What is the general opinion of tyranids right now?

[Megad00mer]

True, but nor are near-invincible heroes fun - this is one of the reasons I hate SCs with EW.

Exactly. For as much as I dislike stupidly-tough hero models, I think that commander models should at least be killed in combat by other commanders - not just a random sargeant or nob with a power claw/fist.

These two sentences seem to contradict each other. A hero that can't be targeted by anything less than another hero is more than stupidly tough, he's nigh invincible. A hero that can take a power fist wound and still remain standing with one wound left is tough. One that can't even be hit by a normal solider is just ridiculous. With Tyranids, often the only way we can take down an enemy hero is weight of attacks (even the best warriors should be able to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers) but your proposed change would make them almost immune against anything short of a Tyranid Prime.

Yes, having two IC's duke it out is always entertaining and cinematic, but making it the only way to kill an IC in close combat is a tad absurd.

Two Words - Rad Grenades.

In terms of S10 weapons doing more wounds, MCs really don't need this when they already compare terribly to vehicles. yes, it's more realistic. Know what else is realistic - having your vehicle blow up and dying a horrible, fiery death - as opposed to, say, walking away from the wreckage with nothing but a few scratches and proceeding to massacre whatever destroyed your tank.

Rad grenades, like the entire GK codex seems custom tailored to give Tyranids a very rough time. Anything we can do, they have a hard counter for. It makes our already struggling book that much worse. I also agree that units embarked in a transport that explodes should be punished a helluva lot more than they are currently. Auto pinned at the very least. But that's neither here nor there.

Also, what about force weapons? Are they going to inflict 2 wounds with a successful psychic test, or are they going to continue obliterating any MC they touch, regardless of wounds?

Force Weapons work by snuffing out the life force of the wounded model, rather than inflicting massive trauma, so they'll still kill a model outright on a successful psychic test. The instant death changes in the Pdf only dealt with S v. T.

[Vipoid]

These two sentences seem to contradict each other. A hero that can't be targeted by anything less than another hero is more than stupidly tough, he's nigh invincible. A hero that can take a power fist wound and still remain standing with one wound left is tough. One that can't even be hit by a normal solider is just ridiculous.

So, to calrify, a character who can shrug off most wounds with an armour/invulnerable save, and takes only a single wound from siege-weapons is "tough", whereas one who relies on bodyguards to protect him is "ridiculous" and "nigh invincible".

[ASSASSINAWOKEN]

The last few posts have been very nice to read. I find it a great now flaming analysis on the actual problems and more importantly the weapon issues and bio morphs. For the Tyranids to be an organic army, they don't often play as an organic army anymore. There upgrades came from bio-morphs so it felt as if the army adapted to each situation instead of now its mostly upgrades.

I am disappointed the venom cannon was lowered even further in usefulness. I mean does it take much to actually think about new ideas? The whole -1 blows and does any other army have that on there furthest ranged weapon? I feel it could have had more potential in design. Say keep the -1, but keep the strength and maybe even minus the blast. I preferred the previous two shots to a random useless last template. I think a clever idea would be to put the organic back into the weapon, it fires crystals after all. Firing crystals would sound more like heavy 2 compared to the heavy blast. Even as weak as it is, the blast is what gets me the most to were I don't ever use it at all.

[Megad00mer]

So, to calrify, a character who can shrug off most wounds with an armour/invulnerable save, and takes only a single wound from siege-weapons is "tough", whereas one who relies on bodyguards to protect him is "ridiculous" and "nigh invincible".

In gameplay terms yes. It's hard enough to deal with characters like Vulkan, Draigo, even a Shadowfield Archon as it is. Now imagine if the only way to even target that model is with an Independant Character. You don't think that's even slightly unbalanced?

Actual Retinues are one thing. You pay for those. But any unit becoming a Retinue automatically simply by an IC joining? That would push combat IC's into the realms of "stupidly overpowered"

There's a huge difference (again, gameplay wise) between a character being able to survive a Power Fist hit and a character being nearly completely immune to enemy attacks.

Edit: Also remember that the pdf Instant Death rules scale up with weapon Strength, so a T4 character taking a wound from a Str 10 Vindicator shot or an Adrenalfex would suffer 4 wounds. So still insta killed by anything Str 9 or higher.

[Zothos]

I find all this very interesting. I have a grey knight army and tyranids are one of my toughest opponents.

As a matter of fact Tyranids are one of my toughest opponents for all my armies. I have been playing for 25 years.

I agree that Tyranids have some serious internal balance issues. However, I think that folks have seriously put too much stock in the "Internet wisdom" regarding the army as a whole.

[Vipoid]

In gameplay terms yes. It's hard enough to deal with characters like Vulkan, Draigo, even a Shadowfield Archon as it is. Now imagine if the only way to even target that model is with an Independant Character. You don't think that's even slightly unbalanced?

I understand what you mean - I'd just prefer overly-strong characters to be toned down, rather than changing the mechanics to bring basic commanders up to their level.

Also, I just find it irritating that sargeants can snipe ICs, without even needing base contact with them.

Actual Retinues are one thing. You pay for those.

Do you?

A lot of the retinues I've seen appear no more expensive than their normal counterparts.

Edit: Also remember that the pdf Instant Death rules scale up with weapon Strength, so a T4 character taking a wound from a Str 10 Vindicator shot or an Adrenalfex would suffer 4 wounds. So still insta killed by anything Str 9 or higher.

Tbh, this is something I don't like about those rules - T5 suddenly becomes less useful, because the threshold changes.

As an example, I can currently put my Tyranid Prime with zoanthropes, venomthropes and the like, in order to protect them from S8-9 hits (meltas, rockets, lascannons etc.), which would otherwise ID them. However, if the ID rules were to be changed, my prime is suddenly taking double the wounds from S9 weapons, making him far less useful.

It's just annoying because toughness is one of the few things we have going for us, and this ruling would make high toughness far less useful.

[Megad00mer]

I understand what you mean - I'd just prefer characters like those to be toned down, rather than changing the mechanics to bring basic commanders up to their level.

Also, I just find it irritating that sargeants can snipe ICs, without even needing base contact with them.

I completely understand the irritation. The current IC rules when it comes to close combat are a bit wonky.

Do you?

A lot of the retinues I've seen appear no more expensive than their normal counterparts.

True, but you're still paying points for the actual unit itself because it's a retinue. As opposed to just sticking an IC with that unit you woulda bought anyway and have them just "become" a retinue.

Tbh, this is something I don't like about those rules - T5 suddenly becomes less useful, because the threshold changes.

As an example, I can currently put my Tyranid Prime with zoanthropes, venomthropes and the like, in order to protect them from S8-9 hits (meltas, rockets, lascannons etc.), which would otherwise ID them. However, if the ID rules were to be changed, my prime is suddenly taking double the wounds from S9 weapons, making him far less useful.

It's just annoying because toughness is one of the few things we have going for us, and this ruling would make high toughness far less useful.

I see your point. It does punish the Prime a bit but at the same time makes things like Warriors, Raveners and Lictors a lot more survivable. It's a double edged sword. Personally, I would prefer to have my Tyranid Warriors be able to survive a Krak Missile hit, which is a far more common scenario if it means my Prime would suffer 2 wounds from a Lascannon which is less likely to happen due to wound allocation vs shooting.

[Vepr]

As a rational adult I am disturbed over just how frustrated I am over the quality of the Tyranid codex. I want to give Cruddace a wedgie which directly contradicts my argument that I am indeed a rational adult .

[Vipoid]

True, but you're still paying points for the actual unit itself because it's a retinue. As opposed to just sticking an IC with that unit you woulda bought anyway and have them just "become" a retinue.

I'd say it depends.

For example, I might want to buy a squad soely for the purpose of escorting my Tyranid Prime, such as warriors. Now, I wouldn't normally buy warriors, and no option exists to field them as a retinue. So, despite the fact that they're almost identical to the Prime, and "act as one entity", enemies can still single out the Prime with no issues whatsoever.

I see your point. It does punish the Prime a bit but at the same time makes things like Warriors, Raveners and Lictors a lot more survivable. It's a double edged sword. Personally, I would prefer to have my Tyranid Warriors be able to survive a Krak Missile hit, which is a far more common scenario if it means my Prime would suffer 2 wounds from a Lascannon which is less likely to happen due to wound allocation vs shooting.

Whilst I understand the benefit to warriors, I'd rather keep my Prime as he is. Fisrtly, because he is a more versitile and more useful unit (IMO), and second, because it hardly seems fair that a ruling supposedly put in place to make characters more difficult to kill instead makes my favourite character *easier* to kill.

[Draconis]

I find all this very interesting. I have a grey knight army and tyranids are one of my toughest opponents.

As a matter of fact Tyranids are one of my toughest opponents for all my armies. I have been playing for 25 years.

I agree that Tyranids have some serious internal balance issues. However, I think that folks have seriously put too much stock in the "Internet wisdom" regarding the army as a whole.

I'm not sure how. You have high S weapons that pen our saves. You have higher I with halberds, grenades so you strike first when in cover, auto pass on force weapons... Flame template items that instantly remove our MCs

[Carnage]

I find all this very interesting. I have a grey knight army and tyranids are one of my toughest opponents.

As a matter of fact Tyranids are one of my toughest opponents for all my armies. I have been playing for 25 years.

I agree that Tyranids have some serious internal balance issues. However, I think that folks have seriously put too much stock in the "Internet wisdom" regarding the army as a whole.

Beating Tyranids is....formulaic. Abuse cover, mech up, multiple combat resolution stuff to death...etc. Every Tyranid unit has a massive glaring weakness of some sort, and you just have to beat them via that method. Very few other armies have so many and such glaring short falls in their defenses that are so easy to abuse.

I've said it dozens of times before, Tyranids are a noob hammer army. Once you fully understand all the finer points of the rules beating nids is just an exercise in proper application of your forces. The only time people think nids are over powered or a "solid" army is when they don't understand the rules well enough to exploit their weaknesses. It's why you see Nids do so well against newer or weaker players, and so painfully bad against top end lists and players. The swing is....unparalleled with any other army that I've seen.

[lantzkev]

I will second that, I got floored by one tyrannid player a couple months back, but it was my first time playing against shrieks(I think is what they were called) like that (flying tyrannid warrior things?)

My usually tyrannid opponent adopted those into his army (he's building so it's taking him time) but they were easily delt with, since I knew what they did.

Now don't get me wrong though, that's a hard as nails unit as far as I am concerned, I certainly consider them dangerous and worth of time and effort to deal with. But once you know what each thing in a army does it's able to be delt with.

One of the biggest problems it seems is that you can either dakka parts of the army to bits, or melee them to bits, they have little that neither are super effective routes to destroy them with... It's fine and all (much like tau) but somedays I feel like they should be a little faster army than they are, that they should have more units with fleet or with a faster base speed (and for free)

[Vipoid]

Beating Tyranids is....formulaic. Abuse cover, mech up, multiple combat resolution stuff to death...etc. Every Tyranid unit has a massive glaring weakness of some sort, and you just have to beat them via that method. Very few other armies have so many and such glaring short falls in their defenses that are so easy to abuse.

I've said it dozens of times before, Tyranids are a noob hammer army. Once you fully understand all the finer points of the rules beating nids is just an exercise in proper application of your forces. The only time people think nids are over powered or a "solid" army is when they don't understand the rules well enough to exploit their weaknesses. It's why you see Nids do so well against newer or weaker players, and so painfully bad against top end lists and players. The swing is....unparalleled with any other army that I've seen.

I think this is a good assessment.

This is purely anecdotal, but I'm reminded of when I first used 5th edition nids, and my army included about 5 warriors (plus attached prime) with lash whips, boneswords and toxin sacs. My opponents said that they were totally overpowered, after they minced several strong units in CC, and won me the game. However, they soon changed their minds, once they realised that they were 50pt, T4 models, with only a 4+ save for protection. After that, they just didn't make it across the field.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

It seems that 'nids need more than a few things to make them competitive.

Though they should never be a mech army, they should be competitive in the same way that a bike marine, Deathwing, or DoA Blood Angels army is.

Fast through natural mobility and tough through natural durability or numbers. Fleet should be a universal rule for any unit Warrior sized or smaller. Bigger creatures should pack high toughness and good (3+ or better) armour saves. Warriors should be T5 with W2 which reduces their vulnerability to missile spam.

Basic bugs should be reduced in points a little bit. Instinctive behaviour should probably be discarded, reverting to the normal "fearless within synapse range" rule.

Big bugs should ignore combat resolution from small bugs in the same way that dreadnoughts ignore results generated by killing infantry around them.

Tyranid guns should be effective at killing armour, including melta type effects, and carried by anything Warrior size and up. That gives the mid sized bugs the dual ability to be fast and pack anti-tank weapons. Shrikes would function like attack bike squadrons, popping transports so the little bugs can eat the tasty contents.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

With a reasonable points drop and the option of decent ranged weapons, Grey Knights might still be dangerous in melee but they'd have to work a lot harder to get there.

[lantzkev]

Though they should never be a mech army, they should be competitive in the same way that a bike marine, Deathwing, or DoA Blood Angels army is

So they should be space marines to be competitive? or in power armor? Tryannids should universally have some sort of attack that drops the armor by one.

[theDarkGeneral]

We've found that in Mega-Apocalypse Events, Tyranids are down right scary as they should be! It's too bad GW doesn't give them some love and update their data sheets!

[Freman Bloodglaive]

So they should be space marines to be competitive? or in power armor? Tryannids should universally have some sort of attack that drops the armor by one.

I said they should be competitive in the same way, mobile and durable without transports.

I then proceeded to give ideas on how to achieve that goal. Your response comes across like, "if Tau have fast melta armed skimmers then they'd be Space Marines."

[lantzkev]

Your examples of competitive are exclusively marines. Your examples are equating them to marine stuff...

[Carnage]

Your examples of competitive are exclusively marines. Your examples are equating them to marine stuff...

He has a point though. All the non-mech semi-competitive and up lists are marines...period.

He could compare them to demons...or green tide orks or something else, but he's trying to get the point across that there are current non-mech armies that DO work. It seems that they only really work because they are all tougher then a MeQ across the board with either T5 3+, T4 2+ or T4 3+ and FnP. So to be a competitive non-mech army at the moment you need to be tougher then a standard marine. Considering you won't see genestealer or gaunts with power armor that kind of means that tyranids are almost impossible to make competitive in the current ruleset. Until there are significant nerfs to transports and changes to the main rules or a 10-25% point decrease across the board for Tyranids they will continue to be crumby.