These days, the main reason I don't bring out the tyranids much is that they just don't look as good on the table as my other armies. The second reason is the hard line GW took in denying them the perks of 6th edition found in allies and gun emplacements. Last week, I took them to our local tournament and had a lot of fun with them, restoring a spark of interest. Looking forward, I realistically won't be able to attend a tournament until mid April as I work in an industry that relies on Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter to carry us through the rest of the year. That big chunk of time combined with my renewed drive to play with bugs, and a new Grex airbrush my amazing wife treated me to, has me really tempted to tackle my repaint project.
Another factor that has plagued my tyranid adventure is the local support of the "comp" camp. DaBoyz rule the local scene and have been the pillar of pro-comp in America. Recently though, they ran their annual GT without comp scoring. In addition, the invitational tournament this month also featured forced-ranked comp scoring yet by my count, well over half of the players brought special/unique characters and more of those brought two than one. All this leads me back to a mindset where I don't care about conforming to comp anymore. Every time I've attempted to bring a compy list, I've wished I had brought something harder. This time, I'm building something different. It's time for the bugs to have some revenge!
1850pts:
Tyrant + wings, devourers x2, old adversary
Tyrant + wings, devourers x2 <warlord>
Termagants x25
Termagants x25
Tervigon + toxins, adrenals, catalyst
Tervigon + toxins, adrenals, catalyst
Biovores x3
Tyrannofex + rupture cannon, cluster spines, desiccator larvae
Tyrannofex + rupture cannon, cluster spines, desiccator larvae
A rough game last week against guard with hammer/anvil deployment, going second, and no night fight gave me a hard reality check about how 6th really is a shooting game. The good thing about flyrants is if you go first, they can swoop right away and if you go second, you can pre-measure them into a safe corner. Two of them shadowing each other with preferred enemy are guaranteed to cause mass damage, even mowing through low av transports via hull points. The more you play with these guys, the more you realize they do best when they never even land.
The troop brick is pretty self explanatory, with larger units of gaunts to take advantage of the new fearless mechanics. Four resilient scoring units with 62 total wounds, the ability to spawn two more, and three scoring heavies in BGNT will be a solid platform.
I decided to go with two tyrannofex instead of hive guard. Again, this decision was made with the new deployment types and pre-measuring in mind. The tyrants will quickly chew through low av vehicles, so I'm thinking I'd rather have a few str10 shots with more anti-infantry utility backed by a 2+ save to give me a shot against av14 and manticore-esque units. Biovores are there to tackle the guard/cultist/gaunt hordes, forcibly disembarked units, and barrage snipe. It really is a beautiful thing when you can force 3-4 saves on a special/heavy weapon carries.
The awesome thing about this list is I also have all the models save 2 biovores. I just need to assemble another flyrant that I won early in the summer and finish my second tyrannofex conversion I started last year. I really want to put full use to the new airbrush, which also means devising a new painting scheme. My purple/white scheme only utilizes the airbrush on a small portion of the carapace so I want to try a new, third scheme that I can apply to the whole model. I'm thinking something bright and red.
Stay tuned for a test model, probably the new plastic flyrant. In the meantime, tell me what you think about the list. There are a couple weaknesses I can imagine, but I want to get some other points of view.
*Edit*
I've been lax on my mandatory baby pics. Gotta keep the wife happy to maintain what little hobby time I have left =)
Gonna start painting them again? Man you're crazy.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to playing nids at every tournament, to me it's just the most cinematic games you can have when playing guard. As for comp, I am not really a fan of list structure based judgement, including painting is fine since it's part of the hobby.
On another note, since you guys have multiple authors here now you may want to switch the timestamp with the author name to the top of the posts. This was you don't always have to introduce who's writing and readers can see who they are reading right away.
Now, I'm off to Millennium for some X-Wing.
Congratulations on coming back to the bugs. I assure you, you will not be disappointed. One humble suggestion. Exchange one Tyrannofex for a unit of Ymgarls. Their disruption ability is huge. As one of the few units in 6th who can assault out of reserve they provide a unique and deadly special ability which I find enhanced in 6th. ADL's mean more people are deployed in a small area and the Hammer and Anvil deployment scrunches people more. The unit should be big to fend of Overwatch and it will not disappoint. It is another source of ap2 attacks with rending and can take down vehicles in droves with the new rules to hit moving vehicles.
ReplyDeleteOne Tyrannofex should be enough to protect the backfield and threaten armor 14, though the Ymgarls will bring down Russes faster than a Tyrannofex will, the Fex is insurance against Land Raiders.
I'll playtest some games with ymgarls. At this point, I'm kinda over the assault phase and relying on reserves. I got a bunch of raveners up to a russ last week and didn't roll a single rend out of 15 hits. Dice can disappoint either way, but when you're clenching your asshole crossing the field against guard and your assault phases flop, it just makes shooting more appealing.
DeleteMy experience with ymgarls is they will kill one thing and get taken down. Or, they will be outplayed by a good general and the available terrain. People around here have a lot of experience against ymgarls and it's not unusual for them to be mitigated.
That's a pretty hard list at 1850, but I'd be tempted to drop the gant units down to 20 each and give your tervs crushing claws; in my playtests it completely changes what you can do, and gives you some added flexibility depending on what you roll on biomancy. Very interesting to see the tfexes; I need to do some playtesting with these as I hadn't really bothered, and by playtesting I really mean roll-testing vs. HG units to understand that tradeoff better.
ReplyDeleteYeah, claws are viable now. I'll have to give it some more thought. I'm starting to like telepathy a lot, though biomancy is a no-brainer in some matchups. With everything being mastery level 1, rolling on only 4 powers in telepathy can often be better than biomancy where you prolly won't use the witchfire powers much.
DeleteHere are the tfex/hiveguard tradeoffs for me:
1. 48" vs 24"
2. 2+ save vs 4+ save
3. str8 vs str10 + str5 lrg blast, 2+ flamer
4. Fear, impact hits, smash, and ap2 in assault
Granted, hive guard ignore smoke, jink, kff, etc. I'm putting the torrent/light av hunting role from hive guard onto the tyrants but the order matters. Move and fire the tfexes first. If they pop something, mop up with tyrants and biovores. If not, try for side shots/hull points with the tyrants.
I could be totally wrong, but the collection is large enough to make major changes without major investments.
I would actually love to see The Doom in a pod in this along with a unit of Gargoyles. I have played this lists twin before - the 6x Hive Guard variant and it is a dead hard list.
ReplyDeleteI would consider a podded doom at 1999, but there's no room at this level.
DeleteThe funny thing about the meta right now is it's either all foot or all mech, there's very little mix. Though assault armies are a lot better at cracking vehicles now, they still suffer from being shot down once you commit an assault unit to cracking a transport. Flamers and template weapons are becoming much more popular and not consolidating after wrecking a vehicle can be a death sentence.
My Parasite conversion is my favorite one in my tyranid collection so I would love to work him in with some gargoyles. However, flyrants are just phenomenal now. They easily decide games by themselves when not killed early, and I've only ever played with 1. Enfeeble with devourers means ID'ing paladins, wraiths, etc. Iron arm means immunity to scarabs, zombies, lasguns, etc.
My new appreciation for telepathy makes them even more appealing. Previously, you had to give up shots to use paroxysm. Now, you can use terrify or dominate, and still shoot same or different targets.
I am glad to hear that you are bringing back the bugs this year as those games against your nids have always been the toughest matches when we have matched up. Can't wait to see the new paint scheme.
ReplyDeleteAs for the comp scene, the guide for the invitational just said that comp was going to be player judged. I brought Eldrad and Avatar and took 2nd in paint/sports. Bill brought Belial and the other Death wing guy and took 1st in paint/sports. So what does that tell you?
With every edition since 3rd, GW has basically encouraged the use of named characters and unless an event specifically imposes a limit or ban on named characters then feel free to play what you want. I think that characters being accepted is becoming the norm, even in comped events. The biggest challenge with comp now is spamming but that is a topic for another time.
Also, congrats on the new blog format and the inclusion of Crispy and Calypso. Looking forward to more good things from each of you in the future.
Kevin
Thanks man, I'm pretty excited about painting bugs again. At least until I tackle ~75 gaunts lol. I'm hoping the new Grex, vallejo paints I've started hording, and new techniques I've discovered will make for some pretty interesting models.
DeleteLet me know if you ever want to write for the blog also. Your terrain and conversion projects are top notch and I'm sure the guys appreciate the stuff you've written for the forum.
Don't know if there's one up by you guys, but the Hobby lobby down here started carrying Vallejo paints. With their ubiquitous coupons, they get down near reasonable prices.
DeleteThis is a particular army that really surprised me just how well it plays in 6th edition. For those thinking it is still a less than stellar army, beware of any preconceived notions that they are not a competitive codex.
ReplyDeleteI would second not taking and second Tyrranofex. Very expensive and not sure it's overly necessary. It is a shooting game, but I would not give up all real assault capability. I'd even look at a large Gargoyle/Termigant/Hormaguant brood if you don't want Genestealers. This game is also about board control, regardless of tourney format or plain book missions. I'm not a fan of taking any, but can understand if you already own them that you'd want to include them. Expensive $$$ wise and just plain cool looking is completely understandable.
To me, what makes this army dangerous is in its design. Creating hard choices for you opponent and confouding unit priority is key. This is one particular army that can really do it.
Also, be prepared to paint a lot of Guants. Find an easy paintscheme that you can do most of your work with an airbrush. This will obviously save time, but keep your sanity in check.
Best of luck.
Thanks for the advice.
DeleteAbout painting gaunts, that's the reason I've changed painting directions with this army three times. I love my metallic greem MC's, but the paint itself is so difficult to work with that I can't bring myself to finish the gribblies. The army just doesn't score the painting points either. I'm planning on airbrushing 3 shades of red with some washes so it should go pretty quickly. I also want a base scheme that meshes with my jungle tables as that's what I play the most on.
I'll really have to do some extensive playtesting with 1 tfex vs 2. My experiences in 5th were that two always performed better than one. Sometimes, you just need something dead ASAP and though they can usually hit and pen once per turn, getting that critical damage result was challenging. Now, with the hull point mechanic, changes to blast markers, flamer templates, and lack of ap2 in assault, my gut feeling is double tfexes will be even better.
And you're right, you need to create difficult decisions for your opponent to execute a tyranid army well. Two tfexes provide mobile cover for two tervigons. The list is small and simple, but you have to choose between the flyers and the ground mass. Two flyrants that can fly in circles, use maledictions, and put out 24 t/l shots in a 360 degree arc cannot be ignored. That buys time for the tfex/tervigon/gaunt blob to cross the field.
Like I said, I'll have to playtest it out because my theoryhammer has proven wrong more than once.
I really like the list, since 6th I've been wanting to run two flyrants so bad but i cant pull myself away from swarmlord in my lists(by the way my bugs need vengeance for our last tourney matchup).
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see your points with the flyrants, I've ever only used one and it was killed in maybe 1 game out of 6 and that was to IG, but with TWO with 2x T/l devs and the awesome new options for psyker powers thats a force to be reconned with itself(barring unlucky grounding rolls) not including the 1200pts of bugs leftover. As far as my 2cents i would agree with ghostin 5 gaunts each for claws on the tervs. On a side note the preferred enemy flyrant could be deployed on the dual t-fexs to help a little with first turn nuking of high av
Cant wait to see what you come up with paint-wise!!!
Dumb question, why do you put Old Adversary on the Tyrants? To give it to the other dudes who are shooting?
ReplyDeleteIt also gives you a reroll 1's to wound (I've been forgetting about it too), on top of everyone within 6 inches.
Deleteohhh dang I forgot about to wound.
DeleteMost of the time tyrants wound on 2's so PE on t/l devourers effectively gives them rerolls to hit and rerolls to wound.
ReplyDeleteArgh the cuteness - nasty elvses! https://mobile.twitter.com/_Smeagol/status/6690582243
ReplyDeleteNice to see some nid love again!
ReplyDeleteHave you considered going the full psychic choir? I've really enjoyed my list with zoans, two tervs, tyrant, doom. I have 15 powers in my 1850 list. The massed enfeeble, iron arm and warp speed really mess up your opponents plans. Good fun to play too!
Also I love my Trygons (primes). I find them absolutely lovely! They must be one the most efficient units in the game! They shoot the turn they appear, soak up some damage and assault. Challenge in your turn and then slay the rest of the unit in their turn, then hunt for a new target. Paired with the Doom and a infiltrating MSU unit of stealers they achieve a target saturation that is hard to cope with for the opponent.
The Doom workes well with Biomancy but Psychic Shriek (primaris) is also to be considered. Its great against low leadership infantry.
Crushin Claws on Tervs have never let me down. There´s no reason not to take them!
I would not use as big units of Termagants. Spawn the smal critters and use MCs to soak fire/tie stuff up instead
All in all I was rather pessimistic when 6th hit. But now I really like my bugs again. Adopt, adapt, improve! That's the nid way!
I’m not sold on Tfexes, but I won’t discourage you to use them. I want you to try the list you wrote cause it has some solid ideas. As I run a very close but much different lists – “dual tyrants reserve” one, it will be extremely exciting to see how different approach – “dual tyrants and all on table” one will work:) If I remember right, ifel1 from knighthammer40k.blogspot.com tries the similar things – large broods of gants and big bugs (trygons) as a support.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to see new painting scheme and battle reports on tyranids soon;)