Topic: Tyranid Revamp. Players of ALL armies please read

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

I've been using Tyranids for coming on for 14 years now, and have been playing games with them since the new Codex was released, so it has now been considerably longer than a year that I have been playing them. In my considered opinion there are things about the Codex that are very poorly thought out. GW encourages players to come up with their own rules, and that is what I have done here. There is no reason why getting used to these rules would make me worse at playing Tyranids using the standard rule set, any more than getting used to playing Tyranids makes me worse when I play using my Chaos Space Marines.

[Full Metal Geneticist]

A year? Chuckles doesn't do years (he does do ears though...)

The idea is that Chuckles likes writing rules up for armies that are universally agreed to be weaksauce. Mainly because he has the misfortune of picking absolute lemons.

Point in case? He is a Chaos Marine, Tyranid and Dwarf player. All he needs is necrons to complete the legion of fail.

These are just underwhelming codices and army books. Nids especially came out of the box weak... His rules actually tend to be rather decent and well thought out bar the occasional "I didn't notice that" problem.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

Praise from bald midgets aside, I have gone back and made some amendments to this revamp, as well as making some comments on some of the changes I have made to explain why I have made them. I would appreciate it if people could go back and read through the thing from the top and see what they think of the new alterations.

[High Grandmaster smithmyster666 of the Grey Knights]

I understand why your trying to do this chuckles I really do, there has been a lot of nerfing on the tyranids older models, however I think the only point they fall down on is a lack of effective ranged AT, but I believe this is a design flaw with a purpose, tyranids are supposed to swarm their enemies, ripping them to shreds with brutal ease, which is something they do manage to do very, very well, genestealers are the most brutal assault unit going, and not having assault grenades on them is there for a reason, so that they aren't ridiculously good all the time, you can already turn up and assault anything up to 18" from the board edge, I'd call that a pretty darned effective capability without making sure that every now and then the unit they're charging doesn't have some kind of advantage, they rip apart and infantry unit in the game with ease, personally I think they're fine how they are.

On the hive tyrant, let's compare him to the GKGM as they are similar costs right now, a hive tyrant has 2 better S,T, an extra wound, 3 more weapon skill, can break tanks open easily and an extra attack. His tradeoff is a worse armour save, no invulnerable save, a lower ballistic skill and a lack of grenades. They can both inflict instant death, the hive tyrant has superior psychic powers, and he has the capability to be a hell of a lot better at shooting. Now in a 1 on 1, the GKGM will win, I understand that, because he can be geared to win with his invulnerable save helping him massively, but my point is each has its own role, and the hive tyrants certainly is not running up to a FW toting hero that can take a beating before lopping its head off. The hive tyrant is fine imo the way it is.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

On the hive tyrant, let's compare him to the GKGM as they are similar costs right now, a hive tyrant has 2 better S,T, an extra wound, 3 more weapon skill, can break tanks open easily and an extra attack. His tradeoff is a worse armour save, no invulnerable save, a lower ballistic skill and a lack of grenades. They can both inflict instant death, the hive tyrant has superior psychic powers, and he has the capability to be a hell of a lot better at shooting.

I could not possibly disagree with the bolded sentence more, but I disagree with your general sentiment. Hive Tyrants, as they are now, perform very slightly better than tyranid primes, for more than double the price. Their psychic powers are, with one exception, poor to terrible (Leech Essence is simply not very good, The Horror and Psychic Scream are utterly, utterly awful powers), and they have a choice between having wings (in which case they cost the same as a Chaos Space Marine Land Raider. I trust I don't have to explain why that is insane) or moving the same speed as standard infantry, with no means available whatsoever of moving any faster. So we're either paying a really stupid amount of points for something which is rather deadly in close combat but very, very easy to kill beforehand, or a slightly less stupid amount of points for something which is rather deadly in close combat, but is never going to get there.

I have no problem with Tyranids being weak at anti-tank, except that that makes them weak at 40K overall. Tanks have received such a massive amount of boosting in this edition of 40K that they are a mainstay of almost every army. If that's the case, and it seems fair to you that Tyranids should be weak at anti-tank, then what's the point in even playing? We are at a massive disadvantage before the game has even begun. I am not suggesting that we are alone in this, but unlike Orks and Daemons of Chaos I have a lot of experience playing Tyranids, and therefore have a better idea on how to fix what I believe to be broken.

And lastly, do you really honestly believe that the only weakness Tyranids have is a lack of ranged anti-tank? How about the fact that large chunks of the army list aren't worth bothering with? Like Lictors, Pyrovores, Rippers, or Mawlocs? Or that we are an assault army that is meant to stick in cover, who can't assault anyone who is in cover because they will rip us to pieces before we can do anything to them? Does that seem like a deliberate piece of army design to you, in an edition where cover provides everybody with massive benefits?

[High Grandmaster smithmyster666 of the Grey Knights]

And lastly, do you really honestly believe that the only weakness Tyranids have is a lack of ranged anti-tank? How about the fact that large chunks of the army list aren't worth bothering with? Like Lictors, Pyrovores, Rippers, or Mawlocs? Or that we are an assault army that is meant to stick in cover, who can't assault anyone who is in cover because they will rip us to pieces before we can do anything to them? Does that seem like a deliberate piece of army design to you, in an edition where cover provides everybody with massive benefits?

im sorry, mawlocs are useless? i disagree so hard my lungs explode at that. there is no greater unit for unearthing a terminator squad in the entire codex save teh doom of malantai. and as for rippers and pyrovores i do take your point in fairness, pyrovores should have had the hellhound/ heavy incinerator treatment of placing the template X inches away, while rippers should be cheaper than anything to make them actually viable.

point taken on your previous comments, i do agree that some of the upgrades are over priced, but saying leech essence or paroxyism are bad is just being a bad sport, paroxyism is *the greatest* psychic power for ruining your enemies unit ive ever seen. the amount of time its crippled my death company power house is unreal, and as for leech essence, sure its got a low S, but thats to balance off the fact that it literally keeps your hive tyrant alive.

i think the fact that hes slow is just a breakdown with monsterous creatures as a whole, i think that they should move an extra D6" in the movement phase to be honest to represent their large lumbering strides.

and SitW has a 12" bubble for a reason, its anti force weapon insurance, most of the nastiest psychic powers have a range of 12", so your bubbled if you try it, unless your eldar of course in which case tehy can throw psychic devastation over a long range, but such is their speciality. so you may have lost eternal warrior, but you have gained some resisitance vs force weapons with 10.5 being the average roll on 3D6.

im not saying that the tyranid codex is perfect, because it isnt, but every codex has a strength, and a weakness, and ranged anti tank is their weakness. combat anti tank is no problem for them, if their rhino is going full pelt to avoid your carnifex, chances are theres something else nearby that hasnt expected you to spin round and munch it.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

point taken on your previous comments, i do agree that some of the upgrades are over priced, but saying leech essence or paroxyism are bad is just being a bad sport, paroxyism is *the greatest* psychic power for ruining your enemies unit ive ever seen. the amount of time its crippled my death company power house is unreal, and as for leech essence, sure its got a low S, but thats to balance off the fact that it literally keeps your hive tyrant alive.

I didn't say paroxysm is bad. It's poorly implemented, being a psychic shooting power, but it's not bad. I disagree that leech essence is much good. You still get cover and invulnerable saves against it, so the chances of it doing any damage are rather slim, and that's not even factoring in that it has a one third chance of giving 1 attack anyway. Paroxysm is good, leech essence is average at best, the other two are abysmal.

[Zilverscale]

Just a quick question about Doom.
Seeing as he now no longer has to worry about cover saves he will be costing double right?

I've played with him a lot before the FAQ nerfed him to be reasonably balanced. Before the FAQ he was just plain broken with his ability and his cost.

Seeing as you took that balance away I hope you factored in an increase in points cost?

If your wondering why I think he's broken?
Well suffice to say before the FAQ he'd take out 1/2 of each squad in range (after his pod landed and he jumped out to say BOO)
And after morale tests 1/2 of the effected squads would run away

Might be bad dice rolling from my opponents, but I used him against 4 different opponents...and all with similar results.
He was practicly a game breaker in a pod that lands correctly.

After the FAQ he was more reasonable, he got his points back, usually on the first turn, and not at least 3x his points on the first turn (like before the FAQ).

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

I have made no changes whatsoever to the Doom of Malan'tai, so I don't really know what you're talking about.

[enlg]

He is arguing that an unnerfed doom of malantai is overpowered and should be overpriced

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

I'm not convinced you're right.

Just a quick question about Doom.
Seeing as he now no longer has to worry about cover saves he will be costing double right?

This implies that Zilverscale believes something in my update has caused the doom to no longer have to worry about cover saves.

[WisdomLS]

I believe he is refering to the following:

Doom of Malan'tai
Spirit Leech also allows no cover saves

This I assume overrules the tyranid FAQ and does make the doom just a little OTT.


On another note, it's good to see the explanations added to your update. It's always easier to understand things when you can see what someone is trying to do, that said I still don't agree on many points

I see you've changed a few things and generally for the better, although I still don't like frags for stealers they are better now with a cost per model.

I thinK you've undercosted the wings upgrade where it is available, a JP for marine IC's costs 25 and for Daemons princes and Dreadknights (MC's) it costs 60+.

Raveners attacking after deepstriking seems very overpowered to me, perhaps if you compare them to the only other unit that has that ability, Vanguard veterans, you will see what I mean.
For a similar cost they have more Initiative, more WS, more attacks, triple the wounds, more charge range but admitiedly a worst save. The most important advantage they have is that they have a far greater threat range after deepstriking due to their cavalry assault range. Vanguards have to be pretty daring if they want to get an assault in after DS whilst these raveners would have to be very unlucky not to be in range.

Whilst I agree with many of your changes I think there's a little to much focus on the fact other armies can do stuff and other armies have this and that.

Tyranids are a very different army and play very differently to almost all the other out their other than maybe daemons. I just feel they would be better served by smaller less drastic tweeks than these very wide ranging atlerations.

Hell I think they would be vastly more playable with hive guard in heavy support and fixing lictors and pyrovors as they are the only non-playable units to my mind.
The current codex has exellent troops and HQ's, far to many good elite choices, ok fast attack but most armies only have ok fast attack and a little light in the heavy section.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

That appears to be me beslubbering up rather than a sinister plot to make the Doom insanely powerful. I didn't knowingly intend to put that no in there, rather I was just trying to consolidate most of the FAQ into the revamp. Will amend now.

[Zilverscale]

That appears to be me beslubbering up rather than a sinister plot to make the Doom insanely powerful. I didn't knowingly intend to put that no in there, rather I was just trying to consolidate most of the FAQ into the revamp. Will amend now.

We are all just human

Overal the list looks good
I think I'll go and playtest it against my buddies soon