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I'm finding that I'm overly concerned with having enough monserous creature in my Tyranis army at any point level. It seems hard to have a swarm of guys and a enough large montsers. How many do you tyranid players typically run at 1000, 1500, 1850 or 2000?

It's either all in or not at all.

Or, run 1 monster per 500p of other stuff.

A buddy of mine runs 8 in his 2k list. 4 Tervigons, 2 Heavy Venom Fexes, Trygon Prime and a Heavy Venom Hive Tyrant. Rest is little stuff. Its a nightmare to play against for my Tau because they get on me so quick that most of the time I don't have a chance to widdle it down before its on my doorstep.

Maybe about 2 up to 1500, then about 4 after that and in 2000+ about 6+

You can never have too many monsters JK I agree with Bronze

Honestly i think a hybrid nidzilla/horde setup is the best way to play competitively with Nids. Two or 3 Tervigons with catalyst are required for objective games and for keeping your other stuff alive, Trygons and tyrranofexes are both solid heavy choices, and for the rest infiltrating genestealers (with catalyst from a tervigon) and fleeting hormagaunts in large numbers can really win games. The hardest part of playing 'nids is dealing with enemy mobility (and having none yourself since nids are all infantry). That means the elite slots are reserved for hive guard and zoanthropes exclusively. (and zoeys need a spore pod to do their job effectively).

For Tyranids that's your thing, might as well roll with it. Other armies get vehicles which i'm sure you'd really love to have. 1 per 500 pts seems fair, but if you can squish in more, go for it. If people complain, say you'd love to have their Landraider to transport your Genestealers.

My typical 2k Nids list
2x Hive Tyrants
2x Tervigon
1x Dakkafex
1x Tyrannofex
1x Mycetic Spore (hey it still counts as a MC)

7 Monstrous Creatures

I'd say Tervigons are always a fair buy... And if you only outfit it with either catalyst or onslaught (depending on the list), you're off to a good start, of what concerns your MC-heavy list.

Trygons are your second best bet, IMO. 6 T6 wounds.

Besides that, there's the HT. But they usually come with a heavy price tag. And they don't offer you many T6 wounds. Very often, their survivability depends on either having expensive Tyrant Guards or wings. (OTOH, they do have some insanely useful psychic powers!)

For nidzilla, you need forgeworld so you can run 9 HQ, 3troop, 3Fast,and 9 Heavy, of course you are now at Apoc point levels .

On a more serious note, it depends more on your style of play. I normally end up running 2+ at everything over 750.

IN all non APOC games. well no more than 1/4 -1/3 of your points should really be big bugs.

To many autocannons/rockets/lascannons/meltas/plasma/power fist/force weapons/psychic powers/ECT ect

the list goes on really.

I'm putting my mainly foot guard on the shelf for now to play nids, but I can't shake the horde mentality. The only think is, I almost feel lost without lots of heavy weapons and I want to replace them with monsterous creatures, but I also want waves upon waves of little bugs. I've played 7 games with 7 different lists, but it's much harder to get used tothe switch than I thought.

Thrawn2600 wrote:IN all non APOC games. well no more than 1/4 -1/3 of your points should really be big bugs.

To many autocannons/rockets/lascannons/meltas/plasma/power fist/force weapons/psychic powers/ECT ect

the list goes on really.

Thats not enough points to even consider fielding the MC. Either you go all in or you don't. Nobody likes seeing 30+ T6 Monstrous Creature wounds they have to deal with. If you only field 2 or 3, your MC are sure to die off from all the Anti Tank weapons lying around.

Thimn wrote:

Thrawn2600 wrote:IN all non APOC games. well no more than 1/4 -1/3 of your points should really be big bugs.

To many autocannons/rockets/lascannons/meltas/plasma/power fist/force weapons/psychic powers/ECT ect

the list goes on really.

Thats not enough points to even consider fielding the MC. Either you go all in or you don't. Nobody likes seeing 30+ T6 Monstrous Creature wounds they have to deal with. If you only field 2 or 3, your MC are sure to die off from all the Anti Tank weapons lying around.

The idea behind fielding 1/3-14 as MC is that the other 2/3-3/4 are an in the face threat that pulls fire away from the big guy till he is to close to shoot down. I mean really are you going to shoot at the MC half way across the board or the 20 hormiegaunts about to charge the heavy weapon squad?

I shoot both?

Anti-tank at the MC
and all my small arms fire at the gaunts.

Every army has lascannons/Dark Lances in it that is going to be nailing your MC. If you only take 250pts of MC in a 2k game your looking at 1-2 creatures. Most armies are able to focus fire that off the board in one turn of shooting.

Either you go no MC and make their anti-tank less effective, or you saturate the field so that 30+ t6 wounds are going to be a nightmare for them. Taking just a few isn't wise at all.

Funnily enough Necrons get 18 T6 wounds (6 monstrous creatures) for a bargain 300 points. Not to mention, those 300 points fart out 135 points worth of Scarabs every turn. In just about two turns the Spyders are already free of charge.

For Tyranids, I sort of agree with the all or nothing advocated here, but you pretty much always need two Tervigons. Basically, go with minimum monsters and about 60 Stealers, or go with the standard pattern ~7 monstrous creatures at 2000 points.