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Last week I received an email... I am looking to start a tyranid army. I was wondering if you had any cost effective ideas or tactics? I want to do an "attack on all fronts" list where I have raveners and a trygon prime and mawloc open spots for 30 reserved hormagaunts with subterranean assault, maybe have lictors and an infiltrating broodlord/stealer squad to deny a small section of the battlefield to deepstrike important units away from rapid fire weapons, and the gargoyle squad deep strikes or flies with the ground forces such as hormogaunts, termagaunts, and warriors. I'll be using a tyranid prime until I can get a hive tyrant. Also, do you have any suggestions for anti tank stuff? I am trying to go for a tactic like the hive fleet Jormungandr on pg26 of the Tyranid codex but adding gargoyles. Okay, that's a lot of questions, let's break it down and see what we can do... -I want to do an attack on all fronts list where I have raveners and a trygon prime and mawloc open spots for reserved 30 hormagaunts with subterranean assault... While I think all of those are great and interesting units, only the Trygon prime (or a regular Trygon) are able to open tunnels for the subterranean assault. While the other units can tunnel, only the Trygon/Trygon Prime actually has the rule for subterranean assault. (You can think of the other tunnels as immediately closing, I suppose.) However, given that the Subterranean assault only works on the turns _after_ the Trygon/prime emerges, I think that it's quite a gamble. If your Hormagaunts show up before, or on the same turn as your Trygon/Prime, they won't be able to use the tunnel. It seems like such a cool idea, but it relies so much on chance that I, personally, wouldn't count on it. -maybe have lictors and infiltrating broodlord/stealer squad to deny a small section of the battlefield to deepstrike important units away from rapid fire weapons. Having a safe zone to land your Deepstriking models and create a beachhead or spearhead for your assault is a very interesting idea. It keeps them safer (while they are in reserve) and then makes sure they show up right about where you want them. On the other hand, Lictors and Genestealers are not well known for their resilience and ability to stick around under fire. If you make use of this idea, I think you'll have to make sure you have some heavier duty constructs (such as the Trygon Prime or Carnifexes or the like) to keep your safe zone from collapsing. Since the Deepstriking broods won't be able to assault the turn they arrive, they will still be vulnerable if you aren't very careful with your placement. -and the gargoyle squad deep strikes or flies with the ground forces such as hormogaunts, termagaunts, and warriors. I'll be using a tyranid prime until I can get a hive tyrant. That could make pretty good sense, but see more below in the general army suggestions section. As long as you've got solid synapse coverage for the stuff that needs it, the Tyranid Prime makes good sense as well. (I like the Tyranid Prime, but I'm not sure it's resilient enough to be relied on for Synapse.) -a side note: all i have so far are 5 genestealers and 8 spore mines and soon getting 10 termagaunts and 6 more genestealers and a few more spore mines so I have a lot of buying and painting to go! Indeed you do. Painting a Tyranid army can be a lot of work. I've heard of people having success by alternating the kinds of units they paint. (For example, a Hormogaunt Brood, then a Trygon Prime, then a Gargoyle Brood, then a Mawloc. It's supposed to keep you from getting bored painting one kind of model.) I'd also recommend putting together a planned list for whatever is the standard point level for games, then try to plan smaller lists from that one. (For example: the local standard here is 2000pts. If I was starting a new army, I'd plan out the army for 2000pts. Then I'd break it down into smaller armies that I could play, maybe 1500pts, 1000pts and 500pts. Then start with buying the stuff you need for the smallest army first and add from there.) That way you don't waste money on stuff you won't be able to use for a while, or on buying more than you'll really use in the big army. Like most hobbies, this one is expensive, so don't waste money on stuff you won't or can't use. -I am looking to start a tyranid army. and i was wondering if you had any cost effective ideas or tactics. I am trying to go for a tactic like the hive fleet jormungandr pg26 in tyranid codex but adding gargoyles. I think that has some interesting possibilities. It also has some very dangerous potential for your army. If some of your stuff is tunneling in, and some of it is Deepstriking in, and some of it starts on the board, you'll be leaving a small part of your army as the only targets for the enemy for the first turn. If they've got good shooting, they might be able to decimate it before your reserves start arriving, leaving you with a much smaller army to take on the enemy. If you are careful about cover and placement and a bit picky about what you start on the board, you'll have a better chance of surviving that first turn. An alternate option is to start the rest in reserve, too, planning on coming in on your board edge. This protects you during that first turn, but it means that any close combat broods you have will have to run further when they do arrive. Another option might be to make sure that basically everything has some sort of alternative deployment option (Tunnel, Deepstrike, Outflank, etc.) That gives you the option to give your opponent the first turn, and just let them sit there with no targets until you start raining (or digging or whatever) death upon them. Any route you choose, you might want to look into some choices like Lictors that give you a bonus to reserve rolls. Oh, make sure you read up on all the rules for deepstrike very carefully and even practice doing it a few times by yourself, just so you make sure you aren't leaving something out. (All too easy to skip a step in the excitement of doing it.) -and any suggestions for anti tank stuff?
This part took me a while. I wasted about an hour or so working on which was the most efficient and effective option for popping tanks at range. Then I realized: Tyranid shooting has pretty much never been about killing vehicles, it's almost always been about either preventing vehicles from shooting long enough to get your swarm into the enemy army, or preventing the vehicles from moving so that the ground swarms can catch up to them and open the cans themselves. Those two missions are things the new Tyranid codex can handle. The first thing to note is that stopping a vehicle from shooting is much easier than stopping it from moving. Fortunately, it's usually the heavily armored (therefore harder to penetrate) tanks that we want to keep from shooting (the easier option) while the lighter armored vehicles (easier to penetrate) are the ones we want to keep from moving (the more difficult way.) That said, here's how I'm going to break it down... To keep a vehicle from shooting, you really have 5 out of 6 results on either the damage chart, whether you get a Glancing hit or a Penetrating one. (I'm counting Weapon Destroyed as No Shooting, since often there is a single big gun, that once taken out, the vehicle is mostly not shooting anyway. Obviously, Vehicle Destroyed also results in no shooting :) ) It's much harder to keep a vehicle from moving. Most vehicles that you want to stop moving will have Extra Armor or something similar, so they can treat Shaken and Stunned results as simply no shooting. That means that the only way to stop it from moving is to Immobilize it (1/6 chance if it's a Glancing hit) or to Destroy or Explode it. Thus, a 1/6 chance per Glancing hit and a 1/2 chance per Penetrating hit. Most Transports are around AV11 and most Heavy Tanks are around AV13. There are certainly other options, and not all sides are the same, but the two give us some useful comparisons without resulting in even more of a wall of numbers. I'll start by going down the list of the options that you (or Hive Fleet Jormungandr) have mentioned, then I'll add a few suggestions as well. Yeah, okay, of all the stuff on your list, only 3 things can really effect vehicles (I'm not counting weapons with less than 18" range, aside from the Lictor which can show up wherever it wants to, or that have a strength under 5.) That leaves the Lictors' Flesh Hooks and the Trygon Prime's Containment Spines and the Tyranid Prime's Deathspitter option. That being the case, I'll list them first, then go down a list of the rest of the codex options, from most efficient to least. The formula I'll be using here is... The efficiency is based on how much it costs per success. For example, if you have a model that will stop a vehicle from shooting 20% of the time and the model costs 10 pts, it would cost you (approximately) 50pts per vehicle that cannot shoot. For why this is important, consider the Tyrannofex. That Rupture Cannon is one of the most effective anti-vehicle weapons we've got. On the other hand, you can almost afford 2 Carnifi for the price of that Tyrannofex. If it isn't almost twice as good, you'd be better off with the Carnifi. First off, trying to stop the vehicle from shooting. Ouch. So far our best bet against any vehicles is the Lictor, and it would take more than 7 of them on average to keep a Heavy Tank from shooting. Depressing. Let's look at the rest of the list, ordered from best to worst (for suppressing Heavy Vehicles)... Hive Guard:Impaler Cannon----------------50pts----0.74 vs AV11 ---- 0.37 vs AV13----Cost per AV11 67.5 ---- Cost per AV13 135 Okay, some interesting points. I can definitely see a few weapons not to bother with. Also, the best really stand out ahead of the pack. For suppressing Heavy Vehicles by shooting, the only reasonable options are Hive Guards and Zoanthropes. For suppressing light vehicles, it's a larger list. Hive Guard are still way ahead of the pack, but there are quite a few reasonable options there. Now let's have a look at the No Moving side of the equation. While I expect to see roughly the same order, it'll be interesting to see the chances. (I also think it'll be more in favor of weapons that have a good chance of penetrating, not merely glancing.)
The formula I'll be using here is... Number of Shots x Chance to Hit x (1/6(Chance to Glance) + 1/2(Chance to Pen) Trying to stop the vehicle from moving. Ouch, much worse than the last one. Let's have a look at the rest of the list. Again, I'll order it from best to worst...
Zoanthrope:Warp Lance ----60pts----0.27 vs AV11----0.22 vs AV13----Cost per AV11 222---- Cost per AV13 273 Well, the same two are way ahead of the pack, but the order is switched, reflecting the emphasis here on penetrating hits. Ultimately, if you want anti-vehicle shooting, you can't go far wrong with Hive Guard and Zoanthropes. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |
