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Evening all,

I've been out of 40k for a long time but, due to my local club running a Tale of Gamers escalation style event, I've been getting back into it. I've decided that I'd like to collect Tyranids - I remember starting and enjoying them back in 3rd edition, but have ended up with next to no models after some brutal selling-off a few years ago. What's a good way to start Tyranids nowadays? I have read that they're one of the lower-tier armies (I'm okay with that), and like the idea of a mixed army in an ideal world - so some squads of small guys, some larger bugs, etc.

At the moment I've got ten Termagaunts and the Start Collecting! box, so good people of Dakka, what's a good next purchase or two?

Thanks!

Ben

I'm also just getting into Tyranids. I was looking at getting the Start Collecting box, the Tyranid Swarm box and the Tervigon Brood box, because they all seemed like really good deals.

The Tyranid Swarm box gets you a Carnifex, 40 Termagants, 40 Hormagants, 10 Gargoyles and four Ripper Swarm bases. The way it's priced you basically pay for the Gants and get everything else for free.

The Tervigon Brood gets you a Tervigon and 12 Termagants for only $2.25 more than a Tervigon by itself.

So those are big purchases, but if you save up they will save you a lot of money in the long run. I'm not sure how effective those units are on the tabletop, but they all appeal to me aesthetically. (Except warriors, for some reason I don't like Warriors.)

They are giving the 'gants away for so cheap, that it makes me wonder if they're going to release some new 'gant models soon. I'm not too worried about it, as it seems like bug monsters will look good together even if they are a little different and if they're different enough they can just represent different broods or something.

I ended up buying a guy's used army, so I won't be needing the Start Collecting box but I still plan to get the Tyranid Swarm box and the Tervigon Brood box to take me up over 2000 points.

Whatever tickles your fancy. The vast majority of the Tyranid codex is trash. Unless you want to spam the hell out of the few decent options available, just go with what you like and accept beforehand you're not going to do very well. If you can do that you can enjoy it. If you go in thinking you can have anywhere close to fair odds with anything but total spam anti-fluff lists, you are setting yourself up for a dire disappointment.

Look up the living artilery node. Its fun and helps cover our 2 big weaknesses. Long range and high ap weapons.

Flyrants are great obviously. Read up on them. If you want your opponent to have fun probably no more than 1 Flyrant for every 1k points in your army.

The Skyblight swarm is probably one of the best Tyranid formations you can get. Respawning objective secured gargoyles, an extra flyrant, and some hive crones and (unfortunately) harpies. The living artillery node isn't that bad either.

Venom/Malanthropes are also quite good, and dakkafexes are at least acceptable if not particularly amazing compared to some of the more ridiculous monstrous and gargantuan creatures going around right now.

The codex is overall pretty weak with a large number of dud units and units that don't do their jobs particularly well or are not well suited to the current meta; or have equivalent in other armies that are just plain better.

Tyrannocytes are pretty good though, and are probably the best way to use Dakkafexes (who are too short ranged and too slow and ultimately too fragile to try footslogging) and the Tyrannocytes themselves don't have half bad shooting either. And if you want to play a mean game in the psychic phase Zoanthropes are one of the most cost efficient means of getting more warp charges in the game. Maleceptors are incredibly, amazingly, and mindbogglingly terrible though (we're talking Pyrovore level bad) so I'd avoid them.

Hive Crones are pretty decent all around and can find their place in most match ups well enough. Harpies are kind of on the bad side but they're not complete trash. I'd avoid Shrikes, Raveners, and Warriors like the plague if I were you though; they're expensive and oh so very squishy. Rippers and Sky slashers are also pretty bad but then I can't think of a single swarm unit in the game that's actually good since scarabs got nerfed (though it's not like there are many swarms period), still with all the S6 in the current meta those toughness three models are going to die in seconds.

Eldar will basically ruin you every time. Even more so than Dark Eldar. Even Eldar guardians are a not insignificant threat to our best armored unit in the Tyrannofex thanks to bladestorm and then there's stuff like Scatterbikes which can pulverize anything in the Tyranid book besides the monstrous creatures, and between the Eldar's cheap access to D-weapons and their abundance of pseudorending in bladestorm and Monofilament they will tear our monstrous creatures to ribbons. And to add insult to injury, the Wraithknight has a largely identical statline to the Tyranid heirodule while being much cheaper and unlike the Heirodule; gets access to the almighty D, the benefits of the great Eldar psychic power tables to buff it and is generally at best comparable to at worst flat out better.

As far as Tyranid Lords of War go; you may as well go for broke with a Heirophant or a Harridan, the Heirodule is simply too overcosted compared to Eldar Wraithknighs or even Imperial/Chaos Knights. I mean, it could be worse; they could be Gorka/Morkanaut level crap for the price they demand but that's not a very high bar to clear.

Swarm box is a decent deal and combined with a 'start collecting' box and you will have all the small models you'll want to paint...

Otherwise as noted the rules are pants on head, but with nice models, coupled with 8th likely out soon, get whatever you like the look of.

And get some greenstuff for the canrifex otherwise the limbs look horrible at the joints but can easily be made to look other than a rubbish fit plastic joint.

Then enjoy them, they are great fun regardless of playing badly, live the dream, then eat it

I've been strongly considering starting Nids too. Swarm box and 'start collecting' boxes synergise very well.

The rules scare me off a bit but I'd just use them in casual games.

Hey, I started nids last year and project is still going strong, aiming for summer tournament. I got first models from another guy, roughly 1500 points and I added some genestealers and termagaunts. My latest addittion are tyranid swarm and box of venomthrope/zoanthropes. I like the idea of building a list starting with little critters and after that adding some big fellows. I am trying to keep my army core simple so that anything major investment does not get hit by a nerf hammer. I am also building a list for Apocalypse sized games, as I found pretty colour scheme (hive fleet Behemoth) and every model that I paint really strikes with its beautiful colour. Strongly recommend reading tactics article about nids.

Exocrine i find is a good addition to any nid list as it brings ap2 shooting on a fairly tough body get it into cover on the first turn and blast away. It always finds a place in my lists.

Where are all the rules and formations? I have the codex and leviathan but seems I am still missing some.

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Where are all the rules and formations? I have the codex and leviathan but seems I am still missing some.

Expensive data slate downloads from Black Library.

If you want to take every bit of cheese available to you to stand up to the big guns (which is actually a very pragmatic thing to do) then this is what the internet generally agrees on what is the best:

Mucolid Spores for Troops and Area Denial

Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything

Zoanthropes for Psychic Goodness

Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything

Carnifexes can be a cheap, non-HQ substitute for the Flyrant. It lacks the higher BS and flying, but can still pack the same number of Devourers for less points. And when in doubt, it still retains it's monstrous profile in close combat (S9 with Smash baby). Plus you aren't a true tyranid player until you own at least one of these.

Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything

Genestealer Cult allies for armor and GOOD Genestealers and the Patriarch (the GSC Stealer has an invul save and closer infiltration range in exchange for less options, but most people run them bare naked anyways so it's win win all around. The Patriarch comes with some pretty good psychic powers and is a total murder machine when properly supported)

Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything

The Endless Swarm formation and Skyblight Formation for bodies to camp objectives and generally annoy your opponents. The spore formation is good too if you'd like some ways of dropping explosive turds on your opponent and have roughly half of them regenerate every round.

Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything

I've heard good things about the Mawloc. It essentially functions as a battle cannon for you. The only problem is that it's risky and sometimes unreliable, as the Mawloc is liable to be killed if it can't nom everything under the template, but the very nature of it requires you to try and nom as much as possible under a template. It also needs to dive back into Deepstrike if I remember. Still though, it can be fairly devastating when the dice work for you.

Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything

Biovores are sometimes overlooked but can be good against horde armies by being cheap area denial.

Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything

Tyrannocytes will make sweet sweet love to your opponent's tender rear by dropping various nasty bits into them. They are expensive (money and point wise) but very much worth it, especially for units that don't have movement modifiers of their own.

Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything

Venomthropes provide great cover for your units, sometimes up to 2+. against non-cover ignoring enemies, your troops might as well be wrapped in the God Emperor's underpants in terms of protection.

And finally, Flyrants with Twin Devourers for everything.

Just note that most of the suggestions above will improve your win percentage by maybe 2-5%. As with all things 40k, the internet tends to greatly exaggerate the usefulness or uselessness of a unit by a hundred fold, so don't be afraid to go against the grain when building your army if you wanna try out something new.

Unless it's the pyrovore. No amount of exaggeration can be applied to how little use that thing has apart from being a distraction.

Is there a iPad version of the collection or do you have to buy each one of the data slates individually?

I love swarm armies myself..

Dakka flyrants a great.. but I find them a bit boring to play with..

Myself I love to take endless swarm (1 warrior, 3 Horm, 2 term) and then a cad with 2 tervigon, 1 termagaunt and 2 Trygon primes.
Then throw in some venomphrope and extorine points permitting

The idea is that the endless swarm duders can repawn on a 4+ and younhave 2 convienant hole up field for them to use. Will admit it isnt the strongest army.. and doesn't have any characters, so no warlord trait (you can choose to take a spawn mine squad and deny your opponet 'Slay the Warlord for some cheese), but this list is fun against death stars as you can bog them down forever and just coat the table with your mans

GodDamUser wrote:
I love swarm armies myself..

Dakka flyrants a great.. but I find them a bit boring to play with..

Myself I love to take endless swarm (1 warrior, 3 Horm, 2 term) and then a cad with 2 tervigon, 1 termagaunt and 2 Trygon primes.
Then throw in some venomphrope and extorine points permitting

The idea is that the endless swarm duders can repawn on a 4+ and younhave 2 convienant hole up field for them to use. Will admit it isnt the strongest army.. and doesn't have any characters, so no warlord trait (you can choose to take a spawn mine squad and deny your opponet 'Slay the Warlord for some cheese), but this list is fun against death stars as you can bog them down forever and just coat the table with your mans

Thats a typo its 3 termagants not 2.

My copy of the Endless Swarm dataslate says 1 unit of Warriors, 3 units of Hormogants, and 2 units of Termagants. I think you were right the first time.

 jasper76 wrote:
My copy of the Endless Swarm dataslate says 1 unit of Warriors, 3 units of Hormogants, and 2 units of Termagants. I think you were right the first time.

The newer combined rules say 3.
http://pro.bols.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/nid-book104.jpg

Edit: This isnt my pic, but my rules says this on my phone.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
My copy of the Endless Swarm dataslate says 1 unit of Warriors, 3 units of Hormogants, and 2 units of Termagants. I think you were right the first time.

The newer combined rules say 3.
http://pro.bols.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/nid-book104.jpg

Edit: This isnt my pic, but my rules says this on my phone.

Weird. I like my copy better, so ill continue to use it

If you go to a tournament they will make you use the correct one tho.

Can you update yours? B.c it should update....

 Amishprn86 wrote:
If you go to a tournament they will make you use the correct one tho.

Can you update yours? B.c it should update....

I don't play tournaments, but I'll check into the update. Thanks

.

 jasper76 wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
If you go to a tournament they will make you use the correct one tho.

Can you update yours? B.c it should update....

I don't play tournaments, but I'll check into the update. Thanks

.

Its not about tournaments tho, its about playing the formations the way it was suppose to be and not a typo. Its only a 50pts difference But still.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
If you go to a tournament they will make you use the correct one tho.

Can you update yours? B.c it should update....

I don't play tournaments, but I'll check into the update. Thanks

.

Its not about tournaments tho, its about playing the formations the way it was suppose to be and not a typo. Its only a 50pts difference But still.

I hear you. I don't want to be that guy.

At the same time, why would you think I the original was a typo? IMO it's more likely that they just decided to change the rules for the formation.

 jasper76 wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
If you go to a tournament they will make you use the correct one tho.

Can you update yours? B.c it should update....

I don't play tournaments, but I'll check into the update. Thanks

.

Its not about tournaments tho, its about playing the formations the way it was suppose to be and not a typo. Its only a 50pts difference But still.

I hear you. I don't want to be that guy.

At the same time, why would you think I the original was a typo? IMO it's more likely that they just decided to change the rules for the formation.

B.c it was fix later (Mine auto updated) and they took the 1st rule set down and place them all together with the fix.

Edit: I wouldnt force you to play with 1/3/3 units if you had the manual rules, sense there was no faq for it. Just letting you know some people might tho. And if someone else has the newer rules reading this they would see it was 1/3/3 instead of 1/2/3 units.

Generally you should play with the most up to date rules.

Otherwise I will show you just how much cheese can be had if I can pick Old One Eye from Third Edition >:3

Yeah I got mine as a ebook.. that had 2, I wonder why they upped it?

Not like you want the termagants at any rate

Probably to make the gaunts even. For me, it gives me an unsatisfactory feeling when two units that are roughly the same have a weird distribution in a formation (i.e: It bothers me like toilet paper stuck up the anus) .

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Probably to make the gaunts even. For me, it gives me an unsatisfactory feeling when two units that are roughly the same have a weird distribution in a formation (i.e: It bothers me like toilet paper stuck up the anus) .

That's fair.. But when you have tervigons and such in horde lists, you kinda need respawning gaunts less...

I take the formation myself because I like the Hormagaunts, in a 15-20man squad with tox sacs they do decent damage.. and are fast enough to move across the board (even quicker with Trygon holes)

But the issue is also similar to the 'Greater Brass Scorpion of Khorne' and the 'Great Brass Scorpion of Khorne'

Both are the same model, same point cost.. Great is the newer rules.. but is different to Greater.. Codex: Khorne Daemon, mentions 'Greater'

'Greater' is also from the Old Apoc books, 'Great' is from Warzone Pandorax

I know he gets a lot of gak, but is there a good way to run the Swarmlord or an on foot Hive Tyrant?

 jreilly89 wrote:
I know he gets a lot of gak, but is there a good way to run the Swarmlord or an on foot Hive Tyrant?

On the ground, the Swarmlord or a walking Tyrant can get good use out of one or more Tyrant Guard for T6 W2 auto-passes on look out sir attempts. I don't have a walking Tyrant, but whenever I run the Swarmlord I stick him with at least 2 Tyrant Guard to soak up wounds, and I send him on errands to kill HQs or other multi-wound models with Instant Death attacks.

Tyrant Guard are expensive though, as is the Swarmlord himself.

The Swarmlord also helps out with reserve rolls if you have them, and gives out some fairly decent buffs to friendly units IIRC.

The thing I also tend to try when running a walking tyrant is to keep a unit of gaunts around him and a venomphrope near by, for that cover save action