Competitive 40k tactics and Battle Reports with the Tyranid Codex

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Tyranid Beaky list review, and random thoughts

 
Got up this morning and read the paper before driving off, and just about dropped my Cheeri-Os! Right there on Family Cuircus, gotta love that! (This reminds me of a Fox Trot from a few years back...)


 
 
So, happy Halloween everybody! Bonus points for dressing up as anything 40k related! Anyway, I was asled in a comment to do a full review of my BeakyCon list... it seemed like a good idea! Until I win a GT, there's room for improvement (or new dice... game 5 cough...)
So here we go! For referrence, my list below:
 
Tyrant: Shell, OA, twin Devourers, one guard
Flyrant: twin devourers
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
10 gants
19 gants
20 gants
Tervigon, 3 powers, TS/AG
Tervigon, 3 powers, TS/AG
Tervigon, 3 powers, TS/AG, Crushing Claws
2 Biovores
 
If you read any of my battle reports, you know how this list rolls: Psychic powers make this super tough, I go almost all Biomancy. Then, I bunker down on objectives while blasting at anything that gets near, assaulting with poisoned gants and MCs as I see fit.
 
Unit by Unit review:
 
Walking Tyrant: My Warlord, he has to be good right? Slow moving, but an absolute brick to kill. He was underwhelming at times, (see his saves in games 5/6) but overall he's tough as balls, and dishes out the damage. Old Adversary makes things nearby scary at shooting. Bonus points for being a psycher! He makes a good counter assault unit, with some gants as support, reasonable anti air, and is also my "anti Space Wolves" unit for giving the finger to Missile launchers.
 
B
 
Flying Hive Tyrant: Devourers are nasty, and wings can get him in a great position to use them. He's there to take out isolated flyers (he gets overwhelmed by 3+ I'm afraid). It's great to have a fast moving unit in a very slow army, he can hit just about anywhere. However, he is very fragile and a huge target to enemy players... As long as I remember t play him cautiously, I give him a...
 
B+
 
(2x) 3 Hive Guard: These are mech killers, pure and simple. At BeakyCon, I saw real "mech heavy" lists twice, and they were great both times. But, against Necrons, and the IG/Space Wolves and Orks? Not so much. A lot of the time they were just ineffective. So, what to do here? They're really a "mech deterrent" more than anything else. Mech was our nemesis before, but now maybe not so much? We can out objective them I think. At least one unit is required, but I might think about dropping one... only problem is, what for? Still, a big target sign. I'll be testing out Ymgarls again perhaps.
 
C+
 
2 Zoanthropes: Instead of for their Lances, I used these as cheap psychic powers. Overall, they're good at buffing my troops or weakening the enemies, plus I need not worry about cover. And hey, synapse is nice right? I think I need to be a bit better at positioning them, but that was the one of the first times I'd used Zoeys, so I think it's alright.
 
B+
 
10/19/20 gants: These are meatshields, objective holders, and surprisingly deadly in CC. Don't ignore poison weapons, they'll mess up a Lord of Change in a heartbeat! They're also unlockers of Tervigon joy, which is never bad. For the low price and large unit footprint, the damage possible is great, as well as the toughness of 20 wounds. Put them near Tervigons for Comedy Gold!
 
A-
 
Tervigons: 3 psychic powers is a must. With Biomancy, there are really 4 good rolls one can get. 3 gies a guarentee, plus the increased likelihood of the greatest of them all... Iron Arm... going from 2 to 3 powers increases the odds by 25% of getting this sacred savior of Tyranids. Anyways... got off track there. These guys are great! Scoring, tough, cheap, and they can pack a mean, mean punch! Smash will kill all characters you challenge, and you're tough enough to weather the storm and punch back. These are absolutely essential to every truly competetive Tyranid army. We're underestimated on the GT scene, but I'd put the Tervigon as one of the three best all around units in the game. (Night Sycthe, Flamers). 3 is a boon, as it's redundant (yes, spammy...) and they can churn out the models to frighten any opponent. My only thought is to drop Crushing Claws on the one Tervi. Thery're really there in case I need to kill one model, then the Tervigon is a wrecker. No question here on the grade:
 
A+
 
2 Biovores: For the price of a 5 man combat squad, I lose a wound, lose a save point, but gain 2 Barrage Weapons... I'm sold! Biovores aren't a competetive choice, and for the life of me I don't know why... They achieved something in all 6 games (except maybe the 9 scythe list), and thanks to a bad reputation, normally lasted a few turns until my opponent realised that they needed to die. I think I could use a second squad here if I can find where to squeeze them in. Overall, dropping Sniper Pie Plates on my opponent is fun! Plus, it keeps me engaged in all turns. I HATE going round one without rolling a dice in anger because I just have zero things in range... So this is fun for me. Doubting Nids players, try these out!
 
A-
 
Final list thoughts: It syncronizes well, and is tough as heck. I love it, but nothing is perfect... more playtesting will come, as always, and I could make some changes. I wouldn't mind another fast/surprise quick assault unit... Maybe gargoyles, Raveners, or Ymgarls? Dropping one Hive Guardbrood, and two gants, gives me 20 gargoyles with Poison/Furious Charge. For "friendly" games I'll drop one Tervi, then probably add said gargs, and then an extra Biovore I think, and one more gant so both broods hit 20. I may also try out the Swarmlord more, but I still think he's not quite at the Walking Tyrants level... your mileage may vary.
 

6 comments:

  1. I can't read a lot of the text. You might want to fix that.

    : )

    G

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  2. Awesome write up, so what would be your new list? And what would you add to stretch it out to 2000 points?

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  3. I wish my meta ignored biovores. Last tournament I brought them to they were killed by round two every game.

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  4. rantuket: The list is 2k points now. If I had a competetive tournament and I HAD to change something, I'd drop three Hive Guard, and Crushing Claws for 5 Ymgarls, a Biovore, and turn the Tyrant into the Swarmlord. Note that I don't neccessarily think this is a better list, but I tink it's worth playtesting.

    T7WG: I just try to hide them out of LoS and throw a wall of T6 in their face. The Big gribblies look a lot scarier but can often do less damage...

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  5. Nice analysis! I agree with almost all the points and grades.

    On my side, I'll mention that I started playing with a walkrant and hiveguards. Now my list have two flyrants and no hiveguards at all.

    The thing I love most of all in your list is quite large broods of gaunts. I practice a dropgaunts lists now to unlock troop tervigons and run tervies without AG to save points. So, biovores are not good friends of drop gaunts:)

    If to think about walking list progression, I can mention a 3rd place GT list from Russia:

    Swarmy
    Tervigon (HQ)

    3 HG
    3 HG
    Doom in spore

    Tervigon(Troop)
    Tervigon(Troop)
    10 gants
    10 gants

    Trygon

    1850 pts...

    In your case just change Trygon for Flyrant and 3 hiveguards for biovores... I meen, it works well in competetive enviroment.

    But gargoules etc is not best scourers I think.

    I tryed 5 Ymgarls in 6th too. I'm sure you need 8 at least. And even in that number they barely able to return back their points. For friendly games they are cool though. I used them in last two tourneys in 5 and 8 squads and a bit disappointed. You can check my last batreps at my blog http://hive-fleet-hyenna.blogspot.com/ as I started to write in English:)I think that I used Ymgarls very effectively on the last tourney.

    Nevertheless, very interesting batreps!

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