Tyranid Warrior broods

[iyama]

Personally the warriors are one of my favorite troop choices, from the look of the model down to the choices they can take.
That being said tho I dont field them as often as I'd like to, however I recently took a Tyranid prime with a pair of Boneswords, a pair of scything talons and AG+TS and he did pretty awesome. I then tried a 9 warrior team+ that prime with added Regeneration all in a Mycetic spore pod.
The warriors had x3 warriors with scything talons and deathspitters, x4 with pairs of boneswords and deathspitters, and x2 with scything talons and barbed stranglers.
This I thought would be a fairly good idea in an apocolypse game to give them a try out. The pod dropped in and I took about 4 loses to 6 tau crisis suits that walked on the next turn, not grreat but better than I'd of expected from that given the circumstances, but my mate on my side told the new chaos player who'd only played 3 games to assult my warriors and challenge my Prime., Prime won combat and killed his leader but my friend guilt tripped me into letting the new guy re-roll his Inv save and keep the leader alive which left me in combat with power weapons and took longert to get out the overall combat and lose more warriors in the process so I'm still not sure if dropping in a 10 warrior team is tactically sound or not yet.

so how do other people use warriors if at all?

[coredump]

Bad news...

A Prime can't go in the SPore Pod, and you can't mix and match wargear on the warriors....

[bronyzro]

Yuuup. Sorry, no prime in the spores (FAQ) and no mix n' match weapons (The Tyranid Codex).

Sounds like an interesting unit, but cannot be fielded.

[milkybarnid]

Tyranid Warriors have their cons but I like their model so I always stick a brood of 4 - 6 in all my army lists, my favourite loadout is ST + Pair of boneswords with TS, this makes them quite expensive but I often run a mostly null deployment army so they tend to be a secondary concern for my opponent. (when you have a flyrant and spores full of devilgants and zoanthropes can shock the opponent) even if 2 or 3 die, the unit should do something, warriors are often underestimated, I find the trick is to have a medium sized brood to make the opponent really consider where his shots should go.

Other times I have them babysitting Biovores and Hive guard, that are near an objective, a brood of these next to an objective in cover will make your opponent think.

One thing I have noticed, warriors must have the same options in a brood with the exception of one taking a barbed stranger or VC

[harry4tw]

What do people think of Deathspitter + Boneswords?

I find that this unit is expensive but not tremendously so. Because they're so likely to die before they see combat I pay 5 points to let them shoot well before that happens. I don't bother with AG, TS, etc., I figure that having 6 men with three attacks and insta-death weapons that negate saves is more than enough melee power.

[coredump]

If they keep dying before combat, why keep giving them boneswords??

[scrotatohead]

It's not great melee power if they never actually see melee. Now, if they're getting killed off in such a way that more important units of yours are ignored, well that's a different story.

[bronyzro]

Interestingly enough, Spinefists are surprisingly good on warriors.

My mathhammer might be off, but when compared side-by-side to devourers they're better against GEQ and equal against MEQ.

Of course, Devourers have the -1 to leadership and a greater range, so that gives them an advantage over the Spinefists, but it's still something to keep in mind.

[Squire]

I've got a unit of 4 with deathspitters/ST and a unit of 5 with boneswords/spinefists written into my 1500 point list. Both with barbed stranglers. Seven are painted, two more bonesword guys to go.

I'm with the OP on warriors being a unit I love, so when I started tyranids they were always going to be a given in my list. My idea is that they can always have a cover save from termagants so a warrior will be harder to kill than knocking a wound off of a tervigon, hopefully discouraging the opponent from targeting them. Also with a flyrant, two tervigons, a mawloc, biovores and zoanthropes there should be plenty of stuff ahead of the warriors as priority targets. Basically my warriors are an indulgence and whatever they do for me I'm happy with them

Although my guys are upgraded I quite like the idea of minimum price units. A unit of five with rending claws/ST or devourers/ST will only come to 150 points and be fifteen wounds with respectable armour saves. For generally supporting the rest of the army I don't think those are bad units at all, and I can't see why an opponent would consider them such a threat that they warrant missile launcher attention.

May 24, 2013 17:52:56 GMT bronyzro said:

Interestingly enough, Spinefists are surprisingly good on warriors.

My mathhammer might be off, but when compared side-by-side to devourers they're better against GEQ and equal against MEQ.

Of course, Devourers have the -1 to leadership and a greater range, so that gives them an advantage over the Spinefists, but it's still something to keep in mind.

No, your math hammer was right. I'm working on a unit of 5 at the moment with dual bone boneswords and spinefists because I don't like the way devourers look on warriors (they just don't fit very well). Spinefists and boneswords look pretty cool and I like the concept of warriors toting twin pistols and power swords

[iyama]

May 24, 2013 12:54:46 GMT coredump said:

A Prime can't go in the SPore Pod, and you can't mix and match wargear on the warriors....

May 24, 2013 13:25:55 GMT bronyzro said:

no mix n' match weapons (The Tyranid Codex)

Yea I just checked the FAQ and spotted that, which really sucks, but I'm not so certain you cant mix the warriors weapons, for example the carnifex entry has the "* All carnifexes in the brood must have the same options" entry where as the warriors simply says "the entire brood may exchange##### for: at x points"
that would suggest to me that they may, but do not have to?
it also states only one warrior per brood can take a barbed strangler or venom cannon, so I'd argue that you can mix in the same way terminators can have a mix or lightning claws, thunder hammers, bolters and powerfists etc.

[Squire]

May 25, 2013 0:34:01 GMT iyama said:

May 24, 2013 12:54:46 GMT coredump said:

A Prime can't go in the SPore Pod, and you can't mix and match wargear on the warriors....

May 24, 2013 13:25:55 GMT bronyzro said:

no mix n' match weapons (The Tyranid Codex)

Yea I just checked the FAQ and spotted that, which really sucks, but I'm not so certain you cant mix the warriors weapons, for example the carnifex entry has the "* All carnifexes in the brood must have the same options" entry where as the warriors simply says "the entire brood may exchange##### for: at x points"
that would suggest to me that they may, but do not have to?
it also states only one warrior per brood can take a barbed strangler or venom cannon, so I'd argue that you can mix in the same way terminators can have a mix or lightning claws, thunder hammers, bolters and powerfists etc.

I'd love if that were true, but I don't think it is. I can see why the words might make it seem as if each guy can take something different, but if that were the case then everybody using warriors since our 5th codex has been getting it wrong

How does the wording compare to other units?

(just checked)

It's the same for termagants. The entire brood may replace their fleshborers for...

I can't pretend I didn't get my hopes up for a moment there. If there was a little loophole I'd exploit it since I don't think it is unfluffy for warriors to have a variety of weapons. I'd dearly love to have a unit with a few rending claw/scything talons warriors and then two or three with bonesword/lashwhip. I hope they bring that back in the next codex

[coredump]

Yes, the entire brood *may*... meaning they don't have to exchange their guns.

No where does it give permission of *part* of the brood to exchange their guns.
(obvious caveat being one can take BS or VC)

[infornography]

Yeah, if you could mix and match loadout on warriors boneswords would be SO much better. You could hide your bonesword warrriors at the back of a brood instead of making every single model a high priority soft target.

My take on warriors is that they are decent as a fairly minimal brood with a Stranglethorn Cannon providing synapse to the back lines, but are too susceptible to instant death to be worth their points in any other configuration. ESPECIALLY with any bone swords against an opponent familiar with what they do. A bonesword warrior brood can to a TON of damage in melee so they become a high priority and get wiped out before they make it to melee. It just takes one krak missile to remove a 40 to 60 point model from the field and it isn't like an HQ or something that can hide in a unit of much cheaper models, each and every warrior has to cost the same except for the special weapon guy.

If they worked like wolf guard they would definitely be worth it because they could be assigned individually as ICs to units that need a babysitter and provide an effective charge deterrent. Hell I'd consider them worth it at more points than they cost for that ability.

with just Stranglethorn Cannon, devourers, deathspitters, and/or spine fists though, they make decent backfield synapse and aren't a high enough priority threat to act as krak magnets.

[angeleania]

Sadly that is just another example of the way the rules for our codex are poorly written. Clarity lost for the sake of a few extra words. Instead of saying "the entire brood may" it would be clear if they had written, "All models, or none, may" or "the entire brood, collectively, may". Or better still "the entire unit can exchange their "X" for (insert list) at a cost of x per model in the unit"

I use cluster spines on my tervigon (yea don't ask) but due to the way its written this guy at a tournament tried to claim my list was incorrect because of the points, saying i had to buy two weapons therefore me just buying the cluster spines on my list made it illegal list. Even the judges could not work out what the entry really actually says. But as i never used or planed on using any other weapon it was a mute point and he was told to shut up. Many of the rules and army list statements are ambiguous in our codex. Hence the stupid FAQ we got.

Warriors are..... Well, a lackluster unit that costs too many points. If they were half the cost then people would use them, but why use 6 of them at likely 50pts each compared to a tervigon. it takes the same number of Krak missiles to kill them. Sadly this is true of a large number of units in our codex.

[coredump]

So, this is what you said would be "Better still...."

May 26, 2013 10:37:35 GMT angeleania said:

Or better still "the entire unit can exchange their "X" for (insert list) at a cost of x per model in the unit"

And this is what is actually says:
The entire brood may exchange its scything talons (aka "X") for (they give a list) with points per model.

So what makes this 'another example of poor writing'? What threw you, the use of 'brood'? or was it 'may' instead of 'can'??

I use cluster spines on my tervigon (yea don't ask) but due to the way its written this guy at a tournament tried to claim my list was incorrect because of the points, saying i had to buy two weapons therefore me just buying the cluster spines on my list made it illegal list. Even the judges could not work out what the entry really actually says. But as i never used or planed on using any other weapon it was a mute point and he was told to shut up. Many of the rules and army list statements are ambiguous in our codex.

Sorry you play with (and judged by) idiots. No where does it say you need to have two weapons. It isn't ambiguous, it gives a list of *options*... that is pretty specific and accurate.

Warriors are..... Well, a lackluster unit that costs too many points. If they were half the cost then people would use them, but why use 6 of them at likely 50pts each compared to a tervigon. it takes the same number of Krak missiles to kill them. Sadly this is true of a large number of units in our codex.

Don't run them at 50pts a pop.

If you do, they are a *lot* more deadly than a tervigon.
6 times the number of ignore armor attacks
6 times the wounds for anything beside S8
Easier to get cover saves
Go first in combat, not last
Much better shooting