1k Nidzilla-ish for Tournament

[FTGTEvan]

Hello Hive,

My store's monthly 40k 1k tournament is this weekend. There are always 3 small ($8 store credit) prizes for overall winner, best sport, and best painted. I would like to shoot for best painted, so I'm limiting myself to models I have painted or can have painted in the next couple days. Anyway, what I was basically thinking was something like this:

Flyrant: 2 TL Devs, Wings, biomancy
Tervigon: TS, AG, 3 powers - bio
14 Devilgants
15 hormagaunts
10 gargoyles
Trygon Prime

Thoughts? I'd love to put the devilgants in a spore, but I don't have a model I feel I could put out there and still have a shot at best painted. I'd also love to give CC to the Terv and maybe OA or HC to the Tyrant, but not sure what he would buff, and the games tend to be very short, so I'm probably not going to reserve anything.

Other things painted I could bring (slim pickins honestly):
6 more devilgants (painting up 20 right now)
Tyrant guard
1 Zoan
1 2nd ed Tyrant (usually run as Prime)
1 3rd ed walkrant w/ dual ScyTals
10 genestealers
1 biovore

Of the above, only the first two will be painted all that well, though I could potentially touch them up to match (for the Zoan, Prime, or Biovore anyway).

Long story short, what tweaks would you suggest to this list?

[jahatch42878]

With the limitations (painted models, etc) I don't know if there is a whole lot to tweek... do you really need the Prime on the Trygon, could get you 40 pts which is almost a biovore, 2/3 of zoanthrope, or more gants or gaunts...

also, do you have more gants for your Tervigon to spawn? (not sure if unpainted ones hurt your chances at best painted or if you'll just use devilgants and forget the devoureres on them)...

The Tervigon is a tough nut to crack in 1000 pts especially as a troop, the trygon and flyrant give the enemy enough to worry about while the gargoyles screen the gaunts/gants as they claim objectives or get into position to charge/shoot.. so, other than the prime option, I think you are good (and nothing wrong with the prime, just wondering if the pts are needed at this level or not)...

[FTGTEvan]

Thanks for the feedback jahatch. Yeah, I wasn't sold on the prime on the Trygon either. I dropped that and put CC back on the terv as, without hive guard or a zoan, it might be best fit to pop tanks and dreads. Dropping the devilgants to 12 and AG from the Terv gets me enough for a biovore, though I'm debating dropping the third power from the terv and picking up a Zoan instead. The zoan was my MVP last tournament, so I might go that way.

I have 15 vanilla gants for spawning painted up, and if I can get the devilgants done sooner than later, I might paint up some more for spawning. If I have to I'll run them plastic - every time I go to this tourney it's run a little differently. Last time voting for best painted was done before any games; if it's the same way this time, I don't have to pull out all the potentially spawned gants. If it's after playing, then I might get stuck with it.

Thanks again.

[FTGTEvan]

So, after simulating a few games with Vassal, I've been pleasantly surprised by this list:

Flyrant w/ 2 TL Devs
Zoan
Tervigon - Catalyst, CC, TS
12 Devilgants
15 hormagaunts
10 gargoyles
Trygon

I simulated 3 games against my DE, Ork, and Tau lists and the Tyranids won all three - and I took second turn with the Nids in all 3. The Tau was the closest, and might have lost in the time-shortened games of the tournament - it took some turn 4 and 5 heroics from the Tervigon. Granted, I haven't played as much or tweaked for competitiveness with the other armies.

First game with DE was Relic, which definitely benefited the Nids. The entire list is mounted, but the squads are split between shooty and combat, so I think the undecidedness of the list hurt it. The tipping point was honestly when the Wyches disembarked turn 2 and then failed a 6" charge that would have tied up the center of the board. By the end of turn 3, the Archon and incubi were the only things really left, and on foot, but had killed the flyrant and Trygon in combat - at that point nothing in the nid list was going to kill them, but they were at least 3 feet from the relic with 20+ spawned gants between them and it.

Second game against an Ork mob list had 5 objectives and a fairly terrain heavy board. The Orks had 3 objectives in their deployment zone and essentially hunkered down on the objectives. The mistake I made with the Orks was, when the DakkaJet came in turn 2, I didn't go after the flyrant, but instead nearly wiped out the devilgants camping on a nid objective. Flyrant then promptly blew it up and ran rampant through the backfield turns 3 and 4 - his Iron Arm allowed him to survive grounding with 1 wound left, and then he got in combat with a mob of boyz who couldn't hurt him and ground them down.

Third game against Tau was the closest, with the massed Tau guns dealing the hurt. There were 4 objectives, 2 toward the middle, and 2 in opposite corners of one deployment zone. Tau won deployment and chose to deploy in the zone without objectives, forcing the Nids to have some units hang back to claim the backfield objectives while the scouting Pathfinders and infiltrating Kroot deployed on or beyond the midfield objectives. Nids got first blood by wiping out the Kroot squad in cover bottom of turn 1 with the entire army shooting at them while the Terv spawned one squad on one objective and started running for the other corner objective. Tau responded by wiping out the Gargoyles, shooting down the Flyrant, and generally dealing the hurt. Then the zoan cast Enfeeble on the Crisis suit HQ and bodyguard, which, over the next two turns, caused 3 wounds from Dangerous Terrain. The tau held strong on their half until Turn 5 when the second wave of the Tervigon and it's third brood of 10+ gants rolled up and took one objective and wiped out the crisis suits who got too close while using their flamers to wipe out the devilgants. The game ended up going 7 turns, with a 14-1 victory for the nids, but in the tournament games won't go that long. After turn 3 it would have been 6-4 Nids.

I know this won't be an accurate representation, but I was encouraged by how well the list fared, particularly against the DE. I found the Flyrant attracting most of the fire, which took heat off the Terv who spawned enough bodies that the opponent just ran out of enough guns to deal with the masses.

[FTGTEvan]

So, just in case anyone was curious, I brought just about the above list (left my Zoan at home so added a 3rd power and biovore in his absense) and went 2-0-1, getting a draw against Chaos Marines and winning against other Nids and Eldar. I'll be writing up batreps in the tactics section, once again for anyone who is curious.