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Hi, so I have been playing Tyranid for years on and off due to starting other armies, I have come back to them and decided to fix them up. I have always struggled with deciding what heavy support units to use as they are all pretty good at different jobs. I always played the same enemies and my monstrous creatures always did okay however I want to switch it up and use the best from the slot as we only get 3 in a bound army. Any tips on which are the best at fighting astartes armies and a tonne of toughness 4 and 3+ saves.

Thanks.

I have a preference for a biovore brood and a exocri e. But coupled with a couple lictors mawlocs are probably your best bang for your buck.

Thanks mate, I generally always like to use biovores for cheap large blasts, I was considering a mawloc and lictors as his terminator unit shrugged off my firepower before I charged them but exocrines are really tempting, I shall just get more monstrous creatures and see how my battles go. Thanks again.

Dakka fexes and wrecker fexes are always in my list (a brood of either or both.

Dakka fexes put out 12 S6 shot that are twin linked per fex, backed up by his CC abilities.

Wrecker fexes are usually run with crushing claws, but I run mine with adrenal glands, and maybe a club tail (if points permit). Fleet is invaluable to Carnifexes and even with out the claws, you'll be hitting at S10 anyway. Just don't charge anything with ap3/2 and shred or instant death and you should be golden.

I also love the Exocrine for obvious reasons. He's won 2 games for my this past month.

Biovo results are pretty great, especially in units of 3 with acid blood (as they will likely get charged by T3 or 4. Stick them in good cover and drop big blasts for days.

Never understood the appeal of Mawloc though. For me they always, I mean always underperformed and popping up an inch away from anything with a 2+ armor save seems like an abysmal idea. He could be a good vehicle killer with really lucky rolls on the scatter and pens, but that's not statistically in your favor.

Tyrgons... dont. Just don't. Bad idea all day long.

I like the biovore + exocrine pair the best, with a brood of 3 biovores and two exocrines. I enjoy combining them with devourer 'gaunts and barbed strangler warriors for a 'nid army that puts out a lot of mid range shooting. Very few people expect it and it is a lot of fun. I think dakka-fexes are better, because they are happier against a wider range of targets. Mawlocks have always under preformed for me. People like them because they synergize well with the flyrant spam tournament builds, but even when running flyrants I find them to be too unreliable.

Considering you're specifically facing marines, Mawlocs should be a pretty solid choice. They'll chew up any infantry models with ease, and they can redeploy to help you score.

I've seen people have good luck with biovores hanging out in cover with a venomthrope, but I mostly see this as part of the living artillery formation (which is actually a pretty good excuse to try out biovores AND exocrines).

Personally, I'd love to use mawlocs, but my collection only features carnifexes at the moment. They do pretty okay for their points if you give them brainleech devourers. Adrenal Glands are a good choice to keep you from fumbling important charge rolls. Living battering ram is pretty good at killing marine vehicles, and bioplasma, while not points efficient, is a lot of fun to toss on marines.

The appeal of mawlocs is that they're one of very few ways in the game to directly fling a pie plate onto a close combat, and/or on top of your own models.
Can't think of any others off the top of my head actually. Heard that maybe IG has a formation that allows it?

Tyranids have plenty of cheap garbage units to throw away. So while your gaunts are getting chopped up, they cause the enemy models to all bunch up nice and close together, and then everyone gets fed to the mawloc.
Works nicely with genestealer cult allies too. They have a much easier job getting into combat in time for the mawloc to appear.

Plus mawlocs ignore Invisibility, which is still a nuisance of a psychic power.


Dakkafexes have some decent firepower, but I find them too slow. They don't have the maneuverability or range to hit the soft facings of vehicles. Dedicated CC units often bee-line straight for them, and they'll probably only get a single turn of shooting at those units before they're in combat.
You can put them in a drop pod, but then you're only 5 points short of a flyrant. Which does the same thing, only much better.
Then again I play in a meta with plenty of wraithknights/wraithguard, so in a lot of games walking MCs only exist as D weapon victims. YMMV.


I kinda like the exocrine in theory, but for some reason everytime I take one it's like it has a massive 'SHOOT ME' sign plastered somewhere on it. It rarely survives the first 2 turns.


Biovores are decent. Best taken as units of 1, as you get the same number of spore mines from a scatter regardless of the number of models in the unit.
I find AP4 barrage pie plates are situational, but frequently useful. Scattering off is often more handy, as having a couple of spore mine units floating around the enemy is great for absorbing overwatch.


Trygons of both varieties are complete rubbish. I sometimes use one in demo games so the new players can feel awesome about bringing down this huge beast.


Tyrannofexes I have little experience with. The rupture cannon is a trap, and the fleshborer hive is unimpressive, but I have seen a few people reporting success with acid sprays + drop pods. I'm not sure how they would avoid getting tarpitted in close combat personally, but maybe it's worth a shot.
They are the only thing with a 2+ armour save in the whole codex (other than that silly ymgarl factor artifact which only works every other assault phase). In fact the only other tyranid with a 2+ save is the hierophant bio-titan...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/707734.page

Recent discussion maybe useful OP.

Thanks to everyone who has participated, I will take inti account everything that you lot said as there is some good advice in this thread.