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I've been getting back into Tyranids lately. Up to now, I never really played with Biomorph upgrades, and now I want to give them a try on some of my MCs.

If anyone is interested in doing so, could you please give a critique of the loadouts I have in mind for my various MCs:

2 Hive Tyrants - Wings, 2x TL Devourers, Electorshock Grubs. No additional upgrades. Just your typical Flyrants.
2 Hive Crones - stock. I don't see any reason to give them a biomorph since they're supposed to be up in the air, like the Flyrants
1 Tervigon - Crushing Claws, Electroshock Grubs, Regeneration. This lady frequently becomes a target priority, because my opponents don't like that she spawns new units, so I figure I might give her Regeneration to keep her alive longer since she usually gets wounded in the early turns.
2 Exocrines - Regeneration. Like the Tervigon, these MCs are often target priorities for my opponents, in this case because of the S7 AP2, so since they get wounded early, I'm thinking about the Regeneration here, as well
2 Mawlocs - Toxinspike, Acid Blood. I figure Acid Blood is good here since once they arrive, they are almost always charged. They don't do well in CC, but have lots of Wounds, and I figure Acid Blood might help them be more productive as they're getting chopped down in combat.
2 full Carnifex Broods - for each brood, 2 w/ Double Scything Talons, 1 w/ Crushing Claws, and Adrenal Glands on all models. I want my Carnifexes to rush into Close Combat and help with Anti-Tank. I figure Fleet will help them get there, and Furious Charge obviously will help in CC.

Does anyone see any red flags here? Wasted points?

Is there any value to any of the biomorphs that I should be considering for my FMCs? Any biomorphs I should consider adding to my MCs?


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Also, with the Carnifexes, would Adrenal Glands make the Crushing Claws redundant.? I know I'd still have some armorbane attacks, but you can't go higher than S10, and that itself should be good enough to pop AV14 stuff, I think.

 jasper76 wrote:
I've been getting back into Tyranids lately. Up to now, I never really played with Biomorph upgrades, and now I want to give them a try on some of my MCs.

If anyone is interested in doing so, could you please give a critique of the loadouts I have in mind for my various MCs:

2 Hive Tyrants - Wings, 2x TL Devourers, Electorshock Grubs. No additional upgrades. Just your typical Flyrants.
2 Hive Crones - stock. I don't see any reason to give them a biomorph since they're supposed to be up in the air, like the Flyrants
1 Tervigon - Crushing Claws, Electroshock Grubs, Regeneration. This lady frequently becomes a target priority, because my opponents don't like that she spawns new units, so I figure I might give her Regeneration to keep her alive longer since she usually gets wounded in the early turns.
2 Exocrines - Regeneration. Like the Tervigon, these MCs are often target priorities for my opponents, in this case because of the S7 AP2, so since they get wounded early, I'm thinking about the Regeneration here, as well
2 Mawlocs - Toxinspike, Acid Blood. I figure Acid Blood is good here since once they arrive, they are almost always charged. They don't do well in CC, but have lots of Wounds, and I figure Acid Blood might help them be more productive as they're getting chopped down in combat.
2 full Carnifex Broods - for each brood, 2 w/ Double Scything Talons, 1 w/ Crushing Claws, and Adrenal Glands on all models. I want my Carnifexes to rush into Close Combat and help with Anti-Tank. I figure Fleet will help them get there, and Furious Charge obviously will help in CC.

Does anyone see any red flags here? Wasted points?

Is there any value to any of the biomorphs that I should be considering for my FMCs? Any biomorphs I should consider adding to my MCs?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, with the Carnifexes, would Adrenal Glands make the Crushing Claws redundant.? I know I'd still have some armorbane attacks, but you can't go higher than S10, and that itself should be good enough to pop AV14 stuff, I think.

Personally I don't think regen is worth it on any Nid MC. That said, the 6W ones like the tervigon are probably a good bet if you do use it. Personally I find tervis are either focused down or clog up before dying, in which case they've done their job, so I wouldn't buy regen.

Mawlocs you never want to be in melee, they just want to be DSing and burrowing, rinse and repeat. Often you won't fully clear the tunnel area and will mishap back into ongoing, or someone puts them next to a draigostar who don't care about acid blood and an extra attack.
The fex builds are fine - on mele ones AG is worth it to get em in even if you have CC too. However you probably want to split them up, as if you fail an instinctive behaviour you can have them start eating each other, which will never happen in a squad of one. There's also the issue that footslogging melee MCs just aren't durable or fast enough to do much in today's game, but if you're committed to running melee fexes that is a decent build. Hope you roll ambush trait on strategic and infiltrate em! Also have a look at the leviathan formation that just needs 3 warriors with 3 fex squads and you get rerolls to hit or wound or something, which could be worth a try.

Thanks for the input!

FWIW the reason I take Carnifexes in broods is because I run a double CAD, and that way I can get the most HS MCs on the board and still run my 2 Exocrines and 2 Mawlocs.

I've used the CC Wrecker Node before, but it makes you bring Warriors, and it's conditional on those Warriors staying alive and within 12" to work. The payoff is you get to reroll 1s to Wound, and that's conditional upon hitting and also rolling a 1 to wound. IME, it's too conditional to have a big effect on the game, and not worth the Warrior tax it requires.

As far as the Mawlocs go, in almost every game I play, after I deep strike, if they show up on the board, that's pretty much the end of them, because they're invariably charged, and invariably get chopped down in CC by just about anything before I can Hit & Run and then Burrow the next turn. I figure if Acid Blood can get me one or two more wounds at AP2, then at least I'd be getting a little more out of them. I can see maybe ditching the toxinspikes. To be honest, the only reason I have them is because I got the models used and they were modelled that way.

Regen I'm admittedly reluctant to do. It's probably about 10-15 points overcosted IMHO. It seems like it would be fun though. I've never played with a Wound recovery rule, such as Regen or It Will Not Die, before. Maybe I'll give it a test run and see if it ends up helping out at all.




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P.S. I don't even know what a draigostar is...I guess none of my gaming buddies play with Draigo

Question about thorax upgrades - I read somewhere that they can be fired in addition to their other weapons - meaning a flying hive could fire 2 devs and it's elctroshock grubs. However, I see no where in the rules that thorax weapons can be used like this. Am I missing something? Cause it just doesn't make sense to add electroshock grubs if you can't shoot all 3 weapons.

Ah - fair enough! Yeah just be careful to babysit them then :p. Acid blood on a Mawloc is sound reasoning, I think it's just going to have reasonably minimal impact so is more of an "if there's points spare" thing.

The good thing about Nid biomorphs is so many have lost prior functions and they're so rarely used that noone really cares or even knows what thungs like a toxinspike are :p. I often add tail biomorphs to my fexes and people either don't care or accept that it is rule of cool.

For e-grubs, you can only fire two weapons, the haywire flamer is purely there for av13/14 that nids otherwise cannot hurt.

Oh and a Draigostar is Draigo with a ton of termies or GK pallys teleporting around ruining your day. I used that as an example and they have forces my mishapping mawlocs tk death on many an occasion!

 Xenomancers wrote:
Question about thorax upgrades - I read somewhere that they can be fired in addition to their other weapons - meaning a flying hive could fire 2 devs and it's elctroshock grubs. However, I see no where in the rules that thorax weapons can be used like this. Am I missing something? Cause it just doesn't make sense to add electroshock grubs if you can't shoot all 3 weapons.

No, there is no such rule. MCs can fire two weapons, and there's nothing in the Tyranids codex to change that. The reason I take Electroshock Grubs is because Tyranids are desperate for anti-tank, and also if the Flyrants get grounded and then charged, they'll have some flamer auto-hits for overwatch. I can see your point though.




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Benlisted wrote:

The good thing about Nid biomorphs is so many have lost prior functions and they're so rarely used that noone really cares or even knows what thungs like a toxinspike are :p. I often add tail biomorphs to my fexes and people either don't care or accept that it is rule of cool.

No doubt. When I assembled my Flyrants, I modelled them with Prehensile Pincers just cuz it looked cool, but I don't use them in the game.

Also, my Carnifexes don't have the Adrenal Gland bit on the carapace, but that won't keep me from just telling my opponent that these buggers are hyped up on adrenaline.

I HATE the way adrenal glands look. I never put them on any of my models.

 Lance845 wrote:
I HATE the way adrenal glands look. I never put them on any of my models.

Yeah, I'm not a fan either.