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Am I adding this up right we can get a Fex for 88 points 67 base 7 for the tail and then 14 for the 2 pairs of monstrous anything talons?

Less, if you take the bone mace.

Minimum cost for a fex would 89.
67 base +2 for the bonetail + 20 for twin scytals.

Spoletta wrote:
Minimum cost for a fex would 89.
67 base +2 for the bonetail + 20 for twin scytals.

Yeah my tired eyes were mixing up the single cost and the duel cost.

Spoletta wrote:
That's the exact nid list that i fear we will have to abandon. It's tiered to provide the most brutal assault possible.

Double rank assault is the way to go for nids IMHO. One fast wave that hits the screening units turn 1-2 and a second slower but thougher wave that hits turn 2-3. The first wave will be slaughtered, but coupled with a bit of disruption (raveners, lictors and maybe trygons) it will keep attention away from the second wave.

Mix that with support and shooting at your pleasure.

These kind of lists will also provide some screening units for us, against those list where we are going to need it. Green tides for example.

I think going pure assault is a mistake in general. That list is a one trick pony which means it only requires one trick to counter it. That will always be the case and people will start bringing something to screen with.

Nids are very powerful. We have powerful tools in more than just assault. We have easy access to a lot of psykers who provide more than just their powers. And while everyone else is complaining about how diminished their psykers seem to be Nids are have a GREAT power set. For a little over 800 points you can bring a pair of tervigons and several 30 man blobs of termagants. The sheer amount of regenerating dakka is very potent with each tervigon able to cast a psychic power each turn you can also toss about the 5+ FNP on the blobs.

Biovores just hand out mortal wounds and misses provide Spore Mines that can be great movement denial tools.

You need to balance out your list so that you are not so easily countered. If you do that Nids are a nightmare of variable threat overload.

 Lance845 wrote:

Spoiler:

Spoletta wrote:
That's the exact nid list that i fear we will have to abandon. It's tiered to provide the most brutal assault possible.

Double rank assault is the way to go for nids IMHO. One fast wave that hits the screening units turn 1-2 and a second slower but thougher wave that hits turn 2-3. The first wave will be slaughtered, but coupled with a bit of disruption (raveners, lictors and maybe trygons) it will keep attention away from the second wave.

Mix that with support and shooting at your pleasure.

These kind of lists will also provide some screening units for us, against those list where we are going to need it. Green tides for example.

I think going pure assault is a mistake in general. That list is a one trick pony which means it only requires one trick to counter it. That will always be the case and people will start bringing something to screen with.

Nids are very powerful. We have powerful tools in more than just assault. We have easy access to a lot of psykers who provide more than just their powers. And while everyone else is complaining about how diminished their psykers seem to be Nids are have a GREAT power set. For a little over 800 points you can bring a pair of tervigons and several 30 man blobs of termagants. The sheer amount of regenerating dakka is very potent with each tervigon able to cast a psychic power each turn you can also toss about the 5+ FNP on the blobs.

Biovores just hand out mortal wounds and misses provide Spore Mines that can be great movement denial tools.

You need to balance out your list so that you are not so easily countered. If you do that Nids are a nightmare of variable threat overload.

I agree.
Other factions are better than us at pure assault. What we do best is combined arms. Lots of assault combined with shooting, disruption and psy support.

It seems like Nids have multiple ways to build a viable army now, while assault + support is possibly the strongest I forsee Nids being popular at stores because they can be customized to what a player wants without sacrificing effectiveness overall. Coupled with what I suspect has been a large number of people (myself included) waiting years for exactly that sort of situation.

Tyranofex vs Exocrine?

I doubt there is space for both.

Trygon vs Mawloc? I know you get the tunnel but its much more expensive and it doesn't seem to me that there is much issues with mobility, if you've got swarmlord and stealers then you are potentially getting first turn charge.

So in that sense is a Mawloc better since it provides a distraction big wound count and tactically good distraction in their backfield

Has anyone had to deal with a Stormraven yet?
I had a 1000 pt game against Blood Angels, where the enemy list consisted of Dante, and a Stormraven containing a unit of death company + a death company dreadnought, along with another couple of characters in there.

I was running Broodlord + 20 stealers, 3 hive guard, big mob of 30 termagants, a harpy, plus some warriors and a tyranid prime. A fairly erratic list, but I'm still at the point of just throwing units into lists and seeing what sticks.

Turn one the stormraven rocks up from across the field, and Dante deepstrikes in behind it. It throws two multi-melta shots and missiles at my hive guard, lascannons at my harpy, and unloads 24 hurricane bolters into my genestealers.
Everything gets to re-roll to hit because of Dante back there.
The harpy and hive guard were hiding behind and in a ruin respectively, but these weapons have high enough AP values that the cover was near meaningless. I do make a 6+ save meaning I only lose two hive guard. Harpy loses about 5 wounds.

In my turn, the surviving hive guard and the harpy shoot at the stormraven. It's hard to hit, so not much luck. Deal a couple of wounds to it. Nothing else is able to hurt it much.
Harpy charges the stormraven out of desperation. It fires all of those shots again on overwatch, re-rolling to hit due to Dante, and kills the harpy.
None of my other units are able to charge the stormraven because it's airborne. So pretty much my whole army is left to just sit around its base.
My genestealers are able to get behind the stormraven and tear apart Dante at least.

Blood angels turn 2, it drops into hover mode and the occupants all pile out in every direction and charge. The death company dreadnought tears apart my broodlord. The stormraven unloads the hurricane bolters into the gaunts. Its missiles and melta kill all of my warriors. Death company blast away at the gaunts then charge the survivors. Gaunts being gaunts, fail to inflict any damage.

Start of my turn 2, I'm left with about 10 genestealers staring down a death company dreadnought (spoilers, they lose), a small number of termagants stuck in combat with death company, a tyranid prime trading blows with a character, and a single hive guard trying to hide in a ruin.
All my opponent has lost is Dante, and a few wounds on a 14 wound model. I'm tabled by turn 3, and he hasn't lost anything else.



In short, yikes.
The amount of firepower that stormraven can dish out across multiple targets is fairly staggering. The inability of non-Fly units to charge it before it has unloaded its highly assaulty contents allows it to be played very aggressively. Sure, the loadout it took meant it cost over 300 points, but it was 300+ points well spent.

I'm thinking about ways I could deal with it in future. Our shooting seems insufficient to deal with a T7 14 wound 3+ model that also subtracts 1 from all hit rolls against it. At least I'm not sure how easily we can deal with one in a single turn.
The problem is if you don't deal with it in a single turn, a pile of angry space marines are going to get the drop on you. Maybe multiple units of hive guard could do something.
Maybe gargoyles could absorb the overwatch, letting flyrants/harpies/crones charge in to do the damage. However you're then left with the annoyed occupants in a good position to get a charge on some valuable FMCs.

To be honest it seems like your.opponent came up with a solid strategy, built a list around it, and was generally coming in with a plan. On the other hand you were just showing up to try out some different units to see how they did and got caught by surprise. I suspect that knowing what's coming you'll do much better the second time around even if the lists are the same.

That most certainly is part of it.

Hiding the hive guard a little better may help. They were out of LoS, but there was a window on the side they could be seen through. It's difficult to stay entirely out of LoS of something with a 45" move speed, but perhaps better positioning could have made it less easy to get shots on them.
Having a reserved counter assault unit may also be of assistance. The stormraven would be much more hesitant to drop into hover if the moment it did so it got jumped by a trygon and 20 stealers. I'll give it a shot next time.

@Emicrania and @Arson Fire

The results here are more about opponents playing to strengths. Playing BA and not using DC, well might as well just be playing Red Beakers...

Going all Assault is fine, as long as you have some way of taking care of FLY. The whole "Fallback" and shoot thing is way overweighted. First for MOST armies the unit falling back can't shoot, second, if you do it right they are going to be falling back with almost half their gunline by turn 2, so that's half as much dakka you have to worry about, it also forces them to spread the dakka love.

Trygon's don't need Onslaught to Tunnel and Charge, Adrenal glands give +1" to move, so 8+ to make the 9" charge, 42% chance, with a reroll takes it over 50%.

I'd like some feedback on a 1500 point list for an event at the end of the month. It is likely it will be my first chance to play 8th due to limited modeling and playing time.

Tyranid Battalion Detachment, 1495 points

The Swarmlord (300)

Hive Tyrant, wings, tail, scything talons, 2x Deathspitter w/maggots, adrenal glands. (227)
Hive Tyrant, wings, tail, scything talons. 2x deathspitter w/maggots, adrenal glands. (227)

3 Warriors, 3x rending claws, 2x scything talons, 1 venom cannon. (75)
3 Warriors, 3x rending claws, 2x scything talons, 1 venom cannon. (75)
30x Hormagant, toxin sacs. (210)

3x Venomthrope, toxic lashes. (93)
3x Hive Guard, impaler cannons. (144)
3x Hive Guard, Impaler cannons. (144)

-Warriors have talons instead of guns due to me not expecting to have time to paint the guns.
-Not sure what to do with the extra 5 points. I can swap some rending for swords on the warriors.
-I am assuming that Hive Guard max at 3 until clarified by a FAQ.

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Tyranofex vs Exocrine?

I doubt there is space for both.

Trygon vs Mawloc? I know you get the tunnel but its much more expensive and it doesn't seem to me that there is much issues with mobility, if you've got swarmlord and stealers then you are potentially getting first turn charge.

So in that sense is a Mawloc better since it provides a distraction big wound count and tactically good distraction in their backfield

Why do you say that? Exocrine and Tfex have different roles, which at time overlap. Exocrine is an heavy infantry hunter that can double as a tank hunter, but will struggle with t8 targets.
Tfex depending on the loadout can be any of the following:

- Bane of any kind of horde army. 48 s5 shots can really mess a lot of lists and is probably our best bet against green tides.
- No flying zone. 2d6 autohit S7 AP -1 D3 damage speak for themselves (+double stinger salvos)
- Land raider equivalent hunter. You really need your command points for this, but the damage potential is really high.

As you can see the Tfex does not cover heavy infantry hunting or light vehicle hunting. That's a capability exclusive to the exocrine.

Since the costs are the same, i can see both being viable.

Now on the trygon and Mawloc front, i don't understand how you can see one overshadowing the other. The mawloc is a cheap distraction that will take a chunk of the enemy forces and force the other guy to put it in melee or he will do it again in the next turns.
The trygon costs almost double (trygon prime more than double), but is a deep striking transport and is our best beat stick against heavy targets (this thing eats a dreadnaught whole!). In the case of the prime it is also a Synapse/SitW bubble in the enemy zone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

babelfish wrote:
I'd like some feedback on a 1500 point list for an event at the end of the month. It is likely it will be my first chance to play 8th due to limited modeling and playing time.

Tyranid Battalion Detachment, 1495 points

The Swarmlord (300)

Hive Tyrant, wings, tail, scything talons, 2x Deathspitter w/maggots, adrenal glands. (227)
Hive Tyrant, wings, tail, scything talons. 2x deathspitter w/maggots, adrenal glands. (227)

3 Warriors, 3x rending claws, 2x scything talons, 1 venom cannon. (75)
3 Warriors, 3x rending claws, 2x scything talons, 1 venom cannon. (75)
30x Hormagant, toxin sacs. (210)

3x Venomthrope, toxic lashes. (93)
3x Hive Guard, impaler cannons. (144)
3x Hive Guard, Impaler cannons. (144)

-Warriors have talons instead of guns due to me not expecting to have time to paint the guns.
-Not sure what to do with the extra 5 points. I can swap some rending for swords on the warriors.
-I am assuming that Hive Guard max at 3 until clarified by a FAQ.

I think you are overinvesting in HQs for a 1500 point game. More than half your points are spent there. You are giving a lot of good targets to enemy heavy weapons without any form of backfield disruption to mitigate damage. Rember that venomthropes don't protect monsters.

You don't need a swarmlord in this list honestly. Hormagaunts will have no problems making it there by turn 2, and the venoms assure that they are not the first target in priority (catalyst goes on venomthropes). With those 300 points you can add some lictor/deathleaper, some ripper swarms for objective capping and an Old One Eye for cheap heavy target removal.

 Lance845 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
That's the exact nid list that i fear we will have to abandon. It's tiered to provide the most brutal assault possible.

Double rank assault is the way to go for nids IMHO. One fast wave that hits the screening units turn 1-2 and a second slower but thougher wave that hits turn 2-3. The first wave will be slaughtered, but coupled with a bit of disruption (raveners, lictors and maybe trygons) it will keep attention away from the second wave.

Mix that with support and shooting at your pleasure.

These kind of lists will also provide some screening units for us, against those list where we are going to need it. Green tides for example.

I think going pure assault is a mistake in general. That list is a one trick pony which means it only requires one trick to counter it. That will always be the case and people will start bringing something to screen with.

Nids are very powerful. We have powerful tools in more than just assault. We have easy access to a lot of psykers who provide more than just their powers. And while everyone else is complaining about how diminished their psykers seem to be Nids are have a GREAT power set. For a little over 800 points you can bring a pair of tervigons and several 30 man blobs of termagants. The sheer amount of regenerating dakka is very potent with each tervigon able to cast a psychic power each turn you can also toss about the 5+ FNP on the blobs.

Biovores just hand out mortal wounds and misses provide Spore Mines that can be great movement denial tools.

You need to balance out your list so that you are not so easily countered. If you do that Nids are a nightmare of variable threat overload.

I think the reason people are trying the one-dimensional super-assault list is somewhat rightly because in Age of Sigmar (the game which 90% informed 8th Ed's rules), that trick would work. Stacked buffs and super turn-1 assault wins games and dominates tournaments in AoS.

BUT... 8th Ed. isn't AoS... close, and thus I see why people are making the mistake, but as you say, durability of key units means that you can't just roll an opponent and remove their army in one perfect alpha-strike. People will discover that once the newness if Turn 1 charges wears off.

Spoletta wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Tyranofex vs Exocrine?

I doubt there is space for both.

Trygon vs Mawloc? I know you get the tunnel but its much more expensive and it doesn't seem to me that there is much issues with mobility, if you've got swarmlord and stealers then you are potentially getting first turn charge.

So in that sense is a Mawloc better since it provides a distraction big wound count and tactically good distraction in their backfield

Why do you say that? Exocrine and Tfex have different roles, which at time overlap. Exocrine is an heavy infantry hunter that can double as a tank hunter, but will struggle with t8 targets.
Tfex depending on the loadout can be any of the following:

- Bane of any kind of horde army. 48 s5 shots can really mess a lot of lists and is probably our best bet against green tides.
- No flying zone. 2d6 autohit S7 AP -1 D3 damage speak for themselves (+double stinger salvos)
- Land raider equivalent hunter. You really need your command points for this, but the damage potential is really high.

As you can see the Tfex does not cover heavy infantry hunting or light vehicle hunting. That's a capability exclusive to the exocrine.

Since the costs are the same, i can see both being viable.

Which would be true in a game of infinite points, one where you aren't hunting formations to give command points and where biovories and trygons and the like aren't competing for your points.

You see you say room for both then say you can't see why I'd favour the Mawloc over the Trygon - well that is why. But that being said I do appreciate the information since I don't get this army that well having just started nids (hence my questions).

Now on the trygon and Mawloc front, i don't understand how you can see one overshadowing the other. The mawloc is a cheap distraction that will take a chunk of the enemy forces and force the other guy to put it in melee or he will do it again in the next turns.
The trygon costs almost double (trygon prime more than double), but is a deep striking transport and is our best beat stick against heavy targets (this thing eats a dreadnaught whole!). In the case of the prime it is also a Synapse/SitW bubble in the enemy zone.

Key word being cheap, and if like me you have a lot of stealers (50+ they were cheap) that move really fast anyway do you need that tunnel or do you need distraction and save the points for an exocrine and a tyrannofex together?

I know its all list dependent, I'm sitting here tonight with a mawloc/trygon box trying to figure out what to assemble

Jaq Draco lives wrote:

Spoiler:

Spoletta wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Tyranofex vs Exocrine?

I doubt there is space for both.

Trygon vs Mawloc? I know you get the tunnel but its much more expensive and it doesn't seem to me that there is much issues with mobility, if you've got swarmlord and stealers then you are potentially getting first turn charge.

So in that sense is a Mawloc better since it provides a distraction big wound count and tactically good distraction in their backfield

Why do you say that? Exocrine and Tfex have different roles, which at time overlap. Exocrine is an heavy infantry hunter that can double as a tank hunter, but will struggle with t8 targets.
Tfex depending on the loadout can be any of the following:

- Bane of any kind of horde army. 48 s5 shots can really mess a lot of lists and is probably our best bet against green tides.
- No flying zone. 2d6 autohit S7 AP -1 D3 damage speak for themselves (+double stinger salvos)
- Land raider equivalent hunter. You really need your command points for this, but the damage potential is really high.

As you can see the Tfex does not cover heavy infantry hunting or light vehicle hunting. That's a capability exclusive to the exocrine.

Since the costs are the same, i can see both being viable.

Which would be true in a game of infinite points, one where you aren't hunting formations to give command points and where biovories and trygons and the like aren't competing for your points.

You see you say room for both then say you can't see why I'd favour the Mawloc over the Trygon - well that is why. But that being said I do appreciate the information since I don't get this army that well having just started nids (hence my questions).

Now on the trygon and Mawloc front, i don't understand how you can see one overshadowing the other. The mawloc is a cheap distraction that will take a chunk of the enemy forces and force the other guy to put it in melee or he will do it again in the next turns.
The trygon costs almost double (trygon prime more than double), but is a deep striking transport and is our best beat stick against heavy targets (this thing eats a dreadnaught whole!). In the case of the prime it is also a Synapse/SitW bubble in the enemy zone.

Key word being cheap, and if like me you have a lot of stealers (50+ they were cheap) that move really fast anyway do you need that tunnel or do you need distraction and save the points for an exocrine and a tyrannofex together?

I know its all list dependent, I'm sitting here tonight with a mawloc/trygon box trying to figure out what to assemble

So, in a nutshell... we agree that pretty much everything is finally viable?

Key word being cheap, and if like me you have a lot of stealers (50+ they were cheap) that move really fast anyway do you need that tunnel or do you need distraction and save the points for an exocrine and a tyrannofex together?

I know its all list dependent, I'm sitting here tonight with a mawloc/trygon box trying to figure out what to assemble

Just build what you like and try them, there is absolutely no one that can tell them apart beside you an do who sculpted the model.

2 unit of stealers of 20 is really viable, is just a lot of points. But 5+ invu and 4A each rending is.....wow..

Spoletta wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:

Spoiler:

Spoletta wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Tyranofex vs Exocrine?

I doubt there is space for both.

Trygon vs Mawloc? I know you get the tunnel but its much more expensive and it doesn't seem to me that there is much issues with mobility, if you've got swarmlord and stealers then you are potentially getting first turn charge.

So in that sense is a Mawloc better since it provides a distraction big wound count and tactically good distraction in their backfield

Why do you say that? Exocrine and Tfex have different roles, which at time overlap. Exocrine is an heavy infantry hunter that can double as a tank hunter, but will struggle with t8 targets.
Tfex depending on the loadout can be any of the following:

- Bane of any kind of horde army. 48 s5 shots can really mess a lot of lists and is probably our best bet against green tides.
- No flying zone. 2d6 autohit S7 AP -1 D3 damage speak for themselves (+double stinger salvos)
- Land raider equivalent hunter. You really need your command points for this, but the damage potential is really high.

As you can see the Tfex does not cover heavy infantry hunting or light vehicle hunting. That's a capability exclusive to the exocrine.

Since the costs are the same, i can see both being viable.

Which would be true in a game of infinite points, one where you aren't hunting formations to give command points and where biovories and trygons and the like aren't competing for your points.

You see you say room for both then say you can't see why I'd favour the Mawloc over the Trygon - well that is why. But that being said I do appreciate the information since I don't get this army that well having just started nids (hence my questions).

Now on the trygon and Mawloc front, i don't understand how you can see one overshadowing the other. The mawloc is a cheap distraction that will take a chunk of the enemy forces and force the other guy to put it in melee or he will do it again in the next turns.
The trygon costs almost double (trygon prime more than double), but is a deep striking transport and is our best beat stick against heavy targets (this thing eats a dreadnaught whole!). In the case of the prime it is also a Synapse/SitW bubble in the enemy zone.

Key word being cheap, and if like me you have a lot of stealers (50+ they were cheap) that move really fast anyway do you need that tunnel or do you need distraction and save the points for an exocrine and a tyrannofex together?

I know its all list dependent, I'm sitting here tonight with a mawloc/trygon box trying to figure out what to assemble

So, in a nutshell... we agree that pretty much everything is finally viable?

We do but I'm no closer to a decision lol

Jaq Draco lives wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Tyranofex vs Exocrine?

I doubt there is space for both.

Trygon vs Mawloc? I know you get the tunnel but its much more expensive and it doesn't seem to me that there is much issues with mobility, if you've got swarmlord and stealers then you are potentially getting first turn charge.

So in that sense is a Mawloc better since it provides a distraction big wound count and tactically good distraction in their backfield

Why do you say that? Exocrine and Tfex have different roles, which at time overlap. Exocrine is an heavy infantry hunter that can double as a tank hunter, but will struggle with t8 targets.
Tfex depending on the loadout can be any of the following:

- Bane of any kind of horde army. 48 s5 shots can really mess a lot of lists and is probably our best bet against green tides.
- No flying zone. 2d6 autohit S7 AP -1 D3 damage speak for themselves (+double stinger salvos)
- Land raider equivalent hunter. You really need your command points for this, but the damage potential is really high.

As you can see the Tfex does not cover heavy infantry hunting or light vehicle hunting. That's a capability exclusive to the exocrine.

Since the costs are the same, i can see both being viable.

Which would be true in a game of infinite points, one where you aren't hunting formations to give command points and where biovories and trygons and the like aren't competing for your points.

You see you say room for both then say you can't see why I'd favour the Mawloc over the Trygon - well that is why. But that being said I do appreciate the information since I don't get this army that well having just started nids (hence my questions).

Now on the trygon and Mawloc front, i don't understand how you can see one overshadowing the other. The mawloc is a cheap distraction that will take a chunk of the enemy forces and force the other guy to put it in melee or he will do it again in the next turns.
The trygon costs almost double (trygon prime more than double), but is a deep striking transport and is our best beat stick against heavy targets (this thing eats a dreadnaught whole!). In the case of the prime it is also a Synapse/SitW bubble in the enemy zone.

Key word being cheap, and if like me you have a lot of stealers (50+ they were cheap) that move really fast anyway do you need that tunnel or do you need distraction and save the points for an exocrine and a tyrannofex together?

I know its all list dependent, I'm sitting here tonight with a mawloc/trygon box trying to figure out what to assemble

In general with 'nids you are going to have to make difficult decisions on how to fill a role. With the Mawloc/Trygon you should just build both heads, put a magnet or a pin in each of them, and try both out. No one is going to care or even notice of you have the big Trygon claws on a Mawloc, and the tail options don't make a big difference until you reach the point where you are optimizing for tournaments.

babelfish wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:
Tyranofex vs Exocrine?

I doubt there is space for both.

Trygon vs Mawloc? I know you get the tunnel but its much more expensive and it doesn't seem to me that there is much issues with mobility, if you've got swarmlord and stealers then you are potentially getting first turn charge.

So in that sense is a Mawloc better since it provides a distraction big wound count and tactically good distraction in their backfield

Why do you say that? Exocrine and Tfex have different roles, which at time overlap. Exocrine is an heavy infantry hunter that can double as a tank hunter, but will struggle with t8 targets.
Tfex depending on the loadout can be any of the following:

- Bane of any kind of horde army. 48 s5 shots can really mess a lot of lists and is probably our best bet against green tides.
- No flying zone. 2d6 autohit S7 AP -1 D3 damage speak for themselves (+double stinger salvos)
- Land raider equivalent hunter. You really need your command points for this, but the damage potential is really high.

As you can see the Tfex does not cover heavy infantry hunting or light vehicle hunting. That's a capability exclusive to the exocrine.

Since the costs are the same, i can see both being viable.

Which would be true in a game of infinite points, one where you aren't hunting formations to give command points and where biovories and trygons and the like aren't competing for your points.

You see you say room for both then say you can't see why I'd favour the Mawloc over the Trygon - well that is why. But that being said I do appreciate the information since I don't get this army that well having just started nids (hence my questions).

Now on the trygon and Mawloc front, i don't understand how you can see one overshadowing the other. The mawloc is a cheap distraction that will take a chunk of the enemy forces and force the other guy to put it in melee or he will do it again in the next turns.
The trygon costs almost double (trygon prime more than double), but is a deep striking transport and is our best beat stick against heavy targets (this thing eats a dreadnaught whole!). In the case of the prime it is also a Synapse/SitW bubble in the enemy zone.

Key word being cheap, and if like me you have a lot of stealers (50+ they were cheap) that move really fast anyway do you need that tunnel or do you need distraction and save the points for an exocrine and a tyrannofex together?

I know its all list dependent, I'm sitting here tonight with a mawloc/trygon box trying to figure out what to assemble

In general with 'nids you are going to have to make difficult decisions on how to fill a role. With the Mawloc/Trygon you should just build both heads, put a magnet or a pin in each of them, and try both out. No one is going to care or even notice of you have the big Trygon claws on a Mawloc, and the tail options don't make a big difference until you reach the point where you are optimizing for tournaments.

Thats some damn good advice.

I'm thinking Trygon vs Mawloc is a debate that highly depends on your list and if you bring one mawloc why not 2-3

But on the other front exocrine vs tryrannofex vs biovore all different bring em all if you can

Jaq Draco lives wrote:

But on the other front exocrine vs tryrannofex vs biovore all different bring em all if you can

I got curious and plugged some numbers.

A Spearhead detachment, using a Prime as the HQ, with 2 rupture Tyranofexes, two Exocrines, and two 3 model Biovore units comes out to around 1265 points. Two cheap venom cannon Warrior squads adds 150 to that, so 1415 or so.

That is a reasonably solid firebase that can has potential to reach out and do a lot of damage. Throw in a broodlord and some stealers at 2000 points and you have a fast forward assulty aspect supported by shooting that technically covers all of your bases.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
That's the exact nid list that i fear we will have to abandon. It's tiered to provide the most brutal assault possible.

Double rank assault is the way to go for nids IMHO. One fast wave that hits the screening units turn 1-2 and a second slower but thougher wave that hits turn 2-3. The first wave will be slaughtered, but coupled with a bit of disruption (raveners, lictors and maybe trygons) it will keep attention away from the second wave.

Mix that with support and shooting at your pleasure.

These kind of lists will also provide some screening units for us, against those list where we are going to need it. Green tides for example.

I think going pure assault is a mistake in general. That list is a one trick pony which means it only requires one trick to counter it. That will always be the case and people will start bringing something to screen with.

Nids are very powerful. We have powerful tools in more than just assault. We have easy access to a lot of psykers who provide more than just their powers. And while everyone else is complaining about how diminished their psykers seem to be Nids are have a GREAT power set. For a little over 800 points you can bring a pair of tervigons and several 30 man blobs of termagants. The sheer amount of regenerating dakka is very potent with each tervigon able to cast a psychic power each turn you can also toss about the 5+ FNP on the blobs.

Biovores just hand out mortal wounds and misses provide Spore Mines that can be great movement denial tools.

You need to balance out your list so that you are not so easily countered. If you do that Nids are a nightmare of variable threat overload.

I think the reason people are trying the one-dimensional super-assault list is somewhat rightly because in Age of Sigmar (the game which 90% informed 8th Ed's rules), that trick would work. Stacked buffs and super turn-1 assault wins games and dominates tournaments in AoS.

BUT... 8th Ed. isn't AoS... close, and thus I see why people are making the mistake, but as you say, durability of key units means that you can't just roll an opponent and remove their army in one perfect alpha-strike. People will discover that once the newness if Turn 1 charges wears off.

Actually nids are the army that can pull that off the best. To the point where a first turn assault is extremely viable, and it is impossible to kill enough bugs following up to survive the second wave. Genestealers are hard to counter for anyone at all.

Rapid fire particularly has an issue since nids can assault much much much farther away than 12 inches.

babelfish wrote:

Jaq Draco lives wrote:

But on the other front exocrine vs tryrannofex vs biovore all different bring em all if you can

I got curious and plugged some numbers.

A Spearhead detachment, using a Prime as the HQ, with 2 rupture Tyranofexes, two Exocrines, and two 3 model Biovore units comes out to around 1265 points. Two cheap venom cannon Warrior squads adds 150 to that, so 1415 or so.

That is a reasonably solid firebase that can has potential to reach out and do a lot of damage. Throw in a broodlord and some stealers at 2000 points and you have a fast forward assulty aspect supported by shooting that technically covers all of your bases.

Pardon my ignorance, but what loadout makes a tyranofex? Just pure melee?

Is Deathleaper still a HQ? if so, Deathleaper, two Mawlocks, and a Trygon gives +1 Cmd point and lots of backfield pressure. Deathleaper's pet Mawloc(s) could even clear off bubblewrap for a "He's after me!"

Mortal wounds and shooting will also do wonders at clearing bubble wrap.

Plus, one of the best things that we have going for us is that if the opponent completely castles up, we can just wait. Trygons can come in on turn 1...or turn 2....or turn 3. If I'm playing eternal war, I might be enticed to wait a turn or two if the situation is right.

In any event, it's important to realize that we have to be able to shoot a hole in the bubble wrap, but if Tyranids are strong enough to make them cower in a corner because of how much they fear the hive mind (and for certain armies, I believe that we are) then that is a victory in and of itself

Cornering up also makes things very difficult in the objective department. But regardless, there are/will be strategies to counter an assault Nid list, just like anything else. Im sure we can all think of a few strategies we'd use against such an army.

If Nids want to be competitive in this edition (or any army for that matter) they need to be able to reliably kill Imperial Knights and beat imperial guard platoons. The real question how do we fit the tolls to do both into one list?

For guard platoons we fought fire with fire. Tervigons supported by gants. Knights.. I'm thinking biovores and harpies are gong to be our method for that. For flier defense I'm thinking shrikes with rending claws & toxin sacs or scytal Flyrants with toxin. #lictorshame is even better than it was before, with Deathleaper being the ultimate troll for us.

Honestly I think one thing tyranids are gong to have to do us spread ourselves between as many detachment as possible. As amazing as synapse is, we don't get any cool commander auras to let us reroll. So take hq+troops as your core. Second hq in whatever nom troops corresponding detachment. Get those command points.

StarHunter25 wrote:
For guard platoons we fought fire with fire. Tervigons supported by gants. Knights.. I'm thinking biovores and harpies are gong to be our method for that. For flier defense I'm thinking shrikes with rending claws & toxin sacs or scytal Flyrants with toxin. #lictorshame is even better than it was before, with Deathleaper being the ultimate troll for us.

Honestly I think one thing tyranids are gong to have to do us spread ourselves between as many detachment as possible. As amazing as synapse is, we don't get any cool commander auras to let us reroll. So take hq+troops as your core. Second hq in whatever nom troops corresponding detachment. Get those command points.

Harpies are a bad joke against knights and they will drop them with a single round of shooting.