List Building: Jumping the Gun on 7th Edition with Tyranids

With 7th Edition looming, I've found myself in a bit of a paralysis (more than normal) when it comes to list building and planning my army for upcoming events, with NOVA being the big one on the horizon. That said, with some solid rumors (from GW or pictures of GW items), I feel inspired to at least take a look at evolving my most recent list.

Rather than jumping off the Unbound ledge, I will start by keeping a "Battle Forged" list with a formation. The screenshots in yesterday's video from GW seem to indicate that Formation units will occupy their usual slots in the force org chart, and so the Warriors in my Living Artillery Node should still benefit from Objective Secured.

Some of the changes I am considering are simply something I observed from my use in the tournament. Namely, I want to drop the Bastion and Regeneration. While the fortification was nice, I think it was a little restrictive. I am also considering dropping the second exocrine, though I think I might miss having the redundancy a pair offers.

First off, I will swap the second Exocrine for 3 Hive Guard. While I might miss the AP2, the extra punch and ignores cover from the Hive Guard, with the same range and number of shots is tempting. Being able to ignore line of sight is also powerful. Part of the reason for this change is because of the rumored changes to vehicles that makes them tougher, meaning I want a bit of extra punch for armor.

Next, dropping the bastion, regeneration from my tervigon, and the venomthrope frees up 150 points (plus 5 saved from Hive Guard). This gives me a few options. I can drop a 5 point upgrade from the warriors and get a Haruspex. This would really only work if rumors about boosts to combat were true. The haruspex is excellent against non-power weapon assault troops, like assault marines and Khorne hounds. If these became more popular, having a Haruspex to munch on them could be worthwhile.

Lacking the need for counter assault, the other options would be to add a third Crone or add more troops. The Crone, to me, depends a bit on whether there are changes to FMCs and Skyfire rules. If I went with troops, I am leaning to adding 20 hormagaunts (100 points) and leaving the venomthrope in. With the Objective Secured rule, along with their speed, hormagaunts make a viable choice to come in from reserve and sprint down the board for an objective.

So, for now, I've come up with the list below. I went the Haruspex route, but that's mostly because I want to try it out. More likely I will go with more troops or a third Crone.

Flyrant: 2 TL Devourers
Flyrant: 2 TL Devourers
Haruspex
3 Hive Guard
Zoanthrope
Tervigon
30 Termagants
3 Warriors: Devourers, Barbed Strangler
Hive Crone
Hive Crone
Exocrine
3 Biovores

This is a little bit of a temporary list, since I'm sure we'll see some shakeup with the 7th Edition Rules, but I'm also liking the balance here. The Haruspex moves along with the Exocrine and Hive Guard to protect them from potential assaults and tie up combat units he can eat. I've also lost my Shrouding bubble from the Venomthrope; I think cover saves could change, but they could become more or less important, so we will see. In the end, the best course of action could be to keep the venomthrope and add more troops in the form of termagants, hormagaunts, or even some Warriors or Genestealers.

Could 7th Edition be a new day for Tyranid Troops? I'm hopeful.