Hive Fleet Ozymandias

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

They're coming for you

Sorry 'bout the crappy pic, I only have my phone camera. It doesn't work too great for group pics.

So, let me introduce you to Hive Fleet Ozymandias. I picked the name after the watchmen character. It also means "king of kings," the Nids are quite megalomaniac, you would be too if you're going to devour the entire galaxy.

The painted army is about 1700 points, however, that includes Gaunts which I only use for spawns and some incomplete squads like 2 Raveners which I can't really field as is. If it looks quite a bit like a "battleforce army," well, that's because it is one: it started with a box of termagants and a Tyranid battleforce (which is certainly not any good to build a decent army from for 6th). But with the Nids I'm committed to painting every single one I own, as a departure from my usual "grey plastic" style. (Check out the ripper swarms - I even did those!)

So the last year, I've been trying to focus on buying and painting units which are useful for a "competitive" Nids army. Check out the lady I've just finished painting:

I might be in love

She's my second Tervigon, she's still missing a base, which has been painted in the meantime but still needs snow flock. The crushing claws are magnetized and interchangeable with the scything talons that come in the kit. But I quite like the crushing claws as an upgrade, at least for a Tervigon which is intending to move forward. It gives her between 4 and 6 attacks at S5, or between 5 and 7 at S6 when charging (you did remember to buy the adrenal glands, right?) This makes her a semi-decent close combat threat against marine units and the like, so long as you're not getting over-confident and charging Thunder Hammer Terminators with her.

The really nice part about the crushing claws is that the bonus adds to attacks after dividing by 2 when using the "smash" special attack: since Tervigons start with 3 attacks base, this means you can charge a tank and smash for 4 to 6 S10 attacks! (3/2 = 2 after rounding up, then add the attack for charging, then the D3 attacks for crushing claws) With the change of always hitting vehicles on 3+ at worst, this makes her very decent at dropping vehicles, if she can get close of course.

All in all, it's a nice upgrade, but definitely not mandatory. If points are tight, it's one of the first things to go. (Added brownie points: the drawback of turning the MC into initiative 1 is lost on the slowpoke Tervigon - she's initiative 1 to begin with.)

I'm glad I've finished this second Tervigon, I think 2 + termagants is the mandatory troops core of any decent Nid army. There just isn't any competition, Tervigons are probably one of the best troop choices in the game right now. So let's have a look at the army I used in my previous game versus Cheatah (which I barely won because he decided to roll 5 ones on 5 terminator armor saves vs hive guard shooting, followed by a squad of 3 remaining termagants on an objective in his deployement zone (linebreaker baby!) deciding to pass their instinctive behaviour test on their wonderful leadership of 6 - yeah, that close)

Tyrant with wings and twin linked devourers, + hive commander (285)

3 Hive Guard (150)
3 Hive Guard (150)
Doom of Malantai in a spore (130)

Tervigon, adrenal glands, toxin sacs, catalyst and scything talons (200)
Tervigon, adrenal glands, toxin sacs, catalyst and scything talons (200)
10 Termagants (50)
10 Termagants (50)

20 Gargoyles with adrenal glands and toxin sacs (160)
5 Raveners with rending claws (175)

Trygon (200)

Total 1750

As you can see, I don't yet have all these models painted (I don't even own some of them yet) and I did not find the points for the crushing claws in this list. I'm well aware of some shortcomings (Raveners have got to go - they die too fast) but it was a fun, reasonably competitive list for a really close game. But I've already got some ideas to make it even better (better for the Nids - not for the Angels of Destruction ;-) )

Next on the workbench are some half finished gargoyles which need to get done, but I could not resist the lure of something quite a bit bigger than a mere gargoyle:

With that wingspan, he always catches the biggest fish

Any thoughts on the army? Improvements for the list? Requests for Niddy content? Let me know!