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Hi everyone, my friend and I are starting new armies at 500 points and I decided to go Tyranids. I'm still something of a noob to 40K in general. After asking some questions in another thread and reading through the codex, I've settled upon the following list, though I need some advice about equipment:

1 Tyranid Prime
2 Tyranid Warriors (in a unit with the Prime)
3 Raveners
7 Genestealers with 1 Broodlord
15 Hormagaunts

Obviously I'm looking to go melee heavy. The idea is that the Hormagaunts will be in front of the Warriors all the time to take advantage of the Synapse, and both units will rush forward into melee ASAP. The Genestealers will probably infiltrate and/or outflank, and don't need to stay within Synapse range. The Raveners will deep strike, and though they will be outside of Synapse range they have the instinctive behavior of "feed," which is great because I'll want them in melee ASAP.

Now, with this list, I have exactly 24 points to spend on equipment upgrades for any and all of my units, and am looking for some suggestions. I want to stick to melee completely (I think - unless you think there is some reason to give one unit a ranged weapon), and I'm willing to drop some Hormagaunts in order to be able to outfit a unit with some kind of equipment, if necessary.

Suggestions?

Toxin Sacs could help, in this case. Makes wounding tougher things easier. Give me a bit to look through the codex again; It's been a long while.

Thanks a lot! One thing that I just thought of is that it will be difficult for me to destroy vehicles with these units, I think. Though, I don't know how many of those I'll encounter in 500 points.

Tangent wrote:Thanks a lot! One thing that I just thought of is that it will be difficult for me to destroy vehicles with these units, I think. Though, I don't know how many of those I'll encounter in 500 points.

Don't even worry about them at 500 pts. The only times you'll see them is possibly with an IG army, but that's about it, and certainly nothing with a rear armor above 10. But, if you're really worried, I figured something rather nice out. Instead of Toxin Sacs, you can give all your Genestealers Adrenal Glands for 24 pts exactly, and that gives you Furious Charge, a +1 boost to Strength and Initiative when you assault the opponent. With 21 strength 5 hits and 5 strength 6 hits, you're near guaranteed some damage on a tank, especially when you factor in that when you assault a vehicle, no matter what side you're on, you use the opponent's rear armor value. Also, it gives your genestealers even more kick against, well, everything, making them multi-purpose and flexible. Just keep charging with them, use cover well, and you should be winning.

I'm a little afraid that the Genestealers, numbering so few models, may get wiped out early. Though, you're right about the boost to strength being good against those vehicles. I suppose I'm not that worried about vehicles. Anything else you would recommend?

I'd say broodlord is a luxury at 500 pts; you won't meet the big IC which is what he's designed to kill.

At 1,000 points or below there are only 2 real HQ choices for Nids - prime or tervigon. I would personally run a tervigon as those free troops at a 500 point level are really worth it.

HQ tervigon AG,TS, cat 195
EL 2 hive guard 100
TR 7 stealers 98
TR 7 stealers 98.

You can also run the hive guard as 2 units if you wish.

You can't run a 2 warrior brood - the Prime isn't an upgrade model, he's an IC.

Drop the Broodlord and get more stealers.

Don't deep strike the Ravener's - they can't assault the turn they come in, so they're just begging to be shot. Run them up with the rest of your units.

Or drop them and do something like this:


Or, if you want to keep the Raveners,



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll answer your question from your other thread here:

Tangent wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:[don't field broodlords] unless you're fielding multiple full broods.

Why this?

You can get 3-4 genestealers for the price of one broodlord. The only advantage BLs have is the psychic powers, and those - while useful - aren't worth the massive cost of the upgrade. If you have multiple full broods and a bunch of points it makes sense to grab broodlords because you can't just add more genestealers.

I would definitely invest in Hive Guard

Depending on how competitive your player group is, tanks can be very common in low point games.

DirtyDan wrote:
CCS
3x melta
Chimera – 135

Vet squad
3x plasma
Chimera – 170

Vet squad
3x melta
Chimera – 155

Scout Sentinel
Autocannon – 40

Thats 3 chimera, and a Sentinel : 4 tanks

zcantin wrote:
[80] Farseer- Doom
[170] 5 Dire Avengers : Wave Serpent- tl shuri cannon, extra shuri cannon
[170] 5 Dire Avengers: Wave Serpent- tl shuri cannon, extra shuri cannon
[40] War Walker- 2x shuri cannon
[40] War Walker- 2x shuri cannon

2 Wave Serpents, 2 War Walkers : 4 tanks

Even Vanilla Space Marines can get in on the vehicle loving.

[100] Librarian
[225] 10 Tacs- Missile, Flamer, Power Fist : Razor Back- HB
[110] 5 ccw Scouts- combi melta, fist
[60] Land Speeder Storm- Heavy Flamer

Razor and Land Speeder : 2 Tanks

Of course you *can* close combat tanks down, but generally having some sort of long range option to help deal with them is preferable. Because of how cheap tanks are these days- you can expect them to start cropping up in scary numbers in any points level.

Thanks for the advice guys!

rigeld2 wrote:You can't run a 2 warrior brood - the Prime isn't an upgrade model, he's an IC.

Ah, nuts! I didn't realize that...

rigeld2 wrote:I'll answer your question from your other thread here:

You can get 3-4 genestealers for the price of one broodlord. The only advantage BLs have is the psychic powers, and those - while useful - aren't worth the massive cost of the upgrade. If you have multiple full broods and a bunch of points it makes sense to grab broodlords because you can't just add more genestealers.

So, I'm guessing Genestealers are useful enough that you just want the points available to spend on more Genestealers.

As for Hive Guard, I really like them and would want to use them, but the models are a tad expensive... my group isn't extremely competitive. Myself and the IG player threw together 1500 points of CSM and IG consisting primarily of what we just like to run. The IG player only has one airplane, for instance, and it is a Valkyrie instead of a Vendetta.

I like your list with the Raveners, rigeld (for some reason I really want to run them). On that list, which units have upgraded equipment? The Prime and the Warriors?

Tangent wrote:I like your list with the Raveners, rigeld (for some reason I really want to run them). On that list, which units have upgraded equipment? The Prime and the Warriors?

Yup, that's it. It looks fun at the very least.

Awesome! I think that's the one I will run. Any reasoning you can share behind the specific equipment upgrades? EDIT: I also noticed that you did a little swapping around on the equipment upgrades. You traded the scything talons for boneswords, then changed the devourer for a set of scything talons. The codex says "Trade the devourer for an ADDITIONAL set of scything talons (for free)." Is this allowed? Trading the original set of scything talons out and then trading the devourer to get them back?

Akaean, that's a good point about the vehicles... aren't most of those transports?

Yes - you can upgrade the original ST, then swap out the Devourer for whatever you want.

Just to note - a list that has vehicles will destroy that Ravener list, since there's no AT in it.

The other list you put up is the same way though, isn't it? I don't see anything in there that's much different from the Ravener list, equipment-wise.

Yeah, same problem. If you think you're likely to face a bunch of transports you could drop the Hormagaunts and wedge in a couple of Hive Guard.

Well, I got a guy who decided to go Dark Eldar over Eldar, and a guy who will make Tau and will probably go at least one transport. I have one other player who might play Space Wolves, but has never played before.

Finally got this army together and got the models assembled. I'll be using the Ravener list from Rigeld!

I'll be playing this list for the first time this weekend, against 500 points of Tau. The guy is pretty competitive, and will likely try to make a list that will directly and unequivocally beat mine, since he knows I'm pure melee and have no dedicated anti-vehicle units. I hope he doesn't, since I know how easy it is to beat a list when you know EXACTLY what is on it and have free reign to design your list around it and a lot of models to pull from. As per this other thread I made about Raveners, I decided to try not deep striking them, and just try to use them as a flanking threat along with my Genestealers.

Oh, also, the guy who I said might play Space Wolves decided to go Grey Knights, but he doesn't have most of his models yet and won't be playing with us this time. He's starting at 500 points, too. So, that means my opponents will eventually be...

Dark Eldar
Tau
IG
Grey Knights

I ran this list for the first time against Tau. They did EXTREMELY well.

It was annihilation, pitched battle. I infiltrated the Genestealers. The Raveners started in cover (ruins) and approached through it. The Warriors joined by the Prime were screened by the Hormagaunts for cover, and both units also started within ruins.

Long-story-short, the Hormagaunts performed their job admirably, preventing all shots to my Warriors the entire game. The Raveners were only outside of cover when they were ready to assault. The Genestealers were able to approach with cover and make some good cover saves. Raveners assaulted on turn 2 as did the Genestealers (awesome!!!). Genestealers blew up the only tank (heavy tank with a large blast template) and the Raveners wasted a unit of Fire Warriors. The Hormagaunts assaulted turn 3, as did the Raveners, but the Genestealers got wiped in 1 turn of good shooting by the Tau out of cover. The Hormagaunts also would have been able to assault on turn 2, but he backed up pretty far. His attention was drawn away from them and to the threat of the Genestealers on one side and the Raveners on the other, and he didn't shoot them much more.

My Hormagaunts were able to tie up the small unit of Crysis Suits while the remaining Ravener killed the other unit of Fire Warriors, and the game was over then. I killed everything and only lost the unit of Genestealers. First win for the alien menace!

All-in-all, I think my options did well. The Warriors didn't do ANYTHING the entire game, but were essentially untouched as well. They DID provide Synapse, which was pretty clutch in allowing the Hormagaunts to keep the Crysis Suits tied up in the final turn. Otherwise, they were just a bit slower than everything else, and would have been even slower if I hadn't run with them every turn.