Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi I just recently returned to 40k I don't know much about the kind of tactics you could employ, in your experience what are the best tactics that worked for you?

Pretty open ended question for tactics...

A dissertation could be written on the topic.

I'll go with some broad strokes.

Tervigons make excellent troop choices. Hive guard are excellent support, there are a variety of great ways to be aggressive and kill stuff such as..

flying hive tyrants
walking hive tyrants with guard
double devourer carnifex joined by tyranid primes
tyranid primes leading tyranid warriors (beware of lots of strength 8 ap3)

Shep wrote:Pretty open ended question for tactics...

A dissertation could be written on the topic.

I'll go with some broad strokes.

Tervigons make excellent troop choices. Hive guard are excellent support, there are a variety of great ways to be aggressive and kill stuff such as..

flying hive tyrants
walking hive tyrants with guard
double devourer carnifex joined by tyranid primes
tyranid primes leading tyranid warriors (beware of lots of strength 8 ap3)

interesting list I do have a winged hive tyrant I could use and what of special characters like the doom of malantai or death leaper what have you used?

I regularily play a Nid player and he is very very good. He uses 2 units strong Hive Gaurd, Hive Gaurd are waaay too good to not use. He uses 3 Tervigons and its a very solid list.

Sir as to your question about the Doom of Malan'Tai and the Deathleaper. Both are really good. I use both and tey make a nice team. The Doom has really good psychic powers and special rules especially for being 90 points and the Deathleaper is good if you can keep him in cover until he gets to assault.

The doom is great for 2 shooting phases where he usually sucks up the life of alot of stuff. After that they mow him down.

Agreed, death leaper is super, if he can charge into combat. Fleshhooks keep the charge bonus, and he gets rending on a 5 or 6 in CC. Expensive though.

Venomthropes give cover, Zoeys kill tanks. Tyrants are far better than primes (2 boneswords) and add guard-retinue with sword and lash - enemy at init 1.

Tervys are good and give toxin to as much as you can afford. Keep your gaunts cheep for objective holding.

Steelers are best troops, rending gives them a chance against most anything. Toxin and scything give you more chances to reroll failures. And the reroll could come up rending!

I have found biovores reliable and they have whittled many marines down.

My trygon was an epic fail, whereas my harpy blasted and bombed several SMs into ripperchow.
I used my Parasite once and it did very well.

The rest is hit or miss. Some do better that others depending on the army you face.


Mysetic spores are still a challenge. They deep strike quite well, but you'd think those tentacle lashes would drag victims into close combat.
And although stupid, it is a monster and pulverises the few things it can hit. Assaulting one is foolish when you can shoot it dead much easier.

Shep wrote:walking hive tyrants with guard

I am wondering if this is a historical throwback philosophy. In 3rd and 4th edition you would take a single guard for the extra 2 wounds as they cost only 45 points at the time. 5th edition you took them so you could get a cover save. 6th edition the Hive Tyrant can get easy cover saves all on its lonesome and the tyrant guard are 60+ each...for stats much worst than a wraith, pallidin, TW, BC, NB...all of which are cheaper.

Your typical load out for a Hive Tyrant or Swarm Lord is going to run you 250-280 points. 3 Tyrant Guard with lashes will run you 195 points. That is 445-485 points for a unit that reaps only 5 Stength 6 AP2 attacks and 12 rending attacks on the charge. Up to 485 points for up to 11 T6 3+ wounds. Just seams like you are paying deathstars prices for a meadocre CC unit.

Personally I have just been running the Swarm Lord solo as a support unit. I have really enjoyed his utility: getting my ygmarls in turn 2 on a 2+, granting FC to my hormies or PE to my genestealers, using Invisibility (psychic power on Telepathy Track) to further boost my mobs, and throwing him into CC with a large brood of stealers, gants, or hormies. Between large stealer mob, swarms of spawned guants, tervigons, hormy mobs, ygmarls, and dakka fexes...I have so many threat vectors that my opponent's have a hard time simply focus firing on the Swarm Lord.

TG can increase the survivability of a HT, but the added cost in extremely significant to nids who struggle to find points as it is. That is my experience at least. Think of all the things you can get for 195 points or less: 3 Hive Guard, Dakka Fex, Parasite, 20 poisoned FC gargoyles, 14 genestealers, 8 ygmarls...all of which have much better output or utility than 3 TG.

I read that Jankith also used the Swarm Lord solo at a recent tournement, so he might have some additional insight as to the value and survivability of a solo HT. Maybe he found just the opposite.

Personally, I don't think death stars fit the value of our codex. I believe our value is in our little critters (gants and gargoyles being some real winners) who can now win the war of attrition when supported with the appropriate buffs. Just my $0.02.

The Swarmlord is an awesome HQ, and I normally take 2 regular guard to soak up wounds. Again, my opponent often panics and fires everything at the SL so the guard is perhaps unique to my battles.

I've yet to see 6th Ed, but Christmas is on the way.

I run a Swarmlord Ministar with 2 TG w Lash and a Prime with BS/LW. There are a few reasons for this.

1) Without the guard you can not attach the Prime. Without the Prime you have issues with chalanges. There are things like MSS, Lukas and few other things that you do not want SL in combat with at all costs. Also if a 1WW like a Sgt. challanges the Prime can take the challange so the SL can proced to decimate the unit.

2) There are some buffs that work much better with other models in the unit. Endurance, Catalyst, Invisability, TK Dome, Ect. A larger unit makes those buffs more cost effective.

3) ID is a problem for SL. He doesn't have EW. I have no idea why. There are weapons/combinations that will just kill him outright with shooting. LoS! can protect him in those occasions.

4) Tarpits can also be a problem for SL. While he can put out a ton of attacks I have seen him hit IG blobs that tie him up for 4 turns. They don't kill him, but it makes him a huge points sink.

That is a great discussion point, Wyomingfox...

I haven't had any table time with swarmlord or a walking shooty tyrant yet. my games have been coming with fexstars, which are VERY powerful.

What I need to know, through playtesting, is if someone like the swarmlord can go through deathstars on his own, I bet he can't, challenges will hurt him and shooting will hurt him. But you are not wrong at all about the tyrant guard price tag.

Another thing that a friend pointed out, is that iron arm is a fantastic spell on swarmlord, but is totally wasted if he joins a 2+ tyrant guard unit. At least its wasted until a tyrant guard dies.

But Swarmlord + 1x tyrant guard + 1x tyranid prime actually breaks up that majority toughness. If swarmlord gets off iron arm, then there will be no majority, and then you can use the highest toughness (potentially T9) on all three guys. That seems really powerful.

I also don't hate the idea of having more tyrant guard, and plan to get rid of the first two using your first 4 wounds taken. If they aren't shooting at you, then there is no lost efficiency in iron arm, and then if they are, they have to get rid of 4 T4 3+ wounds before they can even have the honor of facing a T7-9 unit.

I really need to get him on the table, I don't hate the idea of solo MCs and I acknowledge the heavy cost of the tyrant guard, but I don't see swarmlord doing much to many of the popular deathstars, guys like Vect will eat him up very quickly.

Its really the thoughts that gloomfang put down that scare me about using swarmlord. without an additional investment in a unit for him.

Time and playtesting will tell

Swarmlord in 6th is more than worth the points. But he really shines with TK, not biomancy.biomancy makes him a litte more killy, but he is already a CC monster. If he gets gate you can have him overcome his lack of speed and have him assault turn 2. OM and he can hurt flyers or AV12 from a distance or make it so overwatch and bolters have no chance to hurt him. TK dome gives the unit some protection from shooting. Void just kills everything.
Crush can be hit or miss. You can get lucky and do something great with it or it can not do much.
Shockwave i thought was bad until i realized that units that are pinned and in cover do not make you hit at I1.

Biomancy you have iron arm and that is probably the best just to get him EW. Warp Speed is only good for a few extra attacks. If i wanted Enfeeble and Life leech i would just keep him with his normal powers. Endurance you can have anouther psyker cast on him. Haemorrage is just not good.

But that is just my oppinion and my playstyle. I tend to look at what everything does as it relates to the rest of my army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hivepdktyrant wrote: Tyrants are far better than primes (2 boneswords) and add guard-retinue with sword and lash - enemy at init 1.

Not sure if you meant this. Tyrant Guard can not get sword and lash. They can only get one or the other.

I've been itching to use a Swarmlord but he is so point heavy and running him without at least 1 guard makes me nervous with all the krak missiles out there. I've also considered the walking HT with 2x Brainleech, armored shell, and 1-2 guards. This would allow me to LOS! any AP1-2 while throwing saves for everything else on a 2+.

On a different Tyranid Tactic issue, I am having trouble keeping my Genestealers alive long enough to get into CC. They are usually my opponents #1 target so by the time I get into charge range, they are either dead or in such low numbers that they aren't very effective. I usually infiltrate them into cover then I either move them out to go for the attack or have them camp an objective in or close to cover. Either way they take so much fire that I'm not sure if they are worth the points. I know I'm using them wrong but I don't know how to use them right. Do I just need to use more Genestealers?

Gloomfang wrote:I run a Swarmlord Ministar with 2 TG w Lash and a Prime with BS/LW. There are a few reasons for this.

1) Without the guard you can not attach the Prime. Without the Prime you have issues with chalanges. There are things like MSS, Lukas and few other things that you do not want SL in combat with at all costs. Also if a 1WW like a Sgt. challanges the Prime can take the challange so the SL can proced to decimate the unit.

Can you help me understand how attaching a Prime and Swarmlord to a unit of Tyrant Guard works? I'm not sure I get how attaching two HQ's works

Also, I'd love to see some battle reports where you've used this mini star combo.

IC can join units that could consist of more then one model. (That was 5th edition wording, I think it is similar in 6th.) The swarmlord/hive tyrant can join a unit of hive guards at the start of the game, and being treated as an IC for all purposes. (I belive.)

Join the swarmlord with the special rules. And just join the prime as a regular IC. (The tyrant guards can be taking in a unit bigger then one.)

In my opinion it is not really a need for the swarmlord unles you are trying to get invisabilaty.

Niiai wrote:I
In my opinion it is not really a need for the swarmlord unles you are trying to get invisabilaty.

Again you must never have had a Swarmlord hit it self with a bone saber, reroll his own invuln save and then die because he doesn't have EW from MSS. Between than and Lukas there are now enough things that I just don't want my SL in combat with.

Also its nice to not be stuck with an IG blog where they feed the SL one challenge after another from all the little characters they have.

The only thing that puts me off using Swarmlord is his slow ass. Having Eldar or other fast armies run circles round me while I try to get him into combat.

I didnt think primes could join fexes since they are Mcs? Am I thinking of something else?

Gloom,

A prime can take a pair of boneswords for 10, sword and lash for 15. I contend the guard numbers in the codex is an error.

Its not been an issue with my opponents. Likewise I can have a tyrant either with 2 bone swords or sword and lash.
Maybe my opponents are nice to me because they love squashing bugs.



Perhaps you can clarify, and I know this is likely a 5thEd item, but Monsters typically have a T=6 which *2 is 12. They generally do not suffer instant death.
Force weapons are still a bear. but then I do get boneswords.
If I have that wrong please help.

5th edition primes could join fexes just fine since they could be taken as a group. I do belive the same stands for 6th edition from my reading of the rules. The fact that it is an MC is irelevant.

Niiai wrote:5th edition primes could join fexes just fine since they could be taken as a group. I do belive the same stands for 6th edition from my reading of the rules. The fact that it is an MC is irelevant.

Yes it has to be a brood. So you don't join the Prime to the Tyrant you are attaching them to the guard. Carnifex can come in broods of up to 3 so even if you only have a single fex you can join a Prime to him.

Can't attach Primes to tervigons, T'fex, trygons or things like the Doom as they always come in units of one.

Swarmlord was slow in 5th, but he is much better (or rather everything else is much slower) in 6th. The nerfing of Fleet must hurt the Eldar more than Nids.

Having the ability to swap out powers is a big help too. Before you could run or use a power as they were all shooting. Now you can use Blessings or Maldictions and still run without wasting his powers. And I like TK on him because you have a good chance of getting Gate with him (4 out of 6 chance) and teleporting him accross the board.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hivepdktyrant wrote:Gloom,

A prime can take a pair of boneswords for 10, sword and lash for 15. I contend the guard numbers in the codex is an error.

Its not been an issue with my opponents. Likewise I can have a tyrant either with 2 bone swords or sword and lash.
Maybe my opponents are nice to me because they love squashing bugs.

Perhaps you can clarify, and I know this is likely a 5thEd item, but Monsters typically have a T=6 which *2 is 12. They generally do not suffer instant death.
Force weapons are still a bear. but then I do get boneswords.
If I have that wrong please help.

Your opponent is being nice. Codex is pretty straight forward on you can take one or the other.

And T6 can not be IDed without something that causes ID (like Bone Swords or Force Weapons). An MC will almost always get a FNP roll if it has FNP up now.

I don't think there is any nid with FNP [most have fearless], however a Tervy can confer FNP on a brood through Catalyst.

Am I missing it somewhere?

You are correct. No tyranid unit has the FNP USR.

Tervigons can purchase Catalyst which grants a unit within 12" FNP.

Biomancy Chart has a psychic power called Endurance which grants a unit FNP and IWND within 24". So any nid psycher could exchange its psychic powers for a roll on the Bio chart and potentially get endurance.

hivepdktyrant wrote:I don't think there is any nid with FNP [most have fearless], however a Tervy can confer FNP on a brood through Catalyst.

Am I missing it somewhere?

No, but as it is a stock power for Tervigons with Catalyst its good to know that AP1 and AP2 don't remove FNP anymore.

FNP on a brood of Fexs is very nasty now.

A word on the cost-effectiveness of Tyrant Guard:

If you look at point cost per Wound, Tyrant Guard are actually looking pretty good. 60pts/2 T6 Wounds is 30pts/Wound, which is better than the Trygon or a kitted-out Tervigon, and much better than a Hive Tyrant or Carnifex. If you're looking for a cheap way to make your HT/Swarmlord harder to kill, you can't go wrong with a basic Tyrant Guard or two. The fact that they get some rending attacks is really just a bonus for me, and I never expect those to do much. A HT with Armored Shell gains an even bigger benefit, because it can soak AP3 wounds on its 2+ save and pass the AP2 wounds to the Guard via LoS.

The downside is not that you're adding expensive Wounds, it's that you're adding more slow Wounds to an army that really benefits from being very aggressive. Aside from getting Gate on the Swarmlord, you're looking at tying up more points in a unit that will take 3 or 4 turns to see combat. Adding Tyrant Guard is great for the Hive Tyrant, but might end up hurting your ability to provide threat overload to your opponent, which can protect your HT all by itself.

Shep wrote:That is a great discussion point, Wyomingfox...

I haven't had any table time with swarmlord or a walking shooty tyrant yet. my games have been coming with fexstars, which are VERY powerful.

What I need to know, through playtesting, is if someone like the swarmlord can go through deathstars on his own, I bet he can't, challenges will hurt him and shooting will hurt him. But you are not wrong at all about the tyrant guard price tag.

Doomfang is correct, the Swarmlord is good at CC and can chew through most characters but can't run through a 500-900 point deathstar...but then he doesn't have too. He just needs to cast Telepathy's Invisabilitity (one unit within 24" gets 3+ bonus to thier Cover Saves and opponents in CC are WS1) and either PE or FC (he can grant 1 unit 18" away each turn) on a 20-30 man poisoned brood of gargoyles, gants, or hormies...which will run you 160-240 points. 2+ cover nullifies overwatch and WS 1 nullifies lack of grenades and 2/3 of your opponents attacks. Throw catalyst from a nearby Tervigon for a 5+ save. Now that buffed unit will either slowly kill the DS off or tie it up for the majority of the game while whittling it down. Swarmie and the rest of your army can then focus on targets more to thier liking. Now your opponents 33-50% beatstick has become his biggest liability.

I haven't seen the need yet to try and create a Death Star unit with nids at the present time as there appears to be more economical tools at my disposal.

Seriously, this edition keeps getting more and more exciting. I mean, I just spent the past two weeks assembling 40 gargoyles and can't wait to try them out!

Roboute wrote:
The downside is not that you're adding expensive Wounds, it's that you're adding more slow Wounds to an army that really benefits from being very aggressive. Aside from getting Gate on the Swarmlord, you're looking at tying up more points in a unit that will take 3 or 4 turns to see combat.

Just courious about the concept of "slow wounds".

By that do you mean that the number of turns that they are exposed to shooting makes them less valuable as they can not fire back and they are more likely to be removed? Or do you mean that they are slow in the fact that they don't produce any results other than just being wounds for 3 turns?

So would Infiltrators be "fast wounds" as they are producing something other than just being wounds (IE killing the enemy).

Also would a Deepstriking/Outflanking unit also be "slow wounds" as they can potential be turn 3-4 before they see combat.

I consider my Screamer-Killers to be "slow wounds" on foot as it take 2-3 turns for them to be in combat. I put them in pods becasue I think it speeds them up (not really, it just removes them from being shot at on the way accross the board).

Just trying to see how other Nid players build lists.

Roboute wrote:The downside is not that you're adding expensive Wounds, it's that you're adding more slow Wounds to an army that really benefits from being very aggressive. Aside from getting Gate on the Swarmlord, you're looking at tying up more points in a unit that will take 3 or 4 turns to see combat. Adding Tyrant Guard is great for the Hive Tyrant, but might end up hurting your ability to provide threat overload to your opponent, which can protect your HT all by itself.

I was more or less comparing it to what other army deathstar models cost (BC - 20 pts / wound with 5++, EW, and PW; Palidin - 27.5pts / wound with 5++, 2+, and FW; Wraiths - 17.5 / wound with 3++ and rending). They are much more point effecient and survivable than a TG. Oh and look...Matt Ward's Palidins are Characters .

But you bring up some very good points.

Gloomfang wrote:Just courious about the concept of "slow wounds".

By that do you mean that the number of turns that they are exposed to shooting makes them less valuable as they can not fire back and they are more likely to be removed? Or do you mean that they are slow in the fact that they don't produce any results other than just being wounds for 3 turns?

So would Infiltrators be "fast wounds" as they are producing something other than just being wounds (IE killing the enemy).

Also would a Deepstriking/Outflanking unit also be "slow wounds" as they can potential be turn 3-4 before they see combat.

I consider my Screamer-Killers to be "slow wounds" on foot as it take 2-3 turns for them to be in combat. I put them in pods becasue I think it speeds them up (not really, it just removes them from being shot at on the way accross the board).

Just trying to see how other Nid players build lists.

Short answer: Slow in the fact that they don't produce any results other than just being wounds for 3 turns.

The idea of slow wounds is sort of a shorthand for the philosophy I use when building Tyranid lists. I feel that to succeed with a Tyranid list, you need to present your opponent with as many simultaneous threats as you can, to overwhelm their target priority and ensure that you're able to get in and do some damage. The Nid codex has an enormous variety of movement speeds and deployment types - you have Infantry, Fleet Infantry, Beasts, Jump Infantry, FMCs, Infiltrators, Outflankers, Deep Strikers, Spore Pods and even outliers like Ymgarls. If you build your list with a mishmash of unit types, they'll all hit the enemy at different points, reducing the overall impact. Furthermore, it allows your opponent to easily prioritize based on the immediacy of the threat - shoot the 12" movers first, then the fleet units, then the infantry sloggers, etc. The list we were talking about in that other threat was an example of this - some infiltrators, some DSers and some plain infantry. The opponent can easily prioritize infiltrators (Turn 2 charge) first, DSers (Turn 3 charge) next and footsloggers (Turn 3-4 charge) last.

On the other hand, if everything in your army is designed to hit the enemy at the same time, you force the enemy to make some tough choices, and increase the likelihood that something will see combat. If you've ever read about Jy2's "multiple threat overload" Necron list, it's a similar concept. In general, faster is better, because it gives your opponent less time to react. However, the Nids have some strong choices in a slower moving army for a different playstyle. If your army consists of Termagants, Tervigons and Hive Guard, it's a slower list, that wins using other strengths. In that list, would a brood of Raveners be a synergistic choice? Probably not. On the other hand, an army with Flying Tyrants, Ymgarls, Podding Zoans, Infiltrating Stealers, Raveners, Gargoyles and some Podding Fexes moves much more quickly - would a footslogging brood of Warriors be the best choice for this list?

I don't like the playstyle of the Tervigon/Hive Guard list, I think it's boring. I play Nids to be aggressive and in your face. Thus, when I build a Nid list, it's going to have units that are faster. In this type of list, a walking Hive Tyrant can still be a valuable asset, to provide a lynchpin for your army, psychic support and a nice +1 to reserves. However, compared to the rest of my army, it'll take awhile to get into combat. Thus, any points I invest into Tyrant Guard, though cost-effective, won't be adding to my general strategy of getting more threats in my opponent's face than he can handle in time. It's a real trade-off.

wyomingfox wrote:I was more or less comparing it to what other army deathstar models cost (BC - 20 pts / wound with 5++, EW, and PW; Palidin - 27.5pts / wound with 5++, 2+, and FW; Wraiths - 17.5 / wound with 3++ and rending). They are much more point effecient and survivable than a TG. Oh and look...Matt Ward's Palidins are Characters .

But you bring up some very good points.

I guess I don't see Tyrant Guard as a deathstar model. I see them as cheap(er) ablative wounds for the Hive Tyrant that just so happen to kill something every once in a while. The HT (and particularly the Swarmlord) could be considered a deathstar on their own, and the Guards make them stick around longer.

And though a HT+TG could be considered a deathstar, I wouldn't think about throwing them at an opposing deathstar. That's what swarms of Terms/Horms/Gargs are for, as I think you mentioned earlier in the thread. HTs are great at scything through anything that isn't deathstar-quality.

So, regarding attaching Prime and Swamrlord to a unit, I can do this?

3x Carnifex + Swarmlord + Prime.

No, a Swarmlord is not a IC and may only join a Tyrant Guard unit (per thier special codex rule), while joined to a TG brood he counts as an IC that cannot leave the squad.

A prime, being an IC, cannot join a unit that always consists of a single model. The Prime can join the TG brood as the brood does not "always consist of one model".

Note: Once the SL has joined a TG brood, he no longer counts as "always being one model". So even if all the TG die, the prime may remain attached to the SL.