The testing continues!
First things first, the list:
| Tyranids | 1750 Pts | ||
| Unit | Description | Size | Cost |
| HQ | |||
| Swarmlord | 1 | 280 | |
| Troops | |||
| Tervigon | A.Glands, Poison, Catalyst | 1 | 195 |
| Termagants | 10 | 50 | |
| Tervigon | A.Glands, Poison, Catalyst | 1 | 195 |
| Termagants | 10 | 50 | |
| Elites | |||
| Hive Guard | 3 | 150 | |
| Doom | 1 | 90 | |
| Pod | 1 | 40 | |
| Ymgarls | 9 | 207 | |
| Fast Attack | |||
| Gargoyles | Poison, Adrenal | 19 | 152 |
| Heavy Support | |||
| Tyrgon | Poison, Prime | 1 | 250 |
| Biovore | 2 | 90 | |
| Totals | 59 | 1749 |
I have been playing them a lot lately, and have found that the Biovores are great, definitely an include, but with Flyrants, the list lacked mobility so I dropped one unit of them to make room for some Gargoyles, which are excellent. They combo with Swarmy really, really well. Preferred enemy makes them pretty nasty. Plus, they are fantastic for board control.
The Trygon I love as he is such a beast. He hits hard, is fast, can deepstrike, provides synapse, fights better than a Flyrant, shoots pretty well, can play the challenge game, and is another source of Shadows.
Swarmy is my man. He is slow, and goes down to shooting quite easily if he doesn’t have Iron Arm, but he is quite a force multiplier. He will just own damn near anything in a fight, too. We just had him go heads up with Blood Thirster in a challenge, and it wasn’t even close. Stats wise, there are few units in the game that can hang with him in combat and expect to live. The Flyrant is honestly probably a better choice in general as he is faster, shoots very well and is great against Flyers, Swarmy just holds a special place in my heart! haha
The Doom is not the most consistent unit, but his ability to win the game in some circumstances is worth the price of admission. He is just an incredibly good disruption unit.
The Ymgarls are not as good as they were last edition. Alan B., winner of the ETC singles and WargamesCon, is also playing Nids and he and I were talking about using them optimally, and he had the very cool idea of using a Mawloc to come up under a unit in cover to force it out of cover, allowing the Ymgarls to hit them in the open. Very, very few units can take a unit of Ymgarls on in the open.
Right now, they are the only question mark on the list. They rock against a lot of units, but overwatch can be brutal to them. If I were to drop them, it would be for 3 more Hive Guard and most likely to beef up the Gant units, as having more than 10 to start per unit is really, really useful. I have found a big unit of 15+ just a hugely useful tool.
Whichever way I go though, I am having a really good time playing bugs. I am also making good progress on painting them, they are coming along really well and I hope to have them done in time for the Imperial Vox Caster run tournament at Leisure Time games in San Diego later in the month.
Have any of you found any other combos that are working well?
I like a brood of devilgants in a pod, also found that instead of just paying out 40pts for a pod that once it lands is useless I started given it a barbed strangler.
Totally agree with you about the biovores Reecius their very good & can snipe things as well.
I had not considered a Barbed Stangler, that isn’t a bad idea. I always just looked at it as a 40pt Tax to put the Doom where you want him. I have also considered the Devilgants in a pod, but haven’t tried it. It sounds great in theory. I will have to try it.
Biovores have devastated me many times. They are a high priority target for me now.
Yeah, they are awesome.
Just after this edition dropped, I was packing my normal Dark Eldar army for an event, so dusted off my girlfriends Nids. 6 biovores absolutely owned the opponents backfield.
One of the tactics that I noticed very effective, is if you get enfeeble, using it to negate FnP by reducing the opponent T to allow ID from the weapons shooting it.
Yeah, Biovores are pretty fantastic, no doubt about it. They were good in 5th, and in 6th they’re just fantastic.
And I have also used that trick many times. Enfeeble is really, really good. Honestly, there are no bad Biomancy powers, they’re all quite useful. I tried Telekinesis on Swarmy last night and it was pretty underwhelming apart from Objuration Mechanicum, which was absolutely brutal! Most things hit him on a 5 and wound him on a 6, so forcing them to reroll 6’s to hit and wound was just nasty. Also, hitting a vehicle with Haywire was really, really good as well.
If you chuck the Ymgarls, then regular Trygon fits those points. It’s tough to get rid of Ymgarls though. They do so much even before they come out with the way they screw with your head.
You are lacking in anti air though. I wonder what would happen if 2-3 Vendettas just zoom around lascannon ink the big bugs. Once the hive guard are gone, they can even go to hover mode in the corners for more consistent shots.
that’s the biggest problem with Tyranids, no anti-air unless you use FMCs but they get shot by Vendettas so fast and die
I guess the rumor about Pyrovores becoming an AA unit in order to get the model to sell was either way early or a hopeful fabrication
I actually don’t worry about air power much with Nids. You can take up so much space on the board with them that it really screws up Flyers. However, in Hammer and Anvil against a bunch of Vendettas, that could prove to be problematic as you pointed out. The Flyrant helps mitigate that, but I still think Nids are one of the armies best suited to fighting Flyers.
I would swap the Yrmgarls for Raveners… Raveners are very fast and hit hard (especially with rending claws). The 2W versus 1W makes Raveners more survivable – especially to Overwatch. I was a really big fan of Yrmgarls in 5th edition but feel like they lost in the transition to 6th edition. You should try using Raveners a few games and see how you like them.
Swarmy is a lot of points – I think there are too many armies out there that can shoot him off the table before he ever hits the enemy line.
The Trygon Prime is a great choice and the Raveners can pop out of his hole – that is very situational though. Extending your synaspe bubble is very important ! : )
The Doom is another great choice and he got some big buffs in 6th edition. What I found in 5th edition is you don’t want any more than two spores in an army as they give up really easy kill points – they should be T5 in my opinion… Would have been very cool if they had got Slow and Purposeful as well.
If you were to drop the Swarmlord you’d have plenty of points left over to beef up your two gant broods and take another brood of Hive Guard… Assuming you switch out the Yrmgarls for Raveners to open up another elite slot.
Believe it or not but the Deathleaper is another great Tyranid unit… He can create a lot of havoc and has the potential to shaft a powerfu enemy psyker.
If only Ymgarls didn’t take penalties for charging into the terrain they came out of…
Raveners seem cool, but they have the same problem as Tyranid Warriors: Instant Death. Their 3 wounds can soak up so much firepower from small arms, which is why they cost so damn much per model, but S8+ rapes them dead. The 5+Sv seems pathetic to me, but I guess it’s easy to get cover.
I would personally choose to run Hormagaunts over Raveners because they are cheaper, they are a scoring unit, and I wouldn’t have to buy more models and try to find hobby time for them.
Dropping the Swarmlord for a Flyrant seems sound to me, but just saying, a Flyrant with Hive Commander and two twin-linked Devourers costs 285 points, that’s more than the Swarmlord costs, so dropping Swarmy doesn’t clear up points.
Deathleaper always seemed cool to me, but doesn’t seem too big a threat (except for his “It’s After Me!” rule) because he can’t assault after appearing right behind you to assassinate without you getting a chance to defe- oh wait… (yay for fluff being represented in the gameplay mechanics!!) Lurk also sucks, Lictors should have something similar to Genestealers’ Brood Telepathy…
Yeah, I wish they could do something cooler coming out of terrain, or at least had stealth and shrouding the turn they appeared to help survive the fire they will attract. As it is, they are likely going to get smoked that turn with ease.
A few years ago at NOVA open, a guy did very well with a max Lichtor army which was really interesting. They do have solid firepower on them, which is useful, and they are not bad in assault, it’s just like you said though, that wimpy 5+ save and tough 4 just really hamstrings them.
Swarmy may not be as versatile, but he is my boy!
I wish Raveners could use the trygon hole but alas they are beasts and thus are not allowed to use it (despite the original FW rules being designed with ravs in mind).
Yeah, that is lame. We’re hearing that the new Nid dex isn’t too far off, though. Well, within the next 18 months or so, so we’ll see.
Some very good ideas. That is one of the nice things about nids, that they have so many viable options. The only real auto-include right now (IMO) are the Tervigons. You can win without them, but they are so good they really do belong in every list, IMO.
I am sticking with Swarmy, at least for now. I like everything about his except his speed (but every super character needs a drawback). I am goofing around with Telekinesis to see if Gate can help with that, but haven’t liked it so far.
He is such a beast though, but as I have been saying, the Flyrant is really in all likelihood the more consistently good choice.
Thats a solid list, tyranids are one of the coolest armies to fight. Got my ticket to at ease games gonna be a blast!
Yeah, it’s going to be a blast!
I’m actually loving a walking Tyrant with Old Adversary, Armored Shell, 2XDevs, and 2 Tyrant Guard, stick him close to 2 units of Hive Guard and you have yourself a shooty deathstar that’s a majority of T6 and MELTS the opposition.
Sounds sepndy, but pretty damn durable. I will have to try that out!
It is expensive, but the amount of shots you put out with rerolls is amazing… I mean amazing. With just a bit of cover, that formation becomes really durable. Non-LOS, cover ignoring shots with rerolls from the Hive Guard, and if anything gets really close turn the Tyrant on them. I tabled my buddy by turn 3 and vowed to never bring that list again.
How do you give rerolls to the Hive Guard?
Old adversary gives a preffered enemy bubble
Just give him 1 guard. That unit is already super-expensive and very durable. Also, the advantage with just 1 guard is that if you cast Iron Arm, you would use the majority toughness of the Tyrant.
Yes, I agree with this. Majority toughness really benefits them.
my friend uses a unit of venomthropes and a similar setup. its a tough nut to crack. He usually rapes any marines i try to use against him. Funnest battles are against my Imperial guard. It usually ends up a blood bath for both armies. My Eldar however, shoot him to pieces.
Mobile Eldar with lots of Strength 6 will certainly cause problems.