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In anticipation of the "upcoming" nid second wave, which is said to contain a Hive Tyrant that can be built as either a vanilla-customizable tyrant or swarmlord.
Been reviewing the codex and trying to decide what I want more, the swarmlord or the hive tyrant.
Right now I'm edging toward the swarmlord, but I was wondering whether or not it was worth the extra points.
Anyone who's used the swarmlord got any insight on this? Thanks

Considering both the dark eldar and the grey knights have really amped up their ability to kill monstrous creatures I would be taking cheap MC's if at all. When I play against a swarmlord with my DE or GK it is a treat, since its a BUNCH of points i'm going to make back quickly.

In my old nids army I played around with the swarmlord but his effectiveness NEVER justified the points cost.

Any hive tyrant (the new resin model or the putative plastic one) you absolutely should magnetise the arms. Any combo of scything talons, brainleech devourers, whip/sword, and heavy venom cannon has advantages. Wings can be great.

Swarmlord is cool - if used, it should be with 2-3 tyrant guard, ideally with lashwhips. See, he is a beast in close combat, made for killing other armies' deathstar units, but he is just as vulnerable to shooting as a regular walking tyrant. So take guards, and make sure you have other units, ideally fast stuff or deepstriking trygons, to take the pressure off him. Because of his cost plus guard, he is a very risky choice at 2k points, certainly untouchable below that.

As people already stated he needs the tyrant guards or else the opponent will just fire lots of misses and lances at it and have a good laugh. Like the rest of the tyranid army using cover is important. Once he gets close enough though the swarmlord is a cc destroyer! It's really fun to use his psychic power to drop a unit's ws and bs to 1 then have a unit of genestealers do the dirty work

As for which one you should build it depends on whether or not this is competitive. If it is, a magnetized Hive Tyrant with wings is the best choice. If its for fun, then by all means go with the swarmlord.

Swarmlord! I haven't played one but there's on on DoW II Retribution and it rocks, barely ever dies

Kravox wrote:Swarmlord! I haven't played one but there's on on DoW II Retribution and it rocks, barely ever dies

Cause we all know DoW got the units right...

Seriously though, the nids have other, cheaper options if you want a CC monster. All the Swarmlord will do is draw fire and if he gets killed early you've lost another synapse beast.

The tyrant works well as a support unit thanks all his neat abilities. He can hold his own in CC thanks to his nice stats, but things like the Trygon are just better for that role.

I often play the Swarmlord, even against my friend's GK.
Imho, he is very versatile and reliable for a bunch of tasks...

But I also like a good old frightening tyrant, so I can understand the dilemna.

Given the brand new Finecast tyrant - sure, just a recast of the metal one, but it still cost GW some effort - is a plastic Tyrant still that likely?

Still, at least a Finecast tyrant will be a darned sight easier to magnetise due to the lower weight. I'd definitely magnetise - as you've already seen from above posts, numerous weapon builds are popular

Well, after some consideration, I think I might go for the swarmlord build (with Hive Guard of course). I generally don't play competitive games I just play them for fun
Of course, if I do play competitive games I generally like to use my marines, and perhaps in the future grey knights...
Thanks for all the input guys

The type of tyrant you take should mesh with the type of list you take.

Swarmlord seems to work at 2,000 points +. Below that, he's a massive point sink.

On the tryant there are two routes - on foot with guard or with wings. If on foot I think you almost have to go dual devourers, flying you can get away with a CC equipped build.

Magnets are your friend.

cyberscape7 wrote:In anticipation of the "upcoming" nid second wave, which is said to contain a Hive Tyrant that can be built as either a vanilla-customizable tyrant or swarmlord.
Been reviewing the codex and trying to decide what I want more, the swarmlord or the hive tyrant.
Right now I'm edging toward the swarmlord, but I was wondering whether or not it was worth the extra points.
Anyone who's used the swarmlord got any insight on this? Thanks

Its a $60 or so model. Do the smart thing and magnitize the arm options so you can use both. It will take a few hours of extra work, but believe me, the results are priceless. I previously magnitized 3 carnifexes and posted up a brief tutorial in my P&M thread which should give you a good starting point in magnitizing your Tyrant. I also magnitized an old 3rd edition metal tyrant and will be posting up pics tonight. Check out my Tyranid blogg linked in the signiture below.

As for general Play, the Swarmlord is a great choice for an all reserve army that also relies heavily on outflanking stealers. For more a footslogging list, the cheaper base tyrant with old advisary, paroxysm, ect. is a decent choice.

If you want some good advice though, I would check out Hulk Smash's Nid tactic thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/319613.page

Never tried magnets before... Gotta say it does look like it would be really useful. Better find a tutorial then Thanks again guys.

Book and mark. Thats a handy tutorial you got there!

Just posted up pics of the Magnitized Tyrant here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/233309.page

Best of luck.

I think it would be a good idea magnetizing it.

But here is some advice:

Not saying that the swarmlord sucks, but you have to build your list around it.

use a Swarmlord in a Deathstar(in this case, make sure that the Guards have Lash whip and bonesword) formation powered by an onion (So that they can get cover saves protecting them from AP3 Weapons) Also make sure that you have something distracting like a combo of a 1-2 Trygons and some stealers. Which will lock the opponent in combat(maybe even destroy them) and to absorb a lot of shooting.

With a Hive Tyrant, it can be just as effective and useful, but just in another way. buffing your army and such is a very good thing. It have lots of options and with this unit you don't have to build your entire list based on it. My fave is the Hive Tyrant, but the Swarmlord is awesome too