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Putting together an all comers list that I would use for any situations, to include competitions if I like the performance. On paper it looks good but I'd like to hear voices that aren't in my head pointing out strengths and weaknesses. The name of the army is a clue to what I want to try. Deploying nothing on the table, then turn two hopefully all hell will break loose for my opponent. Without further ado;

Hive Tyrant: Wings, Lash Whip/Bone Sword, twin-linked Devourer, Hive Commander, Old Adversary, standard Paroxysm/Leech Essence
-will be deep striking

Doom of Malan'tai in a Mycetic Spore
-spore

2x Zoanthropes in a Mycetic Spore
-spore

7x Ymgarl Genestealers
-gotta love that deployment rule

10x Genestealers: Toxin Sacks 1x Brood Lord: Toxin Sacks and Scything Talons
-Outflanking, also aura of despair + doom = fun times

10x Termagants: Devourers and Mycetic Spore
-Woo mycetic spore!

20x Hormagaunts: Toxin Sacks and Mycetic Spore
-notice a pattern yet?

1x Tervigon: Cluster Spines, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacks, Crushing Claws, Catalyst
-Hive Tyrant can outflank one troops choice, muhahahaha

2x Trygons, no fancy toys

I would think gargoyles would be better than the hormagaunts. Would save points too cause they don't need a pod

Trygons love fancy toys especially adrenal glands and regeneration can come in handy but it's up to personal tastes. trygons scare people and are often great distractions for your genestealers to do some serious damage. Nice list


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I like the gargoyle idea as well. Plus they look great on the field

GARGOYALES! cheaper and more effective than hormies, only short coming is not an objective taker but you already have lots of those and hormies shouldnt be worrying about objectives anyway. Plz post how this list works for you as im thinking of running something similar.

Fair point about the gargoyles. I won't be deep striking them though. Way too dangerous to put something down with that big a footprint on the table, you'll up your chance of a mishap a whole bunch. Also bunched up gargoyles + flamer = cry. They're fast though, can just bring them in off my table edge as reserves. Will be awhile before I can try that though, I have like ten gargoyles and not a lot of free time. Like two months from now I'll shoot you guys a PM or something when I can try it with those changes.

I would equip the hive tyrant with something other than bonesword and lashwhip because since it is a monstrous creature it ignores armor saves anyways so maybe give it scything talons instead just my opinion.

It's mostly for the lash whip. Forcing initiative 1 in base contact is amazing. If I could get that on the cheap and ditch the bonesword I would. He's got Old Adversary so scything talons are quite literally useless.

Hormagaunts in a Pod won't work because they cannot assault out of it, they will get out stand there and get shot. Either run them alongside the Tyrant or ditch them and get Gargoyles which give cover to the Tyrant.

Trygons need adreanal glands; they love the toys!

You start well Tyrant and Doom are good ditto Zoes, but you need 2 units really. Ymgarl stealers are poor their deployment rule is next to useless. There will be 3-4 threatening peices of terrain near the opponents army if he deploys in them your stealers will be auto-killed when they arrive.

Hormagaunts in spods don't work you can't assault out of them. I'd have them outflanking and dump the Tervigon for another Trygon. I'd also consider getting glands on them.

10 Devourers gaunts don't actually do that much. 20 obliterate whatever they target, there really is no use doing a half measure with that type of unit. Make them a full 20 or dump them.

Personally if I'm going to outflank a lot and use the Doom I prefer to use spore mines to try to force the opponent to deploy bunched up or nearer the table edges.

This is a good idea and for me the only way the New Nids are truely competitive but you've not really excuted too well. You need to think about duel threat redundancy and threat levels of your units.

Point taken on the Hormagaunts, and already gonna be swapping them out for the Gargoyles but I'll stand by my Ymgarls. Between movement, run and their fleet to assault I've never had them threatened by deployment destruction while still having the range to threaten something of value. Those guys alone have saved me so much grief by surgical striking psychic hoods or tearing up the rear armor of an important chunk of enemy armor etc etc. Always something high-priority for them to kill. Can't abandon them now after all the good they've done for me.

Between movement, run and their fleet to assault I've never had them threatened by deployment destruction while still having the range to threaten something of value.

Then your either playing with loads of scenery more than usual or your playing against people without a clue...

I sense a lack of Carnifexes....IN EVERY LIST I HAVE EVER SEEN!

I have Carnifexes, only they're less points, better stats, more useful and called Trygons. Sad but true.

Following the same phylosophy behind your list I run the following full-deepstriking one from a while right now and I had very good results.

HQ - Tyrant - Bonesword and Lashwhip - TL Devourer (brainleech worms) - Acid Blood - Hive Commander - Wings. 285
EL - 2x Zoanthropes - Mycetic Spore. 160
EL - 2x Zoanthropes - Mycetic Spore. 160
EL - Doom of Malan'Tai - Mycetic Spore. 130
TR - 15x Termagants - 15x Devourer - Mycetic Spore. 190
TR - 15x Termagants - 15x Devourer - Mycetic Spore. 190
TR - 8x Genestealers - Toxin Sacs. 136
TR - 7x Genestealers - Toxin Sacs. 119
HV - Trygon - Adrenal Glands. 210
HV - Trygon - Adrenal Glands. 210
HV - Trygon - Adrenal Glands. 210


Now and then I switch the Doom of Malan'Tai for another 2x Zoans unit just by dropping all the Adrenal Glands on the Trygons. Excepecially vs multiple tank/mechanised lists like IG and others.

In both case I have:
- 7 units that can manage with armor (including the Tyrant)
- 8 units that can easily manage with hordes (including the Tyrant), at least in the attack/shooting-active fase, in the passive fase every non-MC nid suck..
- a good number of synapse creatures and also a good number of creatures that doesn't really need synapse..
- 5 Mycetic Spores - amazing covers givin'/3 wounds MC/living buildings.. I won 60% of games by simply blocking los/road..
EVERYTHING immediately in range..

About the deployments..
You can deep-strike everything (obviously outflanking or infiltrating the Stealers) and everything that will land will be a MC (sometimes with something in..).
Just pay attention to the Tyrant deviation rolls.. for everything else you'll have safe landings granted.

In Dawn of War games I field the Tyrant behind a building/hill and one unit of Termagant (of only 10x by growing the other to 20x) with the Mycetic Spore close to one obj. (closer to the enemy deployment zone if I'll start first in kill games to profit by the 18" first Devourers shooting fase).
For all others 2 games types you'll can alwais full deepstrike.

Just my 2 cents.

Hmm, Mass Spores are awesome and fun but not ideal for anything serious duh to free KP.
Hormagaunts in a spore is not good, not at all. xD
Love your use of Elites, it's what im running (but 10Ymgarls).
Only thing on the big snakes is give em Regen. I know, I know that they can be gunned down in a round, but IF they survive, your guna be bring a monster from the grave, and that is not guna be fun for your opponent xD

I'm glad you are standing by your ymgarls. Mech is the new black and transports do not like entering area terrain. Even less likely is the fact they will be unloading their contents to be shot at or assaulted. I play in a competitive environment regularly and my opponents are more worried about ymgarls than a lot of other stuff I have on the board. Not just because they can assault the turn they come out, but because they can assault more than one vehicle a turn and even get themselves locked into combat with an infantry unit (if positioning is favourable) which stops them being toasted next turn.

I would consider losing the bonesword and lashwhip combo for another devourer in this list. Priority one is stunning/wrecking transports. You do that from the turn you arrive with devourers, but have to wait a turn (if you survive) to do so with cc stuff.

If you are running Doom you really need more than 1 unit of stealers if you want to combine it with Aura of Despair. Otherwise don't worry about it too much...Just use the stealers for what they are. I'm sure Doom will absorb a lot of firepower that should have been targetted at MC's. What you really need to worry about with Doom is making sure those transports are empty or smouldering craters in the ground when he starts draining the life out of everyone. Again ymgarls have a role to play. Assault multiple vehicles to get a lot stuns. Contents wanna shoot, they have to disembark. Zoanthropes do the job well but can be blocked by hoods. I like to run a mix (so some hive guard are nice) but that's up to you...and the zoanthropes bring some much needed anti AV14 to the table. Trygons do the job, but with an 8 needed to glance, it's not reliable.

I would reduce the size of your stealer brood just because. You don't need 10. In most cases that's overkill. If you don't make it into combat (likely if your opponent knows you are outflanking) you get into cover and take the hits...hits that aren't being taken on precious (and fragile) devourer gaunts.

Add more devourer gaunts if points allow. I consider 15 a minimum.

I would drop the hormies in favour of gargoyles. Just generally better, though not scoring.

Tervigon doesn't need the gaunt buffs since they are shooters and there aren't many of them. Lose them and give adrenal to your trygons.

And for the record in a 2k game 90% there are gonna be more than 4 pieces of area terrain. Ruins are area terrain, craters are area terrain, forests are area terrain. Quarter of a 6x4 table= more than 4 of these.

Hope this advice helps out.

As you say Lukus, I will see people worry most about usually two things; a Hive Tyrant and Ymgarls. Hive Tyrant's obvious, the dude's just badass once he gets in close combat. Ymgarls though? One turn I've seen them obliterate a large chunk of an Imperial Guard parking lot full of vehicles all on their own. Two of their artillery things with the barrage large blast, whatever they're called, and a Leman Russ. All dead. Lucky rolling to be sure, but they can usually be counted on to take out at least two vehicles because of rear armor and rending. Won't forsake my Ymgarls.

Not the first person to mention dropping the Hormagaunts in favor of Gargoyles, and I'll definitely be doing it. Big 'ol pile of screeching death winging it's way across the field. Don't want to deep strike them though, with too many their footprint becomes difficult to deep strike without triggering mishaps and I hate mishaps with the fiery burning passion of a thousand suns.

There is no such thing as overkill, there is only 'Open fire!' and 'Reload' (with apologies to Schlock Mercenary). On a serious note though, what makes you say less stealers? I've always tried to keep their numbers high-ish so they can suck up some losses and still pose a threat. Am I missing something? Also, correct me if I'm wrong, you CAN purchase toxin sacks and then upgrade to a broodlord correct? Says the entire brood gets them.

Will try a game or two with the toxin/adrenal on the Tervigon and take specific mental note to see how much mileage I get out of it. It may be the first on the chopping block but I do love what it does for his little dudes. Att he very least he'll keep adrenal glands for himself because his role in my head is to go armor hunting for the weak-ish armor that doesn't want to deal with Monstrous Creatures then towards the last two or three turns mosey on over towards objective and present an infuriating obstacle of 'T6 W6 monstrous creature on MY objective? AAAAARGH'. Extra strength always helps for the armor part of that. Definitely need to re-jigger my list to get more devourers, 15's my personal max though. 20 and it gets very difficult to keep them within the 2" deployment of the drop po- I MEAN MYCETIC SPORE.

10 stealers is not too many. I just find that if you only have the 1 unit they won't get into combat, or even if they do they won't survive much longer. It's really just a preference thing. Keep the unit large enough to pose a threat, but small enough to not be a waste of points. The points saved gets you a handful of other models or upgrades on stuff that needs it.

Possible thread necromancy but I have something of a battle report for this now that I have 20 gargoyles assembled enough to use in this army and found out everyone around my area likes to play 1850 instead of 2000. The list has been modified to;

Hive Tyrant, wings, lash whip/bone sword, twin linked devourer
Doom of Malan'tai/Spore
3x Zoanthropes/Spore
7X Ymgarl
15 Devourer Termagants w/Spore
15 Devourer Termagants w/Spore
Tervigon w/Crushing Claws, Toxin, Adrenal and Catalyst- outflanking via Hive Tyrant
20x Gargoyles adrenal/toxin, reserves coming in from my edge of table.
Trygon Prime

It's got definite strengths.

Basically your opponent has to spend a turn putting everything on the board and moving into positions he believes are best defendable. This does two things, removes a turn of the other guy's shooting and grants you flexibility to place your forces where they need to be after the other guy's committed. Bonus points if they panic and string themselves out, life can get a little rough if they castle up and play one big lump of hurtyness all at the same place. Objectives missions are good for mitigating this however.

Not having to soak up the first round of shooting coming across the board and being basically helpless because your army hasn't closed with the enemy is GREAT. If it deploys, it threatens and people get overwhelmed quickly when you do that. A further lesson learned is being able to drop everything roughly where you want it after deployment is an amazing asset. There are no clearly define 'safe' zones for your opponent to park his heavy weapons sniper psyker headquarters artillery dude and not have to worry about you surgical striking it. The table top is your oyster. I'm also in love with the Devourer 'gants. Opponents have told me they end up ranking them as high a threat as every other unit on the table because they panic when you pick up 45 dice on a shooting attack and with a little luck obliterate a 5 man tactical marine squad before they have any chance to respond at all.

Lessons learned, the Imperial Guard guy that gives you -1 to reserves is a real hindrance to this army but fortunately fairly rare. Deep strike your Hive Tyrant first before anything else to remove possible impact with friendly units as he is the only one in the list without deep striking mishap protection. Never go closer than 12 inches to the border of a table and if possible any other model. He's got wings, an 18" twin linked devourer range and he can't assault the first turn anyway, play keep-away with him. Don't deep strike Gargoyles. Their foot print at 20 models on flight bases is HUGE and almost impossible to avoid mishaps, as well as being clustered up way too close in deployment and too weak to survive any sort of template. Never forget that your Zoanthropes have a Str 5 AP *THREE* small blast template. This is a marine killer and they're so used to lance attacks from Zoeys and their armor saving them from every single last attack in your entire codex that they forget the basics of keeping your guys spread out against templates.

Sadly I never got to try the aura of despair + doom. I really did want to try that.

life can get a little rough if they castle up and play one big lump of hurtyness all at the same place. Objectives missions are good for mitigating this however.

So are spore mines. 3 times units of 3 deployed in the centre of his deployment zone would force any castle attempt to either be split or really congested. If he splits, win you've divided him. If he congests, then outflanking assault units (i.e. Genestealers) and the Doom would have a field day.

In light of that I'd suggest dropping the Gargoyles and the Ymgarls for the 9 spore mines and then as many toxinstealers as you can afford.

FINALLY A bug list I would feel confident with and overall be generally happy with - thank you for posting this. I like everything including the spore mine suggestion but am not a fan of Doom.

Doom can certainly be hit or miss, and in my normal lists I don't take him but within the confines of this list's theme (nothing on the table first turn) he fits well enough and I've had him go off like a nuclear friggin' bomb a few times so I keep him around. Fun fact, if he lives long enough to go Super Saiyan with sucked brains he becomes Str 10 himself, not just his blast. He also gets three attacks base with four for charging vehicles, and at Str 10 they're going to auto-penetrate almost every vehicle's rear armor. Dude TORE UP a mech IG list that ignored him for one turn. Still if Doom's not your thing I've had fun with the Deathleaper in this army. That flying psychic anti-psychic instant killing AV 13 Dreadnaught that Cheese Angels like to run around with? Yeah have fun when he's leadership 7. Oh what's that Mr. Furious you really want to kill the guy crippling you? That's nice. He's just gonna keep fading away every turn. Enjoy!

Spore mines I've found are worthless. I tried them exactly the way you say and someone's response was to just deploy 35 point metal boxes of invincibility right next to them with front armor facing them. Mine goes boom, box is invincible to their damage, life goes on and points/slot are a complete waste. Never went back to them again. No way I'd ever drop both Gargoyles and my precious Ymgarls for them.

edit- another lesson learned. If you win the roll off to choose allow your opponent to deploy first and thus move/shoot first, even on the second turn. If they win they usually choose it anyway. Either way it's TWO turns he doesn't get to shoot at you because there's nothing to shoot until you 'deploy'. 1/3 of his game's worth of fire power, gone. That's hawt right there that is.

Spore mines I've found are worthless. I tried them exactly the way you say and someone's response was to just deploy 35 point metal boxes of invincibility right next to them with front armor facing them. Mine goes boom, box is invincible to their damage, life goes on and points/slot are a complete waste. Never went back to them again. No way I'd ever drop both Gargoyles and my precious Ymgarls for them.

From what you've said you weren't using them the way I suggested. They aren't there to do damage. I don't care if he parks a bunch of Rhinos next to them. It is area denial it is about reducing where he can deploy and how sucessfully he can castle up in the centre. Given the nature of mycetic spores even a small gap in his castle is enough for you to get in and cause damage. So he has to castle elsewhere (to one side or the other or both) if he does that you're happy. If he doesn't then his castle has wholes in it and guess what? You're happy.

How far away does he have to deploy from these things and then if so - how can rhinos park next to them?

In pitched battle and spearhead he can deploy 1" away. Going second in dawn of war is where it gets nasty -- 18" away. Since the spore mines deploy via deepstrike you can't do too much area denial, since each unit of spores has to deploy touching each other (which also means there's a good chance they will kill each other).

The opponent castling up is a difficulty, it's not an end-all be-all game destroying invincible strategy leading to 100% victory against this list. I mention it as a lesson learned as a heads-up for something to be aware of with this list not something to change the list to tailor against. I actually won the game which that comment came out of as it was objectives and guess what he was nowhere near because of his strategy? I'm not going to permanently drop models out of the army to pay for mines that may or may not work, even if 'used correctly'.

All of the terrain denial stuff with spore mines is also predicated on the idea that you will deploy first to get them down before he does. With this list I specifically go out of my way to deploy last. I have nothing to deploy as that is the theme of the army. I would much, much, MUCH rather let them go first because I have nothing to lose by doing so and a whoooole lot to gain. On the second turn when my reserves start to come in my opponent has already gone through his second turn before me and lost out on two entire turns of shooting at my army. That's a metric butt-ton of shooting I don't have to take and a lot better than taking a ton of mines which are quite easy to render 100% ineffective and sacrificing points/bodies to pay for them.

Hormagaunts in a Pod are fail. They will appear and do nothing. Replace with more DevilGaunts and you're sorted

Updated list further down the page, gotcha covered.

All of the terrain denial stuff with spore mines is also predicated on the idea that you will deploy first to get them down before he does.

Spore mines get deployed before the opponent whether you deploy first or 2nd.

They really are very useful in a reserve list particularly one containing outflankers and/or Doom/Mawloc. For 90 points it is something that is far more effective than the Ymgarl stealers will ever be against a decent opponent.

It looks like you are gonna have a bit of a problem popping transports. I would try and get some more guns in there. Doom will be pretty useless if your zoanthropes and tyrant don't pop transdports before he turns up. I would really lose the hormagaunts and find something shooty to replace them with.

And I still don't get all the ymgarl hate. Perhaps you haven't seen them used properly yet. Huge threat range and able to hit long fangs, lootas etc with ease, as well as being able to pop transports in a pinch.