Tyranid 2010 Tactica Discussion

[MajorCorruption]

I think the phrase "down the drain" is a bit harsh. I mean you still have two tyrants. And I think a better idea is not to have anything walking...

[tricker53]

i didnt miss that, thats exactly what i said.

but ive also said i have utmost confidence that the tyranid FAQ will deny that hive commanders stack, just like how +1 reserves (and the -1 to reserves for the opponent) dont stack in the IG codex, after the FAQ.

[MajorCorruption]

Ya, sorry about that, I posted a bit late. I did edit it however. And while they FAQ in the guard book doesn't let them stack, they still stack in the eldar codex.

[Shadowfax]

No, you should however stop interpreting my post and just read them.

Have you found anything good in the new codex yet?

However ant pile should have been ant bed and that is a regional thing(ant bed) but people seem to like the tactic.

All reading is interpretation.

[The Custodian]

i didnt miss that, thats exactly what i said.

but ive also said i have utmost confidence that the tyranid FAQ will deny that hive commanders stack, just like how +1 reserves (and the -1 to reserves for the opponent) dont stack in the IG codex, after the FAQ.

Yet eldar Autarchs can stack...

Also I wonder if cruddace would make the same mistake twice... SO i think it can go either way...

[tricker53]

Eldar Autarchs are in a codex written by Phil Kelly. anything can happen.

[HFLep]

CSMs get 18 attacks (well assume champion with power weapon) + 3 power weapon attacks. 12 hits + 2 power weapon hits, 8 wounds + 1 power weapon kill, and 7 more die, so 8 dead. then the hormies get 51 attacks, scarily enough 30 hit, 22 wound, 7 CSMs die. but the hormies still lose combat by 1, which means a failed test if not in synapse range, or another hormie dying from no retreat if they are in synapse range. also this assumes that same CSM unit didnt rapid fire you last turn, or atleast just fire at over 12", which would lead to you losing even more models.

Your math is off here. The 51 attacks would yield 25 or so hits. That yields about 12 wounds, or about 4 dead marines, not 7. Which means the gaunts then take the other 4 wounds. Total losses to the hormogaunts: 12. Losses to the CS Marines: 4. The marines would eventually win, statisctically. And that's a 80 point difference in costs, too. It gets even worse against Orks or dedicated HtH troops.

If you assumed that the Tyrant had the old adversary rule and helped with the re-roll, it'd bump the numbers a bit to 6 CSM dead, which may be viable. But then you are stuck babysitting your hormogaunts with the Tyrant within 6" of them during an assault. I know this is almost impossible to pull off without the Tyrant himself assaulting.

Now, I know you can do funny stuff with paroxysm, but that only helps so far. It reduces the number of hormogaunts killed to 4, and at that point it's an even fight. But to use it, you'd need to have the Tyrant within 12" of the enemy, which isn't exactly an easy trick.

[tricker53]

hormagaunts have scything talons, which lets them reroll 1s to hit. also these guys are getting 4+ with rerolls to wound, from furious charge + toxin sacs. my math is never off.

[dangermouse425]

Without trying to sound like a GCSE examiner:

2 Lictors or 1 Deathleaper? Discuss.

[HFLep]

hormagaunts have scything talons, which lets them reroll 1s to hit. also these guys are getting 4+ with rerolls to wound, from furious charge + toxin sacs. my math is never off.

Ah, I forgot about the talons. Maybe it's not quite so bad then. And one could drop the adrenal glands since they're superfluous . . . I mean, the hormagaunts have a base initiative of 5, and toxin sacs mean they'll wound anything on 4+. Which means that the best configuration would be 8 rather than 10 points.

It's still not ideal, but I could see this working.

[Cosmic_Girl]

Hi,

I have played 5 games under the new codex so far with various builds. This is what I've come up with so far:

Tyrants - A few interesting changes to the Tyrant I think winged or armoured Tyrants aren't viable in anything under 1750 because they're simply too points intensive. I've been running my Tyrants naked (other than "Hive Commander") with "Paroxysm" (which is incredible) and "Horror" in concert with 20 naked Hormagaunts. I get past the no assault grenade issue on the gaunts by hitting the defenders with paroxsym first, which pulls the teeth out of their charge reaction and of course the Tyrant itself has a whip which solves the problem for him. Since I run mine with Hormagaunts he's running most of the time in which case the expensivish ranged weapon upgrades are of little use on the BS 3 Tyrant.

Tyranid Prime - for 95 pts with Bonesword/whip combo he's an incredible buy and he shields warrior squads from the brunt of strength 8 weaponry (you allocate the strength 8 wounds to him which then don't inflict instant death. In all respects he's a Space Marine captain which gives a lot of hitting power to any unit. The +1 BS on the warrior squads is also really useful on a decent size outflank warrior squad with devourers and a venom cannon into side armour, gives you a great way to deal with those pesky whirlwinds/gryphons etc...

Tyrant Guard - no gaming experience with them yet, but for the pts hike I think they're underpowered. Tyrants will be a high priority target for most players now with the new nid psy powers and their increased combat stats, but 60 pts to add another 2 wounds? at 120 pts for 2, which gives you the same wounds (2x2 Guard or 1x4 Tyrant) you may as well buy ANOTHER tyrant for 50 pts more and get a second set of free psychic powers and alot more hitting power.

Tervigons - I think Bell of Lost souls came up with some horde/nidzilla hybrid army as their expected meta game list for the new nid codex. The game I played today I ran 2 Tervigons as troops (scoring monstrous creatures) and 2 20 man units of Termagaunts. One of the Tervigon/Termagant strike forces was backed up with a venomthrope (for the incredible passive benefits) who hid behind the 6 wounds monster the whole game. I had a lot of success with them. Being able to produce new scoring units that can come down 6" away and then move, shoot and assault adds a whole new element to the Nid troops choices.

Rememebr also that if they're taken as a troops choice the "Hive Commander" special rule allows them to outflank, which gives you a scoring, monstrous synapse node in their deployment zone. I basically used mine as a hidden powerfist for my gaunts who soaked up the wounds by tying up the p-fist while he ate the squad from the other end. Running the numbers quickly, I got about 300 pts worth of free gaunts from the pair collectively, so I was effectively playing 2050 vs my opponents 1750. Giving him a walking 5+ cover save in the form of the Venomthrope saved mine from a lot of punishment as well. Having played a few games with them I'd have to agree with the Bell, that Tervigons will probably feature heavily in the Tyranid metagame.

Elites

Hive Guard - again no experience yet, but I get the feeling that they would have been a power unit if you can find a way to exploit side armour. That being said the inablility to buy landing spores or be made a troops choice and thus outflanking hurts their applicability. Holding them in reserve for use in conjunction with a Trygon's tunnel costs you turn 1 and perhaps turn 2 shooting, in which time a unit like a whirlwind can do a lot of harm to you. But they are a good way to stop light transport such as rhinos from going where they're going.

Lictors - a much improved choice, with a pts decrease and the marker beacon rule they now have, but since they must ALWAYS start in reserve, their bonuses are less useful than they seem since they must already be in play for them to apply that turn. All in all if you're trying for the reserve tyranid army, better to use Hive Commander. Lictors are still not rock combat units by any means. With the changes to scything talons they have been made a little better, but they're still not going to take down whole units on their own, so far from supporting units.

Essentially its a harrass marker beacon that stops something from shooting until something big like a trygon shows up. Because of that I personally wouldn't use any more than one of them since RAW their pheremone trail doesn't stack. The only reason you would take more than one is in multiple units so that at least one of them shows up on turn 2 and confers the reserves bonuses ASAP. That said, Deathleaper is a nice choice for psyker lockdown since he imposes a -D3 Ld modifier to an IC of your choice. That combined with widespread "shadow in the warp" will make it very difficult for enemy psykers to get their powers off. His re-deep strike ability has won me a game by taking last turn then contesting an objective by showing up automatically in the following (and final) turn within 1" of an enemy held objective. Thanks to his "its after me" special rule I also managed to break a warboss and biker unit and run them down.

[Souleater]

Deathleaper.

He can be used to hinder enemy psykers even before he hits the board.

He is much harder to shoot to bits which I think it critical. The two normal Lictors are going to have to spend a turn standing around looking pretty before they assault which may mean they get shot up.

They can deploy in cover if there is cover near enough to the target, of course.

@ Cosmicgirl: Some very good points, thank you.

I do wonder considering just how good and useful the TopsyTervigon is how long it will be before GW release a kit for it (Battle Missions maybe?) The could sell a boatload of such kits. ATM I think many people will be ripping up their fexes to make them.

[HFLep]

I've been running some thought experiments for the army I want to play, and I was curious if there's anything preventing one from attaching Tyranid Prime to whatever unit you wanted. In particular, I was thinking of attaching him to my Tyrant and his retinue. This would create a unit similar to the orc biker mob, though not quite as big. You'd have four or five models, of which two are unique, to split wounds between. The shooting wounds would be against toughness 6, giving the Tyranid Prime even more protection, and if you outfit him with a pair of boneswords and the guard with lash whips, you would have an absolutely killer unit that would be almost guaranteed to kill any model without the eternal warrior special rule.

It's a bit expensive, but the whole thing together would come in at around 500 points. (Tyrant+2 guard with whips+Tyranid prime with boneswords and toxin sacs). If you buy the Tyrant the Old Adversary upgrade and the paroxysm psychic power, the unit becomes an absolute murder machine in close combat.

[sayles78]

Yes, young grasshoper( dont get all mad), but quicker is not always better, you must give your walkers time to get there so they can help.

Glimmer Man?

[meanmachine]

Here's what I'm thinking:

Zoanthropes: BS4 S10 AP1 Lance? Sure, you pretty much need a brood unless you know you won't be facing anything with a high AV. Given the speed and range it's worth podding the brood in.

really are zoanthropes now BS4

[Cosmic_Girl]

Venomthrope - really super useful with Tervigons/Termagaunts. Hide them behind the tervigon and march them up. Not much to them really, at 55 pts they combo well with the key element to probably the best build in the codex.

zoanthropes - I can't say enough about how good these have become, 2 in a landing spore for 160 pts, gives you very serious anti-tank where you need it. The only problem is getting it in early enough and avoiding the counter assault. Hive Commander once again helps here, but it'd be nice if you could get it to a 2+ reserve roll on turn 2. Things like Thundershield bearing land raiders are nice to hamstring early, so they can eat massed fleshborer/devourer fire and then take the charge from 20 hormagaunts after paroxysm nerfs them quick as long as you can get them out of the land raider.

Once and for all I'll do the math on a single zoan vs a single LR out of cover.

Ld10 on 2D6 91.7% chance of passing
BS 4 = 61.1% hits
(for the last time IT IS A LANCE WEAPON) thus 3+ to penetrate = 40.8% penetrating hits
(AP 1 = +1 to damage table thus 4+ to destroy) so 20.4% to destroy (+ another 1.7% chance to destroy on the glancing hits) for a total of 22.1% chance to destroy a land raider. Obviously 2 zoanthropes will double the chances to 44.2% and a third will add another 22.1% for a total of 66.3%.

Very very effective anti-tank, especially against an armoured fire base like a lemen russ squadron that tries to flank you (courtesy of Creed). Since the squadron can't assault you to prevent the next round's warp lancing and is unlikely to finish off both zoanthropes with firepower alone. The only thing you have to worry about is effective psychic lockdown like wolves running multiple rune priests or stones of warding (remembering that enemy librarians should be at -D3 LD if you're running deathleaper, so most of their psy hoods should be nerfed.

Pyrovore - no experience with this unit yet, but a heavy flamer model is going to get close to the target and with only 1 attack each at 45 pts a piece, the numbers speak for themselves.

Ymgarl Stealers - haven't used these yet, but they seem very strong, if a little expensive. Bearing in mind that normal stealers are a fair bit cheaper, have access to the broodlord upgrade and are scoring its hard to justify the elites version in my mind. Also most things can be killed quite easily with normal stealers anyway, and with infiltrate AND fleet I don' think the "hibernate" special rule is that useful by comparison.

[sayles78]

I'm liking the idea of starting with a Mawloc on the table, having a trygon in reserve. You can burrow the Mawloc on 1st turn, come up on 2nd turn and have a 2/3 chance of the Trygon appearing at the same time (if you have a Tyrant with Hive commander). This seems a better tactic than keeping both in reserve - assuming of course you are running all 3 of them.

Some fexes running at full speed, and a brood of outflanking devilgaunts to back them up sounds a very viable tactic, even with the price hike on fexes. If the army turns it's attention to the 2 TMC that have just DS'd into their lines, they'll be less to shoot at brood of fexes and Tyrnats and warriors etc, which should reach enemy lines turn 3.

[Volandum]

Obviously 2 zoanthropes will double the chances to 44.2% and a third will add another 22.1% for a total of 66.3%.

Not quite. About 39.3 for 2 and 52.7 for 3 - so roughly half chance with 3. Fortunately for computation the LR has too many weapons for 3 hits to kill it without destroyed results.

[dangermouse425]

What takes precedent, a lash whip (enemies strike at I1) or a howling banshee mask (banshees strike at I10)?

[azimaith]

Ah, I forgot about the talons. Maybe it's not quite so bad then. And one could drop the adrenal glands since they're superfluous . . . I mean, the hormagaunts have a base initiative of 5, and toxin sacs mean they'll wound anything on 4+. Which means that the best configuration would be 8 rather than 10 points.

It's still not ideal, but I could see this working.

You take furious charge for the strength bonus, not the init.
S4 hormagaunts against t4 models when hormagaunts have poison results in the hormgaunts re-rolling all failed wounds which massively increases their ability to kill the living hell out of anything t4.

IE charge 20 gaunts into 10 marines you get 60 attacks, 30 hits+2-3 more hits from re-rolls from talons. then you get around 16 wounds+8 more wounds from re-rolls=24 wounds. 24 wounds to save is something like 8 dead marines. Throw in a little bit of support like the WS dropping psychic power (3+ hits) or (and!) the preferred enemy buff and they'll tear the squad apart on the charge before they can even swing.