Editing Warhammer 40,000/6th Edition Tactics/Tyranids (section)

===Fast Attack===
*'''Gargoyles:''' Gaunts with wings, effectively. They are, in quite nearly every way, just Termagants with wings. They have the same stats and the same weapons. However, aside from the 12" movement there are two differences: they can exchange all of their attacks and instead make a single poisoned attack with the Blind special rule. Another thing is that Gargoyles are Jump Infantry and essentially receive a free bonus hit at I10 on the charge if they use their "jump pack" for the charge instead of for their movement.  This does allow you to re-roll your charge range, though. Throw in poison and Gargoyles become some savage monstrous creature hunters (great for fucking over other Tyranid armies and Chaos Daemons). Taking HoW into consideration, Gargoyles are incredibly cost efficient models. If you give them both upgrades, you're paying 10 points for: 12'' + 2d6'' charge, 1 S3 I4 hit, 2 S4 I4 Poisoned attacks, and a S4 AP5 assault weapon shot. Point for point, superior to even Storm Boyz. Sadly, they aren't too fantastic against much besides infantry; if they can't kill or cripple what they charged in the first round there's not much hope for the unit coming out alive... So while it doesn't hurt to have them around, they also don't always help. Like all Jump Infantry, they do have Deep Strike, the trick is getting them into Synapse before they start lapsing into Instinctive Behavior: Hunt and uselessly shooting Fleshborers instead of assaulting like they should.

*'''Harpies:''' Harpies are one of the most heavily affected models in the Tyranid list and in their case it was a positive change over. Flying monstrous creatures are not just cool, but until more AA weapons find themselves into the game, they are also very hard to kill (warning:  Quadguns will rape FMCs in general, and any army can take an Aegis line except nids - on top of that, all of the new 6th edition armies with the possible exception of Dark Angels have their own Flyers which will raperaperape a Harpy.  See Vendetta/Hellturkey/Stormtalon). Harpies don't come especially cheap, running a tab not unlike a Tervigon, and are not quite as tough when you actually get a hit on them. However for that price you end up with a pretty heavy gunship, the stock primary gun is a Twin-linked S6 pinning large blast OR for a small cost, a Twin-linked S9 small blast. Tack on another choice between Cluster or Stinger salvo (I recommend cluster as the harpy doesn't have great BS) and you can threaten big chunks of troops at once. After that the Harpy can drop a cluster of Spore mines on an enemy it passes over once per turn and finally vector strikes that can be used against light vehicles (including fliers) or just whoever you happen to be running over. All this leads to a very harassy flier with enough pie for everyone. Keep them in the back during deployment though, as they start in Gliding mode and thus can be instagibbed by Str10 Large Blasts, which are mostly short-ranged. Make it a point to stay out of range or LOS of a Quadgun until they can at least Jink. Their extreme mobility and range will get them where they need to be no problem once they're in the air.  Once most sources of AA have been dealt with, fly it over a blob of infantry and drop a spore mine + vector strike for maximum lulz.

*'''Hive Crone:'''With 4 S5 Haywire missiles that rerolls to hit against fliers, combined with an INSANE S8 Vector strike, expect to see between 1-3 of these guys in every tournament. They're fragile, but with 5 wounds and no fliers or Skyfire guns with S10 to instant kill them, they're here to dominate the sky! Or fail their grounded test and get eaten alive. Don't forget, they can start the game ON THE TABLE! Once the enemy air support is gone, time to vector strike tanks and blast infantry. Is your opponent arguing that he has a cover save against your vector strikes? Well, there's no range on vector strike (Its a melee hit, come on), there's no cover saves! (You can keep the flamer, or trade it in for Cluster Spines or stinger salvo). But that 4+ armour save is certainly going to be a problem against...well, nearly everything. Fly them on near some Venomthropes for some shrouded goodness. 3+ cover out in the open? Awesome.
::The Harpy and the Crone are made with the same kit. The kit is $80 ($115 'Strayahbucks). One of the few units (the Harpy) that wasn't nerfed in the Tyranid's codex is also one of the most expensive Nid kits to buy; [[Just As Planned|One of GW's many strategies to squeeze extra cash from their customers]]. 

*'''Raveners:''' Raveners are very similar to Warriors, but they're faster, have higher initiative, have more attacks, and are more fragile. Ultimately they're ok. They aren't as good at fighting as a swarm of Hormagaunts, aren't as tough as Warriors, and get expensive when equipped with ranged weapons, but their Fleet move, 12" movement, and complete immunity to non-mysterious terrain give them a niche to fill. Ideally, they're harassers, designed to make unexpected long range assaults into exposed heavy weapons teams or infantry who think they're safely controlling an objective. The main thing to worry about with them is Instant Death and getting caught in the open. Their 5+ saves mean they won't get armour against the most typical foes, and if you can't clean up that Space Marine with a hidden Power Fist in one round then you'll have some very dead Raveners on your hands - see link for Tyranid warrior health issues.
**'''The Red Terror:''' For 85-points you may add the Red Terror to one of your Ravener broods (one use per army), which has better stats, access to prehensile pincers, and the Swallow Whole ability (hitting a unit with 4 attacks automatically removes a model, and ignores armour and cover saves). If you're going to use them, you may as well splurge on it. Something that is often overlooked is that the Red Terror also provides a Leadership of 8 instead of the Raveners' usual 6, which gives them greater autonomy from your Synapse Creatures. The most important aspect about The Red Terror though is that it is a Character and can thus allocate wounds to your Raveners. This is therefore going to make a Ravener brood much more resilient. He ignores instant death from missile launchers (T5), has a 4+ save that can reduce the typical damage from AP5 weaponry, and can (statistically with 6 attacks on the charge) swallow whole a hidden powerfist. 

*'''Shrikes:''' Winged warriors which cost just as much as the normal warriors but have a weaker armour save, made up for with a much greater mobility. Equip them with any combination of your favorite melee weapons and get these guys into an assault ASAP, get kills, and then onto the next squad before you can shake a ripper at them. They still suffer from anything that can instant death them and although they can now take the Prime, there isn't much point as the Prime can't fly.  <strike>ACTUALLY! The Prime can now take wings as a biomorph option making him move as quickly as the Shrikes also giving him is tasty BS of 4.</strike> <nowiki>*wings are not listed on the 'biomorph' table that the Tyranid Prime can take upgrades from, the 'Wings' biomorph is only an option on Hive Tyrants*</nowiki> If you can manage hopping them from cover to cover running, they won't disappoint you. Overall, a strong contender for a Fast Attack slot on your army. Now the same cost as regular warriors and/or raveners.

*'''Sky-Slashers:''' Rippers with cute little wings. Not much better than the grounded version, but now with the added weakness of taking dangerous terrain checks if they use their jump move while in terrain! They can, however, use their jump move to assault, which gives them a free I10 hit, in addition to their other attacks for a metric fuck ton of paper cuts on the charge. If they take Adrenal glands, they can glance AV10 rear armour vehicles to death on the charge, with a 12+2d6" threat range. Otherwise, see Rippers, described above. 

*'''Spore Mines:''' With the new codex, these guys move 3" in the movement phase, can run and assault normally (But halves their roll), and will explode in close combat at intiative step 10, with a large blast S4, AP 4, however, you only get to place one large blast. For each additional Spore mine beyond the exploding one, add +1S to the blast (to a maximum of S10, only allowed 6 mines in a cluster. GW maths at it's finest) and remove them all afterwards. This means that they can be a good distraction for relatively little cost, able to really scare tanks and light infantry with high strength blasts. They also don't count as kill points, so if you have the spare points, these are a great point sink.