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"The Tyranids are the most rapidly evolving race in the galaxy. They are super-predators destined to hunt all others to extinction." Back at the beginning of 3rd edition, before there was a Tyranid Codex, I got a chance to play against a friend's second edition Tyranids with my Dark Eldar. We used a mish-mash of what rules we could remember and had a good time. One thing that really impressed me, aside from the alien-ness of the Tyranid army, was some really good guns that they had. The Barbed Strangler, in particular, really messed up my lines. Shortly afterward, I was so taken with the Tyranids that I started picking up various models that I thought were cool. The rules in the back of the book seemed to work okay and I set up a small swarm of my own. I used a Hive Tyrant with Venom Cannon (that's what they came with back then) and a Pair of Carnifexes, each with Bioplasma (it worked like a flamer template back then) plus 3 Zoanthropes and some Genestealers. The combination of shooting and assault worked pretty well for me. In fact, when you hear me refer to wiping out Chaos Mike's Super Retinue of Doom, it was the shooting that did it. Then the codex came out and things changed. Suddenly, the Warp Blast Template wasn't nearly as nasty against Marines as it used to be, and though it could now affect tougher vehicles, it didn't have much range. Venom Cannons and Barbed Stranglers weren't nearly as effective and Bioplasma was now a close combat attack. I started looking at the guns fielded by the Termagant variants, but none of them was worth much when shooting at a Marine, either. I tried Biovores, but had no luck with them. After some trial and error, I decided that shooty Tyranids were now impossible, so I set about making a no guns swarm. It has gone through several incarnations, all fairly successful, but involving few or no guns. Recently, however, I came across a pair of ideas that make a Tyranid shooty army possible. The first was a little line from the preview of the 4th edition rules that stated that Monstrous Creatures may fire two weapons in a turn. When I read that, my aural nodes perked up. A Carnifex with 2 Barbed Stranglers laying down double templates of S8 death? A Tyrant with twin Venom Cannons shelling out 6 S8 AP4 shots at 36" range? Sweet! Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout! Now, this small change makes a big difference to the numbers, as you'll see. By itself, it's not a huge deal, but it made me think about shooty Tyranids again. The major drawback to attempting a Tyranid shooty army, however, is the lack of effective shootiness from the rank and file. Other armies often have relatively wimpy weapons (such as the Imperial Guard flashlight, er, I mean Lasgun) but they at least have the option of firing them at long range so that they can get more weapons in range and have more turns to do their shooting. Among the smaller bioconstructs, all the standard weapons have only a 12 inch range, meaning that if you are in range to shoot, you are pretty much in assault range as well. This, combined with ineffective armor piercing capability, generally hamstrings a Swarm from shooting. However, there is an exception. When the species count in a Hive Fleet is relatively low, some members of broods may be created as mutants. (Specifically, the ratio of wounds in the brood to Species in the Hivefleet is the number of mutants available) If there are 16 Termagants in a Brood, and the Hive Fleet only has 8 Species, you may include 2 mutants. There are a variety of mutations, but the important one here is the Ranged Weapon Beast Mutation. It makes for an expensive model, but it allows you to upgrade the gun to any of the Tyranid ranged weapons. Therefore, you could make 2 of the Termagants be Venom Cannon carriers, rather than having the usual Fleshborers. Suddenly you've got 2 gaunts each with a S5 AP4 Assault weapon that can fire 36 inches. Not bad, but with numbers like these, it's not a big boost to firepower. On the other hand, if you use Ripper Swarms, you'll see a bigger boost, because the ratio is based on the number of wounds in the brood, AND the weapon fires the same number of times as the Attacks statistic. 8 Rippers in a brood have 24 wounds. If you've got the 8 species list I mentioned above, that lets you mutate 3 Ripper Bases to have Venom Cannons, which is 1 more than the gaunts could get. In addition, each Cannon can now fire 3 times, instead of once! (On the down side, you can only get a BS of 2, not 3 or 4 like the gaunts, but it's still a huge improvement.) The further you limit your Hive Fleet, in terms of species availability, the more mutants you can have. Of course, by limiting yourself in this way, you are reducing the choices available to you for your army, but that's how compromise works. The numbers below may look formidable, but they are fairly easy calculations. To save a bit of space and repetition, here is a guide, in order: Point Cost, Identification, important statistics, then the chance of hitting, chance of wounding, chance of failed save all multiplied by each other gives the dead Space Marine average per turn. That is multiplied by the cost of a Space Marine and then that cost is divided by the total price to find the efficiency. (An efficiency of 0.167 or higher means the bioconstruct has a good chance of making back it's point cost if it gets to shoot for most of the game.) Here's a (rather wordy) sample, so you can see what I'm talking about: 59pts Zoanthrope w/Warp Blast BS3 S5 AP3 (Blast) 1/2 (chance to hit) 2/3 (Chance to Wound) 1/1 (Chance to fail save, since this is AP3, a marine cannot make a save) (1/2 x 2/3 x 1=1/3 or 0.33 dead marines, multiplied by the template, which is usually about 2.5, so 0.825 dead Space Marines) 0.825 x 15 = 12.375pts of dead Space Marine per shot. Dividing the point return (12.375) by the unit cost (59) yields an efficiency of 0.21. This number allows us to compare units with wildly different abilities and points costs to see which will better fit the mission of shooting the enemy. 149pts Hive Tyrant w/Venom Cannon and Rending Claws BS4 S8 3 shots: 2/3 5/6 1/3 3=5/9=0.556=8.34=0.056eff. 137pts Hive Tyrant w/Warp Blast and RC/ST BS4, S5 AP3 (Blast) 2/3 2/3 x2.5=10/9=1.111=16.667=0.122eff 185pts Hive Tyrant w/2 Venom Cannon BS4 S8 6 shots: 2/3 5/6 1/3 6=10/9=1.111=16.667=0.090eff. 127pts Carnifex w/Barbed Strangler, RC BS3 S8 (Ord. Template) ½ 5/6 1/3 6 (Ord. Template) =5/6=0.833=12.5=0.098eff. 160pts Carnifex w/2 Barbed Stranglers BS3 S8 (2x Ord. Template) ½ 5/6 1/3 12 (Ord. Template) =5/3=1.666=25=0.156eff. 59pts Zoanthrope w/Warp Blast BS3 S5 AP3 1/2 2/3 = 0.33 = 12.375=0.21eff. Biovores Biovores are a little difficult for this sort of statistical analysis. Not only do they have the possibility of scattering, but they may also drift into a target on later turns. To simplify matters, I've divided their possible kills by 2 to reflect their uncertainty. Since the Bioplasma mine is also directional, I've divided it's kills by an additional factor of 2 to reflect the vagaries of it pointing the wrong way. Warriors 24pts base w/BS3 S5
34pts Warrior w/Deathspitter BS3 S6 Blast ½ 5/6 1/3 2.5=25/72=0.34=5.21=0.153eff. Gaunts Rippers 31pts for basic VC mutant Note that adding toxin sacs to the Rippers to increase strength only gives a marginal advantage in efficiency (0.006 points, to be precise) on the other hand, giving them a S6 weapon vastly improves their chances at taking down light vehicles, which is an important consideration. In fact, this is true of all the above numbers. They only apply to killing enemy troops (primarily Space Marines) and not to taking down vehicles, which is almost certainly what the stronger Venom Cannons will be used for. What would my idea of a shooty swarm look like? While I'd pick up several of the most efficient constructs, I'd also have to go for a few of the less effective ones that had other value, such as Carnifex models with Venom Cannons. These are less efficient at killing Space Marines, but work wonders on vehicles. 1496pts Sure, it's only 39 models, but it's still 117 Wounds! The Biovores are there to take advantage of any troop concentrations, such as opponents clustering around cover or those that just spilled out of wrecked vehicles. The Carnifi are there to wreck the tougher vehicles, or at least make them sit still and not shoot. The Rippers will target light vehicles and troops. Finally, the Hive Tyrant is there as a wrecking ball. Although the Warp Blast can be highly useful, the Tyrant is mostly there to help clean up the remnants left behind from the shooting or to shred stunned vehicles. Is it the Super Shooty Army of Doom(tm), no, but it will play significantly differently from a standard Tyranid swarm and I think it could be a lot of fun! I've even got a cool idea for a VC Ripper conversion. I'd use one or two regular Rippers on the base, then make one about 1.5-2x normal size and extend it out, with a bunch of crystalline spikes vomiting from it's mouth to represent the Venom Cannon. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |