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I tried both the scytals + spitters and the double spitters. No rending claws, for moral reasons.

The double deathspitter is nice because all the value of the walkrant is still intact even with 3 wounds left. If he survives the first turn, he positions himself in the second line and keeps supporting with firing and powers.

The scytal version was good in a game against necrons but not much more. If he has at least 6 wounds left when the second line hits, he assists in melee, if not he tries to stay alive and keep using powers as long as possible.

In fact he is mostly a psyonic, because when you have powers as strong as the nid ones, 180 points for 2 powers are really worth it. If he gest to kill something it is just a bonus.

Never tried HVC, are you enjoying it?

HVC was terrible in 7th but I played it anyway. Now i cannot play nids, because the minis are 1500 km away. I just have demons atm.
Do you field tyrant guard? I always used 2.

I have not played with the swarmlord, but I am gluing him up as we speak. I think he looks really good, but you need to build your force around him. You can't just add him to your list.

Having the swarmlord run turn 1 he moves at least 10", and then you pop up reserves 6" from him. What reserves depends a bit on your list. But the two obvius winners are Conga Line Raveners, or Genstealers in a trygin/trygon prime.

Raveners comes in a group of 9 with big bases, and have 12" move. 10" from the swarmlord, hive commander 6", 12" move that is a total of 28" often a garanteed charge first turn. If you need more range just conga line the raveners. Each 'conga' should ad around 4". Even if you go 3 conga deep that is an extra 12" for a total of 40". Should be able to charge most things.

Not genestealers can almost do a similar thing in a trygon. A trygon base is 4,5", you can deploy 3 in each direction, conga lining along the base adding up to meaning 10,5". They can run and charge, so a minimum move of 9". 10 + 6 +10,5 + 9 is a 31,5 " charge range at the minimum.

So with those two units you have a turn one charge, and a turn 2 charge. Turn 3 the swarmlord probably charges himself. Remember to cast catalyst on your attack unit to make sure it survives, the opponent probably tryes to fall back.

Also, if you have the range on the charge for this you can declear a charge against one unit. Once you make the charge with one model, you can move the rest of the models in the unit to the closest oponent, but it does not have to be the same unit. On the pile in move you can engage them then, avoiding overwatch. Perfect for attacking hellhounds and other flamer based oponents. If the oponent want's to shoot at you they have to fall back with multiple units.

It is not perfect and it has some or the problems with attacking in waves, and on the first turn.

In general, both the swarmlord and the hive tyrant is an army multiplyer. The regular hive tyrant is sadly on this edition only suplying psykick powers as his multiplying abilaty. Also, the swarmlord and hive tyrant is the only model in the game as far as I know, that has the option of buying extra wounds in the form of tyrant guard. This is massive meaning you can scale the swarmlord/tyrant upwards as the points increases. The more points in a game, the less chance one of your MC's survive focused lascannon fire.

I want to try 3 tguards, 2 with crushing claws and one with rending. The rending one lends his wounds to the walkrant, they have a good cost/wound. Then you let the tyrant die, powering up the remaining guards. Now with 3 attacks each, they can bring the hurt.

Total cost 155, but not giving them AG is a crime, so 158.


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Works best with the swarmlord, where you can be sure that they will want him DEAD. With a walkrant they may switch target priority to something else, which is almost surely not going to be the guards, they are really though nuts to crack with those stats and being infantry (venoms and cover).

Swarmlord is one of the closest things to an auto-include I have. His melee threat and the attack vectors he can provide alone make him worth it. He is one of the most dangerous CC fighters in the game on his own, but being able to increase the threat of a unit at need is priceless to me.

The fact that right now we don't have auto-include means we have a really well done codex this time. Maybe not top tier, but that isn't important.

Right OK that is actually worth considering, Swarmlord with a 10inch move, trygon plus genestealers is a big threat but the problem remains that you are conga lining your army still allowing the opponent to pick off each threat a turn. The only other way is to go all reserves with GSC or Trygons etc.

I'm facing off against at least one knight tomorrow evening, should be fun.

Spoletta wrote:
I want to try 3 tguards, 2 with crushing claws and one with rending. The rending one lends his wounds to the walkrant, they have a good cost/wound. Then you let the tyrant die, powering up the remaining guards. Now with 3 attacks each, they can bring the hurt.

Total cost 155, but not giving them AG is a crime, so 158.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Works best with the swarmlord, where you can be sure that they will want him DEAD. With a walkrant they may switch target priority to something else, which is almost surely not going to be the guards, they are really though nuts to crack with those stats and being infantry (venoms and cover).

Thanks for the insight.
I don't think the Swarmlord is a good idea for that. He is way too expensive to just die and give Rage to the TG. On the other hand, they will shoot him anyway and as long as he can catapult something to the front, it might be worth it. You can even catapult the TG in front of him and let him die to get Rage.

Spoletta wrote:
I want to try 3 tguards, 2 with crushing claws and one with rending. The rending one lends his wounds to the walkrant, they have a good cost/wound. Then you let the tyrant die, powering up the remaining guards. Now with 3 attacks each, they can bring the hurt.

Total cost 155, but not giving them AG is a crime, so 158

Minor nitpick, but Tyrant Guard replace their Scything Talons when they take Boneswords or Crushing Claws. They always have the Rending Claws so the cost of the squad should be closer to the second price point before adding Adrenal Glands. The idea of filling the Elite slot up with Tyrant Guard squads is an interesting idea though, as the slots are plentiful and they do actually have fairly nice stats for infantry. Might be amusing to try bringing a ton of them via Vanguard detachments and have them stomp up the board like a bunch of angry mini-carnifexes with Tyrants in tow.

Have anybody had any experience with guns on raveners?

I am repainting my old 5th edition raveners and I was wondering of changing the chest. In 5th edition there where so many bad reasons for taking guns on them.

Come 8th edition and you can shoot after running, you can shoot at another unit then the one you are charging. Much has changed.

Is it worth taking guns on raveners? 8 points for a 'heavy bolter' is not so bad. Suddenly you have 9 extra heavy bolters in your army.

 Niiai wrote:
Have anybody had any experience with guns on raveners?

I am repainting my old 5th edition raveners and I was wondering of changing the chest. In 5th edition there where so many bad reasons for taking guns on them.

Come 8th edition and you can shoot after running, you can shoot at another unit then the one you are charging. Much has changed.

Is it worth taking guns on raveners? 8 points for a 'heavy bolter' is not so bad. Suddenly you have 9 extra heavy bolters in your army.

I don't own any Raveners. But having some extra Fire power is a good thing. My main "issue" with them was Synapse, and that is not so bad now...But( ) if you are not in Synapse, you can't choose what you shoot at...and it will most likely be the unit you want to charge.( ) so that might be a problem....


If I purchase some ( my army was stolen, along with most everything else I owned) I think I'll seriously consider Spine Fists....

So sorry to hear it was stolen. I have had things stolen on ocations, and it is not funn. Hope your insurance covers it.

I am planing on running them with shrikes to have synapse.

I think the debate for me at least is spine fists (4 s3 12" guns, 3 points) vs devourers (3 s5 Ap1 18" assault 8 points.) The one is a freaking heavy bolter. The other is afordable.

Putting devourers on shrikes is clearly a point sink of huge proportions. But perhaps Spine Fists could work.

Yep, I guess all I can say is play a few with each loadout to see.

But I wanne have my nids painted by end of august.

 Niiai wrote:
Have anybody had any experience with guns on raveners?

I am repainting my old 5th edition raveners and I was wondering of changing the chest. In 5th edition there where so many bad reasons for taking guns on them.

Come 8th edition and you can shoot after running, you can shoot at another unit then the one you are charging. Much has changed.

Is it worth taking guns on raveners? 8 points for a 'heavy bolter' is not so bad. Suddenly you have 9 extra heavy bolters in your army.

I actually just played a game this weekend with a squad of 6 Raveners with RC and Deathspitters. I wasn't terribly impressed with them sadly, but that may have been due to my target priority with them. I think they are best suited for taking out all forms of infantry (chaff to heavy specialists).

Unfortunately I believed that they would be able to kill off 1 of 2 Bloated Plague Drones along with the help of the swarmlord assaulting both of them. But with toughness 7 and disgustingly resilient, they failed pretty miserably. Next turn the drones just floated away from combat and a Defiler made it into CC with the Raveners.

Basically anything multi-dmg with Ap2 or better will absolutely decimate them. In that one round of combat he killed 5 of my raveners with 1 defiler.

I will most likely try running them again, but its hard to justify their cost when I could just throw in 16 genestealers instead.

Yeah. Ravaners are stuck in this odd place between shrikes, warriors and genestealers. Genstealers have 4 attacks same as the ravaner and the 5++. Ravaners cost almost twice as much, has 3 wounds and 5+, but can deepstrike, so synergi with the swarmlord.

Raveners should be really good in clearing bubble-wrap units. Due to their high number of attacks they are good against T3 5+ infantry. And since they can deep strike this is even better.
Thus I would play them with Spinefists. Deathspitters are good, but they are still pretty expensive for a T4 5+ unit.
They die so quickly.

I ran 2 units of 3 with deathspitters and the red terror in a tournament last week. They arrived along with a Trygon Prime with 20 devgaunts. They worked really well for me. They cleared ork boyz fairly well. I used them to force a land raider to be useless as I kept charging it over and over when it fell back. They screened my Old One Eye and Swarmlord from a 30man ork boy charge. 3 Ravaners ate their charge so that the rest of my army could wipe them on my turn. The Red Terror ate 2 big meks and was really annoying for my opponent to kill due to it being a character.

All in all, the Raveners did what I needed them to do. I needed them to deep strike and screen/kill/lock units so that my 20 devgaunts, Swarmlord, Flying HT and Old One Eye can eat things without dying in response. They locked up some basilisks on turn 2 thanks to 12" movement. On paper they're not spectacular but the value of Deep Strike AND 12" movement is underrated.

I won all 3 of my games in the tournament, but placed 3rd due to overall points. Two other people were also undefeated and they had slightly more points than I did (both were ork players... one had 180 gretchin).

Wow, that is really impressive. I am supriced they had such a big impact. Also running the red terror with only 6 ravaners sounded small, but I assume he is a big deal with a small footprint. His character 'interscept' rule can be good to pile in on a charge.

Sounds like you got a lot of bang for your buck by their flexabilaty. Meaning you stil have a lot of options after army lists are locked in. Question though. 3 ravaners with DS are 93 points, 99 with rending claws. Do you think a mawlock for 105 could do the same?

I am putting some deathspitters on my raveners and then I will see how they perform.

Thanks for putting all of this together fellow Xenos


This will help me plan my next meal... and by "meal", I mean the death of my enemies

By the by? Pyrovores continue to excel at one job.

No, not flaming large units. You have 'gaunts and 'gants for that.

No, they are the world's best Rhino killers. One or two can charge a Rhino without fear of dying from overwatch, where their acid chomps will make short work of it (Look at those multi-damage chomps and high AP!) ... and if it deals any damage back? Mortal Wound.

It's a weirdly-specific job, but MAN are they good at it.

Wakshaani wrote:
By the by? Pyrovores continue to excel at one job.

No, not flaming large units. You have 'gaunts and 'gants for that.

No, they are the world's best Rhino killers. One or two can charge a Rhino without fear of dying from overwatch, where their acid chomps will make short work of it (Look at those multi-damage chomps and high AP!) ... and if it deals any damage back? Mortal Wound.

It's a weirdly-specific job, but MAN are they good at it.

Maybe it's me but I fail to see how a a Pyrovore is good at killing Rhino's?
Granted they have an AP of -3, but with exactly 2 attacks and only ST5 and 1 damage (what multi-damage chomps are you talking about?), they'll take a loooooong time to kill a rhino.

 Niiai wrote:
Wow, that is really impressive. I am supriced they had such a big impact. Also running the red terror with only 6 ravaners sounded small, but I assume he is a big deal with a small footprint. His character 'interscept' rule can be good to pile in on a charge.

Sounds like you got a lot of bang for your buck by their flexabilaty. Meaning you stil have a lot of options after army lists are locked in. Question though. 3 ravaners with DS are 93 points, 99 with rending claws. Do you think a mawlock for 105 could do the same?

I am putting some deathspitters on my raveners and then I will see how they perform.

I run them with rending claws for 99 pts. I'm not sure about the mawlocs. My only model of that size is a Trygon Prime so I personally haven't tried them. My 2000 pt list is a brigade and 99 pt raveners filled in the fast attack slots nicely. My 3rd fast attack is a mucolid.

My army has 19 units and 9 deep strikers. (2x 3 raveners, red terror, Trygon Prime, 20 devgaunts, lictor, mucolid and 2x 3 rippers) The raveners were mainly used to lock units up and prevent them from killing the devgaunts and my other units like fexes and old one eye who are charging up the board while the Swarmlord slingshots em. For this purpose, they did great. The devgaunts lasted multiple turns without losing a single model and were able to erase large units of flak.

What do you think about regular double scytal raveners rather than rending claw ones? They are better at killing all infantry softer than a space marine.

They are interesting. A whopping 5 attacks, rerolling 1's (good with red terror) and only 23 points. It pushes them in a direction other then competing with genestealers.

That being said I do not like how they do not scare anybody at all. Rending claws might threaten even a rhino, or at least hamstering it. A lot of S4 attacks vs a big multi wound, high thoughnes, 3+ save is not so intreaging as rending.

You can try it out. :-)

I suppose they are a bit better there. 2x scytals deal 0.432 wounds per ravener against a rhino, while rending claws deal 0.667. Versus Trukks and Raiders they are about the same. The rending claws don't pull ahead before saves become 3+ or better.

svknoe wrote:
I suppose they are a bit better there. 2x scytals deal 0.432 wounds per ravener against a rhino, while rending claws deal 0.667. Versus Trukks and Raiders they are about the same. The rending claws don't pull ahead before saves become 3+ or better.

We're talking about a 2 pt upgrade though. There's plenty of 3+ in the game to make that worthwhile.

Had my first game since mid-sixth last night.

A thousand points against a chap who offered to teach me the rules.

I haven't purchased any new models so my list was fairly simple.

HT with HTC, As Glands. One Tyrant Guard
20x Stealers
Tryon Prime (Taxi for Gene?)
Hormagaunts x20
Termagants x20
Biovores x2
Carnifex x2
Tyranid Warriors one with Barbie

Knowing that i was bringing a scrapped together list of Nids my opponent had decided to bring Harlequins.

Three Venoms. Each with clowns, all with Fusion Pistols.

First or maybe second turn one of the Venoms waltzes up to my HT and unloads six Fusion Pistols. I forget to throw the TG under the bus because I am still trying to process the speed and damage output. Plus with that many hits I am not sure the TH could have tanked enough anyway. Similar fates meet the Trygon and one of the Fexes.

That's pretty much how the game goes.

I came away from the game incredibly frustrated, feeling that my opponent has bought the perfect curb-stomping army to a friendly game against someone who is effectively a newbie. Without an in-depth knowledge of my army, let along his coupled with my lack of experience, Harlequins seem like a really hard counter to Tyranids..

Clearly I need to bubble wrap my MCs with chaff broods.

More mortal wounds or something to deal with the INV save Venoms. Preferably at range.

My collection is pretty old school. Lots of gaunts, Warriors, Fexes, Stealers, etc

What kind of tactics and loadouts should I be looking at?





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Or do I have to consider allies? :yuk:

I think the Venoms are not a real problem for Tyranids, since you have a lot of good medium power shooting available. An Exocrine would be brutal against them.
You also have a lot of fast troops or shock troops available and can get the charge. When you have the charge with a lot of attacks, the harlequins should not be a big problem any more. They might have an inv, but they still just have T3 and Genestealers will rip through them easily.

Harleys, like all eldar, are mobile with a hard bite, but dies easaly. Long range attacks can help vs them.