ARMYLIST: "Won't you bunch of flankers take a flying leap!"

New Plans for the Tyranids

By Suneokun

As some of you may be aware I have the odd habit of converting the unloved. What I mean by that is that there are some miniatures in many armies which are maligned and underused.

Take 'Bobby' (not his real name) case. Bobby is a beautiful concept fallen on the hard times of an unfriendly codex. He is ... an .... (sob) ... Ogyrn! This presents Bobby with multiple problems for getting on the board.

He's overpriced in points, Although he has 3 wounds ... he's only toughness 4 and this makes him nervous around ordinance templates, missiles and powerfists. His armour is inadequate and he can't shoot straight for toffee. While he has S6 attack with his ripper gun, this paints a big target on his head saying "shoot me I'm hot!". Due to all these things, Bobby is frequently left at home on the shelf and never taken for games. However, many Ogyrns never even leave a Games Workshop store. Sadly Ogyrns cost £12 EACH and require a forklift to carry home.

Many models like RoughRiders, Ogyrns, Raveners, Krootox and the entire Dark Eldar army list never make it out of the store and are doomed to a life of bleak silvered shininess, glinting despairingly at the young men and middle-aged life crisis people who cast cursory glances their way before noting their F or G tag...

Some models deserve it (like Dark Eldar), this is Gerald (voiced by an actor). Gerald is a 2 year old Ethereal.

"Yeah well alright whatever, he's painted me up nice - well I'm a good looking xenos, you know what I mean - but now he wants me to actually fight? Add value on his battlefield? Get stuffed, I say! I got better things to do than be useful.

He can take his reroll leadership and his honour guard and stick it where the greater good don't shine! I got my principles and it don't involve being eaten by no 'nid. I'm off, and woohoo for me - so is all these other cow-faced schmucks!"

Some models are irredeemable - but for others, their day on the battlefield is both deserving and long ordained. So join me in supporting the unwanted, overpriced and undervalued and help me field...

"The Army of the Damned!" (Sorry Sun - that's taken: Ed) ... oh errr... "The Untouchables!" (ditto: Ed). Bother. How about this ... (yep that's ok: Ed).

The UnMentionables - The Maligned Unit Conversion Club

Ok, so mirth aside - I'm on a mission to convert my way to fielding armies that people just don't see. They don't see them not becuase they're entirely useless, but mostly becuase fielding 30 GW legit Roughriders would cost you £210!

First up there's the RoughRiders. Cutting the Price from £7 per model to £2 each, I've fielding 10 cadian roughriders for £20.

Second up is the big money saver - Ogyrns! By converting my Ogyrns using bits, greenstuff and (relatively little) ingenuity, I've reduced the cost of 6 Oggers from a mind numbing £72 to a munchable £18 for the lot!

Fly, Fly, FLY my pretties!!

Thirdly, my next cunning plan is to build some Gargoyles... I am not the first to do this, but at £4 each for what amounts to a winged Termagaunt - I'm blown if I can't save some money. A cunning search through the google-web found me the following, and I find myself inspired:

Hive Fleet Valken

So with plasticard and greenstuff in hand I will bravely go where someone else has gone before and save me some money. I estimate that I can produce up to 16 Gargoyles from just one set of plasticcard and greenstuff (chuck in some wire etc for free). This bring the cost of Gargoyles down to a meagre 68p each.

This is gonna take some converting - but I think 16 gargoyles deepstriking would be magnificent!

So why the quasi-rude title?

An army based around mid-range beasties - gotta fail hasn't it?

Well I have a cunning plan (that isn't really that cunning). Part of winning battles is all about forcing choices on the opponent. You should alway attempt to challenge your adversary with difficult choices ... with Tyranids 'deniance' in range combat isn't really an option as they are sorely out gunned by everyone.

This gives the savvy general pause ... how do I make my opponent's life difficult. The answer is in maximising his difficult choices. One difficult choice I can force is by offering up multiple dangerour opponents in a broad arch. He must choose between targetting the terrifying Hormagaunts, or the numberless Termagaunts or does he risk all on targetting the Tyranid Warriors (strategically a good choice, but in cover and able to go to ground).

The other way is by confounding him with a variety of models. My plan is to force the opponents hand multiple ways. The first group, called "conventional assault" will attack directly at his lines from the deployment zone. They will be made up of Hormagaunts, Carnifi, Zoanthrope and Tyranid Warriors. The Tyranid Warriors will be comprised of two types ... a leaping close assault tyranid warrior with extended carapace (think uber Hormagaunt) and a 'shooting' warrior comprising Devourers and Deathspitters. Thus there are two 'waves' to my Tyranid horde:

Green - Owned
Amber - Near Future Purchase
Red - A long way away

Wave One

• Hormagaunts (Troop 1)
• Ripper Swarms (Troop 4)
  
• Uber-hormagaunt warriors (Elite 1)
  
• Crushing Claws+Tail+Tusked+Spineback Carnifex (Heavy 1)
  

Ripper Swarm 1: Check out the dying Guardsmens last effort

Wave Two

• Tyranid Warriors (Death Spitter/Devourer/Barbed Strangler) (Elite 2)
  
• Zoanthrope (x3) (Heavy 2)
  
• GunFex - Barbed Strangler and Venom Cannon (Heavy 3)

Ripper Swarm 2: As less violent one, the rippers swarm over the Guard barricades

Flanking Wave

• Broodlord and Genestealers (HQ 1)
  
• Termagaunts (Troops 2)
  
• Genestealers (Troops 3)
  

Flying Wave

• Flyrant (Twin linked Devourers, Warp Blast, Scything Talons) (HQ 2)
  
• Flying Warriors (Devourers, Scything Talons) (Elite 3)
  
• 16 Gargoyles (Fast Attack 1)

This unfortunately leaves me no room for my recently painted Lictor (see below) - but he'll play a stellar role until I worked out how many years it'll take me to construct this lot.

My Lictor - fun but fragile: any suggestions?

So here's the plan, The zoanthrope, Gun/Claw fexes and Hormagaunts charge. By turn two they are close, the Hormagaunts have taken a pounding (as have the warriors and the Carnifi), then the termagaunts and genestealers hit the flanks - assaulting. Meanwhile the Flying Element deepstrike towards something valuable and either contests or massacres - depending.


Gargoyles are a useful unit with a fleshborer and 4 attacks on the charge - 2 at S3, 2 at S4. Tyrnaid player out there - let me know what you think?