40k Metrics - Tyranid Edition

Nikephoros over on Bringer of Victory has posted up about 40k Metrics. His idea was to work out sum statistics for the whole army and see how that compared to other competitive armies. There were four scores he has been working out -

DMS - Dead Marines in one shooting phase.
DMCC - Dead Marines in one assault phase (assuming you charge)
DRpG - Penetrating hits on Rhinos in five turns of shooting.
DLRpG - Penetrating hits on Land Raiders in five turns of shooting.
Those armies he looked at got scores in the following ranges.
DMS = 19-22, DMCC 15-45, DRpG 60-82, DLRpG 17-34.

As Kirby suggested I have added in the average Spawn of the Tervigon which does help to bolster the MEQ killing of the lists. Since we are generating numbers assuming best possible conditions all Gaunts are assumed to have Poison and Furious Charge from mummy.


So lets see how the Tyranids compare...
Nidzilla
Unit. DMS .. DMCC .. DR pG .. DLR pG .
Tyrant 2.53.717.923.47
Guard x303.5650
Hive Guard x62.222200
Tervigon x22.223.3316.675.56
Spawn x453.7511.2500
Dev-Gaunts2.52.500
Gaunts0.832.500
Stealers 2x508.338.330
T-Fex x24.563.33258.89
Total18.5840.5197.0817.92
Weak at shooting Marines (no surprise there). We only just outstrip the Space Wolves in melee and fall woefully short of the Orks score of 45 MEQ in a turn. The one surprising feature is the ability to kill APC's and a score matching the Wolves on killing Raiders. So both the numbers and experience show we can get them out of their tin cans and eat them in combat.
EDIT: Adding the Spawn has taken our MEQ killing (shooting and melee) score up to almost the same level as Dashofpepper's Ork list.

Swarm
I used Jay Woodcock's Adepticon 2011 list and to take it up to a 2k list for comparison added more Genestealers; Toxic Sacs to one brood & Gargoyles; Talons to the second Tervigon.
Unit. DMS .. DMCC .. DR pG .. DLR pG .
Tervigon x22.223.3322.217.4
Spawn x453.7511.2500
Hive Guard x62.222200
Zoanthropes5.50.57.646.11
Stealers x40022.22300
Tox-stealers x20016.67150
Gargoyes x252.087.7800
Total15.7863.7594.8513.51
Well we finally get a good score for Melee and our shooting does not suffer much thanks to the Zoanthropes having AP 3. The list is still good at killing APC's but really suffers against Raiders (especially once Psy-hoods come into play) with only two units that can penetrate them. Hive Guard do have a chance of immobilising Raiders, but it is still not great.

Tyranid Fex-star Analysis here.

Comments

  1. Unknown22 June 2011 at 17:01

    I've been asking Nike to do this on both my and Purg's Nid lists so it's good to see them coming through.

    With the Nidzilla list, what are you running? Tyrants I think are on the downfall currently and I'd expect to see more Primes with points put elsewhere (more Hive Guard/Zoans, Devgants, Raveners, Genestealers, etc.) so would love to see the numbers there.

    Also, did you include average spawned gants from each Tervigon?

    Anywho, some thoughts on the numbers. We knew DRPG was going to be high thanks to Hive Guard + T-Fexes, same with DLRPG when we count the MC ability in combat but there is a huge restriction in that...well it's combat.

    What we do notice is the huge disparity in shooting anti-infantry and melee anti-infantry which is something Tyranids have a hard time balancing. If they want good anti-mech (i.e. Hive Guard/T-Fexes), their shooting ability against Infantry is lower. More Termagants from the Tervigons is certainly going to help here but if you poop out first time around? You have a serious issue and even then, you're only getting a couple wounds from shooting at 12" range from the Termagants regardless.

    This is where Tyranids hurt a lot I think, balancing ranged anti-infantry and ranged anti-mech and there just aren't a lot of choices for ranged anti-infantry. Add in you're relying a lot on the T6/3+ of MCs (and some armies negate this quite well) and the majority of your anti-mech is tied up in 3-5 units (~2/3rds DRPG = Hive Guard) and you can see why Tyranids are a very good list but with some glaring issues for competitive play.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nikephoros22 June 2011 at 17:10

    Very cool. I definitely want to see the numbers with dual Primes in a list too.

    What makes me happy is that Nids are clearly NOT gimped vs. Mech lists. Nids' failure to 'be competitive' may come down to inability to gun down infantry rather than a weakness against Mech as is supposed by "common knowledge."

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lyracian23 June 2011 at 02:16

    @Kirby,
    If you can let me have yours and Purgs lists I will run the numbers. The Nidzilla list I used was the one on my army page. For reference -


    Nidzilla @2k
    Hive Tyrant w/ Quad Devourers, Armoured Shell, Old Adversary, Tyrant Guard w/ Whips x3
    Hive Guard 3 Broods x2
    Tervigon w/ Adrenals, Toxins, Catalyst, Clusters 2x1
    Termagant Brood w/ Devourer x10
    Termagant Brood x10
    Genestelaers w/ Toxic 2x5
    Tyrannofex w/ Rupture Cannon, Cluster Spines, Thorax Swarm (Beatles) 2x1

    I have not included spawned Gaunts as I was not sure the best way to deal with them. Putting down the average spawn sounds a good idea so I will edit that in later.

    I shall also get the Fex-star and some other list done tonight so we can have some more comparisons.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ghostin23 June 2011 at 03:59

    Very cool - interesting to see the lack of midrange shooty vs MEQ; and maybe a bit of the underlying reason GKs can give nids a rough time. Oddly enough, I've been trying to finalize my list for NOVA specifically trying to compensate for this shortfall, but having some issues with having enough troops. Here's the current variation; redundant catalyst and onslaught for flexibility, a fex-star w/bio-plasma and TL devs, but only 1 mid-grade cc unit in the stealers:

    Prime - bsx2, dev, regen
    hg x3
    hg x3
    zoan x3
    tervigon x2 - cat, onslaught, tox, ag, cluster
    term x10 - devs
    term x10 - fleshborers
    genestealers x14, tox, broodlord (14 total models)
    biovore x3
    carnifex x2 - TL devs/brainleech, bioplasma, frag spines
    1999pts

    I'd be interested to see how this scores, and your thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lyracian23 June 2011 at 07:43

    Fex-star lists here -
    http://lyracian.blogspot.com/2011/06/40k-metrics-tyranid-fex-star.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nameless24 June 2011 at 09:28

    Hey, interesting work.

    Based on the post from Kirby's blog I was directed here and thought I should develop an excel version to take into account every possible unit combination for the Tyranids.

    Anyway, I'm coming up with slightly different numbers than you are when shooting at the armour.

    Here is what I have

    Tyrant 2.6 3.7 15.6 5.2
    Guard x3 0 5.3 5.8 0
    Hive Guard x6 2.22 2 8.9 0
    Tervigon x2 5.9 14 16.7 5.6
    Dev-Gaunts 2.5 2.5 0 0
    Gaunts 0.8 2.5 0 0
    Stealers 2x5 0 6.7 12.5 0
    T-Fex x2 4 3.3 16.7 5.6
    Total 18 37.5 76.2 16.4

    This is assuming
    -22 spawned gaunts (someone over at the Hive ran a monte carlo simulation on it)
    -Each gaunt got TS4 and AG from a Tervigon
    -Shooting vs. armour was over 5 rounds and 1/3 (modified) hits were destroyed
    -Template = 4 hit; Small blast = 3 hits; Large blast = 5 hits (except for Av)

    Now comes the hard process of determining where the bugs are.

    I've noticed you had 20 DRpG for the hive guard. By my process, I get:
    6 (hive guard) x 2 (shots each) x 5 (turns) x 4/6 (chance to hit) x 4/6 (chance to pen Av10) = 26.7 Pens, 1/3 of which will be destroyed = 8.9

    Did you determine these numbers an alternative way?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lyracian24 June 2011 at 14:20

    Hi Nameless,
    While it takes an average of 3 penetrating shots to kill a Tank, we are actually measuring the total penetrating shots so you do not divide by 3. Secondly Rhinos are AV 11 not AV 10.

    Math on the Hive Guard is =
    12 shots x 4/6 to hit x 3/6 pen x 5 rounds = 20

    I recalled it being 22.5 Spawn per Tervigon so a pair of them will generate 45 babies during a game. Not much difference between 44 and 45 though. Do you have a link to the simulation data?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nameless25 June 2011 at 10:09

    Ahh, right, 11, not 10.

    I can provide it to you if you'd like to help me test it. The front end it a little, not completely user friendly, but I can talk you through it.

    Just let me know your email. It's a non-macro excel 2010 file.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Lyracian25 June 2011 at 11:00

    @Nameless,
    lyracian at yahoo dot co dot uk

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nameless26 June 2011 at 23:41

    Sent. Let me know your comments.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ghostin27 June 2011 at 13:57

    I'd be very interested to see that spreadsheet as well if that's okay - warlocke dot 21 at gmail.

    Been wanting to throw a bunch of lists at this, starting with Crispy's (from hyv3mynd's profile here (http://synaps3.blogspot.com/2011/04/hive-commander-profile-crispy.html). That should help point us at where the breaklines are. Obviously he can be competitive with his lists, but most people probably couldn't; do the numbers bear that out, and how fine can it be cut?

    ReplyDelete

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