Nephilim secondaries

[dkng]

Some say this was a bigger nerf than the points hike and the dataslate combined.
Synaptic kills is not easy to do, you really need to concentrate your efforts on killing multiwound models and is most luck-dependent. Plus it's capped at 12 points :/ surely it is good against some armies like Knights or in mirror matches but the effort-to-gain ratio is rather poor and can force you into suboptimal decisions.
Cranial is also very enemy-dependent and often easy to counter. If the opponent is smart he can deny you many points by simply not letting the characters and champions into CC.
Spore nodes is hard to pull off because of its requirements - close to enemy DZ, away from other nodes and most importantly it has to be Troops. Imo Warriors are too valuable to commit to this so it leaves us with Horms and Gargs - fast, numerous but still overpriced and dying to a stiff breeze. If your opponent is not a dimwit he'll just target your fast Troops asap. I think you need two dedicated units for that (so 160 points in case of Gargs and Horms) and you have to hide them well until the rest of the army engages the enemy in CC to prevent them from shooting the little bugs off the table.
Then there are the core secondaries but which of them are best for us and what are your tactics for them? Interrogation, Banners, BEL? Please share your ideas and most importantly your battle experiences on how to maximise the score in Ne(r)philim .

[piersonsmuppet]

Synaptic kills is trash, unless running 2x Tyrant and heavy Warriors. Still probably outdone by Bring it Down or No Prisoners though.

Cranial is just an analog for assassinate, if you aren’t considering assassinate I wouldn’t consider this either.

Spore Nodes looks the best of the three, but needs troops. Tervigons can transport the free 10-man into position, so they technically “count” as a model for Nodes. 3-man Warrior units out of strat reserves also look good for Nodes, much smaller footprint than dropping an endless swarm unit. You do have to build the list to it and alter play to score well, but it does pair very well with Engage as a bonus.

My initial Nephilim lists are looking to do Interrogate, Engage, and Banners/Nodes. BEL looks great as a replacement for Engage if running some combination of PoMs, Rippers, or Mawlocs. Not a fan of kill secondaries since opponents can make them look enticing, but then have a built-in plan to foil scoring well on it.

[dkng]

You'd rather take a barebones Tervi just to "deliver" 10 Termas or take a carpet with it to utilise buffs and LookOutSir?

[piersonsmuppet]

I’m not sure. I don’t think the block is as needed in Lurk fleets with other deadlier monsters, but it is another unit that can do spores (and help with the marker issue since a 30-man can place all 4 markers if it’s spread out and picking up/placing regen’d models smartly). Taking a durability relic (Kraken/Gorgon/Hydra) helps reduce the need of the block as well.

I’m still going to try how a term block works first, and attempt a “naked” Terv if it just doesn’t pull weight. I think the block is near mandatory in Levi though, 30W with 5++/5+++ every turn (plus a -1 from venomthropes) will stick around a bit.

Edit: A “naked” Terv is still darn efficient for the pts. 145 for T8 17W 2+.

[kazetanade]

I see someone else is warmed up to Levi Gants! Felt like I was the only one.

I am not playing Nids for any event right now, but I'd wager Interrogate, Nodes, Synaptic Kill/Engage as choices. Encircle to help set up later game nodes, and 2x Gargs for early pressure and score.

[trashcan01]

Spores and Tervigon:
With the points gone up and number of models on the table going down, I am also considering using Tervigon spawned Termagants for scoring on Spores.
I will also break down Warriors into smaller squads and try to maximize Troop presence on the board.
I feel veeeery tempted to replace Hormagaunts with Gargoyles and use Encircle stratagem for more consistent result. The thing I like about the Spore nodes is that you can score good points in the last few turns, providing you have a decent spread of Troops. 


I am still favoring Jormungandr adapted into Natural Camouflage and I am totally fine with contesting middle and staying away from the opponents deployment.

My picks for secondaries will probably be (primary pick/secondary pick):

• Warpcraft: Psychic Ritual / Psychic Interrogation
• Shadow Operation: Raise the Banners High / Spore Nodes 
• Variable: Engage on All Fronts / No Prisoners / Bring it Down

Sadly, I won't be able to have any games in for the next few months, so it is all theory at this point.

[No One]

Honestly, I'm really not sure what to do about secondaries: interro's great when it's good, but then you run into minimal Chars who can e.g. play cagey in transports, or armies with strong denies. Banner's buff is good and fits well with a lurk playstyle (which is what I've been running with and enjoying), but can be a bit map dependant. Then a 3rd is difficult. Grind will often be solid, but becomes problematic if your opponent has secondaries they can be non-interactive with to not give kills. Engage/BEL seem too awkward with how much we have to commit to them outside of maybe aggressive Kraken stuff, especially for the payoff and with reduced CP: possibly something with rippers/skyslashers/lictors/stealers (stealers for double duty on early CP with recover the relics), but feels too reliant on opponent not killing to actually get a decent score. Not cheap enough to be truly one turn disposable, and the score isn't high enough for that to work. Spore nodes seems in a similar category. At least has better payoff, and double strat reserved warriors seems interesting, but then you've got issues with CP and screening without really any fall back options. And also competes with banners, so doesn't really help outside of being an alternative for bad banners missions.

Then cranial pretty much suffers the same issues as interrogate/assassinate, except worse unless running almost entirely melee. Synaptic is way too reliant on one or two models unless running warrior spam (and also reliant on opponent's army, at which point you'd often be able to get some other kill), and is capped to boot.

piersonsmuppet said:

Edit: A “naked” Terv is still darn efficient for the pts. 145 for T8 17W 2+.

Except I wouldn't even say a 10 man gaunt squad is 70 pts outright, and spawned version doesn't even have obsec, or fleet trait. So you're probably more like 50 pts of 'worth', if that (provided you want actioners/screens), and at that point...terv's got a solid imperative but probably competes too much with zoan for when you want to trigger it to be really great. Synapse+psyker's good, but not something you really need more of. So it's just chonk body: solid in lurk, but t-fex has same chonk body for 170 and isn't really good with just fleshborer. I could see it, but definitely not what I'd call efficient.

[dkng]

I think a unit like the Tervigon can be very useful for Ritual / Interrogate. By itself its a weak caster so you dont really waste its potential (contrary to Neuro or Tyrant) when using it for the action.
Still the most useful unit for the secondaries is Mal with its SI. You can advance a PoM and still burst the Gestation Sac for BEL, you can do spores or banners while still shooting with Warriors or Terms, you can interrogate or do the ritual while still casting all our awesome powers.
So, after all nerfs, still the Levi Goodstuff® is the way to go...

[trashcan01]

Jul 3, 2022 6:54:07 GMT No One said:

Except I wouldn't even say a 10 man gaunt squad is 70 pts outright, and spawned version doesn't even have obsec, or fleet trait.

I understand that spawned Termagants don't get "Objective Secured" since they are not part of the original Detachment, but Tervigon spawn rules state that they are spawned with the <HIVE FLEET>.

"Once per battle, this model can spawn a new unit of Termagants. If it does so, set up a new friendly <HIVE FLEET> TERMAGANTS unit on the battlefield not within Engagement Range of any enemy units and wholly within 6" of this model. That TERMAGANTS unit contains 10 models, each equipped with fleshborers, and, if you are playing a game that uses a points limit, that unit does not cost any Reinforcement points."



Isn't <HIVE FLEET> enough for the spawned Termagants to have the Fleet trait?

[dkng]

REINFORCEMENT UNITS
If a unit is ever added to a Battle-forged army during the battle, it is never considered to be part of a Detachment. This means that it never costs CPs to include them in your army but they will never benefit from any Detachment abilities.


DETACHMENT RULES
A HIVE TENDRIL Detachment is one that only includes models with the HIVE TENDRIL keyword (excluding models with the UNALIGNED keyword).
HIVE TENDRIL Detachments gain the Rare Organisms ability.
HIVE TENDRIL units in HIVE TENDRIL Detachments gain the Hive Fleet Adaptations ability.
Troops units in HIVE TENDRIL Detachments gain the Objective Secured ability.

The fact that the spawned unit gets the tendril keyword is to prevent the spawning from disabling detachment abilities for the rest of the army.

[trashcan01]

But I don't understand where does it say that the spawned unit does not gain the Adaptations. As long as all of the units you are using are from the same Fleet, they all have the Adaptation. Adaptation is not "assigned" to Detachment units only during army building, as Objective Secured is.....right?

"If every unit from your army (excluding HIVE TENDRIL LIVING ARTILLERY and UNALIGNED units) is from the same hive fleet, all HIVE TENDRIL units with this ability, and all the models in them, gain a Hive Fleet Adaptation. The Hive Fleet Adaptation gained depends upon which hive fleet they are from."


I don't mean to argue, I just don't understand. And I'd like to.

[dkng]

It's all in my previous post:

Reinforcement units never benefit from Detachment abilities.
ObSec and Adapatation are abilities gained by units in Detachment (it doesnt say that directly but you can say the units gain the abilities during Muster your army step). Therefore if Reinforcement unit does not benefit from detachment abilities it cannot get ObSec nor the adaptation.

[trashcan01]

I didn't realize that Adaptation falls strictly under Detachment. I guess I'm stupid that way.
All clear. Thanks for the patience and the explanation.

[bugsy]

I think my go to at 2000 points will be banners, ritual and grind. I take and hold three objectives, kill some enemies in the process, but banners on all three while having at least one psycher near the middle. Leviathan and good melee, I think, will help me keep the tree objectives.

[No One]

trashcan01 said:

But I don't understand where does it say that the spawned unit does not gain the Adaptations. As long as all of the units you are using are from the same Fleet, they all have the Adaptation. Adaptation is not "assigned" to Detachment units only during army building, as Objective Secured is.....right?

"If every unit from your army (excluding HIVE TENDRIL LIVING ARTILLERY and UNALIGNED units) is from the same hive fleet, all HIVE TENDRIL units with this ability, and all the models in them, gain a Hive Fleet Adaptation. The Hive Fleet Adaptation gained depends upon which hive fleet they are from."

GW made it a mess for some reason and put different wording for it in two separate bits:

A HIVE TENDRIL Detachment is one that only includes models with the HIVE TENDRIL keyword (excluding models with the UNALIGNED keyword).

HIVE TENDRIL Detachments gain the Rare Organisms ability.
HIVE TENDRIL units in HIVE TENDRIL Detachments gain the Hive Fleet Adaptations ability.
Troops units in HIVE TENDRIL Detachments gain the Objective Secured ability.

So it's a det ability to get the ability, and then for the ability to do anything it's an army-wide thing.

dkng said:

ObSec and Adapatation are abilities gained by units in Detachment (it doesnt say that directly but you can say the units gain the abilities during Muster your army step).

It does say that directly, and if it didn't (i.e. army wide) then it wouldn't be a det ability. So imperatives aren't a det ability.