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I have a group of students who are just starting 40k, adn today I took them to a hooby shop to look at some of the modles and such.
One boy is very interested in playing Tyranid, but a local games in the store told him that they were vastly underpowered, and not a very good army.
This kid was pretty crushed,and worried that the army he thought looked coolest is going to suck.
I told him to look around on the web, and see what other players had to say, but I was hoing I could call out to the nice folks of the Dakka Dakka who have been so helpful so far, and see if any one had any advice.

Please, I don;t want this to be any kind of flame war about which army is best, I just want to know if 'Nids are really that bad, or if this kid should stnad by his dreams of commanding bugs.

Nids are a very hard army, for a beginner. You need to make no mistakes, and have a little luck on your side to win.

Now, if you are all starting together, you should be on equal footing for the most part, so that really doesn't matter as much.

Out of my 3 Armies, Nids are my favorite model wise, which is a big part of the hobby. You don't want to play an army you don't like, just because it's more competitive.

I still win most of my games with Nids, but the codex really does have it's fair share of problems. There are a few really bad matchups against the codex, and a few really overpriced Units.

Overall, I'd say say to go with what he wants. The game is meant to be played for fun, and not every game is going to be a against a tuned tough as nails list.

I'd start by getting a battleforce, that's never a bad start. Keep in mind there are currently rumors around of Nids getting some new models (A Second wave) in February, so I'd be cognizant of that as well.

Good luck to you and your friends!

I find the whole "Tyranids are the suxs!!!1!" thing to be overblown, granted they're not the most powerful army in the game, but they can definitely be competitive if built right. (Use lots of Primes and Tervigons and you can't go wrong )

The models themselves are for the most part, excellent and a real treat to paint, so I'd say if he wants to play them, he should go right ahead.

Yeah, I've been playing up the "choose an army that has a good 'feel' to you" aspect of the game, but to a kid who is unsure, facing a larg output of cash, One bad review can be daunting.
And luckily, yes, we are all starting at the same time, so at least we'll all have the same learning curve.
Sasori, I didn't know about the new codex, thanks for the tip!

Tallghost wrote:Yeah, I've been playing up the "choose an army that has a good 'feel' to you" aspect of the game, but to a kid who is unsure, facing a larg output of cash, One bad review can be daunting.
And luckily, yes, we are all starting at the same time, so at least we'll all have the same learning curve.
Sasori, I didn't know about the new codex, thanks for the tip!

Not a new codex, a second wave of models. Which are rumored, to be coming out in February. Nothing is set in stone.

Edit: spelling and emphasis.

Visit the Tyranid Hive: http://thetyranidhive.proboards.com.

Is the kid a good sport or is he going to rage quit the 1st time a unit of marines hops out of their Rhino and double taps his genestealers?

Make sure your table has plenty of cover.

The only time you really run into problems with Tyranids is if your opponent is doing that whole tournament thing. Like, if they're running a really hard list, fully mechanised and brimming with anti tank weapons as the current tournament metagame goes, he'll have problems.

If it's 3 new people learning the game, avoiding netlists, and just buying and playing what they think is cool, he won't have any problems.

He should make sure he has enough Synapse coverage for his troops. If most of his units depend on Synapse but he's only taken a single Tyrant as his Synapse Creatures he's going to get stomped by anyone who picks up on that, no matter how new they are.

If he runs some genestealers, outflanking, he'll likely end up slaughtering a few of the other beginners before they start hiding in cover.

I have found that I need to play tactically (and very deliberately) if I have any hope of winning a game. Sacrificial units, distractions, proper timing, and unexpected attacks (outflanking) can really help. Also, he's going to need some luck.

They're by far my favorite army to paint, which is primarily why I use them. So much fun, so many creepy slashy parts to paint!

I started with 4th eed Nids in 2008, and carried my army over to 5th ed, tactics and all. Works fine.

Beautiful to paint and some real converesion and greenstuff work to be had. Seriously, if you were to plonk a blob of greenstuff, not modelled properly, on an eldar on marine, or even an ork, bad. On nids it looks natural once painted.

Tallghost wrote:I have a group of students who are just starting 40k, adn today I took them to a hooby shop to look at some of the modles and such.
One boy is very interested in playing Tyranid, but a local games in the store told him that they were vastly underpowered, and not a very good army.
This kid was pretty crushed,and worried that the army he thought looked coolest is going to suck.
I told him to look around on the web, and see what other players had to say, but I was hoing I could call out to the nice folks of the Dakka Dakka who have been so helpful so far, and see if any one had any advice.

Please, I don;t want this to be any kind of flame war about which army is best, I just want to know if 'Nids are really that bad, or if this kid should stnad by his dreams of commanding bugs.

A few things with nids. They are a very unforgiving army....if you make a mistake, it will cost you a lot.

The first real pit-fall is in list building. From the bat the entire army must function as one cohesive unit. Yes a Trygon is good....yes Hormagaunts are good......but on their own they will fail miserably. Consideration must be taken on each unit and how it fits in the general scheme of things. And army consisting of Trygons, Termagants, and genestealers....well....it just sucks. Because the entire army doesn't support each other and hit in multiple waves. Makes if very easy for the enemy to pick the most immediate threat.

Secondly Tyranids are just bad at anti-tank....and the NEED ranged anti-transport so that the CC bugs can munch on the infantry. This means Hive Guard, Zoanthropes in pods, Harpies, Tyrannonfexes w/ Rupture Cannons, and Dakka Tyrants/Carnifexes are required. You can't preform competitively without them.

At 1750+ points you are looking at either 6 Hive Guard + 2-3 Zoans in a pod or 9 Hive Guard with Tyrannofex, Harpy, or Dakka Tyrant/Fex back-up.

And Thirdly.....the second point still doesn't have enough anti-tank as you can are limited in the number of targets you can engage.



It's a very difficult army to play....but the models are fantastic and can be a lot of fun. I would definitely suggest posting up lists here for review (or even just PM me or others) for some help.




And on a final note....stay away from the battleforce...it's a terrible buy for tyranids as the units have very little synergy with each other. Unless you are planning on dropping $700 or more for two different army builds. Do. Not. Get. The. Battleforce.

Simply, lists filled with tervigon/gants, genestealers, hive guard are generally pretty solid. Adapt to your needs ...

I love tyranids, great models, love playing them, mostly win whats there to lose? what makes me angry is how games workshop balance the points of models. id love to see the crackpot who picks the points of a model by random

Performance wise, Tyranids are middle of the road right now when compared to most other codexes (they are maybe slightly overcosted, but they are in no where near as poor shape as Eldar, DA, BT, etc. ), and they are somewhat difficult to play, but as long as it is mostly beginners playing it shouldn't be a problem. There are some lists that they do extremely well against, and others that just completely destroy them, but as a whole they are still playable.

As far as advice goes, Gaunts and Tegrivon's are strong troop choices, Genestealers should probably be modelled as Ygmarl Genestealers, who can assault from outflanking, and Tyrants are always a good HQ choice. Also, bring a lot of synapse.

Nids arent the most forgiving army to play, but you can work to a basic structure and build up from there, learning as you go.
Its just a case of making sure he has the main issues covered.

1: Synapse is a pain for a new player as it seems like a huge drawback.
This isnt entirely the case though.
It can be annoying, but you get on with it fine after your 1st game or 2.
Things like tervigons boost that synapse, give you a nice supply of models and for a new player, its a cool model that kicks arse.

2: Anti-tank / air.
This one has really been solved thanks to the faq.
Hive guard are a must im affraid.
S8 Assault 2 weapons that dont allow cover (or jink saves from flyers) so they really do hit home and fast.

Zoanthropes are something that is again, im affraid, an auto choice.
Granted you can glance anything to death with hive guard, thropes just get the job done faster and neater, and if theres no armour, can hunt 2+ save models.
AP1 really makes it deadly to armour, and the normal blast power is AP3, so power armour isnt really an issue.

3: Know your limits.
Nid big monsters are nice, but instant death is not.
He really wants to make a note of force weapons as they are a real pain and you either have to shoot the model with it, or flood it with cheap troops.



But for a beginner:

HQ: Tervigon
Elite: 3 Hive guard
Troop: 15 termigants
Troop: 15 termigants

Thats a nice start and no matter how much his army expands, he will allways get a use from those models.
2 medium sized units to start with numbers on the table.
1 unit to cope with armour and annoying flyers.
The tervigon there as a nice synapse booster and to keep numbers up.

Granted he has to get used to some rules with the army. (spawning, LoS etc) but they arent too bad and its a nice learning experiance for him.

Things like genestealers are amazing, but you need to learn how to use them as they are easy to kill and expensive on points, so not a good thing for a beginner.

In 5th edition, tyranids were great if the terrain was placed by the book so 25% and containing LoS blocking pieces. In 6th if you follow d3 terrain pieces for each 2'x2', I guess they will be great as well, obviously sparse terrain hurts them.

As said, stealer list was dangerous, is nerfed is 6th but there are still Ymgarls, not to mention with a lot of terrain no assault from outflank might not be that much of an issue.

Last but not least, uphill battle is rewarding and teaching you more, if the guy likes Tyranids he should go for them no matter the current competitive status of the army. The only way to keep competitive is going for latest and greatest which is much more unreasonable from financial standpoint than going for what you like anyway. The system is so much unbalanced that the best way imo is to go for what you enjoy and accept loosing from time to time even too often, at least it's much helthier than keeping up with GW bullsh*t change for the sake of change (selling models) policy.

We had a guy at my local store that had a nid list that crushed everyone. Had a league and no one could beat him. He created a few lists that he knew very well, and knew how to use them.

DSing Trygons disrupting an army, while Tervigons spawn tons of troops to take objectives. It was a bit of a pain in the ass to deal with.

You'll probably lose a lot of games, but once you find a play style for your army, and know what to do with them, they can be pretty tough to beat.

My gf and I have been playing Tyranids for the past year, so here's my 2 cents:
What used to be very popular was the spamming stealers army. I had a friend who ran 130 stealers in one army (120 normal and 10 ymgarl). Completely insane. But with the new edition, genestealers aren't worth it anymore. Most of the time (unless terrain is to your advantage) they will get shot up before they do any damage.

I agree with Jackal. Tervigons are great HQ's (with the spawning rules and the psychic powers), plus the model looks great (which is always the best way to excite a kid)
If you get Tervigons, you have to get termagants. They are a solid troop choice who can soak up tons off fire and actually deal out a decent amount as well. Plus with the powers of the Tervigon on them, the benefits are even greater.
So 2 squads of 20 termagants (20 so they can withstand a decent amount of fire) and a Tervigon are a great way to start an army. As for the "fun" non-mandatory choice, its really up to the kid. I would recommend letting him pick the models he likes the most out the Elites, Fast, and Heavy choices.
Personally, I would try to "nudge" in towards either Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, Carnifex, Trygon, or Tyrannofex. But its up to you.

I hope this helps.

 Jackal wrote:
2: Anti-tank / air.
This one has really been solved thanks to the faq.
Hive guard are a must im affraid.
S8 Assault 2 weapons that dont allow cover (or jink saves from flyers) so they really do hit home and fast.

I haven't found Hive Guard necessary at all anymore. MCs and FMCs with twin devourers will drop even AV12 vehicles now thanks to hull points, and AV14 isn't going to be a good target for Hive Guard anyway - they lack the quantity of shots to strip 3-4 hull points with any sort of reliability. The only thing they do now is do better damage against AV13 targets, which are few and far between (at least in my area). For me, Hive Guard are just wasted points unless I'm fighting someone who is clutching onto a mech heavy list like a drowning man.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Freytag93 wrote:
I agree with Jackal. Tervigons are great HQ's

Tervigons are terrible HQs. However, they're fantastic troops choices. Make sure you bring a unit of Termagants to shift it to troops. A scoring W6, T6, sv3+ monstrous creature that makes more scoring units as you make your way over to it is a nightmare for a lot of people.

Ware the skies, at the moment we are really quite short changed when it comes to dealing with fliers. Our best option is a flying dakkarant, with the Harpy being used in desperation against lighter fliers. You can also try to glance fliers to death through sheer weight of high strength fire with devourers, impalers, stinger salvos, bio-electric pulses, death spitters, just anything with a strength above three that you can shoot a lot of. In absolute desperation, certain static defenses can be auto-fired to circumvent the restriction against us not being able to man the weapons, but they only have a BS of 2 and will shoot at the closest available target rather than what you might want them to. Your best bet is to try to play the mission and withstand the airbourne punishment long enough to win.

 Kain wrote:
Ware the skies, at the moment we are really quite short changed when it comes to dealing with fliers. Our best option is a flying dakkarant

You say that like it's bad?

Now with Skyfire, you can wait for an enemy flier to move on the board, launch and knock it down very easily. They're even effective against Stormravens with stripping hullpoints, and are good at ambushing flyings by sitting behind LOS blocking cover until the offending flyer moves onto the board, then launching.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Ware the skies, at the moment we are really quite short changed when it comes to dealing with fliers. Our best option is a flying dakkarant

You say that like it's bad?

Now with Skyfire, you can wait for an enemy flier to move on the board, launch and knock it down very easily. They're even effective against Stormravens with stripping hullpoints, and are good at ambushing flyings by sitting behind LOS blocking cover until the offending flyer moves onto the board, then launching.

You still can only have two, which can each only target one unit, this still covers you against a reasonable density of fliers, but certain flier spam lists will still give you fits.

That and I still have nightmares of when I tried to pit a Flying Dakkarant against a Thunderbolt. Those autocannons hurt.

But I will say this in agreement with you, Flying Dakkarants are hilariously good at swatting Chaos' flimsy fliers (I'm actually pretty sure that on a per point value, they're even more fragile than Dark Eldar fliers) out of the skies. I'm honestly excited to see what kinds of Anti-air options we'll get in the future. A dedicated Air superiority tyranid creature is something I've imagined for quite a while but was always disappointed to never see made into reality.

I haven't found Hive Guard necessary at all anymore. MCs and FMCs with twin devourers will drop even AV12 vehicles now thanks to hull points, and AV14 isn't going to be a good target for Hive Guard anyway - they lack the quantity of shots to strip 3-4 hull points with any sort of reliability. The only thing they do now is do better damage against AV13 targets, which are few and far between (at least in my area). For me, Hive Guard are just wasted points unless I'm fighting someone who is clutching onto a mech heavy list like a drowning man.

but you have max 2 , 4 if you play 2k or over , IG and necron play a lot more flyers then 2-4 and you still have to survive on the board for 2 turns , if you go first . there would have to be a lot of terrain on the board and the opposing army would have to be realy static for that to work .

Makumba wrote:

I haven't found Hive Guard necessary at all anymore. MCs and FMCs with twin devourers will drop even AV12 vehicles now thanks to hull points, and AV14 isn't going to be a good target for Hive Guard anyway - they lack the quantity of shots to strip 3-4 hull points with any sort of reliability. The only thing they do now is do better damage against AV13 targets, which are few and far between (at least in my area). For me, Hive Guard are just wasted points unless I'm fighting someone who is clutching onto a mech heavy list like a drowning man.

but you have max 2 , 4 if you play 2k or over , IG and necron play a lot more flyers then 2-4 and you still have to survive on the board for 2 turns , if you go first . there would have to be a lot of terrain on the board and the opposing army would have to be realy static for that to work .

I have 2, but as of 6th I haven't been using them. I should have made it a bit clearer that this is only my personal experience. I haven't run across flier spam (which Hive Guard wouldn't do much against) or lots of AV13+ tanks (which again, Hive Guard wouldn't do much against). Basically, hull points were a blessing and a curse for Tyranids. Brainleech Devourers fire the quantity of shots needed to strip an Av12 vehicle of hull points in one turn. But with the removal of a glancing hit table, Hive Guard are going to take a long, long time to glance a heavier vehicle to death, and likely won't be removing weapons or stunning a vehicle along the way like they used to. As for fliers, again, I haven't faced massed Vendetta spam or a scythwing army. I wouldn't call them common enough to base every single list around beating.

For me, Hive Guard are just points better spent elsewhere now. By all means though, if your opponent is still bringing lots of tanks, bring three broods of two and teach him why hull points are the best thing that happened to Tyranids. Just don't expect them to do much to Predators, Russes, Land Raiders, Monoliths, etc, because they just aren't strong enough. Nids still need podded Zoanthropes with their default powers or lucky MC assaults to take care of those. Or fliers, because even a Carnifex with brainleech devourers is going to stand a better chance of dropping a flier than a pair of Hive Guard, and once the vehicle/flier is dead, those brainleech devourers are more effective against everything else as well.

Tyranid haters going to hate. No matter what. Not the easiest but not the hardest to learn how to play either.

I never bought a battlebox simply because i had a crazy list in mind when started building the army.

Big stompy monstrous creatures. can make a whole list of nearly nothing but. dont care if i lose. because with that much awesomeness its usually just barely.

still i bought some models because they just look plain awesome.

I agree the battle force sucks hard, especially as up till the last price hike it was the most expensive, and compared to the last force it really sucks.

This one gets 3 warriors, 12 Hormagants, 12 Termagants , 8Stealers and 3 Ripers.

The last one got 3 Warriors, 8 Hormagants, 8Termagants, 8 Genestealers and a Carnifex.

So is 4 Hormagaunts, 4 Termagants and 3 rippers equal to a Carnifex?

GET ZOANTHROPES, LOVE ZOANTHROPES, WORSHIP ZOANTHROPES. Trust me. I was playing a game with my buddie, and we had swiched armies. He used zoanthropes to wipe one of my entire 10-man tactical squads in one turn. They also bust tanks like you read about.