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So I've noticed the defeatism surrounding the release of the Tyranids now that people's hammers have gotten more expensive and nails have stayed the same price.

Considering that the little Tyranids likewise got cheaper, I was wondering what could be done with a decent horde.

The Tyranids have Independent Characters that can be tucked in amongst the hordes, and they can move pretty fast: Two units of Warriors backing up four units of Hormagaunts with three units of Gargoyles and what have you. At full, not checking the book, that could be 228 models in those nine units alone.

Or maybe six units of Warriors in Mycetic Spores, dropping in with Rending Claws, Deathspitters, and Adrenal Glands. Add in some Screamer Killers in Mycetic Spores, all guided in by Lictors.

Works, but takes too lon for turnies, and everybody is meched up these days. eldar would out move, SM will load up in raiders, and Ven dreads will be unkillible. You could win by claiming Objectives and going to ground in cover maybe, or popping rhinos for kill points.


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Works, but takes too lon for turnies, and everybody is meched up these days. eldar would out move, SM will load up in raiders, and Ven dreads will be unkillible. You could win by claiming Objectives and going to ground in cover maybe, or popping rhinos for kill points.

Really it depends to the type of person you talk to me thinks. Most of the people I have talked to love there new dex and the price of things really isnt that much of an issue. I have a buddy who did a swarm list the other day and it was a blast and pretty effective. I think with there new dex they can do it far better now then they could before. Since synaps is less of an issue do deal with and eats up less of your points.

The game was 1500 I dont remeber the model count but there was a sea of nids vs med guard(snore) and it did pretty well considering it was agianst a "competative" list.

Swarming or not, tyranids have problems with mech. They also have the glaring problem of not having frag grenades, which is ridiculous (getting a bunch of wounds with 6+ save before you swing)

Night Lords wrote:Swarming or not, tyranids have problems with mech. They also have the glaring problem of not having frag grenades, which is ridiculous (getting a bunch of wounds with 6+ save before you swing)

I think it was sound design to leave tyranids without assault grenades. It means that terrain becomes more important. Apart from the assault bonus, a MEQ army has very little reason to deploy in cover against a tyranid army, since almost no ranged weapons have an ap of 3 or better. It also means that assault grenades are not mandatory, so they become useful for the armies that do have them. It also means that a tyranid player has to look for alternatives to solving this situation, wich is a challenge in finding synergy. Pinning weapons are quite easily available and lashwhips can be, depending on your builds. Cheap and fast hormagaunts and gargoyles to keep things locked up until your next assault phase is another way to handle assault targets in cover. All require different degrees of synergy wich I think is awesome.

On the topic of swarms: I am very happy that the swarm is more playable now, I like flooding the table. My regular opponents are not that fond of using mech armies, so I think I'll be fine on that account.

As long as the swarm bugs can glance rear armor or have rending. But for tournies - youll be handicapped with long movement phases.

Oh believe me, while Ive only played two games so far with the new nids, Ive been using atleast 60 hormagaunts and 50 gargoyles. I love swarming the table too.

However, I think the lack of grenades still has a pretty big impact on the effectiveness of swarming. I charged 10 necrons w/ lord with ~16 hormagaunts, some of the worst close combat units in the game, and lost combat horribly.

I just find it annoying that you run up the board, use cover to avoid getting completely pummeled into the ground, only to reach combat and still lose with a large assault squad.

Ive been looking over the book for a few days trying to figure out how to solve this problem, but I just cant find a good solution. Pinning will not work against a lot of units (fearless), and even the ones that it can are extremely hard to pin. The viability of CC nids is their high initiative to avoid getting killed on the return. Otherwise you might as well have orks which shoot.

I think it was a mistake to not give them nades, and considering the fact most of the other armies get them for free or simply do not require them makes me scratch my head as to how a close combat focused army doesnt. Sure, cover is more effective now at the cost of a tyranid player losing their one major advantage. The balancer is that nids die easily when shot at, so making them weak in combat is absurd.

With my Chaos marines I will never move out of cover when they get close. If they charge me theyll lose about 10 guys before they even get to swing. If they stand still theyll get boltered.

Again, this all relates to swarming because this has been my main issue so far with a swarming mindset.

It might be something to combine swarms with stuff that makes them more effective, like broods of Biovores to shell stuff in cover, or Genestealers with Broodlords to lower local Leadership scores.

There's a Stelek swarm list up that goes like this:

2 Primes
2X2 hiveguard
3 venomthropes
2X bunch of hormagaunts
2X bunch of termagaunts
3X20 gargoyles
2 Tyranofexes with the giant Str10 gun

The primes join the venomthropes and you use T formations to keep your swarms in cover while advancing, opening transports with the guard and big guns. It looks like fun to play, but doesn't address the problem of assaulting into cover.

Flavius Infernus wrote:There's a Stelek swarm list up that goes like this:

2 Primes
2X2 hiveguard
3 venomthropes
2X bunch of hormagaunts
2X bunch of termagaunts
3X20 gargoyles
2 Tyranofexes with the giant Str10 gun

The primes join the venomthropes and you use T formations to keep your swarms in cover while advancing, opening transports with the guard and big guns. It looks like fun to play, but doesn't address the problem of assaulting into cover.

... I need more flamers to deal with this ..

Paroxym is the answer to not having grenades.

Paroxysm is really short ranged and comes bundled with a Hive Tyrant.

Aura of Despair, on the other hand, can be used to enable better pinning.

Who needs grenades when you have 200+ models charging across the table each getting at least 3 attacks on the charge? Yeah you're going to lose some to shooting, and to anything that attacks you first. But that many return attacks is going to kill anything that's not in a tank. And you have monstrous creatures and rending for those =D

Swarms are just the most fearsome way to play nids really. Just scare the opposition. With that many models on the table they won't know what to shoot first. =D

Shame my Dad plays nids or I would start an army myself . . . But we decided not to collect the same armies as that's kinda lame lol.

Just have to stick with the fast swarms of Dark Eldar =D

Oshova

I tried going all swarm in 1850 and only managed to get 140 models out. 50 gargs, 60 hormagaunts, 10 stealers, plus a few warriors, 2 hqs, 1 heavy and 8 elites.

And I have very little anti tank as is.

Still an awful lot to kill . . . and all you need to do is get those rending and monstrous creature hits in and the tanks open like the tin cans they are =D

Oshova

Check out this discussion around a pretty realistic swarm list that Nurglitch designed: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/278726.page

Anti tank can probably be done by rending claws to a pretty large extent.