Post by Malkyr on Jun 5, 2013 4:04:01 GMT
First off this is my first post here. I've been lurking for months but this event drove me out of hiding (or maybe a synapse was in range 
).
I just recently got back into 40k after being gone for more then a decade. I played Tyranids (including Cult) and Chaos for years in 2nd ed and then got super army ADD in 3rd and played pretty much everything before quitting the game. I played some Warmahordes in the interim as well as various small scale games. So though I am new to 6th ed I am not new to wargaming.
I instantly picked up Tyranids again as they were my first and greatest love in the 40k universe (mainly due to how awesome the Hive Tyrant and Screamer fex looked, plus how much fun Venom Cannons with Thud gun templates were).
I have only gotten a few games in. The first was against another brand new player borrowing some Marines. Though he almost tabled me we managed to tie on Mission points thanks to my Tervigons being insanely OP (A scoring unit that spawns more scoring units and is tougher/cheaper then a Carnifex? Seems fair.
)
My second game was against the same guy playing Necrons. Now note I have heard nonstop how great Flying Tyrants are but both of mine got Grounded out of the sky and killed easily. Actually one was shot to death and the other got overwatched into oblivion when I decided charging was safer then flying. This game he conceded when we ran out of time, but I'm positive he would've won if he had stuck it out as the 4 vp objective was within his easy reach.
These two games aren't so bad. I'm happy the game is more mission based now as I'm learning that my stuff is dying in droves to shooting and overwatch (Which isn't too different to 2nd ed actually. I still hate Space Wolves forever for a making my Genestealer Cult unplayable with Wolf Guard assault cannon spam and the god awful old overwatch rules).
Then the other night I played a 2k game against a much more experienced player. He is a good buddy of mine who I have a pretty even record with in Warmachine. He quit that game awhile ago and has become a pretty hyper-competitive 40k player, even travelling to Adepticon and other various big tourneys nationwide. He warned me that his list was a tournament list and that Dark Eldar are a tough match up for Bugs.
His list was mostly Venom transports with small units inside, an HQ squad I never saw in a Raider, and a few Ravagers.
I was running the "what I own list" which is Two Flyrants (with twinlinked devourers), Two Tervigons as troops, some small Termagant squads, 3 zoanthropes, 4 Hive Guard, 3 Biovores, and a Trygon I was borrowing. I know this list isn't too bad of a collection and I actually picked a lot of it based on what I read here.
So I won't go into a full Battle report, but we ended up rolling to deploy on the short table edges even though the terrain was preset for a normal "long edge" game. This left very little cover. Turn one his shooting wiped out close to 50% of my army. I moved up and maybe popped a transport or two. Turn two he mopped up all the rest of my MCs (I did roll terrible for saves I'll admit, especially against the ID wounds on my Zoanthropes who never even got off a power) and cleaned up what few little bugs weren't running. By the bottom of turn two I had two fleeing decimated Termagant units (that were spawned). We didn't bother rolling to see if my Trygon would join the battle turn 3. :\
So obviously I learned a few things here. One is keep my Tervigons far far away from my gants cause they drop a lot faster then I realized against poison guns. Two is to outflank one Tervigon so something survives the alpha strike. Potentially three is redeploy all the terrain if we roll the short edges. I also confirmed that Hive Tyrants will be shot out of the sky every single game the first time a decent sized unit points at them. Maybe this comes down to my awful grounding rolls but it's happened every game. It probably didn't help that no one in my army rolled Iron Arm.
Still I have to admit it's a little disheartening. I don't mind losing in a new system (heck Warmachine is impossible to win games at first), but so far I'm not impressed with Tyranids in 6th ed. I feel like my only answer to his army is to get a whole bunch more little bugs, like maybe a couple big Hormaguant units and two big Gargoyle units (since they are hopefully fast enough to catch him). Having to pop a transport and then still deal with the little units inside makes me worried about big units of bugs on my side though. I may try some more Deep Striking stuff, though against the Necrons that just meant his forces vastly outnumbered me in the first couple turns.
I will admit I'm considering trading my army away for a smaller more elite shooty force. That way my best answer to a problem isn't to drop $200 more dollars on a unit that isn't even that many points. In fact it could just be inexperience but I feel like this rule set encourages exactly that kind of army. Who knows what will happen when I come up against Tau!
So any advice for a newer bug player guys? I'm not quite ready to trade in my talons for bolters yet!
).I just recently got back into 40k after being gone for more then a decade. I played Tyranids (including Cult) and Chaos for years in 2nd ed and then got super army ADD in 3rd and played pretty much everything before quitting the game. I played some Warmahordes in the interim as well as various small scale games. So though I am new to 6th ed I am not new to wargaming.
I instantly picked up Tyranids again as they were my first and greatest love in the 40k universe (mainly due to how awesome the Hive Tyrant and Screamer fex looked, plus how much fun Venom Cannons with Thud gun templates were).
I have only gotten a few games in. The first was against another brand new player borrowing some Marines. Though he almost tabled me we managed to tie on Mission points thanks to my Tervigons being insanely OP (A scoring unit that spawns more scoring units and is tougher/cheaper then a Carnifex? Seems fair.
)My second game was against the same guy playing Necrons. Now note I have heard nonstop how great Flying Tyrants are but both of mine got Grounded out of the sky and killed easily. Actually one was shot to death and the other got overwatched into oblivion when I decided charging was safer then flying. This game he conceded when we ran out of time, but I'm positive he would've won if he had stuck it out as the 4 vp objective was within his easy reach.
These two games aren't so bad. I'm happy the game is more mission based now as I'm learning that my stuff is dying in droves to shooting and overwatch (Which isn't too different to 2nd ed actually. I still hate Space Wolves forever for a making my Genestealer Cult unplayable with Wolf Guard assault cannon spam and the god awful old overwatch rules).
Then the other night I played a 2k game against a much more experienced player. He is a good buddy of mine who I have a pretty even record with in Warmachine. He quit that game awhile ago and has become a pretty hyper-competitive 40k player, even travelling to Adepticon and other various big tourneys nationwide. He warned me that his list was a tournament list and that Dark Eldar are a tough match up for Bugs.
His list was mostly Venom transports with small units inside, an HQ squad I never saw in a Raider, and a few Ravagers.
I was running the "what I own list" which is Two Flyrants (with twinlinked devourers), Two Tervigons as troops, some small Termagant squads, 3 zoanthropes, 4 Hive Guard, 3 Biovores, and a Trygon I was borrowing. I know this list isn't too bad of a collection and I actually picked a lot of it based on what I read here.
So I won't go into a full Battle report, but we ended up rolling to deploy on the short table edges even though the terrain was preset for a normal "long edge" game. This left very little cover. Turn one his shooting wiped out close to 50% of my army. I moved up and maybe popped a transport or two. Turn two he mopped up all the rest of my MCs (I did roll terrible for saves I'll admit, especially against the ID wounds on my Zoanthropes who never even got off a power) and cleaned up what few little bugs weren't running. By the bottom of turn two I had two fleeing decimated Termagant units (that were spawned). We didn't bother rolling to see if my Trygon would join the battle turn 3. :\
So obviously I learned a few things here. One is keep my Tervigons far far away from my gants cause they drop a lot faster then I realized against poison guns. Two is to outflank one Tervigon so something survives the alpha strike. Potentially three is redeploy all the terrain if we roll the short edges. I also confirmed that Hive Tyrants will be shot out of the sky every single game the first time a decent sized unit points at them. Maybe this comes down to my awful grounding rolls but it's happened every game. It probably didn't help that no one in my army rolled Iron Arm.
Still I have to admit it's a little disheartening. I don't mind losing in a new system (heck Warmachine is impossible to win games at first), but so far I'm not impressed with Tyranids in 6th ed. I feel like my only answer to his army is to get a whole bunch more little bugs, like maybe a couple big Hormaguant units and two big Gargoyle units (since they are hopefully fast enough to catch him). Having to pop a transport and then still deal with the little units inside makes me worried about big units of bugs on my side though. I may try some more Deep Striking stuff, though against the Necrons that just meant his forces vastly outnumbered me in the first couple turns.
I will admit I'm considering trading my army away for a smaller more elite shooty force. That way my best answer to a problem isn't to drop $200 more dollars on a unit that isn't even that many points. In fact it could just be inexperience but I feel like this rule set encourages exactly that kind of army. Who knows what will happen when I come up against Tau!
So any advice for a newer bug player guys? I'm not quite ready to trade in my talons for bolters yet!
