Help With Tyranid (1500 point) List 9th edition - New Player

[chilln797]

Hello everyone!

For some background, I am new to Tyranids and Warhammer 40k in general. I have played about 5 games ranging from 500 point costs to somewhere around 1300. I really love playing Tyranids and I am obsessed with their models. I understand they aren't a super competitive army but that being said, they are my favorite out of all the options available. I currently have a small collection of about 1000 points. I want to expand my army to about 1500 points, but before I shell out the dough, I wanted to check and see if my list was any good. I tend to play with people that enjoy "fluff" battles and we often mix up games from just killing each others units to playing the objective. Below is a rough list that I've comprised, reaching exactly 1500 points. Any information/input any of you can provide is greatly appreciated! I would love to hear everyone's thoughts.

1500 POINTS

BATTALION - (Stuck between Kraken/Leviathan)

x1 Flying Hive Tyrant (I love this model and everything it does)
-resonance barb-catalyst, onslaught, the horror, smite
-adrenal glands, monstrous rending claws, heavy venom cannon

x1 Tyranid Prime (helps make my warriors consistent)
-adrenal glands, deathspitter, boneswords

x6 Tyranid Warriors (one of my all time favorite tyranid models)
-adaptive physiology: enhanced resistance
-adrenal glands, boneswords, x4 deathspitters, x2 venom cannon

x6 Tyranid Warriors (second unit, spending 1CP for the physiology)
-adaptive physiology: enhanced resistance
-adrenal glands, boneswords, x4 deathspitters, x2 venom cannon

x30 Termagants (Wondering if I should split this up into two different units)
-x30 fleshborers

x1 Lictor (Love the model and the deepstrike is a great distraction/can also deploy scramblers)

PATROL - KRONOS
x1 Neurothrope (my only painted model that I spent 5 days on)
-symbiostorm, smite

x3 Ripper swarms (cheap, effective deepstrike, meets infantry standard for patrol)

x6 Hiveguard (awesome model, big unit to take advantage of single-minded annihilation)
-x6 impaler cannons

x1 Exocrine (the first "big" model I ever bought. My absolute favorite out of the entire codex)


All in all it comes to exactly 1500 points using the new point values of 9th edition. Please let me know what you think!

Also, a quick rules question. I know pistols can be shot in engagement range and that monster units can shoot in engagement range (with -1 to hit), but can any non-blast weapon be shot point blank? If so, does this occur in the shooting phase or the fight phase?

Thank you in advance!

All the best,
-Tom

[LordPathos]

Looks like this is your first post. Obligatory 'Welcome to the Hive'.

Just gonna give you a heads up that there is a specific thread section for Niddy army lists. You will find better advice posting over there. Nid army lists section

Also, when shooting while in engagement range (or close combat as you may see (or cc)), it will only happen in the shooting phase. There may be a funky stratagem out there or a special rule that lets you fire in the fighting phase as if it were the shooting phase, but Im almost 100% positive Nids dont have anything like that. And if any other army has something like that, it will eventually be phased out.

[Bohxim]

Also to add: I believe with 9th ed's "big guns never tire", monsters can shoot non blast weapons in engagement range too (but only at the unit its engaged with) . The - 1 to hit is only if its a heavy weapon,so assault weapons won't have the penalty.

[tylertt]

Apr 8, 2021 7:19:25 GMT LordPathos said:

Also, when shooting while in engagement range (or close combat as you may see (or cc)), it will only happen in the shooting phase. There may be a funky stratagem out there or a special rule that lets you fire in the fighting phase as if it were the shooting phase, but Im almost 100% positive Nids dont have anything like that. And if any other army has something like that, it will eventually be phased out.

The death frenzy strat for us will allow our characters to shoot in the Fight phase if they die I believe. Good for Dakka Tyrants if the situation comes about

[piersonsmuppet]

MRC are not great this edition, taking the Monstrous Strength physiology is almost mandatory with MRC. I prefer to take MSTs, and find the 10pts worth the consistency they give. Easy enough to drop 2x gants to swap. I think splitting the gants would also be the right move, gives you better board coverage and actions if needed. I would go Leviathan with your current build, will help make the wars/Tyrant more durable and you don't have anything that really needs Kraken's strat/power/trait. Kraken would possibly be the better choice if your Tyrant had 2xMST and the wars had the 1xLW/3xBS melee loadout to take more advantage of the movement/charge boosts, and fallback/charge.

[chilln797]

Apr 8, 2021 7:19:25 GMT LordPathos said:

Looks like this is your first post. Obligatory 'Welcome to the Hive'.

Just gonna give you a heads up that there is a specific thread section for Niddy army lists. You will find better advice posting over there. Nid army lists section

Also, when shooting while in engagement range (or close combat as you may see (or cc)), it will only happen in the shooting phase. There may be a funky stratagem out there or a special rule that lets you fire in the fighting phase as if it were the shooting phase, but Im almost 100% positive Nids dont have anything like that. And if any other army has something like that, it will eventually be phased out.

Thank you! Glad to be here. 

Oh! that's really good to know! Thank you.

And perfect! That was what I had thought. Thinking that only pistols could be shot in CC unless it is a monster unit from the new "big guns never tire" rule.

[chilln797]

Apr 8, 2021 7:39:25 GMT Bohxim said:

Also to add: I believe with 9th ed's "big guns never tire", monsters can shoot non blast weapons in engagement range too (but only at the unit its engaged with) . The - 1 to hit is only if its a heavy weapon,so assault weapons won't have the penalty.

Thank you! 

This is huge as I thought about switching my hive tyrant to all devourers, I might even consider adding some Dakafex's to take advantage of the new ruling.

[chilln797]

Apr 8, 2021 12:41:38 GMT tylertt said:

Apr 8, 2021 7:19:25 GMT LordPathos said:

Also, when shooting while in engagement range (or close combat as you may see (or cc)), it will only happen in the shooting phase. There may be a funky stratagem out there or a special rule that lets you fire in the fighting phase as if it were the shooting phase, but Im almost 100% positive Nids dont have anything like that. And if any other army has something like that, it will eventually be phased out.

The death frenzy strat for us will allow our characters to shoot in the Fight phase if they die I believe. Good for Dakka Tyrants if the situation comes about

I'm actually thinking I might switch to a Daka tyrant as 24 shots sounds like way too much fun.

[chilln797]

Apr 8, 2021 16:51:48 GMT piersonsmuppet said:

MRC are not great this edition, taking the Monstrous Strength physiology is almost mandatory with MRC. I prefer to take MSTs, and find the 10pts worth the consistency they give. Easy enough to drop 2x gants to swap. I think splitting the gants would also be the right move, gives you better board coverage and actions if needed. I would go Leviathan with your current build, will help make the wars/Tyrant more durable and you don't have anything that really needs Kraken's strat/power/trait. Kraken would possibly be the better choice if your Tyrant had 2xMST and the wars had the 1xLW/3xBS melee loadout to take more advantage of the movement/charge boosts, and fallback/charge.

You are 100% right. I changed the list to make use of the MST. I didn't realize that MRC were D3 damage rather than just a flat 3. I guess my brain thought that "rending claws" were better than "scything talons" and that those numbers would translate over to their beefier versions. I also agree with your suggestions of going leviathan. I played a game with it recently and rolling 2-5 6's on a unit of termagants always felt incredible. I feel like it will be especially useful with enhanced resistance warriors; one last hurdle to cross to inflict damage. Thank you!

[Bohxim]

Compared to the 6+++ of levi, I've always been more partial to the 6++ for gants custom hive fleet, where I'd also usually take the 1 unit in your army can do a psychic reroll per turn as a secondary fleet skill to have a second chance at spell casting if I fail. With access to resonance barb, a reroll tends to pass tests

[tomcaet]

When paying for scything talons, you do get re-roll ones and flat3 in place of d3/flat 3 on rend, but you lose the built in full wound re-roll. That's steep. We do have a cheap Stratagem for that but there's never enough CP for that sweet SMA and fight twice.
Full dakka Tyrant is good if you avoid melee and the list does feel like it could aim for that. Shooting in melee is a bonus, but not a deal maker, you still only shoot in your turn and fight in both (or fight and make them run). Default weapon attacks are sad, they're an invite for anything with an armour save to get stuck to the Tyrant. With Kraken you could charge after a fall back, but you'd want to shoot.
Exocrine's still a bit too still for me, but great if left alone with targets. Isn't it either sitting obscured with hardly any visibility or in the open and shot down?
I'd put adaptive physiology on a bigger unit to get more mileage. Although these Warrior units aren't small and this makes them deceptively tough, I'd probably still choose between the Tyrant, Hive Guard and Exocrine... which is actually cheaper than the Warrior units, huh. That's a nice balance of threats, it's definitely not obvious who to focus first.

[piersonsmuppet]

Apr 9, 2021 14:32:46 GMT tomcaet said:

When paying for scything talons, you do get re-roll ones and flat3 in place of d3/flat 3 on rend, but you lose the built in full wound re-roll. That's steep. We do have a cheap Stratagem for that but there's never enough CP for that sweet SMA and fight twice.
Full dakka Tyrant is good if you avoid melee and the list does feel like it could aim for that. Shooting in melee is a bonus, but not a deal maker, you still only shoot in your turn and fight in both (or fight and make them run). Default weapon attacks are sad, they're an invite for anything with an armour save to get stuck to the Tyrant. With Kraken you could charge after a fall back, but you'd want to shoot.
Exocrine's still a bit too still for me, but great if left alone with targets. Isn't it either sitting obscured with hardly any visibility or in the open and shot down?
I'd put adaptive physiology on a bigger unit to get more mileage. Although these Warrior units aren't small and this makes them deceptively tough, I'd probably still choose between the Tyrant, Hive Guard and Exocrine... which is actually cheaper than the Warrior units, huh. That's a nice balance of threats, it's definitely not obvious who to focus first.

The d3 damage risk is higher in my experience, the Tyrant just doesn't have enough attacks to fight through bad damage rolls like Hive Guard/Broodlord. Possibly needing 1 more attack to kill 2-4 W models is quite large w/ only 4 attacks and controlling player allocating wounds (many 6+ rolls get negated by a preceding 1dmg hit). In the event you are hyper CP hungry, w/ multiple units that can use SMA + fight twice, MRC can help save CP. However, Tyrant is about as threatening with MRC/2xDev as 2x2 Dev w/o Monstrous Strength (2x2 Dev is probably more threatening overall). You can either save CP or save pts, but trying to do both will likely mean a loss in efficiency in the Tyrant. If taking MRC w/o MS and using Barb, I would rather just knock down to a Broodlord for protection and a chunk of pts (12 Dev shots isn't what it used to be).

[Bohxim]

Dynamic camp jom tyranid warriors are so amazingly tanky if you stroll to an objective. Couple that with the blood of baal strat to get hem - 1 dmg taken when multi dmg shots come in and they provide such good bullet soaks for 17 points per model. Love them