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Elric of Grans wrote:For all the people going on and on about how the synergies of this Codex promote synergisation beyond the most synergistic synergy you have ever before synergised, I am finding this very difficult to comprehend.

I'm so adding this to my signature

That said, I agree. I think you might be slightly understating the synergy, but everyone else is certainly OVERstating it.

I think there are units in the Tyrannid Codex that are plain over costed if you don;t add synergy...

Take for example Deathleaper. Way over costed for what he does but if you knock down your opponent's librarian's LD 2 or 3 pips Tervigons, zoanthropes etc just became gold and worth considerably more points than what you paid for them.

deFl0 wrote:
I think there are units in the Tyrannid Codex that are plain over costed if you don;t add synergy...

Take for example Deathleaper. Way over costed for what he does but if you knock down your opponent's librarian's LD 2 or 3 pips Tervigons, zoanthropes etc just became gold and worth considerably more points than what you paid for them.

Worth MORE points than you paid for them? Not really - a zoanthrope costs 60 pts against Orks (who have no psychic defense), DH (with their unlimited range hood), SM (with the 24" hood), Eldar (Runes of Warding), and SW (runic blades).

Deathleaper helps against hoods (both types), but not against any other psychic defenses. At best, his inclusion makes your opponent's return on investment in a hood worth less than he paid. You get better value from Deathleaper as an anti-psyker tool, in that he reduces, to one degree or another, the chances of your opponent getting useful powers off via his own psykers.

Synergy, to me, represents a value greater than the sum of its parts. Zoanthropes and Deathleaper are a poor example, in that against most opponents, it's a meaningless combination - they aren't using hoods, so there is no additional value. Even against armies with hoods, you're probably better off just buying 2 more zoanthropes.

"Synergy, to me, represents a value greater than the sum of its parts."

Here you go. A Tervigon has synergy with Termagaunts. Once you have Termagaunts buying a Tervigon is better than buying it's weight in Termagaunts.

40kenthusiast wrote:"Synergy, to me, represents a value greater than the sum of its parts."

Here you go. A Tervigon has synergy with Termagaunts. Once you have Termagaunts buying a Tervigon is better than buying it's weight in Termagaunts.

Yup, I'll agree with that one.

I'll even add "Spore Mines + (dormant) Ymgarl genestealers," as you can use the spores to constrain enemy deployment in a manner which improves the Ymgarls. (But spore mines still cost too much, given that they'll mostly kill each other on the first move, if not before that.)

Synergy, it's bigger than all of us.

Lets call 'synergy' what it really is... Combos. you know what sucks about combos? Someone taking just a single piece of your combo away, and destroying more than what he earned.

Essentially, just like combinations of unit abilities are a force multiplier.... spending points on sub-par units that only become fieldable when under some 'aura' or psychic power will cost you exponentially when a "good" general starts shooting at you.


Two tyrannofexes are behind 20 termagants and a tervigon... The nid player says " I can do this, and this and this." The good general goes, ok.... I kill your tervigon. your termagants are now a crap unit, and 530 points of tyrannofex are testing on leadership 7 for instinctive behavior.

hive tyrant with hive commander and mycetic spores. Nid player says "on turn 2 I'll have +1 to reserves". The good general says, I kill your hive tyrant (too many people overstate its survivability). Ok now its turn 2... hive commander is gone. Roll reserves...

trygon hole...when the trygon shows up on the same turn or after table edge reserves... cool synergy... thats an apocalypse/planetstrike ability if I've ever seen one.


There are some simple, 'two-moving-part' combos that do work in the book. If each unit is perfectly usable without it's combo in place, and they get a little better when working together, then they are fieldable. But when one element is obsolete without the other, then good generals get to 'two-for-one' you. That's why I advocate crushing claws on tervigons. The under-equipped tervigon that is just there to make termagants good has nothing to do but eat up your points if someone wipes out your gants.

I did my due diligence with the hive tyrant with old adversary surrounded by termagants in front of tervigons that are hiding venomthropes. Despite the fact that the grouping had virtually no anti-tank whatsoever, i still thought it was hot stuff. After a few surgical dismantlings by MORE tactical armies, I scoffed at the "jenga army". I need self sufficiency, i need undercosted or fairly costed abilities, and I need the ability to react to my opponents decisions and success/failures.

A house of cards list tends to have one gameplan and trundles forward trying to achieve that gameplan, and has no plan B.

Until the inquisitorial psychic hood and runes of warding get nerfed down to a 24" range of effectiveness, any tyranid combo relying on psychic powers going off consistently will frustrate and fail...

Any combo relying on 6 wound T6 MCs with oversized models and no invulnerable saves staying alive for a couple of turns will fail against missile spam or vendettas.

And any reserves army that relies on achieving a critical mass of arrivals will not work unless it is deisgned around NOT getting +1 to reserves.


Focus on the combos that are freebies, or are really hard to break, the less required parts in the combo the better.

I think that's one of the reasons people are having problems with the Tyranids, in that they're getting carried away with all the synergy that's available, but doing so at the expense of flexibility and redundancy.