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Hi everyone,

Gary here. I have just started my adventure into tyranids!

I sold my old space marines stuff, and bought a bundle of Nid NIB stuff, heres what I have so far

Flyrant
24 Termagants
12 Hormagaunts
3 Warriors
3 Raveners
1 Carnifex
1 Haruspex
1 Hive Crone
1 Tyrranocyte
3 Hive guard

All this is currently unbuilt, and ready to pop out of the box!

I wonder if some of you guys could me decide, what else do I need? I do not want to play competitively, but I want my army to not fall apart straight away.

I guess I need more synapse?

I was thinking of potentially picking up a swarm box for more little guys, and a tervigon, because I think its the coolest model in the Nid army.


Thoughts and help appreciated!

What you need to buy first is 2 flyrants.

Why?

Because all tyranid lists play with 3 or 4 tyrants.

Flyrants are the workhorse of the Tyranid army. They do most of the work and put out the most damage. It's one of the best units in the entire game in the sense that it can do well above average at nearly everything. But that isn't the only thing you need.

You do need more Synapse. Zoanthropes are the usual source and add more Psychic Levels. Psychic powers are the lifeblood of average Tyranid lists in my experience. If you don't spam Flyrants, psychic buffs help out so much.

Next is Shrouding. Something to hide your Crone and Flyrants before they take off and something to give your walking bugs some protection. If you want a Tervigon then yes, by all means, get a 30 strong brood and make her a Troop. That's not a bad idea at all.

Finally, you need some damage dealers. Mawlocs or the Living Artillery Node Formation are the common choices. Mawlocs are the competitive option and LAN used to the a popular choice before we got the Leviathan Campaign Supplement.

Unfortunately, the Nids have been in a pretty sorry state since their fifth edition codex. Most of the units are horridly useless. As such, the competitive list is 3-5 Flyrants and remaining points thrown at whatever else (it is largely irrelevant). The Nid Warlord traits are worthless, and most of the Psyker powers are pretty unremarkable too.

Gaunts are OK, but do not expect them to kill anything. Warriors are pretty well rubbish, not able to kill anything and super-fragile. Raveners are worse than Warriors! The Haruspex serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

Hive Guard are decent, and fill a unique niche in the army, but BS3 makes them unreliable at their core role. A Dakkafex (Carnifex with two twin-linked Devourers) is actually pretty good. The only problem is that he is too slow, but a Tyrranocite (Tyranid Drop Pod) solves that problem. Alternatively, for the same points you could just take another Flyrant, which is better. A Hive Crone is not bad, but for a few more points you could take another Flyrant (which is, again, better).

Thanks for all the help so far guys, remember that I do not want to play competitively, but rather narrative games and campaigns.

For narrative games, definitely a Tervigon and plenty more Termagants. You need a 30 Termagant squad to take that Tervigon as Troops (which you want to do!) and need more Fleshborer Termagants on the side for the Tervigon to spawn (I have 64 Termagants, of different weapon setups, and feel like I need a few more). Possibly more Hormagants too, so you can run two squads as a screen for the rest of your army (I have 32 of these).

You will definitely need more Synapse. Zoanthropes and Warriors are the easiest way to get coverage, but they are fragile, high-priority targets and tend to contribute very little themselves. Venomthropes help your whole force by improving everyone's cover saves.

The units you likely want on hand:
HQ: Flyrants
Elites: Hive Guard, Venomthropes, Zoanthropes.
Troops: Hormagants, Termagants, Warriors.
Fast Attack: Gargoyles (maybe), Hive Crone
Heavy Support: Biovores, Carnifex, Mawloc

garyashbolt wrote:
Hi everyone,

Gary here. I have just started my adventure into tyranids!

I sold my old space marines stuff, and bought a bundle of Nid NIB stuff, heres what I have so far

Flyrant
24 Termagants
12 Hormagaunts
3 Warriors
3 Raveners
1 Carnifex
1 Haruspex
1 Hive Crone
1 Tyrranocyte
3 Hive guard

All this is currently unbuilt, and ready to pop out of the box!

I wonder if some of you guys could me decide, what else do I need? I do not want to play competitively, but I want my army to not fall apart straight away.

I guess I need more synapse?

I was thinking of potentially picking up a swarm box for more little guys, and a tervigon, because I think its the coolest model in the Nid army.


Thoughts and help appreciated!

Yeah, more Synapse, and some Shrouding will be major upgrades. If you get the 3 thrones in a box, you can build one Zoanthrope, and two Venothropes. A second Winged Tyrant is something to obtain when you can.

Good luck! And welcome to the Hive Mind!

thank you very much for the reply! and the welcome to the Hive Mind!

I think your idea about splitting a box of Thropes is great, didnt think of that. Ill pick one up for sure.

What form should my "more synapse" come in? warriors? i cant figure it out

While I don't think you should spam Flying Hive Tyrants, especially if you're not worried about being "competitive", it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick one up. The walking variant can work well too if supported by those hive guard you already have.

I will also echo the recommendation for Zoanthropes.

garyashbolt wrote:
Thanks for all the help so far guys, remember that I do not want to play competitively, but rather narrative games and campaigns.

Right, the problem with that is that Tyranids are either horrible or competitive, not much in between the two. Take the amount of Flyrants you need to make it so you have a chance to win while your opponents still have fun and you have a good place to start. Everything except Flyrants is going to be mediocre so your army will likely be based around them entirely if you want to have any fun.

I run almost exclusively Walkrants because my meta is very friendly and fluffy and while I still win plenty with my bugs it is so frustrating playing them because my opponent gets to choose every engagement because Tyranids lack decent speed units. They will pick their targets, shoot them off the board, and work their way down the list of priorities until all you are left with is the least threatening units. This doesn't mean you can't win but it does make the game horrible predictable once people start to get to know Tyranids in your meta.

I love my Toxicrene but do you know how many times I have ever got it into close combat? Never. I have never had the thing survive the fire that is directed at it to get across the board, I still take it every single game because people are afraid of it and focus a lot of fire at it. But that means that what I end up with to kill them is the awful Haruspex, which I only take because I love how the paint job turned out on the beast.

Flyrants don't have this problem. They start doing their job turn one and don't stop until they die, which is a lot harder than you might think.

Thanks, and i appreciate your input, do you think that my nids will be "terrible" if its a narrative campaign? with special rules, an interesting story, and a lot of energy put in?

garyashbolt wrote:
Thanks, and i appreciate your input, do you think that my nids will be "terrible" if its a narrative campaign? with special rules, an interesting story, and a lot of energy put in?

Nah man. As long as you like the look of the units and the way they play on the board, you should be fine.

You should redigine fine. Because a walking tyranids list out of the models he has, can be beaten even by IG.
IMO 2 dakka tyrants are a minimum. how is he suppose to have synaps without flying tyrants anyway. Everything on the ground dies too fast.

Makumba wrote:
how is he suppose to have synaps without flying tyrants anyway. Everything on the ground dies too fast.

Walkrant with three Tyrant Guard. Ground synapse that is not going anywhere soon. It is also not going to do much of anything because it is too slow and lacks decent dakka, but your opponent will probably just wipe out the rest of your list and leave that unit in the too-much effort basket

garyashbolt wrote:
thank you very much for the reply! and the welcome to the Hive Mind!

I think your idea about splitting a box of Thropes is great, didnt think of that. Ill pick one up for sure.

What form should my "more synapse" come in? warriors? i cant figure it out

Well, if you add a Zoey, and a Brood of Warriors, that adds two fairly durable sources. Then when you feel like it buy a Box of Termagant, and a Tervigon (or the Wrath of the Hive Mind box...)

A basic "template" for a strong force would be:

HQ: Winged Tyrant
HQ: one more ! You can park a Tervigon here till you get enough Termagants

Elite: Zoey
Elite: Veno
Elite: Veno

Troops Hormagaunts, x10 to 15
Troops as above

Heavies, as many as you can add

Once you have about 50 to 60 Termagants you can run a Tervigon as Troops (add Hive Commander to Outflank it) with two Winged Tyrants, you can fight anybody with a chance, but likely get skunked at a Tourney.

So it would look something like:

HQ: Winged Dakka'rant, Thorax hive: Electro bugs
HQ: as above 480 for both, 500 with Hive Commander

Troops: Termagant Brood, x30 120
Troops: Tervigon, Thorax Hive 205
Troops: Hormagaunt Brood, x15 75
Troops: Warrior Brood, x3, Cannon (Strangle) 100
400 for Troops
Elite: Zoey
Elite: Veno
Elite: Veno
140 for Elites
Heavy: Dakkafex 150
Heavy: Mawloc 140
Heavy: Mawloc, or Dakkafex...?

This gives you a force that can fight anyone, and has decent Synapse, and Shrouding.

I also like Tyrannofex: Acid Spray, Thorax : Electro bugs if you add Adrenal Glands it runs 200

To go to higher points I'd suggest a Formation. I like Living Artillery, and SkyTyrant quite a bit.

A venomthrope or two would be valuable with your force.

Thanks for all of the replies guys. Very Helpful!

I have basically got the decision down to two options, I do not have the budget to get both

A) Tervigon + Swarm Box (40 gaunts, 40 gants, 10 gargoyles, carnfifex+ rippers)

B) more synapse, Warriors, Thropes, Trygon prime


At the moment I leaning towards A for sure, just because it has a ton more models, although it might not be the most competitive

thoughts?

You may want to look into either the FW Twin-linked Devourers for your Flyrant(s) or customize your own. Most Nid players I know say that the TL Devourers are basically an auto-include on a Flyrant.

You *need* the Synapse. Playing with only one Flyrant and one unit of Warriors is not merely uncompetitive, but completely unplayable. Once that single unit of Warriors dies (turn one, almost guaranteed), half your army will either run away or eat themselves. You need a lot of Synapse units, almost as a tax, to keep the bulk of your swam under your control (all other armies get that 'ability' for free).

The Flyrant, if flying, will be forced to keep moving around the table, so I would use him only as back-up Synapse, not the core of your hub. If you have a bunch of units relying on him, they will likely end up out of Synapse range by turn three.

That said, the Swarm Box *does* give you a solid base of a fluffy Nid army and is hard to pass up. Depending on your budget, you could either get the Tervigon for a single, sturdy Synapse unit, or both some Zoanthropes and Warriors to give you more of a spread across your swarm. That Trygon Prime is not worth the money (and probably 60-70 points over-costed for what it brings).

There is also a Wrath of the Hive Mind box that might be good for you.

For Zoey, plus Veno there is a three thropes in a box that can be built either way.( I recommend two venos)

I've just started a narrative campaign, Imperial Fists vs. Tyranids, to teach my friend how to play 7th edition (he played Marines).

We started at 500pts with a mission where he had to investigate each objective (6) in ruins, one of the objectives (randomly determined, and known to the tyranid player) is the 'last stand' of a PDF unit (has survivors). The marine player has to 'interrogate' the survivors (by moving his captain to that objective) then escape off the board.

Forces:
Imperial Fists
Captain (artificer armour, bolt pistol, chainsword).
Tactical Squad (9) - Sgt (bp, cs), flamer, heavy bolter - rhino
Tactical Squad (9) - Sgt (bp,cs), meltagun, missile launcher - rhino
For the purposes of this game, the captain takes up no room on a rhino. Let's say he's hanging out the top hatch bellowing orders
Both marine squads are combat-squadded and start embarked on the APCs


Tyranids
Tyranid Prime - deathspitter, rending claws, fleshhooks
3 Tyranid warriors - deathspitter, rending claws

12 hormagaunts
10 hormagaunts
5 genestealers
5 genestealers

victory points:
Reveal last stand: 1VP
Interrogate Survivors: 2VP
Escape with Survivors: 3VP
Slay the Warlord: 1VP
Tyranids:
Each unit destroyed: 1VP
Slay the Warlord: 3VP
(nb these probably need adjusting...)

In the end, Tyranids won the game (1VP)... because the new player forgot what his mission was and focussed on shooting the crap out of the Nids. Still, it was quite fun. The Marines made an inordinate amount of saves, and once again I was reminded just how gak genestealers and especially gaunts actually are (even if they make it into combat, given how much terrain we always run they are usually striking last, so hitting on 4+, wounding on 5+, saves on 3+... they aren't killy enough).

I love my Mawlocs and Trygons. For story-based games, they are very interesting. Really, from a story perspective, TONS of the Tyranids are very interesting, and having a little bit of everything gives you the sense that it's this big super-organism that's coming for your opponent.

My suggestion though for not falling apart is to get a second Tyrant (even if it's not a Flyrant), just because it's so important. Unfortunately, outside Flyrants, Tyrants aren't very good with middling shooting capabilities, no extra speed, and limited survivability. Optionally, a second squad of Zoanthropes can help cover your psychic needs, and a Trygon Prime opens up some interesting possibilities.

I love Tervions. LOVE THEM. The idea of a swarm that gets bigger as it gets closer is just so wonderful to me. Unfortuantely, I would suggest avoiding the Tervigons except for use as HQ choices. They're insanely expensive to take as a Troop, and when they die they'll take out all nearby Termagaunts too - making them a real liability. Add to this that Tervigons often only make more gaunts a single time during the game, and they just don't feel worth the investment. Maybe next edition though...