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Hey guys, I'm looking to start 40k with tyranid and wondered where a good place to start was. Not looking for the necessarily cheapest option but the one that sets me up for success where does one start?

Depends on the build you want to go with. Wrath of the Hive Mind is most people's usual starter for them to learn how they want to go forward. But a competitive build for Nids is a template and hasn't changed for a while. Flyrants, Malanthrope, Mawlocs, Mucaloids, Zoanthropes. A Nidzilla list uses pretty much the same, but with Carnifex, Ripper Swarms with Deep Strike and a Living Artillery Node (Biovores, Warriors, Exocrine) and is good enough to hold its own in non-tournament environments. Swarms still use the Flyrants but have more Zoanthropes and some Venomthropes and many many Gaunts. Usually with a Troop Tervigon as well.

My personal suggestion is the Wrath of the Hive Mind box and the Living Artillery Node Formation to get you started. In anything less than the strongest you can build, a LAN can be included for some much needed firepower in a Nid list. And Flyrants. They really are the main force and you'll need atleast two in the skies no matter what you choose to do.

I thought eh wrath of the hive mind wasnt being sold anymore?

I mainly like the bigger bugs so I would recommend:

Flying Hive Tyrants
Mawlocs
Lictors

Then add whatever you want depending on what you like and how competitive the army should be.

All tyranid armies I have ever seen run at least 2 hive tyrants, and all those abouve 750pts run 3. So I would say buying 2-3 hive tyrants is crucial to starting a tyranid army.

I can't say for the internet, since I don't buy Tyranids new since I'm some dirty 3rd Edition Hipster when it comes to Nids, but my local store has Wrath of the Hive Mind sitting pretty on the shelf. Just left there actually. I know that doesn't help any but my point is that they are out there. Don't forget Amazon sometimes has the best deal on older OOP boxes.

Depends on how you want to play.

Competivesih / have fun?

I would personally get/plan to get;

(assuming you want to do monstrous creatures)
2-4x Flyrants (dakka, for real. Dakka + Psychic is hilarious)
1-2 mawlocs ( 6/2 pieplate that hits twice)
3+ lictors (great assault + infiltrate and pheramone trail (no scatter DS for your pods/mawlocs)
1-2 crones (haywire missiles, p good flamer, str 8 vector strike for vehicles / flyers)
1-2 tyrannocytes (drop pods for tyrannofex/toxicrene/whatever) I usually pay the 25 points for 5 blast templates.
1-3 carnifexs (distraction twin linked devourer carnifex's, I usually take 2-3 a squad)
1-4 mucilods (to fill cheap troops plus amazing anti marine unit)
1x tyrannofex (in pod, drop behind enemy lines) take the dual flamers ,1 has haywire)

Swarm (4+ the entire unit comes back to life)
120 gaunts (the more the better)
20-40 gargs (mainly for the formations)
1-3 tervigons (ehh these are hit or miss for me, some people swear by them)
1-2 flyrants (if you dont wanna run terv as hq, good for allied as well/dual cad, dakka is just amazing)
1-3 Venomthropes (provide shroud to gaunts while they move across field)
1-3 Zoanthropes (pychic pew pew)
1-2 tyrannocytes ( these are hit or miss for this army, always fun to drop 20 gaunts + 5x blast templates in someones face. Take 19+ a venomthrope and drop on an objective)
3+ warriors (good synapse)
1-2 boxes of horms (mandatory swarm reqs, im not a huge fan, take the min)
3-6+ ripper swarms (fille out CAD troop choice)

Max out Flying Tyrants, get some mucloid spores for troops, and get Lictors and Mawlocs. It is about the only competitive build.

 targetdg15 wrote:
I thought eh wrath of the hive mind wasnt being sold anymore?

You can still find Wrath of the Hive Mind on ebay. My flgs has a couple copies left as well, so there may be copies available at the nearest flgs.

There's still a lot of great deals on amazon as well.

In the past couple of months I have purchased 2 hive crones, 2 tyranocytes, 2 wrath of the hive mind boxed sets, and 3 mawloks, all at 50% off the GW website MSRP (also free shipping, and no taxes due to 3rd party sales fulfilled by amazon). All new in the box of course. So there are definitely deals out there.

But my favorite purchase for building my Nid army was actually from GW. I bought 6 deathstorm boxed sets and paid for them by selling the BA models on ebay (and the extra copies of the mini rulebook). There's nothing like getting a free army (or at least pretty close to free).

Deathstorm is the greatest deal I have ever gotten from GW, even with the tax.

Good luck, and Welcome to the Hive Mind!