2000 [leaked] Jormungandr/Natural Camouflage

[trashcan01]

Hive Tendril Jormungandr +  adaptive: +1 save from terrain, 2000 pts
Starting CP: 8 (-2 extra 2 relics; -2 extra two warlord traits)

HQ:

• Hive Tyrant with Relic HVCanon and FNP 5+++ trait; Onslaught, Catalyst, Smite   175pts   
• Warrior Prime with Pathogenesis and Guidance "+1 hit rolls" trait 85 pts
• Neurothrope Warlord with Resonance Barb and 2x Synaptic Link effect trait; Neuroparasite, Catalyst, Smite 100 pts

TROOPS:

• Warriors x9 (8x Dual Bswords, 1x LashWhip, 3x Venom cannons, 3x B.Strangle, 3x Deathspitters, Adrenal Glands) - 270pts
  
• Hormagaunts x 10 80pts
• Hormagaunts x 10 80pts
• Termagants x 10   70pts
• Termagants x 10   70pts

ELITES:

• Lictor 70 pts
• Venomthropes x3 105 pts
• Zoanthropes, Psychic Scream, Smite x3 150 pts

FAST ATTACK:

• Raveners x4 (Deathspitters, RavenerClaws, STalons) 120 pts
• Ripper Swarm x3 45 pts

HEAVY SUPPORT:

• Carnifex x2 (HVcannon, 2x Devourers, ESenses, SCysts) 290
• Carnifex x2 (HVcannon, 2x Devourers, ESenses, SCysts) 290

[trashcan01]

INTRODUCTION:

This army list aims to provide a different take on the Tyranids, as the "new" Codex gives us various options that were not available before.
In short, as most opponents expect Tyranids to be quick and squishy, this army aims to surprise the opponent with staying power.
This list plays into late game, delivering heavy shooting and solid psychic through the game, while staying defensive on melee.

So far I have 7-0 winning streak with this list, both against swarm (T3/5+ saves), heavy mech (T8/2+ saves) and the mixture of two.
I have yet to test it against armies that heavily depend on invulnerable saves (or any variations of it, like reanimation/healing) or cover denying armies. 



Why JORMUNGANDR adapted into NATURAL CAMOUFLAGE -or- how to play in COVER

Because survivability. Global -1 hit means that enemies will miss more often and +1 terrain saves means that we will save more often. While it doesn't sound too revolutionary or impressive on its own, it adds up during the game to a significant number of active models on the table.
Our Carnifexes already have 1+ save from Spore Cysts and our Hive Tyrant is at 2+/4++ and then 5+++ from the "Adaptive Biology" Warlord trait.

Keep in mind that DENSE COVER is a good friend (-1hit) and it triggers "Natural Camouflage", giving even our <MONSTERS> additional +1 on saves. This will be overlooked by the opponent every now and then, and we must use it to our advantage as it can give us extra save opportunities even outside of the usual covers. This is less applicable on our <INFANTRY> but not to be overlooked.

Speaking of <INFANTRY>, our Warriors, Raveners, Venomthropes and Lictor will have 2+ save in cover, while our Zhoantropes, Termagants and Hormagaunts will enjoy surprising 3+ while in cover.
A reminder here - you don't need to have all of the units in cover to benefit from it. As long as some of the models benefit from cover you can assign saves and wounds to those models. This translates that you need to have 2-3 Warriors or 3-5 Gaunts in cover to optimally use the benefits.


DEPLOYMENT & TURN 1
As most of our firepower has 36'', you want to pick off all of the opponents heavy hitters (S9+, AP-3 or higher) as soon as possible, focusing all the Venom Cannons on them.
Deploy the Tyrant, Carnifexes, Warriors and Prime about 44'' away from the primary targets. 
Double down the -1hit with Venomthropes on the Tyrant in case that the opponent has +1 hit auras/stratagems.
Make sure that you have backup Synaptic link from the Hive Tyrant and Tyranid Prime to the Warriors, as you want to use all of the buffs on them.
Also, it is very important to keep your Warriors ready to contest the center of the board Turn 2 and 3, shooting at things the entire time: Venom Cannons on the heavy stuff, Stranglers on the hordes, and Deathspitters on anything. High volume of split fire make Warriors ideal for "Shard Lure" stratagem (+D6 on charge, discard one dice).
Your Termagants are to stay behind and help out turns 2-3. There is really no reason to expose them.

Neurothrope gives his extra D6 Psychic dice to himself and the Hive Tyrant or Zhoantropes, depending if you need realiable Onslaught or Mortal Wounds.


It doesn't matter who goes first. You want to pop the Zhoantrope Synaptic Imperatives turn 1 to maximize Carnifexes defenses as most of the time my opponents did not bother with the Hive Tyrant that had double -1 hit / T8 / 2+/4++/5+++.
Use the "Indomitable Monstrosity" aka TransNid stratagem to keep your Tyrant/Carnifex alive and Reinforced Hive Node on Warriors (-1dmg) to counter 2-3dmg weapons.
Weirdly enough, Lictor and Raveners proved much more useful on the table. Ripper Swarms are usually in Deep Strike/Burrow mode.



GENERAL PLAYSTYLE (TURNS 2-3)
Basically, you don't care that much about board control in the first turn or two.
You are happy to score 20 points worth of primaries and sacrifice your Hormagaunts to move block incoming melee advance/charge units. Hive Tyrant, Raveners, Venomthropes, Warriors and Lictor make for a good countercharge. If any of the Hormagaunts survive the Fightphase, use the stratagem 1d3+3 strat to keep their numbers up.
Drop Ripper Swarms Turn 2 to start scoring on "Engage On All Fronts" and start moving the Carnifexes and Raveners to take their place when they die.

Synaptic Imperatives:
TURN 2 Tyranid Prime - exploding 6 on ranged attacks within 24''
TURN 3 Hive Tyrant - this proved very useful to tie down any high caliber vehicles and sqeeze through opponents formation to score "Engage On All Front" points.


LATE GAME - TURNS 4-5
To be honest, I have little advice about late game as most of my games ended on turn 3. Also, at this point I feel that there are so many variations that advice is less relevant here.
Your backline scorers are Termagants. Middle of the board should be full of your Monsters and Heavy Infantry, while the Raveners, Lictor, Rippers and Warriors should be very close (if not within) your opponents deployment zone.


to finish up...
I would be more than happy if someone else played this list and shared the impressions. I hope to add a bit more structure to this post, with various damage output calculations (defensive and offensive).

[dkng]

Heeey that was *MY* idea

After the leak people tend to neglect the little bugs entirely but with Jorm they still have their place imho.
The difference in my list is that I didn't take the Raveners (which are awesome) and Rippers but instead got the Maleceptor and Parasite minus one Carnifex.
Yeah, yeah I know the Parasite seems lame but I just want to try it (and given its speed and Synapse it can be good in supporting fast troops like Termagants with Onslaught on them).
You took the Cysts on Fexes to counter any +1 hit buffs? Are there so many of them (besides T'au)?
Btw even with all the defensive tricks aren't you afraid to field the Walkrant without HGs? HGs in Jorm can be damn hard to shift.

[trashcan01]

Mar 31, 2022 12:17:32 GMT dkng said:

Heeey that was *MY* idea

After the leak people tend to neglect the little bugs entirely but with Jorm they still have their place imho.
The difference in my list is that I didn't take the Raveners (which are awesome) and Rippers but instead got the Maleceptor and Parasite minus one Carnifex.
Yeah, yeah I know the Parasite seems lame but I just want to try it (and given its speed and Synapse it can be good in supporting fast troops like Termagants with Onslaught on them).
You took the Cysts on Fexes to counter any +1 hit buffs? Are there so many of them (besides T'au)?
Btw even with all the defensive tricks aren't you afraid to field the Walkrant without HGs? HGs in Jorm can be damn hard to shift.

Spore Cysts now provide Light Cover (+1 save vs ranged). They don't give -1 penalty on opponent's ranged hit rolls as before. 

There are few reasons why I prefer to use Carnifexes over anything else:

• no brackets, a wounded Carnifex will perform the same as the full one, forcing opponents to kill them as opposed to damage them and hurt their damage output
• damage reduction and potential 0+ save, saving on 3+ vs -3AP is just bonkers and even if you fail there is the built in -1 DMG;
• Deathspitter/Devourer + HVenom Cannom ranged Carnifex has no blast weapons, it performs great in ranged and can hold his own in melee
• Heavy Venom Cannon on multiple cheap platforms - even when losing 2 Fexes turn 1 (highly unlikely due to 4++ but it happened) I was able to pop 2 heavy vehicles in return, favorably trading in terms of points and staying ahead in big bodies on the table
  

The Maleceptor and Parasite might work, but I don't see any use for them. I don't know what kind of role would they fill out.
Maleceptor: in my experience I have enough psychic mortal wounds and mid range shooting to kill off any threats in 18'' range, especially turn 2 with Tyranid Prime Synaptic Imperative.
Parasite: it may perform and I don't see it as lame, but I would think twice to use it outside of Leviathan lists, Maleceptor as well. Also, with this list you want everything to gravitate close to your Warriors, as they are able to kill pretty much anything in melee, and to make the most out of the Parasite, you want him leading the charge and disrupting the opponent's formation. So you need bodies or another fast moving monsters to keep the Parasite safe.
Also, both of their Synaptic Imperatives feel kind of out of sync with this army, and you're paying points for them as well.



Hive Tyrant without the Hive Guard:
I am perfectly okay with my opponent pouring everything they have to take down my -2 (-1) hit, T8, saving on 2+/4++ and 5+ FNP Tyrant. Really. I am. With the help of re-roll and TransNid stratagem he will survive most of heavy firepower.
If I am facing something diabolical that ignores invun/fnp I will deploy him out of sight. If the map doesn't have that, I can always use 1CP and burrow him using the Jorg strat. Hell, I can do it with the Fexes as well. Even if he dies, there are 12  3+ shots, S9, AP-3, 4DMG shots shooting back, and that's not counting the Warriors and Prime with their Venom cannons.


I'm looking forward to hearing your impressions of the list, because I don't see that Jorg/Natural that popular, and I find that combo extremely powerful.

[dkng]

Bummer on the Cyst bonus. Old habits don’t die as they say

I’m not trying to sell you the Maleceptor XD Tbh Im glad to see a list WITHOUT it It’s simply a cherry on top of the psychic combo of Neuro and Zoans. With Jorm it would be even harder to blow off the table R1 and I think people will quickly learn to prioritise it. Truth be told damage-wise its miles better in Levi but defence-wise Jorm gives it something other tendrils cannot.

With all the synaptic shenanigans in our arsenal the army tends to move as one big blob. Units like Parasite or Harpy with Synaptic upgrade are a great way to quickly and reactively chain the synapse to a fast, flanking unit like Horms for example. Horms are not impressive on their own but with some support can become strong Objective contenders. Parasite is infantry with built in -1 to hit so I guess it can fit in nicely. But mainly for fun factor I guess.

Two things that really sadden me in Naturalised Camo is that the bonus is gained only from terrain pieces, and the wording is a bit sloppy. Is it any cover? So Dense cover will give you +1 save against shooting? Heavy cover will protect from shooting? Or the word „additional” means that for shooting it will only work for light cover as this is the type of cover that grants a save against shooting? Im not rules expert so this is a kind of an open question.

Edit:
Parasite Imperative is great for Horms, Raveners and Warriors that survived long enough to charge and get stuck in. 6” consolidate is bonkers in my book tbh.

[trashcan01]

Yes, natural camouflage triggers as soon as the model has any terrain cover bonus (light, heavy, dense).
Someone on this forum correctly pointed me to pg.361 of the Core Rulebook. (not sure who it was, but thanks!)

[N.I.B.]

About the Raveners, someone did the math, Deathspitters + Rending Claws is basically always the best setup for them in most situations (buffs can skew the numbers somewhat). Scything Talons has an extremely small advantage over Rending Claws when you're fighting T3, 5+ units, but it is not enough of one to make up for the better T4, 3+ performance drop off.

[trashcan01]

Mar 31, 2022 18:05:09 GMT N.I.B. said:

About the Raveners, someone did the math, Deathspitters + Rending Claws is basically always the best setup for them in most situations (buffs can skew the numbers somewhat). Scything Talons has an extremely small advantage over Rending Claws when you're fighting T3, 5+ units, but it is not enough of one to make up for the better T4, 3+ performance drop off.

Yeah, I missed the math post, but it makes sense that 5x S6 AP-4 attacks work better than 5x S5 Ap-2 + 2xS5 AP-1 in most situations.
Seems obvious when you've pointed it out.

Thanks for the info!

[dkng]

Burrow and Squirm: Each time a ranged attack is allocated to a model in this unit while it is receiving the benefits of cover, add an additional 1 to any armour saving throw made against that attack.

Soo... Rippers in light cover will get a 3+ save against shooting right?
Edit: I mean with the camouflage adaptation ofcourse

[garg]

Looks like an interesting list, I too like naturalised camouflage but was assuming for more warriors. If my gaunts were painted is try them but I can't see myself using my termagants any time soon. For 5pts and one less wound I find 3 warriors much better than 10 gants.

Edit: sound -> wound

[N.I.B.]

one less sound?

I'd drop a Ravener and swap the Lictor for Deathleaper and a unit of Termagants against 3 Warriors.

[grave77digger]

How do we go about getting opponents to agree natural camo works with the Jorm dense cover? Not everyone on this board even agrees it works. What specifically do we point too and say see this works?

[piersonsmuppet]

You read the two rules and ask their opinion on if they work together. Most will likely see the "from a terrain feature" and disagree with the two rules working together. Then you can either ask to roll off or concede the combo. Pressuring your opponent to agree with you in favor of a stronger interpretation is likely to foster a poor tone for the game or gain you a reputation. Do with that knowledge what you will...

Edit: If you notice in the OP's tactics description, they even suggest keeping a few models in a large unit in cover (I read that as in terrain since Jorm trait is per unit) to gain the benefit of Natural Camo for even a few saves.

[grave77digger]

I am just trying to figure what is the point of this rule if it doesnt apply to this situation?

"If a model or unit has a rule that only applies while it is receiving the benefits of cover (Natural Camo), then that rule will apply while that model or unit is under the effects of ANY RULE that states it gains the benefit of cover (Jorm Trait) even while they are not entirely on or within a terrain feature (So no "terrain" needed)."

Seems like its all there plain as day. Its a very specific rare rule for this specific circumstance is it not?

[piersonsmuppet]

That rule most likely applied at the beginning of 9E to 8E +Sv in cover rules. Many of them required the unit to be wholly within terrain to receive the benefit of the ability even though 9E cover did not require wholly within.