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Offline nosferatubgc

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Few more newb Swarm questions
« on: April 18, 2013, 01:36:08 AM »
Good evening all,

First off I would like to thank the answers and warm welcomes I got for my first post.  I finally got to play my third game and again I am very bare bones it at the moment due to a horrendous work schedule.  I played my 3rd game today but was only 350 points.  Which is currently 2 loses against Tau and 1 win against Dark Eldar.Took me awhile to even finish my Tyranid Prime HQ with magnetizing his parts.  And here in lies my questions...

1.  Do my small based models, my termagants, give any screening benefit in front of my medium based Warriors?  Or are they just the "tarpit" to deal with in melee first?

2.  I currently only have 5 Warriors and the Prime, is it better for him to be not included in the unit or stay with them?

For both my games today he was in and equipped with LW and BS and helped a lot when I designated a challenge and killed my enemy's HQ.

3.  Are Toxic Sacs a good option for Warriors?  I maybe not fully understanding Poisoned, I read that its good for low Str models like gants but what about Warriors and my Prime?

4.  How do I deal with the ridiculous shooting that is Tau I spent both games against them just running up the field losing models trying to get into melee?  When I did though was quite funny to see 1 Warrior with 2 wounds kill 10 fire warriors before he went down.

5.  I also fought my first vehicle a Dark Eldar skiff which such high arm value was rather difficult to deal with.  Do you melee against vehicles only?  I see little options for us to ranged except some Heavy support it seems.

6.  I just ordered a box of Raveners because I reread that they are beasts meaning a 12" move, also I love the look of the model.  Should these just be melee monsters and should I make sure the Rage or do I try keep them in Synapse?

Sorry again for the I am sure terrible questions but I have a none competitive shop but still nice to get some feedback to help get new ideas how to approach these threats. thank you all.

Offline GaleRazorwind

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Re: Few more newb Swarm questions
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2013, 03:26:01 AM »
The game kind of breaks down at such small point values. It will certainly help once you have enough models to start playing normal sized games as you will be able to bring a variety of units and will be able to tackle more enemy unit types.

1. Potentially, yes. As long as you obscure 25% of the targeted model from at least one of the firing models, you will receive a cover save. In fact, this leads to one of the most fundamental concepts of a Tyranid army: The Tyranid Cover Phalanx. Our army is fairly unique in that we have several groups of models with distinct sizes, usually categorized as small bugs (Gants, Stealers), medium bugs (warrior types, guards), large bugs (fexes/tyrants), and giant bugs (Trygon/Tervi/T.fex). The TCP (Tyranid Cover Phalanx) starts with small bugs in the front, followed by the medium bugs, then the large bugs, and then the giant bugs. This gives everything behind the small bugs a cover save while you adavance. It makes you a bit more vulnerable to blast weapons, but the added survivability tends to outweigh that factor.

2. The Prime is best off in the unit of Warriors since he gives them his WS and BS, and it helps hide him from guns. Alternatively, you can keep him in front and use Look out Sir! rolls to siphon wounds off to the closest model, or if you get hit by a S8/9 weapon, you can take it on the Prime and he won't be instakilled.

3. YES! Last edition, Toxin Sacs were great on small bugs, great on medium bugs, and horrible on big/giant bugs. But in 6th, the changes to poison mean that they are amazing on everything. I suggest reading the entry for poison in the main rulebook very closely to see how good it is.

4. Well, considering you were playing with so few points and all you had was one squad, I assume you had a bunch of Fire Warriors unloading on your one squad as they marched across the field. That is about the worst possible situation for a bug player to be in, so don't feel bad. Once you get some other models, things should hopefully get quite a bit easier. Tyranid armies are about synergy and target saturation. The goal is to have so many scary looking things that your opponent can't figure out what to shoot. When you have a single squad, synergy and target saturation are non existent, making effective play difficult.

5. Yes, those darn paper airplanes sure are a pain with their AV10/11. Again, this is simply because you aren't playing with enough points, although DE are the scissors to our paper. They are very difficult for Nids to face because of an abundance of S8 AP2 and Poison 4+ shots, plus a saturation of very fast vehicles (we simply don't have the firepower to kill them at range and they can run away), and they are generally faster than us in CC. Very bad combo. But for going against vehicles, a mixed approach is best. Use Hive Guard and Zoanthropes for ranged vehicle popping, and any of our MC's in CC will kill vehicles with a Smash attack.

6. Yay Raveners! I do love Raveners, although I hate that they can't get Toxin Sacs or even Adrenal Glands (retarded since every other unit in the entire codex that has options can take them), but they just fly across the table and they can take out most unit types with Rending Claws. Always run them with the Claws, and generally don't bother with ranged weapons. Keep them nice and cheap so you can field a lot of them. I suggest no fewer than 5 and go for all 9 if you can. As much as Rage might help them, the thought of losing combat to a crap roll and being swept really scares me, so I suggest you keep their big Ld6 tails in Synapse range. Oh, and Raveners work best with synergy! Give them Feel No Pain via a Tervigon and/or take the Swarmlord and give them Furious Charge/and or (if you have the power) use Biomancy's Enfeeble power to weaken their target. LOL Second game of 6th ed, I launched a unit of 9 Raveners into a 20 man blob of Khorne Berzerkers lead by Abbadon after using Enfeeble on them and giving the Raveners FNP and Furious Charge, and we wiped out half the enemy squad, including Abbadon! They ended up being wiped out, but I think they made their points back. Keep in mind that they do tend to die, but they can draw a giant amount of firepower and can be extremely deadly.
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Offline Crawfskeezen

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Re: Few more newb Swarm questions
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2013, 03:34:49 AM »
Welcome to the boards.

GaleRazorwind was more speedy than I to post but i'll still throw my 2 credits in.

I'm not a nid player but I face them quite often and I think I can lend some insight.

1. Short answer yes as long as a quarter of the model is covered. But read page 18 of the rulebook where it talks about the interactions of "Intervening Models." However this sort of question is usually best posed in the Rules and Questions board. No worries tho.

2. I would include him with your unit. It makes him more survivable; the other warriors can soak up hits before he dies and gives your enemy a Victory Point, because I'd shoot him first if he was by himself. I'm assuming he is your HQ. LW/BS is a good combo.

3. Poisoned works well against units with toughness values because regardless of an enemy's toughness you will always wound on no worse than the specified number. They are good against high Toughness models but against low toughness the Warriors have a decent enough Strength to handle most infantry. However Poisoned does beslubber all against armour because it doesn't use your strength. The poisoned approach may not be what you're looking for if you were having trouble with Dark Eldar armour (arguably the weakest in the game). The "higher" Strength of your Warriors may be better put to use attacking armour.

4. My friend has this issue against my Imperial Guard. Cover is your best friend in this regard. Try to keep as much terrain between you and their guns as you can. The Venomthrope is a good model in this regard as it gives all your units in a certain range a half decent cover save.

Run. Run. Run. Run as much as possible. If it don't shoot: Run. If it shoots but not that far: Run. It may be only a few inches here or there but after 2 turns of running you can have moved 3 turns worth of distance.

Have no illusions, you are going to lose models. Lots of models. But you put it perfectly here:

When I did though was quite funny to see 1 Warrior with 2 wounds kill 10 fire warriors before he went down.

This is the crux of it, your units are all pretty beast in CC, so much so that you don't need a boatload of them to get it done when the lines hit (but it doesn't hurt right?). I have seen 3 Hormagaunts with adrenal glands wreck a Hammerhead in 1 turn. That will ruin any Tau player's day, getting his 150+ point vehicle (they're cheaper now i know) popped by about 30 points of bugs.

In the last game I played 1 Geanstealer Broodlord (who is one of the craziest units in 40k) took out a Mortar squad a Command squad and a Lord Commissar (the latter 2 with Power Weapons) before I had to turn a 30 man squad on him and shoot him dead lest he kill my whole army.

What I'm getting at is that you don't need to get everyone there to do damage.

5. As I mentioned Dark Eldar vehicles are soft by most standards. The stock Deathspitters on your Warriors should be sufficient to destroy them. Venom Cannons are also good for this, your warriors can take them too. Alternatively you can attack it in CC. Your warriors can all glance it to death, if they take adrenal glands they would be able to penetrate its armour (due to them getting Furious Charge) and if you give said glands to your Gaunts, they too can glance them to death.

6. Raveners are a tough play. Strictly melee guys here. A amphetamine parrot tonne of attacks but they are very fast and not synapse like you say. If you don't have any synapse that can keep up with them then it's academic. But I'd say try out just letting them loose and try to keep them on a tighter leash and see what works better for you.

Personally I'd deep strike them behind some cover and then next turn whip around a corner and ruin some poor fool's day. :o

Don't be sorry, these forums are here for help and discussion. Plus I ask tonnes of stupid questions all the time and I haven't had any trouble... Yet.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2013, 08:36:14 PM by Crawfskeezen »
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Offline GaleRazorwind

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Re: Few more newb Swarm questions
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2013, 01:27:30 PM »
Craw, Poison no longer wounds on a fixed number, it is wounds on no worse than the listed number. EG if you are S4 and your opponent is T3 and you have Poison 4+, your attacks wound on 3's rerolling failures.
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Offline Crawfskeezen

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Re: Few more newb Swarm questions
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2013, 08:31:46 PM »
Craw, Poison no longer wounds on a fixed number, it is wounds on no worse than the listed number. EG if you are S4 and your opponent is T3 and you have Poison 4+, your attacks wound on 3's rerolling failures.

And here I thought I had it all figured out. Thanks for pointing that out. So it does have advantages when attacking lower T models.
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