Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've been lurking this forum for awhile now and recently decided to start playing Nids. I played during 3rd Ed. and recently decided to start playing 40k again and try nids this time around. This is what i have come up with so far.

 

HQ

Flyrant - ( Scything Talons x2, Toxic Miasma, Flesh Hooks, Winged, +1 S ) = 153 Points

ELITES

3 Tyranid Warriors - ( Scything Talons x3, Rending Claws x3, Leaping, Flesh Hooks, +1 I, +1 Save ) = 120 Points

TROOPS

8 Genestealers - ( +1 Save, Flesh Hooks ) = 168 Points

14 Hormagaunts - ( Plain ) = 140 Points

15 Gaunts - ( Spinefists ) = 75 Points

HEAVY SUPPORT

Gun Fex - ( Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler, +1 BS, +1 T ) = 163 Points

Dakkafex - ( TL Devourers x2, +1 BS ) = 113 Points

1 Zoanthrope - ( Warp Blast ) = 65 Points

997 Points

44 Models

wellcome to the swarm.

your HT is set up nice, youll have much fun with it. if you like you can give it an additional warpfiel if someone should field rocket launcher i.e. . optional. some people also go with improved armor only for less points. i think of the +6 extra save as the 6. wound for 10 points as long as your not in cover and they shoot with lascannons . optimistical though :p

warriors are very very fragile. in 1k points they might be usefull, as you are lacking synapse. i think i wound rather go with zoanthropes. they live longer, can be devided and do the same ammount of damage (if you do not give them warp lightning :p). i think the warriors are in because you have the modells due to some "cheap" "all in one" box and therefore are an option for your first games with the army. the CC configuration youre going with is possible the best choice. keep them behind terrain, use them to secure parts of the board and use theire synapse.leep out if they can reach CC without getting shot at.

flesh hooks on the stealers - uhm yea. discussable.

carnifexes look nice.

the zoantrophe - maybe with synapse instead of the warriors. maybe another one.

the next thing i would buy is another HT and 2 guards. HTs are the best unit you can go with. you should think about going gozilla or swarm then. i personaly dont like gozilla. another gunfex comes in handy and will then be enough TMCs for up to 2000 pts. if you only field one the opponent will be able to avoid it with its tanks in many cases. they are slow and they dont shoot that far. think about buying more gaunts if your not going gozilla. spinegaunts and hormagaunts are both very usefull. you cant have enought of them, as with the HTs. you wont be able to paint as many gaunts as you will want to field besides :p. hormagaunts should be used fully upgraded if your facing meq and plain if you expect IG.

dont glue your HTs and Fex`s arms/chest/head/legs with lower body part bevor you did paint them - its a tripp if you do, i tell you

have much fun with your nids - nice choice !

Warriosr being fragile was something I read about but I wanted to do some playtesting and try them out. I also thought they might be better in smaller games but I plan to phase em out in larger ones for another Fex slot. I plan on orienting my list more towards TMC, with a TL Devourer and VC Tyrant w/guards as my next purchase. Also what is the deal with hooks on stealers?

With my HTs and Fex I tend to glue the head to a small base, the legs/lower torso to it's packaged base, the assembled upper torso to a landspeeder base. And all the arms are glued to a portion of a sprue placed on a small base. I prime and paint all the pieces this way. Makes things awhole lot easier.

As it stands now I have 1 Tyrant, 2 Carnifex, 6 Warriors, 2 Zoans, 16 Hormagaunts, 20 Termagaunts, 18 Spinegaunts,  and 18 Genestealers in my inventory. I plan on fielding some Solo Ravener's but I need more feedback on that one.

stealers with hooks : the enemy anti infantry fire will target your warriors, then your stealers. hooks on the stealers make them very expansive. they are allready expansive enough. as they will suffer many losses bevor they reach CC in most games you loose even more points due to the hooks. im not sure if thats the correct rule, but its better to bind enemy troops with hormagaunts or spinegaunts bevor charging with genestealers so the enemy doesnt get his I10 for beeing in cover vs your stealers.im not sure atm if enemy models in cover that have beein in CC from the start of the round still get theire I 10. we used to play without theire advantage for cover. even if thats not the case, stealers are expansive and do not resist anti infantry fire well. they are a main target. therefor you should keep them as cheap as possible. to get more fire off your genestealers its also an option to fully pimp your hormagaunts (without armor). as they will be very fragile and expansive targets then also. that leads to redundancy leaving the opponent 3 different types of units where none will obviously drop the most points if beeing shot. on the other hand youll get more pimped up units to your enemy while loosing the same ammount of poionts of pimped up units to enemy fire.

thermagaunts are not that much worse then spinegaunts. they shoot better in a similar ration they are more expansive.to check out theire firing effectivness vs T3 and T4 you should take a look at this table
Default.aspx?tabid=93&view=topic&forumid=18&postid=68525
i postet a while ago. the thermagaunt is the one named "gaunt, bks".i would use all the gaunts you have in your army. they are realy cheap wounds with a very high firing/cost efficiency. also thats hard to believe, its true due to theire cheap costs. look at the table for that. mayn wounds are also very wellcome. theire ability to form a line of sight screen while in CC is also very nice.

raveners are more or less hormgaunts if your give them 2xscything talons and genestealers if you give them rending claws. they are not as cost effective as the similar troops are but have the deepstrike ability which you should check out in 1 or 2 games to find out that they will most probably die while deepstriking. they are a fun units that can be used in teams of 1-2 raveners in size. they look very cool i also have 2 of them but use them only because i want some different nice looking models in my army - not for effectivness. maybe take a look at my toughts about them in this artikle
Default.aspx?tabid=93&view=topic&forumid=18&postid=69068
where i try to analyse theire effectivness mathematicaly.

i would realy consider the godzilla list thoughts.its more of fluff and cosmetic and funny for your opponents if you dont play gozilla and maybe a bit more effective if your opponents play medicore armies and/or dont have the money to max out on lascannons.playing godzilla makes the game not that interesting in my eyes, as you focus on T6 wounds only. if the enemy has the number of modells that he is able to max out lascannons (which is just a question of money) this army will be not better then a swarm army would be. the difference is, that a swarm army has the ability to fight fair against people that do not max out on lascannons and also play a mixed style of army that has a bit of everything.on the fluff side your opponents do expect the "bugs" they are fighting against to come on in masses and die in masses. there is simply more fun in the game if your opponent is first of looking at hunderes of little bugs and then sees his own army beeing able to chainssaw, flamer and heavy bolter huge ammounts of them down, while your army is still behaving the way it should and you still have good chances to win.i imagine the hormagaunts or zerglings diing in waves in games like starcraft vs the human tanks when the line of blood is simply slowly crawling closer to the enemy tanks and hes just thinking :"i hope there are not much more ... we will stop them bevor the blood reaches the tracks of the first tank .... oh no ... oh oh oh ...". im not sure if your interested in building a very effective fast to paint army with the intend to win at cost of style or are just playing for fun while also thinking about beeing competetive. i personaly try to buy the best genestealer configuration awaible (i.e. not giving them feeder tendrils) but on the other hand make it look like a swarm, look like the films and books suggested it to make it competetive and funny. some guys i usualy play with have very few lascannons and not the money to buy much more. knowing that i simply do not set up more carnifexes then they will have a good chance to bring down. in the end this hobby lives from the metagame where you model your terrain with little shells, shellholes, blood spread across the floor and so on. its about DAKKADAKKA and not winning by trying to bend the rules to the max or winning by knowing the pool of models the enemy has got and therefor just force him to throw more money into GWs throat to buy the lascannons to have a chance to win.

Well I used this list on 3 different Eldar Armies. Lost the first game but it came down to the Gunfex versus a Wraithlord. The 2nd game was a total massacre, the Tyrant got in behind the enemy and just started clearing the board with the hormies.. When the Gaunts hit the line it was over. The 3rd game went pretty well too. I only lost one Fex, 16 Hormies and 10 Gaunts. Overall the Warriors did well except in the first game. The list seems pretty solid so far.