Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am curious if this list would work, especially in the context of Phariah Nexus.

The idea is to present too many tiny bodies to the enemy such that they cannot clear them and are kept from the majority of the objectives at least until turn 5, at which point I could be wiped out and it not matter.

The Venomthropes, Psychophage and Tervigon would hide and pass their bonus to units through the 6" bubble from behind terrain. Venomthropes particularly should save Termagant lives, compounding the wounds total. The zooanthropes are the one anti tank unit to blast a pesky flamer tank if such presents itself.

I want to use Invasion Fleet for the lethal hits and the 1 point strat to refill depleted units.

Neurotyrant (105 points)

Tervigon (200 points)
• Warlord
• 1x Massive crushing claws
• Enhancement: Adaptive Biology

Tervigon (195 points)
• 1x Massive scything talons
• Enhancement: Synaptic Lynchpin

4 Squads of Hormagaunts x20 (520 points)

4 Squads of Termagants x20 (480)

Lictor (60 points)

Psychophage (95 points)

Venomthropes (70 points)

Venomthropes (70 points)

Zoanthropes x6 (200 points)

Any insight of of this would work would be appreciated.

Love the full swarm send, always a joy. Fine tuning this list is largely going to come down to how much you want to commit to that for its own sake because I think somewhere after around 100 gaunts it begins to be diminishing returns from a competitive standpoint, as opposed to using those points on a hive tyrant / exocrine / tyrannofex, etc. - as it stands, the Zoanthropes w the Neuro are basically the only unit with real killing power.

For starters though, I would make the case for dropping the synpatic Lynchpin enhancement and upgrading your Lictor to a Neurolictor to get some downboard synapse for your mass of hormagaunts to charge into / good battleshock trickery which can combo nicely with your zoanthropes if you get lucky.

Next, I wonder about investing in two Tervigons, especially with the lack of Hive Tyrant whose strat discount is usually vital, especially in Invasion Fleet. Also a second Tervigon will make the Adaptive Physiology trait a little less effective because now your opponent will move to just target the other one first, especially since it has Synaptic Lynchpin. Along these lines, I also don’t think 80 termagants and 2 tervigons is actually going to complement the 80 hormagaunts in the way you might hope. I’d say hormagaunts are just better than termagants and 80 hormagaunts will be a good sledgehammer to begin with. As is, deployment will force you to either put termagants in reserves (which is maybe your plan? curious to hear more if so) or deploy them relatively far back to make space for your massive front line. There is also a conspicuous lack of Gargoyles who give you the very valuable move shoot move / fly 12” / deep strike toolkit which is totally invaluable to your swarm the board gameplan. The landlocked nature of 160 gaunts can leave you vulnerable to being penned in by more flexible fast armies, even if you outnumber them. Also tbh the movement phase could become really not fun lol.

I would consider divesting to some degree from the Tervigons / Termagants wing and throwing in at least one unit of 10 gargoyles, maybe a Hive Tyrant. The psychophage and venomthropes I like, probably just a matter of playtesting to figure out how many of each.

There was a very successful invasion fleet list at a GT which would serve as the prime example of using probably the most efficient amount of swarm with a strong shooting aspect as well. Not necessarily what you need to do unless your personal meta is really too cutthroat to have some fun, but its useful as a benchmark and to get a sense of what some good complementary units to your plan could be. Went something like
Hive Tyrant w Adaptive Physio
Neurotyrant
3 x 20 Hormagaunts
10 Termagants
10 Gargoyles
10 Genestealers
3 Tyranid Warriors
3 Raveners
Neurolictor
Biovore
2 x Exocrine
2 x Tyrannofex w Rupture Cannon

I'm WAY, WAY out of touch with the current meta for tournament/Pariah Nexus play, to the point that I'm asking my own questions on these boards as I get re-started in the hobby.

That said, one thing about your list stands up at me, waving its arms and screaming.

177 models.

I've been reading and watching a lot of battle reports, tournament report videos, etc. One thing people seem to forget is the hard time limits on some games. Some of them even use chess clocks, crazy as that sounds to me.

In any seriously competitive, non-garage-drinking-beer environment, you're going to run out of time about Turn 3, leaving your opponent free to do whatever they want. The competitive events that I've seen usually limit each round to 1.5 hours, meaning if there's a clock, or you're attempting to be fair to your opponent, you get 45 minutes for your 5 turns. 9 minutes per turn. To do everything...move, reinforce, shoot, fight, etc. with 177 models out there. Best of luck with that.

BUT...BUT...if that's not a concern, and there is no time limit, literally swamping your opponent in chaff units can be both hilarious and fun for BOTH sides, you because you'll likely win simply by claiming objectives, your opponent because they can really pour firepower into you without any form of guilt and see just how many models they can make you pick up. Awesome.

Just some food for thought.

 Kagetora wrote:
I'm WAY, WAY out of touch with the current meta for tournament/Pariah Nexus play, to the point that I'm asking my own questions on these boards as I get re-started in the hobby.

That said, one thing about your list stands up at me, waving its arms and screaming.

177 models.

I've been reading and watching a lot of battle reports, tournament report videos, etc. One thing people seem to forget is the hard time limits on some games. Some of them even use chess clocks, crazy as that sounds to me.

In any seriously competitive, non-garage-drinking-beer environment, you're going to run out of time about Turn 3, leaving your opponent free to do whatever they want. The competitive events that I've seen usually limit each round to 1.5 hours, meaning if there's a clock, or you're attempting to be fair to your opponent, you get 45 minutes for your 5 turns. 9 minutes per turn. To do everything...move, reinforce, shoot, fight, etc. with 177 models out there. Best of luck with that.

BUT...BUT...if that's not a concern, and there is no time limit, literally swamping your opponent in chaff units can be both hilarious and fun for BOTH sides, you because you'll likely win simply by claiming objectives, your opponent because they can really pour firepower into you without any form of guilt and see just how many models they can make you pick up. Awesome.

Just some food for thought.

You are right about the time it is concerning, i've played games with 100 models that we finished well under time tho, and I'll employ movement trays for the Termaguants to help. I may try a 120 model version first and see how that goes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lector27 wrote:
Love the full swarm send, always a joy. Fine tuning this list is largely going to come down to how much you want to commit to that for its own sake because I think somewhere after around 100 gaunts it begins to be diminishing returns from a competitive standpoint, as opposed to using those points on a hive tyrant / exocrine / tyrannofex, etc. - as it stands, the Zoanthropes w the Neuro are basically the only unit with real killing power.

For starters though, I would make the case for dropping the synpatic Lynchpin enhancement and upgrading your Lictor to a Neurolictor to get some downboard synapse for your mass of hormagaunts to charge into / good battleshock trickery which can combo nicely with your zoanthropes if you get lucky.

Next, I wonder about investing in two Tervigons, especially with the lack of Hive Tyrant whose strat discount is usually vital, especially in Invasion Fleet. Also a second Tervigon will make the Adaptive Physiology trait a little less effective because now your opponent will move to just target the other one first, especially since it has Synaptic Lynchpin. Along these lines, I also don’t think 80 termagants and 2 tervigons is actually going to complement the 80 hormagaunts in the way you might hope. I’d say hormagaunts are just better than termagants and 80 hormagaunts will be a good sledgehammer to begin with. As is, deployment will force you to either put termagants in reserves (which is maybe your plan? curious to hear more if so) or deploy them relatively far back to make space for your massive front line. There is also a conspicuous lack of Gargoyles who give you the very valuable move shoot move / fly 12” / deep strike toolkit which is totally invaluable to your swarm the board gameplan. The landlocked nature of 160 gaunts can leave you vulnerable to being penned in by more flexible fast armies, even if you outnumber them. Also tbh the movement phase could become really not fun lol.

I would consider divesting to some degree from the Tervigons / Termagants wing and throwing in at least one unit of 10 gargoyles, maybe a Hive Tyrant. The psychophage and venomthropes I like, probably just a matter of playtesting to figure out how many of each.

There was a very successful invasion fleet list at a GT which would serve as the prime example of using probably the most efficient amount of swarm with a strong shooting aspect as well. Not necessarily what you need to do unless your personal meta is really too cutthroat to have some fun, but its useful as a benchmark and to get a sense of what some good complementary units to your plan could be. Went something like
Hive Tyrant w Adaptive Physio
Neurotyrant
3 x 20 Hormagaunts
10 Termagants
10 Gargoyles
10 Genestealers
3 Tyranid Warriors
3 Raveners
Neurolictor
Biovore
2 x Exocrine
2 x Tyrannofex w Rupture Cannon

Thanks for this input, the Neurolicter did occur to me as well and I played a game with 80 guants last weekend and noticed that one slightly faster unit would be nice for grabbing an objective turn one (especially for cleanse) so i may have to include gargoyles although i hate the models. Even at 80 2 of my 3 opponents struggled with the numbers so 100 is probably enough.

I think for at least the near future I'll look to a 120 model version with an additional tyrannofex as you suggest.

I main Kroot competitively, so I'm very familiar with having a lot of model. My last tournament list ran around 150. I never timed out on a game, but I came VERY close a few times. I won one of my matches with literally 1 second left on my clock.

My advise for that is practice. The more familiar you are with your army, the less time it takes to make decisions. Same thing with deployment, have a solid game plan ahead of time, and only react when necessary to what your opponent does. You're on the right track with movement trays, they are a massive help. Lastly, don't feel like you have to shoot everything. Taking random pot shots that waste time will prevent you from doing something more effective later. Sometimes, it's just helpful to have extra blobs of bodies for actions and to be a potential threat, even if they don't actually do anything.

As for the list itself, you didn't say what the Termagaunts are equipped with, but Devourers work best in tandem with the Tervigons.

I do play Tyranid swam a little more casually though and this is what I've noticed.

While Invasion Fleet is a good pick, there are some solid advantages to Unending Swarm. All your little guys getting surge moves puts a lot of pressure on the enemy. Strat wise, if you use the Swarming Masses strat on a unit of Termagaunts near the Tervigon to get 5+ Lethal/Sustained. Teeming Masses is a good strat to keep your blobs alive. Bounding advance for auto 6" advance on your Hormaguants. And unending waves to revive a full blob.

Not to say Invasion Fleet is bad, mass lethals will take down all but the most heavily armoured vehicles and monsters eventually. You still have the strat to bring back some models, and you have the FNP defensively as well which is nice.

Overall, I've found that while invasion fleet hits harder, Unending sward is more durable and maneuverable. They are both good options that are more playstyle dependent than one being strictly better than another.