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Looking to start tyranids and was wondering the pros and cons of horde v.s. nidzilla lists, both financially and tactically. I'll have 300$ to start things out and was thinking of getting either a couple of tyranid swarm boxes (FLGS has a 20% off everything, all the time, allowing those to fit into my budget) Or i could buy a bunch of TMC seperately. I have no preference, as long as i can crush a unit of plague marines + pimped out chaos lord. Because my infantry guard are having a more than rough time with that unit. Thanks!

 lakemacleod wrote:
Looking to start tyranids and was wondering the pros and cons of horde v.s. nidzilla lists, both financially and tactically. I'll have 300$ to start things out and was thinking of getting either a couple of tyranid swarm boxes (FLGS has a 20% off everything, all the time, allowing those to fit into my budget) Or i could buy a bunch of TMC seperately. I have no preference, as long as i can crush a unit of plague marines + pimped out chaos lord. Because my infantry guard are having a more than rough time with that unit. Thanks!

For HQ choices you are pretty limited. Flying Hive Tyrants are better than all of the other options by a mile.

My suggestion, get one of the swarm boxes and a Flying Hive Tyrant. Most of the swarm boxes are pretty light on synapse. So you'll need yourself Zoenthropes or Warriors or possibly a Tervigon. Lastly you need something to keep your army alive. That means Venomthropes (2 probably).

That should get you going for around $300. It isn't a competitive list (Tyranid Competitive list = Hive Tyrant Spam), but it is a decent way to start. If you play more EW, focus on Termagants. If you play more Maelstrom focus on Hormagants.

Have you seen Miniwargaming's batreps? One of the guys there makes Nids look pretty awesome. A couple FMCs, zoanthropes, and a couple blocks of termagants.

Yeah, if you get the Swarm box, and a Tyrant you have a lot of Nid powa! And you can play at 500, 750, to 1000 to get a feel for what style fits you.

The box of three 'Thropes will add some much needed "Force Multipliers", I painted them up as one Zoanthrope, and two Venothropes....

Then when you want a bigger force you can add a second Tyrant, and some Big Bugs in the Heavy slot, or go for more hoard members.

For Big Bugs, most any will do well. Mawlocs, Carnifexen, and Tyrannofexen all do very well.

Good luck! And welcome to the Hive Mind!

pinecone77 wrote:
Yeah, if you get the Swarm box, and a Tyrant you have a lot of Nid powa! And you can play at 500, 750, to 1000 to get a feel for what style fits you.

The box of three 'Thropes will add some much needed "Force Multipliers", I painted them up as one Zoanthrope, and two Venothropes....

Then when you want a bigger force you can add a second Tyrant, and some Big Bugs in the Heavy slot, or go for more hoard members.

For Big Bugs, most any will do well. Mawlocs, Carnifexen, and Tyrannofexen all do very well.

Good luck! And welcome to the Hive Mind!

This is great advice. The worst thing new players do is rush in to an army and buy a ton of models, only to realize 2 months later that they want to do a completely different play style with the army and half their models don't fit that style. Best starting option is the swarm box and a tyrant. Then see how it goes.

Sweet! Thanks for the feedback guys!