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I'd rather take a Broodlord with character protection than a walking tyrant. Being targetable by ranged attacks while being slow and not able to deep strike is just a death sentence.

 Zimko wrote:
I'd rather take a Broodlord with character protection than a walking tyrant. Being targetable by ranged attacks while being slow and not able to deep strike is just a death sentence.

I agree 100%. Walking Tyrants are poorly designed. If walking tyrants could deep strike (not sure what sort of fluff would justify this) would that make it viable?

I'd really like to see Walking Tyrants become viable, but with the limited mobility / durability / shooting / close combat ability, it just doesn't exist on the same level as a Flyrant.

ETA: Maybe if Tyrants granted Reroll 1's like a captain, they'd be worthwhile as a backfield support unit.

Agreed, walkrants and swarmy just get shot off the board unless you can hide them or DS them. If they fixed some of the other HQ we wouldn't see Flyrant spam.

Malanthrope needs to be about 110 and he would get more use.

Broodlord needs to drop by about 30 pts and he would get more use.

Neuros are in a decent spot, the smite changes really hurt them.

Tervigon, poor guy, just needs points drop and/or the ability to take some ranged weapons like HVC, maybe wound increase, and or drop to 9.

Prime has similar problem, hes a good buff for warrior, but needs better options.

Swarmy needs to be about 250 -270 and he would see more use I think. If he could take just a single Model of TG for that one turn to get him into combat that would help as well, but we gotta fill a 3 man slot. SMH.

Its all for naught, Adepticon has a "weird"mission set that happened to favor Nids, put nids in ITC with that list and we wont place. GW is going to overreact and nerfbatt us like a pinata. It really sucks, we lost our lictors, GS DS, a few of our key stratagems, our malanthropes, and now our Flyrants....

Slowly creeping back to 7th ed nids. :(

 Marmatag wrote:
Flying Hive Tyrants should not see a point hike. If they do, I would expect to see Manticores, Basilisks, Leman Russ, Dark Reapers, Shining Spears, Warlocks, Daemon Princes, and a few other things go up about 50% in price. It's beyond stupid that ONE event with a garbage ruleset would merit such a reaction, when Tyrants got STOMPED OFF THE FACE OF THE PLANET at LVO by Reaper spam, Chaos, and Imperium.

To play devils advocate, those units will probably also see adjustments. Adepticon is still fresh in people's minds and also had direct participation from the Warhammer Community team (who if I recall correctly, used Tyranids themselves), hence speculation and rumors that Tyrants are the reason the march FAQ was delayed.

 Marmatag wrote:

To nerf Hive Tyrants is to erase viability of Tyranids in even casual metas. It is our one good HQ choice.

Not meaning to come across as insulting, but such a statement seems more appropriate for 7th edition than the current one. Even if the rumored nerf turns out correct, it will still be possible to bring at least 3-4 Tyrants using multiple detachments and if tournaments make adjustments to allow Dark Eldar to use their special army construction rules it could very well go up to 6.

As far as casual metas go, most of the HQ options are fine (even Tervigons if the list is built around them and neither side is really min-maxing). If anything, if the nerf comes to pass I'd be curious to see if it leads to more experimentation. Since 8th dropped most lists have been focusing heavily on the alpha strike aspect of the Tyranid army and neglecting the more attrition oriented aspects. I know Chaos has reportedly been doing well with horde + character lists and Tyranids are more than capable of running similar archetypes (especially with Hydra).

 DaBraken wrote:

Tyrants on foot have the same 'problem' carnifex has. If kitted out for melee it cant shoot, if shooty it is mediocre in cc.

To be fair, that is the trade-off for specialization. On the flip side, specialists tend to be more efficient than generalists since they don't waste points on things they won't use while employing one function or another.

The issue with horde list in tourney scene is the TIME limit. You have to take movement trays otherwise you wont make it past 2 turns. Moving 200 models is just too much.

True, though realistically you won't have to move every model every turn and the spacing isn't as important with blasts and templates gone, thus saving a bit of time. Also one can always "cheat" a bit with the model count by setting points aside for Endless Swarm and just keep redeploying units as they get destroyed.

Walkrants are not so bad, sure they die, but they are in the cost range of something that should die when focused.
They are better dakkafexes with psy powers and synapse for about 50% more cost. Seems fair.

 Dynas wrote:
The issue with horde list in tourney scene is the TIME limit. You have to take movement trays otherwise you wont make it past 2 turns. Moving 200 models is just too much.

The movement phase isn't as bad as the shooting/assault phases, where you have to roll all those dice.

Chess clocks + Flyrant restrictions = Tyranids are done in 8th. It is wholly unreasonable to expect the average game to go to turn 5 but somehow that's where we've landed. Building a list to play faster = an acceptable stratagey, building a list that plays slower = unacceptable, apparently.

Time limits are 100% our biggest enemy.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Time limits are 100% our biggest enemy.

Essentially, yeah.

This game just doesn't play fast enough for it to be balanced around a 5+ turn game in a 2.5 hour window.

4 Turns is far more reasonable.

tag8833 wrote:

 Zimko wrote:
I'd rather take a Broodlord with character protection than a walking tyrant. Being targetable by ranged attacks while being slow and not able to deep strike is just a death sentence.

I agree 100%. Walking Tyrants are poorly designed. If walking tyrants could deep strike (not sure what sort of fluff would justify this) would that make it viable?

I'd really like to see Walking Tyrants become viable, but with the limited mobility / durability / shooting / close combat ability, it just doesn't exist on the same level as a Flyrant.

ETA: Maybe if Tyrants granted Reroll 1's like a captain, they'd be worthwhile as a backfield support unit.

Seriously? GW has made walking Tyrants require Tyrant Guard and honestly, would anyone take TG without walking Tyrants? No. Unfortunately, TG cost too many points and $£€.

Any tips in beating tyranids with sm ? No allies, no primaris.
I thought of using rhinos to assault his units to slow them, thunderfire with tremor ammo and scout screens.
Anything else ? What scare you the most in a space marine army ?
Fighting a Kraken army, by the way.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Time limits are 100% our biggest enemy.

Essentially, yeah.

This game just doesn't play fast enough for it to be balanced around a 5+ turn game in a 2.5 hour window.

4 Turns is far more reasonable.

Halfway tempted to bring a horde list and play it normal speed and only make it to turn 2. When people complain ill just point to our nerfed Flyrants. lol

 godardc wrote:
Any tips in beating tyranids with sm ? No allies, no primaris.
I thought of using rhinos to assault his units to slow them, thunderfire with tremor ammo and scout screens.
Anything else ? What scare you the most in a space marine army ?
Fighting a Kraken army, by the way.

Assaulting kraken units doesn't slow them. It just gives them extra attacks. Kraken units can fallback and still charge in the same turn so the most you'll do is prevent them from advancing. Or you'll just give them handy boxes to surround so that they can survive your shooting phase.

The most worrisome units for me in the Space Marines codex is flyers with a lot of dakka (assault cannons and missiles) and a jumppack captain to give them rerolls when he deeps strikes in.

 Zimko wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Any tips in beating tyranids with sm ? No allies, no primaris.
I thought of using rhinos to assault his units to slow them, thunderfire with tremor ammo and scout screens.
Anything else ? What scare you the most in a space marine army ?
Fighting a Kraken army, by the way.

Assaulting kraken units doesn't slow them. It just gives them extra attacks. Kraken units can fallback and still charge in the same turn so the most you'll do is prevent them from advancing. Or you'll just give them handy boxes to surround so that they can survive your shooting phase.

The most worrisome units for me in the Space Marines codex is flyers with a lot of dakka (assault cannons and missiles) and a jumppack captain to give them rerolls when he deeps strikes in.

Good catch ! I had totally forgot about this part of the rule !

 godardc wrote:
Any tips in beating tyranids with sm ? No allies, no primaris.
I thought of using rhinos to assault his units to slow them, thunderfire with tremor ammo and scout screens.
Anything else ? What scare you the most in a space marine army ?
Fighting a Kraken army, by the way.

Reivers - the one job they excel at is cutting up large chunks of gaunts. Most tyranid lists *have* to engage in melee to work, so it really hurts them when melee with a decent armor save shows up

Artillery - Granted SM artillery isn't anything special, but being able to lay hurt on random deepstrikers is a good thing

Space Wolf Dreadnaughts - I hate those S10 melee hits so much. I've seen one eat three flyrants, one after the other.


The long and short of it is that SM already has an edge with their relatively good armor save, but are normally built as to suck at melee. Bring some melee support along and you can often turn the tables easily.

Take a couple of assault cannon razorbacks or Raptors for horde control. Take 2 squads of dev with lascannons. Take scouts to deny DS units. Take Bobby G and Tiggy if you have them. Be careful with Tiggy, as SitW and Kronos can really shut him down.
Snipers may be good b/c there are a lot of characters nids can choose from.

The key is to focus fire. There are going to be a lot of units and models, if you spread around your damage your gonna get swamped. Each turn all your horde clearing stuff needs to shoot the same unit, all the lascannons need to shoot the same MC until its dead and so on.

Use your scouts to screen/tie up/ and slow down the advance.

Shoot the Genestealers and hive Tyrants first, everything else is secondary priority.

tag8833 wrote:

 Zimko wrote:
I'd rather take a Broodlord with character protection than a walking tyrant. Being targetable by ranged attacks while being slow and not able to deep strike is just a death sentence.

I agree 100%. Walking Tyrants are poorly designed. If walking tyrants could deep strike (not sure what sort of fluff would justify this) would that make it viable?

I'd really like to see Walking Tyrants become viable, but with the limited mobility / durability / shooting / close combat ability, it just doesn't exist on the same level as a Flyrant.

ETA: Maybe if Tyrants granted Reroll 1's like a captain, they'd be worthwhile as a backfield support unit.

Not relevant to tactics at all, but fluff wise a walking Tyrant is supposed to be the anchor holding the swarm together and all but unkillable unless you cut through the masses to get to it. I think it would just need some sort of damage reduction buff built in in place of wings. Call it Reinforced Exoskeleton: reduce all damage taken by 2, to a minimum of 1. Bang, a ridiculous brick of a unit, and not overpowered because it has all the weaknesses of being slow and with limited ranged power for it’s cost.

Now back to our regular programming!

Patriarch Phyrx wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

 Zimko wrote:
I'd rather take a Broodlord with character protection than a walking tyrant. Being targetable by ranged attacks while being slow and not able to deep strike is just a death sentence.

I agree 100%. Walking Tyrants are poorly designed. If walking tyrants could deep strike (not sure what sort of fluff would justify this) would that make it viable?

I'd really like to see Walking Tyrants become viable, but with the limited mobility / durability / shooting / close combat ability, it just doesn't exist on the same level as a Flyrant.

ETA: Maybe if Tyrants granted Reroll 1's like a captain, they'd be worthwhile as a backfield support unit.

Not relevant to tactics at all, but fluff wise a walking Tyrant is supposed to be the anchor holding the swarm together and all but unkillable unless you cut through the masses to get to it. I think it would just need some sort of damage reduction buff built in in place of wings. Call it Reinforced Exoskeleton: reduce all damage taken by 2, to a minimum of 1. Bang, a ridiculous brick of a unit, and not overpowered because it has all the weaknesses of being slow and with limited ranged power for it’s cost.

Now back to our regular programming!

That is way over powered. All heavy guns are either D3 or D6 wounds. If you hit and wound with a full dev sq of 5 lascannons, your still only looking at 5 wounds a turn. You will get him in combat turn 2 with Kraken or Stratagems or 3 at the latest. You would definitely see HT spam then. Arguably more powerful than the wings.

Marmatag wrote:
The movement phase isn't as bad as the shooting/assault phases, where you have to roll all those dice.

To be fair, a unit of 30 Fleshborer Termagants is only throwing 6 more dice with their shooting than the duel Devourer Flyrant and people have been using the 30-strong Devourer Termagant brood (which throws significantly more dice) for chaff clearing. In melee a horde unit generally won't get to attack with all of its models simply due to space issues, so the total dice will generally be lower than the maximum capabilities.

v0iddrgn wrote:Seriously? GW has made walking Tyrants require Tyrant Guard and honestly, would anyone take TG without walking Tyrants?

Tyrant Guard actually aren't too bad with Hydra as an infantry-based replacement for assault monstrous creatures. Even a minimum sized unit can get the Hydra rerolls when going after characters or vehicles and can be respawned on the opponent's backfield if needed (reinforcement points permitting).

Patriarch Phyrx wrote:

Call it Reinforced Exoskeleton: reduce all damage taken by 2, to a minimum of 1.

Already have a similar ability as a Warlord Trait (the one assigned to Old One Eye).

Went 3-0 at a local ITC event this weekend, using ITC champions packet.

2 Kraken battalion
2 Flyrants
Neurothrope
Malanthrope

2x19 GS
1x10 GS
2x30 Horms
1x30 Dev gants

Trygon
Mawloc

First game vs Necrons ended after 3, was about to probably table him. He didn't have a competitive list.

Second game vs Tyranids. Kronos with 2x rupturefex, exocrine, melee flyrant, 2 neurothropes, 20 GS, 4x10 termagants and some other stuff. I managed to wipe out almost all his stealers with the devourer gants, and assault with both GS squads. It would have been totally one sided, except he managed to kill like 8 GS with his neurothrope in one go, and I lost like 4-5 more to the Tyrannos and exocrine in one round of combat.

Third game vs 4 PBC, fire raptor, 2x3 oblits, misc stuff. Managed to pull off an 18-13 win, but going into 4 I was probably going to get tabled. I managed to keep him bottle up in his deployment zone by feeding him one unit at a time, and using hormagaunts with nurglings to keep locking stuff up. That damn tree really makes it a complete pain to deal with the crawlers. In hindsight, I should have player my Trygon more aggressively, if I had managed to get that into a tank I could have knocked one out and opened up some space to block some in. I also made a few other minor mistakes, and absolutely abysmally for saves, which probably cost me about a turn before (what would have been) my tabling.

I didn't like the mawloc. At all. I think 9 more Genestealers would have been better. Or maybe move some points around to fit in hive guard. 3 Hive Guard could really help with fire support vs distant enemies.

Take the mawloc out and get 3 biovores.


I'd even drop some gaunts and go to 5 biovores tbh.


The board control you get from being able to spawn the spores everywhere is great. Not to mention they are a threat to flyers.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Take the mawloc out and get 3 biovores.


I'd even drop some gaunts and go to 5 biovores tbh.


The board control you get from being able to spawn the spores everywhere is great. Not to mention they are a threat to flyers.

I don't need board control. I need damage. Every game I play is me covering 60-75% of the board for 3 turns, then either turn 4 they're broken and I'm cleaning up, or turn 4 I'm broken and they're struggling to get across the board for objectives. No one comes out of their deployment zone against an army built like this. Those that do usually lose very, very badly. The counter play for my army is to sit in your deployment zone with a properly built castle, prevent me from giving a unit a death hug (Locking us both in combat through your turn and letting me get out at the end of yours or beginning of mine), and protect all your important assets.

This is why I either need Hive Guard or more Genestealers. Hive Guard I can use to pick on specific targets an enemy is using in their castle, and more Genestealers helps with making sure I have enough oomph to break through.

At this point I'm leaning towards the HG, though I'm really liking the 3rd unit of GS, and not certain that a single unit of 3 HG will be enough damage.

Trace,

My current competitive Nids list:

Kraken Battalion:
Swarmy
Malanthrope
19 Genestealers
20 Genestealers
20 Genestealers
30 hormagants
29 gargoyles

Kronos Battalion:

Neurothrope
Neurothrope
3 Rippers
3 Rippers
3 Rippers
6 Hive Guard

Need to tweak it a touch but generally I like it.

The trygon is just expensive lascannon bait IMO. I get the killing screens in shooting but if you learn how to wrap up screening units in close combat, you won’t need shooting. Or you can overrun and fight again to consolidate into basically their entire gunline turn 1. It’s some pretty hot nonsense

 luke1705 wrote:
Trace,

My current competitive Nids list:

Kraken Battalion:
Swarmy
Malanthrope
19 Genestealers
20 Genestealers
20 Genestealers
30 hormagants
29 gargoyles

Kronos Battalion:

Neurothrope
Neurothrope
3 Rippers
3 Rippers
3 Rippers
6 Hive Guard

Need to tweak it a touch but generally I like it.

The trygon is just expensive lascannon bait IMO. I get the killing screens in shooting but if you learn how to wrap up screening units in close combat, you won’t need shooting. Or you can overrun and fight again to consolidate into basically their entire gunline turn 1. It’s some pretty hot nonsense

I actually use the dev gants to target things I need to kill, but can't reach in assault. Like you said, I use screening units against my opponent, and so I rarely use the dev gants for that. As I'm sure you know, but I'll explain for anyone else reading, when people screen they have two possible kinds of screens. Far out screens (Typically things like scouts) that prevent close deep strikes/movement, and close in screens (Like conscript walls) which act as an actual physical barrier. Far out screens are awesome for Tyranid lists, they guarantee turn 1 assaults and are often very easy to "death hug" (Surround while doing minimal casualties on the charge, so they dont die and can't fall back. Then you murder them in the opponent's assault phase and are free to move again in your turn. Mix with overrun and adrenaline surge for great effect). Close in screens can be an issue if they are good with their spacing/casualty removal, and we dontt get good charge distances. When people do close-in screens, I often opt to use the dev gants to kill counter assault units. The other thing I've had good luck with them with is knocking stormravens and the like down a firing profile. Combined with The Horror, that basically makes them useless.

Trygon is definitely lascannon bait, but it is also our best AT source. Because I DS them at the same time as the flyrants, any firepower put on them is firepower not put on my flyrants. I've yet to face a list that could remove all 3 in one go, while still dealing with all the GS/Horms infront of them. I've had several games where he was crucial to victory, because he was able to tear up armor that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to deal with.

As of now, I've lost 3 games with my competitive list. Two were legit losses and one was absolutely because I failed a critical onslaught cast (Rerolled one dice with neurothrope reroll and the other with CP... still failed it). I've had a few where I was about to start losing, but the nature of the list meant I was up on points at the end of round 3/4. The flipside to that is that I've struggled to get high scores in a few matches, but that was mostly due to time constraints.

I do like the gargoyles though, I think I may swap 30 horms to terms, and 30 to gargoyles. I usually end up keeping 30 of the horms to screen my backfield from DS, or they just don't really have room to move forward. The extra 4" on the gargs means that I can have a 17" advance pretty reliably. Even with kraken strat on a 5 horms are only 18", so it's a more consistent option for getting them forward. Their firepower isn't amazing, but 20-30 shots does add up to a few bodies here and there.

I also want to try a unit of 5-6 hive guard.

What do you use for relic/warlord trait? Guessing Kronos trait on a Neurothrope?

Big units of Hive Guard are utterly mean. You definitely need something able to cast Onslaught if you take them though. 36” range isn’t total board control, and you don’t want to neuter their firepower when they have to move.

Been doing

Neurothrope - catalyst
Warlord flyrant - scream, onslaught
Normal flyrant - paroxysm, the horror

My current list for ITC is:

Kraken Battalion
Flyrant w/ Reaper and devourers
Swarmlord
19 Genes
3 Rippers
3 Rippers
28 Gargs
Trygon

Kraken Outrider
Flyrant w/ RCs and Devs
3 Meiotic Spores
3 Meiotic Spores
3 Meiotic Spores

Kronos Spearhead
Neurothrope
6 Hive Guard
1 Biovore
1 Biovore
1 Biovore
1 Biovore

This is all about board control and dealing damage. Meiotics protect my Hive Guard and help me with deep striking by preventing the deployment of Rangers or the movement of Scout Sentinals. Gargoyles will either screen or they'll deep strike and take a Swarmy boost to tie up an entire army or they will start on the board and play leapfrog with enemy units. Genes will start in the trygon and do the same thing but I consider Genes to be more a surgical strike. 2 Flyrants and Trygon are decent beatsticks and lascannon magnets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
With the coming nerf, I expect I'll have to change my list drastically sadly.

 Zimko wrote:
My current list for ITC is:

Spoiler:

Kraken Battalion
Flyrant w/ Reaper and devourers
Swarmlord
19 Genes
3 Rippers
3 Rippers
28 Gargs
Trygon

Kraken Outrider
Flyrant w/ RCs and Devs
3 Meiotic Spores
3 Meiotic Spores
3 Meiotic Spores

Kronos Spearhead
Neurothrope
6 Hive Guard
1 Biovore
1 Biovore
1 Biovore
1 Biovore

This is all about board control and dealing damage. Meiotics protect my Hive Guard and help me with deep striking by preventing the deployment of Rangers or the movement of Scout Sentinals. Gargoyles will either screen or they'll deep strike and take a Swarmy boost to tie up an entire army or they will start on the board and play leapfrog with enemy units. Genes will start in the trygon and do the same thing but I consider Genes to be more a surgical strike. 2 Flyrants and Trygon are decent beatsticks and lascannon magnets.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
With the coming nerf, I expect I'll have to change my list drastically sadly.

You dont got more than 1 Flyrant per detachment, so no problem?

 DaBraken wrote:

 Zimko wrote:
My current list for ITC is:

Spoiler:

Kraken Battalion
Flyrant w/ Reaper and devourers
Swarmlord
19 Genes
3 Rippers
3 Rippers
28 Gargs
Trygon

Kraken Outrider
Flyrant w/ RCs and Devs
3 Meiotic Spores
3 Meiotic Spores
3 Meiotic Spores

Kronos Spearhead
Neurothrope
6 Hive Guard
1 Biovore
1 Biovore
1 Biovore
1 Biovore

This is all about board control and dealing damage. Meiotics protect my Hive Guard and help me with deep striking by preventing the deployment of Rangers or the movement of Scout Sentinals. Gargoyles will either screen or they'll deep strike and take a Swarmy boost to tie up an entire army or they will start on the board and play leapfrog with enemy units. Genes will start in the trygon and do the same thing but I consider Genes to be more a surgical strike. 2 Flyrants and Trygon are decent beatsticks and lascannon magnets.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
With the coming nerf, I expect I'll have to change my list drastically sadly.

You dont got more than 1 Flyrant per detachment, so no problem?

It depends on if they make it a keyword thing. The Swarmlord has the 'Hive Tyrant' keyword.