Tyranid 2010 Tactica Discussion

[Hasmed]

And aren't a 1 shot suicide unit worth 2 kill points.
And don't have to deploy from reserve with it's risks.
And hold their own against other armies.

So yea pyrovores are really that bad

[Laughingmonk]

One useful and downright nasty trick you can play with the Prime is to attach him to a brood of zoanthropes and drop them in the opponents deployment via a mycetic spore to go tank hunting.

Tooled out with a deathspitter and lash whip + bonesword he can give the relatively fragile zappy brain bugs an edge in close combat. If the enemy moves to engage them in hand to hand to stop them shooting up expensive heavy mech the Prime can always leave the unit and charge the threatening troops first.

Admitadly he cannotdo theis on the turn he arrives but with a deathspitter he has a chance to dameage most vehicles rear armour (on the off chance warp lance fails to vaporise said vehicle).

: instead of a deathspitter you could add rending claws to give him a chance against enemny dreadnaughts)

As added insurence he can be used to take a stray krak missile/melta shot/lascannon hit on the brood that would ID a zoanthrope giving a little extra survivability to what is usualy a suicide unit.

he adds an extra 100 or so points onto this brrod making it an expensive risk...but gives the unit a much greater chance of surviving an extra round or two to shoot up heavy mech that other nids might struggle with.

Unfortunately this is now illegal as of the FAQ. Seems like it would have been an ok idea though.

My reasoning is that, although on paper they suck, if you use them knowing they will get wiped the next turn you can make a very affective return on your points. Acid blood, and I may be misreading the rules here, is obscenely under-rated. If you drop a suicide squad of pyrovores down next to a melee heavy unit, lets say ork boys, they arrive and heavy flame them three times. By itself is only so-so, but if you can count on them being charged the next round their acid blood and initiative of 1 becomes a huge boon. Average melee mob will probably put 10 or so wounds on these guys, each one forcing initiative checks for instant wounds. Combine that with the high chance of exploding, and i feel like you can effectively weaken any mob to the point of being shot down next turn.

What have i got wrong here? since clearly the internet is always right.
(also, this is my first post so go easy on me)

I actually have a brood of three pyrovores. I love the model, but the rules for them are just atrocious. The problem with using them with acid blood is that even orks will kill them with shooting in short order. They are EXTREMELY fragile for their points cost, which doesn't sit well with what is supposed to be a line unit. Their extremely large base size also works against them, making it so that most of the time, even from a spore, all three of them can't get a template on a given unit.

The fact is that they simply have no unique role in the tyranid book, lock a precious elites slot, explode and kill your own guys, are very slow, and very weak in close combat. We don't need pyrovores to kill orks. In fact, I think Tyranids are currently the best horde killing army in the entire game, what with the extreme amount of anti infantry shooting that they have.

Also, welcome to the forum!

[lekajaw]

Elite slots are precious few for the tyranids since they are competing with hive guards, zoanthropes, ymgarls ect.

against said orc mob type 3 biovores will do comparable if not greater damage and they cost less.

Now, I can't argue that the precious elite slot can't be better used, but I do believe that they can be more reliable than biovores. Nothing is more frustrating than having your biovores fire a few times ineffectively at canned IG while they get instant killed. My problem is that I have the kind of dice luck where the only way i've had zoanthropes earn their points back was sporing in a squad of three behind a land raider, and even then they all died to a single squads worth of fire the next turn.

They are EXTREMELY fragile for their points cost, which doesn't sit well with what is supposed to be a line unit. Their extremely large base size also works against them, making it so that most of the time, even from a spore, all three of them can't get a template on a given unit.

The fact is that they simply have no unique role in the tyranid book, lock a precious elites slot, explode and kill your own guys, are very slow, and very weak in close combat. !

What I am challenging is the idea that they should be used as a line unit, or even a flamer unit for that matter. The pod gives you the flexibility to determine how they are going to die, and if they die in close combat, its almost as though they have as many power weapons as the attacking melee squad. They have a unique role, and that is to explode in an acidic mess all over elite melee units. At the very least, your opponent will have rather low targeting priority on them, which you could use to direct the inevitable spray of bullets towards a scoring unit while they assault it because its close.

What i don't know for sure is how good the kill point argument is, since i've rarely lost games on have a few more kill points on the table...then again i haven't won many games with this codex either...

[Hasmed]

Now, I can't argue that the precious elite slot can't be better used, but I do believe that they can be more reliable than biovores. Nothing is more frustrating than having your biovores fire a few times ineffectively at canned IG while they get instant killed. My problem is that I have the kind of dice luck where the only way i've had zoanthropes earn their points back was sporing in a squad of three behind a land raider, and even then they all died to a single squads worth of fire the next turn.

Well against canned guard the pyrovores are not better.The biovores can stay in a ruin hugging their cover and shooting from turn 1 with while the pyrovores come 50% on turn 2 and most likely die the next turn.

What I am challenging is the idea that they should be used as a line unit, or even a flamer unit for that matter. The pod gives you the flexibility to determine how they are going to die, and if they die in close combat, its almost as though they have as many power weapons as the attacking melee squad. They have a unique role, and that is to explode in an acidic mess all over elite melee units. At the very least, your opponent will have rather low targeting priority on them, which you could use to direct the inevitable spray of bullets towards a scoring unit while they assault it because its close.

What i don't know for sure is how good the kill point argument is, since i've rarely lost games on have a few more kill points on the table...then again i haven't won many games with this codex either...

Well most elite melee units either have a 3++ save(thunderhammer termies) or initiative that is high enough for the wounds to be negated.

As for using them as a distraction type unit again the slot argument comes into play.We cannot afford our elite slots to be spent on distractions.

[PostinDirty]

We cannot afford our elite slots to be spent on distractions.

well.... maybe not a suicide unit, but elites make for fantastic distraction units. i find the army works great on the premise that everything should be a distraction so far as priority is concerned - personally i prefer to weigh up each unit in terms of threat potential, making sure it all viably has the ability to do damage in one way or another so your opponent can't afford to ignore anything you put on the table

[Silent_Moebius]

If you get a chance, try a few lash whips and boneswords and let us know how it goes.

Not that good. My normal Hive Tyrant have had this wargear. But with the brotherhood banner, the force weapons are auto-active. So, one successful wound and your big bug is dead (because of the lack of invul save).

And with 2+ / FnP, the amount of normal fire- / attacking-power you had to pump in is crazy!

I think, the best thing is, to shoot down / hack down the transport and ignore them. Kill the rest of the army and avoid them. Or feed some sacrifice termagants

[Laughingmonk]

Not that good. My normal Hive Tyrant have had this wargear. But with the brotherhood banner, the force weapons are auto-active. So, one successful wound and your big bug is dead (because of the lack of invul save).

And with 2+ / FnP, the amount of normal fire- / attacking-power you had to pump in is crazy!

I think, the best thing is, to shoot down / hack down the transport and ignore them. Kill the rest of the army and avoid them. Or feed some sacrifice termagants

I would probably choose genestealers to engage this unit. Or just volleys of impaler cannon rounds/HVC's.

[CthulhuDalek]

The issue with this plan is simple. Platforms for the weapons, 3 choices here.

1. Hive Tyrant, as you can see, his got splattered by terminators. Will almost always strike at I1 due to psyk-out grenades.
2. Prime, lacks the attacks and hitting power to make a decent dent in any units by himself, also instant death fodder when the enemy gets to swing back.
3. Warriors/Shrikes. Utterly unusable in any sort of competitive list, doubly so against GKs where they make a PERFECT target for their riflemen dreads and force weapons.

LW/BS isn't the solution really.

LW/BS Warrior... in a brood of termagants with toxin sacs?

[noobzilla]

Not that good. My normal Hive Tyrant have had this wargear. But with the brotherhood banner, the force weapons are auto-active. So, one successful wound and your big bug is dead (because of the lack of invul save).

You could try shooting the terms with enough stuff to drop them to only a few guys before assaulting. Since they'll all be I1, you hit on 3's with 5 attacks that ignore armor, you should average around 3 wounds which could get rid of the threat before they attack.

With a unit of 5, if you only kill 1 via shooting and then assault, suddenly there is only 1 guy left... what are the odds he is the brotherhood banner wielder? Not great. Even if he does auto-activate his last Force Weapon, he needs 4's to hit on 2 attacks, and a 6 to wound, that chance is .1667 which isn't very good.

[Carnage]

You could try shooting the terms with enough stuff to drop them to only a few guys before assaulting. Since they'll all be I1, you hit on 3's with 5 attacks that ignore armor, you should average around 3 wounds which could get rid of the threat before they attack.

With a unit of 5, if you only kill 1 via shooting and then assault, suddenly there is only 1 guy left... what are the odds he is the brotherhood banner wielder? Not great. Even if he does auto-activate his last Force Weapon, he needs 4's to hit on 2 attacks, and a 6 to wound, that chance is .1667 which isn't very good.

A unit of 5 has 10 wounds though. They also have a 4+ invul and S4/I4, or 5+ invul S4/I6 or 5+ invul and S8/I1. Also have the ability to boost that up to S5 or S10 if they can manage to get past SiTW.

3+ to hit, 2+ to wound averages 3 wounds...1.5 after a 4++ invul. If they have a warding staff they will take one of the saves on a 2++ invul and likely spread the other wounds out to other wound groups. Odds are you don't even see 1 dead paladin with a charging hive tyrant.

I wouldn't advise charging more then 2 paladins, which would mean you'd have to chip 6+ wounds off of them via shooting. Not easy when they have a 2+/4++ save. Of course it's all dependent on what gear they have. If it's JUST the banner bearer left, go for it, cause he doesn't even have a force weapon AFAIK.

My advice is a heap (15+)of toxin-genestealers under Old Adversary AFTER you've thinned them down/chipped away at them a bit.

[Ritesign]

I keep reading "after putting a few wounds on them, do this", or "once there are only a few left, do that".

I ran numbers on devourer termagants, and unless I'm missing something, they seem to do the trick. The key is making it a gunfight. I used the following assumptions:
4 Pals, 1 Apothecary = 295 pts
30 Devgants = 300pts
Pals get first shot due to extra range.
Gants are in 4+ cover half of the time, out in the open half of the time. (this didn't matter much)
As both units are slogging it out on foot, and gants have MTC, the pals never get into CC.
Whenever a fraction of wounds are caused, they are recorded. Pal models are only removed when a full 2 wounds have been dealt. Gants are removed when fractions have been dealt (so if gants receive 1.1 wounds, 2 gants die. If they receive 1.1 wounds again, for a total of 2.2, one more dies [for a total of 3]).

19 gants would survive this fight.

Moral of the story: break open their transport, run away. Ignore them completely if you can. Plink away at them if you must. The Swarmlord may be great in CC, but he's not an automatic pick for nids just because he's so avoidable.

I'm sure I've overlooked something. Any takers?

[Carnage]

I'm sure I've overlooked something. Any takers?

Other then the fact that it's a math hammer unit vs unit comparison? Yeah.

Termigants;
4+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 2+ to save, 4+ FnP
Estimated shots per wound = 48
Number of wounds = 10
Necessary shots = 480

Which is 5.33 turns of 30 guys firing. What are the odds they are going to get 5+ turns of firing off? Pretty much zero. 2 Volleys at full strength might even be rare. Also, don't forget that the paladins can drop a S5 large blast template up to 12" out i think (Holocaust?), and will probably have 2 psycannons, so only 2 storm bolters (4 shots, 3+ to hit, 3+to kill) then 8 psycannon shots (3+ to hit, 2+ to kill), then the large blast. I could see 8-10 dying every turn they manage to get a full volley off. So they would only need 3 turns to wipe the gants without combat, which would massively speed things up for them.

Terminators are going to be tasked with cracking MCs/warriors/HG etc, not termigants, but they will wipe the gants pretty much every time. What you need to fear is purifiers annihilating the 30 man squad in 1 round of shooting/HtH.

A decked paladin squad, likely supported by a character CANNOT BE BEATEN UNIT VS UNIT. They have to be whittled down and then crushed.

[Silent_Moebius]

After looking at our codex again and again, I really think, there are only two ways of surviving the paladins:

- avoid them
- shoot down the transport, then charge with Stealers / Ymgarls. Many Stealers / Ymgarls.

As their invul. save is their worsed save they have, put high Ini energy wounds on them. In my game, I should have had charged the paladins with both Ymgarls units, not only with one. Giving them only more attacks to get a better chance of rolling a 6 on wounding.

[Carnage]

Just wanted to bring up the Adepticon result for my Nid brothers;

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2011/...-and-anyalsis/

Top and only tyranid army in the top 16 was 11th overall out of 256 armies.

The following list is sorted by average race score across the 5(?) games. Format is; # of players for that race, then the race name, then how many points the average player had. Demonhunters did not use the new codex.

7 Eldar 23.571
3 Black Templars 23.333
29 Orks 23.103
8 Dark Eldar 22.500
37 Blood Angels 20.810
40 Space Wolves 20.750
13 Chaos Demons 20.000
3 Necrons 20
19 Chaos Space marines 19.210
29 Imp guard 18.793
13 Nids 17.307
5 Dark Angels 17
28 Space Marines 16.785
1 Demon hunters 10
5 Tau 8

Nids were 11th out of 15. Remember though, that Demonhunters just got a new codex, likely bumping us down to 12, and Tau are due one in the next year.

The top tyranid army was somewhat interesting.

1850 top Nid list;
Tervigon + toys
Tervigon + toys and crushing claws
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
3 Zoanthropes
20 Genestealers, naked
20 Genestealers, naked
15 Genestealers, naked
26 Gargoyles, adrenal glands

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on his list. Apparently he made the top 4 but got hammered by the imp guard player and ended up dropping in standing due to the beating he suffered at their hands.

[Vsurma]

I need some help here, and forgive me if this has been talked about before. Am I crazy in thinking that pyrovores are not as bad as everyone is convinced they are?

My reasoning is that, although on paper they suck, if you use them knowing they will get wiped the next turn you can make a very affective return on your points. Acid blood, and I may be misreading the rules here, is obscenely under-rated. If you drop a suicide squad of pyrovores down next to a melee heavy unit, lets say ork boys, they arrive and heavy flame them three times. By itself is only so-so, but if you can count on them being charged the next round their acid blood and initiative of 1 becomes a huge boon. Average melee mob will probably put 10 or so wounds on these guys, each one forcing initiative checks for instant wounds. Combine that with the high chance of exploding, and i feel like you can effectively weaken any mob to the point of being shot down next turn.

What have i got wrong here? since clearly the internet is always right.
(also, this is my first post so go easy on me)

The first 3 elite slots are reserved for antitank units. It doesn't matter how awesome the pyrovores are (they aren't), you just can't afford to drop antitank units in order to take more anti infantry units in an army that already kills infantry really well with every unit.

Your elites should be
Hive Guard, zoans, more hive guard.... more zoans.... more hive guard....

Add to this that pyrovores actually aren't good, you can never guarantee they will be charged. Cool models, wrong slot.

[Archibald_TK]

The top tyranid army was somewhat interesting.

1850 top Nid list;
Tervigon + toys
Tervigon + toys and crushing claws
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
3 Zoanthropes
20 Genestealers, naked
20 Genestealers, naked
15 Genestealers, naked
26 Gargoyles, adrenal glands

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on his list. Apparently he made the top 4 but got hammered by the imp guard player and ended up dropping in standing due to the beating he suffered at their hands.

Also saw the list but I have yet to read battle reports on how he played it. I had lost faith in Genestealers but now I admit it's not the first tournament where a Tyranid ends up well placed by going huge mass of naked Stealers.

The only thing I fear is if the list rely more on infiltration than outflanking, as GK Servo-skulls spam is the ultimate cheapest infiltration stopper. Hell, SW are already a pain with their Chooser of the Slain despite having only one or two, so with 6 of them...

[noobzilla]

A unit of 5 has 10 wounds though. They also have a 4+ invul and S4/I4, or 5+ invul S4/I6 or 5+ invul and S8/I1. Also have the ability to boost that up to S5 or S10 if they can manage to get past SiTW.

I was talking about a unit of Terminators not Paladins... but if you were referring to Paladins, I could see where my idea has a flaw :P

[Frankly]

What are peeps taking to tournament these days?

I'm wondering if 2 x Tyrants, 4 x tervigons is to much support/buffing in 1750pts.

[Bestaltan]

Well, I've been having great success taking my all reserve lists to tournaments, though with the new GK codex, even those may be a thing of the past.

[Cosmic_Girl]

Hi guys,

GKs aren't an easy match up with their anti-swarm psychics and insta-death anti-MC weapons, but they're by no means unbeatable.

Problem units: Purifiers, Paladins/Terminators, Rifleman Dreads, Dreadknights.

First let me start by saying that I think the inherrant lack of armour in typical GK forces will be an issue vs nids. They can't tank shock Tervigons and their attendant Gaunt screens off objectives, which means their only other recourse is to purifier rush them and flame them out of the way and that's only really an issue until your Hive Guard can take out their Rhinos. Even if they get there you can screen the bigger Gaunt units with smaller sacrificial ones created by the Tervigon. Once the Purifiers get through the chaff, just mob them with the large units of Gaunts.

Bear in mind that the Purifiers are only Ld 9 and they're going to be under SiTW so its a pretty big IF to assume that their Cleansing Flame powers will reliably work, thus slowing them down considerably and possibly exposing them to perils in the meantime. If things start to go awry, you can always throw the Tervigon into the mix. The Gaunts engaging the majority of the purifiers will limit the number of attacks that can be directed at the Tervigon and again SiTW will stop them from reliably activating their force weapons, even so the odds of them actually pushing a 6+ ID wound through to kill of the Tervigon is slim and it'll be mowing them down, plus it has catalyst to shield it from combat res wounds. Sure you lose a Gaunt unit or two, but I'd happily make that trade to cripple or wipe out a purifier unit.

Riflemen Dreads are going to be a problem, especially if they sit in the back rank blazing away the whole game, since they aren't likely to advance in order to be tarpitted, but given that the common config is likely going to be two twin-autocannons with psybolt ammo, it actually doesn't worry nids all that much, especially if you spread catalyst around wisely and don't have too many toughness 4 multi-wound creatures.

Similarly Dreadknights should be tarpitted with something cheap and numerous, since it has no anti-swarm combat useable psy-powers to dig its way out, only has 3 attacks and the numerically challenged GKs aren't likely to have many supporting units to hand. If you really want to take them out then Stealers are a safe bet, especially if you have a broodlord to lock it down while the stealers take it apart, which they should manage in 1 or 2 combat phases for very few return casualties.

Honestly, the only really worrying thing IMO is Paladins, since there is no good answer to them. I guess the thing to remember is that they're highly pts prohibitive with an Apothecary. Once you've taken out their land raider with Zoeys, if they have one, task the Hive Guard with spamming strength 8 shots onto them since this neutralises all their defensive abilities, such as invulnerable save, FNP, multi-wounds and wound allocation. Each one that goes down to ID is a big hit to the unit's subsequent survivability and effectiveness and represents a large pts investment to the GK player. Also remember that since GKs aren't likely to have a lot of armour, your Hive Guard won't have much else to do but rain fire on high value units like Paladins.

All in all, I don't think GK's are the worst match up for nids by far, sure they have nasty toys and have some good anti-nid abilities, but I don't believe there's such a thing as an unwinnable match-up. Every problem has a solution.

C-girl.

PS: GK Terminators have the same answer that all Terminators have, drown them in wounds.