Psychic Choir - Tyranids Psychic Shriek thoughts

Last Saturday I ran the Psychic Choir list I discussed, and now I'm back with the results!

Tyranids making a comeback?

Today I'd like to share a 2,000 point list I made based on a few different sources of input. Remember back to the old days of the 4th Edition codex, and the Psychic Choir army list? Well I've come up with something that is very reminiscent of that list and I'm running it today!

Finally! The Dave HAS COME BACK!

Okay this time I'm really back with a few updates on everything that's been going on.

Another Chance

So now that I've completed my first two days of work, I have a better idea of what things are going to be like.

It's October Already???

For some reason it still seems like it's only August-ish to me. I haven't really accomplished much in the last few months so time should be slowing down for me right? Well, it's definitely not! With Halloween in less than four weeks and Thanksgiving next month, it's time to start considering holiday plans.

New Beginnings

So my GW hobby club, the War College, has finally come together and decided on a place to game. We agreed that Troll Country Games (off of Hampden and Monaco) was ideal as they were a store looking for a 40k club, and we were a 40k club looking for a store. Thankfully, I ended up knowing one of the two owners and in fact I had actually GM'd some D&D sessions for him. What a small world. The cool thing is, they are sacrificing quite a bit to accommodate our club's needs. We are pretty much guaranteed every table in their store on a Saturday, all War College members get a 10% discount on all store merchandise, and they are providing 6'x4' boards for us to play on AND cabinets for us to store terrain in!

Anyways, as life goes on in my tiny little world, I have also picked up a new hobby. It's something I've always wanted to do (whether it was professionally or for fun), but I have joined a Pro-Wrestling organization called Mid-West Extreme Wrestling (or MXW for short). Sure, they may seem like a run-of-the-mill backyard wrestling "club", but I've seen some real talent in this group and I'm excited to see where things go. I've been getting my ass kicked in training and I doubt it's going to let-up. @_@

As for other hobbies, I have been toying around with list ideas for 2,000 point games for both my Blood Angels and Tyranids. I'll probably post the lists here after I get in some practice with them which will come over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned!

Updates

Yes, this is one of those "post just to post" posts. I haven't been able to get a whole lot of painting/building/hobbying done lately due to real life stuff (two kids, wife, job stuff, etc), but I'm going to lay out the projects I'm working on and their progress so far. This also lets me know where I stand (and it's a quick-reference I can check on my phone lol, as my blog is enabled for web browsing now).

Blood Angels:
I started work on a 2,000 point list via my club's 40k Escalation League, and I believe I posted the contents a few months ago. There's 4 Las/Plas Razorbacks, 4 Predators, and a Stormraven in it. Sure, the list is not original, unique, or inspiring, but it surely is competitive and has won me many games (including scoring a SUPER CLOSE draw against the guy who won my store's Feast of Blades tournament). At the moment I have three Razorbacks and 15 Assault Marines primed bright red, and I've started painting black on the details of one of the Marines as a test model. Unfortunately, I still need roughly 8 Plasmaguns so I can convert the turret of the Razorbacks, and I need to do a LOT of work on my regular Predators as the sponsons have broken off tons of times over the years. Also, when I primed my Razorbacks red, there was a bit of shrinking and wrinkling of the paint in certain areas, apparently due to a chemical reaction between this new Army Painter primer and some old GW red primer. Isn't that awesome? Now I have to sand off that garbage and re-prime the spots. I'll post WIP pics later.

Tyranids:
I was in the process of painting up my bugs for Tacticon and GenghisCon, and since then my bugs have been horribly mistreated. I've played a TON of games with them, and unfortunately I don't have foam to store them in so they bounce around in cardboard trays and a tackle-box. Someday I'll purchase a shit-ton of foam from Battlefoam to store them in, and it'll be sweet. Until then I think I'm just going to have to be super-careful with them. Anyways, as I said a few posts back I've been really interested in using alternate units including Lictors, so I think I might work on building (and painting) a 2,000 point Tyranid list that doesn't really include the normal copy-paste stuff. I think I'll have a LOT more fun with it, and hey, if I win some games with them then that's even better. :)

Dark Elves:
They are still in-progress, don't worry! I have 40 Corsairs, 24 Crossbowmen, 10 Black Guard, a Hydra, a Supreme Sorceress, a Dreadlord, a Master, and a sorceress built. All I have left to do is roughly 30 more Corsairs, 12 more Crossbowmen (though I'm going to have 6 of them made as unit fillers because I actually don't have 6 more), 10 more Black Guard, another Hydra, and a Cauldron of Blood. I'm easily over half-way there, and my wife is making things WAY easier by cleaning everything ahead of time by de-spruing the models and bits and shaving off the plastic and metal flash. Fairly soon, I'll have 3k of Dark Elves fully built and ready for some kick-ass battles.

Cygnar:
Unfortunately my FLGS hasn't got in ANY of my preliminary Cygnar stuff (tokens, faction deck, etc), so I'm kind of stalled-out on them. Once the job situation gets figured out, I'll be able to start picking up little things here and there from other stores, but for now I'm waiting to use my store credit on the stuff I ordered, if it ever comes in. :(

So, stay tuned, I'll have pics of my WIP models up soon. Life is kickin me in the ass right now, and time is a very valuable asset at the moment.

Lictors

Thanks to Synaps3, Crispy, and Talonis, I'm going to be running some Lictors over the next few weeks (outside of my club's Escalation League for now). I've been reading up on different tactics and strategies on how to use them, and the more I do the more I'm dying to get them on the table.

So, here's a list I think I'm going to run on Friday:

HQ
Hive Tyrant (Lash Whip & Bonesword, Twin-Linked Devourer with Brainleech Worms, Wings, Old Adversary, Hive Commander, Leech Essence, Paroxysm)

ELITES
Deathleaper
3x Lictors
7x Ymgarl Genestealers

TROOPS
10x Genestealers (one is a Broodlord, all have Toxin Sacs)
10x Genestealers (Toxin Sacs)

HEAVY
Trygon (Adrenal Glands)
Trygon (Adrenal Glands)

FAST
5x Shrike Brood (Lash Whip & Bonesword, Scything Talons)
20x Gargoyles
3x Spore Mines (these mess up the opponent's deployment in Dawn of War)

Basically, the WHOLE army starts in reserves. The Hive Tyrant grants the army a +1 to reserve rolls while he's "alive", so my units will start coming in on a 3+ in turn 2 (which should be roughly 2/3rds of the army). That's more than a 50% chance to bring in either Deathleaper or the Lictors which would then grant my army a net +2 to reserve rolls, meaning anything that didn't arrive that turn gets to come in automatically on turn 3. Knowing this ahead of time can really help me out when planning where to deploy.

I plan on testing this, and other variants of this list, over the weekend and throughout next week. I'll post again with my initial results and thoughts probably sometime this weekend.

Strike from the Skies! Half-Assed Text Batrep: Nids vs Dark Angels

Last night I used a pretty cool Tyranid list that I came up with for shits and giggles. I had decided recently that I was going to use my Blood Angels for my club's Escalation League, but for some reason after reading Synaps3, Legio Minimus, and The Back: 40k's Tyranid articles, I've been hooked on bugs!

Here's what I ran:

Coming Soon...

Over the next few months, I will try to complete several projects that I've been working on for QUITE a while. I have a long list of things I've started and haven't made any progress on, and I've decided to share them with you all if not to have a list actually written down somewhere.

• Post pictures of each unit in each of my armies on my webstie (sort of an ongoing WIP log)
• Finish painting 1,850 points of Tyranids for GenghisCon in February
• Finish painting 2,000 points of Blood Angels for general use at my LGS
• Sell off my Orks as three different lots on eBay (I'm looking for between $700 and $1,000 for them)
• Finish painting my club's Planetary Empires set for a campaign coming up this holiday season
• Update my website (include more content for different games, change layout, incorporate blog)

 Hopefully I'll keep this blog updated with progress on all of these fronts, but for now, I am working on painting the Tyranids and will try to get another batrep up with the Blood Angels by next week.

Blood Angels & Tyranids FAQ's released

So, today we saw the release of what was probably the dumbest FAQ ever written by Games Workshop. The Tyranid FAQ. Not only do some of the FAQ answers fly in the face of pre-established precedences, but some clearly written rules are just turned upside-down by a simple "yes" or "no" answer with no explanation as to why.

Now, the Blood Angels one is fairly decent yet it covers some really silly questions similar to other recent FAQ's. For example, no, you cannot use Descent of Angels on a Land Raider dedicated transport, or use multiple instances of Descent of Angels to reduce the scatter dice from 2d6 to 1d6 to 0d6. On the flip side, the FAQ boldly declares that the Blood Chalice on Sanguinary Priests only grants Furious Charge when the attacks that would benefit from it are actually rolled, not when the unit launches their assault.

Similarly, the Tyranid FAQ points out that you cannot single-out the Hive Tyrant or Swarmlord in shooting or assault when they are attached to Tyrant Guard, and it also states that you "can" deep-strike the Mawloc into enemy units, as if the rules weren't clear enough that you COULD in the first place.

I am very disappointed in Games Workshop for their latest attempt at "clarification" and "balance". They are morons, and surely have not play-tested any of the main rules, codex rules, or FAQ/Errata rulings that they've been making.

Shame on you, GW, if only your rules were as good as your model sculpts...

A new list, a new strategy

So, after play-testing a bunch of the lists I put up here and others that I built on Friday nights at my LGS, I decided to try something new based on a lot of feedback I had gotten from multiple sources including Auxellion. Here's a list that has three elements to it: A fast assault element, an objective-holding shooty element, and a deep-striking/outflanking element.

HQ

• Swarmlord with two Tyrant guard (Lash Whips)

Elites

• 3x Hive guard
• 2x Zoanthropes (Mycetic Spore)

Troops

• 15x Termagaunts (Toxin Sacs)
• 15x Termagaunts (Toxin Sacs)
• 15x Termagaunts (Toxin Sacs)
• Tervigon (Adrenal Glands, Catalyst)

Fast Attack

• 7x Shrike Brood (Scything Talons, Devourers, Adrenal Glands)
• 20x Gargoyles (Toxin Sacs)

Heavy Support

• Trygon
• Trygon

So, the Shrike Brood will fly behind the Gargoyles while the Swarmlord and Zoanthropes advance behind the Termagaunts. The Trygons will Deep Strike and the Tervigon will Outflank for gaunt spawning and overwhelming a flank. The Hive Guard will take cover mid-field for some nice vehicle harassment, and the cool thing about this list is that all three elements will have Synapse and Shadow in the Warp (with backups). I believe I have enough distraction units (Gargoyles, Trygons, Zoans, Gaunts) to let the REAL nasty stuff do what they need to do (Swarmlord, Shrike Brood, Hive guard, Tervigon) which would be winning the game, or at least that's the plan.

Hive Fleet Hydrus, Concept Art

So after finally coming up with a Hive Fleet name, I've also decided the paint scheme I want to use. Thankfully I have Dawn of War II, so I can apply practically any paint scheme I want to Marines, Eldar, Orks, AND Tyranids. Here's what I came up with:

 

So, the main body will be Bleached Bone covered in a Gryphonne Sepia wash, with the muscle fibers and other minor details starting as Dark Angels Green then being highlighted up to Snot Green. The chitin will be Chaos Black with Regal Blue highlights, though at this point I haven't determined if I'm going to highlight the Regal Blue with Skull White or just use Ultramarines Blue.

Soon I'll add some pictures of some tests of this paint scheme.

More Tools

Yesterday I picked up the Dremel Stylus to aid in my Monstrous Creature magnetization project. The tool cost $69.99 at Home Depot and comes with its own accessory kit. After trying it out on a Carnifex I had already glued together, I am very impressed with how powerful and capable this little tool is. Within minutes I had bored out 6 holes in my Carnifex's torso and was able to also open the model back up in preparation of green stuff and magnets. I got the idea from Miniwargaming.com's YouTube video (found here) and I am definitely a fan.

Along with the Dremel, I purchased some rare earth magnets from K & J Magnetics that are the size the video suggested. Today I will be magnetizing almost all of my Carnifexes as this is a project I've been wanting to do since I started Tyranids back in early 2009. Also, today I should be getting in some Balrog wings that I ordered from Games Workshop so those will also get magnetized for my Hive Tyrants (which also will be magnetized as all of the Monstrous Creatures can have several different weapon variants).

So, long story not short enough, if you are on the fence about whether to purchase a tool like this I must say it is totally worth it. It has already let me accomplish in minutes what would have taken all night otherwise.

Tyranids @ 2,000 points

So lately I've been proxying Tyranid lists at the 2,000 point level. I've always loved higher-points games though the smaller more tactical games have their place as well. One of the things I like about playing with more points is that you can take the bigger, nastier units and wargear options that you might have stayed away from in smaller games. For the new Tyranids, examples would be multiple Trygons, Tervigons, or even Carnifexes, as well as options like Mycetic Spores, Regenerate, or even multiple Hive Tyrant abilities.

Here's a 2,000 point list that I'll be trying this Friday:

HQ
Hive Tyrant - (Bone Sword & Lash Whip, Paroxysm, Leech Essence), Hive Com, Old Adv, TL Devs, Acid Blood (250)
1x Tyrant Guard (60)
Tervigon - Catalyst, Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs (210)

Elites
2x Zoanthropes (120)
Doom of Malan'Tai - Mycetic Spore (130)

Troops
11x Genestealers (154)
11x Genestealers (154)
11x Genestealers (154)
15x Termagaunts (75)
Tervigon - Catalyst, Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs (210)

Heavy
Trygon Prime (240)
Trygon Prime (240)

So the point of this is to have some of the most powerful units doing what they were designed to do. The Doom will come in on a 3+ on turn 2 and a 2+ on turn 3 (thanks to the Hive Tyrant's Hive Commander upgrade). The Trygons will perform their Subterrainian Assault with that same +1 to reserve rolls, firing their 12 shots each and providing Synapse within 12". The Zoans can take care of all armor and the Tervigons can spawn enough Troops choices to secure a victory. The Hive Tyrant has 6 Twin-Linked S6 shots at 12", Paroxysm to aid in a CC mop-up, and has the Acid Blood and Lash Whip combo. There is a lot of potential in this list and I know it will devour Marines quickly but the challenge will be against Guard and Sisters. My tactics there would be to pop as many tanks as possible, then have the Doom do it's thing, and maybe switch the powers on the Hive Tyrant from Paroxysm to Psychic Scream. Also, 12 S6 shots from the Trygons are pretty sweet on rear armor...

First Game with new Tyranids

So last night I played my first game using the new Tyranid codex (and of course proxying a few models that I have yet to purchase). I played against my wife's Necrons, and I used this 2,000 point list:

HQ
Swarm-Lord (280 points)
Parasite of Mortrex (160 points)

Elites
3x Hive Guard (150 points)
2x Zoanthropes, (120 points)
2x Zoanthropes, (120 points)

Troops
16 Termagaunts, (80 points)
16 Termagaunts, (80 points)
16 Termaguants, (80 points)
Tervigon, scything talons, catalyst (180 points)
Tervigon, scything talons, catalyst (180 points)

Heavy
Trygon (200 points)
Trygon (200 points)
Mawloc (170 points)


So, we rolled an Annihilation/Pitched Battle game and I won the roll to go first. I set up mostly centered in my deployment zone but fairly spread out. Having 8 creatures with Synapse in the army REALLY helped my deployment considering every creature without synapse must test for Instinctive Behavior. In response, Amy set up all three of her 10-man Warrior units in a 4-level ruin, with both of her 8-man Immortal units and a Lord with a Res Orb in it as well. She then put the Monolith dead-center in her deployment zone, and put her 5 Destroyers with the Destroyer Lord off to her right, hoping to flank my swarm and pick off the Termagaunt units without shooting through cover.


After several pauses throughout the first two turns to look up abilities and weapon stats, the game started to flow quite smoothly. She proceeded to pick up at least half of my entire Termagaunt force in the first two turns, but when my Trygons and Mawloc came in, things DEFINITELY changed in my favor. It was at that point that the Tyranids regained momentum and started annihilating whole units at a time. The game went slightly back and forth for a bit with a lot of highly effective Necron shooting and disgusting Tyranid assaults, but in the end the bugs claimed the tomb world and PHASED OUT the Necrons before rolling to see if there was a 6th turn! If there would have been, however, both sides had approximately 8 kill points each!


In one of the better games I have played with Tyranids in a while, I have to thank my wife for being such a good sport. She made the game quite enjoyable and I'm glad I got to use the nasty new Monstrous Creatures to such great effect.


However, I didn't walk away from that game completely satisfied. I have thought about some of the units and how they performed and I think I'm going to make a few small changes before I playtest the army some more tonight with the War College where I know I'll face some slightly more stiff competition.


Here's my "Big Bug List" v2.0


HQ
Swarmlord (280 points)

Elites
3x Hive Guard (150 points)
2x Zoanthropes (120 points)
2x Zoanthropes (120 points)


Troops
16 Termagaunts (80 points)
16 Termagaunts (80 points)
15 Termagaunts (75 points)
Tervigon, Catalyst (175 points)
Tervigon, Catalyst (175 points)
Tervigon, Catalyst (175 poitns)


Heavy Support
Trygon (200 points)
Trygon (200 points)
Mawloc (170 points)


I'll comment on this post when I get back tonight, letting you all know how things went. Stay tuned!

5th Edition Tyranids - First Thoughts

I've been playing 40k long enough to know how powerful Tyranids are and I've seen their changes throughout the years. Sometimes GW nails the codex, and other times they create a different army altogether. This time, however, I think they put out one of the Tyranids' best codexes so far. With the introduction of four new species and a host of kit-bashed monsters as actual entries in the codex, the 5th Edition bugs could prove to be a very competitive and fun army to play.

Going through the codex, I've come up with my very first 5th-ed Tyranid army list!

HQ
Swarm-Lord (280 points)
Parasite of Mortrex (160 points)

Elites
3x Hive Guard (150 points)
2x Zoanthropes, (120 points)
2x Zoanthropes, (120 points)

Troops
16 Termagaunts, (80 points)
16 Termagaunts, (80 points)
16 Termaguants, (80 points)
Tervigon, scything talons, catalyst (180 points)
Tervigon, scything talons, catalyst (180 points)

Heavy
Trygon, Adrenal Glands (210 points)
Mawloc, Adrenal Glands (180 points)
Mawloc, Adrenal Glands (180 points)

Total: 2,000 points
Models: 62
Monstrous Creatures: 7

Now, I think this list may throw off the opponent. There's 62 models here but most of them are Termaguants. I'll likely lose a third of them in the first turn, and maybe a medium-sized creature or two, but on my turn some really cool things happen. Both Tervigons can spawn scoring Termagaunts! Later, the Parasite of Mortrex can turn outflankers and some other models into d6 ripper bases, and thanks to the Swarm-Lord, the Trygon and Mawloc get +1 to their reserve rolls! Basically, I loaded up on the big nasties, hoping that they can spawn enough chumps to help bog down the opponent until the MC's can get where they need to be. The list appears to be a "Nidzilla" of sorts but should produce enough numbers to quickly overwhelm the opponent by mid-game when I've taken a bit of casualties anyways.

And here's a disgusting Vanguard list:

HQ
The Parasite of Mortrex (160 points)
Hive Tyrant, Wings, Old Adversary (255 points)

Elites
2x Lictors (130 points)

Troops
20x Hormagaunts, Landing Spore (160 points)
20x Hormagaunts, Landing Spore (160 points)
20x Hormagaunts, Landing Spore (160 points)

Fast Attack
21x Gargoyles, Adrenal Glands (147 points)
21x Gargoyles, Adrenal Glands (147 points)
Harpy, Twin-Linked Heavy Venom Cannon (170 points)

Heavy Support
Mawloc, Adrenal Glands (180 points)
Mawloc, Adrenal Glands (180 points)

Total: 1,849 points
Models: 112
Monstrous Creatures: 8

Now, with this list, the point is to be in your opponent's face so quickly that they only really have one turn to shoot you down (two tops) before you're in hand to hand with everything. As things start to get worn down, two Mawlocs will come to the rescue (with a +2 to the reserves roll thanks to the two Lictors, so turn 2 is a 2+, turn 3 is automatic), using two S6 AP2 large blasts to tear open holes in your opponent's defenses.

Now, I have no idea how these lists will actually perform but I'm definitely looking forward to the new book, due out Friday of next week!