I would never consider that low activation count.
It is compared to your quote of 13 activations...
7 is definitely on the low side at 3000 points, whatever army you're playing.
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| Tyranid Strategy and Tactics http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=9569 |
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| Author: | nealhunt [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 4:06 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
There seems to be a big difference in how people are playing the list. That's well and good but the results seem to be substantially diffferent based on army selection and play style. I thought a discussion of the pros and cons of various styles might help people come to terms with each other's perspectives on the overall list balance. So, here we go... === I don't understand most of the army selections I see. The emphasis on early activation counts seems misplaced. More, smaller swarm armies start with a higher count but are actually much more vulnerable to losing them. Due to the GT goals, late game activations are much more important than early. An army with 6 formations that only loses 1 is in better shape than an army with 8 activations that lose half. Things like a Tyranid Warrior with 6 Carnifexes (just an example I recall from previous discussions) makes no sense to me. If you want a Screamer-Killer swarm it should have 10 or more AVs surrounding the Tyrant and a couple models that can place a BM. Tyrant, Exocrine (long range BMs to prep for other formations of this one can't assault), Malefactor (short range fire and FF), and 8 Carnifexes is roughly 500 points and is vastly more durable. 6 Carnies surrounding the Tyrant means the Tyrant gets hit on about the 3rd hit, regardless of direction. A single bad save destroys the entire swarm. Even in an assault with charge or countercharge move to protect the Tyrant, it will likely be 5th or 6th if you're running the carnies around in a protective ring. You can only improve that by leaving it "bare" from other directions. 10AVs means that you can arrange it to be the 3rd hit regardless of direction, at least the 5th or 6th hit from the likely directions of attack and 8th or 9th in an assault. That makes the lucky shot/bad save dramatically less likely. Even if the non-Fearless AVs have a chance of being hacked down by a lost assault, I think that 2 of those would last much longer than 3 of the smaller ones. Smaller swarms also means more hackdown hits for the enemy. They can isolate smaller groups for assault, resulting in better assault mods. Even if the swarm is clipped and not a single extra nid model can fire, the larger swarm helps guarantee the outnumber bonus. As one of the guys doing the test games I posted remarked, "I dont' care if I lose every single assault. As long as I'm killing 3 of yours for 2 of mine, I'm winning." With that mentality, controlling hackdowns is quite important. That also means leaving the cheap, easily spawned beasts on the outside of the swarms to soak up ranged fire while saving the higher armor saves (Raveners) to soak hits in assaults in order to keep the resolution mods as favorable as possible. Not counting Nodes, I think the Nid army ought to average 400+ points per activation. If you figure in a couple of biotitans, you can quickly see that means most swarms will be 500 points or more. I'm amazed when I see armies that have 12-13 activations at 3000 points. I would like to hear what the thought is behind such large activation counts and tiny swarms. |
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| Author: | nealhunt [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 4:07 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
I would also like to discuss in the future area control. |
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| Author: | Evil and Chaos [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 4:51 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
My activation count tends to be on the low side when I play Tyranids, with 7-9 activations at 3000pts. It'd go considerably lower if I started taking a Dominatrix, but her points cost is still prohibitive in my eyes, considering that she spends the entire game relying on the Hierodules in front of her as an ablative shield, so she spends most of the game respawning Hierodules and very little of the game actually fighting. |
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| Author: | nealhunt [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 6:27 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
(Evil and Chaos @ Jun. 01 2007,16:51) QUOTE My activation count tends to be on the low side when I play Tyranids, with 7-9 activations at 3000pts. See, it's stuff like that which makes me think there is a disconnect. I generally consider 7-9 activations at 2700-3000 to be about normal for a normal force. 300-350 point average per formation is a solid target. That's usually something like 6-7 strong formations and 1-2 formations of things like Sentinels or Stormboyz. I would never consider that low activation count. Low would be 5-6 activations or ~500 points per formation. I faced an IG army that had a reinforced Russ company, reinforced reg HQ and a Warlord titan. It 5 activations at 3000 points. Incidentally, it worked just fine because those formations were rock hard and nearly impossible to get a bite on, even with almost twice the number of activations. Black Legion can offer up similarly brutal formations, especially with daemon summoning, and operate at low formation counts as well. I'm thinking optimized Nid lists are going to be 4-5 real activations (swarms or biotitans) and a handful of Lictors and Nodes at 2700-3000 points. You might get up to 7-8 activations with those, but the nods are just token activations. |
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| Author: | Evil and Chaos [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 6:40 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
I would never consider that low activation count. It is compared to your quote of 13 activations... 7 is definitely on the low side at 3000 points, whatever army you're playing. |
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| Author: | nealhunt [ Sat Jun 02, 2007 3:51 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
We played 3000 points Nids v Orks last night. I'll post a batrep once they email me the pics. The Nids started with 4 activations on the board - 2 big Warrior swarms, Dom swarm, and a Hydraphant. I lost them almost as fast as I teleported in the cheap-o activations (Lictors and nodes). At the beginning of the 4th turn I had 7, but 2 of them were completely bare nodes. Before that I had no more than 5 on the board at any one time and several of the micro activations were stopped before they could activate. I was able to dominate the pace of the game not through control of activation sequence but by raw terrain control. In the whole game, I only needed to win 2 assaults in order to control the board and one of those was in Turn 4 because I made a major tactical blunder that stopped me from winning in Turn 3. The key to playing nids, imho, is area denial. Big, fat swarms of infantry, using whatever cover possible, can cover a wide swath of terrain. Once in place, the enemy can drive them back no more than 15cm at a time. At the same time, Nids can teleport in ridiculous numbers of formations to capture or contest objectives or just generally be a nuisance. If you've ever played an Ork army as an infantry horde using area denial, then you know exactly how to play Nids. Nid infantry swarms are like Big/Uge Warbands with much better assault, both in FF and with respect to BM mods. Plus, they are unbreakable. Plus, they don't have to directly control objectives themselves because they have teleporters to do it for them. You just form a living cordon and squeeze the enemy down until they can't maneuver. You don't have to win assaults, you just have to avoid disastrously bad assaults. |
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| Author: | nealhunt [ Sat Jun 02, 2007 4:26 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
This area denial ability is why I'm convinced that a corner deployment against Nids is bordering suicide if the Nid player is canny. A corner deployment allows the Nids to group objectives more tightly than cross-board and it allows them to shut off half the board very quickly. Objectives: The Nid player placed 3 objectives, his Blitz and 2 T&H. In a corner deployment, the Blitz goes all the way up to the middle of the board on the long side. At that point, it's less than 50cm from the opponent's board half. The 2 T&H go barely across the line into the opponent's board half. The objectives are in an isosceles triangle with dimensions 30cm-50cm-50cm and the Blitz at the tip. The opponent, otoh, faces a huge dilemma. The Nids can quickly move to fence off a large portion of the board (more on that below). The opponent has to choose whether to place the objectives deep in the Nid side, giving them more flexibility and time for building the defense, or placing closer to the center where the Nids can more easily contest them directly and possibly garrison. Deployment: If the Nids have a garrison, they can garrison off their Blitz, right up to the midline, right on top of the T&H objectives. Other big swarms can be deployed right at the tip of the deployment next to the Blitz. Intermingling is not an issue. The only way being intermingled is a detriment is if there are so many hackdowns from the assault resolution that it completely wipes out a swarm. If you have them intimately intermingled, you are guaranteed to get support from the non-target swarm and the target swarm will get to countercharge to maximize their own return fire. Completely interlaced swarms is a beneficial defensive position for the Nids. If there is another garrison for the Nids, they have the choice of placing off one of the opponent's objectives or simply deployment them near the Blitz with the others. Turn 1: First Nid formation moves to fence off the objective cluster. Second Nid force moves straight out from the long board edge with double move and links up with the objective cluster swarm on the flank. With the 40cm move for most broods and the 15cm deployment zone, this puts them more or less in the dead center of the board. Third, a fast moving formation or a Marching formation moves farther across the board to close off most of the rest. At that point, the enemy has only a narrow corridor down the opposite board edge through which they can try to get to their own objectives. Opening up a hole in a big swarm of ~30 models is nearly impossible. They don't have to cover that much width in this position and anything short of a couple +10 assault resolutions isn't going to cause enough damage. With outnumbering, BMs, and lots of Termagaunts 5+FF, that ain't happening. Developing this "living fence" position can easily be adjusted based on available garrison positions and cover. Lictors can be used as temporary placeholders while the real swarms move in or just harass the enemy, slowing them down long enough to get the Nids set up. At that point the Nids just continue to bring up other swarms, fill in the line, and squeeze the enemy down. A decent fast swarm in the back field and/or a few Lictors can harass or stop anything fast enough to squeeze through gaps. Synapse Nodes teleport in behind to take the backfield objectives so none of the swarms have to divert. Nids' T&H is theirs to lose before the end of Turn 1. The living fence has marked off 3/4 of the They Shall Not Pass territory in Turn 1. Nodes make it possible to snag Defend The Flag unless the enemy can slide past them. Nodes force the enemy to keep some forces in reserve to deal with a Blitz grab, necessitating splitting their forces if they wish to take any objective on the Nid side of the board. Worst case scenario, the Nids give up the T&H on their side for a single enemy goal. No way will the enemy get the Blitz when half the Nid army could react to crush any deepstrikers. Similarly, they could give up a T&H if need be in order to make a Blitz rush (1 T&H plus Blitz is 2 goals) but the chances of that being necessary are probably pretty slim. I used this exact tactic last night on a normal board deployment, which requires more movement by the Nids and fencing the enemy along a much larger frontage. Terrain control won the day 4-0 despite massive Nid casualties. |
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| Author: | Evil and Chaos [ Sat Jun 02, 2007 11:43 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
Do you think the list would be better balanced if Nodes were removed? You seem to think they're a massive (and unfair?) advantage. |
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| Author: | nealhunt [ Mon Jun 04, 2007 1:39 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
E&C: We talked a lot about how the Nid list works over the weekend. IMHO, it's not any one thing (Nodes, Unstoppable, spawning, whatever). It's the net result of all the abilities in combination. The problem (again, purely my personal view) is that each of the Nid abilities seems pretty cool and reasonable by itself. It's when you combine large swarms and not breaking and being able to snag objectives with Nodes and the Unstoppable version of the "withdraw charge" and... and... and... I know you disagree about the nodes in general. I think they are a nice, flavorful way of producing the "Nid Terrain" feel of an invasion after substantial progress. I propose going back to earlier versions of the list to check out those versions to see if there is a "Node Lite" version that we could live with. The intent being keeping the Nid terrain effects while dialing down the raw power. It may be worth a dedicated thread to spitball options. |
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| Author: | Zzzap [ Mon Jun 04, 2007 2:11 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
I tend to agree with Neal. The problems with the Tyranid list are a combination of special abilities that together can be combined to break the core game mechanics. This is why it is so difficult to balance. IMHO the unbreakable aspect of the Unstoppable rule is the worst offender leading to the most possible abuses of the list. |
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| Author: | Zzzap [ Mon Jun 04, 2007 3:49 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
(Hena @ Jun. 04 2007,14:24) QUOTE don't assault nids. You don't want to do it, unless you are sure to wipe them out. Hmmm... If you have insufficient firepower to shoot Nids off an objective (and this is likely since they can't be broken) and you shouldn't assault them. Then explain how to drive them off objectives. If the swarms are big enough they provide a huge area denial effect to opponents. |
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| Author: | Zzzap [ Mon Jun 04, 2007 3:57 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
(Hena @ Jun. 04 2007,14:24) QUOTE I've dealt with a swarms size of ~25. It's not impossible. And I'm pretty sure that if swarm is spread to 60cm wide "wall" you can get sufficiently effective formation to clip that, that the resolution will kill most of the swarm. Not impossible does not mean balanced. Several not impossible to deal with formations can add up to a very unbalanced army. Swarms spread out can indeed be clipped but resolution will not usually kill most of the swarm. The swarm is also still unbroken and therefore can still be holding or contesting objectives despite losing a clipping assault. |
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| Author: | nealhunt [ Mon Jun 04, 2007 4:11 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Tyranid Strategy and Tactics |
I'm pretty sure that if swarm is spread to 60cm wide "wall" you can get sufficiently effective formation to clip that, that the resolution will kill most of the swarm. I don't understand this statement, Hena. Clipping is based on assault resolution mods. It's effective against other armies not because of large numbers of hackdown hits but because it breaks a formation that would be hard to break other ways. Nids don't break. You're never going to have more than +0 for BMs against the Nids. You're unlikely to outnumber a 25 unit swarm and you'll never have double. Even if you get +3 or +4 from kills and a decent die roll on resolution, you're not going to hack down more than about 6 or 7 Nids. That's a good dent, but it hardly debilitates the swarm. It's also not usually necessary to spread across that kind of frontage. A couple of swarms at ~30-40cm each can still be pretty compact to defend against clipping, yet together they control a pretty wide front. |
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