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Just because there are better options due to the current meta doesn't mean we need the most powerful CC unit by far to become even better.

Stop using meta. It doesn't.mean what you think it means.

The Swarmlord is a more-than-useful tool for the tyranids. It certainly is a beast when it gets to combat.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Stop using meta. It doesn't.mean what you think it means.

The Swarmlord is a more-than-useful tool for the tyranids. It certainly is a beast when it gets to combat.

The Swarmlord is indeed a beast in CC. With 3 Tyrant Guard, you are also spending over 400 points for something that can be brought down by any shooty army without any difficulty whatsoever. 5 Plasma Cannons with Prescience (300-350 points) will kill 3 Tyrant Guard and the Swarmy in one turn. 5 Missile Launchers will kill half his bodyguard with no effort whatsoever. With only 3+ armor and no guns barring psychic powers, he's just not worth it. I can't think of a single army that *doesn't* have something capable of blowing him and his retinue to smithereens turn 1, for less points.

One thing to consider is that regeneration stands a good chance of being replaced by IWND, just saying.

 The Shadow wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Tyrant guard don't serve well enough as an "invulnerable" save?

Not if they die.

I think the most powerful Tyranid entity available should have some sort of invulnerable save. Having a SM variant of the Swarmlord (i.e. Calgar) without an invulnerable would be unheard of!

The Tyrant guard are a far more useful version of Tau Shield drones. Tyrant Guard can fight back, and barring Howling Banshees, generally attack before anything else.

Of course they can get shot to gak. But not without drawing a large portion of your opponents firepower away from the rest of your army, and if the rest of your army is so ineffective that you were relying on the Swarmlord to do all of your work, you need to change your list.

Also, the Swarmlord can have a max of S9, T9, I8, and 7 attacks. Of course that's on the best day possible, but the further utility of the swarmlord granted by rolling other powers on Biomancy is well worth the points. Hell, even Smite is useful. Let's see...
-Life leech - two chances to get two wounds back. Yeah. That's not useful at all.
-Iron Arm - Chance to be stronger than a Greater Daemon. With EW.
-Enfeeble - -1 to enemy S and T. Right before a charge, even if you don't get Iron Arm, that still awesome.
-Endurance - FnP and IWND... FnP is essentially an Invuln save since the Swarmlord can take it against everything except Force and Distort weapons.
-Warp Speed - Again max is I8 and A7. Better than pretty much everything except the new Greater Daemons.
-Haemorrhage - The chance to kill an entire unit. Against T3 units, this could kill well over half the unit.

Every power is useful to the Swarmlord, and that's besides his already powerful stats and weapons. The great thing about Biomancy is that no power is useless; each power has a use, and for such a powerful creature that use if magnified.

I think armored shell and wings should at least be an option for Tyrant Guard, and fluff stating that they can jump like the Super Mario Bros to explain how they can intercept shots aimed for their much taller masters.