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HIVE TYRANT
My analysis
BIOMORPHS
Acid Maw - YES - Is better than Bio-plasma, make your hits count in CC the first turn of combat could be seen as your golden opportunity to cripple whatever you assault before you get killed.
Adrenal Glands (I) - MAYBE - good for CC
Adrenal Glands (WS) - MAYBE - good for CC
Bio-Plasma - MAYBE - Acid Maw is simply better and you can't take both. Bio-plasma also gets no benefit from Monstrous Creature status and on a Tyrant this makes it ineffective against tanks being only strength 6/7 + D6 for penetration. However on a Winged Tyrant this can find some use if you need to chase down vehicles moving at crusing speed or higher
Enhanced Senses - YES - Must have for shooting.
Extended Carapace - NO - Too many points, Warp Field better on a Winged Tyrant. It's possible to get cover saves for the unit if you add in Tyrant Guard on a walk tyrant.
Flesh Hooks - MAYBE - Useful only for CC Tyrants. And only against units huggin cover.
Implant Attack - YES - great for CC specially against characters. Do not take if you are not planning on fighting multi-wound models.
Symbiote Rippers - NO - Pointless upgrade.
Toxic Miasma - NO - not so great anymore so simply do not take this unless you are building a character killer Tyrant and want to max out
Toxin Sacs - YES - always take this biomorph!
Winged - YES - Extremely useful makes your Tyrant really fast able to reach opponents faster.

WEAPON SYMBIOTES
Close Combat
=========
Lash Whip & Bonesword - MAYBE - If you want Catalyst this is great. It's a good upgrade on a CC or MIXED Tyrant (walk and shoot). Otherwise there's better stuff.
Rending Claws - NO - useless upgrade, specially with new Rending rules.
Scything Talons - YES - Best choise for CC.


Ranged
=====
Barbed Strangler - Maybe - Good anti-infantry and ranged, but unless facing tons of large units you risk missing completely or greatly most of the time.
Venom Cannon - YES - Great against light/medium tanks and able to instant kill T4 multi-wound models.
Spinefists - NO - That's a waste for a Tyrant.
TL Barbed Strangler - Maybe - Better anti-infantry than a single strangler. The re-roll can be golden when you only have 1/3rd chance to hit
TL Devourer - YES - overall the best shooty weapon for the Tyrant vs infantry. 2 of these will decimate any type of infantry.
TL Deathspitter - MAYBE - Haven't experimented with these but could be useful. I'd still rather let warriors handle these tho.
TL Venom Cannon - MAYBE - If you want to guarantee the damage then take it. Otherwise you have better options as this can be a VERY pricey configuration.

PSYCHIC POWERS
Catalyst - NO - If you want this power use Bonesword.
Psychic Scream - YES - Very useful against non-fearless units. This power works best when you keep a squad of zoanthropes with the same power close.
The Shadow In The Warp - NO - This can be a pretty decent power to use versus armies that rely either heavily on psychic powers or on key powers to gain victory. I still do not recommend it, unless you find yourself facing these kind of opponents more often than not.
Warp Blast - YES - Always a good choice on a CC Tyrant if you want to do some light shooting before getting in combat. Otherwise always take the next power.
Warp Field - YES - hands down the best psychic power since it's our only way of getting an invulnerable. however be warned that since we can now get cover saves from our own units this has lost some of it's usefulness but all in all it works really well with a Winged Tyrant of any kind. If you are adding wings, take this power!


Recommended Configurations To Use
GENERAL RECOMMENDATION
The tyrant is powerful very powerful but you need to really think about how you want to use his power in your army. Either use him to compliment the rest of your armies or use slap wings on him and use him to hunt specific targets. The winged tyrants are very useful and you should always first make a winged tyrant and then a walking one. There's good reason why there's a 0-1 limit on winged tyrants.


1 Hive Tyrant @ 196 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Winged; Twin-linked Devourer (x2); Warp Field

- This guys is a total monster against infantry, will land about 9 - 10 wounds on damn near any kind of enemy infantry. Rating 10/10

1 Hive Tyrant @ 221 Pts
Acid Maw; Adrenal Glands +1 In; Adrenal Glands +1 WS; Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Extended Carapace +1 Save; Flesh Hooks; Implant Attack; Toxic Miasma; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Scything Talons (x1); Venom Cannon

- I've found this build to be very effective and flexible. It's a walking version of the winged CC tyrant but better because he can hurt tanks and instant kill multi-wound T4 models with the venom cannon. And he can do this while pressing forward towards CC where he can take down hard to kill enemies and character hunt. Rating 9/10

1 Hive Tyrant @ 149 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Twin-linked Devourer (x1); Venom Cannon

- Dual purpose Tyrant. Best use as a forward synapse unit can damage light tanks and cause good damage to infantry before possibly assaulting them. He can pump 9 shots into infantry with about 6-8 wounds guaranteed each time. keep him behind other models to get cover saves. A very inexpensive tyrant with good capabilities vs vehicles and infantry alike Rating 8/10

1 Hive Tyrant @ 137 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Twin-linked Barbed Strangler

- Cheap! And highly useful against all types of infantry. the str 5 big template will let you wound most things on 2s or 3s, and still hurt the tougher infantry models on 4s. With the possibility of pinning any unit it damages. The highlight is that he's so cheap easily making his points back. Rating 8/10

1 Hive Tyrant @ 225 Pts
Acid Maw; Adrenal Glands +1 In; Adrenal Glands +1 WS; Implant Attack; Toxic Miasma; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Winged; Scything Talons (x2); Warp Field

- Character killer. He's really strong but that will work against you, opponents normally get scared when they see him approaching and will try to shoot him down so move him behind cover if you need to make him run behind other models to get a cover save and procted him until you are in range to attack. Rating 8/10

1 Hive Tyrant @ 129 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Barbed Strangler; Twin-linked Devourer (x1);

- Cheapest tyrant. Great for moving synapse, within 18" of an enemy infantry unit will decimate whatever it hits. Rating 7/10

1 Hive Tyrant @ 177 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Twin-linked Venom Cannon

- Anti-Light/Medium armor Vehicles. This guy can keep any mid armor vehicle at bay! Do not expect to destroy vehicles but rather expect to easily incapacitate them. He comes in handy working together with a group of sniper fexes against heavy MECH armies. Rating 6/10

1 Hive Tyrant @ 157 Pts
Enhanced Senses +1 BS; Toxin Sacs +1 St; Barbed Strangler; Venom Cannon

- Dual purpose Tyrant able to take on light tanks and infantry from a good range! Very useful and versatile. However has a MAJOR flaw of not having any specialty. the strangler sucks against vehicles and the vc sucks against infantry so you'll have flexibility but every time you shoot it, one of your guns will be pointless. Rating 5/10

[hr]

TYRANT GUARD
My analysis
BIOMORPHS
Flesh Hooks - YES - Very useful, low point cost.
Implant Attack - NO - Do not take this UNLESS you are certain that you can get these guys into CC with Multi-wound models. Most players will steer their characters away from a Tyrant Guard brood so it tends to be a waste of points.

WEAPON SYMBIOTES
Lash Whip - MAYBE - Situational, works very well against things with a lot of attacks but is pointless against normal units which you are likely to be fighting most of the time. Also ST are just a better upgrade.
Scything Talons - YES - Best choise for CC gives better chance at RENDING.

Recommended Configurations To Use
I recommend a full squad of 3. I find that anything below a full brood is just not very effective and gets taken out with ease. leave 'em standard with ST and maybe upgrade them with fleshhooks if you have extra points after building your whole army.

BROODLORD
My analysis
BIOMORPHS
Acid Maw - NO - This upgrade is useful specially with the change to the rending rules however it is costly and you need to sacrifice Feeder Tendrils and Implant Attack upgrades. Which makes this the least desired of the 3.
Adrenal Glands (I) - NO - Not needed unless facing some seriously fast characters.
Extended Carapace - MAYBE - Gives him a 3+ save which greatly improves his chances of survival in and out of combat but he'll still be very vulnerable as 3+ is good but not amazing.
Feeder Tendrils - YES - The prefered upgrade to anything else for the Broodlord as it is the ONLY WAY that you can get a group of genestealers to get preferred enemy with only one model in the unit having to pay the point cost for the tendrils. Due to his infiltrate rule the Broodlord is also a VERY good choice to accompany your first wave and provide them with preferred enemy at a very cheap cost.
Flesh Hooks - YES - VERY useful but not mandatory. Worth it's points.
Implant Attack - MAYBE - The broodlord is a very very good character killer when equipped with Implant Attack. Makes every unsaved wound count for 2, normally you'd only need to make the target fail 2 invulnerable saves and he's gone. On the downside the upgrade can be an expensive one and it prevents you from taking the much desired Feeder Tendrils. So take implant attack if you are wanting to assasinate some multi-wound models and already have a few units in your army with feeder tendrils.
Toxin Sacs - MAYBE - A bit high on the price tag but useful when combined with Feeder Tendrils.

General Recommendation

1 Broodlord @ 221pts
Feeder Tendrils; Toxin Sacs +1 S
6 Genestealers
Toxin Sacs; Scything Talons

- This is what I would call the best set up on paper. Take 6 stealers in the retinue because the typical MEQ squad will have 10 models. Statistically you should kill 8 of them guaranteed leaving only 2 models to retaliate which your squad should be able to survive and having killed 8 models in the unit there is no way that you could 'lose' combat without being already wiped out. Letting 1 or 2 models survive also allows you to keep the unit in combat during the opponent's turn to avoid being shot and guarantees you a victory during your own turn so that you may take on the next. What I looked for to come up with the best possible unit was killing power ability to make it's points back and ability to survive return attacks and to maximize the chance of winning in case of No Retreat. Rating 10/10

Recommended Configurations To Use
1 Broodlord @ 83 Pts
Feeder Tendrils; Toxin Sacs +1 S

- POWERFUL! This Broodlord can do it all and do it well, he can chew down any infantry and elites as well as take down the strongest of vehicles (monolith not included) and also performs really well against enemy characters.Rating 10/10

1 Broodlord @ 86 Pts
Extended Carapace +1 Save; Feeder Tendrils; Flesh Hooks

- This guy is great to provide preferred enemy while remaining relatively cheap and effective. Remember he's an independent character and as such he CAN join other units! So if his retinue get's destroyed make sure to join another unit to keep him alive! Rating 8/10

1 Broodlord @ 95 Pts
Flesh Hooks; Implant Attack; Toxin Sacs +1 St

- This guy is a character killer! a monster of 1 on 1 combat. He'll be able to kill most of the opponent's characters. Rating 7/10


KILLING POWER COMPARISON
BROODLORD

[b]GENESTEALER RETINUE[/b]
My analysis
BIOMORPHS
Acid Maw - YES - More powerful than having Toxin Sacs for the 1st turn of combat. You will hit the enemy very hard.
Extended Carapace - MAYBE - This is a good upgrade makes your stealers more survivable however dedicated enemy fire can quickly peel through this, making it a better option to try to move into cover or within assault distance right away.
Flesh Hooks - YES - If you are outflanking this comes in very handy as enemies will likely be in cover at their back lines. However this upgrade is not always necessary, you can live without it.
Implant Attack - NO - Unless you are specifically fighting models with multiple wounds this upgrade will be a waste otherwise.
Toxin Sacs - YES - This makes genestealers more powerful and capable of making their points back with ease in the long run.

WEAPON SYMBIOTES
Close Combat
=========
Scything Talons - YES - This upgrade will give you +1 attacks which is really really good with the nerf on rending. However it costs as much as adding EC it's a very expensive upgrade per model to add on. However of all offensive upgrades this is the best one next to feeder tendrils, and will allow you to make your points back quickly.

Recommended Configurations To Use
GENERAL RECOMMENDATION
I recommend you keep the unit small as it becomes easier to make your points back and keeps you from looking like a very big target on the field. Give the stealers Talons before anything else and make sure your broodlord has taken Feeder Tendrils. You can keep them base with just talons which improve their effectiveness immensely or if your stealers have no talons you can add in acid maw and toxin sacs to get a powerful combination that will make it's points back just as easily.

5 Genestealers @ 115 Pts
Toxin Sacs; Scything Talons

- The strongest reliable combination. More attacks and more strength to take out a wider range of targets. This is the ideal set up to strike the enemy hard and make your points back as quickly as possible while maintaining a strong offensive and defense. Rating 10/10

5 Genestealers @ 120 Pts
Acid Maw; Scything Talons

- Very powerful slightingly more expensive than taking toxin sacs but talons do so much more for you. And making your points back is very easy if you assault the right opponent. Rating 8/10


5 Genestealers @ 115 Pts
Acid Maw; Toxin Sacs

- Very powerful, the first round of combat is very deadly and the killing power is improved when paired up. Making your points back becomes much easier as they can easily kill whatever they encounter. Rating 7/10

5 Genestealers @ 100 Pts
Scything Talons

- Lots of attacks, and stronger than any other single biomorph when paired with a feeder tendrils wielding Broodlord. Highly recommended as it works very well offensively and defensively Rating 7/10

5 Genestealers @ 95 Pts
Toxin Sacs +1 St

- Very strong offensively slightly weaker at wiping out enemies during the 1st turn assault than Acid Maw, but stronger in the long run and also stronger against vehicles. Great reliable option Rating 6/10

5 Genestealers @ 100 Pts
Acid Maw

- Very powerful during the first turn of combat. This upgrade works absolute wonders against opponents with high toughness or that you would only be able to damage via rending like Wraithlords. If you want to charge in and wipe out the enemy as quickly as possible this is a very good option coupled with feeder tendrils from the broodlord Rating 6/10

5 Genestealers @ 80 Pts

- Very weak, but the Broodlord's feeder tendrils will help greatly making them a viable option if you want to go really cheap on points Rating 5/10

You should consider combining your extensive Tyranid threads into an Article.

how?

Top of the site there is a button for Articles, then a link "Create new Article"

Its that simple

also, excelent read!

I second the idea to make an article of these excellent posts. It was very interesting reading.

Bleh, I tried to turn it into an article but I can't just copy and paste. Seems like i'd have to write the whole thing following the other format, which would take too long for me to bother with as i have other things to do. Sorry

You could always make a post on the "Nuts and Bolts"forum. I've heard there are a lot of really clever fellas there to help you out.

As a quick trick. Open your post here with the edit function. mark all the text, copy it, paste it into the article. In a best case it woks...

Very solid, agree with most of it except a few things

The Shadow In The Warp - NO - All other powers are more useful.

Disagree -- lash will crush tyranids and this is one of the few defenses outside of horde walls and whatnot. Not to mention the various other psychic powers that are game changing. If you aren't using a choir of zoanthorpes and have a tyrant with guard, this is the better power IMHO (assuming tournament play).

Enhanced Senses - YES - Must have for shooting.

Agree with the yes, disagree with the must have. One can certainly save a few needed points dropping it when using a twinlinked BS3 weapon. But still certainly a YES for a shooty tyrant.

Toxic Miasma - NO - not so great anymore so simply do not take this unless you are building a character killer Tyrant and want to max out

Why is this not so great anymore? For a CC winged tyrant, seems to be a good pick still.

The broodlord breakdown is solid but I am starting to lean toward larger squads in 5ed. Debatable though for sure.

Overall excellent article, to go along with your solid batreps.

Mellon wrote:You could always make a post on the "Nuts and Bolts"forum. I've heard there are a lot of really clever fellas there to help you out.

As a quick trick. Open your post here with the edit function. mark all the text, copy it, paste it into the article. In a best case it woks...

That doesnt work, the formatting code is different in the articles to the forum

winterman wrote:Very solid, agree with most of it except a few things

The Shadow In The Warp - NO - All other powers are more useful.

Disagree -- lash will crush tyranids and this is one of the few defenses outside of horde walls and whatnot. Not to mention the various other psychic powers that are game changing. If you aren't using a choir of zoanthorpes and have a tyrant with guard, this is the better power IMHO (assuming tournament play).

Enhanced Senses - YES - Must have for shooting.

Agree with the yes, disagree with the must have. One can certainly save a few needed points dropping it when using a twinlinked BS3 weapon. But still certainly a YES for a shooty tyrant.

Toxic Miasma - NO - not so great anymore so simply do not take this unless you are building a character killer Tyrant and want to max out

Why is this not so great anymore? For a CC winged tyrant, seems to be a good pick still.

The broodlord breakdown is solid but I am starting to lean toward larger squads in 5ed. Debatable though for sure.

Overall excellent article, to go along with your solid batreps.

1. Shadow in the warp is too situational. And the improvement isn't that great either. It will only be useful against a very limited number of opponents and how useful it is depends on their luck as they can easily get their powers of even with shadow in the warp in effect.

2. ES is essential it greatly improves the shooting efficiency of the tyrant. I did the math, ran the numbers and it's definetly a must have if you have a gun. This is also the only time where it's even useful to take with a blast weapon. Reducing scatter by 4" is actually somewhat useful.

3. This one was pointed out to me by someone else and they are correct. Miasma is not a good upgrade most armies are getting updated and their characters becoming stronger. Make a list for yourself of all the models in 40k that miasma will actually HELP the tyrant win and you will see this list is very very limited.

Miasma does make WS 3 attacks hit you on 5+. This helps against Defilers, Shooty Carnifexies, and Killer Kanz.

1. Shadow in the warp is too situational. And the improvement isn't that great either. It will only be useful against a very limited number of opponents and how useful it is depends on their luck as they can easily get their powers of even with shadow in the warp in effect.

Situational -- yes, as is all of the psychic powers. Psychic scream? Fearless armies could care less and unless you have zonathorpes you may as well not have psychic scream, not to mention most top tier armies are fearless. Warp Field? Lotsa AP2 out there and extended carapace is cheaper anyways if it is available. Warp Blast? Not terrible on a cc fex but nigh pointless on a shooty one.

Also as I mentioned if this is a take all comer list for a tournament you are bound to face eldar and chaos that nearly always have powers, as well as the occasional Librarian. If you don't play in tournaments or don't see lash, then sure Shadows is not for you.

Improvement is not great and 'luck'. Well it isn't bad for a mere 10 points.
LD10 psycher without Shadow in play will fail 8.3%, 19.9% with it.
LD9 psycher without Shadow in play will fail 16.7%, 35.6% with it. So roughly twice as likely to fail.

Is it a psychic hood? No. LD10 hood in play make LD10 psycher fail 46.5% and LD9 hood makes the same psycher fail 33.7%. So hoods are much better. But it is still something to help fight lash, which as I said will neuter a tyranid army.

To each there own I guess.

2. ES is essential it greatly improves the shooting efficiency of the tyrant. I did the math, ran the numbers and it's definetly a must have if you have a gun. This is also the only time where it's even useful to take with a blast weapon. Reducing scatter by 4" is actually somewhat useful.

You misunderstand. I didn't say don't take it or that the numbers don't pan out, I said it is not a 'must have' with twin-linked weaponry. I play 1500 points alot and it is tough to fit all the neccesities in. Sometimes it comes down to stripping a tyrant and with a twin linked devourer, you are already hitting 75% of the time compared to 88.9% with senses (2.66 MEq kills and 3.16 MEq kills respectively). Half a marine average kill difference is notable for sure but the tyrant is still perfectly viable.

Blast, well depends on what you see as an acceptable scatter. I usually figure 1" scatter is essentially a hit, so you have 44.4% vs 51.9%, again notable but not ohh crap, must take.

3. This one was pointed out to me by someone else and they are correct. Miasma is not a good upgrade most armies are getting updated and their characters becoming stronger. Make a list for yourself of all the models in 40k that miasma will actually HELP the tyrant win and you will see this list is very very limited.

I guess I am confused since you have WS gland as a maybe and miasma has about the same effect for cheaper. Plus combine the two and those updated ICs with WS6 (MEq HQs, etc) are brought back down to getting smacked on a 3+. If you've got a kitchen sink CC tyrant that is character hunting, why not? Personally I see miasma as better then the gland, if only for being cheaper. {edit - whoops guess it isn't cheaper } YMMV

1. Perhaps you are correct about psychic scream. I myself have reconsidered its use several times however there's just more none-fearless units out there than fearless ones. So that is why I still see a great deal more use than SitW which only really works well against a handful of psykers. And lets not forget that Psychic Scream also affects psykers! So if the psyker is in range of your tyrant he'll have a harder time trying to toss a psychic power at you which is essentially what SitW does. I think the results are still minimal for shadow in the warp. A little bit does go a long way some times but i'm trying to do my analysis base on what is most useful most of the time not what can be super useful in a handful of cases. But your opinion is definetly worth nothing so i'll edit my SitW entry. By the way warp field is way more useful on a winged tyrant that cannot take EC than any other psychic power. Sure AP2 weapons will strike him hard but rushing the tyrant towards a bunch of plasmas when you arent sure if you will be in assault range is just simply a bad game plan. the 2+ save is to help him survive small arms fire and combat against units without power weapons. It is indeed essential. Warp Blast is next in line in turns of usefulness for it's versatility which you can use against ANY army out there.

2. I think the difference is very respectable and makes it a must have because for the points you pay, what you gain is much more worth it. A tyrant with 2 pairs of twin-linked devourers can greatly improve his wounding rate versus terminators and any other elite units making him a lot more effective against these critical units that you want off the board as soon as possible. While you are correct that you can 'definetly' do without the upgrade, I am inclined to say that you are cheating yourself of one of our best upgrades if you dont and you want to shoot.

3. First of all Glands is cheaper than Miasma. Miasma actually costs about 2x as much as Glands. I know we can't post point costs of upgrades here but do check your Nid codex you will see for yourself. Having WS 6 is good enough against most targets out there. Miasma helps against WS 3 units but again look at exactly which ones were mentioned and that just isnt enough to justify Miasma WS 6 would suffice.

And characters nowadays have a greater chance of killing the tyrant than ever before in CC again making character killer tyrants loss their impact and luster.



I want to point out that this whole analysis is based on what i've found to be most useful in most cases. I understand there are stuff that can be very useful depending on the opponent you face but just that I can't justify it's use if it's not at least useful in about 30% of the games you'll play or the opponents your face.

Not much to add other then I dunno why I thought miasma was cheaper (perhaps cause I always use a shooty tyrant ) -- although it is only a 1.5 diff for a low cost upgrade to begin with. Is it worth taking then, combined with glands? TBH I don't much care for CC tyrants anyways and have no experience using em (only against with marines), so have little reason to delve into it.

Are you going to do a section on Warriors? Not to be pushy, but I just think that even "just" weapon analysis would be really helpful.

It's up to you though...

-A.