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2x Hive tyrant.
wings lash and bone strangle cannon
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HQ choices ---------------------------470
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30 Hormagaunts

3x
20 termagaunts
-devourers
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Troop choices -----------------------630
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2x Trygon prime

tyranofex
-rupture cannon
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Heavy choices -----------------------665
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2 venomthropes

haruspex
tail

3 zoanthropes
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Elite choices -----------------------410
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Harpy
twin linked heavy venom cannon
cluster spines

Crone
cluster spines
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Fast choices -----------------------325
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--------------------------------------------------------------total 2500 on the money

Basic strat.
1. Get in your face as fast as possible with the tyrants while avoiding as much heavy arms fire as possible (ap3 or better is considered heavy towards nids)
2. use those venomthropes for the mobile shroud buff where I see fit.
3. use the Hormagaunts as a gaunt screen for my other bugs that matter a bit more giving them a 4+ cover OR 2+ with shroud combi. either shoot em or they eat your face.
4. start all my winged MCs on the board and use the shooty as I can. No sense in putting them in reserves. no ty.
5. walk the t fex up through the center, I understand I loaded him down for heavy hitting, usually a bad option but as the nids severely lack any ranged tank busting hes one of my very few choices, anyways walk him straight up, hes the one in my army able to take a few punches and thats mainly his job. a 205 pt bullet sponge with some anti tank ability.
6. I have the crone for anti air defense, how well he does is yet to be determined but I gave him the cluster spines to help with the anti infantry just in case there are no flyers and hes not a wasted unit.
7. I gave the harpy the heavy venom cannon, WHICH I may give him the tl stranglethorn and give both the tyrants the heavy venom cannons. get long story short I need the ranged anti vehicle. End of story im not running twin devourers I understand with wings I can get there closer but I want the lash and bone and running 1 set of twin devs is a waste, only good if you are willing to put 2 on them, which I am not.

Strengths I see are
tons of t6 wounds with 3+ or 2+ saves, amazing up close vehicle breakers, a fair amount of scoring units with amazing anti infantry ability, the mobile shroud mixed in there keeps them alive a bit longer, and a lot of large pie plate blasts for troops. With wings on my big guys I can close the gap quickly, in some games depending on how bold they play this could be a turn 1 or 2 and im in melee.

Weaknesses
Dark eldar in boats with lance spam, or any army similar to this. I just dont have the ranged anti vehicle.
I have to get up close and personal. agains MOST armies this is not only easy but overly effective... against others who sit back "come at me bro" might serve to be a challenge

Any Ideas?

Why are you so keen on lash & bone for your Tyrant? He doesn't really need the initiative boost and already strikes at ap 2.

Scenario time. I may beat A LOT things with initiative 5. A LOT or MOST doesnt cover what I aim him for. I aim him for hitting high value targets, challenges, leaders and assault squads I know I can take with very little chance at suffering a wound.

I will not have some shenanigan marine leader like a chapter master, or Gabriel seth/commander dante (only using BA marine list ideas) with a higher initiative strike with me or first against me and shred me with a petty power weapon. Not going to happen. Even if the odds are still in my favor there, it can happen, I will reduce the odds of failure with it as much as possible. Lash-whip and striking hard and first is my best option at doing that. not to mention a chance at instant death on 6s as rare as that is is a nice bonus for challenges. I might miss all hits yes. THEN he gets to swing back. fine. WILL not risk him getting first hit and I lose my tyrant to that.


so he
DOES need the initiative
If I ran some twin devour list and wanted a crappy assault unit I would. I prefer all my bugs being dual purpose, and doing both well. Turning him into a burst cannon with 12 twinlinked str 6 shots. VERY nice. but limits his Melee to only his stat line. Not the purpose I build him for. his large pie plate has range for when im too far to assault (wont be long with the wings, but im not going to waste a turn with him if I do not have to) PLUS stranglethorn cannon has an amazing chance to hit (not 75 like twin devs but double the range....) and shreds light infantry. Eldar dark eldar imp guard orc tau etc. and causes pinning tests.

You really don't have a lot of T6 wounds for Nids at this point level. The lash whip makes you I8 if you're charging something not in cover. Which makes a difference against Marine Captains and CMs without a decent weapon so not really worth it and you go at the same time as a DP but still get your face staved in.

The Crone gets no use from cluster spines. If there's no flyers fire the missiles at vehicles. If there's no vehicles vector strike and fire the flamer...

You have a total of 26 T6 wounds. I just knocked this up in my head:

Flyrant: Dakka, toxin 240
Flyrant: Dakka, toxin 240
Flyrant: Dakka, toxin 240
Flyrant: Dakka, toxin 240

Warriors: Venom Cannon 100
Warriors: Venom Cannon 100
Warriors: Venom Cannon 100
Warriors: Venom Cannon 100
Warriors: Venom Cannon 100
Warriors: Venom Cannon 100

Exocrine 170
Exocrine 170
2 Dakkafexes 300
2 Dakkafexes 300

That's 44 T6 wounds! 70% more than your list has loads of shots (79 S6 HITS a turn, plus 12 S7 Ap2 shots and 6 S6 blasts). You're also overloading with targets. You could do better things than this (like add Death leaper and a boatload of Carnifexes). But the issue with your list is that it is a random collection of models with sub par upgrades.

Yeah the crone Cluster spines was because I have 15 pts left over.
same as the tail on the haruspex.

First off this a I dual list, not against running them and I will in most friendly games BUT I should have said I am not looking to build one with the list I posted, almost any tournament we have in my area specifically denies the use of dual lists. SO on that basis alone, I wont consider that list FOR this post,. I do like that for a friendly games, looks vicious.

Problems I see with it aside from it being a dual list, which for this purpose I am not interested in
is it lacks ANY long range support. NOTHING. you HAVE to close the distance. 6 venom canons are "OK" but they are not worthy of use vs what I need range for.
Your models MUST dedicate to be effective. Yeah your tyrant WILL do damage, if it does whiff for instance its now in the open for easily being shot down. YES easily being shot down. It also must avoid battles with mephiston or anyone with power weapons and I5 or better. like GK with force halberds etc... or it is a useless combat model. YES against a tac squad... bye bye tac squad. against anything dedicated assault count on the tyrant falling in battle, at least lash whips gives you some denial force to something like that by GRANTING you the first blow.(s)
your 6 warrior squads... your joking right? like seriously kidding me? 6 VERY easy killed units;

I have the models I have and not against buying new ones. I love the exocrine, it is really nice, it is. But they lack synapse vs a trygon prime who is dual efficiant. yes I pay 60 more pts for the synapse and ability to destroy in combat well worth it to me. NOT to mention he has a nice shotgun. SHOOTS and KILLS in combat in comparison to Exocrine who KILLS at shooting. DUAL purpose. for opponents who know how to hit your weak spots.

I would love running the Carnifex models. In other lists I build they will make an appearance due to their reduced cost in 6th. very nice. Currently I have the weight of infantry fire.

YOU give number of shots with army at full str with a short range, I will give mine with wound statistics vs marines. a nice mid ground resolve.

60 termagaunts with devourers equates to 180 str 4 shots at 18" 8% chance per shot to kill a marine INCLUDING his 3+ save thats 24% per model..... i have 20 (480% rounded up thats 5 deaths)
your dakkarants have a 289% chance to kill. (round up 3 dead per tyrant shooting)
my 20 cost 160, your one costs what 240? not to mention dual purpose of tarpitting. Dakkrant=failrant


2 trygon primes. 24 str 4 shots at 18
2 shots t-fex str 10 ap4 range 48" (hey at least its something for anti tank right?)

Blast templates
2 str 6 ap 5 at 36" 33% to direct hit if that fails 7% chance to scatter less than BS making direct hit.
40% to direct hit with slightly incalculable odds to be effective if it scatters (scatters enough to hit, or far enough to hit something else)
Heavy venom at 36 (my one of only 2 semi effective ranged anti tank weapons) twin linked at 3 bs odds to direct hit slightly less than tyrants cannon yet its twin linked... so..

I do love the dakkafexes. LOVE it and might make room for 2 of them.

Just a note on GKs remember they are taking their Force Weapon test on Ld5 (you'd have challenged out the Justicar) even Purifiers you should kill 6 before combat (including 2 rounds of shooting and HoW). That leaves 3 guys with 2 attacks each. 3 hits praying for a 6 (36% chance) followed by an Ld6 test (total just 19% chance to kill) and that's Purifiers! Normal GKs it is 3 attacks 1.5 hits hoping for a 6 (24% chance) then an Ld5 test (6.6% chance to kill Tyrant). You say the Tyrant is easy to kill. A Tyrant is 4 is not (about twice as difficult to kill as your two), termagants will not be in range turn 1 may not even be in range turn 3 (38-48" threat range) Tyrant will be in range turn 1 with a 42" threat range. Tyrant is also a threat in combat and has SitW.

Also against AV12 (most common out there) HT averages 1.778 HPs a turn the Tyrannofex averages 0.833 less than half the AT power of the Flyrant. Even the HVC + Devourer comes out worse assuming it hits you do 1.556 HPs. AV less than twelve and the Devourers just get better. OK its not going to do anything to AV13-14 but with Nids you're generally better off dealing with that in CC (particularly due to the Hive Guard nerf).

Those 6 warrior units are not too bad for durability. They are cheap throw away units that are pretty easy to hide. Yes they get ID'd by S8 but any S8 pointed at them is S8 not pointed at your MCs. You see its target saturation. S4 fire doesn't want to shoot at the 3 wound warriors when S8 can ID them but also doesn't want to shoot those T6 monsters and have to wound on6s. Likewise S8 fire is the best way to hurt those MCs which at the end of the day are what is going to win the battle but they also want to fire at the warriors to take advantage of ID. Autocannons (and their equivalents) can't ID warriors but are Ap4 denying the warriors an armour save but they are also strong enough to wound the MCs on 3s (but they get their 3+ save). So all in all it is MTO with very tough targetting decisions for your opponent.

You list of a bit of this and a bit of that makes tar getting decisions easy. My Ap3 won't bother shooting the Tyrannofex until all the other MCs are dead. My Ap4 Skyfire will murder the Crone/Harpy. My AI fire has those lovely gaunts to target. So all of my weapons have an efficient target to shoot and my target priority is made easy.

I dont care about their force weapons activating im talking the force halberds with initiative 6. GKS have never instavaped any bug I have lol. I just meant that nice 2+ inititive NOW cutting through my 3+ armor.

Your math adds up.. incorrectly to start on the t fex..... but you forget key factors as well.
First off av 12 very common your math is right 1.778 round up to 1.8 lol for the dakka rant. with ZERO% chance to destroy with shooting. same % chance to hurt av 13 from shooting.
Tfex glances or better on av12 on 2+ 3+ is a pin chance to destroy outright (explosion hurts insides even if rare for APC vehicles)
to glance or better (87% to glance 66 to pen 10%) vs tyrants (178% chance to glance... averages out to 2, to pen 0% to destroy outright 0% to phase anything 13+ 0% ) Oh and less than half range meaning he HAS TO GET CLOSE increasing your chance to get shot down by the insides of said vehicle or the buddies around it.
that cleared up you can see how utterly non-effective a dakkarant is vs a tfex at opening vehicles... more so at range Pesky predators and ven dreads...

NOW for the flyers. this is where I have NOT much experience with. NONE of my oppopents (aside from dark eldar have used them and even then DE have murdered me usually by turn 3 anyways)
I may not take a crone period.

If you want to run army vs army. run your pretty little dakka rants vs a boat spammed dark eldar list. my buddy fields close to 30 DARK lances ( I think its 27) in 2500 pts and enough splinter rifle power to melt ork faces in a green tide. ....
Or my 2500 Baal blood angel spam. HAVE FUN. seriously your tyrants without suitable range are as good as dead and 900% useless UNLESS you can assault. given the fact you have 24" max assault range and 30" max shoot range... if you are close enough to hit me with your 1.78 hull points per turn and lucky to assault WITHOUT my having the ability to either fire first or retaliate fire before you get in.... have fun with my 9twin linked assault cannons, 3 twin auto cannons and 6 lascannons NOT to mention meltas everywhere in an army with FULL coverage of vehicles not a single troop on foot on the board. Dakkarants are useless without range. against that. SINCE I like to build a nice all comer list... I have to expect that and I need the range without sacrificing the life of a tyrant to drop ONE vehicle before he is shot down. Because seriously dakkarant drops down, does his work to ONE unit and is dead next turn to fire. you field 4 on a DUAL list which I am not arguing here because for what im building this 2.5k for isnt viable. I NEED long range support. end of story. if you have viable options FOR THAT then we can discuss that further. But Flyrants with 2 sets of devourers are NOT going to happen. Period. THAT is a moot point.

Your warrior idea makes sense TO A POINT. if they are not pointing those str 8 weapons or bolter fire at them... because they are hiding... they are not attempting to cap or contest enemy points, they are a 600 point waste of troops slot. WHO even to bolter fire die fairly easily. for target saturation I am not worried about 18 models with 3 wounds who are HIDING. I will fix them AFTER I drop the big bugs. Just one thought unless you are constantly playing a horde of players who obviously lack skill who would honestly think those 6 hiding units are worth shooting at over ANY mc running at them.... I do not understand your logic.

I may remove the cluster spines and silly tail biomorph on the haruspex (which may be on the way out anyways as his ONLY purpose is Melee) and replaced with some upgrades and more units. THAT would be 195 points I could put elsewhere. also willing to replace a trygon prime with something else. thats what... 425 pts? a brood of 2 dakkafex;s with enough left over for a healthy warrior squad... and biomorph space left... also viable. but I may shred the devourers on the warriors for deathspitters... higher str WITH an ap for lower armoured troops... hmmm. pluss I dont lose a synapse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ALSO if I were to run a dual list (which will be viable for anything NON competitive in my area, I may consider 2 more tyrants WITH twin devourers and probably dropping crone and Harpy PLUS fielding dakkafexes and exocrines. Just saying.

No 5/6 is 0.83. Your chance to 1 shot AV12 is about 11% so both your Tfexes shooting every turn should kill 1 AV12 in 5 game turns through explodes. Those Flyrants should kill 2 a turn between them. You seem to think that being close to the enemy is bad for Nids. It is not you don't win a range war with anyone. You also think 27 is a lot of dark light for DE at 2500 I would expect that much (and over 100 poison shots) at 1750.

Predators, Dreads and Vindicators just aren't seen on the competitive scene. Even if they were the Dakkarant is still the way forward.

But you don't seem to want to listen. So good luck to you.

IN CASE simple reading skills are eluding you, which I feel they very well may be..,
I dont have 2 tfexes. I have 1.
The MAIN purpose, which I have previously mentioned, that I run him for IS the bullet sponge. he eats tons of fire. the bonus he has... is chance to open vehicles outright. silly enough he usually (in 5th) was a 260 pt bullet sponge that soaked up round after round after round of fire and almost never killed a vehicle... just some troops if he reached them. but watching them pour squad after squad of fire into him was amazing.

STILL your math fails you because you FAIL to acknowledge that his anti vehicle is not limited to 11.2% per turn. but rather almost an auto glance on any vehicle. WITH the chance to outright invert it.
A PENETRATING shot ALSO causes a hullpoint WITH chance to blow up, remove a gun, stop it from moving, crew shaken or stunned.

chance to cause a hull point on av 12 is 87% WITH potential to do oh so much more to it. AND hurt av13+


AND you KEEP saying 4 tyrants. THATS not an option in the list im running, Is this as well due to an inability to read?

its not due to a lack of models... lol it is out of the fact I am NOT running a DUAL list. I never said 4 double dev flyrants are not viable they are viable. I even pointed out to how useful they can be and I have seen and felt them in action.
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SO to clear that up further, there are no 4 tyrants statistically killing 2-3 vehicles a turn... I am only running TWO OF THEM

Predators and Dreads ARE in my area. Against almost any opponent I play who runs armies able to roll that. they roll a few of them.
not to mention the tau spam or DE spam at the bigger shop running nothing but heavy ranged vehicles with ap 2 or better spam.
So are raiders.... and I never mentioned vindicators. no idea where you got that.

Good luck to you too.