Help improve my game!

[bawnslippy]

Hi all,

so I've had about a dozen matches ranging 500-1k points and generally suck at the game - I rarely win! However, am enjoying it. Would love to get some feedback on how to improve my gameplay, both as nids specifically, and at the game generally. 

My list typically includes:

1 Hive tyrant/swarmlord variation
3 warriors for obsec and ranged shooting
1 mawloc/trygon varition
5-10 genestealers
a broodlord
10-20 Hgaunts or 10 Tgants
3 Hive Guard/Tyrant guard which i sometimes proxy as pyrovores
2 carnifex unbuilt
1 Harpy/parasite kit bash unbuilt

Whilst I think I know where problems are, I'm not always clear on how to fix them
-Essentially, my game plan usually involves speeding up the board fast as I can, throwing myself into melee. I do this because if I get shot at, most of my nids are gonna die quick, and I've got a largely melee heavy set up so far. If I don't go first this is a major problem.
-When I do get into combat, I often don't hit anywhere near as hard as I'd expect to
-If I do end up shooting, i'm also in enemy line of sight - any way to mitigate that?
-I don't know what the ideal secondaries are for my army. 
-i make silly mistakes like getting myself into enemy fire range, but not in cover/not giving my champs/monsters a meat shield
-too many rules - so many of them! I forget what I can do to mitigate/enhance my situations.
-I like to play the game by getting stuck into the fighting, but rarely coming out successful in this approach

I'm not overkeen on buying tonnes of new models to compensate - I'd like to get better with what I have to start. 

Really appreciate help and understanding how you got better at the game?

Thanks!

[yoritomo]

You want to get better? Lose more games.


Alright, that sounded a bit harsh. Perhaps I should explain.

If you want to get better you need to play more games. But not just any games, games where you can identify your mistakes. You can do this on games you win, but I find most people have trouble identifying what they did wrong when they win (after all, they won so what could have gone wrong?) That's why I suggest you lose games, it's easy to see where you went wrong when you lose.

More than that you have to conduct an honest assessment of your game. No excuses, accept that you are the reason you lost your games. No blaming the dice. No blaming your opponent's army. It is what did you do and what can you do different next time to have a better result.


Some things about what you've observed:

Your game plan is flawed. Maybe flawed isn't the right word, too inflexable may be a better description. I find that people who go into the game with a plan before they even see the battlefield don't do as well as they could. Learn to look at the battlefield and then come up with a plan. A successful engagement on turn 3 is often better than assaulting whatever you can on turn 2.

I'm not surprised you don't hit too hard in melee, you don't really have any scary melee units outside the tyrant/swarmlord. An unmolested unit of stealers and/or broodlord is good for one engagement, they're better at scoring victory points. 20 Hgaunts are okay against soft targets like Imp Guard and Tau, not so much against marines.

Speaking of which, your shooting is also lacking. If you're going to open yourself up to the enemy shooting back at you then you need something awesome to shoot at them. In the tyranid codex that is the Heavy Venom Cannon, the excorine, and the tyrannofex. Add more of these and you should do better in the shooting phase. Normally I'd suggest the tyrannofex because it is the cheapest option (money wise), but since you already have two carnifex I'd just make sure heavy venom cannons end up on them (magnetizing your weapon options would be best). Also, adding a unit of zoanthropes will help your survivability against enemy shooting. I know you don't want to buy anything, but I'd strongly recommend picking up a box of these guys. Their synaptic imperative give you a 4+ inv save as well as giving you another unit that can cast catalyst (5+ to ignore wounds).

If you're having problems with there being too many rules then write down all the information about a unit on an index card and put it by the unit while you play. Every time you do something with that unit pick up the index card and look at it. That index card cheat sheet will tell you what that unit can do and remind you of the special rule they have.


Now get out there and play more games.

[piersonsmuppet]

Unless you can get T1 charges off, going first is usually worse for a melee-oriented army. This honestly shows a flaw in your play, plan, or both. Best advice is to slow down your gameplay and look at what you need to do to score/deny VP instead of what you want to do to kill models. Deployment is always the cornerstone of new player's woes imo, it can make or break games on its own and is not something you can just use the internet to learn like secondaries.

As for secondaries, Warpcraft are usually good (psychic interrogation, warp ritual, and sometimes pierce the veil), stranglehold is the easiest secondary to avg for most armies and is not usually a bad choice, and any Action oriented ones are good for Nids (particularly Banners, investigate signals, or Retrieve Nachmund Data). To The Last or Grind Them Down can be good, but require lists build to take them. Assassinate, Bring it Down, and No prisoners can be a good take but require a bit of experience to know IF your army can score it well vs the opposing army.

[bawnslippy]

Thanks for the tips! I like the index cards, I'll try that.

Fully aware my game plan is flawed so appreciate the pointers!

Trying to get 1 game in a week (wife permitting!) outside of the zoey imperative which is one turn only, is there anything else it does defensively? As I thought a malanthrope would be better due to its -1 to hit?

[piersonsmuppet]

No, but one turn of an Invul with a few other defensive buffs layered on can mean the difference between scoring or not. Venomthropes are a better option for a -1 to-hit at the moment.

[kazetanade]

1: melee armies are inherently weaker than shooty armies, on account of time taken to reach, conditons/difficulties of charges, and application of damage to the right target. Playing a heavily melee orientated strategy requires a keen sense of both objective priorities, and situational awareness. You need to know how long you need to reach that charge, where can you stage safely, how to get there, and how to mitigate damage from the enemy return fire or counter charge, and how to not get suckered in by wraps or bad trades.

2: you need, in general, a sense of how much impact any one unit or any one act is going to have. Getting that sense wrong will cost you during the game. To gain this sense, you can either crunch a tonne of numbers, or have a few games with these units into whatever enemy unit, and knock the wall with your head.

3: if you want to get good without buying new toys, you need to figure out how to get good trades with your units, and how to convert making good trades or sacrifices into vp.

4: your collection specifically isn't melee orientated - its Jack of all Trades, without much interlinked synergy between them. Without wanting to be mean, there isn't much of a cohesive army here and it looks like just throwing stuff into a pot, which will generally not give great results.

[garg]

Similar to what kaze said above I think shooting is more beginner friendly. With that in mind my advice would be to lean more into shooting too start with and you already have a good starting point. Based on what you have I made a 1k shooting list. You could drop the broodlord, switch to a patrol and add a mawloc or trygon (swapping the claws on the carnifexes to the free version and removing ag and maybe consolidate to 1 set of 15 hormagants)


++ Battalion Detachment -3CP (Tyranids) [52 PL, 2CP, 1,000pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [6CP]: 2. Incursion (51-100 Total PL / 501-1000 Points)

Detachment Command Cost [-3CP]

Hive Fleet: Jormungandr

+ Stratagems +

Rarefied Enhancements [-1CP]: Extra Bio-artefact

+ HQ +

Broodlord [6 PL, 120pts] relic: resonance barb

Hive Tyrant [9 PL, 175pts]: Heavy Venom Cannon, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bonesword, Power: Catalyst, Relic: The Reaper of Obilterax

+ Troops +

Hormagaunts [4 PL, 80pts]
. 10x Hormagaunt: 10x Hormagaunt Talons

Hormagaunts [4 PL, 80pts]
. 10x Hormagaunt: 10x Hormagaunt Talons

Tyranid Warriors [4 PL, 80pts]
. Tyranid Warrior: Dual Boneswords, Venom Cannon
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Dual Boneswords

+ Heavy Support +

Carnifexes [14 PL, 270pts]
. Carnifex: Enhanced Senses, Heavy Venom Cannon, Two Carnifex Crushing Claws
. Carnifex: Adrenal Glands, Enhanced Senses, Heavy Venom Cannon, Two Carnifex Crushing Claws

+ Flyer +

Harpy [11 PL, 195pts]: 2x Heavy Venom Cannon, Adaptive Physiology: Dermic Symbiosis

++ Total: [52 PL, 2CP, 1,000pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe

[bawnslippy]

May 17, 2022 10:04:13 GMT garg said:

Similar to what kaze said above I think shooting is more beginner friendly. With that in mind my advice would be to lean more into shooting too start with and you already have a good starting point. Based on what you have I made a 1k shooting list. You could drop the broodlord, switch to a patrol and add a mawloc or trygon (swapping the claws on the carnifexes to the free version and removing ag and maybe consolidate to 1 set of 15 hormagants)


++ Battalion Detachment -3CP (Tyranids) [52 PL, 2CP, 1,000pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [6CP]: 2. Incursion (51-100 Total PL / 501-1000 Points)

Detachment Command Cost [-3CP]

Hive Fleet: Jormungandr

+ Stratagems +

Rarefied Enhancements [-1CP]: Extra Bio-artefact

+ HQ +

Broodlord [6 PL, 120pts] relic: resonance barb

Hive Tyrant [9 PL, 175pts]: Heavy Venom Cannon, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bonesword, Power: Catalyst, Relic: The Reaper of Obilterax

+ Troops +

Hormagaunts [4 PL, 80pts]
. 10x Hormagaunt: 10x Hormagaunt Talons

Hormagaunts [4 PL, 80pts]
. 10x Hormagaunt: 10x Hormagaunt Talons

Tyranid Warriors [4 PL, 80pts]
. Tyranid Warrior: Dual Boneswords, Venom Cannon
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword
. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Dual Boneswords

+ Heavy Support +

Carnifexes [14 PL, 270pts]
. Carnifex: Enhanced Senses, Heavy Venom Cannon, Two Carnifex Crushing Claws
. Carnifex: Adrenal Glands, Enhanced Senses, Heavy Venom Cannon, Two Carnifex Crushing Claws

+ Flyer +

Harpy [11 PL, 195pts]: 2x Heavy Venom Cannon, Adaptive Physiology: Dermic Symbiosis

++ Total: [52 PL, 2CP, 1,000pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe


Hey, just curious but why put the lash whip on just one warrior? Does that re-roll 1s affect the whole unit or just one model?

[piersonsmuppet]

Just one model, but it unlocks the ability to use a Lash Whip stratagem to debuff leadership. Super Niche, but the opportunity cost is low as well.