1500pnts 6th Ed Tourney - Took 6th

[innocent]

Hi all, I'll be playing in a tourney soon and am undecided on a couple of lists. I haven't played many 6th ed games yet but need to start getting organised, so wanted other Tyranid player's opinions and input.

Note that this is a non comped tournament, so I am going for pure list efficiency. I expect to face the stinkiest cheese other armies can pull off, so will need something that can hold its ground at least...

1st option:
5x Tervigon with 3 psychic powers
8x Hive Guards
3x10 Gants

The staple list. Also probably the best option to deal with massed flyers with the Objuration Mechanicum power, I should easily get 2 or 3 copies. The drawback is that if my opponent has strong psychic defenses I'm screwed....


2nd option:
2x Hive Tyrant, 2x TL Devourers, Armored Shell
3x2 Hive Guards
3x Tervigon with 3 Psychic Powers
3x10 Gants

Replaced 2 Tervigons with 2 TLDev Tyrant. I rely less on psychic powers, but the Tyrants will have more difficulties dealing with AV12 flyers. They are also expensive and still pretty fragile, so it's a bit of a gamble sinking so many points in them.


3rd option:
Flyrant with 2x TL Devourers, Regen
3x3 Hive Guards
3 Tervigons with 3 Psychic Powers
3x10 Gants

And I still have 50points to play with. I could add a Biovore or more options on the Flyrant. I am curious about the Flyrant, the trouble is that I am sinking 305pnts out of 1500 in a single model that is only mildly survivable... It just doesn't seem optimised.

Also, what would people think of replacing some Hive Guards with the Doom of Malantai? If I manage to cast Endurance on him he could be a game breaker. It's not hugely reliable (have to pull the power, have to be in range of Doom, have to have valid targets for Doom etc...), but the potential is there, I'm wondering if it's tournament worthy.


Thanks for any advice.

Edited for spelling.

[nocturnalreaper]

Oddly you probably wont have to rely as much on your Hive gaurd as you used to since vehicles are much easier to kill. Since there will be less vehicles the DoM in a pod might be a good choice. Do have 2 Flyrants and how are you running yout Tervigons.

[innocent]

In all lists the Tervigons are just bare naked with 2 extra psychic powers. The last list has an extra 50points to play with so I could fiddle a bit with them. Isn't 2 Flyrants a bit much for 1500pnts? A pair seems way better than 1 though, I can see 1 attracting way to much attention and not achieving anything.

[nocturnalreaper]

So try this concept a fully loaded Tervigon with CC,AG,TS,Cata,Onsl. This gives you the ability of 2 base smash attack +D3 attacks at Strength 10 and reroll armour penetration rerolling wounds on 2s and giving all gaunts furious charge, poison, and counter charge. Then of course you should usually take biomancy unless facing a pure flyer army. I do think this tervigon is better then the fex and at least equal to a walking Tyrant if not better. So the choice would be weather to run 2 Flyrants or Go balls to the wall Tervigons.

2 Tervigons CC,AG,TS,Cata,Onsl
DoM with Pod TLDS
3 Tervigons CC,AG,TS,,Cata,Onsl
12,12,13 Gaunts

[innocent]

Well I ended up taking the 5 Tervigon list to the tourney and ended up 6th out of around 20 people. I lost my first game to Orks 4 to 3 (Purge the Alien, I'm bleeding Kill Points ), then won vs GK (!) Termie spam in Big Guns Never Tire 6 to 2, drew against Ravenwing 11 all in The Scouring, and won vs Necrons 5 to 0 (!) in Crusade.

The biggest issue was that I didn't make it past turn 3 in 1hr40mins in any game. 6th has a longer setup time, and having 5 Tervigons with 3 Psychic power each also meant longer to generate psychic powers. For my defense, the GK and Necron close combat units were pretty bad too in that regard: with all the special gear, resolving combat against these took ages.

My thoughts:
- Huge issues in the Kill Points game. Granted I did loose a Tervigon to a Deep Strike mishap, and if all his Flyers had made it in I might have been eable to get some KPs out of them. But relying on small units of Gants is always going to be an issue here.
- In the same vein, huge issues with First Blood. Those small units of Gants are pretty easy to clear, and even Hive Guards will die to a pair of Psyflemen Dread. I also lost a Tervigon on the first turn to a Ravenwing plasma and melta spam. Being a short range, poor shooting, attrition army, we have a serious handicap here. Hive Guards are the only unit I see being able to take First Blood by destroying a vehicle first turn, and even that is not going to be easy.
- The Warlord Tervigon had a massive target painted on his forehead, giving away a victory point and all. By the end of the tourney I learned from that and stacked buffs on him, that seemed to mitigate the issue.
- Hive Guards en masse were good at taking Flyers. Objuration Mechanicum I didn't even get to use. Granted Flyers weren't such a big issue as I didn't make it to turn 4, but still I would favor Biomancy Powers over Telekinesis, and let the Hive Guards deal with the Flyers.
- Teleporting Tervigons via Gate of Infinity seems good on paper for last turn Contesting/Objective grabbing/Linebreaker, but it ended up being extremely unreliable. I didn't get a single good Deep Strike out of it, I'd scatter out of his deployment zone, and one of my Tervi outright killed himself on mishap.
- Biomancy Powers are of course great. I won against the GK player thanks to Warp Speed. That gave me Fleet and just about enough range to reach and kill his last Dread off his last objective.
- This list was awesome in any objective based game. Tervigons with Smash are decent and become pretty effective battering rams. With the changes to Fearless, Termagants are good at tying up units (except those over-the-top cheesy CC ones). Having no Fast Attack or Heavy Support choice also meant I wasn't giving away Kill Points in Scouring and Big Guns Never Tire.

Favorite moment: one of my HQ Tervigons (not the Warlord) making it in contact with the Necron retinue. I challenged his Warlord, passed my Mindshackle Scarab test (damn those things!), Smash Attacked and ate the dude

The Necrons have some incredible cheese in CC: MindShacke Scarabs, and that horrible thing that forces each charging unit to take 2D6 Str8 Ap5 hits. That was death to my Termagants. I won that last game because I flooded the board with troops and had all the objectives, and also because we didn't make it past turn 3 (only one of his flyers made it in). His retinue was instoppable and a nightmare to deal with.

[innocent]

Thanks for the feedback Nocturnal. Gants ended up making it in CC very often and so I like your idea of buffing them to the max. Tervigons were quite good as they were, so adding Claws, AG and TS would be scary indeed. I'm definitely considering the Doom as well. I'm contemplating running him on foot to garantee him being on the board turn 1 and having Endurance on Turn1 from a Tervigon. He would be an amazing way to deal with those Deathstar units. I'm a bit reluctant to drop Hive Guards though, they were extremely effective again: took out a Psyfleman Dread, took out a Necron barge and gave me First Blood, took out a Necron Flyer in one phase of shooting.