Return to the Hive Mind

[FTGTEvan]

I've recently gotten dragged back into the hobby after ~6 years away, and I've decided to start by revitalizing my 'Nids. I'm sort of diving into the deep-end by competing in a 1,000pt tournament this weekend.

Here's my planned army list, any advice from people more familiar with the most recent incarnation of rules/tactics would be appreciated:

HQ:
Tyrant: 2 Scything Talons (170)

Elites:
1 Zoanthrope (60)
1 Lictor (65)

Troops:
3 Warriors - Devourers, Venom Cannon (105)
3 Warriors - Rending Claws (90)
10 Genestealers (140)
15 Hormagaunts - toxin sacs (120)
14 Termagants - 70

Heavy Support:
1 Carnifex - 2 Scything Talons, Bioplasma

I don't have a whole lot of flexibility to work with. Also have:

1 Lictor (metal, unassembled, unpainted, also have a 2nd ed Lictor, somewhat mangled)
3 more warriors (1 assembled with deathspitter)
a couple extra gaunts
a Biovore (plus a 2nd ed Biovore)
a 2nd ed Screamer 'Fex (though with the old square base, no spare round MC bases around)
~6 or 8 metal gargoyles in various states of broken bases, assembled with spinefists from when they were allowed. I also have a box of the new ones on the way, but no telling when it will arrive.
Old metal 2nd ed Tyrant, (in pieces, but with VC, lashwhip, and bonesword).

I honestly have no idea what I'll be facing, so going for a balanced attack and, to some degree, also hoping to try out as many of the new rules as possible to get a feel for changes.

[wisdomseyes1]

I honestly don't have time right now to think of ways to make these models work the way their are modeled in this day and age. I am mostly responding to bump and I'll try and respond with calf suggestions when I have time

[FTGTEvan]

Haha, that's a little ... disconcerting. Anyway, forgot I have probably 20-30 more stealers from various Space Hulk and other boxes over the ages.

[squash]

I'm sorry, I don't think this is going to work out too well for you, here's the problems I see in your list:

1) Without Tyrant Guard or Wings, your Tyrant isn't getting into close combat. Missiles will wound him on a 2+ and not allow an armor save, and he has to slowly lumber his way across the battlefield.

2) Rending claws do not make a warrior squad close combat machines, boneswords do.

3) Venom cannons are expensive and inefficient.

4) Genestealers can't assault after outflanking anymore, so the only reason to take them now is for the broodlord, which you don't have.

5) Hormagaunts with toxin sacs like adrenal glands, it turns a 4+ to wound into a 4+ rerollable against marines.

6) Termagants without devourers will not kill enemies.

7) Gaunts and Gants like to be in either units of 10 (bare minimum for taking objectives and meeting prerequisite requirements) or 20+, anything in between will be easily wiped out units.

8) A Trygon is simply better than your carnifex. If you really want a close combat monstrous creature you could get another flyrant, a trygon, or add tyrant guard to your Tyrant squad. Crushing Claw Tervigons are very popular these days and are also strictly superior to your carnifex. If you're like me and like carnifex, give him two twin-linked brainleech devourers and ditch the bioplasma.

9) One zoanthrope is the easiest killpoint an enemy will ever take.

10) One lictor works if you're using reserves, but I don't see you reserving anything in this list.

[squash]

Suggestion:

Here's what I'd do given your models, and assuming you don't want to buy any others:

1 Hive Tyrant, 2 twin-linked brainleech devourers, armoured shell - 240

1 Tyranid Prime, Deathspitter, Lash Whip, Bonesword - 100

4 Tyranid Warriors, deathspitters - 140

4 Tyranid Warriors, deathspitters - 140

2 Carnifex, each with 2 twin-linked brainleech devourers - 380

Total: 1000 on the nose

The Prime would travel with the Carnifex unit, which allows them some incredible wound distribution options. Nothing in this list is susceptible to typical small arms, everything is susceptible to anti-tank fire, but with so many wounds on the table and so many distribution options, the enemy will find they just don't have enough big guns. Your firepower should be impressive in such a small game.

You're looking at 36 twin linked strength 6 shots, and 27 strength 5 shots.

[maine]

With current rules, Old Adversary + Lashwhips + some form of ranged weaponry on your Tyrant may be more useful than 2 sets of Scything Talons.

Old Adversary gives you and units within 6" Preferred Enemy, which is superior to a single pair of Scything Talons, as it also benefits your shooting and wounding. Often you will be hitting on 3+, so given that 2 pairs of ST means rerolling 1-2s, Old Adversary still lets you reroll half of those misses, but you'll also reroll the failed wounds.

The Lashwhips will causes enemy models in B2B to strike at I1, and the Bonesword can cause Instant Death - combined with being an MC (AP2 attacks), makes you very lethal against multi-wound models.

Why a shooting weapon? You can shoot 2 weapons/turn. You can only use 1 psychic power per player turn. If one of those shooting attacks is your one psychic power use, then the other attack can be your ranged weapon.

Carnifex - give Toxin Sacs for the reroll on failed wounds. CC Fexes need a lot of screening and support to get close, and may fair better taken in pairs w/ a Prime.

[FTGTEvan]

Thanks for the feedback. With that (and the limited amount of time/resources available before Sunday) I've adapted my list to the following:

Hive Tyrant: Lashwhip and Bonesword, TL Devourers, Old Adversary - 210 pts

Lictor - 65 pts

3 Warriors: Deathspitters - 105 pts
3 Warriors: Rending Claws, toxin sacs - 105 pts
10 Genestealers - 140 pts
14 Hormagaunts: toxin sacs, adrenal glands - 140 pts
11 Termagants - 55 pts

Carnifex: toxin sacs, adrenal glands - 180 pts

Not perfect by a long shot, and I'll get waxed by shooty armies if I can't get enough cover, but my rough plan is to allow the hormagaunts and carnifex to outrun the synapse once they're close and take advantage of rage/furious charge combo on one flank. The shooting aspects will roughly anchor the center, and the stealers/combat warriors will take the other flank. Lictor pops up in cover somewhere he'll be able to help out in the following turn or split an enemy advance.

I doubt I'll get the chance before this weekend, but I'll try to swap the termies to devourers (frustratingly, that's what they originally were, but that was pretty bad in 3rd ed, so I went back to fleshborers).

The only other thing I can think of adding/switching out is biovore/spore clusters. Is that worth looking into?

Last question off the top of my head is in regards to psychic powers; I haven't gotten terribly familiar with the new rules/powers, so any advice there would be appreciated.

Thanks again for the input.

[squash]

Okay you barely changed anything, I'm out of this thread.

[ravengoescaw]

Your Carnifex Toxic and Adreanal are a waste of points to have on it. I personally like venom cannon. I run a carn with Crushing Claws, and Heavy Venom Cannon. The 36" STR 9 AP4 blast, is nice anti vehicle grnted you can't get a destroyed result on the table but still cna disable and now with 6th ed and vehicle haveing wounds the are alot better.

Here is What I would do.
Hive Tyrant W/ Lash Whip & Bonesword, T-L Devourers, and Wings 295pts
Genestealers Adrenal x10 170pts
Hormagaunts Adrenal, Toxin x10 100pts
Termagaunts Devourers x10 100pts
Warriors Deathspitters x5 175
Carnifex Crushing Claws Hvy Venom Cannon.
Infiltrate in your Genes, Swoop your tyrant to cut down on the flack they will take then turn 2 glide in to an assualt with him. Run your hermagaunts then termagaunts then warriors, and carnifex behind the warriors. run this as one unit. if at an objective, keep this attack group together drop off first the termas to an objective let them lurk at it. then the warriors and have the carnifex and hormas wipeout their troops, while your genes and tyrant are slowing down their army.

[FTGTEvan]

So, just wanted to update with the results from the tournament, which turns out is more of an organized set of games; there were three rounds total, the winner, best painted, and best sportsmanship got $8 off GW products. There were 11 players total, myself included, and there was only one guy there who seemed really dead set on dominating over having fun (he went 1-1 and left after the second game, for the record).

I had never played in this shop before, so I went in with fully painted models and a WYSIWYG list, which was more or less my original list. This shop is much more liberal with unpainted models and unpresented equipment. I opted to go with my original list except I swapped in 3 unpainted warriors with deathspitters for the 2 devourers and venom cannon. I decided not to go with anything else because I knew I wouldn't remember if I have my guys something I couldn't see.

Anyway, in the first game I drew Dark Eldar, who were entirely mounted in vehicles:

Haemonculus
4 Kabalite Trueborn warriors with blasters
Venom
3 Squads of 5 warriors with a blaster and blast pistol, mounted in venoms
1 Fighter
1 Ravager

As soon as he set down his army I knew I was screwed; I'd dropped my one long range weapon and there was very little in the way of cover other than gullies and ravines. I deployed as far up as I could in as much cover as I could. He deployed far back. I walked forward turn 1 and had nothing in range. He shifted left and opened up, taking out my genestealers and warriors with deathspitters. I moved forward again and he took out my zoanthrope, most of my gaunts, and the flyer came in and took out the other warriors and half the termagants. The hive tyrant got lit up by 9 disentegrator shots and a few extra blasters tossed in. Third turn I got 2 shots off from the termies, doing nothing, and assaulted with my 2 remaining gaunts, also doing nothing. Then he mopped up what was left. Oh, and the lictor never showed up.

I wasn't too disappointed with the game, there wasn't much I could have done with what I had. There was just too much firepower that could move too fast.

I got a bye in the second round, which was a little disappointing, but it allowed me a lunch break, so it wasn't all bad.

Third game was against a Templar Drop army.

I swapped out for biomancy on my Tyrant this time (I forgot the first game) and got Quicksilver and Enfeeble. Never used enfeeble, but used Quicksilver successfully each turn, getting +3 I and A in 3 of 5 turns.

We got The Emperor's Will mission, so we each set up one objective, both about 6" left of the middle. I deployed first and set up with most of my forces in the middle to left of the board, in or around buildings, with my Tyrant on the right. Since he had a null deployment I then infiltrated my 'stealers into a building on his end of the board. With nothing to shoot at in the first turn, I moved forward, with the termies surrounding my objective and hunkering down in a building. The combat warriors went around the far side of a building on the left and the zoanthrope went on the other side. Hormagaunts and shooty warriors moved up the middle, with the tyrant on their right.

He dropped his first two pods, one in between the two objectives, and the other just behind my line. His shooting managed to instant-kill one of the shooty warriors and about 7 gaunts, but nothing more.

My stealers moved out from the building they were in toward the middle of the board, getting a 6 on their difficult terrain. The Lictor appeared in the building next to the middle drop pod which had the command squad. The carnifex doubled back to the rear unit along with part of the termie brood. Between the fex's bioplasma and the Zoanthrope's warp blast, I took out about half the rear squad. The fex charged the drop pod that was between him and the remaining squadmembers, while they were charged by the two shooty warriors. The hormagaunts charged the command squad, only losing two to overwatch, and then were supported by an incredible 12 inch charge from the stealers. The 'fex blew up the drop pod and the warriors managed to fell a couple to a wound in return. The hormagaunts took the brunt of the command squad's power weapon attacks and lost the combat but were within synapse (as were the stealers).

In his second turn, his last pod dropped just about on the other objective, and his squad hid in the nearby building as much as possible. Combats continued, with the rear squad (with Emperor's Champion) taking the last warrior down to 1 wound, but unable to get out of combat. The command squad similarly managed to take down the hormagaunts, but still had 4 stealers locking them down.

In my third turn I brought the tyrant back to support the last warrior while the fex went on by, hoping to join the stealer combat. The zoanthrope warp lanced the second drop pod and blew it to smithereens. In assault, the Tyrant charged the Emperor's Champion unit (all 2 of them) and promptly killed everyone, champion included. Meanwhile, the fex and lictor hit the command squad. The 'fex took out all the remaining regular marines, while the 'stealers took down the chaplain, leaving the commander, unit champion, and apothecary. The commander wounded the 'fex twice. Also, the combat warriors charged into the third squad, lost 1 to a melta overwatch shot, and then the two units promptly stared at each other.

All that was left was several round of combat. The commander managed to kill the 'fex in the following round, but that just opened a hole for the tyrant to come in, at +3 I and A, and he promptly pasted that squad. The final squad managed to kill off the combat warriors, but then lost several to a warp blast and were going to be charged by the tyrant, lictor, and remaining three stealers, and we called it.

While I won my second game handily, it was partly that the matchup was favorable; he had no long range shooting and wanted to get as close as he could, which was fine by me.

Thanks for the input everyone, I'm going to try to incorporate as much as I can for next month's tournament. I'm not going to buy any new models though because I frankly can't justify the expense when I have a bunch of things to paint/assemble already. I will be getting a second zoanthrope courtesy of a trade for one of my 2nd edition ones, and I expect to add gargoyles. I'll also get my 2nd ed tyrant with bonesword, lashwhip, and devourer assembled and maybe convert an old Genestealer Patriarch into a broodlord. We shall see.

Thanks again.

[Lanesend]

You know, that 2nd edition Tyrant makes an excellent warrior prime!

Don't feel bad about losing to DEldar. They are probably one of the worst match-ups you can get with Nids.

Congrats on the second game, though!

[FTGTEvan]

Thanks for the feedback. Using the 2nd ed Tyrant as a Prime might be exactly what I'm looking for next month. I want to avoid the small Big-Bug army and stick with the swarm approach. I had several people make the comment that "that is so many bugs" for 1,000pts. Adding the prime would save me a few points on HQ that I might then be able to spend on adding some speed in the form of gargoyles. That said, in my second battle, the HT came through pretty well, finally getting rid of a pesky Marshall who was making a TON of invulnerable and FNP saves.