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Barbed hierodule - 420
Hierophant - 2000
Malanthrope - 140

Just forgeworld stuff.

I'm getting started with a behemoth CC army with Flyrant, Prime, old one eye, Hormas, Ripperwarms, Lictors, venomtrophes, Trygon Prime, Raveners, shrikes, screamer killers and a lot 8' charges from reserves.
Too bad there are no winged hormagaunts. :(

Anyone experience with that kind of list + behemoth adaption?
Won't use other adaptions just to get the rules and i'm trying to roll without shooting because i love the picture of a close combat tyranid army.
Easy brigade detachment even with adrenalin glands and toxin sacs for the big stuff.
Sadly that endless swarm strategem does not work without reinforcement points atm.

Anything i should add to make this work (better)?
Obvious choice would be stealers but I don't really like the models .

Spoletta wrote:

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
I don't think you can deepstrike with Red Terror, the stratagem picks out specific units and not keywords (Notice the lack of capitals).

I don't really like warriors, personally, I think they pay too much of a flexibility tax. I'd rather see more Neurothropes (Since CA isn't bringing a smite nerf) and devourer gaunts, but maybe the warriors will get good mileage for you. Try it out and see how it works. My experience has been that they're decent generalist troops, but we have much better specialists available.

I think you're gonna need more than 20 stealers if you're not using swarmlord. Even with 40, by turn 3 I'm always wishing I had 60.

My only major critique besides preferences is that you have no good target for double tap. I suppose the warriors are one, but I'd like to see a big dev gaunt or hive guard squad to really abuse the hell out of the power.

Only if you already have the necessary neuros, if not you may want to avoid purchasing more since we now know for certain that smite will get a nerf in March.

According to...?

According to the latest podcast.
When talking about the expected nerfs to smite, they said that they got pushed back to the March FAQ.

That said, this is second hand information for me.
I heard that there is a writeup of that podcast though, but i can't find it.

What is the sugested smite nerf?

The rest of ouer psykick powers are quite bad colour considering how psykers are pushed in ouer codex + malestorm objectives

Hey guys, just a quick question I haven't seen come up yet.

I like deep striking my flyrants into the thick of things, but they get some serious attention when doing so. What do you think about bringing in some jormangandr tyrant guard with a trygon/raveners?

I believe that the nerf to smite will be in the form of its damage.

My guess is that baseline smite will deal 1 mortal wound, and that depending on the STRENGTH of the Psyker itself, it will deal more.

For instance, a 200 point Psyker like Grand Master Voldus should have a stronger smite than a 40 point Primaris Psyker. As it stands right now, Voldus is VASTLY inferior at smiting than a Primaris Psyker, while costing 160 points more. That's absolutely insane.

I think it will go:

Tier 1 - Costs less than 150 - Smite is 1 damage.
Tier 2 - Costs 150-300 - Smite is up to D3 damage. (Some psykers may deal less despite this cost, such as Grey Knights Paladins, although their smite might scale with the size of the squad. For instance, 10 paladins is over 500 points they should smite better)
Tier 3 - Costs 301 or more - Smite is up to D6 damage. (Think Magnus)

On the Swarmlord, I don't think he needs a pod, if you're running him other than Jormungandr, he will most likely be out of line of sight, or rapid fire range, vaulting units forward.

Ultimately my list is going to be a brigade i think. Neurothrope, Swarmlord, Flying Hive Tyrant. Possibly dropping the Swarmlord for a Tervigon. The Tervigon refilling two squads with fleshborers that chain and sit on objectives while Tervy is out of line of sight, means big points in ITC format. There's not more than 4 on the board and you should be able to reach two with these chains. So you're looking at a modest investment in points that denies deep strike and holds 2 spots.

I like the idea of 2 lictors and some hive guards, and the rest would be spores. I only need 1 trygon for devilgaunts.

Might as well go Leviathan with the Trygon.

Trygons can only taxi stuff from their own hive fleet, otherwise Jormungandr would be an auto-take for them.

Such a kick in the nuts.


50 points was way too much for malanthrope, should have only been a 25 point increase at most.

Also, barbed heirodules were already overcosted and they went up 2 points, what a load of bull.

they should have dropped them 40 points and instead went up by 2 points. Retardation.


Compare a barbed hierodule to 2 lemon russ's on the move.

Very similar, in fact, the lemon russ's are better overall for less points.

The B. Heirodule was just 2 lemon russ that always rolled a 6 for their amount of battle cannon shots and couldn't take sponson weapons. Less wounds overall, and couldn't stand still and shoot twice, but consolidated into a single model and could benefit from auras and catalyst.

2 battlecannon russ's cost only 304 points vs the heirodules 440. Complete bs.

Yeah it goes without saying but my brigade would be kraken

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Trygons can only taxi stuff from their own hive fleet, otherwise Jormungandr would be an auto-take for them.

ah, didn't notice that. That is unfortunate, as the stratagem doesn't seem to have such a restriction.

 Zidon wrote:

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Trygons can only taxi stuff from their own hive fleet, otherwise Jormungandr would be an auto-take for them.

ah, didn't notice that. That is unfortunate, as the stratagem doesn't seem to have such a restriction.

Yeah, you can have any fleet Trygon taxi Jorm infantry, but not the other way around. Which is really unfortunate, because Trygons would benefit A LOT from a 2+ the turn they arrive.

They should fix smite by fixing psychic focus.

Let all powers be cast multiple times.

Each time you try to manifest the same power in the same phase you increase its difficulty by 1. (A 5+ power becomes 6+ then 7+ etc etc)

Buffs/debuffs dont stack with themselves. Now there is a soft/hard cap on spamming powers because it gets less and less likely to work and encourages more variety in powers without limiting to 1 cast a turn.

Smite should just be based of mastery level, level 1 means 1 wound and so forth.

There's a million possible fixes for smite, most of which GW will forego and instead opt for the most heavy-handed answer (Most likely limit it to 3, or make it +1 per cast), or something no one asked for or expected (Smite is limited to once per turn).

 Lance845 wrote:
They should fix smite by fixing psychic focus.

Let all powers be cast multiple times.

Each time you try to manifest the same power in the same phase you increase its difficulty by 1. (A 5+ power becomes 6+ then 7+ etc etc)

Buffs/debuffs dont stack with themselves. Now there is a soft/hard cap on spamming powers because it gets less and less likely to work and encourages more variety in powers without limiting to 1 cast a turn.

I agree with this in principle. But, as a Chaos player - one who doesn’t even have any Primarchs or whatever - I will warn now that replacing Smite spam with Warptime spam is probably going to be more of a sledgehammer solution than any localised points hike. Magnus’s weakness is if he rushes you on the first turn, he gets shot. Not if a Berzerker horde swoops in with their up to 12” of pile ins and make damned sure you’re not going to Fall Back from the big guy. Oh, and your Overwatch? Warp Talons kill it instantly.


and their Kharybdis

 lindsay40k wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
They should fix smite by fixing psychic focus.

Let all powers be cast multiple times.

Each time you try to manifest the same power in the same phase you increase its difficulty by 1. (A 5+ power becomes 6+ then 7+ etc etc)

Buffs/debuffs dont stack with themselves. Now there is a soft/hard cap on spamming powers because it gets less and less likely to work and encourages more variety in powers without limiting to 1 cast a turn.

I agree with this in principle. But, as a Chaos player - one who doesn’t even have any Primarchs or whatever - I will warn now that replacing Smite spam with Warptime spam is probably going to be more of a sledgehammer solution than any localised points hike. Magnus’s weakness is if he rushes you on the first turn, he gets shot. Not if a Berzerker horde swoops in with their up to 12” of pile ins and make damned sure you’re not going to Fall Back from the big guy. Oh, and your Overwatch? Warp Talons kill it instantly.


and their Kharybdis

Warptime 1) has a VERY short range. 2) Has a WCV of 6. Easy enough. 7 on the second cast (the most common result on 2d6) 8 on the 3rd...

Again, the powers escalating difficulty to manifest makes a big difference.

3) if GW implemented this with the basic idea that NOW powers are being cast multiple times a turn instead of 1 and done they can adjust WCVs accordingly. Even if Warptime went from a WCV 6 to a 7 it would make a drastic difference in the likelyhood of it being cast 3 times a turn.

4) Each psyker can still only manifest each power once. You would need 3 psykers that all know warp time to have a degrading chance of manifesting it.

It's the most elegant solution to smite spam that opens up options instead of closing them off while keeping the game reasonable.

Lance,

Making the psychic phase much more powerful overall certainly would fix the casting of smite a whole bunch of times, but it would also create other, arguably worse, problems, as Lindsay pointed out.

Your idea that “we can fix this balance issue by making other options better” is not inherently a bad one; but imagine if you’re Necrons. All this would do would be make your army even worse.

Tbh, I’m not sure how they’ll fix this issue, but I do hope they don’t go too far in the other direction. Maybe make smite have the haywire effect - auto cast but does no mortal wounds on a 1, 1 MW on 2-5 and d3 MW on a 6

 luke1705 wrote:
Lance,

Making the psychic phase much more powerful overall certainly would fix the casting of smite a whole bunch of times, but it would also create other, arguably worse, problems, as Lindsay pointed out.

Your idea that “we can fix this balance issue by making other options better” is not inherently a bad one; but imagine if you’re Necrons. All this would do would be make your army even worse.

Tbh, I’m not sure how they’ll fix this issue, but I do hope they don’t go too far in the other direction. Maybe make smite have the haywire effect - auto cast but does no mortal wounds on a 1, 1 MW on 2-5 and d3 MW on a 6

It's not making the other options better. It's making the other options usable.

The issue with smite spam comes from 2 places. 1) there are dirt cheap psykers that ONLY know smite. 2) Each other power can only be cast once, so even if you had more expensive psykers that knew 2-3 powers but could cast 2 their usefulness to you is extremely limited AND hard capped by the number of power you want to use. If the only powers you want are warp time and smite then you only need 1 psyker who knows warp time.

By making powers castable more than once you first open up the option for players. Now those more expensive psykers who know more than one power become extremely more desirable. You might WANT 3 guys in your army who can cast 2 powers a turn because they will actually get to do so. Purchasing the more expensive psykers means you have less room for the dirt cheap smite onlys.

Second if you STILL bought smite only psykers at BEST you are casting smite 8 times a turn. And that 8th time requires a 12 to go off, which means your also suffering perils.

The chance of success...

5 - 83%
6 - 72%
7 - 58%
8 - 41%
9 - 27%
10 - 16%
11 - 8.3%
12 - 2.7%

Smite... and any power.. Stops being reliable after WCV 7.

This wouldn't HURT Necrons and Tau. Instead of getting hit by 6 smites that all have a 83% chance to succeed it's far more likely that they will only ever get hit by 3-4 smites max regardless f how many psykers the enemy brings. Which, again, promotes bringing more expensive more versatile psykers to the table so you can mix up which powers are being used more. There is NO situation where this change would make things worse for any army.


I would LOVE to have the chance to cast The Horror twice a turn while throwing about more catalyst. Could you imagine having multiple hive tyrants/neuros/zoanthropes actually being worth a damn? Again... unlikely to get more than 4 smites off. But god.... we could actually use all that extra casting we have to pay for while reducing the number of smites the enemy is actually suffering.

But what he is saying that there are many powers currently balanced b.c you can ONLY cast them once, if you make those other powers able to cast multi-times its going to open up more problems and i completely agree.

Smite can be fixed in many ways,
1) increase the cast from base 5 to base 6
2) a 5+ only does 1 MW and a 11-12 does D3
3) Increase the point cost of more units with smite
4) Deny smite always on a 4+
5) Smite perils on all doubles
etc... etc...

We dont need to let all powers dbl cast to fix 1 spammable power, i personally think Smite is fine and only needs to have some units increase in points. If it were to be nerf just make it cast on a 6+ at least

Edit: An example, Ynnari army with Yncarne and Yvraine could cast Word of the Phoenix 4x, on average i believe 3 will go off with out CP re-rolls (they have a +1 to cast). That means you could give out 4 SfD actions in 1 phase, yes the SFD was nerf a bit but you get the idea. Or CSM with Warpspeed etc...

Anyway maybe this discussion belongs more in a non-Tyranid tactics forum.

Those who have found success with a predominantly shooty Nid army, what have you been using? I’m looking at these heavy slots and all of the choices are extremely appealing. Biovores, Tfex w/acid spray, Exocrines...plus the Hive Guard, though not in the heavy slot, are amazing with the Impaler Cannon.

 luke1705 wrote:
Anyway maybe this discussion belongs more in a non-Tyranid tactics forum.

Those who have found success with a predominantly shooty Nid army, what have you been using? I’m looking at these heavy slots and all of the choices are extremely appealing. Biovores, Tfex w/acid spray, Exocrines...plus the Hive Guard, though not in the heavy slot, are amazing with the Impaler Cannon.

Biovores > Tfex/Exocrine.

Mr. Funktastic wrote:

 buddha wrote:
I'm liking a hybrid fex with a HVC and scything talon with enhanced senses, spore scyts, and a bone mace. The fex is a threat at range and in CC though obviously needs the right list to be in but to support a shooting element it seems like a good anti-vehicle investment. Each are 128pts in that setup and work well in pairs.

Not a bad idea. How's OOE with an escort of a pair of CC Fexes looking these days? Also, does a mix of gunline/assault Nids work well or would it best to commit to one or the other?

Pure assault has not been working well for me. Though I think that might be a list issue. I don't have nearly enough stealers/hormagaunts as I feel I need to make the list work (currently 24 and 40, want 40-60 and 60-90 respectively).

I've been trying 3 Stone Crushers with OOE and a Malanthrope. Not been having great results so far. Even with Kraken's 3d6 pick the highest advances, they're just so slow and if the Malanthrope falls behind, you lose the -1 bubble. When they do make it across the board, they hit hard though. But typically, I lose 1-2 Stone Crushers on the approach so I'm not sure it's worth it.

I might give 3 melee Codex fexes with the -1 upgrade instead a go to save points on the soon to be nerfed Malanthrope. Which is a shame, because I love the Stone Crusher model.

Biovores have been all stars, but I can't see myself buying another set of 3 unless I go the China route given how expensive they are combined with GW's lack of subtlety in adjusting points values.

RogueApiary wrote:

Mr. Funktastic wrote:

 buddha wrote:
I'm liking a hybrid fex with a HVC and scything talon with enhanced senses, spore scyts, and a bone mace. The fex is a threat at range and in CC though obviously needs the right list to be in but to support a shooting element it seems like a good anti-vehicle investment. Each are 128pts in that setup and work well in pairs.

Not a bad idea. How's OOE with an escort of a pair of CC Fexes looking these days? Also, does a mix of gunline/assault Nids work well or would it best to commit to one or the other?

Pure assault has not been working well for me. Though I think that might be a list issue. I don't have nearly enough stealers/hormagaunts as I feel I need to make the list work (currently 24 and 40, want 40-60 and 60-90 respectively).

I've been trying 3 Stone Crushers with OOE and a Malanthrope. Not been having great results so far. Even with Kraken's 3d6 pick the highest advances, they're just so slow and if the Malanthrope falls behind, you lose the -1 bubble. When they do make it across the board, they hit hard though. But typically, I lose 1-2 Stone Crushers on the approach so I'm not sure it's worth it.

I might give 3 melee Codex fexes with the -1 upgrade instead a go to save points on the soon to be nerfed Malanthrope. Which is a shame, because I love the Stone Crusher model.

Biovores have been all stars, but I can't see myself buying another set of 3 unless I go the China route given how expensive they are combined with GW's lack of subtlety in adjusting points values.

Here is hoping next year we see that vore kit in plastic to build biovores and pyrovores. If they actually make that i imagine it will sell out over night

RogueApiary wrote:

Mr. Funktastic wrote:

 buddha wrote:
I'm liking a hybrid fex with a HVC and scything talon with enhanced senses, spore scyts, and a bone mace. The fex is a threat at range and in CC though obviously needs the right list to be in but to support a shooting element it seems like a good anti-vehicle investment. Each are 128pts in that setup and work well in pairs.

Not a bad idea. How's OOE with an escort of a pair of CC Fexes looking these days? Also, does a mix of gunline/assault Nids work well or would it best to commit to one or the other?

Pure assault has not been working well for me. Though I think that might be a list issue. I don't have nearly enough stealers/hormagaunts as I feel I need to make the list work (currently 24 and 40, want 40-60 and 60-90 respectively).

I've been trying 3 Stone Crushers with OOE and a Malanthrope. Not been having great results so far. Even with Kraken's 3d6 pick the highest advances, they're just so slow and if the Malanthrope falls behind, you lose the -1 bubble. When they do make it across the board, they hit hard though. But typically, I lose 1-2 Stone Crushers on the approach so I'm not sure it's worth it.

I might give 3 melee Codex fexes with the -1 upgrade instead a go to save points on the soon to be nerfed Malanthrope. Which is a shame, because I love the Stone Crusher model.

Biovores have been all stars, but I can't see myself buying another set of 3 unless I go the China route given how expensive they are combined with GW's lack of subtlety in adjusting points values.

If you have trouble with the manalthrope lagging behind you can use the regular double move stratragem to move it forward. It can not shoot anyway.

I am having no luck with this in other parts of the forum so maybe someone here can help since I would be making it to go in the first post here I figure it fits well enough.

I am trying to make a quick reference sheet for Tyranids in the same vein as the fold out page from the back of the old codex. I want to include a line (with stat line) for every nid unit including forgeworld and shrikes from the index and all the wargear.

No points. Just the rules so you don't need to flip through the codex for stat lines or weapon profiles.

To make it legal to post to dakka I want to make it a PDF form with the little type fields so you guys can fill out the actual information yourselves from my template. I intend to make a 8.5 x 11 version and a small format (5 x 8 i think?).

I am having trouble tracking down free software that lets me create those type fields on pdf forms though. Anyone know of anything?

I don't know of a pdf editor that is free. You can get OpenOffice and try doing something in that. It's as advanced editor I can think of that is also free and available on multiple platforms.

I personally plan to scan/copy each datasheet from the book that I need and put them in a binder. That cuts down greatly on the number of pages I have to flip through.

Trygon + 30 Devil gaunts seem to be making sad faces when coupled with shoot twice strat.

"That guy" fuel.

It's one of our best combos. In many lists, the devourer gaunts are still not even top priority on arrival, either, so they get to keep shooting. Punishing.

Trygons are surprisingly heavy hitters, as well. They are our second strongest anti-tank in the codex without any outside buffs (Genestealer units over 10 models being #1). Even considering outside buffs and various wargear options, the only two units that are more efficient are a million variations of GS (Acid maw, TS, broodlord buff, etc.) and meleefex that have charged and have the OOE buff. Though I do concede, a behemoth hive tyrant with the behemoth WL trait and toxin sacs might do more damage with MRC or the behemoth relic, I've just never bothered with the math on such a niche build.

I've had Trygons put a solid dent in Morty, barbed hierodule, slap roboute, etc. They're just soooo fragile.

if smite will be tuned down i will be so happy for my Mortarion or Magnus, less chances to kill them, so please GW nerf the smite