New Tyranid Player, 500 Point List Help

[gucksmclenged]

Hey, I'm completely new to Warhammer 40k.

I'll save you the spiel and cut to the chase: I have no money. I can only afford a 500 point list at this point in time, but would like the models I buy and paint to continue to be relevant in larger lists. This list is not going to focus on being competitive, but it should be capable of holding its own and at least achieving victory now and then.

I am thinking of making my list around the Tyranid Warrior, as I think the model looks great and I want my army to be able to excel in close combat and shooting, charging up the field and tearing the enemy to shreds: a nice and aggressive force. So, the obvious choice for the HQ is the Tyranid Prime. I was also considering bringing along a Trygon to get my Warrior hit-squad into the enemy's backline, as it fits the fluff of my army, but I'm not sure that'll be practical at my point bracket.

As for the opponents I'm going to be fighting, my mate and I are building our armies at the same time and he wants to play Grey Knights, which scares me a bit.

To conclude, please offer some helpful advice in the comments. I'm looking for a decent list focused on Tyranid Warriors with an aggressive style of play. Just to re-iterate, I'm new to Warhammer so would appreciate it if you dumbed it down a bit for me. Cheers.

[1b2a]

That's pretty small, just big enough to get a feel for the rules. I would go with the list below. Make sure you magnetize the tervigon so you can use it as a tyrannofex in the future. You'll thank yourself later.

Hive Tyrant with rending claws and devourers or deathspitters
Tervigon
25 fleshborer termagaunts

[wound]

First of all, Welcome to the hive.

Since you are on a budget and wants to use warrior. I would try to find an old start collecting box(the one with hive tyrant, gargoyles and warriors) and a warrior box. Build 1 warrior as a prime. Assuming you find an old start collecting this would be around 120 USD and easily gets to 500 points. 

this woul net you a patrol with:
HQ:
Hive tyrant
Tyranid prime
Troop
5 tyranid warriors
Fast atack
Gargoyles

Im adamant about using a trygon at such a low point game and warrior are a bit underwhelming. but you could alternatively buy 3 warior box and a trygon box.
Assemble one of the boxes as shrikes(aka warriors with wings) so that you have a quick unit to catch up with your deep strike. This should come around 210 USD and should be easy to find at any store. Also the wings on the shrikes do not come with the box so you would need to find them somewhere, pluck some buterfly wings or similar, personaly i like the ones on Wargaming miniatures. This set up also easily gets to 500 points.

This would net you a patrol with
HQ:
Tyranid prime
Troops:
5 tyranid warrior
fast atack:
3 Shrikes.
Heavy suport:
Trygon

I am unsure if any of those list are viable, but a tried to make them both with a coherent estrategy to in mind and using warrior, i would like fellow hive members to further comment. Also be sure to remenber half your units needs to be on the field at Turn 1. Cheers

[infornography]

I love the look of warriors, but they are one of our weaker units. They are passable but there are much stronger and cheaper troop options available. Also the Tyranid Prime is generally overcosted. Just a fair warning up front.

Given your tight budget I would strongly recommend magnetizing everything. Warriors can be tricky to magnetize effectively due to their size but they have a lot of options and those options change their tactics drastically.

At 500 points I think deep striking anything may be a wasted effort. Neither side is going to have a tremendous amount of firepower to bring to bear turn 1 in all likelihood. Given that, maybe field warriors, genestealers, and a prime and/or broodlord.

One thing to look for is maybe trying to split a copy of Space Hulk with a space marine or Blood Angels player. You can find the box for around $125 and the genestealers in it have a lot of interesting dynamic poses plus it comes with a Broodlord to give you a second, much stronger HQ option. That plus two boxes of warriors would give you a decent number of options to field.

[darktemplar]

Based on your list requeata you need to have 3 units on the board to be able to deepstrike the Trygon, warriors and Prime. You could be able to run:
Prime, boneswords, dev 106
Warriors x4, rending claws, deathspitters, venom cannon 115
Rippersx3 33
Rippersx3 33
Gaunts x10 40
Trygon, pincer tail 168
500 total

It is risky with 3x non synapse units on the board to start but you should be able to hide Rippers easy. Also not a fan of the prime as he isn't that good, but using it like this you should get the best out of him. Not sure on what relic would be best. If you get some thermoplastic and sculpting putty you can cast Rippers very easily. Failing that they are pretty cheap on ebay.

[jesses]

Honestly if money is a bigger concern than models start with the current Start Collecting box.

Warriors are decent, but are very hard to build a cheap force around since they are our most expensive Troops choice per model at $20.33 per model. Compare that to Genestealers ($4 a model, and literally free if you buy the Start Collecting box which is cheaper than a Trygon+Broodlord and yet comes with those and 8 Stealers), or Termagants ($2.98 a model)...

These prices are all off the Canadian site, and while the US or UK or whatever prices will be different, the ratio is the same. Also, not sure if its exclisive to the Canadian version but there is a Tyranid Army deal for $204.45 that includes:

- 1 Trygon/Mawloc
- 1 Broodlord
- 12 Hormagaunts
- 12 Termagants
- 10 Gargoyles
- 8 Genestealers
- 1 Ripper Base

Which is a smoking good deal (buying all that separate would be around $260, and all of those are good units.