Need advice

[gaatsu]

I've been reading over these forums for a few weeks now and have found SO much helpful information. I've also recently returned to 40k after a 10 year hiatus. I used to run a Blood Angels army, but have always really liked the Tyranids. Since I can't find my old BAs anywhere I'm using this as my excuse to finally start a Nid army ;D.

I picked up A Tyranid Battleforce and Hive Tyrant off Ebay for a fair price and a friend gave me a box of Raveners that he wasn't going to use. It seems I've come back to 40k at a rough time because the new rule set just came out and I have NO idea how I should fill my army out.

I originally wanted a bunch of mean Nids to overwhelm my enemies and devour them in CC, but everyone is telling me that CC got nerfed this edition. I only have the 5th ED rules too so I really can't read up on the changes yet. Everyone I've talked to tells me that if I'm going to play Nids effectively I should just spam Tervigons and Termagants. I think that's super lame and there are so many useful and awesome looking units that there has to be a better and more fun way to play the army.

My questions to you are:
1. Can a CC oriented Nid army still do well in 6th ED or should I build a more shooty army?
2. Will I still be able to do well as a Nid player if I don't want to "Spam Tervigons for the win"?
3. What units would you suggest to help me fill out my army and why? (I was thinking of grabbing a Zoan or two)

Thanks ahead of time for your help!

[maeloke]

1. Shooty is doable with zoans, dakkafexen, and biovores, but it hardly feels niddy to me. So I say go CC.
2. I'm always happy to hate on Tervigons. They're good, and everyone uses them, and they're boring as hell.
3. If you want to go CC, your best units will be the Tyrant, Ymgarls, Raveners, gargoyles, and Trygons.

A walking tyrant with heavy armor and some tyrant guard is a very solid bet and gives you psyker options. Alternatively, you can give it wings as long as you pick your targets carefully.

Ymgarls are one of the few units now that can still assault the turn they arrive, and have the armor/toughness to absorb overwatch.

Raveners skim through cover like nobody's business - they're fast enough to catch and rend pretty much any target, even skimmers.

Gargoyles are also a pretty nasty unit now. They're fast, cheap, and pack a really nasty punch on the assault. With adrenals and toxin sacs they'll mow through MeQ for only 8 points apiece. Keep them close to a flying tyrant with Old Adversary to capitalize on their Blinding Venom.

Trygons are just awesome across the board.

So, to fill out your collection: Count your 'stealers as Ymgarls, pick up or convert some tyrant guard, and grab another box of raveners and a trygon.

I love CC and am currently trying out hormagaunts behind ripper screens, but would be the first to admit it's a shaky tactic in the new edition...

[gaatsu]

Thanks for the advice Mae. I was also wondering if Ripper swarms could screen for Hormies so let me know how that works out if you try it.

I hadn't even considered gargoyles, but after looking at them in the codex and knowing what little I do of the 6th ED rules for fliers they sound really interesting.

I also really wanted to try a Warrior squad with a prime in it. I love the models and the idea of 4-5 warriors and a prime with bone swords just sounds fun. I just can't decide if I should give them Deathspitters for a bit of ranged weaponry or if they're worth it at all. People don't seem to like them much...

Also what are your thoughts on Carnifexes? I've heard a lot of mixed things about them and I'm curious if they changed at all in 6th ED. The idea of a Carnifex or two rampaging through enemies also sounds like a lot of fun.

[sturm]

First of all, welcome to the Hive!

Gargoyles are not considered as flyers, only the winged tyrant and the harpy are. The rest is still jump infantry. Gargoyles are still pretty good for their price, with the Hammer or Wrath on the charge and the 12" move.

Many people will tell you warriors are not that good. If find that they are never going to be a shock troop, but they still have their use, as they are synapse and when joined by a prime, they can hold a lot of things. Yes, they are vulnerable to instant death, but give them some cover and put bigger threat on the table to eat the S8+ hits and you'll be good. I usually prefer shooty warriors to melee ones, but I do love melee shrikes. I don't say that this is what you should do, but it is something that has worked a lot for me in the past.

About Carnifexes, I hate to say that, but there is really a lot of better options out there. I love to model and everything, but it just doesnt work for me. A melee carnifex will be too slow to do anything, and a 3+ save don't cut it with all those AP3 guns. The only way I would use a carnifex is by giving TL devourers and putting him in a pod, but then you are looking at over 200 points, and a trygon always seem like the better choice. I've seen a lot of talk about having a squad of 2-3 carnifexes joined by primes and walking up the board while shooting, but I can't say I'm sold on the idea. I havent give it a try, but to me it looks like way too much points into a single unit that doesn't have enough damage output to justify the cost. I could be wrong here, I'll have to try it to be sure.

Just like Mae said, if you want to go for a CC army, hormagaunts, raveners, trygon and ymgarls are going to shine. It is probably harder to play a CC army in the 6th edition, but in time we'll see more good tactics and ways to deal with all the shooting. For now, all I have is multi assault, cover and my golden rule that i've read when I started playing: Tyranid is about giving your opponent a wide range of bad choices.

[maeloke]

If you want to try prime w/ warriors, go for it! That's actually the 3rd line advancing behind the rippers and hormagaunts in my current build. With Look Out Sir shielding in place, you can optimize your damage absorption, which helps a lot with the warriors' allergy to S8 weaponry. There are definitely some anecdotes around the forum about such units enduring absurd amounts of fire (from the right lists).

I've been running my warriors shooty (Barbed strangler to pin charge targets for my 'gaunts), but 2x boneswords and toxin sacs might be the ideal punch against terminator equivalents.

Fexes are sadly overcosted by about 30 points. Anything you wanted your fexes to do is better accomplished by their weight in trygons... with the exception of shooting, stupidly enough. Two twin-linked brainleech devourers amounts to about 9 S6 hits per round with an 18" range, which is potent enough to whittle down nearly any target in the game. With a tyranid prime attached to a unit of 2 or 3, you get to play more wound allocation games.

[wisdomseyes1]

With smash rules being the way they are, Mae, I am going to have to partially disagree about the fexen and the trygon.

Trygon is going for the same exact number of attacks on the charge at strength 10 as a carnifex is. And, at that, the carnifex is 30 points less than the trygon. That said, vs infantry the carnifex is worse, predictably, but is able to take advantage of LOS! And a tyranid prime.

How does 2 sets of something ad up to an odd number? Or are you saying this is after rolling to hit?

Something tells me, no matter what unit was better at shooting than a trygon, you would have called it stupid... Because you don't like shooting Tyranids (which have always existed)

[squash]

Wisdom, it's not rocket science. 4+ to hit with a reroll has a 75% chance of hitting. With 6 shots that's an average of 4.5 hits, with two guns that's 4.5 x 2 = 9 average hits.

[wisdomseyes1]

Jul 27, 2012 0:33:14 GMT squash said:

Wisdom, it's not rocket science. 4+ to hit with a reroll has a 75% chance of hitting. With 6 shots that's an average of 4.5 hits, with two guns that's 4.5 x 2 = 9 average hits.

Well no (please do not swear), but that wasn't my question. I asked if he was referring to the number of shots or the number of hits.

Going for the number of hits per round vs the number of twin linked shots is less sound when giving advice, because it assumes that the dice rolled where the avergage said it will, and doesnt apply what actually happened.

What is guaranteed to actually happen is 12 shots, not 9 hits. 9 hits is just the most likely outcome because averages say so.

It's not rocket science to read. Example: "OR are you saying it's after to roll to hit?" emphasis mine, is pretty straightforward and doesn't suggest i don't already know how to figure out the math

[squash]

Read his post, he said "about 9 S6 hits per round". But yeah you keep giving me (please do not swear) over my literacy skills, "Los Angelas".

[wisdomseyes1]

Jul 27, 2012 2:45:34 GMT squash said:

Read his post, he said "about 9 S6 hits per round". But yeah you keep giving me (please do not swear) over my literacy skills, "Los Angelas".

I think uhhhh... Cool story bro.

Please, continue to add more valuable contributions to the thread.

[maeloke]

Thank you, squash, for clarifying my daring logical leap. I foolishly thought everyone would understand that "about" means "average" in this context.

Gaatsu, sorry wisdom derailed your thread. I don't know what point he was trying to really make, since I think he still agrees that trygons are, overall, a better investment for a CC list.

So yes. Play trygons

[wisdomseyes1]

Jul 27, 2012 5:05:29 GMT maeloke said:

Thank you, squash, for clarifying my daring logical leap. I foolishly thought everyone would understand that "about" means "average" in this context.

Gaatsu, sorry wisdom derailed your thread. I don't know what point he was trying to really make, since I think he still agrees that trygons are, overall, a better investment for a CC list.

So yes. Play trygons

Or carnifexen for the reasons I stated above.

You are maybe the 3rd person sinse I joined the hive who has given how many "hits" something gives per round... Which is completely foolish i might add, but regardless, forgive my confusion on what exactly you were saying. Let's see if we can find one other person who uses the number of "hits" rather than the number of "shots"

@op: at least read my reasoning before listening to these two, and decide based on reason and not their childish banter.

[squash]

For crying out loud, there's nothing wrong with providing an average number of hits per round, given not all guns are twin linked, and not all models have the same ballistics skills. In the world of wisdomseyes1's logic a mycetic spore's twin linked deathspitter and a warrior's deathspitter are identical, given that they all fire three shots. Must be a "Los Angelas" thing.

[wisdomseyes1]

Jul 27, 2012 6:06:23 GMT squash said:

For crying out loud, there's nothing wrong with providing an average number of hits per round, given not all guns are twin linked, and not all models have the same ballistics skills. In the world of wisdomseyes1's logic a mycetic spore's twin linked deathspitter and a warrior's deathspitter are identical, given that they all fire three shots. Must be a "Los Angelas" thing.

In the world of Wisdomseyes1 (impresse you wrote my name correctly by the way, kudos. Copy paste? Almost no one gets it right), we look at 12 s6 tl shots at bs3, not 9 average shots... And I have this feeling you won't be able to find someone else who has recently done that (unless you pull a dakka post maybe, but they advocate using warrior models as harpies, so I laugh at anything they say anyway)

Regardless, let's drop it, shall we? This nonsense is not appropriate conduct of give members. Stop it with the random attacks on me. Stop commenting on my "Los angelas" ness, where, by the way, I don't actually live at (shock and awe, a person lied on the Internet about who they really were and we're they really lived) it's funny... You can choose to be anything you want to be on the Internet... Why do so many people chose to be stupid and mean? *sigh*

Carnifexen are effective at taking down tanks. The only real reason right now to not take them is because tervigan are more flexible and pretty equally strong with the new smash rules.

When compared to trygons, they are weaker vs infantry (though most infantry has a hard time against either) but the fexen make up for it with the ability to attach with a prime for wound allocation tricks (ultimately costing more, but the points limit changes things)

Against vehicles, fexen are equally effective with trygons... Actually, that's a lie: carnifexen are better at taking out transports more consistently because carnifexen don't need to smash to do well

[squash]

Jul 27, 2012 6:25:29 GMT wisdomseyes1 said:

we look at 12 s6 tl shots at bs3, not 9 average shots...

HITS! NOT 9 AVERAGE SHOTS, HITS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. HOW ARE YOU NOT GETTING THIS?!