Starting a Tyranid army

[nebraska172]

Hello to all,

I play Blood Angels, and am wanting to start a tyranid army. What are thoughts on list building? What should I start with? What about HQ choices. The thing that drew me to choose tyranids as army number two are massive horde play style. Some examples are Multiple Tervigons spawning and massive amounts of gargoyles and hormagaunts with winged hive tyrants. I am a total newb to tyranids so there are no wrong answers for me. Also, how did 6th edition effect Nids?

Thanks!

Nebraska172

[nebraska172]

Forgot my list size I am wanting to play anywhere between 1000 and 2500 points. I have 2500 in blood angles.

[FTGTEvan]

Well, to start, the generic list is usually something like this:

1-2 Flyrants with 2 Twin-linked Devourers
1-3 Tervigons
1-3 requisite Termagant units
1-2 units of Hive Guard

From there, people usually add some combination of their favorite of the remaining fairly strong units:
Doom in a spore, Devilgants - termagants with devourers, often in a spore, Zoans (sometimes used instead of Hive Guard), Biovores, Trygons, Ymgarls, Gargoyles, Swarmlord with Guard, Dakkafexes, Prime.

Units that are generally avoided (though some people make a point of running them): Pyrovores, Mawlocs, Lictors, Tyrannofexes, and (perhaps most tragically) Warriors.

Generally, 6th edition tilted the balance even further toward Tervigons. The slight nerfs to combat tend to make people drop hormagaunts in favor of more termagants and tervigons. That said, they still have value, but more often than not I'm seeing them run naked as cheap bodies to tarpit as much as kill. Also, people's favorite genestealer tactics got shot down, so they've become a little less popular. The flyer rules and inability to use emplaced weapons have made many people consider flyrants as more or less an auto-take to counter flyers.

A good starting place would be the Battleforce: you get a fair number of gants and hormagaunts (which, if you want, you can arm as devilgants to get you more, since you'll need lots if you move to tervigons - though nothing wrong with a hefty brood of hormagaunts in my opinion), genestealers which you can run as Ymgarls, and 3 Warriors, which are popularly converted to a prime and 2 hive guard. From there, the big bugs might be the next step - Tervigon or two and Tyrant kit or two.

If you wait until beyond 1,000 points to get the big bugs, you potentially can get about 100 little bugs in 1k. Just saying, if you want to go all out horde. Just some thoughts, definitely keep asking, but I figure this wall of text is long enough for one post at the moment.

[nebraska172]

Thanks! That's a lot of good information to consider!

[Hybrid6mata]

Your HQ should either be a Tyranid Prime to run with your little guys or a Hive Tyrant. If you want A LOT of little guys to do your bidding a Prime will cost you very little but a Tyrant will give you way more options.

You will want a Tervigon or more. Sadly they are one of a few things that makes us competitive. They're also really cool so win win!

For the broods of Termagants you'll need to make your Tervigon a troop I would suggest giving them devourers. It's not popular but 100pts for 30 Str 4 shots is awesome. I play with 2 Broods of 15 "Devilgants" with my 2 "Troopigons".

Hormagaunts are sadly not as great. Gargoyles are a bit better only because they'll cost the same with dimorphs and can cross the field VERY quickly while giving your army a Cover Save as they block A LOT of Line of Sight. Hormagaunts in large numbers with Toxin Sacs can bring down just about everything in combat though.

For elites it sucks that theres only 3/4 things to choose from that are effective. The Doom, Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, Ymgarl Genestealers. All of those are good. Hive Guard are the most consistent. If you like horde though you will probably love the Zoanthropes all with Biomancy powers to, dice willing, enhance your guys and curse the pathetic meat on the other side of the board.

Your Heavy Support doesn't include a lot of a horde element but I think a Trygon Prime to help the little ones by keeping them in line would be useful. The other options are ok. Besides Old One Eye, he should have stayed where he belonged, in the old codex. I miss the Red Terror

Good Luck!

[tylertt]

VTAeries I think hit it dead on. A battleforce offers a lot of options starting out, and if you don't mind conversions, you can create a lot of different units.

[nebraska172]

Thanks for the input. I am going to start with a battleforce, and convert the three warriors to a tyranid prime and two Hive Guard. From there get a couple of Tervigons and tons of gaunts. I will add to it from there. Thanks guys!

[0800hell]

Thats just how i started and i now have 9000points

[Squire]

Do you to make a competitive list or semi competitive?

With the battleforce, if you want to go with the standard sort of competitive Tyranid lists then the hormagaunts aren't really needed and the warriors probably aren't either. I don't like the idea of converting warriors into hive guard or tyrant guard, but there are some great ways to turn warriors into biovores*. If you want a competitive horde, then the battleforce doesn't look so bad since there isn't much harm fielding the hormagaunts.

For semi competitive nids the battleforce is good, especially if you are looking to build a horde. The hormagaunts are fine at that level as long as you plan to lay down a lot of termagants to make troop tervigons. Three warriors acting as an extra synapse node and barbed strangler platform is okay too. Not very expensive, a troop choice, a large blast to fire every turn and useful for helping out in a combat if need be

*Converting warriors to biovores

thetyranidhive.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=converting&thread=42245&page=1

[jahatch42878]

The conversion of Prime and Hive Guard from the Warriors is actually a really good idea.. sad I didn't see that previously!!! (you might need an extra venom cannon which you can probably get cheaply on ebay or from another nid player I would imagine)...

I actually run the Prime (converted from an old metal hive tyrant with new hive tyrant plastic head and weapons) with Warriors as he buffs them, then a flyrant, and then I am still sticking to my hormagaunts, genestealers, and have converted some Warriors into Shrikes to deploy with my Gargoyles... I just can't get behind the Tervigon themed armies yet although I'm not competing in any tournaments and so far my horde army has been able to hold its own against different space marine armies... although some of that is that I think these space marine armies are tailored to fight other MEQs, and my horde army is just something they aren't designed to deal with...

but, that said, there is a lot of room for some cool conversions and other than the Pyovore and Old One Eye, you can make most things in the lists work if played well or combined with synergistic elements... if you like the swarm, then this can definitely work for you... the other thing that is nice is that if you have a swarm it is easy to add biomorphs and increase the point costs a bit to give them toxin sacs (poison) and/or adrenal sacs (furious charge), or add some mycetic spores (for deep striking) and play the army very differently using pretty much the same figures.

Keep us posted!

[nebraska172]

OK, Here is my current model count so far:

3 Warriors (1 set up as tyranid prime with scything talons and deathspitter...i put the huge scything talons on just for the sake of making them different and trying some proxy as boneswords. 1 with scything talons and rending claws because it looked cool (i am proxying him as different elites. the third is yet to be assembled. probably some hive guard.)

8 genestealers

12 Hormagaunts

69 (24 with devourers and 45 with fleashborers)

1 carnifex (all scything talons for proxying as tervigon)

i havent got the carnifex put together yet, but i will be running the list as a 1 tervigon spawn list with the HQ as a T-Prime and the genestealers as YMgarl stealers. and then running a second list with the carnifex as a heavy.

Disclaimer: As a new Tyranid player I realize not all of the models listed below are used in games, and I know some vet nids players do not use them or think some of the units might be broken or worthless now. However, I am trying to think outside the box with my tyranid army to find a tyranid synergy and get games that are fun, quality, and sometimes competitive. I feel the model count below will give me that ability.

Here is what else i am wanting to fill everything out:

HQ

2 Hive tyrants w/wings

2-3 tervigons

Elites

3 venomthropes (cover saves for hormagaunts. both have feed)

Doom of Malan'tai

1 3 man lictor brood

Troops

22 termagants

48 hormagaunts

42 genestealers

Fast Attack

60 Gargoyles (2 broods of 30)

i was also considering Raveners

Heavy

2 Trygons (1 prime)

proxy a tervigon as a tyrannofex

1 carnifex brood of 3

[FTGTEvan]

Looks pretty solid and that eventual list will give you a pretty solid base to run just about any list. The only thing I might add to it is Hive Guard OR Zoanthropes as your anti-armor choice. That said, while you're playtesting and proxying, figure out which you like, if any, and go that route.

As for proxying the Terv as a Tyrannofex, if you magnetize one (or more) you won't have to proxy. The best way I've heard is to glue some spare sprue inside each side of the belly-sac and put magnets in the ends. The hooks on the sac will hold it to the body so long as the sides hold together with the magnets. From there, it's a simple job of putting magnets in the front limb socket and the head for all your options.

A word for magnetizing: I definitely recommend it for your MCs and maybe the warriors too. The thought being that what works now might not be the best choice in the next dex, which according to the rumor mill, could be in a year or so. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to not rebuild/rebuy my MCs after only a year (or even two) of use if I can avoid it.

[nebraska172]

VTAeries what do you mean by MCs?

[FTGTEvan]

Monstrous Creatures - so mainly Tervigons/Tyrannofexes, Carnifexes, and Tyrants. Less important for Trygons/Mawlocs since they're largely the same/no weapon options.

[nebraska172]

OK! Cool. Thanks for the help.