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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I think that would matter more if they were only a few of them. But there are (potentially) 22 or them, so I think that's less of an issue.

Plus 90 points vs 190 points.

But what do the Gaunts DO?

They add wounds. And 1 WS4+ S3 attack each.
That just seems... Really lackluster. And while you're only T3 while attached, 11 T3 wounds aren't hard to blast through with overkill.

Massively spread synapse.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Massively spread synapse.

So maybe in a Synapse detachment?

Unless you're playing against Daemons, or a Tyranid list that is REALLY focused on battle-shock mechanics, I don't know that Synapse is really all that meaningful. The penalties for failing a BS test just don't seem significant enough for most units (and a lot of the units where it does matter have Synapse of their own). "Instinctive Behavior" it ain't.

What's the role you want the Neurotyrant to fill? Just playing with battle-shock mechanics? Really like that psychic Torrent weapon + enhancement combo?

Something I brought up in the other thread: The basic Tyranid Detachment has a number of abilities/strats that are good, but better within synapse.

I'm still only one game in, but the Neurotyrant keeping basically my entire army within synapse (other than the forward elements), and even then, using the Neuroloids to further spread out (and now at a greater range in the Codex) turned out be quite advantageous.

Never actually used the Neurotyrants attack, as by the end of the game it was moving forward to take objectives and I didn't have time to shoot.

The disadvantages of Battleshock aren't exactly all that great, but the benefits of being within synapse range seemed to be entirely worthwhile. And Neurogaunts with a Neurotyrant really helped there.

I just can't see a world where you bring one by itself without an escort, and Tyrant Guard are expensive.

So, it is a Synaptic Nexus list? I can see it being useful there.

22 Neurogants...or a second Neurotyrant? Price is similar, and it would double the neuroloids (which would likely mitigate the much smaller synapse bubble), while giving you 2 bites at a pretty decent Torrent weapon. (The only use for that "Power of the Hive Mind" enhancement seems to be a Neurotyrant, and 2D6 S6 AP2 D2 at 18" seems usable, even on a slow model.)

I mean I do have a second Neurotyrant...

Redundancy in role is generally better than investing in more armor for a single point of failure target.

1 is a target.
2 is viable.
3 is a nightmare.

Learnt that back in 3rd Ed. Kind of explains why I have 3 full Armoured Companies.

I'll admit: I'm a cautious style of player, the person who prefers to turtle rather than advance. If I have two options, one that is more deadly and one that is more durable, I'm generally going to take the more durable option. That's how I see Neurogaunts. They're tons of expendable wounds that keeps the Neurotyrant in the fight longer, or even makes him an unattractive target as the enemy might not want to waste all that time getting through those ablative wounds.

I also fear that not having any sort of escort - even just a min-sized squad - would leave the Neurotyrant too vulnerable. I have real issues with how most characters work (or don't work) in 10th, in that when they're by themselves they almost do nothing a lot of the time, the Marine Librarian being the worst example of this, and the paucity of Lone Operatives (something that should be far more common on unattached characters) only worsens that.

A Neurotyrant with a few Nurogaunts at his feet can't be picked out (other than by Precision, which is fine). A Neurotyrant by himself surrounded by 100,000 Termagants can be picked out. That annoys me.

If enemy has low s precision guns better to walk and use ruins to cover.

All in all not too worried anyway. He's never been high priority and i keep him away from hottest fights until later turns. Never died before unleash shadow, the few times died army was about gone anyway including neurogaunts if i had those.

Opponent having more pressing targets better protection.

I mean to be fair, my opponent was far more concerned with my Haruspexes, Tyrannofexes, Leapers and my Tyrant than the Neurotyrant.

Neurotyrant with Neurogants could be okay in an Endless Swarm detachment, where you can ignore blast via Strategem.

I think the neurogaunts can do their job of gumming up the battlefield and extending synapse without having an embedded character. And sticking a neurotyrant into a blob of chaff just strikes me as a bad idea. I don’t own tyrant guard, but am seriously thinking of getting a box to guard the big brain. They have a lot of synergy.

All of this is theoryhammer, so take with salt.

Yeah I have some Tyrant guard but never used them in a meaningful way except for ablative wounds. And for that they are quite expensive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw can you put a Neurotyrant + Guard in a Tyrannocyte?

I think not. It has a capacity for 20 infantry or one monster. With multiwound infantry counting as 3.

The neurotyrant is a monster, so can’t have him and an escort in the same pod.

Guard could share a pod with non-monster character. Not sure if any fir into the squad, I’d have to check.

I think not. You could put a winged prime with warriors into one though.

For hero units in pods it looks like we have:

Winged prime with wither warriors or gargs. Would need to be a 5 man unit of warriors or less due to multiwound counting as 3 and a cap of 20.

Broodlord and 5 stealers. Extra wound bulks these guys out of larger squad size.

For me tyrant guard is more for swarmlord/hive tyrant to maintain crucial cp generation. Several det's, especially unending swarm, are quite cp hungry.

Unending swarm becoming fast my favourite detachment. It's mean.

Concerning Termagants: are the Devourers just straight up better than Fleshborers in every situation? I was doing some quick in-my-head Mathhammer and I felt like having more shots pretty much always made up for the lower Strength. I'm fairly pissed if that's true, because it means GW deliberately gimped the starter set Termagants to make everyone go and get the full kit version with all the gun options.

Both Devourers and Spinefists are better in most circumstances, especially in combination with the Tervigon (for Lethal Hits). It only gets worse for the Fleshborers if you're running an Invasion Fleet (as both Sustained Hits and Devastating Wounds benefit from rolling more dice).

There's a tiny niche where Fleshborers are better than Devourers (when you're Advancing, given that Fleshborers are Assault), and where they're better than Spinefist (as 18" is more flexible than 12"). But if you're building from scratch, I wouldn't build with Fleshborers these days. (And my 60-odd devourer 'gants will be sidelined for most games.)

It does seem like the fleshborer is the jack of all trades, master of none option.

They can camp a backfield objective and still threaten a chunk of the table with 18” (but not as well as devouers)
They can aggressively push up the table and get stuck in CC to gum up things (but not as well as spinefists)

But they camp better than spinefists, and rush better than devs.

40k in general rewards specialization. Find the best tool for the job, vigorously leverage that to victory. When putting together a list think of what role is needed, and pick the best unit for it. That said, it is good to have some flex, as no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, and out little 6-sided friends have their own opinion on how the battle is going to unfold.

As a starter unit for beginning players, a unit of fleshborer is not horrible to have. At that point in you collection, with few units on the shelf it’s good to have generalists. And as part of a larger swarm, you might want a unit as a backup troubleshooter to assist in whatever part of the battle needs assistance. But at this point, I think one unit is probably all you would want.

The bigger shame is the way 10th does upgrades and the fact that there are none of the special weapons in the starter kits. Once you step away from the combat patrol, you are probably going to want at least one of them in the squad, regardless of what you pick for the main gun equipped by them.

Fleshborer is fine for 10 squads. Those aren't for damage anyway so the assault is big giving you units to advance and action. It's not devourer then you compare but spinefist.

And frankly gaunts don't do damage anyway except with unending swarm stratagem and maybe tervigon to mix. Beside that only thing that matters is that at least one model in unit has either fists or fleshborers.

tneva82 wrote:
Fleshborer is fine for 10 squads. Those aren't for damage anyway so the assault is big giving you units to advance and action. It's not devourer then you compare but spinefist.

And frankly gaunts don't do damage anyway except with unending swarm stratagem and maybe tervigon to mix. Beside that only thing that matters is that at least one model in unit has either fists or fleshborers.

As an action monkey unit do you only need one eligible member of the squad? So if you stuck a strangleweb into an otherwise pure devourer swarm, you could still advance and do an action? The unit would still be eligible to shoot, just with one guy.

New Tyranids player here, started collecting them in 9th and am finally gonna get around to playing.

Having never played Tyranids before I was hoping to get a nudge in a direction, as I'm really not sure what kind of list I should be going for. Here are the models that I'm working with:

1 Tyrant (magnetized)
3 Tyrant Guard
4 Carnifex (magnetized)
1 Exocrine
20 Gargoyles
20 Hormagants
12 Warriors (magnetized)
1 Neurolictor
5 Zoanthropes/1 Neurothrope

When they are available again I plan on getting a Maleceptor.

I'm leaning towards Invasion Fleet or Crusher Stampede.

I know my post is kind of vague, but if this were your collection what type of list might you run?

My group will be a few new players running Tyranids and Grey Knights, with an experienced player running Death Guard. I'm not new to the game (played a lot of Necrons, Eldar, and Chaos in 8th, only a few games of 9th), just new to Tyranids.

My first game of 10th will be a small 750 pts vs. Death Guard in a few weeks.

Thanks for any feedback.

Invasion fleet is always better than Crusher Stampede.

IMHO at 750 with those models and those adversaries I would run one Carnifex with Old One Eye, the Exocrine, 2 Zoanthropes/1 Neuro and 1 Hive Tyrant.

Not very balanced, probably would lose on objectives anyway, but either they bring enough AT to kill me or they die.

Is the Lictor not having an invulnerable save a mistake?
He seems kinda terrible.

 dan2026 wrote:
Is the Lictor not having an invulnerable save a mistake?
He seems kinda terrible.

To go from having a 5+, and then new Lictor variants show up and they all have Invul saves... yeah... it feels like a mistake.

Several Tyranid lists got a look in the latest Goonhammer Competitive Innovations article:

https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-10th-pumpkin-spice-melee-pt-1/

One of the showdowns was an Endless Swarm list facing down a Trygon and Mawloc-heavy Invasion Fleet. Another list that got an honorable mention but was not shown was a Synaptic Nexus list. Seems like there's play in a lot of different detachments in our book. I expect there's a good list for every detachment except the Crusher Stampede (that one's hot garbage).

Got my first game in with the new codex yesterday.

Things I learnt:

I REALLY like the unending swarm detachment, that surge move is surprisingly powerful, even if I did burn through CP like it was going out of fashion.
Neurolictors are incredibly good for increasing damage output.
Hormagaunts are still my favourite unit.

Lost 33-37 vs votann, and dominated the board early game. I need to learn to marshal my strategems more efficiently though as by turn 5 i was running out of steam.

Hive tyrant's free battle tactic was great, as quite a few of the swarms strats are this category.

3 zoanthropes are enough, 6 was just too many.

In case you missed seeing it posted yesterday, here's the entire Tyranid FAQ v1.0.

Q: When using the Reclaim Biomass Stratagem, can the Stratagem
effect be used on the unit that was just destroyed?
A: No.

No sign of an errata giving our Lictors back their 5++ save.