Unit of the Week: Tyrant Guard

[Xenith]

++Tyrant Guard++

 

 

We have a new unit of the week! This week it's the chitinous bulwark of the Tyrant Guard, originally released with the 3rd ed Codex, Tyrant guards purportedly incorporate Space Marine DNA to make them enduring bastions of biomechanical muscle, slaved to protect their Hive Tyrants. What are you thoughts here folks? How best would you use a unit of them?

• To compliment a list, or to build a list around? Will the beta rules affect your list(s)?
• What size unit? Will you be running multiple units?
• What Hive Fleet Traits, Adaptations and Stratagems do you prefer and how much does it depend on the above choices?
• Are you buffing this unit? If so, how?

Over to you.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

I think these guys have been in a pretty bad place forever, being honest. I'm geneuinely curious to see if anyone gets any milage from them, as my opinion is that it's probably better spending more points to get a second one of the things you're trying to protect.

 

I did see a suggestion on taking a unit of 6 BEHEMOTH Guard with crushing claws, then putting them into Strategic Reserve, which is definitely not what they were designed for, but could cause some damage, albeit on T2/3. 

 

Anyone else have thoughts on or experience with them? 

[WarriorFish]

I agree, I don't think these have been much good for some time. I recall they caused mischief back in 4th I think it was but seem pretty absent since. Such is the current game I think you're mostly better off adding more too, things are killy enough that redundancy is the more reliable response. Would be interested to hear of results with them, as it is something that is very Tyranid so would be nice to use.

[Azekai]

Bodyguard units like tyrant guard are odd, since they ostensibly are there to protect other tyranid characters, but you pay for toughness you really can't use, in that you are getting heavily armored creatures that suffer mortal wounds when they do their job.

Maybe you could throw catalyst on them to protect them from from the mortal wounds, but eh. Still an overpriced, do-nothing unit.

If they moved the hive tyrant into the same space as deathshroud or bullgryn, IE, close range threats that are really difficult to shift, they would likely be used. If there was a way to grant a unit of them obsec, they would probably see some use, even at their current points cost.

[TheNewman]

It's very hard to see the value in taking Tyrant Guard over just grabbing another Tyrant. Protecting a Swarm Lord might be more worthwhile since that has some very good special rules and a significantly heftier price tag.

[WarriorFish]

That's a good idea, a Bullgryn type role would be an easy and fitting shift to give the unit some life. Otherwise outside of a Swarmlord it makes for bad reading for poor Tyrant Guards. Even then I'm not sure if that is worth it short of making the Swarmlord the focal point of your list where all rests on him?

 

Oh well, you can only worth with what you have perhaps when the 9th codex comes around we can see an improvement :)

[Xenith]

Agree. They have the move to keep up with a walkrant, but their offensive power and cost are a bit off. That said, 9th is a different beast and we're seeing foot melee units having some utility again. Agree the bodyguard rule is bad, the hit should just be allocated to the unit instead. 

[INKS]

not mine but I had to share. This is a Guard!! 

 

https://twitter.com/Mod_Synth/status/1366410030971555845?s=20

[Xenith]

That's an insane conversion.

[Evil Eye]

not mine but I had to share. This is a Guard!! 

 

https://twitter.com/Mod_Synth/status/1366410030971555845?s=20

I follow this guy on Instagram and am in occasional contact with him, he's ridiculously talented with Tyranid conversions. But yeah it really is an amazing model isn't it? I generally don't much care for embiggening everything, but this works really well.

 

Regarding Tyrant Guard rules, I'd definitely agree they need their rules tweaked such that instead of swapping mortal wounds, you just can't aim directly at the Tyrant if there's Guard between him and the attacker. I really want to like Tyrant Guard (I have two of the 3E models, and also am converting a 4E metal one to be an imposing "alpha Guard" complete with overgrown Spineshield) but as it stands their rules are a bit weak.

[Evil Eye]

So I had an idea on fixing Tyrant Guard. First off, I'd rewrite their Shieldwall (or whatever it's called) rule to the following (or something close):
"A unit wishing to attack a Hive Tyrant (including the Swarmlord) may not do so if there are any Tyrant Guard closer to it than the Hive Tyrant, and must target the Tyrant Guard instead."

TLDR: Rather than the kinda idiotic Mortal Wound shifting (which renders the Guard's toughness useless) you straight up can't attack the Tyrant if there's any Guard in the way, much like how they used to work.

Secondly (though granted this would require conversion or an upgrade kit) I'd give them another wargear option:

"The entire brood may take Spineshields for 10 points per model. A model with a Spineshield gains +1 to their armour save (2+ in their case) and can shoot with the following profile (insert Spinefist profile here)"

Finally (and this would absolutely be a pipe dream) I'd give an option for "Eyrie Guard"- in other words, winged Tyrant Guard to accompany winged Hive Tyrants. These would be ruleswise identical to Tyrant Guard aside from flying and having greater movement speed, but would be 5 points a model more expensive, maybe with 4+ saves instead of 3+. Also they'd have the following rule to represent their blindness:

"When outside of Synapse range, Eyrie Guard lose the benefit of the FLY keyword and halve their movement value."

[Arson Fire]

The tyrant guards weaker defensive profile means that shooting the tyrant is a poor choice when more wounds can be put through by shooting the guard first.
I don't think that making the tyrant untargetable fixes anything. It just prevents the opponent from making a bad targetting choice.

Personally I lean towards adding a rule which gives tyrant guard the same defensive profile as a tyrant, so long as they are adjacent to a tyrant. Call the rule Fortress of Chitin, which was the name of an old apocalypse formation which improved the defensive abilities of tyrants + tyrant guard.