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I took this off my blog and I'm still young so try to not get too upset over the use of the word, "crap"

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So I'm looking over my tyranid collection

A NoS/NIB (opened) battle force sitting here, 2 NiB never opened carnifexes, 1 NiB Zoanthrope, 1 NiB Hive guard. 3 ravenerss with rending claws & scything talons, 1 hive tyrant with bone sword + lash whip + Heavy venom cannon, 2 venomthropes, 2 tyrant guard, 2 magnetized carnifexes, 1 armless carnifex, 1 carnifex with crushing claws & scything talons, 20-40 hormagaunts and 20-40 termagaunts, a trygon, a magnetized mawloc/trygon, 4 zoanthropes, 2 hive guard, a lictor, a death leaper, 4-6 warriors laying around with combinations of rending claws/scything talons, or pure scything talons.

Man, I feel like a spoiled brat when I say I cannot make an army from this but honestly, I have not had any success with these dudes in games without proxying a random carnifex to a tervigon/tyrannofex or a harpy.

But....

I have a successful space wolves army and I absolutely love them to bits and every time I think of, "what would happen if I have a house fire because i left something on?" I instantly think of my space wolf army.

So I'm thinking.

"Well, I have this fun army I am good with in 40k and the other one is hard to run without converting a bunch of crap, and the cool looking models are not really that good rules-wise." (Compared to similar guys in the same slot, elites, heavy support, ect.)

I'm trying to tell myself to wait for the models to come out but its going to be a year this coming january since the nids codex came out, hell, its been a year since the new space wolves codex arrived and no thunderwolf cavalry model even in the rumor mill.

So that leads me to the train of thought "How about I get into fantasy?" So I get the BFB (Big F'ing Book) and read that + the lore and fell in love. I never really liked fantasy genres as much as science fiction stuff but I like Fantasy's rules and the stories are not half bad either.

Continuing on our little choo-choo train here. So I get the island of blood set and choose the skaven, laying the high elves aside, and I start painting the little rascals. Low and behold, in 4 days, 16 painted and based. WTF right? My space wolves never came out that fast because the detail killed me but these clanrats and rat ogres seem to have the exact right amount of details for me. They don't overdo it but the models are still cool and full of personality.

So now I am reading about them and other armies, skaven are good, but so are most of the other fantasy armies. Armed with this knowledge, I know I'm not playing the Grey knights of fantasy or the necrons of fantasy (even harder to play armies than tyranids) so I can go forward without a fear that I might spend money on an army that needs a ton of conversion work, that looks fun, and doesn't suck.

So now I've arrived at the conclusion that I cannot afford to spend too much money on these guys, but I have a couple of necron boxes and a ton of tyranids that I could trade over the internet for used/new skaven stuff. But, if I trade my nids off, would that just make me a crappy player that relies on the power of the space wolves codex? I think so in a way. I started tyranids with the pretense that I would play them because of the challenge it takes for them to win, but with no models or GOOD conversion kits (The chapterhouse studios tervigon kit looks like crap) ...kits out, and the fact I do not want to butcher $50 model kits to make crappy looking monsterous creatures. That would make playing them easier, would I be a hypocrite of what I said earlier? Well.. Those are some thoughts, its not like I'm trading tyranids for blood angels or space marines, I would be switching an army in one game for an army in another essentially.

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Do what you want. If you want to trade off your Tyranids for Skaven, go for it. Be prepared for people attempting to rip you off. "Give me The Carnifex, The Hive Tyrant and throw in $10 and I'll give you a box of clan rats"

Anything that is unopened you can trade in at your local GW store and get the Skaven stuff you want.

Wanting a full and comfortable size force for both the main games is entirely appropriate.

Tyranids are not an easy force to play with any more, the codex is weak. It is also recent, therefore tyranid players are stuck with it for a long time.

Skaven are a good, hard hitting choice for Fantasy.

Necrons will be along in 2011. If you can be bothered to wait that long.

If you are content with your 1 40k army, trade in your other stuff and get building your skaven army.

Im in a simialr position with my Nids.
They have long been my favourite army since 2nd ed but I have neither the time, skill or cash to convert up a tonne of units (a lot of my models are 2nd ed classics).
Very frustrating.

If you feel you wont use the Nids again and have no attachment to them (I could never sell mine), trade them for the Skaven, build a nice army and have some fun games.

As to what people think of you, who cares? Are you spending your hard earned money/time/effort on something you enjoy? Yes? Then do what you like.

First of all, get some perspective: you are complaining, at length, on the internet about having a load of models available.

I assume from all this that you only play super-competitive tuned armies (or you're a big baby who insists on bringing a better army than his opponent, but I'll assume not) and so you refuse to use warriors, raveners, carnifexes, etc.

I've just been playing against tyranids this weekend. I play eldar, and I feel these codexes are roughly equal. I agree that fully tuned-up IG, space wolves or blood angels might be a tad better. But realistically, are you such a great, professional player that the outcomes of your games are determined by the small differences between modern codexes? Or are you just upset that some of your units struggle against some of your opponent's?

Summary: man up and play the game, it's not a big disadvantage. For what it's worth, here's my mate's 1500 point tyranid list that I thought was pretty boss last weekend:

Tyrant, whip/sword, talons
3x2 Zoanthropers
2x10 termagants
2xtervigons with adrenal glands
2xtrygons with adrenal glands.

He hadn't gotten round to converting his carnifexes into proper tervigons yet, but because his tyranids are a fully painted army and (crucially) none of us are scumbags, we didn't care.

You've got the makings of a fine list, tyrants/tervigons/trygons/gaunts and a mix of hive guard/zoanthropes make a perfectly competitive army. Sorry your carnifexes aren't useful, but stop crying about it. And if you can find someone normal enough to give you a game without only taking internet-approved competitive units, you can always use them then.

I'd say a well-played nid army is head and shoulders above the Eldar.

It's just that they have specific needs. Tervigon, Hive guard, tyrannofex, these are damn near required nowadays. New warriors are so many points for so little return, it's not even humorous how bad they are.

I-bounty-hunt-the-elderly wrote:First of all, get some perspective: you are complaining, at length, on the internet about having a load of models available.

I assume from all this that you only play super-competitive tuned armies (or you're a big baby who insists on bringing a better army than his opponent, but I'll assume not) and so you refuse to use warriors, raveners, carnifexes, etc.

I've just been playing against tyranids this weekend. I play eldar, and I feel these codexes are roughly equal. I agree that fully tuned-up IG, space wolves or blood angels might be a tad better. But realistically, are you such a great, professional player that the outcomes of your games are determined by the small differences between modern codexes? Or are you just upset that some of your units struggle against some of your opponent's?

Summary: man up and play the game, it's not a big disadvantage. For what it's worth, here's my mate's 1500 point tyranid list that I thought was pretty boss last weekend:

Tyrant, whip/sword, talons
3x2 Zoanthropers
2x10 termagants
2xtervigons with adrenal glands
2xtrygons with adrenal glands.

He hadn't gotten round to converting his carnifexes into proper tervigons yet, but because his tyranids are a fully painted army and (crucially) none of us are scumbags, we didn't care.

You've got the makings of a fine list, tyrants/tervigons/trygons/gaunts and a mix of hive guard/zoanthropes make a perfectly competitive army. Sorry your carnifexes aren't useful, but stop crying about it. And if you can find someone normal enough to give you a game without only taking internet-approved competitive units, you can always use them then.

3 reasons I posted my models. 1. Someone would ask what models I would have 2. If someone had an idea (you did) they could help me with what I got 3. I'm complaining that I bought/traded for these models and playing them WYSIWYG is really hard without making some tervigons/tyrranofexxes.

I play in a competitive scene and view playing other competitive armies as fun. I play WYSIWYG in my armies and unless its easy to convert, I will not try it because I don't like running proxies or crappy looking models (which is what my tervigon would be). What did my WYSIWYG have to do with anything? I have to convert stuff to attain WYSIWYG for the essential (to make a good list anyway) units to play competitively.

I play against people that don't suck and I don't enjoy clubbing baby seals. I can consistently do well if I proxy for those MCs but I don't like proxying. You dig? Obviously you don't, but I'm not gonna be mean over the internets to someone I don't know!

Edit: Also, fantasy looks cool.

And

I don't think you really addressed the essential question and I believe I wrote that after my word about fantasy/skaven

Hey mate, I'm sure it's rough that tervigons are the best way of playing the tyranid codex (which I firmly believe, and I hope we can agree on that) if you don't like converting or anything. But at the end of the day, that's that. Either do some converting, and it won't look that bad, or pay someone else to do it, or buy a kit off the net. Best solution would probably look for info online telling you how to do a conversion, I'm sure it's out there.

Sorry if I was having a bit of a go at you, but it irritates me a bit to hear tyranid players complaining about their codex being underpowered. I just don't see it that way overall. I do agree that the codex suffers from terrible internal balance. That's a legitimate thing to be upset about if you had an army of warriors and biovores and such and really wanted to use them. But what it looks like here is that you bought the most powerful type of tyranid army under the old rules, and are upset that it's not the most powerful type under the current rules.

I play with competitive armies, and I and my friends play to win. I'm not getting on anyone's case about that. If I gave the impression I was criticising the instinct to play competitively, that's not what I meant. I just meant that not every game needs to be played between 2 optimised armies. I don't believe that if a model is 'uncompetitive' it should be reduced to plastic dust and scattered in the wind. After all, carnifexes are overpriced quite severely compared to trygons, but they are still punchy units. They're not like swooping hawks or looted wagons or anything.

Basically what I meant, and I stick to it, is: Not the end of the world. Convert things or get them converted, or play without strict WYSIWYG, or resign yourself to lagging behind the cutting edge of competitive army lists. This is not what I would consider a terrible conundrum requiring internet complaining.