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2 Species Hive Fleet
1st Species, Warriors. WS4, BS2, S4, T4, W2, I4, A2, LD10, Sv 5+, 14 points per model
2nd Species, Tearing-Gaunts. WS4, BS3, S4, T3, W1, I5, A1, LD5, Sv 6+, Leaping, Scything Talons, 13 points per model.

HQ
3 Warriors, 3 scything talons, 1 venom cannon, 2 deathspitters [79 points]
3 Warriors, 3 scything talons, 1 venom cannon, 2 deathspitters [79 points]

Troops
16 Tearing-Gaunts, 8 mutants with rending claws instead of scything talons [272 points]
17 Tearing-Gaunts, 8 mutants with rending claws instead of scything talons [285 points]
17 Tearing-Gaunts, 8 mutants with rending claws instead of scything talons [285 points]

[1000 points] total.

Kind of a trick-pony list just to see what I can do, having fun with theory crafting. I'm wondering if the base gaunt could just have spinefists instead of scything talons, because the mutants can still swap that out for rending claws, and then I'd have a little more shooting available and the standard models would be 1 point cheaper. Only having 56 models on the table might be a little risky though.

HQ
3 Warriors, 3 scything talons, 1 venom cannon, 2 deathspitters [79 points]
3 Warriors, 3 scything talons, 1 venom cannon, 2 deathspitters [79 points]

ELITES
3 Warriors, 3 scything talons, 1 venom cannon, 2 deathspitters [79 points]
3 Warriors, 3 scything talons, 1 venom cannon, 2 deathspitters [79 points]
3 Warriors, 3 scything talons, 1 venom cannon, 2 deathspitters [79 points]

Troops
18 Tearing-Gaunts, 8 mutants with rending claws instead of scything talons [298 points]
18 Tearing-Gaunts, 8 mutants with rending claws instead of scything talons [298 points]

[991 points] total

This gives a little more warriors so the synapse doesn't get nuked so hard, but reduces the gaunts down to 2 broods, maybe their threat would get under-estimated in this list.

I've only been dabbling with 3rd edition Nid lists and haven't really messed with the mutable genus stuff yet. That said, if synapse is a concern, wouldn't you want to toss in a hive node or two in the broods?

You may find value in fielding scrubgaunts alongside the deathgaunts - at 5pts a model (with a few hidden renders naturally) and still fast your opponent would need to deal with the screen rather than being able to direct their fire freely at the more expensive models.

Gaunts lack the base WS and attacks to be individually threatening even with rending (8 models on the charge mean around 3 rending hits), so quantity is your quality,

A.T. wrote:
You may find value in fielding scrubgaunts alongside the deathgaunts - at 5pts a model (with a few hidden renders naturally) and still fast your opponent would need to deal with the screen rather than being able to direct their fire freely at the more expensive models.

Gaunts lack the base WS and attacks to be individually threatening even with rending (8 models on the charge mean around 3 rending hits), so quantity is your quality,

Yeah, I've been wondering about that, I haven't math'd it out, but I wonder if its worth keeping a cheaper gaunt baseline with ws3 s3 and half of them have rending claws, vs ws4 s4 gaunts with half of them with rending claws. I suppose you would still end up relying on rolling a 6 to hit and automatically wounding, which could chew up any squad, but then you're looking at the periphery of whether ws4 vs ws3 would help with hitting in general vs most things, and s4 vs s3 for trying to inflict more wounds. hmmm.

I do suppose going back down to s3 would make rending only cost 6 points vs 8 points for the gaunts that get it. Leaping is probably worth it to get the 12" charge and extra attacks for not being in base contact.

I mean, generally I'm inclined just to run the nids as-is but it is fun to theory out some of the mutations and species that are possible in the codex.

No better place to tweak a list than on the tabletop - lists can look good on paper but not pan out, or not fit your playstyle or your local opposition.


A 1000pt 3rd ed Dark Eldar list for example could be 40 warriors, two raiders, and three ravagers with a dark lance for every warrior, a splinter rifle for every gaunt, and just enough disintegrators that you can't afford to bunch up - all sitting comfortably out of your range behind nightshields.

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Though I played mostly in 5th I found games at 1500 to 1850 to be best - smaller and larger games could get increasingly skewed whereas mid sized games saw players using more of their FoC slots without running out of decent units to fill them.