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I'm looking to get a 500 point tyranid force for an upcoming tournament. I'm troubled by which hq I should bring. I'm loving the swarmlord but afraid of the massive points dump into one model. He seems like an absolute killing machine but how would he stand up against Ghazghkull or Abaddon? Would the flyrant be better? I was seriously leaning towards the swarmlord but if it's agreed that he has no chance of taking out either of those hq's then I may need to rethink my start up force.

500 point army? How about the Tyranid Prime? He is what, 100 or so points, more than 1/2 what the HT/SL would cost you.

So if you going HT/SL might as well go all out, and get 2 or 3 TG as well do go with him.

At 500 a Flyrant with Devourers is BRUTAL. Very few armies will have any ability at all to deal with him. Swarmy is good but not at such low point levels. For future reference however, the Swarmlord will take either Ghazkul or Abbadons lunch money if he has full wounds.

 jifel wrote:
At 500 a Flyrant with Devourers is BRUTAL. Very few armies will have any ability at all to deal with him. Swarmy is good but not at such low point levels. For future reference however, the Swarmlord will take either Ghazkul or Abbadons lunch money if he has full wounds.

Haha I love how you put that. I'm really worried about ghazghull. How can swarmy beat ghazghull so easily with a 2++ for 2 rounds with pk attacks making swarmy use a 4++?

 RavenGuard55 wrote:

 jifel wrote:
At 500 a Flyrant with Devourers is BRUTAL. Very few armies will have any ability at all to deal with him. Swarmy is good but not at such low point levels. For future reference however, the Swarmlord will take either Ghazkul or Abbadons lunch money if he has full wounds.

Haha I love how you put that. I'm really worried about ghazghull. How can swarmy beat ghazghull so easily with a 2++ for 2 rounds with pk attacks making swarmy use a 4++?

Ghaz's waaaugh is a great ability he has, but remember that swarmlord will be using iron arm, warp speed, and/or endurance in some combination. and after ghaz's waaaugh is over, swarmlord will promptly shove all 4 of his bonesabres through that adamantium skull of his, if he hasn't already dispatched him by making that 2++ re-roll successes.

This being a game of dice, that won't happen every time but it's likely. Also bait the ork player into calling his wauugh so they charge an expendable unit of gants before swarmlord moves in to mop up Ghazzy.

The Swarmlord kills whatever it touches, even Abaddon, and Ghazghkull dies after he loses his 2++. The Swarmlord's just far too pricey for 500 points though, I would recommend a Tervigon or a Tyranid Prime for your mandatory HQ. If you really want to win though, a Flyrant with devourers and a Tervigon with 3 psychic powers (with termagants to make it a troops choice) is one of the cheesiest 500 point lists of any army.

A buffed swarmlord can beat any other HQ in the game, with all three biomancy buffs (with at least one from a helpful Zoan, Tyrant, or Gon) he can actually beat GCs like An'ggrath in assault.

With his powers, the Swarmlord can beat Primarchs for a much lower cost, yes, even Horus or Angron. In a death star with a prime and a guard you have a terrible trio of ungodly pain.

Of course 500 pts games are a tad too small as they leave dangerously little for troops. Here a prime, gon, or flyrant are best.

The tourney is supposed to be an annihilate all tourney. Now I'm leaning more towards swarmy. I just found out that's why it wasn't in the original post. I'm thinking swarmy with a tyrant guard and 2 sets of 10 hormagaunts with adrenal glands. That's 500 on the dot. Does that sound competitive at all? Prior to hearing that I was thinking flyrant with tervigon. I've never run a full hand to hand attack army before. Zero flyers are expected as well. And thanks for all the info about the swarmlord. I figured he was a beast but didn't realize he was that powerful.

 RavenGuard55 wrote:
The tourney is supposed to be an annihilate all tourney. Now I'm leaning more towards swarmy. I just found out that's why it wasn't in the original post. I'm thinking swarmy with a tyrant guard and 2 sets of 10 hormagaunts with adrenal glands. That's 500 on the dot. Does that sound competitive at all? Prior to hearing that I was thinking flyrant with tervigon. I've never run a full hand to hand attack army before. Zero flyers are expected as well. And thanks for all the info about the swarmlord. I figured he was a beast but didn't realize he was that powerful.

Well since it's an annihilation tourney you shouldn't be too worried about keeping troops alive to capture objectives, I recommend putting Toxin Sacs on the Hormagaunts rather than Adrenal Glands.

 PrinceRaven wrote:

 RavenGuard55 wrote:
The tourney is supposed to be an annihilate all tourney. Now I'm leaning more towards swarmy. I just found out that's why it wasn't in the original post. I'm thinking swarmy with a tyrant guard and 2 sets of 10 hormagaunts with adrenal glands. That's 500 on the dot. Does that sound competitive at all? Prior to hearing that I was thinking flyrant with tervigon. I've never run a full hand to hand attack army before. Zero flyers are expected as well. And thanks for all the info about the swarmlord. I figured he was a beast but didn't realize he was that powerful.

Well since it's an annihilation tourney you shouldn't be too worried about keeping troops alive to capture objectives, I recommend putting Toxin Sacs on the Hormagaunts rather than Adrenal Glands.

Yeah, hypergaunts for whatever reason cost nearly double despite doing feth all for aurvivabiliy, but not every troop can be as efficient as the Ork boy. So it'll be one or the other and sacs are generally the better biomorph if you can't have both.

----- HQ -------------------------------
1. The Swarmlord

----- Troop ----------------------------
1. Termagant Brood
- 12x Termagant
- 12x Devourer
2. Termagant Brood
- 10x Termagant
- 10x Devourer


This is exactly 500pts. Use the Preferred Enemy buff from the Swarmlord to boost the strongest unit, and if you roll Endurance it will help the gaunts even more.

That's some pretty serious firepower, 66 S4 shots with some of them re-rolling 1's for PE.