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 Tyran wrote:
It also worked that way in 8th.

My fault. I missed the clarification from the errata regarding this case.
Thank you anyway.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Something about titanic units being unable to benefit from Hive Fleet rules.

I honestly cannot find it right now though.

It's on the "Detachments" page. Not sure what the policy is on this forum regarding links to leaks, so I'll refrain from that.

"Auxiliary Support, Super-heavy Auxiliary and Fortification Detachments never gain Detachment abillities."

So wait, the LoW can still get -1 from the (insert)thrope and double move from the Swarmy, but cannot get the kraken/Kronos/whatever fleet abilities?

Yes, although if you have 3 or more LoW they could get Hive Fleet Adaptations in a Super-heavy Detachment. The restriction only applies to the Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachment.

Which to be fair, is how it already works for I think every other army except tyranids in 8th edition.
It's unfortunate as we didn't need the nerf, but this makes superheavy auxiliary detachments consistent across all armies.

The point is that in 8th you had the chance to take the LoW in Supreme detachment, which made bringing them much easier.

Now that possibility is gone.

Than is not that bad, a Hierodule and a battalion bring us down to 9 CP, 8 after double adaptation; 13 CP total playing 5 turns. The same I play now, I might even ds 3*10 gaunts for late scoring for 1 CP, is not that bad.

Still points and rework might transform this dude into a real treat or onto a dud.

I really like the look of the maleceptor, but fail to see why you would ever want one instead of the same points in zoanthropes? It seems absolutely useless in melee, and the psychic tendrils seems rather trash having only a 6" range.

The Blood of Baal strat is really strong

I think is good but a bit too pricey. Best case scenario you transform a 4 to W into a 5. Which is a 17% decrease in effectiveness. Now if it was a -1 to W, that would be really good.

 Emicrania wrote:
I think is good but a bit too pricey. Best case scenario you transform a 4 to W into a 5. Which is a 17% decrease in effectiveness. Now if it was a -1 to W, that would be really good.

4+ to 5+ is a 33% increase in durability, comparable from reducing Damage 3 to Damage 2 and better than reducing a D6 damage by 1.

So is 9th going to be as boring for nids as I'm thinking it will be? I generally run a about 120 gaunts along side some mixed fexes and tyrants. But with the triple whammy horde melee appears to be recieving in 9th, big blobs of hormagaunts tying up a couple units with consolations seems to be dead.

Only thing I can really see working in 9th is a gunline. I'm assuming what what is ~1800 now will be the new 2000. This is the "best" I've been able to figure out so far.

If you have 120 gaunts take a Brigade and outscore the opponent.

I have 180 gaunts. Trouble is they get murdered in 8th in my SM/necron heavy local meta.

Alright, I did some quick math on the Zoanthropes vs Maleceptor, in a purely offensive look:

Zoanthrope unit begins at full strength, attempts to cast Smite up to 2x if able
3 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0139 MW/pt, MED = 0.0167 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0383 MW/pt, MED = 0.0375 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
5 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0311 MW/pt, MED = 0.0300 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0100
6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0323 MW/pt, MED = 0.0375 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0167

Maleceptor begins at full strength, attempts to cast Smite up to 2x
Smite: AVG = 0.0219 MW/pt, MED = 0.0250 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0063
1 around: AVG = 0.0073 MW/pt, MED = 0.0063 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
2 around: AVG = 0.0146 MW/pt, MED = 0.0125 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0063
3 around: AVG = 0.0219 MW/pt, MED = 0.0187 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0063
4 around: AVG = 0.0292 MW/pt, MED = 0.0250 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0125
5 around: AVG = 0.0365 MW/pt, MED = 0.0375 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0187
6 around: AVG = 0.0437 MW/pt, MED = 0.0437 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0250

So really, to be as effective as a unit of 4+ Zoanthropes, a Maleceptor needs to get within 6" of 5+ units. Seems hard compared to the 24" range Zoanthrope Smite is effective at.

nobody is taking Maleceptor for anything other than the strat with the mortal wounds as a bonus

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
nobody is taking Maleceptor for anything other than the strat with the mortal wounds as a bonus

I just want the big monsters to be actually usable as big monsters. Seeing as the melee profile is... Not, I thought I'd examine how good it was for dishing out MW as a Psyker.

Phenatix wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
nobody is taking Maleceptor for anything other than the strat with the mortal wounds as a bonus

I just want the big monsters to be actually usable as big monsters. Seeing as the melee profile is... Not, I thought I'd examine how good it was for dishing out MW as a Psyker.

If you want big monsters you do not take the Maleceptor. You take it for the stratagem. Or because it is a giant brain with legs. (D&D's good old intelectual devourer, just in a nid design.)

 Tyran wrote:

 Emicrania wrote:
I think is good but a bit too pricey. Best case scenario you transform a 4 to W into a 5. Which is a 17% decrease in effectiveness. Now if it was a -1 to W, that would be really good.

4+ to 5+ is a 33% increase in durability, comparable from reducing Damage 3 to Damage 2 and better than reducing a D6 damage by 1.

You are right about that. Still I haven´t found that coming up so considerably to justify 160 points for a model and spending 2cp once per game. It should be on the datasheet and be "once per game".

 Emicrania wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Emicrania wrote:
I think is good but a bit too pricey. Best case scenario you transform a 4 to W into a 5. Which is a 17% decrease in effectiveness. Now if it was a -1 to W, that would be really good.

4+ to 5+ is a 33% increase in durability, comparable from reducing Damage 3 to Damage 2 and better than reducing a D6 damage by 1.

You are right about that. Still I haven´t found that coming up so considerably to justify 160 points for a model and spending 2cp once per game. It should be on the datasheet and be "once per game".

I've used a Maleceptor (the "God King"!) for all of 8th. Ignore the special ability that does a mortal wound to units around him -- there's no world in which it's useful. I run him as Kraken, with Psychic Scream and Smite. He goes front and center in my army, and goes straight up the board as the front line of my center board control. I use him to "bad touch" things that I don't want shooting at my Exocrines, to tie up units that might go for center objectives with a charge, to cast d3 mortal wounds twice per round at +1, and generally to be an annoyance wherever possible. I'll often budget a CP or two to reroll his 4+ invulnerable against bigger shots (flat 3 damage or d6 damage). He's very rarely let me down.

I'm not going to argue that he was top table tournament good, but I have taken a number of small local tournaments using him this way.

Use and enjoy if you like the model -- that's the only reason I do it, it's my favorite Tyranid model.

 Verthane wrote:

 Emicrania wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Emicrania wrote:
I think is good but a bit too pricey. Best case scenario you transform a 4 to W into a 5. Which is a 17% decrease in effectiveness. Now if it was a -1 to W, that would be really good.

4+ to 5+ is a 33% increase in durability, comparable from reducing Damage 3 to Damage 2 and better than reducing a D6 damage by 1.

You are right about that. Still I haven´t found that coming up so considerably to justify 160 points for a model and spending 2cp once per game. It should be on the datasheet and be "once per game".

I've used a Maleceptor (the "God King"!) for all of 8th. Ignore the special ability that does a mortal wound to units around him -- there's no world in which it's useful. I run him as Kraken, with Psychic Scream and Smite. He goes front and center in my army, and goes straight up the board as the front line of my center board control. I use him to "bad touch" things that I don't want shooting at my Exocrines, to tie up units that might go for center objectives with a charge, to cast d3 mortal wounds twice per round at +1, and generally to be an annoyance wherever possible. I'll often budget a CP or two to reroll his 4+ invulnerable against bigger shots (flat 3 damage or d6 damage). He's very rarely let me down.

I'm not going to argue that he was top table tournament good, but I have taken a number of small local tournaments using him this way.

Use and enjoy if you like the model -- that's the only reason I do it, it's my favorite Tyranid model.

I like the model but competievly is kind of a bummer. Still it won me a game with his aura vs Ta´u, it went supernova and blasted 4 unit of 2 drones and finished off other 2 units of 1-2 drones left from bigger squads :S

Who thinks zoanthropes double smiting unlike in 8th (unless I missed something) will perhaps have play?

We will see. The smite restriction in 8th was not placed in the rules.

If smite x2 is inn, zoanthropes can be really good. As can a neuronthrope with the resonemce barb. It can smite 3 times.

addnid wrote:Who thinks zoanthropes double smiting unlike in 8th (unless I missed something) will perhaps have play?

Niiai wrote:We will see. The smite restriction in 8th was not placed in the rules.

If smite x2 is inn, zoanthropes can be really good. As can a neuronthrope with the resonemce barb. It can smite 3 times.

The core rules released on Warhammer Community do indicated that smiting as much as you want is totally a thing. The cost goes up 1 per previous attempt to cast Smite (note, it does not matter if the attempt succeeds or fails).

I have already done some math on the Zoanthrope Smite spamming plan. See below:

6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 7.9988 MW, MED = 9.0000 MW, 5th Percentile = 4.0000
6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 5.2213 MW, MED = 5.0000 MW, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 2.4473 MW, MED = 0.0000 MW, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
3x6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 15.6675 MW, MED = 15.0000 MW, 5th Percentile = 5.0000

So the first unit spamming out Smites you can expect to do quite a bit. As the cost continues to go up, their effectiveness falls. One thing I need to examine is if it may be better to have a Maleceptor start casting Smite eventually, because of it's +1 to cast. It would be hard to overcome the Zoanthrope's Warp Blast bonus damage though. Also to consider Psychic Scream, as it's basically another Smite.

6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0333 MW/pt, MED = 0.0375 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0167
6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0218 MW/pt, MED = 0.0208 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0102 MW/pt, MED = 0.0000 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
3x6 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0218 MW/pt, MED = 0.0208 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0069

Above, see the efficiency of the damage you're doing rapidly decreases as the cost goes up to cast.

EDIT: Running units of 4 would be more efficient, albeit less resilient to attacks and start falling off as soon as they take damage. This may be desirable, as it incentivizes opponents to shoot the Zoanthropes rather than your bigger killy bugs rushing at them.

4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 6.3801 MW, MED = 7.0000 MW, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 4.1774 MW, MED = 4.0000 MW, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 1.9762 MW, MED = 0.0000 MW, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
3x4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 12.5337 MW, MED = 12.0000 MW, 5th Percentile = 4.0000

4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0399 MW/pt, MED = 0.0437 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0261 MW/pt, MED = 0.0250 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0123 MW/pt, MED = 0.0000 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0000
3x4 Zoanthropes: AVG = 0.0261 MW/pt, MED = 0.0250 MW/pt, 5th Percentile = 0.0083

Double smite is going to be faqed because I don't want to play against Thousand Sons smite spam.

 Tyran wrote:
Double smite is going to be faqed because I don't want to play against Thousand Sons smite spam.

Except it’s literally in the core rules as an exception, you can cast smite as much as you want. The cost goes up by 1 for each cast.

I know, I expect it to be faqed to 1 cast per psyker.

Yeah, if it were intended they’d have talked about Magnus throwing around 14 mortals per turn on average dice in the Thousand Sons faction focus. It will almost certainly be FAQ’d and if it isn’t...

So....some idle thoughts I've had.

The changes to character protection appears to hurt us the least of any faction. Malanthropes and Neurothropes are 1. fairly durable, 2. babysitting something high priority, and 3. behind a gaunt screen that is keeping smash captains away from whatever unit #2 happens to be. In 8th you lost them after the screen got killed and the shooting thing they were babysitting was dead. I can't really see that changing all that much. Primes normally sit in the middle of a Warrior or may 'fex blob. Again, they died when the blob died, that won't be much different. Other than that, our characters are MC's, who it doesn't impact and Deathleaper maybe?

Speaking of monsterous characters, sword and cannon flyrants might be worth looking at. Their weakness was you lose two a turn and it takes three turns to do anything with them. With smaller boards and reduced lethality (terrain changes + fewer guns from increased points) they will have a better chance of getting into sweet sweet CC. The changes to blast make HVC's and stranglethorns interesting again. There is an relic somewhere than makes one of them a flamer at 12? (I'm not going to bother to look it up at the moment) inches, which has potential. Flat damage from the swords makes them attractive in a primaris heavy environment as well. All of this will of course be point dependent, but I can see running triple flyrant again.

Smaller board sizes make outflanking devilgants and 'stealers feel juicy. It is going to be hard for someone to be out of threat range of either of those units, and even if they are, you've pressured them into very limited movement options, which is advantageous. Someone staying away from an objective because they don't want to be eaten by 'stealers makes it easier to out score them. I'm already planning to allocate a CP for somebody outflanking, I just haven't decided who yet.

The changes to blast don't hurt as much as some people seem to think. 30 'gaunts in Malanthrope protection died in one turn vs most armies, they will still die in one turn vs most armies. The tools to kill hordes were already in the game, and used against us. If people start bringing plasma again, they are welcome to point it at my 'gaunts. If you wan't to run 300 hormies I honestly think it will work just as well - and have just the same issues - as it did in 8th - you won't get shot off the table but you won't do much but stand on objectives and remove models until the clock runs out.

I don't think the casualty removal/no conga lines thing will hurt that much either. Zippering big screening squads isn't hard. Normally when I had odd lines going everywhere it was because I was trying to block off deep strike locations and sticking offshoots off my big units out to block as much as possible. WIth smaller boards, that will be easier to do. Our CC units either don't care cause monster, or want to be packed in to maximize damage anyway. If you need to leave a fishhook or chain out their to tag something or block a movement/deep strike, those guys were going to die as soon as they got looked at anyway. That is the joy of playing bugs - losing 30 guys and shrugging because of course you lost them and you don't care, you expected that. Or better yet, losing 25 and laughing as they have to waste a unit finishing them off.

If it doesn't get faq'd away, the repeat smite is going to be nice. 18 zoeys and some Exocrines was already strong, because 18 zoeys takes substantial work to kill. I don't think blast impacts them too hard, 'cause 3++, but after the math that was posted upthread I'm very open to trying 4 or 5 model units.

Hive Guard are going to be insane, even after the points hike. I don't think it is going to be possible to get 18 zoeys and 12 Hive Guard in the same build, because that's likely going to be 2/3s of your points and filling out the brigade ain't free, but mayyyyyybe specialty detachment + battalion can do it.

My first game in 9th is going to be exactly like my first game in 8th. I'm going to take 3 Hive Tyrants, 3 Trygons, the Harpy I scratch built out of a Trygon and a Warhammer Fantasy dragon. Then I'm going to add in whatever else I need to make it a legal list. I'm going to throw all of that at a local tournament, because eventually they will release an edition where I can win events with my three favorite models. After that I'm going to spend hours in battlescribe and reading discussions until I find a build that I like, and I'm going to do everything in my power to win a GT with it. I've been trying since 5th ed without at top ten yet, but I'm going to try.

Tyranids have never been an easy faction. They never will be. We don't get easy win buttons. We don't get models every week. We lose games because we made a tiny mistake that only our faction can make involving a rule only we have. We savor every victory because we earn them. 9th edition will change things. It probably won't make it easy for Tyranids, but no edition ever does. We put in more effort than any other faction in order to figure out how to make our bugs work, then we give people nasty surprises.

babelfish wrote:
So....some idle thoughts I've had.

The changes to character protection appears to hurt us the least of any faction. Malanthropes and Neurothropes are 1. fairly durable, 2. babysitting something high priority, and 3. behind a gaunt screen that is keeping smash captains away from whatever unit #2 happens to be. In 8th you lost them after the screen got killed and the shooting thing they were babysitting was dead. I can't really see that changing all that much. Primes normally sit in the middle of a Warrior or may 'fex blob. Again, they died when the blob died, that won't be much different. Other than that, our characters are MC's, who it doesn't impact and Deathleaper maybe?

Speaking of monsterous characters, sword and cannon flyrants might be worth looking at. Their weakness was you lose two a turn and it takes three turns to do anything with them. With smaller boards and reduced lethality (terrain changes + fewer guns from increased points) they will have a better chance of getting into sweet sweet CC. The changes to blast make HVC's and stranglethorns interesting again. There is an relic somewhere than makes one of them a flamer at 12? (I'm not going to bother to look it up at the moment) inches, which has potential. Flat damage from the swords makes them attractive in a primaris heavy environment as well. All of this will of course be point dependent, but I can see running triple flyrant again.

Smaller board sizes make outflanking devilgants and 'stealers feel juicy. It is going to be hard for someone to be out of threat range of either of those units, and even if they are, you've pressured them into very limited movement options, which is advantageous. Someone staying away from an objective because they don't want to be eaten by 'stealers makes it easier to out score them. I'm already planning to allocate a CP for somebody outflanking, I just haven't decided who yet.

The changes to blast don't hurt as much as some people seem to think. 30 'gaunts in Malanthrope protection died in one turn vs most armies, they will still die in one turn vs most armies. The tools to kill hordes were already in the game, and used against us. If people start bringing plasma again, they are welcome to point it at my 'gaunts. If you wan't to run 300 hormies I honestly think it will work just as well - and have just the same issues - as it did in 8th - you won't get shot off the table but you won't do much but stand on objectives and remove models until the clock runs out.

I don't think the casualty removal/no conga lines thing will hurt that much either. Zippering big screening squads isn't hard. Normally when I had odd lines going everywhere it was because I was trying to block off deep strike locations and sticking offshoots off my big units out to block as much as possible. WIth smaller boards, that will be easier to do. Our CC units either don't care cause monster, or want to be packed in to maximize damage anyway. If you need to leave a fishhook or chain out their to tag something or block a movement/deep strike, those guys were going to die as soon as they got looked at anyway. That is the joy of playing bugs - losing 30 guys and shrugging because of course you lost them and you don't care, you expected that. Or better yet, losing 25 and laughing as they have to waste a unit finishing them off.

If it doesn't get faq'd away, the repeat smite is going to be nice. 18 zoeys and some Exocrines was already strong, because 18 zoeys takes substantial work to kill. I don't think blast impacts them too hard, 'cause 3++, but after the math that was posted upthread I'm very open to trying 4 or 5 model units.

Hive Guard are going to be insane, even after the points hike. I don't think it is going to be possible to get 18 zoeys and 12 Hive Guard in the same build, because that's likely going to be 2/3s of your points and filling out the brigade ain't free, but mayyyyyybe specialty detachment + battalion can do it.

My first game in 9th is going to be exactly like my first game in 8th. I'm going to take 3 Hive Tyrants, 3 Trygons, the Harpy I scratch built out of a Trygon and a Warhammer Fantasy dragon. Then I'm going to add in whatever else I need to make it a legal list. I'm going to throw all of that at a local tournament, because eventually they will release an edition where I can win events with my three favorite models. After that I'm going to spend hours in battlescribe and reading discussions until I find a build that I like, and I'm going to do everything in my power to win a GT with it. I've been trying since 5th ed without at top ten yet, but I'm going to try.

Tyranids have never been an easy faction. They never will be. We don't get easy win buttons. We don't get models every week. We lose games because we made a tiny mistake that only our faction can make involving a rule only we have. We savor every victory because we earn them. 9th edition will change things. It probably won't make it easy for Tyranids, but no edition ever does. We put in more effort than any other faction in order to figure out how to make our bugs work, then we give people nasty surprises.

Too much optimism seasoned with not so logical conclusions (Zoeys were never strong the way you claim, Flyrants with flat D3 won't do anything against Primaris with only 4 attacks and stealers are gonna get removed from any decent list all nerfs considered) and 0 knowledge of points. Tomorrow is gonna be a terrible day for you when you get to know the points costs of our stuff