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Just wanted to hear some thoughts on what people believe is the most powerful composition for tyranid armies considering the BAO/NOVA style rebalancing of 7th. Playing 7th according to the straight BRB is open to far too much abuse, so my group will curb nonsense by following the aforementioned respected tournament guidelines.

So, what do you all think? 1 FOC + living artillery? 1 FOC + skyblight? 1 FOC + 1 CAD?

Living Artillery.

Do not listen to the "hurt durr Skyblight the list builds itself and let's you spam FMCs" crowd. Skyblight was alright in 6th when Deepstriking Obj secured was unique, FMCs could assault without making themselves vulnerable for a turn, and Hive Crone was actually worth it's points in Vektor Strike. Which also hurts the Harpy too obviously.

The points you save by not taking overcosted is going to be much better than respawning half your FULLY dead Obj Secured 90 pt garg squads. Now you can take 2x OBJ secured deepstriking Rippers for the same price as a 15 man Garg unit, who don't even need Synapse to hold their ground.

7th also gave us an amazing tool - Master of Ambush warlord trait, and a re-roll for it. Infiltrating our MCs is amazing, we are an 18" threat range army. Dumping a BS4 TL pinning Exocrine blast turn 1, with 4 Dakkafexes and 2 Flyrants unloading 72x TL S6 shots, and what Biovore/Warrior blasts you are packing, is 1 hell of an alpha strike. Rolling that trait has been nothing short of an autowin for me every game. Even infiltrating Tyrannofexes or 30x Devilgants, you should take 3 units at least to play to this trait, benefits us more than anybody.

Solo Zoanthropes are 50 pt rolls for Onslaught +2 WC, being able to run and shoot is the next best thing to Infiltrate, it pushes a Fex into dakka range of anything on the close edge of their DZ as well. Backfield Synapse, chance at Catalyst, it's all love here. Only reason I don't take 3 is so I can take a Venomthrope.

I'd also like to emphasise Carnifexes in numbers, smash is now really bad and we have little board control against vehicles without Fexes they have a lot of freedom they otherwise wouldn't.

Living artillery is and has been our best option for an attachment. 3 TL Pinning Blasts, the tools between Exocrine and Biovores to deal with anything in the ruins. Biovores ace pathfinders, Exocrine forces Centurions to take their cover save. This is also great support for a Mawloc who is the most cost effective model in the dex (but can't hit units in Ruins).

You build around Living Artillery, you'll do well.

Thanks, SHUPPET. You've given me some good advice, as usual. I'm thinking 1 FOC and the extra slots from combined arms is actually better than than using the LA formation. Thoughts? Definitely love solo zoans. Reroll to warlord trait from CAD is icing on that cake. I also agree with carnifexen in 2's.

Either way, looks like I have to order an exocrine and a fex, rather than 2 harpies and a crone. Working on painting 3 fexs and 2 mawlocs at the moment.

What stops the mawloc from hitting in ruins now?

Fragile wrote:
What stops the mawloc from hitting in ruins now?

It can only hit the lower level, but as far as I can tell that's all that stops it.

 AesSedai wrote:
Just wanted to hear some thoughts on what people believe is the most powerful composition for tyranid armies considering the BAO/NOVA style rebalancing of 7th. Playing 7th according to the straight BRB is open to far too much abuse, so my group will curb nonsense by following the aforementioned respected tournament guidelines.

So, what do you all think? 1 FOC + living artillery? 1 FOC + skyblight? 1 FOC + 1 CAD?

Skyblight is a hard counter to many other lists. It deals well with Flyers, Mech (well for Tyranids), and Hoards. It deals with Tyranid problems with mobile scoring. It has more trouble with MCs and elite infantry, and hard counters for it exist as well.

Living artillery is less polarized. It does well against a lot of things, but doesn't dominate them in the way Skyblight does. It still has hard counters, but fewer. I prefer living artillery, I think it is more fun, and more balanced. You'd probably win more games with Skyblight.

I would add that the best unit in the Tyranid codex by a mile is the Flying Hive Tyrant with 2 TL-Devourers (and possibly a Thorax weapon). The more I play 7th, the more I realized how much better it has gotten. No matter which of the options you choose, maximizing your Dakka Flyrants is usually the best choice. Crones are ok, but their best function is to support and draw fire away from Hive Tyrants. Dakkafexes didn't see the nerfs to the other MC's in 7th, but they have mobility problems. Venoms and Zoeys are good support units, but the core of a top tier Tyranid list is the Dakka Flyrants.

Allies: What? Yeah. Allies.

Tyranids with Knight allies. Aka, TyraKnights.

Adding a single Knight Errant to your Tyranid list makes a huge difference. Basically, just give him a flank and put all your fastest flying gribblies on the other side. His gun gives Tyranid long-range Ap. 2, that also punks tanks and Instant Deaths toughness 4. It basically is better than an Exocrine in every way. It also is mega tough and is great at drawing anti tank fire away from our more fragile units. He does need a little room to work due to "Come the Apocalypse", which is fine as you don't want anything too close to him in case he explodes. As an assault unit it is fast enough to keep up and can seriously mess up tanks, bastions, and everything. It basically fills all of the holes that Tyranids can't deal with, and will be allowed almost everywhere. Also, this is probably our fluffiest ally after Guard, because of House Mortimer, a Rogue Trader era Knight House that was suspected of Genestealer Activity, and used a Tyranid as its house shield.

That's not to say that the Formations aren't good, both Skyblight and Living Artillery are amazing. I personally prefer the Skyblight, but I am still a big fan of Crones, and have used both to good success.

Dual CAD probably opens up more options, where I play its a no. I'm hesitant on it because we have so many ways to skirt the FOC and be rewarded with buffs from it.But it will allow a lot of cool stuff so yeah CAD will work well especially since it lets you take your multiple Mawlocs on top of Fed Broods and Exocrine Mawlocs are so good that this is an excellent reason to CAD imo


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Xyptc wrote:

Fragile wrote:
What stops the mawloc from hitting in ruins now?

It can only hit the lower level, but as far as I can tell that's all that stops it.

Yeah I'm referring to the fact that a good player, or even a bad one after a couple of games, will hide his important infantry like Cents Pathfinders and Oblits, in the top floor of the ruin. Even if he can't fit all his pathfinders upstairs he knows at the very least he's forcing a 140 pts mishap if you choose to take it

Thanks for the replies, guys. Jifel, most restricted settings dont allow come the apocalypse allies and neither does my group. It cuts down some of the ugliness, imo.

It seems skyblight has a good deal of support. I was hoping to avoid having to buy a ton of models, but building for skyblight requires I buy 3 fliers, a third flyrant, and 10-20 more gargs whereas a ground force requires only another carnifex and one or two exocrines. Really wish the two best builds weren't polar opposites.

Don't get me wrong either, Skyblight isn't terrible, I am just saying ignore advice that says its your only option, or even the strongest, because it's neither. It's also kinda cheesy in the sense that your group after a game or two will know that if they take a gakload of anti-air, you are going to have a hard time with FMC's getting torn out of the sky, or just being overcosted jump units. And that's assuming they are taking Skyfire without Interceptor.

If you can take dual CAD's however, there is absolutely no purpose to take Skyblight formation, you can make a much nicer "Skyblight-esque" list. Harpys are actually not really much better at killing infantry than Crones are (worse in a lot of situations) and do much worse at killing tanks, you can swap them out for the better model.

At 1850 pts you can take 4 Flyrants, 4 Crones, 4 units of Deepstriking OS Rippers, and a Venomthrope. This will be much stronger than any actual Skyblight detachment, the only thing its offering is 3 units of OS Gargs, one of which will respawn. Nah, 2 squads of Rippers for the same price of each >>

Drop a Flyrant and you can take 2 Mawloc's as well.

I've always done well with TL-Devourers, Stranglethorn Cannons, and Venomthropes. I often attach a Prime to the Venomthrope, to avoid the FB situation - and generally I use one Tervigon with a block of Gants to provide cover to the whole mess. I've used as many as 4 Dakkafexes and 2 Dakkatyrants; most people have a hard time dealing with it. Biovores have performed pretty well for me but don't do anything meaningful to Marines - and those are quite common around here. But Tau - they mangle Tau.

If you want to prevent veno first blood, you can stick it in a bastion. Increases its aura range and lets you hide your biovores out of line of sight.

Tripple dakkafexes are awesome, so many shots is bound to do something and they are still none too shabby in melee.

just don't buy any genestealers.

Biovores aren't useless vs Marines as Living Artillery Biovores still kills 2 -3 Marines out of a 5 man squad, without needing line of sight. Compare it to 120 pts of Devilgants who kill p much the same amount as Biovores through weight of fire at 18" instead of 48" and probably need 15 more meatshield Gants. Biovores are still really cost effective anti-infantry even though their effectiveNess drops off at Power Armor, especially when you consider they are shooting from first turn, and are our 48" in an 18" army. Should always have at least one squad. Their effectiveness is crazy effecient vs GEQ of all types, and PUNISHES Pathfinders and ignores cover like ruins. Marine heavy meta or not, they aren't wasted points in that match-up at all and win you other ones.

Don't get me wrong, they're in almost all of my lists. Biovores are great, I just have terrible luck with them in 2/3 of my games. They make up for it in the third, though!