Losing Faith in Tyranids & 40k!!

[adam81]

Hi all,

I'm having some real trouble getting a good game of 40k these days. Since this edition came out both the armies i use are losing all the time. So if i tell you the models i have and you and a rough list can someone tell me where i'm going wrong please.

Models i have

Flying hive tyrant
Prime

2 x Zoanathrope
Venomthrope

trygon
2 x carnifex
24 x hormagaunt
24 x term
15 genestealers
broodlord
5 x warrior
12 x gargoyle
biovore

MY last three games have been against:
Imperial guard : tank heavy
Necron : lots of destoyers
Dark eldar : all mounted in raiders splinter racks

My usual list looks something like:

Flyrant HVC/hive commander
Prime
5 x warriors
!5 term
20 Hormagaunts
Zoanathrope
Venomthrope
Carnifex 2 x HVC
Trygon Prime

I dont know whether its me not knowing what to use in this edition or i'm just making lots of bad decisions? But who ever i face recently just wipes me out and i cant do enough damage at range or even in combat!!

Its getting to the point where i'm not enjoying the games and i might end up shelving my whole army til a new book (not likely) or a new edition (3-4 year break for my bugs!!).

Help please!!

[swarmy]

I wouldn't stress out you are pretty much playing the rocks to our tyranid scissors repeatedly . Even with hull points full blown mech spam is sort of tough so expect IG to be a little bit of an uphill fight. They have a tank answer to everything so it's hard to say what to do about that one without more info. Venom spam is pretty insane in my experience and it looks like you're coming up against what I deal with having a limited set of models to work with. I would just avoid playing against that player; unless you are some sort of masochist (or they are a friend and realize it is borderline unbeatable without a massive cash influx in your army). DE has so many hard counters to our best options it's a little bit crazy. Our hive guard are only getting 18" of their 24" range (I'm sure he puts that upgrade on them), all our MC's are getting wounded on 4+ so they are no better than a marine, and dark lances are just compounding the pain on them. The best I can do against a friend of mine that plays DE is dropping multiple 15 devourer termagant units in spores with TL DS. I also have the swarmlord with a single guard and a lone tervigon to try to divide his fire the best I can. I still have an uphill fight as well as I can build the rest of the list. The trick to dealing with massed poison is to stack as much T3 as you can in the list. His guns are wounding you as if you were tougher that way with the 4+; Every wound dealt to an MC with splinter fire is far more valuable to them. I avoid necron lately because it just isn't fun at all so I don't know what I would do differently with that list of models.

All and all I'm not sure what I would do with that list of models. That would be fairly difficult to counter some of the roughest matches for our bugs without adding models or changing weapons. The best thing I can suggest is magnetizing the MC's since devourers are pretty much an auto-take lately. The little T3 stuff you have needs far greater numbers to be effective at anything over 1000pts. I never run less than 25 gargoyles at a time, usually 30, and the same goes for using hormagants effectively. It is even more critical for them since you need brood upon brood to effectively get one or more into combat trudging across the field. I'm sure you might find multiple biovores to be handy against the infantry they have that isn't in a metal box for all 3 of those armies.

[kirchoff]

Can you tell us what weapons you put on the warriors? If those warriors have anything other than rending claws, scything talons, or deathspitters then that would be bad. Otherwise I think that HVC's are just the biggest waste in points and I highly recommend going twin-linked devourers with brainleech worms.

It also seems like you don't have that much in troops. If you get one of those objective games with 3-5 objectives, it will be easy for your opponent to pick off your scoring units. Maybe try to convert or proxy your carnifex's as tervigons. Warriors are just too expensive to use to sit on an objective so that leaves 20 hormagants and 15 termagaunts. Thats not really that many, especially with slow moving warriors and carnifex's that can't catch up, the gaunts will die first with the exception of the flyrant depending on how you use him.

It's been a while but if I remember right, hive commander let's you roll better for reserves and outflank a unit of troops. This is not that useful in your current army list but I myself like to use hive commander to outflank a unit of warriors with a prime all equipped with deathspitters. 60% of the time I'll get some str5 shots off on the rear armor of a dreadnought or tank. It's pretty fun and effective.

The army list would also need some ranged anti armor support like more zoanthropes or hive guard. It's easy to convert warriors into hive guard and it saves you a lot of your hard earned cash but you will need to spend some time converting. I don't have a link atm to a website but you can search and find something.

Having a Trygon prime is always good, be sure to deep strike him. Venomthropes are nice too, try to use the carnifex's bulky size to hide the venomthrope. That reminds me, my games as a tyranid player always go a little better if I deploy on one side of my deployment zone if the opponent fields his army all the way across his deployment zone. Atleast 25 percent of his army won't have line of sight or is out of range of the rest of your army for the first couple of turns. Be sure to deploy in an area where your carnifex's would be most effective because, they are slow, the rest of the army can move to where they are needed fast enough through fleet, deep striking, outflanking and wings.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

[FTGTEvan]

Well, you're definitely looking at a bit of an uphill climb with what you have. More precisely, what you don't have: Tervigons (and lots of gants to go with them) and Hive Guard. Not saying you can't win without them, but they're currently the strongest units 'Nids have.

What points level do you usually play at? Having that I can try to give you more precise advice.

As Swarmy said, you pretty much came up against three very strong opponents. IG and Necrons are very tough and mounted up DE are almost always a loss unless you get lucky and things break your way.

I would bring both Zoans as your anti-tank, and if your opponent doesn't have tanks (or lots of power armor) I'd swap out powers for biomancy and use them in more of a support role (and Smite will do pretty well against terminators). Also, as mentioned above, I'd swap out the Heavy Venom Cannons for dual devourers where you can, proxying if you can't swap out the arms (or just give it a shot once and see why they're popular).

Try out the genestealers too, maybe in a brood of ~10 with the broodlord if points allow. The tactic I've heard that sounds effective is to infiltrate them in cover out of synapse range of your army. Keeping them out of synapse allows them to go to ground in your opponent's turn for very good cover saves. Then in your turn, move synapse over them. As soon as synapse touches them, they auto-recover and act normally, allowing you to move and charge. You could try to run them a bit bigger to absorb the inevitable casualties, but it will make it harder for them to stay hidden.

I'm not convinced about Deep Striking the Trygon. I think it depends a bit on the mission and your army. In some cases he might be better off walking since he'll still get to combat by turn 3 most of the time, and in the mean time he can provide synapse as a prime and distract fire from other units. Granted, some armies will not have trouble gunning him down, but most will without concentrating all their fire at him, in which case, your flyrant is still golden.

[adam81]

I know tervigons are the main choice in this edition but i'm not too keen on the models, i do like the tyrannofex but i thnk its really expensive points-wise??

What would be the suggestions for the the next new model(s)?

Is it the best idea to drop HVC all round and change for TL devourers? Even on a carnifex? The club where i usually play doesnt really mind proxying models so even the models with the wrong guns wont make any difference.

I normally run my warrior just plain and the prime with them with boneswords. They normally outflank and with the hive commander rule.

Usual points level is 1000 to 1500.

I'm sure people already had a discussion about this edition of the rules but i think the inclusion of overwatch and not being able to charge from outflank has really hurt our army let alone hull points as the we only have 2 strength 9 or 10 guns and one has to hit and damage for 3 turns just to take out a normal tank. Not to mention furious charge being completly nurfed!! (i'm an ork player too so that kinda mad nobs (please do not swear) against marines).

Thanks for the advice guys, still not sold on nids in this edition without some major investments, I remember before when everyone feared the Tyrand army and no one really knew what to do against a Tyranid army as they knew something was gonna hurt them.

Anyway less of my rambling i'll keep quiet and save some money and see what catches my eye.

[FTGTEvan]

I voted more gaunts and Tervigon, but if you don't like the model, I'm not inclined to push you that way. I was on the fence about it, and frankly it's pretty awesome, but I only have one and I'm not too sold on more - they'd be more reliable, but I'm doing well with just the one.

Here's a 1k list you could try with what you have:

Flyrant w/2TL Devourers
2 Zoanthropes
10 Stealers: Toxin Sacs, Broodlord w/ScyTals
19 Hormagaunts w/Toxin Sacs
15 Termagants w/Devourers in a spore (you can get a big easter egg and use that until you paint it up)
10 Gargoyles (or the venomthrope).

Your biggest issues here will be synapse: Your flyrant will probably be out of range for Turn 2 as he flies ahead - though he can give synapse to the infiltrated stealers. You'll need to protect your Zoans as they will the your core and main anti-tank. At 1k hopefully you won't face too much AV 13+, so the flyrant has a decent chance of popping transports and the like.

The gargoyles (or venomthrope) provide cover to the hormagaunts and zoan as they advance up the board. Your concern will be either one giving up First Blood.

You won't have much that's good at holding your backfield objectives, and this is a very offensive list, which is the flavor that got me into nids. The devilgants in the spore will be good for dropping on an objective and have the firepower to blast most anything off of it (22.5 H, 11.25W, 3+ dead marines).

[adam81]

I forgot to mention it in the poll but what do people think of the Tyrannofex? I know its 255points for the assault 2 strength 10 version but its T/S/W of 6 with a 2+ save will keep it alive for a while.

And considering the range its probably the best anti tank weapon we have.

Cheers for ongoing advice.

[swarmy]

Mar 22, 2013 22:28:52 GMT adam81 said:

I forgot to mention it in the poll but what do people think of the Tyrannofex? I know its 255points for the assault 2 strength 10 version but its T/S/W of 6 with a 2+ save will keep it alive for a while.

And considering the range its probably the best anti tank weapon we have.

Cheers for ongoing advice.

I think it's 265pts but anyhow, it requires a synapse babysitter and it's only BS3 which holds it back from being reliable compared to say...the TL lascannons on everything and their dog lately. We remove hull points by glances far more point effectively than anything else which is why people gravitate towards that over high str weapons...also because all our high str shots are so hit or miss

[gigasnail]

you're fighting some hard armies with a subpar list. find some more friendly/less competitive games while you tune your list up to standard and adjust to 6th.

some pointers:
- fexes with HVC are expensive and don't put out good volumes of fire
- warriors may not be yoru best choice when facing armies with high volumes of S8 weaponry (i.e. anything but another tyranid player)
- loose the HVC on the flyrant; it's not a good weapon. TL BL devourers X2 is the go-to weapon. otherwise a flyrant is a nasty (please do not swear), and will draw fire. play smart with him, and better yet, take two.
- you need a mix of hive guard, zoanthropes, and ygmrls. some people swear by one or the other and what works best is going to depend on your playstyle and your local meta/opponents. i'm not sold on venomthropes; but i'd consider a brood at 2k+ and double force org. otherwise i don't feel they are worth the elite slot, especially since MC can get cover saves easily from area terrain now.
- i'm not a fan of hormagants, but they can work if used properly (i.e. w/ swarmlord support).
- tervigons are beast. exploit them.
- trygon is a solid choice; but think about why you have the prime upgrade on him. this is a guy you want to rage if at all possible and you a flyrant and warriors so forward synapse shouldn't be a problem. sometimes the extra shots and SitW is worth it, sometimes no.

also, tyrranofexes are fairly expensive and kind of terrible. if you must take one, acid spray is the way to go.

[kirchoff]

Well, if you're still not sold on tyranids then at least try out VTaeries's list that he posted or make a new list based off what you learned from us and tell us the results before you shelf them. I am interested in knowing the results.

But, If you don't want to invest anything more in them and still try to make them work, bring both zoies and proxy twin linked devourers on the carnifex's and the hive tyrant. Bring the prime with 3 warriors and put venom cannons on the other two and proxy those as hive guard. Try something, anything. Nid's still work in this edition though, it's just that GW intentionally make changes to the rules to make you buy more models. You can't blame em though for trying to make money, they have bills to pay too.

[jahatch42878]

So, yeah, as everyone said, you don't have the models for the current ideal web-approved army... but you have enough models to play around with things and there are plenty of 'nid players that like Warriors, Carnifexes (Carnifexi?), and Gaunts... and can win with them...

also, you have what sounds like the double-whammy of being up against some tough opponents...

so, you can either learn to use what you have (and proxy some), find another group of opponents and see if any of your regular opponents are sick of beating you and maybe they want to try out another list or another army they are interested in, or you will have to invest some $$ to change your army...

I am a proponent of option 1... in theory (in theory mind you) any equal points army should be able to find ways to win vs another army... maybe it will depend on the mission, maybe luck, maybe terrain, certainly strategy and tactics.. but with the right alignment of the stars, you can pull this off...

option two isn't always an option, and it's kinda ignoring the problem with your feelings about the army and maybe not that rewarding if you are only playing brand new players who don't really know how to play... and then option 3 can just get silly expensive and although maybe might help you win, it is possible that throwing money at the problem isn't the answer...

for option 1, first step is recognizing what is not working... are you finding all your synapse and MC's blown up or just loosing too many infantry to fire before they can charge or losing because you can't hold objectives till the end of the game? Do you move your army forward in a waves on 1/3 of the board or do you try to spread out across the table and give your enemy too many options, or do you deep-strike/infiltrate/outflank to disrupt their plans/battle line? is it working sometimes or do you need to totally change strategies?

also, have you tried a lot of different lists or just re-hashing the same list?

if you take 2 carnifexes, trygon prime, flyrant, and prime do you feel better than taking all your infantry and swarming the enemy?... are you more of a Nidzilla or more of a horde player? or do you like them both and want some synergy?

I think that the weapon changes on your MCs is important (and easy)... 12 shots @ S6 with rerolls is a lot better than a small blast template that isn't really good for armor or massed infantry... useful against dark eldar skimmers, but so are 12 S6 shots with re-rolls...

Have you read Infornography's Tyranid Army Breakdown/Write up? It is really good and touches on a lot of the issues you might be facing and I know it has helped me improve the weapon load-outs of my army...

I think you have a decent # of models, a decent diversity of models, and although the current rules/codex are not heavily in your favor, there are ways to win with what you have, as long as your are willing to think (and post) about changes that you can make and learn to be a better tabletop general... (of course, that's what we all want too, but some of us are better at it that others!!!)

keep us posted! sorry about the rambling, but it is an interesting debate about "what armies can win" and how much does the general determine the outcome of the game... Josh

P.s. oh, and my vote is for some Hive Guard to bolster your ranged attacks and more gaunts so you can more effectively swamp the enemy... a Tervigon and more gants is a good choice, but since you said you didn't like'em, I say stick with what you like.

[adam81]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

I think i i'll change the flyrant to have 2 x tl devourers, and i'll try and invest in a couple of mycetic spores (please excuse my spelling) for a dakkafex and maybe a Doom? Basically they are the cheapest options to upgrade/change some of the army. And i'll probably proxy Ymgarl stealers too!

My problem with the TL devourer and hive guard is the range is still really low, especially against dark eldar, with what ever the upgrade is so you lose 6".

the list i wrote out looks something like:

Flyrant tl devourer
Prime boneswords & regen

Doom in pod
Ymgarl x 5
Venomthrope x 1

term x 15
term x 15
Tervigon (dominion, catalyst, onslaught) TS & AG

Dakkafex in pod
Trygon Prime

Total 1500

Not sure how effective this list would be without hive commander and if the deep striking units dont arrive when they're needed. i thought i could drop a few terms to get it? I know the troop choices are low but hoping the Tervigon will add a few extra? Thats why the venomthrope is there to give the tervigon and term a cover save. Any adivce for this list??

I know i said i don't like the Tervigon model but, what are the alternative lists??

[jahatch42878]

So, the TL devourer is on a flyer.. you have 24" swoop +18" range for 42" threat... pretty good range...
the hive guard 24" isn't as great as a biovore's 48", but really, since most set ups are 24" apart, either you move 6 (into or behind cover) or they do and you are in range... you aren't going to be blasting all their flyers or back edge tanks off the board that way, but not needing LOS is pretty cool and useful.

Your 1500 pt list is probably going to be much more effective (once you learn it) than your previous list...

but again, if you don't really like the Tervigon, you don't have to go that route... if you did make up some mycetic spores, adjust the weapons on the flyrant and carnifex, change the 'stealers over to Ymargl (then maybe take a basic stealer unit with broodlord for outflank/infiltrate too), and I still am a fan of taking the Warriors with Deathspitters with the Prime with Whip & Sword... synapse, character, and flexible, plus a troop choice for objectives...

Hive Tyrant w/Wings, 2 x TL devourer
Prime w/2 Boneswords
Doom in Pod
5 Ymargl
4 Genestealers & a Broodlord with Scything Talons
3 Warriors with Deathspitters and a Barbed Strangler
12 Gaunts with Adrenal Gland
15 Termagants with Adrenal Gland
Dakkafex witih 2 x TL devourer with Pod
Trygon Prime

should be 1490 if I did my math right.. only thing you need to add to the army are 2 drop pods, a doom conversion of your zoanthrope, and a broodlord...

easy thing to do and you could probably use an extra tyranid warrior as the broodlord stand in for a test run...

saves you $ and gives you some nice tactical options with 2 pods, flyer, and infiltrate/outflank and ymargl charge right out of cover...

- Josh

[afewveiws]

The problem your having is that your enemies can focus fire more then halve your points in turn 1. Carnifexen are to expensive and too weak to use past 750pt games (as a one of and still not recommended). your ability to address vehicles is severely lacking, and considering that the enemies mentioned in the post are tank/vehicle spammers...

So my votes for new models are more Gaunts (cheap wound saturation and objective holders) and H.guard (usually our most reliable Anti-tank)