Hey guys and just a quick warning, WALL OF TEXT BELOW. This is by now means solid, or overly experienced. But I hope some of you find this useful and believe its an accurate portrayol of our favourite all devouring xenos, Tyranids.
So tyranids have changed, a new book has been out now for a couple of months and yet tyranids still havnt had the time (or the tournaments) to change local or meta game. Sure people are playing them, but because a lot of nid players are switchers or noobs to the army (Like me at the moment) A lot of skilled players are winning over them due to the lack of player knowlege. However this will soon change and I hope to aid that, and give what i believe is how nids are today.
Overall: Tyranids are one of the new steep learning curve armies in my opinion. Hard to play but can be insanely rewarding, especially when compared to nooby armies such as space wolfs and probably Blood angels (no offence intended but really my brother could win with Space wolfs and he dnt no the rules ). So what does that mean. Well generally it means we wont be seen between fun games and uber tournies. We might be seen at locals but in a more friendly atmosphere. This is because most local store players are either young and possibly in experienced, to poor to buy all they need (like me) or uber players who benefit from their learning cure but don't want to show off. This is good, it means for those with stupidly good lists should be able to surprise several people and take them off guard. But don't be put off by the dreaded 'Curve'. Tyranids are a very fun army to play and quite Unique in the realm of 40k able to take monstrous swarms. Hordes of gaunts backed by tervigons and trygon; general swarms with powerful combat; or elite armies with warriors and trygons and etc. Trust me the tyranids are an army for everyone.
So lets take a look at the units:
HQ: Hive Tyrants are an extreme choice, Fun, powerful, and adds a lot of synergy to your army, however I think cruddance over pointed it, 170 points basic is more than a winged deamon prince, and 60 points for wings is really silly. However, they are still quite balanced and can assist your army greatly, able to make powerful units, WS and BS 1 makes a unit fear even your rippers. The ability to make nearby friendly units preffered enemy is quite cool, to make a unit of 30 termigaunts with devs outflanks is strong too, and +1 reinforcements makes it sweet to boot, Then theres to leadership to charge it means you can be protected slightly from TH/SS termies. The best thing is, all 3 of skills are powerful and are all able to be taken at once
Swarmlord: A poweful Tyrant that come with all 4 powers and able to use 2 in one turn, he gets a 4+ invunrable in combat, and all wounds cause instant death, in addition all succesful invun saves must be retaken, Pack this with giving a USR to nearby units, +1 to reserves He is a must have for tyrant loving who want decent synergy.
Tervigon: A ok HQ who is better as a troop choice when you have termigaunts, sorry but capturing monstrous creature is better than a HQ. A creature that can also poop gaunts for want of a better word is also quite powerful for objective based missions as it is able to secure many objectives on its own and allow your army to destroy your opponent, this is also good concidering they probably wont have that luxury/
Tyranid prime: My favourite HQ, and also the cheapest, able to lend its ws and bs to a warrior squad and with powerful stats and options be sure not to underestimate him.
Parasite or mortrex: An independent character able to make many times its points of rippers, main downsides are its points cost, vunrability and needing a lot of rippers. But if annilations the game, and you have gargoyles to protect him, he might be work a shot.