New Tyranids Player: Help needed!

[jay22]

Hey guys,


Im new to 40k and im starting out with the tyranids because I like the way they look and they look great fun to play with.

I have just picked up the Shield of Baal: Deathstorm boxset and the Wrath of the Hive Mind boxset which is now not available online.




This means that model-wise I have currently got the following:

1 Hive Tyrant

1 Broodlord

8 Genestealers

6 Tyranid Warriors

1 Carnifex

1 Tervigon/ Tyrannofex

20 Termagants

3 Ripper Swards




I have also managed to pick up the codex which I shall begin to read when I start unboxing my models.




The questions that I have are that have I got a suitable amount of models to begin playing with? Are there any that I would need to pick up next that would improve my army?



Also are there any weapons that you guys would recommend me equipping to my models that would improve their playing style in matches?




As I m a new player I am not yet familiar with all the Nids rules so any help would greatly be appreciated whether that be tyranid advice or just general 40k advice.




Lastly as a starter army have I made the right choice? As I know that the Nids aren't the best army in the 40k faction




Many thanks,

Jay

[saxif]

Hive Tyrant flying with twin linked devourers.

20 terms I say 10 devourer and 10 normal

arm 2 tyranid warriors wih barbed strangler and the others with deathspitters and scything talons.

Carnifex is double dakka.

Buy a box of Hive Guard next imo, if you are good at modeling, then buy two and turn one box into Biovores, there is a thread in the modelling painting section that is very good. Another flyrant, 20 hormaguants.

[jay22]

Thanks a lot, that sounds like a good place to start. I shall start modelling and painting and hopefully the codex will clear up a lot of the questions I have

[tripwire]

both of those sets combined make for a great start.

Consensus is that you'll want to make the hive tyrant flying with twin linked devourers. Best unit in the codex. There's no part to model these included in the kit, however, so it's common to use the giant flesh borer hive arms from the tervigon/tyrannofex kit. It will look like this - 



No worries there, as you'll want to make the tyrannofex with acid spray, it's the best option of the three weapons. I wouldn't make the tervigon anyway, as it's no longer as powerful as it was in previous editions, you don't really have enough termigant models to spawn from it, and you'll have plenty of synapse creatures (psychic lynchpins that you have to spread across your army to keep it form eating itself) in the tyrant and the warriors (run two squads of three with those)

You'll be hard pressed to use the genestealers to any real effect, as they've been a bit rubbish in the last few revisions of the game. Who knows, maybe the formations they get in the Shield of Baal book are usefull.

As others have said, you'll want to take the dual devourers on the carnifex as well. Again, there's no model for this (oy!) so you'll have to do something to church up the spindly looking devourer arms provided. I dunno, maybe use the tyrannofex hive arms on the carnifex, and the smaller fex devourer arms on the flying tyrant...

-trip

[tripwire]

Oh, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, AND ALL THINGS HOLY, paint your models.

-trip

[swarm492]

But Trip, haven't you heard of marines of the week? The marine player with an unpainted grey plastic army because they like to rotate the codexes they play depending on which one is the most powerful at the time? You would take that from him? Crush his little little world? The expression in your portrait says everything. And warms my heart.

[arapaima]

Crushing worlds! Haha we tyranids this is what we do..

Echoing trip's sentiment, imma going with hive consensus on how you equip them because this is how you get the most bang out of them. The only exception I can see is a LW/BS packing flyrant with adrenal gland, the other with alternative options are pretty whack. For example a tfex with rapture cannon is just (please do not swear), so much for selling a creature as designated heavy tank destroyer.

[mattblowers]

Jan 14, 2015 0:56:38 GMT tripwire said:

Oh, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, AND ALL THINGS HOLY, paint your models.

-trip

Those of my models that 'appear' to be unpainted grey are actually a highly evolved form of biomorph camoflauge that were adapted to belie their true veteran status and lull the enemy into a sense of complacency because of their perceived noob status.

[NidNoms]

Get tyrant guards for your Hive Tyrant, very useful in soaking up gun fire, only get the Tervigon if you have enough Terrmagaunts to support it's ability

[sarvoc]

Jan 14, 2015 0:54:40 GMT tripwire said:

both of those sets combined make for a great start.

Consensus is that you'll want to make the hive tyrant flying with twin linked devourers. Best unit in the codex. There's no part to model these included in the kit, however, so it's common to use the giant flesh borer hive arms from the tervigon/tyrannofex kit. It will look like this - 



No worries there, as you'll want to make the tyrannofex with acid spray, it's the best option of the three weapons. I wouldn't make the tervigon anyway, as it's no longer as powerful as it was in previous editions, you don't really have enough termigant models to spawn from it, and you'll have plenty of synapse creatures (psychic lynchpins that you have to spread across your army to keep it form eating itself) in the tyrant and the warriors (run two squads of three with those)

You'll be hard pressed to use the genestealers to any real effect, as they've been a bit rubbish in the last few revisions of the game. Who knows, maybe the formations they get in the Shield of Baal book are usefull.

As others have said, you'll want to take the dual devourers on the carnifex as well. Again, there's no model for this (oy!) so you'll have to do something to church up the spindly looking devourer arms provided. I dunno, maybe use the tyrannofex hive arms on the carnifex, and the smaller fex devourer arms on the flying tyrant...

-trip

   Something else that looks decent for the Hive Tyrants Devourers is to take the arms with the bonesabers for your Swarmlord that come with the tyrant, glue the plating on the hand then with a pair of clippers carefully snip off everthing past the plating this should make the end come to a point where the plating ends, your basically just chopping off the hand and the sword, I like to cut the boney hilt off the sword as well to use as decoration on the new weapon we'll be creating in a second.  If you have some extra devourers to spare from a box of gaunts, take 2 gaunt devourers and snip them at the butt of each gun, you will still have the gaunt hand on the barrel but we will be covering that with some green stuff soon.  Glue the two devourers together one upside down by putting plastic glue on the cabling so the barrels have some distance between them but the little spikes on the tip almost touch, I like to snip the cables off of the front of the one on bottom and run them through the one on top so they intertwine.  Line the butts of each gun up to the point you created on the swarmlord arm and attatch, there might be a slight space where the top gun meets the wrist, remember that pommel we cut off the sword?  Insert that badboy to give those devourers a little extra toothy shine,  use some green stuff to cover the hole the gaunt's arm would go into on the left side of each devourer and sculpt a little hex design on it with a putty knife similar to the one on the barbed strangler that comes with your Hive Tyrant.  You can also use green stuff to disguise the smallish gaunt hand on each devourer, or using paint just make them look like little spikes or upraised pieces of the bio weapon.  This process does make it so you cant use those arms to field a Swarmlord, but why would you take a Swarmy over a DakkaFlyrant anyway?  Also you'll be down a few devourers for your gaunts which sucks if your magnetizing (BTW Magnetize!) but the gaunts I give fleshborers to I just glue and designate as stock Tervigon babies.

[sarvoc]

BTW Trip, if that is your model in the picture that is an amazing paint job man and I love the base!

[tripwire]

Yeah, that's mine. Thanks for the compliments!

-trip

[jackedup]

I still use lash whip + bonesword on my Flyrants, because I am hardcore damn it.

[cypheon]

add in a hive crone at some point for the d3 s8 vector strikes against enemy fliers (and the template weapon doesn't hurt, either). flier-less games are becoming more and more rare and being able to control the skies will become more important as GW continues to crank out formation books disguised as campaign settings.

for trip: i'm the guy who primes things and then does one step of painting every couple weeks because he plays far too many other games to dedicate time to painting. you know you love the all-white hordes!

also for trip: "it's common to make this bad-@$$ conversion". no it isn't because we all did the same thing on our first tyrannofex build before playtesting: "assault 20! what can possibly go wrong?". but it should be because that thing looks awesome. congrats on the kitbash (and paint job)!