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Hi there, after quite a while university and painting im nearly done now (pics to follow if im done) and would like some review and advice for my hive.what i got i the army right now is basicly just all the miniatures i got that happen to come out to 1748 pts.

HQ
Hive Tyrant (203) : Wings,2*Scything Talons,2* Adrenalin Glads,Sacs,Warpfield,Toxic Miasma

Broodlord (83) : Carapace,Hooks
    -8 Genestealers (160) : Carapace

Standart
10 Genestealers (200) : Carapace
8 Hormagaunts (112) : 2* Adrenalin Glads,Sacs
8 Hormagaunts (112) : 2* Adrenalin Glads,Sacs
8 Spinegaunts (50) : Spinefists
14 Gaunts (84) : Fleshborers

Elite
1 Lictor (80)
3 Warriors (105) : Jumping,Carapace,Scything Talons,Rending Claws
3 Warriors (88) : 1* Carapace,Scything Talons, Enhanced Senses,Venom Cannon
                           2* Carapace,Scything Talons, Enhanced Senses,Deathspitter
Assault
2 Ravener (80) : Claws,Scything Talons

Heavy Support
Gunfex (163) : Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler, Enhanced senses, +1W
Gunfex (163) : Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler, Enhanced senses, +1W

                                                                    ===============
                                                                                       1748 pts.

I had a single 400 pts. warhammer game yet. painting takes a whole lot of time and i dont like to play them unfinished :/ so i dont have any experience - feel free to rip it apart (,but tell me why).

To me this list seems to have no concept, because i just bought some of each kind of model, just to test in play them and paint them . somehow i didnt like Biovores and Gargoyls i read and thought they are ineffective units.

Im unsure about my Hive Tyrant. Did i spend to many points for all those CC extras ? i guess this depends on the kind of enemy im facing - as i dont know the other armys yet im not sure against which enemy to take those +1 boni.it would also be nice to know a standart build for this unit, as i dont want to refit my army after i know what kind of race im playing against (sounds to be not fair).

What about the Broodlord, a small discussion about his morphs would be nice. i was realy unsure which one he should get.

Warriors, the "Uhm .. what to do with these" unit. there is a realy nice article about the carnifex (where i obviusly stole my disign from), but im realy lacking advice for warriors. they just dont seem to be good units for me. they allways tend to be expansive if i tool them for CC or shooting job. im lacking the most knowledge where it come to the +1 boni (adrenalin and toxin sacs).It seems to be obvious to me that wings are a bad choice. Also 2 scything talons for the CC variant seems to be a bad idea. im unsure about the mid strength weapons. the deathspitter doesnt use the 2 attacks granted in the profile - im not happy with loosing one - on the other hand its a template weapon ...

well and finaly, and maybe allready answerd while disassembling my list, i would like to know what type of model you suggest i should get some more of (if i should ever get these painted).I would like my Army to be balanced.I definitive dont like the Godzilla approach - i think a Zerg like Army should provide enough stuff for the opponent to kill and blast away, while the heaps of corpse constantly creep closer.

thanks for your time for reading till here allready!

Some thoughts from me:

Flying hive tyrant: IMO, neither of the adrenal glands are needed. There is virtually no benefit by taking both WS6 and Toxic Miasma. Take Miasma by itself - it has the same result of +1 WS, but it makes WS3 models WS2, thus needing 5+ to hit the tyrant. In addition, I6 isn't really needed. Most models with I5 will still need 6+ to wound the tyrant, and if they don't, they probably have powerfists, in which case they're going last anyways. I'd give him Flesh Hooks however, in case you need to assault into cover.

Hormagaunts: With so few of them, I would run them without any upgrades. You need to expect some casualties before you reach combat, and with broods of 8, you'll lose probably atleast 4 of them... that is a very expensive loss, and the return attacks of the 4 remaining hormagaunts wont be all that impressive. If you run upgraded hormagaunts, you really need lots of them... At 1500, I ran 2 broods of 16, and at 1850, 3 broods of 16.

Shooty Warriors: Drop the deathspiiters in favor of devourers. They make use of the warriors' multiple attacks, thus giving a higher rate of fire.

Everything else looks pretty good. The gunfexes will serve you well against enemy armor.

With the points saved from the hormagaunt upgrades, try to get some mroe bodies in the list.. more spinegaunts would be good.

To specifically address some of your questions:

Broodlord: The broodlord is more of a "for fun" unit, than an effective unit. I take Toxin Sacs, Implant Attack, Carapace, and Hooks on mine. This makes him kind of pricey. Also, I didn't mention this above, but a large retinue will make him harder to hide. Considering dropping his retinue down to 5 or 6 strong, so that the unit can be more easily hidden behind terrain, and thus allowing him to infiltrate closer to the enemy. This also helps keep the overall cost of the unit down, when you play that inevitable Alpha level mission, and the unit probably won't be able to earn it's points back.

Deathspiiters: As I mentioned above, I would take devourers instead. As you already noted, the deathspiiter does not take advantage of the multiple attacks of the warriors. In addition, the new template rules for 4th edition are not so good, and you'll be lucky to ever get more than 1 whole and 2 partials.

CC warriors: You have them outfitted pretty well. I personally like to give them the I5 upgrade, so that they can strike before dreadnoughts and wraithlords... but this is a preference thing.

If you want the warriors to be shooty, I'd actually go with TL'd Devourers and not try to go leaping - all it will do is cause problems. You're making a very similar setup to my first try with them, and it's a sucker compromise.

They can't close combat as well as a pure CC set of warriors with talons and rending claws (or even many elite choices at the same points cost) and they can't shoot very effectively with the Deathspitters. (The VC's OK, but really, that's what your Gunfexes are doing, right? Is using the Warriors on armor really that good, or would you rather be chewing up the soft targets with them?)

Personally, I run the adrenals set rather than miasma, but either way I'd agree with Gabe that you want one or the other - not both, unless you end up in a situation where you have exactly 6 points to spend and nothing else you really want.

The lictor is, IMHO, a waste of time. He's points that can either go into a 3rd Ravener, or an elite fex, or a ton of gaunts. His biggest selling point is his inflitration, and you're going to use the Broodlord for that (and he'll do better at it!) Personally, with your list, I'd probably get another Ravener.

(And to answer your question - simple's best with the Broodlord. I'd say EC and hooks is all he really needs, though I can see why implant attack might seem like a good idea if you're fighting other 'nid armies in particular...)

Gaunts: I got it beaten into me (kinda literally) that gaunts either have to be stripped all the way down, or pimped to hell and gone. Personally, I'd say go for stripped down and be able to put a lot of bodies on the board (especially since you could use the trick of having your lower Leadership critters "Falling back" towards the Broodlord and flyrant!)

You'd be surprised how much you can do that, even with a zilla list, if you use fairly simple but deadly little bastards. Spinegaunts alone can be 20 some models for a hundredsome points if you just strip them down to basics, and Hormagaunts aren't much worse. Even fairly basic stealers (EC, and either Scutters or Flesh Hooks, depending what you want to do with them) can be very numerous for cheaper than you might expect.

Hope this helps - to be honest, I'm kinda parroting some of the advice I got when I put a list up here for the first time, but it's advice that helped me out a lot in looking at how I was building my 'nid lists.

Hmm. I won't quite agree about that Lictor. True, he doesn't have the punch to match his points, but between 3 TMCs and 3 units of Beasts that reroll could be quite helpful in the event you end up playing Omega.

No giant arguments against the hormies from me - actually, I became quite engaged on this very board by a didactic fellow who mathed out the S and I upgrades as being 100% worthwhile. You've done nothing silly to your ordinary gaunts either. Perhaps my unwillingness to criticize is due to the fact that that your list is very similar to mine - a bucket of metal and plastic dating from exactly after 2nd edition...still not entirely painted too! (I've had Battle for Maccragge since it came out and while my stealers have at least their basic baby blue drybrush, the Termies are all of a mono-hued navy. Also, my Warriors have wings because after spending about a week of spare time posing one to look like he was leaping, I didn't really care that they would be shredded by boltguns if they ever ventured between the furthest point my opponent could see and the edges of their bases. The small squads of super-hormies have to follow a similar logic - hide, seek cover, present AP weapons of a single squad with a choice of both units. (whomever they shoot, they'll still face the rest of them) You might consider running them in one large unit to give them a small chance of staying above half-strength. Keep in mind, they have leaping as well as beasts and so function a little like pikemen in Fantasy - four ranks of attacks. If you don't plan on facing many MEQs, though, definitely ditch the upgrades. Three attacks is all you need to beat the stuffing out of the likes of guardsmen and fire warriors.

If you want something that will paint up a little faster, all TMC is the way to go, especially if, like me, you can't bear to have differing qualities of painting within your army. A two-tone drybrush or (gasp) dip scheme is another way to speed up the painting process - occasionally I kick myself for deciding on having two different colours of chitin the way I kick myself for trying to paint freehand designs on four dozen marines. Certainly it's a more elaborate tabletop standard, but it is possible to imitate very elaborate shading techniques to a nearly identical - ie, not using a magnifying glass - level using a simple, striking colour scheme with flattering colours. Genestealers apparently form a decent complement to TMCs, as well as shrinking the quantity of models you have to paint. They also offer you the option of slowly building up a surplus pool of 'stealers to be backed by roughly a dozen identically armed Warriors for a completely different style of army to surprise your regular opponents once they're used to maxing out on lascannon.

Gabe

Hive Tyrant - thanks, very usefull information. as i said i dont know the values of the other races. hmm one thing that bothers me is that the adrenal glads for combat skill come for 4 pts and the toxic miasma comes for 6, if they are realy the same in effect in every case (if i remember the close combat table right there was a difference in combat skill between both parties of 2 needed to modifie the dicerol by 1 ? - but im not sure if that was linear. if that would be the case, the adrenal glads would be simply the same and though be better (cheaper)).

(Horma)Gaunts - Ill think i get some more then. uhm - painting 3*16 .... and the spinegaunts also .... uhm .. hehe

Warriors - another question concerning the devourers, or twin linked devourers. are they allready twin linked if i equip devourer, scything talons, or do i need to equip 4 models (arms) of devourers to have them twin linked ? if 2nd. i guess that would be the better option, as these warriors are only ment to shoot. uhm and just to be sure , the devourers are those with 18" S-1(max. S6) --- Assault 2X,Living ammo right ? i got the german codex version here (they call it "Neuralfresser" here) and wasnt able to find a pic.

BZArcher

i didnt intend to mutate the shooty warriors with leaping. i guess this was your missunderstanding, or is it mine ?

lictor - hmm is he realy that bad. i think his advantage vs the raveners is that he may attack the same turn he enters the table and can be placed relative precice in relative small terrain bases. i thought of using him like a sniper. on the other hand i haven´t seen him in many lists so far.ill concider that but i think ill stick with : "i like him and keep him." for now.


warriors - VC - well the thought was : if i could equip every warrior with a VC, i would do so. but as they are limited to 1, i should get at least one.they have half the shots, but double the strength compared with a devourer. i also thought that the army lacks shooty attacks in mid ranged strength 5-7.on the other hand tyranids are CC and this is probably not a problem. well this is basicly the mess with the warriors, everbody has another opinion on how to use them. some dont use them at all - worth a whole article i guess.

thank you both very much for the help so far - have to go painting

wight_widow

well yes, its half battle for macragge and 2 of those cost effective boxes for 75? + some metal models i liked opticaly .

painting - well if i do it, i try to do it the best way i can, taking about 3 hours a warrior (including several cigarett brakes to keep it precise o0 ). im "playing" for about 6 month now, with a single game, as i also dont like to play with the guys painted in different qualities - im looking quite forward to not even liking the boardgame very much :p .

"a didactic fellow who mathed out" ... could have been me :p i love statistics, but this time i realy try to a) max it out of course, as allways, but also b) try to keep it fair by triing to build an allround army, not specialised against a specific enemy or plotting strange godzilla army plans.

i never played fantasy pikemen.

what does "TMC" mean ?

atm im thinking about ripping the deathspitters off the models and replacing them by devourers, or - just buy new models

well my opponents are going to be imp guard, sm,chaos,sm,orks,necrons and .. sm

what does "TMC" mean ?

Tyranid monstruous creature

Mad: Sorry, misread the leaping off your first set of warriors onto the shooting ones as well. My mistake!

If you'd like to keep the Lictor, that's fair enough. It is your army, after all! I'd play with him a few times and see how he does for you.