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So on the tabletop whats the difference between the two? Pretty basic question but I'm not sure which I'd go with (though leaning nids)

Cults have imperial guard as part of their army, and don't have monster creatures and most of the tyranid codex... and have hybrid-human-tyranids as units...

Simplest possible answer on tabletop "feel" of those two armies is:

Genestealer Cults work.

Tyranids do not.

Genestealers cults are an infantry horde army, that plays as an insurgency force.

Units of infantry ambushing out of nowhere and tearing apart an enemy unit, then vanishing back into the shadows. To re-appear later on another part of the field.
Running with that insurgent theme, they can also take goliath trucks, which are basically technicals. Civilian vehicles modified with guns. Alongside a few, more traditional, fighting vehicles they've stolen from the imperial guard.



Tyranids... are perhaps a bit more varied in how they 'could' play, but are a much weaker army overall.

Theoretically they can do an infantry horde. Although in practice their infantry are too weak and easily countered to accomplish much.
Theoretically they can do a monstrous creature, nidzilla army. Although in practice these are too slow and short ranged, and die to any dedicated close combat unit.
You could go with the mid-sized bugs like warriors, but they're expensive and squishy, highly vulnerable to S8 instant death, and lack high strength weapon options.
They have a lot of variation within and between these themes, but it's hard to break away from those weaknesses.

Nids can do a decent flying monstrous creature spam army, but that's about their only real option.

Why is it I always prefer the faction that aren't as effective?
Well thanks, will have to decide now on which to go.

Why choose? You can build a reasonably effective GSC army around a Tyranids CAD with a couple of Flyrants and some Mucolids. It's not the most competitive way to run either army, but "competitive" isn't a word that should be associated with 40k nowadays.

Take both, could work, I'm guessing its possible to take a few Ig units with them such as LRs, Bassies, ect. in with my GSC, supporting my main tryanid force, possibly a part of my 227th regiemnt that had been corrupted. True my Ig army isn't quite effective (couple LRs banewolf, hydra, vulture and some bassies).

You can do both unless it's a money or just want to start small issue. That said, be careful in what you do. With the rumoured 8th edition around the corner (rumoured April to September) anything and everything can change.

Any books can become invalidated or not. While I hate to tell anyone not to buy any books and put minis together just be careful in what you decide. This goes for anything in 40K, not just Tyranids and Genestealers but how Nids were treated before and anything can change what you make now can become invalidated in a new edition and a new codex.

Is magnetizing an option for you? That would be a good way to go with the larger kits.

I've been thinking about using the sneaky infiltratitude of the Genestealer Cult to occupy my opponents forces while the big monsters get into range for a monstrous creature attack. And maybe a squadron of Lemon Russ with Battle Cannons for long range support.

We'll see if it does anything to help the big bugs.

nou wrote:
Simplest possible answer on tabletop "feel" of those two armies is:

Genestealer Cults work.

Tyranids do not.

Flyrant Spam.

A more accurate way of putting it would be -
Genestealer Cults have powerful troops choices.
Tyranids do not.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

nou wrote:
Simplest possible answer on tabletop "feel" of those two armies is:

Genestealer Cults work.

Tyranids do not.

Flyrant Spam.

A more accurate way of putting it would be -
Genestealer Cults have powerful troops choices.
Tyranids do not.

Two unit rinse&repeat build like Flyrant+Mucoludids doesn't exactly fit my definitions of either "working" nor "army". It took me almost a whole year of codex tweaking/rewriting and extensive playtesting to make Tyranids varied, usefull and fun against non-optimized Eldar armies. Genestealer Cults work out-of-the-box in fun, interesting and unique way with at least few different builds/playstyles functionally possible.

nou wrote:
Simplest possible answer on tabletop "feel" of those two armies is:

Genestealer Cults work.

Tyranids do not.

I must be missing something on the Genestealer Cult codex. I recently picked up the book because I had previously bought the Overkill boxset, and my impression is that the codex is pretty weak. Almost like a novelty army or something. The Cult Ambush stuff seems fun but totally unreliable, and when you're infiltrating a bunch of low weapon skill, low toughness, crap armor save stuff, it doesn't seem too scary to me. IMO the best thing about the book is it gives me something to do with my Genestealers by giving them an Invul, and has Leman Russ tanks. But there's only 2 HS options, and notice there are 0 Lord of War options. I just don't think this codex was meant in any way to be competitive, but to be a novelty maybe aimed at people who already had Genestealer Cult models from previous releases.

Maybe I'm wrong; I haven't played with the army yet. You would have to work pretty hard to make a codex as bad as Tyranids.

 jasper76 wrote:

nou wrote:
Simplest possible answer on tabletop "feel" of those two armies is:

Genestealer Cults work.

Tyranids do not.

I must be missing something on the Genestealer Cult codex. I recently picked up the book because I had previously bought the Overkill boxset, and my impression is that the codex is pretty weak. Almost like a novelty army or something. The Cult Ambush stuff seems fun but totally unreliable, and when you're infiltrating a bunch of low weapon skill, low toughness, crap armor save stuff, it doesn't seem too scary to me. IMO the best thing about the book is it gives me something to do with my Genestealers by giving them an Invul, and has Leman Russ tanks. But there's only 2 HS options, and notice there are 0 Lord of War options. I just don't think this codex was meant in any way to be competitive, but to be a novelty maybe aimed at people who already had Genestealer Cult models from previous releases.

Maybe I'm wrong; I haven't played with the army yet. You would have to work pretty hard to make a codex as bad as Tyranids.

GC are not "preplan, point-and-execute" type of force, so definately require play-to-strenghts&think-on-the-fly attitude, but are all about synergies, so it is easy to make those squishy low WS units murderous and durable enough. They may not be top-tier competetive, but they do not struggle to even "barely work".