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Dakkafexxes have been in use for quite a while in the meta.

HIve Guard were good until knights came out.

Nids main issue is we don't have a T8 model and/or IK equivalent. We dont have any units that can take down a knight effectively, let alone 1 shot a knight like most armies can.

What's your opinion on the matter? Should we even bother bringing AT, or should we just play for the board?

Looking at it objectively from an ITC perspective, we have to play the board and just hoard it up.

Bring tools to kill hoards, and enough bodies to keep your enemy penned in to one part of the table.


So bring lots of gaunts, of both types, nuerothropes and malanthropes for synapse and staying power, dakkafex's are fine since they are quite cost effective. Leviathan is looking a lot more attractive now since its a reliable durability increase.

Im still liking sporocysts since they are cheap roadblocks that cant be ignored. Biovores have a place as well, but you cant spam them now.

I like pyrovores because they are pretty cost effective, but if you don't have them as kraken or jorm they are too slow to be of any use.

Not sure how Neuros and Malans will hold up with marine and assassin sniper nonsense

They should be fine as long as you let your nuro's heal with their smite. With leviathan trait its pretty difficult for a vindicare to oneshot a nuero and you can easily keep them out of LOS if need be.

Malanthropes will be in for a rough spot turn 3 but with their massive wound pool should last till then at least, and you should have been able to get some gaunts up to the snipers by then.

Ok, according to the last SM spoilers, it looks like that we are going to see A LOT of power armour going around, probably with multiple wounds.

While this may mean less knights, which is good, i would like to hear your opinions on our best ways to deal with power armour.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shall we start putting toxic glands everywhere?

I don't think there's anything we have that doesn't deal with power armour in some way

Tons of shots or attacks are great for it

Mortal wounds are great for it

Tying things up in CC is great for it

Double shooting Hive Guard from behind cover are great for it (especially since they are a closer ranged shooting army)


Tyranids are really good against elite units. SM might be great but I don't think we need to change anything for them


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Might consider Acid Maw on the dakkafex though

Agreed with all points. I'd much rather face Marines than multiple knights! Especially Hive Guard.

Even Kraken stealers can start outside of infantry 36" threat range.

But I should reserve final judgement till seeing what lists and combos show up. Expecting marines to be very powerful now.

Well, Im glad that a more horde style army could be more usable, I love sporocysts so what exactly do they bring though? How are they useful? Im not really big on standard dakka type armies but anything thats unique I find interesting

If we’re seeing a metagame mobilisation of 2W infantry and demobilisation of T8, isn’t an acid spray t-fex in a good place?

Rupturefex hanging back and popping hard targets, acidfex daring veteran thunder hammer intercessors to try and take the midfield and laughing at flame Aggressors, dakkafexes with acid maws sorting out lighter infantry, devil/termagant hybrid units screening, and maaaybe a Tervigon keeping them alive and also adding to T8 saturation?

All wrapped up with malanthrope -1 auras, plus neurothropes providing psychic & DTW support, and also forcing snipers to choose between the squishy-but-regenerating psyker that can CRR a 3++ to deny the kill, or the big -1 aura generator?

You basically described how I'm playing Nids at the moment.

However you can't really Malanthrope umbrella the Rupture Cannon Fexes and the Acid Spray Fexes at the same time. And you want a little redundancy for both strats I think so you probably want to choose one or the other.


My list I'm taking next week is running 2 battalions.
Two Neurothropes, a Malanthrope, and Old One Eye (excellent unit, even better when running Acid Maw Fexes).
3x Acid Maw Dakkafex, 2x Rupture Cannon TFex.
Some max size squads of Termagants hiding about 10 devourers in them. A couple more barebones for holding objectives.
The rest of my points I've got in a squad of Stealers and a squad of Horms, for tying things up in cc, and dealing with enemy assault units. I think 1 unit of Stealers is mandatory, the Horms are luxury.

The TFexes and Malanthrope are Jorm for 2+ sv / -1 to hit. Also cover ignoring. The Termagants are there too cause 5+ sv makes them Fearless guardsmen with better shooting. Everything else is Kraken for speed. We'll see how it goes but I have high hopes.

I tried the Tervigon recently (stomped down on a competitive AdMech list). You need the investment in Gants to make him work (which is fine) and then he feels about as good as taking a third squad of 30 Gants. He regenned close to his points worth, kept fodder shield up for their devourers, and smited or catalysted a few turns, as well as gave out re-rolls to the gant. He was cool, and basically unkillable with Kraken Relic, Malanthrope, and then surrounded by Gants, and was just generally a nuisance that doesn't quit. Some lists will be able to clear out that many Gants with ease however. Still, I think the week after I may try dropping a Neurothrope and Hormagants for a Tervi and swapping the Rupture Cannons for Acid Spray which is exactly 1999pts for me, because I agree they are solid right now especially with bunch of MC in the list, and I'm not sure that investing in either Hive Guard or Rupture Cannons is even necessary.

Is it just me, or do Gravis units completely outclass Warriors now? I get it, it's a bit of apples to oranges, but fundamentally I think it's another area where we just get smoked (hell, I know Warriors got smoked by other units within the codex, but at least it was at specific roles, not in a generalist sense!)

lindsay40k wrote:If we’re seeing a metagame mobilisation of 2W infantry and demobilisation of T8, isn’t an acid spray t-fex in a good place?

Maybe? My initial thought is that anything that can suppress Knights will probably also suppress other T8 models too. I suppose in theory the Tyrannofex could hide in reserves via a Tyrannocyte and act as a beta strike against a drop pod alpha strike (presumably what would suppress T8) but that is a lot of points to have off table and it might not have a good landing zone if they bring a few infiltrators along.

I am admittedly a little down on 'nidzilla at the moment. My last outing with a monster-heavy list saw it getting tabled by a comparatively tame custodes and battle sister list (basically just troops and some foot characters, 1 biker captain and 4 jetbikes).

Nidzilla isn't like Knights. You gotta accept that a lot of lists will be able to kill any one or even two of your monsters pretty quickly. What you have to do is make that as hard as possible for them (Malanthrope / Spore Cysts, Kraken Relic, The Horror,Jorm / Prepared Positions, Catalyst on the thing they need dead the most, etc) to really spread that fire thin, and you also have to make it so that the rest of your army feels pretty happy once all the AT has been shot off. Tyrannofex aren't priced too badly from a defensive standpoint, if they die they die, just gotta be adaptable.

Nids are gonna see an upswing as marines get more popular. We have never had a real issue with dealing with marines.

However, I will note, that some marine lists will utterly stomp nid hoard now. They can easily bring enough attacks to beat down 140 model lists now with their updated chapter attacks (ultramarines, black Templar, and white scars)

We still cant handle knight lists, decent tau lists, ork hoards, and genestealer cult lists (that are played properly).

I'v been away from the game so long I got back into 8th with my Bugs. So are 10-12 Carnifex heavy lists even worth taking anymore?

Have to admit, this thread that I've been reading for the last 50+ pages seems depressing....

It's depressing because we got one of the best written codex's in years, got immediately nerfed because of a few spam lists, and then watched as every new codex after ours powercrept us out of real revelancy.


You can have some truly amazing and fun games with nids, so don't sell them off, but we just wont be winning any major tournaments in the current meta.

You can still go to a tourney and place in the top 20 (in non-ITC tournies), but we are just outclassed greatly. Most armies outshoot us, some armies outfight us in melee, and most armies are more durable than us.

If you build a list that will last past turn 4/5 (gaunt spam) you wont be able to even put a dent in some other lists. If you go for a nidzilla list and your opponent doesn't roll a bunch of 1's you get tabled. Same for genestealer spam.

Our superheavies suck ass, and only a few of our fun tricks are actually effective. We suffer from necron levels of short ranged firepower only with less durability (granted we are a lot better in melee and have psychic powers).

 Eihnlazer wrote:
It's depressing because we got one of the best written codex's in years, got immediately nerfed because of a few spam lists, and then watched as every new codex after ours powercrept us out of real revelancy.


You can have some truly amazing and fun games with nids, so don't sell them off, but we just wont be winning any major tournaments in the current meta.

You can still go to a tourney and place in the top 20 (in non-ITC tournies), but we are just outclassed greatly. Most armies outshoot us, some armies outfight us in melee, and most armies are more durable than us.

If you build a list that will last past turn 4/5 (gaunt spam) you wont be able to even put a dent in some other lists. If you go for a nidzilla list and your opponent doesn't roll a bunch of 1's you get tabled. Same for genestealer spam.

Our superheavies suck ass, and only a few of our fun tricks are actually effective. We suffer from necron levels of short ranged firepower only with less durability (granted we are a lot better in melee and have psychic powers).

Necrons are sadly better than us at the moment, even if it's a singular list.
Tyranids do every single phase of the game no better than anybody at the moment, with no real way to have an in-game adaptability if something doesn't go our way.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Nidzilla isn't like Knights. You gotta accept that a lot of lists will be able to kill any one or even two of your monsters pretty quickly. What you have to do is make that as hard as possible for them (Malanthrope / Spore Cysts, Kraken Relic, The Horror,Jorm / Prepared Positions, Catalyst on the thing they need dead the most, etc) to really spread that fire thin, and you also have to make it so that the rest of your army feels pretty happy once all the AT has been shot off.

I agree and I know. The main disappointment of that particular game was that there wasn't really any anti-tank on the other side of the table. Everything died to mass bolter fire and assault.

I'll probably give the list another go, since my dice were unusually cold and my opponent's were on fire.

 Third_Age_of_Baggz wrote:
I'v been away from the game so long I got back into 8th with my Bugs. So are 10-12 Carnifex heavy lists even worth taking anymore?

The Carnifex itself still feels pretty solid, especially compared to other models in its size class (classic Dreadnaughts, Deff Dreads, Wraithlords). How viable masses of them will be will depend on how dominate Knights are in your local meta and how many you see in a given list. Knights are exceptionally good at dealing with multi-wound models, so the general counter is to skew towards infantry to deny them good targets. If they only have one you could throw Old One Eye at it and hopefully tear it up before it can do too much damage, but against 2 with infantry support or a full Knight list you might run into trouble.

Also worth noting, the commonly accepted "rule of 3"* means that one can field at most 9 of the build-your-own Carnifexes, with any over that needing to be some mix of Thornbacks, Screamerkillers, or Stonecrushers.

*Technically not a rule proper but a recommendation for tournaments/events. Commonly treated as a rule proper regardless, since it reduces spam to an extent.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
It's depressing because we got one of the best written codex's in years, got immediately nerfed because of a few spam lists, and then watched as every new codex after ours powercrept us out of real revelancy.


You can have some truly amazing and fun games with nids, so don't sell them off, but we just wont be winning any major tournaments in the current meta.

You can still go to a tourney and place in the top 20 (in non-ITC tournies), but we are just outclassed greatly. Most armies outshoot us, some armies outfight us in melee, and most armies are more durable than us.

If you build a list that will last past turn 4/5 (gaunt spam) you wont be able to even put a dent in some other lists. If you go for a nidzilla list and your opponent doesn't roll a bunch of 1's you get tabled. Same for genestealer spam.

Our superheavies suck ass, and only a few of our fun tricks are actually effective. We suffer from necron levels of short ranged firepower only with less durability (granted we are a lot better in melee and have psychic powers).

This is a bit too negative and I think your mentality may be holding you back further than your army. Yeah, Nids aren't highest tier, but they do way better than top 20 at an ITC event. PURE GREY KNIGHTS (no soup) got second place at one over the weekend, you don't really think we're in a worse place than that do you? And now you guys are saying Necrons are better? Lol it wasn't long ago at all that people Necrons at the flat bottom of the ladder, it took a few good players displaying what the army is capable of to change the broader understanding of them.


Pure Tyranids are in the best place we've been in since over a year ago, with the nerf of Castellan, and now a new meta competitor that I think we all agree we are well positioned against that is going to be EVERYWHERE and will only grow in popularity as the rest of the library of books it's getting are released. I think Tyranids are going to need a couple of things, including rethinking the "rules" how we play the army, and also tournament players willing to actually play the army. Because GSC are top tier, and are considered a more fun dex, and are Nids in all but name, so there is little interest competitively in playing bugs - you don't even need to play Tyranids to compete with Tyranids at the moment. I can't help but think that if Necrons had a top tier sister dex for like C'Tan or something that had a bunch of flavorful rules, that the perception of them would still be the same as it was a month or so ago, even though it's all still there.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:
It's depressing because we got one of the best written codex's in years, got immediately nerfed because of a few spam lists, and then watched as every new codex after ours powercrept us out of real revelancy.


You can have some truly amazing and fun games with nids, so don't sell them off, but we just wont be winning any major tournaments in the current meta.

You can still go to a tourney and place in the top 20 (in non-ITC tournies), but we are just outclassed greatly. Most armies outshoot us, some armies outfight us in melee, and most armies are more durable than us.

If you build a list that will last past turn 4/5 (gaunt spam) you wont be able to even put a dent in some other lists. If you go for a nidzilla list and your opponent doesn't roll a bunch of 1's you get tabled. Same for genestealer spam.

Our superheavies suck ass, and only a few of our fun tricks are actually effective. We suffer from necron levels of short ranged firepower only with less durability (granted we are a lot better in melee and have psychic powers).

This is a bit too negative and I think your mentality may be holding you back further than your army. Yeah, Nids aren't highest tier, but they do way better than top 20 at an ITC event. PURE GREY KNIGHTS (no soup) got second place at one over the weekend, you don't really think we're in a worse place than that do you? And now you guys are saying Necrons are better? Lol it wasn't long ago at all that people Necrons at the flat bottom of the ladder, it took a few good players displaying what the army is capable of to change the broader understanding of them.


Pure Tyranids are in the best place we've been in since over a year ago, with the nerf of Castellan, and now a new meta competitor that I think we all agree we are well positioned against that is going to be EVERYWHERE and will only grow in popularity as the rest of the library of books it's getting are released. I think Tyranids are going to need a couple of things, including rethinking the "rules" how we play the army, and also tournament players willing to actually play the army. Because GSC are top tier, and are considered a more fun dex, and are Nids in all but name, so there is little interest competitively in playing bugs - you don't even need to play Tyranids to compete with Tyranids at the moment. I can't help but think that if Necrons had a top tier sister dex for like C'Tan or something that had a bunch of flavorful rules, that the perception of them would still be the same as it was a month or so ago, even though it's all still there.

This. A hundred times. I had my fun with nids in the start of 8ed and than shelved them for orks (precodex). I see this "the sky is falling" mentality everywhere in other 3d by old players that compare the good old days with now and just can't get out of their head.
Nids are NOT top tier, but at the last 3 ITC tournaments I have been, I always met a nids player fighting for the podium. All of those players played their own flavoured list over and over and over. They are way better than the majority of the knight/custodes/eldar players that take advantage of their overpowered codex . Yes, they are not winning every tournaments consistently and are in the top tier, but man, they get so much respect from everyone when they comes out like the oddballs they are.
Take a list you like, improve it and keep on playing it untill YOU make 0 mistakes and than keep on doing that. Itc helps better players to get better, as long they realize how much the match depends on them , rather than dice rolls.

 Emicrania wrote:


This. A hundred times. I had my fun with nids in the start of 8ed and than shelved them for orks (precodex). I see this "the sky is falling" mentality everywhere in other 3d by old players that compare the good old days with now and just can't get out of their head.
Nids are NOT top tier, but at the last 3 ITC tournaments I have been, I always met a nids player fighting for the podium. All of those players played their own flavoured list over and over and over. They are way better than the majority of the knight/custodes/eldar players that take advantage of their overpowered codex . Yes, they are not winning every tournaments consistently and are in the top tier, but man, they get so much respect from everyone when they comes out like the oddballs they are.
Take a list you like, improve it and keep on playing it untill YOU make 0 mistakes and than keep on doing that. Itc helps better players to get better, as long they realize how much the match depends on them , rather than dice rolls.

I'm not too OLD and I'm not saying I have a "Sky is falling" mentality, I'm just pointing out that I've thoroughly ready this thread and you're right, seems like there are some Negative Nancys out there. I appreciate the words of advice from the previous replies to my post about the Carnifex. I still plan on playing my bugs whole heartily even though I have quite a few Carnifex models. Back in the day, they where the "ONLY" big model out there and it was a monster for sure. Now these days, not so much. For me personally, I don't think flying Hive Tyrants are that effective, nor fluffy. But hey, that's my take. I'm sure they are a crutch for most competitive armies out there. I've always been more of a "Ground Pounder" when it comes to such units.

I'll make them Carnifex work somehow...

Well I did say nids can give you some of the best games. They are definitely an army you play because of the fun factor.


I've just been hit with too much disappointment in my tournament play with them.

When you put your heart and soul into making a unique list, get everything painted in the proper scheme, and fly halfway across the country to play at the biggest tournament in the world and get utterly shat on because other armies are just plain stronger or because you make the tiniest of mistakes (in 2 of my games), you start to get a bit depressed about it.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Well I did say nids can give you some of the best games. They are definitely an army you play because of the fun factor.


I've just been hit with too much disappointment in my tournament play with them.

When you put your heart and soul into making a unique list, get everything painted in the proper scheme, and fly halfway across the country to play at the biggest tournament in the world and get utterly shat on because other armies are just plain stronger or because you make the tiniest of mistakes (in 2 of my games), you start to get a bit depressed about it.

That would be terribly irritating I agree!

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Well I did say nids can give you some of the best games. They are definitely an army you play because of the fun factor.


I've just been hit with too much disappointment in my tournament play with them.

When you put your heart and soul into making a unique list, get everything painted in the proper scheme, and fly halfway across the country to play at the biggest tournament in the world and get utterly shat on because other armies are just plain stronger or because you make the tiniest of mistakes (in 2 of my games), you start to get a bit depressed about it.

At the level of play you are describing the tiniest mistakes are where you win or loose. Tyranids wile not tip top tyre Id say is in a decent high middle ground. The last 3 tourniments Ive played in I can point out the turning points are every time I make or my opp makes a mistake. Out of all three touniy's I have only played one army that I had no answer for and am fairly certain barring the opp playing stupidly I could not have won. (It was a Yanarri flyer/bikes list). Even then now that I have experienced it myself I could do better vs it...

Third_Age_of_Baggz wrote:

 Emicrania wrote:


This. A hundred times. I had my fun with nids in the start of 8ed and than shelved them for orks (precodex). I see this "the sky is falling" mentality everywhere in other 3d by old players that compare the good old days with now and just can't get out of their head.
Nids are NOT top tier, but at the last 3 ITC tournaments I have been, I always met a nids player fighting for the podium. All of those players played their own flavoured list over and over and over. They are way better than the majority of the knight/custodes/eldar players that take advantage of their overpowered codex . Yes, they are not winning every tournaments consistently and are in the top tier, but man, they get so much respect from everyone when they comes out like the oddballs they are.
Take a list you like, improve it and keep on playing it untill YOU make 0 mistakes and than keep on doing that. Itc helps better players to get better, as long they realize how much the match depends on them , rather than dice rolls.

No offense meant, just that you are OG, like me
I'm sure you'll find a list you can make work, but it will be really unforgiving atm.
Let's hope for a new codex asap


I'm not too OLD and I'm not saying I have a "Sky is falling" mentality, I'm just pointing out that I've thoroughly ready this thread and you're right, seems like there are some Negative Nancys out there. I appreciate the words of advice from the previous replies to my post about the Carnifex. I still plan on playing my bugs whole heartily even though I have quite a few Carnifex models. Back in the day, they where the "ONLY" big model out there and it was a monster for sure. Now these days, not so much. For me personally, I don't think flying Hive Tyrants are that effective, nor fluffy. But hey, that's my take. I'm sure they are a crutch for most competitive armies out there. I've always been more of a "Ground Pounder" when it comes to such units.

I'll make them Carnifex work somehow...

Eihnlazer wrote:Well I did say nids can give you some of the best games. They are definitely an army you play because of the fun factor.


I've just been hit with too much disappointment in my tournament play with them.

When you put your heart and soul into making a unique list, get everything painted in the proper scheme, and fly halfway across the country to play at the biggest tournament in the world and get utterly shat on because other armies are just plain stronger or because you make the tiniest of mistakes (in 2 of my games), you start to get a bit depressed about it.

I got it that's why I stopped . But still is possible to kick some ass. Hard work pays out.

Nids are not top tier, arguable mid tier.

Look at Almost Pro Gamings YouTube videos. he does monthly recaps of the top 10 armies. Nids haven't been in it in a while.

If they reversed the rulings on some of our stragems i think it could help.
The lictor DS should allow Genestealers to use it.
Changing the Metabolic overdrive to allow charge with Onslaught power to help get things like OOE and Swarmy in T1 charges.
Spore Mine stratagem nerf.

If we could stack -1 to hit ( a bit cheesy) but Eldar have it. So malanthrope/venomthrope/sporocist.

Lack of invul saves, especially with the high amount of AP.

Lack of T8 monsters. I mean come on.

Lack of High Strength long range fire power to deal with Primarchs/knight equivalents.

Point drops.

What if Biovores were like IG mortar teams instead of Anti tank?
Warriors should be Primaris equivelent.
Tervigons need to be T9 so they don't get popped.
Have Hive fleet trait with reduced degrading.

Our core troop is supposed to be GEQ but is worse in every way. Both cost 4 points.
Our save is lower, the weapon (fleshborer) has shorter range and fewer shots. And we don't get orders.
Devilgant cost 2 guardsmen for 3 shots, but still not as good as a Guardsmen with FRFSRF.

All this bitching and moaning being said. I hope, somewhat, that with the new SM codex, and the shift towards a SM meta given the mono faction encouragement, we may see an uptick. Generally Nids are good against SM, but not sure how we will fair with these.

 Dynas wrote:
Nids are not top tier, arguable mid tier.

Literally not a single person said that they were top tier.

 Dynas wrote:
Look at Almost Pro Gamings YouTube videos. he does monthly recaps of the top 10 armies. Nids haven't been in it in a while.

.... but why? this doesn't prove anything as it isn't a counter a single thing that has been said. The entire point being made was that placings aren't representative of power here. And even if they were, again, nobody said Nids were top tier.

Take a re-read through this page.

 Dynas wrote:

Lack of T8 monsters. I mean come on.

Technically we have four T8 monsters (Tervigon, Tyrannofex, Exocrine, Haruspex), just most of them are shackled with a 4+ to hit which limits how much damage they can do compared to a Carnifex (3+ to hit in melee on the charge/with Old One Eye or 3+ to hit at range with advanced senses).

In regards to Biovores acting like mortar teams, I actually really like how the spore mine-based weapons play. They are incredibly unique, if perhaps not the most dangerous.

I love biovores, but the points hike was too much.

50 points for a model that on average either does 2 mortal wounds or slows someones movement is too much (especially compared to a lot of the newer stuff.

They have higher value versus something like custodes or knights, but almost no value againgst a lot of other armies.

They should be at most 40points apiece considering how useless they are againgst half the armies in the game.