The Forces of the Hive Mind grow their library with the newest release of the Army of Renown: Crusher Stampede in White Dwarf 471. As if they asked for more after the Synapse powers & Leviathan supplement in Warzone Octarius: Rising Tide, Games Workshop descended from the heavens to give Tyranids the Crusher Stampede rules, skyrocketing Tyranid players to the status of Chief Librarians given how many books & supplements they now have to carry just to play their army.
But just how good is the Crusher Stampede, and what does it bring to the army? Let’s unpack these 4 pages and just how much meat & potatoes ol’ G-Dubs added to the army with this supplement.
Every Army of Renown comes with benefits when you meet various restrictions. This allows Games Workshop to both have agency in what may be too good in these armies & keeps them very thematic and true to the point of the army. For Crusher Stampede the restrictions are as follows:
- No Swarm keyworded units, no models with <2 wounds
- For every unit in your army without the Monster keyword, you must include a unit with the Monster keyword
- All units in your army must have the Tyranids keyword and be drawn from the same Hive Fleet
Let me break down what this means in terms of what you’d lose from a list such as John Lennon’s New Orleans winning list. First off we would have to cut 24 Genestealers, 19 Hormagaunts, 52 Termagants (Devourer), 3 Sky-slasher swarms, and an entire Genestealer Cults detachment for a total of 1050 PTS! Putting it just in terms of points isn’t enough for me though, let’s talk about the role these units fulfill. First off a full GSC detachment exists as a pregame screen given how the “Blips” currently work. This small but ferocious 215 PTS of GSC also provides you with 2 infantry units that are a cheap and efficient way to score secondaries like Retrieve Octarius Data or Raise Banners without dedicating the units that you have in this list to be hammers and screens. All of this culminates into abusive cheap units that screen your important flank and are genuinely scary with the boost in power given to them in the Leviathan Octarius Supplement.
With losing so much utility the perks for the Crusher Stampede better be worth it, let’s cover those:
- All units gain the Crusher Stampede keyword
- All non-monster units can never gain their Hive Fleet Adaptation but gain a 5+ Invulnerable save
- All Monster units can never gain their Hive Fleet Adaptation but gain a 5+ Invulnerable save, -1 damage (to a minimum of 1), and their remaining wound count is used as their model count when determining control of an objective
- You get access to Crusher Stampede Stratagems & Warlord traits
- Your Psykers can pull their Psychic powers from the Mass Convergence Discipline
There’s a lot to unpack here. Face value the thing holding a lot of the Tyranid Monsters back is their punching power & durability compared to their points cost. It’s hard for Tyranid monsters to “trade up” on their points with such a traditionally low number of attacks and minimal survivability. The benefits seemingly solve one such issue: durability. A 5+ Invuln and -1DMG are nothing to scoff at but when it comes at the expense of you losing the ability to effectively screen your big monsters, perform most action based secondaries, and take the every useful GSC patrol detachment, I just don’t know if this hits the mark for me.
A 5+ Invuln and damage reduction only go so far when your monsters are going to get engaged faster and shot at more than ever before. The funny argument made by most of our regulars for the Crusher Stampede is your ability to still play Hive Guard as a shooting platform to support this list. The problem is while Hive Guard makes every list better, this isn’t actually an argument in favor of the Crusher Stampede. Also you still get Synaptic Links, which is nice, until you realize that the Tyranid Warriors +1 to hit link is the most useful in this type of list. Things like the Broodlord don’t give their best abilities to Monsters, the Maleceptor and Tyranid Prime both want a weight of dice thrown to be fully abusable, and even Tyranid Warriors +1 to hit looks at its best on mass infantry that just shouldn’t be hitting as efficiently as they now would.
So far for me the coolest saving grace is the Stratagem to give a Leviathan unit Objective Secured from the Octarius supplement, meaning a 12 wound Hive Tyrant can suddenly count as 12 ObSec bodies when it matters most.
For the Crusher Stampede to really shine for me the Warlord Traits, Psychic tree, and Stratagems are really going to have to hit a homerun. Let’s dive into the Warlord Traits first:
- Raging Influence - While a friendly Crusher Stampede Monster unit is within 6” of this Warlord, an unmodified melee hit of a 6 scores one additional hit. ( Grade: C+ )
- Savage Intimidation - While an enemy unit is within 3” of this Warlord they receive -1 to their melee attack’s hit roll and -1 to their combat attrition tests. ( Grade C+ )
- Rampaging Beast - Once per turn, when this Warlord is selected to Fight, it can use this trait. If it does add D3 Attack’s to this Warlord’s Attacks Characteristic. ( Grade B )
Unfortunately there's nothing overtly amazing here. It’s obvious that Games Workshop knew the issues would be combat or extra durability, but neither of these hit the mark over the superior Warlord traits that Tyranid lists already can and will run.
There’s a medley of Stratagems here, for the sake of the reader I’m only going to cover the most interesting of them:
- Thunderous Impact (2CP) - Pick a Crusher Stampede Monster and an enemy Monster or Vehicle, your Monster must allocate it’s attacks to the chosen enemy Monster/Vehicle and gets +1 to hit, +1 to wound and +1 to the Attack’s damage. ( Grade: A )
- Unbreakable Chitin (1CP/2CP) - In any phase, when a Crusher Stampede unit is targeted for an attack an unmodified wound roll of 1-3 fails, irrespective of any abilities the enemy model or weapons may have. If used on a unit of 5 or more models or a model with 10 or more wounds this stratagem costs 2CP, otherwise it costs 1CP. ( Grade: A- )
- Death Surge (2CP) - Non-character Crusher Stampede Monster fights on death at it’s top bracket ( Grade: B+ )
- Breaking Through (1CP) - Use after a Crusher Stampede Monster has completed a charge and roll a D6 for each wound that Monster has remaining against a unit you’re engaged with. For every roll of a 3+ (if your strength is higher than their toughness), a 4+ (if your strength is equal to their toughness), or a 5+ (If your strength is lower than their toughness) that unit takes a mortal wound (to a maximum of 6 mortal wounds). ( Grade: A++ )
There’s some real hits here, and good thing because there needed to be. Double moving anything with a reasonable movement, charging, and then spending for Breaking Through will guarantee your big monsters that traditionally can’t fight will finish the job. Breaking Through is almost egregious to me but I’m certain it needs to be. It’s a once per turn trick that this army needs to have any sort of teeth. Death Surge is a much needed rewording of fight on death, and lastly Thunderous Impact gives the kill power that many of these monsters deserve.
Lastly we have a Psychic Discipline to cover that somehow has to contend with one of the best Psychic Disciplines Tyranids already have access to:
- Synaptic Barrier (WC6) - 4+ Invulnerable save to a Crusher Stampede unit within 18” ( Grade: B+ )
- Aggressive Surge (WC6) - D3 attacks to a Crusher Stampede model within 18” ( Grade: C+ )
- Infused Energies (WC6) - Re-rolls to hit in melee for a Non-Synapse Crusher Stampede unit within 18” ( Grade: A- )
Again this section leaves a lot to be desired. Tyranids already have access to some of the best Psychic powers that go super well with the Crusher Stampede, such as Catalyst. I could see a random Psyker having some of these powers just to have access to them as they have a low Warp Charge value and offer some good utility.
So what does the Crusher Stampede do well and where does it stand for me? The Crusher Stampede gives Tyranid players the ability to dust off and play with some of their biggest and baddest toys. Combining some Forge World models into this Army of Renown can create some nearly unkillable threats, (especially in melee). My problem with the Crusher Stampede is I don’t believe that it plays 9th Edition 40K. Your options for Secondaries feel incredibly limited, and Tyranids are trickier than most armies to build around secondaries such as To the Last, given how awfully pointed out some models are. That doesn’t mean that this Army of Renown isn’t viable in my eyes and I’d love to be proven wrong, but I can’t possibly believe that anything will come of this build besides incredibly skewed lists.
Well that wraps up my review for Crusher Stampede. I will always hold an air of realism around my reviews but don’t take this as cynicism. I absolutely ADORE a game giving it’s players more ways to play and enjoy that game the way they want to! However, I will always view new rules through a competitive lens and in the vein of high level play, and the Crusher Stampede, for me atleast, falls short on that. Let us know what you think in the comments and as always thanks for reading!
