New codex experiances

[Closet Skeleton]

I took my Hive Fleet Behemoth to a tournament a few weeks ago, came 5th/35 with 4 wins. There were 3 other Tyranid players all Leviathan, one came first none the others got more than 3 wins so despite two of the Leviathan lists getting more points than me on wins I was the second best Tyranid list.

 

In my opinion these things are broken:

Leviathan psychic power

Leviathan trait comboing with winged Hive Tyrants

Neurothropes, especially with the warlord trait for 2 buffs

Reaper of Obliterax with extra attacks from the adrenal glands stratagem.

Harpies undercosted

Venom cannons in general undercosted

 

But Maleceptors are probably going to get nerfed for the Neurothropes sins.

 

My list:

== Battallion Detachment == Tyranids, Hive Fleet Behemoth [108 PL 2000 pts]

 

HQ1: Old One Eye (220) warlord

[11 PL 220pts]

HQ2: Hive Tyrant heavy venom cannon bonesword and lashwhip (0)

Pathogenesis (free), Psychic Powers: Smite, Unstoppable Onslaught, Catalyst, Paroxysm

Hive Predator -1cp: Direct Guidance

[9 PL 175pts]

HQ3: Tyranid Prime  adrenal glands flesh hooks  2 pairs of boneswords

[5 Pl 95pts]

Hive Predator -1cp Alien Cunning, -1cp rareified enhancements: Dirgeheart of Kharis

TR1: 9 Tyranid Warriors  6x rending claws (0), 3x devourers, 3x pair of boneswords (0) 3x pair of spinefists (0) 3x barbed strangler  adrenal glands

[12 PL 255pts]

TR2: 9 Tyranid Warriors , 9x rending claws (0), 6x devourers , 3x venom cannon

[12 PL 240pts]

TR3: 18 Termagants, fleshborers

[8 PL 126]

TR3: 17 Termagants  fleshborers

[8 PL 119]

EL1: 3 Venomthropes

[5 PL 105 pts]

EL2: Maleceptor

Psychic Powers: Smite, Unstoppable Onslaught, The Horror, Psychic Scream

[9 PL 170pts]

EL3: 3 Zoanthropes

Psychic Powers: Smite, Unstoppable Onslaught, Onslaught

[7 PL 150 pts]

EL4: 3 Tyrant Guard

[8 PL 130 pts]

EL5: Lictor (70)

[4 PL 70pts]

FA1: Trygon (145), toxinspike tail

[8 PL 145 pts]

 

Swapped the charge rereroll for obsec monsters every game, always worth it.

 

Maleceptors and Zoanthropes were pretty balanced for their cost without a Neurothrope supporting them. I had plenty of games where neither did more than 10 mortal wounds each. Maleceptor was better as a road block than an offensive unit.

 

Old One Eye is probably over costed. He got beaten up by a regular Leviathan carnifex with claws and adrenal glands buffed to a 4+ invulnerable with a spell.

 

Trygon got killed early quite often but was very good at taking objectives from small squads and isn't that expensive so pulled his weight more than he ever did in the old codex.

 

Didn't get much out of the Tyranid Prime on day one but he took away Scarab Occult obsec in the last game which helped. Dirgeheart was good, doubling down on obsec with alien cunning didn't come up.

 

Behemoth's +1 to wound power was useless vs Leviathan but helped a little. Behemoth's stratagem allowing essentially 2 interupts, 3 with the other fight on death power wasn't bad either. Otherwise it was just Lurk for obsec monsters making me not an idiot for refusing to change Hive Fleet for over 20 years.

 

Game 1: Beat a sub-optimal Ulthwé Eldar list who waisted his Shining Spears in a first turn charge.

Game 2: Lost to winning Leviathan list. Only got 45 points due to making a mistake on picking raise banners when I couldn't get on to enough objectives turn 1. Massed venom cannons just murdered me.

Game 3: Beat armiger spam. Lost points due to failing to score Synaptic Insight secondary enough. Lost most of my army but was way ahead on points.

Game 4: Beat a decent Farsight player with a sub par dual hammerhead list. Lost a lot of units but still killed most of his army.

Game 5: Beat Thousand Sons with 2 big 10 man scarab occult blobs. Again lost a lot of units but there was nothing he could do once the Terminators were dead and they just didn't last vs a Hive Tyrant, 9 warriors, a Maleceptor, 3 tyrant guard, the Tyranid prime and 3 Zoanthropes. End of the game I basically just had a Hive Tyrant, Trygon and termagants left.

 

Gonna try an almost identical list latter in the month.

 

 

Not sure if Leviathan is worth it or maybe go into one of the more agressive traits like kraken or behemoth? Kraken seems like a strong contender - synaptic lure is an amazing power that can potentially save you some CP and extra ap on the charge is also great. Oh and 8'' advance strat? Amazing value.

 

 

Leviathan is horrendously better at everything other than being unable to take Lurk for obsec monsters. Kraken is good for speed but still subpar and also doesn't get Lurk, none of the others help much but the ones who get Lurk can still win more than 1/2 of their games on that alone.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Closet Skeleton

[Brother Nathan]

reading on reddit on the nid, i mean tournament results over the weekend and thought this breakdown may give an idea as to where the hammer will hit nids first...

 

For reference the top 5 nid lists from Seattle, in order:

https://pastebin.com/L5d6Fhqb

https://pastebin.com/dwKkc9CY

https://pastebin.com/SaGTHjXH

https://pastebin.com/KnQ6a2ps

https://pastebin.com/MEiPdf9h

I did some analysis of them and the summary is:

- 4 levvy, 1 kraken (1st place)
- 3 batt+pat with 6 CP, 2 batt with 9-10 CP
- 4 lists have reaper tyrant
- 4 lists have double HVC tyrant (which is about to get FaQed I assume)
- All have a neuro
- 4 have tyrant guard
- all have at least 9 warriors
- all have at least 1 male, 3/5 have 2
- 2 have at least 7 pyros
- 3 have venoms
- all have at least 5 raveners, most more
- 3 have gargoyles (one has 2x10)
- all bar Lennon have 3 zoans (i.e. all levvys)
- 2 have a smattering of biovores
- one has a warrior prime
- 2 have harpies, one has two, one just one
- all bar one has an alien cunning parasite

The stuff in every list is male(s), neuro, 9+ warriors, raveners. Tyrants are in every list in some variety, if you kill double HVC willing to bet they'd all take a reaper tyrant.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Brother nathan

[Zoatibix]

I’m even more puzzled that GW thought that giving Leviathan that psychic power (pretty much side stepping the downside to Imperatives) alongside all their other abilities was balanced.

[Danosborne]

You could understand if they had given it to one of the weaker hive fleets but giving it to the best one seems a bit dumb.

[Zoatibix]

Gave a refresher game to a returning IG player last night. Not a competitive environment but a few observations as it was my first time trying Behemoth and bringing a few random units along just to try stuff out.

 

Behemoth’s Str boost in things like Hormagaunts to push them to a breakpoint was good. I love the dedicated Hormagaunt Strategem. It’s perfect for them.

 

Neuroparasite against ten man squads of T3 models is horrific. It’s the sweet spot of number of dice versus ‘target number’ Unfortunately against things I would really like to use it against, like Thousand Sons, it’s a poor tool.

 

Warlord traits were ObSec on my Hive Tyrant and Direct Guidance on my Neurothrope. Both solid.

 

Relic on the Neurothrope was the cast/deny buff. Again, strengthens what he wants to do. Well worth the CP IMO.

 

Gargoyles we’re okay. Squad of ten. Flew up a flank, traded shots with some guardsmen. Initially after the game I was wondering if their very small Movement statistics advantage was worth it over more Hormagaunts. However, - that’s *Flying* movement, and they have range on their gun, which is decent against soft targets. I didn’t get to use Encircle the Prey with them as the board was too small to get behind the guard, but being able to drop an ObSec unit onto /near an objective could be useful.

 

Other unit of note was the humble Biovore. Had two of them. Generally their indirect shooting is only hitting on 5+ but then it’s straight to mortal wounds. No need to wound, don’t care about armour saves.

 

Their seeding ability is interesting. Can drop mines out of sight but just outside 6”. With Fly and an advance move they can easily get to a target- at which point they are pretty explody. IMO easily the most effective /useful they have ever been.

 

Sadly, Ripper Swarm was denied their chance to actually kill something because my squad of three Warriors trying to soften up the target with some covering fire wiped it out.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Zoatibix

[Plague _Lord]

Stop picking on guard!!

 

@Closet Skeleton - I don't think Levi are that much better than other hive fleets and their key units are in for a nerf. You yourself did well with behemoth and having obsec monsters is just great.

 

At the moment I'm thinking about what will be decent in the near future and in the long term, that's why I stray from the units that are bound to get hit by the nerf bat ASAP. I think these changes are imminent:

1. Nerf of the Maleceptor - something has to change here in it's MW output. 3 MWs splash is just too much, tbh it should be D3 at best.

2. Warrior weapons costs - mine have scythes and I think their cost will remain the same but the rest is probably going up.

3. Encircle the pray - going to 2CP for monsters and possibly 1 per model per game.

4. Heavy venom cannon +5-10pts

 

I think that the above changes will come into play soon and they have a high probability of happening. With that in mind I like to focus on stuff that I can use long term - walking hive tyrant, raveners, zoanthropes and so on.

 

One strategy I have come up with, but not yet tested is the Trygon Prime of Death:

Adrenal glands, maw-claws of thyrax, toxinspike, hightened senses, toxin sacs for 200pts in a Kraken army.

 

Set this bad boy up underground and pop him out of deepstrike - he then can trigger shard lure on the target due to his own shooting attacks, can use the kraken spell for reroll charges, get's +1 to charge from hunt, can get +2 to charge from deathleaper. All in all it's possible for this guy to have to only make a 5'' charge on three dice (chucking one) with a reroll. 

 

After we line him up to hit the enemies' biggest threat we have he hits them with 14 str8 ap-4 dmg 2 attacks, rerolling all hits and wounds, 6's to hit autowounding and a possible extra d3 attacks from the strat. This will destroy most things that don't have a -1D ability and even then the Trygon Prime is allmost soloing a redemptor by himself. You can't really bog him down with chaff since he has too many attacks. Just chuck him into the oppoent's lines and make him have to kill him - for defense you put transnid on him and maybe catalist and if he somehow survives can just encircle the prey out of there or just charge into something since even on lower brackets he will still put out hurt due to having full rerolls and a huge number of attacks. I don't have any games lined up but I long to try this combo.

[Closet Skeleton]

Maleceptor Mortal wound output is fine without cheese, +3 mortal wounds on 7+ within 12" is weaker than the +3 Zoanthropes get at 18" on any roll.

 

Without a Neurothrope for another 100 points the Maleceptor only does 2 mortal wounds per turn on average. This talk of 30+ mortal wounds a turn being normal is just nonsense. Just clarifying that it still only gets 2 casts under its own synaptic link will be enough. Limiting the Neurothrope's ability to the first cast of the round would also help.

 

Punishing units for being broken in Leviathan won't rebalance the Hive Fleets. The good units in Leviathan are any synapse which every other fleet also needs. Leviathan isn't even the best combo for the Maleceptor since it gets so little out of the force field psychic action.

 

Nerfing the Maleceptor itself when only the combos are broken will just negate the whole point of buffing the whole codex and make triple Hive Tyrants the only good list again.

 

I wouldn't be so sure Raveners and Zoanthropes aren't on the nerf list. First neft is either going to be misplaced and irrelevant or heavy handed.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Closet Skeleton

[Brother Nathan]

fyi to those who havent seen it the nid faq dropped today and the malceptor has well been brought down, to the point it is probably fairly equal to other options n he dex. will likely get a price increase yet but think all the faq stuff made sense and was seen coming. 

[WarriorFish]

Here's the FAQ link if anyone needs it :tu:

[TheNewman]

It does seem like a good set of changes, nice to see GW tapping down on the power-combos that popped up in all the tournament lists right out of the gate and not just fixing the obvious wording issues. Edited May 15, 2022 by TheNewman

[Zoatibix]

Tried Behemoth last night into Drukhari.

 

Relics and Warlord trait seem very skippable. There are generic versions that out right do more.

 

Bonus to Strength is useful, even against low toughness stuff I feel.

 

Reroll charges Inthink I could have swapped out as I never needed it. OTOH having ObSec on my Tyrant would have been really useful.

 

The Fight on Death for infantry strat is deeply satisfying when used against their fragile blender units.

 

Game mainly plagued by me failing to remember several of my rules. Gah. Like HVC not having blast, so can be fired in melee range.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Zoatibix

[Brother Nathan]

had a game last night. kept forgetting stuff but main thing for this thread is i ran the parasite with the obsec warlord trait and what a combo. i failed my strat attempt but infected a unit in cc and spawned 2 rippers. removed obsec from this large unit and stole their objective from within. by the time the opponent had got support enough to kill him said troop was wiped and 2 ripper swarms supporting my broodlord were able to pressurise enough to kil the supporting character. the potential to remove obsec form 2 units a turn never mind the mortal wounds whilst obsec it from under their noses. i did fail with the infect weapon twice on top and only succeed once as well as failing the strat. am looking forward to trying it  against guard.