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My tyranid army is only just getting going. But what I had in mind (in the early days of the army at least) was just a massive onslaught of claws and teeth and pain and slaughter, fast attack in the form of ravener broods, carnifexs' smashing into enemy lines etc - and only a few heavy/ranged weapons as support where needed.

I brought the Swarmlord model with the full intent of making The Swarmlord... I like to have the "the main guy" for any army anyway even if they wont get played much. But I thought the swarmlord would work well anyway.

Having gone back to the codex I've complicated things for myself a bit.

Hive tyrants have some nice upgrade options but then come out not far off the SwarmL's points when it's all said and done and it looks like he'd still have the edge in melee anyway.
Which way would you guys go?

Also I hadn't intended to have any winged models in the nid army but having had a closer look, I like the winged models more than I thought.
How do Winged Tyrants stack up in an army with the theme I am looking for? I do kinda like the idea now, of a big flying monster making hit and run attacks and drawing attention while the wall of death proceeds on foot.

Flyarnts have the speed your army is looking for. Typical load out consists of.

Wings: Twin linked dev, 2 powers, toxin sacs if you have the points.

I typically run 2 Tervigons in my HQ slot and 2-3 in my troops slot. You get free troops that score and most missions are objective based now.

Flyrants are fun, but with the Tau having so many intercept/skyfire options I dont think its worth it.

I just got really pissed to find no devourers in the kit so that's kinda killed my flying tyrant love unless I go buying my carnifex way ahead of schedule

Ya i meant brain leech worms. the gun looks basically the same. I put the dakkafex guns on my flyrants only to hate my self for doing so. Dakkafex's are expensive but amazing shock troops if held in reserve and come in either with a trygon (gotta love the tunnel thing) or a spore pod.

The most common loadout you'll find is wings and 2 sets of devourers, possibly with Old Adversary. That being said a walking Hive Tyrant with two sets of devourers, Armoured Shell and Old adversary with a couple of Tyrant Guard is also viable thanks to its durability and the Preferred enemy it can give to nearby Hive Guard and other ranged units. Bonesword and Lash Whip can be good vs high initiative enemies, but a winged Hive Tyrant can usually avoid fights it doesn't want to be a part of and a wakling one can have Tyrant Guard with Lash Whips.

Gray1378 wrote:
Ya i meant brain leech worms. the gun looks basically the same. I put the dakkafex guns on my flyrants only to hate my self for doing so. Dakkafex's are expensive but amazing shock troops if held in reserve and come in either with a trygon (gotta love the tunnel thing) or a spore pod.

I disagree on one point, the Trygon's tunnel. It's terrible and almost never works as you need to have the Trygon arrive first then have whatever is arriving via the tunnel arrive a turn or 2 later; and if it doesn't work your 190 point dakkafex is walking from the board and you'll be lucky if it contributes anything to the battle before turn 5.

 PrinceRaven wrote:

I disagree on one point, the Trygon's tunnel. It's terrible and almost never works as you need to have the Trygon arrive first then have whatever is arriving via the tunnel arrive a turn or 2 later; and if it doesn't work your 190 point dakkafex is walking from the board and you'll be lucky if it contributes anything to the battle before turn 5.

This is something I am crossing my fingers for a **fix** in the next codex. With little control over when reserves enter I always manage to run in to timing issues whenever I have tried to utilise this.



If your looking at higher points games you can run a Flyrant and the Swarmlord. I like SL though usually he doesn't get to hit anything until turn 4/5. Once he gets their though he destroys most units.

As an all-purpose unit I really get a lot out of a Tyrant with Armoured Shell for 2+, twin Devourers and Old Adversary. It's good at everything, provides excellent buffs to nearby units and can put out some really nasty ranged damage. Great when standing next to a Tervigon too, with OA helping to overcome the Tervigon's poor WS (I run my Tervigons with Crushing Claws and tend to be very aggressive with them).

In a world of missiles aiming for Tervigons and power weapons largely being AP3, that Armoured Shell is absolutely fantastic and I don't feel the need to bother with Guard for him.

Ironically, the only thing it suffers from is being overwhelmed by particularly nasty melee units and hardcore melee characters. I've considered re-working it for a Barbed Strangler and Lash Whip/Bonesword combination, but I've not really gotten around to using that in more than a couple of games as proxy.

Depends on the list really. Like these guys have said, Flyrants with Twin-Linked Devourers are popular (and for good reason!). Sometimes though what you want is the Swarmlord. More for the special rules he brings, but as a beefier Hive Tyrant he's not bad either.

FMC are pretty big right now though. Vector Strike is an easy way to deal with enemy Flyers, if you can pass your Grounded Tests in order to Swoop over their Flyer.

cowmonaut wrote:
Depends on the list really. Like these guys have said, Flyrants with Twin-Linked Devourers are popular (and for good reason!). Sometimes though what you want is the Swarmlord. More for the special rules he brings, but as a beefier Hive Tyrant he's not bad either.

FMC are pretty big right now though. Vector Strike is an easy way to deal with enemy Flyers, if you can pass your Grounded Tests in order to Swoop over their Flyer.

Sacrificing one of your shooting attacks with a devourer to Vector Stirke a Flyer is almost always a terrible idea, as 6 shots with a Devourer will hit 4 times on average, while a Vector Strike will only hit 4 times if you roll a 3 on your D3. The only time I would Vector Strike a Flyer is if I think I could take it out with a Vector Strike then be able to fire at something else.

A flyrant is pretty much necessary in a meta with fliers in it for a TAC list, and is good enough on it's own merit to take anyway.

For other tyrant builds, If you want a hard nut to crack, a shellrant+guard deathstar can be a good (but obscenely expensive) buy, especially if you can roll endurance and buy regeneration for something that laughs at the very idea of dying. For that, take a lash whip and bonesword and whatever secondary weapon strikes your fancy, Old adversary renders scything talons pointless so I'd recommend a TL devourer for the second set of arms.

However replacing the armorrant and guard death star with an iron arm+warp speed/endurance Swarmlord is significantly more killy, pretty much just as tough, a good deal cheaper, and has a smaller footprint.

 Kain wrote:
an iron arm+warp speed/endurance Swarmlord is significantly more killy, pretty much just as tough, a good deal cheaper, and has a smaller footprint.

Lol sorry can I get that translated? I'm not up on all the slang and abbreviation stuff
I thought a swarm lord was just a swarm lord, no options?

Iron arm and warp speed are biomancy powers.
Swarmy is allowed to trade all 4 of his powers for 4 rolls on the biomancy table meaning he has a high chance of either of those and an okay chance at both.

How about flying with HVC?

 Xiorell wrote:
How about flying with HVC?

The Heavy Venom Cannon is a terrible gun, if you want a Blast weapon I'd much rather go Stranglethorn due to it being large blast and pinning. That being said, if you're giving it wings, go for devourers to take advantage of Skyfire, a Strangelthorn might work on a slower walking Tyrant though.

 Xiorell wrote:
How about flying with HVC?

The HVC is relatively useless in comparison to the 12 shots you can get out of the 2x TL Devs with BL worms. The weight of fire alone is sure to cause some damage. 12 S6 shots into the back of an enemies flyer and you might just glance it to death.

The done thing seems to be two of these flying dakka flyrants. Though I only have one.

As for the weapon, If you get a tyrannofex/tervigon kit, use the Fleshborer hive from the tyrannofex options as a counts-as twin linked devourer. This is what alot of people do. It's fitting. Looks fairly decent on the flyrant, infact it fits perfectly.

I asked all these questions before I built mine, but I can assure you the build you're being advised about is pretty bad ass.

We know the Hive Tyrant is a machine in melee combat. Make him a flying shooting melee machine of utter doom.

Also take doom of malan'tai!

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Sacrificing one of your shooting attacks with a devourer to Vector Stirke a Flyer is almost always a terrible idea, as 6 shots with a Devourer will hit 4 times on average, while a Vector Strike will only hit 4 times if you roll a 3 on your D3. The only time I would Vector Strike a Flyer is if I think I could take it out with a Vector Strike then be able to fire at something else.

Are Devourer's S 6 on a Hive Tyrant? I thought they were still S 4. You'd have to get behind most Flyers to hurt the AV 10 rear armor, while you can Vector Strike and get the D3+1 S 6 auto-hits on the side (which is either AV11 or AV12).

Not having used a Flyrant personally and only playing against them it seemed people had trouble getting an angle to fire at the rear armor. Could just be the two players I've faced that have used a Flyrant.

cowmonaut wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Sacrificing one of your shooting attacks with a devourer to Vector Stirke a Flyer is almost always a terrible idea, as 6 shots with a Devourer will hit 4 times on average, while a Vector Strike will only hit 4 times if you roll a 3 on your D3. The only time I would Vector Strike a Flyer is if I think I could take it out with a Vector Strike then be able to fire at something else.

Are Devourer's S 6 on a Hive Tyrant? I thought they were still S 4. You'd have to get behind most Flyers to hurt the AV 10 rear armor, while you can Vector Strike and get the D3+1 S 6 auto-hits on the side (which is either AV11 or AV12).

Not having used a Flyrant personally and only playing against them it seemed people had trouble getting an angle to fire at the rear armor. Could just be the two players I've faced that have used a Flyrant.

Yes, they are Strength 6. You look under the "brainleech worms" profile I believe. (S6 AP- Assault 6)
And you're right about getting the angle but as far as I'm aware (do correct me if i'm wrong) they can fire in any direction can't they? Fly past the flyer and shoot it in the back.
Two of those dakka flyrants would have no problem doing so.

 ascended_mike wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Sacrificing one of your shooting attacks with a devourer to Vector Stirke a Flyer is almost always a terrible idea, as 6 shots with a Devourer will hit 4 times on average, while a Vector Strike will only hit 4 times if you roll a 3 on your D3. The only time I would Vector Strike a Flyer is if I think I could take it out with a Vector Strike then be able to fire at something else.

Are Devourer's S 6 on a Hive Tyrant? I thought they were still S 4. You'd have to get behind most Flyers to hurt the AV 10 rear armor, while you can Vector Strike and get the D3+1 S 6 auto-hits on the side (which is either AV11 or AV12).

Not having used a Flyrant personally and only playing against them it seemed people had trouble getting an angle to fire at the rear armor. Could just be the two players I've faced that have used a Flyrant.

Yes, they are Strength 6. You look under the "brainleech worms" profile I believe. (S6 AP- Assault 6)
And you're right about getting the angle but as far as I'm aware (do correct me if i'm wrong) they can fire in any direction can't they? Fly past the flyer and shoot it in the back.
Two of those dakka flyrants would have no problem doing so.

that is correct. FMC's have a 360 degree fire arc on all axis.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PrinceRaven wrote:

 Xiorell wrote:
How about flying with HVC?

The Heavy Venom Cannon is a terrible gun, if you want a Blast weapon I'd much rather go Stranglethorn due to it being large blast and pinning. That being said, if you're giving it wings, go for devourers to take advantage of Skyfire, a Strangelthorn might work on a slower walking Tyrant though.

Stranglethorn is an excellent load out on a walking armored tyrant. SInce it is slow and a fire magnet, you want to start shooting as early as possible. I tend to run stranglethorn+devourers on walkers.

Well I made him a Winged tyrant with twin linked devourers after all.

Used carnifex devourers and stranglethorns to make a twin linked devourer I was happy with for the tyrant, might redo them again once my green stuff skill mature but it passes for now :-)

To be honest, I run much the same thing with my Tyranid army. The thing you must remember with Tyranids, is that upgrades are awesome, but everything comes at a price. Personally, I run off the simple meta that the the cheaper you can run something, the more things you can fit in. When you figure out what works out the best on a point for point basis, you tend to get that feeling of, "This is wonderful, but I get most of this anyway for two thirds the cost!" And then you become that sadistic Tyranid player that starts going through the list, freeing up 50 points here and there, and suddenly you can afford another horde or even a big boy or two. To give you a prime example, I run a pair of melee Tyranid Primes for HQs, and they only cost me 110-120 points apiece, depending on my mood. Compare that to running a pair of 260+ point flyrants.

For what you are after with theme, and general capabilities of that theme, your looking at being able to field large numbers of cheap yet highly capable units. Load out a Hive Tyrant with 2x Scything Talons for rerolls of all missed attacks, give him armored shell, toxin sacs, and adrenal glands, and run Biomancy for a 230pt baddie that will be doing considerable damage to any fragile things in the area. Things like tanks, people, buildings full of people, etc, etc. Just remember, do not use your regular troops to cover it. Run it behind a similarly equipped carnifex for cover, or your going to have some issues if they focus fire on it.

Yes but how does your army deal with fliers?

 Xiorell wrote:
Well I made him a Winged tyrant with twin linked devourers after all.

Used carnifex devourers and stranglethorns to make a twin linked devourer I was happy with for the tyrant, might redo them again once my green stuff skill mature but it passes for now :-)

Those 12 Twin linked S6 shots will prove useful I guarantee it.