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Those of you who've seen my battle report know that I already have a Flyrant, VC+BS 'fex, and CC fex up and running.  Now however, I want advice on what to do with the rest of my Tyranid MCs.  I have a partially assembled HT, who already has a venom cannon.  Any advice as to what his second weapon biomorph should be?  Then I have an unassembled HT, and am not sure what to build him as.

I've got four more Carnifexes to kit out.  I was thinking two do two of them as elite dakka fexes, and another VC+BS.  What would be a good reccomendation for the last one? A heavy dakka fex?

Flyrant with 2x twin dev
HT with vc and twin dev
3x Dakkafex with 2x twin dev
2-3x Gunfex with vc and bs

Combining vc and twin devourers on Hive Tyrants is essentially the same as what Predators do when they combine the autocannon or the twin lascannon turret with two heavy bolters. It's a good combination that allows you to drop down a variety of foes while closing in.

I agree with Therion. A walking Tyrant's best configuration by far is the Venom Cannon and TL Devourer with Enhanced Senses and Toxin Sacs.

Resist the urge to give your Tyrant any other upgrades. Instead take all those points you'd dump into protection or CC themed biomorphs and put them towards Tyrant Guard instead.

45 points for an extra two T6 3+ save wounds (not to mention three additional S5 rending attacks in CC) is way better than any other biomorph you can take.


You need to convert that CC fex pronto unless you're going to be playing a whole bunch of Cityfight missions.

Well, old one eye was pinned and glued up pretty securely, so there's not much to be done with him. He can be a diorama piece (I never though I'd say this, but heck, I can afford to. I've got fexes to spare...)

How should the tyrant and guard be used? With that kind of setup, the Tyrant is best used for shooting, but then aside from blocking bullets, the combat capabilities of the guard are being ignored.

Posted By Bookwrack on 03/09/2007 11:56 PM


How should the tyrant and guard be used? With that kind of setup, the Tyrant is best used for shooting, but then aside from blocking bullets, the combat capabilities of the guard are being ignored.

The Tyrant/Guard unit moves forward with the rest of the army to provide shooting support.

The thing is, without the Tyrant Guard, the Tyrant is vulnerable to being swarmed by a dedicated enemy assault unit (not to mention being shot to death). With the Tyrant Guard now only the most hardcore assault unit has a chance to take on the Tyrant with Guard.

The Tyrant Guard just provide you with an alomst indestructible Synapse/scoring unit that also has good shooting and good close combat ability.

What I've put together so far is:
2 x VC + BS, Bonded Exoskeleton, Reinforced Chitin, and enhanced senses.
2 x 2xTL Devourers, Enhanced Senses.

I suppose tactically, for my last heavy fex, another VC+BS would be best, but I don't really _want_ to do that. I want more variety in my fex builds (hence why I kept the CC fex. Well, that and I tried to twist off off a crushing claw, but that sucker must've been welded on there, because it wasn't budging). Would a 2xDevourer, Enhanced Senses, Reinforced Chitin, Bonded Exoskeleton, Spine Banks fex not fly too hard in the face of acceptability?

The problem is cost. You're throwing biomorphs on there that are just too expensive. Anything that's actually a threat to it isn't going to allow an armor save. The big thing a fex has going for it is 4 wounds. With what's going to be coming its way a 2+ will be pretty useless. You've got half the cost of another fex in those extra things right there. It's better to have more targets, than one 'hard' target.

None of the troops in the Tyranid army should be given a 2+ save these days. The flying Tyrant can't have Warp Field because he needs Psychic Scream more, and equipping your Gunfexes with 2+ saves and Dakkafexes with 3+ saves only means that all the missiles go to Dakkafexes and all the Lascannons to Gunfexes, meaning you don't gain anything at all. Just go with 3+ saves and extra wounds and Tyrant Guards and you'll be fine. You'd be surprised how few people actually field missile launchers.

It only has a 3+ save. I gave it the biomorphs for enhanced toughness and an extra wound.  It's also 30 points cheaper than the VC + BS Heavy fexes.  In fact, none of those fexes listed there have 2+ saves, so spare me the lecture on the drawbacks of Extended Carapace.

I wanted to know how effective a 2x TL Devourer, Spine Banks, Enhanced Senses, Bonded Exoskeleton, Reinforced Chitin Heavy fex looked to other people?

It's going to take up a Heavy slot, which should go to Gunfexes (VC/BS) or the choir. Let your elites handle infantry, your heavies are the only anti-tank you have.

The fex you have there is big and scary, but can be dropped almost as easily as one without those biomorphs. The 5 wounds is the only real difference, 7 toughness isnt going to help much.

I realize that EC is worthless against Lascannons, but I still think it's worth it.

A lot of armies will struggle with 2+ Saves, Necrons go from hosed to having a chance without 2+ Saves on some TMC's. Eldar is a lot less inclined to be taking AP2 guns right now. The 2+ Helps a lot in saving against armies that go for lots of S6 shots to overload T4 3+ Save units. Also consider that you'll be taking a few Assault Cannon shots, many times they don't always rend, and you take wounds from the S6 AP4 part, having the 2+ helps there.

I'd say that you should only drop the 3rd VC/BS Fex in favor of Zoey's if you're running Gaunts, because you need them for Escalation. You can replicate the anti-tank of a VC/BS Fex in a Walking Tyrant with Guard.

As a Marine player I'm considering throwing in a ML Dev Squad to go from 1500 to 1750, if your winged Tyrant only has a 3+ save, then all of a sudden I have one more unit in my army I can dedicate towards focus firing it to death on the turn it'll probably have to sit exposed to fire before hitting my lines in CC (since most boards don't have the terrain setup to let you quietly hop a Flyrant into CC without getting exposed to some fire).

How much better is a Flyrant with devoures vs. a Flyrant with scytals? I just like having a cc monster, plus mine's already modeled like that.

I'm not sure I really like the idea of a flyrant with devourers. The best way to keep one alive is to keep it from being shot at, and the best way to do that is to keep it out of sight, or in close combat.

And I think for now I'm just going to hold off on assembling the last carnifex. I've got 2 VC/BS already, and I almost always rely on a unit of Zoanthropes for addtional synapse, so building a third heavy choice won't do me much good, and I don't want to turn it into a third dakka fex just yet (although at least I have plenty of scything talons to turn into devourers if I need them).