Warhammer 40,000/10th Edition Tactics/Tyranids
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This is the current 10th Edition's Tyranids tactics. 9th Edition Tactics are here.
Why Play Tyranids
Pros
- Now in 10th edition the faction has recieved a bunch of new units, some of them brought from past editions, either by looks like the Screamer Killer Carnifex or by name like the Von Ryan's Leapers.
Cons
- Due to the simplification of rules, weapons, and datasheets, much of the customization of the units has become simply cosmetic if the index is anything to go by.
- You can only use Shadow in the Warp once per battle.
Faction Rules
- Synapse: While a unit is within 6" of one or more Synapse models, it's within Synapse range. Each time it takes a Battle-shock test, use 3d6 instead of 2d6.
- On an Ld8+ unit, which is most of your army, this more than doubles your chances of passing the test (41.67% -> 83.80%, an x2.01 multiplier). On Ld7+, which is your bravest elite, it's still significant (58.33% -> 90.74%, a 1.56x multiplier).
- Shadow in the Warp: Once per battle, during either player's Command Phase, if one or more units with this ability are on the battlefield, each enemy unit must take a Battle-shock test. If someone tries to out-horde you in the hopes of occupying objectives, use this to flip them back to your control - Battle-shocked units have OC 0, which means they may as well not be present for the purpose of holding objectives.
Detachments
Invasion Fleet
Special Rules
- Hyper-Adaptations: Gives you one of three buffs you can pick between for the entire game. You're naturally going to gravitate towards Hyper-Aggression because routinely your attacks will be fine on accuracy but struggle to wound.
- Swarming Instincts: Any attacks against enemy Infantry and Swarm units gain Sustained Hits 1.
- Hyper-Aggression: Any attacks against enemy Vehicle and Monster units gain Lethal Hits.
- Hive Predators: Any attacks against enemy Character units gain Precision.
Stratagems
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- Adrenal Surge (1 CP): When one unit fights (Two if they're both within Synapse range), they score critical hits on a 5+.
- Rapid Regeneration (1 CP): One unit gets a 6+ FNP against the enemy's shooting attacks, upped to a 5+ if the unit's within Synapse range.
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- Death Frenzy (1 CP): When a unit is attacked in melee, any models that die before fighting can still attack after the enemy on a 4+ before going down.
- Endless Swarm (1 CP): During your command phase, two units with the Endless Multitude keyword that are within your Synapse Range can have up to d3+3 destroyed models returned for each one selected.
- Overrun (1 CP): A unit can consolidate 6" instead of the usual 3" so long as they end movement within engagement range of another enemy. If the unit's within Synapse range, that consolidation range is boosted to their full movement speed.
- Synaptic Insight (1 CP): One unit (Or two if they're both within Synapse range) get to use one Hyper-Adaptation that you didn't pick at the start of the game for the turn.
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Enhancements
- Adaptive Biology: Bearer gets a 5+ FNP. At the start of any turn, if the bearer has fewer than its starting number of wounds remaining, until the end of the battle, it has a 4+ FNP instead. Best on a Flyrant or Tervigon, who need the protection more than anything.
- Alien Cunning: After both players have deployed their armies, select up to three units from your army and redeploy them. When doing so, you can throw them into reserves.
- Excellent for anyone since it doesn't really care who it's used on. If you do take it, try to also take Deathleaper, who can make optimal use of the re-deploy.
- Perfectly Adapted: Bearer gains a 1/turn ability to re-roll one Hit, Wound, Damage, Advance, or Charge roll, or one saving throw.
- Synaptic Lynchpin: Bearer gains a 9" bubble of Synapse range without getting the actual keyword. Great on a Parasite of Mortrex.
The Vardenghast Swarm (Combat Patrol)
One of the first Combat Patrols released for 10E. Pretty much here to showcase the power of this new gameplay format.
Composition: 1 Tyranid Prime, 1 Psychophage, 20 Termagants, 3 Von Ryan's Leapers, 5 Barbgaunts, 2 Ripper Swarms.
Enhancements
- Psychostatic Veil: The default enhancement gives Lone Operative and a 4++ save, which is fine enough since this box lacks any warriors for the Prime to hide behind. In addition, any melee attacks against the bearer suffer -1 to hit.
- Secretion Goad: Once per turn, you can make the bearer target a friendly unit within 6" that's about to fight or shoot, improving the AP of that unit's weapons by 1.
Secondary Objectives
Stratagems
- Teeming Broods (1 CP): During the movement phase, you can either resurrect d3 models from an existing unit of Termagants or recreate a new squad of 2d6 Termagants if you lost a unit.
- Hyper-Reactive (1 CP): During your opponent shooting or fight phase when one of their units has selected their targets, if its an Tyranid infantry, each time an attack targets that unit, substract 1 from the Hit roll.
- Voracious Assault (1 CP): On your shooting or fight phase, select one of your units that hasn't attacked that phase. Until the end of the phase, models of that unit can re-roll Hit rolls if it targets the closest elegible target.
Equipment & Weapons
Highlighting changes from 9th to 10th editions in parenthesis. Blue means improvement and Orange means degradation. Remember a +AP is a degradation.
Melee Weapons
- Bone sabres: TWIN-LINKED A8 WS2+ S9 AP-2 (+2) D3. Worse against armour now, but better against high T thanks to re-rolling to wound.
- Genestealer claws and talons: Vanguard Predator A4 WS2+ S4 AP-2 (+1) D1
- Screamer-killer talons: A10 WS3+ S10 (+4) AP-2 (+1) D3
- Xenos claws and teeth: A1 WS4+ S3 AP0 D1
Ranged Weapons
- Bio-plasmic scream: ASSAULT, BLAST 18" Ad6+3 (+3) BS4+ S8 AP-2 (+2) D1
- Fleshborer: ASSAULT 18" A1 BS4+ S5 AP0 D1
- Rupture cannon: HEAVY 48" A2 (-1) BS3+ S18 (+4) AP-4 D2D6 (-0.5)
- Termagant devourer: 18" A2 BS4+ S4 AP0 D1
- Termagant spinefists: ASSAULT, PISTOL, TWIN-LINKED 12" A2 BS4+ S3 AP0 D1
- Bio-Cannon: BLAST, HEAVY 24" AD6 BS4+ S5 AP0 D1
Psychic
- Synaptic pulse: PSYCHIC, TORRENT 18" AD6+3 S5 AP-1 D2
- Psychic scream: IGNORES COVER, PSYCHIC, TORRENT 18" A2D6 S5 AP-1 D2
- Psychic overload: BLAST, PSYCHIC 18" AD6+3 BS+3 S10 AP-2 D3
- Warp Blast:
- witchfire:
- 'focused witchfire':
Unit Analysis
Characters
- Broodlord: Leader of genestealers. Hasn't got synapse, and what with Genestealers having such underwhelming melee output, you're unlikely to take one of these.
- Hive Tyrant: Your monstrous leader for the nids and your mainstay for most cases. Each one can let a unit within 12" use a free strat, even if that strat has been used before.
- As a monstrous unit with at least T9 W10 with a 2+/4++ save, they're very hard to ignore. Fortunately, each comes with a paired bonesword and whip, coming in at a lethal S9 AP-2 D3 with a healthy number of Twin-Linked attacks. You can replace these with less impressive scything talons (S7 AP-2 D2 with Extra Attacks so they can at least pair up with something else), a Heavy Venom Cannon (for mobs MEQs and TEQs) or a Stranglethorn Cannon (better suited for anything MEQ and below).
<tabs> <tab name="On Foot"> Gets bumped to Toughness 10 and capable of attaching to some Tyrant Guard, just as the hive mind intended. Onslaught gives them a 6" bubble that lets units gain Assault on their guns, which at least gives them some use when camping next to a Tyrannofex or some warriors that need to rush in.
- As they have two sets of arms to work with, replacing the bonesword+whip for scything talons doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you have a second pair anyways. If anything, you'd want to replace those talons with a cannon and leave the sword+whip to actually stand a chance in melee.
</tab> <tab name="Winged"> Airborne and thus unable to accompany anything. Paroxysm gives them something akin to an older power, robbing an enemy within 12" of 1 attack on all melee weapons on a 2+. At least this gives them the ability to annoy things as they fly around.
- While you might want to keep the sword+whip for the max melee potential, taking the scything talons can at least make some sense as they can be used in conjunction with the Tyrant Talons thanks to Extra Attacks. Of course, it might also be safer to just give them a cannon.
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- Neurotyrant: The big psychic monstrosity from the reveal trailer, attended by two smaller floating brains. Not only does it have a power that forces anyone suffering from the Shadow of the Warp to take -1 from their Battleshock tests, it also has the ability to give two friendly units within 12" the ability to always count as if they were under Synapse, making it incredibly useful for any Neurogaunts that aren't in their retinue.
- Any unit it joins (of which can only be Neurogaunts or Tyrant Guard) gains +1 to hit and +1 to wound if the enemy is battle-shocked. Neurogaunts won't be doing much of either with only S3 AP- claws, but it might mean a bit more when you think about the Tyrant Guard...
- Parasite of Mortrex: Is a Lone Operative.
- Tervigon:
- Winged Tyranid Prime: Comes with the Shrike's Wings, but Shrikes don't seem to be making any comebacks. Instead, you'll only be able to keep your flying speed if you join a pack of Gargoyles (who'll die as pitifully as you'd expect). Fortunately, S6 AP-1 D2 talons make him more than a capable threat and joining a pack of Gargoyles or fellow Warriors sees everyone making use of Sustained Hits 1
Epic Heroes
- Deathleaper:
- Old One-Eye:
- The Swarmlord: A bit shifted defensively, losing wounds (W13>W10) but making it up with increased Toughness (T8>T10) and no longer having a damage track. Its Boneswords remain pretty potent at WS2+ S9 D3, but the loss of AP to AP-2 does severely affect its effectiveness against tanks. Its psychic power also took a blow from the loss of tables, as its lone power is also its only ranged attack, an S5 AP-1 D2 Torrent psychic heavy flamer, making it capable of melting marines if nothing else.
- Though not nearly the psychic powerhouse, Swarmy is more of a tactical one. Aside from its expanded 9" Synapse bubble, it also gives you 1 CP each turn and gives you the 1/game ability to make one strat your opponent uses cost 1 CP more for the rest of the game.
Swarms
- Ripper Swarms: Never leave home without some if you take the Parasite of Mortrex (otherwise, always do - they're trash on their own). While they remain utterly pathetic, their annoying factor has dialed up some by making enemies engaged with them have their Objective Control halved; what cripples them as a unit is their OC 0. What saves them with the Parasite is that they get delivered directly into melee near a model (the Parasite) that can potentially take the objective thanks to their OC debuff.
- Remember that the Core Rules simply do not address how to properly halve an odd number.
Beasts
Remember always that because GW is bad at rules design, weapons designed to murder infantry well (like Anti-Infantry ones) won't do jack shit to Beasts.
- Mucolid Spores:
- Spore Mines: You're never going to take these on their own, although you can; you'll instead buy the models as ammunition for your Biovores.
Battleline
- Gargoyles: Flying Termagants stuck with Devourers. Fortunately, they're not only faster with 12" movement, but they can fly 6" after shooting, allowing them to more easily kite enemies.
- Hormagaunts: Blindingly fast by charging after advancing. That said, S3 AP-1 won't really amount to much on their own, so you'll be needing all those numbers to use these. Adrenal Surge and Endless Swarm are absolute necessities on these because you will be running through bodies.
- Termagants: Stats remain the same, with an OC of 2 and Ld set to 8+. They also got a speed boost by being able to move again if an enemy ends up within 9" of them, so they can always keep their distance from charging foes. The Spinefists are their most powerful guns, with 12" A2 BS4+ S3 AP0 D1, Assault, Pistol, and Twin-Linked; the Fleshborer is their weakest gun but is most easily brought into range with 18" and Assault, while the Devourer is also range 18" and more powerful but lacks any special rules and hence is less mobile. Let's not kid ourselves, you'll always take the Spinefists.
Infantry
- Barbgaunts: Another new gaunt variant providing heavy firepower. Their stock Bio-Cannon gives them 24" Ad6(Blast) BS4+(Heavy) S5 AP0 D1 to at least handle most mobs. Fortunately, any hits trigger Disruption Bombardment against infantry units, inflicting -2" Movement and -2 to advance and charge rolls, making it good covering fire for your choppy gaunts and Genestealers. The reason to take these over Biovores is to spread the love around: each model will hit at least once 84% of the time and a pair shooting the same unit will jump to 97%, jumping to 92% and 99% respectively if you aren't moving them.
- Biovores: 48"(Indirect Fire) Ad3(Blast) BS4+(Heavy) S6 AP-1(Devastating Wounds) D2 is just better dakka than Barbgaunts have, except you can't slow down enemy infantry. Instead, you can waste your shooting to spawn a pack of Spore Mines within (not completely within) 48" of the firing unit and more than 9" away from any enemy units, with a number of models equal to the number of firing biovores. That's better area denial than Barbgaunts as well, at the cost of having to choose between debuffing movement and inflicting damage directly.
- Genestealers: Got a bit of a buff by gaining an extra wound in exchange for making its Invuln save a fixed 5++. Offensively, they're A4 WS2+ S4 AP-2 D1, re-rolling 1s to wound, with full re-rolls to wound if the target is within range of an objective and Scouts 8" to help them rush onto an objective - but they're only OC 1 and have precious little ability to chew through a tanky target. Has Synapse, which is something.
- Hive Guard:
- Lictor:
- Neurogaunts: One of the two new infantry units, and absolutely pointless. Their Neurocytes make them more of a Synapse amplifier, giving them the Synapse keyword while they're within range of another Synapse creature, but they're slow and weak both offensively and defensively.
- Can also act as a Neurotyrant's retinue if you're thinking about giving such a giant floating brain such a disposable meatshield. Being attached makes their Synapse-sharing rule rather pointless.
- Pyrovores:
- Raveners:
- Tyranid Warriors: Your elite troopers in the swarm, given a dependable T5 W3 4+ save and Synapse to support your gaunts when your leaders can't. Sadly, the fun of the various melee weapons have gone away alongside things like power weapons and combi-weapons, leaving you only with slightly stronger power weapons with S5 AP-1. More troubling is the fact that you can no longer kit out your nids however you wish anymore - All melee warriors and gunner warriors are segregated into their own units.
<tabs> <tab name="Melee"> Those same bio-weapons got boosted to AP-2 with Twin-Linked as compensation for losing out on shooting. You also get to pick whether you re-roll hit rolls of 1 or save rolls of 1, so you're at least somewhat able to work.
- Sticking a winged Prime with the mob can do quite a bit on your lot with Sustained Hits 1 adding to your already hefty bundle of attacks per Warrior. That said, protection is paramount, keep some gaunts in front as a screen.
</tab> <tab name="Ranged"> Can shoot after falling back, which will mean a lot since that's why you bought them over melee warriors. Each one comes with a Devourer, which is a pretty basic bolter-tier gun with S4 AP- with a lot of shots to get in, especially with a winged Prime providing Sustained Hits. Any model can pick up a more powerful Deathspitter if armor is more of an issue, with the Spinefists being more close-ranged rapid-fire.
- One per three Warriors can equip a Barbed Strangler or a Venom Cannon if you need crowd control with Blast, the difference largely relating to how heavily-armored the enemy is.
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- Tyrant Guard:
- Venomthropes: Akin to Zoanthropes but worse, you take these dudes because of their 6" aura providing Stealth to non-monsters and Cover to everything - it's better than Zoanthropes defensively on non-monsters and not great on monsters, although they stack.
- Von Ryan's Leapers: Your new mix between Gaunt and Lictor, and they're absolutely looking to threaten the tentacled stalker with T5 W3 and a 4+/6++ save. Their entire business is rushing into units and fortunately they have a very impressive 10" movement and the ability to use Heroic Intervention for free once per turn.
- Zoanthropes: The Neurothrope has lost his individual profile and is now integrated in the Zoanthropes datasheet; in exchange the classic brainbugs gain access to the Spirit Leech ability to heal the unit's wounded member if it has one (healing is 1d3 on a W3 model, primarily serving to nerf your healing so if a model is at 1 wound remaining it only heals to full 2/3 of the time). Zoanthropes are practically an auto-include, as they emit a 6++ aura you'll be desperate for and carry a powerful gun, a rarity in your army.
- Spirit Leech (Aura, Psychic): While this unit contains a Neurothrope (the unit's sergeant), while an enemy unit is within 6" of this unit, each time that enemy unit fails a Battle-shock test, it suffers D3 mortal wounds and one model in this unit regains up to D3 lost wounds.
- Their psychic gun chooses from 2 profiles:
- 24" Ad3(Blast) BS3+ S7 AP-2 Dd3
- 24" A1 BS3+ S12(Lethal Hits) AP-3 Dd6+1; this is the big seller, as guns this powerful are very rare in your army.
Monsters
- Carnifexes:
- Exocrine: A gun on legs: M8" T10 Sv3+ W14, and the gun is 36" Ad6+3(Blast) BS3+(Heavy) S8 AP-3 D3. Broadly speaking, this is a Maleceptor but worse.
- Haruspex: Nearly pure melee monster. M8" T11 Sv3+ W14, and it does have a gun: 12" A9 BS3+ S6(Precision) AP-2 Dd6+1. You took it for its melee, though: A14 WS3+ S7 AP-1 D2 + A4 WS3+ S14 AP-2 Dd6+1 with Grisly Spectacle: if it kills at least one unit in melee, each enemy unit within 6" must test for Battle-shock. The last word in melee output, its only downside is that it's too large to fit inside a Tyrannofex so it has to walk up the field while getting shot.
- Maleceptor:
- Mawloc: You take this for the mortal wounds it hands out when it Deep Strikes: every enemy unit within 12" takes d3 MWs on a 2-4, while on a 5+ it takes 3 MWs and must test for Battle-Shock. That's an average of 2 MWs and 1/3 of a Battle-Shock test, although it's very swingy, per unit. It also has some decently credible melee attacks, but at M10" T10 Sv3+ W14, after it fails its charge it will typically get quite demolished.
- Psychophage: A monster with a mouth that can potentially put the Haruspex to shame and your army's medic, somehow: it has 5+++ FNP and a 6" bubble that lets friendly nids within 6" a lesser 6+++ FNP. Base stats are M8" T9 Sv3+/5+++ W10. Its melee is Ad6+1 WS3+ S6(Anti-Psyker 2+) AP-1(Devastating Wounds) D2 with Feeding Frenzy: +1 to hit units below Starting Strength and +1 to wound units Below Half-Strength. Its gun is 12" Ad6 BS(Torrent) S6 AP-1(Ignores Cover) D1.
- Screamer-Killer: Now has its own unique model and is M8" T9 Sv2+ W10 OC 3, making it far tankier than it once was. Its talons got a stupid-ridiculous buff with A10 WS3+ S10 AP-2 D3, enough to offset the loss in AP. In exchange, though, the Bio-plasmic scream got a debuff, being 18"(Assault) Ad6+3(Blast) BS4+ S8 AP-2 D1. That blast is also the vehicle with which it can deliver the Death Scream ability, forcing the unit you hit with that blast to take a battle-shock test at a -1 penalty.
- Sporocyst: Because it is M- T10 Sv3+ W10, this functionally requires a Tyrannocyte wrapping so you can plunk it down somewhere credible. Remarkably, it gets to shoot any time an enemy unit sets up or ends a Normal Move, Advance Move, or Fall Back move within 24" of it, at full BS, 4/phase. Its gun is 24" A5 BS4+ S5 AP-1 D2. That's not great (and it's OC0), but if you use a Tyrannocyte to drop it square in the middle of the table, your opponent is going to get very tired very quickly of getting constantly shot up; provided both this model and its Tyrannocyte carrier are cheap enough, that kind of harassment could be justified.
- Toxicrene:
- Trygon: Don't take this - it can either deep strike very close to the enemy but unable to charge and hence only use its shitty guns or it can show up farther away and fail the charge. Hard pass.
- Tyrannofex: Absurdly durable at M9 T12 Sv2+ W16 with -1 to the D characteristic of incoming attacks (making it immune to D1 fire), and carries some serious dakka. The only gun choice you're ever going to make is its Rupture Cannon because you don't want to be hard-countered by very durable opponents, so here's its profile: 48" A2 BS3+(Heavy) S18 AP-4 D2d6. It also has a sidearm you can't swap out: 24" A8 BS3+ S5 AP0 D1 for swatting at chaff.
Dedicated Transports
- Tyrannocyte: M8"(Fly) T9 Sv3+ W10 with transport 20 tyranids infantry (each model with W2+ takes up 3 slots) or 1 tyranids monster with W12- (meaning if you want to be stupid, you can fit a Tyrannocyte inside a Tyrannocyte), but it has to arrive via Deep Strike - thankfully, while its points cost counts against any limits imposed on your Reserves, it doesn't count against any limits you might have from a Mission special rule on number of units in Reserves, and it can always deep strike on turns 1-3 even if a Mission rule says otherwise. When it does show up, its occupants must disembark outside of 9" horizontally from the enemy, and then nothing can re-embark.
Aircraft
- Harpy:
- Hive Crone:
Titanic
- Hierophant: The giant spindly beast returns as part of the Titanicus Codex. While a bit weedy in terms of titans with only Toughness 14 and 30 wounds, it has a 2+/5++ save to keep it alive. It's also very mobile, able to walk over any terrain below 4" in height and anything that isn't also Titanic which does wonders for its transportation business.
- Its Bio-Plasma Torrent gives you a massive S7 AP-2 flamer that can pretty handily melt through MEQs like they're nothing. The Dire Bio-Cannons give it a higher-yield bombardment weapon that has more use in taking care of TEQs and smaller monsters at S10 AP-3 D3. In melee, the focus is all on those Monstrous Scything Talons as they're Strength fucking 20 AP-2 Dd6+1. It also has Lashwhip Pods for some supporting attacks with Extra Attacks, but they're nothing too stellar.
Tactics
General Tactics
Specific Tactics
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