Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Guided hornets work well but in order to be effective you'd need 9-12 of them against a list like this.

The problem with burst tides is it's 750+ points since you need either stim injectors or ECPA to get off the nova safely and aside from this and a few other list, it's pretty useless as a TAC. 3 Sky rays on the other hand could take this list to town.

Pony_law wrote:
So how does pentyrant deal with a landraider or 2?

Easily kills 1 landraider a turn (all of the flyrants have a haywire flamer). Most likely just ignore them for a turn or two and kill everything else. 2 Land Raiders are a good way to lose most missions.

Pony_law wrote:
How does it deal with triple burst tides?

If the Burst tides have skyfire, then it would be rough. As long as the burst tides don't have marker light support you are ok. As mentioned, Skyrays are a much, much more threatening unit. A single skyray can essentially kill a flyrant a turn. Best bet is to get first turn, and then force them to jink. Tau certainly have excellent options to list tailor against 5 Flyrants.

Pony_law wrote:
how does it deal with add lance with AM for anti air?

Well, the anti-air is generally going to die on turn 1. From that point on, it will be 1 Knight dead per turn. Flyrants are very effective at killing Knights. I would generally expect a complete tabling.

If you are looking for a counter, Centstar can kill a flyrant a turn while taking basically no damage in return. The flyrants will kill whatever came with the Centstar, but might take enough damage and get tabled. The only real answer the list has to Centstar is the Mawloc which is a great answer, but it still has to hit.

Pony_law wrote:
Basically, how do you handle any army that is capable of surviving your shooting (which in theory should be a few) and only has to murder your squishy troops on turn 4 and five and win the game?.

The Flyrants all land and score on turn 5. So the bigger fear is when you land them on 5, that you opponent will have enough left to kill them if the game goes on to 6.

Also this list is usually going to lose in maelstrom games. Very few people play Maelstrom competitively, but

The list can be beat but you've got to know what you're doing and there has to be a fair amount of LoS blocking terrain. Forget about the psychic phase versus five Flyrants. I think Necrons could give it a run for the money.

GT Winner with a list like that and tactics like that? I beg to differ! 5 flyrant list is solid, already preping my list to deal with such a threat :p -inserts 3 skyrays into tau list -

No one said its not solid - anything can be beat though .

It can be beat. But the problem is, how well would the counter list fair against other tournament-level lists?

Hey Jy2, I had a question about list building. How would you field this same style of list in an event that limits detachments to two (so no room for a fortification detachment) and outlaws the Void Shield Generator? Would it still be able to work or should I start working on a different list?

 Happyjew wrote:
It can be beat. But the problem is, how well would the counter list fair against other tournament-level lists?

This. 5 Tyrants is a good TAC list. Most things that can reliably deal with 5 tyrants isn't.

Greentide, Venom spam, Centurion star, Marine flood, and Flier-Crons are the only real TAC lists I can think of that have a chance to hang with 5 flyrants. On the upside Serpent spam will get demolished by it, so maybe we'll see a decline there.

*Edit*
DE airforce with Venom spam actually would probably work this list hard as well. I don't play it (reaverstar all the way), but on paper it's a rock solid build. Could easily put 7 flyers on the table with Eldar allies (autarch for reserve manipulation), and a boat load of venoms spamming poison/blasters.

With regards to talons in reserves, Grant started them on the table for several reasons:

1. He needed to burst though my Void Shields and he couldn't have done it without the firepower of his talons. His best shot at killing my flyrants was to take out all my void shields and then to shoot at my flyrants with the Lynx. If he hadn't of done that, his Lynx would basically be near useless the entire game as my flyrants take to the air. It was a calculated gamble and IMO, it was also his best chance for a victory. When you are in a bad matchup, oftentimes, it's better to take the gamble.

2. Had he started off his talons in reserves, I would have just gone after his 2 wave serpents. By doing so, I would have taken away his ability to score the Maelstrom secondary objectives and most likely, to score any objectives at the end of the game.

3. Or I could have flown my flyrants off the table, wait until his talons come in, and then beta-struck the heck out of them.

4. As Dash mentioned, I could have just moved my flyrants within VS and malanthrope range. Now I most likely wouldn't have done this, but it was an option I could have considered.

5. Without a way to manipulate reserves, there's always the chance that some of his talons didn't come in. Playing against pentyrants with a piecemeal army is very bad, especially since I have the potential to table you (and I was going 2nd) before your next reserves come in.


Honestly, no matter what he did, he would be in a rough spot.

I am not sure how marines would deal with this but I'm thinking off the top of my Head--

Master of the Forge -- Conversion Beamer (need him for the relics, might get lucky and pop the Malanthrope with St. 10 and AP 1. I don't think the beamer ignores cover, can't remember)

2 Storm Talons, Typhoon Launchers

1x4 Hyperios Anti-Air Missile batteries

2x Fire Raptors with quad heavy bolters

It's optimized against this list, but is also mean against Knights and Wave Serpent Eldar. I'd consider a standard smashy chapter master, couple of bike squads, and grav command squad. Might be able to do something before it dies.

The cent star relies on 2 things, invisibility and gate. If it doesnt have both, it's either going to get picked off or out of range. 24 inches isn't far and rolling 6's to hit is not an easy thing to do. You also need to factor in the 10 warp charge nids get.

Red hunters and allied sky rays are probably one of the best bets at the moment.

Nice battle rep Jy, but if you could I think a follow up against a demon flying circus, crons, and a solid tau list would be the three I'd consider part of the tournament regular lists you'll be running into that can end up T1/2 running this off the table with a minimal amount of good luck on their part.

I've seen a few people mention that a Tau list would have to tailor with 3x skyrays to bring this down - and thus become non-competitive. I wouldn't think it needs that much, and many tau lists (especially tau-tau) have plenty of anti-air that you'd run into.

Anyway, very cool list and glad to see Nids back on the scene. Between this and the Lictor list(s) hopefully will see more nids in the top brackets.

Haha, why even play this? Up the challenge or dump the spam. Hopefully tournaments crack down on this.

CentStar can be built to reliably get the psychic powers it needs to do the dirty - tyrants will have to move in assault range for SotW to be effective. It's so many shots some are going to hit... Would be a lot more interesting game than Talon spam . CentStar has enough warp charge it could get off some powers fairly reliably too.

Pony_law wrote:
So how does pentyrant deal with a landraider or 2? How does it deal with triple burst tides? how does it deal with add lance with AM for anti air? Basically, how do you handle any army that is capable of surviving your shooting (which in theory should be a few) and only has to murder your squishy troops on turn 4 and five and win the game?.

I played against a list in the final 16 at the Renegate Open a couple weeks ago which oddly was nearly a combination of the two lists presented here--it was a traditional Tyranid FMC list (Flyrants, Crones, Malanthrope, 2 Mawlocs) with a SM Stormwing formation tacked on (2 Talons, Stormraven, all arrive from reserve together) to widen his air coverage to handle a broader selection of targets.

The highlighted part was all that was relevant. I was playing a Lite Screamerstar (2 Heralds, 3 FMCs) which presented him with no targets he was actually capable of killing from the air, aside from a token unit of Horrors and anything I happened to summon. By the end, the only flyers I had killed was two of the Crones, and I basically only killed them because I had nothing bettter to do.

I just sat down on the ground and controlled the whole board uncontested. The move toward Maelstrom is going to hurt an army like this, because it doesn't control the board--outside of Lictor shenanigans. Renegade used BAO's format, which is what jy2 uses in his batreps, which I am not a fan of--the whole point of Maelstrom is to incentivize board control, mobility, and staying power (as opposed to last-turn objective grabs with meaningless troops, as is traditional in normal 7th and all of 6th) and the BAO Maelstrom really falls short of that in my opinion. Only having two objectives, which are able (and likely) to be repeated over the course of the game, does not incentivize mobility at all--in fact, the only Maelstrom objective that incentivizes mobility in any real way is the "hold the other guy's objective" one, (which is often to be ignored as it will frequently be essentially impossible to achieve) as "have a unit in their deployment zone" is not really a hard feat to achieve. The other four objectives are simply two "kill a unit" choices, "get them out of your deployment zone," and "sit on the objective that you obviously placed where you'll hold it easily all game."

They fall far short of what Maelstrom should be accomplishing, particularly when you get into the absurdity of repeated mission objectives on a table of 6--at Renegade, it felt like the vast majority of Maelstrom secondaries were decided solely by who rolled more favorable objectives on the table, as opposed to serving as any reflection of in-game play. We saw games where people practically got tabled, but if you roll enough "hold your own objective" and "kill the thing the other guy actually has" or "be in his deployment zone" while he was rolling "kill the thing you don't have" and "hold the opponent's objective," you'd cruise to a win on secondary regardless of how you performed in the game. There's also a rather deep strategic opportunity completely left by the wayside due to the fact that the missions are automatically forfeited and re-generated every turn. There's no capability to react, plan, or protect an area to deny an opponent an objective (or force them to use a limited-opportunity discard on it, at minimum) because there's literally zero permanence to any of it.

But again, outside of my complaining about that particular variation of handling the missions--even in the stripped-down BAO Maelstrom format--it was evident the whole game that he just had no capability to control or contest meaningful portions of the board.

Adepticon's set of missions should be closer to that stated goal; keeping 6 objectives in play is practically a requirement for actually enforcing the type of gameplay Maelstrom is supposed to be pushing us toward. I feel as though a FMC-focused list relying on the ability to keep 80% of their army cost in the sky all game just will not be able to compete in such a siutation. With 6 objectives, a handful of effecttively single-use Lictors and Ripper Swarms don't strike me as having the staying power required to handle those missions. You'll be forced to drop to Glide to hold objectives, and every time you do so you're actively playing against the strengths of your army.

As a Daemon player, I'm not even planning on taking 3 FMCs to Adepticon for that very reason, and will likely drop to 2. 1000 points is too much to have explicitly dedicated to not controlling the board, and I'm already testing what to fill those points with to better handle board control.

Largo39 wrote:
So while talons may not be the ideal platform from which to challenge flyrants.. it still seems like they would have been better served in reserve.

Clearly attempting to shoot into 2+ cover is futile unless you ignore it so I just dont understand why you'd ever try. Instead you simply start in reserve in 2x2 pairs and hope you can hold out against their shooting until then (which, admittedly in this instance may be dicey, but just keeping only the lynx/skyshield on the board and reserving everything else wouldnt have been a terrible option).

just my 02cents.

Also JY2 are you gonna be in LA for games testing at all soon? I really need a good test vs this type of list for LVO practice, as I suspect (along with you clearly) that nids will be in the meta in a big way, so I need to see how i do against them. In theory I have a list that can at least handle 4 flyrants, but I do need practice against it.

I will be down in LA, but that won't be until after the LVO. I'm sure there's a lot of good players down in LA though. The gaming community there is huge. One of the best players that I have played against from SoCal - and he's also a GT winner as well - is mortetvie. He runs primarily Eldar but I believe he also has a Tyranid army as well (though not quite like mine). You can probably PM him to see if he wants to get a game on.

luke1705 wrote:

1) the (presumably two) squadrons will come in piecemeal. This risk is even greater when you split them up into four individual units, and if they don't all come in at once it's a sad, sad day

2) either of the (presumably two) squadrons would come in on turn three or four (even if they both did this, it would be really really bad). Basically, you need as many chances to kill the Flyrants as possible

That being said, they basically are flying rhinos. It would be interesting to see fire raptors or storm ravens kitted out against the Flyrants. I've found that they are much tougher to kill (av 12 4 hp) and of course their guns are natively ap 3 or better (or at least can be). This is a much bigger issue that will force a Flyrant to jink. Rending ap 4? I might just take my chances with my 3+

Also, it goes without saying that a super heavy tank with a blast weapon is going to be a huge handicap against a list like this. There are definitely bigger challenges to Flyrant spam (or Flyrant Council as Gigasnail has apparently coined it). I'm ok with Pentyrant too FWIW.

I agree that this will probably be the new top tier Tyranid build (or some variant of this) and its a little bit sad. No Tyranid player really wanted our own version of wave serpent spam, but here we have it. I would also definitely be interested to see how Leviathan + Skyblight does

Actually, they're not squadroned. Each flyer is independent.

Stormravens I'm actually not too concerned about. I have strategies to deal with them and I think I can survive their firepower. Fire raptors could be a problem though. Their firepower is really good and 1 raptor can potentially down a flyrant all by itself.

MSU is the best weapon against super-heavies/gargantuans. Anyone bringing a super-heavy/gargant against a pentyrant army like mine will be playing with a handicap.

I don't know about Flyrant Council. Sounds like it's trying to hard to copy the seer council.

Finally, a word of warning to gamers out there. 5-flyrant lists aren't the only top-tier Tyranid list out there. There are and will be more. You can create so many good builds with the Leviathan formation, even if it is not all pure Tyranids.

 jifel wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Yeah, not to harsh the eldar guy, but I'd love to see skytyrant against a harder player.

I don't think it's the player at all. There is no scenario barring a dice miracle that lets Eldar win this game. None at all. I want to see this list against a ground force personally, like a bikestar. If you try to outshoot a pentyrant list you will lose, no questions asked. But, a fast list that can zoom past and hit the enemy backfield... that may have a chance. Drop Pod lists, SW ThunderCalv, WS Bike lists, Daemon screamerstars, etc. A Tau list bristling with skyfire and ignores cover could also be nasty here. I think this list is a super hard counter to Eldar, and gunlines in general, but everything has weaknesses. THe lack of ground presence here stands out, but it will be hard to exploit since Flyrants are so versatile.

Ok, let me tell you what I think about some of those matchups:

Bikestar - Tyranids have the advantage. 2+ cover protects us from their most dangerous weapon - grav weaponry. Once the flyrants take off into the air, bikers can't really do much against them. BTW, my list plays a denial game. Other than the malanthrope, there is nothing in my backfield for the bikes to go after. Everything else in my army should be in reserves.

Drop pod lists - they can be good, but bugs should have the resiliency to survive their alpha-strike, after which they are sitting ducks. They will beat bugs in secondary missions like Maelstrom, but bugs should be able to take the Primary against these types of armies. Just don't deploy your Warlord for your opponent to try to get both Warlord and First Blood.

SW Thundercav list - Tyranids take it. Like I said, I play a denial list. There is no board to control or no targets on the ground initially for them to take out. Also 5 rounds of shooting by 5 flyrants = dead deathstar, especially since most of the models there have only 3+ saves. Another easy win for Tyranids IMO.

Daemon screamerstar - any ground-based army with anti-air support will have problems against pentyrants. As long as bugs can keep the unit in Shadows range, bad things will start to happen to it, especially when the unit is using 6 dice on average to cast summoning powers. Daemon summoning will work better than most against Tyranids, but still, bugs have the firepower and then some to take out newly generated units as well as units already on the table.

Tau - this (and Necrons) may be the toughest challenge for a pentyrant list. It won't be like before, where Tau used to dominate bugs, but it is a more even matchup between the 2, that is, if the Tau list has ample skyfire in it. Fortunately for Tau (and Necrons), they really don't need to tailor their list (much) to take on bugs. They can build anti-flyer lists which are also great TAC lists as well. I'm going to try to set up a game against Spam Adam's Tau, an army that I have never beat yet with my Tyranids (he's also the guy who got 4th at the BAO this year).

Pony_law wrote:
So how does pentyrant deal with a landraider or 2? How does it deal with triple burst tides? how does it deal with add lance with AM for anti air? Basically, how do you handle any army that is capable of surviving your shooting (which in theory should be a few) and only has to murder your squishy troops on turn 4 and five and win the game?.

Against land raiders? Easily. Egrubs (electroshock grubs) are haywire. Bugs can kill 1 LR a turn.

Burstides - much tougher. However, in the current meta, most Tau players take ion over the heavy burst cannon. That will, of course, change with Tyranids. Without markerlight support, how would burstides do against Tyranids (assuming normal 3+/4+ save for flyrants):

24 shots (nova'd), 12 hits, 2 rends and 4 wounds + 8 shots, 4 hits, 2 wounds = 3 wounds on a flyrant. This does not factor in fusion shooting or markerlights.

Tyranids shoot:

60 shots, 53 hits, 27 wounds = 4.5 wounds on a riptide. This does not factor any effects caused by psychic powers, including damage from warp blast or psychic scream or powers such as Horror and Paroxysm.

Adlance - destroy any anti-air. Then work on the Imperial Knights, who can do nothing against flyrants. 5 flyrants can easily take out 1 knight a turn.

Against super-resilient armies (i.e. deathstars, blobs, Imperial Knights, super-heavies) - focus on killing off the weak troops/scoring units. Deal with the tough units later.

 jifel wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Yeah, not to harsh the eldar guy, but I'd love to see skytyrant against a harder player.

I don't think it's the player at all. There is no scenario barring a dice miracle that lets Eldar win this game. None at all. I want to see this list against a ground force personally, like a bikestar. If you try to outshoot a pentyrant list you will lose, no questions asked. But, a fast list that can zoom past and hit the enemy backfield... that may have a chance. Drop Pod lists, SW ThunderCalv, WS Bike lists, Daemon screamerstars, etc. A Tau list bristling with skyfire and ignores cover could also be nasty here. I think this list is a super hard counter to Eldar, and gunlines in general, but everything has weaknesses. THe lack of ground presence here stands out, but it will be hard to exploit since Flyrants are so versatile.

That list still doesn't do much to adamantine lance with super friend support.

I think my favorite part of this report is how it demonstrates how silly it is for people to dump on unbound while this crap is possible in battle forged

When 7th hit people were afraid of unbound, now bound lists are doing the exact things people feared unbound would do.

The ironic part is how the BAO format actually helps these lists. With normal maelstrom scoring (at the end of player turns rather then game turns) and swooping FMC being SOL for grabbing them a TAC list could easily beat either of these lists.

 Dash2021 wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Yeah, not to harsh the eldar guy, but I'd love to see skytyrant against a harder player.

Grant's a GT winner and a regular at top tables, so it isn't as though Jim was clubbing a baby seal here. I'm sure the thought was to lay it all out trying to gib the malanthrope, and down a few tyrants. I agree that Eldar's normal strategy of dealing with enemies they can't hurt is to cat and mouse all game until you either A) have no other targets or B) you force your opponent to make a mistake, is probably the better call here. However, at the end of the day it's just delaying the inevitable in this scenario.

I'd have put the Lynx in max range of the ground targets on the sky shield in my back corner, Farseer w/in guide range behind some BLOS. Everything else in reserve, roll hard for the reserve manipulation WL trait. Take first turn just to make sure that you're talons come on after he's out of the bubble when they arrive. Once the flyrants are out, bring in the talons and play man to man D. One talon per flyrant, forcing them to spend the rest of the game jinking. Depending on how you play Psychic Shriek the Farseer could help out here or there. Once a Flyrant is down a few wounds put a couple talons on them to get the kill.

So that's my best case arm chair quarterbacking in this scenario. Problem is, Jy2 can just sit in his bubble all day playing musical chairs flying the tyrants in circles around the Mal. While he'd give up maelstrom, you are too because you're hiding in the corner. Best case scenario is that you start nabbing objectives with your warlord and tyranids send 2-3 tyrants to kill him. Then you can bring in talons and pick those off. But a smart opponent knows that primary is his as long as he hits second, so they'd just give you secondary and grab Primary/First Blood/Line Breaker for the easy win.

Jy2's point stands, Grant was hosed before they decided which table to play on. 5 Flyrants is easily a GT winning list, just like necron air used to be, just like seer council used to be. It's a list that takes 0 skill to play (which is one of the main points of this batrep), and forces you to either tailor to it (and get destroyed by every other army in a tournament) or try to minimize how badly you lose. In a strategy game (as 40k purports to be), being able to put a list on autopilot and come back to collect your win is very poor design. The worst part is, this isn't LoW or Forge World or anything of that nature. This list is acceptable at just about any tournament around the country, no questions asked. Between this, IK's forcing LoW's to be accepted, and ignorance like Deamon factories it seems like GW is really pushing the community to accept unbound as a thing. By releasing so many broken items/units in so many different forms (codex/data slates/formations) it's becoming nigh to impossible to police what is clearly lazy/bad rules writing.

Well said. Agreed on everything thing you said except for the 0 skill part.

This type of army is much easier to play because it is a much more forgiving army than other Tyranid builds. Even a beginner can play it and do well. However, if you think that he is going to beat a better and more experienced player (with a good list) with it, you may be banking too much on the list. It's 33% list, 33% player skill and tactics and 33% dice. In the case of a pentyrant build, it's probably 45% list, 22% skill and 33% dice so that is why a lesser player can still do well with it. But don't make the mistake of thinking that it takes 0 skill to try to win a tournament with it.

 iddy00711 wrote:
Guided hornets work well but in order to be effective you'd need 9-12 of them against a list like this.

The problem with burst tides is it's 750+ points since you need either stim injectors or ECPA to get off the nova safely and aside from this and a few other list, it's pretty useless as a TAC. 3 Sky rays on the other hand could take this list to town.

Hornets are good, but I don't think they can take out flyrants as quickly as flyrants can take them out.

Triple burstides are good, but they just aren't as common in tournament play as the iontides (although that may soon change).

I think an effective Tau TAC list will run 2 burstides, 1 iontide and 3 skyrays.

tag8833 wrote:
If you are looking for a counter, Centstar can kill a flyrant a turn while taking basically no damage in return. The flyrants will kill whatever came with the Centstar, but might take enough damage and get tabled. The only real answer the list has to Centstar is the Mawloc which is a great answer, but it still has to hit.

Not really. Pentyrants is a bad matchup for the centstar as well....unless they can get the Perfect Timing power (or skyfire objective). Basically, any deathstar build will have problems against Pentyrants. All the flyrants need to do is to kill off the rest of the army and the centstar can't do jack. I generally just ignore the deathstar. Then, I don't even care if he shoots at my flyrants then, because that means he won't be shooting at my cheapo MSU units on objectives. I'm telling you now, unless they get very favorable conditions (i.e. first turn alpha-strike, the right psychic powers, perhaps skyfire objectives), the centstar will struggle against this type of list.

tag8833 wrote:

Also this list is usually going to lose in maelstrom games. Very few people play Maelstrom competitively, but

I'd have to disagree with this. My list was designed with pure Maelstrom in mind as well. About half (1/3?) of the time, the Maelstrom objectives are all about killing enemy units. My flyrants have that covered. The other half is about getting objectives, which is why I designed it to be MSU in nature. Not just MSU, but MSU units who can drop in on objectives anywhere the turn they come in.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The list can be beat but you've got to know what you're doing and there has to be a fair amount of LoS blocking terrain. Forget about the psychic phase versus five Flyrants. I think Necrons could give it a run for the money.

You're right. It can be beaten by an army with the right tools. The problem is, not a lot of armies have the right tools (or the right amount of tools). That is why this army will be a meta-changing build. It will force many people to change up the "tools" in their toolbox.

I agree. Necrons are one of the few armies that is still strong against pentyrants. However, that may all change once their codex gets updated in January.

KillswitchUK wrote:
GT Winner with a list like that and tactics like that? I beg to differ! 5 flyrant list is solid, already preping my list to deal with such a threat :p -inserts 3 skyrays into tau list -

Grant is actually #2 on the ITC leadership board. The ITC keeps track of the top players in tournaments that follow the BAO format and includes such tournaments as the BAO and the LVO and many other GT's as well. He's done very well with his seer council list, winning numerous tournaments, and he consistently does well in the other tournaments.

However, he had 2 things going against him. First of all, he was playing with a new army. Secondly, he was playing without Fortune and Invisibility. HAHAHAHA.... j.k.! Secondly, his list just didn't have enough juice to deal with mine, especially against a general of my caliber (not to toot my own horn or anything). You can't really fault him as he was playing with a major handicap.

 Happyjew wrote:
It can be beat. But the problem is, how well would the counter list fair against other tournament-level lists?

Ironically, it's going to force all the other tournament-level lists to change as well. So almost everyone will be in the same boat, with the exception of Tau and Necron, who have great TAC lists with anti-air support already. They will probably be the armies reaping the most benefits as they have to make the least amount of changes to their armies.

 Tarnag wrote:
Hey Jy2, I had a question about list building. How would you field this same style of list in an event that limits detachments to two (so no room for a fortification detachment) and outlaws the Void Shield Generator? Would it still be able to work or should I start working on a different list?

You can take a fortification with your Primary CAD (a fortification isn't a separate detachment), but if your tournament doesn't allow for the VSG, then I would get a bastion with Comms relay. What you really need is protection for your malanthrope against the likes of serpent-spam and Tau. Flyrants can still jink for 2+ shrouded cover even out in the open so they don't really need to worry about cover.

But if your tournament totally bans fortifications (which would be really strange IMO), then just go with more MSU. Bring in more lictors and more deepstriking rippers. Either that or drop a lictor and get a 2nd mawloc. Personally, I'd keep the fortification if it was allowed.

 jy2 wrote:

Well said. Agreed on everything thing you said except for the 0 skill part.

This type of army is much easier to play because it is a much more forgiving army than other Tyranid builds. Even a beginner can play it and do well. However, if you think that he is going to beat a better and more experienced player (with a good list) with it, you may be banking too much on the list. It's 33% list, 33% player skill and tactics and 33% dice. In the case of a pentyrant build, it's probably 45% list, 22% skill and 33% dice so that is why a lesser player can still do well with it. But don't make the mistake of thinking that it takes 0 skill to try to win a tournament with it.

"It's not the weapon, it's the wielder." Fair enough, not 0 skill. 5%? . 0 skill was a bit of hyperbole, but the point remains the same. A player can punch way above their weight class wielding a list like this. A new player won't beat a GT winner, sure. But a decent player can easily destroy a good player. Same as back when I played Seer Council in 6th. After the first few tournaments I quit running it, because as I explained to my opponents (I try and go over the battle right after with my opponents, to help them with their game as well as myself): Seer Council with a moderately skilled general (~where I sit) vs. anything but a top tier army fielded by an experienced general is clubbing a baby seal with a baby seal, on top of their dead seal mother. 5 Flyrants is pretty well the same. It's just plain lazy rules writing to take the best unit in the codex, and allow you to field 5 of them. I could do some really nasty things with 5 farseers, and the one and only unbound tournament I went to made me glad that you can't have 5 chaptermasters on bikes with invis. in normal play.

Experience is > list for sure. But this particular list is almost as autoplay as it gets. A mediocre player can do much better than would otherwise be possible, and that just makes for bad game play. I don't care to be outplayed (I masochistically enjoy it), but being beaten because GW let an oppoenent field a ridiculous list without any drawbacks isn't my idea of a good time. I don't fault anyone who builds such a list: you pay money to go to a tournament, you kinda want to win. I blame GW for putting out a sub-standard codex, and trying to gloss over it's many weaknesses with poorly thought out band-aids

 jy2 wrote:


Stormravens I'm actually not too concerned about. I have strategies to deal with them and I think I can survive their firepower. Fire raptors could be a problem though. Their firepower is really good and 1 raptor can potentially down a flyrant all by itself.

MSU is the best weapon against super-heavies/gargantuans. Anyone bringing a super-heavy/gargant against a pentyrant army like mine will be playing with a handicap.

I don't know about Flyrant Council. Sounds like it's trying to hard to copy the seer council.

Finally, a word of warning to gamers out there. 5-flyrant lists aren't the only top-tier Tyranid list out there. There are and will be more. You can create so many good builds with the Leviathan formation, even if it is not all pure Tyranids.

That is definitely true - leviathan gives Nids access to better than true double CAD under the standard two source format. We may give a new definition to MSU. Just for example, we could bring 6 units of spores (Fast Attack), 15 units of troops, 6 elites units (say, lictors) and that could easily totally up to less than 800 points, with only 12 of the 27 units giving up a kill point. In that example, you've got 9 Mucolids and 6 deep striking ripper squads, putting you at 795 points. That leaves over 1000 points for the rest of the list. Insane

 jy2 wrote:

 Tarnag wrote:
Hey Jy2, I had a question about list building. How would you field this same style of list in an event that limits detachments to two (so no room for a fortification detachment) and outlaws the Void Shield Generator? Would it still be able to work or should I start working on a different list?

You can take a fortification with your Primary CAD (a fortification isn't a separate detachment), but if your tournament doesn't allow for the VSG, then I would get a bastion with Comms relay. What you really need is protection for your malanthrope against the likes of serpent-spam and Tau. Flyrants can still jink for 2+ shrouded cover even out in the open so they don't really need to worry about cover.

But if your tournament totally bans fortifications (which would be really strange IMO), then just go with more MSU. Bring in more lictors and more deepstriking rippers. Either that or drop a lictor and get a 2nd mawloc. Personally, I'd keep the fortification if it was allowed.

My problem, is that the local free tournament I play in forbids Forgeworld units (so no Malanthrope), and forbids all Fortiifications except the ADL.

You can take a fortification with your Primary CAD (a fortification isn't a separate detachment), but if your tournament doesn't allow for the VSG, then I would get a bastion with Comms relay. What you really need is protection for your malanthrope against the likes of serpent-spam and Tau. Flyrants can still jink for 2+ shrouded cover even out in the open so they don't really need to worry about cover.

But if your tournament totally bans fortifications (which would be really strange IMO), then just go with more MSU. Bring in more lictors and more deepstriking rippers. Either that or drop a lictor and get a 2nd mawloc. Personally, I'd keep the fortification if it was allowed.

Thanks so much for the response! Yeah I realized that after I posted that I could take a fortification, no VSG, but fortifications are all good. Would you take the bastion withe a Comms Relay or go for the one Void Shield it can take?

Thanks for this report but it is really strange. What do you want to know with this game ? Of course 5 flying tyrants with devo and a 2+ cover save are extremely awful.
You can go to tournament with this and crush every list. Maybe you will have problem with maelstrom missions but who cares, you will table your opponents

 Dash2021 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

Well said. Agreed on everything thing you said except for the 0 skill part.

This type of army is much easier to play because it is a much more forgiving army than other Tyranid builds. Even a beginner can play it and do well. However, if you think that he is going to beat a better and more experienced player (with a good list) with it, you may be banking too much on the list. It's 33% list, 33% player skill and tactics and 33% dice. In the case of a pentyrant build, it's probably 45% list, 22% skill and 33% dice so that is why a lesser player can still do well with it. But don't make the mistake of thinking that it takes 0 skill to try to win a tournament with it.

"It's not the weapon, it's the wielder." Fair enough, not 0 skill. 5%? . 0 skill was a bit of hyperbole, but the point remains the same. A player can punch way above their weight class wielding a list like this. A new player won't beat a GT winner, sure. But a decent player can easily destroy a good player. Same as back when I played Seer Council in 6th. After the first few tournaments I quit running it, because as I explained to my opponents (I try and go over the battle right after with my opponents, to help them with their game as well as myself): Seer Council with a moderately skilled general (~where I sit) vs. anything but a top tier army fielded by an experienced general is clubbing a baby seal with a baby seal, on top of their dead seal mother. 5 Flyrants is pretty well the same. It's just plain lazy rules writing to take the best unit in the codex, and allow you to field 5 of them. I could do some really nasty things with 5 farseers, and the one and only unbound tournament I went to made me glad that you can't have 5 chaptermasters on bikes with invis. in normal play.

Experience is > list for sure. But this particular list is almost as autoplay as it gets. A mediocre player can do much better than would otherwise be possible, and that just makes for bad game play. I don't care to be outplayed (I masochistically enjoy it), but being beaten because GW let an oppoenent field a ridiculous list without any drawbacks isn't my idea of a good time. I don't fault anyone who builds such a list: you pay money to go to a tournament, you kinda want to win. I blame GW for putting out a sub-standard codex, and trying to gloss over it's many weaknesses with poorly thought out band-aids

Very well put - point and click.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Happyjew wrote:
It can be beat. But the problem is, how well would the counter list fair against other tournament-level lists?

Ironically, it's going to force all the other tournament-level lists to change as well. So almost everyone will be in the same boat, with the exception of Tau and Necron, who have great TAC lists with anti-air support already. They will probably be the armies reaping the most benefits as they have to make the least amount of changes to their armies.

Haha, so instead of Wave Serpent spam, we get this? Replace one terrible thing with another.

There seems to be a way to prevent this particular combination (5 flying Hive Tyrants) and excise the AdLance as well: Both are 'Campaign' formations, yes? That's the route I would go, maintaining self-allying (3 flying Hive Tyrants is a thing) and laying the foundation for differentiating between formations by virtue of their source (codex, supplement, dataslate, campaign, etc.).

Wow. That was pretty incredible. I mean, i'm aware of how good flying hive tyrants are, but wow.

I don't believe I'll be running a 5-tyrant build mostly because I don't have the models. However, I did just get a 3rd tyrant in a trade, and a Hive Fleet Detachment would let me run 3 without any FOC extras.

Jy2 - What fighter ace trait did you roll for your warlord? It doesn't appear that it made a difference in either of these games, but i'm just curious.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DCannon4Life wrote:
There seems to be a way to prevent this particular combination (5 flying Hive Tyrants) and excise the AdLance as well: Both are 'Campaign' formations, yes? That's the route I would go, maintaining self-allying (3 flying Hive Tyrants is a thing) and laying the foundation for differentiating between formations by virtue of their source (codex, supplement, dataslate, campaign, etc.).

Adamantium lance is a 40K approved dataslate formation.

Hive Fleet Detachment is a 40k approved Detachment from a tyranid supplement (Leviathan). Both are just as legal as the formations and detachments in any other codex or supplement. What it comes down to these days is what TO's allow and ban in their events -- GW has taken a stance in 7th that everything is prettymuch "legal play".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tarnag wrote:

You can take a fortification with your Primary CAD (a fortification isn't a separate detachment), but if your tournament doesn't allow for the VSG, then I would get a bastion with Comms relay. What you really need is protection for your malanthrope against the likes of serpent-spam and Tau. Flyrants can still jink for 2+ shrouded cover even out in the open so they don't really need to worry about cover.

But if your tournament totally bans fortifications (which would be really strange IMO), then just go with more MSU. Bring in more lictors and more deepstriking rippers. Either that or drop a lictor and get a 2nd mawloc. Personally, I'd keep the fortification if it was allowed.

Thanks so much for the response! Yeah I realized that after I posted that I could take a fortification, no VSG, but fortifications are all good. Would you take the bastion withe a Comms Relay or go for the one Void Shield it can take?

The void shield on the bastion only protects the bastion. It's helpful, but not for 25 points is it efficient. The only projected void shields that protect your army are from the VSG. I find it odd that your area bans the VSG - it's a purely defensive upgrade, it kills nothing and can be outwitted by fast armies, drop pods, etc.

 Dash2021 wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:
It can be beat. But the problem is, how well would the counter list fair against other tournament-level lists?

This. 5 Tyrants is a good TAC list. Most things that can reliably deal with 5 tyrants isn't.

Greentide, Venom spam, Centurion star, Marine flood, and Flier-Crons are the only real TAC lists I can think of that have a chance to hang with 5 flyrants. On the upside Serpent spam will get demolished by it, so maybe we'll see a decline there.

*Edit*
DE airforce with Venom spam actually would probably work this list hard as well. I don't play it (reaverstar all the way), but on paper it's a rock solid build. Could easily put 7 flyers on the table with Eldar allies (autarch for reserve manipulation), and a boat load of venoms spamming poison/blasters.

Here is my take:

Greentide - could be a counter. Boots on the ground is what you need against flyer builds and the greentide has it. HOWEVER, they would have to withstand 300+ TL S6 shots over the course of a 5-turn game so I guess it could go either ways (Tyranids).

Venom-spam - not a chance. Razorwing-spam, maybe, but venom-spam, no. This is where electroshock grubs from flyrants will shine, killing both the transport and the guys inside in 1 fell swoop potentially.

Centstar - nope. Unless they get very favorable conditions (like 1st turn, Perfect Timing psychic power or skyfire objectives), pentyrants will be a bad matchup for the centstar as well. My army excels against deathstar builds because it is very good in killing the rest of the army. The bigger the deathstar, the easier it becomes for the flyrants to wipe out everyone else.

Marine-spam - more boots on the ground = better resiliency against flyrant-spam. I like marine-spam, though it becomes more of a question of "can I outlast their firepower to still claim objectives at the end" rather than "can I kill those flyrants"?

Necron Airforce - highly dependent on who goes 1st. I don't like a pure Necron Airforce build against pentyrant, but a hybrid Necron Airforce with some AV13 vehicles in there as well - bargelords and AB's - can be very effective against Air Tyranids.

 Silverthorne wrote:
I am not sure how marines would deal with this but I'm thinking off the top of my Head--

Master of the Forge -- Conversion Beamer (need him for the relics, might get lucky and pop the Malanthrope with St. 10 and AP 1. I don't think the beamer ignores cover, can't remember)

2 Storm Talons, Typhoon Launchers

1x4 Hyperios Anti-Air Missile batteries

2x Fire Raptors with quad heavy bolters

It's optimized against this list, but is also mean against Knights and Wave Serpent Eldar. I'd consider a standard smashy chapter master, couple of bike squads, and grav command squad. Might be able to do something before it dies.

A decent foundation with very good anti-air. It's got potential to give pentyrant a run for its money. I would also recommend you include something in there to help with reserves manipulation.

 iddy00711 wrote:
The cent star relies on 2 things, invisibility and gate. If it doesnt have both, it's either going to get picked off or out of range. 24 inches isn't far and rolling 6's to hit is not an easy thing to do. You also need to factor in the 10 warp charge nids get.

Red hunters and allied sky rays are probably one of the best bets at the moment.

Just keep in mind that Red Hunters can only use their special Chapter Tactics rules once per game. As for allied skyrays, well, you can only ally in 1. However, you can take a burstide as well. Now the only question is how well your list would function as a TAC list in a tournament setting against the other tournament armies as well.

GreyDragoon wrote:
Nice battle rep Jy, but if you could I think a follow up against a demon flying circus, crons, and a solid tau list would be the three I'd consider part of the tournament regular lists you'll be running into that can end up T1/2 running this off the table with a minimal amount of good luck on their part.

I've seen a few people mention that a Tau list would have to tailor with 3x skyrays to bring this down - and thus become non-competitive. I wouldn't think it needs that much, and many tau lists (especially tau-tau) have plenty of anti-air that you'd run into.

Anyway, very cool list and glad to see Nids back on the scene. Between this and the Lictor list(s) hopefully will see more nids in the top brackets.

I'm going to try to get a test game in against Taus and probably Necrons.

I disagree that those lists will be able to run my list off the table on T1/2 and with minimal luck. I think you are really under-estimating this Tyranid build.

Yeah, Tau can build an anti-flyer army which is also a great TAC list. The changes they would have to make would be small compared to most other armies.

 Nevermind wrote:
Haha, why even play this? Up the challenge or dump the spam. Hopefully tournaments crack down on this.

This was more of a battle to give info to the readers. I won't be running such an army in tournament play, but I wanted to inform the public about how much Tyranids have changed. Consider it a public service announcement.

DJ3 wrote:

Spoiler:

I played against a list in the final 16 at the Renegate Open a couple weeks ago which oddly was nearly a combination of the two lists presented here--it was a traditional Tyranid FMC list (Flyrants, Crones, Malanthrope, 2 Mawlocs) with a SM Stormwing formation tacked on (2 Talons, Stormraven, all arrive from reserve together) to widen his air coverage to handle a broader selection of targets.

The highlighted part was all that was relevant. I was playing a Lite Screamerstar (2 Heralds, 3 FMCs) which presented him with no targets he was actually capable of killing from the air, aside from a token unit of Horrors and anything I happened to summon. By the end, the only flyers I had killed was two of the Crones, and I basically only killed them because I had nothing bettter to do.

I just sat down on the ground and controlled the whole board uncontested. The move toward Maelstrom is going to hurt an army like this, because it doesn't control the board--outside of Lictor shenanigans. Renegade used BAO's format, which is what jy2 uses in his batreps, which I am not a fan of--the whole point of Maelstrom is to incentivize board control, mobility, and staying power (as opposed to last-turn objective grabs with meaningless troops, as is traditional in normal 7th and all of 6th) and the BAO Maelstrom really falls short of that in my opinion. Only having two objectives, which are able (and likely) to be repeated over the course of the game, does not incentivize mobility at all--in fact, the only Maelstrom objective that incentivizes mobility in any real way is the "hold the other guy's objective" one, (which is often to be ignored as it will frequently be essentially impossible to achieve) as "have a unit in their deployment zone" is not really a hard feat to achieve. The other four objectives are simply two "kill a unit" choices, "get them out of your deployment zone," and "sit on the objective that you obviously placed where you'll hold it easily all game."

They fall far short of what Maelstrom should be accomplishing, particularly when you get into the absurdity of repeated mission objectives on a table of 6--at Renegade, it felt like the vast majority of Maelstrom secondaries were decided solely by who rolled more favorable objectives on the table, as opposed to serving as any reflection of in-game play. We saw games where people practically got tabled, but if you roll enough "hold your own objective" and "kill the thing the other guy actually has" or "be in his deployment zone" while he was rolling "kill the thing you don't have" and "hold the opponent's objective," you'd cruise to a win on secondary regardless of how you performed in the game. There's also a rather deep strategic opportunity completely left by the wayside due to the fact that the missions are automatically forfeited and re-generated every turn. There's no capability to react, plan, or protect an area to deny an opponent an objective (or force them to use a limited-opportunity discard on it, at minimum) because there's literally zero permanence to any of it.

But again, outside of my complaining about that particular variation of handling the missions--even in the stripped-down BAO Maelstrom format--it was evident the whole game that he just had no capability to control or contest meaningful portions of the board.

Adepticon's set of missions should be closer to that stated goal; keeping 6 objectives in play is practically a requirement for actually enforcing the type of gameplay Maelstrom is supposed to be pushing us toward. I feel as though a FMC-focused list relying on the ability to keep 80% of their army cost in the sky all game just will not be able to compete in such a siutation. With 6 objectives, a handful of effecttively single-use Lictors and Ripper Swarms don't strike me as having the staying power required to handle those missions. You'll be forced to drop to Glide to hold objectives, and every time you do so you're actively playing against the strengths of your army.

As a Daemon player, I'm not even planning on taking 3 FMCs to Adepticon for that very reason, and will likely drop to 2. 1000 points is too much to have explicitly dedicated to not controlling the board, and I'm already testing what to fill those points with to better handle board control.

I can tell you this much. A pentyrant build is better equipped then the older Tyranid Airforce armies to handle your type of lists. It has improved significantly. Even the best Tyranid FMC army back then was at most, an upper-middle tiered army. A pentyrant list like the one I am running is top-tier and the difference between how they play is like night-&-day. The new pentyrant builds are much, much more efficient in dealing with ground units, which is probably one of their greatest strengths compared to yesterday's FMC bugs. And of course, they are much better at dealing against air targets as well. The only problems that they will have are against massed 2+ units, re-rollable 2+ units, invisible units or massed AV13-spam.

As for Maelstrom missions, do not under-estimate this list in Maelstrom missions. It can handle both pure and modified Maelstroms. In pure maelstroms, flyrants attack with surgical precision. They remove enemy units on objectives or contesting my objectives. Tyranid reserves then take those objectives with uncanny precision when they come in from reserves. Also, about half (or maybe 1/3) of pure Maelstrom missions involve killing units or non-objectives-based tasks. Flyrants can easily kill enemy units. And in a pinch, flyrants can land on objectives as well as long as I think that they will be relatively safe in doing so.

This list works because it is such a flexible list. It's not affected as much by enemy board control as some of the other more traditional ground armies because it has the flexibility to adjust to whatever your opponent does. It's basically the Tyranid's water warrior style of play (water warrior is a reactive and tactically flexible style of play).

 Red Corsair wrote:

 jifel wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Yeah, not to harsh the eldar guy, but I'd love to see skytyrant against a harder player.

I don't think it's the player at all. There is no scenario barring a dice miracle that lets Eldar win this game. None at all. I want to see this list against a ground force personally, like a bikestar. If you try to outshoot a pentyrant list you will lose, no questions asked. But, a fast list that can zoom past and hit the enemy backfield... that may have a chance. Drop Pod lists, SW ThunderCalv, WS Bike lists, Daemon screamerstars, etc. A Tau list bristling with skyfire and ignores cover could also be nasty here. I think this list is a super hard counter to Eldar, and gunlines in general, but everything has weaknesses. THe lack of ground presence here stands out, but it will be hard to exploit since Flyrants are so versatile.

That list still doesn't do much to adamantine lance with super friend support.

I think my favorite part of this report is how it demonstrates how silly it is for people to dump on unbound while this crap is possible in battle forged

When 7th hit people were afraid of unbound, now bound lists are doing the exact things people feared unbound would do.

The ironic part is how the BAO format actually helps these lists. With normal maelstrom scoring (at the end of player turns rather then game turns) and swooping FMC being SOL for grabbing them a TAC list could easily beat either of these lists.

It's the trend that we are moving towards. DE can take 6 razorwings, 6 ravagers or up to 8 talos. Tyranids can take up to 5 flyrants. I'm not even sure what some of the other formations can run, but I'm betting they're letting you run similarly spammy units like this. When all is said and done, dual-CAD will probably be a non-issue with the way the formations are going.

What do you mean by super-friend support for the Adlance? Are you tallking about another deathstar build + Adlance?

 Dash2021 wrote:

Spoiler:

 jy2 wrote:

Well said. Agreed on everything thing you said except for the 0 skill part.

This type of army is much easier to play because it is a much more forgiving army than other Tyranid builds. Even a beginner can play it and do well. However, if you think that he is going to beat a better and more experienced player (with a good list) with it, you may be banking too much on the list. It's 33% list, 33% player skill and tactics and 33% dice. In the case of a pentyrant build, it's probably 45% list, 22% skill and 33% dice so that is why a lesser player can still do well with it. But don't make the mistake of thinking that it takes 0 skill to try to win a tournament with it.

"It's not the weapon, it's the wielder." Fair enough, not 0 skill. 5%? . 0 skill was a bit of hyperbole, but the point remains the same. A player can punch way above their weight class wielding a list like this. A new player won't beat a GT winner, sure. But a decent player can easily destroy a good player. Same as back when I played Seer Council in 6th. After the first few tournaments I quit running it, because as I explained to my opponents (I try and go over the battle right after with my opponents, to help them with their game as well as myself): Seer Council with a moderately skilled general (~where I sit) vs. anything but a top tier army fielded by an experienced general is clubbing a baby seal with a baby seal, on top of their dead seal mother. 5 Flyrants is pretty well the same. It's just plain lazy rules writing to take the best unit in the codex, and allow you to field 5 of them. I could do some really nasty things with 5 farseers, and the one and only unbound tournament I went to made me glad that you can't have 5 chaptermasters on bikes with invis. in normal play.

Experience is > list for sure. But this particular list is almost as autoplay as it gets. A mediocre player can do much better than would otherwise be possible, and that just makes for bad game play. I don't care to be outplayed (I masochistically enjoy it), but being beaten because GW let an oppoenent field a ridiculous list without any drawbacks isn't my idea of a good time. I don't fault anyone who builds such a list: you pay money to go to a tournament, you kinda want to win. I blame GW for putting out a sub-standard codex, and trying to gloss over it's many weaknesses with poorly thought out band-aids

I apologize. I know its hyperbole, but I just have a pet peeve when someone says that a list takes 0 skill to play. All lists take some amount of skill to play, even if that skill is low. In any case, everything else you said, I fully agree.

luke1705 wrote:

That is definitely true - leviathan gives Nids access to better than true double CAD under the standard two source format. We may give a new definition to MSU. Just for example, we could bring 6 units of spores (Fast Attack), 15 units of troops, 6 elites units (say, lictors) and that could easily totally up to less than 800 points, with only 12 of the 27 units giving up a kill point. In that example, you've got 9 Mucolids and 6 deep striking ripper squads, putting you at 795 points. That leaves over 1000 points for the rest of the list. Insane

Yeah, that's what makes Tyranids so scary. The secret to my pentyrant list is not that it can run 5 flyrants. The secret is that it can run 5 flyrants and then still have a very strong MSU presence. The durability of any deathstar list (that is essentially what a pentyrant build is - 1200-pts of flyrants) is not really the deathstar itself, but of its support units. You win not by beating the deathstar itself, but by beating the rest of the army. That's why I use a combination of denial strategy, MSU support units and positional flexibility. My goal is to have my support units survive until the end of the game. At the very least, I want to be able to kill off all of your support units before you can kill off mine. In this case, MSU is the way to go as a complement to pentyrant.

BTW, I'd go with more rippers over the mucolids if you can afford them. Though mucolids are cheap, a scoring/denial unit is always better.

 Happyjew wrote:

My problem, is that the local free tournament I play in forbids Forgeworld units (so no Malanthrope), and forbids all Fortiifications except the ADL.

It's not a big deal without fortifications as long as there is adequate terrain on the table (i.e. BLOS terrain and ruins). You can substitute the malan for a venomthrope (or 2) if you have to (I believe my list is at 1845 so I could run 2 venoms instead of 1 malan if I needed).

 jy2 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

Also this list is usually going to lose in maelstrom games. Very few people play Maelstrom competitively, but

I'd have to disagree with this. My list was designed with pure Maelstrom in mind as well. About half (1/3?) of the time, the Maelstrom objectives are all about killing enemy units. My flyrants have that covered. The other half is about getting objectives, which is why I designed it to be MSU in nature. Not just MSU, but MSU units who can drop in on objectives anywhere the turn they come in.

You are confusing BAO with Maelstrom again. In the base Maelstrom cards, there is only 1 for killing something with shooting(#51). There are a few more you can probably do while in the air.
#53: Kill a unit however you want
#55: Make the enemy fail a moral or pinning test
#56: Manifest a psychic power
#61: Kill the enemy warlord
#62: Kill a psycher
#63: Kill a flier or FMC
#64: Kill a character
#65: Kill a gun emplacement or building
#66: Kill a vehicle or MC
So that is 10 out of 66 or roughly 15% of maelstrom objectives, and it just so happen to be all of them that can be impossible, and thus get discarded. You aren't going to run into many armies that have a vehicle or MC, a gun emplacement, a psycher, and a Flier, that aren't also fearless.

My guess is that you get 1 point from your rippers, and 2 from your Lictors, and probably 1 or 2 from you Mawloc, Most likely 2 or so for the cards above, so you are looking at a score of about 7 going into turn 4-5 when you feel comfortable enough to start landing flyrants. A good Maelstrom list can do 10-14 during that time, but you have a good chance of tabling them, and you might be able to deny them enough to win the game, or just get lucky with your draws. So it isn't auto lose. I was definitely overstating the case by saying "usually going to lose", but it is definitely less optimized than a list with 3 flyrants and 2 Dakkafexes in pods.

 Tarnag wrote:

Thanks so much for the response! Yeah I realized that after I posted that I could take a fortification, no VSG, but fortifications are all good. Would you take the bastion withe a Comms Relay or go for the one Void Shield it can take?

Comms relay. The void shield isn't necessary....unless your meta is full of drop podding marines.

tetsuo666 wrote:
Thanks for this report but it is really strange. What do you want to know with this game ? Of course 5 flying tyrants with devo and a 2+ cover save are extremely awful.
You can go to tournament with this and crush every list. Maybe you will have problem with maelstrom missions but who cares, you will table your opponents

The game was more to inform the public than anything else.

 Nevermind wrote:

Haha, so instead of Wave Serpent spam, we get this? Replace one terrible thing with another.

Essentially, yes.

DCannon4Life wrote:
There seems to be a way to prevent this particular combination (5 flying Hive Tyrants) and excise the AdLance as well: Both are 'Campaign' formations, yes? That's the route I would go, maintaining self-allying (3 flying Hive Tyrants is a thing) and laying the foundation for differentiating between formations by virtue of their source (codex, supplement, dataslate, campaign, etc.).

The only way to "limit" these types of builds is either through selective banning or by putting a hard cap/limit on how many of each units you can take. Either ways, you will have to comp it hard and this is only the beginning. There will be (and there has been) other formations coming out similar to this.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Wow. That was pretty incredible. I mean, i'm aware of how good flying hive tyrants are, but wow.

I don't believe I'll be running a 5-tyrant build mostly because I don't have the models. However, I did just get a 3rd tyrant in a trade, and a Hive Fleet Detachment would let me run 3 without any FOC extras.

Jy2 - What fighter ace trait did you roll for your warlord? It doesn't appear that it made a difference in either of these games, but i'm just curious.

I got the worst one, the +3" Synapse. Lol.

tag8833 wrote:

Spoiler:

 jy2 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

Also this list is usually going to lose in maelstrom games. Very few people play Maelstrom competitively, but

I'd have to disagree with this. My list was designed with pure Maelstrom in mind as well. About half (1/3?) of the time, the Maelstrom objectives are all about killing enemy units. My flyrants have that covered. The other half is about getting objectives, which is why I designed it to be MSU in nature. Not just MSU, but MSU units who can drop in on objectives anywhere the turn they come in.

You are confusing BAO with Maelstrom again. In the base Maelstrom cards, there is only 1 for killing something with shooting(#51). There are a few more you can probably do while in the air.
#53: Kill a unit however you want
#55: Make the enemy fail a moral or pinning test
#56: Manifest a psychic power
#61: Kill the enemy warlord
#62: Kill a psycher
#63: Kill a flier or FMC
#64: Kill a character
#65: Kill a gun emplacement or building
#66: Kill a vehicle or MC
So that is 10 out of 66 or roughly 15% of maelstrom objectives, and it just so happen to be all of them that can be impossible, and thus get discarded. You aren't going to run into many armies that have a vehicle or MC, a gun emplacement, a psycher, and a Flier, that aren't also fearless.

My guess is that you get 1 point from your rippers, and 2 from your Lictors, and probably 1 or 2 from you Mawloc, Most likely 2 or so for the cards above, so you are looking at a score of about 7 going into turn 4-5 when you feel comfortable enough to start landing flyrants. A good Maelstrom list can do 10-14 during that time, but you have a good chance of tabling them, and you might be able to deny them enough to win the game, or just get lucky with your draws. So it isn't auto lose. I was definitely overstating the case by saying "usually going to lose", but it is definitely less optimized than a list with 3 flyrants and 2 Dakkafexes in pods.

One thing you are forgetting is that the 5 flyrants should be clearing enemy scoring units. Each flyrant has the firepower and mobility to potentially take out 1 MSU unit a turn by itself. Sure, the opponent might score a couple of Maelstrom objectives more initially, but they are also losing scoring units at a much faster rate than Tyranids will be. Also, not only will Tyranids be killing off enemy units, but they can do so with surgical precision. Need an objective contested by an enemy unit? Take it out. So now, you've cleared a path for your scoring unit as well as take out an enemy scoring unit. As the game goes on, Tyranids will get better and better at the Maelstrom objectives while the opponent gets worse and worse. Moreover, it's very, very hard to stop the flyrants from doing whatever they want to your troops.

Now I am not saying that a pentyrant build is super-effective at Maelstrom missions, but I wouldn't under-estimate their ability to play the Maelstrom game. They can definitely compete in the Maelstrom department.