I've considered starting a Tyranid army several times, but have never been confident enough to spend the money. I have a few questions which I hope will help me decide whether or not to start an army.

1) Are Tyranids a good beginners army?
2) Are Tyranids a competitive army?
3) Are Tyranids a popular army?
4) Are Tyranids difficult to paint?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

1) They can be really hard to play with but it depends on your armylist ,overall I think it is a good starter army.
2) They are just a normal army they are well balanced.
3) Depends on your area but there are in most areas tyranid players.
4) Depends on your paintscheme but they are not that difficult to paint.

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"There are only 4 things you need in life: Lasagna, beer, a girlfriend and of course a gondor army."

Thanks for the help, hero of gondor. Could you please answer a few more questions?

5) Are they reliable on a battlefield?
6) Are they expensive (moneywise)?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

5: Depends on the mission and the army build cause a army with a lot of the large monsters is not reliable in a mission to take objectives but is good at ripping your enemy apart.
6 Depends on the army build ( yeah I'm not original) Most of the time you need a lot of models so they are expensive but everything is plastic.

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"There are only 4 things you need in life: Lasagna, beer, a girlfriend and of course a gondor army."

Thanks again.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Recommend having a swarm of small expendable creatures AKA cannon foder. Then with that swarm just charge at the enemy!

I would probably say that yes Tyranids are a competative army, but most of the questions you are asking vary on what type of amry you are trying to feild.
The only difficult thing that tyranids have to face is the synapsis rule which mean you have to have all the mindless minions aka cannon fodder in range of a bigger creature that allows the hive mind to control them all. So they do have some tricky rules. I woyuld also have to say that yes a tyranid army will be very expensive as their whole army is based around swarms of cheaper and less powerful monsters supported by a few bigger and more dangerous tyranids. So you willh ave to buy a fair bit of models but in reality for all the armies to get a good army that fits your strategic ability you will need to spend a lot a money.

You shoud be aware that almost all competitive Tyranid armies you read about include some or more Hive Guard which are only currently available in fine cast. Aside from that its ebay or converting some. Just something you may want to consider.

JUst popping by, but in my opinion:

Tyranids are imo NOT a good beginnersarmy, it takes some experienced list building to make them viable.

However, if you like them, go ahead! Here's some stuff you want to get into your list:
- Tervigons!
---> You need to get gaunts to get these (as troops), so while you're at it, why not some big groups of 20/30 ?
- Hive Tyrant with Wings / Swarmlord
- Hive Guard
- Trygon

Stuff that looks really cool, but is just not that good anymore:
- Carnifexes! They're horrible now.
- Genestealers... Oh, before 6th Ed, they were quite good (I wanted to start an army of them), because you could outflank them & charge your opponents fireline.
- ...

So yeah, Bigzilla is the way to go (meaning: big monsterous creatures of which 1/2 drop gaunts every turn).

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We must forgive our enemies...
But not before they are hanged

Have u played any 6th edition yet? Because tyranids are a great army especially if you can take biomancy on some of your psykers, and flying creatures such as the harpiers and flying MC are great especially with hammer of wraith and the vector strike the MC gets.

But they took a hit with overwatch and the fact that gene steelers cant assult from reserves really hurt them too.

It hurt my Raven Guard too. I can no longer Infiltrate Shrike & Assault Marines to get Turn 1 Assaults. I can't outflank to Assault from reserves. Fleet no longer extends the full distance that my Marines can charge (used to be 12" move + D6" Run/Fleet + 6" Assault for a min-max of 19" - 24").

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True, but remember: the rulebook was at that time of my post 3weeks out, now about 6... That makes a bloody difference when it comes to specific game insight...
But yes, they turned out to be quite better


Still, I don't believe nids are a good starter army, simply because the nr of good, working lists, are quite limited...

Yes, I know, you've got some different units you can use, but don't tell me they're as flexible as let's say... Shiny Knights.

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We must forgive our enemies...
But not before they are hanged

Well no they are not as easy to play as space marines orther 100 variants of them, i think that tyranids are a fun army to start out with and if we can get more people to get into the xenos armies it would be great, i get tired of playing everysingle game against a GK,SM,Blood angles or space wolf,this game needs players to branch out

Hear, hear.

Curtis gave up 40k for a few months after 6E, a bit depressed that Genestealers were nerfed. But then we fitted the wings to his tyrant - Dakkatyrant, Devilgants and lots of Psychic Powers scare lots of people - last Saturday he wiped out a force of Dark Eldar. Sunday, when our eBay auctions are done, we're off for some Gargoyles.

Nice work Troll king and Troll father - these are awesome!!!

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