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Traditio wrote:
I was playing a game against the Tyrranids yesterday, and here's what I experienced:

Over 90 models on the table.
Flying monstrous creatures that could fire a dozen S6 BS 4 shots every turn...
...which could also generate warp charges and use psyker abilities like...psychic scream...
...which combined with the fact that it was used by a flyer, pretty much meant that it could go right into the middle of my units and mess things up.

So.

Why are the Tyrranids underpowered again?

Now deploy a Land Raider against that. Or an Imperial Knight. Or heck, something with AV 13.

And watch the entire army do....nothing.

Tyranids are generally underpowered because....

The Codex has so much chaff. Elites is horrendously crowded and half of it is laughably bad. Troops are trash tier. Fast Attack is a joke. Heavy support is as crowded as Elites. When all Tyranid armies start looking the same it is a sign that their options are limited and poor. A good codex will generate a number of reliable builds. A bad codex generates one or two.

Welcome to the Super Heavy and Gargantuan Meta - Tyranids are an army that has traditionally struggled against armour spam and this was made worse with changes in 6th and 7th. Smash got nerfed. Strength D obliterates Monstrous Creatures which is a straight up nerf to Carnifexes. An abundance of GCs makes Poisoned attacks next to worthless (only affected on a 6+) so bye bye Toxicrene. Warp Charge generation and Deny the Witch COMBINED with having to still roll to hit, then roll to penetrate and then you still get saves means that Zoanthropes have to jump through four hoops to do their job.

Let me clarify for you.

Smash is Terrible. Smash is Terrible. Smash is Terrible. SMASH IS TERRIBLE.

Before Smash was fairly reliable - sacrifice half your attacks, get reliable S10 + 2D6 armour penetration. In an edition without Strength D. This meant your Tyrants and Trygons and even Carnifexes and Harpies and the like could actually take out armour. Admittedly you still had to run or fly at the enemy to do so and thus still had the gauntlet of fire but it yielded results.

NOW Smash...is a single attack. That you still have to roll to hit with. That lets you reroll your armour penetration. Oh boy. We went from having an average of 3 attacks that would likely score 2 AV 17 hits to a single attack that averages AV 14. OH BOY. We went from reliably penetrating and damaging any vehicle in the game to single glancing hits on the things we need to take down the most.

What's more a lot of the things we need to take down...are toting Strength D weapons...that strike at initiative. With multiple attacks. And if that wasn't enough...they also have a potential Strength D stomp. Oh, did I mention their WS and initiative is better than a Carnifex?

Did I also mention that D ignores FNP - which is a major workhorse of the Tyranid army to keep the big creatures alive? Did I mention it autowounds? Did I mention that the average SD hit does D3 wounds to a creature with 4 wounds average?

Can I also talk about the fact that we are paying an exorbitant amount of points for our MCs because of things like Fear being tacked on?

Do you know what Fear does? It reduces a unit's WS to 1. That's it. It doesn't autobreak them. It doesn't do anything else. It doesn't affect anything that is Fearless...or that has ATSKNF. Oh, and they get to take a Leadership test first. So anything it could affect is probably toting Ld 10 from Mob Rule, Officers, Commisars...or is already WS trash in the first place. OH BOY. I made those WS 2 Tau into WS 1 Tau! OH BOY!

Have I mentioned Overwatch exists? As does cover? And Tyranids have virtually no way of getting assault grenades without paying a premium.

You ever wonder why no one uses Genestealers? Because you pay more points than a Marine for something that has to assault into cover and has a 5+ save...without assault grenades.

I think the codex is weak in general because whoever wrote seemed unispired and going through the motions. IMO a lot of the first 7th edition codices also fall into this category. It's sad because in ways even the 5th edition codex is better in terms of having had more playable units. This codex is Codex Flyrant. I hope that when GW gets around to reboot they invest the time, effort and resources to do it right.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think the codex is weak in general because whoever wrote seemed unispired and going through the motions. IMO a lot of the first 7th edition codices also fall into this category. It's sad because in ways even the 5th edition codex is better in terms of having had more playable units. This codex is Codex Flyrant. I hope that when GW gets around to reboot they invest the time, effort and resources to do it right.

Agreed. I would take the first of the 'Nid "Cruddexes" over the 7th. But I lump the 6th and 7th into the same level of "the suck".


I had a friend who was a hardcore 'Nid player. He slogged it out through the 5th edition. But the 6th was the straw that broke the Carnifex's back. And having looked over the 7th, he said "no thanks". I haven't been able to get him into a friendly game since.

The multi Flyrant list with spores and mucolids is one of those armies no one wanted to play against until the recent release of the new Tau which can blast it off the table in three to four turns.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think the codex is weak in general because whoever wrote seemed unispired and going through the motions. IMO a lot of the first 7th edition codices also fall into this category. It's sad because in ways even the 5th edition codex is better in terms of having had more playable units. This codex is Codex Flyrant. I hope that when GW gets around to reboot they invest the time, effort and resources to do it right.

Agreed. I would take the first of the 'Nid "Cruddexes" over the 7th. But I lump the 6th and 7th into the same level of "the suck".


I had a friend who was a hardcore 'Nid player. He slogged it out through the 5th edition. But the 6th was the straw that broke the Carnifex's back. And having looked over the 7th, he said "no thanks". I haven't been able to get him into a friendly game since.

There is no 7th edition Tyranid Codex.

 Imateria wrote:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think the codex is weak in general because whoever wrote seemed unispired and going through the motions. IMO a lot of the first 7th edition codices also fall into this category. It's sad because in ways even the 5th edition codex is better in terms of having had more playable units. This codex is Codex Flyrant. I hope that when GW gets around to reboot they invest the time, effort and resources to do it right.

Agreed. I would take the first of the 'Nid "Cruddexes" over the 7th. But I lump the 6th and 7th into the same level of "the suck".


I had a friend who was a hardcore 'Nid player. He slogged it out through the 5th edition. But the 6th was the straw that broke the Carnifex's back. And having looked over the 7th, he said "no thanks". I haven't been able to get him into a friendly game since.

There is no 7th edition Tyranid Codex.

And at the rate it's going, there might never be!

Traditio wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

Traditio wrote:
That would be like saying that the Elder codex would be underpowered if they only had access to wraithknights and scatter bikes.

That's a rather poor comparison. The thing about the Eldar codex is that most of the units there are at least decent.
If you picked a unit, such as dark reapers, out of the codex and put them into another codex they would be in the list of 'autotake'.
Sure, there are a few duds like storm guardians, but most of the units are good. Hell, I've even made good use from shining spears in the codex.

If a codex only has 2-3 good units, then it's options are much more limited.

You really don't get counter-factuals, huh?

You say this as if that accomplished anything but stating your very obvious opinion. Flyrant being (relatively) OP is situational on the opponent not bringing sufficient AA, in an edition where bringing AA is encouraged despite not being absolutely necessary. That is the only thing that you need to make Flyrants much less threatening ; include one or two sources of good AA. Nothing else. No board tactics needs to be implemented. You are quite literally whining about having to plan ahead your potential threats in a list building wargame. No amount of can truly express the failure of your understanding of this game.

I'd say that if you don't like that 40k has a fair amount of rock/paper/cissor to it, you should move on to another wargame, but in reality, having to plan ahead of potential threats is kinda essential to almost all wargames.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think the codex is weak in general because whoever wrote seemed unispired and going through the motions. IMO a lot of the first 7th edition codices also fall into this category. It's sad because in ways even the 5th edition codex is better in terms of having had more playable units. This codex is Codex Flyrant. I hope that when GW gets around to reboot they invest the time, effort and resources to do it right.

Agreed. I would take the first of the 'Nid "Cruddexes" over the 7th. But I lump the 6th and 7th into the same level of "the suck".


I had a friend who was a hardcore 'Nid player. He slogged it out through the 5th edition. But the 6th was the straw that broke the Carnifex's back. And having looked over the 7th, he said "no thanks". I haven't been able to get him into a friendly game since.

This Tyranid codex is the last book that I bought from GW. I felt completely robbed getting charged 50.00 for what was at least 80% copy/paste material from the book that I already had; not to mention how god awful the stuff that wasn't copy/paste was. Uninspired doesn't begin to say what this is. I gurantee Mr. Crud was a big part of this one as well

 Imateria wrote:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think the codex is weak in general because whoever wrote seemed unispired and going through the motions. IMO a lot of the first 7th edition codices also fall into this category. It's sad because in ways even the 5th edition codex is better in terms of having had more playable units. This codex is Codex Flyrant. I hope that when GW gets around to reboot they invest the time, effort and resources to do it right.

Agreed. I would take the first of the 'Nid "Cruddexes" over the 7th. But I lump the 6th and 7th into the same level of "the suck".


I had a friend who was a hardcore 'Nid player. He slogged it out through the 5th edition. But the 6th was the straw that broke the Carnifex's back. And having looked over the 7th, he said "no thanks". I haven't been able to get him into a friendly game since.

There is no 7th edition Tyranid Codex.

Apologies for the misunderstanding. Drinking Crown Royal and posting don't mix.


I actually meant what the 'Nids got during 40k's 7th Edition, with new models and White Dwarf updates to support the new models.


Some people liked it. Others (including my buddy) didn't like the way the Maleceptor has handled, and felt they didn't go far enough in undoing the damage inflicted on the poor 'Nids by "The Cruddace"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Battlesong wrote:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think the codex is weak in general because whoever wrote seemed unispired and going through the motions. IMO a lot of the first 7th edition codices also fall into this category. It's sad because in ways even the 5th edition codex is better in terms of having had more playable units. This codex is Codex Flyrant. I hope that when GW gets around to reboot they invest the time, effort and resources to do it right.

Agreed. I would take the first of the 'Nid "Cruddexes" over the 7th. But I lump the 6th and 7th into the same level of "the suck".


I had a friend who was a hardcore 'Nid player. He slogged it out through the 5th edition. But the 6th was the straw that broke the Carnifex's back. And having looked over the 7th, he said "no thanks". I haven't been able to get him into a friendly game since.

This Tyranid codex is the last book that I bought from GW. I felt completely robbed getting charged 50.00 for what was at least 80% copy/paste material from the book that I already had; not to mention how god awful the stuff that wasn't copy/paste was. Uninspired doesn't begin to say what this is. I gurantee Mr. Crud was a big part of this one as well

Agreed.

I do wonder if the "Nerfer in Chief" is still with GeeDubs, or did he move on like Mr. Spiritual Liege did?

1) Synapse HURTS: Gants and most heavy hitters must be in synapse or risk a 50/50 that they do almost nothing you want them to do
2) Over Costed!!!: Almost ALL MC in the Nids book is over 30% (some even 50%!) over costed. Look at the Carnifex, and Trygon for easy examples.
3) Powers: Can ONLY use the Nids powers: They arnt even that good :/
4) Saves: Mostly 5+ saves with very little any MC that has 2+, almost no other units get 3-4+ other than MC and a Warrior
5) Delivery: Very slow, no good way to get into CC other than Walking, or a OVER costed Drop pod that you cant assault out of
6) No Assault Nades, an dthe few that can get they are Over costed
7) Over costed Upgrades: Regen for 30pts, Assault Nades for 4-6pts, Poison 3pts on 5pt models etc....
8) Shooting: Over costed guns, most guns arnt even worth it, and the few that are good have almost no AP, the Large Damage ones also have low AP and over costed, Combine with BS3
9) No Sargent's: With no WAY to get a Sargent or ANY way to make units of Low Str no AP to gain a Weapon like, Power Weapons, Power Fist, Chains etc.. etc... Or to Help Synapse, Challenges and LD tests
10) Lack of Cheap IC's: IC helps alot with LD, wargear and Melee (Especially a Melee style army, Look at Chaos Khorne book for an example)
11) Cant handle GMC or Super Heavys at all.....
12) Cover is a joke now, Almost all Codex's anymore have ways around it, Venom are good, but to easy to be killed, a few good shots, a flamer, or Ignore cover and your cover bubble is dead.
13) Repetitive: VERY VERY VERY Repetitve MC's, most are S6/T6/W4 or W6 and they all mostly do that same thing and cost about the same, 1 might have more attacks + poison where the Other is Level 2 with crappy Powers, or the other gets a Tunnel that DOESNT HELP AT ALL.
14) Abilitys: Trygon Tunnel, This is an amazing Idea with 2 MAJOR problems, The Trygon has to come in 1st, then next turns others can use the tunnel, BUT you cant assault out of it, so it is literally turn 4 before THAT unit can even do anything good (unless its a shooting unit, then it can do something turn 3 IF!!!!! the Trygon comes in turn 2)..... This makes it worst if they trygon comes in turn 3-4 but the other units come in turn 2...... what a waste.
15) Almost 0 invuls in the army, and No way to get Invuls via Wargear
16) Pointless Upgrades of some of the units making them extremely over costed (Old 1 eye, Swarm Lord, Red Terror etc...)
17) Warrior Prime is 50pts + Over costed due to old 5th ed :/
18) Trygon Prime for 250pts isnt a GMC so its completely pointless
19) No Force or D weapons at all
20) The Few GMC are WAY over priced... extremely over priced.....


Tyranid book is crap compare to all the other books...........

Im over 15k Pts with Tyranids now, I have 2 friends both Highly competitive players (one owns a Warhammer store and runs leagues all the time) both have as much Nids as me... we all agree than they are the worst book and not even fun to play in this Meta.

You don't think nids can beat a typical ba list?

Martel732 wrote:
You don't think nids can beat a typical ba list?

If you bring the best BA list then no it cant.

I have a friend that does that 3 Storm Raven Formation, the only nid list that can beat it at all is the 5 Flyrant list, if Im not playing that list I have 0 chances to win, even with 5 Flyrants its still a close game.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You don't think nids can beat a typical ba list?

If you bring the best BA list then no it cant.

I have a friend that does that 3 Storm Raven Formation, the only nid list that can beat it at all is the 5 Flyrant list, if Im not playing that list I have 0 chances to win, even with 5 Flyrants its still a close game.

Pretty much this. The Casual Nid player is in a rough spot right now, and most of them don't feel like buying 4 more Hive Tyrant kits just to play their army.

Tyranids are not overpowered because the only good unit is the Flyrant and even that is only a "above average" unit, not really overpowered IMO.. It's only overpowered if your opponent decided to have the tactic of ignoring flyers and hoping you weren't bringing enough flyers to do anything significant. Even if you just kill all the ground based Synapse it can make life hard for a Flyrant spam player because you don't really want the thing holding the rest of your army together moving quickly across the board at 12-24" a turn not being able to make more than one 90 degree turn.

As a casual Tyranid player, you also feel like a right royal doofus if you rock up to a game with more than 1 Flyrant unless it's a large game.

Nids may not be in the top tier, but they are far from being the worst codex in the game. There are quite a few other armies that will get thoroughly trounced by a Nids list.

Which is just sad.

oz of the north wrote:
Nids may not be in the top tier, but they are far from being the worst codex in the game. There are quite a few other armies that will get thoroughly trounced by a Nids list.

By "quite a few", you actually mean "orks", right?
There's really not that much else that can get really "trounced" by Nids barring a huge failure in strategy or planning.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

oz of the north wrote:
Nids may not be in the top tier, but they are far from being the worst codex in the game. There are quite a few other armies that will get thoroughly trounced by a Nids list.

By "quite a few", you actually mean "orks", right?
There's really not that much else that can get really "trounced" by Nids barring a huge failure in strategy or planning.

Well the new Orcs updates are amazing for them. I mean turn 1 charges, Pain Boy + Boys get 1 free melee attack in the movement phase + additional attacks in Assault phases and Ghaz can be played now...

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

oz of the north wrote:
Nids may not be in the top tier, but they are far from being the worst codex in the game. There are quite a few other armies that will get thoroughly trounced by a Nids list.

By "quite a few", you actually mean "orks", right?
There's really not that much else that can get really "trounced" by Nids barring a huge failure in strategy or planning.

Chaos Space Marines.

 Tyran wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

oz of the north wrote:
Nids may not be in the top tier, but they are far from being the worst codex in the game. There are quite a few other armies that will get thoroughly trounced by a Nids list.

By "quite a few", you actually mean "orks", right?
There's really not that much else that can get really "trounced" by Nids barring a huge failure in strategy or planning.

Chaos Space Marines.

Trounced, really? I get that CSM aren't in a healthy position, and are one of the few codex worst off than Tyranids, but I didn't think they had that huge of a difference in power level. Than again, haven't played a CSM player in years. Should try again.

Still, beside Chaos and Orks, what else is so clearly weaker than Tyranids?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

oz of the north wrote:
Nids may not be in the top tier, but they are far from being the worst codex in the game. There are quite a few other armies that will get thoroughly trounced by a Nids list.

By "quite a few", you actually mean "orks", right?
There's really not that much else that can get really "trounced" by Nids barring a huge failure in strategy or planning.

Chaos Space Marines.

Trounced, really? I get that CSM aren't in a healthy position, and are one of the few codex worst off than Tyranids, but I didn't think they had that huge of a difference in power level. Than again, haven't played a CSM player in years. Should try again.

Still, beside Chaos and Orks, what else is so clearly weaker than Tyranids?

Even Nurgle gets smashed by Flyrants.
There is nothing in this game as inept and useless as running pure Codex: Chaos Marines, except maybe an entire army of Grots?!

About the only way Tyranids can actually get their army steamrolled by CSM's, is if you're dumb enough to go unbound and not include a single Synapse Creature just for lolz. And then take nothing but Pyrovores!

If where going all in on WAAC I'm going to give the node to CSM because of the allies system. It requires a narrow build and significant forgeworld/allies but Chaos does have more options than Nids.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
If where going all in on WAAC I'm going to give the node to CSM because of the allies system. It requires a narrow build and significant forgeworld/allies but Chaos does have more options than Nids.

True, with Forgeworld CSM's can trump 'Nids... But then, I did say "pure" codex Chaos Marines still get soundly hosed.

Tyranids at least can function somewhat, despite being entirely mono-build, from within just their own codex.
Chaos Marines cannot.

Tyranids don't actively become 'even worse' by including actual Tyranids within their lists.
Chaos Marines become actively worse by taking anything that's actually called a 'Chaos Space Marine'. Hence why the only CSM's you see nowadays are Cultists, Sorcerers, AoBF Jugger Lord, Helturkies, Spawn and the occasional Oblit, while the vast majority of the so-called "Chaos Space Marine army" is instead composed of Daemons and/or IA:13.

Khornekin however will feature Bikers, but only as a tax to access 'super' Flesh Hounds...

Tervigon spam plus Flyrant spam with dakkafexes seems to do well in my LGS. Single zoanthropea spread out for a min of 7+ warp charges are a pain for Psykers, and then there's mawlocks.

Granted im playing Orks and Chaos respectively, but there's never enough Dakka available to take everyone down.

I would love to be able to spawn more troops every movement phase! Daemon summoning is a bad joke in comparison.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

oz of the north wrote:
Nids may not be in the top tier, but they are far from being the worst codex in the game. There are quite a few other armies that will get thoroughly trounced by a Nids list.

By "quite a few", you actually mean "orks", right?
There's really not that much else that can get really "trounced" by Nids barring a huge failure in strategy or planning.

Orks yes, CSM, dark eldar, harlies most likely not plated them a lot, imperial guard, MT, BA.

They have good builds and FMCs are still ridiculously good, especially when you can bring in 5 in a single game.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:

I would love to be able to spawn more troops every movement phase!

I would love to be able to do that with my Nids, it would be awesome.

Daemon summoning is a bad joke in comparison.

I wish that were true.

Traditio wrote:


In actual practice, this makes Tyrranids overpowered, not underpowered. If the only lists that you see actually being played spam one really overpowered unit, that makes them overpowered. It's really that simple.

Good point. That must be why Tyranids everywhere are showing up in huge number in the largest and most competitive tournaments and stealing all those nerds' money/trophies.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I would love to be able to spawn more troops every movement phase! Daemon summoning is a bad joke in comparison.

What?

Seriously. What? Daemon summoning is not a bad joke by any means. For one you ignore the penalties of Maelific Daemonolgy through virtues of being a Daemon. Second, units you summon...can proceed to summon more units. I've yet to see a Tervigon spawn another Tervigon...but I have seen a cheap, bargain Herald spawn a Greater Daemon.

Also, Tervigons are liable to losing their ability to spawn within two turns, whereas Daemon summoning is restricted only by whether the units die or not. Besides, Tervigons spawn lowly Termagants. Daemon summoning brings forth Greater Daemons, Flesh Hounds, Pink Horrors and so on. Tervigons are still good on their own merits but uncomped Daemon summoning is on a different level.

Caederes wrote:
Also, Tervigons are liable to losing their ability to spawn within two turns, whereas Daemon summoning is restricted only by whether the units die or not. Besides, Tervigons spawn lowly Termagants. Daemon summoning brings forth Greater Daemons, Flesh Hounds, Pink Horrors and so on. Tervigons are still good on their own merits but uncomped Daemon summoning is on a different level.

Two Turns? Lucky, mine usually stop turn 1.