New Nids List, bc NEW TOYS

Yeah but that's a lot of "or this, or that" - I considered dropping the crone originally, in favor of another pod for the tervigon. Could even use the extra points from the crone to put together a 15-20 man unit of termagants with devourers, and leave the 30 termagants with just fleshborers. Would give me options - drop in the gants, tyrannofex, exocrine, or tervigon...or nothing, or even both flyrants if the situation called for it. Just a lot of options.

I like the mucolids, but I need to find a way to realistically build the model without spending $180 for 3 of them and a whopping 45 points.

So, dropping the Crone, I can add in another spore pod, and then end up with a unit of 30 fleshborers and a unit of 19 devilgants. DECENT

Lets me be VERY flexible with how I use the pods - can take on just about any army type the opponent throws at me.

Question - can I put both carnifexes in two separate pods, and land them together to keep unit coherency? I'm thinking no, but I would love to do that. Obviously.

I think it's horribly silly that the pods can only hold 1 MC. That's basically saying that "Even though we designed Fexen to run in broods, they can't now so shut up". Also, Tyrants apparently hate running with Guard (in spores).

My biggest question is why are you planning to reserve all of your FMC's? Being able to start on the board is probably their biggest advantage over mechanical flyers. In a 5 turn game, that's an automatic 20% boost in damage capacity. Legit.

Man, the Malanthrope really does do pretty much everything we need it to do, doesn't it? Sigh. I may have to break down and buy a brood (or just the one). If only Venomthropes were more survivable... shrug.

I think we need to get together and make a list of the units most deserving of a Pod.
Any of the CC beasties benefit from it for obvious reasons, but you're still looking at a turn 3 charge at best. Granted, that's really not too far from what they'd expect otherwise, given terrain and "real" movement, and it avoids getting shot to crap that way... plus lands right where you need it, etc. So yeah, a potential thing.

Tyrannofexen will like closing the gap, and can bring their short-ranged weapons and uber-survival to bear right in the heart of the enemy. Legit.

Broods of devilgaunts podding in were a thing before. I don't see why they shouldn't still be.

Still hoping that a big brood of stealers jumping out of one of these would be a "oh Sh!t" moment for your opponent. I mean, obviously gets over the problem of "getting there" that the big combat MC's suffer from... remember that space hulk game guys? 15-20 'stealers are not a cheap unit, but delivered into the heart of the enemy? They can really deal with about any type of enemy (barring AV14). If they had DS instead of Infiltrate, would we have better luck?

Momma-bug in a pod spawning endless swarms is interesting, but I almost want to say Hive Commander can essentially do a nearly-as-effective job of that for a fraction of the cost. Given that the offensive abilities of this bubble is greatly reduced from whence it came, I almost see it better as a very defensive deterrent. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

PPS, can crones even take the carapace launchy weapons?

And yes, I'm actually kind of serious about taking 'Stealers. They're a fine unit *once in combat*. The problem is having zero survivability for getting there, even with Infiltrate (as you tend to throw them out in front of the main bulk, meaning they can be dealt with before you have to deal with the rest).

Dropping in on turn 2-3 means they're hitting *at the same time* as your other threats are closing. The timing is crucial, really, in addition to the "I didn't just get shot up for 2 turns" that tends to nullify their usefulness.

Yes, overwatch hurts them more than about any other Nid, and assaulting into cover certainly has its issues... but I do honestly think it's worth a try. Maybe they'll just keep sucking - it happens. But maybe, just maybe, they'll come out as a halfway decent unit, if only when pod'd in.

Besides, Outflank has all the same issues as walking up the board, except sideways, and later. Unless it's the weird deployment where you can pop out on the long board edges.

Now back to my dream of building 10 or so spores for a full on early invasion list...

The spore pods can carry 20 models... MC's count as 20 models, instead of whatever they should count as (they're super-extremely-extra bulky or something).

So instead of each counting as 5, and being able to load 3 Fexen in (which are still smaller than an Ofex), you can only toss in one.

Because Nids have extra girth, apparently.

Faction Tyranids is the only restriction sir