News: No news is good news...

Login  |  Register

Author Topic: Lessons learned the hard way  (Read 3295 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Travellar

  • Lieutenant
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 618
  • Country: 00
  • Hey Farley, call headquarters.
Lessons learned the hard way
« on: January 27, 2014, 12:20:14 PM »
I haven't had a great deal of success yet with the new codex, as I'm still playing around on the fringes.  I have, however, learned one or two lessons the hard way.

Naked Tyrant = bad
     I was working from the idea that Tyrants ought to be running and assaulting, not shooting.  I still lucked out and got Warp Blast for a psychic power though.  The problem I had was that my opponent placed his Dark reapers in a building well in his own deployment zone, and was having a heyday insta-gibbing Venomthropes and Warriors with them.  The Tyrant never got far enough up field to do anything about them.  Overall, my army was picked apart with surgical precision usually reserved for pro-Eldar fluff.  One Heavy Venom Cannon, or perhaps a set of wings would've made a world of difference.

Genestealers =/= best troops
     I'm not knocking the value of Genestealers, though I haven't quite felt out their niche yet.  The problem with using them for the backbone of the army though is that they cost a lot, and get no armor save versus most of the basic infantry weapons in the game.

Warriors = essential
     If you want to keep your army's Synapse up, Warriors have proven the best method for me.  Zoans do a nice job, but attract hails of fire that bring them down. (I usually run multiple small broods, so maybe the problem lies there)  Warriors aren't much better for avoiding fire, but with 9 wounds per minimum brood, they stick around a bit longer.  Give them some guns and they lay down a fairly dense spray of cover fire.
"he's either the most brilliant troll ever, or he's crazy." -Bloodhawk

Offline Flankster

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 40
Re: Lessons learned the hard way
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2014, 05:13:39 PM »
I haven't run a Tyrant (of any configuation) using the new codex yet, but I think the way to use him is as tough synapse. Give him 1 or 2 Tyrant guards and use dominion power to spread out synapse. Make him your warlord and those points will help you deny your opponent a VP. Throw in Regen if you are really paranoid.

I agree about genestealers. The only possible situation I see is outflanking them with a broodlord onto a weak flank against a low Ld unit. Their survival depends on the broodlord pinning the squad with Horror. For that many points, I think you could spend them in more useful places. I will only field a genestealer squad in a 2000 pt army to chase rangers/pathfinders (both variants). 

I'm really liking the look of warriors. One small squad with a barbed strangler in the back to babysit the Biovores seems like a great use. Or you can make them the backbone of your assault wave. Try to keep those venomthropes behind a MC so they can't get LOS from Dark Reapers or anything like that. Also, don't bring a venomthrope against tau. Markerlights will negate his save and he'll get shot on turn 1.

You might add to your list of hard lessons: Don't field Deathleaper as your HQ without any Synapse. He will just run flee off the board. ;D
Fluff? Fluff is the stuff that makes me turn 80 pages to find the other half of the battle book. I frankly don't give a damn.

Offline Dangerousdave0042

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 294
  • Country: gb
  • I *LOVE* 40k Online!
  • Armies: Imperial Guard, Blood Angels and Tyranids
Re: Lessons learned the hard way
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2014, 09:19:11 PM »
I've played two games at 1000 point consisting of:

1 x Flyrant TL Dev x2

30 Termagants
1 Tervigon
30 Hormugants

1 x Zoe
1 x Venom
1 x Venom

1 x Exocrine

The first game was against Grey Knights, and it was really important to realise that although you don't take IB tests when in close combat you do take losing combat leadership tests when out of Synapse range resulting in 30 termigants being wiped out by a Vindicare assassin in close combat by sweeping advance. Technically I won the game on objectives, but actually there's little a Tyranid player can do against Paladins - shoot them and they have 2+ armour saves, close conbat them and they force MCs to death and destroy the little critters.

The second game was against Dark Angels (nothing special) except he took two libbys and rolled invisibility for them both then never cast it. However, I had the first turn and  my Hormagaunts did the full 15 inches. He didn't fire at them as he was trying to bring down my Flyrant (which he did and then took it down to 1 wound), which meant my Hormagaunts then proceeded to eat through 1 x ten man tac squad, 3 x bikes, 3 x scouts, finish off other tac squad, while the flyrant shot the libby and finished off the devastor squad with the skyfire missile he was with. His flank collapsed and then I piled through to the other flank.

In both game the Tervigon did nothing as it was babysitting an objective. Now I realise that I put termagants on an objective and make them go to ground.   ::)

Important lessons were - I thought I had enough Synapse - no I didn't. I think a squad of warriors is an essential troop choice to hold the back line.

The Exocrine is great as our only AP2 shooter.

Venomthropes are a mist. Yes Tau will destroy them and or take the cover away from other creatures, but not a lot that can be done about that except shoot the marker light drones out with the Flyrant!!

Need a second flying MC at more 1000 points. Probably take the Harpy as it is our only main anti flyer.

If you're going to go with Hormagaunts take 30 of them - don't go half measures. They can do MEQ in close combat with that number, but pretty useless against TEQ (especially TEQs with two wounds).

I wouldn't count this as a great success as the person I was playing was fairly green, deployed too close to me (allowing a hormagaunt turn 2 charge) and apart from focusing fire on the Flyrant on turn 1 (which would have really done my synapse in as it was holding the hormagaunts, venomthrope and exocrine in the attack) he never really focussed on any particular model and kept switching target priorities. Also there was no real dedicated anti flyer apart from one missile launcher in the second game.

If you are going "fast in your face" route, then I might well drop the Tervigon and take 30 Gargoyles. These also have the potential to get into combat turn 2 with a 12 inch move + run + 12 inch move, shoot fleshborers then charge. While blinded venom is a bit crap (especially given the description "how dangerous gargoyles can be .. blinded and debilitated", as you have to take a blind test for every hit, you can be fairly certain they will blind them.

At the very least the Gargoyles should tie up a squad to "relieve" you of a couple of turns of being shot at while the slower creatures lumber along.
Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.

Offline GaleRazorwind

  • Hormagaunt
  • Senior Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1419
  • Country: 00
  • Ziltoid Lives!
  • Armies: Nids, BA, CSM
Re: Lessons learned the hard way
« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2014, 11:49:51 PM »
Went up against a Tyranid player at the Darkstar GT here in Minneapolis, Minnesota last week that was fairly tough to beat (of course he had a large inbuilt advantage as I was Tzeentch Daemons. Damn DTW >_<).

At 1850, his list was:

Flyrant with Reaper and Scytals
Flyrant with 2xDev
3 1 man Zoans
30 Gants
Tervi
2 Crones
2 Exocrines
1 Tyranno Spray
Skyshield Landing Pad

Well, I might have won if not for his propensity to pass large amounts of 4/5+ DTW rolls. He also could have almost tabled me in turn three if he had been paying attention. He had a flyrant and the two crones in a position that would have let him charge both of my 20 man pink horror+Herald blobs, who had practically no chance of winning that fight. Lesson: Sometimes, you actually should charge your Flyers into combat! Yes, he still won, but he would have pretty much ended any hope I had by charging the two Crones into one squad and the Flyrant into the other, which I probably wouldn't have done anything to and would have taken one hell of an instability test for.
Ziltoid is so omniscient, if there were to be two omnisciences, he would be both!

 


Powered by EzPortal