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I'm just curious as to how often GW changes stuff for armies. I'm currently running Tyranid but ifeel underpowered amd weak. A lot of the you its have crap for saves and no invulns. Along with this a lot of the models that seem like they could be really neat to play with end up sucking hard core. For example the red terror. The ability to eat a model is awesome but in reality the red terror sucks. It gets shot off the board trying to make charge roles. So I guess what I'm really trying to say, is how often do they update or xhange some rules for units/armies to help make them more competitive.

One to three times a year/not often enough, & never to the extent you want.

There are plenty of good to horrifyingly good Tyranid units and builds. Have a browse through the Tactica threads.

akillys wrote:
So I guess what I'm really trying to say, is how often do they update or xhange some rules for units/armies to help make them more competitive.

Currently you can expect a points update at least once a year, unless you are one of the semi-squatted factions like inquisition.
New datasheets are model release dependent and are mostly limited to marines and chaos so far, but other factions also pick bits and pieces up from the box sets (like the named kroot and priest).

We are getting to the end of the first codex cycle and starting to see 8.5 books, again tied to new models. The tyranid line is in pretty good shape as far as being plastic and up to date goes so I don't expect them to be particularly high up the list unless there is a nid vs marine boxset coming out (like an update to spacehulk - tyranid attack).

Tyranids are an excellent stand alone army, but understand that in 40K, as has been the case for many years now, the following is more or less true:

Your codex: 40 datasheets/units.

Your codex in competitive play: 5-8 datasheet/units.

And it's more or less the same in most books. There is almost no army which is highly competitive outside of one or two "builds"...which normally centers on spamming a couple of really strong units. I play casual/narrative gaming and even I struggle bringing many units from both of my two main armies. As suggested above, go check out the Tyranid tactica threads on here, but be prepared for a bunch of "take these units and ignore everything else". That is sadly the nature of competitive 40K most of the time.

You're running the Red Terror wrong, he should be going in behind Ravenors and making them hit on 2's, or maybe taking out secondary HQ's, trying to solo a shooty unit is never going to work.

Are raveners any good? If so how many make up a strong unit?

 Elbows wrote:
Tyranids are an excellent stand alone army, but understand that in 40K, as has been the case for many years now, the following is more or less true:

Your codex: 40 datasheets/units.

Your codex in competitive play: 5-8 datasheet/units.

And it's more or less the same in most books. There is almost no army which is highly competitive outside of one or two "builds"...which normally centers on spamming a couple of really strong units. I play casual/narrative gaming and even I struggle bringing many units from both of my two main armies. As suggested above, go check out the Tyranid tactica threads on here, but be prepared for a bunch of "take these units and ignore everything else". That is sadly the nature of competitive 40K most of the time.

There aren't many armies who have as many abject duds as Nids do, though; and in that regard, I sympathize with the OP. GW even managed to give Warp Talons some sort of identity with the Vigilus book (so I guess anything can happen...) but what fails to function as massively as a:

Haruspex
Harpy
Hive Crone
Lictor
Dimachaeron
Mawloc

I even left off the really bad gak that admittedly has some function, like the Tervigon or Maleceptor. I'm pretty familiar with most armies and as far as I can tell, Tyranids have it the worst in that regard.

akillys wrote:
Are raveners any good? If so how many make up a strong unit?

In terms of close combat ability, each ravener is about the equivalent of a genestealer. For around twice the points.
Their main strengths are a high base movement speed, and an inherent deepstrike ability. However the 5+ armour save sucks, along with the pitiful leadership 5 (which given that they are pretty much always deployed via deepstrike, means you have to be very mindful of synapse ranges).

In terms of using them as a close combat unit, they're not worth it. However where they get some use is in Jormangundr lists. They're used as a taxi to ferry in other infantry units using the 'The Enemy Below' stratagem. In which case you just use a unit of 3 to get a surprisingly large amount of deployment room for whatever they're bringing with them.
e.g.


If you like the idea of fast tyranid warriors, and don't care about the tunneling in other units thing, then you're better off looking at Shrikes (Index xenos 2). They're very similar to raveners, but for 3 extra points they get a better armour save, synapse, and access to better melee weapons (boneswords).

So I'm interested in the shrikes but use battlescribe to make my list and O do not see them in there any suggestions.

akillys wrote:
So I'm interested in the shrikes but use battlescribe to make my list and O do not see them in there any suggestions.

I just downloaded battlescribe to take a look for myself, and they are right there in the fast attack section.

akillys wrote:
Are raveners any good? If so how many make up a strong unit?

My main list is a Jorm list. I bring 2-3 units of 4-3 Ravs with death spitters and rending claws supported with a Red Terror and use them all to deep strike units of tyranid warriors supported by a Prime with deathspitters and venom canons.

It's a solid amount of dakka that can hold up decent enough in melee and between the death spitters and V-canons can take out the vast majority of targets.


What is most important with nid tactics is overwhelming threats and redundancies. Nobody wants to focus on several units of ravenors and warriors because they don't cost THAT many points and I bring enough of them that there is no clear target to focus fire on. Each warrior is 3 wounds and I can choose to kill off my venom cannons or deathspitters first depending on what my opponent bought and what weapon is more valuable to me at the time. And yet, it's SO MUCH dakka.

If you bring the flashy genestealer bomb with swarm lord you can be sure they will focus fire on your genestealers and swarm lord. They won't survive 2 turns and they take up a massive chunk of your points and nothing else in the list is capable of picking up their slack. Again, overwhelming threats so they don't know what to shoot, and redundancies, so what ever gets shot doesn't leave gaps in your tactics.

If you're struggling with Nids now you probably shouldn't get your hopes up amd learn to love a few select units. Traditionally Nid codexes are bad with one or two really good units. The current codex is the best we've had in nearly 15 years.