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Alright Ladies and Gents , I'm not here to start another "debate" or rather moaning thread, rather I'm posting here for everyone to start sharing their play tested thoughts on the new nids, whats working whats not etc. etc. I'm going at least inform you all that I personally think the book was rushed , poorly written and was focused on getting chapter house out of the way. ( If your opinion differs from mine then cool, we will agree to disagree and move on ) I tell you this so that you don't think I'm overly eager to prove a point that the book is viable.

Alright I've got a couple games in so far 1450 points both games, odd number but their were reasons for that and also I was play testing and didn't want to get into bigger games.

At any rate I played Tau Both times, we randomly roll for games terrain etc. etc. Some Details for context- There ended up being a lot of terrain and the first game was the relic., The tau list contained duel riptides with skyfire. My List Had dual Flyrants and Duel Harpys and I feel the Dice Gods were ever in my favor.

When I first saw this book as a Tau and Nid player I saw a book that I figured could crush Tau in battle, In this game I wasn't wrong, the Tau were crushed and bad. This was done by quickly crushing the pathfinders and Firewarriors, easy enough with Harpys firing Large pinning blasts and spore mines and tl-dev flyrants.

Second game was a re-match Big Guns Never tire, this game was closer but still tau fell.

So things I figured out- IB remember that your don't need to pass it if you have gone to ground, it can be key to keeping back field obj. holders around in a pinch.

Harpy- I feel it is grossly underestimated, fragile but underestimated still. Exocrine- hes cool but I wish his range was just a little longer like 30". Tervigon- Still worth taking though obviously not as good and very worth out flanking.

Going first- for nids I think this is going to turn out to be really really important, this turned out to be key in both battles I feel, the second of which I stole the initiative.

Paroxysm- when this thing goes off just right its hilarious ( as long as you're not on the wrong end of it that is) taking a BS3 Riptide and making him minus 3 BS off is just awesome.

Now Honestly I wonder how this book will stack against Eldar and Taudar, or even Space marine grav bike spam honestly I see the latter crushing the nids myself. So fellow players what are you finding that's working for you and whats not? whats your wins and losses?

www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/572843.page

 BlaxicanX wrote:
www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/572843.page

While that thread seems more geared towards building new strategies and debating the worth of units, hence the Tactics section as well that it was placed in, it seems quite different from what the OP was trying to achieve with this thread which was collecting stories of success and personal opinions drawn from playtesting.


I'm going to go ahead and contribute by saying Mawlocs are amazing. Every game. Venomthropes are dependant on your style of list and their mileage will vary, but in the right list their mileage seems to be either "a good amount" or "an insane amount". At worst your opponent is dedicating markerlights or other ignores cover weaponry to knocking out a single 45 pt unit. Tervigon's are hard to tell from play testing and somewhat deceptive, and because they are a fat 6/6/6 MC with gant spawns and a Psychic roll they will always do some damage and take a lot of killing to bring down, which can be hard to gauge against the amount of points you are actually paying for them, and right now I believe they have been tipped over the point of "not worth it". Outflanking with a thorax swarm and kept well away from the Gant unit is probably the best use they saw for me, although it still never felt worth the points.

Yes I was looking for play tested knowledge , not this looks good or I think this could work kinda stuff.

Mawlocs are next on my play test to add to this list, my idea is on turn 2 to have so much stuff in everyones face that they're saturated with targets, so far so good.

SHUPPET, I think what worked for me was now that the termagaunts spawn after movement it was great moving the tervigon on a flank (2/3 chance I come in on the side I wanted) and spawning gaunts and firing away, this added to my tactic of being in my opponents face quickly and adding lots of targets in the back field. however I understand this is a "your mileage may vary" situation based on play style and lists.

However what works on one army doesn't necessarily translate to others ex. Harpys look and in my testing work great against hordes and low armor targets but don't look good against a Biker Spam SM list.

so I was just curious how play testing is going for everyone else. wins/losses/stories/thoughts etc.

I don't have a nids army myself, but from having played several games against the new book (as well as having watched a few more and having spoken to my 'Nid friends), our observations "from the field" are as follows:

Tervigon - Like SHUPPET said, just barely pushed to the "not worth it" side of things. You are almost always better off just bying the unit of gants instead.

Carnifexes - a little better, but still not quite worth the points (even with the reduction).
Exocrine - misses too often to be as reliable as you need it to be and the range is really hurting it.
Mawlocs - are awesome. That is all.

Synapse - that's been the biggest issue. It seems so difficult to get reliable synapse into your forward units and keep it there through the entire game that you almost have to assume you won't have it by the end of turn three (if it even lasts that long). What a lot of the bug players at my FLGS are now looking at is using a few warriors and a 'thrope behind a batsion or aegis line to give some backfield synapse and using some cheap gants/gaunts to deck chair any objectives in the backfield while running as many monstrous creatures dead ahead as possible.

Well I will put my two cents forward as the opposition to Tyranids in two games. I was playing space marines both times. I lost both times. I just couldnt do enough wounds in the game to slow down the force. Both games were relic games, and I found myself unable to get enough shots off.

In one game, two flyrants did a lot of damage, while in the other, I learned my lesson and brought the lone warlord down quickly. I feel that Tyranids stack up well against space marines as they provide far too many targets.

I have won 3 games with the same space marine army and they were against space marines, orks, and necrons. I thought the ork army would be similar to the tyranid force with the swarm, but they actually had less models on the board than the tyranid armies did.

Also, those warriors with the homing shots were pretty brutal. I'm not sure how many points they were, but to just have those guys sit in some cover and fire rending shots at vehicles seems worth it. Or to shoot down a fairly tough unit of bikers or something along those lines.

Also, genestealers seem fairly tough in the melee phase of things, but ultimately I was able to shoot them down and prevent them from really doing as much as they could.

Swarmlord is no longer able to make it across the board with out a heavy investment in tyrant guard. He wasnt a competitive choice in the last codex unless you needed a hq hunter, and now he is worse at that job due to the loss of reroll invuls. I still like bringing him in my all cc lists, but those are meant to be fun anyway.

 Rotary wrote:
Swarmlord is no longer able to make it across the board with out a heavy investment in tyrant guard. He wasnt a competitive choice in the last codex unless you needed a hq hunter, and now he is worse at that job due to the loss of reroll invuls. I still like bringing him in my all cc lists, but those are meant to be fun anyway.

The fact that you are paying so much for 2 more powers on the crappy Nid table that is going to do nothing for you in CC. He is 120 pts more expensive than a naked Hive Tyrant - that's the cost of a Carnifex - it doesn't take a genius to work out wha'ts going to do more damage in combat betrween a Tyrant + Carnifex combo, or the Swarmlord

The Nid player in the Escalations Tourney I play in currently is 4-0. They are pretty scary.

His Mawlock does a large amount of heavy lifting. Against MEQ, TEQ and Blobs the thing is devastating, not to mention that it is a rather good sniper! Those annoying backfield Long Fangs and things of that nature get cleaned up so easily by it.

Give one a go, I'm not even a Nd player but I've seen what it can do.

I've been having the exact opposite experience to what people are saying with the Mawloc. To me, it's blasts are unreliable and easily avoided, it's combat abilities are next to worthless, and each one you take is one more MC your opponent doesn't have to shoot at, decreasing target saturation. Give me an Exocrine over a Mawloc any day.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
I've been having the exact opposite experience to what people are saying with the Mawloc. To me, it's blasts are unreliable and easily avoided, it's combat abilities are next to worthless, and each one you take is one more MC your opponent doesn't have to shoot at, decreasing target saturation. Give me an Exocrine over a Mawloc any day.

Really? The Exocrine to me has been a big disappointment. His gun has got such a relatively short range all things considered, which means he has to move and when he does that he has loses a BS point that is needed and also his not so great leadership means he either needs a baby sitter or has the very real chance of firing at something you don't want it to. That whole new model set is just one big disappointment to me, which is sad cause I really like the new model, I did my Haruspex really nice with lots of drool and everything lol get lots of complements on a model that doesn't see the board

At any rate with the meta not running a lot of armor the Mawloc seems to do plenty of work to me killing troops quickly or even if your opponent runs a lot of armor you can drop them in the backfield and smash attack almost anything open , actually I'm going to order more of them. Team them up with a comms relay ( I'm starting my own Brain Hive comm relay model tomorrow) and they come in reliably.

 BlackArmour wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
I've been having the exact opposite experience to what people are saying with the Mawloc. To me, it's blasts are unreliable and easily avoided, it's combat abilities are next to worthless, and each one you take is one more MC your opponent doesn't have to shoot at, decreasing target saturation. Give me an Exocrine over a Mawloc any day.

Really? The Exocrine to me has been a big disappointment. His gun has got such a relatively short range all things considered, which means he has to move and when he does that he has loses a BS point that is needed and also his not so great leadership means he either needs a baby sitter or has the very real chance of firing at something you don't want it to. That whole new model set is just one big disappointment to me, which is sad cause I really like the new model, I did my Haruspex really nice with lots of drool and everything lol get lots of complements on a model that doesn't see the board

At any rate with the meta not running a lot of armor the Mawloc seems to do plenty of work to me killing troops quickly or even if your opponent runs a lot of armor you can drop them in the backfield and smash attack almost anything open , actually I'm going to order more of them. Team them up with a comms relay ( I'm starting my own Brain Hive comm relay model tomorrow) and they come in reliably.

YMMV, but I think the Exocrine is like a tougher Vindicator. Turn 1, move and run him straight up the middle and starting turn 2 you threaten the majority of the board. BS3/4 doesn't change much on a blast.

There has been multiple times where my brothers mawloc has come from reserves and wiped out entire squads

Plus you can use Onslaught to extend its range and catch your opponent off guard.

I have had good succes running 2 Hive tyrants with 3 tyrant guards each and the reaper of oblitrax and a lash whip bonesword. they get into combat they walk out of it. even against taudar they get there and eat riptides. its a pretty penny in points but they are hella usefull. 30 devourer hormagaunts are also crazy good shooting at just about anything.

 Sparkadia wrote:

His Mawlock does a large amount of heavy lifting. Against MEQ, TEQ and Blobs the thing is devastating, not to mention that it is a rather good sniper! Those annoying backfield Long Fangs and things of that nature get cleaned up so easily by it.

Until your opponent grows a brain and put the Longfangs up a ruin.

 N.I.B. wrote:

 Sparkadia wrote:

His Mawlock does a large amount of heavy lifting. Against MEQ, TEQ and Blobs the thing is devastating, not to mention that it is a rather good sniper! Those annoying backfield Long Fangs and things of that nature get cleaned up so easily by it.

Until your opponent grows a brain and put the Longfangs up a ruin.

This is one of the biggest reasons I don't rate Mawlocs.

 PrinceRaven wrote:

 N.I.B. wrote:

 Sparkadia wrote:

His Mawlock does a large amount of heavy lifting. Against MEQ, TEQ and Blobs the thing is devastating, not to mention that it is a rather good sniper! Those annoying backfield Long Fangs and things of that nature get cleaned up so easily by it.

Until your opponent grows a brain and put the Longfangs up a ruin.

This is one of the biggest reasons I don't rate Mawlocs.

I am surprised I still see people talking about lictor/mawloc. I don't get why this easily avoidable combo has so many people so excited. Hell, you don't even need to move everything outside the 6 inch range, just have some cheap bait unit there.

Because for the low low price of 400 points you can field Deathleaper's Assassin Brood and flood the field with so many easy kills your opponent won't be able to get rid of all of them?
Then you pay 360 points for 3 Mawlocs, and when they all come in you can kill maybe 300 points of your opponent's guys! (provided they don't just put all their guys in ruins) It's brilliant!

Apparently I don't know all the rules about mawlocs. What is so special about ruins?

You can't deepstrike above the ground floor in a ruin. So the large blast would only hit the ground floor.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
I've been having the exact opposite experience to what people are saying with the Mawloc. To me, it's blasts are unreliable and easily avoided, it's combat abilities are next to worthless, and each one you take is one more MC your opponent doesn't have to shoot at, decreasing target saturation. Give me an Exocrine over a Mawloc any day.

Same here. I purged all Mawlocs from my list after some five games. They were utterly useless after my opponents learnt what they should do with them. The Exocrine is pretty darn awesome though. Especially with a brood of 3 Dakkafexes.

To OP:
I won't say this to break your soul or anything, but with high terrain density and good rolls even the Sisters can beat Tau. Also it looks like your opponent wasn't keen on target priority and/or generally didn't know his ways around Tyranids at all. Over here in my gaming club no Tyranid army has managed to beat the Tau yet. Even the triple-Vespids joke list was good enough for a draw .

 AtoMaki wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
I've been having the exact opposite experience to what people are saying with the Mawloc. To me, it's blasts are unreliable and easily avoided, it's combat abilities are next to worthless, and each one you take is one more MC your opponent doesn't have to shoot at, decreasing target saturation. Give me an Exocrine over a Mawloc any day.

Same here. I purged all Mawlocs from my list after some five games. They were utterly useless after my opponents learnt what they should do with them. The Exocrine is pretty darn awesome though. Especially with a brood of 3 Dakkafexes.

To OP:
I won't say this to break your soul or anything, but with high terrain density and good rolls even the Sisters can beat Tau. Also it looks like your opponent wasn't keen on target priority and/or generally didn't know his ways around Tyranids at all. Over here in my gaming club no Tyranid army has managed to beat the Tau yet. Even the triple-Vespids joke list was good enough for a draw .

Not disagreeing at all about the terrain density, which is why I put those details up, although I could easily argue that low terrain density could present a big issue to for tau against Nids as well, being that nids can now field a large amount of ap4+ large blast. however I would suggest if someone knew they were facing tau that they bring Harpys + Biovores and exocrine. add in a couple of dakka flyrants and thats not an easy match for Tau even with target priority that's a lot of targets to take down quickly.

Also in those match ups it helped that I'm also an avid tau player and didn't get caught in the "take out the Riptide" trap.

I think Mawloc's are better than you guys are giving them credit for... being someone who ran Trygons in the last dex, these things are definitely worth keeping.

3 Mawlocs costs just over 2 Trygons... they have 15 attacks on the charge instead 16... 3 WS instead of 5 and yes they don't get to re-roll 1's anymore like trygons in the last book,...

this is the trade off you get for 6 extra wounds, 2 more attacks when smashing, up to two S6 AP2 blasts per landing, Hit and Run!, the ability to reburrow a low health one to safety, and a much lower chance of mishap. If there is no target because your opponent put the long fang in the ruins, well then, he put the long fang in the ruins when he wouldn't have otherwise and you messed with his positioning. I'm sure you will find SOME use for a S6 AP2 blast, if not, no harm done.

Call me crazy but that sounds like a good unit to me. It's extremely versatile, cheap, and tanky. 3 Mawloc's have more anti-tank than 2 Trygons... No WS 5 and no re-rolls on 1's? Fine by me I personally prefer my WS 3 + Blasts for dealing with infantry.

I think they should be taken in all 3 to be most effective though. Which may affect your list negatively (doesn't really matter to me at 1500 points I can barely cram em in)

You're comparing Mawlocs to another unit that doesn't make the cut for me. Mawlocs are a decent unit, they're just not worth fielding over Biovores, Carnifices, an Exocrine or a Tyrannofex.

Personally I prefer 3 biovores and 2 exocrines for my heavys.

I used to prefer mawlocs but as soon as an enemy know how to play against them they become useless. They can position there models so that you will either only get one large blast off on them of you wont hit them at all since they will be on upper levels or in transports. Sure you made them reposition their units but was it really worth the amount of points you paid when an exocrine or biovore can deliver large blasts as well except they are doing it consistently from t1 and can target more than just the bottom levels (the biovores only get the top level).

Shuppet, your argument would make sense, if people were saying Trygons are better. However people have stopped running Trygons as well.

The problem with Mawlocs is they are poor performers outside of the blast, and unreliable performers with the blast. It's great for taking out infantry. But nids already have a bajillion ways to do that. It sucks for taking out anything with an invul save, which is most things you would want to hit. Both because it will unreliably "hit" them, and because it doesn't do enough wounds.

After it hits, you are left with dakkafex melee stats vs most units and no shooting attacks, or you are disappearing to only attack 3ish times in one game, if you live long enough and the game goes on long enough, if you are lucky you might get another one.

There are just better, more reliable choices in the slot. I would rather take a TFex, Dakkafex or Biovores in that slot. At least they can perform every turn.

Forcing your opponent to "mess up" his deployment by having the long fangs in upper levels in ruins does nothing. There is no lost opportunity cost to him. It even protects them from your mawloc in melee.

Mawlocs are a red herring.

I'm comparing them to Trygon's in 5th FYI (not saying this changes your opinion or anything just clarifying). Current Trygon's obviously do not make the cut for anybody I would think. In 5E Trygon's would sometimes for me. And this was a dex that I could take a bunch of Tervigon's, Doom / Zoantrhopes and a bunch of other gak in pods, so points were much tighter. They were just that badass. And I think Mawloc's are pretty comparable.

Of course, if you didn't like Trygon's in 5E, you won't like Mawloc's now. Different playstyle's I guess. I think running Mawloc's is for a very specific build, you don't just chuck one in the Heavy slot like you can an Exocrine or Tyrannofex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JPong wrote:
Shuppet, your argument would make sense, if people were saying Trygons are better. However people have stopped running Trygons as well.

So being that I'm quite clearly comparing it to the Trygon's from last book that were still taken, then I guess my argument goes back to making sense again?

I dunno, I ran 2 Trygons in every game I played with the 5th codex. I wouldn't touch them now. Not so much because they are terrible in comparison to what they were, but just everything else got better. I still don't like Mawlocs because of their reliability, and overall worthlessness compared to the other stuff in the heavy support slot now.

What exactly is it that 2 Trygon's did for you guys in the past that Mawloc's won't do for you now? Without mentioning "reliability" because thats pretty debatable either way, with 3 mawlocs having 6 extra wounds than 2 Trygons (for the same price) and being how relevant that was to deepstriking Trygon's, as almost always one got shotdown before making it to combat (in my experience).