A new month, a new update.

[sirmagpie]

Hello again!
Sir Magpie here, filling in on his most recent experiences with his new Tyranid army!
Since my last post I have gotten a few more games under my belt, and this time not only against my Imperial playing friend but I have faced my first Ork player and also the Grey Knights.
My army has also gotten a new investment and thus bumped itself up to the 750 point range.

First of all, my scores as of now against the various armies.
IG: 4 Wins 3, Draws, 3 Losses.
Orks: 2 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses.
GK: 1 Win, 0 Draws, 2 Losses.

As some of you predicted, my imperial friend did step up the heat from our previous games, incorporating heavier guns and managed to embed a Leman Russ into his army. This caused me quite a bit of problems as he now had a much easier time to take down my synapse creatures than in prior games, this caused me to have to buckle up as well. My buckle of choice? The Trygon.
I tried playing it both as a Trygon prime and as a regular trygon. Personally I find that the prime gave me more bang for my buck as those first 12 shots he gets off really helps against the imperial guards infantry. Admittedly, taking the Prime means that I have to sacrifice a hive guard. I’m still unsure which one gives me more.

The green menace proved itself to be more of an annoyance than a menace when compared to the fangs of my hive. Like when I first played against the imperial guard infantry, likewise did the Ork boyz fall before me. The difference being that it felt more like I was playing the same way the imperial guard player had played against me. Waiting for the orks to run up to me and blasting them as much as I could on the way, trying to get in that first assault on them rather than the other way around. All in all, it felt like I was playing against a greener, slower, variant of my own army.

Then came the wrecking ball.
How the heck does one take down terminators? I was now up against an army that I felt was superior to me, both at range and up close. The only saving grace that I had as protection was my use of synapse creatures, with their shadow in the warp. Sadly, I also felt like my trygon and tyranid prime worked as a double edged sword, for while they were my best alternative against the armor-heavy Knights, they were also very fragile against the knights force weapons.
My only victory came in a game where I managed to overrun his Knights, one by one, by surrounding them with all my troops, making sure to keep my synapse in the background, but in range for the shadow in the warp. I feel like I lucked out more than anything though and that had but one or two more of those psychic tests he took succeeded rather than him rolling doubles I would have been just as wrecked as in the other games.
So how do you guys win against this most formidable opponent?

Also for my next 250 points, the gap that will fill me up to a total of 1000, I am looking at the following:
Two Biovores. I figured that they will help just a little more against infantry, staying in the background and providing even more shooting to my already shooty army. I figured this would go hand in hand, and weigh up for the more close combat oriented:
20 Hormagaunts with adrenal glands, as I figured these may well be my best weapons against another match with the grey knights. Several small attacks, and a lot of units to spread out their fewer attacks on.

That should bring me up to a 1000.

So any ideas? Responses? Am I taking a logical step in what units I am getting, or should I just invest in yet another Tervigon with termagants instead?
Thank you, and may the hive mind watch over us all.
Sir Magpie

PS. Am I posting this in the right room? Just making sure.
Also: PICTURES! (The spidery one is my Tyraid prime, and I am using the other two warriors as stand ins for hive guard. Sorry for my in-need-of-improvement camera skills)

[Deleted]

Cool stuff to hear man, it's nice seeing you wade in and cool pics! I like your Prime, reminds me of quad mechs

[rpricew]

As far as tactics go, Biovores won't help you much against anything with Power or Terminator armor, since they are AP4. Don't get me wrong, I love them... And almost every game you will have a good round of shooting with them.

There are two ways to bring down Terminators. Ignore armor saves, and weight of fire. Make them roll lots of dice.

Basic Termagants with Devourers put out 30 shots per ten man unit. 18" range. 30 shots, 15 hits, 7 wounds, 1-3 dead Terminators if they're not Paladins. More like one dead Paladin.

Good thing you can bring 30 in a unit LOL... Also, Hormagaunts with TS is better than AG if you can support them with a Swarmlord you can grant them Furious Charge. If you don't have a Swarmlord, then just add AG and TS.

Ignoring armor comes down to boneswords and monstrous creatures... Using lash whips helps here so you can swing first.

Just some ideas

Sent from my ADR6350 using proboards

[Jabberwocky]

Rending from Genestealers will also rip through terminators armour. I like them against Paladins as you'll strike before most of them, even the halberds with a Broodlord.

[DukeMantis]

Id love to know how you painted the green shells on these, i have a similar color scheme for my army

Do you have any threads in the painting section of this forum?

[sirmagpie]

Thank you all for the input.
So, what I am looking for then would be any kind of smaller, massed up attacks or big monstrous attacks? If I understood it right, that is.
Maybe I should just go with another Tervigon and Gants for the next 250 points. I can see a great tactical advantage in that, but I also feel like I'd like some more variation in my army before I go back to a bunch of models that I have already tried. Admittedly, trying to do a Sporedrop with 20 devourer-clad gants sounds like a lot of fun, but I'm not sure if that would be a very reliable option compared to the other ideas.

I also want to keep this as a a good army to put against virtually anything, or at least not a bad army against most things. Kind of a jack of all trades, master of none sort of deal.
This is because I feel like I have to few models to be able to change my list depending on what I am up against, so I need my army to be able to handle as many scenarios as possible.

Thank you.

[moonreaper]

sacrificial shrikes with boneswords and lashes can wither that terminator squad down

5x Shrikes with lash and bones and poison = 275pts
they kill 7,6 terminators on the charge inside or outside of cover. If termies inside cover, you are looking at a trade (all shrikes die)
that leaves him with 2-3 terminators and 1-2 IC

Thats a lot more manageable and you can clean the rest with mass fire (anything), and an outside difficult terrain assualt, or tarpit them with termagants

Anything without lashes, will attack last in combat if in area terrain (eg sanctuary or good GK player) and die without doing much

[vecuu]

The important thing to always remember about Terminators is how much of an investment they can be point wise both for your opponent to field, and for you to commit to challenge them.


A typical 10-man Terminator squad is usually ~400 points.

The general rule of thumb is to always commit more points to take out an enemy unit of lesser value. That means you need to commit a lot of firepower to take out 400+ points of models. As a Tyranid player, I tend to do my thinking in terms of Termagants, partly because it's simple math, and partly because, well, they're Tyranids.

To take out a 10 man Terminator squad, you're looking at a minimum of 80 Termagants. Or two entire Trygons. And there's still a good chance that those Termagants or Trygons will lose because the point value is relatively equivalent (these are just rough examples, I would never, EVER ram two Trygons into Thunderhammer/Stormshield Terminators).

It's always good to have a general idea of how much your enemy's units cost. It isn't perfect, but it can generally give you a good idea of how tough they'll be to take out.

[Lanesend]

IMO, the best way to handle tough units like terminators is tarpitting them with cheap gants.

It takes a (bigger than) 400 point unit to kill a 400 point unit, but that same 400 points of terminators can be held up by 2 100 point waves of termagants. 40 Termagants is a lot of wounds to chew through.

Be careful to keep them in synapse, though. They run very fast if they lose a combat outside of synapse range.