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

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

A fairly short game, and the pictures are awfully blurry, but I hope it might spark some discussion in the relevant Tyranid development threads.

Nice.


And hmm, yes this is something I've almost comented on previously. All the way through development of tyranid lists, a big weakness has been Eldar. Especially of the FF wave serpent host kind.

Not sure what if anything can be done about it though. Also reminds me I had meant to book some games this week against a really skilled local Eldar player, but forgot due to work! Damn. Will try and get some in.

Thanks for the report!

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Very interesting. After reading a few Tyranid batreps, it does seem like it's very tough to use them effectively, especially against Eldar...

Really pretty armies and nice terrain. Thanks for sharing.

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Its been a while since we tried out the 10.2 list but we also found eldar were a major problem - which is an issue as that's one of my main armies and has basically stopped us playing them.

We did discuss whether gargoles could be given a role against skimmers (as they have lost the AA roll they have in other lists.) An upgrade to ff works but obviously buffs them in otherways (though they seem to need something.) Making them skimmers would be neat, but unfortunately the rules only allow skimmers to force ff not to force cc if both skimmers...

That said, skimmer screens of gargoles did at least allow the bids to get their own back

Nice report. You're right about Tyranids having a tough time against skimmers, I found a combination of multiple attack infiltrators (Raveners basically, but also Hormagaunts, in fact anything you can get doubling up) and commander led engagements being a reasonable way to bypass a skimmer wall, have a chance of allocating hits onto firefighting units and still come out on top with numbers. I'm also going to be trying out maximising swarming potential by at least taking the extra Tyranid Warrior, so all but guaranteeing 2 points a turn, and also by trying out medium swarms. Medium swarms might not be the most efficient way of doing this though, 175 points for 1 extra swarming point most of the time. I think I'd rather pay the extra 25 points and have another activation.

I'm still a little undecided about Stealers as well. I misused one unit in a recent game against Necrons and lost them for nothing but the second was invaluable in surrounding a portal, thus forcing my opponents hand and making him fight an engagement he would have preferred not to, leaving his forces intermingled. I still think they should be a good unit, they're not massively expensive for what you get although I will admit they are situational.

Also, against skimmer heavy armies I've pretty much decided to leave Trygons at home, there's just too high a chance they won't be able to do much. The points may have been better spent on more Biovores perhaps? They're a pet favourite of mine at the moment, I may even have been tempted to replace the Dactylis with more of them as well!! A formation of 7/8 sustaining on infantry can do some real damage and I'm always a fan of rolling more dice, those times you beat the odds and get 5/6 hits are great!! 6/7 BMs on a formation often makes an opponent question what they'd originally intended to do with them and can put them on the back foot.

One thing I noticed is that the night spinners seemed to be laying down a lot of BMs? You note that one barrage killed a gaunt and put down 3 BMs - the gaunts are expendable and should cause any BMs if they're killed, regardless of if the weapon has disrupt or not? Should have only been 1 unless I'm missing something? Might have made a difference, might not...

Sorry for rambling on but you brought up some very good points in the battle report that had also crossed my mind - as you can tell I've been giving them some thought myself!

This is one of those problems that's hard to get around without making the bugs too good against other armies. I don't think it's the Skimmers that are doing it though. They certainly help, but given their high post cost and low armor they can be dealt with.

I think the trouble with Eldar is that they are very likely to go first with an SR of 4. They also get to activate 3 units in a row, which means the 'nids need 4-5 assaults lined up at the start of turn 2 and 3 as opposed to 3-4. Fleet of foot also allows the Eldar to keep the bugs at arms length, this is compounded by the FF discrepancy between the two armies. Then of course there's Exarchs...

So how do you fix those issues against Eldar alone? Ferals are pretty much in the same boat as the bugs here, just with a smaller SR spread.

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Very true.

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A special rule allowing gargoyles to CC skimmers (perhaps giving them CC 5+)? To annoying? To many special rules already perhaps… Seems kind of fluffy to me though. It would definitely give a reason to take gargoyles.

There was some talk of allowing Jump Packs to CC Skimmers a year or two back, if never gained enough traction though.

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Dave

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For gargoles it seems to make a lot of sense. I know there is a aversion tonew rules but a aversion"Winged" special ability would be very useful to distinguish between hopping and flying infantry. Coulda allow CC skimmer and landing in train as well.

I didn't mean as a game special rule, but rather a "unit" special rule, just for the gargoyles. I know the community doesn't enjoy those much, but in some cases it might be worth considering. In this case it seems everyone agrees that
A) tyranids has a very big (to big?) weakness against skimmer based armies.
B) Gargoyles are in most cases not worth taking (bar the flier WE formation).

It could at least be playtested. Might be an elegant solution. Most likely Tyranids would still have a lot of problem against eldar for all the other reasons you mention Dave (triple retain, fleet of foot etc…), but it might offset some of the inbalance in the match up.

So, what would you do if you had one gargoyle and one gaunt in BtB with a falcon?

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I'd suggest only the gargoyle would get tog use its CC but not other units (since they would be battling it out up in the air). The big win for tyranids wouldn't perhaps be the gargoyles attack but rather the skimmer loosing its FF attack(s). It would certainly help against monoliths forcing FF in front of an infantry phalanx.

Surely the skimmer could get to choose - use it's cc to hit the gargoyle or its ff to hit the gaunt?

In the case of WE sure but not AV/LV/inf. Wouldn't that make the proposed rule rather pointless?