General Strategy:
As you can see, this is a very aggro deck, that is built around sending out Old Stink Eye and Savage Warrior Prime to different planets to bully for first planet while also command sniping and/or planet triggering. The double onslaught makes this deck difficult to deal with, and particularly so given the fantastic synergy between Stink Eye and his signature squad, which neither requires them to be at the same planet, or even for your Warlord to be hale! Surprisingly, Old One Eye should be kept far away from battles, and the only person who should be dealing him damage is you, by moving it to him. I would even retreat him from big battles more often than not, so that he can be at HQ safely keeping your hormagaunts alive.
This is quite aggressive, hence no Venom Cannon (which would only be there for the shields), and no Fall Back! to save SWP. Regen is the most defensive this deck gets, and its sole purpose is to keep the smacks coming, not to wait out big hits.
MVPs:
There are actually a surprising number of really effective cards in this deck that I can foresee being a staple of this deck for a long time. I feel that the better Tyranid cards find a more natural place with Old Stink Eye, while the Swarmlord enourages (but doesn't actually necessitate) a lot of sub-optimal choices, with the dream of uber-tokens, which never quite comes to fruition.
MVP Armies:
Hunter Gargoyles: Although not as flexible as SM's Eager Recruits, these guys have really shined in my playthroughs. They are fantastic for jumping in and doing extra, not-entirely-expected damage. The important caveat here is that the planet has to be infested, which is easier when you're in a big fight, but less likely just for random planets. As such they're not great for hunting command sniping enemy warlords, but can do surprising damage to irritating first planet bullies.
Shrieking Harpy: A fantastic finisher, and great for ending out the game. Infesting a planet at this stage isn't at all an issue, so it will almost be guaranteed to be effective, although it is vulnerable to all of the standard routing/killing tricks that DE (particularly) has.
Toxic Venomthrope: I love this guy as a capper. Although you don't often get the extra resource before he is sniped, he is great for winning comman in the opening rounds, and he has about an even chance of investing planets.
Ripper Swarm: 1/1 capper for 0. Love it.
Virulent Spore Snacks: A great way to clear out swarms/tokens, deals good damage to all enemy units, and infests to boot. Again, this is a great card for planet bullying.
Volatile Pyrovore: One of the two in the star lineup of Tyranid aggro. This guy just does so much damage unless your enemy wants to commit to getting rid of him in alternative ways. But even then that means that they're ignoring your other danger units.
Scything Hormagaunts: These guys are da real MVPs of this deck. At 2 cost they fit well into the curve, and they have one command, which is nice just in case you need them to cap. But they are there to be vicious first planet bullies. With three attack they are a terror to all but the beefiest units, and they are incredibly hard to kill, despite having 1 health. My main strategy is to send them to the first planet with Savage Warrior Prime, and redirecting all damage they take to Stink Eye, while they machine gun down the tide of armies your opponent send to deal with them. It's amazing when your opponent starts to commit 4 or even 5 damage swings to take out a 1 health army, as shields and Stink Eye take care of the rest.
MVP the Rest:
Regeneration: Easily the best card in the Tyranid card pool, and one of the best in the game. The Hormagaunts are then the next best option, followed closely by the Pyrovore, as your enemy has to commit even more damage just to take 3 in turn.
Dark Cunning: Together with Hormagaunts and Regeneration, this is the holy trinity of this deck. What's better than unkillable Hormagaunts that wipe out units far above their cost? Why, Hormagaunts that do this twice as often! Awakening Cavern helps with this too, and although it is absolutely nuts end game, it is just that: an end game option only.
No Mercy: The real benefit of having Savage Warrior Prime and Old One Eye off on different planets, rucking in, is that you'll almost always be in a position to kneel one perfectly safely to cancel shield blocks of Hormagaunt damage wherever the key battle is. If they've committed heavily to planet 1, kneel Old One Eye to take the victory. If they've gone after a command snipe at your Warlord's planet, or even hunted Stink Eye himself, kneel SWP to deal unexpected damage there from the safety of your HQ.
The Meh Cards:
There are some cards in this deck which are present because Tyranids are still somewhat in their 'Core Phase' - in reality they're sort of between this and where everyone else is. These cards do important work, but will instantly be substituted out as soon as other, better cards inevitably come up.
Termagaunt Sentry: At home with Swarmlord, and not even that good there, these guys are just there to cap. Surely some other good capper will come out for nids, or at least a card that gets resources in a different way.
Spore Burst: So much potential, but with so little payoff. Only because the planet has to be infested. It just makes it a predictable combat trick (as is the deploy phase issue), and it just doesn't have the strategic flexibility of the SM/Eldar alternative. It's only here for shields.
Ferocious Strength: It has an honourable mention here as it can't be taken out, being signature. I can see where FFG were going with this, but this card fools you into thinking this deck is something it is not. Although SWP can benefit, and become truly scary, this isn't an Ork deck, and you don't want that to happen.
So overall I think Old Stink Eye (and so the Nids) are in a really good position. It is a deck which is sensitive to anti-aggro combat tricks (looking at the pointy ears here) - but even then because you're doing two battles they have to split these between twice as many planets. But there are a lot of great cards in here, and with the new cycle I can see the meh cards getting some good replacements (none spoiled yet though). It may not be top tier, but I think that it is fun and powerful. And it doesn't strike me as cheesey, which makes it just as fun to play against. It's challenging without being cheap.
I'd love to hear what you guys think!
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17 Comments
Edit: Post put in deck comments.
Regeneration can only attach to an army unit, which OOE is not. Army units will say "Army" in the upper left - OOE says "Warlord."I like the overall look of the list. I feel like some amount of Fall Back!s would be wise with SWP, whereas you might not need them as much with a more passive synapse like Lictor. Not sure what I'd cut since the list looks fairly tight.
Ah yes, nice grab there. Thankfully it hasn't really come up for me to have played the mistake, as Hormagaunts and Pyrovore have always taken it. Edited those references out.
Concerning Haruspex over Harpy: Every deck needs a good late game unit as a finisher, and Harpy is unambiguously that. I have found that when that last big battle comes I have either infested the planet already, or can with Scything Hormagaunts or Spore Snacks. Haruspex is more consistent, but it is a mid-game bully, for me, setting you up for late game. This is actually a really great function, as this deck suffers mid game if if gets resource choked. But then I'm stuck between gambling on a 5R unit that might not kill anything, or more 2R units that will set me up in other ways. I doubt that there will be a huge amount of time when Haruspex with get more than 3R back. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to put it in, but just can't find the space.
As for Fall Back, the only thing I'd take out of here is the Digestion Pool, to add one copy. But then it's really not that reliable in coming up. I think in a deck like this you have to make a choice between straight out offence and hedged offence, and the main choice there comes down between No Mercy and Fall Back. You get one or the other.
It sounds like sensible and effective advice. I'll have to try it out, but for now you've talked me around.
I love the name of the deck, heck, that would make me wanna play it alone.
Updated the deck slightly based on conventional wisdom that Warrior Prime are a bit pants, and Haruspex is the way to go. Hence a Digestion Pool to smooth out the curve. I'll report back soon to see how it goes.
So ovearll:
-3 Tyranid Warriors
+2 Ravenous Haruspex
+1 Digestion Pool
Funny I just received my Tyr Deluxe Expansion and I realized the same deck. Didn't have a chance to test it yet.
But you are telling me that I'm in the right direction. Thanks !
Just an idea, I have one change in mine:
+3 Tyranid Warriors
-3 Termagaunt Sentry
Termagaunt Sentry are not as useful in OOE deck that it is in Swarmlord one's and I want to incoporate only useful cards in my decks.
Tyranid Warriors up your cost curve a bit you're right but you have several options to gain more ressource with them (with command battle for example) and as SWP can trigger a battle ability each turn you could compensate the ressource curve too with the right planet.
What do you think of this change ?
Sentry is a 1 for 1. It'd be mad to take it out.
Re: Fall Back, I'm of the opinion that any deck that uses five elites plus SWP probably ought to be running 3 Fall Backs. While No Mercy is preferrable in most Tyranid builds, SWP is always getting into fights by design.
Asklepios is right regarding Sentry. As crappy as it is that its ability is dead in this deck, it's the only 1 for 1 available.
As for Fall Back, I am entirely of your thinking. I want to get an extra Fall Back in, particularly with the latest change, but I'll be blowed if I know where to get it in. Spore Burst is where my thinking always goes, as I rarely use the ability, but the two shields is too good. I'm almost tempted to say Promotion, but again it's too useful for winning command. Ah well, that's just a sign of the quality cards that Nids have at the moment, that every choice is a difficult one.
We also forget that Shoota Mob and SM Scout get run as abilitiless 2/1s with 1 hammer for 1. Arguably 2 at is scarier than 1, but equally a 1/2 doesn't need shielding from all the ping damage out there. So swings and roundabouts, but I'd say given the pool and other factors Sentry is probably more valuable to Tryanids (at present) than those units are to their respective factions.
Fall Back is tricky, because it's really good to have your unit alive for next turn (and onwards), but it's 1R/1C that has no impact on the current battle. I agree that with SWP it's very useful for keeping him alive (though he could still die turn 1 with all 3 copies in your deck somewhere). The thing is sometimes 2 shields will save your unit, and let it win the battle, even if it then dies. So I don't think it's quite that clear cut. Spore Burst is the competing slot imho though, after that it's a matter of personal preference I think. Personally I'd put in a 3rd No Mercy before a 3rd Fall Back though. No Mercy has the added benefit of healing Old One Eye when he's in a situation where he wouldn't otherwise be exhausting this round.
Well, I played this deck against some friends a few of times today, and I won some and lost some (played against a Baharroth hunt deck, an Aun'Shi hunt deck, and a Zarathur and I got maybe 50/50, but I lost track of how many games I played).
I liked the SWP a lot. Most people say that because it's got no command it's the least useful, but it suits my play style just fine, as I tend to play aggresively. It's also great for sniping, and the ability to trigger two battle conditions per round should not be overlooked.
Because infestation is not a central mechanic to this deck, the opponent tends to forget it's there, except when it comes to resource generation (Toxic Venomthrope), so they tend to go for those and forget about the infestation (YMMV), which allows you to give them a nice surprise with Spore Burst (not so limited usefulness, because infestation is deceivingly easy to get with this deck, and nice 2 shields) and especially with the Hunter Gargoyles (just dump these in a planet away from danger and they'll useful as a reserve, a bit like attack helicopters - I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat today with this one. Because they have no command, they won't be contesting the opponent's command and most of the time that's enough to keep them safe).
Virulent Spore Sacs - even more useful than they seemed at first sight. People tend to look first at the damage rather than at the infestation, which is a good thing for the aforementioned reason and they can be recycled the next turn with Spore Burst. Nice for wiping planets you are looking forward to take in later turns.
On the other hand, the Haruspex looks nice but I didn't find it particularly useful - the ability is nice, but it doesn't pack a particularly big punch (again, YMMV).