2000 points of Nids

[Sergent Zhyr]

No wings?
How do you want to get in to combat with that? sure he can shoot but I always looked at him as a flying monster.

[Colonel Voss]

he'll get there. not as fast, but he'll get there. and I would make sure there are plenty of bugs between him and the enemy to get a cover save and other targets to worry about.

[Primarch]

Keep the second carnifex as a carnifex. The Hive Tyrant can be added later when you get a feel for what you want the army to do.

A Tyrant with wings and two sets of talons, or 1 set of talons, a lash whip and a bone sword can get into combat pretty quickly and hold its own against most things. The lash whip is useful if your regular opponent usually runs marines or other units where they can reach initiative 5 or higher. Make sure to run Gargoyles with it to provide some support.

The other option I would recommend for a tyrant is two go with two twin linked devourers. Add in a Tyrant guard or two and dont bother with the armoured shell. The Tyrant cant get a cover save unless 50% of its body is obscured as it is a monstrous creature. The Guard are regular infantry, so, as long as they are in cover the Tyrant gets cover.

Adrenal Glands are useful (furious charge is good), the rest of the upgrades are a waste. At s6, the poison attacks are a waste unless you're fighting other monstrous creatures all the time. Acid Blood, Implant Attack and Toxic Miasma arent that useful to be worth spending points on. Regeneration is a good way to waste points on most things, though for 10 points its not bad on the Tyranid Prime.

The Thorax Swarm is a waste on a shooting Tyrant since you can only ever shoot 2 guns and you cant take it on a flying tyrant.

Hive Commander is good if you are outflanking a lot of units and Old Adversary is useful if you dont have lots of scything talons. Indescribable horror wont do much against armies that WANT to assault you.

If you are spending more than about 250 points on your Tyrant you are doing it wrong.

Ignore Badruck, the Nid list is fairly balanced and so he doesnt like it. Nids arent over-rated because unlike Blood Angels or Orks they arent highly rated. They are a good, solid choice with lots of modelling and painting options and reasonable choices in every slot in their book. They can give any army a run for their money.

[Sergent Zhyr]

So 250 is the max points I should spend on the tyrant.

Most of his upgrades are a wast.

Should not start out with one in the army.

Should work out how to win with out one first.

Taking a tyrant with wings means I need to take a brood of Gargoyles.

All well and good but I have a question about the teranafex everyone in the other forums/podcasts says a nid player should be taking 3 of these or at least 2. What are your thoughts guys?

[Admiral-Badruck]

The TFex is the only unit that makes nids a compedetor when I finaly get around to to building nids the Tfex will be in full force.

[Primarch]

I dont rate it at all. Its 2+ save is good, but for 90 points cheaper you can take a Trygon which has the same wounds, toughness and strength, better WS, better I and more attacks. At I 1 and A 3 the TFex has no chance to kill enemy powerfists/power weapons before they get to strike.
The rupture cannon would be good if the TFex didnt have a Bs of 3. The Acid Spray isnt bad, but paying that many points for a good flamer template seems unneccesary. It also means potentially getting into assault range and the TFex isnt that good in a fight.
Taking 3 of them would use up a LOT of points. The Trygon has the option of taking the Synapse upgrade and STILL being cheaper than the TFex.

Edit...Oh and his Ld8 and Lurk means you have to keep a synapse bug babysitting the TFex or he has a reasonable chance of shooting the closest target rather than the target you want to shoot at.

I'm looking forward to Badruck building an army where I can ignore half of it for most of the game.

[me_in_japan]

Ive only played against Nids a couple of times, and Ive found that from an opponent's point of view, nids can be split into two categories:

1) things which are going to charge me really soon, and must be dealt with ASAP.

2) things which can be ignored for now, in favour of shooting things in category 1)

Id say the scary stuff is:

Trygons/Mawlocs/Trygon Primes. Psychologically, these are big and scary. They are also hard to kill and soak up a lot of shots that would otherwise be getting fired at the rest of your army.

Terrorfexes, Carnifexes - Again, big and scary looking.

Tyranid warriors - can get quite shooty. One game, I ignored them for the first turn, and then they killed my dreadnaught by shooting it. Thereafter Ive shown them a bit more respect.

genestealers - will absolutely destroy almost anything, and can get there really fast. very, very scary.

The doom of malantai - a very unfair unit. hard to kill, and in a mycetic spore will absolutely ruin your opponent's day.

not-so scary stuff is:
gargoyles (can be nasty with poison weapons. nearly killed my avatar...)

termagants, gaunts of any flavour - weeny.

tervigons - dont do much by themselves, and can be ignored for a while, but if one leaves them alone for too long, they can fill up entire corners of the board with li'l nid babies.

biovores - one or two spore mines is not a big problem. half a dozen spore mines is. Honestly, i can see potential for deploying a group of spore mines near or in the enemy's deployment zone, and then every turn firing another 2 or 3 at them. it would really, really screw up their movement.

I havent read the nid fex rececntly, so if theres other stuff there, id probably put it in category 3) "what the hell is that?" and then wait and see what it did to me...

-d

[me_in_japan]

NOTE: Chapterhouse studios have just released their Tervigon upgrade kit. This allows you to change a Carnifex model into a Tervigon.

http://chapterhousestudios.com/webshop/ ... 4&vmcchk=1

[Sergent Zhyr]

Leadership 8 on the Tfex does not seem bad considering that is the same as a marine unit.
If it was like leadership 7 I would not really see the point of them, but it seems like they can be very good
I think they could be a bit expensive so maybe one is better than three of them.
Again what do I do for a model?

Hiveguard broods have also been a unit that everyone on the other forums seems to like.
Iam not keen on the models but they look like they could realy lay down some fire power.

[Primarch]

Leadership 8 on the Tfex does not seem bad considering that is the same as a marine unit.
If it was like leadership 7 I would not really see the point of them, but it seems like they can be very good
I think they could be a bit expensive so maybe one is better than three of them.
Again what do I do for a model?

Hiveguard broods have also been a unit that everyone on the other forums seems to like.
Iam not keen on the models but they look like they could realy lay down some fire power.

You can either wait for the TFex to be released (no idea when though) or convert one from a carnifex or a Trygon.

You could probably sculpt some extra armour/guns onto a warrior to make Hiveguard. They are supposed to be a great unit.