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Short answer: Currently nids are not only decent, they are strong.

 RunicFIN wrote:
Short answer: Currently nids are not only decent, they are strong.

I just picked a bunch up off Craigslist on a whim, so I'm actually kind of excited now.

So other than ebay/swap shop hunting, what's a good start for a nids army? A flyrant or 2 would be good, I assume a couple boxes of hormagaunts, then what? I have $300 coming from selling my guard stuff. So that might be my starting point. I also doubt any of the local BA players want to split a box set, I honestly don't we have any at the shop lol.

 l0k1 wrote:
So other than ebay/swap shop hunting, what's a good start for a nids army? A flyrant or 2 would be good, I assume a couple boxes of hormagaunts, then what? I have $300 coming from selling my guard stuff. So that might be my starting point. I also doubt any of the local BA players want to split a box set, I honestly don't we have any at the shop lol.

Starting from scratch...the Swarm box, and a Tyrant, and a box of Warriors. When that all gets painted, add Moar Tyrants!! You'll want at least two, and three to four are becoming common enough, there are a lot of ways to build, I normally suggest building about a 1000 pts worth (see above) and then look at adding a Formation to climb up to 1500, etc.

You should also think about converting at least some Gaunts into "Devilgaunts" (Termagants with Devourers) It is a "style" thing, but most everyone likes having a few handy.

When I played nids in 5th, devilgaunts were the gaunt of choice with all those extra shots, but back then the tervigon was much better. Lol

Tyranids range from awful, potentially the worst army, to one of the best list possible.

Before you commit to running Tyranids you need to be honest with yourself about what you want out of the army. If you just like throwing a bucket of models onto the table and then picking them up, you can do that. If you want to run what ever list you want with what ever models you want while still having a decently powerful army, you can NOT do that. If you want to optimize your list and play an extremely crunch heavy meta busting list, you can do that. If you want to use more than the 5-8 tournament level units in the codex to have a chance at winning then you will be just fine. Sadly there is so much of the codex that is in a different league when compared to what is on the next page you can't really get a gauge for how decent nids are.

As someone who has played since 3rd with nids I can tell you that a LOT of their units are abysmal in the current edition and some of the units you may love will be a constant source of disappointment. Case in point, I LOVE Raveners and Lictors but both units sit in the corner when I want to build a list because they don't really fit in well when you compare them to what you are going to be facing. Infact, most medium bugs suffer a great deal from being far to expensive while hitting like a limp noodle and having very little armor to take abuse. Your little bugs will suffer in a game where you might be facing a lot of vehicles and don't necessarily do that well against infantry either. Your big bugs range from laughably awful, the Haruspex, to balls to the wall one of the best units in the game, Flyrants.

The Tyranid codex is super polarizing because it will let you see what kind of person is playing the game. If you are playing a Tyranid player who really cares about competition they will have a nasty list that will give anyone a run for their money. If you are playing against someone who just wants to play a fluffy list with the models they love, they are going to have a hard time building a list that can compete on the table. So many of the iconic Tyranid units have become somewhat of a joke, such as Lictors, Genestealers, melee-fexes, walkrants, hormagaunts, etc.

I guess what I am trying to say is, "Are Nids decent? Yes/No/Maybe."

EDIT;

Also, if you play in a meta that uses a lot of super heavies than you might want to consider that you are going to need to invest into FW in order to have a good handle on them with Tyranids. Imperial Knights are almost designed to deal with anything Tyranids are going to throw at them. Smashing is often the best or only way for Tyranids to deal with super heavies and a S D melee weapon is going to make short work of anything you put into melee with it.

I also would refer you to the strengths of the new Nids thread over in the tactics section. Nids can deal with many different types of armies effectively if you build them right. The biggest thing that you need to realize for 40k is what your expectations are. Do you want to play in tournaments and have a good chance of success? You absolutely can do that with Tyranids. They can be a top tier army if you use the right units. But you also have to be alright with the fact that there are right units, there are wrong units, and there are Haruspexes (very wrong units) at the competitive level. If you want to just have fun with your buddies and throw some dice with a fair chance at victory for everyone, Tyranids can do that too and you have a lot more list-building freedom. The trick comes in figuring out how good of a list your opponents bring and not curb-stomping them, or letting them do the same to you. Once you get a feel for that general power curve you will be playing against, constructing a fair army becomes easy. Or you could just be like my friend John and bring whatever units you want (often terrible ones haha) and have your grasp of strategy and playing to the mission keep you in the game with a good chance at victory.

As a CSM player, I'm more than comfortable with what you both described lol. I certainly don't plan on playing on anything bigger than a local fun league/tournament. The noticeable gap between auto include units, mediocre units, and god aweful units was present in their last codex. For me, the nid models are very appealing and fun to paint. I still think the nids I painted a few years ago are among the best I've ever done. From a fluff stand point I always enjoy the 'unstoppable, cannot be reasoned or baragained with monster' types. Another little reason for me to pick up nids is that I enjoy apocalypse games. FW nid's titan unit is fairly cheap compared to other factions. I think the Eldar Revenant titans may be the only thing cheaper.