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I have only played against a Stormsurge list once and the player had 2 of them in a single unit (for ITC purposes).

He bought Interceptor rather than Skyfire, so I had that going for me. Regardless, I generally used the massive LOS ruins (that is commonly used at Nova) in the center of the table for Turn1/2 placement of my flyrants. Stormsurges aren't very durable compared to other LoW's. With T6 and 3+ armor, I actually had a really easy time taking them out and scoring easy Maelstrom points.

I might have gotten lucky, but with 5 flyrants I believe I did 8 wounds to one in a single turn. Let me try some rough numbers:

10-11 hits per flyrant.
5-6 wounds caused
1-2 failed armors
1-2 failed FNPs per

Super rough numbers, but those are the kind of quick numbers I'll do during a game for broad averages. That being said, 5 flyrants (with my rough numbers) do anywhere from 5-10 wounds. So I would consider what happened during my game on the high end of average dice.

1 wound from 4 flyrants is way, way below average. Glad to hear you did so well against 2 Stormsurges (with Skyfire) and 3 Skyrays though! A draw is nice considering the huge advantage the Tau player had. 3 Skyrays seems a little overkill in a TAC list. That list is extremely skyfire heavy. My friend ran Farsight, Crisis Bomb, Solo Suits, 2 Skyrays, 2 Stormsurges, and 3 solo Riptides (from the formation) and it was rough to play against. Couldn't imagine him running that list against me. xD

 jifel wrote:
Good evening folks, so played two games tonight against Tau and thought Id share my thoughts with you guys. First off, the lists. We used the same for both games.


Lists:

Spoiler:

4 Flyrants, standard gear
2 Crones
2 Rippers
3 Mucolids
Malanthrope
Mawloc
3 Biovores
Void Shield Generator

Darkstrider
10 fire warriors
10 kroot
3 Sky Rays (separate units)
2 IA Riptodes with EWO
2 Stormsurges (1skyfire, 2x EWO in one unit)
Gunrig with Railgun

Game 1:

Spoiler:

ITC mission 6, I went first. So this game I flew everything off the board turn 1 as he counterdeployed in a corner. He anchors down and pops a single void shield. Turn 2 I come in and shriek both his surges and tides twice, for 0 wounds. Maslow kills dark strider and all fire warriors on the rig, I paroxysm the surges and make one skyray jink. He then kills two tyrants in his turn with skyrays and surges. I run away with maelstrom thanks to Rippers. My turn 2, I kill two skyrays. Biovores murder kroot when they come in, I kill the last skyray turn 3, he only has surges and Riptides left. The game ends with him killing all of my flyrants, and he wins crusade. He managed to shoot down everything near objectives so he sat on two and won that, game ends turn 5 with a 6-6 tie. Both had warlord and won a mission each, I had FB he had line breaker.

Game 2:

Spoiler:

Game 2 is ITC mission 5, and I go first again, getting the infiltrate warlord trait. Turn 1 I do well, killing a skyray and making the other jink. Paroxysm the stormsurges again. He manages to kill 1 Flyrant turn 1, as I fail 4 saves sadly. I kill a second skyray turn 2 and make the last jink, maw lox comes in with his troops in reserve and does nothing then gets killed immediately. Turn 3 I fail to kill the skyray but make it jink, and finish it turn 4. Kroot outflank, I shoot them to death. His fire warriors come in from reserve and I flame them to death with crones and Biovores. He knocks my void shields down and kills my Malanthrope with a S10 blast despite 2+ cover. :( Ripties get in my back lines and kill Biovores and rippers as he smart missiles the rest down skyfire S10 large blast from stormsurge kills my two crones turn 4, which was tragic. He kills three of my tyrants by turn 3 (one a turn) the last flies in a corner as my last non-fort model left to avoid a tabling, but my opponent only has the two surges and one riptide left. Again, I run away with maelstrom, my opponent wins Big Guns, we both slew warlord and I got first blood to his line breaker for a 6-6 dead tie. Second of the night!

So, my thoughts: first off I can say my opponent brought incredibly tough lists for me. 3 skyrays and a skyfire stormsurge are so tough to deal with... I honestly don't know how to handle Stormsurges yet. Across 2 games I got shriek off three times and didn't wound him. Granted I rolled bad for powers, but they have rediculously good firepower. I honestly think I may want to go second so I can land and pray the game ends. MSU hardly works as he can split fire with so many guns, and SMS kill rippers. Plus, 8d6 shots per dude is insane! At one point my opponent got 40 shots off with skyfire. I killed one riptide game 2, so my opponent has a total of 7 models left across both games, but ignoring it and killing the rest didn't do much for me. This was my standard TAC list but in considering dropping the Biovores again. Void Shield Generator is ace and saved me a lot. But as Nids I am really struggling to think of how to kill Surges. At one point I dunped 4 Flyrants into one game 1, and did one wound exactly. Never shot them again. Any thoughts on beating a double stormsurge list for you guys?

There's just no shortcut. The only way to kill the Surge is through volume. 1 Surge is no harder to kill than 2 flyrants (w/FNP) on the ground. If you want to kill it, you just need to keep pumping shots into him.

I'd say in your meta, your opponents tailor their lists slightly to deal with flyers, probably because of Tyranid and/or Daemon players there. Normally, I see the Surge equipped more with the 4++ and Interceptor due to the heavy volume of Grav in the more common, Marine armies. In this case, you're just going to have to rely on Psychic powers, namely Paroxsym. If you can get that power, paroxyse the surge and then deal with one of your threats. Unfortunately, it's kind of a pick-your-poison. Your list doesn't have enough firepower to deal with both the Surges and the skyrays at the same time so you Paroxyse one and deal with the other. The Surges are going to be slightly easier to deal with since you'd only be able to get 1 haywire shot per flyrant vs the skyray initially (and that is if you can even get into range). You're just going to have to grin and bear it and hope that not all of his markerlights hit to ignore your cover.

Yeah that's some serious sky fire....honestly though, that list is very low on marker lights. Don't tell him, but if he had more markerlights (specifically the Montk'a Drone Net formation) his list would be bonkers.

As far as what you can do...yeah it's tough. I might try MSU. Although the crones are nice and relatively durable, if you take one out for 3 lictors (I might trade a biovore and a mucolid for another squad of rippers to even the points) then you'll have a decently reliable landing point for your mawloc, and that's .66 wounds off of the surge every turn. Not spectacular (and you could do just as well trying to burn down a riptide) but it also gives you a viable assault threat. Do the math on 3 lictors charging a stormsurge (assuming they get there, which is unlikely but your opponent might not want to dedicate enough firepower to kill them, as they should have 2+ GTG cover much of the way after they infiltrate/deep strike) - That's 15 attacks on the charge. 10 hits, 5 wounds, nearly one of which rends. Stormsurge fails 2 armor saves, 2 FNP (one from the rend) so he just lost two wounds. Stormsurge attacks back and, statistically, does 0.57 wounds. Could very conceivably do none. He then stomps twice, and typically does a decent amount of wounds, but hey! you're fearless due to that flyrant nearby. So he loses a turn of shooting, and you get to do another wound or two. Big win

 luke1705 wrote:
Yeah that's some serious sky fire....honestly though, that list is very low on marker lights. Don't tell him, but if he had more markerlights (specifically the Montk'a Drone Net formation) his list would be bonkers.

As far as what you can do...yeah it's tough. I might try MSU. Although the crones are nice and relatively durable, if you take one out for 3 lictors (I might trade a biovore and a mucolid for another squad of rippers to even the points) then you'll have a decently reliable landing point for your mawloc, and that's .66 wounds off of the surge every turn. Not spectacular (and you could do just as well trying to burn down a riptide) but it also gives you a viable assault threat. Do the math on 3 lictors charging a stormsurge (assuming they get there, which is unlikely but your opponent might not want to dedicate enough firepower to kill them, as they should have 2+ GTG cover much of the way after they infiltrate/deep strike) - That's 15 attacks on the charge. 10 hits, 5 wounds, nearly one of which rends. Stormsurge fails 2 armor saves, 2 FNP (one from the rend) so he just lost two wounds. Stormsurge attacks back and, statistically, does 0.57 wounds. Could very conceivably do none. He then stomps twice, and typically does a decent amount of wounds, but hey! you're fearless due to that flyrant nearby. So he loses a turn of shooting, and you get to do another wound or two. Big win

Ha! Just read that drone formation, no thank you... although he is an ATC partner, so I'll tell him that eventually... And sadly I think I'll have to rework my list slightly. Biovores and a Crone are probably the first to go, I think I'll drop the Mawloc too and invest in some more smaller deepstrike/advancing assault units. The Mawloc just isnt doing it for me... Back to the drawing board, we'll see what I get!

@jy2: I used paroxysm to blunt the skyfire in both games, but without catalyst my opponent took out my one paroxysm Tyrant quickly in both games. But, thanks to Crone Haywire missiles I was able to force some jinks on a Skyray early on, and focused into the Stormsurges but with 0 luck. That may have been the dice though, as I statistically should put 5 wounds on him with 4 Flyrants, but ah well. I'll have another game Friday vs a different Tau opponent (but I expect I'll be seeing Stormsurges again) so we'll see what I can do with them. I'll be changing up the list though for sure.

Hey I just posted a 1000 point list over in the army list section and was wondering if I can get some nid vets thoughts and opinions on it. Its for a team tourney coming up and uses one of my favorite cult units, the genestealers.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/676592.page#8383738

Also this brings up the topic: What does a good 1000 pt nid list look like? Is 1000 points and down a strong category for nids? What units really shine at this point level that don't see play enough?

Anyways, as a new nid player coming from chaos, I am liking it and continuously improving. Need only a few more nids and ill be playing them at the 1850 mark but in all truth I dont know if thats the mark I like the most, as I play more and more 1500 point matches I feel that is a really strong bracket and forces more varied lists as players don't have the points for that WK or that extra IK.

 Solosam47 wrote:
Hey I just posted a 1000 point list over in the army list section and was wondering if I can get some nid vets thoughts and opinions on it. Its for a team tourney coming up and uses one of my favorite cult units, the genestealers.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/676592.page#8383738

Also this brings up the topic: What does a good 1000 pt nid list look like? Is 1000 points and down a strong category for nids? What units really shine at this point level that don't see play enough?

Anyways, as a new nid player coming from chaos, I am liking it and continuously improving. Need only a few more nids and ill be playing them at the 1850 mark but in all truth I dont know if thats the mark I like the most, as I play more and more 1500 point matches I feel that is a really strong bracket and forces more varied lists as players don't have the points for that WK or that extra IK.

Ok, so my thoughts are thus: First off, you lack a source of shrouding (meaning a Malanthrope or Venomthrope) which I would always reccomend. Get one asap, preferably a Malanthrope as he covers your synapse needs.
Second, warriors are decent shooting units but rarely worth adding extra models too. Id take 3 at most, and if you have other synapse (see Malanthrope) you may not even need 3.
Third, gene stealers are a suboptimal troop choice. If you are taking them, run 5 man only, and naked just as objective grabbers with some teeth. Boys>toys, and consider deep striking rippers.
Fourth, I consider 1 Flyrant per 500 points a minimum guideline. But, that should be dictated by the level of competition you're playing to.
Finally, both of those MCs are solid, but make sure you slap EG on the TFex.

As a starter list this is alright, fine for local games sure, but if you play tougher opponents you'll fall behind quickly. If you take warriors, run them minimum and in the living artillery node formation. Stealers, Id leave at home but 1/2x5 with no upgrades can be useful. MCs are solid, but may want to buy a pod at some point, or squad up the carnifex. Finally, as you expand, add shrouding sources and more Flyrants.

I don't want to just feed you a cookie cutter tyrants net list, but we sadly have limited options if you're trying to have a good list. Mawlocs and lictors are also fun if you play ITC missions.

 jifel wrote:


Ok, so my thoughts are thus: First off, you lack a source of shrouding (meaning a Malanthrope or Venomthrope) which I would always reccomend. Get one asap, preferably a Malanthrope as he covers your synapse needs.
Second, warriors are decent shooting units but rarely worth adding extra models too. Id take 3 at most, and if you have other synapse (see Malanthrope) you may not even need 3.
Third, gene stealers are a suboptimal troop choice. If you are taking them, run 5 man only, and naked just as objective grabbers with some teeth. Boys>toys, and consider deep striking rippers.
Fourth, I consider 1 Flyrant per 500 points a minimum guideline. But, that should be dictated by the level of competition you're playing to.
Finally, both of those MCs are solid, but make sure you slap EG on the TFex.

As a starter list this is alright, fine for local games sure, but if you play tougher opponents you'll fall behind quickly. If you take warriors, run them minimum and in the living artillery node formation. Stealers, Id leave at home but 1/2x5 with no upgrades can be useful. MCs are solid, but may want to buy a pod at some point, or squad up the carnifex. Finally, as you expand, add shrouding sources and more Flyrants.

I don't want to just feed you a cookie cutter tyrants net list, but we sadly have limited options if you're trying to have a good list. Mawlocs and lictors are also fun if you play ITC missions.

Thank you for the reply
The venomthrope or malanthrope is a solid idea, I really need to add one I see. I played a test game against my partner for this team match and his drop pod skitarii are devastating, down right brutal of an alpha strike. I will probably go with venomthrope as I do not have the rules for the malanthrope.

1 Flyrant per 500, in a 1000 point that is 400 points easy, tough call as I feel that sucks up alot of the army, ill think on that though. Maybe I will switch my tyrant over to flyrant since it would be roughly the same points as he is now with his current setup.

The 5 man genestealer groups were less than underwhelming, sadly to say. I love genestealers but ouch I learned quickly that outflanking them just hurts too much, they didnt come on till it was too late and when they did they got shot to pieces. I think ill drop it to two 5 man squads and just infiltrate.

I will split up the warrior brood, your right 6 in a group is overkill, and add the E grub to the tfex.

Whats a good flyrant setup look like? I know wings and devourers with brainleech but is that it? should I add something else?

Eventually I want some lictors, they are another favorite of mine aswell.

The standard Flyrant setup is wings, two sets of devourers and EG. For better or worse, this is the staple of Tyranid armies and you very rarely see a load out different from this. As to Genestealers in 5 man squads, they will be underwhelming if you use them offensively. The only reason I woukdnuse them is to infiltrate on objectives and hide their, but sticking around to deter your opponent from going near them. Offensively, Genestealers will almost never impress against competent opponents.

Lictors are actually considered one of the better units we have, especially if you play Maelstrom missions at all. Finally, the malanthrope rules can be found in IA:4 the updated version. If you'd like their rules, shoot me a PM and I can hook you up with a digital copy.

 jifel wrote:
The standard Flyrant setup is wings, two sets of devourers and EG. For better or worse, this is the staple of Tyranid armies and you very rarely see a load out different from this. As to Genestealers in 5 man squads, they will be underwhelming if you use them offensively. The only reason I woukdnuse them is to infiltrate on objectives and hide their, but sticking around to deter your opponent from going near them. Offensively, Genestealers will almost never impress against competent opponents.

Lictors are actually considered one of the better units we have, especially if you play Maelstrom missions at all. Finally, the malanthrope rules can be found in IA:4 the updated version. If you'd like their rules, shoot me a PM and I can hook you up with a digital copy.

Awesome, yeah doing some thoughts last night leads me to thinking I should drop the genestealers and rekit out my tyrant, that would allow me to get two flyrants in the list roughly and would change it to a more nidzilla list. Later I do want to get a hold of some lictors and the living artillery node, just hate how all nid formations are scattered across so many sources. Who knows though, maybe this year we will get the tau/ravenguard treatment and have our changes in a book.

Hello again hive mind, I have played yet another game against Tau (actually two). This means that, since my Thanksgiving break from College, I have played ten games, 7 of them against the new Tau codex! And boy is it tough... here's my list for these next two games.



Game 1:


So we played three primaries (Emperor's Will, Crusade, Kill Points) and dawn of War deployment. I went first, and with the Master of Ambush trait pulled off a nice alpha strike. Killed two units of drones and took two others down a few (as well as forcing them to ground). He immediately shot twice with his riptides, and with skyfire killed two on turn 1. The rest of the game was just a slugfest, his Stormsurge laying down skyfire from an objective, I could never touch him. He killed 3 flyrants by turn 7, while I killed his last Riptide on the last turn from the Exocrine within the VSG (which was ace). Between the crone and TFex I managed to flame all of the ghostkeel drones away and killed a 'Tide in CC, both of which were huge. Game ended with me having killed everything but the stormsruge, I was able to tie up/avoid the riptides after turn 2 and my flyrants dealt too much damage before he finally killed them. Game ended I won KP 11-9, and Emperors will while we tied crusade at one each. 28-6 Nid victory as I claim FB, last blood, and warlord.[/spoiler]

Game 2:


This time, I let my opponent go first and lost all of my void shields but only took one wound on a flyrant after that. Then, I took off and tried to psychic scream all three riptides. But, I rolled catalyst first, perilsed, and lost my only psychic scream to that. Fortunately my shooting kills one riptide and paroxysmed a second. My opponent kills a tyrant his next turn, as well as his ghostkeels absolutely murdering my exocrine after his Stormsurge snipes my malanthrope (rolled a 1 on cover to that S10 gun). My crone and Tyrannofex come in and melt his markerlights turn 2, but I get charged by kroot and the buffmander who tie me up for a while. My flyrants lose the shootout to the two riptides as I lose another, before I finally kill a second (go warp lance!) as I flee to the other side of the board. Ghostkeels blow my VSG and the last riptide kills my rippers. My crone is also gunned down by ghostkeels. The two last flyrants land objectives turn 5, as the stormsurge charges my TFex and kills him after a few turns. Game goes on, he charges one Tyrant and stomps him to death. I land and grab Emperor's Will, the game goes on to 7 again and the stormsurge charges me again. This time, with overwatch and CC, I finally strip the stormsurge of his last wound, as several rounds of shooting and CC had whittled him down. Tyranta also gunned down the kroot and buffmander previously. Game ends with me having one model left, my warlord flyrant. I take linebreaker, last blood, first blood and warlord and tie Emperor's will for a 9-26 loss, tau victory![/spoiler]

So, thoughts on both: This was against a different opponent from last time, but another GT veteran and member of my ATC team, so a good player. Again, skyfire heavy Tau are absolutely brutal. And to be honest, 60 points for skyfire on the whole riptide formation is insanely good and something I think most Tau players will take. Yes, my opponent knew he was playing me, no he wasn't tailoring (we're prepping him for a GT I wont be at) but my meta has countered towards flyers alot, at least the better players who see me across the table with frequency. The last game the dice went against me a bit, as I didnt do much damage to riptides despite massive amounts of firepower. Losing my exocrine without shooting him was a big blow, one I didnt expect. I was experimenting with him as a riptide deterrent, and he did very well game 1, so my opponent DS his ghostkeels and sniped him turn 2. 3 ghostkeels are a ton of firepower with Ion, and so hard to kill without psychic scream. I had no answer to those in the second game as I never got a good flamer angle so he always had drones. I underestimated them severely, their firepower is bonkers.

Just thought I'd share these with you, I am dang sick of Tau!

Thanks for sharing, jifel.

I don't have the Tau codex with me, but I am 90% sure that Stormsurges can only take at most 2 upgrades. It appears that the 4++, EWO and Skyfire option may be illegal on his SS.

I've played against the Ghostkeels many times as one of my regular Tau opponents run a Ghostkeel-centric build and yeah, they are really good, especially if you do not have the ability to ignore cover. Just FYI, but the ITC is going to rule it as they can use their counter-measures just once per game no matter how many ghostkeels are in the unit.

I had a recent game against Tau with my bugs (honestly, I haven't been playing my bugs too much lately). I brought my current tournament list:



I helped my opponent to design his list, though he did kinda tailor it to fight flyer-heavy lists:



Brief Battle Report summary:


That was a brutal game. The Firestream formation is f*ckin good. It is very similar to our Tervigon-spam build of 5th edition, except you can't do anything to stop its production of drones because currently by RAW, the piranhas can come in from Ongoing reserves, drop off their drones and leave to go back into Ongoing Reserves all in the same Movement phase. The new Tau is a monster to deal with potentially.

Sounds pretty rough. I havent played since November, and am in no hurry to seek out Tau opponents.

I may be out of the loop, but were you trying to pin Riptides? As MC's they can never go to ground, right?

@jy2 my opponent thought they could take three systems but I'd have to check. Either way he didn't intercept much so I'm not too worried but I'll check on that. And lechine is correct, riptides can not be pinned as they are MCs.

Tau lists are absolutely bonkers. In both games, my opponent didn't land a markerlight hot thanks to positioning or alpha strikes or pinning them, but the amount of skyfire they can muster is driving me insane. Sadly ITC has banned us from taking allies (something I personally disagree with, but oh well) so I'm struggling with ideas to kill the Stormsurge. VSG help a lot though I will say. I believe I will add a fifth Flyrant soon, and in thinking of dropping all crones with the resurgence of Monstrous creatures.

Stormsurges can take three support systems, so they were legal.

 Iechine wrote:
Sounds pretty rough. I havent played since November, and am in no hurry to seek out Tau opponents.

I may be out of the loop, but were you trying to pin Riptides? As MC's they can never go to ground, right?

Oops. My mistake. Not that it mattered as he passed all his LD tests. Lol.

 Tyran wrote:
Stormsurges can take three support systems, so they were legal.

Ok, thanks for checking.

 jifel wrote:
@jy2 my opponent thought they could take three systems but I'd have to check. Either way he didn't intercept much so I'm not too worried but I'll check on that. And lechine is correct, riptides can not be pinned as they are MCs.

Tau lists are absolutely bonkers. In both games, my opponent didn't land a markerlight hot thanks to positioning or alpha strikes or pinning them, but the amount of skyfire they can muster is driving me insane. Sadly ITC has banned us from taking allies (something I personally disagree with, but oh well) so I'm struggling with ideas to kill the Stormsurge. VSG help a lot though I will say. I believe I will add a fifth Flyrant soon, and in thinking of dropping all crones with the resurgence of Monstrous creatures.

Yeah, Tau have actually become harder to deal than they used to be. The only 2 things that will help us are:

1. The new Tau rely less on markerlights nowadays than they used to. Thus, they actually become slightly less effective against flyers as the average number of markerlights go down in many Tau lists (unless they resort to putting Skyfire on most of their bigs).

2. The meta has shifted away from flyer-spam to grav-spam. Thus, Iontides and shield generators have become more common and Skyfire less common....unless you live in a meta that is still heavily flyer-based. But if you go to the "national" tournaments, you're less likely to see as much Skyfire in Tau armies as you will in your local meta.

I was in the middle of typing that Riptides are one of the few MCs in the game that aren't fearless, therefore, they could fail leadership checks and get swept in h2h, then I reread the question in check and it was pinning.

MCs specifically read in the unit type description they can't go to ground, voluntary or otherwise, and the only thing pinning does (if failed) is go to ground. The Horror just got even mosre worthless against the newest Tau codex! Boo! Riptides, Stormsurges, Ghostkeels, oh my!

I' was going to start a new thread but this one is still kicking!

Talking about drone's forming walls and thats reminded me of fond thoughts of my old gant walls.

Where are Tervigon's at nowadays? Are they good.. used in HQ slots, additional slots available in Hive Mind Swarm detachment (/thingy-ma-jig)... Or what is holding them back, too expensive nowadays.. I'm struggling to remember but could it just be down to the newer death-shriek rule on your gants?

Razerous wrote:
I' was going to start a new thread but this one is still kicking!

Talking about drone's forming walls and thats reminded me of fond thoughts of my old gant walls.

Where are Tervigon's at nowadays? Are they good.. used in HQ slots, additional slots available in Hive Mind Swarm detachment (/thingy-ma-jig)... Or what is holding them back, too expensive nowadays.. I'm struggling to remember but could it just be down to the newer death-shriek rule on your gants?

Sadly, Tervigons are... not in a good place at the moment. It boils down to a couple of things.
1. HQ slots are far too valuable to spend on Tervigons, Flyrants are always better.
2. It costs over 100 points in tax just to unlock a Troops Tervigon.
3. Tervigons are a slow moving unit that has low ranged capability and poor CC.
4. Tervigons create more slow-moving units with poor damage output, and there is a debate on whether they benefit from ObSec.
5. All formations with Tervigons perpetuate the problem of tax units being required, and are too expensive for small benefits.

Essentially, there is no way to take a Tervigon without massively sacrificing your damage output either by limiting the number of Flyrants you have, or by spending over 300 points on slow moving objective grabbers. Todays meta has so much damage output that you cant rely on slow moving troops anymore, Rippers can DS, 'Stealers can infiltrate, Lictors can DS no scatter, all much cheaper than Tervigon and Gants and much more mobile. There's just nothing that Tervigons accomplish other than creating gants, which they dont do efficiently enough to be a truly competitive unit.

Razerous wrote:
I' was going to start a new thread but this one is still kicking!

Talking about drone's forming walls and thats reminded me of fond thoughts of my old gant walls.

Where are Tervigon's at nowadays? Are they good.. used in HQ slots, additional slots available in Hive Mind Swarm detachment (/thingy-ma-jig)... Or what is holding them back, too expensive nowadays.. I'm struggling to remember but could it just be down to the newer death-shriek rule on your gants?

I still think that they are good. They just aren't super-good like they used to be back in 5th. A number of factors have caused their roles to diminish:

1. They are more expensive now, both in terms of the actual unit and the tax unit that you have to pay for in order to run the tervigon as a troop.

2. While their price has gone up, their performance has gone down. They no longer pass down special rules to the gants that they generate.

3. In a shooting-oriented edition of 40K and with the amount of Ignores Cover firepower in the game, tervigon-builds are becoming more of a liability against certain builds (namely, Tau and Centstar lists).

 jifel wrote:

1. HQ slots are far too valuable to spend on Tervigons, Flyrants are always better.

This is actually no longer the case, especially with most tournaments allowing 3 detachments nowadays (with 1 repeated detachment). You can easily get up to 8 HQ slots with Leviathan/Leviathan/CAD.

However, it is true that flyrants are still better and that many players would rather pick up another flyrant over a tervigon.

Saythings wrote:
I was in the middle of typing that Riptides are one of the few MCs in the game that aren't fearless, therefore, they could fail leadership checks and get swept in h2h, then I reread the question in check and it was pinning.

MCs specifically read in the unit type description they can't go to ground, voluntary or otherwise, and the only thing pinning does (if failed) is go to ground. The Horror just got even mosre worthless against the newest Tau codex! Boo! Riptides, Stormsurges, Ghostkeels, oh my!

Haha yes me too! I know this pain from my friend the Dimachaeron. Because although he can make anything that has wounds wet itself, he too is apparently subject to fear when outside of synapse. Oh GW

Yeah, making Tyranid Monstrous Creatures both low leadership and non-fearless was a silly and un-fluffy mechanic added in 6th. I understand (not agree) that they wanted Synapse to become mandatory with the new codex, but it really hurt the concept of lumbering behemoths hell bent on devouring their prey when carnifexes can easily be rundown in CC by a melta-bomb wielding guardsman.

Edit: Nevermind. I am mistaken.

I don't see Nids being able to go toe to toe versus the current top tier armies. They need a new codex for that to happen.

 wyomingfox wrote:
Yeah, making Tyranid Monstrous Creatures both low leadership and non-fearless was a silly and un-fluffy mechanic added in 6th. I understand (not agree) that they wanted Synapse to become mandatory with the new codex, but it really hurt the concept of lumbering behemoths hell bent on devouring their prey when carnifexes can easily be rundown in CC by a melta-bomb wielding guardsman.

The only TMC that doesn't have fearless/synapse on its stat line is the Dimachaeron.

 jy2 wrote:

Razerous wrote:
I' was going to start a new thread but this one is still kicking!

Talking about drone's forming walls and thats reminded me of fond thoughts of my old gant walls.

Where are Tervigon's at nowadays? Are they good.. used in HQ slots, additional slots available in Hive Mind Swarm detachment (/thingy-ma-jig)... Or what is holding them back, too expensive nowadays.. I'm struggling to remember but could it just be down to the newer death-shriek rule on your gants?

I still think that they are good. They just aren't super-good like they used to be back in 5th. A number of factors have caused their roles to diminish:

1. They are more expensive now, both in terms of the actual unit and the tax unit that you have to pay for in order to run the tervigon as a troop.

2. While their price has gone up, their performance has gone down. They no longer pass down special rules to the gants that they generate.

3. In a shooting-oriented edition of 40K and with the amount of Ignores Cover firepower in the game, tervigon-builds are becoming more of a liability against certain builds (namely, Tau and Centstar lists).

 jifel wrote:

1. HQ slots are far too valuable to spend on Tervigons, Flyrants are always better.

This is actually no longer the case, especially with most tournaments allowing 3 detachments nowadays (with 1 repeated detachment). You can easily get up to 8 HQ slots with Leviathan/Leviathan/CAD.

However, it is true that flyrants are still better and that many players would rather pick up another flyrant over a tervigon.

Gosh darn.. that was it, the gants don't get the toxin sac/adrenal upgrades. They used to rock, added bolter shots then they would wander in and beat up marines!

I'm 100% considering them without the tax. I think the huge blob of gants to be a nightmare.

Alright, how about this - how does it compare to summoning?

 Sinful Hero wrote:

 wyomingfox wrote:
Yeah, making Tyranid Monstrous Creatures both low leadership and non-fearless was a silly and un-fluffy mechanic added in 6th. I understand (not agree) that they wanted Synapse to become mandatory with the new codex, but it really hurt the concept of lumbering behemoths hell bent on devouring their prey when carnifexes can easily be rundown in CC by a melta-bomb wielding guardsman.

The only TMC that doesn't have fearless/synapse on its stat line is the Dimachaeron.

Well, my mistake. Never mind then.

 wyomingfox wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:

 wyomingfox wrote:
Yeah, making Tyranid Monstrous Creatures both low leadership and non-fearless was a silly and un-fluffy mechanic added in 6th. I understand (not agree) that they wanted Synapse to become mandatory with the new codex, but it really hurt the concept of lumbering behemoths hell bent on devouring their prey when carnifexes can easily be rundown in CC by a melta-bomb wielding guardsman.

The only TMC that doesn't have fearless/synapse on its stat line is the Dimachaeron.

Well, my mistake. Never mind then.

It's all good. I've made many mistakes myself.

Thanks Sinful Hero

Im going to try out this list with a view to maybe attending some tournies.
What do you guys think?
The basic idea is area denial (sporefields + multi infilitrating strealers backed up by the more competitive flyrants and mawlocs).

Razerous wrote:

Spoiler:

 jy2 wrote:

Razerous wrote:
I' was going to start a new thread but this one is still kicking!

Talking about drone's forming walls and thats reminded me of fond thoughts of my old gant walls.

Where are Tervigon's at nowadays? Are they good.. used in HQ slots, additional slots available in Hive Mind Swarm detachment (/thingy-ma-jig)... Or what is holding them back, too expensive nowadays.. I'm struggling to remember but could it just be down to the newer death-shriek rule on your gants?

I still think that they are good. They just aren't super-good like they used to be back in 5th. A number of factors have caused their roles to diminish:

1. They are more expensive now, both in terms of the actual unit and the tax unit that you have to pay for in order to run the tervigon as a troop.

2. While their price has gone up, their performance has gone down. They no longer pass down special rules to the gants that they generate.

3. In a shooting-oriented edition of 40K and with the amount of Ignores Cover firepower in the game, tervigon-builds are becoming more of a liability against certain builds (namely, Tau and Centstar lists).

 jifel wrote:

1. HQ slots are far too valuable to spend on Tervigons, Flyrants are always better.

This is actually no longer the case, especially with most tournaments allowing 3 detachments nowadays (with 1 repeated detachment). You can easily get up to 8 HQ slots with Leviathan/Leviathan/CAD.

However, it is true that flyrants are still better and that many players would rather pick up another flyrant over a tervigon.

Gosh darn.. that was it, the gants don't get the toxin sac/adrenal upgrades. They used to rock, added bolter shots then they would wander in and beat up marines!

I'm 100% considering them without the tax. I think the huge blob of gants to be a nightmare.

Alright, how about this - how does it compare to summoning?

Also, gants lost the ability to charge after being "summoned". Thus, they weren't as effective in tarpitting (depending on the unit) like they used to be.

Despite all that, I still like the flexibility a tervigon brings with his troop creation mechanism.

The thing about Summoning is that it isn't very reliable. On average, you need about 6 Warp Dice to cast Summoning and even then, the chances for success is only about 75% or so. There have been many times in which I have failed to cast Summoning on 6 dice when I really needed them. It also takes away Warp Dice from you to cast your other offensive/defensive powers. The good thing about Summoning, however, is that there is a lot of flexibility in the types of units you can summon. Need more power? Pink Horrors. Need a resilient objective-holder? Plaguebearers. Need offense? Daemonettes and Bloodletters. Need speed? Daemonettes, Seekers or Flesh Hounds.

Gant-farming is more reliable than summoning, that is, as long as you don't roll doubles. You don't have the flexibility that Summoning gives you, but you only need gants for mainly 2 reasons - 1) to grab an objective and 2) to act as a screening unit. Any kills that they get, consider that to be a bonus. On average, you will get 1 or 2 turns of spawning, but if your tervigon manages to spawn for more than that, then he's actually doing great.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ratius wrote:
Im going to try out this list with a view to maybe attending some tournies.
What do you guys think?
The basic idea is area denial (sporefields + multi infilitrating strealers backed up by the more competitive flyrants and mawlocs).

Spoiler:

+++ New Roster (1844pts) +++

++ Tyranids: Codex (2014) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Hive Tyrant [Powers of the Hive Mind, Psyker (Mastery Level 2), Twin-linked Devourer with Brainleech Worms, Twin-linked Devourer with Brainleech Worms, Wings]

Hive Tyrant [Powers of the Hive Mind, Psyker (Mastery Level 2), Twin-linked Devourer with Brainleech Worms, Twin-linked Devourer with Brainleech Worms, Wings]

+ Troops +

Termagant Brood
····9x Fleshborer Termagant [9x Fleshborer]
····Strangleweb Termagant [Strangleweb]

Termagant Brood
····9x Fleshborer Termagant [9x Fleshborer]
····Strangleweb Termagant [Strangleweb]

+ Fast Attack +

Tyranid Shrike Brood
····Tyranid Shrike [Devourer, Rending Claws]
····Tyranid Shrike [Devourer, Rending Claws]
····Tyranid Shrike [Devourer, Rending Claws]

+ Heavy Support +

Biovore Brood
····Biovore [Spore Mine Launcher]
····Biovore [Spore Mine Launcher]
····Biovore [Spore Mine Launcher]

Mawloc

Mawloc

++ Tyranids: Codex (2014) (Formation Detachment) ++

+ Formation +

Manufactorum Genestealers
····Genestealer Brood
········5x Genestealer [5x Rending Claws]
····Genestealer Brood
········5x Genestealer [5x Rending Claws]
····Genestealer Brood
········5x Genestealer [5x Rending Claws]
····Genestealer Brood
········5x Genestealer [5x Rending Claws]
····Genestealer Brood
········5x Genestealer [5x Rending Claws]

++ Tyranids: Codex (2014) (Tyr Hive Fleet Detachement) ++

+ HQ +

Hive Tyrant [Powers of the Hive Mind, Psyker (Mastery Level 2), Twin-linked Devourer with Brainleech Worms, Twin-linked Devourer with Brainleech Worms, Wings]

+ Troops +

Ripper Swarm Brood [3x Ripper Swarm]

Termagant Brood
····10x Fleshborer Termagant [10x Fleshborer]

Termagant Brood
····10x Fleshborer Termagant [10x Fleshborer]

++ Tyranids: Codex (2014) (Formation Detachment) ++

+ Formation +

Sporefield
····Mucolid Spore Cluster [Mucolid Spore]
····Mucolid Spore Cluster [Mucolid Spore]
····Mucolid Spore Cluster [Mucolid Spore]
····Spore Mine Cluster [3x Spore Mine]
····Spore Mine Cluster [3x Spore Mine]
····Spore Mine Cluster [3x Spore Mine]

Created with BattleScribe (http://www.battlescribe.net)

Just make sure the tournament that you are planning to attend is ok with 4 detachments. I don't know about the tournaments in your area, but the majority of the tournaments here in the US only allow a maximum of 3 detachments unless it is a "Decurion-style" detachment. Unfortunately, Tyranids don't have those yet as all of their formations came before the current "Decurion" trend.

Overall, you have a lot of ground units but your Synapse is somewhat spotty with basically only the Shrikes doing the baby-sitting (we all know flyrants aren't going to be around to baby-sit). I'd seriously consider a malanthope in your list or, if FW is not allowed, then perhaps a 1 or 2 zoanthopes. You can drop 1 biovore and swap out a unit of gants for a mucolid to pay for the extra Synapse.

Bit of a list-building dilemna guys. I'm signed up to play in a tournament with rules similar to the ETC, eternal war primary, maelstrom secondary. With D36 random objectives, scoring two per turn max, etc. Two sources, 1650.

I've been playtesting with 2mawlocs, 3 flyrants, 3 lictors and an outflanking tervigon. Issue I've had is that the maelstrom, which the list is supposed to be good at, keeps running away from me - which I feel isn't helped by only having basically a unit of gaunts and a venom in a bunker to claim stuff t1.

I guess my question is, to those who have played more maelstrom secondary (it's rare this side of the pond), what would be best to take to beef my list up for maelstrom? I'm considering genes to infiltrate into objectives, skytyrant for more board presence, or even something like shrikes or gargoyles to be fast obj grabbers. All of these seem like they'd just get wiped out the table by tau or eldar though... Which is exactly why I've been playing flyrants and mawlocs so far. Anyway, any opinions welcome!