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I don't have any pictures of Ralph's army,
so you'll have to settle for some pictures of mine to break up the text.
The Email Request
Charles,
My name is Ralph and I play Tyranids. I have been playing Space Hulk and Warhammer 40K since the 90's. I like your website especially the great articles on army development. I am getting ready to play a 1749 point Rogue Trader Tournament in Florida and wanted your opinion on my army list. I also enclosed a list of what I own, in case you wanted to offer suggestions on how to improve it. Thanks for posting some great information.
My plan is to fly my Hive Tyrant, keeping him in cover as much as possible, at a tank or transport vehicle. The Hormagaunts will march quickly across the board, soaking up fire. With 40 of them I should get about two squads of 10 or more into close combat in turn 2. The Zoanthrope will be tank hunting or blasting squads in turn 2. The Gargoyles will be followed by the Shrikes. This will give the Shrikes a cover save, while the Gargoyles soak up the attacks. I hope to have 10 or more of them in assault by turn 2 with the Shrikes at full strength.
I am planning on deep striking the Doom of Malan'tai, with the Mycetic Spore near the close combat action so he can gain strength without being a shooting target.
I plan on either infiltrating one squad or more of Genestealers, depending on the mission, deep striking one, and using the last to outflank, which is why I upgraded the Hive Tyrant with the Hive Commander trait.
With the Hive Commander trait on the Hive Tyrant I hope to have the lictor or the Trygon out on turn two. If the lictor comes out he will hide for a turn. The Genestealers or Trygon can then deep strike within 6" and help the Lictor assault anything. Also the lictor will help the reserves get out quicker by adding +1 to reserve rolls.
If the Trygon comes out I will deep strike him in using subterranean assault. I plan on having him assist the Hive Tyrant or attack any tanks laying around.
The reason I am only using a single Lictor is the limitation on points. I always like using two lictors and two Zoanthropes, but using the Doom of Malan'tai for the first time I had to cut back somewhere. The Lictor, in previous games, against Imperial Guard with the Shrikes cut through one squad after another. Not sure how it will fare against Chaos, Chaos Space Marines or Space Marines though.
You correctly guessed there will be two broods of 20 Hormagaunts and three broods of 10 Genestealers. Everyone hates Genestealers and shoots them on sight, often ignoring Hormagaunts, Hive Tyrants, etc. I figured three broods should increase their survivability especially if they outflank or deep strike.
I do face a number of tanks or walkers, but I have no luck with shooting them. I always take Zoanthropes for the synapse and shooting, but they might cripple 1 tank a game, if I am lucky. The Hive Tyrant is usually the tank killer, flying in fast and just smacking the tank with the dual scything talons and monstrous strength. I hope the Trygon is worth the points as I only used it once against Eldar and the second it deep striked in it was shot dead with 6 bright lances. I plan on Deep Striking him near cover and running to assault as he is Fleet.
The only other anti-tank unit I have is a Carnifex with a Venom Cannon. I might be able to deep strike him in with a Mycetic Spore.
Thanks for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Ralph
1749pt Tyranid List
265 Winged Hive Tyrant:2xScytals, Wings, Adrenal Glands, Hive Commander, Leech Essence, Paroxysm
65 Lictor
60 Zoanthrope
130 Doom of Malan'tai: Mycetic Spore
120 20xHormagaunt
120 20xHormagaunt
154 11xGenestealer (will use outflank)
140 10xGenestealer (will Infiltrate)
140 10xGenestealer (will Infiltrate)
225 5xShrike: Scytals, Rending Claws, Adrenal Glands
120 20xGargoyle
210 Trygon: Adrenal Glands (Deepstrike)
Additional models
Hive Tyrant w/VC and TL-Devourers
2xTyrant Guard
Lictors (2 more)
Zoanthrope (1 more)
Pyrovore
Genestealers (2 more)
Broodlord
Termagants 23
Shrikes (4 more)
Gargoyles (5 more)
Carnifex: 2xScytals
Carnifex: Scytals, Venom Cannon
Old One Eye
Tyrranofex
Mycetic Spore (1 more)
What Does it all Mean?
First off, thank you for reading and for the great comments. It's comments like that that keep me writing. Now let's have a look at the army.
Alright, starting on the table we have the Winged Tyrant, 2x20 Hormagaunts, 2x10 Infiltrating Genestealers 5x Shrikes, 20x Gargoyles, and 1 Zoanthrope. That's fairly respectable. In reserve, we have the Lictor, the Doom, the Outflanking Genestealers and the Trygon. For synapse you have the Hive Tyrant and Shrikes pushing forward aggressively with the Zoanthrope following behind. You also don't need synapse on a good chunk of your army. For anti-vehicle you've got the Zoanthrope, Doom, Flyrant and Trygon. Against light vehicles (or if you get lucky) you've also got the Lictor and the Genestealers and maybe the Shrikes.
Impressions and Warnings
At first glance it looked like a bit of a hodge-podge of units, but you've got multiple fast and powerful threats. Possibly enough to overwhelm most foes. It also looks like you've got pretty decent anti-tank, just be on the lookout for fully mechanized armies. If they play smart, they'll keep anything in range of your CC threats moving fast enough that they can only be hit on sixes. If this is the case, you'll need to devote everything you can to opening the tin cans early. If you do open up a transport, try to reserve your best antivehicle units for antivehicle work, let the little guys eat the chewy center. (It's easy to get caught up in the action and send the Trygon in, but he'll be better off eating another tank, instead.) Overall, this looks like a pretty good list, I think.
Tweaks
There are a few small things that you can do to make this list more effective. The Lictor, by itself, won't do much damage to Space Marine types, but it combines well with other light units (such as smaller broods of Hormagaunts or Gargoyles.) (It's also moderately effective against the rear armor of vehicles with it's Flesh Hooks.) Doom is a huge target and so is the Zoanthrope if it's actually close to a tank or has just fried a squad of expensive infantry. So are the Shrikes and the Flyrant. If you can get these threats fairly close together on the board, it will complicate your opponent's target priority. (If he's only got two squads available to shoot in that area, what should he shoot first?) In addition, if you can surround them with your various other broods, that will further cut down on what will be able to shoot at them between combats. It would be nice to get the Zoanthrope into a spore as well, but you are very tight for points, and I think if you cut down on your Genestealers or your Hormagaunts or your Gargoyles, you won't have enough to be a real threat.
I've heard from people that have more experience with Trygons than I do. They recommend starting it on the board, since it's fast enough it should be able to charge things by turn 3 anyway and will provide more of an initial target saturation. (The same speed as if you had used deepstrike and arrived on turn 2.) The only exception I might make is if the opponent has a bunch of tanks all the way by the board edge, since deepstriking should let you reach them faster. You mention deepstriking the Genestealers, but they can only do that if they have a spore pod. That's okay though, they'll do better either infiltrating or outflanking anyway. (Again, if the opponent is mostly mechanized, you may want to outflank another 1 or all 3 of the Genestealer broods for better antitank coverage.)
Let us know how you do with this, I think you've got a very interesting, hard-hitting Tyranid army on your hands, and I'd like to hear how it turns out.
If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know
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