Tyranids 8th ed Tactica - The Great Devourer is Nigh

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**Xenomancers**

Storm ravens are quite expensive - like over 300 points.

Consider this load-out for your Hive Tyrants.

Wings/ Monsterous rending claws/ Heavy venom cannon/Adrenal/Toxin. (210 points only)

Smite it - shoot it - charge it. If you get 4 wounds off it from shooting and smite - you have a good chance to kill it with your charge. 6's put 4 auto wounds through and you are rerolling wounds. D3 on the rest that get through at ap-3 and you are rolling 5's to wound you have a good chance for 2 6's.

A storm raven that is down to bs+5 isn't really a threat to anything anymore anyways.

**SHUPPET**

Xenomancers wrote:
Storm ravens are quite expensive - like over 300 points.

Consider this load-out for your Hive Tyrants.

Wings/ Monsterous rending claws/ Heavy venom cannon/Adrenal/Toxin. (210 points only)

Smite it - shoot it - charge it. If you get 4 wounds off it from shooting and smite - you have a good chance to kill it with your charge. 6's put 4 auto wounds through and you are rerolling wounds. D3 on the rest that get through at ap-3 and you are rolling 5's to wound you have a good chance for 2 6's.

A storm raven that is down to bs+5 isn't really a threat to anything anymore anyways.

Consider that the Stormhawks alone kill a Flyrant a turn from 48". You will need multiple Flyrants to get just one into combat. The Hawks will be behind the ravens so you won't be able to smite them.

You wound on a 5+ and are only re-rolling 1s. The 6's from Toxin Sacs aren't mortal either. The Venom Cannon averages around 1 wound every two turns.

Storm Ravens are expensive, but they more than justify the points. They are150% the cost of that Flyrant, but they are MORE than 150% as tanky, and their firepower isn't even comparable.

Trying to fight flyer with flyer is a losing strategy for us I think. They seem to have the best AA I've seen yet as well.

**Astmeister**

SHUPPET wrote:

Consider that the Stormhawks alone kill a Flyrant a turn from 48". You will need multiple Flyrants to get just one into combat. The Hawks will be behind the ravens so you won't be able to smite them.

You wound on a 5+ and are only re-rolling 1s. The 6's from Toxin Sacs aren't mortal either. The Venom Cannon averages around 1 wound every two turns.

Storm Ravens are expensive, but they more than justify the points. They are150% the cost of that Flyrant, but they are MORE than 150% as tanky, and their firepower isn't even comparable.

Trying to fight flyer with flyer is a losing strategy for us I think. They seem to have the best AA I've seen yet as well.

Well Rending Claws reroll all to wound rolls, but you are right in spite of that.

**Spoletta**

Honestly i don't think that there is a solution.
Probably the problem will resolve itself, that list did win that tournament, but that isn't an indication of anything yet.
Native BS4 armies will be able to counter that list quite efficently, we can hope that it's just a thing of the moment and it will be forgotten.

**Xenomancers**

SHUPPET wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
Storm ravens are quite expensive - like over 300 points.

Consider this load-out for your Hive Tyrants.

Wings/ Monsterous rending claws/ Heavy venom cannon/Adrenal/Toxin. (210 points only)

Smite it - shoot it - charge it. If you get 4 wounds off it from shooting and smite - you have a good chance to kill it with your charge. 6's put 4 auto wounds through and you are rerolling wounds. D3 on the rest that get through at ap-3 and you are rolling 5's to wound you have a good chance for 2 6's.

A storm raven that is down to bs+5 isn't really a threat to anything anymore anyways.

Consider that the Stormhawks alone kill a Flyrant a turn from 48". You will need multiple Flyrants to get just one into combat. The Hawks will be behind the ravens so you won't be able to smite them.

You wound on a 5+ and are only re-rolling 1s. The 6's from Toxin Sacs aren't mortal either. The Venom Cannon averages around 1 wound every two turns.

Storm Ravens are expensive, but they more than justify the points.

Trying to fight flyer with flyer is a losing strategy for us I think.

Its reroll all wounds and ap-6 with 3 auto damage roll (toxin will make this 4 wounds) on 6's ap -3 the rest of the time. Storm raven has a 3+ save with no invo. It's basically never taking saves vs your CC attacks unless you wound with a 5 and he gets a 6+ you still get d3 damage on this also. You hit on 2's and reroll all wounds. This unit is 210 points and almost averages a kill against a model that's over 300 points. Granted he can get the jump on the bird. Are we talking about the same weapon - Heavy Venom Cannon? Assault d3 str9 ap-1 d3d range 36?It averages way more than a single damage over 2 turns.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Astmeister wrote:
SHUPPET wrote:

Consider that the Stormhawks alone kill a Flyrant a turn from 48". You will need multiple Flyrants to get just one into combat. The Hawks will be behind the ravens so you won't be able to smite them.

You wound on a 5+ and are only re-rolling 1s. The 6's from Toxin Sacs aren't mortal either. The Venom Cannon averages around 1 wound every two turns.

Storm Ravens are expensive, but they more than justify the points. They are150% the cost of that Flyrant, but they are MORE than 150% as tanky, and their firepower isn't even comparable.

Trying to fight flyer with flyer is a losing strategy for us I think. They seem to have the best AA I've seen yet as well.

Well Rending Claws reroll all to wound rolls, but you are right in spite of that.

It's not a good matchup - this gives you the best chance though - dropping a few mortal wounds a turn isn't going to work with biovores - exocrines can't move and shoot effectively and will be focused down quick - everything else hits the dang thing on 5's and does pathetic wounds. Devilgaunts (just cause it's our cheapest number of shots and still wounds on 5's) and Hive tyrants are out best AA unfortunately. Smite is also a great tool. Hive Tyrant has it all.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
Honestly i don't think that there is a solution.
Probably the problem will resolve itself, that list did win that tournament, but that isn't an indication of anything yet.
Native BS4 armies will be able to counter that list quite efficently, we can hope that it's just a thing of the moment and it will be forgotten.

My ultra marines list will shoot that army out of the sky in 2 turns. Still though - Nids gonna be struggling to handle even 1-2 storm ravens if you don't bring the right tools.

**Spoletta**

Ranged It averages 0,88 wounds a turn.

In melee it averages 3,83 wounds, or 4,6 with toxins.

Hyve tyrants are not a solution, while already exploiting a likely error of our codex (0 point claws).

**SHUPPET**

Xenomancers wrote:
Its reroll all wounds and ap-6 with 3 auto damage roll (toxin will make this 4 wounds) on 6's ap -3 the rest of the time. Storm raven has a 3+ save with no invo. It's basically never taking saves vs your CC attacks unless you wound with a 5 and he gets a 6+ you still get d3 damage on this also. You hit on 2's and reroll all wounds. This unit is 210 points and almost averages a kill against a model that's over 300 points. Granted he can get the jump on the bird. Are we talking about the same weapon - Heavy Venom Cannon? Assault d3 str9 ap-1 d3d range 36?It averages way more than a single damage over 2 turns.

Venom Cannon with Flyrant BS 3+, 4+ against Flyers

D3 = average 2 shots a turn. 1 hit at 4+. S9 vs T7 wounds 2 outta 3 times. Then they get to save that at 4+. Then it averages 2 damage per unsaved wound. Thats 0.66 wounds a turn.

And yeah I derped on the rending claws. They grant re-rolls.

With that in mind, at max health, a Flyrant does 9.53 wounds a turn in combat to a Stormraven. Call it 10 with the Venom Cannon, and throw another 2 on for Smite. It's nearly a dead Stormraven.

Its not a bad option honestly. But the Venom Cannon is probably a waste of 30 points. Even the Deathspitter outdamages it slightly. Better off empty handed, 180 pts total is close to the price of his Stormhawks.
Smite is nice. The problem is, that they are outranged and outgunned. It can't make it to combat without first taking a turn of shooting at the very least. And it can't live through a turn of shooting. So you have to take multiples.
Take 2 and 1 makes it to combat, ALMOST kills a Stormraven, and then dies next turn to the Stormhawks and Stormravens combined. Not practical.
So I guess a minimum of 3? 1 dies 2 make it to combat and cripple two Stormhawks, 1 dies the next turn. then ONE hopefully gets to charge a Stormhawk, blow it up, then with 2 Stormhawks crippled and half his AA gone, the game starts tilting your way?

EDIT: its lame that we cant put Flyrants in an airwing :(

**luke1705**

SideshowLucifer wrote:
Needs don't NEED the outside gunline support. Nids have a great gunline of their own. We are weak against Stormraven spam and have issues with Dark Eldar Splinter weapon spam, but we can still compete if we play intelligently.
We have access to fortifications, so we can take anti air batteries and void shield generators to help us outlast the fliers.

Would love to hear which units you're referring to, specifically for killing horde units at greater than 24" range on turn 1

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karasou wrote:
Sorry for all, but we can't have Tyranid + CG + AM in the same army

Brood Brother only permit to have CG and AM in the same army. Even if the AM keyword is ignore, it has always the imperium Keyword and AM still don't have the tyranid keyword. So it doesn't work

It doesn't matter. As long as you have the same amount of GSC and AM detachments, the rules say "simply ignore the AM units when choosing your army's faction". So their faction is imperium. Yes. But we ignore ALL of their faction keywords. It does work

**Xenomancers**

SHUPPET wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
Its reroll all wounds and ap-6 with 3 auto damage roll (toxin will make this 4 wounds) on 6's ap -3 the rest of the time. Storm raven has a 3+ save with no invo. It's basically never taking saves vs your CC attacks unless you wound with a 5 and he gets a 6+ you still get d3 damage on this also. You hit on 2's and reroll all wounds. This unit is 210 points and almost averages a kill against a model that's over 300 points. Granted he can get the jump on the bird. Are we talking about the same weapon - Heavy Venom Cannon? Assault d3 str9 ap-1 d3d range 36?It averages way more than a single damage over 2 turns.

Venom Cannon with Flyrant BS 3+, 4+ against Flyers

D3 = average 2 shots a turn. 1 hit at 4+. S9 vs T7 wounds 2 outta 3 times. Then they get to save that at 4+. Then it averages 2 damage per unsaved wound. Thats 0.66 wounds a turn.

And yeah I derped on the rending claws. They grant re-rolls.

With that in mind, at max health, a Flyrant does 9.53 wounds a turn in combat to a Stormraven. Call it 10 with the Venom Cannon, and throw another 2 on for Smite. It's nearly a dead Stormraven.

Its not a bad option honestly. But the Venom Cannon is probably a waste of 30 points. Even the Deathspitter outdamages it slightly. Better off empty handed, 180 pts total is close to the price of his Stormhawks.
Smite is nice. The problem is, that they are outranged and outgunned. It can't make it to combat without first taking a turn of shooting at the very least. And it can't live through a turn of shooting. So you have to take multiples.
Take 2 and 1 makes it to combat, ALMOST kills a Stormraven, and then dies next turn to the Stormhawks and Stormravens combined. Not practical.
So I guess a minimum of 3? 1 dies 2 make it to combat and cripple two Stormhawks, 1 dies the next turn. then ONE hopefully gets to charge a Stormhawk, blow it up, then with 2 Stormhawks crippled and half his AA gone, the game starts tilting your way?

I was thinking 3 myself - I don't have a 4th but a 4th even seems practical. If they want to spam flyers we can do the same thing. can easily fit 8 hive tyrants into an army. The smites really start stacking up with 8 of them.
2 Supreme commands 3 hives and a lictor, 1 battalion 3 units of termagant and 2 more tyrants. fight fire with fire!

**Nasty**

I think that vs a full stormraven team we can use
24 hive guard
2/3 exo
1/2 malnthrope

**SHUPPET**

Xenomancers wrote:
I was thinking 3 myself - I don't have a 4th but a 4th even seems practical. If they want to spam flyers we can do the same thing. can easily fit 8 hive tyrants into an army. The smites really start stacking up with 8 of them.
2 Supreme commands 3 hives and a lictor, 1 battalion 3 units of termagant and 2 more tyrants. fight fire with fire!

I own 3 as well - might pick up a 4th, might not be necessary, but I'll see in time. I like that they aren't just dedicated AA since they should be able to apply that to any tank

**Spoletta**

SHUPPET wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
Its reroll all wounds and ap-6 with 3 auto damage roll (toxin will make this 4 wounds) on 6's ap -3 the rest of the time. Storm raven has a 3+ save with no invo. It's basically never taking saves vs your CC attacks unless you wound with a 5 and he gets a 6+ you still get d3 damage on this also. You hit on 2's and reroll all wounds. This unit is 210 points and almost averages a kill against a model that's over 300 points. Granted he can get the jump on the bird. Are we talking about the same weapon - Heavy Venom Cannon? Assault d3 str9 ap-1 d3d range 36?It averages way more than a single damage over 2 turns.

Venom Cannon with Flyrant BS 3+, 4+ against Flyers

D3 = average 2 shots a turn. 1 hit at 4+. S9 vs T7 wounds 2 outta 3 times. Then they get to save that at 4+. Then it averages 2 damage per unsaved wound. Thats 0.66 wounds a turn.

And yeah I derped on the rending claws. They grant re-rolls.

With that in mind, at max health, a Flyrant does 9.53 wounds a turn in combat to a Stormraven. Call it 10 with the Venom Cannon, and throw another 2 on for Smite. It's nearly a dead Stormraven.

Its not a bad option honestly. But the Venom Cannon is probably a waste of 30 points. Even the Deathspitter outdamages it slightly. Better off empty handed, 180 pts total is close to the price of his Stormhawks.
Smite is nice. The problem is, that they are outranged and outgunned. It can't make it to combat without first taking a turn of shooting at the very least. And it can't live through a turn of shooting. So you have to take multiples.
Take 2 and 1 makes it to combat, ALMOST kills a Stormraven, and then dies next turn to the Stormhawks and Stormravens combined. Not practical.
So I guess a minimum of 3? 1 dies 2 make it to combat and cripple two Stormhawks, 1 dies the next turn. then ONE hopefully gets to charge a Stormhawk, blow it up, then with 2 Stormhawks crippled and half his AA gone, the game starts tilting your way?

EDIT: its lame that we cant put Flyrants in an airwing :(

Sorry, i don't see all those wounds in combat.

4 Attacks, which give you 4/6 of each result. Since you wound on 5+, that means 16/6 of rerolls. Out of those 16/6, 16/36 will score a 5 and 16/36 will score a 6, the others will fail again.
So in the end, after rerolls you have 4/6+16/36 scores of 5, and the same number of 6. This amounts to 1,1. Those attacks need to hit (yes you hit before wounding, but it was easier to calculate it like this). This means that for each number, you get an average of 0,92 results. The 5 are saved on 6+, so 0,77 go through the armor and inflict on average 1,53 wounds. The 6 cannot be saved, so all 0,92 are unsaved and inflict 3,68 wounds (with toxins). The grand total is 5,23 wounds. There is also the tail, but the damage is negligible without reroll and AP (0,185 wounds).

This is in the extremely unlikely case that the tyrant is over half wounds, something that even just overwatch can negate.

**Astmeister**

I am more sold on spamming massive amounts of Spore Mines and drop them in the area where the flyers will have to land. They are just 10 points a model, so you can buy about 40 for 2 Flyrants. If the flyers cannot be placed, they are dead. Even if they can be placed, they will probably be very close to some spores. If they do not kill all of them, you can just advance them close to the flyer for multiple D3 mortal wounds. (you do not have to charge with them!)

**SHUPPET**

Spoletta wrote:
SHUPPET wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
Its reroll all wounds and ap-6 with 3 auto damage roll (toxin will make this 4 wounds) on 6's ap -3 the rest of the time. Storm raven has a 3+ save with no invo. It's basically never taking saves vs your CC attacks unless you wound with a 5 and he gets a 6+ you still get d3 damage on this also. You hit on 2's and reroll all wounds. This unit is 210 points and almost averages a kill against a model that's over 300 points. Granted he can get the jump on the bird. Are we talking about the same weapon - Heavy Venom Cannon? Assault d3 str9 ap-1 d3d range 36?It averages way more than a single damage over 2 turns.

Venom Cannon with Flyrant BS 3+, 4+ against Flyers

D3 = average 2 shots a turn. 1 hit at 4+. S9 vs T7 wounds 2 outta 3 times. Then they get to save that at 4+. Then it averages 2 damage per unsaved wound. Thats 0.66 wounds a turn.

And yeah I derped on the rending claws. They grant re-rolls.

With that in mind, at max health, a Flyrant does 9.53 wounds a turn in combat to a Stormraven. Call it 10 with the Venom Cannon, and throw another 2 on for Smite. It's nearly a dead Stormraven.

Its not a bad option honestly. But the Venom Cannon is probably a waste of 30 points. Even the Deathspitter outdamages it slightly. Better off empty handed, 180 pts total is close to the price of his Stormhawks.
Smite is nice. The problem is, that they are outranged and outgunned. It can't make it to combat without first taking a turn of shooting at the very least. And it can't live through a turn of shooting. So you have to take multiples.
Take 2 and 1 makes it to combat, ALMOST kills a Stormraven, and then dies next turn to the Stormhawks and Stormravens combined. Not practical.
So I guess a minimum of 3? 1 dies 2 make it to combat and cripple two Stormhawks, 1 dies the next turn. then ONE hopefully gets to charge a Stormhawk, blow it up, then with 2 Stormhawks crippled and half his AA gone, the game starts tilting your way?

EDIT: its lame that we cant put Flyrants in an airwing :(

Sorry, i don't see all those wounds in combat.

4 Attacks, which give you 4/6 of each result. Since you wound on 5+, that means 16/6 of rerolls. Out of those 16/6, 16/36 will score a 5 and 16/36 will score a 6, the others will fail again.
So in the end, after rerolls you have 4/6+16/36 scores of 5, and the same number of 6. This amounts to 1,1. Those attacks need to hit (yes you hit before wounding, but it was easier to calculate it like this). This means that for each number, you get an average of 0,92 results. The 5 are saved on 6+, so 0,77 go through the armor and inflict on average 1,53 wounds. The 6 cannot be saved, so all 0,92 are unsaved and inflict 3,68 wounds (with toxins). The grand total is 5,23 wounds. There is also the tail, but the damage is negligible without reroll and AP (0,185 wounds).

This is in the extremely unlikely case that the tyrant is over half wounds, something that even just overwatch can negate.

You are absolutely right, I misinput a step and threw out my whole calcs. TY for double checking

You right all up, they aren't gonna work vs Stormravens at all

**Xenomancers**

SHUPPET wrote:
Spoletta wrote:
SHUPPET wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
Its reroll all wounds and ap-6 with 3 auto damage roll (toxin will make this 4 wounds) on 6's ap -3 the rest of the time. Storm raven has a 3+ save with no invo. It's basically never taking saves vs your CC attacks unless you wound with a 5 and he gets a 6+ you still get d3 damage on this also. You hit on 2's and reroll all wounds. This unit is 210 points and almost averages a kill against a model that's over 300 points. Granted he can get the jump on the bird. Are we talking about the same weapon - Heavy Venom Cannon? Assault d3 str9 ap-1 d3d range 36?It averages way more than a single damage over 2 turns.

Venom Cannon with Flyrant BS 3+, 4+ against Flyers

D3 = average 2 shots a turn. 1 hit at 4+. S9 vs T7 wounds 2 outta 3 times. Then they get to save that at 4+. Then it averages 2 damage per unsaved wound. Thats 0.66 wounds a turn.

And yeah I derped on the rending claws. They grant re-rolls.

With that in mind, at max health, a Flyrant does 9.53 wounds a turn in combat to a Stormraven. Call it 10 with the Venom Cannon, and throw another 2 on for Smite. It's nearly a dead Stormraven.

Its not a bad option honestly. But the Venom Cannon is probably a waste of 30 points. Even the Deathspitter outdamages it slightly. Better off empty handed, 180 pts total is close to the price of his Stormhawks.
Smite is nice. The problem is, that they are outranged and outgunned. It can't make it to combat without first taking a turn of shooting at the very least. And it can't live through a turn of shooting. So you have to take multiples.
Take 2 and 1 makes it to combat, ALMOST kills a Stormraven, and then dies next turn to the Stormhawks and Stormravens combined. Not practical.
So I guess a minimum of 3? 1 dies 2 make it to combat and cripple two Stormhawks, 1 dies the next turn. then ONE hopefully gets to charge a Stormhawk, blow it up, then with 2 Stormhawks crippled and half his AA gone, the game starts tilting your way?

EDIT: its lame that we cant put Flyrants in an airwing :(

Sorry, i don't see all those wounds in combat.

4 Attacks, which give you 4/6 of each result. Since you wound on 5+, that means 16/6 of rerolls. Out of those 16/6, 16/36 will score a 5 and 16/36 will score a 6, the others will fail again.
So in the end, after rerolls you have 4/6+16/36 scores of 5, and the same number of 6. This amounts to 1,1. Those attacks need to hit (yes you hit before wounding, but it was easier to calculate it like this). This means that for each number, you get an average of 0,92 results. The 5 are saved on 6+, so 0,77 go through the armor and inflict on average 1,53 wounds. The 6 cannot be saved, so all 0,92 are unsaved and inflict 3,68 wounds (with toxins). The grand total is 5,23 wounds. There is also the tail, but the damage is negligible without reroll and AP (0,185 wounds).

This is in the extremely unlikely case that the tyrant is over half wounds, something that even just overwatch can negate.

You are absolutely right, I misinput a step and threw out my whole calcs. TY for double checking

You right all up, they aren't gonna work vs Stormravens at all

You didn't mess up anything - the tyrant hits on 2's. The tails damage isn't negligable ether it does d3 damage.

**Spoletta**

If you check my post you'll see that both things were considered in the math,

**SHUPPET**

Astmeister wrote:
I am more sold on spamming massive amounts of Spore Mines and drop them in the area where the flyers will have to land. They are just 10 points a model, so you can buy about 40 for 2 Flyrants. If the flyers cannot be placed, they are dead. Even if they can be placed, they will probably be very close to some spores. If they do not kill all of them, you can just advance them close to the flyer for multiple D3 mortal wounds. (you do not have to charge with them!)

i like the train of thought, but they have 20-45" speed so you have to block off a LOT of ground to lock them out, would it work? They do have the fat bases at least.

If so, its not actually going to kill any of them - they will just go to hover mode where they have no minimum move and hang around where they are. This will let you assault them so kind of ideal, but how feasible is locking down more or less the entire board with spores? and in the rest of your matches, how useful will spores be?

I think this could be cool, but I gotta know the answers to those questions lol

**Astmeister**

I think you have to anticipate a bit and practice it, but you can get the flyers into real trouble. Especially when there are so many flyers who all want to land somewhere.
Do not forget that the Stormhawk cannot hover at all! And he will be much more dangerous than the Stormtalon, because he has T7 instead of T6.

In other matchups we are talking about a point investement of 180-360 points for the spore mines. This is not really a lot, especially since the spore mines grant a lot of map control in such huge numbers. This will be a serious threat to the enemy psychologically and also for real. Do not forget that he has to spend a lot of fire power to remove them or might get Mortal Wounds.

Btw. as I said against Stormravens the Meotic spores could be pretty mean combined with a Swarmlord. They have a different method of deployment and can charge (or advance in blow up distance) on first turn with Swarmy.

**skycapt44**

Just spit-balling the use of gargoyles vs flyers. A 30 man gargoyle squad is a rather large foot print and can attack, although not great, one wound with blinding venom is -1 to shooting. Pair that with your big shooters (hive guard, exocrine, biovores (even the misses cause problems with spores)) along with a malathrope to give the -1 shooting. Also the horror for more -1 to hit on a raven. There are tools but I feel like we are list building for a specific list which you don't typically do.

It's tough for missions unless they kill all our stuff so cheap gaunt and gargoyles seem like a good idea. Have some trygon waiting in reserve with some stealers and wait for your moment.

**SHUPPET**

but if we cant force them to hover or die, then its kind of not really all that relevant where they land, not only can we still not kill them , we now have 300 points less firepower. Need to go all in on it I think. How many to lock them out the board

**Spoletta**

Why not just using ripper at that point?

A base of rippers costs 1 point more than a mine and has a larger footprint. They can actually cap points, are troops and take a bit more than a stray bolter shot to die.

**Astmeister**

The idea is that you can try to decline them any landing spot. This means rule wise that they are dead (see RB). Besides the Spore Mines add a lot to a list anyway. I already talked about it.

Rippers: You can do that, but they cannot harm the flyers in any way. If the flyers find a way to land anywhere between the spore mines, they are in trouble if they do not kill all of them which are close. Btw. they even explode in the enemies charge phase, whether or not he charged anything. So it can be very dangerous for the opponent.

Of course the idea using spore mines is not a simple button you can hit to negate all his flyers. You have to practice and see how it works out in games. Even terrain might change a lot of things.

**Niiai**

SHUPPET wrote:
Niiai wrote:
Shuppet, or someone else who is good at mathhammer could we do a spreadsheet for the units contesting to shoot up the front line? I think this could help with the argument. That way you can decide if you wanne run straight dakka fexes vs having warriors in the list for a more utilaty unit that does other things as well.

So we.would need averedge wound per point we pay. Then we need to do this vs marines and guards menn.

The contesters as far as I can see are:
Devourer gaunts
Carnifex, 4 x brainleech
Carnifex, 4 x brainleech, plasma
Carnifex, 4 x slimer maggots
Carnifex, 4 x slimer maggots, plasma
Tyranofex, fleshborer hive, standing still (40 shots)
Warriors, devourers, barbed strangler
Warriors, deathspitters, barbed strangler
Warriors, devourers, venom cannon
Warriors, deathspitters, barbed strangler
At what point a tyranid prime with a cannon starts earning its points back.

Are there any others I am missing? Raveners with guns, Hive guards, pyrovores or biovores, are they contesters?

Raveners are basically going to be slightly more expensive Warriors as far as shooting goes, probably not even worth calculating, you can just look at them and know "ok if I want my Warriors to have Deepstrike its going to be SLIGHTLY less efficient shooting per model than Warriors" Pyrovores I'll check. Biovores not really. I'll include Borer TFex as well. And Wyverns too. If someone can message me the entire rules for Thudd Gun ill do it as well.

I will set-up units of AROUND the same amount of points and do all calcs vs GEQ so we can actually see what it practically looks like

I could do vs MEQ as well, but it will take double as long and I feel like MEQ units aren't going to be screening anything - they will just be the target. I'm not super familiar with the new meta though. Is there any real reason to do calcs vs MEQ here?

That sounds nice.

The reason I was thinking marines is that for some of our units, like the plasma carnifex, get much more kills for their points vs 3+ save then vs t3 no armour guards.

The reason I was thinking of ravaners is that while they are 3 points more expensive then warriors and do not have synapse, they do come with their own delivery system. That means you can start shooting away the bubble wrap much earlier.

While I don't know how good it is, a trygon prine with dakka gaunts and ravaners can lay down very good fire. This might be better in lower points games where the trygon prime survives a turn of shooting. Ravaners has a very bad LS shave.

**NewTruthNeomaxim**

luke1705 wrote:
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Oh, @Luke, I meant to add... Don't forget in your math that Quad Mortar Batteries count as Infantry and Vehicles, whereas Wyverns are just Vehicles.

That means a 30pt Company Commander can issue re-roll 1's to Mortars versus Wyverns who cannot. This also means you don't lose a 2nd CP as you can take a dirt-cheap HQ and three separate Mortars if you're so inclined.

It really puts the two, mathematically at pretty close to even across the board.

You are not wrong. Unfortunately, Taurox Primes are even better. A little more expensive but they put out a stupid amount of damage, and they hit on 3's if they can stay stationary (aka after the first turn).

The 30 point dude is really just there to give immunity to morale for my conscripts, who it seems are going to have to be a mainstay screening unit

It's kind of tragic how Nids need the gunline support competitively. I wonder if there is a good counts as or conversion for a Tyranid Taurox prime?

Well, I wouldn't say they NEED the help to be competitive. They're very much a competitive army, but a little list-building shenanigans, IMO elevates them to GT winning tier. I'll be running the arty + search-lights soon and suspect I will win.

**luke1705**

Arty + searchlights?

But yes you're correct I'm trying to optimize for the top tier of competitive play. Throwing 60 Genestealers at most armies, even good ones, will be more than they can handle. That's typically enough for the layperson's use of the term "competitive"

**Fragile**

Truthfully, I would go with bodies and psykers to and play objectives. With Venom / Malanthrope support, those Flyers are hitting on 5s. Add in the Horror and Mass Hypnosis and 2 of them are hitting on 6s. In 2k points flood the board with bodies and try to get smites off. Against that type of list I would avoid big monsters, unless you know you have adequate terrain. Exocrines in Ruins with Malantropes are resilient.

**NewTruthNeomaxim**

luke1705 wrote:
Arty + searchlights?

But yes you're correct I'm trying to optimize for the top tier of competitive play. Throwing 60 Genestealers at most armies, even good ones, will be more than they can handle. That's typically enough for the layperson's use of the term "competitive"

Arty = Artillery (Wyverns and/or Heavy Quad Mortar Batteries) + Sabre Batteries w/Searchlight (IE AM Marker-lights of the Gods). I will guarantee right now that its a tournament-winning addition to every top 'Nid list. Having the Mortars w/Orders being able to hit on 2's (with 2 searchlights) re-rolling 1's, is insane screen cleaning.

**luke1705**

Nasty wrote:
I think that vs a full stormraven team we can use
24 hive guard
2/3 exo
1/2 malnthrope

Let's say you're right. What does that army do against literally every other army except perhaps imperial knights? Auto lose.

This is the same issue that our Flyrant spam list of 7th caused. We could do great against pretty much everything, but any opponent that did well against us would likely be at a disadvantage.

I think stormraven spam will still lose to a good shooting army. GT's are interesting because if you don't draw a bad matchup over a very small sample size, you have every chance to win if you're a good enough general and the dice don't betray you

But as far as what we can do against stormraven spam? Pretty much nothing. Our assault bugs sit there uselessly, hoping the opponent will move block himself. Our shooty bugs get focused down, and will absolutely not win a gunfight against those guys.

In a bit of bitter irony, I think quad Flyrant lists would actually do pretty well against that list. But again, the melee flyrant is far from what the flyrant of 6th used to be. I don't think it's bad, but it's not about to go out and win a GT.

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NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
luke1705 wrote:
Arty + searchlights?

But yes you're correct I'm trying to optimize for the top tier of competitive play. Throwing 60 Genestealers at most armies, even good ones, will be more than they can handle. That's typically enough for the layperson's use of the term "competitive"

Arty = Artillery (Wyverns and/or Heavy Quad Mortar Batteries) + Sabre Batteries w/Searchlight (IE AM Marker-lights of the Gods). I will guarantee right now that its a tournament-winning addition to every top 'Nid list. Having the Mortars w/Orders being able to hit on 2's (with 2 searchlights) re-rolling 1's, is insane screen cleaning.

Hold the phone while I go read about these searchlights in my FW index!!!

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OH MY SWEET BABY JESUS THATS NOT REAL

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Wait you can't stack that though, can you?

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Also, you're not going to get the re-rolling 1's. It's not the infantry that are firing the mortar, so you can't use orders on the gun

**NewTruthNeomaxim**

The profile has both keywords, infantry and vehicle... As they're listed as one unit (and the gun dies if its crew does, or leaves) I suggest that RAW you absolutely can take commands.

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And yeah... no one has noticed Search-Lights being as game-breaking as they are yet. They're literally super insta-hit Markerlights. :-p

**luke1705**

Well I just started a thing in YMDC about whether Searchlights stack (not sure IMO). Still very good even if they don't

You should re-read the Artillery Battery special rule. They're treated as separate units once they deploy (so watch out for those KP missions too). And the keywords are separated. The crew are infantry and the weapons themselves are vehicles and artillery. So you can give orders to the guardsmen (who btw can fire their own weapons every turn) but they're not conferring their firing bonuses to the weapons. They just need to be "nearby to operate". So I don't think orders can ever be given to artillery. The only thing you can do is grab Yarick and let them re-roll 1's. Sabre batteries are much better and cheaper even if they don't stack