Happy weekend everyone!
So I've been thinking about Nids lists quite a bit lately. Most of the proposed alterations to my standard list have involved giving up the safety net of the dual Prime/Zoanthrope star. This unit is somewhat of a safety blanket for me, to be honest. I could have gone undefeated (albeit with one draw) at the Conquest Seattle GT last year if my Space Wolves had been better equipped to handle a Dual Land Raider list. That experience has provided a near reflexive need on my part to include sufficient anti-heavy armor to deal with this possible matchup.
For the tournament list which has become my current standard, I have 4 S10 shots and 2 Warp Lance shots, as well as whatever my Monstrous Critters can manage in melee (usually something, but often not a lot). While this doesn't provide me with the same kind of warm fuzzy feelings against dual Land Raiders that, say, a nine Broadside Tau player must feel, I know through trial and testing that it is "enough" to deal with them.
Now, the nice thing about the Zoan-star is that it is deceptively resilient, and it's shooting capabilities are only one part of what it does for me. People tend to under-estimate the amount of damage that two Primes with Lash Whips and Boneswords can do to your army once they reach hand to hand. This unit functions exactly like a Loganbomb unit - which is why I thought about using it to begin with.
It's theoretically a short range shooty unit which slogs implacably into mid-field and pew-pews against your armor early game. But about mid-game this unit becomes an incredible close combat threat you have to deal with as well.
For me, that's what takes this unit from marginal to worth-while. Spending 335 points on an anti-tank shooting unit with two shots (although granted they are really good shots) is not a good plan. But having the double threat of shooting and assault pushes them over the top for me.
Now, when we make decisions we can't just look at things in a vacuum. It's not enough to say that what the Zoan-star does is good (it is) but instead we must ask whether what we could be doing with those points/slots instead of the star would be better/more useful to the army. That's the concept of opportunity cost, which I'm sure most of you understand quite well.
So what else could we do with those slots? Well for one thing if we aren't using our HQ slots for Primes, we have the option of shifting one or both of our Tervigons into the HQ slots. If we do this we do not have to take units of Termagants (we might WANT to, but we don't have to). That gives us between another 50 and 100 points to play with.
So all told we are looking at up to 440 points we can re-allocate as needed. That's a good chunk of points, yes? Keep in mind that we have some other tweaks we can make too. The Scything Talons on the Tervigon are pure filler and have always bothered me anyways. We also don't need Onslaught if we aren't running Zoanthropes. It's a nice tool to have, don't get me wrong, but less necessary.
That leaves us with 470 points to play with.
Well, let's start with the basics. If we are dropping the Zoanthropes we should probably fill that Elites slot with some Hive Guard. In my army I run these in units of two at this points level. 100 points gone.
I also think it would be wise to have at least one of those Tervigons be a scoring unit, and we need some cheap cover screen providers to start the game with anyways. Let's take one unit of Termagants and move one of the Tervigons to troops. 50 points gone.
That leaves us with 320 points to work with. Hrmmm... what could we do with that?
Well, one option is to beef the ever loving bejeesus out of the Genestealer units. Two huge units of Genestealers supported by Feel No Pain and a firebase does have a certain appeal.
But we could also throw three units of Raveners into the mix. That is an interesting option, I think.
That would add to the number of light vehicles we can go after per turn, and gives us some extra Close Combat punch to boot.
I think this is a very appealing option. The list would look like this:
Tervigon, Catalyst, Adrenals, Toxins
Hive Guard x 2
Hive Guard x 2
Hive Guard x 2
Tervigon, Catalyst, Adrenals, Toxins
Termagants
Genestealers x 12, Toxin Sacs
Genestealers x 12, Toxin Sacs
Raveners x 3, Rending Claws
Raveners x 3, Rending Claws
Raveners x 3, Rending Claws
Tyrannofex, Rupture Cannon
Tyrannofex, Rupture Cannon
1993 points.
So I guess the Tervigon gets some Scything Talons after all, lol. (Probably not, they are modelled the same and it would be a pain to keep track).
The biggest drawback I see with this list is Synapse. With only two Synapse creatures, there is a very real danger that at some point I'm going to start taking tests. That's not a great thing, but in my experience the Tervigons are not generally the first target for my opponent. Sometimes, but not always. If my opponent has a plethora of missile launchers and not a lot of anti-infantry, I will probably put FNP on the Tervigons themselves rather than the Genestealers.
If my opponent is rocking 20 Lascannons... well, I'll hide behind the T-Fexes and pray I guess, while trying to make him worry about the 24 Genestealers and 9 Raveners heading his direction (note that the Raveners will probably take some pressure off of the monstrous creatures).
The Raveners do not need Feel No Pain support - they are cheap enough per wound that trying to take them down with standard anti-infantry while they are in cover is just not an efficient approach.
Also, given that they are small units, I can afford to go to ground on any of them and not lose too much of my overall power, so if they catch five Krak Missiles to the face that's what I will do.
It's got a certain leanness which I like. I'm not convinced this is a better list than my current one, but I do think it has some nice merits. I would be interested in hearing your feedback.
