What should a new player purchase and hivefleet to use?

[twygon]

I want to start a Tyranid army and want to make the best purchases to form a core of my army. (I currently own nothing.)

I generally want to buy from Gobo Games (My local game store) to support one of the few game stores in the entire state. I am open to online purchases from other places but my preference is to support this store. They even keep their online catalog up to date at all times so you can seen what they have at any time. There's the link below if you want to give exact purchase advice but you don't have to if you don't want to.

www.goblingamesmhk.com/games-workshop/warhammer-40000/

I am open to any advice whether specific units; beginner friendly play-styles; and what Hivefleet to go for. All of this would be deeply appreciated.

I would deeply appreciate if some of the hivemind's vast cosmic scale intelligence would turn towards my problem. ^^

[acehilator]

Sadly our current Start Collecting box is pretty suboptimal atm. Mawloc is ok'ish for certain lists, same as the Broodlord, but not really that useful overall. Genestealers are also kind of a "special use" case.

With that said, you probably want 2-3 boxes of Termagants and/or Hormagaunts each, plus 2-3 boxes of Warriors for troops. Those boxes also give you Ripper Swarms. Magnetize the Warriors!

Two boxes of Zoantrophes give you 1 Neurotrophe and 5 Zoans to try the good ol' smity Smite. Great models, easy to assemble and paint.

One Hive Tyrant for sure - second HQ, iconic unit, great model, decent uses. Magnetize!

One Exocrine for sure too - kill all those pesky SM.

One or two Lictors for secondary shenanigans - get to experience resin with a somewhat simple model (YT tutorials galore on how to deal with resin).

Hive Fleets are up in the air, Leviathan, Jorm and Kronos are favoured at the moment.

[twygon]

"One Hive Tyrant for sure - second HQ, iconic unit, great model, decent uses. Magnetize!"

Are you suggesting I get the SC box in addition to the other units listed?

EDIT: Nm, just remembered that a Neurothrope is an HQ.

[killercroc]

Well what you want to pick up is going to depend on how you want to play the army; do you want a vast swarm of little bugs or have a bunch of the big stompy bugs? Do you want your army to focus more on the shooting aspect or lean towards combat? Luckily Tyranids can build a few different ways so most play styles can be supported even if it's not something the army specializes in.

The start collecting box isn't bad exactly, because you get a good discount on the models that comes in the box, and all the models are useable. More so the models you get aren't hardly the ones you'd want to use for a 'starting army' so it's a bit of a weird one. I always use Broodlord and Genestealers in my games but I'm a huge fan of those units and models and do lean more towards combat than anything else. At the same time I'm not a big fan of the Trygon/Mawloc and rarely use them even though they are dedicated melee monsters and most other people like them.

For a true starting army and a good core I would recommend to get a Hive Tyrant, Termigants/Hormagaunts, Warriors and Carnifex.

These are pretty iconic for the Tyranids and still fill up a nice core force for your army and you can easily build any of them to be focused on Combat, Shooting, or both.

After that you're looking at more unique models that would best fit your desired style. Shooting: Exocrines are really good at killing tough units like Marines from range for a decent amount of points and they fit almost every list and I'd never leave home without them. There is also the Hive Guard which have some pretty powerful ranged attacks and are decently tough to take out themselves. Combat: Genestealers are a fast and hard hitting unit that can cause some major damage and have a few tricks on how to use them, most of their upgrades are free or very low cost so you can change them around a little bit. There are also Raveners, similar to Warriors with their gear but more focused on combat and are really swift and can cross the table in and get in combat by the second turn or can burrow from below.

Hive fleet wise I like Kraken for their speed, they pair really nice with Genestealers and since most Tyranids have assault guns you can easily build your army to be able to advance and shoot each turn, so it supports a run n gun playstyle. With objectives and board coverage being so important this edition having a swift army does have its advantages.

[acehilator]

Jan 21, 2021 21:51:51 GMT twygon said:

"One Hive Tyrant for sure - second HQ, iconic unit, great model, decent uses. Magnetize!"
Are you suggesting I get the SC box in addition to the other units listed?

SC box with Hive Tyrant is the old one... if you can grab ahold of one, sure get it. Current SC box is Broodlord + Genestealers + Mawloc/Trygon kit (it's ok value, but like I said, suboptimal units all around).

[twygon]

I like the idea of killercroc's army (although I unironically love Trygons and Mawlocs 🐍). So does that mean I should do Kraken? What about Jorm?

How many boxes of gaunts should I get minimum?

How many devilgaunts if any?

I kinda lean towards melee because I also plan to get a Guard army someday (far future) and it would be redundant to have two very shooty armies. I suppose that means I want a balanced army that leans towards melee.

Oh and thank you acehilator for giving me good troop recommendations. ^^ It's hard to find what starting units to use online.

I don't know how to get rid of this

[killercroc]

If you want melee both Kraken and Behemoth are good options for that but have a slightly different style. Kraken is more for being fast all around while Behemoth is better for making sure your charges stick. Jorm is fun too but it does kind of set you up more for bunker or slow approach play. They do have the nice ability to let units come in from reserves around Trygons and Raveners though, so if you want to use Trygons and get your units close into combat they're an alternative style. just remember Jorm requires command points so it's limited to how much you can tunnel.

As for Gaunts it depends on the size of your games. Minimum I'd say you want 30 gaunts to make sure you can get the board control down even in small games, if you like the swarm aspect more then strive for a minimum of 90 so you keep the feel up, also you will have lots of bodies your opponent won't be able to easily take them out, especially in a 1000 point game. You can take them in squads of 10-30 but I don't see much reason to take max squad size over minimum unless you are using Devilgaunts for the easy re-rolls. Most the time if you have units of 30 they get focused fired and will often lose the benefit for 20+ models before they even get the re-roll. Keeping them in 10s let you maximize board pressure, deny reserves, hold multiple objectives, reduce incoming shots from blast as well, plus fill up your troops slots faster.

If you do take Devilgaunts always take them in 30 to maximize shots out, get the re-roll and you can use the shoot twice stratagem on them to put out lots of fire-power in a turn. If you have them as Jorm and tunnel them in with a Trygon thats a double hit of big bad CC monster and lots of shoot bugs in one neat little package.

[yoritomo]

Honestly, just buy what you like. Unless you are in a very competitive meta the tyranid codex is balanced well enough that just about everything is playable. It’s better to have second tier units you have fun with than top tier units that you hate building and never finish.

One thing you do need to keep in mind are formations. The game is based around them and if you’re not careful you may fix yourself with more units than you have room for. My advice is to build up to a battalion formation. Get the minimum unit requirements but don’t go over the maximum allowance. At some point your army is going to grow above the battalion level. Don’t worry about that now, you’ll know it when you get there.

It probably goes without saying; but pick up a rule book and tyranid codex. There’s an optional rule book you can get called Blood of Baal, you don’t need it now but it is worth picking up at some point.

[twygon]

I know and love most Tyranid units but Trygons, Mawlocs, and Tyrannofexes are easily my favorites. I want to have a fighting chance with the core of my army however. For fun though I would probably switch out some units of the core with fun units that may be sub-optimal but enjoyable nonetheless.

Should I have a squad of termies stick with each squad of Warriors?

Should I do 30 termies or 30 Hormies or a mixture of both?

How good is a Tyranid Prime?

[yoritomo]

Great. My daughter runs a pair of T-fex and a trygon with a squad of stealers. Is she going to win a tournament with that list? No, but she's won a couple of games and had fun while playing.

I wouldn't stick with pairing your guants and warriors. This is a tactical decision, it needs to be made in the moment. If you plan out how your game will play before you even see how the battlefield looks then you aren't going to have the flexibility to play the best game you could have.

The decision between termagants and hormagaunts should be based on the rest of your army. If you just need an objective camper or screen then termagants are probably the way to go. If you need more close combat in your army then you may want to consider hormagaunts. I will tell you that I generally don't run hormagaunts in an army.

The Tyranid Prime fulfills a very specific role. He's cheap synapse that can be hidden and buffs warriors. Warrior damage output isn't great to begin with and the prime buff isn't enough to justify him. So the real question is if you need cheap synapse. If the answer is yes then he's worth considering, though the neurenthrope and broodlord fulfill this roll better than the prime.

[hivemind03]

Jan 22, 2021 17:40:30 GMT twygon said:

I know and love most Tyranid units but Trygons, Mawlocs, and Tyrannofexes are easily my favorites. I want to have a fighting chance with the core of my army however. For fun though I would probably switch out some units of the core with fun units that may be sub-optimal but enjoyable nonetheless.

Should I have a squad of termies stick with each squad of Warriors?

Should I do 30 termies or 30 Hormies or a mixture of both?

How good is a Tyranid Prime?

I dont think you'll be dissapointed if you do 30 hormagaunts, 30 termagants and 9 warriors for your troops or some fractionof that as money allows. Then you can split them up however you like game to game and get the full experience of various troops. Add 2 HQs, I recommend the Swarmlord and a Neurothrope, and you'll have your mandatory slots filled.

Tyranofexes (particularly with Acid Spray) are very nice units, definitely grab one or two (or three) if you like them. And while I dont know what to do with Trygons these days (theyre just too many points), the Mawloc is a fine utility piece. Just be warned, its not nearly as powerful as it looks.

[kazetanade]

New player? Get 2 Battlefirces from Christmas 2020. This is a ridiculously good starter pack for new players.

You'll get 2 Exocrenes, 1x6 Hiveguard, a tonne of troops (although not enough for gribbles), a lot of good stuff that are on the better scale of our options.

Get 1 SC box thereafter for a Broodlord (a decent HQ) a Trygon/Matlock for flavour and to round off your Gebestealers.

After that, round off your troops for 30 each. From there you have options and can evaluate your choices.

If you can get an Apoc box thereafter, you're basically ready to play at casual competitive.

[mattblowers]

Buy a different game, you'll thank me later.

[twygon]

I liked the Battleforce set however they're sold out as far as I can tell.

I did some messing around on Battlescribe with the good advice I'm getting from all of you wonderful, chittering, space locusts and for a 500pt army I made this.


Kronos

Neurothrope

2x Squads of Termagaunts each with
5 Fleahborers
7 Devourers

1x Squad of Warriors w/ 3 models
2x Boneswords and a Deathspitter each

Exocrine


Is this a good starting army to go for? Is there something lacking that I missed?

[twygon]

I didn't "Make it" as in bought any models, only made a list on battlescribe.

Is it alright to go for a 500pt army first? I definitely will grow it over time with Zoranthropes, Tyrannofex, Mawlocs, etc. Into a Battalion eventually.