Tyranid Without Number(?) global

[ThongSong]

Apologies if I have the wrong global in mind, but I refer to the tyranid global that spawns a 1 fully upgraded horma + terma brood (or is it 2 horma broods? I forget, it's a Monday, zzz).

Would just like to find out what people's opinions of this are? Imo it feels that it allows a tyranid player a bit too much ease in recovering from squad wipes of their gaunt broods. We had a pretty bloody 3v3 that saw one tyranid player lose 3 out of his 4 gaunt squads in tier 1, and then swiftly go on to recover almost instantly in tier 2 when he called in this global on top of one of my setup teams. Although I did manage to get my setup team out of there in time, it does feel a bit worrying that hormas, excellent retreat killers in their own right, can get called in in the retreat path or on top of squads vulnerable to being butchered by melee squads.

Not calling it OP or anything, it's just raising my eyebrows a bit and I would like to know what other, much more qualified players, think of this.

[FiSH]

I am undecided on this global as a whole, but being able to call down two capping units ANYWHERE on the map seems too much. Make them spawn at base or something?
Edit: In LoS.

[Tex]

I'll add it to my list...

[hiveminion]

I've been using it a lot, both to recover from losses or to get a superswarm going in t2.

So far I don't think it's OP even though it's pretty cheap, here's my reasons:

- With the hitpoint nerfs on gaunts they wipe a lot faster now so this global is a good way to balance that.

- The call-down time is a fair few seconds so you can't really get the drop on anything with it, I'm pretty sure even a setup team has time to move away from the marker.

- Although it's really cheap, we're talking lvl1 gaunt squads here in t2/3, when Tyranids could get zoans, tyrant guards or even fexes out with that requisition. So using it is a pretty big decision for the Nid player to make unless he's far ahead in tech and resources.

[ThongSong]

yes the calldown time is quite significant, although at the time I wasn't sure if it was a warrior call in or spore mines, but naturally I just moved out of it anyway. nothing good ever came out of a tyranid call in.

my only issue with it is the, like hiveminion said, that it can undo the damage of wiping gaunt squads with relative cheapness and ease. From Indrid's replays and from his remarks, we've all seen a countless replays where gaunts are killed in the trillions but as long as the squad isn't wiped, it is generally of little to no consequence especially with endless swarm, which I believe was implemented into the Elitemod. However, this seems to have eliminated the consequence of a tyranid player losing gaunt squads.

I do get your other points though. appreciate the feedback.

[Atlas]

Just theorycrafting, but I'm more concerned that a Tyranid player would combine this global with the Swarmlord late and overdose on gant/gaunt squads after you focus down his pricier stuff like zoans/fexes. A Lascannon doesn't help against Horms eating your face.

[ThongSong]

yeah we had one of the tyranid players in said game try to do that. considering there were 2 tyranid players in the game, I think there was something in the order of 5-6 gaunt squads running around eating everything.

however sniping the warriors with plasma guns and sheer amounts of dakka and our ork ally countering with his own huge melee army put a stop to that. still bloody. still awesome.

but back to the point... the tyranid melee swarm with the , well, SWARMlord does make it rather insane. at least now gaunt squads don't have their t3 warrior leaders which made it even more ungodly to fight

[Broodwich]

Why not just spawn them at base? It would still be pretty helpful but doesn't run into the same problem of dropping horms on setup teams

[ThongSong]

yeah I'd be pretty happy to have them spawn at the base. didn't the vanilla 'without number' spawn rippers at the base too?

[Vapor]

yeah I'd be pretty happy to have them spawn at the base. didn't the vanilla 'without number' spawn rippers at the base too?

I remember that shit spawning rippers out on the field for an instant setup team counter in retail.

[hiveminion]

I remember that shit spawning rippers out on the field for an instant setup team counter in retail.

How is that different from globals like Flare, Creeping Barrage, Noxious Cloud, Hellfury Strike (or whatever that fire drop from IG and GK is called)?

Maybe I underestimate the abuse that was possible with the old Ripper drop, but I don't understand why of all things that can be dropped on the field (Warp Spiders, Terminators, even a Land Raider), Rippers of all things were considered too powerful to be able to call down, and now Gaunts.

[Vapor]

I remember that shit spawning rippers out on the field for an instant setup team counter in retail.

How is that different from globals like Flare, Creeping Barrage, Noxious Cloud, Hellfury Strike (or whatever that fire drop from IG and GK is called)?

Maybe I underestimate the abuse that was possible with the old Ripper drop, but I don't understand why of all things that can be dropped on the field (Warp Spiders, Terminators, even a Land Raider), Rippers of all things were considered too powerful to be able to call down, and now Gaunts.

It wasn't really different, also Rippers couldn't retreat in retail. Hormagaunts are pretty good at retreat killing with adrenal glands though, plus it's a T2 drop.

[Torpid]

Well it cost 100 red which is quite cheap. Also rippers take forever to kill, especially if you don't have melee around (IG/sm) so it's much worse than a hellfury that only requires a swift repositioning to counter, or even a flare (but of course flares affect more than one squad). The other deal with the ripper swarm and the bigger one IMO was that rippers snare vehicles so you could just send in some flying rippers in a vehicle's escape route and bam, dead vehicle. That was so stupid.

[Ace of Swords]

I remember that shit spawning rippers out on the field for an instant setup team counter in retail.

And now you can do this all over the map for no red cost thanks to towers.

[Broodwich]

Um you need towers which costs red then to spawn from the towers which takes a bit... If you know he can spawn rippers from a tower, kill it before you roll your vehicle by

[GrimReaper]

Well the original without number as i remember from retail (or was it chaos rising?) spawned 1 horma 1 terma and a warrior squads at your base which as i remember won me more than a few games .
Maybe the global could be reverted to that estate (minus the warriors of course)