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Whats better for a shooty Tyranid army, Gaunts with Devourers or Fleshborers? Gonna be building a 'nid army soon and wanted to throw around some ideas before gluing everything down.
Thanx

That is a tricky one, though the argument is usually about FB vs spinefists. range vs better wounding potential, I like my FB gaunts, easier to give them without number or leave them as is.

I once saw some mathhammer on Fleshborers vs MEQ and Devourers with Toxin Sacks vs MEQ. The result was that they were equally effective for their points. The Devourers have the extra range, which is nice, but the lack of AP hurts them against Guard/Orks (against MEQ it is all the same). The next consideration, however, is that they are both horridly squishy and unlikely to last long. In that way, I prefer Fleshborers for my `damage-causing Gaunts', since they are significantly cheaper for their points, while still having a respectable damage output.

It may sound dumb, but I use my gaunts as spare wounds for my army. It's a bonus if they kill anything, but it's nice getting a few hits in along the long walk across the table. Even upgraded their save gets ignored and with T3 and no saves unless it's against lasgun fire they just screen the rest of the army.

However, when I think about combat gaunts I lean towards fleshborers. Living ammunition and the bonus str from the gun can put wounds on marines. For stuff that's not marines take your pick. Unless you're really picky about points I'd recommend fleshborers. I modeled spinefists soely because they're a point cheaper *shrugs*.

Some mathhammer:
Toxic Sacs+Devourer (10p) VS T4
2*1/2=1 hits, 1*(1/3+2/3*1/3)=0.56 wounds, 0.56/10=0.056 wounds per point
Devourer (7p) VS T4
2*1/2=1 hits, 1*(1/6+5/6*1/6)=0.31 wounds, 0.31/7=0.043 wounds per point
Toxic Sacs+Fleshborer (9p) VS T4
1*1/2=0.5 hits, 0.5*(2/3+1/3*2/3)=0.44 wounds, 0.44/9=0.049 wounds per point
Fleshborer (6p) VS T4
1*1/2=0.5 hits, 0.5*(1/2+1/2*1/2)=0.38 wounds, 0.38/6=0.063 wounds per point
Toxic Sacs+Spinefist (8p) VS T4
1*(1/2+1/2*1/2)=0.75 hits, 0.75*1/2=0.38 wounds, 0.38/8=0.047 wounds per point
Spinefist (5p) VS T4
1*(1/2+1/2*1/2)=0.75 hits, 0.75*1/3=0.25 wounds, 0.25/5=0.50 wounds per point
Toxic Sacs+Devourer (10p) VS T3
2*1/2=1 hits, 1*(1/2+1/2*1/2)=0.75 wounds, 0.75/10=0.075 wounds per point
Devourer (7p) VS T3
2*1/2=1 hits, 1*(1/3+2/3*1/3)=0.56 wounds, 0.56/7=0.079 wounds per point
Toxic Sacs+Fleshborer (9p) VS T3
1*1/2=0.5 hits, 0.5*(5/6+1/6*5/6)=0.49 wounds, 0.49/9=0.054 wounds per point
Fleshborer (6p) VS T3
1*1/2=0.5 hits, 0.5*(2/3+1/3*2/3)=0.44 wounds, 0.44/6=0.074 wounds per point
Toxic Sacs+Spinefist (8p) VS T3
1*(1/2+1/2*1/2)=0.75 hits, 0.75*2/3=0.5 wounds, 0.5/8=0.063 wounds per point
Spinefist (5p) VS T3
1*(1/2+1/2*1/2)=0.75 hits, 0.75*1/2=0.38 wounds, 0.25/5=0.075 wounds per point

Now have in mind that Devourers have longer range and no AP.
Also have in mind that the survivability is the same regardless of point cost.
Toxic Sacs also boost close combat ability and you have to take that into account as well.

Personally I feel that Devourers are never worth it even with the longer range and I'd never take Toxic sacs either due to the huge (relatively speaking) point cost.
So if your choice is between Devourers and Fleshborer I'd definitely take Fleshborers. I'd still consider Spinefists though due to the increased survivability

The thing is Devourer gaunts are still attainable with WoN and that said are great for holding a home table quarter objective as the extra 6" of range means they can support attacks whilst still camping on an objective. If they get wiped out they respawn and can usually affect an enemy at range faster because of the 18" range. As a whole I tend to take an even mix of gaunts with fleshborers and gaunts with devourers and ignore the spinefists altogether. Fleshborer+toxin scas does give you the ability to wound wraithlords with gaunts though.

Cheers,

Auretious Taak.

Wait. . .

You are trying to kill things with gaunts?

I think I see the problem.

Spinefists w/o# are efficient beyond the scope of any other scoring Tyranid.

shrug

kirsanth wrote:Wait. . .

You are trying to kill things with gaunts?

I think I see the problem.

Spinefists w/o# are efficient beyond the scope of any other scoring Tyranid.

shrug

*Shakes Head*

Someone doesn't know how to play 'Nids properly...

Auretious Taak wrote:

kirsanth wrote:
You are trying to kill things with gaunts?
I think I see the problem.
Spinefists w/o# are efficient beyond the scope of any other scoring Tyranid.

*Shakes Head*

Someone doesn't know how to play 'Nids properly...

He is using the tournament thought, where Gaunts are only there for scoring purposes.

Playing for fun means HORDES of Gaunts and Hormaguants, even though they aren't that great.

Devourer Gaunts are not bad for taking out enemy hordes with sheer volume of fire. The problem is Toxin Sacs are really needed to be effective, and that makes them too expensive. Go with Fleshborers.

I'll be honest as a seasoned 'Nids player.
My first thought was, you said "nids" and "shooty army" in the same sentence. A good Nid army will never, ever, be what can be known as a 'shooty army'.
Secondly, serious advice about Gaunts is to have them costing as little as possible, points wise. Take masses of Spinegaunts at 5 points each, and literally stick them at the front to soak up the bullets. The enemy WILL run out of bullets before killing them. Personally I have 128 basic spinegaunts in my army. But I would use a maximum of 64 in one game, sometimes even 32 will suffice depending on what army you're playing. The shooting you should take would be on ONE Carnifex and a squad of Warriors. Take 2 squads of warriors, kit one squad out to shoot and one for CC. In the shooting squad, take 3 Deathspitters and 3 Venom Cannons. If you want a shooting Carnifex, give it a Venom Cannon and Twin linked devourers, or even just 2 pairs of TL devs. TL Devs give him 4 shots at strength 7 re rolling to hit, which can thin out troops units easily. But in my personal opinion, the best units for shooting are Raveners. Pop them up behind the enemy lines by deep striking, and if you have 6 of them, thats 36 shots of a strength 7 weapon. Oh by the way, NEVER take Gargoyles. They're just flying Gaunts. Rubbish.
Thats my take on things.

You cannot have more than one venom cannon or barbed strangler in a warrior squad and the maximum strength of a devourer is 6, so no s7 carnifex devourers. And raveners will not ever, ever have a strength 7 ranged weapon. I don't know what codex you are playing with but quite a few of those statements are false. Now, you can have an elite fex with two sets of twin-linked, living ammo devourers at s6, which is pretty cool. You can't discount nid shooting because the army has the image of a close combat force, especially in the days of the 6 point Ork slugga and the current blast rules.


As for gaunt weapons, here is the deal. Toxin sac-devourer gaunts are fairly effective against other light infantry, but are going to cost more, and so act as an inefficient points bloat. You can either take spinegaunts with Without Number, or Termagants Without Number. WoN is a great upgrade to have, allowing you to continue to keep capturing objectives all game long, regardless of how much flak your opponent sends at your troops. Spinegaunts are the most points efficientas you generally will be hard pressed to find an opportunity to shoot pistol-range weapons, but for an extra point more fleshborers can give them a nasty little bite. I use spinegaunts but I like Termagants and it won't hurt you that much to use them.

Hmm I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking either, I thought a ravenor was strength 6 off the top of my head, and the 1 venom cannon per squad of warriors slipped through as well. Apologies for the mistakes there. 1 venom cannon and 5 deathspitters should sort out a ranged Warrior squad. The thing I've never liked about WoN is the fact that they have to return at a board edge, I find that rather inconvenient, and you have to count on having an objective in or very near your deployment zone.

Gaunt weapons, I like going for spinegaunts en masse, as they're cheap and effectively get 3 attacks a turn if you combine their spinefist shots as well as the following assault. I prefer Spinefists over Fleshborers because they're TL, and gaunts only hitting on 4s makes it a little nicer. How do you feel about Hormagaunts? I'm not a fan, although if they had Fleet of Claw, I'd love them.

Beasts all have Fleet

No prob.

Remember that a gaunt brood falls back toward a synapse creature, not the board edge, so coming on a board edge isn't that bad if there aren't any objectives close to it. Twin-linked is fine, and helps a bit towards them being worth 5 points for what is basically an extra wound, but Fleshborers really make the most of their hits with what amounts to mastercrafted bolter shots from an entire squad. As for hormagaunts, I really think that they are overcosted in this edition. They are fast but lack the killiness to balance out their fragility. SUre, they can tie up and wipe out Geq's, but what can't? And Hive Mind help you if send them after Orks. It's a mess.

Edit: Don't forget that you can pull the multi-wound models with different equipment shenanigans with Warriors. Given a cover save behind Gaunts, they can live much longer in this edition shooting away. The Pile In part of assault now at the beginning hurts them a bit, but it really screws Ravenors and Lictors, who actually have to follow the Deepstriking mishap rules since they must deploy as if deep striking into cover.

My suggestion is Spinefist, Toxin Sacs, WoN. The more your Gaunts cost, the more benefit you get from WoN in terms of points returning to the board.

*Shakes Head*

Someone doesn't know how to play 'Nids properly...

Why make a useless comment like this? "Nope." Adds no value, and serves only to be mildly insulting to the person you're responding to.

Not to mention, in my experience, it's you that's incorrect here. Gaunts serve a very important role for Nids, but they're almost totally useless in killing enemy models.

Compare a 6 point Gaunt to a 6 point Ork boy. It's not even remotely close.

Base Gaunts are worse than Guardsmen in close combat. As of now, that's a 5 point Guardsman.

Run the numbers: 10 on 10.

10 Gaunt attacks, 5 hit, 2.5 wound, 1.67 dead.
8.33 Guard attacks, 4.17 hit, 2.09 wound, 1.73 dead.

Guards win combat. And don't forget, the Gaunts are typically Fearless, and thus taking No Retreat wounds on their crap 6+ save.

Yeah, I know "but it's going to be 20 Gaunts!!!!ONE!" Doesn't change the fact that, point for point, Gaunts are worse in CC than the model that's supposed to represent CC victimhood.

Gaunt CC is a joke, Gaunt shooting is a joke.

What's not a joke is forcing your enemy to burn shooting on them in an objective game, and then stepping back on your board edge and sitting on an objective.

What's not a joke is them filling the space in front of your Dakkafexes so that nothing can assault them.

Gaunts play like their fluff. They're swarming interference units that can hold territory, tie up important enemy units, and demand the the enemy waste ammo gunning them down.

Gaunts are important to Nids, but they're not going to kill much, not even their own points cost, paltry as it is.

A good Nid army will never, ever, be what can be known as a 'shooty army'.

I'd argue the exact opposite. The most widely feared Nid army is Nidzilla. It's based entirely around shooting models. Dakkafexes, Gunfexes and Dakkatyrants are some of the best shooting units in the game.

Some other good lists replace Dakkafexes with shooty Warriors. Loads of Deathspitters works, and again, shooty.

Fact is, Nids don't have all that great of CC models. Genestealers are solid, but much reduced with the Rending nerf, and generally overrated. CC Fexes are far too easily avoided, and have far too few attacks. CC Tyrants are mean, but have major holes when it comes to lots of common units. Boyz with a Klaw tear them up, for example.

And, of course, with the No Retreat rules, Gaunts go from poor in CC to totally awful in CC.

How do you feel about Hormagaunts? I'm not a fan, although if they had Fleet of Claw, I'd love them.

They do have Fleet of Claw, like all Beasts do. Plus a 12" assault move. They're also terrible. Run the mathhammer if you care to, but bottom line, they're actually worse than basic Spinegaunts, point for point, in CC, but they die just as fast to shooting. I've never seen a compelling argument as to why to take them. Anything they do, base Genestealers do better.

Auretious Taak wrote:

kirsanth wrote:Wait. . .

You are trying to kill things with gaunts?

I think I see the problem.

Spinefists w/o# are efficient beyond the scope of any other scoring Tyranid.

shrug

*Shakes Head*

Someone doesn't know how to play 'Nids properly...

Define 'properly'. If you mean fluffily then fair enough, but if you mean effectively you need to unshake that head playa. Gaunts are hugely useful, just not when it comes to killing stuff. TMCs, warriors and genestealers do the effecient killing (realistically, just the TMCs) and the gaunts support by being a cover save, an assault screen or a scoring unit. If you add without number they can do all three in one game.

Revan1 wrote:I'll be honest as a seasoned 'Nids player.
My first thought was, you said "nids" and "shooty army" in the same sentence. A good Nid army will never, ever, be what can be known as a 'shooty army'.

Are you serious? A great nid army is one of the most shooty list available. Devourers (on the TMCs), barbed stranglers and deathspitters are all great move and fire weapons.


p.s. Yay, I figured out how to multi-quote.

Base Gaunts are worse than Guardsmen in close combat. As of now, that's a 5 point Guardsman.

Run the numbers: 10 on 10.

10 Gaunt attacks, 5 hit, 2.5 wound, 1.67 dead.
8.33 Guard attacks, 4.17 hit, 2.09 wound, 1.73 dead.

Guards win combat.

Given that those are mean averages and the results are so close how do you jump to the conclusion that the guard won the combat?

I've only just looked at getting back into 40k, purchased the 5e rule book the other day and just had a quick read through it, so I might be missing some rule or missed on some subtle change from 4e, but by my reading (and memory of the various stats) ..

At the end of the first combat round (ignoring charging) the nids outkill the guard 37% of the time, and the guards outkill the nids 40% of the time. Not exactly much in it, and not what I would class as 'guards won the combat'. If the guants charge they win 63% of the time and the guards 13%. Given how much more likely it is the gaunts will charge rather than the guards (if both sides are going for the CC) then I'd say that more than makes up for the small difference in basic combat probability, so on a point for point basis the cheapo gaunt seems better at CC than the cheapo Guardsman.

hormaguants...

They're also terrible. Run the mathhammer if you care to, but bottom line, they're actually worse than basic Spinegaunts, point for point, in CC

Ok -

My memory may be hazy, hormies were a basic 10 pts as I remember so that would be 5 nids vs 10 guard.

if hormies charge (and if you can't get the hormie to charge the guardsmen you deserve to lose) they win 64% of the time (just edging out charging spingaunts by a percent). If you go just by basic stats, with no one charging, then they win 51% to the guards 28%, significantly better than the spinegaunt. so point for point in the scenario you had aginst GEQs the hormie is better point for point.

But hormagaunts cannot take WoN, and are just as vulnerable to shooting as normal gaunts. You'd have to take a very large(and expensive) squad to have enough left to pull off multicharges so you don't get consoli-shotted to death on the next turn. That, and they tend to outpace fleetless synapse creatures who are busy shooting at things with that great charge range which creates timing issues. I haven't liked Hormagaunts since the third edition codex. As they are, they are simply too expensive to be thrown away as distractions, and even more expensive if upgraded to be a decent offensive unit. For comparison, Ork boys cost half as much, with higher toughness, more attacks, and higher strength on the charge and access to KFF. Battle sisters cost one point more and get power armor, replace an attack with a bolter, and have access to acts of faith/not getting fearless wounds on a 6+ armor save.

Given that those are mean averages and the results are so close how do you jump to the conclusion that the guard won the combat?

I guess I should say that "more often than not, Guards win combat." Yes, I realize we'd like to see a binomial distribution, but these rough numbers give us a pretty good approximation. And, yes, I realize that the Guards don't win every time. And yes, I also realize that it's very, very close to a 50/50 result.

I'm saying Guards are more likely to win than the Gaunts in a fictional 10 on 10, nobody charged fight.

I also know Gaunts will most likely be charging, and I also know that they will probably outnumber as well. I tried to make that clear in my previous post.

So I stand by my point. As far as their basic statline in CC, the Gaunts are actually inferior to a base Guardsman, and for the same points cost (more with a FB). If that doesn't add up to "not at all good at close combat," what does?

They get Fleet of Claw? Who gives a crap? That'd buy them an extra 3.5" of ground in 5e. They're TERRIBLE CC units.

But, to be clear, I'm not saying 8 Guardsmen are going to beat a 24 Gaunt squad charging them... Far from it. I'm just saying that the Gaunt, as a CC unit, is no more effective than a Guardsman. Less so, even. You point out that they get the charge, and they come in numbers. Sure. That's because they HAVE TO in order to have any impact at all.

And please, don't underestimate how badly No Retreat hurts Gaunts. You can charge in, come out ahead in the initial points exchange, but then, because your models are 5-6 points each, you're losing many more models than he is, you're losing combat, and then you're making that many more saves.

Also, before you think I'm just making this up, I run 40 Gaunts in my list, usually WoN. I don't think they're bad models, I just know they can't kill much of anything.

My memory may be hazy, hormies were a basic 10 pts as I remember so that would be 5 nids vs 10 guard.

I ran the numbers once, a while back, vs. MEqs. Let's look at GEqs instead...

Charging...

Spinegaunt: 2A, 1 Hit, .5 wounds, .33 killed, (5 points) = .0667 killed per point
Horm: 3A, 2 hit, 1 wound, .66 killed (10 points) = .0667 killed per point

Even.

But the Spinegaunt can potentially shoot on the way in, putting it ahead.

Again, obviously there's more to it than this simple approximation... But Spinegaunts are just as durable as Hormagaunts, for half the cost, so in those terms the Hormagaunts are half as durable, point for point. That, alone, is enough to require a much better argument than I've ever heard in their favor.

The best idea I can picture would be a Spinegaunt screen for Hormagaunts who leap over their heads with their 12" assault, and, really, given a 4+ save to Hormagaunts still isn't appreciably better than just bringing lots of Spinegaunts.

I'd just rather have the extra spinegaunts to spew little pewpew shots at things.

Revan1 wrote:Take 2 squads of warriors, kit one squad out to shoot and one for CC. In the shooting squad, take 3 Deathspitters and 3 Venom Cannons. If you want a shooting Carnifex, give it a Venom Cannon and Twin linked devourers, or even just 2 pairs of TL devs. TL Devs give him 4 shots at strength 7 re rolling to hit, which can thin out troops units easily. But in my personal opinion, the best units for shooting are Raveners. Pop them up behind the enemy lines by deep striking, and if you have 6 of them, thats 36 shots of a strength 7 weapon. Oh by the way, NEVER take Gargoyles. They're just flying Gaunts. Rubbish.
Thats my take on things.

Several things incorrect here. Someone already mentioned you can't have 3 venom cannons. Next, warriors can only fire one weapon per turn so why are we spending extra points on a second weapon which is useless half the time?

The devourer caps out at strength 6, not 7 when on a carnifex. A carnifex gets 8 shots not 4, and rerolls not only hits, but also wounds.

Raveners would get 36 shots at S3 not 7 since the devourer can never be higher than S6. The raveners would be able to reroll wounds.

You're 100% correct about gargoyles, this pitiful save makes them a horrible choice in a serious game.



Just trying to clear some of that up.