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In this video, Reecius and the Architect have a fun game using Imperial Guard with a Baneblade vs. Imperial Fists with a Knight Titan!

Nice tight game there Reece! It was too bad Lysander failed two charges to reach that Baneblade because he would have easily pummeled it and possibly swung the game in his favor. I am really enjoying these batreps with the Knights because I don't think in my local area I will get to see or play against them so if they do make the tounrament scene I will at least have an idea as to what they can do. Also do you guys plan on running a batrep with the Skyblight Tyranid Formation? If so I am really looking forward to see what those interesting rules can do. Thanks Reece!

Yeah, the Knights are fine, dude. Very powerful, as they should be for the points, but not OP, IMO. I think they are pretty fun to use!

And yeah, that stunk, Lysander flubbing cost Steve the game. He would have smacked the baneblade around quite easily. He may have even destroyed it.

And yeah, we will try the Skyblight Formation, but man, that thing looks SAVAGE to me, maybe too good. We tried Living Artillery tonight and it is absolutely brutal.

Skyblight has catapulted Tyranids into an upper-tier tournament army. It's just too much for most armies to handle.

Good game. I felt that the IF were a slight underdog in this game. They just didn't have enough to deal with all the armor on the IG army.

Also, it would have been better had the IF ignored shooting with his Knight and LR and instead, ran and moved flat-out with them.

Yeah, the Skyblight Formation is nuts, I fear it may actually be a bit too much. We are going to try it out, soon.

And yeah, with all of the powerful assault assets, the IF would have been better off bum rushing me and smacking me around in assault.

 Reecius wrote:
Yeah, the Skyblight Formation is nuts, I fear it may actually be a bit too much. We are going to try it out, soon.

And yeah, with all of the powerful assault assets, the IF would have been better off bum rushing me and smacking me around in assault.

Yeah, they could have gotten rid of that "cannot contest the gargoyles with a scoring unit" nonsense. That made it too much. I'm already damn happy with the extra out-of-FOC flyers and scoring jump infantry which can regenerate on a 4+, but now you can't contest them as well?


BTW, wanna get a game in this Friday?

Thanks for the batrep very nice. I think the current rules are okay but if they get the facebook scoring treatment it might change things.

So Jy2 you think you will bring the skyblight? Either way looking forward to the batrep(s).

I don't mind testing it out....but that will probably require some proxies. I've got 1 hive crone. Will probably have to borrow 2 harpies + 1 hive crone or proxy them to run the battle.

It would be interesting to see how this formation would do against their arch-nemesis and one of their worst matchups.....DE venom-spam! That is, if Frankie is around.

Well the beauty of the thing is is that, with the exit poll, you now have the ability to restrict certain things from the formations. So if you find out that Gargoyles not being able to be contested is a little too OP then you can just remove that part. Even without that we still have a golden formation. From just what I have read and thought through I don't really see this as all that bad of a thing. It really hard counters Eldar Jetbikes and Necrons being able to drop units onto objectives last turn. I think it would be great for the meta imho. I may be a little biased as I just went and bought three boxes of Gargoyles.

jy2 wrote:I don't mind testing it out....but that will probably require some proxies. I've got 1 hive crone. Will probably have to borrow 2 harpies + 1 hive crone or proxy them to run the battle.

It would be interesting to see how this formation would do against their arch-nemesis and one of their worst matchups.....DE venom-spam! That is, if Frankie is around.

I don't think proxying crones and harpies is an issue...in fact I thought the crone model was a clear space above a flying base. (JK)

Frankie would be very interesting.

If you want to make it a internet fire storm you could make it a revenant vs 3 flyrants and 3 crones. With the recycling gargoyles and a shield generator to protect the TMC turn 1 it could actually be a reasonable game.

So what happens if both players have gargs from that formation and are both on an objective ?

 Dozer Blades wrote:
So what happens if both players have gargs from that formation and are both on an objective ?

Ding ding ding!

It's a wash. Either they both score or they both deny.

Unfortunate game for the Knight, I felt he used him a bit too aggressively or should have taken better advantage of its 12 inch movement to hide from the giant IG guns

@Jim

Yeah, come by! That would be fun. InControl is coming by, too.

I think the potentially 9 FMCs is the harsh part. That is so devastatingly brutal.

We tried Living Artillery, it is extremely good, too.

If two Gargs with that formation are on an objective I would say the probably both score the objective, by RAW, which would be a wash. However, unless the squads are really small that is unlikely as they can spread out to deny the other unit room to come within 3"

Hey Reece, tell Geoff that I'd like to play against him using the Skyblight formation. I'll bring my necrons and we can practice for Adepticon 1850. He can use some of my Tyranid models (I'll bring them).

We'll see how hardcore Skyblight nids are. If they can beat my crons, then they're top-tier material.

Yeah, for sure! I have a Crone and 2 Flyrants, myself. We could probably field the entire 9 FMC list between us.

Excellent! It's going to be a good battle. We'll see who is superior - Wraithwing CronAir or Flight of the TMC's.

To be fair wraithwing may just be the worst matchup for skyblight. They have enough shooting to put flyers on the ground with speed to keep away long enough to make a difference and assault to take them out. Where as if you look at seer council, beastpack, centurionstar, even shooty taudar you just won't have enough shooting to kill the FMCS in time IMO.

Edit: all this adepticon talk has me juiced for my first time there! Hopefully I'll get to meet some of you guys and maybe play a game.

Skyblight is broken. If I bring a 300 point maxed-out unit of gargs and you kill it, I get 300 points free. I am incentivized to take a huge squad and hurl it at you so that you have to kill it so I win by attrition. I am incentivized to bring three huge squads because the more I buy, the larger my force multiplier. On simple math it is unfair. The no-contesting rule is icing on the ban cake.

It is worse than 2+ rerollable. Can't be killed, can't be contested, makes your army get bigger as the game goes on.

BTW reece have you seen the new knights codex rules? I am really curious what a 3++ ion shield warlord knight, scoring knights, and 4 knights with allies for rest of the pts would do to the meta (perhaps footdar since you haven't used them much recently). I have a feeling that it will be good but a win big loose big strategy that will have a hard time balancing against a full tournament gauntlet.

The skyblight is definitely great. Though in some of the more nasty deathstar builds it would be more a matter of who can kill the other's scoring off. Those gargoyles in many ways are the real star of the formation. Respawning, scoring, jump infantry that cannot be contested, wow.

@Jy2

It will be fun!

@Chance

Yeah man, come by and say hi!

@Slaede

You may be right. But, don't forget they may not come back. Also, you can choose not to kill all of them until the last turn, too, to deny them the ability to respawn.

There are lots of tricks to get around it, but I agree, this Formation flirts with OP. We need to try it out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ansacs

I think the Nids would kill the stars due to shadows. One turn to stop key powers, then pounce and it's a wrap.

But yeah, the Knights en masse look crazy, we haven't gotten to try it yet, though. I agree with you that they will be an all or nothing army. They either win because the other guy can't deal with it, or they get stomped because he or she can. I think that makes for a poor tournament army because if you draw your counter you lose, but if you play someone that can't counter you, they lose big and have no fun in the process.

We will see, though.

 Reecius wrote:
@Jy2

@Slaede

You may be right. But, don't forget they may not come back. Also, you can choose not to kill all of them until the last turn, too, to deny them the ability to respawn.

There are lots of tricks to get around it, but I agree, this Formation flirts with OP. We need to try it out.

Flirts? My incentive is to send 90 Gargs with poisoned attacks and furious charge/fleet at you so I can hurt anything besides AV11. Every shot you send at the Gargs is wasted because if you wipe them out, I get them all back. If you don't, they can go score an objective and you can't contest. If you don't shoot at them, they will wipe you out.

When you test it, test it against big squads. Three of ten isn't how you abuse this.

I think the most powerful knight build will be the 3 knights as primary with IG allies to provide the 1st turn bubble wrap, AA, and long range firepower. Perhaps with a coteaz to prevent DS melta. Interestingly enough there are a large number of popular builds which will perform well against the knights. So if someone is going to bring this they are probably not intending to win it all against jetseer star, O'Vesa star, and Eldau (probably with firebase rather than actual Tau). Also I could see an interesting build using strike squads in psybacks to block DS from being able to bother the knights and to deal with the CC threates the knights are not great against (ironically TAC squads and CSM with hidden IC...lol)

I am not entirely convinced it will easy to keep the seerstar pinned down in SitW range with 3 SitW FMC. If they land they are dead. Still the Tyranid player definitely has a very solid shot at it. I just am not convinced it is anything near a blow out.

BTW the gargs only respawn on a 4+. They are good but they cannot stand up to a real war of attrition against Tau or eldar level firepower and vehicle hulls (eldar). Either of those armies can wipe them out until they stop respawning if you don't protect them. They are a great distraction though while your TMC get to work and they give some great mobile scoring that the nids sorely lacked.

Chancetragedy wrote:
To be fair wraithwing may just be the worst matchup for skyblight. They have enough shooting to put flyers on the ground with speed to keep away long enough to make a difference and assault to take them out. Where as if you look at seer council, beastpack, centurionstar, even shooty taudar you just won't have enough shooting to kill the FMCS in time IMO.

Edit: all this adepticon talk has me juiced for my first time there! Hopefully I'll get to meet some of you guys and maybe play a game.

This will be my 1st time at Adepticon as well! Come say hi!

I normally use my wraithwing crons as a benchmark to test other competitive army builds, as they are definitely a top-tier army that wins tourneys. If you can beat them (my wraithwing), then you've got what it takes to win a tournament.

slaede wrote:
Skyblight is broken. If I bring a 300 point maxed-out unit of gargs and you kill it, I get 300 points free. I am incentivized to take a huge squad and hurl it at you so that you have to kill it so I win by attrition. I am incentivized to bring three huge squads because the more I buy, the larger my force multiplier. On simple math it is unfair. The no-contesting rule is icing on the ban cake.

It is worse than 2+ rerollable. Can't be killed, can't be contested, makes your army get bigger as the game goes on.

I used to run Endless Swarm tyranids when I played Apoc before the new edition came out and I can tell you that there are ways to get around them. As Reece said, don't kill off the units. Shoot them until there is only a few left and then ignore them untils Turn 4 or 5, after which you can finish them off.

Also, they come back on a 4+, meaning on a 1-3, they die permanently. They're just like my Destroyer Lords with Res Orbs.

Finally, objective placement is important. Don't place the objectives too close their the Tyranid players board edge.

slaede wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
@Jy2

@Slaede

You may be right. But, don't forget they may not come back. Also, you can choose not to kill all of them until the last turn, too, to deny them the ability to respawn.

There are lots of tricks to get around it, but I agree, this Formation flirts with OP. We need to try it out.

Flirts? My incentive is to send 90 Gargs with poisoned attacks and furious charge/fleet at you so I can hurt anything besides AV11. Every shot you send at the Gargs is wasted because if you wipe them out, I get them all back. If you don't, they can go score an objective and you can't contest. If you don't shoot at them, they will wipe you out.

When you test it, test it against big squads. Three of ten isn't how you abuse this.

That's 900-pts you're talking about there. Unless you're playing really large games (i.e. 2250+ games), that configuration isn't practical.

With that many points invested in gargoyles, just kill off the synapses and the gargoyles will then be hard to control.

slaede wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
@Jy2

@Slaede

You may be right. But, don't forget they may not come back. Also, you can choose not to kill all of them until the last turn, too, to deny them the ability to respawn.

There are lots of tricks to get around it, but I agree, this Formation flirts with OP. We need to try it out.

Flirts? My incentive is to send 90 Gargs with poisoned attacks and furious charge/fleet at you so I can hurt anything besides AV11. Every shot you send at the Gargs is wasted because if you wipe them out, I get them all back. If you don't, they can go score an objective and you can't contest. If you don't shoot at them, they will wipe you out.

When you test it, test it against big squads. Three of ten isn't how you abuse this.

Then you do what everyone has done in the last million years since Tyranids have been around....take out the Synapse! Thats an expensive unit to be sitting around doing nothing when they fail their IB checks. Also Reece have you considered running two Dakka Flyrants and a Deathleaper to further harass those psychic heavy deathstars? I think it's a worthy choice now that you can still have two dakka flyrants.

I missed the return on a 4+ detail, but just the same, the ability to have 300 points added to your army for free is OP. Not killing the unit until late in the game doesn't necessarily work because if you deep strike the units, they can re-DS from ongoing reserve, then run (with fleet) to an objective.

Yeah, they don't auto-come back, people keep missing that. It's on a 4+

And 90 Gargs doesn't work very well on the table, you literally run out of space to deploy.

Lastly, I only have 30 myself, and have absolutely no desire to build and paint 60 more. They are a pain in the ass to make and play with as they get caught on everything. Plus, they aren't that great at shooting or assault, honestly. I feel you are overestimating the impact of them.

Again, I think the potentially 9 FMCs are much, much worse.

The gargoyles are worse than any dark eldar I've put together ;p. I helped a friend build/magnetize 40 of them and they were attrocious.

Since I don't have the dataslate, what's the opportunity to get the gargs back? Just a one time 4+ or once per turn till you get them back?

slaede wrote:
I missed the return on a 4+ detail, but just the same, the ability to have 300 points added to your army for free is OP. Not killing the unit until late in the game doesn't necessarily work because if you deep strike the units, they can re-DS from ongoing reserve, then run (with fleet) to an objective.

If you deploy them on the table, then I don't believe you can DS them when they return. If you DS them to begin with, then there's the risk they may come in later anyways. Plus, with such a large footprint, there's always the risk of mishap, especially if you're trying to DS to within running distance on an objective that has a unit on it already.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chancetragedy wrote:
The gargoyles are worse than any dark eldar I've put together ;p. I helped a friend build/magnetize 40 of them and they were attrocious.

Since I don't have the dataslate, what's the opportunity to get the gargs back? Just a one time 4+ or once per turn till you get them back?

As long as they die, then they can always come back on a 4+. However, if they fail their 4+, then they are gone forever.

Just think of them as Necrons with a Res Orb. As long as they come back, then they can keep coming back. But once they're dead, then they're gone for good.