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I have to admit, a lot of what I have in here is limited by what I own, and Smash and VS changes leave me WOEFULLY lacking in anti-vehicle (especially the really big boys). But this is what I have:

HQ:
Flyrant (Wings, TL Devourer with worms x2, Electroshock grubs)

Troops:
Termagants x 21, Fleshborers
Tyranid Warriors x 3, Venom Cannon

Elites:
Venomthrope

Heavy Support:
Tyrannofex, Acid Spray, Electroshock Grubs

Skyblight Formation:
Flyrant (Wings, TL Devourer w. Worms x 2)
Harpy (TL Venom Cannon)
Harpy (TL Venom Cannon)
Hive Crone
Gargoyles x 10
Gargoyles x 10
Gargoyles x 10

I might switch the grubs off of the TFex and give it to the other Flyrant. I'd hate to not shoot both TL-Devos, but the Flyrant will have a better chance of getting to where it can use it against any pest backfield vehicles.

This is using what I have with a few purchases. What do y'all think?

Also, if I were to change this up a bit, what would you do?

It dosen't look bad. You do look a might lacking in Synapse. So I reccomend that you concentrate there. A second Warrior Brood could come in handy. Or a Zoey Brood. A second Crone would also be a good addition.

I don't see anything wrong with what you have, but you might get better results with some changes.

go unbound and drop the warriors for zoans. you arent really bringing enough units in your troops section of your primary detachment to benefit from objective secured or whatever its called. the zoan are more survivable, will give you more spread out synapse, and will provide warp dice for powers and for critical deny the witch rolls.

also, the grubs on the tyrants are really not necessary. it always feels good to bring haywire for those nasty 13/14 av's, but knocking off a single hull point isnt going to accomplish much, considering you will have to fly away next turn and take at least another before you are back to flyby again. your general firepower will be more than adequate for handling infantry, so get your t-fex a rupture cannon for the extra damage to vehicles, he doesnt need acid spray.

split your termagants into 2 units. i doubt youll be casting psychic powers on them, and thats really the only advantage to having them as a single unit.

I would drop the Electroshock Grubs and some Termagants to upgrade both Harpies to Hive Crones. Whilst their Vector Strike was nerfed the HVC is effectively useless now you can't get lucky and one shot a vehicle.

Nid FMCs got a big boost in this edition so concentrating on them is good. I'd drop the Tfex for more FMCs (preferably a Flyrant). Likewise I woukd minimise ground elements. Take more Gargoyles if you want more objective secured. Then you shouldn't have to worry much about Synapse as they have Hunt.

Until I get a few more games in, I am not sure the harpies are 'upgraded' by making them Hive Crones. First off, it takes Objective Secured and respawning from my Skyblight formation (last minute deep-striking gargoyle objective claimers? Yes, please!). But secondly, Hive Crones were MASSIVELY nerfed in 7th ed, IMHO.

Harpies can't shoot at anti-air, true. But that is what I have two Flyrants and a HC for. The Harpies can, with HVCs, peel hull points off vehicles and/or force ID rolls on most troops. The Spore bombing is VS against half the armies in 40K that actually can kill more than one model.

We'll see, but FMCs did NOT get a big boost in 7th Ed. They got a survival boost, to be sure. But damage-wise? Big nerf to VS, HUGE nerf to land-and-assault, and HUGE nerf to Smash attacks.

Drop the electro grubs on the flyrants. Their twin linked devourers will suffice, since the only thing electro grubs will be good for is av 13+ and at that point smash still has about the same chance to open a 13/14 then the grubs do to cause a pen. and you cant use the template on flyers.... kind of "meh" when you can only fire 2 weapons a turn and the tl devs beat the grubs.

Harpies cant shoot at flyers? since when? its called stinger salvo and the only vehicle I know 100% immune to that is the storm raven.

IMHO Crones only use now is anti air with that huge nerf to smash and to VS.... but honestly with 2 Flyrants and a harpy... with stinger salvo.. I think your air is fairly powered. so you could dual purpose the crone with like either stinger or cluster and make it usefull.

I would consider heavily rupture cannon on the tfex... he already can take a template weapon of grubs of your choice for anti infantry... give him something worthwhile on anti vehicle since this edition we got screwed.

As a nid player I agree
we took a HUGE nerf bat to the face on our anti vehicle. So SEVERE attention to any anti vehicle we CAN get is needed.

Shadowmyth515 wrote:

I would consider heavily rupture cannon on the tfex... he already can take a template weapon of grubs of your choice for anti infantry... give him something worthwhile on anti vehicle since this edition we got screwed.

Already have the Acidilator attached to my TFex, and limited funds means I can run him casually with a Rupture, but not in most tourneys. I plane to try that; I HATE HATE HATE having my 'big guns' slaved to BS2 in a list, but what are we going to do? I have actually had a lot of luck with the acid and lighter vehicles, torrenting around to their sides and occasionally rear, but the limits to Smash means advancing a TFex to worry vehicles is no longer a real deal.

And I forgot about the salvo vs. flyers. Usually I don't have to use it, because my Flyrants and HC have handled anybody crazy enough to fly in my airspace. But you are correct, it can get some hull points off just about any flyer out there.

KillerWabbit wrote:
Until I get a few more games in, I am not sure the harpies are 'upgraded' by making them Hive Crones. First off, it takes Objective Secured and respawning from my Skyblight formation (last minute deep-striking gargoyle objective claimers? Yes, please!). But secondly, Hive Crones were MASSIVELY nerfed in 7th ed, IMHO.

Harpies can't shoot at anti-air, true. But that is what I have two Flyrants and a HC for. The Harpies can, with HVCs, peel hull points off vehicles and/or force ID rolls on most troops. The Spore bombing is VS against half the armies in 40K that actually can kill more than one model.

We'll see, but FMCs did NOT get a big boost in 7th Ed. They got a survival boost, to be sure. But damage-wise? Big nerf to VS, HUGE nerf to land-and-assault, and HUGE nerf to Smash attacks.

Sorry I miss understood Skyblight though it was 3 of any mix of Harpy Hive Crone. If that's the case then don't switch.

In this edition all the HVC can do it strip the odd HP where as the HC does that job far better. It's tentaclids are likely to strip more HPs by the time they run out than the HVC will all game and 1 S8 Ap2 autohit a turn is better than a HVC once the missiles are gone. So in this Edition the HC > Harpy (even though in the last the Harpy was probably better).

As for did Nid FMCs receive a boost or nerf in this Edition consider both the changes as the strengths of the Nid FMCs. Ok nerf to VS hurt particularly the Hive Crone, though the Dakka Flyrant and Harpy now just know to always fire guns instead so no great loss. Land and assault is only an issue if you want to assault and neither the Harpy nor HC particularly do. Whilst your Flyrant flies around shooting daring the opponent to shoot him. If they shoot him and ground then you can assault, if they don't you have synapse flying around with impunity firing twin linked Devourers and possibly Warp Blast everywhere. Likewise the nerf to smash only matters if you intend to assault. Then add in that unless they ground you in the psychic phase no one ever gets to shoot a grounded FMC and you only ever have to take 1 per turn so no ML shining in your eye forcing a lascannon hit followed by some Bs4-5 shooting from a nearby unit aftery you've grounded. This is a HUGE boon to FMCs. So Nid FMCs are largely uneffected by the nerfs and fully utilise the biggest boon. Yes thry certainly got a big boost this edition.

 FlingitNow wrote:


Sorry I miss understood Skyblight though it was 3 of any mix of Harpy Hive Crone. If that's the case then don't switch.

In this edition all the HVC can do it strip the odd HP where as the HC does that job far better. It's tentaclids are likely to strip more HPs by the time they run out than the HVC will all game and 1 S8 Ap2 autohit a turn is better than a HVC once the missiles are gone. So in this Edition the HC > Harpy (even though in the last the Harpy was probably better).

As for did Nid FMCs receive a boost or nerf in this Edition consider both the changes as the strengths of the Nid FMCs. Ok nerf to VS hurt particularly the Hive Crone, though the Dakka Flyrant and Harpy now just know to always fire guns instead so no great loss. Land and assault is only an issue if you want to assault and neither the Harpy nor HC particularly do. Whilst your Flyrant flies around shooting daring the opponent to shoot him. If they shoot him and ground then you can assault, if they don't you have synapse flying around with impunity firing twin linked Devourers and possibly Warp Blast everywhere. Likewise the nerf to smash only matters if you intend to assault. Then add in that unless they ground you in the psychic phase no one ever gets to shoot a grounded FMC and you only ever have to take 1 per turn so no ML shining in your eye forcing a lascannon hit followed by some Bs4-5 shooting from a nearby unit aftery you've grounded. This is a HUGE boon to FMCs. So Nid FMCs are largely uneffected by the nerfs and fully utilise the biggest boon. Yes thry certainly got a big boost this edition.

The HVC, at Str9, can strip a hull point off of just about anything. So can the Tentaclids. But the Tclids hit on a 4+, and you have 4 of them. Assuming that you hit with them, they wound on a 2+, with a pen on a 6. The HVC vs.:

AR10 (Walkers): Wounds on a 1+, Pens on a 2+
AR11 (Rhinos): Wounds on a 2+, Pens on a 3+
AR12 (Many vehicles, Dreads): Wounds on 3+, Pens on 4+
AR13 (Bigger tanks): Wounds on 4+, Pens on 5+
AR14 (Land Raiders): Wounds on 5+, Pens on 6+

Now, the tentaclids are better against the big fellas, for sure. But then again, if a tentaclid misses, it just plain misses. The HVC can scatter and still have a shot at doing damage to SOMETHING. Against the smaller tanks, the increased pen chances (sure, no insta-pop, but everything on the Pen chart is still pretty useful, in most cases) more than make up for this.

And to say that you will get a Str8 AP2 VS every turn is to assume that you will have a bunch of units arrange in a 12-24" box formation. You will not get two VSs in a row from one HC against one vehicle unless some very interesting grounding happens. The HVC can concentrate fire every round on one target MUCH more effectively, while bombing soft targets.

The land+Assault and Smash changes DO affect the game dramatically. Many people ran a Winged Assassin Flyrant, especially as a 3rd HQ in a Skyblight. It opened up the tactical option to murder vehicles in assault, or to hit a squad that is poorly suited to face such a creature. It was the one decent way to get us into assault with ANY chance for success. Changes to Smash makes an already chancy idea worse, and changes to Land+Assault make it a moot point. It means that if your HC or Harpy gets grounded during shooting, your only option is to take back off ASAP. If you grounded them pre 7th, they would usually just die, that is true. But if they didn't die (or if they had not changed the Smash rule), that grounded HC could just jump over real quick and have a GREAT shot at killing most vehicles, and a pretty decent shot at popping a AR14 vehicle.

You seem to use FMCs a very, very specific manner. I used them in whatever way made most sense at the moment, and several times that meant assault in 6th Ed. Not as often as "get airborne and shoot," but often enough I liked having the option. That option is all but gone now. Taking the extra hits from VS made HCs MUCH more limited in ground attacks (still pretty swanky in dogfights), and the changes to Land-Assault and Smash all but removed any tactical flexibility in assaults. This means that, while I might stay on the board longer (they usually lasted a while anyway, because people were dumping buckets of fire into Flyrants), I generally will still inflict fewer wounds and pickup fewer vehicles, a role it was once very well-suited for). Hence, the Harpy. I can do roughly the same amount of damage to vehicles, plus I have a large blast weapon vs soft targets.

Assault hasn't been removed as an option you just wait to fail a grounding test. It's great because your opponent can either shoot at your FMC in which case you can assault or not in which case you fly about unmolested. Win win.