Curious About... Tyranids

So, I just bought Space Hulk, and now I've got 22 genestealers and a broodlord.

And I know I'm going to be buying the rumored 'Nids vs. Blood Angels campaign box (should it prove to be a real thing).

So, the thing is, at that point I'm really not far from a legitimate 'Nids force - as a side project, certainly, but perhaps an entertaining one.

So... what do I need to know about Tyranids? What's good, what's awful? What kind of critters would I end up buying if I wanted a small, fun Tyranids army?

Here's some specific questions that it might be useful to have answered:

1) Who are the standouts in each slot? For example, are genestealers any good? I'm considering this, at the moment, based purely on the fact that I've got a ton of genestealers that came with Space Hulk. If they're no good, that might sway me away from even thinking about this. What kind of HQs am I likely to want?

2) Basic weapons, and the special weapon that you can add to termagaunt squads. Which ones are good? Which ones are best for generalist squads? Which ones have special roles?

3) Upgrades and special weapons for use by big nasty monsters... which of them are good? Are poison sacks and adrenal glands worth it for infantry?

And, of course... anything else you want to tell me.

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Originally Posted by ElectricPaladin

1) Who are the standouts in each slot? For example, are genestealers any good? I'm considering this, at the moment, based purely on the fact that I've got a ton of genestealers that came with Space Hulk. If they're no good, that might sway me away from even thinking about this. What kind of HQs am I likely to want?

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I have never seen anyone use stealers in a competitive environment for the last 3 editions. (Other than the last codex Ymgarl stealers). I think stealers are fun and fluffy but apparently that's all they are...

I do regularly see Flyrants, Harpies, Tervigons, Zoanthropes and Termagaunts. I also see people using the Tyranid Flying beastie formation and the Living Artillery formation. I think we will see a whole bunch of new builds as soon as the newest shiny models hit the scene cause they look to be ace.

I'm also seriously thinking of nids myself so I will be happy to see how vets respond.

Well, personally, I haven't seen anything in a competitive 40k environment, because I avoid those environments like the plague. My question isn't "is it the best and most competitive option?" but rather "is it good enough that I will enjoy it?" The genestealers seem pretty cool to me. Decently tough, great WS, rending attacks, and you can have a broodlord hide in the squad, which gives you better melee possibilities and a Warp Charge on a stick.

Makes sense! Competitive environments can definitely be a lot of drama. I still think the lack of grenades puts off even casual players. Sort of defeats the whole point of that ungodly initiative when you have to strike last most of the time. I still think stealers look great and have a lot of potential if you can catch someone silly enough to stand out in the open for an assault. :)

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Originally Posted by 40kGamer

Makes sense! Competitive environments can definitely be a lot of drama. I still think the lack of grenades puts off even casual players. Sort of defeats the whole point of that ungodly initiative when you have to strike last most of the time. I still think stealers look great and have a lot of potential if you can catch someone silly enough to stand out in the open for an assault. :)

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It seems to me like the trick would be to use them as objective grabbers. If the objective is in cover, have them Infiltrate right onto it. If it's in the open, have them Infiltrate near it. Either way, they can either dare the opponent to come to them, or wait until the opponent stands on the objective in the open, then come charging out of cover.

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Originally Posted by ElectricPaladin

It seems to me like the trick would be to use them as objective grabbers. If the objective is in cover, have them Infiltrate right onto it. If it's in the open, have them Infiltrate near it. Either way, they can either dare the opponent to come to them, or wait until the opponent stands on the objective in the open, then come charging out of cover.

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That sounds interesting... could be a real bonus in tactical objective missions to start grabbing points early. I really like the dynamic of every turn scoring. It might make competitive people a bit crazy but it adds a lot of fun to the game. Every turn becomes important!

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Originally Posted by ElectricPaladin

1) Who are the standouts in each slot? For example, are genestealers any good? I'm considering this, at the moment, based purely on the fact that I've got a ton of genestealers that came with Space Hulk. If they're no good, that might sway me away from even thinking about this. What kind of HQs am I likely to want?

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Stealers are at best remarkably high-maintenance. The biggest maintenance of all is to figure out how to charge with them and (1) destroy your opponent on the magic even-numbered rounds, and (2) stopping your Initiative from dropping to 1. The Broodlord might be able to help with the latter if you can pin the target you want to charge with The Horror before assaulting. Put him up front and he can eat 3 Overwatch wounds before dying.

They can go in a Tyrannocyte. Considering they can't assault on an outflank anyway, you might as well deep strike them anywhere on the table, ideally right into some juicy 4+ cover ruins. Still, other units can use Tyrannocytes better.

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Originally Posted by ElectricPaladin

2) Basic weapons, and the special weapon that you can add to termagaunt squads. Which ones are good? Which ones are best for generalist squads? Which ones have special roles?

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None of them. Go Fleshborers. Forever. You physically can't spawn anything but a Fleshborer Termagant from a Tervigon.

Devourer Termagants have their place, such as dropped from a Tyrannocyte, but you're capped at 20 so you can't use this brood to unlock the Tervigon. A trick to get a lot of Devourer Termagants from the big Tyranid box is to take all the Devourers and put them on Hormagaunt bodies, essentially doubling your Termegants. Unless something ultra-drastic happens (like getting rid of the I1 penalty for charging while in the general vicinity of terrain), Hormagaunts are just not coming back.

Never use Spinegaunts. You are paying points to become measurably worse.

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Originally Posted by ElectricPaladin

3) Upgrades and special weapons for use by big nasty monsters... which of them are good? Are poison sacks and adrenal glands worth it for infantry?

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A masterclass on how to equip Tyranid MCs:

This is a Twin-Linked Brainleech Devourer.

Thank you for attending.

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Originally Posted by ElectricPaladin

And, of course... anything else you want to tell me.

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Play Unbound. You lose very little, but in exchange you get to take all the good units (in minimum-sized broods, just because you can), and you don't need to take anything bad.

Flyrants w/ 2x TLed Brainleech Devourers are still the gold standard for Tyranids. Fortunately, Forge World has TLed Brainleech Devourer arms for Tyrants, and a lot of players took to using Fleshborer Hives from the Tervigon / Tyrannofex kit to represent TLed Brainleech Devs as well.

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Originally Posted by ReveredChaplainDrake

Devourer Termagants have their place, such as dropped from a Tyrannocyte, but you're capped at 20 so you can't use this brood to unlock the Tervigon. A trick to get a lot of Devourer Termagants from the big Tyranid box is to take all the Devourers and put them on Hormagaunt bodies, essentially doubling your Termegants. Unless something ultra-drastic happens (like getting rid of the I1 penalty for charging while in the general vicinity of terrain), Hormagaunts are just not coming back.

Flyrants w/ 2x TLed Brainleech Devourers are still the gold standard for Tyranids. Fortunately, Forge World has TLed Brainleech Devourer arms for Tyrants, and a lot of players took to using Fleshborer Hives from the Tervigon / Tyrannofex kit to represent TLed Brainleech Devs as well.

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Is the tervigon no good as a HQ?

It's considerably better as a Troop. Objective Secured shenanigans are pretty much the only reason you ever see them anymore. Taking it as an HQ means less shenanigans.

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Originally Posted by ReveredChaplainDrake

It's considerably better as a Troop. Objective Secured shenanigans are pretty much the only reason you ever see them anymore. Taking it as an HQ means less shenanigans.

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Right. So, if I had one in my collection I might use it in, say, a really little game where I want to be able to spawn more gaunts. But in a larger game, I'm going to want to shove it into a Troops slot so it gets Objective Secured and use something harder hitting as my HQ.

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Originally Posted by ReveredChaplainDrake

It's considerably better as a Troop. Objective Secured shenanigans are pretty much the only reason you ever see them anymore. Taking it as an HQ means less shenanigans.

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But if he follows your other bit of advice and goes Unbound, it won't get Objective Secured...

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Originally Posted by ReveredChaplainDrake

It's considerably better as a Troop. Objective Secured shenanigans are pretty much the only reason you ever see them anymore. Taking it as an HQ means less shenanigans.

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Definitely agree that the Tervigon works far better as a troop choice then an HQ.

Tyranids really give you a lot of ways to play them - especially in a not-that-competitive setting. You can go full Nidzilla with a pack of Monsters, midsized beasties with lots of things with multiple Wounds, maximum Swarming, or a mix of all of these as you see fit.
AdGlands are really good on anything that wants to get anywhere - which is pretty much any MC except maybe the Exocrine - due to Fleet; not that great on your rather cheap and fragile Infantry though because it's kinda pricey.
One thing to keep in mind though is that they've got a gigantic Achiless Heel in Instinctive Behaviour - once your Synapse Web fails, due to your opponent presumably having at least half a brain and prioritizing his targets, your army will often times literally fall apart on the spot, doing nothing or even killing itself... until that happens you're Fearless all around though, so there's that...

Ill say it because no one has yet.

malanthropes make the world go round.


You can get em from FW or do what a lok of us do and convert them from left over hive tyrant bits

Seriously though your likely going to want either two single malanthropes OR to run 2 pairs of zoan thropes and a venomthrope brood in your elites....and whatever you do the maleceptor is bad.

Check out the formations as well

Skyblight is basically how to run a flying circus (sb+cad with mucolids) and Living artillery node is probably the most solid all comers formation. Endless swarn is cute but lost a lot in 7th due to the gaunts not having OBJ SEC. And the vanguard formations are fine in a for fun role (assasin brood is cool and would combo well with the new zoanthrope bug rumoured)

If you can get genestealers into punching range they kill everything. But that's really the trick, because everyone knows they kill everything and so they will shoot them to death about 15 times before they get within a mile of anything worth ripping apart. They're not terribly survivable so they never tend to get where they're going.

You could assuage this to some extent by using lots of them, but at that point you'll lack any sort of appreciable ranged punch and will probably end up getting blasted off the table. Protecting them is rather difficult since they will have to spend at least 1 turn exposed to enemy fire due to a lack of an assault vehicle. Sadly you're not given access to the psychic power that would make them god tier (which is to say invisibility, invisible genestealers would win all the games.)

To sum it up they suffer from all the, by now, cliched weaknesses of top tier melee units in the game. They're no more survivable than an average unit in their army, they lack any legitimate ranged threat and they're slowed down by the inability to charge from a protected position. In order to use them properly you'd have to employ some kind of distraction carnifex and a screening unit of gaunts or the like to engage the target initially, and then use them as the final punch in a combined assault. That's not exactly easy to pull off but when you tear apart a unit of terminators its pretty cool. As I said earlier, they do kill everything in close combat.

One of the major sticking points that most melee centric units have in 6th and 7th is that they forgot their grenades in their other pants. I can't recall off the top of my head but don't 'stealers have flesh hooks that count as assault grenades? that'd give them a leg up on other units of their ilk like Warp Claws or Howling Banshees. Having rending and ridiculous weapon skill also puts them a notch above, since basically no units have ap2 at high initiative anymore. (Except those burly elf bros the incubi, but you should never get in a fist fight with incubi.)

Yeah stealers used to be able to have flesh hooks.

Honestly thou GWs obsession with removing grenades from dedicated assault units but giving them to every generalist they can os the worse *** backwards logic in the game

I think they may just become infinitely more useable with the new pods. Drop enough down (now of course we know the only issue here is the randomness of dropping them down but hear me out as I have a plan) and they are suddenly in among an army that either has to divert all its shooting at your newly arrived stealer broods or risk dying next turn. Now add in the old Swarmlord (must +1 his reserves) and suddenly they look a lot more promising. I'm thinking of eventually 3 such spores, each with 10 stealers (shame we likely won't fit 20 in there or even 15 in each would be cool) and that opponent that was going to sit back and chew you up with gunfire is now facing 30 rather angry monsters in among him. What to do, especially if you place them right and he can't bring all his firepower to bear properly.
If you are using stealers as someone said, stick the Broodlord out in front, he's got a 4+ save so he will eat a few more than 3 overwatch before he goes down, and better to lose his 5 attacks on the charge than 3 stealers with 3 each.

The thing is. Smart opponent's will just walk units into terrain.

Pods dont solve stealers biggest two issues. I mean taking your scenario above. Replace the stealers with a pair of carnifexes or tyrannofexes and your opponent will shed their pants considerably more

Hm... well, genestealers being kind of bad is certainly disappointing.

I think I'll hold onto my decision about starting a small Tyranids army based on my answers to the following two questions:

1) How much do I end up enjoying painting up these Space Hulk genestealers?
2) If the Blood Angels/Tyranids box ends up existing, what's in it (ie. is it any good, and does it play nicely with the blob of genestealers I already own)?

So, we'll see...

Have a look at the vanguard swarm formations. 3 or more stealer broods infiltrating right in front of people should be fine on a casual environment

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Originally Posted by daboarder

Have a look at the vanguard swarm formations. 3 or more stealer broods infiltrating right in front of people should be fine on a casual environment

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^^^This. They still ain't competitive, but the Vanguard Swarm formations at least make 'em playable enough to be fun.

I love the assasin brood I just never have the points in my own swarm for it

Hi I've played Tyranids for over a year now and have had a fair amount of success with them. I don't play tournaments, just my local gaming scene, but I'll give you a few ideas about starting a fun, relatively small Nid list.

The first thing you need to think about is Synapse. Some units, such as Hive Tyrants, Tervigons, Tyranid Warriors and Zoanthropes give you synapses coverage to the rest of your army. This makes units within the coverage fearless, and stops them from resorting to their (mainly bad) instinctive behaviour, which can be anything from going to ground, to attacking one another! Your Genestealers are about the only creatures in the codex that don't need synapse as they operate independently.

Genestealers are hard to use and are overcosted, but they are still workable. Try using them in small groups with a Broodlord- if it manages to cast The Horror on your target unit then it will make up for not having grenades. Their upgrades are pricey, although Adrenal Glands is the cheapest and will give them S5 on the charge. They do have a lot of deployment options so you've some flexibility with them.

In terms of HQs a Flying Hive Tyrant with two twin-linked Devourers is a no brainer. If you're playing smaller games, say 1000pts, then a fun HQ is the Deathleaper (a Lictor HQ). If you want to take a Tervigon as an HQ, go for it. Some people say a Troops choice Tervigon (and the 30 Termagaunts needed to unlock it) is more competitive. I can see where they're coming from, but 450 points is a lot for two objective secured troops choices, neither of which are offensive.

Everyone has different opinions about Troops choices for Nids. Some will disparage Warriors, others will swear by them. It's one of the reasons why I love Nids- each army you build can be so different. Whereas with the likes of Marines, there's always going to be a core of Tactical Squads. You'll have plenty of Genestealers already, so it's a choice between Warriors, Termagaunts and Hormagaunts. Termaguants are good screening units- they're there to die. Hormagaunts have worked well for me, they are fast and cheap; big units will tear others apart on the charge. Adrenal Glands are a nice, cheap upgrade for them. A couple of small groups of Warriors are no bad things. Give each squad a Barbed Strangler and a couple pairs of Rending Claws and you're set.

Our two best slots are Elites and Heavy. Zoanthropes and/or Hive Guard are needed to take out armour. For a game of 1000 points or less, one or two Zoanthropes is fine. Venomthropes keep your big creatures alive thanks to giving Shrouded to nearby models (doesn't work against armies with a lot of ignoring cover). The Forgeworld Mieotic Spores are a good alternative model for them. My favourite Elites though are Lictors. If they remain alive, three of them hit like a turn of bricks. However, most players apparently don't find them competitive.

All the Heavy slots are good. In a small game I'd always have a Biovore- cheap and useful. If your priority is fun, just pick a couple of big creatures from this slot and away you go. Carnifexes and Mawlocs are cheap, Exocrines are good against Marines and a Tyrannofex with an Acid Spray (an ap4 Baleflamer) is a great linebreaker.

Fast Attack is mainly mediocre, although both Flying Monstrous Creatures are not bad. And this edition is all about movement, so you'll need to invest in a couple things here.

Of the two recent Tyranid releases, the Toxicrene is quite good and the Meleceptor is garbage. The only other completely rubbish units in the codex are the infamous Pyrovores and Ripper Swarms.

We're apparently getting our Drop Pods back (hooray!) and they will open up a load of new combinations and tactics. Termagaunts with Devourers bursting out of a spore pod is a classic tactic which will soon be back on the table.

This is all just my opinion, but I hope it helps! If you go for Nids you'll have backed the winning horse, fluff wise. Come the 42nd millenium there won't be any other races left- they will all have been devoured!

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Originally Posted by Houghten

But if he follows your other bit of advice and goes Unbound, it won't get Objective Secured...

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A Tervigon is how you get the Battle-Forged Tyranid lists to work. (And I stress a Tervigon. Multiple Tervigons extends their death tantrum blanket even further.) I've got a couple of Tervigons that I'm trying to make function without snapping off their baby sac and repurposing them as Tyrannofexes, and this is how I'd do it. Tyrannocytes, the duct tape of the Tyranid codex, are the other way. Drop a Tervigon down the opponent's pants and force them to do something about the 6 wounds of MC and free Termagant brood ObSecing the backfield. Because if even one gribbly survives, there goes the neighborhood.

Even with this, I simply contest that Tyranids get so much out of Unbound that it would be silly to disregard it. On top of removing the need to take any of Tyranids' loads upon loads of chaff units, unbound gives Tyranids the unrivaled ability to essentially buy 2 WC points for the cost of a single Zoanthrope, to say nothing of your skyrocketing odds of rolling up the coveted Catalyst. ObSec could be very potent on an MC as tough as a Tervigon, but the ability to just casually buy WC points and to pick up Catalyst with such high reliability is so insane that I fully expect the new codex to forbid Tyranids from going Unbound for this very reason. Even our sad, pathetic lore would be useful if we could just buy double-A batteries like a GameBoy connoisseur.

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Originally Posted by Dylan4President

Hi I've played Tyranids for over a year now and have had a fair amount of success with them. I don't play tournaments, just my local gaming scene, but I'll give you a few ideas about starting a fun, relatively small Nid list.

This is all just my opinion, but I hope it helps! If you go for Nids you'll have backed the winning horse, fluff wise. Come the 42nd millenium there won't be any other races left- they will all have been devoured!

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A fantastic summary. Electric; similar to you I was introduced to Nids as my first army as a result of going in halfsies with a roomate who bought battle for Macragge. In 4th they could be dressed up to survive into assault, but as everyone has said those days are gone and I should not reminisce...

In short, I love Genes, and I am still happy to run at least one brood of them in most of my army lists. And therein is what it is like with the nids; there is very little that is completely unusable (has the pyrovore improved?) but some units are more situational than others. My 2 pence would be to pick a couple of units that you know you would like to play, and that will in part dictate what you pick up to compliment it. If you want a Psychic choir maybe you pick up Zoanthropes and thus have more synapes and no long need to use warriors. Do you want to have flying gargoyles providing screening for your flyrant? Sure there are some bad weapons (spinefists) and bad biomorphs (acid blood), but for the most part everything can be used with a little planning.

I do agree that in very broad terms you might plan on swarm, mid-zilla, or nidzilla. That said I think all are viable army options, as long as they are thought out.