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Hey DakkaDakka friends. I was thinking. I understand the fluff behind not letting Tyranid ally with anyone. There's not much room for diplomancy with giant killer space bugs, but does that mean they should suffer yet another nerf here in 6th? My Tyranid playing friend and I agreed that Tyranid should be able to ally with at least Tyranid!!! Let the Nid players use a double FOC in any size game, not just 2000 points or higher. That way, they can stay competetive. 4 Flyrants? Nasty.
What do you guys think? Is this a fair game plan? Can any of you think, right off the bat, of any broken tactics that I'm not thinking off that should make mus change our minds about this decison. To me personally, it seems pretty fair. Honestly, I'm suprised GW made the decision to let the Nids stand alone. I know it's fulffy, but normally they'd seem to care more about selling models. Everyone I know spent money on allies and new units for 6th. Everyone except the Tyranid players. Why does GW have such a lack of love for the old insect army right now. They ened a new Codex worse than Eldar right now!

If they allied with Tyranids, they wouldn't have double the FOC. They'd only have the regular plus the allied one.

This is a more fair solution than 10 Tervigons.

Should be, but GW seems content to let Nids rot a bit more before refreshing them. Really, Nids problem isnt the lack of slots to take units in, its the lack of playable units to fill in the army. FA slot is nearly unusable besides gargs, which are still pretty meh. HS is simply outclassed by every other codex out there (trygon and biovore are usable, but trygon vs DK, avatar, talos, WL in points/damage and survivability....). Elite is jam packed with good units but they lost a lot of punch for varius reasons on their 5th incarnations.

Better alternative would be a genestealer cult White Dwarf. Bring one of the most feared melee units in the game back into at least a competitive state (as of now, regular genestealers are unplayable in competition). Give you ally options for nids, brings back a fluffy army that has been largely gone from 40k for 10+ years, and would probably improve the nid codex onto a playable level with some good options from that codex.

This is a pretty common idea, and not a bad one, but I would say it's truly needed. This would really just give us an extra elite and HQ slot. I don't think anyone would need the extra Fast or Heavy, or honestly troops at sub 2000.

Also, I would say Tyranids don't really need a new codex.

"Also, I would say Tyranids don't really need a new codex."

Really? I've only heard of a couple Nid lists on any top tables since the dawn of 6th edition. I feel like they need an update pretty badly. Other than the flying monsterous creatures Nids took some serious hits coming into 6th. If not a codex, maybe a 6th edition FAQ version 1.2. I feel like they can field some good friendly lists, but they are very limited as to what they can bring to a competitive environment. Biovores, for example are plenty of fun to field, but not good... That's the way it seems to be for a lot of their units now a days. Also, Gene Stealers should be the best CC troop in the game. Right now, they have trouble even reaching combat before they are shot to oblivion.

(FYI, I have never actually played with Tyranid. These complaints are not because I want MY army to be better. It's because I miss seeing the bugs on the other side of a table in my local gaming environment. lately, all I see is Marines of all sorts, Necrons, Imperial, Ork, Dark Eldar occasionally, Demons, and of course Chaos Space marines are making a rise (as if they weren't popular to begin with). I feel like most of the younger players I encounter are ALL playing Chaos Space Marines. Is that common other places, or is it just a trend around where I play?

Erik the Red wrote:
"Also, I would say Tyranids don't really need a new codex."

Really? I've only heard of a couple Nid lists on any top tables since the dawn of 6th edition. I feel like they need an update pretty badly. Other than the flying monsterous creatures Nids took some serious hits coming into 6th. If not a codex, maybe a 6th edition FAQ version 1.2. I feel like they can field some good friendly lists, but they are very limited as to what they can bring to a competitive environment. Biovores, for example are plenty of fun to field, but not good... That's the way it seems to be for a lot of their units now a days. Also, Gene Stealers should be the best CC troop in the game. Right now, they have trouble even reaching combat before they are shot to oblivion.

(FYI, I have never actually played with Tyranid. These complaints are not because I want MY army to be better. It's because I miss seeing the bugs on the other side of a table in my local gaming environment. lately, all I see is Marines of all sorts, Necrons, Imperial, Ork, Dark Eldar occasionally, Demons, and of course Chaos Space marines are making a rise (as if they weren't popular to begin with). I feel like most of the younger players I encounter are ALL playing Chaos Space Marines. Is that common other places, or is it just a trend around where I play?

Genestealers are pretty bad sadly, but as a Bugs player I find Tyranids highly competetive... If you play them right they're easily a top tier army. They're actually pretty dominant in local RTTs.

Biovores, gants, Ymgarls and Tervigons are all great, as are Flyrants and Zoanthropes, plus the Doom, Trygon, and Gargoyles. And let's not forget Hive Guard.

They don't need generic extra slots either. They just need to take allied detachments of also Tyranids. This is the fair solution.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
They don't need generic extra slots either. They just need to take allied detachments of also Tyranids. This is the fair solution.

I agree, it would be the most fair. It won't happen though, sadly.

 jifel wrote:


Genestealers are pretty bad sadly, but as a Bugs player I find Tyranids highly competetive... If you play them right they're easily a top tier army. They're actually pretty dominant in local RTTs.

Biovores, gants, Ymgarls and Tervigons are all great, as are Flyrants and Zoanthropes, plus the Doom, Trygon, and Gargoyles. And let's not forget Hive Guard.

Tyranid come down to this in competition: Do you understand how they work together and the weaknesses inherent in the codex? If no, they are top teir. If yes, they are pretty easy to beat. The whole army is simply so mono-dimensional. Psychic Choir or T6 spam are the only two army lists that actually work and they really arent that different. Psychic defense in eldar/SW allies are becoming a staple of competitive armies. Runes of Warding particularly can shut down most of the nid's strategy. once you start popping wounds off your own guys and failing half the time your army becomes a patchwork of ranging toughness values that can be easily exploited.

S4 average armies do have problems with nids, but GK, and DE walk all over them. My eldar have never lost a game to nids in 5 years despite consistently facing a few nid players in the last rounds of tourneys. Crons and competitive lists (wraithspam, aircrons) simply give nids no good solutions to deal with them. The codex was poorly written at the time it was created and has since been loosing strength with every new codex that is released until the most recent CSM.

At this point nids can perform in competitions, but will rarely win as you get more and more skilled players who can exploit all the problems the codex has. The shifting meta of 6th has benefited nids, but the nerfing of assault in 6th has compounded the problems the codex had to deal with.

zephoid wrote:
Should be, but GW seems content to let Nids rot a bit more before refreshing them. Really, Nids problem isnt the lack of slots to take units in, its the lack of playable units to fill in the army. FA slot is nearly unusable besides gargs, which are still pretty meh. HS is simply outclassed by every other codex out there (trygon and biovore are usable, but trygon vs DK, avatar, talos, WL in points/damage and survivability....). Elite is jam packed with good units but they lost a lot of punch for varius reasons on their 5th incarnations.

Better alternative would be a genestealer cult White Dwarf. Bring one of the most feared melee units in the game back into at least a competitive state (as of now, regular genestealers are unplayable in competition). Give you ally options for nids, brings back a fluffy army that has been largely gone from 40k for 10+ years, and would probably improve the nid codex onto a playable level with some good options from that codex.

If you bring back genestealer cults, you need to bring back Zoats. In a fluffy sense, the Zoats actually were the only allies to the Tyranid Hive Fleets, since the Tyranids had subverted and melded the Zoats into their armies, using them for shock troops and emmissaries before the main assualt forces landed.

zephoid wrote:
Tyranid come down to this in competition: Do you understand how they work together and the weaknesses inherent in the codex? If no, they are top teir. If yes, they are pretty easy to beat. The whole army is simply so mono-dimensional. Psychic Choir or T6 spam are the only two army lists that actually work and they really arent that different. Psychic defense in eldar/SW allies are becoming a staple of competitive armies. Runes of Warding particularly can shut down most of the nid's strategy. once you start popping wounds off your own guys and failing half the time your army becomes a patchwork of ranging toughness values that can be easily exploited.

S4 average armies do have problems with nids, but GK, and DE walk all over them. My eldar have never lost a game to nids in 5 years despite consistently facing a few nid players in the last rounds of tourneys. Crons and competitive lists (wraithspam, aircrons) simply give nids no good solutions to deal with them. The codex was poorly written at the time it was created and has since been loosing strength with every new codex that is released until the most recent CSM.

At this point nids can perform in competitions, but will rarely win as you get more and more skilled players who can exploit all the problems the codex has. The shifting meta of 6th has benefited nids, but the nerfing of assault in 6th has compounded the problems the codex had to deal with.

I agree that Tyranids are one-dimensional, but I've never had a problem with AirCron. I've only lost once to Necrons this addition, and that a Kill Point game. 5/6 times, AirCron is very beatable. The only army that is really troubling to me in 6th is drop-Jaws Space Wolves. GK can be troubling, but only their gunline-IG allies spam stuff. As soon as you start using real Grey Knights, they generally aren't as scary. Eldar armies usually lack the firepower to deal with T6 spam as well... I've faced Eldrad, and I just didn't use psychic powers. A few Spawns, the Doom, and some Ymgarls later I ran him off the board. The single dimension of Tyranids is very competetive, and is also very different than other armies, and so matches up well with almost all Take-all-comers armies. We do have one super-hard counter (Drop-Jotww), but even that is not insurmountable.

To be fair though, I have yet to face Dark Eldar with Eldar allies. I could see that as theoretically a bad matchup.

I would say for a Genestealer Cult just let them let them have IG allies. A subverted Guard regiment. Easily done.

Tyranids should be able to ally with imperial guard.

The genestealer cult sort of thing. The hive infested the company and they are all brainleeched or something. Makes perfect sense to me as there were some awesome armies presented in older WDs where the guy modeled his imperial guard army like it was taken over by nids and/or worshipping the tyranids.

Erik the Red wrote:
Also, Gene Stealers should be the best CC troop in the game

Why exactly?

Also Genestealer cults get put in the bio-soup along with everything else on the invaded planet. Personally I can't visualise the type of IG units that every Tyranid player will use running alongside Flyrants... Vendettas etc.

They're the bug race, they don't parlay with ANYONE. I hope GW keeps it that way.

It would make more sense just to adjust overall unit cost in light of allies. The bugs don't need 'friends' they need more fodder on the board!