Disclaimer: Just so we're totally clear here. this list isnt written by, or in any way endorsed by Dave (or, presumably Zombocom or Arkturas, although i did pilfer heavily from his older Draconis lists in the making of this list, so i hope he likes it.)

If you want to make a proper tyranid assault list, this isnt the list to use (for one thing, there is nothing smaller than a carnifex in the list) I suggest you take a look at either the V10, or Leviathan v3 Lists for your regular bug-related needs.

If, however, you want big stompy bugs, roaring like godzilla and stepping on top of tanks and such, hopefully i have the list for you.

Enough Preamble. Onto the good stuff!


Splinter Fleet Rusalka


Little information exists in the Inquisitional Archives of what occurred on the panet Typhon, and what does is largely discredited. Typhon, part of the subsystem of space known as the Barrier Worlds, was a largely water based fortress planet. What land mass existed consisting nearly entirely of heavily reinforced walls and cliff faces (to survive the incredibly harsh winds which had been known to strip a man to his bones in under an hour of exposure.)
The planet itself lacked a significant Imperial population, and while the sea was considered quite fertile, the weather made harvesting its resources to be too risky to attempt at any large scale. As such, the planet was used primarily as a munitorium substation and weapons testing facility.
Late m41y954 the planet simply fell silent. nNo communication for over a sidereal year, until one message, a frantic cry, repeating itself over and over until it as cut short. Rusalka. Rusalka

It took some time before a party could be mustered to investigate, and upon arriving, the planet was found to be deserted. The oceans, once filled with life where now empty. The walls and bunkers, cracked open and eroded away by the winds. Very little sign of human existance was left upon the planet, and no lifeforms of any kind could be detected. the survey team was baffled.

Inquisitional elements began an investigation to no great success. One journal was uncovered, bady damaged, filled with ravings of monsters from the sea. Some of these descriptions were eerily close to descriptions known to the ordo xenos, descriptions of some of the heaviest organisms observed operating in Tyranid Hive Fleets. But these creatures, if they had really existed at all, where nowhere to be found, and more troublingly if the accounts where to be believed, represented the smallest elements of the menagerie of horrors unleashed upon the world.

Lacking any evidence to back up these theories, the Inquisition decreed the world to be a dead planet, and sequestered the journal and its contents away from prying eyes. Surely if the Tyranid menace had indeed spawned such horrors, they would have heard of them upon other battlefields. It was considered a coincidence, nothing more. Some exceptionally potent virus was most likely the cause of the sudden lack of life upon the planet, something that wiped out everything and burnt itself out without trace. The Journal, and the message where discredited as the fevered ravings, the name Rusalka being from local folklore of a kind of vampiric water spirit. A rogue virus was declared the cause, and after scouring the planet for two years with no success, Typhon was sealed away and abandoned.








(Note: Upgrades can only be taken only by warengines (for now, buggerit, even trygons, but i wouldnt bother if i where you)

Notes on new units: the objective here is to provide easily proxiable/convertable variety for the hive fleet, and allow an easily acquirable army from the current 40k range. as such, the new creatures are designed to be based on the following 40k figures:
Malanthrax, Tyrant Guard.
Hierophage, Pyrovore (or Biovore, current model is hideous, but the previous one isnt bad)
Viragon, Ravener.
Hierarch, Carnifex.
Heavy Spore Clusters, Spore Mines (duh)
i've also made spore chimneys (made from tyranid weaponry sticking out of the ground) to provide some cool AA options. i'm a little concerned by their stats, but i think they're a good baseline to work from.

Note on list selection: to limit the "mass of cheap titans" problem (already limited due to the costs of the titans involved at this point, we can have a 3200 point formation, or hilariously, a combined assault of 8900 points!) i've only allowed Hierodules (as a note, i mean oldschool hierodules, not the new ones. if i must, i'll rename them Hierophant and Hydraphant, i'd just prefer not to. i may also, if there seems cause for it, bring in the current scythed and barbed hierodules) to be taken as Packs of 2, or as support formations. this means that the cheapest core formation is 500 points, and thus, the most titans likely to be present in a 3k list is 6. if anything, i suspect i've made things too expensive, but i'd much rather err on the side of caution here. they are fierce, if very limited in scope

Aggressive Expansion seems like a very fluffy rule, if you can confine it to their side of the table you should win. that is how one fights tyranids in the fluff after all, you never actually win, you just slow them down long enough to escape or bring in mass backup. (as a sidenote, this currently includes the spore chimneys, which cant make it to the other side of the table regardless)

my current greatest concern is probably the possibility of Adrenal Glands on Viragons
i am also a little concerned about the balance between the hierophant and malanthrax. but hopefully the roles are sufficiently different that the two are able to find different niches (honestly, i suspect that the malanthrax will be a poor choice given its incredibly limited engagement range. once its used its adrenal glands (i assume everyone will be taking these on all their CC titans) it's pretty easy to stay outside of 20cm and just ignore its rampaging
seperate note: i've allowed multiple Hierarchs, because i dont really like 0-1 restrictions. I dont imagine it will be a popular choice in normal sized games, but it is worth noting that it does allow multiple supreme commanders in the army. for now, i'm happy to simply allow it and see if it becomes a problem (as 1+ activations, they're not often going to need to use the reroll, let alone twice (that being said, i did yesterday, it probably would have saved me the game, when my 1375 point biotitan failed to assault the mass of marines nearby, and was subsequently killed)

overall, the list seems to function pretty much as intended, though i suspect that imperial guard and eldar armies will butcher it, while ork and other nid armies may struggle to find a purchase against it (except the gargant bigmob list, which will probably tear each other apart in a glorious kaiju battle leaving a megagargant standing victorious over the ruins fof tokyo)

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

played another game with these, it was a fairly thorough thrashing (one biotitan was reduced to half DC and had lost regeneration, another had taken 1/4 of its DC, while my opponent had half a broken reaver 4 land speeders and a whirlwind formation left) but in part it felt like the list matchup, and in part, due to very lopsided rolling (my ability to pass 4+RA is becoming rather disturbing actually) while not especially the list itself.
that being said, i'm not sure how many marine builds would be able to deal with many of the builds in this list, especially when the dice turn against them.

thoughts on the list so far:

hierarch - good but so expensive that it may never fit well into the list. in this game it did virtually nothing all game (it massacred a whirlwind formation when it caught it on turn 4, and shot a single landspeeder down in turn 3, but was utterly ignored by the enemy who was more threatened by the closer threats)
i will try out a shooting loadout next time (pity, the CC loadout really is absurdly destructive) and see if it fares better. but on a point for point comparison, two malanthraxes would do better than the CC loadout i've been using

viragon - with adrenal glands, its quite capable of hitting a unit on the turn it shows up, but i'm not sure its worth waiting till turn 3 to appear when the points could be spent on more active units. it didnt need to use its adrenal glands this game (actually, half the titans didnt) but that might be because of how shattered the marine force was by the time it showed up. the 50 point insurance of a one off 60cm charge still concerns me, but i'm not actually sure its worth the points

hierophage - still not at all convinced this fellow is worth taking very much. blitz-guarding is a risky proposition in this list due to aggressive expansion. that being said, this fellow beat the snot out of some terminators over two engagements, and ended the game on full health, though i blame luck more than quality there.

heavy spore clusters - pretty much ideally situated in the points/support section. they where annoying to my opponent, and provide some netting, but otherwise do basically nothing in the game.

malanthraxes - these guys where the stars of the show without a doubt. due to a mistakenly brazen hunter, one of these guys slaughtered a devastator formation and a land raider formation in turn 2, slaughtered a tactical formation (with the supreme commander) in turn 3. the other put some hurt on a reaver (and broke it for the rest of the game) in turn 3, and killed a devastator formation in turn 4 without needing to use its adrenal glands. they both also absorbed most of the (terribly aimed) marine firepower for the game, and while one came to within 2 points of dying, the other took minimal damage. they are truly monsterous in close combat, but they're really terrible outside of it, and at 650 a pop, they're pretty hefty investments to use on one good attack (without adrenal glands they're ff6+ units with no guns and a speed of 20cm)
gonna try them with the gun loadout to see if their firepower is more useful than their lost TK hits (i suspect not, as they marched and assaulted only anyway, to do otherwise is a waste of their amazing CC ability)
i might drop their CC stat up to 3+ cause they really do massacre anything they can get their hands on as it is...


overall: as before, the list is very very good at doing what it does best, which is rush the table and kill anything it can get into close combat with. i'm going to see how it handles shooting, and i'd like to see how it goes against an IG or eldar army before i make any changes (being such a specialised force it is very scissors-paper-rock like, i expect an eldar skimmer army, or an IG tank army, will decimate it, but i'm not sure how a marine army can really do much more than try for a draw and VP win against it. but i suppose thats true of a similarly loadouted AMTL, OGBM or ETC list. i am pretty much 100% certain that they would kill my tanith list with barely a whimper of opposition...)

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

so the aggressive expansion rule only comes into play if the tyrannid player hasn't won on objectives?

Looks like an interesting list, although it has so much new stuff in it (units, weapons, special rules and upgrades) that it may prove hard to test and balance all the different permutations. Would it be worth putting at least the upgrades on the back burner until the other stuff has been tested first?

Interesting list

the biggest complaint about titan lists seems to be that it's too easy for a titan player to just start playing for a draw if they're not going to win on objectives, so Aggressive Expansion is the "its harder for them to win on VP" rule

that being said, it also impacts on list design (how many artillery titans are you going to buy if they give half their VP to the enemy automatically?) and it makes game-decisions with units more interesting. it also means that its harder to defend your objectives because anything you leave to protect your own objectives is going to hurt you if you dont win outright, making attempting those win conditions a more risky proposition (so two of the win conditions are pretty much out right away, especially since as a titan list you're going to be running low on activations)
it also has an added effect that if you can pin down or atleast tie up the biotitans, that is quite probably enough to win you the game, which is exactly how one "wins" against tyranids in the fluff


so far i've been focused in playtesting on a few units and upgrades. most of the weapon options are pretty basic (and most of them arent very good) so i dont think they'll require lots of balancing. likewise, i've not bothered with half the upgrades, and the other half seem like pretty much required ones to me (the adrenal glands are a must on any melee titan, and since they're all really melee titans. even the artillery titan is better at melee than at shooting) and the synapse one is pretty tempting to me for the forwards facing guys.
as yet, i've not even touched the acid blood one or the ignore first crit, and i've had little use from the AA and increased invun saves. and i think i've never had thick rear armour come up

that being said, i've been taking the new units which have less options, so there's probably more to do with the hierophants in particular. i'm also increasingly of the opinion that the hierarch isnt worth its points compared to just taking two malanthraxes (although thats probably because i stuffed upgrades up the wazoo into it and last game my opponent just ran away from it and it did virtually nothing all game) but i'm not sure if thats a "malanthraxes are too good" or a "hierarchs are not a viable choice" thing. malanthraxes are hard to get a good read on, because they're about as "all or nothing" as you can get in the game. they will either achieve combat, and destroy the enemy, or they wont, and will do nothing. when they achieve their goal, they seem overpowered, when they do not, they seem overpriced...

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

this is intresting to me- i\'ll take a good look later.

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Chaos Titan List dev

Experiments with casting

MiniMadaggeddon (mass plog) & ToEG Chaos Engines