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I regularly play with a couple buddies, one of which plays Tyranids. We play pretty casual lists, and prefer to avoid cheesy tactics or spam most of the time. I'll admit the nid player is in general a fairly bad sport if he's on the losing end of a game, but we can usually get over that.

Lately, ever since the new Ork codex came out (i'm an Ork player), he has been absolutely convinced that Orks have so many "free" and broken benefits, and OP weapons and stratagems. For instance, in one of our first games I used the stratagem that replenishes and deep strikes a boyz squad and he said that it's BS that they gave that to Orks but removed his army's ability to do that (referencing Endless Swarm I think it's called). He's upset that Orks have Dakka Dakka Dakka and re roll charges for free, while the only army benefits he has is synapse. I used a Souped Up Shokk Attack gun last game, and despite it only doing 5 damage over the course of 5 rounds of shooting, it's range and damage are apparently beyond broken. Etc etc, you get the point.

The problem was, I didn't have great responses to these claims. I try to explain that there's more to an army than the army traits and that just because a unit can possibly do it's job well if it gets lucky doesn't make it broken. I couldn't really explain amazingly what Tyranids strengths are though, the things they do have that other armies don't. I only have experience with a select few armies so I can't say "your psyker game is top notch" or "you can get into melee the quickest compared to all other armies." I mean, I have a decent feel for what nids do, but not camparatively I guess.

So, i'm looking to see if I can maybe get an opinion from people with more varied experience, that perhaps main nids. What do nids have to do that other armies maybe can't do as well? Do they have built in strengths that other armies don't have that make up for them basically only getting synapse?

myme wrote:
I regularly play with a couple buddies, one of which plays Tyranids. We play pretty casual lists, and prefer to avoid cheesy tactics or spam most of the time. I'll admit the nid player is in general a fairly bad sport if he's on the losing end of a game, but we can usually get over that.

Lately, ever since the new Ork codex came out (i'm an Ork player), he has been absolutely convinced that Orks have so many "free" and broken benefits, and OP weapons and stratagems. For instance, in one of our first games I used the stratagem that replenishes and deep strikes a boyz squad and he said that it's BS that they gave that to Orks but removed his army's ability to do that (referencing Endless Swarm I think it's called). He's upset that Orks have Dakka Dakka Dakka and re roll charges for free, while the only army benefits he has is synapse. I used a Souped Up Shokk Attack gun last game, and despite it only doing 5 damage over the course of 5 rounds of shooting, it's range and damage are apparently beyond broken. Etc etc, you get the point.

The problem was, I didn't have great responses to these claims. I try to explain that there's more to an army than the army traits and that just because a unit can possibly do it's job well if it gets lucky doesn't make it broken. I couldn't really explain amazingly what Tyranids strengths are though, the things they do have that other armies don't. I only have experience with a select few armies so I can't say "your psyker game is top notch" or "you can get into melee the quickest compared to all other armies." I mean, I have a decent feel for what nids do, but not camparatively I guess.

So, i'm looking to see if I can maybe get an opinion from people with more varied experience, that perhaps main nids. What do nids have to do that other armies maybe can't do as well? Do they have built in strengths that other armies don't have that make up for them basically only getting synapse?

Not he answer you're looking for but as a long term Nid player who frankly has lost interest in them and wants to play GSC instead I tend to agree with your mate ;-) I went for Nids as I loved Genestealers but over the the years they have lost benefits and it's frustrating to see former star unit being outclassed by Orks. As many Nids players like charging into combat it's clear they have a real case of jealousy for the reroll charges! The joke being I went to GSC thinking Stealers would be star of the show and now I'm considering an army which doesn't have a single one!

As to what is good about Nids?

Well, being able to use Synapse to ignore moral is a great plus. When you lose decent 2W ork models because of a failing moral checks (well if you do) that is a painful loss.

That not all MC degrade stats as they get wounded (which is really tedious to track) is handy, but of course numerous models do degrade.

After that... well you know I tried to think about what I like about Nids and at the end of the day it's the models, the Swarmlord pushing units forwards into charge range with his special ability can be fun, as can a trygon tunnel but an ork player will screen that and you end up with a rotten 10" charge without free rerolls ;-)

To counter that Ork models are probably some of the best in 40k (I had an Ork Fantasy army which I loved but that meant I'd painted enough green for one lifetime) and the Ork Codex is very strong and has allowed boosts to Orc shooting (reroll 1's, another shot on 6's, strat to fire twice) and once you've been shot to bits by orks (d3, S7, 2D blobs with the reroll 1s, another hit on 6, shoot twice a turn are painful), well you feel something is wrong with the world.

So, no I can't think of anything special about them and I'm off to the GSC... I'm not even that excited about a Cult/Nid army though given I have the models I should try it.

myme wrote:
I regularly play with a couple buddies, one of which plays Tyranids. We play pretty casual lists, and prefer to avoid cheesy tactics or spam most of the time. I'll admit the nid player is in general a fairly bad sport if he's on the losing end of a game, but we can usually get over that.

Lately, ever since the new Ork codex came out (i'm an Ork player), he has been absolutely convinced that Orks have so many "free" and broken benefits, and OP weapons and stratagems. For instance, in one of our first games I used the stratagem that replenishes and deep strikes a boyz squad and he said that it's BS that they gave that to Orks but removed his army's ability to do that (referencing Endless Swarm I think it's called). He's upset that Orks have Dakka Dakka Dakka and re roll charges for free, while the only army benefits he has is synapse. I used a Souped Up Shokk Attack gun last game, and despite it only doing 5 damage over the course of 5 rounds of shooting, it's range and damage are apparently beyond broken. Etc etc, you get the point.

The problem was, I didn't have great responses to these claims. I try to explain that there's more to an army than the army traits and that just because a unit can possibly do it's job well if it gets lucky doesn't make it broken. I couldn't really explain amazingly what Tyranids strengths are though, the things they do have that other armies don't. I only have experience with a select few armies so I can't say "your psyker game is top notch" or "you can get into melee the quickest compared to all other armies." I mean, I have a decent feel for what nids do, but not camparatively I guess.

So, i'm looking to see if I can maybe get an opinion from people with more varied experience, that perhaps main nids. What do nids have to do that other armies maybe can't do as well? Do they have built in strengths that other armies don't have that make up for them basically only getting synapse?

Well i know a tyranid player just won the big Australian finals by just swarming the board (so leveraging synapse). If your friend is truly looking to be more competitive I would say the biggest strength that Tyranids just got is the ability to soup in GSC. While I haven't started either army so am in no way shape or form an expert I know many podcasts are chomping at the bit to mix their bugs and new GSC codex together. Soup is an incredibly strong mechanic that orks don't have the ability to leverage

Tyanids are a strong and well balanced codex, but don't have any one thing they do better than other factions.
The strenght comes from having a lot of choices, well meshed and well costed.
Tyranids have:
swarms, light infantry, medium infantry, heavy infantry, small monsters, big monsters.
Dedicated psy chars, hibrid psy chars, psy units, psy monsters.
High mobility with every weapon being assault and a lot of deep strikers and flyers.
Dedicated ranged units, dedicated melee units, generalists.
6 different troop choices!
Can ally in GSC and then in IG.
Buffs both aura and targeted.
Anty psy aura.
Lots of ways to inflict mortal wounds.

Tyranids don't have a single strong unit or combo or playstyle. They can mix and match many different elements and create a lot of different and effective lists.

Due to this, they are as good as the player playing them, outside of absolutely top level games. In those, tyranids unfortunately have a problem since they lack an asnwer to knights or a broken OP combo to carry them.

I don't know that you are going to make your friend happy if you tell him that the biggest advantage 'nids have is you don't have to play 'nids.

Long time Nid player here.

Tell him he needs to sit down, and think about his army. We have so many answers to Orks it's not even funny. The issue I find when I do play Orks is that I either bring too much high strength stuff to take care of a single big thing, or the dice just don't roll well for me. A unit of 20-30 devilgaunts will absolutely mince a unit of boys, and they're 18" range, meaning you're likely to get shots off if you get first turn, and overwatch in the subsequent opponent turn.

Pyrovores are starting to shine, being bags of flammable, exploding suicide. Drop them in, or charge them up, the flamers are assault 2D6, 10"! For 25 points! And they swing decently if they make it in. He'll, they're better at dying than fighting, putting out those MWs on the boy blob you slammed them into when they die.

Warriors with Deathspitters. Big blobs with heavy bolter equivilants and venom cannons, plus a prime, can do work as long as they aren't targeted to early by things like shokkattack guns.

Hormgaunts are great speed bumps for Ork Boyz, just throw em out there, and when they invariably charge, toss up the acid blood strat for some MW on the Boyz.

Nids are still good, and we can punch up or down depending on the build and tactical expertise of the player. Maybe your friend needs a little more experience, or maybe he just needs to divorce his thinking from beating just Orks. Orks do get free stuff, but Lord knows they need it to be able to compete with a lot of other codexes.

Thanks for the insights! So they're pretty flexible and have some pretty nice tools, and perhaps he's not using those tools right. Maybe I'll try to encourage him to use different things. He likes to go 2 full squads of genestealers, swarmlord, and shooter warriors as his "base" that he adds a bit more (usually big bugs) onto. He doesn't like gaunts unfortunately, though I see how 3 shots per little guy would massacre an ork squad. Or even the grot screen I put in front to counter the genestealer t1 charge, letting the genestealers get the charge on boyz and not grots.

Knowing what type of army your friend plays would help. Nids are definitely leaning towards more shooty than melee these days. If he's labouring towards classic melee nids thats probably why he's struggling.

myme wrote:
Thanks for the insights! So they're pretty flexible and have some pretty nice tools, and perhaps he's not using those tools right. Maybe I'll try to encourage him to use different things. He likes to go 2 full squads of genestealers, swarmlord, and shooter warriors as his "base" that he adds a bit more (usually big bugs) onto. He doesn't like gaunts unfortunately, though I see how 3 shots per little guy would massacre an ork squad. Or even the grot screen I put in front to counter the genestealer t1 charge, letting the genestealers get the charge on boyz and not grots.

He has a good base, but big bugs are terrible at fighting hordes of Boyz, and are just prey for meks with the shokkattack guns.

Encouraging him to try new things will definitely be the way to go. Swarmie and two big units of GS is very competitive and strong, but it's easily countered if you don't support it, and can be seen coming a mile away by anyone who knows anything about Nids.

Orkz do get a lot of fun stuff that Nids don't and wouldn't break them if they did, your friend is kinda right. But that's part of being an earlier codex. If he's complaining about Nids now I'm guessing it's his first edition, because believe me when I say it's been worse. A lot worse. ALWAYS has been a lot worse.

myme wrote:
Thanks for the insights! So they're pretty flexible and have some pretty nice tools, and perhaps he's not using those tools right. Maybe I'll try to encourage him to use different things. He likes to go 2 full squads of genestealers, swarmlord, and shooter warriors as his "base" that he adds a bit more (usually big bugs) onto. He doesn't like gaunts unfortunately, though I see how 3 shots per little guy would massacre an ork squad. Or even the grot screen I put in front to counter the genestealer t1 charge, letting the genestealers get the charge on boyz and not grots.

The swarmlord + stealer base is good against many lists, but is the worst against orks. Stealers simply never trade well against orks.
Warriors instead are one of the best nid answers to greenskins. Spitters and swords with something screening from a charge and they will bring the hurt.
Venomtropes will ruin any ork shooting (except the unit using More dakka).

I also suspect that he uses Kraken, which is our best fleet, but again it's not suited against orks. Leviathan is much better.
In general orks are not really good against nids, it's just that they happen to counter the most common nid builds.

Q: Tyranid strengths?
A: Die in droves!

If your buddy keeps complaining then exchange him with another one. People like him suck the fun out of the game for everybody involved.

My friend, in another thread right now there is someone actively whinging about the relic SAG's theoretical LITERAL one in a million capability of one-shotting a knight if it manages to roll perfectly for strength, then shots, then hits, then damage.

These forums are primarily populated by the kind of Timmies that your buddy sounds like. You aren't going to get any good advice for talking sense into people here.

Your friend needs more Spore Mines. Nothing quite like blocking Ork vehicles and mobs with tiny floating Tyranid testicles.

Tyranid's Best Strengths:

#1 - Swarmlord's "move again" ability. It's beyond potent, and no one else has anything so reliable and so generically useful.

#2 - Hive Guard's potent shooting. Natively BS3+, great range, great firepower, can shoot twice with a generic stratagem, and ignores cover to boot. A unit of these can take down a Leman Russ in one round of shooting with some minorly above-average dice, and can absolutely devastate anything weaker. No one else gets this; closest are T'au with a lower strength and lower damage gun that hits on worse dice.

#3 - Kraken's 3D6 pick highest Advancing; 3D6 pick highest is so often a 5 or 6 that it's not even funny, and it applies to your whole army. No one else gets a bonus to Advancing that's this good. Add to this Kraken's ability to leave combat and still charge, and Kraken Tyranids are one of the most difficult to pin-down armies in the game.

#4 - Anti-Psyker Potential; The penalties imposed by Shadow of the Warp are real, as are Hive Fleet Kronos' ability to really lay the hurt on with additional penalties. No one else gets a Psychic buff quite like this.



I don't have any more time to continue, so I'll keep the rest brief.

Tyranids aren't phenomenal. You don't get uber powerful stuff. But you do get a great army that works well together and plays well off each other. They're not a baseball bat like they used to be, and that rubs a lot of us enfranchised Nids the wrong way. But there's power there to play to the objectives, and to punish your opponent's mistakes, and while not all the units are phenomenal, there's few that are actively bad. They are a specialist army in the game; they need a purpose and a plan to work well, and you'll rarely win in a big way, but with practice you can win consistently!

Stealers might be my favorite nid unit (and stealer shock my favorite nid list), but they aren't great against orks, as people have been saying. They'll wipe out a mob of boyz without issue on the charge, but if the boyz strike first they'll slaughter the bugs equally easily, as a giant mass of basic attacks is what kills stealers most efficiently.

If you're screening your units properly (and it sounds like you are) and he's not bothering to clear the screens before he charges in, he's toast. Killing 30pts of grots and then losing a unit of stealers to the counter charge next turn is pretty awful. Since he doesn't like gaunts he'll need to turn to warriors (use those deathspitters!) or carnifexes/tyrants with double devourers (24 S6 shots each), as they can clear out a screen or cripple a mob without breaking a sweat. Just one shooty carnifex will overkill a grot screen by a third or kill about nine boyz in a single volley. Run right up to the screen, blow it away with some bio-bullets, then charge the juicy boyz behind.

Genestealers are incredibly murder-y, your friend just needs to remember that they're fragile and need to be shepherded to the right target or they'll never make it anywhere.

Sometimes you'll just have terrible matchups with them, too, though, like trying to fight a bunch of flyers with an all ground based assault army (speaking from experience). It just goes with the territory.

the_scotsman wrote:
My friend, in another thread right now there is someone actively whinging about the relic SAG's theoretical LITERAL one in a million capability of one-shotting a knight if it manages to roll perfectly for strength, then shots, then hits, then damage.

These forums are primarily populated by the kind of Timmies that your buddy sounds like. You aren't going to get any good advice for talking sense into people here.

Technically a normal SAG can do 54 wounds in one round (and up to 216 or 324 for the relic version with a shoot twice strat or both shoot twice strats if they end up stacking), so a knight should be a piece of cake, right? Granted, the odds of this ever happening are about the same as winning the lottery without entering, but hey, why let that get in the way of a good rant?

Nids are very strong, particularly against Orks. Ally in GSC and they become far superior.

If your friend wants to play pure Nids I would suggest he takes a look at the book again and focus his list.

Have you posted your list and his? If you want an Ork list that is very likely to lose I can help you out

The only negative with Nids is that they're unforgiving for a poor/inexperienced player.

The tyrranid codex is the most balanced and well made codex this edition, especially with the addition of the new GSC codex.


That being said, a lot of other armies have unbalanced combos that blow them out of the water, or can do some of the same things nids do but better.


Orks are a huge problem for nids. They can literally get twice as many attacks for the same price on their boyz, and get more bodies if comparing againgst genestealers as well. Yeah termagaunts are cheaper, but don't do nearly as much damage. Lootastar can one-shot hive tyrants and hive guard units every turn and without GSC allies deepstriking from behind them nids can do nothing about it.

Nids do have warriors which preform well againgst nids, but badly againgst most any other army, meaning we cant win a tourny with them.

Nids have carnifex spam which is great againgst orks but also sucks againgst eldar and knights, once again meaning we cant win tournaments with them.



Nids are just in a bad spot, and considering we have the most balanced codex in this edition baring basic space marines, that feels pretty stupid.

I can see an issue with Orks vs. Nids...Orks are arguably a better book, and sadly out-Tyranid...Tyranids. If that makes sense. This is just a result of GW's bizarre choice to make Orks melee-monsters (something they never started out). While a Tyranid army can be strong, on average I'd put money on Orks all-day-every-day in an average game.

Sounds like maybe a decent amount of people agree with him that, at least to some respects, the ork codex has at least a bit of an edge on average? I can understand that the balance between codexes won't ever be perfect, just wish he didn't act like his army is just complete trash.

Hm, good points about the genestealers vs boyz. I do notice that I can usually wipe them pretty easily before they do a lot. I take two full shoota squads in almost every list and they don't mind having such a perfect target on turn one. I'll try to advise maybe replacing them with something else.

My lists have been super variable because I've been trying each clan and trying to play to that clan's strengths. Most recent game was something like:

Blood axes

Warboss
SAG big mek
Boss snikrot
2x 30 shoota boyz
4x 10 grots
1x 4 mega armored nobs, sneaking in with blood axe stratagem
3x 15 kommandos
1x deffkopta
2x shokkjump dragstas
1x gorkanaut
2x deff dreads

He had something like:
Swarmlord
Broodlord
Tyranid prime
Some big bug that was tough 8 and had like autocannon like shooting at 36 inch range I think
The big bug that shoots str 8 cannon kinda shots
1x 4 or 5 hive guard (the missle launcher kinda guys?)
2x 20? genestealers
2x 3 warriors with deathspitters and venom cannons
3x pyrovores
3x zoanthropes
Maybe something else, I think that was mostly everything though. He actually did better than usual that game, but yeah the genestealers did nothing.

IMO his list ether has not much synergy or I don't see it. Tyranids have never been better. You can basically build any style of list, but it still needs to play as a team.

I run monster heavy Leviathan builds.

Swarmlord + 40 Stealers is a trap imo. Too many eggs in one basket. A lot of people are using it and struggling and I'm not surprised.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Swarmlord + 40 Stealers is a trap imo. Too many eggs in one basket. A lot of people are using it and struggling and I'm not surprised.

Agreed. He went for the most shiny and simplest LOOKING units and strategy and Nid tactics work best when you go deeper and get more creative.

I have argued it over and over again. Overwhelming threats and redundancies.

1 Swarmlord and 2 units of GS means the enemy has a clear target to eliminate and eliminate it they will.

But if you have 2 or 3 units of 9 warriors with deathspitters and venom canons. Raveners with more Deathspitters to deepstrike them (if you go Jorm). Some Hormagaunts to charge in and screen (they are cheap and can overwhelm if used right), neurothropes for psychic support, hiveguard for rear field shooting....

There becomes no clear target. The enemy starts getting overwhelmed with threats from all sides and doesn't know what to focus fire on. Even if they do pick a target and focus on it, it's such a small element of the over all force that it doesn't actually slow YOU down.

Thats where a good nid list/player really shines. Don't give the enemy any clear tactic to stop you.

 Lance845 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Swarmlord + 40 Stealers is a trap imo. Too many eggs in one basket. A lot of people are using it and struggling and I'm not surprised.

Agreed. He went for the most shiny and simplest LOOKING units and strategy and Nid tactics work best when you go deeper and get more creative.

I have argued it over and over again. Overwhelming threats and redundancies.

1 Swarmlord and 2 units of GS means the enemy has a clear target to eliminate and eliminate it they will.

But if you have 2 or 3 units of 9 warriors with deathspitters and venom canons. Raveners with more Deathspitters to deepstrike them (if you go Jorm). Some Hormagaunts to charge in and screen (they are cheap and can overwhelm if used right), neurothropes for psychic support, hiveguard for rear field shooting....

There becomes no clear target. The enemy starts getting overwhelmed with threats from all sides and doesn't know what to focus fire on. Even if they do pick a target and focus on it, it's such a small element of the over all force that it doesn't actually slow YOU down.

Thats where a good nid list/player really shines. Don't give the enemy any clear tactic to stop you.

I agree very much. Matt Root for example recommends running a single unit of Genestealers, and not even maxed. Either your opponent can deal with Stealers and you only lose a portion of your list, or they can't and they make their points back. Gotta spread around the rest of your list and remain versatile, that imo is the strength of Nids.

Double Stealer bomb is strong but isn't TAC, though it will have some very strong matches if it goes off. I like that other people are running it though it because it means people are expecting an all-in from Nids

Another good way to think of it is how many ways do you have to kill a type of target?

In my Jorm List I have Biovores and Neurothropes with mortal wounds, venom cannons on my warriors (3 per unit of 9 with 2-3 units in the list) and 2 units of hive guard with impaler cannons.

Every one of those can take on vehicles and heavy infantry. Some from rear/mid field and some from up close and all of them fairly inexpensive with multiple units built into the list so the enemy can't kill 1 unit and remove that tool from me.

Then The warriors are loaded up with deathspitters, as are my Raveners that I get to decide at the beginning of the match with Jorm Tunnels if they will be delivering how much or any of my warriors to the front line. Any of my 2-3 warrior units make good choices for the shoot twice stratagem. They take care of light to medium infantry or anything I want to fire bulk guns into.

The Ravs can charge and screen for the warriors. Hormagaunts charge and screen for the ravs or tie up a vehicle or just give the enemy 1 more thing they have to shoot at.

There is no single unit my list relies on. Or even 2 or 3. The enemy could focus on any of them and I still have lots of tools at my disposal to deal with ANYTHING in their list. Try to take out the warriors? Il pick a model to take the damage that I need the least. If the enemy has lots of vehicles or whatever then I will kill off deathspitters first to keep the venom cannons around. If the enemy is hordeish or infantry heavy I will kill off 9 wounds worth of venom cannons before the deathspitters are ever at risk.

Overwhelming threats and redundancies. The Nids true bread and butter for those in the know.

As a Tyranid player myself, I cannot stress enough the use of Spore Mines - especially against hoard armies and those that like to charge forward.

You can block tanks, slow down units and ultimately buy enough time for you to get considerable board control. Tyranids back that up with cheap, fast troops than can hold those objectives very well.

Against Orks, Devilgunts are also quite useful as the massed S4 fire (which can fire twice with a strategem) can blunt the tip of the spear with them.

Don't get me wrong, the power creep has certainly hurt Tyranids and if anyone wants an army that avoids that, you should go Eldar or Space Marines (Eldar's core mechanic has always been superior and Space Marines always get regular updates / allies)