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I am trying to come up with a design filosefy when designing tyranids list.

If we asume that the tyranid player has short range and the oponent has long range. We can also asume that the tyranid want to be in CC or relativaly close to the oponent. The oponent having the longer range does not want us there. The non-tyranid player can with his superior range and wisdom shoot at whatever he wants to that the tyranids have. There are of course two schools to this shooting: Taking out the moast dangerush thing first or taking out the target that will make it into threath range first. In short it is a shooting gallery. And while one could argue that the tyranid is the agresive playing "pushing the defending player" it is more a case of the defending player having the superior range and the tyranid player needing to do something before we get killed.

I will be focusing on 3 groups, T6 models, 3 Wounds T4 models and 1 wound T3 models. We start with the T6.

With that in mind I do not want to pay to mutch for each wound your oponent is shooting away. The mighty posterboy carnifex for instance is terible: Costing between 40 and 48 point per wound it means that your oponent can have plenty of leeway when killing him. If you calculate how mutch a autocannon dreadnought, long fangs or some other good ranged unit cost and how mutch damadge it will deal to the carnifex before it reaches it threat range we see that it is an absolute mess. If you put 2 carnifexes vs 3 dreadnoughts or 2 packs of longfangs we see that the tyranid player is paying far to mutch for each wound, there are better options. (The carnifex has other handicaps I will not talk about here, and yes you can put it in a spore to make shure it comes into thretahrange pretty undamaged. Let us leave this out of it at the moment.)

If we look at the poster boy of wounds per wound is of course the hive guard with a whopping 25! Also he has a nifty gun, but the point is if you spend 450 points in hive guards you will get mutch more wounds then if your pay 450 point of brainleech carnifexes. Other strong contesters are the mawlock at 28ish and tervigon at 27 ish. A trygon with Poison Sacks is around 35 points per wound.

The next sett of unit often used is T4 3 wound units. They often cost around 30 to 40 points for a cluster of 3 T4 wounds. However, because of the "innstant death" rule all S8+ weapons will kill them all in one go resoulting in the fact that they will only take one hit from missile launchers to kill them. VS small arm weaponds they can soak up 3 wounds while bigger monster only get that one T6 wound "for the same cost". The efficiensy of the bigger monsters do not dimminish as they take more damadge while smaler once does. For instance a trygon that costs 210 with poison sacks cost just as mutch as 6 ravaners with rending claws. Witch one is better?

They will both die after 6 krak missiles. (Raveners get easier cover then the trygon.)
The trygon has a better save vs an autocannon (3+) while the ravaners have more wounds (18 wounds instead of 6.)
While I do think 6 ravaners are better at killing things then 1 trygon, there will come a point where the trygon is mutch better. (After 3-4 krak misiles for instance.)
The Trygon gets hit hard by krak and melta grenades.
(I have not math hammered what wound is best vs bolters, but somebody should.)
However, the oportant thing is that a S8+ pie plate ruins 3w T4 models completly, while it will maximum do one wound vs the trygon.

Now the little 1w T3 models die easy but they are cheap. If your opoent has a lott of high S weaponds then he might not have enough small arms fier to deal with enough small once. All of this little gaunts are very good with poison vs moastly anything, and furius vs mech.

While not a stroke of true genius, I just seem to think that it is best for a tyranid player to get the cheapest wounds he can get. I usualy asume that a 3w t4 model is worth as mutch as one wound on an MC, although after the edition change I do not know if this is still true.

It would seem that if you make shure you grab some utilaty (synapse, ati tank etc) in your list a good idea for a list would be as many cheap bodies as you can posible find. Enshuring that they make it to the oposing side. The tervigon and hive guard being clear winners because of the deal you get on "the wound" but also that they have usefull abilaties beong that.

Edit: A methafore for what I am talking about. If the nid player is playing an oponent with loads of ranged weaponds the oponent can lean over the table and scratch out units on your army list. "I do not want to fight that." *scratch* By paying less "per wound" you are limiting his abilaty to scratch your units away.

What do you people think?

On this basis would you ever take anything other than 6-9 hive guard?

Good question. I would say "almoast never" if your idea is to max the amount of wounds. Of course keep in mind this is just one build where your try to maxemice the amount of wounds.

I do however feel that it is a resoult of a bad codex. In 5th edition they eclipsed everything else in the elite choise. You pay 25 points for a T6 wound and you have one of not only the best guns in the codex but argumentaly in the whole of 40K. Why would you not take it?

However, if you want to build for finnes,not the "moast wounds posibly build", you can use the other elite. There are good arguments for taking ygmar genestealer, zoanthropes, the doom of malantie and the deathleaper. They are all very good units, and people are reporting exelent performances with them. But they do not allow you to take as mutch punishment as the hiveguards do. Fluff and playing for funn are also good arguments. 9 hive guards are a bitt zZz and makes a "bland" elite slot. (Also, good arguments can be made that the zoanthope can soak up mutch more wounds then the hiveguard and shoot better, also ygmar genestealers can under the right cirumstance "hide" in combat or take out something dangerush.)

The idea of this thread is to explore the consept of getting what you pay for if we asume your opoenent gets to shoot 2 or 3 round before you get to do anything.

The one thing I can definitely agree with is that Carni's cost way too much. If they dropped about 40 points of the base cost, I think they'd be worth it.

If you are trying to calculate the cheapest wounds and cheapest attacks per point then the Ripper is the best unit in the Nid army. 3.33pts per wound and 2.5pts per attack. The next closest is the termigaunt at 5pts per wound and the hormagaunt with 3pts per attack.
The real weakness is the vulnerability to templates and how easy they are to be IDed. And the fact they are not scoring/denial. And that is what leads to them getting dismised out of hand. I do think you will see a lot more of them in 6th to suck up overwatch and to tarpit as No Retreat wounds are gone. But mainly in 2K games with the extra 6 troops slots.

Gloomfang, I am trying to calculate survivabilaty. Of course you can flipp it around and calculate the cheapest attack per unit as well, but I would prefer to stay on topic. :-)

Niiai wrote:Gloomfang, I am trying to calculate survivabilaty. Of course you can flipp it around and calculate the cheapest attack per unit as well, but I would prefer to stay on topic. :-)

Sorry if I was unclear. Your metric is flawed in my opinion and I was trying to point that out (badly I suppose). For example you are not taking into account armor saves. You are not taking into account special rules. If calculating wounds per point per toughness band you end up with something like this:

T3: Ripper swarms@3.33pts per wound (I know you were saying 1W, but what is the diffrence in this case? Termigaunts@5pts otherwise.)
T4 3W: Tie between a normal Warrior and Ravener at 10pts per wound. The worst is PoM at 53pts per Wound.
T6: The HG@25pts. OOE is the worst at an unbelivable 65pts per wound.

The issue is survivablity is not directly tied to Toughness or Wounds. For example If I am looking for a T4 platform that is survivable I would skip over the two "obvious" choices and probably pick something that is a 2W and not a 3W platform. That opens up some much better options like the Zoantrope (30pts per wound) and the Venomthrope (27.5pts per wound). They are about 3 times more per wound, but they both are much more surviavable (and the venomthrope passes that surviablity on to nearby units). In the case of the Zoan, it has a 3+ invuln save. In the case of the Venomthrope it has always got a 5+ cover save. Against the types of weapons that can ID T4 models (and there are a lot) without some form of unmodified save your are toast. Its why people doen't field Raveners or Warriors that much even though they are the cheapest form of T4wounds.

Tervigons are rather durable with 26.6 points per wound with toughness 6 and 3+ save, plus the possibility of FNP for 15 points.

A tactic that shifts values of nids is the venomthrope. Getting that cover save gets alot of critters up closer.

And if you put your guards in the cloud.... cool.


I agree on the fexes -cost too much, yet I miss the old enhance senses biomorph. Shooters would logically get this. Tfex with rupture cannons are awesome.... when they can hit.

Gloomfang, I think you misunderstood me a bit. In my way of thinking I do not count a ravaner as 10 points per wound. I am claiming that a 3w T4 model is worth as mutch as 1W T6. (With my example with the ravaners vs the trygon.)

The swarm would also count as "1 wound" since they die to a high S shot causing instant death. This line of thought is based on the idea that your opponent is going to have a lott of long range high damadge weapons. I also know it is flawed since I do not take into account armour saves. But with the exeption of the autocannon you usualy do not get armour saves, only cover saves due to AP. I find that I can usualy get cover saves to moast of my models doe to the 5th edition bubbel wrap teqnicue. (Gaunts or gargoyles on the outside, hive guards/T4 3W after that and MC's behind there again.)

Bone sword/lash whip warrior shrikes for instance are a mutch better target for my oponents shooting then ravaners since he just keeps picking of a lott of points. I think to summ it up I am trying to put all my eggs in as many bascets as posible as cheap as posible.

Niiai wrote:Gloomfang, I think you misunderstood me a bit. In my way of thinking I do not count a ravaner as 10 points per wound. I am claiming that a 3w T4 model is worth as mutch as 1W T6. (With my example with the ravaners vs the trygon.)

The swarm would also count as "1 wound" since they die to a high S shot causing instant death. This line of thought is based on the idea that your opponent is going to have a lott of long range high damadge weapons. I also know it is flawed since I do not take into account armour saves. But with the exeption of the autocannon you usualy do not get armour saves, only cover saves due to AP. I find that I can usualy get cover saves to moast of my models doe to the 5th edition bubbel wrap teqnicue. (Gaunts or gargoyles on the outside, hive guards/T4 3W after that and MC's behind there again.)

Bone sword/lash whip warrior shrikes for instance are a mutch better target for my oponents shooting then ravaners since he just keeps picking of a lott of points. I think to summ it up I am trying to put all my eggs in as many bascets as posible as cheap as posible.

Ok then I misunderstood. You are assuming that every shot is a S10 AP1. Then say that on a base ravener you will lose 30pts to that shot and a shot at the trigon will do 33.3pts of damage and a shot at a guant will do 5pts of damage.

I tend to do cost per shot per wound as follows. I calculate how many points per wound like you do. I then assume that they are shot with an S4 AP5 bolter shot. I then multiply that by the chance they will be wounded and the chance they fail their save. That gives me the base points per wound.

I then assume they are hit by a S8 AP3 shot (Krak Missile) and multiply by the chance they will be wounded and the chance they fail their save by either the total model cost (if it would ID) or the cost per wound (if it would not).

Add the 2 together and divide by 2 to get an average. Not all that scientific, but it is a little more accurate.

So lets take the Ravener. 10pts per wound. Hit with a bolter its 0.5 to wound and 0.66 chance it will fail its save. Final base value is still 3.3pts per shot.

With the S8 it would cause ID so it is 30pts for the model times .83 to wound and 1.0 that it will fail it's save. That value is 24.9pts per shot.

Add them together and it is 28.2/2= 14.1 pts lost per shot taken at the model.

Works out fairly well, but a little math intensive. If anyone has a correction on my method I would appreciate it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And just to be a completest:

Trygon is 33.3 pts per wound. Bolters 0.16 chance to wound and 0.333 chance of failing the save. So 1.17 wounds per shot.
Krak missile is .83 chance of a wound and 1.0 percent chance to save. So that is 27.77 pts per shot.

So 29.54/2 or 14.77 pts per shot average.

The trygon is only marginally better than a ravener.

Now lets do a Zoan just for fun.

30pts per wound. Bolter is 0.5 to wound and 0.33 chance to fail its save. Total is 5pts per shot.

Krak would ID so it is 60pts for the model. Chance to wound is 0.83 and chance to fail the save is still 0.33. Total points per shot is 16.43.

So the average is 21.43/2 or 10.71pts per shot. Much better than either the ravener or the trygon.

hivepdktyrant wrote:I agree on the fexes -cost too much, yet I miss the old enhance senses biomorph. Shooters would logically get this. Tfex with rupture cannons are awesome.... when they can hit.

I actually think the Tfex is the biggest point sink in the codex. 265 for a 50% to hit with a 2 shot S10AP4 weapon? Excuse me if I don't jump for joy at how horribly that burns up points.

Gloom - Bolters can wound a Trygon on a 6.

rigeld2 wrote:Gloom - Bolters can wound a Trygon on a 6.

Thanks. I was doing that off the top of my head and thought it was 3 up not 2 up for some reason. Only changes the math by a little bit, but thanks for the correction. I haven't run the numbers on Raveners in a while. Forgot that they are not that much worse than a Trygon.

LordofHats wrote:

hivepdktyrant wrote:I agree on the fexes -cost too much, yet I miss the old enhance senses biomorph. Shooters would logically get this. Tfex with rupture cannons are awesome.... when they can hit.

I actually think the Tfex is the biggest point sink in the codex. 265 for a 50% to hit with a 2 shot S10AP4 weapon? Excuse me if I don't jump for joy at how horribly that burns up points.

Try it with Acid Spray, Desiccator Larvae and Cluster Spines. Any unit out in the open's going to take some severe punishment from it.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Try it with Acid Spray, Desiccator Larvae and Cluster Spines. Any unit out in the open's going to take some severe punishment from it.

just remember right) you can only fire 2 of the 3 weapons. Also it doesn't mater if they are in the open because 2of of them ignore cover.

And it is funny to watch people charge that build. It generaly only happens once. It is a very hard lesson to learn.

Gloomfang wrote:

Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Try it with Acid Spray, Desiccator Larvae and Cluster Spines. Any unit out in the open's going to take some severe punishment from it.

just remember right) you can only fire 2 of the 3 weapons. Also it doesn't mater if they are in the open because 2of of them ignore cover.

And it is funny to watch people charge that build. It generaly only happens once. It is a very hard lesson to learn.

You can fire all 3. Thorax Swarm + 2 because he's a MC.

rigeld2 wrote:You can fire all 3. Thorax Swarm + 2 because he's a MC.

Never noticed that Thorax swarm let you out of the 2 shooting weapons rule. You can see how often I use it (Never). Might make me reconsider using a T'Fex again.

The fleshbore hive Tfex is great aginst orks and IG.... if you can get close enough.