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Post by gman25639 on Apr 23, 2013 23:34:06 GMT
This was suggested by harry4tw. The Tyrannofex seems to be an underused and underappreciated unit. I use one in almost all my games to particular effect. So im making this thread to shed some light on his use.
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Post by gman25639 on Apr 23, 2013 23:40:28 GMT
1st of all, if you just look at his statline, he seems effective. WS3 BS3 S6 T6 W6 I1 A3 Ld8 Sv2+
Those 6 wounds and 2+ save mean hes very durable, and regeneration makes him more so. Overall, a very difficult monster to kill. Hes only died twice in all my games. One was apoc., he got surrounded by leman russ. And other he died on the very last turn from concentrated multi-melta fire over 2 turns.
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Post by gigasnail on Apr 23, 2013 23:43:21 GMT
if you just look at a lictor's statline, they seem effective.
problem is cost. the 2+/t6/6w is nice; but his options are bad and the only time he really shines is if you know you're facing xenos foot horde. too expensive for general use.
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Post by retnab on Apr 23, 2013 23:48:15 GMT
He has good stats but barebones he's 250 points for 2 sprays or 265 for two 48" S10AP4 shots. Ten times out of ten I'd rather spend 50 points and get a Hive Guard (or two or three) with two 24" S8AP4 shots. They may only have 2W and a 4+ save, but they have just as much durability and points-for-points they'd have far more wounds (and shots) overall.
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Post by gigasnail on Apr 24, 2013 0:12:25 GMT
and for something that's supposed to be the be-all end-all of tyranid evolution, BS3/WS3 don't cut it. sure as hell not for the price tag. no invul save. easily tarpitted. one shotted by force weapons. low number of attacks. poor AP on the anti tank option.
there was hope right before 6th came out that the rumored changes to OA (i.e. it applied to shooting as well) would make them viable w/ rupture cannons. however it only lets you reroll 1's, and it's not enough to justify the cost.
even with the double template config (probably best way to field them) they're too expensive and slow, with poor number of attacks and no way to get out of being tarpitted and forgotten about.
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Post by gman25639 on Apr 24, 2013 2:17:37 GMT
So, we've looked at his stats, lets move on to weapons options. Acid appears to be pretty good, with template+12", you get a nice anti-infantry gun. Fleshborer hives aren't really worth it, 20 gaunts worth of shooting is much more cheaply achieved by bringing 20 gaunts (duh). Rupture cannon is my favorite, S10 assault2 48" range gives you the chance to eliminate that pesky land raider from very far away with little risk of retaliation. Although BS3 lowers this guns attractiveness a'm little, youll be hitting 50% of the time(on avg), and 50% S10 hits is better than no S10 hits.Combine that with a thorax swarm and either stinger salvo or cluster spines, and you have one heck of a weapons platform.
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Post by gigasnail on Apr 24, 2013 2:41:52 GMT
overcosted, mediocre unit. no one bothers to kill the OP's tfex because it's not much of a threat.
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Post by gman25639 on Apr 24, 2013 3:46:40 GMT
Mine has always been effective, except in that one apocalypse game where one of my team's opponents brought about 10 leman russ and 3 baneblades. But he always soaks up a ton of firepower, because frankly no one wants a W6 Sv2+ monster walking towards them while firing it's 2 shot S10 gun. He usually makes back his points cost by the end of the game. I had him explode a dreadnought on turn 2 before the dreadnought was even in range to do anything. He then proceeded to bring a 5 man marine squad down to only 2 guys and blew a missile launcher off their rhino. I lost the game because of the dice roll to end it, had we gone another turn i would have won as he only had 1 terminator left against 4 genestealers and my T-fex and tyrant were bearing down on him. He beat 2 kill pts to 1.
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Post by ranmafan on Apr 24, 2013 4:39:13 GMT
I've fielded it a few times. It's just everything that's wrong with Tyranid shooting put into one convenient package.
Unique to this model: 1) Average WS w/ a 2-shot S10 gun that can have its bullets deflected by power armour. Granted it's a really LONG ranged S10 gun... 2) Rupture Cannon doesn't synergise with other weapons - all must be directed at the same target. 3) Too easy to tarpit - doesn't even confer bonuses to other Nids locked in combat with it (vs. the fluff) 4) Fleshborer hive is underwhelming - It isn't even twin linked or anything. 5) Far, far to expensive for what it does. 6) Acid Spray, despite its name, also fails to deliver on the 'melts everything' front. Marines just consider it a light shower.
For something that's akin to a living heavy tank, and costs as much as if not more than a Land Raider (which has a Heavy Bolter, 2 twin linked lascannons, or any assortment of meltas/missiles/nasties), whose only purpose is as a gunbeast and NOT an assault unit, it fails quite spectacularly.
Standard Nid MC weaknesses: 1) Force weapons 2) TH/SS (who isn't though?)
Granted, it's not COMPLETELY hopeless.
In an Apoc game where the points aren't a huge issue, its huge range and Rupture cannon are helpful in bringing down buildings, bastions, Quad guns and other static positions and, if they get close enough, spraying its occupants with grubs. With 2-3 of them, you can have a nice Titan-hunting team since AP is less important than range and the ability to force enough dice rolls to cause a big explosion given the kind of distances you want to maintain from the Superheavies.
And therein lies the problem - the TFex is simply poorly balanced for non-Apoc games. Too expensive, too unreliable, too confused, not flexible enough.
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Post by coredump on Apr 24, 2013 4:54:16 GMT
So, even in that great game that you use as an example, he killed what, 200pts at most?
And lets look at those targets
Dreadnaught: Tfex 2 shots, 1 hit, .166 glance and .6666 pens Hive Guard 6 shots, 4 hits, .666 glance and 1.333 pens
Marines Tfex: 2 shots, 1 hit, .8333 wound, .277 dead 4 shots, 2 hits, 1.333 wound, .44 dead Hive Guard 6 shots, 4 hits, 3.333 wound, 1.11 dead
Rhino Tfex 2 shots, 1 hit, .1666 glance .8333 pens 4 shots, 2 hits, .333 glance Hive Guard 6 shots, 4 hits, .666 glance, 2 pens
In all cases, the 150 points of Hive guard does more than double the damage of a 265 pt Tfex
Even in 5th Edition, the Rupture cannon was a bad gun, we just needed it because we had almost no other way of dealing with vehicles, and there were a lot of vehicles. Now that vehicles are killed many different ways, we don't need such a sub par gun. (The gun is actually okay, if I could put it on a much cheaper model)
It *is* resiient, but most players just won't care; at least not until the rest of your army is dead. Taking a couple of pot shots a turn... not that much of a threat. A Monstrous creature that is only moving 6" a turn, not that much of a threat. And if you are really piling on with regen, that means 300pts for a slow gun that doesn't do much damage?
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Post by t⊗theark on Apr 24, 2013 4:58:26 GMT
Everytime I use the tyrrannofex is does nothing. Nothing. If I give it a ruptrue cannon, it will rarely do anything. One average it hits once. That is horrible. All of its other weapons are short ranged and don't do anything that you do with some other part of the tyranid army. It usually gets ignored, rightly so. The only three people in my area who don't ignore it would be a dark eldar player, a necon player and a tau player - all of which kill it in one turn with plenty to spare. This for 250 points base?
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Post by gigasnail on Apr 24, 2013 5:00:18 GMT
i'll try a new track, you're new here and i'm not trying to be a douche.
effective vs. what?
if you're playing lists with tfexes and doing well, more power to you. however, there's nothing in what you're listing of your tfex's accomplishments that can't be done as well or better by hiveguard and tervigon buffed termigants, for cheaper. for that matter, a tfex facing a list with these units is in big trouble. it doesn't put out the volume of fire to seriously endanger much, and can't put out the numbers of attacks needed to fend off waves of poisoned termagants. a smart opponent would simply tarpit a tfex with termagants, a blob squad w/ commisar, or cultist blob w/ apostle near/attached, and forget about it. there are reasons people take these units: they're good. they confer an advantage due to cost, scoring, durability, support, etc, that other units don't have.
i have no idea where/what/how you play or play against, but tfex is generally something along with warriors, rippers and the meleefex that do ok in friendly lists, but once you venture out into the wider world and start to run against more difficult, more experienced opponents with well tooled lists, you're going to start to have problems. i'm not talking about tournements. i'm talking about well constructed lists, using the best units, with players that understand paying 260+ points for a 50% chance to hit isn't the best use of points in the world.
please understand we see threads like 'the tfex is awesome,' 'in support of the meleefex,' and 'warriors are the best thing since sliced bread' pretty often. these units are fine for playing friendly games. they're not good. they may have great stats (lictor, warriors), have wargear issues (lack of assault grenades, few low AP options at all in our dex), are over-costed (harpy, tfex) or have poorly thought/silly rules that get in the way of their performance (lictors, spore mines, primes in pods, the list goes on forever), or it may be an environment or meta or edition problem (cheap missile, plasma, autocannons making multipe units risky to take at all because you know without a doubt you'll see this en mass from everyone). the vast majority of our codex suffers from at least one (if not more/all) of these things.
we have pointed out the unit's shortcomings. you have not shown anything innovative or useful a tfex can do that justifies it hefty price tag.
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Post by Raven on Apr 24, 2013 5:13:22 GMT
Tyrannofexes are only ever worth it if you can trick your opponent into shooting at your slow, mediocre shooting, points sink instead of something that's actually a threat.
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Post by infornography on Apr 24, 2013 5:17:25 GMT
What it ultimately comes down to is that the T-Fex's one saving grace is durability, it does that well, but all my opponents have decided that it is not worth their attention due to how little it actually accomplishes. The Ork player just tarpits him with grots which completely neutralize him. GROTS!
A HUGE slow durable weapons platform with poor ballistic skill and medicore weapons is not going to do much especially if it can be tarpitted that easily.
Look at what other codecies get for similar points and tell me you still think the T-Fex is worth it. And then back it up with scenarios and math that show that it can consistently accomplish something worthwhile.
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Post by coredump on Apr 24, 2013 5:43:05 GMT
OKay, lets look at this a different way.
There are a number of units in the codex that are sub-par in a vacuum, but can be made worth while if your list is designed to take advantage of whatever strengths there are, and downplay any weaknesses. A parasite is meh, but when joined to gargoyles, and assisted by enfeeble, it can be well worth its points.
If I wanted to run a Tfex,and have it be 'worth' its points....
Skip the Rupture cannon. 2 shots at BS 3... blech. Plus, the targets that it is decent against, makes the other weapons a waste of time. Stick with Acid Spray. Acid spray isn't great against MEq, but will work wonders against most Xenos armies, or IG blobs, etc. (I used it agaisn't Orks...big fun.) Second, use its resiliency to help other models. March the TFex up the field, and use its size to provide cover for the Tervigon/Carnifex/warrior/walkrant/stealer/whatever brood that is coming up behind it. Don't leave it on its own. It can be tarpitted, so you need to have either a unit that is screening it, or poised to counter assault with it. The unit doesn't have to be right next to it, just close enough to come help bail it out if it gets stuck.
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