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Hearing eveyong talk about horde orks has made me think, "why don't we see any horde nid armies."
You can get 192 gaunts for about 760 points. (this is without guns or upgrades.) Even if you only took about 120 small bug you'd be able to fit in gunfexes and a tyrant or two.
Unfortunately I don't have my dex with me so I can't churn out a sample list for you guys to muse over. But in line with steleks 40k economics (ie 10 chaos marines = daemon prince = 2 oblitherators) I thought about price potential with nids.

32 spinefist gaunts = 16 hormagaunts = 10 genestealer =< gunfex = 3 zoey's

What I think I'll try is:

x2 32 Spinfist gaunts (maybe regular gaunts)
x2 16 hormagaunts
x2 10 genestealer
thats 116 modles
fill the rest in MC's and the like
can anyone else think of a viable way to run a horde army?

Hearing eveyong talk about horde orks has made me think, "why don't we see any horde nid armies."

Simple really, 4th edition is about shootyness and CC just doesn't hold it's own currently. I remember when the new nid dex hit and thought to myself bugs just became shooty and are no longer CC oriented. Stealer shock is the closest thing to a good assault army in all of 4th ed. currently. BA kind of pull it off but still have very shooty elements in even thier best assault configurations. Skimmers have IMO dictated this more than anything because they are almost impossible to drag down with assault.

Escalation is the other reason.

Gaunts move on, Gaunts look for mommy, Gaunts run away.

Gets old fast.

Ork CC hordes will probably work cos you get a huge number of WS4 attacks on T4 models for little points. Ork shooty hordes will probably work cos they get a huge number of range 18 assault weapon attacks for little points, and can handle themselves moderataly well in CC. They can all carry some AT power as well at a reasonable price.

Nids can't do that, not even close. Spinegaunts pay 2.5 times more points per melee attack are only WS3 and T3, and their shooting is hardly going to make or break a game.

Other gaunts are paying for extra shooty, and don't get any better in CC.

Once you start looking at hormies, and the synapse + AT units to go with them, you are beyond anything looking like a horde.

Stelek wrote:Escalation is the other reason.

Gaunts move on, Gaunts look for mommy, Gaunts run away.

Gets old fast.

Wow that just took the wind out of my sails

The other thing to consider is that a unit of 30 Shoota boyz is effectively Fearless without needing another unit to make them so and will have 3 "hidden" heavy weapons and a "hidden" Nob with powerklaw.

That gives each Ork mob the ability (if given Rokkits) to kill nearly any type of enemy by shooting or in close combat.

Horde Nids are only good at killing infantry and once in combat they lack the hidden powerfist that allows them to take out tough opponents. Plus they require a (fully targetable) Synapse creature or unit to lead them around the battlefield.


Horde Tyranid armies would work if Tyranid Warriors were appropriately point-costed and could take some true anti-tank firepower (S7 Venom Cannons don't cut it). Because they aren't the whole concept pretty much falls apart on the core level.

That said, Godzilla armies with tons of gaunts is a pretty effective army.

If the trend continues and rumors hold true escalation may not be a concern to much longer making gaunts even more appealing.

Hordes are fine if you go semi-Godzilla, as Yak said. I got to table 6 at Baltimore until my lack of 40K playing in 2007 caught up to me. The list was strong...it was the player who got stupid.

If you wanted to go as a big a horde as possible with Tyranids here's the blueprint:

You need max Synapse and max anti-tank. Since Tyranid Warriors are the worst Synapse choice that means 3 Zoanthropes with Warp Blast/Synapse and 2 walking Tyrants both with Tyrant Guard (to ensure you don't lose Synapse I'd go with at least 2 Tyrant Guard each). Round this off with 2 Gunfexes and Venom Cannons on your Tyrants and you have some decent AT firepower.

That's right around 1,000 points so if you were making an 1,850 point army that would leave you with 850 points to put into gaunts. That's still enough points to take 170 Spinegaunts, 140 Termagaunts or 120 Devgaunts which is nothing (at all) to scoff at. I'd recommend the Termagaunts in this case because point-for-point they do the most damage to MEQs and in this type of army you actually need the gaunts to do some of your damage for you.


Basically what you've done is traded your Dakkafexes in a Godzilla army for Termagaunts which isn't a horrible trade-off. You lose the Strength and range of the Devourer but you gain a whole heck of a lot more shots and (in some ways) a more durable unit.

If you knew you weren't playing any Escalation games you could even go the full choir route and give all your Zoeys and HTs Psychic Scream to make sure the enemy runs away when you shoot it.

Anyone who has run a Gaunt horde knows that they just bounce off of Marines. Even with a lot of attacks, the strength 3 and a 3+ armor save means that you are going to lose combats.

The thing the Orks have going for them is that they cost half as much as a Hormagaunt, and pack twice the punch of a Termagaunt.

I was thinking something similar to yakface's suggestion would work, except use a choir. Masses of termagants and a choir could work well against the non-fearless types. It will take on average 16 termagant shots to force a moral check on the 6-8 man Meq units. Modify the Ld with the choir and you have a decent chance at forcing a fall back. Kind of a gimmick (and very situational, often times you'd rather not force a fallback) but the list doesn't loose all that much by having the option.

If only I could convince myself that prepping and painting 140 termagants would be fun...

.. silly error... back soon

yakface wrote:

That's right around 1,000 points so if you were making an 1,850 point army that would leave you with 850 points to put into gaunts. That's still enough points to take 170 Spinegaunts, 140 Termagaunts or 120 Devgaunts which is nothing (at all) to scoff at. I'd recommend the Termagaunts in this case because point-for-point they do the most damage to MEQs and in this type of army you actually need the gaunts to do some of your damage for you.

Well I was going to show that over the course of 6 turns that devourers are better than the other 2 when looked at in terms of average VPs gained and lost at the end of 6 turns. But then realised I'd forgotten about fleet. That changes things quite a bit - like obviously .

Though it doesn't make termagaunts the best choice necessarily. In theory, under ideal conditions in an unrealistic vaccum for a shooting only matchup the termaguant is quite a bit better than the devourer if the MEQ player is stupid enough to deploy on his line, If he deploys further back then the devourer is better.

Against 6 man las/plas with ld10/ATSKNF (but no PF sgt) who will sit still and shoot unless they can advance to rapid fire. With gaunts going first. Avergae VP difference after 6 turns

start range = 25" (ie >24)

19 termaguants = ~ +21VP
16 devourers = ~ -4VP

start range = 31

19 termaguants = ~ -11VP
16 devourers = ~ -2VP

Lemartes wrote:If the trend continues and rumors hold true escalation may not be a concern to much longer making gaunts even more appealing.

That, and the fact that they start the game by moving 6", fleeting D6" and marching D6".

Against 6 man las/plas with ld10/ATSKNF (but no PF sgt) who will sit still and shoot unless they can advance to rapid fire. With gaunts going first. Avergae VP difference after 6 turns

start range = 25" (ie >24)

19 termaguants = ~ +21VP
16 devourers = ~ -4VP

start range = 31

19 termaguants = ~ -11VP
16 devourers = ~ -2VP

Mmm - that'll teach me not try doing that at 2:30 in the morning. Bleary eyes miss miscalculations. +21VP gain to termagaunts ought to have been a subtle hint. No where near that good.

The basic point still holds - termagaunts are better than devourers if the marines do silly things like deploy as close as possible to them. If he doesn't then devourers edge out the termagaunts, the range they have makes it that bit harder to counter them.

I've had success running a mixed semi-zilla army with a bit of everything. The core is walking VC tyrant with guard, 3x Zoeys with WB/Synapse, and 2 Gunfexes. I usually run a Flyrant with STs and a single Dakkafex as well.

As for the rest, I put down about 50 or so gaunts and some Raveners (and sometimes even leaping warriors, just because I only have 4 Raveners). The Ravs/Warriors are essential to making the Gaunt horde work.

The leaping Warriors and Raveners hide behind the MC wall. The gaunts range up the flanks with Zoey support, fleeting to tie stuff up quickly. At the appropriate juncture, the Warriors and/or Raveners burst forwards and join the combats started by the gaunts. Several Rending attacks at I5 plus lots of gaunts for outnumbering can be quite effective, especially if you aim your Renders at the edge of an already-tied-up unit so you can clear your zone every turn (to avoid the unit killing off your Renders - leave them only gaunts to kill).

I think that just running double the number of gaunts, with no Raveners/Warriors, would be problematic against 3+ save armies. In combination though, it works just fine.

The MCs and Zoeys spend their time shooting vehicles of course, and the Flyrant goes after expensive fast units like bikes.

Been fiddling around ironing out some wrinkles in my logic. Also did some some calculations for all start ranges between 25 and 35 (ie marines starting just behind their line >24" away all the way to right on their board edge). That made for some interesting reading - 31" which was the range I plumped for before was a bit of a pivot point, and I interpreted wrongly from just looking at that and 25".

The most interesting bit though is just how effective spinegaunts are compared to the other 2 types. They are better than either termagaunts or devgaunts at all start ranges if you are measuring by averaged VP gain/loss after 6 turns. Those extra bodies are what swings it for them, the 6 man las/plas can't shoot them into half or full VPs with anything like the probability that they can with the other 2 types.

If the piccy attachment works then graph attached.

As ever - pinch of salt required, pure theory hammer, all in a vacuum etc. I think all the maths is correct now except I still haven't implemented a 'gets hot' rule - so the gaunts are probably coming out better than the graph shows, but it probably affects them all fairly evenly. The VP figure is based on running the scenario through every single possible result for every single turn and averaging the VPs gained and lost according to the probabilty of the final turn 6 result. Oh and it is purely shooting, writing an assault logic section is my next mini-project.

mm - need to re-read that piccy attachment bit

It'll just weight more in the spinegaunts favor with assault facored in I'm sure.

Going to need to buy a lot more of those

Well I got round to putting in some 'gets hot' logic, also put in some logic to approximate how many of a unit are actually in range based on the actual range the unit is at.

Amusing data - plasma against gaunts is really free VPs for the nids (moreso than I expected), spend 10 points on the plasma gun and give away about 20VPs compared to a similiar gun that isn't 'gethot'. You are significantly better off with a bolter marine than a plasma marine against gaunts. The slightly lower killing power is more than made up for by not giving away freebie casualties. Obviously you want the plasma against nastier stuff, so if you have one and face mass gaunts then lose the plasma up front on his first volley rather than wait to give it away your self.







Added a unit of 4 warriors (TL devs - 116pts) and a dakkafex for comparison. You get quite a difference by tweaking various paramters, like how close the nid advance. But it gives an idea.

Note - the program that generates this is uber strict on ranges, it's likely in real games that you wouldn't see graphs like these (if you were mad enough to graph it) as players will often nab a extra .1 inch or whatever somewhere along the line - even if not deliberately, that can make a fair difference. How many people remember that deploying 'not within' 24" at start means that after moving 12" you shoudn't really be 'within' 12" with that 12" range gun?