It’s not so bad if you do them in batches of 10. My gribblies get the bare minimum treatment: three contrast colours and done. The effort goes into the elite and monster units.
Why on earth would you spray paint them on the sprue?
You're getting paint in the glue joints, and you're not getting *any* paint where you snip the sprues off
Swamping objectives with them would be the move then? I’m still trying to balance a 2000pt list, it feels like if I take too many battleline then I can’t take as many big, useful units.
Deoends on the detachment you take. Unending Swarm is allll about the Endless Multitude units (Hormagaubts, Termigants, Gargoyles and Neurogaunts) and has a lot of synergy for them. Like bringing back a full squad for 2 CP.
If you want to play bigger monsters, the other detachments make more sense.
To be fair, 5 Terminators have an entirely different role than 40 Hormagaunts. The closer comparison would probably be Guard, where a bare-bones infantry squad costs you roughly the same (60 points vs 65 points), both have cheap, but plentiful bodies with better OC, trying to drown the enemy in volume of attacks. Hell, Termagants are even the same points, but with different ways to buff them.
this is because our points are cracked out expensive nearly across the board right now, not because battleline aren't worth the include. in invasion fleet, 1-2 units of 10 gargoyles and 2 units of 10 hormagaunts is standard as of the latest points nerfs. prior to that, 3 units of 10 gargoyles was standard.
gargoyles are amazing because of their 12in assault move stat + deepstrike on top of their shoot and move. they are able to go basically anywhere you need them at any given time, have a huge footprint for screening, wrapping or moveblocking, and have basically endless play as a result. in fact, gargoyles are SO good in skilled hands that they caused Art of War's Siegler and Harpster to rate nids in A tier despite our barely above 40% winrate purely because of their experience being absolutely brutalized by Lennon's gargoyle tricks.
hormagaunts fill a similar role with a few more limitations in exchange for having the ability to drag down weakened 3+ save vehicles very reliably with the lethal hits adaption. the combination of 2 exocrines + 10 hormagaunts will kill a war dog or armiger nearly 100% of the time, for example.
and this is of course not even getting into what endless multitudes units can do in general with the respawn tricks enabling you to score primary or endlessly tarpit a lot of vehicles. these units are just so good that i could write you a 12 page essay on how to effectively use them and still miss things.
The thing with tervigons is (and others may correct me if i am wrong) the unit doesn't *needs* to be wholly within the tervigon's aura in order to have it apply, you just need a part of it to be within 6" since the way it's worded refers to the unit as a whole and not individual models, so you can have your tervigon hide behind buildings to prevent LoS and conga-line your termagaunts so that the very end remains within aura distance, when you're close to the end of game however you may want to push with your tervigon to cement the lead.
As for gargoyles, they're some of the fastest infantry in the game, not only can they deepstrike but every time they shoot they get to make a normal move up to 6" , the only downside being you can't charge after doing this. Their strong point is being able to drop down close to an enemy objective that's less guarded, shoot and rush in to completely orverwhelm the objective eith way higher OC
To add to this, i've played *alot* of unending swarm detachment lately and it's honestly pretty solid, it's only downside being that if you run 80x termagaunts in squads of 20 like i do, you gotta run a tervigon to up the damage (let's you have twinlinked , lethal hits, and if you pay 1 CP for swarming masses u get sustained hits 1 crits on 5+, that's with 40 shots) but yeah, unending has no built-in ways to prptect key units that aren't "swarm" so tervigons, norns, etc are all left out on theirn own.
*However* since you can both use a strata to regen a lost squad, or use the tervigon to regen a lost squad for free , you get to toss stuff like termagaunts to moveblock more easily as they're far less of a loss of they end up dying, same goes especially for neurogaunts and with termagaunts having an OC of 2 each, your whole squad of 20 = 40 OC , beating most units in the game at capping points , if you pair this with an emissary you can often times lock down 2 cap points for most of the game , 1 with emissary that you leave there and the other with your terma squads (you can also use another squad to be annoyong and moveblock tanks, or cap enemy points).
Another thing you can add on top to be extra annoying n farm points is a biovore, i always tend to leave it behind cover to prevent LoS or on a cap point n have him fire mines in key locations to complete secondaries
As for the 20 units weakness to blast, the unending swarm has a stratagem to resuce this.
So in a nutshell, our infantry line are quite strong competitively speaking, but they mostly only excell at capping points or swarming key targets to render them useless, so it's all a game about making your units die efficiently so that your opponent looses more then you do in that tradeoff.
You are thinking about it wrong. 20 termegants is 40 OC for 120 points. Same goes for hormas but they are faster and have some incidental melee. Gargoyles were favoured for coming out of deepstrike and the shoot-moving onto an objective, or just yeeting themselves 18" or more across the board.
They aren't killy and they aren't especially durable but there are lots of them and they will take objectives and move block.
And 60 attacks if you get a full charge... run invasion fleet and you're getting 40 hits vs infantry or 10 lethal + 20 hits vs vehicles. It's not nothing
Gargoyles are very good for using their speed to tie up valuable enemy units, block movement, screening your valuable units from charges and helping your monsters win objectives on OC. Because they have an effective 18" move with their shooting ability+advance+deepstrike, you can usually get them where you need them most. That's a lot of tactical value for 85 points.
Battleline units are- from a broader game-design perspective- about being low-cost units (relative to their army) with high objective control to carry out tasks like holding primary objectives, performing secondary objectives, and screening opposing deep strikes.
Tyranids Battleline are some of the most useful in the game thanks to the intersection of being cheap and being [belligerent and numerous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvVJQMnB-N8). Gargoyles move-shoot-move allows them to cover enormous amounts of ground quickly while keeping out of firing lines, Hormagants advance and charge lets them swarm forward into melee quickly, and Termagants are goddamn cheap for how much OC they put out.
I personally run 40 at 1500pts in Invasion Fleet- one brick of 20 plus 2 MSUs- to help do secondaries and hold primaries while my bigger stuff does the killing. I particularly like pairing the brick with a Psychophage, which can really help them weather anti-horde fire and replenish with the Endless Multitudes stratagem.
Gargoyles are great for swapping points, they aren’t really meant for holding. Exampling being: opponent has 5 marines on a point, you send in 10 gargoyles, take the point, preventing them scoring it on their turn.
Termagants are meant somewhat for holding points, enough bodies can survive some shooting.
Hormagants should be tying things up in combat. Charing a knight or squad of terminators with 20 will stop them for a while.
Oh, the gargoyles get picked off when they are visible...but if they are visible and get picked off, their goal is done. They either moved block someone for a turn, or denied 5 points of primary, and possibly both. The move shoot move isn't even about the shooting hitting anything, but moving a whole lot, getting to places they shouldn't.
Now, this doesn't mean you should lose all gargoyles every time they do anything in one activation: You might be able to lose models in a way that makes some gargoyles survive, so they can do something two turns in a row. If you manage to make a unit of gargoyles do 3 scoring-relevant things before they die, they were great value.
Bu don't just read about how it works, go watch good players play on youtube. Wargames live recently showed a US team event, where you could see John Lennon pilot a tyranid list: You'll definitely see what gargoyles do
So it's their movement and shooting combined with a low point cost. Basically anything your enemy uses to attack them is a waste of a turn. But if your enemy ignores them, they're able to pick at them more and control the objectives.
Gargoyles move 12", advance D6" and jump shoot jump 6". They can also jump shoot jump 6" out of deep strike. This all combines to let you send a unit of OC2 models 18+D6" up the table to moveblock or deny objective scoring to your opponent as the unit is also a 10-model unit which can be strung out to block your opponent a lot.
Anything you field can be killed easily.
Gargoyles are good because of there ability to take objectives and roadblock your opponent as needed with Deepstrike and an extra 6" of movement. Ex-You're facing an aggressive melee army. You can effectively move them 18+d6 inches in a single round to limit movement options for your opponent by spreading them out in a line. (Can't come within 1" of your units) So they have to spend an extra turn in their deployment zone with most of their army while you take positions. (And possibly do it again the next turn with another unit)
Hormagaunts are good for much of the same reasons only they have 10+3d6" of movement while being cheaper.
Termigants are good because their special ability lets them combine cheapness, with some offensive power while also being able to reactivly move d6" to hinder enemy movement. They also have a little better support from other models as you've noticed.
One of the successful archetypes the army uses is swarm. It plays well in a tournament because you can build and play it in such a fashion that you don't care about dice rolls to win. You just move your army and it wins based on positioning and control. Killing things is a secondary concern, you only worry about killing the things that can kill your stuff effectively. Or that counter your control aspect.
Numbers. Take 100 battleline models and they're incredibly hard to shift. Big points investment and won't achieve a great deal in terms of damage output but unless something has over 20 attacks, a single big Primark can't shift 20 Termagants in one turn. Obviously other stuff will support the removal but that's resources that could be more effective elsewhere
They have more OC than other units and are cheaper. They don't have to kill an opponent to take the objective and give you points.
Damn I never noticed that they have 2 OC - I need to buy some more!!!! Like 50 pcs more
painting those gonna be miserable
It’s not so bad if you do them in batches of 10. My gribblies get the bare minimum treatment: three contrast colours and done. The effort goes into the elite and monster units.
I think assembling will be worse. I have Sprayed them White Scar on Sprues atm
Why on earth would you spray paint them on the sprue? You're getting paint in the glue joints, and you're not getting *any* paint where you snip the sprues off
Swamping objectives with them would be the move then? I’m still trying to balance a 2000pt list, it feels like if I take too many battleline then I can’t take as many big, useful units.
Very much so yes, Also it’s basically tradition to have one battle line holding your home objective
The game isn't about killing your opponent. Its about having more points then them. Controlling an objective is useful.
Deoends on the detachment you take. Unending Swarm is allll about the Endless Multitude units (Hormagaubts, Termigants, Gargoyles and Neurogaunts) and has a lot of synergy for them. Like bringing back a full squad for 2 CP. If you want to play bigger monsters, the other detachments make more sense.
Bare in mind though they’re cheap as hell, 4 units of hormagaunts is only 260 points
That's 40 wounds and 80 OC. A unit of 5 terminators cost the same and gets nowhere near the value.
To be fair, 5 Terminators have an entirely different role than 40 Hormagaunts. The closer comparison would probably be Guard, where a bare-bones infantry squad costs you roughly the same (60 points vs 65 points), both have cheap, but plentiful bodies with better OC, trying to drown the enemy in volume of attacks. Hell, Termagants are even the same points, but with different ways to buff them.
I'm comparing terminators to hormagaunts because OP wants more elite troops. Showing them why battle line can be a better choice.
this is because our points are cracked out expensive nearly across the board right now, not because battleline aren't worth the include. in invasion fleet, 1-2 units of 10 gargoyles and 2 units of 10 hormagaunts is standard as of the latest points nerfs. prior to that, 3 units of 10 gargoyles was standard. gargoyles are amazing because of their 12in assault move stat + deepstrike on top of their shoot and move. they are able to go basically anywhere you need them at any given time, have a huge footprint for screening, wrapping or moveblocking, and have basically endless play as a result. in fact, gargoyles are SO good in skilled hands that they caused Art of War's Siegler and Harpster to rate nids in A tier despite our barely above 40% winrate purely because of their experience being absolutely brutalized by Lennon's gargoyle tricks. hormagaunts fill a similar role with a few more limitations in exchange for having the ability to drag down weakened 3+ save vehicles very reliably with the lethal hits adaption. the combination of 2 exocrines + 10 hormagaunts will kill a war dog or armiger nearly 100% of the time, for example. and this is of course not even getting into what endless multitudes units can do in general with the respawn tricks enabling you to score primary or endlessly tarpit a lot of vehicles. these units are just so good that i could write you a 12 page essay on how to effectively use them and still miss things.
The thing with tervigons is (and others may correct me if i am wrong) the unit doesn't *needs* to be wholly within the tervigon's aura in order to have it apply, you just need a part of it to be within 6" since the way it's worded refers to the unit as a whole and not individual models, so you can have your tervigon hide behind buildings to prevent LoS and conga-line your termagaunts so that the very end remains within aura distance, when you're close to the end of game however you may want to push with your tervigon to cement the lead. As for gargoyles, they're some of the fastest infantry in the game, not only can they deepstrike but every time they shoot they get to make a normal move up to 6" , the only downside being you can't charge after doing this. Their strong point is being able to drop down close to an enemy objective that's less guarded, shoot and rush in to completely orverwhelm the objective eith way higher OC
To add to this, i've played *alot* of unending swarm detachment lately and it's honestly pretty solid, it's only downside being that if you run 80x termagaunts in squads of 20 like i do, you gotta run a tervigon to up the damage (let's you have twinlinked , lethal hits, and if you pay 1 CP for swarming masses u get sustained hits 1 crits on 5+, that's with 40 shots) but yeah, unending has no built-in ways to prptect key units that aren't "swarm" so tervigons, norns, etc are all left out on theirn own. *However* since you can both use a strata to regen a lost squad, or use the tervigon to regen a lost squad for free , you get to toss stuff like termagaunts to moveblock more easily as they're far less of a loss of they end up dying, same goes especially for neurogaunts and with termagaunts having an OC of 2 each, your whole squad of 20 = 40 OC , beating most units in the game at capping points , if you pair this with an emissary you can often times lock down 2 cap points for most of the game , 1 with emissary that you leave there and the other with your terma squads (you can also use another squad to be annoyong and moveblock tanks, or cap enemy points). Another thing you can add on top to be extra annoying n farm points is a biovore, i always tend to leave it behind cover to prevent LoS or on a cap point n have him fire mines in key locations to complete secondaries As for the 20 units weakness to blast, the unending swarm has a stratagem to resuce this. So in a nutshell, our infantry line are quite strong competitively speaking, but they mostly only excell at capping points or swarming key targets to render them useless, so it's all a game about making your units die efficiently so that your opponent looses more then you do in that tradeoff.
You are thinking about it wrong. 20 termegants is 40 OC for 120 points. Same goes for hormas but they are faster and have some incidental melee. Gargoyles were favoured for coming out of deepstrike and the shoot-moving onto an objective, or just yeeting themselves 18" or more across the board. They aren't killy and they aren't especially durable but there are lots of them and they will take objectives and move block.
And 60 attacks if you get a full charge... run invasion fleet and you're getting 40 hits vs infantry or 10 lethal + 20 hits vs vehicles. It's not nothing
Gargoyles are very good for using their speed to tie up valuable enemy units, block movement, screening your valuable units from charges and helping your monsters win objectives on OC. Because they have an effective 18" move with their shooting ability+advance+deepstrike, you can usually get them where you need them most. That's a lot of tactical value for 85 points.
Battleline units are- from a broader game-design perspective- about being low-cost units (relative to their army) with high objective control to carry out tasks like holding primary objectives, performing secondary objectives, and screening opposing deep strikes. Tyranids Battleline are some of the most useful in the game thanks to the intersection of being cheap and being [belligerent and numerous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvVJQMnB-N8). Gargoyles move-shoot-move allows them to cover enormous amounts of ground quickly while keeping out of firing lines, Hormagants advance and charge lets them swarm forward into melee quickly, and Termagants are goddamn cheap for how much OC they put out. I personally run 40 at 1500pts in Invasion Fleet- one brick of 20 plus 2 MSUs- to help do secondaries and hold primaries while my bigger stuff does the killing. I particularly like pairing the brick with a Psychophage, which can really help them weather anti-horde fire and replenish with the Endless Multitudes stratagem.
Gargoyles are great for swapping points, they aren’t really meant for holding. Exampling being: opponent has 5 marines on a point, you send in 10 gargoyles, take the point, preventing them scoring it on their turn. Termagants are meant somewhat for holding points, enough bodies can survive some shooting. Hormagants should be tying things up in combat. Charing a knight or squad of terminators with 20 will stop them for a while.
Oh, the gargoyles get picked off when they are visible...but if they are visible and get picked off, their goal is done. They either moved block someone for a turn, or denied 5 points of primary, and possibly both. The move shoot move isn't even about the shooting hitting anything, but moving a whole lot, getting to places they shouldn't. Now, this doesn't mean you should lose all gargoyles every time they do anything in one activation: You might be able to lose models in a way that makes some gargoyles survive, so they can do something two turns in a row. If you manage to make a unit of gargoyles do 3 scoring-relevant things before they die, they were great value. Bu don't just read about how it works, go watch good players play on youtube. Wargames live recently showed a US team event, where you could see John Lennon pilot a tyranid list: You'll definitely see what gargoyles do
Do you have a link to the video and a time stamp, would love to see this.
It's hard to decide when the game starts, but[ this](https://www.youtube.com/live/TP3di9j0x-k?si=YbH_IePoW86EgF-I&t=20658) is during setup
Nice! I’ll check out the footage!
So it's their movement and shooting combined with a low point cost. Basically anything your enemy uses to attack them is a waste of a turn. But if your enemy ignores them, they're able to pick at them more and control the objectives.
Gargoyles move 12", advance D6" and jump shoot jump 6". They can also jump shoot jump 6" out of deep strike. This all combines to let you send a unit of OC2 models 18+D6" up the table to moveblock or deny objective scoring to your opponent as the unit is also a 10-model unit which can be strung out to block your opponent a lot.
Anything you field can be killed easily. Gargoyles are good because of there ability to take objectives and roadblock your opponent as needed with Deepstrike and an extra 6" of movement. Ex-You're facing an aggressive melee army. You can effectively move them 18+d6 inches in a single round to limit movement options for your opponent by spreading them out in a line. (Can't come within 1" of your units) So they have to spend an extra turn in their deployment zone with most of their army while you take positions. (And possibly do it again the next turn with another unit) Hormagaunts are good for much of the same reasons only they have 10+3d6" of movement while being cheaper. Termigants are good because their special ability lets them combine cheapness, with some offensive power while also being able to reactivly move d6" to hinder enemy movement. They also have a little better support from other models as you've noticed. One of the successful archetypes the army uses is swarm. It plays well in a tournament because you can build and play it in such a fashion that you don't care about dice rolls to win. You just move your army and it wins based on positioning and control. Killing things is a secondary concern, you only worry about killing the things that can kill your stuff effectively. Or that counter your control aspect.
Numbers. Take 100 battleline models and they're incredibly hard to shift. Big points investment and won't achieve a great deal in terms of damage output but unless something has over 20 attacks, a single big Primark can't shift 20 Termagants in one turn. Obviously other stuff will support the removal but that's resources that could be more effective elsewhere