Hey Purgatus! Somerandomdude here.
Like I said in your opening post, I’ve been inspired by your recent discussion of Tyranids. My brother got me into the game when he started up two years ago, and his first army was Nids. The old codex let him do a lot of crazy things. While this new codex has brought things up to date and streamlined the army, it was tough for him to adjust, and he moved on to Marines last summer.
I’ve tried to help him make lists with the new codex, but it was tough to look at things outside the accepted norm (Pro-HG, Tervigon, Tyrranofex, anti-Carnifex and Warriors). This was tough to digest because of the composition of my brother’s (well-painted) army. However, after reading your recent posts on YTTH and AbusePuppy’s pro-Warrior post over at 3++, I started working on this list.
Tyranid Prime w/ LW/BS, Deathspitter
Tyranid Prime w/ LW/BS, Deathspitter
Hive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2
Tyranid Warriors x5, LW/BS, Toxin Sacs, Deathspitter x4, Barbed Strangler
Tyranid Warriors x5, LW/BS, Toxin Sacs, Deathspitter x4, Barbed Strangler
Termagants x10
Termagants x10
Tervigon w/ Crushing Claws, Cluster Spines, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
Tervigon w/ Crushing Claws, Cluster Spines, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
Carnifex w/ Adrenal Glands, Frag Spines, Regen
Carnifex w/ Adrenal Glands, Frag Spines, Regen
Instead of Gargoyle screens, you have Warrior/Carnifex screens for your Tervigons (most are directly modeled off of Carnifexes, and Warriors come up to the head of one of those). The biggest reason people talked bad about the Warriors was the lack of ID protection, but with a 4+ cover, two scoring MCs, the Hive Guard, and the two Fexstars, how many S8 shots are you willing to spare to kill them off?
The warriors bring a lot of S5 shots to the table, and tear enemies apart in CC. The BS is there to disrupt certain aspects of gunlines that might annoy you, and act as pseudo-Frag Spines when they get closer (if they assault a pinned unit in cover, they go at initiative, which gets even better with LW). The Fexstars use the LW/Frag combo I first read about in your posts, and they have dual Regen to stay up as long as possible. Tervigons with Crushing Claws were again stolen from you, in order to give another CC vehicle threat.
The lack of suppression fire is an obvious weakness, and without the points for a Tyrannofex (not even enough points for a Harpy!) it’s tough to fix. I actually had Deathleaper in at first for disruption/hood protection, but had to get that third unit of HG in. The first obvious choice is dropping the Glands from the Fexes (not necessary with LW) and the Claws off the Tervigons for TL Devourers on the Fexes. 24 TL S6 shots will slow down a couple things a turn as you close in, but it makes the Tervigons less threatening.
Anyway, what are your thoughts? It’s nice to see posts about Tyranids that aren’t just “take HG, Tervs, Tyrannos, then fill to points and throw away models.”
Well, let's get this going, shall we?
Now, I'm going to start off by saying that I don't feel like I'm an "expert" on Nids. At the same time, I don't feel like there are really that many people on the internets who are really trying to make this codex work. So I will be doing my damn-nest to, through trial and tribulation, error and success (mostly errors I'm sure) come up with something that WORKS.
Ok. SO when I look at what Nids lists need in general, and what they generally struggle to get the most, it's suppression.
Suppression basically comes in two forms: anti-infantry and anti-tank. When I think of anti-infantry suppression I basically would like the ability to do 2 wounds at range to three separate MEQ units a turn if possible. This gives me the ability to reliably cause leadership tests on three different units of Heavy Weapons teams (Longfangs come to mind, but Devastators of any flavor give Nids a bad day).
We of course also need anti-vehicle suppression, I would think at least 5 units capable of suppressing vehicles would be necessary. But we don't want to go so far down that road that we fold in close combat once they actually get to us.
Forcing 3 Ld 9 tests per round is good. Forcing an additional 3 Pinning tests is better. Either result gets us what we want - a Heavy Weapons team that's not shooting us. I would rather have them run off the board all things being equal but I'll take my breaks where I can find them.
So Barbed Stranglers are a really solid addition to the Nid arsenal I think. That being said when you are buying 5 man Warrior units for them you are paying a hell of a premium. Since Warriors are always fearless anyways you don't really care about taking Ld tests, and while you want to make them a target I don't think you want them to be TOO obvious of a target. Let's drop those squads down to 3 a piece and see what we can work with after that. I do like the idea of the Carnifex/Prime Star (I have talked about it, of course), but I'm not settled on it being the only way. And if you are running Warriors I think the Primes are probably better off hanging out with them. Maybe not, but we'll have to see.
If we drop the Carnifexes we can take two T-Fexes for vehicle suppression and "line-breaking" and then the Primes can hang out with the Warriors. Now we have 3 Warriors and a Prime with 3 different wound groups and one model that can take Strength 8-9 hits. Not too shabby.
With the points that we saved we can afford some shooty Shrikes which add 2 more units of Barbed Stranglers.
Remember that with smaller squads you also have a much easier time going to ground with the units if they come under heavy fire - you are only losing 1/4 of your firepower instead of 1/2. For that reason combined with Fearless on those units I think the three man units are almost always better if you have the slots for them.
So now we have 4 Barbed Strangler shots per turn. We can throw 2 Deathspitters on each squad of Shrikes to give them some extra punch and make them at least mildly dangerous against side/rear armor. Don't have the points for anything more spendy. 4 Barbed Stranglers doesn't quite get us to our "goal" of 3 Leadership/Pinning tests per turn reliably, but it's a hell of a lot better than "wade through the krak missiles and hope to roll well on cover saves."
That leaves us with this setup:
Prime, LW/BS, Regen
Prime, LW/BS, Regen
Hive Guard x 2
Hive Guard x 2
Hive Guard x 2
Warriors x 3, Boneswords x 3, Barbed Strangler
Warriors x 3, Boneswords x 3, Barbed Strangler
Tervigon, Catalyst
Tervigon, Catalyst
Termagants x 10
Termagants x 10
We of course also need anti-vehicle suppression, I would think at least 5 units capable of suppressing vehicles would be necessary. But we don't want to go so far down that road that we fold in close combat once they actually get to us.
Forcing 3 Ld 9 tests per round is good. Forcing an additional 3 Pinning tests is better. Either result gets us what we want - a Heavy Weapons team that's not shooting us. I would rather have them run off the board all things being equal but I'll take my breaks where I can find them.
So Barbed Stranglers are a really solid addition to the Nid arsenal I think. That being said when you are buying 5 man Warrior units for them you are paying a hell of a premium. Since Warriors are always fearless anyways you don't really care about taking Ld tests, and while you want to make them a target I don't think you want them to be TOO obvious of a target. Let's drop those squads down to 3 a piece and see what we can work with after that. I do like the idea of the Carnifex/Prime Star (I have talked about it, of course), but I'm not settled on it being the only way. And if you are running Warriors I think the Primes are probably better off hanging out with them. Maybe not, but we'll have to see.
If we drop the Carnifexes we can take two T-Fexes for vehicle suppression and "line-breaking" and then the Primes can hang out with the Warriors. Now we have 3 Warriors and a Prime with 3 different wound groups and one model that can take Strength 8-9 hits. Not too shabby.
With the points that we saved we can afford some shooty Shrikes which add 2 more units of Barbed Stranglers.
Remember that with smaller squads you also have a much easier time going to ground with the units if they come under heavy fire - you are only losing 1/4 of your firepower instead of 1/2. For that reason combined with Fearless on those units I think the three man units are almost always better if you have the slots for them.
So now we have 4 Barbed Strangler shots per turn. We can throw 2 Deathspitters on each squad of Shrikes to give them some extra punch and make them at least mildly dangerous against side/rear armor. Don't have the points for anything more spendy. 4 Barbed Stranglers doesn't quite get us to our "goal" of 3 Leadership/Pinning tests per turn reliably, but it's a hell of a lot better than "wade through the krak missiles and hope to roll well on cover saves."
That leaves us with this setup:
Prime, LW/BS, Regen
Prime, LW/BS, Regen
Hive Guard x 2
Hive Guard x 2
Hive Guard x 2
Warriors x 3, Boneswords x 3, Barbed Strangler
Warriors x 3, Boneswords x 3, Barbed Strangler
Tervigon, Catalyst
Tervigon, Catalyst
Termagants x 10
Termagants x 10
Shrikes x 3, Barbed Strangler, Deathspitter x 2
Shrikes x 3, Barbed Strangler, Deathspitter x 2
Tyrannofex, Rupture Cannon
Tyrannofex, Rupture Cannon
I think this has some merit. Remember that the Warriors become BS 4 with the Prime attached. Once they get in range they can throw out 12 Devourer shots in addition to the Barbed Stranglers. I could only afford Lash Whips on the Primes, but if you are careful and leave them out in front they should be able to get a lot of the enemy in B2B with them and then the Warriors can swing. Remember also that if you can pin the enemy in cover with Barbed Stranglers then you strike at initiative anyways, and that's not an altogether unreasonable prospect with 4 Stranglers in the army.
Thoughts on this? I think it does present some target priority difficulties, which is always a good thing.
Against something like a Logan Wing army or the new BT Krak Spam army, I think this has a very good chance. The T-Fexes can shrug off most Kraks on a 2+. The Tervigons give themselves Catalyst and get cover behind the T-Fexes and so they are essentially a slightly downgraded 2+ versus Kraks. The Warriors can absorb one shot per turn on the Prime without fear, and if they take too many wounds at once they can go to ground for a 3+. The Shrikes will essentially always go to ground with shot with Missiles. What you get is an army that is pretty obnoxious to try and move.
Against AP 1-2, things change a bit but you are also generally not seeing the same volume of shots. The T-Fex now needs to find cover behind Hive Guard/Shrikes but that's easy enough to do. The Tervigon still grabs cover behind the T-Fex. Now the army is less survivable but again the volume of Lascannons most army's can pack is significantly less than the volume of Krak Missiles.
So those are my thoughts, at least at 7 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday (oh the joys of a sick baby).
Shrikes x 3, Barbed Strangler, Deathspitter x 2
Tyrannofex, Rupture Cannon
Tyrannofex, Rupture Cannon
I think this has some merit. Remember that the Warriors become BS 4 with the Prime attached. Once they get in range they can throw out 12 Devourer shots in addition to the Barbed Stranglers. I could only afford Lash Whips on the Primes, but if you are careful and leave them out in front they should be able to get a lot of the enemy in B2B with them and then the Warriors can swing. Remember also that if you can pin the enemy in cover with Barbed Stranglers then you strike at initiative anyways, and that's not an altogether unreasonable prospect with 4 Stranglers in the army.
Thoughts on this? I think it does present some target priority difficulties, which is always a good thing.
Against something like a Logan Wing army or the new BT Krak Spam army, I think this has a very good chance. The T-Fexes can shrug off most Kraks on a 2+. The Tervigons give themselves Catalyst and get cover behind the T-Fexes and so they are essentially a slightly downgraded 2+ versus Kraks. The Warriors can absorb one shot per turn on the Prime without fear, and if they take too many wounds at once they can go to ground for a 3+. The Shrikes will essentially always go to ground with shot with Missiles. What you get is an army that is pretty obnoxious to try and move.
Against AP 1-2, things change a bit but you are also generally not seeing the same volume of shots. The T-Fex now needs to find cover behind Hive Guard/Shrikes but that's easy enough to do. The Tervigon still grabs cover behind the T-Fex. Now the army is less survivable but again the volume of Lascannons most army's can pack is significantly less than the volume of Krak Missiles.
So those are my thoughts, at least at 7 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday (oh the joys of a sick baby).
