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I just stumbled on a bunch of Tyranid Warriors models and was wondering if anyone had some ideas on good weapon and bio morph load outs. I was thinking that Warriors might be good in 5th ed, but they get really expensive fast, but Cover Saves and the changes to blast weapons(death Spitters) make the Warrior look promising.

Any thoughts on good load outs?

Leaping warriors coupled with 14ppm hormaguants (+1s, +1I, +1ws) are leathal.

Rending, toxing sacs, sything talons (more rending hits), one lashwhip per squad (they stack but ones enough), +ws, +bio plasma (1 I10 str 6 hit w/ rending, methinks. Not a MC neways so it doesnt matter).

Add in things like fleshhooks, symbiotes, that lashwhip to make all the warriors different and youve got indivudal warriors for wound allocation = awesomeness.

Add in synapse & none vapping (and abundant 4+ cover saves & nid move through cover rules) and youve got Awesomeness ++


Shooty types... well, I reckon literal Hordes of gaunts with the spattering of carnifexes & tyrants (& zoanthropes if ur feeling adventerous) would be better over warriors.

My all time favorite warrior so far i tried leaping combat dakka flying combat and blasty death. Blasty death is my favorite. death spitters and 2nd wep of choice toxin and toxin sacs. Each warrior pumps out a S6 template for 31 pts, a full squad costs less than 300 and can pump out 45-63 S6 templates a game. They can even be anti rhino and nids can use all the anti armor they get. Then you can get 2 squads of those 4 fex's and 2 tyrants and you have arguably the best fire power in the game maybe falling short to eldar. But you still have room for a bucket load of guants and stealers.

I use two groups of warriors- both are ok.

for close combat- rending claws and talons. I keep them cheap and just use glands for +WS and toxic sacs for +S. I have tried both with and w/o leaping. They are better with leaping (get into combat earlier), but I like them best for running behind a big unit of gaunts and cleaning up combat, so last time I played, they had no leaping (saved a good number of points) and they were just fine.

for shooty, I have a unit that has one venom cannon, one with twin devourer and one twin deathspitter. They all have Senses for +BS and Toxic Sacs for +S. I have only used them once. I am going to drop the second deathspitter and probably just give him talons or rending claws. I know that the unit is mixed and not optimal, but in my last game there was one turn where I needed extra help hitting a vehicle (my gunfex was rolling poorly) and having two str 7 shots was great, but in the next round they were able to pound a tactical squad with a st 6 blast followed by 4 str 4 shots (rerolling failed hits and failed wounds) and then toss in two Str 7 shots, and I was forcing him to make a good number of saves.

I agree with yermon. Deathspitter spam is becoming very popular...and its a cheap option. And TBH you dont even need the strength upgrade. So what if you only get a hit 1/3 of the time. In most cases you are looking at 2-3 wound rolls per hit. A brood of 9 warriors is looking (theoretically) at about 6-9 wound rolls (+ any additional ones that scatter but still hit the unit).

My last game against a shrike-led SM army put out 5 blast shots on shrikes bodyguard. 10 wound rolls later half the squad remained (admittedly I got lucky...he only passed shrikes armour save and failed nearly all the rest)

The unit honestly sounds terrible on paper but in practice its 9 S6 templates and a synapse unit and if you give 'em rending claws they can blast 9 templates and have 27 rending attacks keep stealers nearby and they even re roll to hit.

I'm fairly sure that Bioplasma is not affected by either monstrous creature status OR rending.

After fleeting was faqqed away in 4th edition I turned mine into twin-devourer+Toxin sacs, enhanced senses and extended carapace. A unit of 4 put out 16 bs3 twin-linked, living ammo S4 shots at I think 38 points a model. It was fairly impressive shooting from a nid unit people didn't expect. One memorable game saw them kill 8 models out of some kids uber-stealer unit. Each model had all the possible upgrades (and implant attack for head upgrades). Gutted them, then finished them off in the next turn of shooting. Definitely earned their points.

I like my warriors as cheap as possible. So the deathspitters and talons w/ a possible strength upgrade is the best one i've seen for moving up and supporting gaunts and big bugs plus they own hordes.

I'd love leaping warriors with 2 talons, st, in, and ws as my cc choice but to be honest i love my carni's and i have 6 so I've only got 2 warrior slots open without resorting to wings. though you can get a warrior with 5 attacks on the charge at st4 ws4 i4 that flys for 36 points which isn't bad.

My thoughts

yeah I was thinking Deathspitter spam would do good, but it seems like it would be a big pain to scatter all the blast markers (kinda like Zelots for Warmachine Menoth).

So I'm thinking 3-4 deathspitters plus some other ranged weapons, but I don't see the Venom cannon or barb Stranger being that hot on a Warrior and Devourers have the shorter range. To bad Flesh Borers didn't have a better range.

Toxin sacs and deathspitters.

Nothing else.




This is quite possibly the single most cost effective shooting unit in the entire game. A squad of 8 is only 216 points (for reference a standard marine squad with missile launcher and meltagun + plas seargant is ~200). For the cost you get 8 str 6 templates on an assault 24" gun. You will kill entire squads by accident, in addition to whatever you are actually shooting at.

extra BS is not worth the points?

It only amounts to one inch less of deviation. So it only matters one inch two thirds of the time. If you find its good for 18 points in a nine man squad then sure, toss it in. I don't really think its needed. That eighteen points could get you another three gaunts or a genestealer.

My Guess it that the 18 points is worth it, but I think it's something I'll have to playtest to get a feel on. I'm still new enough to 5th to not have a great feel for the new blast weapons rules.

@Shuma ...Ummm deathspitters in a warrior squad, with Str sacs comes to 296. You need two weapon-symbiotes so thats the cost for dual deathspitters. Twin linking the blast weapons isnt that worth it..

248 is probably what you can do, adding in sything talons there. Its not a bad squad. Whirlwinds would just annhilate them im afriad.

IT s usually not worth it because their are always things you can do to make something more effective than that for example with my 18 points i'm going to add flesh hooks on my hormigaunt brood or get my flyrant implant atack so he's now an antti TMC TMC lol

Razerous wrote:@Shuma ...Ummm deathspitters in a warrior squad, with Str sacs comes to 296. You need two weapon-symbiotes so thats the cost for dual deathspitters. Twin linking the blast weapons isnt that worth it..

248 is probably what you can do, adding in sything talons there. Its not a bad squad. Whirlwinds would just annhilate them im afriad.

You're right, I forgot the scything talons. They are still only about 125% the cost of a full marine squad. A whirlwind won't do a whole lot to them, if you deploy very poorly it may get six in a shot wounding 4, and killing 2. Thats not really heavy casualties. A more likely shot will hit four wound three and kill one a turn. 8-9 deathspitter templates can kill a 10 man marine squad in a single round of shooting. It's a fantastic squad, and can outshoot point for point nearly anything else out there while remaining reletively immune to high str weapons that would normally insta kill.

Its also pretty damn good in assault.

I think for shooting I think +bs+2 devourers is best. 26 points for re-roll bs3 hits, re-roll s3 shots. They are much more cost effective than the s4 devourers simply because you can get more models for the points required (sve 81 points for a brood) which the extra mode;s/wounds/shots make up the points difference by far.

For close combat I have one squad fully upgraded with leaping for cc minus the armor upgrades (rending/scything) and a bunch of squads without rending to just run up and clean up.

Anti tank can be a problem but only against landraiders/monoliths which is what zoanthropes are for I guess =).