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 luke1705 wrote:
Tyranids are great as long as you don't want to win a very competitive tournament. You could absolutely go 2-1 at a RTT or 4-2 at a GT but that's about as far as you can reasonably expect to get.

But at any non-top tier tournament level, they're great. They have a lot of tools and can overwhelm a fair amount of armies. They really only have trouble against giant amounts of screening units.

Im sorry but that is the absolute WORST attitude to have playing an army. With the flexibility of the current army and edition, Nids can be top tier in the right hands. Id have to agree with SHUPPET in that this kind of comment makes me feel that many are just playing the wrong army. Nids simply doesnt have delete units (singular units with such overwhelming firepower), not unless you over invest. The closest to a delete unit being a 20 stealer blob with patriarch/ broodlord. The army is more of a "plink" army, many things that are deadly to most targets, so that the opponent has nothing but bad choices with what to engage.

As far as zoanthropes are concerned, they are great! I have found that 5 is the minimum, if you are using them for smite, which you should be. I also agree with SHUPPET that tervigons are horrendously overcosted, but I do think they are playable and that Lance845 hit it right on the head describing how to use them you must double up. Yes it is expensive to run 2 and 90 gaunts, but even just the psychological impact on your opponent when he sees that and 20 replenishing a turn...it is very demoralizing. Running that, even with just 60 gaunts, I have had VERY few opponents attempt to challenge my deployment zone. Not unless they have mass dropping assault, to which you can also demoralize by giving the front gaunt screen catalyst. Nothing like having 10 berzerkers only kill around 10-15 gaunts...only to have them immediately come back....

Now having used mass biovores, I will always use at least 9. The movement and targeting restriction alone is worth it. Trapping knights in place with your non-infantry little poop bombs is possibly the most hilarious thing I have seen in the game in a long while. And you dont need many either, 4 at least and that sucker is stuck. I am also a heavy supporter of the mid stat nids. Warriors, hive guard, zooees, pyrovores, are all much more impressive than I believed they would be. 9 warriors, or 2 units of 6 with a prime is glorious, and units of 6 shockguard or impaler guard with a malanthrope as company is DAMN good. Dont be afraid to run the impaler guard around, -1 is not a biggie for them compared to previous editions, and if you need them 3s just throw an onslaught on them and move wherever the hell you please.

Im loving nids this edition, they are tons of fun and actually good again!

PS: 9 pistol double scy raveners with the terror is downright silly.
Reason I use pistols (spinefists) was through trial and error but it amounts to the following:
-The other 2 are absolutely viable, with greater range, strength and ap(deathspitters), their shooting targets and shooting engagement distance are much higher.
-The other 2 have one fatal weakness...combat. If you pay for the other 2, you essentially get a turn to use them, and then potentially never get to use them again. I have found that opponents will simply launch a tank or something into the unit just to prevent them from firing again
-The spinefists have 1 more shot, can shoot into combat, and are essentially always usable even if the unit were to get charged, and then locked in combat.

Give them a try, you might be surprised!

One weird thing I've noticed on the GW webstore:

1 Deathleaper - 29.99 CDN
1 Lictor - 44.99 CDN

Am I missing something? Why wouldn't people just use a few Deathleaper models are Lictors if they're so inclined?

Speaking of Lictors, I'm curious how people are using them this edition and if they're actually worth taking.

Playing around with the idea of a second army and having a lot of fun theorycrafting some 1500 pt Tyranid lists, reading this thread's been helpful! Are any of these viable?




A balanced approach. Turn 1 Mawloc pops up in the enemy backfield to cause some mortal wounds and they either focus fire it down (meaning they don't fire on any of my other units with their heavy weapons) or they ignore it and it's free to charge their important character or scary shooting unit next turn. Meanwhile the Broodlord advances with two squads of Stealers with the Flyrant as support. Broodlord casts Catalyst on the Stealers to give them some durability while the Flyrant casts The Horror on the enemy unit most likely to mulch them (Twin Assault Cannon Razorbacks for example). Exocrines provide solid firing support in the meantime with Warrior providing Synapse and some protection against deep strikers. Rippers for objective stealing/overwatch eating. Only real issue I have with this list is that there's only a single lane for attacking, but hopefully the combination of the Mawloc distraction, Exocrine fire, and the number of Stealers is enough for them to still be a major threat once they reach enemy lines.




Nidzilla lite list for fun. OOE marches up the battlefield with 2 Stone Crushers with a Malanthrope in tow for the -1 to hit. Warriors babysitting and synapsing the Exocrines. Flyrant and Harpy doing their thing while the Mawloc providing distraction, hopefully enough for the melee forces to reach the enemy side safely. AT weapons are going to have a field day, plus the lack of Stealers and troops doesn't help in an objective based game. This list is definitely going to be missing the raw power and numbers of the Stealers. Missing out on 2 CP from not being in a Battalion doesn't help either.




Trygon Prime taxi ferrying the Termagaunts to harass the backline while the Broodlord and Stealers go up on lane, Swarmlord and Tyrant Guard up another. Harpy providing aerial support some some kind of defense against flyers. Lack of any real shooting outside the Termagaunts kinda hurts though. An interesting strategy but might be a one trick pony.

Any thoughts or improvements?

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
One weird thing I've noticed on the GW webstore:

1 Deathleaper - 29.99 CDN
1 Lictor - 44.99 CDN

Am I missing something? Why wouldn't people just use a few Deathleaper models are Lictors if they're so inclined?

Speaking of Lictors, I'm curious how people are using them this edition and if they're actually worth taking.

I've used a lictor a few times to fill an elites slot for 45 points. I have a lot of deep strikers in my army so the lictor is a very low threat priority. My main use for him has been to tie up vehicles (charged a land raider on turn 1), counter strike assassins, or snag objectives. In a NOVA mission, my opponent actually selected the lictor as one of his secondary objectives because it was the only non-monster character for his sniper assassin to easily kill. So I just left it in reserves until turn 3 and then hid it, denying him victory points.

If there's no good target for him to attack, he's at least as good as 3 ripper for snagging objectives.

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
One weird thing I've noticed on the GW webstore:

1 Deathleaper - 29.99 CDN
1 Lictor - 44.99 CDN

Am I missing something? Why wouldn't people just use a few Deathleaper models are Lictors if they're so inclined?

Speaking of Lictors, I'm curious how people are using them this edition and if they're actually worth taking.

that is weird because the Deathleaper and Lictor are exactly the same price as each other on the UK, US, and Australian stores. After doing some conversions, Deathleaper seems priced accurately for you guys (a little more than U.S., in typical Canadian pricing) so Lictor seems REALLY overpriced, might be a mistake. However I'd be cautious to point it out to them because I think you'd be just as likely as to see them raise price of the Deathleaper as you are of seeing them drop price on the Lictor. Dice roll.

Honestly I'd be expecting a plastic Deathleaper/lictor kit and a plastic Biovore/pyrovore kit from GW. If they go the same as the others then they'd be 3 unit boxed sets; not cheap but no more buying one at a time. That would get all those models both off blisters and finecast and move Tyranids to a point where the only other finecast is the Red Terror.

I know its a lot to ask for, but i really want to see the prime get revamped into having mutation options so it can have wings and be a shrike prime or a tail and be a ravenor prime and give its bonus to which ever unit its built for.

I would be so happy.

 Lance845 wrote:
I know its a lot to ask for, but i really want to see the prime get revamped into having mutation options so it can have wings and be a shrike prime or a tail and be a ravenor prime and give its bonus to which ever unit its built for.

I would be so happy.

Wings would be cool. Red Terror is already Ravenor Prime

They've got upgrade packs for other factions, a tyranid upgrade pack with gaunt weapons, warrior wings and a few other bits would be an easy way to update several models with codex upgrades/weapons without having to re-do the gaunts and warrior sprues.

I would be completely fine loosing the red terror and his wierd swallow whole rules to instead gain a prime that gave the +1 to hit to all ravenors around it with the increased speed and deepstrike ability.

Personally I feel that tyranids are getting rather "full" as an army; especially as many of our bigger creatures are multiple role potential.

Tyranids are in a really strong position but model diversity wise I feel as if GW keep adding more things its going to dilute what tyranids can do.

So I'd rather see us retain and get more units like Red Terror - that is unique or limited breeding units that are essentially like special characters in other armies. But at the same time are unique models - warrior prime and swarmlord are all "in-kit" choices rather than unique appearances from the box. So I'd like to see others - it would be a neat way to add new looking tyraninds without diluting the core.

Another option would be splinter-fleets. Rather like Spacemarines, it would mean adding a few new units that are unique to specific hive-fleets. These might even replace core unit choices. So instead of, say, a new gaunt pack and such there'd be a "Hive XWU" gaunt model. Thus letting GW release new stuff to be bought without diluting "core" tyranids.

That is what we get when they are very incoasistent from codex to codex. What could be a gun one edition suddenly turned into a napking or something else the next.

I only wish we got the last models in plastic. Perhaps if they need to throw in some other new units we could do with a sniper. It is the only thing we don't have. But the nid dex is awsome at the moment.

Niiai the codex variations do give weight to what the best choices are; but its more a factor that many of the beasties have variable choices. Hive tyrants, warriors, carnifex and others have enough weapon choices to fill many slots. That gives tyranids great versatility; but also means that there's less room to add things into the army to fit slots. This is even more hte case now as we've gained a lot of monstrous specialists. We've got ranged and artillery and close combat and even psychic MCs in the army now.

It links back to my view that there isn't a huge amount of room to actually add new things unless GW starts to introduce more new features into the game - eg how they added air units as a core component.


A sniper would be neat, and is just the kind of thing that could be a unique unit. A sniper special character that means Tyranids can add it if they choose but can only take the one so that its not replacing or competing as much for core army choices and balance

For all their big monsters, they lack a biggest monster in plastic. I'd like to see a plastic LoW that has 2 or 3 variants built in. Along with that, I'd like to be a transport for Nids up to at least warrior size. Then just make it either a shooty or punchy unit.

That reminds me actually, we are still "missing" two old epic style tyranids. The Malefactor and dactylis.

The malefactor was a huge transport unit designed to slide over the battlefield and unleash warriors and other troops onto the forefront of battle.

The Dactylis was basically a super-sized biovore which used arms to throw spores. Granted that last bit could be changed, but a super-sized spore artillery could be neat; though I think if GW were going to give us one they'd have bundled it with the Exocrine as a varient with a different gun design.

You are also right in that we don't have a titan in plastic. The Trygon was our titan once way back when it was the biggest thing in plastic; but now its more standard big-bug size and is more of a delivery/disruption engine than a titan killer. They could indeed bring a titan of new design into the 40K scene in plastic.

I would really enjoy a Malefactor.

If we got an actual transport bug that could carry say... 40 models. Warriors counting as 2.

That could be 30 hormagaunts with warrior support. Or 2 blobs of Genestealers.

I would love that.

I'd like a Hive Mother Worm on the scale of a Imperial Knight....say Tunnel Assault any two Units, Does d3 mortal wounds in a 3" raduis to enemies on arrival, Lvl 3? Psycher, and "Dark Shadows in the Warp!" "any Psycher unit that is in Shadow of the Warp takes a Mortal Wound 5+, each Turn"

Then give her the "super smite" beam that Zoey swarms toss(2D3), and it does x2 damage vs Titan class targets, and we're close. Say 500 or so depending?

I just want them to make the biovore shot similar to a missile laucher.. choose when firing whether what we currently have or d6 wounds with saves allowed.

Overread wrote:They've got upgrade packs for other factions, a tyranid upgrade pack with gaunt weapons, warrior wings and a few other bits would be an easy way to update several models with codex upgrades/weapons without having to re-do the gaunts and warrior sprues.

I'm expecting Shrikes will eventually get their own kit with a body type mirroring the flying Tyrant or Gargoyles (talon "feet" and elongated long tail) and maybe combine them with a new unit based on the old Parasite of Mortrex. That said, I'm expecting anything that doesn't have a main-line GW model (Shrikes, Sky Slashers, Spike Rifles, Tangleweb) will probably end up being an Index only option for the next codex, as I can't see us getting any new models with the book due to the frantic release pace.

Overread wrote:
The Dactylis was basically a super-sized biovore which used arms to throw spores. Granted that last bit could be changed, but a super-sized spore artillery could be neat; though I think if GW were going to give us one they'd have bundled it with the Exocrine as a varient with a different gun design.

I'd be willing to bet if they did the Dactylis/Malfactor kit they would probably redesign the former to fling Mucolid Spores, as it would provide another source to acquire Mucolids and allow for some shared components (main body would probably have sacs bulging from the underbelly and between armored plating, with a head swap and arm swap to differentiate the two).

Overread wrote:
You are also right in that we don't have a titan in plastic. The Trygon was our titan once way back when it was the biggest thing in plastic; but now its more standard big-bug size and is more of a delivery/disruption engine than a titan killer. They could indeed bring a titan of new design into the 40K scene in plastic.

They also keep mentioning the Dominitrix in various fluff sections (Hive Fleet Gorgon was said be relying on them and Tervigons to keep its adaptable swarms reinforced and there was another note mentioning they served as strategic command with Hive Tyrants acting as lieutenants). The old epic model looks like an overgrown Termagant with Crushing Claws in place of a gun and a creature on its back melded with a bio-cannon, so compared to the formerly slug-like Haruspex/Exocrine strains adapting it should be relatively easier since it already shares design elements with existing creatures.

The old epic designs are mostly gone for anything big; they were first generation tyranids. The biotitans used to be more spider-like (with 6 instead of 8 limbs) and whilst the FW one has some baring on that its a very very different looking beast. A dominatrix could look totally different to the one in Epic and still be a dominatrix. It would be awesome to get one and Tyranids are an older-army so as orks imperials and eldar have their big toys; Tyranids are (should be)in line for theirs (followed by Necron and Tau).

I'd also love to see GW today doing a big beast for Tyranids; their plastic casting has come a long long way so whilst it won't be the amazing detail that resin can capture; I think it would be very very impressive to see

Dropped Fleshborer T-Fexe's from my list, seeing as Tyranid Warriors on the fly more or less match a stationary T-Fex damage output vs most targets, point for point, so long as Tyranid Prime is in range (which I find is much less restrictive condition than having not moved with an 18" range gun), and the difference in CC is incomparable


-------
1998 pts

1x Tyranid Prime w/ Boneswords


9x Tyranid Warrior w/ Deathpitters + Rending Claws
9x Tyranid Warrior w/ Deathpitters + Rending Claws
30x Termagant, half w/ Devourers
30x Termagant, half w/ Devourers
3x Ripper Swarms


3x Carnifex w/ Dual Deathpitters + Bioplasma
3x Carnifex w/ Dual Deathpitters + Bioplasma
1x Exocrine

-------



Lots of dice. Warriors are hardcore and seriously slept on. Might hurt if the Prime gets sniped, but hasn't happened yet. I'm considering Stonecrushers with the olBallnChain, but I think I prefer PlasmaFexs. It's a tight and fun list. After testing Warrior's with Prime I'm never going back.


One thing I'm going to be taking note of while playing is whether I want to put 3 Venom Cannon's in each Warrior squad. It's a negligible amount (1 point per Cannon since they are already holding Deathspitters if not), but I'm not convinced that 36" range is worth trading 3 shots for 2. I'll see in practice tho, and if it looks like I'd be getting mileage off the range, dropping a single Devourer on a termagant will make the list round out at a perfect 2000 pts if I include all 6 VCs.

Si nice to se you finaly came onboard the warrior train. Choo-choo!

 Niiai wrote:
Si nice to se you finaly came onboard the warrior train. Choo-choo!

I've been on board with Warriors being good for a while ! Just wasn't using them yet, but now that I am... great unit

 N.I.B. wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
I worked up a new 2K list with 21 Biovores. I'm hoping to have enough mortal wounds a round to delete almost any enemy model/unit in a turn.

21 Biovores would be ~ 10 mortal wounds to a unit per turn. Threatening to many units without FNP, but not hordes, and not even enough to deteriorate an Imperial Knight. Not sure I'd want to sink 756pts + synapse babysitting into that. Are you winning games with this?

My nids face off against alot of Marine and Tau forces. 10+ Mortal wounds + 10 individual units of Spore Mines, a turn has been quite effective at removing threats that would otherwise prove difficult.

I'm the groups Imperial Knight and Xenos/Hordes playing enthusiast.

 gameandwatch wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Tyranids are great as long as you don't want to win a very competitive tournament. You could absolutely go 2-1 at a RTT or 4-2 at a GT but that's about as far as you can reasonably expect to get.

But at any non-top tier tournament level, they're great. They have a lot of tools and can overwhelm a fair amount of armies. They really only have trouble against giant amounts of screening units.

Im sorry but that is the absolute WORST attitude to have playing an army. With the flexibility of the current army and edition, Nids can be top tier in the right hands.

....

Give them a try, you might be surprised!

Not really sure how me saying that Nids weren't going to win NOVA amounts to having fun wrong. Nids are my first love and I'm very excited to see what the codex has in store. I never said that they were bad - just that they have some bad matchups at the highest levels of competition. As far as giving them a try, I have and I will continue to do so. But if you try to pit them against a guard gun line, an optimized CSM list or many other of the upper tier tournament lists, you'll struggle mightily. As the top Tyranid player, Geoff Robinson did go 5-1 and place 40th at NOVA, losing only to Ynnari. But he also failed to matchup against Chaos except for Death Guard and only played IG once (which, to his credit, he did win).

In any case, sorry that you disagree with my assessment of where Tyranids are right now. It is literally miles better than we have been in a long time, and I'm very happy. Just wanted to put a realistic ceiling on how people could expect to do at a large event.

To be fair, that theoretical ceiling for Nids competitively should probably have an asterisk for pure Nids. If you use majority Nids and sprinkle in some allies (GSC, IG) it massively boosts the ceiling, to the point where a good player could be reasonably looking at 5-1 and occasionally sneaking 6-0. I played in a smaller GT last weekend and went 5-0, ending up in 1st with a mixed Nid Guard army. I abused the best parts of Nids (2x Exocrines and Malanthrope with large gant broods and stealer support) with Elysian Guard drops and Taurox primes/Manticore Batteries. The Exocrines are excellent anti medium infantry/medium tanks, but the Manticore batteries and Plasma drops helped cover weaknesses while my gants blobs repelled alphastrikes long enough for the Stealers to counterattack and keep the guns firing. It should be mentioned that I managed to avoid playing Chaos in the GT, but the predecessor of this list was able to handle the old Brimstone hordes so I feel like I could give it a good game. 10+ malefic lords are their own kind of problem of course.

For those wondering on matchups, I played a DE flier/venomspam list with 3 Ravagers and Incubi, then a GK DS army with Guilliman and 2 Stormhawks, then a GK DS army with scion support and Celestine, then an Imperial soup mix of GK/Raven Guard that focused on DS and reroll to charge, and finally a mechanized Sisters of Battle rush list with lots of tanks flooding the board (Similar to Adrien Jeanniards list from NOVA). I also dodged the Guard gunline list, but in test games I was able to weather it *relatively* well with the malanthrope bubble affecting shooting and catalyst on the big blobs mitigating smite spam.

luke1705 wrote:

 gameandwatch wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Tyranids are great as long as you don't want to win a very competitive tournament. You could absolutely go 2-1 at a RTT or 4-2 at a GT but that's about as far as you can reasonably expect to get.

But at any non-top tier tournament level, they're great. They have a lot of tools and can overwhelm a fair amount of armies. They really only have trouble against giant amounts of screening units.

Im sorry but that is the absolute WORST attitude to have playing an army. With the flexibility of the current army and edition, Nids can be top tier in the right hands.

....

Give them a try, you might be surprised!

Not really sure how me saying that Nids weren't going to win NOVA amounts to having fun wrong. Nids are my first love and I'm very excited to see what the codex has in store. I never said that they were bad - just that they have some bad matchups at the highest levels of competition. As far as giving them a try, I have and I will continue to do so. But if you try to pit them against a guard gun line, an optimized CSM list or many other of the upper tier tournament lists, you'll struggle mightily. As the top Tyranid player, Geoff Robinson did go 5-1 and place 40th at NOVA, losing only to Ynnari. But he also failed to matchup against Chaos except for Death Guard and only played IG once (which, to his credit, he did win).

In any case, sorry that you disagree with my assessment of where Tyranids are right now. It is literally miles better than we have been in a long time, and I'm very happy. Just wanted to put a realistic ceiling on how people could expect to do at a large event.

He didn't say you were having fun wrong, he said it wasn't a good attitude to have competitively. And it's not. You've decided these limitations are there, when in reality I don't think it's the case at all - If you are talking about high possibility of dropping a match or two out of 8 - that's there for almost every army in the game except the utmost top 1 or 2 OP armies. And you said Nids couldn't go further than 4-2 at NOVA so you're already factually incorrect on that one, first tournament and they place higher than the ceiling you put on them, and that was a placing from inControl of all people. They are much more capable than you are giving them credit for, and 8th Tyranids are more than capable of rising past the limitations you've decided they have on them. I don't agree with everything in gameandwatch's post but I strongly agree with the bit you quoted on attitudes and results. Its just wrong to say we can't win top competitive tournaments - we can. Does that mean we will, not necessarily, there's a bunch of armies who can come first place and only one person gets it at the end of the day. There's no reason it won't be Tyranids even if it isn't as likely as AM.

How neccessary are adrenal glands and toxin sacs on Tyranids?

 BrotherGecko wrote:
How neccessary are adrenal glands and toxin sacs on Tyranids?

Really depends on the unit. I like Adrenal Glands on anything that is deepstriking, to make that charge a little shorter. 8" is much more likely than 9" to be rolled after all. I have found that Toxin sacks are too pricey to be worth it to me in most cases, but Im sure someone has found a use for them.

Talking about the limitations of a pure Nid army is pretty realistic. Mixed Nids certainly are more competitive. Really glad they are getting Codex sooner rather than later, along with Eldar they are the 2 main armies most in need of a codex.