Frustrations

[tyrantqueen1997]

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS JUST A LITTLE FRUSTRATED WITH THE TYRANID RULES/STATS/STRATAGEMS/PSYCHIC POWERS? 

im sorry if this sounds just like complaining, but i feel like every other faction have a much easier time just playing the game.
looking at stat blocks, everyone has decent stats, but almost every thing we have is a 4+ to hit and we hardly have any killing power
aside for physic stuff. when i play in my local area, everyone plays space marines, and i feel that just to have a chance, i have to use 
every combo i can think of just to make a dent, im sweating my butt off and every one else is just sitting like nothing and hardly have to 
do anything and they just blow me out of the water before i can do anything. Im so sick of playing against intercessor spam and fully decked predators,
i cant beat them in melee, i cant hold OBJ's and shoot them and im just not having fun with the army i have bin collecting and playing for the past 3 years

HELP ME!, am i just bad? am i being cheated? am i getting something wrong, because since its the only thing i play against and i have looked at the codex for other factions, im here thinking space marines are just a little broken, everyone tells me im wrong but wont explain why, and every time i want to have a discussion about it, im just shut out. im the only xenos player and even looking at the other factions, they have it better. so tell me what im getting wrong.

i have made breakdowns  for each part of of tyranids and did research and compared them to not just other xenos and imperium factions but space marines to everyone else and i still feel they are just getting to be too much. i dont care what happens in ITC, i play at my local shop and we all play for fun,
but i have had to watch and learn combos and other things from competitive players just to keep up in my casual games, PLZ HELP

anyone else have frustration they like to share?   

 

[nackanid]

I feel you man. Trying to compete with the other codexes but it’s so hard. The codex needs a rework, and a big one.

Until then... I’m gonna continue like an idiot to play the little cribbles

[No One]

No, but I've gone to GSC, so...

[wormlord666]

Your are not alone. We are not in a good spot right now.
That said, it is not impossible. The GSC is a great tool to ally in. There are som strong units i tyranids. Stealers, broodlords, swarmlord still works for me anyway. Hive guards and zoanthropes will kill marines if there is enough terrain. But there are som things you need to think about. We can not play like marines and deploy in the open, rusch to the middle and just shoot everything ’til its dead. We have to play smart. Play for mission points, hide, tripoint, deny the opponent and explore mistakes. Its hard and this is the time of the marines so we are constatnly in hard-mode.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

We've definitely been on the bad end of power creep but not all is lost.

In general:
1) melee centric armies are less forgiving to play. You have to survive to make combat and then lock units down if possible. It takes a lot of skill to do properly.
2) if you're playing against shooty armies, you need good terrain coverage. If you don't have it, you'll be shot off the board.
3) tyranids require good list building. Not a lot of our units are plug and play.

What hive fleets have you been playing? Depending upon the list hive fleets can make a big difference.

[xsquidz]

You should post the list or lists your normally use as well as the models you have access to as that can help with offering you advice.

But regardless of that Nids are pretty weak right now but GSC is REALLY strong BUT also super hard to play effectively. GSC and nids are so unforgiving so you can lose a lot at first while you are figuring things out but playing Nids is like on Nightmare mode, playing GSC is on hard mode but when you figure them out its still hard mode but they can be super rewarding and win tons of games.

[wormlord666]

I have been wiped by marines twice in a week, so I probably should be feeling hopeless myself, but I don’t. I played stupidly and charged the wrong unit at the wrong time. And I can’t help feeling that the expected rise of the Iron hands are good news for me who play stealers and cult. Few, expensive models with heavy shots is what I like. Stealers kill all infantry, cult kills tanks. Just like we play knights. Please say this will work! 😬

[foypen]

I've noticed a lot of people trying to build Tyranid counter teams in my area when I play. So, I've been mixing it up with mass infantry or big monsters to keep them guessing. Got lucky with a massive amount of Genestealers against a bunch of tanks, so they had no good targets and got swarmed really fast. The next game was an obvious counter to my Genestealers, almost an entire list of anti-infantry Space Marine bikes, but this time it was against my Swarmlord, Hive Tyrants, Old One Eye, Tyrannofexes, etc.

[terminatoruk]

I feel for you and understand what you mean

Power creep is definitely a factor - distance between the recent Space Marines codexs and the older stuff is getting widening the gap even further.

It'd be interesting to know your list / options you have available to you?

With Tyranids, I think a lot of people feel they have to go full horde / assault but unfortunately this seems to be harder to pull off in this edition of the game.

I haven't got a massive selection to choose from but this is why I went for a fairly shooty army with an assault punch.

My 2000 pt list resolves around the approximate numbers:

- 50 Termagants (Fleshborers)
- 3 Ripper Swarms
- 18 Genesteallers (Rending Claws + extended carapace)
- Broodlord (buffing the Genesteallers to hit on 2+)
- 12 Warriors (Deathspitters, Venom Cannons, Boneswords)
- Warrior Prime (to buff the above to hit on 3+)
- 4 Carnifexes with spore cysts, enchanced senses, deathspitters and heavy venom cannons (good ranged firepower hitting on 3+ and -1 to hit)
- 4 Zoanthropes (distraction / mortal wound spam)
- 2 Neurothropes (1 buffing the Zoanthropes, another supporting the genesteallers / broodlord)
- 1 Trygon

Hive Fleet: Jormungadar

High-level tactics:

- Overall = 'Threat Overload'
- Termagants / Ripper swarms - board control, screening, securing objectives
- Broodlord / Genesteallers / Trygon / Neurothrope - pay 2 CP to have Broodlord / Neurothrope go into the Trygon tunnel (using 'the enemy below' strat. Appear on Turn 2 on a flank of your enemy or to react to a high-value threat. Cast Catalyst on the genesteallers. Enemy now has a massive threat on their flank - Genesteallers have 3+ (cover + extended carapace), 5++ (lightning reflexes invun) and 5+++ save (Catalyst) and therefore a pain to take out
- Carnifexes - difficult to hit with -1 for spore cysts. Excellent ranged fire power hittig on 3+ - focus all 4 of them on a single high-value target / vehicle (the flat 3 damage of the Heavy Venom cannons is going to help here).
- Warriors / Prime - slowly advancing high quality firepower hitting on 3+. Don't wander too far from Carnifexes / Zoanthropes to protect them. Fire after Carnifexes to mop up high value targets (e.g. vehicles) with Venom Cannons. Charge anything looking to tie-up the Carnifexes or Zoanthropes - x4 Str 4, -2 AP attacks hitting on 2+ is good here
- Zoanthropes + other Neurothrope - mortal wound spam + 3++ save distration. These units aren't meant to do a lot on their own but are designed to spam mortal wounds if left on their own and frustrate opponents trying to shoot high-quality ranged attacks against them only to get saved on a 3++ (you WANT your opponent to waste time shooting these). Neurothrope helps to re-roll psycic tests for both itself and Zoanthropes and can be used to heal them too

[xsquidz]

Sept 24, 2019 15:37:52 GMT terminatoruk said:

My 2000 pt list resolves around the approximate numbers:

- 50 Termagants (Fleshborers)
- 3 Ripper Swarms
- 18 Genesteallers (Rending Claws + extended carapace)
- Broodlord (buffing the Genesteallers to hit on 2+)
- 12 Warriors (Deathspitters, Venom Cannons, Boneswords)
- Warrior Prime (to buff the above to hit on 3+)
- 4 Carnifexes with spore cysts, enchanced senses, deathspitters and heavy venom cannons (good ranged firepower hitting on 3+ and -1 to hit)
- 4 Zoanthropes (distraction / mortal wound spam)
- 2 Neurothropes (1 buffing the Zoanthropes, another supporting the genesteallers / broodlord)
- 1 Trygon

- Warriors / Prime - slowly advancing high quality firepower hitting on 3+. Don't wander too far from Carnifexes / Zoanthropes to protect them. Fire after Carnifexes to mop up high value targets (e.g. vehicles) with Venom Cannons. Charge anything looking to tie-up the Carnifexes or Zoanthropes - x4 Str 4, -2 AP attacks hitting on 2+ is good here
- Zoanthropes + other Neurothrope - mortal wound spam + 3++ save distration. These units aren't meant to do a lot on their own but are designed to spam mortal wounds if left on their own and frustrate opponents trying to shoot high-quality ranged attacks against them only to get saved on a 3++ (you WANT your opponent to waste time shooting these). Neurothrope helps to re-roll psycic tests for both itself and Zoanthropes and can be used to heal them too

In a nutshell here is my big issue with your list.  You have a little bit of everything, a bunch of small bodies, a bunch of bigger stuff and even some mid range stuff (warriors) so you are giving all their guns ideal targets.  Their big guns go after your big targets, their mid guns go for your mid stuff and their bolters etc kill the little gribblies.  When I am making a pure Nid list I either try to go pure swarm or monster mash.  That way 1/2 their guns right from the start are way less effective.  When I use GSC its all infantry so their big guns shots are wasted.  If you bring 200-300 bodies those lascannons and meltas start to seem like junk.  If you bring all flyrants, swarmlord, malenthrope and carnifexes all those bolters are wounding on 5's all of a sudden and are way less effective.

Get a malenthrope as well, that -1 to hit bubble that can't be targeted out is amazing.

[purestrain]

Sept 24, 2019 16:18:34 GMT xsquidz said:

Sept 24, 2019 15:37:52 GMT terminatoruk said:

My 2000 pt list resolves around the approximate numbers:

- 50 Termagants (Fleshborers)
- 3 Ripper Swarms
- 18 Genesteallers (Rending Claws + extended carapace)
- Broodlord (buffing the Genesteallers to hit on 2+)
- 12 Warriors (Deathspitters, Venom Cannons, Boneswords)
- Warrior Prime (to buff the above to hit on 3+)
- 4 Carnifexes with spore cysts, enchanced senses, deathspitters and heavy venom cannons (good ranged firepower hitting on 3+ and -1 to hit)
- 4 Zoanthropes (distraction / mortal wound spam)
- 2 Neurothropes (1 buffing the Zoanthropes, another supporting the genesteallers / broodlord)
- 1 Trygon

- Warriors / Prime - slowly advancing high quality firepower hitting on 3+. Don't wander too far from Carnifexes / Zoanthropes to protect them. Fire after Carnifexes to mop up high value targets (e.g. vehicles) with Venom Cannons. Charge anything looking to tie-up the Carnifexes or Zoanthropes - x4 Str 4, -2 AP attacks hitting on 2+ is good here
- Zoanthropes + other Neurothrope - mortal wound spam + 3++ save distration. These units aren't meant to do a lot on their own but are designed to spam mortal wounds if left on their own and frustrate opponents trying to shoot high-quality ranged attacks against them only to get saved on a 3++ (you WANT your opponent to waste time shooting these). Neurothrope helps to re-roll psycic tests for both itself and Zoanthropes and can be used to heal them too

In a nutshell here is my big issue with your list.  You have a little bit of everything, a bunch of small bodies, a bunch of bigger stuff and even some mid range stuff (warriors) so you are giving all their guns ideal targets.  Their big guns go after your big targets, their mid guns go for your mid stuff and their bolters etc kill the little gribblies.  When I am making a pure Nid list I either try to go pure swarm or monster mash.  That way 1/2 their guns right from the start are way less effective.  When I use GSC its all infantry so their big guns shots are wasted.  If you bring 200-300 bodies those lascannons and meltas start to seem like junk.  If you bring all flyrants, swarmlord, malenthrope and carnifexes all those bolters are wounding on 5's all of a sudden and are way less effective.

Get a malenthrope as well, that -1 to hit bubble that can't be targeted out is amazing.

Then each fex is eating triple or more the usual gunfire and heavy bolters wounding on 5s isn't that bad with ap-2, especially with the typical cap/LT rerolls

[kazetanade]

New SM is pretty strong, and standard Nid fluff lists probably arent going to work very well against it. Our main defense against it were mass bodies tying up in combat and the -1 to hit, all of which are significantly weaker now - their mass amount of Bolters at any range almost makes infantry advancing difficult, their dozens of attacks makes wraps extremely dangerous for our main hitter. Their full reroll ignores our modifier almost and also makes combat too dangerous to stay in.

Space Marines still have their own issues - they are really bad at dealing with high T invul units. Knights are still something of a struggle to deal with. Marines are at the threshold of being tanky and not, so they are considered to be "still dying easily", particularly when each model costs 13-17ppm, it's a pretty painful loss per model. Although the entire codex are full of "this guy can do this really damn well", their pushing for non-soup basically neuters a lot of the flexibility by locking in each army into certain playstyles. Of course a lot of things can be enjoyed without the non-soup benefit still.

Nids are supposedly in a better position than Necrons, I think? But compared to Tau and Elves, Nids are on the back foot yea, with a few builds that really stand at the front. Of note are the Zoey/Neuro/BL Gaunt Carpets that smite things to death while flooding the board, the mass Carnifexen list, and the old GS Sling, all 3 of which have their difficult matchups and and specific win conditions to meet. I would say at least splashing for GSC spells (deny overwatch being the key one) is really good to help Nids.

Unfortunately I dont think we can mince words, an SM pilot of similar skill to the Nids pilot will get more mileage out of his SM army today than the Nids army will. Most Nids list that will be able to deal with or keep up with the new SM codex will likely be the foundation of our new competitive lists, and will probably need to be piloted with a fair amount of finesse and considerations to hold its ground. It's definitely "Hard" mode and not good for casual games right now, unless we're talking super casual on both sides. Intercessors are so good right now that it's pretty ridiculous having to deal with more than 10, and Aggressors basically say "NO" to all charging armies.

In other words, SM right now hard counters the Tyranid Codex, harder than Tau does. If your meta only plays SM, I think you should try a different army to break the monotony, its going to be really hard to have a consistent winning plan vs SM.

[hunk]

Sept 24, 2019 18:02:18 GMT kazetanade said:

New SM is pretty strong, and standard Nid fluff lists probably arent going to work very well against it. Our main defense against it were mass bodies tying up in combat and the -1 to hit, all of which are significantly weaker now - their mass amount of Bolters at any range almost makes infantry advancing difficult, their dozens of attacks makes wraps extremely dangerous for our main hitter. Their full reroll ignores our modifier almost and also makes combat too dangerous to stay in.

Space Marines still have their own issues - they are really bad at dealing with high T invul units. Knights are still something of a struggle to deal with. Marines are at the threshold of being tanky and not, so they are considered to be "still dying easily", particularly when each model costs 13-17ppm, it's a pretty painful loss per model. Although the entire codex are full of "this guy can do this really damn well", their pushing for non-soup basically neuters a lot of the flexibility by locking in each army into certain playstyles. Of course a lot of things can be enjoyed without the non-soup benefit still.

Nids are supposedly in a better position than Necrons, I think? But compared to Tau and Elves, Nids are on the back foot yea, with a few builds that really stand at the front. Of note are the Zoey/Neuro/BL Gaunt Carpets that smite things to death while flooding the board, the mass Carnifexen list, and the old GS Sling, all 3 of which have their difficult matchups and and specific win conditions to meet. I would say at least splashing for GSC spells (deny overwatch being the key one) is really good to help Nids.

Unfortunately I dont think we can mince words, an SM pilot of similar skill to the Nids pilot will get more mileage out of his SM army today than the Nids army will. Most Nids list that will be able to deal with or keep up with the new SM codex will likely be the foundation of our new competitive lists, and will probably need to be piloted with a fair amount of finesse and considerations to hold its ground. It's definitely "Hard" mode and not good for casual games right now, unless we're talking super casual on both sides. Intercessors are so good right now that it's pretty ridiculous having to deal with more than 10, and Aggressors basically say "NO" to all charging armies.

In other words, SM right now hard counters the Tyranid Codex, harder than Tau does. If your meta only plays SM, I think you should try a different army to break the monotony, its going to be really hard to have a consistent winning plan vs SM.

What armies do you think do have a advantage over current space marines and what makes them good against them currently?

[kurtangle2]

Sept 24, 2019 18:02:18 GMT kazetanade said:

New SM is pretty strong, and standard Nid fluff lists probably arent going to work very well against it. Our main defense against it were mass bodies tying up in combat and the -1 to hit, all of which are significantly weaker now - their mass amount of Bolters at any range almost makes infantry advancing difficult, their dozens of attacks makes wraps extremely dangerous for our main hitter. Their full reroll ignores our modifier almost and also makes combat too dangerous to stay in.

Space Marines still have their own issues - they are really bad at dealing with high T invul units. Knights are still something of a struggle to deal with. Marines are at the threshold of being tanky and not, so they are considered to be "still dying easily", particularly when each model costs 13-17ppm, it's a pretty painful loss per model. Although the entire codex are full of "this guy can do this really damn well", their pushing for non-soup basically neuters a lot of the flexibility by locking in each army into certain playstyles. Of course a lot of things can be enjoyed without the non-soup benefit still.

Nids are supposedly in a better position than Necrons, I think? But compared to Tau and Elves, Nids are on the back foot yea, with a few builds that really stand at the front. Of note are the Zoey/Neuro/BL Gaunt Carpets that smite things to death while flooding the board, the mass Carnifexen list, and the old GS Sling, all 3 of which have their difficult matchups and and specific win conditions to meet. I would say at least splashing for GSC spells (deny overwatch being the key one) is really good to help Nids.

Unfortunately I dont think we can mince words, an SM pilot of similar skill to the Nids pilot will get more mileage out of his SM army today than the Nids army will. Most Nids list that will be able to deal with or keep up with the new SM codex will likely be the foundation of our new competitive lists, and will probably need to be piloted with a fair amount of finesse and considerations to hold its ground. It's definitely "Hard" mode and not good for casual games right now, unless we're talking super casual on both sides. Intercessors are so good right now that it's pretty ridiculous having to deal with more than 10, and Aggressors basically say "NO" to all charging armies.

In other words, SM right now hard counters the Tyranid Codex, harder than Tau does. If your meta only plays SM, I think you should try a different army to break the monotony, its going to be really hard to have a consistent winning plan vs SM.

Nids are way worse than Necrons, we're literally only above Grey Knights and on par with mono Dark Angels/Blood Angels (i.e. BAD)

[kazetanade]

Sept 24, 2019 18:11:28 GMT hunk said:

Sept 24, 2019 18:02:18 GMT kazetanade said:

New SM is pretty strong, and standard Nid fluff lists probably arent going to work very well against it. Our main defense against it were mass bodies tying up in combat and the -1 to hit, all of which are significantly weaker now - their mass amount of Bolters at any range almost makes infantry advancing difficult, their dozens of attacks makes wraps extremely dangerous for our main hitter. Their full reroll ignores our modifier almost and also makes combat too dangerous to stay in.

Space Marines still have their own issues - they are really bad at dealing with high T invul units. Knights are still something of a struggle to deal with. Marines are at the threshold of being tanky and not, so they are considered to be "still dying easily", particularly when each model costs 13-17ppm, it's a pretty painful loss per model. Although the entire codex are full of "this guy can do this really damn well", their pushing for non-soup basically neuters a lot of the flexibility by locking in each army into certain playstyles. Of course a lot of things can be enjoyed without the non-soup benefit still.

Nids are supposedly in a better position than Necrons, I think? But compared to Tau and Elves, Nids are on the back foot yea, with a few builds that really stand at the front. Of note are the Zoey/Neuro/BL Gaunt Carpets that smite things to death while flooding the board, the mass Carnifexen list, and the old GS Sling, all 3 of which have their difficult matchups and and specific win conditions to meet. I would say at least splashing for GSC spells (deny overwatch being the key one) is really good to help Nids.

Unfortunately I dont think we can mince words, an SM pilot of similar skill to the Nids pilot will get more mileage out of his SM army today than the Nids army will. Most Nids list that will be able to deal with or keep up with the new SM codex will likely be the foundation of our new competitive lists, and will probably need to be piloted with a fair amount of finesse and considerations to hold its ground. It's definitely "Hard" mode and not good for casual games right now, unless we're talking super casual on both sides. Intercessors are so good right now that it's pretty ridiculous having to deal with more than 10, and Aggressors basically say "NO" to all charging armies.

In other words, SM right now hard counters the Tyranid Codex, harder than Tau does. If your meta only plays SM, I think you should try a different army to break the monotony, its going to be really hard to have a consistent winning plan vs SM.

What armies do you think do have a advantage over current space marines and what makes them good against them currently?

I think Tau is really good vs Marines right now - Tau generally win a firefight with a short ranged enemy, and the Drone Empire lets them trade with long range fire very efficiently for a turn or 2. Those HBCs are -2 with ATS, making Marines as tanky as our Acolytes (or as tanky as a Scion without ATS), and doing 2W each means Intercessors eat dust real fast, so they become very expensive Marines. Marines are REALLY good when they get to use both their melee and their shooting prowress (which is why they are SO GOOD against us), but are just OK if they are using only 1 or the other (or neither, in the case of those T8 and good saves). It becomes a question purely about terrain - do you have lots of terrain that can stop the Tau from seeing you to shoot you, and can you as the Tau player manuveur yourself well enough to dodge the terrain and get at whats behind? 

Like mentioned, I think Knights have an advantage. A good Knight pilot should be able to mark out what the threats are and deal with them adequately before using his immense chassis to create problems for the marines. SM Lascannons and Missle Launchers are too expensive to bring enmass, so although they do get full reroll to hit, they still have to fight through a 3+ or 4+ to wound and 4++ save. 

I think pure DE also have something going for it - their Wyches have some sick invuls in combat and are hard to run away from (ie, nearly impossible to escape combat with), and Taloses with their T7 4++ 6+++ are really hard to take down effectively. T7 4++ is actually strong against anything not a Castellan, so Taloses can actually kick a lot of ass against Marines I think.

Then there's Harleys, but that's a different can of worms.

Other than that, I think the fight is either in the SM's favour or is nearly dead equal and depends on pilot ability.