Lately, I have been getting a lot of comments, concerns, and feedback on my recent focus on my Grey Knight hobby army and how it relates to my previous focus on Tyranids.
I'm currently having a lot of fun with Grey Knights, just like I had a lot of fun with Tyranids over the past year. They're more mobile, survivable, and can actually kill things with shooting. It's also nice to play an army that doesn't run out of time all the time. It also won't be the last army I enjoy. I eagerly await the Tau and Chaos releases and the changes 6th ed will bring.
I still carry a torch for the bugs, but every new codex outshines them with fun factor and interesting new mechanics. It's hard to get excited about furious charge and poison when they release a new book like Necrons with 20 new and unique mechanics. There is one thing that excites me still about Nids, repainting my entire army haha!
Yes, I'm serious. I've been playing with an airbrush on my GKs and it's fast and fun compared to some of the outdated techniques I used when I originally painted the army. It's also killing me; the amount of comments like "I can't believe how good your Grey Knights came out compared to your Nids". So I came up with this crazy idea: strip the bugs and airbrush them from scratch using blues and purples of the original Nid artwork, before there were different hive fleets. A sort of blending of old school colors with new models.
Anyways, there are a lot of factors in play right now and only a few combinations will allow me to do this. I have a baby due in 2 months so mu hobby funds are nearly non-existent. ATC 2012 is still 9 months away and I haven't heard if DaBoyz are going yet or if I will be on the team. If both of those things happen, I will probably be rolling any tournament winnings up into more GKs for a competitive list or a new Tau army. If I don't make the team and don't bring home any tournament winnings over the next several months, I will take another look at my Nids and move forward with repainting them.
This blog will progress as a hobby blog instead of focused on Nids. I know this will upset a lot of you, probably most, but I just can't continue with the one army that doesn't come close to its newly released peers in terms of complexity and enjoyment. I appreciate any that will continue to read and follow and promise to keep bringing colorful battle reports and hobby articles.
On the bright side, if any of the rumors about movement and deep strike in 6th ed are true, Nids may see a huge power boost and I'll be coming back strong with them.
There's neat unique stuff you can do with bugasaurs that you can't do with other armies. I'm not talking about Tervigons, but about stuff like Mycetic Spores, Harpies, and other unpopular units.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I figured out a neat trick with Ripper Swarm Broods. You take a basic brood about 5-6 swarms strong, and make them a Tunnel Swarm. Then you Deep Strike them onto objectives, particularly if your opponent has decided to be clever and put them in cover. At most each swarm can take one wound from dangerous terrain.
They don't take Instinctive Behaviour on the turn they arrive, or when they are locked in combat, or if they go to ground. And if they go to ground in cover, then they get a Cv2+ from Stealth and Go to Ground.
No objectives? They can provide cover for non-monstrous creatures more efficiently than Termagants, and with Stealth can have Cv4+ from Venomthropes while providing those Venomthropes with Cv4+.
Similarly you can use Gargoyles to surround transport vehicles, to cut off emergency disembarkation (thanks to 30mm bases and Jump Infantry), and then use Brainworm Devourers or Venom Cannons to wreck it, killing two units much more easily than fighting them individually. With Adrenal Glands the Gargoyles can also charge in and finish the transport off if everything else fails.
I think the trick with Tyranids is to hold off trying to squish everything into one army, meaning that there's a wide variety of effective builds that can be produced from one army.
I keep finding new stuff, which is good for my enjoyment of the army, and bad for my pocket-book...
I gave Purgatus at Best Overall some crap about making his blog not about Tyranids a while back and it was unwarranted. I feel bad because I then started a Mantis Warriors army to do Badab War this spring.
ReplyDeleteI can understand the feeling of remorse when not blogging about Tyranids. They're so cool, such a great fluff piece, and the models are great. Tyranid armies are just so much different from marines.
Unfortunately they haven't been supported. Ignoring the codex being a mess, models haven't been released! I don't really care if the rumors are true about Chapterhouse - there is no excuse for no Tervigon, Tyrannofex, Harpy, etc etc.
Ultimately, you can only blog so much about one army.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of what that army is, it will eventually get boring to write about. I have been playing my bike list for a solid year now and I am even looking at playing a different army because I have reached the point where I can no longer play casual games against people because they think I am "that guy". I am still going to take them to tournaments and what not, but I would like to really start working on my Grey Knights (an army which I have had for 10 years now) and my Tau as they need some love to play in this new edition.
I have very much enjoyed your blog while it was about Tyranids and I got alot of usefull stuff from it. Hell for me it was the best Nid blog out there and I visit daily to see if there are updates.
ReplyDeleteThe move to GK's was a disapointment personaly but it is completely understandable. Tyranids are so lacking compared to all the new stuff that arrives and even compared to some older dexes. Having to play similar lists all the time, not much variety of units and having your ass handed to you by lesser skilled players with shinny codexes really takes it's toll. The fact that GW ignores Tyranids just makes it worse.
It's your blog, your time,effort and there ain't no fun in working on something your heart isn't into so I wish you all the best and good luck with the next project!
Thanks for the support guys. TBH, some of the comments and emails had me ready to retire the blog alltogether. We are lucky to have a hobby to be passionate about and unlucky that some of our peers are passionate about propagating hate within the hobby.
ReplyDeleteI understand that GW doesn't design every codex with balance as a top priority, but don't spend your personal time and energy trying to make other hobbyists feel bad for choices they make on how to spend their own money and time.
Keeping with the honesty theme going on with your post and the comments bud let me add that I respect the fact that you are still in the hobby and 40K specifically. Seeing the constant cycle that is the codex and rulebook releases I haven't done anything with my 40k armies since last December so it is closing in on a year. My Nids and Black Templars continue to just sit on the shelf and some even still in boxes.
ReplyDeleteI have stayed in the hobby but have since switched to another gaming system. I certainly haven't written off 40k and will be keeping my armies around to dive back in eventually. But we all need change from time to time whether that is a new army or a new game.
Keep doing whatever you have fun with man and here is an early congrats on the hopeful health addition to your family!
So... No more Tyranids? So you go GK all the way because they have better chance of winning? It makes sense... but...
ReplyDeleteNow I'm depressed...
Also People at The Tyranid Hive, have begun selling their armies.
I guess the only way to cure my new depression is to listen to some Bob marley songs while I force my Hive Fleet to never surrender.
I care little to nothing about the Grey Knights. So I guess it really doesn't make any sense for me to stay on this blog anymore. Will probably return the day you pick up tyranids again.
Until then...
Thanks.
Thanks for an awesome blog.
oh... And an early congratulations with the arrival of the new member of your family :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LanCLS_hIo4&feature=related
A bit off actually. Winning isn't required to have fun but losing is often associated with not having fun. I have fun every time I lose to a better player, but not when it is because of codex imbalance.
ReplyDeleteDE and GK both shafted Nids pretty bad. It's funny actually, GK are supposed to hunt daemons which all have eternal warrior and invulns. Nids have no models with EW and only 2 out of the whole codex with invulns. Daemon hunters or nid kickers?
Add to that 2/3 missions have objectives. Every tank in the game can push nid scoring units off their objective and we have the worst anti-tank shooting in the game.
So there's where it stopped being fun for me and the people on TTH who are selling out.
That's not where the story ends though. Like I said in my post about Necrons, I think they will spark a change in the meta that will actually give nids a boost that may carry through to 6th edition. They seem built to fight MSU mech. You can already find battle reports all over the internet with crons crushing DE and SW.
If some of the 6th ed rumors prove to be true, we may see the power pendulum swing away from mech spam and bring another needed boost to bugs and foot armies in general.
Believe it or not, my army builder has been set on tyranids ever since necrons hit the stores. Next month is the Millennium Games 40k invitational and I would love to bring out the bugs and see what they can do to necrons.