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Hey everyone I'm new to this site and 40k and im hopefully gonna start a tyranid army. I have been told there not the best beginner army to start with but i really like everything about them. So i basically have a few questions for you more experienced players

1. whats the best HQ for 1000 point games? i personally was thinking hive tyrant but haven't got the codex yet which should arrive tomorrow or the next day.

2. what biomorphs are good and what ones are more or less a waste of points? this applies to all unit

well that's pretty much it not alot i hope i didn't break any rules or anything and I'm looking forward to making friends and using the site more often.

P.S. I'm thinking of making and all comers style list something that can fight many things not specific things just thought i would add that not sure if it changes anything and i should be able to make an army list within the next few days.

They're a fun army and my favourite. They're a little hard to play effectively because they are so unlike other armies. A bunch of monsters and no vehicles.

For 1000 points I would take a Tervigon. He supports gaunts well and makes them able to kill stuff. If you take a Tyrant he needs wings or a Tyrant Guard to protect him. That makes him 25-30% of your army.

Your 2nd question is too broad. I can say this much. Stay away from toxin sacs on big guys except for Tervigon.

At 1,000 points you can only really take prime or tervigon as HQ.

Tervigon is the star of the new codex. Just remember that he is not very good in HTH and will need to be protected. He is quite good at punching a rhino in the face though and forcing the marines out to get shot down by your gaunts.

I an objective based game, the best thing you can do is to park him somewhat close to your objectives and poop out bugs. Have the gaunts spread out over area terrain in the objective and go to ground whenever shot at. It makes them very hard to push off. I have shrugged off 3 rounds of demolisher cannon shooting with 10 gaunts sitting on an objective just going to ground for a 3+ cover save.

Sigh.. Every tyranid response I ever read is the same.

"Make sure that in a 1000 point game that you bring 5 tervigons, and also your clown shoes."

And the sad thing is, its pretty accurate. If its a low points game, a unit that makes more units is pretty awesome.
5 tervigons at 1000 points -Assuming Average roll of 10 gants made, and a 50% chance to get doubles, thats 5 spawning, 3 spawning, 2 spawns, one spawns. Eleven spawns of 10 Gants each is averagely 110 gants, or 550 points that you got for free in a 1000 point game, with 11 new scoring units made. Undeniably the best tactic for 1000 point games. But you'll definately be viewed as "That guy who brings 5 tervigons to a 1000 point game". It won't be praise they heap on you.

Really can't go wrong with genestealers, IMO they're still the best troop out there. Toxin sacs for sure, because re-rolling missed wounds and getting more rending 6s is really nice.
Hormogaunts with toxin are pretty cheap for the amount of wounds they can dish out too.

Thanks for the input guys you have definatly opened my eyes to the tervigon the ability to spawn gaunts on the battlefield sounds awesome.


what about elites? i was thinking a zoanthrope or 2 and keeping him out of harms way and raining bolts of psychic power onto stuff

Hi, I'm pretty new to Tyranids myself and have been doing a decent amount of researching.

So Elites are pretty much Zoanthropes and Hive Guards. Zoanthropes should be Spored in. The elites are pretty much your tank hunters.

Fast Attacks, I haven't seen many lists using anything from this slot. The only lists that seem to use fast attack are the ones with Winged Tyrants. This is to provide a cover save for your big baddie.

Heavy Support. Everyone loves Trygons! Trygons seem to be the best heavy support available for us. Carnifex seems too slow and easily wiped out. You can Spore him in but he needs help. TL Devourers seem to be the best fit for him. Also sticking a Tyranid Prime with him is nice.

HQ and Troops this is were it comes down to play style. Tervigons are a great time! I plan on running 2 myself til the official model comes out, hopefully in the 2nd wave this fall. There seems to be 2 different styles of play for nids. 1 is swarm. Tervigons, Termagaunts, generstealers, and just swarm. 2 is referred to as Nidzilla, which is a lot less models but they're a bit tougher.

Here is where you can read several articles about Nids tactica and what upgrades are good.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Category:Tyranids_Tactica

Wow thanks alot l0k1 very informative and thanks for link

I have to wonder if 4 tervigons wouldn't be better. Less spam, but you can give them Adrenal glands, Toxin sacs, and catalyst.

The first two alone are worth it, just to watch the little 5 point models that spawn eat MEQs.

... Until you see that your 6+ armor save ain't squat, and that the MEQ unit chews through your spawned unit, ready for more.

Now, with that many tervigons, you can give them more. But killing off basically 2 of your spawned units (25ish gants) to kill off ten marines? Its cheaper pointswise even if you didn't get them for free, but consider this: in killpoint games, you're going to get yourself absolutely murderized.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/345574.page

Help me I'm stuck in a recursive loop of opening new tabs that take me to the top of the page.

Wrong link. Sorry.

Fixed

Doomthumbs wrote:... Until you see that your 6+ armor save ain't squat, and that the MEQ unit chews through your spawned unit, ready for more.

Now, with that many tervigons, you can give them more. But killing off basically 2 of your spawned units (25ish gants) to kill off ten marines? Its cheaper pointswise even if you didn't get them for free, but consider this: in killpoint games, you're going to get yourself absolutely murderized.

FNP + Furious Charge + Poisoned weapons counts for a lot, especially when furious charge gives you just enough Init and str to get you rerolling wounds and attacking first.

I will release one Tervigon photo per hour until you realize that one is most likely enough for what you really want to do.

I've recently started playing tyranids too, and althought I can't comment on the Tervigon since I havn't played with it, I can definently recommend some Genestealers. Field them as Ymgral Genestealers and watch your opponent freak out when they apear in the terrain right next to their devestators/whirlwind/basilisk and rob them of long range firesupport. Can recommend the Tyranid Battleforce, great way to start your swarm and many diffrent models to play with

Another important thing to remember is cover. Abuse cover as much as possible! Nids, for the most part, are squishy and easily pasted by template weapons. So this in mind move your models into cover and let your Trygons/Carnifex/Zoanthropes deep strike in and wreck some of their heavy support/transports. While they are busy with these (hopefully a good bit of their force will be busy dealing with these large threats)this is your chance to move in and rape with the swarms.

lol good picture though like all monstrous creatures Tervigons come in pairs, they do not definately work in singles. You take one which gives you free troops you want to keep getting troops not have it burn out or worse it fall victim to target priority.

Ok, target priority argument I've also heard and dislike.
So they shoot the tervigon. Big deal if there was only one.
There are 3 trygons that did not get shot at. Trygons cost more.

I view the tervigon as a big bug to sit on an objective and squirt out as many gants as possible in a ring around itself and the objective. If it makes two units, you're doing well. Ring them around the tervigon and have them go to ground. This is annoying enough to have to try and clear off in a turn or two, with minimal support. That means that the rest of your attacking force can focus on the opponents objective. Three trygons, one tervigon. Doom. And then as many devgants as I can. Thats my new list structure. Harpies are MCs that fly. Why does nobody love them?

Why do you dislike for? It's a fact. You have this 200 point monstrous creature zapping troop points it's job is to spawn free troops if it burns out it's useless, your not going to take certain troops if you have one of these and if you're going say Nidzilla you need several to spawn of else you will find lack of numbers. If it's on its own then it will get shot up because it's spawning 'Gants and giving them benefits, kill the Tervigon it kills the 'Gants for you

Tervigon can sit on objective and it's pretty cool at doing that but you don't need to keep spawning and spawning to put Termagants around it, you only need so many. Tervigon should make more than one unit as well btw.

Trygons are awesome beasts but far from doom. They are so big ass they have a hard time finding cover so means going through terrain which bogs them down or deep strike which will make the opponent panick about this big beastie on the door step and blow it away with every plasma guns available etc etc.

Also, why you paying for Termagants (I know they have devourers) when you get them for free with a Tervigon?

No one loves Harpies because they're T5 and 4+ armour save and get hammered very very easily, though twin linked HVC isn't too shappy.

Harpies have a rather low armor save and toughness for an MC, especially one that doesnt have Eternal Warrior. A Demolisher cannon, Rail Gun, Strong enough lance, Concentrated Fire Prism Blast, or anything else at Strength 10 (even Lysander going medieval on it with the thunder hammer) and it's dead. Hell a Hydra can pretty much insta-gib a harpy in one turn even without IDing it (twin linked, wounds on a 2+ against the Harpy, and ignores the thing's armor. There's not going to be any cover saves since it's huge and possibly on a flying base). You can get 2 Hydras for the cost of one Harpy, and still have 10 points left over.

mercer wrote:Why do you dislike for? It's a fact , kill the Tervigon it kills the 'Gants for you

So if I have two tervigons and two minimal gant squads, and I can put 12 wounds wherever I want on a T6 creature, where do I shoot? Trygons? Harpy even? Nah, I'll shoot at the tervigons and take out the 2+ gant squads that are there as well, netting 4+ kps. Thats really what scares me. Being able to tie/win objective based games, but losing every time someone looks at a KP count or even VP.
Tervigons are just as vulnerable as a Trygon out of CC. Thats why my tervigon is there to do the following three things:
-Make at least one brood of averagely ten gants, subracting 50 from the cost of my army list.
-Onslaught the gants armed with devourers. Move 6", run ~4 then fire 18? Thats a 28" gun that is assault 3. Dakka Dakka! TM
-Maybe make another brood before its gant hole vapor locks or it dies. So thats maybe 100 points total tacked onto my list. Making the cost of the onslaught and target confusion 95pts. Ok. I'll take one.
Past that, the tervigons JOB is to die. Its T6, so it takes some killing while it onslaughts the shooty gants. Past that, its not gonna do much. Its not exactly a combat monster. It can go take a dump, and the list runs just fine.
Triple Trygons are. 3 Harpies backing them up also appreciate the tervigon dying instead, because as you said, Twin linked HVC- not too shabby. Harpies almost always can get side armor 11 with a 12" move, then its anything but a to glance or pen. Three of them deepstriking and shooting a TL S9 blast and a s5 large blast is gonna wreck some tanks and then what was clustered inside.

Why am I paying for Termagants when I get them for free with a Tervigon? Because they have three times as many shots. And come in a 30 strong brood instead of the 8 I got yesterday for two 2s and a 4. 8 gants is pathetic, and another soft KP. Not even two Tervigons are ever gonna make 90 gants. Come on, you're lying to yourself and others saying its anywhere near as good.


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Also, this is a bit evil, but my harpies walk. (For basing reasons, flying bases freak me out due to uh... broken models)

And they are exactly 2 Termagants tall.

If you've got two Tervigons then killing them is even easier and things like Trygons and Harypies aren't getting shot at, Trygons you cannot ignore. You do that with a single Tervigon and it will be totalled very quickly. Try running a list with three of them..

Oh, a Tervigons job is to spawn troops, take objectives and provide buffs to other units. Dying isn't in it's job description and you're using it wrong.

Your three times as shots Termgants have almost three times the cost and die just as easily...are DevilGants good? Yes they are, but why take them when you get Termagants for free?

Sounds like you've just had bad luck spawning. Most I've had is 80 with two Tervigons, far from a lie, I think you're just sharing your negative experience.

Erm how can Harpyes be 2 Termagants tall when there's no model? The description perfectly says it's a flying Trygon so having a mini monstrous creature is taking the biscuit.

80 with 2 huh? Thats amazing.
What was it, both of them rolled 15 gants for 3 turns? The max amount allowable with no doubles, for both, 3 turns in a row?
Thats amazing! Really more than I can believe happened with a 50% chance to lock up. Really, both of them just doing average with 10 each turn is amazing. Seems like you're remembering a great time you once had rather than what happens on average. I think you'll agree that 80 from two is fantastic luck, more than double what you could reasonably expect.

The 90 gants shooting to equal my 30 cost 450 points versus 300. Thats not three times as much, its way less. Say I was using your tervigon and got max spawn every time, 4 turns in a row. And a group of 30 regular to justify the troop tervigon. It still costs less, taking the cost of a tervigon into account.

No model means I do as I like, really. Description says that its "much closer in nature to a trygon". Since my Harpy uses trygon bits, including tail parts and claws, I'd say we're good here. Its much closer to a trygon than a gargoyle. The bit about it being 2 termagants tall is my using a ruler to make it so.

Dying is defiantely on a Tervigons list of stuff to do. Say there was 2 tervigons and, oh hell. 12 broods of 10 gants. Average, for 5 rounds of 2 tervigons making troops. They're all dead when the 2 tervigons die, since they will lose avg 5 per brood from 3d6 hits per brood per tervigon. Sure they make troops, but they make troops that die when they do. So.... yeah, they die a lot. 3? You're high.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:Harpies have a rather low armor save and toughness for an MC, especially one that doesnt have Eternal Warrior. A Demolisher cannon, Rail Gun, Strong enough lance, Concentrated Fire Prism Blast, or anything else at Strength 10 (even Lysander going medieval on it with the thunder hammer) and it's dead. Hell a Hydra can pretty much insta-gib a harpy in one turn even without IDing it (twin linked, wounds on a 2+ against the Harpy, and ignores the thing's armor. There's not going to be any cover saves since it's huge and possibly on a flying base). You can get 2 Hydras for the cost of one Harpy, and still have 10 points left over.

That's one turn of high S weapons that wasn't targeting my Trygon/Genstealers/gantswarm, and he took out a tank the turn he DS on to the board. I'd rather sacrifice the cheapest MC (if you assume that you always take one extra psychic power and poison/glands with the Tervigons, and you probably will) in the codex rather than see my Trygon or Tervigon go down. Now it's a lot of points to sacrifice, but for one less enemy tank I'd say it's worth it

carnifexes are great if you run tervigons with catalist

a unit of 3 fexes, usually screamers with fnp is awesome

Yup. Tyranids are a cost war. Most of it is expendable. Make sure you get your points back. 200 point trygon takes down a 250pt landraider then dies to the th/as termies inside. Even though it died, it made it's points back. Harpies usually make their points back.

Here is a 1250 point list as an example

HQ
Warrior Prime, twin boneswords, deathspitter, adrenals (105)

Elites
3 no. Zoanthrope (180)
2 no. Venomthrope (110)
2 no. Hive Guard (100)

Troops
Tervigon, Adrenals, Toxin, Scything Talons, Regeneration (215)
14 no. Termagants (70)
10 no. Termagants (50)
3 no. Warriors, deathspitter, plus 1 no. Warriors, barbed strangler (145)

Heavy
Trygon Prime, Adrenals, Regeneration

Total 1,250 points.

Comments
Taking a Tervigon in Troops gives you an extra scoring unit.
If I changed this list I would probably drop the Warriors, which are too vulnerable to instant death, and use the points for another Hive Guard and some Hormagaunts with Toxon Sacs.

So 35 nos total?
36, counting my "no".
That is a 1250 list, but where's the beef?

Doomthumbs wrote:80 with 2 huh? Thats amazing.
What was it, both of them rolled 15 gants for 3 turns? The max amount allowable with no doubles, for both, 3 turns in a row?
Thats amazing! Really more than I can believe happened with a 50% chance to lock up. Really, both of them just doing average with 10 each turn is amazing. Seems like you're remembering a great time you once had rather than what happens on average. I think you'll agree that 80 from two is fantastic luck, more than double what you could reasonably expect.

The 90 gants shooting to equal my 30 cost 450 points versus 300. Thats not three times as much, its way less. Say I was using your tervigon and got max spawn every time, 4 turns in a row. And a group of 30 regular to justify the troop tervigon. It still costs less, taking the cost of a tervigon into account.

No model means I do as I like, really. Description says that its "much closer in nature to a trygon". Since my Harpy uses trygon bits, including tail parts and claws, I'd say we're good here. Its much closer to a trygon than a gargoyle. The bit about it being 2 termagants tall is my using a ruler to make it so.

Dying is defiantely on a Tervigons list of stuff to do. Say there was 2 tervigons and, oh hell. 12 broods of 10 gants. Average, for 5 rounds of 2 tervigons making troops. They're all dead when the 2 tervigons die, since they will lose avg 5 per brood from 3d6 hits per brood per tervigon. Sure they make troops, but they make troops that die when they do. So.... yeah, they die a lot. 3? You're high.

You don't need to get 15 Termagants per turn, it was the course of a game as I mentioned which you failed to read - if two Tervigons never burn out and spawn 12 Termagants each over a 5 turn game that's 120. 80 Termagants is lucky, on average I get 60 and get 80 on average with 3 Tervigons but it depends how often I spawn.

Closer in nature ot a Trygon, not appearance. Two different words.

Yeah, cool, Tervigon dies and Termagants lose counter attack, toxin sacs and adrenal glands all the free and you lose the ability to spawn free troops - awesome. Do you really play Tyranids? Do the troops die when they do? Yeah of course they do, though the point is you said the Tervigons job is to die and that's false. If you're taking them in singles you have zero tactical knowledge on how to make a army list. Do you take Trygons on their own too?