So yesterday I played with a bunch of friends in a ludicrously fun 2v2v2. I was playing my Thousand Suns cult list and I happened to be facing off against a Genestealer-heavy nid list and I was sort of near a tank heavy (like 6 lemun russ variants and 2 basilisks) IG list. I held off the IG with a pair of vindicators and then had to sustain a whole lot of Genestealers/Umgarls in close combat. Long story short, my Thousand Sons destroyed his 'stealers and my deepstriking Demon Prince gave his Hive Tyrant the Gift of Chaos.

After the game, my buddy went on a rant about how the worst cc cult troops just rolled one of the best cc units in his dex. this went into a discussion about whether his dex was the worst left in 5th ed. Basically his points were thus: the Hive Tyrant is one of the worst HQs in the game, tyranids are horrific against the current transport meta, and they got hit with the nerf bat HARD (see the carnifex/lictor/Hive Tyrant). I'm inclined to agree with him, as our club has 2 nid players (stealer heavy outflank army, and trigon+doom-based deepstrike list) and neither can do better than a draw usually.

So what do ya'll think? Are nids the worst 5th ed dex?

I don't think Nids are the worst 5th ed dex. I play them myself and I win games with them. I think it depends on the player too.

It looks like he just had some bad luck with his stealers, as they should shred everything they come into contact with.
About his comments about transport meta, I think nids have some good answers to them, usually hive guard, tyrannofexes or some other (cc) method.

I wouldn't call them the worst, at least not by my standards.

Any monstrous creature gets 2D6+S for armor peh, So really it sounds like the list he is playing against (armor line) more than anything else.

They are one of the weaker codices at the moment, due to a number of things.

Although his genestealers losing combat to rubric marines... doesn't surprise me at all. Thousand Sons take away genestealer's rending with their universal invuln save. They're also fearless, if I'm not mistaken. Throw in the aspiring sorcerer with his force weapon, and you've got a unit that can survive a few hits and then hit back and make 'em stick.

Overpriced though they are, Thousand Sons are a very deadly unit when used well. Even in close combat, they can tank hits while the sorcerer does some damage.

It sounds like your friend was having a hissyfit though. Yeah, nids aren't top tier at the moment. They're also not so bad that taking them to a fight is an auto-lose. There are plenty of capable Tyranid generals out there. If he doesn't like Hive Tyrants, he can take Tyranid Primes, or Tervigons. Take Trygons instead of Carnifexes. Try out some Hive Guard, or Tyrannofexes.

They are considered bad because the old players nidzilla spam isn't viable anymore.

A codex IMHO is defined by the number of viable builds it can play with.

How many viable builds can the 'nid codex delivery today?

I think it would be tremendously constructive to the conversation if people who don't think that Tyranids are the weakest 5E codex could state which 5E they think is the weakest.

Unless you're one of those people who like to give "sunshine and lolipop" answers, like "there is no weakest codex it's all about how you play them!", in which case... stay in your corner.

Worst fifth edition codex? Yes...yes it is. Is it a bad codex? No, not really. It's not nearly as good as it could/should be due to a few factors, but there is still a lot of life in the dex.

"Although his genestealers losing combat to rubric marines... doesn't surprise me at all. Thousand Sons take away genestealer's rending with their universal invuln save. They're also fearless, if I'm not mistaken. Throw in the aspiring sorcerer with his force weapon, and you've got a unit that can survive a few hits and then hit back and make 'em stick.

Overpriced though they are, Thousand Sons are a very deadly unit when used well. Even in close combat, they can tank hits while the sorcerer does some damage. "

This also entered into the discussion and I agree (everyone writes off thousand sons but they have some advantages). As to the transport meta, isn't one of the big issues that even if you pop the transport (nearly a guarantee with 2d6+S), the troops inside still get to shoot and then assault?

That's why I suggested some of the Tyranid's ranged units. Hive Guard and Tyrannofexes.

Tyrannofexes in particular. They can pop a transport, and then assault the contents. Even if they don't have any of the fancy close combat weapons, it's still a monstrous creature that wounds marines on a 2+ and ignores armor.

I'll agree that Hive Tyrants and Carnifexes are bad. They're really bad in the current transport meta. That's why you take other things.

They are comparatively bad. The other codexes have more bang-for-their-buck. So whilst I am not saying the 5ed nid dex is overpriced, other armies get to field more.

In addition, a lot of the newer codexes brought along some really anti-nid weaponary. Nemesis Force weapons & splinter cannons to name the worst.

I think the main trouble of nids is;
1) Current Instant death rules
2) Speed of the army, as compared to any other mechanised build
3) Shooting. Vulnerability to 100% of firepower (my mech guard laugh @ splinter weaponary) and paltry shooting.

Ixidor13 wrote:Long story short, my Thousand Sons destroyed his 'stealers and my deepstriking Demon Prince gave his Hive Tyrant the Gift of Chaos.

Firstly, you gifted a hive tyrant?

HIGHFIVE!!!

Secondly, people deeply underestimate 1ksons. That he had more problems than he would have liked has at least as much to do with his attitude towards your army than anything else. Of course, you also could have gotten very lucky or he could have flubbed his rolls. Without knowing more, we can only speculate.

As for if tyranid is the worst codex, I'd say no. That title probably goes to sisters, mostly because...

labmouse42 wrote:A codex IMHO is defined by the number of viable builds it can play with.

I agree with this definition of codex aging. With nids, there are still a few ways you can play them. With Sisters or tau, not so much. There have also been codices created old out of the gate. I mean, DE just got a new codex, and I still only ever see slight variations on the same skimmer spam list.

I'd be much more willing to believe that he put together a crappy list, or that there was some luck imbalance than to believe that his particular experience here is a sign that the codex itself is broken.

I think you guys are forgetting the point of tyranids. I played a guy who used spore pods to hold up my units in combat while his main army advanced, whilst his tervigon nommed my tank. Its not also just about the commanding general, its about the opponent.

I don't think nids are that bad, its just that you really have to only use the couple of good units that are in the book, and even then they are average.

I played against a guy who had two Tervigons, 9 Zoa's, and 150 bloody Hormaguants. I just couldn't beat it. My Battlewagon alone was gibbing entire units of 30 per turn, but there were just too many

Anyway, saying they are the worst "5th edition" codex may be misleading, since you have all those 4th and even 3rd edition codices that are having tough times due to age, if nothing else. I think Chaos Space Marines may actually be the ones who are the worst off, ironically.

Tyranids have a tremendously hard time against Dark Eldar, and Grey Knights can be a really hard ball to break through.The latter is tough since Grey Knights are obscenely popular at the moment (or, rather, will be until the next space marine codex hits).

Past that, there are solutions to many of the matchups. I don't think they have any other tough racial matchups, and they seem to have tools to deal with the general situations one needs - anti-MEQ, anti-horde, light AV, and heavy AV.

It's very easy to fall into "rumours" that ones codex is "the weakest" as a justification for ones own failure.

I'm personally far more interested to see how the codex starts to function when we see what 6th edition actually does entail.

If you could pod a trio of Carnifexes, I suspect they might see more use.

Sisters of Battle, anyone?

Sure, they are the worst. They can not deal with mech and transport effectively. 9 Hiveguards may be ok but killing transports in cc is not really an option.
The enemy might to be prepared for 'nids as they are so different and footslogging armies are making a slow come back which is slighty in the 'nids favour but no they are just not suitable for 5th edition rules.

The only other contenders for weaker armies would be SoB if they count, weak vanilla marines builds, weird IG builds and DE when they get unlucky which does sometimes happen.

I think 'nids are the worst 5th ed codex. But when you're comparing it to GK, BA, IG....that's not saying much. They are still a very good army in my opinion. They hold their own against pretty much anything if you know how to use them.

Also, Thousand Sons are awesome. People just don't like em because it's all "Khorne Berzerkers this" and "Plague Marines that."

"Also, Thousand Sons are awesome. People just don't like em because it's all "Khorne Berzerkers this" and "Plague Marines that."

You sir, are an awesome person whom I agree with. As to whether he rolled poorly and I well, I can say we both rolled about average over the course of the game. It just came down to his genestealers popping my transports and then failing against the T-Sons inside.

This, I think, is his issue:

"I think 'nids are the worst 5th ed codex. But when you're comparing it to GK, BA, IG....that's not saying much. They are still a very good army in my opinion. They hold their own against pretty much anything if you know how to use them."

He is rather competent, but some of the new stuff is way good.

I think the main problem facing nids right now is lack of grenades on all but 2-3 units in the book.
That and only 2-3 invul saves in the book, one being CC-only, and synapse being so easy to kill...

Losing to a 150 hormagaunt list? They can't hurt you in your trucks. Kill the synapse then laugh at the 800 useless points (unupgraded).

Nids aren't useless overall, they're just not fire and forget like lots of other codexes right now.

Calling Tyranids the worst list is just not accurate. They are hard hit by some of the newer codexes. I'll not argue that. But so are Eldar, Orks, Tau, Sisters ( one bad remake ), Deamons and Chaos SM. They can compete with a decent list and a competent general. You need to think when playing Nids though. They are not auto play like GK. They are not a fully mechanized IG force - they require practice and still they have bad match ups - we know that. But the worst? They are a decent second tier army.

A genestealer list is just not that good. A squad of Stealers is fine backed up by other troops. But stealer shock has not worked in awhile. I would rather attack T-Sons with 20 poisoned gants. Or a lashwhip squad or ... you have to use the right tools for the job at hand.

Hey all, Nid player in question here. I've been playing nids since 3rd ed. Most of my nerd rage isn't that all nids are terrible (they aren't). It's just that I see nids as the biggest example of what went wrong at GW sometime between 4th and 5th ed- they seemed to stop caring about the hobby and the players that play it, instead only much moneys they could bring in. The biggest example of this is how almost every single unit the nids could field in 4th ed (and certainly everything good) got hit so hard with the nerf bat by Cruddace that, as mentioned above, it's nearly impossible to make a competitive list without taking 100s of dollars worth of new models/units that didn't even exist (tyrannofex, tervigon, hive guard) or were Apoc-only and should have remained that way (trygon). Now look, I can understand why GW wants to make new models good, otherwise no one would buy any (lol pyrovore) but that's no reason to cripple the rest of the dex. I also submit that nids took the change from 4th ed to 5th ed harder than any other army with the POSSIBLE exception of Eldar.

Texan_tyrant wrote:Hey all, Nid player in question here. I've been playing nids since 3rd ed. Most of my nerd rage isn't that all nids are terrible (they aren't). It's just that I see nids as the biggest example of what went wrong at GW sometime between 4th and 5th ed- they seemed to stop caring about the hobby and the players that play it, instead only much moneys they could bring in. The biggest example of this is how almost every single unit the nids could field in 4th ed (and certainly everything good) got hit so hard with the nerf bat by Cruddace that, as mentioned above, it's nearly impossible to make a competitive list without taking 100s of dollars worth of new models/units that didn't even exist (tyrannofex, tervigon, hive guard) or were Apoc-only and should have remained that way (trygon). Now look, I can understand why GW wants to make new models good, otherwise no one would buy any (lol pyrovore) but that's no reason to cripple the rest of the dex. I also submit that nids took the change from 4th ed to 5th ed harder than any other army with the POSSIBLE exception of Eldar.

I agree with you here. I played lots of warriors, Ravenors, and spinefist gaunts in 4th edition... and sold my army rather than spend hundreds of dollars to update it with the new must haves. There really was no reason to nerf-bat spinefists other than wanting people to go buy a bunch of new gaunts. Shame.

-Myst

Just to clarify, when I say worst of the 5th edition dexes, I mean those dexes written after the release of 5th edition BRB (I also don't count SoB as a WD update is more of a "sit down and shut up for a bit" move rather than an honest attempt at making a viable new codex). I think there are plenty of dexes that are worse off, but they were all written prior to 5th.

Maybe vanilla marines are in a worse position, but not by much. They don't really have the flat out hard counters that the nids do.

Like I said before though, it doesn't mean they aren't viable, it just takes better play to get them to work well.

Tyranids have problems dealing with good shooting and MEQ close combat.

Against a reasonably average troop like a Guardsman, Eldar, or Dark Eldar, the average Tyranid CC unit will have a solid chance, either through numbers or being slightly higher quality. They can even take average units with their shooting if they get close enough to use it.

The problem occurs is that the generic troops don't seem to show up that often.

Against heavy vehicles and power armor, Tyranids are woefully under-equipped. I know this very well, as the armies I play against are Guard, Blood Angels, Chaos Marines, Space Wolves, and generic Marines. I have a really tough time winning any games. The only reliable anti-tank at range is the Tyrannofex. Everything else requires you to close to danger close range to be effective. Unless you pod a Zoanthrope, it sure as hell will never make an impact.

That might be the biggest problem with Nids. They are completely predictable. There isn't really a quality surprise you can throw at an opponent to catch them off guard. If you have Zoanthropes, they will be in a pod. Got a Trygon? It will be deep striking. Genestealers? They will be outflanking. No mystery.

Solution? USE THE OTHER UNITS IN THE CODEX!

Seriously. Pod a couple pyrovores right next to something reasonably gribbly. It actually works. Use a brood of biovores. S4 AP4 pie plates are really useful against anybody, simply for number of hits.

Another thing I have found: Keep you Mycetic Spores CHEAP. Don't put blast weapons on them. It is way too easy to drift back on yourself, since you will be firing at short ranges.

That's my $0.02. And these ideas work, as long as your dice don't hate your Tyrannofex, like mine do.

Tyranids are a fine army, their only real problem is that they pretty much auto lose to dark eldar. Another problem is that there are a lot of terrible choices in the book, lictors, pyrovores, rippers etc... There are only a handful of good units, and the army relies on them to carry it.

The thing I enjoy about tyranids is that they are a tactical army much more than a beat stick. They rely more heavily on unit synergies than any other army in 40k and require patience and understanding to work. I'd put the current tyranid book at around the same place in power level as vanilla marines, chaos marines, eldar, demons, tau, sisters of battle, dark angels and orks. To beat any of the other armies (blood angels, guard, dark eldar, space wolves, black templars and grey knights) you have to play better than your opponent.

Another requirement for tyranids is to completely and utterly understand how the assualt phase works ad the intricacies of the movements ad placements within the phase. Tyranids are an assualt army without grenades and must rely on well placed assualts and multi charges to win the battle. If you don't know this section of the rules thoroughly and know how to utilize these rules properly you will lose.

Tyranids are actually my favorite army to play, because they are actually incredibly versatile and can deal with almost all situations in different ways. I would certainly have no issues with bringing them to any GT if it wasn't for dark eldar, which admitedly is pretty much an auto loss. In fact I still bring them to GT's a lot of the time and they perform quite well.

Long story short they are a difficult army to play, and incredibly rewarding, but to win with them takes a lot of practice and mastery of not only the rules but also of the unit synergies.

Maelstrom808 wrote:Worst fifth edition codex? Yes...yes it is. Is it a bad codex? No, not really. It's not nearly as good as it could/should be due to a few factors, but there is still a lot of life in the dex.

Nids aren't bad, but they are definitely the worst 5th ed codex by far.

yermom wrote:Tyranids are a fine army, their only real problem is that they pretty much auto lose to dark eldar. Another problem is that there are a lot of terrible choices in the book, lictors, pyrovores, rippers etc... There are only a handful of good units, and the army relies on them to carry it.

The thing I enjoy about tyranids is that they are a tactical army much more than a beat stick. They rely more heavily on unit synergies than any other army in 40k and require patience and understanding to work. I'd put the current tyranid book at around the same place in power level as vanilla marines, chaos marines, eldar, demons, tau, sisters of battle, dark angels and orks. To beat any of the other armies (blood angels, guard, dark eldar, space wolves, black templars and grey knights) you have to play better than your opponent.

Another requirement for tyranids is to completely and utterly understand how the assualt phase works ad the intricacies of the movements ad placements within the phase. Tyranids are an assualt army without grenades and must rely on well placed assualts and multi charges to win the battle. If you don't know this section of the rules thoroughly and know how to utilize these rules properly you will lose.

Tyranids are actually my favorite army to play, because they are actually incredibly versatile and can deal with almost all situations in different ways. I would certainly have no issues with bringing them to any GT if it wasn't for dark eldar, which admitedly is pretty much an auto loss. In fact I still bring them to GT's a lot of the time and they perform quite well.

Long story short they are a difficult army to play, and incredibly rewarding, but to win with them takes a lot of practice and mastery of not only the rules but also of the unit synergies.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, especially with the "how the assault phase works," and I would disagree to a large extent that nids are versatile- most of their units are some of the most specialised in the game especially the stuff that used old models:
Tyrants, swarmlord and fexes do well assaulting small-unit size high-value targets with no invul save i.e. vehicles that didn't move. Against any sizeable unit, they have few enough attacks that they'll get mathhammered to death, especially against a squad that has a sgt with power weapon.

Gaunts of all sizes are probably the most fragile unit in the game, though they can do reasonable amounts of damage against GEQ, or MEQ if there's enough of them.

Zoanthropes do reasonably well against vehicles once in range (though any single warp lance has about a 20% chance (92% chance to pass psychic test, 3+ to hit, 3+ to pen, 4+ to wreck/explode) of wrecking a vehicle with 12 or higher armor (which honestly is somewhat gakky for something that almost always only gets one shot)

Lictors are useless, pyrovores are useless, the doom, aside from being got hit hard by our FAQ.

Venomthropes just scream "Shoot me" for the one turn it takes to kill them. Lictors are still lictors, and now they can't assault when they pop out and say boo.

Ymgarls are decent enough if they manage to ambush the right target, but can't be counted on to reach a second one or kill literally anything with good armor and an invul save (despite being an elite close combat unit that can't take any hits back).

Warriors, especially LW+BS warriors, hit hard and have the attacks to make it work, but multi-wound T4 4+ save models just beg to be shot with S8+ weapons, especially templates.

Regular stealers, more than anything else in the dex and possibly in the hobby, took the loss of sweeping advance and the rending nerf terribly, terribly hard. Rippers are still rippers.

Raveners: see Warriors, but add a complete dependence on synapse now due to Ld6. Gargoyles may just be victims of my prejudice against them due to their previous embarrassingly high $/model cost. I have yet to play a 5th ed game in which anything the biovores could hurt starts on the table.

Now, I know the solution many of you will offer is simply "buy the new models." As I explained above, while adding good new gak is fine, and at times even good, essentially forcing me to replace most/all of my army is the type of bs you SHOULD NOT just accept from GW. Rules updates/book changes should force you to adapt your playstyle, not purchase an entire new army.

I gotta agree with the Texan Tyrant here. I have played against him for the last 2 years with like 4 different codices (old GK, new GK, SM, CSM) and fought him alongside others in Apoc games (IG, Eldar, old Necrons), and the tyranids seem to be rather limited unless one buys into a whole slew of new monstrous creatures. And even then you run into their astonishing lack of Invul saves. Vulkan and his squad for instance, dropped a Trigon, a Mawloc, and a winged Hive Tyrant (different nid player) in 3 SUCCESSIVE turns.

I think that part of the issue with how people view the 5th edition tyranid book has a lot to do with the tournament metagame for most of 5th edition.


First off, I do think that the tyranid book has a few problem.

Close combat with tanks is generally a poor choice. Hard to hit tanks moving fast, and the troops inside can shoot you.
All of the anti-tank shooting is in the same FOC [elite], with a secondary option in the heavy support slots
If you are playing with reserves, you need everything to come in in the right order, so your build can only work if you are very lucky.
T4 with no eternal warrior is prone to instant death, either from Melta/missles, or your PF will generate a ton of combat resolution.
Lack of grenades on non-durable assault units (stealers and hormagaunts mostly)
Standby units of the previous codex were a bit nerfed (mostly Carnifexes, but a unit of MC's was something new, and they were afraid of it being op)



Secondly, The 5th edition metagame in tournaments is often based not around winning games, BUT tabling opponents.

For much of 5th edition the competitive standard was a 3-4 round tournament with battle points. If you wanted to win a tournament, you had to get full battle points against 3 other opponents. Usually this meant you had to table or deal severe damage to the enemy, while taking minimal casualties in return.

Tyranids will win games, but they will not stomp faces while taking minimal damage. Many of their strategies are attrition based. Throw enough stuff at the problem that is goes away, even if you do loose a bunch of stuff. In the end you will come out on top, as you have more stuff, and maybe even get more stuff as the game goes on. They also have some of the best ability to hold objectives int he game with Troop T6 W6 MC's that spit out more troops units.

However, at the end of the day, the enemy probably will have some tanks left and will not get full battle points.


[NOTE: this is changing as many of the larger and more prestigious events have moved to a straight W/L system, which will give an increased edge to a codex like tyranids who can win but won't get big wins all the time]

1kSons are the very last Cult troop I want to face in CC with Stealers. Stealers rely heavily on Rending which that nice 4++ is quite handy against . The sorcerer can ID the BL or Gift another Stealer.

Stealers are good but their low number of Attacks per model and a heavy reliance on the luck of Rending often mean that once the brood drops below seven models their kill rate falls off markedly. Meanwhile the Brood is usually losing models little by little to the enemy.

I've stopped being surprised by anything killing Tyranids in assault these days. I am increasingly frustrated to find myself charging a target out in the open with twenty-six TSac Hormagaunts only to remove half the unit to combat casualties then take of the other half either because I'm not in Synapse (and just run away) or am in Synapse (and just explode).

The Tyranid Codex was badly written and doesn't fit into 5th Edition very well either.

That was the main point to our discussion, a whole lot of people have been knocking me for saying T-Sons are good in cc but the 3+/4++ and stats of MEQ are very underestimated. And then a force weapon build into the squad along with a psychic power is deadly.

they certainly have a lot against them. Genesteelers can look scary to new players but once they realize they can't have offensive grenades they become much less threatening. Any unit in area terain that can shoot for a turn will ussually cripple genestealers.

Does it bug anyone else that GW makes a dificult terrain rule (if no offensive grenades then strike at initiative 1), but every marine comes standard with grenades so the rule is flat ignored half the time.
creating situations where dedicated assaulters like stealers may choke against a random marine squad in cover.

Regular stealers, more than anything else in the dex and possibly in the hobby, took the loss of sweeping advance and the rending nerf terribly, terribly hard.

Not in my opinion, sweeping only occurred in lucky instances in 4ed. And the change to rending was countered with a drop in price, bundling of infiltrate and addition of toxin sacs as an option to make them as potent as before (at least against non-vehicles).

Stealers were mostly nerfed by the addition of defenders react and wound allocation. No longer able to clip units, kill exactly what they needed in order to stay in combat and take almost no casualties after they struck was what really turned them from a cc power house in 4ed to a has been in 5ed. The removal of flesh hooks and a 4+ save just really sealed it.

But that isn't the end of the discussion. Stealers are still quite good if used right. Small squads outflanking are still good at grabbing objectives or taking on demeched msu units. Large squads (new in 5ed) are great shock troops, with feel no pain from a tervigon are quite good at storming units in terrain or multi charging mech parking lots.

What seems to be bugging you is the required change in how you play your army and what you use in it. I can relate and sympathize but Tyranids are not the only army to have this issue.

Ixidor13 wrote:That was the main point to our discussion, a whole lot of people have been knocking me for saying T-Sons are good in cc but the 3+/4++ and stats of MEQ are very underestimated. And then a force weapon build into the squad along with a psychic power is deadly.

I think it is partly because people focus mainly on killing power rather than survivability. Killing the enemy before they strike is generally a good way of increasing your survivability, too. Simply being able to shrug off power weapons and outlast many opponents isn't considered very sexy unless you are a SS Termie with a huge blatting device. With so many assault troops hitting at I5 or better these days the lower Initiative value isn't as important as it used to be, IMO.

Enemies that rely on a huge pile of dice rather than power weapons will quickly overwhelm them but even then as Fearless MEQ they can take a while to shift.

I offer a descenting opion

Tyranids are great especially in smaller games.

They are great because a lot of players will have a hard time dealing with multi wound models.

I play a mid sized nid list. I take almost no guants, no stealers and no monsterous creatures in 1000 points. list is undefeated.

hive guard are amazing! T6, sooooo mobile cause of assult weapons and 2 squads of 2 is 8 s8 bs4 shots. in the current transport meta, they end transports. (no Line of Sight on those too so i just hide them in unshootable places early)

sittin with those 4 hive guard are 4 biovores (2 aquads) coming in at 180 points thats 4 pie plates a turn.

Then you focus fire try to pop a transport then pie plate the guys in it... rinse...repeat.

thats only 380 points. trust me its great

2 units of 3 warriors another 180 points. bare bones this guys are jsut great at life! WS5 W3 S4 T4 whats not to love!

drop those hive tyrants in small games, save em for the big ones! Primes are WS6 BS4 S5 T5 and a 3+ save for 80 points, give him boneswords and ID multi wounds.

thats 650 points. what have you gotten 2 elites 2 heavy supports, and HQ and 2 troops! light tanks handled! mobs handled! synaps handled!

750 points take the doom! done!

or whatever you want.

I have play tested this list vs Eldar, jetbike eldar, space wolfs, vannilla marines, and tau! I have won them all!

So maybe carnifexs arnt as good, maybe i can't just have my hive tyrant walk through an army.

But i started playing nids in 5th, and I really like them!

Now i have never played a game vs dark eldar so i can not speak on that.

"I think it is partly because people focus mainly on killing power rather than survivability. Killing the enemy before they strike is generally a good way of increasing your survivability, too."

I think this is a good point and why I love the AP3 shots. I don't need to get the assault off if I can kill enough before the assault.

Ixidor13 wrote:

"I think it is partly because people focus mainly on killing power rather than survivability. Killing the enemy before they strike is generally a good way of increasing your survivability, too."

I think this is a good point and why I love the AP3 shots. I don't need to get the assault off if I can kill enough before the assault.

1k sons are actualy quite fragile for their points cost. Cover is abundant and against most anti infantry weapons they die just like normal, although very expensive and very useless, marines.
Regarding the nid codex, it definately is the worst of the 5. edition bunch. It has problems with tank heavy lists, it lacks transports and many units appear to be somewhat overcosted for what they do.

Close combat with tanks is generally a poor choice. Hard to hit tanks moving fast, and the troops inside can shoot you.

Thats what twin scything talons are for, a trygon effectively has 12 (14 on the charge) attempts to hit a fast moving vehicle on a 6+, that should average to 2 hits, against anything with rear armor 10 that translates to 2 pens with average dice rolls (which is most fast vehicles you will encounter in this game). The Tyranid army is all about presenting difficult decisions to your opponent. It shouldnt matter if the tank and/or its occupants present a threat to your unit, because they should be forced to choose between targetting several units that present similar levvels of threat to it or to other components of your army. Thats the trick to tyranids in general. Most of the nid players i see around dont grasp the concept that they should be taking large quantities of cheap throwaway units (gaunts/rippers)as well as some "in your face" units (flying/deepstriking/outflanking units) which will most likely die, but will serve to buy the heavy hitters in your army time to arrive. Its the concept of the double-threat, do I destroy these units that are in my face and can put the hurting on me now, or do I destroy those units that are walking across the table and can put the hurt on me later? Armies like Tervigon spam look powerful on paper, which is why everyone flocked to them at the expense of other builds, but tervigon spam builds generally lack the double-threat/two-wave approach that nids need to truly be successful on the tabletop. As the tervigons and their spawnings/other units in the army usually move at pretty much the same speed.

All of the anti-tank shooting is in the same FOC [elite], with a secondary option in the heavy support slots

If you rely on tyranid shooting to pop transports, you're doing it wrong. Sure it can help, but its unreliable. Your main antitank comes from close combat... and relies on the quantity principal rather than quality. A unit of shrikes with adrenal glands and rending claws might not look like an effective armor-cracker... but then you realize that they a handful of them can put out a bucketload and can be reliably depended upon to make a mockery of armor 10. The other issue is that most nid players dont seem to support their army... just using a unit of shrikes will result in your opponent bailing out of a destroyed vehicle and shooting you up the next turn... thats why you have a large unit of gaunts keeping pace with them to help surround the vehicle and prevent emergency disembarkation.

f you are playing with reserves, you need everything to come in in the right order, so your build can only work if you are very lucky.

Redundancy and a back-up plan are key to any army, this need not be said. If you're relying on things arriving in a certain order without a contingency then its your own fault, not the armies.

T4 with no eternal warrior is prone to instant death, either from Melta/missles, or your PF will generate a ton of combat resolution.

This i agree with, it makes units like warriors and shrikes much more difficult to play, but if you take the two-wave approach, the time spent destroying your shrikes is time given to other components to do the trick instead. You also have to be aggressive with your play, if taking dangerous terrain checks is the difference between being in charge range/cover or not then damnit take the dangerous terrain checks... you either have the numbers or multiple wounds so you just dont give a damn....

Lack of grenades on non-durable assault units (stealers and hormagaunts mostly)

Yeah, this one kinda hurts, you have to be tricky and abuse the rules a bit with your positioning/your opponents to try to avoid it. Another effective tactic is to multicharge, use a bait unit (usually a below strength one or a monstrous creature) to force an enemy unit sufficiently out of cover using pile in to your advantage, then hit it with a second unit that doesn't have to deal with the terrain.

Standby units of the previous codex were a bit nerfed (mostly Carnifexes, but a unit of MC's was something new, and they were afraid of it being op)

err... tomb spyders in the old necrons book?

For much of 5th edition the competitive standard was a 3-4 round tournament with battle points. If you wanted to win a tournament, you had to get full battle points against 3 other opponents. Usually this meant you had to table or deal severe damage to the enemy, while taking minimal casualties in return.

This isnt the tyranids fault though, this is the tournament organizers fault for implementing a poor scoring system that rewards this sort of play/behavior. If more people give their tournament organizers feedback as to the issues that their scoring causes, this will become less of an issue with time. My local tournament organizers scoring has improved as of late as players have been giving more and more feedback to them because of poorly thought out, etc. systems that rewarded some players/armies more than others or led to multiple way draws, or had the potential to disqualify players entirely from the running just because they had a poor showing in one game.

Tyranids will win games, but they will not stomp faces while taking minimal damage. Many of their strategies are attrition based.

Very true. Tyranids need to play aggressively, trying to maneuver to preserve your units at the expense of hitting the enemy is a surefire way to a loss. Want cover saves? Take a ridiculous number of models and use them to provide cover saves to yourself. Your small things (gaunts/stealers, etc.) should be providing cover to your medium things (warriors/lictors/shrikes/biovores/pyrovores/venomthropes, etc.) should be providing cover to your big things(carnifexes/tyrants/trygons, etc.). Its like "trickle down cover" (or is it trickle up?).

Tyranids aren't weak because of the codex so much as they are weak because nobody knows how to play them correctly. People think Cruddance delivered a codex where a majority of the units are unusable, I say using those 'unusable' units are key to playing a more effective game.

"1k sons are actualy quite fragile for their points cost. Cover is abundant and against most anti infantry weapons they die just like normal, although very expensive and very useless, marines. "

Very true, this is what Rhinos are for All I have to do is drive them close and shred stuff.

Ixidor13 wrote:

"1k sons are actualy quite fragile for their points cost. Cover is abundant and against most anti infantry weapons they die just like normal, although very expensive and very useless, marines. "

Very true, this is what Rhinos are for All I have to do is drive them close and shred stuff.

Around 320 ( exact amount depends of upgrades ) points for a boltermarinesquad with rhino is stupendously expensive.
For the same cost you can by two fully equiped msu csm squads which will do much more for you than the rubric squad could ever hope to do.
Seriously, ap3 bolters and 4+ invulsaves for non cc troops got old when 5. edition introduced abundant 4+ cover and cheap transports. Having no access to special or even heavy weapons has always
been sucky. You can use the squad as some kind of slow and realy inefficient tarpit but, at that price, you are effectively hurting yourself.

IMO, you shouldnt take a rhino with your 1ksons. They have the ability to move and still hit out to 24". Capping objectives on the other side of the table becomes somewhat problematic, but holding your own objectives while contesting the enemies often works just as well.

"IMO, you shouldnt take a rhino with your 1ksons. They have the ability to move and still hit out to 24". Capping objectives on the other side of the table becomes somewhat problematic, but holding your own objectives while contesting the enemies often works just as well."

Now that I hadn't thought of.. Good point

Matty! wrote:
It looks like he just had some bad luck with his stealers, as they should shred everything they come into contact with.

I have got to agree with this, I've had 'stealers charge Abbadon and an accompanying squad of plague marines, after one round of combat i had cleared the plague marines and leave 3 wounds on Abbadon himself. It all all comes down to the rolls IMHO

I think the weakest codex right now is the Tau and Sisters. However the tyrannid does have an inherent problem right now.
It is called Space Wolves. The old tyrannid lists depended on a bunch of 2+ save carnifexes. The new codex is rife with a lot of T6 Sv 3+ creatures with multiple wounds. Sounds awesome but then think about it, a base carnifex runs @ 160 points. A SW player can take a long fang unit with 5 missile launchers for @ 140 points. Not good. Then add to it JOTW and suddenly your T6 I2 large creatures don't sound so wonderful. Now add to it the 5th ed - through rules and codex costs - has put a premium on transports and suddenly the tyrannid is left with needing something to crack open the cans before it can get at any of the troops inside and the tyrannid has only MCs (overpriced) and some few units that are highly overpriced (tyrannofex) or limited by psychic hoods (zoanthropes) so it has few options.

chaos0xomega wrote:
err... tomb spyders in the old necrons book?

While you could get 3 tomb spiders in a single FOC slot in the old Necron book, they would be deployed as separate units. They could have the scarabs attached to them as well. you could have a muti-model unit, but it would only have one MC in it.

The Carnifex was the first time that a unit could consist of multiple monstrous creatures. I think that the GW Design team was worried that a brood of 3 carifexes with wound allocation tricks would break the game, so they applied a double nerf. Increased the price, and denied wound allocation, and it ended up going a little too far in the other direction.

It sounds like most of the complaints about Tyranids are players who haven't adjusted well to 5th edition - there are a lot of good new units to choose from and the army plays differently now.

I have to disagree that kSons are an effective counter to genestealers in close combat. Sure the 4++ save is handy but versus a potent genestealer brood they should still get rocked hard. Take for example 10 genestealers with toxin sacs and a Broodlord charging 10 kSons with a Sorcerer.

The Broodlord should be placed in base contact with the Sorcerer and cast Hypnotic Gaze - the odds are in favor of the Tyranids that the Sorcerer can't do anything this turn.

I7 step:
Broodlord - 5A - 4 hit - 3 wound (maybe one rend)
^ One dead kSon

I6 step:
9 genestealers - 27 attacks - 18 hit - 13 wound (2 rends)
^ Five more dead kSons (6 total and one of which could be the Sorcerer)

I4 step:
3-4 kSons - 3 attacks - 2 hit - 1 wound (taken on the Broodlord)

The next round of combat will see the genestealers destroy the kSons. The 4++ save is not that great versus the weight of attacks.

The 4++ save doesn't even come in to play vs most assault troops. Its a very weak power on standard troops who already have a 3+. Sure, they can survive a plasma cannon shot just as good as any other marine squad in cover. Compared to plague marines with FNP and T5 there isn't any point to taking 1ksons. Melta/plasma plagues are better on offense and defense, and are cheaper.

I think nids are pretty terrible, and are the worst 5th edition codex. I dont think though, that stealers losing to 1ksons in combat is a good argument for this, as thats a strange outlier and not what would normally happen.

DAaddict wrote:I think the weakest codex right now is the Tau and Sisters. However the tyrannid does have an inherent problem right now.
It is called Space Wolves. The old tyrannid lists depended on a bunch of 2+ save carnifexes. The new codex is rife with a lot of T6 Sv 3+ creatures with multiple wounds. Sounds awesome but then think about it, a base carnifex runs @ 160 points. A SW player can take a long fang unit with 5 missile launchers for @ 140 points. Not good. Then add to it JOTW and suddenly your T6 I2 large creatures don't sound so wonderful. Now add to it the 5th ed - through rules and codex costs - has put a premium on transports and suddenly the tyrannid is left with needing something to crack open the cans before it can get at any of the troops inside and the tyrannid has only MCs (overpriced) and some few units that are highly overpriced (tyrannofex) or limited by psychic hoods (zoanthropes) so it has few option

I think the design flaw is dark eldar actually, the entire army can wound any of our monstrous creatures on a 4+, essentially, to a dark eldar player, engaging a carnifex or trygon is like engaging a unit of marines... Long fang spam itself is not much to worry about, intelligent play and taking a unit like say ymgarl stealers that can pop up right next to and then assault said unit before they have a chance to counter make them more of a liability to the space wolf player than to a tyranid player.

The Carnifex was the first time that a unit could consist of multiple monstrous creatures. I think that the GW Design team was worried that a brood of 3 carifexes with wound allocation tricks would break the game, so they applied a double nerf. Increased the price, and denied wound allocation, and it ended up going a little too far in the other direction.

A little is an understatement >.> to be fair, they aren't totally broken, if you take between 4 (if in one unit) and 9 of them (usually 6 is what i would consider the 'break even') they actually become somewhat survivable oddly enough, but thats a lot of points invested into your heavy support section, and the average player wont have the points to do it in the average game and still have a viable army in the other slots...

To all the people who think it isn't the worst 5th ed codex, which do you think is? Space wolves, Grey knights, dark elder, blood angels? It seems pretty clear to me of all the codices to come out in 5th ed nids are the worst. You might be able to make the case for necrons, but i think nids are worse.

Just because you can't design an EZ Win army doesn't mean that you can't design a competitive army. Tyranids can do well but it requires a good player that understands the codex and how to synergize various units.

-666- wrote:Just because you can't design an EZ Win army doesn't mean that you can't design a competitive army. Tyranids can do well but it requires a good player that understands the codex and how to synergize various units.

Please share with us this GT winning nid list, that nobody has discovered yet.

One of the worst? Absolutely.

The worst? I don't know that I'd say that.

Eidolon wrote:

-666- wrote:Just because you can't design an EZ Win army doesn't mean that you can't design a competitive army. Tyranids can do well but it requires a good player that understands the codex and how to synergize various units.

Please share with us this GT winning nid list, that nobody has discovered yet.

IIRC a genestealer infiltrate spam list and a gargoyle based speed list got very far a while ago when leafblower guard were popular, and won to the "get a free army" point.

anyways, thousand suns can be rough for badly equipped stealers, since they have an invulnerable.
stealers need toxin sacs, the rerolls to wound = many more rends = tons of dead dudes, unless they have a 3+ invulnerable But they generally do shred everything they touch.

GK purifier spam is about the only list that really brings the thunder to them, otherwise they can do pretty decently against most things. But they do require a ton of synergy, and many list really need the first turn to get FNP walls up.

Jay from Duh Boyz made it to the semifinals last year at Adepticon but I don't know what his list was.

My first problem with the 5th nid codex the 4th 'nid codex in many ways still plays better under 5th.

Something a lot of people did not like about the new codex was how it pretty much shelved entire armies. I know all new codex require tweaking and changing, but I don't think any of rest did such a through job of obsoleting previous codex units. GK shelved Inquistors, but the trade-off was jacking up the existing GK to scary tough level. Nid's just got nerfed and you have to buy new models just to stay on the field, and then those models were not available for 2+ years.

The other problem is the "accepted" builds have hard counters becuase they get played to much like IG or Ork or Vanilla Marines. 'Nid and Tau are probably the most unique yet similar army concepts in the game. Both require a level of unit interplay that is very hard to get a good handle on. For Tau it is marklighting and assault denial to maximize shooting, for the 'Nids it is Synapes control and assault coordination to make enemy fire ineffective or miss targeted. Both armies require a level of detail attention way beyond the current big 4.

You got it bar,

my real problem with the bugs codex is it has SO MANY fun mechanics, that just don't work because they are worded wrong, or just plain stupid.

In an hour I could make the codex better, more playable, and fair for all army types, with a few misc tweaks and making stuff like lictors, pyrovores, trygon tunnels, mawlocks, and more, actually work as what seems to be intended but FAQ'd away.

They are indeed the worst 5th ed codex from what I've seen.

barnowl wrote: Both armies require a level of detail attention way beyond the current big 4.

I play nids and grey knights, and dont feel that the nids require anymore attention to detail to win than the grey knights. What they do lack are redundant tools to win, and that hurts them.

What they do lack are redundant tools to win

Please elaborate. I can build redundant lists without spamming identical units. What they lack is reliable ranged redundant AT.

and dont feel that the nids require anymore attention to detail to win than the grey knights

I find my SM lists almost play themselves, are much more forgiving in that I can come back after mistakes, and that Nids are quite the opposite.
Now that could be attributed to the type of list I use - a mix of reserve and on table broods.

I have found 5ed Tyranids are unforgiving as an army - any mistake can really end up costing you. I don't find redundancy to be a big problem. Definitely in a close game you need some good dice but that can be said about other armies as well.

With my bugs, I solve the issue by just piling on and accepting that some armies will have a good chance at trouncing me.

ex, "supprise c*ckf*gs* speed bugs:
winged HT w/ reserve manipulation or Parasite of mortrax
60-90 gargoyles, full upgrades
1 unit yargarbl stealers
2 units hive guard
several units genestealers usually outflanking, sometimes infiltrating
sometimes a tervi for objective sitters and FNP on gargs

If the bugs get first turn, you basically get one shooting phase before your entire army is in CC, if you deploy where stealers can hide out of LOS, you may even get first turn assaulted. Yes, you'll lose tons of bugs to exploding transports and such, but the trick here is the game should be well decided by turn 3, and unlike horde armies like orks its a 150+ model super-fast list and most people dont bring anywhere near enough close ranged anti-horde to deal with it.

I dont really like TMC's, but with clever use of synapse so that assaults become multiassults with only some fearless units, to avoid too many no retreat wounds, you can bring the pain with the little bugs. But it always an uphill battle, any army can table you given enough time, your job is to make sure he has none

I dunno Grundz, I dont see how you seriously expect to handle mech meta with that list without TMCs... I mean, you're basically relying on rending and the Hive Guard. The rending is unreliable to say the eleast, and the Hive Guard are a HUGE target (and fragile).

I would say the worst fith ed codex is currently Grey Knights. Likely the first worst 6th ed codex will be Chaos or Dark Angels (if the rumours are true). Why? The hate. The amount of rolled eyes and assumptions that "X plays Grey Knights therefore X is a douchebag" is horrendous, not to mention the constant moaning on certain forums.

As for worst codex gamewise, I think it could well belong to Sisters, if not 'Nids. Sisters didn't even get a proper codex, just a WD codex.

liquidjoshi wrote:As for worst codex gamewise, I think it could well belong to Sisters, if not 'Nids. Sisters didn't even get a proper codex, just a WD codex.

Have you actually played with or against the new Sisters? They are far from the worst competitively/gamewise. In fact, the sisters provide a pretty nasty counter to mech 3+/2+ armies.

chaos0xomega wrote:I dunno Grundz, I dont see how you seriously expect to handle mech meta with that list without TMCs... I mean, you're basically relying on rending and the Hive Guard. The rending is unreliable to say the eleast, and the Hive Guard are a HUGE target (and fragile).

on the charge, all small bugs can glance down vehicles, (which then causes the contents to automatically die when they can't be placed) it isn't the best solution, but i've had it work pretty well. on one such occasion I had units of stealers first turn assault, stun and shake a good portion of a parking lot, then on turn 2 the yargarbles popped out, everything was surrounded by gargoyles, and the game was over.
Its not the best solution probably overall but I've found it has worked well for me in my land-raider-lacking local meta. Most mech lists are rhino/razorback/chimera based and I haven't had a /huge/ issue with them, it requires luck for sure, but I haven't seen anyone that could reliably deal with 60-90 T3 4/5+ cover and FNP's gargs in the 1-2 shooting phases they get.

"I would say the worst fith ed codex is currently Grey Knights. Likely the first worst 6th ed codex will be Chaos or Dark Angels (if the rumours are true). Why? The hate. The amount of rolled eyes and assumptions that "X plays Grey Knights therefore X is a douchebag" is horrendous, not to mention the constant moaning on certain forums."

I really hope the new Chaos dex doesn't pick up this stigma. That would really gak in my cornflakes.

In terms of using TMCs in conjunction with hordes, I don't think it would work. The issue is that when you try to mix them, it is easy to pop the TMCs and then there isn't enough horde to do anything. I think you'd have to go nidzilla or total horde or some sort of crazy to be anywhere near consistent. But then Tyranids have next to no invul saves and many of the TMCs are vulnerable to instant death. Without survivability, they're just big targets IMHO

pretre wrote:

liquidjoshi wrote:As for worst codex gamewise, I think it could well belong to Sisters, if not 'Nids. Sisters didn't even get a proper codex, just a WD codex.

Have you actually played with or against the new Sisters? They are far from the worst competitively/gamewise. In fact, the sisters provide a pretty nasty counter to mech 3+/2+ armies.

Actually, I was only going on what others have said about the codex. I heard the word "nerf" a lot when talking about them. This is only my local area though, I must admit I do not know how they fare in the current meta.

Grundz wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:I dunno Grundz, I dont see how you seriously expect to handle mech meta with that list without TMCs... I mean, you're basically relying on rending and the Hive Guard. The rending is unreliable to say the eleast, and the Hive Guard are a HUGE target (and fragile).

on the charge, all small bugs can glance down vehicles, (which then causes the contents to automatically die when they can't be placed) it isn't the best solution, but i've had it work pretty well. on one such occasion I had units of stealers first turn assault, stun and shake a good portion of a parking lot, then on turn 2 the yargarbles popped out, everything was surrounded by gargoyles, and the game was over.
Its not the best solution probably overall but I've found it has worked well for me in my land-raider-lacking local meta. Most mech lists are rhino/razorback/chimera based and I haven't had a /huge/ issue with them, it requires luck for sure, but I haven't seen anyone that could reliably deal with 60-90 T3 4/5+ cover and FNP's gargs in the 1-2 shooting phases they get.

You mean, all small bugs with adrenal glands are capable of glancing vehicles with AV10, and what with the -2 modifier on the damage chart from glancing, are incapable of destroying it without immobilising it and destroying every weapon. "Small bugs" almost always means gaunts. A good many armies, especially the more popular ones, have ways to minimize or even ignore the impact of stunned/shaken, making 2/3 of your glancing hits useless.

I run a list a bit like Grundz as well. Gargs will immobilize some vehicles in numbers and sometimes even destroy them with enough glances. I don't use ninety though. I do mix MCs into my list - Trygons.

PoM
Gargs
Shrikes
Syyslashers ( really - toxic ones)

Then
Broodlord Stealers ( two squads )
Horms
Tunneling Rippers (really - toxic ones)

And finally
Zoans
DoM
Trygons - a pair

The list attacks on three fronts. I generally get to grips turn two/three with eighty-ninety percent of my army. I use every trick - DS, infiltrate, outflank. Sometimes I eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats me.

Grundz wrote:With my bugs, I solve the issue by just piling on and accepting that some armies will have a good chance at trouncing me.

ex, "supprise c*ckf*gs* speed bugs:
winged HT w/ reserve manipulation or Parasite of mortrax
60-90 gargoyles, full upgrades
1 unit yargarbl stealers
2 units hive guard
several units genestealers usually outflanking, sometimes infiltrating
sometimes a tervi for objective sitters and FNP on gargs

If the bugs get first turn, you basically get one shooting phase before your entire army is in CC, if you deploy where stealers can hide out of LOS, you may even get first turn assaulted. Yes, you'll lose tons of bugs to exploding transports and such, but the trick here is the game should be well decided by turn 3, and unlike horde armies like orks its a 150+ model super-fast list and most people dont bring anywhere near enough close ranged anti-horde to deal with it.

I dont really like TMC's, but with clever use of synapse so that assaults become multiassults with only some fearless units, to avoid too many no retreat wounds, you can bring the pain with the little bugs. But it always an uphill battle, any army can table you given enough time, your job is to make sure he has none

My Eldar really hate Tyranid armies, I usually just don't have enough things to shoot with against them before they go all om nom nom in my face, and then I get these flashes of inspiration "Well if I can't shoot them I probably oughta assault them before they assault me!" which is ok/great with scorpions, but definitely not with Dire Avengers. It's probably how I build my army but I just can't deal with all the models most nid players I play with take.

The only times I've won against Tyranids was when I was able to castle up and force them to come to me in KP(Wave Serpents back row, Dire avengers full squads out with exarch/pw+ss, scorpion squads in front of dire avengers with a exarch with biting blade, I pee in my pants a little when I have to play an objectives game against them

liquidjoshi wrote:I would say the worst fith ed codex is currently Grey Knights. Likely the first worst 6th ed codex will be Chaos or Dark Angels (if the rumours are true). Why? The hate. The amount of rolled eyes and assumptions that "X plays Grey Knights therefore X is a douchebag" is horrendous, not to mention the constant moaning on certain forums.

As for worst codex gamewise, I think it could well belong to Sisters, if not 'Nids. Sisters didn't even get a proper codex, just a WD codex.

As far as being a codex, its pretty bad/sucks that its in a magazine, but on my very first game against Grey Knights I completely wiped their army off the table. In one round with two squads I had killed an entire paladin squad because they could not handle all of the melta gun shots and exorcist missiles I rammed down their throats. Sisters did for me in one game what I couldn't do in 5 games with my Eldar. They are extremely nasty; but I suppose it may well become predictable in the future, then again I have yet to meet a single sisters of battle army player.

Exactly that. Sisters tend to be a good counter to GK.

Please elaborate. I can build redundant lists without spamming identical units. What they lack is reliable ranged redundant AT.

Yeah, redundant tools to win, like ranged anti tank. which is utterly essential in todays meta to ensure you can get some kind of map control going on.

I find my SM lists almost play themselves, are much more forgiving in that I can come back after mistakes, and that Nids are quite the opposite.
Now that could be attributed to the type of list I use - a mix of reserve and on table broods.

That kind of nid list seems pretty bad, and yeah, that would be a lot less forgiving, but because the poor list design results in increasing vulnerability to bad dice.

Comparing say, my coteaz list to my nids, I dont feel that the nids require more complex strategies or tactics to win with, What I do find is that they lack the tools to win every game, and so you rely on your opponent not having the same level of tactical ability you do. However, once you hit that point where you are playing to your best, theres only so much you can do to overcome the limitations of the army. Gk, not being as limited, can let someone use a lot more of their tactical ability than nids, which are severely handicapped.

Our local Nid player has just won two 1000pt Tournaments in a row. He has a 21 win streak and 2 draws. He has just started nids after Grey Knights and these are all the games he has played. His list is:

Tervigon HQ
Tervigon Troop
Termagants
2x 2 Hive Guard
Trygon

Everything is surrounded by Gants so you must charge them and if you shoot anything else it gets a cover save. Similar to the Nid player I run a 1000pt army w/ 2 Princes, 10 1k Sons in Rhinos and 2 Vindicators. Everything got cover from the Vindicators, the Princes got tarpitted and the Trygon ran through all my Sons.

Eidolon wrote:

Please elaborate. I can build redundant lists without spamming identical units. What they lack is reliable ranged redundant AT.

Yeah, redundant tools to win, like ranged anti tank. which is utterly essential in todays meta to ensure you can get some kind of map control going on.

I find my SM lists almost play themselves, are much more forgiving in that I can come back after mistakes, and that Nids are quite the opposite.
Now that could be attributed to the type of list I use - a mix of reserve and on table broods.

That kind of nid list seems pretty bad, and yeah, that would be a lot less forgiving, but because the poor list design results in increasing vulnerability to bad dice.

Comparing say, my coteaz list to my nids, I dont feel that the nids require more complex strategies or tactics to win with, What I do find is that they lack the tools to win every game, and so you rely on your opponent not having the same level of tactical ability you do. However, once you hit that point where you are playing to your best, theres only so much you can do to overcome the limitations of the army. Gk, not being as limited, can let someone use a lot more of their tactical ability than nids, which are severely handicapped.

I wholeheartedly agree. The tyrannids are very playable but they really suffer on the anti-tank front. For instance I ran a tyrannid versus a deathwing yesterday. I doggedly wanted to play an "old" tyrannid list. 2 T Primes, 6 T warriors, 20 hormagaunts, 30 spinequants, 2 Tervigons and 3 carnifexes...
I ran the fexes as a squadron and hit it with catalyst every turn from the tervigon to get some survivability. My tervigons procreated greatly producing over 50 gaunts... The tyrannid warriors underwhelmed but the little bugs did a lot of damage. I got rid of 2 vindicators, 17 terminators and Belial. By the end I had 1 carnifex, 2 tervigons and 9 (total) gaunts left standing. He won but if I had to assess the problem it came down to anti-tank and fearless casualties to losing combat. At the end he had ezekiel, 13 termies and 1 vindicator left. It took 3 turns for me to get the fexes into position to drop the vindicators so I had to survive 9 pie plates. So what I am planning is dropping the primes and tyrannid warriors and adding a tervigon and 2 to 4 hive guard.
Hive guard are the one answer bugs have to the hoard but I just don't think 4 or 8 S8 shots are going to make enough difference if I am facing a true mech target like IG or Mechdar.

phantommaster wrote:Our local Nid player has just won two 1000pt Tournaments in a row. He has a 21 win streak and 2 draws. He has just started nids after Grey Knights and these are all the games he has played. His list is:

Tervigon HQ
Tervigon Troop
Termagants
2x 2 Hive Guard
Trygon

Everything is surrounded by Gants so you must charge them and if you shoot anything else it gets a cover save.

Thats not possible. The only things the gaunts give cover to is the Hive Guard - the official models for the Trygon and Tervigons are massive and aren't getting cover from squat.

Also, at low points nids do ok. At higher values (the more common 1500-2000 range) is where the lack of AT really shows.

Hive Guard in of the Tervigons, they are big enough and the Tervigons need not move from out behind a building or wood either. Nobody ever gets past all the Gants to shoot or charge them.

Why move in on him? He has no long ranged firepower, and has to get close.

Texan_tyrant wrote:
You mean, all small bugs with adrenal glands are capable of glancing vehicles with AV10, and what with the -2 modifier on the damage chart from glancing, are incapable of destroying it without immobilising it and destroying every weapon. "Small bugs" almost always means gaunts. A good many armies, especially the more popular ones, have ways to minimize or even ignore the impact of stunned/shaken, making 2/3 of your glancing hits useless.

"oh god I might lose" against some armies isnt really something you worry about with bugs. Nor am I really too concerned about heavy army and GK shaken ignore, why? because the gargoyles arent going to do the most damage, they are there to put a ton of models on the table that you need to deal with (in addition to the genestealers) and both units are very fast, With preferable terrain, you are looking at being assaulted on the first turn by 1-6 squads of genestealers, and then more than likely on the second with 60-90 gargoyles and possibly yargarbles.
If the enemy castles up and keeps moving around the outer layer to only be hit on 6's,, it can be difficult to get the kind of force concentration you need to kill everything, but at most you are getting 2 shooting phases (if you take first turn) to wipe the army out, all those stealers are going to infiltrate to 12-18" away, all the gargoyles are coming straight at you, synapse or not.
Some armies are mismatched against it but most people try to fight this army incorrectly and it costs them. It either wins big, or loses big, and usually very very quickly. In a tourney setting I haven't seen anyone prepared to deal with such a fast horde list, at all.

Grundz wrote:

Texan_tyrant wrote:
You mean, all small bugs with adrenal glands are capable of glancing vehicles with AV10, and what with the -2 modifier on the damage chart from glancing, are incapable of destroying it without immobilising it and destroying every weapon. "Small bugs" almost always means gaunts. A good many armies, especially the more popular ones, have ways to minimize or even ignore the impact of stunned/shaken, making 2/3 of your glancing hits useless.

"oh god I might lose" against some armies isnt really something you worry about with bugs. Nor am I really too concerned about heavy army and GK shaken ignore, why? because the gargoyles arent going to do the most damage, they are there to put a ton of models on the table that you need to deal with (in addition to the genestealers) and both units are very fast, With preferable terrain, you are looking at being assaulted on the first turn by 1-6 squads of genestealers, and then more than likely on the second with 60-90 gargoyles and possibly yargarbles.
If the enemy castles up and keeps moving around the outer layer to only be hit on 6's,, it can be difficult to get the kind of force concentration you need to kill everything, but at most you are getting 2 shooting phases (if you take first turn) to wipe the army out, all those stealers are going to infiltrate to 12-18" away, all the gargoyles are coming straight at you, synapse or not.
Some armies are mismatched against it but most people try to fight this army incorrectly and it costs them. It either wins big, or loses big, and usually very very quickly. In a tourney setting I haven't seen anyone prepared to deal with such a fast horde list, at all.

Alright, I used to think I knew most of the nid units, but, please explain to me what the hell a yargarble is. I'm assuming it's assault-y? Like some sort of super genestealer? Or a combat-built warrior?

phantommaster wrote:Hive Guard in of the Tervigons, they are big enough and the Tervigons need not move from out behind a building or wood either. Nobody ever gets past all the Gants to shoot or charge them.

Hive guard aren't any bigger than a Warrior, and a Warrior only comes to the head of the Tervigon model.
The back is twice as high as a Carnifex.

Hiding behind a building or a bunch of trees is one thing. But getting cover from gaunts and Hive Guard is impossible.

Plus, as was said, why close? A 24" range on the Hive Guard... And other than that you have no shooting.
That's not scary enough for me to care too much.
You have to close, and if the big scary Tervigons like to hide, they aren't closing.

loota boy wrote:

Alright, I used to think I knew most of the nid units, but, please explain to me what the hell a yargarble is. I'm assuming it's assault-y? Like some sort of super genestealer? Or a combat-built warrior?

lol

they are often unused, big elite genestealers that can chose extra S, T, or A every turn, the good part is they jump out of , and can assault from a peice of terrain when they come into play, basically guarenteeing you get a big unit of super stealers into CC with your whole parking lot on turn 2-3

Grundz wrote:

loota boy wrote:

Alright, I used to think I knew most of the nid units, but, please explain to me what the hell a yargarble is. I'm assuming it's assault-y? Like some sort of super genestealer? Or a combat-built warrior?

lol

they are often unused, big elite genestealers that can chose extra S, T, or A every turn, the good part is they jump out of , and can assault from a peice of terrain when they come into play, basically guarenteeing you get a big unit of super stealers into CC with your whole parking lot on turn 2-3

Ah. Thank you. How many points are they?

More than 150% of a genestealer - equal to a purifier iirc

Thanks! Sorry for de-railing things right there, back on topic now.

I find my SM lists almost play themselves, are much more forgiving in that I can come back after mistakes, and that Nids are quite the opposite.
Now that could be attributed to the type of list I use - a mix of reserve and on table broods.

That kind of nid list seems pretty bad, and yeah, that would be a lot less forgiving, but because the poor list design results in increasing vulnerability to bad dice.

Really? You are making some assumptions here. A lot of Nid lists start units on the board and have some come in from reserve. Null deployment is not as common as a hubrid list and
starting everything on the table has its own disadvantages too. When you lack long range anti-tank dropping zoans in pods, genestealers, ymgarls and even doom are credible
strategies. But yes the dice play a larger role, so managing your resources properly to minimize that effect is key to success. Other top tier codexes do not have these issues.

I'm not enamoured with four Tervigons, nine HG and three T-fexen. It might be a simpler list to play but it has way too many bad match ups. GK, DE, SW can all do a number on that
list. Even Deamons threaten it. That's why I play a three front army. Fast attackers, infiltraters/outflankers and DSing bombs.

Yrable = Yrmgal

I'm thinking. : )

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/1/23/78174_md-.jpg

For your edification.

-666- wrote:Yrable = Yrmgal

I'm thinking. : )

Close. it's Ymgarl.

And yeah, nids at 1000 with Tervigon spam can be ok. At 1500+ they become not so great. And I agree... that list isn't very scary. There are 4 hive guard and 1 Trygon that are actually scary. Everything else is going to be fun to kill. I don't know why people are having a hard time with "everything surrounded by gants". There is only 1 unit of gants... with the ability to make 2 more units per turn... maybe... at an average size of 10 models per brood... that are wounded on 3+ and get no save from bolters... What armies are people playing that they can't stop 10-man units of gants? That would be truly fun to play in a KP scenario though. Knock out a couple of hive guard on turn one and sit back and wait for the nids to decide they are going to have to cross the board or lose.

-Myst

Yeah, I feel like nids get worse and worse the higher the points get. Other armies just get to take too much armor and transports for them to handle. I dunno, there may be a point where the curve goes back towards the nids where there are just too many to stop.

What do ya'll think?

Not in a normal FoC.

What do you mean? With marines and guard you are able to armor up A LOT of your FoC.

Ixidor13 wrote:What do you mean? With marines and guard you are able to armor up A LOT of your FoC.

Right. In a normal FoC numbers won't swing the advantage back towards Nids.
180 gants, 2 Tervigons, 90 gargs, 9 carnifexes... That's a lot of bodies but at right around 4k points they'd get stomped into the ground.
I'm not saying that's the best 4k list, but it shows that numbers won't win. An equal amount of points will obliterate Nids that high up (unless you allow Gargantuan Creatures... Cause there are some good ones)

Oh okay sorry, now I get it. Yeah, I have only played against them, never played them. I thought there may be a point when the numbers game could win it.

Hmm.. Would TMC spam be effective the higher the points get?

Ixidor13 wrote:Oh okay sorry, now I get it. Yeah, I have only played against them, never played them. I thought there may be a point when the numbers game could win it.

Hmm.. Would TMC spam be effective the higher the points get?

I would have to give a firm no on that one, for a couple of reasons.

1: TMCs are basically the nid answer/equivalent to vehicles. Where many if not most armies can have a vehicle (or more if guard) for pretty much every FO slot in truly high point games, nids are pretty much limited to 8 unless someone is feeling stupid with their FA slots, or somehow thought fex squads were good: 2 HQs, 3 Tervigons in troops, and 3 HS. In higher point games, nids just get out-heavied.

2: Ability to deal with heavy threats (especially at long range) tends to increase above linearly to points cost for most armies. At lower points cost, weapons that can reliably take out vehicles (or TMCs) are often hard to come by, in terms of both pure points and squeezing in that entire extra force O slot. At higher points cost, players can chuck on those upgrade meltas (or similar, you get the point) with abandon. Just a general rule from what I've seen during my years of playing, but smaller games tend to take place at a shorter range, which favors nids in most every case.

While I'm not going to argue they are great, they are capable of some effective builds. A guy I play with frequently runs 3 Tervigons, 3 Trygons, and 9 Hive Guard along with groups of outflanking stealers. I've had some really tough losses against that list. Granted I would rate him as an above average player who really knows his list.

In the end I think Tyranids are the worst 5th ed dex. But far from the worst dex. As has been said many times I would rate Sisters, Tau, CSM, Demons, and possibly Eldar all below the Tyranid dex

Ixidor13 wrote:So yesterday I played with a bunch of friends in a ludicrously fun 2v2v2. I was playing my Thousand Suns cult list and I happened to be facing off against a Genestealer-heavy nid list and I was sort of near a tank heavy (like 6 lemun russ variants and 2 basilisks) IG list. I held off the IG with a pair of vindicators and then had to sustain a whole lot of Genestealers/Umgarls in close combat. Long story short, my Thousand Sons destroyed his 'stealers and my deepstriking Demon Prince gave his Hive Tyrant the Gift of Chaos.

After the game, my buddy went on a rant about how the worst cc cult troops just rolled one of the best cc units in his dex. this went into a discussion about whether his dex was the worst left in 5th ed. Basically his points were thus: the Hive Tyrant is one of the worst HQs in the game, tyranids are horrific against the current transport meta, and they got hit with the nerf bat HARD (see the carnifex/lictor/Hive Tyrant). I'm inclined to agree with him, as our club has 2 nid players (stealer heavy outflank army, and trigon+doom-based deepstrike list) and neither can do better than a draw usually.

So what do ya'll think? Are nids the worst 5th ed dex?

One of the first things that comes to mind, when the question rises: "Is the 5th Tyranid Codex the worst 'dex" is the impact the newer codices has had on these guys. The Codex ITSELF, I do not consider to be THAT horrible! But the 'Nids DOES suffer from being vulnerable to other codices/lists. While they don't offer a 72" twin-linked railgun, they have still got tools at their disposal that makes up for that. The trouble the the 'Nids is wrapping your head around them, and making up for their vulnerabilities with good synergy.

Billinator wrote:making up for their vulnerabilities with good synergy.

I'm beginning to hate that phrase. Maybe because I work in IT and I'm tired of it as a marketing term.

Tyranids are not the only codex where units work together to get more powerful. They seem like the only codex that you *must* work together to become average (compared to the other top codexes). They also seem like the only codex where if you screw up and mis-estimate an assault, don't roll high enough on MTC, fail a few cover saves - you lose. Because of that Synergy, if one unit in the chain dies, the whole thing falls apart. Venomthropes give everyone cover saves, so you need a couple units of them (for redundancy) and when they're wiped out (because they only have a 4+ cover save and 2 un-shenaniganed (tm) wounds each - so 12 wounds to kill the unit which doesn't take much at all - and that's if you're taking 2 units of 3 each) the TMCs are back out in the open and your other units are hugging trees.

Instead of bringing up other examples, I'll just say that I'm annoyed that one of the scary CC units (genestealers) is completely overshadowed by recent codexes.

Synapse is fluffy but hinders as much as it helps.
Tervigons bestowing TS/AG to gant units within range is cool - until the 'gon explodes and kills said gants. With a 3+ save it can be krak missiled to death pretty easily, let alone lascannoned.


Maybe I'm just grouchy today.

rigeld2 wrote:

Ixidor13 wrote:What do you mean? With marines and guard you are able to armor up A LOT of your FoC.

Right. In a normal FoC numbers won't swing the advantage back towards Nids.
180 gants, 2 Tervigons, 90 gargs, 9 carnifexes... That's a lot of bodies but at right around 4k points they'd get stomped into the ground.
I'm not saying that's the best 4k list, but it shows that numbers won't win. An equal amount of points will obliterate Nids that high up (unless you allow Gargantuan Creatures... Cause there are some good ones)

You forgot the 30 ymgral stealers.

I don't know about the worst. Nids just took tourney champion in KingdomCon which is supposed to be a very competitive GT. Maybe it depends on the player and not just the dex?

Cpt Stubbs wrote:I don't know about the worst. Nids just took tourney champion in KingdomCon which is supposed to be a very competitive GT. Maybe it depends on the player and not just the dex?

You're right. It's not *just* the dex.

As I said - if you make a mistake as a Tyranid player, the game just got a LOT tougher.
If you make a mistake using some of the other 5th ed codexes, it's a lot easier to recover.

edit: didn't need to be said, sorry if you saw it.

"As I said - if you make a mistake as a Tyranid player, the game just got a LOT tougher. If you make a mistake using some of the other 5th ed codexes, it's a lot easier to recover."

This is by far their biggest issue. The codex just doesn't have enough viable builds to compete with the newer dexes. Sure you can win and win hard, but you HAVE to outplay your opponent, sure it's not Tau but the requirement is still there. I feel that with some of the newer dexes this is not necessarily the case.

Honestly the 'Nids aint terrible and deffinatly the worst Dex this edition, it just depends on how well the other player is suited up to take on the bugs. i personally think they did get slightly worsened from 4th - 5th but i think some parts of it is still pretty good. They got the Doom of malantai which is a scary bugger against low leadership high number squads, but they have been let down in ways such as a Warrior squad that takes a mycetic spore cannot include a 'Nid prime which is kinda bad in my opinion as it makes no sense why not but all in all i think it can be said to have gotten a little worse but not the definitive worse.

"They got the Doom of malantai which is a scary bugger against low leadership high number squads"

As Texan_Tyrant will tell you, the doom blows in the current meta. Based on the FAQ-hammer, he can no longer affect models in transports. And due to the proliferation of transports, his utility is sharply curbed.

Also too, he is T4 with no Eternal Warrior -_________- So he is an easy target for instakilling weapons.

Tyranids aren't the worst, but they definitely struggle.

Not only are some of our "scary" TMCs hilariously overcosted (160 pts. for a Carnifex, lol), but we can't really even do a hoard list effectively; Stealer Shock fails large numbers of tanks, and Tervigon spam isn't much better.

As said before, we really have to rely on what little synergy we have left after multiple FAQ nerfs; I use Venomthropes personally, with Trygons, Tervigons, and Raveners, but Old Adversary Tyrants can be effective also.

As long as you remember that the Spore Cloud was also nerfed.

Yeah, remind me how that got nerfed? Something about it not counting as dangerous terrain even though it says in the rules that it counts as dangerous terrain?

odorofdeath wrote:Yeah, remind me how that got nerfed? Something about it not counting as dangerous terrain even though it says in the rules that it counts as dangerous terrain?

Models assaulting into the cloud (or a unit in the cloud) still take the dangerous terrain test, but their initiative is not reduced to 1.

"Models assaulting into the cloud (or a unit in the cloud) still take the dangerous terrain test, but their initiative is not reduced to 1."

What a comedy of errors.. I can't wait for the new Chaos dex, but you guys really need one.

My personal thoughts on Nids are that they are just as viable an army as everything else. A lot of it has to do with your list. Are you maximizing your pros and minimizing your cons? How you deploy an army is just as important as what is in it too. Is it fair that a lot of the other armies have stuff thats better in close combat? No, not really. Is it cool that you can upgrade 20 guys and put them in a spore then they pop out and throw 60 shots at a squad? Very. Tell him to try Ymgarl genestealers. They might serve him better than the flanking ones.

Ixidor: Im actually a chaos player originally, I abandoned them after I got fed up with the codex... first I went IG, then tyranids... I fear that soon they'll be the next 5th edition chaos codex.

But yeah, working on getting a thousand sons army together for the next code

But yeah, working on getting a thousand sons army together for the next code

Me too haha! What are you building?

rigeld2 wrote:

odorofdeath wrote:Yeah, remind me how that got nerfed? Something about it not counting as dangerous terrain even though it says in the rules that it counts as dangerous terrain?

Models assaulting into the cloud (or a unit in the cloud) still take the dangerous terrain test, but their initiative is not reduced to 1.

Crud missed that nerf job. Need to read my FAQ again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And the nerf job on the Doom's spirit leech allowing cover saves. ( Can you guess what unit's I have not run in a while?)

The funny thing about the bugs... is they aren't a "RAWR i'm gonna charge at your face and eat it" kind of army... but people play them that way.

1) they need termagaunts
2) they need Tervigons
3) they need Hiveguard
4) Ymgarls are boss
5) trygons are needed

If your list doesn't have things things

Get these things... and you're good.

simply spreading out and charging at someone will lose you games...

frgsinwntr wrote:The funny thing about the bugs... is they aren't a "RAWR i'm gonna charge at your face and eat it" kind of army... but people play them that way.

1) they need termagaunts
2) they need Tervigons
3) they need Hiveguard
4) Ymgarls are boss
5) trygons are needed

If your list doesn't have things things

Get these things... and you're good.

simply spreading out and charging at someone will lose you games...

That is one of the things that bugs me about the 5th ed codex. The army, fluff wise, should be a "RAWR, i'm going to eat your face" type force, but you can't play them like that any more and expect to win a lot.

barnowl wrote:

frgsinwntr wrote:The funny thing about the bugs... is they aren't a "RAWR i'm gonna charge at your face and eat it" kind of army... but people play them that way.

1) they need termagaunts
2) they need Tervigons
3) they need Hiveguard
4) Ymgarls are boss
5) trygons are needed

If your list doesn't have things things

Get these things... and you're good.

simply spreading out and charging at someone will lose you games...

That is one of the things that bugs me about the 5th ed codex. The army, fluff wise, should be a "RAWR, i'm going to eat your face" type force, but you can't play them like that any more and expect to win a lot.

Wasn't the last codex in fact more shooty with carnifexes?

MFletch wrote:

barnowl wrote:

frgsinwntr wrote:The funny thing about the bugs... is they aren't a "RAWR i'm gonna charge at your face and eat it" kind of army... but people play them that way.

1) they need termagaunts
2) they need Tervigons
3) they need Hiveguard
4) Ymgarls are boss
5) trygons are needed

If your list doesn't have things things

Get these things... and you're good.

simply spreading out and charging at someone will lose you games...

That is one of the things that bugs me about the 5th ed codex. The army, fluff wise, should be a "RAWR, i'm going to eat your face" type force, but you can't play them like that any more and expect to win a lot.

Wasn't the last codex in fact more shooty with carnifexes?

Not really. You could run close-combat monsters easily enough. The 12-shot Elite fex was pretty good, but so was the screamer-killer... and the fact that you could actually take MCs with 2+ save is the big difference. Nowdays.... Tyranid Codex is essentially stripped of 2+ saves... meanwhile every new army out there can spam missiles all day long... it's a recipe for disaster.

-Myst

Carnifexen are still better at shooting than combat, amazingly.

Someone above me (on my phone, don't wanna check names) said that tyranids fluff and rules don't match up - that's exactly it. GW doesn't know what the hell nids are, besides space bugs from space who eat everything. They can't do horde, are big bugs are either expensive, bad, or both, and are shooting obviously isn't great.

GW needs to just buckle down and decide what they want for tyranids, because the current mix isn't working.

Ixidor: mostly working on getting some son squads in rhinos right now, with dreadnoughtss and terminators.

rigeld2 wrote:
I'm beginning to hate that phrase. Maybe because I work in IT and I'm tired of it as a marketing term.

Tyranids are not the only codex where units work together to get more powerful. They seem like the only codex that you *must* work together to become average (compared to the other top codexes). They also seem like the only codex where if you screw up and mis-estimate an assault, don't roll high enough on MTC, fail a few cover saves - you lose. Because of that Synergy, if one unit in the chain dies, the whole thing falls apart. Venomthropes give everyone cover saves, so you need a couple units of them (for redundancy) and when they're wiped out (because they only have a 4+ cover save and 2 un-shenaniganed (tm) wounds each - so 12 wounds to kill the unit which doesn't take much at all - and that's if you're taking 2 units of 3 each) the TMCs are back out in the open and your other units are hugging trees.

Instead of bringing up other examples, I'll just say that I'm annoyed that one of the scary CC units (genestealers) is completely overshadowed by recent codexes.

Synapse is fluffy but hinders as much as it helps.
Tervigons bestowing TS/AG to gant units within range is cool - until the 'gon explodes and kills said gants. With a 3+ save it can be krak missiled to death pretty easily, let alone lascannoned.


Maybe I'm just grouchy today.

I didn't say they were the only codex, where units work together to get more powerful. That is pretty self-explanatory. But that's really not the point. The point is that people are too fast to judge them, and label them as a merely useless army. There are isolated examples, where the Tyranids are truly struggling (such as matched against GK, whose natural strengths are ridiculously adapted for taking down 'nids). But besides that, I still find Tyranids capable.

The thing about the Tyranids, as you explain yourself, is that they're far more penalized, when making mistakes (and i do agree). But they're not the first army to suffer from this. Not all armies are crafted in such a way, that you can simply get around it, the first time you open up the given book. But the fact is, that Tyranids wasn't all that horrible, until the GK codex was released, and Tyranid players started pulling hair out of their heads from the horror they watched displayed on the Table.

DE and SW has always - as far as I know - been a tough nut to crack. But people have managed to take them down through blood, sweat and nerdy tears. (Even though GK is a league of it's own!).

The Tyranids are like a 4th ed. codex written in 5th ed.

They play well against any 4th ed. codex as well as the early 5th ed. ones (SM, IG). But they're also as vulnerable to the 'tricks' of the later 5th ed. codexes as the remaining 4th ed. ones tend to be. I'm thinking here of the Wolves' missile-spam and JotWW, GKs' force weapons, psyflemen and purifiers, DE's massed poison shooting combined with far superior manoeuvrability.

Still, they're fine against the Blood Angels and every other army, so I do think people who complain about they're unplayability are simply being drama-queens. Most armies have problems of similar scale against the aforementioned trifecta.

Edit: Can't speak to their effectiveness against, or in comparison to, Necrons.

I just wanted to throw in my two cents with regard to how they're going to perform when 6th hits in the summer.

I've heard it said that every codex since Nids (including the Nid codex) was written with 6th in mind. That doesn't mean a whole lot by itself, but when taken in conjunction with the "leaked" 6e PDF seems to shed a bit of light on some of the more facepalm aspects of the codex.

The "pancake edition" or whatever it's called now is, according to BoW, the designers' test baby, their chance to go wild and make the game they wanted to make. Most of the biggest changes (like switching the Shooting and Assault phases) probably won't make it into the actual 6th ed, but the portion of that leaked PDF I'm thinking of is how reserves were handled.

Instead of rolling for each unit separately like it is now, each unit in reserve provided a single reserve die that was added to a pool of dice. These dice could then be allocated to different units in reserve, with up to three dice per unit. So if you have four units in reserve, you would have four dice that you could allocate however you wanted (with a maximum of three to one unit). This system would make the Tyranids' reserve manipulation tactics like the Lictor and the Trygon's Subterranean Assault actually work properly, as you could allocate to ensure the Lictor/Trygon would arrive first, paving the way for a second wave of reinforcements.

While it's very possible that this element has been stripped from the final version, it doesn't strike me as the type of change that would be too sweeping for the GW corporate heads to risk. Its presence in the pancake edition at the very least indicates that the designers are thinking about reserves in this way, which gives me hope for the future of the Nid codex.

Of course, it's certainly possible that we'll all be horribly disappointed when 6th hits, as the Grey Knights become an even harder counter and Lictors continue to collect dust on shelves.

frgsinwntr wrote:The funny thing about the bugs... is they aren't a "RAWR i'm gonna charge at your face and eat it" kind of army... but people play them that way.

1) they need termagaunts
2) they need Tervigons
3) they need Hiveguard
4) Ymgarls are boss
5) trygons are needed

If your list doesn't have things things

Get these things... and you're good.

simply spreading out and charging at someone will lose you games...

As I've stated above, this is probably my single biggest issue with the dex: how almost everything that existed before was nerfed to the point of near uselessness, essentially forcing players to replace most to all of their army if they want to be competitive. I'm not saying I should be able to run the exact same list I had in 4th ed and do just as well. If I could, what would be the point of making a new edition? However, neither should almost everything takeable (not viable, but literally takeable) in the previous edition be either horrible (Tyrant, broodlord, non-bonesword warriors, lictors, raveners, biovores, fexes) or utterly dependent on new models to be useable (gaunts, thropes). Note that I'm counting gargs as new, b/c they were prohibitively expensive in terms of money when they were sold by the pair and min squad size was 8. Genestealers went from being good to merely meh.

To they guy above who recommended I take Ymgarls: I do, two large squads of them. They can definitely be useful if you correctly guess where your opponent will be when they come in, but like everything nid-ly, they drop like flies to shooting and have a really tough time against anything with an invul save, a.k.a. most elite assault units, a.k.a. what they're supposed to be.

One last note: I've heard a lot about cover getting nerfed in 6th (making all the saves one worse or similar). I've been playing 40k for almost 10 years, but if cover gets whacked and there's no countering benefit to nids, I may not play until nids get a 6th ed dex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Roboute wrote:I just wanted to throw in my two cents with regard to how they're going to perform when 6th hits in the summer.

I've heard it said that every codex since Nids (including the Nid codex) was written with 6th in mind. That doesn't mean a whole lot by itself, but when taken in conjunction with the "leaked" 6e PDF seems to shed a bit of light on some of the more facepalm aspects of the codex.

The "pancake edition" or whatever it's called now is, according to BoW, the designers' test baby, their chance to go wild and make the game they wanted to make. Most of the biggest changes (like switching the Shooting and Assault phases) probably won't make it into the actual 6th ed, but the portion of that leaked PDF I'm thinking of is how reserves were handled.

Instead of rolling for each unit separately like it is now, each unit in reserve provided a single reserve die that was added to a pool of dice. These dice could then be allocated to different units in reserve, with up to three dice per unit. So if you have four units in reserve, you would have four dice that you could allocate however you wanted (with a maximum of three to one unit). This system would make the Tyranids' reserve manipulation tactics like the Lictor and the Trygon's Subterranean Assault actually work properly, as you could allocate to ensure the Lictor/Trygon would arrive first, paving the way for a second wave of reinforcements.

While it's very possible that this element has been stripped from the final version, it doesn't strike me as the type of change that would be too sweeping for the GW corporate heads to risk. Its presence in the pancake edition at the very least indicates that the designers are thinking about reserves in this way, which gives me hope for the future of the Nid codex.

Of course, it's certainly possible that we'll all be horribly disappointed when 6th hits, as the Grey Knights become an even harder counter and Lictors continue to collect dust on shelves.

Of course, something like this could well be the counterbalance mentioned above, as one Hive Commander Tyrant plus lictor could essentially give a guarantee that everything comes in on turn 3. Alternatively, all dice could be allocated to one throw-away unit each turn, ensuring everything arrives at the last possible moment.

Genestealers are devestating against hordes and can hold their own against MEQ. They're one of the best meleé Troops in the game for the points you pay.
Popping transports for them to get to the troops shouldn't be hard with Hive Guard laying waste to AV 11/12 transports.
They also have MCs for laying waste to tanks and an MC that can camp an objective.
So I wouldn't say they were "one of the worst". They're not as strong as IG/BA/SW/GK but they're top-tier.

The lack of grenades takes Genestealers from "good" to "meh".
With the prevelance of Str8+ firepower that is AP3 or better, nid MCs getting to melee vehicles just isn't reliable.

I played a nid player today with my standard 1500 point wolf army (lots of missiles and lascanons, a rune priest with jaws and a nasty thundercav / wolflord unit) and after blowing away half his army in 2 turns i felt genuinely bad, MCs just dont seem to be able to survive the firepower that gets thrown at them. My army isnt even a top tournament level army as well, a venom spam DE army or psycanon heavy GK army must be even worse.
Maybe if trygons had a 2+ save and were slightly more expensive that sort of thing.
Tyranid warriors seem like they could use toughness 5 as well, getting blown away by missiles or doubled out by fists so easily for an expensive model is really punishing.

I wanted to chime in here, and as I'm on vacation, this may ne a two.part post,
I've had a nid army since third edition, while the meta where I play has changed a lot, and the 4 th ed monster mash isn't really viable... Aaaand we got hit pretty hard by the need bat with that faq, and lack assault grenades, units with invulnerable that are not either spec characters or zooeys I'd say the dex has its moments.

I have to go four now but my two cents is that for better or worst we now dependant on synergy...

"I played a nid player today with my standard 1500 point wolf army (lots of missiles and lascanons, a rune priest with jaws and a nasty thundercav / wolflord unit) and after blowing away half his army in 2 turns i felt genuinely bad, MCs just dont seem to be able to survive the firepower that gets thrown at them."

This is literally how this whole thing started. I raped Texan_Tyrant silly and it's not b/c I'm better, it's because of the inherent imitations of his list. Hopefully they get a buff in 6th ed, because if not the 5th ed codex may become unplayable.

Man, this was the first time I really just went through the old list entry by entry and compared it to the current one. All I have to say is wtf cruddace. wtf man.

Hive Tyrant: costs 95 more points for losing eternal warrior, getting a near useless bump to WS (in most cases the most useless stat in the game due to the inability to move to a point more extreme than 3+ or 5+) a pip more strength, and losing the ability to have a 2+ save, and/or 2+/6++
Also no longer capable of taking grenades.

Tyrant Guard: Only useful on a foot tyrant anyway, and increased in points by 33%. Lash whips decreased form 6 points to 5 points. Lost a point of initiative that allowed them hit before MEQ without whips. Lost ability to take grenades (flesh hooks for 1 point no less). Still T6 W2 but lost eternal warrior granted by synapse. Hit by the rending nerf, but it's not like they were doing that much damage anyway.

Broodlord: went from 70-pt HQ with synapse, infiltrate, power weapons, to a 46-point genestealer sergeant with no synapse, no power weapon, and no reason to exist apart from the hope than you can get off hypnotic gaze.

Warriors: Got the extra wound, lost EW. Be honest, which would you rather have? Apart from that, you used to be able to make a warrior with the same statline and weapons as the current ones for 3 more, only instead of S4 Assault 3 AP- the devourers were in effect S3 Assault 4 AP- with an ability to reroll to wound. Gained the ability to take boneswords, lost the ability to take grenades.

Lictors: 15 points less, but now are forced to pop out and say "boo" instead of actually attacking anything. Either way, 4 non-PW attacks on the charge for such a costly model/unit isn't going to damage anything.

Genestealers: for 2 points less, suffered the rending nerf, the fleet nerf, can't take grenades, and lost the ability to have a 4+ save. In return, infiltrate/outflank became free.

Gaunts: Very nearly the same cost, only living ammunition no longer exists, and most of their upgradeability is gone. Also gone is the hilarity that was WoN, though it wasn't that effective in games where there weren't objectives within 6 inches of your table edge. Never actually expected to destroy stuff stronger than basic infantry, now dependent on Tervigons to do much of anything.

Hormagaunts: cost 4 entire points less (not sarcasm, that's quite a drop at that range) but lost a pip of WS(meh), got a pip more I (enough to hit before MEQ normally) lost upgrade options (including grenades), and lost their 12" charge range (Oshi). Also took the fleet nerf, and are still dependent on synapse, which as a whole is more fragile.

Rippers: There's a reason they're included for free on most sprues. Moving on.

Raveners: Effectively dropped in points, though the min squad size increased increasing the cost of a small squad. Didn't have it themselves, but still took the loss of synapse EW pretty hard.

Gargoyles: Not even including these as an old unit, as they used to be sold as metal models by the pair while min squad size was 8, making a squad of any size almost impossible to take for all but the most dedicated flying circus enthusiasts.

Spore mines: See rippers

Zoanthropes: Assuming you took warp blast and synapse, and if you didn't then why did you bother with these guys in the first place, actually a bit cheaper now, with BS4 instead of 3, and the semi-improvement to warp field. However, the loss of synapse EW has meant that they'll survive one turn barring impossibly lucky rolling. This essentially necessitates that they get put in a spore, increasing the cost of a unit of two by a third. Moved from HS to Elites, and lost the ability to run independently while still a single FO slot.

Biovore: 5 points more, suffer IB, can move and fire, but lost flexibility in terms of type of mines. Honestly, though, beaten out in either dex by FAR better HS units.

Carnifex: Yeah... factoring in the ST base cost, costs 60 points more than before for 2 extra attacks. Can no longer take a 2+ save, or the vast majority of the other upgrades formerly available. Can take grenades, but at I1 anyway, why bother? Honestly, take a look at the 4th ed fex and compare it to the 5th ed one. The sheer loss of options is saddening, even without the points increase.

o_O Man that's a whole lot worse that I thought.

Genestealers I think are still one of the best melee units for the points and are a scoring unit. Even with the lack of grenades they can still charge an enemy unit in cover and win. T4 is pretty darn good for survivability coupled with cover. The trick is to keep them safe until the right moment. I don't why they lost grenades - it sucks - but if you play the army they can do some amazing things.

-666- wrote:Genestealers I think are still one of the best melee units for the points and are a scoring unit. Even with the lack of grenades they can still charge an enemy unit in cover and win. T4 is pretty darn good for survivability coupled with cover. The trick is to keep them safe until the right moment. I don't why they lost grenades - it sucks - but if you play the army they can do some amazing things.

They're not awful, but what they do best by far is chew through squads of medium infantry - the type currently found in a transport on nearly every occasion. This necessitates popping the transport before they get there, which implies a need for ranged AT, which implies a need to support stealers with hive guard, tyrannofexes, or spored zoanthropes, who are almost certainly best suited to shooting the bigger tanks. Accepting this means that genestealers are dependent on support from the newer models, reinforcing my point above.

Texan_tyrant wrote:
Carnifex: Yeah... factoring in the ST base cost, costs 60 points more than before for 2 extra attacks. Can no longer take a 2+ save, or the vast majority of the other upgrades formerly available. Can take grenades, but at I1 anyway, why bother? Honestly, take a look at the 4th ed fex and compare it to the 5th ed one. The sheer loss of options is saddening, even without the points increase.

This is what really hurt me. I mean, the Carnifex was emblematic of the Tyranid force. In fourth, it had a mountain of options and was a pretty solid piece. Increase that sad WS? Yes, you could. Increase that armor protection? Yes you could. And they made all these different head and tail options to reflect that specific Carnifex build.

And the recent codex throws that all away, replacing it with "Hey! You can take more of them!"

Yes Thousand Sons are one the worst troop choices in the game but as an experienced 40K player the nids player should have known about the 4 up invul. There was a trigon two hive tyrants and a tyranofex on the tabletop too instead of uselessly attacking the Tsons with genestealers shoot the Tsons with all that shooty stuff that out ranges the bolters. Both Tyrants had heavy venom cannons along with the tyranofex I think. However the real power house on the field was the all bike SM army fighting with the Tsons.

Texan_tyrant wrote:Man, this was the first time I really just went through the old list entry by entry and compared it to the current one. All I have to say is wtf cruddace. wtf man.

Now I am not trying to completely take devils advocate but I think your analysis has some flaws and missing info.

Hive Tyrant: costs 95 more points for losing eternal warrior, getting a near useless bump to WS (in most cases the most useless stat in the game due to the inability to move to a point more extreme than 3+ or 5+) a pip more strength, and losing the ability to have a 2+ save, and/or 2+/6++
Also no longer capable of taking grenades.

Gained two psychic powers, one of which being quite good despite its short range (Paroxysm).
Gained options for excellent upgrades like hive commander and old advesary.
Its devourers gained a pip of strength
It gained a base attack (+ for shooty tyrants, - for assauty ones that took scything talons).

Tyrant Guard:

Nerfed without a doubt. I think they were slightly undercosted before but not to the extent they needed stat nerfs and cost increases.

Broodlord: went from 70-pt HQ with synapse, infiltrate, power weapons, to a 46-point genestealer sergeant with no synapse, no power weapon, and no reason to exist apart from the hope than you can get off hypnotic gaze.

I like that they gave stealers an upgrade sgt personally but they should have retained some sort of stealer HQ also. Their powers are kinda meh also.

Warriors: Got the extra wound, lost EW. Be honest, which would you rather have? Apart from that, you used to be able to make a warrior with the same statline and weapons as the current ones for 3 more, only instead of S4 Assault 3 AP- the devourers were in effect S3 Assault 4 AP- with an ability to reroll to wound. Gained the ability to take boneswords, lost the ability to take grenades.

They are troops now which is huge boost in most ways. They are also overall cheaper then they were for similar builds, although they lost some good things also (like leaping and s6 blast spam) but gained power weapons (for a rediculous cost). Warriors were a missed opportunity though imo, needing either a psychic power that helps the army or a better heavy gun option before being really viable.

The eternal warrior thing is really more an issue with the game rules imo then an issue with the dex. When daemons got eternal warrior it was a given Tyranids would lose it. And they should imo, giving nids eternal warrior is a hack job on what is really at fault -- the way instant death works is stupid. If the 6ed rules revamp this like those pancake rules then warrior get a bit better for having 3 wounds and its overall better for the game.

Lictors: 15 points less, but now are forced to pop out and say "boo" instead of actually attacking anything. Either way, 4 non-PW attacks on the charge for such a costly model/unit isn't going to damage anything.

Lictors got so much better its just funny. They gained a wound, fleet, ability to be in units (rather then die to anything besides 5 tau due to not enough attacks and wounds) a shooting attack, flexibility in where they show up and not taking a stupid dangerous terrain test anytime they came on. They did lose a pip of cover save which is unfortunate and the ability to grant preferred enemy which is a bummer also. Their reserve altering ability is just poorly written also.

But the biggest issue for them is competing with 3 other units that are plain better then them and neigh mandatory in most games.

Genestealers: for 2 points less, suffered the rending nerf, the fleet nerf, can't take grenades, and lost the ability to have a 4+ save. In return, infiltrate/outflank became free.

The fleet nerf? WTF is that? You mean how everyone gained run? That's not a nerf considering few get to assault after a run.

They also gained poison option which means the rending nerf is mitigated against MEq and similar. But I do agree they took some big hits in the options department.

What you haven't mentioned which is huge is an increase in the unit size. Which in how 5ed works is a big deal, even more so with catalyst in the codex.

Gaunts: Very nearly the same cost, only living ammunition no longer exists, and most of their upgradeability is gone. Also gone is the hilarity that was WoN, though it wasn't that effective in games where there weren't objectives within 6 inches of your table edge. Never actually expected to destroy stuff stronger than basic infantry, now dependent on Tervigons to do much of anything.

The lost fleet which was a nerf but termagants are cheaper. Spinegaunts got a serious nerf but they can be more shooty, more efficiently via devourers. They become quite strong with a tervigon. WoN was ignored until 5ed. Overall I wish they had done a bit more with their weapon options and the tervigon boost should have been an optional upgrade for tyrants imo.

Hormagaunts: cost 4 entire points less (not sarcasm, that's quite a drop at that range) but lost a pip of WS(meh), got a pip more I (enough to hit before MEQ normally) lost upgrade options (including grenades), and lost their 12" charge range (Oshi). Also took the fleet nerf, and are still dependent on synapse, which as a whole is more fragile.

Overall they were improved. You missed they have an improved run, which puts their turn 2 threat range about the same as their old threat range. They can also get into upper levels of ruins now. Issue with hormagants in the current dex is no real synergy with any unit. Could have been amazing had trygon hole worked right.

Rippers: There's a reason they're included for free on most sprues. Moving on.

I always thought rippers should score. Just makes sense to me with nid fluff and would give bugs a unique unit. Alas they phoned them in once again.

Raveners: Effectively dropped in points, though the min squad size increased increasing the cost of a small squad. Didn't have it themselves, but still took the loss of synapse EW pretty hard.

Raveners like stealers suffered from changes in 5ed combat more then anything, not being able to clip a few models and clear killzones makes them much less worth their points . I think they are still decent but like warriors they need a revamp in how instant death works.

Gargoyles: Not even including these as an old unit, as they used to be sold as metal models by the pair while min squad size was 8, making a squad of any size almost impossible to take for all but the most dedicated flying circus enthusiasts.

Lets just say it as it is -- they are hugely improved. Cruddace got them right at least.

Spore mines: See rippers

Yep, missed opportunity.

Zoanthropes: Assuming you took warp blast and synapse, and if you didn't then why did you bother with these guys in the first place, actually a bit cheaper now, with BS4 instead of 3, and the semi-improvement to warp field. However, the loss of synapse EW has meant that they'll survive one turn barring impossibly lucky rolling. This essentially necessitates that they get put in a spore, increasing the cost of a unit of two by a third. Moved from HS to Elites, and lost the ability to run independently while still a single FO slot.

Zoanthropes were terrible in 4ed dex. Lets not mince words. Psychic choir had some play but was generally not great with a cc army, the anti-tank was so unreliable to be laughable and they competed with the underpriced carnifex -- but they were a neccesary evil for the synapse coverage in some armies

Biovore: 5 points more, suffer IB, can move and fire, but lost flexibility in terms of type of mines. Honestly, though, beaten out in either dex by FAR better HS units.

Biovores are cheaper by a bit cause they don't pay for spores and there was no flexibility unless you cheated or tailored your list. Move and fire is a huge boost but is counteracted by IB. I actually think a unit of them in a shooty 5ed list is quite worthwhile. No reason to take them in the old dex imo.

Carnifex: Yeah... factoring in the ST base cost, costs 60 points more than before for 2 extra attacks. Can no longer take a 2+ save, or the vast majority of the other upgrades formerly available. Can take grenades, but at I1 anyway, why bother? Honestly, take a look at the 4th ed fex and compare it to the 5th ed one. The sheer loss of options is saddening, even without the points increase.

Carnifexes were undercosted in 4ed. Its just a fact. I think they are overcosted now but not by much -- especially if you pair them with tyranid primes for cover save goodness. I do agree though, removing options that are sitting on their sprue is just plain dumb and did piss me off.

I'm just gonna throw this out there -- the 4ed dex was crappy and souless despite some strong points (which had more to do with 4ed rules then the dex). It was mearly a vehicle to sell carnifexes and metal tyrants. The whole flavor and feel of the bugs, whether hordes of bodies or the 'they are coming at us from all sides' took a back seat to the TMCs. Cruddace you can tell tried to fix that and failed -- had a few things been tweaked, added and improved then I think the dex would have been a success. The dex just feels rushed. Really cool ideas and potential though and I hope a 6ed errata helps polish things a bit.

Well I gotta say I am really glad to have both sides of the argument to fuel further debate. I am learning all sorts of stuff.

Also

"However the real power house on the field was the all bike SM army fighting with the Tsons."

This guy was there too, so what he says is relevant, not just random gibberish (usually ).

Tyranids, in my experience, have three crippling flaws.

1) A very low anti-tank ceiling. We cap at 3 anti-tank threats, baring the Tyranofex, which is massively overpriced in that role. While we can destroy tanks in many other ways, these are generally what, for other armies, would be backup (melee, heavy anti-infantry, etc.) and generally have a fairly poor exchange rate (10 Genestealers: 140 points. Transport: less than 50)

Tyranids need some other Antitank at range. Venom cannons need to be assault 2 or 3, not a blast weapon, and they also could go with losing the -1 modifier. Say, light venom cannon S7 Assault 2, and heavy venom cannon S9 Assault 2.

2) About 20-25% of the cost for monstrous creatures is not needed. In the current climate, monstrous creatures die to fast for their cost. At a lower cost, we would be able to add one or two more to ensure they get through.

3) We need grenades, or some similar ability. We are an assault army that only has three grenade-packing units. Two don't need it (the harpy shoots, and the carnifex can tough it out, and has only average initiative). Genestealersa especially rely on hitting first, and not letting the enemy swing back, and suffer when forced through cover.

1) A very low anti-tank ceiling. We cap at 3 anti-tank threats, baring the Tyranofex, which is massively overpriced in that role. While we can destroy tanks in many other ways, these are generally what, for other armies, would be backup (melee, heavy anti-infantry, etc.) and generally have a fairly poor exchange rate (10 Genestealers: 140 points. Transport: less than 50)

Tyranids need some other Antitank at range. Venom cannons need to be assault 2 or 3, not a blast weapon, and they also could go with losing the -1 modifier. Say, light venom cannon S7 Assault 2, and heavy venom cannon S9 Assault 2.

2) About 20-25% of the cost for monstrous creatures is not needed. In the current climate, monstrous creatures die to fast for their cost. At a lower cost, we would be able to add one or two more to ensure they get through.

These are the biggest issues as I see it. I can't speak to the grenade thing, but the fact that the Tyranids really only have their MC assaults to tear open vehicles is a large issue for them and one I always exploit. And then there's the issue of the squad inside then getting to shoot and assault once the transport is popped. Given these limitations, I have to agree.

Perhaps some sort of rule that puts more wounds on the squads inside a vehicle when it's destroyed would be in order, to represent the claws and talons slicing it into bite-sized pieces.

I think that's exactly right, something like the rules for the FW Decimator engine where cc attacks that pen vehicles inflict flamer hits on the units inside.

Something so terrifying that people would rather bail out their squads then let them be crushed inside.

Because I mean seriously, having a transport crushed/burned/BLOWN UP should not leave the squad inside in good shape.

Perhaps when the monsterous creature roles doubles for its penetration roles and penetrates the vehicle, the other guy takes d3 attacks to the unit inside? I'm not sure, perhaps it should be posted on the proposed rules section.

Hmmmm, issues, where to start



1: Stealers need grenades.
Ive run a stealer shock army for years now, but the lack of nades really does hurt alot.

2: Fex points costs - so what we have now is the same beast, with less upgrade options, at nearly double the price (but we can take 3?)
Seems like a weird way of doing it.
The fact that they must all take the same upgrades aswell is poor taste.
Claws now set you back nearly the cost of another fex for a unit of 3.
Atleast with varying upgrades you could run a multi-purpose unit that could bounce wounds to help it last longer.

3: Primes lack of movement.
Great idea, it really is, but its too slow.
Would liketo see wings or a snake-tail type upgrade option so i can throw him with ravs or shrikes so i can actually get a better use from them.

BIG 4: Anti-tank.
This has been covered to death though, so ill just leave it at that.

5: unit choices.
Seems alot of things we want are all cramped in the same place.
To take the usual 2 tervies, people have to take 2 units of termies, so thats 4 slots used.
Leaves only 2 for poor stealers :(
But elites are the bigger issue.
Hive guards are a must, and usually 2 units.
Thropes are nice, but not as reliable i find.
Ymgarl's are ace, but leave no room for error.
Doom is great, but you have to waste a rare choice on him, which sucks badly.
Venoms - a nice unit ive grown to like. Thier abilities really do give a massive advantage, but i find myself having to drop anti-tank for them, something that should be an option in HS.


Thats just my thoughts anyway.

Hey Texan_Tyrant where is your counter to the guy who countered you?