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Facing tyranids a couple times recently, I've come to fear them quite a bit for their shooting.

My cultists, even, have a lot to worry about. Volume of fire from things like dakka tyrants and even a 24" flying crone will give me pause.

I said it before the codex came out - saturation. Sure, that crone might be easy to kill. But what about 2? What about 2 and 2 swooping tyrants? What about 2, 2 swooping tyrants, and oh by the way here's a brood of carnifexes that's death incarnate and a tervigon that's making scoring units?

Can't do it all... good report! Way too much terrain though.

1) This report once again shows that an army must have a way to take out targets with cover save. Although in this case the Venomtrope is untargetable inside the bastion, which leads to point nr 2.

For Space Marine to accomplish this, the best way is the Legion. Unfortunately they are more of a suicide team, don't necessarily come in play soon enough and can miss. In short, I don't like them

Next option is to ally in Psykers who get good access to divination. Hello, Tiggy! Also Coteaz could do, but random power generation can be a pain.

That's why I bring 7 Incinerators, I just don't do saves anymore .. Naw but on a little more seious note, Ignore cover is most certainly something that I am quite surprised and dumstruck marine players are having a hard time switching over to. By either bringing Tau with marker lights, or indeed libbies hoping to get the remove cover psychic power that indeed helps out a lot with armies that rely on them (tau, Nids, Eldar waveserpents, guardsman, orks, dark elder, hence tau, elder, and some measure or biker army with jink saves being mostly played right now ) I'm quite surprised elite armies that don't take up bikes don't take up a stronger approach to find someway to get in there.

@Jy2
I like how you broke down the reasons for why you thought you did what he did and your responses to him holding back. Would you have personally held back or pushed up? I believe I saw an alley way to his left flank that he could have tried flanking around to where had he wanted the carnifexes to come out you would have had to expose at least 2 of the carnifexes to be able to fire all of them... would that probably have been a wiser route? In addition it seemed your tervigon was very much out in the open and nowhere close to the venemthrope to obtain stealth? Finally, would there have been anyway of possibly being able to kill off the venemthrope in your opinion?

This makes me question my own ignoring cover tactics. Typically I have two squads of 10 noisemarines with 2 blastmasters each and 1 heldrake. But for my CSM, I don't know....maybe I need more?

Naw wrote:
Thanks, don't have the codex so could not check. Sounds like another inconsistency introduced by GW. Good for Tyranids, bad for everyone else (- Tau/Eldar)

I'm going to run 4 biker squads, three with gravs and one with melta plus 3 separate MM attack bikes from now on just to tackle buildings.

???

Nearly every codex has some form of ability that affects every friendly unit (from their codex) within 'X' number of inches and doesn't mention needing LoS. Tau have the Ethereal's 12" Stubborn & Invocation of the Elements bubble, IG have Straken's 12" Counter-attack & Furious Charge bubble, Orks have the 6" KFF bubble, just to name a few examples (but there are dozens).

All these abilities work when the model is inside a building or transport and can effectively boost the range of these abilities because range is measured from the vehicle/building.

And that is inconsistent with everything else and also opens a can of worms. Why some powers / effects work, but not all?

Let's say I have modeled the bastion a bit differently. Or run Fortress of Redemption. Or utilize some other fortification.

It just does not make sense that being inside a building / vehicle extends the range of the bubble, but that is what we have to live with.

And previously you could not even target a fortification that was empty, being on top of a battlement meant the building was empty.

Bad rules are bad

Naw wrote:
And that is inconsistent with everything else and also opens a can of worms. Why some powers / effects work, but not all?

Let's say I have modeled the bastion a bit differently. Or run Fortress of Redemption. Or utilize some other fortification.

It just does not make sense that being inside a building / vehicle extends the range of the bubble, but that is what we have to live with.

And previously you could not even target a fortification that was empty, being on top of a battlement meant the building was empty.

Bad rules are bad

They're not Powers that's why. They're abilities and they have been this way for many many editions.

Naw wrote:
And that is inconsistent with everything else and also opens a can of worms. Why some powers / effects work, but not all?

All powers and abilities for units inside a vehicle or building are measured from the vehicle/building. It is completely consistent. You can't use psychic powers out of buildings/vehicles because they require line of sight, and you can only draw line of sight out of a building/vehicle by using a fire port during shooting.

If a psychic power did not require line of sight, then it would have the exact same leeway.

Let's say I have modeled the bastion a bit differently. Or run Fortress of Redemption. Or utilize some other fortification.

It just does not make sense that being inside a building / vehicle extends the range of the bubble, but that is what we have to live with.

And previously you could not even target a fortification that was empty, being on top of a battlement meant the building was empty.

Bad rules are bad

It's the same issue you have with line of sight and modeling for advantage...if you're going to make game rules that incorporate the size and shape of models (including terrain) then you're going to have instances where the size and shape of those models affects how the game plays. Some people would prefer that everything was just standardized with abstract size categories, etc, but the price for that is at that point you've disassociated the game from the actual 3D terrain and models, thereby losing one of the distinct features of playing a fully 3D game.

But anyway, enough OT for me. I just was confused as to why you think this is somehow inconsistent when at least it is universally across all the armies.

Nice report, very glad to see tyranids may be able to hold their own against "normal" armies. That's all I want really

You made this look easy, but I'm sure we'll see some challenging games soon. Awesome to see the DakkaFexes perform well!

But anyway, enough OT for me. I just was confused as to why you think this is somehow inconsistent when at least it is universally across all the armies.

Erm, Dark Angels??

Quoting broken on mobile device.

the BLOS terrain that connected the other two was illegal, pieces of terrain have to be 6" from each other that helped you alot

great game nonetheless

Fikol wrote:
the BLOS terrain that connected the other two was illegal, pieces of terrain have to be 6" from each other that helped you alot

great game nonetheless

Who's told you that?

Well done again JY2, maybe this will put some of the naysaying regarding the new Nid dex being irredeemable.

Naw wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
POST-GAME THOUGHTS:

Ok, I'm going to address some of the questions in my Post-game Thoughts, especially the ones with regards to why my opponent and/or I did the things we did. For my opponent, I will try to explain why I think he did the things he did.

A couple of points:

1) This report once again shows that an army must have a way to take out targets with cover save. Although in this case the Venomtrope is untargetable inside the bastion, which leads to point nr 2.

For Space Marine to accomplish this, the best way is the Legion. Unfortunately they are more of a suicide team, don't necessarily come in play soon enough and can miss. In short, I don't like them

Next option is to ally in Psykers who get good access to divination. Hello, Tiggy! Also Coteaz could do, but random power generation can be a pain.

2) Must have missed something in the rules, but why does giving Shrouded work from within the Bastion when such powers don't work from within a vehicle? Oversight by GW? No way! My own misinterpretation of the rules?

3) I did not like the army composition to begin with. Not enough Grav and that Achilles was really worthless. Well, all Land Raiders are But the reason for the Achilles was given multiple times.

4) I believe that the new Tyranids, like the old ones, are a bad matchup for elite armies such as Marines.

1. You can't, unless you're Tau or Eldar. You can go for psychic powers to ignore cover, but they just aren't reliable enough to base your strategy off of it.

2. A building act as a vehicle. All special rules cast/used from within a vehicle/building is measured from the base of the structure. The only exception is that you cannot use non-witchfire powers that require LOS from within a building because you cannot draw LOS out of it with anything except witchfire powers.

3. He was just experimenting.

4. Agreed. However, a White Scars list can still give bugs problems. So can drop pod marines.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Are you playing by a house rule where Fast Attack vehicles become Denial units in The Scouring? Because if not that Stormtalon couldn't have contested that objective even if it did get close enough.

Good report, I dislike the whole Venomthrope in a Bastion gimmick, but I can't deny it's effectiveness.

This is actually in the BAO/LVO FAQ's. Many of the larger tournaments in the US also play it this way as well.

In the FAQ, any vehicle unit that is scoring is also a denial unit as well.

 Spellbound wrote:
Facing tyranids a couple times recently, I've come to fear them quite a bit for their shooting.

My cultists, even, have a lot to worry about. Volume of fire from things like dakka tyrants and even a 24" flying crone will give me pause.

I said it before the codex came out - saturation. Sure, that crone might be easy to kill. But what about 2? What about 2 and 2 swooping tyrants? What about 2, 2 swooping tyrants, and oh by the way here's a brood of carnifexes that's death incarnate and a tervigon that's making scoring units?

Can't do it all... good report! Way too much terrain though.

Agreed about everything...except for the terrain part.

 Dezstiny wrote:

@Jy2
I like how you broke down the reasons for why you thought you did what he did and your responses to him holding back. Would you have personally held back or pushed up? I believe I saw an alley way to his left flank that he could have tried flanking around to where had he wanted the carnifexes to come out you would have had to expose at least 2 of the carnifexes to be able to fire all of them... would that probably have been a wiser route? In addition it seemed your tervigon was very much out in the open and nowhere close to the venemthrope to obtain stealth? Finally, would there have been anyway of possibly being able to kill off the venemthrope in your opinion?

I'd probably have taken advantage of his superior mobility. Re-position his bikers to the opposite flank to go after the exocrine + tervigon (like what he did near the end). Then use the Achilles to try to draw the dakkafexes away from the bikers. This way, the bikers only had to deal with the flyrants and exocrine instead of the flyrants, exocrine and dakkafexes.

I made sure to almost always keep my tervigon within 6" of the venomthrope in bastion (the back of his base was almost always in range until I assaulted with him). Moreover, I made sure he was almost always in area terrain. So most likely he would be getting 3+ cover from whatever my opponent threw at him....and FNP as well!

Eldercaveman wrote:

Fikol wrote:
the BLOS terrain that connected the other two was illegal, pieces of terrain have to be 6" from each other that helped you alot

great game nonetheless

Who's told you that?

BRB dont remember the page, but it's where board setup is explained. Im at work so can't give you exact quote and page

there are also other things people tend to disregard like choosing sides prior board setup also you should put ADL before board setup - plain stupid rules but RAW is what it is

Fikol wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

Fikol wrote:
the BLOS terrain that connected the other two was illegal, pieces of terrain have to be 6" from each other that helped you alot

great game nonetheless

Who's told you that?

BRB dont remember the page, but it's where board setup is explained. Im at work so can't give you exact quote and page

there are also other things people tend to disregard like choosing sides prior board setup also you should put ADL before board setup - plain stupid rules but RAW is what it is

You should read the BRB instead of regurgitating what others have told you.
Page 118 shows that you choose table halves before deploying fortifications and before placing terrain.
Page 120 tells you to have Fortifications more than 3" apart. It says not a word about how close it can be to terrain.
It does say that terrain should be more than 3" away from other terrain.

Feel free to start a YMDC thread if you want.

Fikol wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

Fikol wrote:
the BLOS terrain that connected the other two was illegal, pieces of terrain have to be 6" from each other that helped you alot

great game nonetheless

Who's told you that?

BRB dont remember the page, but it's where board setup is explained. Im at work so can't give you exact quote and page

there are also other things people tend to disregard like choosing sides prior board setup also you should put ADL before board setup - plain stupid rules but RAW is what it is

Here, we tend to houserule that you place fortifications after terrain. Just like in most tournaments, you don't get to put fortifications and then move terrain around afterwards. In other words, in a tournament setting, in most cases terrain is placed (or rather, pre-set) before fortifications are placed.

As for placing terrain, just consider it as a houserule. Normally, I don't place terrain that close together, but my opponent wanted to. I had no objections to it so let's just say that we mutually agreed.

Great Batrep as always JY, always a joy to read.
Can you report back on your Taudar game against Reece or face another Top Tier list to see how this performs?

I can potentially see you dropping the Exocrine for perhaps a Hive Crone (which you can hide behind the Bastion if needed or close by for a 3+ jink) or potentially a T'Fex? 2+ T6 6W with a cover save is no joke.

Against anything with a 4+ save..well its just like a walking Helldrake that won't die.

I just wanted to say, that both those armies look really awesome and beautiful paint schemes.

Great write up Jim. Your comments and thoughts about why I made certain decisions during the game are pretty much are spot on.

I had never experienced a shooty tyranid list. So the sheer amount of high strength firepower caught me completely by surprise.
Also, though we had clearly discussed it. I was thinking that the tall black building was impassable terrain. The bugs coming through the building and blasting me was not expected. In hindsight I would have been better off pulling back a bit on turn one, and the moving my army around to the left flank.

As for the list, I wasn't real happy with it going into the game. The Achilles just didn't fit we'll with the rest of the list or my play style. It's out. I usually run a thunder hammer on the CM. Without it he hits like a wet noodle. Playing this game did motivate me to go ahead and get my third bike squad painted for the LVO.
Thanks again for the game Jim. And, for the feedback. I appreciate it.

As to the Venomthrope in the Bastion, correct me if I am wrong but cant you just flame the bastion? I think when you flame a fortification with fire points the unit inside takes d3 or d6 wounds. You don't need to destroy the Bastion since the venomthrope only has a 5+ save and should die to the flame attack.

Get a unit with a Flamer close enough.
I dare you.

I'd love to see some marines valiantly charging forward to flame the Bastion, right into my spiky embrace.

Naw wrote:
Thanks, don't have the codex so could not check. Sounds like another inconsistency introduced by GW. Good for Tyranids, bad for everyone else (- Tau/Eldar)

I'm going to run 4 biker squads, three with gravs and one with melta plus 3 separate MM attack bikes from now on just to tackle buildings.

Is good for Tau to, Storm of Fire gets a huge range increase from a DF, as does the LD bubble.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just did a game against an all bike White Scars list with Khan. Terrain did little to slow either side, but nerffed my assaults a bit. And despite playing Hammer and Anvil we had multiple assaults going Turn one do to both having scouting an infiltrating armies with fast assault elements. at the end of Turn 2 2/3rds of the board was in a assault. Like in Jy2 game, my carnies were solid, and the Exo more smoke than fire, but did a bit of damage.

Thanks for the report! It's nice to see someone trying out the new nid's stuff instead of just whining about it.

So rather then build a new list he kneecapped his existing army to ham-fist in an Achilles?

I say rematch with his standard more practiced list.

The drop podding SW alone screw with your deployment in some massive ways. ass well as dual T-fire canons.

Consider how much your deployment would have to change with that one change. You wouldn't be able to reserve your gribblies as you would need them to screen back the pod from you back field tervigon. The T-fires would easily kill the zoie, now you have what everyone else has issues with, synapse.

I am still cringing from him wasting his t-fire on a carnifex brood...seriously? On multiple turns even.

Edit- Not trying to come across negative or as a dick mind you, just pointing out some self imposed inequities by last minute list changes and poor target priority. I would just like to see a more solid marine army face the bugs. Screw eldar and tau, we know they have busted mechanics, but I think we can look forward to some decent grudge matched between bugs and marines.

Those are some damn fine psychic power rolls. All the good, 0 of the bad.

rigeld2 wrote:
Get a unit with a Flamer close enough.
I dare you.

Actually, he makes a good point. Against a player with deepstriking Heavy Flamer Landspeeders, Flamer assault squads, Hellhounds or Helldrakes, putting him in the bastion would not be a good option. Then again, there's not many places on the board where he would be safe under those circumstances

Would I sacrifice a 90pt 5 man assault man squad to bag one of my opponents key synapse creatures early in the game? Hell yes. I'd call it a good trade too.

But how often do you see those on the table these days? With the exception of the Helldrake and (when the IG codex is out) the Hellhound? Not enough enough to leave the Bastion at home.

 LeadLegion wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
Get a unit with a Flamer close enough.
I dare you.

Actually, he makes a good point. Against a player with deepstriking Heavy Flamer Landspeeders, Flamer assault squads, Hellhounds or Helldrakes, putting him in the bastion would not be a good option. Then again, there's not many places on the board where he would be safe under those circumstances

Would I sacrifice a 90pt 5 man assault man squad to bag one of my opponents key synapse creatures early in the game? Hell yes. I'd call it a good trade too.

But how often do you see those on the table these days? With the exception of the Helldrake and (when the IG codex is out) the Hellhound? Not enough enough to leave the Bastion at home.

To be absolutely fair though the DS options will almost assuredly mishap due to the huge number of models around that bastion. The helldrake is the big problem. Though on the positive moving the helldrake to flame the bastion means the flyrant gets it's butt shots on the helldrake and the tyranid got it's cover saves for that all important first turn alpha strike.

 L0rdF1end wrote:
Great Batrep as always JY, always a joy to read.
Can you report back on your Taudar game against Reece or face another Top Tier list to see how this performs?

I can potentially see you dropping the Exocrine for perhaps a Hive Crone (which you can hide behind the Bastion if needed or close by for a 3+ jink) or potentially a T'Fex? 2+ T6 6W with a cover save is no joke.

Against anything with a 4+ save..well its just like a walking Helldrake that won't die.

Sure. There will definitely be more battles against top-tier armies coming up, and my Tyranid list will also get better as well (after I have the time to acquire/build/paint my new models). Yeah, both the Hive Crone and T-fex are good units. My final list will probably involve multiple Tyranid flyers.

Tsilber wrote:
I just wanted to say, that both those armies look really awesome and beautiful paint schemes.

Thanks!

Zeztuku wrote:
Great write up Jim. Your comments and thoughts about why I made certain decisions during the game are pretty much are spot on.

I had never experienced a shooty tyranid list. So the sheer amount of high strength firepower caught me completely by surprise.
Also, though we had clearly discussed it. I was thinking that the tall black building was impassable terrain. The bugs coming through the building and blasting me was not expected. In hindsight I would have been better off pulling back a bit on turn one, and the moving my army around to the left flank.

As for the list, I wasn't real happy with it going into the game. The Achilles just didn't fit we'll with the rest of the list or my play style. It's out. I usually run a thunder hammer on the CM. Without it he hits like a wet noodle. Playing this game did motivate me to go ahead and get my third bike squad painted for the LVO.
Thanks again for the game Jim. And, for the feedback. I appreciate it.

Thanks John. It was an interesting game, though I did feel that you lacked the experience playing against a monster-heavy Tyranid list.

There seems to be several requests for a Tyranid vs normal White Scars army. Perhaps we can play each other again, but next time with your normal White Scars list sans the Achilles.

DarthDiggler wrote:
As to the Venomthrope in the Bastion, correct me if I am wrong but cant you just flame the bastion? I think when you flame a fortification with fire points the unit inside takes d3 or d6 wounds. You don't need to destroy the Bastion since the venomthrope only has a 5+ save and should die to the flame attack.

Yeah, I suppose you can. But unless you are drop podding a unit with flamers, it won't be so easy getting so close to the bastion, not with my entire army there. At least, not if you want the unit to survive.

Moreover, I don't necessarily have to deploy the venom in the bastion if that is what I think you're going to do.

barnowl wrote:

Naw wrote:
Thanks, don't have the codex so could not check. Sounds like another inconsistency introduced by GW. Good for Tyranids, bad for everyone else (- Tau/Eldar)

I'm going to run 4 biker squads, three with gravs and one with melta plus 3 separate MM attack bikes from now on just to tackle buildings.

Is good for Tau to, Storm of Fire gets a huge range increase from a DF, as does the LD bubble.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just did a game against an all bike White Scars list with Khan. Terrain did little to slow either side, but nerffed my assaults a bit. And despite playing Hammer and Anvil we had multiple assaults going Turn one do to both having scouting an infiltrating armies with fast assault elements. at the end of Turn 2 2/3rds of the board was in a assault. Like in Jy2 game, my carnies were solid, and the Exo more smoke than fire, but did a bit of damage.

I'm curious as to why your White Scars opponent would want to get into assault. Normal biker tactic is to stay 18"-24" away, shoot and then backup until most of the dangerous threats are gone. To get most of them into combat on Turn 2, and especially against Tyranids, is a puzzling move.

rigeld2 wrote:
Get a unit with a Flamer close enough.
I dare you.

Easy a Heldrake.