Unit of the Week: Sporocyst

[Xenith]

++Sporocyst++

 

 

We have a new unit of the week! This week it's the Other side of the Tyrannocyte, the Sporcyst. The first official faction specific terrain/fortification you could buy in-game, the Sporcyst has some cool rules and plenty of guns, however we never see them on the table. 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

Over to you.

[Xenith]

I want to love this unit, and I will try it out one day. I think the spore mine node rules are amazing and fun, though probably not particularly strong. You'd probably get the best mileage out of one of these as leviathan, where it gets the 6+++ but also the synaptic node can come into play more, boosting the range of any synapse creature you have. You could either use one in the backfield, near a Neurothrope to give large synapse coverage there and protecton for the Neuro, or be more aggressive and place it upfield, ideally on/near an objective, or use it's massive size to try and block your opponent into their deployment zone some more. Unfortunately it's a lot of points for a speedbump, but if you were planning at throwing 30 gaunts (210pts) at the opposing front line anyway, it's not too bad points-wise. 

 

Anyone used one?

[Arson Fire]

They were kind of ruined by the FAQ that made it so fortifications have to be placed more than 3" away from terrain. That makes it very hard to deploy them at all on many tables.

Prior to that change, they were seen occasionally. They were mainly used to block off lanes of movement, and to keep opponents away from objectives.

 

Also be aware that as fortifications, they do not get a hive fleet trait. So no 6+++ from Leviathan, or re-roll 1's from Kronos, etc.  Also while you can attempt to block movement to an objective with them, they are not capable of actually holding the objective themselves.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Arson Fire

[Evil Eye]

Whilst its rules are kinda mediocre from what I understand (the FAQ not helping, assuming you follow that rule) I will say as a model I infinitely prefer it to the Tyrannocyte, which I always found a bit daft. By contrast, the Sporocyst works really well as a repulsive Tyranid bio-fortification, and I'd say for Planetstrike or whatever it's called now (I'm stuck in 5E!) a network of them with other living defensive structures would be awesome for a "Tyranids as defenders" scenario.