Escort Drone
Tyranid Escort Drones are heavily armed (albeit slow and ungainly) Destroyer-class Escorts that serve as the last line of defence for a fleet's Hive Ships. As such, they can usually be found clustering around the flanks of those massive Bio-ships.
Breed[edit]
Ram-Boat[edit]
Strangler[edit]
The Strangler Drone is the cheaper of the two feeder Destroyers, the other Vanguard version costing an extra 8 points to also give you the Marking ability that allows the Vanguard to paint enemy targets so target prioritization actually works.
If you don't care for target coordinating or plan on getting up in faces to deal damage anyways, or just want a cheaper assault escort, the Strangler Drone is your pal.
Keep in mind the Hook Tentacles are affected by relative ship weight, so hooking a larger craft like a cruiser, is going to fling your Strangler Destroyers at the Cruisers themselves, more than actually moving them towards you. Miscalculating this effect is a great way to hilariously kamikaze your Stranglers into enemy line ships, unless of course, you intend to do this to trap a ship in spore mines. This can actually be a useful tactic if you are about to lose the ship anyways, especially considering its cheap cost.
It is armed with 1 Feeder Tentacles and Hook Tentacles.
- Length: 1.5km; approx
- Mass: 3 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: Thousands of organisms
- Acceleration: 2.5 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx
Ordnance-Boat[edit]
Caustic[edit]
The Tyanids have very practical names for all their vessels which also tend to have very limited, single-use designs intended for them, especially in the lighter classes. Most Tyranid ships will only have one or two weapon systems, but come in a wide variety of combinations to make sure you can field however many, of whatever many, you need.
That being said, the Caustic Drone is a cheap Destroyer that fields a dual-round firing Pyro-Acid Battery. It's pretty clear this vessel is going to spend a lot of time with Tracking Sense active to up that critical rate to get as many fires started on enemy ships as possible.
Don't bother bringing Caustic Drones or any other Pyro-Acid ships against Necrons, as their immunity to fires negates most of the usefulness of these ships, granted you probably won't know ahead of time who you are fighting if playing ranked matches.
It is armed with 1 Double-Barrel Pyro-Acid Battery.
- Length: 1.6km; approx
- Mass: 2.7 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: Thousands of organisms
- Acceleration: 2.5 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx
Lance-Boat[edit]
Bio-Plasma[edit]
The bio-ship with a comically overly-enlarged gun.
The Bio-Plasma Drone and its equipped artillery weapon serve as the Lance weaponry and Lance fielding vessel for the Tyranid fleet respectively. Common to these types of weapons, the 100% accuracy and Armor Piercing that is customary across factions is found, but interestingly a hit to range is taken in exchange for the extra sweet ability to pierce shields. Quite a nice upgrade for a weapon that always wants to be hitting against hull whenever possible.
It is armed with 1 Bio-Plasma Discharge Artillery.
- Length: 1.6km; approx
- Mass: 2.4 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: Thousands of organisms
- Acceleration: 2.5 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx
Other[edit]
Wardrone[edit]
An old model of Escort Drones.
Wardrones are designed solely to fight and protect the Norn-Queen and the Hive Ship. They are dependent entirely on the influence of the Hive Mind in order to operate. Wardrones vary heavily in size and shape, and usually fight in swarms, using weight of numbers to perform their tasks.
It is currently unknown what type of weapons they have other than the fact that they act like the Termagaunts of Battlefleet Gothic and come in various shapes and sizes.
- Length: 1.5km; approx
- Mass: 2.1-2.9 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: Thousands of organisms
- Acceleration: 2.5 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx
Stalker Drone[edit]
Another old model of Escort Drones.
Stalker Drones are smaller defence ships which dart around the Hiveship, reacting immediately and frenziedly to anything that threatens it. Judging by its name, it would probably ambush enemy ships too distracted by the larger bio-ships.
It is currently unknown what type of weapons they have, although they probably have Claws if there are any indicators. Due to the fact that they may be ambush ships, having Claws could actually work quite well for their play style.
- Length: 1.5km; approx
- Mass: 3.2 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: Thousands of organisms
- Acceleration: 2.7 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx
In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2[edit]
Because of the large numbers of Tyranid ships to choose from, the Escort category has been divided into its Destroyer and Frigates subcategories, this portion handling the Destroyers. These lighter versions of the two subclass of escorts tend to feature faster engines and better manoeuvrability over the already agile small craft, at the cost of half the hull points awarded to ships of the Frigate class. On the same token, Destroyers typically have slightly less firepower with their weaponry than the comparable Frigate ships of the same faction, however, that is not always the case.
They are also the only ships of their weight class to have Boarding actions that aren't limited charge boarding torpedoes, as the Astartes small vessels lost their free Honor The Chapter assault skill. It is worth noting, both Orks and the Astartes still have the aforementioned boarding torpedoes, but they are more difficult to use and limited by their charges.
Escort Drones are the smallest bio-ships available but they could carry massive guns or even twin-link them. In this retrospect, they act similiarly to the Vanguard Drone Ship, albeit slightly weaker but more numerous.
| Vessels of the Tyranids | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spaceships | ||
| Battleships | Hive Ship (Ancient One) | |
| Cruisers | Void Prowler - Cruiser (Razorfiend Dark Prowler - Void Fiend) - Devourer | |
| Escorts | Escort (Escort Drone - Vanguard Drone Ship Kraken) | |
| Logistics | Narvhal | |
| Landships | ||
| Bio-titans | Viciator - Dominatrix Hierophant - Hydraphant | |
| Airships | ||
| Flying Fortress | Harridan | |