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The recent Armies on Parade has me thinking about refining my tournament army into a much better looking force. To be honest it has been a while since the tournament force has hit the table, as it needs a few adjustments due to the last codex release. (moving house and holidays with the kids mean tournaments took a backseat for a while as the miniatures were boxed up for the move early on.

So what do I intend to change? Well aside from a few weapon changes in some of the units, I am going to push the army up from it’s 1500 point mark to the 2000 mark. Which means some new units to be added to the force. Currently the force is my own chapter with a focus on ‘stealer hunting’ (which means lots of bolters, heavy bolters and assault cannon).

The first additional inclusion will be another tactical squad which is built to function in kill team games so will have a lot of attention and conversion done to it. This may replace one of the squads in the force already. Adding another dreadnought has been on my list for a while, and I have been looking at making a much more brutally armed version by swapping out the dreadnought fist with some sort of saw contraption built from ork dredd parts. But with fliers becoming the flavour of the month I may include a mortis pattern dread instead. That would match my army style quite well and be useful on the tabletop. Neat looking conversions are what I am wanting to add to the force. I have an old rhino waiting on a few extra pieces before it gets a coat of paint.

Mostly the army was put aside as I didn’t have time to sculpt up all the tyranid hunter sigils and trophies that I wanted to add to the army. Yes I did fall for the whole preferred enemy chapter trait from the old custom chapter codex rules. As I was facing a genestealer coven list a lot it made a lot of sense to me to go for tyranids and not the orks or eldar. These days eldar would have been a better pick to gain a bonus against the dark eldar!

I have avoided the thunder hammer and storm shield terminator squad in my tournament list as I feel that my assault squad does just as well and I can use the terminators to advance guns blazing to take and hold objectives and survive any attempts to dislodge them. With no rules for deathwatch with the latest marine books and no idea when a xenos inquisition book may be done, I am toting with the idea of swapping out the terminators for a sternguard squad (dressed as a deathwatch unit) as both the sternguard and deathwatch have similar weapons. And I like the look of the deathwatch and want to include a unit for myself.

Adding a bit more punch via another predator may help boost the longevity of the current one I have.

Which just leaves the command choices. I currently run a captain with a powersword and bolt pistol and a conversion field to keep points down and help protect my tactical units from enemy assault units by drawing in the assaulters to himself rather than the weaker tactical troops. The real powerhouse is the fully kitted chaplain with jump pack who joins the assault squad to put a big dent in enemy ground troops or to put the frighteners on enemy armour. (I have seen people move their armour away from the squad to avoid close assault by them only to pass into the fields of fire of my units and be destroyed by them instead. It is tempting to swap the captain for the ultramarines chaplain to gain some of the anti tyranid special rules he brings to the force.

You will notice a distinct lack of special characters as I was never one to rely on Marnues Cowpat or Tigurius and his rod of bullshit when they first appeared. The special character models are nice and fun to paint but I don’t see them adding much to my force. Yes it was tempting to swap around some units and heavy weapons to make full use of the special vulkan rules, or to go for a Lysander focused force but the idea of having named characters everyone else does is too much of a downside for me. Not that I don’t have enough miniatures to field such armies, I just wouldn’t enjoy it. (not to say that I don’t field a deathwing force built from my terminator units from time to time as a change against the normal opponents I face)

So if anyone has good tips on what units would look good added to a tyranid hunter force, let me know. Tips on how to add the tyranid hunter symbols would be greatly appreciated, as I am tempted to do transfers to make the symbols a bit easier to add rather than sculpting them on each model. I am less worried about on table effectiveness as I am with building a cohesive looking force that matches the theme of my chapter and can convey the hunter aspect.

As an aside I have been looking at creating an apocalypse datasheet for the tyranid hunter force, basically it will be the tournament army itself with maybe one or two special rules added to reflect the tyranid hunting aspect, anyone built their own infantry datasheets?

Deathwatch kill team unit adjusted to work as a veteran marine squad. Should it have the heavy bolters normally used by deathwatch or switch to two heavy flamers to help with close range attacks. The bonus no rolling to hit with the flamers means it is simply down to wounding. It wastes their good ballistic skill but the quality of the weapon should make up for that.

A flamer marine could be converted to have what looks like a big bug spray cannister. Or design it so it looks like a big fuel tank on their back with a nozzle ready to spray toxin/poison over everyone. Get one of the imperial guard ones as a starting point for the conversion. Possibly convert the flamer so it is a bit shorter in length.

Magnetise a landraider so all options are available.

Add a second predator to help boost the armour of the army. Magnetise the weapons, so one of the landraiders can be upgraded to a terminus pattern with the single las cannon sponsons.

Add a dreadnought ironclad for some serious close support for my terminators. Needs to be pretty heavily converted to stand out from my normal dreads.

Build up a landspeeder squadron to help deplete enemy numbers and have a couple of extra shots in case of misses. Also great for use as a skyfall spearhead unit to destroy multiple enemy vehicles or infantry units.

Would a pair of whirlwinds add some decent cheap artillery options to the army? Or should it be a whirlwind and a vindicator? The whirlwinds could be converted to match more the manticore look rather than the current design. The back mounting carriage and the driver compartment could be used to fuse the manticore missiles to a rhino chassis, swap the guardsman driver for a marine and you have a pretty fancy conversion with big rockets for use on the tabletop.

Use the immolator as a basis for a razorback for a veteran / elite unit or for a command unit. It wouldn’t take much work to replace the gunner with a marine one and swap out the weapons for something within the marine list. Might be worth trying to find an original metal conversion kit rather than the new one.

Building an effective force would only really entail a few more vehicles for transport and a couple of special and heavy weapon options for the squads to bring them in line with the rules.

Objective markers. Do a set of objectives one through six looking like scanner blips on green and then replicate exactly but use red as a colour so switching the objective control is easy. Have a grey version for any uncontrolled or contested objectives?
Double sided ones! Red one side green the other. For the contested or unclaimed versions one side could be blank (grey) with the second side half red half green (in a yin yang style?) or should it be grey and blue sides to cover multiplayer games?

Captured banner marker, either have it as a simple little circle marker or possibly as a little flag on a base.

Destroyed vehicle markers.
Have a couple of junked rhinos and other vehicles to help block line of sight when they are damaged.

Build the grand master of the grey knights as either a terminator librarian with deathwatch experience or as an inquisitor. Either way it adds a powerful and expensive unit to the army. As a senior inquisitor, it would give access to the mystics and heavy weapon servitors to help defend the army firebase from drop armies and from highly psychic armies. The main focus would be to just get an awesome model onto the table. Rumours are that mystics are going to be dropped for inquisitors so I might hold off on the extra unit models until the rules are closer and we have some idea of what they can take.

Dreadnought – either venerable or standard. Can they still have the twin linked heavy bolters? If so, them paired with a close combat / flamer would be useful in close support against infantry and light vehicles. Is there the option to give twin linked autocannon on each arm mount? Good for heavy infantry and vehicles, and looks AWESOME! have the arm options magnetised for easy weapon testing AND leaves it open to be further upgraded if other options become available or if I want to run it as an ironclad for a game or two. The blood angels can get the redeemer flame cannon on their dreads. Might be worth building one up and run it either as an allied unit or use the weapon as a normal heavy flamer until there is a rules update. (or I pick up the Imperial Armour book to use it in my Apocalypse games).

Redo the unforgiven dark angel character as a chaplain for the army and give him matching bolt pistols or plasma pistols along with converting the model so it has a much stronger chaplain feel to it.

Strip and repaint one of my classic techmarines (beaky MK6 marine) and convert it so it matches the current rules (servo harness)

Possibly convert up a version of the tech marine light artillery piece for my army to use. I don’t see it in armies I play against so is it a useful addition or is it better to spend points on a whirlwind or vindicator?

An assault squad in a rhino is an easy support choice for countering enemy movements and for clearing objectives for the tactical squads to hold.

It is worth considering some rhino and razorback additions to the army to help with redeployment during the game?Basically start with a reserve group in razorbacks and rhinos and build from there if it works on the table.

The idea of using transformer style robots as tyranids is an interesting one.

Running a simple pallette along with various sized cheap plastic models for troops could be a real winner.

Building up a stockpile of cheap robot toys could be a way to get the best option for each unit AND if all else fails the toys could be cast up to fill units in larger mobs for apocalypse scale battles.

It would also allow for necron models being used for parts (like weapons and heads) plus it could be used as a counts as force to stand in for necrons.

Additionally they could be used to stand in for the genestealers in Space Hulk to give it a different feel for a couple of games.

All this talk of new plastic daemon goodness has got me digging through my thousands sons stuff and adding in some new plastics to the summoned units is going to give me a larger choice of units. Yes, the thousand sons legion is quite a limited army in that you get very few options and the troops are not that quick to adapt to the changing battlefield (and are seriously undergunned compared to other chaos forces). When your only heavy/special weapon option is a psychic attack by your aspiring champion/sorceror you have to be that little bit more careful when and how you want to attack. Psychic hoods are NOT your friend.

But with a greater daemon and lesser daemon units I can see the flamers of tzeentch really making their points back versus horde armies, but against the now common Imperial Guard “leafblower” and “alpha strike” lists they are going to struggle. The best bet is dropping sorcerors into the IG rear and hopefully get some psychic strikes against the tanks along with any powerfists I can bring along. The IG sanctioned psyker squad is going to upset the applecart but knocking them off early will hopefully open up the psychic phase to a building torrent of psychic attacks. Fortunatly foot IG are soft against large flamer units, the daemons just have to get close enough without getting shot to pieces.

Honestly running a few rubric units should give me an unbreakable core of infantry and elites easily able to defend positions. Attacking would be best left to other units and any “cunning plan” I can come up with would be a bonus. From memory, a unit standard dedicated to tzeentch gives the unit an invulnerable save or increases the one they already have. Which could make for some tough rubric terminators! Having a fifty – fifty chance of saving hits is just awesome when facing Tau or IG heavy weapons.

It would be tough in a tournament due to the repeat spam of the troops choice (to get good army selection points). Full rubric tactical squad with sorceror aspiring champion in a rhino. There are no weapon options to choose from so anyone not used to them is going to be surprised how limited they are. Yes I know I can run normal chaos units dedicated to tzeentch, but they are not part of the legion as such.

Two daemon engines would probably give me the range and strike power I need in big games, but the thrill of building some silver towers may keep me busy long enough that an alternative unit comes out!

A vindicator would be low profile enough to advance with the troops and give them enough support to allow them to have some success in close range firefights and soften up targets prior to assaulting them. The vehicle upgrades could make for some interesting conversions. (the old flames of tzeentch one I have seen done amazingly well).

The special character for the thousands sons is not only a nice miniature it is pretty good on the table too. I might try and find the rules for Ahriman’s Council the unit of thousand sons sorcerors that was in a chapter approved article a while back. Have to pick a good selection of psychic powers to hopefully cover anti-vehicle and anti-infantry needs throughout games.

I primarily planned only a small force to use as an opponent in kill team themed games, but with the inclusion of some heavier daemon and vehicle units they may be a nice change to my Imperial Marines, Genestealer Coven and Orks.

There is also the option to build my daemons and try running a mono deity daemon list. I certainly have enough greater daemons for that!

Lesser daemon cavalry would be a sight to behold for tzeentch, although the horrors are meant to be riding discs, I can see various modes of transport being used from crazy cavalry mounts to a spawn with hundreds of legs.

Spare spawn and horror models are required for the psychic attack conversions. Possibly have imperial helmets or clothing modelled onto them. Even a couple of converted tyranid models would work well as they have great fanged maws and chitin body armour that could be replicated to make the spawn have a strong style along with some visual cue to where the original spawn was created from.

A recent devolpment is the leaked images of the new horrors. They have moved away from the more recent ones back to the bigger slightly comical versions. I have plenty of ideas for conversions so it might be worth getting a couple of boxes to convert up for fun. Of course all the crazy conversions will need to be matched in the other units or at least have the units with conversions as crazy. It would then be down to doing something different for the greater daemon to fit it within that style of army.

One of my tzeentch greater daemons is painted to look like a vulture but a second one I have could be converted to be more like a shaolin monk or similar.

Since there is a theme of flames with tzeentch I am tempted to work on a flame covered daemon prince. A burning skeleton in a robe would suit the style of the army especially if I spread flaming unit champions through the army. Adding extra flames onto the tzeentch flamer units could give them a better look alongside the burning prince.

Back in Realms Of Chaos days I had a chaos warband which was hilarious fun, especially when your champion was just as likely to be given gifts as mutations. Lots of gifts allowed you to ascend to daemonhood whilst mutations lead to becoming a chaos spawn. You had to laugh at the luck of some of my champions getting so close to their goal only to them be given half a dozen mutations leaving them nothing more than a spawn. Then there was the blasted standard which caused a toughness check which killed you if you failed or gifted you with d6 mutations. My genestealer cult faced one at one point a whole stealer squad was cut down apart from two, so I rolled up their mutations and ended up with two truly brilliant models to convert up. (this is just something I remembered whilst writing about flaming characters) one had a flaming skull, gave off a smoke cloud and had extra limbs, the second had an additional head, brightly coloured feathers, had extra long legs and both caused terror. Not a bad set of upgrades for them in our campaign, and makes me want to find the old conversions I did and do new better looking ones.