Warlord Traits:

Flyrant - Carnivorous Jungles (Nature's Bane)

Chapter Master - FNP within 3" of an objective


Psychic Powers:

Rune Priests - They both stick with their codex powers (i.e. Jaws of the World Wolf)

Flyrant #1 - Onslaught, Catalyst (Warlord)

Flyrant #2 - Onslaught, Dominion

Tervigon - Catalyst

Zoanthrope - Dominion, Warp Blast


It is Night-fight.


Marine deployment. John combat squads his biker units into the following configuration:

Combat squad #1 - 2x Grav Guns + Multi-melta
Combat squad #2 - Normal bikers + IC (one with a rune priest, the other with his Warlord)

He is proxying his land raider as an Achilles for testing purposes (to see whether or not he wants to take it to the LVO).


My deployment. Both units of gants start off in reserves. Everything else starts off on the table.

Here's an interesting tip:

If you don't start off anyone in or on top of the bastion, then you opponent cannot shoot at the bastion. This would be useful if your opponent is bring scouting bikes with meltas/multi-meltas, hammerheads with the S10 railguns, etc.

However, I do start off with the venom in the bastion.


Overview of our deployment.

I decide not to seize the initiative. Whenever we play objectives, I usually prefer to go 2nd.

Marines move up.


The rest of his army mobilizes.


He fires everything at the dakkafex....only to do a total of 2W. Thank you very much, venomthrope, for your ability to boost terrain to 3+ cover.

The Rune Priest attempts to Jaws my exocrine, but it proceeds to pass its Initiative test.


Bikers then spread out with their turbo-boost move.

Tyranid movement. Everyone stays in range of the bastion and on area terrain as well for 3+ cover .

FNP on: both flyrants, dakkafexes and tervigon.
Onslaught on: dakkafexes, exocrine

Every turn I would continue to cast psychic powers, so you can assume powers are on unless I point out otherwise.


Biovores advance. Tervigon moves more towards the right.


My opponent's perspective of my bugs.


Combined shooting from the dakkafexes and 1 flyrant takes out 1 unit of bikers as well as his biker Rune Priest. BTW, it is the exocrine who finishes off his RP.

VP's - Space Marines: 0, Tyranids: 2

So I kill off a unit of troops as well as one of his HQ's and I also get First Blood along the way. I'll take it!


Biovores fire and the shot scatters. Out comes 1 spore mine.


Finally, my other flyrant shoots down another 2 biker marines.

Space Marines' movement. 1 stormtalon comes in from reserves. The Achilles back up 6".


1 combat squad continues to flank the sides.


Once again, my opponent focuses the firepower of practically his entire army onto my dakkafexes, including both TFC's (thunderfire cannons), but due to 3+ cover from area terrain and the venomthrope and FNP, I only take a total of 2 Wounds on them!

Pro-Tip: This is the "new" modern day wound allocation. When you have a multi-wound unit and one model gets wounded, next turn you leave him slightly back and then move a new model forwards pass him. That's how I make my carnifexes more survivable. As soon as 1 gets hurt, I usually will move a fresh, unwounded fex ahead of him to soak up the wounds.

Also, the stormtalon fails to wound my flyrant as well due to 3+ cover and FNP.

The unit of 30 termagants come in.

His rune priest in the land raider nullifies about half of my psychic powers, including 1 Catalyst and 1 Onslaught.


Tyranid movement. Flyrants continue to swoop.


Dakkafexes take out another combat squad.

VP's - Space Marines: 0, Tyranids: 3


My flyrant (not my Warlord) takes out the stormtalon, also securing +1 VP for the Scouring for taking out a Fast Attack unit.

VP's - Space Marines: 0, Tyranids: 4


Biovores fail to do any damage once again. My Warlord flyrant takes out only 1 biker, but that is because this unit has FNP from my opponent's Warlord trait.

Overview of the top of Turn 3.


The last stormtalon comes in.


Space marine movement. LR moves 6".


The stormtalon nets my opponent his first VP by taking out my zoanthrope.

VP's - Space Marines: 1, Tyranids: 4


This turn, he focuses on my Warlord due to the lack of FNP. He grounds and puts 2W on my flyrant, but does not have enough gas left in the tank to finish him off.


TFC puts 1 more Wound on my carnifexes.

Tyranid movement. My Warlord actually swoops so won't be assaulting this turn.

Pro-tip: Don't assault just because you can. Only do so if you can miminize the return-fire to your flyrant. if you want him to live. In this case, the chances of my flyrant killing the LR in assault is actually quite low. Moreover, he is in the center of my opponent's army. If he lands, everyone will be able to shoot at him. That is what I would call sacrificing your flyrant for potentially very little gain.

Rune Priest denies Onslaught and Dominion. However, I do get FNP off on both of my flyrants, dakkafexes and tervigon.


Tyranid movement.


Between poor shooting and 4+ jinks, the exocrine only manages to take out 1 biker.


Once again thanks to FNP from his Warlord, my flyrant is only able to take out 2 bikers.


Dakkafexes have no target and so run after the Achilles instead.

Finally, I make a mistake with my other flyrant. He turns back to go after the stormtalon. However, in order to go backwards, I have to move in Glide mode. Well, I forget that a FMC can only fire in skyfire mode if he is swooping. Thus, I end up snapshooting at the talon. Even still, I manage to take off 1 HP from it.

His Chapter Master Warlord goes after my exocrine.

BTW, that is the original exocrine model from Armorcast.


The rest of his army moves. Rune Priest remains in the LR.


LR puts another 1W on my fexes.


Bikers put 1W on the exocrine with shooting and then charge it. However, both units would whiff in combat, doing no wounds to each other.

Last unit of gants come in and onto a Scouring objective.


My Warlord prepares to assault. The other flyrant remains swooping.


Gribblies spread out.


Tervigon spawns 14 gants without rolling doubles. They then run onto an objective.


Will this be the end of the line for the Achilles?


Flyrant shoots down 1 biker only.

We then go to assault.


WTF?!? My carnifexes are only about 3" away and they still fail their charge!?!


Flyrant makes it into combat, however. I issue a challenge and my opponent accepts with his sergeant, which I then proceed to devour.

Both units continue to whiff against each other. Actually, the exocrine wounds his Warlord twice, but he then makes both 3++ saves.


Bikers then Hit-&-Run out of combat and I consolidate both TMC's onto area terrain.

Due to time, this will be the last game turn.


His talon comes back in from ongoing reserves. He wanted his flyer to stay away from my flyrants, however, my gants are screening it from contesting the Scouring objective.


Grey hunters disembark and move to claim an objective. The Rune Priest disembarks separately. We make a small rules mistake here as the Achilles does not have a front ramp to disembark from (for the RP), but it didn't affect the game in the slightest.


His Warlord goes to contest an objective.


Bikers go to grab another objective.


Now for the crowning glory of the space marines...Jaws. Unfortunately for my opponent, he perils and fails to cast it!

We played it out to see what would have happened had it gone off. I then failed both Initiative tests for 2 carnifexes. Doh!


He then fires at my fexes out in the open and without FNP. He only manages to do 2W to one of them.


Bikers shoot down 4 gants.


Thanks to 3+ shrouded cover, the stormtalon only manages to kill 2 gants on the objective.


Finally, his bikers charge the gants....


....and take out another 4 in combat.

Ok, this is the very last turn of the game.


Tervigon spawns another 13 gants.


Carnifexes prepare for a multi-assault, that is, if the grey hunters survive their shooting.


Bye bye bikers, it was nice knowing you. Flyrant prepares for shooting and then assault.


Lastly, I am about to join assault with 2 of my big bugs.


Exocrine fires at the bikers first but can't get past their 4+ jink saves.


Carnifexes shoot down the grey hunters....so no assault.

VP's - Space Marines: 1, Tyranids: 5


Flyrant shoots down the bikers as well.

VP's - Space Marines: 1, Tyranids: 6


We then go to assault. Both TMC's make it in. They put 2W on the Space Marine Warlord and take out the lone biker.

VP's - Space Marines: 1, Tyranids: 7


He then Hit-&-Runs out and with that, the game ends.


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Tyranids have got 3 Scouring objectives (1 may be contested) as well as +1 VP for taking out 1 Fast Attack (stormtalon).

They also take Purge the Alien and get First Blood (bikers) and Linebreaker (carnifexes, flyrant).

Space Marines only get Linebreaker (his Warlord).

Tyranids win 9-1.





Complete Domination by Hive Fleet Pandora!!!

Ok, I'm going to address some of the questions in my Post-game Thoughts, especially the ones with regards to why my opponent and/or I did the things we did. For my opponent, I will try to explain why I think he did the things he did.


John's List.
Originally, his list has a drop pod for one of his Rune Priests and more grey hunters. He also had a 2nd TFC (thunderfire), a thunderhammer for his Chapter Master and more biker units. However, he wanted to try out the Land Raider Achilles because he was seriously thinking about bringing it to the LVO tournament. Thus, he had to drop a lot to be able to fit the tank in. With regards to the Chapter Master, I think it was either his hammer or some guns from his bikers or probably the 2+ on his Rune Priest. It appears that he preferred defense and shooting over close-combat killing power.


Why did John advance his unit forwards on Turn 1?
I believe this is due to 3 main reasons. First of all, it was just too tempting for him to try to get First Blood with a Jaws attempt. The exocrine with its AP2 shooting has a huge threat to his army. By trying to take it out, he would have killed 2 birds with 1 stone. First, he would have gotten First Blood. Secondly, he would have eliminated what he probably felt was a huge threat.

Secondly, I think he under-estimated the firepower of my carnifexes and the shooting of my army in general.

Last, I think he also under-estimated the resiliency of my carnifexes when buffed by Shrouding in terrain as well as FNP. He probably figured he could potentially take out the exocrine and perhaps 1, maybe 2 carnies to blunt my counter-attack, especially after firing 8 TFC blasts, 6 gravgun shots, 3 multi-meltas (of which 2 were twin-linked) and a host of rapid-firing twin-linked bolters. Honestly, even I was kind of surprised that none of my carnifexes went down.

In any case, he played the odds. It just didn't work out for him.


Why not go after my flyrants initially?
My flyrants were deployed much further in than my carnifexes. In order to target them (not sure he could even see them behind the bastion), he would have to move his bikers in much closer. That means he will be moving them into the assault threat range of my carnies. I think he was much more concerned with being assaulted by them than being shot by them. Also, if he goes after my flyrants, they will be getting 2+ cover (3+ from the fortification and then +2 because of Shroud). But as soon as the flyrants were out of Shrouding range, he did focus on them. He just didn't have enough firepower to really put them down.


Terrain setup.
So why was there so much terrain in the middle? Honestly, this was John's doing. We actually took turns placing terrain. He placed the first big LOS-blocker (BLOS terrain) near the middle of the table. I then placed the 2nd BLOS terrain in the middle as well. He then connected the 2 pieces of terrain with area terrain. Now why did he do that, thus allowing plenty of cover for my big guys?

Firstly, I don't think he was aware of my strategy with the venomthrope + bastion. I did explain to him what the venomthrope did but sometimes, you just have to experience it in order to understand.

Secondly, he was hoping that the terrain would slow me down, thus giving his bikers more time to shoot. It appears to me that he was more concerned about assault nids rather than shooty nids. It just may be that most tyranid players he has played against before just didn't bring really shooty bugs. In any case, the placement of terrain actually ended up helping me much, much more than hurting me. As he would soon find out, my bugs actually do much more damage with their shooting than with assault.

Keep in mind that not everyone browses the 40K forums on the Internet. Many of the tips/tricks that you may find obvious because you saw it online isn't necessarily obvious to the average gamer.


Staying back to shoot at my army.
This actually isn't a very viable option for marines. That is because his army is mainly a mid-range shooting army. With the exception of the thunderfires, most of his guns need to be within 24" to function. That means if he wants to shoot at me, then I can shoot back at him as well. Even more so with 2 instances of Onslaught in my army. Yeah he could have waited to for me to move out of range of the bastion, but then guess what? I will get the alpha-strike on him with the 42" range of my flyrants. That's 24 TL-S6 shots that can take a big chunk out of his army and that could also potentially net me First Blood as well. And while this is happening, he will be getting more and more out-of-position with regards to the objectives and my monsters will be getting closer and closer to contesting range of his objectives.

Also, by backing up his army, he is also backing up his psychic defense. This would basically give my army more room and space, and thus more freedom, to cast my psychic powers unimpeded. Any ways you look at it, it's going to be a tough fight for him. We will either be trading shots or he backs up, waiting for me to move up, and give me the alpha-strike on his army with my flyrants. All this time, he would be moving his army more and more out of position.


Why double flyrants?
IMO, flyrants are the best HQ in the Tyranid codex. What sets them apart?

1. Mobility. They are the most resilient, mobile unit in the Tyranid army. Mobility is such a huge factor in the game but yet, ironically, most players still do not realize that. I've said it before and I'll say it again....YOU CAN'T BEAT A GOOD ARMY IF YOUR ARMY DOESN'T HAVE MOBILITY.

2. Threat range. Because of their mobility, the flyrant has actually got a huge threat range. That is VERY important in the strategy of Positional Dominance, or board control. If you can't threaten your opponent, then you cannot control where he goes. To threaten him, you need mobility and that is what the flyrant gives you.

3. Force-multipliers. Where is in the army can you get mobile synapse? Where else in the army can you get force-multipliers in the form of 2 psychic powers? Where else in the army that will give you the flexibility to outflank one of your units other than genestealers? I can't stress enough how much of a difference a good force-multiplier is for an army. I would take a force-multiplier unit over a beatstick any day. In the case of Tyranids, you get to have your cake and eat it too. The flyrant is probably one of the best force-multipliers as well as one of the best offensive units in the army as well.

4. Anti-air. Along with the hive crones, flyrants are one of the most reliable anti-air solutions for the bugs. However, unlike the hive crone, the flyrant is just as good against ground targets as they are against air targets.

5. Flexibility and consistency. Other HQ's are usually somewhat specialized. For example, the Deathleaper may good against armies that rely particularly on a single character, but suffers against a wide assortment of armies, including fearless ones, armies with a lot of fire power, mechanized armies, etc. The Swarmlord is a great force-multiplier unit as well as a scary beatstick. However, he can do almost nothing against air targets (i.e. FMC-spam, flyer-spam) or armies with high firepower that can easily take him out. Flyrants are flexible enough to be good against any and all armies. You throw almost any army against them and they can deal with it. They are also a consistent threat to all armies.


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Ok, now for the part that everyone is probably waiting for, my review of the Tyranid units.


Flyrants: A. They were a consistent threat in this game and their mobility was the main reason why I was able to keep up with the much faster bikes. The fact that they didn't die was a pleasant bonus. Doling out FNP and Onslaught to my other units was just icing on the cake.

Venomthrope: A. Excellent! They are the reason that none of my big buns died this game. The combination of the Venomthrope in a bastion is a must-buy for all Tyranid players.

Zoanthrope: B. Solid! His job was to provide synapse and he did it well with Dominion. He was the only unit in the game that my opponent was able to kill.

Tervigon: B+. Great unit. This guy is the true anchor to the army. He was a beacon of synapse to my backfield units, give out FNP like candy on a Sunday and created almost 25+ gants without running out.

Termagants: B. They did what they had to do, which was to survive and score.

Biovores: B-. Their performance was a little disappointing this game, but that is really not their fault. The White Scars just don't fear the biovore due to T5 units and the fact that bikes can't be pinned. Biovores would have probably shined against any other army but this one.

Exocrine: B-. He was actually a little disappointing this game. While he did help to finish off the biker RP, he only killed less than a handful of bikers, though that is partially because of their 4+ jink saves. In any case, the threat of his presence to keep the bikers away was probably bigger than the threat of his shooting, which was actually kind of lousy.

Dakkafexes: A. Excellent. A huge threat that forced my opponent to play very defensively. They also soaked up a ridiculous amount of firepower. I love the dakkafexes. These guys are a front-runner to make it onto my permanent Tyranid All-star team for Heavy Support slots.

Bastion: A. What can I say? In my early lists, there are only 5 must-haves in my standard Tyranid list. The first 2 are dual flyrants. Slots #3 & #4 are 1 zoanthrope and 1 venomthrope. The bastion is the 5th auto-include unit in my lists. The bastion is such a great force-multiplier piece of terrain for the bugs and just opens up so much tactical flexibility for the army. Plus, in probably 90% of the games, it just makes Synapse issues a non-issue.

MVP: Flyrants. It's actually a very tough choice here between the flyrants and the carnifexes. The fexes were really good and soaked up a huge amount of firepower, but ultimately, I have decided to give the award to my flyrants. The heart of my strategy was Positional Dominance and that couldn't have been achieved without the mobility and the threat of the flyrants and their ability to quickly react to any threats, whether it be stormtalons coming in or bikers trying to flank my army. Plus, their ability to give out Onslaught and FNP like candy was instrumental in helping the carnifexes to survive and to reach some of the enemies with some Tyranid loving.