Tyranid Library part 4

More Tyranid art to be found here. One of the big draws to the Tyranid codex for me was what appeared to be a lot of flexibility while still retaining competitive potential. Even so, there is a prevailing mindset that a 2 tervigon + 2x 10 gant swarm in the troops FOC is an inescapable core for a tournament-competitive list. Finding The Back 40k has been an excellent couple of hours reading, with solid posts and thought-provoking commentary.

The first standout post that I read through a few times was Thinking outside of T6: Troops - a solid exploration of utilizing a 6-model unit of warriors to replace the 2nd tervigon. Most useful here is the description of the tactics and mindset needed to utilize a warrior swarm effectively - the when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em. Better yet is a decent tournament showing using this list technique, covered in very, very good detail here: Tyranids at the Tourney: Part 1.

Sometimes it isn't the posts that make a post interesting, but the comments and discussion that go with it. A list sent to Sandwyrm (by Stelek?) engenders some very interesting discussion in this post: List Question: Tyranids. Buried in there is a link to mathhammer's (aka shaten on 40kOnline) Tyranid MC strength vs armor percentages, and excellent soliloquy that eloquently sums up the current meta issues facing nid players:

In the Tyranid world and with all the fast food running around, the ability to project force has become even more of an issue. While the limit of only 6 troop slots and the need to control upwards of 4 objectives by the end of a game has caused the adoption of Tervigons. The return of even faster vehicles and more enemies that are better in close combat than Tyranids is forcing a greater reliance on ranged force projection to control the opponents ability to move.

This is especially true with the new DE list. Which of course led to a batrep post; Dark Eldar vs Tyranids. Predictable Ouch. So far the intarwebz hype seems to be that DE is pretty much paper to the Tyranid rock. After reading these batreps and getting a look at the DE dex, I'm wondering if reserves lists won't make a bit of a comeback in the meta. Smartly played reserves can play hell with glass cannons.