Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The YTTH Litmus Test... and Tyranids

As is often the case, Stelek makes a pretty decent point, this time with his "Litmus Test" for army building skill post here.  Reposting the pertinent bits:

This isn’t about tabletop skill. This is about your army building skill, one that is sorely lacking in almost every player I meet. There are a few exceptions, some who have listened and learned from what I do here.
So let’s see who passes muster…
Can you beat this army?2000 Pts – Imperial Guard Roster
4 Company Command Squad, 160 pts (Flamer x1; Meltagun x2)
1 Company Commander
1 Astropath
1 Chimera
4 Company Command Squad, 130 pts (Flamer x1; Meltagun x2)
1 Company Commander
1 Chimera
4 Psyker Battle Squad, 115 pts
1 Overseer
1 Chimera
4 Psyker Battle Squad, 115 pts
1 Overseer
1 Chimera
4 Psyker Battle Squad, 115 pts
1 Overseer
1 Chimera
1 Infantry Platoon, 340 pts
4 Platoon Command Squad (Flamer x1; Meltagun x2)
1 Platoon Commander
1 Chimera
9 Infantry Squad (Meltagun x1)
1 Sergeant
1 Chimera
9 Infantry Squad (Meltagun x1)
1 Sergeant
1 Chimera
1 Infantry Platoon, 340 pts
4 Platoon Command Squad (Flamer x1; Meltagun x2)
1 Platoon Commander
1 Chimera
9 Infantry Squad (Meltagun x1)
1 Sergeant
1 Chimera
9 Infantry Squad (Meltagun x1)
1 Sergeant
1 Chimera
1 Infantry Platoon, 340 pts
4 Platoon Command Squad (Flamer x1; Meltagun x2)
1 Platoon Commander
1 Chimera
9 Infantry Squad (Meltagun x1)
1 Sergeant
1 Chimera
9 Infantry Squad (Meltagun x1)
1 Sergeant
1 Chimera
1 Scout Sentinel Squadron, 40 pts
1 Scout Sentinel (Autocannon)
1 Scout Sentinel Squadron, 40 pts
1 Scout Sentinel (Autocannon)
1 Scout Sentinel Squadron, 40 pts
1 Scout Sentinel (Autocannon)
1 Hydra Flak Tank Battery, 75 pts
1 Hydra Flak Tank
1 Hydra Flak Tank Battery, 75 pts
1 Hydra Flak Tank
1 Hydra Flak Tank Battery, 75 pts
1 Hydra Flak Tank
Total Roster Cost: 2000
Notes:
Every Chimera hull has a hull heavy flamer.
20 vehicles.
101 infantry.
Seriously, can you beat this?
From a list building standpoint, are you planning for your gribbly horde to handle something like this?  To be certain, it isn't an amazingly tuned list - but generally speaking - any fair general that can maneuver that many vehicles effectively is going to hurt you with it.  More importantly - this is the Magic white weenie deck equivalent of the 40k metagame.  Filled with cheap, efficient units in every FOC - it can and will overrun you unless you can deal with it.  This is saturation.  It has very little to do with target prioritization and everything to do with whether or not you can even stop it.  It exemplifies one of the most basic things any "all comers" list must be able to handle: volume.  At the heart of Stelek's challenge is this:  have you built your army so it can hurt enough of an army like the one above per turn to win?

So what the heck is "enough per turn" and what does it mean for a Tyranid player?  For this list - and for starters, that's shaking/stunning/immobilizing/destroying 3+ vehicles per turn.  This is why most Tyranid lists have 3 shooty units in the 3 elite FOCs: you can target 3 vehicles per turn at range.  The bottom line is no matter how you do it - shooty or shooty+assault - the ability to reliably target and affect 3 AV units per turn is probably the absolute minimum build.  Mathhammer it out - and bug BS hurts here; this usually means 3 shooty in elites (HGs, zoans) and 2 shooty units in heavy/fast FOCs (tfexes, dakkafexes, harpies) in order to beat the averages.  14 heavy flamers also goes quite a ways to point towards the need for a fair amount of shooty no matter how much assault capability you bring.

For the sake of argument, now you've built your list to be able to tackle 5 AV units per turn, and can reasonably expect to affect 3 of them.  That still leaves the 101 infantry running around.  Infantry, especially IG, are generally not a huge problem for Tyranids, but it is still a *lot* of dudes to deal with.  Expect to be multi-charged, and to need to be able to both multi- and counter-charge.  Roughly, this breaks out to dealing with 3-4 10-man squads per turn starting on turn 2 or 3.

The good news is the prototypical 2x tervigon, 2x 10 gant, 3x2 HG, 2x Tfex lists are well on the way to being able to meet the minimum requirements for both aspects above.  The bad news is once your opponent gets you down to affecting 1-2 units per turn - he's probably got the game in the bag.  Again - you have to maintain the ability to affect 3-5 AV and later on, 3-4 infantry units every turn.  Whether he shuts down your shooty by neutralizing your HGs or blowing up your tervigons, that halves your ability to do one or the other.  This is where your army building skills need to meet up with your playstyle: survivability is the name of the game, but how do you achieve it?  With bigger broods or more broods?  Redundancy or flexibility?  They can all work - but they are as individual as the player.  A fine example is Hulksmash's list here.  It almost fits the prototype above, adding 2x 15 stealers, 2x primes, 6 raveners, and swapping the tfexes for dakkafexes.  Survivability comes in the form of the tervigon babies, primes attaching to the dakkafexes or HGs, FNP from the tervigons, solid assault and counter-assault with stealers and ravs.  Crispy on the other hand, throws all of this out and manages to make it work (that is still the coolest dakkafex ever).  In the end, the point is to stretch your list-building muscles to factor in what your list needs to accomplish over the course of the game, and to do so against multiple list archetypes; something Nikephoros over on Bringer of Victory has long advocated with his Better Playtesting series of articles; another highly recommended set of reads:

http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2011/05/better-playtesting-stelek-litmus-test.html
http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2011/04/better-playtesting-tournament-prep.html
http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2011/04/better-playtesting-experience-and.html
http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2011/04/better-playtesting-updating-gauntlet.html
http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2011/01/better-playtesting-play-aids-and.html
http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2010/12/better-playtesting-pay-attention.html
http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2010/12/better-playtesting-improving-your.html
http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2010/12/better-playtesting-overcoming-localism.html
http://nike40k.blogspot.com/2010/11/better-playtesting-running-gauntlet.html

In contrast - what does a Tyranid "white weenie" list look like?  The best example I can think of is Jay Woodcock's Adepticon list.  55 stealers, 26 gargoyles, 2 tervigons, plus max 3-model broods in his elite FOCs.  Minimal MCs, and a board full of gribblies, most of which will most likely get to you on turn 2 while his tervigon babies wait in the wings.

2 comments:

  1. 20 vehicles plus terrain makes for one hell of time deploying. Even if you managed to deploy all of the vehicles the ensuing mess would cause havoc on your LOS. It's a theoretical exercise that loses its value once it tries tp hit the table.

    I find it absolutely hilarious that Stelek has not won a major event despite the use of his so called "optimized" list. To me the proof is in the pudding.

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  2. I agree with HOTpanda. The posted list is hilarious, not because it's weak or strong, but because whoever wrote it apparently never played Warhammer 40,000. I mean, obviously Stelek plays Warhammer 40,000 while the rest of us are earning money at work, sleeping with our sexually attractive wives, or playing with our children, but I can't fathom the thought process that states an army to be a litmus test for an entire book, particularly one as desperately under-rated as the Tyranid codex.

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