Spore Mine Mania

How many damns does this dude give? None.

Recently I've been looking at the Tyranids I want to bring to the Battle for the Crossroads to provide some innovation. I have relied on Tervigons, termagants, flying hive tyrants, carnifexes, hive guard etc. Granted, I do use some units that most people would never use (carnifex), but I wanted to mix it up a bit. After reading a thread on The Hive I decided to try Biovores and spore mines.

I managed to paint two biovores and 32 spore mines in four or five nights. The spore mines are super easy to paint and small. The biovores are also pretty easy to paint (Tyranids in general are easy to paint).

These are GW's models, not mine. I'll get painted versions up soon

I feel like spore mines in particular are very iconic to the Tyranid invasion. These dudes are all over the cover of the Tyranid codex and they're really what Tyranids are all about: using evolution to further their greatness. The models themselves are very cool and will look great on the tabletop.

The Biovore model is pretty old and is more of a 3rd edition 'comical' look. It has a weird grin and an eye in its big phallic cannon on its back. It'll work for shooting out more mines, though.

Ptewwwwy!

So how am I gonna try to use these dudes? I have two biovores, so I painted them up for my army. They'll launch mines at big targets (mines are S4 AP4, large blast, barrage, pinning) hopefully from behind cover or out of LOS. If the blast fully scatters and isn't within 6" of an enemy unit a mine gets place on the field to bounce around and be a nuisance.

Once the mine is on the field it moves randomly and will explode if it hits impassable terrain, enemy units, or passes within 2" of an enemy unit. Again it is a large blast, S4 AP4. The randomness adds to the fun element and makes the enemy react to what I'm doing while my dudes move across the field.

In addition to the biovores I'll be deploying, I'm also thinking about taking spore mine clusters. These are FA choices that cost 10 points per mine and you can have up to six. These are put out after sides have been chosen but before deployment. They go in like a deep strike. Tonight I'm going to try three broods of them in the max six formation to see if they do anything.

1850pt Tyranids 5th Ed (2010) Roster (Standard)

HQ (265pts)

• Tervigon (185pts)
   Catalyst, Dominion, Stinger Salvo, Toxin Sacs
• Tyranid Prime (80pts)

Elites (300pts)

• Hive Guard Brood (100pts)
  • 2x Hive Guard
• Hive Guard Brood (100pts)
  • 2x Hive Guard
• Hive Guard Brood (100pts)
  • 2x Hive Guard

Troops (470pts)

• Termagant Brood (50pts)
  • 10x Termagant
• Termagant Brood (50pts)
  • 10x Termagant
• Tervigon (185pts)
  Catalyst, Dominion, Stinger Salvo, Toxin Sacs
• Tervigon (185pts)
  Catalyst, Dominion, Stinger Salvo, Toxin Sacs

Fast Attack (180pts)

• Spore Mine Cluster (60pts)
  6x Spore Mine
• Spore Mine Cluster (60pts)
  6x Spore Mine
• Spore Mine Cluster (60pts)
  6x Spore Mine

Heavy Support (620pts)

• Biovore Brood (90pts)
  • 2x Biovore
• Tyrannofex (265pts)
  Rupture Cannon, Stinger Salvo, Thorax Swarm with Electroshock Grubs
• Tyrannofex (265pts)
  Fearless, Instinctive Behaviour - Lurk
  Rupture Cannon, Stinger Salvo, Thorax Swarm with Electroshock Grubs

Created with BattleScribe

We'll see how the mines actually do. They can force a player away from a certain deployment area or force them to deploy a unit near them to deal with them. They might even take up shots  on the first turn if people are scared. The difficulty comes in that they're big broods and if they run into the unit on their first scatter they are just removed.

The look on that guardsman's face... spore mines just don't care

I'll be sure to post up pictures of all my spore mines once they're painted. I think it'd be hilarious to bring nine biovores to a game and just launch these things willy nilly. Unfortunately they're $41.25 a pop due to GW's price increases.

I'm likely to shoot a battle report tonight so check it out and see how the mines do!