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Hello everybody!

I play Tyranids, and I love Zoanthropes. They were my favourite model in 3e/4e. I would love to include a bunch of them now that they're a squad, but I've got the impression that "smite spam" is bad, or generally frowned upon.

In a competitive setting: Is this a viable tactic?
In a casual setting: Will using this tactic get me shunned?

To deal with smite spam for most armies (except grey knights and thousand sons) the roll needed to cast smite increases by 1 each time it is successfully cast, so making it progressively harder.

Smite spam has more or less been addressed. Every-time you cast a smite it gets harder to cast it. This makes casting more than 3-4 smites very unprobable.

If you wanted to take 3x 4 man zoanthrope squads though - that would be just fine. No one will shun you for that.

I see. Thanks for the input!

Smite spam was the use of incredibly cheap (30~ points) models which were also difficult to target due to the character rules. You brought along 5-10 and it was a non-critical amount of points for a lethal source of mortal wounds that were effective against almost anything but the cheaper hordes. They were also the main method of protecting yourself due to all that denial ability.

By contrast the general view is that Zoanthropes are pretty expensive for what they do. I don't think they have full fat Smite unless you bring three of them (although I think you get a bonus if you have 6? Might be wrong on this) and they can be shot at.

I think people have explored Neurothrope spamming - but they are a lot more expensive. Smite spam has also been nerfed as you now need +1 on the casting roll for each additional cast.

Smite on 5+ is very reliable. Smite on 7+/8+/9+ is not.

Excellent points. I was under a different assumption of what Smite Spam was. Thank you for correcting me. =)

They only come in 3-6 broods, but have a 24” Smite to begin with so they’re okay. Iirc they get an additional Psyker power at 4+ models. As mentioned before Smite Spam has been addressed, but you have other options spamming Zoeys like the Psyker Bomb strategem(that can hilariously hit Sisters of Silence). You can also have one brood shoot off a Psychic Scream to Spam mortal wounds without upping your Smite count. They work fairly well as support units rather than offensive. If you need more mortal wounds you can include Spore Mines and their variants. Use the Tyranid strategems and advance rolls to get a full brood within 3” to assasinate characters, although this takes unique circumstances to pull off.

Smight spam is really only dooable now with t sons and it can be a dick list of tuned right, I have a list that has 10 smites that don't increase on top of other powers and support powers. It's not w very nice list because no one likes taking wounds that can't be saved against.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Smight spam is really only dooable now with t sons and it can be a dick list of tuned right, I have a list that has 10 smites that don't increase on top of other powers and support powers. It's not w very nice list because no one likes taking wounds that can't be saved against.

Most people dont like anything that challenges them.