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 Dynas wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:


So when people are using multiple different Hive Fleets across their detachments, are y'all painting them to reflect this? I'd raise an eyebrow if a fleshthing tried to tell me that their three devastator squads with blue armour and inverted omega insignia are actually imperial fists, as is their chaplain with half his face missing. Not best practice for WYSIWYG clarity, and probably not popular with TOs...

I am just going to either buy some custom unit markers/tokens, or just use some rhinestones or other small token like thing to denote my different fleets, if I decide to go hybrid.

The difference between the Nids codex painting one color and playing another fleet vs the Space Marines, is that the various SM chapters each have their own codex. If Behemoth had a codex, then leviathain, then kronos and so on then it would be comparable.

Now, that’s not entirely true.

Codex SM has got seven chapters in it, just like our seven hive fleets. Wolves and the Angels are more unusual outliers, but the Codex compliant (ish) chapters have long been Ultramarines palette swaps. A few versions ago, Codex Space Marines actively encouraged you to say that your yellow-armoured Captain with Fist iconography leading an army of the same was a proxy Vulkan Hestan, bestowing his Salamanders-themed bonuses to every unit’s heat and hammer based weapons. And had a sniper squad led by undercover Telion.

SM collectors who’d converted their off-brand characters in good faith went through the adjustment period. Though it’s absolutely true that, for Tyranid players, this is a much bigger adjustment - given the horde nature of many armies, probably a bigger one than the one for people who’d had an army of Death Guard Havocs and Obliterators for six months before 8ed threw that right out the window. But their bitter taste is a lot fresher than our long standing collections.

At least our unique characters aren’t HF specific. We dodged that axe. And I think those who want a diverse gene pool in their swarm can get along without mass repaints; look at the Cryptus units from 7ed - they’ve been given a marking that distinguishes them from the rest of Leviathan. That sort of thing should do a fine job of making clear you your opponent ‘these are the ones who hide in tunnels and get cover everywhere, these are the ones who re-roll their charges’ and so on. And - perhaps more importantly - make sure we don’t accidentally get the incompatible synapse networks mixed up.

What about tyranofex with fleshborer hive, 1 extra damage and the +to wound stratagem?

Thank you very much. I know thats hard against mortation. But in my trygame i won with orks bc of more movement. I think as long as i dont play on tournament level its pretty even. The only thing is i cant come behind the lines bc of 100 infantry. So i have to catch the missionpoints i think. I know it would be better if i would play another fraction but tyranids are my love first i saw them. I will paint and play something i like.

You mean the older boy with gargoiles? I can get one in shop here. Yesterday they had one in stock.

Do i have to decide shooting OR melee? A mix isnt that good?

And what are pet units?

Thanks again, really great to get this support here!

Pet units would be oneor two that you want to use. But at some point you need to include units that suplement the pet units.

 Niiai wrote:
What about tyranofex with fleshborer hive, 1 extra damage and the +to wound stratagem?

Moving;

20 shots, hits 6.66, wounds 3.33, saves 2.22 so 1.11 unsaved, doubles to 2.22, 5+++ brings it down to 1.47

[EDIT] Fleshborer is HEAVY, not assault

Standing still;

40 shots, hits 20, wounds 10, saves 6.66 so 3.33 unsaved, doubles to 6.66, 5+++ brings it down to 4.44

[EDIT] Not BS3, only BS4.

I have a question; how do we leverage the Leviathan hive fleet mechanics and strategems to make a competitive list? I have about 1000 points of painted nids and this hive fleet just doesn't seem to lend itself to any particularly viable strategy. Behemoth, kraken, Kronos, and even jorm all seem to take an aspect of our dex and channel it into a design strategy.

I appreciate the guidance

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Pathogenic is only on monsters.

90 shots, 45 hits, 15 wounds, rerolling 1s is another 2.5 wounds so 17.5 wounds, saves 2/3, so about 6 unsaved wounds, FNP gets rid of 2 so 4 damage.

4 damage per volley, so double tap should get about 8 damage.

Thanks man and good catch!

CDShaddock wrote:
I have a question; how do we leverage the Leviathan hive fleet mechanics and strategems to make a competitive list? I have about 1000 points of painted nids and this hive fleet just doesn't seem to lend itself to any particularly viable strategy. Behemoth, kraken, Kronos, and even jorm all seem to take an aspect of our dex and channel it into a design strategy.

I appreciate the guidance

Well, I suggest you look at running MSU Warriors for lots of Synapse, then run a combo of Big Bugs, and large Broods of Gaunts..even Stealers can benefit for some extra FNP...right? I think I'd try to leverage things like Caustic Blood, and maybe even run a Tervigon. Remember that Hive Tyrants are Always in Synapse as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So spitballing...

HQ: Tervigon, x2 Winged Tyrants.....around 600-650?

Troops: max Broods, Termagants, Hormagants, Genestealers
Troops: Warriors, x3 Rending, deathspitters, Canno, x3

That should be around 1500-1600, plenty of room for extras.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
y toss in a Trygon Prime (has Synapse) and a couple of Carnifexen of some sort....that should be a pretty good list, just modify to taste.

So a quick question.. can I use the Pheromone trail stratagem to bring in one unit or multiple units... then can I use the same stratagem multiple times (in the same phase)?

Would like this clarifying.

Thanks!

CDShaddock wrote:
I have a question; how do we leverage the Leviathan hive fleet mechanics and strategems to make a competitive list? I have about 1000 points of painted nids and this hive fleet just doesn't seem to lend itself to any particularly viable strategy. Behemoth, kraken, Kronos, and even jorm all seem to take an aspect of our dex and channel it into a design strategy.

I appreciate the guidance

Leviathan is most suited to lots of big, shooty flyers. Its only real competition for flying Tyrants is Behemoth. Flying Tyrants are already pretty good, and this makes them 20% more durable. If you're expecting to have to deal with screens such that there won't be anything that your monstrous rending claws will do much against on turn 1 anyway, it's the obvious pick for a list that's going to deep strike a bunch of devourer or devourer/claw Tyrants. You spend turn 1 dealing with the screens and trying to charge, and then on turn 2 you can get to the juicy stuff. The stratagem just sort of naturally becomes available as you're charging stuff with flying Tyrants and then whatever else you have.

I would avoid most non-Tyrant monsters with Leviathan. Anything else that doesn't fly will generally prefer to be Jormungandr. Upgrading your armor save is better unless you were getting hit by enough AP to completely negate your armor, and it's still just as good if you've got a 4+ save and you're getting hit with AP-3. But Leviathan also has a place for walking Tyrants because their invuln save is so good.

And then lots of other stuff is perfectly happy to be Leviathan. Biovores don't really care what they are. It's Leviathan or Kraken for Zoanthropes unless you're going for an expensive Jorm bomb. Warriors are small model count infantry and so can get cover easily, then benefit from the 6+ FNP. You also keep the Leviathan bonus even when you advance or charge, unlike the Jorm bonus, so if you don't need that much speed it seems like a reasonable option, such as when you're going to use the Swarmlord to double move something anyway.

Razerous wrote:
So a quick question.. can I use the Pheromone trail stratagem to bring in one unit or multiple units... then can I use the same stratagem multiple times (in the same phase)?

Would like this clarifying.

Thanks!

Well...in Matched most strats are one a turn. But I figure you could play it the next turn, if the Lictor is still alive.

pinecone77 wrote:

Razerous wrote:
So a quick question.. can I use the Pheromone trail stratagem to bring in one unit or multiple units... then can I use the same stratagem multiple times (in the same phase)?

Would like this clarifying.

Thanks!

Well...in Matched most strats are one a turn. But I figure you could play it the next turn, if the Lictor is still alive.

Crap - so Trygon Taxi is required. Hmm.. (I'd like to deliver 2x11 Genestealers. I feel that's good punch (1500pt games).

I think stacking units is a Jormongandr thing...and I don't know if you can stack Lictors, but you could use a Mawloc Taxi...? Or Raveners.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Kraken Battalion
Malanthrope
Neurothrope
20xHormagaunts
20xHormagaunts
20xHormagaunts

Kraken Battalion
Swarmy
Flying HT /w Monstrous Feets & Devourers
30x Devourer Gants
20x Genestealers
20x Genestealers
1x Trygon
1x Trygon

Literally 2000 points on the nose.

I can get behind this. I'm not sold on swarmlord yet, but, he's definitely in the mix. I think his viability is heavily tied to the amount of LOS blocking terrain on the board.

I don't like splitting the horms into 3 units, but, it saves you 66 pts on rippers, and that's a big deal.

The thing I don't like about it is this. Ideally you will be dropping the 30 dakka gant in 1 tyrgon and 20 gene in the other - swarmy advaces up and gets the genes into as many units as possible. that bit is solid. 60 horms really won't be doing much though - the front line is annihilated and the rest of the army is spread out and likely our of range of the hormas turn 2. I'm no expert but I don't like the flow. I think mid field shooting would work better than a bunch of hormas but you basically can't afford ir because of smarmy and 2 trygons.

What do you guys think of Deathleaper in Jormungandr adaptation for late game objective grabs? He'll carry his cover with him then.

Is a Tyrannocyte fairly needed to use Swarmlord effectively to benefit let’s say a group of Genestealers and a Broodlord coming up from a Trygon + Lictor? Or is it safe to drop the Tyrannocyte?

Also, for a x18 Genestealers and Broodlord strike, would 2 Trygons be better than a Trygon and Lictor? I could only fit the latter, as two Trygons was a bit expensive.

Traceoftoxin wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
What about tyranofex with fleshborer hive, 1 extra damage and the +to wound stratagem?

Moving;

20 shots, hits 6.66, wounds 3.33, saves 2.22 so 1.11 unsaved, doubles to 2.22, 5+++ brings it down to 1.47

[EDIT] Fleshborer is HEAVY, not assault

Standing still;

40 shots, hits 20, wounds 10, saves 6.66 so 3.33 unsaved, doubles to 6.66, 5+++ brings it down to 4.44

[EDIT] Not BS3, only BS4.

Neither this nor devilgaunts will work. He will just pop the -1 to hit stratagem.

CDShaddock wrote:I have a question; how do we leverage the Leviathan hive fleet mechanics and strategems to make a competitive list? I have about 1000 points of painted nids and this hive fleet just doesn't seem to lend itself to any particularly viable strategy. Behemoth, kraken, Kronos, and even jorm all seem to take an aspect of our dex and channel it into a design strategy.

I appreciate the guidance

I find that Leviathan supports a lot of different strategies, with my favourite being big monsters (like Haruspex) and gargoyles. Many don't understand how powerfull the leviathan stratagem is, increasing damage by 33% on a target is really a lot, and the 6+++ gives us that little bit of thoughness that some of our monsters lack. Leviathan works really well with everything that assault and doesn't have Scything talons or rerolls in general (nothing hurts more than leviathan Genestealers).

 Xenomancers wrote:

The thing I don't like about it is this. Ideally you will be dropping the 30 dakka gant in 1 tyrgon and 20 gene in the other - swarmy advaces up and gets the genes into as many units as possible. that bit is solid. 60 horms really won't be doing much though - the front line is annihilated and the rest of the army is spread out and likely our of range of the hormas turn 2. I'm no expert but I don't like the flow. I think mid field shooting would work better than a bunch of hormas but you basically can't afford ir because of smarmy and 2 trygons.

My experience has been the exact opposite. Hormagaunts are absolutely critical for tying up huge swathes of the enemy army to protect your Genestealers from assaults and shooting. Like.... every game I've ever played of 8th edition the hormagaunts were critical. No other unit would have done the job I asked of them, the way they did it, except the one time I used them to eat a berserker charge.

Spoletta wrote:

Neither this nor devilgaunts will work. He will just pop the -1 to hit stratagem.

First off, trying to shoot morty to death with anything besides an exocrine, rupturefex or hive guard is probably a waste of time. I was just doing the math because someone asked me to. Best bet is to use smite, scream, horror, paroxysm, and charge him with a mix of GS and Tyrants/Trygons (If you manage to get the debuffs off on him, otherwise just a big blob of stealers).

Second, I've got the death guard codex open in front of me, I have no idea what stratagem you're talking about. Do you mean the psychic power? Because that's something we have a very real ability to do something about. -1 to his cast and deny means he has less than a 50% chance to get it off.

In general Morty is scarier to us than Magnus, just because of his massive horde clearing potential.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

The thing I don't like about it is this. Ideally you will be dropping the 30 dakka gant in 1 tyrgon and 20 gene in the other - swarmy advaces up and gets the genes into as many units as possible. that bit is solid. 60 horms really won't be doing much though - the front line is annihilated and the rest of the army is spread out and likely our of range of the hormas turn 2. I'm no expert but I don't like the flow. I think mid field shooting would work better than a bunch of hormas but you basically can't afford ir because of smarmy and 2 trygons.

My experience has been the exact opposite. Hormagaunts are absolutely critical for tying up huge swathes of the enemy army to protect your Genestealers from assaults and shooting. Like.... every game I've ever played of 8th edition the hormagaunts were critical. No other unit would have done the job I asked of them, the way they did it, except the one time I used them to eat a berserker charge.

Spoletta wrote:

Neither this nor devilgaunts will work. He will just pop the -1 to hit stratagem.

First off, trying to shoot morty to death with anything besides an exocrine, rupturefex or hive guard is probably a waste of time. I was just doing the math because someone asked me to. Best bet is to use smite, scream, horror, paroxysm, and charge him with a mix of GS and Tyrants/Trygons (If you manage to get the debuffs off on him, otherwise just a big blob of stealers).

Second, I've got the death guard codex open in front of me, I have no idea what stratagem you're talking about. Do you mean the psychic power? Because that's something we have a very real ability to do something about. -1 to his cast and deny means he has less than a 50% chance to get it off.

In general Morty is scarier to us than Magnus, just because of his massive horde clearing potential.

Yeah sorry, it was a power, this certainly makes things a bit less harsh for us. With an invul 4+ though i think that sprayfex would be better than rupturfex for this.

Finally got my codex. OP will see a small rush of updates this weekend since now I can type stuff up without swapping between a bunch of tabs for references.

What are people making of these Genestealer node things? They feel a bit gimmick, but I can see scope for them surrounding a bunch of T-fexes and Biovores who’ve got a screen of Gaunts to add a counter to deep strikes. Like a squad of Berzerkers in a Rhino next to all Havocs, but more flexible and cheaper.

 lindsay40k wrote:
What are people making of these Genestealer node things? They feel a bit gimmick, but I can see scope for them surrounding a bunch of T-fexes and Biovores who’ve got a screen of Gaunts to add a counter to deep strikes. Like a squad of Berzerkers in a Rhino next to all Havocs, but more flexible and cheaper.

I'm really not sure how to count these things. The Genestealer rules reference them as possibly "friendly", and they're obviously "models", so they'd probably count as "enemy models" for purposes of restricting deep-strikers. It seems inarguable that RAW they can control objectives. But of course they don't have profiles. If I get first turn and move a unit within 9" of your infestation node, do I automatically get first blood? Models only exist in units, right?

I feel like a FAQ is probably going to say that these don't count for anything.

Hmm. Technically, if they do indeed count as your models, there’s even a question an opponent could raise about your own use of a node in your first turn and removing it from play - is that first blood?

Common sense suggests they are simply counters, but who knows how that will turn out in the FAQ.

 buddha wrote:
Can any math whiz figure out how many devilgaunts are needed to kill mortarian with the double shot and pathogenic slime strategmes? Basically wondering if 30 and those strategems has a shot.

Pathogenic slime is only for Monsters. I had this idea as well. At best your getting the double tap and rolling 180 dice.

 lindsay40k wrote:
What are people making of these Genestealer node things? They feel a bit gimmick, but I can see scope for them surrounding a bunch of T-fexes and Biovores who’ve got a screen of Gaunts to add a counter to deep strikes. Like a squad of Berzerkers in a Rhino next to all Havocs, but more flexible and cheaper.

I plan to use them to keep my genestealers off the table, and then bring them on using Pheromone Trail strat alongside Deathleaper.

Deathleaper, because he's a character, and with his movement and / or deployment options, you'll be able to drop that brick of genestealers pretty much wherever you'd like.

Spoletta wrote:

 Traceoftoxin wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

The thing I don't like about it is this. Ideally you will be dropping the 30 dakka gant in 1 tyrgon and 20 gene in the other - swarmy advaces up and gets the genes into as many units as possible. that bit is solid. 60 horms really won't be doing much though - the front line is annihilated and the rest of the army is spread out and likely our of range of the hormas turn 2. I'm no expert but I don't like the flow. I think mid field shooting would work better than a bunch of hormas but you basically can't afford ir because of smarmy and 2 trygons.

My experience has been the exact opposite. Hormagaunts are absolutely critical for tying up huge swathes of the enemy army to protect your Genestealers from assaults and shooting. Like.... every game I've ever played of 8th edition the hormagaunts were critical. No other unit would have done the job I asked of them, the way they did it, except the one time I used them to eat a berserker charge.

Spoletta wrote:

Neither this nor devilgaunts will work. He will just pop the -1 to hit stratagem.

First off, trying to shoot morty to death with anything besides an exocrine, rupturefex or hive guard is probably a waste of time. I was just doing the math because someone asked me to. Best bet is to use smite, scream, horror, paroxysm, and charge him with a mix of GS and Tyrants/Trygons (If you manage to get the debuffs off on him, otherwise just a big blob of stealers).

Second, I've got the death guard codex open in front of me, I have no idea what stratagem you're talking about. Do you mean the psychic power? Because that's something we have a very real ability to do something about. -1 to his cast and deny means he has less than a 50% chance to get it off.

In general Morty is scarier to us than Magnus, just because of his massive horde clearing potential.

Yeah sorry, it was a power, this certainly makes things a bit less harsh for us. With an invul 4+ though i think that sprayfex would be better than rupturfex for this.

Get the Balethorn Canon Relic, ignores invuls.

Works on stuff like demons and assassins, but they got a power armor under that invul save.

Conventional wisdom is to not give Raveners a gun other than a spinefist, but they don't really have worse BS than anyone else. Is it really that bad an idea to stick those sternum mounted devourers on?

 lindsay40k wrote:

 Dynas wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:


So when people are using multiple different Hive Fleets across their detachments, are y'all painting them to reflect this? I'd raise an eyebrow if a fleshthing tried to tell me that their three devastator squads with blue armour and inverted omega insignia are actually imperial fists, as is their chaplain with half his face missing. Not best practice for WYSIWYG clarity, and probably not popular with TOs...

I am just going to either buy some custom unit markers/tokens, or just use some rhinestones or other small token like thing to denote my different fleets, if I decide to go hybrid.

The difference between the Nids codex painting one color and playing another fleet vs the Space Marines, is that the various SM chapters each have their own codex. If Behemoth had a codex, then leviathain, then kronos and so on then it would be comparable.

Now, that’s not entirely true.

Codex SM has got seven chapters in it, just like our seven hive fleets. Wolves and the Angels are more unusual outliers, but the Codex compliant (ish) chapters have long been Ultramarines palette swaps. A few versions ago, Codex Space Marines actively encouraged you to say that your yellow-armoured Captain with Fist iconography leading an army of the same was a proxy Vulkan Hestan, bestowing his Salamanders-themed bonuses to every unit’s heat and hammer based weapons. And had a sniper squad led by undercover Telion.

SM collectors who’d converted their off-brand characters in good faith went through the adjustment period. Though it’s absolutely true that, for Tyranid players, this is a much bigger adjustment - given the horde nature of many armies, probably a bigger one than the one for people who’d had an army of Death Guard Havocs and Obliterators for six months before 8ed threw that right out the window. But their bitter taste is a lot fresher than our long standing collections.

At least our unique characters aren’t HF specific. We dodged that axe. And I think those who want a diverse gene pool in their swarm can get along without mass repaints; look at the Cryptus units from 7ed - they’ve been given a marking that distinguishes them from the rest of Leviathan. That sort of thing should do a fine job of making clear you your opponent ‘these are the ones who hide in tunnels and get cover everywhere, these are the ones who re-roll their charges’ and so on. And - perhaps more importantly - make sure we don’t accidentally get the incompatible synapse networks mixed up.

Tokens/Beads/Colored bingo chips. I'm painting up mine to to be a backwards Jorm but if I feel the neeed to split hive fleets (which I may do) I'm not splitting colors. I do like to enter painting comps for tourneys (as I have no hope in actually beating people!) so a army that's all one color appeals to most people way better visually then one that's like a rainbow.

I see a lot of people talking Dakkafex in Jormungandr. I just don't see it, as you pretty much have to advance first turn in order to get into range. Is there a trick I am missing?