Making the most out of your units

[nalathani]

I've read quite a few opinions on certain units in the past that have boggled my mind. The first of which was the T-fex, which back in the early days of our new codex was touted as an overpriced str 10 gun. People would run calculations on how much damage 12 shots from the rupture cannon could do at BS 3 over the course of a game, and determine it was terrible.

I would agree that if you sat it in the backfield and just shot the rupture cannon, the Tfex was awful. However, if you marched it forward and shot, you could get in cluster spine range on turn 3. You could be in all 3 weapon and charge ranged on turn 4. I liked the Tfex back then, I like him even more now that power weapons don't cut through his armor.

I say the same for the mawloc. I'm not going to go into too much detail as we just had a lengthy discussion on the Mawloc, and there are many (the majority) who believe it's not a good unit. However, if you just look at 3 Str 6 AP 2 templates for 170 points, he's bad. If you look at having 3 T6 Str6 AP 2 monsters anywhere on the board turn two that can tie up shooting units for the rest of the game, along with the fact that it *could* just use the template ability if you're fighting large units of infantry, it becomes pretty diverse.

I just saw 2 battle reports where the 6e harpy was used, and I was frustrated with the decisions both players made. Both decided to deep strike them, and eventually fly them off the board to go into ongoing reserves. Harpies have a 36 inch range weapon....why deep strike them? They can safely swoop on turn 1 and hit pretty much anything. Also, they never assaulted. They flew around and fired off 3 or 4 blast templates the whole game. I know harpies are not the best in CC, but after weakening a unit with blasts and spore mines, why not assault the remaining squads? It's still an MC who can get 3 smash attacks on vehicles, or 4 str 5 AP 2 shots on marines. I've proxied my Flyrant as a Harpy once, and it did very well.

I really do think if people used all of our units to their maximum potential instead of type-casting them as having only a single use, you'd see more Tyranid units on the field winning games.

[wisdomseyes1]

While I am inclined to agree with you, I am going to have to say for different reasons, and then disagree because of the reasons I am about to give (I didn't know how else to say that, sorry )

Tyranofex: your right. The consistency of the rupture cannon did make people say it sucks. It's price tag in comparison to every single unit in our codex also made it bad. When it's weapon doesnt do much and it costs a lot, how survivable it is begins to not matter.

People, after a while, did once again use the tyrano because acid spay + thorax + spines made for great anti infantry fun.

Things you are forgetting though. It's not just its ballistics skill that makes it bad. It is the ws3 and 3 attacks and I 1 that make it worthless in close combat (and fluff tels us its supposed to be but gants are supposed to come and help it when it's in danger) it isn't good at close combat, so it relies on very short ranged shooting or unreliable shooting.

Also remember you are talking about a time when tanks were everything. Our codex screams anti infantry, so the tfex having great anti infantry guns meant nothing. It was an expensive way to deal with an unexistant problem.

Mawloc: similar to the tfex, of course people judge it by its maximum 3 blasts (and likely to be safe, only 2) because outside of that you have ws 3 and 3 attacks as well. Again, tanks were kind and again it was anti infantry and a blast with bs0 making it very unreliable.

We judge office a unit is good at what it does and flexible. Even if there are no tanks on the field in 5th, I still liked hive guards 6 s8 shots on a group of models that don't care if they can see you and have 2 wounds t6 themselves. It may not be a lot to Tyranids and maybe even marines because they still get there armor, but the chance of killing a t4 character is still worth the investment, and sadly the only other model that competed with their range outside our worthless cannons was a winged tyrant who matched their range at 30" with devourers.

Tyranid prime: powerful, flexible. Put her in most any unit and that unit is instantly better.
Termagants: reliable, cheap, Killy in close combat with some buffs, killy in shooting with a cheap upgrade.
Tervigon: one of the cheapest mc prices in our codex, makes units that would otherwise cost points, scores, grats buffs to units to make them hard to kill.
Trygon: massive close combat effectiveness, just as survivable as the listed above but is more reliable at taking out tanks.

I don't think the point was that units like the tfex and Mawloc were bad (the Mawloc is bad, very bad, to me though... Using it as a mc to help you out at ws3 and no attacks... I have played daemone with the fate weaver and I am telling you even on the charge that combat isn't going to go well for you.) but that last edition there were units that were better at serving an anti tank roll we desperately needed.