Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team (HoR)/Tactics/Tyranids(8E)

The Bad News: With squad units abolished, you'll now have a markedly smaller list of nids to haul along. However, since 8E has seen Nids back to being some semblance of a threat, you're paying for that with bigger models that can contribute more than just disposable bodies.

Your common keywords are Tyranid, <Hive Fleet>

Rules

• Hive Fleet Adaptations: You get a host of new Hive Fleets to select:
  • Naga - You add +1 to your psychic tests, which is especially helpful if you have a Neurothrope for psychic shenanigans.
  • Dagon - Your leader immediately redeploys before the game starts.
  • Scylla/Charibdys - Your leader gets to re-roll to hit and wound the enemy leader, which will mean your leader needs to be dueling them to be of optimal use. Or you need mobs to clear the way.
  • Medusa - If a gaunt suffers a wound within 6" of a synapse creature, they can ignore that on a 5+, which means your swarms can hang on for a bit more than usual.
  • Grendel - Enemies within Synapse range take -1 to leadership, which can be dangerous when combined with some big casualties or a way to deny IP.
  • Moloch - Your flyers gain +2" to their movement, but half of your team must be composed of flyers.
  • Naga - Amended from the codex, this lets you re-roll to hit in combat when you have more allies within 3" than you do enemies. While a gaunt-heavy team won't worry as much, it's definitely welcome for a bigger force.

Wargear

• Thornback: A chance for a Mortal Wound on a charge is pretty nifty if you score it off. However, this is a pricey upgrade for a mere gamble.
• Corrosive Shots: A shocking upgrade, this makes one weapon improve their AP by -d3, which can potentially see your devourer reduce even terminators to slag.
• Bio-senses: Ignores any penalties to hit, which is some master-class mayhem . Do beware that Overwatch is something different and only hits on a 6+ though.
• Reaping Talons: A cheap upgrade that allows re-rolls on 1 to-hit with your talons, which should have been available for free. At least this is an option.
• Leaping Stride: A good take for mobile troops, this gives a model ignore difficult terrain when advancing.
• Implacable Predator: Your man-hunter upgrade. Your model selects one enemy model to gain +1 to hit (though not on Overwatch), but your guy must always attack or charge them at all costs. Particularly decent when on a Scylla team.
• Hollow Exoskeleton: Forces your model to have a worse save, but adds +2" to their movement and lets them re-roll charges. Won't matter much to a glass cannon model, which just further accentuates the need for protection.
• 0-1 Accelerant Hyperspasm: The better equivalent to Master-Crafted for guns, this not only improves one weapons S and AP by 1, but it also adds 6" to its range.

Leaders Armoury

• Capillary Synapse: Leader only. Not so much an upgrade as it is a special piece of scenery (See stuff like Micro Art Studios' Hive terrain) that might act like a living model. Once per game, you can plant this tower anywhere in base contact with your Leader during the Movement Phase. From then on, it'll be a friendly synapse creature that's otherwise unusable and has double the synapse and shadow range, which makes it an incredible point to act as a center. This value is offset by it now being very vulnerable and very prone to dying to a stiff breeze. If you see any mortars or other indirect-fire weapons, kill them first!
• Dampened Pain Receptors: Leader only. It's a 5++. No use on the Neurothrope, but another Leader just might have a use for it.
• Bioluminescent Misdirectors: Leader Only. Gives a -1 to hit against guns beyond 6", which can give a decent level of protection against a gunline before bumrushing.
• Hive Brain: While the expanded IP is nice and all, NEVER forget that you also need to use Synapse to avoid untimely Instinctive Behavior. This gives you a bonus 3" on your IP, making sure that your troops stand their ground.
• Bowel-Shaking Roar: Leader Only. Unlike last edition's Seismic Roar, which damaged models, this one just scares people enough to expose those in hiding.
• Bio-Feedback: Leader only. If you came from Last Stand thinking that this'll give you exploitable immortality, you'd be dead wrong. What this does instead is give you a bonus attack for the rest of the battle if a friendly model with the same keywords as the leader dies within IP range. This is pretty exploitable for the cheap Genestealers so you could get a walking blender the shape of a Broodleader/lord.
• Shrike Wings: Alpha Warrior only. Turns your Warrior Leader into a Shrike Leader with wings and a flying distance.
• Psychic Backlash: Neurothrope and Zoanthrope only.In the event that your psyker-nid ever suffers a wound from perils, you can force all other psykers, friend or foe, to roll Ld or perils on their own. Dangerous as hell, but it's a hilarious cavalcade of psychic fuckups.
• Ymgarl Factor: Broodlord only. Yeah, they just boldfacedly shoved this in from the Codex.

Philosophies

Unlike other armies, bone of the Tyranid philosophies actually do much to affect the army's composition. Instead, they see you favor certain tactics, and thus which ones best carry it out.

• Grisly Harvest: +1 TP for killing 5+ models in a turn. Perhaps it'll be useful late-game if you wipe off a lot of key models, but often you'll just have wiped off a lot of chaff.
• Death from Below: +1 TP if a Ravener kills on the same turn it arrives.
• Genestealer Infestation: +1 TP if a Genestealer kills a model it charged from over 10" away.
• They're Everywhere!: +1 TP for killing a model with 3+ charging Hormies, a waste unless it's at a leader or a really big model.

Tactical Actions

• Will of the Hive Mind (1 TP): Grants one non-synapse model a Synapse range of 6" for the turn, which might be useful for supplementing a team detached from a proper leader, but it won't supplant them.
• Feeding Frenzy (1 TP): Pick a model. Now they and anyone within 6" will get a bonus attack. Exploit this add-on to a frenzy of attacks, because one model will die after this.
• Instinctive Shield (1 TP): Lets you auto-pass a Look Out Sir check, but it also denies any bonus to hit the new model, which can especially help when dealing with a properly-kitted Tyrant Guard or just a bodyshield for a delicate psyker.

Unit Analysis

Your FOC is as follows:

• 1 Leader
• 1-30 Core
• 0-4 Special

Leaders

• Neurothrope: Your Zoanthrope on steroids. It's able to withstand damage with a 3++ save and a decent number of wounds while still able to smite for extra health. Really, all you're lacking is the ability to re-roll for 1s for casting and you can buy that back to put it at the same price as in the Codex. In exchange, you can always casts its powers regardless of if anyone else cast the same powers and lets others cast if they want as well. Put with the right members, this can make for some dangerous mind-combos.
• Warrior Alpha: Your go-to combat Tyranid Leader, this beefier Warrior can take the broadest assortment of weapons of the entire list, so tooling him out for the job shouldn't be too big a hassle. In addition, you can grab Shrikes as Core choices for extra Synapse and you can buy the Tyranid Prime's rule for re-rolling 1s to hit. Though he starts off cheaper than the others, beware kitting him up too much, because he can easily cost more than your entire army put together.
• Stalker: Your Lictor Alpha (Or Deathleaper-lite), capable of making Lictors core. He's much more of a pain in the ass with Deathleaper's constant -2 to hit and can sneak in closer to enemies than should be comfortable. He also possesses Deathleaper's character-hunting abilities, which makes him a potent assassin.
• Maw-Fiend: Your Ravener Alpha/Diet Red Terror who makes Raveners Core. Bone stock, all he gets is the Red Terror's insta-kill rule, which makes taking this a terrible idea. You'll need to at least spend 10 points so you can ambush this guy alongside the others and if you bring more, you'll need to buy the Red Terror's aura for re-rolling 1s to hit for Raveners.
• Toxithrope: Surprisingly, your leader Venomthrope gains the Synapse rule and makes more Venomthropes core. Aside from that, it remains capable of protecting your other models for a bit, which is critical. While Synapse makes its value better, it also makes them more of a target, meaning you absolutely need to shield it with bodies.
• Broodleader: A weaker Broodlord, but it possesses traits of both the smaller and bigger Genestealers. The one thing it does take the Broodlord at base is a generally ferocious statline and ability to charge after advancing while also gaining a free attack if around other 'stealers.
  • Broodlord :If you feel like a dullard, you can then pay an exorbitant amount of points to be a full-blown Broodlord. It loses the bonus attack, but now regains the ability to let fellow 'stealers re-roll 1s to hit and the option to buy the massive claws if you need more of an advantage than the stock claws (S+1 AP-2 D1 that becomes AP-4 Dd3 on a 6+ to wound) provide.

Core

• Warrior: These guys can grab special weapons to help mulch up MEQ and with certain arms, they can kill something heavier. Packing an Alpha can help ensure that they hit, but they'll remain just as vulnerable unless you invest in gaunt-shields.
• Genestealer: They're Genestealers: Utter rape in assault against anything (Especially with that extra attack if 4+ others are within 6"), pretty much shit at anything else. Keep them to cover, assault with their very lengthy gait when you can afford it.
• Termagant: A very strange world this is, where a Termagant lacks any of its basic supporting elements like Tervigons. While this allows them to vary their loadout again without issue, you need to grab lots to benefit from their ability to re-roll 1s to wound.
• Hormagaunt: In truth, they're a lot like termigants in that you need them in bundles in order to benefit from their special abilities. However, you'll be really needing other means to protect them, like some good buffing powers to guarantee their safety.
• Gargoyle: They're not going to last long against anything they don't kill first, so maybe consider giving them a Shrike to keep them from going nuts.
• Ripper Swar: ABringing them in for anything close to a full-on attack would be a waste of points, as these things are utterly terrible at fighting. What they can do, though, is keep things occupied long enough for someone else to attack. They can get Burrowing so they can Deep Strike and grab something's attention away from your more valuable guys, or buy extra mobility so that they can reach enemies much sooner.

Special

• Tyrant Guard: Surprisingly, you can grab these big fuckers in order to shield your leader, with all of their Tyrant-dependent rules transferring over to whoever the leader is. This can especially mean that you'll not need to worry about melee for a shooty Warrior Alpha.
• Hive Guard: A welcome addition, these guys are the ones to take against an enemy taking heavies and sentinels. Thing is, that's all they're truly good at. Their Impalers can ignore cover and hurt marines at S8 AP-2, and the Shock Cannon doesn't ignore cover but ruins vehicles.
• Zoanthrope: Without a brood, all a Zoanthrope can be is either psychic artillery or be your support (and some dodgy writing kinda forgets you even get Smite so you'll need to imply such). If you pick more, it gets a little easier (as does grabbing a Neurothrope), but you're going to dedicate them to a single role.
• Lictor: Probably the least changed from the big book, these guys are sneaky killers with all their rules, and have the added benefit of actually infiltrating closer to enemies for an immediate assault.
• Shrike: These guys are likely to be overlooked with better Special options on the list. Mobile, but unless you can keep them there, they're bound to die quickly. Group with a Flying Alpha to give them a better shot at killing things quicker.
• Ravener: Without their burrowing rule, all this thing can do is be a very mobile attacker, a job you could frankly get a number of better models to do. Thus, you need to buy that burrow rule so they can return to being surprise-attackers.
• Venomthrope: The walking cover factory, these guys are probably one of the better choices for the Special Slot. They can give any models within 6" protection, which gives them a fighting chance to ignore anything fired. Keep them near a plenty of mobs, and make sure they aren't the only things to assault.
• Pyrovore: Thankfully, they don't get any more reshuffled than they did in the transition to 8E. This fortunately means that they can shoot a decent distance with their cannons while being able to actually hurt things up close, while self-destructing won't immediately fuck your entire force over.
• Biovore: These things can spit out mines that can still run around if they miss. If there's a bundle of mobs in the area, then these will likely be a better pick than the Hive Guard.

Team Armory

• Spore Mine: In the event that you want to buy a spore mine pre-deployed. They're otherwise the disposable blobs of chaff adored by any team with a Biovore.
• Mucolid Spore: A tougher spore mine, capable of taking three times the abuse at three times the price.