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I wouldn't go as far as to claim, that the Tervigons can pay for itself. Mathhammer claims, that the Tervigon has a 44% chance of running dry.

That said, it is important to add, that chances are you'll run dry the first turn of spawning, on rolling two 1's and a one 2 on the dice, which hardly can be said to pay for the Tervi.

But i don't consider the Tervi's main role being about spawning Gants. It's main purpose lies in two factors:
- Psychic powers (mainly FnP)
- T6 MC saturation
Besides that, adding Toxic + AG to nearby Gants really comes in handy aswell.

I know the mathhammer but it's still worth quoting it. But yes, mass MCs become a lot more powerful than their statlines would imply otherwise. Same loose principal with mass Razors/mass Raiders really. At any rate, if you have enough Hive Guard/Tyrannofexen/other AT options, I've found that the Tervigons tend to be lower-priority against enough armies (Space Wollves being the missile-chucking exception) on account of not inflicting significant damage over the first few turns...

Yeah, i've heard alot of talk about SW's - especially Long Fangs, yet haven't had the chance to play against them.

The HQ choices, such as Swarmlord or HT's seems to be the ones pulling the most attention, overall - especially Flyrants.

On the other hand, i've hardly ever had my Hive Guards targeted, unless everything else wasn't in range. This often leaves me open to get them placed well, and with their "blind shooting", can lay waste to lesser Mech-units through out the entire game.

But out of curiousity on the SW's and this "missile chucking" exception - how does that story go?

If you're talking purely assault, then nids are better than DE. DE is not designed to function properly as a purely assault army. They are a mix of shooting and assault, with more emphasis on shooting. A shooty DE army can still do well, whereas a purely cc-DE army will more often fail. Nids, on the other hand, is more of an assault-based army with some shooting elements. They still need shooting to compete with the better army builds, but a purely cc-nid army is still viable (i.e. all-reserves) to a certain degree. It all depends on what type of play-style you prefer. DE performs surgical strikes/assaults and has to pick and choose their close-combat more carefully. Nids rely on masses of infantry and monstrous creatures to overrun the enemy.

As for the most assaulty armies? That's got to be a tie between daemons and orks. They're the other extreme to guards and tau.

Billinator wrote:

As for Wyches, its not pointless theoryhammer. The wyches 4++ invuln save and low cost is a major blow to tyranid MCs. Add in Raiders that still keep you below the MC's cost, and now you can move really fast (and over screening units!) to boot.

Persumed you've buff them up with all sorts of Wargear to a much higher point cost, right? But the argument does hold true on a 1 MC vs. full Wych squad basic - to SOME extend. But it isn't certain all the Wyches gets into CC intact. The 'nidz heavily benefit from having lashwhips and FnP from Catalyst aswell, which might turn the odds around in this case.

Say you get lucky and get all your lil' girlies into assault with a MC, you still have to consider your chances of getting a single wound in;
- First to hit, which is most likely a 4+
- Then S3 vs. T6, which is 6+
- Then the 3+ safe
- Then FnP on 4+

Actually, ten wyches and a raider, if you don't bother giving them any upgrades, comes out to the same price as the absolute cheapest MC nids can take. Upgrade the wyches and they'll, as a unit, still be cheaper than any MC, but can take off two of its attacks with shardnets, and will have have four power weapon attacks that wound on a 4+.

Aside from against hive tyrants and trygons (both of which cost significantly more than the wyches), they'll be hitting on a 3+. Assuming they charged they'll have three attacks each, meaning either 30 total or, with a hekatrix, 27 plus four that could be power weapon, poisoned(2+), or power weapon that wound on a 4+, not to mention the potential for 10 BS4 poisoned(4+) pistol shots if they didn't need to fleet before combat even began. They've got a 33% (better than 50% if sliscus is in the army) chance of having either reroll failed to wound rolls or +1 attack due to combat drugs. Then, for the target to have FnP they'd have to be close to a tervigon, which had to have passed a psychic test and chosen that MC to begin with (and considering the radically higher mobility the wyches have, especially with a raider, that means they can just target something else, like the tervigon).

So, we'll say they had two shardnets, and a hekatrix with agoniser. That's 27 attacks, with four that ignore armor saves and wound on a 4+, who'll strike first against anything but a swarmlord, tyrant (which they'll attack simultaneously to), or anything with lashwhips, for 150 points (not counting the raider to allow them to zip around the map, allowing them to be placed anywhere within two turns).

Prior to combat if they didn't have to fleet: 10 shots, of which 6-7 hit, of which 3-4 wound, and of which 1-2 slip past the armor save, for 1-2 wounds prior to combat even starting.

Against any MC but a trygon or tyrant:
Regular wyches: an average of 18 hits (24 if you got adrenalight for combat drugs), of which three will wound (four with the adrenalight; 5.5 wounds if you got painbringer for combat drugs), and one will get past the armor (1.3 with adrenalight; 1.83 with painbringer).
Hekatrix: 2.6 hits (3.3 with adrenalight), of which 1.3 will wound (1.6 with adrenalight; 1.99 with painbringer), which ignore armor saves.

In return, anything but a tyrant or carnifex will have a single attack due to the shardnets, and those will only have two. That'll hit on a 4+, wound on a 2+, and then be ignored on a 4+, for a roughly 20% chance of inflicting a wound with one attack, or a 37% chance of inflicting at least one with two attacks (~4% chance of inflicting two). (Not going to bother covering every wargear combination the MC might have, because I've already spent too long calculating all this as it is, and I don't know the tyranid codex well enough not to have look it all up.)

The wyches will do slightly worse against a trygon or tyrant, but are practically assured of inflicting a couple of wounds, have a better than even chance of escaping unscathed (and so will win the combat by an average of two wounds, meaning the MC takes an extra two wounds if it's in synapse range, or if it's not it has a decent chance of getting killed outright in a sweeping advance), and all for less than the cheapest MC nids can take.

Wyches aren't monsters in close combat by any means, but they are excellent tarpits for their cost, who are in most cases going to outclass whatever they're fighting simply through their defensive abilities (shardnets and the 4++ save).


Of course, deldar do have better options than pure wychs for chewing up MCs. An archon with a clone field, soul trap, and huskblade, backed up by nine bloodbrides with three shardnets has roughly even odds of one shotting any MC the nids can field every turn of combat, and much better than even odds after it's managed to kill one (since that'll double the archon's strength, meaning his attacks will wound on a 4+, and since a huskblade is a power weapon that means he's virtually assured of inflicting at least one wound, and thus inflicting instant death (and doubling his strength again, bringing it up to the maximum)). In return, the MC will get one attack (due to the three shardnets), and the clone field allows him to ignore d3 hits, meaning it can't even touch him (since the minimum roll is a 1, and the MC will only have one attack), and has about a 20% chance of inflicting a wound against a bloodbride (who have the same stats as wyches, just more attacks). FnP will do absolutely nothing in this circumstance, due to the meaningful weapon being a power weapon (that also inflicts instant death).