what does Tyranids need to make close quarter nids viable?

[arapaima]

OK I know our codex is in a sweet spot ATM yet I like to know what kinda options do Nids need to make close combat centric playstyle viable enough that melee flyrant and melee fex looks equally appealing to use as their dakka equipped counterparts?

[yoritomo]

Tyranids need something to let them move more than just 6" a turn if they are going to be a viable assault army. As the rules are currently written anybody that doesn't want to be assaulted can just back away 6" every turn and still shoot me as I try and close in. Sure, I can run, but my opponent can also run away just as fast. And heaven forbid they have a rhino or something they can jump into.

I couldn't tell you what the exact solution is. Maybe letting us assault the same turn would be enough. Or it may take a bonus to our run roll, much like hormagaunts have now. It would require a lot of playtesting to find the right ballance (something GW may or may not do depending on who you ask).


And while not necessary, something to mitigate the penalty for assaulting into cover would be helpful. It doesn't have to be assault grenades. Something like a psychic power that lets models killed before the Int 1 step still get their attacks would work.

I'd also like to see stealers get some new rules to make them extra scary in close combat, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

[xtztxtxz]

Decent assault rules in the main rulebook, mostly.

Faster movement and an improvement on WS3 on some of our 'melee' units wouldn't hurt too.

[Kark]

Lack of assault grenades, no inv saves, 6" of movement are issues that make tyranids non-assault army.

Lots of our units have WS3 I3 and small number of attacks.

[xtztxtxz]

Jun 24, 2015 10:05:53 GMT yoritomo said:

I couldn't tell you what the exact solution is. Maybe letting us assault the same turn would be enough. Or it may take a bonus to our run roll, much like hormagaunts have now. It would require a lot of playtesting to find the right ballance (something GW may or may not do depending on who you ask).


And while not necessary, something to mitigate the penalty for assaulting into cover would be helpful. It doesn't have to be assault grenades. Something like a psychic power that lets models killed before the Int 1 step still get their attacks would work.

My preferred approach would be:

• Charging through terrain gives -2 to charge range and initiative.
• Move Through Cover ignores those penalties
• Assault Grenades affect Overwatch fire in some way (such as forcing a re-roll of successful hits)
  
• Units with Fleet can Run and Assault in the same turn, and can still re-roll charge range.
  

The last one in particular is important, because it helps resolve something I always found odd about Fleet; supposedly faster units do not gain an increased threat range with it. A great example of this is to compare an assault Terminator and a Hormagaunt. They both have an identical 6+2D6" assault range from the start of the turn, the implication being that a walking tank can cover the same distance in the same amount of time as a hyper-agile creature bred to outrun pretty much any prey. Sure the gaunt is likely to move further, but not much. You would expect your light, fast units to be able to re-deploy and react faster than a dude wearing an adamantium overcoat.

I believe that change will be a boon for properly dedicated melee units, compensating for their scant protection by letting them out-maneuver tougher, slower enemy units.

[seethe]

Let me take 'adrenaline injectors' or something on my tyrannocytes to assault out of it the turn it drops.

[WestRider]

There are all kinds of options. The easiest to implement would probably be some combination of making stuff faster (let Hormies, Trygons, Haruspexen move like Beasts again, and I've got a few different ideas for giving Fexen some bonuses that represent their unstoppable momentum rather than sheer speed), and making some of the stuff that's already fast (perhaps most notably Raveners) better. Some of the stuff that's being made faster should also probably be better, at least not WS3 for a dedicated CC MC.

Scout for a lot of the Gribblies (Gaunts, Hormies, Rippers) could help, too, tho Hammer & Anvil still leaves a lot of ground to cover.

Stealers, I wouldn't want to go all the way to making them Beasts, maybe something like Howling Banshees' +3" to Run and Charge Moves. I'd probably also add Stealth to help keep from getting shredded by Bolter fire, and something to mitigate Charging into Cover.

We also, just in general, need some points rebalancing. We get a break on our gribblies because of Instinctive Behaviour, but it's not enough to offset how punishing IB can be and how badly the Synapse Units are overpriced for countering it.

[Deleted]

There's a ton of things they could do for this. Considering the way new books are I'm not sure just one of these would be necessary.

Obviously GW doesn't mind turn 1 assault anymore(skyhammer). That could be crazy useful.

They could GIVE BACK/make creatures beasts. Honestly, I think anything in our army could be made a beast without too much issue.

Give back access to biomorphs that we lost. Seriously. WTH GW.

They could give us better tyranid psychic powers.

They could let us roll on rulebook psychic powers(it was a lot easier to get bigger stuff across the table with iron arm cast on them from biomancy).

They could make new rules like stuff in synapse has a 5++. Basically, if in synapse you have the daemon special rule, since obviously they think that isn't over the top. And obviously since they gave Daemons a version of the endless swarm formation(in the blood oath book) they don't think that's too compromising of fluff.

They could just make endless swarms 4+ we come back rule stock to units in synapse range. Would make throwing away units as screens and fodder less devastating(synapse defn needs to be changed, that much is clear).

Give our MC's some scarier weapons in close combat too. Like, we have bloodthirsters and superheavies running around with Str D at decent initiatives. Str 9 at low initiative is nowhere near as scary as it once was. And str 6 is just....it's lacking. It at least needs special rules.

This is just wishlisting though(and don't assume I feel EVERY one of these changes should happen).

[gigasnail]

Whatever combination of cheap, tough, fast, and killy that gets you there and gets you stuck in.

[biomassbob]

Agree with what others have said about faster units, especially the dedicated CC ones (or ones kit to be solely CC like a warrior) such as being beasts and/or being able to run assault, etc. Agree that stealers should not be beasts but stealers need some rules that help them. Dedicated CC critters should have grenade equivalents to not lose initiative entering terrain. What I would like to see is nids getting a serious CC boost but as Yori indicated I want the changes playtested so that:
a) all units and biomorphs are useful and appropriately costed; and
b) nids become a strong CC army again but not be OP - I want them strong but OP units just ruin the game.

[arapaima]

Thanks for sharing these ideas guys.

Imo a good basis for tyranid monsters would be the legions of everblight warbeast. They big, fast, hard hitting, still pretty tough but if something very punishing hits them, it still leave a mark.

For stealers Ymgarl stealer rules and move em to a non troop slot. GW from how i see, don't like to repeat precedents of OP units and mass quantities of cheap fast moving genestealers certainly qualified so for ppls who play against nids in 4th ed. Instead of making them slow and fragile, give them Ystealer rules it certainly fits the fluff of them bursting out of sewers and stuff. This may seem over the top but i will change stealer claws to either AP3 shred lightning claw or rending shred to reflect how notoriously sharp their talons are.

[WestRider]

Yeah, Stealers should not be cheap and expendable. That's what Gaunts are for. I'd really like to see Stealers somewhere in the 20-some Points range, and be absolutely terrifying, but that's really hard to balance with the rest of the Game as it currently stands.

[bigdonk]

Hey guys I'm new to the board but wanted to chip in my thoughts on this subject.

In my opinion I think the biggest problem nids have at the moment is there Armour save. Lets face it we have some of the lowest saves around. Take space marines for example... Terminator armour has a 2+ save and even standard marines have 3+. Then there is Necrons with there save and then reanimation protocols which is essentially 2 saves. Nids on the other hand have several MC's with only a 4+ save!! Why has such a big creature got such a small save. Most of the weapons in the 40k arsenal are ap4 or higher. These MC's are not getting a saving throw Most of the time. They just die!!. Even the Hive Tyrant is only a 3+ and he is our main character. Not good enough I'm thinking. And our Warriors with toughness 4 get instakilled too easy and they too only have a 4+ save. Surely they are the equivalent of terminators and should be tougher and have a decent save. You could argue that because they have 3 wounds that evens things out but really it doesn't. 

So we really need better saves or if we could get back the upgrade we had in 6th edition codex ( Think it was Hardened Caprice it was called ) that lets us spend a few points for a +1 to saves it would help.

Also we only have 2 units in the whole codex with invulnerable saves. Zoanthrope's and The Swarmlord ( Whitch you only get in close combat with the Swarmlord! ). And personally for the points cost i never use the Swarmlord.   We need more of these.

And to make things worse we have NO characters with It Will Not Die , NO characters with Eternal Warrior and if we even want to get any Feel No Pain saves we need to pass a Psychic test using some of our precious dice from our warp charge pool.

According to the fluff Nids are the biggest threat the 40k universe has ever seen but at the moment with this current codex we are neither a good close combat army or long range shooty army.

We are struggling.  

I am wondering if any of you agree or disagree?

  

[nurglitch]

Personally I find using masses of cannon-fodder really helps, particularly stuff like the Endless Swarm and the Skyblight Swarm. Concentrating all your points in a few large hammers really misses the point of Tyranids, in that other armies can hit harder, but Tyranids now have a great option for using MSU to exercise board control.

[xtztxtxz]

Jun 25, 2015 16:25:56 GMT bigdonk said:

Hey guys I'm new to the board but wanted to chip in my thoughts on this subject.

In my opinion I think the biggest problem nids have at the moment is there Armour save.   

Kinda. A key part of the fluff for Tyranids is that there isn't a single individual creature to the cause; even the Swarmlord can afford to die due to it's ability to respawn. The Hive Mind will continuously throw as many bodies into a fight as it requires to win. Keeping that in mind, those bodies don't necessarily need to be particularly tough or durable, they just need to be there long enough to beat an enemy through attrition. With that said, it's true that we have a number of creatures that are significantly over-costed for the level of protection they get. The Maleceptor is shining example; there's nothing innately wrong with a 4+ save MC but it certainly shouldn't be 200pts+... Malanthropes get much better protection for a fraction of the cost. 

I think rather than improve armour saves, Tyranid units should simply be more appropriately costed with better access to supporting abilities like FNP or IWND, letting the player maintain pressure with parts of their swarm. I'd go as far to say that Catalyst should be our staple Primaris power, even it takes a nerf (such as no longer working on the casting psyker too).

Good armour saves is a gimmick for marines, the majority of our forces should be an expendable wave of flesh. Rather than overtly better protection, I'd love to see more rules that reflect the desperation of a defending force being beaten in this way. There's a great Apoc formation special rule for a gaunt horde that makes the enemy more likely to fire snap shots as the game progresses, representing them running out of ammo due to the sheer number of bodies. I think if you combine abilities like that with better costed units and FNP-like rules, it would serve us much better than simply imitating space marines.