Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This is my attempt to fix all that is wrong with the nid codex. Almost every unit was retouched in some way, sometimes majorly. A lot of units are gone, many merged into other units. Complete upgrade and cost retooling to fit 6ths power level and move away from the 3+ tervigon spam lists (in fact, tervigon was entirely removed for being an abomination of fluff and gameplay).

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?lei626dkwd5zxvt

Download it, dont try to view it. Mediafire's viewer screws up the page formatting and so everything bleeds together. First few pages are fine but the last few are a mess.

Dont work

My first comment is just give the Pyrovores Torrent.
Don't bother with the silly use-in-cc thing, Torrent on its own would make them a good choice.

Next, You've combined Gaunts and Gants.
I wouldn't do this, as it means you've combined the cc and shooty, but removed the ease of access to things like Tervigons.

To be honest, the Troops Section of the current 'nid book is fine, it's the rest of it that's in need of love.
Also - not a fan of the layout.

I'll pop back later when more conscious to do more than skim it.

The download works perfect for me on 3 computers on 3 networks. Must be on your end.


Tervigon is removed. Many reasons behind that. First is that it never made sense to create such a creature. It doesnt create the eggs, all it does is incubate them. So you are investing a significant amount of biomass to create a creature that is simply a transport. Its not an assault creature, nor is it a support creature. What role does it provide that spawning pools and carnifex dont? Finally: the most effective weapon against nids: flame. Guess what happen when you flamethrower, incendiary missile, bomb, or otherwise target the tervigon in any way with an AoE attack. Well, it WAS a transport, now its a death trap.

In rules, it was just as bad. A better support commander than the tyrant, cheaper, nearly as good in combat with CC, especially when smashing. Cheesy being in the troop slot (while not being a troop in fluff) and pretty much invalidates all other selections. Its the only unit the tyranids have that have kept them from being invalid simply because it is cheese through and through.

Bad fluff+bad rules= gone.

Pyrovores are not meant to be pseudo-arty. They would also be sub par still with torrent (how often are hellhounds taken, how about hellhounds with IB, weak in melee, and exploding everywhere). Improving CC stats and making them cheaper was a better alternative.

I would very much argue that nids are NOT fine in any slot. Warriors are unusable because of S8+, rippers are... *shudders*. Hormies are expensive and die to overwatch+lack grenades. Only gaunts and tervigons see use. Removing the tervigon doesnt make them better, they need help.

The point of re-doing the codex was to make them more akin to the fluff and less to the current meta. Nids should be everywhere. Gaunts and genestealers are always described as popping out of the ground (hormies lay eggs in fluff, which is actually an incredibly tactically strong mutation) and rippers as being everywhere. Allowing movement flexibility via pods, outflank, and deepstriking all bring them more into their fluff model.


Do you have a suggestion on formatting? I simply formatted all the ideas similar to codex form. I wanted to bang out ideas and get feedback on point cost/internal & external balance before throwing it into PDF form.

There's plain-text templates in my sig that'll translate cleaner than the spreadsheet style you're using.

I honestly don't see enough Str8 on the field to understand this theory that Warriors are instabad, they're pointed appropriately for what they are and what they do, and my nids will have at least 2 squads of them in my standard lists for the Venom Cannons.

I agree certain things should be cheaper, especially Carnifexes, but at the end of the day, removing popular and liked units that is commonly used, will mean no one's really going to care for the book.
You're best off making something internally and externally balanced, using existing units, potentially making new units to fill the gaps.

There seems to be this common thing, where nid players hate nids, complaining that everything about them is bad, and while they had a harder time of it in 5th, in 6th they're certainly up there in the power, and not that majorly limited in viable options, but looking through the book, and comparing it to other codexes and my own work, probably half the codex is pointed appropriately to 6th, even though there are some still some glaring issues.

It's all well and good creating your own vision of the army, but if you want others to adopt it, you have to work with the general populace too.

The problem with warriors is that they are a expensive mini-deathstar unit. However, when matched up against literally any deathstar unit in the game, they get torn apart. Nids have plent of units that can kill light infantry, hell the whole codex does that well. They lack AP2-3 in quantity. Warriors should fill that gap in theory. However, when every fist, MC, missile squad, battlecannon, demolisher cannon, melta gun, or any other weapon that would be directed towards deathstar units is fired at them, it has an inordinately strong effect. They arent even significantly more resilient than terminators to bolter fire, and factoring some existence of AP4, you arent getting a good value. That you are advocating one of the worst upgrades in the codex on them (the venom cannon) means you still have to playtest a lot of the codex.


Nids are bad. As i said, the only thing in the codex that is actually keeping them from being unplayable in a competitive setting is the tervigon. Lictors, pyrovoes, venomthropes, carnifexes, half the hqs, OOE, Mawloc, shrikes, Hormigaunts,harpy, rippers, Tfex, genestealers and skyslash swarms are all worthless. Warriors, raveners, biovores, Tyranid prime,and gargoyles are all situationally useful, leaving you with the swarmlord, Tyrant, Tervigon, Hive guard, Zoanthropes, Trygon, Gaunts, and Ymargls as pretty much your whole codex. 8 decent-good units out of ~25 is not a good codex.

Tervigons are "liked" because there is not much else in the whole codex to like. Im sure demon players "liked" flamer and screamer spam. That doesnt mean things like that should stay.

Play nids for a bit and you will begin to understand the hate of the codex. Better yet, swap armies with someone and play a dozen or so games and you get the idea.