Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The problem I find with my Tyranids is not that they are wounded too easily, but I can rarely do anything about those wounds.

Every other army always seems to get an armor or cover save, while my MCs just get wounds piles on them. Everything that wounds them easily overcomes the armor save. And getting Carnifexes/Trygons into cover is basically impossible. The ONLY cover option I have are Venomthropes, which themselves are very easily killed.

I'd take lower Toughness and/or Wounds in favor of a "Monstrous Invulnerable Save," even if it was only a 5+ or 6+.

There is always regeneration.

For Tyranids, Monstrous Creatures were good.
Now they are barely good enough.

They are not bad, but they are simply part of an army now.

I do think they were could be almost too good previously, but the change has been too drastic--as is usually the case with such changes.
No invuln + no EW = losing expensive models without rolling dice.

Mattlov wrote:The problem I find with my Tyranids is not that they are wounded too easily, but I can rarely do anything about those wounds.

Every other army always seems to get an armor or cover save, while my MCs just get wounds piles on them. Everything that wounds them easily overcomes the armor save. And getting Carnifexes/Trygons into cover is basically impossible. The ONLY cover option I have are Venomthropes, which themselves are very easily killed.

I'd take lower Toughness and/or Wounds in favor of a "Monstrous Invulnerable Save," even if it was only a 5+ or 6+.

Stick your Venomthropes behind a screen of Gants protected by the Venomthropes. The Gants get a 5+ cover save and grant a 4+ cover save to the Thropes.

Seems more like a learning curve/adjustment to your meta game thing. I don't hear local 'nid players complaining about TMC's being too fragile. We have a bi-monthly 40k tourney (1850-comp) that drew 32 players both in March and May. Tyranids took 1st and 2nd in March and 1st/3rd in May. Three of us also qualified in the Ardboyz prelims with Nids and one took first in the regional semifinal.

Carnifex's aren't that big. 10 naked gargoyles cost 60 pts if you want to screen a carnifex brood for a turn. I believe GW's recommendation for terrain also includes 25% of the table covered and several LoS blocking pieces.

Consider layering your swarm too. Gaunts grant cover to a Tyrant with 1 or more guards. Tyrant with guards grant cover to anything except a Trygon, Mawloc, and Harpy.

Also, don't let wraithguard get within 18" of your MC's unless you can bog them down in cc with gaunts or gargs. If your opponent is using units with ID CCW's the same applies.

If your venomthropes die too easily, play with broods of 2 or 3. If they take a lot of fire, go to ground. They should NEVER be left in the open. Run them with a screen and skirt area terrain in case you need to jump in. If you know going into a game that your opponent will focus on the Venoms, add a Tyranid Prime (he can even join a single venomthrope) and allocate the str8-9 wounds on him that would ID the venom. Worst case scenario, you could even put FnP on the unit.

Nothing pisses off an ork player more than unit of venomthropes with an attached prime and FnP realizing that 1 out of 6 of their boyz will die on the assault move and they're all losing their extra attack.

Venomthropes are the single most important unit in my list and with my playstyle. They give MC's effectively 33% more wounds. Assaulting enemy units lose their assault attack, and can take dangerous terrain wounds. That's such a huge force multiplier it's worth doing everything you can to keep them alive. You may be surprised what they can do in assault also when they actually live long enough to jump in with some gaunts.

All in all, play your 'nids like the Hive Mind would. It wouldn't send 3 of it's most evolved spawns in different directions without support. It would fill the skies with gargoyles, cover the ground with gaunts, and choke the air with spores. Once the battlefield is primed, the giants arrive and wade through the ranks bringing death and destruction.

YAY Death and Destruction. I dont like it how their is no reason for carnifexes over mawlocs/trygons anymore

carnifexes are still viable... a unit of 3 fexes runs at 500 points. Take a few tervigons in your list, give the fexes FNP every turn, and boom, your units pretty badass.

Yes but they dont measure up to mawloc/ trygons by a long way.

And that tervigon wouldnt be very helpful stomping around the feild trying to keep up with the running fexes

They do at bigger point levels, when you need more big bugs - 12 T6 wounds in one slot is good value, and a good source of Ap2

Only at very high point levels like 2250+

At 2K you are already running out of good MCs, and they are also your ONLY S8+ (S10 on the charge) Instant Death wielding close combat machines. That alone makes them good against nobz/meganobz and the like.

If your monstrous creatures are getting nuked before they get to go on a killing spree you need to look into target saturation. One Trygon popping up in the army will soak up a lot of shooting, in fact I've even seen entire armies fire at that single target trying to kill him NOW NOW NOW before he gets to do anything.

Now if you pop up two Trygons and a winged Hive Tyrant joins the party from across the board with a few of his Gargoyley friends the enemy is faced with a really bad set of choices. Plink away at them all or focus fire one of them down and then bend over and take it up the tail pipe from the rest. Either way your monstrous creatures are going to get into close combat and tear stuff up, usually vehicles in today's depressingly meched-out meta game.

That being said it's a definite case of making lemonade from what Games Workshop has handed you. The above setup will run you around 800-900 points and since they were nice enough to screw over Hive Tyrant reserve bonuses stacking every game is a poor die roll away from sucking wind, hard.