Warhammer 40K: Dumb Things You Can Do – The Tyranid Turducken

The Tyranid index is stuffed with things you can do, but this particular turducken bug stuffing is pretty dumb.

As everyone gets a chance to play and explore Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition we’ve been learning a lot of new things. I’ve been covering some of the silly and crazy rule tricks you can pull off in 10th Edition. Some of these are really good. Others are kind of dumb. Today lets take a look at a really silly thing you can pull off with the Tyranid Index. I’m calling this the Tyranid Turducken.

The Outer Layer

Lets start off with the key ingredient of our Tyranid Turducken. This is going to be the Tyrannocyte. It’s effectively the Nid version of the Marine Drop Pod. It’s a dedicated transport that can Deep Strike with passengers on turn 1. However unlike the Drop Pod, the Tyrannocyte isn’t useless once it’s on the table. It’s got OK attacks in combat and shooting and can wander around tying stuff up. It’s also not that pricy, making it a useful unit for the Nids. However it’s also got some funny things you can do with it.

The BunkerPod

So lets turn out attention to the next part of this funny concoction. We’ve got the Sporocyst. If the Tyrannocyte is a Nid Drop Pod, then the Sporocyst is the Nid Hammerfall Bunker. It’s an immobile unit that sits around and can create Mucolid Spores. Like the Hammerfall Bunker it aslo has a gun that shoots in the enemy turn. It can five up to four times per enemy phase when an enemy units gets set up, or ends a move. Now one of the big issues with this is that it’s weapons have limited range and since it can’t move it’s fairly easy to hide from it. 

Well, we have a fix for that! See one of the things that a Tyrannocyte can carry is “1 Tyranid Monster with 12 or less wounds.” And if you look at it you will see that the Sporocyst is in fact a Tyranid monster with only 10 wounds! So this means you can cram on of these bunkers into your drop spore. Take three of them and you can get some great turn one placements. Either covering the enemy deployment zone or dropping on objectives and forcing the enemy to take a ton of free shots form you. It’s a bit funny and a bit annoying!

Now On To The Turducken!

So how does this lead us to a Turducken? Well, as we said the Tyrannocyte can carry a Monster with 12 or less wounds. And… the Tyrannocyte itself happens to be a Monster with 12 or less wounds! That means you can put a Tyrannocyte INSIDE another one. And umm, then you can put those two inside a third… and so on. Since it is a dedicated transport you can take six of these beasts and stuff them inside others until you effectively have one Tyrannocyte filled with 5 others. It is of course not strictly carrying 5 as that would exceed it’s transport capacity. It is really carrying one, which is in turn carrying one,  etc -Russian nesting doll style. It’s kind of crazy.

Now you do have to take at least one non-Tyrannocyte unit in this combo. That is because they are dedicated transports and have to have a unit in them. If the… first? Inner? Most central? Tyrannocyte does not have an embarked unit it will be counted as destroyed at the start of the game. This would make the next Tyrannocyte in line not have an embarked unit and it would be destroyed. And so on until all were gone. So you need one unit. It could be a cheap infantry unit. Or it could be our old friend the Sporocyst. This would give you seven monsters all nestled inside each other in a big pulsing flesh sack.

Why, Oh Why, Would You Do This?

I don’t know?! Because it’s funny? Look, I don’t think this combo is like really good or anything. When they deep strike you have to deploy all the units, one out of each other in a big chain and each has to be outside of 9 inches from enemy models. Because it has such a massive foot print it’s kind of hard to set up this Tyranid Turducken. But it is a ton of random monsters doing something silly. I guess if you wanted a bunch of Tyrannocytes and didn’t want to pay for units to ride in all of them this is a workaround? You could also take three Sporocysts and put each one inside “two” Tyrannocytes to combine both tricks. But lets be real, if you ever pulled this it would be for the sheer craziness of making your own Tyranid Turducken and nothing else.

Bon Appetit – NOM NOM NOM!

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.