Hey everyone, Danny from TFG Radio here, and today is a good, good day. The December 2022 White Dwarf is hitting shelves and subscribers in bits and spurts, and in it comes Tyranids’ first Army of Renown, and oh my Hive Mind, it is sweet. The Crusher Stampede is all about dem big bugs, and believe me, it does them right. Of course, be sure to check out all the other goings on in Frontline’s Tactics Corner where I bet soon, the biomass will have to theorize how to stop this much beef.
I have played Tyranids for closing in on three decades, and my favorite time was still 4th edition Nidzilla. Man, that army could swing. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a heavily monster based list that really brought heat, but I think that is a-changing. The Crusher Stampede army of renown is here, and with it, the chance to knock a lot of bugs off the shelf, just in time for the New Year. Let’s break it down:
Restrictions:
No SWARMS and no model under 3 wounds. This means the only troop choice available are Warriors, which isn’t a bad deal honestly.
For each unit without the MONSTER keyword, you must include a unit with the MONSTER keyword. Pretty straightforward and limits you from doing Hive Guard and/or Warrior spam with just a few souped up Monsters.
All Units must be from the same Hive Fleet (and be Tyranids). No GSC friends and no mixing and matching Hive Fleets for more access to stratagems. In my early list building, this threw me off as there are a few super fun Hive Tyrant builds but some are locked into specific Hive Fleets.
Benefits:
All Units gain the Crusher Stampede Keyword (for strats and such)
Units without the MONSTER keyword gain Shielded by the Hive Mind
MONSTER units gain Hulking Behemoths
You gain the Crusher Stampedge Strats, Warlord Traits, and powers from Mass Convergence.
Shielded by the Hive Mind
No Hive Fleet adaptations (so no reroll 1s from Kronos or Fall Back and Charge from Kraken)
Models gain a 5++ invulnerable save.
This is obviously big money on our medium Infantry like Warriors and even Raveners. Hordes of cheap Warriors make excellent objective campers that put out decent attacks, but with a 5++ and access to the -1 damage strat, they can be pretty hardy for their point cost, especially since you have to bring them for Troop Choices and their Synaptic Link. Even small squads of Raveners become solid for the new changes to the GT pack making Lictors less relevant as Raveners are minimum 3 models for scoring table quarters, but can deepstrike on their own and with a 5++, they aren’t meaningless to handle. Plus, while you may not get the Jormungandr bonus, you can still use the Jormungandr stratagem to have them act as cheap deepstrike cadies for Warriors to do Retrieve Nachmund Data (formerly known as ROD). Even Tyrant Guard get some play here as a slow wrecking ball of damage.
Hulking Behemoths
No Hive Fleet adaptations
Models gain a 5++ invulnerable save
Models gain -1 damage.
Models count as their current remaining wounds as the number of models for purposes of controlling objectives.
Of course, here is where the real money is. An army wide invulnerable save to any monster is just a Tyranid player’s dream, and if you look back at the many, many articles that I have written about Tyranids for Frontline, I will generally lament the lack of invul save on monsters. That problem is flat out gone here. While for certain monsters it isn’t that important like Hive Tyrants, Dimachaerons, or Maleceptors, for Haruspexes, Toxicrenes, Trygons, and Carnifexes, this is absolutely the sweetest biomass in the digestion pool. Always having a 33% chance to just ignore a hit is just awesome. To make it even better, a flat -1 damage takes some sting out attacks that get through the save, and -1 damage doesn’t seem much, but it matters, quite a bit. A lot of enemy heat that you’ll see is massed D2 to D4, so dropping it down to D1 to D3 is a big increase in survivability. Funny enough, it makes the Crusher Stampede a great counter to massed Hive Guard armies that have been popping up as Hive Guard do not like -1 damage and an army of it? Ouch.
Just about any monster in our arsenal gets a lot of play from this. The most competitive monster, the Dimachaeron, loves that -1 damage, but let’s not forget that a healthy Dimachaeron counts as 18 models, meaning it can actually take and hold objectives unless going against Objective Secured units. Even then, as Leviathan, you can give the Dima (or any monster within 12 of a Synapse unit) Objective Secured, so you can very much suddenly dominate an objective out of nowhere. Our Superheavies become even more dangerous as the Harridan loves both the 5++ and the -1 damage, but really, this makes the Hierophant much more playable as the combination of a 2+ save, -1 damage, and counting for 34 models on a objective makes it a perfect backfield anchor that is going to allow you to push forward with other threats while being reasonably safe unsupported.
I will likely do a full monster by monster breakdown in another article because honestly, this just changes them all so much.
Warlord Traits
Raging Influence (Aura)
When a friendly Crusher Stampede Monster is within 6″ of the Warlord, each unmodified hit roll 6 in melee generates an extra hit.
Not a bad aura at all but situational. It can and does benefit your own warlord if they are a Monster, but really, it is about helping out several monsters that can hit the enemy line at the same time. It looks cool, but really, it isn’t enough to really make it worth it as few monsters have so many attacks that it will likely do much. A Dimachaeron or Haruspex loves this aura, but keeping your Warlord close to the Dima is tough. This would have worked a bit better if it was just Units rather than specifically Monsters.
Savage Intimidation (Aura)
While an enemy unit is within 3″ of the Warlord, they suffer -1 to hit in melee and they suffer -1 for their Combat Attrition Test.
This is another cool idea that isn’t bad, but it is situational. Plenty of armies don’t care about morale, but the -1 to hit in melee isn’t bad at all on a Warlord that wants to mix it up. You could build a pretty tanky Hive Tyrant that has this trait and Biomorphic Carapace for -1 to wound, so that is 12 T7 3+/4++ -1 damage wounds that are also -1 to hit and -1 to wound in melee. Between that and Swarmlord, you can have two really tough anvil units that you can throw into melee and generally assume that they will survive a round or 2. Again, situational, but it can absolutely work.
Rampaging Beast
Once per turn, this Warlord gains +d3 attacks in melee.
This is a really fun one that is all about making Hive Tyrants much more effective as melee threats. The reality is that a Hive Tyrant is not a great fighter, mostly due to lowish strength and only 4 base attacks. Now, you are 5-7 base attacks, which helps, especially if you get 6 or 7. This gives you a reason to take melee weapons, especially if you throw in Murderous Size (as now Dermic Symbiosis isn’t as relevant), and you can actually make a surprising fighter.
You can go Reaper style, which is a Reaper of Obliterax with Murderous Size, so now you are S7 AP-3 D4, and a roll of 6 to wound is Damage 8, which can just obliterate super hard targets, plus this is Hive Fleet agnostic. You can go Thresher style (or Tyrant One Eye), which is Scythes of Tyran with Murderous Size, so now you are S8 AP-4 D4 with 5 (+d3) attacks and each 6+ (modified so yay Synaptic Link) is an extra attack roll (not hit, attack). You have to be Behemoth here, but this is a lot of heat, especially if you factor in one of the Crusher Stampede’s psychic powers. You can also go Slayer style, which is Synaptic Hive Blades with Murderous Size, so now you are S7 AP-3 D4 with 5 (+d3) attacks that ignore Invulnerable Saves, perfect for killing hard characters like Magnus or Deathwing Terminators. You do have to be Leviathan, but with their additional rules, that is likely the best choice anyway. So yah, this is absolutely a great Warlord trait if you want a Hive Tyrant that is actually going to get in there and kill things in melee.
Mass Convergence Discipline:
Synaptic Barrier –
Blessing. Warp Charge 6. One model within 18″ gets a 4++ invulnerable save.
This is again just a standard, awesome power, and if you like the biggest of bugs like the Harridan or Hierophant, this is just money in the bank. A Hierophant with this and Catalyst becomes one of the hardest targets in the game at T8, 2+/4++/5+++ and -1 damage. Very, very few things are going to kill that, let alone do any meaningful damage. You can also do this to a lesser extent on the Harridan, who is considerably cheaper, and doing a Harridan rocket on turn 1 to send it right into the enemy lines with a 4++ means that very few armies are going to be able to kill it before it can fly away again. This also works great on Exocrines, Tyrannofexes, or Barbed Hierodules who want to sit in the backfield and shoot. Giving them the 4++ makes them much harder to shift, so yah, this is just an all around great power that probably works best when building to maximize a single hard threat.
Aggressive Surge –
Blessing. Warp Charge 6. One model within 18″ gains d3 attacks until the next Psychic Phase.
Another just simple, absolutely money power. Most Tyranid monsters are melee oriented, so being able to give them an extra 1-3 attacks is fabulous. There isn’t a melee oriented monster who doesn’t love this, but there are a few special standouts that maximize it the most, namely Old One Eye for even more attacks, the aforementioned Reaper/Thresher/Slayer Hive Tyrant, and even the maligned Haruspex. A Haruspex with Aggressive Surge, +1 to hit from Warriors, reroll wounds from Voracious Appetite, and reroll hits from Feeding the Hunger is a massive threat, especially if you Swarmlord it forward right into the fight. Just for the math, that’s anywhere from 5 to 21 attacks from just the Maw, plus any additional shovel attacks, but on average, you are looking at over 10 total attacks between Maw and Claw that reroll everything. Not bad for 170 points that is relatively disposable (but still T8 with a 5++ and -1 damage that also heals).
Just a bonkers good power. The only downside is that Warp Charge 6 isn’t an autoget, so if you are going to lean heavy on this power (or any of these powers), bringing a Neurothrope with Resonance Barb is probably wise.
Infused Energies –
Blessing. Warp Charge 6. Select one friendly Crusher Stampede, non-synapse unit. They gain full reroll to hit in melee.
This one is fun because it is unit (hello Raveners and Tyrant Guard) and it is just a flat reroll to hit in melee. Most times, you are going to throw this one on a big melee beasty like a Haruspex (saving you 1 CP) or any other non-synapse bug like a Scythed Hierodule. Just about any melee bug wants this, but it is a nice way to make Raveners or Tyrant Guard a bit more useful. Especially Tyrant Guard who have multi-damage melee weapons need a reroll to function, this makes them worth another look, depending on if their points are adjusted or not. Again, just a really solid power, but it isn’t as key as the others.
Stratagems:
Thunderous Impact – 2 CP
Use on a Monster when it finishes a Pile-in move. Select one enemy VEHICLE or MONSTER within Engagement Range and gain the following benefit against that target: +1 to hit, +1 to wound, and +1 damage.
In AoS, there is Titanic Duel, and finally, the kings of crabs, the queens of quarrels, Tyranids, have a way to show other Monsters and vehicles who the top of the pops is. Sending even a lowly 100 point double-scythe Carnifex into a hard target suddenly becomes a bit workable, but this really shines with say a Dimachaeron or even the super fighty Hive Tyrant builds. It won’t always matter, but when you are going against some of the bigger threats out there, getting this much extra value can absolutely spike big damage. A great contender for this is the humble Trygon who now hits on 2s, rerolling 1s, wounds T8 on 4s (and can reroll thanks to Voracious Appetite), and is doing d6+1 damage. That’s not bad. Again, always remember if you are going against a hard target, this essential. With the aforementioned Slayer/Thresher/Reaper Tyrants, this can make them respectable odds to one shot a target like Magnus or even Mortarion.
Terrifying Charge – 1 CP
Use at the start of Morale. Select an enemy unit within Engagement range of a monster that charged. That enemy unit suffers -3 leadership.
This is a fun but situational strat. It will not likely come up, but if you remember it, it can definitely make sure that last sergeant runs away, leaving you the objective. A fun, fluffy strat that isn’t going to be used that much.
Unbreakable Chitin – 1/2CP
Use in any phase, and select any unit. Until end of phase, any wound roll of 1, 2, or 3 fails, regardless of any abilities or modifiers (yay, we get Transhuman too!). If the unit has 5 or more models or has 10 or more wounds, 2 CP. Otherwise, 1 CP.
What a great way to add a ton of situational durability to just about anything. A big blob of Warriors becomes horrific to kill easily with this and the usual defensive tek. Ignore AP-1/2, -1 Damage, 5++ invul, possibly 5+++ Feel No Pain, and oh, 50% of your hits fail to convert. Just money. Swarmlord is going to tank even the hardest of hitters in melee. A lone Carnifex may keep you an objective instead of being sniped out. An Exocrine can win the shooting war against another ranged threat. The possible uses of this are so many and varied that is impossible to list them all. Memorize this. Love it. Live it.
Death Surge – 2 CP
Use in the Fight phase when a non-Character Monster dies. After the model that killed it finishes its attacks, you can attack with the Monster, fighting as if at a full health, before being removed.
This is another great one to get some good trades out of our monsters. Fully loading a Dima or Haruspex into the opponent, letting it get some work done, and knowing it will die is part of the monster-mash life, but now you can get double value as the sacrificial monster essentially gets two combats worth of damage rather than one. This also works defensively as a unit may come in, sweep up a monster, but you can at least get it to do some damage on the way out. Characters already have this strat, but a worse one as you fight as bottom tier, but giving it to the non-character monsters is awesome. Again, another strat that you need to remember as it gives you such a big advantage in the piece trade game. That is what is essential to winning in an elite army, trading up in value, and this is a big step forward for Tyranids.
Breaking Through – 1 CP
Use in the Charge Phase after a Monster finishes a charge move. Select one enemy model within Engagement range and roll a number of d6 equal to your monster’s current wounds.
If your monster’s strength is higher than the target’s toughness, every 3+ is 1 mortal wound (to a max of 6).
If your monster’s strength is equal to the target’s toughness, every 4+ is 1 mortal wound (to a max of 6).
IIf your monster’s strength is less than the target’s toughness, every 5+ is 1 mortal wound (to a max of 6).
What a fun way to help clear hordes or murder a character with great defenses but low toughness (cough, Deathwing, cough). Obviously, our chonkiest of bugs excel with this like Dimachaerons, Hierodules, and Haruspexes, but even a Tyrannofex can pull some craziness with this out of nowhere thanks to 13 wounds and base strength 7. I am actually surprised that this is only 1 CP as it phenomenal It can help clear out wounds when going into a big unit that you aren’t likely to clear and it can absolutely murder a lot of characters who rely on invul saves. This is another one that you should have tattooed onto your arm. From my first test game, this was the one strat that paid dividends every, single, time. An absolutely amazing stratagem that allows for some really corner case plays as well as obvious power punches.
Rapid Adaptation: 1 CP
Use during List building. Select one Tyranid Warrior unit. it gains WS 2+ and BS 3+. You can only use this once in under 1k points, twice in 2k points, and 3 in large games.
This one is interesting, essentially making your Warriors the best of the best of the bugs. It really replaces the need for a Tyranid Prime, but then if you take a Tyranid Prime, you can get Warriors hitting on a 2+ at range. Let me say that again, at range. If you want to take one giant Tyranid Warrior ball of death, this isn’t exactly a bad upgrade as getting 6 deathspitters and 3 venom cannons to hit on 2s (with the Prime nearby) is tasty, especially since if Leviathan, you can give them exploding 6s to hit (or if doing Kronos for Symbiostorm), and they can shoot twice thanks to Single-Minded Annihilation. Yes, Crusher Stampede may not really need Hive Guard, but a big Warrior unit can become the perfect screen sweeper. If you really want to put resources into a big Warrior squad, this is the way to go, but that depends on you and your list. Between 9 warriors with guns, a Prime, a CP for this, and a CP for Enhanced Resistances, that is a lot of investment, but then, it could be worth it.
Enhanced Brain Functions – 1CP/2CP
Use in your shooting phase. Select a Warrior unit that is within Engagement Range of an enemy unit. The Warriors gain Big Guns Never Tire rule as if they were a Monster. If 5 or less Warriors, 1 CP, if 6+, 2 CP.
This is another situational but fun one that again, if you decide to lean heavy into Warriors, this makes sense. Having the giant Warrior ball of doom is great until it gets tagged, but being able to shoot its way out of combat or at least get some good damage into a unit is pretty tasty. Especially if you are getting tagged by a chaff unit that is just trying to limit your ranged damage, being able to shoot into them and then fight next turn should mean that the Warriors get free. Again, this is very situational, but it can be clutch as hell when needed.
So, overall, the Crusher Stampede is just exactly what a Nidzilla player, which is a fair few of us, let’s be honest, wants. You get insane durability, a big increase in punch, and actually some pretty solid skill cap plays with different stratagems. Make sure you get your White Dwarf because this is just essential rules that I hope also preview whenever our 9th Edition codex drops. I’ve managed one game already with a few more lined up, and I was impressed. I went against a John Lennon style Forces of the Hive Mind list and managed to pull it out 76 to 60, and while I was down early in the Primary, I was able to push through the shooting and Genestealers and start scoring big in the mid to late game. Stay tuned as I work on some list ideas to share with you, and a monster by monster breakdown to see who really gets the boost and who still lags behind.
Thanks as always for reading, and hey, these are going to be legal for LVO 2022, so I expect to see some Crusher Stampedes out there! Come say hi to me at the Judge’s table, or if you are running CrushP (working title, we’ll see what catches on), I’ll probably come say hi to you. Play games and be nice to each other!
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