Devious Space Marine dedicated to Tzeentch
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Disclaimer and fair warning: This ended up being incredibly long for a batrep on a random pick-up game at a LGS, but I’ve got a lot of thoughts about each unit’s inclusion before the game and even more thoughts about each unit’s performance afterward. Feel free to read or skip parts, but just be warned that it isn’t short.
Now that Adepticon’s done for the year, I’m ready to start testing the Nids again and see if I can’t settle on an army I like. At the LGS last week I managed to get a 2500 pt game in for some Ard Boyz practice. My current list is just playtesting a bunch of different things and trying to evaluate each unit’s performance. It’s not exactly a fully cohesive army yet. Also, I didn’t have a 2500 list when I showed up that day, so I scrambled to add 650 points to the 1850 I had cooked up.
Here’s what I played, with a few thoughts about some of the entries.
Swarmlord, 3 Tyrant Guard
This guy is a champ, and is just necessary against some otherwise really scary units (TWC and Mephiston come to mind). To go to 2500 I added a 3rd Guard.
Hive Tyrant, 2x Devourers, Hive Commander, Old Adversary, Psychic Scream, Leech Essence, 3 Tyrant Guard with Boneswords
This is one of the things I want to test. If you followed my thoughts in the early Nid discussion threads, I wasn’t a fan of the Tyrant, but some more discussion and thought really swayed me to this build. One of the biggest things I realized is that I had been enjoying the Dakkafexes, except for the issues against Jaws and the problem of IB. Well, for 10 more points, I can have a DakkaTyrant instead, who has the exact same shooting abilities but much more impressive fighting capability, a very high initiative, and is an extra Synapse/SitW provider. The Old Adversary just seems really strong, and Hive Commander may prove very synergistic with Alien Cunning on the Swarmlord. I threw the Boneswords on the Guard because I had a few extra points.
3 Zoanthropes, Mycetic Spore
Inclusion is pretty obvious, though in general I haven’t been running them with the Spore. With a +2 to reserves, though, I figured might as well give it a shot.
Doom of Malan’tai, Mycetic Spore
Another I wanted to test. Seems fun, this would be my first time using him.
3 Lictors
I had initially dismissed Lictors as being one of the weaker choices in an overcrowded Elite slot. Not that they were necessarily bad per se, just that they didn’t earn their slot over Hive Guard/Zoanthropes/Ymgarls. But a buddy has been testing some Nids and swears by Lictors, and when he says something’s worth a look, it’s enough in my book. I’ll give them a shot.
2x Tervigon, Catalyst, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
2x 10 Termagants
Obviously.
10 Hormagaunts, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
These guys seem fun, I just don’t know if they’re worth their points when it could get me 20 Termagants instead (or whatever else). With their mobility (MTC plus their 3d6 run) I thought this might be a good candidate to outflank off Hive Commander. With the +2 to show up and a reroll to which table side I get, they should be able to reach out and touch someone pretty quickly. We’ll see.
10 Genestealers, Toxin Sacs
I’ve got the points, more scoring units are always nice, and these guys seem very nasty. Besides, I’ve got piles of Genestealers lying around from 4th edition, might as well use some. They’ll probably also outflank, getting the benefits of the +2 and the reroll.
Old One Eye
Why not? Might as well give him a whirl. With a combined approach, he could be a monster. Paroxysm a unit so he hits on 3’s (and they’ll need 5’s to hit him, helping to assure he’ll live long enough to swing), Old Adversary gives him rerolls to hit, and suddenly his 7 attacks (on average charging) could be 6-7 hits, giving 6-7 more attacks. A guy who can average 12+ S10 MC hits in a round of combat is nothing to scoff at.
So there’s the list. As a whole I’m not sure how it’ll do, but it has some solid elements in it, and some that I want to see in action. The list I’ll be playing against is a foot-heavy Space Wolf build. It looks roughly like this:
Rune Priest, Stormcaller, Living Lightning, Chooser
Rune Priest, Living Lightning, Jaws
Rune Priest, Jaws, something else (forget what)
6 Wolf Guard with Power Fists to go with the Troops (and one with the Scouts)
15 Blood Claws, Power Weapon, Flamer
15 Blood Claws, Power Weapon, Flamer
9(ish) Grey Hunters, Power Weapon, Meltagun
9(ish) Grey Hunters, Power Weapon, Meltagun
9(ish) Grey Hunters, Power Weapon, Meltagun
5 Long Fangs, 2 Heavy Bolters, 2 Missile Launchers, Razorback with TL Lascannon
5 Long Fangs, 2 Heavy Bolters, 2 Missile Launchers, Razorback with TL Lascannon
5 Long Fangs, 2 Heavy Bolters, 2 Missile Launchers, Razorback with TL Lascannon
8 Wolf Scouts, Meltagun, 2 Power Weapons
8(ish) Sky Claws, Power Fist
8(ish) Sky Claws, Power Fist
Lone Wolf, Terminator Armor, Power Fist, Storm Shield
All in all a pretty nasty list. Lots and lots of hard-fighting bodies on the table. Very significantly for me, however, only 3 vehicles and no one is likely to be in them. On the other hand, 2 Jaws with me having 3 I1 monsters. Could be ugly.
We play the 2nd mission from this year’s Adepticon 40k Champs. It’s basically Dawn of War with a slight modification (only an 18” DZ instead of half the table) with 3 objectives.
Primary: Capture terrain pieces. Must have a scoring unit fully inside a terrain feature to control. Must have a unit fully within a feature to contest. Most terrain features controlled wins.
Secondary: Kill the opposing HQ’s while keeping yours alive. If both sides have surviving HQ’s it’s a draw. If both sides lose all their HQ’s it’s a loss for both players.
Tertiary: Win by 500+ VP’s. (Pretty tough in the actual tournament, which was 1850, a good bit simpler at 2500).
He wins the roll to go first. He deploys a Rune Priest and 15-man Blood Claws right up at the front of his DZ, somewhat to the left of center, fully inside a forest. He deploys a GH squad further back and to the right, inside another forest. I deploy a Tervigon on the right side of the board, around the same area as his big squad, but back a good ways and with a hill giving him cover. I put the Swarmlord with the back of his base about 8” up from the table edge. I would have put him front and center if I could attach his Guard, but in the new book they’re a separate unit, so I can’t deploy both during DoW. I thought about leaving him off the table with the Guard, but with the way I deployed, the Guard can walk on 6” and he attaches, so he’s with the Guard turn 1 but with the front of his base about 5” further up than it would be if he had just walked on. Against a fighting Marine army, I wanted to get Swarmlord involved as soon as possible. The other Tervigon deployed behind Swarmlord for cover. I fail to seize.
Turn 1:
All the Space Wolves cruise on, a mile away from us. They all run of course. He’s concentrated more on the middle-to-left, with only a Sky Claw unit, a Long Fang unit, and a Razorback on the right chunk of the board. The Rune Priest who had originally deployed tries to fire Jaws at a line that would hit Swarmlord and the Tervigon behind. I feel pretty confident that I’m far enough back. He rolls high for night fight and his line barely manages to clip the Swarmlord’s base (much too far away to go through and hit the Tervigon). No problem, all I need to do is not roll a 6. Three guess as to what happens next.
Now that the Swarmlord has fallen down a hole at the top of 1, things are looking slightly grim. I bring everything in but the outflankers. I realized after the game that I played the Blind Rampage rule wrong…I thought the Swarmlord’s Guard automatically got FC and Rage for the game when he died, rather than only if he was attached. So I played them raging for the game. It didn’t make all that much difference. I brought them in on the right to set loose on the units over there. (I’m not really sure why, just seemed like something to do). Everything else clusters on the left. Each Tervigon makes 13 Termagants without rolling doubles…very strong start. The spawned Termagants run up to provide a screen to everything else (while keeping majority in cover), the Tervigons, Hive Tyrant units, and original Termagants bring up the rear. Old One Eye runs an impressive 1 inch. Runic Weapons shut down both Catalyst attempts (though one Tervigon gets a Perils wound for its trouble).
Turn 2:
We both forget about his Wolf Scouts this turn. Most of his stuff maneuvers forward and runs to come to grips. The front BC unit stays still, and his Rune Priest throws Jaws down a line that hits 3 front Termagants, a Tervigon, and 3 back Termagants. The Tervigon passes the test (as do 4 of the Termagants). At least that evens out losing Swarmlord a little. Right Long Fangs roll poorly and put a wound on the Raging Tyrant Guard, and their Razorback does nothing. Other Long Fang squads bounce off cover saves on the Guard attached to the Tyrant. Razorbacks put a 2nd wound on a Tervigon. Then the most significant part of the shooting phase occurs: he fires off Living Lightning with the two Rune Priests attached to squads that had run. I pointed out that it was a shooting attack, and he tells me that they’re not attached to the squads, just wandering around loose. I have #1 priority target for my Devourers now. The Lightning bounces off armor saves.
My turn, all my reserves come in. Both outflankers showed up on the left side of the board (where all the action was) so the loss of the Swarmlord didn’t impact my reserves. That’s good. I took a look at his set-up, and landed the Doom’s Spore at a point where it didn’t have much room to scatter, and the Doom could maximize his damage when he gets out. It hit, and the Doom got out with a Long Fang unit, a Blood Claw unit, and a Grey Hunter unit all within 6”, and much more importantly, both of the unattached Rune Priests.
The Zoanthropes deviated right up to the edge of a BC unit right in the center area of the table and disembarked behind the Spore. The Lictors popped up in cover right behind the leftmost Long Fang squad. The Hormagaunts came in threatening the leftmost Grey Hunters and the Genestealers threatened a Sky Claw unit. One Tervigon popped up 10 more babies without any doubles, the other held off to get into a better position. I completely forgot to use Catalyst this turn (too many things I’m trying to test all at the same time). One unit of Termagants crept up into the woods right in front of the BC’s, and a Tervigon ran up to give his auras out. The Tyrant, Old One Eye, and the original Termagants brought up the rear.
At the beginning of the shooting phase, the Doom is gold. Each Rune Priest rolls a 15 on the check, dying horribly and having their souls eaten. The Long Fangs lose a guy, the BC’s lose 5, and the Grey Hunters pass. The Doom is up to 10 wounds. It drops a S10 AP1 large blast on the Long Fangs right in front of it (got past the last Priest’s Runic Weapon), it doesn’t deviate and doesn’t roll 1’s. There goes a unit of Long Fangs. Thanks to 2 of the nearby Priests dying, only 1 Zoanthrope has to tempt the Runic Weapon (he gets shut down). The other two kill 3 more Blood Claws with Warp Blast. The Lictors’ shooting does nothing. The Hive Tyrant takes down two more BC’s, and now they’ll have to take their test on a -1. They break, but their fall back leaves them within 6” of the Doom’s Spore.
The Hormagaunts run to get into a position so they can charge their target without terrain checks (the unit is partially in). Hormagaunts into GH’s and Genestealers into Sky Claws. The Genestealer fight is not even close. The poison rerolls allow for a total of 5 rends, and the weight of wounds overwhelms everyone else. They consolidate a bit to spread out. The Hormagaunts threw out an impressive number of attacks, at high I, with rerolls of 1’s, and rerolled 4+ to wound. But in the end, fighting through power armor, they killed 5. The remaining ones kill 4 in return and hold.
I had one big realization this turn: Nids absolutely don’t like charging things in cover. I thought about throwing a unit of Termagants into the Blood Claws to try to do some damage to them, but realized that without grenades they likely wouldn’t even be able to swing after the 3 attacks each from the 16-man squad. If they had been out of cover my Termagants go at I5 and the 13 of them would probably have dropped 5 or maybe 6 (they were in preferred enemy range). That seemed like a worthwhile trade-off. However, they would never survive the swings from the full squad, so I ended up just running the unit up to get right in the way in their faces. I really wished I had remembered to at least attempt Catalyst (though with the Priest there it’s by no means a sure thing).
Turn 3:
Time for him to either turn the tide of the fight his way or be overwhelmed by numbers. His fleeing BC’s fell back a bit more, but didn’t really go anywhere, as they were having to run laterally around his Razorbacks. His Scouts didn’t show up. The remaining BC unit stayed put in the woods, as did the original GH unit he deployed. The Sky Claws on the right started cutting across the middle of the table to get into the game. His Lone Wolf stomped toward my castle. The last unit of GH (the ones that shrugged the Doom’s aura) move forward toward my castle.
At the beginning of the shooting phase, the Doom eats 3 Sky Claws and about 6 Grey Hunters (those tests are rough for Ld 8 guys). The far right unit of Long Fangs shoots at the Raging Tyrant Guard, killing one. The nearest GH unit shoots at the Doom, and he fails the 3++ agains the meltagun and dies. The Razorbacks pop the Spores (so now the Blood Claws will rally next turn). The originally deployed squad of Grey Hunters prepares to charge the Zoanthropes, and start by shooting one down. The Long Fangs who had Lictors appear right on their tail shot at the Lictors, killing one to a failed cover save against a missile, and causing one other wound. T4 guys with 3+ cover and 3 wounds are not the chumpiest things to kill. His Rune Priest fails to cast Jaws thanks to the nearest Tervigon’s SitW. His flamer and other shooting burns the Termagants right in front of them down to 4 (really wish I had up Catalyst). My Raging Hive Guard fall back. I didn’t bother to put them in Synapse range because it didn’t matter if they passed their IB check or not, but I didn’t really consider regular morale checks.
The Grey Hunters charge the 2 remaining Zoanthropes and wipe them out, consolidating back into the woods. Fairly underwhelming showing from the Zoeys. No surprise they’d get wiped out when they scattered that close, but they didn’t really accomplish anything when they landed. The Grey Hunters on the left edge passed all saves against the Hormagaunts and wiped them out, consolidating fully into a terrain piece. Lackluster showing from the Hormagaunts. The Lone Wolf charged the spawned unit of 10 Termagants. Even with Counter-attack and poison they didn’t manage to get past a 2+ with FNP. The Lone Wolf killed 3 and 3 more popped to No Retreat. Curiously, the BC’s didn’t charge the depleted unit of Termagants they had shot at.
On my turn, the Hive Guard rally (though they had fallen back so far they’re only about 6” from my board edge now). The Lictors move to 1” away from the Long Fangs, and the Genestealers head toward the rampaging Lone Wolf. The 4 surviving Termagants shuffle aside and a newly spawned unit replaces them. Both Tervigons spawn decent-sized units this turn(12-ish and 8-ish, I think), and both roll doubles. Definitely a lot of mileage out of them this game. I forget to use Catalyst yet again. Doh!
In shooting, the Hive Tyrant shoots the Sky Claws down to 2 and the 4-shot S5 guns on the Tervigons do the rest (I can never remember its name). The Lictors fail to hurt the Long Fangs, and a bunch of Fleshborers do nothing to the Blood Claws in the woods. Old One Eye runs a bit more.
Once again, my Termagants decide not to simply throw themselves on the swords of the Blood Claws and elect to wait (they were spread so that the flamer is less likely to do as much damage). The Lictors charge the Long Fangs. I’m suddenly seeing one highlight of the Lictors…they’re about the only unit in the codex (barring those armed with Lash Whips) who will happily charge in through cover. The 2 Lictors are fairly effective…4 attacks each, hit on 3+’s with a reroll of 1’s, wound on 2+’s with rending. One rend and 3 wounds sees two Long Fangs drop. The Long Fangs do two wounds back, one failed save, drawn combat. Now the Long Fang unit is down to the Sarge, 1 Missile, and 1 HB. The Genestealers go crazy on the Lone Wolf…6 rends in addition to some large number of regular wounds. The rends by themselves should be enough to slip two past his 3++. It doesn’t help that my opponent rolled 5 2’s on those 6 dice. There’s a big threat neutralized. The big BC unit in the woods though…ugh. Not sure about how to approach this one.
Turn 4:
His Wolf Scouts show up, but don’t have much to do. They come in behind the Raging Hive Guard in range to charge. The Blood Claws rally and start coming back in, 2 remaining units of GH’s stay put controlling terrain (as does the other BC unit) and the last unit of GH’s moves up to support the BC’s. Shooting is abysmal, seeing all of his Razorbacks roll 1 to wound against the Tervigon. His Long Fangs don’t have good shots (unnecessary shooting at raging Guard or shots with cover saves against the Tyrant and retinue), so they shoot the raging Guard down to 1. His flamer does some damage against the larger spawned unit of Termagants, but they’re in cover for the rest of his shooting so they only go down to about 7. In combat, the Lictors repeat their performance of a rend and 3 wounds, dropping the Long Fangs to just a Sarge. He does nothing to them and they Hit and Run 10” toward the 4 GH’s who took the charge from the Hormagaunts. The Wolf Scouts charge the Tyrant Guard, lose one guy, and only inflict one wound.
On my turn 4, the Lictors maneuver to get the charge on the GH’s sitting to the side in a piece of terrain. The Genestealers and Old One Eye maneuver up to charge the block sitting in cover (gotta do something about it). The Tyrant advances to give as many things preferred enemy as possible, and the Tervigons maneuver. The Hive Tyrant shoots down the remaining GH’s from a depleted squad (most of it was killed by the Doom). One of the Tervigons uses his gun to kill off the last surviving Long Fang. (This was my first time using that gun instead of the S5 AP- large blast, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. It performed pretty decently, and never had an issue with the possibility of scattering onto my own Termagants, so I may stick with it.) The Lictors killed one GH from the squad they were about to assault. Finally, I went for it. 7-man Termagant squad, 4-man Termagant squad, 10-man Genestealer squad, and Old One Eye all went through cover into the big mob. I tried to contact as many as possible with other units to minimize what could throw on the Stealers, but it still didn’t look promising. I put Old One Eye on the power fist guy, so that he wouldn’t be able to axe 2 or 3 guys by himself.
The Lictors wiped out the remaining 3 Grey Hunters and his Scouts killed the last Guard. My opponent threw as many attacks as possible at the Genestealers, but rolled really poorly. It helped that he needed 4’s and 4’s and that his Rune Priest completely whiffed. He only killed 3 Genestealers. The fist put a wound on Old One Eye, and the random attacks at Termagants took the 7-man squad to 3 and the 4-man squad to 1. Then I threw the Genestealers, and they went crazy. After 3+’s to hit with a reroll, and 4+’s to wound with a reroll and rending, they threw an enormous amount of death on the squad. Something like 7 or 8 rends plus a bucket of regular wounds killed all the regular guys in the squad. The Genestealer throwing on the Rune Priest wounded him once. The meltagun died, as did the fist. Once the smoke cleared, he had a wounded priest and the power weapon guy. Then the Termagants cleared out the power weapon guy and Old One Eye didn’t get to swing. The Rune Priest lost combat by roughly 8, failed his check, got caught, and died to No Retreat. Everyone consolidated, with the Troops hanging out in the woods to control it. Old One Eye has still done nothing so far, though he at least used that combat to move forward a little farther.
Turn 5:
At this point it’s about over. He has a Long Fang unit in the far side that can’t do much but take pot shots. He has a Wolf Scout unit in my backfield way too far away to do anything. He has a depleted BC unit, a GH unit, and 3 Razorbacks.
The GH’s stay in the terrain feature they control and the Blood Claws run from the big mob toward another terrain feature. The Long Fangs and Razorbacks put 2 more wounds on the wounded Tervigon.
On my turn, the Tyrant’s unit tries to chase down the BC’s but can’t catch them so settles for shooting a few more to death. A non-spawned unit of Termagants hangs out in the backfield (but far from the Wolf Scouts) on a terrain feature, the unwounded Tervigon heads toward a terrain feature, the Genestealers and 2 small units of Termagants occupy another one.
Turn 6:
His BC’s make it into a terrain feature with the run. The Razorback shooting finally drops the wounded Tervigon, with the ensuing explosion killing the two tiny units in the terrain feature. However, the Genestealers still control it. Grey Hunter shooting along with Long Fangs manages to get rid of 2 of the Tyrant Guard.
The Tyrant puts the Devourers into the Grey Hunters in terrain, killing 3. Then the Tyrant charges in with the last remaining Guard. Old One Eye charges a Razorback that had moved combat speed. The Tyrant and the Guard each take a wound from the attacks (curse not having grenades), and then obliterate the squad. 9 total attacks from the squad, hitting on 3+ with a reroll, with 5 wounding on 2+ and 4 wounding on 3+, and no saves. The squad evaporates. Old One Eye gets 7 attacks and hits with 5, getting 5 more attacks and 3 more hits. Thanks to being S10, every hit is automatically penetrating, so he gets 8 penetrating hits against the Razorback. Fairly impressive. Then he manages to roll 1 1 1 1 1 4 4 4. The Razorback had a Storm Bolter on it in addition to the Lascannon, so we end up with an immobilized weaponless box that has the hell shaken out of it. Then the game ends.
I control 3 terrain features—one with the Tervigon, one with a non-spawned unit of Termagants, and the last with the Genestealers (the hard-fought piece). He has one with the Blood Claws. I’ve killed all of his HQ’s and I still have the Tyrant and a Guard alive. We didn’t add up VP’s at the time, but by my calculation I was up about 650 or so. I still had remaining the Tyrant and half the Guard, a full Old One Eye and Tervigon, a full Termagant unit and a full Genestealer unit. He had a below-half Blood Claw unit, 2 Razorbacks, half another Razorback, a Long Fang unit, and the Scouts. I had around 1200 remaining, he had around 550. So Nids take primary, secondary, and tertiary. All in all, it was a very convincing victory, despite staring the game with the Swarmlord dead at the top of 1.
Post-game thoughts and assessments:
It was a strong win, but then I think pretty much any build of Nids should have a good game against foot-slogging Marines. Mech Marines (especially SW) may well be a very different story. But I’m encouraged by the prospects for ‘Ard Boyz.
I’ve come around a lot on the Nid codex. My initial impression was to be fairly underwhelmed. I still have some serious concerns about its viability in the current meta. I shudder to think about Guard at 2500…at least they’re already maxed out on HS and FA slots by 1850 or so. But all in all I’m encouraged. I just had to break out of the way of thinking left over from the last codex. Last edition’s codex would have loved to see 12-shot Devourers on the Carnifexes and the presence of Hive Guard, but the new Nids just aren’t like they were before. Other than Old One Eye (who was a last minute addition and contributed almost nothing) the army was devoid of Heavy Support slots, something that I never thought I’d see from Nids. It basically relied on the Troops and HQ to do the heavy lifting, with support from Elites.
The army as a whole seemed pretty strong. It had good interaction between the various pieces, it could close the distance quickly enough to threaten the opponent early, and it has some absolute monsters in close combat. The one place where I really found myself hurting was having any ability to charge things in terrain. Terrain will be the death of this army. My combat units on the charge are pretty much exclusively I5-6, but that gets completely wiped by a terrain test. Termagants, Hormagaunts, and even Genestealers are way too fragile to take the full attacks from a unit in wait before they get to swing. The army’s performance is night and day when comparing charging guys out of terrain versus in terrain. It’ll definitely be a problem, and I’ll have to work on a solution to it. In terms of the performance of some of the individual units:
Genestealers with Toxin Sacs: Worth their weight in gold. You have to be able to deliver them without getting Bolter/Flamer’ed to death, but man do they pack a punch, particularly at 10-strong. With preferred enemy off the Tyrant, these guys likely won’t leave anyone alive to swing back. Having a +2 to reserve and reroll on the outflank side really makes these guys a lot more reliable if outflanking seems like the delivery method of choice. Of course, that’s the theory anyway, let’s hope the Swarmlord doesn’t always bite it so early. As mentioned above, their big drawback is the inability to charge things in cover. It would be worth a fairly significant cost if it were possible to give them grenades.
Hormagaunts: Underwhelming. For the same point cost I could have had twice the number of Termagants (getting their free buffs from Papa Tervi) or 10 Termagants with Devourers (something I’ve been wanting to test…seem nasty). They can dish out a decent chunk of wounds on the round they attack, but they can’t take return attacks for anything, and after the charge they lose most of their ability to win a fight. They just didn’t seem to do anything that a pile of Termagants couldn’t do. Now granted, the Hormagaunts get to be independent of Tervigons, but I can’t see 10 Hormagaunts accomplishing much way off by themselves, so they’ll likely be near the rest of the army anyway. As a side note, it’s the only scoring unit in the list that may have the potential to run away from an objective to chase something down. Genestealers ignore IB, Tervigons are Synapse, and Termagants lurk. Won’t come up a ton, but could potentially be an issue every now and then.
Termagants and Tervigons: Not much to say here. Backbone of the army. The Tervigons seem to play a fairly interesting role. More inexperienced players sometimes seem to be unduly afraid of what they can do, and focus on them to the exclusion of the more dangerous elements in the list. On the other hand, veterans who realize that the Tervigons won’t directly do a lot to them (as compared to say, the Swarmlord) still can’t afford to let scoring MC’s run around spawning other scoring units at will and dishing out FNP like candy. The Tervigon is a great support element, while at the same time providing a serious enough target that it may draw fire away from the more offensive parts of the army.
Hive Tyrant: I’ve gotta eat my words here. I like him. Old Adversary is huge, and he still has the brutal shooting with the dual Devourers. I contemplated a load-out of 1 set of Devourers with Lash Whip and Bonesword, partially for the Lash Whip and partially just because he can only fire one set of Devourers when he uses a psychic power. But with testing, I’m finding that I’m not overly impressed with most of the Tyrant powers, and the majority of the time I’d rather just shoot the full load from the Devourers. The only power I’m a particular fan of (and the one I won’t be leaving home without from here on) is Paroxysm. It’s pretty strong. I chose the load-out I did because Psychic Scream is one that can be done as a generic area effect without screwing with what I can shoot at or charge, and Leech Essence seemed like a handy tool for recouping wounds. But Leech Essence never does anything for me, ever. All in all, though, I really like the build. I’m less decided on Hive Commander…it really depends how reserve-centric my final list comes out being, and whether I feel I have a good choice for outflanking. Termagants are unimpressive for outflanking, as they’ll likely be out of Tervigon range, and Genestealers can do it already. I may have to experiment with an outflanking Tervigon (or who know…maybe I’ll test outflanking Rippers).
Swarmlord: Didn’t do anything this game, but I’m a big fan of this guy in general. He’s pretty much got a solid place in my book.
Tyrant Guard: 110% necessary for every Tyrant or Swarmlord. The Boneswords were actually just an after-thought as I was trying to bulk up to 2500, but I was very impressed. Guard with Boneswords hit like Bloodcrushers (but T6!), and even more so with preferred enemy. Very nasty. And they can always separate from the Tyrant Guard if they want to mix it up with something while he shoots/psychics elsewhere. At 1850 I was running 2 Guard with each HQ, but that 3-man unit was beastly. And I might start running them standard with Boneswords. The only other consideration I’ve had is that they could be a place to get some Lash Whips to try to negate a little bit of the issues of charging through terrain. Not a great answer, but going simultaneously is better than going last.
Doom of Malan’tai: He was very big in this game (accounted for 2 Rune Priests and a Long Fang unit) as well as massively discouraging my opponent early on, but had the Rune Priests been attached to the unit he would have done much less. Assuming the first two rolls he made (both on Rune Priests and both 15’s) had been on the two units, it would still have easily bloated the Doom to 10 wounds, but all it would have accomplished is knocking a GH squad below half and a BC squad down a bit. It did kill the Long Fangs, a pretty much even trade for itself (and with the other guys killed, a pretty much even trade for its Spore too). But I’m not convinced. With how much power is in the Elite slots, I need more than just a 130 point unit who can come down to eat 140-150 points of my opponent’s army, particularly if those bites are out of separate units. Had the Rune Priests been attached and the psychic power been shut down, the Doom would have simply dropped into his midst and done nothing significant. I don’t know about dropping him in isolation either…attacking a single squad (like the rightmost Long Fangs) would be great if he killed the whole thing. But then if they roll an 8-9, he’s done basically nothing and gets killed. If he does eat the squad, he’s now kinda out in nowhere by himself. He could zap in with his large blast, except he has to keep relying on killing dudes with it or he’ll whither back down…so no vehicle sniping if he doesn’t have a fresh source of souls. I’ve considering letting him hoof it with the army…by the time he gets into an area where there are a lot of guys to eat, they’re too busy with the rest of my army to focus too much on the Doom. The problem is just that he’ll spend at least a couple turns not contributing anything while being very vulnerable to stray S8 shooting. I’m going to test him some more, in a Spore and on foot, but jury’s still out on him.
Lictors: I may be coming around to the Lictor camp. I really liked what they were able to do. I hate them having IB-Lurk (though it makes perfect sense) but I very much like the Ld10. They’re definitely getting another test or two. One very big thing in their favor is that they’re one of the few units in the army (and the only decently assault-oriented unit) that has or can get assault grenades. It counts for a lot. They may end up being my answer to the issue posed above of dudes in terrain. It’s worth noting that their little S6 AP- weapon is better as a vehicle popper than you might think at first glance…obviously they can appear directly behind something if they want, and thanks to rending, a 6 on the armor pen roll makes the shot AP2 (in addition to the D3, of course) so it gets rid of the -1 on the table from being AP-. It’s not a huge thing, but it is an extra little bump in their favor. I can see them being dispatched to try to put down Manticores or Medusas or Hydras, particularly if they can manage to get in cover while getting those shots. So now I have yet another strong option vying for Elite slots.
Zoanthropes: Oddly, I find myself more questionable on the Zoeys than I was initially. I thought they were the obvious choice for Elite (along with Hive Guard), with the other units being either worse or just better suited to a more specialized army. But I’m not sure. Obviously, S10 AP1 Lance is just about the best tank killing you’re going to find (outside of the codices that get to put 2 meltaguns on every single unit). But an 18” range shot, that requires a Psychic test and beating the Psychic Hood/Runic Weapon/Runes of Warding/Shadow in the Warp/whatever else, is not exactly awe-inspiring. When I was trying to drop these guys, I realized that anywhere even remotely near enemy troops would just forfeit their lives (they cannot fight for crap). And also, the Warp Blast is not overly impressive. Sure, a blast is always nice, and it’s about the only source of low-AP weaponry, but that doesn’t make it particularly good. This is no Plasma Cannon. I’m thinking that if Zoeys get used, they cruise along with the army and just wait to get in range (and in the meantime they can give cover saves to Tervigons because they’re tall). And I’m not as sold on them as I used to be. I might have to test some more, but I’ve got Hive Guard, Ymgarl Stealers, and now Lictors and maybe the Doom all vying for their slot. We’ll see. The one thing I have heard mentioned to mitigate their vulnerability when dropping into enemy areas is to attach a Tyranid Prime with them, to have someone to eat a S8 and then also offer some decent fighting power. I like the idea, but at the moment I'm pretty happy with my current HQ choices.
Old One Eye: So slow. He didn’t contribute anything in the game because he was so far behind the guys doing the damage. Between the outflankers, the Spores, and the Termagants that get spawned 6” up and then get to move, Old One Eye was so far behind that he never really got in the fight. He was never really a target either. Seems like I could find a better use for 260 points. Maybe if he could take a Spore, it’d be different. I can see Old One Eye crashing down into your lines as being somewhat intimidating. Unfortunately, he can't. He’ll probably end up on the shelf.
Mycetic Spores: Eh. It’s a Drop Pod, albeit one that is much easier to kill if the opponent just wants to get rid of it. It’s good if you need Drop Pods, but so far I’ve only been so-so on them. Not everyone can get them, and the Nids seem to have enough ways of getting to the opponent that they’re somewhat unnecessary. They may or may not end up being the preferred delivery method of the Zoeys and/or the Doom (if either makes the cut) but I can’t see using them for most of the other things that can take them.
If anyone actually read all the way down to here, thanks for sticking with it, and please feel free to share your thoughts. Several of the changes and additions I’ve made have been based on hearing other people speak positively about certain units (particularly the Hive Tyrant and Lictors). I’d welcome any and all feedback.
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= 3500 
= 3500 
= 4000 
= 2500 
= 1000 
= 500 
= 3000 
= 2000 
= 1000 
= 2500 
= 1500