After having a couple of friends look over my planned list, a few things cropped up. Cassius the tyranid hunting chaplain no longer gives the preferred enemy ability to units he joins, nor does he have it himself. So I may drop him in favour of a chaplain who is kitted out to join and lead my assault unit. The other thing that cropped up was that hellfire rounds only work in boltguns. They can’t be added to bolt pistols like previously, which means I may drop the hellfire rounds or add a bolter to my captain and upgrade his powersword to a relic blade. The relic blade means you don’t get the extra attack for a second close combat weapon anyway. Hellfire rounds with the captains ballistic skill would mean that he would have very high chances to hit and then wound. The only problem would be that the armour penetrating ability of the rounds are the same as a normal bolter, when you could get a plasma pistol for a fairly similar cost which is way more powerful.

After reading up a bit on the various tyranid army builds, finding a balance with heavy guns to take out massed infantry and anti-tank weapons to deal with the big bugs (or nidzilla lists) is not easy. I am lucky that I don’t face tyranid armies with the big tyrgon included, but I am sure it is only a matter of time. (the model is awesome so I can see it being purchased even if only as a centrepiece model for someones collection which sees very limited tabletop use)

Checking the space marine codex FAQ I noticed that you can buy razorbacks for full ten man units and simply attach it to one of the combat squads. Of course from the way it reads it looks like you can only buy a single razorback for the squad as a dedicated transport which will mean one combat squad gets to footslog it to keep up.

This option gives me the chance to have a five man squad with a flamer and possibly a character leading them, in a vehicle armed with a twin linked heavy weapon. Leaving me the other five man squad with a heavy weapon to help form a defensive firebase with other units in my army.

Yes, I do use the hammer and anvil tactics as my standard strategy against most enemies, but I have found against target rich armies it is sometimes better to use a ‘wall of firepower’ and stand firm whilst using the bolters of my troops to thin down enemy units till they get close and then unleash my close combat units to finish them off before using a methodical advance to seek and destroy the remaining enemy units.

Sometimes the plan goes pear shaped from the start. A lucky artillery hit or a high roll on the vehicle damage chart can mean your flank lynchpin disappears leaving you having to redeploy heavy weapons troopers to cover the shortfall in firepower. Normally I like to keep a squad or two for these instances, but I am thinking of swapping my reserve units (small squads mounted in razorbacks left at the rear of my defensive line to fill holes due to casualties or to charge forward and lead a counter attack into enemy advance forces) replacing them with possibly a bike squad or attack bike squad would give them added survivability as well as giving me the option to get them moving fast and flanking into the enemies deployment zone. I don’t like the survival odds of a unit doing this unsupported, but add in the landspeeder tornado to help it could be a handy fast moving mini force that can harass the enemy rear and hopefully take an objective in the last rounds of the game.

It does give me a sense of déjà vu talking about bike units like that as my old eldar army consisted of multiple jetbike squads supported by vypers and a couple of tanks. The army was a first strike big win / big loss build designed to specifically target a friends space marine army. If the army got first turn, it could more often than not take out the vehicles and characters in their first turn, any that survive from the retaliation are merely a bonus. Once the marines were without heavier weapons and vehicles, the eldar tanks and vypers can advance unmolested and clean up the remaining troops. If the eldar go second it is a little bit harder to get the first strike options happening. I haven’t updated the list to the latest codex, but previously you could get two meltaguns in each guardian jetbike squad and they were the best option to take out enemy armour and characters. I was tempted to update them to fly out against the new tyranids but I am more interested in just getting ready for the upcoming ‘summer of fliers’ at the moment.