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Yeah hive guard are clearly an awesome unit.

The advantage of the carnifexes is about board coverage for melee as well as shooting output. A Tyrannofex is certainly really dangerous if it can stand still, but is far less of a threat than a bunch of fexes coming forward. And the hive guard are actually vulnerable in cc, rather than being a threat.

Seems to me like Spitters are a no brainer for Jormie Raveners. Good chance of getting 2 rounds of shooting out of them, 3 S5/-1 hits for 5 points.

 Astmeister wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I finally found a unit that gets the most out of Hydra fleet! Crushing Tguards!
They get 50% increased damage against vehicles from the Hydra adaptation.
And that's it... no seriously, i really like Hydra, but it seems to be a couple of steps behind other fleets.

In my oppinion Hydra is much better than its reputation. It certainly has the advantage that Tyranid units are either a) always bigger than the enemy units or b) much more deadly in melee than enemy units anyway.
I think a lot of things in the Codex profits from the Hydra rerolls: Gargs, Hormas, Termas, TGuard and the units not benefitting do not need the bonus most of the time anyway.
Besides it is the only adaptation which grants rerolls to hit in melee.

I think hydra is a slepper hit. By the end of 8th edition people will have horrible stories of the time they met hydra. Genstealers, taramgaunts, warriors, raveners and shrikes are are all good. Many units are 1 model, and few are more then 10. The artifact and warlord trait are not bad. I stil think the stratafem is good with devil gaunts.

 Niiai wrote:

 Astmeister wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I finally found a unit that gets the most out of Hydra fleet! Crushing Tguards!
They get 50% increased damage against vehicles from the Hydra adaptation.
And that's it... no seriously, i really like Hydra, but it seems to be a couple of steps behind other fleets.

In my oppinion Hydra is much better than its reputation. It certainly has the advantage that Tyranid units are either a) always bigger than the enemy units or b) much more deadly in melee than enemy units anyway.
I think a lot of things in the Codex profits from the Hydra rerolls: Gargs, Hormas, Termas, TGuard and the units not benefitting do not need the bonus most of the time anyway.
Besides it is the only adaptation which grants rerolls to hit in melee.

I think hydra is a slepper hit. By the end of 8th edition people will have horrible stories of the time they met hydra. Genstealers, taramgaunts, warriors, raveners and shrikes are are all good. Many units are 1 model, and few are more then 10. The artifact and warlord trait are not bad. I stil think the stratafem is good with devil gaunts.

I posted this in another thread talking about pheromone trail.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Btw you can get a prime in reserve using the Jormurgundyr stratagem to put him in the tunnels below.

Yeah but then why are you spending the extra CP to bring him to a lictor instead of just coming with the Jorm unit your already spending the CP on? The only use I can see is in conjunction with Endless Swarm to deploy the revived unit into a better location instead of the edges of the board. But then how are you fitting 30 hormagaunts or termagants around a lictor? I guess hydra could use it to shove some pyrovores back into someones face.

I think that is a really good use of Hydras stratagem. Not brining back large units of termagants and hormagaunts, but using pheromone trail to drop pyros right back in their face to wreck face all over again.

Has anyone tried spamming hive guards, if so how did it go?

Dono but I just got 6 in the mail. I assume they will do pretty well but I have almost no idea how to make a shooty nids list. Too many options and it's driving me insane.

 lindsay40k wrote:
I main with Cultist-heavy CSM and I'm surprised that people haven’t already adjusted to hordes. Though I guess competitive Chaos players are spamming Malefic Lords and minimaxed Horrors, and the Conscript bogeyman has been banished.

Conscripts are definitely still a thing. If you don't plan on chewing through a minimum of 60 GEQ models at the competitive level, you're in for a bad time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
Has anyone tried spamming hive guards, if so how did it go?

The beauty of single use stratagems is that there is no reason to take more than just a single unit, or maybe 2 units of 3.

Personally, I will try out a single unit of 6, but math dictates that I'm going to be a little less than wowed by their damage output. Then again, I'm kind of comparing them to obliterators mentally, and it's a bit of an apples and oranges situation. The great thing about hive guard is that they should reliably shoot more than once. It's why I'm a little reluctant to invest in an exocrine, though I know it can do work. More likely, I'll settle on an acid spray T fex, but that doesn't need to be Kronos....and I REALLY just don't like the idea of big bugs that don't have invulns. Just totally a field day for lascannons and the like. I'll try out an acid spray T fex because it murders flyers and has a deceptive threat range since you don't need to roll to hit. Just advance all day every day. Too bad there isn't a hive fleet adaption to fall back and shoot haha.

You can't advance and shoot heavies :( I don't know why acid spray is not assault but it is heavy)

For all you hive guard fiends:

+++ 5666 (Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition) [110 PL, 2000pts] +++

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Tyranids) ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Hive Fleet: Kronos

+ HQ +

Malanthropes: Malanthrope

Neurothrope

+ Troops +

Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm

Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm

Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm

+ Elites +

Hive Guard
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon

Hive Guard
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Tyranids) ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Hive Fleet: Kronos

+ HQ +

Neurothrope

Neurothrope

+ Troops +

Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm

Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm

Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm

+ Elites +

Hive Guard
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon

Hive Guard
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Tyranids) ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Hive Fleet: Kronos

+ HQ +

Neurothrope

Neurothrope

+ Troops +

Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm

Ripper Swarms: 3x Ripper Swarm

Termagants: 27x Termagant (Fleshborer)

+ Elites +

Hive Guard
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon
. Hive Guard: Impaler Cannon

Hive Guard
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon
. Hive Guard: Shockcannon

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

 luke1705 wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:
I main with Cultist-heavy CSM and I'm surprised that people haven’t already adjusted to hordes. Though I guess competitive Chaos players are spamming Malefic Lords and minimaxed Horrors, and the Conscript bogeyman has been banished.

Conscripts are definitely still a thing. If you don't plan on chewing through a minimum of 60 GEQ models at the competitive level, you're in for a bad time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
Has anyone tried spamming hive guards, if so how did it go?

The beauty of single use stratagems is that there is no reason to take more than just a single unit, or maybe 2 units of 3.

Personally, I will try out a single unit of 6, but math dictates that I'm going to be a little less than wowed by their damage output. Then again, I'm kind of comparing them to obliterators mentally, and it's a bit of an apples and oranges situation. The great thing about hive guard is that they should reliably shoot more than once. It's why I'm a little reluctant to invest in an exocrine, though I know it can do work. More likely, I'll settle on an acid spray T fex, but that doesn't need to be Kronos....and I REALLY just don't like the idea of big bugs that don't have invulns. Just totally a field day for lascannons and the like. I'll try out an acid spray T fex because it murders flyers and has a deceptive threat range since you don't need to roll to hit. Just advance all day every day. Too bad there isn't a hive fleet adaption to fall back and shoot haha.

Take big bugs with Jormungandr. With the +1 from cover, you will have a 5+ armor save against lascannons.

 Xenomancers wrote:
You can't advance and shoot heavies :( I don't know why acid spray is not assault but it is heavy)

You can if you psyker the fex up. Brain juice.

I wrote this. Ready to stir the pot a bit. Interested to see what people think. This is very long so I started a new thread.

Basically ranking all the various Hive Fleets, relics, wlt, stratagems. Note this is only the named ones, so general relics and what not are not included.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/745045.page#9708162

Currently have 8 impailer Hive guard and plan to get 2 guard boxes to make 6 tyrant guard (for my Tyrant swarm) then take the 12 guns(6 imp/6Shock) and convert 12 of my nearly 30 tyranid warriors into hive guard. This will give me a total of 20 Hive guard 14 impailers and 6 shock should make for some rude games when a tyrrannocyte of 6 shock guard come n with 14 impailer guard in the back with a malanthrope are fireing away :-)

Hydra and gorgon are both literal trash-tier, in almost every respect. Hydras warlord trait is terrible. If your warlord is not a malanthrope/neurothrope/broodlord, there's zero excuse for your opponent to not kill it in one turn. Any army that is even remotely competitive will pick up a Tyrant in one turn, barring some extreme luck. Even if it makes it through, the odds of recovering enough wounds to survive the next round are pitiful, at best. As someone who has run regen on my tyrants for years, I say with full confidence that the ability is trash, and a waste of a warlord trait. I would rather take the 6+++ out of the BRB than this. Hydra doesn't even get it's own stratagem, it just gets a fancier version of one of our most useless stratagems. As for Gorgon.... if you lose a game because of rolled 1s to wound, there are things that went wrong in a lot of other places. The Gorgon relic is trash for the same reason that the Hydra WL trait is trash-you are not likely to survive a full round of shooting, especially once your opponent knows you have this ability.

The fact you think Jormungandr is the worst is almost beyond incomprehensible to me.

I mean, in a lot of situations jormungandr is significantly more total damage reduction than Leviathan, combined with one of the strongest stratagems, there is zero argument for it to be rated worst.

Nothing about Leviathan is good. Except in situations where you don't get to use your armor save, increasing your save is always statistically equal, or better, than a 6+++. The only army that could make strong use of leviathan would be a flyrant spam army.

Behemoth is actually probably the fourth best. It does not make deep strike charges reliable enough, and DS charges are still completely at the mercy of screens, but being able to reroll all charges can be completely game changing. Nothing can ruin your day worse than failing multiple 5-7" charges in one turn.

Kronos and Jormungandr are in competition for 2nd/3rd. Kronos is far stronger vs anything with psyerks, but Jormungandr is super flexible and viable for a lot of different units and builds.

Mobility and staying power wins games for Tyranids, not killing power. This is why Kraken is the best fleet, by a large margin. Both the trait and the strat enable you to dominate the boardspace. The relic reduces BS3 damage by 25%, BS4 damage by 33%, and BS5 damage by 50%, double that if you're sitting ontop of a malanthrope.

Jorm gives you flexibility, and it gives us durability. This is why it's our second best fleet.

Kronos is only our third best fleet because of how powerful smite spam is currently. The WL trait is a gigantic middle finger to large blobs of cheap smite batteries, and the stratagem gives us a chance to shut down builds that revolve around certain single special powers. Should smite spam go away, Kronos will lose a lot of its luster. Tyranid gunlines are just not as good as other armies, and while you can build some that are pretty good, I doubt they'll even compete in a head to head shooting match with AM. If they were, I'd wager it would be using jormungandr.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Hydra and gorgon are both literal trash-tier, in almost every respect. Hydras warlord trait is terrible. If your warlord is not a malanthrope/neurothrope/broodlord, there's zero excuse for your opponent to not kill it in one turn. Any army that is even remotely competitive will pick up a Tyrant in one turn, barring some extreme luck. Even if it makes it through, the odds of recovering enough wounds to survive the next round are pitiful, at best. As someone who has run regen on my tyrants for years, I say with full confidence that the ability is trash, and a waste of a warlord trait. I would rather take the 6+++ out of the BRB than this. Hydra doesn't even get it's own stratagem, it just gets a fancier version of one of our most useless stratagems. As for Gorgon.... if you lose a game because of rolled 1s to wound, there are things that went wrong in a lot of other places. The Gorgon relic is trash for the same reason that the Hydra WL trait is trash-you are not likely to survive a full round of shooting, especially once your opponent knows you have this ability.

The fact you think Jormungandr is the worst is almost beyond incomprehensible to me.

I mean, in a lot of situations jormungandr is significantly more total damage reduction than Leviathan, combined with one of the strongest stratagems, there is zero argument for it to be rated worst.

Nothing about Leviathan is good. Except in situations where you don't get to use your armor save, increasing your save is always statistically equal, or better, than a 6+++. The only army that could make strong use of leviathan would be a flyrant spam army.

Behemoth is actually probably the fourth best. It does not make deep strike charges reliable enough, and DS charges are still completely at the mercy of screens, but being able to reroll all charges can be completely game changing. Nothing can ruin your day worse than failing multiple 5-7" charges in one turn.

Kronos and Jormungandr are in competition for 2nd/3rd. Kronos is far stronger vs anything with psyerks, but Jormungandr is super flexible and viable for a lot of different units and builds.

Mobility and staying power wins games for Tyranids, not killing power. This is why Kraken is the best fleet, by a large margin. Both the trait and the strat enable you to dominate the boardspace. The relic reduces BS3 damage by 25%, BS4 damage by 33%, and BS5 damage by 50%, double that if you're sitting ontop of a malanthrope.

Jorm gives you flexibility, and it gives us durability. This is why it's our second best fleet.

Kronos is only our third best fleet because of how powerful smite spam is currently. The WL trait is a gigantic middle finger to large blobs of cheap smite batteries, and the stratagem gives us a chance to shut down builds that revolve around certain single special powers. Should smite spam go away, Kronos will lose a lot of its luster. Tyranid gunlines are just not as good as other armies, and while you can build some that are pretty good, I doubt they'll even compete in a head to head shooting match with AM. If they were, I'd wager it would be using jormungandr.

I agree with this.

Seems legit. Behemoth feels powerful but not OP, I'm happy to have my bugs painted in their OG colours. Having a few Khorne CSM units, I can definitely vouch for charge rerolls. I welcome Kronos into the metagame, I'm really not keen on all this Malefic Lord spam I'm reading about.

Jorm is going to be a very high ranking tourney list within the year. Mark my words on that.

If you bring a good mix of units to be tac and work within the jorm strat and adaptation you can litterally retailer your lists deployment and strategy match by match to combat your opponents list and best meet the objectives of the game type and terrain layout. You can adjust which and how many units deepstrike, where, when, and to what effect.

Jorm is close to if not flat out the most flexible and diverse for strategic advantage force in the entire game right now.

To put them last on the list is just.... Unthinkable.

Actually i really like Gorgon, in particular for the relic.
With the -1 damage warlord trait and some Tguards this combos into a really really though tyrant. The relic and trait activate even if you pass the wound to a guard.

Also, Jorm and Kraken right now are seen as the best fleets because they have good match ups against gunlines, not because the other fleets are not as good. If the game were more assault centered, then Gorgon would be the best fleet.
That said, nothing forbids that after 2 or 3 more codices like ours (Orks and Khorne for example) the game will not become assault centered.

Kraken strikes me as great for Genestealers and Carnifexes due to synergy, decent otherwise.

The problem with Jorm is that so much of my army wants to advance turn 1. While I'd pick Kraken if I had to only pick one, I really think there's room for most fleets, in tailored lists. Leviathan has nice versatility, mostly because Flyrants are so good. I'm about to test a Horde Hydra list. Max size gaunts, GS, Gargoyles, and Warriors. It'll bring back memories for me.

I've been building almost exclusively Jorm and Kronos. From what people are saying here though I think my armies are probably somewhat unusual.

Well the solution to Jormungandr and advancing is that by agressively deep striking a huge chunk of your army, including some high priority threats, you take some of the heat off the further away stuff. You can also pick and choose which units need to close fast, and which can take their time a little because of the tunnelling units holding the enemy up (probably those with a natively high move rate).

Ranking Hive fleets is folly. You can do it if you say "take THIS particular list, apply the hive fleet adaptations to it, and then rank them", but if you're saying one hive fleet is ALWAYS better than another, you're setting yourself up.

The Hive Fleets are good/bad based on how you build your list(s) in concert with the adaptations, strats, relics, etc. That is all...

 Voidwraith wrote:
Ranking Hive fleets is folly. You can do it if you say "take THIS particular list, apply the hive fleet adaptations to it, and then rank them", but if you're saying one hive fleet is ALWAYS better than another, you're setting yourself up.

The Hive Fleets are good/bad based on how you build your list(s) in concert with the adaptations, strats, relics, etc. That is all...

Exactly, which is why i've been doing the ranking for the hyve fleets on a unit per unit basis (you found it in OP, but i completed only HQs and troops for now).

Well the solution to Jormungandr and advancing is that by agressively deep striking a huge chunk of your army, including some high priority threats, you take some of the heat off the further away stuff. You can also pick and choose which units need to close fast, and which can take their time a little because of the tunnelling units holding the enemy up (probably those with a natively high move rate).

Then they can just shoot your far away stuff and mop up in assault what you were so kind to deliver to them... oh that's right, they still think that assault units in shooting lists are useless.

changemod wrote:
Well the solution to Jormungandr and advancing is that by agressively deep striking a huge chunk of your army, including some high priority threats, you take some of the heat off the further away stuff. You can also pick and choose which units need to close fast, and which can take their time a little because of the tunnelling units holding the enemy up (probably those with a natively high move rate).

What are you leaving on the ground? I guess HG and TFex work. Carnies will want to advance turn 1, but going second is the concern, so Jorm does help in that case. What are the high priority tunnellers? A unit of Devilgants obviously. But what else? Flyrants seem much more important to me, what am I overlooking?

I wouldn't bother with a Flyrant in Jormungandr frankly. They're hardly a must take unit like in 7th.

changemod wrote:
I wouldn't bother with a Flyrant in Jormungandr frankly. They're hardly a must take unit like in 7th.

Walkrant with a heavy venom cannon and deathspitters! Rock that 2+!

Spoletta wrote:

changemod wrote:
I wouldn't bother with a Flyrant in Jormungandr frankly. They're hardly a must take unit like in 7th.

Walkrant with a heavy venom cannon and deathspitters! Rock that 2+!

No! That looks way too silly!

 Astmeister wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

changemod wrote:
I wouldn't bother with a Flyrant in Jormungandr frankly. They're hardly a must take unit like in 7th.

Walkrant with a heavy venom cannon and deathspitters! Rock that 2+!

No! That looks way too silly!

I dunno, as much as I'm not much of an advocate for wasting a perfectly good combat monster with pure gun setups, you could definitely get a good gunslinger pose going with Carnifex deathspitters in the upper arm slots. Aim for a kinda cowboy tyrant look.

As I see it, id bet money tourney lists for GTs and such will be a Kronos firebase with them as the HQ to also hurt psykers and then Jorm for the flexibility, turn 1 gaunt alpha strike to eat screening units and put charge pressure on. Seems like the best combo, despite it being a mix of two fleets.