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Hey guys, so I'm brand new to nids, I've been working on a few lists, and I finally decided on one at 750 points that I'm happy with. The one thing that's bugging me though, is do I have enough small critters? In this list I have 33 hormagaunts with toxin sacks. I would go for some cheaper termagaunts, but I don't like them nearly as much. So what do you guys think? Do I have enough gaunts, or should I pull some points out of my bigger bugs? Any answers are greatly appreciated.

Leave them as is at the moment, until the new codex appears (probably in January) - until then, we don't know the long-term viability or the best build for nid hordes. But presuming GW want to sell us lots of termagants and hormagaunts, which they do, then hopefully horde will be a very playable army.

I don't see how hordes will be viable with the continued existence of WS spam and Tau.

You need to bring more swarm Asmodai

Stacking Biomancy and Telekinesis buffs means you can quite easily drive a horde down a Tau players throat and choke his guns. Gaunts are more than enough to beat Fire Warriors in combat. Let alone the chaos you can sow if as you're closing a squad of Ymgarls pops out for a little toughness boosted multicharge.

33 Hormies at 750 is pretty solid. The Tervigon is the natural choice for boosting the swarm as they breed more gaunts, 30 termagaunts plus one of those is my stock starting point. I want at least 60 termagants worth of troops at 1500-2000 personally as the removal of no retreat wounds has made them much better for drowning units in bodies.

That said the new codex is supposedly on the horizon so it may be worth holding off to see what happens and saving to get a bunch of stuff when it does.

No good tau list actually has any fire warriors, just JSJ riptides and massed str 5 ignores cover weapons. Your gaunts will die in droves, I tabled a nid player last night who brought at least 100 gaunts and gargoyles in five turns with my SM/Tau list.

I ususally bring 15~20 gants per MC (excluding Tervigon), so both are a threat, but making your opponent choose their poison carefully. Its a very delicate balance with the Tyranid army.

I generally throw as many as possible, but that is just me. Currently collecting the last of it, but I feel naked without a horde. 90 minimum each of Termagants, Hormagaunts, and Gargoyles just feels right.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
No good tau list actually has any fire warriors, just JSJ riptides and massed str 5 ignores cover weapons. Your gaunts will die in droves, I tabled a nid player last night who brought at least 100 gaunts and gargoyles in five turns with my SM/Tau list.

wooooo using allies to win

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
No good tau list actually has any fire warriors, just JSJ riptides and massed str 5 ignores cover weapons. Your gaunts will die in droves, I tabled a nid player last night who brought at least 100 gaunts and gargoyles in five turns with my SM/Tau list.

Fair enough, personally I consider Fire Warriors a key part of any Tau force because of their ability to help deal with troops like Gaunts and Ork Boyz.

I've never found myself short on bodies personally with 60+ guys in big broods of 30. You get more from your FNP and buff powers and if you can get someone rocking Telekine Dome and get some cover or LOS blockers along the way your little bullet catches will soak so much firepower to more than earn back their low cost in threat saturation let alone when they start tying up and grinding down firebase units. Elite lists like Marines especially I find can't put out enough weight of fire to break the tide.

Throw in some firepower disruptor like Flyrants or Ymgarls (love those guys) and you can usually break up a fireline enough to get your guys in there.

If we're discussing Tyranid Tactics, a small group of Ymgarls should always be fielded. With their ability to strike where you want the turn they come in. Any backfield unit should quite threatened. They ALWAYS make their points back for me every game I field them. A 5 or 6 bodied brood goes further than one would assume.

Disergard MC, aquire warriors, raveners and hordes of things. Use them to run the enemy into the ground. Rending claws are great on what can take it. You also can't go wrong with spore pods, the amount of death you can put at their doorstep means they stand no chance.

 juraigamer wrote:
Disergard MC, aquire warriors, raveners and hordes of things. Use them to run the enemy into the ground. Rending claws are great on what can take it. You also can't go wrong with spore pods, the amount of death you can put at their doorstep means they stand no chance.

The reason this is not as good as taking MC is the difference between T4 and T6. Rending claws ARE great!, but not agains S8.

If you bring a big unit like that just make sure you have psychic support. Zoanthropes or Tervigons casting Endurance on that blob makes it pretty tough actually. Str 5 bounces off of you like nothing. Telekine dome from a zoanthrope would also make them surviveable as you have a 5+ rerollable at that point vs. str 5.

The key is to kill their marker lights. The doom works great when you drop him on some pathfinders. Without marker lights Tau only hit 50% of the time. And, even with all the buffs which you should take, the hormagaunts are only 300 points for 30 of them. I personally like gargoyles more as they're faster and only cost 240 fully buffed but they get less attacks.

I've never lost vs Tau with my Tyranids... ever. They really don't have a lot to counter us. I've lately been bringing for an all comers list:

Swarmlord
1 guard

Doom in a pod
3 pyrovores in a pod

Tervigon with upgrades
Tervigon with upgrades
Gants
Gants

25 fully upgraded gargoyles

1 biovore

Firestorm Redoubt


At 750 I'd probably take a Tervigon HQ, those hormagaunts since you have them and as many gargoyles as you can get. A better config would be to have a Tervigon + 10 gants as troops and then building the rest but I don't want to send you running to buy more models.


What do you have?

@thatguy, how do you find the Pyrovores vs. Tau? They look good on paper when podded in, if facing Fire Warriors. I typically use Biovores, do they perform similarly?

SBG wrote:
@thatguy, how do you find the Pyrovores vs. Tau? They look good on paper when podded in, if facing Fire Warriors. I typically use Biovores, do they perform similarly?

Personally can't see taking them over any of the better options in our ELITE slots. Biovores are cheaper, safer, better range, save an elite slot for Ymgrals, Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, and don't kill friendly units when they.....blow. Get my play on words there.

 g0atsticks wrote:

SBG wrote:
@thatguy, how do you find the Pyrovores vs. Tau? They look good on paper when podded in, if facing Fire Warriors. I typically use Biovores, do they perform similarly?

Personally can't see taking them over any of the better options in our ELITE slots. Biovores are cheaper, safer, better range, save an elite slot for Ymgrals, Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, and don't kill friendly units when they.....blow. Get my play on words there.

Honestly, I started taking pyrovores because I wanted to see what I could do with them. I am actually kind of impressed with their damage output. Here is how they've done in the games I've used them.


vs DA: dropped behind a dakkadred. heavy flamers got a pen through and I rolled a 5 on the chart. I then sat and flamed the dread in rear armor until it got glanced to death. Afterwards, they charged a unit of terminators in combat with some zoanthropes. The termies allocated all of their attacks at the zoanthropes and the pyrovores actually killed 1. The game ended after that.

At a local tournament.

vs SM: dropped in and gave me first blood after killing a squad of scouts on turn 2.

vs SM: a 10 man squad of scouts infiltrated to my side for linebreaker. I dropped the pyrovores in and killed 7 before they charged in (including on overwatch). They then fought until nearly the end of the game but I managed to kill the last 3. pyros suck in combat.

vs Tau at top table: my opponent reserves all of his firewarriors because he doesn't want to have his ethereal flamed away along with all of the firewarriors he was going to place inside his ADL. My pyros dropped in, killed a drone from the big crisis squad and then started taking fire from hammerheads and riptides until they died. Why I won the game? Because there was only 3 riptides, 2 hammerheads and a big crisis suit unit on the table at the beginning of the game.


I also hide a biovore in my firestorm redoubt as he's safe from IB in there. However, I can't seem to get many hits with the multiple barrage rules. Str 5 is also better against everything that you'd target with the biovores than the spore mine's str 4. I know intercept is an issue but 1) people normally go after the doom and 2) against the Riptide shots I just drop as close to my opponent's models as possible and deploy an inch away from a firewarrior or something so that he can't put the template on me. Usually, they have an ADL that I can hide behind also. Beware things like the quad gun because they will kill 2 pyrovores and make them run away if you're in the open and out of synapse.

The pyrovores are a little harder to use but, in my experience, kill more than the biovores. They're more aggressive and add to the press of bodies that Tyranids need to win. Mutiple barrages are hard to hit with... they scatter so far and then you can't control where the template goes from there unless you roll a hit. With Pyrovores, you can also hit 3 units or more if you want. Try to cover as many models in the first unit with one template, touch one model in that unit and as many in the next as you can get with the second template, and do the same thing on the other side with the third. It's hard to explain but the effect is you're hitting all of the units behind an ADL with precision rather than hoping to roll a bunch of 'hit' rolls with the scatter dice. Pyrovores also have rage which means a squad of 3 has 9 attacks that ignore armor... it's something at least.

That seems very solid. I may have to try them out! Thanks for the writeup!

For 135 points they're alright. If for no other reason than to throw your opponent off when Tyranids dropp 3 heavy flamers in his backfield...

The maximum spam Tyranid list would be

HQ

Tervigon
Tervigon
Tervigon
Tervigon

Elites:

Ymgarl genestealers x10
Ymgarl genestealers x10
Ymgarl genestealers x10
Ymgarl genestealers x10
Ymgarl genestealers x10
Ymgarl genestealers x10

Troops

Tervigon
Termagants x30
Tervigon
Termagants x30
Tervigon
Termagants x30
Tervigon
Termagants x30
Tervigon
Termagants x30
Tervigon
Termagants x30

Fast attack

Gargoyles x30
Gargoyles x30
Gargoyles x30
Gargoyles x30
Gargoyles x30
Gargoyles x30

Heavy support

Biovore x3 (Biovores because they can create spore mine models, alternatively replace with Carnifexes x3)
Biovore x3
Biovore x3
Biovore x3
Biovore x3
Biovore x3

In any case, these days, you primarily get your horde on from Tervigon spawnings. Tervigons are really so good that you should try to have a lot of them, and if you have a lot of them, you'll soon have a lot of Termagants.