I've recently decided based on a few discussion topics going on that I would try to add some content to this site. It has been stated quite a few times in those discussions that a lot of the better known and consistant players don't post often in the Tactics/Army list forums anymore due to static to noise ratio's and the feeling of futility sometimes found when talking to people in these Topics.

So I've decided I'm going to do a living tactica that I'll up keep with kernals of wisdom, army lists, strategies, unit reviews, and general playstyles that can help new and new edition Nid players not get lost in the Nids suck/Carnies got shafted chanting that is the internet currently. I'm all for people posting their views on anything I've covered, haven't covered, army lists, questions you'd like to see an answer to, and anything generally helpful even if it's a different slant on my views on units or you think I'm completely wrong. I'll be adding the good content which is backed by well founded and clear reasoning. Since it's all going to be experienced based I don't doubt we'll have different takes on quite a few things but I think it'll be worth it to give more than one view on everything. I'll also be crediting those who's information get's added so that they can see how their also contributing to the community cause everyone like a little recognition Remember though this Tactica will be more focussed on the competitive nature of the Tyrannid Codex and how it relates to tournaments and competitive gaming groups. Words like Spam/Cheese/Broken/OP/and Tier don't really have a place in this conversation.

Green will be for credited updates by other posters.

Review of the Book:

I really, really like the new book. The amout of threats you can put on the table right now is almost unbelievable. In an edition where the old Nidzilla would have lost 3-4/7 MC's on turn one we can now safely give those armies the finger if built right. So I'm gonna do a unit by unit cause right now I have the time and I have recently decided that once in a while I'm going to try and contribute some solid tactical thoughts. I am going to stick with units I have familiarity with and use. So:

HQ's:

Primes: Awesome. There are really 2 reasons/tactics to use these in a competitive way.

1) (Reason)-He's cheap as hell for an HQ choice in a book where all the other ones start at 2x his cost.
2) (Tactic)-2 of them can be taken and added to a Carnifex squad of 2. This will give the squad as a whole a cover save (Half+ aren't MC's and are in cover) if they are behind gaunts which will also create a larger unit to hide other MC's behind.

Hive Tyrant: Also Awesome but I've mainly used the winged Variety. Basically Paroxysm and Leech are required. Mine currently is outfitted with 1 set of TL-Devourers and LS/BS with Old Adversary (Preferred enemy w/in 6"). I might be changing this up but probably not as I'm almost always using psychic powers if I'm in range to shoot so 2 sets of Dev's would almost be wasted. This guy is generally a support unit/fire magnet because people fear him. He also generally runs near my Gargoyles. I've toyed with the idea of one on foot armed pretty much the same way with a single guard (go coversave's!) and Old Adversary to turn Crushing Claw Carnies and Tervies into beasts but that's a true old style Nidzilla that might not fair as well nowadays.

Tyrant Guard: These guys are a necessary evil. If at any point you are thinking about running a tyrant without wings or a swarmlord, go ahead and alocate another 60 points for one of these. Just one will unlock a cover save for you tyrant against all those ap 1, 2, and 3 weapons. Whether you use more than one or not, it's up to you. (Omega_Warlord)

Swarmlord:I wanted to put this guy in his own catagory. Alot of people see a hefty price tag of 280 and go "No way!" At lower point levels he starts to chew up a large part of your army.The swarmlord is primarily a force multiplier. He can do so many things such as give any one unit within 18" acute sense, (great for hive guard), perfered enemy (great for anybody), or furiour charge. This is not a psychic power, he can then use two more powers each turn and has all four that the tyrant has. He also bolsters any reserve army and outflanking army. His increased close combat abilities can make even TH/SS termies cry. Unlike them however, he can't get a super tough metal box to drive him places. His primary weakness is his speed, but he has to have some drawback. I really suggest using him in a reserve heavy/outflank heavy list, even though he is one that would walk on. (Omega_Warlord)

Tactic:

1) Use w/Tyrant Guard armed with a Lashwhip for those pesky Mephiston issues (Janthkin)

Tervigons: Never as HQ's at 1,500+. We'll cover them in troops where they belong.

Parasite of Montrax: I like him. Fast synapse that can create more units. Capable of instant killing multi-wound models when he rends. He's really more of a support and I generally join him to a unit of Gargoyles. Which makes them a priority that can help spare my downrange stuff from more firepower. I only recommend him in a list w/25+ Gargoyles and probably the Flyrant mentioned above if the point value isn't low.

Elites:

Hive Guard: This is pretty much my elites. Either 2 units of 3 or 3 units of 2. These guys are the most consistant anti-tank in the list. Also more T6 wounds that get cover saves isn't half bad either.

Zoans: Absolute gak. I get the concept. But since for 3 of them in a pod I can get 4 Hive guard I'll never be sold. Here's the thing a lot of people miss when it comes to Zoans. They start to miss the additional costs for making sure the Zoans arrive in a reasonable amount of time. Most people add Hive Commander which now made that unit cost as much as the landraider you wanted it to kill. Add in the complete unreliability for Psychic Test, To Hit, To Pen, and Damage roll and then tell me 3 is enough. Especially against a marine who is going to have a hood in a competitive environment. Ah and standard SM's with Nullzone make them cry. Don't get me started about eldar and runes of warding.....(Disclaimer: This is heavily based on MC heavy armies that don't make heavy use of outflank/deepstrike/infiltration where consistancy is more important and target priority is made more difficult for you opponent by including other units)

One of the only way I even envision them useful with on foot with a prime as a secondary target with the prime taking an instant death hit or two for them. Distracting the enemy from the rest of your force. It has also been brought to my attention further into the thread that Zoans may have a place in a more reserved based Nid army as Hive Guard won't have the extra T6 MC's to draw off firepower in such a list and deepstriking Zoans may actually be useful here.

Lictors: Love them but I don't touch them unless it's a heavily comped event or just for funs. I have 3 awesomely converted ones and it's great to pop out and yell BOO! but they just don't have a place in a standard tournament format.

Deathleaper: Personally to expensive for me and he eats a slot I need so I have 0 experience with him. I'd be absolutely stoked if someone could fill this in with how they run him, why, and their success so far along with against what style of army. Flavius did remind me since I forgot to write it that this model is used primarily for psychic defense.

Tactic:

1)(Arleucs): even though expensive, is efficient against any list with a single psyker (anything but Wolves most of the time).
It can come in support of ymgarls, can be put aside to make a side shot on a support vehicle, then vanish to reappear hidden.
It's clearly not a fighting character, and should be kept safe.

2)(Kirsanth): Deathleaper is actually impossible to kill, until the last round when he can be contesting--and then only if the Tyranid player goes first. "Where'd it go!" allows Deathleaper to be removed any movement phase that Deathleaper is more than 1", and does not specify that it cannot be the same round as Chemelonic Skin. Also, Deathleaper automatically reappears each later round. This makes him perfect for contesting an "unreachable" objective and guaranteeing the LD penalty to a psycher for the whole game. Also, Deathleaper does not Deepstrike, which makes it almost impossible to stop--mystics don't help, for example, and it can be placed in upper levels of ruins, etc. It should be noted that he still impacts a chosen enemies leadership even if he isn't on the table.

Ymgarls:(Gorgon)

I really like them, and think they're competitive in the right army. Yes, they're a little random. However, their threat radius is shockingly large when you consider you take the diameter of the area terrain piece and then add the move, fleet and assault distance to that. They aren't complete beatsticks, but they work nicely as a scalpel against choice infantry targets and can easily multicharge transports and give you some valuable shakes and stuns. Experienced players will know this and deploy accordingly, but now you're playing mindgames with your opponent and hopefully creating other opportunities for yourself. And if he deploys first and denies you any decent deployment options for your Ymgarls, you can always just shrug and deploy them normally.

Tactic:
1) Something I like to do to give me a smidge of extra distance is to deploy them with just the edge of their bases on the area terrain base. The Dormant rule only says they need to be "within" area terrain, and I believe the RAW interpretation means that hanging the bases this way meets that qualification.

2) (Winterman)-Ymgarls can also surprise a mech opponent who gets a bit greedy with his shooting and remains stationary. Four attacks per model (so typically 28) auto hitting S4 rending attacks can tear up a parking lot something fierce. They might not pop transports but the shakens and stuns are almost as good. Since the threat is not present on the table, I have found many players don't account for it. It's also worth noting you can make them St5 for this as well. Less attacks but better for spreading between multiple vehicles to keep them from shooting.

General Uses (Lukus83)

Vehicle Hunting
Lets face it, the biggest problem all nid players have is mech IG. Av 12 on the front, and it feels like for every 1 you destroy there are another 2 to replace it. Ymgarls can come out and engage multiple vehicles (a great bonus that's often overlooked...hive guard and zoanthropes can only eliminate 1 vehicle a turn at best) without taking a casualty. Sure they take an elite slot, but I personally think that it's a spot well used. If combined with the Swarmlord give them furious charge. Throw in their unstable mutation +1 S and you are hitting on S6. Even if they don't wreck the vehicle chances are you can at least stun it and force that small unit full of plasma guns to disembark if they want to shoot.

Infantry Hunting
These guys are great for pulling small units off objectives too and scouring it clean, thus leaving your opponent to think about sending some units back from his primary wave. Another great thing about them is the fact that they *should* take no casualties on the way in. If you take the Swarmlord preferred enemy is a must. From a full unit with +1A you are looking at 40 attacks (should be hitting on 3's) with re-rolls. Not even storm shield bearing termies can stand up to that kind of assault. Another benefit that can often be overlooked is that you can choose where to engage the enemy. Avoid charging into cover, and usually there is a model or 2 out of area terrain where you can draw the rest of the enemy to you so you still strike at I6. Great for pulling large IG blobs sitting on an objective right out of position. Use their unit size to your advantage. I usually use them for what I call disruption. On the battlefield there are usually a few key units you wish to stop firing or manoeuvring. These guys can usually hold their own against the toughest of enemies and lock them down.


Troops:

Gaunts: Great. They are cheap. Can be modified to your taste. And most importantly open up Tervies for troops. Some styles of list have a place for Devourer armed Gaunts which for their points put out an ungodly number of shots. Other people like to keep it cheap and run a 10 man unit w/fleshborers. If you wanna run horde I don't recommend bumping these up insanely but some people like it. Just make sure the way you run them fits into the way your running your army. The choice on your gaunts should actually be the last choice after you've built the rest of your list.

Tervigons: F-ing Amazing. 6 T6 W's. Spawns more troops. Over 1,500 give Catalyst. Always upgrade for free to the large St5 Blast. Adrenal Glands and Toxic Sacs are a must. Generally this guy will run you 195. Totally acceptable for a MC that counts as scoring and makes more. These guys aren't lynch pins to your army but they are a very, very solid support unit that helps synergize your list. I'd avoid the crushing claws and talons unless your running something like that foot tyrant I talked about earlier. As the foot tyrant will give them re-rolls their attacks making the claws worth it.

Genestealers: I don't use these with any kind of regularity. But here is a style from Devian and Warboss Gutrip:7-strong plus Broodlord. Idea being a relatively cheap pressure unit with high enough numbers for survivability and low enough to help control the combat results.

Janth's take on Genestealers:
1) Very small (5-6) 'stealer units can't do much except try and outflank onto objectives (or kill Tau). Little value to poison.
2) Moderately-sized 'stealer units (8-12) can kill 1 unit; attrition will then drop them into category 1. Decent value to poison, as it helps against the harder targets (daemon princes, terminators).
3) Large 'stealer units (16-20) can kill 1 unit; attrition will then drop them into category 1. Larger size means you can infiltrate across the board, greatly increasing threat radius while still keeping a cover save. Little value to poison, as you probably have enough attacks for everything except full-sized ork squads.
4) Large 'stealer units with Catalyst support are insanely good; not only do you have the cover save/infiltrate advantages of large units, you've now also getting FNP against failed cover saves/cover denying weapons. My 18-man 'stealer unit w/FNP has repeatedly eaten a whole turn of Tau shooting, while still having 6-8 models survive.

Rippers: Don't use them. They can't score and they die instantly to way to many of the weapons out there. Only use I've found for them is making them with the Parasite which is nice because when Rippers start in the back field a decent unit of them (5+) can eat 90% of support infantry units.

Hormagaunts: I like them but unless your strapped for troops I heartily suggest doing Gargoyles instead. Hormagaunts just pay to many points for their upgrades which is unfortunate because if your running Tervies then regular gaunts are actually better in combat for a fraction of the cost. The loss of beasts really hurt this unit overall and it won't be a popular choice for a competitive army.

Tyrannid Warriors: At 1,500 they might have a place. In a nidzilla army they might also have a place as a distraction from your MC's. This is the only use I've found for them looking at it from every angle. Basically take 2 units of them as troops and make your opponent decide on killing them or your big bugs which are the actual threat. This can only be done if a) your opponent has impulse control issues and b) if you brought other scoring units because if you didn't then these guys aren't a distraction they're a target. Overall I'd say avoid them in non-comped events since the loss of the St6 Deathspitter hurt these guys something fierce.

Fast Attack:

Raveners:(Gorgon)

I like them because of something I've said here before -- they're surprisingly "plug and play." Because they have beasts movement instead of wings, they operate in a variety of army builds. They can advance cozily behind a screen in a slow slogging list, apply early pressure in a fast slogging list, and even deep strike for free in a drop list. Elite CC units are gonna beat them down. But they'll hold their own against the medium hitters. I've found medium to large broods to be better, as small broods tend to lose effectiveness quickly with a casualty or two. Larger broods can also help you set up multicharges of transports, which they can most definitely damage with rending claws. I've tried to find a use for their thorax weaponry, but they've always seemed too expensive for weapons that I rarely get to fire (because I'm running them). While I don't think Ravs are top-level competitive, IMO they're more solid than some people give them credit for and at the very least worth a look in mid-level competitive armies.

Harpy: Haven't used it but it has been talked up on a certain blue tactics blog. It requires a list built around it but it might have a use. Personally not my style and not something I have the spare points for in the rest of any of my lists.

Gargoyles: Amazing. Always add Poison and Adrenal glands. This makes them a whopping 8 points and on the charge they will: Strike first against MEQ, Auto-wound on a 6 to hit, Wound anything on a 4+, and Re-Roll to wound against MEQ's. This is also where that tyrant from earlier helps as then they re-roll to hit and normally you paroxysm the unit they attack so they hit on 3's. With the Parasite I've found them to be hell on wheels. Without him I stil think they are a steal and an excellent pressure unit for use against back field units. Large units of 20+ also generally allow you to string yourself so can choose to be in Synapse or not depending on where your going/attacking. Also an extremely resilient unit when you add FnP on them from a Tervigon.

(From Devian)Another way to outfit them is to only give them Adrenal glands as that enhances their speed and strength and can net you more bodies. In this case to me the extra bodies aren't worth it but some others find it a better way to go. This can be heavily dependent on your local meta as well.

Spore Mines: Don't use them but deployment denial is helpful. Basically if your list isn't squeeking for points these aren't a bad purchase. I can't say much on their uses but hopefully someone can add how/why/when they use them and how successful it's been for them against different armies.

Winged Warriors: Sigh...Great concept. Cool Conversion possiblities. But not really something I could get into...ever in a tournament environment. For fun, hells yeah. Basically all the same problems as warriors but they aren't scoring and they do move a bit faster. Oh, and they have a worse armor save.

Heavy Support:

Trygon: Amazing again. This guy eats entire MEQ squads and can put a hurtin on even large horde units like Ork Boyz though combat shouldn't happen unless they are down to around 14ish models if it can be helped. I've actually found that starting them on the table and moving them forward every turn really helps mitigate heavy weapon fire. Basically your saturating the environment with T6 W6 models. Does your opponent kill your Tervies, Trygons, Hive Tyrant, Hive Guard? Never underestimate the power of saturation. I don't upgrade anything on them except Adrenal Glands as this helps with LR's hunting. St7 help's quite a bit. The I5 will almost never matter as anyone who might be charged should be finding some cover to hide in....Lack of grenades is vexing.

Mawloc: Underwhelming. It's neat the first few times your opponent doesn't spread out properly and you can guarentee them coming on turn 2 by starting them on the board but they lack so badly in combat that I just don't find them worth the 30pt difference that it costs to take a Trygon. Again if someone has found an excellent use for them that doesn't revolve around the gimmick of your opponent deploying his forces stupidly I'd be excited to know and add it.

Carnifex: Ahhhh, the most hated of current Nid heavy support. This guy has his place and has a whopping 3ish reasons/tactics so far that I've found to run him despite his cost.

1) Run a pair of them naked. Join them up with 2 Primes. Then give them FnP every turn and laugh at your opponents with wound allocation and cover saves. This is also helpful as they instant kill things like Nobz. Can hit and kill LR's (god bless Talons and St9) and they make a fine fondu. Also consider Adrenal glands if you have a lot of TWC in your meta as instant death on them is genius. Only thing to truly worry about is Jaw's which while moderately popular you should be able to ensure it doens't hurt you to bad as long as you move well and start working on that problem with the rest of your army.

2) Run a pair with Crushing Claws and TL-Dev's. This should only be used with the walking tyrant as basically on the charge your Carnies are getting 10+2d3 attack that re-roll to hit at St9. Just gross. Also the TL-Dev's aren't to shabby for putting some hurt on units as they carnies move up.

3) Popular for a while was Carnie w/2 TL-Dev's in a pod. Drop him and hurt 2 tanks off the bat and then he's a disruption unit the rest of the game that has to be dealt with. Never used this tactic but it does have some merit. If someone wanted to add to it feel free to post. Again just make sure to include how/when/why and against what to help.

Tyrannofex: Great Unit. I think this unit is under-rated by most newer players to the army quite a bit. They see only the St10 gun and the price tag and die a little inside at the thought of the point investment. Well ask quite a few of the big kids their take on a Tyrano and generally you'll get a different story. This guy is a best and is the only 2+ save you've got. He can provide mobile cover. He's extremely resistant to the current missile spam out there. He's also meant to be used aggressively. He's got the stats to hurt up close and personal. Use them. Play him aggressively. The only time I've seen Onslaught used was to run these guys up the field while firing. It's just plain nasty.

That's pretty much my take on the current codex. If it's not mentioned it's not worth mentioning to me personally. But I'd be more than happy to expand this to include other takes and styles. Basically add in what you think, your successes, what type of list you run, why you run it, how it works togther, and we can grow a Nid Tactica that will help people see the Nids for the competitive codex that they are.

General Tactical Notes

1) Nid shooting comes in 2 varieties. Stunners and Killers. Hive Guard and Tyrano's are your killer varieties. High ST and Consistant hitters (yes, even if you only hit once on ST10 it still counts as consistant). There is another version of shooting used by Nidz and utilized by Hive Tyrants, Carnifexes, and Harpies. These are generally Heavy Venom Cannons or even to an extent TL-Devs. The single shot at St9 small blast isn't consistant enough to move it to a killer's spot but it will generally at least stun some of the enemy vehicles. Same can be said for TL-Devs and transports. (Inspired by Nurglitch

Playstyle:

Aggressive
Now I'm a very aggressive player with any army I pick up but it's more important with Nidz than any other army I play and here is why:

The only think holding back in early turns does is generally leave you out of position at the end of the game. This is especially true with Nidz as their speed means you need to be thinking about where your going to be turn 5 and how your going to get there. You need to start thinking this the moment deployment is finished. Nidz are a harder army for people to wrap their minds around because deployment and movement are so critical for them. The largest mistakes most newer (and not a few older) tournament players make is that they fail to plan for the objectives starting from round 1. This affects your offensive target priority and most importantly your movement phase. With Nidz in say an objective game you need to look at the objective locations and decide what is going to be where at the end of the game and then play it. Always pressuring the enemy but also always moving toward your goals. Basically be aggressive but not mindlessly and treat Nidz more like a game of chess or fantasy. This turn isn't enough for Nidz like it is for armies with transports. Turn after next is where you need to be.

Reserved Based Play
(Janthkin)
A more general observation on Reserves-based play.

One of the strengths of the Codex comes from the multiple axes of threat available. Consider: on turn 2, your opponent should be concerned about assaults from: infiltrating genestealers, outflanking genestealers, Trygons, spawned termagants, gargoyles, and/or Ymgarl. These units could be approaching his lines from almost every possible direction. There may also be spore pods full of nasty shooting (Zoanthropes) landing at the same time. And the rest of the Tyranid swarm is still closing in on his lines, probably arriving around turn 3, doing things like giving those 'stealers Feel No Pain.

Obviously, to get the most mileage out of multiple threats, you need them to arrive at the same time, in the right place. This is where the Swarmlord's special rules really shine. But even without a Reserves bonus, your plethora of options has already impacted your opponent's deployment and first turn or two of movement - he has to be wary of the short board edges during deployment & movement, if you have outflanking units; he has to be wary of ALL area terrain (out to an 18" bubble around the entire footprint of the terrain) if you have Ymgarl; he has to have a plan for 18 'stealers with cover saves and FNP, who infiltrated 18" from his units; he has to protect valuable mechanized targets from podding Zoanthropes.

The ability to force an opponent to REACT to your movements on the tabletop is a great advantage; the Tyranid Codex offers options that force an opponent to react before you've even committed to a course of action.

Sample Lists:

These follow my playstyle. I'll also include a 1,500pt list from Shep (another poster here) that is very solid.

2,000 Fast Assault List:

Parasite of Montrax
Hive Tyrant w/Wings, TL-Dev, BS/LW, Leech, Paroxysm, Old Adversary

3x2 Hive Guard or 2x3 Hive Guard depending on preference

10 Devourer Gaunts
11 Fleshborer Gaunts
2xTervigon w/Adrenal Glands, Poision, Catalyst (FnP), Large Blast

2x20 Gargoyles w/Poison, Adrenal Glands

2xTrygon w/Adrenal Glands

2,000 Hammer List:

2xPrime w/Poison, LW/BS, Deathspitter

3x2 Hive Guard

2x10 Fleshborer Gaunts
2xTervigon w/Adrenal Glands, Poision, Catalyst (FnP), Large Blast

30 Gargoyles w/Poison and Adrenal Glands

2xTrygons w/Adrenal Glands
2 Carnifex w/Dual Scything Talons and Frag Spines

Shep's 1,500pt List:

Tervigon w/Poison, Toxin Sacs

3x2 Hive Guard

2x10 Gaunts
2xTervigon w/Onslaught, Poison, Toxin Sacs

2xTyrannofexes w/Rupture Cannon

From Yermom:

Swarmlord 280
guard 60

5 ymgarls 115
2 zoans- spore pod 160
2 zoans- spore pod 160

15 Stealers 210
5 stealers 70
5 stealers 70
Tervigon- catalyst adrenals toxin sacs 195
10 gaunts

Trygon- adrenals 210
Trygon- adrenals 210
Trygon- adrenals 210

I guess Ill comment...
First, on tervigons and crushing claws. In my opinion, the crushing claws are a mandatory upgrade if any other upgrade is taken. They increase the CC from 50%-66% depending on if you are charging or not, for only 13% more points in the most common config. Consider the total of the tervigons abilities, in no particular order:
1) create ~23 gaunts
2) share adrenal, toxin, counterattack, LD10 to gaunts in range, with the threat of damage when the tervigon dies.
3) cast 1 psychic power
4) synapse
5) 1 s5 large blast shooting attack
6) close combat

The tervigons #1 ability has a point value equiv of 115 points, meaning the base beast is ~45 points. #3 is only useful if you buy a good power, but its a low cost overall and still situational. Synapse is useful if you are taking gants, and as the tervigon mandates gant use, its total usefulness is somewhat distorted by a self propagating need. s5 shooting is not fantastic, but not useless either.

So, basicly, 45 points gets you 3-4 s5 armor penetrating attacks, while 65 points gives the creature and all beasts around it furious and toxin, and 80 gets the nifty power. So a better comparison for claws is 80 for 3-4 attacks and 25 for 2 extra attacks. So still claws are a 31% increase for 50-66% more attacks. The only time claws are not so hot is when you take no upgrades at all, as on the charge simply having more tervigons will be better than fewer tervigons with upgrades.

My end point is, if you are going to take any upgrade, the claws are worth it. If you are going to keep the beast naked, then forget the claws.

As an aside, genestealers got no real mention in this article, which I think is an issue. From my experience, stealers are my best performing units after hive guard. Taken as 7 with a broodlord (BL has scytal) runs 160 points. For that, you get a fantastic infiltrating unit that puts almost as much pressure on most guard armies as 3 hiveguard might. The reason is simple: guard cant gun them down fast enough.

Sure they can use the heavy flamers on the chimeras, but if deployed correctly and spread out, you should only lose 1 stealer and have a wound on the BL per heavy flamer used. Then you get to hit the chimera on 4's since it shot at you. Meanwhile, any tank other than a chimera or a single hydra means the stealers will easily make their points back.

As a final note, I disagree that toxin is hugely useful on gargoyles. Sure, when facing t4 the reroll to wound is nice, but in general the blinding poison will be doing the majority of your wounds.

8 gargs with adrenal, 2 FB t4 W, 2.6 BP W, 2.66 T4 W = 7.2
7 gargs with adrenal+toxin, 1.75 FB t4 W, 2.3 BP W, 3.5 T4 W = 7.55

So in one of the best case senarios (t4), gargs without toxin deal only .35 less wounds, at 56 points of gargs, but with more bodies are more resilant to small arms on the way in.

I agree with DevianID with his point on genestealers. My personal experience is only running a mono-stealer army, and only at <1250pts. The way I like to run stealers is 7-strong + Blord, outflank in and charge units in CC. The perfect this about 7-strong squads is that they hit hard enough to win CC by a small margin, the Blord nullifies the powerfist/sword, and the enemy passes Ld check to stay in CC for a round, saving the stealers from shooting. This way, the stealers kill enough on the first round to still be a threat from shooting, and you allocate wounds to the Blord so that you win combat by a small margin. In your opponent's phase, you finish the squad, leaving you free to charge + kill something tasty in your phase.

The Blord essentially guarantees you win combat by a small margin, as you effectively decide how many wounds you take by allocating them to him. Also, his survivability is underrated. 3 T5 wounds doesn't sound like much, but it is really quite good when you have 3 or four such squads.

My advice to newbies running a stealer-centric army: (only at less than 1250pts)

-Bare prime as HQ, walks on from your edge.
-Replace prime with tervi if you have the pts.
-3 squads of 7 stealers + Blords w/ scytals (just the broodlord, not the stealers) as troops, outflank.
- 1 Squad of 7 toxinstealers, outflank and gang-bash a powerful unit that a Blord stealer squad might not beat.
- Hive Guard as elites. 3 or 4 should do.
-Ymgarls are a godsend. A unit of 7-8, or two units of five. Multi-assaulting shooty units is win.
-Spore Mines, for giggles.

Just my stealer-centric thoughts.

Hulksmash wrote:
Deathleaper: Personally to expensive for me and he eats a slot I need so I have 0 experience with him. I'd be absolutely stoked if someone could fill this in with how they run him, why, and their success so far along with against what style of army.

Some people use Deathleaper as psychic defense or counter-defense. He lowers the leadership of an enemy psyker, reducing not only his ability to cast, but also the effectiveness of his psychic hood (if applicable). For armies that depend on catalyst, onslaught or other close-up powers, or against space wolves and their MC-killing living lightning powers, it can be worth the relatively reasonable cost.

What, no love for genestealers?

Left out raveners too.

Great idea for this Hulksmash.. in fact, I'd go so far as to say that these "expert" living tacticas should either be pinned at the top, OR get their own forum as well. My advice would be to change the first post, since these tend to get really long really fast.

GREAT thread! My $0.02 on some of the rending claw platforms:

Genestealers

I've been kinda "meh" on them myself, and really don't see them as core anymore. I've just lost far too many expensive stealers to cheap and plentiful flamers.

Having said that, I recognize that others seem to have had a lot more success with them fielded in very large broods and/or with BLs attached. I've been meaning to try these tactics, but frankly have been busy monkeying around with other stuff. Right now my thinking is that -- like a lot of other Tyranid choices -- you have to plan and build around them, and that plugging in a unit of 10 with toxin sacs into a given Tyranid army isn't putting them in the right position to succeed.

Ymgarls

I really like them, and think they're competitive in the right army. Yes, they're a little random. However, their threat radius is shockingly large when you consider you take the diameter of the area terrain piece and then add the move, fleet and assault distance to that.

Something I like to do to give me a smidge of extra distance is to deploy them with just the edge of their bases on the area terrain base. The Dormant rule only says they need to be "within" area terrain, and I believe the RAW interpretation means that hanging the bases this way meets that qualification.

They aren't complete beatsticks, but they work nicely as a scalpel against choice infantry targets and can easily multicharge transports and give you some valuable shakes and stuns. Experienced players will know this and deploy accordingly, but now you're playing mindgames with your opponent and hopefully creating other opportunities for yourself. And if he deploys first and denies you any decent deployment options for your Ymgarls, you can always just shrug and deploy them normally.

Raveners

I like them because of something I've said here before -- they're surprisingly "plug and play." Because they have beasts movement instead of wings, they operate in a variety of army builds. They can advance cozily behind a screen in a slow slogging list, apply early pressure in a fast slogging list, and even deep strike for free in a drop list.

The thing to keep in mind is that they aren't Shrikes. Elite CC units are gonna beat them down. But they'll hold their own against the medium hitters. I've found medium to large broods to be better, as small broods tend to lose effectiveness quickly with a casualty or two. Larger broods can also help you set up multicharges of transports, which they can most definitely damage with rending claws. I've tried to find a use for their thorax weaponry, but they've always seemed too expensive for weapons that I rarely get to fire (because I'm running them).

While I don't think Ravs are top-level competitive, IMO they're more solid than some people give them credit for and at the very least worth a look in mid-level competitive armies.

Kinda agree on Raveners; i find them quite efficient, mostly due to their 29-24" charge range, which is something that is lacking in this new version of the codex.
A brood of 6 is a minimumto be effective though, which makes them quite expensive.


Ymgarls are also a good surprise, they can be a pain in the a** for backyard units, or even come in handy in support of a melee.
Even small units can deny effectively an area of terrain, and they're quite versatile with their adaptive rule.


Deathleaper, even though expensive, is efficient against any list with a single psyker (anything but Wolves most of the time).
It can come in support of ymgarls, can be put aside to make a side shot on a support vehicle, then vanish to reappear hidden.
It's clearly not a fighting character, and should be kept safe.
140 pts can be really worth it when allowing to cast a successful FNP on a large ravener unit =)

It would be nice to see actual tactics described rather than rather vague statements made about units.

For example, I've noticed that large units of small bugs can survive fairly well outside of Synapse, and that depending on a Tervigon to provide bonuses to Termagants clumps them up for blast and template weapons, and serves your opponent a target for his anti-tank weapons.

Similarly, Lictors can serve a purpose for assassinating troublesome enemy models like Space Wolf Rune Priests, and do better at it than the Deathleaper by being half the price. Incidentally they have Assault Grenades, which are handy for locking up units until you can bring in a swarm or a monster to mop up.

Then there's the purpose of Tyranid shooting: using Venom Cannons to Stun, Shake, and Immobilize vehicles so you can bring the hammer down on them, and pinning down enemy infantry in cover so you can assault them without requiring indigenous Assault Grenades.

@Flavius

Added the psychic defense on Deatleaper. It was late and I forgot to put but credited ya for it.

@Matt

Yeah, i'm gonna be updating the main post. It's easier this way.

@Devian

I'm going to have to disagree on the claws being mandatory. The last thing I want is the big guy in combat. Remember that if he's already pooped out (likely toward the time he'd wind up in combat) then your down to a finite number of troops. This being the case the big guy is the most resilient scoring unit left. And he's bad enough in combat that 1-3 extra attacks at WS3 aren't going to help much. Basically he has more important things to do that to be fighting in my opinion.

I did add your bit on Genestealers as you and Gutrip do seem to have a similar take and it makes sense. Expect the Genestealers to get updated more as time goes on.

On Gargoyles I'd have to disagree. Your generally doing 25% more damage for a 14% cost increase. You can also now wound any higher toughness units on a 4+ (Plague Marines, Bikers, DP's) which increases your effectiveness after round 1. As odds are you aren't going to break or kill and entire unit on the charge. With Gargoyles you need to plan for 2-4 rounds of combat (depending on supporting units and abilities). Gargoyles are a unit that excell in the syngergy of the Nid list or that make a decent cheap smash and grab. 20 on the charge will kill 5 marines with poison and 4 without. That's the difference in winning and losing combat.

@Nurglitch

It's a starting point. People need to understand the units before we branch into tactics. But your contributions will help. I'm going to be constantly updating the main post with new ideas, tactics, and uses for units. I'll probably have to reformat along the way but it'll be worth it for new and old Nid players. But I'd have to disagree with the the clumping statement about Gaunts and Tervigon bonuses. Only one gaunt needs to be within range meaning you don't have to clump at all. Also in regards to the Lictors this is primarily meant to be a Competitive tactica. If you've got experience that doesn't rely on your opponent screwing up with lictors that can enhance the army I'm totally down to add it. But the instances you describe don't work unless your opponent makes a mistake. Ymgarl's work better for backfield work in general and you can get quite a few for the same cost as 2 lictors.

I suppose it's a starting point, but it would be better to describe units in specific terms, and leave evaluative terms for the descriptions of actual tactics.

One thing I like about Deathleaper (unless I am totally missing something) is that he is actually impossible to kill, until the last round when he can be contesting--and then only if the Tyranid player goes first. "Where'd it go!" allows Deathleaper to be removed any movement phase that Deathleaper is more than 1", and does not specify that it cannot be the same round as Chemelonic Skin. Also, Deathleaper automatically reappears each later round. This makes him perfect for contesting an "unreachable" objective and guaranteeing the LD penalty to a psycher for the whole game. Also, Deathleaper does not Deepstrike, which makes it almost impossible to stop--mystics don't help, for example, and it can be placed in upper levels of ruins, etc.

Raveners I have found to be very nice (counter) charge unit to move with a Swarmlord/walking tyrant. They can lock up a unit that is otherwise too fast to catch reliably.

My own oddity has been to quasi-regularly field Biovores. I have found them to be suprisingly useful. I hate s4 ap4 now instead of s3 ap3, but large blast makes them at least plausibly useful. Depending on how your groups deal with multiple pinning weapons firing the pinning effect can be a nice bonus. I tend to use (2 or 3 of) them as back up fire for Hive Guard, once the transport is opened, the biovores can hit the infantry. They are also one of the Tyranids that can reliably fire on round 1 every game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Regarding the parasite. . .
I like it too, but it needs to be used with caution--especially in multi-game tournements. This may be painfully obvious, but its ability to generate rippers is not optional.
In annihilation scenarios (and such) it is possible for your opponent to milk a couple of points by outflanking extra units. And you are potentially generating more points in each round of cc.

I can't find anything in the Codex or the FAQ preventing the Deathleaper from popping on and off the board with Chameleonic Skin and Where'd It Go?, but doing so is going to prevent it from using its Pheromone Trail to help bring in other bugasaurs. Probably better to find a quiet corner of the battlefield to camp if you want to guarantee the Deathleaper is going to survive till the end of the game. I'd rather get my Lictors in early and hunting enemy Independent Characters, heavy weapon crews like Long Fangs, and other stuff that needs assassinating early in the game.

Something else worth mentioning is that the FAQ states that the Lictor's Pheromone Trail reserve bonus is cumulative with the Hive Tyrant's Hive Commander bonus and the Swarmlord's Alien Cunning bonus. With a Hive Tyrant and the Swarmlord your reserves are coming in on 2+ on Turn 2, and then automatically once a unit of Lictors arrives and survives.

@Kirsanth

Added your tactic for contesting and using Deathleaper with a slight addendum at the end of it.

@Nurglitch

Using all of the additional abilities for modifying reserves sounds really good until you start looking at the price tag for all of those modfications. I'm not totally sold on the Reserve Nid army because I feel like any advantage you could wring from it wouldn't match up to the sure thing you can do with a more standard army.

@ Nurglitch
The second part is why the first part is less relevant. If you need reserve bonuses there are other options.

At least for my own play, I do not use reserves very much, and even so I have found pheremone trail to be only mildly helpful. There are too many variables to make it something to count on. Swarmlord + Hive Tyrant + phermon trail is hard to justify in points even in high point games.

Being able to 100% know that Deathleaper will be around every game turn penalizing a character's LD, and probably contesting an objective is usually worth the Elite slot.

Editing to add:
Thanks, Hulksmash. For starting this more than adding my 2 cents.

@Nurglitch -- I find it very rare that Pheromone Trail reserve bonuses help out. The combination of starting in reserves but not helping from reserves means it's often irrelevant by the time it has a chance to operate. (Edit: Ninja'ed on that point.)

I've been wanting to experiment with using Lictors to guide in precision Mawloc strikes, but I'm not even hypothesizing that it's a top-level competitive tactic...just potentially entertaining.

I will say that one thing about Lictors that people overlook at first glance is their durability when deployed in cover.

Hulksmash wrote:@Flavius

Added the psychic defense on Deatleaper. It was late and I forgot to put but credited ya for it.

Aw, I don't deserve credit for that. It's a really widespread idea, and anyway I didn't think of it either. I read it somewhere else.

It's more about who adds it to the conversation. No matter where they get it from Everyone who contributes in anyway useful should be acknowledged.

There's definitely a premium to having the absurd 2+ reserve rolls on Turn 2, but consider that you only need the Hive Commander or the Swarmlord for a solid 3+. Add in a unit of Lictors, and that's good odds of Turn 3+ reserves being automatic. You get +1 bonus per Lictor.

So:
Turn 2: 3+
Turn 3: 2+ (automatic with a Lictor)
Turn 4: Automatic.

I don't think you should reserve everything, but consider the impact on an army when you have stuff deep-striking, popping out with Chameleonic Skin, outflanking, infiltrating, and whatnot.

Nurglitch wrote: You get +1 bonus per Lictor.

Err. . .why?
It does not seem to read that way.

The FAQ says: "Q: Is the reserve roll bonus for having the Hive Tyrant with the Hive Commander ability cumulative with the reserve roll bonuses granted by a Lictor's Pheromone Trail and/or the Swarmlord's Alien Cunning rules? A: Yes."

The Codex says, Forces of the Tyranids: Lictors, p.41: "Pheromone Trail: If a Lictor is on the board at the beginning of the Movement phase, the Tyranid player adds +1 to any of his reserve rolls."

So a Lictor adds +1 to reserve rolls, and it's cumulative since 'and/or' means that a Lictor's Pheromone Trail can grant reserve roll bonuses.

I had read all of that as meaning that the +1 stacks with other rules, but not with itself.
Which is to say +1 for ANY Lictors, not +1 per Lictor.

One set of focused comments, and then some musings.

On Genestealers:
1) Very small (5-6) 'stealer units can't do much except try and outflank onto objectives (or kill Tau). Little value to poison.
2) Moderately-sized 'stealer units (8-12) can kill 1 unit; attrition will then drop them into category 1. Decent value to poison, as it helps against the harder targets (daemon princes, terminators).
3) Large 'stealer units (16-20) can kill 1 unit; attrition will then drop them into category 1. Larger size means you can infiltrate across the board, greatly increasing threat radius while still keeping a cover save. Little value to poison, as you probably have enough attacks for everything except full-sized ork squads.
4) Large 'stealer units with Catalyst support are insanely good; not only do you have the cover save/infiltrate advantages of large units, you've now also getting FNP against failed cover saves/cover denying weapons. My 18-man 'stealer unit w/FNP has repeatedly eaten a whole turn of Tau shooting, while still having 6-8 models survive.

Outflanking is good for disrupting your enemy a bit. This disruption is significantly improved if you have an additional disruption element - Ymgarl are great for this (7-8 is plenty).

Zoanthropes are good in a pod. They're actually fine on foot, too - the targets you'll really want them for (Land Raiders, Battlewagons) are going to be driving towards you anyway.

I've never had 2 squads of Hive Guard. I've also never said "If I only I had more Hive Guard, instead of my Ymgarl!"

The Swarmlord is a lovely fellow, and I prefer him to a Tyrant of any sort. He does two things: 1) he's a force-multiplier, in that he can toss Preferred Enemy around where it's needed (say, that unit of Gargoyles), as well as improving the availability (and reliability) of outflanking reserves; and 2) he's about the best counter-assault unit available, making him perfect to escort your Tervigons to the middle of the board.

Since I do the usual spod of a zoanthrope brood, I've started throwing down a spod with 15 dev terms as well. Multiple threats and a lot of dakka works well. Plus the spods can try to block los/vehicle driving to deter more shooting from the approaching horde.

A more general observation on Reserves-based play.

One of the strengths of the Codex comes from the multiple axes of threat available. Consider: on turn 2, your opponent should be concerned about assaults from: infiltrating genestealers, outflanking genestealers, Trygons, spawned termagants, gargoyles, and/or Ymgarl. These units could be approaching his lines from almost every possible direction. There may also be spore pods full of nasty shooting (Zoanthropes) landing at the same time. And the rest of the Tyranid swarm is still closing in on his lines, probably arriving around turn 3, doing things like giving those 'stealers Feel No Pain.

Obviously, to get the most mileage out of multiple threats, you need them to arrive at the same time, in the right place. This is where the Swarmlord's special rules really shine. But even without a Reserves bonus, your plethora of options has already impacted your opponent's deployment and first turn or two of movement - he has to be wary of the short board edges during deployment & movement, if you have outflanking units; he has to be wary of ALL area terrain (out to an 18" bubble around the entire footprint of the terrain) if you have Ymgarl; he has to have a plan for 18 'stealers with cover saves and FNP, who infiltrated 18" from his units; he has to protect valuable mechanized targets from podding Zoanthropes.

The ability to force an opponent to REACT to your movements on the tabletop is a great advantage; the Tyranid Codex offers options that force an opponent to react before you've even committed to a course of action.

Hulksmash:

I like this format. Informative, concise, and highlights meta trends and anything else that may change the viability of units not listed as competitive models for a competitive army.

One question: What happens if the OP stops updating a thread like this?

Have you considered the viability of a Venomthrope within an army?

Given a situation wherein the field has little terrain in which your units may hide behind, for a measly 55 points, one Venomthrope gives all your critters within 6" of him a 5+ cover save. For units that do not have good saves (gaunts) or may be hit with AP ignoring shots, having one around gives you a viable +5 cover save under most circumstances and a decent defense versus assaults, especially for units that do not wish to be assaulted (e.g. shooty Carnifexes and Tervigons).

Downsides: 1 Venomthrope can be killed easily. Also, unless you can get it out of LOS hiding behind terrain or somewhere else, it can be torn to pieces. It has limited offensive capabilities, but does have very good defensive aspects.

Interesting thread so far.

What are you doing to mitigate the general lack of assault grenades for the assault units like stealers and raveners? I like raveners, but with their 12" charge I find it hard to pull off getting them into assault without a difficult terrain test.

Arschbombe wrote:Interesting thread so far.

What are you doing to mitigate the general lack of assault grenades for the assault units like stealers and raveners? I like raveners, but with their 12" charge I find it hard to pull off getting them into assault without a difficult terrain test.

Hmm...interestingly enough, I have not seen too many of those critters running around for straight on charging.

I have seen Stealers used as counter-charge units that join a melee after it has started. 2 minimal units with Broodlord upgrade have been effective in counter-charging units that have attacked an MC that has not gone down yet and will probably not survive the combat. Alternately, they can also be used to punish side armor when they Outflank and opponents are not smart enough to keep their vehicles away from table edges.

Raveners I have seen almost nothing from them.

@Warone

I can't say I'll always be updating this. But I think that if we can get it stickied that after the first week or 2 it won't need as much updating except for when new codexes come out. I'd prefer to get this stickied somehow for just that reason but I don't know if it'll happen.

As to the Venomthrope the Elite sections is just plain and simply to full. Between Hive Guard, Zoans, Deathleaper, and Ymgarls there just isn't enough space to generally fit them in. I did forget to put them and pyrovore's (or whatever) into the elite review but honestly I don't think they have a place. I should probably at least mention that so people don't think I forgot.

@Arschbombe

Generally I personally use FnP to mitigate not having grenades. Helps a ton to the point where if Stealers were charging a tack squad (or equivalent) in cover they would generally only lose 1ish model before striking.

@Janth

Added your take on Genestealers and the Reserved based play style to the Tactica. Thanks for contributing as you one of the few tourney players that I know that runs Nids almost exclusively and has a had some solid success with them.

I find venomthropes to be useful in 'hammer' type armies, where you are running Mcs down the board. I consider a 1/3 reduction in the number of wounds your front line mcs are taking to be a valid use of an elite slot.

The other 'nid player at the SoCal Smackdown had an interesting use for a Venomthrope - attach a Prime to a single Venomthrope, and it's suddenly a lot more survivable. (Unless, of course, you fire Hive Guard into the unit - 5+ cover saves against instant death aren't great.)

Because I use Tyrannofexes as much as I do, I can generally free up a single Elite slot to experiment with. 2 Venomthropes may be worth considering, especially if backed by 2 Primes (and thereby giving the T-fexes a better shot at long-term survival). But the only acceptable option I've found for non-Elite AT work is the Tyrannofex, meaning the Elite slots are too valuable for most lists to use one on a marginal unit like the Venomthrope.

Ahhh, Janth. I've found that if I'm running a Prime then I'm running 2 to put with 2 Carnies to give all my big bugs some nice happy cover

But I agree that Elite slots are to valuable for anything not dedicated to anti-tank. In which slot I inlcude Ygmarl because they are a hell of a disruption unit.

And I'm generally not running any Carnies at all.

I'm having some difficulty in fitting Primes into my preferred playstyle at all. Pre-FAQ, they had a good role - stuff them into a pod with Zoanthropes or some Dev-gants as a nasty counter-assault element. As it stands, though, my preferred HtH units don't need the help, and he can't protect Tervigons/T-fexes from shooting; the Prime is only there because he's a cheap HQ (and I haven't finished a Parasite conversion I'm happy with).

So yes - I was interested in a potential use for a Prime, in conjunction with the Venomthropes.

Janthkin wrote:And I'm generally not running any Carnies at all.

I'm having some difficulty in fitting Primes into my preferred playstyle at all. Pre-FAQ, they had a good role - stuff them into a pod with Zoanthropes or some Dev-gants as a nasty counter-assault element. As it stands, though, my preferred HtH units don't need the help, and he can't protect Tervigons/T-fexes from shooting; the Prime is only there because he's a cheap HQ (and I haven't finished a Parasite conversion I'm happy with).

So yes - I was interested in a potential use for a Prime, in conjunction with the Venomthropes.

I'm planning on giving the prime-venomthrope combo a try. I've been messing around with a triple trygon list for a couple of weeks and the venomthropes have emerged as a favorite target for some reason. I'll try and post some thoughts on how it goes.

First off, big thanks for spearheading an awesome thread. Brings back memories of old dakka and the awesome Tau tacticas and other similar threads.

My two cents on some things not yet mentioned.

Lictors: I think lictors would be pretty solid additions to a competitive list -- if it weren't for the lack of decent anti-tank elsewhere in the FOC. They can still act as an additional must kill threat in a triple trygon + hive commander drop list (in which case zoanthropes tend to dissapoint, atleast anecdotally in my games so far).

Their flesh hooks and hit and run are their best assests and definitely come into play. People often fail to account for the extra 3d6 movement a hit and run can give you. Phermone trail is just a fail safe rule, not something to build a list for (but isn't a bad thing to have in case you roll a 1 on turn 3 for your much needed paraoxysm toting hive tyrant).

Ymgarls: Are surprisingly resilient in close combat with their WS6,optional T5 and 4+ save. Really helps when assaulting into cover against their usual targets (devestators and other shooty units -- especially long fangs and their damnable counter charge).

Ymgarls can also surprise a mech opponent who gets a bit greedy with his shooting and remains stationary. Four attacks per model (so typically 28) auto hitting S4 rending attacks can tear up a parking lot something fierce. They might not pop transports but the shakens and stuns are almost as good. Since the threat is not present on the table, I have found many players don't account for it.

Even if they do, the numbers for hitting on 4s are pretty good (~2/3 chance of destroyed/wrecked for a unit of 7).

Gargoyles: They are amazing for sure. Not mentioned is their ability to screen MCs with their flappy wings.

Carnifexes: Their biggest strength over trygons and other MCs is being available as a unit. While attachable prime is by far the biggest benefit of this, having 2-3 carnifexes benefit from various buffs is not trivial. There's only so many onslaughts, catalysts, venomthrope bubbles and old advesary bubbles to go around.

Good points on the Ymgarls Winterman. Added a bit of it to the main post. I agree with you about the Lictors and made 3 when the codex was coming out only to put them on the shelf due to needing the space for AT.

Hmm, I play very differently from the majority of this thread's posters. I'll try and articulate my points of view when I've got more posting time.

In the meantime, has anyone besides me tried using 3 pyrovores in a Spod? I've had great results. Anyone else have anything to contribute about Pyrovores?

Invulnerable Death-leaper - I've never seen it used for that before. Most interesting.

Ymgarls are a unit that varies greatly in use depending entirely upon how scared the opponent is of them.

Against a veteran, I deploy them into a peice of terrain near a board edge. That way, he is faced with the option of dealing with the huge threat radius of the Ymgarl by deploying a unit on top of cover near a board edge, and risking a mauling from outflanking stealers, or just taking a ymgarl assault. He loses both ways.

Against a less experienced opponent, it is good to deploy them in cover where they have a chance to multi assault. After +1 T, a unit of 6/7 Ymgarls multi-assaulting two 5-man devestator squads will only just win combat. This is perfect, as you will finish them off in the opponent's phase, allowing you to support another squad with a charge in your phase, or just tie up a troublesome enemy shooty unit. All in all, the key to using genestealers (and ymgarls) is winning combat by just enough that the enemy doesn't fail Ld, and you finish them in their phase.

Awesome job, Hulkster! Let's bring quality back tot he tactics and list sections! I will contribute once i have a bit more time, just moved up to the bay area today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@40KENthusiast

I am VERY curious to hear this. You are a good player and I for the life of my struggled to justify the pyrovore. I thought the tactic you describe was the only viable one, but have not tried it or seen it myself. Plus, the models are cool. Please elaborate when you have time.

Reecius wrote:@40KENthusiast

I am VERY curious to hear this. You are a good player and I for the life of my struggled to justify the pyrovore. I thought the tactic you describe was the only viable one, but have not tried it or seen it myself. Plus, the models are cool. Please elaborate when you have time.

Read some of his batreps, Reece - some very interesting work with a bunch of raveners.

Warboss Gutrip:

I know you're talking about less experienced players, but if those Devastator Combat Squads have Combat Tactics, and they lose the combat, at least one of them is going to leave combat. This would work with Long Fangs and Blood Angel Devastators though.

Great thread!

I like using a venomthrope with attached prime for protection to provide the cover save to my hormies and my MCs (T-fex and/or carnifex (if I use one - not often)). Although I have one group of hive guard (3) and one group of zoeys (2)(and I agree with your comments Hulksmash, that hive guard are more reliable (Eldar/hoods chave caused me grief) than zoeys - have to wait until I can afford to replace them).

Your thread is about competitive nids. In the example builds they all contain many MCs. I would like to ask: do you feel competitive builds must be the new nidzilla versions or are there competitive builds with only a couple of MCs at most (and neither of them a tervigon)(I figure I'm probably dreaming but I must keep hoping)?

I'll throw in a thought or two. I know I'm not a well known player, but I have had great success with my Nids in the local scene.

I play a kind of hybrid list. If I had to choose a style, I would put it in the reserve style. First the list, then I'll get to some tactics.


HQ---------
Swarmlord w/ 2 Tyrant Guard

Tyrant w/ Wings, Devourer, Hive Commander, Talons

Elites--------
2x Hive Guard

2x Zoanthropes in Spod

6x Ymgarl Stealers

Troops-------
11x Termagants

10x Termagants

Tervigon w/ Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Catalyst

Tervigon w/ Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Catalyst

8x Genestealers w/ Toxin Sacs

8x Genestealers w/ Toxin Sacs

Heavy Support-------
Trygon

Trygon

Tyrannofex w/ Rupture Cannon

I like to reserve everything that has a purpose being reserved. That usually leaves me with Swarmlord, Tyrant, Tyrannofex, Hive guard, and one tervigon on the table to begin with as I reserve the gants in slim hopes of tunnel emergence, or just not giving up KP. The synergy between the Swarmlord/Tyrant is fantastic. I almost always have the full army on turn 2. The genestealers really benefit from the Swarmlord as does the tervigon that I outflank with my hive commander tyrant. I know I have a lot of one-off MC, but this list really does wonders for me.

I tried to give what I can, but I really do a lot better explaining my tactics by answering questions.... dunno why...

YMMV

This thread has some potential

Deathleaper was one of the first units I tried when the book came out. I found that he would be better suited turned into 3 hive guard. He really cant kill his way out of anything. So his only real purpose is to last game objective contest (which admitedly has won me a few games) and psychic defence. He's not a bad choice but I would only run him if my other 2 elites were zoans.

Which are far from terrible I might add. They add the one thing the nid book absolutely cant deal with. Land Raiders. They are the only reliable way to kill that thing (no the Tfex is not reliable). I'm starting to see the necessity of running at least one unit.

On another note, small stealer squads are almost an auto include in my lists. At least in hammer walk up the field lists anyway. They threaten my opponents armor and make him either lose 2 tanks per stealer unit when they come on (if they deploy on the flanks) or if they deploy in the center they have to deal with the rest of my army with only 1-2 turns to shoot as opposed to 2-3. That is gme changing.

Large ravener broods are something I've been curious about for while but never had the balls to try. If anyone can share some insights (I'm looking at you 40kenthusiast ) please do so.

Large stealer squads also pull some weight especially when catalyzed as Jankith has previously pointed out.

Here's a sample of my latest list. It has not been tested due to lack of time school all week and my girlfriend gets the weekends, but hopefully theoryhammer and such will do for now.

Swarmlord 280
guard 60

5 ymgarls 115
2 zoans- spore pod 160
2 zoans- spore pod 160

15 Stealers 210
5 stealers 70
5 stealers 70
Tervigon- catalyst adrenals toxin sacs 195
10 gaunts

Trygon- adrenals 210
Trygon- adrenals 210
Trygon- adrenals 210

It's a bit different from my usual and by a bit I mean immensely but it is a theory.

@Yermom

The problem I have with Zoans is reliability. I'm a little obsessed when not playing my Daemons with reliability. Zoans are so easily countered that I have problems justifying replacing my Hive Guard with them. The only system I've seen that might work I mentioned about putting a prime with them to eat shots. As for Landraiders my consistant killer is Trygons w/Adrenal Glands in my more standard build and oddly my hammer unit of Carnies in my super bug list.

@Ventus

The problems as I see with a small number MC list and one with no Tervies are many.

1) Scoring units. Your not going to have heavily resilient scoring units. And without Tervigons you won't be able to enhance their survivability. The troops you have probably can't be the killers and hold objectives at the same time.

2) Psychological Impact. A ton of big bugs has a psychological impact no matter how you cut it. And with the cost of most of the small bugs in the codex it can create a very intimidating horde to look at.

3) Target priority. In 5th edition with the number of missile launchers out there this is huge. With big bugs and small bugs your forcing you opponent to make decisions. Just putting smaller bugs on the field makes target priority easier. It's either rockets to instant kill medium bugs or a ton of small templates that eliminate 1-2 20+ gaunt units a turn.

And those are the tip of the Iceberg. You might be able to do a list with a single Tervigon or two but I don't think you can do a competitive list without them. Though I could be wrong. I know Dave_Fay is working on an all genestealer army but we'll have to see how that works out

On a side note I'm gonna try out Raveners in my Carnie list instead of Gargoyles. I can do 8 w/out claws or 7 with them which is almost the same number of wounds with far more attacks and toughness though the no poison thing makes me a little sad. Maybe 7 with deathspitters....Not sure but I'm gonna give them a shot and let people know how they work for me.


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@40kenthusiast

I'm very interested in your thoughts and style of play. I'd love to add another playstyle to the tactica and look forward to your take on Raveners too

@Devian

I'm going to have to disagree on the claws being mandatory. The last thing I want is the big guy in combat. Remember that if he's already pooped out (likely toward the time he'd wind up in combat) then your down to a finite number of troops. This being the case the big guy is the most resilient scoring unit left. And he's bad enough in combat that 1-3 extra attacks at WS3 aren't going to help much. Basically he has more important things to do that to be fighting in my opinion.

I did add your bit on Genestealers as you and Gutrip do seem to have a similar take and it makes sense. Expect the Genestealers to get updated more as time goes on.

On Gargoyles I'd have to disagree. Your generally doing 25% more damage for a 14% cost increase. You can also now wound any higher toughness units on a 4+ (Plague Marines, Bikers, DP's) which increases your effectiveness after round 1. As odds are you aren't going to break or kill and entire unit on the charge. With Gargoyles you need to plan for 2-4 rounds of combat (depending on supporting units and abilities). Gargoyles are a unit that excell in the syngergy of the Nid list or that make a decent cheap smash and grab. 20 on the charge will kill 5 marines with poison and 4 without. That's the difference in winning and losing combat.
.

On the claws issue, you say that claws are not worth it thanks to the tervigon being better used by avoiding combat. I must say I hugely disagree. I outlined the few things the tervigon can do, but it seems that you have relegated him to objective holder and gant spawner--if all you want are objective holders there are better/cheaper options right? Also, you point out he is the toughest objective holder... again I disagree. In my metagame, 10 gants are routinely harder to dislodge than a tervigon versus many armies. Reason is simple... no argument cover saves and the large number of antitank weapons many people bring means that the tervigon is only worth 7 lascannon hits while the gants are worth 20.

As a final note on claws, consider if you run an old adversary tyrant (which is fantastic I must say). Now you can get up to 7 attacks that reroll to hit with your lowly tervigon, at only slightly less WS than a trygon. But wait! With the same tyrant you can also cast paroxym, so that the tervigon has the same chance to hit as well! So with a bit of support, your tervigon can throw down just as well as the trygon that most people fawn over, while still spawning gants, for only 20 points more than an actual trygon!

As for the gargs, again I think you missed my point. 20 gargs with both upgrades compared to 23 with just adrenal. 20 gargs do 5 FB W, 6.7 BP W, and 10 reg cc W = 21.7 W. 23 gargs do 5.75 FB W, 7.7 FB W, and 7.7 reg cc W = 21.15. Difference in wound output is ~.6, and both kill 7 marines. On second rounds of combat, 20 gargs do 3.3 BP and 3.3 reg CC, 23 gargs do 3.8 BP and 2.5 reg wounds, for a total difference of .4 wounds.

Versus t6, 20 do 15 wounds, 23 do 12 wounds. Here is where we see the toxin start to pull ahead by a meaningful difference of 3 wounds. However, what happens if both squads lose 10 models before swinging? 10 gargs do 7.5 W, 13 do 6.75 wounds, for a difference of .75. Suddenly that 3 wound gap has closed signifigantly, and 10 casualties is not an impossibly large number to expect for a t3 footslogging unit to take.

Finally, versus av10... it goes without saying that 23 gargs is always superior to 20 gargs with toxin, as toxin does nothing to vehicles. Meanwhile, the 6 additional garg cc attacks is 1 extra glance on a stationary vehicle.

Before leaving I want to mention one more thing, cover saves. While it is mentioned often that x unit will provide y monstrous creature a cover save making either x or y better, I think this is a very bad thing to plan on. Unless you can generate a no argument cover save, either with tyrant guard or added primes, planning for such cover saves is a recipe for disaster.

For example, in all the games I have played with nids versus competetive players, gargs would not have provided a cover save to my MCs except when additional cover was available. Same goes for hive guard screening MCs, and even tyrants screening tervigons some of the time. Reason is simple: the enemy can see through the arms and legs and such of the screening models, and have multiple firing units that provide multiple firing angles to observe from. Sure, many times opponents might just give you the save, but when push comes to shove without modeling for advantage you will have a difficult time claiming 50% of the big beastie is totally obscured by a handful of much smaller models.

@Devian

We'll start with the Tervigons.

My Tervigons are enhancers, objective holders, spawners, and synapse. That's generally what I relegate them to. 10 gaunts without a synapse around (cause you stated your tervigons go down easily) are incredibly easy to drive off an objective. Ld6 after taking 2-3 wounds is really easy to fail and fail fast.

In regards to the claws I did mention in the main part of the thread "I'd avoid the crushing claws and talons unless your running something like that foot tyrant I talked about earlier. As the foot tyrant will give them re-rolls their attacks making the claws worth it." So I did in fact cover the only use of claws as I see it.

In your gargoyle example I understand where your coming from. And that some people prefer the extra bodies but I'll stick to my guns with losing 3 bodies for the extra damage. Psychological impacts on enemies are also another reason for it but it does to some extent come down to local meta-games. I have updated the primary post to reflect this different approach though.

Coming at last to cover saves. Yes it is harder to get cover saves than a lot of people give credit for. But at the same time I can normally pull a cover save on anything smaller than a Trygon as long as there is a decent amount of cover once you add in other medium bugs and gargoyles. It is a good point to not rely on cover saves.

I actually was talking with my 3rd round opponent from a tournament this weekend and we were discussing list building (since I was running my bugs and he's still tweaking his based on the "new" codex) and I think this kinda sums up my view on how I build any list but especially Nids.

"Worst case scenario every time and don't plan for anything that remotely requires your opponent to roll below or even at average."

Played against a Tau player with the following list (inspired by this thread/Hulksmash)

Tyranid Prime: Lash Whip & Bonesword, Scything Talons - 95 (With Carnifexes)
Tyranid Prime: Lash Whip & Bonesword 95 (With Carnifexes)

Hive Guard x3 - 150
Hive Guard x3 - 150
Hive Guard x3 - 150

Termagaunts x11 - 55
Termagaunts x11 - 55
Tervigon: Cluster Spines, Catalyst, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs - 195
Tervigon: Cluster Spines, Catalyst, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs - 195

Tyrannofex: Rupture Cannon, Cluster Spines - 265
Tyrannofex: Rupture Cannon, Cluster Spines - 265
Carnifex x2: Frag Spines - 330

2000/2000

Six T6 MC's with six wounds each is certainly frightening for any opponent. This list is dead slow, but makes up for it with excellent resiliency and great target saturation. It also has excellent ranged AT, it can reliably bust open enemy armor on the way up the board.

Anecdotally, the Tau player had a pretty standard Mechanized Tau list and we played Annihilation on Dawn of War. He conceded at the bottom of turn four, where I was up 11 KP's to 1 and in a position to table him. I was able to take advantage of LoS blocking terrain right in the midfield: allowing my Hive Guard to fire with impunity and cover most of the board. The gaunts were largely ignored and they just sort of hugged their respective tervigons in cover. When I had a weakened support unit nearby (Pathfinders, slightly mauled kroot) the Termies were more than capable of tearing them up with the help of the Tervigon buffs. I was pretty conservative with the Tervigon spawns. Both of them only got me one spawn, but I waited until I was close enough to assault with them on the turn they were "born".

The Prime/Carnifex Deathstar only got to much on a unit of kroot and a Pirahna, but their ability to soak up firepower is very impressive as well as giving me some incredibly tough and hard hitting synapse.

One tweak I am considering making is finding room for Onslaught on the Tervigons. It seems like it could be useful to getting my Hive Guard into range without losing a turn of shooting or allow my Tyrannofexes to get close to the enemy faster.

I will playtest the list a bit more, but as of right now I'm liking where it's at.

Catalyst really is worth it's weight in gold. It makes Gaunts about as survivable as marines in CC, and allows Tervigons to shrug off small arms fire if need be.

Another list I was planning on playtesting:

Hive Tyrant: Regeneration, Old Adversary, Armored Shell - 255

Hive Guard x3 - 150
Hive Guard x3 - 150
Hive Guard x2 - 100

Termagants x11 - 55
Termagants x11 - 55
Tervigon: Cluster Spines, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Crushing Claws, Catalyst - 220
Tervigon: Cluster Spines, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Crushing Claws, Catalyst - 220

Tyrannofex: Rupture Cannon, Cluster Spines - 265
Tyrannofex: Rupture Cannon, Cluster Spines - 265
Tyrannofex: Rupture Cannon, Cluster Spines - 265

2000/2000

Is it possible to build a competitive list without tervigons?

What about a new version of the stealer-shock approach that Centurion99 used well at the tail end of 4th? Is this feasible with the new codex and 5th ed rules?

I know rending lost some power. But, all stealers now have infiltrate, meaning you could put a lot of pressure on your opponent right from the start. Backed up with some hive guard to pop transports early, is this approach worth pursuing further?

@Envy

Awesome man. I'm glad you got something out of this . That's a pretty solid and scary list. And you used your Tervies like I use mine. I rarely spawn until there is a good reason or unless I'm probably gonna lose the Tervigon next turn. In regards to Onslaught it's dead nasty in a list like yours with the Tyrannos but you'll probably get more out of FnP due to your light # of troops.

@Manchu

I don't personally think so but I'm sure people will disagree. I'm open to the idea if someone has some experience I'd love to hear about it and add it to the main thread. It's just with 5th edition being so much about objectives Tervies allow you to have more killiness in other parts of your list instead of spending more points on troops. Now don't get me wrong, you can get a unit of 6 Warriors w/Deathspitters for only 15pts and sit them in cover making them more resilient (w/o FnP) than a Tervigon but they aren't a force multiplier. Here's to hoping someone has some experience with it. I'll probably be trying it out personally at some point once I refill my warriors ranks (used 6 of them to make Hive Guard ).


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@Redbeard

If we can get Dave_Fay to chime in or someone else they might be able to answer that question. I know Dave's been working on something similar for his Nids and knowing him has had some success but I don't know the specifics. I'll pm him and see if I can get him to throw some advice into the ring

I think that might be a possible way but I'd worry about mech guard as that many heavy flamers are bad, bad news. Especially if you don't go first with. In a way it's sort of a Tyrannid Alpha strike list (with the strike coming on turn 2 instead of turn 1). Plus you have to deal with the limited range of the Hive Guard which would hurt this tactic as well.

I can't believe how gaunts were rated. Gaunts are probably some of the killiest creatures in the codex. Run them with a tyrant and you can get all kind of rerollable everythings and more attacks than you have dice for.

Redbeard wrote:What about a new version of the stealer-shock approach that Centurion99 used well at the tail end of 4th? Is this feasible with the new codex and 5th ed rules?

I know rending lost some power. But, all stealers now have infiltrate, meaning you could put a lot of pressure on your opponent right from the start. Backed up with some hive guard to pop transports early, is this approach worth pursuing further?

I started my Tyranid experiments from my 4e 'stealer shock list. Without the option for Extended Carapace, lots of units of 8-10 'stealers are not viable - they can hit one unit, and then they die to bolters/flamers/shootas. 'Stealers are too expensive to leave larger units in your backfield to protect objectives, so you also need separate scoring units from your "hammer" units. And personally, I don't care for the price tag on a (now only BS3, 3+ save) modern devourer-Flyrant; I'd rather have the Swarmlord.

It was the desire to keep using a lot of stealers that led me to the "giant unit(s) of 'stealers backed by catalyst" approach. Add in some Ymgarl, and you keep the same feel (stealers doing most of the heavy lifting in the list, and doing it starting on turn 2).

Janthkin wrote:

Redbeard wrote:What about a new version of the stealer-shock approach that Centurion99 used well at the tail end of 4th? Is this feasible with the new codex and 5th ed rules?

It was the desire to keep using a lot of stealers that led me to the "giant unit(s) of 'stealers backed by catalyst" approach. Add in some Ymgarl, and you keep the same feel (stealers doing most of the heavy lifting in the list, and doing it starting on turn 2).

Shep should probably chime in here as well, as he was experimenting with a reserve list that incorporated a significant stealer element when the Codex first came out. My current list in fact draws extensively from his trials and Battle reps, the major difference being that I swapped a TFex for the Swarm Lord:

Swarm Lord w/ 2 TG
14 naked stealers
14 naked stealers
12 naked stealers
8-10 ymargls stealers
3 Zoes in a spod
3 Zoes in s spod
TFex w/ Rupture Cannon

So far, I have had decent success with this list.

As others have pointed out, the Swarm Lords ability to Boost Reserves and increase accuracy of outflanks shouldn't be overlooked (for this specific list). It probably goes against conventional wisdom, but I actually deploy these two guys on the board (in DoW SL deploys and TF walks on). The SL unit's resiliancy (9 T6 3+ wounds and the ability to gain cover saves) and CC prowress allows for a much better chance of surving the first turn beating and living to provide a further pressure on the 2nd turn when the majority of your force arrives. The pressense of the TFex which has similar survivabilty helps alleviate some 1st turn pounding on the SL.

HulkSmash, I understand your aversion to Zoes given the recent nerf to SoTW and the decent ammount of anti-psycher abilities found in alot of lists. IF HG came in a spod, they would definately be my pick. I just really don't know what would fit in this list as a replacement, especially if I get hit with a DoW scenario? Trygons? More TFexs? I would really like to hear the veterans' thoughts and experiences.

Oh, and big thanks goes out to HulkSmash for sharing his knowledge.

@Wyomingfox

I like it. And it's one of the few places I could see Zoans being more effective than Hive Guard. Since the majority of your army would be deploying up the field or via outflanking/deepstrike I can understand why you'd be hesitant in regards to using Hive Guard. And with deepstriking you'll hopefully be able to land to avoid the psychic hood and still get some heavy use out of those Zoans.

I should probably change my entry on the Zoans to make it clear that I feel they are rubbish in a hammer style army with lots of big bugs. In that kind of army even more T6 is gross and makes target priority even harder. But in a more small bug oriented list Zoans might have a place. I just feel like being neutured 50%+ of the time against most of the more popular armies out there on the tournament scene is pretty harsh

So I've been thinking about the comment that Tervigons should never be taken as HQ, and I'm feeling doubtful of the wisdom of this advnce. Whenever I've made a Tyranid army I've found myself short of Troops slots, and while I can see the value of having a Tervigon or two in the army, I don't think that value is found in the Troops section.

Firstly, I've noticed that I get more mileage out of my Termagants by letting them range out Synapse range. Once out of Synapse they don't suffer from No Retreat and so long as I keep Synapse between them and my board edge, they usually survive (and sometimes get wiped out in Sweeping Advances - if I'm facing I5+, I keep them back now...). With their own Toxin Sacs and Adrenal Glands, they can put some serious hurt on just about any (non-vehicle) unit.

Secondly, I've noticed that Monstrous Creatues can't Go To Ground. 30 Termagants in cover are simply more survivable than 1 Tervigon hanging around in front of all those anti-tank guns that would otherwise go to waste.

Thirdly, I'd like to point out that Tervigons do play an almost necessary role in the Tyranid army; I'm just not convinced they play that role well by taking up a Troops slot.

Nurglitch wrote:Thirdly, I'd like to point out that Tervigons do play an almost necessary role in the Tyranid army; I'm just not convinced they play that role well by taking up a Troops slot.

Can you talk more in detail about the space covered by "almost"?

There are times when I'll run an HQ Tervigon, particularly at 1500 pts or below. Running anything else as an HQ, and putting the Tervigon in a Troops slot, is a 130-180 pt investment (depending on the loadout of the Prime).

But your three points have no relation to whether or not the Tervigon is useful in the HQ slot.

It's incredible how amazing you can make Termagants in assault:

Hive Tyrant Paroxysm's ub3r unit to ws1
Tervigon(s) give gaunts FnP, and is nearby for furious charge and toxin sacs.

100 points of termagants rape face. It's beautiful.

I also think that Venomthropes have a roll in some lists. In my second one for instance, I have plenty of range AT (6 HG, 3 T-fexes, TL Devourers on the Tyrant). They would really give my MC's some extra survivability.

Manchu wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Thirdly, I'd like to point out that Tervigons do play an almost necessary role in the Tyranid army; I'm just not convinced they play that role well by taking up a Troops slot.

Can you talk more in detail about the space covered by "almost"?

If I were to construct a list around "no Tervigons" (and I wanted to paint another hundred little gribblies), I'd start with 4 20-strong units of Hormagaunts, and 2 30-strong units of Termagants, with 2 Primes. The remaining points go into Hive Guard. The Primes attach to the Termagants, to keep them in line and under control, while the Hormagaunts ensure that your opponents have better things to shoot at.

Understand the role of the Tervigon: it is effectively a transport for a random number of Termagants, keeping them safe for use in the later stages of the game, and providing a limited mobility boost (the initial 6" deployment). It also has some (lovely!) secondary functionality as a force multiplier, from Catalyst, and will occasionally have reason to punch something in the face. It's a fairly robust transport (6 T6 wounds w/3+ armor), but can be fairly hard to hide.

If you want to build a list without "transports," you can do it with vast numbers of cheap troops, or fewer more resilient troops. 'Nids don't have an MEQ option in the Troops slot, so you're looking at a "moving carpet" approach.

You could also try 60 gargoyles (3x20), a couple small'ish 'stealer squads for outflanking, the Parasite, a Prime, and 60 or so Termagants as a core. It'd probably work pretty well, but deploying/moving that many gargoyles would be a pain.

Janthkin:

I suppose I didn't make it clear enough. My first point relates to the unit of Termagants one could take instead of a Tergivon in a Troops slot. The second point relates to the survivability of the Tervigon compared to the Termagants, and how well they can hold objectives. The third point, the conclusion, reiterates the thesis statement made in the first paragraph.

Manchu:

The psychic powers Catalyst and Onslaught really stiffen a Tyranid army. Blood Angels may get Feel No Pain from their Sanguinary Priests, but the best weapons for killing them ignore Feel No Pain anyways. Being able to save half the Krak Missiles hitting a unit of Carnifexen is great, and letting them run while they shoot their Heavy Venom Cannons is even better to get them to close with the enemy. Onslaught is really what I'd consider an ideal psychic power: something that affects fundamental rules of the game (run or shoot), acts as a force multiplier (run and shoot), and has a nice varnish of fluff. Frankly I'm annoyed that other psychic Tyranids can't have these powers.

eNvY wrote:If there's one thing that really irks me about this codex, is that the Hormagaunts should've got a Tervigon equivalent. Something less durable, but similar in function and faster.

Flyrant + Old Adversary is about as close as you'll get.

I wish the Prime had a "Wings" option, personally.

@Nurglitch

The advice on Tervigons as HQ's is that anything over 1,500 shouldn't take them as HQ's. Below or at 1,500 as Janth pointed out is the most economical way to take them as the extra investment is minimal.

Could you expand on your third point? I am curious as to why they don't make a solid troop choice and what benefit you see to running them as HQ's instead? Scoring MC's are tough cookies to crack. Much tougher than almost all of the same slot units point for point.

Maybe in a pure genestealer as troops army this would give you some of the depth and enhancers you'd need? Something like:

2xTervigons w/Large Blast, Adrenal, Toxin, FnP

3x2 Hive Guard

3x15 Genestealers
2x5 Genestealers

2xTyranofexes w/Rupture Cannon

??


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And dear god do I wish the Prime had wing options Janth. Would make such an awesome HQ option and open up more possibilities

Hulksmash:

Like I said, it wasn't clear. Instead of a third point I should have simply noted that I was drawing a conclusion. I don't see how a Tervigon is a better scoring unit than its weight in Termagants. All it takes is six wounds, and it can't go to ground. You could have 30 wounds with Cv3+/ Sv6, or 6 wounds with Sv3+/Cv4+. It seems that the Tervigon will be the preferable target thanks to need to cause fewer wounds with anti-tank weapons. Likewise a unit like Assault Terminators would tear it up instead of getting swallowed by the Termgants.

The Tervigon do seem like they would a pretty high priority among targets but I guess you can balance that against Trygons. Also, the Tervigons might bring you more flexibility considering the possibility of rolling a KP game. (It should be obvious but I don't play nids and have never played against them. I have been considering playing them, however, hence my interest.)

Ah, makes more sense then. You'd posted that while I was typing

Well remember that a Tervigon can be, in the situation your describing, 6 T6 wounds and and average of around 12 extra gaunt wounds. He does spawn and can use that spawn to swallow terminators. Even 12 gaunts can lay a hurt on Terminators if they get the bonuses from the Tervie and they'll successfully tarpit them too. As for the Tervigon being the preferred target for anti-tank weapons I've found that if you have enough other T6 stuff that is a direct threat (Trygons, Tyrants, Hive Guard, Carnifexes) then you'll see less weapons aimed at your Tervies.

Devian actually pointed out either on pg1 or 2 that once you take out the "cost" of the average spawnings that a Tervigon fully upgraded is only about 120ish pts. Which equates to less than 20 geared gaunts or 24 naked ones. That should also be a factor in the thinking on the tervigon when you include it in an army.

I've found Tervigons really are a unit that benefits themselves from a lot of synergy in the rest of the list. It also benefits heavily from proper threat saturation. A Tervies place is heavily dependent on the rest of your list but I think it's one of the 2 auto-include units in any list I personally build. The other being Hive Guard.

The problem I see with Nurglitch's argument is unless you are filling the troop slots there's not much reason not to run your tervigons as troops -- especially if you already plan to take 30+ termagants. There's basically little incentive to fill a tyranid troop FOC with non-tervigon choices. Only exception is illustrated by Hulk above (and something I posted a long time ago). Basically running tervigons as HQs frees up 100 points and slots for a gackload of stealers. That type of list is the new stealer shock in my mind. Variant would be replacing one terv with the swarmlord.

To be honest, i rarely use tervigons for thier spawning.
Its the powers that really do make them shine.

Throw onslaught on ravs to get them thinning out a unit ready for assault 1st. (deathspiters are allways nice when on the move) while losing no real movement.

If you plan on using stealers then throwing catalyst on them while im combat pushes them to an insane level of killing.
This would apply more so to ymgarls (T5, 4+, FNP)
To be honest, i find alot of the basic units really do get a huge benefit from it.
30 horms are nice, 30 horms with catalyst survive alot longer, allowing them more attacks in combat.

Dominion is a nice backup plan if everything goes tits up really.
If im going to assault 2 units with 2 horm units, then i can use this to make sure they stay in range, then move up the next turn to throw catalyst on one of them.



So the powers on thier own make them quality and well worth using.
Granted, in KP missions they tend to hang you, but thats why you dont spam them.
Ill take 2 at the very most in 2,500 games, anything more is giving points away.

If you want to rely on the roll of a dice, you can also use a cheap trick in objective missions.
Generally there will be an objective miles away from you that the other player will try to hold.
DS a trygon next to it (doesent matter if you hit anything, he is safe no matter what) to clear the way (or remove anyone holding it)
After that bring the tervy in from reserve through the tunnel, right onto the objective.

Once out the main plan is to spawn little meatshields and throw catalyst onto the trygon to keep him going.
If you have any other reserves you can then drag them in through the same tunnel, right into the other players lines.


however, this does rely on luck with dice, so it wont allways work that well.

@Jack

The tervy cannot use a trygon tunnel. Only infantry can use it, no monstrous creatures, nothing winged, and no beasts. Would be nice though.

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:DS a trygon next to it (doesent matter if you hit anything, he is safe no matter what) to clear the way (or remove anyone holding it)
After that bring the tervy in from reserve through the tunnel, right onto the objective.

Err. . .tervigons are not infantry units?

Also, onslaught on raveners with spinefists is pretty good, actually.

Kirsanth:

I'd be interested to hear about your experiences with ravener biomorphs. I've only run them with rending claws, which seemed to work well enough, before I swapped them out due to their poor survival.

I have some raveners with rending claws as well, so I always field them that way.

I tend to use either raveners or gargoyles to catch and hold things for about a round until slow creatures can join in.

The problem with guns on an assault beast like them is generally apparent--being denied the assault. With a potential 36 twin-linked shots it is definitely possible.

However, even when this occurs it is rarely too bad when used deliberately. I move a brood of them behind the Swarmlord(or whatnot) up the table in cover. Rarely do they get shot, and even so the 3wounds goes a long way--anything that can cause ID to them is being shot at the MCs in almost every game I have played.

When I want to use them, I move them around the Swarmlord, run them to screen the Swarmlord + Tyrant Guard then shoot, then assualt.

Even if I manage to kill enough models that the assault is out of (the 12 inch) range, that means that many (most?) models cannot assault them either. Even if they CAN assault, they can (usually) assault the raveners--which is what I was aiming at anyway.

I have had good results when I run them like that, but I do not have enough completed models for the upcoming tourney so I have not been practicing/refining the details as much as I would normally. I will start next week and try to respond with more info--so far this is from about 6 games worth of trial and they paid off in 5 of them.

I'd like to add some ideas on the units not covered in the original book review. This is some of my first stuff, so please feel free to let me know if it awful gak and I'll delete it. I don't want to give bad advise, that's the opposite of what we're trying to do here.

Tyrant Guard: These guys are a necessary evil. If at any point you are thinking about running a tyrant without wings or a swarmlord, go ahead and alocate another 60 points for one of these. Just one will unlock a cover save for you tyrant against all those ap 1, 2, and 3 weapons. Whether you use more than one or not, it's up to you.

Swarmlord: I wanted to put this guy in his own catagory. Alot of people see a hefty price tag of 280 and go "No way!" At lower point levels he starts to chew up a large part of your army.

The swarmlord is primarily a force multiplier. He can do so many things such as give any one unit within 18" acute sense, (great for hive guard), perfered enemy (great for anybody), or furiour charge. This is not a psychic power, he can then use two more powers each turn and has all four that the tyrant has. He also bolsters any reserve army and outflanking army.

His increased close combat abilities can make even TH/SS termies cry. Unlike them however, he can't get a super tough metal box to drive him places. His primary weakness is his speed, but he has to have some drawback. I really suggest using him in a reserve heavy/outflank heavy list, even though he is one that would walk on.

Doom of Malan'Tai: Pre FAQ, he was as broken as you could possibly be. Post FAQ, he is more of a pychological weapon. It is almost a must to give him a spod to have any hope of being effective. He still has tremendous potential, but it is entirely based on your local Meta-game. If you face any type of hoard army, he could be devastating. One thing to help him out is to put him in assault ASAP. Once he gets wounds to spare, most players will simply try to Instant Death him on a failed invul save. It's a lot harder to do that when they can't shoot him. A strength 10, 10 wound model that constently replinishes lost wounds is a nightmare, even for orks, just watch out for that stray power claw or fist.

Those are just some of my experiences and observations.

Excellent advice on the Tyrant Guard. I added that to the primary post. The other two I'd like to get more conversation from others with some experience before adding them in. Good first run Omega_Warlord!

I agree with Omega Warlord that the swarmlord requires some special attention. Another nod to the SL is the WS9. Since most pesky assault troops nowadays tend to be ass. terms and thunderwolves with storm shields, the swarmlord is almost perfectly equipped to deal with them. Being hit on 5's is great, the 4++ invuln in CC is unique among nids, and ID attacks that force an invuln reroll is simply amazing. His init 6 also lets him kill many a pesky character before they swing.

Also, a note on majority characteristics should be mentioned. The SL + 1 guard means that you use the majority WS of 9... which is awesome! If you are using my recommended stealer config with a BL, when you are down to just the BL and a stealer, you get to use t5! Very helpful.

As for Nurglitch's idea to run a tervigon as HQ, I think the idea has a lot more merit than people give credit for. In many builds, if you are not basing your strat on a hive tyrant + SL, and you are not using primes to give 'fexes cover saves, the requirement to run an HQ is really a penality for nids.

Also, many lists may not want to run termagants in huge numbers. For example, anyone with 100 hormagants and 0 termagants, because all gants got converted to scythgants in 3rd ed, will probably only be able to scrounge just enough termagants to power 1 tervigon's spawning.

For these times, a plain jane tervigon with 1 power is almost an ideal HQ... fairly cheap, and catalyst or onslaught is still a useful addition to any nid army. The few extra gants they make are bonus objective grabbers really, and simply let you play aggro with your horms or stealers or warriors.

1850 sample list
9 hive guard
3 tfex
tervigon HQ onslaught, scytal with extra points
2x 7 stealers+BL
3 warriors with spitters

In this list, the idea is as much fast agro as possible. The stealers infiltrate, warriors hide behind tfexes, and by turn 2 if you dont have a shooting dominance you were never going to. The tervigon can push any shooters that are lagging behind forward, and spit out gants to hold a midfield objective or 2. With the 18 inch synapse power as a backup to the warriors, you have a compact little region of pain.

Hulksmash wrote:Excellent advice on the Tyrant Guard. I added that to the primary post. The other two I'd like to get more conversation from others with some experience before adding them in. Good first run Omega_Warlord!

I commented on the Swarmlord, too - he really is pretty awesome.

I prefer my single TG w/a lashwhip, specifically for Mephiston vs. Swarmlord scenarios.

Doom tatics.

Spod is almost a must, I tried him without and won me the game, due to his kicking orks off a back objective, but that was pretty good luck. Against hordes he does very very well. You need to be super agreessive with him. Drop towards back line heavy shooters like Long Fangs and Lootas, units that usually don't have PF.

If scatter is pretty fail, hide behind the pod for a turn, or with a big horde use the blast and next turn, try to get in assult like Omega said. These back line units rarely have a fist. Ork MEks with SAG in a squad of lootas, may, so try to ID the Mek on assult.

So as another contribution to the thread (thought about starting a seperate thread but figured may as well post this here).

Been theoryhammering a heavy carnifex list built around a wall concept (would need more carni's to even playtest it). Started trying to make something akin to the ork kan wall concept but its kinda evolved into something different. The latest iteration is below with a few thoughts and reasonings.

Tyranid Prime: Sword/Lash, Devourers -- 95
Tyranid Prime: Dual Sword, Devourers -- 90

2x Hive guard -- 100
2x Hive guard -- 100
2x Hive guard -- 100

Tervigon: Catalyst -- 175
10x Termagants -- 50
3x Warriors: Rending + ??? -- 90-105
3x Warriors: Rending + ??? -- 90-105

2x Carnifexes: 2x scytals -- 320
2x Carnifexes: 2x brainleech -- 380
2x Carnifexes: 2x brainleech -- 380
1970-2000 points

1) HQs go with the scytal carni brood. These guys run up the board screening a good chunk of the force behind (including potentially the other two carnifex broods).

2) Had a hard time getting 2 tervigons in the list and still have the shooting umph. So considered a few things and thought why not warriors?
--They'll have an easy time getting a 4+ cover save and with so much T6 3+ save they won't be as susceptible to S8
--While often times stealers are better at what these guys would provide, they have a smaller footprint, synapse/sitw (which is nice incase force weapons become more popular come 2011...), more wounds for the points and a not trivial 4+ armor save.
--They have some synergy with the primes -- won't often be leveraged but its there.
--Considered shooty warriors and that might in the end be better, but the thought was to make a somewhat cc oriented warrior that had a higher chance of getting the carnifexes out of a tight spot.
--In a pinch can provide a cover save to the MCs.

3) Not a bunch of upgrades on the tervigon. Doesn't seem worth it with just 1 tervigon and 10 termagants. In early iterations of the idea I had onslaught instead of catalyst (on 2 tervigons) that way the dakkafexes could run and shoot. Again, would have to give up something significant to make it worthwhile with 2 tervigons.

4) Dawn of War take and hold is pretty damn tough to get a win with this list. No easy fix for that without going in a completely different direction (eg pretty much turning this into Hulks hammer list). Anything else seems doable.

5) This list gets really brutal at the ard boyz levels but doesn't scale down to well without major changes

CnC welcome!

EDIT looks like I flubbed the points on the warriors. So I guess they could be shooty and still have rending. Something to ponder. Updated the list to reflect.

Wow, some great info in here. Sorry I have not put in my two cents, I am still unpacking from my move.

I really want to hear about success with Ravenors and Pyrovores. I had not even considered them.

Dave_Fey has been talking about his 100 stealer list and 90 Gargoyle list. He was also experimenting with a theoretical list that had 3 Harpies and a number of barbed strangler equipped units to throw out a massive amount of blast templates.

I'll try and get him to come over and share some of his knowledge.

Just marking this thread...will have some content to add very soon about my experiences.


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Ok, so my experiences may differ slightly to a lot of other posters. When the nid codex came out I didn't jump onto the hive guard, tervigon and gaunt bandwagon. Instead I saw real potential with a drop podding list. It was something that really intrigued me since that's how I have always wanted to play nid lists. Even now that my tactics have evolved to build more balanced lists I still advocate the use of some "surprise" in almost every list.

I will talk about the units I have used the most and got the most return for.

1. Ymgarl genestealers

Vehicle Hunting
Lets face it, the biggest problem all nid players have is mech IG. Av 12 on the front, and it feels like for every 1 you destroy there are another 2 to replace it. Ymgarls can come out and engage multiple vehicles (a great bonus that's often overlooked...hive guard and zoanthropes can only eliminate 1 vehicle a turn at best) without taking a casualty. Sure they take an elite slot, but I personally think that it's a spot well used. If combined with the Swarmlord give them furious charge. Throw in their unstable mutation +1 S and you are hitting on S6. Even if they don't wreck the vehicle chances are you can at least stun it and force that small unit full of plasma guns to disembark if they want to shoot.

Infantry Hunting
These guys are great for pulling small units off objectives too and scouring it clean, thus leaving your opponent to think about sending some units back from his primary wave. Another great thing about them is the fact that they *should* take no casualties on the way in. If you take the Swarmlord preferred enemy is a must. From a full unit with +1A you are looking at 40 attacks (should be hitting on 3's) with re-rolls. Not even storm shield bearing termies can stand up to that kind of assault. Another benefit that can often be overlooked is that you can choose where to engage the enemy. Avoid charging into cover, and usually there is a model or 2 out of area terrain where you can draw the rest of the enemy to you so you still strike at I6. Great for pulling large IG blobs sitting on an objective right out of position. Use their unit size to your advantage. I usually use them for what I call disruption. On the battlefield there are usually a few key units you wish to stop firing or manoeuvring. These guys can usually hold their own against the toughest of enemies and lock them down.

Ok that's this mornings installment. Will add some more when I have time.


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2. Genestealers

I have used these less than some other members on dakka and with a slightly less common build (naked but with a broodlord). Just seeing a unit of these in your army list makes your opponent cautious to deploy or move near table edges. In lower points games this can cause some real clumping issues that you can use to your advantage for objective missions. The Broodlord is there for survivability of the brood which helps in all missions. Your opponent will be hard put to throw/waste an S10 weapon at a small unit of genestealers camping an objective in cover and they would have to send in some heavy cc specialists to kill them in their preferred environment. A lot of effort for very few points.

Tank Hunting
Not so good as their Ymgarl cousins due to no S buff but in a pinch they can handle a transport. The Swarmlord can help a bit with +1S, but I rarely use them in this manner unless it's to get a mech unit off an objective, or for the KP.

Infantry Hunting
This is where these guys excel. Against mediocre to medium close combat troops they usually pull through. They have a large threat radius too due to fleet meaning (with good deployment) within 2 turns of being on the board (infiltrate or outflanking) they will be in combat with something. You can also use them in a more sneaky fashion to hit small units of devastators/scouts/lootas in the backfield. Again, your opponent won't want to fire heavy weapons at these guys when there are MC's advancing. I regularly run 2 units of 6 with the broodlord in lower points games and move up to 8 or 10 in medium large games.



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3. Zoanthropes

Not need to separate tank and infantry hunting since it's pretty obvious what their role is. Spore pods are essential and they can provide a fast and devastating response to a heavy mechanized force. Hive Commander on your tyrant or the Swarmlord is essential though in anything but the smallest of games for reliability. There are many glaring weaknesses to the unit however, most of which have been pointed out many times by various posters.

Psychic defense.
A psychic hood or eldar runes can really ruin a zoanthropes day. The only way to get around it is to take more zoanthropes, which I really wouldn't advocate unless you are running a heavy spod based list. People often say that you then rely on rolling to hit and to pen, but tbh this is less of a concern. They hit on 3's and pen almost anything on 3's. That's reliability in my book.

Now onto some of the finer points of zoanthropes. Some of these may be obvious but they are missed by quite a few players.

1. The spod
The spod itself while immobile is also a weapon. It has 6 S6 attacks. While not great it can knock out a pesky transport or hit nearby infantry. It provides cover, and can also force people to move around it. That's a lot of things for it's price tag. Also remember that in any objective game it can contest and opponents are less willing to fire MLs at it while other MC's are still running around.

2. Alternative targets
Something that has caught my eye is that hive guard are useless if your opponent takes no vehicles, or if you eliminate them early on or if they stay out of range. Sure you can ID T4, but so can Zoanthropes. Zoanthropes can still put down damage quite successfully on large units of infantry once their primary target is out of range or eliminated.

The lower S small blast of the zoanthrope is great for targetting MEQ's. It's AP3 which gets rid of their armour and has a longer range which means you can stay out of enemy reprisal range a bit better. Though designed as a suicidal unit, they can serve more than one purpose if used properly. Long fangs (as an example) are a great target.

Awesome addition Lukus83. It made me want to try out some Ygmarl's in two weeks at my next tourney

In fact some of the above posts have made me wanna try something. What do you guys think? It's a variation on one of the sample lists:

2xPrime w/LS+BS, Deathspitter, Poison
2x2 Hive Guard
6 Ygmarls
2x10 Spinegaunts
2xTervigon w/Catalyst, Large Blast, Adrenal, Toxin
6 Raveners w/Rending Claws
2 Carnifexes
2xTrygons

??

I'm interested in the Devourer Gants. 15 of them are 150pts and they throw 45 shots at 18". That's some serious Dakka. I figure they can command a stand of trees or some other cover to mitigate the return fire, but how have they worked so far?

This would have been such an awesome codex if some of the Elite choices were moved into other slots.

Well, mathhammer says 45 shots 1/2 hit:

On meqs 22.5 hit, 1/2 wound for 11 and 2/3 save for about 4 dead marines
On geq 22.5 hit, 2/3 wound for 14.8 and 1/3 save for about 10 dead guard

I say mathhammer because I can count the times I've started doing this on one hand. But anecdotal wise I did dislodge a squad of guard in cover who failed leadership and counter-charged a marine unit that assaulted my zoans saving one of them. Granted, I've been told that for 200 plus (the pod too) is a large number of points for a distraction but I'm still feeling out the nids.

*bad math edit

I like your list Hulksmash. Since you have some Hive Guard and Carnifexes on the table your tervigons won't be singled out quite so easily and the trygons really add some fast hitting power. How are you running your carnifexes? And how many points is the list? I'm personally not a fan of raveners but I think they suit the list...some real fast in your face nastiness. Just be sure to avoid S8 powerfists, lol.

Not so good as their Ymgarl cousins due to no S buff but in a pinch they can handle a transport.

Something I feel should be made clear (not saying you don't know this Lukas, just wasn't obvious in your post) -- Ymgarls are better at anti-transport due to the +1A, not the +1S. This is because a S5 rending attack is not gaining a signifcant chance to destroy AR10 over a S4 rending attack, as both pen on a 6. So when using ymgarls against transports, I much prefer the +1A when attacking a vehicle (assuming no swarmlord in area).

However there are exceptions and the added flexibility is pretty cool as far as attacking vehicles in general. Reasons to use the +1S against a tank:
--When auto-hitting an AR10 vehicle with limited numbers of weapons (or is already immobilized) -- you get a reallly good chance of destroying via escalated damage results.
--If simply shaking is prefered over the chance of not doing anything, then the +1S is also a better selection (giving a .33 increase in probability of at least shaking). Sometimes worthwhile if faced with a tank that could tear up your stealers, etc.
--Swarmlord can give them furious charge.
--And obviously if facing anything that is not rear armor 10.

It's a 2k list. Basically the two Carnies are naked but joined by the 2 primes so that they get cover saves and wound allocation shennanigans. This also allows me to get cover for my Tervigons behind them since that's 4 decent sized models blocking LOS to the tervies. Originally the list had 6 Hive Guard and almost 30 suped up gargoyles but I think the raveners work better in this list too. Almost as many wounds, better able to take advantage of FnP, faster, and about the same number of attacks but with rending

If you made one of your primes just slightly different, devourer instead of deathspitter, or something similar you could really abuse wound allocation.

I'm thinking of compiling all the different list archetypes and what they're strengths and weaknesses are. But that will have to wait for the weekend.

I can abuse wound allocation anyway because it's an indepent character. I don't need to make him different from the other IC to do wound allocation

That's what I get for posting while eating Zaxby's (so distracted, sooooo... distracted.)

Hulksmash wrote:It's a 2k list. Basically the two Carnies are naked but joined by the 2 primes so that they get cover saves and wound allocation shennanigans. This also allows me to get cover for my Tervigons behind them since that's 4 decent sized models blocking LOS to the tervies. Originally the list had 6 Hive Guard and almost 30 suped up gargoyles but I think the raveners work better in this list too. Almost as many wounds, better able to take advantage of FnP, faster, and about the same number of attacks but with rending

I'd prefer the gargoyles: 1) poison + blinding poison means more wounds against pretty much everything; and 2) more bodies = more frontage = a larger threat radius, which can be really handy for multi-assaulting 2 units that are 24" apart.

I don't play Tyranids but I like the army and have kept pretty well read on them.... has anyone had any experience with a TMC heavy shooty army? Ie: Dakka Tyrants, Harpies, Tyrannofex, Hive Guard, and a few Onslaught Tervigons to taste?

Ex:
Hive Tyrant - 2 TL Devourers, Old Adversary
Tyrant Guard - Lash Whip
Hive Tyrant - 2 TL Devourers, Old Adversary
Tyrant Guard - Lash Whip
2x2 Hive Guard
2 Naked Onslaught Tervigons w/Cluster Spines
2x10 Termagants
3 TL Heavy Venom Cannon Harpies
Tyrannofex

I believe Stelek proposed a similar idea on his blog, but I think any army would have trouble dealing with 8 Monstrous Creatures with enough Vehicle stunning/killing firepower to keep any army at bay until they close to smashing range. Add in Old Adversary Bonuses to surrounding units and the other Tyrant powers... can an actual player elaborate on this style of play?

Hulksmash wrote:I can abuse wound allocation anyway because it's an indepent character. I don't need to make him different from the other IC to do wound allocation

This doesn't seem correct. The models must be different or they will be the same group. Wound allocation says that models are grouped together if they have the same stat line, wargear and special abilities. Just being an IC does not make them unique. Two primes made the exact same way would in fact be one wound group I believe. There is nothing that states IC's get special treatment, and identical IC's meet the requirements made in the book for like models.

Huh, I've never thought of having Primes join Carnifex units. Sneaky! I didn't realize it worked that way, but now that I think on it, why wouldn't it?

I was playing last night, have a Pyrovore success story.

I was up against mech zerkers, got my reserves in on 2, all 3 units. The land raider that my Tyrannofex had been shooting at had immobilized itself in his turn, so it was free to take a chosen target.

The Pyrovores spod was placed behind the rhino phalanx, I was hoping for 3 s5 hits on back armor ten. It scattered a bit, but the dread sized bases let me get the Pyros into good position anyway.

The Tyrannofex shot the rhino and wrecked it. The 10 berserkers had to pile mostly out the back, because the rhinos were close together.

The Pyrovores shot them, hit 7, 7, 9, and did 17 wounds. The zerks failed 5 saves. The spod got another one with it's shots.

On their turn the Berserkers charged the pyrovores. At init 5 they got 8 wounds, I made 5 saves and 3 went through, they lost a berserker to the acid. Swinging back I killed a Berserker, then the fist popped the last 2, which both exploded. Ultimately only the fist survived, on my next turn the spore pod killed him.


This was a somewhat lucky game, but not terribly so. I've seen them do much better, as well as much worse. They offer a service nothing else in the book really does.

DarthDiggler wrote:I'm interested in the Devourer Gants. 15 of them are 150pts and they throw 45 shots at 18". That's some serious Dakka. I figure they can command a stand of trees or some other cover to mitigate the return fire, but how have they worked so far?

If you remember Shep's drop list withthe mandatory Termagant broods in spores, one of my first ideas for tweaking it was to add devourers. Flamers -- as always -- are an issue, but with all the MCs, etc. coming down I don't think they'd be a priority target. Meanwhile they'd try to find a cozy spot to sit and snipe from. Obviously disembarked infantry are their real target, but heck, they're S4...if they get on a Chimera flank they're capable of contributing a shake or stun result.

Not sure if I'd spend the points at less than 2000, but I really like them in a 2500 pt drop build I'm planning.

I thought I had read about it on here but wasn't sure with whom to credit.

I like Gargs. And most of my lists feature 20+ of them. I just think the Raveners fit this particular build better. But we'll see

Here are my opinions of the different units from my playtesting on Vassal and with friends namely DevianID, yermom and Avariel who post on dakka as well among others.

HQs
Hive Tyrant - he is pretty expensive when you factor in the 1+ hiveguard with a lashwhip you need to buy with him for the cover save and protection from assaulty units. You don't want to give him wings because then he just dies really fast ask Yermom how fast flygrants die in 5th ed. He is more customizable and cheaper then the Swarmlord but if you spending this much points the swarmlord gets all the powers and better buffs for slightly more.

Primes - great cheap HQ for lower points. that you can attach to things like Hiveguard and upgrade him with bone swords for close combat punch or you can make him shooty.

Swarmlord - relegated to high points games because very expensive with a cost of 340+ because you need 1 hiveguard with a lashwhip for a cover save and assault protection. If you can afford him he is really awesome force multiplier with his buffs to your army and the make an enemy unit ws 1 is ridiculously awesome combined with assaulty troops. He is however pretty slow and at a big disadvantage in dawn of war. Definately not recommended at below 1850 points. DevianID really likes the Swarmlord.

Tervigon - HQ terivgon is a solid choice given its usefulness and the expensive of other HQs. Adrenal, Toxin and the Strength 5 large blast are required upgrades for the Tervigon. Tervigon spawns scoring gants and gives them furious charge. UCatalyst is the power taken most often for feels no pain although an arguement can be made for Onslaught to cast Zoanthropes or Shooty/Combat Tyrant, or Tyranofexes. DevianID made a strong argument for crushing claws on Tervigons but I tend to not find points for it as I'm squeezing 3-4 Tervigons in my lists.

Elites
Death Leaper - Has many good points but doesn't seem worth the elite slot or his points cost Biggest point is he is nearly unkillable and can pop up anywhere which is really good with objective missions going second. Lowering a models leadership by D3 can slightly hamper a psyker or make their hood less effective which is quite good if using psykers like Tyrants, Tervigons or Zoanthropes. This is hardly reliable as you roll a 1 for the d3 its not all that effective. Very good utility but not very good combat or shooting. Would get taken if slightly cheaper and not an elite slot.

Hive Guard - These are the elite choice to take. You need these for anti tank. 2 Strength 8 shots each with 2 wounds at toughness 6. This is the sell like hotcakes model like the Vendetta is for IG. You can convert warriors with leftover carnifex parts that you didn't use on your tervigon to save money.

Lictors - with better elites they really don't see play.

Venomthropes - the 5+ save is nice but the elite slot is at a premium. I agree with bundling him with a prime for surviability.

Ymgarls - Infiltrate and the choice of buffs are pretty good but I'd opt for regular stealers as the elite slot as at a premium you need the hiveguard or zoanthropes for anti tank.

Zoanthropes - The way to run these guys is on foot using Onslaught to move them up to fire sooner. In pitched battle or spear head they can be firing turn one with a little help from a Tervigon with Onslaught and a decent d6 roll. You want these guys as an answer to Land Raiders which is not walk up and bash or hope you get lucky with a Tyranofex. The problem here is with dawn of war they can take too long to move on up to shoot. Attaching a Prime is a good way to protect these guys from assault. Pods require you to spent for the pod and then a Tyrant for bonuses to reserves and then your not useful till turn 2 at the earliest and you can't attach a prime. Their effectiveness as not as good as what you would think on paper because you have to get off the power, get past hood, hit, penerate and then roll on damage table but they still marginally more effective then hive guard on high av targets. Been testing 2 units of Hive Guard with 1 unit of Zoanthropes with a Tervigon with Onslaught and its been pretty good outside of dawn of war it can take a couple turns to get in firing position.


Troops
Gants - cheap scoring unit that enable Tervigons as troops buy the minimum ammount because you can always make more with the Tervigon. Buying them upgrades doesn't make much sense because they die pretty easily unless you give them feels no pain.

Genestealers - the outflanking pressure is great but you need to take a decent sized squad 7-8+ with a brood lord for them to be effective which makes them pretty expensive. Great for smushing those pesky long fangs or taking out Vendettas or Manticores. Just make sure to spread out to not get hit by heavy flamers.

Hormogaunts - cost too much for what you get. If you want fast assault units go with Gargoyles or Raveners. Although a large brood of these with feels no pain from a tervigon congo lined across cover can work as a unit to advance to take the opponents objective.

Rippers - Biggest problem is they don't score and get insta gibbed by Strength 6.

Tervigon - most lists should have 2 of these guys they so good. Scoring 6 wound monster which spawns more monsterous creatures is the bomb. Adrenal, Toxin and the Strength 5 large blast are required upgrades for the Tervigon. Tervigon spawns scoring gants and gives them furious charge. UCatalyst is the power taken most often for feels no pain although an arguement can be made for Onslaught to cast Zoanthropes or Shooty/Combat Tyrant, or Tyranofexes.

Warriors - really cost too much for what you get vs other troops choices. Vulnerable to Strength 8+ insta kills but combining a prime helps.

Fast Attack
Gargoyles - these are the assault unit of choice other then Tervigon pumped up Gants. fast and you can buy them poison and adrenal for pretty cheap. They can get feels no pain from Tervigons as well.

Harpies - Not worth the points the heavy venom cannon is very poor for killing vehicles and they are not very good in assault. They are vulnerable to small arms fire and you need to convert one.

Raveners - I really liked these guys in 4th to run up behind the MC wall and then assault, squishies or small comba t squads. Still pretty good but hard to find points for them outside of ardboys points levels given everything else costs more.

Spore Mines - I been taking a few for deployment denial can be pretty good but is tough to fit in lists despite how cheap they are. I liked taking these in Apoc games with Meoptic spores as well where lots of infantry close together to hit.

Heavy Support
Biovores - pretty good for killing infantry that gets their ride wrecked and are bunched up for the template pain. Wouldn't take any without taking 2 Tyranos and hiveguard for anti tank with troops covered. Ability to kill troops where you need it is good. They usually get ignored for better things to shoot at.

Carnifexes - these just got their cost jacked up way too much to be competitive. Low init makes them jaws bait and the gunfex is no more so all you have is dakka fexs which aren't that good in the mech enviroment and close combat fexes never were that great too slow and other units are better.

Mawloc or "More Luck" - Aptly named More luck because thats what you need for this guy to be useful. You need to be lucky for him to hit what you want with the deepstrike and he's not that good versus vehicles. He can scatter and do nothing and he's not that good in assault and likely to get toasted during the opponents turn from meltas, rapid fire plasma, missles etc.

Trygon "Try Gone" - Aptly called the "Try Gone" because his typical game play is he deepstrikes to "Try" to kill a vehicle with his bad shooting and usually fails. Then he gets "Gone" in the opponents turn as he gets lit up by melta, plasma, las cannons, missles whatever with no cover save cause he so honking big. Is even worse if they have mystics. Running him across the board doesn't work that well either as he Tries to run across the board then gets Gone before he can do anything meaningful in assault.

Tyranofex - probably the best of the heavy choices. He is really good if you use him right. Early in the game shoot that Rupture cannon and try to kill or at least stun vehicles just like the old gun fex but make sure to move him on up the field so that later in the game once vehicles are blown up you can use his large blast and flamer template to kill infantry. Just make sure to screen him with gants so he doesn't get assaulted by something nasty.

My test lists have been constantly influx testing different things and also depending on points. Units marked with * have earned a spot in every list I make.

HQ
Tervigon Adrenal, Toxin, Onslaught cluster spines*

0-1 Prime to add to Zoanthropes or Swarmlord + 1 tyrant guard with lash whip (2k+ and ardboys level only)


Elites
2-3 Hive Guard *

2-3 Hive Guard *

2-3 Zoanthropes *

Troops
10 Gants *

10 Gants *

Tervigon Adrenal, Toxin, catalyst, cluster spines *

Tervigon Adrenal, Toxin, catalyst cluster spines *

0-2 7 Stealers with Broodlord

Fast
0-3 Spore mines clusters.

0-1 15 + gargoyles with adrenal and toxin

Heavy
Tyranofex 265 *

Tyranofex 265 *

0-3 Biovores.

Idea is a nidzilla rehash with gants screening hive guard with terivgons behind and tyranos on the sides or you can split up into two forces moving up to midfield and leaving some gants behind to score and pushing others forward to score. If they go after your Tervigons your Hiveguard and Tyranos keep blasting away. You hopefully have a healthy supply of gants to deal with assaulters to keep your terivgons and tyranos safe. Swarmlord gives you close combat presence and buffs if you can afford him and gargoyles give you fast buggers to attack things like long fangs with. Somewhat cold to Jaws but nothing you can really do vs that.

Hulksmash wrote:Basically the two Carnies are naked but joined by the 2 primes so that they get cover saves and wound allocation shennanigans.

Question, wouldn't it be better to differenciate your primes to better increase wound allocation, otherwise, you have to group the wounds onto one prime first/remove. Or am I missing something?

Remember Independant Characters are their own unit (of one) in CC. Attacks have to be specifically directed at them, so the one getting attacked gets the hits and wounds. As for shooting they are just considered a member of the unit, so unless i'm mistaken, if they have the same gear they would count as their own "group", however just give one something slightly different, it's really not that hard to do.

However the Rulebook says the controlling player can choose to allocate wounds from shooting to the independent character.... maybe this is where the confusion is coming from...

-edit, meant to put both CC and shooting in this post...

I think the question arises from shooting not hand to hand. Do identical primes count as two wound groups when being shot at?

Let's not derail it with rules issues

@Kirika

Interesting that your keen on taking the Tervigon as an HQ. And a decent take from another view point is always a good thing.

That said I completely disagree with your take on the Trygon. If you have proper T6 saturation they will live to see combat if you start them on the table. And as for deepstriking they aren't that easy to get rid of assuming it's not a IG army your deepstriking into which is when it'd be smarter to start him on the table.

Disagree with your stance on Carnies as they can be very, very useful if used correctly. As has been discussed earlier in the thread.

And as for the Ygmarl's based on a lot of guys on here I respect explaining their use I think I'm gonna give them a shot. Should be pretty good but we'll see

Thank you for contributing though! It's always good to see another opinion and most of those points I heartily agree with!

I have to agree with Hulksmash here, the Trygon only sees its true potential when it is combined with other monstrous forces. I hear a lot that people say they tried it and didn't like it. I often hear, "I deepstriked one and it just died." Well yes, if you DS just one trygon consider it toast. The real key is to bring it in with other targets. Marching two across the table has seen some success, much more than just throwing one in DS. Deepstriking a pair can work, but if they come in piecemeal due to bad roles you have a big problem.

Basically the way I see it is you either walk two across the table, or you DS them both but have at least a +1 from Swarmy or a hive commander tyrant.

Re: Tyrant Guard:
I consider it something of a travesty to ever see them withOUT lashwhips. The scything talons do very little, and the lashwhips do a lot--and it's 5 points.

I am coming to appreciate Janthkin's single TG approach to guarantee WS9 for the brood, but I have always had more luck with the extra body or two to help get into CC where the WS even matters.

kirsanth wrote:I am coming to appreciate Janthkin's single TG approach to guarantee WS9 for the brood, but I have always had more luck with the extra body or two to help get into CC where the WS even matters.

That's the job of the rest of the list - you have to have something else sufficiently threatening that ignoring it to shoot at the Tyrant (with cover) is a losing proposition for your opponent. I like giant units of infiltrating genestealers, myself, preferably under the effects of Catalyst.

Just remember that individual wounds go on the Tyrant, not on the Guard.

Hmmm... lesee what I've got...

I run the following list:

HQ:
Tyranid Prime
Lash Whip
Adrenal glands
Regeneration

Elites:
3 Zoanthropes

3 Hive Gaurd

Troops
6 Warriors
Double Bonesword
Toxin Sacks
Devourers

20 Hormagaunts
Toxin Sacks

20 Hormagaunts
Toxin Sacks

14 Termagants

10 Genestealers

15 Genestealers
Toxin Sacks

Heavy:
Trygon Prime
Adrenal Glands

Trygon Prime
Adrenal Glands

My opponents tend to be medium to fully mech'd.

Here a a few of my thoughts:

1) Hive Gaurd: one of my more solid units, these guys perform fairly well in any game I have used them in. Not stunning, but solidly. Last game, they racked up 4 of my 10 killpoints singly-handedly, and even in some of my worst games, they have done solidly. They are very good at hitting small, annoying units like Transports, Gaurd Heavy Weapon Squads, and Eldar Pathfinders who are camped behind a wall. Compared to zoanthropes, they are less destructive, but more reliable.Their main advantages are that they have better range, are more durable vs small-arms fire, do not get insta-gibed, can insta gib larger numbers of multi-wound infantry (Nobz, for example), do not need line of sight, do not worry about Psychic hoods, and are less susceptable to bad luck, due to number of shots fired.

2) Hormagaunts: I like them. Gargoyles may be more killy, but Hormagaunts are scoring. They make great Sacrafice Plays.

3) Trygon Prime: Overall, my MVP. Walking on, they are great for tearing apart things like Vindicators, which they can get to quickly, and make a mess of. Deepstriking, they allow me to put a heavy assault unit exactly where a need it, as well as rapid reinforcement of the Synapse web.

I play my bugs a little differently. I try and reserve my whole army when I can and limit the number of turns the enemy has to shoot at me. I figure a prolonged game of shooting bugs is never a good thing so I try and go 2nd each game and give my opponent only 3 turns of shooting before the game might end. Most of my damage is done in the assault phase, which runs both player turns and this gives me 5 turns of assault fighting vs. 3 turns of the enemy shooting at me. In that respect I try and play the units that can play this game which means few Hive Guard and no Tervigons. I think this strategy was born of the desire to keep any game from going the full time limit and allowing me more minutes spent at Hooters during our AWC lunch breaks.

winterman wrote:

Not so good as their Ymgarl cousins due to no S buff but in a pinch they can handle a transport.

Something I feel should be made clear (not saying you don't know this Lukas, just wasn't obvious in your post) -- Ymgarls are better at anti-transport due to the +1A, not the +1S. This is because a S5 rending attack is not gaining a signifcant chance to destroy AR10 over a S4 rending attack, as both pen on a 6. So when using ymgarls against transports, I much prefer the +1A when attacking a vehicle (assuming no swarmlord in area).

However there are exceptions and the added flexibility is pretty cool as far as attacking vehicles in general. Reasons to use the +1S against a tank:
--When auto-hitting an AR10 vehicle with limited numbers of weapons (or is already immobilized) -- you get a reallly good chance of destroying via escalated damage results.
--If simply shaking is prefered over the chance of not doing anything, then the +1S is also a better selection (giving a .33 increase in probability of at least shaking). Sometimes worthwhile if faced with a tank that could tear up your stealers, etc.
--Swarmlord can give them furious charge.
--And obviously if facing anything that is not rear armor 10.

Yeah sorry that could have been clearer. I usually go +1A, but as you said there are exceptions. I also go +1S when I'm multicharging vehicles. Not much chance of actually wrecking either, but a good stun on both is worth it.

Something else I forgot to mention in my Ymgarl post (was reminded when I used them yesterday) is how easy it is to surround a vehicle and block off exits for disembarking troops. The result: A dead squad if you have the numbers, if not then at least they are pinned...easy meat.


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4. Winged Tyrant

I have hear d a lot of bad things from a lot of people about this model. No tyrant guard means less survivability, that's a given. But that's not really what it should be used for. In my mind there are 2 successful ways to use him (both involve deepstrike, though I guess you could start him on the board. I would love to hear how people use him like that successfully). I think he really only fits into a mostly DS army, but again I would like to hear about other successful builds involving the winged tyrant.

1) 2x TL Brainleech devourers
These weapons give him a bit more flexibility over option number 2. A bad scatter isn't a devastating for you and you can keep out of plasma range a lot easier. Guaranteed to make an impact the turn he arrives, whether his target is a transport or an infantry unit.

2) 2x scything talons and paroxysm
This is for those more willing to take risks. You have to deepstrike him close to do well, thus putting him in range of enemy plasma, melta, etc. A bad scatter can also cause big problems for you. But when it works, he really shines. Essentially he is there to stop 1 of your opponents Long Fangs/IG blob/Lootaz etc from firing at full effectiveness. Add to this that you should be saturating the enemy lines with deepstriking units and there's a reasonable chance the tyrant will survive the return attacks.

So the DS list I usually run looks like this at 2k.

HQ
Hive tyrant
2x TL devourers
Paroxysm
Life Leech

ELITES
3x zoanthropes
spod

3x zoanthropes
spod

10 ymgarl stealers

TROOPS

7 genestealers
Broodlord

7 genestealers
Broodlord

7 genestealers
Broodlord

HEAVY SUPPORT
Trygon

Trygon

Trygon

The real weakness of the list is the troops, so broodlords are necessary in all the units. Going 2nd isn't completely necessary, though it can mean a few units may be out of position if you deploy unwisely. Try to remember which of your troops you do/don't want in combat and deploy accordingly. Don't rush into it, I have had games where I have lost because I went first and deployed terribly and I have had games where I went first and won because I deployed properly. Also remember if you go first and they reserve everything you should still be in the stronger position since they should be bringing in less than you. They may castle up but on turn 3 you should simply overwhelm them.

However, if things do go your way your opponent has 1 of 2 options.

1. Reserve everything.
A solid choice on paper, but when it comes to it they will be bringing on 50% of their army to your 66%. Odds are in your favour from the start.

2. Deploy everything
A much better proposition for your opponent since they can bring their massed firepower to bear but it still has some flaws. You get to cherry pick your targets and eliminate the threats that you really need out of the way.

Another little anecdotal test run of a reserve Tyranid list, once again inspired thanks to this thread. List:

Hive Tyrant: 2 TL-Devourers, Hive Commander, Leech Essence, Paroxysm - 225
Tyrant Guard x1: Lash Whips - 65

The Swarmlord - 280
Tyrant Guard x1: Lash Whips - 65

Ymgarl Genestealers x8 - 184

Tervigon: Cluster Spines, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst - 195
Termagants x10 - 50
Genestealers x8: Toxin Sacs - 136
Genestealers x8: Toxin Sacs - 136
Genestealers x7: Toxin Sacs - 119
Genestealers x7: Toxin Sacs - 119

Trygon: Adrenal Glands - 210
Trygon: Adrenal Glands - 210

1994/2000

A reserve stealer shock

I played a Vassal game against our very own Gwar! with his Mechanized BW Orks featuring Ghazkull, including 15 burnas! This list really scared me, as it has the potential to out assault me, can out-run me after turn 2, and is full of hard to crack vehicles. I castled in a corner with everything except for the Stealers, Ygmarls, and the Tervigon. My flank assault hit home, and I was able to whipe out two loota squads and get an early lead on KP's that Ghaz and friends were never able to make up. Once again, the sheer killiness of termagants with: Preferred Enemy (Swarmy), Furious Charge, Poison, and Feel No Pain claimed two boyz squads. That's with 11 termgaunts completely free via spawning from the Tervigon.

Being able to bring reserves in on a 2+ is downright deadly, and re-rolling outflanking means I can get where I want to go. The Tervigon support really helps the stealers, Catalyst allowing them to survive even some nasty flamer action. It's true I have tons of points tied up in my 2 HQ's, but their massive army-wide synergy, support, and own killiness makes them more than worth it. Swarmy is excellent for chopping down enemy deathstars like TWC, Nobz or nasty IC's that lack Eternal Warrior. Taking one Hive guard with Lash Whips is a must IMO. Being able to get 4+ cover, plus having two extra wounds, and being able to make the most dangerous enemy swing @ I1 is a steal for 65 points.

Paroxysm is also the best psychic power in the game IMO. Being able to reduce nasty enemy assault units to WS1 is incredible as they hit even the termagants on 5's.

After testing out a couple lists borrowing a lot of knowledge from this thread, I'd say Nids are highly competitive. This is without a single Hive Guard or Zoanthrope in the list. (Although my first list had 9 )

@eNvY

I think the list may have trouble with armour. A full mechanized list will meet no resistance for 2 turns, meaning they can get where they need to go. In my mind the 4 broods of stealers with toxin is unnecessary. Maybe cut back to 3 and try to fit in some room for zoanthropes. That's just me though.

What are people's opinions on Harpies? Has anyone used them regularly enough to see their usefulness?

Generally I believe running them in pairs up a flank, shooting at side armor while the rest of your army advances has potential. Though unlikely to kill a vehicle they can strip guns off, immobilize, and stun them so as to restrict the enemy. Then when the big beasties get close, the pair can swoop in on a weakened squad using Cluster spines, their Spore mine Cysts, or their Venom Cannon to weaken the target further then use their Monstrous Creature attack and charging bonus to eat into the enemy.

Pvt. Jet wrote:What are people's opinions on Harpies? Has anyone used them regularly enough to see their usefulness?

Generally I believe running them in pairs up a flank, shooting at side armor while the rest of your army advances has potential. Though unlikely to kill a vehicle they can strip guns off, immobilize, and stun them so as to restrict the enemy. Then when the big beasties get close, the pair can swoop in on a weakened squad using Cluster spines, their Spore mine Cysts, or their Venom Cannon to weaken the target further then use their Monstrous Creature attack and charging bonus to eat into the enemy.

If you don't commonly face S10 guns then they can be nice. For myself, I play against Tau quite a bit, and broadsides just evaporate them.

Harpies don't have enough armor for my taste, 4+, right? Autocannons seem like they'd be a problem.

I think that harpies may be a bit like loota's. you want them effective enough that you want them, but not effective enough that your opponent feels that it's worth while to kill them.

So, only good in a list with target saturation much more dangerous than them, ya? Tyrants, T-Fexes, Tervigons? Or could they be used in a more rapid list as well, as fire support for an advancing Ravener, Geneastealer, S-Pod army?

My thoughts are... I like the idea of a flying S9 blast that has some decent close ranged stuff and is decent in assault... but I'm wondering what kind of army build would best draw attention away from the strangely fragile beasties.

I'd say a T6 saturation army would probably do it Pvt. Jet. Failing that I'd also be inclined to think a Gargoyle/Ravener heavy army might as well as people will have issues closer to home to worry about. As long as you stay away from Tau I could see them working. It's just for the same points I get the depth I like out of my other MC's. I feel like they are heavily overpriced for their purpose and stats. Honestly 125 would have been closer to acceptable.

So, unit comparison time.

Harpy w/TL HVC - 170 points

Carnifex w/ HVC - 185 (195 if you want that Adrenal upgrade for S10 on the charge)

Harpy has mobility, TL, Mine cysts, and assault scream.

Carnifex is slower and loses TL, but gains survivability and assault capability. Carnifex DOES have a model, however.

In a T6 Nidzilla list, which do you think serves the list better? I like the Harpy's mobility, but I think the Carnifex provide more Target Saturation and move at a speed closer to the rest of the army (Looking at Tyrants, Tervigons, Tyrannos, and Hive Guard) so the whole force would hit at about the same time.

They do fill two different rolls. As long as you have enough of a closing MC threat you'll be fine with a harpy's toughness. But if they do choose to shoot at you they could put the hurt on fast since it's pretty hard to get MC's cover. I'd honestly go for the force that hits all at once but I have 0 experience with a Harpy. Point cost and lack of utility in my play style keep me from trying it. And unlike Raveners and Ygmarls which I have been convinced to try I just haven't see good reasoning to give it a shot.

A certain blue blog seems convinced that Harpies work well with T-Fex. I'm a little skeptical of that.

Also, keep in mind that harpies are not all that good in CC, ws3 and s5 means they struggle vs MEQ.

Not to mention that they are only T5 which means they can be wounded on 5's and have a 4+ save. Not very survivable even in CC. I'm open to give them a shot if people can give me a good example but right now their on my never use list. And I've got 2 of them built for funsies when I went on a converting blitz so it's not the model issue

Ah that bit about onsluaght with the T-Fex is genius, I hadn't thought about that.

Here's a little tip form my limited experience.

I have been playing a really wonky list because it is essentially all the models I have (this is my newest army and I am expanding it slowly).

One thing I have been using to great effect is a unit of 20+ basic gants with an attached Prime.

The unit, while somewhat expensive (200-230) is unmovable from objectives. With that many fearless wounds with a covers save, it will take a massive effort or specialized weapons to chew through it. The prime also makes the unit scary in combat as with intelligent positioning of him, you can keep him safe from power weapons and let him carve up enemy units with his LW/BS.

I plop that unit down on an objective or spread it out over two objectives and laugh as my opponent attempts to move them. With other threats attacking, they sink in the priority list and tend not to draw any fire until it's too late.

Even against units like Dreads I find the unit to last. Again, positioning the Prime well means that he will be safe from the Dread. The dread will eat a few gants a turn, and pulling the right models from the combat ensures that it will be a very long time before the prime gets into B2B.

Is it the most competitive build out? Probably not, but it works very well and it is more resilient than a Tervigon for objective holding, although it does lack the ability to use onslaught or catalyst.

I would also like to add in that Ymgarls have been game winners for me every time, and that a giant unit of Stealers has been just incredibly powerful for me as others have said. They are my hammer unit in every game I have used them.


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As for Harpies, I have not used them myself, but Dave-Fay was talking about a list using three of them and then maxing out large blast templates in the rest of the army. You can put out a stunning amount of large blasts. The Harpies are also good assaulters as they actually have grenades and can hunt down units like Long Fangs, Lootas, etc.

I think they definitely have a place in a competitive list.

I've seen that gaunt tactic employed before to great success. Never tried it myself but I might have to. Do you give yor gaunts any up grades reece?

Nope. I currently run a unit of 25 or 26 with a Prime with LW/BS, Death spitter and t.sacs.

It has been brilliant every game. For straight objective camping, they are so hard to kill.

I have had that unit flamed, assaulted by full strength GKT squad (the prime killed 4, the Gants handled the rest) and still, they always end up holding at least one objective.

The only time the unit got wiped was when a Defiler got into combat with them. The large amount of attacks eventually wore them down to nothing. But still, even then, they tied up the Defiler for the entire game.

Mostly, opponents just ignore the unit as it really isn't a threat. With a unit of 20 Stealers in their face with a bunch of big nasties coming up behind them, firepower tends to go elsewhere.

In KP missions the unit is still nice as no one ever shoots at it! Plus it serves as a great tarpit.

Until i play my bugs more, with a wider variety of units, I can't really say if I think they are going into my tournament list, but for now I love them.

In my unorothodox conquest to come up with a tyranid list that goes against the grain and is highly unexpected as an army that will be competitive here's my latest concoction. Ideas inspired by Reecius Janthkin and 40kenthuiast (with a bit of originality from myself to of course)

Anywho heres what I'm thinking for 2000

HQ
Prime- lash whip bonesword 110 (i think)

prime- lash whip bonesword 110 (i think)

Elites
2 Zoanthropes 120
Pod 40

2 Zoanthropes 120
Pod 40

Troops
20 gaunts- devourers 200

20 gaunts- devourers 200

20 genestealers 280

5 genestealers 70

5 genestealers 70

Fast
9 Raveners- rending claws 315

9 Raveners- rending claws 315

That's all I got. (1990) I think

Idea being that the stealers infiltrate up and pose a major turn 2 threat along with the 18 raveners. In fact so much of a threat that the enemy wont be able to handle it. The 2 smaller stealer squads outflank to pop a tank harass and capture objectives. The zoans come in and take care of land raiders. If the enemy has credible amounts of S8+ to scare my raveners my prime will join them to help out instead of the gaunts. Also did I mention the gaunts pump out the retardedness that is 120 S4 shots a turn, on average that equals 10 unsaved wounds on MEQ's. That's something.

I think that list needs either more fodder units up front or more anti-mech shooting.

I've used similar setups (2 units of 9 raveners, at least), and while they can face beat they need to be mixed in with gaunts/gargoyles to hit the fist guys and control the combat resolution.

It looks to me like you are leading with stealers and gargoyles, which will at best pop the enemies rhinos and then be setup to receive flamer/bolter love, then have to charge over the wrecks and go last.

My usual plan is to use a Tyrannofex + my deep striking units to open up their transports, same as you have going on here with the Zoe's, but the Tfex works from round 1 on, and I use spawned gaunts, gargoyles and the Parasite to hold off the enemy until they are outside their vehicles, so that they can be engaged relatively evenly by the superior Tyrannid codex assault troops.

I love those Devogants. They put out so much firepower. And if anything Yermon, I need to be taking notes from you. You have far more experience under your belt with bugs than me.

Hmm, 9 Ravenors. I never thought to run a max squad. I am always thinking missile spam lists will just rock them.

Man, running the math on that, that is a serious beat down, though. 35 hits roughly against WS4. That nets you about 6 rends, 12 wounds against T4. Which against MEQ's is another 4 dead.

That guts a squad.

Plus with unit on big bases that fast you can pretty easily pull off multiple assaults. Rending makes them a threat against vehicles, too.

Damn, now that has me thinking. That is a pretty savage unit and baring any fists, even charging into cover they have the wounds to really soak some hits and still deliver a killing blow.

I'll have to try that, even in proxy. That is pretty brutal.

Has anyone used Shrikes? Looking at the numbers, equipped with t.sacs, LW/BS they are mobile, synapse and can assault units in cover and still hit incredibly hard. The hefty price tag is a bit worrisome though. I was curious if anyone had tried them out yet as they look solid for at least friendly play.

I also really like that tactic of using a small unit of steelers with a broodlord. That sounds like a really solid combo. Currently I am in love with my giant steeler unit as Janthkin convinced me to run them. They have just been bringing the absolute pain in every game.

@40kenthusiast- Yeah I agree about the pop transports then what kind of deal. The idea is that basically the raveners cant really die unless they are out of cover and even then 27 wounds on MEQ's are not easy to pull off or missile spam. But yes their biggest threat is power fists. By far. I;m hoping the smaller stealer squads can also help in the fashion by locking up the fist so the raveners are free to eat them up.

I'd also really like some hive guard but I can't justify the switch since as it is my list only has 4 models in it that can kill land raiders. I was thinking that infiltrating the stealers to die but take the majority of the fire power. Then 1 group of raveners can grab a huge multi charge and knock out as many transports as possible. They die to the enemy rebutle but the now foot slogging army is slammed with 9 more raveners and the gaunts. Just what I was thinking. Also with this kind of army I can afford to play the waiting game a bit.

@Reece- The raveners are a unit that no one really considers or if they do dont have the balls to test but it works fairl well. Just watch for fists those mess them up.

Shrikes are just too expensive for being able to be insta killed.

Yeah, the one issue I have with Ravs is that they get a beatdown from some of the PF/PK/TH-equipped uberunits. Even after the fists do their damage, the combo of combat res and a weak armor save really does a number on them.

But I still like Ravs. I wonder if the price of the models prevents more people from fielding them? Plus figure that even many veteran Tyranid players only owned a few to be used as singles in FA slots.

One thing to consider about Raveners is that they have a 12" charge range. They're very unlikely to shoot themselves out of a charge, so it's important that they shoot whatever they're charging to thin the herd a bit so that they can use their multiple attacks to kill Power Fists and the like before they act.

I gotta admit I have two things stopping me from buying the Ravener models, and the first is most definitely price.

If I can scale this down to 1850 and I like how the tesing goes I think I'll bring it to mechanicon. Now the hard part is finding time to test between school and keeping my girlfriend happy

It seems like Gargoyles would be more efficient than Ravs. The only reason I can really see taking Ravs is because of their slightly greater range and rending, which allows them to hurt vehicles.

Gargoyles are more resilient (due to lack of susceptibility to instant death and slightly higher number of wounds in a full strength squad), cheaper, can go onto the second level+ of buildings, and will kill just as much stuff in combat against most opponents.

Good points but the power of raveners comes from their ability to hurt vehicles IMO. Imagine an IG gunline or razorspam wolves/BA. Barely moving their army then getting slammed by a horde of raveners and losing 4- 5 tanks in one turn. Also ravs have I5 naturally so will be able to really deal with fiends and the new coming dark eldar.

True. But how many tanks can Ravs pop?

Hmm, 9 is 45 attacks, hit with 23, reroll 1's nets you another 4 hits, so 27.

That gives you 4.5 rends, lets call it 5. That is rounding everything up.

So, with 5 pens on rear armor 10, that should net you two dead tanks. Assuming all rends occurred on a different tank (which is pretty unlikely) you could expect to take out two, immobilize one, and stun 2.

Not bad, actually. However, that may not be so easy to pull off in practice.

I definitely see there use though, I wrote them off as a garbage unit at first glance, but now they definitely seem appealing.

gorgon wrote:But I still like Ravs. I wonder if the price of the models prevents more people from fielding them? Plus figure that even many veteran Tyranid players only owned a few to be used as singles in FA slots.

I had three metal ones from 4th edition. Never ran them in a game. I bought 3 boxes of the new plastic ones and I've run them in broods of 6, 7 or 9. Mostly without as much success as I would like. The metal ones with 2 pairs of talons still haven't seen the table.

Nurglitch wrote:I gotta admit I have two things stopping me from buying the Ravener models, and the first is most definitely price.

Yes, they are expensive in absolute terms, but they are cheaper than they used to be. 3 metal ones without rending claws were $51 retail. Now they're 44.50 for 3 and include rending claws and the thorax weapons. So you're saving $6.50 and getting better models.

Sure, but I didn't mention the other thing that's stopping me from getting a unit of Raveners, and that's the aesthetics.

I've used Raveners and Gargoyles extensively, and I don't think they are anything like each other. The closest equivalent to a gargoyle is a warrior, while the raveners don't really have any units that are much like them (fighting warriors are the closest, and even they are very different).

They work really well together, but they are dramatically different in their engagement profiles.

The biggest surprise I've had, and I've played a lot of games with my Nids, with using 2 units of maxed raveners is how hard it is not to go through terrain. 12" and full following of the assault rules makes it very difficult indeed to avoid terrain, and i1 and i5 are very different. I frequently find myself using gaunts/gargoyles to wall the raveners off from terrain, silly but effective.

Um thumb-up and subscription. If anyone could tell me how to subscribe a post without replying it then thanks a lot.

There's a link in the bottom left corner of the page after you scroll all the way down that says "subscribe".

Nurglitch wrote:Sure, but I didn't mention the other thing that's stopping me from getting a unit of Raveners, and that's the aesthetics.

Is the overall aesthetic or just the new plastic models you don't like? I like the aesthetic and that's why I'm trying to find ways to use them effectively. I've considered running them as my counts as CC warriors because I like the models more than the warriors.

Arschbombe:

They're nice models, but my army is about the Termagant aesthetic, so forelegs carry a gun, midlegs are scything talons cut for a quadrapedal stance, and the hindlegs are hindlegs.

How do warriors look when built that way?

Kind of like the attached picture: Sorry about the quality.

Hello! i'm not new in dakka dakka forums but anyway i've been following this threat since the begining! I've learned a couple of things very interesting for my nid army, involving gargoyles & Primes.
I've been doing a list & i want your opinion about it, i've been thinking on the most competitive list so here it is

HQ

- Hive Tyrant, lash whip & bone sword, 170 pts.
- Tyrant Guard, 60 pts

- Prime, lash whip & bone sword, 95 pts ( He's going with the unit of carnifexes, to do wound allocation )

Elite

- x2 Hive Guard, 100 pts

- x2 Hive Guard, 100 pts

- x2 Hive Guard, 100 pts

(No intentions on changing the elites here)

Troops

- 10 Gaunts, 50 pts

- 10 gaunts, 50 pts

- Tervigon, catalyst, 175 pts

- Tervigon, catalyst, 175 pts

Fast attack

- 20 Gargoyles, toxin, 140 pts

- 20 Gargoyles, toxin, 140 pts

(The gargoyles here are covering the entire army while they advance, guaranting the maximum surviability to all of them)

Heavy Support

- 2 Carnifex, 320 pts

- Trygon prime, 240 pts


So if i'm not wrong, it's 1910 pts over 2000. There's still 90 points to use, i've thought in a pair of biovores that's exactly 90 pts OR i can give biomorphs to the other nids..
What do you think guys? i aprecciate the criticism to the list to make it better!

I like it. But it's kinda a blend of a couple of my playstyle lists which makes me biased. What I'd do with 90pts is:

40pts-Adrenal on the Gargs
20pts-Adrenal on the Tervies
20pts-Toxin on the Tervies
10pts-Spines on the Carnies.

But I have to warn you that your carnies are probably going to take a beating before you ever hit combat. The lack of cover for them is going to hurt.

I'm taking this list to a tournament this weekend. I have extra points put into the tervis because I didn't have anywhere else to spend them, i'm open to suggestions, but I own no gargoyles (yet)

Prime (LW & BS, ST) 95

Prime (LW & BS, ST) 95

Tervigon (TS, AG, ST, CS, Regen, Catalyst) 230

Tervigon (TS, AG, ST, CS, Regen, Catalyst) 230

Tervigon (TS, AG, ST, CS, Regen, Catalyst) 230

10 Termagant 50

10 Termagant 50

10 Termagant 50

3 Hive Guard 150

3 Hive Guard 150

Deathleaper 140

Tyrannofex (RC, CS, Larvae) 265

Tyrannofex (RC, CS, Larvae) 265

2000 exact


Primes hang out with the Hive Guard and deter charges or soak wounds and counter assault when needed. If i drop the Regen and ST from the 3 tervigons I have 105 points to work with, but I don't know what to do with it?

Hulksmash wrote:I like it. But it's kinda a blend of a couple of my playstyle lists which makes me biased. What I'd do with 90pts is:

40pts-Adrenal on the Gargs
20pts-Adrenal on the Tervies
20pts-Toxin on the Tervies
10pts-Spines on the Carnies.

But I have to warn you that your carnies are probably going to take a beating before you ever hit combat. The lack of cover for them is going to hurt.

The Gargoyles doesn't cover the 50% of the carnies? i though taht in fact they can, maybe i was mistaken :S I like the changes though!

@Wiley

I'd drop the regen and the talons on the Tervigons personally. That's 105 more you can use to buff up the army. Though I'm not sure where to be honest. I'd cosider giving the primes toxin as it helps immensely. If you are going to run them in the same squad I'd suggest giving one just dual boneswords and 1 the BS/LW since it will make it easier to kill big threats. Maybe use the rest to flush out the gaunt squads a bit more. Or even upgrade one to dev gaunts and add a few models as those guys put out a ridiculous amount of small arms fire.

@Soni

They can, they just need to be close which will negate their speed. I generally use my gargs as a bombardment unit. They hit first and disrupt the enemy and the rest of my stuff follows. I guess it would come down to how you fielded them

There is a wealth of information to be had here, but to the shiney new-spawned 'Nid player, most of this is flying waaaaaay over my head

I kind of understand (based on what i've taken away from the updated 1st posts) how to spend my point on units, and what is and isnt worthwhile, but i'm still VERY lost on Core Units and Models for an In-Your-Face-oh-god-there-going-to-eat-ME! pure Assault Nid Force.

Some help please ?

Read the article in my signature for basic list building fundamentals.

Then, when you have decided on how you are going to play your army, you can get more specific.

If you want balls out assault, which is what Nids do well, you have to decide how you want to do it.

Nids can move fast, use various deployment methods, can be resilient, etc.

For core units, Tervigons are a great bet as they are so tough and they make other units so good. I love a giant unit of Genestealers, as do a lot of other folks, and devourer gants are a great choice, too. A mix of those three and you will be in a good position.

Honestly though, get an idea of how your army will work as a whole before worrying about individual units. Read the article in my sig, that will give you the basics, then build up from there. I think that will help you a lot.

BishopX wrote:A certain blue blog seems convinced that Harpies work well with T-Fex. I'm a little skeptical of that.

Also, keep in mind that harpies are not all that good in CC, ws3 and s5 means they struggle vs MEQ.

Another blue blog has also used Harpies, with more in-depth use related in http://raptor1313.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-harpies.html

The simplest reason to use them is they're an AT unit that is not Heavy Support or Elites. It has good accuracy (and against some targets like Vendettas, it's basically impossible to miss), and reliable strength, and against a lot of targets, shakes/stuns are perfectly acceptable. The more tanks not firing, the better.

As for it being a poor model in melee, that's how Tyranid Monstrous creatures work in general; point-for-point, the smaller Nids will inflict more damage in melee against infantry than the bigger stuff. The tradeoffs being that smaller 'nids are more vulnerable to melee torrent, and aren't effective at taking out vehicles, and that the Tyranid Monstrous creatures usually have at least one "support" feature. Paroxysm, Catalyst, or Sonic Screech in the Harpy's case, help increase the overall efficiency of the swarm. It *would* have been much simpler for a Harpy to have been Initiative 10, but halving the initiative of enemy units is a good thing, both for annoying high-initiative models, or making lower-init ones more tempting to use. ("Fear my Initiative 8 Carnifex. MUAHAHAHAHA").

On another note, one thing that seems to have been overlooked is Devourergants. They've been mentioned...once so far? And simply by merit of number of shots? The way I view it is as follows. You're taking Termagants to score, and unlock Tervigons? It's 50 points. For another 50 points, you make the unit useful beyond simply dying. While fragile, 10 Devourergants throw out a *lot* of firepower, more S4 than pretty much any unit in the game point-for-point. The extra range helps them get more reliably get all their shots in, while hopefully being able to lurk out of range of ensuing melee, but the most important thing is that by throwing so many dice at once, they blow right through the wound counters in a squad and go straight to forcing saves on the sergeant, the flamer-dude, Bob the Meltagunner...In short, torrent is the Tyranid tactical tautology to Telion.

Finally, the Carnifex. I assert that against most armies (Exceptions are Orks, Eldar, and other Tyranids), it's actually more resilient than the Trygon vs shooting. The reason is getting a 4+ cover save is a lot easier for it relative to the top-heavy, supertall Trygon. Half the model's height is in its scything talons and arms, which don't count for targeting; Warriors, Hive Guard, and Tyrant Guard all possess enough size (Warriors especially) to help the Carnifex obtain that 50% cover (reason for the exceptions above is they rely on *lots* of shots overwhelming an armor save, rather than low numbers of low-AP weapons). It has enough attacks to serve as a credible threat in melee, or to finish off any vehicle that didn't (or couldn't) move in a previous turn, yet until that time, it serves as a sniper unit, removing small squads of their important models, and pressuring enemies to remain hidden in their transports. Tag-teaming an Adrenal Dakkafex with a Dakka-Tyrant gives you a solid firebase against infantry and light armor, that can also tear apart most units in melee quite handily.

Devourer Gants were mentioned a few times. But you are right, for a 100% increase in cost you get a 300% increase in firepower and a 50% increase in range. They are fantastic.

Oh, if you have other targets for people Dev gants are just the bees knees But I'm biased as I have loved them since 4th edition

Why is there no discussion on the Doom of Malantai? Curious as to why everyone left him out.

Michaetruck wrote:Why is there no discussion on the Doom of Malantai? Curious as to why everyone left him out.

In a pod, it is rather nice.

I used it at 'Ard Boys to deal with the masses my big bugs would get overwhelmed by. It did really well.

For 130 points I find it to be a useful one shot wonder (ok, 2 shot. But you know what I mean).
If it lives for a second Tyranid turn it has never failed to get 200+points worth of models killed for me.


Even walking it is decent--especially in an army with a lot of t6 wounds (I had ~39 at 1850) as people are disinclined to "waste" high strength shots on DoM, especially if they do not see it fielded often/ever. If they do shoot at it with s8+ it is one of the few models that gets a save, which makes it survivable enough for 90 points.

The main problem (other than the Tyranid FAQ) with Doom is the predominance of mech, and its compitition for Elite slots.

The ap1 blast is nice and all, but it is very rare that you would really want to shoot it at a vehicle--even at s10.
Vehicle hit (only) = no wounds = no Absorb Life.
Also, Psychic Test + To Hit + To Wound(/Vehicle damage roll) = annoying numbers of rolls, especially with bs3.
And that is not counting how annoying hoods can be.

All that said, I have one modeled and field it regularly and find that it is worth it almost every time (I did once have 7 units in range of its Spirit Leech and every single one made its LD check).

kirsanth wrote:

Michaetruck wrote:Why is there no discussion on the Doom of Malantai? Curious as to why everyone left him out.

In a pod, it is rather nice.

I used it at 'Ard Boys to deal with the masses my big bugs would get overwhelmed by. It did really well.

For 130 points I find it to be a useful one shot wonder (ok, 2 shot. But you know what I mean).
If it lives for a second Tyranid turn it has never failed to get 200+points worth of models killed for me.


Even walking it is decent--especially in an army with a lot of t6 wounds (I had ~39 at 1850) as people are disinclined to "waste" high strength shots on DoM, especially if they do not see it fielded often/ever. If they do shoot at it with s8+ it is one of the few models that gets a save, which makes it survivable enough for 90 points.

The main problem (other than the Tyranid FAQ) with Doom is the predominance of mech, and its compitition for Elite slots.

The ap1 blast is nice and all, but it is very rare that you would really want to shoot it at a vehicle--even at s10.
Vehicle hit (only) = no wounds = no Absorb Life.
Also, Psychic Test + To Hit + To Wound(/Vehicle damage roll) = annoying numbers of rolls, especially with bs3.
And that is not counting how annoying hoods can be.

All that said, I have one modeled and field it regularly and find that it is worth it almost every time (I did once have 7 units in range of its Spirit Leech and every single one made its LD check).

Very nice, thanks for the info - I had never considered the vehicle problem. I primarily play against SM and Orks, and both armies never really fielded a total mech force. It's usually a horde clash.

I'm also curious as to why hormagaunts get thrown under the bus so soon in discussion, they seem highly effective as screens and speedy lockdown threats. Are gargs really that much better?

Michaetruck wrote:Are gargs really that much better?

They are cheaper, move farther, screen better, and can shoot.
Hormagaunts get an extra attack and reroll 1s to-hit. Without Beast they do not charge 12" but can go up stairs. The running thing is nice, but they still cannot guarantee a 18" threat.

Also, hormagaunts take up the same slot as genestealers (similar role, but can outflank and rend), termagants (which unlock tervigon troops), and tervigons.

So they are not bad, but have much heavier compitition for their slot than they used to.

Gargs also have the possibility to provide cover to some MC's depending on range and other factors. The gargs just provide more options to the player, and the auto wound on 6's to hit is fun in CC as well.

Someones earlier comment about Raveners being similar to genestealers got me thinking, the results of which I will provide to you now.

I will compre Genestealers with scything talons to raveners with rending claws, as these are most similar in abilities. The Ravener costs slightly more than 2 of these genestealers. Compared:

Genestealers lead by a point of WS and I. These are both valuable abilities, but against "average" enemies, are mostly overkill, and the I boost is negated by cover.

In terms of Durability, Raveners are 50% more durable against small-arms fire. Fewer models also sees an increase in durability vs low S blast weapons. Raveners are, however, susceptable to ID.

In terms of Manouverability and striking power, both posses fleet, move through cover and a special deployment rule. Raveners are also Beasts. The two are roughly equal in terms of when they arrive in the assault if deployed on the field, but Raveners can hang back out of rapid fire range and still assault, and also have better assault range in subsequant turns.

Genestealers major advantage is their independant, scoring nature. Unlike Raveners, they do not need Synapse, and have a much better Ld. They are also scoring. These make Genestelers much more than a simple weapon, and much easier to control.

Finaly, the upgrades they can take. Genestealers can take a number of upgrades that can boost their close combat might, while Raveners can take ranged Weapons. This makes Raveners slightly more Flexabe.

kirsanth wrote:Also, hormagaunts take up the same slot as genestealers (similar role, but can outflank and rend), termagants (which unlock tervigon troops), and tervigons.
So they are not bad, but have much heavier compitition for their slot than they used to.

I would use toxic hormagaunts in a swarm list, otherwise I go with Tervigons and Genestealers. When you factor in the shooting Gargoyles are about as effective as Hormaguants on the charge.

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:Someones earlier comment about Raveners being similar to genestealers got me thinking, the results of which I will provide to you now.

It is interesting to see how different people view different units. Raveners and Genestealers fill a very similar role for me. That of delivering rending attacks into the back field quickly. I prefer stealers because -
They can operate independently; One Melta/Fist is not going to take out 15-20% of the squad; Outflank/Infiltrate usually better than 12" charge; they score.
I also find that extra point of initiative helpful for sweeping advances.

bonesword lashwhip warriors are really really underrated.
A large squad sitting on an objective is really difficult to uproot. The lashwhips making units initiative 1 is huge.

Spending 45 points a model is not a good option for camping an objective though. S8 just blows them away. Gaunts are a better choice. Lurk means they are made to camp.

Reecius wrote:Devourer Gants were mentioned a few times. But you are right, for a 100% increase in cost you get a 300% increase in firepower and a 50% increase in range. They are fantastic.

Man, I considered Devourer gaunts, but I couldn't get over spending 200+ points on termagants, even if their gun is awesome.

Something I had previously disregarded also came up recently. I took part in an RTT 1k tournament and a nid player won. His list wasn't particularly competitive but he ran it well. It also helped that in 1 particular game the Mech IG player couldn't hit or wound anything with his twin linked lascannons and plasmaguns to save his life.

But I digress. This particular player was using venomthropes. 2 of them. Behind 2 trygons. Now I have never used them but after looking at what they did for the nid player I was impressed. Does anyone have any success stories or comments on how to use them effectively? I can see in an MC heavy list they can be very useful for mitigating damage and a brood of 3 really helps out if in a spod and deepstriking next to 2/3 deepstriking tryons.

Yup. Plus a Prime with Regenerate can catch Krak Missiles for them, if someone wants to try and take them out.

Lukus83 wrote:Something I had previously disregarded also came up recently. I took part in an RTT 1k tournament and a nid player won. His list wasn't particularly competitive but he ran it well. It also helped that in 1 particular game the Mech IG player couldn't hit or wound anything with his twin linked lascannons and plasmaguns to save his life.

But I digress. This particular player was using venomthropes. 2 of them. Behind 2 trygons. Now I have never used them but after looking at what they did for the nid player I was impressed. Does anyone have any success stories or comments on how to use them effectively? I can see in an MC heavy list they can be very useful for mitigating damage and a brood of 3 really helps out if in a spod and deepstriking next to 2/3 deepstriking tryons.

I've tried it at 2k points, against stupid opponents it works well. Against smart opponents, the venomthropes buy the farm t1.

I've tried it at 2k points, against stupid opponents it works well. Against smart opponents, the venomthropes buy the farm t1.

I dunno, considering you could have lost a trygon for the same amount of shooting, it doesn't seem too bad. That one turn your trygon survives could be pretty damn important.

Only thing really holding me back from trying them out is losing an elite slot to them.

Most definately what Winterman said.

However, at lower points games I think they are a solid choice and your points for using the elites slot is limited by said points values. By filling out with a lower cost unit you aren't really doing anything wrong, especially if you then max out your heavy support slot with 3 trygons. Also remember that apart from IG other armies will have trouble bringing a large amount of mech to the table.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oops didn't fill out that last sentence properly...

Also remember that apart from IG other armies will have trouble bringing a large amount of mech to the table meaning zoanthropes and hive guard aren't as necessary.

If you're doing the monster list, people do NOT shoot at your Tyranid warriors. Also, tyranid warriors with bonesword need a dedicated unit to uproot them. I can smack gaunts around with a basic chaos squad on the charge. Gaunts are good...if they get ignored.

I've seen berserkers charge bonesword lashwhip warriors and get evaporated before they get to strike.

Hmmm, any sensible player would just lob a pie plate at them. Objective scoured. Pie plates were made for multi-wound T4 models. They do nothing of note to Big beasties.

Sorry, but that's just the way I see it.

Max coherency, and Go to-Ground. Only army of note brings pieplates en-masse. Doing so makes it a glass cannon (less chimeras for objective-taking/moveblocking/etc).

Besides, Nidzilla Target Priority is "SHOOT ZE VENDETTAS!" When they're pulled, the enemy *has* to divert firepower from your Warriors.

What is the consensus of how the DE with their masses of poison and anti vehicle power level weapons will affect the metagame/list strategy for your average bug player?

Parasite of M.

Ran him the first time last Friday. He was attached to 3 RC, ST, AG warriors. Surprisingly was the total awesome sauce. speed was good, kept synapse in a mobile location. Able to support other fast units, such as raveners, gargolyes, homogaunts, trygons and genestealers with ease.

His ripper creating ability would be a liability in a kill point game however in an objective game was able to place the rippers preventing the Parasite from being assaulted in return, as well as blocking units from going after objectives.

Weakness in the list I ran was the Prime I had for my other HQ was stuck in the back with the tryanofexes and his unit of Devagaunts. Granted they secured an objective for the win, but I would of liked more.

What is the consensus of how the DE with their masses of poison and anti vehicle power level weapons will affect the metagame/list strategy for your average bug player?

I'm a bit concerned but not as much now that it is confirmed the 6" rule for shooting from a vehicle was not removed for DE (unless there's a rule or gear I missed). I mean a dual splinter cannon venom is probably the cheapest poison shooter in the list (especially for the range and mobility) and it will cause 4 wounds on average -- so 1.33 failed saves on our MCs? I dunno, I am still more worried about ML spam at the moment.

I'm also considering sprinkling some venom cannons into my lists for next year. S9 blast that pens is pretty brutal on raider/venom spam. Also it will be hard to rely on hive guard since night sheilds shut them down pretty hard (18" range is just not acceptable against fast vehicles).

Really really early though and the book is dense -- there's alot to take in as both a nid player and a DE player.

Had a little outing with 2 tyranid primes and attached 2 carnifexes yesterday. The results were pleasing. They managed to single handedly rip apart an IG blob, a CCS, a PCS, a unit of ogryns, a penal legion and take my opponents objective. And all of that after being repeatedly shot (3 turns) with 3 lascannons from the blob. Not bad for 6 turns work. Granted the list I was facing wasn't tuned but the amount of firepower they absorbed was staggering.

I thoroughly recommend this unit.

Told ya

It's not a cheap unit but it hits like a mac track and it's pretty resilient with cover, wound allocation, and FnP. Glad you enjoyed it Lukus.

I played the shooty version of the carni+2prime unit this weekend for the first time (just got another prime built and painted) and it worked pretty well also.

Highlight was forcing a moral check from shooting on a 4 man TWC + Twolf, in which they failed and fell off the table, then they took a charge from a similar unit the next turn and although didn't survive that encounter (primes both failed to hit first round and barely did anything the next) the carnies still took a few with em and my trygon came in for the counter charge and finished the job.

I'd like to try the scytal version as well. I can see where those rerolls would make them brutal as hell.

I have tried the tyranid prime attached to a carnifex thing and this weekend I think I will try with 2 of each and see how that goes.

Slick wrote:What is the consensus of how the DE with their masses of poison and anti vehicle power level weapons will affect the metagame/list strategy for your average bug player?

It means DE units will butt rape TMC's.

The DE look like they will shake up the meta a lot. But honestly, DE have always been good at killing Bugs.

I think the solution to this, if DE are popular at tournaments, will be to run a mix of little bug horde and big bugs. However, if someone has found a killer list that works against all the other armies, they should just stick with it unless the tournaments become saturated with DE.

Okay, purusing Warseer (which made my brain hurt), I'm reading that Flyrants are overpriced because of 60pt wings. Is this general consensus? I mean, the Tyrant, by default, gets 2 of 4 psychic powers, some of which are downright nasty, is T6, W4 and gets a good save. Its default weapons both bring enemies in melee down to I1, also potentially cause instant death and are S6, armour ignoring to boot. This is the sort of thing other armies commanders pay for, and sometimes never reach (like the high toughness).

The downside to the Tyrant are its size, and the short range of its psychic powers and available weapons. Wings mitigate the short range aspect, and help it get into melee faster, and decent terrain help it out with cover, not to mention providing a screen of gargoyles.

I really don't see the problem with 60 points for wings, but I might be missing something.

I don't care much for Tyrants in general as I don't like paying that much for something with no invul save, but that is just me. I know a lot of guys here use them and the Swarm Lord to great effect.

As for the wings being overpriced? Depends on how you use him really. I don't think I would take him any other way. Either with wing or the swarm lord, IMO. The mobility and option to deep strike makes him very versatile.

And yeah, Warseer is not known for having the best tactics advice.

Depends how you look at Tyrants really. I will always take a tyrant, period. I love their look, their hitting power, their old adversary buff, everything. So, I'm spending ~250 on a winged tyrant, ~275-300 on a walking tyrant + guard or ~400 on a Swarmlord + 2 guard. The winged tyrant is the cheapest of the batch from my choices.

Taken in a vacuum, yeah 60 points is pretty steep for winging a HT when a chaos demon prince pays 20 and space marine commanders pay what, 20-25? But you are either going with a budget 100 point prime HQ, or are likely spending 250-400, there isn't really a lot of middle ground for Tyranids in the the 101-249 point range.

as above, HT's are expensive but fill a gap that needs to be filled in the tyranid army

-it is a MC that can chase down vehicles easily
-It can reroll hits so needing 6's isn't too bad
-paradoxm, hive commander, ect. are awesome bonuses.
-Flying synapse that isn't the parasite that can keep up with the awesome, undercosted gargoyle swarms. (man i wish that parasite was T5! :( )

I have been running a Strangle Thorn Cannon HT, I know suboptimal. But WYSIWYG(or close to), was great last edition when I had the VC on him. And personally he does very well on horde armies and once the mech gets opened up. I mainly want him for the out flanking ability. I love being able to have Genestealers and a unit of WArriors support from the sides, claim objectives and do a little bit of everything.

But lately I've been running a Prime and the Parasite, and I think this does well. I think I may drop the prime for a trevigon in my back line with the tryanofexs for the onslaught.

For a winged HT would running ST, LW/BS be a good load out?

I think the best build for the Flyrant is the twin devourer, although the whip and sword is fantastic and means he will obliterate units in the open and at least strike simo with units in cover.

Here's another thing I was supprised to not see in the tactica, that I thought was pretty obvious.

One of the great killers of tyranid swarms are no retreat wounds, they suck, but you can avoid a majority of them with proper squad use.

If you run your larger gargoyle or gaunt squads in a teardrop-shape, with your multiple smaller tervigon units near the front, during a turn when you assault, you have your synapse fall back and your gaunts move forward, after assault move only your big blob is within snapse radius, the others aren't. Usually your opponent would cause wounds to your one big unit, then no retreat to the others and cause massive damage (in theory)

however now, because of the lack of synapse, the "small squads" will properly fail leadership, be un-sweepable due to the one fearless unit in combat, auto-rally when they enter synapse again from the fallback move, and be ready to assault in again with furious charge on the next turn.

you lose one round of close combat due to falling back on your cc phase, but you save some bugs from an early death. which can be nice if you are rolling good on tervigons and are going to assault in with 4 or 5 units and dont want to lose an additonal 20 gaunts for no reason.

Reecius wrote:I think the best build for the Flyrant is the twin devourer, although the whip and sword is fantastic and means he will obliterate units in the open and at least strike simo with units in cover.

That's the tough split... Double tl dev is a very very strong choice for set up, but when you include the wildly popular mephiston, and now the agonizer wielding archon to the equation, then the LWBS becomes both a points discount and deterrent to those powerful units. In the case of meph, "Will I get my 4+ to wound and my psychic test to ID off past shadow in the warp in one attempt?" And in the case of the archon, "Will I fail one of the four 2++ he's going to make me take?"

As much as I am a shooter with nids... I am currently leaning towards the whip for tourneys.

I'd like to add a bit here about the winged tyrant. I agree with everyone about him being very difficult to get a lot of value out of. However, there is one list I am using him in where he is nearly required, and its already been tourney successful with nearly no practice.

flyrant, hive commander, tl devs

2x zoans pod
2x zoans pod
deathleaper

tervigon catalyst toxin adrenal
10x termagants pod
tervigon catalyst toxin adrenal
10x termagants pod

trygon adrenal
trygon adrenal
trygon adrenal


Thats my personal preference drop pod list. But there are quite a few flexible points for tweaks. Based on your own metagame. I play a lot at 1500 competitively, and so I've almost fallen out of 2000 points game size practice. A list like this could really utilize a unit of Ymgarls, I'm just a touch more comfortable with zoans, especially with the boost that deathleaper brings to non-space wolf hoods, but I think ymgars would be great here. Also as soon as I was comfortable with my amount of scoring units I would want to bring in gargoyles, as many as could fit. They aren't death dealing power houses, but LOS interference, tying up shooty units and large spreads for contesting objectives make them damn useful. Harpies are another unit that at larger points sizes could fit well into a list like this. And if they were taken, then I would probably lose zoans for Ymgarls. So plenty of personalization could happen here.

This army just terrorizes mech gunlines if played correctly, but it is quite weak to horde armies, the hive guard based walking nid list fares much better in that regard. The last RTT I took this to i managed some convincing wins against a tough ig gunline a mech space marine army and a mech eldar list. But I was banking too hard on the top tables being populated by MSU mech and who did I run into but Yakface with a really tuned kan wall. I hung in there for longer than I expected, but the trygons really don't want to be facing down guyspam.

Hold all in reserve, declare outflanking with one tervigon. Everything comes in on a 3+ on turn 2, and if deathleaper makes it, everything auto-comes in on turn 3. Do not over-extend, crash a flank and only allow a portion of his line to fight a potion of your own line. its a really fun way to play bugs in my opinion, especially when you need a break from MC gant farming.

@Grundz
That is some brilliant use of model positioning, I had not thought of that but will certainly make use of it. Thanks for sharing that.

@shep
Looks like a fun list, and effective. I swear, you sprue posse guys are turning Limey on us with all this 1500 point jibber jabber!

The whip/sword makes the flyrant dominant in combat against most opponents baring bloodcrushers and the like. However, he doesn't ever go after those, they are fodder for gargoyles and hormagants.

I like lists like yours for their ability to utilize multiple deployment methods, which makes for more interesting games and for greater flexibility. However, I can easily see where you would struggle with high numbers. An Ork horde would be your nemesis, or a small bug horde with poison. Although you don't see either that often in a tournament.

I am trying to make a tournament list without using tervigons. I like the big ugglies, but think that replacing them with more kill power can be a viable alternative to gant pooping.

Well, it looks like I might be getting a Heirophant instead of a Heirodule for Christmas, so I've been reading up on its rules. The Apocolypse book says that it gets a warp field save, which the 4th edition codex stated as a 2+ armour save and a 6+ invulnerable save. The Apocolypse book has the save as 2+, so I assume that is from the warp field.

However, the 5th edition Tyranid codex has the warp field as a 3+ invulnerable save. Does the heirophants save change to a 3+ invulnerable now?

Grundz - that sounds good!! But... Im having hard time getting my head around it - can you explain this a bit more? It sounds HUGE for bugs.

Basically Kaiser it's the way some people used Hormagaunts in the previous book when they were calvary and 5th edition happened. You start them in synapse. You move them forward and then charge the so that they are still barely in synapse or so that they are not (depends on what the unit is and what is happening). You then either will fall back if you lose or fall back next turn leaving the enemy unit open to being charged.

It's a way to avoid ridiculous "Fearless" wounds and it's like a poor man's hit and run. Works really well in the current edition with large gargoyle broods.

-Loki- wrote:Well, it looks like I might be getting a Heirophant instead of a Heirodule for Christmas, so I've been reading up on its rules. The Apocolypse book says that it gets a warp field save, which the 4th edition codex stated as a 2+ armour save and a 6+ invulnerable save. The Apocolypse book has the save as 2+, so I assume that is from the warp field.

However, the 5th edition Tyranid codex has the warp field as a 3+ invulnerable save. Does the heirophants save change to a 3+ invulnerable now?

It is something to discuss with your opponent before a game of Apocalypse (which is something you should be doing for all Apocalypse games anyway). If you are having difficulties reaching a consensus, simply use the rules from the 4th Edition book for the Heirophant (that's what thhey reference, and what the costs are balanced around). That should be a fallback though, as it opens up it's own can of worms (Heirophant Synapse from 4th for instance grants Eternal Warrior... :p). It is much better to openly discuss how you should translate the Heirophant's rules into the 5th Edition book (there is no official answer). A 3++ is very powerful, so consider putting a small price increase on the bargaining table if you're going down that route.

Yeah, I kinda figured that. A 3++ on a T9, W10 model is really powerful. Especially when it has regeneration as well.

Reecius wrote:I swear, you sprue posse guys are turning Limey on us with all this 1500 point jibber jabber!

We get to play 4 game RTTs.

How much synapse should I be looking at taking in a 1500pt army? I haven't run Tyranids before, and synapse worries me.

I'm looking at a Hive Tyrant, a unit of 5 warriors, 3 shrikes and a Tervigon. I want a Prime in there as well, but I'm having trouble fitting it.

That's plenty of Synapse. I see a lot of armies (at 2k!) get by on a Tyrant and pair of Tervigons, which is a bit light, but your army should have enough, especially with the mobile synapse of the Shrikes.

Really depends on whether your army is staying in one mass or splitting up. in fast moving chunks.

Basic idea is a central mass of Tyranids moving up the table based around the Tervigon and Warriors, with a large Hormagaunt brood, a couple of Carnifexes and some Hive Guard for offense, and the Tervigon spitting out Termigants to deposit on objectives to lurk. Second 'detachment' of sorts made up of the Shrikes, Winged Hive Tyrant and Gargoyles for a flank attack.

So it gives me 2 synapse units per group, one of warriors and one tougher MC.

kaiservonhugal wrote:Grundz - that sounds good!! But... Im having hard time getting my head around it - can you explain this a bit more? It sounds HUGE for bugs.

Its really important if you use tervigons since no retreat wounds can pretty handily eliminate the smaller units of them, if you have a big "anchor" unit though, your opponent has to chose between ignoring them and taking the attacks every other turn, or attacking and possibly overkilling the smaller units, leaving the bigger, more dangerous unit intact. Without the big anchor they can be swept which can be bad.

@Shep
Right, leaves you plenty of time for tea and crumpet brakes! Hahaha.

@Grundz
Thanks for breaking that down, that is a really good tactic that I had not thought of. I will definitely be using that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Loki
That is way more than enough Synapse, you'll be fine.

One thing though, Tyranid Warriors are pretty terrible. They just go down too easily to fists/claws/hammers/las cannons/meltas, etc. I think you will find yourself getting frustrated with them.

Reecius wrote:One thing though, Tyranid Warriors are pretty terrible. They just go down too easily to fists/claws/hammers/las cannons/meltas, etc. I think you will find yourself getting frustrated with them.

This, with a grain of salt.

If you have a load of other targets (read t6 wounds) then warriors can work.

Bonesword/Lashwhip + Deathspitter is my usual load-out (+biomorphs to taste). It is not cheap, but is rather effective and the best ways of dealing with them should be a hard choice to bring to bear. s8+ wounds going at warriors are not going at the MCs.

A prime with them helps, but is generally optional. It does make an excellent lascannon shot catcher, though.

Loss of Eternal Warrior probably hurt warriors worse than any other unit in the Tyranid Codex.
Giving them another wound was an insult added to the already annoying injury.

If they were only 2 wounds, they would be bolter-fodder beyond anything else (it's also how Zoans tend to die a lot...). That they're in a slot besides an AT one, and can bring a credible threat to melee over a small frontage, does help with target saturation issues.

MagicJuggler wrote:If they were only 2 wounds, they would be bolter-fodder beyond anything else (it's also how Zoans tend to die a lot...). That they're in a slot besides an AT one, and can bring a credible threat to melee over a small frontage, does help with target saturation issues.

If they were T5, they would be pretty awesome
If they were T4, 2W, and eternal warrior, they would be pretty good still
If they had some sort of other special rule that stopped 45-50pt models from being instant killed all the time forever, or a built in invulnerable or cover save they would be pretty awesome
If pretty much every army wasn't spamming Str 8+ weaponry to deal with mech, they would be pretty awesome.

Like alot of things in the codex, they are close to being great, but fall short except when you can get a unit full of boneswirds with adrenals and/or poison into combat and put a million power attacks on someone.

Reecius wrote:One thing though, Tyranid Warriors are pretty terrible. They just go down too easily to fists/claws/hammers/las cannons/meltas, etc. I think you will find yourself getting frustrated with them.

I don't really have to deal with S8 spam, since in my group people don't run much mech. Even if they did, I'd still bring warriors. Along with Carnifexes, they're my favorite Tyranid units, and I play for fun more than being competitive.

I personaly find that warriors are excellent vs things such as Khorne Berzerkers, especialy is paired with prime. They can soak up wounds that would kill a lot of smaller bugs without flinching, and a combo of Bonesword/Toxin sacks is murder on MEQ.

Grundz wrote:

MagicJuggler wrote:If they were only 2 wounds, they would be bolter-fodder beyond anything else (it's also how Zoans tend to die a lot...). That they're in a slot besides an AT one, and can bring a credible threat to melee over a small frontage, does help with target saturation issues.

If they were T5, they would be pretty awesome
If they were T4, 2W, and eternal warrior, they would be pretty good still
If they had some sort of other special rule that stopped 45-50pt models from being instant killed all the time forever, or a built in invulnerable or cover save they would be pretty awesome
If pretty much every army wasn't spamming Str 8+ weaponry to deal with mech, they would be pretty awesome.

Like alot of things in the codex, they are close to being great, but fall short except when you can get a unit full of boneswirds with adrenals and/or poison into combat and put a million power attacks on someone.

If they were T5, I'd ignore them over most everything else (shoot the Hive Guard/Tervigons/other big thingies); they don't do enough damage at range, and their melee damage involves them getting into melee.
If they were T4/2W, I'd torrent them. This is how I dealt with them the times people *did* take Warriors in previous editions. By Bolter or Smart Missile System or Shuriken Cannon, or Multilaser.
If I were to find a way to get them out of cover, either of the terrain or Termagant variety (well you could divert Manticores from shooting the other units...), I would be rather proud of myself.

Grundz:

It's good to see that tactic getting its due!

On Warriors:

I think that you really need to give them a Barbed Strangler or a Venom Cannon if they're going to walk onto the board. The Venom Cannon may only be S6, but it'll give you some defense against light skimmers. The Barbed Strangler seriously cranks the firepower with a big 5" pie plate. Plus it diversifies the unit...

@Loki
Well then by all means, roll with what you like. If you read the title of the thread though, this is a competitive tactics thread, so anticipate that kind of advice here.

@Monster Rain
I use Warriors in my for fun list because I like them, but I would never bring them to a tournament just because of the prevalence of strength 8 spam out there, right now. I have had them with a Prime take a charge from GKT's with a Grand Master and wipe them all out. The Lash Whip/Bone Sword combo is nasty. I run them with Death Spitters and a Barbed Strangler, too.

If only they were tough 5, 2 wounds, they would be sweet. As they are now, they are just too expensive to be used competitively, IMO. I'd rather have more Genestealers who, for me, are the show stoppers in every game I have played so far.

Reecius wrote:@Loki
Well then by all means, roll with what you like. If you read the title of the thread though, this is a competitive tactics thread, so anticipate that kind of advice here.

Fair enough, though I am grateful that all of the warrior hate that goes around has tought me what to have them avoid in a game. To me, it's just another facet of Tyranids - everything has its weakness. Warriors weakness just happens to be in abundance if you face people who take a lot of S8. Around here, that's not much of a problem.

Yeah, your own experience is the best thing to go by, no doubt. And I wasn't trying to scare you off or anything, just letting you know the tone of the conversation in this thread. If something works for you were you play, then that is the most important yardstick. People on the internet tend to forget that the game is so local, a lot depends on how you play, who you play, the missions and the terrain. Around here, Warriors would get smashed in competitive play due to all the IG and Missile Wolves running around.

I like warriors. I used to field 2 units of 6 of them in the previous book. But I've found that even in this edition they simply don't make their points back for me in any way, shape or form. Part of that is the prolific missile launchers in my area and part of it is that they will rarely see combat against a canny opponent and their shooting leaves to much to be desired and costs far to much. I can get 10.5 St4 shots for the same cost at 3 St5 shots. Same number of wounds but far more survivable. Hence my choice would go to Dev Gants long before Warriors.

I'll second it come down to local meta that some things might work better than I, Reece, or Janth have found. But I started this tactica for those of us a) getting started or b) who like to travel to events outside of our local area. So don't take much anything here as gospel. It's just an excellent starting point for a more wide spread meta and it's a great saver for people just getting started to keep them from getting to frustrated.

On a side note I've started a Can Tyranids Compete series on my blog. I'll be posting the second part in the next few days dealing with list building.

Ran my first game with gargoyles last night and had some concerns about them. When they charged into combat, the large size and awkward models made it almost impossible to get them all into combat. Out of 12 models I only had 5-6 in base to base or within 2 inches of his marines. Has anyone else seen this as an issue?

Yeah. It happens with units on flying stands. The only solutions I've found is modeling them so that they can be ranked up tight in base to base.

Well at least I wasn't playing them wrong lol. That being said the gargoyles did relatively well in the game. They lost a round of CC and fled back into synapse range. Kind of how it was described earlier so as to not die from wounds overflowing from no retreat. That strategy was awesome and was fun to try out. While the gargoyles never killed anything special, they took some shots and tied up enemy units which was well worth the small cost of 15 of them (all the models I have.)

Genestealer's were the all stars of my latest game. The brood lord gives the unit so much extra punch and ability to survive. The ability to soak a wound or two from shooting or CC without loosing a model is golden. 2 units of stealer's destroyed a predator, a rhino, a razorback, and 2 squads of marines. I was very happy with the results. My Ymgarl's did some damage, but seemed costly for what they did.

Melchiour wrote:Ran my first game with gargoyles last night and had some concerns about them. When they charged into combat, the large size and awkward models made it almost impossible to get them all into combat. Out of 12 models I only had 5-6 in base to base or within 2 inches of his marines. Has anyone else seen this as an issue?

awkward models seem to be a baseline tyranid problem, I usually turn mine around, and also have most of mine converted so they can stack in easier.

Nope, I turn them sideways so there's one wing toward the middle and the other wing pointing away. Plus, with pile in the enemy should be able to get in around the gargoyles as he has to get as many into base to base. That and there's usually some dead goyles from previous shooting.

I've found it's important when you deploy them to go hi-wing to low-wing. This will allow you to wedge them in based to base against each other. It takes some practice and it a little bit annoying during movement and deployment but worth the extra attacks. That said I've never gotten more than 18 Gargoyles into combat from my 25 man unit on the first charge.

Question about the the Venomthrope's cover save: does everyone need to be within 6", or does only one model of the unit need to be in range like the synapse rules?

Mr Nobody wrote:Question about the the Venomthrope's cover save: does everyone need to be within 6", or does only one model of the unit need to be in range like the synapse rules?

Just needs one model of a squad within range because the ability affects units. So if the unit has a model in range the unit gets the benefit, much like synapse.

I have a personal (ie your mileage may vary) guide to using Genestealers successfully.
-I run small units for surgical attacks. A Broodlord with Scything Talons and Implant Attack, and 5-6 models. The unit has Toxin Sacs.
-A soft rule I use is "One Tervigon for every Genestealer." They really help to make them that more durable.
-The Genestealers Infiltrate into cover to claim objectives and help funnel or bait enemy units (since i normally deploy my AT in the center due to ease of refuse-flank against Nids, it makes it so that trying to divert units to take out the Stealers results in more sidesniping opportunities for me); I keep one model within 24" of a Tervigon at all times, because in cover and Catalyst'd, it takes heavy weapons (needed for killing the Tervigons) to reliably uproot them.
-Depending on the foe I face, I'll either use the Genestealers to threaten carparks (the poor 'Nids equivalent of Demovets), or I'll have them subsequently fall back to act in support of the rest of the swarm.
-My standard "Kill enemy" doctrine is actually to multiassault a unit, with another unit (Termagants have a greater range if spawned, but the bigger monsters will help in a unit serving to pull the majority of attacks away from the Genestealers; take advantage of the core rules stating that if you're in base-to-base with one unit, you *must* attack that unit by having your otherwise melee-inefficient Monstrous Creatures tank. I take advantage of the Genestealer's Fleet Move to reform them into a wedge with the Broodlord in front; thus when the Stealers do assault, they can bring all their attacks to bear, while only receiving return attacks from one enemy model (who if I'm doing things correctly, won't even get the chance to strike back).
-This trick can work if you can set them outside of synapse range. They have the initiative to reliably escape a pear-shaped assault against several foes.
-The only time I'll actually Outflank them is during Dawn of War.

Melchiour wrote:

Mr Nobody wrote:Question about the the Venomthrope's cover save: does everyone need to be within 6", or does only one model of the unit need to be in range like the synapse rules?

Just needs one model of a squad within range because the ability affects units. So if the unit has a model in range the unit gets the benefit, much like synapse.

I want to use Venomthropes so much, but the fact that they need to stay in coherency kind of hurts. I wish they were squad upgrades instead of separate units, like, you buy 3 as an elite slot, then attach them to units.

Also, question about using a Tervigon. Is it worth maxing out a Termigant brood when you also have a Tervigon? Or will the Tervigon generally spawn enough Termigants that you don't need to worry about it?

You know, if you stick two Venomthropes in a unit with a Tyranid Prime as a 'hub' model, then you can flank the Prime at 2" right and left apiece, then you can cover units as far apart as 18".

A 40mm base is approximately 1.5" wide. The flanking Venomthropes are approximately 2" from the edges of the central Prime's base, and their aura is 6" in radius. That means they can cover Tyranid units 6"+6"+2"+2"+1.5"+1.5"+1.5" or 18.5" apart, though 18" as a margin for safety.

Take a third to fill in the gap if one gets fragged, but if the Prime has Regenerate, he can catch the odd Krak Missile.

-Loki- wrote:Also, question about using a Tervigon. Is it worth maxing out a Termigant brood when you also have a Tervigon? Or will the Tervigon generally spawn enough Termigants that you don't need to worry about it?

I have tried both. Ultimately, I have found that it isn't all that necessary to bolster the unit size. I acknowledge that chargin two units of ten into a hard unit is much more risky than one unit of 20, thanks to the 'no retreat' rule, but I don't tend to commit my gant farm termagants to assaults until they have a critical mass.

You end up with so many extra units that losing a unit to no retreat wounds won't phase you. If you successfully removed the threat of an enemy unit.

In all honesty, if I ever did have points left over to splurge on termagants, I'd buy them devourers before I bought them more bodies.

-Loki- wrote:
Also, question about using a Tervigon. Is it worth maxing out a Termigant brood when you also have a Tervigon? Or will the Tervigon generally spawn enough Termigants that you don't need to worry about it?

I find squads of 10-15 work well when you have tervigons. The tervigon will on average spawn about 20 themselves. Also I do not want to have to buy 150 models to support my army lol.

Speaking of Tervigon's. Has anyone tried tervigon spam? Such as 5 tervigons, 3 units of gants, 3 units of 2 hive guard and 3 trygon's? Sound's like fun to play but no idea on how competitive it could be. Basic idea would be to run as fast as you can and throw FNP on the trygon's I guess lol.

@Shep

You hit the nail on the head for me. I've bought Dev's for one of my Gant units before instead of 10 more gants and it was awesome! Nothing like 30 shots at st4 from 10 tiny little people

Melchiour wrote:Speaking of Tervigon's. Has anyone tried tervigon spam? Such as 5 tervigons, 3 units of gants, 3 units of 2 hive guard and 3 trygon's? Sound's like fun to play but no idea on how competitive it could be. Basic idea would be to run as fast as you can and throw FNP on the trygon's I guess lol.

That is essentially the list that I have had tons of success with. Includng going 4-0 at the last RTT I took them to, and beating a mechanized long fang-toting space wolf army as recently as last night.

-3 trygons, +2 tyrannofexes is my suggestion.... But otherwise, the core of tervigons with adrenal glands and toxin sacs chewing up the table, while 6-9 hive guard open up every transport that looks to threaten an objective contesting tank shock will do very well.

Unlike mechanized boxhammer armies, it requires a great deal of concentration, and I end up being much more fatigued after tournaments with my nids than with my IG. (I suppose part of that might be leaning over the 90+ models for hours on end).

Where you position your gants, how far they are from your tervigons, and how you protect your tervigons are VITAL skills to master. In a nutshell, keep gants in synapse but out of 6" of tervigons, unless they are about to be charged, or you plan to charge with them, then get at least one termagant in base contact with a tervigon to ensure that after charge moves or defender react moves are done, you remain within the magic 6". Ensure catalyst plus a cover save whenever possible for the tervigons. Base to base hive guard or t-fexes can provide bring your own cover, as can larger terrain pieces.

I believe Hulksmash is about to do a blog entry about winning with foot nids, and I can guess that tervigons will feature heavily. I am eagerly anticipating it, as it'll likely cover in more detail the nuances of positioning that I mentioned.

Hear that Hulk! Finish the article!

Shep wrote:Where you position your gants, how far they are from your tervigons, and how you protect your tervigons are VITAL skills to master.

This is the second reason that I have not made a second tervigon yet. I am almost worthless at eyeballing ranges. Apparently I only have spacial awareness in video games. wth?

The first reason is that I made my initial one from a carnifex + trygon pieces + some gants.

I was having second thoughts about the tyrannofexes though until I read another of your posts Shep, regarding running them in front of your army. Seems so obvious in retrospect.

Also, I very much agree about devourer armed gants--I missed them horribly in my big-bug list, I used those points for a spod.

@Shep

I'm working on it. The second part of the article is up though it mostly only covers the approach to competitive army building from my perspective. Damn thing was suppose to be a 3 part article but it's moved up to 4 now since I can't seem to stop talking about bugs. Part 2 only managed to get the list building and the first of my army I'm testing regularly and not the rest yet. Part 3 is my other list and how I feel those lists work and why they are truly competitive. The last one will be a nod to other styles, a little more detail on key points of positioning and proper movement and a general recap. It's a lot of writing

We need to get more practice games in sometime Hulksmash. Last night was fun, and was a bit explosive for both of us. I do like the list I was working with but it looks like I could easily drop the third Venomthrope in order to give Sacs to both Tervigons.

At any rate, building a better "vs Dark Eldar" playbook is going to be important.

Finally had time to test my latest tyranid list. I had to cut it back a little as it was origonally a 2k list and we played 1850. So here was my list

Tyranid prime- lash whip bone sword 95
Tyranid prime- lash whip bone sword 95

3 hive guard 150
3 hive guard 150
3 zoanthropes 180

20 stealers 280
5 stealers 70
5 stealers 70
10 gaunts- devourers 100
10 gaunts- devourers 100

8 raveners- rending claws 280
8 raveners- rending claws 280

Played against horde orks, 150 orks (slugga choppa) 30 lootas 20 grots gazghkull. More or less the list my friend will be taking to mechanicon.

It was 1 objective each and pitched deployment. I won the roll for first and took it. Basically I got the jump on him after his turn 1 shooting proved ineffective and after my turn 2 100 or so orks were gone and gazghkull had 2 wounds on him. Then he counter charged then I counter charged, and this continued until my gaunts were left on an objective and dwindling away his last 30 man blob where I eventually ccame out on top.

It was a blood bath to say the least.
Realizations from the playtest:
1. 20 man stealers squads are silly powerful
2. Raveners are NOT immune to small arms fire in any way shape or form.
3. Dev gaunts actually contribute to the game.
4. Need either more synapse or less synapse reliant units.
5. The army will anhilate an infantry based list.

So with this in mind I've made the following changes.

Tyranid Prime- lash whip bone sword 95
Tyranid Prime- lash whip bone sword 95

3 hive guard 150
3 hive guard 150
2 zoanthropes 120

20 genestealers 280
20 genestealers 280
10 guants- devourers 100
10 guants- devourers 100
10 gaunts- devourers 100
10 gaunts- devourers 100

8 raveners- rending claws 280

1850 on the dot.

You intend to take that to a tourny? 98 models seems like it would be difficult to complete games in the time limits.

1. 20 man stealers squads are silly powerful
2. Raveners are NOT immune to small arms fire in any way shape or form.
3. Dev gaunts actually contribute to the game.
4. Need either more synapse or less synapse reliant units.
5. The army will anhilate an infantry based list.

1. I find squads that large to be difficult to maneuver properly, with a lot of terrain they get strung out. I prefer to keep my squad sizes to 12 or less. Also interested in your take on poison vs non-poison swarm. I think the math shows that poison does more damage, but I assume you are aiming for the extra wounds to mitigate ranged damage?
2. Not really surprising. T4, 5+ save is weak and even 3 wounds a piece goes fast. 35 points is a lot to pay for T4, 5+ save and W3 especially with S8 ruining your day and having few targets that are juicier.
3. Dunno about this. Sure against green tide orks, but what about power armor or a rhino/razor wall? I don't see them doing much of anything. I imagine these are your objective camping units too, so you might wanna drop to 2 or 3 units, 4 seems overkill.
4. Your synapse is a lot more fragile then people who run swarmlord/guard and tervigons. Do you attach the primes to the hive guard or gants? Should keep them alive fairly long. positioning is going to key with this few though.
5. Genestealers do that, that's why I love em. Poison stealers under old adversary are obscene. Never seen anything shred face like them. I honestly think they are one of the most deadly units in the game on the charge.

Nice Yermom, I really like the list. It's small bug heaven Devgants are amazing and you'll see my next list showing up with 16 of them. Since that's 48 shots and 4 dead marines I'd say it's well worth it. 20 man units are fine generally as the only one I have problems manuevering is Gargoyles which is why I switch from 2 garg squads to a single huge one in my speedy list. Glad to see you having success with small bugs. I think you'll do just fine and I can't wait to hear how it goes at Mechanicon! I won't get to use my 2k Nids until the start of next year in a major GT

@Carnage
I found this many models to be very easy targets for blasts, luckily the orks didn't have any, but guard do worry me. I didn't really have a problem with maeunering. The raveners were tough because I had to be snazzy to get them to charge without any of them hitting cover. Also deploying with a gaunts screen and then having the raveners behind may lead to traffic jams in the early turns.

You pretty much got it on poison, I really needed the bodies.

Well againts parking lot lists (razorwolves/angels, mech guard) they tend to not have enough anti infantry for the threat of 40 stealers and 8 raveners on turn 2. Especially if I managed to spread everything 2" apart. Hopefully this will allow me to demech the army by turn 2 with huge multi charges and stupid amounts of rending. Now if my opponent is smart and doesn't deploy all his tanks in a line but rather in waves I will have to hit him in waves having say 1 stealers squad knock out the first 3 or so tanks while the raveners and other stealers threaten the next row. Once the army is dismounts the gautns clean up an average of 10 MEQ's a turn.

The gaunts also put 2 glancing hits per unit on armor 10. I'm counting on this to mess with dark eldar.

Primes start out joined to the raveners to absorb the S8 then the disengage and join the gaunts.

I've never really tried to run this many genestealers in unit, actually the most I've run competitively is 8. I was overly impressed by their damage output and their survivability in cover. Perhaps stronger MC nid lists will run a mix of stealer shock and mosterous creatures for buffs like feel no pain and preffered enemy.

@Hulk
Thanks Hulk! I was trying to make a competitive nid list that doesn't run monsters for so long lol. My only fear is ifI should take it to mechanicon or not. I'ts a lot of work to get done, but I'm sure if I pushed I could make it happen. But it's so new to me as an army I don't know how it will really do against the big dogs.

Yermom, I am also very interested to hear how you do with your interesting list, especially versus armor and template/blast lists. It is exciting to see a plan with no MCs. I also like using some devourer gaunts and raveners (not as many as you've used though you have piqued my interest).

So all this list-building is nice, but how about back to tactics? It's probably useful to review how manipulations of Synapse can be used to prevent stuff like No Retreat.

One thought that crossed my mind was accompanying a Termagant or Hormagaunt swarm with a Carnifex or Tryon (respectively), so that if things went pear-shaped, the Carnifex or Tryon could hold off the enemy while the little bugs fall back unmolested by Sweeping Advance. The risk being that while the little bugs would fall back, the enemy could lump wounds on them to make sure the big bugasaur dies from No Retreat wounds.

The second thought would be pulling that off on the table, because either the Carnifex would need to be able to charge first, so the that Termagants couldn't close directly in the Movement phase (no more Fleet), or the Carnifex would be cut out of the combat as the Termagants pile in.

Maybe some sort of variation on the lightbulb/conga line? Instead of deploying small bugs in blobs, try to deploy them with tendrils heading up the field in a Tyranid variation of the conga-line or lightbulb?

Nurglitch wrote:So all this list-building is nice, but how about back to tactics? It's probably useful to review how manipulations of Synapse can be used to prevent stuff like No Retreat.

No retreat is bad, but I'm not sure manipulating synapse to avoid it is really any better. You're trading the no retreat wounds for a significant risk of getting swept. For example. hormagaunts (I5) lose combat against marines (I4). If they're out of synapse they have a very low chance of passing leadership since they start at LD6. If they fail, they have a a 58% chance of escaping and a 42% chance of getting swept since ties go to the winner of the combat. If it's termagants those odds are inverted; they have a 58% chance of getting swept by marines.

One thought that crossed my mind was accompanying a Termagant or Hormagaunt swarm with a Carnifex or Tryon (respectively), so that if things went pear-shaped, the Carnifex or Tryon could hold off the enemy while the little bugs fall back unmolested by Sweeping Advance. The risk being that while the little bugs would fall back, the enemy could lump wounds on them to make sure the big bugasaur dies from No Retreat wounds.

No retreat wounds are a tried and true method of taking out MCs. If fexes could get armored shell I think it would be a better tactic. I think, but what kinds of situations lead you to wanting to sacrifice an MC so that some little bugs can get away? I think a Doom with max wounds could pull this off fairly easily, but you can only get one of him.

Just as a heads up for those of you that don't know I've started an article series on why I think Nids are competitive on my blog. Here are the links if your interested. Some of it is what's on here and more of it is my personal opinion on why and how Nids are competitive in 5th.

Part 1: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2010/10/can-tyranids-compete-part-1.html
Part 2: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2010/10/can-tyranids-compete-part-2.html
Part 3: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2010/10/can-tyranids-compete-part-3.html

And yes, I'm using an tactica I started to promote my blog where I continued my thoughts

Both your list segments on competitive nids include tervigons. Do you see any possibility for nids to be competitive without them?

I do have a list I'm working on currently that has 0 big bugs in it. I simply view it as limiting yourself to exclude certain units. I think it's possible to do it but it's very, very tricky As soon as I finish the article series I have a couple of lists I'm going to post up in various styles.

Is it worth running Hormagaunts without adrenal glands? I'm going to be running a unit of around 20, and I really don't want to end up with a 200+ point unit, so I'm probably leaving the adrenal glands off (still running Toxin Sacs to help counteract their S3).

I personally think it makes them far to expensive to run them with both. I generally choose toxin sacs as it allows them to wound everything well. Though to be fair if I have decent scoring stuff already I normally bring Garg's instead. They have the same maximum charge range, a gun, and cost the same with both upgrades that hormies cost with one.

Arschbombe wrote:Both your list segments on competitive nids include tervigons. Do you see any possibility for nids to be competitive without them?

Having recently won a best general award, I would say yes.

I faced:
Daemons of Chaos (with Fateweaver) - Massacre Victory
Imperial Gaurd (Mostly Mech) - Solid Victory
Eldar (Mech, with Jetloc Council) - Minor Victory
Space Marines (Scouts and Drop Pods) - Massacre Loss
Imperial Gaurd (Gunline) - Massacre Victory
Necrons (Double Lith and Nightbringer) - Massacre Victory

My list looked like this:

Tyranid Prime (Adrenals, Lash Whip, Regen)

3x Hive Gaurd

3x Zoanthropes

6x Warriors (2x Bonesword, Devourers, Toxin)

15x Genestealers (Toxin)

10x Genestealers

20x Hormagaunts (Toxin)

20x Hormagaunts (Toxin)

14x Termagants

Trygon Prime (Adrenals)

Trygon Prime (Adrenals)


The First thing I would like to comment on, in terms of tactics, is the need to cover units with Instinctive Behaviour/low Ld with lots of Synapse. This may sound obvious, but can be easy to overlook. In my game against marines, I made the mistake of only covering my Termagants, one Hormagaunt unit and my Hivegaurd with my Zoanthropes. Zoanthropes fail 6 of their 7 saves, and my entire flank goes nuts. Gants fled, Gaunts charged a Dreadnaught, Hivegaurd shot the wrong target. Both I and my opponent agreed that was the turning point of the game.

The Second Point that I would like o mention is what I call the 3G’s of expendability. ‘Gaunts, ‘Gants and Gargoyles. These are three units that are strong enough to be very deadly, yet cheap enough to come in large numbers and still be expendable. I tended to run my Hormagaunts into the meat grinder to buy me time/inflict a couple wounds on my enemies’ deathstar as often as I used them to inflict damage in the assault.

Finally, I would like to stress target saturation. As one opponent put it, “There’s too many of them!” S8+ weapons had some hard decisions to make. Did they want to shoot the warriors, causing instant death, or did they want to inflict the damage to the Trygons? Or the Hivegaurd and the Zoanthropes? My opponent quite often couldn’t decide whom to attack. Same with the horde of smaller bugs, and blast weapons. Things really got interesting when the blasts were S8+.

Edit: Forgot half my post!

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:The First thing I would like to comment on, in terms of tactics, is the need to cover units with Instinctive Behaviour/low Ld with lots of Synapse. This may sound obvious, but can be easy to overlook. In my game against marines, I made the mistake of only covering my Termagants, one Hormagaunt unit and my Hivegaurd with my Zoanthropes. Zoanthropes fail 6 of their 7 saves, and my entire flank goes nuts. Gants fled, Gaunts charged a Dreadnaught, Hivegaurd shot the wrong target. Both I and my opponent agreed that was the turning point of the game.

The Second Point that I would like o mention is what I call the 3G’s of expendability. ‘Gaunts, ‘Gants and Gargoyles. These are three units that are strong enough to be very deadly, yet cheap enough to come in large numbers and still be expendable. I tended to run my Hormagaunts into the meat grinder to buy me time/inflict a couple wounds on my enemies’ deathstar as often as I used them to inflict damage in the assault.

Finally, I would like to stress target saturation. As one opponent put it, “There’s too many of them!” S8+ weapons had some hard decisions to make. Did they want to shoot the warriors, causing instant death, or did they want to inflict the damage to the Trygons? Or the Hivegaurd and the Zoanthropes? My opponent quite often couldn’t decide whom to attack. Same with the horde of smaller bugs, and blast weapons. Things really got interesting when the blasts were S8+.

Your list is nice but I do find the low number of T6 wounds (only 18) to be a bit of a worry. It's probably more the types of armies some of the other major local players and I run that generally number 15-20+ St8+ heavy weapons. It's fast, and nasty but I think you would struggle against these types of lists if they had good target priority. That said I agree you need expendable units to buy you time and that's what my Gargs and Gants do. I also agree, if you note in most of my articles, that the most important thing that helps make Tyranids competitive is target saturation. Without it you can be easily picked apart and slaughtered. That's the only reason I have a problem with your list in the form of the low number of T6 wounds, especially if the Trygons start off table as that makes targeting even easier. I'm personally looking at trying a no MC list but it's gonna be a hard build to pull off. Grats on Best General. I'll take anything that shows that Nids are competitive

Congrats Crazy! Its nice to see a nid list with no tervigons doing well.

Thanks, guys.

I would at this point like to make a note on the expendability of units. Generaly, a units expendability is proportional to how many other units in the army do the same job, and how well they do it.

For example, in my list, the Hive Gaurd and Zoanthropes are my only ranged AT units, thereby making them comparatively high value units. This value decreases as my melee AT ability gets close (Trygons, and, in a pinch, stealers or Tyranid Prime), but increases with my opponents ability to redeploy armour rapidly.

Meanwhile, Melee infantry killers in my list are relatively sacrificial. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, and Warriors all fullfill the role, with the Trygons joining to deal with smaller, more elite units. Trygons and Warriors are Synaptic, decreasing their expendability. Genestealers do not require synapse, making them less expendable than similar points of Hormagaunts. All of them fulfill secondary rolls as well, leaving Hormagaunts as the mst expendable of the units, as they only kill infantry.

I'd think that a swarm of Hormagaunts could kill light vehicles in a pinch. They have the mobility to surround Rhinos and Chimeras too, making sure that the unit piling out has nowhere to go.

Small groups of genestelaers are high on my expendable list. As long as they can hit one unit they've done their job. Termigants are actually slightly less expendable so me because even small broods can be useful and movement and assault screens.

Here's my planned 1500pt list. I'm going off memory (the list is at home, and I'm at work), so I might be getting some things mixed up.

HQ
Hive Tyrant
Wings
Lashwhip/Bone Sword
Paroxysm/Leech Essence
Either hive Commander or Old Adversary

Troops
5 Tyranid Warriors
4 Deathspitters
Barbed Strangler

20 Hormagaunts (Toxin Sacs)
20 Hormagaunts (Toxin Sacs)
12 Termigants

Elites
2 Zoanthropes

Fast Attack
15 Gargoyles (Toxin Sacs)

3 Shrikes
Lashwhip/Bone Sword

Heavy Support
2 Carnifexes
2 Pairs of Scything Talons each

Basically, the Warriors, Zoanthropes, Termigants, Hormagaunts and Carnifexes are the main 'blob'. The Hive Tyrant, Shrikes and Gargoyles move around as a separate force to attack lone units or objectives. I do realize I'm laking a lot of anti tank, but considering my groups meta (I don't see a lot of vehicles), fighting mech forces isn't a problem. The Zoanthropes and Carnifexes shouldn't have much problem dealing with the mech my group uses, and my Tyrant can always double back to help.

Also bear in mind - I'm not replacing my Carnifexes with Trygons. I'm still a huge Carnifex fan (going back to originally seeing the 2nd ed screamer killer and being awed). I'm also not using a Tervigon. it's a good unit, and I can see it helping my force a great deal, and I will probably end up getting one. But I don't want it to be a crutch that I end up relying on. I'd rather get to grips with the army before boosting its abilities with a Tervigon.

I think your Carnifexen could really benefit from a Prime attached to it for wound allocation, and for the precious Lash Whip to allow the big boys to hit first.

I think you are a bit light on antitank though. You have nothing beyond 18" for antitank, and nothing besides the tyrant that's a fast assault unit to do the same thing.

Get some Hive Guard. They are AMAZING. Even one squad of two would help you out amazingly here.

The Lash Whip will only allow the Carnifexen to hit first against models in base to base contact with the Prime. With an Adrenal Gland and Frag Spines they'll hit at I4 against units in cover, and Frag Spines benefit the entire unit, so it's really the Prime that benefits from hanging around with the Carnifexen.

Nurglitch wrote:I think you are a bit light on antitank though. You have nothing beyond 18" for antitank, and nothing besides the tyrant that's a fast assault unit to do the same thing.

Get some Hive Guard. They are AMAZING. Even one squad of two would help you out amazingly here.

As I said, my group doesn't run many tanks. The most transports I've seen them run are a drop pod or two in Space Marine armies or a Falcon in an Eldar army. I really don't need to overload on anti tank. My group likes running powerful melee commanders in squads (but usually still footslog them), so I see more use for a fast moving anti melee unit like Shrikes with LW/BS backed up by Gargoyles.

This is only a preliminary list. If they get wise and throw some tanks against me, I'll definitely have an alternate list with Hive Guard.

Nurglitch wrote:The Lash Whip will only allow the Carnifexen to hit first against models in base to base contact with the Prime. With an Adrenal Gland and Frag Spines they'll hit at I4 against units in cover, and Frag Spines benefit the entire unit, so it's really the Prime that benefits from hanging around with the Carnifexen.

That's a good point. i'll see if I can work in adrenals and frag spines.

I don't see many people talking about taking harpies at all. I run two of them with a winged hive tyrant with old adversary and 2xtldev, and it leaves a huge mess out of whatever it gets pointed at.
All of the groups shooting can be independently targeted at up to 5 units. The harpies both fly over and bomb units, then unload TLHVC at a nearby tank. Old adversary affecting 3 MCs that just unloaded a ton of shots means they are butchering anything left alive, or finishing off the tanks in a big way.

I've been interested in Harpies as well, but there's a lot of internet dislike for them. How do they hold up under dedicated fire for you? How do you keep them alive?

The internet dislike I see for them is their vulnerability to S10 weapons instakilling them (which is a definite concern) and difficulty finding them cover (seeing as they're a flying trygon, that's obvious).

If you're not fighting an opponent with S10 weapons, I don't see why you should have a problem with clever movement, but they're definitely going to almost never be in cover.

I suppose you can get them cover via gargoyles, but if you're shooting vehicles you have to watch you don't give the vehicle you're shooting at a cover save as well.

My main concern against running them is autocannons and other high S, ap4 weaponry that make a mockery of the Harpy. 4 hits and your 170 point beast goes down.

However, a large gargoyle screen, two harpies, and a Flyrant would make an awesome core to a flying list. Flesh out with Tervigons, Hive Guard, and Trygons... sounds nasty and pretty competitive.

Also, does anyone run Flyrants regularly? Is buying armored shell worth it for them to shrug off the Krak missiles inevitably coming their way?

You can't take armoured shell and wings, it's one or the other.

-Loki- wrote:The internet dislike I see for them is their vulnerability to S10 weapons instakilling them (which is a definite concern) and difficulty finding them cover (seeing as they're a flying trygon, that's obvious).

If you're not fighting an opponent with S10 weapons, I don't see why you should have a problem with clever movement, but they're definitely going to almost never be in cover.

They're not a Flying Trygon though, or at least shouldn't be anywhere as big. Besides, aren't most people modeling them from Flyrants anyway?

MagicJuggler wrote:

-Loki- wrote:The internet dislike I see for them is their vulnerability to S10 weapons instakilling them (which is a definite concern) and difficulty finding them cover (seeing as they're a flying trygon, that's obvious).

If you're not fighting an opponent with S10 weapons, I don't see why you should have a problem with clever movement, but they're definitely going to almost never be in cover.

They're not a Flying Trygon though, or at least shouldn't be anywhere as big. Besides, aren't most people modeling them from Flyrants anyway?

The codex description does say they're the size of a Trygon. I just said flying Trygon because of that. Trygons are hard to get cover for, harpies infinitely more so.

Depending on how you model it, I think you could get cover from gargoyles though. If you don't model it soaring through midair you should be fine.