Battle report from yesterday, testing the 10.2 list against an unfavourable matchup:

http://sdahl.net/~sdahl/whepic/20140129/

This was a rather one-sided affair, leaving both me and my opponent somewhat dissatisfied with the Tyranids (lack of) ability to stand up against all comers - it's OK to have matchups that favor one side or the other in moderation, but there seems to be no tools available at all for the Tyranids to take the fight to the Eldar...

We discussed various radical ideas for improving the prospects of the Tyranids; I'm not suggesting doing any of these in 10.2, lets by all means get it approved and released, but I'd recommend looking into improving the overall strength of the army soon; While Tyranids can win against opponents that don't know them yet, I submit that against a prepared enemy that knows them, their numerous weaknesses are far too easy to exploit.

On to radical ideas:

1) Really expendable gaunts. Tyranids should really not care about losing gaunts; Give the termagants and the hormagaunts the Grot rule, and nerf their combat ability down to a more realistic level (ie, drop Hormagaunts CC5+, they are just about twice as good in CC as your average guardsman, and drop gaunts to FF6+, their guns are barely pistol range and they have no squad heavy weapons) They'll still be taken, infiltrating grots with move 20, yes please.

2) Terror Genestealers. Genestealers need a deployment option that actually works; Scout screening is all they are good for now. Another option would be to give them Teleport, like the Lictors, so they can arrive in the enemy backfield in turn one. Frankly, with no long-range artillery or air assault options, the enemy deployment zone is far too hard to affect for Tyranids in turn one. Personally, I'd like them to be able to Teleport, but only into Area Terrain. That will provide a sense of lurking doom in the buildings and forests of a Tyranid-infested world.

3) Mycetic Spores. Some sort of deep-strike ability to let the Tyranids threaten the entire board.

Well I think what you are suggesting is essentially going back to square one with the list. I do think you're right that the list is quite one-dimensional, and anything that is so is likely to struggle against armies that can mitigate that dimension. But their strengths and weaknesses ("nasty in CC" and "kill them before they get there") are pretty core to the design. So I won't go into that myself

One minor point:
"...had the Tyranids not intermingled the guardians and CC'ed the Wraithguard, they would have been able to provide support fire instead, at 2x4+MW each."
It's probably just the way you expressed this, but wraithguard only have 1 MW attack each, the other attack is a regular 4+.

Personally I thought it was a bit overconfident to intermingle all those formations. Sure, leaving them out would mean they get to FF instead in support, but the 'nids would also (I assume, but perhaps incorrectly) be able to CC other units instead - i.e. avengers. More of your attacks would go on weak-armour avengers AND the 2x4+ from the now-in-CC avengers can offset any extra supporting FF. An extra MW attack from a wraithguard is worth roughly the same as those 2 regular attacks anyway. Thus, depending on position I might have included one or other of the Avatar and guardians, but probably not both. The Avatar in particular is much better in CC than it is in FF, getting to absorb 3 hits with very good armour AND with stupidly-good CC attacks AND inspiring. He alone might have been worth a difference of 4 pips on resolution. Leaving him out would of course mean he could activate next, but he wouldn't be much good by himself and can't do anything with objectives anyway.

Having said all this, it is indeed a frustrating experience when you spend most games struggling to ever CC, and when you finally manage it it all goes tits up :/

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Thanks for the reports. I find Necrons and Eldar very hard to play against as Tyranids myself. They negate one of the Tyranids' major strengths almost completely.

1) This was tried during Chroma's time as an army champion. Everyone agreed that it was too much of a crutch. Basically, you just prepped a formation, snuck up with enough gaunts in a clipping assault to ensure it went to assault resolution and won. It did not have the in-game effect you desire.

2) I think the idea is fun. Maybe it should be an ability that comes with the Broodlord and raise its cost?

3) Chroma did a Vanguard Assault list with mycetic spores. If I remember it correctly, dropping pod after pod with Fearless Carnifexes into the enemy's deployment zone was not much liked. Dave (IIRC) made a random spore drop rule, but that was too random for people to like. I think there needs to be some restrictions, and I think it is material for an alternative list for now.

/Fredmans

I also think the "Terror Genestealers" idea could be fun and probably made to work. Would have to wait until after approval though I would have thought...

I had a hard enough time getting people to playtest the list when you halved the number of gaunt casualties in an assault. It made assaults extremely easy for the bugs. There was no need to prep and support wasn't necessary. Having Gaunts not count at all would be a return to the v9s of the list and then some. I don't think it would work and I don't think I'd have many people willing to test.



Can you explain why they need to affect the enemy deployment zone in Turn 1? With IG being a regular opponent I feel the bugs can weather turn 1 and still have assaults ready to go turn 2, even after all those artillery batteries fire.



Here was my first pass: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=21851

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Here is my mirror-battlereport with my own thoughts about the game and the nids, at the end of the report:

http://tiny.lyager.com/webgallery/Epic/ ... _biel_tan/


Those pointy ears make lousy food vending machines...

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I would

Note the simultaneous nerf to the gaunt statline. Yes, it makes a Tyranid FF engagement winnable, but it will not inflict significant casualties, relyin on numbers and BMs to win by a small margin - simultaneously shedding dead gaunts. The Tyranids need the heavy hitters to get into CC, which also exposes them to hit allocation.

Anyway, it's just a suggestion.



Practically all armies have ways of shaping the enemy deployment; If not, it becomes much too easy for any enemy to deploy optimally - guard arty no longer need scout screens and AA support, Eldar can start mounted in Wave Serpents for a full 55cm engage range, Horde armies can clump up with impunity and refuse flanks...

This is still possible if the enemy chooses not to bring aircraft, or long range artillery, or teleporters, but the Tyranids really only have Lictors for this purpose, and they are, frankly, not scary.



My personal view would be to leave mycetic spores for a separate vanguard list, I like the feel of the carpet of bugs much more than the spore rain. But, it's an option.

One tactic that might work against the skimmer wall is to include WEs (Trygons) in the swarms, to barge the skimmers out of the way and leaving room for the rest of the swarm to CC the infantry hiding behind the skimmers. The swarm upgrade Trygon is cheap enough that it is worth trying, I think.

Of course, this helps nothing against skimmer tanks, but their FF ability is not really the problem either.

Eldar are a hard match up for the tyranids but reading over the battle report it sounds like the tyranid player played pretty poorly and could have done a lot better. Tyranid shooting isn't fantastic, but you need to make the most of it and Eldar tanks are fragile and easy to kill and break with not much firepower. I don't normally comment much on battle reports but have thought I'd make some comments and suggestions as to how the army could have played as I don't think the list is at fault or necessarily needs changes.

Why move the Dactylis brood forward? Particularly against Eldar the 2 disrupt barrage templates is their strong point and what they should have focussed on. They should have stayed still all game and sustained fire. I would have positioned the blitz centrally in the table for them to guard at the same time and be able to attack the centre of the battlefield and the area around the webway portal, even if this meant giving up being in ruins to do so. They might not have had targets within range initially but all other activations should have been used till they had and they probably would have by the end of the turn.

It was a waste to march the Dominatrix first turn. I'd have deployed it slightly further left to take advantage of the free movement from the road and doubled forward 50cm and shot. It might just have been in range to kill Wave Serpent(s) and the troops inside automatically with it's MW barrage, but if not a formation of Nightspinner would have been a great target too.

Eldar emerging from a webway portal that is in an enemy zone of control have to engage that enemy if they choose to activate (otherwise they can only stay off board doing nothing). The rules clearly state that models entering zone of enemy control must move into base contact with the nearest enemy whose zone of control has been entered, so there would be no option to FF and the tyranids could play to their strengths. Covering the webway portal with deadly CC troops should have been the very first thing you did in the game. You could well position a couple of formations covering it with ZoC, normally an enemy could engage one or other separately if they wanted to but if you positioned them so that if the formation engaged out of the webway some of both formations would be closest and would have to be both close combatted (ideally with a 5cm gape between your two formations to avoid them being intermingled or both hit by a barrage).

The Trygons were off the table too long where they could have been useful. Just because they have tunneller doesn't mean you should necessarily use it. I would have started these on the board and marched them on to a position where all three's ZoC covered the webway portal. 6DC of 4+ Reinforced would have been a challenge for the Eldar to kill and even if they were broken they could have stayed there and carried on covering the portal as they are fearless.

Being infiltrating CC only scouts, Genestealers are great at what they do, but limited in other ways. They could have been used better in this battle though. They would have been an excellent second formation to move on to cover the webway portal after the Trygons. Eldar coming out into their long ZoC would have been forced to CC them if possible and their first strike close combat attacks would have made short work of them. I can't tell for sure but it might even have been possible to position them further forward to start the game covering the webway portal in ZoC at the start.

Biovores could also have been positioned more centrally, in range of the webway portal, and they might have had a target to sustained fire at during the turn rather than missing out and moving forward.

Against a FF skimmer army Lictors were unlikely to kill much but to not use them in two turns was unwise as they still could have helped. Scouts can get in the way and do a lot even without killing. I'd have teleported them on turn 1 in positions where they were within their 10cm ZoC of the two Nightspinner formations and the Aspect Warriors, spread out so as not to possible to hit more than 1 with a barrage. They wouldn't have lasted long, but the Eldar player would have had to use an activation to attack them before being able to attack use his disrupt artillery. If he'd have moved one of the Nightspinner formations and attacked them, he'd only have killed 0.28 Lictors on average.

You'd have been been better to start the Gargoyles inside the Harridan, behind cover at the start, where only the bombers could attack them. The single damage on it from the bombers wouldn't have been enough to prevent it shooting them and it could have doubled forward and shot up one of the fraigile tanks (crossfiring to a Lictor if one were still alive, I believe it's small arms counts).

If you'd have tried this the Eldar player could be left in a position where bringing out either of the formations in the webway would have meant CC death for them and they would have to deal with the formations with ZoC on the portal first. Teleporting Lictors would have slowed down and limited the Eldar response you could have made the most of having 10 formations on the board at the start against 7 for the Eldar. Eldar formations moving forward to clear the portal could have been attacked by your disrupt artillery. You would have taken the offensive and directed the flow of the battle and could moved further formations to attack as the Eldar tried to free the webway portal. You could kill or break some Eldar formations (the Nightspinners in the open for one) and further increase your activation advantage.

That ended up long. I hope some of the ideas might help, if I come across as critical it's intended to be constructive and to encourage you to try different tactics when playing tyranids vs eldar.

I've got teleporting Genestealers in the Genestealer Cult list, but I don't think they belong in a generalist 'nid list.

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Well painted minis, good pics, great report, ta very much.

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