possibly the greatest 2000pt anti-meta list right now

[jdot]

ok so, as tyranids players, we all know that we can really struggle against the current top tier armies right now. now obviously this isnt going to win everything all the time but i have found this list to be hugely successful thus far. there are a few controversial picks in there but let me explain. i decided to not have any hive guard and instead opt for tyrant guard with enhanced resistance. this strat really needs the swarmlord and flyrant to be alive so their survival must be assured. the flyrant can do massive damage and move 32" without advancing with the swarmlord. you tie up their army with the flyrant while the rest of your army footslogs up the board. your large unit groups allows you to stick onto objectives on bog down units without a large number of attacks. this list is designed to fight mostly space marines and custodes. biggest weakness would be people with lots of chaff clearing abilities and lots of low priority targets for the flyrant/swarmlord.






++ Battalion Detachment 0CP (Tyranids) [107 PL, 12CP, 1,999pts] ++



+ Configuration +



Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)



Detachment Command Cost



Hive Fleet: Kronos



+ HQ +



Hive Tyrant [11 PL, 215pts]: Adrenal Glands, Heavy Venom Cannon, Monstrous Rending Claws, Power: Catalyst, Power: Onslaught, The Maw-claws of Thyrax, Toxin Sacs, Wings

. Adaptive Physiology: Murderous Size



Neurothrope [5 PL, 95pts]: Power: Symbiostorm, Warlord



The Swarmlord [14 PL, 270pts]: Power: Psychic Scream, Power: The Horror



+ Troops +



Hormagaunts [9 PL, 180pts]

. 30x Hormagaunt: 30x Scything Talons



Hormagaunts [9 PL, 180pts]

. 30x Hormagaunt: 30x Scything Talons



Termagants [9 PL, 150pts]

. 30x Termagant (Fleshborer): 30x Fleshborer



Termagants [9 PL, 145pts]

. 29x Termagant (Fleshborer): 29x Fleshborer



Tyranid Warriors [8 PL, 139pts]

. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword

. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword

. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword

. Tyranid Warrior: Deathspitter, Lash Whip and Bonesword

. Tyranid Warrior (Bio-cannon): Lash Whip and Bonesword, Venom Cannon



+ Elites +



Tyrant Guard [14 PL, 255pts]: Adrenal Glands

. 5x Tyrant Guard (Crushing): 5x Crushing Claws, 5x Rending Claws



+ Fast Attack +



Spore Mines [1 PL, 30pts]: 3x Spore Mine



+ Heavy Support +



Exocrine [9 PL, 170pts]



Exocrine [9 PL, 170pts]



++ Total: [107 PL, 12CP, 1,999pts] ++



Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

[kazetanade]

I think you have misread your list - your entire list rests on the shoulders of the 2 Exocrenes. Once these two are dead from Multi-melta fire, the rest of the army is easily dispatched over a few turns. If you send in your Flyrant and your Swarmy, you're basically feeding free kills, so honestly those two models do very little for your entire army function.

Case in point, marine armies - SL and Flyrants have to make it into the Multi-melta bikes to have any impact whatsoever. If they're running Inceptors hiding behind an BGV block, both SL and Flyrants cant make it into the scary target and are forced to contend with that Transhuman and 4++ they need to fight through. SL may be able to beat his way through some of these kinds of units, but the Flyrant will always fail and leave him open to an easy kill in return.

It then comes down to - can the enemy dispatch 120 infantry units over the course of 2 turns and still keep up on primary and secondary scoring?

Luckily, I think the 120 Gaunts still kind of works vs many Space Marine armies. But with the new DE hotness coming out, I would say its a good idea to re-evaluate whether your game plan (essentially distracting the enemy while your big obsec blocks score) still works, especially since every army release so far (other than DG I think?) has a way of stripping obsec from your units.

[jdot]

Apr 5, 2021 20:14:12 GMT kazetanade said:

I think you have misread your list - your entire list rests on the shoulders of the 2 Exocrenes. Once these two are dead from Multi-melta fire, the rest of the army is easily dispatched over a few turns. If you send in your Flyrant and your Swarmy, you're basically feeding free kills, so honestly those two models do very little for your entire army function.

Case in point, marine armies - SL and Flyrants have to make it into the Multi-melta bikes to have any impact whatsoever. If they're running Inceptors hiding behind an BGV block, both SL and Flyrants cant make it into the scary target and are forced to contend with that Transhuman and 4++ they need to fight through. SL may be able to beat his way through some of these kinds of units, but the Flyrant will always fail and leave him open to an easy kill in return.

It then comes down to - can the enemy dispatch 120 infantry units over the course of 2 turns and still keep up on primary and secondary scoring?

Luckily, I think the 120 Gaunts still kind of works vs many Space Marine armies. But with the new DE hotness coming out, I would say its a good idea to re-evaluate whether your game plan (essentially distracting the enemy while your big obsec blocks score) still works, especially since every army release so far (other than DG I think?) has a way of stripping obsec from your units.

i know what you mean about the exocrines handling alot of the work, however i disagree about the effectiveness of the flyrant. with the Maw Claws of Thyrax and adrenal glands once he kills a model he is rerolling all hits, and base those weapons reroll all wounds, making transhuman that much less effective. also rerolling wounds increases the chance of rolling a 6 [ap-7 D5]. i get the ap-7 is overkill but the D5 is wonderful. i will admit that this is a first strike list, if you get second turn your odds go down but ive been winning 60%-70% of my games with this list when going first turn. i also think you are underestimating the effect of a flyrant being in your face turn 1 without using a psychic power. yes, of course, sometimes e gets krumped but mostly times he survives as long as you keep him away from the real heavy hitting melee units. but its been a little over a month since my last game. ill look into play testing it a bit but im telling you i used to play like 4-5 games a week and my win rate was way higher than i expected it to be. 

[kazetanade]

If it works for you then go for it. I haven't played Nids seriously since the edition change, but I used to be a main GS Sling player in 8th - I'm well aware of the benefits of slinging something in someone's face before they have a turn to go.

I also do know I never had a Flyrant survive more than 1 turn on the table once he's in range of the enemy. The edition is less killy than its been in the past, but considering people are dealing with multiple KoS+Magnus+Morty lists on relatively equal ground, I wouldn't put my faith in a solo Flyrant.

[zimko]

That title is a bold claim. How many GTs have you played in?

[kazetanade]

Apr 6, 2021 3:52:01 GMT zimko said:

That title is a bold claim. How many GTs have you played in?

You got clickbaited man.

[beetlejuice]

This feels like a start of the edition list, at which point it probably could do work. Marines and custodes aren’t meta anymore though. Sisters, harlequins, death guard, dark angels and likely drukhari are and they all have efficient tools to deal with this.

[No One]

kazetanade said:

I also do know I never had a Flyrant survive more than 1 turn on the table once he's in range of the enemy

I've had it happen. But it's rare, and basically requires engaging, avoiding or killing most of their damage dealers. Possible if they're positioned a bit split, shoot out one shooting unit, charge the other, and avoid the nasty melee stuff.

But then you run into 'you have MRC'. Great, you've got a max kill of 4, don't auto-kill W3 (which most stuff you want to go after will be either that or more), and still also bounce of invuls in an apparent anti-custodes list. You kill something, great, you've got rr failed hits, if you don't die. Passing up res barb, so your cat isn't reliable, you likely will.

To be honest, I think something like that could work (my current list concept is similar, but without the t-guard and with another 2 flyrants+HG instead of the exos). Of course, I have exactly one game against a less experienced player with the exact list, but based on similar-ish testing I think it's at least workable. But I don't think the flyrant load out is any good, and while I'm not sure about the t-guard /w resistance (seems like it could...maybe work?), I definitely don't like 50 pts on crushing claws and 30 pts on spore mines. Just grab a lictor or 2, possibly consider upgrading a squad to devilgants for another dakka option.

beetlejuice said:

This feels like a start of the edition list, at which point it probably could do work. Marines and custodes aren’t meta anymore though. Sisters, harlequins, death guard, dark angels and likely drukhari are and they all have efficient tools to deal with this.

Well, harleys/sisters have been meta since the start of the edition. But I doubt it's ability to go into anything meta but marines, and even then some builds will likely be fine (e.g. DA, as long as they're not full DWing anyway, will likely wreck this). Even custodes...flyrant doesn't like invuls, Custodes like dreads and nothing likes going into -1 D, and their melee wrecks you. The gaunts may be enough of an issue to drag it out on objectives, but when everything has obsec and you struggle to kill stuff, they'll get there eventually.

[piersonsmuppet]

In line with the others, slinging a Tyrant w/o SoTyran or 2x MST's seems lackluster. The gun is useless if you launch the Tyrant first turn, as it probably can't kill anything to be able to overrun and will subsequently live a short life tied up in combat. I think an improvement would be 2xMST and running Xenogenic Acid instead of MCoT (Barb would be better on the Neuro imo). Pop re-roll wounds Strat and you should be able to kill 2-3 marines + poss 1 more from acid MW's through transhuman phys. The MW's will also just help in general against vehicles and ++ saves.

Absence of Lictors/Rippers also leaves much to be desired, what secondaries do you usually take with scramblers off the menu? Curiosity leads me to ask what your win rate going second is, and if games are even close when losing going second.

[nidzy]

I don't want to be too harsh here, but I am gonna be a little. Mostly because of the super hyperbolic title.

Pros: This is enough bodies to be problematic for some army lists, yes. That kind of build hasn't been a secret here. You can target and hurt a unit with a hive tyrant/SL sling, yes. I wouldn't this flyrants output "massive" even though I have killed a rhino with 15 wounds from one of these things before off of rends. I have just as often wounded 5 terminators twice and killed one. Exocrines are generally still pretty good. All of this coupled with tyranids ability to move makes also it generally pretty good on primaries.

Cons: This list isn't much good at secondaries while giving up an easy pick on the per 10 model one if an army can do it. Most good lists can. Those bodies will also die in droves to any well designed list that has the broader meta in mind. Someone will take your obsec away on one side and kill the other and then they will do it again.

Also: What does this list do vs 8 chaos moirax with lightning locks, morty and ahriman on a disc? It gets tabled in 3 turns even if you kill 2 moirax on turn 1. I don't see it being successful against custodes with lots of bikes or tanks. It doesn't kill terminators for (please do not swear). It has a miserable uphill slog against the Dark Angels lists I have been playing against (9 attack bikes, big protected blob of terminators, talonmasters, relic terms with storm bolters and LC, characters to make it all work). What about 120 sisters bodies and a whole lot of multi meltas. Or 12 mortifiers and all those same meltas? 4 mortifiers will just wander into one of those blobs of gants and kill it. 120 poxwalkers and 20 terminators? What is gonna kill them all? That list is tougher and also killier than this list with the same number of bodies when you consider your exo's are now 1 damage. Even my raven guard list that I have lost games with against all these examples would have every tool it needed to beat this list and the movement shenanigans to ignore your screen. I am sure there are more examples even within the army books I have mentioned.

That is a sample of my meta. I think this list is fine against a non updated supplement marine book heavy meta, unoptimized builds for some strong armies and anything is possible if you are playing against bad players but I think it is more likely your meta isn't that competitive or at least representative of where the game is at than that this is some sort of hidden sauce in the nid book...mostly because we all already know how all of these units function. This would go 2-3 at my local GT. Hardly the "greatest" but I think it has successful elements. Just bring it back to earth with the description a little if you want to talk about something you have been successful with. Or maybe share the results you have had against a diversity of lists.