Tyranid Synergies

[MaltonNecromancer]

"The Tyranid codex is an exercise in masochism" - can't remember who, can't remember the discussion thread, but it sums up the metagaming feel nicely.

This seems to be the feeling I get from many, many people on this forum. I actually feel that the Tyranids are better described as an obscenely high-skill army, that doesn't play remotely like an MEQ force, and thus causes a lot of people to fall flat on their tactical behind. While some units in the codex are pure tripe (I'm looking at you, Pyrovore, you overpriced lump of fail), what has struck me the more I read and re-read the codex is the absolute need for army units to complement each other. Where an MEQ force can usually spam effective units (and now I'm looking at you, Long Fangs and Razorbacks), the Tyranids seem to actively punish most spam style lists, because every unit you take seems to require another unit to work at maximum effectiveness. They especially require careful manipulation of enemy threat perception; tricking your opponent into attacking seemingly high-priority targets while moving the real killers into position.

My thought was for those of us so inclined to post examples of units from the Tyranid Codex, discussing how they support other units. I was going to begin with the obvious ones we've all worked out, and then hope that people can suggest new and useful ones (anyone who manages to find a single decent synergy for the Pyrovore wins the thread).

So...

1.) Heavy Venom Cannon + Carnifex.
Unit with Heavy Venom Cannon hits high armour target. Cannon "stuns" vehicle (due to -1 on damage roll). Carnifex charges immobilsed vehicle, eats it (strength 9 +2D6 laughs at AV14.)
This strategy also works with Heavy Venom Cannon + Ymgarl Genestealers (due to their placement rules) vs light tanks (as enough Rending attacks means AV 10/11 will eventually fall to Genestealer claws).

2.) Venomthrope + Horde (unit of 20+ weenies: Termagants, Hormagaunts, etc...)
Venomthrope stands inside Horde (which "circles the caravans", so to speak), provides 5+ cover save. Weenies provide 4+ cover save to Venomthrope. In assault, Venothrope moves to the front to use lashwhips to reduce enemy attacks.
Flavour with High Priority Target (Hive Tyrant, etc...) to force enemy to leave the relatively "useless" Venomthrope alone in favour of avoiding insane number of attacks from weenies/hideously damaging attacks from High Priority Target.
Flavour with a 10 model unit of Deathspitter Tyranid Warriors + Prime to really force an opponent's hand; there's not a whole lot of infantry units that can withstand 30 BS 4, strength 5 shots, followed by a 30 model Hormagaunt assault...

3.) Lictor + Trygon + Deathspitter Raveners
Lictor appears on board (out of LoS, but very close to enemies - preferably ones not too good in assault) when available, goes to ground for 2+ cover save. Trygon and Raveners appear without scattering, shoot the place to pieces; next turn, assault begins. Trygon goes after high-priority targets (tanks, characters, etc...), Raveners deal with everything else. Lictor hops about, either being Teleport Homer, or else attacking weaker targets of opportunity, then using Hit and Run to leave combat.

Right, what else is there?

[Ghoulio]

1.) Heavy Venom Cannon + Carnifex.
Unit with Heavy Venom Cannon hits high armour target. Cannon "stuns" vehicle (due to -1 on damage roll). Carnifex charges immobilsed vehicle, eats it (strength 9 +2D6 laughs at AV14.)
This strategy also works with Heavy Venom Cannon + Ymgarl Genestealers (due to their placement rules) vs light tanks (as enough Rending attacks means AV 10/11 will eventually fall to Genestealer claws).

Theoretically you could do something like this for sure. The big issue is how insanely overpriced the core of this idea is and how poor the venom cannon is at what you want to do. For my first 20 games I ran 2 Hive Tyrants with Heavy Venom Cannons and they just did jack and squat (including just stunning vehicles). The main problem lies with the fact that the Heavy Venom Cannon is literally good at nothing. It is a small blast, so bad at killing infantry, but also bad at hitting tanks (since you only have a 33% chance to hit and the average scatter will take your blast off the target). It also has no AP so you cant kill elite units.

If you want to use Ymgarls one decent way of doing it is combing their stat altering ability with a Swarmlord's ability to give them Furious Charge. Now you are assaulting something you can make yourself Str 6 with rending, which can do a number on parking lots.

2.) Venomthrope + Horde (unit of 20+ weenies: Termagants, Hormagaunts, etc...)
Venomthrope stands inside Horde (which "circles the caravans", so to speak), provides 5+ cover save. Weenies provide 4+ cover save to Venomthrope. In assault, Venothrope moves to the front to use lashwhips to reduce enemy attacks.
Flavour with High Priority Target (Hive Tyrant, etc...) to force enemy to leave the relatively "useless" Venomthrope alone in favour of avoiding insane number of attacks from weenies/hideously damaging attacks from High Priority Target.
Flavour with a 10 model unit of Deathspitter Tyranid Warriors + Prime to really force an opponent's hand; there's not a whole lot of infantry units that can withstand 30 BS 4, strength 5 shots, followed by a 30 model Hormagaunt assault...

The one is probably the most obvious idea for synergy in the codex (as it is the Venomthropes only reason to exist). The big issue though is how do you have your Venomthrope live past turn 1? With a max of 6 wounds in that unit at the best of a 4+ cover save it is extremely easy to kill them and therefore making this idea completely null.

The only way I have had my Venomthropes live past turn 1 is to attach a Tyranid Prime to them as he can eat up all those missile launcher shots. Another thing it does is increase the overall influence of the squad and provide a central Synapse hub for your smaller beasties. Even this though with most new armies wont really last too long sadly (here is looking at you "Psyfleman" dreads).

3.) Lictor + Trygon + Deathspitter Raveners
Lictor appears on board (out of LoS, but very close to enemies - preferably ones not too good in assault) when available, goes to ground for 2+ cover save. Trygon and Raveners appear without scattering, shoot the place to pieces; next turn, assault begins. Trygon goes after high-priority targets (tanks, characters, etc...), Raveners deal with everything else. Lictor hops about, either being Teleport Homer, or else attacking weaker targets of opportunity, then using Hit and Run to leave combat.

This is one of those ideas that works....in theory (and sadly only in theory). There are just so many "if's" to actually have this work. Like, for example, somehow making sure your Lictor comes in turn 2 and nothing else does as you have to have him on the board for at least one turn before he can use that teleport homer. The other main issue is that you are paying 5pts per model to put deathspitters on Raveners which is just such a massive waste. If you have say 6 Raveners you will get 18 shots when you come up (oh, and not spreading out so you dont get turned into paste by blast weapons). 9 of those shots will hit 6 will wound and you will kill 2 Marines (on average). For 30 points just to kill 2 Marines and probably never use that gun again just isnt a great value in my eyes (especially considering the pricing issues in this book).

The one thing that does kind of work is combining Death Leapers and Mawlocs (alternating when each is on the board) to help get direct hits on things. Even this though is somewhat sketchy.

I can totally understand what you are trying to do trying to come up with things to work together (and some stuff does alright). The big problem though is just how poorly most of the rules in this codex are written. Almost all of them completely undo any idea you might actually have that seem like "obvious" uses for something. Ideas like having your Raveners use your Trygon tunnel to help them get into the game...but guess what? Raveners are one of the only units in this codex that CAN'T use the tunnel (beasts). It is what it is I guess sadly.

[Sonikgav]

Gargoyles + Parasite of Mortrex.

Ok the combo itself is obvious however the Parasite is there more for simply getting a 'cheap' flying Synapse unit up the field.

I run 2 units of 30 Gargoyles and the Parasite as a Screening force. Its a Straight 500 points for 61 models. In an average 1500 point game you now have 1k points left and that can get ALOT in a Tyranid list. In a 2k game. Alot havent seen much of the Parasite so upon seeing a flying IC warrior style creature bearing down on them they will attempt to take it out, of course hidden in a unit of 30 gargoyles makes it much more difficult and will take up most of a turns shooting (unless its Pie Plate Guard lists). Consider then the other Unit of Gargoyles is just as large, and then the other 1000+ points of Tyranid army moving up behind and benefitting from all that cover.... (60 Gargoyles can shield ALOT of units )

[Xas]

outflanking stuff (stealers, something /w hive tyrant power) makeing the enemy cluster up in the middle of the field to not get flank-charged

template weapons to make use of that (biowhores are cheap larg blasts, zoantropes have awesome anti-MEQ templates, even stranglethorn/venom cannons suddenly start to hurt).

[2_Wycked]

I'm really interested by Venomthropes, especially with GKs laughing at all out big bugs nowadays. Gaunts seem to be the way to go.

[CrimsonTurkey]

The problem with GKs is that without the big bugs we lose a lot of the heavy punch in our armies. I've had some luck with only taking MCs that are synapse creatures and hoping for perils when they roll those 3D6 LD tests. I've actually started thinking about the following against GKs:

Hive Tyrant + Genestealers with Broodlord
Stealers either assault one scary unit or two lesser threats and the Tyrant jumps in where it is most needed for reducing I if it has a lash whip. Now the enemy unit(s) should be WS 1 from just being hit with paroxysm and the Broodlord can pull out an Aura of despair for the -1 LD. Now not only do we have the oomph to really stick it to them in the assault phase, but the likelihood of psychic powers and force weapons going off is pretty low. It might even be better to run a list with two tyrants each escorted by two small stealer squads. This way the enemy is at -2 LD in all combats. Because the tyrants are so bloody expensive though, we're looking at deathstar points levels with some fairly fragile units. A list based on this will need distractions.


PS: I would kill for a modified Tervigon that poops hormagaunts.

[Kawauso]

PS: I would kill for a modified Tervigon that poops hormagaunts.

YES whydon'ttheyhavethatIhatetermagants!!!

[Kawauso]

I'm really interested by Venomthropes, especially with GKs laughing at all out big bugs nowadays. Gaunts seem to be the way to go.

The problem with Venomthropes is that one psyfledread can reliably kill 2 of them per turn, accounting for their 5++ and the fact that S8 causes ID on them.

Same problem all the mid-sized 'nids have. Psyfledreads make mincemeat out of them.

[CrimsonTurkey]

I've been having decent luck with fielding twisted amounts of hormagaunts. Not many armies can take the bite out of 120 of the little buggers before they hit and enough dice rolled will kill anything.

[Kawauso]

How do you deal with transports?

Enough hormies will eventually kill just about anything on legs, sure, but they're useless against anything with an AV.