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We all know the glory of twin linked devourers with brain leech worms. But are some of the other options playable?

For some reason, I was under the impression that the big montrous bio cannons (heavy venom cannon and stranglethorn cannon) were either limited to one per monster, couldn't be fired in the same turn, or were forced to be twin linked when doubled up. Looks like I got all of that from old editions!

Has any one has luck with twin venom cannon monsters? It seems to me that the range, fact that it's blast, and high strength could lead to easily plunking off some hull points from far away, or laying a decent amount of high strength wounds. It seems on paper like a set up that could fill a role for the Tyranids. Is this not seen often just because the devourers seem so mandatory in their awesomeness? Am I missing things?

There is a footnote in the Monstrous Bio-Cannons list that says only one stranglethorn or venom cannon can be taken per model.

Tyranids are certainly lacking in firepower higher than S6.
Heavy venom cannons are unfortunately just kinda bad. Basically an AP4 small blast las-cannon, but the problem is that only very few models can take them. Hive Tyrants, Carnifexes, or Harpies. All of which are big expensive monstrous creatures, that have better things to be doing than plinking 1 hull point off a vehicle each turn (well, I suppose harpies don't have much better to do. But that's because they're kinda terrible).

It's a fairly staggering amount of points if you're taking enough of these to actually kill a vehicle.

About the only appropriate place for a venom cannon is on a tyranid warrior in the living artillery node since all their blast weapons gain pinning and the strangler already has it. The str 6 should help with the need to cause an unsaved wound to force a pinning test.

As for you pointing to the fact that it's a blast weapon as a positive, small blasts are the worst accuracy weapons in the game for hitting what you are aiming at unless you're BS1 for whatever reason.

As mentioned above, there's really no place for the heavy venom cannon, except maybe on the harpy, but even then I reckon you'd be better off with the STC.

I've made this point repetitively in a few threads now, and it might be getting tedious (sorry), but it seems to me that venom cannons and rupture cannons are NOT designed to kill tanks. They are designed to SUPPRESS tanks, to shake them, stun them, immobilize them. That's why they have the S and AP they do -- they won't one-shot a tank, but they can STOP it just fine.

They're one of many things in the Tyranid Codex (The Horror that every Broodlord has, widely available Pinning Large Blasts, the Harpy's screech, Gargoyles' blinding venom, Spore Mines that are clearly meant not to kill but to distract and block movement) designed to neutralize enemy units so that the primary killers -- mainly Carnifexes in the case of vehicles -- can close oir otherwise be more effective..

Too bad Vehicles suck and anything worth suppressing has Toughness/Wounds or Ignores the chart as a SHW.

The Tyranid players on this forum sure spend a lot of time complaining about how they can't handle armor because they can't catch up to it, though.


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EDIT: I think the big problem with the Tyranid codex is that it is designed to function as a highly synergistic army, with one unit compensating for another's deficencies, but things are too expensive across the board for it to actually work in this fashion.

For instance, take the issue of lack of assault grenades. The Tyranids have the tools to compensate for this -- The Horror, peppering the target with barbed stranglers or stranglethorn cannons, or diving a Harpy into it at the same time as you charge it with somethng else. But a Harpy is 135 points! A Carnifex with a stranglethorn cannon is 135 too! Far too expensive. The answer to a Wraithknight, on paper, would be swamping it with large numbers of Hormagaunts (Raveners might work too), and then while it can't move charging it with a Hive Tyrant with boneswords and his bonesword-building Tyrant Guard, which will slaughter it (actually Warriors with boneswords + toxin sacs will do this as well). But this is hugely expensive! You can't do this in a standard army and have much of anything else.

So the army cannot function in the synergistic way it was designed to, leading to a monomanaical focus on flying Hive Tyrants with devourers. If you lowered the cost of units by 20% or so across the board, I think it would be much more effective.

I think venom cannons should be poison 4+ and gain the flame template option like the miasma cannon but keep their current strengths. Then just drop the miasma cannon as a relic or make it haywire or something. This would make venom cannons actually dangerous allowing reroll to wound in most cases. It wouldn't help against vehicles but remember we have other ways to deal with vehicles.

Edit: and a cost reduction for most of the codex would be great but I'd rather have interesting ability to make the units more usefull than a points decrease.

Heavy Venom Cannons on my Tyrants have always been good for me. They tend to be the final nail in the coffin for transports and can even penetrate (and cripple) the heaviest armour in the game on a good roll. On a hit they can knock down Necrons and Iron Hands more reliably than some other weapons too. But isn't tank hunting really the Zoanthropes' or Hive Guard's job anyway? I usually run a winged Tyrant with devourers and given the points also a walking tyrant with Heavy Venom Cannon and Bonesword/Lashwhips and they always put the hurt on things. If the Venom cannon kept its Strength AND got Poisoned, that would be pretty sweet actually. Rerolling Wounds at that high STR could be very solid. Tyrants (and most of the other big bugs) do probably need both a base points decrease, and some limiting factor to rein in Flyrant Spam, or we're stuck with these boring Tyranid lists forever. Alternatively, making Carnifex decent and affordable (either 2+ save option or impressive points reduction) would put them where they need to be. Nearly every picture in books of a Carnifex involves them eating a tank, why exactly don't they do that properly in game again?

I now see the (somewhat obvious I must admit) note about the bio-cannons. Bummer! I thought the potential of two on each monster could give a little volume of fire, making it a nice option, but with just one each I see clearer why these are so rare.

You guys are certainly right that much in the codex, but this weapon in particular, needs a change.

Back in the day, I remember the Venom Cannon as a two shot weapon, which I think I like more. This was back when the Tyranid codex was super complicated, with a huge number of buffs and modifications you could make to just about every model. The guns back then were based on the strength of the user. I think Venom Cannons were S+2 or something. S7 Venom Cannon Warriors were great, and the Death Spitters could end up as S6 small blasts at 24 inches. Oh, to have these options for warriors again....

Has anyone had any luck with combining different guns on a model? As a rule of thumb I try to focus my units on a particular job and so rarely mix and match, but I could see a Venom Cannon and one TL Devourer being potentially useful.

I kitbashed 3 venomcannon dev carnifexes and used them a bit but they cost 5 pts more and are half as effective against most targets unfortunately.

Hey all so what about 5x venomcannons on a tyrranocyte? For 100pts 5 of those on a 6 wound monster that's still ap 2 in combat and all that doesn't seem so bad, that and it doesn't take away from the heavy support slot either. I realise it has an automated fire rule but drop it in the middle of enemy lines, hell drop 2 or 3 of them and they're going to just cause havoc EVERYWHERE and cleanup anything you want on the charge.

Just a random musing I'd love to hear opinions on.

Cheers,

Qwerty

Not bad but there standard venom cannons (s6) and a small blast at bs2 it's not what i would call safe for anything coming out of the cyte or your cc troops nearby. To start they would be fine (empty cyte) but as you close and things get tight i see only bad things happening, even worse with the stangler as thats large blast.

Oh to add the cyte itself cant charge anything.

Barbed strangers/Venom cannons on the pods are an expensive upgrade to a pod that already costs more than double a space marine pod.
However I thought they were actually fairly decent. Able to drop a fairly heavy amount of fire onto a unit.

Unfortunately the draft FAQ kinda ruined them, by giving them 45 degree firing arcs. A bit of a problem when the guns are mounted so high up on the model.
Seriously look at this.

The blind spots are annoying, but the worst part is there's now an argument that the guns cannot aim low enough to hit a marine sized model that's closer than 11.875 inches.

Pretty much the whole codex needs a solid reboot.