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Is like to start a xeno army up and I'm thinking nids, but I've noticed a lot of hate towards them. I know the auras got nerfed, but other than that are they still decently competitive?

A guy named Jay Woodcock got to the second day at Adepticon with them in April. That is the last I have heard of them doing very well.

If you google his name or his name + adepticon + blood of kittens you could probably find his list. It was lots of stealers and little bugs.

But there were a few of those lists that made the second day because of the player and not the list. I think this was one of them. That's not a "set it down and start winning" army.

Yes.

They're not easy to use by any means and can have an uphill battle versus GK and DE in particular, but they are competitive.

Yes, I ran them quite a bit last year and won quite a few RTT's with them across the area. Plus just missed out on Day 2 of the Adepticon Championships (Finished 21 in battle, missed by 5 spots). Jay's a hell of a good player as well and does well with them regularly.

They aren't a plug and play army but the only major issue left honestly is venom spam. And by Venom Spam I mean 8+ of the bastards. Less than that you're generally alright but that many is brutal...

My probem with nids is that the best lists seems to be small nids, and my local meta has a lott of landraiders in it an small nids are not so good. (Also, the p.hood inside the landraider makes my zoanthropes worse.)

If you do want to start 'Nids, the two best units in the Codex are the Tervigon (because it gives you free stuff) and the Venomthrope (because it keeps your big things alive a little longer).

Tervigon, Genestealers, Hive Guard.

Hulksmash speaks the truth.

Jay managed to eke out the win over me in round four of the Adepticon qualifier to get into day two. Strong list, excellent player. If we had Drawn we both still would have qualified because we both had a very high number of objectives scored in our first three games.

Yes. A lot of armies actually have problems against nids. There's only a few competitive builds that tyranids will have trouble against. For the most part, they can hold their own against most builds and even dominate some. But you have to know how to play them properly. A tyranid army needs to work together. Every unit has a function that works best off each other. If you can grasp their army synergy, then you will do well with them.

Here are some of the better tyranid units:

Hive Tyrant
Swarmlord
Tervigon (as troops)
Hive Guards
Ymgarl Genestealers
Genestealers
Termagants (to act as screens)
Gargoyles
Biovores
Tyrannofex

Definitely. As said, they're not easy, but they're still great in assault and have surprisingly effective shooting.

jy2: I can't believe you didn't mention the Prime... I never home without 2 of those guys...

I think the tyranid codex is amazing, I don't really get all the tyranid hate out there. They have some really cool unique abilities, they have amazing internal synergy, and they can shoot and assault really well; they can play highly mobile, tricky games or they can swarm.

I think what people who have casual encounters with the tyranids fail to realize is that you have to design a tyranid list as a symbiotic whole, and you can't just Long-Fang your way through it by spamming the 2 best units in the book.

Personally I like seeing things like Shrikes and Zoanthropes, which don't get a lot of play, being used expertly - often to great effect.

Something about playing against tyranid makes me more nervous than playing against the most finely tuned net lists from other factions. I'll battle razorspam and green tide all day, but when the doom of malan'tai is about to make a reserve roll, I start clenching my fists.

The Tyranid codex has a lot of issues, and was made even worse by a soul-crushing FAQ.

They can certainly still win games and compete, but a lot of the newer codexes can cause a lot of problems for them. Venomspam, Purifier spam, Draigowing comes to mind. There are also a few things like Jaws, that can just wreck your day.

The main issues in my eyes, are things like the Massive overcosting on a few of our TMCs. the Harpy/Mawloc/Carnifex springs to mind. The super crowded elite slot is also pretty hampering.

We also have a lot of little things that add up. Things like, no assault grenades on almost any of our units, TMC Deathspitters, Venom Cannons taking a -1 on the Vehicle damage chart, etc etc etc.

We're also lacking a second wave of models, as well.

Now, that's not to say they can't compete, but there are a lot of areas where they really struggle. It is defiantly one of the harder armies out there to do well with.

However, Tyranids are still an incredibly fun army to play, and have some of the coolest models out there. Even if I have some tough battles, I still get great enjoyment out of playing them, and I think it makes me a better General by doing so.


People like Hulksmash, and Jy2 can take just about any army they want, and beat the snot out of people. It's no surprise that they win tournies with Nids haha.