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Okay, so I was thinking about this for a little while and I just wanted to bounce this off the nid community.

Now, the general idea is to usually skim on the upgrades for tyranid units, but has anyone tried giving WoN spinegaunts toxin sacs for the additional strength?

Yes, it comes out to 11 points a model, with a minimum 88 point investment. However, now your meatshield has S4 in CC, and as you move it up the board you can catch those vehicles with rear AV10. Now, what if you decide to take this small brood and bump up the model count to 16, or 20? That's either 176 or 220 points for a unit that will appear back on the table, provides cover saves for anything moving up behind it (MC excluded of course), strikes at I4 and S4. I know some people will say it's expensive...I agree. Others will say if I want S4 shooting on my gaunts, just get termagaunts...again, I agree. But I'm really interested if anyone has tried this and has some comments on it.

I know it is more expensive and you're losing out on just placing down more models, but a throw away squad (with fleet mind you) now has a punch to it in CC and will recycle back onto the table.

I'll be getting in a few friendly games this weekend and I plan on trying this. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

As always constructive comments are appreciated and unconstructive comments are tolerated.

It's really just not worth it.

Gaunts are there to die, hold objectives and MAYBE tie up a unit in CC for a turn if your lucky.

Trying to make them killy is a waste of points and breaks their role in the army.

Just MHO.

Yeah any type of gaunt (yes any that means hormigaunts too) should cost no more than 8 ppm.

It'd have a better chance of being worth it if spinefists gave an extra CC attack.

I used to run my Spinefist with pretty close to that set up. Basically a gaunt with spinefist and toxin sacs. Its 8 pts a model and I ran them in broods of 12-16.

They become a little more tactically flexible in that they shoot and assault with S4. Yes they can potentially handle some of the tanks out there, but with only limited success with my rolling. LOL.

I think its just something that you would personally have to try for yourself in a game or three and make a decision off that.

I dont see the point. Gaunts are there to die. That said though, if you really want an 11 pt gaunt model give it a fleshborer, WoN and scuttlers. Maybe not the most effeicient type of gaunt, but I have been trying it recently and it worked (sometimes).

Spinegaunts with extra strength are in my opinion a waste of points.

Lukus83 wrote:I dont see the point. Gaunts are there to die. That said though, if you really want an 11 pt gaunt model give it a fleshborer, WoN and scuttlers. Maybe not the most effeicient type of gaunt, but I have been trying it recently and it worked (sometimes).

Spinegaunts with extra strength are in my opinion a waste of points.

+

SsevenN wrote:It's really just not worth it.

Gaunts are there to die, hold objectives and MAYBE tie up a unit in CC for a turn if your lucky.

Trying to make them killy is a waste of points and breaks their role in the army.

Just MHO.

I think ill add to this; WoN gaunts are there to die/absorb fire first & capture objectives...and do anything else second.

Standard gaunts, in larger broods, can be used to add a nice amount of dakka aswell as being a meatshield at the same time.

In terms of shooty (N.b I think this is with 150pts worth of brood, if I forgot to mention);

Fleshguants (Gaunt + fleshborer) put out the most amount of wounds per point. As in, at 6ppm they put out 9 wounds at ap5 vs T4. They do that from 12". It is the shorter ranged option, comapared to the dev, but it does have an AP which means it is alot better vs light infantry.

Dev gaunts (Gaunt + devourer + str bio) put out the second most amount of wounds per point. 10ppm they put out 8.3 wounds at ap~ vs T4. They can do this from an improved range of 18" (which is outside the leathal doubletap range, on the first shooting go anyway) but their shootyness falls more rapidly as each model is more expensive. N.b the cheaper 7ppm dev gaint puts out 6.5 wounds.

Spinegaunts are next in, cheapest @ 5ppm, putting out 7.5 wounds vs T4 at 12". Personally, its the simple fleshgaunt all the way, if you want some form of firepower from large massed broods (used for cover, also not used for WoN for the same reason of large broods).

I agree with most here, toxin sacs on spinegaunts is a bit of a waste. I've been considering TS on WoN termagants if the chimera spam becomes popular here. Theory-wise, they will often have to duke it out with mech vets and fast contestors for objectives, so the S5 shot seems handy. The S4 in close combat is gravy.

All those points you're spending on toxin sacs could be buying you more gaunts. Keeping them as cheap as possible seems the best way to go.

o my yes i pondered this my dad and pal plays nids. Yes 8 points is maximum point value that you can keep W.O.N on em. I thought this would be nice and also imagine this if you like hard hitters get all upgrades for hormogaunts without flesh hooks and get 32 of em very hurty in CC 64 s4 i5( i think) attacks WITH NO CHARGE 96 if they do and they always should so ya OUCH it is like 500-560 points dont know EXACT value but somewhere in between there.

I don't think you should make WoN Broods 16-20 models, as they'll take too long to recycle. Or even worse, if an enemy kills 12-15 gaunts and then ignores them. That means you may have to spend a maybe a few turns to kamikaze them before they return to full strength.

If you have the troop slots, I say use 2x broods of 8 instead of 1 of 16. Of course this will be worth an extra KP though.

Redemption wrote:I don't think you should make WoN Broods 16-20 models, as they'll take too long to recycle. Or even worse, if an enemy kills 12-15 gaunts and then ignores them. That means you may have to spend a maybe a few turns to kamikaze them before they return to full strength.

If you have the troop slots, I say use 2x broods of 8 instead of 1 of 16. Of course this will be worth an extra KP though.

QFT.

Well, tried them out and they were "meh." Nice for the extra S, but at the same time I could have kept the brood the same size and taken more genestealers.

I like the idea of the spinegaunt going up and taking out a transport wall...but at the same time they're usually not making their points back. I agree with the some of the comments above; gaunts should be used as wound buffers and small enough that they can get wiped out. I found 1 brood at 16 is a bit too much, but 12-14 being a pretty good size at most point levels. (of course a brood of 8 is standard and viable)

I'm new to these boards, but I play Tyranids a lot (I've been playing for 3 months and built me up a sizable tyranid army). In my experience your best two configs for gaunts are; Spinefists or Fleshborers, no other upgrades. Personally I like fists more than borers, however borers give the +1 str so its basically a free toxin sacs upgrade. But like prior posters have said; gaunts are there to soak up shots from your real threats. Also, keeping points low means you can toss on Without Number some games. Hope this helped!

~Zid

For the extra point per model, you can do the most wounds per-point of any vairation of gaunt vs standard infantry (T4.. bad armor saves are a bonus). That still small 6ppm cost means you can still have lager broods without spending alot of points.

Zid wrote:I'm new to these boards, but I play Tyranids a lot (I've been playing for 3 months and built me up a sizable tyranid army). In my experience your best two configs for gaunts are; Spinefists or Fleshborers, no other upgrades. Personally I like fists more than borers, however borers give the +1 str so its basically a free toxin sacs upgrade. But like prior posters have said; gaunts are there to soak up shots from your real threats. Also, keeping points low means you can toss on Without Number some games. Hope this helped!

~Zid

Not exactly... Fleshborers have S+1 on their ranged attack but it does nothing for the Gaunt's Strength profile. This means that in an assault they are still S3. The OP was trying to find a way to give a lot of shots, with rerolls to hit, S4 in assault to deal more MEQ wounds & at S4 so it could glance vehicles. Just buying Fleshborers doesn't satisfy the 'S4 in assault' requirement but it does keep them cheap and meet the other goals.

Since Gaunts within synapse range die horribly in assault (due to losing combat & taking 'NO RETREAT!' wounds) & htose out of synapse become non-scoring (lurkers) or run (due to L5) they have fallen out of the role of reliable tarpit and become objective takers which somewhat stall (but not hold or tie up) enemy shooting or assault. The WoN special rule has so far been best used on really cheap, low model count, 'kamikazee' broods (usually Spinefist only equipped, but Fleshborers work also) that move directly into the enemy fire or assault range. These broods then stall the enemy (who can dispatch them usually in a single turn of shooting or assault) for a single turn. the WoN brood then recycles, heads for the nearest 'Nid synapse creature (who should be guarding an objective) & becomes a scoring unit for the rest of the game. So far there just aren't many options for Gaunts that actually work out (for the comparative cost) beyond that and the old standby of just having a lot of models in the brood and camping it out (for objectives) or using it as a KP granting screen for other, more valuable, Tyranid broods.

Kudos for the effort and it is always a good experiment to figure things out on your own... but at the moment it looks as though this is canon for Gaunt usefulness. Please feel free to challenge the establishment though and sway the rest of us if you find a better way.