Find out what’s hot and what’s not in today’s Hive Mind Budget Buy List to help you Tyranid lovers make the most of your holiday dollars!
Christmas is around the corner my bugaboo buddies and that means that it’s time for the most sacred tradition of the holiday season: Buying more toys for yourself under the pretense of bargain gift shopping for your loved ones!
Today, I’m going to focus on the buy list for what I think are the biggest value options in the new Tyranid codex. This editorial aims to help you out if you’re a new tyranid player, or one that’s come back to the army and has been gone for so long that it’s a totally new beast to you.
Cash Rules Every Bug Around Me
Unlike most of the tactics editorials you’re reading about bugs lately, I’m not rating these options purely on their merit on the battlefield. My primary value indicators for this list are the price tag and the amount of travel you get out of the kit. The greatest merit today is bang for your buck.
The Best and Worst Part About Being a Bug Player
Tyranids are the most unique army in the game in one important way: many of their staple units are completely customizable and can fluctuate massively in effectiveness and points cost depending on how you equip them. This is great news for veteran Hive Minds but can be confusing for new and returning players. The simplest example of this evolutionary supremacy in action is the Termagant. At 4 points and a fleshborer, his goal in life is to catch a bolt round to the skull so a more expensive bug doesn’t. But if you double his cost by giving him a devourer, the Termagant gains 6 more inches of threat range, 3 times the firepower, and becomes one of the most respectable front line bucket-of-dice infantry models in the game. So as I go through my buy list, I’ll try to explain my reasoning for my picks along those lines.
The Winners
START COLLECTING- TYRANIDS
New Player: Must Buy
Returning Player: Must Buy
A Trygon/Mawloc, 8 Genestealers, and a Broodlord for $85. Broken down to retail cost, the Broodlord is basically free. The reason I’m a fan of this box is because it’s a value buy on 3 models that became heavy hitters in 8th edition and one of them is a multi-build kit. Using deployment tricks like deep strike or Trygon arrival doesn’t suck in 8E and Genestealers got scary good. Most importantly of all, the Broodlord is a hoser. He buffs Genestealers, is a smite battery, and can hide behind chumps because he’s a character under 10 wounds. He’s a value HQ that’s perfect for the job and, more importantly, it’s a pain-in-the-butt model to get. You can try to score one in a kill team or space hulk box but buying one by itself is never a good idea because it’s 40 bucks for one piece of plastic. You need to pick this guy up in a value kit.
TYRANNOFEX
New Player: Great Buy
Returning Player: Must Buy
In older versions of the game this guy was a chump. However, in the new codex, he came back in a big way and might actually be strong enough to compete for his Heavy Support slot. The big question about the T-Fex is, “Ok sure, but why not an Exocrine?” This is what I want to say about the Exocrine. It’s great and it kills whatever you point it at, but in terms of value and flexibility, the Tyrannofex is the superior on-a-budget kit. He’s cheaper and the T-Fex’s guns don’t suck anymore. Even if you don’t like them, they’re still useful. You want the fleshborer hives to use as a Dakka Flyrant conversion. The rupture cannon isn’t bad and the auto-hitting acid spray is a neat trick if you can pull it off. Every part in that kit is useful. It can also alternatively be built as a Tervigon, which only requires that you stick the egg sacs on the side of his butt and put the talons on instead of a gun. This kit gets tons of value if you take the time to magnetize all the options. That’s why it’s big on the buy list, especially for veteran players that ignored it back when it sucked and have piles of Gants to take advantage of the alternative Tervigon build.
HIVE TYRANT
New Player: Must Buy
Returning Player: You already got this guy
In the last edition, the Dakka Flyrant was one of the team players carrying the Tyranid codex, but in 8E, he took a dip in the index. More importantly, other models showed up to pull their own weight. However, in the codex he got his groove back and the Flyrant with devourers is back up to his old tricks. Swarmlord is also a bigger beast than ever and, depending on your hive fleet adaptation, you might actually want to equip a Flyrant with something besides devourers. If you’re a veteran bug, you’ve probably already got every Tyrant you’ll ever need. New players are going to need at least one magnetized kit that can do double duty as a Dakka Flyrant or Swarmy.
WARRIORS
New Player: Must Buy
Returning Player: Worth the money
I never thought in my whole life as a Tyranid player I would ever like Warriors. To me, they always seemed like they weren’t shooty enough, weren’t tough enough, or weren’t numerous enough for their points. Our 8E codex solved that and, with their new low point costs, Warriors are a serious contender. The Warrior kit comes with everything you could possibly want and Warriors can be equipped to do anything you could possibly want. As a returning player, you’ll want to take a second look at Warriors to see if they can do anything for you. As a new player, this is a great unit to fill gaps in your force org chart, provide midfield synapse, and provide you with an alternative to painting the swarms of Gants you’ll eventually have to own as a Nid player.
HIVE GUARD
New Player: Must Buy
Returning Player: Why don’t you own these already? (PS they are direct order and currently out of stock as of press time)
For the sake of this list, I prefer kits that have lots of value options and can be magnetized or modified to fulfill whatever role is required for the new player or budget hobbyist. My big exception to this rule is for Hive Guard because these guys are just huge problem solvers. Their cover-ignoring, no line of sight required guns just pick a unit out of your opponent’s army every turn and blow it away. This is a unit where you just dump the box out on the table and it does work. No transport, no extra models, no goofy deployment strategies required, and they work in every Hive Fleet. There are a lot of Tyranid models that could be on this list because they’re so good on the table that they’re always worth the cash. However, the Hive Guard are the leaders of that group. You could theoretically assemble them alternatively as Tyrant Guard. But I would never recommend that because I think a Tyrant should either have wings or be Swarmlord in a Tyrannocyte. Both of those builds outpace the Tyrant Guard trying to protect them.
CARNIFEXES
New Player- Great Buy
Returning Player- Try the new hotness
The original big bug and the jack of all trades, the Carnifex is back with more competitive options than ever. There’s a Carnifex for every occasion now. The Dakkafex works again after a brief hiatus where he didn’t, the Screamerfex debuffs morale, the Thornback spikes for mortal wounds, and Old One Eye buffs his Fexy brothers. There are other heavy support big bugs that are bigger and with bigger guns. However, for what you get in the kit, how you magnetize it, and the value you receive, the Carnifex really punches above his weight class in your wallet. I would never tell any player, new or veteran, not to buy an Exocrine. However, I would recommend that every Nid player young and old build up a stable of Fexes for every purpose. Whenever you can’t squeeze a big fat big bug in your list to eat everything or shoot it to death, the low budget Carnifex can pick up the slack at a reduced price.
The Losers
These are the guys I would avoid. Some of them, because I don’t think they’re great choices, and some of them, just because they’re so low value for what you pay for that you really just punch your wallet every time you pull them off the shelf.
BROODLORD
As I mentioned above, you should never buy a Broodlord alone. He’s 40 bucks. You need to score him in a boxed game, in a Start Collecting Box, or in the Genestealer Broodcoven box. That way you can at least ally in some Cultists with that Primus and Magus. (A Patriarch and a Broodlord are the same thing.)
TYRANID ARMY
Here’s why I don’t like it. I’d rather just get two Start Collecting boxes. This box is a Start Collecting box with a brood of every kind of Gant tacked on and I don’t think that adds enough value to make it worth it. I’m not against Gants but I am against Gants in a vacuum. They’re all minimum sized units and, for Gants, that means they’re useless. If they replaced the Gargoyles with another brood of Hormies or Termies I’d move it up the list. As it stands, I’m personally a fan of extremes when it comes to Tyranid troops in 8E. You should either go whole hog on Gants and get as many as you can or avoid value infantry and go for quality like Warriors and Genestealers. This box doesn’t even give you enough to use them as obligatory screening troops. Furthermore, I just don’t like gargoyles because I hate flight stands. They need to redesign those models so that they float on their tails like spore mines. Those clear plastic flight stands are the worst.
I think that instead of getting this box, new players would have more luck double dipping on Start Collecting boxes and adding in some value units like Warriors and Fexes. Even though that might be more expensive. There’s just not enough swarm in the army box to count.
CRONES AND HARPIES
These flying bugs are a really tough sell on new players for a very important reason. The Flyrant can do anything he wants, has a great deep strike deployment trick, and he’s almost 30 dollars cheaper! I can’t recommend that anyone buy a flying bug when you can tack a pair of wings on a cheaper bug and do the job as good or better.
EVERY $70 BIG BUG
Maleceptor: He just isn’t good.
Toxicrene: He actually is pretty great but he does 1 thing, he’s a 70 dollar bug, and he’s a pain in the butt model to take to the game shop on Saturday. I actually love this guy but there are better choices if money is a factor.
Haruspex: This is probably one of my favorite models in the army, I just love the way he looks. But like the Toxicrene, I have a hard time rationalizing him when you stand him up side by side with his peers.
Exocrine: This is the $70 big bug you actually want. He’s not a loser at all, he’s just in the same weight class with a bunch of losers. As a matter of fact, that’s why they’re losers because he’s just too good.
GANT BROODS
I am not against Gants, I own plenty. I think that the humble Termagant is still a staple model in most successful shooty bug lists. The Hormagaunt is still a relevant pressure application and overwatch soaker assault unit in aggressive bug lists. As a Nid player, I don’t think any of us will ever get away from needing hundreds of Gants.
However, I have a hard time recommending that anyone buy them at retail price right now because it’s too easy to scalp them from independent vendors and Ebay. Warriors and Genestealers are strong enough now to plug holes. I, myself, won’t go Gantless. However, I think that for the first time in the history of the Tyranid army, it’s possible.
My problem with Gants today is that there’s no good way to bulk up the swarm. They aren’t worth buying in their minimum unit size boxes and the Tyranid Army box gives you 3 useless minimum units instead of a healthy number of Hormies or Termies. There’s just no good way to buy them, so you have to scalp Ebay.
In the past, we had great value boxes for Gants. Both OOP Battleforce boxes for Tyranids were great troop boosters full of value units and the OOP Tyranid Swarm box was legendary. It lived up to it’s name. There’s no such value box available right now for bulking out Gant blobs, so I’d rather recommend that new players try their luck on ‘Stealers and Warriors for their troop needs until they can swindle a nice fat pile of Gants from a trickier source.
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About the Author: Jack Stover
