Auto lose scenarios and 'nids

[mattblowers]

This "might" be considered a rant so be forewarned.

I don't mind having a lower tier army, in fact it kinda makes it fun for me. If you perform well and win a few tough games you can gain a lot of respect playing Tyranids. I've even come to terms (eye twitching) with losing spores and Doom. Even the lack of internal balance and horrible beatings with nerf batts I've come to terms with. These are not my complaints.

What I am upset about is the number of auto lose scenarios I keep finding myself in. GW forces 'nids to play a lot of units just to field a viable force. Not only do we have to take squishy troops choices, we have to take fragile small units that provide synapse and cover. On average this gives us 3-4 more units on the tabletop than what would be necessary. The malanthrope does help with this. However, this and our lack of any reliable way to get across the table without footslogging make every game an uphill climb.

My real complaint is purge the alien and the relic. Both of those are auto lose for me. I have never, EVER, as in NOT EVER!!!! won purge the alien with our new codex. If your opponent won't play maelstrom, that's 33% of the games where I know I will loose before the game starts. Last week we rolled purge the alien and I had the majority of my army still on the table and my Grey Knight opponent had 3 models and the score wasn't even close. He had more kill points by turn 3 than he had in his entire army (he only needs 1 troops choice for a legal CAD list.) In purge the alien OS and scoring have absolutely no bearing on game outcome.

Last night I played the relic against a White Scar army heavy on grav with a librarian in a devastator squad with las cannons and they had invisibility. His warlord had a S7 AP2 sword, a 2+ armor, 3+ invul, and FNP. He also podded a venerable dreadnaught with heavy flamer. There was nothing I could do. Not only is the list extremely tough, they all have 3+ cover intrinsically from skilled rider jink and they melt MCs with grav guns. The only thing tough enough to reliably kill bikers is MCs but they don't like grav too much. I had shrikes in the list but rapid firing bolters destroy those with no armor saves on overwatch. (I took out one unit of bikers, but 2 charges killed all of them). With the relic in the open and his incredible speed, high toughness, and grav guns he has the perfect answer to anything I could throw at him. If we had objectives I could have exploited that to make him come to me and win on that. As it was, the only chance I had was to try and prevent him from getting the relic into a unit with invis on it where he could just camp on it and wait out the turns. Footslogging didn't work. I even used our best units (BL devs) to pump 36 shots into his Warlord to cause.... wait for it..... ONE wound! Yeah me.

[/rant]

Not being a sore loser, but the current state of things makes me want to just pack up my models and concede the game that 33% those scenarios are rolled. I'm especially discouraged at the moment as this was my experience for my main game of the week the past 2 weeks. I'll get over it. But those hard counter scenarios have really got me bummed and I'm not finding any good answers.

[gigasnail]

Malanthropes/venomthropes and a 2+ cover save for everything. If Libby gets perfect timing, that's one unit with ignores cover that matters (TFC gonna do what it does, poor griblies). Let them scout up, weather the salvo with that 2+ save, then shoot and assault them. Bikes are just more expensive marines. 3+ cover or 3+ armor save doesn't matter to nids; our important guns are all AP- anyway.

[mattblowers]

Except that I had to come out of hiding to try and stop him from going away with the relic and getting it back to in a squad with invis on it. Why GW ever thought a psychic power should force all snapshots AND 6s to hit in CC (the only thing in the game that does that I might add) is beyond me. Purge the alien that is not help either. (I had both in my list.) I've got to play against bikes more so I can come up with a plan. I'm not used to that kind of mobility.

[gigasnail]

Why are you coming four of hiding? Move forward, shrouded.

[luke1705]

Giga is right that our guns don't care about their jink. You should have better cover (2+) and your multiple wounds mean that as you go down you'll still be firing at a full clip while they will be dying and dwindling. If you have hive tyrants you can easily chase them down and corner them, and Mawlocs are great also. Ignores cover is awesome. Even just laying down the hurt with stuff like Biovores at range can work nicely despite their slightly higher toughness. Not to mention that if you miss you can limit their mobility with the spores. Remember that the relic in particular is a marathon, not a sprint

[mattblowers]

Oct 22, 2014 21:12:03 GMT gigasnail said:

Why are you coming four of hiding? Move forward, shrouded.

Took the malanthrope along for the ride, but still only a 5+ in the open. I meant I moved out of cover. I'll concede I didn't play well. I reacted to his grabbing the relic on turn 1 and panicked, it went downhill from there.

[gigasnail]

Gargs in front will only have a 5+ in the open (if you're in shrouded range at all), but who cares. MC's behind get a 3+ from the gargs (5+, plus shrouded).

Yeah big thing is not to panic. Close the noose, play for the win. DS rippers behind him to slow his retreat. Harass with crone/flyrant/etc. catch them with gargs.

In the end, grav bikers are just expensive marines. Good cover saves take a lot of the sting out of them.

[N.I.B.]

I've never played the Relic, but kill points are a usual component in most tournament missions around here. I usually win or at least draw on kill points. Sounds more like list/terrain fail than anything else.

[Jabberwocky]

I've never lost on the relic.

Infiltrate, DS, plenty of jump/FMC can all pressure the relic turn 1.

Most armies don't want to throw themselves forward so you can turn 1 assault their unit that grabs it, which should almost always be possible since it's only 12" outside your deployment.

[Yautja]

I get the impression there wasn't much cover on the table?

[mattblowers]

Oct 23, 2014 9:19:22 GMT Yautja said:

I get the impression there wasn't much cover on the table?

The center was completely bare.

Oct 23, 2014 6:22:18 GMT N.I.B. said:

I've never played the Relic, but kill points are a usual component in most tournament missions around here. I usually win or at least draw on kill points. Sounds more like list/terrain fail than anything else.

If you follow straight kill points as in the book, every unit gives up a kill point. I always have a minimum of 12 points. 2 flyrants, 3 elites, at least 2 troops, 3 fast, and 2-3 heavy. Most of the armies I face don't have that many.

[Jabberwocky]

I dunno, most armies have plenty of transports and ICs dotted about. I'd say usually it's fairly even for me.

[chompz]

I hear you on purge the alien missions. As a dedicated tyranids and dark eldar player, those are always my worst games. My list, like yours, generally has 12+ units in it (often much more when I'm running a fun list). For my 1500 point dark eldar, I have 18 kill points to give up, all of which can be killed by bolter equivalents like tyranids. It sucks and it's annoying. I routinely play opponents with 6. That's a huge disparity.

In ye olden days (3rd edition,I believe), you got points based on what the squad was worth. That's more reasonable and keeps things even. Wiping out a 60 point squad of gargoyles isn't exactly on par with the tactical prowess of killing a full paladin squad.

I don't know if I'd call them auto lose scenarios, but they definitely require me to be on the extreme forefront of my tactical awareness (read: much butt-clenching).

[beefythepug]

Purge the alien is not just a game type, its usually an accurate description of how most games pan out when you're a Tyranid. I view that type as "table my opponent or else". Sure there are exceptions when opponent brings that many KP to the table too, but most of what I'm facing are expensive AV targets like IK.

As for Relic, sounds like you had the battlefield set up in a lovely killbox. If there is no terrain in the middle it can really make that game type tough on us. Especially if opponent has many faster moving units. Yeah we can provide pressure with flyrant etc, but it can also mean sacrificing them if you run them up to contest and aren't careful with cover etc. I usually go about 50/50 on those types, dont' give up, just sounds like a few rough games, RNG will be in your favor soon

[N.I.B.]

Oct 23, 2014 12:55:18 GMT mattblowers said:

Oct 23, 2014 6:22:18 GMT N.I.B. said:

I've never played the Relic, but kill points are a usual component in most tournament missions around here. I usually win or at least draw on kill points. Sounds more like list/terrain fail than anything else.

If you follow straight kill points as in the book, every unit gives up a kill point. I always have a minimum of 12 points. 2 flyrants, 3 elites, at least 2 troops, 3 fast, and 2-3 heavy. Most of the armies I face don't have that many.

Yes, a kill point per unit. My lists are usually 12-13 KP and I usually have less than my opponent. What kind of lists do you face, that has much fewer kill points than 12?