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I've had little luck finding an effective list for tournaments and as a result, haven't built up many good strategies yet. I really am becoming desperate to prove Tyranids are still a competitive army!
Most armies in my area are space marine armies (3-4 vanilla, 2-3 Blood angels, 2-3 Space Wolves, 1 Dark Angels, 2 Black Templars, and 3-4 Grey Knights), with about 4 IG and Tau. Usually 1 Eldar, 1 Dark Eldar, and assorted others. Lots of MEQ! My army usually gets shot to bits before the fight starts, so I built this around getting in their face quickly and skipping the shooting portion of the game. Here's my rough draft.

310-HQ-Hive Tyrant-Wings-OA-HC-2X devourers
160-HQ-Parasite of Mortrex
180-Elites-3 Zoanthropes
145-Elites-Doom of Malan'Tai
-Mycetic Spore/Barbed strangler
115-Elites-5 Ymgarls
155-Troops-20 Termagants
-Mycetic Spore/Barbed strangler
155-Troops-20 Termagants
-Mycetic Spore/Barbed strangler
144-Fast Attack- 18 Gargoyles-AG-TS
136-Fast Attack- 17 Gargoyles-AG-TS

I've pretty much given up on the Parasite of Mortrex-as much as I hate to drop my favorite- I just left him on there because I don't know what to replace him with.
I'm looking for a practical way to add in some Bonesword warriors for TEQ, as there are a bundle at tournaments. I also feel like I need a Trygon or spore for my Zoeys. I'm trying to avoid Hive Guard and Tervigons, but I'm open to suggestions of any kind.

I have to say honestly I am not liking the overabundent use of the flyrant, especially when there is only one. So many people are deathly afraid of flyers and believe that this is a tried and true way to counter that strategem, the problem being that if any army really felt threatened by that unit, it would not take a ton of fire power to take it down.

I feel that the greatest strength to Tyranids right now is a sheer wall of fire power and a massive number of units this army can bring to the field. I personally ignore the flyrant strategy in order to hail for survivability. I run currently x2 carnifex, a massive horde of gaunts, warriors, some tervigons and zoanthropes in a large bubble around the walking rant with OA. I feel this strategy has proven itself on numerous occasions by simply blasting all the units they have on the board off early and laughing when flyers come in, get hit with close to 40 S6 shots, all rerollable, and watching them drop out of the sky like flies.

Sorry for that long winded opening, but it leasd to what I think you should do. If you are choosing to avoid tervigons and hive guard, this makes things considerably harder, but then I suggest you think about running either the swarmlord with guard to replace the parasite, or use 2 units of walking tyrants with guard and OA.

You lack any real synapse, which will seriously hinder any real control of your army. As far as why I suggest the swarmlord, is that not only would he draw fire away from your flyrant, but he alone is an answer to a group of TEQs, I have seen a swarmlord with the new 6th rules for monstrous creatures literally kill HALF of a deathwing army.

It's sad that you are losing faith in your favorite unit, being the parasite, though I would need to know how you normally play him to be of any real help.

If you are adamantly against the swarmlord for TEQ, just remember that boneswords do not pierce 2+ armor... therefore warriors may not be the best solution for this unit, as well since thunderhammers will ID your warriors.

can't think of any other ideas at the moment, hope this helps, but if not then GL finding your way!

Actually, yes they do. They never counted as Power Weapons, so they still pierce all armour.

gameandwatch wrote:You lack any real synapse, which will seriously hinder any real control of your army.

Doesn't being out of synapse simply grant rage to that unit?
The new rules for rage are simply +2 Attacks on the charge. Would it not make sense to keep them out of range?

is this true about boneswords? whats reference is there?

try running a couple of units of spore mines. they deploy anywhere on the table before your opponent and screws up their deployment. then run some deep strikers like raveners or shrikes (probably better as you can get boneswords with them) and a ton of outflanking/ infiltrating genestealers. i have had a lot of luck playing nids as sneaky as possible and it always throws the opponent off guard. hope this helps!

I stand corrected about the boneswords, they do indeed ignore all armor.

That said, nothing in his army gains the benefit of rage, other than the doom at the moment.

Having actually played a few games recently, I am not convinced with bonesword warriors. They are quite expensive, and though they have 3 wounds, they only have a 4+ armor save which is ignore so often these days and are just too expensive to make them worth their points to reach combat. A mycetic spore might solve this but I believe that goes against the point.

I have been running plain-jane deathspitter warriors, or if I find the 25 points, giving them rending claws and this has yet to fail me.

At 1,500 pts I think that nearly 500 pts on HQs is a bit of a stretch to be honest. Parasite has the stats of a souped up Necron Wraith but for the cost of 4 of them. Too expensive for my liking and if your taking the hive tyrant then leave him at home.

Null deployment lists don't really work any more in 6th and most of my lists were all reserve/drop lists in 5th so I'm having to relearn quite a bit. If you have no units on the table at the end of T1 then you auto lose now, so essentially you have 2 units of gargoyles, 2 HQs and the zoanthropes that can start on the board. They are going to have to soak up a lot of fire so you do need to start all of them on the board and your gargoyle screen will be shredded to be honest. For this reason I'd also think about dropping all those upgrades on them.

The zoanthropes are a lot better in a spore if you're taking core powers as the lance only has an 18" range.

5 ymgarls is a bit thin. If they assault anything they have to survive overwatch and with a 4+ armour save losing 1 or 2 could make a difference. I'd want at least 1 extra, if not 8 in the brood.

I would also trim the barbed stranglers off the spores as that's 15 pts each at 1,500. Maybe at 1,750 but here you need the points for say more ymgarls. if you want the shot take cluster spines for 5 pts less.

If you're sticking gants in a spore I would give them devourers for a unit with real shooting potential.

If you want to stop the shooting and get right to crumpin, ymgarls are your best best. Your current loadout with them is a bit weak. As ruminator said, overwatch will make the difference on your assault capabilities. I would even suggest 2 squads for maximum carnage, although this is a pretty large portion of your army.

Termagants in a spore might be able to take an objective, but realistically, they won't be serving their main purpose of either shielding or tarpiting.

I think that the HT loadout you have will not be very effective. I would recommend a different approach. Gameandwatch made the point of the swarmlord being very effective, I completely agree with this. Your other option would be to change up the HT into a gunboat that can either get cover or have a 2+ save. 2x TL devs, armoured shell, and OA would be a solid loadout.

Gargoyles might do a lot of damage in this game.

Even though your elites slot is probably very tight right now, you might want to think about venomthropes. These can make assaulting your army a costly mistake.

Had a stint of no internet, but thanks for all the help!

As far as the main army goal, I'm changing it from a straight-up in your face assault army to a hammer and anvil type. I'll be using two squads of gargoyles and Ymgarls to get into them and cause chaos from turn two, with maybe a Tyrant with shell, devourers, and OA, a carnifex or two(maybe Tfex instead) a venomthrope, and tervigon acting as a big super bubble that will walk around and kill anything in it's path.

The only problem I see this causing is Ordnance like a Leman Russ or equivalent that would love the tight circle of valuable units. If I got lucky and rolled Telekine dome for my psykers this would be nice, but in reality I'll probably b able to get one squad with an Inv save and everyone else will still be screwed.

Venomthropes cover saves are good and they've always been a staple in my more conventional armies, but I don't know if they would be a practical method of keeping everyone alive, especially when it means dropping another Elites choice.

For the Hive Tyrant with wings, you're right! I kinda get caught up in the whole "Hard to hit=unkillable!" mentality, but all they need is one six with any kind of gun and I'm taking a grounded test. S9 AP2 auto-hits will kill my flyrant faster than a whole enemy's army will kill my shell tyrant.

If I drop my termagants in spores, is it still practical to get te Doom? he'll get to activate his "Leech essence" ability every shooting phase, so he can use it twice before he gets shot by enemies, but if he's alone he won't make it much farther than that. especially when on S8 hit will take all 10 of this guy's wounds. Dropping him could allow that venomthrope, or more ymgarls.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
New list looks like this:
265-HQ-HiveTyrant-2X dev's,OA,AS
184-Elites-8 ymgarls
55-Elites-Venomthrope
180-Elites-3 Zoanthropes
72-Troops-12 Hormagaunts
66-Troops-11 Hormagaunts
120-Fast-15 Gargoyles-TS,AG
120-Fast-15 Gargoyles-TS,AG
180-Fast-3 Shrikes-LW&BS,AG,TS
295-Heavy-Tyrannofex-RC,Regen,Cluster spines, Electroshock grubs

Before anyone says anything about the shrikes, I realize what a huge gamble it is, haha. But the gargoyles NEED synapse to be of any use to me. Feed is nice to have now, but Lurk is still a huge pain, especially on assault units.

As for 60 points on each Shrike, I'll just keep them behind gargoyles and out of sight when I can, and hopefully the death-blob of Tfex, Tyrant, and thropes will draw most of the S8+ fire. When they make it to assault, I'm sure these S5 poisoned terminator-cutters will earn their points back. The Gaunts are just for running to objectives.

Tell me what you think!