Tyranid Tactica

[Tynskel]

Did you even read my post?

I've tried it several times and dropped the Aegis Line in favour of a Bastion, if I take a Fortification at all. It is not that great of a tactic.

Your posts are not about tactics, or at least very little about your posts are about tactics, but they are very long. You might as well throw in everything, at the length you are writing.

I just simply disagree with your assessment on the Ageis/Bastion with a Exocrine. That little bugger completely benefits from adding more shots. If your opponent is shooting the Ageis gun, then they are not shooting your Giant Bugger.



Tyranids are all about the sacrifice. You don't care if bugs get destroyed. You only care if your opponent gets eaten at the end of the day. So, if the gunbeast gets blasted, allowing your exocrine to slag more, then why not?


Additionally, the Exocrine is BS4. Whether you give her a Lascannon or a Quadgun, it is a good investment. Not to mention, cover, and extra wounds.

[Learn2Eel]

Your posts are not about tactics, or at least very little about your posts are about tactics, but they are very long. You might as well throw in everything, at the length you are writing.

I just simply disagree with your assessment on the Ageis/Bastion with a Exocrine. That little bugger completely benefits from adding more shots. If your opponent is shooting the Ageis gun, then they are not shooting your Giant Bugger.



Tyranids are all about the sacrifice. You don't care if bugs get destroyed. You only care if your opponent gets eaten at the end of the day. So, if the gunbeast gets blasted, allowing your exocrine to slag more, then why not?


Additionally, the Exocrine is BS4. Whether you give her a Lascannon or a Quadgun, it is a good investment. Not to mention, cover, and extra wounds.

Ok, I'll grab out my Grav-Tank Eldar. I can sit at 36"+ the entire game away from that Exocrine and blast the rest of your army to pieces, ignoring a BS4 Quad Gun that can only average 1 hull point on one of my 3 HP AV12 skimmer tanks a turn, and that is if I fail a 4+ Jink save. In this situation, the Quad Gun won't do much damage, and the AP2 from the Exocrine is wasted. I'd be more afraid of that medium range AP2 because it can eviscerate my D-Scythe Wraithguard when they are inevitably forced to jump out. A Quad Gun though? Pass. Oh, and if you try and deploy that Quad Gun forward, I'll either steal it from you or just kill the easy Exocrine target. It might be a similar situation if there was no Quad Gun....but those points could also be spent on a Bastion with either a Zoanthrope or Venomthrope, something I'm much more afraid of as killing Synapse creatures is the easiest way to beat Tyranids.

Alternatively, I'll bring my standard Tau. Even without Broadsides and only one Skyray, my entire army out-ranges your Exocrine on a Quad Gun, meaning the little boy doesn't ever get to use its AP2 on something valuable like...I don't know....a Riptide. Enjoy trying to catch my 2+ armoured monster between Jet Pack and fodder Fire Warrior units. At least if your Exocrine was advancing with the rest of the army then that AP2 pressure would actually force me to shoot at it and let other stuff get through. This way though, you can have those 100 points and I'll just eliminate everything else without a care in the world for the baby.

What if I crack out classic Death Korp style Imperial Guard? You'll have to spam either Biovores or Mawlocs to break down my infantry blobs reliably, while my artillery/heavy weapons can just pound the rest of your army to death. Losing a few infantry models, presenting AV14 front vehicles or having barrage tanks hiding behind cover gives you no decent targets for the Quad Gun. Even if I run the T7 W4 3+ armoured artillery units from Forge World, that Quad Gun still ends up being a waste as it only averages one unsaved wound per every three wounds inflicted on them. Remembering that these things come in squadrons of three, are cheap as chips and have ablative Guardsmen wounds. Your Exocrine ends up being an expensive paper-weight instead of using that AP2 large blast to clear out my infantry significantly quicker.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this as every time I have used the tactic, it has failed and just made me say to myself "why not take a Zoanthrope in a Bastion for the same points cost while keeping the Exocrine?" My meta consists heavily of long-range armies, like Tau, Eldar and Imperial Guard. Yours may differ, and ultimately the Quad Gun + Exocrine combo might work against some armies, mostly close assault ones, but those long ranged armies can ignore it every day of the week and see usually both the Exocrine and Quad Gun being wasted points. If I can afford to ignore your T6 W5 3+ monstrous creature with a nasty AP2 gun, I'm going to be the one cheering, not the Tyranid player.

By the by, if these aren't tactics, what are they?

[Gleipnir]

Gotta say I agree with your assessment on the Exocrine being better off moving rather than hanging back manning a gun emplacement, particularly since 3 Zoanthropes in a Bastion are much more effective at what you would be using the Exocrine for, you get a larger Synapse footprint, one Zoan can fire the battlement emplaced Quad gun at BS4 that is now part of an AV14 building and thus less vulnerable and can't be stolen, another Zoan can fire the Heavy Bolter at BS4 and the third Zoan can fire off 3 Warp Blasts thru a fire point. And if you don't want to pay for a Bastion pay 5 points more than an aegis line for an Imperial Bunker and slap a quad gun on its battlement with 2 Zoans(1 for firing out a fire point and 1 for manning the emplaced gun.) you can even add some walls/barricades in front of the Imperial Bunker to give the building a cover save since it has a low enough profile to gain a 25% cover bonus.

At higher point totals like double force org I can see it being useful having a Exocrine hang back for rear area support though.

[Maelstorm]

@Learn2Eel - Keep tossing out the ideas. We appreciate your hard work and the discussions the articles evoke. Even strident opposing views can fuel new ideas.

None of these things operate in a vacuum and will always work better or worse (your mileage may vary) depending upon your opponent, his codex, the terrain and how much Mountain Dew you've had while playing.

Keep up the good work!

[Tynskel]

Ok, I'll grab out my Grav-Tank Eldar. I can sit at 36"+ the entire game away from that Exocrine and blast the rest of your army to pieces, ignoring a BS4 Quad Gun that can only average 1 hull point on one of my 3 HP AV12 skimmer tanks a turn, and that is if I fail a 4+ Jink save. In this situation, the Quad Gun won't do much damage, and the AP2 from the Exocrine is wasted. I'd be more afraid of that medium range AP2 because it can eviscerate my D-Scythe Wraithguard when they are inevitably forced to jump out. A Quad Gun though? Pass. Oh, and if you try and deploy that Quad Gun forward, I'll either steal it from you or just kill the easy Exocrine target. It might be a similar situation if there was no Quad Gun....but those points could also be spent on a Bastion with either a Zoanthrope or Venomthrope, something I'm much more afraid of as killing Synapse creatures is the easiest way to beat Tyranids.

Alternatively, I'll bring my standard Tau. Even without Broadsides and only one Skyray, my entire army out-ranges your Exocrine on a Quad Gun, meaning the little boy doesn't ever get to use its AP2 on something valuable like...I don't know....a Riptide. Enjoy trying to catch my 2+ armoured monster between Jet Pack and fodder Fire Warrior units. At least if your Exocrine was advancing with the rest of the army then that AP2 pressure would actually force me to shoot at it and let other stuff get through. This way though, you can have those 100 points and I'll just eliminate everything else without a care in the world for the baby.

What if I crack out classic Death Korp style Imperial Guard? You'll have to spam either Biovores or Mawlocs to break down my infantry blobs reliably, while my artillery/heavy weapons can just pound the rest of your army to death. Losing a few infantry models, presenting AV14 front vehicles or having barrage tanks hiding behind cover gives you no decent targets for the Quad Gun. Even if I run the T7 W4 3+ armoured artillery units from Forge World, that Quad Gun still ends up being a waste as it only averages one unsaved wound per every three wounds inflicted on them. Remembering that these things come in squadrons of three, are cheap as chips and have ablative Guardsmen wounds. Your Exocrine ends up being an expensive paper-weight instead of using that AP2 large blast to clear out my infantry significantly quicker.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this as every time I have used the tactic, it has failed and just made me say to myself "why not take a Zoanthrope in a Bastion for the same points cost while keeping the Exocrine?" My meta consists heavily of long-range armies, like Tau, Eldar and Imperial Guard. Yours may differ, and ultimately the Quad Gun + Exocrine combo might work against some armies, mostly close assault ones, but those long ranged armies can ignore it every day of the week and see usually both the Exocrine and Quad Gun being wasted points. If I can afford to ignore your T6 W5 3+ monstrous creature with a nasty AP2 gun, I'm going to be the one cheering, not the Tyranid player.

By the by, if these aren't tactics, what are they?

There we go, something.

You forgot something...
You don't have to have the exocrine mounted on the Ageis Gun the entire game.
Most bugs can shoot.

*that is called tactics* The ability to think beyond just 1 use of a model...

[Learn2Eel]

There we go, something.

You forgot something...
You don't have to have the exocrine mounted on the Ageis Gun the entire game.
Most bugs can shoot.

*that is called tactics* The ability to think beyond just 1 use of a model...

Ok, so you either didn't read my examples or you don't understand how limiting a 24" range is against those armies. You appear to agree that sitting the Exocrine behind an Aegis Line against those armies doesn't work, so think about how long it takes for an Exocrine to get into range of those armies anyway. Usually it takes about three turns of movement. Have you noticed a flaw in your "tactic" yet? Your Exocrine needs to be moving on turn one or turn two to reliably get into range of an enemy gunline. This means the Quad Gun is going to be unmanned by the unit you purchased it for incredibly quickly. If you leave it sitting on the Quad Gun until turn three or four, chances are it will never get in range with its 24" range gun. Even if you do make the choice to have Warriors man it early on, this does not change the fact that the Exocrine itself is not a good unit to put on the Quad Gun. Every turn you waste behind that Aegis Line gives me more time to deal with all of your other threats which, with no T6 W5 3+ armoured monster backing up all of your other units, becomes a lot easier. I don't need to worry about that AP2 for a while, so I don't need to bother shooting a unit that will still eat up quite a bit of shooting. Regardless, as Gleipnir and I have repeated, the Bastion ends up being better value because it provides more for a Tyranid army at half the cost for the fortification itself, and doesn't waste the potential of a sub-200 point monstrous creature. If you have to move your Exocrine from out of the Aegis Line early on to ever reach my stuff, you are still wasting the Quad Gun and the Exocrine.

Sure, those are tactics, I agree. My job though is to identify the ones that work best, and your one is not one of those, sorry. Regardless of how you use that Exocrine and Quad Gun, it will never be as useful as the Synapse/Shrouded bubble and defence for the associated unit provided by a Bastion.

[daboarder]

Eel is right. An exo Ok n a quad is a waste. If you want a quad gun use a venom of zoan to shoot it

[americanninjax]

I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I was looking over my digital codex for Tyranids today and noticed that Tyranid Prime is no longer an IC. I thought it was since this new edition dropped. Was this one of their background digital updates? Because this means he can't join other units anymore, right? Any thoughts on how this changes the tactics of using a Tyranid Prime?

[daboarder]

I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I was looking over my digital codex for Tyranids today and noticed that Tyranid Prime is no longer an IC. I thought it was since this new edition dropped. Was this one of their background digital updates? Because this means he can't join other units anymore, right? Any thoughts on how this changes the tactics of using a Tyranid Prime?

That has to be incorrect. that would mean that he becomes the worst model in the game. and doesnt actualy work (see his special rules)

[americanninjax]

Right? Because without IC he can't join warriors or shrikes, and since he can't take bio-cannons it makes him a less equipped Warrior with a 3+ save. Weird. I hope it's a mistake.


Edit: never mind. I messed up. I somehow spaced out and overlooked the actual special rule section for him giving him IC. I was just looking at unit type. Ignore my concerns. Sorry!