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 Niiai wrote:
What are you chaffing against? Only orks and very select unit charge nids.

Short range shoot, and charge units, and deep strikes.

I had some more thoughts on the new rules.

1) You don't need troops anymore. Vanguard detachments, patrols, and Brigades all give 12 CP. Right now, I think we're stuck in the Battalion mindset of 8th. That being said, vanguard, outrider, and spearhead detachments cost 3 CP and don't refund them like patrol, battalion, or brigades when your warlord is a part of them. Is starting at 9CP worth only having to take 1 HQ and jumping straight into what you want with no troops tax?

2) Morale doesn't punish hordes. Previously, if 30 gants took 20 casualties outside of synapse, the rest fled. Now, one model flees and the rest flee on a roll of a 1 on a d6 per model. Synapse isn't required for morale.

3) Warriors are amazing. Between adaptive physiology, venomthrope buffs, primes, strategems, and weapon upgrades you can basically build your army around 3 wound primaris equivalents with double power swords, assault heavy bolters, and d3 shot mini-missile launchers for less than 30 points a model. They can get up to a 3+ save with a 5+ FNP, -1 to hit, -1 to damage and ignore AP -1 and -2. It's like all of the chapter tactics at once.

4) Tyrannofexes are amazing. Post them up ~15" from objectives and spray down anyone trying to hold them with 4d6 acid spray hits.

5) Sporocysts and Sporefield can buy you time and space for cheap. With the updated fortification detachment, it doesn't cost CP and you can forward deploy these guys onto objectives. The idea is to use sporemines to block movement and prevent your opponent from effortlessly leaving their deployment zone while you get into position.

6) Hiveguard are nuts. They range the whole table now and are great for all the reasons you already know... and they can sit onan objective while doing it.

7) Leviathan may be the #1 adaptation now. Having to hold objectives for a whole turn means you must survive. 3 wound units especially benefit from the 6+ FNP and strategems that reduce damage by 1 as you can minimize efficiency of multi-damage weapons.

8) We can deploy units from strategic reserves around lictors with strategems. This may have play with the new strategic reserve rules.

9) We have numerous solo units that can really mess up the backfield. Imagine the Deathleaper, 3 lictors, the Red Terror, and 3 Pyrovores all outflanking to gang up on backline units (think Thunderfires and dark reapers). Even 10 man Intercessors on objectives would face pressure from 3d6 (minimum 9 hitd) from flamespurt cannons, a ravener that could just eat you, and 13 Str 6 AP-1 D2 attacks from lictors that reroll charge distances the turn they come in.

Unlearn what you have learned. There are so many exciting and new possibilities in 9th!


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10) You only need to hold 2 objectives for 4 turns to get 40/45 points for primary. You don't need to kill your army to hold 3 objectives for 15 points more than just one turn in the game.

11) Adrenal glands are critical, as is the overrun strategem. You should try to move 9" to get onto objectives outside of your deployment zone turn 1 so you can score turn 2.

12) Take your army list and hold it up to the secondaries list. Calculate the max points your opponent can score off of you. That is the "tie breaker" for a stalemate in the primary. Potentially, if your opponent scores 45 points on the secondaries he can counteract poor primary performance.

13) If you want to perform actions, you need a "action detachment." What this looks like to me is a cheap character completely encircled by a tough unit. For instance, Deathleaper surrounded by Tyrant Guards or a Prime surrounded by warriors. Or Red Terror surrounded by raveners. This last example would be a great "Razer" detachment to go forward and raze your opponents objectives in mission 5.

 Niiai wrote:

 Spreelock wrote:
Hello, i'm asking for advice about Leviathan hive fleet, what is the most competitive build available for them? I know that the Kraken genestealers are very good (and i've played before with Behemoth), but for fluff reason i'm intrested about Leviathan. And tournaments in my local area does not usually allow Forge World models.

First of, everything is up in the air. The double change of rules and point increase means we do not know.

I have runn some leviathan. Gaunt blockades are more anoying then usual (as they do not die as expected, and of course all tyranids are fearless when done right.)

The real treat with leviathan though is in my opinion warriors. Warriors are better under leviathan then others (depending if you can get cover or not) but 3 damage weapons do not like the 6+++.

The stratagem is also very good if you manage to find a flying model. (Hive tyrant, gargoyles and neoronthropes comes to mind.) It is very point effective.

Leviathan can not hold a candle to kraken stealers. But are stealers so good in 9th? Usually kraken stealers used to lock you in with 40 stealers, swarmlord and broodlord. You do not need to lock in to that at leviathan.

I totally agree with this assessment on Leviathan. I've always been a huge fan of Leviathan Warriors and think they are going to shine in this edition. I haven't had the chance to play a game yet, but from what I'm reading on the web and seeing on YouTube, I think Tyranids will be a contender in the ring in this edition in respects to missions. I wouldn't be back on the bug wagon if I didn't believe it.




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 Emicrania wrote:
The nidzilla is dead than now uh

Do you really think Nidzilla lists are gone with 9th edition?

They could really be thinkig nidzilla is dead. What is important is not belief, but reasons to believe something.

Nidzilla might not fair that well, considering with the reliability of vehicles going up, there will likely be a greater presence of heavy weapons. With knights and Cknights being sort of rotated out of viability (they won't fair all that well and will have a hard time in most scenarios) we might see less heavy weapons too....

I'm sure there is a way to make some elements of it work, but not a pure nidzilla list. Tossing in OOE and 2-3 carnifexes could be viable perhaps?

Right now the main "threat" to Nid-zilla, and Nids in geral is the stupid Impulser "fly tank" and massive Marine shooting blobs. The Only weakness I've yet seen is Marines like to blob up to max out character buffs. So I plan on seeing what I can do about that Maybe my beloved Mawlock can get a task, then use a Strat to death throes for some extra damage, pop off a leader or too, and Marines are less horrifying.


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Also perhaps "Acid blood" can play a role....


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Right now I am mostly think about running Jormangandr with Gunfexen, and MSU Stealers, and Warriors. Still have about 550 points not spent, possable Cult allies for Anti- tank, or....hmmm still don't know.

I'm looking at picking up Tyranids as my new army project for 9th. What's the consensus on Carnifexes right now? Like warriors, they can sort of perform a dual-role with a mixed loadout of guns and melee weapons.

Carnifex is sort of like a big version of warriors.

Carnifex has some amount of wounds, around the same amount as 3 warriors. It shoots better, bigger guns. Warriors have a hier number of melee attacks, fewer guns. Carnifex need to specialise in shooting, melee and shoting or only melee.

They are quite comparable but they are different. 9th might have slided the points further away. I have not looked at it.

Nids monster all works at the expense of CP. ALL of the cp we got in BoB should be rewritten in the datasheets and still it wouldn't be unbalanced.

 Dendarien wrote:
I'm looking at picking up Tyranids as my new army project for 9th. What's the consensus on Carnifexes right now? Like warriors, they can sort of perform a dual-role with a mixed loadout of guns and melee weapons.

Definitely magnetize the crap out of carnifexes. I still use mine from 10 years ago.

I would say go full shooting or full close combat. They have strength 6 which is much worse than what they used to get. They're not good at flipping tanks anymore.

What do you think about old one eye? He just got faq'd to get LoS around other fexes.

 Emicrania wrote:
Nids monster all works at the expense of CP. ALL of the cp we got in BoB should be rewritten in the datasheets and still it wouldn't be unbalanced.

This I agree with wholeheartedly....

LordoftheSwarm wrote:
6) Hiveguard are nuts. They range the whole table now and are great for all the reasons you already know... and they can sit onan objective while doing it.

Not everyone is playing with GW's standard recommended minimum board size.

 Dendarien wrote:
I'm looking at picking up Tyranids as my new army project for 9th. What's the consensus on Carnifexes right now? Like warriors, they can sort of perform a dual-role with a mixed loadout of guns and melee weapons.

Magnets are your friend!

 Dendarien wrote:
I'm looking at picking up Tyranids as my new army project for 9th. What's the consensus on Carnifexes right now? Like warriors, they can sort of perform a dual-role with a mixed loadout of guns and melee weapons.

The consensus appears to be there is no consensus. At first glance they are not great. At second glance you get a lot of "well, maybe if I...." reactions. I think we won't really know for another month or two, as people get in games and adapt to the new editions.

Carnifexes were good at providing lots of cheap, reasonably durable mid S firepower. The common build was two sets of devourers (12 S6 AP 0 shots per), the +1 BS upgrade, and the upgrade that gives -1 to hit. Each 'fex then puts out 24 shots, hits on 3's, and requires the other guy to dedicate a decent amount of firepower to get rid of them. This build was strong enough that it was reasonably common to see.

Melee 'fexes suffered from not hitting hard enough and from the inherent issues of getting a big scary monster to reach CC. They were not durable or fast enough that you could reasonably expect to get enough of them into CC with something that mattered for it to be worth it.

Hybrid 'fexes suffered from the issues of melee 'fexes and the big cannons being underwhelming.

Smaller boards and scoring that requires leaving the deployment zone makes it easier to get Carnifexes close enough to matter-they have less distance to travel and it is more likely something will come out to meet them. The the changes to terrain rules is in their favor - because they mostly want to be in close I think they overall benefit more than they lose out.

Changes to blast makes the hybrid 'fexes with Stranglethorn Cannons or Venom Cannons more attractive, as does the need to kill Primaris.

Stranglethorn and Venom Cannons are not cheap, and they are going to want to shoot at things that blast doesn't help with, like Rhinos. Buuuuut if you kill the Rhinos with Hive Guard or Exocrines, the 5 man squads that fall out don't like the Cannon then charge at all.

Increased cost per model makes it harder to take the critical mass you need to make them effective. Carnifexes tend to die, you kind of need to bring a lot of them. The new melta marines don't exactly help out with this. On the other hand, there are not going to be as many Knights/Superheavies around, which is good because they tend to murder Carnifexes.

Point being, it is too early to tell.

If you do get them, magnetize everything. For all we know right now, the Screamer Killer is going to end up being super useful, and you are going to want to be able to swap from one to another to try out different builds and odd ideas.


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That thought made me go look at Screamer Killers again. The bio-plasmic scream is blast, and they have an eight inch +1 to morale checks aura. Hmmm.




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Carnifex Wall 1967

Kraken Patrol 831

Old One Eye 220
Hive Tyrant (Wings, Boneswords, H. Venom Cannon) 260

Ripper x3 36

Screamer Killer x 3 315

Jormungandr Patrol 1136

Neurothrope 95

Ripper x3 36

Hive Guard x 6 (Shock Cannon) 240

Carnifex x 3 (Brainleach, Enhanced Senses, Spore Cysts) 360
Carnifex x 3 (H. Venom Cannon, Scything Talons, Enhanced Senses, Spore Cysts) 405

Devourers cost is for 1. A Carnifex with two twin devourers has 4 of them so your points are off.

Had a talk to some other Nid players and we seem to be in agreement that Thornbacks are probably the best option now. Dakkafexes cant get by without Acid Maw these days because of Primaris.
D3 damage is really unreliable in comparison to flat Damage 3 of ScyTals, especially thanks to Reroll 1s, and with the addition of more and more Gravis units to the game, these will only become more and more impactful, but even as it stands aggressors/cents/eliminators are all very powerful units here and even just being able to guarantee the KO of an Intercessor on every wound rather than rolling d3 damage is important too. And also helps with FNP on Ferrus’s bois who will still be a big meta threat. So if you’re gonna sacrifice damage to cover melee, may as well piss the Acid Maw off and just take ScyTals + one pair of Devourers + Enhanced Senses, for barely less hits than full Devourers with no Senses, and cheaper too now that Devourers price is so high, you actually have save enough pts each time to pay for Adrenal Glands on each (a VERY relevant upgrade now)

A squad of these Fexes will be able to both dice down Screens with the dakka, and chew up Primaris in close combat, and even threaten wounds on vehicles too. And they want to be in CC too now rather than just dancing outside of it, now that they can both shoot and chop without penalty while locked in CC, so now they can deal with screens even more effectively as they can’t be tarpit in return anymore.

At this point, you’re basically running a Thornback load out already, the only missed option is Spore Cysts, which is nerfed going into 9th anyway. The Thornbacks ignore cover for shooting which means their dakka will be even better for dealing with screens in 9th, also Spine Banks are a great/arguably better alternative carapace option to Spore Cysts now that Fexes wanna be throwing themselves into CC, and especially with Enhanced Senses is significant increase to their screen clearing. Also, the Thornbacks charging threaten to drop a Primaris on a 4+ most the time before combat even starts. And free Chitin on top of that, because why not!

I’ll be having fun running Kraken Thornbacks with Spine Banks, Enhanced Senses and Thresher Scythe, and most likely AG too. I think these will be the best loadout personally.


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Also Thornbacks went up the least amount of pts too

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Had a talk to some other Nid players and we seem to be in agreement that Thornbacks are probably the best option now. Dakkafexes cant get by without Acid Maw these days because of Primaris.
D3 damage is really unreliable in comparison to flat Damage 3 of ScyTals, especially thanks to Reroll 1s, and with the addition of more and more Gravis units to the game, these will only become more and more impactful, but even as it stands aggressors/cents/eliminators are all very powerful units here and even just being able to guarantee the KO of an Intercessor on every wound rather than rolling d3 damage is important too. And also helps with FNP on Ferrus’s bois who will still be a big meta threat. So if you’re gonna sacrifice damage to cover melee, may as well piss the Acid Maw off and just take ScyTals + one pair of Devourers + Enhanced Senses, for barely less hits than full Devourers with no Senses, and cheaper too now that Devourers price is so high, you actually have save enough pts each time to pay for Adrenal Glands on each (a VERY relevant upgrade now)

A squad of these Fexes will be able to both dice down Screens with the dakka, and chew up Primaris in close combat, and even threaten wounds on vehicles too. And they want to be in CC too now rather than just dancing outside of it, now that they can both shoot and chop without penalty while locked in CC, so now they can deal with screens even more effectively as they can’t be tarpit in return anymore.

At this point, you’re basically running a Thornback load out already, the only missed option is Spore Cysts, which is nerfed going into 9th anyway. The Thornbacks ignore cover for shooting which means their dakka will be even better for dealing with screens in 9th, also Spine Banks are a great/arguably better alternative carapace option to Spore Cysts now that Fexes wanna be throwing themselves into CC, and especially with Enhanced Senses is significant increase to their screen clearing. Also, the Thornbacks charging threaten to drop a Primaris on a 4+ most the time before combat even starts. And free Chitin on top of that, because why not!

I’ll be having fun running Kraken Thornbacks with Spine Banks, Enhanced Senses and Thresher Scythe, and most likely AG too. I think these will be the best loadout personally.

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Also Thornbacks went up the least amount of pts too

Very interesting post, I'd add bring OOE along for the big stuff that will need to be dealt with, and for the boost. How much would 2*3 thornbacks + PEE be ? 900 points or so ?

I generally agree with Nitro Zeus's take on Carnifex builds, but the thing that turns me off of Thornbacks is the inability to take Crushing Claws. With to-hit bonuses now capped, on the charge with OOE nearby you're hitting on 3+ regardless of whether you have Talons or Claws.

If you only see yourself fighting Primaris with them then going from wounding on 2+ to wounding on 3+ isn't so bad, but I'm thinking more about vehicles/dreads, and going from wounding on 3+ to wounding on 5+. I suppose that's what OOE is for.

I'm also not sure that the hybrid build is a straight upgrade over a Dakkafex- quad Devourers with Acid Maw is still 50% more average hits than twin Devourers with Enhanced Senses, at the cost of some melee ability. With the ability to shoot in melee, though, against a lot of targets the extra shots seem to make up for the reduced lethality of the Acid Maw versus Scything Talons.

Also, Stone-Crushers made out pretty well- they only went up by 10pts base, the pair of Wrecker Claws decreased in cost, and Bio-Flails went from 15pts to 0 (!). A Stone-Crusher with one Claw and the Flail is now a mere 100pts. So maybe those are the better option for dedicated melee escorts for OOE, especially since the Wrecker Claw doesn't suffer a to-hit penalty, so they stay at 3+ in melee with OOE nearby.

I think there seem to be quite a few builds that are worth experimenting with.

 catbarf wrote:
I generally agree with Nitro Zeus's take on Carnifex builds, but the thing that turns me off of Thornbacks is the inability to take Crushing Claws. With to-hit bonuses now capped, on the charge with OOE nearby you're hitting on 3+ regardless of whether you have Talons or Claws.

If you only see yourself fighting Primaris with them then going from wounding on 2+ to wounding on 3+ isn't so bad, but I'm thinking more about vehicles/dreads, and going from wounding on 3+ to wounding on 5+. I suppose that's what OOE is for.

I'm also not sure that the hybrid build is a straight upgrade over a Dakkafex- quad Devourers with Acid Maw is still 50% more average hits than twin Devourers with Enhanced Senses, at the cost of some melee ability. With the ability to shoot in melee, though, against a lot of targets the extra shots seem to make up for the reduced lethality of the Acid Maw versus Scything Talons.

Also, Stone-Crushers made out pretty well- they only went up by 10pts base, the pair of Wrecker Claws decreased in cost, and Bio-Flails went from 15pts to 0 (!). A Stone-Crusher with one Claw and the Flail is now a mere 100pts. So maybe those are the better option for dedicated melee escorts for OOE, especially since the Wrecker Claw doesn't suffer a to-hit penalty, so they stay at 3+ in melee with OOE nearby.

I think there seem to be quite a few builds that are worth experimenting with.

I was thinking of just taking Stone-Crushers instead of Claw Fexes too. They seem better in general for getting in close. They're already specialized for vehicle killing too.

I think I'll try a Carni build, starting with two Stonecrushers with OOE, and two Thornbacks with Deathpitters and enhanced senses like Nitro said. That's not a whole army, so there should be some points to fiddle around with.

Maybe warriors as the main troops....

Sorry to shift away for carnifexes (lot more to be said on the subject) but can zoathrope units still double smite each ?

Right now yes, but we already know that it is getting FAQed away.

Just wanna say Stonecrushers seem awesome too for sure

I have not seen them. How are the new Stonecrushers?

I don't care. They are FW and prone to change in the next FW index.

Good point no sense in stocking on Stonecrushers right now. I prefer Thornbacks anyway.

 Niiai wrote:
I have not seen them. How are the new Stonecrushers?

100pts buys you a Wrecker Claw and Bio-Flail, giving 3 attacks at S12/AP-3/DD6, re-rolling wounds against Vehicles, plus a S6/AP-1/D1 attack for every enemy model within 2".

For 10pts more, you can replace the Bio-Flail with a second Wrecker Claw. You give up the S6 attacks, get your full 4 attacks at the S12 profile, and re-roll hits and wounds against Vehicles.

Unfortunately, you lose access to all the head and carapace biomorphs besides Bio-Plasma, so there's a tradeoff.

Apologies for the noob question, but I don't have the Blood of Baal book yet.

I see some lists giving adaptations to multiple exocrines. The Progeny of the Hive stratagem can only be used once. Is the second adaptation unlocked by just not taking a warlord trait?

Yes.

Acehilator wrote:
Yes.

Thanks!

I see a lot of hype for Kronos and no doubt it seems deadly with symbiostorm and excocrines, but what about leviathan? I was thinking something like gaunts, warriors, 2 tyrannofexes, an exocrine for my first list. The emphasis on durable objective holders seems to give leviathan an edge, while the reroll 1s on Kronos has some anti-synergy with the removal of -1 on shooting and moving with the big bugs.

Both are great options.