Grade My Lists - 2000 pts Tyranids

[Akaiyou]

Please grade the following lists on a scale of 1 to 10. With 1 being "friendly games only" and 10 being "tournament competitive"

List 1
2000 Pts - Tyranids Roster - Hormagant

HQ:
1 The Swarmlord, 280 pts (Warlord)
1 Hive Tyrant, 195 pts (Lash Whip & Bonesword x1; Heavy Venom Cannon)
1 Hive Tyrant, 195 pts (Lash Whip & Bonesword x1; Heavy Venom Cannon)

Elite:
2 Hive Guard Brood, 100 pts

Troops:
15 Hormagaunt Brood, 120 pts (Toxin Sacs)
15 Hormagaunt Brood, 120 pts (Toxin Sacs)
15 Hormagaunt Brood, 120 pts (Toxin Sacs)
15 Hormagaunt Brood, 120 pts (Toxin Sacs)
15 Hormagaunt Brood, 120 pts (Toxin Sacs)

Heavy Support:
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)

Total Roster Cost: 2000


List 2
2000 Pts - Tyranids Roster - Spines

HQ:
1 Tyrant Guard, 60 pts
1 The Swarmlord, 280 pts (Warlord)

Elite:
3 Hive Guard Brood, 150 pts

Troops:
1 Tervigon, 200 pts (Cluster Spines; Toxin Sacs; Catalyst; Onslaught)
1 Tervigon, 200 pts (Cluster Spines; Toxin Sacs; Catalyst; Onslaught)
20 Termagant Brood, 120 pts (Spinefists)
20 Termagant Brood, 120 pts (Spinefists)
20 Termagant Brood, 120 pts (Spinefists)
20 Termagant Brood, 120 pts (Spinefists)

Heavy Support:
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)

Total Roster Cost: 2000



List 3
2000 Pts - Tyranids Roster - Zoanthropes

HQ:
2 Tyrant Guard Brood, 120 pts
1 The Swarmlord, 280 pts (Warlord)

Elite:
1 The Doom of Malan'tai, 90 pts
3 Zoanthrope Brood, 180 pts
3 Zoanthrope Brood, 180 pts

Troops:
1 Tervigon, 210 pts (Cluster Spines; Adrenal Glands; Toxin Sacs; Catalyst; Onslaught)
1 Tervigon, 210 pts (Cluster Spines; Adrenal Glands; Toxin Sacs; Catalyst; Onslaught)
10 Termagant Brood, 50 pts
10 Termagant Brood, 50 pts

Heavy Support:
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)
1 Trygon, 210 pts (Toxin Sacs)

Total Roster Cost: 2000

[Dave Mcturk]

i play against nidz... so i hate to see pods of three zoees... but they are sometimes a liability against gunline {Tau/DE} ... so you can always hide them ! [table permitting]

the other thing i hate to see is hive guard ... [wot no cover save etc]

think nidz can be fun but they seem a 'slow' army in 6th so although some groundcover bugs are useful its your nasty stuff that does the 'work'

my maths might be a bit off ... but your brooders should produce enough troop units on average so that you only need to buy minimums in your list

[Chexmix282]

I am not a fan of "rating" lists, but I do think the third list is the strongest. I do recommend exchanging Doom for 3 Hive Guard, at the expense of a single Tyrant Guard. The Hive Guard and Zoanthropes should give you the necessary anti-tank to compete.

If your opponent prioritizes the Swarmlord then he is not firing on your Hive Guard/Zoanthropes! You have enough CC potential with the Trygons, making the Swarmlord more of a fire magnet. You could probably get away with downgrading the Swarmlord to a normal Tyrant and add in the second Tyrant Guard.

[Popsical]

Ok ratings:

List 1: too many hqs. 2000pts and 4 types of unit? Boring.

List 2: tervigon spam and swarmlord with trygon spam. Boring.

List 3: tervigon spam and swarmlord with trygon and zoan spam. Yep you guessed it... boring.

Summary: they maybe competitive lists in a tournie scene, but for pick up games and friendlies they are the type of list that gets the same reaction from the oppo's every time.
"Ooh look hes spammed all the most net list effective units, how imaginative. I hope my next game is against a more interesting army."

[chicop76]

List one I give a four. It needs troops to tie up.units for the big stuff to assau afterwards.

If you playing white scats that are grav heavy you can have a hard time wining. The list lacks a lot and can be c defeated by simple target priority. . Any good player can deal with this list while a beginner would have problems. Ots what I call it triws to win due to 6 mcs on the board. Oh anx aginst most armies poison vaunts wind up being a sink.

[Dave Mcturk]

play 1750/1850 pts for more interesting games ... as you always have to 'leave something out'...?

its a real shame that genestealers and warriors are a bit overpointed ... as nidz without them is a bit strange ;)

[chicop76]

List two is much better than the first one. I gI've it a 6-7. The list gives hou more tools and not as bland as the last lost which had three different models spammed throughout the list. Well four I meant to say.

However nids have went away a lot from being personalized. I think the list would be better with more hive guard and zonathorpes.

Oh I thought you had trygon primes. Which means very low synapse count which can cause your models to run off the table ratther easily due to leadership 6 .


Last list is a 7-8 which is more of a real tournament list. It picks up some strengths, but the Doom needs to be in a drop pod. Other than that it is a better list.

3 trigons are really not that good. Some armies have counters against them and they can be a liability. Biovores are not bad and more other elements. At least take a prime or two for more synapse and shooting.

[chicop76]

play 1750/1850 pts for more interesting games ... as you always have to 'leave something out'...?

its a real shame that genestealers and warriors are a bit overpointed ... as nidz without them is a bit strange ;)

How warriors are over costed. If you mean with possible instant death weapons that ignore saves at good ws and strenth with 3 wounds a piece. Overcoasted is bloodcrushers that are not as good as warriors.

[Akaiyou]

Let me clarify some things

1 - Never said i'm trying to build a tournament list, thus why i asked for a 'grade/rate' opinion. Not interested in 'advice' i'm very familiar with Nids in general the list are built as they are built on purpose.

2 - Yes I spam a lot....AND? Maybe you should buy more stuff instead of *****ing so much when people who do own all that stuff want to make a themed army. Just saying, play your way, I play my way, you don't like it ? go kick rocks.

3. Once again, the lists are build as they are on purpose, if I 'lack' synapse there's a purpose (IB-Feed, real Nid players know what i'm talking about), but for the most part i'm just playing to a theme, I own 14,000 pts of nids, and I like giving all my stuff a 'list' to feature in.

1st List - Hormagants
2nd List - Spinegaunts (oooh how good they were in 4th ed book)
3rd List - Zoanthropes (yeah I could've brought 9 but wanted one to be the doom, and im not converting a pod i'll wait until its released officially so bite me, i'm fully aware of the doom + pod awesomeness)

In any case for anyone reading this, and anyone else who would like to 'grade' the lists here. I really just want to know where you'd place it on that grading scale between friendly and tournament. Not at all interested in changing them as they'll all get their day in the sun regardless but your opinion will help me decide in what order I try them out or against whom I should run them against.

[chicop76]

1. I play nids
2. Yes feed gives you 2 attacks on the charge. However as I play nids of you take moral and fail hou can easily run off the table xue to taking 25 percent, losing combat, or terrify, etc.
3. Figured you had 4th edition nids due to spine gaunts

To answer the question again. No it's not friendly. All 3 of them are not. They come off as a tournament seffing type list. However tbey remind me of list like death guard that do well until they face a list that thought to go anti mc and horde.

I have no problem with spam. It's Nids so whag tou expect. I agree that all list comes off as boring and all three are pretty eash tk predict due to limited options.

My question or the question you sboukd ask is taking 3 mcs with 18 wounds total
Come off as friendly or as a jerk, oh and all 3 mcs are min maxed. 3 trygons are not friendly.

[chicop76]

I just thought about this. Let me show 3 list with 3 min/maxed Riptides and ask would that be a friendly list.

[Akaiyou]

Funny I happen to play Tau as well...and I've seen you around for just about as long as i've been around, so i'm quite surprised that you would even entertain the thought that 3 riptides = 3 trygons

I'll give you some time to take that comment back.....

If you did, skip the the following paragraph.

Have you lost your mind? A Trygon will never be as damaging as a Riptide. While the Trygon might win in a 1 on 1 versus a riptide, in an army list they are far faaaaaaaaaaaar inferior. So no, 3 riptides =/= 3 Trygons. End of discussion

I didn't at any point state that i'm building a 'friendly' list, did I? Just because I state that i'm not aiming to compete in a tournament doesn't mean i'm attempting to psedo-powergame versus a noob. Is everything in your wold so black and white?? I asked something very simple of anyone entertaining this thread...are you unable to follow directions? Why are we even having this discussion is what i'm wondering.

If you MUST know (even though I already said this previously) I am following a theme.

First list is based on hormagants. And I want them to fail IB to gain rage thus I didn't add more synapse ON PURPOSE, they have toxin sacs and 4 attacks on the charge (with rage) unit vs unit against a tactical squad 15 hormagants WILL win. I back them up with Trygons hopefully with rage, moving just as fast as the hormagants and with synapse back up coming right behind them (because lets face it the important thing is GETTING there) That's the whole concept thus why im NOT looking for advice or ideas on what to change just a basic opinion on how friendly/competitive the list.

Why? So i can determine who out of my buddies I should play it against, and which of their armies I should throw it up against. All this min/max nonsense, is moot because it does not matter whatsoever. I'm playing versus friends who will most likely have stuff that I can't deal with (flyers anyone?) and we'll still have fun playing this 'game'

And yeah list 2 is basically dusting off the good ol 4th ed spinegaunts, i know how terrible they are currently fully aware of it (why on earth do we pay 1 point for a ****tier gun is beyond me) but hey i'm playing with my buds, I can afford to use something less effective. And this list has plenty synapse coverage as I am purposely trying to force IB-Feed on the trygons.

List 3 is about tossing in and playing my zoans...(i have 12 other armies, I've been neglecting my nids so been missing out on all that zoan psychic awesomeness i keep hearing about, this list is purely for the sake of just going all out nuts with psychic powers) am I trying to power game? Did i built this list thinking "oh let me win the next tournament" or "let me squash the next noob that walks into my hobby store"? Not at all...simply thought "ok i want to abuse the zoanthropes as much as possible and hell lets just build an army that overdoses on psychic powers that sounds fun as hell"


Why are there trygons in all these list? In fact the EXACT same trygon set up in all 3 lists??

Answer: In the very few games of 6th that I have so far played, I decided to run carnifexes...lots of carnifexes (if you play Nids you KNOW these will forever be our 'babies' and amongst the first things u think to try out) and i used them with genestealers...lots and i do mean LOTS of genestealers. So the fexes and stealers had their day...now I want to burn through the trygons as much as possible. Thats the real reason why I am spamming trygons so hard (plus its easier to carry all this crap to the store to my friends house if i only need to swap out the troops to play an entirely different theme)

I got 7 lists out of 20 total lists (i own 14,000 pts remember?) where I go Trygon heavy. And most of them are just for the sake of following a theme, rather than power gaming. Thus this is also why you don't see me running my dual devouer flying tyrants. Of the 7 lists I feature them only in 2, even though i'm full aware that by tourney standards you MUST take these.

I hope this clarifies things for you and shows you how stupidly ridiculous questioning everything is. People play what they want, and should be entitled to it. Instead of antagonizing try being productive, instead of ridiculing try being tolerant, instead of looking at 40k and other players in terms of black and white, accept that there's over 50 shades of grey =P

[chicop76]

Well the fact you can drop 3 trygons in someone's face with 18 strength 5 shots is not something to overlook. While 36 strength 5 shots followed with enfeeble can be rather nasty.

The point is you have 3 hard to kill deep strikes that come in on 2s that can reduce scatter range if they land on another model. I compare them to Riptides simply due to the amount of fire power to kill one. Is 3 tides better, yes. However 3 Trygons is a typical power gamer move.

Didn't say you was powergaming. That means all trygons and tervigons with a swarmlord.

Anyway I understand if you bought the endless swarm which happens to be a lot of gaunts and modeled them one way and gw switched the models around where you have to chop off 60 plus gaunts arms off and add a different weapon system. I am happy that I went termagaunts due to the re rolling on wounds they used to have.

Don't get angry at me. You wanted ratings so I gave them to you with reasoning.

I understand what IB does. Keep in mind that you still have morale checks. For example if you have 20 gaunts and I blow away 6 and move on to the next squad killing just six. At the shooting turn end they have to make morale checks on six which is an easy fail. I basically turned back a huge chunk of your army with minimal shooting. If no synapse creatures are in range you could possibly lose 80 models simply due to me killing only 20 models. I understand the attack bonus.

If they had old synapse where you run to the nearest synapse creature that would be different. The problem is I can kill your synapse and kill a handful of gaunts and do major damage to your army in turn one. I can possibly wipe you off the board if your trygons are in reserve and I force morale checks on your gaunt squads to where they run off the table.

Hince why I say take primes or really large gaunt squads.

[Akaiyou]

Even in durability 3 trygons =/= 3 riptides...riptides save on 2s and have a 5+ inv. I own 2 riptides, believe me there's no comparison the riptide will win every time. The trygon only stands a chance on a 1 on 1 fight, since the riptide can't exactly escape a trygon that deep strikes right infront of it and definetly can't kill the trygon in 1 turn. Other than that the riptide is better in every single way that matters and not even by a small margin.

Also i've posted this thread in several places and most opinions say that 3 trygons is diminishing returns, so if anything it seems im jeopardizing myself by having 3...so 'power gaming' seems like hardly the word if im worst off by having more than 2. Same thing with the swarmlord...i know for a fact he's not a 'competitive' tourney tyranid unit. Winged Tyrants are.

I didn't buy the endless swarm...I own like 300 gaunts. 75 hormagants, 80 spinegaunts, 40 devilgaunts, 104 termagants.

I just got MAD **** I really love Nids as my first army and my main, and I like to spread the love with my models letting them all get some air time.

I'm not mad at you for giving me the ratings I asked for, I was annoyed at the dude that said my lists are boring and didn't even take the time to 'rate/grade' like the thread asked, which gave me the impression that he just wanted to hate on something. So I posted a reply to his post, and you took up the sword to reply to my reply for some reason, and I then decided to clarify because you made several assumptions about my list building.

Yeah im aware and you are correct morale checks can suck but i have synapse in the back if they happen to fall back they'll just regroup within synapse. It's unlikely that with cover saves/terrain and target priority that they'll force morale checks on every unit and stop a turn 2/3 assault. Either way that's just strategy coming into play which im not looking to discuss so understand from my point of view that im not asking for that stuff cuz i already know.

I highly doubt you could kill my synapse turn 1. I get to place terrain just like you do, and I like every FMC player out there have learned that BLOS terrain is your friend. I make use of that to ensure important stuff don't just up and die randomly.

But yes i do see and agree with most of your logic it isn't flawed (just needs to take terrain placement into consideration) and i have accounted for that stuff, all I particularly want out of this whole thread is to see what popular opinion is on how this fares competitively if at all

[chicop76]

Damn phone. Anyway Swarmlord is viable due to only model in your army the have 4 psyker rolls and can cast two powers. Can easily get Iron Arm and can get powers like invisibility and be the only model in the army that can cast invisibility or hallucination.

I play Tau as well. Actually a lot and I play nids. Tau vs any of those list above I am pretty confident that I will do well, unless I dumb down my list. It is fare to say I have done the part I nearly wiped nids out turn 1 by kill lord with 3 guard, 2 trygons and nearly wiping out all the gaunt squads. All I can say cover denial and ignoring line of sight is awesome. Love dem missile pods.

Terrain is fickle. Depending on where you play and how much of it is to spare. I have played games with a ton of terrain to where there is almost none. Only army that is not really effected by terrain is Tau unless you have blos terrain, which missile pods can still hit.

Flyrant is awesome till grounded. I almost rather the 2 plus save from the tyrant over the 3 plus saving flyers. Now if said flyer had a 4 ppus invulnerable than it would be speaking out to me.

I thought calling your list boring and spammy was dumb. Unless you played last edition nids options are pretty limited and nids thrive on spam.

[chicop76]

Well the fact you can drop 3 trygons in someone's face with 18 strength 5 shots is not something to overlook. While 36 strength 5 shots followed with enfeeble can be rather nasty.

The point is you have 3 hard to kill deep strikes that come in on 2s that can reduce scatter range if they land on another model. I compare them to Riptides simply due to the amount of fire power to kill one. Is 3 tides better, yes. However 3 Trygons is a typical power gamer move.

Didn't say you was powergaming. That means all trygons and tervigons with a swarmlord.

Anyway I understand if you bought the endless swarm which happens to be a lot of gaunts and modeled them one way and gw switched the models around where you have to chop off 60 plus gaunts arms off and add a different weapon system. I am happy that I went termagaunts due to the re rolling on wounds they used to have.

Don't get angry at me. You wanted ratings so I gave them to you with reasoning.

I understand what IB does. Keep in mind that you still have morale checks. For example if you have 20 gaunts and I blow away 6 and move on to the next squad killing just six. At the shooting turn end they have to make morale checks on six which is an easy fail. I basically turned back a huge chunk of your army with minimal shooting. If no synapse creatures are in range you could possibly lose 80 models simply due to me killing only 20 models. I understand the attack bonus.

If they had old synapse where you run to the nearest synapse creature that would be different. The problem is I can kill your synapse and kill a handful of gaunts and do major damage to your army in turn one. I can possibly wipe you off the board if your trygons are in reserve and I force morale checks on your gaunt squads to where they run off the table.

Hince why I say take primes or really large gaunt squads.

[Akaiyou]

Damn phone. Anyway Swarmlord is viable due to only model in your army the have 4 psyker rolls and can cast two powers. Can easily get Iron Arm and can get powers like invisibility and be the only model in the army that can cast invisibility or hallucination.

I play Tau as well. Actually a lot and I play nids. Tau vs any of those list above I am pretty confident that I will do well, unless I dumb down my list. It is fare to say I have done the part I nearly wiped nids out turn 1 by kill lord with 3 guard, 2 trygons and nearly wiping out all the gaunt squads. All I can say cover denial and ignoring line of sight is awesome. Love dem missile pods.

Terrain is fickle. Depending on where you play and how much of it is to spare. I have played games with a ton of terrain to where there is almost none. Only army that is not really effected by terrain is Tau unless you have blos terrain, which missile pods can still hit.

Flyrant is awesome till grounded. I almost rather the 2 plus save from the tyrant over the 3 plus saving flyers. Now if said flyer had a 4 ppus invulnerable than it would be speaking out to me.

I thought calling your list boring and spammy was dumb. Unless you played last edition nids options are pretty limited and nids thrive on spam.

Yeah swarmlord is cool but he just doesn't win over the anti-flyer power and mobility that the winged tyrants with devourers bring. I still like many others like the swarmlord just cuz he's badass

I assume you mean smart missile system...i use those on all my tau vehicles WARFISH FTW! But those still won't kill a monstrous creature hiding behind BLOS terrain. S5 vs t6 just doesn't work out unless you can ignore their armour aswell.

I've been playing tau, eldar and daemons lately (with a bit of marines thrown in) so i more or less know what everyone else knows in terms of what i can't F**k with but just saying that also gives me the advantage of knowing tactically what I need to survive. BLOS terrain as many as i can grab luckily im playing friends and i make sure to use up all the BLOS terrain i can get my hands on, that's how the game was playtested to be played in the first place from what i hear

I've had games with very little terrain and no BLOS terrain at all versus my friend who's main army is Tau...and been spanked badly winning only 2 out of 20 games lol. So i took to creating my own terrain out of cardboard boxes

Specially after a Hammerhead in big guns never tired, used a skyfire nexus to snipe my 2 winged daemon prince in my daemons army...1 shot killed my prince. I like a challenge as much as the next guy but BLOS is a MUST in 6th ed specially against these shooty powerhouses.

[chicop76]

The problem with the winged tyrant is you are depending on strength 6 shots to take out other flyers and strength 6 vector strikes. Against armour 11 its not too bad, but against 12 you need 6s and have to deal with jink saves. Against 12 you can only glance death those types of flyers. Most other anti-air is strength 7 which makes a difference.

Another issue is against some armies, Tau and Daemons for example you are hard pressed dealing with other flying mcs that can vector strike and Tau anti air like getting hit with 6 seeker missiles. The only grace the winged tyrant have is if it get Iron Arm which it have a 1/3 chance of getting.

Which boils down it is great against armies that can't deal with flying MCs. If said army can than sticking a plus 2 save on it with a tyrant guard works better, like against Tau. Stick the high armour Tyrant up front and allocate ap 2 wounds to the guard while the tyrant takes everything else and laughing at seeker missiles. Oh and with all those biomancy rolls endurance realy helps, especially when you are regaining wounds back.

I have been testing out endurance with regeneration which has been working rather well. Might try the combo with the winged tyrant and see how it works. 4 wounds is not really enough.

Funny, Nids, Tau, and Daemons are my main armies in 6th. Eldar and Marines I use to play in 4th. I need to play 6th edition nids vs 6th edition Daemons. I done a 6th edition game with the two, but my Daemons was the older codex. I am curious how tdaemons would fair. Nids had the iron arm advantage, still wasn't enough against a thirster and with all the bolts, gazes, and breath of chaos attacks I was chewing or really burning nids down. I wonder how Daemons would do against them withoit the reliability of those 3 ranged attacks and the fact the daemons can take iron arm and powers like invisibility and have true names.

Oh never mind I did fight 6th edition nids with daemons. I won due to having plus 2 invulnerable saving hounds with fire shield,einvisibility, prescience, if I remember correctly. All those buffs are hard to keep track off. Also I was getting invulnerable re roll via fateweaver as well. I tied up like 75 percent of the nid army and killed the rest. I just kept the hounds buffed while I took the relic.

I travel a lot and have decided to try to build list with no cover in mind since that can happen. Typically like with the swarmlord I would hide them behind my tervigons. Than I would put zonathorpes in front of my tervigons. That way all those models get cover saves and the Zonathorpes don't need it due to three plus invulnerable saves. I go for invisibility due to having one of those two getting a two plus cover save. It works really well except against Tau.

[chicop76]

Honestly I use at most two trygons. However I beat new Tau with Nids twice so far. Both times I took doom in a pod, 3 min spores as fast and a trygon. Also I oit flanked with a tervigon.

The mines forced Tau troops oif of terrain. The doom hid behind his pod to prevent instant death. Iron Arm on doom is rather good. I recomend not ds an iron arm doom due to not being able to cast iron arm oit of reserves.

I also have used them as meat shields, tervigons to provide cover to my tervigons. I did a tyrnofex screen wbich works ok. The screen is good with double flamer action. The torrent fire is nice. However people tend to ignore them and try to get through the cover saves they are providing. It's helpful due to my back line mcs having cover and fnp and it will not die.

However due to grav gons screeing with mcs is no longer really viable or heavy sniper tau armies, so zonathorpes as a screen works better, especially if they have iron arm.

[Akaiyou]

I agree with every statement you've made. Though i'm surprised about Daemons winning over Nids. That seems like one of the bad match ups for Daemons, though it also comes down to the player skill. But in general I would think Daemons is one of the best armies for Nids to encounter competitively, specially with some tervigons, Daemon FMC can be easily killed by gaunts after scoring a grounding hit or at least held up.

While the hounds are indeed nasty I don't think they would fare well against massed Nid melee. Then again I only have about 3,000 pts of Daemons and i don't own any of the extra cheesy stuff. I see screamerstar being real deadly vs Nids perhaps with the only bright side being that it could only kill 1 unit at a time giving you enough room to drop several units withing assault range to engage and try to go for instant kills with Trygons/FMCs.

But the Houndstar just seems like much more easier to deal with as it's not nearly as efficient and relies on assault instead of shooting. I'll have to find an opponent with one of these some time and test out this theory.

Funny thing is my list with warriors and shrikes would probably demolish a houndstar/screamerstar list. Since I use tons of boneswords on the warriors. Just need to get keep either super unit in 1 spot for a turn or two and then let the boneswords get to work.

[chicop76]

Actually it was my nids vs my Daemons. Since my nid list was better. I also helped the nid player as best az I can.

The issue was my Daemons have a variety of buffs and nids have only 2 tables to really roll from.

The hounds reuced ws to 1 due to invisibility. Fire shield did 2d6 strenvtgh 4 hits as hammer of wrath, they negated counter charge and had 2 plus invulnerable saves. They was able to tie up a swarm lord, 3 tyrant guard, hive tyrant, trygon and about 40 gaunts. They resisted psychic powers a lot due to having collars. At times they was enfeebled, other nids had iron arm, endurance, warp speed.

The problem was the nids needed 5s to hit and had to get pass a plus 2 invulnerable. Oh I forgot about get four plis invulnerable due to divination. When I didn't fail my names check I had a one re rollable two plus invulnerable on my turn and on his turn.

For example lets say you can produce 36 smash attacks. Due to needing 5s to hit you will manage 12 hits assuming no re rolls due to preffered enemy which they had and re rolls to wound, but assuming they don't have that for this purpose since 36 smash attacks is a lot. Which means 12 get through and causes 10 wounds. I now have one unsaved wound which I re roll causing no wounds.

That means on average I need 12 wounds to insta kill one hound. Which means 14 wounds. Which means you need 42 insta death attacks to kill one hound due to invisibility, 2 invulnerable, and fate weaver one die re roll.

Now a screamer star with invisibility is worst since needing 5s to hit greatly diminish how many attacks it needs to take to lose one.

Now the fact flame shield was doing a number on gaunt squads that charged in helped a lot.

At the end of the game I lost like 6 hounds and killed all the guard and gaunts with a wound or two on the swarmlord. If I had screames I would had probably killed the big creatures.

Other than that to kill the tervigons my two princes had to vector strike them all day. Than my daemonettes also tore through the nids like paper.

After that game I realized nids can't deal with all the buffs due to the buffers staying away from the nids army. I was surprised the hounds did as well as they did.

However if it wasn't for the buffs all daemons could really do is vector strike and try to get first assauls with daemonettes.

Oh and skull cannons are awesome vs nids that use swarm.

[Akaiyou]

Well the hounds are Khorne Daemons so i assume it was Fateweaver casting powers on them??

So my question is...why was fateweaver so successful in casting powers ?? Nids have all the right equipment to shutdown psykers.

I know for sure I wouldn't fall trap to that build because as a daemon player myself I know they get crazy buffs if left unchecked (I have a pseudo-screamer star...need 3 more tzeentch heralds)

And psychic defense is the best way to just shut it down completely. Fateweaver can't do much against a Winged Tyrant chasing him. A winged tyrant should be able to ground fateweaver or put a LOT of pressure on him, and overal the synapse coverage itself should be able to shutdown all psychic activity thus making the hounds power ups a lot less reliable.

Which is why i mentioned that my warriors/shrike lists would funnily enough be a hard counter to your hound list. Even tho the warrior/shrikes tend to be ****ty this would be a 'prime target' situation for them with boneswords.

I'm guessing your tyranid list didn't have a winged devourer tyrant to counter fateweaver with and lacked synapse coverage to spread out and prevent the 24" range psychic buffs that can be casted outside of SitW

[chicop76]

I doubt a winged tyrant would had really helped. I fought a chaos and daemon list and vector striked a thirster with 3 mcs which nearly killed it and if it was a winged tyrant I could say I probably would had with the 4 mcs I was playing that game.

Let's see
Fateweaver 4 powers
LOC 3 Divination powers
Tzeentch Prince 3 Telepathy powers
Tzeentch Prince 3 Biomancy Powers

I learned that game to take atleast 1 Tzeentch power and hope for the beam attack. Anyway the 4 monster mash list is rather interesting. I think I was only running 16 hounds with 16 of 2 daemonettes with a skull cannon.

Hard to keep track when I change my list almost every game.

Anyway as you can see I can cast 16 powers from 5 categories. It was rather effective to say the least.

Another point a lot of buffs reach 24" which really help with staying outside the anti-psyker bubble. Also lack of real range I can always opt to just not fly and hide behind the hound wall. Got to love spreading out to make one huge line. Honestly it hurted in combat and cost me possible MC kills early on. Also I was used to following up the hounds with daemonettes. The nettes did a lot of work, which they had buffs as well, just not as well buffed as others.

What caused the nids to do bad was really the hounds holding the line. I could had assaulted with the daemonettes up the middle and wipe out the center, but I was worried about dealing with 3 tervigons and the doom with biovores.

The thought of overwhelming the daemons didn't happen. Also portalglph helped with me spawning horrors for shooting.

I think what would had made a difference in the game would had been genestealers who could had infiltrated and pushed back my hounds. By the darmons going first my hounds was mid board. Than I moved them up which put them 1" away from the nid lines. I kept them buffed all game long.

I think gargoyles and shrikes would had helped since they could had flew over the hounds with ease.

Another point would be I kept my flyers away from too many gaunts az possible. I never got grounded which really helped out a lot.

Another point an iron arm winged tyrant would had helped. Vector strikes would had less of an effect against it. Just playing against other daemons multiple vector strikes against other flying MCs really hurt.

What would be interesting to see is 2 winged tyrants and 3 harpies would be interesting. That's 5 vector striking models that woukd be a pain to deal with. The lurk on the harpy isn't bad since it's leadership 10. Thinking about it you can fit 2winged tyrants, 3 harpies, 3 tervigons, and 3 squads of gaunts with maybe a doom in a pod. 8 mcs which 5 of them that fly woukd be interesting. If you take no upgrades you can probably fir a trygon for 9 mcs. It would be viable since 5 vector strikes can be rather nasty and hard to deal with.

If they had harpy models I bet you would see flying mc list.

[chicop76]

I doubt a winged tyrant would had really helped. I fought a chaos and daemon list and vector striked a thirster with 3 mcs which nearly killed it and if it was a winged tyrant I could say I probably would had with the 4 mcs I was playing that game.

Let's see
Fateweaver 4 powers
LOC 3 Divination powers
Tzeentch Prince 3 Telepathy powers
Tzeentch Prince 3 Biomancy Powers

I learned that game to take atleast 1 Tzeentch power and hope for the beam attack. Anyway the 4 monster mash list is rather interesting. I think I was only running 16 hounds with 16 of 2 daemonettes with a skull cannon.

Hard to keep track when I change my list almost every game.

Anyway as you can see I can cast 16 powers from 5 categories. It was rather effective to say the least.

Another point a lot of buffs reach 24" which really help with staying outside the anti-psyker bubble. Also lack of real range I can always opt to just not fly and hide behind the hound wall. Got to love spreading out to make one huge line. Honestly it hurted in combat and cost me possible MC kills early on. Also I was used to following up the hounds with daemonettes. The nettes did a lot of work, which they had buffs as well, just not as well buffed as others.

What caused the nids to do bad was really the hounds holding the line. I could had assaulted with the daemonettes up the middle and wipe out the center, but I was worried about dealing with 3 tervigons and the doom with biovores.

The thought of overwhelming the daemons didn't happen. Also portalglph helped with me spawning horrors for shooting.

I think what would had made a difference in the game would had been genestealers who could had infiltrated and pushed back my hounds. By the darmons going first my hounds was mid board. Than I moved them up which put them 1" away from the nid lines. I kept them buffed all game long.

I think gargoyles and shrikes would had helped since they could had flew over the hounds with ease.

Another point would be I kept my flyers away from too many gaunts az possible. I never got grounded which really helped out a lot.

Another point an iron arm winged tyrant would had helped. Vector strikes would had less of an effect against it. Just playing against other daemons multiple vector strikes against other flying MCs really hurt.

What would be interesting to see is 2 winged tyrants and 3 harpies would be interesting. That's 5 vector striking models that woukd be a pain to deal with. The lurk on the harpy isn't bad since it's leadership 10. Thinking about it you can fit 2winged tyrants, 3 harpies, 3 tervigons, and 3 squads of gaunts with maybe a doom in a pod. 8 mcs which 5 of them that fly woukd be interesting. If you take no upgrades you can probably fir a trygon for 9 mcs. It would be viable since 5 vector strikes can be rather nasty and hard to deal with.

If they had harpy models I bet you would see flying mc list.
Lol.

I forgot Harpies can drop bombs and vector strike and fire a large pie plate. Man that thing can attack 3 targets. 1 with the strenght 5 pie plate.

Wait. Omg. This thing is really good.

It can drop a strenth 6 pie plate, strength 5 pie plate, and d3 strength 4 pie plate possibly hitting 2 different units in one turn.

Or it can

Drop a strength 6 pie plate
Vector Strike with strenght 5 attacks
And drop a bomb doing d3 large strength 4 pie plates

Assuming it can bomb and vector strike at once, not to mention it can smash tanks.

Only real drawback its not great in close combat. Also I thought lictors, death leaper and carnifex had assault grenades. This model have them too and lowers initiative in half. That's a good support unit. That means you assault something like witches and lower them to I3 and follow up with gaunts which woukd go before the witches.

I surprised I never really noticed the Harpy. No one talked really positive about it, so I never noticed how good it was. Maybe it looks good in theory, but suck in actual play.

[Akaiyou]

The harpy is bad because it's T5 and has a poor save. For a monstrous creature it's just not as appealing. Specially in fast attack where you can take gargoyles which are the poster boys for Nid fast attack options nowdays.

I built up a Harpy myself and used it in a number of games, it's pretty solid versus infantry but not much else. Which is also a problem because Nids are always good versus infantry no matter what, so it's not doing anything that everything else in your army can't already do well.

I challenge you to try playing Nids vs Daemons again but this time take command of the Tyranid army and see how you fare. While it's certainly possible for daemons to win against Tyranids, I do still think that Nids are one of the armies that is a hard counter for them, containing all the tools necessary to remove a daemon armies strengths.

I think you'd do rather well specially knowing your daemon army inside and out.

[chicop76]

I'll do that, but need a good daemon player to be on the other side and used to being able to cast almost all the psychic powers. The nid player had experience with nids. Sadly at the time I wanted to know how my nids would fare and I wanted to knkw how my Daemons would fare. Not many people know how to play psychic heavy Daemons.

In all honesty I will probably not play either army in a tournament unless the time was unlimited.

With Damons it is a bit different since I can get into the other players deployment on turn one. However the first turn is not really in the daemons favor and when turns two and three kick around that's when the army get going, while with nids it takes an extra turn and the spawning of the gaunts.

Also casting is so situational. Keeping track of 13 plus powers a turn and the fact you can cast them on top of rewards and relics you need another paper to keep track of everything. Nids is a bit simpler and easier to keep track off.

Than again I would had placed my nids much different than what he did. I play chess with myself and its more acceped than playing 40k with yourself. However doing so can help me really see things I overlook on normal play and I can see how x unit performs and can really determine what to do to get it to work.

I can say I stomped down a Tau player twice who is rather good with Tau with both nids and daemons. Wile I can say I beat nids 3 times with my Tau.

My game play differs from others since I do not feel the need to wipe out whole units, unless it's kps than I start disabling and killing the easier to kill models and small units and work my way up. For example I ayed against daemons with Tau and took out his two princes and thirster turn one. I didn't bother much with the hounds. Thanx to a big wall that block line of sight and a squad of kroot behind the wall it messed up the hounds scout move and I placed my kroot so he would have to assault them with the hounds or go around them. He also had nurgle beast as well. The point is I delayed his turn one presence and he was still able to assault turn two, but I reduce his hounds to 6 which stayed tied up with 12 stubborn fire warriors most of the game, got to love defensive grenades, ethereal stubborn bubble, and four plus saves. His beast was able to fight but they was locked in combat with my kroot, I almost lost my riptide which nearly ran off the board due to bad rolling. The game lasted two turns which I won. The daemon player didn't want to go to turn 3 since he thought he was winning. I pointed out that it was more than taking objectives it was also vps. I had more objectivs and vps. It was due to controlling his squad sizes and killing anything that can ignore armor saves since his troops was a bunch of letters, t3 letters are too easy to kill rather daemonettes.

I also know now not to throw so much into the hounds which will make a huge difference. I would probably throw a tervigon at them since its doubtful they can kill it, reason why to take that khorne herald. Anyway a tervigon with endurance can stay engaged and spawn gaunts that can spawn on the other side of combat. The hounds tying up half a army and killing most of the gaunts really gave them the win. I honestly thought nids would win against the nee daemons. I will change out both list a bit and prepare to do that battle again. Nid change up I may proxy a harpy or two to try it out and with daemons I am trying to reduce mcs and use more heralds anyway. If I get my screames back I want to run a screamer star with my hounds. Would be nice giving invisibility to the screamers that two plus cover save when they turbo and leave my hounds with a two or three plus invulnerable save.

In that game vs nids I can say I couldn't go in and bully the nid army. I played a lot of hit and run and took advantage of vector strikes, range and very selective assaults. It reminded me of playing against orcs with nids before the last nid dex. Before the last nid dex orcs was a pain to play against, not to say a 6 point orc is way better than a 6 point gaunt, termagaunts were a lot better vs orks than using spine gaunts. When we got poison, preferred enemy, furious charge auras it made a huge difference against a lot of stuff. 20 gaunts with all those buffs can bring the pain. Sadly preferred enemy and furious charge got nerfed.

Although preferred enemy works with shooting now and nids is one of the rare armies that can give preferred enemy to almost the whole army, love them tyrants. It makes gaunt and gargoyles shooting better re rolling ones to hit and wound. I still find it hard to justify the cost of 5 less gaunts sometimes. I need to try gargoyles this edition since I have 20. I bought harpy wings and glued them on gaunts, much cheaper. Never tried them out in 6th yet. Although 2 attacks with hammer of wrath doesn't seem bad on paper and seeing how my seekers preform and my gaunts I do not think they won't disapoint.

Hmmm. That's what learn said sbout the Harpy. I forgot what it did since last I looked at it was in 5th which it would had been easy to kill. Toughness 5 is the same as a non iron armed prince and I think a necron spyder as well and bikes.
The 4 plus save isn't great which means that jink save would be needed. I picture that if you ground the Harpy it's not that hard to kill. Which is why I can't see a lone harpy doing well. However the Harpy would distact from the winged tyrant.

The harpy woukd probably be good with genestealers and or sword warriors.

Thinking about it more after a good night's sleep dat dam space marine anti-air would destroy it. 4 twin-linked sky fire shots at marine bs sigh.

[Akaiyou]

Lol i completely agree with the anylisis specially the Orks vs Nids thing...I played that myself and got my **** rocked by Orks with 1 sole surviving genestealer at the end of the game.

It was a rude awakening...Lootas did a number on me. Unreliable ork shooting my ***...I have since started playing Orks myself so as to not be caught off guard by units I don't know anything about.

In fact I started playing other armies aside from nids for the sole purpose of improving my Tyranid play. Because there were so many armies I didn't encounter and when played against I was left wondering if these players were playing their rules correctly or not, as everything sounds like BS when you play it for the first time

(i remember people that never played against nids were in utter shock when they were told that nids are immune to instant death within synapse) That was the most common 'let me see that' rule.