Saturday, April 30, 2011

Update to: Updates and Forum-y Goodness - Tyranid Library


I realized this morning that I posted the wrong draft yesterday - here's the article as intended, with the promised "individual posts"!


I blink and it's been a few weeks again since I've updated - apologies for the lack of sauce...  On the hobby front, I've started painting (slowly) and managed to get base colors down on an entire 4 termagants (lol).  I have managed to put together a trygon, several more warriors, 20+ gargoyles, and resume eBay raiding for the few parts and figs I still need.   Life hasn't been kind with papa Nurgle visiting me, then the first lady.  Very stoked that my fledgling hivefleet managed an excellent raid on Planet Petco and picked up several clearance trees, plants, and then a quick trip to Home Depot netted me 3x 24"x48" boards - I now have a fully functional battle station! er..  battle table.  Time to start pulling out the Eldar and doing mock deployments against my Tyranids...

At any rate, enough about hobby and laziness.  Today I want to talk briefly about a few forum posts (individual posts mind you, not the boards themselves) that I've found to be quite illuminating.  The first is the Tyranid Unit Formations post on TheTyranidHive.  Nevermind the horrendous vibrating red on black font, the material is an excellent primer, detailing the Fexstar, Triple Trygon, and a few other useful background knowledge setups.  Unfortunately, trying to dredge through the TyranidHive is eyeball torture for me; I'm sure there are other excellent posts, but I don't have the patience to put up with an unpleasant browsing experience to muck through them.

Fortunately there are quite a few other forums dedicated to 40k...  and here's a few excellent articles.  One of the best articles of this edition of the library comes from Heresy Online: an article on Tyranid Synergy by Oddjob.  This is a must read, especially for newer players.  Also from Heresy Online is the expected comprehensive overview from Midge913 - in this case a very solid article with very good information and excellent format: Tyranids: A comprehensive Unit, Formation, and Bio-morph review.  I personally have some pretty strong disagreements with the D grade for the Parasite though... =)

Several years ago I absolutely loved 40k Online's community, back when it was Eldar Online.  I hoped for the same experience when it came to Tyranids, but was rather bummed as there really didn't appear to be a lot of expertise there - in fact that was one of the reasons I started MLGC.  Nonetheless, a few months later they've managed a well put-together 5th edition overview article here: The 5th Ed. Tyranid Tactics Display Thread (Don't Post in Me!)

After that, one of the better places to go is the 40k Battle Reports section of Dakkadakka.  There are nearly always front page battles involving a Tyranid force.  Some are great, some are less than great, but you can learn from nearly every one.  Read as many as you can, even if you only check this once a week or even more rarely, batreps are the best way to get a feel for what works, to see big mistakes and the mindsets that lead to them, and generally get a feel for how other players try to deal with Tyranid units and list types.  Most importantly, this is where you will get an idea for the composition of other lists and which present larger threats - especially if you're like me and don't own all the other codexes, let alone memorize them. Here are some recent examples of worthwhile reads from the Dakka 40k Batreps forum:
[Poll] 2000pts Competitive Grey Knights vs. Janthkin's Tyranids 
The New Grey Knights vs Tyranids 2K - The Debut of the Dreadknight and Interceptors (Completed)
Jy2 does excellent batreps, and everyone seems to be rather focused on GKs lately...
[Pics] Old school Crimson Fists vs. Tyranids 1900 points
A Missions book scenario - don't see too many of these, and the batrep is very well done.
2.5k Nids Winner Takes All/Single Elim Tourny
This is a fun batrep with a stealer shock list from hell.

I do want to take a quick moment to wish hyv3mynd luck as the ATC Tyranid representative at the upcoming tournament.  Stop by and check out his posts on the format, list thoughts, and playtesting.  The more we pull together as a Tyranid community to help each other, the better we all get.

5 comments:

  1. Hey man, good to see you again!
    Nurgle seems to be 'making the rounds' of late, so I hope everything is cool.

    Thanks, as always, for pointing out the good stuff!

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  2. Greetings from a fellow tyranid player from Germany. I found your blog by visiting Aleators Blog, maybe yo want to visit mine and use the Google Translation as well? ;)
    http://www.schwarmflotte-geryon.de/

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  3. Google Translate is a good thing =) Sounds like you and your club have a pretty good time. I enjoyed the tournament batreps!

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  4. Ghostin ~ Thanks for the shout-out and support. Stick with the painting, it feels like it takes forever (at least for me), but starts to become really rewarding after the time is invested. Can't wait to see your "Planet Petco".

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