It’s Okay to Eat your Feelings When You’re a Tyranid

Are you a fat gamer?

Do you find yourself eating mountains of cupcakes at 2am after inhaling an entire pizza for dinner?

Do you drink more beer than water on a daily basis?

Are you allergic to the gym?

What if I told you it was okay?

Embrace your inner Tyranid and be a fat gamer.

The great devourer is here and its stomach knows no bounds. After roughly 2.5 editions of being total trash Tyranids are back and ready to disappoint you again! Now featuring the newly improved units such as the Flyrant and the Dakkafex which have never seen the light of day in the past.

Okay, okay that was a bit harsh; Nids actually have some cool stuff for once. So without further ado I shall put aside my witty banter and fanfare to discuss the real things in life: futuristic, gigantic, alien bugs that eat people.

1. Flyrants — I wasn’t kidding. These guys did get a lot better. They went up to T7, gained 2 wounds, got a 4++ invul and the ability to deep strike, all for the low, low price increase of nothing. I expect the most common build for these guys will continue to be the classic devourerers for days which now pump out 24 S6 shots when fully kitted. Though for once there is actually argument for other choices, The range of deathspitters is actually a pretty big draw given that screening out 18” guns is shockingly easy. And 1 set of Monstrous Scything talons can turn these guys from pillow fisted shooty giants to real combat threats that move 16” a turn.
2. Neurothrope — This guy is nothing to write home about, but he’s an HQ choice for <100 points which has been a constant issue for Nids in the past few months as it made taking cheap battalions and brigades infeasible. He also casts 2 powers and that’s always nice.
3. Genestealers — Okay these guys were good before but they can combo crazy well with some new stuff, especially Lictors and Swarmlord. I don’t want to give away all the details just yet but expect these guys to be a very popular choice.
4. Hive Guard — These guys didn’t change much, but they got the ability to burrow via stratagems and the ability to shoot again which really elevates them to new levels of scary.
5. Gargoyles — They got deep strike. The end.
6. Raveners — Now with the burrow stratagem from Jormungandr you can take some MSU Raveners (which aren’t bad on their own) and tunnel things like Gaunts, Stealers, and Hive Guard into key positions to avoid getting blown up before they get there.
7. Tyrannofex — These guys just got so much better, their dick cannon went up a shot to 3 (which means 6 if they stand still and it’s stats went from effectively -1 2 damage to -3 d6 damage).
8. Last but not least, the Carnifex — These guys are kind of cray cray when it comes to points efficiency. For ~115 you get a 8 wound MC which can constantly have cover (Jormungandr), is -1 to hit, hits on 3’s and shoots 24 S6 shots.

Fexes, T fexes, Flyrants, and stealers coming out of the ground? It truly is 4^th edition, 40k is really evolving.

Warhammer 40K – The Tyranid Outcast by RanDize

I expect Nids to have 2 main play styles in competitive 40k. The first being very reserve based. Between Flyrants, Gargoyles, Raveners, and Trygons naturally having deep strike, any infantry unit getting access to deep strike via the burrow stratagem, and spore pods delivering the other big nasties like the Swarmlord you can make a strong reserve based Tyranid army. This is especially true given that Tyranids have an abundance of crappy cheap units to deploy such as Rippers, Spore Mines, Mucolids and Biovores. For this style I’d recommend something like Kraken or Behemoth. Kraken will allow you a lot of freedom when trying to move and charge things going with the overall theme of speed here. Behemoth is much more about brute force. When you deep strike a Behemoth unit with adrenal glands it gets a rerollable 8” charge to make it into combat. Not bad at all.

I think the second competitive build will actually be more common (though that doesn’t make it better). It will consist of a lot ground elements such as Tyranofexes, Exocrines, Dakkafexes, tons of gaunts buffed by malenthropes to stack negatives to hit and Jormungandr to have a constant aura of cover. This style Tyranid army is definitely more reminiscent of 4^th edition Nidzilla, and kind of plays similarly to index Guard.

So where do Nids fall in the grand scheme of things? It’s hard to say right now. They definitely have the potential to shake things up. They can obliterate screens and come out of nowhere with speed to lock up units in combat. Between Nids and Eldar entering the meta at the same time I think their combined presence will force static gun line type lists out of the meta and incentivize people to start adopting mobility, combat capability, and most importantly the Fly keyword in more of their unit choices.

Let me know what you guys think in the comments!

And remember, it’s okay to be fat, kids.