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Thoughts after my first GT in 8th.

I ran the list posted above at Wargames Con in Austin this weekend. I went 2.5/5, losing to IG and Tau, beating Orcs and demons, and drawing to demons.

Lots of variety. Without bothering to look up the numbers, I would say at least half of the armies present were not some form of imperium. I counted 5 Tyranid players, plus several stealer cult builds. Going into round 5, two of the top 10 armies were primary Imperial.

The Swarmlord is overpriced. He is not durable enough for what he brings to the table, and Tyrant Guard are just not good enough to justify the cost. The ability for any given lascannon to eat half his wounds is too much. In order to keep him alive I had to rely on catylist + 6+ warlord trait + Tyrant Guard.

I can see him being useful in drop lists, where him dying turn two is less of a problem, but that's it. It is a pity cause....

The 'stealer + Swarmlord combo is just as nasty as everyone has been crying about. 20 of them walking was a major threat to everything they got close to.

Venoms are meh. The things they matter for are fast. Keeping them close enough to stealers to matter was near impossible past turn two.

Tyrant smite spam was surprisingly useful, and rending claws on tyrants is good. Reroll wounds from the rending claws makes up for the lost attack. I'm thinking that rending + gun is the best build for flying tyrants.

We are definitely in the running. I never felt completely outmatched, even with a b list. We might not be top ranked, but we will be threatening every event we go to.

After an initial hype phase, my experience sees them somewhere near the bottom. I especially find the following things troublesome:

- few good ranged answers against heavy weaponry / tanks
I have three choices: Exocrines, Hive Guard and Tyrannofex. Tyrannofex gets 4 shots, only doing D6 damage when two in a row hit. Crap. Exocrine gets 12 shots with S7 AP -3 D2. Better, but to get that potential she cannot move. This means you basically have to deploy her in the open to hope for any kind of damage potential. So far, I tried fielding two of them with a termagant bubblewrap. But, if your enemy wins the initiative, most lists can easily shoot one or two T7 W12 3+ models off the table. Hive Guard are the last option, one I haven’t tried yet, but they only do D3 damage. Basically, I’m missing a lascannon equivalent that I can field in larger numbers.

- same problem against flyers
This is pure conjecture, since I haven’t played against flyer spam yet, but I think my only real answer here are Exocrines again (or winged hive tyrants), and they can get focused easily.

- and again, transports
If I can’t shoot transports, I have to kill them in melee. A savvy player will wait for me to bring my genestealers to bear against a useless rhino, then counterkill the stealers with whatever was in the transport.

- Reroll command bubbles
It seems everyone and their mother are bringing heavy weapons with rerolls. Tyranids don’t have that option. I’m only aware of the Warrior Prime giving Warriors rerolls, and some abilities giving rerolls on 1’s, but that’s about it.

Yesterday I played a game vs Chaos. My opponent had brought Abaddon with 3 Laser Predators, plus a crapton of Cultists and some other things he wanted to try. He deployed the tanks after I was completely done, then stole the initiative – with three tries, that’s actually pretty likely (we played with the chapter approved rule, so I got a +1 starting roll, he spent a CP to reroll his roll, then seized, then spent a CP to seize again, getting the 6). He used the stratagem that let his tanks wound and damage with +1 and shot my Exocrine and Tervigon off the board, with shots to spare. Also 15 Genestealers. Mind you, this was all stuff in a Malanthrope aura, which didn’t help at all. I basically started the 1850 point game 680 points down. It went as expected. I didn’t even get to any of the tanks due to his abundance of bubble wrapping. I messed up in deploying my Tervigon in LOS, but honestly didn’t expect him to shoot both guys off the table.

Next game, I guess I’m ditching the balanced approach and will try the following:
3x 20 genestealers, each with a broodlord
3x 20 termagants, with 11 devourers each
1x Malanthrope
1x Trygon

It sounds terrible. I will deploy everything except the Trygon and just hope that 120 troopers are enough to give most lists trouble, and only shock the Trygon in if I can get a tank in reach. If my opponent plays flyers, I’ll have the option to shake hands without deploying.

Sorry if this post is too salty, yesterday’s game was very off-putting.

We do have one of the best answers in the game to non flying transports.

Hormagaunts!

If you assault a transport with hormagaunts you remove it from the game together with it's contents, be it a razorback or a land raider. You simply surround it with your 2d6+12 move and he cannot shoot, cannot fall back and cannot unload. Then if you want, you can bring something heavy to bang on the poor guy and if you destroy it then all the passengers are automatically removed as casualties since they cannot disembark.

Spoletta wrote:
We do have one of the best answers in the game to non flying transports.

Hormagaunts!

If you assault a transport with hormagaunts you remove it from the game together with it's contents, be it a razorback or a land raider. You simply surround it with your 2d6+12 move and he cannot shoot, cannot fall back and cannot unload. Then if you want, you can bring something heavy to bang on the poor guy and if you destroy it then all the passengers are automatically removed as casualties since they cannot disembark.

Fair enough! But for this tactics to work, you will have to at least swarm every transport with something like 20 Hormagants and if you manage to do it, he can still kill them in melee with other units very easily.
I think it is worth a try but should be extremely difficult to do in reality.

Even if they manage to wipe them out in melee in the following turn, you still avoided one turn of shooting from the transport and the passengers did not disembark. You also baited something into charging your hormagaunts which is usually a good thing, and it has to be a specialized unit, there aren't many units around that can take out more than 6-7 hormagaunts in a turn. Once you have surrounded the transport, you can remove hormagaunts in a way that you don't maintain unit coherency, but still negate the disembarking, so even with 11-12 gaunts i think that it is possible. I would have to try some placing.

Spoletta wrote:
Even if they manage to wipe them out in melee in the following turn, you still avoided one turn of shooting from the transport and the passengers did not disembark. You also baited something into charging your hormagaunts which is usually a good thing, and it has to be a specialized unit, there aren't many units around that can take out more than 6-7 hormagaunts in a turn. Once you have surrounded the transport, you can remove hormagaunts in a way that you don't maintain unit coherency, but still negate the disembarking, so even with 11-12 gaunts i think that it is possible. I would have to try some placing.

Maybe. But still you have to throw away the Hormagant squad, while other armies can just use their LasCans to destroy the transports.
So I don't think this is super amazing, instead just a desperate attempt to stop the transports.

Surely if we had high strenght high damage shooting this could be easier, but we don't have it. Even if i have to say that many faction that have it still struggle to stop transports. It takes 8 lascannon shots to stop a 10W T7 3+ transport.

You are right. 8 LasCanons by SMs are necessary to stop a Rhino. However, they put themselves in no danger to kill this transport.
20-30 Hormagants on the other hand are getting into rapid fire double tap range and will clearly be shot to pieces at some point.

Although the hormagants might be a way to trap transports, it is imho reasonable to say that tyranids are lacking against transports.

They will be shot to pieces only if they stop hugging that transport

More realistically, i don't expect hormagaunts to survive long, but you need just 1 turn, then you can bring the tools necessary to crack the transport and insta frag the passengers.

The best transport-killers we have are, wait for it...

...

...

Pyrovores.

Nono, seriously. Decent number of attacks, Strength high enough to wound even a Land raider on a 5+, a massive armor save penalty, deals only 1 damage admittedly but you get several attacks to do so and if the transport thwacks you back, you can bleed on it for mortal wounds. Heck, if it kills you, you kick out even MORE mortal wounds. Toss a pair of these guys on a Rhino and it'll be hating life in no time. If anyone tries to charge in to save it? d^ flamer autohits as well.

Did I mention how cheap they are? Because they're super cheap.

Give the lil' fire-frogs a chance. They'll surprise you!

Wakshaani wrote:
The best transport-killers we have are, wait for it...

...

...

Pyrovores.

Nono, seriously. Decent number of attacks, Strength high enough to wound even a Land raider on a 5+, a massive armor save penalty, deals only 1 damage admittedly but you get several attacks to do so and if the transport thwacks you back, you can bleed on it for mortal wounds. Heck, if it kills you, you kick out even MORE mortal wounds. Toss a pair of these guys on a Rhino and it'll be hating life in no time. If anyone tries to charge in to save it? d^ flamer autohits as well.

Did I mention how cheap they are? Because they're super cheap.

Give the lil' fire-frogs a chance. They'll surprise you!

Oh my...

1.) Pyrovores are really slow and have short range weapons. So where is the advantage of catching a transport, when it is already close enough to unload all the passengers? You have not won much with this anyway...

2.) A unit of 3 Pyrovores does an average of 2.6 damage on a Rhino, when you consider shooting and melee. This is pretty pathetic! And why should the transport even try to kill the Pyrovores in melee? It will shoot them from a safe distance and fall back from melee to deliver the passengers.

So it might be that Pyros are better than everyone thinks, but I am pretty sure that they suck against transports.

 luke1705 wrote:

pinecone77 wrote:
Yeah, I agree. I think our only unbreakable barrier is Top table for Tourneys, we don't have any "broken" units to spam. But AM is the only foe that is fearsome, as they have so many tools that flat out counter us. One thing that can work is holding off you strike till turn 2, or 3. That way you can let your foe move, and hopefully make an error you can use. Otherwise the best leveler is, as always, play maelstrom. I really think Tourneys need to embrace this, as almost all the gimmick lists falter in maestrom. Even 7Th might have been less one sided with that "fix".

TBH maelstrom won't change much about an AM gun line army. Most tournaments (NOVA, for example) use maelstrom objectives as a secondary or even primary on some missions with eternal war as the secondary. It's true the Tyranids have the tools to deal with more than 90% of the lists and armies out there. It's also true that we can't beat an AM gun line that is kitted out to go win a GT (and they do have lists that have the capability to do so). Even if we try to become them by allying in their very tanks, I don't think that a Tyranid/GSC force has a place with that kind of list. It was close when the GSC stealers had their pricing error and were 10ppm, but not at 15. (All of this is "I'm trying to win a GT" level of competition though).

Outside of that AM gunline, though, I do feel that we match up well against almost any other army. Upper mid tier is definitely where we are right now. And we have the ability to do so many more builds and units than we used to. It's amazing.

I mostly agree.. But by "embrace" I mean Tourneys go Maelstrom for most to all the goals. No pure gunline can dominate when movement is required to win. But that might just mess over Tau, though...that might be a plus As long as KPs count for some results (games/scenarios) when overall score will favor the Gunline/Killbot armies (like nothing but Flyers for example) Tourney ballence is an art, not a science though.

Luebbi wrote: Yesterday I played a game vs Chaos. My opponent had brought Abaddon with 3 Laser Predators, plus a crapton of Cultists and some other things he wanted to try. He deployed the tanks after I was completely done, then stole the initiative – with three tries, that’s actually pretty likely (we played with the chapter approved rule, so I got a +1 starting roll, he spent a CP to reroll his roll, then seized, then spent a CP to seize again, getting the 6). He used the stratagem that let his tanks wound and damage with +1 and shot my Exocrine and Tervigon off the board, with shots to spare. Also 15 Genestealers. Mind you, this was all stuff in a Malanthrope aura, which didn’t help at all. I basically started the 1850 point game 680 points down. It went as expected. I didn’t even get to any of the tanks due to his abundance of bubble wrapping. I messed up in deploying my Tervigon in LOS, but honestly didn’t expect him to shoot both guys off the table.

Next game, I guess I’m ditching the balanced approach and will try the following:
3x 20 genestealers, each with a broodlord
3x 20 termagants, with 11 devourers each
1x Malanthrope
1x Trygon

It sounds terrible. I will deploy everything except the Trygon and just hope that 120 troopers are enough to give most lists trouble, and only shock the Trygon in if I can get a tank in reach. If my opponent plays flyers, I’ll have the option to shake hands without deploying.

Sorry if this post is too salty, yesterday’s game was very off-putting.

So you bring a variety of infantry and MC's that all move at a different pace? So yea, your army get shot to pieces.

Astmeister wrote:

Wakshaani wrote:
The best transport-killers we have are, wait for it...

...

...

Pyrovores.

Nono, seriously. Decent number of attacks, Strength high enough to wound even a Land raider on a 5+, a massive armor save penalty, deals only 1 damage admittedly but you get several attacks to do so and if the transport thwacks you back, you can bleed on it for mortal wounds. Heck, if it kills you, you kick out even MORE mortal wounds. Toss a pair of these guys on a Rhino and it'll be hating life in no time. If anyone tries to charge in to save it? d^ flamer autohits as well.

Did I mention how cheap they are? Because they're super cheap.

Give the lil' fire-frogs a chance. They'll surprise you!

Oh my...

1.) Pyrovores are really slow and have short range weapons. So where is the advantage of catching a transport, when it is already close enough to unload all the passengers? You have not won much with this anyway...

2.) A unit of 3 Pyrovores does an average of 2.6 damage on a Rhino, when you consider shooting and melee. This is pretty pathetic! And why should the transport even try to kill the Pyrovores in melee? It will shoot them from a safe distance and fall back from melee to deliver the passengers.

So it might be that Pyros are better than everyone thinks, but I am pretty sure that they suck against transports.

Pyrovores are only good if the can keep on shooting for a few turns and that almost never happens with that limited range. Walking forward until you get within 8 inch is not a good idea and if you drop them in with a tyrannocyte you might do some damage but then the bite the dust. It is better to drop in 20 gaunts with 10 devourers. Fielding them for taking out transports is just silly.

Luebbi wrote:

- few good ranged answers against heavy weaponry / tanks
I have three choices: Exocrines, Hive Guard and Tyrannofex.

Could also look towards Heavy Venom Cannon-equipped Harpies. They are cheaper than the other two monsters and can follow up their barrages with mortal wounds via Spore Cysts. Plus, they are very mobile and play well with Genestealers (Sonic Screech = no counter assault stratagem for you!).

Luebbi wrote:

Hive Guard are the last option, one I haven’t tried yet, but they only do D3 damage.

To be fair, Shock Cannons also dish out Mortal wounds fairly consistently (1 mortal wound on a wound roll of 4+, D3 on a 6+) and Impaler Cannons allow the model to attack from range without retaliation.

If we use an double-tapping Exocrine as a baseline:

Vs T7, 3+ sv.:
Exocrine: 6.96 wounds
6x Hive Guard with Impaler Cannons: 6.89 wounds
6x Hive Guard with Shock Cannons: 7.96 wounds


Vs T8, 3+ sv.:
Exocrine: 4.59 wounds
6x Hive Guard with Impaler Cannons: 5.22 wounds
6x Hive Guard with Shock Cannons: 5.61 wounds

Admittedly, one thing I am not sure on is whether the mortal wounds inflicted by a Shock Cannon require the roll itself actually inflict a wound. The above calculations assume so, but if not then the damage capability skyrockets considerably against higher toughness models since half the successful hits will inflict at least 1 mortal wound on average.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
Take the Brigade. Tyranids have cheap choices in each catergory.

I don't really see the benefits of a Brigade for Tyranids, as two Battalions grant more slots and command points (18 vs 12) and we have plenty of decent options for HQs and Troops. For factions like Admech who have a limited selection for HQs I can see a case for the Brigade since it has a lower tax for them, but otherwise the Battalions offer more flexibility and efficiency.

I must be missing something here, 2 battalions should be 9 cp total.

 Strat_N8 wrote:


To be fair, Shock Cannons also dish out Mortal wounds fairly consistently (1 mortal wound on a wound roll of 4+, D3 on a 6+) and Impaler Cannons allow the model to attack from range without retaliation.

If we use an double-tapping Exocrine as a baseline:

Vs T7, 3+ sv.:
Exocrine: 6.96 wounds
6x Hive Guard with Impaler Cannons: 6.89 wounds
6x Hive Guard with Shock Cannons: 7.96 wounds


Vs T8, 3+ sv.:
Exocrine: 4.59 wounds
6x Hive Guard with Impaler Cannons: 5.22 wounds
6x Hive Guard with Shock Cannons: 5.61 wounds

Admittedly, one thing I am not sure on is whether the mortal wounds inflicted by a Shock Cannon require the roll itself actually inflict a wound. The above calculations assume so, but if not then the damage capability skyrockets considerably against higher toughness models since half the successful hits will inflict at least 1 mortal wound on average.

I don't think there is any discussion there, the mortal wounds are inflicted even if you fail to wound the target.

yeah im pretty sure this has been covered somewhere, even if you need a 5+ to wound, a 4+ still inflictsa mortal wound.

Anyway ive been having great success with big units of gargoyles, so much so that i`ve got a feeling a blob of 30 is going to be an absolute minimum for me from now on, useful for worrying flyers, supporting flyrants and just generally being a pain so i'm thinking of giving shrikes a go to support them (and maybe actually do some damage) anyone have any advice? guns? pure cc? unit sizes?

Spoletta wrote:

I must be missing something here, 2 battalions should be 9 cp total.

You are correct... For some reason I was thinking Battalion = 6 CPs and Brigade = 12, I forgot those totals include the base 3 CPs. Disregard the prior comment.

Spoletta wrote:

I don't think there is any discussion there, the mortal wounds are inflicted even if you fail to wound the target.

Good to know. That changes the result vs T8 3+ to ~7.61 wounds instead.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

I must be missing something here, 2 battalions should be 9 cp total.

You are correct... For some reason I was thinking Battalion = 6 CPs and Brigade = 12, I forgot those totals include the base 3 CPs. Disregard the prior comment.

Spoletta wrote:

I don't think there is any discussion there, the mortal wounds are inflicted even if you fail to wound the target.

Good to know. That changes the result vs T8 3+ to ~7.61 wounds instead.

Which means that after all we are not so much behind other factions. A shock guard inflicts the same wounds as a lascannon on those targets, and more on 2+ targets, for the same price as a lascannon devastator. Sure, they are range 24 instead of 48, but they are also T5 W3.

 Strat_N8 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

I must be missing something here, 2 battalions should be 9 cp total.

You are correct... For some reason I was thinking Battalion = 6 CPs and Brigade = 12, I forgot those totals include the base 3 CPs. Disregard the prior comment.

Spoletta wrote:

I don't think there is any discussion there, the mortal wounds are inflicted even if you fail to wound the target.

Good to know. That changes the result vs T8 3+ to ~7.61 wounds instead.

My calculation says that 6 Hive Guards with Schock cannons are even doing 8 wound on average against T8 3+ targets.
Anyway they are quite good, but instead of LasCan Marines they are in the danger zone against the enemy due to the short range. This advantage is huge for Devastators.

So honestly unless something changes in the codex is there a point to using warriors over Shrikes now? They are practically identical but Shrikes move much faster which is great for everything they are used for: Synapse support, shock assault, kite/shooting. They are ok as synapse babysitters but a malanthrope does it better(much better) and shrikes for just a few points more are so much more mobile. Don't even get into "you can use a prime with them since you can use a prime with shrikes too and primes are just ..... well not worth it. I like warriors and want them to be useful but I haven't used more than one brood in forever and I haven't even used that one brood since I got my malanthrope.

Shrikes are more expensive with a base cost increase of 40%.

Warriors are troops that can be easier to fill out certain detachments.

Those factors can matter in your verdict of them,

 Niiai wrote:
Shrikes are more expensive with a base cost increase of 40%.

Warriors are troops that can be easier to fill out certain detachments.

Those factors can matter in your verdict of them,

To a degree but we have much cheaper troops (rippers), Better CC Troops (Genestealers), Shooter Troops Dev Gaunts. The only thing Warriors really have going for them is Synapse....which is good but when we have better platforms for it like our malanthropes and Broodlords which are characters so they can't get killed unless they are sniped we have synapse covered fairly well. The extra points for maneuverability makes them useful at least where warriors are just expensive babysitters for our big guys that can get shot and leave our backfield in a pinch if we are not careful. Warriors(and shrikes to a lesser degree) need a slight points reduction to make them useful.

Warriors are better then your examples in flexabilaty once they are on the battlefield as they can fit more roles. They are also more survivable.

Those two qualaties are not apreciated a lot.

 Niiai wrote:
Warriors are better then your examples in flexabilaty once they are on the battlefield as they can fit more roles. They are also more survivable.

Those two qualaties are not apreciated a lot.

Unfortunatly they pay through the nose for those generilist traits. They are ok at a lot of stuff but not great at any. Like I said they only start to shine when they can get to the right place at the right time and guess what.....shrikes let them do that. Even then they are still overcosted compared to our other troops. I'd really like to see warriors shine but currently they are what I reach for ......pritty much never. Only when I run out of other stuff do I consider Warriors and that's sad....I have a lot of other stuff.

I have no firsthand experience with warriors. I am merly pointing out they are winning in some categories. If you also think you are putting to many eggs in one basket just keep 3 of them cheap. 9 aditional wounds for 60 points is not bad to defend your deathspitter/venom cannon/strangelthorn cannon and boneswords.

6 venom cannons can help your longrange with 36 range. Have a cheap HQ like the prime or malanthropes or both. Probably good when build around 36" ranged guns.

Warriors are great when you kit them cheaply but splurge on the biocanons. Then you use them as mid/back field synapse to support exocrines/biovores.

Shrikes would be wasted in that role.

 Niiai wrote:
I have no firsthand experience with warriors. I am merly pointing out they are winning in some categories. If you also think you are putting to many eggs in one basket just keep 3 of them cheap. 9 aditional wounds for 60 points is not bad to defend your deathspitter/venom cannon/strangelthorn cannon and boneswords.

6 venom cannons can help your longrange with 36 range. Have a cheap HQ like the prime or malanthropes or both. Probably good when build around 36" ranged guns.

For 60 pts I can get 15 Termigaunts, good for bubble wrap and decent 12" shooting, 15 wounds or I could get 2 broods of 3 rippers to DS onto objectives for 36 pts,or I can get 5 Genestealers who have a 5+ inv are very fast and murder things in CC, all the 60 pts of warriors is good for is synapse and maby if an enemy tries to assault whatever they are babysitting they are ok at CC.

If I could equip 6 venomcannons or barbed stranglers in a squad of 6 Warriors they might be ok actually they would be good then 2 or 3 with just sything for some extra cheap wounds that would be a good 234 pts spent (6 VC/sything 3x dual sything) but only one big gun per 3 in squad so max of 3 and that's fairly pricy(though better than I thought ....I thought it was one per brood)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
Warriors are great when you kit them cheaply but splurge on the biocanons. Then you use them as mid/back field synapse to support exocrines/biovores.

Shrikes would be wasted in that role.

If I'm gonna do a backfield gun blob I'm gonna use a malanthrope not warriors for the shroud.

Warrior is stil better in the parts I pointed out, why do you put words in my mouth?

So do you think this is worth it: 656 pts
Tyranid Prime Deathspitter/Rending Claws
2 broods of 9 Warriors: 6x Deathspitter/Sything, 3x Barbed strangler/Sything.

This puts out on average 60 Str 5 -1 Rend shots within 18" and 6d6(21ave) shots at 36" that get +1 more to hit if target is 10+models all hitting on 3+(4+ with +1 due to prime)
Total of 54 warrior wounds plus the prime. all are completly immune to Ld shinanagins. not terrable for a mobile gun blob but would it likely get focused down due to it's bad (4+)Armor and ave(4) toughness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Niiai wrote:
Warrior is stil better in the parts I pointed out, why do you put words in my mouth?

I didn't realize I was putting words into your mouth.....I was just discussing what I would do instead of using warriors most instances.

Timeshadow wrote:
So do you think this is worth it: 656 pts
Tyranid Prime Deathspitter/Rending Claws
2 broods of 9 Warriors: 6x Deathspitter/Sything, 3x Barbed strangler/Sything.

This puts out on average 60 Str 5 -1 Rend shots within 18" and 6d6(21ave) shots at 36" that get +1 more to hit if target is 10+models all hitting on 3+(4+ with +1 due to prime)
Total of 54 warrior wounds plus the prime. all are completly immune to Ld shinanagins. not terrable for a mobile gun blob but would it likely get focused down due to it's bad (4+)Armor and ave(4) toughness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Niiai wrote:
Warrior is stil better in the parts I pointed out, why do you put words in my mouth?

I didn't realize I was putting words into your mouth.....I was just discussing what I would do instead of using warriors most instances.

That's not how you use warriors. Warriors are meant to mix and match a lot.

Under other factions standards, warriors are exceptional troops. SM would kill to have something like warriors. They are cheap, reasonably dangerous, provide synapse and have a lot of customization. Warriors though are not shrikes and trying to do with warriors what you do with shrikes is the wrong approach. Shrikes are a strike force, so you equip them well for the task you need and then send them to do theyr job. Warriors are either objective sitters, or second line hitters. Being second line hitters means that you have to equip them to shrug off one turn of enemy fire, and when they get in melee they need to be able to take some hits.

This is how I intend to play my warriors in the next list:

9 warriors: 2x talons, 2x deathspitter and lashwip, 5x deathspitter and bonesword. Adrenals for all. This comes at 269, where the shrike equivalent would be 324, one less troop and one unit less with objective secured. This unit will hit the enemy lines on the second turn, while escorting my swarms of hormagaunts and termagants (usually 70-80 models) and being followed by the venomthropes and a prime (113 points). Taking them out usually is not an option, they are not easy to kill and most importantly they are not paying targets. Assuming that the first two guys go down due to some stray shot and overwatch, you are looking at 26 boneswords attacks that hit on 2+, and i'm not accounting for the prime attacks.

Shrikes cannot cover this role, because they are paying targets and they outpace my venomthropes.
Hitting fast and hard is not the only way to play 'nids, sure we are really good at alpha striking, but we are exceptional beta strikers. It is a completely different way of list building where the priority is not offering any obvious target, similar to the MTO lists of 6th/7th, and play for the turn 2/3 while throwing something at the enemy lines that disrupts the first and second turn firepower (like lictors or a trygon loaded with hormagaunts).