Post by draaen on Dec 22, 2019 3:41:44 GMT
This log should be a place where I write about my thoughts and experiences about tyranids as I develop my hive fleet both tactically and hobby wise. I have written a similar log for my Tau years ago and I feel it helped me collect my thoughts. Plus it was kind of fun.
The army is definitely going to be Nidzilla. I want to up my hobbying game by doing more sculpting, shading, glazing, custom bases, glow effects and try my hand at NMM. There is no desire to do that on a bunch of gaunts or genestealers. I'm down with medium sized bugs as well but I plan on really just taking them when filling a gap for the big bugs.
Competitively with the list I am not terribly concerned if it is big in the ITC meta. I normally play at my club using the latest chapter approved missions with people who also care about their hobbying so there doesn't seem to be as much army turnover to retool for the best list. I also have Tau, White Scars and a small daemon army so between 4 armies I should realistically have one at any one time which is not a dumpster fire. More importantly to me the list should play differently from my other lists. So psychic with shooting melee and not necessarily speed demons but I don't want a boring static list either.
The models I currently own. They are all magnetized:
1 Winged Hive Tyrant
2 Walkrants
2 Carnifexes
1 Traygon/Mawloc
1 Tyrannofex
1 Broodlord
1 Spore Mine
1 Genestealer
That is a pretty decent start and by my count. If I made them as expensive as possible I am right near 1500 points. Not that I would expect to do well with them but it will allow me to begin getting some good experience to find what other forces I want to add.
The units I am really interested at the moment are as follows
Ripper Swarms: I am going to need CP. They can deep strike or hide so they should be able to survive and contribute to positional play. Probably 3-6 Units of 3.
Maleceptor: Love the model the new aura should help a lot. Definitely going to buy one.
Haruspex: Love the damage dealing flexibility and the T8 paired with the Maleceptor -1 to Strength aura could make these guys able to get where they need to go.
Toxicrene: I see this guy as giving a lot of value for points. Not horrendous shooting, always strikes first, re-rolling wounds and trapping enemies in combat could be the difference between living and dying.
Proposed Custom Hive Fleet:
+1 to Hit on the charge with monsters
Heal 1 Wound a Turn OR Re-Roll one hit when in synapse range
There aren't many monsters so I need to do everything possible to hit. For reference this makes the Toxicrene on its top bracket super accurate in the first round of combat. I would expect it to hit with all its attacks more often then not. Heal seems probably good but I am a little unsure since there is a good chance the monsters will be focused down and not hurt a little across the board.
I like to think of how my army plans on moving and supporting each other across the board. I like to think of them as functional groups with groups of units that move around together and support each other. In my mind a Maleceptor, Toxicrene and Haruspex could form a fairly formidable functional group which the army could use as a backbone. The units can do some ranged damage in either psychic or shooting. The ranged damage will help deal with units that hide on the second floor. The group would be capable of threatening bigger and smaller targets so it would be general purpose. The ranged is also capable of shooting targets in close combats that tie up a monster. So if I need to extricate a monster tied in combat with a unit of chaff I have a decent potential to remove them and allowing me to declare a new charge with the monster.
My concerns are chaff and flyers. I think the hive tyrants and flamer tyrranofexes may have to be the answer to that. 9 Warriors hitching a ride on a trygon seems a good solution as well but it may be too late on turn 2 for removing chaff that would block my monsters.
Hobby wise I really want to do like a swamp theme. I'd like to work with like a green and purple as I haven't used those much in my other armys but the swamp thing has me thinking a more green/yellowy brown type of look. Kind of looking for aosme reference material to inspire the colours and I will be practicing zenithal highlighting and the other painting techniques on models from my pile of shame. Made this model for my brother using a gravis captain. Sculpted/carved on the blood angels and death company logos. Black was not the best colour to do a first test with!
So I don't want this to get too lengthy so I will cut myself off here for now. Hopefully it's an interesting read. I will add to this as I start making some progress with the nids.
Cheers!
The army is definitely going to be Nidzilla. I want to up my hobbying game by doing more sculpting, shading, glazing, custom bases, glow effects and try my hand at NMM. There is no desire to do that on a bunch of gaunts or genestealers. I'm down with medium sized bugs as well but I plan on really just taking them when filling a gap for the big bugs.
Competitively with the list I am not terribly concerned if it is big in the ITC meta. I normally play at my club using the latest chapter approved missions with people who also care about their hobbying so there doesn't seem to be as much army turnover to retool for the best list. I also have Tau, White Scars and a small daemon army so between 4 armies I should realistically have one at any one time which is not a dumpster fire. More importantly to me the list should play differently from my other lists. So psychic with shooting melee and not necessarily speed demons but I don't want a boring static list either.
The models I currently own. They are all magnetized:
1 Winged Hive Tyrant
2 Walkrants
2 Carnifexes
1 Traygon/Mawloc
1 Tyrannofex
1 Broodlord
1 Spore Mine
1 Genestealer
That is a pretty decent start and by my count. If I made them as expensive as possible I am right near 1500 points. Not that I would expect to do well with them but it will allow me to begin getting some good experience to find what other forces I want to add.
The units I am really interested at the moment are as follows
Ripper Swarms: I am going to need CP. They can deep strike or hide so they should be able to survive and contribute to positional play. Probably 3-6 Units of 3.
Maleceptor: Love the model the new aura should help a lot. Definitely going to buy one.
Haruspex: Love the damage dealing flexibility and the T8 paired with the Maleceptor -1 to Strength aura could make these guys able to get where they need to go.
Toxicrene: I see this guy as giving a lot of value for points. Not horrendous shooting, always strikes first, re-rolling wounds and trapping enemies in combat could be the difference between living and dying.
Proposed Custom Hive Fleet:
+1 to Hit on the charge with monsters
Heal 1 Wound a Turn OR Re-Roll one hit when in synapse range
There aren't many monsters so I need to do everything possible to hit. For reference this makes the Toxicrene on its top bracket super accurate in the first round of combat. I would expect it to hit with all its attacks more often then not. Heal seems probably good but I am a little unsure since there is a good chance the monsters will be focused down and not hurt a little across the board.
I like to think of how my army plans on moving and supporting each other across the board. I like to think of them as functional groups with groups of units that move around together and support each other. In my mind a Maleceptor, Toxicrene and Haruspex could form a fairly formidable functional group which the army could use as a backbone. The units can do some ranged damage in either psychic or shooting. The ranged damage will help deal with units that hide on the second floor. The group would be capable of threatening bigger and smaller targets so it would be general purpose. The ranged is also capable of shooting targets in close combats that tie up a monster. So if I need to extricate a monster tied in combat with a unit of chaff I have a decent potential to remove them and allowing me to declare a new charge with the monster.
My concerns are chaff and flyers. I think the hive tyrants and flamer tyrranofexes may have to be the answer to that. 9 Warriors hitching a ride on a trygon seems a good solution as well but it may be too late on turn 2 for removing chaff that would block my monsters.
Hobby wise I really want to do like a swamp theme. I'd like to work with like a green and purple as I haven't used those much in my other armys but the swamp thing has me thinking a more green/yellowy brown type of look. Kind of looking for aosme reference material to inspire the colours and I will be practicing zenithal highlighting and the other painting techniques on models from my pile of shame. Made this model for my brother using a gravis captain. Sculpted/carved on the blood angels and death company logos. Black was not the best colour to do a first test with!
So I don't want this to get too lengthy so I will cut myself off here for now. Hopefully it's an interesting read. I will add to this as I start making some progress with the nids.
Cheers!