Trygon/Trygon Prime tactics

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**l0k1**

I'm a new nid player, and after playing my first game I've come to understand many things that hinder the nids race. Aside from getting the hoard from point A to point B, my concern is the Trygon. Is there nothing to their tactics but deep strike behind cover, next turn step out shoot and assault? I also say this because for now I rely on them to help with tank hunting since I only have 3 hive guards and 3 zoanthropes but no pods. Is there any tactics for these beasts that I'm not seeing?

**Galador**

ummm, shoot with them the turn they arrive??? DSing units can do that, and also, they are MCs with ALOT of wounds, they should be able to survive a turn of fire on them, unless they come in on turn two next to a unit they shouldn't, like a venerable dreadnought with an assault cannon and DCCW... he might just wipe it out......

Also, try and bring it up behind rear armor if possible to give him the best chance of hurting vehicles. Other than that, you need advice from a dedicated nid player.

**Tomb King**

The trygon can shoots assault 12 S5 AP5 weapons and he cant mishap when he comes in so you can pretty much drop him where ever you see fit. I played one this weekend dropped him right behind the enemies vehicles and shot his 12 shots into the rear of one of his vehicles and wrecked it. If your opponet has a castle formation and has a gap in the middle and you felt like being annoying. Put your trygon there and he cant scatter onto the vehicles so it almost guarantee's he lands there as will his tunnel.

The only issue I haave with him is making use of his tunnel after he has come in. :( My forces always come in all at once or he is still on top of the tunnel when the next round of reinforces comes in.

**Lukus83**

Walking trygons are scary. Since they have fleet they aren't quite as slow as regular MCs and if you have 3 of them on the table (combined with all the other nid stuff stuff you have) chances are at least 1 of them will survive. If you DS you run the risk of them:

A. coming in too late.
B. coming in 1 at a time.

**Tomb King**

Lukus83 wrote:Walking trygons are scary. Since they have fleet they aren't quite as slow as regular MCs and if you have 3 of them on the table (combined with all the other nid stuff stuff you have) chances are at least 1 of them will survive. If you DS you run the risk of them:

A. coming in too late.
B. coming in 1 at a time.

Run a hive tyrant for +1 to reserves

Foot slogging them is okay but losing 2 of them without getting anything done is not.

A trygon is 200 points base and a trygon prime is 240. That is a lot of points to lose just trying to get across the table. Their best when they're deep striking/tunneling.

**bucheonman**

I agree with Tomg King. Take a prime, shoot the rear of a transport or tank. Then watch your opponent freak out that he has a MC behind his lines. It takes a fair amount of firepower to take down, and while your opponent is shooting it up, your other stuff is advancing.

Or if your opponent isn't scared of it and ignores it, make him pay for it.

**Galador**

I have no idea how you could ignore a Trygon popping onto the table behind your lines... at least not if you knew what it could do....

I know the last nid player I faced was running two of them, but he DSed them in front of my lines within Rapid Fire range of 4 Warrior squads with Dark Lances.... needless to say, as they came o, they both went right back OFF the board.... he won't be doing that again...

**Requia**

The big thing is try to avoid deep striking them in the range of enemy tarpit units. Getting them shot to death is fine, they already took out a tank or decimated a light infantry unit (especially the prime, 18 shots <3), and if they aim all their shooting at you they can't shoot at something else.

I'd ignore the tunnel thing, too much has to go right in order for it to do anything, and if it goes wrong you have units starting on your side of the table instead of deep striking or outflanking.

**Tomb King**

Requia wrote:The big thing is try to avoid deep striking them in the range of enemy tarpit units. Getting them shot to death is fine, they already took out a tank or decimated a light infantry unit (especially the prime, 18 shots <3), and if they aim all their shooting at you they can't shoot at something else.

I'd ignore the tunnel thing, too much has to go right in order for it to do anything, and if it goes wrong you have units starting on your side of the table instead of deep striking or outflanking.

How are you getting 18 shots with the prime at 3+?

**l0k1**

I did deep strike the two ran behind two chaos rhino, but all 12 shot didn't crack it so both rhinos, opened up and spit out units of thousand suns and khorne berserkers. Needless to say my trygon prime died horribly as did the genestealers that came in the same turn. My dice just have a habit of hating me at the wrong time lol.

**Requia**

Tomb King wrote:
Requia wrote:The big thing is try to avoid deep striking them in the range of enemy tarpit units. Getting them shot to death is fine, they already took out a tank or decimated a light infantry unit (especially the prime, 18 shots <3), and if they aim all their shooting at you they can't shoot at something else.

I'd ignore the tunnel thing, too much has to go right in order for it to do anything, and if it goes wrong you have units starting on your side of the table instead of deep striking or outflanking.

How are you getting 18 shots with the prime at 3+?

That's a heart emoticon.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

l0k1 wrote:I did deep strike the two ran behind two chaos rhino, but all 12 shot didn't crack it so both rhinos, opened up and spit out units of thousand suns and khorne berserkers. Needless to say my trygon prime died horribly as did the genestealers that came in the same turn. My dice just have a habit of hating me at the wrong time lol.

Popping them would have been even worse, since you could have been assaulted that turn.

**Nightbringer's Chosen**

What's the general thought on Mawlocs? I plan to take two myself, along with a Trygon Prime, and wondering if it's worth it (holding the Trygon in reserve to DS it in, and burrowing the Mawlocs first turn).

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also: on a Prime I'm fairly certain Adrenal Glands are worth taking, for the initiative bonus if nothing else.
What of Regeneration for them, though? Not on the Mawlocs, as they spend half the game off the table, but for a Trygon Prime.

**Requia**

I've never seen much good come of regeneration. Makes the point cost a bit iffy.

**Galador**

I'm still wondering where the 18 shots are coming from.... did they change it in the FAQ? I see in the nid codex that for the Prime it goes to Assault 12 and 18", unless I'm missing something???

**Nightbringer's Chosen**

12 shots and 6 attacks maybe? Though not if they Deep Struck that turn...hmm...

**l0k1**

I ran Regen on my Primes and Tervigons yesterday just to try it out and it was a waste of points in my book.

I'm also puzzled at the 18 shots from a Prime? lol

**Requia**

Trygon's have a 6 shot weapon, primes gain an additional 12 shot weapon, MCs can attack with both.

**Galador**

Requia wrote:Trygon's have a 6 shot weapon, primes gain an additional 12 shot weapon, MCs can attack with both.

no.... might want to reread that, it says in the codex that "A Trygon Prime uses the following profile when firing its bio-electric pulse", which is the weapon that the Trygon gets, so its an upgrade, not a second weapon.

**Chrysis**

Requia wrote:Trygon's have a 6 shot weapon, primes gain an additional 12 shot weapon, MCs can attack with both.

Primes change their 6 shot weapon into a 12 shot weapon, it isn't additional. Containment Spines says something like "When firing the Bio-electric field, use this profile."

**Requia**

-sighs-

You're right. Didn't occur to me to read that since there's no special rules asterisk on the weapon profile.

GW really really really needs to fire their editors and get new ones.

**Ignus**

stupid trygons *grumble grumble* I was winning a game against my friend who plays nids, but then his trygon and raveners came in and ate me. :(

I guess a counter question I would ask is, How do I stop monstrous creatures? His hive tyrant and trygon just rip me to shreds in close combat, their toughness is so high I can only wound on 6s, which essentially means I can't do any damage.

What are space marine answers to MCs?

**Lukus83**

TH/SS terminators and devastator squads.

**Galador**

Vindicators and Predators work well also.

**Ignus**

I'm thinking of throwing in 2 lone wolves in terminator armor with ss/TH and beastslayer.

That plus a long fang squad with 2 plasma cannons, 2 las cannons, and 1 missle launcher.

think that should be enough for a small point game?

**Kilkrazy**

Trygon Prime

I have used one quite a lot and always take a Prime for the Synapse and extra shots.

I nearly always Deep Strike with my Trygon. It is a great threat to an enemy castle formation.

The key to successful Deep Striking is to combine the sudden Trygon threat with an attack from another direction. This can be hard to arrange thanks to the vagaries of timing.

The tunnel is useless, IMO. Too many things have to go right for it to be of any help.

In theory Regeneration is worth the points. Take a Trygon Prime with Adrenal Glands for 250. Adding Regeneration is an extra 10% to the cost, but if it works just once you save back 16% of the creature’s points.

Regeneration is brilliant if you are lucky with the dice, and useless if you aren’t.

However some armies can fire off so many high S low AP weapons in one turn that they can kill the Trygon before he has the chance to regenerate.

That is why you need to organize a double threat. While your Trygon attacks from a flank, your Tervigon and Termagants need to be getting stuck in from the front.

Who to attack?
The first target is usually vehicles.

The second target is high capability melee units, after you have tarpitted them with poisoned Hormagaunts and Termagants. You have to be careful of the Fearless spillover wounds, so make sure you win these fights.

Trygons are also good for assaulting objectives, though of course they can't hold them.

**SumYungGui**

Deep striking is almost always a good idea with Trygons. Almost. I have found them to be exceedingly effective against other assaulty armies if you do not deep strike them. Most times an army will be set up around assaulting and not have the ranged fire power to take down a Trygon per turn like some set ups so the danger is minimal in having them on the field from the start. These people will want to get up in your face anyway so it shouldn't be that many turns you're exposed to begin with.

They're charging into you, most likely wasting their charge on a wall of gaunts/gants, and then you get to tag team whoever you want with a pair of Trygons. That many monstrous creature attacks will scare the bejeesus out of anybody I don't care who you are. Cheese Angels feel no pain bubble of death star cheese with a side order of cheese? Yeah don't care you don't get armor saves. Mephiston? Yeah you're going at initiative 1 because of my Hive Tyrant's lash whips and two Trygons are going to mulch you. Just watch out for easy-to-make invul saves on tarpit type enemies. Wyches suck for this, and storm shield terminators can be tricksy if they get lucky and make a lot of their rolls. I usually just throw a bunch of bodies at those kinds of units rather than your twin Trygons. Most normal assault type units are going to get torn into kibble.

**Hulksmash**

So I'm in the minority here but I don't deepstrike my Trygons......ever.

Reasons being:

-Increases threats on the table and force my opponent to make harder decisions

-Will assault at the same time if not sooner than a deepstriking trygon

-T6 wound depth

-Randomness is not something a Tyrannid player needs to tempt.

It's a handy option I suppose but he's to likely to wind up popping up unsupported and get squished. 200pt MC aren't good distraction units.

**SumYungGui**

I find that two Trygons are reliable enough with a Hive Tyrant's Hive Commander ability that it's not a very big sacrifice and the follow on effect of constant OH MY GOD TRYGON AAAAAAAAAAH threat as well as instant back-armor shooting is quite worth it in most games. Most. Note what I said above. Also as you said sometimes it's worth it for more wounds on the table to spread the loving around. It's quite easy to get people to shoot at what you want them to shoot by 'accidentally' leaving a monstrous creature unable to get a cover save.

'Ooops, dearie me my Tervigon in the back ranks has no cover save for this turn. Oh my oh my I hope you don't shoot everything long ranged in your army at him and take him down two or three wounds. Nope, no sir that would be a disaster. I guess I'lll have to put him in cover next turn and oops, look at that I left something else out next turn'.

People don't like their high value shooting getting lost to cover saves.

**syypher**

I'm in the same boat as Hulksmash and I never deepstrike my Trygons either. If your list has your Trygon as the only big threat vs all other armies and that's their only focus then your list isn't good enough. For a nids list to be effective you need multiple must kill threats in it.

For example I normally run a brood of 20x stealers with toxin sacs that infiltrat 18" away from the opponent. This is extremely threatening and is a must kill threat as it will enter CC much sooner than my Trygons will. (I normally run 2x Trygons)

Also I run 2x Tervigons as a base to all my lists. These troop pooping MCs are a must kill threat almost always for 2/3rds of the games out there. They are just so good in objective based games because of the huge advantage they give you.

I also run 2x3 or 3x2 broods of Hive Guard. These are normally priority #1 for any mech transport spamming list like Mech BA, Eldar or IG.

Trygons shouldn't be target #1 all the time in a good Nid list.

Also to the guy who has a hard time killing them. If they are your #1 priority then just shoot it with all your anti-mech weapons before it gets to you. Missile Launchers, Meltas, Las cannons etc. All of these ignore it's armor save and I doubt it's getting a cover save unless they took Venomthropes..

**Requia**

If you're deepstriking trygons, you're also probably deepstriking zoanthropes and running a hive commander tyrant or a swarmlord.

Tends to put a lot down at one on turn 2.