Blog Wars III - Tyranids or Eldar?

Blog Wars III is the latest event organised by Alex of the 'From the Fang' blog, and is a great friendly/semi-competitive tournament to be held on Saturday 2nd June 2012 at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield. Army lists are due for submission this Saturday night, and I am in two minds about which army to take. Hopefully the readers of the Claws & Fists blog will be able to guide me...

Tyranids

My first option is to take my now-typical Drop-Spore Tyranids army. I've used this army non-stop for the last year or so and whilst I'm now totally familiar with the force, it's still not that competitive, especially in the face of Force Weapon-toting Grey Knights and Jaws of the World Wolf/Long Fang spam Space Wolves.

So, the pros and cons for the Tyranids are:

+ Familiar list

+ Well-painted army

+ Effective in objective-holding missions

- Not tournament competitive

- Poor anti-tank options (after 2-3 rounds of opponents' shooting)

- Prone to getting stuffed by any reasonable ballistic army

- Poor in Kill Point missions

The latest incarnation of the Drop-Spore list is:

Hive Tyrant with Hive Commander & Wings

2 x Hive Guard

2 x Zoanthropes in Mycetic Spore

Doom of Malan'Tai in Mycetic Spore

Tervigon

11 x Termagants

13 x Genestealers

14 x Genestealers

Trygon with Adrenal Glands

Carnifex with Devourer w/Brain Leech Worms & Heavy Venom Cannon

Eldar

My other option is to take Eldar. Long-time blog readers will know that I have struggled with Eldar in the past, and frankly I don't like it when I can't do something! It really rankles that I don't 'get' Eldar and this tournament would give me the chance to partially rectify the situation.

The pros and cons for taking Eldar are:

+ Highly mobile and ballistic army

+ Plenty of weapons able to crack open opponents' transports and tanks

+ More competitive than Tyranids (???)

- Unfamiliar army and rules

- Small amount of work needed to finish off the army

My list would be:

Farseer with Spirit Stones, Doom, Guide & Mind War

Eldrad

5 x Fire Dragons

5 x Fire Dragons

7 x Dire Avengers

7 x Dire Avengers

Fire Prism with Spirit Stones, Shuriken Cannon & Holo-Field

Fire Prism with Spirit Stones, Shuriken Cannon & Holo-Field

5 x Dark Reapers

Wave Serpent with Shuriken Cannon, Twin-Linked Scatter Lasers & Spirit Stones

Wave Serpent with Shuriken Cannon, Twin-Linked Scatter Lasers & Spirit Stones

Wave Serpent with Shuriken Cannon, Twin-Linked Missile Launchers & Spirit Stones

Wave Serpent with Shuriken Cannon, Twin-Linked Missile Launchers & Spirit Stones

Conclusion

So as you can see I'm in a real quandary. I want to take an army that I feel would be able to reach the mid-tables or even better (I'm tired of coming last!), but I also want to take an army I am comfortable with.

The other thing to consider is the mission scoring. I was really put off taking Tyranids as the Blog Wars games were to be scored both on Mission Points and Victory Points. Two out of three games favour 'horde' armies, which of course suits a Tervigon/Termagant army, however what really scuppers me is that my games are always 'costly' in terms of units lost in order to achieve a particular mission. With VPs being part of the scoring, I know that Tyranids are at a disadvantage.

So imagine my delight when Alex circulated a revised Tournament Pack this morning, stating that VPs will only be used in the case of ties at the end of the tournament! Now the games will only be scored based on Mission Points, which brings Tyranids back into contention. Of course, the Eldar army will be far more mobile, durable and will boast far better shooting, but the Tyranids have the biomass to compete in the multiple objective mission and table-quarter holding mission.

So, it's over to the readers. What should I do? Tyranids or Eldar? Please help me decide!