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

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
3 Exocrines + Malanthrope + Kronos.

Overkill?

In a competitive setting, not at all. People are still teching against IK and IW and you can reasonably expect to lose an Exocrine each turn from shooting or smash captain-like tactics. Redundancy of a good unit isn't bad. The weak link is the Malanthrope with the amount of snipers being played as 3x troops choices right now. You're better off with a Neurothrope to cast Symbiostorm on them.

 D6Damager wrote:

In a competitive setting, not at all. People are still teching against IK and IW and you can reasonably expect to lose an Exocrine each turn from shooting or smash captain-like tactics. Redundancy of a good unit isn't bad. The weak link is the Malanthrope with the amount of snipers being played as 3x troops choices right now. You're better off with a Neurothrope to cast Symbiostorm on them.

Apart from the need of filling an HQ slot, I'd actually say go with a Malceptor for psychic support. They get +1 to casting attempts built-in for Symbiostorm and the Encephalic Diffusion is really good with T8 bugs (shuts down mass S5 guns and mitigates S8 and S9).

I do think going forward most of my lists are going to start with a Malceptor and a full brood of Venomthropes (max coverage, holds out the benefit for monsters until the last 2 models). Stacking -1 strength and -1 to hit goes a long way towards keeping things alive.

My local group has someone selling a bunch of termagants and I've always wanted a horde army, so I was wondering if the gaunt carpet lists are still viable and what people are choosing to run in them atm?

I bought a Maleceptor on Monday and it showed up in the mail today. I didn't come in a Toxicrene/Maleceptor box, but a generic white Citadel Miniature box.

I don't know if that means anything, but I thought I'd mention it.

everything I've ever ordered online came in the generic white citadel miniature box


Automatically Appended Next Post:
they don't need to waste money on flashy boxes displaying the models and encouraging purchases, if you're not actually in store to see it

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
everything I've ever ordered online came in the generic white citadel miniature box

That surprises me.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
they don't need to waste money on flashy boxes displaying the models and encouraging purchases, if you're not actually in store to see it

Except that would require them to keep two different sets of stock, one in boxes and one in generic boxes. Not only does that not make any sense, inventory and picking orders would be far more tedious if everything is in the same white box.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
everything I've ever ordered online came in the generic white citadel miniature box

That surprises me.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
they don't need to waste money on flashy boxes displaying the models and encouraging purchases, if you're not actually in store to see it

Except that would require them to keep two different sets of stock, one in boxes and one in generic boxes. Not only does that not make any sense, inventory and picking orders would be far more tedious if everything is in the same white box.

Except that we are talking about online only models, there is no two different stocks, only one. And they aren't paying premium for boxes whose only purpose is to sit in the inventory before being shipped.

They're not sold in GW stores?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They're not sold in GW stores?

You can buy them in a store but you would have to wait for them to arrive as they are not in the shelves.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They're not sold in GW stores?

The Toxicrene/Maleceptor box is one of the 'Available to Order Online' only items, like the new 2-Pack Box of Carnifex and the Tyrant/Hive Guard box.

Can't even buy Carnifexes in stores anymore? That's depressing.

Almost as depressing as Rhinos being tougher than them...

Strange, right? Given how popular that model/kit has been for ages, you'd think that the Carnifexes would be more readily available.

eBay is flooded with them here in Europe, give it a try

Oh I don't need any. I still have 6 I haven't built.

Just sad that the mighty Carnifex ain't so mighty these days.

asobitaii wrote:
My local group has someone selling a bunch of termagants and I've always wanted a horde army, so I was wondering if the gaunt carpet lists are still viable and what people are choosing to run in them atm?

They can still do work by holding vast chunks of table, they mostly find a home in Kronos as that is the "shooty" hive fleet. It kind of depends on how competative your local meta is....

The issue with the horde style lists is in order to do it and succeed you need a LOT of little guys. Something like 150 to 200+ to have enough bodies to make it work. These lists can be fun to play, but it takes substantial assembly/painting time and they play slow.

Trying to make a horde army work at a competive level takes a great deal of practice simply moving the models so that you can finish on time. You need to get good at fast dice, and efficiently moving squads, and at having your entire turn planned before it starts.

So in theory the carpet of bugs builds are viable, but the execution is logistically tricky.

I mean it's not a theory that they are viable. Erik Lathouras has had a great run of success with them. It's just a challenge to play and a lot of people would rather complain that there army can't compete rather than level up.

babelfish wrote:The issue with the horde style lists is in order to do it and succeed you need a LOT of little guys. Something like 150 to 200+ to have enough bodies to make it work. These lists can be fun to play, but it takes substantial assembly/painting time and they play slow.

Trying to make a horde army work at a competive level takes a great deal of practice simply moving the models so that you can finish on time. You need to get good at fast dice, and efficiently moving squads, and at having your entire turn planned before it starts.

So in theory the carpet of bugs builds are viable, but the execution is logistically tricky.

babelfish wrote:The issue with the horde style lists is in order to do it and succeed you need a LOT of little guys. Something like 150 to 200+ to have enough bodies to make it work. These lists can be fun to play, but it takes substantial assembly/painting time and they play slow.

Trying to make a horde army work at a competive level takes a great deal of practice simply moving the models so that you can finish on time. You need to get good at fast dice, and efficiently moving squads, and at having your entire turn planned before it starts.

So in theory the carpet of bugs builds are viable, but the execution is logistically tricky.

Nitro Zeus wrote:I mean it's not a theory that they are viable. Erik Lathouras has had a great run of success with them. It's just a challenge to play and a lot of people would rather complain that there army can't compete rather than level up.

Depends on the setup, for example; ITC secondary missions makes it difficult because you lose so much points before you can earn them back. Maybe if you focus on getting:

'engineers' : two selected units that controle an objective.
'king of the hill': two units that claim the center of the board.
'recon': a unit in each table quarter.

Each space marine army got a thunderfire cannon these days and that slows down 2 units (halve movement and advance). Also the increase in ealdari vibro cannons doesn't help (no advance). Iron hand Master of the forge with 3 stormtalon gunships with assault cannons don't care about the -1 to hit malanthrope. That's about 500+ points that kill's about 30+ gaunts each turn.

Maybe this would be nice:

Battalion detachment (KRAKEN)

Neuro: 90
Neuro: 90
Malanthrope: 120
30 Termagaunts: 120 (engineers)
30 Termagaunts: 120 (engineers)
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80

Vanguard detachment (KRONOS)

Neuro: 90
lictor: 32
lictor: 32
lictor: 32
6 hive guard: 258
red terror: 50

Battalion detachment (Genestealer cult)

Iconward 53
magus: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80

shogun wrote:

Nitro Zeus wrote:I mean it's not a theory that they are viable. Erik Lathouras has had a great run of success with them. It's just a challenge to play and a lot of people would rather complain that there army can't compete rather than level up.

Depends on the setup, for example; ITC secondary missions makes it difficult because you lose so much points before you can earn them back. Maybe if you focus on getting:

'engineers' : two selected units that controle an objective.
'king of the hill': two units that claim the center of the board.
'recon': a unit in each table quarter.

He got 1st place at 150 man ITC tournament with it, and iirc correctly has never even not gotten top 4 in every single ITC tournament he's entered with horde nids, so obviously the format isn't holding back any of that viability.

shogun wrote:


Maybe this would be nice:

Battalion detachment (KRAKEN)

Neuro: 90
Neuro: 90
Malanthrope: 120
30 Termagaunts: 120 (engineers)
30 Termagaunts: 120 (engineers)
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80

Vanguard detachment (KRONOS)

Neuro: 90
lictor: 32
lictor: 32
lictor: 32
6 hive guard: 258
red terror: 50

Battalion detachment (Genestealer cult)

Iconward 53
magus: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80

Red Terror? GSC with no Patriarch? 120 Brood Brothers with no Patriach bubble? Malanthrope instead of Venomthrope with a board control list? 20 man units instead of 30 man? Triple Lictors?

This is a pretty... interesting attempt that's for sure.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

shogun wrote:

Nitro Zeus wrote:I mean it's not a theory that they are viable. Erik Lathouras has had a great run of success with them. It's just a challenge to play and a lot of people would rather complain that there army can't compete rather than level up.

Depends on the setup, for example; ITC secondary missions makes it difficult because you lose so much points before you can earn them back. Maybe if you focus on getting:

'engineers' : two selected units that controle an objective.
'king of the hill': two units that claim the center of the board.
'recon': a unit in each table quarter.

He got 1st place at 150 man ITC tournament with it, and iirc correctly has never even not gotten top 4 in every single ITC tournament he's entered with horde nids, so obviously the format isn't holding back any of that viability.

Did he also played against the current space marine lists out there? Would like to see the setup and opponent lists.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

shogun wrote:

shogun wrote:


Maybe this would be nice:

Battalion detachment (KRAKEN)

Neuro: 90
Neuro: 90
Malanthrope: 120
30 Termagaunts: 120 (engineers)
30 Termagaunts: 120 (engineers)
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80
20 Termagaunts: 80

Vanguard detachment (KRONOS)

Neuro: 90
lictor: 32
lictor: 32
lictor: 32
6 hive guard: 258
red terror: 50

Battalion detachment (Genestealer cult)

Iconward 53
magus: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80
20 brood brothers: 80

Red Terror? GSC with no Patriarch? 120 Brood Brothers with no Patriach bubble? Malanthrope instead of Venomthrope with a board control list? 20 man units instead of 30 man? Triple Lictors?

This is a pretty... interesting attempt that's for sure.

Red terror and lictors are just there to keep claiming table quarters,
Malanthrope with -1 to hit kraken relic can keep pushing forward, maybe even with catalyst if needed, Venomthropes can be picked out and shot down,
Gaunts above 20 count as Powerlevel 9 and then the enemy can claim secondary objective points for them.

You are right about the patriarch. Probably would remove 'the red terror' and switch the magus with a patriarch. Didn't really care about the fearless bubble if you want to drop them in and claim stuff all over the place. But it is nice to have the 'fearless option'.

shogun wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

He got 1st place at 150 man ITC tournament with it, and iirc correctly has never even not gotten top 4 in every single ITC tournament he's entered with horde nids, so obviously the format isn't holding back any of that viability.

Did he also played against the current space marine lists out there? Would like to see the setup and opponent lists.

Couldn't tell you honestly. I know he's been building into GSC for a while because he wanted to play pure GSC, I think he swapped over recently. My response was just to the part where you thought it might be a format thing, Space Marines might be a problem but I imagine they will be for anything Tyranids do, above all it's definitely not that the list struggles with the format.

shogun wrote:

Malanthrope with -1 to hit kraken relic can keep pushing forward, maybe even with catalyst if needed, Venomthropes can be picked out and shot down

To be fair, the current competitive environment has a lot of anti-character tech floating around so the durability difference is somewhat marginal depending on matchup. You can get 4 Venomthropes for the same cost as a single Mananthrope which gives 4(?) more wounds and much wider spore coverage. I'm also not sure if venoms being targeted is entirely a bad thing in the context of your wider list. You are basically trying to overwhelm the anti-infantry guns and any shots being directed at Venomthropes are shots not going into Hive Guard or Termagants (would be better with more mid-sized bugs like Warriors for threat saturation, but still).

I am admittedly biased. My general preference is to use the Malanthrope for gunline support and Venoms for forward operations.

Also as one other bit of advice, the GSC portion might be better served with Acolytes instead of Brood Brothers (I'd say Neophytes as another alternative, but they are kinda stuck until the chapter approved FAQ fixes their points). Both of your characters are keyed to work on <cult> units so they don't do anything for the Brood Brothers and even basic Acolytes bring some much needed lethality to the swarm.

Venom bubble covers much more ground, which is important when your list's only winning point is board control. You hide the Venoms out of line of sight, and spread gants out in every direction from them, trailing them back. Significantly harder with a Malanthrope, the single 3" bubble is a fraction of the size of the 6" bubble x3 that Venoms give. Every direction is important for a list like this.

I prefer the malanthrope bubble, character protection is still vital and you can always hide him out of LoS and daisy chain your gant hordes to him.

Does anyone have the top list from LVO? I've got a friend looking to start building GSC/Nids competitively and was hoping to help with something to use as a template.

Erik's list, a year ago http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Erik-Lathouras-1st-Overall-CanCon-2019.pdf

Gameplay

This year he missed out on 1st place again by a single point in the grand finals vs Iron Hands, running pure GSC. If GSC is your focus this may be worth looking at, though his horde Tyranids list is incredibly powerful too, potentially even more so.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
This year he missed out on 1st place again by a single point in the grand finals vs Iron Hands, running pure GSC. If GSC is your focus this may be worth looking at, though his horde Tyranids list is incredibly powerful too, potentially even more so.

I love playing horde nids, but its incredibly exhausting metnally and physically moving all those models and rolling all those dice in an hour and 25 minute ITC game. Even with movement trays and dice app. Early games its not so much but in a 5+ game tourney it just wears you down.

This is also a pre SM meta game so not sure how it would fair today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK. So reading through BoB again.

I found AP -5 GS or Hormagants.

Genestealers with Acid Maws are base 3.

Taking Gorgon Broodlord with power Poisonous Influence all friendly models (not hive fleet specific) gain -1 AP.

Then after their first kill use Aggressive Adaptation for another -1. Use this after killing a cheap scout/screen unit. So you have Acid Maws at AP-5. The rending claws will now be AP-3 normally with -4 on 6's to rend.

Broodlord would be on AP -4 with his claws as well.

For Hormagaunts using the same two above powers gets your scything talons to -2. Then use Feral Instincts Stratagem to get them to -3. Finally, if you take them in a custom Hive Fleet with Pack Hunters (another -1) and Biometalic Cyst for another -1 so now a total of -5. WIth 20+ Gaunts you are reroll 1s to hit and wound.

Can do some of the tricks to get Warriors with Scything Talons to potentially -4 (everything but the Feral Instincts Stratagem)

Considering running warriors with Boneswords and boost from Gorgon Power. AP -3, after they kill a unit use aggressive Adapation, so now AP-4.

This become threat priorty 1, but that ok because you ran them with a Malanthrope (-1 to hit) and a maleceptor (using the -1 Str) Stratagem. So Bolters are wound on 5's now at -1 to hit. Not to mention you took Enhanced Resistance to ignore AP-1,-2 ; thats thunderfires, whirlwinds, hurrican bolters/flamers, regular bolters. Not to mention you can pop Unyielding Chitin for -1 Dmg.

Don't forget other powers like Catalyst and the Horror for further buffs.

What is this "Forces of the Hive Miind" list in the meta? This seems to be skewing the stats. How is this different from GSC and Tyranids?

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/ewbn7b/goonhammer_meta_analysis_the_lvo/

It’s a battalion of Swarmy + Kraken stealers tacked on to a GSC army (list posted by Goonhammer was 40 odd Acolytes and 30x Brood Brothers with support characters filling out HQ and Elites).

It basically is an archetypical GSC hybrid list using Swarmy + Stealers to pick off screens for deepstriking Acolytes which in turn provide the bulk of list’s killing power along with the Patriarch and Broodlord. Three battalions provided lots of command points to play with and the list incorporates a lot of mobile troops for holding objectives. The list is also very alpha-strike oriented, between the stealer slingshot and all of the Acolytes it hits fairly hard with volume of rending attacks. The version I saw also used the Pauper Prince which fit remarkably well with the overall archetype, since they have access to a second fearless bubble via their relic and the amount of characters gives plenty of fodder for their signature stratagem (as well as very accurate Acolytes with rerolls to hit).

I'm actually rather pleased to see it doing well, though I am sad that the Tyranid part is only present to dispatch things like Scouts and Infiltrators that otherwise hinder GSC deepstrike.