Where I learned to Paint Tyranids: Beasts of War

So when the new 5th Edition Tyranid Codex dropped back in January I was seeking high and low for tips, tactics, and reviews of the Codex to determine where to go with the army and what new models to buy. I soon began to realize the potential power of the Tervigon and the endless possibilities that swarms of free Termagants running amok all over the board presented. But then it quickly dawned on me that at some point, if I wanted to go to the big tournaments, that I'd have to paint swarms of gaunts! Being pretty new to the game, having only really started when 5th Edition began, I had not quite nailed down a basic painting method yet. I had one good technique which was dry brushing, which I perfected on my Necrons, but I never really thought that the first Tyranids I painted this way were very good, and I wanted to do better.

After a few searches on YouTube I managed to find a then budding YouTube Channel based out of the UK called Beasts of War. They gave me a fantastic painting method that I had not heard of before, or more correctly never seen done before, which were the GW washes! I was amazed at the quality of this simple painting method of base coats, wash, and pick out a few details and done was capable of

Here is the video that taught me how to paint my Nids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqOowCEJNew&p=5EC99B140583ABAB&playnext=1&index=3

I wanted to give these guys full credit for the painting technique, while i was the one putting paint and wash to brush and then model, these guys showed me a simple and effective method on how to paint.

Here are some of the models I have painted thanks to this method:

Here is my Custom made Terigon made mostly from the Carnifex kit, with some spines and mandibles from the Trygon kit and one of those infested bits from the Genestealer kit:



Here are my Hive Guard:



And here is a small units of Hormagaunts:



And for the record, I just added the Baal Red wash to a 15 man unit of Termagants tonight and all they need to be finished is Bone White on the fangs and based and they'll be done too.

I'll post my progress!

Getting Back to Working Small: Painting Hoard Nids

So I have to admit it, I have gotten very lazy when it comes to painting my 'Nid. I can't help it, there are a ton of them that need painted in a 100+ model army! I do not know that I have picked up a paint brush in like 3 months. And I don't know why, I want to paint them, I just have not been motivated to paint lately. My main problem as a husband and father of three is that my hobby time usually breaks down to either play or paint, and I choose play. So, my painting time has suffered for it.

One of the things that makes me the most proud as a 40K player is not the mob of gamers that stand around my table to watch my games, or the people that say to me 'I need to learn tactics from you', it is when someone picks up my custom Tervigon or my Hive Guard and Homagaunts and look at them and say, 'WOW, what a paint job!' The problem with my army is that less then 25% of my army is painted and it is a work in progress. Well, that and I also suffer from army OCD and every month I am dreaming about a new army (This month Blood Angels) and my poor 'Nids suffer from it. While they are my primary army and the one I know the best and smash face with, I am still trying to one-up them for some reason. It is like having a super hot girlfriend at home, and looking at porn on the internet. What the hell are you doing?

I have been meaning to finish the army since 'Ard Boys. I had this sick goal of showing up to 'Ard Boys 2010 with a fully painted 2500 Point 'Nid list, which I failed miserably at. But now with Adepticon looming in a little under 8 months, I will have to have at least 1850 points+ (thanks to my duel Tervigons) fully painted if I want to play in the tournaments there.

What spurred this line of thinking for me was that last night at the game store I got to see my good friend Shawn, who I have not seen in quite some time. Shawn showed up with some of his recently built and painted Orks, and he had done some of the same techniques that I use to paint my 'Nids, base coats and washes. They looked amazing, and I found myself being quite jealous of his army. Shawn has two kids, and yet he has managed to paint a small hoard of Orks since I last saw him. Heck, I even asked him, half joking and half not, if he wanted to paint some bugs for me.

One of the things he told me that he did since he had so little hobby time to work with was work small. He said to me that most nights he only gets an hour or so to paint before wife and kids pull him away, so he works small. Pull out five guys and do skin, then do carapace, then wash, then walk away. If I were to do that, soon, I'd have a ton of models done, five at a time, and they add up fast.

For me to get where I need to be by Adepticon, I need to complete like 20 Models a month. That is not really that hard of a goal to hit. So I am going to do it. As hard as it will be, I will have to put Starcraft 2 down one or two nights a week, catch up on True Blood and Big Love in the livingroom watching and painting at the same time. If I keep up this reasonable pace, I'll be done with plenty of time to spare for Adepticon. I of course will post my progress as I go.

Thanks Shawn! You inspire me! I think we need to setup some painting nights.

Well, I will try tonight to start painting and taking some pics for you all to see.

40K Battle Report: Tyranid Swarm vs. Space Marines 1000 Points

First I wanted to let everyone know that we had a slight medical emergency in our family that has kept me away for a bit. But things are good now, everyone is healthy, and I am back to the blog!

Well, the final game of my local gaming store's mini-tournament was held tonight, which pitted myself and the swarm versus David and his Lysander lead Imperial Fists. We played a Seize Ground Mission with four objective and a Spearhead deployment. David did exactly what I thought he would do and bottled up his entire army into one corner, holding one objective, and was going to make me run across the board to get him. I had a rather different strategy in mind however. His army was Lysander with a 10 man TAC squad, Las-Plas-Fist, two other evidential ten man TAC squads, a Devastator squad with four missile launchers, and a landspeader. I ran my stock list. I deployed so that I was hold an objective at the beginning of the game and was within striking distance of the other two rather quickly. My strategy for this mission was to not play his game and run across the board to be murdered. I would sit and hold three objectives for as long as I could, spitting out gaunts to double up on the number of units holding them.

I stole the first turn and in retrospect I probably should have left him go first. It would have been better for me in the end to have had the last turn. The Tervigon pooped like a champ all game, never rolling doubles and running me fresh out of 120 gaunts. Turns 1 - 3 basically involved me ducking into and out of cover and charging forward slowly and carefully with a 15 man unit of gargoyles and the 30 man squad of hormagaunts. These were distractions to draw fire away from the mass of gaunts holding three objectives. David moved the landspeader around to try and keep it out of range of the Hive Guard but basically sat there for three turns taking pot shots with missiles and lascannons. doing little to no damage. As it came to his turn 4 it became blatantly obvious to him that I was not falling into his trap and he would have to move out to at least contest objective if he hope to not lose. So he moved the two TAC squads out to try to move towards the nearest objective as Lysander and his TAC squad were being eating alive by the hormagaunts.

Turn 5 should have been the end. I held three objectives and contested the fourth. His TAC marines were taking shots at my gaunts but not doing enough damage to matter. He also managed to take out my gargoyles, which means that they did their job and drew fire. A HUGE disappointment for me were the Hive Guard this game, as they pummeled the landspeeder turn after turn and the best I could do was keep it from shooting. I needed it dead because I knew what he planed to do with it. Lysander died turn 5 and there were four remaining marines in his squad. If the game ended on turn 5, I win holding three and contesting one. It does not.

Turn 6 is about the same story. His four marines on his objective do enough wounds to finally break and kill the homagaunts, and were now holding an objective for him. His marines moved forward some more, failed charges and were sitting out in the open for me to kill. He moves the landsppeder flat out to contest an objective. So, if the game ended on turn 6, I hold 2, he holds 1 with one contested. I still win. The game goes to turn 7. I hate when this happenes.

In the end I charged one of his two TAC squads with a 30 man gaunt squad, killing 8, but could not do what I wanted to do which was wipe the squad. His final ten man squad, now 6 due to some shooting on my part, charge my tervigon produced gaunt squad holding an objective and he contested now two objectives, held one, with me holding the last. A TIE, A DARN TIE!

I will take my hat off to David, he took a situation that I thought was hopeless and managed to pull out a draw. Good play on his part. His tie, however, took him out of contention for placing, as he finished 3-0-2. Mike won his game, finishing 4-0-1, and another player I was not aware, another Mike, also finished 4-0-1. So in the end there were three players at the end with a 4-0-1 record. It went to Battle points, needing a 500 point different to pull ahead. Mike finished third with something like 3500 VP. Mike and I were each over 4000 with less then 200 points in difference in VPs. The owner gave us the option for a playoff game next week, but Mike was going to be out of country the next few weeks. We decided to call it a tie and split 1st place.

So, in the end, a free $25 gift card for the 'ol EvilEd209 which I turned into some paint and a Broodlord for the 'Nids. It was lots of fun and I am very happy with my performance. I do wish I had rolled better to blow up that darn landspeeded as the game would have been mine and sole possession of 1st would have been nice. I am not sure what comes next, a full tournament I would think, but I'll keep you all posted.

Thanks guys!

40K Battle Report: 1000 Point Tyranid Swarm vs. Blood Angels

So here we are at week four of the five week mini-tournament at my FLGS. This week I played one of the top players on the leader board, Greg, who was running a real nasty Blood Angels list. I have to admit that this list concerned me a bit, as he was running a 7 man Death Company Squad with a Chaplin, a Furioso Dreadnought with Blood Talons in a drop pod, a 10 man assault squad with 2 meltas and a power fist accompanied by a Captain on a jump pack with power weapon, and a second 10 man assault squad, two meltas and a fist. While the list only consisted on 31 models vs my 120 or so after the Tervigon pooped out gaunts, his units were hard! They were geared for close combat and had a real good chance of wiping squads off of the board.

I ran my stock list (1 Tervigon HQ with TS, AG, Catalyst, 2 30 man gaunt squads, a 30 man hormagaunt squad with with TS & AG, 2 Zoeys, and 2 Two man Hive Guard Squads for the Dread) and we played Seize Ground with 4 objective and a Spearhead deployment. I desperately wanted Greg to go first to ensure that I would get the charge on turn one, however he won the roll and let me setup first. Very smart. I genuinely believe that my deployment and target priority were the key to the game. I positioned the Hive guard for maximum coverage of the board to make sure I could hit that Dread when it landed, that thing can eat gaunt squads for breakfast. I also put the Zoey up front for needed synapse support, and the Warp Lance/Warp Blast powers to hit Death Company with. I intertwined all of my units of gaunts to ensure that cover saves were a plenty on the board, and I set the Tervigon back, in cover to boost the gaunts holding two objectives.

My turn one I held back, I could have charged the hormagaunts forward, but they would have been charged by the Death Company, so I made sure I was out of his assault range and dug into cover for the saves. The Hive Guard took some pot shots at the Death Company, killing one, and the Zoeys rocked them with Warp Blast, killing two more. The Tervigon hit the hormagaunts with Catalyst and pooped out an 11 man unit that I position in cover to hold an object I already held. His turn one he moved the Death Company up and took some shoots at the homagaunt squad doing 6 wounds, all of which the cover saves/feel no pain took off of the board. He drop that dread right near an objective and hit may Hive Guard with the heavy flamer and the melta, doing a wound. He held an objective with one assault squad and moved the other up.

Turn two are glorious for the 'Nids, the Hive Guard Immobilized the Dread, the Zoeys finished him off, and the second unit of Hive guard took pot shots at Death Company, doing nothing. I charged forward with the hormagaunts, taking down all but the Chaplin and one Death Company out before they could strike. They killed off four gaunts but my two major threats on the board were all but neutralized. On his Turn two his Death Company and Chaplin bought it and he moved his second assault squad up and spread them out to hold one objective and contest another.

My Turn three the remaining homagaunts slammed in his full assault squad with the Captain in it and took out five grunts. The Zoeys and Hive Guard peppered the assault squad hold/contesting two objective and knocked them down to a 5 man squad and pushed them off of an objective. It was down hill for Greg from here. My gaunt squads, the normal Termagants, never saw combat and the homagaunts and elite choices did most of the work. Greg conceded the game by turn four.

In low point tournaments such as this, say 1250 and under, hoard armies do very well and I am very impressed with their performance over the last four games. There are simply just too many wounds out there to do for low model count armies to shoot. I have been lucky with the folks I have played as most of them are running 30 model armies or under. I usually out number them 3 or even 4 to 1. And for every model they loss, it is a much larger percentage of their army coming off of the board.

So, David my friendly rival, won his game against a noob (good job!), and Mike won his as well. So here I am, one week left in the tournament sitting all alone at 4 - 0 with 4000 Victory Points. David and Mike are both sitting a 3-0-1. Everyone else has 2 wins or less and are pretty much mathematically out of this tournament. So, even if I were to lose next week, I am still guaranteed at least third place. David, as I expected, challenged me for the final week and of course I accepted. His list and tactics do not scare me. He runs a Vanilla Marine list with Lysander as his HQ. He usually has three TAC squads with heavy weapons, which, aside from the Tervigon will do close to nothing verses my hoard, and a 10 man squad with Lysander. I think that there is a Rhino or Whirlwind in my future as well, but spreading out will cure that. Like the coward that he is, he will more then likely corner himself up and make me come to him, gunning me down in a hail of bullets as I cross the battlefield. I just hope it is a 5 objective game and if forces him out into the open.

I'll more then likely drop the Hive Guard and add in two units of Gargoyles, bolstering my numbers to over 120+ at the games start. I am taking a gamble but I just do not see him being able to do enough wounds before I get there and eat his whole army.

I'll let you know how it all ends!

40K Tactics 101: How to Get a Hive Tyrant a Cover Save

So, the question came up on the podcast Life After the Cover Save (http://lifeafterthecoversave.wordpress.com/) on "how to give a Hive Tyrant a cover save". One of the guys over there was having an issue keeping his Flying Hive Tyrant alive because it is so hard to give it a cover save. And with the codex deciding to nerf this unit by not giving it an invulnerable save, the crucial Tyrant and the advantages he brings with him in Hive Commander or Old Adversary are dying before you ever get to use them.

In my years of playing Tyranids within the 5th Edition rule set I have found quite a few clever ways to get your Hive Tyrant that life saving cover save:

Method 1: Large Area Terrain (Flying or Walking)

I know that this is the most obvious way to do it, but do not be afraid to start of your Monstrous Creatures in cover, forests work just fine for me because pine trees come up to the guys chin, if you are afraid of that Alpha strike. Or, better yet, hide the big guy being a building and completely obscure him, and make it hard to even see this guy at all.

Method 2: the Tier system:

This one is a bit more complicated, but can easily protect a walking Tyrant. First, look at your army list and pull out the units of medium size, say your warriors, ravaners, hive guard and the like. Bump those models base-to-base together and right in front of your Tyrant. Then, take your smaller units, say the millions of gaunts that you have running around and throw them in front of your mid-range size bugs to give them a cover save as well. Now, you can be a real jerk (and I like being a real jerk) by then making sure that the small units are also 50% or more in area terrain or being cover themselves to provide the whole mess with at least 4+ cover saves all around!

Method 3: The Gargoyle Wall:

This one is a bit harder to pull off and could be considered modeling for advantage, or more correctly picking out the right models for your advantage, as you do not modify the standard GW model for this trick. First, remember that if running a winged Hive Tyrant, no matter how big the wings are, they can not be used for Line of Sight to the models. Read the line of sight rules!

I love the new plastic gargoyles, they are great looking models and a lot of fun to use. In each box of models comes two particular models where the gargoyle is almost completely head over tail with its wings spread out as far as possible. In this same box are two gargoyles who are flying as low as the model will permit them on the flying stand, where the very top of their wings come up tot he bottom of the wings of the previous gargoyle. If you were to line up three or four of the high flying, covering as much of the Hive Tyrants upper body as I can gargoyle right in front of the Hive Tyrant, and run about three or four of the low flying models, you can most certainly pull of a cover save with a large unit of gargoyles in front of the Hive Tyrant.

So guys over at Life After the Cover Save, there is my response, three solid, easy to use tactics to provide a Hive tyrant with a cover save. Sadly though, despite all of these tricks and tips, the Hive Tyrant with only 4 wounds and no invulnerable save it simply to fragile. It is still possible to gun down your Tyrant in one round of shoot from a strong Alpha Strike army like Leafblower IG for example.

I hope this helps, let me know!

40K Battle Report - 1000 Points Tyranid Swarm vs. Space Wolves

So, on to week two of the 4 week mini-tournament at my local game store. This week the swarm met with a rather broken Space Wolves army. My opponent, Andrew, had some rather bad luck in the previous week and lost one of his two Vindicators for the game which he subbed in a Grey Hunters squad for, one unit of Grey Hunters did not come on the table until turn 2 and one did not come on until turn 3. His army consisted of three units of Grey Hunters with two meltas and a Powerfist, a Dreadnought with Autocannons and heavy bolter, one Vindicator, and his HQ with the Grey Hunter Squad on the table, which was a named character I can not remember at his time, and means very little to this report. I ran my stock list, A Tervigon HQ, two, 30-man termagant squads, a 30-man Hormagaunt squad, a unit of Hive Guard, a Unit of Zoanthropes, and sitting n for the second Hive Guard squad, I went to the side bar and pulled a Gargoyle squad. We rolled Seize Ground with 5 objective with a Pitch Battle Deployment. We did a good job of scattering the objective all over the board (a mistake from my opponent) and I set up first.

With so many models I really was able to setup so that every unit in my army would get a cover save as they advanced, which turned out to be a key to the game, and was holding 3 objective to start the game to his one. He boxed up the units he deployed and put the Vindy, Dread, Grey Hunters and HQ in cover in one corner of the board, the furthest away from most of the objectives I might add. He stole first turn and his tactics went right out the window. I thought he was going to run a Marine gun-line on me and make me come to him through a hail of bullets. However on turn one he moved the Vindicator out of cover to take a pot shot at some gaunts (allowing it to be in charge range of my Gargoyles who had adrenal glands) which only manged to kill two thanks to cover, moved his HQ squad out of cover to move toward the closest objective, and moved and shot with the dread, killing a handful of Gargoyles.

My turn one consisted of a lot of maneuvering to control objectives, as I knew I'd have an easier time holding objective with that many scoring units on the table and his three total. I also moved the hormagaunts into cover but within charge range for turn two on his HQ squad, Tervigon spitting out more gaunts, and charging the naked vindicator with Gargoyles and blowing off the main gun. A huge victory for me. I figured the gargoyle for dead anyway, so to take out one of the two major threats on the board to my army on turn one was sweet.

His turn two was alright, he walked on the other Grey Hunter squad but was too far out of range to do anything with them. He moved the Vindicator in order to wipe out the gargoyle and had some really bad dice rolls that managed to leave three of them still alive. His HQ Squad hunkered down on the objective and rapid fired into the Hormagaunts, killing only 4 thanks to cover saves and Feel No Pain from the Tervigon. 75% save ratio is awesome! And the dreadnaught moved closer to my gaunts which were on an objective and backed up by the Zoanthropes. Huh? My thoughts exactly!

My turn two was brutal. Zoeys stunned the dread, Trevigon pooped more which were left behind to hold an objective, and used Catalyst on the hormagaunts, 30-man squad was left behind to hold another in cover, and the gargoyles turned to shoot and assault the HQ squad. Hive Guard were still out of position to do anything and just ran. On the assault, I cleared out all but the HQ and a melta from the squad holding his lone objective by charging with two dozen angry hormagaunts. By the end of turn two I was holding four objectives and contesting one, his HQ squad was on the verge of dying, and he was pretty much out of the game.

There was some clean up on turn three, his HQ squad bit the dust, his last Grey Hunter squad in reserve moved in too close to the hormagaunts (foolish), his out of range Hunters moved and shot the termagants holding an objective in cover to no avail, and dread just sat there drooling. My turn three the horagaunts assaulted the new Hunters and won combat, Hive Guard cleared out the dread, Zoeys dropped AP3 small blast templates on ten marines, killing 7, they broke, and my now 4 gaunt squads were holding 4 objectives soundly.

At this point, Andrew had gone through enough and wanted to forfeit the game. However, by the rules of the tournament, if he chose to do so he would yield to me all 1000 victory points and have to roll to see if all of his units would come back in for the next game. He figured the game for a total loss anyway and gave it up. His dice were kind and only one unit of Grey Hunter will not be back next week, which he would have switch out for the now repaired vindicator anyway.

So, in review, again I could not be happier with my performance. I took my 5-year old son along with me this week as these are short games and we are limited to one per week. All I can say is watch out Vegas! This kid can roll some dice, and did a good job for Daddy rolling to wound.

Standings: 2 - 0 with 2000 VP, sitting in first. Now, three other people are at 2 - 0 right now so I suspect I'll be playing one of them next week. I'll keep you posted!

40K Battle Report: 1000 Points - Tyranid Swarm vs. Jetbike Seer Coulcil

So I just got back from my Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) where they run regular 'small' tournaments or campaigns over the course of a few weeks, with a small but respectable prize at the end for the winner (I have won this twice since he started doing it). This week started their 1000 point Side Bar Tournament. Basically you come with your favorite 1000 point list with a 250 point side bar. If you want to use a unit in your side bar, you need to swap it out for equal or lesser point value from your base list, making sure not to go over 1000 points. Your side bar can change from week to week over the 4 Weeks of the tournament, but you base list must remain the same. If a unit is wiped out during the course of the game you roll a d6. On a 6 that unit is fine for next game. 4-5 means the unit will start in reserve, 2-3 and the unit is in reserve until at least turn 3. On a 1 the unit can not be played in the following game. A really neat idea and something different for a change.

I decided that with such low points, my Tyranid Swarm list of almost 100 model at the start of the game would be just too many wound for most lists to handle and would score me a big win in the 4th week (Usually $50 of in-store credit for a $4 entry fee, not bad). The list is pretty simple, a Tervigon for an HQ, 2 huge units of Termagants, a 30 man Hormagaunt Squad with Toxic Sacs and Glands (my hammer unit), with some Hive guard an Zoanthropes to deal with light mech. My side bar is two big units of Gargoyles and another hive guard.

My first opponent this week was a good friend of my Anthony who, in his infinite wisdom, thought that a 10 man Jetbike Seer Council list would mop up the competition. His whole army consisted of 20 models, the 10 man seer council and 2 5 man Jetbike Guardian squads. Total!

I personally do not believe in 'death star' units like the Seer Council for the simple math of their Average Points Per Model, or APPM Rating. I believe I can credit Neil and the crew over at the 11th Company for this little tactical gem. Take this game for example. Antony's APPM was 50 Pints per model, 50! So for every model I killed in this game, on average, 50 points was coming off of the table. Where as mine with the termagants the Tervigon produce was in the neighborhood of 8. 8 v 50... it was no contest.

We rolled up capture and control with Dawn of War deployment. He rolled first turn and placed his Seer council right on the 24" line. His two JetBike Guardian Squads took up positions behind the Death Star.

I set up about 19" away from the council with my hormagaunt, and placed the Tervigon and the massive gaunt squad on the objective in my deployment zone (in cover of course), to insure that I would not get charged turn one. Here my guess range was a bit better then that and it turned out to be 20". So, turn one he charges forth with the Council 12", fires into my hormagaunt squad and kills 11 of them. His guardians both fail night fight rolls and can not hit the Gaunt squad they move 12" to shoot. In the assault phase he jumps back 6" with the council and guardians, placing both at minimum of 15" away. Perfect charge range for Hormagaunts! MY TURN!

My Turn one just plain brutal. I moved forward with the hormagaunt squad, move my Hive Guard and Zoanthropes in position for them to take pot shots at the council to soften them up a bit, and the Tervigon pooped out 12 more gaunts that got placed on the objective. The second gaunt squad move forward to threaten the guardians, but were just out of range to shoot, and the one from reserves made a run at the second objective. The Hormagaunts rolled 5 on the bounding leap and were clearly in assault range, and the Hive Guard/ Zoanthropes managed to Kill 2 Warlocks with shooting. ASSAULT! I charged the Council with 19 Hormagaunts at I6 and STR4 thanks to Adrenal Glands, so I went first in combat with 57 attacks, hitting on 4s and re-rolling ones thanks to Scything talons, wounding on 4s and re-rolling wounds thanks to Toxic Sacs. All-in-all, 26 wounds were done to the Seer Council. I killed 3 more Warlocks! In their attacks back poor, Anthony rolled 6 or 7 ones to hit and only managed to do 2 wounds, which, I saved! Hell yeah! So, the council lost combat by 3, rolls their Leadership and fails, re-rolls thanks to embolden and... wait for it... FAILS! In the ensuing sweeping advance I roll a 6, he rolls a 1, bye-bye 780 point Seer Council! Turn ONE Baby! The Hormagaunts are eating raw hamburger meat as we speak for a reward.

The rest of the game was mope up. In a rage Anthony deiced to charge the hormagaunts with one guardian squad and the gaunts with another. The first squad lost three models, did three wound and remained locked. Same for the second. By his half of turn three, the guardians fighting the hornagaunts lost another and did nothing back, the gaunts killed one more, broken them and they went 17" toward the table edge with no hope of coming back. My turn three killed off the remaining guardians, and that was game.

Overall, hell, I couldn't be more pleased with my performance. I never lost a unit, tabled my opponent, and had some laughs during the game.

So, moral of the story kids, death star units may look good on paper, but never really earn their points back. And when they die, the bulk of your army goes with them. So look in to that APPM ratting of your army and see where you stack up!

1-0 with 1000 Victory points for good 'ol Edvil209 and sitting pretty in 1st place. More to come on this mini-tournament.

Tyranid FAQ Released!

Finally, FINALLY, the Tyranid FAQ has been released for Codex Tyranids and I have to say it is by far one of the best, most straight forward FAQs I have ever read from GW. ***Applause all around for doing something right*** No ambitious rulings, no shaky or contradicting findings, simple "If this happens does this happen Questions" with a solid Yes or No answers. Now while I might disagree with a few things in here, it at least answers almost all of those crazy questions that came up when this codex launch

Some of the High Points of this FAQ as I saw it:

1) Tyranids with multiple CC Weapons do get the benefit of both of them at the same time, so Yes, lash Whip and Bone Sword are used simultaneously and work together. Duh.

2) Multiple Hive Commander Abilities DO NOT Stack! So no 2+ to Reservers from running two stock tyrants. Also, no two more outflanking troop choices either. Thus, no real reason to run two basic Tyrants.

3) Yes, even though the Main Rulebook says so, and I have no idea why this was ever in question, having Wings do permit the unit to deepstrike. DUH for those how said it didn't!

4) And a big Surprise here, Hive Guard who fall into Instinctive Behavior can not fire at things they do not have LOS of, despite the fact their gun can. Ok, I can live with that.

5) Yes the Mawloc can choose to Deep Strike onto a point occupied by an enemy model and blow them all to hell. This makes the model just a bit cooler.

6) I do not get this one at all, of all of the rulings here, this one makes the least amount of sense to me. If a Tyranid unit takes a Mycetic Spore, can it choose
to deploy normally whilst the empty Mycetic Spore deep strikes on its own? The shocking answer... No? NO! Why not? But Drop Pods and Rhinos and every other dedicated transport can? Ok... whatever. Bad call... but I'll live with it.

and of course, how could I go without commenting on this one:

7) DOOM is nerfed!!! Or clarified if you will. Yes you do get a cover save from the woundd his life leech ability inflicts and No, it does not effect units in transports! Ok, two comments. Cover saves from a special ability that does not draw LOS or targets a specific unit??? I disagree but this is how I have been playing it so no big deal. Second, I never really bought into the idea that it effected units in transports. So really wishful thinking by some power gammers if you ask me. For starters, the main rulebook states that psychic powers do not effect units in transports so to me this is a no-brainer. Too many problems would come up if it did. Like does the unit have to take a moral check if they take 25% and if they flee, where to the flee to?

Does this lessen the unit... I don't think so. Most civilized players have been playing it this way anyway.

Overall... great FAQ! Good job GW!

Codex Overview: Tyranids - The Hive Tyrant

Tyranid Hive Tyrant

Overall: ******* 7/10
Assault: ***** 5/10
Shooting: ****** 6/10
Anti-Tank: ******* 7/10
Psychic: ******* 7/10

My how the mighty have fallen. Once the terror of the 4th Edition codex, you'd never see a Tyranid army without one. Normally, for me at least, a Dakka-Flyrant that would re-roll to hit and to-wound and dump an unreasonable amount of wounds into a unit. A terror on the battle field, now reduced to a secondary assault/support role if even fielded at all. If not for the Hive Commander ability, it is hard to argue one way or the other to have or not to bother with this unit.

PROS: Still a toughness 6 Monstrous Creature who, if you are willing to spend the points, can fly, bust up tanks, and rip through any troop unit without a power or force weapon in it, and make other Tyranid units around him stronger. It is a Synapse Creature and it's Psychic powers are a great asset to the army, Paroxysm being one of my personal favorites and Life Leech is much better then Regenerate. It has the ability to carry some of the strongest guns in the army, the Heavy Venom Cannon on a Flying Creature add some much needed range to this otherwise short ranged army. And, again, if your willing to spend the points, you can still have your Dakka-Flyrant spitting out 12 STR 6 shots that re-roll to hit, and that is nothing to sneeze at. It can help bring in reserve units faster, give other Tyranids Preferred Enemy, and allow you to outflank with a MC (the Troops choice Tervigon)if you choose.

CONS: This unit is extremely over pointed for what you get. Probably by about 40 Points or so. And for the point cost that you do pay, the damned thing should come with a 4+ Invulnerable save at least. Any of the good upgrades that you would want to put on it are equally over pointed and this unit can quickly become a giant point sink. Not to mention that you can not have a 2+ save and wings at the same time. The lack of an invulnerable save is by far one of the strongest weaknesses of this unit, forcing you to "be careful" when using it as opposed to jamming it down the enemy's throat. This unit is less "scary" then it was in the previous edition. Any unit that can fight its way out of a paper bag has a good chance of knocking off wounds or flat out killing this rather fragile unit. It forces you to either buy Tyrant Guard at an over pointed cost, or dedicate units to screening it, say Gargoyles or Hive Guard.

Suggested Upgrades:

Wings - Yeah, way too expensive but does gives the Tyrant much needed mobility. A walking Tyrant is a dead Tyrant IMHO

Hive Commander - If you intend to Deep Strike or Outflank Anything, take this!

Old Adversary - Short ranged but a good upgrade for hoard style armies

Suggested Weapons:

Two Sets of Scything Talons - Might as well make sure you can put as many hits on the unit you charge.

Two Sets of Twin-Linked Devourers - Good shooting for a modest cost. Short Ranged though, so be prepared to by the wings!

Heavy Venom Cannon - This army lacks good anti-tank, so adding this will help vs. heavy mech armies.

Suggested Build 1: Tyrant with 2 Sets of Talons, Paroxysm and Life Leech, and Wings - 260 Points Screen this guy with a 15 man kitted out Gargoyle Brood and he can drop the enemies WS and BS, have the Gargoyles Changes and mop them up. This is normally how I run him.