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I've just gotten back into 40k, and am trying to put together a well balanced 1000 point tyranid army. So far I'm thinking of:

Tyranid alpha in a unit of 4 warriors
2 x 12 hormagaunts
2 x 10 gargoyles
1 x 8 genestealers
1 x 2 hive guard
2 x 1 zoey
1 x 1 trygon

Thoughts?

I'd upgrade the Trygon to a Trygon Prime. It gives you a much better ranged weapon, Synapse (so you can DS it really far behind enemy lines) and Psyker disruption.

Also, what does the Tyranid Prime and his Warriors carry?

You don't have an HQ selection. I'd suggest getting two boxes of tyranid warriors and using one warrior as a tyranid prime attached to a unit of warriors.

The Tyranid Prime (or Alpha as he called it) is an HQ.

@mechaemperor7000: currently I'm running all units as stock, so devourers and scything talons for the 4 warriors and the prime, though I'm thinking of swapping the devourers for rending claws.

My points total atm is 996, so i could lose a zoey to upgrade the trygon, but am concerned about how much easier it will be to kill 1 zoey rather than 2. My ability to penetrate vehicle armour then resides with my hive guard and trygon.

Rending Claws would be a good idea, it gives them a chance to take down vehicles.

Trygon is awesome at 1000 pts., very hard to kill. You can afford to lose a Zoanthrope to upgrade to the Prime, you need the synapse.

Get a pair of Boneswords for the Prime. It's great for killing monsters and characters and allows him to ignore armor. As for the second weapon, it depends on how well rounded you want your Prime. Personally I would go with the Deathspitter. The Prime's BS is very good for a gun with that strength. The same should go for the Warriors. You're paying for the Alpha Warrior rule, you should get the most out of it (with Deathspitters on all of them, you get 15 S5 shots with Space Marine BS). As for the Scything Talons and Rending Claws, it depends what you want. Scything Talons are pretty good, so only take rending claws if you want your warriors to be pure combat. However I'm kinda curious as to why you picked 4 warriors. Usually people go in multiples of 3 due to how the sets come.

Dont drop the Zoey. Drop the Stealers and bring in more Gargoyles. For every Stealer you drop, you can bring on 2 more Gargoyles and still have some points leftover. They also possess a version of the old rending rules, making them just as good as stealers for less cost (however if you expect to face some Terminators, Stealers are better), They also have a range attack. Finally, you need not worry about them being outside of Synapse Range, since the Trygon Prime you can get for the extra points has Synapse.

Ok, so my revised army is as follows:

1 x 1 tyranud warrior prime - deathspitter & boneswords
1 x 4 tyranid warriors - deathspitters
1 x 2 hive guard
2 x 1 zoey
2 x 10 hormagaunts
3 x 10 gaegoyles
1 x 1 trygon prime

All units are standard unless specified otherwise.
Total 995 points for 60 models

Does this look better? Although I mainly face tau and marines, i want a well balanced army to face any race.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thanks for all the help guys, it's much appreciated.

Next stop, colour schemes

At 34 models, you will be outnumbering my Orks almost 2 to 1!

That's basically the plan

I much prefer the idea of a swarm army with a few big guys scattered throughout, than a medium or small army with lots of big guys...

...oh, and I don't like tervigons, hence why I haven't chosen a tervigon build swarm.

After starting to develop a bit of fluff for my army, I'm starting to head towards doing a 'serpent' theme.

Can anyone see a good way of including Raveners in this army? or would I be better including them as an addition to build to 1,500 points?

Although I want to theme the army, I also want to keep it competitive.

Any thoughts/suggestions appreciated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
After considering my current 1,000 pnt list, I can't really find room for the Raveners, so I think I'll leave them for my 1,500 pnt list.

Poosibly a unit of 5 Raveners, a second Trygon Prime (or is 2 Trygon Primes in a 1,500 pnt game overkill/beardy?) and 150 points spent on upgrading my current units.

That will still give me at least 66 models in a 1,500 pnt game, including 2 Trygon primes, and will give me 6 more 'serpent' models to add to my theme.

Any thoughts/suggestions?