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The current tyranid codex isn't exactly weak. It's just a bit bland.

There was a lot of complaining about the 5th edition codex while it was around. But really I thought it was kind of fun. It wasn't very well thought out or balanced. But you can still tell that a lot of enthusiasm went into creating it. Compare it to the 4th edition book and you can tell that someone had a lot of fun coming up with all that new stuff.

This current codex though doesn't feel like much more than a copy-paste of the last book, with a few token tweaks to keep up appearances. I just don't feel like any effort went into it.

It's not awful, just rather soulless.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Zewrath wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Zewrath wrote:
Are people still playing the Tyranids-sucks-ever-so-much song? I've been dominating most of my games with Tyranids and there are a lot of batreps that confirms that Tyranids has a good power level. If you're still stuck on spamming Mawlocs and Tervigons, while calling everything else gak, then yes, you're going to lose.

Pick up biovores, get Aegis, abuse the gak out of Venomthropes and deploy aggressively with multiple threats. Learn to win.

PS: Tyranids have been reported to be on par with Space Marines, while only really struggles vs TauDar lists. Although it is still worth mentioning that tournaments that uses BP is hard for the Tyranids, since the games tends to be closer.

Anectdote: Noun, a story concerning one's personal and unscientific experiences. Frequently confused with evidence despite not being equivalent even in large amounts due to lack of scientific rigor.

Smugness: Noun, an emotion frequently displayed by people who believe that if they can do something and others can't with the same tools in hand, it clearly must be their fault for not sharing in their messianic abilities, and not because extenuating circumstances have made said tools preform better in one environment over what is the majority result.

Perform*

It's a cute attempt to troll though, and without wasting more words on you, I think I'll just leave you to wallow in your own tears of how oh-ever-so-bad your codex is, while newer batreps from several tourneys confirms what I'm saying.

Actually he's 100% right. While I agree the Tyranid Codex is good, at this point all Kain has done is point out that your statement is entirely anecdotal and does nothing to support your point of view, without him actually disagreeing with you at all. Battle reports mean nothing, and you telling everyone to play better if they want to win just suggests to everybody that you are just as likely relying on your opponents being underskilled, rather than you playing the game that much better than everybody else.

Try to be a bit less condescending and a bit more friendly and your point of view will see much less objection. Because at the end of the day you aren't fully wrong, you just aren't right either, because you haven't supplied proper examples, either because you can't, because or you don't care enough about the logic behind your statement, just about telling people to "git gud".

I stand corrected then. I'll try avoid posting in the future when in a terrible mood and when lacking sleep.

Although I've never stated Tyranids where top tier (I believe I made a reference to space marine power level?). However, I still stand by my statement with Tyranids being vastly undervalued. I can't argue vs the formations though.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Tyranid GCs beside the Harridan need serious buffs though, D-strength weapons make them way too vulnerable, and the Heirodule in particular has a rubbish raw statline (scythed heirodules should not get punched out by build a beat stick Raukaan chapter masters or Lysander).

The problem isn't really the Gargantuan Creatures, it's D strength weapons. They need to be toned down against Gargantuans. That alone will make them much more viable. As it is, facing a single D weapon is going to make you worry but not decide to leave a Heirophant at home. It's when you face an army bringing multiple D weapons to the table when you might as well just not take them.

Though I'll admit the Heirodules could use a little beefing up. They're not much tougher than the new big monstrous creatures, so not really worthy of being classed as Gargantuan.

D Stregth Weapons, in my experience, are only scary against armor facing units and multiple-wound units. Against ants (signle-wound units), the worst thing that could happen is 1 hit = 1 unsaveable wound.

That's not so bad....Big Power Fists can only kill so much.....

 -Loki- wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Tyranid GCs beside the Harridan need serious buffs though, D-strength weapons make them way too vulnerable, and the Heirodule in particular has a rubbish raw statline (scythed heirodules should not get punched out by build a beat stick Raukaan chapter masters or Lysander).

The problem isn't really the Gargantuan Creatures, it's D strength weapons. They need to be toned down against Gargantuans. That alone will make them much more viable. As it is, facing a single D weapon is going to make you worry but not decide to leave a Heirophant at home. It's when you face an army bringing multiple D weapons to the table when you might as well just not take them.

Though I'll admit the Heirodules could use a little beefing up. They're not much tougher than the new big monstrous creatures, so not really worthy of being classed as Gargantuan.

While a single D weapon is fairly balanced against a Hierophant, point-wise you'll typically face 4-6 of them. A Warhound can erase a Hierophant in a turn with ease, at only ~70% of the point cost. D weapons in themselves aren't an issue, it's how cheaply/easily spammed they are in the form of Warhounds, Eldar and C'Tan. I'd be more than happy to take on an army of Shadowswords, Stompas, or any Tau with my Hierophants.

Hierodules on the other hand are utterly abymsal. You get a worse stat line than a Wraithknight for more than double the points, with only GC resistances to compensate. Even the melee-focused one has no chance against much cheaper Knights or Marine characters. They either need a severe price cut, or much more durability/damage.

It would also be nice to see bio-cannons re-done to be useful on an Apoc scale. Every creature with them has two, so why not buff the weapon to something like AP2 Assault 10+, and make it twin-linked?

 Kain wrote:


As someone working to a doctorate in the sciences (it involves dinosaurs) I know the rigors of what is good evidence and what isn't.

Considering any brench of nature science offten creates whole species or even families out of a single example of a skull , where the variation between two different species are smaller , then the ones between between different racial groups of man . I would say that single battle raports are very scientific.

That isn't even close to an accurate comparison.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Or how about giving all your guys +2 to their cover save the whole way across the board?.

How exactly is this done?

Aha...Venomthropes?

So I got the nids and the Codex and the paints and stuff.

I cant decide fo the life of me which way to go with the Tyranofex/Tervigon kit. The popular consensus on these forums seems to be that the Tervigon was nerferd too bad and costs too much to be a desireable option.

However, coming from someone who has never read a letter of the last codex, after reading through the new Codex, the Tervigon options seems vastly more fun than the Tyranofex option. In fact, when I read the Tervigon rules, I thought, THIS is the type of army I want to play.

I mean pooping 3D6 models onto the battlefield every turn is crazy...is there any other Codex that can do that??? (Canoptek Spyders, by contrast, poop out ONE scarab per round, and Ghost Arks poop out D3 Warriors up to the original troop size....and I thought THAT was cool)

To me, parking a Tervigon with Regen in the backfield on top of an objective behind Cover, and maybe even behind an Aegis Defense line wth a Venomthrope (2+ Cover Save, right?), and pumping out nasty little Termigaunts seems alot funner than a high strength gun that shoots 2 shots a round. It even seems to me to be the better tactical choice, even with the big Synapse Backfire and the chance to flicker out with doubles.

Of course, I'd rather have both! Maybe 1 day.

Am I horribly wrong here? Are Tyranofexes just an obvious better choice here?

Also, if someone could please advise, I'm really not sure WTF to find the dataslates on the GW website. Are they the 14.99 a pop downloads? If so, that is completely off the hook BS. The Helbrute dataslate for CSM is only like 5 bucks (and of course all this DLC should be FREE as an incentive for poeple to buy ACTUAL product).

Anyway, advice would be welcome, if you are so inclined.

Hey there, thought i would chime in.

I have had luck running 1 Tervigon. Are they WAY more expensive than they were? Yes! But ultimately they are a T6 6W scoring MC. I like them as a synapse anchor as well.

If you are so inclined you can always magnetize the kit so you can have the best of both worlds. If that isn't something you are inclined to do just put the kit together without the head, spawning sac and gun arms on there and try a few games with it each way. One tip though- When you are gluning the middle support legs make sure you don't have them too far spread out that they don't fit on the base very well.

Welcome to Tyranids, where even if you get frustrated by how you are doing on the table, the models will always draw you back.

BeeCee wrote:
Hey there, thought i would chime in.

I have had luck running 1 Tervigon. Are they WAY more expensive than they were? Yes! But ultimately they are a T6 6W scoring MC. I like them as a synapse anchor as well.

If you are so inclined you can always magnetize the kit so you can have the best of both worlds. If that isn't something you are inclined to do just put the kit together without the head, spawning sac and gun arms on there and try a few games with it each way. One tip though- When you are gluning the middle support legs make sure you don't have them too far spread out that they don't fit on the base very well.

Welcome to Tyranids, where even if you get frustrated by how you are doing on the table, the models will always draw you back.

Thanks! I thought about magnetizing, but I don't see how it would be done. Like the Rupture Cannon glues together to form 1 piece...if you are slightly off with the arm socket distances, isn't it a no go. Also, HTF would you magnetize the spawning sac? I should check out youtube I guess. Perhaps when I examine the kit a little closer it would also become clear.

The Tervigon model is IMO probably the coolest model in the line, which will probably seal the deal for me. The Tyranofex build seems like "OK, what else could we make out of this kit?...I know, lets ditch the egg sac and give it a big gun!!!" to me.

I'm not a huge fan of the Tervigon because I don't think it's that awesome and frankly I'd rather just pay for the gants upfront and than playing the random gant generator game. Tervigon will spawn around 24 gants on average, that's about 96pts. But then if it dies (and it will) every one of those units that you couldn't get more than 12" away will, on average, be half wiped out, in addition to any other unit of termagants that were already on the table and within 12" also get hit bad.

Given how the Tervigon is Synapse and kills lots of Gants, any opponent is going to target it and it probably won't even like long enough to spawn that many gants and/or long enough to get your gant units out of backlash range.

That and I simply don't enjoy painting 60 gants for each tervigon I only have about 30 in my army at the moment.

 jasper76 wrote:
So I got the nids and the Codex and the paints and stuff.

I cant decide fo the life of me which way to go with the Tyranofex/Tervigon kit. The popular consensus on these forums seems to be that the Tervigon was nerferd too bad and costs too much to be a desireable option.

However, coming from someone who has never read a letter of the last codex, after reading through the new Codex, the Tervigon options seems vastly more fun than the Tyranofex option. In fact, when I read the Tervigon rules, I thought, THIS is the type of army I want to play.

I mean pooping 3D6 models onto the battlefield every turn is crazy...is there any other Codex that can do that??? (Canoptek Spyders, by contrast, poop out ONE scarab per round, and Ghost Arks poop out D3 Warriors up to the original troop size....and I thought THAT was cool)

To me, parking a Tervigon with Regen in the backfield on top of an objective behind Cover, and maybe even behind an Aegis Defense line wth a Venomthrope (2+ Cover Save, right?), and pumping out nasty little Termigaunts seems alot funner than a high strength gun that shoots 2 shots a round. It even seems to me to be the better tactical choice, even with the big Synapse Backfire and the chance to flicker out with doubles.

Of course, I'd rather have both! Maybe 1 day.

Am I horribly wrong here? Are Tyranofexes just an obvious better choice here?

Also, if someone could please advise, I'm really not sure WTF to find the dataslates on the GW website. Are they the 14.99 a pop downloads? If so, that is completely off the hook BS. The Helbrute dataslate for CSM is only like 5 bucks (and of course all this DLC should be FREE as an incentive for poeple to buy ACTUAL product).

Anyway, advice would be welcome, if you are so inclined.

No no you are correct. You have to remember a lot of the hate is because the people are butt hurt. They fell for the rumours Hook, Line and Sinker. They have been trolled so badly their sphincter will never heal. They are upset because they didn't get what the rumours were calling for, and it wasn't the codex they wanted.

Do not listen to the internet. Go play what you want and have fun with it. If anything if you can, play a few games as "counts as". so this way you can see for yourself if you really want a Tervigon or not. A lot of people play the way that you just described. Yes they have been nerfed, but don't play it the old way, play it the new way. While I suck at playing 40K and never won yet, what you have described what you want to do, is a good tactic and I say go with it. If anything put it together, just don't glue on the belly or weapons yet and try it out.

 jasper76 wrote:
Also, if someone could please advise, I'm really not sure WTF to find the dataslates on the GW website. Are they the 14.99 a pop downloads? If so, that is completely off the hook BS. The Helbrute dataslate for CSM is only like 5 bucks (and of course all this DLC should be FREE as an incentive for poeple to buy ACTUAL product).

Anyway, advice would be welcome, if you are so inclined.

Yeah, the dataslates are all $15 each

http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Tyranid-Vanguard.html
http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Dataslate-Tyranid-Invasion.html
http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Dataslate-Tyranid-Onslaught.html

Though if you just google something like "dataslate rumours" you can find what each of them contains and (probably) all the rules that go along with them.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Also, if someone could please advise, I'm really not sure WTF to find the dataslates on the GW website. Are they the 14.99 a pop downloads? If so, that is completely off the hook BS. The Helbrute dataslate for CSM is only like 5 bucks (and of course all this DLC should be FREE as an incentive for poeple to buy ACTUAL product).

Anyway, advice would be welcome, if you are so inclined.

Yeah, the dataslates are all $15 each

http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Tyranid-Vanguard.html
http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Dataslate-Tyranid-Invasion.html
http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Dataslate-Tyranid-Onslaught.html

Though if you just google something like "dataslate rumours" you can find what each of them contains and (probably) all the rules that go along with them.

Yup for that. However, DLC is kind of a wierd situation in my meta. Most everyone does not like it, some people flat out refuse to play against it, and I think everyone would refuse to play against it unless I could give them a printout. So the "DLC peace treaty" is generally, if you insist on playing those BS rules, you can as long as you have the printout. I have no idea which one is the best, and I don't think any of them are worth paying $1 for, so if I end up going that route, I'll do it grudgingly, and hopefully I can find out through research which of them is the best for the direction I want to take the army, once that is decided.

Yeah if you google them you can find out what's in them. There's only a few sentences of rules in each one, so you can pretty easily find the rules. All you need to know is what each formation consists of and then what special rule the formation gets (which is typically only a sentence to a paragraph for each formation). Hell, if you find the tyranid dataslate rumour thread in the news and rumours section of this site, you can probably piece together all the rules from the dataslates and then if you want just buy the one you need (or *coughs* pirate them... not something I normally condone... but I have no real issue with people pirating a $15 book for the sake of a couple of paragraphs of rules ).

I think what people are failing to mention with Tervigons is that with the last iteration of the codex, not only were they less expensive (~100 pts or so given the Gaunt tax) but they had access to Biomancy. Iron Arm or Endurance on a Tervigon was huge. A popular build for Nids used to be Tervigon spam (3-4) just flooding the field with Gaunts buffed by various other Biomancy toting MCs.

Shift to the current codex where there is no Biomancy, you only get one Psychic Power roll (could have 3 on Biomancy before), death the the Tervigon is MUCH more devastating to your Gaunts, and the increase in price and you have the answer to why people believe the Tervigon to be rubbish.

However, running one still does provide synapse, a tough scoring model, and a source of Troops. You just need to be much more careful with how you go about playing. Multiple Tervigons is definitely a horrible idea. But one Tervigon, 3 Warriors, and 30 Gaunts is a reasonable Troop slot makeup clocking in at around 400 points IMO.

As for magnetization, there are a number of youtube videos on it. In practice it is actually very easy. The tops of the belly sac slots into the body of the main model in such a way that only a couple magnets on the bottom of the sac to hold it together works brilliantly. All the scything talons, claws, etc. are cake too with 3-4 mm magnets. The guns on the Tyrannofex (either the Rupture cannon or the Acid Spray) are actually pretty easy too. The main reason being that the tubes that connect to the gun normally can sit on the very front of the base, thus not mattering much that the weapon slouches in the front. Additionally, with some creative basing, you can always provide a stand incorporated into the base for them.

Most important I think is to have fun with whatever army you run with. If you want to win every time and be a competitive gamer, then Nids aren't for you because there are only a couple builds that have any hope of beating the current top tier netlists. However, if you want to drown the board in endless Guants, bring more MCs than people thought possible, and have endless conversion opportunties, well my friend you have found your home in the Hive!

Cheers!

Thanks AllSeeingSkink, for real. You have single-handedly de-mystified the Tyranid DLC issue for me


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 djm55 wrote:
As for magnetization, there are a number of youtube videos on it. In practice it is actually very easy. The tops of the belly sac slots into the body of the main model in such a way that only a couple magnets on the bottom of the sac to hold it together works brilliantly. All the scything talons, claws, etc. are cake too with 3-4 mm magnets. The guns on the Tyrannofex (either the Rupture cannon or the Acid Spray) are actually pretty easy too. The main reason being that the tubes that connect to the gun normally can sit on the very front of the base, thus not mattering much that the weapon slouches in the front. Additionally, with some creative basing, you can always provide a stand incorporated into the base for them.

Awesome. If I can see it done once on youtube, I'm golden.

 djm55 wrote:
Most important I think is to have fun with whatever army you run with. If you want to win every time and be a competitive gamer, then Nids aren't for you because there are only a couple builds that have any hope of beating the current top tier netlists. However, if you want to drown the board in endless Guants, bring more MCs than people thought possible, and have endless conversion opportunties, well my friend you have found your home in the Hive!

Cheers!

Yup, I always have fun (or try to), whether my army is outclassed or not. Fortunately in my meta, the Space Faeries and Robotech Hippos are pretty rare to see.

I am asmuch into the hobby aspect of the game, if not moreso, than the game itself.

Not sure if it comes through in my posts, but I'm at about pee-your-pants level of looking forward to modeling and painting these guys. These models are, quite simply, badass...for looks alone, but especially since eveything of the same size seems to fit everthing else of the same size. From a modeling perspective, this seems like an incredibly well thought-out and executed product line. I wasn't even looking to start out Nids! I was originally looking for a trade for some more CSM stuff. But I'm glad this deal found me!

I love my bugs and their models!

Lots of fun customization and conversion opportunities, as many parts are kind of similar.

There are a few other threads on magnetizing going on these days, so check those, but yeah, I have magnetized all my big and most of my medium bugs. Also, as noted, there are a few vids on youtube on it as well.

Best of luck and have fun!!!

Addaran wrote:
A bit costy... but i like 30 devs. 90 shoots for 240 points. Always fun to see the face of my friend when i tell him how many dice i need.

I have been so tempted with some of the stuff I run (and I still have a low point army) to start packing/buying dice in different colors to make it easier to roll. That way I can just grab 3 dice of this, 3 dice of that and keep going....


Greenstuff will be your friend when it comes to doing your magnets. The last thing you want is to get a magnet set perfectly, and then have it snap through the model to a magnet on the other side of a torso or something...

Oh, and you will get people so miffed at your venomthropes

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah if you google them you can find out what's in them. There's only a few sentences of rules in each one, so you can pretty easily find the rules. All you need to know is what each formation consists of and then what special rule the formation gets (which is typically only a sentence to a paragraph for each formation). Hell, if you find the tyranid dataslate rumour thread in the news and rumours section of this site, you can probably piece together all the rules from the dataslates and then if you want just buy the one you need (or *coughs* pirate them... not something I normally condone... but I have no real issue with people pirating a $15 book for the sake of a couple of paragraphs of rules ).

I checked out reviews for these dataslates. All in all it seems like the only good ones are intended to sell FMCs (LOTS of FMCs, ka-ching $$$), a buncha of Biovores and Exocrines, and lots and lots and lots of gants.

I'm a couple units shy of some meh formations with the Carnifexes. Didn't see anything that inspired me to spend hundreds of dollars on the required models.