I might have managed to hook a couple of friends on Epic yesterday, and I'm compiling some links and pdfs to send them. One guy is going to play Orks like he always does, but the other guy is a bit more undecided. I'm pretty sure he'd have picked Dark Eldar if it wasn't for the fact that the entire army needs to be converted (he's no stranger to converting, but he probably won't have the time for it).

Anyway, he asked about Tyranids, but the Nid list doesn't appear to be among the ones scheduled for the NetEA 2010 document? What would be the most current list I could send a link/pdf for?

Also, is a Chaos army doable with the Chaos box and Imperial vehicles from SG? Or does it involve ebay hunting and large amounts of conversions (the odd war engine is probably fine to convert/scratch build).


I'm planning to send them the rulebook from SG's site as well as the new NetEA army lists. Anything else they need?

Moscovian might have an idea or two about the dark eldar, so it's not a completely lost cause...
As for Chaos, you don't have to do an overwhelming amout of conversions: many of the vehicles are the same, and the daemons come with the box set. The Warmaster range has some good figs for greater daemons. The odd war engines (decimators, deathwheels, deflilers, etc.) need to be converted. However, the decimators and titans require minimal work (if your group likes WYSIWYG - otherwise simple "counts-as" models work fine). Definitely do-able.

the current 'nids version is 9.2.1....somethingorother, under the Tyranid army subforum, I would think. Kind of complicated as a first army, IMHO, and it would require extensive ebay hunting/conversions.

EDIT: 'nid list pdf in Chroma's first post: http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=15112

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

There are 4 lists around at the moment although the 9.2.1 serves as the base for most of the rules in the others. My only reservation about the 9.2.1 list is that it's mainly for people who own the old nid models and bears little resemblance to the current Tyranid codex for 40k. The Jormugandr (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=18769) list, which is the one I use, fixes that problem and is my favourite of the 4 nid lists. I'm a pretty crap Epic player though, so I'm not sure if it's balanced or not but it feels nid-like when I play it and has all the new bugs in it.

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I would not recommend nids as a starting army for a player. They are just too different and can have the real effect of either making the player with them give up, or make the opponent do much the same.

Chaos, IG, Marines and Orks are all great starting armies and do not have the detrimental effects of showing a spate of special rules that break the basic ruleset. In effect, players will come to appreciate the rules if they play them, rather than play forces that 'skip' basic rules which they then never really come to understand (IMO of course)

Cheers....

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Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
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Previous Death Guard
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Previous Chaos Squats

Subtext - 'nids virtually ignore BMs. BMs are a key concept that needs to be understood to play well. Play 'nids after you understand what ignoring BMs will change.

They also have somewhat fluid composition, and it is harder to build your army without an understanding from armies that have formations fixed at the list building stage.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Thanks for the tips, all. I sent the 9.2.1 list as well as the NetEA drafts. I also mentioned Tyranids being weird, but I'll reinforce that point later.

One of them is moving to Berlin soon, does anybody know of any active EA scenes there? (Already sent the www.epic-battles.de link)

I'd recommend the 9.2.1 list as it's seen by far the most testing/balancing. Some of the units are old-style but you can just avoid taking them if your army if it bothers you. I agree that tyranids aren't the best army to learn the game with though. You'd be better running a few intro games first with other armies IMO.

The Tyranid lists are the NetEA 9.2.1, Churonix, Leviathan, Onachus and Jormungandr. I made the Jormungandr list as a modern fleet containing all the newer 40k codex tyranids (Leviathan also has the majority of the newer creatures).

The fundamental issues with the Tyranid lists is that they generally have a lot of odd rules in game and at list construction. Follow that up with it being significantly more expensive to buy the army if you want the old GW models (particularly the plastics like gaunts which you need a lot of, although there are some useful proxies). The Bio-Titans are also really expensive. Even then you will need to convert/proxy raveners and more if you want a modern fleet list (Leviathan and Jormungandr).

Tyranids are not really a beginners army and not an army to play against for beginners either.