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I would say Nids got buffed. They are perhaps the one army that didn't get a sucker punch with the PA changes(as Nids just don't have PWs, they're either MCs or have CCWs that just ignore Armor saves)

They arn't top tier but they can certaintly compete now.

Ah yes, never forget the Ymgarls! Your opponents will flee from area terrain as fast as possible when they come to town!

Depends on the list flanking genestealers and ymgarls took a hit not being able to assault the turn they come in. Against marines melta bombs and krak grenades vs MC's might hurt some but some other things got buffed so think it will take some time to see. Although lots of people hated on em in 5th but there were 2 or 3 guys that played in the tourneys in my area that won quite often with them.

pepe5454 wrote:ymgarls took a hit not being able to assault the turn they come in.

Actually, Ymgarls are one of the few units in the game that can assault the turn they arrive from reserves, as the Dormant rule specifies that they can, superseding the general 'no charge from deployment' rules.

That's awsome (for my brother who plays nids not so awsome for me =P)

Oh yes. My biggest weakness is the only gaming store in town features very terrain heavy city maps, and it can take the whole game to climb up, assault, and climb down one building. Ymgarls solve this problem quite nicely.

Hunchkrot wrote:Oh yes. My biggest weakness is the only gaming store in town features very terrain heavy city maps, and it can take the whole game to climb up, assault, and climb down one building. Ymgarls solve this problem quite nicely.

I used to always get annoyed at our local tourney's in 5th when your opponent has a 3 story ruin in his deployment and you don't and they would put the objective marker on the top floor with a minimal 5 man squad knowing it would take you the whole game just to reach it =/

Ruins arn't buildings. I see nothing saying you can't put an objective on the top floor.

Grey Templar wrote:Ruins arn't buildings. I see nothing saying you can't put an objective on the top floor.

Yep, I don't think anyone said otherwise. Thanks for your input, though!

I was replying to pepe, his post makes it sound like you can't do what he said used to happen anymore.

I was just uncertain if anything had changed didn't have a book handy to check so thought I would put a 5th edition clarifier in. Will probably still annoy me then =P

*note to self drop single 3 story terrain pieces when they ask for help setting up =P

Pros:

-Monstrous Creatures are better overall.
-Fearless units can now effectively tar pit again since No Retreat wounds are a thing of the past. The little creatures can now hold things in place for the heavy hitters and combined charges are no longer suicide.
-Feel no Pain can now be taken almost all the time, (especially on MC's) even if it's only a 5+.
-Flying Hive Tyrants and Harpies can be quite scary. Protip: Remember that MC's have Move Through Cover which means they ignore Dangerous Terrain checks. So you can hop your Flyrant into terrain with no fear. Also, Grounding tests aren't taken per hit. They are taken per unit that scores one or more hits against a Swooping Creature. Makes it a bit better.
-Preferred Enemy now works via Shooting as well. Keep a Old Adversary Tyrant within 6" of Hive Guard or Tyrannofexes and they become a bit more reliable.
-Boneswords are one of the few weapons in the game that can bypass 2+ saves and still strike at Initiative.
-Lash Whips are better thanks to the FAQ.
-We have the 3rd best anti psyker mechanic in the game after Runes of Warding and Runic Weapons.
-We can more easily destroy enemy vehicles
-6th will mean less vehicles on the board and more infantry. If there's one thing Tyranids excel at it's killing infantry.
-New Psychic Powers have a ton of potential. Being random though, it's not something you can bank on.

Cons:

-Random charges means most of our units are slower overall.
-Overwatch can really hurt.
-A lot of our stuff (like Carnifexes) is still horribly over costed.
-No assault grenades still means we strike at Initiative 1 when charging through terrain. Combined with Overwatch this weakness becomes even more glaring. And no, Raveners do not strike at Initiative when charging through terrain. The rules state any unit charging through difficult terrain strikes at Initiative 1. It has nothing to do with taking a difficult terrain test anymore.
-Null Deployment is no longer possible
-No charging from reserves is a major nerf to Genestealers and Hive Commander
-We have no answer to enemy Fliers other than "roll 6's".
-We are the only army with no allies.
-We are the only army that can't manually use guns on fortifications.

Can the Aegis Quad gun still autofire?

I think its difficult to nail down if Nids got better or worse. However I think that just looking at the Buffs and Nerfs in a list, while is a very good summary, doesnt translate well into tabletop effectiveness.

For example saying that the Flying Hive Tyrant got buffed is good, but he was previously massively overcosted, and now it is not clear if he is buffed to "usable" status, or just still slightly overcosted status.

Even though the logic might appear similar, to state that Vendettas got buffed, is a clear plus for IG, because we used to see Vendettas in most lists and now they get a buff (in that respect specifically, not arguing overall). Flying Hive Tyrants almost never featured in lists, so it wont be clear if they got buffed to the point of making the cut.

So looking at units that were considered viable in 5th (not saying thats the only way to look at things but its a good starting point and useful perspective)..

Army composition was virtually limited to 3 units: Tervigons, Stealers and Hive Guard.

Allies - I think the Major problem with the Nid codex is a lack of unit diversity/viability. Some units are still totally useless. Allies would have provided a very useful tool to flesh out and round out a list. Sadly we dont have access to it. As a fluff actually Nids could have claimed more reason to have allies as infested allies. For example check out my Infested Guard
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-7854-25972_Infested%20Guard.html

I would have loved to use them with my Nids.

Genestealers -
Pros - can kill vehicles more easily, Broodlord Psychic ability got buffed
Cons - 5+ cover instead of 4+. Cant assault from outflank (huge in terms of positioning of enemy army. This is what made the enemy bunch up, and allowed our short range firepower to be effective). Move through cover + removing front units means when we assault through cover we have to remove models which are actually going to fight whereas before when assaulting through cover you removed guys from the back. Focus fire means that now you cant have half your unit in cover and half outside, trying to threaten units (this is huge). FNP is 5+ now. Overwatch might make the difference between a failed charge or not.
Overall - I think overall the Cons far outweigh the pros, and I dont think Stealers will be so prevalent on the tabletop. Shame because I converted loads of them.

Tervigons -
Pros - Can kill vehicles more easily. Crushing Claws are good. Can get 3 Psychic Powers meaning they are one of the most likely units to be able to have the power they want from a table. Poison is buffed. Much easier Coversave.
Cons - None?
Overall - They were cost efficient before, they got better.

Hive Guard -
Pros - Got better with more Night Fighting?
Cons - Cover Save is now 5+ for intervening models.
Overall - still a solid choice. Were very point cost efficient before, are now perhaps a tad better? Still good against flyers?

Honorable Mention -
Raveners - Might see them take the place of stealers given overall I think stealers have gone down. They get great speed. And 3 wounds means overwatch is less likely to force model removal which might fail a charge, and same with assaulting through cover, model only gets removed after 3 wounds, so more likely to have a chance to attack. Relatively cost efficient.

Gaunts - always necessary to unlock Tervigons, now I feel got better, primarily with No Retreat. Other synergies(like enfeeblement) and Tervigon support might see these really shine.

Overall I think that apart from allies, Nids could adapt to have viable lists. However, this is comparing to the relative power of the codex in 5th, where there was perhaps consensus that it was not a top tier army. So replacing stealers with raveners, and having more gaunts, you could say we got a slight buff (excluding the ally thing!), but this is a buff from a power level in 5th where we were considered mid to bottom of the pack.

saryrn wrote:
Genestealers -
Pros - can kill vehicles more easily, Broodlord Psychic ability got buffed

The main issue with the Broodlord's psychic ability is that it's BS0. So if you roll and generate a Witchfire power (which requires a roll to hit), you can't use it and have essentially given up a psychic power for nothing.

That's not to say Broodlords aren't good. If anything, overall they're probably better than 5th. Aura of Despair may have some decent synergy with enemy Fear checks due to Monstrous Creatures.

Allies, that is both a huge blow and basically unfair. Allow nids to ally with nids or suffer constant streams of SMs with allied ground holding IG and squadrons of leman russ. Nids need to be allowed to ally with nids, to get access to the extra HQ and one each of the specialist slots, otherwise unfair IMHO.

6th has been great for nids! you just have to look at the big picture.

`1. Flyrants: Serioulsy a terrifing threat. Strong and fast and double braindakka is horrible for enemy flyers.

2. Psychic powers: there are NO! bad powers on the biomancy chart for tyranids. I've played the other two books we get and they are ok. But Biomancy is freaking incredible. I've played two games were my tyrants get Iron Arm. You cannot believe how hard it is to kill a T9 Flying Monster.

3. Reserves are much kinder to us. We can get a 2+ very easy. Sure we no longer can reserve our hole army, without some nifty shinagangs, using drop pods. But, whatever you do put in reserve is much safer, and even the mishap chart is safer for us.

4. Beasts are not completely awesome. Raveners are worth it because they are never slowed by dangerous terrain or difficult terrain.

5. Poison is worth taking now, because you wound on a 4+ unless it would be better. Most of our MC's can take that for 10 bits, givng us rerolls to wound in most cases.

6. MC's can smash attack and get an Init 10 attack. That means that the trygon gets 4 S10 AP2 attacks! Did i mention that our attacks are AP2? Most things AP 2 now are Init 1, giving Nids a leg up on anti-terminator situations.

7. Boneswords ignore all amour still, another leg up.

8. Hull Points! Means that nids can now reliable kill tanks.

9. Our psychic bugs and now drop some of thier uselss powerse for better ones.

10. You cannot score in a tank anymore. Another boost to nids. This means that players who want to win have to acstually get out of the tank, which opens them up for assauls.

11. Listen up cause this one is huge. Random Charges actually is a boon for us. What this means is that, a % of the the time, players will fail there charges. It's just gonna happen, they will fail in situations where they would not normally. It sucks. But, many many of our CC Bugs have fleet or wings, meanign that we get a change to ignore that failure, were other armies don't. You can very easily make a super fast army that can assault turn one!

12. Forgot to mention that MC's attacks and rending are Plus 1 on the damage chart.

13. The harpy, being a flying MC, is actually good now. And since templates only need to touch the hull to score a full strength hit, the TL HVC is not terrible anymore.

I'm probably forgetting some more stuff. But overall we have been very lucky with the new rules. But, to be fair, here's the down sides.

1. No Null Deployment.
2. Stealers got the nerfbat, still AP2 when Rending, but we lose assaults fromt outflank and infiltrate. LAME!
3. Instant Death is an issue
4. Cover is worse, 5+ pretty much all around. Hurst our 5+ armor bugs.
5. New wound allocation means that we lose front rank models which can lower our assault changes.
6. Overwatch and be bad news if you dont set your charge up right, you could lose it all together.

I witnessed about 8 games the night 6th came out and nids are undefeated except for the nid vs nid game lol

Nids shouldn't be allied with any of the other armies and I'm glad we can't. Its not that we cannot take Allies like other armies that is the problem. The problem is that we (and other armies as required) should have gotten a good, detailed errata that fixed many of the less effective units/poorly written rules/adjusted overcosted units/adjusted many of the biomorphs so that most are useful (It would be nice to see a cheaper carnifex and/or a carnifex that wasn't a dakkafex, etc).

We did get some important buffs in 6th such as no retreat wounds gone and vehicles easier to destroy. We still have problems and we need to get experience playing 6th to see how effectively the army operates at the end of the day over the long term (hopefully we will not find ourselves reduced to a handful of units that are viable once the newness of 6th dust settles). For example, is the winged tyrant worth its points? Only time and experience with the game will tell.

Played my Nids against my friends mechanised Dark Eldar Wych army today. Bear in mind, the best I've ever done was draw against them.

We played that objectiive mission with 6 objectives and troops and fast attack are scoring. End result - Tyranids 10, Dark Eldar 5.

While he claimed an early First Blood on my Termagants, I managed to hold objectives better with larger broods than he could deal with, and counter attacked with some nasty attacks. Flyrant swooping with Devourers? Deadly. Didn't get grounded once due to target saturation.

Moment of the match was my Flyrant Crushing his Succubus, claiming a Warlord kill.

I can't see Tyranids having too many issues this edition outside of Flyers.

I've heard pretty bad things about nids, such as:
They don't have tanks.
They go crazy when synapse creatures die.
They're a horde army, and I've heard that horde armies can really suck.

I haven't heard much other hate about them, but they're not my personel favorite.

LoganWolfborn wrote:I've heard pretty bad things about nids, such as:
They don't have tanks.
They go crazy when synapse creatures die.
They're a horde army, and I've heard that horde armies can really suck.

I haven't heard much other hate about them, but they're not my personel favorite.

With Hull points, Tyranid MCs are as/even more durable as many tanks, with added melee capabilities.
Go crazy meaning +1 attack on the charge? I can live with that penalty.
All 'nid creatures have the ability to get S4 and glance vehicles to death. Hordes are brutal in melee now.

LoganWolfborn wrote:I've heard pretty bad things about nids, such as:
They don't have tanks.

Tanks are now the equivalent of T6-T10 models with no save the the ability to be one-shotted. Tyranids have T6 monstrous creatures with saves that can mulch most things in assault and can still fire their weapons on the move.

This was bad in 5th edition, in 6th edition not having tanks is actually a blessing.

LoganWolfborn wrote:They go crazy when synapse creatures die.

The half of the Tyranid units you want in assault simply gain +2 attacks on the charge when synapse dies, and the other half you want holding objectives seeks out cover when synapse dies - which is usually where objectives are.

So basically, when synapse is lost, they do their jobs anyway.

LoganWolfborn wrote:They're a horde army, and I've heard that horde armies can really suck.

I've always found the success to nids to be lots of different units. It's more fun, and like HunchKrot said, to be more confusing to your opponent. It's hard to keep track of all the little units. Your opponent wastes a couple of units shooting at the raveners only to get hit by shrikes or whateves.

tyranids are great. just take this cheese list that i played the other day.


HQ:

Flying hive tyrant

tyranid prime

elites

3 hive guard
3 hive guard

troops

tervigon
10 termagants

tervigon
10 termagant

7 genestealers with broodlord

heavy

tyranofex

psyker spam

How is that list 'cheese'? Looks like a fairly standard netlist, with a few sub par units scattered around. 6 Hive Guard are not needed at all anymore - 3 is plenty, especially with a flyrant with twin devourers. The list is actually very light on anti AV13-14. That list is a 5th edition list, and not particularly effective in 6th outside of slightly above average psyker count. That's even low for what Tyranids can potentially field, so I find it hard calling it psyker 'spam' either. Throw some Zoanthropes in in place of one of the Hive Guard broods, and you'll be heading into psyker spam territory.

it's cheese because at the end of a 1500 game i've killed 2100 worth of tyranids. any model x farm list is cheese to me, and just a scam to sell more models using effective in game rules. i would call 4 psykers in 1500 spam territory.

phoenixrisin wrote:it's cheese because at the end of a 1500 game i've killed 2100 worth of tyranids. any model x farm list is cheese to me, and just a scam to sell more models using effective in game rules.

LMAO! 2 Tervigons spawning 120 Termagants?!?!

And before the Tervigon there was the without number rule for endless gaunts. It's part of Tyranids. I can equally say, having an army of 3+ troops is cheese or maybe toss outlandish numbers like saying its cheese that your space marines only cost 4 points. Also, seeing as how you can field 5 Tervigons in one FOC I'd hardly call 2 spamming.

phoenixrisin wrote:i would call 4 psykers in 1500 spam territory.

Again, just happens to be something Tyranids have always been heavy on. You can fit 16 psykers in one Tyranid FOC, and 4 is "spam". Lolz. The typical Tyranid list will have 4-7 without even trying for extra psykers.

60mm wrote:

phoenixrisin wrote:it's cheese because at the end of a 1500 game i've killed 2100 worth of tyranids. any model x farm list is cheese to me, and just a scam to sell more models using effective in game rules.

LMAO! 2 Tervigons spawning 120 Termagants?!?!

And before the Tervigon there was the without number rule for endless gaunts. It's part of Tyranids. I can equally say, having an army of 3+ troops is cheese or maybe toss outlandish numbers like saying its cheese that your space marines only cost 4 points. Also, seeing as how you can field 5 Tervigons in one FOC I'd hardly call 2 spamming.

phoenixrisin wrote:i would call 4 psykers in 1500 spam territory.

Again, just happens to be something Tyranids have always been heavy on. You can fit 16 psykers in one Tyranid FOC, and 4 is "spam". Lolz. The typical Tyranid list will have 4-7 without even trying for extra psykers.

two tervigons spawning 10.5(average of 3D6) gaunts w/ toxin sacs every turn is 126 points of units a turn. 123 x 5 equals 615 points of units in a game. so yeah, you're right, 2100 points was wrong. its really 2130, thanks for proving my point even further. either your math is bad or you run a list similar to this and your feelings are hurt from being called out as cheese.

so lulz all you want, you're running cheese.

you can fit 12 vendettas/valkaries in one foc but running 6 of them in a 1500 point game is still spamming them so your point about how many you CAN have is...well...pointless.

You do know that Tervigons run out of Gants if they roll Doubles right?

The change that they don't run out is fairly low, not to mention thats if you don't kill the Tervigons. They arn't hard to kill you know.


Nids can't run a cheese list, not since their FAQ and Codex has shown that GW really likes to bone Nids. 6th has only just made them viable from a competitive standpoint, and its still slightly underpowered.