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are tyranids a viable competitive option. In my meta (and I think most metas, they are really meh) but in a min/maxing setting, are they good?

For example, I have player against flyrant spam, lictor spam, and some really nasty gaunt spam lists, all really ridiculous.

Looking at the general results of the nationwide tournaments, it seems tyranids are a strong army in a tfg sense of the word, but whats your opinion dakka?

-Mikey

Tyranids are not strong internally.
They only do well in tournaments because Flyrants are ridiculously good for what you pay.

Many people call them Codex: Flyrants for a reason.

Any competitive list maxes out Flyrants in any CAD/Hive Fleet Detachment.

Tyranids remind me a lot of CSM in early 6th: Codex: Overpowered Flyer.

No Flyrants, no win. Simple as that.

Tyranids take tournament after tournament (just won ATC) and place high but that's solely due to how good the combination of flyrants and muciolids (sp?) are. Basically because they can take 15pt troops choices they can max out on HQs, elites, and heavy support.

Even without flyrant spam, nids can do well with certian builds.

1-2 flyrants, 60-90 point units of gaunts covering venomthropes, a few MCs, and, death leapers, yes. Death leapers are pretty effective.

 eskimo wrote:
No Flyrants, no win. Simple as that.

Fact

I blatantly copied the LVO winning lictor shame list and it rocks most armies just in terms of board control, deployment options and its complete lack of feths about invisibility. It however runs pretty much on the entire idea that the hive tyrants do most of the lifting.

 raiden wrote:
Even without flyrant spam, nids can do well with certian builds.

1-2 flyrants, 60-90 point units of gaunts covering venomthropes, a few MCs, and, death leapers, yes. Death leapers are pretty effective.

What's made Death Leaper good? My tyrannid player friend claims that DL and lictors in general are still kind of crap.

Board control, harass, etc. It's a unit that IIRC you fire snap shots at period, have superior infiltration, and can reliably kill squishy shiooty units, so if you have about 3-4 your oppenent has to wate shooting them as your main force moves up rather unscathed, or let them get into his shooty units and hope for the best.

Okay, no offense Raiden but you might not want to give advice on a faction if you don't know much about them.

Death Leaper, not Death Leapers, is a unique character that you can only take one of in an army and is an HQ choice. He is a variant on the Lictor which is his more useless cousin. Lictor Shame is winning tournaments because of the way those major tournaments are setting up their missions, in a real maelstrom game it isn't going to perform nearly as well. In anything but maelstrom Lictor Shame...might be okay because it still takes a bunch of Flyrants.

Codex: Tyranid and Codex: Flyrant are two different beast entirely as others have already said. The Tyranids codex is chock full of useless entries, far worse than any other codex. There are 37 unique entries into the codex and you usually only see about 8 of those ever used, maybe 15 if you are just looking for casual fun. Many of the worst units in the game are in the Tyranids codex with Pyrovores, Haruspex, and Maleceptors being the top contenders for worst unit overall.

The Tyranids HQ slot is full of mediocre units, bad units, and the Flyrant. Your elites boil down to Venomthropes and Zoanthropes, fast attack is all about Hive Crones or Gargoyles, troops are all about mucolids if you want to be the most competitive, Termagants and Tervigons if you want to be semi-competitive or fluffy. Heavy is the best section for Tyranids with almost ever unit but Trygons and Tyrannofex being of use.

If you were to measure all armies on a scale of 1-100, Tyranids can stretch to encompass the entire spectrum, from a laughable synapseless ripper swarm army to a Pentyrant list. Tyranids power level is as strong as you want it to be, or as weak as you want it to be, if that is all you care about. If you want to play a fluffy army that can field a multitude of unique units and still compete with most list, try playing Eldar.

Nids are high mid to high tier if played properly.
Pods, flyrants, etc.
The army is in a good place right now

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:

 raiden wrote:
Even without flyrant spam, nids can do well with certian builds.

1-2 flyrants, 60-90 point units of gaunts covering venomthropes, a few MCs, and, death leapers, yes. Death leapers are pretty effective.

What's made Death Leaper good? My tyrannid player friend claims that DL and lictors in general are still kind of crap.

AND they still are. They're just 50 point Locator Beacons for Mawlocs, which do decent work. So think of them as an extension of your Mawloc purchase and you'll be just fine.

Pentaflyrant lists also really depend on the meta not hard countering flyers. Most armies right now take light anti-flyer or have the durability to mostly ignore flyers. If heldrakes and crimson hunters start being enough of a pain, I wouldn't expect flyrants to be quite so comfortable in the skies.

I was going to start nids up - if you made a casual list is it going to be crushed by other casual lists?

If so, color me bummed.

die toten hosen wrote:
Nids are high mid to high tier if played properly.
Pods, flyrants, etc.
The army is in a good place right now

Ehhhh...I would say the army is in an okay place. We've only got one or two builds (and don't get me wrong, they are very strong builds) and only a handful of passable units.

 zgort wrote:
I was going to start nids up - if you made a casual list is it going to be crushed by other casual lists?

If so, color me bummed.

Kind of. I've done well in my meta, as the only Tyranid player, and against people who don't bring cheese. But apparently in a lot of people's areas, bringing cheese is the name of the game. If so, Nids will get creamed.

The thing I've come to realize about their current codex is the fact that they don't excel at anything moreso than any other army. Eldar and Tau shoot better and have something to kill any target, plus have better mobility. Necrons are harder to kill. Codex Adeptus Astartes: X are all arounders and have options for dealing with pretty much everything. Orks have a couple good builds, for casual and competitive games. Daemons still have their shenanigans. Khorne Daemonkin can out melee Nids easily, but then again, a lot of armies can. Nids lack decent Psychic powers, good Anti-tank shooting, almost no way to deal with things like Wraithknights, and their too costly for most of their things.

Nids don't excel at any one thing, and the things their good at, aren't better than anyone elses. If I'm wrong, feel free to let me know, but that's what I've come to realize as of recent. And as more armies get ever stronger, Nids will be left in the dust, unless they do a few things.

To name a few:
MCs need to get cheaper, except the Mawloc, it's pretty good as is.
Many units need to be either cheaper or have something awesome about them (i.e. Genestealers, Hormagaunts, Rippers, Pyrovores, Gargoyles, ext)
Tyranids need GCs in their codex. The Trygon prime used to be one, if I remember correctly. Put it back there. If any army should have an abundance of these, it should be Nids.
Make the Tyranid Psychic powers better, or give them access to Biomancy again.
Swarmlord is trash. 10 points more gets a Wraithknight? Dah eff....

I know this was a tad off topic, but I just wanted to get some of those things off my mind. More on topic, Nids are at best OK in a casual, non-'spamming Flyrants/Lictors/Mawlocs' setting. But don't expect to win a whole lot unless you resort to the aforementioned tactic.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 zgort wrote:
I was going to start nids up - if you made a casual list is it going to be crushed by other casual lists?

If so, color me bummed.

Kind of. I've done well in my meta, as the only Tyranid player, and against people who don't bring cheese. But apparently in a lot of people's areas, bringing cheese is the name of the game. If so, Nids will get creamed.

The thing I've come to realize about their current codex is the fact that they don't excel at anything moreso than any other army. Eldar and Tau shoot better and have something to kill any target, plus have better mobility. Necrons are harder to kill. Codex Adeptus Astartes: X are all arounders and have options for dealing with pretty much everything. Orks have a couple good builds, for casual and competitive games. Daemons still have their shenanigans. Khorne Daemonkin can out melee Nids easily, but then again, a lot of armies can. Nids lack decent Psychic powers, good Anti-tank shooting, almost no way to deal with things like Wraithknights, and their too costly for most of their things.

Nids don't excel at any one thing, and the things their good at, aren't better than anyone elses. If I'm wrong, feel free to let me know, but that's what I've come to realize as of recent. And as more armies get ever stronger, Nids will be left in the dust, unless they do a few things.

To name a few:
MCs need to get cheaper, except the Mawloc, it's pretty good as is.
Many units need to be either cheaper or have something awesome about them (i.e. Genestealers, Hormagaunts, Rippers, Pyrovores, Gargoyles, ext)
Tyranids need GCs in their codex. The Trygon prime used to be one, if I remember correctly. Put it back there. If any army should have an abundance of these, it should be Nids.
Make the Tyranid Psychic powers better, or give them access to Biomancy again.
Swarmlord is trash. 10 points more gets a Wraithknight? Dah eff....

I know this was a tad off topic, but I just wanted to get some of those things off my mind. More on topic, Nids are at best OK in a casual, non-'spamming Flyrants/Lictors/Mawlocs' setting. But don't expect to win a whole lot unless you resort to the aforementioned tactic.

Very rarely do I agree with someone so completely.

Tyranids across the board are just mediocre at about everything, which I am actually okay with if they were priced appropriately. The problem is that we pay Riptide prices for things like the Haruspex which is bad at just about everything. There was a time when T6 4W 3+ MCs were actually decent, but now they aren't survivable enough anymore and Tyranids have always lacked teeth but they made up for it in quantity.

Our Gimick, Synapse, is effectively army wide fearless. Which while cool is incredibly boring and just doesn't stack up well when you compare it to other armies special rules and the prolific amount of fearless units. Tyranids are in the same boat as IG in that they both lack a significant identity, they are more or less mediocre stat blocks priced for a couple of editions ago.

What drives me crazy is that Tyranids HAD an amazing codex that allowed you to take almost endless briomorphs on any unit to truely customize them. I understand some of the reasoning for toning this down and changing how the army worked but instead they just removed it and replaced it with...nothing. They took away what made the army unique and then release the same codex twice in a row now with minor updates for the edition change.

Significantly less than 9000.

 Psienesis wrote:
Significantly less than 9000.

Beat me to it.

But seriously I have played against a few tough tyranid lists. I dont play tournament stuff, but I think Tyranids do indeed have the tools to be a fun army. If your opponents are all competitive Tau/Necron/Eldar players, then expect to get beat no matter which army you choose. But if they are good people and don't spam the cheese, then you can enjoy the game. The models are awesome, and you can really get in to the feel of swarming and skittering across the battlefield in the hopes of eating your enemy.

Just make sure to take a flyrant, a few zoanthropes, a mawloc (the one that burrows?), maybe some warriors, big swarms of gribblies (the shooting gaunts) and maybe one of those tervigons to spawn some more bugs. All of those things bring me trouble when I play nids.

Thanks for the responses. I still love how they look. Maybe I'll just deal and do what I can with em lol

 zgort wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I still love how they look. Maybe I'll just deal and do what I can with em lol

I mean, if you like the army, go for it. That's the biggest reason to play an army.

Definitely still go for it; they're still loads of fun to play with friends, and they can work for tournaments, just kind of playing on hard mode.

 zgort wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I still love how they look. Maybe I'll just deal and do what I can with em lol

Contrary to what my post may have implied, I still love the Tyranid army and they are the main army I play. I've taken them to tournaments, even got 2nd place in the last 3 I played in with them (thanks Demon spam lists!). But, if you're looking for competative you'll basically be really limited in what's decent. If you're looking for fun, go all out! Worst case scenario, nids look great on the table when painted and you can have a lot of fun with them.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Okay, no offense Raiden but you might not want to give advice on a faction if you don't know much about them.

<snip>

Heavy is the best section for Tyranids with almost ever unit but Trygons and Tyrannofex being of use.

Got that one wrong, buddy. The 'fex is pretty good with his templates, and he takes a hell of a beating.

edit: take a look in the tyranid tactics thread. It's long, but it's worth reading through.

Pretty much agree with everything posted on this thread. In a competitive list, the only stuff worth taking are Flyrants, Malanthropes, and Mucolid Spores. Flyrants are fairly undercosted (I would say "ridiculously" if it wasn't for Wraith Knights..) for what they're able to do and I never bring more than 1 in a friendly/casual game.

Without abusing 2+ cover shenanigans with a malanthrope, all of the other units just get absolutely annihilated. Mediocre psychic powers don't help, either. The only semi-reliable anti-tank/anti-super heavy unit we have is the Barbed Hierodule at over 550 points, which can be absolutely butt ed with grav or the D with only six wounds.

Ugh, I didn't even realize a WraithKnight was only 5 points more than the Swarm Lord.. that's disgusting.

If we're wish listing.. Swarm Lord needs a 20-25 point discount, the ability to select his psychic powers, and a passive buff to all units in synapse along with his Swarm Leader ability. Giving TFexes T7.. Making Trygons into GCs with something to replace stomp.. Catalyst improved to a 4+ FnP, replacing Onslaught with something that doesn't suck, replacing The Horror with something that doesn't suck... I could go on and on.

zerosignal wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Okay, no offense Raiden but you might not want to give advice on a faction if you don't know much about them.

<snip>

Heavy is the best section for Tyranids with almost ever unit but Trygons and Tyrannofex being of use.

Got that one wrong, buddy. The 'fex is pretty good with his templates, and he takes a hell of a beating.

edit: take a look in the tyranid tactics thread. It's long, but it's worth reading through.

Tyrannofex isn't bad, he just doesn't really do anything that you can't get somewhere else for a fraction of the price. I like the Tyrannofex, I wouldn't bat an eye at someone using one, I just don't think they are worth the point investment they require. The biggest problem is that he is competing with Carnifex, Exocrine, Biovores, and Mawlocs for the heavy slots and that is his biggest cost.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Okay, no offense Raiden but you might not want to give advice on a faction if you don't know much about them.

<snip>

Heavy is the best section for Tyranids with almost ever unit but Trygons and Tyrannofex being of use.

Got that one wrong, buddy. The 'fex is pretty good with his templates, and he takes a hell of a beating.

edit: take a look in the tyranid tactics thread. It's long, but it's worth reading through.

Tyrannofex isn't bad, he just doesn't really do anything that you can't get somewhere else for a fraction of the price. I like the Tyrannofex, I wouldn't bat an eye at someone using one, I just don't think they are worth the point investment they require. The biggest problem is that he is competing with Carnifex, Exocrine, Biovores, and Mawlocs for the heavy slots and that is his biggest cost.

Tfex is really situational and his effectiveness depends on what armies you're playing against. He'll absolutely destroy orks (mostly 6+ saves) but tends to suck against power armor. Marines laugh at acid spray. The other options (flesborer hive/rupture cannon) are just not worth it and are absolute trash. I don't think it would be game breaking to ditch the Rupture Cannon (30 pts for 2 STR 10 AP4 shots @ BS3) for a Biocannon (Assault 6/AP3) for a point hike.

CWDub wrote:
Pretty much agree with everything posted on this thread. In a competitive list, the only stuff worth taking are Flyrants, Malanthropes, and Mucolid Spores. Flyrants are fairly undercosted (I would say "ridiculously" if it wasn't for Wraith Knights..) for what they're able to do and I never bring more than 1 in a friendly/casual game.

Without abusing 2+ cover shenanigans with a malanthrope, all of the other units just get absolutely annihilated. Mediocre psychic powers don't help, either. The only semi-reliable anti-tank/anti-super heavy unit we have is the Barbed Hierodule at over 550 points, which can be absolutely butt ed with grav or the D with only six wounds.

Ugh, I didn't even realize a WraithKnight was only 5 points more than the Swarm Lord.. that's disgusting.

If we're wish listing.. Swarm Lord needs a 20-25 point discount, the ability to select his psychic powers, and a passive buff to all units in synapse along with his Swarm Leader ability. Giving TFexes T7.. Making Trygons into GCs with something to replace stomp.. Catalyst improved to a 4+ FnP, replacing Onslaught with something that doesn't suck, replacing The Horror with something that doesn't suck... I could go on and on.

Onslaught has actually proven to be very good for me. Having my Devilgaunts get an extra d6 inches? Yes please.