STARTING A TYRANID ARMY IN 11TH EDITION: GROWING THE SWARM THE SMART WAY
A Tyranid army isn't collected so much as cultivated, and 11th edition is a fertile season to begin. The Hive Mind fields everything from ankle-high organisms to living siege towers, and the faction's great pleasure — and great danger — is that scale: it's easy to buy a swarm and much harder to paint one. Start smart, though, and the Tyranids reward you with an army that looks incredible en masse and plays like a force of nature, drowning the enemy in bodies while monsters do the wet work.
Think in broods, not boxes
The mindset shift that saves new hive fleets: plan your purchases as complete broods you'll paint in one sitting-or-three, not as individual kits. Termagants and Hormagaunts are the classic openers — cheap, quick to assemble, and ideal for learning a batch-paint recipe of basecoat, wash, and drybrush that will carry the entire fleet. Nail your carapace-and-flesh scheme on twenty gaunts before anything expensive arrives.
The starter box still comes first
As with every faction, the current Combat Patrol-style set is the best-value entry, typically pairing a leader beast with gaunt broods and something mid-sized. Buy it, build all of it, and resist the second purchase until the first is undercoated at minimum.
Claws of the fleet
Genestealers are the faction's legend — the sleek horrors that made the Hive Mind famous — and one brood belongs in any collection with self-respect. For mid-weight muscle, the Carnifex is the timeless choice: a living battering ram and a wonderfully forgiving model to paint.
Crown the swarm
Your centrepiece should be a Hive Tyrant. It's the army's general, its most iconic silhouette, and a kit that teaches every advanced technique the faction asks for. Larger leviathans exist for later years; the Tyrant is the right first monster.
What the Hive Mind would veto
- A second swarm box while the first is still in bags — biomass unpainted is biomass wasted.
- Three different monsters at once. One at a time; they're each a project.
Digest what you consume
The Hive Mind assimilates nothing without cataloguing it, and neither should you: register each kit the day it's devoured by your hobby queue and mark its true stage of metamorphosis, sprue through painted. A swarm you've measured is a swarm you'll finish. The full bestiary awaits on the Tyranids faction page under Data.