1500 Pt

[Hive Fleet Nightmare]

My standard 1500 pt list for going up against anything. I usually fight Eldar though. I'm not sure what needs changing, perhaps my HQ choice. Thoughts?

HQ:
Hive Tyrant with Heavy Venom Canon

Elites:
Zoanthropes (2)

Troops:
Tyranid Warriors (9) with boneswords and scything
Genestealers (20)
Termagants (30)
Termagants (30)
Rippers (9)

Heavy:
Biovores (3)

[Squire]

How do you usually fare with this list? I would guess that most opponents take down the hive tyrant pretty quickly since there aren't any other monstrous creatures to deal with, then they can deal with the warriors and zoanthropes at their leisure

Come to think of it- are you sure this is the whole list? My own has a lot of similarities to this list (3 biovores, 9 warriors, 2 zoans, hive tyrant) but much more stuff. I have half as many gaunts and no stealers or rippers, but two tervigons, my hive tyrant has wings and toxin sacs and I have a vanilla carnifex too.

Actually maybe it's right. If I were you I'd take out all of the genestealers and rippers and field two tervigons instead. Maybe divide the warriors into two units too. A unit of 4 and 5. I feel like something should be done about the hive tyrant too. If I were going to field a hive tyrant on foot with no tyrant guard I'd keep it as cheap as possible and possibly give him no upgrades at all

[gigasnail]

had a bunch of stuff typed, browser died on me so i will recap in brief:

HVC is bad. 1 shot, 50%ish chance to hit, can't ever do anything to vehicles other than knock off 1 hullpoint unless it's open topped, can't snapshot or hit flyers at all. only thing to take on a tyrant is X2 TL BL devourers. there is no other serious option for CC or shooting, walking or flying.

warriors are bad; they are meat for anything S8 or AP4, like the enourmously popular missiles, autocannons, and plasmaguns that abound now. BS warriors are killy as all hell once you close with the enemy; the problem is that they cost as much as TH/SS terminators and have none of the resilience of them. can be murder in things like killteams though.

stealers got a big kick in the pants in 6th edition from the changes to outflank (no assault from arriving from reserves) and random charge distance (and to a lesser extent, overwatch). they have still been used as broodlord delivery sytems/character assassins and as multiple units infiltrating as close as possible to provide early threat/pressure. i dunno about one huge unit; i'd rather have several 10ish sized ones and infiltrate them to threaten multiple targets. a single large brood could work, but harder to hide it. i think they're too expensive for their use as it stands now.

rippers are kind of bad, though they'd be decent if their cost was halved. can't hold objectives, die outside of synapse, die in droves to templates, and are too expensive to really be a good meat-shield.

termagants are good in two varieties: backed by troop tervigons, and given devourers and delivered in sporepods. they're nasty little bastards then. however, i dunno i'd ever put a group of 30 vanilla termagants on the board, much less two. by themselves they're pretty much the definition of mediocre. huge tarpit unit and cheap, but that's it.

zoanthropes are excellent and versatile; you have the choice to keep their powers or use the new book powers. can be wonderful support units buffing others with endurance, invisibility, or telekine dome or debuffing with enfeeble/objuration or psychic scream.

biovores are excellent in this edition due to the changes to barrage (ironically making them precision sniper weapons instead of artillery).

[Hive Fleet Nightmare]

So far my list has done really well. Focusing of my Hive Tyrant has been non-existent. I find that the rippers serve as a good meat-shield and the warriors dominate in cc. I am wary of deep striking too much because I run this horde style rather than surprise attack.

[Hive Fleet Nightmare]

I've also had terrible experiences running any hive guard

[gigasnail]

define 'terrible experience' because HG are one of the best units in any codex for what they do.

the warriors will dominate in CC, the point is a smart opponent will never let them get there, they're expensive as hell, and will die in droves to anything with a PF.

if you're playing people with all fluff lists then warriors and rippers are fine. outside of that then no, they're not really very good.

[Hive Fleet Nightmare]

What would you recommend then if I still wanted to run a horde list and not have solely cc?

[gigasnail]

flyrant/shelled tyrant w/ devourers, couple of tervigons, elites to counter whatever you typically run into. keep the huge blob termagant squads if you want; they'll just actually be useful and dangerous when backed up by tervigon buffs.

[Squire]

These days when a list features no tervigons you really need to justify why not. At a semi competitive level every unit can be swapped for a different unit. All sorts of units can do one or more of the following; backfield disruption, provide synapse, provide lots of models cheaply, offer anti infantry/armour shooting, destroy stuff in combat- but the tervigon is absolutely unique, fulfills many roles and is very cheap for what it is.

I suppose the only arguments I can see against them are players going for the novelty factor of no tervigons, players trying to avoid gaunts, disliking their fluff... can't think of anything else. It's a great model, is a 6W T6 troop choice- in fact I'm not even going to bother listing the positives. There are too many!

So why no tervigon/s?

[Hive Fleet Nightmare]

The reason I run no tervigons is because I have had their spawn termagaunts ability fizzle out in the first 2 turns. Their buffs do seem awesome though. What do you think of running two for my HQ choices? Or one and a hive tyrant? or one and a swarmlord? I have also found rippers to be a great meat shield for the termagaunts and warriors. And the warriors are my best cc unit (currently). Are you sure I should ditch rippers and warriors?

[gigasnail]

you'll want to ditch them yourself the first time a unit of longfangs fires a volley of missiles at you and evaporates 3 in one shot. or the first time you roll up on a 10 man tac squad with a PF sgt, kill everyone except the sgt, who then proceeds to wipe the squad because of the way ID wounds are allocated. it ain't pretty.

[Squire]

Apr 22, 2013 18:46:39 GMT Hive Fleet Nightmare said:

The reason I run no tervigons is because I have had their spawn termagaunts ability fizzle out in the first 2 turns. Their buffs do seem awesome though. What do you think of running two for my HQ choices? Or one and a hive tyrant? or one and a swarmlord? I have also found rippers to be a great meat shield for the termagaunts and warriors. And the warriors are my best cc unit (currently). Are you sure I should ditch rippers and warriors?

Unless you aim to play competitively then I don't recommend ditching everything uncompetitive, but I think with our unbalanced codex you need to balance the good units and the bad ones wisely. 20 genestealers, 9 warriors and 9 ripper bases plus a venom cannon footrant is kind of pushing it for me. I think a good thing to aim for is a list where the opponent has enough competitive units to deal with that your less competitive selections can slip under the radar.

I think I already made some suggestions, and amongst those units I mentioned there's definitely room to make cutbacks to squeeze a tervigon or two into the mix. At 1500 points you should be able to get by starting with a pair of tervigons and termagants broods as a solid troop basis, then perhaps fielding a competitive unit for every uncompetitive one. Try to ensure there's some synergy in your army and you should be alright.

With the warriors I think it would be best to downsize the unit or divide them into two units. If you get enough cover or the opponent lacks the shooting to deal with the warriors, then 9 making it to combat is probably going to be overkill.

[Hive Fleet Nightmare]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. This is a new list I am thinking about trying out. I may be running too many hive guard with this list, so let me know what you think.

Hive Tyrant with Twin linked devourers with brain-leech worms and an armored shell

Two Termagaunt squads of 30
Two Terivgons with catalyst and onslaught

One squad of 3 zoanthropes
One squad of 3 hive guard
One squad of 2 hive guard

One squad of 3 biovores

[gigasnail]

that's a good start.