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I've been looking for tactics on how to use and All-Warrior army for 5th Ed. Tyranids, and can't find it. The army would be able to use:

Primes
Warriors
Shrikes
and any Heavy Support choices

What's the best way to run this?

I'd go CC for the shrikes, with boneswords and rending claws. Maybe add a parasite of mortrex to the unit as an IC as a second HQ slot. You cannot give a prime wings -shame!

Warriors can then be shooty with the prime boosting their BS. Give prime a lash and bone sword for CC protection. 4-5 warriors in each brood with barbed strangler and deathspitters.

This so far is very anti-infantry so you need to use the Heavy/Elite for AV. Carnifex and hive guard would work with the look/theme of your army.

Maybe not overly competitive as warriors can be insta-killed nowadays with missiles etc due to T4 and no eternal warrior. Worth a try and best of luck!

Suggest

HQ Prime lash and bonesword 95
HQ Parasite of mortrex 160

Elite 3 * hive guard 150

Troop 4 * warrior barbed strangler and deathspitters 145
Troop 4 * warrior barbed strangler and deathspitters 145

Fast Attack 5 * shrike, boneswords and rending claws 250

Heavy 3 Carnifex heavy venom cannon 555

That's for 1500 points, but you may well want to add regen, adrenal glands and another unit of warriors which would put you up to 1,750.

I see a SW missle spam list just destroying this without a sweat :s

I don't quite see a all warrior list being anything other than casual gaming, but it would be a hell of a blast to play against

I think the best way to run warrior spam is with:

a)msu warriors

b)lots and lots of scary t6 running around

So at 1500 it could look something like:


Prime, lash & bone sword, deathspitter 100
Prime, lash & bone sword, deathspitter 100

2X2 Hive guard 200

4 warriors deathspitters140
4 warriors deathspitters 140

4 Shrikes lash whip bone sword 200
4 Shirkes lash whip bone sword 200

Trygon, adrenal glands 210
Trygon, adrenal glands 210

I'm not a Tyranid player, hell, I don't even know any Tyranid players, but it seems like a Warrior-centric list would benefit from some of those Venomthrope things that grant the cover saves, just to protect from AP3 missiles and the like. It would then not be a purely Warrior list, of course, but it might help.

I personally think warriors could be OK if everything else in your army was T6, or a zoanthrope. Thus overloading your opponent's demand for S8+ weapons. But honestly tervigons backed up by gaunts are a better troops choice. In much the same way, a winged hive tyrant and a lot of cheap gargoyles are better fast assaulters than winged warriors IMO.

I don't hold with the internet opinion that warriors are absolute rubbish though. Their glaring weakness to mass S8+ weapons is the big thing. I can see playing a lot of people who don't have enough, or who concentrate it on a couple platforms, finding warriors hard to deal with. Attaching a prime to the unit can make a difference too.

If only you could give them an armor upgrade.

The thing is, I think it would be the most elite army possible. A could Tyranid Warrior would cost about 50 points, even more then Deathwing (And Wolfwing).

A Venomthrope would really help, yeah, you're right. I guess it'd be an easy conversion. Warrior Body + Tenticles. Pretty much the same for Hive Guard and other things.

SO the general idea is that it would NOT be good for anything other then fun games? Too bad. I have a crush on this idea ^^

But don't Carnifexs suck now? Wouldn't be better to reserve everything and have Trygons let the Warriors in right next to objectives/enemys?

take a couple of max size squads of gargs or termigaunts for cover saves at least

this is close to an all warrior army that a friend runs


--------------------
HQ
--------------------

Tyrant
Wings
Hive Commander
255

Tyrant
Wings
230
---------------------
Elite
---------------------
1x Zoanthrope 60
1x zoanthrope 60
--------------------
Troops
--------------------
6x Warriors
5x deathspitters
1x Barbed Strangler
215

6x Warriors
1x barbed Strangler
190

6x Warriors
1x barbed Strangler
190


-------------------
Fast Attack
-------------------
6x Shrikes
1x Barbed Strangler
220

-------------------
Heavy
-------------------

Trygon Prime: 240

Mawloc:170

Mawloc: 170
-----------------
total: 2000

I think its more viable to go with an all Warrior Troop and HQ army instead. That way you can focus them on killing infantry (which they're great at) or holding objectives (which they aren't bad at) while using your Elites/Heavy for anti-tank and maybe some Fast Attacks for support.

This one is one I've been wanting to experiment with, in an attempt to get beyond the Hive Guard builds. The entire intent of the list is to oversaturate the enemy ability to shoot you.

Undead Horde:
HQ:
80: Tyranid Prime
80: Tyranid Prime

Elites:
140: Deathleaper
180: 3x Zoanthroapes
180: 3x Zoanthroapes

Troops:
50: 10 Termagants
55: 11 Termagants
185: Tervigon w/ Stinger Salvo, Catalyst and Toxin Sacs
185: Tervigon w/ Stinger Salvo, Catalyst and Toxin Sacs
120: 2x Warriors w/ Scything Talons&Rending Claws, Warrior w/ Venom Cannon, 3x Sacs
120: 2x Warriors w/ Scything Talons&Rending Claws, Warrior w/ Venom Cannon, 3x Sacs

Fast Attack:
170: Harpy w/ Heavy Venom Cannon, Cluster Spines
170: Harpy w/ Heavy Venom Cannon, Cluster Spines

Heavy Support:
90: 2x Biovore
90: 2x Biovore

The army uses a multilayered deployment, with Termagants front and center, Zoanthroapes (and attached Primes) directly behind, Warriors in front of Tervigons (they can do the 50% cover if you set things up right) and Harpies behind the Tervigons. If done right, most everything in the list has a 4+ cover save, or a 3+ if you need to Go to Ground with the Warriors. The Zoanthroapes receive Catalyst (even with Onslaught, chance of turn 1 fire is low) to help with soaking stray missile blasts or or mass dakka. Biovores help keep long-range infantry units (like said Fangs, or Lootas) honest too, while the Harpies provide some stunlock.

Why not Boneswords? They don't help vs metal boxes. And are pricier.

This list has many things in common with the WHFB Ogre list: units of multi-wound, moderate toughness models with very little bodies and rather lackluster armor. If you wanna run pure warrior, bring large blocks of them. That way your opponents can only do so much damage a turn. Give an especially big retinue to your Primes, preferably armed with decent CC weapons and guns, to take advantage of the Alpha Warrior Rule.

Boneswords should be reserved for your Primes. equiping every single warrior with them is just asking for trouble. For about every 3 warrior you equip with Boneswords, you can buy another warrior. Primes will likely be singled out by enemy characters, so you should do the same. Plus you only pay for one model (if you equp one normal warrior, you have to equip them all, which gets EXTREMELY pricy).

However a full Warrior list ithat is also competitive is possible. Warriors are one of the most customizable and flexible things in the codex. with the addition of a prime they can be tailored to almost any role needed (although not anti-walker, Warriors are not strong enough to punch through those).

If you consider any offshot of the warrior strain as a "warrior" your options are opened considerably. Imo Raveners are a bit better than Shrikes due to the twin Scything Talons, higher initiative and still retaining the gun, while being able to deepstrike and having a 12" charge range (which will catch alot of players off guard). For a cheaper cost than the shrike (and the same if you take a Deathspitter) they have the same effective "reach" to any opponents and they can always fleet to cover extra distance if needed. Synapse wont be as much of a problem, since they simply need to start the turn in it and be launched off. by the time combat ends the rest of the army will have caught up.

Mecha... that's amazing. Excellent post. VERY informative.

But what do you think of taking small squads with Boneswords to remove elite enemy units?

Me, personaly, I love warriors for elite killers. 2xBonesword, Toxin sacks, with a prime. Very good for killing close combat elites (Excluding Stormshield wielders). They tend not to do much vs Horde that cannot be done better by other models, though.

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:Me, personaly, I love warriors for elite killers. 2xBonesword, Toxin sacks, with a prime. Very good for killing close combat elites (Excluding Stormshield wielders). They tend not to do much vs Horde that cannot be done better by other models, though.

Is it really worth going 2x Boneswords if you aren't hunting characters? The extra D6 to cause instant death doesn't seem as useful as making those expensive enemy melee units I1 with a LW/BS.

2 boneswords is cheaper than the bonesword and lashwhip combo, and they are expensive as it is. And the extra bonesword comes in handy killing Battlesuits, Ogryns, Nobz, and Monstrous creatures. Lashwhips and Boneswords are better for dealing with any kind of Eldar or Veteran marines tho.

Moving to 40k Army Lists

My worry in a Warrior army is that you don't have enough scoring units to hold all the objectives. What about fielding a few 3-4 sized squads with minor upgrades. I'm thinking Rending/Devourers or just add in the Barbed Strangler for real objective camping.

All of these are very good suggestion. As for what you're saying, Minigun, I think that it won't be a problem. 3 good-sized squads could survive ALOT of fire, and capture enough objectives also.

Bootman wrote: As for what you're saying, Minigun, I think that it won't be a problem. 3 good-sized squads could survive ALOT of fire, and capture enough objectives also.

Durable yes, but I'm thinking that you might be too slow to react to the opponent's movement late game without a transport, since you can't do like Eldar or Biker Marines and zoom across the board in 1 turn to claim an objective.

I'd imagine you could squeze in a Trygon. That might help. Or maybe replace a squad with shrikes. SOmething like that.