nope they don't count for combat resolution either, as long as a synapse creature is accompanying the formation, it is the grot rule

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Last page in the armylist:



Also:



So, strictly speaking, it does not need to be a synapse creature. Just a non-expendable.

Maybe you got it mixed up with this one (1st page in the army book)?:

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Ah we were talking at cross purposes..... thought you were referring to the differences between NetEA and EpicUK.... as from the epicUK tyranid army list:

"Units that are more directly influenced by the Tyranid Hive Mind. A formation that has Synapse units in it can capture objectives, if the formation has lost its Synapse units or did not start with any then they may only contest an objective. Plus, formations that include at least one Synapse unit don't receive blast markers for Gargoyle, Hormagaunt or Termagant
units that are killed, and don't count Gargoyle, Hormagaunt or Termagant units that are lost in an assault when working out who has won the combat. "

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When I talked about the Grot rule, I was referring to EpicUK's Tyranid ruleset.

I wrote up some quick battle "stories" rather than reports in the Battle Report sub-forum:
viewtopic.php?f=84&t=28273

I thought I would save my overall impression from EEC for this thread.

Tyranids certainly are a hard nut to crack. I tend to agree more with Steve54’s impression than Largo’s. The list is certainly strong. Sometimes, I feel that the Tyranid army is more like a Giant Ooze or amoeba than a regular army. It sort of swells, or retreats in an organic manner, and works best if you can keep it together. It is extremely resilient to shooting and low-output assaults. I generally lose when my army gets fragmented or my opponent beats me in the assault game by a wide margin.

One weakness of the list is its slowness. Therefore, I generally pick both Harridans and a Malefactor formation. With the Transport rule, that is 10cm longer threat range, and it is one of the few transports where I prefer to stay inside than outside. Despite being BTS, it is extremely resilient and I lost it only once in the tournament (to Rug’s Eldar as described in game 1). Slowness (except for Harridan, which good players therefore target quickly) also makes it hard to claim objectives (killing off BTS survivors etc). I think Steve54 is right on the money when he says it seems hard to win and lose with Tyranids. Since most of us focus on winning, Tyranids might feel weak when we play them, but from an opponent POV, this means a complete reversal – it becomes hard for them to win).

Another weakness is its need for cover. I like to bring my cover (Carnifex, Exocrine etc), but in order to gain terrain and defend against assaults you need cover saves as well. When I play Tyranids, the worst thing I know is Scout formations denying area terrain with their ZOC. With so little shooting, you have to get rid of them as soon as possible. That is the reason I went for two formations of Biovores and a Dactylis. Despite that, I did not manage to clear out the two Ranger formations in the game against Rug, not even with Genestealers, and that cost me a world of hurt.

The other reason for bringing Biovores is that you can set up several assaults, and even if your opponent takes out some, you can still prepare your targets with them.

I feel that Tyranids excel when they can cover the board with Swarms and set up assaults through or from within cover. They struggle when they are stuck in the open, face a better tooled engagement army, and especially Eldar ones (due to Skimmer negating CC).

On the Dominatrix:
This is not optional, it is a must. I just cannot bring myself to play without it in a tournament. Supreme Commander, WE, the longest ranged attack in the army, the only MW (and BP on top), as well as the best AA available for the Nids. I have only lost it once, ever (and that was during the EEC game against Rug’s Eldar by being engaged by an Avatar with 16 Guardians, 8 Aspects and 8 Wave Serpents in support and rolling poorly for saves). It actually was not killed until the following turn when the Revenants singled up beside it and finished it off. Their only weakness is to Deathstrikes or similar attacks. The proposed idea of allowing two does not sit well with me. It would definitely kill any incentive to use the other Bio-titans, and further enhance Tyranid shooting. The Dominatrix saved me vs Necrons.

On rallying:
Last tournament I played in Sweden, I actually did not use the auto-rallying for Synapse swarms outside 30cm range of enemy, since I did not look for it and it was hidden in a special rule. It is certainly strong, and most importantly, it does not sit well with most Epic players. A +1 rally bonus for Synapse creatures would suffice, since I generally do not like the assymetry of automatic or 4+. It is extreme in both ends. A +1 bonus would make it 2+/3+, which would make for a more harmonic experience.

Edit: another important auto-rallying issue is that of They Shall Not Pass.

Swarming:
The mechanic works and does not take much time to execute. That is the most important thing. Allowing larger swarms than their original size is a minor issue in my opinion. They still break to a carefully executed assault. Maybe the extra Warrior option should go, forcing you to go to Medium swarm for increased swarming.

/Fredmans

In my experience with and against this army, the slow speed of the swarms isn't so much a concern when you're able to fit in 1-2 gene stealer FMs, lictors, and trygons. Since the stealers can garrison, unless the opponent focuses his attention on them, they tend to eat his garrisons or cause a lot of damage. If the stealers die early, you've still come out on top because he's been distracted from your swarms. If you place your objectives just past mid field, the opponent can either garrison them, often within charge range of genestealers or barrage range of dactylis, or more likely focus on castling up in his deployment zone. If he's castled up, he has to cover more distance and this makes up for slow speed of the nids.

With tunneler, the trygons can get to mid-board without getting shot at by turn 2 (or in the backfield if you can wait until turn 3). Together with lictors, they force the opponent to guard against attacks from an unexpected direction. The trick is often to set up turn 2 (or 3) so that there are 2-3 FMs more than the opponent can deal with, after he (most likely) wins strategy. This turns out to be decisive often enough. Sure, the core swarms can be slow, but the army is hard to bottle up because all the incentive pushes the opponent to stay at a distance...

The list does sometimes seem a bit too shooty for 'nids. With the dom's toughness and speed, I've never thought of it as a arty blitz guard however. Usually it moves up and barrages, while using her aa bubble to deter attacks on nearby swarms. The MW barrage can really hurt small marine FMs especially (again deterring opponents from garrisoning too close, as an advance doesn't weaken the barrage that much).

I can't imagine Gaunts using grot rules... I've playtested the "half guants" rule way too many times and that was fantastically broken. So much so that 9.2 earned the nickname "Hivefleet Unfairness" in our group, much to Dave's annoyance.

Yes, you need to use cover a lot with the nids. However, I'm not sure there's an army out there that doesn't need cover to some degree. I can't say this is a bad thing.

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I agree. Every army benefits from using cover. I was merely referring to what you as an opponent should try to do against Nids. Denying area terrain is more important than shooting gaunts (since they swarm back). Scout ZOC can drive me mad sometimes. If you halt the advance, the Tyranid army gets stuck.

As for the Dominatrix, I use mine reactively. That is part of the Strategy 1, I think. Against defensive opponents, I double or march it forward. Against opponents who push forward themselves, I often find myself sustaining or advancing most of the time. Then it changes into a Blitz Guard, or at least contest something on my half of the table. Most often, I pick a swarm with some Dactylis for Blitz Guard. It has the advantage of growing, as the battle progresses.

I still think the army as a whole is slow. Not in a bad way, but an organic way. I think the 20cm movement is a good thing (hey, Epic UK picked it, too) and helps a lot, as do Hormagaunts and Raveners, but compared to proper transports, the Tyranids are at a disadvantage. I am not saying it should be fixed or anything, just pointing it out. What I like about it, is that there is no room for dithering about. You have to make a battle plan, you have to remember it and stick to it. You have to put yourself in dangerous spots if you want to get assaults off. A couple of Harridan, Genestealers and Lictors definitely help out in the end game, but the main portion of the army has to be where you want it to be. Steve54's comment was quite aptly put, you grab an objective and grow. When a Tyranid army is doing well, it is more like an infection than a regular army. You lose terrain to it. It will be hard to get it back.

I did not mean to come off as negative. I find Tyranids challenging and fun to play. I do understand, however, that they can be frustrating to play against. I do not find them too strong, neither too weak. Largo and I had a very similar approach to list building and very similar results. In 10 games, we managed 4 wins, 2 VP wins, 1 draw, 2 VP losses, 1 loss. That result, 4-5-1 or 6-1-3, depending on how you count, shows that Tyranids did well, and especially that they are hard to outright beat. All wins came against armies that were built to shoot. The losses (including the VP losses) came against assault oriented armies (Biel Tan and Space Marines).

Anyway. In order of priorities, I think the auto-rallying should be looked into. The rest is fine, or in line with the army theme.

Also worth mentioning here for anyone reading who isn't familiar with the list - synapse units are key. Once a swarm loses them it can no longer swarm to recover units, capture objectives, and takes the -2 modifier for rallying. This does at least give a tactic for handling them.

I'd be inclined to look into the single Tyranid Warrior upgrade first. The negative modifiers to swarming, most usually being within 30cm of the enemy, half your swarm points so that extra point from the warrior means you can still spawn two units due to rounding. This can be particularly effective if you mix swarms with three Tyranid Warriors 50/50 with others containing a Hive Tyrant plus one Warrior for the possibility of combined assaults.

I think it's good that both flavours of tyranid list exist and provide different things.

Personally I will normally run my army using the Epic-UK list as I prefer the larger number of models, units of the vehicles, faster less tough units, ect. I have played with and against the Net-EA list some though and think it's mostly fine. I would definitely be happier with the list if the auto rally was reduced: 1+ with -1 if broken would be more palatable and fair.ju

I am amused at this last line...

Ha, if 4 minor wins and a losing draw is weak, what do you class 4 minor losses and a winning draw?

Why?

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Because I would happily settle for 4 wins and a losing draw with a strong list!

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I've played both with and against netEA tyranids quite a bit and I think they're fine. I've lost and I won on both ends. Perhaps won a bit more when playing them, but then most of my opponents at the last tournament who played against my nids did so for the first time.

I like how they play under netEA rules. They differ and have a very nice "tyranid feel" to them. Fredmans eloquently described it a few post back

The ignore being broken when rallying is quite annoying when playing against them and does seem to raise some eyebrows from your opponent. If you get out of 30 cm then it means an autorally. I think some kind of bonus is good from a fluff point of view but would rather see it changed to a +1 to rally when broken.

So that's something I'm in favor of changing but overall I think they're fine as they are.

Well, as with many other threads you've commented on recently, you could have done with in this case reading some reports from the tournament in question (in other threads actually reading the armylist/thread history) being going to the auto setting of being slightly mocking or critical.

The scoring system at the tournament was very unusual meaning it was played a bit differently - a VP win scored nearly as highly as a 5-0 win.
I, and several other opponents of the list, had critical comments to make about the list and they echoed what Largo said that it is a bit weak in that it has very little offensive power being slow and rubbish at assaults, but at the same time very difficult to beat with its massive spawning and auto rallying. To win it relies on the opponent coming to it and breaking themselves attacking it.

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