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I can understand why people choose tovplay a lot of factions:
Space marine if you like the super soldier army,
Imperial guard if you prefer the traditional army,
Chaos if you despise the imperium (or your edgy enough),
Eldar if you like a more advanced race,
Necrons if your a bit dead inside,
Tau if your too lazy to move your models once you've deployed,
Orks if your a bit... Well you get the picture.

What makes a person go "Gosh I'd really love to play nids"? Despite the silly start this is a serious question that I am interested in finding an answer for.

You play Tyranids because you've probably watched the Alien movies and also want to drown your foes in mindless, carnivorous beasts, and flip tanks with Carnifexes

Pretty simple

 General Annoyance wrote:
You play Tyranids because you've probably watched the Alien movies and also want to drown your foes in mindless, carnivorous beasts, and flip tanks with Carnifexes

Pretty simple

And then get disappointed?

Love Nids, especially the Mawloc. I always liked the Zerg in Starcraft, and they're pretty much ripped right from Tyranids, so it's a natural fit.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 General Annoyance wrote:
You play Tyranids because you've probably watched the Alien movies and also want to drown your foes in mindless, carnivorous beasts, and flip tanks with Carnifexes

Pretty simple

And then get disappointed?

Why doesn't that prevent your understanding of why people play csm and orks?

Cool models, Aliens (well, Geiger) inspired, interesting background, fun. That's more than enough.

It should be clarified: are you asking from a theme and fluff perspective or are you asking from a rules perspective?

To answer the rules one I think it's apt to then ask why does anyone play any army other than the top-tier meta army of the month? It comes down to preference at that point. Why would anyone then play CSM, or DE or orks? Because they like them, plain and simple.

If you're asking on a thematic reason I think GA and Retrogamer nailed it. For GA it's Aliens, for Retro it's zerg (a strong one for me) but for me the winner has got to be Starship troopers. To have your swarms of mindless clawed horrors sweep across the battlefield and tear infantry to bits, to have massive hulking monstrosities burst from the earth and annihilate defensive lines and armour. That theme rings for a lot of people and so that may be why they play nids. It's also worth noting that it may be because they like the models. I agree with retro that the Mawloc is a gorgeous sculpt and I do like the hive/tyrant guard as well. Not everyone thinks Space Marine armour looks cool after all.

 General Annoyance wrote:
You play Tyranids because you've probably watched the Alien movies

That's why I considered it! Although I ultimately went with Guard.

The Aliens thing meshed pretty well with an affection for Lovecraft, too; Genestealer cults are pretty Shadow Over Innsmouth-y. And horde armies.

"Necrons if your a bit dead inside,
Tau if your too lazy to move your models once you've deployed,"

A bit insulting isn't it? Generalising a group of people based on negative stereotypes. This is the sort of thing that leads to racism.

I liked monsters.

 mrhappyface wrote:

And then get disappointed?

If you're referring to how well they play, that should never be a factor in the army you choose; you're essentially throwing away the fun of pledging yourself to a faction or multiple factions by just picking what's best.

I picked IG as my first army because I liked being the underdogs, and I hated every other faction when I first entered 40K, including SM. I then picked up Orks solely based on their humour in their models and background. I then started collecting Blood Ravens because of their lore and actions in the DOW series, and am planning on Alaitoc Eldar and Harlequins. If I had the money, I'd probably be collecting every army in 40K now, because I love them all for their different niches and personalities through their lore and models. The one thing I've learned about being in the hobby is that the longer you stay, the more you grow to love the other factions that you didn't pick to collect because you probably hated them when you first saw them, even if SM are GW's only original idea.

And who cares how well they run in game, this should always be your motto in 40K:

 Peregrine wrote:
If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.

G.A

SGTPozy wrote:
"Necrons if your a bit dead inside,
Tau if your too lazy to move your models once you've deployed,"

A bit insulting isn't it? Generalising a group of people based on negative stereotypes. This is the sort of thing that leads to racism.

I think it might be a bit of a stretch to jump from silly jokes about people's choice in toy soldiers all the way to racism...

 JamesY wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

 General Annoyance wrote:
You play Tyranids because you've probably watched the Alien movies and also want to drown your foes in mindless, carnivorous beasts, and flip tanks with Carnifexes

Pretty simple

And then get disappointed?

Why doesn't that prevent your understanding of why people play csm and orks?

Cool models, Aliens (well, Geiger) inspired, interesting background, fun. That's more than enough.

Sorry, that was a bit of a joke.
Of course hardly anyone picks an army for the rules, I was of course thinking why go straight to Nids.

Personally they are the least interesting faction to me, I always find in 40k games it is rather boring to play as Nids because they have no character.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SGTPozy wrote:
"Necrons if your a bit dead inside,
Tau if your too lazy to move your models once you've deployed,"

A bit insulting isn't it? Generalising a group of people based on negative stereotypes. This is the sort of thing that leads to racism.

I'm sorry if that was a bit tasteless.

SGTPozy wrote:
"Necrons if your a bit dead inside,
Tau if your too lazy to move your models once you've deployed,"

A bit insulting isn't it? Generalising a group of people based on negative stereotypes. This is the sort of thing that leads to racism.

Please come to all my parties you stick in the mud you.

 mrhappyface wrote:


Personally they are the least interesting faction to me, I always find in 40k games it is rather boring to play as Nids because they have no character.

They have character in the sense of their form - they're all nightmarish creatures in their own rights, and they wield weapons that have made my stomach turn to read about, and I'm not exaggerating that. No other faction has given me that deep a feeling of disgust and fear, and that's why I like them and think they have character

Why do I play nids? I think they look cool. This is a game set in space, I like a bit of variation with my armies, so something not humanoid is always good. There's something appealing about unfeeling unthinking monsters swarming over defensive positions.

General Annoyance wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:


Personally they are the least interesting faction to me, I always find in 40k games it is rather boring to play as Nids because they have no character.

They have character in the sense of their form - they're all nightmarish creatures in their own rights, and they wield weapons that have made my stomach turn to read about, and I'm not exaggerating that. No other faction has given me that deep a feeling of disgust and fear, and that's why I like them and think they have character

^ This exactly.

They are the classic sci-fi antagonist - the faceless alien horror that can't be reasoned with. A visceral tide, eating and killing without mercy, pity or concern. They are so much more interesting in that regard than all the anthropomorphic races that could almost include a zipper in their description by how human-like they behave at times. Don't get me wrong, I like all the races in this game but the tyranids are very cool.

Tyranids character comes from them lacking indivuality. They are all an extension of a instinctual hunger to consume and reproduce. You can't negotiate with them. They have no goals being survival, and no need for you other than food.

Bug models are cool too.

Also, I can't watch Starship Troopers without wanting to see a tabletop fully of bugs fighting soldiers.

When I first started playing, a friend had a whole lot of Tyranids. He was starting Tau at the time, and my brother was going with SM. Since we all of us love Starcraft, I figured I'd go Zerg...I mean Tyranids.

Nowadays I don't play them as much, however, I do break them out (as well as what SMs I have) for teaching games (I play the Nids so the other player can get a feel for how "normal" armies work, ya know the ones that almost always get their saves).

They are basically entropy personified, which is awesome.

Because who wouldn't want an army of superbly loyal biological killing machines?

My reason is mostly the idea of an unfathomable, unstoppable horde!

Plus I love the idea of flying buys, thus mostly concentrate on flyrants, shrikes and gargoyles, with foot sloggers there simply to provide support.

I think it was back in 3e when I saw the drawings of the Tyranid incursions into the galaxy - seeing the tendrils reaching in from all directions, and then the fluff of the battles - I wanted an unstoppable horde for myself!

Then when I grabbed my first kits I realized the potential for conversions/mutations/bio-form inventions and just fell in love. Every bit can be used somewhere on something of any size or shape from any kit.

Painting Tyranids is also great fun because you can use every technique and effect you ever wanted to. Slime, blood, bio-luminescence, carapace and bone, exotic patterning, slick exposed organs are all things you can try out throughout your swarm and sometimes even all at once on the bigger Nids.

Tyranids were my first wargaming army ever when I bought my first ever army in 5th edition, and to this day are still my favorite, although Chaos is a close second. I think the fascination that we Nid players have with them is that (at least for me) they represent something that no other faction can truly represent: fear. Yes, I realize Chaos is supposed to be the end-all horror faction, but think about this....

Tau, Imperium, Eldar, Chaos Marines, Traitors and Cults, Orks...they are all formidable in their own right, but there's still something "personal" about them. Yes, an Eldar isn't a human, but you could still look it in the eye and see a personality, an individuality, a soul (more or less, depending on who you're talking to from what faction lol). Even Orks have personalities and interests, and the rest of them still fall into the category of, for lack of a better term here, "humanoid". From a somewhat outside point of view, people can still relate to the causes or interests of their armies because they are sentient, unique characters as a whole. Even Khorne Berserkers are individuals, give or take. If you want to go to extremes, zombies, whether from Nurgle's plagues or some fethed up sorcery, can fall into this category. Undead? Sure. Terrifying? Of course. Still look like something or someone you can recognize, attribute weaknesses to, and can employ tactics against? Reasonably so.

Now we can take a look at Daemons. While they are completely otherworldly and alien to anything man/xenos can comprehend, they still have an air of "familiarity". What I mean by that is that, indeed, they are horrors from another dimension that can take over the body of a mortal, and yes, they can open rifts in reality to worlds that the human mind cannot fathom and unleash apocalyptic levels of devastation on a global scale. Despite this, though, they embody things that are natural to all of the humanoid species, barring maybe Slaaneshi Orks (that would be terrifying, although you could argue that their excess is war, I suppose), meaning that the embody rage, or greed, even death, and these are all things that every sentient race and species can relate to. This gives them an air of terror, yet one of being recognizable, and thus conquerable.

Now we have Tyranids...these beasts that come from somewhere that no one in the known universe has ever heard of, a place where untold horrors could exist, or one where there is nothing left but lifeless rocks orbiting a slowly dying sun because the previous inhabitants were consumed as biomass. This...horde...of creatures comes pouring out of the edge of known existence, and falls upon even the most prepared of planets with a force unknown to even the most savage barbarians and cruelest warlords. A PDF could use their entire supply of munitions, heavy ordnance, and defensive protocols, and yet it will never seem to slow the tide of gnashing teeth and rending talons that tear through their populations like a power sword through exposed flesh. Sure, you can drop a nuclear device dead in the center of the horde and vaporize millions of lifeforms in the blink of an eye, but how impossible must it be to maintain hope of victory when, even as the smoke from your brilliant attack clears, just as many new creatures as dead ones emerge from a different flank, your own dead turned into biomass purely to systematically create more monsters that will relentlessly batter at your defenses until you drown in a tide of feeder organisms that have no other purpose than to break you down on a molecular level and feed you to their birthing queen?

When it's clear your side is losing, how do you hold on to hope, when you know there will be no chance of survival by surrender? To surrender is to die, and to fight is to die. Of course, even the most elite warriors that your loyalties can offer may join the fight, but how optimistic can someone be when that brave Astartes Captain nobly leads his soldiers to their deaths at the hand of raging monstrosities that dwarf the hab-blocks of the Hive City you are so desperately defending? Can one really maintain their belief in their God-Emperor's mercy when something so imposing that it essentially blocks out the Warp/Astronomican is bearing down on your world with no other purpose than to feed on you, your friends, your family, and your home? What about when your Ethereals are consumed, your society shattered, and even your extensive technology cannot maintain the defense, as you watch the mightiest of your Sept's battlesuits fall, Riptides torn in half by cunning Hive Tyrants, or even your admirable Shas'o's Crisis Suit succumbing to the sheer weight of the gaunts climbing it's structure, the martyred pilot screaming as he was torn from the cockpit even before the suit fell to the ground.

There is no reasoning with the Tyranids, and there is no scheming against them as a whole. You can employ master tacticians against them, and they will simply evolve a new strategy, or a new life form, or a new genetic resistance to whatever tactic being employed, and they will always respond with the same logic: adapt and consume. Even if, by some miracle, you do manage to survive and cleanse the planet of the Tyranid threat, the next Hive Fleet to be encountered could be comprised of completely different strains of organisms, completely immune and indifferent to whatever tactics and weapons you may have used against the last one. No matter what, they will adapt, they will conquer, and they will consume. No prisoners, no trophies, no honor, just fear and death. Your words hold no sway to their hivemind.

Now, even if one can look past the undeniable presence of the current Hive Fleets, carving their way through occupied space, there lies an unavoidable possibility...what if this isn't it? There are still more Tyranids coming from the edge of space. Hell, according to current fluff, the Hive Fleets that we know of (the major ones at least) aren't even fully in known space yet. There's the possibility that, even with all of the destruction that Kraken, Leviathan, and Behemoth, among others, have left in their wake, that the bulk of their forces aren't even in observable space yet. How do you fight something like that?

That's why I love Tyranids. There's such an air of...unknown, I suppose. That, combined with the sheer air of fear that I feel they would generate in a head-to-head encounter, puts them as my favorite monstrous army and favorite army overall

Also, I happen to absolutely love the aesthetic of Geiger-inspiration mixed with an insectoid but almost dinosaur-esque form. To me, it's awesome, and I feel like most other Tyranid players would agree with me, although I don't speak for anyone other than myself lol

Tyranids were my first experience with 40k, they are my brother's army (he also plays Tau, so I guess his armies are both useless AND lazy lol).

I think Tyranids are awesome and they destroy my Necrons every time (that's probably more due to my errors though!).

I am also a huge Aliens and Starship Troopers fan and that's probably why I love them so much.

Honestly, if I didn't already have a horde army, I'd go nids. They look fantastic, and they're probably the most terrifying thing in the galaxy. I'd totally paint them up to look all Lovecraftian- you can totally play the Eldritch card with these guys. They're something completely alien to this galaxy, and there's still a lot of mystery about them. Sure, you can't roleplay as a tryanid unless you've had several lobotomies, but the idea of outnumbering your opponent several times over is what attracted me to orks in the first place.

I always hated old necrons lore because people always moaned and groaned about 'I liked that they were a mindless unstoppable evil with zero character!" because Tyranids were already that archetype, and everyone seems to forget about Tyranids. Personally I like the fact that there are no individuals in the Tyranid army because it keeps it interesting. Not every army needs the same exact dynamic.

Plus Its a nice visual to see a squad of space marines drowned in a tidal wave of insects.

I got Nids as my secondary army because the idea of Jurassic Park in Space made me laugh...then I found out they were bugs not lizards...kind of wish I got Orks.
Oh and they make a great intro army because they're big and intimidating and easily beaten.

Legacy reasons. Third Edition Nids was one of my first fully-fledged armies and Old One Eye remains one of my favourite models (even though everyone else hates him for being a grinfex).

Nids are the only truely alien race you can play in 40k. The rest is just different colored humans in space, plus some fantasy daemons lurking around. Necrons used to be an alien force of terminator like beings before the recon, now they are just metal colored humans.
The question is why aren't more of us playing nids.

Why Nids?
1) Great models
2) Hordes
3) Mindless, unstoppable
4) Monster bugs
5) Bio adaptations - conversions
6) Starship troopers
7) Alien
8) Chittering
9) Fluff (or do I mean chitin)
10) Claws and talons and more claws and more talons and ...
11) Biovores
12) Bioguns

What was your question again?