Help Creating a 50PL Crusade Army List

[tyrantofbaelcor]

Greetings everyone,

I've been collecting Tyranids for several years and finally ready to field the swarm and would appreciate your insights!

My brother and I are planning to start a Crusade Campaign (CSM vs Tyranids) starting at 50PL and wanted to hear people's thoughts on building a "rule of cool" themed army list and what people's recommendations are.

I am open to thoughts and feedback. I have almost every Tyranid model from the roster so can easily sub them in and out.

HIVE FLEET:
We agreed I can pick a hive fleet and either use the normal rules or create a custom fleet and keep the unique WT/relic/strategem/psychic power.
I was leaning towards either Behemoth, Kraken or Kronus for main fleet rules or custom adaptations to either buff monsters with +1 to hit and W regen or synapse rerolls and ipmroved scyth talon AP.

UNITS:
HQ:
I definitely want to incorporate a Fly/Foot Hive Tyrant/Swarmlord just for the epicness alone.
Could consider either the Broodlord/Neurothrope/Prime with the accompanying troop/elite options to reap the benefits of their rules.
Sadly Tervigon is just a no go, nothing but frustration with that in games.

TROOPS:
Most difficult decision. 
Might go more elite with warriors or push a gaunt swarm with rippers. Or throw in some MSU stealers.

ELITES:
I LOVE the Haruspex model and want to field it knowing it isn't optimal
I love the concept of lictor/deathleaper so may consider them
Zoanthropes if I go with Neurothrope, probably unit of 4 or 5
Tyrant Guard are fun but really reduce my PL options
Venomthropes vs malanthrope
Not into hive guard

FAST ATTACK:
I love the look of the gargoyles swooping in.

HEAVY SUPPORT:
Torn between Tyrannofex with acid spray vs Exocrine, or both!
Biovores look hilariously fun to field
Could also consider the OOE with carnifex brood combo
Trygon Alpha strike looks interesting as well with devilgaunts or warriors.

I would appreciate your insights and thoughts, especially playstyles, what is most fun/synergistic, synapse etc!

[ferryman]

I only have couple of games with nids and I ain´t that good player. But it´s a crusade so maybe build your army thematically?

First wave, flying creatures and gaunts. Flying tyrant, gargoyles, termagants. Broodlord, Lictor/Deathleaper and stealers go along fine since they´re vanguard organisms. I don´t have the codex here but don´t subterranean creatures appear pretty soon too?

Once the PL expands add warriors etc. I think that´s how I would build a crusade.

[murderfiesta]

One of the major things to keep in mind for Crusade is that it's free to remove and add units to your roster. If you've got pretty much everything that's available to Tyranids, just start getting them on the table to see what you like. Didn't like a particular unit, or a particular synergy? Replace them. Sure you lose the experience on them, but chances are there wasn't much experience on them to begin with. You can also do this with units that receive Battle Scars - if they don't have much experience or any Battle Honors, simply drop the unit with the Battle Scars and replace them*.

A recommendation: don't build a Crusade force that's simply everything you like thrown together up to 50 PL. Build two 25 PL forces that slot together into a nice 50 PL force, and go from there. Otherwise you can end up with awkward situations where you've added a unit you really like to your roster, but the PLs across your units don't fit together well to make a 25 PL force if you bring that unit. Example: a full squad of 9 Warriors is 12 PL. A full squad of Termagants or Hormagaunts is 9 PL. Tyranids do not have any 4 PL HQs, so there's no way to actually field your Warriors and Gaunts together in a 25 PL game. So maybe you take a Tyranid Prime and your Warriors for 17 PL - now you've got 8 PL left, but your Haruspex and Exocrine are 9 PL, your Tyrannofex is 10 PL, but your Carnifex and your Biovores are 6 PL. The only things that slot in here particularly well in terms of PL are the Trygon, Toxicrene, Harpy / Hive Crone, 6 Raveners, or 10 Genestealers. Or you take one of the 6 PL options with a Ripper Swarm.

If the rules were nicer about being able to bring part of a unit (i.e. you've got a squad of 9 Warriors for 12 PL, but you can bring 6 for 8 PL instead) there wouldn't as major of a problem of needing to figure out how to piece a force together, but unfortunately the rules don't allow that as far as I remember, and it can be a pain especially if you're wanting to run hordes in larger games but more MSU style in smaller.

* That being said, you should not categorically drop units that have battle scars, especially if the scar isn't crippling what you want the unit to do. Battle scars reduce your Crusade Points, which means more command points for you in each game.

[zimko]

A lictor makes for a good 2 PL filler unit for when you're trying to make a 25 PL list and have 23 PL after adding the things you want.