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I just got a Tyrannocyte and I'm debating on how I want to equip it. I was leaning towards Barbed Stranglers, but after a bit of thinking, 5 large blasts at BS2 with no choice on who they fire at is probably going to result in lots of dead Devilgaunts... As a result, the default Devourers are looking way more attractive, especially because of the points savings (and the fact that I'll have 3 or 4 pods equipped identically in the army will add up quickly). Before I commit though... any thoughts?

I have gone with Venom Cannons with pretty good success. My main reasoning for going with Venom Cannons is, the BS 2 is negated by a to-hit roll on the scatter dice, and S6 can threaten a lot more targets than S4 and S5. You can't always shoot at the best target with the Tyrannocyte and the scatter from Deep Strike could move the Pod closer to a target which is more difficult to hurt. I've had my Venom Pod take care of vehicles with ease. The 36" range from the Venom Cannon and Barbed Strangler is also great if you mishap and your opponent puts the pod on the other side of the table.

The downside to the Venom Cannon is that it can scatter back onto the Pod and easily wound it. That's happened to me a few times.

Tyrranocyte fires at closest unit, if you are DSing it to drop things out of it, chances are you want your unit close to that closest unit...

I would go for the devourers, because I would rather spend 25 points elsewhere and I see the chance of hurting self or other friendly unit as outweighing the cost, not to mention that you just spend 75+ points to get the tyrannocyte to drop a unit near the enemy, why risk hurting the thing you wanted there?

Default deathspitters because you save 25pts and can't scatter back onto whatever you podded.

I agree with deathspitters for the Tyrannocyte.

The sporocyte on the other hand is great with venom cannons for range and damage. Strangler is great too if you are sticking with flyrants as your main offence as they can't be hit by the templates.

??? where do the rules say it shoots at your own troops? It has the Instinctive Fire rule, explained under the sporocyst rules as shooting at the nearest _enemy_ unit. Or are you only talking about scatter?

 Clang wrote:
??? where do the rules say it shoots at your own troops? It has the Instinctive Fire rule, explained under the sporocyst rules as shooting at the nearest _enemy_ unit. Or are you only talking about scatter?

It doesn't fire upon friendly units intentionally, just one armed with either of the bio-cannons can end up hitting friendly units accidently with a bad scatter roll or if the closest available target happens to be sitting next to one of your own units.

Anyway, I built my first two pods with Deathspitters. It keeps them cheap which makes it easier to squeeze into lists and the weapon compliments any cargo type (swarms, dakka Warriors, MCs). I think the Barbed Strangler variant (Strangler-cyte?) might have some utility as a bomb of sorts in an air-force type list where it can drop in and saturate an area with large blasts without having to worry about friendly fire as much. The Venom Cannon variant (Venom-cyte?) I think would be good on a pod carrying a shooty MC like an Exocrine or Dakkafex that could benefit from the extra high strength shots to compliment their own while being fairly resilient in return should any shots scatter back.

I'd go for large blasts cause they can potentially hurt your own units. It's gona be hilarious!

Venom Cannons for me. My Carnifex is going to make the most out of the six inch deployment from the pod anyway and if he's more than ten inches away from my target at drop, I'm good with that. The spore can wander towards the nearest infantry and even start off closer to them than the tank I'm aiming the Screamer Killer at.

And I'm a really big fan of Venom Cannons... i have great luck with scatter dice.