My 6th Edition Painting list

Nick speaking,

Although I don't have a rigid painting list, I do like to have a choice of a few units that I know I will paint next. It's always good to have some sort of long term goal for what needs to be painted, but sometimes you just have to paint whatever excites you at the time. When 6th Edition hit, I had just started painting up my three Forge World Wave Serpents. I have already painted my Dire Avengers for one Serpent, and my Fire Dragons and Howling Banshees were top of my painting list for the other two.

Things are a bit different now though. 6th Edition now makes it impossible for the Banshees to assault from a transport, and that really puts a dampener on things for them. I am still going to paint the girls up at some point, but their priority has just dropped down my list. Luckily, the Fire Dragons are still epic in 6th, so they aren't going anywhere, which is great, as I have been looking forward to painting those guys for a while.

So what has moved up to the top of my painting list? Well, sticking with Eldar for a bit, I only have one painted Farseer at the moment, so I will be looking at getting my other Seer painted, four Farseers at 2k sounds good to me! Other Eldar moving up the ranks are the Avatar, Shining Spears and the once voted worse Eldar unit in a poll I did, the Swooping Hawks. It's really great to be able to get excited about painting some units that I never thought I would get around to painting anytime soon...

As for my Tyranids, apart from needing to convert and paint my Tyranid Prime. I am now really looking forward to finally having a reason to paint my old Winged Hive Tyrant and Ravener models. I am still not convinced that the Flyrant is the best HQ choice, but it's good enough to warrant a paint job. I have wanted to paint her up for quite sometime now, so that's brilliant, but I will have to take off the dual Talons and replace them with dual Devourers first though, as that seems like a much better option these days! So what units has 6th Edition inspired you to paint from your army case?

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How will 6th Edition effect my Tyranids?

Nick speaking,

Time for me take a closer look at my Tyranids for 6th Edition, and as in my previous posts in this mini series, this is not going to be an in depth step by step guide of Nids. It's more about what I am thinking and have learnt so far regarding 6th Edition and what the starting point is going to be for my Stinger Hive Fleet army...

I had a lot of fun with my Nids when their new Codex hit in 5th Edition, no need to go on about all the negatives it got as a 'competitive' Codex. Personally, I found the book great fun, with some funky units to choose from. I don't think I have had one game with the bugs where I haven't enjoyed myself, unlike some of my other armies! Getting your bugs killed is actually quite rewarding, as long as you have the mind set for it, and a plan to go with it of course.

I think out of all my armies though, Tyranids are going to need the biggest changes to my lists. Most of my list concepts and ideas are just not going to work anymore, due to the rule changes. No assault from the reserve or the flank! No reserving everything and then there is Overwatch! Most of these things can be overcome, but it is unlikely that I will be able to throw any of my previous lists down on the table with any success. So where to start with a new list?

Well, for me and for most of you probably, Nids are all about lots and lots of bugs swarming towards you. In the past, this hasn't generally been the case for Nids, but I am starting to think that things are going to change now. The new Fearless rule for when you are in Synapse range is the single most best rule that Nids now have, no fearless wounds from losing an assault is going to have a huge impact on our army and how it works.

I still think there is room for some of the other bigger bugs of course, as you always need a good mix of things, but I seriously think that lots of big groups of Hormagaunts and Termagants as Troops choices in Synapse range, are going to be a force to be reckoned with and a good place to start our army builds. Twenty plus Gants in the assault will hold up a group of Marines for a good few turns, with plenty more Gants spare to back them up.

As for Genstealers, the Genestealer shock is now on themselves as they can no longer assault from the flank. Most people have written them off it seems, but I'm not going to stick them at the bottom of my case just yet. Small groups infiltrating could be a nice distraction and there is also the Broodlord and his Psychic Power abilities to take into consideration. Worse case scenario, they will just have to morph into Ymgarl Stealers.

Most of the bigger bugs on offer will be very similar to what they were before with the exception of the Winged stuff, I'm very happy to see the Winged Hive Tyrant get a buff, as I have been wanting to paint mine up for ages. I've had my Tyrant a very long time and I originally modelled it up with dual Talons. I think I will magnetise its arms before I paint it to give me some gun options. I am also very pleased to see Ravener get a bit better with the new Beast rules, ok they still suffer from instant death when hit by strength eight missiles or better, but they are definitely better than they were before.

Overall, I am now actually really looking forward to developing my army for 6th. I say now, because it's fair to say that I was a bit disappointed with how 6th had treated Nids at first. In reality though, I think 6th has just made the army more realistic. Tyranids will have to be played like I have always wanted to play them, as many bugs as possible with a few big ones thrown in for good measure. Oh lets face it....just like Starship Troopers!

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Beating Overwatch!

Nick speaking,

In the battle report I just posted up, where I was playing my Nids against Blood Angels. I ended up in a position where I had some Genestealers and a group of Hormagaunts ready to assault some Sternguard. It was at this point in the game that an article I recently read over on Embolden40k popped into my head. His article was about Beating Overwatch as a combat army, and funnily enough he was using Genestealers and Gaunts as an example in it, almost in the same position as I was in.

The point of his tactica was to be prepared for Overwatch, and it was one of those great articles that stuck in my mind and made me think about what I was doing, a big thank you to Rob for sharing his 40k skills with us and bringing his thoughts into my own. So here I am, ready to do my assault and take advantage of what I had learnt. In Rob's example, he was using the Gaunts as the fodder unit to assault first and take the Overwatch hits, with a big brood of Genestealers making their assault move after Overwatch had been resolved on the Gaunts. The Genestealers get to assault the unit without taking any shots, as a unit can only use Overwatch once per unit

My scenario was slightly different as I only had four Genestealers left in my Brood after taking casualties from shooting and my Gaunts were twenty strong with their Scything Talons. I figured the Gaunts would do more damage in their numbers than the Genestealers, so I used the Stealers as the Overwatch Fodder group. In the end I only lost two Stealers from Overwatch and it didn't really make a difference, but if the Sternguard had got lucky and rolled a bucket load of sixes, the best he could have done was kill my almost dead group of Stealers, keeping my Hormagaunt Brood at full strength.

It's fair to say that in reality, Overwatch is nowhere near as scary as it first seemed when 6th Edition hit. I actually like the rule, as it's always nice to have something to do other than remove models in your opponents turn and brings a bit of realism to the game. Of course, if we are able to reduce Overwatch going into our key units, all the better, especially for Nids!

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Tyranid 6th Edition Battle Report

Nick speaking,

It seems like most of my previous army lists for my Tyranids are going to have major problems with the new 6th Edition rules. We all know the reasons for this, no assaulting from Reserve or the Flank, no full reserves, Overwatch etc. I will have a closer look at these sort of things in a future post where I will talk about how 6th Edition is going to effect my Tyranids. For now though, and for my first game with the Nids against Blood Angels, I wanted to have a bit of fun and try out some of the new rules. My first list is designed to get as many little bugs down as I could, although I did also want to have a go with some Ravener as well. I did originally have two units of Genestealers in the list, but I swapped them out for DoM in a pod at the last minute to bring a little extra distraction to the army...

HQ

1 x Tyranid Prime/Lash-Whip and Bone Sword/Regeneration (105)

TROOPS

20 x Hormagaunts (120)

20 x Hormagaunts (120)

20 x Termagants (100)

20 x Termagants (100)

10 x Genestealers (140)

ELITE

Doom of Malan'tai (90)
Mycetic Spore/Cluster Spines (50)

FAST ATTACK

5 x Ravener/Scything Talons/Rending Claws (175)

1000 Points: Model Count 98


The Blood Angels list was something like this:

1x Dante
10x Jump Troops/2x Plasma Gun/Powerfist
10x Jump Troops/2x Plasma Gun/Powerfist
10x Sternguard/Drop Pod

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