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Monday, October 10, 2011

Tyranids, or How I Stopped Hating Cruddance and Learned to Deal

                I love my nids. I’ve had nids since 2nd, and have slowly built from 16 gaunts, a Tyrant and 24 genestealers to around 14k points worth of Tyranids. My Hive Fleet is Hive Fleet Ataxia, which means chaos. You can see my previous Swarmlord in the background before my daughter took poor swarmy for a ride in her Malibu Barbie Mazarati. He didn’t fare too well. Now I am one of the first ones to agree on the fact that the 5th edition codex is crap. Yes crap, shit, and a giant turd that appears to have never been play tested by anyone with cognitive skills greater than an inbred otter at an ISOT get together. The PHAQU that Games Workshop published, then amended then republished helped not at all.  Giving one codex none of the benefits that another codex gets with the same exact equipment just isn’t right. Having five plus combat units without grenades isn’t just not right, it’s totally stupid. Having units that cost more than anything equaling them in another codex is not only stupid, it’s moronic; in what universe is the Tyrannofex worth it’s base cost? But let us get past that and concentrate on something else entirely. In the smaller world of games smaller than 1750, Nids still have it. It’s totally possible to have a good and fun game where you can actually win. At the 2500 point top tier tournaments, Tyranids just are not going to be there. YES there are people who play really well and have the finesse to pull a grand GT off with whatever army they want. That doesn’t mean Tyranids are top tier, or even top 5. They aren’t and that’s the reality of it. We can still enjoy them at lower levels, so let’s make up a decent 1750 list that covers everything.
                First, we need troops and anti mech.  We take the Hive Guard over the under used Zoanthropes.  You may ask why, since the Zoanthropes have a better weapon and a better save. Well, Hive Guard have T6 and are not psykers. Every weapon the Zoanthropes have to take a psychic test on targeting an opponent’s model can be canceled by a psychic hood, and needs to pass 6 tests to hit, so let’s just ignore them for now. So 6 will give us 2 units to blow crap up. Tervigons are one of those few units in the codex that needs to be used in almost every list. It buffs cheap troops into decent choices and also spawns more troops. Let’s take our general 2 Termagaunt squads so we can take 2 Tervigons as troops also. Just remember to protect them so they don’t get instagibbed by Grey Knights and others of their like.
                Next are some decent heavy choices. Two Trygons sounds awesome, as they can do some damage and soak up lots of wounds. They’ll need cover, which they only get from 50% coverage. We’ll take Gargoyles for this, as they are too good not to have in almost every list. 20 Gargoyles with upgrades sounds good as it can do more than just provide cover.
                Last, we need an HQ and some more combat assets. A Tyranid Prime can fill many roles and will even fit in units as one of the codexes few IC’s. Lashwhip & Bonesword work great at extending their life if they get into CC. Raveners are a great unit, and really fast too, so we’ll take a unit of 4. Venomthropes aren’t great but provide more mobile cover for our gaunts and Tervigons, so a unit of 3 goes in. This gives us a set up of:

== HQ ==
Tyranid Prime (1) - Devourer, Lash Whip And Bonesword

== Elites ==
Hive Guard Brood (3)
Hive Guard Brood (3)
Venomthrope Brood (3)

== Troops ==
Termagant Brood (10) - Fleshborer
Termagant Brood (10) - Fleshborer
Tervigon (1) - Stinger Salvo, AG, Toxin Sacs, Cat
Tervigon (1) - Stinger Salvo, AG, Toxin Sacs, Cat

== Fast Attack ==
Gargoyle Brood (20) - AG, Toxin Sacs
Ravener Brood (4) - Scything Talons

== Heavy Support ==
Trygon (1) - Toxin Sacs, Instinctive Behaviour - Feed
Trygon (1) - Toxin Sacs, Instinctive Behaviour - Feed

== Total ==
1750 pts.
 A general all comers list that shows the best of the codex at work. Hope you have fun with it on the table top.

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