Ripper Swarms
SWORD: what Ripper Swarms kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 30 pts kill ~3 pts in one activation.Typical unit: 47 per 100
Best against hordes, weakest against light vehicles and monsters
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
Across the game· units
SHIELD: how hard Ripper Swarms is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 30 pts take ~62 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical unit: 305 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· units
What reviewers say
3 reviewers- Cheap 1 of 3
- Heal a Norn in Assimilation Swarm 1 of 3
- Screen and score for almost nothing 1 of 3
- Assimilation's points go to Norns now 1 of 3
- Biovores already cover the role 1 of 3
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ripper Swarms30 pts | B | Bottom 2% | Bottom 11% | 30of 217 |
| Mucolid Spores30 pts | D | Bottom 1% | Bottom 11% | 0of 217 |
| Spore Mines55 pts | D | Bottom 1% | Bottom 1% | 0of 217 |
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Ripper Swarms, 30 pts, with 1 Chitinous claws and teeth, in Invasion Fleet (Hyper Adaptions: Swarming Instincts). On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: the army rule and the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
30 pts → kills ~3 pts → 9 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~62 pts → 207 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 930 units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 4 reviewers' newest Tyranids tier lists: Auspex Tactics (12 Sep), Into the Hive Mind (12 Oct), HivemindHobbies (18 Oct), Maelstrom Gaming Studios (26 Oct). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
217 public Tyranids tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 2 Nov.