Unit of the Week: Tervigon v2 Synaptic Link

[Xenith]

++Tervigon++

 

 

We have a new unit of the week! This week it's the Tervigon, the Big Mamma of the tabletop brood swarms. Rarely seen on tables, this monster has the ability to churn out termagants like nobody's business. What are you thoughts, and how best would you use these?

• 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, Adaptative Physiologies and Stratagems do you prefer and how much does it depend on the above choices?
• Are you buffing this unit? If so, how?
• Uses in Matched, Narrative and Open Play
• What psychic powers are you taking? 

Over to you.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Xenith

[Xenith]

I'm really curious about this. I remember them being incredibly powerful when they were introduced in 5th/6th edition, and they could spawn gaunts continuously, I believe some top tourney lists used 2 of these to flood the table. This pretty much died out by 8th ed where your newly spawned units needed to be paid for in points, at least in matched play. While the wording is still confusing, whether you can only replace dead models that were armed with Fleshborers, or you can only replace models with fleshborers on the table, one use in Matched is if you have a unit of 20/10 devilgaunts/borergaunts, 10 of them can die, auto pass Ld due to synapse, then have their losses replaced each turn with the Tervigon. Despite how bad the unit may be, that's a potential ~250pts worth of gaunts on the table over a game. Even in Matched I'm keen to try one out.

 

In Narrative, we have a whole other ball game, where the 'Gon can spit out small units of 10 borergaunts to flood the table with ObSec scoring units, which will be hard to remove. In my crusade campaign, I'm keen to get one of these babies in as my third HQ after the Neurothrope and Hive Tyrant just to see what they can do. I know other playes will be using summoning and other stuff, so I don't feel too bad about it.

 

How are you guys using them, if any?

[WarriorFish]

It's all about the spawning rule: it needs to be right for the unit to be worthwhile. While nobody wants the original form, something underwhelming isn't that much better. I'm not sure how this could be done as to not punish or reward choices, if you consider the cost per model. The only way this could be done is to use a direct points value somehow which I can't see happening.

 

I guess we'll find out, in the meantime I am hoping the current incarnation has some use that people can share. The Tervigon is quite a unique unit that fits the nid theme so it'd be great to get one and make good use of it :)

[Arson Fire]

Honestly I think the original spawning rule wouldn't be so overbearing anymore. The game has moved on from 5th edition. There are a lot more things around capable of killing high numbers of termagants, and the termagants themselves haven't gotten much harder to kill.

 

There are actually a lot of reasons tervigons were so good back in 5th. The spawning rules were only a part of it.

Everything from the way they handed out an aura of toxin sacs + adrenal glands + counterattack upgrades to nearby termagants, to how the Smash rules worked to give them a solid number of S10 tank killing attacks, to how they could be placed in troop slots to spam up to 5 of them at a time when the force org chart was normally quite restrictive. Plus after the common psychic power tables came out, for a period of time they had access to Biomancy, which could grant them the Iron Arm power and make them almost unkillable.

 

Anyway, back to modern 40k.

In their current state, Tervigons just don't do enough. They're kind of tough for an HQ, but they don't do anything with that toughness. They are fairly bad in melee, and their only shooting is the tyranid equivalent of a pintle mounted storm bolter. They cast a power, but so do most other HQs.

All they have going for them is spawning and replenishing units of termagants.

Currently the rules do not favour spawning new units. Both due to the reinforcement point cost, and also how those units aren't in a detachment, so don't get a hive fleet bonus or Objective Secured.

So you're left with a model that replenishes 10 fleshborer termagants each turn, assuming the nearby termagant units haven't been completely wiped out. Which just isn't very interesting.

 

If you're intent on using them, then putting one next to a couple of termagant units consisting of 20 devourers and 10 fleshborers is optimal. So you can remove the fleshborers as casualties before the more expensively armed models, and replace them from the tervigon.

I don't find this a particularly enticing strategy though. It's too easily dealt with, for too little benefit.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Arson Fire

[Xenith]

With the addition of the new Synaptic Links to the Tyranids arsenal, the Tervigon has gained the 'Weaponised Gestation' ability. This ability, once passed onto a unit, allows that unit to reroll wound rolls of 1 & 2's when making ranged attacks. The ability is definitely great - things like devourers will get full rerolls to wound against T3 things, however is it worth the cost of admission that is the Tervigon itself? The addition of the link pushes the model to just over 200pts. 

[WarriorFish]

I think the 200pts price tag puts the kibosh on that, the Termagants will have a target on them enough to prevent you adding models this would just make it worse and it's easy to remove them. As much as I like the Tervigon and Termagants I can't see the effectiveness being worthwhile for what you could reasonably expect in a game

 

I know it's a poor man's solution to a unit's problems normally but in this case it might be best; a points drop. Arson covers the Tervigon's problems and they're enough that an addition like this isn't going to do much, even if it isn't a bad one. Nobody has any recent experience to share on using the unit either which I feel says it all

[Brother Nathan]

another in the category of if im taking the model ill take the upgrade but not worth tanking the model for the upgrade. unfortunately alot of people are of the impression that it also cant spawn gaunt in a crusher list( which i disagree. it can. not really worth it but sure.) im sure w alight rework could work very well as there's a lot it can do but it doesn't stack very well for the points compared to other more flexable units that deliver in as many areas atm. 

[Arson Fire]

It's a great synaptic link, but the model it's attached to is still a big expensive brick of "doesn't do a whole lot". So it's not quite enough to entice me into bringing one.

The new model teaser suggests that we'll get a codex sometime this year, so hopefully the tervigon will have its problems fixed then.

[Xenith]

Yea, gotta agree with you both in terms of matched play. I think the tervigon is already decent in crusade, so have crammed one into my list to spam stuff, and this just helps even more. As you said before Arson, the tervigon, at it's point cost, could just spit out free gaunts all game and it wouldn't break the game at all - SM apothecaries can bring a 65pt model back each turn for 0CP, so it's hardly unprecedented.