It's fair to say Strictly Average has been as quiet as it's ever been these last few weeks... and it's also fair to say I needed the break! There was way too much real life *SELF-EDIT* going on and I needed the mental break.
Still, it's important to note I was also drifting in the mire of 'I Dunno Know' - meaning I wasn't quite sure what to work on. When I realized my Bugs! army was going to take a lot more work to get something playable ready, I tried to go to a backup army.
That's when I realized my backups need backups. Besides Daemons, I don't have anything competitive...
...and since Competitive is Consistent (coming soon to a trademark near you), you can read that as I didn't have anything I thought could play Cardfather Ty's Space Wolves then turn around and play The Ruiner of Games Evil Homer's Dark Eldar while standing a decent chance of winning.
This sucks.
I have some ideas, but until then I need your input. Here's a draft of a 2K Bugs! idea. I sent it to the Master Manipulator (every store needs one) and Evil Homer and both provided valuable insight. I'm hoping you can do the same. Let me know what you think, and I'll drop the updated list here tomorrow.
14 comments:
not sold on the idea of Hormagants. Since you have 1 FA slot open, I'd consider dropping in a 20 strong unit of gargoyles instead for screening your stealers. then I'd consider adding more stealers with the remaining points, although I don't know if they can function without Tervigons at that points level.
swapping a hive tyrant out for a tervigon could be a pretty useful addition. FNP and you wouldn't have to worry quite as much about being light on troops.
I'd lose one tyrant, and give the other both guard. Drop 2 units of hormies for terv+gant combo. Then fill your now empty hq with prime-LWBS, scytals, regen, stick him to a carnifex. 30 spare points can either give your two tyrant guard boneswords, or you can pick up onslaught for your terv to cast on the tyrant and have 15pts change. Personally, I'd look into buffing the stealers with points from the hormies, but you started with 40, so you could drop the stealers instead. It still works.
When I re-wrote the list I couldn't squeeze the tervi in and boy did I try. Not without dropping Carnifexes and I know Brent wants them something bad.
the hive tyrant + hormagaunts is a good combo. However this is a shooting list, and your carnifexs will die quickly.
Add 2 venomthropes.
After playing the list for a while I think you will find the heavy venom cannons on the Tyrants hurt more than they help. You need the Tyrants to stay within 6 inches of the hormagaunts, and your exchanging d6 movement for a really bad cannon. So drop them to pay for the venomthropes.
Venomthropes are one of the best units in the codex.
I like the spirit of this list, and I imagine it plays similarly to my lists (although there are a lot of units swapped). I've had trouble with 10 strong squads or hormogaunts having enough punch by the time they get to combat, so I generally run them at 15 (+/- 2). The downside with that is that a 15 strong squad takes up a bunch of space and can be trouble to move.
A personal preference I have is to run mid size bugs alongside the monstrous creatures (raveners w/ trygons; warriors w/ carnifexes) to really force the opponent to decide how to use their missile launchers. I wouldn't suggest throwing those units into the mix at this point, but keep that in mind if you need some fast moving outriders or some additional synapse.
Ok, as people have said, drop a Hive tryant and combine the Guard for the other. Give the guards whips if you can.
10 hormagaunts are going to die quickly, I'd combine them to 15-20 each group. 2 groups of 15 should do well, and then beef up your stealer squads to about 7 or 8.
Add in a tyranid Prime with lash whips. you join him to a Fex and run that fex up with cover. The other fex trails behind gaining cover from the front one.
This is a very shooty list, so personally I would consider replacing that second fex with a Tyrannofex. Also, old adversary is nice, but what is really going to benefit from it? Fexs have talons x2, stealers are Ws6 and should be out of range, Hormagaunts have talons and will be in small numbers or far ahead.
Hive tyrant sword/whip, venomcannon
Guard lashwhips x2
325
Tyranid prime sword/whip, scything talons, adrenal glands
105
Hive guard x6
300
Harpies x2
340
Carnifex talons x2, adrenal glands
170
Tyrannofex rupture cannon, cluster spines, desiccator larvae
265
Hormagaunts adrenal glands x15
120
Hormagaunts adrenal glands x15
120
Stealers x7
Stealers x8
210
That puts you at 1955. so you can throw talons back on your stealers, OA back on the tyrant or add in 3 more stealers.
50 points of old advesary in an army chock full of scything talons. Not sure I see the point here. Love OA though when using stealers, termagants, gargoyles etc.
Overall I think you have too much tied up into the tyrants/guard. Carnifexes really shine when paired with primes. Opens up some tricks if you take them -- (join prime to carnifex so both get a cover save -- and run behind the hormagants. Then you can join the prime to the hormagants once they get close enough to assault). Alternative HQs would be tervigons. That way you can let the cc stuff troops do what they do not overly rely on them to score, while the harpies can grab FnP against heavy bolters and other ap4 stuff (GKs) that shred them.
Also may wanna consider the venomthropes for one reason not yet mentioned above -- they grant defensive grenades so the hormagants could get a S4 attack against rear armor without ponying up for adrenal glands. The venomthropes will help the harpies too if and when GW releases there's on a valkyrie flying base.
Sorry to say that's pretty bad, Brent...
Fortunately others have chimed in already with some good advice, so I'll just hang back on this one.
I like people thinking outside of the box.
The old codex have WBB on gaunts, so 2 small units of gaunts is enough to hold objectives.
Now your list have no tervigon (that's interesting), and those gaunts will most likely rage at the end. Let us know how that goes. I'm interested to see some bat reps on this list.
Are you going to turn your gaunts facing yourself, and claim, "oh, my gaunts can't see you, so they don't have to rage move."?
This list have some stuffs that I don't normally use. Like HVC, it was cool when the codex just came out, everyone made a big deal about it. I tried it, and it's boring for me because it feels just like the old codex all over again; stuns a lot and then run up to kick the tanks belly up.
If your goal is run everything up and table your opponent, then I guess you don't need much synapse.
Let's get some bat reps going.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of hormagaunts, and I prefer 1 tyrant over 2, I'm fond of genestealers in CC, primes are nice, kinda dislike that carnifex isn't a synapse like trygon prime, I personally approve of the tervigon-termagaunt combo, keeping them standard mean you can have 30 gaunts for 150 points, I need to try the hive guards, I feel it may help to use zoanthropes for tank hate.
Seeing as I've picked up blood angels, I learned how to play against the bugs. That being said, I think as long as you're staying with horde tactics, elite armies shouldn't be that hard, I can't talk about GK, since I've never played against them
Drop both Harpies and bump each guant squad up to 20, then I think you are all set.
Hey Brent,
I'm a long time follower, first time poster. I enjoy your ramblings and insight into 40k, as well as your insight into the gaming community. As a fellow Tyranid player I thought I'd throw you some tips for a list, trying to utilize the models I know you already own.
Here goes;
2000 Point Tyranids
HQ
Tyranid Prime - Lash Whip & Bonesword, Devourer, Regeneration
ELITES
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
1 Venomthrope
TROOPS
20 Termagants w/Devourers
20 Termagants w/Devourers
Tervigon - Catalyst, Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Cluster Spines
Tervigon - Catalyst, Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Cluster Spines
HEAVY SUPPORT
2 Carnifex - 2x Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands, Frag Spines
Trygon
Trygon
54 models with 42 on average being spawned (96).
Game Plan: In objective based missions you should aim to place the objectives in the middle of the board. Your Tervigons march up there and attempt to hold them with their Termagant shields. The Devourer gaunts can also claim these objectives while being a pain to remove. Giving the Trygons or Carni brood Feel-no-pain will make these priority targets a little more surivivable. Place the Prime with the Carni's to make them have wound allocation and maybe the regen will pull through for a wound or two throughout the game. I'm not sure where the Venomthrope is better suited; behind the Carni-brood flanked by Trygon's or behind the Tervigons to boost the horde's survivability against assaults.
By no means do I think this list is the best, and your playstyle may work better with other units. But I think you'd find this list more competive then the one you posted. I find Heavy Venom Cannons a waste, Impaler Cannons are amazing and Dakka Fex's are great at saturating a tank to not fire for a turn. I'd try and upgrade the Carni's to Dakka fex (2x Brainleech Worm Devourers) instead of the Screamers but I know you have them modeled that way. It would give you a bit more versatility but nonetheless that is one scary brood.
Let me know your thoughts and if you ever give this list a go, how you felt it worked for you.
Thanks and hope I helped,
Bud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrGbabRU_dY&feature=relmfu
I about pissed myself when i saw this guy's three 40k satire videos
I can't say much for the rest of the list as it's widely different than what I run, but in my opinion, running less than 10 Stealerbugs is not really worth it. I personally don't run less than 15. However, if you are just trying to have them lurk and grab objectives, that _might_ work, but better suited for a cheaper brood.
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