Allied Sporefields?

So an idea I've been thinking about recently - allying in 1-2 of the Tyranid Sporefield formation. The formation bonuses include Infiltrate as well as the Spore Mines and Mucolids potentially respawning back into Reserves.

I'm thinking I could Infiltrate a bunch of mines around the enemy army to restrict their movement, while not restricting mine at all (skimmers just flying right over them and all) and making even more use of the awesome Dark Eldar mobility. Plus, it's a huge amount of targets to potentially save some of my other stuff from getting shot at, and maybe one of the Mucolids could even down a flier. One Eye Open is a concern, but it seems like a minimal one.

Does this strike anyone else as a decent idea, and are there any Tyranid players around that can comment on what sort of mileage they've gotten out of the Sporefield? Also, any ideas for models I could use for floating Dark Eldar mines would be appreciated. I'd like something suitably intimidating to be popping out of the Webway.

Heh.
Just for fun, I;ve been contemplating an army thats nothing but Sporefiled Formations. Terrible army I know, but for the fun....


I think if you're planning on going for a null-deployment army, then a Sporefield isn't a terrible idea for your on-table starting force. If you can keep them as many seperate units (because they WILL die, and easily) they might have a bit of survivability, but not sure enough to make them useful later.
A fully stacked Sporefield (3 Mine Clisters and 3 Spore Clusters) comes in at 75pts, which isn't terrible for the cost. Thats only slightly more than a single Venom, and arguably more survivable, especially with the Spores having Shrouded, and the Sporefield rule of a 50% to bring things back on from Reserves whenever they're destroyed. Thats a bit awesome actually.........



I think I may have just argued myself into an army.....


1800pts...thats exactly 24 Sporefield Formations. Thats 72 Spores, 72 Mines..............

This does strike anyone else as a decent idea! I'm just reading this as well as a few of the rules very quickly and I can see a few applications here:

1. Buffer the approach of incoming close-combat armies, such as when I lost to Blood Angels in this battle report.

2. Anti-air assets, similar to barrage balloons during WWII, but (for the sake of our game) much better as they can actually assault flyers.

3. Scoring units. Of course your opponent can shoot them, that goes without saying but then again they're also Shrouded and if you're like me and have at least 6 objective secured troops in skimmers in addition to three Windrider jetbikes, then that'll give you at least 7 objective secured troops on the table. Insanity!

4. I normally use the Dark Artisan Formation as a distraction unit and to tie up my opponent, and will pour over 400 points into the thing (it's my fun unit). This has the potential to not only be a h%ll of a lot cheaper, but also distract my opponent (although perhaps for only a single turn).

5. Influence the movement of your opponents: lace the field with mines and see how they react while you blast them from afar, similar to locking zombies outside a cheaply made gate while you shoot. This also helps because Venom Spam isn't as good on small fields against close combat armies, as it is on larger boards

6. Why not add Spore Mines and Sporocysts? I might be over-reacting to the potential of things here, but what I'm imagining is a Venom Spam with Ravagers (I'm cheesy, I know it) firing at the opponent at range, and the Tyranids occupying the midfield as well as claiming objectives, in addition to deep striking into the opponent's back ranks. I do see that One Eye Open could be a little problematic, especially if your opponent drops down some nasty units of his own (Sternguard Vets, Blood Angels like in the above video, a drop pod Marine list, Dreadknights with heavy incinerators, etc.), however if you plan things out carefully then you could just keep a pocket or two of the table ready for a 1-turn redeployment on the other side of a Tyranid minefield.

Played carefully and intelligently, I'm seeing some potential here.

Note: in reading my ideas and opinions, please go over the rules for yourself as I may be mistaken in my interpretation of things since I'm not a Tyranid player and have done a grand total of 10 minutes of research on the things.

Just checked out the Sporocysts; sadly, I don't think those'll work - with Instinctive Fire they have to shoot the closest enemy unit each turn, which, with alliance levels being what they are, could result in them firing on your own troops. I'm pretty sure that's how the rules would work?

Spore Mines and Mucolids both are part of the formation, so you'd have plenty of each. Or, well, 3 units of each for 90pts.

Also, if you're planning to try running them too, I found these models yesterday: http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cryx/warcasters/witch-coven-of-garlghast-the-egregore

That egregore would make a good Mucolid, and if I find a smaller one somewhere that could be good for the Spore Mines. The witch models that come with it would make good Medusae; I've been planning to try those out anyway. Still going to continue the hunt and maybe try a little bit of proxying before I actually buy anything, though.

The fact that they do not give up victory points is awesome. I might actually start using this formation as allies. Thanks for the idea!

@40kscribe Regretably the Living Bomb special rules make Spore Mines and Mucolid Spores non-scoring, non-denial units. HOWEVER they also don't grant Victory Points if destroyed! EVEN BETTER!


Also, regretably, my maths was off a little. I didn't stack up enough Mines. At a full 6 mines per squad, plus three Spores, each Formation would cost 105pts (60pts for a unit of 6 mines, 15pts per Spore).
I apologise for my incorrect mathematics.

So a standard 1800pts army would actually be 17 Sporefield Formations, with 15pts spare.That gives 51 Spores, 102 Mines. All non-scoring, non-denail, but non-VP giving, and with a 5-% to respawn. And Deep Strike.

The fluff even works itself out pretty easily! After all, the Dark Eldar are always looking for new poisons, and who has better poisons than Tyranids.

But as for rules, I'm still not convinced that they could survive long enough to let the rest of your army deepstrike in. If you have three full squads of each, you're spending 315 points, for 6 units that have to survive for two turns of shooting (since I assume you're "null"-deploying and going second). Although, with the shrouded, you can deploy the mucolids safely in the backline in some cover, and seed the spore mines up front, just to keep enemies hemmed in. Ok, maybe they could survive long enough to get the rest of your army on, but do you think they'd really give the same oomph that a Dark Artisan would?

Twicekinless wrote:

But as for rules, I'm still not convinced that they could survive long enough to let the rest of your army deepstrike in.  If you have three full squads of each, you're spending 315 points, for 6 units that have to survive for two turns of shooting (since I assume you're "null"-deploying and going second).

If you're taking them to null deploy, just take the absolute minimum:
3 x 1 Mucolid
3 x 3 Spore mines
90 points total

Their formation bonus is that whenever a unit gets killed you get a new unit put into ongoing reserve on a 4+. So even if they kill all the spore on the top of T1, as long as you roll one 4+ out of your 6 tries you can "walk" a unit on from your board edge on the bottom of T1 to avoid getting tabled.

Plus spore mine models are very tiny, if you can't hide at least one out of LoS something very odd is going on with your terrain. I've played with them in Tyranid reserve lists and no one has ever even come close to killing all the spores (after you pass the first respawn roll they stop really trying).

After they've served their purpose and your reserves come in, DS any new spores really aggressively and hope they're distracting enough for the enemy to shoot them. In small numbers they aren't actually all that effective at doing anything, mostly because they're so painfully slow. But if you land a mine next to a squad people will waste a weird amount of shooting to take out that 15 point model/unit.

Pro tip if you play against them: Just spread out, at max coherency (or even 1.5" coherency) it's almost impossible to hit more than one guy, and if it's the only thing in combat you "win" since all enemies are dead so no need to take a break check (and you get a consolidate move out of it), def not worth the effort it takes to kill a 3W shrouded model (or a spore mine cluster). This doesn't really apply if your opponent shows up with 20 Sporefields though....

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

Their formation bonus is that whenever a unit gets killed you get a new unit put into ongoing reserve on a 4+.  So even if they kill all the spore on the top of T1, as long as you roll one 4+ out of your 6 tries you can "walk" a unit on from your board edge on the bottom of T1 to avoid getting tabled.

The have Deek Strike.
Just fyi.


In theory, if the whole lot was wiped ot, some of them being in Ongoing Reserves would still be off the table. If they're all off, you could still lose the game turn one. But thats the risk you take with any null-deployment tactic. You're always limiting whats on the board against your opponent.
Thankfully the Spores have Shrouded, but its still a risk at their low Toughness.

Squidmaster wrote:

The have Deek Strike.
Just fyi.


In theory, if the whole lot was wiped ot, some of them being in Ongoing Reserves would still be off the table. If they're all off, you could still lose the game turn one. But thats the risk you take with any null-deployment tactic. You're always limiting whats on the board against your opponent.
Thankfully the Spores have Shrouded, but its still a risk at their low Toughness.

You only lose for being tabled at the end of a Game Turn though. So if you're going second it's totally fine if they kill all of your spores as long as one respawns into ongoing reserve, since it'll auto-arrive on your T1 (just don't come back in near anything with interceptor!!). And I walk (or outflank) one on to absolutely guarantee that you don't get tabled, after that DS away!!

Do you think using more would be worth it? You could walk on a few just to keep the null deployment viable, and then use the rest to tie up your enemies and keep them pinned up in their deployment zone. At the very least it would make them shoot turn one instead of run or flat-out right? That's always seemed like one of the biggest weaknesses in null-deployment to me: giving your opponent free run of the board for a turn can give them plenty of time to position. Maybe that's just a big issue against Tau though; it's pretty nasty trying to deep strike in once they've set up massive threat bubbles everywhere.