The boxes I need to finish off my 1750 Tyranid army arrived today.
I have a Carnifex to turn into a Tyrannofex,
3 Warriors which are becoming Tyrant Guard,
and some Termagants which are becoming...well...Termagants...
I would also at this point like to thank my friend and long time Tyranid player 'Hawkeye' for his generous donation of Tyranid spares that combined with the above boxes will enable me to finish building my units.
This means I should have a 1750 army that I can use without Proxying anything by the end of the weekend.
This means 2 important things,
1) I can start using my army for test games at my FLGS without feeling like a knob *
* I don't mind Proxying units at home or at a friends for the purposes of testing but don't like doing it for 'pick-up' games as I think it's a bit lame.
2) I can get ahead of myself and start thinking about what to do at 2000 points.
As long as I'm keeping the 1750 fairly close to it's current form (No unit has particularly let me down or shown itself as a weak link yet, I am only 2 games in though) those amongst you who are good at maths will have worked out that, that leaves me 250 points to spend.
So what viable options can I get for the points?
1) Tervigon + Termagants.
A Tervigon with the appropriate upgrades and a unit of 10 Termagants to make it 'legal' cost me 245 points or (and this is also a concern for me though it may or may not be for all of you) £42 of real money (Carnifex £27, Termagants £15).
This gives me another 2 scoring units, 1 of which is actually quite tough. It also allows me to have a Tervigon and Brood to hold my objective while leaving the other 2 to advance on other objectives and dish out 'Feel no Pain' and Synapse support to whatever needs it.
2) Hive Guard
Increasing the 3 units of Hive Guard to 3's significantly (well 2 extra shots at S8 is pretty significant in my book) increases my anti-vehicle firepower. That only costs me 150 points and £36 (1 box of warriors and the 2 extra weapon sprues I need to make their guns).
Being S8 ignores the Feel no Pain that every army I face seems to be full of at the moment, lol.
It also makes them more likely to be able to glance Land Raiders to Death (or immobilisation, which is the same thing as death for a transport ;-) )** should I face a Raider Spam army that my Tyrannofex's are unable to handle.
Though by no means their primary role, 6 S5 attacks at WS4 combined with their Toughness of 6 and 2 wounds each makes them an adequate combat/tarpit unit in a pinch.
That does however leave me with 100 points which is a slightly odd amount in a Tyranids list as all the good stuff is quite expensive or cheap and rubbish, though it would buy me a Tyranid Prime as a secondary close combat threat.
** I know the odds aren't good but I've immobilised and significantly disarmed Land Raiders with Krak Missiles enough to know it can happen even if it's not likely.
3) Tyrannofex
265 points (and £27 of real money) means I'd have to scrape another 15 points from somewhere but that's easily obtained by dropping the Stranglewebs from the Termagants .
Question is do I need a 3rd set of S10 guns?
Well obviously they're nice to have and combined with the free stuff they do make an impressive anti-infantry unit once they get close. That one will take a bit of thinking about.
4) Harpy
170 points with the Twin-Linked Venom Cannon and about £35 depending on what I used to make one.
If I want an extra gun platform I think I'd prefer another Tyrannofex. However, the Harpy is obviously a lot more mobile and is capable of considerable anti-infantry firepower.
Being one of the few Tyranid Monstrous Creatures that's only T5 combined with 4 Wounds and a 4+ save means a couple of 85 point Predators would shoot it out of the sky with little effort (as would any comparable 'Torrent of Fire' unit). Suddenly, I'd need 2 or even 3 of them and that changes the rest of the army considerably.
On the face of it I'm not impressed but I'm open to opposing viewpoints...
5) A big horde of something...
Something that would draw a lot of firepower that would otherwise be aimed at the rest of my army would be nice. I best split this section up, I suppose.
a) Ripper Swarms
I'm only joking...moving on...
b) Termagants.
Well I can make those for free with the Tervigons so if that's what I want I'd just go with option 1 and buy a Tervigon as well...
c) Hormagaunts.
Anything in the Tyranid book that's only S3 really needs Toxin Sacs. Furious Charge might be nice on these as they're fairly quick so might actually get to charge something. Unfortunately that makes them 10 points each and I'm not sure they're worth it. They'll also quickly out-range the Tervigon that may have been able to increase their survivability with 'Feel no Pain'.
d) Gargoyles
With the (imo) necessary Toxin Sacs and Adrenal Gland upgrades these weigh in at 8 points each so I could have 2 units of 15 for 240 of my 250 points. Given their 18" charge range these can be kept in Synapse Range at the beginning of the turn and then thrown into combat pretty much straight away in turn 2. I may have to do some Mathshammer on these as I'm not sure if they'll ever kill enough on the turn they charge to make them survive very long into the 2nd round of combat. As a distraction unit however they seem the best option out of the 4 'horde' units.
From a personal point of view I'm not sure that any of those 'horde' options compliment my army as well as another Monstrous Creature would.
The Others.
I'm sure there are perfectly good arguments for Genestealers, Trygons, Mawlocks and any number of other things but they're all units for other army builds as far as I'm concerned and I'm too skint at the moment to start looking at completely differently focused Tyranid armies, lol.
That turned into a bit of a longer wall of text than I originally intended...
The floor is now open for opposing viewpoints, but bear in mind we are talking about units that compliment this army rather than their value as individual units in other builds.
Thoughts?
Genestealers actually benefit greatly from the Swarmlord. Outflanking is typically ass, but with +1 to reserves and a re-roll for board edge, they can actually work.
ReplyDelete2 smallish broods with a Broodlord (who does all the work) and toxin sacs work fine as normal infiltrators (scout blocking, early threats, drawing fire) or outflanking.
As I actually have Genestealers still on sprues I might just assemble a dozen or so and make a couple of them as Broodlords and see how they do in a game.
ReplyDeleteMinimum sized squad with Toxin Sacs and a Broodlord comes to 131 points. What's the minimum size unit I can get away with do you think?
Broodlord does all the work anyway, anywhere between 5 and 10 would be fine I think.
ReplyDelete@ Chumbalaya - So a Genestealer unit is basically a Broodlord with as many ablative wounds as you can afford then, lol.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to be able to include Genestealers in the list as it wouldn't involve me buying anything as I already have the sprue's. I'm still not sure they compliment the army better than the other options though.
My vote is for hormagaunts. i completely agree that they are unlikely to kill anything unless boosted in some way. i however think that hormagaunts killing things is a novelty and not their job!
ReplyDeleteprimarily hormagaunts are simply in a tyranid army, imho, to clog up the gears of the opposing war machine. a devastator squad or dreadnought will be quite good at firing heavy weapons at your monstrous creatures, as soon as your hormagaunts have used their 12" charge to engage them in combat, they arent doing that aymore. all they have to do is get into combat and survive for a turn, so long as you have one nid alive in the following turn it's stopped them shooting and this allows you many opportunities including spawning more termagaunts.
the primary way this benifts and compliments your army however is by pinning a squad in place so that your slow moving swarmlord and guard can chagre. a unit of termies charged by hormagaunts will kill a few but so long as you're still alive at the end of combat (easier due to extra range of swarmlord's synapse IIRC) then it will help him charge what he wants which somewhat offsets his slowness.
they're also good for contesting objectives late game if they're still alive due to their extra long charge
@ Mike - Unfortunately Hormagaunts aren't 'beasts' but 'infantry' so they don't get the 12" charge. They do still have Fleet and get Move Through Cover but even with that their no-where near as fast as I think they need to be.
ReplyDeleteoh. thats stupid. why change the one unit in the old book that wqorked exactly how it should fluffwise?!?!
ReplyDelete@ Mike - Another example of GW's 'but your not Marines and therefore must suck' policy.
ReplyDeleteHormagaunts 'Threat' range is 13-18", they do get 'bounding leap' which means they roll 3 dice for their run move and pick the highest so your most likely going to be at the high end of that range. Even so they've still being hit with the 'Nerf' bat quite hard.