There is no I in Team

I have spoken at length about using the concept of efficiency in building armylists. My assumption has always been, however, that someone would analyze the efficiency of a given unit in terms of how it fit into the army as a whole. A Space Marine Tactical squad, for example, may be a fairly efficient way of getting 6 bodies and a Lascannon and Plasma Gun, but if you have all the heavy weapons you can use and you need assault support, it doesn't matter how efficient it is, it's the wrong tool for the task. Based on my encounters online, not everyone has grasped this concept. If you can use several models or units together in a way that makes up for their individual deficiencies or increases their strengths, you have Synergy. If you don't, you just have efficiency. Obviously, high-efficiency units used in Synergy will be much more effective than lower-efficiency ones, but in the same vein, units used in synergy will be much more effective than units not used in synergy. (I'm not saying that Synergy trumps Efficiency or vice versa, just that using both will get you much farther than either by itself. Like the man said, "You'll get farther with a smile and a gun than with a gun alone.")

So what does that all mean? It means that you cannot simply find "the best" unit, you have to find the unit that fits your army the best. It doesn't matter how good the unit is at assaulting if you need more fire support. As an example, I'm going to go through the Tyranid army list and come up with "the best" unit in each category, but I will only look at it from a straight efficiency standpoint. I will not take into account anything else in the list, or how it might work together. (side note: the really nicely painted models below are by Moloch. The less nicely painted ones are mine. You can check out more of Hive Fleet Moloch at hivefleetmoloch.com

HQ:
Well, The Hive Tyrant is, hands down, the best option here. Stronger and more survivable than either the Broodlord or Warriors, The Tyrant is king of this domain. Walking Tyrants offer great ranged weapons and Flying ones offer great hand to hand capability, but you can combine them both with a Devourer Flyrant. The Devourers give you a bit of added range and a lot of damage capacity, and the Wings allow you to reposition quickly and limit return fire. We want to keep it efficient, so I will only add the necessary biomorphs to make it as nasty as possible. BS4 is a necessity since we will be shooting, S6 is necessary to allow it to Wound more effectively and Warp Field is vital to keeping it alive as long as possible. Other biomorphs could be useful, but won't directly assist in our primary mission of causing lots of damage to the enemy for the least points.

Elites:
Warriors and Lictors can be nice, but inexpensive Carnifi using the Shock Troops rule are much more durable and generally do much more damage. Although variations of the Screamer-Killer and Ninjafex close-combat Carnifi are interesting, the Devourerfex puts out a lot more damage and does it at range instead of waiting to close with the enemy. A basic Devourerfex has 2 sets of Twin-linked Devourers and BS3, nothing more.

Troops:
Hormagaunts are awfully expensive, Rippers are too slow and ineffective and Gaunts just don't pack a punch. Genestealers on the other talon, are fast and are truly, truly nasty in hand-to-hand combat. Given the number of AP5 weapons out there, Extended Carapace is a must for Genestealers. Some would argue that Scuttlers is also very effective, but it doesn't have as much straight-up efficiency as Extended Carapace. (Using Scuttlers in a list that takes advantage of Synergy can be very effective however, see below.)

Fast Attack:
Deepstriking Spore Mines are interesting, but they are very hit-or-miss. Gargoyles are quite nice, but they are more expensive than Hormagaunts and about as effective. Raveners, on the other claw, are very, very good. Even better are individual Raveners, since they can quickly claim objectives or attack different targets. Rending Claws/Scything Talons is pretty much the only choice for arming them. 2 sets of Scything Talons would give them an extra attack, but they wouldn't Rend, so it would only be useful against low-toughness and poor armor save armies. (For comparison, a Ravener with 2xScything Talons will average 0.66 Dead Space Marines on the charge, while one with Rending Claws and Scything Talons will average 1.25! The math is...
2xScything Talons: 6 attacks x 2/3 chance to hit x 1/2 Chance to Wound x 1/3 Chance to fail Save= 0.66DSM.
Rending Claws/Scything Talons: 5 Attacks x (1/6 Chance of Rending + (1/2 Chance to Hit x 1/2 Chance to Wound x 1/3 Chance to fail save.)=1.25DSM
Adding a gun would give them a little extra damage, which brings up their effectiveness just a bit more. Of the guns, the Devourer is by far the most effective for them. The Devourer adds 6 shots x 1/2 Chance to Hit x 5/9 Chance to Wound (Living Ammo!) and 1/3 Chance to fail Save=0.55 extra DSM for only 10pts! That's a 44% increase in effectiveness for only a 25% increase in points.

Heavy Support:
Biovores are interesting, and Zoanthropes can be pretty cool, but when it comes to durability and effectiveness, nothing beats a Carnifex. Even more so than in the Elites section, Heavy Support Carnifexes with guns are more efficient than those without. While an assault carnifex is nothing to sneeze at, it's also very slow and very easily outmaneuvered. Even if it manages to make it into combat, it won't generally be doing it until half or more of the game is over. A Gunfex, on the other hand, has the range to do something from turn 1. The most efficient weapon for killing Troops is a Twin-Linked Devourer. If I was truly going for straight unit efficiency, I'd include more Devourerfexes. In a nod to common sense, however, I will give the army some antitank capability that it would otherwise be lacking. The most efficient weapon for killing vehicles is the Venom Cannon. The Barbed Strangler is generally regarded as a good weapon paired with the Venom Cannon, since it has very long range and good strength, so it can kill vehicles. It also has a large blast template, which means it can be effective against clustered troops. (Due to template placement rules, it is not nearly as efficient against troops as a TLDevourer, but it can still be effective.) A Venom Cannon, a Barbed Strangler and BS3 are all we need here. Some would argue the effectiveness of Extended Carapace or Reinforced Chitin, but if we are looking at efficiency, these survival upgrades add nothing. (In my opinion, the upgrades are neither efficient nor effective, as my Carnifi are almost never shot if there are other targets available. Upgrading them then, would be pointless, since they will likely survive the game without the upgrades.)

Okay, so what would the list look like?

Hyper-Efficient Army of Dooooooom! or something ;)

196 Devourer Flyrant:Tyrant, BS4 S6 2xTLDevourer. Wings, Warp Field

113 Devourerfex: Carnifex BS3 2x TLDevourer
113 Devourerfex: Carnifex BS3 2x TLDevourer
113 Devourerfex: Carnifex BS3 2x TLDevourer

120 6x EC Genestealers
120 6x EC Genestealers
120 6x EC Genestealers
120 6x EC Genestealers
120 6x EC Genestealers
120 6x EC Genestealers

50 Ravener RC/ST, Devourer
50 Ravener RC/ST, Devourer
50 Ravener RC/ST, Devourer

148 Gunfex: Carnifex BS3 VC/BS
148 Gunfex: Carnifex BS3 VC/BS
148 Gunfex: Carnifex BS3 VC/BS

1849pts At first glance, this looks like a pretty tough army. It's got lots of nasty shooting coupled with nasty assault troops and highly effective antitank. It's also got a lot of weaknesses since the units aren't designed to work together. The various shooting units that target troops, for example, will be killing the models that the Genestealers need to be charging to be efficient. A Genestealer that takes an extra turn getting to a target may well be a dead Genestealer! In addition, this is an "all teeth" list. That means that every model is there to do damage. There is nothing in the list that is designed to absorb or redirect enemy shooting. Consequently, every shot will hurt. Most competent generals would start by focusing on the Genestealers, Raveners and Flyrant. Those targets are relatively fragile and expensive, particularly when compared to Carnifi. Once those units were stripped away, the opponent would merely have to weather the shooting of the Carnifi, which is fairly manageable by itself, especially if the opponent doesn't rely on vehicles. It would be even more effective if the opponent had some decent hand to hand, as once the Genestealers and Raveners are killed, there is very little effective close combat in this army.

Note:
Does this look familiar? Astute readers may notice a fair amount of similarity between this army list and my Godzilla list. The devil is in the details, however. In that list, I substituted one Gunfex for a Psychic Choir (3 Zoanthropes with Psychic Scream) and had 2 Walking Tyrants, also with Psychic Scream. This gave me a little more effective shooting, but it mostly gave me a way to leverage the power of my shooting, turning 2-3 casualties into a whole unit running away. Without the Psychic Screams, the army would be MUCH less effective. In addition, I held the Genestealers back as a countercharge. This kept them safe behind a wall of Monstrous Creatures until the enemy got close enough for them to spring. In this way I got some Synergy from the combination of the Armor and Wounds of the Monstrous Creatures to keep the Genestealers safe, and the close-combat prowess of the Genestealers to keep the Monstrous Creatures able to shoot. In addition, the Synapse power of the Tyrants kept the Raveners and Zoanthropes from being instakilled by S8 or better weapons.

There is also a Tactical version of Synergy. In an "every unit for itself" paradigm (which is what maximizing your efficiency without paying attention to your teamwork leads to) this list has 3 distinct Waves. Wave 1 consists of the Flyrant and the Raveners. These all hit on turn 2. While that can be a solid punch, it can also cue the enemy as to what to shoot first. The second wave is the Genestealers. These will hit on turn 3. I'll grant you that it'll be very difficult to stop 36 EC Genestealers (4+ Save) from getting to the lines, but if they can kill the Ravs and Flyrant on turn 1, they really only need to kill 12 Genestealers in each of the next two turns. (Yes, that does leave 12, but these will probably be out of range for a turn 3 charge, and even if they are not, 12 Genestealers won't break an army by themselves.) Finally, the Carnifex Wave may not ever hit the enemy lines, since they are all shooting platforms. If you did move them in, they'd hit turn 4 or 5.

A good general could still make some use of this list in a couple of ways. One way would be to move the Flyrant and Raveners up behind cover. (In a low-cover environment, you could make use of the wall of Carnifi, given the longer range of the Flyrant and Raveners.) The Genestealers would take heavy casualties intially, but if the Raveners and Flyrant hit at the same time as the remainder of the Genestealers, you've just put a much bigger hole in the enemy lines, and it may be enough damage that they won't be able to recover. A different way to make use of tactical synergy would be to hold the Genestealers as countercharge like I did with my Godzilla list. This way they are effectively under heavy armor while the shield wall advances and shoots. Once the Carnifi are within 12" of the enemy lines, they make gaps between them, letting the Genestealers run forward and eat. Either option though (holding back the Raveners and Flyrant or countercharging Genestealers) would be more effective if the units were designed to work together from the beginning. For example, if the Genestealers had Scuttlers, they could hit at the same time as the Flyrant and the Raveners, increasing the time pressure on the enemy by a lot. In such a list, I would probably replace some or all of the Devourerfexes with Scuttlers for the Genestealers and more Genestealers and Raveners for extra turn-2 punch. Alternately, adding a psychic choir and a couple of walking Hive Tyrants with Psychic Scream would make this list much more effective as well, as it would be able to leverage the strength of its shooting more effectively, while using the Genestealers and any Ravs in a countercharge role.

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