In response to a challenge set by 'Maunderings of a 40k Gamer', I had a little inspiration and put together a picture for his blog ... subject to the rules of the competition, I cannot 'promote' my drawing ... but I'm very pleased with the results.
In any case ... we had an interesting game of 40k Apocalypse at the weekend, with two Tyranid Player fielding...
Unusally for me, I played games master... This meant that I could have an overview of the game, enjoy the highlights and bring you an interesting blog battle report...
Which is to follow when I have the time! However, I did note the following performance of Tyranids in APOC:
Toxin Sacs are king.
Hormagaunts and Gargoyles flying about with toxin sacs and adrenal glands can offer real pain to the opposition. Toxin sacs grant a 4+ to wound, or a rerollable 4+ to wound if the toughness is equal or lower. This makes this an invaluable 1pt bonus for termagaunts and gargoyles. In one encounter a C'tan lord could chew his way through multiple termagaunts AND kill the Alpha Warrior in command. a meagre 30pts extra and he would have been facing 15 wounds on his 3+ invulnerable.
Alphas are no match for a combat monster
The lack of an invulnerable save and the Independent Character stat line makes Alpha far too vulnerable to a relic blade or powerfist. Rending just isn't a match ... its a shame you can't combine the bonesword and the Toxin sacs ... reroll to wound power weapon?!?
Nid MC's are tough.
The combination of 6 wounds and regenerate are a must! Forget the Trygon Alpha, just buy the regen and start eating people. Three Trygons soaked up a mountain of firepower from an entire 2500pt Space Marine army for two turns. The 3+ save ain't perfect, as bolters and flamers are in on the fight...
Parasite is great against T3, not great against bikers.
The parasite and Gargoyles went into combat against some bikers and actually did pretty well. The blinding poison and toxin sacs worked well in combination, wiping out the T5 squad ... however the 'Smurf captain on a bike with a relic blade' wasn't the best target. The Parasite got minced first, and then the gargoyles got done. However in the absense of any guardsmen or tau warriors to mate with - these guys worked well.
Zoanthropes struggle in APOC
With so many dakka dakka weapons floating about the Zoanthropes couldn't really stand up to the rapid fire weaponry. It definitely the way to kill them, as T4 3++ isn't that hot. In a similar fashion, the doom of malantai attracted far too much heat and blistered like an overcooked boil!
Genestealer are (still) meh?
A 14 pt model that really needs toxin sacs (another 3 pts) ... so that's 17 points... compared to an 'uber' hormagaunt at 10pts, who gets 'guaranteed' faster fleet, adrenal glands and toxin sacs... Oh and a reroll to hit of all 1's.
30 hormagaunts deliver 39.38 wounds on the I6 charge at T4. That's 13 Space Marines or 26 Guardsmen... however that's 300pts of hormagaunts...
30 Gargoyles give you 10.83 wounds against space marines and 23.32 against guard at a meagre 240pts. This means that Gargoyles actually give you a better 'bang for the buck' than hormagaunts... And outnumber genestealers by at least 2:1 - however you can only take 90...
