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Ha! I'm similarly working on a Ymgarl-Stealer-Lictor-Mawloc-Spore Mine build. I had success with gant farms, but I found the playstyle too dull for my liking. Hence my question earlier about the type of army his buddy would be interested in.

And I tend to agree regarding Tfexes. You have to go all in with them.

Alright...

I had my friend assemble Shep's list; we had to proxy a few things (he doesn't have 2x tervigons and 2x carnifexes yet, just 1x tervigon and 2x carnifexes).

We played two games at 1500, and he unfortunately lost both to my DE lance spam (I was practicing for a single-elimination 1500 tournament that I won yesterday). We ended up playing Dawn of War / Killpoints, and a couple things stood out.

1. Dark Lance spam is nasty to Tyranids. In terms of cover, the best I could figure out was to put his gants out front, hive guard behind them, and tervigons / carnifexes behind those, with everything trying to cover the stuff behind it, and it didn't work so well; probably just modeling that needs work?

2. He did make a couple mistakes (his first time using it), one being losing a tervigon with two units of gants within 6".


Shep, does your whole list move forward together? 6" at a time? If your carnifexes are moving / running / shooting, do they outpace your hive guard? I think its a simple to understand list that would be a good fit for my friend; just need to figure it out. Also, a couple folks noted that at 2k they'd play something MUCH different because of more powerful options. Would you scale this up at 1850 and 2000, or run a different list entirely as more options become available (IE, swarmlord, hive tyrant, etc)?

Well, considering he said he uses onslaught on the T-Fexs, that would mean his:

-T-Fexes are running
-Hive Guard do not run - provided they can shoot something. Maybe 1, depending, as he has 3 Tervigons and only 2 Tfexs for onslaught.
-Tervigons do not run - onslaught is a shooting spell
-Termagaunts stay within 12" of the Tervigons for synapse at all times.

T-Fex, hive guard, and Tervigons are not very good in CC. I know what some of you are thinking "Those are not CC units and should avoid cc" Well the same thing applies to just about everything in the Tau army, and somehow they always seem to get sucked into CC. If T-Fex, hive guard,Tervigons, and termaguants make up the majority of a tyranid list then the majority of the list will be weak in CC and it will run into significant problems going up against a nasty CC army.

Err..... maybe it's just me, but I love using warriors, but only in a List where they're the ones getting shot by small arms fire. My typical list with warriors are mainly TMCs, and often dropping, making so that the only T4 is multi-wound (Warriors, Zoanthropes, Spods).

TherVadam wrote:Err..... maybe it's just me, but I love using warriors, but only in a List where they're the ones getting shot by small arms fire. My typical list with warriors are mainly TMCs, and often dropping, making so that the only T4 is multi-wound (Warriors, Zoanthropes, Spods).

You know, I don't think I've paid attention to warriors or Spods with anything below STR8. I absolutely LOVE instapopping multi-wound models, and they are both fantastic candidates to get powerklawed, darklanced, melta-gunned, etc. I think that the absolute best use of warriors now is for conversions into Hive Guard.

My friend is taking his warriors, putting on the carnifex back plate and giving them the venom cannon or some such.....voila; Hive Guard!

Dashofpepper wrote:Alright...

I had my friend assemble Shep's list; we had to proxy a few things (he doesn't have 2x tervigons and 2x carnifexes yet, just 1x tervigon and 2x carnifexes).

We played two games at 1500, and he unfortunately lost both to my DE lance spam (I was practicing for a single-elimination 1500 tournament that I won yesterday). We ended up playing Dawn of War / Killpoints, and a couple things stood out.

1. Dark Lance spam is nasty to Tyranids. In terms of cover, the best I could figure out was to put his gants out front, hive guard behind them, and tervigons / carnifexes behind those, with everything trying to cover the stuff behind it, and it didn't work so well; probably just modeling that needs work?

2. He did make a couple mistakes (his first time using it), one being losing a tervigon with two units of gants within 6".


Shep, does your whole list move forward together? 6" at a time? If your carnifexes are moving / running / shooting, do they outpace your hive guard? I think its a simple to understand list that would be a good fit for my friend; just need to figure it out. Also, a couple folks noted that at 2k they'd play something MUCH different because of more powerful options. Would you scale this up at 1850 and 2000, or run a different list entirely as more options become available (IE, swarmlord, hive tyrant, etc)?

DE raider spam is a highly specialized list which only certain builds can have a reasonable chance against. Add in that you play it all the time and your friend is new to bugs and that sounds like a recipe for disaster. It might have been better to have you play the bugs and he play the DE so the talent level with the armies would be the same. I'm not sure if that would help, but it sounds good.

Shep's list is actually almost as good as it gets for bugs vs. DE. You could make a few adjustments to get them better, but the list already has 3 units of Hive Guard and 2 Tyranofexes (BTW you keep calling the Carnifexes, which one is he using because that could be a big difference). He's got 3 units of Hive Guard in 4+ cover standing behind gaunts and 2 T-Fexes shooting str 10 weapons at 48". He should put the pressure on 5 Raider/Ravagers per turn.

What did you do to mitigate the Hive Guard and T-Fexes from shooting down transports and how would you counter it with your friends bugs?

Dashofpepper wrote:Shep, does your whole list move forward together? 6" at a time?

Pretty much. NightLords gave a good description of a typical game. Thin line of gants at the very edge of deployment. Between them at the very edge of deployment is usually the t-fexes. Just behind the gant line would be the units of hive guard. As far forward as is possible. Note that with hive guard, you need to constantly be on the lookout for terrain that blocks LOS completely. Buildings with no windows on the bottom floor would be a good example. Make sure you place objectives near the building and plan to move the hive guard into it. It seems like every other game I can find something like that, and then the hive guard get ridiculous. Behind the t-fex and hive guard go the tervigons. In the 1500 it'll be a little tricky to get cover for the third one, but again, terrain is the x-factor here.

Once the game starts, gants move forward a full 6", the t-fex moves a full 6" hive guard move a full 6" and then tervigons make babies. the first batch of three then move 6" beyond the 6" that they can be released from, and get in position to screen the hive guard. then the tervigons move 6" forward. At this point against a gunline, the nid player needs to have perfect tervigon placement. No termagants within 6", but none outside of 12" either.

Dashofpepper wrote:If your carnifexes are moving / running / shooting, do they outpace your hive guard?

Well, against dark eldar, its actually more likely that on turn 1 I'd be onslaughting two units of hive guard. But ordinarily, yes... My t-fexes end up being my furthest forward units, flanked by gants. So if your friend had onslaughted two hive guard units, then he should have four excellent raider killing units in place. At this point, the other gant units run to get into the covered positions they'll want to live in, the rest shoots. Then the shootout begins.

Here is a problem with your sample games. You mentioned dawn of war annihilation. Thats about as 'perfect storm' of crap as you can get with this nid list when facing dark eldar. The 24" range guns start off-table, and so won't get in range to fire for an extra two turns. Now they could recover if you were forced to move forward to capture objectives, but you managed to get a scenario where not only do you have no incentive to close the distance, but you've robbed the hive guard of 12" of range. Oh and it'll be a short game with night fight on turn one. Play a 5 objective seize ground and this is what you'll discover. Dark eldars disgusting amount of strength 8 ap2 will be able to win the shootout in the early and mid games. You WILL lose some raiders, but I imagine you'll have no problem taking out both t-fexes, and maybe even all 6 of the hive guard. But the magic of tyranids has been happening during that time. Three tervigons have gone untouched for 4 turns, and the nid army has blossomed from an elite high toughness army to a fearless swarm. The termagants have flooded objectives and are still supported by tervigons, and now your dark lances have magically gone from an awesome gun to the worst thing you could have. If you really destroyed him quickly, you may be able to win out still, but it is likely that at this point you'll look at the table and say, "how am i going to kill that?"

Or just play a kill point game with spearhead deployment and lose more raiders than he even has monstrous creatures.

Also, nids don't particularly like ap2. Which outside of dark eldar, isn't really that popular of an ap value (since I play nids, I LOVE plasma guns but not everyone has caught on yet) That dark lance spam army has exactly 4 more months left. Then something else is coming out. I can guarantee that the something else will be a more well rounded army, more powerful, but I can also guarantee that getting that many dark lances isn't going to happen. You'll probably use mass poison shots to kill off MCs then, but then catalyst may come back into vogue.

Dashofpepper wrote:Also, a couple folks noted that at 2k they'd play something MUCH different because of more powerful options. Would you scale this up at 1850 and 2000, or run a different list entirely as more options become available (IE, swarmlord, hive tyrant, etc)?

Since the time of my last posting, I discovered that the INAT FAQ has reversed its decision on 'hive commander'. They now have it right. This has MASSIVE implications to the nid army book. Really the door has been opened wide for a much more tactical army. To that end, I had a 4 game RTT that I attended this weekend, and I brought a smattering of things I wanted to test. It was at 1500 and I learned a LOT. I beat a space wolf gunline with two full long fang units a wolf lord on TWM and a jaws priest. I beat an IG gunline with 4 hydras, two HWS, a plasma chimera and two melta chimeras, I nearly beat a blood angel list with mephiston. (this was in game four and I completely forgot that I had hit his leadership with a -3 with deathleaper, and he hooded about 75% of my zoanthrope shots because of my brainfart). in other words, with a battleforcey test list, I was majorly happy with the result.

I won't link what I used, because its just ugly, and there are units I tested which are just crap (genestealers, mawloc) that I wouldn't want anyone thinking I liked. But on sunday I got a chance to bump it to 2000 incorporating all the changes I wanted and played against a completely mechanized blood angels army. I didn't win. But I was totally happy and i locked a list. The reason I was happy with a loss is because due to terrible luck, I only got 4 out of 10 of my turn two drops, and the zoans were split and the trygons were split, Even then, his army was VERY battered and bruised, and he was running out of time to win because of two untouched tervigons making babies and moving in to position all game.

Here is my new 'post hive commander fix' locked nid list. 2K.

hive tyrant lash whip bonesword devourers hive commander adrenal wings 280

3x zoanthropes pod 220
2x zoanthropes pod 160
deathleaper 140

10x gants pod 90
10x gants pod 90
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195

trygon adrenal 210
trygon adrenal 210
trygon adrenal 210

This list isn't particularly hard to play either. But the more you know about gunlines and their vulnerabilities the better you'll do. Now we have 4 MCs that will just never have a cover save. So we can't be too ginger with their placement. This is about target flood. Keep in mind that, exactly like the gant farm list, by the end of a close game, you won't have any trygons or hive tyrant or even zoanthropes left alive. But you'll have synapse that has too many wounds to be killed with the battered remains of his army, and you'll have at least 40 gants running around claiming objectives.

Against most opponents though, they are going to be feeling very confident, and then the bottom will fall out of their army. At that point, you've locked in a win and you probably will end up with a few MCs still alive.

Always crash one flank, stun/immobilize/wreck vehicles on the leading edge to minimize the retaliatory strike. Do NOT spread out your drops. Outflank one tervigon with hive commander and table edge reserve the other one. If your tervigon shows up in your first wave, make it the first one you bring on so that you know exactly where it will be. Keep in mind where the other tervigon will be arriving as well. That way you know where your catalyst support is ranging from. Deep strike the hive tyrant next, and then end with pods and trygons as they have mishap protection. Generally by the bottom of turn 3, your opponents flank has been smashed flat and they did one of two things. Either the swung around to take you on with shooting, or they bottled out to spread out on objectives. You can still lose if they did either of those things, but can also still win.

Lastly, I want to mention that even with the gant farm t-fex style list, off-table hive commander is an awesome buff. For example, with the 1500 gant farm list i showed you, if you swapped zoanthropes in a pod for the hive commander, three really good things happen. 1) You aren't nearly as screwed over in dawn of war. You can deploy as normal, move the t-fexes/termagants/tervigons on from the table edge, and get a good zoanthrope drop on turn 2. 2) Against a full gunline, you now have the option to reserve your entire army. If you lost first turn to something over the top like tau or IG, you could full reserve, and then when you show up it'll be with t-fexes and zoanthropes blasting. Previously you couldn't do that before because of course you wouldn't have +1 reserves and also because the short range and immobility of the hive guard would essentially take them out of the game. And of course, 3) You now have an outflanking tervigon arriving on turn two 67% of the time.

I definitely stand by this new list, and MANY people I know will be happy to see the gorgeous trygon model being used and also only two models that GW doesn't make in the list. (I built my own tervigons out of carnifex kits and I use the plasma hatchers toys for my spores) Unfortunately, the tervigons and pods are completely non-negotiable. Your friend might as well figure out how he is going to convert his now.

I think I must be a *dope* for never having thought of dropping the "mandatory" Termagants in spores in this kind of army. I always figured bringing them in with the regular reserve Tervigon was the play. But yeah, why not just use them as a way to bring in a couple more big targets?

Is Deathleaper mainly there for the Ld nerf/Zoey buff? I'd be tempted to rejigger things a little and run a unit of Ymgarls or even Lictors.

Yeah, the ripper tentacles on the pods have actually netted me far more vehicle damage results than you might expect. Plus getting those troops dropped into places far away from the table edge is pretty valuable.

Deathleaper is 50% for "it's after me", 25% +1 reserves, 15% locator beacon and 10% for his fighting and shooting ability. I do manage to get the flesh hooks shots off into rear armor a fair amount. I think he is pretty vital in the list, but if you were ok with what the hood can do to your shots, and ok with null zone and fortune going off constantly, then you could try cutting him.

Shep:

Thanks for the elaborate reply.

I think your 2k list has serious potential....and given your experiences - is your 1500 / 1750 / 1850 list an iteration of your 2k list here, or a drop back down to the original 1500 list that you suggested?

I think for scaling, in a serious "I want to win" list. I would start here....

tervigon adrenal toxin
tervigon adrenal toxin
10x termagants
10x termagants

thats 460 points. From this point I'd want to decide if I am going to go completely off-table, completely on-table, or have the option. I know that completely on-table works at 1500, and I have a hunch that completely off-table will work for me. (My untuned list did better than I had hoped in 4 tourney games)

If I am using hive commander at all, then I'm running this package....

hive tyrant whip/sword, devourers, hive commander, wings

deathleaper
2x zoanthrope pod
2x zoanthrope pod

730 points

If I decided that all on foot no reserves was fine, then I get to run this instead

tervigon adrenal toxin

2x hive guard
2x hive guard
2x hive guard

for 480, 250 points cheaper. However there is no backfield pressure and you are pretty screwed over by dawn of war.

Now, based on whether or not I have reserve bonuses and an outflank, I'll pick my support. If I went with the second hq/elite package, then you just have to run t-fexes. If anyone hates t-fexes, just stay away from that. This completes the list that gets the most criticism for being boring. It just makes a wall of walking MCs and horde of termagants that snuffs out people over a long game.

If you picked the hive commander option, you can still go t-fexes. This is the hybrid build, that won't be full reserving unless they lose first turn to a gunline. Unfortunately, I don't think this one functions at 1500. You want to add 2 t-fexes and 2 instances of onslaught, which totals 560. I think the first size this list will work at is 1750.

If you pick the hive commander option, and want to full reserve, then i would suggest going with trygons to fill out. I really like adrenal glands a lot on trygons and i really like giving them catalyst, but at 1500 we aren't going to be able to do that. In fact we are going to have to cut 90 points just to fit two in there. In order to make it work, I'm actually going to have to go from two units of zoans, to one bigger unit. When using reserves, thats a really bad move. But at this size its what I'd do. I would add two trygons, one with adrenals and one naked, and cut one spore pod for the zoans and make it one unit of 3. I think I'd rather run the gant farm at 1500. Because if those zoans don't make it on turn 2 and/or the trygons get split between turn 2 and 3, I am in BAD shape.

It'll be easier to just write up the scaled versions. These are how I tune them, but individual playstyle and metagame might call for some changes of course. It might be a good idea to start with these first using proxies then tweak after some games.

No reserve gant farm

1500
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
2x hive guard 100
2x hive guard 100
2x hive guard 100
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265

This one is tried and true, it just tilts the table and walks forward. I've already talked a bit about how it works.

1750
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
2x hive guard 100
2x hive guard 100
2x hive guard 100
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
11x termagants 55
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265

Its actually a little bit odd that I added the 5th and 6th troop right at 1750, but the foot nid lists really can't fight worth a damn and need as much tar as they can field to get those grind out combats happening. When relying on 'brood progenitor', you want to make sure you have a lot. We don't have any more onslaught targets really, so lets get a catalyst in there. I tend to use it on a gant unit that looks like they are about to take some flamers to the face.

1850
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
3x hive guard 150
3x hive guard 150
2x hive guard 100
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
11x termagants 55
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265

Easy jump. We are fine on gant farming, lets just scale our shooting up with more hive guard.

2000
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
3x hive guard 150
3x hive guard 150
3x hive guard 150
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265
2x biovores 90

Still good on gants, so I grab my last hive guard. After that I have an oddball number to spend. The problem that people will spot with the gant farm list, is that it has no backfield pressure. Thats fine when people have predators parked in the backfield, because you have a rupture cannon or two. But its not that cool when facing long fangs or lootas. I wanted to add something that can stay behind the gants but still provide some anti-infantry backfield pressure. Now I am aware that the long fangs will hardly be terrified of two biovores, but if you can cause a wound you get yourself a pinning test, and thats about as good as nids can do at 90 points.

All drop - all the time
1500
hive tyrant whip/sword devourers hive commander wings 270
3x zoanthropes pod 220
deathleaper 140
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
trygon adrenal 210
trygon 200

This is the epitome of risky. Running a drop list with only two trygons and one zoanthrope. This will lose plenty of games just from irrecoverable bad reserves rolls. Split trygons or no zoans until 3 will be devastating. It DOES function however, so I included it. I wouldn't recommend it though.

1750
hive tyrant whip/sword devourers hive commander wings 270
3x zoanthropes pod 220
deathleaper 140
10x termagants 50
10x termagants pod 90
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
trygon 200
trygon adrenal 210
trygon adrenal 210

Ok, after this jump we are back in business. We still just have the single large zoanthrope unit, but now we are much more likely to be dropping two trygons on turn 2. We got our pod back on the termagant unit which is a lot more important in game than in theory.

1850
hive tyrant whip/sword devourers hive commander wings 270
2x zoanthropes pod 160
2x zoanthropes pod 160
deathleaper 140
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
tervigon adrenal toxin 180
trygon 200
trygon adrenal 210
trygon adrenal 210

Ok, now I'd be tourney comfortable here. Got two chances for zoans, very likely to have one or even both on 2. We had to lose the termagant pod unfortunately to do it. But it'll be worth it to have the redundancy in zoanthropes for sure.

2000
hive tyrant whip/sword devourers hive commander adrenal wings 280
3x zoanthropes pod 220
2x zoanthropes pod 220
deathleaper 140
10x termagants pod 90
10x termagants pod 90
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
trygon adrenal 210
trygon adrenal 210
trygon adrenal 210

The one I was bragging about earlier. both termagants get pods now, and we got to add a 5th zoanthrope, and adrenals all around for the trygons and even the tyrant.

Reserved judgement (starts at 1750)

1750
hive tyrant whip/sword devourers hive commander wings 270
deathleaper 140
2x zoanthrope pod 160
2x zoanthrope pod 160
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265

I like this quite a bit at 1750. It starts fairly strong on-table, and a hive tyrant and some zoanthropes are threatening to come in early. This hybrid style of done no playtesting with. But I think it may end up being the strongest type. It is much more difficult to reserve out defensively against. Because it won't gain you any escape from the t-fexes. And you'll just have less time to take objectives back from the gant farm. I also decided to run a catalyst because it is so good on games that you do decide to outflank the tervigon.

1850
hive tyrant whip/sword devourers hive commander wings 270
deathleaper 140
3x zoanthrope pod 220
2x zoanthrope pod 160
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
10x termagants pod 90
10x termagants 50
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265

This was a little uninspiring of a change. I just jumped up to a 5th zoan and podded a gant. I'm not even sure if that is really needed, but its ok we are losing both of those things when we jump again.

2000
hive tyrant whip/sword devourers hive commander wings 270
deathleaper 140
2x zoanthrope pod 160
2x zoanthrope pod 160
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin onslaught 195
tervigon adrenal toxin catalyst 195
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
10x termagants 50
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265
tyrannofex rupture cannon 265

This list does rely on brood progenitor, and so it really needs that third tervigon. So I dropped it in there and now have both of my onslaughts I want. I think this list is really good at 2k. The strengths of the gant farm, but not boned at all on dawn of war (in fact, really likes dawn of war) and has way more backfield pressure for foot based gunlines like space wolves. However, this is all in theory. i'll definitely be getting games in with this list, to see if I like the full drop or this one better.

Boy this post was long. I hope it was helpful.

Now thats what Im talkin about!!! Thanks Shep - this is great.

kaiservonhugal wrote:Now thats what Im talkin about!!! Thanks Shep - this is great.

I got your PM Kaiser... I'm working on somthing for you

Those are good lists, I've ran some stuff similar to those as well, however I am such a huge fan of shrikes,warriors and genestealers.

I am huge on the outflanking of 1 unit of genestealers and one unit of warriors.

Shrikes are fragle and costly, and I wouldn't run them less than 2k but time and time again has the mobile synapse, as well as their cc excellence been solid. Also I runone barbed stragler so they can hopefully pin a unit or two early on.

Good read, Shep.

Going to have to play around with some of those idea.

Only have one tervigon and one tyranofex atm, but this is good reason to start changing that eftsoon.

Thanks for writing all that out.

Outstanding post. Thanks for sharing, Shep!

SHep - youve made me want to take the dusk off my bug collection. Just wish Stealers were part of the make-up. Ill need to re-visit my attempts to convert Tervigons.

Great stuff, Shep, it's really helpful to hear the way your thoughts have evolved.

I remember a while back you were talking about a 2 Trygon / 1 Mawloc option for Heavy Support choices -- would you still consider that, or would you always try to find the points to upgrade the 3rd HS to a Trygon, if you took it at all?

Yeah, I got to take the mawloc through its paces in a bunch of games. I'm not happy with what it delivers. The speed and the double re-rollable attacks in close combat make the trygon worth the 30-40 point investment every time. The possiblity was there for the mawloc, but it really is hurt by its low number of attacks and low weapon skill.

Makes sense, yeah, thanks. I've not tested the mawloc that much, but was almost always underwhelmed by it when I did, too. I didn't try it out with Deathleaper or other lictors though, for the no-scatter effect.

haven't used a Mawloc much, but a few of them were pretty effective for me in an all drop pod army. Pretty much helped me wipe 75% of thier army off the map in turn two...but they just come across as too unreliable for an all-comers list.

I was told to check out this thread, and it really didn't disappoint! Many thanks Shep, great analysis and very useful!

Yep, Shep just earned lots of good-will.

I also agree Mawloc was very underwhelming, I almost always use a prime, for bonus synapse, and the additional ranged weapon helps, but is not great.