40K: Run Little Bugs, Run! Winning with Little Tyranids!
Those smiling Termagaunts and Hormagaunts. Piles and piles of them. Or should I say waves and waves of them…yes I should!
These little fellas, IMO, are the backbone of any successful Tyranid list. How do we get them on the board and how do we make them more effective? There are several ways that we see these little fellas enter the battlefield. Here are a few of them:
– Line ’em up and let ’em rip! I have 150 Hormagaunt models. There are times that I just want to do the “sea of blades” thing and send wave after wave of bugs across the board. I take 4 broods of 15, and then checkerboard another 4 broods behind them. That is a total of 120 models that move an average of 12″ a turn if running. Given decent running rolls, they will be in the enemy deployment zone in turn 3! This set up also gives me a chance to saturate the board and limit my opponent’s movement. A couple of 30 model broods of Termagaunts balances out things nicely, and gives me room for a couple of Tervigons spitting out even more models.
– You Sneaky Git! When I take Flyrants in this scenario, I will give them both Hive Commander. This allows me to outflank two troop choices…a Tervigon and a 30 model brood of Hormagaunts. The gaunts provide a bit of cover for the Tervigon, while she is happily spitting out playmates for the Hormagaunts. If I pop Adrenal Glands on these guys, it is only 210 points for a chance to give my opponent a few new targets on a part of the board he would otherwise not be thinking about. All the time taking the pressure off the waves of other bug buddies approaching from the front.
– Holey Cow! This is a rarely employed tactic for me. This is mostly because in order to give it even a chance of working, you need to place six broods of gribblies in reserve, as well as not have any reserve buffs in play. Bring those two Trygon Primes in Turn 2, close to enemy positions and leave behind holes for their little brothers to pop up out of. With a bit of luck, all of your 6 reserve broods will not arrive Turn 3. Then pop a couple out near enemy lines/objectives on Turn 4 & 5. This is, admittedly, an extremely risky and not exactly point efficient use of models. I have done this once, but I rolled like a God. Both Trygons in Turn 2, 3 reserve Gaunts Turn 3, the rest Turn 4 (only 2 came up through the holes). Whoever play tested this did a piss poor job! There is, of course, no chance this will change to just allow a Tyranid player to hold out units so they can enter through the holes; that would actually make sense.
– Strike From The Sky, Brothers! Now that we have pods again, this is a pretty tasty, albeit a bit costly, way to get those 60 Hormagaunts right in your opponents face. 20 in a Spore, deploying 6″ away from the transport and running another 6″ or so. Damn! That’s 60 hungry gribblies in your opponents face…literally. They have to endure an entire round of shooting and then Overwatch, but they cannot be ignored. The rest of your army can move up in comfort and enjoy the show. Don’t forget those Spores can put a few dozen Deathspitter rounds into your opponent for a couple of rounds as well, to make things a bit more tolerable for their angry passengers.
Lastly, let’s not forget that fun dataslate formation, Endless Swarm. For the cost of a few Warriors, 6 broods of Termagaunts/Hormagaunts (3 each) have the chance to come back on the board with a 4+ die roll. There is always the issue of Synapse, but if you are using the Leviathan detachment, any unit in it can reroll Instinctive Behavior. This doesn’t mitigate the need for a reasonable allocation of Synapse creatures, but it can mitigate the consequences if a brood or two get off the leash, at it were. I will not mention the issue of using cover efficiently. These little fellas either have Fleet (Hormagaunts) or can get it with Adrenal Glands (Termagaunts), making moving through cover not an issue while using it to maximum advantage.
How do you get your Tyranid gribblies on the board?
