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I’m assuming that Tyranids will eventually get some kind of update to the codex, maybe a white dwarf or something???
Personally, I do think they are really good in 6th. But I’d like to see a few subtle changes to open the codex up a bit.

Firstly, Lictors. Why can’t they just arrive on the first turn, like a drop pod does? It makes sense with the story (as they’re already supposed to be there), it makes sense for their rules (pheromone trail etc) & it makes them really worth taking. GW must have noticed a massive dip in the sales of this model? Even if they cranked up the points!

Secondly, it would be really nice to have a ‘solid’ way of dealing with flyers. I realise that we have the Flyrant, but even then, it’s still not amazing against AV12.
I’d really love to see some kinda ‘starship troopers’ style plasma bug. However, with the current lax on releasing the models that we’re already supposed to have access too, I doubt we’ll be seeing that anytime soon. Perhaps an upgrade to Hive Guard or Tyrannofex? A 25 point option to give them ‘skyfire’. I dunno, maybe that would be too good.

Thirdly, I’d like to be able to take a Prime, with a unit of warriors in a drop spore. I can’t see the logic in not allowing this. I have actually done it a few times (before I realised I couldn’t) & it works superbly! I was most disappointed to see it was not allowed.

That’s about all that springs to mind currently. I’m not asking for a new codex or anything. I just think there are so many units in the current one that are literally ‘useless’, or don’t exist, that they could quite easily, & cheaply make their sales increase on the whole range.

If anyone else has any thoughts, I’d be interested to hear them.

Thanks.

So I'm not a tyranid player, but I'm here anyways.

Anyways, I've always been fascinated by them. Even before I started my Ultramarine army, and found they actually invaded my home-world (they got killed to death but still...).

Anyways, I was wondering if now (6th edition) was a good time to get into them. Have they become a more versatile army or are they crippled? I don't care about if they are really competitive or whatever, I just like to have my army be very adaptable.

Adaptable.... Hmmm. Interesting question. There are 2 basic ways to run them. Monstrous Creature lists & Swarm list. Both are fun to play. If, however, you end up with an MC list, & your opponent has lots of high AP weapons. You will most likely die quite quickly. Swarms have quite a lot of flexibility. However, the down side to them, is that you really do need a few monsters, & they will generally get picked on, along with your synaspe creatures, until your army falls apart.

I really do love Tyranids, & I think they got much better with the new rules. The big problem is, there are lots of units in the codex that don’t actually exist (model wise). Now, if you don’t mind making your own, then that’s fine. Indeed I have made my own drop spores & Tyranid Primes (HQ’s). It does however seem to me, that GW have just ignored this army since the codex came out. We did get a few new models a while back. But not quite the massive release I’d have hoped for, what with the codex having been out for nearly 4 years.
To answer your question. Versatile... Hmmm. The new psychic powers have made things quite interesting. However, I do feel that most Tyranid players are probably running very similar lists atm, which in it’s self is versatile, but as a codex, no. Probably not.
Lets put it like this. If you just randomly picked units out of the codex, rather than the ones that are actually really good. Then you would most likely loose every game.
Don’t let me put you off like. The lists that are worth taking are really fun to play. But about 85% of the codex needs to be looked into. In my opinion.

A list of things that meed rectifying?
Tyrant should have access to dual Bonesword as Prime does, Thorax Swarm should not conflict with AS/Wings, it might see use then.

Prime should have access to Wings to join Shrikes, should be Pod-able with Warriors/DS with Shrikes

Hormagants need Bounding Leap to make them truly faster again, or give some CC edge

Termagants, Strangleweb should be reworked to not be a joke, spike rifle the same. Anyone ever see those? Nope.

Warriors should go from T4 W3 to T5 W2, Krak ID ruined them.

Rippers should be made scoring when you have PoM or be modified so they don't kill themselves the moment they leave Synapse.

Pyrovores would be fine if they had the stats of Hiveguard, who are the same points but with less BS and more A

Venomthrope is bloated with CC stuff that although fluffy, is unwanted, un-needed and bloatd their points badly. Other armies get armoured transports for a hefty chunk less than we get a T4 5+ cover save. -_-

Rupture Cannon and Fleshborer Hive both need complete reworks as they are both complete and total failures currently.

Carnifex . . . Price drop severely needed as there is no reason to take one currently, needs access to AS. We know GW wanted to move away from Fexen Nidzilla but this was overkill big-time.

Raveners should have access to TS/AG as they are elite CC units.

Subterranean Assault needs rework as it is currently a big fail.

Mawloc needs rework as the gamble for it's pie plate is rarely ever worth half the Trygon you get after it comes in.

OOE is insanely overpriced.

Lictors need to be Lictors, rework needed.

Tyranids need a way to expand their FOC just like every other army can with Allies. Everyone else can add an Elite or HS except Tyranids.

Tyranids need something to make up for being disallowed emplaced guns, like everyone else.


These are just a few off the top of my head without my codex nearby. There's a lot of problems with our codex sadly. Can Tyranids be competitive in 6e? Yes, but we all know which units you have to take to be competitive. There's very little room for list individualization unless you want to be gimped the moment you hit the table which is not a good Codex. A good Codex gives you a plethora of viable options to build lists from. Not a handful of units to build cookie cutter lists from and a bunch of crappy-mediocre stuff you can squeeze in if you feel like risky gambles. P

Totally agree dude.
Some stuff in there I hadn’t even thought about.
It’s really a shame to be honest. I loved the variation on the 4th ed codex. All the option available to each unit. While some found it confusing, personally, I loved it. It gave so much diversity to the whole codex. As you said, they are still competitive, but only with a few units.

I started buying Tyranids in late 5th, but only played a couple small scale games. Recently I've acquired 2 different peoples armies which quickly put me up to over 5000 points, so I've been playing them a lot recently (all for fun, nothing competitive yet) and have been having a LOT of fun, and quite a bit of success with them so far.

Yes, I agree with what 60mm said...pretty much all of it actually, but I still feel our codex has a lot of life, and can make some very fun lists. I would say our codex isn't nearly as bad as some think, but it's not very forgiving, and you do unfortunately have to choose certain models to do well. The plus side, is with these models, and a few good biomancy rolls you can do VERY well for yourself.

To bibbles, I would say that now is a great time to get into nids. With 6th we lost some good units (RiP genestealers) but Biomancy and new models made some good options great! (I'm looking at you Swarmlord and Tervigons).

Of all the things 60mm pointed out, I think the most disappointing to me is that nids can't ally with themselves. I'm ok with them not allying with anyone else, that makes sense (fluff wise) but we should get the bonus of being the only army that can ally with ourselves. It's not hard to fit in another HQ, and our troops are generally decent, and it's a small price to pay for an extra elite/heavy slot. Oh well, it would have been nice.

P.S. whats OOE?

OOE = Old One Eye. Currently 260 points down the crapper.

I don't play much but don't we need those grenade things for genestealers?

Not just Genestealers but Raveners, Warriors, Shrikes, etc. The only units we have with an equivalent of Assault Grenades are Carnifexen, prolly the worst CC point burn in our book, and Lictors, again a point burn. For an assault-centric army you'd think they be good at . . . assaulting stuff. Our high Initiatives usually do somewhere in the range of not much.

Any new Tyranid news coming up in the future that anyone knows about?

All of your complains are answered by one rallying cry:

I'm sorry matt ward didn't write your codex.

Nothing but rumors with zero evidence so no.

 60mm wrote:
Prime should have access to Wings to join Shrikes, should be Pod-able with Warriors/DS with Shrikes

The Prime needs more than that. The Prime is a perfect example of a wasted opportunity. Instead of making it a Warrior with slightly boosted stats, it should have had a lot of mutability. Ravener body to join Raveners, Wings to join Shrikes. Option to add a psychic power - only one, to keep the Hive Tyrant and Swarmlord up there as kings of psykers of the army. Other options found on other things - thorax swarms, boosted armour upgrades, etc.

Basically, it was a great opening for GW to add a very personal HQ to the Tyranids - a way for the player to give their own swarm a 'face' without actually giving the swarm a face, like they did with the Swarmlord. While it wouldn't be as powerful as a Tyrant, it would be a HQ that players could adapt however they wanted, basically a 'create your own HQ'.

Like the rest of the opportunities the book opened, it was wasted.

What 60mm and Loki said. I would love the tyranid prime to be able to be a shrike or ravener leader. That is a wasted opportunity.

I would add some others off the top of my head. I think raveners should also be T5 W2 (shrikes too) with a slight price drop as they will still die to everything with such a crappy save.

Fix all the tyrant psyker powers so that they are all decent - then add the tervigon onslaught and catalyst powers as choices. Next the tervigon should not have access to more powers than a tyrant - the 'essence' of the hive mind. Make the tyrant synapse range 18" automatically - should be better than a warrior. Fix the weapon biomorphs. Devourers are pretty much the default ranged weapon for a tyrant not just because of flyers. Venom cannons and deathspitters in particular need to be better choices so that they are used (for all creatures that use them)(Make the venomcannon 2 shots again - no blast - and give it the skyfire rule. That would give nids anti-air options for a variety of units (tyrant, fex, warrior, harpy) to allow for more varied builds and also make the venom cannon an anti-tank gun as well.

Spinegaunts should be the same points as a termagant and be spawnable from a tervigon.

Decrease the hormagaunt upgrades to 1pt each and give it a 12" move.

Biovores should have better leadership or a longer synapse connection (can be 24" away). They are long range artillery that usually has to keep moving forward and follow closely behind synapse creatures which is silly. They used to be leadership 10. Also, the model has three types of mine models so have some creativity and make 3 types of mines again. One could be smoke to provide cover for units or a light vehicle mine - lots of ideas could be used.

And give the fex some love. Not only a price drop but the kit has so many parts that once had a use (some needed fixing in 4th ed to) so make them useful again. I hate the waste of all its parts when nids are still missing so many models or have kits that are missing necessary parts (warriors with only 1 set of rending claws).

As was said, 6th helped nids in a number of ways but the dex has many problems and limitations that keep a wide range of builds/biomorphs from showing up on the tabletop very often.

I've said this before, but the Tyranid codex needs more than just some points cost and stat reworking. It needs flavour.

A Tyranid attack is the Apocalypse. The skies turn black, choked wth spores. The planets flora mutates into gigantic proportions and reproduces hyperactively. Vents into the planets core are bored out, releasing toxic gases into the atmosphere. Billions uplon billions of mycetic spores crash into the surface, unleashing untold numbers of organisms that want nothing more than to find prey and turn it inside out. Lictors and Genestealer Cults emerge from inside the defenses and cripple them. The skies are swarming with flying organisms. Bio titans stalk the twisted geography unleashing death on any prey they see. The defenders of the planet are dragged screaming into digestion pools while the planet around them is eaten.

The organisms themselves are nightmares. Monstrous creatures bowl tanks around like toys, waves upon waves of smaller creatures tirelessly expend themselves to exhaust ammunition. Specialised mutations of some genii are unleashed to tackle tough obstacles. The most feared xenos creature in the galaxy, the Genestealer, skulks in the shadows, ready to tear prey to peices.

Almost none of this is represented in the Tyranid codex. It's the blandest codex on the shelf. Even the Sister of Battle white dwarf codex has more flavour in it. It's a book that is very obviously written by someone without passion for the army (this is very obvious when they do an article about the biggest release for the army - the wave with the much anticipated Tervigon, Tyrannofex and plastic Hive Tyrant, and the author of the bloody book palmed off talking about them to other studio members).

Tyranids need something that represents some of these things. With the mysterious terrain rules, it would be nice having a specific set of mysterious terrain in effect when fighting Tyranids - maybe have new rules for it in the codex. Global effects tied to the Hive Tyrant representing the planet wide catastrophe, the way the Stormlord has his lightning and night fighting, and C'tan with their effects. Tying it to the Hive Tyrant isn't the fluffiest solution, but it would work.

The monstrous creatures are the biggest offenders. There's nothing to differentiate them aside from their wounds, weapons and a few USRs outside of the Tervigon, but they're all meant to fulfil roles that could be expanded on. Carnifexes could do multiple HoW hits like Chariots or the new Slaanesh exalted chariot. Tyrannofexes are meant to be absolutely the toughest Tyranids outside of bio titans - give them something to represent this aside from a 2+ save.

Same with infantry. Tyranids are meant to be numberless, but now the only Tyranids like that are Termagants - if backed up by a Tervigon. Bring in Hormagaunt Brood Nests as upgrades for a Hormagaunt squad, that confers Without Number, with them respawning from the nest. Make rippers worthwhile - maybe give them bonuses against tanks to represent them swarming a tank, getting in through hatches, etc.

As it is, Imperial Guard have more flavour than Tyranids. It's fine wanting a streamlined book, but it hurts when it's one of the only ones, and doubly hurts when it has more potential than most other books.

I am an ex nid player for this very reason i could not win even with a swarm or nidzilla list my flytyrants and harpies would to often be shot down first turn the came in. the only 2 models with an invul in the entire codex are a character who only has in melee and a psyker who cannot stand to farseers and rune priests. this dex has been woefully linear for too long

 Mongooli wrote:

Of all the things 60mm pointed out, I think the most disappointing to me is that nids can't ally with themselves. I'm ok with them not allying with anyone else, that makes sense (fluff wise) but we should get the bonus of being the only army that can ally with ourselves. It's not hard to fit in another HQ, and our troops are generally decent, and it's a small price to pay for an extra elite/heavy slot. Oh well, it would have been nice.

Love all the comments so far. I totally agree with what your all saying, & there are some interesting ideas I hadn’t thought of too.
Just to make a point about the above quote.

Tyranids don’t actually need to ally with themselves. In the BRB now, it says any game of 2K or more, you have access to a second detachment. Meaning, that even in a 2K game, you can have 4 HQ’s, 12 troops, 6 heavy’s etc etc. I tactic I’ve used a few times to scare the crap out of my opponents so far.

We totally need Assault grenades again. Flesh hooks made most things useful. Now Stealers aren’t worth it.

Ref the 2k double FOC thing. Where I play, the current feeling is that double FOC is broken and we play "1999+1" type games so 2000pts but no double FOC. You may find the tournaments in your area don't allow double FOC so don't count on it.

 Klueless wrote:

 Mongooli wrote:

Of all the things 60mm pointed out, I think the most disappointing to me is that nids can't ally with themselves. I'm ok with them not allying with anyone else, that makes sense (fluff wise) but we should get the bonus of being the only army that can ally with ourselves. It's not hard to fit in another HQ, and our troops are generally decent, and it's a small price to pay for an extra elite/heavy slot. Oh well, it would have been nice.

Love all the comments so far. I totally agree with what your all saying, & there are some interesting ideas I hadn’t thought of too.
Just to make a point about the above quote.

Tyranids don’t actually need to ally with themselves. In the BRB now, it says any game of 2K or more, you have access to a second detachment. Meaning, that even in a 2K game, you can have 4 HQ’s, 12 troops, 6 heavy’s etc etc. I tactic I’ve used a few times to scare the crap out of my opponents so far.

We totally need Assault grenades again. Flesh hooks made most things useful. Now Stealers aren’t worth it.

I'm aware of the 2x FOC, my problem with that is at 1850 you could play and IG player with SM allies who has 4 elites or heavies, but you're stuck at 3. I'm not saying it's necessary, but it would be nice if we had a little bonus like that.

Unfortunately I feel that Nids having a fairly recent codex, in the upper 1/2 for sure are not gonna get any favoritism shown their way.

I totally agree with the comment above. I mean, look how long Space Wolves had to wait for a new codex, & Tau, & Dark Eldar etc. I guess it’ll be a few years until we get some attention.

The double FOC at 2k doesn't help when everyone else can expand their FOC at games under 2k, which is most games. As for a new Codex, I'd guess 2014.

 Klueless wrote:
I totally agree with the comment above. I mean, look how long Space Wolves had to wait for a new codex, & Tau, & Dark Eldar etc. I guess it’ll be a few years until we get some attention.

The difference is those codices never got a release every edition. Tyranids have. I would expect Tyranids to get a new codex during 6th, if only to get their best selling xenos line selling well again.

Out of curiosity, why can't a tyranid prime attach to a squad of warriors in a spore?

 juraigamer wrote:
All of your complains are answered by one rallying cry:

I'm sorry matt ward didn't write your codex.

Nice. This didn't take long...

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Out of curiosity, why can't a tyranid prime attach to a squad of warriors in a spore?

Because GW FAQd it for some unknown reason. Who the hell knows. Like much of our Codex, it's foolish to ask *why* so much of it is jacked and senseless. Who the hell knows

 -Loki- wrote:


Tyranids need something that represents some of these things. With the mysterious terrain rules, it would be nice having a specific set of mysterious terrain in effect when fighting Tyranids - maybe have new rules for it in the codex. Global effects tied to the Hive Tyrant representing the planet wide catastrophe, the way the Stormlord has his lightning and night fighting, and C'tan with their effects. Tying it to the Hive Tyrant isn't the fluffiest solution, but it would work.

The new Warlord mechanic could represent some of this - with a set of Tyranid specific warlord traits. With the precedent set by the new Chaos codex, we can hope that something like this happens down the road.

 60mm wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Out of curiosity, why can't a tyranid prime attach to a squad of warriors in a spore?

Because GW FAQd it for some unknown reason. Who the hell knows. Like much of our Codex, it's foolish to ask *why* so much of it is jacked and senseless. Who the hell knows

Wow, never saw that before. Good thing, too,nI plyed that combo lastnnight and it worked ok...

For me the comment about the feel of the nids is really key. They come across as just another army in many ways, with units that do what those in other armies do.

I think the tervigon and tyrannofex have really improved the nids versatility just by offering more units.

I want to see more unit options.

The key thing I want is more biomorphs. The Hive Mind is supposed to be incredibly flexible so why offer so many vanilla units. I want to see morphs on all units with various effects, some ideas:

- varying weapon load outs for hive guard

- invulnerable saves with some sort of biomorph (expensive to make it fair but this is the critical weakness for me)

- no vanilla units, newer codexes rarely have them in so why should the hive mind do this.

- new uses for the synapse, e.g. allowances to impose special rules, such as Feel No Pain, if the mind drives on the nids why do they not have access to this rule? Option to allow intrinsic behaviours to units in synpase, you may want them to go feral and attack with rage, etc.

The 'feel of the nids' in how they play and with what units generally in 6th is also an issue for me. I am not a fan of the 2 flyrants w/ 2 TL devourers, 2-3 tervigons, 2-3 hive guard units and possibly Doom.

I also want more biomorph options for most units. I would really like some thought on how nids handle/relate to objectives as the idea of a nid force moving forward to destroy/consume the enemy leaving behind certain units to sit on an 'objective' seems unfluffy - but this is part of most games.