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Looking at other armies to expand my horizons a little bit, and there's a lot I like about Tyranids. I don't have the codex, however, and wouldn't know much where to start. Looking at a 500-750 pt starter army. Where do I begin? The "Tyranid Swarm" box looks good, but I have no idea how many points it is, or if it's well rounded for smaller games. thanks for any help!

Tyranid Swarm is a great filler buy - it includes pretty much all the troop choices you would need and even a carnifex. The next great option is the Wrath of The Hive Mind Box (I think?) which includes a few troops choices and two potential HQ choices - Hive Tyrants are a mainstay of competitive players and a great all-around choice really

Hope this helps you.

My list generally include these things
Hive Tyrant
Tervigon - many are opposed to this unit, I like her though and it's more a fluff choice for me - besides that being able to spawn more units is fun
Venomthrope (x2) - these are nearly essential to any good Tyranid list - later on it might be worth it to consider the malanthrope which is a FW unit so check your local meta on this.
and 30x Termagants(mostly so I can take the Tervigon as a troops choice - she can be hard to remove in smaller games)

Next you need synapse - the best units for this I think are Warriors and Zoanthropes - and with the new buff to the zoanthropes they're definitely worth a look.

Hope this helps!

Tyranids have a couple of different build styles, so it would really help if we knew how you wanted to play. Do you want to build a highly competitive build, or a themed one? Are there any particular units that you love/ definitely want in your list? Do you like the idea of a horde of little gribblies, or are the big bugs more your flavor? Any other theme you like? Knowing these will let us help you a lot better.

Either of the starters is a good buy, if you get The Swarm box, you will still need Synapse, so grab a Tyrant ( and a box of Warriors when you can)

How many points (roughly) is the swarm box? I don't have access to the Tyranids codex : /

nscg4149 wrote:
How many points (roughly) is the swarm box? I don't have access to the Tyranids codex : /

About 450? 500 if you upgrade some stuff.

The swarm box is around 500 points. Maybe a little more. You will still need an HQ though, and you will want some form of synapse to babysit the swarm. You can get away with a walking tyrant to accomplish both of these for maximum $ efficiency, but it isn't as good gameplay wise. Most people will run flying tyrants, so you would want either warriors or zoanthropes to babysit the swarm.You could do a 750 point list easily with the swarm box and additional hq and synapse, plus have models left over.