Spore Gaunts

[Sybrite]

fitting termagants with mycetic spores into list without doing the fullblown 20 devilgaunts & pod that runs 240pts.

I figure that dropping this down to 140pts is a more reasonable cost to spore-drop some quick shooty fodder. which allows more points to go into other units across the force organization chart.

which setup would you prefer
bodies or bullets
A) 20 regular termagants, so that's 20 wounds with 20 shots
or
B) 10 devilgaunts, meager 10 bodies but they pump 30 shots out

in the grant scheme survival isn't really that important to me (as these units will likely be dropping well out of synapse range), so the list will have some genestealers and most likely a troop choice tervigon for durable scoring units, as well maybe some spawned termagant broods (curtesy of the tervigon).

list size will vary between 1,500 and 2,000 and I want to squeeze in about 4 or 5 mycetic spores (2 will be for zoanthropes and/or the Doom, the last 2 or 3 will be spores carrying termagants using them as fire-teams that will get all up in the business of opposing heavy weapon squads)

'A' is more bodies so it should last longer and thus potentially get more shots off

'B' worries less about maybe shooting another turn in favor of dishing out massed fire from the get go. and with only 10 bodies its definately not looking to get a second turn at shooting.

I'll be testing both setups over the my next few games, to see which works best for me, but I figure I'd get some early input for the forum community too.

[Beeva]

To be honest, I couldn't say with any real certainty. I'd be inclined towards the Devil Gaunts in a bit to do more damage in that first round of shooting but given the danger they represent I wouldn't expect an opponent to allow them to live much longer than that. On the other hand, normal gaunts aren't that dangerous, even 20 of them. They could be useful to grab a deeply placed objective. It still wouldn't take much to force a leadership test on them though and that's not an easy task for gaunts.

If you're planning on playing both though and trying it out I'd be really interested to hear your results. As it is I'd go for the Devourers, but there's not a lot in it.

[Forest]

I would favor the devours. It may not seem effective but my local games always use templates so large or small my broods are nukes turn 1, the chance of some quick damage via 30 shots go for it. In my experience put as many as you can in their a full brood may be a bit much but aslong as you can keep shooting enemy's before they can assault just hide behind your spore. Pod or try to drop a second close by with zoans or such.

[Sybrite]

today's test matches favored the 10 devilgaunts spores more than the 20 termagants spores...

mostly because today seems to be a day for far and wide scatter. kind of a fluke, since usually not every unit is going to scatter 8+ inches, the zoanthropes avoid this once because they landed in the middle of enemy vehicles and mawlocs that drifted out of possition , so at least they stayed on course (thriump for 'reduce scatter' even though adding 1.5 inches to the scatter would have passed over the enemy unit)

I didn't initially think scatter would effect the basic termagants as much, since the mycetic spores can avoid landing on models and impassable terrain, but today the arrow would just find that gap between squads and shake out 8+ inches for distance...

so yea, regular termagants were arriving out of range consistently, but devilguants would stay just within range to pelt their intented targets (one brood even bagged a Talos when they arrived!)

I'll give the standard termagants a few more tries in spores, but it's really looking like 10 devilgaunts get the job done better because it's more shots and better range.

[c1940n]

Numbers-wise, the 10 devilgants win over normal termagants in every way. The unit is smaller, which has the potential to help where scattering templates are concerned, and both your 10 and 20 models units should be written off as guaranteed casualties in the first place, anyway. The small numbers also mean you won't have to worry about crowding around a single area, and losing shots due to range (having to push models back to fit in 2" of the spore).

The devourers have the extended range, which reduces the problems with scatter (even potentially putting your devils out of enemy small-arms range, sometimes), and devourers also have that -1 Ld for any Morale check that phase.

[Sybrite]

well, termagaunts should always be considered as a write-off when it comes to survivers lol

I haven't had any more games with my nids since those couple of test runs on the spore gaunts, Nov been pretty busy for RL...; yesterday I had some time to hit up the LGS but I took my Enhanced Warriors CSM list and mauled some smurfs and their 3 vindicators.

as memtioned that test match was scatter crazy, so even it wasn't realistic to attempt snatching an objective with the regular sporing gaunts. after killing the talos I did try to move a unit of devil gaunts onto my opponent's objective (they magically passed their instinctive behavior test so I moved and ran them, which then made that objective the closest terrain incase they failed their Ld in the next turn) but my opponent cut that attempt short with his venom that zipped back across the table 10 devil gaunts vs 12 shots didn't look pretty... but at least it got those guns away from the mawloc and terivigon. it was a stretching attempt since those devilguants weren't in possition to add to the fight being on the opposite table half (all of the action was pretty much in my deployment zone, dark eldar v nids, so it was assault vs assault armies and he was faster since he's got fast skimmers) I almost had the win, since I actually killed off all of his non-vehicle models, but I hadn't wrecked enough of his vehicles (blame it on scattering mawlocs) so he was able to flatout to contest the objective my tervigon had worked so hard at holding from some witches (well it.. the terv didn't do any thing itself, it just spawned termagants that I kept throwing at the witches until I finially whittled the witches down in close combat)