Curious About... Tyranids

[ElectricPaladin]

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.

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.

[Houghten]

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.

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

[40kGamer]

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.

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

[Tyrendian]

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...

[daboarder]

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)

[Power Klawz]

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.)

[daboarder]

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

[John Bower]

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.

[daboarder]

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

[ElectricPaladin]

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...