

It's worth pointing out that I didnt play Necrons, and I think they would give me the hardest time of all. I am halfway considering a Crone in place of the Mawloc as a reliable source of strong AP4 for Warrior blobs. But that may not be enough and Biovores start looking like a better alternative.

325 is expensive I agree, but he does everything you wish the Swarmlord could do and more. He's fast, keeps a mobile 4+ cover, can reliably double out MEQ, is a huge threat to any vehicle, and can adapt to the situation in combat. He provides a tough choice for the opponent's target priority, and working in harmony with the Malanthrope you can use it to your advantage.

I also played in Killadelphia with Tyranids (aqua & teal), and will say with certainty that Tyranids struggle greatly against decurion Necrons. I had two games against them and if it wasn't for one of the missions being killpoints they would have been total blowouts. We just get absolutely crushed in board control, and I really dont see an easy solution. I ran:

4x Flyrants
3x Mawlocs
1x Hive Crone
3x Lictors
5x Mucolids
Imperilal Bunker/Comms

Anytime a mawloc or licor popped up, it immediately disappeard. The Crone and Flyrants flew around achieveing almost nothing beyond kiling Scarabs, Ghost Arks, and min squads. Assualt and Obsec seem like the only real way of dealing with them. Unfortunately, Wraiths will simply shred any of our assualt units and our obsec is very lacking. I'm thinking about experimenting with Tervigons or Skytyrant, but really don't see much coming of it.

Curious to hear everyones thoughts.

Any unit with infiltrate special rule you should use that in turn 1. Just same as deep strike in turn 1. Lictor can infiltrate.

Pre-deployment- place your own piece in opposition deployment zone but keep space for mawloc pop up. Hide your Lictor there and there.. Pray it stay out of line of sight.

In turn 2 your mawloc arrive with your luck and swallow freshman.

Solidcrash wrote:
Any unit with infiltrate special rule you should use that in turn 1. Just same as deep strike in turn 1. Lictor can infiltrate.

Pre-deployment- place your own piece in opposition deployment zone but keep space for mawloc pop up. Hide your Lictor there and there.. Pray it stay out of line of sight.

In turn 2 your mawloc arrive with your luck and swallow freshman.

Swallow freshman? That's rather cruel!

But actually I would say that Lictors should only be infiltrated in Eternal War missions. In Maelstrom they are much more useful to pop in by DS to take objectives. But, I am honestly thinking that I don't need Lictors in a list with 2 or fewer Mawlocs, since I know I will not be using Maelstrom missions.

I'm not at all convinced that mawlocs and lictors are the answer to eldar and decurion. Sean might have won with them but he wins with almost anything, lol.

I think having more ObSec in outr lists and not just filling in with mucoloids (heresy, I know) might be a better route now. Also seeing a lot more pod lists so null deployment looks better and better at times - something I need to explore more.

I also am not liking our barbed hierodule as much as I once did as he costs so much and there are counters in every list. I'm having a difficult time fielding my Nids these days against top lists - in casual play they excel still.

 felixcat wrote:

I'm not at all convinced that mawlocs and lictors are the answer to eldar and decurion. Sean might have won with them but he wins with almost anything, lol.

I think having more ObSec in outr lists and not just filling in with mucoloids (heresy, I know) might be a better route now. Also seeing a lot more pod lists so null deployment looks better and better at times - something I need to explore more.

I also am not liking our barbed hierodule as much as I once did as he costs so much and there are counters in every list. I'm having a difficult time fielding my Nids these days against top lists - in casual play they excel still.

I think that Barbed Hierodules are too pricey as a single unit to be a good TAC choice. He is not great in Maelstrom as he can only get 1 objective, whereas other really tough units in other armies do the same for cheaper. He is a good Wraithknight counter but can get D'd in a bad strike of luck. For the same points as a Barbie I can get 2 Mawlocs and a TFex in a Cyte, with a few points left over. That's 4 Tyranid MCs for a total of 24 wounds that can deep strike on three different objectives, and can all move after. It's a lot of ignores cover crap coming in that can hold whatever objective card you happen to draw.

I will have to say I am not a fan of the Mawloc personally. They are way to random for me. Lictors I think are good and I will be taking a look at them for the ITC. I'm just not sold on them as they for me at lest have a very low damage output.

 jifel wrote:

 felixcat wrote:

I'm not at all convinced that mawlocs and lictors are the answer to eldar and decurion. Sean might have won with them but he wins with almost anything, lol.

I think having more ObSec in outr lists and not just filling in with mucoloids (heresy, I know) might be a better route now. Also seeing a lot more pod lists so null deployment looks better and better at times - something I need to explore more.

I also am not liking our barbed hierodule as much as I once did as he costs so much and there are counters in every list. I'm having a difficult time fielding my Nids these days against top lists - in casual play they excel still.

I think that Barbed Hierodules are too pricey as a single unit to be a good TAC choice. He is not great in Maelstrom as he can only get 1 objective, whereas other really tough units in other armies do the same for cheaper. He is a good Wraithknight counter but can get D'd in a bad strike of luck. For the same points as a Barbie I can get 2 Mawlocs and a TFex in a Cyte, with a few points left over. That's 4 Tyranid MCs for a total of 24 wounds that can deep strike on three different objectives, and can all move after. It's a lot of ignores cover crap coming in that can hold whatever objective card you happen to draw.

He is an all star in the ITC format. Between their nerfs to D, and the way they do Maelstrom, Barbie comes up big. Compared to the Wraith Knight he is abysmally overcosted, but compared to the Wraith Knight, everything is abysmally overcosted. He will do more damage most games than 2 Mawlocs, a Tfex and a Tyrannocyte. He is also harder to kill for most armies, and for certain problems, the best answer is a STOMP.

If you are playing with un-nerfed Eldar he isn't viable, but then again nothing in the codex is terribly viable against un-nerfed Eldar as you can see from the batrep between JY2's C+ Eldar list and InControl's A- Tyranid List.

shadowfinder wrote:
I will have to say I am not a fan of the Mawloc personally. They are way to random for me. Lictors I think are good and I will be taking a look at them for the ITC. I'm just not sold on them as they for me at lest have a very low damage output.

Mawlocs do have a very low damage output when I use them in games, I fully agree. But, I think they are best used to grab objectives mid game. They are our cheapest T6 3+ wounds in the book, and can deep strike on an objective regardless of if another unit is claiming it. I don't count on them as damage dealers but for their points they are very cheap objective dropping units. Given the choice I would gladly drop them on an empty objective late game compare to an enemy unit.

 jifel wrote:

Solidcrash wrote:
Any unit with infiltrate special rule you should use that in turn 1. Just same as deep strike in turn 1. Lictor can infiltrate.

Pre-deployment- place your own piece in opposition deployment zone but keep space for mawloc pop up. Hide your Lictor there and there.. Pray it stay out of line of sight.

In turn 2 your mawloc arrive with your luck and swallow freshman.

Swallow freshman? That's rather cruel!

But actually I would say that Lictors should only be infiltrated in Eternal War missions. In Maelstrom they are much more useful to pop in by DS to take objectives. But, I am honestly thinking that I don't need Lictors in a list with 2 or fewer Mawlocs, since I know I will not be using Maelstrom missions.

Hee hee!

Person, I like infiltrated with genestealer + broodlord and you can use The Horror Psychic attack on non-fearless unit and you might got lucky made them unable to shoot blast and have to snap shot in turn 1. Good head start for tyranids if there are long range unit. But pretty useless to fearless unit.

Lictor infiltrated allow me to deep strike mawloc in turn 2 without scattered ( my mawloc ALWAYS scattered and mistable..)

It is good idea to bring in 3 list in your pocket. Tell your opponent your play as Tyranids and ask your opponent what he play as.

Alright so had my game last night with the Neural Node, here are some thoughts:

Psychic Powers - with the node plus 2 flyrants, i had a ton of psychic powers. I rolled psychic scream for 3 of my units, warp blast on the maleceptor (kind of a waste), and didn't get ANY catalysts (boo). I had 12 psychic dice +D6 so still had to pick and choose what powers were most important to me at the time.

Spirit Leech (neurothope power) is amazing. Even though it has to roll to hit, at least Neuros are BS4. Draining wounds into warp dice for warp blast makes the zoanthropes damage output greatly increase. A+

Psychic Overload - it's so trash on paper i never tried to manifest it even once. F

Neural Node overall - the 18" SitW never came into play as my opponent had no psykers. the re-roll 1's on psychic tests only really helped 2 powers succeed over a 6 turn game. It's useful, sure, but the real reason to take the node is to get extra zoanthropes.

Maleceptor was basically there to kill raptors and possessed that had gotten near my zoeys, that's it.

Bottom line - i like the idea of the formation, but the command benefits don't outweigh the 205 point tax the maleceptor brings. With a CAD and a Hive Fleet detachment it would be better to take 2x3 zoey/neuro units and 3x1 zoanthropes and get 10 warp dice.

**Edit - I won 13-6 on Maelstrom mission 1, btw. **

 foto69man wrote:
I'll post this while it's still frsh in my mind.

Just got home from the Alamo GT. I ran the following:

Spoiler:

Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
Flyrant double devs and e grubs
mucolid
mucolid
mucolid
rippers
rippers w/deep strike
dakka fex in a pod
t-fex in a pod
venomthrope

I played against:

Game 1 Clan Raakun
Game 2 Tervigon Nids
Game 3 Quadflyrant (almost a mirror match)
Game 4 Grey Knights/Imp Knight
Game 5 Grey Knights

So matchmaking was a bit skewed to say the least.

Game 1 I squirreled a bit with my target selection and got outscored big time, lost 19-1
Game 2 I failed 4 armor saves/fnps first round of shooting. Made a comeback, and tied 10-10
Game 3.........well shize. 4 Flyrants, mucolids, lictor, and 3 mawlocs. He got first turn, I didn't seize. He took 2 flyrants down to 1 wound with great rolling. Then I periled a full wound Flyrant. After that it went steadily downhill lost 19-1

Day 2
Game 4 was some redemption. Imp Knight, Dreadknight, 5 man Termie squad, paladin blob with draigo and stern. I went second, only the imp knight on the board. All 5 flyrants go for him. Boom, down to 3 HPs. 2nd turn his dreadknight comes in nearby the knight. My dakkafex danger close drops next to his dreadknight and hits spot on! I start off by encircling the imp knight. Warp lance him in the side, he fails his invul, I pen, and get the d3 HP...roll.........3! Ok, so what are 5 flyrants, a dakka-fex, and a pod to do? Pop a dreadknight that is. Had to wheel around, flew past the blob and popped draigo ;-) Finally came back around and 1 warp lance, t-fex template, and 36 dev shots later his termies are gone. Win for me 19-1
Game 5...Another Grey Knight guy?!? Oh well...3 Dreadknights, 2 Storm Ravens, strike squad and a draigo blob. I roll 4 warp blast powers ;-) I go first, he doesn't seize. I paroxysm a dreadknight down to 1 BS/WS...then warp lance/dev shot the other dreadknight off the board. Storm ravens come on. Takes all 5 flyrants to pop one...ugh. After that though, pop the other raven, t-fex mishaps and he places him in the corner. I kill a few termies and wipe his strike squad that was obj camping, he concedes. win 19-1


So I finished 2 wins, 2 loses, and 1 draw. Not too shabby for my first GT I suppose? Still need to get better target priority going on, and maelstrom will always hurt this list. Might drop the t-fex as he was relatively unremarkable. Thoughts on that? I might mess around with him and run this list a few more times before making changes. Nut yeah, flyrants are still boss, and facing another flyrant list just gets funny/dumb/sad/1st turn wins...lol

If you guys have any questions let me know and I'll answer as best as I can remember, bit tired right now.

Not bad, not bad at all. There are some very good players in Texas. One of these days, I would love to go to one of the Texas tournaments (maybe next year).

If you drop the t-fex, you might want to consider beefing up your scoring. DS rippers and lictors will be the way to go if you want to do so, unless you can somehow fit in 2 mawlocs.

Do you know if they've posted the results to the Alamo GT yet? If so, do you have a link? Thanks.

 Iechine wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iechine wrote:
Solid first round at Killadelphia, tabled my opponent. However there are some scary lists here, my low experience and midlevel list are in for a rough tourney.

So how'd you do? Who won? Was it Matt Defranza's Eldar or the Pentyrant player?

Fill us in when you have the time.

I finished in 18th with second best Tyranids. Matt ended up beating Pentyrant.

The other Tyranids were all at least 4 Tyrants, mawlocs, lictors and Crones. I'm extremely happy and surprised with how my list did. I took pics of all the games and a lot of armies, I will summarize them later. I played Iron Warriors, Krootman's Eldar, Drop Pod Bloodangel/Grey Knight, Tau Firebase, Skiitari w/SM, and Wolves w/IG.

My biggest take away is that my Melee tyrant was all star MVP. I kept a tally of his murdering spree: 2 Landraiders, 10 man chaos SM, Maulerfiend, Wraithknight, 14+ Grey Knight, 3 Broadside/6 shield drone/Crisis suits, 3 Onager Dune Crawlers (squadron), and a massive chunk of Fenris wolves and IG. I'm never leaving home without him, at no point did he not have a role to play or an inability to get in to combat. For the most part, his presence gave me huge board control.

Do you feel that one of the reasons why your meleerant did so well was because your opponents under-estimated it and basically ignored it enough so that it made it into combat? Overall, how do you feel about his resiliency? Better than the dimachaeron in a spore?

I am thinking about adding a little cc-option into my bug list. The meleerant gives me options now.

 Iechine wrote:
Hey thanks. Honestly the only thing I am taking a second hard look at in my list is the Mawloc. She did absolutely terrible in all 6 games, only really contributing strongly in the last one. Not once did she come on target.

It's worth pointing out that I didnt play Necrons, and I think they would give me the hardest time of all. I am halfway considering a Crone in place of the Mawloc as a reliable source of strong AP4 for Warrior blobs. But that may not be enough and Biovores start looking like a better alternative.

325 is expensive I agree, but he does everything you wish the Swarmlord could do and more. He's fast, keeps a mobile 4+ cover, can reliably double out MEQ, is a huge threat to any vehicle, and can adapt to the situation in combat. He provides a tough choice for the opponent's target priority, and working in harmony with the Malanthrope you can use it to your advantage.

My mawloc also tends not to perform well in many of my games. However, I feel that she is still necessary for her mobility and for the "threat" she represents to my opponent and their mobility. And, of course, she fits my null-deployment strategy perfectly. However, she is not a must-take and I might change her up depending on the style of Tyranids I want to play.

 felixcat wrote:

I like your list Zach. I feel that it has a lot of the units needed to take on some of the newer lists - drop pod skitarriii, eldar, daemonkin. I will be testing out the cc flyrant as well although 325 points is really steep to field a fully kitted out one.

Spoiler:

CAD: 1380
2x Flyrant - 2 Devourer - E-grubs
Malanthrope
Tervigon - Crushing Claws - E Grubs
30 Termagants
3 Ripper Swarm - Deep Strike
Hive Crone
Dimachaeron - Tyrannocyte - 5 Deathspitters

Skytyrant: 465
Flyrant, Lash Whip and Bonesword - Adrenal Glands - Ymgarl Factor - Egrubs - Old Adversary
2x 15 Gargoyles

I think a tervigon has uses now. ObSec is very important and board control also helps quite a bit. I also feel dual Mawlocs is the path to follow if you are playinjg them at all. However, if going cc there are options that may be better.

I like your list, felixcat. And I'm also liking the variety in many of these Tyranid lists.

 997Turbo wrote:
I also played in Killadelphia with Tyranids (aqua & teal), and will say with certainty that Tyranids struggle greatly against decurion Necrons. I had two games against them and if it wasn't for one of the missions being killpoints they would have been total blowouts. We just get absolutely crushed in board control, and I really dont see an easy solution. I ran:

4x Flyrants
3x Mawlocs
1x Hive Crone
3x Lictors
5x Mucolids
Imperilal Bunker/Comms

Anytime a mawloc or licor popped up, it immediately disappeard. The Crone and Flyrants flew around achieveing almost nothing beyond kiling Scarabs, Ghost Arks, and min squads. Assualt and Obsec seem like the only real way of dealing with them. Unfortunately, Wraiths will simply shred any of our assualt units and our obsec is very lacking. I'm thinking about experimenting with Tervigons or Skytyrant, but really don't see much coming of it.

Curious to hear everyones thoughts.

I actually haven't played against the new necrons yet. Going to have to play my Tyranids against them one of these days (fortunately, I often see the ITC 2014 Best Necron player at my LGS and have played against him several times, just not with my bugs).

Just some notes:

1. Put objectives in ruins or terrain with cover. Your army will benefit more from it than the Necrons will.

2. Kill off the spider in the Canoptek Harvest formation. He is the one giving those wraiths Reanimation Protocols.

3. The new Necrons have weak anti-air but strong ground presence. So the tradeoff is this - strong air superiority at the expense of Maelstrom ground objectives. Adjust your list if you want a stronger ground presence (by sacrificing on 1 or maybe even 2 flyrants).

4. Tervigon + 30 termagants is something to consider. They make for a good, ObSec ground foundation and I believe Necrons will have trouble against this type of build. The main threats to them are wraiths and flayed ones, of which your flyrants will have to help clear out or weaken.

5. If you want to go assault, then the dimachaeron or meleerant is the way to go. A list like the one felixcat posted above can actually work very well against Necrons.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Solidcrash wrote:
Any unit with infiltrate special rule you should use that in turn 1. Just same as deep strike in turn 1. Lictor can infiltrate.

Pre-deployment- place your own piece in opposition deployment zone but keep space for mawloc pop up. Hide your Lictor there and there.. Pray it stay out of line of sight.

In turn 2 your mawloc arrive with your luck and swallow freshman.

That is one strategy you can run. However, running this type of strategy will depend on a number of factors:

1) Terrain. Is the terrain setup conducive to this strategy? Is there BLOS-terrain or ruins for your lictor to infiltrate in?

2) Your opponent's army. If your opponent is really shooty, then you might want to reserve him to deny your opponent the easy kill (again, this depends on terrain and whether you can hide him or not). If your opponent has a fast assault army, then you just may be making it easier for your opponent to assault by placing your lictor closer to him.

3) Mission types. Playing Eternal War, yeah, fine. Playing Maelstrom missions (or Maelstrom secondary missions)? As jifel pointed out, you might want to reserve your lictors to come in on objectives later in the game.

4) What happens if the mawlocs do not come in? You are gambling on the mawloc coming in, but there is a 1/3 chance that it might not and now you've left your lictor out there to die.

It is a viable strategy in certain circumstances, but you definitely need to evaluate your situation and your opponent's army before applying it.

 felixcat wrote:

I'm not at all convinced that mawlocs and lictors are the answer to eldar and decurion. Sean might have won with them but he wins with almost anything, lol.

I think having more ObSec in outr lists and not just filling in with mucoloids (heresy, I know) might be a better route now. Also seeing a lot more pod lists so null deployment looks better and better at times - something I need to explore more.

I also am not liking our barbed hierodule as much as I once did as he costs so much and there are counters in every list. I'm having a difficult time fielding my Nids these days against top lists - in casual play they excel still.

Mawlocs and lictors are viable because you aren't really using them to play against the opponent. Rather, you use them to play the missions. If you play the missions well, you always have a chance, no matter what type of army you go up against (heck, if you play against an army that out-matches yours, sometimes, playing the mission is the only way for you to win). Sean's list wins because it plays the mission very well (and of course, he is a phenomenal player). If you notice, his list doesn't normally win by tabling yours (although it certainly could). Rather it wins by out-surviving yours and beating you at the missions.

I agree that ObSec is necessary. Beyond the 3 mucolids for Leviathan since there is no ObSec in the Leviathan detachment anyways, I prefer to run Rippers as my de facto troop choice for my CAD.

Barbie is still good. He hasn't really changed all that much. However, deathstar armies - which is basically what a Tyranid army with Barbie is - inherently has trouble against MSU. You're getting better resiliency and in most cases, better offense/firepower with a deathstar build but at the expense of army flexibility, which is what MSU gives you.

IMO, against the very top lists, MSU Tyranids has the best chances. Besides the flyrants, losing any single unit will not hurt your army as much as in regular Tyranid lists. It also causes many of your opponent's lists to operate inefficiently (yeah, so your 5 centurions just killed a single lictor, whoopee!). The trade-off, of course, is that your list will bleed Kill Points in VP missions.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Alright so had my game last night with the Neural Node, here are some thoughts:

Psychic Powers - with the node plus 2 flyrants, i had a ton of psychic powers. I rolled psychic scream for 3 of my units, warp blast on the maleceptor (kind of a waste), and didn't get ANY catalysts (boo). I had 12 psychic dice +D6 so still had to pick and choose what powers were most important to me at the time.

Spirit Leech (neurothope power) is amazing. Even though it has to roll to hit, at least Neuros are BS4. Draining wounds into warp dice for warp blast makes the zoanthropes damage output greatly increase. A+

Psychic Overload - it's so trash on paper i never tried to manifest it even once. F

Neural Node overall - the 18" SitW never came into play as my opponent had no psykers. the re-roll 1's on psychic tests only really helped 2 powers succeed over a 6 turn game. It's useful, sure, but the real reason to take the node is to get extra zoanthropes.

Maleceptor was basically there to kill raptors and possessed that had gotten near my zoeys, that's it.

Bottom line - i like the idea of the formation, but the command benefits don't outweigh the 205 point tax the maleceptor brings. With a CAD and a Hive Fleet detachment it would be better to take 2x3 zoey/neuro units and 3x1 zoanthropes and get 10 warp dice.

**Edit - I won 13-6 on Maelstrom mission 1, btw. **

Minor nitpick...While I agree with your grade, I don't think it is "right" to grade it if you never used it. (Malecepter) Idon't know "It looks so bad I never try to use it" does look like an "F" but how can we "play test" if we don't play it? Maybe "D-" until someone is crazy enough to use it?

Sure. Understandable criticism. How about I rate it NA for now.

We're still missing a few units from the reviews right? I know I signed on for Meiotic Spores and still haven't gotten around to it.

 jy2 wrote:

Do you feel that one of the reasons why your meleerant did so well was because your opponents under-estimated it and basically ignored it enough so that it made it into combat? Overall, how do you feel about his resiliency? Better than the dimachaeron in a spore?

I am thinking about adding a little cc-option into my bug list. The meleerant gives me options now.

Not always, but I did definitely feel that way on two games. In one my opponent outright said "You told me about him but I just kinda glossed over it", which was after he scouted his Onager Squadron up turn 1. I then seized, and the superbeast was on them immediately turn 1.
His survivability is augmented by me having 10 psychers, almost guaranteeing he gets catalyst supplied (and he did). Plus his movable jink save and a malanthrope positioned to be able to run with fleet to keep him in a protective bubble. Often times I had people prioritizing the
Malanthrope first. That and a 12" movement had him in combat every one of the six games by turn two, which is worth its weight in gold over a spore dima...if I could pay 50 more points or so for the cost of a dima in pod to ensure it got in to combat turn 2 consistently, then there is
your cost effectiveness right there. Ymgarl factor is 40 wopping points, but it lets me stay alive against massed no ap attacks, cut down larger groups, or consistently double out marines/suits, not to mention tough armor threats.

To be honest I took him as a 'fun' and silly option for my list, but now I wont leave home without him. *shrug* Krootman and I discussed it a bit about it being a supposed point sink, but he pointed out that it's board control is massive...I never snapped my fingers and wished
I'd taken a 4th dakka flyrant instead.

 Iechine wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Do you feel that one of the reasons why your meleerant did so well was because your opponents under-estimated it and basically ignored it enough so that it made it into combat? Overall, how do you feel about his resiliency? Better than the dimachaeron in a spore?

I am thinking about adding a little cc-option into my bug list. The meleerant gives me options now.

Not always, but I did definitely feel that way on two games. In one my opponent outright said "You told me about him but I just kinda glossed over it", which was after he scouted his Onager Squadron up turn 1. I then seized, and the superbeast was on them immediately turn 1.
His survivability is augmented by me having 10 psychers, almost guaranteeing he gets catalyst supplied (and he did). Plus his movable jink save and a malanthrope positioned to be able to run with fleet to keep him in a protective bubble. Often times I had people prioritizing the
Malanthrope first. That and a 12" movement had him in combat every one of the six games by turn two, which is worth its weight in gold over a spore dima...if I could pay 50 more points or so for the cost of a dima in pod to ensure it got in to combat turn 2 consistently, then there is
your cost effectiveness right there. Ymgarl factor is 40 wopping points, but it lets me stay alive against massed no ap attacks, cut down larger groups, or consistently double out marines/suits, not to mention tough armor threats.

To be honest I took him as a 'fun' and silly option for my list, but now I wont leave home without him. *shrug* Krootman and I discussed it a bit about it being a supposed point sink, but he pointed out that it's board control is massive...I never snapped my fingers and wished
I'd taken a 4th dakka flyrant instead.

How do you think he would fair against Wraithknights or Riptides?