Darkened Skies Tyranid Army List

[akaiyou]

HQ:
1 Swarmlord
Bone Sabre; Alien Cunning; Blade Parry; Psychic Monstrosity; Swarm Leader; Leech Essence; Paroxysm; Psychic Scream; The Horror
3 Tyrant Guard
Instinctive Behavior Feed; Rending Claws; Scything Talons; Blind Rampage; Shieldwall

Elite:
3 Zoanthrope
Claws and Teeth; Warp Field; Warp Blast; Warp Lance; Synapse Creature; Shadow in the Warp
1 Mycetic Spore
Immobile Pod; Limited Sentience; Transport Spore; Lash Whip; Ripper Tentacles; Venom Cannon

1 Death Leaper
"Where is it?"; Instinctive Behavior Lurk; It's After Me!!!; Killing Strike; Pheromone Trail; What was that?; Where did it go?!; Chameleonic Skin; Flesh Hooks; Rending Claws; Scything Talons

1 The Doom of Malan'tai
Absorb Life; Instinctive Behavior Feed; Psychic Strength; Spirit Leech; Claws and Teeth; Cataclysm; Shadow in the Warp; Warp Field
1 Mycetic Spore
Immobile Pod; Limited Sentience; Transport Spore; Lash Whip; Ripper Tentacles; Venom Cannon

Troops:
20 Gaunt Brood
Instinctive Behavior Lurk; Adrenal Glands; Claws and Teeth; Toxin Sacs; Fleshborer
1 Mycetic Spore
Immobile Pod; Limited Sentience; Transport Spore; Lash Whip; Ripper Tentacles; Venom Cannon
20 Gaunt Brood
Instinctive Behavior Lurk; Adrenal Glands; Claws and Teeth; Toxin Sacs; Fleshborer
1 Mycetic Spore
Immobile Pod; Limited Sentience; Transport Spore; Lash Whip; Ripper Tentacles; Venom Cannon
20 Gaunt Brood
Instinctive Behavior Lurk; Adrenal Glands; Claws and Teeth; Toxin Sacs; Fleshborer
1 Mycetic Spore
Immobile Pod; Limited Sentience; Transport Spore; Lash Whip; Ripper Tentacles; Venom Cannon
20 Gaunt Brood
Instinctive Behavior Lurk; Adrenal Glands; Claws and Teeth; Toxin Sacs; Fleshborer
1 Mycetic Spore
Immobile Pod; Limited Sentience; Transport Spore; Lash Whip; Ripper Tentacles; Venom Cannon
20 Gaunt Brood
Instinctive Behavior Lurk; Adrenal Glands; Claws and Teeth; Toxin Sacs; Fleshborer
1 Mycetic Spore
Immobile Pod; Limited Sentience; Transport Spore; Lash Whip; Ripper Tentacles; Venom Cannon

Total Roster Cost: 1990
Model Count: 116
Kill Point Count: 17


Notes:

I wanted to try using a bunch of the special characters together, I find that the Swarmlord, Death Leaper and Doom of Malan'tai compliment each other's abilities really really well.

The focus here is really on them, while everything else is there to support them, I decided to use my Alien Cunning to mass effect by having the entire army come from reserves minus the Swarmlord.

In Dawn of War deployment I can see this army being brutal! Specially if you get first turn. And have a ton of units arriving to back up your Swarmlord on turn 2.

Everything is in mycetic spore minus the Death Leaper who arrives in style as well. I focused on giving the mycetic spores all venom cannons, due to it's strength complimenting it's Ripper Tentacles perfectly, meaning i can always shoot both at the same targets without rending neither ineffective.

Due to the mass amounts of S6 from all the spores enemy tanks AND infantry will be in trouble as I deep strike right next to them and shoot their side/rear armour and unleash the troops within to take out the infantry around.

The Zoanthrope squad is to take out the most menacing or toughest vehicles, and the doom is there to get in and cause as much mayhem as possible hopefully lowering a Farseer's leadership with the Death Leaper by 3 and then letting the Doom do the rest.

With the Swarmlord in tow most of the army will be coming in on turn 2 with only a few left overs to arrive on turn 3. I plan on getting the swarmlord into combat with the meanest baddest unit i possibly can just to try and keep him engage and out of danger. A giant mob of orks would be a great candidate.

So what do you guys think?

I plan on proxying carnifexes as mycetic spores since i dont have any spore models. But if this list proves succesful I may have to buy quite a few spores in the future.

Oh and the gaunts all have adrenal glands and toxin sacs, with everything else that will be on the field they will probably be the last thing the opponent will be worried about if I take them vanilla so i took super gaunts to make sure they also pose a great threat to anything in their vicinity vehicles included.

[ElegaicRequiem]

Looks rather scary. I wonder if shrikes would be a good compliment as well in this list. What do you think about them?

[nicholasakira]

I thought there'd be gargoyles.

[cheminhaler]

The Swarmlord is supposed to be the biggest of the big! The one, pretty much. From a modelling perspective how are you going to make it?

[akaiyou]

Jan 18, 2010 15:10:52 GMT -5 cheminhaler said:

The Swarmlord is supposed to be the biggest of the big! The one, pretty much. From a modelling perspective how are you going to make it?

Well the codex says you can simply use another model for it.

So for now i'll be just proxying until they come out with the bonesword upgrade kit, which i plan on getting and then just adding 4 of them to my standard Tyrant and be done with it, no need to get all fancy.

He's no different to a standard Tyrant other than his skills and fluff.

[Rolling Thunder]

Solution:

Mephiston.

[akaiyou]

Jan 18, 2010 18:46:03 GMT -5 Rolling Thunder said:

Solution:

Mephiston.

The death leaper can lower his Ld so byebye psychic powers.

I play tested the army against Tau was interesting.

Mission: capture & control
Deployment: pitched battle
1st Turn: Tau

they deployed half their army leaving the HQ and crisis suits in reserve and i deployed the swarmlord unit and left everything else in reserve.

I had area terrain cover, 1st turn shooting only caused 1 wound on the unit as he repositioned himself to attack the Swarmlord.

Turn 1 I moved up nothing in range of any of my powers.

Turn 2 The tau got one unit from reserve which he opted to keep away from my Swarmlord with, yet still in range for his missile pods. The swarmlord took heavy firing this turn from almost an entire Tau army.

Ion Cannon, Smart Missiles, Missile Pods, Full units of fire warriors, gun drones and even a sky ray all took shots at him and killed off 2 guard and dropped the swarm lord to 2 wounds left. Losing a total of 7 wounds in 2 turns.

During my turn 2, a pissed off Swarmlord brought in ALL my reserves on turn 2. Mycetic Spores dropped everywhere surrounding the tau, disembarking gaunts, zoanthropes and the doom of malan'tai as well as a death leaper that showed up behind a devil fish.

This was my first game using the doom and oh lord that thing is a thing of beauty, it spirit leeched some fire warriors that rolled a 15! for their morale check lol lucky for them they were in area terrain and spirit leech doesnt say that it ignores cover saves so i granted them, and only 3 died. The gun drones also got leeched and both died, starting my Doom at Str 9.

The mycetic spores werent too good at shooting during this first turn as i tried to take down some Tau piranhas but kept scattering off them. But i was pleased to have range to almost everything on the table with the venom cannons. The gaunt shooting was also craptacular all in all the zoanthropes and doom were the ones doing any damage this turn, the Tyrant attempted to life leech the fire warriors and failed the death leaper failed to pop the devilfish and the zoanthropes failed to blow up the sky ray only stunning it.

The shooting as u can see went horrible but the thread of 100+ models already in their face was worth Gold.

Turn 3 another crisis suit unit came in and scattered where it coudlnt do too much harm, the tau ignored the spores and focused on killing the zoanthropes and the doom as well as some gaunts 2 zoanthropes died, and some gaunts.

In my turn 3 I finally got to move my guys and it was bloody as tyranids did what they do best, the doom of malan'tai once again spirit leeched the same unit of fire warriors leaving only 2 alive and bringing it to Str 10. The hive tyrant life leeched the last 2 and was now back up to 4 wounds.

Things were very grim as i shot and assaulted everywhere i could, the doom took out the hammerhead with it's cataclysm lol Str 10 AP1 blast isnt something to sneeze at. The zoanthropes once more failed to kill da sky ray the death leaper assaulted the crisis suits nearby gaunts assaulted every vehicle in range immobilizing, stunning, armament destroying and even wrecking one it was pure mayhem. The mycetic spores made better use of their venom cannons this turn getting some hits and nearly wiping out a cirsis suits unit and killing some fire warriors with that awesome ap 4.

In the end the only thing able to fight back were a single crisis suit on turn 4 which the HQ super unti didnt come in, so they were pretty much screwed and attempted to stay outside the range but the mycetic spore venom cannons proved that to be futile.

I won in turn 6 as my opponent surrendered after the game continued at the end of turn 5 and he only had his HQ unit that was delayed all game available versus the majority of my tyranid army minus the doom and some gaunts. I also had taken both objectives thanks to dropping the spores right next to them.

Unit Grading
Swarmlord - Great
- able to take many many shots and giving me a +1 to reserves was gold, if it werent for him remaning alive through 2 turns of tau shooting my whole plan would've been ruined. In future games i'll hide him better. He fails to be excellent for the lack of regenerate which would REALLY REALLY help him, and for the lack of long range weaponry.

Tyrant Guard - Excellent
- Despite my initial hate for them I must say if it werent for them, the Swarmlord would've been long gone. They granted the unit cover saves and soaked up a lot of fire.

Zoanthropes - Good
- could've done better, they always caused some damage to vehicle but nothing decisive in this game.

Death Leaper - Good
- Like all single lictors he sucks versus vehicles, however his combat abilities are pretty good just wish he would pack more of a punch on the turn he arrives.

The Doom of Malan'tai - Excellent
- Yes i am officially a fan now. This guy killed an entire fire warrior unit without even attacking it, and some gun drones and this is only because there was more vehicles than troops on the field. Otherwise he would've caused even more damage. And he blew up a hammer head before being taken out by a seeker missile.

Mycetic Spores - Great
- Their ballistic skill is the only downside really otherwise these guys are a MUST HAVE on some units like zoanthropes and other really powerful short ranged untis that can take 'em. The venom cannons are murder against things that have a 4+ save. Against vehicles they do not do so good as you may scatter in a bad direction. 5 out of 7 spores scattered in my game moving me away from my ideal striking positions.

Also does anyone know if when the spore comes in, do u need to keep 1" away from the enemy? Does the space marine drop pod need to do this? The mycetic spore entry says 'move minimum distance to avoid obstacle' so does that mean 1" away? or can u be in base contact or something?

Termagants - Great
- If only their shooting was slightly better, but their combat was amazing, they shut down most tanks on the field with furious charge and about 40 attacks on the charge. It was great.

[cheminhaler]

Sounds like a fun game, the swarmlord did well.
The rules for the mycetic spores (p. 54) says if it scatters on impassable terrain, or any model, reduce the scatter distance by the minimum required to avoid the obstacle. You only lose disembarking models if any of them are within 1" of an enemy.

Modelwise if you find a nice big sea-shell, that might also be a good proxy for the pod/spore.

[akaiyou]

I proxied carnifexes for them lol I guess i'll have to find some shells.

And i used the spores wrong I didnt always shoot at the closest thing with them. So further play testing needed on them.