Hello everyone! Time for an update!
Have not been able to play regular games outside tournaments the last 1,5 year, but was able to get a game in 10 days ago with this list. Was hoping to play some more in the spring, but we'll have to see how things develop with corona and all the measures already and yet to be taken.
I have thought about the list every now and then and have some ideas to continue to develop it. In the game I had I tested a big overhaul of the Hive Mind special rule. I'm not a big fan of the swarming rule and would like to see a list without that. My view on spawning has changed over the years of playing onachus. I used to realy like it, but have since started to not like it. It adds unnecessary complexity to the end phase for very little thematic gain.
I realize that it's probably not possible to do that under the netEA process. Interest to playtest the netEA version has seemed low anyway so I'd rather do something I'm myself more keen on. I will therefore add one updated list to the first post, still with the netEA/onachus rules, but I have also added another one to this specific post to show an alternative list that I'd like to have your feedback on.
I tried this version in the battle. A battle report can be found
here What I have done is basically removing spawning.
I did keep most of the synapse rule and the synapse point system in the list. For each point of synapse remaining one brood creature is ignored for purposes of combat resolution. In effect the grot rule. Kind of a light version of the epic uk/france brood creature rules which seem a bit to much to me. I tried it earlier for the onachus list but felt it was to powerful with swarming in mind.
I thought it worked well in this game and was appropriate in a list without spawning and not over the top. It's a more measured boost to the lesser creatures in comparsion to the epic-UK version. Especially hormagaunts should be boosted by this since they become less of a liability to send into CC.
I upped the number of brood creatures in the swarms to compensate and also lowered the price of extra units. I think the cost for synapse creatures can be lowered without spawning so changed warriors to 35 pts. Perhaps to cheap?
I playtested a broodmother rule to tervigons and the dominatrix as a little nod to swarming, but mainly because the tervigon is so cool and I want it represented. It felt appropriate for the dominatrix as well being the big mama of the list. It's smaller in scope than swarming and easier to handle as there's likely only one or a few of these units in any list and more straight forward than onachus.
I have made a few tweaks here and there. Changes since last version have been marked with blue. Some suggestions that could be playtested are marked in red, but not to be considered decided changes.
- skyslahsers are gone per previous discussion
- I made som small boosts to both versions of carnifexes. I played them with the old stats in the game above. I feel like this for the tyranids really iconic unit is sometimes a bit lack-luster with both onachus and uk stats. I have also added a suggestion in red that could be tried based on a 40k special rule, maybe it's a bit to much though. I know unit specific rules are frowned upon, but it could be tried if you still find them to be lacking. certainly not married to it.
- Some price changes here and there. I wanted to give a bit of a discount to larger swarms without reintroducing the different swarm sizes. Therefore there's a discount to + 3 units for the brute and sky swarms. A maxed brute swarm comes in a 375 pts, which is +25 pts compared to for instance the wraithlord formation. I believe it's about right.
- I think the new synpase is less strong than swarming so the points for synapse creatures have gone down a bit, except for the the tervigon and dominatrix which got the new broodmother.
- The hive tyrant got an overhaul with a weapon change more fitting the newer iterations. Also several tyranid units like the Hive Tyrant and the Tervigon have become capable psykers in 40k lore and rules. I wanted that represented and added a 15cm attack to them
- The harpys had a little to much fire output I felt in the game I played, so I have taken your point into consideration Atension. I changed the cannons from 2x to twin linked instead. Lowered the formation cost slightly with that in mind
thanks for your time. I hope you enjoy the report.
With the game I'm at one win and two losses with the list.
Edit: spotted a mistake. The lowered cost for the sky swarm wasn't included. Uploaded a new file called 0.7.1