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How would I go about playing a CC 'nid list? Should I have two Broodlords w/ beefed-up retinues and lots of infiltrating 'stealers, or should I go the horde approach and spam Hormagaunts? Both lists should have CC 'fexes I suppose, and the latter could be lead by two hive tyrants. Other thoughts?

Broodlord = 0-1 per army

hordes of hormies is very fluffy, but they're twice the price of spinegaunts and so make very expensive meatshields.

I'm tending towards loads of stealers, mostly scuttling and/or with carapace, one squad led by a broodlord, backed up with a flyrant and some CC fexes.

Hormies aren't meat shields. They are turn two high damage assault waves that can demolish certain armies with ease.

I've been theorycrafting something like this:


2000 Pts - Tyranids - 2000 Hive Fleet Hephaestus


Hive Tyrant HQ 6 3 6 6 4 6 3/5 10 2+/6(i) 217
Monstrous Creature; Fearless; Acid Maw; Adrenal Glands +1 In: Adds +1 to Initiative.; Adrenal Glands +1 WS: Adds +1 Weapon Skill.; Flesh Hooks; Toxic Miasma; Toxin Sacs +1 St: Adds +1 to Strength.; Winged; Scything Talons (x2); Synapse Creature; The Horror; Warp Field
Troops: Gaunt Brood (16#, 80 Pts)
Rata-tat-tat Gaunts 16 Troops 3 3 3 3 1 4 1 5 6+ 80
Fleet of Claw; Spinefists
Troops: Hormagaunts (16#, 224 Pts)
Hormagaunts 16 Troops 4 3 4 3 1 5 1/2 5 5+ 224
Beasts, Leaping; Adrenal Glands +1 In: Adds +1 to Initiative.; Extended Carapace +1 Save: Adds +1 to Save.; Toxin Sacs +1 St: Adds +1 to Strength.; Scything Talons
Troops: Genestealers (12#, 360 Pts)
Genestealers 12 Troops 6 0 5 4 1 6 2/3 10 5+ 360
Fleet of Claw, Brood Telepathy; Acid Maw; Scuttlers; Toxin Sacs +1 St: Adds +1 to Strength.; Rending Claws; Scything Talons
Troops: Genestealers (12#, 360 Pts)
Genestealers 12 Troops 6 0 5 4 1 6 2/3 10 5+ 360
Fleet of Claw, Brood Telepathy; Acid Maw; Scuttlers; Toxin Sacs +1 St: Adds +1 to Strength.; Rending Claws; Scything Talons
Fast Attack: Warriors (6#, 306 Pts)
Warriors 6 Fast 5 2 5 4 2 5 2+1/3+1 10 5+ 306
Adrenal Glands +1 In: Adds +1 to Initiative.; Adrenal Glands +1 WS: Adds +1 Weapon Skill.; Bio-plasma; Flesh Hooks; Toxin Sacs +1 St: Adds +1 to Strength.; Winged; Rending Claws (x1); Scything Talons (x1); Synapse Creature
Heavy Support: Zoanthrope (3#, 195 Pts)
Zoanthrope 1 Heavy 3 3 4 4 2 4 2 10 2+/6(i) 195
Living Artillery; Toxic Miasma; Synapse Creature; Warp Blast; Warp Field
Zoanthrope 1 3 3 4 4 2 4 2 10 2+/6(i) [65]
Toxic Miasma; Synapse Creature; Warp Blast; Warp Field
Zoanthrope 1 3 3 4 4 2 4 2 10 2+/6(i) [65]
Toxic Miasma; Synapse Creature; Warp Blast; Warp Field
Heavy Support: Carnifex (1#, 257 Pts)
Carnifex 1 Heavy 4 2 9 7 5 2 2+1/D6+1 10 2+ 257
Monstrous Creature; Fearless; Acid Maw; Adrenal Glands +1 In: Adds +1 to Initiative.; Adrenal Glands +1 WS: Adds +1 Weapon Skill.; Bonded Exoskeleton: Gains +1 Toughness.; Extended Carapace +1 Save: Adds +1 to Save.; Regenerate; Reinforced Chitin: Gains +1 Wound.; Spine Banks; Tail Weapon - Scythe; Toxic Miasma; Tusked; Crushing Claws; Scything Talons (x1)
Total Cost: 1999

ShumaGorath wrote:Hormies aren't meat shields. They are turn two high damage assault waves that can demolish certain armies with ease.

What I mean is, in early turns they will unavoidably be meatshields to the rest of the army, and they die just as fast as spinegaunts but cost twice as much. Once they're in charging range, I agree they then become very useful.

How do players find their hormies survive in battle? Do they survive all that turn 1 shooting? Just take big units to minimise the damage? Or is it too big a points sink, compared to spinegaunts? Or do a big pile of stealers keep the enemy busy enough to not be shooting the hormies anyway? Or is it more sensible to have some cheaper pure meatshield gaunts out in front, followed by hormies?

I have not used hormagaunts but I know one local nid player locally used to swear bythem in 4ed, and has shelved them in 5ed. They are just kicked in the jimmy now w/ how assault works in 5ed. Stealers are better assaulters for the points and better objective takers w/ better armor and no synapse requirements, it is just a plain hard truth imho but YMMV. And I was looking forward to running a horde of em and/or spineguants but they just are not very viable in 5ed.

In response to Brenton's post, you may want to check out the Mathhammer on your genestealers. If you switch out the acid maws for feeder tendrils you'll get the same kills (a few less rends) for a few less points per model. Because I have some procrastinating to do, here’s some numbers for you:

First off, let’s assume you’re hitting a 10-man MEQ squad on a charge and this is a 10-man Stealer squad.

Buying acid maw and toxin sacs (230pts) will get you the same kill ratio as feeder tendrils and toxin sacs (200pts). Both squads kill 7.9 MEQs on that first turn.

So, since you’re spending 230 for those two upgrades, you could spend an additional 10 points and get feeder tendrils, toxin sacs, and scything talons (240pts). This load out kills 10.53 MEQs on a charge turn.

I personally like the FT, TS, ST load out because it more than doubles the base genestealer killing capacity (base gets you 4.44 kills on the charge) for less than double the price. The trouble is getting them stuck in, especially at a high points cost. Also, such efficient killers are usually open to heavy fire in the subsequent turn.

The only time I see Acid maw as a good option over feeder tendrils is if you're running Lictors in conjunction with the acid maw'ed Stealers. If you're able to put a lictor next to a group of stealers with maw, then you get to reroll to hit and to wound. At that point, the unit is killing 14 MEQs on the charge, and it’s kill capacity more than triples over the base. To get this to work, things have to go really well.

The first time I tried to use the lictor/stealer combo it worked fantastically. After that, my opponents wised up and would kill the lectors.

What do you guys think? I know that there is a feeling that stealers can get too expensive too fast, but lately I’ve only been giving them these biomorphs and things have been working well.

Can't you shield the stealers with gaunts? Doesn't making the enemy shoot through another unit give you a 4+ cover save?

Another thing, why give the hormagaunts so many upgrades? Why not just leave off the Adrenal glands, extended carpace, and toxin sacs. Just a hormaguant with scything talons. How many points are those? I would rather have a lot of hormaguants that have no upgrades rather than pad them with str and initiative.

all those hormy upgrades are great for the ones which actually reach combat, but seem a waste of points for the ones which are shot down beforehand. Hmm, maybe a screen of 'naked' hormies out front, followed by tooled up hormies? But then spinegaunts would seem to screen just as well, for half the cost.

Grumble grumble. Maybe close combat horde doesn't work, and all stealers is the way to go, including lots of scuttlers so that you simply don't need to run across the battlefield

Clang wrote:all those hormy upgrades are great for the ones which actually reach combat, but seem a waste of points for the ones which are shot down beforehand. Hmm, maybe a screen of 'naked' hormies out front, followed by tooled up hormies? But then spinegaunts would seem to screen just as well, for half the cost.

Grumble grumble. Maybe close combat horde doesn't work, and all stealers is the way to go, including lots of scuttlers so that you simply don't need to run across the battlefield

I usually role out with one full squad of naked hormies followed by hypergaunts with +1 I (or +1ws depending on the army i'm against, seeing as they have the same modification for WYSIWYG) and +1S. The first squad usually make it to the enemy with at least 1/3 or more models intact, and so can at least hold they're own in combat or lock up a unit in CC for the next turn, and the hyperhormies then veer onto a secondary target, or finish up the job and consolidate.

For stealers, I always say scuttling is an absolute must. I've always outflanked with them and its worked pretty well. Don't yet own a broodlord (damn you bank account!) but will roll him out infiltrated with stealers packing FT and EC to get a head start.

My usual opponents are MEQ and have learned to pack they're army very densley into the centre back of their deployment zone. This has worked extremely badly once (i lost the deployment and had units trekking across the board for half the game only to get torn up at the last minute in rapid fire) but the other times he's backed himself into a corner and the game was pretty much over then.

A wide dispersion of hormugaunts can assault three to four squads at once on the turn they assault. They are fully capable of winning said combat and massacreing four squads at the same time. Its a dangerous ploy though because if you lose your going to take four times the damage. They can be devastating if used correctly but it's easy to lose them en masse.

If you're going to spread Hormugaunts out wide to hit lots of units, then it's a good idea to send something like Genestealers in against one of those units to boost your combat resolution.

Warmaster Primus wrote:In response to Brenton's post, you may want to check out the Mathhammer on your genestealers. If you switch out the acid maws for feeder tendrils you'll get the same kills (a few less rends) for a few less points per model. Because I have some procrastinating to do, here’s some numbers for you:

First off, let’s assume you’re hitting a 10-man MEQ squad on a charge and this is a 10-man Stealer squad.

Buying acid maw and toxin sacs (230pts) will get you the same kill ratio as feeder tendrils and toxin sacs (200pts). Both squads kill 7.9 MEQs on that first turn.

So, since you’re spending 230 for those two upgrades, you could spend an additional 10 points and get feeder tendrils, toxin sacs, and scything talons (240pts). This load out kills 10.53 MEQs on a charge turn.

I personally like the FT, TS, ST load out because it more than doubles the base genestealer killing capacity (base gets you 4.44 kills on the charge) for less than double the price. The trouble is getting them stuck in, especially at a high points cost. Also, such efficient killers are usually open to heavy fire in the subsequent turn.

The only time I see Acid maw as a good option over feeder tendrils is if you're running Lictors in conjunction with the acid maw'ed Stealers. If you're able to put a lictor next to a group of stealers with maw, then you get to reroll to hit and to wound. At that point, the unit is killing 14 MEQs on the charge, and it’s kill capacity more than triples over the base. To get this to work, things have to go really well.

The first time I tried to use the lictor/stealer combo it worked fantastically. After that, my opponents wised up and would kill the lectors.

What do you guys think? I know that there is a feeling that stealers can get too expensive too fast, but lately I’ve only been giving them these biomorphs and things have been working well.

Yeah, originally the list was to include two lictors, but they got dropped, added back, and dropped again. The biomorphs on the gaunts get added and dropped a bunch as well. And I'm actually trying to balance the stealers so they're two combat rounds to kill a MEQ squad... thus instead of standing around cringing on the opponent's turn they're still locked in during the shooting phase and free up in my combat phase.