Greetings Broodlings!

Let's talk Bugs!  How are people finding the list?  How are you opponents finding the list?  What's working?  What's not?  Tunnelers, spawning, etc... let me know!

Obviously, the biggest issue is Tyranid Warriors as LVs, which can still be discussed in this thread.

Other concerns have been towards the power level of Raveners, Guants counting as "half-kills", and the Relentless rule values.

So, get the ball rolling!

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Agreed on the Raveners.

All-in-all, as I've said before, I think the list is really good right now.

Among the little things I'd like to change:

Raveners
As Hena said, they'd be fine at 2xCC4+ attacks and 4 Raveners for 100 points.

Subterranean Swarm
Change it to "1 Trygon + 3 Raveners for 200 points // Upgrades: 0-6 Raveners for +25 each, 1 Trygon for +100"

This is for the people who don't have tons of Raveners (like, hmm... everyone?   ) and need to keep some for use as Warriors' bodyguards.

Exocrine
I know the Nid list is not supposed to be a shooty one, but the Exocrine are a bit subpar, particularly when compared to the Dactylis. Perhaps a simple points drop (-25) could help them a bit? This is really not important, though.

Assault Spawn
I love them as they are, I really do... but they are a bit expensive, aren't they?   3 for 150 would be nice. Right now for 375 points I can have 6 Assault Spawn (with 25 points to spare)... or 3 Hierodules. I haven't playtested this but I think the Hierodules are superior (9 DC, better durability due to having 3DC each, better armour than Malefactors, can shoot at 45cm or have TK attacks in CC, etc.)

Break Their Spirit
To alleviate people's concerns about the TW's LV status weakening the list too much, here a very simple proposal: the opponent, instead of scoring the BTS points when "the number of Synapse creature units killed is equal to, or greater than, the number of Synapse creatures still in play", only scores it when "the number of Synapse creature units killed is greater than the number of Synapse creatures still in play".

It doesn't look like much, I know, but it means the opponent has to kill one more Synapse to get the BTS point. In my last game, it would have made a huge difference: I had 8 TW and 1 Dominatrix and he would have been forced to kill the Dominatrix in order to score the point, thus diverting his troops and firepower from my swarms. Just an example, but I think it's telling.

The 9.2 changes that had the biggest effect on the list were the LV warriors, the 1/2 Guants rule and the spawning when regrouping.

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You know my thoughts on the first, I can reiterate them again at the risk of pounding yet more sand...

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On the 1/2 Guants rule, nothing has upset my opponents more than this rule. It's messing with some core mechanics of the game in a very unpleasant way for them. Bugs are good in assault to begin with, with this assaults are trivial.

The armies I fielded had no problem winning assaults when I went about them with an eye towards prepping the target formation with BMs and getting other units in support. These types of tactics are what put Epic a step above 40k in my opinion.

However, with this change prepping assaults is unnecessary, just throw the bugs in there regardless of support, BMs and what have you and they still have a decent chance of winning. And if you do prep, be prepared to have a huge resolution bonus at the end of it.

Simply put, I saw no need for this rule. If people are loosing assaults that badly that they need something like this I'd be interested in seeing some of their old battle reports to make some suggestions.

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On spawning when regrouping, I want to test it more but it needs to be isolated from other changes. I see the reasoning why it was suggested (bugs holding don't get to do much) but it's still a big change.

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As to 9.2.1, based on how quickly it came on the heals of 9.2 I've been reluctant to test it. The three changes above were big, then this added some more changes on top of them. They might have been needed but then again they might have been needed based on the changes from 9.2. I think we need to nail down the special rules, get them straight, and then start working on the unit stats and army list.

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

Personally I still think about half the special rules in the list should be culled.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Can you be more specific?

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Not particularly Just doing my regular grumble that I'd like to see the list go down the French route.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Do you mean "Ork-style"?  Because, special rules-wise, they seem to have the same amount... just different ones.

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

I mean getting rid of spawning and all the swarm rules and having standard formations, albeit flexibly built ones.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

On the 1/2 Guants rule, nothing has upset my opponents more than this rule. It's messing with some core mechanics of the game in a very unpleasant way for them. Bugs are good in assault to begin with, with this assaults are trivial.

I can definately see how the 1/2 kill thing is very annoying for opponents, but I can also see how gaunts were crap before. Personally I think a leaf out of the french book would have made gaunts more useful - No BM for being shot at, Gaunts as the only disposable units.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

I countered this by sticking the swarms close together. They'd lend mutual support this way and if one swarm breaks from a FF assault then another is within assault range to counterattack.

A move of 20cm is a nice advantage as it gives you an extra 5cm of engage range on your opponents. Throw in Hormagaunts and you have an extra 10cm of engage against normal 15cm move infantry. Fine, the enemy might out maneuver you but they'll have to get close to you at some point if they want to win.

So Marines in a THawk might get the jump on one of your units, but after that hopefully they're right in the middle of a whole mess of bugs. Ya you take losses, there's no way around that. But with spawning you have the ability to be an attrition force that should be able to weather these one off assaults. However, if you were sending out swarms alone and unsupported they're going to get hacked to pieces. I found sticking together (swarm tactics) helped keep the formations going.

_________________
Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

Prior to this change, I don't think I ever won an assault with a Gaunts swarm (only with Titans and Harridans).

Just have a look at this ASSAULT: sure, my opponent had good dice rolls, but I had double the number of troops and less BM than the opposing formation (IG infantry btw, not Space Marines or Dire Avengers) and ended up losing the assault by +7 !!! 12 Gaunts were killed during the Assault, meaning I had to deal with a -12 penalty on combat resolution. How can you hope to overcome that?

I think the range based spawning penalty can probably be dropped completely. Just fix it to a certain value (1D3/2D3 or even 1D4/2D4). Get's rid of the opponent gaining an advantage by getting closer to the nids at the very least.