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So I broke down and bought the codex and Tyranid swarm box to start, but now I need to cool down my spending a hair. I know the swarm is not enough to make an army, but does anyone have suggestions a to my next several purchases?

A Hive Tyrant built with wings (Flyrant) is an excellent choice for an HQ. Since you got the Swarm box, you should have 30 Termagaunts which would allow you to use a Tervigon as a troop choice. Venomthropes and Zoanthropes are also solid choice for your elite slot.

Fast Attack will very a bit, but I'm a fan of the Crone (S8 Vector Strike, 4 TL missles against flyers). Heavy Support...take your pick! Carnifexes are awesome, Mawlocks and Biovores are solid choices as well.

CTBowes6 wrote:
So I broke down and bought the codex and Tyranid swarm box to start, but now I need to cool down my spending a hair. I know the swarm is not enough to make an army, but does anyone have suggestions a to my next several purchases?

I posted to a differant thread, but my advice is basicly the same...Swarm Box (check) Hive Tyrant, and a box of Warriors.

That lets you run up to the 1200s or so, and you can get a feel for what sort of list works for you. Almost any list you end up with will use Venothrope(s), and Zoanthropes, so grab them when you see them on sale, or if you have spare cash. If you like the Nidzilla, more Carnifexen are never going to be a bad purchase.

If you want to go "Winged Death", then more Gargoyles, followed by Flying monsters, is where you'll go. I'd say that a Tervigon is a likely good purchase, but not a "must have". (check e-bay?)

Good luck, and welcome to the hive!

Venomthrope you will unlikely be using more (or less) than 1 every list, you definitely want 1 eventually but its fairly expensive to just buy 1 and only takes up 45 points, does not do much for fattening out your first list. Zoanthropes are the same story, except they are far less useful than Venomthropes.

Flyrant is a great suggestion. Even getting two of these is probably a great start. Thats just under 500 points spent on one of the better units in your army and you are only 2 models deep.

Now is a good time to grab the Venomthrope, but Crones, Warrior Squads, Carnifexes and an Exocrine are also great ways to beef up the list. Tyrannofex deserves a mention as well.

First off, what is your play style? What kind of player are you? Anyone can tell you what to buy,
but if it's no fun for you, what is the point then?

Are you a shooty or assaulty player? A horde or small Elite or Monstrous Creature player?
Maybe a combination of all of them?

Do you play for fun? Do you need to win with plastic toy soldiers? Do you plan on playing
at tournament? Do you want to play fluffy lists? How about data slates? Does your playgroup
let you use them? Is money an issue for you? Do you want brand new or buy used?

First let us know what kind of player you are, and then we can help you.

WOW davor, talk about overthinking it lol.... he likely doesn't know the answer to any of this being that its his first army.... its pretty clear from the original post that hes looking for a cost effective way to fill out an army without wasting money on crappy purchases / units. When he actually starts playing he will be able to work out how he wants to build a list for himself, if he knew that now he wouldn't be making this thread.

Davor does have a large point though, i spoke the same way when i hear people starting an Ork army (not so much Tau since its more model pref than style lol). The way you play them is purely on what you like to do, not whats awesome. Whats awesome has a factor obviously but nowhere near as big as most races like CSM.

While i dont know squat about the new tyranids, i do know the hive tyrant with wings is still very nasty, just not as OMGWTF strong as it was before since it lost Iron Arm capabilities.

Flyrant is really the next thing you're going to want to buy. You need another HQ. You've got one in the swarm box, but the Carnifex in the swarm box doesn't provide synapse.

A flying hive tyrant running two twin linked devourers is the strongest HQ we have in the codex. You don't get twin linked devourers in the box, so either you buy them from forgeworld ($$$) or kitbash

Synapse is pretty important, but some models (genestealers for example) don't have to be in synapse and some others (lictors, for example) have a fairly high leadership (10), so you can risk them being out of synapse and still be able to do some damage.

You're probably going to want to pick up some other synapse creatures to run some decent army lists since you have the swarm box already.

So that leaves you with the following choices: Tervigons, warriors/'nid prime/shrikes, trygon prime, zooanthropes.

The warrior box gives you the option to make the warriors/tyranid prime/shrikes. (To get the shrike wings you'd have to go to forgeworld).
Warriors are beefy troop choices, which means they may survive longer to score in games and still provide synapse.
A 'nid prime is a cheap HQ for small games, but I'll defer to more experienced players on that one.
Shrikes are FA and are a lot like warriors, but not quite as tough in general.

I have yet to play with a trygon prime yet, so I can't really give you any advice on that.

Zooanthropes are psykers, and are great at providing synapse wherever (Love that 3 up invul), helping you take out vehicles, and can blast, along with whatever other psychic power you rolled.

Tervigons. Babymakers. You can either take it as a troop choice or run it as an HQ.
I haven't run one yet since I don't have enough gaunts to even try running one as a proxy.

So I'd suggest something from this list.

Venomthropes are really really useful, and you're going to want at least one, but I'd suggest you get at least a couple more units worth of synapse first. You don't want all your synapse in a couple of models, then get those shot up, and have your army running around in IB.

Another army.

Thanks for the responses everyone. It was all useful thoughts. I apologize for being vague in the original post, I am only beginning to learn the complexity of this game. I'm also still learning the lore of the hive and figuring out which way I want to take this. I actually participated in my first game today and am beginning to understand the rules. It's not that I don't want to spend money on the hobby but it all adds and my budget can only take so much at a time.

I figured the codex and swarm were good first purchases and somewhere to start. And after seeing your responses the next step is a Flyrant. I also really enjoy the look of the Mawlocs, but am have hear mixed opinions about how they play. I'm still learning alot of the tactics for how the whole faction plays.

Another thing I'm wondering about is paint scheme. I want a universal theme but painting 40+ identical minis seems pretty daunting. Does anyone have any variation and what does it look on the battle field.

Any opinions will be appreciate.

Thanks guys.

CTBowes6 wrote:
Thanks for the responses everyone. It was all useful thoughts. I apologize for being vague in the original post, I am only beginning to learn the complexity of this game. I'm also still learning the lore of the hive and figuring out which way I want to take this. I actually participated in my first game today and am beginning to understand the rules. It's not that I don't want to spend money on the hobby but it all adds and my budget can only take so much at a time.

I figured the codex and swarm were good first purchases and somewhere to start. And after seeing your responses the next step is a Flyrant. I also really enjoy the look of the Mawlocs, but am have hear mixed opinions about how they play. I'm still learning alot of the tactics for how the whole faction plays.

Another thing I'm wondering about is paint scheme. I want a universal theme but painting 40+ identical minis seems pretty daunting. Does anyone have any variation and what does it look on the battle field.

Any opinions will be appreciate.

Thanks guys.

Personally I like Mawloc, but it is a "love her, or Hate her" model. I run Mawloc, Tyranofex, and a trygon Prime as my "base" Heavy slots.

But Dakkafexen totally Rawk, as you'll find,

The most basic, "Looks good, but takes little time" solution is primer in White, Dry brush a Color, then Inkwash. For example if you drybrush Dark Green, or say Yellow, you can inkwash green, and have a nice "organic" looking model. And you can do units lightning fast. That matters a lot with a "swarm" army. If you end up going "Nidzilla" then it matters less. Because you'll be painting Big Bugs, and its fun to add more details

Whatever you choose pick out a Hormie to use for test painting, maybe two. You totally want to test out before you go to town on a unit

I also suggest looking over in the painting area of Dakka. A slightly slower, style is Primer White, paint a strong color for the heavy Chiton, then inkwash Brown (or Black) many of the examples in the codex use a method like this.

CTBowes6 wrote:
Thanks for the responses everyone. It was all useful thoughts. I apologize for being vague in the original post, I am only beginning to learn the complexity of this game. I'm also still learning the lore of the hive and figuring out which way I want to take this. I actually participated in my first game today and am beginning to understand the rules. It's not that I don't want to spend money on the hobby but it all adds and my budget can only take so much at a time.

I figured the codex and swarm were good first purchases and somewhere to start. And after seeing your responses the next step is a Flyrant. I also really enjoy the look of the Mawlocs, but am have hear mixed opinions about how they play. I'm still learning alot of the tactics for how the whole faction plays.

The swarm box is an awesome deal. You are basically getting the Carnifex and Gargoyles for free. Game wise for the Mawloc, it's a mixed bag. Lot of people are not having much luck with them, or it doesn't Kill it's points back. Problem with this thinking is, you don't need to make your points back in 40K. A 1 point unit can kill 1000 points and you still loose the game. A 1000 point unit may kill 1 point, and you can still win the game. You have to think of the OBJECTIVE of what game you are playing. While expensive, that Mawloc may not kill anything, die right away, but you still win the game because that Mawloc may have DISTRACTED the fire away from your troops and other Monstrous Creatures for a turn or so, and hence you may win the game. All depends on how you use him.

Another thing I'm wondering about is paint scheme. I want a universal theme but painting 40+ identical minis seems pretty daunting. Does anyone have any variation and what does it look on the battle field.

Any opinions will be appreciate.

Thanks guys.

I hate, and I mean HATE painting my haunts. Someone told me this and it seems to work. Paint 5 or10 gaunts. Some say paint 10. Once you do this, treat yourself to a bigger mini. Say a Warrior or the Carnifex. Then paint 10 more gaunts. Paint a Mawloc to Hive Tyrant. Paint another 10 gaunts. Rinse and repeat. Makes painting the gaunts less daunting.

Here is what my gaunts look like on the battlefield after doing what I suggested.

 Chumbalaya wrote:
Another army.

That's step 3 on the road to damnation... Let's not overwhelm him quite yet.

As far as painting gaunts: After 100, my secret is:

1. Prime it in your base color using a spray can. Army Painter has some great selections.
2. Paint the chitin - 10 or so at a time
3. Edge the chitin - 10 or so.
4. Dip (or slather on) a shade. Typically Earthshade or similar.
5. Move onto something else, come back when the grey plastic is bothering me again..

Thanks for the advice again everyone. Nice to be part of such an active community. My next question as I await my boxes arrival is how should I build my first 750 point list of Tyranids. I think this is a pretty solid goal for the next time I get together with my group. I don't even know where to begin list wise as I am still becoming familiar with the meta. I would prefer to be effective against necrons, imperial guard and space marines as those are my possible opponents.

Hmmm... of the top of my head, assuming you got the swarm,tyrant, and Warriors...


Winged Dakka'rant 230

Termigant Brood x15 60
Termigant Brood x15 60
Hormigant Brood x15 75
Warrior Brood: x3, x2 Deathspitters,Cannon 110

Dakkafex (TL: Brain Leeches, x2 ) 150

Gargoyles x10 60

Thats what...745? Find a 5 point upgrade, or add one Hormie...or drop one, and add a 10 point upgrade.