What is the general opinion of tyranids right now?

[lantzkev]

that's just the thing, you actually don't need to make them like marines.

Faster movement for one would do it, reducing armour saves against their melee by 1 would do a ton too.

Saying they have to be marines but bugs is just silly.

Also there are other armies that are competitive, it's just people aren't playing them en masse. Face it, marines are easy and fun for more players than other armies.

[Souleater]

I have to politely ask if you are trolling or just in dire need of sleep?

Nobody is saying Nids need to become MEQ. They are pointing out that with the way things are (particularly the ruleset, IMO) foot armies tend to be Marine based.

5th Ed took away the risk vs reward element of transports (for attackers and passengers). Horde CC armies are actively punished for trying to work the way they should. Unfortunately, our heavy CC hitters took some stupid design choices to the knee.

And to top things off we have armies like GK, SW and DE who can out-shoot and manoeuvre us while giving us a bloody nose in CC.

Fingers crossed, 6th will be more friendly to us and we get a decently written codex within a couple of years.

[lantzkev]

probably a mix of sleep and just seeing only Sphees Mhareens being whispered by tendriled mouths of nids that set me off =p

I however don't disagree that the nids need a few things improved for them and that they need adjustments. Although I haven't quite seen effective baby maker lists yet, and I think those have some potential

[Carnage]

probably a mix of sleep and just seeing only Sphees Mhareens being whispered by tendriled mouths of nids that set me off =p

I however don't disagree that the nids need a few things improved for them and that they need adjustments. Although I haven't quite seen effective baby maker lists yet, and I think those have some potential

The reason that foot lists favor MeQ is pretty easy to understand.

1. They have power armor. So killing more then 5 man units via shooting takes a TON of fire power. I've seen 15 genestealers wiped out in a single turn of bolter fire. That's 255 points of toxin stealers. That would be 5 dead marines, and thanks to wound allocation games, probably only ~90 points. We lose 2.5-3 times as many points to equal amounts of fire power. Granted, cover lessens that number, but when they can pick and choose where the fight will go down, you have to come into the open at some point.

2. They don't break and run away. Can't run them down even if you do win against them in melee.

3. Combat resolution, armor, and "double dipping". This is a little realized side effect of having a good armor save in melee, for every point your armor save is better, you massively reduce the amount of damage you take. I'm pretty sure the decrease is multiplicative, if not exponential. The problem is that you pay for armor increases in a linear fashion. Example;

No armor - You take 18 wounds on your 20 man squad, you kill 1 in return (50% of guys kill someone lets say). You lose by 17 and lose 17 more guys. Wiped out. total wounds inflicted = 35
6+ save - You now only take 15 wounds, you kill 3 in return. You lose by 12, and take 10 more wound. Wiped out, but by less. Total wounds inflicted = 25
5+ save - You now only suffer 12 wounds on you 20 man squad, you kill 4 in return and lose by 8. Lose another 5 to combat res. Total wounds inflicted = 17
4+ save - You take 9 wounds, kill 5 in return, lose by 4. lose another 2 to combat. Total wounds suffer = 11.
3+ save - You take 6 wounds, kill 7 in return, win by 1. Lose nothing to combat res. Total wounds suffered = 6
2+ save - you take 3 wounds, kill 9 in return, win by 6. total suffered = 3

35 - grot level
25 - gant/boyz/DE level
17 - stealer/IG level
11 - Fire warrior level
6 - MeQ level
3 - Terminator level

Since fearless makes you take armor saves, you basically have to take another armor save for each you fail. So the worse your save, the more you have to make. In this example, power armor is almost 3 times as good as a 5+ save, and you can bet your ass that marines don't cost 3 times, or even 2 times as much as your model with a 5+.

IMO fearless combat resolution wounds should allow no saves and should not be applied multiple times in multiple combats. Eg, you have 10 gants and a tervigon in combat and lost by 12, all the gants take 1, tervigon takes 1 and the gants take the 1 left over. Apply it like shooting into 1 big unit or something.

[Souleater]

I'd go back to the Old NR rules, actually. They worked well and they were balanced.

[Vipoid]

I'd go back to the Old NR rules, actually. They worked well and they were balanced.

I think capping them at 4 wounds maximum was important.

[Azzy]

To provide an answer to this tricky question, I sent the 238th Terraxian Intelligence to battle against a small tendril of Hive-Fleet Jormungand, in order to capture and interview a specimen. The recording is messy, I dare say, mainly due to an obvious unwillingness of the creature to give a straight answer to an otherwise simple question. Here is the part I found most enlightening about the topic:


I hope this is sufficient material to satisfy your curiosity.

*Sent from my astropath using Telepatalk - Inquisitorial Edition*

^ This post is made of win.

[Vaktathi]

My experiences:

They can work well if you're taking multiple Tervigons. The army seems to live and die by these things.

If not, then they don't work very well on a consistent basis against anything but niche lists.

[Ventus]

I am fine with fearless units taking no retreat wounds (maybe with a cap) but just not have it spill over to other units. A price for being fearless is fine - its just too high right now. Remove spillover and you can support a group of termagants with a trygon or something and not have it get mauled when it wasn't even attacked.

I hope numbers of models in the combat becomes a factor again for horde armies. Also someone had a great idea about large groups of gaunts(or something else) attacking vehicles should be able to do some damage to the vehicle by weight of numbers jamming themselves into gears or vulnerable areas, etc. If CC units attack and destroy a vehicle and they are automatically engaged (or at least a good chance) with the troops inside that would alleviate the problem of the troops sauntering out of the wreckage and shooting our guys to death. This needs to be better balanced but I do appreciate that it has to be done carefully to avoid making units such as ymgarls (that can attack the turn they arrive) too powerful.

[Morgrad]

I find I'm very competitive with my 'nids, but that usually means getting a lot of ties or barely winning/barely losing (which is great fun! I wish every army worked that way!). That said, the internal balance and wonky points costing is frustrating and annoying. I want to bring pyrovores, lictors and carnifexs, but if I do I just can't compete in a mech heavy environment. I would accept any one of these changes to "fix" 'nids -- too many of them would make me too powerful.

1. Synapse = EW. Give me that back and I can compete in any game, anywhere. LET ME USE MY 'NID WARRIORS AND DON'T AUTO-GEEK MY ZOEYS, *%&@#(^#&!!!!

2. Give me some anti-tank troop/fast-attack/hq choices (ideally by making VCs into anti-tank weaponry), so all of my elites (and most of my HS) don't have to be. I also want to use Ymgarls and the Doom.

3. Auto-equip my gribblies (gants/gaunts/stealers/gargoyles) with frag grenades, for no more points than I already pay.

4. Re-cost carnifexs and winged tyrants to make them worth bringing. I would love to bring carnifex broods, but for the life of me I can't think of why I would other than that I love the models.

5. Make exploding a vehicle more dangerous for the guys inside than those without, and if I destroyed it in hand to hand, either auto-pin the occupants, or lock them into melee with me.

6. Either give me wound shenanigans or get rid of them altogether -- preferably the latter.

Give me any of these and I'd be happy, if you give me more than one (other than #6) then some balancing nerf would need to take place to keep me from being overpowered.

'nids are a very good army, and I'm very competitive with them -- but the balancing is mind-bogglingly frustrating. Internal balance forcing me to take elites and heavy support as anti-tank is stupid, and the higher points the game, the dumber I am not to max out anti-tank in those spots (and against pure mech it's still woefully ineffective). External balancing vs. other peoples' units is equally so -- genestealers for their points are purely out-matched by most other armies' h2h units. Only two attacks, the rending nerf, and no frag grenades makes them pretty good -- and of all things, genestealers should be great at chopping things up in hand to hand. Carnifexs are embarrassingly over-costed , as are flyrants (due to no guard). My best is no match for anyone else's best -- shooting, hand-to-hand, horde, close-combat elites, or flyers.

All of that said: they're fun, they're competitive if you obey the internal balance restrictions, the models are awesome, and I love playing them.