Skytyrant Swarm Idea... maybe we've been doing it wrong

[rpricew]

I was checking out Nidsirvana's fandex and the "how to make a walkrant viable" threads earlier today... and it got the list building ideas flowing.

I was trying to figure out a way to help mitigate the effects of Grav on a Flyrant. Obviously the 3+ armor save makes him susceptible to Grav and with wishlisting Armored Carapace back, that would make it even worse.

Let's talk about Skytyrant... the downside to this is that it takes our T6 flyrant and makes him T3 for the purposes of shooting and CC until he's down to one Gargoyle. Also, if you take a large brood of Gargoyles, then that's a huge footprint that can be easily multi-assaulted and tied up.

What if we flipped it around. Jaysic has had some great success with Melyrants and I like running one in the Skytyrant formation. What if instead of a large brood of Gargoyles, we instead of just take the minimum brood, keep them cheap (fleet only for movement) and take multiple Formations?

A Grav squad isn't really afraid of a standard shooty Flyrant, but if a Melyrant get's into CC with them, then they are probably panicking.

A regular Melyrant is about 255 points, and it's about 160 points for AG Gargoyles. That's 415 points. (in truth, that's a lot of points) But if you're aggressive with them, then you should be able to close with the enemy pretty quickly and get in their face. Maybe overload with Lictors for target saturation, or any and all of the tricks that were described in the CC thread.

Here's my Crazy List Idea:

Skytyrant #1:
Melyrant (LW/BS, AG, RC, Wings, OA) - 255
2 x 10 Gargoyles (AG) - 160

Skytyrant #2:
Melyrant (LW/BS, AG, RC, Wings, OA) - 255
2 x 10 Gargoyles (AG) - 160

CAD:
Flyrant (Dakka, Haywire) - 240
3 x Mucolids - 45
1 x Children of Cryptus - 215
2 x 10 Gargoyles - 120
2 x 1 Malanthropes - 170

Deathleaper's Assassin Brood
Deathleaper
5 x 1 Lictors

The Children are there for fun, and the points worked for what was left over (about 230 points)... I'm sure there are other options... like another Flyrant or whatever, but OS is always good. Maybe several ripper swarms in their place.

Regular Gargoyles go out front of the Skytyrant, with Skytyrant Gargoyles trailing back to the Malanthropes. Castle up for going 2nd against Alpha Strike armies. Obviously this is going to struggle against any AV 13+ and deathstars with Invisibility and I'm not sure who wants to play with 60 Gargoyles. But otherwise, it could be fun.

[reitifoh]

Sept 23, 2015 20:39:42 GMT rpricew said:

I was checking out Nidsirvana's fandex and the "how to make a walkrant viable" threads earlier today... and it got the list building ideas flowing.

I was trying to figure out a way to help mitigate the effects of Grav on a Flyrant. Obviously the 3+ armor save makes him susceptible to Grav and with wishlisting Armored Carapace back, that would make it even worse.

Let's talk about Skytyrant... the downside to this is that it takes our T6 flyrant and makes him T3 for the purposes of shooting and CC until he's down to one Gargoyle. Also, if you take a large brood of Gargoyles, then that's a huge footprint that can be easily multi-assaulted and tied up.

What if we flipped it around. Jaysic has had some great success with Melyrants and I like running one in the Skytyrant formation. What if instead of a large brood of Gargoyles, we instead of just take the minimum brood, keep them cheap (fleet only for movement) and take multiple Formations?

A Grav squad isn't really afraid of a standard shooty Flyrant, but if a Melyrant get's into CC with them, then they are probably panicking.

A regular Melyrant is about 255 points, and it's about 160 points for AG Gargoyles. That's 415 points. (in truth, that's a lot of points) But if you're aggressive with them, then you should be able to close with the enemy pretty quickly and get in their face. Maybe overload with Lictors for target saturation, or any and all of the tricks that were described in the CC thread.

Here's my Crazy List Idea:

Skytyrant #1:
Melyrant (LW/BS, AG, RC, Wings, OA) - 255
2 x 10 Gargoyles (AG) - 160

Skytyrant #2:
Melyrant (LW/BS, AG, RC, Wings, OA) - 255
2 x 10 Gargoyles (AG) - 160

CAD:
Flyrant (Dakka, Haywire) - 240
3 x Mucolids - 45
1 x Children of Cryptus - 215
2 x 10 Gargoyles - 120
2 x 1 Malanthropes - 170

Deathleaper's Assassin Brood
Deathleaper
5 x 1 Lictors

The Children are there for fun, and the points worked for what was left over (about 230 points)... I'm sure there are other options... like another Flyrant or whatever, but OS is always good. Maybe several ripper swarms in their place.

Regular Gargoyles go out front of the Skytyrant, with Skytyrant Gargoyles trailing back to the Malanthropes. Castle up for going 2nd against Alpha Strike armies. Obviously this is going to struggle against any AV 13+ and deathstars with Invisibility and I'm not sure who wants to play with 60 Gargoyles. But otherwise, it could be fun.

still has several MAJOR weaknesses, for one you are not making use of the snap fire only (not as big as others i'll get into), that's 320 points tied up in what will essentially be bodyguards/ cannon fodder.
i'm assuming your adding the malanthropes to provide shrouded to the gargoyles, problem is after the first turn they'll be out of range of the malanthrope (if not their moving too slow), making that another 170 points dumped in the first turn (better with the venomthropes, to save points, as they will not make much difference after turn 1 anyway), yes the malanthropes provide synapse... but with such a small force that's not needed (lictors and genestealers Ld 10, so they fine, and the melyrants provide synapse for whats relevant (if they die, you have bigger problems to worry about than synapse)
DL Assasins useless in this formation as you don't have NEARLY enough DS to make full use of them.... maybe if you had a Mawloc of 2


even with all that.... I would like to see a return of Melyrants (can't myself as I rely on the double dakka for air support).
*So if you were to add a mawloc or 2, that would deal with the invisibility issue.
*Loose the children for hornagants with poison sacs (tried genestealers myself recently..... tried to bring them back and failed miserably, for the same points you can get 30 hornagants boasting a whopping 60- 90 attacks, while not rending, this is sure to overwhelm what the melyrants and guards leave + more likely to keep up with gargoyles... bounding leap).
*Now you can keep the Malonthropes as they provide the needed synapse.
* Loose the Mucolid, and try to squeeze in a carnifex.... on its own it will be vulnerable, but behind the gargoyles, hornagants and walking with the malanthrope it should be fine, will deal with any vehicles it comes against (does NOT!!! need CC, give dakka or something, the HOW + normal attacks are enough for all but superheavies), if it does get killed before it reaches the vehicles, it should soak up a lot of fire power, saving your gants etc..... so long as it stays within shrouded.

but all in all, would love to hear how it turns out, may consider running a melyrant myself in the future