Nova and 6th Edition, I’m Totally Torn!

Oh I'm not torn on using 6th edition but on my army. As a fair few of you who read here have probably heard by now Nova is going to be the first national level GT event (i.e. over 100 players) to run 6^th edition. Which is awesome! But since I’m playing in the Invitational as well as the Open and have less than 2 months to build, paint, and practice with an army I have to get started pretty much now. Which leads to the point of this post; I’m torn between 3 different armies right now with a sound idea list as I get familiar with the rules for all of them. Oddly, all Xenos J

Hobby - Tyranid Re-Paint (Test Model Done)

So at an RTT this last weekend I was again inspired to run my Nids. I've come to realize the main reason I don't wanna pull them out is that they are nowhere near the paint level of my other completed armies. It bothers me enough that I'm not bringing them out even when paint isn't important.

No MC List Update & Deathwing RTT Results

I know I’ve been quiet this week but it’s been a bit busy. I did get a practice game in with my Nid list seen here: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2012/01/tyranids-1850-no-mc-starting-point-list.html

I learned quite a bit about how the army functions and supports itself. However the game was against foot orks where I made almost innumerable mistakes due to DoW and me not being familiar enough with how this type of Nid army functions. Basically I got soundly thrashed. The issue was not focusing my forces and hitting together. I should have accepted an extra turn of shooting for all of my units to hit together. Also Orks are ugly for this type of list with all the Klaws that are around and the sheer number of attacks it makes the multi-wound creatures far less survivable than normal.

Tyranids 1,850 - No MC Starting Point List

Well I said I’d be posting the a list showing where I’m starting from based on my last article. Here is the seed I hope to grow a usable army out of:

Tyranids & Me & List Design in the Age of SW, DE, & GK

First I’d say buckle in. This is going to be a long one.

Second, I have to send a damn you out to L'Etat C'Est Moi for re-sparking my interest in Nids. I fell away from them a bit after running them for most of the early part of the year last year in favor of other armies. Not because I didn’t find them competitive but because I was getting burnt out.

Nids are a funny army for me. It’s one that I tried to build back in 3^rd edition with a friend but we never finished it and the models disappeared. Neither one of us to this day knows where they went. Fast forward almost about 6ish years and I build a list for early 5^th edition using the last book. Loved it. Played it pretty heavy for quite a bit and then put it down. The new book comes out and I make a few conversions and poof, new army. I play that off and on for a bit but my Admech Daemons pull me away. Later I decide I really wanna run me some Nids so last year I played them almost exclusively for 6 months before putting them down again in favor of Space Wolves and Deathwing.

Sparked My Interest - 1850 Tyranids

Yesterdays article really got me thinking about my Tyranids. Now I'm in the process of replacing my converted Hive Guard with the actual models now that they are Fine Cast. I've slightly tweaked my list from last year to something a little more shooty to help deal with GK's since I don't want to be fighting them in CC to often. Here is one of the options I'm considering:

List Building Help: Tyranid's 1,850

So I was reading Dakka on Friday and I headed into a section I rarely head into anymore for fear of my sanity. The Army List section. I know most of you are thinking WHY? Well it kinda worked out. L'Etat C'Est Moi, who comments on here, had put up a Tyranid list for review for the upcoming Darkstar GT which I’ll also be attending. I read it and asked permission to post my response and thoughts on the blog and was given permission. Here is the list complete with the builders comments:

Ard Boyz Finals - Tyranids?

Well with the Ard Boyz Finals local I’ll actually be attending. And I’ve been itching lately to pull my bugs back out and go a stomping. This is just a ramped up version of my standard 2k list that I think I’d do pretty well with:

Ard Boyz - Nid List

So I'm thinking about Ard Boyz this weekend and in my usual style I haven't decided what I'm taking yet. Here's a quicky list I was thinking about. It's an expansion on my Adepticon List and I think it could hang pretty well.

Nova Invitational Tyranids Take #3 - Big Bugs!

Welcome to the big bug rodeo. At 1750 there is a lot of nasty you can build around T6 creatures. This is a tweak on the last list. Enough talk, here we go:

Nova Invitational Nids - 1,500pt Upgrade

I recently (using the term loosely) ran a 1,500pt list at a RTT over in La Crosse. It was a pretty nasty list in the sense that it had 40 T6 wounds which is pretty overwhelming at that point level. It repaid me by going 3-0 and only 1 objective short of a perfect score. So if it worked then why couldn't I just upgrade it and run it at 1.75k? This accidentally loosely ties in with Dash's article from Saturday.

Nova Invitational Nids - 1st Try

Well as you know from my article on Thursday I'm going to be running Tyranids in the Nova Invitational as well as the Open. I figured I'd share the first of my thoughts with you guys on what I'm thinking of running for the Invitational.

The Invitational is a little weird in that first off I never play 1750. Add into it that 1750 is weird since I can't seem to find a happy balance between T6 and small gribblies. That being said here is my first attempt. It has the advantage of including my Parasite which would double as my "Converted" model for the painting score.

Nova Invitational & Open: My Mind is Made Up!

So I generally don't do this but balance in 40k is apparently one of my touch points for my hobby. I was at work yesterday and came across this in my blog reading:

http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2011/08/is-it-time-to-worry-yet.html

Long story short it's a bit of a rant about the state of 40k and how imbalanced it is. It highlights Tyranids as one of the poorest codexes of 5th edition outside of the New Sisters WD book that isn't even out yet. It also claims there is a single workable army list which is beyond false. But since the whole article is pretty much predicated upon a single guys local meta and his personal experiences it's easy enough to dismiss. That said it helped me reach a conclusion.

Damn You Yermom! 2k Nids for Nova

First off, sorry! Work has been crazy and I've barely had time to type a thing. Hopefully I'm a little more consistant again.

So that bastard Nick (Yermom) put up a post the other day on Nids and the possibility of bringing them to Nova. You can find it here: http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/2011/07/tyranids-are-retuning-to-nova.html

Anyway this made me start thinking. I'm playing in what is likely to be a very intense and draining ( in a good way) tournament on Friday with the Nova Invitational. So my initial reaction was just to bring my trusted Space Wolves for the big 2-day event as they are so on auto-pilot that I actually have more time to think about things that come out of left field with them and otherwise they'll require much, much less thinking than some of the lists I've been toying with. Enter Nick. I've officially offered to bring my Nids if he does. Why? Because it'll be a grand time. Last year Nick and I both played daemons and finished 3-1 on day one but his massacres got him into day two where my squeeks weren't enough. It'd be interesting to see if we could do better with Nids.

JotWW Can Suck It! Local RTT Batrep Round 3

And now we’ve come to the no picture batrep which is sad since this was the table that had the best terrain out of all 3 J. This round is a great example of how sometimes unoptimized lists can just have your number.

Round 1 can be found here: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/jotww-can-suck-it-local-rtt-batrep.html

Round 2 can be found here: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/jotww-can-suck-it-local-rtt-batrep_03.html

Round 3
Deployment: Spearhead

My List:
Parasite
Prime w/Dual Bone Swords
2 Lictors
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
15 Genestealers
14 Genestealers
10 Genestealers
19 Hormagants
5 Raveners w/Rending Claws
5 Raveners w/Rending Claws
20 Gargoyles w/Adrenal Glands & Toxin Sacs

Opponents List:

A-Kon Army - One of these I'm 99% Bringing

So in March or so of last year I "perfected" my own Space Wolf list. The picture above is from the Friday Night Fights last year at Nova against Bald&Screaming's Danny Internet.


This is it:

JotWW Can Suck It! Local RTT Batrep Round 2!

So I started to forget to take pictures which is always my curse. I have a few of the second game. I have none of my third game but  I'll be combining it along with my thoughts on the RTT as a whole and my armies performance as well. So:

Round 1 can be found here: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/jotww-can-suck-it-local-rtt-batrep.html

Round 2:

Deployment: Dawn of War

My List:

Parasite
Prime w/Dual Bone Swords
2 Lictors
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
15 Genestealers
14 Genestealers
10 Genestealers
19 Hormagants
5 Raveners w/Rending Claws
5 Raveners w/Rending Claws
20 Gargoyles w/Adrenal Glands & Toxin Sacs

JotWW Can Suck It! Local RTT Batrep Round 1!

So this weekend I played in a little 3-round RTT at a local store. Now I've been told by the store owner (the 2008? GW GT Circuit Champion) who's a great dude that his store doesn't have the most hardcore competitive group but that it's a decent group to game with. Well with that being said I decided on Friday night that it might be a good idea to give my no big gribbly army a shot. It's an 1,850 tournament so it's not the full list but this is what I chose to run.

My Army:

Parasite
Prime w/Dual Bone Swords
2 Lictors
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
15 Genestealers
14 Genestealers
10 Genestealers
19 Hormagants
5 Raveners w/Rending Claws
5 Raveners w/Rending Claws
20 Gargoyles w/Adrenal Glands & Toxin Sacs

JotWW Can Suck it! Building a Nid List w/out I1 Part-1

Welcome to the first part in a series regarding, well, how to build a competitive Nid list without having to worry about losing that big beasty of yours to JotWW or all them new fangled force weapons people will be thriving on for a big. The following paragraph will be the open reminder for each part and then each part will separate based on the archetype deployment strategy.

“So I did mention briefly in my other Nid list that I was working on a list for Nids that could still compete but that didn’t have to worry too much about JotWW or having big, low initiative models. This list is going to need a few things so let’s get them set-up from the get-go.

-The Standard Anti-Tank

-Major speed to offset the lack of durability

-Harder hitting CC to make up for the greater lack of shooting since most of our truly great RoF weapons are on big bugs.

-Numbers! Again to offset the lack of durability

-Synapse

We also will have to decide if we want this to be a standard deployment style of Nid list, a reserve list, or a hybrid as this will heavily influence how we adjust our list to include the above.”

Since I’m pretty much all about reducing the randomness I’m going start with a standard deployment style of list. This means that 99-100% of my stuff will be on the table at the start of the game in Pitched Battle and Spearhead deployments with very little more off the table in DoW.

2k Tyranids for A-Kon

So it turns out I'm going to be working mandatory 72 hours a week so my painting time has been severely curtailed. Which means I’m down to taking 1 of 2 armies. I’m not going to be running my Space Wolves because I find them almost boring to play at this point. This leaves me finishing up 15ish models for my DoA Blood Angels army or painting up some Raveners for my Tyranids.

I still think Nids are competitive. I took them to Adepticon and while I only finished 21^st of 240ish people in Battle I didn’t actually lose a game with them. And hopefully GK’s thin the field of TWC even more which is one of the only units in the game that wrecks Nid face. Plus I just haven’t been happy with most of my MEQ armies lately so Bugs it may be J