A Tyranid Unit Worth Taking?

     Continuing our ‘A Tyranid Unit Worth Taking’ series (Here’s Hyv3mynd’s original A Tyranid ListWorth Building post, and my follow-up), I wanted to hit upon the changing roles of Genestealers, as well as a few of the heavy support options I’ve been playing around with. This past weekend, I attended an 1850 tournament at a local Con where I was able to try out a few ideas that I’ve been tinkering with. My full list is below, but I specifically wanted to try using the Broodlord as a support model, and to include a Tyrannofex. I’ll go over my 3 games, and how some of my units performed.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/301404?browseid=4332704

 

Here’s the list I brought:

Prime w/ Bone Sword & Lash Whips, Toxin Sacs

3 Hive Guard

10 Ymgarls

20 Gaunts w/ Devourers

1 Tervigon w/ Crushing Claws, 3 Psy Powers, Adrenal Glands & Toxin Sacs

14 Hormugaunts

5 Genestealers w/ Broodlord upgrade

5 Shrikes w/ Bone Sword & Lash Whips, Toxin Sacs

3 Biovores

Tyrannofex

Game 1 – The first game of the day put me up against Paul and his Grey Knights. At the 2011 Da Boyz GT, Paul and I tied each other in the overall standings, but at a subsequent event we faced off and he came out the victor. With his dual Dreaknights, Grey Knight Terminators and more, I began to doubt if I could tie up our record.
     We played Big Guns w/ 5 objectives, and I got to place the extra objective. I think there were 3 key elements to this battle that worked in my favor. 1) Biovore Sniping – I was able to take out psycannons & incinerators from multiple units during the first few turns, plus the wounds caused on a low model count army is particularly devastating. 2) Tervigon Spawns – I’m sure we’ve all had those games where you spawn 5 guys and your Tervigons says it’s had enough. Well, I managed to spawn over 50 Gaunts from a single Tervigon (around 10/turn, over 5 turns). Paul fought admirably, killing around 40 of the gaunts, but they just tied him up, keeping his troops engaged and off of an objective. 3) Broodlord w/ Enfeeble & the Tyrannofex – Over the course of 5 turns, I was only able to get 1 casting of enfeeble off on a Dreadknight. With that, I wounded him with a Rupture cannon shot, and Paul rolled a 1 for an armor save, insta-killing the Dreadknight.
     I ended up with a 7 point win (2 Objectives and Linebreaker).  

Game 2 – My next game was against Bill from Beef-N-Wing (check out their Blog), and his Ultramarines w/ Blood Angel Allies. The mission was The Scouring, and Bill got boned from the start. I had both 3 point objectives and the 4 pointer in my deployment zone. The game came down in my favor due in large part 1) the objective placement and 2) the phycology of Ymgarl deployment.  There’s not much to be said about the luck of the objectives, but the Ymgarls did their job of disrupting Bill’s battlefield deployment. He kept an assault squad back to fill up a piece of area terrain behind his castle, thus keeping them out of the game (I deployed elsewhere). Big win for me, 4 objectives (4, 3, 3, & 1 and First Blood).   

Game 3 – The last game was up against C4 with a horde of Dark Angels. I’m pretty sure he outnumbered me. The mission was Killpoints with the triangle deployment. With so many bolters sitting across a no-man’s land, I knew that I would be shot up trying to get to him. I played for the small win, trying to kill a couple of units and deny him any of mine. I managed to get first blood with on an outflanking attack bike. From there, my Ymgarls deployed on a flank, and took out a unit of scouts, and a tac squad before being taken down by terminators and another tac squad. After a few trades, I ended up on top with 4KPs to 2KP.

     Wrapping up the event, 3 people were tied for 1^st in battle (Chaos Craig from Beef N Wing, Boldo’s ringer army, and me). It fell to paint & sports, and I ended up on the top of the heap. Paul finished with the Geek Award (Sports, Fluffyness, & Paint), and Craig got best general.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/207785?browseid=4332704

Broodlord – I went into the event specifically wanting to change how I was playing with Genestealers, and the Broodlord. I’ve been running them up in the face of the enemy, and they’ve been getting themselves killed. Unsupported, they die easy. Instead, this time I tried to use them in a support role, let them hang back and sit on an objective, while buffing units around them.  It worked well this event, but I have to ask myself, is ~100 points worth a scoring sorcerer? Maybe. I think that they synergies the Buffs & Debuffs provide are something I want to add more of in future lists. Now I just need to paint up another Broodlord.

Tyrannofex – I still have mixed feelings about this guy. He’s a lot of points, but that S10 gun did do some damage. On one hand, he insta-killed that Dreadknight, but in my 3^rd game, he only took 2 hull points off of C4’s Landraider. The synergy he provides with Maledictions is interesting, enough so that I plan on bringing him to the next few events I attend. He also didn’t take much of any damage in all 3 of my games.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/129685?browseid=4332704

Biovores – I’ve always thought these guys were good, but now with the barrage rules and the ability to snipe individual models, they’re fantastic. At 45pts/model, they’re well point costed for what they do. Their strength is in forcing tons of armor saves on your MEQ opponents, where they’ll eventually fail a few. With the inclusion of allies, you’re also seeing more and more xenos allies. Since most xenos have a 4+ save or worse, they make for excellent targets for your Biovores.

Against, what do you guys think?