Death from above - Mycetic spore strategies

The Mycetic spore is an interesting option for tyranid players, after all the hive mind uses it in the early stages of the invasion to bring in support - but what can you use it for ?

With no model all sorts of conversions can be seen around the world. some cool some not so cool, most people also just think of the Mycetic spore as the delivery system for the Doom of Malantai and it certainly does a wonderful job of that but there are many more tricks in the Mycetic spores arsenal.

First of some key facts
At 40 points the mycetic spore pod (or Spod) is by far the cheapest monstrous creature in the army, can smash and is AP3 in combat
It deepstrikes accurately
Is immobile when it lands
Is non-scoring but can contest
Is brought as a transport for various units.
Is armed with tentacles - 6 S6 BS 5  & can be upgraded with various weapons
Lash whips

Onto the tactics...
Deepstriking
First and foremost the Spod is great at delivering units exactly where you need them. Combined with hive commander on a tyrant or the swarmlord you can all but guarantee arrival on cue in turn 2. Perfect positioning is easily attainable with a 6" disembark which is less than the typical scatter of the pod.
This is further simplified in that the scatter distance of a spod will be reduced if it is to land on an enemy unit- clever positioning almost guarantees you an on target or very close to target deployment.

The ideal units for such a delivery are:
The Doom ...  well he is awesome isn't he :)
Zoanthropes... great for positioning S10 lances, psychic shrieks or just plain old synapse
Devilgaunts... so if you want LOTS of s4 shooting this is the option for you.

So What Else?
Being close to or even on objectives is a good place for Spods to drop. This can give the pod an additional boost (if playing with mysterious objectives  but also denies the enemy that objective and forces them to deal with the pod. Similarly keep an eye out for great spots to drop in the enemy deployment zone. Spods can be a great way of getting linebreaker- especially if there is a big LOS blocker in the way - or a hill crest (3+ cover remember). Always try to drop in cover, with only T4, missile launchers make short work of Spods and the ubiquitous Aegis gun lines are a particular problem.


Shooting
Tyranids have A) little High Strength Shooting and B) few ways to get around the back of an enemy.

even at BS 2 6 S6 shots are useful for either tank hunting or troop hunting. The versatility itself is useful but you can further tailor the unit.

AT duty
the TL Deathspitter is the best option here. at S5 it meshes well with the s6. Decent at stripping hull points.  It also gives the pod a little more of a reach. Similarly the Stinger salvo is another option here. 5S5 shots is good and is particularly useful if plan on pairing the pod with a preferred enemy bubble from a hive tyrant, possibly enough to push it past the TL deathspitter. Either way 2 S6 + 2 S5 hits  is not to be sneezed at if you have rear Armour angles against AV 10 that will get close to averaging a  pen.

AP duty
Lots of options here. Large blasts are useful here. The barbed strangler is a little overcosted as you will rarely use it's range. So I believe the cluster spine option is slightly better, again slightly extending the range.


Dirty Tricks
Bait - this is particularly effective if you are on an objective but distract the opposition and get them to reroute charges. Pulling them back to their own baseline or pulling them forward into a counter charge range is the way to go here. Also particularly useful if the pods regular contents are employed elsewhere. Opponents also often forget about lash whips

Movement blocking - Pods are pretty big. most players play them as , marine pod size or similar. Forcing units to go around them, slowing them down. Or if the opportunity presents itself shutting off an escape route or trapping models (useful with marines in particular).  You can also  place the pod immediately in front of your opponents vehicles. Land raiders or similar heavier vehicles are good targets for this. You can dramatically slow down a big vehicles movement or encourage a ram. Raming a monster is risky business. Remember that the pod also has armourbane & smash. That is a single auto hitting S10 AP2 strike. Often underestimated by opponents... likelihood of a pen with a smash? on AV14 55%, on AV13 75% on AV 12 85%.  Feel like taking the chance with your land raider or Rhino now?

Sniping - Because the pod is pretty accurate when it deepstrikes you can use its weapons to try and snipe out characters or key models. the min 6" range helps here as only models within range can be removed. Get rid of that pesky powerfist  hanging out at the back :)

that's it folks.
If you have any other thoughts on the mycetic spore to share let me know and I'll add to the above.

The biobomb mutates

Recent games have proven to be very interesting, I got my first proper tournament (well half a tournament as I couldn't play day 2)
I found myself doing something unexpected, at the start of each game I found myself rolling on tables other than Biomancy, or at the very least rolling on tables as well  as Biomancy. so why did I make these decisions?
I realised as soon as I started to play competitively that one of the greatest advantages the powers tables have is that you gain huge flexibility. This only works of course if you have lots of powers - which the tyranids excel at - as you take a lot of the randomness out of the selections.

So what did I learn from each of these games?

First up Biomancy is still the core of your resilience and will usually be the place you need to start , a few Iron Arms or Endurances make a huge difference to the survivability of the list so if you roll either of those 2 early on your multi power monsters, Tervigons or Tyrants.  Once you have a power like that in place you can start to consider the other 2 tables - and your enemy. Let me explain by elaborating on my opponents and the choices I made accordingly.

Game 1 - Greydar
I played against a greydar list, a wraithguard blob led by eldrad, fuegan and the baron. The force was light on troops (2 min bikes and a squad of 7 hellions) so killing them was going to be the key to victory, as killing the 1000 point wraithguard unit wasn't going to happen. The other big problem I had hear was that of course Eldrad would put a severe dent in my powers. Now that is a pretty big challenge to deal with.
Knowing this I had to double down on Biomancy in most cases to give my tervigons a chance to cause a problem.
So what I did was give all of the 5 Zoanthropes ( 1 in  pods 1 not) the Primaris power Psychic Shriek as it denies cover and armour. I made a mistake of not giving it to the Doom.This was to make it almost impossible for the hellions or bikes to survive while the Tervigons & Flyrants distracted and damaged the blob and pumped out scoring units.
The 3 man zoans dropped in during the game, killing the hellions, with no cover save they were a soft target, it was even the first shot that saw them off, The dooms power killed a squad of bikes on the 3rd attempt - psychic shriek would have been much easier!

If I had been more ballsy in this game I could have loaded the Tyrants with shriek as well and just gone hunting.... even the wraithguard wouldn't have liked that much.
I won the game on the back of the powers I had chosen but it would have been much easier if I had chosen correctly

Game 2 - Necron
A Necron list - 3 night scythes, 1 doom scythe , 2 *6 wraith units with a lord, tomb blades, triarch stalker and 2 annihilation barges. The mission is the relic.
Clearly in this match up I am heavily outgunned.  Learning from the first mission I thought hard about
what powers I needed. So on with the rolling. I did roll pretty well on my first or second roll on my tervigons (1 endurance and 2 Iron arms) - and yes I rolled each psyker fully before moving on. This allowed me to take a close look at Telekinesis and Telepathy.
Telepathy was ideal as 2 of the powers are warp charge 2, meaning the first 4 are quite likely to be rolled.
Dominate -  good for slowing down wraiths
Mental fortitude - useless
Puppet master - ideal... more on why later!
terrify - scare the wraiths

I ended up with 2 puppet masters which is what I wanted.
The zoanthropes and tyrants went for biomancy or kept their existing powers : I got 2 Enfeebles

The powers in this game were used in the following way.
Turn 1 and 2 enfeeble was used to drop the toughness of the wraiths to T3 or T2, the T3 guys were picked on by the flyrants- S6 instant killing them really puts the pain on wraiths. Most of them died early. The T2 guys were pummeled by fire from spawned guants with fleshborers.
Turn 2 my tervigon cast puppetmaster on the Triarch stalker - who turned around and killed an annihilation barge (how fun is that!). Later on I even managed to roll a hit on a doomscythe, which promptly shot down another nightscythe (even more awesome).

Game 3 - Space wolves 
The final game was against space wolves. No shakey stick libraro-wolves and lots and lots of long fangs and grey hunters.
Again in this game Psychic shriek was key, as well as the Doom of Malantai. Dropping in and stripping models from units, Marine units with ld 8 and 9 do not like psychic shriek at all. It gets very easy for the zoans to A get their points back and B cause hastle in the backfield.


In Summary
The flexibility of psychic powers in targeting opponents weaknesses or covering your own is somewhat unprecedented in the game, imagine what you could do if you could change wargear by opponent?
I still see psychic powers as one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal... right up their with flyers, but while folks are tailoring to kill flyers they don't seem to be paying the same attention to psykers.

Good for the Biobomb!