Tyranid Tactica

[Learn2Eel]

Article 40 - The Seven Stages of Infestation (Day 6)

[Learn2Eel]

Article 41 - The Seven Stages of Infestation (Day 7)

[bismarckii]

I think warrior primes should be used most often I've been playing tyranids quite some time and taking them to tournaments and winning them. Even in this edition with new book I'm very confident in my nids in 1850 style or 1000 my nids can carry the game. I don't use flyrants ever! And in this edition they aren't even really considered. They are to to big of targets enemies know their potential and bring them down fast. Here is example of my tournament list for about 1850
Prime- ymgarl artifact
Reaper artifact
Aderline glands
Prime - swords
Barbstranggler
Troops
Termagants - 30
Tervigon - regen
Heavy support
Carnifex brood - 2
Regen
Adrenalin glands
Carnifex brood - 2
4x brainleach devourers
Carnifex brood - 2
4x brainleach devourers
Fast attack
Harpie

What I do is place my dedicated melee warrior prime in the melee fex brood the other prime joins a squad of daxa fexs. The fexs are the list they will be placed near each other or in fashion of daxa flanks melee center. Warlord is melee prime with melee fexs. What I'm doing with fexs is spreading out target priority. Which fex unit to shoot every thing is deadly. Daxa fexs delete units in open and light vehicles also great anti air. Melee fexs have the warlord and in all instants where I've gone into melee wreck face especially with my prime that dishes out 7 attacks on change. Synapse is protected have a horde of guants especially because when I've played and tested list no one is shooting guants or tervigon because carnifexs are just walking up the field and deleting units. When the fex unit starts to die or will die next turn prime leaves unit and joins some guants. Only one time has a prime died in the at least 10 times played to some assult terminators. Most armies don't have enough power to kill this many carnifexs especially when I have other units supporting them like the guants charging some troops or harpie being distraction or tervigon pumping babies (this is luck based) to much threat everywhere and when being tactical and making strategic decisions us very rewarding. Target priority is very stressed. There are limitations in this list though with heavy vehicles but MC close combat works.

[daboarder]

thing with primes compared to tyrants is you get
+2W +1T +1S +1I +2WS +2Ml and Ap2 with smash.....all for 40 pts extra.

I mean a primes what, TWICE the points of a chaos lord.......before gear. And if your worried about hiding in units you can get tyrant guards for roughly the same price as whatever unit you'd put a prime in for similar protection.

[bismarckii]

I'm no worried about hiding them because they can hide easily, my concern are with the carnifexs they are there to provide critical synapse for them and to provide melee protectionand character killing jobs. I have 2 tough synapse creatures over my one tyrant with no flexibility if guard die and his guard are quite unless except for sponges even in melee they don't deny armour unless you put points into them. Another thing mentioned above is even in tournaments my prime has never died but once because of assault terminators. Where as tyrants die left and right. Your missing the decision making process in why I choose them over tyrants. If you want just stats wise decision making then yeah tyrant way to go but I'm looking at winning games based on deception of where the threat lies and denying points like slay warlord or first blood. I get first blood my first turn of shooting with fexs so there you go. Critical analysis of opposition and the way they perceive threat on feild is what makes my nids work.

[Tynskel]

thing with primes compared to tyrants is you get
+2W +1T +1S +1I +2WS +2Ml and Ap2 with smash.....all for 40 pts extra.

I mean a primes what, TWICE the points of a chaos lord.......before gear. And if your worried about hiding in units you can get tyrant guards for roughly the same price as whatever unit you'd put a prime in for similar protection.

I think this down plays the versatility of a Prime. There are many things that you can do with a Prime that you cannot do with a Tyrant. The fact that you can move from squad to squad, hidden from threats, is a bonus. You can enter buildings, another bonus, especially since you can charge from buildings (the ultimate bonus).

[daboarder]

personally my take on the prime is that whether you take one or not depends more on the unit you want to put him in than on the prime itself. Are you running warriors, then yes the prime has a place to go a tyrant wouldn't. Venomthropes keep getting tapped out? consider a prime. but in most situations a tyrant can fill the same strategic role and more.

[Gleipnir]

Tyranid Prime to me seems like you need a 9 man Tyranid Warrior unit to get its value out of it, since it seems like his points cost assume he is always buffing 9 other Warriors or Shrikes. With the added cost of some of the Bioartifacts I can see him being somewhat useful in other mobs like with Maw Claws or a hard to remove Synapse Lynchpin, like others have said though Hive Tyrant just seems to do everything better for a more reasonable cost. Plus I prefer the psykers for force multipliers they bring over what the Prime gives.

[Halollet]

thing with primes compared to tyrants is you get
+2W +1T +1S +1I +2WS +2Ml and Ap2 with smash.....all for 40 pts extra.

I mean a primes what, TWICE the points of a chaos lord.......before gear. And if your worried about hiding in units you can get tyrant guards for roughly the same price as whatever unit you'd put a prime in for similar protection.

With primes compared to brood lords you get
+1Ws -4Bs +2I for 65 points less. Very similar stat line for half the price.
You swap out Synapse for a Psychic power, a gun and talons for rending claws, and you get the ability to infiltrate.

So yes, I think the Prime is way overpriced. You can get a pack of stealers with a broodlord for 5 points more then a base Prime. That just doesn't seem right.

Other then him hiding and denying your opponent Slay the Warlord, I can't think of anything really practical.

Even boosting warriors, for his point cost you can get 4 more warriors which would make up for the boost. He's competing against 12 scoring wounds that also have synapse and can get just about everything he can.

[Learn2Eel]

Venomthropes and Haruspexes have been added in, they are at the bottom of Page 2.

I've edited the articles on my blog to include Recommended Builds sections, I'm going to go through now and edit those in here I hope you guys are enjoying the series!