# I really hate Nid Zilla



## Lord Vetinari (Mar 11, 2009)

Hey I recently got my army Stomped flat into the ground by a hord of godfexes, sniperfexs and crab fexes. He ran gaunts infront of 6 fexes and 2 hive tyrants giving them a cover save and then some ripper swarms that chomped pretty much chewed through some boyz. 
Now i ask of all the warbosses big and small
How can i take out those F***ing Fexes?

Lord V


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## englanda (Dec 2, 2008)

Lootas kill fexes, shootas kill gaunts. Assault and clean up with klaw. Run a KFF for his shooting. Maybe some gretchin to give cover and take his charge.


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## TheKingElessar (Mar 31, 2009)

What he said. 

A Deff Rolla (or 3) wouldn't hurt either. :wink:


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Um, I'm thinking a little iffy play was happenning- I run the old 2nd edition fexs which are smaller then the new ones and even mine can't get cover saves from normal gaunts (MCs need 50% of their body obstructed before they get a cover save).

Orks will lose to nids at shooting. Mob Boys and race forwards. I would have a unit with shootas and 2 big boyz units with nothing but numbers and a PK Nob (mebbe a boss pole). Dakka any gaunts that are in the way and then push through to the warriors.

Lootas will do well against the MCs but not so well against the firepower they'll attract.

A lot of people would say to go with nobz or nob bikerz to counter MCs but I think this is a mistake- fex barbed strangler are S8 large blasts... they'll instant kill several nobs a shot and are pinning. Instead I would throw some cheap warbosses with PKs into the boyz units.

Burners in a hard top vehicle would be nice but Im not sure if they are worth the effort (Im a nid, not an orc..).


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## TheDaR (Mar 16, 2008)

Nob Bikerz aren't great, but the 'MANz Missile' unit is great against shooty big bugs. 3 Mega Armored Nobz in a stripped down Trukk (red paint job only) for 160 points. Deliver your payload anywhere from 17 to 22 inches on the charge, with another d6 for fleet if you Waaagh. A shooty carnifex is only swinging twice at WS3, and will only hit once on average. It kills one, but since it's Init 1 too, you're still swinging with 12 total attacks on the charge. You'll hit with around 8 attacks, wounding with about 7 (S9 on the charge vs T7 at best), and since it's a PK, no armor saves. That's more than enough wounds to kill a 'fex. In fact, if you can multi-charge 2 shooty fexes, you'll lose 2 MANz on average, but stand a very good chance of killing both fexes between the actual PK wounds and the resulting No Retreat wounds (as you will probably outwound by 4-5). If you're lucky enough to have a MANz or two left, head them into combat with any non-rending units nearby (hormagaunts, gaunts, rippers, gargoyles are all good choices). With T4, 2 Wounds, and 2+ save, you can probably take 3-4 models down a turn between the PK attacks and No Retreat wounds for a turn or two before you finally succumb to mass attacks.

This doesn't work quite as well on Hive Tyrants, but still does work. Since they're only S5 or S6, you don't need to fear instant death unless they've got Implant Attack. Even with the other melee upgrades, you'll still probably only lose 2-3 wounds and thus 1 MANz before getting to swing back (or possibly none, if you WAC and bring one each with TL Shoota, Kombi Rokkit and Kombi Skorcha). 8 Remaining attacks should net 4 hits and S9 again vs T6 is around 4 wounds. That'll kill a Tyrant that does not have any Tyrant Guard in tow.

For god fexes, especially melee oriented ones, this trick does not work at all. They'll have adrenal upgrades for I2 and WS4, and probably reduce your WS to 3 with Toxic Miasma. Between bioplasma, crushing claws and scything talons, they'll have at least 4 and possibly as many as 10 melee attacks total. That will wipe out most of your squad before you get to swing your PKs. You'd need either a substantially larger MANz unit, a Cybork body for Invuln save, or both. Dreads and Kanz can kill these beasts, but you'll probably be losing the trade, since a kitted up melee fex is I2 same as yours, and that's a lot of MC attacks into your vehicles.

Deffkoptas with Buzzsaws and TL-Rokkits can also substitute for MANz in this trick. They're more expensive, but much more mobile throughout the game. While weaker in melee (only S7 on charge and S6 normally, and only 2 attacks instead of 3 base), they've got the TL-Rokkits which are some of the more reliable high-strength shooting in the Ork list. You stand the chance of actually wounding or even killing the elite fexes at range with the Rokkits before charging in. Additionally, they're the only reliable way to get PKs into melee on turn 1. If you go first, scout up within 12 of the 'nid lines, jump 12 inches the first turn, shoot your rokkits, then charge in to kill those sniperfexes before they can begin popping your transports and dropping large blasts on your troops. You'll probably lose a rather expensive Deffkopta squad, but it can be worth it considering the sort of damage those sniperfexes can do to Orks.

Oddly, some of the best units for killing melee fexes are the ones that everyone usually avoids like the plague. Fully loaded out Flash Gitz have 2 S6 shots with a 50% chance to ignore even the toughest MC's armor. It still takes a lot of dakka to get the 4 or 5 wounds you need to kill the fexes, due to BS2, but Flash Gitz can still krump the little bugs in melee near as well as any other Nob if they get assaulted. Likewise, Tankbustas actually come into their own against Nids. With no vehicles to make them do stupid things, they can shoot a lot of S8 AP3 shots for quite cheap. Not perfect against things with the 2+ save upgrade, but S8 is reliable wounds at least and it'll clear out even melee oriented elite fexes quite quick.

As already mentioned, Lootas also are excellent against almost every type of bug. They've got enough shoots to clear out whole units of the small and medium gribblies in one go and their shooting is high enough strength that likewise they can semi-reliably put wounds even on the big bugs. I wouldn't recommend Burnas against big bugs. They're good against the smaller bugs, and while they are power weapons, they're also only S3/S4. You'll be wounding on 6s, and against god fexes after the charge you won't be able to wound at all (S3 vs T7).

Another option to consider against melee fexes is simply doing "nothing". Bring 30 grotz with 3 Grabba armed Runtheards and feed them to any godfexes you find. It'll lose 3 attacks, and thus only kill a couple of grots a turn. You won't ever win combat, and won't kill the fex, but in the end, if it's not killing the rest of your army, that's probably fine. And if you don't need it, well, that's 33 scoring wounds to sit on an objective going to ground for cover saves against all those blast attacks. As another variant on the idea, you could bring a smaller squad just to have the 3 Runtherds with Grabbas. Use that unit to combo-charge with your Warboss/MANz/Nobz/whatever in order to reduce the fex's attacks down to a manageable number so your powerklaws can do their job.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

I think this is being overthought a little. Godfexs are nasty but they are also hellishly expensive. Throw a unit of 30 boys and a PK nob at it and laugh. Both units are about the same cost (I wouldnt give the boys many/any upgrades other then the PK nob and mebbe a boss pole) and you'll win.
On an average turn the true fex should kill 3~4 boyz. Your Nob should take 2 wounds off in return. If you charged the boys should take 1-2 more wounds. Ok you might have just lost (and might lose a couple more boys to no retreat) but in the next turn you should kill the fex pretty easily (or in the third turn if it charged you). 
- Even if your unlucky you'll have lost less then half the points of the fex- even a fully beefed up godfex doesnt have enough attacks to get anywhere when each attack can only kill a single orc boy.

Shove an army of lost of boyz supported by lots of lootas with a cheap warboss and mebbe a mek with KFF and you should be laughing- the lootas kill any units too strong in CC or anything thats weak and blocking your way to important assaults (like a screening unit of disposably spinegaunts blocking your way to assault warriors/tyrants/termagants/fexs etc).... really not a lot you have to worry too much about.


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## TheDaR (Mar 16, 2008)

I think that's probably true for lists where there's only a few fexes. If I were facing a balanced 'nid list with only 2 or 3 fexes an a tyrant or two, that's probably what I'd do. It's easier than trying to do anything special for that list, and still gives you plenty of options for dealing with all the gaunts/stealers that would be running around in a balanced list.

The problem is with full nidzilla lists. Most Ork lists just won't have enough full units of 30 boyz to deal with 6 Fexes plus 2 Tyrants _and_ still deal with whatever small bugs got brought for troops. If you tie up each fex with a unit of boyz for 2-3 turns (a full round and a half), you've got 2 or 3 fexes that will probably be untouched and both tyrants running free. And if they start ganging up to 2 or 3 fexes on a mob of boyz, the orks will be the ones dead in a few turns. You do your one or two wounds (maybe less, since godfexes are usually T7, meaning you only wound on 3s, not 2s like normal), they do 6 or 7, and then you lose another 5 or so to no retreat.

So I think it's worthwhile to at least look at the options for how to deal with units like godfexes with units that are cheaper than a full 30 boyz + PK nob unit. Not to mention, not everyone runs foot slogging hordes. I rarely field a lot of large units of boyz, as I prefer a mixture of KoS and Dreadbash style lists.

Oh, one more sneaky tactic for dealing with fexes and Tyrants: Multi-charging. Most nidzilla lists will have at least a few units of gaunts for objectives. If you can charge such that your boyz are attacking gaunts while the nob puts his PK wounds on the carnifex, there's decent odds that you can generate positive combat results and force no-retreat wounds on both the gaunts and the carnfiex. That's one way the boyz themselves can actually contribute significantly to the fight.

I've even seen special characters die to nothing but pure No Retreat wounds. Lucius the Eternal got caught fighting in a combat against a Wraithlord he couldn't wound while the Wraithlord put wounds onto a summoned greater demon and Defiler in the same combat. 3 rounds of combat later, Lucius had failed 3 of 5 No Retreat saves and hadn't been the target of a single attack.


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## Exitus Acta Probat (Apr 23, 2009)

Ware the Fex's with scythe tail/miasma and at least one pair of scything talons. 
the mob will swamp him, but will get broken apart in two turns if you are not already winning (as your opponent will throw something in for extra weight). The Nob will deal 1 wound a turn on average (miasma=advantage fex), if it's a god-fex it should be init 2(not that it matters in the case of an embedded Nob, but still a factor if using smaller units/MegaNobz).

Another good tool is a unit of Lootas with some Blaster Mechs boarded on a battlewagon (making them immune to the engaging fire). AV-14 is VERY difficult for a Nid player to deal with. flank it with grots as a speed bump for assaults, and you should get a minimum of 4 turns of fire outta them. at 90 points for the BW, it is well worth the investment for a unit of lootas against that particular opponent. throw in a KFF for defense around and for the vehicle, OR a Shokk for shi#s and giggles, and get ta shootin!


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## TheKingElessar (Mar 31, 2009)

One point to note - since I'm not an experienced Nid player I'll leave the meat of the thread to Tim/Steve and others, BUT you cannot take 3 Runtherds in a Grot mob of under 30 Grots - it's one for every ten, not every ten _or part thereof_.


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## TheDaR (Mar 16, 2008)

TheKingElessar said:


> One point to note - since I'm not an experienced Nid player I'll leave the meat of the thread to Tim/Steve and others, BUT you cannot take 3 Runtherds in a Grot mob of under 30 Grots - it's one for every ten, not every ten _or part thereof_.


Actually, the wording is 'For every ten Gretchin you must take one: Runtherd'. My reading, which seems to be the common one and the one that Army Builder follows, is that the limitation is that you have to have at least 1 runtherd for each full 10 gretchin. Not that you can't take more runtherds if you chose, since the normal unit composition summary would let you take 1-3 without any qualification. So in order to take a 20th Gretchin, you'd need a second Runtherd and likewise, to take the 30th, you'd need to buy the third. So 10/3 would be valid, as would 19/1, and 29/2, but 20/1 is not, nor is 30/2, as you are not meeting the qualification of for every full 10 you must have 1.

That said, most people probably never even think about it, since in most cases, you want the gretchin and the Runtherds are just expensive wounds you don't need.


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll (Jun 9, 2008)

If the wording was as you quoted, I would say that you can't take more than one runtherda per 10 gretchin. As you must have *one* runtherda per 10 gretchin. 

Though we should probably move any futher discussions on it to the rules thread, so not to clutter this one up too much.

As for the Battlewagon, aren't they open topped by standard? In which case Nids will be able to crack them with a Venom Cannon quite easily,a s 1/3 of their hits go on to be penertrating hits with a 50/50 chance of poppong the tank. Besides, you still hit rear armour in combat


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## Exitus Acta Probat (Apr 23, 2009)

WLS: combat is stalled via Grots. speed bumps. 

14 FAV against str 8 (most fexes don't bother with VC anymore, thus you are relying on VC from Tyrants for that). need a 6 to glance, then need me to fail my cover save (KFF) then need a kill result. anything else is a null and void issue from the perspective of the lootas on board. Warrior VC cannot crack unless they get to the side (non-issue for the most part, I can pivot and still shoot them).

Combat is what he's trying to shoot his way out of, so if the wagon gets jumped, it's all over anyway...lol

(oh, and if his opponent is wasting points on Fex Venom Cannon, well he needs to start looking for other areas of wasted points to exploit).

Ultimately, in CC, Bugs are one of the very limited issues for orks. It's a tricky set of propositions, and gunning things down become the best solution. Shoota boyz, lootas, protection and speed bumps...these are your friends.


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll (Jun 9, 2008)

Exitus Acta Probat said:


> WLS: combat is stalled via Grots. speed bumps.
> Yea, I realise that, but I meant the rules side of the debate, we can talk about grots stalling fex's all day long here
> 
> 14 FAV against str 8 (most fexes don't bother with VC anymore, thus you are relying on VC from Tyrants for that). need a 6 to glance, then need me to fail my cover save (KFF) then need a kill result. anything else is a null and void issue from the perspective of the lootas on board. Warrior VC cannot crack unless they get to the side (non-issue for the most part, I can pivot and still shoot them).
> ...


Tyranid shooting will mince orks, low armour saves combined with high rate of fire on the tyranids behalf will ensure that. So why not get stuck in? And you don't need to kill the big bugs if you have a Battlewagon, just put some boyz in it and kill his troops off, followed by simply parking your battlewagon on an objective he can't get to quickly. While he is wasting the fire on the Battlewagon, you can shoot his big stuff. He probably won't fall for the bait, but then you will win on objectives. This won't work for Anihilation obviously lol


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## Exitus Acta Probat (Apr 23, 2009)

I was more or less giving him an option for engaging the big guys at range. 
As far as the rest of the army, if they're gaunts, gut em...anything else, shoot em.
Bugs have the same issues with volume ork fire that orks have vs bug fire...
difference, the orks can mount up.
2x b-wagons with shoota boyz
1x b-wagon with lootas
2x trukka mob
and maybe some lobbas to hide behind stuff for anti troop indirect. 
keep everyone within 6" of the KFF on the loota wagon turn one (if yer goin second put the loota wagon behind another wagon) and start the gunning and funning.
If you KNOW you're dealing with bugs, look into burnas too....
there really isn't a perfect solution here. Orks want to be the same place the bugs want them, in their face. 
Advantage orks, because they can run AND gun against units that have no transport protection. 
Disadvantage orks, they have no real MC.

And mission dictates as well, like you said vs annihilation vs multi objectives vs any variations. I have seen the VC on fexes drop off more and more as Mech becomes more and more prevalent. 'Nid players (including myself) don't see a point investing that much into a gun that gets 2 shots, hits 50% of the time and only glances (mostly).
It is point inefficient in the hands of a 'fex. Strangler, not so much...exceptional in fact.


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll (Jun 9, 2008)

Exitus Acta Probat said:


> I have seen the VC on fexes drop off more and more as Mech becomes more and more prevalent. 'Nid players (including myself) don't see a point investing that much into a gun that gets 2 shots, hits 50% of the time and only glances (mostly).
> It is point inefficient in the hands of a 'fex. Strangler, not so much...exceptional in fact.


I agree with you that a VC is over costed. However, other people don;t think so, which is fine and it also means there are still a fair few gunfex's out there.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Yeah, most nidzilla lists Ive seen still run 3 sniperfexes.
If I get a 4th fex then I think I'll probably give it the venom cannon for when I'm playing against armies with a nasty tank or 2- S8 barbed stranglers just dont always get the job done


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll (Jun 9, 2008)

I usually run mine with Barbed Strangler or Twin-linked Barbed Strangler, but they are magnetised for when I need that Venom Cannon


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## TheKingElessar (Mar 31, 2009)

TheDaR said:


> Actually, the wording is 'For every ten Gretchin you must take one: Runtherd'. My reading, which seems to be the common one and the one that Army Builder follows, is that the limitation is that you have to have at least 1 runtherd for each full 10 gretchin. Not that you can't take more runtherds if you chose, since the normal unit composition summary would let you take 1-3 without any qualification. So in order to take a 20th Gretchin, you'd need a second Runtherd and likewise, to take the 30th, you'd need to buy the third. So 10/3 would be valid, as would 19/1, and 29/2, but 20/1 is not, nor is 30/2, as you are not meeting the qualification of for every full 10 you must have 1.
> 
> That said, most people probably never even think about it, since in most cases, you want the gretchin and the Runtherds are just expensive wounds you don't need.


Army builder is, as is often the case, simply wrong.  For every ten, not for every ten _or part thereof_ 
Army Builder doesn't allow you to give a Big Mek Mega-Armour and a Power Klaw either, but you can.

I've never played Nids with my Orks, but I imagine Nob Bikers would retreat, using the high rate of fire on the Dakkaguns to mow down the Gaunts, and strip wounds from MCs with impunity...only Winged and Leaping creatures can catch them after all...


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

I've only faced Nob Bikerz with my nids once... the guy doesnt take them against me now. I hit his unit with 3 barbed stranglers in 1 turn (only 1 hit, others scattered 2-3"). Each one hit about 3 guys, wounded 9. He failed his 3+ cover save 4 times... thats most of the squad dead. Not to mention the fact that they broke.
I did the same to nobz when they were used against me... he got cover saves from me firing through my units, his units and the KFF but its still only a 4+... 2 turns and 4 BS shots later with lots of scatter (litraly couldnt roll a hit) I think I'ld killed about 5-6 of them and pinned them.

Nids can be just about the most effective anti-orc force.. lots of large blasts the instant kill Nobz, lots and lots of weapons that rely on multiple wounds rather then AP and you better believe there is gonna be multiple lines of gaunts giving everyone on the field a cover save as well as blocking the assaults of all your nice big units.
Throw in some T7 fexs that normal orks cant touch and you have a force thats highly effective at munching the greenskins.

Realy nothing much to fear from the orcs- even the battlewagon is soft: having 3 fexs staggered accross my lines means Im always going to be getting a shot at your side armour... even with the Barbed Strangler its ouch time.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

Nob bikers do seem like a bad idea but Nidzilla is one fo the many reasons I always take a whole mess of boyz as well. The PK Nob in that mob should be able to take down a fex or tyrant in approximately 3 rounds of combat (so 1 and a half game turns) but only 3 MCs can be T7, and even then few tend to be, so the boyz should be able to contribute to the combat. Sure they need 6s to wound but 29 sluggas can toss out 116 attacks on the charge (not that it's likely to ever happen, but the point is the boyz will be tossing a lot in there). Generally the heavy fexes will be sniperfexes, so the melee-focused elite ones shouldn't be too bad for the boyz. 

Generally in melee the mob will lose about 2 to a fex with 4 attacks (an elite melee fex), closer to 3 with the right upgrades. The boyz in the mob should probably account for at least one wound, and closer to 2, depending on the number of boyz left and if they've got shootas or sluggas. The Nob should account for about 1.5 wounds. So these 2 things are knocking about the same number of wounds off each other, but the fex has 4 wounds to lose and the mob has 30 (well, 31 but the nob would get instant deathed.) So a single boyz mob should be able to chew through carnifexes like they were candy, generally in about 2 player turns, so they get my vote as most effective. 
Against godfexes getting say, 8 attacks (being somewhat generous) with all the toys like the toughness bonus and miasma and crushing claws and whatnot that pump its cost up to near that of the boyz mob, they're generally losing combat instead of breaking even and losing 7 orks or so each round after fearless casualties and it will take 3-4 player turns to kill the thing, so there's a decent chance the orks will break before they can kill it. The boyz mob shines much less at fighting this beast, and shooting the crap out of it with lootas before it gets close is a good idea. Luckily, few of these tend to be fielded in favor of fielding fexes with some decent ranged ability and/or lower point cost.

Tyrants geared for CC aren't very good against the mob though, generally killing 3 boyz and taking a wound from the boyz and 1.5 from the nob in return. Much more dangerous for Orks IMO is the Tyrant with 2 sets of twin-linked devourers spraying 12 strength 5 shots at bs 4 that reroll hits and wounds, which kills about about 9 orks in one go. Dakkafexes don't do well IMO though, killing only 3-4 Orks. That's decent but not mob-shattering.

Anyway, good things IMO for fighting nidzilla but that are still effective against other things (I'm not a fan of gearing to fight one opponent, I think that's kinda low): Boyz (reasons above), Lootas (already mentioned), Grots for tarpit, and Meganobz in large enough groups. Zzap guns would also be decently effective, but unreliable and fragile. Tankbustas would be excellent for killing fexes with 3+ armor but seem kinda opponent-specific and the elite fexes usually aren't the problem. A Warboss with a PK, attack squig, and cybork body is actually a decent MC-killer for his points as well provided he doesn't encounter implant attack or strength 10 (neither of which will generally be on an elite fex) but is generally best used to supplement another PK such as in a mob.


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## Crimzzen (Jul 9, 2008)

Lord Vetinari said:


> Hey I recently got my army Stomped flat into the ground by a hord of godfexes, sniperfexs and crab fexes. He ran gaunts infront of 6 fexes and 2 hive tyrants giving them a cover save and then some ripper swarms that chomped pretty much chewed through some boyz.
> Now i ask of all the warbosses big and small
> How can i take out those F***ing Fexes?
> 
> Lord V



gaunts don't give carnis or tyrants a cover save, too small. Only warriors will.

Lootas will down the monsterous creatures just from shear wounding alone.
Throw entire squads of 30 boyz with a nob and a power klaw at a monsterous creature and watch it die, make sure you get the charge!

Nob bikers can take out Tyrants and carnies, make sure you take power klaws and cybork bodies - you'll probably lose a few in each combat but they should take them out. Warboss on bike /w a powerklaw will slaughter.

shoota boyz can decimate gaunts and genestealers.

Deff dreads and killa kans in decent numbers can down MC's as well.


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## Zaden (Oct 21, 2008)

Another way Fexes can receive a cover save is if a Tyrant with a few guard are sitting behind gaunts. The guards are not MC so half the unit is in cover behind gaunts. Even if the Tyrant only has one guard with him, they both get the cover save, and if the tyrant has two or three guards, you can get a couple of fexes behind them easily.

One thing to consider when gearing up for god fexes is often a nid player will keep squads reasonably close together, and often if you charge one of his valuable god fexes with a big mob of boyz, on his turn he will throw another nid unit into the fray, to turn things back into his favour, and end the comabt asap. If it happens to be genestealers, like it would be in my nid army, your 30 boyz are done, especially due to feeder tendrils which the fex will now make use of as well.

I'm not saying its all that bad a thing for a fex and unit of stealers to be tied up with one of your squads, just something to consider. A Nid army works best when the whole army works together, so I would rarely have a Fex out on his own.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Its another advantage of nids- they tend to have a lot of smaller units that can operate close to each other. The sheer size of some orc units makes them unweildy and hard to support.

One of the worst possible traps to get caught in is in combat with the remnants of a unit as another unit charges you- you can only hit the unit you were in combat with in the last turn... ie the unit that just hit you gets a free turn of combat. This means that if your Nob Bikers are in combat with a fex with 1W left and they get charged by a large stealers unit then they are going to take a lot of wounds and can cause a maximum of 1W back (so are going to lose, break and get run down).


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## TheDaR (Mar 16, 2008)

TheKingElessar said:


> Army builder is, as is often the case, simply wrong.  For every ten, not for every ten _or part thereof_
> Army Builder doesn't allow you to give a Big Mek Mega-Armour and a Power Klaw either, but you can.


That's because the Mega Armored Big Mek is there as a separate entry. Just like the Mega Armored Warboss. Apparently the bloke who did the Ork data files found it easier to seperate Mega Armored HQs from the regular ones, since they can't have all the same extra weapon options.

That said, if an opponent insisted, I'd probably accept and just remove the 2 extra runtherds. It's a neat trick, but hardly essential for dealing with nidzilla.

I think most of us here are seem to be agreeing that Ork shooting is actually the best way to deal with most of the MCs if you're not tooling up a list specifically. Just from sheer volume of shooting with more than S4. Dakkaguns and Bigshootas, Deffguns and Rokkits. And then use Boyz squads as long as you can be sure that you're not going to get mobbed by multiple MCs.


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## TheKingElessar (Mar 31, 2009)

TheDaR said:


> That said, if an opponent insisted, I'd probably accept and just remove the 2 extra runtherds. It's a neat trick, but hardly essential for dealing with nidzilla.


That's just it...it's not a 'trick' it's just plain illegal.


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## TheDaR (Mar 16, 2008)

TheKingElessar said:


> That's just it...it's not a 'trick' it's just plain illegal.


The counter argument is that the wording is that the runtherds are a requirement in order to take getchen, not that gretchen are the requirement to take runtherds. So as long as you meet the minimum requirement of runtherds per gretchin, you can choose as many runtherds as you like per the standard unit composition rules.

As I said, I've seen both interpretations. It's not clear from the unit entry whether the word 'must' implies that it's an 'only' or 'at least' situation. There are three possibilities I can see for how this unclear rule could be read.

The first interpretation that the rule is like Ork Boyz, and that the unwritten expansion of the rule is 'For every ten [full] Gretchen you must take [at most] one: Runtherd' is clearly wrong. 

I don't think anyone would argue that you could have 30 gretchen and 1 runtherd. They would have written that rule as 'may take' instead of 'must take'. GW is at least consistent about their use of may/must.

Your interpretation is that the formal expansion of the rule would be 'For every ten [full] Gretchen you must take [exactly] one: Runtherd'. 

In this case, 10/1 to 19/1, 20/2 to 29/2, and 30/3 are breakpoints for unit size. You begin with buying some number of gretchen (at least 10) per normal unit composition, then determine that you must bring exactly some number of runtherds based on the number of full 10 gretchen blocks you've purchased.

The Army Builder interpretation expands this way: 'For every ten [full] Gretchen you must take [at least] one: Runtherd'. 

Here, the logic is that you can choose to purchase some number of Runtherds and some number of gretchen per normal unit composition rules, so long as you meet the requirement that for every 10 full gretchen, there is 1 corresponding runtherd. In this case, from 10 to 19 gretchen, you can have any number from 1 to 3 runtherds. From 20 to 29 gretchen, 2 or 3 runtherds are acceptable. And with 30 gretchen, you can only have 3 runtherds.

There's also some people who feel that since it does not actually explicitly specify that '[full]' that we're both assuming, that you need to take your second and third runtherd when you take the 11th and 21st gretchen respectively. I don't personally agree with that, since GW is at least usually pretty good about specifying 'or part thereof'. However, they're not 100% consistent on that either, and the logic that each runtherd can control 'upto' 10 gretchen does have some appeal.

If the codex entry read 'For every 10 full gretchen you must have one and only one Runtherd' there would be no question you are correct. If it read 'Every Runtherd purchased allows upto 10 gretchen to be purchased' there would be no question that the Army Builder interpretation is correct. Likewise, if they separated the point cost for the Runtherd on its own line and simply made the qualifier on a separate line, it would also be clear that the Army Builder interpretation is correct, since by the normal composition rules you could buy the runtherds, and the note would simply ensure you had the right number.

Personally, I just wish GW would hire a technical documentation specialist to go over all their rules for consistent formal language using something like the RFC2119 vernacular document used in a lot of software. Lay out the rules for what 'for each' 'must', 'may', 'and/or', etc mean explicitly and how they interact. Then FAQ/rewrite every codex entry using the same fully specified formal wording in a consistent fashion. A competent technical writer with access to the dev team to clarify the existing murky situtations could probably do all the existing codexes in a month or two tops.

But we're getting rather far afield from nidzilla tactics.


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