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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.