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Was looking at Nids recently, and holy cow just to build a good list you have to lay out serious $$$.

Can anyone compile a 1500 point list that words well, and doesn't involve serious cash on FW, or Chapterhouse Studios Conversions etc? Even stock kits that can be combined and bashed etc.

This list has done fairly well on me and doesnt require any models that dont exist yet for the nids:
Tyranids 1000
HQ----------------------
Hive Tyrant 220
-Twin-Linked Devourer
-Adrenal Glands
-Old Adversary
Elites------------------
Hiveguard (3) 150
Hiveguard (3) 150
Venomthrops (2) 110
Troops------------------
Warriors (3) 105
-Venom Cannon

Termagant Brood (12) 77
-Toxin Sacs
-Adrenal Glands

Termagant Brood (12) 77
-Toxin Sacs
-Adrenal Glands

Termagant Brood (12) 77
-Toxin Sacs
-Adrenal Glands
Fast Attack-------------
Ravener Brood (4) 140
-Rending Claws
Heavy Support-----------
Mawloc 170
Trygon 200

nice list, but it looks like massive $$$ outlay.
By cost effective what i ment was Cheap! spend the least amount of money that is.

Any kind of army that requires a lot of models is in turn going to cost a decent amount of money.

Well can you tell us how much you are willing to spend? That would help

If you want a cheap army, buy lots of bases and print small pictures of nids and mount them to the bases.

Paperhammer for the win!

I went warrior primes foe HQ warriors genestealers & hormaguants for troops with raveners & trygons to frighten the little people i'm poor as hell so understand the need to keep it cheap at least with warriors you can make ya primes out of the same models as ya troops & most of the other troops come with what you want 4 a squad if you can afford hive guard get them there mental for there points & 2 ain't so pricey you may have to start at 1,000pts & work up like i have but you'll get there

budget = Whatever my wife allows

Whatever my wife allows = whatever I can hide.

Whatever I can hide = almost nothing

haha Just the dirt cheapest $$$ for unit list. Like battleforce, conversions etc for full comp legal list thats actually worth playing. 1000 pts then! Start there!

E-bay could help you there are sometimes cheap deals on there.

You can convert Zoeys from Warriors.

A good list that is realtively cheap (buy online too, like the warstore, for some nice discounts if you don't have a LGS).

Trygon x 3
Stealers x 40
Ymgarls x 8
Zoeys x 6 (made from warrior box sets)
Primes x 2 (made from warriors)

That is a fairly competitive list for cheap, plus it's all plastic. That gives you anti tank in the zoeys, anti everything in the stealers, deployment tricks with Trygons and Ymgarls, who are also great assault units, and the primes can run with the zoeys to soak damage and provide another assault threat.

2000 points for about $405 retail. If you buy that at the tewarstore.com you save 20% (an extra 5% until tomorrow for a sale), no sales tax and $5.99 shipping in the usa. Your flag says China though, so maybe that doesn't apply to you.

But anyway, that gives you a 2K army that is fairly competitive for about $320 bucks, which is pretty cheap for this game.

if you want alot of points fast, buy the carnies off of other veteran nid players for dirt cheap - nobody wants them anymore

then again, not very good gamwise...

If you want cheap and competitive don't go tyranids. Just go with Space Wolves as all you end up buying is marines, missile launcher bitz, and rhinos/razorbacks. Will cost half of whatever people suggest as competitive tyranids and will kick twice as much ass.

But if you HAVE to go competitive tyranids I can't see you dropping less than $200 on 4 models alone. 3 trygons and 1 hive tyrant are pretty much needed and will run you a lot no matter where you try to buy them.

I would look on ebay or the warstore as mentioned earlier.

You could give yourself a smaller goal, as in 500 points, and make your army in groups of 500 points so that you have time to save money. 400 dollars is easy to spend on an army, if not more, and that is a lot, but isn't as much when you spread it out over time, buying a unit painting it up, and then giving some time and buying another.

thanks for all the advice guys, i think the 500pts by 500pts at a time idea is really good. So for a 500pt list would this do?

Prime +

Battleforce
Warrior box set (one used to make the prime)

For cheaps I'd scour ebay for genestealers - you can pick them up often unpainted for little cash. Go for a 60 stealer army, get some heads to add some ymgarls and your almost there. Gaunts can also be picked up cheap as well.

To be competitive you need to buy hive guard and trygons and these will cost. Alternative is to pick up some cheap carnifexes and go for a 3 fex list!

If you make a prime from the battleforce you won't have enough warrio9rs left to form a unit so will need to get an additional box of them but will give you a solid base to work from then i'd say a couple of hive guard & then a trygon or maybe a broodlord for the stealers

Don't buy the battleforce!

Warriors are garbage and Hormagants aren't much better. If you want a competitive list, you need other units. If you aren't worried about being competitive, then by all means, buy discount battleforces and build an army out of that, but don't expect to win many games against good lists with a battleforce based army.

@Theduncan
I disagree. A brood of two Carnies each with two twin linked devourers is a great unit. 24 twin-linked, strength 6 shots per brood plus powerful assault capability is no joke. Tons of old 4th ed Nidzilla Carnies are set up that way, so it shouldn't be hard to find a lot of them on eBay.

You can make ANY tyranid monstrous creature out of the carnifex box, and with a little creativity you can make more than one

I bought 2 carnifex boxes, and made 2 tyrannofexes, 2 tervigons, and 2 harpys out of them, with the help of a lot of green stuff, clay, styrofoam balls, and other random bits and pieces. The carnifex box comes with such a HUGE selection of arms and heads (6 heads per box!) that if you make the torso out of clay and stick some plasticard carapace or whatnot on and add the arms, you can make pretty much anything. My tyrannofexes are basically styrofoam balls with carapaces stuck on, covered in greenstuff, that walk with 3 scything talons as legs, and carry beefed up barbed stranglers.

Just use your imagination and you can make a huge amount of stuff out of the fex boxes, I still have the legs and torsos left over for making hive tyrants.

Then a warrior box or 2 for hive guard, easy to convert.

Then a gakload of termagants off ebay, you'll need a bunch for tervigon pooping, but they're easy to find on ebay for cheap.

Currently I've shelled out around 170 euros for my nid army, and I have 2 tyrannofexes, 2 harpys, 2 tervigons, 2 tyrants, and 6 hive guard, all converted, plus around 50-60 gaunts of various types, 10 gargoyles, and around 20-25 genestealers, 2 old metal zoanthropes, plus an old metal hive tyrant (I bought them used from some guy at my FLGS) The only things I've bought new are 2 fex boxes, a gargoyle box, a warrior box, and some termagants/genestealers that came with battle for macragge.

@Jabbdo: Can you post some pics of those conversions please?

Manchu wrote:@Jabbdo: Can you post some pics of those conversions please?

ding this!

Ok so thanks for all the advice guys, only downer is Ebay is not an option because im in China. And a relatively far off part of China as well. here are some points in summary of the most useful advice

warriors suck and so do hormagaunts and rippers

Primes make good cheap HQ's

Genestealers and Yrmgarls are pretty good and should be run.

Trygons, Hive guard & Tervigons are necessary to life (or at least a competitive list) as well as their spawnlings termagaunts

Tyrannofexes are apparently very underrated by the internet community and are also good.

Conversions are necessary.


So as a starting 500pt list how does this look

HQ
Tyranid Prime (Warrior box £18.45)

Elite
2x Hive Guard (£22.14)

Troops
8 Genestealers
(one of which is broodlord, unit has adrenal glands)

8 Genestealers (£27.90 for two boxes)

Would this be ok for 500pts? at least in the next block looking at other things to flesh it out




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tyranids Army Eldrids Bane 1000pts


Tyranid Prime (HQ) Adrenal Glands; Lash
Whip & Bonesword; Deathspitter

Tyranid Prime (HQ) Adrenal Glands;
Boneswords (x2); Devourer

Tervigon (Troops)


Hive Guard Brood (Elites) (2)

Hive Guard (Elites) (1)


Genestealer Brood 8inc Broodlord (Troops) adrenal glands

Broodlord

Genestealer Brood 8 (Troops) adrenal glands

Termagant Brood 16 (Troops) fb rifles

Termagant Brood 16 (Troops) fb rifles


and this is for 998 points.


about 68.49pounds for first 500pts (Green), then 77.81pounds for second 500pts (Orange)




Automatically Appended Next Post:
the second lot doesnt show an extra box of termagaunts for when the tervigon starts popping them out.

I'll try to get some picks up this weekend =)

Be warned: the models themselves are really pretty ugly I made them to save cash really, and they do work ingame, nobody can really complain about them, as the tyrannofex, terv, and harpy dont have models.

Jabbdo wrote:I'll try to get some picks up this weekend =)

Be warned: the models themselves are really pretty ugly I made them to save cash really, and they do work ingame, nobody can really complain about them, as the tyrannofex, terv, and harpy dont have models.

Thanks, man. I'm really looking forward to seeing your ingenuity.