Playing Dice with the Universe

The Tyranid Threat Since our first sporadic contacts with Genestealers there have been many misconceptions associated with them. We first thought they were indigenous to the moons of Ymgarl, later this was determined to be in err and subsequently a xenocide campaign was conducted on said moons. When the Tyranid hivefleets came upon the Imperium, the creatures were named in relation to the first notable plant to fall before their advance, the exploratory station of Tyran. – Draco Legion Biomedical Reserch station: NewHallefuss Origin of the Species Most of the Tyranid organisms in the Warhammer 40k universe have been given Latin or Greek names. This makes them sound more exotic and fits with the general use of Latin by the Imperium. I can not really take credit, beyond compilation, for this etymology as it is all taken from other websites, particually Wiktionary. Biovore – This suffix comes from the Latin vorare (to devour), and is used to form nouns indicating what kind of...

I actually enjoy doing mathematical analysis to see how efficient different units are. Dice can be fickle but the more dice you roll should bring you closer to the mean. Not that this helps my constantly under-performing Tervigon. This page is intended as a mathematical reference for Tyranid players and I shall be adding more analysis (and formatting) later. Calculus for Hive Tyrants Pythagoras' Theorem will help with guessing ranges but beyond that maths will not win you games. What it will do is help you to know what performance to expect from your army. Of course knowing that your Hive Guard should kill three Rhinos in a six turn game does not help if they underperform for the first three turns. Tyanid Ranged Anti-Tank Here is the chance each unit has of opening a tin can. I have calculated the probability of dealing with armour in a single shooting phase. I have chosen to display this as a percent since 66% reads much better than 0.66. First three columns are the...

Game Fifteen: 1750 Points vs Demons Splinter Fleet Lyracian Daddy Swarmlord & two whip Guard Junior Hive Tyrant (Old Adversary, Shell, TLBDx2) Zoanthropes x3 Hive Guard 2 Broods x2 Xenomorphs (Genestealers) w/ Toxic Sacs Mummy Tervigon with TS, AG, Catalysis, Talons Termagants one Brood x12 Tiny the Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon Demons of the Warp Primary Wave Cake: Epidemius & twelve Plague Bearers Toffees: Nurglings x9 Stew: Ku'gath the Plaguefather Light Snack: Pink Horrors x10 Secondary Wave Pizza: Skulltaker & ten Bloodletters Hot Sauce: Flamers of Tzeentch Raw Meat: Pestilence; Winged Demon Princes of Nurgle Pot Roast: Tulu; Demon Prince of Tzeentch Mission: Spearhead, Capture and Control. Deployment: The demons are roused to war by an arcane signal telling of an ancient phylactery, buried in a graveyard, they have been charged to protect for over two millennia. Apparently the planet is about to be obliterated. Having found a qui...

Building the Tyranid Swarm The Tyranid army I play is fairly static so I have been coming up with ideas for the other archetypes available in the codex. I am going to start by looking at the swarm. I do not have enough Hormagaunts to build this at the moment; I do however have a ton of Genestealers I can proxy them with. Concept Just like the Aliens or Starship Troopers films the idea is to have a seemingly endless horde of a hundred or more bugs swarming across the table toward the opponent. Hormagaunts, Gargoyles and Genestealers are all great for this. I wanted to avoid Monsters, however the Tervigon is just too good to pass up on. Raveners 12" charge helps get them into melee quicker and their claws can destroy tanks. Orinally I was going to use two broods of hormaguants; as I do not own those I instead went for Devilguants. Army List: The Swarm from LV-426 @ 2000 Points 050 Termagants x10 160 Hormagaunts x20 w/ Toxic Sacs 160 Termagants x16 w/ Devourers 250...

Game Fourteen: 1500 Points vs Blood Angels Splinter Fleet Lyracian Swarmlord & two whip Guard Zoanthropes x3 Hive Guard 2 Broods x2 Xenomorphs (Genestealers) w/ Toxic Sacs Mummy Tervigon with TS, AG, Catalysis, Onslaught, Talons Termagants one Brood x12 Tiny the Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon Blood (Space Vampires) Angels Starter: Reclusiarch Carstein leading the Death Company (Power Sword) Energy bar: Konrad & Manfred Two Sanguinary Priest Meat pie: Alpha and Beta Tactical Squads Soup: Scouts with Sniper Rifles Inedible rock: Stormraven Gunship Inedible rock: Vindicator Inedible rocks: Vlad and Isabella Furioso Dreadnoughts Yet more Inedible rocks: Two Typhoon Land Speeders Mission: Pitched Battle, Capture and Control. Deployment: Vlad and Death Company were inside the Stormraven. Priests joined the Marine combat squads by the NE ruin. Turn One Spurring his minions forward the Swarmlord advance in the east. While Zoanthropes and Hivers advanced ...

Game One – 1500 Points vs Dwarves Vampire Army Witch-Queen Shareth Level 4 Mage, Death Magic, Crown of the Dammed Leading Skeleton Regiment x20 with Command & Banner of Hellfire Wight King Luxor w/ BSB, Sword Of Kings Leading Grave Guard Regiment x15 with Command Vampire Tarithel w/ Forbidden Lore (Light), Sword of Swift Slaying, Flayed Hauberk Leading Grave Guard Regiment x16 with Command Skeleton Horde x20 with Command & Banner of Eternal Flame Dwarven Army Lord Thorin Oakenshield w/ Shield Bearers, Rune of Spite & Great Weapon Leading Hammers x18 w/ command Thane Dwalin w/ BSB, Rune of Swiftness, Oath Stone and Rune of Stone Leading Warriors x29 w/ Command Thunderers x10 Slayers x7 Warriors x10 w/ Great Weapons Bolt Thrower w/ Rune of Burning Stone Thrower (modelled as a Stone Giant) w/ Rune of Reloading Gyrocoypter Mission: Pitched Battle Deployment The Dwarves started in the north with Thunderers and bolt thrower on a central hill. Thane Dwali...

I got another Hive Guard and a second Broodlord this week so my Splinter Fleet continues to grow. It is still quite limited on options though with the core army being either a Nidzilla or Air Assault build. I now have - Edit - I got some more Termagants off ebay! HQ 2 Hive Tyrants ( Magnetised so can be Swarmlord, Flyrant, Dakkarant or even a Harpy ) Tyranid Prime 3 Tyrant Guard Elite 5 Hive Guard 3 Zoanthropes Troops 45 Genestealers & 2 Broodlords 81 Termagants ( enough for the second Tervigon when I get it ) 20 Devilgants 11 Hormagaunts 1 Tervigon 3 Myceptic Spores Fast Attack 5 Shrikes ( Unfinished Warrior/Gargoyle convertions, again magnetised ) 17 Gargoyles 10 Spore Mines Heavy Support 1 Magneto-fex ( Magentised so it can be Carni or T-fex ) What Next? First I need to paint everything I have got so far! So it will propably be next year before I add the following. One more Carnifex to make a second Tervigon and to give me my fourth set of Bra...