New to Nids

[Rhok]

Have bought a crap load of Nids, going through the process of painting the endless horde, but I need to pick the Hive Minds of CGs Nids players.
1. Whats the best build currently for Carnifexes
2. Likewise for Termaguants, Genestealers.
3. Hive Guard worth it ?
4. Build for Hive Tyrants
5. I have a Hive Tyrant current model and one 2nd ed one (for a possible Swarmlord) , 7 fexes, 3 Lictors, nearly 30 Gargoyles, 2 Biovores, 3 Raveners, 40 odd Genestealers, 50 odd Hormagaunts, 50 odd Termaguants, 3 Broodlords, 2 Zoanthropes, 1 Venomthrope, 1 Hive Guard, heaps of Ripper Swarms and Spore Mines. No TRYGON, MAWLOC, TYRANNOFEX.
What would be the best build for me for tournament points wise.
I have the new codex and have read a fair bit on various websites (if you a good one please let me know), but would like to cut through the bs, and hear from players what really works currently.

[NeckFace]

best build for fexes i reckon is two sets of devourers, nothing else.  if you want to go close combat, keep them with their scything talons and just give them adrenal glands so they can strike at initiative 4 on the charge, but they may end up spending the whole game chasing stuff without killing anything.

another alternative is to run them as tervigons, that unit is a mainstay in the majority of 'nid armies, and gives you a solid core of troops to screen your other units, or camp objectives in general.

termagants are fine to keep their standard fleshborers, especially to have them spawn out of tervigons.  giving them devourers makes them cost twice as much, but i love running them for the sheer volume of firepower you get.

genestealers are great with toxin sacs, and i love broodlords.  run as many of those guys as possible.  alternatively, look at running some ymgarl genestealers too, they're a great unit.  in small units you send them against back field HWs and vehicles, or if you go for the full size of ten, they can deal to most troops in the game.

hive guard are definitely worth it, but you'll want more than 1.  they're obviously popular as heck on the net, and while they haven't spectacularly for myself, i still consider them one of the stronger units in the codex.

now i'll pause before getting into the hivetyrant, to describe the two builds i run with.  build 1 is where i have an army that starts on the table and basically castles up and moves forward in formation as much as possible, so the special rules from various units can work in concert with one another.  you make sure all your units are a threat, and try to draw fire from valuable core units by presenting more immediate problems for your opponent.  The second army i enjoyed running the most was an all-reserves list; nothing starts on the table, and either deep strikes in or outflanks from turn 2 onwards.  i particularly like this army because your games end up quite fast and you don't spend half the game moving all your little bugs across the length of the table.

but both these armies require particular hive tyrant builds; the foot-slogger wants the tyrant to at the very least have tyrant guard to catch wounds and help him claim cover saves he otherwise wouldn't have as a solo monstrous creature.  from there, he'd happily grab armoured shell for added protection, and maybe give him two sets of devourers as well as Old Adversary.  out of those three, i reckon OA is the best, to be able to give his surrounding swarm preferred enemy.  the all-reserves list likes a tyrant with wings, so he can deep strike with the rest of the army.  in this case Hive Commander is necessary for the +1 to reserves, and the option of letting a unit of devourer termagants or hormagaunts outflank.  he doesn't need much else in terms of armament, though he wouldn't mind devourers too if you have the points handy.  OA goes well here too, but he's starting to become very expensive by this point.

now looking at what you have, i'd wager an on-the-board horde list might be the way to go. but you have enough there to go with a reserves list too.  but you kinda need to get trygons ideally to pull that off.

 i'm envious of the mass of gargoyles you have, as they're a unit i'd love to have in my reserves list.

[Rhok]

Cheers for that Neck. I was reading somewhere that guard arent considered monstrous units anymore and cant give the Tyrant that meat shield ability anymore, surely thats not true.
Definately keen to get more Hive Guard, but I thought I'd get some feedback on them. Bought one in the UK (metal) for $18 NZ. I have a friend in Heresford, and works in London. So I might get him to grab a couple for me, screw the $45 they cost here.
I havent put together my stealers yet, so I will make a unit of Ymgarl, I thought they look pretty good in the Codex.
Definately was going to keep the Termagaunts with Fleshborers, but is it worth having a unit with Spinefists ?
Trygons are awesome and I will definately score one or two (from the UK again). Likewise I'll buy another Zoanthrope and maybe one or two more Venomthropes.
Are Raveners worth buying more of ? Build a unit of 5 ? Are the 3 Lictors fine as is for the moment ? And  Mycetic Spores worth it ?
The Gargoyles I guess I was lucky there, I won a box of them at Equinox this year, scored a cheap box on Trademe for $25 unopened and 10 metal ones for $30.

[NeckFace]

the tyrant guard granting a cover save is totally legit; when units take shooting, if at least half of them are in cover the whole unit benefits. 

spine fists are generally not worth it.  this isn't speaking from experience, but it just seems there's little point paying a point for a drop in strength just to gain accuracy.  if you already have your termagants built like that i don't think it'd be a crime to use them, but i myself went to the effort of pulling off all the spinefists in favour of fleshborers and devourers.

raveners are a mixed bag.  i haven't used them extensively, so i haven't seen them perform amazingly well or anything.  still, the speed they have and the amount of attacks they can churn out has to be good for something, and i've read some positive stuff about them.  i have a unit of 6, and that's the generally agreed upon number to take, to make them a proper threat.  run them with rending claws too, and use them to pounce on non-CC dedicated units.

Lictors are tricky. I'm a massive fan of Deathleaper, but regular lictors just don't do much for me.  mycetic spores are great for delivering things like the Doom of Malantai, zoanthropes, 20 devourer gaunts, most anything that can drop and start blasting away on the turn they show.  you just need to find a viable model, and there's plenty of third-party companies out there that do them

[Rhok]

Sweet, haven't armed the Termagaunts yet so Fleshborers and devourers it is.
Cool about Guard, I thought they would, otherwise they would be a fairly pointless unit. Yeah may have to put a Deathleaper on my to buy list.

[NeckFace]

well the fact tyrant guard essentially add wounds to your tyrant, makes them pretty awesome alone.  they're an expensive unit, but he really is a monster to deal with and grants plenty of good buffs to the units around him if armed appropriately. 

but getting a cover save is handy, most definitely   also it makes him a valid candidate to be joined by tyranid prime.  having an additional IC to allocate the odd shot too is a pretty popular action to add further survivability to the unit.

i should add, that the bonesword + lashwhip combo on the tyrant is worth keeping, so if you don't have the points to give him a gun, that's totally ok.

and don't worry about running deathleaper - if anything, count one of your existing lictors as him if you want, and seeing you have the opportunity, why not just see how the three lictors run as a unit together?  I think they can still be used, you just have to run them conservatively; don't just throw them into the fray as soon as possible, and try to pickyour targets.  they're not popular as they die pretty easily, but there's no reason they shouldn't happily trounce a tactical squad

[Rhok]

Good to see the bonesword and lashwhip combo is still a good stable fit out since 2nd ed.
Will definately trial the three lictors out.

[blood_god]

just to weigh in....

Hive guard are fantastic! very reliable at dropping tanks, especially when running units of 3. I run two units, one of 3 one of 2. but in all honesty I would happily run 9!!

If you have 7 fexes a nice way to run them is 2 units of 3 with no upgrades. Its an expensive unit but most players are going to hard pressed to stop 24 t6 wounds before they charge. Also having no gun frees you up to get a run move in and keeps the unit cheap(ish). If you really wanted to give your opponent a headache hide a venomthrope behind them to give them all a cover save....

I run ravenors and have found them to be a fantastic unit. A big unit of 5 or 6 throws out an insane amount of attacks. due to their high speed they can get in the opponents face very early. personally I went the two sything talons route for massed re-rolls, but rending isn't without it's uses.

If I was to build a list based on what you have/ want to buy it would look something like this:

hive tyrant      170      1815
   paroxysm         
   leech         
   sything talons         
   lash whip/bonesword         
            
tyrant guard            
   2   120      
            
hive guard   3   150      
            
hive guard   2   100      
            
venomthrope   1   55      
            
tervigon   1   160      
   adrenal   10      
   toxin   10      
   catalyst   15      
   onslaught   15      
            
            
termagants   10   50      
            
carnifex   3   480      
            
carnifex   3   480      


sooo.....

60 T6 wounds. With cover and one unit can get feel no pain. range AT comes from the hive guard. troops is the 10 guants and whatever you can spawn from mr tervigon (who you convert from a 'fex). take a turn or two to run up the table and pulp face with your collection of monstrous creatures. A little one dimensional but hard to stop.
 This does total 1815 so you have some points to play with, either lash whips on the tyrant guard or OA on the tyrant if you want your gaunts to do some fighting (back them up with the tervigon's toxin and adrenal). all you need to buy is the tyrant guard and hive guard.

[Rhok]

Cheers for that blood god, definately food for thought, love the 6 fexes and great to hear your a fan of the ravenors.
Would you field biovores ?

[NeckFace]

i actually like the look of that army.  it will come under criticism from the majority of internet soapbox dorks, but having six carnifexes running around cannot be a bad thing - be careful of grey knights and their plethora of force weapons, but that pretty much goes for any nid army when facing GKs.

i personally love the look of biovores, though i've never used them.  i've faced them before as nids, and while they didn't do much in that particular game i still can see their utility; their cheap and able to move with the rest of your army whilst lobbing large blasts all over the show. having a missed shot turn into an annoying and potentially dangerous spore mine is nice.  general consensus is that they're nice, but serve a function (anti-infantry fire) that is easily covered by other elements in the codex, and instead competes for a heavy slot that you might otherwise want for a trygon.  not really a problem for you i reckon.  with the list blood_god posted, you could drop one hive guard from the brood of 3, take onslaught off the tervigon, and then you'd have the points to add the two biovores you bought.

I want to make an army sporting a tonne of fexes now darnnit.

[Rhok]

I'm glad I bought the big Nid box set that came with 3 fexes, 6 Warriors a ton of Hormaguants, Termaguants and Genestealers and a battalion boxset (previous set the one with the Carnifex), all unpainted and on their sprues for $600, god bless Trademe.
I've always loved the big bugs and blood god and a nice simillar army list I saw on youtube, has got me definately keen to try lots of fexes (nice target practice for plasma, las cannons and krak missles totting devastor squads).
Will try squeeze in a Zoanthrope or 2 in Mycetic Spores. I saw on youtube this morning the Spores I'm keen to have a try at making using, a CD, Cardboard core from a paper towel roll, hot glue and kitty litter.