"New" Tyranids how to play them/what to take

[Endrekshar]

I was wondering some of the view points on this such as

• Must have units.
  
• The underdog units that will blow people out of the water with how unexpected they are.

I think that alot of people will say that with the inclusion of the "Drop" Spores that you should run a brood of 3 Zoanthropes, for tank hunting.

Along with things like Hive Guard and there cool Spike Gun.

But what about things like Pyrovores, Venom Thropes, and Mawlocks would you use them and if so in what way?

very interested in this please post your OPINION

P.S Please don't mathhammer this because i believe that if you approach the game in this way you are just going to look at Wins/Draws/Loses as opposed to what would be fun to play in the army (I do understand the need for things like GTs and 'Ard Boyz Tournaments but that is no what this topic is about)

[gcsmith]

Mawlocs cus wen u deploy on table the opponent gets ready to LC them but then u burrow and auto come up turn 2 makes the opponant cry as their LC die :P

[Chumbalaya]

P.S Please don't mathhammer this because i believe that if you approach the game in this way you are just going to look at Wins/Draws/Loses as opposed to what would be fun to play in the army (I do understand the need for things like GTs and 'Ard Boyz Tournaments but that is no what this topic is about)

Somebody has no idea what mathhammer is, lolz.

Anyhoo, you'll be hard pressed to find truly terrible units in the bug book beyond Rippers (even flying rippers are ok).

Standouts to me are the Tervigon (spawns more gaunts, scoring 6 wound MC, gives FNP to a unit, gaunts get counter attack, furious charge and poison just by sitting next to him), Zoanthropes (S10 AP1 lance with BS4, nuff said), Hive Guard (2 krak missiles apiece at BS4 that don't need LoS on a cheap, tough platform), Alpha Warrior (mini Hive Tyrant MC), Tyrannofex (6W, 2+ save gun beast), and of course Trygons/Mawlocs.

[MVBrandt]

I've kinda done this before, but now that dex is official and after a fair amount of playtesting the various builds and units out there ...

HQ
Swarmlord - Ridiculously expensive, requires hive guard to get him anywhere safely, and can be avoided by numerous armies. If not avoided, will punk whatever he hits, with a lot of reliability. Not worth the abusively huge # of points to field him and his ideal unit.

Hive Tyrant - Has some uses, especially his army buffers. Very, very expensive. Will take a lot of adjusting for old nid players to feel comfortable fielding a 3+ save monster for that much. 2+ armor upgrade and wings upgrades are hilariously overpriced.

Tyrant Guard - Identical but with a 33% points increase. Go figure. I didn't think they were undeprriced previously, so I don't see how this was appropriate. Still probably mandatory for walking Tyrants.

Tervigon - All star of the dex. Spawns gaunts, can be taken as a troop, 6 wounds, can cast FNP on units, makes gaunts super nasty and able to deal with basically anything not a vehicle (S4 I5 poisoned attacks? tyvm) if you play him correctly. Will be in most competitive lists in number of at least 2.

Tyranid Prime (what everyone is calling an Alpha Warrior) - Affordable enough to be useful as hidden synapse, and a nasty threat to various units that get close. For 110 points you can have a guy who causes ID on a failed 3d6 ld test, throws 5 attacks on the charge at S6, and can have them be rending vs. vehicles. Will see him hidden in hive guard units, larger gaunt units, and warrior units (to whom he gives his WS and BS of 6/4).

Parasite of Mortrex - Funny, interesting. Like the Prime, is a hidden synapse character. Will probably be fielded in larger gargoyle squads, which will enable him to avoid power fists. Intriguing, and will be funny when you turn things into rippers.

Elites
Hive Guard - Opinions here vary wildly. My $.02 is that the Hive Guard is the superlative choice over the Zoanthrope for anti-tank, for a couple of reasons that I'll delineate in a sec. Each one for less than a zoanthrope is immune to ID (except special abilities), and becomes super durable with Tervigons nearby. They fire 2 s8 shots that ignore cover unless you're in it SMS style (and that's HUGE) each. Superlatively lethal against non-AV14. A squad of 3 has a 2/3 chance to inflict a glancing hit against AV14 also ... better odds than the old Venom Cannon fex had ... which isn't great, but is worth noting.

Zoanthrope - S10 AP1 Lance with 18" range on a 3+ save (invul) 2 wound T4 platform for more points than a hive guard and no close combat ability whatsoever beyond tarpitting. Fragile to an extreme degree. Consider that the small arms required to kill a marine is minimal ... and a zoanthrope is just a 2 wound marine vs. any kind of small arms. Also consider that any unlucky failed save vs. s8 and higher is a dead zoanthrope. Like every other unit in the army, can be made tougher with the synergy of Tervigons.

Zoanthrope vs. Hive Guard - Hive Guard are more durable overall, better in combat if they HAVE to fight (except for things neither of them should be fighting anyway), have better range, ignore cover in many cases, have more shots per unit in case of bad rolls, and are statistically similar or superior against transport AV (10-12). Zoanthropes are better vs. Land Raiders. Dat's basically it. With the proliferation of monsters in most armies, and the ability in emergencies to chuck numerous batches of 6+2d6 attacks at them, I don't think you'll find nid players in the fullness of time fielding Zoans over Hive Guard. Additionally, Hive Guard remove the need to field Death Leaper as an anti-psychic-hood addition.

Lictors - Improved stats (extra wound), teleport homers and retain +1 to reserves. Cannot assault on the turn they arrive means that like Marbo they are usually going to die to some incidental close range fire if you want them close to your opponent. Remember, this isn't a "win" where things aren't shooting at your main group ... if you're close to your opponent, he's probably shooting things at them that otherwise would just not be shooting, i.e. the meltaguns from chimera embarked veterans. Meanwhile, with only a 2 shot s6 ap- weapon (rending, granted) in the flesh hooks, you're not going to exactly pop transports all over the place when they arrive. Generally noncompetitive with hive guard, zoanthropes, death leaper.

Death Leaper - Cool unit, needs his own thread to discuss merit in tourney lists. Wish he could be an HQ or Fast Attack. I don't believe in dedicating points to psy defense either ... jotww can be mitigated otherwise, seer councils can be mobbed and bludgeoned by free gaunt squads w/ poisoned attacks and FNP, and lol@ psyker battle squads if you're nids (not that the leaper helps vs. them anyway).

Venomthrope - Let's see. A 2 wound model w/ a 5+ save that provides ridiculously huge benefits to all the Tyranid nearby and is neither an IC, nor small enough to hide. Really? Utter crap. You'd have to be on crack.

Doom of Malan'tai - Cool if you are in a local metagame area where mech isn't king. Put him in a spore pod and drop him in the middle of a foot army, and watch the shenanigans unfold as the turn he arrives every unit w/ a model w/in 6" takes a ld test on 3d6 and starts losing models. Then you have a 10 wound bug. Too bad an unlucky 1 or 2 on a meltagun save = dead, no matter how many wounds he's got. Cool, but generally worthless in the greater scheme.

Pyrovore - This has to be the most confusing, weird, stupid selection ever made. 2 wounds. WS3. 1 attack. I 1. Explodes in a fashion that is most harmful to gretchin and gaunts, of all things out there. Only explodes if killed by instant death anyway. Has a heavy flamer, that he can't project. Is slow (walking), unless you put him in a drop pod (and then you're asking for him to be free VP even sooner). IGNORES ARMOR SAVES ... but seriously, with his one attack ... This guy is total ***. There are no redeeming qualities, stop trying to figure them out.

Ymgarl Genestealers - Cool, risky deployment style. Certainly possess the ability to throw 3 s5 rending attacks each against a vehicle or w/e on the charge, the turn they arrive. At 23 points, though ... they are mighty pricey.

Troops
Warriors - These remind me of what Crisis Suits would be if they were close in support / assault units and could be given feel no pain. That is to say, expensive models with a lot of potential for hitting something really hard at either range (18-24" depending on weaponry) or in close, and are really durable vs. small arms, but that fold like a deck of cards when a vendetta or a few missiles start coming their way. Cool unit, useful if you take maybe one with a tyranid prime to suck some ID wounds. Please consider how durable crisis suits with no range would be, though. Also, every power fist hit you take in close combat is going to count for 3 combat res against you, and they're still not very good at killing dreadnaughts and the like.

Genestealers - Lost most of their upgrade options w/out losing their base stats, and got 2 points cheaper. Cool. I don't like genestealers, or how they played, but in general if you liked them before you'll probably still like them or like them more.

Landing Spore - Cool, neat, fluffy, super fragile. Will find use in some armies.

Termagants - Loss of fleet sucks big floppy donkey dick. Still, it's nice to get them for only 5 points now. With a tervigon nearby these are nasty critters, especially since they're all either 5 points or free.

Hormagaunt - Not all that good. Really. Sorry. They were overpriced mediocrity in the last dex. Now they are more appropriately priced mediocrity. You actually lost effectiveness though, in the WS department especially, and lost your fast charge. So, one could argue that they are STILL overpriced. They certainly are not the match of an Ork, but they cost the same. They should be 4 points with what they have now. They're just fast extra attack gaunts who can't benefit from tervigons, are just as fragile, and can't shoot.

Rippers - lol.

Fast Attack
Winged Warriors - Winged warriors with deathspitters were a hallmark of my last army. They're called Shrikes or something now and deathspitters are just ap5 heavy bolters now. I don't think these will be taken often.

Ravener - An extra wound did not remove the glaring flaw of raveners, which was their obscene fragility for cost, esp. in comparison to warriors for purpose. This is still the problem. Furthermore, now they are ID bait. Back in 4th edition, Raveners were superlative b/c although pricey and fragile, they hunkered behind the lines and provided this awesome threat that could take out dreadnaughts or land raiders even ... and so were scary to anything. It was the pinnacle of Tyranid OOGA BOOGA! Now? They're total bleh. They basically can't tackle anything heavy, with the nerfs to rending and their still-fragile demeanour. As a result, they do what everything else in the Tyranid army already does - kill basic infantry. Since you don't need that, you don't need raveners.

Flying Rippers - lol^2

Gargoyles - More appealing now that they are properly costed, but like Hormagaunts you're left feeling like they're still overpriced, since the S4 I hit you on 4+ hit to rear armor of fast moving vehicles is gone. That's what they were freaking useful for ... and now that it's gone wtf is the point? They're just a point more expensive faster but still as fragile gaunts. They also lost their ability to operate outside of synapse, dropping to Ld6. This means those gargs of yours are more likely to run for cover and shoot somethign nearby than they are to actually do what you want, if they're off on some kind of "kill that th ing that's far away from us" mission. But really, again, just a more expensive way of doing what your tervigon-buffed gaunts are already doing - killing basic infantry.

Harpy - This one gets me to laugh a lot. Some people like the ability to field a monster that flies to get side armor shots with a s9 ap4 -1to damage roll twin-linked bs 3 blast weapon. Some people like me go "well, that doesn't kill transports at all reliably, so it doesn't do the one thing Tyranid really need to do." Most people SHOULD look at them and go "super fragile." Unfortunately, internet tough guys all around go "WELL DERE AREN'T DAT MANY S10 WEPINZ DAT KEN SHOOT UM." The problem is not that S10 weapons one shot them. Sure they do, and that sucks for the overpriced Harpy. The problem is that 4 space marine heavy bolters statistically kill them. T5 4+ save is not durable, vs. anything. They don't hit very hard either. It's basically a fragile monster whose points cost is based around the fact that it was given close combat tricks and ranged tricks and made way too hyper versatile, plus apparently Cruddace thinks wings on a non-eternal, non-invul monster SHOULD cost 60 points. WTF ever.

Spore Mine Cluster - pre-game shenanigans will abound with these, and they're cool for that.

Heavy Support
Carnifex - If all you want is the ability to run up and punk a fast moving land raider, the basic Fex is your answer, with 5 S9 attacks that re-roll to hit vs. it. He's outclassed at most other roles.

Old One Eye - LOLOLOL.

Biovore - Worse than 4th edition biovores.

Trygon / Trygon Prime - Cool, hitty, their tunnel has to be a meaningful portion of their points cost and it's total crap. Fleet monsters are good for hiding in your meatball and reaching out and touching somebody on demand. Re-rolling to hit at S6 (possible 7 if you take glands) vs. vehicles with 7 attacks on the charge is pretty cool too.

Mawloc - The Tyranid equivalent of the middle finger. I actually see the Mawloc's best use being synergistic with the Tervigon gaunt farm / hive guard type list, as the way to reach out and contest objectives late game. Imagine going 2nd in draw mission, and your opponent puts his objective as far from your deployment as humanly possible. He castles around it in realization of your slow speed and figures he autocontests. Well, on Turn 4 you submerge one of 2 mawlocs. On turn 5 you submerge the other. Now you autowin basically unless it goes to Turn 7, at which point even your hyperslow nid army is there. Avoid the urge to use the S6 ap2 blast early ... it scatters the full 2d6 and can scatter off table or into impassable to the mishap of your mawloc (they don't have the same protection Trygons do). 6 wounds won't save you if you burn it early and wind up in the middle of a pile of meltaguns that have nothing better to shoot at yet. Use wisely.

Tyrannofex - At an absurdly high price for a BS3 2-shot S10 weapon, will still be taken by a lot of people and moved w/ the horde just to offer a) another big monster nearby, and c) the opportunity value of s10 shots that can pen. I'm fuggin' renaming mine though. I mean, Tyrannofex? Come the fawk on.

[Deej]

From MVBrandt's post, it seems everything is crap except Hive Guard and Tervigons.

[Drakkan Vael]

From MVBrandt's post, it seems everything is crap except Hive Guard and Tervigons.

Luckily that ist not the case.

The comparison of Hive Guard against Zoanthropes lacks a lot of additional aspects. Zoas can be dropped in a Spore, Hive Guard cannot. The Guards armor save is even worse than the inv save of the Zoas. The Zoas are not only better against AV 14 but against allmost all armored Vehicles (with the exception of Serpents).
The Zoas on the other hand suffer from extensive psychic defense. Oh, and by the way, they are pretty good at killing Marines and other stuff with AS 3+.

Biovores are not exactly worse. S4 AP4 large blast. You'll find allways some place to hide them behind. They are cheap, reliable horde killer. Shoot at some Firewarriors, Imps or Orks and watch them die. I consider them better then before.

Tyrannofex ist expensive but with two 48" Str 10 shots one of the long-range-weapons in the tyranid army that can destroy a landraider from afar.

The new 'nids play differently. than the old ones (I play them since 2nd ed.), you have to adjust your style of play as well. Synergy, units working in concert with each other is key.
Having an overall strategy, for example disrupting your enemy (Trygon, Mawloc, Sporemine clusters, Spore pods, outflanking) or playing a steamroller (MC spawn in a big block while using the abilities of Tervigons, Hive Tyrant and Tyrant Guard) is far more important than individual units.

Hive Guard is great against mech. But what do you do with them against horde?

Please don't flame my english as I am German. I'm playtesting the 'nids since about before Christmas when the german codex leaked. And I do like them.

Found even uses for Hormagaunts: Pod them with two Alpha Warriors (in german he is an Alpha). Detach them in the round after the drop and watch them slaughter three separate units, as one lone Alpha is enough to slaughter a combat squad of Marines, even Termis at that (even if it's a close call). 15 Hormagaunts with toxin do that as well.

Really, the codex is quite balanced and offers a wider variety of playstyles than ever before.

[Madjob]

Not to be redundant (I've posted this in one of the rumor threads) but I thought I'd point out that with the way the Tyrant Guard rules work now, they protect the Tyrant from precisely jack squat. He can be singled out in shooting, because he's still a Monstrous Creature attached to a non-MC unit as an Independent Character, and he can be singled out in CC because he's an Independent Character when joined to them.

Add that to their increased cost and lowered stats, and we've got another big question mark entry for this codex. So many baffling oversights in this codex makes it hard for me to remain optimistic about it. Lictors only practically provide their reserves bonus for a single turn and then becoming redundant (can take effect turn 3 at the earliest, so your reserves come in on a 2+ that turn and then a 2+ on turn 4 like they would have anyways). Wording on the Mawloc's Terror from the Deep possibly prevents it from functioning like it was intended. I'm on the side of RAI here on that last one but I'll put money on people making such a huge contention over this that we won't settle on a straight answer until a FAQ/Errata. Regardless Cruddace should have been more careful when writing an entry that makes exceptions to existing rules in the BRB.

[Mizzrym]

my thoughts are harpies=win, TL HVcannon yes plz, tervigon A++++, I also think flying rippers with spinefists could be a sleeper hit, only bs 2, but 4 shots twin linked each base could be useful, throw the parasite into the unit for a good fun time. also tyrannofex's at 1850 pt games could be feasible

[MVBrandt]

From MVBrandt's post, it seems everything is crap except Hive Guard and Tervigons.

I gather you did not read my post, then.


re: Drakkan ...

Luckily that ist not the case.

Truth.

The comparison of Hive Guard against Zoanthropes lacks a lot of additional aspects. Zoas can be dropped in a Spore, Hive Guard cannot. The Guards armor save is even worse than the inv save of the Zoas. The Zoas are not only better against AV 14 but against allmost all armored Vehicles (with the exception of Serpents).
The Zoas on the other hand suffer from extensive psychic defense. Oh, and by the way, they are pretty good at killing Marines and other stuff with AS 3+.

First off, drop podding zoanthropes is cool and effective statistically at ganking say a land raider, but your zoans die thereafter. They do not survive sustained small arms fire at all. Consider that 180 points and 3 zoanthropes will gain you the same resilience against small arms as 6 marines. In other words, they are not durable. SO, does your local metagame contain only a few heavy tanks and that's it, such that you will be effective drop podding a couple squads of zoans for the one shot wonder and then moving on with life? Great! If that's NOT the case, and it's more like near me, where every single living thing is in a transport and there are 10+ of them in every army ... you may find less real use for zoans.

Remember that Hive Guard are by nature always going to be in cover ... they don't require LOS, and they have a decent enough range to move along w/ a gaunt screen or other things. As a result, that 4+ is a cover save or an armor save, and with Tervs (like with everything else) they'll be FNP as well. While Zoans are better against all armored vehicle per shot, remember that they have 1 shot which does not ignore los, has 6" less range and does not ignore many cover saves. On an open field, within range, the Zoan is a better shot. I wouldn't dispute this, nor would I say zoans are bad - they are quite good.

Biovores are not exactly worse. S4 AP4 large blast. You'll find allways some place to hide them behind. They are cheap, reliable horde killer. Shoot at some Firewarriors, Imps or Orks and watch them die. I consider them better then before.

Main important note is that people did not take the Biovore in the past b/c it competed with very good monsters, and performed a task the tyranid already did very well - killing infantry. Also, the biovore was always and still is super fragile. Basically, it's the same, with a large blast but no variety of spore attack. The large blast is cool, but they are actually pricier I believe in points, just as fragile, and just as unnecessary, plus they still compete with some really nice monsters (note I am saying the monsters are really nice, and neither are hive guard or tervigons).

Tyrannofex ist expensive but with two 48" Str 10 shots one of the long-range-weapons in the tyranid army that can destroy a landraider from afar.

Super absurdly expensive for what he does, but as I mentioned will still be taken (including by me probably) for the fact that he can at least threaten higher AV at range. I think "bad" nid players will keep him way back, though ... Nid armies should still operate interdependently, so big bunches of gaunts or bad-in-combat-but-still-big monsters can be chucked at close in threats.

The new 'nids play differently. than the old ones (I play them since 2nd ed.), you have to adjust your style of play as well. Synergy, units working in concert with each other is key.
Having an overall strategy, for example disrupting your enemy (Trygon, Mawloc, Sporemine clusters, Spore pods, outflanking) or playing a steamroller (MC spawn in a big block while using the abilities of Tervigons, Hive Tyrant and Tyrant Guard) is far more important than individual units.

I think the new Nids don't play all that differently in test. They CAN in the sense that they have a lot of new deep strike / pop-up tricks, but dat's about it. Tyranid played at their highest level were always synergistic, and they still are, but more so. The dex has a lot of badly costed units, several pointless/stupid units, and a few obvious awesome-o units, while the rest are all good, and even some of the badly costed ones are still excellent and will be taken. Also, more than ever, Tyranid performance will be amplified dramatically by player performance.

Hive Guard is great against mech. But what do you do with them against horde?

Hive Guard aren't a horde killer. In the current top level game, mech is king. You take Hive Guard b/c you anticipate going up against armies full of transports, whether those are trukks, rhinos, or chimeras, or w/ever. Anything with troops hiding inside in the AV10-12 range. Keep in mind that while the Tyranid have a TON of units that can readily gank horde, even things as simple as the Tervigon+Termagant combo can do this reliably. The important note is not that Tervigons/gaunts are the only way to go, but that the codex is so absurdly robust in the anti-infantry department that the simplest of combos can basically take on anything in the infantry-only department. The point is to imply then that zoanthropes/hive guard/tyrannofexes are important units in how you utilize them b/c they perform the one task the army doesn't across ALL its units already - turning a mech army into an infantry army over the course of a 5-7 turn game (by killing its mech). If your list can do taht reliably, your list will be able to tackle the infantry too unless you're brain dead.

Please don't flame my english as I am German. I'm playtesting the 'nids since about before Christmas when the german codex leaked. And I do like them.

Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut ... dein Englisch ist sehr gut. re: playtesting ... ich auch

Found even uses for Hormagaunts: Pod them with two Alpha Warriors (in german he is an Alpha). Detach them in the round after the drop and watch them slaughter three separate units, as one lone Alpha is enough to slaughter a combat squad of Marines, even Termis at that (even if it's a close call). 15 Hormagaunts with toxin do that as well.

Really, the codex is quite balanced and offers a wider variety of playstyles than ever before.

This is something I can generally agree with.

There are a lot of units that compete with more obvious choices, which is frustrating compared to guard.
There are a lot of units that cost too much for what they do, but can still be fully playable and competitive.
There are at least a couple of units that are utterly pointless or absurdly overpriced.
There are several great units.

The codex as a whole, inclusive of the above, is strong and highly playable, and a lot of Nid players will enjoy it.


Tho a ps - releasing a dex with Swarmlord, Tervigon, Tyrannofex, Harpy, Doom of Malan'tai, Parasite of Mortrex, etc. and having no models for them is fuggin' weak.

[Chumbalaya]

I'm still a big fan of Zoeys MVB, though I can see where you're coming from on them. I throw in the Alpha Warrior to give them extra wounds and a little surprise if somebody feels like getting too close. They dish out the Warp Lance or 3 small blasts plus his deathspitter to go after light mech/hordes. Since the rest of my army is 2 Harpies, a Tyrannofex and the gaunt farm I need a good way to take on armor and infantry at range, and Zoes fit nicely.

I like them both really, it just depends on what you need. Tyranid armies, gaunt farms in particular, need to stop Land Raiders before they can drive through the screen and dump TH/SS termies on your important units. Tyrannofexes have a shot, but Zoeys are easily the most consistent.

Pretty much everything else I'd agree with.