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Hey Guys,

I just recently made a post about potentially coming back to the hobby, and had some well thought out responses, so thanks soo much guys! This has put another question in my head. One of my main armies was Tyranids back in 5e, and I would like to pick them back up again. But for the most part, I love to focus on 90% of my army being melee oriented, with a focus on numbers. This means swarms of hormagaunts, swarms of infiltrating genestealers (if this still exists) barebones carnifexes, barebones trygons, barebones warriors, a flyrant, and maybe a zoanthrope or two. Essentially close combat in numbers (just how tyranids should be!). Would this type of army stand any chance in the current state of the game? I'm not trying to win every game, or even half of my games. I have loads of fun designing armies behind a theme and methodology, and if I can win even 1/3 of my games with it, i'll be happy. I like to see the other player enjoy trying to beat the unique task of my army, it makes for a great time. I was just wondering if i would get roflstomped in 99% of my games if I were to attempt fielding something like this. Thanks for your input guys.

If you focus ENTIRELY on moving across the table and swarming, yes. There are Formations that allow that sort of thing and make it easier. The biggest downside is that you will hemorrhage units on the way. Endless Swarm allows those units to Respawn, but you won't get Objective Secured if I'm not mistaken. It's not competitive, but it would be a lot of fun.

If you find yourself playing in an environment without completely optimed lists you can have a lot of fun with that style.

If Maelstrom or one of the fan made variants are in use Hormaguants can be quite good ripping around scoring points.

If you build your swarm around a number of Malanthropes it can be very resilient. Perhaps even include the Swarmlord/Tyrant with guards to draw fire off your lynch pins.

Given your goals and expectations you should have a good time, but as always with the current game it will be all about your environment and opponents.

Short Answer: No, unless for fun.

Long answer: with the current state of the game, especially considering the general power of the factions, the last edition codex we have, and the imbalances within our own codex (points/usefulness), it would be extremely unlikely for the army to excellent. Much less be fun if your opponent sits on one end of the table and shoots units off the board every turn.
Swarms can be fun, but removing whole units of Hormones can get tedious and disheartening. Talk with some friends and set up some fun/fluffy games and say you're brining barebones tyranids to swam them. Could be fun.

Thanks for the responses guys. With the way the game is now, are there any melee units that you recommend? Or melee combos you recommend? How does endless swarm work and how do I qualify for it?

You would most certainly get Roflstomped in 99.999% of your games.

CC Nid's can be fun, but is very hard to pull off.

Endless Swarm is 3 units Terms, 3 units Horms, and 1 unit warriors. When horms/terms unit is destroyed, on 4+ the same unit goes into Ongoing reserves. This is about the only time Trygon's tunnels are useful.

Another good CC oriented formation is the Skytyrant, which is 1 Hive Tyrant with Wings and 2 units of Gargoyles. The Tyrant and Gargs are one unit, Tyrant synapse is +6", and when they all die they give 3 kill points, but not until then. Also Tyrant can't swoop. Gives the tyrant massive board reach to get into CC and stay there.

Just realize with CC Nids, many of the top codexes will wipe the floor with it, because most of our CC stuff doesn't have the mobility to get to them unless they let you. Setting up scenario games is your best bet, and can be a ton of fun. Just takes a little more work.

The cc armies are generally;
Necrons. Wraiths and flayed ones are very strong, the former especially in formations. Tomb blades are good too

Daemons. Screamer star and a few other decent units, mainly slannesh, do work.

Wolves. Twc and the new wulfen look good.

Gk in the dread knight.

This is generally a shooting edition, with the only melee-viable armies being the ones that have ridiculously durable AND killy units. Tyranids, however, only have units that are one or the other, never both (and even then, most units that are durable tends to be either flyers or pricier than other race's equivallents).

That said, you can still go for it, but just expect a lot of casualties and not a lot of won games. Overwatch, especially tau and dark angels or anything with mass flamers, will eat you alive. Also you pretty much have to use formations to get this going; I would go check out Shield of Baal: Leviathan and the Rising Leviathan dataslates. they all have a slew of useful formations (much of which has been mentioned by others). And see if you can find the rules for the Spawn of Cryptus; it's a decent genestealer unit that has a broodlord that can be a Warlord.

However, if you wanna be utterly broken in melee, get Space Wolves and get the following units:

Wulfen, Wolf lord on Thunder Wolf, and as many Thunderwolf Cavalry as you can afford. All three units are insanely durable, extremely killy, and best of all if you have Champions of Fenris supplement, they form a complete army without anything else needed.

I think it's still viable as you can roll around with 2+ cover on your wlowly fearless dudes that are also fast and can cross the board in 2 turns on foot. Don't expect to kill all that much but they sure are great for tarpitting. Also, obsec will win you games. Watch out for mass ignore cover, though.