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I was playing a game against the Tyrranids yesterday, and here's what I experienced:

Over 90 models on the table.
Flying monstrous creatures that could fire a dozen S6 BS 4 shots every turn...
...which could also generate warp charges and use psyker abilities like...psychic scream...
...which combined with the fact that it was used by a flyer, pretty much meant that it could go right into the middle of my units and mess things up.

So.

Why are the Tyrranids underpowered again?

Because they have no answers for GCs and SHVs outside of spamming Flyrants, most of their stuff is overcosted for what it does, their psykers are not good, and only a few of their powers are worth anything.

You experienced the Flyrant, which is one of the only good units Tyranids have.

MCs are OP in general, but Tyranid MCs are usually slow and have few ranged attacks. They can park on objectives in cover, though, and lists like BA have very few options. I can't shoot them off the objective, and I can't fight them in melee, either.

krodarklorr wrote:
Because they have no answers for GCs and SHVs outside of spamming Flyrants, most of their stuff is overcosted for what it does, their psykers are not good, and only a few of their powers are worth anything.

You experienced the Flyrant, which is one of the only good units Tyranids have.

That would be like saying that the Elder codex would be underpowered if they only had access to wraithknights and scatter bikes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
MCs are OP in general, but Tyranid MCs are usually slow and have few ranged attacks. They can park on objectives in cover, though, and lists like BA have very few options. I can't shoot them off the objective, and I can't fight them in melee, either.

The list I fought yesterday had something which gave most of his army shrouded. So, you know, there's that.

Because they really only have one or two viable builds. Dakka Flyrants, Venomthrope for the shrouding, maybe some Zoanthropes, maybe a Mawloc, maybe some Dakka Carnifexes. That's it.

Everything else you never see is usually pretty weak.

Traditio wrote:

krodarklorr wrote:
Because they have no answers for GCs and SHVs outside of spamming Flyrants, most of their stuff is overcosted for what it does, their psykers are not good, and only a few of their powers are worth anything.

You experienced the Flyrant, which is one of the only good units Tyranids have.

That would be like saying that the Elder codex would be underpowered if they only had access to wraithknights and scatter bikes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
MCs are OP in general, but Tyranid MCs are usually slow and have few ranged attacks. They can park on objectives in cover, though, and lists like BA have very few options. I can't shoot them off the objective, and I can't fight them in melee, either.

The list I fought yesterday had something which gave most of his army shrouded. So, you know, there's that.

Eldar also have aspects, good psychic abilities, a way to deal with just about anything, good skimmers, ext.

Tyranids have Flyrants and Mawlocs. Their infantry suck, Venomthropes are okay, but are outclassed by the Malanthrope from Forgeworld, most of their codex is slow, and if its fast, it's the epitome of fragile, and all of their MCs suck in CC, have no invulns, are BS 3 with no way to make it better, very few rerolls for anything outside of the Flyrant (again, hence why it's decent), and their whole army requires Synapse to function correctly (another reason people just take Flyrants and be done with it).

Did I mention their stuff is way too expensive?

 krodarklorr wrote:
Eldar also have aspects, good psychic abilities, a way to deal with just about anything, good skimmers, ext.

Tyranids have Flyrants and Mawlocs. Their infantry suck, Venomthropes are okay, but are outclassed by the Malanthrope from Forgeworld, most of their codex is slow, and if its fast, it's the epitome of fragile, and all of their MCs suck in CC, have no invulns, are BS 3 with no way to make it better, very few rerolls for anything outside of the Flyrant (again, hence why it's decent), and their whole army requires Synapse to function correctly (another reason people just take Flyrants and be done with it).

Did I mention their stuff is way too expensive?

Again, I still don't see this as an argument for tyrranids being underpowered. I see this as an argument for saying that the tyrranids codex is incredibly internally imbalanced, but not for them being underpowered, if you consider the most "optimal" lists that they can take.

If you spam flyrants, I'm going to have a bad time.*

Again, would you call the Tau codex underpowered if the only good unit in the book were the Riptide?


*Brownie points for anyone who catches the reference.

Traditio wrote:
I was playing a game against the Tyrranids yesterday, and here's what I experienced:

Over 90 models on the table.
Flying monstrous creatures that could fire a dozen S6 BS 4 shots every turn...
...which could also generate warp charges and use psyker abilities like...psychic scream...
...which combined with the fact that it was used by a flyer, pretty much meant that it could go right into the middle of my units and mess things up.

So.

Why are the Tyrranids underpowered again?

As others noted, pretty much all of that comes from one unit, set up with s specific set if wargear, the Flying Hive Tyrant.

The only really strong Tyranid lists out there spam as many as possible. Aside from that one configuration of that one unit however, the books has real problems and is far less impressive.

The army also has trouble dealing with certain threats that knock it out of contention frequently (e.g. Knights, heavy tanks, deathstars, etc)

There are 37 entries in the Tyranid Codex, not including FW or any dataslates for unique characters but including the WD entries for newer units.

Of those you see about 6 fielded in a competitive sense. That leaves 31 units that will never see competitive play and even at a casual level many of them are borderline useless.

Just take a look at the Malceptor or Pyrovore and understand that those things are not that far behind the power curve of the average Tyranid units.

That is why Tyranids are considered unde rpowered, they have one VERY over powered unit that is a crutch to hold the codex up in a competitive scene but outside of that one unit they are awful.

Traditio wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
Eldar also have aspects, good psychic abilities, a way to deal with just about anything, good skimmers, ext.

Tyranids have Flyrants and Mawlocs. Their infantry suck, Venomthropes are okay, but are outclassed by the Malanthrope from Forgeworld, most of their codex is slow, and if its fast, it's the epitome of fragile, and all of their MCs suck in CC, have no invulns, are BS 3 with no way to make it better, very few rerolls for anything outside of the Flyrant (again, hence why it's decent), and their whole army requires Synapse to function correctly (another reason people just take Flyrants and be done with it).

Did I mention their stuff is way too expensive?

Again, I still don't see this as an argument for tyrranids being underpowered. I see this as an argument for saying that the tyrranids codex is incredibly internally imbalanced, but not for them being underpowered, if you consider the most "optimal" lists that they can take.

If you spam flyrants, I'm going to have a bad time.*

Again, would you call the Tau codex underpowered if the only good unit in the book were the Riptide?


*Brownie points for anyone who catches the reference.

You're inputting your own definition into what people mean when they say the Tyranid codex is UP.
Generally, there is only one great unit in the dex, the flyrant. The rest are above average to awful, but any good list (even the lictor shame one) is going to revolve around spamming flyrants.

While this is true for many OP lists, they often have several units that are viable to cover holes. The eldar, for example, have Scatbikes, WKs, Warp Spiders, and several other units that are good. If the nids lost flyrants, they would be strictly bottom tier. If the eldar lost bikes or the WK, they would be weaker, but still top tier.
That's the difference. It doesn't help that many nid players didn't own a ton of flyrants but did own many terrible units.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
There are 37 entries in the Tyranid Codex, not including FW or any dataslates for unique characters but including the WD entries for newer units.

Of those you see about 6 fielded in a competitive sense. That leaves 31 units that will never see competitive play and even at a casual level many of them are borderline useless.

Just take a look at the Malceptor or Pyrovore and understand that those things are not that far behind the power curve of the average Tyranid units.

That is why Tyranids are considered unde rpowered, they have one VERY over powered unit that is a crutch to hold the codex up in a competitive scene but outside of that one unit they are awful.

Tyranids are very much BA +1 unit.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
There are 37 entries in the Tyranid Codex, not including FW or any dataslates for unique characters but including the WD entries for newer units.

Of those you see about 6 fielded in a competitive sense. That leaves 31 units that will never see competitive play and even at a casual level many of them are borderline useless.

Just take a look at the Malceptor or Pyrovore and understand that those things are not that far behind the power curve of the average Tyranid units.

That is why Tyranids are considered unde rpowered, they have one VERY over powered unit that is a crutch to hold the codex up in a competitive scene but outside of that one unit they are awful.

In actual practice, this makes Tyrranids overpowered, not underpowered. If the only lists that you see actually being played spam one really overpowered unit, that makes them overpowered. It's really that simple.

Again, if the Tau only had riptides, and Tau players all spammed riptides, you'd still say that Tau are over-, not under-, -powered.

Traditio wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
Eldar also have aspects, good psychic abilities, a way to deal with just about anything, good skimmers, ext.

Tyranids have Flyrants and Mawlocs. Their infantry suck, Venomthropes are okay, but are outclassed by the Malanthrope from Forgeworld, most of their codex is slow, and if its fast, it's the epitome of fragile, and all of their MCs suck in CC, have no invulns, are BS 3 with no way to make it better, very few rerolls for anything outside of the Flyrant (again, hence why it's decent), and their whole army requires Synapse to function correctly (another reason people just take Flyrants and be done with it).

Did I mention their stuff is way too expensive?

Again, I still don't see this as an argument for tyrranids being underpowered. I see this as an argument for saying that the tyrranids codex is incredibly internally imbalanced, but not for them being underpowered, if you consider the most "optimal" lists that they can take.

If you spam flyrants, I'm going to have a bad time.*

Again, would you call the Tau codex underpowered if the only good unit in the book were the Riptide?


*Brownie points for anyone who catches the reference.

"You have some gak right here"

"That's my face, sir"

Anyway, even the cheesy Flyrant build doesn't compare to most of the top lists nowadays.

You summed up the flyrant, the best possible choice in the entire book.
Other than that it has a huge stock of poor choices for every job.

They struggle badly against GC's or SHV's.

They really are lacking in most departments and the flyrants can only carry them so far.



Hate to say that about them aswell since I've always been an avid Tyranid player, but 90% of the choices in the book are like pouring your points down the sink.

Best bet is stock up flyrants and build the rest of the army defensive to hold out and hope the flyrants don't get shot down.

Have a look through the Tyranids codex, the Leviathan Rising DLC, the couple of units whose rules are on BL, an the Shield of Baal supplement. First off, Nids have their rules scattered between 6 different books/pdf's.

After going through it, if you honestly cannot come up with instant solutions to the vast majority of their units, you need to read it again. No joke, a Heavy Bolter devastator squad is a serious threat to nearly every non MC in the book. How many other armies are legitimately threatened by 4 marines with heavy bolters?

StarHunter25 wrote:
Have a look through the Tyranids codex, the Leviathan Rising DLC, the couple of units whose rules are on BL, an the Shield of Baal supplement. First off, Nids have their rules scattered between 6 different books/pdf's.

After going through it, if you honestly cannot come up with instant solutions to the vast majority of their units, you need to read it again. No joke, a Heavy Bolter devastator squad is a serious threat to nearly every non MC in the book. How many other armies are legitimately threatened by 4 marines with heavy bolters?

You mean, the vast majority of their units that rarely, if ever, see play?

Even the flyrant isnt top tier competitive anymore, the highest ranked Tyranid list at the LVO was...43rd.

Traditio wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
There are 37 entries in the Tyranid Codex, not including FW or any dataslates for unique characters but including the WD entries for newer units.

Of those you see about 6 fielded in a competitive sense. That leaves 31 units that will never see competitive play and even at a casual level many of them are borderline useless.

Just take a look at the Malceptor or Pyrovore and understand that those things are not that far behind the power curve of the average Tyranid units.

That is why Tyranids are considered unde rpowered, they have one VERY over powered unit that is a crutch to hold the codex up in a competitive scene but outside of that one unit they are awful.

In actual practice, this makes Tyrranids overpowered, not underpowered. If the only lists that you see actually being played spam one really overpowered unit, that makes them overpowered. It's really that simple.

Again, if the Tau only had riptides, and Tau players all spammed riptides, you'd still say that Tau are over-, not under-, -powered.

No it doesn't. For one since they only have a single unit that is good they are stuck taking mediocre troops to get that one good unit so their list is never 100% good like Tau or Eldar lists are. And second since their list is literally spamming the same unit when they fight an army the CAN deal with flyrants they lose because their list doesn't have any versatility so if their one gimmick is countered they have no back up plan and lose. This keeps them from being overpowered competitively.

S6 spam does have some limitations, too, albeit few. Eldar fill in the gaps with D weapons. What do the Tyranids have?

Martel732 wrote:
S6 spam does have some limitations, too, albeit few. Eldar fill in the gaps with D weapons. What do the Tyranids have?

Flying monstrous creatures that can make smash attacks.

Traditio wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
There are 37 entries in the Tyranid Codex, not including FW or any dataslates for unique characters but including the WD entries for newer units.

Of those you see about 6 fielded in a competitive sense. That leaves 31 units that will never see competitive play and even at a casual level many of them are borderline useless.

Just take a look at the Malceptor or Pyrovore and understand that those things are not that far behind the power curve of the average Tyranid units.

That is why Tyranids are considered unde rpowered, they have one VERY over powered unit that is a crutch to hold the codex up in a competitive scene but outside of that one unit they are awful.

In actual practice, this makes Tyrranids overpowered, not underpowered. If the only lists that you see actually being played spam one really overpowered unit, that makes them overpowered. It's really that simple.

Again, if the Tau only had riptides, and Tau players all spammed riptides, you'd still say that Tau are over-, not under-, -powered.

No, I'd say the riptide is overpowered. The riptide is part of the Tau codex, but the Tau codex is not its riptide. A codex is more than the value of its single strongest unit.

They suffer from both terrible internal balance and what little they have that is good isn't that good.

Lets look at the top four codexes generally
Eldar
Marines
Necron
Tau

All four books you can pretty much bring anything to the table and have a good shot of winning depending on the Meta. Those books have really strong combos but the base strength is above average and almost ever unit has some use. There is one or two stinkers but what codex doesn't.

Nids neither have variety or strength.

Traditio wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
S6 spam does have some limitations, too, albeit few. Eldar fill in the gaps with D weapons. What do the Tyranids have?

Flying monstrous creatures that can make smash attacks.

If a FMC is on the ground to fight in CC its dead.

Here, I've come to a conclusion awhile ago as to why the Tyranid book is among the worst right now.

Take any build you could think of. Psychic Deathstars, Shooty, melee, deathstar in general, gunline, Mobile, hard hitting, Flying Circus, swarms, ext.

Every build Tyranids can realistically pull off, there is another book, if not multiple other books, that do it better.

So you put a flying FMC on the ground to get shot?
It's much safer in the air.

The whole idea of a FMC is the F part

All I see in this thread is someone got their ass handed to them with a flyrant list and wants validation in calling his opponent a cheesemonger.

Don't feed the trolls kids.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
They suffer from both terrible internal balance and what little they have that is good isn't that good.

Lets look at the top four codexes generally
Eldar
Marines
Necron
Tau

All four books you can pretty much bring anything to the table and have a good shot of winning depending on the Meta. Those books have really strong combos but the base strength is above average and almost ever unit has some use. There is one or two stinkers but what codex doesn't.

Nids neither have variety or strength.

That is totally not true with marines or tau. Both lists have many bad choices, especially the marines.

 Jackal wrote:
So you put a flying FMC on the ground to get shot?
It's much safer in the air.

The whole idea of a FMC is the F part

The question that was proposed, as I understood it, was: "What do Tyrranids have to deal with things that can't be killed with S6 spam?"

The answer is: monstrous creatures (including flying monstrous creatures) that can make smash attacks.

If the tyrranid player doesn't want to use them that way, that's his problem.

Traditio wrote:

 Jackal wrote:
So you put a flying FMC on the ground to get shot?
It's much safer in the air.

The whole idea of a FMC is the F part

The question that was proposed, as I understood it, was: "What do Tyrranids have to deal with things that can't be killed with S6 spam?"

The answer is: monstrous creatures (including flying monstrous creatures) that can make smash attacks.

If the tyrranid player doesn't want to use them that way, that's his problem.

I dare you to go smash that WK. Or smashfucker.

Smash attacks are a joke now. One str10? As if. If you think one str10 attack that has to roll to hit and trades all other attacks away is even worth thinking about, I can't help you. Smash will almost never be used and will be useless 99% of the time it is used. Be realistic.

If you're relying on a smash attack, you're gonna have a bad time.

Traditio, the codex is underpowered because the majority of the units are gak. There's a difference between an individual unit and an entire codex. If riptides were the only good unit in the tau dex I would call them underpowered, yes, because the majority of their codex wouldn't be able to be played competitively. That's what underpowered means.

If a codex has only one build that can even have a chance at winning, it's underpowered.

Just because you lost a game doesn't mean the codex is good. Always focus on the cover enhancing gribblies and pop a fly rant or two and you win. The venomthrope is T4 with 2 wounds, any str8 instasplats it, I'm sure your army has that. Once you learn the tricks tyranids have, they're too easy to counter. Play them a few more times.