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So I was just at a tournament and was wondering if there is any way to wound the swarm lord without first going through his guard who can take wounds for him? He is a monstrous creature but im not sure how the rest rules out.

No there is not. You have to kill the Tyrant Guard first. You can find this information in the errata/faq on Gw's site as well.

Yes, you can. Normal wound allocation means that, if you put enough wounds on the unit, you can kill the Tyrant first if he fails his saves.

Ify ou look at the FAQ it actually states the exact opposite to you Sol - it talks about what happens if the Tyrant is killed before the TG fight.

Q: If a Hive Tyrant or the Swarmlord joins a unit of
Tyrant Guard, is it treated as an Independent Character
for the purposes of resolving shooting attacks (i.e.
independent characters who are monstrous creatures
can be targeted separately from the unit) and assaults
(i.e. independent characters always count as separate
units in an assault)?
A: No.

I read his question more as if you could just go for the Tyrant/Swarlord without worrying about the guard. In which case I would be correct, but I do not argue that I may have misread his question. Either way I think he got his answer here.

Sol wrote:Q: If a Hive Tyrant or the Swarmlord joins a unit of
Tyrant Guard, is it treated as an Independent Character
for the purposes of resolving shooting attacks (i.e.
independent characters who are monstrous creatures
can be targeted separately from the unit) and assaults
(i.e. independent characters always count as separate
units in an assault)?
A: No.

I read his question more as if you could just go for the Tyrant/Swarlord without worrying about the guard. In which case I would be correct, but I do not argue that I may have misread his question. Either way I think he got his answer here.

If there were an IC who is also a MC you could target him separately from his unit unless they were a retinue. Now since the tyrant guard aren't a retinue the FAQ was written to make them act as one for the hive tyrant. This means that you may not target the tyrant separately in shooting but you can put so many wounds on the unit that some wounds have to be allocated to the tyrant per the wound allocation rules.

From what I understand, to all intents and purposes the Swarm Lord (or any Hive Tyrant for that matter) becomes an upgraded squad member the moment he joins a unit of Tyrant Guard. Each Tyrant Guard only has 2 wounds though, so (assuming the unit is at max strength) you only have to inflict 7 wounds for one to land on the Swarmlord, and until the 11th wound, he has to keep assigning wounds to the swarmlord before he can put more on the tyrant guards.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:From what I understand, to all intents and purposes the Swarm Lord (or any Hive Tyrant for that matter) becomes an upgraded squad member the moment he joins a unit of Tyrant Guard. Each Tyrant Guard only has 2 wounds though, so (assuming the unit is at max strength) you only have to inflict 7 wounds for one to land on the Swarmlord, and until the 11th wound, he has to keep assigning wounds to the swarmlord before he can put more on the tyrant guards.

No you allocate like any other normal unit. The rule/errata/faq/whatever simply means you can not target the Tyrant/Swarmlord separately. Think of it like if you have a Grey Hunter pack of 10, and one of them has a Power Fist. You couldn't target the Power Fist in CC, but you could cause 10 wounds in which case the Power Fist would have to be allocated one of those 10 wounds because there are only 10 guys in the unit. So if you have a Tyrant/Swarmlord engaged in CC, and you cause 4 wounds the Tyranid player would have to allocate one wound to the Tyrant/Swarmlord.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:From what I understand, to all intents and purposes the Swarm Lord (or any Hive Tyrant for that matter) becomes an upgraded squad member the moment he joins a unit of Tyrant Guard. Each Tyrant Guard only has 2 wounds though, so (assuming the unit is at max strength) you only have to inflict 7 wounds for one to land on the Swarmlord, and until the 11th wound, he has to keep assigning wounds to the swarmlord before he can put more on the tyrant guards.

Actually its not 'fill him to the rim' with wounds. 11 wounds to the unit (assuming full assembly of guard) would only mean two possible wounds on the swarmlord. 2 on each member (for 8 wounds), then allocate three more (1 on each guard, for total 11), then make your saves.

Edited by the moderati.

To the OP: I hope these e-penis shenanigans don't detract from the info in this thread, and that your questions were sufficiently answered.

Also to anyone: Did I just play the 4th edition nids wrong or did 5th edition (even with this FAQ) make the Tyrant Guard considerably less effective than they used to be?

I was correct, in my original interpretation, of the op question you can not single out the Tyrant/Swarmlord in CC as per the FAQ I quoted. I was also correct when explaining how you cause a wound being allocated to the Tyrant/Swarmlord in CC. So please tell me where I failed to express my thoughts clearly. I also stated that I would not argue the fact that I misread the op question.

Argument is being pruned from thread. Sol, you started it. Neither of you should continue it. If either of you sees the other one get snippy again, hit Alert Moderator, and we will deal with the offender. You are both being officially instructed not to continue sniping at each other.

Yes, question answered, enough wounds means swarmlord gets wounded x times minus the wound allocation of the guard as x wounds goes to each model in the 2 units that become one. HaHa never thought I'd start beef over it though, too funny.

So in general:

11 of wounds

Guard 1= 4 wounds

Guard 2= 4 wounds

Swarmlord= 3 wounds

What army are you running OP?
You might have something that can do what you are asking.

IE. SW JotWW and Sniper Assassin in GK/SoB etc.

Hate to be nit picky, but the Thread's title should reference "Tyrant Guard"...not "Hive Guard".

lucasbuffalo wrote:What army are you running OP?
You might have something that can do what you are asking.

IE. SW JotWW and Sniper Assassin in GK/SoB etc.

I was running a DOA list and was trying to figure out if there was any unit that could do enough damage to injure him.

The way ive dealt with them is ss/th and lightning claw termies with furious charge and you just line the ss/th termies in front sice thunderhammers go on initiative 1 anyways but the lightning claws will go on initiative 5

Azzedar101 wrote:The way ive dealt with them is ss/th and lightning claw termies with furious charge and you just line the ss/th termies in front sice thunderhammers go on initiative 1 anyways but the lightning claws will go on initiative 5

Swarmlord is initiative 6 so the most sense would be to have fully decked out thundershields

That would make sense but next turn the lightning claws would go first because of the thunder hammer's ability


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also the lightning claws would go before the tyrant guard in the initial assault

Azzedar101 wrote:That would make sense but next turn the lightning claws would go first because of the thunder hammer's ability


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also the lightning claws would go before the tyrant guard in the initial assault

Lol its too late for me to do that as I gave away the LCs. I personally like the thunder goodness because of a 3+ invulnerable against the x shooting armies, since I never can make that invulnerable 5+ with my army. Now my chaos army, for some weird reason, always makes their invulnerable and fnp rolls but cant make a reg save if a tournament depended on it.

Everyone play's what works for them those TH/SS should tear through the swarmlord and its tyrant guard just maybe use an Landraider/Crusader to cart the termies around

Yeah, your gut is always your best thing to go with. I've had T/L razorbacks miss 3 turns in a row and Long Fang Squads miss every single shot all game, and then I've had Thunderwolf Cav. (my favorite unit before I even started playing real games) win the entire game, killing 3x their points and more.

As Blood Angels, I don't really know of a way to get around the retinue as I'm unfamiliar with them. You could always take a Vindicare assassin as a Witch Hunters ally, but that's more than likely awful advice.

Torrent of fire, something the BA have in spades with razorback spam, is all you need really. You're faster, by far, than the swarmy.