Back from NOVA: What a rush!

Well - lots of buildup over the past year; a lot of waffling on lists, maybe a little bit of Tyranid bravado, but the reality was a thousand times better than I could have wished.  I went 4-4 overall, 3-1 on day 1 in the random brackets, I started on table 2 and ended up the rest of the day getting all my games broadcast live, wearing a microphone, but only 2 were recorded due to technical issues.  So much for remaining silent and only being thought an idiot though - I'd say I removed all doubt!  Day 2 was less forgiving, going 1-3 in Tier 2 (just behind the championship bracket) with two of the three coming down to the last round in close matches.  I only had one loss that I would chalk up as being close to a blowout, but it came against Sean Nayden, in one of my favorite matches of the tournament.  I never dreamed I would do so well; the overall rankings should be interesting to see.  More after the jump..

For the rowers keep on rowing...

Yes the danger must be growing

For the rowers keep on rowing

And they're certainly not showing 

any signs that they are slowing.. 

Yes indeed - the danger of arriving at NOVA with a partially unpainted army looms larger every day.  Getting down to the wire, with only the eyes/teeth, dip, and basing steps to go on most of the candidate models for the big show.  Except for that big stack of 50 gants.  Bleh =) At least the stealers and gargoyle mobs are close; just need to get my Space Hulk brood lord done and I can move to the next layers.  I won't be winning any painting competitions, but I definitely don't want to show up with an unpainted army and get that big fat Zero painting score.

I did manage to finish the display board - so that's one monkey off the back.

Playtesting continues, and narrowing it down to a 1-brood of biovores variant of list 3 and a list that looks an awful lot like Hulk's list here:


Prime w/BS, LW x2
HGx3 x2
Zoanx3
10x tox stealers + broodlord w/scytals (10 models)
10x tox stealers + broodlord (10 models)
Tervigon w/AG, TS, Cat, Onslaught
Tervigon w/AG, TS, Cat
10x gants
10x gants
2x Carnifex w/dual TL Devs/Brainleech, Frag spines

Tuning the NOVA list

Painting like a madman this weekend - so much to do, and made harder because I haven't settled on my final list yet.  As I work through several different options, these are the ones I keep coming back to.  One of my private conclusions, and interestingly borne out as a result of Lyracian's work with Nikephoros' excellent 40k-Metrics series, was that Tyranids have trouble shooting infantry; we can kill vehicles pretty decently, but getting to the tasty morsels inside is often the hard part. In batrep after batrep, everything comes down to getting into close combat - and the larger Tyranid metagame indicates the way to do this is with great big broods of stealers, backed up by tervigon-powered FNP.  So the challenge has been to try and put together a list that can hurt infantry long before getting into cc, can withstand firepower and continue to take down 2-4 vehicles per turn through at least turn 3, has redundant FNP, and has 5 or 6 troops slots to deal with the NOVA conditions.  These are the variants I've put together and had varying dice-dependent success with in my at-home playtesting vs. various lists.  The fact that my losses are generally due to dice and not the inability to be effective is encouraging.

Without further ado - what are your thoughts?

List #1:

Total Roster Cost: 1999
HQ:  1 Tyranid Prime, Lash Whip & Bonesword
Heavy Support:  2 Carnifex Brood, TL Devourer w/Brainleech Worms + Frag Spines
Heavy Support:  2 Biovore Brood
Heavy Support:  2 Biovore Brood
Elite:  3 Zoanthrope Brood
Elite:  3 Hive Guard Brood,
Elite:  3 Hive Guard Brood
Troops: Tervigon, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs + Catalyst
Troops: Tervigon, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs + Catalyst
Troops: 10 Termagant Brood
Troops: 10 Termagant Brood
Troops: 12 Genestealer Brood, Toxin Sacs + Broodlord (+ Scything Talons)
Troops: 8 Genestealer Brood

List #2:

Total Roster Cost: 1999
HQ:  1 The Parasite of Mortrex
Fast Attack: 18 Gargoyle Brood, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs
HQ:  1 Tyranid Prime,  Lash Whip & Bonesword + Regeneration
Heavy Support:  2 Carnifex Brood, TL Devourer w/Brainleech Worms x2 + Frag Spines
Elite:  2 Hive Guard Brood
Elite:  2 Hive Guard Brood
Elite:  3 Zoanthrope Brood
Troops: 1 Tervigon, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs  + Catalyst
Troops: 10 Termagant Brood
Troops: 11 Genestealer Brood, Toxin Sacs + Broodlord (+ Scything Talons)
Troops: 10 Genestealer Brood, Toxin Sacs
Troops: 10 Genestealer Brood, Toxin Sacs

List #3:

Total Roster Cost: 1996
HQ:  1 The Parasite of Mortrex, 160 pts
Fast Attack:  16 Gargoyle Brood, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs
Elite:  3 Zoanthrope Brood
Elite:  3 Hive Guard Brood,
Elite:  3 Hive Guard Brood
Heavy Support:  2 Biovore Brood
Heavy Support:  2 Biovore Brood
Troops: 1 Tervigon, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs  + Catalyst
Troops: 1 Tervigon, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs  + Catalyst
Troops: 10 Termagant Brood
Troops: 10 Termagant Brood
Troops: 15 Genestealer Brood, Toxin Sacs + Broodlord (+ Scything Talons)
Troops: 15 Genestealer Brood, Toxin Sacs

List #4:

Total Roster Cost: 2000
HQ:  1 Tyranid Prime,  Lash Whip & Bonesword + Regeneration
Heavy Support:  2 Carnifex Brood, TL Devourer w/Brainleech Worms x2 + Frag Spines
Heavy Support:  3 Biovore Brood
Elite:  3 Zoanthrope Brood
Elite:  3 Hive Guard Brood,
Elite:  3 Hive Guard Brood
Troops: 1 Tervigon, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs  + Catalyst + Onslaught
Troops: 1 Tervigon, Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs  + Catalyst + Onslaught
Troops: 10 Termagant Brood
Troops: 10 Termagant Brood + Devourer
Troops: 16 Genestealer Brood, Toxin Sacs + Broodlord (+ Scything Talons)

Hive Fleet Snowbank emerges!

Slowly...  coming down to the wire for NOVA and still finalizing both list and trying to get paint onto figures.  The builds and basing are pretty much done, spent this weekend getting the display board to the 95% stage and basing/priming everything else. It's gonna be close getting the paint on; thank the Emperor for a painting class I took back at Central Command in San Antonio a few years back on how to use blended acrylics to save time on horde armies.  The guy instructing it would churn out a better than just table-ready 100-model IG army every couple months.  Been practicing it for a while and starting to get moving on my 'nids.  Wish me luck - the clock is definitely ticking.  I'll try to post pics of the finished models as I get there, but in the meantime, I wanted to share the WIP display board.

First stages - just finished painting, adding sand, and gluing down the wood bark rock embankments:

Glued and spackled the Heroscape terrain down =)

And then the nearly finished:

Question though - any thoughts on what I should use to cover the edges?  Thinking some very thin ply board of some sort... hating the gaps and pink foam showing, but don't want to add a ton of weight if I can help it.  Seen the big picture frame route, but that looks like it adds a *lot* of weight.  Spackle alone isn't gonna cut it.  Maybe poster board or foamcore?

The other cool thing I saw this weekend was a dragonfly that I'd love to copy for a hive fleet color scheme - no idea what it's called but it evokes a WWI fighter:

Hope to see some of you at NOVA.  I'll be on the volunteer staff again - and a few kind words of thanks to MVB on that count.  He was kind enough to put up a list thanking the staff from last year here - nice touch and very much appreciated.  Took my dogs a couple weeks to stop barking after last year - sooo much walking bringing the score sheets back and forth, but it was an honor just to be a part of it and to contribute to something truly great.  Can't wait till this year.