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Hey Dakka! I'm thinking of starting a tyranid army soon and I was wondering if anyone could give me a brief summary of what in the Nid codex is worth it, and what is not. I know it's frustrating when people ask questions like these without specifying what army they'll be playing against so my main opponents will probably be SM and DE players. I like the look of venomthropes and Lictors and such, but I've heard that the Lictor especially, isn't worth its points.

Depends on how you want to run your army, most things can be good, depending on how you build your list, and our point allowance.

Here are some things I'd Avoid

Pyrovores-Tottally Useless

Lictors- Can be a fun/somewhat useful unit, but it has a pretty limited role.

Zoanthropes- They take up an Elite slot, with Hiveguard, and it relies on extreme chance to take out Armor. You have better things for crushing Av13/14 in the Dex

Rippers/Flying Rippers- You generaly have better uses for the points.

Mawlocs-While they can be useful sometimes, they are petty weak in combat for the most part, and it relies on their deepstrike gimmick.

Harpy- While it is the cheapest platform for a HVC, the weapon really isn't that good, and They are T5 4+ save MC, likely to die very quickly, and they eat up a ton of points.


These are just my opinion/Experience on the matter.

I will tell you that Hiveguard will be you best friend against SM and DE. Be warned though, that you will be in an uphill battle against DE, and MC are near useless against them.

Well staying away from specific lists I would just say that buying a few boxes of gaunts and partially assembling them would be a good idea. Just don't attach the gun arms until you are certain what weapon you would like to use.

Genestealers are also a great buy. A lot of lists use them and they work well in small outflanking broods or large infiltrating ones. Using the old feeder tendril heads gives you the option to run them as Ymgarls too.

Get a box of warriors and convert 1 or 2 into Primes.

Buy a trygon or 2. Magnetize the head and adrenal gland so you can interchange for a mawloc or Prime. You can also try the same thing with fexes if you like them...they are looked down on as inferior to trygons, but they can be quite brutal.

Take a look at zoanthropes and/or Hive guard. Both are solid elite choices but they fulfil slightly different purposes.

If you are after a fixed army list playtest with proxies first and then buy what works for you. If however you are like me (I want everything) then perhaps buy what you need to get started (HQ and 2 troops) then work up from there.

The Tyranid army is very demanding of it's general, far more so than some nameless-yet-extremely-common army with incredible tactical flexibility and forgiving stats/rules. You have got to know how the cogs in your machine work and how to get them to work together properly. Asking veterans is always a good start as they can point you in the right direction (i.e. NOT the Pyrovore) but in the end it's you on the table not them. Even the best internet copy/paste Tyranid list will get thrashed on the table top when led by someone who does not know how to get the entire army working together like a well-oiled machine because used individually the parts of the Tyranid warmachine kinda suck. They only work well when taken as a cohesive whole and led by someone who can use them all how, when and where they need to be used.

The best way to do this is to find a gaming venue where nobody is going to give you any grief about proxying models and then play, play, play and play some more using every unit in the codex and giving them all a fair shot within a list that does not exclude their capabilities. Try everything you can think of to see if it works, then abandon the Pyrovore and other units like him. Notice I'm not discussing specific models (besides the Pyrovore because seriously, he's that bad) because I don't want to make you think a given unit is worthless before you try it out. Even when you do try the worthless, crappy units (and there are many more of them beyond the Pyrovore) and they show themselves to be the worthless piles of plastic and points-sinking they are you will still have learned WHY they are bad and how everyone else in your army can step up to the plate and cover the holes left behind. Heck if you can get away with it find friends that will let you play with paper circles cut out to the size of the bases of the units you're trying that day and see how their rules/stats work. Eventually you'll find what works according to the rules, what rules are so blatantly broken and non-functional that it's a slap in the face that they were put in the codex and then further what works specifically for YOU.

Once you've done that you'll have your army and you can buy what you use.

The units people always come back to is 4 hive guards, 2 tervigons, (termigaunts) 30 gargoyles and 1 trygon.

Grabbing those models will be a good start, but you really need to get a feeeeel of the codex.

1 Tervigon HQ 185
1 Tervigon Troop 185
10 termigants troops 50
(30 temrigants for spawning)
2 Hive guards elite 100
2 Hive guards elite 100
15 gargoyles fast attack 90
15 gargoyles fast attack 90
1 Trygon heavy suport 200

You are a little zynapse light, but that's a good place to start at 1000 points.

I managed to have a few today to see what worked for me and whatnot: I've found that warriors with bone swords destroy just about every single infantry unit in the game, along with a tyranid prime too, they're amazing in several aspects. Hormogaunts are great since they are so cheap, but still able to pack a punch. Gargoyles also act as a great distraction or are able to tie up dangerous units. And as always, I love carnifexes.

Watch out with the warriors. You are paying a lot of points for a unit that most likely not make it into combat. S8 + hurts them bad.

Lictors are terrible. If I recall right, it takes at least until turn three for the pheromone trail ability to go off, and even then you can't assault after the deep strike so you can't get into melee until turn 4, but if you're playing nids, you should already be in someone's face before turn four rolls around. Also, the whole concept behind them is sorta crap. You can't run ahead and wait for the ability to work out because lictors suffer from instinctual behavior.

Lictors are awesome in the fluff and as models, but stat wise they are terrible, and they take up room that your hive guards will need. With everyone fielding mech armies, you WILL need as many hive gaurds as you can field.

Venomthropes are somewhat useful for supporting gaunts and gants, but then again they take up your elite slots, which is something those precious hive guards need.

The reason I'm cramming hive guards down your throat is because the codex has so few answers to dealing with tanks. Zoe's have to do the psychic test, then BS test, and the chances of actually hitting happens less than you would want it to. There's always carnies but then again you have to get into melee (taking pot shots with the heavy venom cannon is not the best idea with bs 3 and scattering)

Necrosha, if you don't manadge to charge turn 3 you just misplaced them during deployment.

Lukus83 wrote:Watch out with the warriors. You are paying a lot of points for a unit that most likely not make it into combat. S8 + hurts them bad.

If you want your warriors to make into combat, I'd recommend making them into Lashwhip+Bonesword, Scytals, and Adrenal Glands on Shrikes instead. They are fragile, but very devastating with a nice large threat range.

I don't use Hive Guards. I find them to be boring. I might include them one day, but I haven't really needed them. As far as Warriors go, I like to take a squad with a venom cannon, deathspitter, and devourers, and a squad armed for melee. They provide synapse to my hormagaunt/venomthrope wall, and offer some decent enough firepower, plus they really give a gaunt line a "backbone".

Lictors have great use if you play by turns and not by time. I take a melee carnifex (another if points go up) and 2 zoanthropes, both in mycetic spores, along with 18-20 devilgants in a spore. That way, when the Lictor comes out, I use his free entrance turn of not having to take a synapse test to put him within 14-15 inches of my Tyrant (w/ Commander upgrade) and Warriors marching downfield. I like to encircle, using Raveners, a Trygon Prime, my aforementioned spores, and a flanking unit of 'stealers (Ymgarl if points allow). I march my venomthrope(s), warriors, hormagaunts, and tyrant with guard downfield. Never have a problem busting mech. Using all three of our methods of getting into combat (spores, burrow-strikes, and fleet units) can make us entirely too much to deal with.

You can't think of Tyranids as an "army", you're a devouring swarm hive-mind. Think tactically, but use your animal cunning. Example: throw hormagaunts in the path of a LR to slow it down until you can bring a z-thrope down to deal with it, or a Carnifex over to rip it up. It sounds ridiculous, but the units make more sense that way. Zerg players know what I'm talkin' bout.

SumYungGui wrote:The Tyranid army is very demanding of it's general, far more so than some nameless-yet-extremely-common army with incredible tactical flexibility and forgiving stats/rules. You have got to know how the cogs in your machine work and how to get them to work together properly.

Of this first part is VERY funny. The second part is VERY accurate.

Nids are VERY different from every other army out there, and have a ton of synergy about them, which in today's world of codex creep, is absolutely essential to master.

I would say read as much tactica as you can find out there, and lots of battle reports.

One note on the warriors: you are correct, they are VERY dangerous - no one in this game likes getting charged by tyranid warriors, no one.
However, they are also very difficult to use against experienced players. Against inexperienced players, they are only slightly challenging.
Why? Poor armor save and only T4. Thats why. If you are facing an experienced player with them, you will have to give them plenty of screening AND distract that other player.

in fact, that is the core of playing nids: Pick which units will survive to reach CC.
Ironically , this is also, the key to defeating nids: pick which units will survive to reach CC.

Basically, you get a bunch of bugs of various types depending on your list strategy, may or may not have some supporting shooting, and you try to get some of your dangerous units into close combat with the enemy.
Along the way, you might have some units with special capabilities for distraction or helping out.

The specific units don't really matter, and there are many varients of this (venomthropes, deep strike, harpies, doom, lictors, trygons, genestealers, etc.).
Its about trying to force your opponent to make decisions (do I shoot at the trygon, or those warriors, or that harpy thing? Should I take out the venomthrope yet? Man, those hive guard are nasty? Woah, is that a lictor RIGHT behing my rear armor?). so they may make the wrong one.

if you make it easy for the other player, (say, only exposing one dangerous unit a turn) then the bugs will lose.

Regarding marines, they are a bit overconfident, and often freak out trying to kill all your MC's....(unless they are good). Watch out however for those pesky prevalent krak missiles...they are the bane of nids.
Regarding DE...oh man, thats just not good. I have a VERY good winning record with nids...and usually the only army that gives me any trouble is SW razor spam or BA (only lost once to BA).
However, I have not faced a DE army yet....there are not a lot around here yet. They are almost designed to beat us...its not pretty. Others may have some good tactica for DE (other than locking the door).

Keep the questions coming, read all you can, keep an open mind....and hope the DE player is has a seizure or something.

Nids are, if you ask me, one of the harder armies to us nowadays. The MC's are overpriced compared to tank equivalents at first glance, but some of them are amazing in thier own right.

The Hive Tyrant might be one of the best Deathstar units in the game if you use him correctly (Armoured shell is a must for a walking Tyrant, keep some Tyrant Guard with him as well). Paroyxsm+LW/BS with scytals= terrifying one on one unit. Mind you, its not an invincible unit, and getting to CC will take some fancy footwork, but its so worth it when you do.

Personal Tactic I love: Take a Trygon and 6 Raveners, put a Prime upgrade on the Trygon, and get them into CC. Don't Bum Rush them, they will get torn apart. Keep them close to cover (The Raveners at least, good luck getting Cover on the Trygon, maybe if you field Venomthropes) But once you hit the 18" mark, the PRime will unlesh a torrent of fire and the Raveners will use that awesome 12" Charge. Its a great combonation, especially if you field alot of Hormies like I do.

Hive Guard are a must. They can pop and Transport that is foolish enough to get close to them. Tervigon are great, convert a Carnifex into a Tervigon, give it Catalyst, use Catalyst on a Bunch of Hormies, and laugh. its so fun.

Good luck, may the Great Devourer be giood to you.

In order of awesome

fully upgraded gargoyles with hive tyrant giving preferred enemy
genestealers with toxin sacs
gaunts in range of various buff units

the rest of my army is just to facilitate or increase the survivability of these 3 units, in general, either by removing/dismounting enemies or absorbing/attracting fire.

A full unit of gants getting adrenal/toxin and feel no pain from a Tervigon and preferred enemy with paroxysm from a Hive Tyrant will scare the hell out of anything out there. I don't care if you're in terminator armor with a 2+ save when I get done rolling dice and say 'make 45 armor saves', you, will, roll, ones.

It's quite an enjoyable sight to see everything come together like that actually.

It's very hard to to throw out absolutes in a Tyranid list,just because units that are lynchpins in some lists are borderline useless in others and vice versa. Here's some of my opinions on various units in codex,but I'm sure a lot of people will have different opinions on these units.

In larger point games[2k-2500],don't be afraid to throw 2 Hive Tyrants out there. Like others have said,Armored Shell+Tyrant Guard are a must for walking Tyrants,while a screening unit of Gargoyles are a must for Flyrants[Winged Hive Tyrants]. Flyrants are a great terror unit,and throwing one out there that your opponent is forced to deal with quickly will buy you time to bring the rest of your units up into shooting/assault range. A Swarmlord or a Tyrant with Hive Commander is almost a must in any army with 2+ Genestealer units.

Toxin Sacs are awesome for anti-infantry,but they also don't do anything for you against armor. Adrenal Glands are good for both infantry and mech. Your playing environment will decide which is better for you. If you're playing against people that don't use a lot of mounted units,then go with the Toxin Sacs. However,if you play against heavy mech armies or are looking for more of an all-comers list,Adrenal Glands might be a better choice.

At least experiment with including a Broodlord in your Genestealer squads. A lot of people around here don't like them and think they're a waste of points,but I've had a lot of success with mine. Hypnotic Gaze is ridiculously good if you get your Broodlord into the model you need to get him into,and at S6 on the charge with Adrenal Glands he gives you a good chance against back armor on vehicles even if the unit has taken casualties.

Devilgaunts[Termagants with Devourers] are a great Dakka unit,but I find the standard Fleshborer Termagants to be borderline useless,unless you are just using them to Lurk on top of an objective to claim it.

Whatever1 wrote:It's very hard to to throw out absolutes in a Tyranid list,just because units that are lynchpins in some lists are borderline useless in others and vice versa. Here's some of my opinions on various units in codex,but I'm sure a lot of people will have different opinions on these units.

In larger point games[2k-2500],don't be afraid to throw 2 Hive Tyrants out there. Like others have said,Armored Shell+Tyrant Guard are a must for walking Tyrants,while a screening unit of Gargoyles are a must for Flyrants[Winged Hive Tyrants]. Flyrants are a great terror unit,and throwing one out there that your opponent is forced to deal with quickly will buy you time to bring the rest of your units up into shooting/assault range. A Swarmlord or a Tyrant with Hive Commander is almost a must in any army with 2+ Genestealer units.

Toxin Sacs are awesome for anti-infantry,but they also don't do anything for you against armor. Adrenal Glands are good for both infantry and mech. Your playing environment will decide which is better for you. If you're playing against people that don't use a lot of mounted units,then go with the Toxin Sacs. However,if you play against heavy mech armies or are looking for more of an all-comers list,Adrenal Glands might be a better choice.

At least experiment with including a Broodlord in your Genestealer squads. A lot of people around here don't like them and think they're a waste of points,but I've had a lot of success with mine. Hypnotic Gaze is ridiculously good if you get your Broodlord into the model you need to get him into,and at S6 on the charge with Adrenal Glands he gives you a good chance against back armor on vehicles even if the unit has taken casualties.

Devilgaunts[Termagants with Devourers] are a great Dakka unit,but I find the standard Fleshborer Termagants to be borderline useless,unless you are just using them to Lurk on top of an objective to claim it.

What's your take on using both toxin sacs and adrenal glands? I'm a huge fan of CC Nids (which from what I've read aren't that great right now), and instead of termies with tervigon support I would rather run fully upgraded hormies. Maybe throw in a tervi for the FNP psychic power, and then use tyrant for preferred enemy enhancement.

For the point investment, you have to take a look at each unit and how much the adrenals and toxins cost for a unit.

For instance, Gargs are essentially flying Termagants. For 8 points, you get a model with both Poison and Furious Charge and an 18 inch assault range. Totally worth it.

For Hormies, who are 6 points base, they bump up to ten apiece fully upgraded. They do get alot of attacks, but you have to justify their point expidenture as fully upgraded models cost 40% more and thus lower your model count of hormies by that much.

Gargoyles are typically the only unit I purchase adrenal and toxin on because it's super cheap per unit. Termagants I will tend to give toxin/adrenal through a Tervigon as you only need to pay for it once. Hormagaunts are unfortunately left out of the picture. I love the little buggers cause they get a butt ton of attacks but they already have high enough initiative that more from adrenal isn't terribly helpful and while the strength bonus works well for them at 2 points a model it's a bit much, typically they just get toxin and call it a day.

Eh, I like AG on my hormies, i at least gives them a chance to Glance Vheicles (on a good day...)

But TS on Hormies is a must. Like I said: 20 Hormies+TS+FNP+Paroyxsm=Terrible Terrible damage, especially with a Trygon Prime support helping to draw fire.

In fact, alot of Nid Strategy relies on having more threats than the enemy can shake a stick at. You have to build an army with multiple things that the enemy needs to adress or will take heavy casualties from it. For example, forcing your enemy to turn his missle launchers on your Trygon may give you a chance to pop all his transports with Hive Guard.

I like AG on the little guys to reroll on meqs. Nothing like increasing the armor saves to wipe several combats at once. It's anecdotal but I outflanked 28 AG/tox to kill 1 rhino, 3 Chaos terminators, and another 5 CSM in 1 turn and lasted another 2 turns drawing fire from the rest of my army.

Necroshea wrote:

Whatever1 wrote:It's very hard to to throw out absolutes in a Tyranid list,just because units that are lynchpins in some lists are borderline useless in others and vice versa. Here's some of my opinions on various units in codex,but I'm sure a lot of people will have different opinions on these units.

In larger point games[2k-2500],don't be afraid to throw 2 Hive Tyrants out there. Like others have said,Armored Shell+Tyrant Guard are a must for walking Tyrants,while a screening unit of Gargoyles are a must for Flyrants[Winged Hive Tyrants]. Flyrants are a great terror unit,and throwing one out there that your opponent is forced to deal with quickly will buy you time to bring the rest of your units up into shooting/assault range. A Swarmlord or a Tyrant with Hive Commander is almost a must in any army with 2+ Genestealer units.

Toxin Sacs are awesome for anti-infantry,but they also don't do anything for you against armor. Adrenal Glands are good for both infantry and mech. Your playing environment will decide which is better for you. If you're playing against people that don't use a lot of mounted units,then go with the Toxin Sacs. However,if you play against heavy mech armies or are looking for more of an all-comers list,Adrenal Glands might be a better choice.

At least experiment with including a Broodlord in your Genestealer squads. A lot of people around here don't like them and think they're a waste of points,but I've had a lot of success with mine. Hypnotic Gaze is ridiculously good if you get your Broodlord into the model you need to get him into,and at S6 on the charge with Adrenal Glands he gives you a good chance against back armor on vehicles even if the unit has taken casualties.

Devilgaunts[Termagants with Devourers] are a great Dakka unit,but I find the standard Fleshborer Termagants to be borderline useless,unless you are just using them to Lurk on top of an objective to claim it.

What's your take on using both toxin sacs and adrenal glands? I'm a huge fan of CC Nids (which from what I've read aren't that great right now), and instead of termies with tervigon support I would rather run fully upgraded hormies. Maybe throw in a tervi for the FNP psychic power, and then use tyrant for preferred enemy enhancement.

On Gargoyles,taking Toxin Sacs with Adrenal Glands is really too good to pass up,for the points. I haven't tried the combo on Hormagaunts,yet,but I don't think it will be worth it the way I run them. Typically,I line my Hormagaunts up shoulder to shoulder to prevent my opponents from preemptively assaulting my big stuff and use that line to multi-assault infantry units to keep them from shooting for a turn until my Trygons,etc,get there. Taking both could be worth it,but you'd have to be willing to take a large brood of them to ensure enough of them hit to make it worthwhile. With Genestealers,they really don't need both to be effective. I haven't tried them with both,but I actually prefer AG to TS on them. Buff 'stealers too much,and they dispose of units TOO quickly. I know it sounds dumb,but I ideally like them to still be tied up in CC during my opponent's turn so they don't get shot up. Hopefully,they finish off/break the oppenent during my opponent's assault phase,so I'm free to assault with them again or move them into cover near an objective during my turn. I've had some bad experiences with Toxin Sac'd 'stealers obliterating an entire unit when they assault via outflank,then just get mowed down with bolter fire during my opponent's turn.

As for the Tervigon,I've toyed around with some lists that include them,but I've never actually played with one. I think they have their uses,but I just have a hard time finding room for them in any of my lists. So much of playing 'nids is screwing with your opponent's target priority and putting them in no win situations,and the Tervigon just doesn't seem to accomplish that. It's not a threat on it's own. It's main purpose is to pump out more of a bad unit[Fleshborer Termagants] and make them a mediocre unit by buffing them up as long as they stay within 6". Giving out FnP is nice,but personally,I'd rather just use the points spent on a Tervigon to buy another Trygon,unit of Hormagaunts,etc,etc. I'll readily admit that I'm in the VAST minority of 'nid players when it comes to the Tervi's,but that's JMO.

I play "assault 'nids",and I rarely lose with them,although take that with a grain of salt,because I don't typically play against people that are running tourney lists or anything like that[mainly play against Blood Angels,Orks,Space Marines,and Eldar]. When I build a list,I try and build it so nearly everything in the army is either an assault threat or an armor busting threat on it's own,without synergy units,and then if I can pull off some nasty synergy combo's during the course of the game,then bonus,if not,then I'm not counting on having them in order to win. The more you build your list off of synergy combo's,then the more rigid the army becomes tactically on the tabletop,and the more rigid you have to play,the less you can improvise and adapt to what your opponent does.

Necroshea wrote:Lictors are terrible. If I recall right, it takes at least until turn three for the pheromone trail ability to go off, and even then you can't assault after the deep strike so you can't get into melee until turn 4, but if you're playing nids, you should already be in someone's face before turn four rolls around. Also, the whole concept behind them is sorta crap. You can't run ahead and wait for the ability to work out because lictors suffer from instinctual behavior.

This needs to be addressed, mainly because it's mostly wrong. Lictors are great, although you need at least two units, and they do better with a reserve bonus from a Hive Commander Hive Tyrant and/or the Swarmlord. That way you have acceptable odds of at least one unit showing up on T2. If a unit of Lictors shows up on T2 and you have either a Hive Commander or Swarmlord, everything else is going to come in on T3.

As mentioned earlier, if you can't get a unit with Fleet and Move Through Cover into combat on T3, you're doing it wrong. Remember, Chameleonic Scales mean that the Lictors are simply placed where-ever you want at least 1" from an enemy model. Thanks to Stealth, they can deploy with a Cv3+. And wow does that cover ever make the different to incoming heavy fire.

Finally, Lictors are fine running ahead, because Instinctive Behaviour requires that you first fail a Leadership test on Ld10, first. Okay, yeah, you have 8% odds of failing, but so what? The sheer value of being able to act independently of Synapse the other 92% of the time is handy.

The morale of the story is that you should sit down and read the rules very carefully. For example, Fearless units do not regroup automatically, while Synapse not only makes units Fearless, but also allows them to regroup automatically.

Simply knowing the rules won't win you games though. You can't just write an army list and hope you get lucky. You'll need to learn tactics as well. Tyranids are about precision.

Just looking through the codex and picking what you think is most powerful will NOT win you the game. You need to have synergy.

For example, if you want lots of gants, you need tervagons to make them more effective. If you have a flyrant and no gargoyle/shriker/ravener support, he will probably fly ahead of the rest of the army and kill a squad before being shot down.

Gargoyles are good as people said. Add in catalyst and old adversary and now they're REALLY good. 8 point models that go toe-to-toe with marines and usually get to assault.

Hive Guard are a must for most lists. I prefer zoanthropes but others seem to disagree.

bucheonman wrote:
Hive Guard are a must for most lists. I prefer zoanthropes but others seem to disagree.

I have had a lot of success with Zoanthropes, both marching and in spores.

Thus far, I haven't needed Hive Guards. Zoanthropes/Venomthropes/Lictors are all more valuable choices in my list.

I like Zoanthropes too. Synapse and invulnerable saves are big pluses and Warp Blast/Lance can be devastating if it hits (although I'll admit that I haven't gotten around to buying Hive Guard yet).

bucheonman wrote:Just looking through the codex and picking what you think is most powerful will NOT win you the game. You need to have synergy.

For example, if you want lots of gants, you need tervagons to make them more effective. If you have a flyrant and no gargoyle/shriker/ravener support, he will probably fly ahead of the rest of the army and kill a squad before being shot down.

Gargoyles are good as people said. Add in catalyst and old adversary and now they're REALLY good. 8 point models that go toe-to-toe with marines and usually get to assault.

Hive Guard are a must for most lists. I prefer zoanthropes but others seem to disagree.

You need synergy to a point,but I don't think you can combo yourself to death,either. For example,Flyrants are great on their own. Gargoyles with Adrenal Glands and Toxin Sacs make great screening units for Flyrants,and they absolutely rock with Old Adversary and a little Paroxysm mixed in,but they can still get the job done on their own if the Flyrant gets shot down behind them. They're not simply a throwaway unit to give something a cover save,like Venomthropes are. Conversely,Fleshborer Termagants are a pretty bad unit,IMO,and I really don't see the point of dropping the points on a Tervigon to buff them up to mediocre when you can just take a good unit instead. When your opponent drops the Tervigon,you're left with the scraps of some crappy units laying around. You can also give 90 Termagants Toxin Sacs and Adrenal Glands anywhere on the table for the same cost as 1 Tervigon with Toxin Sacs and Adrenal Glands to buff those same 90 Termagants as long as they stay within 6".

Nurglitch wrote:

Necroshea wrote:Lictors are terrible. If I recall right, it takes at least until turn three for the pheromone trail ability to go off, and even then you can't assault after the deep strike so you can't get into melee until turn 4, but if you're playing nids, you should already be in someone's face before turn four rolls around. Also, the whole concept behind them is sorta crap. You can't run ahead and wait for the ability to work out because lictors suffer from instinctual behavior.

This needs to be addressed, mainly because it's mostly wrong. Lictors are great, although you need at least two units, and they do better with a reserve bonus from a Hive Commander Hive Tyrant and/or the Swarmlord. That way you have acceptable odds of at least one unit showing up on T2. If a unit of Lictors shows up on T2 and you have either a Hive Commander or Swarmlord, everything else is going to come in on T3.

As mentioned earlier, if you can't get a unit with Fleet and Move Through Cover into combat on T3, you're doing it wrong. Remember, Chameleonic Scales mean that the Lictors are simply placed where-ever you want at least 1" from an enemy model. Thanks to Stealth, they can deploy with a Cv3+. And wow does that cover ever make the different to incoming heavy fire.

Finally, Lictors are fine running ahead, because Instinctive Behaviour requires that you first fail a Leadership test on Ld10, first. Okay, yeah, you have 8% odds of failing, but so what? The sheer value of being able to act independently of Synapse the other 92% of the time is handy.

The morale of the story is that you should sit down and read the rules very carefully. For example, Fearless units do not regroup automatically, while Synapse not only makes units Fearless, but also allows them to regroup automatically.

Simply knowing the rules won't win you games though. You can't just write an army list and hope you get lucky. You'll need to learn tactics as well. Tyranids are about precision.

Best case scenario (with swarmlord/HC) you have around 67% percent chance of it coming out turn 2. If you fail that, which is very possible, it sits out for another turn, and the ability is pretty much wasted at that point, because even with a near guaranteed arrival on turn 3, the ability can't be used until turn four. So, even with everything you said, it will only happen 67 percent of the time. You could certainly field more than one unit of lictors and increase the chances of making use of it, but at that point you're already spending a goodly amount of points, as well as taking up elite slots, which could be used for Zoe's or hive guards. You might find value in that unit, but I'd rather not base any kind of strategy around those kinds of odds. If I wanted to play that way I'd roll daemons (bleh).

You take gaunts with tervigons to give yourself scoring units that your opponents can't possibly deal with. I have had games where it got to turn 5 and they had killed off all the big nasty suff and had 2 turns max to kill 60 gaunts and 2 tervigons to wrest the objectives from my control...It didn't happen. In KP games it can be a bit of a downer (still get to give FnP but have to be a bit wary on spawning), but in 2/3 missions they are absolutely insane.

Once again you fail at the rules. The best case scenario is a Hive Commander and the Swarmlord, for 2+. With two units, your odds of getting one unit in combination with either the Hive Commander or the Swarmlord is 88%. With neither the Swarmlord nor a Hive Commander, you're looking at 75%.

Whether you or I find value in a unit is irrelevant to the question of how to use the unit properly.

If Zoanthropes or Hive Guards enhanced your army's ability to co-ordinate reserves, or Lictors didn't have 6 S6 Rending attacks per turn, then you might be giving something up. As it turns out, perhaps shockingly, the strategy for which one uses Lictors is not the strategy for which one uses Hive Guard or Zoanthropes.