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Offline Travellar

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Tactics and Synergies
« on: July 6, 2012, 11:38:16 AM »
Just a few thoughts on what we may need to think of differently. (please add to this)

Strangelwebs:
I know of noone who takes them, because they just aren't worth it.  However, as they are template weapons, they allow Termagants to charge buildings. (A feat they are otherwise incapable of.)  Mix this with a Carnifex smashing the building itself, and you may be able to cut off all fleeing models by blocking thier paths with Termagants.

Sky-Slasher Swarms, Shrikes, Gargoyles, and newly spawned Termagants:
Most buildings in our local inventory have flat roofs which already seem inviting as battlements.  Since you cannot assault units inside buildings from outside, but may do so from multi-part buildings, anything that lets you get models onto the roof should be looked at closely.  For the assault downstairs itself, nothing beats Shrikes.  However, I believe that Sky-slashers are far more likely to be overlooked as a serious threat until it's too late.  Termagants being spawned from a Tervigon are more of a gimmick really, as their very existence indicates you already had a monsterous creature at the front door.

Biovores, Pyrovores, and the Horror of it all:
Continuing the them of assaulting buildings from the battlements, we must first clear those battlements.  Biovores and Pyrovores both offer options to inflict wounds without the cover saves of the battlements.  Meanwhile, the previously neglected Hive Tyrant power "The Horror" may allow you to knock those units off if they fail a moral check.  Extra bonus: units fleeing from battlements have to jump!  No-save dangerous terrain checks for everyone!

Genestealer Broodlords:
One of the few characters in our army, it's also one of the only opportunities to use the rules for dueling.  I'd say: keep the hypnotic gaze power, and hope for the chance to have very one sided individual combats.

Assaulting the end of a line: (Especially Genestealers)
Please note that units being assaulted only pile-in on the correct initiative steps.  What I didn't realize until the situation came up is that the short pile in of the assaulted unit may not reach the assaulting Genestealers!  If you do enough damage to one end of the unit, the rest may be stuck out for the first round of combat without hitting you back, pushing the combat resolution much further in our favor.

Fleshborer/Genestealer combo:
This works for any sufficiently shooty unit, but I love using the often maligned Termagant to give people bad days.   During movement, try and line your Termagants up so they are 90' around the target unit from the Genestealers.  Because the rules for shooting state that you'll remove the closest models first, this should force your opponet to remove models in such a way that their own unit gets spread out into a line... with Genestealers at one end.

Prime with Warriors:
stick the Prime in front, and use the 2+ LoS! rule to spread wounds out nice and evenly between all of the warriors.  (I've got a really bad gut feeling about this one, but the rules back it up)
« Last Edit: July 6, 2012, 03:26:11 PM by Travellar »
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Offline GaleRazorwind

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Re: Tactics and Synergies
« Reply #1 on: July 9, 2012, 02:32:19 AM »
A walking Tyrant with a Guard or two and Old Adversary surrounded by shooty units like Hive Guard and Deathspitter Warriors makes for a good amount of improvement on shooting, especially if anyone is stupid enough to try and charge you (Overwatch can work both ways, baby!).

Speaking of Overwatch, and I'm sure this has been mentioned, but if you can charge an enemy unit with an expendable unit first, and they make it into combat, the enemy can't fire Overwatch at any other units, so you are then free to charge your more powerful units into combat risk free.

As I was looking over the doctrines of psychic powers, I noticed a couple of neat powers in there. The Swarmlord potentially can get a lot of really awesome powers, especially when you consider that he gets to generate 4 powers. That gives you a good number of chances to get the powers you really want. Iron Arm, anyone? It would make your Swarmlord far more difficult to kill, especially against things like Force Weapons. How about Endurance? You'd give Tervigons a self-esteem problem with that one. Twice the range of Catalyst, plus It will not Die? Holy crap, with all of our multi-wound model units and the new rules for wound allocation, you could be regaining a ton of wounds, especially if you have been shuffling your models around. Telekine Dome could be a useful ability, since you could use both it and Endurance to get more of your units beefed up. LOL, how about Gate of Infinity? Perhaps not the most effective ability, but boy would that be scary to face (Surprise! Swarmlord in your face!). Objuration Mechanicum could easily fry vehicles, and forcing the re-rolls on 6's is nasty. Finally, Invisibility. Sure, it takes up both your warp charges, but giving a full unit of Raveners +3 cover and making enemies hit them on 5's in CC would be lots of fun.

Though it is only a 1 in 6 chance, if the Doom got Iron Arm and a good roll... muahahah...

To clarify on shuffling, basically, keep a couple models in the front of the unit, as soon as they start taking wounds, move unwounded models up to the front of the unit. Now those models are taking the wounds, keeping more models alive until you can charge. Also, don't forget that you only have to continue allocating wounds to a single model until the wound pool is empty.
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Offline Travellar

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Re: Tactics and Synergies
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2012, 11:36:42 AM »
had a 1000 point tournament at the LGS last night, so I took the opportunity to put some ideas to the test.

Flying Hive Tyrant:
WOW, she got across the table fast.  First game, my opponet deployed in the corner opposite of her (long table edges), and she still had Mephiston under Shadow in the Warp on turn 1.  The following Vector Strike was unremarkable, due to poor wound rolls.  Turn 3 she finally got to eat a tank.  My other 2 games, She got across the table and started working on dispensing enemies by turn 2.  Downside, the Grounded rule is quite harsh, and (imho) too easily triggered.  Swooping can protect them from a lot of ground fire by making them hard to hit, but when they do get hit, they take it kinda hard.
-note: Paroxysm is still fun, and Psychic Scream is still nearly useless.


Hormagaunts:
Ran 2 broods of 17/18 models.  One brood was lost all night, and that's the brood that Mephiston cut down after I charged past synapse range.  (the second brood ate his head)  Overall, broods of this size are likely to survive the first few turns of the game with enough models to be effective in close combat.  the best use all night was the brood that (attempted) charging a 40 man guard squad prior to the Hive Tyrant doing the same.  They drew the overwatch, failed the charge, and still had some models that could have charged in to bail the Tyrant out come turn 3.

Challenges:
These are a stalling tactic.  When Issabelle (Flying Hive Tyrant) charged those guardsmen, She was met with a challenge by a Sergeant, which pretty much nullified the effects of the combat. (Commissars prevent running in a panic nicely)  Had there been time for more rounds, Issabelle would have challenged in the opposing turn to buy time for the Hormagaunts to join the fight.

Biovores:
Nothing new to add here, these guys are still great!

Synaptic coverage: I didn't have enough.  One brood of Warriors simply doesn't have the Synaptic footprint to cover all the things they need to do, Issabelle was on the other side of the table doing her job, and then people started shooting at the too few warriors.  Make sure to take at least 2 synapse units in the core of your forces.

Hive Guard:
broods of 3 destroy tanks.  Broods of 2 might, but broods of 3 will.
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Offline GaleRazorwind

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Re: Tactics and Synergies
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2012, 09:40:19 PM »
It seems i may have discounted the power Enfeeble too quickly. It was certainly useful when I used it on a 20 man blob of Berzerkers led by Abbadon and charged them with 9 Raveners with FC from the Swarmlord. Wounding on a 2+ and getting wounded on 5's was really awesome. We killed off Abby and some Zerkers, and actually lived through a couple rounds of combat before dieing off. They absolutely made their points back, and then some.

Raveners are proving themselves to be extremely useful in this eddition, at least when they have good support.

Hehe, had a Tervi with Iron Arm that just rocked. Now that MC's benefit from area terrain, keeping you giant bugs alive is quite a bit easier, especially if you are in a ruin (4+) and controlling a Scatterfield objective. LOL for a T9 Tervi with a 3+ cover save. Suck it, Chosen with 3 plasmas!
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Offline Travellar

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Re: Tactics and Synergies
« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2012, 11:00:54 AM »
I spooked last night's opponet into retreating into the back corner of his table end. (Hammer & Anvil)  Dropping a pair of screamer killers into his lines while a good sized swarm of termagants came running up the middle may have had something to do with that.  Problem is, we were playing for kill points, and that would have made his remaining units VERY hard to reach, if we'd had time to finish the game.  Nids need to include long range support.  Frankly, some Biovores would've done wonders to let me keep hurting his retreating lines and made the game nearly unwinnable for him.
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Offline Halollet

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Re: Tactics and Synergies
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2012, 12:32:39 AM »


Something that I noticed recently is how well Objuration Mechanicum works with nids.

Use it on a unit and then charge it with a tyrant or a fex and since most troops are going to be wounding it on a 6 anyways, doing the math, it would take 36 hits to cause one wound.

That's pretty nasty and basically negates things like force weapons. 

The only thing that could stop it would be hidden powerfists, krak grenades, melta bombs and other MCs.  That's a pretty short list.


Also, a tyrant that can use gate of infinity for late game denial is great.
One sure mark of a fool is to dismiss anything that falls outside of his experience as being impossible.

 


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