Best Secondaries for new codex (only codex)

[nemrod]

With our new codex im struggling to pick some secondaries to build around my list. 

I want to have 2 of them in mind while building and pick them no matter what my opponent have in list and another 2 or 3 to choose depending what im facing.

What are you picking and wich ones gave you the most and easy points? 

Thanks for your time.

[miurath]

My current list is a bit of a smooth brain list to play, going for Levi warriors, tyrants, venomthropes and all the other culprits.

I had pretty good results by going warpritual, banners and stranglehold. Run up the table turn one and build a gigantic blob on the middle objectives and ask the opponent to do sth about it.

It works best on 5 objective missions since stranglehold is easier.

Its a bit harsh against things like Tau that murder you if you stick your head out but against armies that dont have quite that damage output its very doable.

E.g thousand sons, deathguard and so on dont rly have the damage to shift you and you just keep throwing things into their faces to distract them.

I hope i was of help

[nemrod]

You are! I guess our only must is Stranglehold for 5 obj games.

Since our core list starts with neurothrope, tyrant, maleceptor and zoanthropes should select one of warpcraft, mental interrogation or psychic ritual?

[niiai]

I play some aggressive black Templars and orks. Going banners and stranglehold there is just sueside. But from my experience if I just hang back and shoot them. Perhaps do the fall back and charge trick and I beat the melee armies on models.

But banners and stranglehold seems great for nids. We sort of walk slowly forward and shoot. With some few exceptions.

I have tried some mental interegation. But I rarely score well on it. When the (please do not swear) hits the fan I often fall back so smiting just to keep my head above water.

[piersonsmuppet]

Apr 20, 2022 13:20:21 GMT nemrod said:

You are! I guess our only must is Stranglehold for 5 obj games.

Since our core list starts with neurothrope, tyrant, maleceptor and zoanthropes should select one of warpcraft, mental interrogation or psychic ritual?

Note that the Malceptor and Zoan cannot perform Warpcraft actions, as only PSYKER CHARACTERS can. Warpcraft is great if you have a Neuro and a Tyrant and can continue to ping the Tyrant with Warp Siphon. If taking a Malceptor, Synaptic Tendrils is somewhat required for doing WC secondaries as the Malceptor really wants 3d6 tests every turn and 3d6 tests really help WC actions to avoid Deny the Witch.

[kazetanade]

Good picks are always gonna be like EoAF and RND - we do not Swarm and invade the enemy's objective like before, so I wouldn't take Stranglehold.

Sadly I don't think any of the codex options are good - maybe the cp one if you want, but I think it'll end up looking not great most games, since you need to go after Sgt equivs or characters.

Warpcraft is decent for Nids for all the known reasons.

RND is harder for Nids than before, unfortunately, so it may fall down to Banners, or a kill obj like Grind Them Down, TTL, or something like that.

[niiai]

People have pointed out that if you take the CP one they just remove their sergants to shooting.

On the pluss side they are removing their sergants. Against non SM armies the Horror and the LSD whip stratagems can punish people with low leadership.

[piersonsmuppet]

Apr 20, 2022 16:47:49 GMT kazetanade said:

Good picks are always gonna be like EoAF and RND - we do not Swarm and invade the enemy's objective like before, so I wouldn't take Stranglehold.

<snip>

RND is harder for Nids than before, unfortunately, so it may fall down to Banners, or a kill obj like Grind Them Down, TTL, or something like that.

Horms and Monster Obj Sec has made Stranglehold trivial to score in my few experiences, I would only take Engage over it if you are using Harpies.

RND is easier now, just take two gargoyles and use Encircle to score the opposing quarters T4/5. Sample play to score 12 VP relatively easy: Garg #1 in DS Garg #2 on the board in the very back, RND and Encircle T1 in your end, T2 DS Garg #1 in your end and RND, T3 DS Garg #2 in opposing quarter if open and Encircle Garg #1, and T4/5 DS as needed with Gargs in reserve to score the opposing quarters.

[kazetanade]

I stand corrected! Nice play there.

[tylertt]

Encircle really has opened the door for action specific secondary objs. I've even done investigate signal a few times and it worked really well. I find we are able to strongly hold the midfield, and combine that with Warp Ritual, you want to park yourself right in the middle anyways, so swarm it with bodies to protect your psyker, and then just hammer investigate with gargs who can encircle away, or combine Maleceptor imperative with a blob of Warriors too.

[N.I.B.]

You must spend CP to deepstrike Gargoyles now.

[piersonsmuppet]

Apr 21, 2022 15:00:55 GMT N.I.B. said:

You must spend CP to deepstrike Gargoyles now.

Ah, good catch. Well... I guess you can choose to start both on the board or strat reserve one depending on opposing army. Still, it's one of the easiest ways to score 12VP in Nids and provides little interaction opportunities for the opponent. Kraken w/ Mal can safely score an opposing table quarter T1 for 2 CP. 2x Garg for RND certainly isn't the best, or easiest, strategy since you can't just plug it into any army, but it can be something to keep in mind for list building.

[bigbadbalou]

The more I read into it, the more I like the Cranial feasting secondary in the Tyranid codex (for the gained CP). Might be a bit dependant on the enemy since you need lots of character or champions to get lots of VP, but what you gain from it is kinda really great.

I mean... You literally gain, for free, an ability to regain CP for your whole army that doesn't cost you anything! That's not bad in itself. Also, the number of CP gained has a almost no impact on the VP gained if you at least got 1 CP this way. Add that almost all our model have HIVE TENDRIL, which means that almost any character, warlord or champion that you kill in melee is worth VP. And if, at any time during the game, you gain only one CP from this, you easily get the 3 VP.

As Niiai said, people might be tempted to kill it's champions first in shooting, but this is still a good thing for you, especially against some armies that rely on the unit to deliver the champion. And that also us indifferent to look out sir vs character because if he don't do it, you get to hurt the character so it's good for you, and if he do it, you get a better chance to eventually kill it in melee...

Of course, that won't be good against some armies, like any other secondaries. But it's worth considering. The only major drawback I can see is that it would be hard to gain more than 8-9 VP with it I think if you can kill the warlord. Which is still a big thing since the game plays around VP.

[piersonsmuppet]

I've scored 14 and 9 VP using Cranial Feasting in two games and generated 2 CP in both (first game opponent didn't pull unit champs). The secondary is particularly good when the opposing faction's unit champions have special weapons.

[nidzy]

I played a small rtt yesterday, functionally my first 3 games in the book and went 1-2 largely because I picked secondaries poorly and rolled anout 20% success on 4++ when it really mattered. At one point I failed 16/17 fnp for two flyrants to die as well.

Anyway, stranglehold is great against a lot of armies and if you built for it you already built for engage so you have a back up. Don’t pick it as mentioned above against lists that punch you in the mouth and also built to score it themselves. I made this mistake twice 🤣 It gets a lot better with swarmlord as well because we can then out model count elite armies that we are usually competing for stranglehold with using less resources.

I love cranial feasting so much. It was pure joy to play it and felt so niddy. Just slurping up brains for points and cp. I scored 13 with it against dark angels, 7 against grey knights. If I see 5 squads with sergeants and several characters I will consider it every time. It’s a great fun pick if you’re confident about a win also because it is silly.

I think wrap ritual is good for us. I did it with a chameleonic mutation/adaptive biology flyrant and he soaked shooting like a boss. but a neuro is definitely doable. Interrogation is good but it takes 4 action to get the same points as 3 gets in warp
Ritual. Either would have been a better pick in one of my games than strangle.