After break, tried out the latest nid list in a couple of games yesterday.

Nids
Hierophant
Hierophant
Harridan 4 Gargoyles
Harridan 4 Gargoyles
8 Genestealers
Tyrant, 3 Carnis
Tyrant, 3 Carnis
Dominatrix, 2 Trygons
3 Warriors, 3 Haruspex, 4 Gargoyles, 4 Termis, 4 Hormis
3 Warriors, 3 Haruspex, 4 Gargoyles, 4 Termis, 4 Hormis
3 Warriors, 4 Gargoyles, 4 Termis, 4 Hormis

Marines:
Warlord
Tactical, SC, 3 Razors, 1 Hunter
T-Hawk
T-Hawk, 2 Assault each Chaplain
T-Hawk, 2 Devs each Librarian
Landspeeders
Whirlwinds, Hunter
Whirlwinds, Hunter

Guard:
Reg HQ, Hydra
Leman Russ, Hydra
Leman Russ
Shadowsword Comp
2 Warhound
Basilisk
Basilisk
Thunderbolts
Vultures


Nids won 2(Blitz, T&H) to 1 (Blitz) vs Marines turn 3.
Nids won 3(Blitz, T&H, BTS) to 2 (Blitz, T&H) vs Guard turn 4.
However I was using Hierophants as 4+ rather than 5+ reinforced armour - oops    

But anyway, with 5 of us there we had a good opportunity to get a feel for how the nids play (which in terms of army feel seemed generally appropriate overall I think). Some thoughts:

1. Needs to be more clearly specified that nids still get BM for coming under fire. Played it that way to be on safe side, but from wording people were not sure.

2. The Gargoles being independent sometimes and brood other times... is weird and confusing... What happens if your harridan dies? Presumably your independent gargoyles still fly around ok and can't be synapse controlled? And what about spawning back, these gargoyles don't spawn, these other ones do? These ones take blast makers these ones don't. Do I need different coloured gargoyles, both for my own and my opponents sake, and that seems weird. All up inelegant for epic and would like to see it changed to something more consistent and intuitive.  

3. Army list creation, some comments were this is a bit confusing compared to other lists, interms of limits and how they relate to each other, and same creature being classed differently.  Trygons (and minor point on the Trygons - no macro(?) seems a bit weird given size and other related bugs)... didn't try out the burrowing independent brood, but once again there's this issues with independent vs brood trygons/raveners and keeping track of swarms on table and casualties off table with different types.

4. Swarm creation... due to speeds, armour types etc, I see myself limited to two basic types.
a) Warriors, with gaunts and some armoured vehicles/raveners to soak AT hits (move 20cm, can't garrison).
b) Tyrants, with Carnis to garrison forward and assault aggressively and spawn later (move 15cm, garrison).

Zoanthropes don't seem to have a useful place because they slow Warrior led swarms down, and just make the tyrant swarm vulnerable to AP for little added benefit (and synapse so can't be respawned which would actually make them useful).  It also seems strange that your forward garrisons are tyrants and carnis, with gaunts bringing up the rear?? And can't see myself mixing warriors and tyrants in groups due to different speeds making them very suboptimal.

5. Warriors as LV's. Hmm. Undecided on this. Means you can't really have pure gaunt swarms anymore. But at least arriors can keep up with gaunts now.

6. What happens when your synapse group is killed in an engage but some brood creatures survive?  What happens to the surviving brood creatures? Played they broke and ran away as normal, but then somehow they automatically rally and join a synapse group later? Would make more sense if they were wiped out at end of engage I think, but couldn't find this.

7. Harridans can flap into dangerous terrain ok without DT test? Apparently but doesn't seem right, esp if LV have to test. They also pretty nasty close combat for a big bird... Do they really need MW attacks and 4DC (weren't they 3?) Also wording of mobility special rule, "don't have to make terrain checks for normal terrain", this should read "difficult terrain" and shouldn't some ref be made to "impassable terrain" in next section?

8. Would be good to have version change list in army list.

Cheers Chroma!  

Maybe this better in Nid section rather than BR. Have couple of photos of marine game will try and post later.

Edit, few pics here:
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/forums....y357866

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

You only have 9 common broods so you should only have taken 4 uncommon broods not 6 I think?

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[b][color=#FF00BF]Chief DreadKnight Apologist[/color][/b]

Correct! Though thinking about it there should be one more brood of gargoyles in there too, so maybe I was getting confused with that plus the two broods in the independents when I was sorting them out (as that would have been 12 'gaunt' broods as under prior lists).  But on that subject I'm not so sure the current ratio of 1 uncommon to 2 uncommon is great. Means raveners become necessary as meat shields  (you can buy them easily enough, but often not other types due to ratios), rather than the specialised unit they are really supposed to be. Unlimited raveners but severely restricted other uncommons doesn't seem right, a better balance would be good IMHO. Raveners have become just another type of 'gaunt' in chroma lists which is something they really shouldn't be in my opinion considering the fluff.

One other question, can broods be split up when making the initial swarm set-up? I played it no.

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

All of the brood miniatures can be basically thrown in a pile, then doled out individually into synapse swarms as you see fit, yes (an I hadn't been doing it either). The synapse swarms must be deployed as purchased though.

As it stands, raveners seem to be essential to warrior survival if you want to retain fast/cheap swarms.

Oh and a little swarm tip, 1 tyrant, some carnifexes and some biovores are great little garrison units too. biovores are cool for setting up markers for assaulting, you can spawn them back without too much hassle, and it's still a scay brood to assault while it guards.

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[b][color=#FF00BF]Chief DreadKnight Apologist[/color][/b]

Thanks for comments guys. Hena I think while some of those rule clarifications may be the intent, it's just the wording of the rules and concepts that leads to confusion in some of those cases. Also from reading over I see others have had similar problems (e.g. independent vs brood concept and rule implications).

Had another game yesterday, 3K with a new player using his nids against my Feral Orks (which makes for a weird but cool game!!).
Boiled down to two cruical moments... an Orkeosaurus with wild boyz warband on board leaping out with axes and reckless bravado, assaulted his blitz area defended by 4 carnis, 2 tyrants, 4 warriors and some gaunts... Unsurprisingly we both broke due to causalties... Was pleased to see my Orkeosaurus do its max 3 goring macro hits though...  
At my blitz, I engaged his Dominatrix swarm (2 exorcines lots of gaunts in ruins) in a firefight with Orkeosaurus and Warlords warband (2 extra boyz/grotz) supported by a squig katapult warband. I got a little bit unlucky,  the Orkeosaurus stepped on some orks as it tends to do... Warlord warband ran away... Game was a draw on Victory condtions turn 4, didn't go to VP's as mate was running late and had to cook dinner for family.

Anyway, again, thoughts from others were that tyranid list was interesting and seems to work well. My mates list for the record:

Dominatrix, 2 Exocrines, Gaunts
Hydraphant
Hierophant
6 Genestealers, Broodlord
Tyrant, 2 Warriors, 3 carnis, gaunts
Tyrant, 2 Warriors, 3 carnis, gaunts
Tyrant, 2 Warriors, 3 Malefactors, gaunts
3 Lictors

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/