Tyranid Codex Unit Review: The exhaustive and biased one

[AbusePuppy]

Just like it says. A unit-by-unit review of the whole dang codex, talking over what I think of everything, including upgrades, unit combinations, and some vague army lists. Why should you care what I think? I dunno, for starters I can type complete sentences with correct spelling. That counts for something around here. Other than that, I don't claim to have any sort of gospel truth on the new units, but I have spent quite a bit of time taking in various people's opinions on the new book and comparing them to my own assessments. If you disagree with something, I would be more than happy to argue about things with you; I love arguing.

I didn't post this in the larger Tyranid tactica thread because it seemed like eating up that much space would be slightly impolite, being that rather a lot of the long, wordy posts there are already mine.

With all that said, let's begin.


Overview of the Tyranids

Strengths: Tyranids are, largely without exception, more powerful than any other race in close combat. They are extremely mobile, able to shoot on the move with every weapon in the codex and having access to many forms of alternate movement (Deep Strike, Outflank, Infiltrate, etc). Many of their units are cheap enough to buy in hordes and they have many large, scary monstrous creatures that few opponents will want to get into close combat with. Even as a shooting force Tyranids can be very dangerous and most of their guns hit an area or get multiple shots.

Weaknesses: Most Tyranids have terrible armor saves and are, as a rule, rather expendable. Their guns tend to be somewhat shorter range than other races' to compensate for their mobility and their anti-tank arsenal in particular is very limited in scope. Tyranids also have very few weapons with good AP values and rely more on volume of shots in order to hope their opponents fail some armor saves, which at times can be frustrating.

If you like filling the table with little bugs or just plopping down two or three enormous monsters that make your opponents cry, Tyranids are the army for you. If you like throwing enough dice to make an Ork player sit up and take notice, Tyranids may also be the army for you. But if you get attached to individual models and can't bear to pluck squads off the table as they get annihilated one by one, Tyranids are not the army for you. Everything in a Tyranid list is expendable, from the mightiest Swarmlord to the lowliest Gaunt. You may find that at the end of many battles you are left with nothing but a couple Warriors and some scattered Gaunts holding your objectives, and that's exactly what the Hive Mind wants. It is the fate of every Tyranid to be dissolved back down to biomass- accept it with the coldness of space that you have descended from.

What is it missing?
1. Transports: You have access to absolutely no vehicles. None. 6" or 12" and d6" for Fleet is all you get, and your units are always vulnerable to being shot and manipulated by psychic powers, especially the feared Lash of Submission.

2. Eternal Warrior: Nothing in the codex is immune to Instant Death. Be very careful of how you match up your units against the enemy- Power Fists can be very awkward for your mid-range units.

3. Invulnerable Saves: Aside from the Swarmlord (in CC), Doom of Malan'tai, and Zoanthrope, you do not have access to any invulnerable saves. Low-AP guns and power weapons are always going to be a hassle for you. Many of your units have piles of wounds, but keep in mind that you have no resistance to damage other than those wounds. Once they're gone, that's it.

Army-Wide Special Rules

Synapse Creatures/Shadow in the Warp
Synapse (and Shadow in the Warp, which is present on every Synapse Creature in the book) are going to be the fundament of your game plan. You don't always have to have Synapse on every unit, but it's important to consider when you can afford to break your Synapse web, because you can be d*** sure that your opponent is going to be. Creatures in Synapse are Fearless, as per the rulebook; creatures out of it have to make a special leadership test each turn or suffer major restrictions on how they are allowed to act that turn. Keeping a critical mass of Synapse Creatures can be one of the hardest parts of writing a Tyranid list; a 1000 pt list should probably have at least two or three Synapse units in it, while a 2000 pt list might need six or more. Keep in mind the durability and role of your Synapse creatures when determining how much you need, as well as what opponents you may face- if your only Synapse is Tyranid Warriors that are charging into the fray, units that want to stand back and shoot may find themselves in an awkward position! Similarly, a Synapse character in a squad is much harder to get rid of than a lone unit that simply hangs out nearby. If your opponents regularly target your Synapse creatures, consider investing some additional points in protecting them- there are many options, which will be discussed later.

Shadow in the Warp forces nearby enemy psykers- even Tyranid ones, oddly enough- to roll 3d6 instead of 2d6 for psychic tests, suffering Perils on any result including double ones or sixes. This is highly crippling when you can bring it into play, as even the best psykers in the game will, on average, fail their tests and it brings the chance of Perils in the Warp up to something like 15%. (Someone else, feel free to do the math for me here, I'm guesstimating.) The main limititation is the short range of the effect (12") means that it isn't hard for an embarked or winged/biking psyker to slip out of the area of effect before using their powers. It functions best against powers that have a short range or those that need to be used in or immediately prior to combat, although it's certainly possible to "hem in" a psyker from several sides, leaving them nowhere to run to.


Instinctive Behavior
As noted above, creatures outside of Synapse must make a Ld test each turn or suffer from restrictions on their behavior. More importantly, however, they are vulnerable to all the normal morale and pinning tests and will go to ground, fall back, etc, just like any other units, only much more often.

Instinctive Behavior- Feed prevents you from shooting and forces you to move towards the nearest visible enemy. Note that it is significantly more restrictive than the Rage rule, as many IB-Feed creatures have guns you may want to use, such as the Doom of Malan'tai. Others, however, do just fine, as you want them to be charging straight into battle anyways. IB-Feed creatures can often benefit from not being in Synapse during the actual process of close combat, as losing a fight and taking ten No Retreat! wounds can be very painful, and our generally high Initiative values make it relatively easy to escape Sweeping Advances.

IB- Lurk forces the unit to stand still and shoot at the nearest enemy it can hit (possibly in LOS, possibly not- the codex is unfortunately rather unclear on this point). Again, for many units this is not a huge detriment, as you were planning on doing something like that anyways, but note that Lurking creatures are much more vulnerable to being forced to take morale tests- and subsequently fail those tests, as Tyranid Ld values are pretty abysmal- than those in CC, who only need to test if they lose. Worse yet, if there are no units in immediate LOS and range, you have to run towards the nearest area terrain, and even then you aren't allowed to move during the movement phase. IB- Lurk creatures thus usually need a Synapse babysitter to be functional, as you want your wall of critters advancing on the enemy as quickly as possible.


Table of Contents-type Thing

(To be added in the future.)

[AbusePuppy]

HQ UNITS
The HQ slot is where you're going to get your basic Synapse at- though there are choices available in every slot, HQ units are, without exception, Synapse providers and centerpieces to a swarm. Though often formidable in their own right, most of the Tyranid HQs get their main strength from the utility they bring to the rest of the swarm.

Hive Tyrant
A Hive Tyrant is probably the "default" HQ unit of a Tyranid list. They are extremely customizable, able to take on many different roles and profiles. All of their variants are monsters in combat, able to devastate nearly anything in the game one-on-one. It is, however, not cheap, probably running you 200+ points most of the time, and quite possibly a lot more than that. With T6 and four wounds, he is reasonably durable, but is going to be the focus of a lot of shooting most of the time, so expect to have to spend some effort protecting him.

Ironically, Hive Tyrants tend to perform best in a support role for a swarm- you will be taking them for the abilities they grant or powers they bring, not for raw combat stats. A Tyranid Prime is roughly half the cost and is nearly as deadly; even adding Tyrant Guard only slightly mitigates this. A Tyrant's real job is going to be bringing new aspects to the swarm: Mycetic Spore armies pretty much require a Winged Hive Commander, whereas a footslogging melee list (or even non-melee) can get a lot of milage out of Old Adversary.

Don't take that as an indicator that he's a slouch in a fight, though- between the powerful ranged weaponry he can take (although at BS3 now, sigh) and his innate abilities as a monstrous creature in close combat, the Tyrant can put the fear into just about anyone. His overall statline is excellent, one of the best in the game, and with his basic equipment (BS/LW, Talons) he gets four kills on the charge against almost any opponent. Even decked out for full-on shooting mode he can cut through most basic squads without blinking, and in that regard he epitomizes the Tyranid's advantage: no matter what else you do, you always have the option of wrecking most dudes in melee as well.

Options review:
Psychic Powers
You get to pick two powers for free; keep in mind what you are otherwise arming your Tyrant with when taking powers, as they are all psychic shooting attacks and thus must be aimed at the same target as your other weapons (and subsequent charge, if any).

Paroxysm: A++ Would shoot again. Although it has a relatively short range, this power reduces an enemy unit to virtual uselessness, especially Marines, who rely on high stats to make up for small numbers. Assaulting the target (either with the Tyrant or something else) is a nasty trick, as it means everything will hit it on 3s and the target will only be able to hit back on 5s against even the most pathetic foes. Hormagaunts, Gaunts, and Gargoyles especially like having this cast right before they charge. Few and far between should be the Tyrants without this power.

Leech Essence: Another strong contender, but with some glaring weaknesses. The low strength of the hits and lack of prohibition on taking cover saves against them mean you will rarely get more than one wound out of it- but even that is something, as it's essentially a free version of Regeneration in many cases. It also pisses off Marines, as the low AP means the wounds are always going through. Again, keep in mind that it has to be aimed the same place as your other weapons.

Psychic Scream: Very random. Works just like the famed Doom of Malan'tai's attack, but with a random radius and a normal Ld test instead of one on 3d6, making it significantly worse. Against Tau and IG it can do well- a 9" radius zone of death is nothing to laugh at- but Marines aren't going to be terribly scared of it. It has the bizarre distinction of being a psychic shooting attack but potentially targeting multiple (or no) units, giving it a degree of flexibility that the other powers lack if you are shooting at a tank. For that reason it makes a good companion for a Heavy Venom Cannon, letting you use your MC ability to shoot two weapons to get a power off. As a primary tactic, though, it is rather weak. Note that it does NOT interact with the Broodlord's Aura of Despair in any way- the Broodlord's power is used during the Assault Phase, well after Psychic Scream has gone off. Stupid GW.

The Horror: Meh. It forces a Morale test on one unit; that's it. I'd rather just shoot at the unit and do the same. However, for something rock-hard (like Nob Bikerz or TH/SS Termies), this may be your only way of getting through to them. I still wouldn't recommend it, though- all of the above powers are better for even that sort of situation. The only reason to take it is if you're paired with an IG player in a doubles tourney and want to have fun with Weaken Resolve.

Special Abilities
Hive Commander: First, let me say this: the ability works while you are off the board. INAT is stupid and self-contradictory. Ignore them and people who argue otherwise, pointing them to the Deathleaper entry if necessary. With that out of the way, this is probably going to be the most common pick for the Tyrant special abilities, as it enables an entire army build. Combined with the Wings biomorph, you can start your entire army off-table, dropping, burrowing, or outflanking in on turn 2+. The secondary ability of allowing a troop unit to outflank is much less helpful; only Hormagaunts and Warriors can really benefit from it, and the inherent randomness of outflanking makes it a generally mediocre option. However, the option is there, so don't forget about it. To use it to its fullest, try combining a regular Tyrant with a Swarmlord in order to get the edge reroll. All in all, a fantastic choice for any army that intends to use Mycetic Spores or any other kind of reserves with a degree of regularity.

Old Adversary: The ability to reroll all of the Tyrant's attacks is very nearly worth the 25 pts alone; applying it to nearby units only makes it more excellent. Gargoyles love it the most, but every Tyranid unit enjoys getting half again as many hits in CC, so if you're running a swarm that wants to come to grips with the enemy, strongly consider this upgrade. It becomes doubly potent with Tyrant Guard in the mix or with large units that can be "strung out" to insure they receive the benefit- remember, you have to make that 6" move when assaulted or assaulting, even if you don't want to. It doesn't work against (non-walker) vehicles, however, so a Flyrant that wants to go tank-hunting may be better off with paired Scything Talons.

Indescribable Horror: Bleh. Early leaks of the codex indicated that the power worked on shooting as well as assault, and had this been true it might have been worthwhile- but as is, it's an utter waste. The only reason you should ever take this is for fluff purposes, as it does effectively nothing and for some reason costs just as much as the other two powers.

Weapons
Bonesword/Lash Whip: A lot of people poo-poo these, pointing out that you already ignore saves in CC and Tyrant Guard can get Whips to make up for it. However, by letting your Tyrant carry the Whip you can give the Guard Boneswords, making them a much more credible threat to enemy models. A Tyrant also has a much larger base, meaning he can affect more enemy models with the Whip than the Guard can hope to. Since it can act as pseudo-grenades when charging into cover, it is in my mind a mandatory selection for most Tyrants. And really, what are you going to replace it with? Having two guns means wasting one of them or wasting your psychic powers- and Tyrants have some very strong powers.

Scything Talons: In general, don't bother. Yes, you can use them to get free rerolls on all CC attacks, whereas Old Adversary costs 25 pts, but you're giving up your guns and only saving a little. At low point values or when hunting for tanks there is an argument to be made, but as a rule, they just aren't worth it. A single pair has some vague use as a sort of "insurance" against abysmal rolls, but still isn't going to be terribly impressive. However, if you're tight on points, you could do worse than leave your Tyrant with the basic LW/BS+ST configuration.

TL Deathspitter: Don't. Ever. Take. These. If many of the above upgrades could be said to be poor, Deathspitters are borderline godawful. Compare their statline to Brainleech Devourers and you should see.

TL Devourer with Brainleech Worms: A reasonably strong option for those looking to get some anti-infantry firepower in their list. Though they lack the rerolled wounds from last edition, you are otherwise very similar and can spray out an absolute torrent of S6 firepower that will make most units shrivel up and cry like babies in a quite literal way thanks to the -1 on the morale check; the cost is also quite reasonable. Two sets are a bit of overkill, I think, as I'd rather be shooting one of my psychic powers each turn. Also consider what a Stranglethorn Cannon could be doing to the same unit in its place for just a few points more. I don't think it's a clear-cut case of one being better than the other, but consider your options.

Heavy Venom Cannon: There are not a lot of platforms you can mount this weapon on in the codex, so one that can move 12" per turn and deep strike, or that has a half dozen ablative wounds is worth some serious consideration. First and foremost an anti-tank weapon despite the -1 on the chart, it can also serve to ID characters or inflict high-str wounds onto tough targets. Flyrants of all sorts should probably take one of these, as you lack the options of Tyrannofex and Hive Guard for AT firepower; walking Tyrants, who will generally have to shoot front armor and have other things to be doing (like running) may consider it less useful.

Stranglethorn Cannon: Hmm. Well, it has some pretty reasonable numbers, wounding MEQs on a 2+ and pinning, but the shoddy AP and lack of barrage mean that the opponent will pretty much always get a save against it, as with most Tyranid weapons. It's a slightly more expensive option than the Devourer and subs pinning for the morale penalty, which is a good deal, but you'll usually be shorter on AT than infantry killers, so the HVC will generally get the nod over this simply because of the other options (or lack of them) in the codex. Still, it's far from bad, so if you really like laying big green pie plates on folks, go nuts.

Biomorphs
Adrenal Glands: Meh. If you're making the tank-chasing double ScyTal Flyrant, this is probably a good inclusion. Otherwise, you're I5 S6 already and have a Lash Whip; this isn't going to help you much.

Toxin Sacs: No. You're paying points to lower your wound roll from 2+ to 4+ with reroll. If literally all you ever fight is T5+ guys, this helps; otherwise, leave it at home.

Acid Blood: Did you notice that Lash Whips reduce the enemy's actual Initiative value, not just what Init they strike at? I did. And it made me cackle with evil glee. The combo more or less guarantees that every wound you take will put a wound on the enemy as well, but even then it feels a little mediocre to me. You already dish out no-saves wounds, but I suppose that sometimes a few more is all it takes to tip the balance. Sits firmly in the "acceptable, but not great" tier.

Implant Attack: Well, it's a way to deal ID, I guess. Not terribly impressive for the cost, but if you're hunting characters then it could be an okay investment. There are probably better units to put it on, though.

Toxic Miasma: If you have problems with swarms of Guardsmen or Orks gumming up your Tyrant, this is the power for you. Against Marines or such, however, it's decidedly mediocre. Usually worse than Acid Blood against any kind of real threat, but then again it serves a different purpose, that of cutting down extra mooks in order to win a combat faster. Probably ranks a bit worse than AB or Regen, but better than IA.

Regeneration: Well, first off it's cheaper here than on most other critters. It also synergizes nicely with Leech Essence, doubling up your ability to keep yourself alive. If you're short on Synapse, this may be a good choice to make sure that your main source of it doesn't die. Note that if you have Tyrant Guards, you can lay early wounds on the Tyrant himself and try to Regen them back.

Carapace Options
Thorax Swarm: Sad to say, this is almost always going to be worse than the other options, since you can only pick one. Which is unfortunate, because they're not at all bad for the cost, but the short range is sort of killer for it. If you do take it, the 2+ Poisoned version is almost always superior to the others against MEQs; the Rending version is really only good against TEQs, and the "standard" one is generally pretty worthless except against Guard/Eldar.

Winged: This is the one you'll usually see. Yes, it's really, really expensive, but worth every penny for the movement and ability to Deep Strike. From hunting tanks to dashing around providing support, the boost to maneuverability is unparalleled. The only reason not to be taking this is because you intend to take some Tyrant Guard to add survivability to him.

Armored Shell: The only option to get a 2+ save in the whole codex; combined with Tyrant Guard, it makes the guy awfully difficult to kill. However, most of the weapons that threaten your Tyrant tend to have AP1 or AP2; it's main use is to shrug off the volumes of fire that sometimes get thrown at it (or volume of CC attacks). It is rather pricey, so you will often want to add another Tyrant Guard first, as the extra wounds will always benefit you.

Typical Builds
Reserves Flyrant: Winged, Hive Commander, BS/LW, HVC, Paroxysm, Leech Essence

Little Swarm Chief: Old Adversary, BS/LW, ST, Paroxysm, Psychic Scream, 1 Tyrant Guard (1500 or less)

Big Man on the Field: Old Adversary, BS/LW, HVC, Regeneration, Paroxysm, Leech Essence, 2 Tyrant Guard w/Boneswords or Lash Whips


Tyrant Guard
Realistically, an add-on to the Hive Tyrant, but detailed here separately because the codex does so as well. They are every bit as tough as the Tyrant itself despite not being Monstrous Creatures- and that is the main part of their strength. A combined unit of Tyrant and Guard will benefit from a cover save if 50% or more of its members can claim a cover save- so a unit of one Tyrant + Guard will get a save if either of its members can get one, which in most cases will mean the Guard, as all it needs is any unit or terrain between it and the shooter (as opposed to the 50% cover rule for MCs). This is as close as you're going to get to an invulnerable save in the codex, so any walking Tyrant should probably invest the 60 pts in taking at least one Guard in order to basically triple his survivability. The Guard themselves are no pushovers in combat, hitting on 3s and wounding on 3s (with Rending, no less) against most enemies.

Rules note: the general consensus at this point is that Shieldwall allows a Tyrant to join like an Independent Character, but does not treat him as one once joined, so the Tyrant cannot be picked out in CC or shooting. Whether it is allowed to similarly leave the unit has less consensus, so determining this with your opponent before the game (or with your playgroup as a whole) is probably a good idea.

Options
Lash Whips: A fairly acceptable option for slowing the enemy down, especially if you took Old Adversary on the Tyrant. Their Initiative is surprisingly low for Tyranid creatures, which makes these a lot more useful, but Boneswords (below) make them suffer a bit in comparison. This is a better pick if you are looking to be more defensive, or fight Daemons, Eldar, or other enemies that can actually strike ahead of the Tyrant.

Boneswords: If only you could trade the Rending Claws instead.... :\ In any case, they bring the Guard from "moderately threatening" to "oh sweet baby Jesus, that unit is going to break me like a toddler juggling Dreadnoughts." The investment might look a lot steeper on other units, but given that the Guard are already fairly expensive (and quite survivable) and have enough strength to wound just about anything consistently it's not so bad. There is also the factor of overkill to consider- ideally, you want to damage the unit on the initial charge (on your turn) and then finish them off on their turn- a Tyrant with Bonesword Guard may obliterate it in on the initial charge, leaving you vulnerable to enemy shooting.

[AbusePuppy]

The Swarmlord
So he's basically a super-sized Hive Tyrant without the options, right? Sort of. While the Swarmlord is essentially a Hive Tyrant on steroids, yes, in many ways he is a different kind of animal because of the lack of options and the differences in how his abilities work. First off, he is even more of a monster in CC than the usual of his kind. In fact, if he were immune to ID, I would probably call him the strongest CC character in the game- but lacking that, he is very vulnerable to some of the other high-end characters. However, against anything that doesn't kill him in a single hit he is an absolute monster, scything through Nobz, Terminators, and Avatars with equal ease. It is very important to note that he does not have Lash Whips and thus giving them to his Tyrant Guard is basically a necessity, as there are a reasonable number of HQ-type units that will strike before him. When he does land blows, however, they always cause ID and ignore saves as well as forcing rerolls of successful invulnerable saves- which is to say, even TH/SS termies and Fortuned Seer Councils don't like tangling with him. A lot of big units, like the previously-mentioned Avatar, are generally immune to ID by virtue of their high toughness and don't actually have the Eternal Warrior rule. You will make them regret this lack.

In terms of support, he lacks any kind of guns at all, but can use two psychic powers per turn and has a Synapse radius half again as large as normal. He can also pass a special rule to one unit within 18"- much more flexible than a normal Tyrant in that regard. Thus, despite his insane combat stats, the Swarmlord really shines as a support piece for your hive, acting as a force multiplier where it is needed most. His reserve ability lets you reroll board edges but doesn't grant a unit an outflank in and of itself, so you're going to need something that starts with it, which is to say Genestealers or a second Tyrant. However, being that the outflank half of the ability is largely the add-on, it isn't really important to try and emphasize that bit. More importantly, his 1/turn special rule only lasts for your own turn, rather than being continuous like Old Adversary, so you may find yourself inconveniently weaker on the enemy player turn. (As a side note, there is really no reason to give anything other than Preferred Enemy unless you have some Gaunts charging a tank or something. Really, GW, Acute Senses? What the hell?) Finally, as small bonuses the Swarmlord has an extra wound and all the psychic powers available, although you're probably never going to use The Horror so you don't actually gain a lot there.

So when should you take the Swarmlord over a normal Tyrant? Well, first of all, were you planning on having a walking Tyrant? If no, forget the Swarmlord. Second, are you looking for a strong close combat theme to your swarm? Again, if not the Swarmlord is probably not up your alley. Now, how many points are you playing at? In 1500 or below the extreme cost of Swarmlord + Guard (because you DO need to give him at least one, and preferably two or three Tyrant Guard as mandatory upgrades) can quickly suck up all of your points. In a 1500 list he is really just a gimmick, and a fairly slow and clumsy one at that. "Death Star" units can usually be beaten by simply refusing to engage them on their terms and avoiding the zone around them; Swarmlord is very vulnerable to this because he lacks the movement options (transport, bikes, etc) that many other Death Star units possess. So I can really only recommend him starting at ~1850 or so, when his point cost starts being less weighty and there tend to be more units- and more expensive units- on the board for him to chew up. He acts as a good Synapse centerpiece to your swarm, easily keeping a large swath of the board under control, and can influence fights well away from his position thanks to his powers and abilities. Make sure you can take advantage of his wide-ranging influence with mobile assault forces that you can send out to solve problems in the area, and make sure that you have enough anti-tank in the rest of your force, as you will be unusually lacking even for a Tyranid swarm thanks to the huge investiture into the Swarmlord.

Tervigon
Perhaps he should more rightfully go under the Troops section, since he honestly pretty much always is, but I will stick with my pattern and list him here. Just as tough as all the other big MCs but with weaker combat stats (especially the WS3 and I1), Tervigons are support units through and through. They can bump their Synapse range out to 18" if you want (something a lot of people forget about), but honestly you're going to want to be using their other powers so much that it's almost a waste to do so. They crap out Gaunts and give them special rules, so obviously they really want to be hanging around their babies to provide support- but there's something to be said for keeping 7" or more away so that the backlash from one dying doesn't wipe out the whole brood, especially if you aren't looking at getting into CC anytime soon. For those curious, you will spawn roughly ten gaunts each turn and have about a 40% chance of rolling doubles each time, so set your expectations at ~15 gaunts out of each Tervigon and you should do okay. They come naturally with Spike Salvo, but there's really no reason you shouldn't trade it out for Cluster Spines every single time. Spike Salvo will perform marginally better against a small unit (~4 models or less), but the rest of the time the Cluster Spines more than make up for their lack of AP by hitting a bunch of guys with much better accuracy.

Remember that the spawning of Gaunts is optional- so in KP missions, you're often better off holding back and only spawning Gaunts if you have an immediate need for them to do something important. Also consider that you do not always have to start spawning turn 1; while you do risk wasting some of your potential- doubly so if your opponent has the firepower to drop the Tervi early- you are more likely to end up with more Gaunts in an advantageous position. There is no easy rule for when/when not to spawn, but major considerations would be how threatened the Tervigon is, where your Gaunts, if spawned, would be going that turn, and how many turns are remaining. If you haven't started by turn 3 or so, you're probably holding back too much (unless, as said, it's a KP mission.)

Also keep in mind that spawned Gaunts can act normally, and you are allowed to spawn at any time during the movement phase. It is perfectly acceptable to spawn a squad at the edge of his 6" radius, move them 6" more, and then Run another d6" forward if you need to get to an objective (or want to get out of backlash range.)

Tervigons are very good for objective-based missions because they are, 90% of the time, scoring units themselves in addition to producing scoring units. No other army has access to a scoring monstrous creature, and six T6/3+ wounds is nothing to sneeze at. Of course, there are plenty of other uses for the Gaunts, like screening other units or piling in extra hits in CC, but you're usually going to want to be taking objectives with them while other, more durable units do the bulk of the fighting. See also the Termagant entry for more details on what to do with the little buggers.

Options

Scything Talons: Well, they're really cheap, I guess. But why do you even want them? Tervigons are not CC monsters. Still, not the worst way to spend your last five points if your army is basically done,a nd probably more useful than adding an eleventh Termagant to that squad.

Crushing Claws: On the plus side, you're already I1 so there's no drawback other than the cost. On the other hand, the cost. I said it before: Tervigons are not CC monsters. They are, at best, mediocre, even with the upgrades, and will usually have a bunch of little buddies to help. Adrenal and Toxin are both superior upgrades for this reason and I would always take them first. You also risk over-upgrading the unit when you could have been buying more bodies- even more Tervigons- which is a danger common to all armies.

Adrenal Glands: Not terribly impressive for the Tervi itself, but the ability to grant them to any Termagants nearby is potentially quite strong. Mainly something you want to pair with Toxin Sacs in order to strike ahead of virtually everybody and reroll wounds on them. Also helps a little if you need to try and crack a vehicle, as the Tervigon's natural S5 makes it quite possible that even as a MC it still won't penetrate.

Toxin Sacs: Quite superior to Adrenal Glands on their own, but together they make a beautiful pair. The Tervigon itself derives a pretty good benefit from them thanks to its lower-than-MC-normal strength value, but the real bonus is Poisoned Termagants. Many units- Plague Marines, Wraithlord/Guard, other Tyranid MCs, etc, rely on their high toughness as a damage mitigator; with Toxin Sacs on all your Termagants, they present a very real threat to these units. While not exactly a must-have upgrade, this should be high on your priority list, as it can radically change the threat profile of many of your units. Remember, you have to be within 6" of the Tervigon when the ability's effect goes off (so when the charge happens for Adrenal or when to-wound rolls are made for Toxin Sacs) in order to benefit from them. Do NOT hover your Termagants at exactly 6" if you want to get the effects, because Defender Reacts moves will pull you outside of the aura's radius.

Acid Blood: Brings some offense to an otherwise-defensive unit, but as a rule you want probably survivability upgrades on the Tervigon, not something situational like this. Of course, with six wounds and the potential for Regen and Feel No Pain on the unit, this can be very deadly. Oh, didn't notice that? Both FNP and AB trigger when you suffer a wound- in other words, they have the same trigger, and thus you can inflict a wound with AB and then FNP it away. Just as other units can benefit from two abilities triggering off the same action ("when you charge" or "when you kill an enemy unit in CC"), the Tervigon (or anyone he gives FNP to) can do some brutal things to people who want to hurt him in melee. The Lash Whip Tyrant is a very good choice for this trick, as he takes advantage of it already and wants to get into CC to start with.

Implant Attack: ....What? No, don't take this. Jeez, you shouldn't be planning on getting into CC with this guy; haven't I made that clear yet? Yes, it will probably happen, but if characters are charging your Tervigon, you are probably in trouble.

Toxic Miasma: Other MCs can consider this because they can potentially be swarmed by a bunch of dorks and slowly worn down; the Tervigon can bring his own reinforcements to the party, so there's a lot less reason to get it. You should probably pass.

Regeneration: Yeesh, thirty points. Well, he is a really important guy to keep alive, so it's understandable. Especially if you have a scoring Tervigon (which it generally should be), this can be helpful in ensuring that you end up with at least one point under your control. Between this and FNP, you can easily stay alive through all but the worst barrages of firepower, but again: consider how much you are investing into a single unit. 15 for Cat, 30 for Regen, 20 for TS + AG... and you're 1/3 of the way to another Tervigon already.

Cluster Spines: Always take these. Always always. What are you going to do, glance a Rhino with your Stinger Salvo?

Catalyst: Well, now we get to the real meat. FNP is, as you probably gathered from the above comments, a large portion of the reason why you want a Tervigon. Charging into cover, sitting exposed for a turn, playing frontline duty on an advancing swarm... there are a lot of hazardous jobs in the hive, and cutting down on casualties isn't just sentiment, it's good use of resources. Many units have very poor saves, and Catalyst can be a good way to compensate for this, albeit in a haphazard manner. Still, very few Tervigons are going to want to leave home without either this or Onslaught, so think carefully about how you plan to use your swarm. Sometimes taking both will be the right choice, but not always. Note that this is not a psychic shooting attack and thus lets you still shoot later in the turn (but not use another power, obv). You may also use it during any point during the Movement phase, which gives it an aspect of flexibility.

Onslaught: Where Catalyst lets you play a defensive support role, Onslaught is all about offense. Effectively, it lets you extend a weapon's threat radius by d6" as well as pushing your swarm that little bit closer to the enemy in order to get a charge off. It's especially helpful on Zoanthropes and Hive Guard, given their somewhat mediocre range. Note that the run always happens before the shooting, so you can't use it to jet out of an enemy's reach after hitting them. Although I can't, in good conscience, recommend Raveners armed with guns, this power seems almost custom-fitted for them as well as some of the other shooty/bitey hybrid units like Tyranid Warriors and some types of Carnifex. And remember, if you use this, you aren't doing any other shooting with the Tervigon this turn- you probably don't want to inflict wounds on your own mans, even if you are a heartless shard of the Hive Mind.

[AbusePuppy]

Tyranid Prime
So if the Hive Tyrant is the default swarm leader, this guy is definitely the budget version. And, compared to the alternatives, he's almost ridiculously cheap. Of course, we're paying through the nose for a lot of our HQs, so that's not saying a lot. Still, he comes in cheap even compared to other factions' choices and he's a strong opponent in most regards, basically being a slightly beefed-up Tyranid Warrior. Wait, why does he cost more than twice as much if all he's got is a variety of small stat bumps? Well, junior, that's because eight is a very important number in 40K. "But he doesn't have any eights in his statline!" you cry out; I can hear it now. No, but eight is double four but NOT double five, do you see? I'm sorry, I'm being obtuse- he's immune to Instant Death from the vast majority of weapons except Railguns and Demolishers. Clearer now? For eighty points, you're effectively buying insurance against Meltagun, Missile Launcher, and Lascannon hits on whatever squad you attach him to- three hits worth, to be specific, which would normally cost you ~120 pts (or more!) of dudes from those squads. Warriors are his obvious partner (more on this in a sec), but Venomthropes, Zoanthropes, Raveners, Biovores, and even Lictors appreciate his company. He also provides roaming Synapse that can hook onto squads to avoid being shot apart.

Of course, he's purpose-built to hang out with a squad of Warriors, since he passes his WS and BS onto them. By itself this isn't terribly impressive, but combined with his ability to suck up ID wounds they become a lot scarier. His options are largely the same as theirs, so you'll probably want to set him up pretty much identically in order to avoid weird role conflicts between the two of them. Remember, he can hitch a ride in their Mycetic Spore just like a Marine character tagging along in a Drop Pod, so if you're looking to try something like that he is an excellent choice for making sure they survive that vulnerable first turn after landing.

His basic setup is pretty boring; Talons and Devourer mean that he can both shoot and fight reasonably well, but you will almost always want to specialize him at least somewhat, just as you will with Warriors. He is not particularly frightening in his basic incarnation, other than maybe giving vehicles a slight stink-eye thanks to his good S value.

(Oh, and perhaps- just perhaps- some of you were wondering "Can I attach my Tyranid Prime to a Carnifex, Lictor, or Zoanthrope now?" Yes; yes you can. ICs are forbidden from joining units that are always a single model strong, "like most Monstrous Creatures." Most, but not all, and not our new Buddyfex, even if you take him as a singular, for the same reason that other ICs can join a one-strong squad of Tactical Marines. And now Zoeys and Lictors are a lot less standoffish, so you can hang around with them as well now. Aren't you happy?)

Options
Rending Claws: Well, you can get these two different ways, I guess. Dropping the Talons for them is a middling choice, probably only suited for shooty-type Warriors that want to be able to present a reasonable threat in combat and do some damage to vehicles. Not very impressive for the points. The other option, dumping your gun for them, is a bit more attractive- what you go for here is a CC terror that can chew through normal troops with a Bonesword and threaten vehicles (and particularly Dreadnoughts, which are otherwise untouchable) with its claws. You are, however, giving up a pretty reasonable gun, so don't jump on the chance automatically. How likely are you to have a MC in the area that could kill the walker for you? How many walkers do you face normally? Are you a shooty or bitey swarm (i.e. do you intend to close the distance as quickly as possible or advance steadily while applying firepower)?

Double Bonesword: The cheaper of the power weapon options. This setup makes you pretty likely to be able to ruin the day of a Space Marine character, as you have the same I, WS, etc, and cause ID on them with every hit. This also brings bad times for other big nasties (outside of the Daemons codex), but is somewhat mediocre in terms of general combat, as there are a fair number of assault troops that strike simultaneous or ahead of you and you have no grenades. Still, it is a power weapon and it is cheaper, so if you're trying to scrape the last couple of points together, you might consider it.

Bonesword/Lash Whip: This is the real gem. You aren't as likely to auto-kill someone, but the sheer volume of attacks that a Prime and his Warrior friends can put out insures that most things will still die badly to such a unit. Without this, the Prime will struggle to hold par with most units of half its cost; with it, you're looking at one of the most cost-efficient CC units available. Keep in mind that without Rending Claws you will be helpless against Dreadnoughts, but anything else is going to find you a tough nut to crack. This is also your grenade-substitute, and as such really shouldn't be left at home if you can afford it.

Spinefists: Interesting. His high A and BS mean that you will almost always get four hits out of these, but crappy S means that won't matter much. If you face a lot of Guard, Tau, and Eldar, though, they can end up superior to your other gun options, and they're free to replace.

Deathspitter: Take it or don't, depending on whether the Warrior squad he's with uses them. If he's not there to play buddy with some Warriors there's no real point to giving him this, as the Devourer is a perfectly fine gun on its own. Note the major jump in anti-tank effectiveness it brings while still being superior against virtually all other targets as well.

Scything Talons: Well, the option is there, I guess. Double ScyTals isn't a viable build for him like it is for a Tyrant or 'Fex, as he's not really suited to chasing down vehicles. You could take them as a secondary to Boneswords, but you're probably better off with Rending Claws so that you don't get squashed by a Dreadnought. Still, they aren't awful, so don't feel too bad about taking them if you do.

Adrenal Glands: Makes you a bit better at tank-hunting, I suppose- glancing on 4s isn't bad. Unlike regular Warriors, you don't get much out of the +1I, so these aren't really a great buy, especially since you pay double for them compared to Warriors.

Toxin Sacs: Oh yes, come to papa. This is the other half of the equation that turns the Prime into a real killer in CC. You'll get a reroll against anything T5 or less and anything more than that you probably are going to be causing bad times for with sheer number of power weapon attacks. This plus Bonesword means two dead Marines- even Plague Marines- every turn he's in a fight; that's a real quick path to carving up 100+ points of enemy units to earn his keep.

Regeneration: Wow, as much as he overpays for a lot of other options, Regen is super cheap; kinda weird. If you're using him to soak up ID wounds and little else, this may be a good choice, as it means he has a chance to last just that little bit longer. However, with only three wounds and T5, he may not be around long enough to take real advantage of it, so think of this as another one of the "if you end up with some spare points" upgrades, not something mandatory.

Typical Builds
Punching Bag/Sock Puppet: Regeneration (or not even that)

My Buddy: BS/LW, RC or Devourer, Toxin

The Parasite of Montrex
Well here's an odd fellow. Does he think he's a Tervigon, spawning more units? Or a Flyrant, leading an airborne swarm? Or perhaps a Prime, bouncing around to provide Synapse where needed? The unfortunate answer is that he's not really all that good at any of these things, at least not at his unfortunately-inflated price tag that creeps far too close to 200 pts for a T4/3+ character with no immunities. The Parasite is really nothing but a cute gimmick, but like many gimmicks he can be deadly if ignored, underestimated, or if you get exceptionally lucky.

At his heart, the Parasite is an opportunist- he doesn't have a power weapon or Eternal Warrior, so you can't mix him up with dedicated CC troops. And really, you don't even want him going near anything moderately competent- what you want is to nibble away at weak spots in the enemy force and spawn as many Rippers as you can, which then dive directly into the main body of things to tie up important units for as long as they can. Scouts, Devastators, Guardians, Guardsmen, Grots- anything weak, anything vulnerable is your ideal target. His high S and I mean that it isn't hard to inflict wounds- or, if it comes down to it, glance a tank a bit- but he doesn't have the survivability to get into long, drawn-out slugging matches. High mobility and good all-around stats mean that you can at least put up some kind of fight against virtually any enemy, though. Also, take notice of his cute "combo" effect- rolls of six to wound trigger both Rending Claws and Implant Attack, giving you an ID hit that can't be saved against, so you have a chance to randomly kill almost anything. Just don't rely on it.

His quick movement, IC status, and relative fragility make it pretty obvious that he needs to be accompanying something, but the real question is what. Gargoyles are probably the premiere choice- they are cheap, giving you a mass of ablative wounds; they are reasonable CC contenders and can shoot, so as to thin out potential targets for him or accompany him on the charge against larger foes; and they need a "babysitter" to function well, a role he fits perfectly. Shrikes are also a possibility, as they also want to be jumping into melee and can potentially give him the ability to take on stronger foes, finishing the job for him if he rolls poorly. However, in terms of protecting him from shooting they are much worse than Gargoyles. Skyslasher Swarms are also available, but are inferior to Gargoyles in every way but theme. They are slightly cheaper per wound but can be eliminated en masse by blasts or S6+ guns, whereas Gargoyles are simply tickled pink to take a Lascannon or Plasma shot for their boss. They also lack guns (unless you pay even more points), have no advantageous rules (compared to the rather good Blinding Venom ability), and worse all-around stats.

[AbusePuppy]

Elites

Oh god, here it comes. First of all, the Elites slot is where pretty much all your anti-tank firepower is located, which means using them on anything else is risky at best. We have a variety of excellent selections here, so many- even most- Tyranid armies will find their Elites filling up well before anything else.

Hive Guard
I guess we're starting with the best first, then. Hive Guard are one of our new units and boy are they a doozy. Not quite as tough as Tyrant Guard, but pretty darn close when it comes to most things, and with a firepower output that makes most transports cry. Note also the magic S8 on their attacks, which means that Nobz and characters can't just suck up the wounds and call it a day. To top it all off, they don't need LOS to shoot and can ignore many kinds of cover. Their raw stats also make them pretty reasonable if they get stuck in melee, so you aren't risking a lot to put them on the front lines.

Really, there isn't a lot to say about Hive Guard; they're really good and pretty simple. Most foot armies are going to want to fill two slots with them, probably 2x2 at 1500 or 2x3 at higher point values.They do compete for space with Zoanthropes, but their longer range, lower price, and better reliability (more shots, ignore terrain, no psychic test or associated countermeasures) make them the better generic choice. It's still good to have some S10 guns in your force to deal with Land Raiders, however- Hive Guard don't fare well against AV13/14 opponents. There's also the issue of the model's cost- $20 is not cheap, especially for something you're buying in multiples. However, it's a unit you'll use time and time again in your lists, so I would strongly recommend picking some up.

Lictors
Oh, the much-maligned Lictor; will GW ever restore you to your original place of glory? Once one of the most feared units in the codex, Lictors are now relegated to skulking around the edges of battles or popping out to annoy a unit before dying. Though their stats received a significant bump, their rules got rather wonky, so they are still a somewhat middling choice. Worse, they are competing for space with some of the best units in the codex and thus suffer badly in comparison. Still, they can be dangerous and have roles they can fulfill, so they're not a complete waste.

Deploying by Marbo-style Deep Strike, Lictors main advantage is always arriving exactly where they need to be. No rolling dice, no trying to stick to the borders of terrain- you put them somewhere and that's where they are. They have a pair of extremely short-range S6 shots that can be useful in glancing tanks, but AP - means you are unlikely to actually destroy anything with them. And, unfortunately, that's all they do on the turn they arrive. Pheremone Trail doesn't kick in its homing beacon or reserves bonus until after the Lictors have been around for a turn, which is rather pathetic. You can't assault or move that turn, either, so it's never going to be much of a surprise for your opponent. Hmph. The laziest Predator, I guess.

Once they have kicked in, though, you're looking at a reasonable combat machine. High S, WS, and I along with Rending means that you can do some real damage to enemy units on the charge, although keep in mind that it's not terrifyingly strong, even with a full brood of three. Many people complain about Lictors being in broods now, but honestly if they weren't they'd be even worse- you already give up KPs like candy, making the situation worse isn't a good idea. However, for what they excel at- pouncing on units in the sidelines- they do a good enough job, being one of the few units with Frag Grenades in our whole codex. Stealth also helps them bear the worst of any shooting attacks, although with T4 and three wounds they are fairly vulnerable to small arms fire, as they tend to be within Rapid Fire range of all sorts of things. They aren't terrible, though- standing in normal cover means they take more than a squad of Marines to kill one with a turn of shooting. Their 5+ armor save, on the other hand, is a real killer in close combat and means that a round of poor rolls on the charge that fails to kill anything can leave you very vulnerable to your opponent's return attacks. Hit and Run means that they can depart fights whenever is convenient, and high I makes the test pretty reliable; this can be a good way to get somewhere you need to be, as 2d6 is a lot of distance.

Let's also take a moment to talk about their Pheremone Trail in more detail. To be honest, it's not terribly useful, all things considered. Unlike many other armies' beacons, Lictors can't start on the table and don't have any kind of "auto-arrive first turn" rule, so you can't rely on it being there. Its usefulness for guiding in Mawlocs to hit targets is also rather overstated- any kind of reasonably smart opponent will simply walk 6" away and be out of range of your beacon. Yes, you could probably catch him with the bare edge of it if he doesn't go much further, but that is a very marginal use; you're probably better off just dropping him in the center. The reserves bonus part of the ability is also of limited usage, as Lictors themselves must start in reserves, so you are rather likely to have the better part of your army on the table before they even make their appearance. Still, a bonus is a bonus, and sometimes your Hive Tyrants die, so there are worse things you could be doing.

So what are Lictors good for? Well, they can make good pinpoint firepower- they show up, shake something, and hopefully charge in next turn and kill it. They also can be good at harassment, especially against a melee-weak army like Guard or Tau, disrupting their lines and shutting down heavy weapons to make the rest of your force's advance easier. What are they bad at? Killing things. You're paying an awful lot of points for a couple attacks on a not-terribly-durable chassis. If you find yourself lacking in firepower, Lictors are not for you. They are by-and-large weapons of finesse, not brute firepower like much of the Tyranid army. Whether you find this helpful or not is up to you, but as a whole they are a fairly mediocre unit that I can't give a strong recommendation to, unlike most of the Elites.

Deathleaper
Well good lord that's a pile of special rules. This is probably what Lictors should have looked like, but at least the option's there, I suppose. Alright, so the Big D is basically the craziest Lictor you've ever seen, with improved stats in almost every category. He has all the Lictor's normal rules and then some (which we'll get to in a second) and can harry your opponent in a number of different ways. However, for his points he isn't all that dangerous straight up, so it's clear that he is not going to pull his weight just by killing dudes- even more so than with Lictors, the key to using him is to use him when and where you need him.

Okay, so in terms of upgrades on the Lictor he's significantly harder to kill due to always getting Night Fighting (with halved distances) in order to shoot him. That means that even guys in Rapid Fire range are far from guaranteed to get a shot off at him, and anyone further than 18" may as well just give up. (Caveat: barrage weapons ruin his day.) On top of that he slows movement through difficult terrain while nearby and always has the option of vanishing to reappear on a later turn. Oh, and he's Fearless, and to cap it all off he rends on 5s as well (not on penetration rolls, though it doesn't make much difference.) He is also WS9, which is super-relevant because it means that almost everyone in the game hits him on 5+ in combat, partly making up for his shoddy armor save.

However, the crowning jewel is "He's After Me," which lets you cripple the leadership of a single character from the start of the game on out. While this can be nice for making enemy leaders a little more vulnerable to certain effects and morale, its real benefit is against psykers, whom we otherwise struggle against. As noted in the HQ listings, we have a lot of good support powers- powers that are easily shut down by a Rune Priest or Librarian. While he doesn't help us against all of them (such as the Rune Priest or Farseer's abilities), he does make it rather hard for them to get off their own powers and makes Psychic Hood tests all but impossible. He also bumps up the danger from Doom of Malan'tai and Psychic Scream as well as the various of morale and pinning tests we can inflict.

So why's this all worth his hefty price tag, you may ask? He is, to put it succinctly, your Swiss Army Knife. If you have a problem, Deathleaper is there on the job, solving it for you. He gets started even before the game does, shutting down psykers and morale-boosters as noted above. Once things get rolling, he can appear anywhere on the field to pick off inconvenient units, especially small squads and tanks that don't have AV14. What makes him better than the regular Lictors at this (and he needs to be, given his cost) is his combination of survivability and reusability- his protection from long-range shooting means that he can't simply be eliminated by pointing a Lascannon across the field and rolling some dice. With careful choices in where to place him, you can often insure that enemy squads must move closer to reliably shoot at him. Combine that with his ability to arrive anywhere on the field with a one turn delay, even after the early turns and you have a very tough model to catch and kill- he can't even be locked in CC thanks to Hit and Run. More importantly, his mobility and pinpoint precision mean he can easily swing games in the later turns by arriving to contest an objective or kill the claiming squad. In short, Deathleaper is a nightmare to deal with when used by an experienced player, as he offers almost limitless options for screwing with your opponent's game plan.

Venomthrope
Unusual for the Elites slot, the Venomthrope is a support beast, being not particularly capable on its own. It can't shoot and is pretty average in melee (for Tyranids, that is). Instead, everything within 6" of him gets a whole host of benefits (or detriments, in the case of enemy units.) His main bonus is a 5+ cover save to anyone in range. With the nigh-universal 4+ this may seem mediocre, but giving it to your front rank of units (usually unprotected) and Monstrous Creatures (likewise) is quite relevant. He also gives them Defensive Grenades, although this is much less useful, as we will be charging more often than being charged. Lastly, they make everything in their area Dangerous Terrain for enemy models. So, overall, some moderately useful abilities, but in the end it all boils down to that 5+ save. Any kind of on-the-board list has a strong incentive to run a couple of these, as they can make your force a lot more resilient. In close combat they also have a small arsenal of tricks, not the least of which being the 2+ poison (which will reroll against anything with T4 or less, remember). However, all of them are also available to other models and so are not really terribly impressive features of the Venomthrope. Take them as bonus features rather than factors for consideration.

They are very vulnerable, however, since they're only T4 and two wounds- likely your enemy will start by shooting them first, if they are smart. For this reason I strongly recommend either "hiding" them in the middle of a phalanx of larger units so as to limit what can draw LOS to them or have a Tyranid Prime tag along with the unit, soaking up S8/9 wounds for the group as described in his entry. Also keep in mind the relatively limited radius of the effect- clustering your units around a Venomthrope brood leaves you very vulnerable to people laying blasts onto your force, so you are probably best served putting them somewhere at the center-front of your wave of critters, helping to shield the units that would otherwise lack saves, despite the susceptibility to fire. Remember, the Venomthrope's role is only to keep critters alive to crawl across the table- once you've reached the enemy's lines, their job is basically done. They can contribute minorly to combats- and more notably to a huge fight with two dozen or more combatants, thanks to Toxic Miasma- but if they die before then, salute their sacrifice and move on. Tyranid units are expendable.

So what's not to like? Well, for starters they are taking away from your anti-tank firepower. Especially in large games, you need to take whatever you can get, and losing squads of Hive Guard or Zoanthropes can be really painful. It is possible to make up the loss with Tyrannofexes, Harpies, or other units, but they aren't as cheap and are rarely as efficient. On the other hand, lacking protection, it doesn't matter how much anti-tank you have because it's going to be dead, so you have to make some choices. Finding the right balance of firepower, protection, and cost is something your army is going to have to deal with. That's something else: cost. Venomthropes, while not the most expensive choice in the codex by a long shot, are not exactly cheap, either. In the lower-point games where their occupying an Elites slot is less of an issue, the investment in two Venomthropes can seriously cut into your army's budget- not to mention your budget, as the model costs a fair chunk as well.

All in all, Venomthropes are a specialized, but helpful, unit. If your army syncs well with them, they're awfully handy. If not, they're worthless. Oh, right, there's an option for Mycetic Spore- don't take it. It's bad. Deep Strike armies are already hurting a bit for firepower, further crippling yourself in that regard is a baaaad idea.

[AbusePuppy]

Zoanthrope
The Big Bad Tank-Killer that has all the Marine players kvetching about how overpowered our army is. Well, to a degree, they're right- the Zoanthrope boasts what is quite possibly the strongest AT gun in the game. (Numerically, it is marginally worse than a Multimelta due to the psychic test, but it gains some points for working better against Monoliths.) And it comes on a frame with a 3++ save and an option for a Mycetic Spore, so it's not hard to see why they're considered nasty. On top of that, you get a built-in Marine-blastin' gun (and, it should be noted, the only AP3 weapon we have) and Synapse/SitW. It's combat stats are pretty sub-par, but with the invulnerable save it can often stave defeat off for a turn so that something else can come to its rescue.

On the downside, they are unreliable- you have to pass a psychic test, a shooting attack, an armor penetration roll, and then get a meaningful result on the damage table. Bad rolls on any of these steps shut the attack down, and countermeasures against any or all of them work equally well. Smoke Launchers, KFFs, Psychic Hoods, Rune Priests- all of these are very common inclusions (or even standard equipment!) in many armies and can easy render a Zoanthrope helpless, whereas the Hive Guard's multiple shots give it a degree of insurance against such techniques. And let's be honest: Hive Guard is what Zoanthropes have to measure up against. Guard are the new kid in town, kicking over trash cans and calling the Zoeys out to fight for the title of Premiere Tyranid Tankbuster. As for who wins that fight... well it's really more a matter of apples and oranges. Zoanthropes have a shorter range, meaning they often have to Spore in; Hiveguard are tougher, but are reliant on opponents getting within their (admittedly not shabby) reach. Zoanthropes are usually going to show up, wreck a vehicle, and then get shot to pieces by the occupants. They also favor different targets, as the Lance ability only really helps when killing Land Raiders, which Hive Guard can't hurt. So a combination of both is not a bad idea, allowing them to cover each other's weaknesses. And Zoanthropes do have weaknesses indeed; aside from close combat, which I already mentioned, Bolter fire can spam enough wounds to overwhelm their 3++, as they almost always end up in Rapid Fire range of whatever their target was carrying.

I have mainly discussed Zoanthropes with the assumption that they will be taking a Mycetic Spore, because I feel this is largely required. Their range is rather short and, combined with their inability to shrug off much fire before succumbing, I don't think it's generally prudent to start them on the board. You simply can't rely on the enemy placing his heavy armor within 24" of their starting position; a Spore allows them to threaten anything on the board once they arrive. The downside, of course, is that you more or less give the enemy a free turn or two before they kick in, and in many cases that can be enough to swing things heavily against you. One solution to this is to run them in an army with Onslaught Tervigons; the extra d6" of effective range can be critical in the early turns of the game. However, for many, this sort of "trundle across the table shooting" list is not necessarily what they are looking for, so a Mycetic Spore is the only real option. If the delay in shooting is unacceptable and you need something to deal with heavier targets than Hive Guard can handle, Tyrannofexes and Harpies are probably your best bet.

The Doom of Malan'tai
Uh-oh. I'll preface this by saying I am writing this under the assumption that Spirit Leech does not work on units in transports and does not allow cover saves. I'm not interested in arguing about whether this is correct or not; until an official FAQ is released, those assumptions are as good as any and strike me as being the most "fair" combination. (No, I don't want to argue about that, either. Go away.) If and when a FAQ or errata is issued, it may drastically change his usefulness (up or down) depending on how they rule on each of the two issues. Until then, understand that his strength will vary drastically from group to group, depending on how you interpret him.

So with an intro like that, you know you're in for some crazy stuff. The Doom is, in many ways, a pretty ridiculous weapon against any kind of infantry-based army. He has a tendency to eviscerate practically anything in his area and even punish units up to 24" away with his psychic powers. There is a pretty reasonable claim that he is too strong for his points (if hardly the unbeatable, utterly broken POS that a lot portray him as), but if you're looking at running a competitive Tyranid army, he is going to be a strong contender. Beyond just draining infantry dry, he is also quite resilient against most kinds of firepower (though a single bad save can spell his end) and even poses a non-ignorable threat to many vehicles if he is allowed to "power up" even once or twice. Unlike Zoanthropes, assaulting him is no protection against his abilities. Somewhat more like them, his purchase of a Mycetic Spore is mandatory- without it, he is hardly even a threat to the weakest of armies.

The math has been crunched by others, but for reference, he will average ~2 unsavable wounds each player turn to a unit of Space Marines (assuming they have a Sarge). However, the deviation is pretty high- a single bad roll can wipe out most of the squad in one go, so Marine players are justified in considering him an unholy terror. His psychic blast is similarly devastating, although as a shooting attack it is subject to more mitigating factors (LOS, scatter, cover saves). The potential to double up on a unit can be overwhelming, and with (potentially) high S and AP1 there are very few units that can afford to ignore it. Finally, his 3++ and regenerating wounds make him largely impossible to kill without a S8+ weapon. He is not without weaknesses, however. First off, simply scattering more than 6" away from all enemy units means that he may be unable to gain enough wounds to pose a major threat. Secondly, he can be drowned in attacks. A mob of ork boyz charging in can probably put enough wounds on him that he'll go down. This is exacerbated by the third factor: Instinctive Behavior - Feed. Although he has Ld 10, you will sometimes fail the test and lose control of him, and he will generally be arriving far enough from the rest of your army that Synapse for him won't be an option. And finally (and related to #1), he is very random- again, missing out on that initial drain can mean him being completely vulnerable to being blasted apart.

So the dude is a real monster, able to kill potentially large numbers of enemies and soak up enough firepower to make a difference. Is he the best thing since sliced bread? Maybe not. While he can do some damage to vehicles, he's not exactly ideal against them, so including the Doom is a hit to your potential availability of AT firepower in the form of Hive Guard and Zoanthropes. As mentioned several times, he is also somewhat unreliable. And finally, like Zoanthropes, his need to be Spored in means that many games he won't arrive until the battle is well under way, and some armies may not want to dedicate a non-insignificant part of their points to something that isn't helping from turn 1. So, while the Doom is incredibly versatile (functioning well against most armies) and undeniably powerful, he does not rank as a mandatory inclusion to all armies. Still, you could do a lot worse for 130 pts.

Pyrovore
Like this guy, for example. Jesus, where do we start. Okay, so Pyrovores are basically Heavy Flamers with legs. They're reasonably tough- one wound less than a Warrior- and ignore armor saves in CC. They also have a couple cute "retribution" mechanics that punish people for killing them (acid blood, exploding when ID'd). Doesn't sound so bad? Oh, I must've forgot to mention their abysmal stats (WS3 I1 A1, worse than a Necron!) and ridiculous price tag. Hey GW, did you know that a Terminator with a Heavy Flamer also ignores armor saves, except he can ID people, kill vehicles, and shrug off most attacks? And he costs less than the Pyrovore and has better support from the rest of his army? Hell, compare him to a Scout Marine and he comes out looking bad. To put it simply, Pyrovores are s***. Even as one of the few template weapons available in the codex they completely without usefulness, especially when you compare them to the other options you have in the same slot. Troops in cover? Lictors, Death Leaper, DoM, and Ymgarl Genestealers will all do a better job at rooting them out, unless it's some sort of bizarre "one million Shoota Boyz in a bunker" occurrence.

He does have the option for a Mycetic Spore, which makes them marginally more worthwhile. You could potentially drop a pair of them into the middle of an enemy and unlease some burny doom, forcing them to redirect fire away from your main force to deal with them. The first problem with this strategy is the aforementioned cost: you're paying a lot of points for this "distraction." The second is your other options: Doom of Malan'tai makes a much better formation-breaker and will probably do more damage to boot. If you are dead-set on using the Pyrovore, this is probably your best bet, but I still can't say it's anything close to good. Also: the model is *******' enormous for a T4 creature, significantly bulkier than a Biovore, and you're going to pay an arm and a leg for it. Remember how I said that Venomthropes and Hive Guard were far from cheap? Yeah, Pyrovores roll those dudes and smoke them to finish off a meal of caviar and Don Perignon. And while rather a lot of Tyranids look rather, erm, suggestive, the Pyrovore in particular looks like his main gun was genetically designed to imply "standing at attention," so to speak. His gun is even called "Flamespurt." Ewww. Really, GW, what were you thinking with this guy?

Ymgarl Genestealers
Last, but thanks to the Pyrovore, not least. I will admit, I like these guys, so take my opinions here with a grain of salt. Ymgarl Genestealers are, as the name suggests, basically just upgraded Genestealers. They have all the features standard to their cousins as well as a couple bonuses, not the least of which is their 4+ save. This small difference is actually a pretty huge jump in survivability, as both species have to expect to be operating separate from the rest of the swarm quite often (thanks to special deployment rules) and thus can't rely on the cover save from having screening units. Their brood sizes are slightly different- although I can't see this being relevant very often- and they have several unique rules.

Rather than infiltrating, they have the option to stay Dormant, which involves secretly picking a piece of terrain that they will arrive from- ready to assault, no less- when they come out of reserve. The downside to this is that if there are enemies occupying the terrain such that they cannot legally be placed (more than 1" away), the excess 'Stealers, and potentially the whole unit, are lost. They also get to pick a stat bonus each Assault phase, either +1 S, T, or A, all of which are pretty relevant boons. You can't pick the same bonus twice in a row, but that isn't terribly crippling, since there are two good offense-oriented options. The S bonus is very nice when going after vehicles- which, given their surprise arrival, they can often catch stationary. (Comparing them to the rather lethargic Lictors, which take a full turn to get out of the La-Z-Boy they were perched in is rather pathetic. Have some enthusiasm for devouring all life, man!) The A bonus is ideal... well, almost anytime, really, as more attacks means more wounds and fewer return strikes. The T bonus is helpful when assaulting into cover- which they can do reasonably well, between it and their save- as well as trying to insure that you don't massacre the opponent on the first round of combat and end up exposed to shooting on their turn. Keep in mind that the bonuses only last for the duration of the assault phase, though- a Toughness bonus won't protect you from shooting in any way.

Their disadvantages are far from crippling, but hardly ignorable, either. First off, they are much more expensive than Genestealers, coming in at around half again the price. They also have no unit options- which wouldn't be so bad, except it means they don't have Toxin Sacs, so no rerolling wounds. So, for the same price a unit of Genestealers will inflict 50% more wounds on most enemies, even assuming that the Ymgarls are benefitting from the +1A bonus. If your army is lacking in bodies, Ymgarl Genestealers are probably not for you. They also have the same problem as a lot of our other units in that they're crammed into the Elites slot with all of the AT, and while a flurry of S5 attacks is nice, it's no guarantee and it isn't going to come in the early turns of the game when you want to be ripping people out of their tanks. Still, a squad of around six or eight of them is dangerous to pretty much everything on the battlefield and cheap enough to not completely break the budget. And, unless you play with micro-scale scenery, it is very hard for most opponents to fill a piece of terrain enough to cut them completely off from deploying, as you will usually have several good options for where to situate them. There will be times when you are blocked off due to sheer bad luck or good guessing, but these are the exception, not the rule.

[AbusePuppy]

Troops

The backbone of any list, in a Tyranid army troops are where you will find some of your strongest CC threats and anti-infantry shooting. Tyranid troops are, as a rule, not terribly durable, so make sure that you take them in sufficient quantities to ensure that they survive until the end of the game.

(The Tervigon, while often a troops choice, is discussed in the HQ section above.)


Tyranid Warriors

Interestingly enough, despite the above caveat we start off with the most survivable of the troops units. With near-Marine statline (better in some areas, worse in others, but notably with W3), the Tyranid Warrior is a real monster to deal with. They come standard with Scything Talons and Devourer, which gives them reasonable CC ability (in combination with their WS and A), but not terribly impressive, and pretty decent shooting. They're also Synapse/SitW and thus can be counted on to hold a point until the last man. The basic Tyranid Warrior is actually rather mediocre for his cost- you're paying Terminator prices for something that can be taken out by a Krak shot, which can be really risky. You will want to specialize your Warriors in one way or another or you will consistently find their performance sub-par. We'll talk about the possibilities more in the Options section, but for now let's look at some potential uses.

One thing to consider is that, despite their vulnerability to ID, Warriors still get cover saves like any other unit, so insuring that they have cover at all times goes a long ways towards dispelling some of their perceived fragility. A line of Gaunts is one of the best ways, but terrain and Venomthropes can work just as well. You also do not want to make them an obvious target- in a list with lots of other MCs, the enemy may be hard pressed to bring enough S8+ weapons to deal with them all. In this sort of list, their lack of Eternal Warrior is almost a benefit, as it taunts the enemy with the possibility of killing a ~40pt model with a single shot; of course, that's the point of offering them the bait, as doing so is a mistake- those weapons are dearly needed to put wounds on the MCs, who are effectively invulnerable to fire from Bolters and similar weapons, whereas the Warriors can be chewed down by them.

Over-upgrading is a major issue for Warriors, just as it is with many other bugs. Always keep in mind what your specific role is, and aim only for upgrades to benefit that role. Thinking "well, I might get into CC, so ___ would be useful, and so would ___ and ____, and they're only five points each..." is a quick path to T4/4+ models that cost 60pts. Pick one thing. Be good at it. The nature of Warriors means that they will probably perform reasonably well at other things even if you don't upgrade them, but shelling out points for multiple types of upgrades will lead to disaster.

Warriors can be an excellent source of mid-field Synapse, since they themselves are scoring and can spread the unit around to cover a very large area. They are tough enough that it's hard to displace them from an objective and, depending on build, can be cheap enough that you can take broods of reasonable size to provide a pile of wounds that need to be eliminated. Compared to the MC alternatives, Warriors-based Synapse is very tough to take out and may not always paint the same sort of crosshairs on themselves that the bigger beasts tend to.

You generally will not want to take extremely large broods of Warriors, as it not only ends up being overkill ("I did twenty-three power weapon wounds to you.") but also makes you even more of a target for Battlecannons and the like. Groups of 4-5 are what I've found to work best, although you could go up to six or seven if you had a Prime with you, in order to try and take advantage of him.

Options
Note that all Warriors in the brood must take the same options, so no wound allocation shenanigans. However, see the Venom Cannon/Barbed Strangler entries.

Mycetic Spore: This is a big one. Warriors advancing across the field can get shot up, but with a Spore you give your opponent exactly one turn to deal with things before you are in his face. As with many other units, Warriors should be fielded in a Spore only if it is part of an overall deep striking strategy that intends to deny your opponent the chance to deal with your army in the early game. If you are coming down in a Spore you almost certainly want to keep your gun, as shooting is the only thing you can really do the turn you come down. (With good arrangement of your Spores, running will generally be unnecessary, but there is of course the possibility.)

Rending Claws: As with the Prime, you can actually get these two different ways: by trading in your Talons (and paying 5 pts) or by giving up your gun (for free.) The former option I consider sub-par- it's generally taken as an attempt to make a shooty/bitey hybrid Warrior, but I just don't feel it's worth the points. Rending simply isn't that good of a rule anymore, and Genestealers do the Toxin + Rending trick much better thanks to their superior Initiative and mobility. The other method, however, holds more appeal for me; essentially, it is the concession of all modicum of ranged ability to become a close combat monster. Paired up with the Bonesword/Lash Whip, it allows you to penetrate vehicles, vaguely threaten Dreadnoughts, and minimize damage to enemy squads if you are trying to hide in CC. The note about Dreadnoughts is important, because Warriors are otherwise unable to harm them, so if you don't have a Prime attached and a lot of MCs in the list, you may want to consider it. Overall, the Dev -> RC swap should be a major consideration; do you really need a few S4 shots, or will the flexibility in melee help you more?

Paired Boneswords: Boneswords are the real reason that Rending Claws + (other melee upgrade X) is a poor choice. For a pretty reasonable price, you can add a better-than-a-power weapon to your CC unit, turning them into real monsters. Paired swords, although cheaper, are generally the worse of the two options because you really want to be striking ahead of Marines to minimize your casualties on these expensive dudes. However, some lists may be extremely scraping for points- in which case the downgrade is an option- or may be worried about killing multiwound models. The twin swords are very handy here, since a Ld test on 3d6 kills almost everything in the game. (Note that only one test is made, no matter how many wounds you did to them.) Enemy Tyranids are, ironically, extra vulnerable to this due to generally poor Ld on our non-Synapse creatures. See also below entry for more on Bonesword strategy.

Bonesword/Lash Whip: This is the good stuff. Although it's far from cheap, this is effectively power weapon + grenades (which you desperately need). Striking first- or, at worst, simultaneous- is a massive advantage and lets you ruin most types of dedicated CC units, although your nemesis (TH/SS Termies) don't really care, which is why you should leave them to other units in the codex. Combined with Toxin Sacs, you should be able to scythe through roughly two marines per Warrior, which should quickly turn most combats into a slaughterfest. Of course, the unit does become pricey at that point- 50 pts per model- but what you get is a brood that is all but unbeatable in melee, and even just one or two models can beat a lot of units in combat. This is, in my opinion, one of the strongest possible Warrior builds.

Barbed Strangler: Unlike all of the other options, this actually creates a unique wound group within the brood, which is a huge deal because it means you can suck up potentially two more wounds without losing a model. This alone is often enough reason to take one of the heavy weapons, but the truth is they're not too shabby on their own. The Strangler is a very nice large blast template to be carrying around and has the range to reach out and hurt people even in the early game. If you're using Devourers, it also matches up nicely with their target priority and adds yet another leadership roll that the unit needs to pass. The main issue with the Strangler is that Tyranid lists rarely lack for anti-infantry shooting, so you're paying points to improve something you don't really struggle with. However, it is a reasonable choice in any case and if your area is very mech-light it can really shine.

Venom Cannon: A lot of people don't like the VC and its big brother, but honestly, they're not all that terrible. They aren't great, either, but as noted above, you need AT guns. If the rest of the brood has Deathspitters, a VC can bring a nice bump to its transport-killing ability. Your blast will land roughly 50% of the time (depending on hull size), so it isn't a terrible proposition for you and you're really only looking to stun/immobilize most targets anyways, so the -1 isn't all that crippling. Like the Deathspitter, it also performs reasonably against non-vehicle targets, so you have good duality in the unit. And hey, ID for Guard and Eldar never hurt anyone.

Spinefists: See the Tyranid Prime entry. They aren't great, but they aren't horrible, either. If you're one of those people who's always b****ing about rolling 3s on their to-hit, maybe you'll want them.

Deathspitter: While the anti-infantry improvements over the Devourer are rather mediocre (+1S, trades morale penalty for AP5), against vehicles they make a world of difference. You'll be able to score some damage to transports by virtue of sheer number shots, although you aren't going to be wrecking many Rhinos with them. Really, though, all you need to do is Stun/Immobilize them so that you can get in there in CC and do some real damage, so the Deathspitter ends up being a pretty good option for a shooting brood. A Warrior Prime particularly benefits such a unit with his BS boost and ability to shrug off S8/9 hits (since you can't hide in CC easily.) If you're taking these, you probably aren't taking any other upgrades except maybe, maybe Adrenal Glands, as you want to keep the individual Warriors as cheap as possible to act as a Synapse centerpiece.

Scything Talons: I guess this is an option, just like with the Prime. Not really sold on it, though.

Adrenal Glands: Lets you strike before Marines and hurt vehicles more. However, not really compatible with Toxin Sacs (since they give you a fixed to-wound value) and redundant with Lash Whip. Taking these in place of Rending Claws in order to penetrate vehicles is an option, but honestly I think you're better off with the Claws for the other options they give you, especially against Dreads. However, you could do a lot worse than these.

Toxin Sacs: Pretty much an auto-include for any CC build. Rerolling wounds against Marines is simply too good to pass up, and the fact that it lets you threaten bigger monsters as well is just gravy.

Common builds
The Budget Patrol: 1 Barbed Strangler, no other upgrades

Shooty Synapse: Deathspitters, 1 Venom Cannon

Choppy Doom: LW/BS, Toxin, RC (deep strike version keeps Devourers instead)



Genestealers

Cheaper than before, with the same stats, but the devil is in the details this time around. Genestealers are still excellent shock troops and rate reasonably well against even the best assault troops in the game, but their current incarnation suffers from a number of issues that drag this otherwise-excellent unit down in little ways that add up.

First off, the numbers. No complaints here- they strike ahead of everything but the rarest of characters and units and will almost always hit on a 3+. Their reasonable S/T values put them on par with Marines and two attacks means you are going to cause some hurt no matter what. Fleet, Infiltrate, and Rending as basic are all very nice. However, that 5+ armor save is a killer, because it means anything you don't kill is going to wreck you in assault and virtually everyone's base gun scythes through your armor like it isn't there.

Infiltrate as a special deployment option means you have several ways to run them. First off, you can do a "standard" infiltrate, which would mean putting them 18" away from the enemy (or 12" if you're out of LOS). The upside is that you can threaten otherwise-weak sections of the board, like Outflank but without the issues with reserves. The downside is that you are going to get shot all to hell because you're not with the main body of your force, and consequently can't get cover as easily, have no backup, etc. So option 2 is fake-infiltrating, i.e. using it to deploy somewhere near the remainder of the army so you can get cover. This is effectively giving it up in return for some safety, forming part of the first wave of assault units. Finally, you can outflank, but unless you have a Swarmlord with you this is very unreliable- you have a 33% of "missing" your correct board edge and a canny opponent will simply stay away from one or both edges, denying you the possibility of a charge. Arriving late to the battle (turn 2 at best, more likely 3 or even 4) means that you're committing a lot of points to remaining off-board where they don't affect the battle at all, a risky strategy.

Their Brood Telepathy is also worth special note; it allows them to operate independent of Synapse, and combined with Ld10, they can pass most Morale and Pinning checks with ease. However, don't get cocky with them- you have a non-negligible chance of failing these checks, so don't rely on it absolutely. High Init also means that losing a combat isn't necessarily the end of the world for you- you have two chances (Ld test, I test) to get away unscathed, although doing so at the end of your own turn will likely result in them being shot to death.

Above and beyond their basic abilities and numbers, Genestealers have a number of issues. First off, there are several cheap, quick, dangerous CC units (Hormagaunts, Gargoyles) and other MEQ-killers (Warriors, Zoanthropes) available to a Tyranid general, so they are no longer the far-and-away premiere choice they once were. They still excel against Marines and will have some trouble with hordes (like Orks), but other units are competing for their main role and are debatably better. More importantly, they lack access to any kind of grenades, which makes their high I come into play less often than you might like, given their expense and fragility. While assaulting into cover isn't complete suicide, it is a very risky proposition and shouldn't be done lightly with Genestealers.

So what are they good for? Well, as said they're fine shock troops and a lot cheaper than Warriors and more effective than Hormagaunts when built properly. Their special deployment options also lend them some flexibility and they are one of our few troops that can be counted on to hold a point if you can't get some Synapse to them. A squad of eight 'Stealers gone to ground is surprisingly hard to dislodge without assaulting, which will probably spell doom for whatever dares to attack them. While they aren't as rock-solid as troops in a transport, they can weather far more firepower than most of our units. If you face a lot of Marines and are looking for some tactical flexibility in a melee package, you could do worse than Genestealers. Broods of 8-12 are normally the ideal number, as the ridiculous-sized squads simply become too much of a fire magnet.

(Aside: Stealer Shock is not a real army anymore. If you want to play it for fun that's fine and it's not totally horrible, but it is in no way competitive and lacks the tools to deal with most "good" lists.)

Options
Scything Talons: Not a terribly impressive upgrade, as you could just be running more 'Stealers. However, rerolling 50% of your misses isn't awful. Numerically, they work out to be okay but not great. 'Stealers tend to already be a glass cannon unit, so emphasizing this isn't a great buy most of the time.

Adrenal Glands: Doesn't really do anything for you. You already penetrate tanks on a Rend, so this doesn't change much. It does up your chances against a Dreadnought, but it's probably not worth it since you can get the Broodlord; see below.

Toxin Sacs: As with all the other S4 guys, these are awesome. Given that you have Rending, they are extra awesome. Doubling up on Rends is good stuff, although it isn't quite as fancy as having them on a Tyranid Warrior with Bonesword. I consider these a more-or-less mandatory upgrade, as your gain in damage for points invested is so large as to be absurd. They don't help a lot against T5/6 (since units like that mostly are only taking wounds from a Rend anyways), but every little bit helps.

Mycetic Spore: Wait, what? What? I don't understand. I don't even understand a little bit. Never ever take this unless, for some reason, you just wanted to add a short-range T4 shooter to your army. What the hell.

Broodlord: This guy is a big enough deal as to practically deserve his own entry. Okay, so you pay a crapload of points and get a +1 to a bunch of stats. S and T are nice, the save is a bonus, you get a couple more wounds as well. But you could get three Genestealers for his price, and that would be more wounds, more attacks, etc; why would you want him? Well, he does have two psychic powers. Aura of Despair is pretty trashy, but it can make life difficult for enemy Psykers (assuming they don't shut it down, which they likely would). It's not nearly as useful as SitW, however, and the fact that you can't use it until well after shooting is done (so no effect on 50% of Doom's rolls, pinning/morale tests, etc) is really trashy. Hypnotic Gaze is occasionally useful and randomly amazing- I've seen it shut down a Trygon before, but more commonly you will knock a Sergeant out of combat or do nothing.

The real advantage of the Broodlord are his extra options (most notably Implant Attack) and higher S value. Normal Genestealers are Dreadnought bait; they can only penetrate basic Dreads by Rending followed by rolling a 5 or 6. Broodlords double that chance, only needing a 3+ (and even on a 1-2 they still glance it.) Given your high number of attacks, thus puts the squad at almost on par with Marines w/PF Sarge in terms of killing the Dread- not great chances, but enough to matter. Secondly, having the option of Implant Attack means you can make the squad into a major threat against characters, as a single roll of 6 will spell their doom (remember, both Rending and IA trigger on to-wounds of 6 and you should be rerolling wounds thanks to Toxin.) Combined with Hypnotic Gaze, it turns a 'Stealer squad into something that very few characters or MCs want to get anywhere near, which gives them a measure of protection they desperately need. (Broodlords can also buy Acid Blood, but don't do it.)

[AbusePuppy]

Termagants
Trivia note: "Termagant," with no 'u', is the correct spelling; Gaunt (from the adjective of the same spelling) is the more general genus that collectively refers to all the breeds, sometimes including Hormagaunts and Gargoyles. Termagant is generally reserved for the Fleshborer-bearing variant that is most common. The omission of the 'u' is due to its derivation from the old English word for a violent or raucous woman. Harridan and Harpy have their origins in similar words; many other Tyranid beasties take their names from Latin or pseudo-Latin terms. So anyways...

The humble Termagant. It's not particularly good in assault (I4 being its only distinguishing feature.) It doesn't have very good shooting (Bolt Pistols are not known for being Super Pro.) It isn't tough, fast, or... well, pretty much anything. It's got about as poor of stats as you can get, bar Grots. Its only redeeming feature is actually not even a feature of the unit, but rather the fact that it can get Fearless from a nearby Synapse unit. Hell, they aren't even particularly cheap- Guardsmen are the same price, but come with a better gun, better Leadership, Frag Grenades, and options for Heavy and Special weapons.

The Termagant's effectiveness, then, lies in its role in the rest of the army. It serves as mobile cover, as an assault screen, and as a scoring unit (rendered durable by its ability to go to ground without any real concern for loss of firepower.) And, even though its 12" reach may be pathetic by most standards, it still outranges most of our other troop units, who are exclusively melee, so you will usually see Termagants taken as objective holders, especially alongside their momma.

That is, of course, the other advantage- taking Termagants lets you take Tervigons as scoring units (and ones that produce additional scoring units, at that.) Their other special rules are fairly minor in comparison- Move Through Cover never hurt anyone, but it's certainly not anything to write home about.

So what kind of army wants Termagants? Well, as said, you're mostly going to be taking them as a way to get scoring units, although taking large broods for meat shields isn't unknown. Hormagaunts are only slightly more expensive, though, and can run forward with impunity (and cause some damage if they manage to arrive), so I generally find them (or Gargoyles) to be better living walls. Any kind of on-board army will want to strongly consider taking some Termagants and a Tervigon- or two or three- to create a strong scoring presence on the board, as 2/3 of your games are going to be won and lost on objectives. Armies that rely on shooting are going to especially want Gaunts, as they are not only surprisingly vicious when backed by a Tervigon's upgrades but also cheap and plentiful enough to make an effective army-wide screening force.

Options
Mycetic Spore: Lacking much firepower in their normal form, basic Termagants are not a very impressive part of a Spore force. However, upgraded with Devourers they can become quite deadly to most units, pouring out a withering hail of fire the turn they arrive- something that Spore armies otherwise lack much of. I am cautious when adding any of the large blast weapons to my Spores containing Gaunts, as the possibility of scattering back onto the unit (as you are forced to fire at the nearest target due to the Spore's rules) is a very real one.

Strangleweb: Huh. Well, it is a pinning Template, at least. However, its crappy Strength value means that it's usually pretty useless; Orks are just about the only target it actually can do anything against. Everyone else you still wound on 6s, and against Kroot you're actually worse off. This really should have been S3, but lacking that it's probably something you'll almost never take. The option exists, though, so keep it in mind. Oh, and it can be cute with a Mawloc, since Mr. Mouthy pushes them the minimum distance possible.

Spinefists: GW really screwed a lot of the old guard Tyranid players when these switched from being the preferred combination to worthless. Statistically, against T4 models you will score the same number of wounds with Spinefists as with Fleshborers, so paying points to do the same thing is a poor choice. They are superior against Eldar/Guard/Tau, however.

Spike Rifle: Ummm... right. Well, it does have an 18" range, so that's something. Unfortunately, that's about it. Worse than a Lasgun? Yup. Don't pay points for this trash.

Devourer: Youch, that's a very pricey T3/6+ model. However, while it's alive you are spitting out ridiculous numbers of shots, so try to alpha strike your opponent out to the point where he can't effectively shoot back. Hitting isolated units is a good bet, as is hiding behind cover (or other units). These are probably the weapon of choice for Gaunts in a Mycetic Spore, since they let you cut down on incoming fire and your little men are already costing a lot of points. (Compare two squads of 20 Termagants in Spores to one squad of 20 Devilgaunts in a Spore in terms of firepower vs. points.)

Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs: If you want these, you should generally be taking them on the Tervigon that accompanies your Gaunts. They are otherwise not terribly costed, but not something I would really ever buy, either.


Mycetic Spore

Discussed mostly in the context of other units' entries, but we'll take a moment here to talk about the Spore in its own right. First off, the Spore is actually a pretty reasonable unit if taken in isolation- three wounds, T4, and a 4+ make it as tough as a Tyranid Warrior. BS2 means that its base gun is going to be very mediocre, but honestly that's not much of an issue. Ld is completely irrelevant. Three attacks and WS2 is not exactly great, but S6 and MC status mean that any hits it manages to make are going to hurt (assuming it gets a chance to strike, which is a little unlikely.)

The basic gun is actually a pretty fair deal, and certainly better than the Storm Bolter on a Drop Pod. Remember, it will get to shoot the turn it comes down (unlike a Pod), which will help cut down on your casualties on arriving a little. Its high Str can actually make it decent against vehicles, but don't expect much more than shaken/stunned results, as it's AP-. Keep in mind that as an MC, you can fire both the Tendrils and any gun you purchased as an upgrade.

Remember also that just because you purchased a Spore for a unit doesn't mean you have to deploy in it. You are perfectly free to elect to deploy normally (or stay in normal reserve) with the unit, although the Spore will still arrive via Deep Strike, completely empty, anyways. This isn't something you'll want to do very often, but the option exists.

Options
Cluster Spines: A very nice choice. You get a high-Str large blast template for a small number of points, which can be perfect for something like Zoanthropes that otherwise struggles with large numbers of dudes around. Comparing it to the Strangler, you're up a Strength but lose Pinning, which I would generally consider an overall gain since lots of horde units are Fearless. You lose your AP (boo hoo) and also a lot of range- that is probably the largest concern, as 18" just isn't all that far. Still, for the cost it's a real deal.

Stinger Salvo: I don't think so. You never want Salvo on any of the other MCs who start with it, why would you take it here? The VC is better for sniping at tanks and the other guns are better at hurting everything else. Against Eldar/Tau who aren't in cover I suppose this is a sorta decent weapon.

Barbed Strangler: Pretty nice. Pretty much like Cluster Spines, but with some tweaks. This is really going to shine against Tau and Guard armies, where the Pinning can really take effect.

Venom Cannon: Expensive, but possibly worthwhile? I haven't tested this one much, but its excellent range combined with high Str make it pretty good at most things. I've said elsewhere: Tyranids don't have a lot of options for AT guns. Being able to get one on a "transport" is a very useful option.


Hormagaunts
Well, Hormagaunts certainly couldn't have gotten any worse than they were before, right? In fact, they got so much better it isn't funny, although they took a couple major hits as well. The first thing to know is that they aren't beasts anymore, so no more 12" charge. As parting gift you get a slightly better run speed, but that's it. However, they're now extremely cheap and I5 base, which means even Marines can't just shrug them off and ignore them. With two attacks and Scything Talons they're actually pretty reasonable combatants, on par with Ork Boyz in terms of the damage they can do, although their specialty is more along the lines of striking first and killing things rather than going last and piling in huge numbers of attacks. However, WS3, S3, T3, and 6+ save all mean that they are terribly fragile.

So on their own, Hormagaunts are a middling choice; they ruin Guardsmen and Tau, but anything else will probably be able to pile enough attacks back to make them regret it. What makes them usable are the Tyranid support powers, most notably Catalyst and Paroxysm. The former gives them a 4+ against most attacks, cutting your casualties in half- with Hormies being so killable, this is a huge deal. Whether plowing across the field to screen your other units (a role they excel at with their three dice for Running) or leaping into close combat and getting chopped up, Catalyst pretty much doubles up your investment on a Hormagaunt squad. Paroxysm is slightly more situational but even better- it lets your Hormies hit on 3s and struck back on 5s, which will likewise halve the number of wounds you're taking and give you a 33% bonus to damage output. (Actually, I think with Talons it's even better than that, but I'm too lazy to do the math.) Combining the two should make it all but impossible for the opponent to win a fight against you. The Preferred Enemy/Furious Charge-granting abilities of the various Tyrants and Swarmlords also extensively benefit them, although not to quite the same degree.

Because of the above reasons Hormagaunts are generally best run in large squads or not at all- a small group of Hormagaunts will get shot up, charge into a fight, and die horribly to No Retreat. You are reliant with striking ahead of the enemy and reducing their damage to minimal levels in order to win combats- if they are striking back at full strength, you are in trouble. Charging into cover will probably kill you unless you have one or more of the aforementioned support powers backing you up, as the casualties you take before striking are going to be horrendous.

Hormagaunts excel at fighting other horde armies as well as the ubiquitous TH/SS Terminators- who cares if they have a 2+ save if they have to make 25-30 of them? Against normal Marines they are only middling (unless enhanced, see below). Gunlines do not like seeing masses of Hormagaunts charging at them, as you can often multi-charge several IG squads and still pull out a win. Charging other Tyranid units into a combat with Gaunts is risky, however, as enemies will direct their attacks against your weaker creatures in hopes of winning the fight and inflicting No Retreat! wounds on everyone.

Options
Mycetic Spore: Not quite as much of a comedy option as for Genestealers, but still not terribly impressive. I would only bother if you're running an all-Spore, and even then there are probably things you want more than Hormagaunts.

Adrenal Glands: Useful for glancing vehicles, mainly; wounding Guardsmen on a 3+ isn't worth the price hike. Definitely the worse of the two choices, but see below for more.

Toxin Sacs: Wounding MEQs on a 4+ is decent and rerolling against GEQs is a fine secondary. You can also use it to threaten MCs and other high-toughness target with weight of attacks- a full squad charging a Trygon or the like will often kill it. The craziness happens when you pair them with Adrenal so you can reroll wounds against MEQs while still striking first; at this point you are starting to become a real threat. However, at 10pts each they are too expensive for my tastes, despite the excellent combat performance. Hormagaunts are, in my opinion, meat shields for the real killers in your list, and if you want a MEQ-hunter you should be taking Toxic 'Stealers or Warriors with LW/BS+Toxin, both of which outperform the so-called Uebergaunt.


Ripper Swarms
Ick. Here's someone who got worse since the last codex. On the upside, they have a ridiculous number of wounds/point, better than any other unit in print I believe. Combined with Stealth, they are actually an incredibly durable unit and would be perfect for capturing objectives... if they could score. Yes, the unit that the Tyranids literally use to accomplish their objectives cannot capture objectives. Thanks, GW. So what you have is a mediocre tarpit unit that is extra-vulnerable to all of the things that our troops are generally already vulnerable to.

Rippers do have some amusing tricks, though; Stealth makes them able to take extra advantage of a Venomthrope's Spore Cloud, so they can make a very durable front line to an advancing swarm. And three wounds per base means it can be very hard to cut them down once they're in close combat, so if you can get some next to a Devastator squad or the like they can be a real hassle, tying up expensive units for large portions of the game. They are also naturally Fearless, although leaving them outside of Synapse range is not recommended anyways, as they tend to eat themselves. However, if they're stuck in melee or the like you can afford to ignore them, secure in the knowledge that they won't break and run.

Ripper Swarms are best taken as either a single huge line (to shield the rest of the swarm as it advances) or several small clumps to try and jump into the enemy's backlines and cause havoc. However you take them, don't expect them to kill much; rather, think of them as living shields for your important units. They're a pretty poor unit in general, but they have some uses.

Options
Spinefists: Well here's a case for actually taking Spinefists on something. With their high A value and low BS, Rippers are the perfect candidate for carrying these guns. You end up paying 15pts for every ~2 hits (which is an unsaved wound on a MEQ 15% of the time or so, or 50% of the time against a GEQ in cover). In terms of shooting-per-point that's not terrible, but not all that great, either. Again, a harassment unit. You probably want to Deep Strike guys like this because of their short range, so grab Tunnel Swarm or Sky-slashers.

Adrenal Glands: Glance vehicles, strike even with Guard, wound MEQs on 4+ when charging? No, don't think so. You're a tarpit, not a combat unit.

Toxin Sacs: As above. You're better off buying more bodies. Combining them the way the Gaunts like to isn't really very effective, either.

Tunnel Swarm: Deep Striking is a nice trick, but you're really asking to have a Plasma Cannon or something dropped on you. It is cheap, however, and if you aren't going to use them as a screen for your main force all the time it's a pretty worthwhile option. Note that Sky-slasher Swarms can also DS and, for a few points more, have a 12" move to boot makes them often worth the upgrade.

[AbusePuppy]

Fast Attack
Perhaps the least impressive slot for the Tyranid codex, it still has some truly excellent units in it, including some very surprising things. The FA slot pretty much universally gets access to 12" moves (or charges, in the case of Raveners), making them truly live up to their name. Most of them are variants on another unit elsewhere in the codex, so if you're trying to stock up on something for a theme, you may want to look to FA to fill it out a bit more.

Tyranid Shrikes
Warriors with the Winged biomorph. They got renamed and simplified (sort of) from the last codex, but they're still essentially the same. Well, except for the price- where before you were paying through the nose for the jump pack, it's now a measly 5pts. There are some other important differences, though, so we'll go over them as well.

Shrikes are a lot less survivable than Warriors thanks to their 5+ save; Genestealer players will recognize this as "the save that may as well not be listed, because you'll never get to use it." Practically every gun in the game is at least AP5, so it is absolutely imperative that your Shrikes have cover- and honestly, like Warriors, this should be true even if they had the 4+, because people are going to want to aim Missiles, Lascannons, etc, at them. Unlike Warriors, they are not solely dependent on being part of a swarm full of MCs to survive this, as their plan is more often to be jumping around the enemy's backfield causing problems than to be moving with the body of the swarm. Gargoyles make an excellent companion for Shrikes, as they need Synapse (which Shrikes give) and are perfect for screening. Shrikes also have a slightly different set of weapon loadouts, which will be discussed in the options section below- the important thing to keep in mind is that you cannot have both Devourers and a Bonesword, which is something of a pity.

At this point I must admit that I have not played with Shrikes much and so can offer only limited further suggestions on them. My intuition is that many people will use them wrong, treating them just like Warriors and thus discovering that they "suck" and giving up on them. It is my (sadly unfounded, for the time being) opinion that Shrikes are at the very least a passable unit, and possible quite good, at least when used in the proper roles. Like much of the FA slot they seem aimed to be a harasser/disrupter unit, there to shut down your opponent's dangerous units before they can destroy your main force. In the distant someday when I finally get a chance to convert some up (after I've made the Tervigons, Tyrannofexes, Harpies, etc that I want) I will fill this section out better, but for now take this as a placeholder and an unsupported promise that they aren't complete garbage.

Options
Barbed Strangler: See the Tyranid Warrior.

Venom Cannon: Partly covered by the Warrior discussion as well. However, their mobility makes rear armor shots more of a possibility, upping its value. A squad of Deathspitter/VC Shrikes is very mobile and can annoy all sorts of vehicles.

Rending Claws: You only have one option to switch for these (paying points), unlike Warriors. These seem a lot more attractive for Shrikes because you are more likely to be jumping small squads of guys (HWTs, Devs, Havocs, etc) that you don't want to completely wipe out, so Boneswords are overkill and will get you killed when you are left standing out in the open. The added utility for penetrating vehicles is also pretty handy. Unlike Warriors, it's unlikely you'll have to fight a Dreadnought unless you want to, so that aspect is less important.

Spinefists: See Tyranid Warriors.

Deathspitters: S5 vs. rear armor isn't all that bad, and you have the speed to try for it and 18" range makes it realistic. Seems decent, but does put you in danger of falling into the "more upgrades is better" trap.

Paired Boneswords: As noted above, this may actually be something of overkill for the kind of targets you intend to attack. However, if you go the other route and make them into a mobile super-assault force, this is a pretty ugly tool. However, I still prefer the Lash Whip combo due to its utility. I would only take these if you were intending to go Nob hunting. Note that both these and the BS/LW replace your Devourer, not the Talons the way they do on the Warrior; on the upside, this means that you can have power weapons that reroll 50% of their misses, but on the downside you can't soften up a really tough target with shooting before charging in. It's a give-and-take sort of thing.

Bonesword/Lash Whip: Turns you into just as much of a melee monster as it does with Warriors. If you are going to go the pure killy route, this is probably your go-to, along with Toxin Sacs.

Scything Talons: Despite the 12" movement, you shouldn't be chasing down vehicles because you're S4. Two sets of Talons and Adrenal so you can penetrate most things is cute, but not recommended, since it's pretty useless against anything else.

Adrenal Glands: Since you're going to be doing a lot of charge -> kill something -> charge again thanks to high movement rate, these become more interesting. Striking ahead of Marines, penetrating tanks- you get pretty much all the major stuff out of it. However, they still aren't culmulative with Toxin Sacs for the most part, so Double Sword + Toxin + Adrenal seems like the only useful combo- and even there you still don't get the pseudo-grenades the Lash Whips would give you.

Toxin Sacs: Just as awesome as they are on Warriors. RC + Toxin is a possibility, since it gives you enough killing power to fight most units while still not overkilling things and penetrating tanks.

Common Builds
(Take with a grain of salt.)
Shootabugs: Deathspitter, 1 Venom Cannon

Harassment Suite: Rending Claws, Toxin Sacs

Hatredcoptor: Paired Boneswords, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs



Ravener
Between Deep Strike, Fleet, and the Beast type, this guy is easily the fastest unit in the codex. It's still essentially a CC-modded Tyranid Warrior, but the differences are a lot greater than they were in the last book, so you can't peg them into the stereotype quite so easily this time around.

So let's start with the obvious: the Ravener is a close combat-focused Tyranid beastie, more or less solely intended to assault stuff and stab it to death. It has very good stats, hitting on 3s and wounding on 4s against just about everything. Its high I also insures it will generally strike first, and it gets more attacks than most independent characters, so it's excellent for disposing of large numbers of enemies, especially combined with the free rerolls from Scything Talons. Fleet combined with the only 12" charge in the book make it potentially able to hit just about any target you care to go after, and Move Through Cover means they get a bit more distance out of doing so. Lastly, they have the option to Deep Strike (though you'll rarely want to use it) and for some reason have Acute Senses, which will absolutely never come up ever.

So the downsides? 5+ save, T4. Anyone who's ever played with or against Ogryns will be able to tell you that wounds are no replacement for a good armor save, and the ubiquitous Power Fist will completely ruin your day. While not particularly overpriced, they aren't exactly cheap, either, especially if you decide to go for any of the upgrades. Given that Tyranid Warriors can do many of the same things they can, but also provide Synapse and have access to Boneswords and Toxin Sacs, making them much more damaging, it's no surprise that Raveners aren't terribly popular.

So that raises the essential issue: what can you do with a Ravener that a Warrior can't do? In fact, Shrikes must also be considered here, since they are essentially Warriors that also have most of the Ravener advantages. The answer, unfortunately, is "not a lot." Fleet + 12" charge is only marginally better than a straight 12" move in the best of circumstances. They end up cheaper than well-equipped Shrikes (and have the various stat improvements of Ravs over Warriors), but against any kind of Marines they will fare significantly worse. They are not so much worse, however, as to be useless; a mid-sized (~4 models) squad of Raveners can do an acceptable job of harassing the enemy backline, assuming terrain permits them to move forward on the first turn or two it takes to get near the enemy. And, against Orks, Guard, Tau, etc, they will do just fine, but against most power-armored enemies they will struggle (with Sisters being something of an exception.)

So the key to Raveners is essentially "find something squishy and kill it." You can't fight anything with large numbers of attacks to return to you (like mobs of Boyz), you can't fight any decent-sized squad of MEQs (except something crappy like Tacticals), and you absolutely cannot allow yourself to get anywhere near something with a Power Fist. Skulk around the edges of the battlefield and use your mobility to get a charge off on something every turn, because if you aren't charging, you're wasting the only real advantage you have.

(Oh, and something for you fluff nuts to rage over: Raveners can't enter through Trygon tunnels. Whoops.)

Options
Rending Claws: Pretty much mandatory. Losing the reroll on all your attacks is painful, but you still reroll 50% of your misses against most opponents (bar vehicles), so things could be worse. This gives you a modicum of functionality against MEQs, which you desperately need, and also lets you potentially do some real damage to vehicles if you've got no other option. For the price, you couldn't really hope for better.

Spinefists: Probably the only worthwhile gun option. Most of the time you want to be Fleeting, but with your huge charge range it's not impossible to reach things while still having the option to shoot, and its range syncs up perfectly with how far you were going anyways. Note that unlike most other models with access to the Spinefist, your higher number of attacks makes it actually superior to the Devourer against T4 targets.

Devourer: Meh. It's not like this gun is hard to get elsewhere in the list, so I don't really see the point in giving it to them. As noted, Spinefists are better unless you really, really want to try and make people fail Morale checks.

Deathspitter: I've seen this recommended as a secondary way to deal with tanks (combined with Claws), but I don't buy it. It can work, but it just seems horribly price-inefficient when you have TL HVCs available on a flying MC body in the same slot. Not a horrible gun, but not very impressive, either.


Sky-slasher Swarm
Flying Rippers. That's what they are. You pay 5 pts, you get a 12" move; it's that simple. Really they're just a slight variation on Tunnel Swarm Rippers, so take everything from that section and add in the note that you have good mobility and you've pretty much got the story. Ummm. So yeah, Rippers with an extra price tag. I think you know how that goes. Time to move on.

[AbusePuppy]

Gargoyle Brood
With a brand-new plastic kit and stats to match it, Gargoyles are here and they're doing their darnedest to make Hormagaunts look like idiots. Wanna Fleet the full 6" every time and still get to shoot? Gargoyles can. Want pseudo-Poison for free as part of the base chassis? Gargoyles have it. Want cheaper Adrenal/Toxin and the ability to Deep Strike without paying a 40pt premium? Little G has it covered, bro. And, with Termagant stats and only 6pts per head, it's really hard to go wrong with these guys.

Gargoyles are a great screening unit, coming in cheap as they do and being able to hurt virtually any unit on the board (vehicles mostly excepted.) Their extra physical size and flying bases especially help in that respect, making it possible to get MCs and friendly vehicles the 50% coverage necessary despite being a mere troops choice. Their high movement rate also benefits their role in screening other troops, as it helps you keep in front of whatever you're safeguarding while simultaneously insuring that, if ignored, they will get into the backline and cause problems for the enemy.

What stops them from being an auto-include unit? Price, for one. US$29/10 isn't exactly cheap, and as a new model not a lot of folks had full squads of them hanging around. I expect their popularity will increase as folks have a chance to build their collections, but for the time being they are a moderately unusual thing to see on the field. With only one attack and no reroll, they also have an innate disadvantage compared to Hormagaunts in a prolonged combat- anything you don't kill on the charge stands a good chance of slowly picking the unit apart. Lastly, they aren't scoring, which practically all of their "competitor" units (Gaunts, etc) are. All minor weaknesses, but I think that, combined, they are what keeps most people from using them. Gargoyles in the new codex are infinitely more usable than they were in the old one.

What kinds of army want Gargoyles? Any fast, melee-oriented swarm will find them useful as an advance force, especially if you have a way to grant Preferred Enemy to double up on Blinding Poison. All-Deep Strike armies might find them helpful as a way to add bodies without spending too many points- something that they often struggle with when you have to pay 100+pts for a brood of Gaunts. And of course, anyone with Shrikes or Winged Tyrants can use them as an easy way to get the requisite cover save when other units can't easily fill the role.

Options
Adrenal Glands: Pretty nice, and very cheap. Lets you wound on 4s and strike before Marines, but keep in mind you still aren't all that amazing of a combat unit, so don't get cocky and start charging into a fight you can't win. Also lets you glance vehicles, but this doesn't change the fact that Gargoyles aren't designed to kill tanks.

Toxin Sacs: If you do the math, you'll find that Toxin Sacs by themselves don't actually up your kill potential-per-point any, due to the lost shooting, etc, so don't ever take these by themselves. Combined with Adrenal they have some worth, but I think I'd still rather have the extra bodies- Gargoyles, like Gaunts, are a swarm unit and should be used as screens and disruption, not something that hunts down the enemy. They can kill things and often will, but that isn't their primary role.


Harpy
Ah, the much-maligned Harpy. Perhaps not the greatest choice in the codex- indeed, in smaller games it's something of a waste- but as you reach 2000 points or more and options for tank killing thin down it starts to look more and more useful. It also shines against skimmer-heavy armies where the 12" move makes it the only MC with much of a chance of catching said skimmers- and it does so for a lot lower price than most of our 2d6 penetration options.

So first up, yes, the Harpy isn't as tough as other MCs. T5/4+ means that Autocannons and Heavy Bolters are both a major threat to it; if your scene sees a preponderance of these weapons, you'll want to avoid the Harpy. T5 also means it takes twice as many (more, because of the save) Bolter wounds as normal MCs. You know what the solution to that is? Don't get in Bolter range. Both its main guns have 36" reach, so there is very little reason you should be getting close enough for Bolters to be reaching the Harpy in the early game. Railguns (and those rare other S10 weapons) are also a nightmare for it, and in that case all you can really do is shut them down quickly and hope for good cover saves. Those weapons aside, the Harpy is just as tough as any other MC. Lascannons, Melta, Missiles... these all wound the Harpy- and everything else- on a 2+ and allow no save. With four wounds just like the others, against most of the long-range fire that tends to be able to reach out to where the Harpy wants to hover, you are doing just fine.

In terms of armament, the Harpy seems custom-made to be an anti-infantry powerhouse- a TL Stranglethorn, Cluster Spines (because who doesn't take those?) and its Mines, it can lay a terrifying number of large blast templates on a unit. This goes back to something I've brought up before, though: do you really need a way to kill infantry better? Really? A better use is probably paying the token number of points to upgrade to the Heavy Venom Cannon, which ends up being one of the most accurate AT guns in the codex, if not the most effective. However, combined with the Harpy's ability to get side shots when it so pleases, you have a reliable way to inflict shaken/stunned results on even fairly high-armor targets and potentially destroy them.

The Harpy's melee stats are also underwhelming, so despite MC status, I5, and the Sonic Screech ability, you are generally better staying out of the reach of anything that you can't outright kill, as losing your shooting for 2-3 turns is pretty much wasting the Harpy's talents. Still, it is a Monstrous Creature and can do a fair number on small, non-CC specialists in a pinch. As the game progresses and units are thinned down, it is generally more worthwhile to move the Harpy towards the center of the battle so it can contest, charge, or shoot units as necessary, especially since target priority becomes more of an issue at that point; aiming that Heavy Bolter at the Harpy looks less appealing when you need to insure that the Gaunts get pushed off their objective as well.

Options
Heavy Venom Cannon: Mostly talked about above. I wouldn't bother to field a Harpy if I wasn't taking this, as it otherwise doesn't have a lot to offer you- 'Fexes are tougher Stranglethorn platforms, Warriors likewise for the somewhat less effective Barbed Strangler, Raveners will do a better job on most light infantry, etc.

Cluster Spines: This hasn't changed from any of the other MC entries. Always take these.

Adrenal Glands: They get you some extra Str, which is nice for wrecking vehicles and killing MEQs, but you aren't really a primary melee combatant. Mediocre.

Toxin Sacs: These are actually the only MC that Toxin improves the majority of your to-wound rolls (everything but T3 and below). I wouldn't bother, though, for the above reasons and because they don't help against vehicles.

Regeneration: Interesting, and priced lower than other MCs with the same number of wounds. Low enough, in fact, that you are going to want it a lot of the time- you'll usually net at least one wound out of it over the course of a game, if you're careful, and your mobility allows you to hop to cover, in front of other MCs, etc, to take full advantage of it. However, it is quite possible that the large games where the Harpy is most useful there is enough firepower around for it to die in a single turn.


Spore Mine Cluster
An odd choice, one mostly useful to folks who like to play tactical games during setup. If you just wanna rush things forward screeching, move on to the next entry. They drop in before deployment (even during Dawn of War- specific Codex abilities trump general BRB rules, remember) in an attempt to deny your opponent key battlefield locations and/or clog up his deployment zone. While they can do some damage in the process, their real point is to physically make placing models in some positions impossible- remember, there is a 1" buffer zone that enemy models cannot enter except when assaulting.

This is also, however, a good time to talk about Spore Mines in general (and as a result, Biovores to some degree) and some of the misconceptions about them. First off: Spore Mines can assault. They cannot Run, and their movement is random (despite the argument that the d6" drift is in addition to their normal move, which I cannot bring myself to agree with), but there is no prohibition anywhere about them being allowed to assault units. Moreover, when being "fired" from a Biovore, they are only placed on the board if they scatter more than 6" away from enemy models, which makes more sense in light of their being allowed to make assault moves. Note, however, that they will always detonate before assaults (yours or the enemy's) are resolved. Also remember that drifting into a Tyranid model never detonates a Mine, although they can be caught in the blast if one otherwise detonates.

In terms of effectiveness as weapons, Spore Mines are decent. Large blast and S4 mean the potential to wound pretty much any troops in the game and Barrage and AP4 mean that any kind of horde force is going to have a real problem with them. Even Marines can't completely shrug them off, as Pinning anytime a casualty is causes quickly becomes problematic for them.

So is 10pts/model worth the disruption of enemy deployment? It depends. With the prevalence of mech forces Spore Mines lose a lot of effectiveness, although denying a key piece of cover to some boxy Rhinos or Land Raiders can be a decent accomplishment, even if they do nothing else. However, their random placement and limited damage potential mean that they are never going to be a major consideration for a competitive force. However, they aren't terrible, and if you're looking to have some fun and mess with opponents they can work quite well.

[AbusePuppy]

Heavy Support
The big guns. Mostly composed of Monstrous Creatures, Heavy Support is where most of the non-Elites anti-tank power comes from, either shooting or CC. Virtually all the HS choices are expensive, so if you're planning an army out, you would be well advised to budget for this section early on.

Carnifex
The best unit in the codex last edition, now relegated to the Trygon's sad little brother most of the time. While many may argue over the relative virtues of the Carnifex in the new codex, the plain truth is that other, flashier units have surpassed it in its main role of "scary CC monster that you must kill," despite this not actually being what it was good at last time around. Carnifexes still have their uses, but they are much more niche than the "everyone needs three Sniper/Devilfexes" of the last codex.

The 'Fex is still the highest-Str unit we have and the only thing that can penetrate a Monolith in CC. Across-the-board stat boosts have turned it into a very formidable- if somewhat pricey- melee unit, and Living Battering Ram means that you have a reasonable chance of killing some stuff off before the Power Fist ruins your day completely. However, as noted, 'Fexes are expensive- even more so when taken in broods or with a Spore- so you'll often find yourself wondering if there isn't something better you could spend that 200-600pts on that might do the job as well or better. And, all too often, the answer is yes.

However, 'Fexes still do have a couple options left to them. In large games, when trying to saturate the field with as many MCs as possible, a brood of Screamer-Killers can be a worrisome prospect that adds to the enormous pile of wounds on the table. Being available in a brood also means that ICs can join them, which can mean amusing things if you want to abuse the Prime and Regen for everybody. And when it comes to dropping in a Spore, your options for shootiness are somewhat limited, so a 'Fex with some big guns can bring a nasty surprise.

So feel free to take a Carnifex if you want to- like a lot of units, they're not really nearly as bad as some people make them out to be. But realize that they aren't powerhouses and doing so means taking a hit to your competitiveness, which (depending on your group and personal style) may or may not be an issue.

Options
Mycetic Spore: Well, it's there. As noted, a Trygon will often serve you better, since it has more wounds, better attacks, etc, if you're considering a melee or anti-infantry shooting DSer. (Consider: 2xDevouers+Spore costs you 230 for 12 TL shots, whereas a Trygon Prime is 240 for 12 regular shots and infinitely superior raw numbers as well as Synapse.) Still, it's an option to consider, since it does give you some distinctness from the non-Trygon MCs.

Crushing Claws: Nuh-uh. Not only are the super-expensive, you lose most of your rerolls, which the small number of extra attacks don't really make up for. (Remember, WS3, so generally hitting on 4+.) These are cool looking and that's about it.

TL Deathspitter: These aren't worth the keystrokes I used to type this. Not even if they were free.

TL Devourer: Two pairs of these are the general rule; with one, you're just confused about what you want to be doing. While you don't get the reroll to wound from last edition, your number of shots has gone up, so you're overall a lot better off (but again: more expensive.) This is still a pretty killer setup, however, putting out enough firepower to make even Terminators stand up and notice.

Stranglethorn Cannon: Like with the Harpy, this just doesn't really seem to be what you want. However, it seems like potentially a decent pair-up with the Devourer, giving you some extra reach and the potential to force two Ld test to wreck a unit.

Heavy Venom Cannon: One of the worst platforms for this weapon. BS3, no TL, no mobility- the only real potential would be a Spore and Bioplasma giving you some high-Str shots into the rear armor on vehicles the turn you arrive. Still seems mediocre.

Frag Spines: Oh, GW, you cad, giving us one of our very, very few sets of grenades on an I1 unit. It's almost like you're kicking us in the balls and calling us sad sacks on purpose. But that can't be true, right? Right? So yeah, Frag Grenades; not terrible, but generally not a priority, either. You could potentially strike at I4 on the charge, but that still isn't ahead of Marines, so I'm not all that impressed. They are cheap, at least. Oh, and if you wanna be wacky, you can use these against a vehicle that, for whatever reason, you don't want to destroy- they're still regular Assault Grenades. Imagine: a two-story tall mountain of chitin and muscle rubbing up against a Dreadnought like a friendly cat. D'awwwwww.

Adrenal Glands: Lets you get the above-mentioned I4 and pulp T5 guys on the charge. Also means auto-penetrates against everything but Land Raiders and Monoliths, although that's a very, very marginal benefit.

Toxin Sacs: No no no no no no no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NONONONONONONO.

Bio-Plasma: Whoa, is this the only AP2 gun in the book? I think it is, my friends. (AP1 and AP3 need not apply, psychic powers don't count.) It's just a Plasma Cannon, and unfortunately doesn't sync well with the other gun options for the most part, as they want to cause large numbers of wounds and hope for some bad saves, while this lets you stack failures in convenient places. It does let you take a gun without losing the double Talons, though, which is nice. It's too bad you can't take a second, similar one to go with it.

Regeneration: Expensive, and kinda useless in broods unless you're abusing it with some Tyranid Primes. Not highly recommended.

Old One Eye
You know how old people are always dumb and worthless? Old One Eye basically exemplifies that fact. (Disclaimer: young people are also dumb and worthless, but some of them are also sexy, which makes it okay.) He's what you get if you take all the worst aspects of the Carnifex and roll them into a ball and pretend its an awesome package that can wreck mountains, but actually ends up feebling struggling with its own pocket lint.

Let's start off: he is ridiculously expensive, even for a Tyranid MC, and has only two very minor stat bumps (+1S, +1Ld) compared to a normal 'Fex. He cannot take a Mycetic Spore and has no guns, and thus is stuck trundling across the field, but they also made sure to avoid giving him Fleet so he can't possibly catch anything you would actually care to throw him at. GW then handpicked all of the worst options from the Carnifex entry, making sure to even cripple him at the one and only thing he can actually even try and do, although by some miracle- probably a poor understanding of the way their own rules work- he managed to escape getting stuck with Toxin Sacs, thank the Emperor.

But he's got some super-cool special abilities, right? Well, he does regenerate on a 5+, rather than just a 6. That's cute. But with only four wounds, it's a marginal ability. And he hands out his Ld to nearby squads, sort of like a pseudo-Synapse Creature. Umm, except he's Ld8, so he makes your guys as tough and fearless as the much-renowned Imperial Guard Lieutenant. His one and only redeeming feature is the ability to chain his successful attacks into additional attacks. Except that, unlike the Blood Angels Dreadnought that costs less than half as much and isn't unique and comes with guns and has better initiative, he doesn't get to continue doing so after the first set of hits. And he's WS3 with one set of Talons, so he isn't exactly an accuracy superstar to start with.

So when you shelled out the price of more-than-a-Land Raider, what did you get? A gimped Dreadnought that can be Boltered to death and always strikes at I1. Hurrrrrrrrrr. And they wonder why we say Marines end up getting all the good toys...

Options
Ha ha, he doesn't have any and even if he did, would you really pay even MORE for this garbage? I'm sorry, I'm just bitter. Did you know the unstoppable death machine of Hive Fleet Behemoth lost a fight to some Scout Marines? That's how amazing he is.


Biovore
Man, that's not a hard act to follow. You show up, don't s*** your pants and keep both feet out of your mouth and you're golden.

So Biovores, our sorta mediocre answer to artillery. Are they bad? No, not at all- you get a relatively cheap S4 AP4 large blast that can be taken in squads, and if you miss, you still get a consolation prize that turns into an explosion sometime later in the game. Hopefully. I already went over Spore Mines in their respective entry in the FA section, so lets talk about the Biovore himself a little bit.

The big change that everybody seems to miss is that his gun is Assault now. That means he can tag along with your Synapse creatures, puffing away all the while, without ever having to worry about making IB tests. It also means you have freedom to move him to a better spot to fire from/hide in if you so choose. With the mobile battlefields of 5E, this is actually a relatively big deal- static units are dead units unless you have a good defense set up, and defense is not a Tyranid specialty.

Something else to consider: depending on how you read the Instinctive Behavior rules, it may be possible for the 'Vore to fire at units it cannot see after failing its IB test; the sentence contradicts itself with two different wordings. However, you would still be forced to fire at the closest enemy unit in range, so leaving him in the backfield to lurk around probably isn't the best idea anyways.

Remember how I said Tyranids don't need anti-infantry firepower all those times? Here is the one possible exception. For a very low price, you can get some very dangerous blasts that effectively never truly "miss," just get delayed a bit. If you face very many foot armies, be they Marines, Eldar, Orks, or what-have-you, the Biovore can be a very dangerous threat, able to hang behind larger monsters for cover and drop templates that make a Whirlwind cry onto things. Of course, if you are playing Tyranids against a foot army you're probably winning already, but I have a soft spot for these little guys, so maybe think about giving them a try.


Trygon
New and improved! New and improved! And all this time you've been settling for old and inferior! All hype aside, the Trygon is one of the standout units from the new codex, and if you compare him to his close relatives it's easy to see why. Tough, fast, strong, and with a variety of incidental side benefits, he truly is a MC for all seasons, as few armies will have a problem integrating him to their strategies.

So the big deal is obviously his melee combat. WS5, double Talons and six attacks mean that most things that he charges are going to die in short order; in fact, you can expect him to wreck almost every vehicle on the charge and inflict five or more casualties to MEQs. Fleet and Fearless insure that he stays in the fight and can't easily be avoided and his no-mishap Deep Strike guarantees he'll be getting into the fight with only the shortest of windows to deal with him. His shooting attack, while not terribly impressive, is still perfectly capable of inflicting casualties here and there, so if you know you're in charge range, there's no real reason not to use it. On top of that he's obscenely tough, weighing in with the Six Wounds Worth of Junk in the Trunk club.

As always, of course, there are downsides, not the least of which being his size. As a MC he needs 50% cover to get a save, and the standard model is so tall and spindly that you're going to need some impressively large terrain to hide behind. Which brings us to number two: no invuln and only a 3+. This puts him on par with most all of the other MCs, but given his status as a high-priority target it is never going to be sufficient. Even with T6, wounds will get through and every one is a ticking timer towards your big investment going poof. Hiding in combat will work sometimes, but you kill things too quickly for it to be reliable and even then Power Fists tend to be everywhere, and they make you pretty miserable.

So the Trygon needs to be in one of a couple types of swarms: first, one that takes advantage of his Deep Striking; this probably means an all-DS army with Hive Commanders running the show. This naturally fits in with the next strategy: overwhelm your opponent with MCs. Trygons, Hive Tyrants, and Tervigons all play quite nicely together and form a natural base for neo-Nidzilla build that simply denies the opponent good targets for their anti-infantry weapons. Finally, a melee swarm can use him as one more threat (and a good one at that) that must be dealt with before it arrives. Note that in all cases your strategy is target saturation: give the opponent more of one type of target than he can get rid of. For the Trygon, even more than other Tyranid critters, this is key, because it naturally lends itself to being an obvious target.

One obvious competitor for the Trygon that should be mentioned is a Carnifex, especially in reference to destroying AV14 targets. The 'Fex is often touted as superior in this respect, and to a degree it is; when assaulting a Land Raider (or Monolith, for that matter), the Carnifex has a higher percentage chance to wreck it due to the high Str value, even despite the Trygon's superior number of attacks. However, a significant number of caveats must accompany that statistic: it only applies to rear AV14 vehicles, which is a comparatively small percentage in the game; it only applies if both of them can reach the target- Trygons are Fleet, 'Fexes are not; and it only applies if you did not give the 'Fex any guns, as losing the second pair of Talons effectively cripples its chances to wreck a vehicle moving 6-12". For all of these reasons I greatly prefer the Trygon to the Carnifex for anti-vehicle melee, even if the latter does possess a few advantages in that regard.

And since someone asked and I had meant to put this in here: Trygon holes are worthless. Do not rely on them. Here is what has to happen for you to successfully deploy a unit via a tunnel: 1. The Trygon has to come in early enough for it to matter. If you have reserve bonuses this isn't an issue, but I see a lot of folks run Trygons without them. 2. The unit you want has to not arrive before the Trygon or the same turn. So if you have bonuses to the reserves you're relying on, this is very unlikely. D'oh. 3. It has to be an infantry unit- so no MCs, no Beasts, no Winged creatures. That eliminates quite a lot of the codex. 4. The Trygon has to arrive someplace useful and not scatter off into the middle of nowhere. 5. And you still aren't allowed to assault or move. Do you see how unlikely this is? If you happen to come in from reserve too early- screwed, you're walking from a board edge. What's the upside to all this? One of your units gets to pretend it's Deep Striking. Guess what, kiddies- for 40pts, it can Deep Strike and ignore the majority of those problems, plus you get a cool goopy egg-thing out of the deal. Do yourself a favor and just buy the Spore instead if you really want to try that army.

Options
Adrenal Glands: A surprisingly good investment. First off, S7 gives you a little bit better chance to wreck vehicles and kill tough targets. Secondly, I5 means striking ahead of most types of Marines, which is pretty important. Not only do you cut down on random wounds from all the dorks punching you in the ankles, you get to go ahead of Dreadnoughts, meaning you will almost always get to destroy them before you yourself are attacked. Given the benefits and low cost, it's definitely something you should try to fit onto your Trygon where possible, but it's not so important that you should be cutting other things for it (unless your playgroup is unusually Dread-heavy.)

Toxin Sacs: I wonder, have you gotten the picture with these yet? I'm sorry, Timmy, S6 and poison is not a good combination.

Regeneration: You have six wounds, which is nice, and you get shot a lot, which means it's going to get some chances at it. However, smart opponents are going to concentrate fire on your Trygons, so it may not end up doing much more than giving you an extra wounds around half the time. If your opponent has some big squads that you can charge into and scythe through for several turns (Stubborn IG blobs, for example) without having to risk a Power Fist, it may work out better for you. It also gets better the smaller the game is, since there is less possibility of concentrating fire to destroy the Trygon. At more than 2K points I wouldn't bother.

Trygon Prime: What, exactly, does this get you? #1, Synapse/SitW. This one is obvious. As a rule, the Trygon doesn't really need Synapse all that much, but the ability to reliably DS a Synapse Creature into the enemy backfield can be advantageous. SitW helps with those pesky Farseers and Librarians, shutting down several of the abilities that cause you to auto-lose fights. #2, Ld10. "But I'm Fearless, what do I need Leadership for?" you ask; Doom of Malan'tai, for one. Mind War, for another. Boneswords, for a third. Or any of the other miscellaneous Leadership tests you have to take. They aren't common, but when you need to do it, you'll be glad for those extra two points, which translates into something like a 20% increase if you're making a normal test on 2d6. Last but not least, you double the number of shots you get with Bio-Electric Pulse, which brings it up to being a fairly dangerous gun.

Is it worth it? Well, how much Synapse do you already have? How often do you need forward Synapse? Plenty of people run the Prime, although I myself tend to find I have enough sources to keep my swarm well under control already. I would not recommend purchasing the full Prime + Regen + AG suite, because at that point you could practically have gotten two Mawlocs, which, although not Synapse, will undoubtedly do more damage and are far tougher.

[AbusePuppy]

Mawloc
Alias: The Other Trygon, Rules Nightmare the Second. Largely identical to its "bigger" brother in stats except when it comes to melee, the Mawloc is a more specialized form that wants to pretend to be an artillery piece some of the time. I don't think it's really "worth" it, but it has uses and can give you some interesting tactical options if you're willing to take a hit in straight effectiveness.

(Rules note: As with a couple other units, I am making some rules assumptions here to make the review possible without constant "unless of course..." statements. To whit, I am assuming that the Mawloc is allowed to choose a spot on top of another unit for its Deep Strike arrival point. As with the Doom, I am not interested in having a discussion on whether you think this works or not or why I'm stupid and that's not what the rules say or whether everyone in your play group things it works the other way and that's proof. If you are really that anal about things, write your own review.)

The Mawloc takes a couple pretty major hits with respect to the Trygon, and it's only fair to compare the two directly; their stats are very similar, they occupy the same slot, and they serve similar purposes in a lot of ways. What are you actually giving up? Well, you hit on 4s against almost everyone, rather than 3s. You have half as many attacks and don't get the free reroll. You don't have a gun. You aren't Fleet. And you can mishap by scattering into impassible terrain (but still not models.) You also don't have the option to be Synapse. All of these are pretty big changes- while a Mawloc is as tough as a Trygon, its damage output is massively lower, getting ~2 wounds against most targets on the charge (which, compared to the Trygon's ~5 if pretty sad.) That means that you aren't going to be breaking units by meleeing them to death most of the time, so you're relying on the large blast to do your damage for you. Let's talk about that blast for a second. S6 AP2 is certainly good numbers, but the accuracy is another matter entirely. You will always scatter the full distance, since there are no realistic ways to reduce it in the Tyranid codex. (See the Lictor section if you disagree.) That means you only have about a one-in-three chance to actually hit your target, as the average 7" on the 2d6 will probably take you well off the edge of most units. So the Terror from the Deep is powerful, but incredibly unreliable.

However, that's not the only thing you have going for you. The Mawloc does have Hit and Run, which means its weak melee stats are less of a problem, as it can't really get stuck chopping down a mob of guys the way some units can. This also gives it the potential for a very long "reach," much like a Lictor can (move, charge, HnR at the end of the combat and cover nearly 20" of ground). Combined with its ability to reburrow on subsequent turns after arriving this gives the Mawloc rather impressive mobility- you can spend two turns to arrive on pretty much anywhere on the battlefield you care to. As with Deathleaper, this is mostly for contesting objectives in the final turns of the game, but it can also work if you get stranded somewhere inconvenient on turn 3 or 4 and want to get back in the fight.

There are a couple cute tricks you can pull with him. One is starting him on the table and "reburrowing" him on the first turn, so he arrives automatically on turn 2 (rather than having to roll.) Another is using his "push aside enemy units" feature to try and destroy vehicles- for example, but arriving on top of a Land Raider in the middle of a formation of vehicles, so when it is pushed, there is nowhere to go and it falls into the abyss. Lastly, you can use the same trick to shove groups of enemy models into tight clusters in order to hit them with various blasts and templates- not terribly impressive, but it nets you a little more from a successful landing. Only trick #1 is really worth the trouble; #2 is very hard to set up and #3 is a pretty small upside return and potentially risks wounding the Mawloc itself. In the interests of completeness, however, I've included them here.

Overall, the Mawloc ends up being a cute trick but falling into the "not really worth it" category. On more crowded battlefields or if you are trying to spam the most, cheapest Monstrous Creatures onto the field, however, he can serve a purpose and is not a bad choice (which, honestly, the new codex doesn't have many of.) However, I can't really rank him as a competitive unit.

Options
Adrenal Glands: You get the same benefits out of it that a Trygon does, but given the Mawloc's lower combat stats I wouldn't be inclined to bother with it.

Toxin Saasjbdfkjb jbs7%#@6^tKYmn2(37gbk>:"nb 320%(i3w

Regeneration: The Mawloc is less likely to take wounds than the Trygon (since it is generally a less-threatening target.). On the other hand, you have a superior ability to duck into a wimpy unit (of, say, Tactical Marines) and hope for some sixes so you can HnR or finish the squad and go do something else. Honestly, if I had 200pts to spare I'd just take a Trygon instead, but if you like your Mawlocs or want to make an all-regenerating army, it's a reasonable buy.


Tyrannofex
Almost there. Big Tubby F is pretty much the answer to the old Sniperfex- a long range shooting platform with enhanced resilience. And, to look at the numbers, MAN is he tough. He gets everything the other W6 creatures do and a 2+ save on top of it, so Missiles, Bolters, Autocannons and other small guns simply don't do the job against him. He has a choice of three weapons, but let's be frank: only one of them is worth the price tag. The basic equip, Acid Spray, is nice and would be pretty cool on anything that cost less than a Land Raider, but without AP3 or something else impressive it simply doesn't bring enough to the party to justify using him. The Fleshborer Hive is a joke; I have never seen anyone seriously suggest even trying it. Even with 24" range it still would be underwhelming. The Rupture Cannon is what the Tyrannofex is really all about- reaching out and breaking someone else's toys from across the board.

Now, a lot of folks hate on the T-Fex because he's too expensive, doesn't get enough shots, etc, etc. Is he expensive? Yes, of course he is. Enormously so, in fact. But what those points buy you is a shooting platform that will not stop and is defended against practically every form of assault your opponent could hope to bring. Hordes of troops? Well, I've got two secondary guns I can shoot at you and I'm still T6 and an MC, so you aren't going to plink me to death in melee, no matter how hard you try. his combat stats may not impress, but they're still enough to off a couple dudes each turn while blithely ignoring return attacks. And he's mobile and long-ranged, so moving away from him isn't really an option 54" threat will effectively cover the whole board. Out-shoot him? Better cross your fingers, because you can't Shake, Stun, or Weapon Destroy him. As long as he has one wound remaining, the shots keep coming. And let's talk about those shots- while a little bit worse than a Railgun, the difference is actually relatively small, and the most common Railgun platform (Hammerheads) costs 150-170pts. So rather than one BS4 shot for 160, you are getting two BS3 shots for 265; that's actually a pretty fair deal. The equivalence isn't exact, but as a rough comparision I think it serves our purposes- the Tyrannofex is not particularly overpriced for what it does.

"But why would I pay that many points for something when I have Zoanthropes and Hive Guard?", you might ask. Because the Tyrannofex does something that neither of those units do. Zoanthopres are excellent against the same AV values that the Tyrannofex preferes- but the T-Fex doesn't care about psychic protection, instant death, being assaulted, and is infinitely more survivable at all ranges. And Hive Guard have a similar profile in terms of being excellent against transports and passable against other things while having good toughness, but the Tyrannofex's additional range and effectiveness against all targets makes the price tag more bearable. Furthermore, one must look at it from the perspective of when the Tyrannofex will be taken, namely as a unit to work with other AT. He is a gap-filler, letting your 3x2 Hive Guard list also be able to kill Land Raiders. The fact that he is also a HS slot, rather than the eternally-filled Elites, also makes a big difference.

So if you're running an army that plays on the board (as opposed to Deep Striking, etc), I would suggest giving the T-Fex a try. He does a very passable job against vehicles of all sorts and can be a good source of mobile cover for your other MCs, since you are perfectly happy to put him in front of most heavy weapons in lieu of your other units. And really, what else are you going to do with all those BS/VC Carnifexes you built back in the day?

Options
Fleshborer Hive: I have nothing smarmy to say here except "GW, you chucklef***s, the Punisher Cannon was bad at 24" and less than 200pts, what the hell were you thinking?"

Rupture Cannon: Forever and always, my one and only.

Cluster Spines: Same as the others, no reason not to. Having a large blast to fend off infantry that want to tangle you up is brilliant.

Electroshock Grubs/Desiccator Larvae/Shreddershard Beetles: So which of these should you take? Well, the really obvious choice is if you know what you're facing- ESG are perfect against T3 targets, DL are made to hurt tougher things, and SSB are your weapon of choice for heavily-armored targets. To what degree, though? Well, the long and short of it (feel free to do the math yourself) is that Desiccator Larvae are superior against all varieties of T4 targets except Terminators, although only marginally so compared to Shreddershard. Electroshock are better against most T3 (since the AP is often relevant and you wound on a 2+ anyways); Shreddershard are identical against Sisters, since you make up for lack of Rends by number of wounds. So I would say your default option should pretty much always be Desiccator unless you are extremely sure that you're going to be fighting Guard or such a lot. Oh, and remember that you can always fire the template as an extra weapon above and beyond your normal two, but that doesn't let you fire it at a second target. It's perfectly legal to position yourself so that the template touches two enemy units, though, provided you are hitting the maximum number possible from the "real" target.

Adrenal Glands: I2 isn't very impressive, and you aren't a melee unit. Forget it.

Toxin Sacs: Oh Lucy, you nutty redhead, putting these everywhere as part of your wacky scheme. You so crazy.

Regeneration: With his toughness, save, and wounds, cutting the Tyrannofex down in a single turn is difficult, and unlike the Trygon, he likes to hang out in packs with other units that can give him cover while he licks his wounds. If you can afford it, this can potentially go a long ways. As always, though, don't make the mistake of skimping elsewhere because you've fixated on it, though.


================================================== ============




Woooooog. So that's the end of it. I realize that it is, in many places, written oddly, with a style that varies wildly in its coherence, completeness, and tone; this is something of an unavoidable consequence of having typed the whole thing up over the course of a month or so, assembling it by bits and pieces.

This review/guide, despite its absurd length and wordiness, is in no way exhaustive. It represents my own finite understanding and experience within the environment I have access to, and as such I cannot guarantee that it will match perfectly with your experiences. While I have tried to keep everything generalized- as opposed to explicitly representing my biases that result from the group I generally play with- it's more or less unavoidable that they will creep through to some degree. As such, take everything with a grain of salt, especially with regards to competitiveness; every group will have its own standards for what is "good" or "good enough," so what I consider passable you might see as awful, or what I see as mediocre you see as powerful. It is more useful to regard the various units relative to each other- if I say the Trygon is better than the Mawloc, you know how they relate to each other (since that is what matters, as you aren't buying units from outside the codex most of the time.)

I would invite other people to contribute their own opinions on this review or the units, though of course I make no promises that whatever results from the discussion will necessarily be included in the review itself. I am generally inclined to talk about things with anyone who can demonstrate a reasonable knowledge of the game and the army, provided they can also remain polite about things.

[Kirby]

Haven't read it all yet (shocking...) but skimmed it quickly and I think a job well done overall! I'd like to add something to this line though...

"But why would I pay that many points for something when I have Zoanthropes and Hive Guard?"

Not only does the T-Fex do something above and beyond what Zoans/Hive Guard do, but combined with Hive Guard and Harpies, you've got some very excellent fire suppression on mech. Whilst not the most reliable to kill mech, it is very good at stopping it from shooting or moving which means your horde gets to move up unmolested and then MC statlines begin to weigh in. No tank likes 2d6 pen on rear armor except Raiders/Monos.

[Mindshred]

Tervigon
Also keep in mind that spawned Gaunts can act normally, and you are allowed to spawn at any time during the movement phase. It is perfectly acceptable to move the Tervi 6", spawn a squad at the edge of his 6" radius, move them 6" more, and then Run another d6" forward if you need to get to an objective (or want to get out of backlash range.)

The Tervigon can only spawn babies before it moves, not after or during.

[AbusePuppy]

The Tervigon can only spawn babies before it moves, not after or during.

><

I thought I had edited that out already; apparently not. Thank you.

[Mosedeke]

Haven't finished this yet, but wanted to say that so far this is a great review and look over of the codex. Haven't touched my nids in a couple months but this makes me want to break them out again today.

[Pacorko]

Pretty purdy and useful! As someone who always liked the bugs but who started collecting and playing regularly with them only recently, I have to say:

Thanks!

Some of the stuff here, I had already spotted but had no way of checking for veracity without the necessary experience.

Other things have saved me a lot of time while thinking up the direction my lists' might take and their actual building time... which is always a plus.

[Balerion]

I'm determined to read all of this, bit by bit. Just posting a quick reply for the automatic sub.

[Marlow]

Just finished reading and I enjoyed that. I do have a few points to add.

Acid Blood & Lash Whips: Since whips only affect base to base models opponent can always take the test with another model so I really do not think this is a good upgrade.

Swarmlord Power: Acute Senses has one use. Turn One Dawn of War otherwise I agree it sucks. Furious Charge however can be more use than Preferred Enemy to units with Talons since they will already be getting some re-rolls in combat. It also allows you to turn your Toxic-Homies into Ueber-homies when they charge without having to waste the points on the unit.

Tervigion: Spawning power cleary says "before moving" so you can not move and spawn.

Carnifex: If only he was T7, then you would at least have a choice. Roasting Marines with plasma is the only reason to take him now.

T-Fex: I use it for the big gun but I still think it is overcosted by about 20 points.

[LususNaturae]

Nice article! Any chance we could get this linked in the Tactica Index?