any nid advice?

[Lost Question]

any advice on starting a nid campaign on the right foot?

my initial 3 gaunt's have been getting wrecked by kroothounds (from their scouting I have determined that my base is surrounded by at least 7 units of them, 2 units of hybrids, and one enslaver)

[Stardustfire]

gants alone are nearly useless, because they implemented the instinctal behaviours from the TT somehow, so the gants loose there will to fight fast.
i will now only get to the field of starting: you can hold you gants at full fighting power when you research tyrandid warriors and build one unit of them. they are synapse creature so they dont suffer from instincts and they cancel instinct behaviour at other units near them.
even better woud be an Alpha hero early one, this guys are the breath and butter of nids, good equiped it can kill most units fast, and because there second skill they can take a lot of attacks without dieing. its of course a synapse creature as well.

search option is your friend, its even on the first page..... https://steamcommunity.com/app/489630/discussions/0/1637536330460729489/

[the number yellow]

Originally posted by Lost Question:

any advice on starting a nid campaign on the right foot?

my initial 3 gaunt's have been getting wrecked by kroothounds (from their scouting I have determined that my base is surrounded by at least 7 units of them, 2 units of hybrids, and one enslaver)

Get a tervigon ( hero research, T2) as a first hero instead of the alpha warrior despite the quest. Tervigon is a synapse creature, when a tyranid unit is under the influence of a synapse creature it can’t be mindcontrolled by the enslavers. In addition to that, the Tervigon has a skill that boosts the attacks of termagaunts.

For PvE / Coop or campaign I prefer the Tervigon as my first hero. The Tervigon has 4 skills:
a) Spawn a unit of termagaunts
b) Heal any unit for a number of HP (4,8,12 iirc)
c) An ability that boosts the number of attacks of your termagaunts in X range (leveling it up increases the range up to 3 tiles)
d) A skill that removes the cooldown on the spawn ability for the next 3 turns (beware that this doesn't remove any active cooldowns!)

I suggest picking skill a as your first skill when you get your Tervigon. As a second skill I pick c) as it makes my Termagaunts a good deal stronger and thus helps my Tervigon to level faster. Also there isn't really anything to heal in the beginning. No one cares about Gaunts, just spawn a new squad with your hero whenever its possible and the Tervigon itself has 30+ HP so unless you run it head first into a bunch of kastelan robots it should be fine. The healing skill is awesome after this though, so I def pick it as my third skill and usually max it out first. NOTE: If you got all the skills for the Tervigon you won’t be able to shop with it in the item shop as the 4th skill icon will take the place of the shop icon!
As a bonuse the Tervigon allows you to produce units on the frontline so you can use your unitproduction at home to immediately devour your gaunts after they have been build to speed up the creation of key buildings / units.

Generally for campaign I would suggest not to bother with Tyranid Warriors. Your research goes -> cheaper consumption of own units -> Building for heroes -> Tervigon or the Building for Malanthropes (Tervigon if you dont have a good spot for a second city nearby / if there are too many hostile units nearby, otherwise I prefer a fast second city). If you encounter kastelan robots early on and you can push somewhere else do so. While you can beat 1-2 kastelan robots early with a Termagaunts that have a Tervigon for support (should have heal for this though), unless its the only way it probably isn't worth the time investment

[Stardustfire]

number shows a great half wisdom, becasue a: the alpha is a monster instead of useless, its the strongest fighting hero of all races, and much faster build than a tervigon, not to mentation a tervigon on itself has the fighting power of a paperback, because it is a healer, its a taffer healer than the ones from other races, and yes you shoud have a few later, but he isnt first hero material. and to proof him complete wrong: yes the tervigon is "bugged" by not being able to shop after a certain point, but this point dont happens when it get all 4 skills, but when it get all 4 skills PLUS you researched its crush ability....

[the number yellow]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

number shows a great half wisdom, becasue a: the alpha is a monster instead of useless, its the strongest fighting hero of all races, and much faster build than a tervigon, not to mentation a tervigon on itself has the fighting power of a paperback, because it is a healer, its a taffer healer than the ones from other races, and yes you shoud have a few later, but he isnt first hero material. and to proof him complete wrong: yes the tervigon is "bugged" by not being able to shop after a certain point, but this point dont happens when it get all 4 skills, but when it get all 4 skills PLUS you researched its crush ability....

I said he shouldnt bother with the Tyranid Warriors (T1 Synapse creature), I didnt say that the Alpha Warrior is useless. Also while the Alpha Warrior is strong, especially with his armor reduction skill, he doesn't add a great deal early on. Regarding build time if you arent snacking your own units to get key units/buildings faster you are not playing the tyranids even close to their potential - somethin which the tervigon greatly does. Yes the Tervigon doesnt have much fighting power on its own - it doesnt have to just as you said. It buffs the termagaunts. Thanks to his spawning ability you can push with him much easier, you can use him to faster develop new cities without having gaunts run over... He has ton of uses and is flatout better in the early game - both in PvE AND PvP.

Regarding the crush ability: yeah my bad, unfortunately thats the only wrong thing about my post. You can make the Alpha Warrior work very well, especially just playing against AIs and as you seem to do on normal dificulty, the Tervigon however is flatout the better starting option. He basically pays for himself with his free units and your ability to 'nom them. Even the thread you linked right above your post links an old guide by one of the more active PvP players who confirms: Tervigon first. You can even hop on the gladius discord and see the same sentiment there

Bonus: While 2/3 skills from the Alpha Warrior are useful, his boost to Tyranid Warrior accuracy is almost useless since Tyranid Warriors atm are pretty meh and if you ever build them they will get phased out very soon.