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This may be in the wrong section, and if it is would an admin kindly point me the correct way but i have a query concerning a possible tyranid list.

I have never played tyranids before but through one means or another have accumulated models over the years. I want to know if what i have is enough to make a decent army list and if not what do i need to buy in order to create a half decent list.

What i have:

1 Hive tyrant

9 tyranid warriors of various weapons

1 zoanthrope

1 Biovore

17 termagants

- is this enough to create a half decent force? i ussually play about 1500 pt games. I will be getting the codex this week if i have enough to get going but i dont really intend on spending much more on another army. maybe another box or two if that.

- sorry the post is a bit confusing and im not sure if it should be here. but yeah..any help?

Unfortunately you can't really make a good list out of that. Tyranids are very difficult to play and need the entire army to function perfectly as a cohesive force so you need to think about how each unit meshes with all the others in the army.

That said Tyranids generally excel at killing infantry, but they suck at dealing with vehicles. You're really going to need anti-vehicle shooting to take out transports (rhinos,razors,raiders,Trukks, Chimeras, etc, etc) at range so your CC units can do what they do best instead of wasting their time trying to punch vehicles to death.

A single zoanthrope is not nearly enough. At 1500 points you'd probably be looking at more like 6 Hiveguard and 2 zoanthropes...maybe a Tyrannofex or Dakkafex to help with that.


Warriors are okay, but they are very vulnerable to S8+ weapons so I'm not a big fan of them, they can work as support, but you can't rely on them. There are too many armies out there that can field a ton of S8+ weapons.

Termagants are pretty useless without Tervigons to support them and a single brood of 17 won't do a thing. You'll want them at minimum size (10) to make Tervigons troop choices or in groups of 30 (with TS/AG Tervigons around). A brood of 20 with devourers could possibly work.

Additionally a single Biovore won't do much. You'd probably want 2 - 4 to make them worth taking.

And finally at 1500 points, a Tyrant may be too expensive to be worth it.

Sorry, unfortunately it is very difficult to build a decent Tyranid list and just as difficult to play them. They also aren't a cheap army at all.

ok i could easily convert some old skool warriors into 4 hiveguard i reckon. (my club is very leniant on such things)

I have parts of an old carnifex and lots of spare weapons in the shed somewhere, with some time and work i would love to make a dakkafex of some description.

I did not think the biovore would be of use on his own. he may end up contributing limbs and stuff to these conversions.

So assuming i can get a couple more zoanthropes and a tervigon id be on the right lines yeah?

i cant help but feel i havnt got a lot of troops, i have always seen nid armies fielding tonnes of termagants and hormagants. is this not the case?

- sorry if these are stupid questions, i prmise i will read the codex before i go ahead and buy anything!!!

This is an excellent analysis Nungunz, really helpful. I play a horde style tyrannid army and it's always the cracking tanks that is hard. One Zoanthrope will certainly not be enough. Given the figures I have/prefer I normally go for monstrous creatures and big mobs of outflanking genestealers. This isn't always the most effective way, but it is quite enjoyable to play.

Perhaps the main problem I see with this army at the moment is the lack of troops. You have far too few termagants and, as has been pointed out already, warriors are surprisingly fragile (though maybe they would work well in large groups - I've not tried that).

My first thought would be to bulk up the termagants to 30 and get a large mob of hormagaunts. That will at least give you a base of troops to play some games with and get a feel for how you'd like to play the army. You could go down the route Nungunz hints at with lots of hiveguard and shooty monsters or a fast horde of genestealers, gargoyles and swamping nasties.

One thing though, I always take a tyrant and he is always great at something - a very flexible, tough and downright nasty thing to come up against.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry jac did not see your response before posting. I agree on the troops but I know this is not the only way to play tyranids well. I've seen a lot of good list without hordes of gaunts, I think it's the influence of the Aliens movies that makes me play that way.

Thanks for the advice guys. Tbh it seems the best route to begin with is get more troops. you can get gaunts quite cheap on ebay. After i have those i will be able to play it in freindly games and work it out. I dont want to spend lots of money on big monsters i may never use y'no.

i may play around with some of these conversions in the mean time. i enjoy doing them even if i never use em.

Thanks for the swift advice dakka-ites

jac_boj wrote:
So assuming i can get a couple more zoanthropes and a tervigon id be on the right lines yeah? \

Depends on what the rest of the list looks like honestly. Not every list needs Tervigons. And personally I don't think more than one brood of two or three zoans is needed (the rest of the elites would be filled with Hive Guard)

i cant help but feel i havnt got a lot of troops, i have always seen nid armies fielding tonnes of termagants and hormagants. is this not the case?

Depends on the list. Tervigon lists end up spitting out more Termagants so you don't need a ton to begin with as you just make more. My 2k lists fields 6 Hive Guard, 2 Zoans in a Spore, a Tyrant with Tyrant Guard, 2 Tervigons, 20 termagants, 40 gargoyles, and a pair of Trygons.

It's not the most competitive of lists, but it works if you know what you're doing.

Doombiscuit wrote:
My first thought would be to bulk up the termagants to 30 and get a large mob of hormagaunts. That will at least give you a base of troops to play some games with and get a feel for how you'd like to play the army. You could go down the route Nungunz hints at with lots of hiveguard and shooty monsters or a fast horde of genestealers, gargoyles and swamping nasties.

Large mobs of termagants and large mobs of hormagaunts don't usually mesh well. It's either one or the other as to make either effective requires completely different list styles.

One thing though, I always take a tyrant and he is always great at something - a very flexible, tough and downright nasty thing to come up against.

Expensive and requires Tyrant guard or a large screen of gargoyles (if winged). If not a Tyrant on it's own is just too easy to kill.

I love my converted flying Tyrant....but it dies too fast to be worth it. And for it's point cost might as well just take the Swarmlord with Guard or a Walking Tyrant with Guard.

No probs jac.

@Nungunz Yes, I did forget to mention I always take him with tyrant guard! I imagine the winged one makes an enormous target and dies quickly. With the guard though he's very resilient and I've often found opponents, knowing this, ignore him, almost always at their peril.

I think your point about termagants and hormogaunts not meshing is a good one that I must look into more. However, as jac says it's a cheap (money wise) way to make the army more useable so he can then work out what he likes.