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Okay so I'm wondering whether it is a better idea to make the Flyrant a melee or ranged guy. Here are my ideas:

Melee:

- the flyrant already comes with 2 sets of scything talons, so he already has 5 base attacks, 6 on charge. he also has initiative 5, so strikes before most enemies except dark/eldar and strikes at the same time as space marine HQs.

giving him lash whip and bonesword is kinda pointless, as bonesword does nothing except make him ID stuff on 6s and +3I, but like I said the latter would have been more useful if the tyrant was base I4. Furthermore, the tyrant has no access to flesh hooks (frag grenades) so strikes last the turn he charges into cover anyway. Toxin sacs is pretty useless because S6, so only useful if he's up against C'tan Shards, Wraithlords and Wraithknights, but giving up the ability to wound most infantry on a 2+ for that? No thanks.

giving him wings is mandatory to get him into melee. Now the question is: swooping or gliding. 7th ed has seen to it that he starts as gliding on the game board, or if he wants to start as swooping, he needs to be kept in reserve, so if you want him to come in swooping, no flyrant till turn 2 at least. Also, if he swoops, he cant charge and not only this, but if he wants to charge he also must change stances and THEN WAIT A TURN. So turn 1 glide, turn 2 swoop, turn 3 glide, turn 4 charge. Or turn 1 reserve, turn 2 arrive (swoop), turn 3 glide, turn 4 charge.

However, if he starts the game on the table and remains in glide mode, then: turn 1 glide, turn 2 charge.

He wont get the hard to hit rule, but can still jink and since he is a melee guy, doesnt have to worry about jink's snapshots only rule.


Ranged:

with a ranged hive tyrant, things get more complicated. on one hand, you want wings and swoop since they give you hard to hit. on the other hand, you should then not use jink, because snapshots. so you either start the game gliding and then swoop on turn 2 onward, or you put him in reserves and arrive in swoop on turn 2 onward. Obviously option 2 is safer, but there is no guarantee your flyrant will arrive on turn 2, while with the former you can start firing (if in range) from turn 1 itself if the enemy took 1st turn and also have guarantee that he's on the table on turn 2.

Now on to firepower:

2 twin-linked devourers with brainleech worms is the most popular netlist loadout: 12 shots, all tl at BS 4 means 10.66 hits. All of it being S6 means 8.88 wounds against T4 or lower, and against the most common MC profile, T6, you'd put 5.33 wounds. Against vehicles, that's 1.77 HPs on AV 12, 3.5 HP against AV 11 and obviously insta-wreck against AV 10 in one round of shooting. Most importantly, he hits enemy flyers on normal BS which is the main selling point of the dakka flyrant.

Is this a serious question?

Read the bloody Tyranid thread for crying out loud. They have break downs of all the loadouts.

Shotting Flyrant is king and has been for years.

Melee flyrant is junk.

From JY2's tyrant breakdown;

Grades: A+ (dakka flyrant), B (shooty walkrant), C (cc-flyrant), D (cc-walkrant)

My meta doesnt have many flyers, so one of his big shooting advantages is nullified.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Carnage43 wrote:
Is this a serious question?

Read the bloody Tyranid thread for crying out loud. They have break downs of all the loadouts.

Shotting Flyrant is king and has been for years.

Melee flyrant is junk.

From JY2's tyrant breakdown;

Grades: A+ (dakka flyrant), B (shooty walkrant), C (cc-flyrant), D (cc-walkrant)

The reason I made this thread is exactly because of that - the Tyranid thread simply states the dakka flyrant is king but is too brief. If we leave flyer-killing advantages aside, the only argument it makes against melee flyrant is lack of Inv. save to protect from dedicated cc-units, and sitting ducks if you kill the enemy in cc by the end of your turn. I also mentioned lack of hard to hit if he wants to get into cc quick.

But OTOH dakka flyrant cant really make use of 4+ jink, and everything hit by it can take armor saves, while melee flyrant, over 2 turns off cc has an output of 11 S6 AP2 attacks = 7.33 hits = 6.11 dead MEQ in cc as opposed to 2.93 dead space marines from the dakka flyrant. The tally gets even more obvious if we consider dead 2+ save guys (e.g. terminators would be 1.48 dead termies per volley from the dakka flyrant compared to 5.92 from the tyrant - hell, the melee flyrant even kills more TH/SS termies (2.96 as opposed to those 1.48 from the dakka flyrant)

If you want assault, you have Mawlocs, Dimas, Stone Crusher Carnifex, Screamer Killer Carnifex, hell, even Raveners. And the Tyrannocyte for delivery. The Tyrant should have those 12 S6 shots every time. That just makes sense. Why gut the best model when so much more have the same role. The Flyrant fills a niche. Use the rest of the swarm to hit things in the face.

Also, since you can't charge on the turn you switch from swooping to gliding, she's stuck there like a moron waiting to punch things because you didn't bother to give her a shooting weapon... May as well use Tyrannocyte dropped Warriors.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Also, since you can't charge on the turn you switch from swooping to gliding, she's stuck there like a moron waiting to punch things because you didn't bother to give her a shooting weapon... May as well use Tyrannocyte dropped Warriors.

only if you choose to swoop with the wings, which for a melee oriented flyrant is a stupid thing to do

At which point it will die like any other model on the table. T6 3+ does not last. And last even less without Tyrant Guard. I've had my walking tyrant, which is basically what you end up with but with more movement, fall to 1 Wound coming across a five man Tactical Squad with a plasma gun and Combi-plasma...

There was talk of the Sky Tyrant formation, the one with the clipped wing Flyrant and two Gargoyle broods as a single massive brood, having a melee Tyrant but at the end of the day, the gargoyles kept the Tyrant alive, but got in the way on the charge. The Tyrant rarely got into combat first.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Most importantly, he hits enemy flyers on normal BS which is the main selling point of the dakka flyrant.

Extremely mobile Synapse is fantastic in a army that is dependent on it, on a durable platform (due to Hard to Hit) on top of the TL Dakka are the main selling points. 200 points on a T6 4W 3+ is far too expensive (50 points per wound?!) . But being hit on 6's makes it that more survivable (and while it's in the air, you might as well give it guns so it can do stuff). Psychic Powers (Catalyst is godly) just compliment it's further.

That said, I think you would be fine with 1-2 Dakka Flyrants so that your opponents can deal with it, particularly if they run little Skyfire.

 Sir Arun wrote:
The reason I made this thread is exactly because of that - the Tyranid thread simply states the dakka flyrant is king but is too brief. If we leave flyer-killing advantages aside, the only argument it makes against melee flyrant is lack of Inv. save to protect from dedicated cc-units, and sitting ducks if you kill the enemy in cc by the end of your turn. I also mentioned lack of hard to hit if he wants to get into cc quick.

But OTOH dakka flyrant cant really make use of 4+ jink, and everything hit by it can take armor saves, while melee flyrant, over 2 turns off cc has an output of 11 S6 AP2 attacks = 7.33 hits = 6.11 dead MEQ in cc as opposed to 2.93 dead space marines from the dakka flyrant. The tally gets even more obvious if we consider dead 2+ save guys (e.g. terminators would be 1.48 dead termies per volley from the dakka flyrant compared to 5.92 from the tyrant - hell, the melee flyrant even kills more TH/SS termies (2.96 as opposed to those 1.48 from the dakka flyrant)

To elaborate on why a Melee Flyrant isn't viable.
1) Flyrants are a fragile platform. 200+ points for a T6 4 wound MC with a 3+ save is way, way too much to pay. Demons can get away with it a bit because they have access to survivability buffs like Biomancy and Divination. You offset the fragility by keeping them airborne so that things need 6's to hit them.
2) Assault is messy. You can get in and kill stuff but you are going to be taking wounds right back. Sure, a CC flyrant can kill a couple TH/SS termies, but once the survivors swing back he is dead.
3) Force is a thing, and it is widely available. Despite any fluff about how force is for use killing Deamons, it doesn't do that nearly as well as it kills Tyranids.
4) You don't need a ground presence to win in Eternal war missions. Most tournaments have been slow to adopt Maelstrom missions, and that means when conversations of "good" arise, they are always based on the current tournament rules. Because east coast tournaments are struggling right now that means west coast tournament rules (which aren't that much different). If you play Maelstrom locally, you might have a different opinion.
5) Dakkaflyrants make much better use of psychic powers because of added mobility.
6) Imperial Knights exist. Even a normal AV 12 walker can reasonably kill a Close combat flyrant.
7) A melee flyrant is an assault deathstar, but one that can't reasonably deal with most other assault deathstars.
8) With greater mobility Dakkaflyrants are better able to pick their targets than Melee Tyrants.

So lets talk about why you might not want to run a Dakkaflyrant. The main answer is that it would overwhelm your opponents. You don't want to be the A-Hole bringing cheese. So, if your meta is prepared, than a non-dakkaflyrant is perfectly reasonable. The other option is that you are stubborn / committed to not running one on a matter of principle. That's fine too.

So then, how do your run a good CC Tyrant? Keep it cheap. My suggestion is Electroshock Grubs, Bonesword + Lashwhip and Old Adversary. You will notice that this configuration kills more TH+SS termies than Reaper of Obliterax or any other configuration.
Here are a few posts to support this with extensive math:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/7860/572843.page#7407350
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/7860/572843.page#7408053

Why BS+LW? Because lots, and lots of assaulty things are I5+. Demons and Eldar mainly, but even certain marine SC's like Mephiston. Also, as a Character, the Flyrant is going to challenge out multi-wound models. So 6's up your killing power significantly.
Why no Adrenal Glands? If running alone, then I recommend Adrenal Glands for Fleet, but you wont be running alone.

The SkyTyrant formation allows you to add 2 squads of gargoyles to a Close Combat Flyrant. It lowers the average toughness to 3, but gives you up to 60 Ablative wounds, the ability to multi-assault and many, many more options. Congaline a single gargoyle back to a venom or Malanthrope, and you can Jink your Melee tyrant up front for a 2+ cover save, or just keep the 1st few gargoyles in terrain. Remember to LOS when the time comes.

Are you guys forgetting that the flyrant has a stock 4+ cover save? Which is pretty much the equivalent of an Iron Halo unless you're up against Tau. Most of the non-Tau cover ignoring isn't AP3 as well. He wont go down to plasmaguns and lascannons as easily as you think.

And then he has a 33% chance of rolling Catalyst, so that's FNP on top which also works in cc. Paroxysm also can potentially lower enemy WS to the point where they need 5s to hit the flyrant in cc, and ofc it also helps to reduce the BS of nearby units who might otherwise try to exact revenge for a slain squad. And then there's the Horror, which also helps keep enemy fire away from the flyrant.

And the whole idea for assaulting a squad is also preventing it from shooting at all.

A ranged flyrant may be awesome against enemy flyers, and also have the hard to hit special rule, but anything it shoots at can take armor saves, the range is only 18", meaning it will frequently get rapid-fired in return, and unlike the cc-tyrant it doesnt tie up an enemy shooty squad so that 10 man devastator squad with 4 lascannons that just took some wounds from the dakka tyrant for example can continue to pummel your tervigon at the back.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Are you guys forgetting that the flyrant has a stock 4+ cover save? Which is pretty much the equivalent of an Iron Halo unless you're up against Tau. Most of the non-Tau cover ignoring isn't AP3 as well. He wont go down to plasmaguns and lascannons as easily as you think.

I didn't forget. In fact I would encourage you to turn that 4+ jink into a 2+ Jink via a Malanthrope.

Even with a 2+ jink, it is still a suboptimal unit compared to a Dakkaflyrant. Give it a posse of Gargoyles, and avoid Imperial Knights, Draigo, and GUO's and you have the best case scenario.

If your meta is flyer-light, take as many flyers as possible with shooting.

Verviedi wrote:
If your meta is flyer-light, take as many flyers as possible with shooting.

what if LIKES the people he plays with and doesn't WANT to be a douche?

BrianDavion wrote:

Verviedi wrote:
If your meta is flyer-light, take as many flyers as possible with shooting.

what if LIKES the people he plays with and doesn't WANT to be a douche?

Indeed, in my gaming environment we tend to discuss the sort of lists we are bringing in advance in broad terms. E.g. no fliers, "I'll be tank heavy" and so on. Not really enough for proper list tailoring, but more a sort of agreement to prevent absolute hosing and really unbalanced matchups. Sometimes we just go with "bring the most brutal thing you can" and we see where the chips fall, but it's perfectly normal for us to shape our lists like that for more interesting games. If I agreed with someone that we were going for a flier-less game and then turned up with Skyblight I would be TFG, which is not one of the things I set out for in the morning.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Are you guys forgetting that the flyrant has a stock 4+ cover save? Which is pretty much the equivalent of an Iron Halo unless you're up against Tau. Most of the non-Tau cover ignoring isn't AP3 as well. He wont go down to plasmaguns and lascannons as easily as you think.

And then he has a 33% chance of rolling Catalyst, so that's FNP on top which also works in cc. Paroxysm also can potentially lower enemy WS to the point where they need 5s to hit the flyrant in cc, and ofc it also helps to reduce the BS of nearby units who might otherwise try to exact revenge for a slain squad. And then there's the Horror, which also helps keep enemy fire away from the flyrant.

And the whole idea for assaulting a squad is also preventing it from shooting at all.

A ranged flyrant may be awesome against enemy flyers, and also have the hard to hit special rule, but anything it shoots at can take armor saves, the range is only 18", meaning it will frequently get rapid-fired in return, and unlike the cc-tyrant it doesnt tie up an enemy shooty squad so that 10 man devastator squad with 4 lascannons that just took some wounds from the dakka tyrant for example can continue to pummel your tervigon at the back.

That 4+ Jink is not really that good. Same reason no Tau player relies shield drones to tank wounds, the save just is not that solid against volume of fire. For a turn 2 assault, pretty much the best you are going to get unless the opponent wants to have you assault, means you are going to have survive 2 rounds of heavy fire.

Most flyrants are not taken for use against of other fliers, thats is were Crones are still superior, they are taken to get rear shots on Armour and to start killing critical units first turn. Rapid fire is not that scary thanks to Hard-to-hit. If hitting on 5's is good, hitting on 6's is better.

I understand draw to running a melee flyrant. A winged tyrant with boneswords or talons looks awesome, unlike a tyrant with the dumb devourers. Unfortunately, the devourers make the flyrant survivable enough, and at the same time killy enough to be "worth" his points as has been discussed above. A melee flyrant just doesn't make sense in any semi-competitive environment. That being said, I've run him in small 500 point games effectively, and also run him when my opponent and I agree to bring lists based on fun over optimisation. Something just feels right about the melee flyrant. Even so, if you want to be competitive, I'm afraid we have to bite the bullet and give him the devourers.

 Sir Arun wrote:
My meta doesnt have many flyers, so one of his big shooting advantages is nullified.

What? He's not good only because he can shoot at flyers. He's amazing because he's extremely fast, has brutal firepower against basically everything, and he's extremely hard to kill. None of which a non-flying shooty Tyrant has. Hence, shooty Tyrant, every time, all the time.

Perhaps OP is misunderstanding that a flying hive tyrant can choose to shoot at ground units while he flies?

If not, I will echo what others have said. Flying makes him durable. Trust me when I say that 4 wounds do not go very far otherwise. The Skytyrant brood, which has been suggested also, increases his durability but his mobility is hindered by the gargoyles. The other downside of that swarm is that you are probably taking him as a melee tyrant. Giving up that many shots is just bad news bears.

Doing some math, we can see that we give up 5 turns of shooting by the flying hive tyrant (conservatively). That's 60 shots, 53 hits, and depending on what you are shooting various amounts of wounds. Anything t4 or less is on the receiving end of no less than 46 wounds on average. Do you really want to give that up for what....6 attacks on the charge? Even if you got to do that every turn that's 30 attacks...20 hits....less wounds. Sure it ignores armor saves but you're not getting a turn 1 charge. The Flyrant contributes to all phases of the game in a big way and can deal with anything. The melee tyrant chases stuff down and has a difficult time making his points back. Trust me, assault is not the place to be right now (and this is coming from a guy running 2 Dimachaerons in his favorite list). It's tough and you don't want to give up your best gun platform(s) when other units can do their dirty work in assault

luke1705 wrote:
Perhaps OP is misunderstanding that a flying hive tyrant can choose to shoot at ground units while he flies?

If not, I will echo what others have said. Flying makes him durable. Trust me when I say that 4 wounds do not go very far otherwise. The Skytyrant brood, which has been suggested also, increases his durability but his mobility is hindered by the gargoyles. The other downside of that swarm is that you are probably taking him as a melee tyrant. Giving up that many shots is just bad news bears.

Doing some math, we can see that we give up 5 turns of shooting by the flying hive tyrant (conservatively). That's 60 shots, 53 hits, and depending on what you are shooting various amounts of wounds. Anything t4 or less is on the receiving end of no less than 46 wounds on average. Do you really want to give that up for what....6 attacks on the charge? Even if you got to do that every turn that's 30 attacks...20 hits....less wounds. Sure it ignores armor saves but you're not getting a turn 1 charge. The Flyrant contributes to all phases of the game in a big way and can deal with anything. The melee tyrant chases stuff down and has a difficult time making his points back. Trust me, assault is not the place to be right now (and this is coming from a guy running 2 Dimachaerons in his favorite list). It's tough and you don't want to give up your best gun platform(s) when other units can do their dirty work in assault

you forget that a turn has 2 rounds of cc - yours and during the opponent's phase. So in an ideal situation (aka the tyrant is always stuck in cc) thats at least 50 attacks, 33 hits, 27 AP3 wounds against T4. Of course, the tyrant always being in cc isnt a realistic assessment, just like the tl-devourer tyrant always being within 18" of something worth shooting. The question though is how much of an effect in overall battle balance does it have if your tyrant goes in and ties up another enemy shooty squad compared to a list with a ranged dakka flyrant that shoots at stuff but doesnt prevent an enemy squad from getting its shots off over multiple turns.

luke1705 wrote:
Trust me, assault is not the place to be right now

Just gonna say this: I run an aggressively forward and assaulty Necron army of all things, and have a way higher win than loss rate.

Assault might be dead in the hypercompetitive tournament netlist circuit, but I've never seen an ounce of firsthand evidence of it in my meta.


Play what you like OP, a jinking jump pack monstrous creature is plenty durable enough to close in normal games so long as you have other threats of equal or better target priority for your enemy to worry about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sir Arun wrote:

you forget that a turn has 2 rounds of cc - yours and during the opponent's phase. So in an ideal situation (aka the tyrant is always stuck in cc) thats at least 50 attacks, 33 hits, 27 AP3 wounds against T4. Of course, the tyrant always being in cc isnt a realistic assessment, just like the tl-devourer tyrant always being within 18" of something worth shooting. The question though is how much of an effect in overall battle balance does it have if your tyrant goes in and ties up another enemy shooty squad compared to a list with a ranged dakka flyrant that shoots at stuff but doesnt prevent an enemy squad from getting its shots off over multiple turns.

AP2, actually.

changemod wrote:
Play what you like OP, a jinking jump pack monstrous creature is plenty durable enough to close in normal games so long as you have other threats of equal or better target priority for your enemy to worry about.

Yeah I usually pair my flyrant up with 2 Mawlocs also trying to DS in and do their S6 AP2 pie plate damage to the thickest enemy concentration. A lone tyrant trying to assault things is a dead tyrant, I agree.

A melee Flyrant has absolutely no redeeming qualities over a ranged one. Zero, Zip.

Nearly everyone has been giving the same answers for many reasons. If you still don't want to listen about the many benefits of a Flyrant to a floating melee version then that's up to you but why ask the question if you've already decided? If you want a 230+pt Tyrant to do the job of a Dima, or a Carnifex because you feel that the meta would be better served that way, have at it and feel free to post what happens here or on the tactics board as a counter to everyone else's experiences.

changemod wrote:

Just gonna say this: I run an aggressively forward and assaulty Necron army of all things, and have a way higher win than loss rate.

Assault might be dead in the hypercompetitive tournament netlist circuit, but I've never seen an ounce of firsthand evidence of it in my meta.


Play what you like OP, a jinking jump pack monstrous creature is plenty durable enough to close in normal games so long as you have other threats of equal or better target priority for your enemy to worry about.

Wraith and destroyer lords are one of like, 3 viable melee lists these days. It's hardly surprising an aggressive necron list does well, especially since they are one of the top 5 armies, and have been for nearly 4 years now.

The thing with melee is; It's really good against bad players, and really bad against good players/lists. Generally, as competitiveness goes up, melee goes down. With only 1 or 2 exceptions.

The "starter" end of the game is dominated by powerful melee, because battle force and starter level armies lack the concentration of obscenely powerful shooting units that top end armies have. Therefore more enemies can make to melee, and do better at it.

I mean, look at your "starter" marine army;

Captain with powersword/storm bolter (bad)
Dreadnought with assault cannon (mediocre)
Tactical terminators (bad)
2 tactical squads with flamers + missile (mediocre)
Predator
5 ASM
3-5 bikes
Maybe a flyer or some other flashy unit/character

That's 1500 points....it's just awful, and won't stop anyone from getting a lot of stuff into melee. The problem is that to get a starter army to evolve into a competitive one...well, there's no real evolution, you have to throw it all out and start from scratch.

A melee tyrant would tear this list up, and this give some people the impression that a melee tyrant is good. It IS good....at stomping baddies, but not against solid opponents.

 Carnage43 wrote:
Wraith and destroyer lords are one of like, 3 viable melee lists these days. It's hardly surprising an aggressive necron list does well, especially since they are one of the top 5 armies, and have been for nearly 4 years now.

Yeah, I don't go that far very often.

I change my list up a lot, but typically it's something along the lines of:

HQ: Combat kitted Phaeron, with no barge, or Kutlakh. Various Crypteks,

Elites: 1-2 Deathmark units. Sometimes a Tomb Stalker. Rarely Lychguard or C'tan if the mood strikes.

Troops: One of each Immortal type. Sometimes two warrior units if I'm feeling like running a horde.

Dedicated Transport: None.

Fast Attack: One wraith unit, more seems like overkill. Either Scarabs and Destroyers or Acanthrites and Charnel Scarabs.

Heavy Support: 1-2 Spyder units, with Particle Beamers. Occasionally Sentry Pylons, Tesseract Ark or one of the two heavy fliers.

Like I say, I don't run a tournament quality list at all. I assault with the drones, pop the Deathmarks in then get aggressively into rapid fire range and either charge with the Phaeron or dare someone to charge a Stormtek in a Tesla unit.

It's just what I find fun to field, and that's important. Is using a FMC as jump monstrous creature trying to smash it's way into assault fun? Hell yes, I'd take that in my list a heartbeat if Necrons had one and who cares if it might have a more effective shooty weapon option?