Are Hormagaunts the future?

[princeyg]

Hi all.

So, last weekend I took my kraken nids out for their inaugural run against the space dwarfs (I've played against them with my GSC, but not the nids) result was a loss for the nids, but one thing stood out.  

I ran a unit of 30 Hormies with toxin sacs and took the adaptive trait that means no overwatch. I also had a tervigon and tyrant with shardgullet.

Turn one, popped the Tervigon's imperative (+2 move stat) advanced hormies straight across the board using the hormie strat thats 6" advance + charge. 

Fired shardgullet at big land fortress thingy, then used the shard lure strat to get a 3d6 discard lowest on charge. Declared charge at fortress, warlord, unit of short guys and got an 11.

Killed some guys, bit of ping damage to tank (saved most of it due to void armour negating my extra -1 for kraken) and wounded the warlord.

Lost about 10 gaunts in return, plus about 4 more to morale as was out of synapse. 

However... over the next few turns (using the add d6 models to an endless multitude unit) after flying my synapse (parasite) over to keep them in line, i effectively held up the whole centre of his battle line (unfortunately, the rest of the army did not fair well against the 12 bikes and those silly beam weapons).

I was very surprised at how effective they were, especially as I had assumed that they would be very points inefficient but sheer number of attacks carried the day as it took 4 whole battlerounds (yes, thats 7 actual combats) for my opponent to down them as he could not afford to throw more units into the fight or risk me taking over the table and 3 attacks per model is scary with toxin sacs.

I was VERY impressed by the pressure they put on my opponent, so my next list is gonna try 2 units of 20 with adrenal glands and toxin sacs..I can strat one unit, hopefully onslaught the other.

Anyone else looking at hormies? I'm starting to think that even at the very expensive cost per model with sacs and glands they are gonna be a mainstay of my lists. You might think it's a very get first turn or possibly lose game strategy, but both my opponent and myself underestimated them (he spent first turn shooting my fexes and t-guard).

What do you all think of Hormagaunts? Good experiences? Bad? 

P.S.
The Tervigon and accompanying horde of termies lasted longer than all three of my screamer killers, the tyrant and his guard and the raveners.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Good showing! Sounds like he didn't have any charge deterrent threat? I'm thinking hormogaunts will melt to a dedicated counter charge but could be wrong. I'm thinking hormogaunts have some play but aren't the answer to all of our problems.

[beastoftanagra]

I’ve been running lists with 45-60 hormagaunts under Behemoth, and I’ve had some pretty good luck with them. By using Bounding Advance and Adrenal Surge and keeping them in synapse with a Parasite, I’ve been able to use than as a pretty solid alpha strike which my opponent then has to devote serious firepower to getting off an objective. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it always gets my opponents attention. Endless Swarm and the Behemoth fight-on-death strat are gold!

Personally, my hormagaunts are the focus of my army.

That said… I’ve only been playing for about a year.

[princeyg]

Jan 26, 2023 19:17:27 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

Good showing! Sounds like he didn't have any charge deterrent threat? I'm thinking hormogaunts will melt to a dedicated counter charge but could be wrong. I'm thinking hormogaunts have some play but aren't the answer to all of our problems.

Its not that he didnt have deterrents, its that 30 hormies can be spread out to pin down soooo many units in one charge its silly and you can keep bringing them back if you have the cp. My opponents list was tailored to deal with tough elite units, but did not have the weight of attacks to handle my litlle bugs.

The BIG thing here was going with the NO OVERWATCH adaptation (absolutely worth it when running little guys due to the  I DONT CARE HOW MANY FLAMERS YOU HAVE MR SALAMANDER effect, which drastically cut down his threat (and I can only imagine what it will do to TAU). I'm seriously considering trying to squeeze deathleaper into the list to cut down on opponents shennanigans (like bike squads firing into CC at full effect for example...MAN!! that was a pain)

And no, hormies are not the answer to ALL our problems (his bikers were an absolute PITA that destroyed most of my backline except for the tervigon (surprisingly resilient, and much better in close combat than i thought) and endless termies bvut I do now  think that they are absolutely worth the points even when fully upgraded. 

Also woth noting.. my army was mostly little guys with a splattering of mid-nids and obviously my compulsory 3 screamer killers. It looked more like what I personally have always imagined a nid horde to be than any other army I've run since 4th ed.

What I will say is, YES, we did not get hit with the nerf bat. We in fact got  hit with the nerf ICBM, BUT>>> The game i played was easily the most enjoyable of all my 9th ed games and the nids still feel really fun to play. I remember the dark times.......their numbers were 5 6 and 7...

P.S Final score was 55-47 to the squats..so all in all a good close game

[princeyg]

Jan 26, 2023 19:45:15 GMT beastoftanagra said:

I’ve been running lists with 45-60 hormagaunts under Behemoth, and I’ve had some pretty good luck with them. By using Bounding Advance and Adrenal Surge and keeping them in synapse with a Parasite, I’ve been able to use than as a pretty solid alpha strike which my opponent then has to devote serious firepower to getting off an objective. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it always gets my opponents attention. Endless Swarm and the Behemoth fight-on-death strat are gold!

Personally, my hormagaunts are the focus of my army.

That said… I’ve only been playing for about a year.

Nice I've always had a soft spot for kraken because of the doom of the eldar storyline so only ever ran kraken as a fleet. I am however finding that the parasite is an absolutley must have unit in an aggressive list, able to keep up with your hormies. 

I spent a lot of time thinking hormies were very overcosted..but now...I think they are about right.

[omnivore]

I absolutely love them. I really think toxin is the way to go and being core you can get a lot of synergy with direct guidance and the Tyrant’s reroll 1s. The advance and charge strat is fantastic as is the replacement strat. I usually run 2 units of 15. Move 10” is also really nice. Unlike our other little guys, with their 3 attacks and ap -1 in the post AoC world they can actually be a credible threat.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

For my info, how many units did you tag? I'm surprised he couldn't shake loose after a turn or two of swing backs. I'm thinking his list needed a min squad of berserkers as a counter charge threat. Good job capitalizing on the weakness and please post how a larger horde performs

[princeyg]

Jan 26, 2023 21:09:19 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

For my info, how many units did you tag? I'm surprised he couldn't shake loose after a turn or two of swing backs. I'm thinking his list needed a min squad of berserkers as a counter charge threat. Good job capitalizing on the weakness and please post how a larger horde performs

Got his warlord, `1 unit of warriors, big fortress thingy on first charge, he did not have any berzerkers (coz he doesnt own any at the momment)  thats the most I had at once,. Then he had the issue of the tervigon and temies marching up the midfield, and me bringing back d6 hormies every chance i got. They seem to be very much like necrons..wipe out the unit or its gonna be trouble. thing is, it may only have been 3 units, but the amount of space the combat took up caused problems for his deployment. I'm pretty sure i could have tagged at least one of his bike squads (1 started on board, 2 in reserves) had i thought about it..but woah..so many thing to think about.  He made the classic mistake of concentrating on the obvious threats (my tyrant and 3 SK's).

Unfortunately, the reserve bikers got lots of points when they came in after i had committed to the attack.

My opponent was very cautious turn one and barely moved, had he broken up his line a bit i would not have done so well. 

I admit, i forgot to say that on turns 1 and 2 the hormies had cataluyst on them from the tervigon via synaptic link through 3 man warriors and parasite. After that, the tervy needed to cast it on itself as it multicharged 2 units of bikes.

When i next get a chance to play i will definitely let you know.


Also, we do not play on a standard tournament terrain layout, we just make the table look cool, so those three units i tagged had not much room to go anywhere else but backwards. 

I understand that tournament players may not rate hormies as highly as I now do.

[dkng]

I love the little buggers.
I frequently use two squads of ten. With their low profile and small footprint they can hide very well in terrain and their speed (with the awesome strat they have) makes them easy to deliver wherever they need to be. T1 they are awesome for objective grabbing and further on I use them to gum up the works of the opponent. Their damage output outside Behemoth is very low but that's not what I'm using them for.
If they only costed a point or two less... yeah... one can dream.

[kukie]

hormiguants are about the only thing that hasen't been hit with the nerf-hammer... yeah I can see mass hormaguants being strong... it also feels like a true Tyranid swarm army. I haven't run my guants in a while (mostly running, warriors, carinfexs, Flyrants, and ravengers... but they all have been significantly nerfed). you have inspired me sir... BACK TO THE SWARM!!!

[tylertt]

Hormagaunts in Gorgon are also insane. With the Gorgon trait, powers, and strat they can go ballistic.

The one edge Behemoth has is that spicy fight on death

[dkng]

Mar 1, 2023 12:11:23 GMT tylertt said:

Hormagaunts in Gorgon are also insane. With the Gorgon trait, powers, and strat they can go ballistic.

The one edge Behemoth has is that spicy fight on death

+1 to wound PP is another

[piersonsmuppet]

+1 to-wound isn’t really an edge though, Gorgon Horms still kill better with the Gorgon Power. Fight on death is the only thing Behemoth Horms have going for them, but it is one heck of a positive. Really makes it hard to say which fleet is better since you can pull some nice 2-for-1’s in Behemoth.

[purestrain]

Mar 2, 2023 17:26:57 GMT piersonsmuppet said:

+1 to-wound isn’t really an edge though, Gorgon Horms still kill better with the Gorgon Power. Fight on death is the only thing Behemoth Horms have going for them, but it is one heck of a positive. Really makes it hard to say which fleet is better since you can pull some nice 2-for-1’s in Behemoth.

Do they though? AG horms with the behe PP wound on 2s vs MEQ plus the fight on death strat, you can also use the +1 charge adaptive and gorgon cant, although unstoppable swarm is pretty good.

[piersonsmuppet]

AG Horms with Behemoth power: 9.3 wounds
Plain Horms with Gorgon power: 9.4 wounds

Fight on death is fantastic, but can be played around (or do nothing vs Tau). Really the local meta would define which fleet is better for Horms.

That being said, a Horm heavy list hasn’t really made any waves yet. I think most of the Nids that have done well enough to go X-1 have been Jorm/Behemoth/Levi Monsters. Fallback & shoot custom fleets have had the only showing outside of monsters that I know of.