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Hello, I am wondering a tyranid taktic. Would it be posible to only take models with a high thoughnes to wound ratio rendering all smaler weaponds obsolete? I am thinking hive guards in the elite and warriors in the troop section. A bolter is a por way to kill a warrior. If all his heavy weaponds have to target all that you have there is no way he has time to kill everything you have. I am talking gaunts gargoyles etc out the window. Warriors podding in with str 5 guns killing units or perhaps poping transports (tyrant hive guards would help here.)

what do you think? 3-5 warriors in a pod is a bargain.

My friend's 11 year old son did something similar, and it gave my Eldar a horrible experience. They quickly folded to this onslaught. It was actually his first 40k game, and only my second time running Eldar, but the kid is good and he makes pretty good lists. I say go for it, but a unit of 9 warriors with bonesword/lashwhip led by a prime with twin-boneswords all with scything talons makes for a bad day for your opponent-especially if you support it with awesome shooting *cough*hiveguard/zoanthropes*cough*

Well, usually you should go high toughness or low toughness. Hence, the popular strategies of horde and nidzilla. Any time you take a mix you give the opponent the opportunity to use the right guns on the right target. Only problem you would face doing this is you tend to create a rock-paper-scissors effect. If you face someone with krak missile spam you are going to lose since you don't have the right counter. However, against most other things you should be at an advantage.

Is your goal just to avoid bolters? Just thinking maybe there are better options than warriors to go along with those monstrous creatures. I mean, a 40-point gaunt squad unlocks a T6 W6 scoring monster that creates more scoring squads. Mix that in with some HQ Tyrant guards, some Elite Hive guards, and some heavy trygons and you won't have anything to fear from bolters. Not too original though... :(

-Myst

The problem is that by doing this you leave yourself very vulnerable to heavy hitters. Nids do not like powerful assault units like Thunderwolves or TH/SS Terminators crashing in to their MCs (or the Warriors who get ID'd) as they tend to explode and cripple your Synapse. By far the best way to avoid this kind of thing is to take Gaunts/Tervigons to screen and divert them until you are able to deal with them. I would also expect this kind of list to be smashed by a Missile or Darklight spam list (anything with plenty of S8 shooting). You don't need to go overboard with them, but 1-2 Tervigon + Gaunt units should give you enough extra bodies on the ground without taking so many Gaunts that move completely away from the high toughness based list.

Most lists actually are actually built to deal with hard/heavy targets more than they are to deal with infantry (i.e melta everywhere to deal with vehicles, which are the closest things to your MCs). People don't exactly spam bolters, they just end up having a decent number of them as they have to take them to get the heavy/special weapons.

With this list you can lose your synapse too missile spamming lists or heavy weapons.

Powerguy wrote:I would also expect this kind of list to be smashed by a Missile or Darklight spam list (anything with plenty of S8 shooting)..

If you are fighting DE, Darklight spam is the least of your problems. Splinter rifles and cannons will ruin your MC list.

I don't actualy se how I am loosing my synapse if I bring warriors?

A core of 6 hive guards and 3 zoanthropes (perhaps stick a prime in there) perhaps a tyranofex and some trevigons or just manny trevigons. And warriors in drop pods. Usualy equiped with venom canon and the upgraded str 5 gun. I am not shure if there are points for it but perhaps led by a hive tyrant with wings and double brainleech worm.

Eather start poping transports asap or target the high threath things. Drop down from turn 2+ and start poping transports and then shooting whatever is inside. If it still lives then assault next turn.

The idea is that warriors = MC's because you need to use your good weaponds on them.

Yeah, but losing warriors to instakill is depressing.

-Myst

I agree with most of what has been said here.
THe nidzilla list would be way better with Tervigons serving as half of your troops and Minimum sized guant squads for the rest. That way you can fit up too 5 Terivigons in your list. 2 as HQ, 3 as troops. This will generate a rediculouse horde of gaunts per turn that your opponent will have to deal with.
The horde list is awsome because it cannot fail due to KRack spam etc. Dont bother spamming Warrior here either since embedded prime are hard to take out in big units of guants. also.. i usually toss in a unit of Zoan and that helps make up the lack of synapse.

This is scratching at a really interesting tyranid concept, that a lot of nid players (myself chief among them) have abandoned completely for the comfort of T6.

The concept is that a properly positioned warrior unit is about as survivable as a tervigon, point for point. I choose tervigons not for their increased ability to survive, but for the ability to create units and catalyst. My tervigon of choice runs me 175, and since he has taken no upgrades aside from catalyst, his close combat abilities are very 'meh'. Not bad, better than a combat squad by a fair stretch, but nothing that can stand up to any purpose built CC unit, even a troop CC unit.

For 175 points, I can buy 5x warriors, and buy a 5 point upgrade for the unit. When facing purely strength 8 shooting, the warrior unit has "5 wounds". They will almost positively get a cover save, and the tervigon is much less likely to have a cover save. The tervigon has 6 wounds, which is one more wound in cover, but 4 less "wounds" if out of cover.

When non instant death is involved, the warriors and tervigon continue to scale in nearly lock step... At strength 3-7, the warriors have 15 wounds and a cover save, where the tervigon is stuck with 6 wounds. However at these strength values, the toughness 6 does come in to play, as does the 3+ armor save most likely. After a whole lot of math, you'll probably just come to the conclusion that both units are nearly identical in survivability.

But then there is catalyst, and the baby-making...

In order to make the warrior unit attractive, you don't need to somehow increase its survivability, you just need to bring the army something that is the equal of those two abilities. Which is quite difficult. You gain the advantage of not needing to deal with the pretty lame termagant squads. And are free to use something more scary like hormagaunts. You can take whips and swords, and now you aren't really scared of much in CC. Or you just keep them cheap and use the savings to buy something else threatening.

I have recently taken my ban off of lictors, and I'm trying them again. using the principle mentioned by the OP. I don't care if they are flamer-bait, I don't care if they are fragile. On the turn they arrive, I'll also have trygons and genestealers revealed and vulnerable as well. Its not about being survivable sometimes, its about a convergence of multiple, non-survivable threats. I've got a lot more games to play before I can come back with a verdict... but if it continues to go well, then warriors could possibly have potential. Would warriors be vulnerable to long fangs if there were raveners and lictors on-table on the same turn, all pushing at speed towards the space wolf backline? I don't know... actually maybe not.

To the OP. If you've got the models, try it and report your findings please. If you don't have the models, proxy them and try it I don't think you're at a dead-end, but you should know that the tervigon leave some pretty big shoes to fill should you swap them for smaller sized synapse.

Thanks sheep.

I am curently dabling in 3 armies. I am a inovator so I can never bother playing the same list to many times.

I am just so tierd of the tyranid codexs being so stream lined that only 1 build becomes apparent in the current metagame. And that is hive guards, trevigons and trygons. It takes no brain. It is just copy paste copy paste. The only choyse you have are ymgals vs zoanthropes and how many trevigons. I tryed geneshock but there as just to mutch mech that backed up and shot at me!

I do not have the warrior models but I think that tyranids has the potensial of doing great things! Warriors in pods, hive guards for popping transports and then harpies and mawlocks for the big blast templates!

I don't know I am just looking for somthing else to do besides the "interwebs list". Something that will surpice my oponent and perhaps get a more enjoying game.

Give stealer shock another chance. You said your opponent is backing up and shooting at you? Don't infiltrate the genestealers or that's exactly what happens. Take Swarmlord with Tyrant Guards for survivability and cover save shenanigans, some Hive Guards to make a midfield 'bubble' that your opponent wants to stay away from and a Tervigon/Termagants for backup to the entire crew to make a midfield 'fist' that goes straight up the center and puts pressure on the opponent to want to get away from the hurtiness. Then outflank your genestealers and use the Swarmlord's outflank reroll as well as reserves bonus to insure you get them where you want them. When genestealers can stroll onto the battlefield, fleet into a parking lot and start rending away at rear armor suddenly all those tin cans start popping and the soft, chewy insides spill out without getting free turns of 'keep away' shooting. Add a pack of Ymgarl stealers for high priority assassination and more emphasis on making your opponent wanting to castle up. Controlling your opponent's deployment is extremely powerful.

Shep wrote:For 175 points, I can buy 5x warriors, and buy a 5 point upgrade for the unit. When facing purely strength 8 shooting, the warrior unit has "5 wounds". They will almost positively get a cover save, and the tervigon is much less likely to have a cover save. The tervigon has 6 wounds, which is one more wound in cover, but 4 less "wounds" if out of cover.

When non instant death is involved, the warriors and tervigon continue to scale in nearly lock step... At strength 3-7, the warriors have 15 wounds and a cover save, where the tervigon is stuck with 6 wounds. However at these strength values, the toughness 6 does come in to play, as does the 3+ armor save most likely. After a whole lot of math, you'll probably just come to the conclusion that both units are nearly identical in survivability.

But then there is catalyst, and the baby-making...

In order to make the warrior unit attractive, you don't need to somehow increase its survivability, you just need to bring the army something that is the equal of those two abilities. Which is quite difficult. You gain the advantage of not needing to deal with the pretty lame termagant squads. And are free to use something more scary like hormagaunts. You can take whips and swords, and now you aren't really scared of much in CC. Or you just keep them cheap and use the savings to buy something else threatening.

Your survivability analysis neglects "no retreat" in HtH - Warriors have more wounds, but are far more likely to take wounds, which leads to them taking yet MORE wounds. It's the biggest drawback to Warriors.

Any list that you spam with a particular type of unit is going to have an achilles heel to some form of weapon spam.

Horde - template, blast
Elite - anti-tank
Nidzilla - anti-tank, poison

It will come down to your local meta, and how willing you are to accept now and again being completely decimated based solely on list composition (which can happen anyway, but why make it worse?). Personally, I think the dex works best when you create a balanced, synergistic list...but that's just my opinion.

Janthkin, if the Warriors are laying out PW wounds in HtH, are they really likely to be losing HtH? No Retreat really shouldn't be an issue against anything short of TH/SS terminators.

Mannahnin wrote:Janthkin, if the Warriors are laying out PW wounds in HtH, are they really likely to be losing HtH? No Retreat really shouldn't be an issue against anything short of TH/SS terminators.

Orks. The math isn't friendly there. Maybe Genestealers & wyches, too - higher I & WS is meaningful there.