1,000th post! Irony of Vanilla Marines and Tyranid re-thinks for Centurion

Welcome to the 1,000th post on 3++...a couple weeks on from 3++ being active for a year and we hit another pretty big milestone. Taking a look back and we see 3++ started out slowly with a post roughly every two days in December and January which picked up to roughly daily as people started to read 3++ and twice a day into March as the blog started to take off and BA emerged on the scene. Fast forward nine months and several guest authors posting 20 or more posts individually and we’re looking at roughly 120 blog posts a month (or roughly 4 a day). Very impressive and the amount of hits and feedback each post gets is quite impressive, too. Once again thanks to all the readers, e-mailers, commenters, authors, pink stuff, etc. for making such a great community!

Let’s get down to business shall we?

I’m sure many readers are quite rehearsed currently in my troubles getting my Mech Marines ready for Centurion. The great irony? There’s nothing wrong with the list, there’s just something wrong with what I want to do with it. Let’s just clear things up in case they are a bit muddy: Vanilla Marines (particularly the 1750 Mech Marine build) are still an effective and competitive choice and my wish to change my army isn’t a reflection of their assumed ‘poor competitive standing.’ Rather, it’s too defensive for my general liking at this particular moment. Take a look at the bat-reps; even with bad terrain management and a bunch of MCs and meltaguns, my army was able to essentially attrition the other army away by simply sticking around. That’s what you get with 30 Marines and 14 tanks at 1750. Whilst changes could be made to make the list more offensive such as Terminators, more LasPlas, ACLC Preds, etc. I think at this points level unless you’re taking 10 Terminators, your list is better off done with SW due to their improved capacity for MSU Grey Hunters over MSU Marines. Hell I could transfer the list to SW and get more firepower and more combat ability at the cost of the Speeders (obviously less combat ability than the 10 TH/SS option) which would suit the style of play I'm aiming for better. Do I want to do this? Not really because I’m tired of the Internet harping on about BA/SW/IG and how uber they are compared to the other books.

Again, the 1750 Mech Marine list is a good build but is more defensive than I would like and changing the list to be more offensively minded without 10 TH/SS is better done by BA or SW who do MSU RBack spam more efficiently at this points level. Now I certainly can do 10 TH/SS but I'd have to get my sticky paws on 5 more Terminators. If  so it would look something like:

Libby w/Null Zone, Avenger
10x TH/SS Terminators
2x Rifledreads
10x Tacticals w/flamer, MM, Rhino
2x5x Tacticals w/RBack w/LasPlas
3x MM/HF Speeder
3x Dakka Pred

However, if we hark back to the poll for Centurion army lists we will see Tau and Tyranids are the clear front runners with Jumper BA, Bloodhammer, Mechdar and Mech Marines all running a tight 2nd group. Note both the mech BA and SW lists were the lowest vote getters, which indicates to me the community would also prefer to see someone do well with an army the Internet doesn’t think is as good (not saying that I’m going to do well!). Since I ruled out Mechdar before it looks like Tyranids as my back-up army are moving to the fore and the two foot BA lists are still ticking over waiting for some fun time. All of these lists are pretty aggressive which suits me fine and I don’t have to lug around lots of tanks!

I’m pretty happy with both of the BA lists linked in the above post and don’t think much tweaking is going to make them better. I’ll need to work quickly to get the models painted though so I can start practicing with them but until then it’s Nid time. After Tau (by 3 votes), Tyranids were the most voted for army and are sitting pretty highly on the “I should take these” list currently as I’ve been to a tournament before with them so they are painted and just need touch-ups and I can get some practice tournaments in where the comp and missions don’t screw over the list (they do to mech lists; <3 Australia). So let’s take a look at the list and see what we can do from there:

 Hive Tyrant w/LW, BS, HVC, OA, Paroxysm, Leech Seed, Adrenal Glands

Tyrant Guard w/LW
3x2x Hive Guard
2x10x Termagants
2x Tervigon w/Onslaught, Catalyst, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
3x Raveners w/Rending Claws
2x Tyrannofex w/Rupture Cannon

 A very solid list with the only issue being the Raveners who stick out. Whilst they are a great unit, having only one squad of three makes them a minor threat and doesn’t really hurt an opponent’s target priority in terms of instant deathing the T4/W3 critters or shooting the T6/W6 MCs. So there are three things we can do here.

1. Leave as be
2. Replace the Raveners with something else
3. Get more Raveners

1 is easy but not something I want to do. They’ve always felt tacked on IMO so I want to change that. 2 is also pretty easy. Dropping them frees up 105 points which is enough for 17 Hormagaunts or 7 Genestealers. Both add more combat punch to the army with the Hormas working particularly well with the OA Tyrant and Termagants and the Genestealers being a more effective disruptive unit compared to the Raveners. I could of course add more Hive Guard with these points but that requires buying quite expensive models which are often hard to get on e-bay cheaply so I’d prefer to add more critters to the army. Adding a small Warrior squad with VC is also an option but suffers the same way as the Raveners or I could move the Hive Tyrant to a more deathstar like unit and add in another Guard or two and potentially add in some Regen on my other MCs where at 1750 they aren't always going to be wiped in a single turn of shooting. And another option is adding in a Prime to act as an extra Tyrant Guard who can also shuffle between Hive Guard squads. Wow lot of options within an option there...

Option 3 is another solid possibility but requires dropping something. I don’t have any other Fexes or Trygons so the T-Fexes have to stay and building around a midfield core means the Tervigons/Termagants stay. Since we aren’t doing a specific build which would really benefit from Venomthropes and don’t want to use DL/Zoans, the HG are also staying which leaves the HQ to shave points. I’m adverse to losing the psychic and combat monster the Tyrant is (particularly OA) but he’s easily down gradable to a Prime which saves us a lot of points. Let’s wipe the HQ and see what having 3 squads of 3 raveners leaves us with...1665 or 85 points left for a Prime. This is just enough to eek him in and grab some rending claws but doesn’t exactly make him scary. We can always drop one of the psychic powers from the Tervigons in either Catalyst or Onslaught which would give us enough points to give the Prime Boneswords and Toxin Sacs. Sounds good but which power to lose? I’m going to lose one of the Onslaughts. Whilst the extra range for two of the HG can be really important, Catalyst is generally more applicable and with the Prime I can protect all 3 HG squads (FNP, FNP, ablative wounds).

So what do you guys prefer for the new look Tyranids? Option 2 with dropping the Raveners and basically adding the points elsewhere or option 3 with 9 Raveners and a Prime in place of the Hive Tyrant? Both are feasible but I’d have to scrounge some Raveners somewhere for option 3 (though I do have a cool Prime conversion using a 2nd ed Warrior I have lying around). I’ll be playtesting these guys as well as the foot BA lists but I think Tyranids are more likely due to their painted aspect and being able to jump into some tournaments with them right away whilst I touch them up and make any changes necessary. I hope this also makes people more happy as the ones of the armies which was most voted for has moved to the fore!

N.B. Here's the core of the Nid list without any of the options added in

3x2x Hive Guard
2x10x Termagant
2x Terviogn w/Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
2x Tyrannofex w/Rupture Cannon

Totals: 1350 points