Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Tyranids (section)

===HQ Units===
*[[Image:Broodlord.jpeg|125px|right|]]'''[[Broodlord]]''' An old but well-remembered unit makes its reappearance. The Broodlord is T5 W7 A6, with a 4+/++. While he can no longer advance and charge, he can infiltrate onto the field like smaller genestealers. Unlike them, He still retains the absolute armor shredding of 8e Genestealers, having 6 S5 AP3 D2 attacks, rerolling wounds and AP-5 UMW6s. 
*Obvious utility, but he's best used with Genestealers, who can infiltrate with it. It now has a 1/turn ability to make a unit within synapse range gain a -1 to AP when they roll a 6 to hit in melee that can apply to any unit, not just genestealers.
**'''Synaptic Imperative - Predatory Guile:''' This allows a unit in Synapse range to count as if they're in light cover (or heavy cover if they're already in cover), already giving your units plenty of protection against anything they're up against. 


*[[Image:HiveTyrant.jpg|125px|right|]]'''[[Hive Tyrant]]''': The Hive Tyrant is the original Tyranid HQ unit and has been a mainstay through every incarnation of the codex. Though you no longer get the ability to grab multiples, they do remain an auto-take HQ unit that can serve any roles you need. An exceptional anchor for your army, thanks to great movement, melee and ranged tools, not to mention his 1/turn ability to give a unit re-rolling 1s to hit and access to psychic powers. However, any opponent with an ounce of experience knows to target the Tyrant first, especially now that if you take a Tyrant it '''must''' be your warlord and if your warlord isn't on the table you can't use synaptic imperatives...at all! It '''will''' draw fire. Always buy Adrenal Glands, no matter what.
**'''Synaptic Imperative - Relentless Ferocity:''' A unit within Synapse range can charge after falling back, letting you keep up the pressure as these are your most powerful units.
*'''Footed Tyrant:''' The ever-reliable walking tank, finally getting its much-deserved 2+ save after having it stripped away editions ago plus a T8 frame to boot. Scything Talons (which you get two of, but can't grab four by replacing your sword+lash) give you 2 extra attacks with a decent strength and AP-3, but your bonesword remains the unquestioned king, giving a devastating S10 AP-4 D3 that can re-roll 1s to hit thanks to the lash. Your guns, however, are where the suffering comes in. Your only options are the heavy venom cannon and stranglethorn cannon, removing the devourers from your roster in both iterations.
*'''Winged Tyrant:''' The popular flyrant got shoved to its own datasheet, where it maintains last edition's 3+ defense and T7. This has led to some considerable setbacks, as it now can only pick up one gun, and it's similarly limited to either heavy venom cannon or stranglethorn. While his options for sword+lash and talons remain, the flying tyrant comes with some exclusive weapons of its own. Its feet are now considered legitimate weapons, giving two additional attacks like the scything talons but dealing less damage in comparison. On top of this, its tail allows you to re-roll one hit or wound roll each turn for a bit of assurance.


*[[Image:Malannthrope.jpeg|125px|right|]]'''[[Malanthrope]]''': A synapse creature, that has the Venomthrope's ability to debuff the to-hit chance of enemies, which works on all units that are not {{W40kKeyword|Titanic}}. Being a character with 9 wounds means it's harder to hit than ever before, and while it can only use a grasping tail to attack its ability to cause mortal wounds on a 4+ means most foes won't try to engage it in melee in the first place. And when a model is slain with the Malanthrope 3" away, at the end of the phase it gains a 6" aura of '''all units with the same {{W40kKeyword|<HIVE FLEET>}} keyword''' re-roll 1s to wound. There are two ways to use them: backfield support and frontline assault:
**'''Backfield Support''': Malanthropes are great babysitters for backfield artillery units like Exocrines, Biovores, and Tyrannofexes with Rupture Cannons. Their slow speed isn't a factor and the protection they offer is much appreciated. On the other hand, even an assault army can benefit from it quite a bit, the -1 to be hit in the first turn allows you to worry a bit less about how you set a unit of hormagaunts or genestealers as long as you babysit them with a Malanthrope, just remember you can no longer combo the -1 to hit penalties, so don't go with Malanthropes if you're going Venomthropes.
**'''Frontline Assault''': The kind of support Malanthropes offer is invaluable for your big squads of Stealers and Gaunts ''where -1 to hit will likely reduce their incoming damage by 25 or 33%'' depending upon your opponent's BS, and getting up close and personal makes it that much more likely that you'll get to actually capitalize on the Malanthrope's other abilities. The issue of course is keeping up with them; consider using the Metabolic Overdrive stratagem to effectively double their speed.
*Giving this bug the SYNAPTIC LINCHPIN warlord trait will really help it spread out the love of its aura. 


*[[Image:Nuerothrope.jpeg|125px|right|]]'''[[Neurothrope]]''': Basically a psychic battery, the Neurothrope offers a great support role with Zoanthropes, both healing them and also making it more likely they'll be able to use their psychic powers. This can cast twice, knowing 2 powers+smite for extra coverage in powers.
**This guy can pass out a psychic buff in the command phase that lets one psyker in 12" or synapse link range roll 3d6 and drop one when attempting psychic powers. use this on a zoanthrope unit that really needs a super-smite to go off or on a malaceptor to all but guarantee the bonus damage.
**Consider making this thing your Warlord over units like a Tyranid Prime, (if you didn't bring a Hive Tyrant); they have a nice invulnerable save and few enough wounds that they can reliably hide behind a screen of other nids. Synaptic Tendrils is the obvious choice as it'll help make your psychic phase more reliable and therefore more powerful.
**'''Psychic Imperative - Psychic Augmentation:''' One psyker in Synaptic Link range gains +1 to casting and deny rolls, while any unit gains a 5+++ against mortal wounds. That second half will always see more value, though the former might be handy if you can position a tyrant or similar psyker.


*[[Image:Tervigon.jpeg|125px|right|]]'''[[Tervigon]]''': Significantly improved compared to its 8th edition version, but still not as powerful as it used to be during the days of the 5th edition. It costs more than a Hive Tyrant with wings, its gun is weak for the cost since it's only 8 anti-infantry shots at 24 inches. Its melee profile has received a serious bump, but Tervigons are not designed nor should they be in melee. If you have the chance to get in melee with a tank or a damaged dread, it has a good chance to finish it off and can push back small elite infantry units. It can't hide behind the Termagants it's supposed to be babysitting unless you get that mob of 15+ models within an inch of them, which isn't all that practical since Termagants die to a stiff breeze, although it does impose an extra step for the enemy to blow off the screen before shooting the Tervigon with all the lascannons available. It retains its psychic powers and provides BS bonus to Termagants. It can pop once per game a squad of 10 Termagants with fleshborer for basically free which can be practical for some area denial and as action monkey. It can also regenerate 2d6 of those critters per turn instead (not limited to once per game). At toughness 8 and 17 wounds on a 2+ save and ways to increase it via stratagem and warlord traits, it's very tough. While its kit is certainly interesting, its price makes it a risky bet. Instead, consider a Neurothrope with Onslaught or Catalyst, if you want Termagant support.
**'''Synaptic Imperative - Surging Vitality:''' A unit within 6" can move or advance an additional 2", which has some uses. For Termagants, its designated charges for all matters, this will merely amount to letting them get a little closer to the enemy for shooting or shuffling genestealers towards cover. Sadly, this won't affect charges, meaning that your hormagaunts and other clawed nasties will get nothing out of this. This is hilarious when comboed with hydra and adrenals, while not as much of a boost as kraken, it doesn't require you to advance when using it. 


*'''[[Trygon|Trygon Prime]]''': A slightly meaner Trygon, given better bio-electric pulse , Synapse, and now shuffled to the HQ slot. This guy's 1/turn boost adds +1 to advance and charge rolls, which works well with any aggressive tactics like Behemoth. Its Biostatic Rattle got shifted from default to replacing the now-default toxin spike attack (A single SU AP-3 D2 strike i.e. the same profile as your talons so an extra attack), the rattle itself no longer being a weapon and instead potentially robbing the enemy of re-rolls if you beat their Leadership on a 3d6. If you want something more direct, you can buy the pincer tail to re-roll one hit or wound roll.
**'''Synaptic Imperative - Thrashing Demise:''' A unit within 6" can either add +3 to its Death Throes roll (for those models that have it) or the ability to deal a MW on an enemy in melee on a 6+. While death throes is a lot better for this army, don't bank on it proccing. At least the other roll applies equally across the entire army.
**A trygon prime has 12A, same as a regular Trygon, but you can give this Warlord Traits and Relics. Maw Claws give you +1 A, reroll wounds, and '''then gives you more attacks''' as you delete entire units. Combine with Heightened Senses for fight first (situational, but cancels out fight last debuffs) and rerolling any of your 13 attacks. Behemoth can also consider +1 Damage instead, because otherwise they're still only S:User(7/8 with Adrenal/9 with Behemoth!)-3 D2 attacks.


*[[Image:Tyranid Prime.jpeg|125px|right|]]'''[[Tyranid Warrior|Tyranid Prime]]''': The other {{W40kKeyword|INFANTRY}} Tyranid HQ. Your other characters went way up in price while the Tyranid Prime barely moved, making him the cheaper choice of Synapse in the army, and it's still got the Warrior's share of weapons. He can offer a unit a re-roll of 1s to-wound, which can have uses for guaranteeing some damage and thankfully be applied in shooting or melee.  
**Not counting Adrenal Glands and the like, it's worth 3 Warriors and its weapon options are free, but with only 1 more attack and 6W. If you need bodies and dice, take more Warriors. The reason you take a Prime is for the buffs and its Synaptic Imperative to make shooting a lot more efficient. 
**'''Synaptic Imperative - Guidemind:''' One unit within 6" that rolls a nat 6 to hit while shooting an enemy within 24" scores an additional hit. Nice and simple. Remember that Synaptic imperative is army-wide, all Synapse units gain this aura, and all your Warriors, whether or not they're being baby-sat by the Prime itself, are Synapse. Your big bioweapons have a respectable number of shots, but you don't have as many guns per model than other armies, so this helps you squeeze more efficiency before you get into melee.


====Special Characters====
*[[Image:Old One Eye.jpeg|125px|right|]]'''[[Carnifex#Old One Eye|Old One Eye]]''': Plenty good as a beat stick, but not as good as in 8th. He gets +2 attacks compared to a normal carnifex and hits on 2+ instead of 3+. It also recovers D3 lost wounds in your command phase and gets D3+1 additional attacks when charging, being charged, or performing a heroic intervention. That being said, only GW knows why its crushing claws do D3+2 damage instead of D3+3 like the normal ones so its damage out is somewhat diminished. Since he's got 9 wounds he's able to hide behind other units, but unfortunately, he's not nearly as good now since it can only buff one carnifex at a time, which sucks (alternatively you can use it on itself to by-pass some pesky -1 to hit and still hit on 2+), also you can get two Carnifexes for the cost of this guy. If he's your Warlord, he has to have Adaptive Biology as it has good synergy with his regeneration, making him incredibly hard to kill.


*[[Image:The Swarmlord.jpeg|125px|right|]]'''The [[Swarmlord]]''': The Biggest Beast with a Beastly Pricetag. He's still the boss for combat, and capable of decking an Imperial Knight in a single round of combat (though statistically unlikely), taking into account damage from the Swarmlord’s 2 psychic abilities. A nifty new trick it gains is the ability to negate the damage dealt by the first attack that gets past his saves, which can be handy against heroes with big weapons, but can easily be baited in the case of a squad where the sergeant has a power fist. He can grant a nearby unit both a re-roll to all hit rolls and ObSec (with the units with it counting as having an extra model).
**He has two weaknesses to be aware of. Annoyingly enough, he doesn't have any kind of re-roll buff, not even anything like the scything talon hit or rending claw wound re-rolls that normal tyrants can get. This makes his damage output somewhat unreliable despite being probably the best single-model melee unit in the codex. As such care should be taken when engaging units with Hit debuffs or high toughness, particularly if said units are also strong in melee (knights, primarchs, etc.). Secondly like the other Hive Tyrants he has 13 wounds, so the enemy can always choose to shoot him unless you grabbed Tyrant Guard, and being stuck footslogging that is not good news if the enemy is aiming all their guns at him (not when we're strangers to [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|that special, but guaranteed scenario]]). Though you really should have either hidden swarmy or have extremely high threat saturation (you are playing Tyranids after all) to combat this.