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Maybe Nids being so unique is their main strength. A lot of army lists always consider MEQ when they build.

For an army that is supposedly 'middle-tier', Tyranids sure win a lot of tournaments and win a majority of the battle reports I see posted on this site.

In the hands of a really excellent tactician, Nids may be one of the most powerful armies in the game. They're very versatile and the new book has oodles of options.

@bucheonman:

I wouldn't go so far as to call Tyranids one of the most powerful armies in the game. They're good, but they don't dominate the way some armies can (i.e. guards, space wolves and MSU-mech spam). They have problems against certain builds (i.e. MSU, fast armies like DE and mechdar) and are especially vulnerable to DE splinter-weaponry (a DE army kitted out to face nids may give them one of their toughest challenges) or missile-spam Space Wolves. However, they are a super-resilient army that can usually trade shots with armies that have 2-3x their amount of firepower and then overrrun those armies with masses of scoring units. I agree that in the hands of a competent tactician, they are very good. Unfortunately, I also see a lot of people playing nids wrong (i.e. as a purely assault army) and it is these builds that make the tyranid army seem as a "middle-tier" army.

Now onto the Post-game Anaylsis.....


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Post-game Anaylsis: I am quite pleased with my biovore nids. They appear to be able to hold their own. I originally used them as a solution to the trend that is long fangs, but since then I've found them quite capable of dealing with almost any normal infantry. The ability to pin is also a very useful bonus. My list is quite unconventional in that it is a tyranid list that relies on its shooting more than on its assault capabilities. I aim to take out your vehicles and then rain pie plates on top of your head. Basically, this list is designed to handle the new trend that is MSU (Multiple Small Unit) mech-spam.

But in order for it to work, you need a unit that can give it protection or give it "some teeth". Usually a shooty tyrant with Old Adversary and 1-2 guards will do the trick...but the Swarmlord makes for an even better counter-assault deterrent, that is, if you don't mind losing the firepower of a hive tyrant. The tyrannofex is there for its durability, its long ranged AT and ability to handle land raiders and such, and also as another monstrous threat to help protect the army. Finally, we have the backbone of the army - the tervigon. The tervigon is essential in its role to "toughen" up the army by casting FNP and creating roadblock scoring units to delay the enemy so that my army can shoot some more. It is another offensive threat not in itself, but by it's ability to generate Volume of Fire, poisoned units that can threaten the enemy.

Ok, let's go on to the units themselves.


Swarmlord: A. This guy survived throughout the entire tournament and just wreaked havoc the few times he got to rumble. One of the most dangerous HQ's in all of 40k, just his presence alone affected how my opponents played. He turned 2 assault-oriented armies (DA and nids) into cautious ones playing against their strengths. Then he single-handedly took 2 mission objectives against DE and IG, wrecking house against the DE army and absorbing a lot of fire from IG that could have otherwise wiped out my hive guards sooner. He was simply amazing in this tournament.

Tyrant Guard: B+. He did his job, which was to protect the Swarmlord, and he didn't even die, which is a pleasant bonus. With his lash whips, he made the Swarmlord an even bigger threat. The tyrant guard is absolutely mandatory with any walkrant-list, though 1 is usually enough at 1500.

Hive Guards: B+. Usually, these guys are an A, but in this tournament they didn't face as many mech armies as they would like. They were awesome against IG as each turn they were doing damage to enemy vehicles. But even against mech-less opponents, they did manage to kill some FNP terminators and bikers as well as put wounds on the trygons. Absolutely essential to the design of my list.

Tervigon: B+. Buffed up the army as to be expected. The fact that he spawned so many gants in games 3 and 4 is great! And the fact that he actually hurt/killed something (chimeras, reavers, tyranid prime and hive guards) is an added bonus.

Termagants: B+. They came, they saw, they scored and then they died. Oh, and along the way, they killed some veterans, damaged some chimeras and wiped out a unit of hive guards. 'Nuff said.

Biovores: A. Very good. They killed a lot of infantry, and may be one of the primary reasons why I was able to overcome the DE army. But more important than what they killed is how they affected my opponents. They really threw my opponents off their games, especially against the DA and tyranid players. And despite the havoc they created, ironically, they are still considered a lower-priority target and were never seriously threatened, thus allowing them to continue wreaking havoc. I did not even once lose an entire unit of biovores throughout the whole tournament.

Tyrannofex: B. While he never really made back his points in any of the games. He does provide me something I was seriously lacking - high strength, long-ranged AT. He really is more of a suppression-fire unit than a mega-destruction beast. He stopped the vendettas from shooting on numerous occassions (eventually shooting one down) as well as the razorwing/ravagers (don't know why I couldn't shoot them down much sooner). However, what he did do was to shoot down Sammael and well as kill a lot of wyches with his template weapon. He also provided protection to the army, giving cover to the tervigon and daring the enemy to fire at him. He is a solid choice taken more to fill a niche than for his efficiency level.


MVP:
Swarmlord: It was very close between the Swarmie and the biovores. Both shined at various times and both affected how my opponents played. I gave it to Swarmie because I felt he made more of a difference in regards to the impact he had on my opponents. Without him, I felt my opponents would have played much more aggressively than they did, and I don't think my army would be able to handle the assault of the haminators or of stealer shock. Also, the Swarmlord contributed directly to 2 of the winning conditions, killing the enemy commander against Dark Eldar and claiming the middle against IG. He truly was a monster in this tournament, both for what he did and did not do directly.

If Nids are not top-tier, why do they win so many tourneys? Or place in the top 5.

Like I said, in an expert's hands. There are lots of crappy 40K players. They can win with Space Wolves or some other simple army, but not Nids.

That's the thing; while people who are successful with Nids do post some battle reports, in practice I don't think they've actually won any GTs or other large-scale events since the current codex came out. It's not just that fewer people play nids than the more conventional SM armies (though that does contribute); back in 4th, the old Nidzilla build was a monster of a tournament army, seen frequently and achieving regular top placings, IIRC. Crappy players can win with SW & IG against other crappy players, but a really good player with SW or IG tends to be a serious threat to anyone he faces, and stand a decent shot at winning an event.

Some of the Nids' lack of top-level success may be because of the number of new units and the way that the army has changed- as you say, due to the interlocking synergies of Nid units, you need to use them in the right combinations for success; and many players probably A) haven't adapted, and/or B) don't have the patience to learn the new Nid play styles. Two of the things that attracted so many players to Nidzilla were that A) it was straightforward to run, and B) It painted up quickly, and played fast on the table in games. New nids are more complex and don't have advantage B.

Some of it is probably due to some genuine issues with the book- like almost all of their critical anti-transport firepower being in the Elite slot; which is a serious problem in the 5th ed metagame, where mech is so common.

jy2 wrote:Thanks! Yeah, my nid list is unconventional. I think that gave me an advantage psychologically. People really weren't prepared to play against it as you don't normally see biovores in tournament play. But I have a feeling that you'll see more of them in competitive play. They are quite under-rated and a very cheap anti-infantry option. Moreover, they free up points for you to get more swarms or other units.

His genestealers were afraid of my Swarmlord because 1) Swarmy would kill them, 2) I have a 4++Inv against his rending, 3) FNP by the tervigon, 4) paroyxsm to lower their WS to 1 and 5) they were strung out 2" apart due to my biovores so if I had assaulted, probably half of his genes wouldn't be able to fight even after piling in.

See, THIS is exactly the kind of stuff we need on battle reports and tactics posts. At least 2 of these 5 elements don't show up on a superficial mathhammer analysis; synergies between units and the impact of template and blast weapons on enemy maneuver is hard to quantify and discuss in a simple manner, but is of paramount importance for actual good play.

Mannahnin wrote:See, THIS is exactly the kind of stuff we need on battle reports and tactics posts. At least 2 of these 5 elements don't show up on a superficial mathhammer analysis; synergies between units and the impact of template and blast weapons on enemy maneuver is hard to quantify and discuss in a simple manner, but is of paramount importance for actual good play.

+1

I run units in both my Tyranids and Blood Angel army that is designed to induce a certain deployment or spread of his models on the table. Other units then take advantage of this. It can be quite subtle and if ignored, then the original unit becomes more powerful. For example a large unit of Genestealers outflank. My opponents response is to deploy centrally, away from the table edges. This can keep enemy units constrained to the inner 3' of board space until the Genestealers come on. The Stealers haven't touched a model, but they are having an impact on the game.

I completely agree with this analysis, it is these 'nonlinear' elements of the game that force an opponent to appropriately assess and respond to threats that cannot be initially negated.

The newer codex's tend to have more of this, and I think it is really one of their bigger advantages over older dexes. I find the new Tyranids as a whole to be a challenging, although more subtle, enemy to play against.

On a closely related note, my Chaos army works better when I use more unconventional deployment units. My most recent tournament lists have a squad of termies DSing, a squad of Chosen outflanking, and two squads of LDs dropping in. The chosen mean that tanks and small shooty units can't safely hide in corners, and having icons distributed throughout my army means that I can have the terminators show up with precision in a bunch of different places with combi-meltas and a chainfist, or have LDs show up as scoring units to camp objectives (or every once in a while actually assault) and let my CSMs and other stuff run off and fight.

@bucheonman:

Actually, I feel all the new codices are top-notch armies. Nids, BA, DE, IG and SW all have their strong builds and their weaker builds. Assuming that you take a good tournament build from each of the newer codex piloted by a decent general, I feel that space wolves, IG and AV13 mech-spam BA are a little more forgiving than the other armies. They have better firepower and you can afford to make more mistakes with them and still do well, assuming generalship and dice rolls are about the same/average. That's why I feel they are truly the top-tier armies. That's why they consistently do so well in tournies...they're able to recover more easily whenever they have below-average dice rolls or make mistakes. Other armies who have a little bad luck has a harder time trying to come back.

Though I think orks, dual-lash chaos, vulkan-marines and a whole lot of other armies may disagree with me.


@Mannahnin:

I think the new nids are way better than the older 4th nidzilla armies. They are just so much more balanced. Moreover, a FNP Swarmlord by himself will just own any of the older nidzilla armies. There isn't even any comparison between the older and the newer nids.

Actually, the inspiration for my nid army was from this person who brought 9 biovores with him to last year's 'Ard Boyz. I believe he made it into the 'Ard Boyz finals with them. Janthkin, with his unconventional tyranid list, took 1st at our local 'Ard Boyz prelims. But the main reason I believe that nid armies haven't won GT's yet is probably because the very good players decided to bring their other armies instead (sorry, no data to support my hypothesis ). Well, maybe Hulksmash will be one of the first at Adepticon? We'll see.

As for chaos, not sure about their various forms of deployment but one thing I do know is that dual-lash is still one of my weaknesses. Tyranids still have problems with that build, especially a chaos list packing dual-lash and 9 oblits.


@Darth & calypso2ts:

I agree 100%. The game of Warhammer is not just mathhammer. All the little things matter as well. Ymgarls, biovores, outflanking genes, deathstar units (i.e. Swarmlord), roadblock termagants, etc....they all impact the game even if they don't directly contribute to the game. Nids have a lot of "intangibles" that not only let them survive against much more shooty/assaulty armies, but also allows them to dominate lesser builds as well. And I find that they are great at taking a lot of opponents out of their comfort zones.

JY2: I think anything is better than 4th edition Nids. There was only one rule I liked, and that is synapse stuff was immune to IK. Troops were wayyyyyyyy too expensive (10 pt Hormagaunts, 12 pt Gargoyles) and there weren't nearly enough options in any slot.

4th edition nidzilla was strong...that is, when points are lower (1750 or less). But once the points go up, nidzilla didn't really scale well. As other armies were adding more and more firepower, nid players were just adding more genestealers or gaunts. Sure they were a tough army, but they were an extremely one-dimensional army and was easily handled at the 'Ard Boyz level. It's just at 1500, they're damn tough to beat.

BTW, I liked the Without Numbers termagants. Hormagants and gargoyles were just plain unusable back then due to their costs.

4th ed, Nids were top dog. Tri-Flacon Eldar and Nidzilla were the two best lists in the game.

Nids are still good, they just play differently. The net hates on Nids but I love mine and once I finish playing them will take them to tournaments all the time.

I've been playing nidzilla ever since I started playing 4th ed. nids and I've got to say that nidzilla is one of the best lists at that time....if you were playing anything less than 1750. At lower points-levels, they just stomp on the opponent. 8 monstrous creatures, 3 with T7, 5W, 2+ saves and dual tyrants with 2+ saves (of which 1 could fly)? 5 units with a total of 48 twin-linked S6 shots? That's just pure nastiness.

But then when I started to play higher points levels, I begin to dread what my opponents could start to do. Dual lash chaos + oblits, assault terminator-spam, mech-IG with melta/plasma vets and vendettas, witch hunter immo-spam, dark eldar lance-spam with agoniser wyches, almost any pre-MSU-lists....and these armies just get better with more points and easily out-range my nids or have more than enough special weapons to take out a couple carnifexes a turn. Nid shooting was just not ranged enough to take down all those vehicles.

Now I'm not saying that they were bad (actually, they were quite good to a certain point), but the tyranids of yesterday would have major problems handling the meta-armies of today. They were just not balanced enough, both now and back then.

Ah yeah, I agree with that. 1500 was the sweet spot for Eldar and Bugs.

Once the new Chaos book came out, it was a game changer.

Above 1500 bugs ran out of good stuff to take and had to pad with weaker units.

Until Centurian99 came out with the Steeler Shock list, which scaled up very well and which he won Adepticon with.