9th edition Troop slot musings/analysis

[omnivore]

Hello Hive! I don't post much but I've been here a long while. I've been playing Tyranids since 3rd and am now in isolation for COVID so I have some time on my hands lol. I've been thinking about our troop choices and have come up with some ideas which you guys may or may not find useful. So here we go...

The function of troops in our army varies. However I am going to focus on their use as objective holders/action performers. I will also compare them based on their points cost and utility with respect to holding/taking objectives and durability. Please note I will not be discussing shooting Warriors which do have a lot of utility; I am going for cheap objective holders only. Here's the breakdown of our 5 basic troops of roughly equal point costs:

5 Warriors with dual scything talons and no other upgrades. 15 T4 4+ wounds. Move 6. Synapse. 20 S4 WS 3+ ap- attacks with re-roll 1's to hit. -1 damage strat. No gun. Not vulnerable to blasts or coherency.

17 Termagants with fleshborers. 17 T3 6+ wounds. Move 6. Low LD out of synapse. 17 S3 WS 4+ ap- attacks. Fleshborer gun (possibly the worst gun in 9th).

6 Genestealers (points rounded down). 6 T4 5++ save wounds. Move 8 with assault after advance. Good LD out of synapse. 18 S4 AP -1/4 attacks. No gun.

14 Hormagaunts. 14 T3 6+ wounds. Move 8. low LD out of synapse. 28 S3 WS 4+ ap- attacks with re-roll 1's to hit. No gun.

7 Rippers. 21 T3 6+ wounds. Move 6 with Deep Strike. Lowest LD out of synapse. 28 S3 WS 5+ ap- attacks. No gun.


Now if each unit were to be shot at with 18 bolter shots at BS3+ (for simplicity) hers's the breakdown:


Warriors: 3 wounds. 1 Dead warrior. No morale. 20% of unit lost.

Termagants: Around 7 wounds, 7 dead termagants, possible bad morale test. 41% of unit lost.

Genestealers: 4 wounds. 4 dead stealers, possible morale test. 66% of unit lost.

Hormagaunts: Around 7 wounds. 7 dead Hormagaunts, possible bad morale test. 50% of unit lost.

Rippers: Around 7 wounds. 2 dead ripper bases, possible bad morale test. 40% of unit lost.


Taking these factors into consideration, if we are looking for a unit to simply hold an objective and perform actions if needed:


Scytal warriors show the best durability, are competitive with the other of the above choices in HTH, and avoid issues with coherency and blasts. No morale. They are slow but it doesn't really matter as they are campers.

Rippers are in second place although not being infantry they can't perform actions. They can hide well and otherwise make for a good objective holder. The deep strike allows for a lot of flexibility.

Gaunts and hormagaunts suffer from very low durability, issues with low LD, unit coherency and blasts. The fleshborer is so poor that it doesn't offset any of this. Hormagaunts have good movement, but even if they somehow make it to a farther objective they will have the same durability issues.

Genestealers not only lack durability for their points, the squad size is so tiny that even causal fire removes them.


Now, clearly there are other ways to play these units. Large groups of Hormagaunts and Genestealers are good fast HTH, Termagants can get devourers and Rippers can DS all over the place. However as an objective camper I think warriors are hands down the best choice. Better still you don't have to feel bad about performing an action with them as they won't miss shooting.

I usually use 2 6 man blocks of warriors with 2x VCs/DS in my backfield and I love them. But I am finding my use of smallish Termagant units (12-13) to be very underwhelming in 9th. I am beginning to think that competitively I will need to phase out gants and focus on Scytal warriors and rippers, as they are just far more durable and effective for what I want them to do.

Anyway that's my ramble. Any thoughts?

[No One]

I did some mucking about with this, and it depends a lot on the S/AP (and D) of the weapon. Start taking away what makes warriors better on that front, and they're less appealing: the -1 D strat helps, but it can only go so far and that's also CP to be not worse. Think they're still perfectly competitive from a pure objective holder which makes quite a good home action monkey, but not something I'd ever replace all gaunts with.

Terms get model count, which is big for screening especially, and counter-obsec etc. Horms also have this and more move for offensive plays. Stealers suck as objective holders, but 8" adv+charge obsec has some potential. Rippers don't really offer anything other than tiny profile and DS: both can have a place, but more niche.

[zimko]

I think it mostly depends on points available. When I make an army list, I focus on key pieces for offense such as Dimas, Harridan, Devgants or Kronos Hive Guard. Once I have all those pieces in place, I then look at what points are left over for objective campers and action doers.

Each of our options has a different 'minimum' cost. So if I have 120 points available then 2 units of Horms seems fine. If I have only 115 points, then I'll take 1 unit of horms and 1 unit of Warriors. The warriors, being slower, will camp an objective in my deployment zone. While the Horms will go for a further away objective, using double move strat to allow them to also Retrieve Octarius.

The amount of damage each unit can absorb is relatively similar. Sure if you're looking at percentage bolter fire then warriors come out ahead but if you look at an MSU unit such as 5 incubi or 5 GK Interceptors then the difference between a unit of Warriors and a unit of Hormagaunts is smaller. They'll get overkilled either way. So I focus more on the points available and the speed of the units. Hormagaunts are preferred in my opinion because they're the fastest of our troops. But I'll take Warriors instead if I don't have enough points.

Rippers IMO are pretty bad now. The changes to secondaries make 'actions' more important, and the change to 'No Prisoners' counting the number of wounds instead of number of models is another negative for Rippers. A Lictor is better than a Ripper unit in almost every way and costs almost exactly the same. The fact that Rippers are objective secured doesn't matter if you're deep striking them since you can't deep strike onto an objective with enemy models on it and you can't expect Rippers to survive an attack if your opponent really wants whatever objective they landed on.

[kazetanade]

Rippers are great obj holders on your own deployment zone pretty much, and still function the same for EoAF or Line Breaker. Their main thing has never been their stats, but their stature, being short enough to hide under A LOT of terrain. Not being infantry though locks them out of many actions, and that sucks.

Termagants/Hotmagants in large numbers have their place- they play the disruption game really well. they're great for stealing objectives by outnumbering obsec. They're great screens, and can spread to touch a lot. Big numbers of them require large numbers of anti infantry which is not always specced in, and losses are almost always inconsequential. Mine have never stood up to mid table holding power well, but has stolen 5/10 pts consistently when I was playing, due to just shooting up and denying enemy objectives altogether then having 1 guy survive back in my d.zone under synapse.

Warriors are shaping up to be really strong - originally they were not good due to being susceptible to ALL forms of shooting, but with PA and the upcoming Synapse buff, their only real weakness will be a lack of invulns to weapons that carry 3D or 3+D3D weapons. When paired with MCs that also need 3D or D3+3D they complement very well. If you're going for a mid table saturation strategy, these guys will fill it out really well.

Genestealers are. Kinda in a bad place. But they are (probably) still the most cost efficient damage output unit in our codex. But as objective holders, they are complete trash.

[infornography]

First off, I disagree with the assessment that fleshborers are the worst weapon in 9th ed. I don't even think they are the worst weapon in our codex. Spinefists take that distinction.

Rippers serve a purpose as deep strike objective holders that can hide behind a speed bump and are the lowest cost troop choice we have. Does that mean that they are as useful as they were in 8th ed? nope. But there are reasons to take them.

My quick and dirty assessment of each troop.

Termagants - three possible roles. Cheap objective holder that can also perform actions. Map control mass bodies. and High volume firepower bomb with low life expectancy but decent likelihood to kill more than they cost or remove a high value target if applied right.

Hormagaunts - two possible roles. map control mass bodies front line. and enemy shooty unit irritant by tying them up in melee.

Rippers - one useful role. super cheap deep striking objective holder.

Genestealers - really only one role - shock troops. They run in quickly and kill a bunch in melee. This is an important role and none of the others really fill it.

Warriors - SO MANY ROLES! Cheap synapse, Durable objective holder, Action performer, Decent but not great ranged firepower, Melee threat, Backline counterpunch, Front line hole punchers, minor anti-vehicle, etc.

I wouldn't want to remove any of these from our codex as they each serve an important purpose. Sure Rippers are the most expendable right now, but who knows when an FAQ will make them more useful again or a new edition changes the battlefield.