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Basically, I have a fantasy Tyranid army and I wanted to get people's opinions. Should this fantasy become a reality or should I keep it as dream?

I have no tyranids at the moment and am almost finished collecting my World Eaters. Once finished, I'm thinking about extending to a Tyranid horde, but I wanted to see if now would be a good time to do this. I guess what I'm asking is: Would this be effective? Could it be competitive? Do you think it'd be enjoyable? What are some pit-falls I might experience? What are some units I should avoid and what are some units I should highly consider?

I want a horde of tyranids. I'm talking more wounds than my enemy has shots. So many bodies that I run out of a deployment zone. The kind of tyranid horde described in the lore that literally drowns their foe in their own piled up bodies. Siege engines that have their barrels and fuel tanks filled with gargoyle and hormagaunt bodies.

Maybe not necessarily 0 monsters, but very few monsters and not necessarily any, if they aren't needed. I love the Hive Tyrant, but I guess, ideally, any monsters that would be added would be added purely for the purpose of making the horde more impressive. I know nothing of the new tyranids.

In my mind there's a lot of hormagaunts and warriors. I'd like more bodies whenever possible, so instead of a hive tyrant, I'd rather take warriors. Instead of genestealers, I'd rather take hormagaunts. Instead of anything big or expensive, I'd rather take something small or cheaper. I'm probably going to want 1 genestealer unit with a broodlord, maybe even a hive tyrant, I just mean I wouldn't want to take a lot of tyrants, fexes, and trygones.

Point me in the right direction? Or tell me my dream should remain a dream! lol.

It can work nicely, enemy fliers have trouble flying over you, deep strikers can't drop behind you.

you will need some control, synapse isn't as important for control, but its vital for ignoring morale, warriors can do this just fine

main drawbacks:

S3 AP0 in combat is frustrating, you roll a lot of dice but don't actually do all that much

S4 AP0 shooting is marginally better

take gargoyles as well

one unit of genestealers isn't worth bothering with, they will get shot to ribbons, takeabout half the army as genestealers and brood lords though and they will do the bulk of the heavy lifting on the ground - the smaller gribbles make good clean up units against expended enemies

Oh yes, don't forget deep striking rippers.

Main point: pick a colour scheme thats easy to paint

Would the idea of taking no genestealers be stupid?

I was thinking warriors with deathspitters and venom cannons with lots of hormagaunts.

Well genestealers have native "advance then charge", the rest need a stratagem so it does limit your speed - however every GS you drop is roughly 2.5 - 3 smaller gribbles so it depends what you want.

problem is you will hit their line, but without something a bit nastier than S3 AP0 attacks when you get there you tend to bounce off.

Devigaunts can be remarkably good, but glass hammers.

Hydra makes them a bit better, as can leaving a few points in reserve for the refresh strategy, used late in the game when a tired enemy may struggle with a 30 strong unit appearing from any board edge

warriors with a mix of talons and claws plus death spitters are not that bad, venom cannons are decent - again helps to have decent sized units (like nine strong)

You can go no genestealers, or run one unit and use it as a distraction, don't pile forwards too fast as isolated it gets murdered, move up with everything else - 3x30 hormagaunts plus 1x20 genestealers and perhaps a unit or two of warriors hitting can hurt.

You will however seriously struggle against anything with hurricane bolters, fliers are also an utter pig

does however have the "sweet mother of what!" effect

Id go for termagaunts over hormagaunts. Youll be making more attacks more often, since its an entire unit instead of just the front half attacking. Dojt exclude hormagaunts, but dont forget about shooting.

I wanted this butbthen I looked at cost and time to paint and said hell no.

The idea of having "more bodies than the enemy can kill" works on paper but in practice it's difficult to pull it off. Everything is ultra killy this edition. It will work somewhat for Tyranids because of Synapse, but the moment the Synapse net dies you're going to lose 80% of your Squads to morale. Even then T3 6+ saves are going to melt easily.

You'll need to bring some support to deal with Flyers for sure. Genestealers are a nice distraction unit but without some way to get them where they need to be they will just instantly be killed. You're either going to have to gamble you get the first turn and Kraken them up with Opportunistic Advance, or take some Genestealer Cult Purestrains and Ambush them. A Malenthrope to try and protect them turn 1 would also help. Heck a Malenthrope to act as untargetable synapse and make your hoard harder to hit is good no matter how you slice it, only problems being Cost (both points and money since it's Forge World) and the fact it technically has the smaller synapse bubble since it doesn't use the codex rule.

So, I put together a list I think would be fairly usable... though the one Hive Tyrant leading it would be a huge target, even with the body guards. Buy Movement trays, for Hive's sake.






Edit:I did another one that's more in line with your wants in the post above after another read through. Enjoy.

Contrary to popular belief, tyranids aren't a horde army. At least no more than they are a bunch of other things.
They can include horde units if the list calls for them, but using a gigantic mob of infantry to run around the table killing stuff is orks thing, not ours.

The thing is, tyranid gaunt hordes aren't particularly killy. They are fantastic screens and objective holders, and are great at tying stuff up in combat while dying cheaply. But they don't kill things. It's not their job.

Orks are a true horde, in that they put much of their strength into their infantry.
Tyranids put their strength into their monsters and specialists, while using their gaunts in a support role to lock down the enemy and prevent effective response.

I like to picture it as something like a naval carrier group, with the large primary vessels surrounded by a swarm of support craft.


With all that in mind, you could build such an army. It would work by simply swarming forwards and locking down as many enemy units as possible, while you attempt to die slow enough that you win by holding objectives.

Whether it would be effective is hard to say. I wouldn't call it competitive, simply because the time it would take to play such a game would exceed most tournaments time limits, which often run over even with normal armies.

My group doesn't use objectives. I feel like I'm already pushing their enjoyment by recommending points (over power level) and such. We'll get there, but I'm not looking for an army that will only be useful because they can hog objectives.

Are Tyranid Primes not good synapse? Unless I'm missing something, a single tyranid prime can sit in the middle of a horde and not be targeted. The list I was making had 2+ primes and some warriors. I really wanted termigaunts with devourers.

What about a heavy shooty tyranid horde? I have a small list of ideas.... I'll try not to be confusing so I'll post them distinctly. They are independent army-themes.

In a moderate, horde-style army I could take 3-4 units of genestealers with a broodlord in addition to hormagaunts and termigaunts. When I posted 1 unit I thought they could still outflank or infiltrate or something, but it seems they'll be footslogging.

I kind of want a Tervigon, but I know if I take only 1 monstrous creature it'll be shot to bits. What if I took a Hive Tyrant, Tervigon, and distractionfex?

Flying Tyrant with x2 Devourerers, Tervigon, Carnifex with x2 Devourerers. 9 Warriors with 6 deathspitters and 3 venom cannons. 1 or 2 units of termigaunts w/ fleshborers. 3-4 units of termigaunts with devourerers. 1-2 units of gargoyles. Maybe some 'thropes. Maybe a unit or 2 of some hormagaunts.

Primes are sorta overcosted, and not that great when you could take a cheaper Nuero. That and the Nuero comes with powers. If they made him cheaper, or gave him access to biocannons, he might be more worth it.

Horde works very well with Tyranids.

Termagants are the best body for a horde:
- cheapest gaunt
- can shoot S4, so you can start applying some damage earlier
- can sprinkle some devourers about (10 out of every 30 mob for example) to givve your horde some punch
- your hordes can be refilled by Tervigon. Not recommended if you want to be competetive, but very fitting to the theme

I strongly recommend a color scheme you can mass produce.
If you think your color scheme is easy enough, optimize it a bit more. Doing 150+ gaunts, even something like 'spray from above, done' will get hard.

Hide something killy in your hordes of gaunts. Your hordes are cheap, numerous and can overrun the enemy chaff and troops. But once everything is bogged down in gaunts, you want your dangerous units to come in and take out the harder targets.

Tyranid Prime cost efficiency is directly related to how many warriors does it buff. If you get 2 units of 3, then the prime is overcosted. If you play 2 units of 9 or 3 units of 6 then the tyranid prime is juuuuust fine.

I have played what you described for the biggest part of 6th edition. My list started with 150-180 gribbles. The first thing you need to learn is how to move them quickly. Thankfully nowdays you don't have to account for blast weapons, but still you will need to be able to reposition them fast. The second biggest problem is to learn how the frack to speedpaint 150 gaunts, because there's boring painting and there's boring painting, and then there's painting hormagaunts.

As for this edition, I really believe you could pull it off. But you won't be able to do it with barebones gaunts. You will need to mix some devils with your termagant squads (20 fleshborers / 10 devourers on a unit of 30 is a good ratio) and you will need to pay adrenal glands for your hormagaunts. Keep the hormas in smaller squads (10-15) and have them rush up and go tie up the enemy problematic shooting. Then march up with your termagants and start shooting.

In this setting tyranid warriors are VERY good. They are very cheap, and the setup with boneswords and deathspitters for only 26 points is a great purchase. Upon adding the tyranid prime, they start to become really killy. Always pay for venom cannons in your 1/3 ratio and keep them spread enough to give synapse and still close enough to benefit from the tyranid prime. Remember that 1 model in 6" of the prime gives the buff to the whole unit.

In your case I would play Hydra detachment for my gribbles and Jormungandr for my warriors. Alternatively you could use Leviathan for everyone. When you have this many bodies, that 6++ can become really obnoxious for your opponent.

Great thing about the gaunts is that you could max up and still have 1000+ points left to also build an army around them. In fact, a 30 strong unit of termagants with 10 devourers would cost you 160 pts and a 10 unit of hormagaunts with adrenal glands would go for 60. You could start a basic brigade with as follows:

3 units of 30 termagants, 10 devourers each (480)
6 units of 10 hormagaunts, adrenal glands (360)

3 units of 10 gargoyles (180)

That gives you 9 troops and 3 fast choices and 180 gribblies to rush and shoot your opponent with. And that's 1040 pts, post upgrades. You still have half of your points to put in your warriors, prime, some venomthropes for elites and some biovores at heavy support. If there's any points left, you could add a couple of sporocysts with 5 venom cannons each, they are VERY cheap, very obnoxious for your opponent, they amplify your synapse creatures' range and if you make them kronos they are also actually very good at shooting.


gak now I might have to play something like this...

 Kharneth wrote:
My group doesn't use objectives. I feel like I'm already pushing their enjoyment by recommending points (over power level) and such. We'll get there, but I'm not looking for an army that will only be useful because they can hog objectives.

You should definitely push for objectives, in my opinion Objectives are more important for the enjoyment of the game than any distinction between points and power level. once you get someone to play it, especially the tactical objective cards. 40K becomes a lot more enjoyable. Simply playing by Kill Points is a great way to learn the game, but everything is much more satisfying when there is something you are fighting for. It changes the way you see the board, and makes you do things that wouldn't be in your best interest in a strictly kill point game, such as making a daring push for Objective 3 which if successful will net you victory points.

It forces armies to move, redeploy, and engage eachother in close quarters to establish supremacy over an objective. It gives real meaning to your models fighting, and often opens up 'a bridge too far' type situations where you have sent your infantry to hold an objective and they are overrun by enemy tanks.

I basically have a standing rule that I will only play objective based games unless I am teaching someone the very basics. Its that much better.

So here is how I'd rate the units you'd like to use a bunch of.

Hormagaunts: Basically fast annoyance melee with a bunch of attacks. With toxin sacs and big broods, they have been surprisingly effective vehicle hunters for me somehow.
Warriors with Venom: Actually ok for their points. The main downside is the relatively low RoF and BS4+. Primes can help mitigate the latter. If you're not taking boneswords on them, you're doing it wrong honestly.
Gargoyles: Troll unit. So many forget about their blinding venom. Triple bonus troll points when you combo with venomthropes and horror. Their base size is honestly their biggest use though. 30 gargs can cover a huge portion of the board.
Prime: Basically only take him if you are going to use a lot of warriors/shrikes. Hive Tyrant but worse basically.

A note on the tyrant. Even before the nerf, I used walking tyrants a lot. Even without wings they are quite quick. As long as you take a decent size unit of tyrant guard, he's a very durable unit combo with good synapse range. Most here will probably disagree with me on that one though.

I know you are looking to go full horde here, but take a couple of fexes. They are superb units that can fill a bunch of different rolls. Melee ones synergize well with hormagaunts. Shooty ones are... well..... shooty. I still dont know if I like devourers over deathspitters on monsters yet.

Hormagaunts in this edition are just bad. They already cost more than their superior brethlings the termagants.
If you need to load them out with adrenaline and toxins, just so they do something, that just further tips the scale in favor of termagants and gargoyles.
Generally the only thing they do well is surrounding and binding up shooty units that can't fly. But they never kill anything ever. In this list your hordes must carry their own weight. Termagants with devourers mixed in do that. Hormagants do not.

The Tyranid horde is a close range shooting army. You run up under the cover of Venomthropes and annihilate any chaff and forward units with hundreds of dice from your cheap termagants and slightly less cheap gargoyles and warriors.
You do most of your damage shooting from 6-24" distance.

Then you crash gaunts into some key shooting units and try to lock them down. But that won't kill them. Shooting them will and...

Meanwhile you have a few bigger threats like walking tyrants, carnifexes and such, which arrive about the same time, maybe a turn later (they were also shooting along the way though). Even though these are bigger monsters, you still want to stick with the theme of more is better, so take bodys with a good wounds/cost ratio and give them a cheap loadout.
If you have a good amount of LOS blocking cover, then you can also add genestealers for that. They are kind of swarmy and still the best CC unit you have. Just keep in mind, that in this list genestealers are not supposed to rush out ahead and suicide into somthing. They are here to mob up after your hordes and protect the backline.

All the while this is happening you basicly have the board to yourself. Some armies might break your flood of gaunts by turn 4 or so, at which point they are hopefully engaged in close range with your monsters.
But in those 3 prior turns you should have scored quite a few points all over the board and denied your opponent doing the same.

Thanks guys! You have given me plenty of useful information!

I definitely wanted a heavy shooty army. I love the hive tyrant and am happy to take one with some tyrant guard. I guess the question remains, should I take a prime and 12-18 warriors or scarp them to squeeze some monsters in with the horde? Taking a lot of warriors was an idea for lots of bodies/wounds without sacrificing synapse. I'm having a hard time finding a good HQ choice with less than 10 wounds to help with synapse, that's why I chose the prime and added warriors.

I really need the codex so I can see what these things can all do. Battlescribe is okay, but it's no codex. I kind of want to use the world serpent hive (jor... w/e) for the cover save, but I wonder if it's really worth it. Hydra only seems useful for melee, though.

Anyway, I think you guys get where I'm going and it sounds like it's at least as viable as my World Eaters army, which is good to hear! I already have a color scheme, though I'm not entirely sure how I'll do it.

The color is tan (like Kraken, maybe a bit lighter) on the bottom/flesh and black carapace on the top. I sort of want to the color to be split up like a Great White Shark instead of following the lines dictated by flesh versus carapace. So, I'm thinking of spraying the whole mini (before assembly) with a tan color (or white and then washing). Then, after assembly, a black spray from above.

Sort of like: http://www.worldsofimagination.co.uk/monster%20Monstrous%20Centipede%20Tiny.htm

Actually, now that I'm looking at it. I might do it like Kraken except with a brown carapace and black wash instead of a red carapace.

If you're bringing lots of small bodies, Jormungandr isn't the worst one, because it'll take your 6+ to a 5+ for shooting attacks, unless they ignore cover.

Leviathan is a good plan too, any time you can get a feel no pain it's worth it. And a 6+ save followed by a 6+ FNP is essentially the same as a 5+ save. Also, the 6+ FNP will apply against -2 shooting. It will also still be there after you charge, or advance.

Those are the defensive choices.

For offense, if you're building a shooty list, Kronos isn't bad either, because the ability to reroll ones can be pretty handy since much of your codex will be BS4 / BS3 at best.

I've run a competitive list that had about 150 models in 2000 points. Swarming is a viable tactic. But it's not easy to play, and people have built in counters because they're already used to dealing with OP guard. And weapons effective against guard are more effective against Tyranids.

I would start with models that don't require much configuration.

Tyranids are one of the armies where the configuration options are NUMEROUS. You will need to set aside some real money or learn how to magnetize like a fething champ.

Models that don't require customization when building, that swarm:
Swarmlord
Neurothrope
Genestealers
Hormagants
Rippers
Broodlord
Trygon

Models that don't require much customization (i mean, really) when building, that shoot:
Hive Guard /w Impalers
Tyrannofex (yes there are 2 main gun choices, rupture & acid, but this guy isn't super difficult to magnetize, and if you're in doubt you'll get miles out of both guns in a shooty list).
Termagants (you will pick one gun, either the fleshborer or the devourer)

Models that require significant customization:
Hive Tyrant
Carnifex

Starting with a Hive Tyrant or a Carnifex would be really hard, because you don't know what you need based on your army. Start with things that are easy to build, and design your force from there.

I love the idea of a proper Horde of Nids!

My take on it has 6 full units of Rippers and a Malanthrope!

Sounds really cool and fluffy for casual play. I could definitely see it being a lot of fun!

I can't really speak for tournament setting because I have no experience of it, but I can imagine any army that can just swamp an opponent with bodies would be pretty terrifying and overwhelming to fight against.

The main drawback I can see is that so many tyranids could be pretty expensive, but that may or may not not be a problem for you.

 Kharneth wrote:
My group doesn't use objectives. I feel like I'm already pushing their enjoyment by recommending points (over power level) and such. We'll get there, but I'm not looking for an army that will only be useful because they can hog objectives.

Are Tyranid Primes not good synapse? Unless I'm missing something, a single tyranid prime can sit in the middle of a horde and not be targeted. The list I was making had 2+ primes and some warriors. I really wanted termigaunts with devourers.

What about a heavy shooty tyranid horde? I have a small list of ideas.... I'll try not to be confusing so I'll post them distinctly. They are independent army-themes.

In a moderate, horde-style army I could take 3-4 units of genestealers with a broodlord in addition to hormagaunts and termigaunts. When I posted 1 unit I thought they could still outflank or infiltrate or something, but it seems they'll be footslogging.

I kind of want a Tervigon, but I know if I take only 1 monstrous creature it'll be shot to bits. What if I took a Hive Tyrant, Tervigon, and distractionfex?

Flying Tyrant with x2 Devourerers, Tervigon, Carnifex with x2 Devourerers. 9 Warriors with 6 deathspitters and 3 venom cannons. 1 or 2 units of termigaunts w/ fleshborers. 3-4 units of termigaunts with devourerers. 1-2 units of gargoyles. Maybe some 'thropes. Maybe a unit or 2 of some hormagaunts.

Take a good look at Jormangandr, You can tunnel in using Raveners, and get a cover boost for the whole army. Even so I'd likely build in some MC gunbeasts, if you use Carnifexen they do extremely well in Jormangandr lists

To say Hormagaunts never kill anything isn't quite true, they have two attacks each on a 4+, ok typically needing a 5+ to wound, occasionally a six plus with 0AP

but they are 5 point models (don't bother with AG or poison, its not worth it, just get more gribbles)

they die like flies to proper anti infantry firepower, but again, 5 point models

run then as Hydra and you are re-rolling all hits, not just '1', and still re-roll '1' if for some reason you don't out number the enemy.

They are also seriously fast, the 6" pile in is very nice as well, they can swamp some units in dice, roll enough 3+ saves and you fail some.

The main purpose though is helping other units in, e.g. pile forwards to soak a lot of overwatch then have a few survivors pin the target so the actual assault can go in.

If you keep in mind they are 5 point models and expect 5 point model performance they are actually not that bad

Anyone shooting your Hormagaunts isn’t killing more useful stuff. Let em die, they’re doing their job!

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Anyone shooting your Hormagaunts isn’t killing more useful stuff. Let em die, they’re doing their job!

They also have a whole slew of other functions:

- screen against deep strikes or enemy charges
- objective sitting such that small enemy units stay away and serious force is used to shift 15-20 of them (units of 10 can also work nicely for this)
- general irritation in small units of 10 - move them up, they are not hard to kill, but they are hard to kill all of efficiently (1x30 isn't hard, but trying to drop 3x10 without leaving someone to charge and soak overwatch is harder)
- soaking overwatch and having a few survivors get in, then pile in around the back to prevent falling back
- fast flanking units to grab objectives and generally force a lot more than 50 points to be spent removing them
- distraction!

One last "cool thing" about Hormies... If you run Behemoth, you can use a strategem that lets you generate a Mortal Wound on a 6 when you charge, thats a good 4 to 6 MWs off of a charge from 30 5 point models.

Hormagants aren't bad if you only look at them alone.
They are just way worse than termagants.

All of the above can be done by termagants as well.
But they are 20% cheaper and can shoot with S4. You can use those 20% points and give them devourers, which makes them an actual threat. Now your opponent will want to shoot them.
Or you just take 20% more gants.

If you put 150+ gants on the table, that is a major part of your army. You want more from that, than just being a distraction.
Termagants are an actual threat to your opponent, so they work much better as a distraction and it is also much easier to focus targets and fully apply the force of all your gants with short range shooting, than in melee.

That behemoth stratagem triggers after the charge move, so you don't get to do your 6" move beforehand. -> termagants can do it just as well.

Sure, mix in a few hormagant units for binding units sitting in the back. But for everything else, the termagants are better.

Sadly.. I am sitting on 90 hormagants here and never get to use more than a few.

Hormies are not that bad, the trick is to have them and termies, the homies are much better at munching enemy chaff up close, after the hormies have shot it up a bit - they are critically also faster so can keep up with the genestealers (well one unit can with onslaught) and pile in first to soak overwatch.

Would certainly bring the termies first, in at least as many numbers

if you want a unit to sit on an objective, 10x termies are cheaper, or 3x rippers actually even better still (and can deep strike as and when needed)

150 gribbles is a lot of models, but only five units - or more likely more if you run one as 3x10 and the rest as 4x30 (expensive as needs multiple HQ though).

you probably don't want many more though..

Only skilled the thread, but doesn't the Rule of 3 really hurt 'Nid hordes?

Also, aren't Genestealers not anymore the Ginsu death machines they used to be?

Take, say, 3 units of Gargoyles, 3 units of Hormies, and 3 units of Genestealers. The Gargoyles and Hormies,used to do a great job of tying up the enemy until the Genestealers hit your lines, then the Genestealers just TORE STUFF UP. They could even pop vehicles to get to the soft tasty center.

I'm not sure 3 units of Genestealers can do that anymore.

The rule of 3 does not affect troops, right?
Nids have awesome troops. Termagants, Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Warriors, Absorbers, all troops.
'Normal' nid armies do not feel that rule in particular. Maybe some special tournament builds besides flyrant got hit, but that was the point of that rule after all.

Can Genestealers and Warriors be counted on to do the "heavy lifting?"


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Also, how do Lictors fit in?