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I'm closing in on a deal for a starter Tyranid army + Codex. and I forgot to solicit feedback on the most important thing:

Is the Tyranid codex fun to play?

As always, your results may vary.

When a brood of warriors with rending claws slaughters a terminator squad to the man, it is awesome. When that same squad evaporates to a single battle cannon shot, it sucks.

Also, you need to love flyrants, as making any other HQ option work is needlessly difficult.

Lack of diverse build options makes it unappealing for me. The codex restricts list building too much with obvious right and wrong choices and synapse makes it a painful process. I'm looking to start a 3rd army but I will keep looking.

^^ agreed. Flyrants are your bread and butter. I've recently started Nids myself and have had nothing but a blast playing them. He's right, they either do awesome, miraculous things or fail miserably. Ex. In one game I outflanked a unit of 30 termaguants. In my opponents turn he killed te Flyrant that was their synapse. On my turn they failed their synapse check and ran off the board. Very next game they came in the board and the Flyrant again got killed, except this time they passed 4 LD6 synapse checks and 2 break checks from shooting to hold a 4 point objective which won me the game.


They are tons of fun to play but sometimes they will let you down. If you can handle that you should thoroughly enjoy playing with them.

Depends on your idea of fun. The codex is so damned unbalanced if you had a particular vision for your army, there's a good chance it sucks. Wanted a Tyrant that's not flying? sucks. Wanted a Lictor? sucks. Wanted some Raveners? super sucks. Warriors? suck. Rippers? suck.

FenrisianStuart21 wrote:
^^ agreed. Flyrants are your bread and butter. I've recently started Nids myself and have had nothing but a blast playing them. He's right, they either do awesome, miraculous things or fail miserably. Ex. In one game I outflanked a unit of 30 termaguants. In my opponents turn he killed te Flyrant that was their synapse. On my turn they failed their synapse check and ran off the board. Very next game they came in the board and the Flyrant again got killed, except this time they passed 4 LD6 synapse checks and 2 break checks from shooting to hold a 4 point objective which won me the game.


They are tons of fun to play but sometimes they will let you down. If you can handle that you should thoroughly enjoy playing with them.

Oh yeah...to be honest, the main reason I'm looking into this deal is cause IMO the models are cool and look fun to paint! I mainly play necrons so I am used to having key dice rolls fail and lose me the game


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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Depends on your idea of fun. The codex is so damned unbalanced if you had a particular vision for your army, there's a good chance it sucks. Wanted a Tyrant that's not flying? sucks. Wanted a Lictor? sucks. Wanted some Raveners? super sucks. Warriors? suck. Rippers? suck.

My vision for the army is the models the guy has offered me in trade . I suppose if this is an effective list of the weakest options, then there's only 1 in the bunch I'm looking at.

Just stay away from Tau and you should have a good time. Fighting against Tau is like bringing a pistol to a sniper duel.
The flyers are great fun but everything with out wings struggles to get into range to fight against gun line armys. If you are going against an opponent who still runs cc units the codex will still stand its ground but we lost a lot of our fun cc options that made me enjoy nids.

What models is he offering?

 jifel wrote:
What models is he offering?

I'm honestly not sure what category these models fall under (HQ, FA, HS, etc), so if this is organized bad, my apologies:

1 x Broodlord
1 x Lictor
1 x Tyranofex/Tervigon
1 x Mawloc/Trygon
1 x Hive Tyrant (not assembled so I'm assuming I can turn this into a Flyrant)
8 x Genestealers
19 x Termigants
11 x Hormogaunts

That's actually not a bad start because you get some good MC and a Flying Hive tyrant. You definitely need to invest in more Guants though. It's almost impossible to play Nids without them. Your Tervigon can actually spawn Guants and if you don't have the models then they are auto-destroyed.

Overall, not a bad start.

Double check the Tyrant is a plastic one, the metal and finecast ones prior to the plastic ones don't come with wings to make them flying.

FenrisianStuart21 wrote:
That's actually not a bad start because you get some good MC and a Flying Hive tyrant. You definitely need to invest in more Guants though. It's almost impossible to play Nids without them. Your Tervigon can actually spawn Guants and if you don't have the models then they are auto-destroyed.

Overall, not a bad start.

Cool...I got the same advice from over at the Army Lists forum.

I don't want to spend much more money on the army (at least right away), but part of the plan would be to score a bunch of gaunts.

When it comes to Troops, you guys are lucky! The retail on them is cheap relative to most other armies, which hopefully means that they could be found on ebay for "actually" (vs. relatively) cheap.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Double check the Tyrant is a plastic one, the metal and finecast ones prior to the plastic ones don't come with wings to make them flying.

Can you tell by looking? I'm calling the guy this afternoon, so I'll ask.

P.S. the guy says he has all of the kit from the original box to complete the model out.

Yeah that's a plastic one, the way he's assembling it is if it's flying already.

I thought i'd chime in here.

Never played anything else other than Nids. Played 40k for a year, and have nostalgic moments from when i was a kid with Screamer Killers.

I play for fun, i want to do more tournaments and do the best i can do, but i won't go home unhappy if i get tabled and the enemy played fair.

Sooo about the Codex.

Unfortunately Nids don't have much in the way of dependable builds designed to waac.

More unfortunately fluffy builds use up the FOC like there's no tomorrow.

Even more unfortunately synergy isn't as prominent as you'd expect from the Hive Mind.

Options available for upgrades is very small, with many things being left out of the codex. Special Rules that should be in the codex that wouldn't really effect the 40k universe so much left out.


Onto the positives.

The dataslates (while annoying not being in the 'dex) do open up the FOC allot and offer some cool and fluffy builds.

Your own Hive Fleet.
Feel proud you don't fit into the power armour category of repetitiveness colour schemes and lists.
Feel proud you don't have crutches like Quad Guns and ADLs.
Feel proud you don't have allies.
Feel proud you aren't scared to charge across the table being shot at.
Feel proud you weren't a pussy and bought into the next power codex.


Paint Nids, play Nids, have fun!

 eskimo wrote:
Feel proud you don't have crutches like Quad Guns and ADLs.

Oh hell no. If this deal goes through, I'll eventually pick up one of these puppies, or convert something similar.

Unless, of course, the Codex prohibits you from brining fortifications...in which case I will ignore that rule, and eventually pick up one of these puppies, or convert something similar.

 eskimo wrote:

Paint Nids, play Nids, have fun!

+1 for that! This is how you know if you'll enjoy Tyranids. If that line warms your toxin sacs you'll do just fine.

 Arrias117 wrote:

 eskimo wrote:

Paint Nids, play Nids, have fun!

+1 for that! This is how you know if you'll enjoy Tyranids. If that line warms your toxin sacs you'll do just fine.

Yep. I love the Tyranid models, love the fact that they seem very open-ended to paint color-scheme-wise, and I always try to and so far have had fun, whether its 500 or 5000 points, and whether my army is outclassed or not.


Correction: I have always had fun against everything but IG (or whatever GI Joe is called nowadays).

I've recently gotten into nids as well (needed a change from the boring Tau I usually run) I have to say even with the flaws in the codex and BRB they are extremely fun to play and look awesome when they're laid out on the table (none of mine are painted yet because I wanted to get all the magnetizing done and they still look awesome). They are not as bad as some people on the internet makes you believe, I trounced my opponent the first game with them and the second one I only lost because I made a really really stupid mistake (moved my warriors off a 3 point objective to try to get some synapse to my forward bugs on turn 6).

The 1 thing I would recommend if you get into Nids is to magnetize as much of them as you can. I've even been batting around the idea of magnetizing my Termigaunts but I haven't found the patience to sit down and do it yet. all my MCs are magnetized for all options (except my Carnifex which needs his guns done) and it is awesome to be able to switch what they are doing on a game to game basis (plus saves you a HUGE wad of money).

No rule I'm aware of (granted I haven't checked the FAQ in a bit) dis-allows you from taking fortifications but you can not shoot any weapons that come with them (automated ones still work for you I think).

The stuff in the dataslates can be pretty fun and from what I've seen so far the Skyblight one is a beast. I want to try some of the Vanguard stuff with the genestealers just for fun and the artillery one I hear works really well as well.

The Tyrant in the pic is almost at the perfect stage for taking him over as none of his stuff is attached yet allowing you to throw some magnets in him.

I own a few armies but strongly focus nids, and I have to say, they are very different to the others.

The negative side is needing Synapse creatures.
A further negative is that the bulk of Synapse is on bad units (tervigon, zoanthrope, trygon-p) or at best undesirable (warriors, flyrants).
Another downside is that we have ALOT of badly balanced crap. Every army has some, we have more than CSM tho. Raveners, Rippers, Genestealer, spore mines, Harpies, swarmlord, tyranid prime, old one eye, hormagant, tervigon, pyrovores, zoanthrope, hive guard, haruspex, sky-slashers, shrikes and trogons. Some of this is quasi-useable, gimmicky at best, the bulk is just junk.
Further still is the fact that dataslates exist. Not only do they cost more than actually just buying an iPad to bring the pirated .pdfs along to games, but they are also important to making your army strong. They ignore FOC , and give some really good bonuses, at the cost of taking something crap. It sucks spending points on crap like harpies and warriors just because of how awesome a T6 MC with a twin linked S7 AP2 large blast that no longer takes up one of your vital HS slots anymore is. Might be strong, but not fun.
Our bio artefacts and even bio morphs suck. There is very little fun to be had customising a HQ hero's loadout, or for the most part even taking anything but a vanilla unit anywhere in your army the bulk of the time.



On the flip side of the coin, the plus side is you have some really cool toys. Deep striking MCs with great point for damage output value, before even factoring the S6 AP2 largeblast that hits any infantry it lands on, TWICE??
Or how about giving all your guys +2 to their cover save the whole way across the board? how about spam able bugs of all sizes to ensure that even a tyrannofex or a hive crone is turning that into a 3+ Cover save all the way up the board? Or How about an easily manipulated army wide fearless rule, allowing all your non synapse units (aka The good ones) to go to ground to give a terminator cover save even to a 30 man unit of termagants, and have them get back up and keep running and gunning the next turn ?
How about being a primarily shooting focused army with an Insane number of mid to short range shots every turn, nicely complemented by the fact that almost every single unit from a squad of 30 termagants, to a solo tyrannofex, can tear it up in assault? Oh and every single gun in our arsenal is an assault weapon so we can do it AFTER shooting.
We can spam flyers or even build for assault rush.
We can take 7 HS slots and every one of them be amazing.
We are the army that can take 9 carnifexes.
We can now literally take an army entirely composed of lictors, -80 pts for mandatory troops.
Our terminator equivalent is a scoring troop choice. Or jump infantry (or even beasts).
Our standard troop choice is 30W with 60 shots, for the price of just about a vanilla 10 man marine squad.





There might be a lot of restrictions, but there is also a lot of options. There is way more fun armies, the most recent codex was handled terribly and the main reason is that it had the potential to be an amazing sandbox of customisation, and we only got a bit more than the tip of the iceberg with this edition. But there is still lots of unique fun to be had with bids. Keeping in mind that synapse is not intended to restrict your choices but merely to counter balance an army, you will see you can do a lot of crazy gak with nids that other armies cannot do, and thinking outside the box can be fun. Even some of the worse stuff can be playable in synergy with other stuff! But we also have a T1 build in Skyblight swarm if you want the standard boring way to kick some skulls. Always a good way to shut up that guy talking about how his army can steamroll tyranid a because he's such a veteran, quietly feed him 7 FMCS at 1750.


At the end of the day, if the deal is good and you like the fluff of being the alien that even the aliens are scared of, take them. You WILL find a way to have fun.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Further still is the fact that dataslates exist. Not only do they cost more than actually just buying an iPad to bring the pirated .pdfs along to games, but they are also important to making your army strong. They ignore FOC , and give some really good bonuses, at the cost of taking something crap. It sucks spending points on crap like harpies and warriors just because of how awesome a T6 MC with a twin linked S7 AP2 large blast that no longer takes up one of your vital HS slots anymore is. Might be strong, but not fun.

This is actually my biggest concern. My local meta does not respect rules from Dataslates, and to be quite honest, I agree with the consensus.

 jasper76 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Further still is the fact that dataslates exist. Not only do they cost more than actually just buying an iPad to bring the pirated .pdfs along to games, but they are also important to making your army strong. They ignore FOC , and give some really good bonuses, at the cost of taking something crap. It sucks spending points on crap like harpies and warriors just because of how awesome a T6 MC with a twin linked S7 AP2 large blast that no longer takes up one of your vital HS slots anymore is. Might be strong, but not fun.

This is actually my biggest concern. My local meta does not respect rules from Dataslates, and to be quite honest, I agree with the consensus.

In that case, I'd probably advise against it. You are very low on options for builds without dataslates, they aren't all very good but at least give you playable options other than "build best army to lumber across the board" and "build best army to keep up with Flyrants".

How does your local feel about allies?

 SHUPPET wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Further still is the fact that dataslates exist. Not only do they cost more than actually just buying an iPad to bring the pirated .pdfs along to games, but they are also important to making your army strong. They ignore FOC , and give some really good bonuses, at the cost of taking something crap. It sucks spending points on crap like harpies and warriors just because of how awesome a T6 MC with a twin linked S7 AP2 large blast that no longer takes up one of your vital HS slots anymore is. Might be strong, but not fun.

This is actually my biggest concern. My local meta does not respect rules from Dataslates, and to be quite honest, I agree with the consensus.

In that case, I'd probably advise against it. You are very low on options for builds without dataslates, they aren't all very good but at least give you playable options other than "build best army to lumber across the board" and "build best army to keep up with Flyrants".

How does your local feel about allies?

I could force the issue...like, if you wanna play against my Nids, I built them around this particular dataslate, which I insist on using. If you don't like it, I'm happy to play a game with my Necrons.

As for Allies, its the reverse. My local meta likes playing with them. I think its cheese, so I don't do it anymore...it doesn't really bother me to the extent that I won't play a game or anything, but I just don't like it.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Our standard troop choice is 30W with 60 shots.

How many devourers did you include into that? 15? Even still, I love explaining to someone how many shots tyranids can do.

The concept of fun is debatable on the person. I'm still putting together my Tyranids(my first army), but when I use them I don't expect to win. My fun is going to come from watching a swarm of bugs flying into combat. My fun is watching a large force clash with Super Soldiers. I may lose every game, but as long as I use an army that fits my playstyle and I enjoy it, who cares if I lose.

Regarding ADLs and fortification, yes you can use them. In the last version, there was a FAQ preventing from using the guns unless they are auto, but it's gone. Especialy if you make a cool convertion, i don't see why anyone would object to you using them. (saw a bastion that looked abandonned and jungle-run in a Nids army.)

The Tyranids are very fun to play. I'll elaborate more once i'm back from work.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Our standard troop choice is 30W with 60 shots, for the price of just about a vanilla 10 man marine squad.

A bit costy... but i like 30 devs. 90 shoots for 240 points. Always fun to see the face of my friend when i tell him how many dice i need.

Nids have no allies, so it's unlike data slates for other races.

They also make worthless units attempt able. Gene stealers are absolute crap since you are paying out the ass for I6 on a unit with no frags. Opponent sits in cover, GG for stealer spam. However, take 2 formations of living artillery and you now have 6 re-rollable pinning blasts to force units in cover to GtG. And like that, you have a playable new build (well, the skeleton of one).
Trygons are usually just 50 pts more than a Mawloc for a couple extra attacks and WS and no reoccurring Ap2 large blast hit n run or reburrow (really not worth it). This is because their tunnel ability can't be used the turn it enters play, meaning that for it to be useful you have to get him turn 2 everything else turn 3. Piecemeal aside, it's highly unreliable and means that everything relying on his tunnel to come in is likely to just come in from the wrong end of your table. However, the endless swarm formation gives the bug units taken with it a 50/50 chance to fully respawn into reserves the turn it is completely decapitated and wiped. This would usually be kind of iffy and mostly useless coming in from your end of the table, But combined with the utility of a trygon tunnel, gives you a chance to bring your termagants and hormagants right back into the the middle of the fighting the next turn. Tadaa, your trygon now has a use, and this is one more build to possibly play with.

There is actually a lot of this hidden in the data slates and it's almost crucial to getting the most out of tyranid, otherwise you aren't left with a whole lot of options. None of the data slates are Op except possibly SKYBLIGHT just because "flyer spam" which I don't imagine interests you anyway judging by everything you've said so far.


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Unseeablething wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

Our standard troop choice is 30W with 60 shots.

How many devourers did you include into that? 15? Even still, I love explaining to someone how many shots tyranids can do.

The concept of fun is debatable on the person. I'm still putting together my Tyranids(my first army), but when I use them I don't expect to win. My fun is going to come from watching a swarm of bugs flying into combat. My fun is watching a large force clash with Super Soldiers. I may lose every game, but as long as I use an army that fits my playstyle and I enjoy it, who cares if I lose.

10. The most efficient way to do it. For 40 pts it literally doubles the amount of S4 shots the unit puts out, while keeping a 20 man meat shield meaning they aren't getting free devilgant kills for a good while.
I sometimes take 30 devs as well tho :p it's a bit brave and not always points efficient and not what I'd recommend for more than 1 unit but meh venomthrope lol


Also, you won't lose every game. Tyranids are not a weak army, I don't care what you've read on here. Just don't do really silly things and waste a couple of hundred points on useless gak like solo zoeanthrope synapse pegs, and regen + ag on tyrannofex, taking any amounts of tervigons still (they are only 30 points cheaper than a fly rant for reference and 50 pts more expensive than a dakkafex), etc etc, this is how most tyranid players seem to handicap themselves and really bring a 1250 pt army to a 1500 duel. Spend those extra points on more termagants they never go to waste :p

Trigger has been pulled. Come this Saturday, I'll be part of the Hive.

Thanks for all the feedback!

 jasper76 wrote:
Trigger has been pulled. Come this Saturday, I'll be part of the Hive.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Welcome to the hive! Spawning vats are on the left, guardsman buffet to the right.

What is your play style? Do you like shooty or assaulty armies? Are you a hoardy or few elite player? Maybe a combination of all of the above?

Do you need to win? Do you play for fun? Do you plan on going to tournaments and want to win?

Also what edition of the codex is? Is it the hard cover 6th edition codex, or a soft cover previous edition? Make sure there.

*edit* Hit the reply button too soon. Looks like you bought it. My questions are still valid so when you want to continue making your fleet bigger.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Depends on your idea of fun. The codex is so damned unbalanced if you had a particular vision for your army, there's a good chance it sucks. Wanted a Tyrant that's not flying? sucks. Wanted a Lictor? sucks. Wanted some Raveners? super sucks. Warriors? suck. Rippers? suck.

This. If you have a ton of Fexes already lying around though, it's the one silver lining of the new book.