Starting with the Nids (finally)

[Filius]

Greetings, dear Hivemind,

 

I am thinking about to start a Tyranids-Army as a side project with my godson. He'll be starting with a Box of Combat Patrol: Adeptus Custodes. I already do have 16 Genestealers, and I am thinking about what to take next, esp. in regard to have something to cope with Custodians … any suggestions?

 

Thanks for any help in advance!

[Xenith]

Hi Filius and welcome to the Hive Mind!

 

Firstly, nids with their organic looks and hordey nature will be a great compliment to the Custodes. To be honest, I've not played with them since the 9th ed dex as I'm cycling through armies, and the nid dex looked to powerful to be fun, but the army still seems quite strong despite the point increases it's had. From my reading of it, pretty much every unit seemed 'decent' with no terrible options like in the 8th ed book, so I think you'll really be able to build a force that suits your playstyle without hampering yourself - so you can go melee, shooting or psychic heavy, or ideally a mix of all three! 

 

Personally, I love the psychic aspects of the game, and the Hive Tyrant and Lictor are some absolutely iconic models for me. If I was building an army, I'd probably go with:

 

Hive Tyrant - psychic, melee, shooting

Neurothrope - psychic

Lictor- melee

3x Zoanthropes - psychic

16 Stealers - melee

Warriors - melee, shooting

2x 20 gaunts (or 4x10) - tie things up

Exocrine - shooting

 

The Combat Patrol box is an excellent start, and you get the models in red from my list above, which will be about 600pts worth of models. From there, you can probably add the stealers, then one other unit of your choice and you'll be at 1000pts for some decent sized games! 

 

 

If you need some motivation to get them painted, there's a very high chance the "A Bug's Life" tyranid painting challenge will go ahead again this year, so you can join in the fun!

 

[Filius]

Thanks a lot! That sounds like a good starting point, and I do like Lictors and the Neurothrope / Zoanthropes Minis a lot.

 

And I'll keep an eye on A Bug's Life, though my godsons idea with this project is, that we only work on the armies, when we spent a weekend or an evening together, so we both spend an equal amount of time for the armys, which limits the total time we can invest there, quite bit. So, taking part in challenges might be … well challanging.

[Brother Nathan]

Xenith is pretty spot on. Theres not reqlly any terrible units in the nid dex though some do overlap and support verywell. Would double on those reccommendations and add in after that see what you like the look of.

Iv found hive fleet is a harder choice and colour schemes... 

[Filius]

Thanks! At least I've almost settled for a colour scheme: I'll go with Mengels Genestealer Recipe. I already tried that with my Kill Team and am very happy with the results (Wraitbone, Shyish Purple + Black Templar + 'Ardcoat for everything black, Magos purple for Skin + Red details on the Head  = fast and nice). I just thinking about to add some Turbo Dork to the black for some iridescent look, hehe. But yeah, I'm already struggling to choose a hive fleet. All those extra rules. Thankfully, the non-standard Colour Scheme allows me to swap the Hive Fleet Between battles.

 

On the other hand: My Godson and I almost only play Warhammer against each other and we are sooo far away  from being fit with the rules and our Codices, even though we play for almost three years now, hehe. If you continue to get better with the game with this pace, it'll be another three years untill I notice a difference in playstyle between the Hive Fleets, hehe.

 

But another question: Judging from the Standard-Custodes Datasheets, it'll be quite a challange to bring down even one of the those golden boys. Does anyone have suggestions, which units are especially capable against the regular Custodes. I already figured out that the Zoanthropes and Neurothrope will be usefull, as they fly and  can dish out mortal wounds with psychic abilites. Also: tarpitting his precious few minis in Gaunts seems to be a valid option.

 

 

[Brother Nathan]

Not played against custerds yet  but we have certainly a few options to deal with them. Nids can kick out mortal wounds from most sources and have alot better shooting than most armys expect. From my understanding custodies are better in combat but can only kill so much. Nids phsy and shooting played by a blunting tactic or two should hurt slow custodians as we go for objectives and out body them. I wouldnt go for large squads though as i think lots of smaller are harder to stop

[Filius]

By the way: I got myself the current Codex (only had 6th, 5th and 2nd Edition codices here), and oh boy, that codex sound like a lot of fun. I love what the did with the newer Hive-Fleets fluffwise, and the different options to customize your army are amazing (and a bit overwhelming, hehe), and some of the Datasheets alone sound like tons of fun. All those synergies for the psyker-organisms!

[XeonDragon]

Maleceptors are fun :)

[Filius]

8 hours ago, XeonDragon said:

Maleceptors are fun :)

 

I never liked Psykers or the Psychic Phase. But with the current Codex it's really something I am looking for, although I found Neurothrope and the Zoanthrope even funnier (on paper), and I am instantly willing to pay 100 euros for 2 Boxes of those beats. I would say … some did something really well over at Games Workshop.

[Brother Nathan]

i think its been rare where zoanthropes havent been class (i v used them since 3rd ed) and whilst they dont need to be the core of your army they do help pretty much every army list.  even the major price jump on them hasnt shifted them out of my list iv just went from 4 to 3.