Lists that shouldn't work, yet they do

[Xantige]

Back in 5th ed, if you presented a list to the forum that didn't include Hive Guard and/or Zoanthropes in your Elite slot, some number of Tervigons in your Troops, and either a Prime or a Tyrant in your HQ (with manditory Gargoyles or Tyrant Guard for Flyrants or Walkrants respectively) you'd have everyone telling you to change your list to include them.

And yet I've seen lists without these things win games. Many of them battle reports from Miniwargaming.com. And this got me thinking... just how many other unconventional winning lists are out there...? And just how much does what you take matter compared to how you field it?

So please, share with me your unconventional lists that have won you a surprising number of battles. Or tell me about the weird units you've taken and how effective they were. Link me to battle reports showing all this, or tell me of the time you saw a Tyranid player win a game with an odd list.

[squash]

How about the opposite? I dislike Hive Guard and Tervigons for the reasons you described, because it was assumed you couldn't win without them. So I tried (and failed) to find alternatives.

For instance, for months my lists had two rupture cannon Tyrannofex, and no other anti-tank except maybe a Trygon. In five games, I think I destroyed a Vindicator and a Rhino with the rupture cannons, though I did a considerable damage actually assaulting. Eventually I started bringing Acid Spray instead, and had much more success.

Something else is that I've recently started using the Parasite, a pretty universally unappreciated HQ, but I find it meshes really well as my warlord, even when I have a flyrant.

[paxmiles]

It's an online thing. We also get loads of comments about how land raiders are such imposing obstacles to just about every army posted, but people barely field land raiders. I own 6, and I really can't field more than 2 in any practical battle. Even then, people are surprised to see LRs hit the table.

I think after about a year or two of 6th, we'll start getting back into those 'HG is mandatory' type comments. Right now, 40k's tactics are an unknown. Buildings, allies, and flyers being the biggest changes, but loads of little ones scattered in. I still don't have a handle on how to run my own armies, much less practical tactics for other people.

In terms of online advice, you post a list and I point out areas that I think you'll face issues. I don't know you'll face an issue. You might be fine. I just help by letting you consider the issues I see.

As for unconventional armies, I've only got SM for that. Did a list running Marneus Calgar, 3 units of honor guard, thunderfire cannons, ironclads, and SM scouts. We had Calgar as the only model in the entire army with a 3+ armor save. For SM, that is unconventional.

Did it work? Kinda. It really through my opponent off guard. He won, but you could see that the first few turns were completely unsure of what to do. This wasn't a bad player, one of the best at our shop. The list was just very unconventional.

My weak point is that I brought an untested army to a tourney. I've really been meaning to re-vamp my trials with that army under the new edition.
-Pax

[greatescape13]

I love seeing an unlikely list. A good friend of mine did an assault tau army back in the days of the first tau codex, using transports and that ethereal that boosted the assault prowess of a squad. Was crazy, and no one was ready for it--so his early games he often won or at least contested through sheer novelty.

I think there are 3 "unconventional" 'Nid lists that are worth mentioning:

1) The all-assault list. Taking nothing but models with melee weapons.
2) The all warriors-equivalent list. A diverse army that focuses on only things on 40mm bases.
3) The death-from-below list that focuses on Trygons, Raveners, and Burrowing Swarms.

Any of them good? Not sure. I'm always tempted by these variants. But they are the more "unconventional" approaches at least.

Cheers.

[nidtastic]

In my group of buddies that I play with I have become one of the more often than not, victorious players. Some of my friends actually consider it an achievement to beat me!

I hate Tervigons, Termagaunts, Hive guard and Tyranid primes. I dislike using them and have never been successful with them. Now in both 5th and 6th edition I ran primarily CC lists. I always got advice of Tervigons, Hive guard etc. and I didn't approve of that. I never got why people believe that you have to have certain units to be effective?

I do run Tyrants and Trygons which are popular, but my lists tend to be unconventional compared to most other Tyranid players lists. I do not like that people wont get out of their comfort zones in list building and just field some odd or different units. I will keep to my CC lists and wont ever conform to the norm' for Tyranid lists and in me doing so I have been very effective and perform quite well.

On the contrary I do beileve it all depends on a persons game style. For instance someone who fields a typically built list of Tyranids (i.e Tervigons, Hive guard etc.) and has that shooting kind of style, may perform just as well as the guy using a CC out of ordinary list. Now have them switch lists and play each others lists and it may, and IMO will result in a failing disaster for both players.

I choose this route for my list building because 1. I didnt want to conform to normal lists and 2. I enjoy the narrative a lot and in my mind I like the idea of seeing all CC Tyranids rushing the enemy lines and slaughtering soldiers etc. So I went with a list that was narrative pleasing and game effective to me.

If you'd like to see my previous and current lists just look at my posts, most of them are on my lists asking advice. Great topic by the way I really enjoyed it. Thanks!

[nurglitch]

There are no lists that shouldn't work, yet they do. There are lists that work, and there are people that give bad advice.

[leeroy1986]

I used to run 1 Tyrant w/ devourers+2 tyrant guard, 3 Zoanthopes, 3 Hive guard, 10 Termagants. 1 Tervigon and 3 Trygon Primes.

People always used to say you need more troops blabla, Trygon Primes are well overpointed blabla. I took this list to a big 1 Day Tournament at Warhammer World and in my last game if my opponent didn't make literally every invulnerable save he was forced to make I would of finished 3rd in the Tournament and it was a big tournament.

The guy that won it was Tyranids though with a Doom of Malantai variant Nids list, Ghazghkull Orks with 5 Wagons then the guy that beat me with aload of Khornate Daemons. I've beaten Khornate Daemons before but that guy didn't pass every invulnerable save.

On the other hand one of my Clubmates faced one of that guys clubmates a tournament or two later and the guy he'd faced was really good Daemon Player, Rob Madeley I think his name was. But anyway my clubmate rolled up with 9 Vendetta's and shot him of the face of the board stuff kept dropping in slowly and getting shot each turn it did, it was funny, so my club sort of got it's vengeance in that way I suppose.

Anyway yeah that was a good list that did well for me. I'd beaten Guard Mech Spam with Pask in a Punisher, Abaddon, Ghazghkull Orks, Eldar Seer Councils you name it.

All with 3 measly Trygon Primes, I may yet return to them in this edition but I want to try out some other stuff first


Leeroy

[webebuggin]

My double trygon crusher fex list did great yesterday! Ravenors and a trygon moving up field gave to many targets to be brought down. Smashing a landraider with a rampaging trygon was soooooo satisfying. The crusherfex is nearly as durable as tyrannofex. I had just massive bugs and termagants. It worked wonders against space marines.

[nomack000]

miniwargaming.com is the last place i would look for tyranid list advice. I have yet to see one list matt brings that I really like.

People gave advice of hive guards, trygons, and tervigons because they were and probably still are good. They are never mandatory but i find it hard to bring a list without including atleast ONE of the three.

People talking about how they stay away from the norm and win unconventionally means nothing. Your list may only work your local gaming group, or possible be the next big list. There is no way to tell if it is so UNCONVENTIONAL.

[webebuggin]

Sure you can tell, if an unconventional list works most the time it becomes conventional, thus new meta's are born!

[wisdomseyes1]

the advice we give here doesn't say "If you do this you will win every game". we are saying that including these things will make your game play more consistent in victory with math, logic, and personal experience.

We DO NOT, to my understanding, say Hive Guard are the best elite choice. We say That it serves its roll of disabling transports a lot more effectively than other units do. Then we compare it with zoanthropes and ultimately say that the T6 makes them more resilient, that 2 shots is more likely to do something than one shot is, that adding an additional test that also adds to the opponents ability to stop it makes it less effective.

the tervigan/ hive guard/ prime/ gants/ trygon/ gargoyles tactic is the easiest to grasp and is fairly effective. The lists that win are th ones that effectively cover their blind spots, and are attuned to the person who made them in their personal preferences on how to play (if you want to mindlessly charge forward, dont use a defensive build) and most importantly, luck. rolling extremely well means you will win. rolling badly means you will likely lose. all the advice in the world cant change that, so we just say where the chances lie favorably.

[kurbutti]

Can't promise you this will work, but I've played very shooty 'Nid lists (at least by our standards) lately, and most opponents are rather suprised to see 'Nids outgunning them like 3 to 1. Those who don't face 'Nids often drop their jaws on the floor at the latest when I roll buckets of dice for Devourers.

[squash]

Yeah there's few things as satisfying as dropping 20 devilgaunts infront of an enemy, and tell them you need to roll 60 dice. And also that the spore pod has guns.

[Psychichobo]

Yeah, I still get people making jokes about Tyranid shooting. This is normally before they die en masse to devourer fire.

Generally, you will find two kinds of advice: people telling you to take or ditch a certain unit because it's amazing/awful without any real consideration for your army style (or even telling you to do a completely different list), and there's people telling your their experiences of similar lists or units and how they felt they worked and what they felt improved them.

Try not to see all advice as being the same - there's a big difference between 'needs moar hive guard' and 'if you see a lot of lightly armoured vehicles consider Hive Guard'.

[Xantige]

I think some of you are taking the topic of this thread a bit too deep, or in the wrong context. This thread isn't here to have a deep philosophical discussion on what constitutes conventional versus unconventional. This thread, likewise, isn't bashing the Hive, or the advice given in it. Hive Guard, Zoanthropes, Primes, Tyrants, etc, are all suggested for good reason -- they're darn good at what they do. Likewise, this thread isn't here to gather unconventional armies in an attempt to utterly overturn the conventional lists. It's not even here for people to make serious, tournament winning lists. Does local meta matter in terms of what lists work best? Yes. Does that make this thread moot? No, because regardless of meta, if someone ran a PoM and an all Ripper list, and won, I would want to hear about it, wouldn't you?

Is this thread here to give people some alternative ideas to the norm for some fun and whacky games? Yes. Do I expect the ideas in this thread to become the next best thing since Hive Guard? No. Is there a high chance that many of these lists would be hard to play for someone other than the list creator? Probably.

What I'm saying is: LIGHTEN UP! This thread could be equated to a bunch of friends in a pub talking about the nonsensical rpg builds they played in a game, like Punch-a-lot, who maxed out a useless Hand-to-Hand skill yet somehow beat the final boss. Or how uncanny someone is at winning with a list/build that probably only works for them

Are we clear? Then carry on!