Email in: 2000 pt. Tyranid list for review

"Hey Kirby and team!

I'm a big fan of the blog, and really enjoy the content you post up. I've wanted to send in an army list for review for a while, and finally have a good opportunity! To celebrate the twilight days of 40k 5th Edition, I'm planning to attend the NOVA-style Brother's Grimm GT (which will also be my first two-day Gran Tournament). Despite my bitterness towards the current Tyranid codex, they're my first army and probably my favorite. Also the most painted, which helps a lot too! I was thinking of bringing the following list:


280 - Swarmlord
130 - 2x Tyrant Guard
185 – Tervigon, Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands
100 - 2x Hive Guard
100 - 2x Hive Guard
161 - 7x Ymgarl Genestealers
65 - 13x Termagants
185 - Tervigon, Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands
98 – 7x Genestealers
98 – 7x Genestealers
175 – 5x Raveners, Rending Claws
210 - Trygon, Adrenal Glands
210 - Trygon, Adrenal Glands
1997

It's hard to make anything truly competitive with the 'Nid codex, but this is the best I can do with the models I own. It's served me well locally, and can generally put up a good fight against most armies but struggles against some match ups (mech Dark Eldar being my biggest fear). The Trygons, Raveners and Swarmlord move straight up the board, and try to force bad target priority (with Tervigons throwing around FNP to further confuse things). The Swarmlord is my big counter to enemy deathstars and the sort, as well as just being a boss... I've never found myself wishing I had saved points and opted for a cheaper Tyrant instead. Genestealers outflank, and Ymgarls do their thing -- the hope is that an overwhelming amount of targets on Turns 2/3 will overwhelm the enemy and get me into combat. The Tervigons hand out FNP and try to hold down the midfield, while spawning gaunts for screens and holding objectives. The Hive Guard hang out in the midfield as well, gunning for transports or stuff that they can insta-kill. It's not particularly clever or original, your typical 'Nid close combat brick... but it has a lot of teeth and claws which is cool haha. It's done pretty well for a footslogging close combat army at least!

The Raveners are my biggest concern... conventional internet wisdom says that they suck, but I think they may add something here. Target priority isn't as easy, since they attract the same sort of firepower that the Swarmlord and Trygons do. With cover and FNP, anything that isn't insta-killing them will struggle to thin them out quickly. The speed is important for me too, to cross no man's land faster or give me a chance to get backfield and tie up fire support. On the other hand, my previous version of this list didn't have Raveners -- I used the extra points to make both Tervigons troops, and beef up all my Genestealers (added a Ymgarl stealer and two Broodlords, I think). I'm not sure how useful such small/wimpy Genestealer squads will be, but at the end of the day they're still Genestealers!

Any thoughts, comments, or ideas would be much appreciated... I have no delusions of grandeur, but I'm eager to get a bunch of good games in and represent the bugs!

Thanks!

-Brian (sionnach19)"

There are three things I'd want to fix with this list - Genestealer squad size/lack of Toxin Sacs, Tervigon not scoring & too few Hive Guard. The changes? Make each Genestealer squad 10 strong minimum with Toxin Sacs, make both Tervigons scoring (so 7 more Termagants) and make both Hive Guard squads three strong. This makes your anti-transport much more effective, the Genestealers more effective and scoring MCs - what's not to love?

Now shaving points... the Raveners are a good bet to go. They are a good unit even though they cry against missiles but they are the only fast unit you have - you really want two or three squads here or none at all. This gives you just about enough points to buff both of the Genestealers to 10x strong and give them Toxin Sacs and turn your 13x Termagants into 2x10x Termagants (you're one point over at this point since you had three spare before). This means to get to where you want the list to be with Hive Guard you need to shave 101 points and the only way this happens is if you lose the Swarmlord to a normal Tyrant - I would personally do this but since you like the Swarmlord so much it's fine to leave him in and simply take the less effective anti-tank on the chin.

Or run one larger squad of Genestealers (14 with toxin) and use the spare points to buff up your Hive Guard to three strong each. If you really want to keep the Swarmlord I think this ends up being the best option though if you don't want to buy more Hive Guard models, keeping them as 2x10x works as well.