Right, this is it, my final battle force at the moment:
HQ
'The Scourge of the Sons' Tyranid Prime w/ deathspitter, lash whip and bonesword.
TROOPS
'The Punchline' Tervigon w/ Catalyst and Adrenal Glands
10 Termagants
11 Hormogaunts
6 Genestealers
5 Genestealers
6 Tyrand Warriors, w/ deathspitters and one with barbed strangler
Elite
3 Hive Guard
2 Hive Guard
3 Zoanthropes
Fast Attack
6 Shrike, 5 w/ lash whips and bonesword and 1 w/ venom cannon
Rationale
Disclaimer: A lot of the ideas for this list, in particular the better ideas, come from Malcolm as we discussed 40k, after our second weekend bash, over a pint in Bacchus Bar in Birmingham (a bar I highly recommend given that there are only a handful of even half decent bars in Birmingham in the first place.)
The Tyranid Prime: HQ slots for Tyranids aren't great. I own a Hive Tyrant, but he's crap (so crap, I call him 'The Joke'.) Heavily overpriced, it's just not worth it. The Swarmlord strikes me as similarly problematic. Tervigons are worth every penny, but I haven't opted for a two Tervigon list (mainly, to be honest, for monetary and storage reasons at the moment.) The Parasite will feature in a fast attack list, but not this one. That leaves the Prime.
And he isn't a bad choice. Sticking him with the Warriors boosts them, and as I have a few of them I get an increasingly larger benefit; arming him with the lash whip means that when an assault rolls around I can reduce two models or so down to I1 without having to pay the extortinate cost of arming every model with lash whips; most importantly, the bastard can absorb the las-cannon shots that would otherwise lay waste to a Tyranid Warrior. (Downside, S10 still instant kills which, one day, I'll forget as I stick the S10 wound on him and watch him shrivel dead in an instant.) I did have him loaded up with Regeneration for just this reason, but I see now that this was a mistake - if someone wants to waste your warrior squad they'll do it within a turn of Dark/Brightlance fire / Lascannon fire and I'll never have a chance to even pick up the die and have the measly one in 6 chance of regaining the wound.
Tyranid Warriors: Fragile, as I am discovering to my chargrin. Nonetheless, 6 of them packs a devastating 18 shots a round, and in combination with the Prime they can actually shoot straight. I'm still waiting to see them realise their full potential as they keep getting lodged in terrain or on the wrong side of the board. But they are, supposedly, the backbone of the army. (That was the intent when the army list was first designed.) I can see that potential still when I start using them right. They have made the list into a more shooty list, which has really helped (it was demoralising to just sit and watch swathes of Nids get mown down in turns 1-3; at least now I can do something.) I've swapped out the venom cannon for the barbed strangler because (i) I decided to give the Shrike a cannon (see below); (ii) having some variation is always a good thing; (iii) that barbed strangler, firing at BS 4, is going to be a very effective anti-horde weapon. I hope. I'm yet to see this change in action, except for one game against the Eldar.
Termagants: I've bought them solely to get me a Tervigon as a troop choice. Well, almost. 50 points is cheap for a troop unit that can be used solely to claim an objective. Reserve them every game. In an objective game they can come on from reserve and claim an objective on my side of the board. In a kill points game they're too fragile so need to come on in a place where they can just hide. Although the option is always open for them to run on and assault a unit that has somehow strayed on my side of the board and I need to tie up - but I don't see that happening too often. (I tried that with the Deathwing I was fighting, and it was utterly ineffective.)
Tervigon: If you need to ask, you haven't read the Codex. I am in two minds about Catalyst. With so many units on the board, FNPing one of them is no big problem for the enemy - they can just shoot one of the many other units that's in their way. So all I'm doing is asking my foe to pick a different, perfectly viable, unit to shoot at. But for 15 points, I figure it's pretty useful. The Adrenal Glands are more tricky. I want the termagants I spawn to have adrenal glands, in order for them to be able to crack open rhinos. But getting the Tervigon with 6" of them when this happens looks very tricky. My Tervigon spawns the termies 6", which then move 6" and then assault 6", so spawned termies have an attack range of 18", invariably running a good 6" ahead of the Tervigon in the first place. So when they charge in, they are out of range of the glands. I need to pay careful attention to how often it is that the little blighters are getting the glands benefit. Saying that, in the last game against Eldar exactly this happened and they could've taken out a tank, so it also remains in.
Hormogaunts: I was in two minds about these, and then admonished myself. The hormies are your defensive shield, providing a 4+ cover save on legs. With the Bounding Leap ability you are unlikely to end up tied up behind your defensive shield, as you would be with termagants. Too many games have left me with the termies advancing 1" in the run phase, thus scuppering everyone stood behind them. The hormies have no such worry, and you'll almost certainly have them running far ahead. And they are deadly, so the enemy has to shoot them lest they get massacred when they come close. As they're my mobile shield, it's pointless boosting them up with glands of toxin sacs. I've settled on 11: any more is a waste. If any hormogaunt is alive when I arrive at the enemy side, that's points I could've been spending on something entirely different and probably more useful.
Genestealers: The outflanking stealers can leap on table edged objectives. If the enemy tries to game it and instead place the objectives in the centre, that's fine too as the stealers have a kill range of 13-18" when they come on, and could come on on either side, thus pushing the enemy into the central three feet, limiting the places they can manoeuvre. (All Mal's idea.) A damn good buy. I thought about boosting them, but even as bog standard stealers they still seem to dish out the damage so more bonuses might make them too effective (remembering that, ideally, you want to take two assault turns to wipe out an enemy unit.) I ditched Ripper Swarms in order to get a second unit, maximising my chance of getting at least one unit on the correct side of the table. That makes them a bit of a suicide unit, in so far as I doubt they'll last long in units this size, but that's fine by me.
Hive Guard: The only question you should be asking is why I don't have 9 of them.
Zoanthropes: And the reason is I needed to make room for these guys. I need some anti-LR. And they're bloody resilient. I did spod them, but was in two minds about it. Having read the FAQ I've seen that if I spod them then I'm obliged to bring them down in the spod, which doesn't work for me at all. So I've added one extra, and hope that this one extra will give them some longevity to get into position and shoot the Land Raiders. I might regret this approach, and swap the spod back in. We'll see how it goes.
Shrike: I fell in love with these guys. They are flying killing machines. At over 300 points they're expensive flying killing machines. My biggest fear was that every game they'd get shot apart as they came in for the kill. What's worse is that their armour save is gash, and the only way to get a cover save in many circumstances is to sit in difficult terrain (thus generating dangerous terrain tests every time they take to flight.) This fear has proven to be somewhat unfounded in so far as they turned out not to be the killing machines I had hoped for. Against anyone armed with power weapons, they're like matchsticks with claws. I've since managed to live with the fact that they're not everything to everyone (what 40k unit is?) and re-evaluated them. I added a venom cannon. This way (i) if I come across an army where my Shrike are not 'all that' they can at least shoot the buggers; (ii) if I meet an army where my Shrike *are* 'all that' I massacre the enemy unit on one side of the table and will still be able to do something to the other without spending two turns trapsing ove there; (iii) this is the biggy: I'm swapping out a lash whip and bonesword for a cheaper weapon that saves me 5 points (and allows me to buy another homorgaunt), the benefits of the lash whip are guaranteed by the rest of the unit (only rarely will it make any difference whether that model has a whip whilst the other blokes do!) and the loss of a bonesword, in return for shooting power and an extra model is well worth it. Well, well worth it. Oh, and (iv) the Shrike can shoot with the venom cannon, bust a tank open and then charge on in, whereas the Warriors - who are primarily shooting and not close combat - won't reap that benefit.
I'm still not done tinkering, and I'm very sad about the loss of my spinefisted tunnelling ripper swarms. I have noticed, though, that I have about 21 ripper swarms knocking around and so the idea of having a ripper swarm based list isn't out of the question either. (Although they use up a troop slot as the buggers can't claim objectives! I ask you...)
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