Board Control in Competitive Play

[sroc]

Hello everyone!

So I have been on the hunt for a army to build for years. I keep jumping from one idea to the next. I wanted an army that can play both ranged and melee, not at the same time, but also build all-comers lists as well. Tyranids have finally become the top pick for me. So I'm starting to dive hard into competitive builds and play-styles of Tyranids to help me build my army for the LVO 2021 and beyond. 

What I'm starting to look at seriously right now is Spore Mines and how to use them. Fortifications are not allowed in the ITC so Sporocysts are out sadly. So that leaves me three options that I can find right now. Harpies, Biovores and Spore Mine units.

So here is the plan. Pretty sure I'll be building a Brigade.

Hive Fleet: Leviathan (6+ FnP is too good to pass up imho)

I plan on running 3 Harpies to fly around and do bombing runs to get more Mines on the field if possible, I will have 3 units of 3 Biovores and 3 units of Hive Guard, 3 Units of 6 Spore Mines (Initial Screening), 3 units of long range Tyranid Warriors (providing synapes to the biovores and additional protection), Still working on the rest of the list.

So the idea here is to race across the map with the Harpies and assault any vehicles I can while bombing running another unit to hopefully get somemore mines on the field. Alternatively I can just do fly-bys with the Harpies to continue dropping mines and shooting their weaponry. The biovores will also be shooting mines every turn. 

Then I am hoping to be able to fill the elite slots with something like Zoanthrope Units, run 3 units of gaunts with 2 flying range focused hive tyrants and the swarmlord in a Tyrannocyte. I know I will have to work the list around a lot more as I am most likely over pointed at this point. Hoping to get the codex for Christmas so I can actually build the list. The main idea of the list is controlling the board and picking out weak elements when they are exposed with the Swarmlord arriving mid board to clean up. 


Has anyone here played this style of list? Anyone know if it works? Should I maybe take out the flying Hive Tyrants and put in two Tervigons to help keep my front line gaunts alive a bit longer? Does this cost reserve points? Hell, do spore mines cost reserve points?

I have a ton of questions. I am sorry.

Thanks in advance!
Sroc

[svknoe]

I also appreciate the same qualities of tyranids that you mention.

It is surely possible to play tyranid board control lists, and spore mines can be very useful for controlling movement. That said, if you want to be competitive Harpies die too easily for their price. On the other hands, a few biovores are frequently used for spore mines. You can move them about a bit to get a penalty to hit.

The most prominent example of a tyranid board control list currently is discussed in this thread (In my lists I cut the Venomthropes for a Malanthrope, but both can work.): thetyranidhive.proboards.com/thread/57419/wanted-gaunt-carpet
An important goal is this sort of list is to deny your opponent good targets to shoot at. Hence this particular lists meshes poorly with Tyrants or just about anything that can be shot at.

[sroc]

Oct 4, 2019 20:46:08 GMT svknoe said:

I also appreciate the same qualities of tyranids that you mention.

It is surely possible to play tyranid board control lists, and spore mines can be very useful for controlling movement. That said, if you want to be competitive Harpies die too easily for their price. On the other hands, a few biovores are frequently used for spore mines. You can move them about a bit to get a penalty to hit.

The most prominent example of a tyranid board control list currently is discussed in this thread (In my lists I cut the Venomthropes for a Malanthrope, but both can work.): thetyranidhive.proboards.com/thread/57419/wanted-gaunt-carpet
An important goal is this sort of list is to deny your opponent good targets to shoot at. Hence this particular lists meshes poorly with Tyrants or just about anything that can be shot at.

Moving the Biovores! *Slaps head* Why didn't I think of that lol!

Ohhh nice! I'll check out your thread for sure!

[winterman]

Oct 4, 2019 20:02:27 GMT sroc said:

Fortifications are not allowed in the ITC

Where are you getting that info from? The only fortifications that are disallowed are the FW ones that are built into realm of battle tiles. Now, they require the use of one of your 3 detachments so they aren't favorable in match play in general. But totally legal.

Otherwise, Leviathan board control list is probably our strongest build at the moment, but it takes bodies. See the carpet thread for an idea.

[purestrain]

Oct 4, 2019 20:02:27 GMT sroc said:

Hello everyone!

So I have been on the hunt for a army to build for years. I keep jumping from one idea to the next. I wanted an army that can play both ranged and melee, not at the same time, but also build all-comers lists as well. Tyranids have finally become the top pick for me. So I'm starting to dive hard into competitive builds and play-styles of Tyranids to help me build my army for the LVO 2021 and beyond. 

What I'm starting to look at seriously right now is Spore Mines and how to use them. Fortifications are not allowed in the ITC so Sporocysts are out sadly. So that leaves me three options that I can find right now. Harpies, Biovores and Spore Mine units.

So here is the plan. Pretty sure I'll be building a Brigade.

Hive Fleet: Leviathan (6+ FnP is too good to pass up imho)

I plan on running 3 Harpies to fly around and do bombing runs to get more Mines on the field if possible, I will have 3 units of 3 Biovores and 3 units of Hive Guard, 3 Units of 6 Spore Mines (Initial Screening), 3 units of long range Tyranid Warriors (providing synapes to the biovores and additional protection), Still working on the rest of the list.

So the idea here is to race across the map with the Harpies and assault any vehicles I can while bombing running another unit to hopefully get somemore mines on the field. Alternatively I can just do fly-bys with the Harpies to continue dropping mines and shooting their weaponry. The biovores will also be shooting mines every turn. 

Then I am hoping to be able to fill the elite slots with something like Zoanthrope Units, run 3 units of gaunts with 2 flying range focused hive tyrants and the swarmlord in a Tyrannocyte. I know I will have to work the list around a lot more as I am most likely over pointed at this point. Hoping to get the codex for Christmas so I can actually build the list. The main idea of the list is controlling the board and picking out weak elements when they are exposed with the Swarmlord arriving mid board to clean up. 


Has anyone here played this style of list? Anyone know if it works? Should I maybe take out the flying Hive Tyrants and put in two Tervigons to help keep my front line gaunts alive a bit longer? Does this cost reserve points? Hell, do spore mines cost reserve points?

I have a ton of questions. I am sorry.

Thanks in advance!
Sroc

In comp, you'll lose your harpies and maybe some warriors t1, then you'll be out of the game.

[kazetanade]

A decent board control list will have:

- Tonnes of Fearless Gaunts. I'm talking buckets. With a venom/malan bubble.

- Zoanthropes/Neurothropes to help eat through tougher to kill targets.

- Characters with countercharge potential like OOE or Broodlords.

- Potentially Hive Guard and Biovores to produce long range support - one is damage support, the other is movement blocking support and possibly mortal wound support to pair Zoanthropes.

- potentially some GSC to help remove truly difficult elements, or for a utility belt of psychic, snipers, countercharge, annoyance.

Edit: you win by swarming the board and removing his ability to deal with your hordes, having the Gaunts actually hard to kill, and denying scoring whenever you can. If you do it right, you pull ahead a bit in the beginning and maintain a slightly widening gap as time goes on. Do it wrong and you get screwed hard.

[sajory94]

Oct 11, 2019 16:49:59 GMT kazetanade said:

A decent board control list will have:

- Tonnes of Fearless Gaunts. I'm talking buckets. With a venom/malan bubble.

- Zoanthropes/Neurothropes to help eat through tougher to kill targets.

- Characters with countercharge potential like OOE or Broodlords.

- Potentially Hive Guard and Biovores to produce long range support - one is damage support, the other is movement blocking support and possibly mortal wound support to pair Zoanthropes.

- potentially some GSC to help remove truly difficult elements, or for a utility belt of psychic, snipers, countercharge, annoyance.

Edit: you win by swarming the board and removing his ability to deal with your hordes, having the Gaunts actually hard to kill, and denying scoring whenever you can. If you do it right, you pull ahead a bit in the beginning and maintain a slightly widening gap as time goes on. Do it wrong and you get screwed hard.

 what gaunt should I use?? hormo or terma??

[yoritomo]

Ignoring the year long necro for a second, most people seem to be having more success with termagants than hormagaunts. Though with the point reduction on the devourer, the devilgaunt could be an interesting option.

[sajory94]

Jan 27, 2021 22:19:07 GMT yoritomo said:

Ignoring the year long necro for a second, most people seem to be having more success with termagants than hormagaunts. Though with the point reduction on the devourer, the devilgaunt could be an interesting option.

I was inclining to mix the number 20 devil, and 10 termagaunts. And had some success. But, still i wanna see if Im doing it right. haahaha

[infornography]

That is a common mix. 20/10, 10/20 and everything in between depending on points left over are often used.

If you are setting up a devilbomb (deep striking blob of devilgaunts) they should ALL be devils though because their purpose is to drop in or walk on or dig up etc, Kill as much T4 and lower as they can, Single Minded Annihilation and do it again, and then promptly die in most cases. The goal is to remove screens, high profile high damage but squishy targets, and objective holders in the backfield. You might not kill points equal to what you spent but their purpose is more to cause a severe disruption of your opponent's backfield than anything else. They also draw a non-trivial amount of fire off your approaching front line forces which ARE trying to kill more points than they cost in most cases. Against some opponents they will often be able to remove all infantry from an entire back field board quadrant and keep potential reinforcements far enough away that they can't recover for multiple turns.

Marine heavy meta limits the power of this tactic because marines in cover take fairly limited losses from these attacks, especially ones in Gravis armor.

[kazetanade]

Jan 27, 2021 23:33:07 GMT sajory94 said:

Jan 27, 2021 22:19:07 GMT yoritomo said:

Ignoring the year long necro for a second, most people seem to be having more success with termagants than hormagaunts. Though with the point reduction on the devourer, the devilgaunt could be an interesting option.

I was inclining to mix the number 20 devil, and 10 termagaunts. And had some success. But, still i wanna see if Im doing it right. haahaha

Mixing is superfluous. Go 30s or for whatever type you're doing to test the list first - 20/10 itself doesnt have much innate strength or advantages, since 10 gaunts is trivial to remove in the first place whether it's Fleshborers or Devourers. 

Please note that Yoritomo is one of the very few players that advocated for FULL DEVILGANT armies, and could in the past field around 180? of them. Not something that more novice players can field model wise. 

I likewise feel that if you're going to have Devilgants run on the ground, you need to do it enmass otherwise they're too easy to single out. 20/10 just means you're losing 20pts less every time the enemy blows hard into you, which is a less impactful and more of a "I dont feel so bad" kind of thing. 

[dranzyl]

I would say it depends on their usage. A single drop of gaunts would propably benefit more from being full devigaunts or not at all. In a list with multiple units of gaunts you are saving points per brood, maintaining threat lvl for longer and forcing your opponent to 'waste' shots.

The assumption is that an opponent can take out a brood per turn but has trouble with doing the same with two (or two and three).
By presenting multiple identical threats of not full devilgaunts the above benefits apply.
Assuming of course you can maneuver the broods to take advantage and have decent targets for them in the first place.

[kazetanade]

Losing 20 Devilgants is losing 20 Devilgants regardless of if it's in 1 unit or 2 units. The output loss is there, and your output restriction is even worse cuz you cant use Shoot Twice to properly boost their output...

[yoritomo]

I certainly understand why shaving points on your devilgaunt broods is tempting. It's 200 points to upgrade 100 termagants to devilgaunts. Those are good points that could be put to use elsewhere. Especially if you can use good tactics to cover any drawbacks. My biggest counter to this is that my experience with gaunts has taught me that mixing gaunts in units isn't as effective on the table as it is on paper.

The biggest advantage to running gaunt board control is that you are everywhere. Winning isn't about maneuvering your gaunts to get to targets, it's about your gaunts being where your opponent doesn't want them. As a result your opponent is going to be forced to engage your gaunts. Now, a pure devilgaunt brood as an 18" bubble all around them where they can engage the enemy. If you include termagants in your devilgaunt brood then that 18" bubble is only on three sides of your brood. This is an avenue of approach that an opponent will be able to exploit, and if he can then your opponent will effectively turn that whole brood into termagants.

How much does this actually save you anyway? Let's say you run that 20/10 gaunt mix. At four units that's 40 termagants for a savings of 80 points. What are you getting for 80 points? Two lictors? 3 Warriors? Back when the devourer was 4 points each you could net enough savings to get a decent units, but now? I'd rather have 120 active gaunts myself.

I'd also like to address this idea of your opponent "wasting" shots. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If I could count on my opponent wasting his shots or making some other kind of play mistake then I could play an army of pyrovores and still win.

I think this is where people don't understand the gaunt carpet army. The value of the army isn't in the guns, it's in the bodies. Your opponent is never wasting his shots when he is taking gaunts off the table, even if they are termagants. The difference only lies with you. Do you want to play an active gaunt carpet or a passive gaunt carpet? If you want to play an active gaunt carpet then give them all devourers and let them do their job. If you want to play a passive gaunt carpet then leave them with fleshborers.

[No One]

yoritomo said:

I think this is where people don't understand the gaunt carpet army. The value of the army isn't in the guns, it's in the bodies. Your opponent is never wasting his shots when he is taking gaunts off the table, even if they are termagants. The difference only lies with you. Do you want to play an active gaunt carpet or a passive gaunt carpet? If you want to play an active gaunt carpet then give them all devourers and let them do their job. If you want to play a passive gaunt carpet then leave them with fleshborers.

This: and this is also why I'm still trying out a devilgant bomb, despite not being sure if they're worth the pts+CP for strat reserve (especially when CP is tight and I have hive guard, so SMA isn't necessarily an option). They're still a hopefully obnoxious blob that needs to be dealt with.