Any Good "Small" Tyranid Armies?

[Chapter Master Jake]

If I were to start WH40K back up and chose Tyranids rather than Astra Militarum or Tau, what would be the best place to start with a relatively small skirmish army? Other than a cheap Hive Tyrant, (or Tervigon?) I'm not sure what to use. The last time I played with or against Tyranids was during the days of Broodlord HQ's so, I'm a little behind. :P

I was thinking that a cheap army would best be composed of an all close combat army with a winged Tyrant and 2 Hormagaunt broods at max size, but I defer to better judgement than mine.

[daboarder]

If I were to start WH40K back up and chose Tyranids rather than Astra Militarum or Tau, what would be the best place to start with a relatively small skirmish army? Other than a cheap Hive Tyrant, (or Tervigon?) I'm not sure what to use. The last time I played with or against Tyranids was during the days of Broodlord HQ's so, I'm a little behind. :P

I was thinking that a cheap army would best be composed of an all close combat army with a winged Tyrant and 2 Hormagaunt broods at max size, but I defer to better judgement than mine.

You probably want to look at running 1000 pts, means you have a small investment like 750, but that extra 250 pts gives you the option ot run some goodies.

its kinda hard at the moment to give someone a direction on what or how to run a list without knowing what they want, there is so much variation and we can only give so much advice.

So in that respect what kind of list do YOU like?

Do you like a horde of little dudes?
Or a Nidzilla army with more MCs than fingers?
Or is wings your go to thing with an army of flying gribblies?

Or do you want a mixture.

Let us know and then we can start looking into aadvice

[ElectricPaladin]

I am also interested in Tyranids. In my case, probably a mix of giant gribblies and swarms of lesser gribs. Both appeal In my case, though, it's a bit up in the air, as my collection will start with my Space Hulk genestealers plus whatever ends up being in the rumored Blood Angels vs. 'Nids box. Nevertheless...

[Chapter Master Jake]

You probably want to look at running 1000 pts, means you have a small investment like 750, but that extra 250 pts gives you the option ot run some goodies.

its kinda hard at the moment to give someone a direction on what or how to run a list without knowing what they want, there is so much variation and we can only give so much advice.

So in that respect what kind of list do YOU like?

Do you like a horde of little dudes?
Or a Nidzilla army with more MCs than fingers?
Or is wings your go to thing with an army of flying gribblies?

Or do you want a mixture.

Well, in truth I'm a beginner in most respects so I'm not entirely sure what lists would work but I know I'd eventually like to start building a few armies in 750 point chunks, playing a game or two between to see which style I'd be better suited for. I know myself as a player would like a balance of of hordes and monsters. I like Tyranids because of their classic signature playstyle, lots of gaunts/gants/rippers charging ahead in between Carnifexes, Warriors, Thropes, and Vores with a Tyrant at the lead. And now it seems that Carnifexes, Warriors, Thropes, and even Vores are cheaper than ever points-wise, with entire broods of those guys rather than single miniatures.

More specialized unit combos like Trygons/Mawlocks + Raveners, Crones/Harpies + Gargoyles, Tyrannofex + Exocrine, Toxicrene + Haruspex, will all come at a later time when I actually understand them better. I've never really been good at picking specialized units because I used to fall victim to a superiority complex when it came to my old Terminators and Assault Marines back in the day. :P

Oh, and on the matter of specializing my hive fleet, I do like the methods put forth by Kraken with thousands of smaller tendrils causing havoc and confusion while the main force continues to reinforce the tendrils from the main body. I kind of want to follow a similar theme with my own force.

[michael79]

Well, in truth I'm a beginner in most respects so I'm not entirely sure what lists would work but I know I'd eventually like to start building a few armies in 750 point chunks, playing a game or two between to see which style I'd be better suited for. I know myself as a player would like a balance of of hordes and monsters. I like Tyranids because of their classic signature playstyle, lots of gaunts/gants/rippers charging ahead in between Carnifexes, Warriors, Thropes, and Vores with a Tyrant at the lead. And now it seems that Carnifexes, Warriors, Thropes, and even Vores are cheaper than ever points-wise, with entire broods of those guys rather than single miniatures.

More specialized unit combos like Trygons/Mawlocks + Raveners, Crones/Harpies + Gargoyles, Tyrannofex + Exocrine, Toxicrene + Haruspex, will all come at a later time when I actually understand them better. I've never really been good at picking specialized units because I used to fall victim to a superiority complex when it came to my old Terminators and Assault Marines back in the day. :P

Oh, and on the matter of specializing my hive fleet, I do like the methods put forth by Kraken with thousands of smaller tendrils causing havoc and confusion while the main force continues to reinforce the tendrils from the main body. I kind of want to follow a similar theme with my own force.

I would start by looking at the two Army-Boxes that GW offers for the Tyranids. They are a pretty good deal for some essential models:

Tyranid Swarm ($170 retail):
10 Gargoyles, 40 Hormagaunts, 40 Termagants, 1 Carnifex, and 4 Ripper Swarms.

or Wrath of the Hive Mind ($165 retail):
1 Hive Tyrant, 1 Tervigon/Tyrannofex, 3 Tyranid Warriors and 20 Termagants; and 3 Ripper Swarms.

Both would need a little extra love. For instance, The Swarm has NO SYNAPSE, so you need at least a Hive Tyrant. The Wrath, if you want to run the Tervigon, you really need some more gaunts. If you build the Tervigon as a Tyrranofex instead, I think it is playable as a skirmish army out of the box!! Also, if you buy both together (Swarm + Wrath), they actually make a pretty decent horde of tyranids. Keep in mind that if you look hard enough, you can usually find 15-20% off retail. At 20% off, that's a LOT of bugs for just under $270.

Some biomass for thought: The first thing you will need to do when you have your army is figure out how to get your bugs from point A to point B without being blown off the table. I recommend one of two basic strategies: Venomthrope cover, or Tyrranocyte drop pods. Both are kits that are about to be released, and one or the other is pretty much essential, IMHO. Those aren't the only way to protect your bugs, but they are the easiest to start with.

Hope that helps!

[daboarder]

I'd like to second Micahael, If you pick up BOTH those boxes you will have plenty of options to try out and see what works for you, its the staple units of most tyranid armies really and you can swap and change the units easily (you can even try out some thing like the endless swarm with that.

[Brenlak]

Its been my experience that even a small army eventually gets big and sooner or later your play style as well as your favorite models will change.

When I started Tyranids it was basically a swarm army (Usually a Prime with some warriors, two big units of Gaunts, some outflanking Genestealers and then some Zoanthropes or Hive Guard, whichever I was trying out) but this build would not work with the newest codex (My Genestealers used to be cause for serious worry, not so much anymore, and I will never forget my big unit of Warriors getting K.O.ed by a Chaos gun puppy).

As far as models go I could name any number of bug doggies that are badass, but really your gonna get what you think is cool and go from there anyways. I don't believe there are people out there that will play with units they don't like just to win the game, and if you are playing just to win, just for the game; your missing out on the sense of "Hobby" GW charges you premium prices for. Are you really spending hundreds of dollars and hours to beat your friends?

So as a player still trying to figure out how these bugs work now, not wanting to add my half baked opinions of tactics in, and still pissed at GW for a growing number of reasons here's my advice:

Get a Hive Tyrant. It's an HQ your gonna need one of those, there are so many options for arming it your gonna get a crash course in Bioweapons to help with further army building desicons, and if you don't end up collecting Tyranids he's boss just sitting on your shelf (Especially with wings)!

Yep just sitting on the shelf, Psionic tendrils creeping forward, gnashing and tearing at your sanity; until all that remains is the will of the Hive Mind...


Get Two!!!

[Brenlak]

Did you get one yet?

[Porkchop Express]

Dual Tervigons with plenty of gaunts is a great start. From there you can buils up your horde, or if you don't like the smaller creatures, add some MC's instead.

[CrimsonTurkey]

I'm very fond of the flying dudes right now. You could run a Skyblight formation at 850 with some bare-bones upgrades, or with a good number of (respawning, objective secured) gargoyles at 1000. The flyrant is your friend in a big way. I always run one these days, and in 1500 pts and up I usually bring two.

Unpopular options that I get good mileage out of:
- The deathleaper's assassin brood is great for MSU harassment and knocking out light transports before the rest of your wee monsters arrive.
- I'm also a big fan of deep striking Trygon primes: 12 S6 shots can put some serious hurt on the rear armour of a lot of vehicles, and that big model popping out of the ground can really mess with peoples' plans.
- At small game levels, depending on your local meta (how much S8 is floating around?), warriors can be pretty solid too. 5 with Deathspitters and rending claws is my favorite load-out. It's a solid shooting threat against most infantry, and then I tend to hold them in reserve (in a tactical sense, not the game term), to toss them in to whatever combat needs their help in the late game.