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I have searched the threads and have found nothing related to my questions. Unless I haven't looked deep enough and the threads I'm looking for are very old.

According to the chart I can have a second HQ unit, but I have run into some confusion with it.

If I have an HQ unit consisting of a Hive Tyrant and 1 to 3 Tyrant Guards, do the Tyrant Guards count as taking up the second (optional) HQ slot on the FOC, or can I setup another HQ unit consisting of a Tyranid Prime and 1 to 3 Venomthropes? Or would that be considered having 3 HQ's since the Tyrant Guards are on the HQ list in the codex? Or do the Tyrant Guards not actually fill the role of an HQ and are considered to be Elites alongside the Hive Guard?

If I have an HQ unit consisting of the said Tyranid Prime and Venomthropes, do the Venomthropes take up an Elite slot on the FOC? Or do I still have 3 Elite slots to fill?

The codex will tell you what slot your units take up. If it doesn't say in the unit entry "the hive guard with the tyrant take the 2nd HQ slot" then it doesn't. So on and so forth.

Page 94 of the Tyranid codex explicitly states that Tyrant Guard do not take up a slot.

Joining ICs to a unit during deployment does not change its position in the FOC. Your Venomthropes unit are still Elites.