Email in: Nids 4 the impatient II feat. correct Math [2000]

"Hi Kirby,

I'm back with another list review request, and this time i'll check my maths twice! I promise ;)

As you probably remember from my last request i wanted to create an all-reserve list and include some flying units. It turned out that flying units (except Flyrants obv.) don't fit into all-reserve armies too good and with the new FAQ I don't feel like realizing this all-reserve thingy anymore at all. But i'm still impatient, so i though i'll try a list which includes at least many flying units.

So after some thinking i came with this:

HQ: 2x Tyrant (170) \w Wings (60), Heavy Venom Cannon (25), LashBoneSword & Old Adversary (25), Leech Essence & Paroxysm [2x(170 + 60 + 25 + 25) == 2x280 == 560pts]

Once again my HQ choice is quite expensive, but quite good as well, maybe too good -> Deathstars. This time i won't spend 50pts in Hive Commander, so i'll start them on board which means i can't get in the back of tanks as easy as with the all-reserve approach so i decided to go with the HVC this time as it doesn't matter which tank-side the tyrant faces and the better range enables more possibilities to shoot at. Old Adversary & LwBs makes them quite awesome in CC but not too good against Vehicles. I'll use Leech Essence and Paroxysm for the same reasons I chose them in the all-reserve list.

Elite: 3*2x Hive Guard (50) [300pts]

300pts for 12 S8 shots doesn't seem overpriced to me. Unlike with the all-reserve list I can take those instead of Zoas, which look much cooler but turned out to be awful against the amazingly overpowered eldar rune of ... forgot the name. So it puts a smile on my face that i don't have to worry about Psy-Tests. Guards are more durable, more reliable against light/medium armour and cheaper.

I decided to field them in 3 squads of 2 creatures, simple because i think they are than harder to kill in CC (well actually easier to kill, but you can kill only 2 and not 3 of them at once), harder to kill with artillery/blast and it's more likely that at least one squad can shoot into the side or even rear armour of a tank. Kill points on the negative side ofc.

Troops:
2*10x Termagants (5) \w Fleshborer [100pts] No need to explain why i took those, eh?

2x Tervigon (160) \w Catalyst (15) [2*175 = 350pts]

The purpose of these is to support others with FNP and create more scoring/screening units. Furthermore i need some more MCs to drag attention from the Tyrants. Just sad that i don't expect FNP to help the Tyrant much. As long as the tyrant is far away from the enemy, the enemy will use high range, high S, low AP Weapons to get him down, and when the tyrant is close to the enemy and fears to be worn down by normal weapons, the tervigon won't be in support range anymore.

2*4x Warriors (30) \w Rending Claws (0), Bone Swords (10) & Adrenal Glands (5) [2*4(30+10+5) = 2*4*45 = 2*180 = 360pts]

Well, 45pts for a Warrior is quite expensive i have to admit, but they are awesome CC dudes. I guess i have to explain my probably unusual weapon configuration on them. First of all i really struggled to get enough spare points to include 4 of them instead of 3, but i think 3 Warriors aren't half as good as 4. Sounds crazy, but the key to success of a CC units is to kill as much enemies in the first round, if possible even before it strikes back, but therefore you need enough attacks on the charge and attacks come from the model count. So to reduce the pts/model i decided to not spend more than 15pts on equipment. So why did i take Adrenal Glands + Dual Swords instead of Lash + Sword:

Advantages: Against Armor 11 the AGs grant me armour piercing (when rending triggers ofc) and since this list isn't actually good at destroying vehicles with shooting but good enough to stun them this is an advantage Furthermore I can glance AV14. The higher strength helps in getting more wounds through, which again helps in killing more enemies per turn. The Instant Death ability of Dual swords is more than twice as good as with just one sword. I don't have to worry about engaged enemies that aren't in base contact when it comes to Initiative.

Disadvantages: While there are some situations where the I5 is better then the Lashwhip and quite some situations where I4 is already good enough, generally Lashwhip is better in terms of who strikes first, especially when the enemy hides in cover.

Without the Scything Talons the Warriors may even be happy to see an Old Adversary around them.

Elite:

2*13x Gargoyles (6) \w nada [2*78 = 156pts]

Gargoyles are there to shield the Flyrants, benefit from Old Adversary and charge enemies coming out of destroyed vehicles. Since many troop choices have 1 or 2 heavy weapons within their squad, if they target the gargoyles that's another dangerous weapon less on the flyrants.

1x Harpy (160) \w TL HVC (10) [170pts]

Hmmm, i don't think this dude is worth 170pts per se, but with the TL HVC it's something you can't easily ignore, especially if it's flying into you're flank. So if you can't ignore it, you have to do something against it, and if you do something against it you do less against the flyrants. And if this one dies instead of the flyrant, it starts to actually be worth it's points. It can even grant the flyrant cover and attack into enemies inside terrain. I also think it can benefit from FNP more than any other unit, but will barely be in range of the Tervigon. And finally: what choice i've got anyway? I need something for around 170pts that needs to be MC in order to drag attention from the Tyrant. Only Fexes and Mawlocs meet the price requirement, but none of them is threatening enough to drag attention from the Flyrants.

So the strategy is to start with everything on board but i can actually split the army into ~900pts armies + the harpy which helps where needed or acts independently. The Tervigons support by casting FNP and pooping gants. The Flyrants and Guards try to pop or stun vehicles and the gargoyles and warriors try to kill what comes out, or in case of stunned vehicles the warriors try their best to wrack it. Since my Warriors don't shoot they don't bother if the gants shielding them would give the enemy 4+ cover saves, and the guards can be shielded without any negative cover effects at all. All in all I want the units to be in support range of each other, but not too close to each other, so that blast weapons don't hurt toooo much.

The major advantage of this list compared to the all-reserve list is that the units support each other a lot better. Further there are no Psy-Tests and no Reserve Rolls which makes the whole army more reliable. Almost 50% of the army are still quite mobile and i'm quite fat on scoring units, which makes objective missions a lot easier to play. 32 T6 wounds FTW.

On the negative side, there is no place for Zoas and Trygons which means i don't have reliable tank busting units. Another major drawback: There are quite a few units that need custom modelling :\

To sum up the maths:

Tyrants: 560
Guards: 300 (860)
Gants: 100 (960)
Tervigons: 350 (1310)
Warriors: 360 (1670)
Gargoyles: 156 (1826) <- see, didn't forget them this time.
Harpy: 170 -> 1996 pts

Looking forward to hearing from you!

BTW: I enjoyed the psy article series and i like your tervigon conversion quite a lot!! I'll try to do similar stuff with mine. Yours is a good mix of looking aggressive and still having this brood chambers. Keep up with the good work!!

Regards Myke."

Long e-mail Myke! Sorry it's taken a while to get back to you, been sick lately (so well behind on my painting!). The list overall is solid but there are some tweaks which need to be made. The Tervigons/Gants/Warriors/Hive Guard are going to be walking,which is fine but this means your Gargs/Tyrants/Harpy will be targeted early and often. This means you really want to suppress your enemy as much as possible and with the Tyrants HVC + HG you've got that mostly covered but a 2nd Harpy is really going to help with that. Furthermore, the Tervigons aren't as scary as normal because they aren't Gaunt buffing and only have Catalyst. Whilst Catalyst really helps Harpies with their 4+ armor save, they aren't always going to be in range and Onslaught would really help your HG suppress enemy armor. So with that in mind, we want to add Adrenal/Toxin to your Tervigons and a 2nd Harpy which means we need to lose a large chunk of points from somewhere.

This will come from the Warriors as we shall compress them into one squad. They would also greatly benefit from Toxin Sacs and some extra suppression fire with a VC would be nice. We should be able to have this squad sit between 5-6 models which gives us a good hammer type unit to  back up our Tyrants & gribblies in combat. So let's see what points we have to spare to grab this squad. Taking off 6 Gargoyles and adding in the 2nd Harpy + Adrenal/Toxin on the Tervigons leaves us with 190 pts, not much! Let's drop a Garg brood then and keep one at around 15 men. This gives us a further 30 points to play with. We can then add in 4x Warriors w/Adrenal/Toxin/2xBS/RC + a VC for 215. Not the most impressive of lists IMO due to the large amount of points sunk into the 2x Flyrants who aren't that survivable but a workable base. I know you're going for the flying theme but atm (especially with the FAQ), a single Flyrant might be a better idea which gives you some points to perhaps drop in Shrikes or Raveners (instead of Gargs). Full list as stands is as follows (1995pts):

2x Flyrant w/HVC, LW, BS, Paroxysm, Leech Life
3x2 HG
2x10x Gants
2x Tervigon w/Onslaught, Adrenal, Toxin
4x Warriors w/2xBS, Adrenal, Toxin, Rending Claws, VC
15x Gargoyles
2x Harpy w/TL-HVC