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My first game/army since stopping playing at about 2nd edition, looking for comments:

HQ :
Winged Hive Tyrant
Scything Claws,Lash Whip and Bonesword,
Winged,Toxin Sacs (+1 S),Adrenal Glands (+1 I),Adrenal Glands (+1 WS),Acid Maw,Toxic Miasma,Flesh Hooks 189


HQ :
Ranged Hive Tyrant
Twin-Linked Devourer (TS),Twin-Linked Devourer (TS)
Toxin Sacs (+1 S),Enhanced Senses (+1 BS) 121
----2x Tyrant Guard with lash whips 90


Elites :
Ranged Carnifex
Twin-Linked Devourer,Twin-Linked Devourer
Enhanced Senses (+1 BS) 121

Ranged Carnifex
Twin-Linked Devourer,Twin-Linked Devourer
Enhanced Senses (+1 BS) 121

3x Tyranid Warriors
Deathspitter,Barbed Strangler
Extended Carapace (+1 Sv),Toxin Sacs (+1 S) 86

Troops :
15x Gaunt with Spinefist 75
15x Gaunt with Spinefist 75
15x Gaunt with Spinefist 75
8x Genestealer with Feeder Tendrils,Scuttlers 160
8x Genestealer with Feeder Tendrils,Scuttlers 160
8x Genestealer with Feeder Tendrils,Scuttlers 160

Fast Attack :
5x Raveners with Devourer 200

Heavy Support :

Tank Carnifex
Tail Weapon - Mace,Crushin Claws,Scything Talons
Adrenal (+1 I),Adrenal (+1 WS),Exoskeleton (+1 T),Flesh Hooks,Reinforced(+1 W),Toxin Sacs 182


Ranged Carnifex
Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler,
Enhanced Senses (+1 BS),Reinforced Chitin (+1 W) 163

Total 1978


Gameplan Thoughts
Enemy: Space marines
-I expect him to field /lots/ of scouts and tac marines, raveners/outflankers to counter softies
--People talk alot of crap about raveners but it seems to me that 6X devourer shots per ravener on turn 2 right when the game seems like it'll be mostly decided (when close combat is starting) to silence backline guns and divert fire, is worth the expense of the model.

-lots of outflanking models
-extra tyranid warriors to make sure that the gaunt screen doesn't scatter if the tyrant get's gunned down (or would these points be better spent elsewhere and get more guards?

Ravagers are terrible, scrap em for more genestealers or maybe some Zoanthropes (especially if yoru fighting marines, AP3 templates rock). Also, you NEED warp field on your winged tyrant, otherwise hes gonna get face pwned

CC fexes suck long johns. If you're set on using one make it cheap, STs, Miasma and that's it. Otherwise it's way better to make it shooty for the AT.

Do not shoot with Raveners. Do not pay for ranged weapons on Raveners. I'll tell you why. You pointed them incorrectly you must pay for the CC weapons and then pay for the Devourers on top of that. That's a 50 pt model with flak armor and two wounds. If you want Raveners dedicate them to CC, deploy normally and hug terrain or TMCs.

Drop the Bone Lash off the Flyrant, STs are always better. Also he don't need no acid maw to know how to rock, you're fighting SM you'll never fight anything better than T4 (except Cassius). Warp Field or he's going to look like a bitch when he's boltered down.

Differentiate the Warrior weapon symbiotes for wound allocation. (ie ST+DS, RC+DS, ST+BS). Get more Warriors if you can find the pts, DS are good and right now 3 of them are squishy.

I've been playin nids for a while and looking at your list you are going to run into problems with mech lists. Dakka fexs are good, but i have had more success with elite barbed/scything talon fexs. The can take out light armor and good at killing infantry. I also use CC fexs supported by genestealers with feeder tendrils. Not many units will stand up to a CC fex supported genestealers. I run 2 CC fex and 1 sniper fex. For elites, 1 dakka and 2 barbed/talon fexes. It's a nice well rounded combo. Another nice trick is hive tyrant with 3 guard with lash whips. Knocking off 3 attacks from characters is real handy and really hard to kill.

No offense special k, but EVERY bug list is going to have problems with mech lists. That's just fact.

I would definitely take out the raveners as they are just too expensive and fragile for what they're able to do (like harlequins on the eldar side). Avant garde is absolutely right, deep striking them just allows them to die more quickly to bolter fire.

Also, just stay away from venom cannons... With the new damage table they truly are worthless against armour. The best they'll EVER be able to do against non open topped vehicles is immobilize it, and you'll be surprised the one time in ten that happens.

Also, keep in mind what you'll be fighting if you go up to 2k. There can be a lot of massed infantry via orks or a lot of mechanized via meq's. You'll be facing a lot of very long range, powerful stuff at that level. Definitely invest in more outflanking units to divide the enemy fire and make them nervous. Also, I'd give boomfexes a try (strangler/talons) instead of dakkafexes. Having 3 or 4 S8 plates can be great against light vehicles and devastating against infantry because they pin.

You're keeping it pretty simple for the most part however, which means you're on an excellent path to a very fun and effective list.

avantgarde wrote:CC fexes suck long johns. If you're set on using one make it cheap, STs, Miasma and that's it. Otherwise it's way better to make it shooty for the AT.

What the hell are you talking about. CC fexes pwn, only good AT nids have is a CC fex, I suggest Talons x2 tusks, adrenal glands (both you want to be going before those power fists), bonded exoskeliton, miasma, and extended carapace. shoud run around 160 points and will crush all oposed to it.

@ grundz your elite fexes are too expensive they have to be 115 points or less atm yours are 6 points too expensive. theres either an upgrade you didnt list or your paying 10 points too much for them, and drop the mace tail from the tank fex there has to be at least 5 models in base contact to use it.

Check the points on those elite fex's, they should be totaling 113 points each.

Also, no one will disagree that you need Warp Field on that Flyrant. Also, Lash Whip & BS might not be the best choice, but that's a little more debatable then the warp field.

As far as warriors go, have 1 with a BS will definitely help with wound allocation, and also just forcing more armor saves(big template). Also, having more warriors. They can do a lot with those templates.

Troop choices:

If you need to conserve Points, spine gaunts are great. But otherwise you'll be average more wounds out of termagaunts. Squad size you might want to consider... gaunts are going to lose about 8-10 gaunts before they are in range vs a standard marine squad. By the time you get there you'll have 5-7 gaunts ready to fire, then maybe assault. Also, 6 troops choices with everything else makes you a solid 14 kill points. If you are playing for kill points i would increase squad sizes and decrease quantity. This way it's going to take much more firepower to kill your squads, but you still have enough for objectives.

Ravenors... die a lot. it makes me sad, but they have not been an effective unit for me, at all. Also, for fun you should check out the cost difference between a ravenor and a winged warrior...

onto the heavies...

The tank fex is a bit pricey, and possibly not worth it.

Crushing Claws - a chance for 1-6 +ST attacks. 25 points, or

2x Scything Talons - 2+2 attacks, 8 points

on average, they are the same, except one is 17 points more expensive...

Think about this: for 16 points, you get an extra ST and Bioplasma. Bioplasma will be Strength + 1, at double initiative, non monstrous. but that will still be strength 10 hit which has a chance of penetrating most vehicles, and always hits on a 4+ (Just confirmed, even against moving vehicles/skimmers etc.)

The other ranged Carnifex looks good to me... sure you can't penetrate vehicles, but you can destroy weapons, immobilize, shake/stun... And really make any walking units cry.


right.. everything else seems subjective to your own tactics/play style. hope this helps.


(edit sp and Bioplasma)

ManwithIronHands wrote:

avantgarde wrote:CC fexes suck long johns. If you're set on using one make it cheap, STs, Miasma and that's it. Otherwise it's way better to make it shooty for the AT.

What the hell are you talking about. CC fexes pwn, only good AT nids have is a CC fex, I suggest Talons x2 tusks, adrenal glands (both you want to be going before those power fists), bonded exoskeliton, miasma, and extended carapace. shoud run around 160 points and will crush all oposed to it.

@ grundz your elite fexes are too expensive they have to be 115 points or less atm yours are 6 points too expensive. theres either an upgrade you didnt list or your paying 10 points too much for them, and drop the mace tail from the tank fex there has to be at least 5 models in base contact to use it.

The CC fex truly is the only good AT we have, but if you have one you must take 2. Having one will draw all the fire from all the big ones and is guaranteed to be dead by the time it gets to the vehicles, especially at 2k. You know how many tanks marines/guard/tau hammerheads will field at that level. And no matter what you do, there's still no invulnerable save, and if you go up against terminators, anything that rends, pie plates with low AP when he's not behind warriors, or decent strength power weapons, they get chewed up very quickly. They are great if they're not taking fire, but once they do, there's a lot of points going down the drain before they even get a chance to strike.

Crushing Claws aren't worth it compared to Scything Talons for their points cost.

Crushing Claws, 1d6 = 3.5 attacks.
Scything Talons, 2+1 = 3 attacks.

I don't see half an attack being worth 17 points.

Grunt_For_Christ wrote:

The CC fex truly is the only good AT we have, but if you have one you must take 2. Having one will draw all the fire from all the big ones and is guaranteed to be dead by the time it gets to the vehicles, especially at 2k. You know how many tanks marines/guard/tau hammerheads will field at that level. And no matter what you do, there's still no invulnerable save, and if you go up against terminators, anything that rends, pie plates with low AP when he's not behind warriors, or decent strength power weapons, they get chewed up very quickly. They are great if they're not taking fire, but once they do, there's a lot of points going down the drain before they even get a chance to strike.

I play on alot of high terrain tables(mostly by oponents choice). I guess thats why I have had success with them so far.

EasyE wrote:Crushing Claws aren't worth it compared to Scything Talons for their points cost.

Crushing Claws, 1d6 = 3.5 attacks.
Scything Talons, 2+1 = 3 attacks.

I don't see half an attack being worth 17 points

generally if you give crushing claws you also give talons, and tusks.

so that would be 3.5+1+2(on the charge). total of an avarage of 6.5 attacks per turn while charging

That stat was including ST and Crushing claws together. The other was for 2 sets of scything talons. so you are looking at 3.5 vs 3.0 +1 on the charge. for 17 points less. for nine points less you get 3.5 vs 3.0 +1 (bio) +1 (charge)

Your also not getting +2 on a charge unless you have tusks for another 10 points.

Personally I agree with you, I was jsut saying your math is off. I dont like the claws because there too random not because of the points, I like to know how many attacks im going to have when I go into combat.

Yes claws are expensive, but they can also pay off big when you roll that 6 after charging for a total of 9 attacks with tusks, or in a behemoth crusher brood where the cost of a set of claws is ballanced by the fex gaining fleet.

I disagree about Raveners.
They do not suck. Geared for assault, they are almost point- for point - identical to genestealers, except they assault 12"
Never give them shooting or deepstrike them.
That being said... it is actually better to just take them as leaping warriors.
They do almost the same thing, but have synapse.

Leaping > wings.
Fleet +12 inch assault can really suprise people. They do not expect to get assaulted (up to 24", and yet they do!
Also, anything with wings is going to get shot up very quickly - its psychological.

This kind of fast attack/elite choice doesn't belong in EVERY army, but it can help in Nidzilla - buying you time for the Carnifex wall to advance.

Tail weapons on Carnifex are questionable. They are not usable untill the 2nd round of assault phase.
Also, get rid of crushing claws.

If you are going to rely on the outflanking genestealers, consider a lictor for the pheremone trail.

The gaunt squads should be smaller and have "without number"
- use them as living cover and endgame scoring.

Your winged hive tyrant: Lash wip and bonesword are useless. It must have warp field or it is toast in turn 1-2 shooting.

hellhammer6 wrote:Leaping > wings.
Fleet +12 inch assault can really suprise people. They do not expect to get assaulted (up to 24", and yet they do!
Also, anything with wings is going to get shot up very quickly - its psychological.

I hope you don't mean that giving warriors leaping gives them fleet. Also, leaping is only 12" charge without difficult terrain, with difficult terrain it's still on up to 6" (they don't become beasts).

Also, as mentioned before, get WoN gaunts. In kill point games you can choose to not bring them back on, and in objective missions you'll always have at least one objective scoring unit to secure your backfield objective. Also, melee fexes should have toxic miasma and AG (WS and I) when possible. WS 4 units now hit on 4+ while you hit on 3+, and you'll strike before powerfists. (probably already mentioned, just skimmed through the posts)

you are correct about leaping. I had it confused with hormagaunts and ravenors.

Ooops. for the super assault rush, go for ravenors.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the other hand, the codex lists Warriors as "leader-beasts" (in bold) so it IS arguable that they are beasts.

In that case they DO get fleet. But I can predict the arguments on both sides of this one.

The 'Leader Beasts' rule has it's own description. The unit type 'Beasts' is specifically mentioned for units that possess it. It can also be found on p.54 of the rulebook.

And lets not forget that raveners don't have synapse so if they aren't in range there's a chance their overpriced 2W 5+ bodies will just stand there. They really need to be revamped...

Sorry I havent replied, thank you all for the advice!

Busy painting now, just started collecting a month ago and already have over 200 models to strip and repaint >.<

//edit: where should I get more sything talons? ebay has been uncooperative lately.