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So my local meta is overflowing with GK deathstars, SW, BA, nilla marines and the like, also newcrons here and there. My Chaos and Guard lists are getting a big boring to play, especially the Chaos one since I don't play oblitspam and thus usually get tabled. Of course I had to go and choose tyranids as my next army, for reasons I'm not sure I understand, but went and bought some basic kits and HQs so the damage is done now.

I'm looking for advice on what kind of force to build that will at least hold it's own against purifier spam, draigowing, loganwing, descent of angels, lots of AV14, and still do well against Chimera and rhino spam. I'm not overly concerned with the theme since Nids aren't really subject to fluff restraints unlike my Nurgle only CSMs. Only thing that I must use is the Hive Tyrant since it's an awesome model and one of the only models I have painted that wouldn't cause someone viewing it to have a epileptic fit.

Also some general questions -

Even if opponents have lots of Raiders around, does that justify the obscene cost of the T fexes? Zoans won't cut it because of their fragility and all the psychic defense out there neuters them (specially GKS). If not, should I just ignore Raiders and Liths? Because termies inside can usually take out any of my MCs on the charge if they get it, which they probably will.

How are trygons in general? Are they a take two or take none kind of a thing? Would they go well with a Hive Tyrant deathstar with regen for presenting target saturation issues?

Are two 8 man gene units good even in a non swarmlord list just to hunt backline artillery and heavy weapon squads or contest objectives?

Is the Swarmlord the only way to deal with draigowing and other such small tough lists or can the Hive tyrant do well?

GK deathstar is low model count, so tervigons and masses of fearless rerolling to wound gants can tie them up for most of the game, allowing you pick off the remainder of their list. Lashwips are always useful against heavy CC hitters - bringing that init down so the big hitters do their stuff first. Tyrant is not much different to the swarmlord in that respect - tyrant guard provide the lashwips and against big hitters you can chuck a priime in there as well. Remember that MCs count as power weapons anyway, so you can afford to spend points on shooting rather than boneswords to soften them up on the way in - dual T/L devoures are great for thinning numbers.

I find psychic hoods affecting zoanthropes to be more an issue on paper than on the board. Lance attack has 18" range and so you can often find a target for them and their 3+ invul makes them tough to kill as long as you keep them out of CC. If you need to kill a raider and zoeys can't get close then MCs in CC is the only real option. So use zoeys but screen them with more cheap or CC orientated units.

Actually SITW is often more of a threat to GK then their anti-psyker is to Nids ...

Trygons I am wary of - while they are great if they can hit first, a single force weapon hit could potentially have you taking 200+ pts off the table in one go. Stealers rending attacks are definitely a worry to GK due to the high init and number of attacks. Raveners can work in the same way, as long as they get cover on the way in. Multiple units are the way to go rather than one huge squad.

Generally, anyone who puts plenty of troops on the ground and doesn't have 8+ vehicles on the board is a match the Nids should have a good chance with. Lists like DOA lists are interesting as rather than having to go to them they often come to you, which is good news ..

Nid units that can still compete:

HQ: I'd probably just stick with a Tyranid Prime here. They are cheap, can combat characters, provide synapse, and join squads. Tervigons are also a decent choice though they are better as a troop.

Elites: Hive Guard. There are some other decent options, but really, Hive Guard are the best (and one of the only) sources of Tyranid ranged AT.

Troops: Termaguants are solid bread and butter. I have a friend who has had success with units of 16-18 Devilguants (devourers). Though they are expensive, they put out a hurt on units once they are outside of tanks. At 2k I would suggest two Tervigons. They are just such good units. They only really suffer due to JoTWW, Force Weapons, and Dark Eldar. Genestealers are still good units but require support from Tervigons for FNP.

Fast Attack: Gargoyles are amazing. Take both upgrades and make a cover wall of 12-15 on the cheap. Add in FNP from a Tervigon and the army is relatively safe. Raveners with rending claws are good as well. They are very akin to Fiends. Once they get to CC, they are amazing.

Heavy Support: I don't mind the Tyrannofex, but it does cost a bit much. I could argue it for shooting armies but I wouldn't fully advocate it. 2x Brainleach Devourer Carnifexes are pretty effective but also expensive. Otherwise this isn't a great slot.

Overall, the whole army suffers from lack of ranged anti tank. Monstrous creatures have taken hits from each successive codex and Nids MC's are some of the most overpriced around. This being said, I still think Nids can be a good army. The real thorns in their side are Dark Eldar, GK, And SW. These armies usually contain hard counters and are going to be uphill battled. Nids actually fair well against the rest of the field.

As an aside, Hulksmash has recently put up some interesting takes on running Nids in regards to changes in the overall playing field: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2012/01/tyranids-1850-no-mc-starting-point-list.html

Even if opponents have lots of Raiders around, does that justify the obscene cost of the T fexes? Zoans won't cut it because of their fragility and all the psychic defense out there neuters them (specially GKS). If not, should I just ignore Raiders and Liths? Because termies inside can usually take out any of my MCs on the charge if they get it, which they probably will.

My prefered anti-LR unit is definitely a trygon but you take 3 or none of them and probably consider venomthropes also just to keep them in cover. Oustdie of a short lived land raider spam craze when BA came out I don't see them often enough to worry about them. I stopped caring and went pure stealer spam + tervigons and have yet to run into issues against a land raider here or there -- its the contents you have to be careful of and nids just aren't going to neutralize a land raider early game without a lot of luck regardless of what they take. Becomes kind of moot imo.

How are trygons in general? Are they a take two or take none kind of a thing? Would they go well with a Hive Tyrant deathstar with regen for presenting target saturation issues?

I do think they are a 3 or nothing kinda thing and I think swarmlord and some hive guard are the best combo with them. Always take the furious charge upgrade. Venomthropes optional but have become more and more attractive to me. I am on the fence regarding prime upgrade, would have said no until GK were released.

However they are hard to use against missile spam unless you can really toss a crap load of other threats into such armies (ymgarls a must, swarmlord, maybe stealer blocks, raveners, etc).

Are two 8 man gene units good even in a non swarmlord list just to hunt backline artillery and heavy weapon squads or contest objectives?

It can work. I'd give them poison since probably half will die before striking and you'll need to make up for that in any cc. But I prefer larger units with or without poison since you are bound to take casualties from shooting and going last in initial combat. I'd also have some other scoring units also (2x tervigons or some warriors).

Is the Swarmlord the only way to deal with draigowing and other such small tough lists or can the Hive tyrant do well?

Swarmlord is probably the only deathstar nids have that can deal with that sort of deathstar well in a direct confrontation. Even that is iffy for the points. I'd prefer a big block of stealers with preferred enemy and poison. Then you gotta watch out for purfiers though, which are such a hard counter to stealer shock armies its not funny.

What the Hive Tyrant excells at is boosting large numbers of gribblies with preferred enemy. 20+ gargoyles, stealers, termagants, etc become nasty with PE. Throw in a paroxysm here and there and maybe a counter assault here and there. This can and does work but is not the be all end all either.

I know some other sites have talked up the vanilla tyrant deathstar (2+ save, regen, prime w/ regen, 3 hive guard) but in practice its only hard-ish to kill and only threatens non-death stars. Works nice against missile spam if tervigons are in play. Though still think Swarmlord is better as an actual credible threat to big nasties.

All that said:

JGrand wrote:Overall, the whole army suffers from lack of ranged anti tank. Monstrous creatures have taken hits from each successive codex and Nids MC's are some of the most overpriced around. This being said, I still think Nids can be a good army. The real thorns in their side are Dark Eldar, GK, And SW. These armies usually contain hard counters and are going to be uphill battled. Nids actually fair well against the rest of the field.

As an aside, Hulksmash has recently put up some interesting takes on running Nids in regards to changes in the overall playing field: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2012/01/tyranids-1850-no-mc-starting-point-list.html

I would agree with all the points -- our MCs are pretty overpriced in light of the popularity and typical builds of SW, GK and DE. As a counter, I have been intrigued by Hulksmashes non MC lists. I don't have the models or time/money to make such a list happen but it seems to be a nice counter-meta idea.

Hey guys thanks for the replies.

Several things- thankfully don't have to worry about DE, nobody plays them here. There IS plenty of GK and SW though. I think it's more to do with how expensive it is to play non MEQ armies. Players here don't have the kind of income to get dozens of vehicles and fill them with infantry and heavy weapons that will never get out.

As for not worrying about LRs in most armies yeah most people don't take them so Hive Guard do just fine but I've seen several lists that really try to cram as much into a few places as possible, for example there's one guy here with two Crusaders, one guy with two storm-ravens. It's really cheap to build an army like that and not to mention very easy to paint unlike Hulk's no MC list, that looks like a devil to paint, I might try it one day though,.

Based collectively on your replies I've come up with three general lists with different themes. These are only rough sketches I won't put any detailed wargear or points, those I'll work out later.

Wormy List:

Swarmlord, 2 TGuard

6 Hive
2 Venomthropes

16 Genies
16 Genies
Tervigon
Tervigon
10 Gaunts
10 Gaunts

6x Raveners

Trygon Prime (sitw)
Trygon
Trygon

This one is a pretty obvious list. Opponent chooses between the Slord, raveners, the genes or the trygon spam. Tervigons give buffs , support shooting and cap objectives. With good outflanks/deep strikes I aim to attack him from multiple angles. Lacking ranged attack power but with three fast moving MCs and two big broods of rending nids that shouldn't be an issue. Swarmlord will crush most stuff fhe comes into contact with.

T fex Anti AV List

Hive Tyrant Old Adversary 2x Tguard

Tyranid Prime LW/BS

6x HG
3x Zoans (pod or not? )

20 Hormies (cover/tarpit) (what wargear should I give them?)
16 Terms with Devourers
Tervigon
12x Genes w Poison
12x Genes w Poison
6x Warriors (what to give them?)

20 Gargoyles

Tyrannofex Rupture
Tyrannofex Rupture


MC spam list (this is probably the least viable but it might surprise some opponents especially that two crusader guy as he doesn't have alot of anti MC firepower but has plenty of anti horde)

Hive Tyrant, LW BS, ST, 2x HG

Prime, LW BS, Dev

6x HG
3x Venomthropes

Tervigon
Tervigon
16 Termgaunts

20 Gargs

2x Dakkafexes
2x HVC fexes

Generally when I run nids I try to stay away from pure MC lists but saturating opponents with as much T6 as possible is a good idea.

I normally run a tyrant with 2 guard, 2 blocks of 20 stealer (poison is optional but a very good one), 2 Tervigons, and a couple of gaunt squads. Top this off with hive guard and more stealers if points allow and you have a fast moving army that just overwhelms your opponents with threats. Tyrant shouldn't draw too much firepower but with old adversary and conga lining stealers you can get preferred enemy and even FnP with little worry about psychic hood interruption. If your opponent ignores the stealers they are getting assaulted turn 2 since you should be infiltrating. Remember to spread out if you do this to mitigate templates and blasts. If they shoot them it gives your heavy hitters time to get into position.

May I ask, what are conga line stealers? How are you getting turn two assault without a lucky run roll? I are confuzzled.

as lukas mentioned, running a very fast army (gargoyles, genestealers, winged tyrant, ect.) can overwhelm most armies on the first turn and let you dictate the game.
If you can get first turn they probably only have 1 turn of shooting before a majority of the army is in CC. This is how I ran my bugs

http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2012/01/tyranids-1850-no-mc-starting-point-list.html

fluffstalker wrote:
Wormy List:

Swarmlord, 2 TGuard

6 Hive
2 Venomthropes

16 Genies
16 Genies
Tervigon
Tervigon
10 Gaunts

6x Raveners

Trygon Prime (sitw)
Trygon
Trygon

Not legal - you need 2 gaunt troops to get 2 Tervigons (For every Termagant Brood included in your army, you can include one Tervigon)

Ok. thanks. Find points to scrounge up for those guants, shouldn't be an issue. Maybe drop a trygon and buff out the genes too.

Swarmlord, 2 TGuard

6 Hive
2 Venomthropes

16 Genies
16 Genies
Tervigon
Tervigon
10 Gaunts
10 Gaunts

6x Raveners

Trygon Prime (sitw)
Trygon
Trygon

This is probably the best of the three lists. I understand the Swarmlord in the list, however you might just be better off dropping the him entirely. The rest of the points could then go toward a wall of 12-15 Gargoyles. Reserve manipulation is nice, but not worth the investment. In general Trygons seem to fare better starting on the board anyway. You also have the Venomthropes to help with giving them some kind of cover. Finally, the Tyranid Prime would really help the survivability of the Venomthropes.

Overall, drop the Swarmlord and Tyrant Guard, get a Tyranid Prime, then add some Gargoyles. You will likely still have points to play with. I'd suggest Prime upgrades or more Raveners.

rigeld2 wrote:

fluffstalker wrote:
Wormy List:

Swarmlord, 2 TGuard

6 Hive
2 Venomthropes

16 Genies
16 Genies
Tervigon
Tervigon
10 Gaunts

6x Raveners

Trygon Prime (sitw)
Trygon
Trygon

Not legal - you need 2 gaunt troops to get 2 Tervigons (For every Termagant Brood included in your army, you can include one Tervigon)

Actually, can't he take one of the Tervigons as an HQ choice?

fluffstalker wrote:May I ask, what are conga line stealers?

Conga line refers to having a trail of stealers (single stealers at max coherency) going back toward the slower, non-infiltrating synergystic units like the hive tyrant (6" preferred enemy bubble) and tervigon (Catalyst/Feel no Pain).

These trails or tails of models are bread and butter to many tyranid builds. Used not just by stealers but tervigon/termagants also.

How are you getting turn two assault without a lucky run roll? I are confuzzled.

Turn two assault with stealers is not garaunteed but doable.
Infiltrate just outside 18". Move 6 run d6. Move 6 run d6 assault 6. That's 18" + 2d6", on average a 25" threat range. But you have to factor decent rolls for difficult terrain and placement of terrain in relation to your target units (as stealers absolutely require cover saves when they infiltrate -- as they will be high on early game target priority).

As far as the lists I think they are all decent and have the tools to win (once made legal as already noted). At this point it would come down to personal preference and bias on my part if I am honest. So take the list that uses the most models you already have or like and start from there would be my advice. And be prepared to tweak and adjust a bit. I know I have over the last years.

Actually, can't he take one of the Tervigons as an HQ choice?

Sure can. People get fixated on making them troops and its worth it to do so but not mandatory. Infact leaving room for other troops (like 3 stealer units) is a common reason for making on tervigon an HQ. Its also liberating to know you have a tervigon that can be used abit more aggresively and not lose scoring ability in the process.