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this is my tyranid list at 1500. i am looking for some insight to build it up to 2000 and 2500

HQ

Tervigon
- AD
- TS
- catalyst
- sything talons
- cluster spines

Elites

Hive Guard X2

Hive Guard X2

Troops

Tervigon
- AD
- TS
- catalyst
- sything talons
- cluster spines

termagaunts X10

termagaunts X10

genestealers X7
- TS

genestealers X7
- TS

Fast Attack

3 filler spore mines


Heavy Support

Tyranofex
- rupture cannon
- shock grubs
- cluster spines


Tyranofex
- rupture cannon
- shock grubs
- cluster spines

i am looking to build off of this list, keeping all the MC's. my only request is no more tervigons please, i am tired of painting gaunts.

I'd probably drop the Tyrannofex. Yes it's got a strength 10 gun but considering its BS3 it's only likely to be hitting once per turn, plus it costs over 200pts. I'd probably put those points into maxing to Hive Guard squads and putting another Hive Guard squad in there 3 strong.

I love the tyrannofex with rupture cannon. It has a pretty good chance of hurting one tank or dreadnought every turn. It is the big threat killer that saves your other troops from pieplate hell and your synapse from lascannon/psicannon spam. They are the tyranids most durable unit. They are big enough to hide synapse behind. Their big flaw is that they are an expensive unit to lose to a force weapon, but they should be close to synapse so at least the enemy needs to roll it on 3d6.

I always take a tyrannofex. I've wanted to try two, that may be too much, but they will be the end of your opponent's mech army plans. If you ditch one, take a doom of malanti in a spore pod.

Hive guard are awesome, but they have to get within 24" of the enemy gunline, and they die easily. The Big Bug is threatening the whole board on turn 1.

I don't understand the BS3 arguments. Most enemy heavy weapons are only BS3. Many are twin linked, but you have better than twin linked. Not only do you get two rolls, but they BOTH can hit.

I'd ditch the spore mines, and take another couple GS.




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I've been running dual tervigons, and am really happy with them. As you build up, you may want to combine the GS and get a hive tyrant for HQ, letting the other tervigon be a troop. A tervigon troop is awesome for taking objectives. I've never used a prime, that might be another option. I like the swarmlord for the 18" synapse and alien cunning, but I have a DS heavy army so the +1 and 8/9 chance of getting the flank you want really pays for itself. I don't think I've ever had it do anything otherwise though, lol.

In fact here, these are some bat reps I've run with my 2000 point list that is similar to yours.

Mysticdog wrote:I love the tyrannofex with rupture cannon. It has a pretty good chance of hurting one tank or dreadnought every turn.

Not really, looking at the Maths. Lets look at the odds of 1 shot from a Rupture cannon killing a Dreadnought. taking into account the 50% chance of it hitting, the 67% chance of it penetrating its 12 armour and then the 33% chance of it getting a result that will kill the Dread the odds are about 11%, so lets double that as you're firing 2 shots. so you have about a 22% chance of killing a Dreadnought through 1 turn of shooting from a model that is more than double the points cost of a Dreadnought. Not really great value.

Mysticdog wrote:It is the big threat killer that saves your other troops from pieplate hell and your synapse from lascannon/psicannon spam.

How? As shown by the above maths it's not that great of a threat. I'd rather fire at the Tervigons thank you very much.

Mysticdog wrote:They are the tyranids most durable unit.

Doesn't matter if you're durable if you can't do much else, especially when you're paying 250pts for the thing.

Mysticdog wrote:They are big enough to hide synapse behind.

They're also big enough to not get cover saves very often and also big enough to be seen by pretty much everything on the board.

Mysticdog wrote:Their big flaw is that they are an expensive unit to lose to a force weapon, but they should be close to synapse so at least the enemy needs to roll it on 3d6.

So now you're having to pay a minimum of another 80pts (Tyranid Prime) just to keep your 250pt model from being force weaponed to death.

Mysticdog wrote:I always take a tyrannofex. I've wanted to try two, that may be too much, but they will be the end of your opponent's mech army plans. If you ditch one, take a doom of malanti in a spore pod.

I agree with the Doom of Malan'Tai in a Mycetic Spore. I dispute that they will be the end of a mech armies plans. At most they will kill 2 vehicles a turn, and as seen by the maths that I've done, it is unlikely that they will kill a single 12 armour vehicle a turn between the 2 of them.

Mysticdog wrote:Hive guard are awesome, but they have to get within 24" of the enemy gunline, and they die easily. The Big Bug is threatening the whole board on turn 1.

But he's threatening with a meh amount of firepower. Technically Hive Guard have a 30" range as they can move before shooting. Additionally, they can shoot without LoS and cancel out the effects of Smoke Launchers and cover saves from fast moving skimmers. For 50pts Hive Guard are pretty durable. They're 2 wound T6 models.

Mysticdog wrote:I don't understand the BS3 arguments. Most enemy heavy weapons are only BS3. Many are twin linked, but you have better than twin linked. Not only do you get two rolls, but they BOTH can hit.

If you're playing Guard a lot, yes a lot of heavy weapons are BS3, but when you play an Space Marine army, their heavy weapons are BS4 at the lowest, Dark Eldar ravagers, BS4, Eldar Falcons, BS4, etc, etc. I agree that I would prefer have double the shots than Twin-Linked in most cases, I'm not disputing. What I am saying, is that when you're effectively paying 250pts for a gun with 2 shots that are fired at BS3, that is bad.

22% chance of killing the dread, sure. But you can also prevent him from firing, or blow the las cannon off. Now you are up to a 44% chance of significantly reducing the enemies fire power. 50% if you count the glances.

Or, take that at a vendetta with 3 las cannons and a command squad in it. Or a whirlwind. Or any of a dozen different extremely dangerous threats. Hell, I blew a particle whip off a Necron monolith before it ever got to fire. How many points is that worth?

You can't just look at the value of what you are killing. You have to look at the value of what you are saving. A tyrannofex lets you take out what scares you the most, almost always starting on turn 1.

If I blow away a whirlwind, my termagants and genestealers just got a much easier run across the board. If I take out a vendetta, it is not killing my precious synapse. It can take down a Leman Russ with good consistency

Then, you just keep it near your synapse. Say your tervigon. It gets cover from the armor 2 Tyrannofex. The tyrannofex gets shadows of the warp coverage from the tervigon (all synapse offers shadows of the warp, you don't have to "take" anything, just keep your tyrannofex in synapse range, which is what you want to do anyway.). It is a great symbiosis that helps the bugs get across the board.

Hive guard are t5 models. A strength 10 template instakills them. At armor 4, most squads demolish them. Hive guard are great, there is no denying it. But I've been in games where it took them 3 turns to find anything to shoot at. At strength 8, they have a hard time with heavy armor. All bug armies need at least one unit of them.
But they are no replacement for the 'fex.

Two shots at BS3 at strength 10 at 48" just is not "meh", especially for the bugs. Then you get the close support fire that the tyranofex offers if the enemy do get close (or you get close to them).

The fex dies in like 1 of 8 games for me, and that was to lysander in two rounds with no support left. He is always the last to die, and he can clean up whatever is left on the table.

Definitely worth the points.

hiveguard are T6, boss.

Mysticdog wrote:

Hive guard are t5 models. A strength 10 template instakills them.

I just checked the codex and Hive Guard are T6. Only thing that will intsakill them will be a force weapon or other weapons that have a similar effect.
I find that the Fex's seem to have a good run on paper, once you start playing with them, they become near number one target. In a list where I ran a Tyrant and 2 guard for it, my opponent who was running Semi-mech IG sent his LR with the plasma cannon turret at the Tyrant and co and sent every thing else at the Fex. The tyrant dropped to one wound with no guard left and the fex was down to 2 wounds. I had to spend the rest of the game trying to keep them alive. It didn't work out though.

This is coming from my experience though so you might have had better luck. To me, the Tyrannofex is just too many points to sink into something that will hardly get cover saves and get all the Ap1 & 2 weapons thrown at it. I'd rather spend the 250 points into getting almost 5 Zoeys that have a better chance at killing what they are intended to kill but at the same time, sacrificing some durability.

That's my twenty cents.

Wow, I've been playing their S+T backwards for ages. Good to know, thanks!

The other models just can't start the game firing at range. I really like zoanthropes, but they are fickle, and really need to be pod deployed, which means turn 2 o3 with a +1 to reserves.

The situation you describe really just reinforces my point; if that power had gone after the Tyrant alone, you would have surely lost it immediately. I hate the first turn endurance round against gunlines, no doubt about that though.

I like the fex for what it does to the opponents. Without it, the enemy knows there are a lot of safe places on the board, where the bugs of have no chance of hurting him. I hate that. I try to make them fear everything. I've got pods for dropping in their lines, I've got ymgarl to come out of area terrain, I've got GS to come out of a flank, I've got the HG to stalk their light vehicles, and the fex to target anywhere on the board, especially with whatever I feel most threatened by.

I definitely get wanting more for the points, but I couldn't take another HG unit without giving up the ymgarl or doom of malantai anyway. I like the mix I have for elite - it is the tyranids best area for choices. I have got a trygon that I will will probably try replacing the fex with, but it just doesn't offer the immediate threat I want.

Mysticdog wrote:22% chance of killing the dread, sure. But you can also prevent him from firing, or blow the las cannon off. Now you are up to a 44% chance of significantly reducing the enemies fire power. 50% if you count the glances.

If you are playing an army that has a significant part of its shooting based on a single dreadnought then you need some more shooting, and how is paying 250pts to have a 50% chance of doing something to a Dreadnought good value for points?

Mysticdog wrote:Or, take that at a vendetta with 3 las cannons and a command squad in it. Or a whirlwind. Or any of a dozen different extremely dangerous threats. Hell, I blew a particle whip off a Necron monolith before it ever got to fire. How many points is that worth?.

For the whole Monolith, 50pts less than a Tyrannofex, and that's argueably overcosted, you didn't even kill the thing.

Mysticdog wrote:You can't just look at the value of what you are killing. You have to look at the value of what you are saving. A tyrannofex lets you take out what scares you the most, almost always starting on turn 1.

So you are going to save more than 250pts of your forces through the presence of 1 Tyrannofex? Besides, a Tyrannofex is not a sure way to kill your opponents most scarey piece, for a start you didn't kill the Monolith, something that is less expensive in points terms than a Tyrannofex, you're unlikely to kill a dreadnought each turn and so the same would apply to a Vendetta. How is a Whirlwind an extermely dangerous threat anyway?

Mysticdog wrote:If I blow away a whirlwind, my termagants and genestealers just got a much easier run across the board. If I take out a vendetta, it is not killing my precious synapse. It can take down a Leman Russ with good consistency

Here come the maths again. Firing 2 shots from a Tyrannofex with 1 hitting, then a 33% chance of you penetrating the Leman Russ on its front armour of 14, and then a further 33% chance of you taking out the Leman Russ. Giving you an 11% chance of you killing a Leman Russ each turn. How in any way shape or form is that consistant, other than consistantly bad?

Mysticdog wrote:Then, you just keep it near your synapse. Say your tervigon. It gets cover from the armor 2 Tyrannofex. The tyrannofex gets shadows of the warp coverage from the tervigon (all synapse offers shadows of the warp, you don't have to "take" anything, just keep your tyrannofex in synapse range, which is what you want to do anyway.). It is a great symbiosis that helps the bugs get across the board.

I know what Synapse does, but surely once your Tervigon has finished spawning gaunts upon rolling a double on the 3D6 you aren't going to just leave it next to the Tyrannofex are you. An even bigger waste. I get that the Rupture cannon is an assault weapon and so the Tyrannofex can move but you don't really want the Tervigon to be loosely tied to it.

Mysticdog wrote:Hive guard are t5 models. A strength 10 template instakills them. At armor 4, most squads demolish them. Hive guard are great, there is no denying it. But I've been in games where it took them 3 turns to find anything to shoot at. At strength 8, they have a hard time with heavy armor. All bug armies need at least one unit of them.
But they are no replacement for the 'fex.

You have enough monstrous creatures to deal with heavy armour that way, you don't need a Tyrannofex. I'm not going to jump on them being T6 as this has already been done. How has it taken 3 turns to find a target, you can move and shoot with them and you don't need LOS to do so. I also think that 'most squads' is a slight exageration. Never underestimate the value of a mass of S8, Space Wolves and Grey Knights often use it as the mainstay of their firepower in the form of Long Fangs and Psybolt Dreadnoughts, Hive Guard are the only place where Tyranids have access to it.
,

Mysticdog wrote:Two shots at BS3 at strength 10 at 48" just is not "meh", especially for the bugs. Then you get the close support fire that the tyranofex offers if the enemy do get close (or you get close to them).

How so, you're paying 250pts for 1 S10 hit per/turn. Each one still has to penetrate and then land a meaningful blow on the vehicle damage chart. If you want Strength 10, go for Zoanthropes, they even come with AP1 and Lance. Plus they get a 3+ invuln.

Mysticdog wrote:The fex dies in like 1 of 8 games for me, and that was to lysander in two rounds with no support left. He is always the last to die, and he can clean up whatever is left on the table.

That's because no-one shoots at it because it is universally recognised as a bad unit. There is a reason why I have never seen anyone use a Tyrannofex at tournaments.