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Hi guys, i'm pretty new to 40k (I have a small BA army) & wanted to start a tyranids army.. but i'm pretty poor atm so can't buy a lot of stuff.. What would you guys suggest me get to slowly build up my army? I was thinking hormagaunts? Basically i want 2 troops & maybe a HQ.

Cheers

Tervigons, Termagants, Flyrants, Biovores, Gargoyles, and Hive Guard/Zoanthropes are the current bread and butter of the codex. I'd recommend focusing on the Gons, gants, and Flyrant first before getting Zoans, and then move into other stuff.

Cheers i'll get me some gants

Just pick modle you like the look of, since you can't win games with a Nid army there totaly crap!! The only codex thats worse is the Orks. 6th ed is all about flyer spam and allies and you don't get ether so....

notyorkskargrinironhide wrote:
Just pick modle you like the look of, since you can't win games with a Nid army there totaly crap!! the only codex thats worse is the Orks. 6th ed is all about flyer spam and chees allies and you don't get there so....

The nids aren't the best, nor are the orks, but we're certainly not SOB and Black Templar level bad.

notyorkskargrinironhide wrote:
Just pick modle you like the look of, since you can't win games with a Nid army there totaly crap!! The only codex thats worse is the Orks. 6th ed is all about flyer spam and allies and you don't get ether so....

How does your post contribute? It's not even intelligent sounding. If you are going to tell him not to, you tell him why, cut the rant. Give him the advice he listened to, or gtfo.

Honestly if you can find a battleforce, they are a pretty good bang for the buck. an HQ (use one of the warriors as a prime) and 3 troops is a nice place to get a foothold. and don't listen to Mr. I-don't-understand-attrition-tactics. Tyranids have access to boatloads of psychic powers, acess to t6-9 6W monstrous creatures, as well as having two of the strongest induvidual models in the game, in the form of the Doom and the Swarmlord. For starters though, I still think the battleforce is the easiest way to get started. IIRC it comes with 16 termagants & hormagaunts, a few genestealers, and a few warriors. All of these are viable in all but the most competitive environments. Though getting a hive tyrant is honestly your best bet. It's a beauty of a kit, and all 3 variants it supplies are viable. In fact, now that I think of it, pretty much everything in the book save pyrovores has done me very well so far. So in summary:

-Hive Tyrant: Gets you a solid HQ. Very killy in all 3 variants that come in the box. If you can find another body or 2 on ebay or something, it's easy enough to get a trio of HQ's form a single box, it's what I did.

-Tervigon: Yet another solid HQ. More importantly, it's usually the core of your troops (as long as you have termagants as well). Literally a force multiplier. Buffs your army, itself, and give you more things. Definitely a good choice, though a tad hefty on the wallet.

-Termagants: Can't go wrong with these. In my experience, each of my tervigons averages about 10 gants/turn when I'm pooping them out. So lots of these walking bolt pistols is handy. Once you get your swarm more rounded out, a brood of 20 of these armed with devourers puts out a fearsome amount of firepower. I've yet to meet someone who isn't scared of ~60 shots coming their way. A single box wont get you very far, though if you stick with Nids you'll find yourself getting more and more of these.

-Hormagaunts: A very.... hmm... tempermental? unit. It has 1 job, which is running up fast and hitting things. They do this decently enough. If you have other players in your area who love high toughness enemies, taking poison on these will make them think twice about boldly marching their precious thingies across the board. Overwatch isn't nearly as scary as everyone will lead you to believe, though don't rely on it never dropping a few bodies to bring you out of charge range.

-Gargoyles: Cheap flying bolt pistols that act as an excellent cover screen for your army. A quick hint though, get a bunch of magnets for these, as magnetizing them to their flying bases makes it loads easier to transport then, as well as eleviating the pain of snapping flying bases of inside of models.

-Trygons: My bread and butter. Always take poison, but tbh there's little reason for anything else. Giving them synapse is expensive and leaves them open to challenges (which is good/bad depending on your perspective), Furious charge no longer lets them go before MEQ, and regen is finicky at best, even though I love the crap out of it. Trygon + poison = reroll everything in CC on a 6 attack murdermachine. Watch out for terminators though, dont sent it in by itself against them, especially th/ss

-Hive Guard: Primary ranged anti-armour in your army. Everything but landraiders and monoliths cower before them. and their handy-dandy no cover outside of being in area terrain thing makes many an unaway opponent suffer. Also great at zotting pesky jetbike farseers who think themselves immune because of their JSJ.

Do you want to buy brand new? Then as was said, get the Tyranid battlforce box set. If you can buy used, check out Ebay, Kijji or other sites like that, where you can get a great deal if you are patient and keep looking.

I'd like to mention something about tyranids being non-competative.

There's a local 40k tournament going on. The leader is playing tyranids with the cookie cutter internet list (2 flying dakka tyrants, 2 of the guys who spawn troops, devilgaunts/doom in a pod, some other giant monster) and is 3-0.

My friend is playing tyranids with an incredibly nontraditional list (genestealer spam and all the brood lords take telepathy) and he's 2-1 (he lost to the other tyranid player, and would have won if the game had ended turn 5).

So they're reasonably competitive around here.

Cheers everyone StarHunter25, that's pretty much exactly what i wanted to know i'll try and find a battleforce if i can afford it. Was thinking of buying the 5 pack of gants that GW does, just to get some painting ideas down while i save for the battleforce cheers!

Also don't forget, things can be used as "counts as". Want an all Hormagaunt force, just use your regular gaunts and "count as" them as hormies.

Same goes the other way. Need more termagants, use your hormagants, and genestealers as Termagants.

Just make sure your opponent knows exactly what they are and you don't mix and match them during the game. By that, I mean, these hormagants, are hormagants, those hormagants are termagants. I beleive you should have no problmes with "counts as" with "most" people you should be playing against.

Something else to remember is Hormagaunts and Termagants are basically identical aside from their arms. Hormagaunts just have slightly spikier carapace and more dynamic poses.

If you buy thr Battleforce and decide you don't want to use the Hormagaunts as Hormagaunts, remember that as well as 16 Termagants, you'll have 16 of each of the guns you didn't give your Termagants. So you can really build the 16 Hormagaunts into 16 more Termagants.

I actually pointed out a Battleforce, if you're interested. If you equip them as below, you get roughly 550pts.

Tyranid Prime, Deathspitter, Scything Talons (use a Tyranid Warrior)
Tyranid Prime, Deahtspitter, Scything Talons (use a Tyranid Warrior)
16 Termagants (Fleshborers)
16 Termagants (Devourers)
8 Genestealers

This, however, gives you a spare Tyranid Warrior. If you plan on grabbing a Hive Tyrant as well (you should be), when you get it, just use the Warriors as Warriors with the spare thrown in with Scything Talons and either a Deathspitter or one of the heavy weapons.

notyorkskargrinironhide wrote:
Just pick modle you like the look of, since you can't win games with a Nid army there totaly crap!! The only codex thats worse is the Orks. 6th ed is all about flyer spam and allies and you don't get ether so....

With respect, that doesn't contribute anything to the discussion at hand. Nids may not be widely considered a top tier army but are still excellent in the right hands. (see Jy2).

That aside, as a general principle, it is best not to dismiss things out of hand.

Cheers again everyone everyone's so nice here i'll try and get the battleforce & i was thinking of getting a tervigon as well, and a Hive Tyrant as well, both of these i'll get later on.. cheers guys!