How bad are tyranids?

[SaveModifier]

Re: Synapse.

Isn't that just a part of the way the Tyranids work? Hasn't the "my army is a bunch of wild animals who might go stupid if my mind control critter dies" always been part of the Tyranid lore and tabletop presence? I understand that there may be issues with the new Tyranid codex, but complaining about this issue seems a bit out of touch. It's like saying "damn... all my Eldar are Toughness 3. It's really irritating" or "I just don't understand why my Imperial Guard army is made of tons of guys with low quality weapons and poor Ballistic Skill who rely on numbers to bring down their opponents! Who thought that was a good idea?"

Tyranids = monster bugs who need brain control bugs to keep them coherent on the battlefield. That's how it's always been, right?

That is indeed how it has always been, the results of being out of synapse actually gave an advantage for some creatures in the last codex with the changes to Rage USR, so it was juyst put back to being a negative, although, you CAN get a positive from it, people talk about thier bugs eating each other, but thats just bad mathhammer assuming that Gaunts are in a vaccum, IF they're out of Synapse and not in combat And they fail the LD test AND then roll under 4 on a d6 they then take some hits at str 3, its not like you can shoot a Tyranid warrior and all the gaunts will suddenly eat each other.

[Captain Bubonicus]

People are a bit angry because the codex made synapse a very REAL handicap (there are less synapse creatures now, the ones that have synapse are generally pretty vulnerable or over-costed, and the effects of not being in synapse can be pretty brutal) and the removal of 'Spods pretty much shoehorns players into a "line up in your deployment zone and run across the board" setup for every game.

They're still fine for casual FLGS play, and I'm having fun with a walking-Tyrant foot army with an outflanking troop Tervigon and Manufactorum Genestealers from the new dataslate. I don't think they're competitive enough to take to a tourney, though.

[DarkLink]

There are one or two builds that can do pretty well in tournaments. But it's very much mono-build netlists. Take 2 Flying Tyrants, lots of Gaunts, one Tervigon, and some combination of Mawlock, Hive Crones, Tyrannofex, and a couple of Venomthropes. And even then, it can't compete with some of the rougher top armies (Shadows in the Warp does a number on the Seer Council, though).

The anger over the codex is less about overall power level and more about how GW took a book everyone was highly dissatisfied with, and didn't make any meaningful improvements, at least in my opinion.

[daboarder]

Re: Synapse.

Isn't that just a part of the way the Tyranids work? Hasn't the "my army is a bunch of wild animals who might go stupid if my mind control critter dies" always been part of the Tyranid lore and tabletop presence? I understand that there may be issues with the new Tyranid codex, but complaining about this issue seems a bit out of touch. It's like saying "damn... all my Eldar are Toughness 3. It's really irritating" or "I just don't understand why my Imperial Guard army is made of tons of guys with low quality weapons and poor Ballistic Skill who rely on numbers to bring down their opponents! Who thought that was a good idea?"

Tyranids = monster bugs who need brain control bugs to keep them coherent on the battlefield. That's how it's always been, right?

Not quite, Instinctive behavior has never been this crippling, and synapse has never been so easy to remove.

the design philosophy behind it has historically been more about killing the synapse to remove a buff, whereas now it is about killing the synapse to force the enemy to crumple. Its a subtle but VERY important difference.

of course every time someone tries to actually discuss the limitations of the book all that ends up being thrown about is the most debased and cliche accusations by the same posters, accusations and cliche's they seem unwilling to back up beyond the boring statement of "NAH UH!"

again, I cannot think of a book released by GW that I would rate worse than this one (given the context of its release) and I've never seen save mod, or the other posters be willing to discuss this point. Maybe the 4th ed CSM codex was worse. but thats still something worth discussing.

The anger over the codex is less about overall power level and more about how GW took a book everyone was highly dissatisfied with, and didn't make any meaningful improvements, at least in my opinion.

Words of wisdom, coupled with the fact that as DL stated the monobuild from before has basically just become even more constrained

[Anggul]

Yeah, when Tyranids lose the synapse link they lose their organisation and creepy sense of united purpose, but they're still created with the instinct to be deadly creatures. Lurkers don't completely flee everything, they run for cover and proceed to be a nuisance to the enemy, picking off stragglers and making it dangerous for the enemy to take cover from the next wave of the swarm in case they get jumped by the remnants of the previously broken wave. Feeders don't eat each other, they rush the enemy blindly and force them to deal with them rather than preparing for the next wave and rooting out the Lurkers. Hunters, through all this, act like any deadly wild animal like hyenas and lions, stalking and killing choice targets that present themselves, presenting another layer of issues that come up when the enemy tries to stop everything from overwhelming them. It showed how deadly the Tyranids are, that even in defeat they can still cause problems because they specifically choose the properties of their creatures by unparalleled bio-engineering.

As it is, they've apparently been created to do that half the time, but the other half run away, eat each other and bury themselves in the ground. It's silly. Instinctive Behaviour was just fine in the previous codex and didn't need touching. It represented the synapse network just fine, and now it's been nerfed in a way which isn't even fluffy, it just makes no sense and is too crippling when it happens.

Our armies have indeed become more varied, and that's great. It still isn't a good codex though, and Instinctive Behaviour was changed for no reason.

[SaveModifier]

Not quite, Instinctive behavior has never been this crippling, and synapse has never been so easy to remove.

the design philosophy behind it has historically been more about killing the synapse to remove a buff, whereas now it is about killing the synapse to force the enemy to crumple. Its a subtle but VERY important difference.

of course every time someone tries to actually discuss the limitations of the book all that ends up being thrown about is the most debased and cliche accusations by the same posters, accusations and cliche's they seem unwilling to back up beyond the boring statement of "NAH UH!"

again, I cannot think of a book released by GW that I would rate worse than this one (given the context of its release) and I've never seen save mod, or the other posters be willing to discuss this point. Maybe the 4th ed CSM codex was worse. but thats still something worth discussing.

And all you ever say about it is that you can't think of a worse GW release.

You don't talk about what builds you've tried, what you like and what is or isn't working for you in games. You don't ask for any tips on what to take or talk about any combos you've used that have worked, no its just a constant moaning about how the codex is the worst.

And the 2nd Ed Tyranid codex was much worse because it was insanely over powered, Most easly third edition codexes, the thin pamplets with the 4 pages of fluff were much worse, the 4th edition WD Blood Angels list was worse, there a loads of bad things that have happened in GWs history, this codex not being as powerful as you imagined it to be in your head really isn't among them

I played against nids last night and in that game, one squad fell out of synapse for one turn, they went into cover and shot at me, as they would have anyway, ok there was a chance they could have fallen back towards the safety of the horde and the guidance of the Hive Mind, following those instincts, but they didn't.

This is just moaning for moanings sake daboarder, you're being overly negative, what pleasure can you possibly derive from the hobby if this is how it makes you feel?

[ElectricPaladin]

Whether or not it's actually broken, I totally get not liking it. I never bothered to field death company back when Rage put them under my opponent's control - now that it's a benefit, I use them a lot more. As game players, we prefer to have our behavior influenced by an incentive than by a penalty or limitation. Stressing benefit is better than detriment. I bet a lot of players would be happier if the entire codex had been nerfed, but synapse was still largely a buff, even if the end result was more or less the same power level.

That doesn't necessarily answer the question though. For myself, when I played against 'Nids, I didn't feel like they were underpowered. Sure, I won, but they made me work for it...

[Dave Mcturk]

That doesn't necessarily answer the question though. For myself, when I played against 'Nids, I didn't feel like they were underpowered. Sure, I won, but they made me work for it...

^ this...

i generally play eldar... unless i bring a deliberate list to hose bugs the games are pretty even, i think they would struggle more against tau who have longer range and lots of ignore cover shooting...

but not every game is short table edge !

[SaveModifier]

Synapse giving units of really cheap models Fearless is a really big buff still, they'll stay on objectives longer and wont stop advancing, for the price, huge mobs of Fearless troops are amazing

[Eldar_Atog]

And all you ever say about it is that you can't think of a worse GW release.

You don't talk about what builds you've tried, what you like and what is or isn't working for you in games. You don't ask for any tips on what to take or talk about any combos you've used that have worked, no its just a constant moaning about how the codex is the worst.

He has talked about most of the things you mentioned in the 40K tactics section. He has been going through the codex unit by unit. If you want to know why he is being so negative, it's only a few clicks away.

I can't speak about power levels but when I look at the book, I just see lost potential. With just a few tweaks, the book could have been great. It almost suffers from the "uncanny valley" effect that you see in robotics, video games. I can't tell you what is missing... but something is missing.