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Dont know how popular zilla nids are in fifth edition, but after playing orks for years I wanted an army with as few models as possible that wasn't SM.
Heres the list
HQ;
Hive Tryant 156
Sything talons
Sything talons
Winged
Extended carapace

Hive tyrant 176
Enhansed senses
Extended carapase
toxin sack
Spine fists
venom cannon
Shadow in the warp

Elite;
3x carnifex 113
2xtl dev
enhanced senses

Troops; 180
9x genestealers
feeder tendrils
toxin sacks

8x genestealers 160
feeder tendrils
toxin sacks

Heavy;
3x Carnifex 163
Barbed strangler
enhanced senses
reinforced chitin

Seems simple enough; rush with the winged tyrant and make my opponent use all of his shooting to take him down while I advance with everything else. Shoot as much as I can and assault with the stealers if necessary, and the stealers can steal objectives. Cut and dry I know, but does anyone have any suggestions?

Welcome to the hive mind!

Just a few points.

Your stealers don't need toxin sacks, I'd be tempted to buy them scuttlers or just more models.

The walking tyrant could perhaps use some friends (tyrant guard), and he too should be a x TL devourer job.

The flyer could use being tooled up a bit more. I'd buy him toxin sacs and warp field at the least.

The strangler Carnifexes aren't legal because you need to buy them two weapons.

Basically runnning stealers in a 'zilla list is a bit tricky points wise, you might be better off with a couple of units of WON gaunts as your troops choices so you can properly fit out the TMCs which are your key units.

This is the list I run at 1250 with good success...

Flyrant, wings, tox sacs, ES, twin linked devo's, Warp Field

Walking Tyrant, ES, tox sacs, 2 twin linked devo's
Retinue - 1 Tyrant Guard

Stealers x7 Extended Carapace, flesh hooks

Stealers x7 Flesh hooks

Stealers x7 Feeder tendrils

Sniper Fex, ES, VC, BS

Sniper Fex, ES, VC, BS

Heavy Fex, Adrenals Glands (ws), extended carapace, bonded exoskeleton, reinforced chitin, 2x scything talons, toxic miasma, mace tail

Im still toying with changing to more feeder tendrils then flesh hooks but where I play at people still hide in cover, and the + to intiative on the charge helps, plus I just try and position the feeder tendril stealers to compliment the others, also the reason for the extended carapace stealers is they run front and usually take more of the fire. The havey fex is a bit of a fire magnet but he's hard to kill and once he gets in combat he's nasty, not to mention he blows through tanks... at 1500 my list might change some, with elite fex's and all. I can put alot of shots out and more often then not both my tyrants are throwing down 10-11 wounds a shooting round each, plus the big pie plates from the fex's, anyway hope this has helped some.

Freaka

How come flyrant have an EC? It's illeagle accorded from the codex nid.

Sadetta, not sure exactally what youre saying, but in the nid codex in front of me the tyrant has the option of extended carapace, so I either have an old codex, or you need to look harder.

Mofreaka, how often does your combat fex get to combat? I fooled around with bringing one, but I figured more often than not it would die before it got a chance to do any real damage and decided to make my flyrant a cc monster.

After some thought Ive redone my list abit. I dropped the gun tyrant, ill pick him up in higher point games, and make him worth as many points as I can, tyrant guard and all. The only army Ive seen take down more than 3-4 Monstrous creatures in a game is KOS orks. 7 should prove more than a difficult task at 1500 pts.

My new list;
Hive Tryant 191
Sything talons
Sything talons
Winged
toxic miasma
flesh hooks
adrenal glands
Warp field

8x stealers 200
flesh hooks
feeder tendrils
toxin sacks
carapace

8x guants 56
wo/n

3xcarnifex 113
2xtl dev
enhanced senses

3xCarnifex 163
venom cannon
Barbed strangler
enhanced senses
reinforced chitin

Sorry fitzeh, you dont play against nids as much as I do any not build a list w/o some tooled up ones. For once, as a former guard player, I would like to see the look on someone elses face when the stealers hit their lines and consume unit after unit. They are too expensive to really give me a pure zilla nid list, but too bad. I am on the fence about toxin sacks though, i like hitting vs prefered enemy (cant remember if its 2+ or 3+) then getting s5 against t4, which if memory serves is 3+ to wound, plus rending. Essentially I want my troops to be a functional, tactically viable counterpoint to my many monstrous creatures. I know have 225 to tool up my HS fexes and my tyrant, any suggestions?

Flyrants can only have warp field, they cannot have extended carapace.

If your tyrant has wings you cannot have extended carapace, that goes for warrior's as well, I believe the codex states that where the entry for the wings is at.

Freaka

Well here it is a lil tweak out if you are still going the same route with Nidzilla.

Nidzilla Remix

HQ: Hive Tyrant (1#, 203 Pts)
1 Hive Tyrant @ 203 Pts
Adrenal Glands +1 In; Flesh Hooks; Toxic Miasma; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Winged; Scything Talons (x2); Synapse Creature; The Horror; Warp Field

HQ: Hive Tyrant (2#, 188 Pts)
1 Hive Tyrant @ 188 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Extended Carapace +1 Save; Barbed Strangler; Twin-linked Devourer (x1); Synapse Creature; The Horror; The Shadow in the Warp
1 Tyrant Guard @ [45] Pts
Rending Claws; Scything Talons

Troops: Genestealers (8#, 136 Pts)
8 Genestealers @ 136 Pts
Flesh Hooks; Rending Claws

Troops: Genestealers (8#, 136 Pts)
8 Genestealers @ 136 Pts
Flesh Hooks; Rending Claws

Elite: Carnifex (3#, 339 Pts)
1 Carnifex @ 113 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Twin-linked Devourer (x2)
1 Carnifex @ 113 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Twin-linked Devourer (x2)
1 Carnifex @ 113 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Twin-linked Devourer (x2)

Heavy Support: Carnifex (3#, 489 Pts)
1 Carnifex @ 163 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Reinforced Chitin; Barbed Strangler; Venom Cannon
1 Carnifex @ 163 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Reinforced Chitin; Barbed Strangler; Venom Cannon
1 Carnifex @ 163 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Reinforced Chitin; Barbed Strangler; Venom Cannon

Total Roster Cost: 1491

Created with Army Builder
Copyright (c) 1997-2006 Lone Wolf Development, Inc. All rights reserved.

I took your original idea and basically legalized it. I used flesh hooks on the stealers, because the cannot have both feeder tendrils and flesh hooks. From most of what I have watched since I started playing recently is that when you use the fexs as a wall to shield the stealers til they are in range, the smart players move into cover so that you have to lose init when assualting. Basically you walk the stealers up to them hiding in cover and have at whats left of them, normally with the first assualt wiping out them. With the spare 9 points you can add either +1 WS or Bio-Plasma to the Flyrant whichever you think you will need.

Glancing past a few of your ill-placed, abrasive comments...

Bottom right-hand corner of page 33 in the codex: A winged model may not have the leaping or extended carapace biomorphs.
Page 39, Genestealer Brood: Feeder Tendrils*, Flesh Hooks*, *Genestealer may not have more than one of these biomorphs.

Read your codex before you correct other people.

Now then, on to the revised list.

HQ:
If you choose to stick with the flyrant as a melee variant, it is worth the points to get both Adrenal glands along with Toxic Miasma. The extra initiative lets you go before things like Khorne Berserkers, Demon Princes, Grey Knights, and whatever else has I5 in the game. +WS and Toxic Miasma combined allow you to not only match WS6 people, but lower them to the magic hit on 3's, they hit on 4's point. You'll also want Toxic Sacs on this guy, S6 is much better than S5.

However, I'd personally choose to go with a Devourer-based Flyrant. Your melee flyrant will never deal out 10-12 wounds per turn, and is only marginally better at killing tanks since a dakkaflyrant still gets 4 attacks on the charge at the same strength since you'd take Toxic Sacs on this guy, too. Not to mention this flyrant deals out these wounds at 18" range, not charging into whatever speed bump people have set up for you.

Speaking of Tyrants, a second Tyrant would do you more good than the third Heavy Carnifex you're running.

Elite:
I'd cut one of these guys, you'll be needing the 113 points elsewhere. Where, you ask?

Troops:
You do realize you're running 256 points of troops and have 16 models to show for it, right? And 8 of those are Gaunts? This is 5th, not 4th. Even in 4th this would be bad.

Sorry Elnicko, you have not played nids enough to tell experienced players about building Genestealers. For your 200 points of 8 people, at 204 I can bring 12 Genestealers with just Feeder Tendrils. Extended Carapace is useless in every regard since for the price you can bring more bodies and in 5th everyone gets a 4+ cover save. You can't take both Feeder Tendrils and Flesh Hooks, as I mentioned earlier. Feeder Tendrils are the better buy here every time. Toxin Sacs are also useless because of the low cost vs. efficiency ratio. S5 Genestealers don't inflict death much more often than S4, since half of your kills will come from rending.

For Genestealers, always go with more bodies for the points. Please don't debate this, I don't feel like doing the math again. The fact that I can bring four more Genestealers to the fight than you is huge. Four wounds, 12 more attacks on the charge, at barely more points. Also, read your rule book or refrain from correcting others again. Preferred Enemy lets Genestealers reroll missed close-combat attacks, nothing to do with 3+ rolls to hit that it used to be.

I like 8-man Spinegaunt squads, since that's all I ever use, though I tend to do it without the Without Number upgrade. That's a personal preference for most people, but I've just never had my Gaunts wiped out so the points would have been wasted every game.

Again, only two units of troops? Get more troops, this is 5th! I'd go with one more squad of Gaunts, and add in Tendril Stealers as points allow. You can give the Stealers the Scuttlers as well as Tendrils to make them a little more flexible. This works amazing in 'Capture and Control' missions where your opponent tends to put their objective in the far corner and you just outflank into it.

Heavy Support:
I'd cut down to two Sniperfexes to allow more points for troops. You can also save points by removing Reinforced Chitin from these guys. People won't be shooting at your Sniperfexes; there are much better, more urgent things to shoot at. That's 30-45 points you could put into more troops or more necessary upgrades for your Tyrants.
_______________________________________

Nidzilla is still a very formidable army for most people to contend with, especially since most people expect troop-heavy lists nowadays. It has changed a bit, though. Six monstrous creatures, while less than the former eight, is still a pain to deal with. However, you need many more troops. Two small units won't get you much of anything other than draws or losses. At 1500, I bring six TMCs, two squads of 8 Spinegaunts, and four squads of 8 Tendril Stealers. Six big guys, six squads of scoring units, and my opponent is afraid of everything on the table.

Sorry if I offended anyone, I took one look at the way the reply was written and discredited it; it was hardly intelligible. That being said, It was me who needed to take a more careful look

@kirbinator: as far as stealers go, I just wanted to tool some up, but apparently this is not how a competitive list made, so Ill rethink.

Points taken, Ill rewrite the list and repost later.

Keep in mind that three troop units is the minimum.

wuestenfux wrote:Keep in mind that three troop units is the minimum.

A suggested minimum, or FOC minimum? FOC says two, that just won't get you very far.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but only armies > 1500 points can field Elite Carnifexes.

Tyranid Codex pg. 46 states:

Shock Troops. In major engagements, Carnifexs of all kinds are often spearheading Tyranid assualts. In games of 1500 points or more any Carnifex with a total cost of less then 115 points can be taken as an Elite choice rather then a Heavy Support choice.

I played a similar list last night. I do not like 5th edition for tyranids. The reason is when my expensive genestealers destroy a unit I cannot sweeping advance into another unit hence I get shot to death. Read outflank in the mission section of the rule book. You will give your genestealers scuttlers.

A suggested minimum, or FOC minimum? FOC says two, that just won't get you very far.

Its a suggested minimum. An army with 9+8 Genestealers will not cut it.