Response to the Tyranid update

aurynn wrote:

But... Venomthropes... first thing you need to kill. Clever nid player will use them to give 2+ cover to everything he has.

Whilst I agree that it's best to kill the venomthropes first, how is every nid getting 2+ cover? Is there that much 4+ terrain around that he can hide his entire army in it?   

aurynn wrote:

Incubi, Beasts, Hellions... IMHO unusable against Nids. Wyches will die under the overwhelming number of (usually poisoned - rerolling) hits. Talos is great against non-poison nids.

The others I understand, but why Hellions? They seem like a decent harassment unit - fast, good number of poison shots, hit and run (if something catches them) and can jump over terrain.

aurynn wrote:

You will be tempted to take Dissies. I would not recommend it. Lances, Agonisers, Poison are your best pals.

Lances are nice for a lot of things, and are also the best choice if you're making an all-comers army.

What about the Huskblade? You're reliant on 6s, but if it wounds it basically insta-kills anything in the nid army (and they have a lot of multi-wound models). Also, this seems like an army where the Huskblade + Soultrap combination could be devastating.

aurynn wrote:

So... you will need 36 poison shots for 1 Venomthorpe with 2+ cover... 24 hits, 12 wounds, 2 unsaved. I would suggest reading Thor665's guide on targeting priority. It is especially true for the new nids.

Do you think it's worth firing some lances at the venomthrope (instead of poison) and hoping he fails a cover save?

aurynn wrote:

Psykers - the FNP they have is ugly, coz it targets the psyker AND another unit. Warp Blast is the same, other powers are mostly irrelevant as we are usually in transports.

Well, they can't pod in any more, so I'm less concerned about warp blast.

FNP is a pain (lol), but it's only 1/6 chance they get it. So, hopefully not too bad (and, if one psyker gets it, that just helps your target priority   ).

aurynn wrote:

Going for another game tomorrow with a better build. Still not comp though and without a Flyer. I will wait until the nids get a flyer themselves before fielding mine. :-)

Well, let us know how it goes, good luck.

Our last battle was sort of ruined cityscape, so yea... almost everything had 2+. Anyway 3+ is 100% better, but there are so many things on the board that it actually makes little difference. The MCs are usually away hunting, so they rely just on their T6 3+, maximum FNP from psychic powers.

As for lances on Venomthropes. I have to admit that one of the Venomthropes died to my 4 blasterborn. While having 2+ cover. One lucky salvo and poof! But statistically you need... 1 unsaved wound, which means 6 wounds, 7.2 hits, 10.8 shots? On 3+ cover its 5.4 shots against 18 poison shots? It really depends... But since the statistics logically favour quantity over quality, I guess that Lances are better spent on the biggies.

Hmmm... maybe you are onto something with Hellions... Need to buy some! :-D

Huskblade: I used it only few times to dismal results so I honestly don't know how effective you can make it. Its all down to playstyle I run AgoniArchons. But for the first soultrap I would bring the MC down to 1 wound with poison before trying to kill it.

FNP spell - they have a lot of psykers in the army. I played against Tervigon, Flyrant and Zoans. Much higher chance of getting FNP than 1/6 usually.

As for pods: I read on Faeit that they will be getting Mycetic Spores or equivalent through Forgeworld update.

Will let you know definitely. I am bringing 3x Liqui Haemi in raiders, each with 9 warriors. That should make them pause. However I am building a sort of friendly TAC list with 16 lances, so nothing tailored as my opponent's lists are limited by models they have. Well... thinking about the 3x3 bikes with Blasters and Agonichamp... that IS a bit of Tailoring, although I guess this is very justifiable considering the Riptides, MEQ, WK meta... what do you think?

aurynn wrote:

As for lances on Venomthropes. I have to admit that one of the Venomthropes died to my 4 blasterborn. While having 2+ cover. One lucky salvo and poof! But statistically you need... 1 unsaved wound, which means 6 wounds, 7.2 hits, 10.8 shots? On 3+ cover its 5.4 shots against 18 poison shots? It really depends... But since the statistics logically favour quantity over quality, I guess that Lances are better spent on the biggies.

You might be right, although if the big MCs have 2+ cover as well, AP2 won't count for much anyway. I guess either way it depends on how confident you are about taking down the venomthrope.

aurynn wrote:

Huskblade: I used it only few times to dismal results so I honestly don't know how effective you can make it. Its all down to playstyle I run AgoniArchons. But for the first soultrap I would bring the MC down to 1 wound with poison before trying to kill it.

Out of interest, why?

I mean, the Huskblade insta-kills any nid MC it wounds (no EW and only the Swarmlord has an invulnerable save), so isn't using it on a 1-wound MC a bit of a waste?

That would be tailoring IMHO. As I dont use husktrap for my other matches, I would not be feeling comfortable using it against the army that is  mostly defenceless against it for reasons you mentioned. And also you should see my luck with dice... Anyhow from 7A on charge, you hit 4.66, so there is not very high chance of actually one-shotting the MC. Not mentioning that if you do, you are in the open for shooting...

EDIT: you are right, bringing it down to 1W does not make any sense. I guess I was overthinking.

Well another game passed and new experience gained. I will put it in points.

1. 3x3 reavers with 3 Agonichamps and blasters are extremely powerful against T6 W6 AS3+ MCs. Shoot it with blasters with a good chance of taking 2 wounds and 3 champs will hit 8 times and give 4 wounds on average. However careful positioning is needed. As this will leave them in the open for shooting. Mawlocs will hate this combo...

2. Lances are good for the big ones although not one from my total of about 20 shots managed to wound anything. But that is luck...

3. Kill the synapse. Kill the synapse, and kill it once more until its dead. Start with venomthrope though.

4. LiquiHaemi and 9 warriors in a raider is extremely powerful. I recommend operating in threes.  Or maybe better - Talos+ raider. Also the FNP helps on troops.

5. Move your vehicles every time. Not only for Jink, but to cancel the autohits when they assault the vehicle.

6. Genestealers are good in opening our bawxes with many rending attacks and infiltrate.

7. Shattershard can be very deadly. Especially if you can get multie T6 W6 under it. Need to read through our other artifacts to see if there is something else that  can be used.

8. Razorwings seem tempting. You can easily kill 30 gaunts with the rockets. Question is if 150 pts worth of gaunts is worth it, but I guess that applying 4 large S6 blasts where they are needed is worth something.

Shattershard, and I'd be tempted to try Crucible of Malediction to make psykers scream. Bringing a couple hexrifles to my next match vs 'Nids, will let you know how those go.

Razorwing served me fantastically. Grounded his Hive Crone with 2 wounds, next turn blasted ~half his 30 unit of gants. Last turn took out another 8 gants and put a couple hits on a Tervigon.

Should have my bat rep of my previous match vs the space bugs up tonight, if anyone is interested.

Well with the LD 10 on psykers the crucible does not seem worthwhile to me... i would buy more liquis. :-)

Hexrifle spam might be interesting too... however I think that you need 16 shots to kill 1 MC?

Agreed, I don't plan on trying the crucible. But the poster on the other page was asking about options to hurt them, and that's one of 'em.

As for the hexrifle, you're probably right. That's why I'm bringing 1, maybe 2. Hope he gets a couple unlucky rolls, 'cause ID at 36" is hilarious.

As for liquefiers, S4 vs MCs doesn't do diddly either.

Laughingcarp wrote:

As for liquefiers, S4 vs MCs doesn't do diddly either.

Sure it does not. :-) Poison and moar poison... and some S8 AP2 stuff... 90 poison shots (easily achievable) 60 hits, 30 wounds, 10 unsaved + some lances... 2 MCs Dead T1.

I think best target priority is:

Poison - Synapse MC with max. 3+ cover, if everything has 2+ kill Venomthropes, Flyrants first (on the ground), High S shooting (Carnifex, Tyrannofex, Zoans) as they will be in cover or in case of Zoans have 3+ invul.

Lances go after anything outside of cover or Venomthropes first (going for ID).

Poison does not care if it shoots against 3+ AS or 3+ Cover.

Take advantage of Synaptic Backlash on Tervigons.

Unfortunatelly... this makes our assault (or short-range) lists very sub-par compared to long-range shooty... :-(

Just for lolz... I found a thread on Warseer where someone recommends taking 60 SM scouts... with sniper rifles... ;-) Eldar Rangers anyone? :-D

There may be some disgruntled Tyranid players out there. In my whole experience of 1 game, as of today, I have a win!! My son has always liked the bugs so I just got a cheap army off the net, from the aforementioned disgruntled players union.
It was impressive under the new dex! We have just disgorged Typhus and his' zombies, a predator and 10 plague marines in an 850 point bash. It was against a fellow that said we were both poor strategists and constantly reminded us we had no chance of winning.
Now I don't know about you all out there, but at the top of turn 2, I would probably not take my 10 Plague marines and think that charging 20 genestealers head on is a good idea. However, I am the "poor strategist" here so allow me to head scratch the sanity of said move.....

Nup... Still don't get it! Lost 7 marines before he could hit.

The Helldrake was ignored from the relative safety of the CC we quickly swept into with the rest of the little uns and we just focused on the mission type- purge the alien- and got it 5-zip.
We had 1 monstrous creature. The HT.
Opponent killed nothing (in its entirety, which is what gets the points). So, my opinion may count for little here, but I think the nids can certainly compete when swarmed to overwhelm!!

If I may turn it into a joke (maybe bad one, but it amused me a bit), I would say that you might be a bad strategist, but you obviously handled the TACTICAL part pretty well. :-) Your opponent should have a look in a dictionary... :-)

On the other hand Nurglites seem like a very good matchup for Nids. Low wound count, expensive and few units and not exactly an impressive firepower. And high T and Saves can keep you up only for so long especially with poison attacks on swarms.

HA!! I put the ACT in tactical. Oh and your post reminded me about that poison vignette in the nid dex! Ah well, in another list, some other time, for another nidventure.

As many people have already stated, I think our biggest counter against 'Nids will be our poisoned weapons. Armies that rely on high toughness, are very vulnerable to poisoned weapons.