Flame On (Acid Blood Query)

[Lanesend]

See, this is what I like about these threads. Some love for the pyrovore.

My own experience with them has been mediocre, but if you can find a way to make them work properly, that would be great!

I'm also very curious if the AA rumor for them turns out to be true. But seeing how many people actually use pyro's, I wouldn't be surprised if GW revised them.

[Gravekeeper]

I acually see a great use for Pyovre now that people start using more infantry. Those guys camping in cover in the back will be happy campers no more when they get 3 flammers to their rears.
Pyovres actually get some shooting done when they arrive via Deepstrike.

[Talonis]

Ok time to get this thread kick started!

I had 2 smaller games yesterday at 1K each, all though the second game was a bit more interesting with myself being paired with a Dark Eldar team...

Both games were The Relic and Dawn of war:

I used the same list in both games which was:

HQ:
Prime: (100)
- 2x BS, regen

Elites:
2x Pyrovores in Mycetic spore with Twin Deathspitters (140)
2x Hive guard (100)

Troops:
3x Warriors with Deathspitters, scything talons + VC (115)
15x Hormagaunts (90)
15x Termagants (75)
Tervigon with Onslaught and Catalyst (Using codex powers) (190)

Heavy Supports:
Dakkafex (190)

Total: 1000

Game 1 vs Space Marines

They had:

Terminator Librarian

Tac squad with Heavy bolter, Meltagun Power fist
- Heavy bolter Razorback
Tac Squad with Missile launcher, plasmagun, combi flamer and power weapon
- Drop Pod

5 Terminators with assault cannon
Dreadnought with 2x Heavy flamers in a drop pod

If you dont feel like reading, I have a Giff here of the battle, images at the end of each player turn.



Marines had the first turn and dropped the Dreadnough right infront of my lines. Almost destroying the entire unit of termagants with 2 heavy flamers the Terminators moved up and finished the job giving the marines 1st blood. The razorback moved forwards and the combat squad moved out to head towards the relic, while cover fire from the heavy bolter combat squad in the rear hammered into the hive guard, wounding one. The razorback continued to fire into the hive guard, but couldnt damage.

The Tyranids retaliate, everything moved forward as if ignoring the dreadnought, as if knowing that the hive guard would take care of it. The dreadnought survived the Impaler cannons, but could not survive the barrage of firepower from the Carnifex, wrecking it. The Tervigon then takes control of the warrior and Prime brood, forcing them to run forward into the terrain and unload their deathspitters and VC into the Terminators squad, who also were protecting the Librarian. 2 Terminators fall to the firepower, causing them to rethink their position and fall back.

With the marines all of a sudden finding themselves in the middle of a tyranid invasion, the marines had a decision to make, move forward and hold the relic amongst the swarm, or move back and wait for reinforcements to help thin the numbers. Opting to fall back, the marines shoot into the on coming hormagaunts, attempting to thin their numbers before the inevitable charge.
The Terminators move forward again, this time unleashing their payload into the warriors. But between the cover and Prime, only a small amount of damage was dealt. The Librarian tried to muster psychic powers to weaken the Hormagaunts, but their psychic resistance was enough to protect them.

As the swarm moves forward, the tervigon spawns a small brood to cover the flank, exhausting the supply on a brood of 6. placing the hormagaunts under the effect of catalyst, the Hormagaunts run forward to engage the combat squad near the relic. Bracing themselves for overwatch, they did not see the massive carnifex emerge from the cover, covering them in brain leach devourer worms, killing 3 of their battle brothers, while the Hive guard eliminate the Razorback. The hormagaunts overrun the relic marine position with no resistance, leaving no survivors. They then push forward towards the heavy bolter combat squad. Tervigon smashes the drop pod. In a bold move, the Warriors assault into the terminators, killing 1 on the way in with deathspitters. The Prime smashes the Veteran Sgt with ease as the warriors survive against the terminators powerfists ( No hits!) Librarian wounds a warrior but fails to use his force powers...

Fearing that their battle brothers will not arrive in time, the heavy bolter combat squad opens fire to protect themselves from the oncoming hormagaunts, thinning their numbers, all the while they watch in horror as the Carnifex charges into the Terminators and the Warrior brood tears apart their Librarian!

The Combat squad turns around as a massive spore lands behind them, gushing out from within come 2 pyrovores, before they could even open fire, the squad is covered in corrosive acids and 3 marines die, holding their position they are then assaulted by the remaining hormagaunts... somehow the hormagaunst only kill 1 marines and the last marine holds his ground against 5 hormagaunts... although he does not hold for long...

The Drop pod smashes behind the Tyranid lines, and 2 combat squads emerge opening fire into the Tervigon with Missiles and Plamsa, slight wounding the beast. The sgt and 4 brothers open fire into the termagants in front of them, causing a few to die.

The rest of the swarm start to consolidate back towards the tervigon, who is now dominating the relic position. The carnifex turns its tail and starts to stampede at the Sgt, killing 2 with its payload and then makes it into assault through the terrain, destroying all in its path.

Moving forward and needing to bring down the Tervigon, the remaining 5 Marines unload into the Tervigon. taking another wound, the Tervigon just commands more creatures to run forward, and takes control of the Pyrovores, running forward and covering 2 more marines with acid. Swarming forward, the remaining hormagaunts assault the combat squad and lock them down, allowing the Fex to charge in and dispatch of any risistance. To help reclaim all biomass the Hive guard break down the Drop Pod and eliminate all threats in this area.

Tyranids Win by tabling and holding the Relic.
Line Breaker, Slay the warlord and Relic gave the Tyranids 5VP's to Space marines 1 (first blood)

Pyrovore notes:
2 flamer templates can place a fair amount of wounds, causing saves. Using the Drop pod worked well, and I think would work pretty well against defence lines too, especially Imperial guard. Combined with Onslaught, their threat range is actually quite impressive.

Were they amazing? No, but they definitely were not as terrible as they are made out to be. More battles are needed for sure to find out more.

Overall thoughts:
I know that the marines didnt have to many vehicles, but that Dropping Dread put the pressure on me quite quickly. Saying this, I also felt like my army had so much synergy it was amazing! Everything worked together, supported and the Tervigon using Onslaught was surprisingly good.

I will write up the 2nd battle soon, this actually took me longer than I thought, hope it was entertaining enough.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the batrep man! On the Pyrovores, I don't think anyone thinks their abilities are bad at all, just not worth the cost and elite slot.

[sunshine]

I hadn't really thought much about pyrovores before, but this thread makes me want to give them a shot! Besides, they do have sick models.
Looking forward to reading more about this!

[Talonis]

The 2nd game was a bit different, same list and same general tactics, so I will just give a brief overview.

1000 points each army

Tyranids and Dark Eldar
VS
Orks and Space Marine

(We figured this made the "most" sense as a DE raiding party wouldn't mind stealing a few slaves from the easily distracted Defenders...)

1st main point... This is why Tyranids dont get allies! Combined with the DE speed and shooting and the amount of tyranids, There was almost total board control.

Pyrovores dropped on the flank supported with the DE, flamed a Tac squad only causing 1 casualty. They just walked across the opponents deployment zone flaming targets of opportunity and combined with Onslaught again, they managed to get up nice and close to a unit of Mega armour Nobs, freshly clown out of their Battle wagon ( Thanks to the DE!)


End of Tyranid turn 2

The Nobs had failed a charge into the carnifex so were sitting open, flamed by the Pyrovores, and a few unluck armour saves say 2 full nobs were painfully killed!
They then survived a round of shooting in the open, 4+ armour isnt that bad against regular weapons, although 1 pyrovore was dead by the end of the game.


Acid spray has cleared the area

Tyranids won this game, the Orks could not kill the Tervigon in time which was holding the objective. With Line breaker and first blood while holding the relic at the end of turn 5, we had to finish then due to time. But there were still DE troops closing in to support the Tervigon, which was in combat with 5 ork boys (Ard boys? 4+ armour)


Another quick game with the same list today against the same DE army, although this was a drawn game, 1 more turn and I would have lost. The Pyrovore landed in amongst the raider groups, and the Pod destroyed a raider while the Pyrovore flamed 5 of the surviours. The next turn charged the Archon unit (which was in combat with my warriors and Prime) and did, and not surprisingly, they passed all the Acid blood saves.

[Talonis]

4th game last night against chaos marines.

I used the same list again at 1K

Vs

2 chaos undivided marine squads with 2 plasma guns
8 khorne bezerkers with PF and I think 2 plasma pistols
5 havocs with 4x heavy bolters
Dreadnought with reaper auto cannon and ccw
3 terminators
Warlord with khorne daemon weapon and terminator armour.

The scouring - diagonal deployment

Quick report again, I had first turn and my hive guard destroyed his dreadnought first turn, spawned 11 gaunts and placed pressure by movig forward with everything. FnP on the Fex and prime (with scoring warlord trait!)

He retaliates by getting a first turn charge into the spawned unit, killing it completely, but in return was charged by everything in my front lines and destroyed, giving me even more movement forward. More gaunts spawned.

Pyrovores land tothe left flank and flame the chaos warriors in cover, killing 2. The pod kills another. The warriors choose to ignore the Pyrovores and shoot the on conning hormagaunts, whilethe havocs turn their attention to the Pyrovores, killing 1 and as I am out of synapse I fall back. They regroup, but can not even shoot when regrouped, something I didn't know. Only snap shots allowed, and flamers can't snap shoot.

By this point I have almost completely over run his lines, I use onslaught in my next turn to run the Pyrovore into a prime flame position and kill another 2, which then are charged by hormagaunts, and stay in combats for the rest of the game.

The right flank is held by the other marine squad, and combined fire from the Fex and hive guard (who the turn before killed all 3 terminators! Bad armour save rolls... Trip 1's!) caused them to fall back right into charging range of the tervigon who now can no longer spawn. Killing them in 2 rounds of combat. The Fex finished off the havocs while the pyrovore charges into the combat with the remaining gaunts and marines, and don't hit or wound anything for 2 rounds, but also wasn't hit or wounded in return.

Tyranids won in turn 5, 11 - 0

Notes:
Pyrovores need to be in synapse if you don't want them to run. Sure rage has a lot of positive effects, but not worth it if they do run and can not be used effectively for a turn.

They are not going to win any combat by themselves, but against normal units, they can hold their own for a while. T4, 2 wounds and 4+ save is durable, while acid blood can make people think twice before actually attacking them if they don have too.

[glassiya]

nice job with rehabilitating poor Pyros. I like them too, and use them too, despite everyone say they are waste of points. But to me, squad of heavy flamers, landing behind enemy line and wiping his most valuable infantry is priceless.

Actually, next game I'm gonna totally have fun and load full Elite with nine pyros in spores, while main army will simply charge in bloody melee. Suppose, the enemy's gonna take a difficult decision of what to shoot at, and even if he decides to take out flamers first - I doubt he'll manage it in just one turn.
But even if he eventually wins, I don't care - since this'll be the hell of a fun.

[Talonis]

If you do decide to do that, you will need to pick up the anti tank else where, like dakkafex or HvC's or other means. As a fair bit of the anti tank is from the elite section, if you do take 9 Pyrovores then you need to look at the balance somehow. Personally I think 9 is an over kill, but if you don care go for it, after all it's your game

[glassiya]

Aug 30, 2012 9:25:00 GMT Talonis said:

If you do decide to do that, you will need to pick up the anti tank else where, like dakkafex or HvC's or other means. As a fair bit of the anti tank is from the elite section, if you do take 9 Pyrovores then you need to look at the balance somehow. Personally I think 9 is an over kill, but if you don care go for it, after all it's your game

Thought about it. There will be armored tyrant as well, and maybe outflanking warriors. On top of that, I'm always running OOE - one more model that's totally lost and forgotten by everyone.

There's still a problem with possible flyers, but for me it's always a problem, no matter what I pick.

[bebe]

It should be noted that you can run pyrovores on foot. Take a Prime and attach it to the group and take venomthropes and tervigon. You want endurance, prime to absorb S8 shots, venomthrope cover. Not saying i would do that but ...

[nagisaki]

Thanks for this in-depth look Talonis. I recall one of the big complaints about pyros in the previous edition was they took a valuable elite slot. I'd like to see you fit your plucky flamers into a 2000 point list. With double the force orgs, the possibilities are great, and I'd love to see what a full squad of three could pull off against an IG platoon, or other numerous squads.

[Talonis]

Nagisaki:
No worries, this is why I do these type threads, just for a different perspective on units. I only have 2 Pyrovores at this point, and my 3rd will be here in hopefully a few weeks. But till then I could Proxy. As for bigger games, now that I have the basics of how they work, I will look into incorporating them into larger games. I think a unit of 3 hitting even a 50 blog IG platoon would have a very nice effect, could maybe even cause enough wounds to get them to fall back? Or at least a Sgt to be shot!

bebe:
From what I am learning, I think walking them up will not play to their strengths. They really need to be in the enemy lines and doing damage when they arrive. if you know the enemy will be bringing the fight to you, then maybe having them in your lines could work, but to get your opponent unaware ( as really they would not walk into flamer range and plan for it) you would have to combine Onslaught with them to get that extra range to reach the threat.

I also think its worth mentioning quickly that Onslaught has been amazing to combine with Pyrovores. Even just being able to move that extra few inches to get into a prime flame position adds a few more dice into the wound pool.

[carados]

You stick with the codex psychic powers then? I can definitely see how they could be useful. With the one Tervigon, the rule book powers aren't very reliable. What do you think about adding some Zoanthropes to the mix though? If you can get Endurance up on the Pyrovores you can make them a particularly unsavoury target for the enemy. Moreover, if you get Enfeeble, you should get even more wounds on T4+ models (the Mycetic Spore even gets a chance to Instant Death them). You would have to have other units to take advantage of the powers though. Spending 300+ points on two Elite units with the damage output of just one isn't very clever when you may not even get chance to use the Pyrovores every turn of the game.

[Talonis]

Carados they are some great idea's. I overlooked Zoans taking powers to help debuff the enemy.

Even this list Ive been using I have not focused everything on the Pyrovores. They are a support unit and I use them when it was suited. Yes the Codex powers have helped, but the FnP was also used to help other units.

But I actually like the idea of debuffing loans wandering around, not only would that help the flame attacks, but the supporting gaunts (and could even cause ID to T3 units as they would now be T2 with the flamer!)