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Hi there. Been using the internet lately, and that has led me to a lot of information about the nid codex. While the points costs in some cases may be unclear, and the final ruling on a few things is also unclear, the overall form that the book is going to be taking should be obvious to anyone who has also been using the internet.

I've noticed Robin has been very tricky in the application of the spore pod. There are an important group of models that are fantastically good, but can't have them. That creates a list design schism. In a good way... Basically, there are good units that have to walk and there are good units that can deep strike. The challenge when we all start designing lists for real is going to be how much of each type of unit we want...

I think I should just show you a list, and talk about the units in it in real layman's terms for folks who haven't been hunting down rumors. All of these lists are very close to 1750, based on rumors, just to get a sense of how they'll line up against your own armies.

First, off... the most natural list for veteran nid players is the "all foot list"

hive tyrant with a heavy venom cannon, old adversary, warp scream, dominate
2x tyrant guard with lash whips

3x hive guard

3x hive guard

2x hive guard

10x termagants

10x termagants

tervigon with crushing claws and catalyst

tervigon with crushing claws and catalyst

tyrannofex with capsule cannon

tyrannofex with capsule cannon

If we just look at this list in comparison to the old three sniperfex, three dakkafex, two hive tyrant with guard and some gaunts lists from the current codex, we see that it has more T6 wounds with 48 total. It is MUCH better at taking out transports from range, AND it is significantly more nasty in CC. It has less anti-infantry shooting, but in the current age of transport spam. That is an acceptable trade off, in my opinion.

With four strength 10 shots at BS3 48" range and one strength 9 blast at 48" range, alongside sixteen strength 8 shots at BS4 with a 24" range, transport based armies will need to work very quickly to remove your shooting. All of that shooting is coming from the T6 platforms, so removing it is easier said than done. The troop situation is much much better as well. The tervigon's can act as a transport themselves. You can risk some early births of more scoring units until one of them runs out. Then just wait until the tervigon is about to lose its last wound before creating one more scorer. Focus fire on enemy mobility, as you slowly crunch forward, by the time the game has ended you will have slowly crossed the table center and onto enemy objectives. If people decide to take the fight to you, then you have a tyrant and guard unit with preferred enemy and lash whips and also two tervigons with preferred enemy and crushing claws to counter charge with.

But what is missing? There are no trygons or mawlocs? No spore pods at all? No zoanthropes? There isn't anything dynamic about the army. It is shoty, and resilient, but thats about it.

"But I want to rip peoples faces off!" you say? Well, then there is this...

alpha warrior with boneswords, deathspitter and adrenal glands

3x zoanthrope in a pod

2x zoanthrope in a pod

deathleaper

4x warriors 4x deathspitters 4x adrenal glands in a pod

10x genestealers + broodlord with scything talons

10x genestealers + broodlord with scything talons

mawloc with adrenal glands

mawloc with adrenal glands

mawloc with adrenal glands

This entire army begins in reserve. You have a +1 to reserve rolls from the deathleaper, and you just plan to land with as much gas as possible and shred people.

There is MUCH more to this list than just face ripping CC. It is actually quite infuriating from an objective scoring standpoint. The death leaper and the three mawlocs can take last turn and pop up underneath a unit that thought it was scoring an objective, push it aside and contest that objective. They will be a top priority for your opponent for that reason. the deathleaper also has a VERY important role to play in support of the zoanthropes. Since almost all of your anti-transport shooting comes from the zoanthropes, it is very important that they get their psychic powers off. The deathleaper has a rule that allows you to lower one enemy models leadership by D3. If you apply this to an enemy with a psychic hood, then that psychic hood is much less likely to go off. It also synergizes very well with shadow in the warp. It becomes next to impossible to get off a psychic power under shadow of the warp with leadership 8 or 7. The broodlords in the troop slot reinforce this combo and add a stacking negative to leadership, keeping those zoanthropes firing all game.

But this list has problems too. A bad reserves roll, a fleet officer, inquisitors with mystics, or just a series of bad scatters can swing a game very significantly against you. You will miss the hive tyrant here, you will certainly miss the tyrant guard, and who is going to score your home objective better than a tervigon?


Well, I've shown you two lists that play completely at odds with each other, but have the potential to be successful lists on their own. Both lists, however, have large blind spots. Chinks in their armor that can be exploited by certain lists. I think there is a potential solution... its the hybrid. By just cutting and pasting the most effective units from each of the lists, we can create something that starts on the table, but with some nasty reserves incoming at a fast rate.

hive tyrant with a heavy venom cannon, warp scream, dominate
2x tyrant guard with lash whips

3x hive guard

3x zoanthrope in a pod

deathleaper

10x termagants

tervigon with catalyst

4x warriors 4x deathspitters 4x adrenal glands in a pod

mawloc with adrenal glands

mawloc with adrenal glands

mawloc with adrenal glands

The deathleaper/mawloc/zoanthrope/warrior package waits in reserve, coming in on a 3+ or 2+ depending on if the tyrants reserve power stacks with the deathleapers. The ground pounding force is almost entirely T6 still, has great mobility-killing shooting, and will make efforts on turn 1 to clear out problem units like fleet officers, inquisitors or any retaliatory unit that is waiting to pounce on deep strikers. the speed and surprise of the reserve army is intact, but the first turn game influence and survivability of the ground pounder force has been included as well.

I think all three list paradigms are legitimate. A gret many people are going to want to completely reserve their army, and come down in a wacky, demonesque deep striking attack. I think this group is very aggressive, and is also putting themselves on the mercy of their reserves dice. Theres going to be plenty of old school ground pounders as well. Going the conservative route and flaunting their freakish resistance to damage. I think these player run the risk of being too predictable and slow against some opponents. The hybrid types of list certainly lose redundancy from each of the other archetypes, but does well to cover the weakness of them too. This list type is my favorite, but it is clearly less focused than the others, which makes it more challenging to play with.

I am just so excited about how this book is laid out. Its not an all drop pod no brainer army, it isn't a ground pounder either... it isn't 'fast' but it isn't 'slow'. There are just so many personal touches a list builder can put on his list and still seemingly be competitive. I'm really looking forward to buying a codex and finalizing these lists, and making some more as well.

Thanks for reading. And please refrain from the "Isn't it too early to talk about nids?" comments. I appreciate that you might not have gathered as much information from rumor threads as I have, but just know that many of us have been scouring rumor threads for months now, and have an almost complete picture of what the codex units are and a rough idea of what everything costs as well. The contents of all of these list concepts may certainly change when I have a codex in hand, but I am very confident that the all-reserve/all-on-table/hybrid choice will be present. And if you have any thoughts about those three list types, I'd love to hear about it.

Shep,
Agree with you it really isn't too early to talk about Tyranid tactics - from what I've read, I'm really excited about the new book and all the different possibilities that it has out there. Trying to avoid the "cookie cutter" lists, which WH Fantasy has really fallen into, I think the Tyranid book will allow folks to go with a ton of different combos which can be really competitive.
I really like your deepstriking list, as it definately has the potential to infuriate alot of opponents with objective grabbing - I'll post a list I'm thinking about running below.
The only problem I have with all 3 lists is the lack of troop/scoring units. Although you have alot of units which can contest, you basically only have 2 or maybe 3 which can claim an objective by themselves. If I played the lists, I'd either be shooting at A. 20 Termagaunts, B. Genestealers + Warriors or C. 10 Termagaunts and 4 Warriors. Of the choices, I'd see the genestealers and warriors combo as the hardest to kill, but once dead, I'd only have to take 1 objective to win the game. Of course, killing those guys is easier said than done with all the big nasties dropping in or popping up from the ground, but its definatley a risk.

Here's a list I was looking at at 1850 points - don't have all the different upgrades and all, but figured I would leave myself 50-75 points left over for upgrades:

Hive Tyrant w/Heavy Venom Cannon, Life Leech, Warp Scream, Vicious Mind
2 Tyrant Guard with lash whips
2 Zoanthropes w/Mycetic Spore
24 Termagaunts
24 Termagaunts
12 Genestealers
12 Genestealers
3 Warriors
3 Warriors
3 Raveners
3 Raveners
3 Raveners
Trygon (or Mawloc)
Trygon (or Mawloc)

I'm really torn with the Mawloc/Trygon decision, as bad reserve rolling/bad deepstriking can nullify their usefullness. As well, on a 5 turn game how many times the Mawloc can pop up to kill things vice the Trygon with it's incredible stat line. The increase in reserve rolling from Deathleaper and the Hive Tyrant I doubt will stack, as well as I believe Deathleaper has to already be on the board for the reserve bonus to work. But - if I run the Mawlocs, the basic strategy will be to flank in the Genestealers and either a brood of Warriors or Termagaunts, while the Mawlocs can pop up on units in the middle of the board which are hiding from the Genestealers. The Zoanthropes can deepstrike in to pop a landraider or something with their Str 10 lance shot, while the Hive Tyrant w/Guards will hep provide synapse coverage for the large brood of Termagaunts. Raveners - either deep strike in to take advantage of their beast movement while the other warriors will move to take pot shots at units and claim objectives.
If I go with Trygons, I'd be limited on unit upgrades, but would have some better deepstrike and charge in next turn units or simply fleet them across the board and go after expensive units.
Thoughts?

Good stuff Matt... I think you overdid it with termagants. It has been pointed out to me that their guns are in fact 12" range. So a unit that wasn't really any good in the 4th edition book, didn't really get buffed beyond slightly better synapse, offensively, they don't do jack. I think you could make one of those termagant units ten strong and make the other unit a tervigon, you'll probably end up with around the same number of termagants by the end of the game, and you get a free scoring MC out of it. You aren't running broodlords in your genestealer units and thats pretty surprising to me to. I really like his psychic powers, and depending on his cost, he can make up for running a slightly smaller stealer unit with his extra wounds. How are your warriors equipped? I've been running the numbers on raveners, I really had my heart set on adrenal gland ravs, and they can't have them. Max strength 4 really changes their role, and i don't really like the fact that they are more of a dedicated anti-infantry unit. It is so hard for me to understand why I shouldn't take the equivalent costed warrior unit with adrenal glands in a spore pod, and get a scoring unit out of it. However, in missions like apocalypse and planetstrike attacker, where every unit scores, then raveners with rending claws, point for point, make the better choice.

Keep in mind that both the tervigon and any unit of termagants that she gives birth to also score. The tervigon has 6 T6 wounds. Pretty resilient scoring unit I should say.

In my pure spore pod list, I'm definitely troop light. I'd probably switch something for another genestealer unit if it were to become an actual list. But for the gunline list. 20 termagants and 2 tervigon are more than enough scoring. Two six wound monstrous creatures and an average of five 10-strong fearless termagants is all I expect to need.

The mawloc/trygon debate is raging in my head too. One of the real clinchers for me and the mawloc was the already described objective bump. AP2 is nice on the blast, but the mawloc can obviously still mishap by going off the board or onto friendly models/impassable terrain. The trygon has that safe entry point, and fights much better, but isn't any more survivable, is more expensive, and can be effectively controlled with a proper deep strike formation. There is something VERY seductive about the mawloc's ability to just say "No, I'M here... you are just going to have to move. Get that strength 6 hit on rear armor of the tanks and then completely disrupt their deployment. You could be pushing models out of area terrain, out of screening cover, you might be bunching them up for blast/template and you will likely be pushing them closer to your assault units. There is even the little bit that says "Units that can't be moved off of the template are destroyed." I take that to mean that if you had a land raider surrounded by say a hormagaunt squad, and the mawloc popped up from under the land raider, and the land raider couldn't move in any direction enough to get clear of the blast marker it is removed. I think I'll take those 40 points and give away the three attacks for that ability. I'm not 100% sure if the mawloc is indeed weaponless, or if he has dual scytals . If he does, then the WS differential is pretty unimportant, if he doesn't, well the trygon is clearly a better fighter. But he needs to be, because once he shows up, he isn't doing anything but shooting and fighting, and once he is locked in a CC, he is either winning it or dying. The mawloc isn't going to dazzle anyone with a smashmouth CC round, but 67% of the time he will successfully hit and run, and then its back into the dirt for him.

Between the three, I like the standard trygon the least. The shooting isn't nearly as good as the mawloc blast, and he gets 3-4 more strength 6 hits in CC. The alpha, however, puts out enough strength 5 shots to become a reasonable shooter, and another hard to remove shadow in the warp looming over the enemy and good synapse as well is worth it in some builds. It means they can skimp on warriors and buy more genestealers and hormagaunts.

Hey Shep i am with you and the Mawloc.
I think he is tactically more interesting then the straight forward (alpha) Trygon. And he is cheaper in a pretty much expensive army.

Ah and btw the Mawloc doesnt have Scything Talons...

I like the mawloc more because of its template weapon and it looks way cooler than a trygon.

I noticed in all the listed posted none of them have gargoyles. What do you guys think about running 60 gargoyles as a flank or to provide cover saves to others.
I haven't thought up any lists yet, but gargoyles with poison seem like a pretty good choice.

Shep i like your hybrid list, have you thought of using more lictors for better reserve rolls or deep striking within 6" of a lictor?

I like how this new codex gives us so many options and tons of tactics to try.

Yeah I'm still trying to figure out cost on the Hormogaunts (scything talon guys) - haven't found it online and the white dwarf issue wasn't much of a help. I'm leery about depending on the Terigon to spawn troops as if it rolls doubles, its done spawning for the rest of the game - with my luck it'll pop out 6 or something and then be done.

Still playing the guessing game on different points cost on different stuff, but I'm here's a little better one I'm looking at:

1. Hive Tyrant w/Heavy Venom Cannon, Scything Talons, Life Leech, Warp Scream, Vicious Mind: 200 (ish). I can't see paying 40 points for a better armor save for it when the Tyrant Guards have the lash whips and they're all T6. 3+ save should be good enough to get them in combat.

2. 2 Tyrant Guard: 120 pts. Soak up wounds for the Hive Tyrant and provide lash whips. The interesting piece will be to see if the lash whips still lower the initiative of a model who is directly attacking the Hive Tyrant and not the Guard - should still work since the Hive Tyrant isn't an independent character.

3. 2 Zoanthropes: 110 pts. Probably split these up into 2 so they can do a better job at tank busting. Worried about losing them to High Str weapons at the start, but 3+ invul and 18" range on the lance shot should keep them alive to take out a land raider or not.

4. 3 Warriors: 90 pts. I like to keep them cheap, plus they come with the scything talons and can swap out the devourers for rending claws for free. Synapse creatures and hopefully people are concentrating on the big bugs instead. With having the Vicious Mind power, I can outflank with one of these if I want.

5. 3 Warriors: 90 pts. Same as above.

6. 10 Genestealers: 160 pts. Decided to splurge and give them scything talons so they'll get to reroll any 1s to hit. Definately use for outflanking. The broodlord is tempting, but not having a power weapon and just rending makes him a little expensive. His hypnotise power is interesting, but since it looks like it only works on 1 model, I'm not really sold.

7. 10 Genestealers: 160 pts. Same as above.

8. 3 Raveners: 105 pts. Thinking about just giving them rending claws, which will complement their scything talons nicely. I love the models, plus still having the beast movement makes them really fast. Deep striking them or not - will have to see based on the enemy, but I'm looking for them to be more close combat oriented vice shooty.

9. 3 Raveners: 105 pts. Same as above.

10. 3 Raveners: 105 pts. Same as above.

11. Mawloc: 170 pts. The piece that I think will be nice (and will have to confirm in the codex) is the part about them burrowing back down at the end of the Tyranid movement phase to autopop up the following phase. Now having the +1 to reserves from the Hive Tyrant is going to be big on this one, but if the burrowing happens at the end of the phase, they should be able to pop up from the ground, do their template weapon attack and then go back under without being shot at. If it's an autopop up the following turn, then I'm sold on them.

12. Mawloc: 170 pts. Same as above.

This leaves me with about 265 points to spare. Now if I take the Terigon as a HQ choice (hopefully doesn't count as a troop choice) for about 160 pts (can't remember what the catalyst pyschic power costs), then that'll give me about 105 to spend on termagaunts. Yeah their shooting sucks, but on the same token, I'm looking at them as more of a meat shield/scoring units. Should be able to get about 20 with points left over, which combined with the catalyst power makes them pretty durable (4+ cover most of the time spread out combined with Feel No Pain).

All in all, have the capability for 2 Mawloc blasts a turn, 2 units of genestealers coming in from the sides, a unit of warriors coming in from the sides, a durable meat shield with feel no pain, a termagaunt crapping Terigon, 3 units of deep striking or potential 24" charge raveners and a couple tank hunting zoanthropes. With all the units coming in on reserves, I am worried about the potential for bad rolling, but I think that the threat of outflanking genestealers will keep most folks bottled up in the center of the board and allow me the chance to really utilize the Mawloc templates. Not as shooty as I'd like, but with the amount of cover saves and such in the game now I'm not convinced shooting is the most effective way anymore. Thoughts?

Mattbranb wrote:Yeah I'm still trying to figure out cost on the Hormogaunts (scything talon guys) - haven't found it online and the white dwarf issue wasn't much of a help.

6 Points per Horma.

Mattbranb wrote:
11. Mawloc: 170 pts. The piece that I think will be nice (and will have to confirm in the codex) is the part about them burrowing back down at the end of the Tyranid movement phase to autopop up the following phase. Now having the +1 to reserves from the Hive Tyrant is going to be big on this one, but if the burrowing happens at the end of the phase, they should be able to pop up from the ground, do their template weapon attack and then go back under without being shot at. If it's an autopop up the following turn, then I'm sold on them.

If the rules allow for Rubber Loc-ing™ there is going to much wailing and gnashing of teeth from everyone not playing Nids. And everyone who is playing Nids should probably spam them. That would give you 4-5 of those great templates a game from each one, plus a guaranteed objective contester. One would hope that after the silliness of Rubber Hawks that GW would have made sure this loophole was firmly closed. It's GW we're talking about though, so I'm going to assume that Rubber Loc-ing™ is what we'll get. Dirty, dirty, dirty. I love it.

Well you could only get 3 a turn as it's 1 template per guy with a max out of your heavy support choices. Of course, it would be balanced by them coming in via Reserves (seen it rolled badly the entire game for some players), they can scatter, and they're expensive. Still I think combining them with so many units that can outflank and force you to bunch up in the center (12 man genestealer squads fleeting and assaulting you from the edges just ruins anyone's day) will make for some nasty combos. Plus its a new GW model which is expensive - they have to make them good! (Kind of like stegadons in Fantasy).

I'm kinda liking a Carnifex in a pod w/Bioplasma (10pt plasma cannon). I was thinking 2 of these and either a Mawloc or a Trygon. I also like the idea of an outflanking Tervigon that starts breeding babies turn 2 when it comes in (assuming deathleaper/lictor and hive tyrant abilities stack). Nothing quite like splitting people attention. And i'm currently torn between either:

-Deathleaper
-2 Zoans in a pod
-3 Hive Guard

or

-Deathleaper/Lictors
-6 Hive Guard

So many decisions.....

There is high competition in the Elite and Heavy slots, while HQ and Troops seem pretty easy to determine what you would go for.

Which leaves FA for me... it seems sort of meh. Like an after thought in terms of importance to the army in general.

I was thinking more like:

HT 200 ish points of upgrades
2 Guard

3 Zoens.
3 Zoens or 3 Hive Guard.
(I like the Zoen's flexibility and durability, but the Hive Guard are undeniable in the transport popping department).

14 Termiguants
14 Termiguants
Tervigon, Cata
Tervigon, Cata
The basic scoring bunkerish setup.

Standard Fex, bio
Standard Fex, bio
Adding extra umpf when combat is met... or just a general area denial around the flanks.

For around 1500, a slogging army. Untested obviously from my lack of details...but it seems like a viable foot army... something I don't see too often in my area at least.

Maybe the fex don't fit very well, the Maw/Try look good for disruption and adding a little 'speed' for the army.

Do the Tervigons have to count as a troop or can you count them as a HQ choice? They are so temping, but that doubles rule scares me for keeping my troop counts low to depend on them creating scoring units.

It's a 'bonus' whether it backfires or not.
At the very least it's a scoring monstrous creature...anything else is icing IMO.

Mattbranb wrote:Do the Tervigons have to count as a troop or can you count them as a HQ choice? They are so temping, but that doubles rule scares me for keeping my troop counts low to depend on them creating scoring units.

Scary only if what you think you should be getting is a new unit every turn. What you're actually getting is something like 1.6 new units per Tervigon per game on average. Once you start playing it like that you'll see what it's good for. Pooping out a unit to block a potential charge the following turn sounds like a great idea, as does pinching a loaf in turn 5 or 6 to add an objective grabber that the opponent only has a couple of rounds to target (essentially splitting one troop into two). I'm sure there's lots of others, but those are the two that occured to me in the two seconds of thought I gave it. I think it's pretty friggin' cool.

You could also spam tervigons and have five of them but that is a tad bit lame.

acreedon wrote:You could also spam tervigons and have five of them but that is a tad bit lame.

You are lame for sayings thats lame!

Farmer wrote:

acreedon wrote:You could also spam tervigons and have five of them but that is a tad bit lame.

You are lame for sayings thats lame!

It's the new 40 assault termy army/nob biker list. Totally unstoppable depending on who your opponent is, and not all that fun to play against. At least it's considerably stranger than anything else in the field.

The new nids are taking over Dakka.

ZacktheChaosChild wrote:The new nids are taking over Dakka.

I'm looking forward to battle the new Nids with my mech Eldar.
They always got defeated.
I see no way that the new codex will change this.

I guess we'll see about that. The Dex does have a lot more AT in it, so it might not be such cake walk. Dropping the Ld on a lists Farseer is pretty cool too (unless you don't have a farseer, at which point you shrug and go on with things). Being abe to DS that AT might prove to be pretty tasty.

While we're talking about the Mawloc, does anyone know if they included a caveat that the tunnel template doesn't affect skimmers and jump infantry (like JotWW)? If it does then the Mawloc gets even sexier.

wuestenfux wrote:

ZacktheChaosChild wrote:The new nids are taking over Dakka.

I'm looking forward to battle the new Nids with my mech Eldar.
They always got defeated.
I see no way that the new codex will change this.

Hive Gaurd
Trygon
Mawlock
Zoanthrope
Spore pods
Scoreing MC's.

ShumaGorath wrote:It's the new 40 assault termy army/nob biker list. Totally unstoppable depending on who your opponent is, and not all that fun to play against. At least it's considerably stranger than anything else in the field.

Fortunately for everyone else... The tervigon itself is not really that devastating, with low number of moderate strength of attacks and low weapon skill. Its termagant buffs come at a very dangerous cost. Basically, as I have found out in a playtest game... if your termagants are close enough to get the tervigon's goodies, then they are close enough to feel the pain of his loss. If you don't have another tervigon nearby, everything within 6" is gonna lose about 5 models, and they are all going to have to take morale tests. You can have your entire troop compliment taken out in a couple rounds of shooting if you aren't playing right.

Even with furious charge and poison, termagants aren't a good unit. Especially in MSU form. The real goodness of the tervigon is in doing what all good troops need to be able to do, survival. With six T6 wounds and a 3+ save, its got a nurgle-esque survivability. And with the FNP that it can either take itself if need be, or give to another unit, it has a good meta-list function.

In my test game, the two tervigons managed to combine to kill one land speeder, and only because it deep struck right next to it. Between both I created just over 200 points of units. But of course it is 200 points of one of the worst units in the codex. They score and that is great. but ultimately, tervigons are really just our new version of WoN, and although very good, and a staple for any foot based nid list, they aren't going to change how people play in the same way as nob bikers or fateweaver and bloodcrushers did.

Farmer wrote:

acreedon wrote:You could also spam tervigons and have five of them but that is a tad bit lame.

You are lame for sayings thats lame!

but i could totally seeing myself using it

Shep, I like your thinking about hybrid lists. I'm kicking around two hybrid ideas, one being lots of drop with some slog, and the other being more slog with fewer drop elements. The obvious question is just how many sloggers/scorers I need. I'm encouraged that you feel the Tervigons are that solid, because I'd really like to be more drop-heavy and throw so many hitters at my opponent that he forgets about the Tervigon and company sitting on the objectives.

I'm also kicking around an all-drop list, because I think it'll be lots of fun and still be able to hold its own. I'm done with all-slog. That whole dynamic is just stale to me after umpteen years.

BTW, still soooo glad for the general tone here. I can't take some of the Warseer posters anymore. Six months from now they're still going to be complaining about the loss of cheap Dakkafexes...

So here is what i've been thinking:

2xAlpha Warriors w/lw and bs

2x3 hive guard

2xtervigon w/catalyst

2x10 termagaunts

2x18 hormagaunts w/poison and pod

2xMawloc

1x2 Carnifex w/bioplasma and frag grenades

this is the list i'm gonna playtest for 2k, thoughts?

dang double posts......

how do you guys feel about gargoyles?

@Hulksmash:
Where will the alphas go?

@Acreedon:
They look cool model and rules wise... but I'll be sad if there's no option to get them as troops.

Nice for disruption and supporting Harpies and Winged warriors, but all that looks nichey to me as it looks right now.

In the hormagaunt squads that are poddibg in. i specifically didn't bring any modifiers so that all the bad guys in tanks should be out of the tanks by the time i land

I've been asked a couple times about gargoyles... unfortunately, even considering their massive buff and massive cost slashing... I don't think they ahve a place n the tourney lists I'm going to write.

Nids have a few units that are CC specialists that can handle any model under the sun that isn't a vehicle. Hormagaunts with poison, genestealers with poison, warriors with deathspitters and adrenals, raveners with rending claws... Three of these units are actually troop choices. With high initiative, lots of attacks, and in some cases with re-rolls, these poisoned units can handle IG platoons all the way up to C'tan. If it isn't an armor value, nids have it covered.

When it comes to armor, only the adrenal warriors/genestealers, lictors and the MCs can handle it in CC, and only the zoanthropes, hive guard, carnifex, harpy, hive tyrant and tyrannofex could be considered ranged anti-tank. The harpy, hive tyrant and carnifex merely suppress armor from range.

What I'm basically getting at is that unless you expect every opponent to be on foot, and succeptable to mass fleshborer and 'fantasy poison' CC, then you are going to need to spend your non-troop points on MCs, lictors, zoanthropes, or hive guard.

If you are going for ground-pound... fexes, hive tyrants and hive guard just swallow points at an alarming rate... And if you are going for an assault swarm, zoanthropes, deathleaper/lictors and mawlocs/trygons are just as spendy.

It isn't that they arn't fairly costed, or not good at doing anything, its just that vehicles are so prevalent and the units that are excellent at taking out vehicles are so costly, that they just don't have a home.