Best Tyranid Units (1 of 15)

[nameless]

Hey guys, lets get a group consensus of our best (in a competitive sense) unit. Lets worry about individual upgrades later (aside from Melee vs dakka.

I've also added TL for the exocrine and the biovores as I think LAN makes them significantly better.

Mattblowers had an interesting list of his opinion, but I disagreed on a few of them so I thought it would be interesting to get a hive opinion.

Feel free to add a suggestion to what to add to next (after Hive tyrant takes no. 1).

[jimmyp]

Cool idea mines is defiantly flyrant with two linked dev blw

[almostmercury]

Because you can only vote once, I think we all know how this will turn out. 

Our best unit is by all accounts a Hive Tyrant with Wings and 2 TL Devourers. We already know the answer to that.

My suggestions:
Each user can vote at least 5 times (maybe up to 10).
I think you should add at least Tervigon and Warrior (Dakka, CC) if not all of the Troop choices.
Change the question to something like "Which units do you include in your hive lists?"

The best units will be selected with a higher frequency anyway, so you'll answer the current question simply through votes. This could be a really useful poll to see which other units see widespread use, which you could use to make other considerations. And then should interesting choices crop up with regular occurrence, discussions about what other units to run them with would be good.

This thread would make a great compliment to tylert's thread about general effectiveness, as it applies a little more context to the models beyond upgrades.

[nameless]

Sept 13, 2014 20:49:15 GMT almostmercury said:

Because you can only vote once, I think we all know how this will turn out. 

Our best unit is by all accounts a Hive Tyrant with Wings and 2 TL Devourers. We already know the answer to that.

My suggestions:
Each user can vote at least 5 times (maybe up to 10).
I think you should add at least Tervigon and Warrior (Dakka, CC) if not all of the Troop choices.
Change the question to something like "Which units do you include in your hive lists?"

The best units will be selected with a higher frequency anyway, so you'll answer the current question simply through votes. This could be a really useful poll to see which other units see widespread use, which you could use to make other considerations. And then should interesting choices crop up with regular occurrence, discussions about what other units to run them with would be good.

This thread would make a great compliment to tylert's thread about general effectiveness, as it applies a little more context to the models beyond upgrades.

More than warhammer forums, I am most active on hockey forums. A forum about prospects in particular. Every year we do this using the one vote at a time method. It takes a bit of time but it gets done eventually. Doing it one at a time allows no votes to be stolen from another vote. It's the same reason why the Olympics host voting eliminates one at a time.

The 1st spot isn't really that interesting but as we go down we should get into more interesting results.

I'll let these run for 1-2 days each before moving on to the next one.

[almostmercury]

Sept 14, 2014 14:54:33 GMT nameless said:

More than warhammer forums, I am most active on hockey forums. A forum about prospects in particular. Every year we do this using the one vote at a time method. It takes a bit of time but it gets done eventually. Doing it one at a time allows no votes to be stolen from another vote. It's the same reason why the Olympics host voting eliminates one at a time.

The 1st spot isn't really that interesting but as we go down we should get into more interesting results.

I'll let these run for 1-2 days each before moving on to the next one.

Oh okay. I wasn't aware that you were going to do multiple polls by eliminating the top contender. I see where you're going with this now.

I guess my question is not which are our "best" units, but "Which units are run to some success and how often?"

[nameless]

People can have success with really bad units.

How many times have you heard someone say that I love unit X the best because no one targets them as they aren't very threatening?

Like, I love my single 5 man genestealer units. My main opponent is Eldar and they always catch a back field jetbike unit. Always makes their points back.

[almostmercury]

Sept 14, 2014 16:51:11 GMT nameless said:

People can have success with really bad units.

How many times have you heard someone say that I love unit X the best because no one targets them as they aren't very threatening?

Like, I love my single 5 man genestealer units. My main opponent is Eldar and they always catch a back field jetbike unit. Always makes their points back.

Yes, we're asking different questions.

You're looking for a community generated rank of best to worst unit. That's a great question and useful information. But what I want to know (inspired a little by Jaysic's CC post) is the frequency of play for certain units to ask how/why they're used. I expect the results will look a lot like yours because most people will run the best unit anyway, so the player that runs the gene stealers could vote for that unit and not affect the overall results.

Maybe Genestealers are good at catching backfield Jetbikes and I wouldn't know because I've never tried. What about running a broodlord to hide your warlord and deny your opponent points? That's the kind of thing I'm digging for.

I guess instead of trying to poll a draft pick, I'm trying to ask "Which of these players works well together?"

[gigasnail]

how would they be good at catching backfield jetbikes? i mean, they're jet bikes. if stealers ever catch them, it had nothing to do with the stealers and everything to do with your opponent.

we don't really need a people pulse survey to find these things out.

[nameless]

Sept 14, 2014 23:22:32 GMT gigasnail said:

how would they be good at catching backfield jetbikes? i mean, they're jet bikes. if stealers ever catch them, it had nothing to do with the stealers and everything to do with your opponent.

we don't really need a people pulse survey to find these things out.

That's the thing. They should but I've played a player that always forgets about them so I could get them with genestealers. Objectively however, that doesn't make them a good choice.

[almostmercury]

That was the example nameless gave me. Ask him about Genestealers and Jetbikes.

If you're not interested in what I want to find out, I don't care and thank you for your input?

[gigasnail]

hey, i forgot about a unit of TH/SS terminators hiding in a ruin because they were primered black, on a black board, in a black ruin. lost a flyrant to them in a game once. it happens. it was still my fault and nothing to do with the unit.

[almostmercury]

That would be (please do not swear), yes. Still not exactly what I'm getting at, but you are closer.

[nameless]

Sept 15, 2014 0:53:43 GMT almostmercury said:

That would be (please do not swear), yes. Still not exactly what I'm getting at, but you are closer.

That your local meta doesn't determine if something is objectively good.

[almostmercury]

Sept 15, 2014 1:10:31 GMT nameless said:

That your local meta doesn't determine if something is objectively good.

So, getting a little hammered on by Giga today has me wondering if you're sarcastic, I honestly can't tell. I'd like that to read: That your local meta isn't the only thing that determines if something is good.

Novel and "unoptimal" combinations can confuse a good opponent or have them underestimate you (correctly pointed out by Jaysic).And if we look at Jaysic's post, a CC Flyrant, Shrikes, and Hormagaunts are going to place pretty low on your polls. However, he's found loadouts, pitfalls, and tactics that make them shine. Yes, there are a lot of moving parts and it's probably playing Hard mode, but that's the kind of thing I'm interested in. Do you need to run a CC army to make it work? Doesn't look like it to me. An Allied Detachment of a CC Flyrant, Hormagaunts, and Shrikes seems like a good tool for a more traditional CAD.

Will I play the suggestions that come up? No clue, but maybe? Years of playing competitive MtG have taught me that going to an event with an established deck means you need to bring some "tech." Some of the tech could be good, and some of it will certainly be bad. All I know is that the internet tells me to only do one thing and that I cannot come up with all other possibilities on my own.

I'm not saying my poll is the best question or way to get at what I want to know. It's the first time I've asked it, so it might need some fine tuning or maybe a completely new approach. Is it even worthwhile? I have no idea. I'm just trying to contribute positively to the community and expand my understanding of the game.

I'll happily take constructive suggestions. If you're not interested, that's fine too. Troll if you must?

[coredump]

Sept 15, 2014 1:39:42 GMT almostmercury said:

If we look at Jaysic's post, a CC Flyrant, Shrikes, and Hormagaunts are going to place pretty low on your polls. However, he's found loadouts, pitfalls, and tactics that make them shine. Yes, there are a lot of moving parts and it's probably playing Hard mode, but that's the kind of thing I'm interested in.

Sure, but units that require a lot of moving parts just to play on hard mode... are not the 'best' units in a codex. The are mediocre units that may be made to work with the right player making the right moves in the right meta.

The problem is a *lot* of units can fit that criteria.