What is the tyranid answer to dealing with armor early - mid game?

[H3avy]

I just realised that most tyrand infantry have no ap. What should I use for anti armor since I am being bum rushed with the armored steel boot of the AM.

[Khalagar]

They don't really have an answer to it, they just kinda die. You can kill tanks if you swarm them with enough units, but if it's equal numbers against equal numbers you are in for a very rough time.

You can use Lictors, that seems to be the only kind of sort of viable tactic to basically just build hordes of lictors to fight everything for you. But Lictors won't beat a tank spam unless they massively out number the tanks.

Carni's can do "Ok" damage to them, but it's mostly just your hero units + lictors for the most part. Zoanthropes can do some seriously punchy damage with that 1 hex range lance every 2 turns, but they have to survive long enough to use it.

[H3avy]

The only thing I can think of is getting a lot of carnifexes and at least 2 hive tyrants.

[Quasicide]

Don't despair help is on the way! :D

"My heroes have always been Tyranid Cowboys, and they still are it seems..." - Willie Nelson after his assimilation into Hivefleet Quasi

The Tyranids require clever use of combined arms and cunning tactics, but once your figure them out they are one of the most powerful factions in the game. Many Guardsmen died to bring you this information. They tasted so yummy!

Thorpes
Malans are masters of debuff enemy units via Spore Cloud and Grasping Tail.
Zoans have an armor cracking Warp Blast Lance and alternate that with the debuffing Paroxysm.
These units are also useful as synapse links and the Malans are also strip miners.
Most new players overlook these creatures, but they are essential!
They are also unexpectedly tough and have regen, so don't be shy.

So sayeth Sun Tzu: On deadly ground, fight!
May seem obivous, but Terrain is often overlooked.
Engage enemy range attackers within the cover of cities, ruins and forests.

Prime Time
You're heroes are extremely powerful units, especially when leveled and equipped with items.
The Prime is an armor shattering machine.
The Hive Tyrant may be the best hero in the game.
The Tervigon is the best support hero in the game!
Have the Tervigon heal the other two and watch them tear apart the enemy's toughest units.
Be sure your heroes are being given HP, armor and damage boosting items.

Cannon Fodder
Termagaunts and such are intended to soak up overwatch shots and attacks.
Then your more powerful units emerge from behind them and attack.
Your Tervigon hero can actually spam Termagaunts when it isn't healing.

So sayeth Sun Tzu: Be like water, flow past strength and wash away weakness!
Don't play the AM's game by battering at their Leman Russ while their Basilisks pound you.
If you can, use your flyers, ambushers, Broodhives and cunning to hit the squishest first.

Monstrous Express
Early on Carnifex units are useful for soaking damage and countering armor, especially when upgraded with Bone Maces and supported by Thorpes. Tyranid players usually have an entire city dedicated to churning out monstrous creatures. Later, this city can be used to churn out Trygon and Tyrannofex.

Large Economy, yet Small Specialized Cities
Often Tyranids will have at least 3 cities, each without a population upgrade; one dedicated to monstrous creatures, one dedicated to infantry, and one dedicated to Thropes, heroes and flyers (if necessary).

A Tale of Two Cities
This compartmentalization allows you to trade cities more easily than other factions. If an avalanche is coming for one of yours, use your Broodhives to destroy one of theirs. No other faction can afford to trade cities like the Tyranids can.

Slap! Slap! Stifle.
Don't allow your enemies to sit idle and build up. Use your powerful heroes supported by units to aggressively disrupt their expansion.

Slash and Burn
Your Malans should often be strip mining the world to boost biomass. Likewise, recycle scrubby units so that they can rise like a Phoenix as a more powerful creature.

The Cake is a Lie!
Tyranids massively benefit from aggressive R&D. Consider early building a 2nd Thrope building to fuel this research. Don't forget to use your Thropes in the field, since they generate research points when they level.

He who hesitates is lost!
Once you have the pieces in place to win the game... win it! A common mistake is to be overly timid, and allow the AM to achieve their highest levels of technology.

Nemesis Factor
Thanks to Broodhives, you can attack enmass anywhere. Don't randomly choose who to wipe out or harass! Target the AM first, and then the Necrons. You can leave the bumbling Orks and plucky Space Marines for later. They don't pose the same kind of endgame threat like the AM and Necrons do. Defeating the AM begins the moment the game starts, not when you randomly stubble into their unstoppable juggernaut of destruction.

The sum of all fears...
The Hivemind's endgame is unstoppable, the trick is getting there. At first you must be a lurking menace, then a vexing pest. Yet ultimately, you're a time bomb the other factions must disarm before you reach critical mass.

[Hide]

If you are talking about Sentinels I'm pretty sure Gargoyles can take care of them. They don't have a lot of AP but their damage should be high enough anyway and the poison weakens the sentinels if they survive.

Other than that obviously Carnifexes, Tyranid Prime and I suppose Tervigons would be decent aswell.

[Blastom]

Tyranid Prime and Canifex for early game.
Both of them are amazing against common armored vehicles. Though Canifex is later than most of anti-armor units.

The cost of Canifex is ok, as nids have a lot of extra bio mass source.

The nids eat foot infantry alive, your opponent will be forced to rely on heavy armored vehicles. So it's not surprising, nids don't have a unit like heavy destroyers.

[Blastom]

Accurately, a part of the early game anti-armor problem is mainly against AI, who has a huge tech advantage and builds armored vehicle much earlier than human players.

If it's the problem, I suggest you to open more AI players and make them one team and decrease the overall difficulty. So them will build more low tier units instead of getting heavy vehicle right off the bat.

[Shin]

You can boost the production if you are building a Carnifex with recycling smaller units to get him out earlier. I really like this feature. You can even sacrifice the Termagaunts summoned by the Tervigon for this. Free Biomass and boosted production! You can also do the same for buildings.

[SpaffMiester]

Zoanthropes.

[Blastom]

Originally posted by Shin:

You can boost the production if you are building a Carnifex with recycling smaller units to get him out earlier. I really like this feature. You can even sacrifice the Termagaunts summoned by the Tervigon for this. Free Biomass and boosted production! You can also do the same for buildings.

It's accurately an imba feature.
Free termagants from Tervigon is only the start - 20 bio mass + 12 cogs every 3 turns. It's more than an extra production building.

What really makes it shine is that you can convert unit cogs into building cogs without any penalty. This is just too terrifying in middle game. You generally gets a free extra city center. It's just too easy for nids to build mass barracks in middle game and mass products both units and buildings.

After massive cities are built. You can transfer cogs between cities. So your newly found cities can easily get a resource building, loyalty or more barracks up instantly.

You can accurately use this feature as instant heal - you know what I'm talking about recycle one and replace it with newly produced one.

[Antpile]

I haven't run into this problem so far. I tend to play pretty aggresively though, so I tend to be pushing my opponents (both human and AI) back to their city walls long before they can field anything with any real armor. Granted I'm talking about fighting whoever is closest to me, not everyone, but you said early-mid game.

I rush for the hive tyrant. I find there are few mid game problems that cannot be solved by a hive tyrant, tyranid prime, and a tervignon healing the crap out of them while swarming with all the free terms I had saved up.

Zoanthropes have an ability that absolutely wrecks armor, as well. My big stuff seems to eat through armor without issue once I start fielding it.

Oh, and I second the earlier post that gargoyles seem to handle most early game units with little trouble. Just try to get your terms to take the overwatch hit, then jump the gargoyles in to do the damage.

[JDPUK]

Originally posted by Quasicide:

Don't despair help is on the way! :D

"My heroes have always been Tyranid Cowboys, and they still are it seems..." - Willie Nelson after his assimilation into Hivefleet Quasi

The Tyranids require clever use of combined arms and cunning tactics, but once your figure them out they are one of the most powerful factions in the game. Many Guardsmen died to bring you this information. They tasted so yummy!

Thorpes
Malans are masters of debuff enemy units via Spore Cloud and Grasping Tail.
Zoans have an armor cracking Warp Blast Lance and alternate that with the debuffing Paroxysm.
These units are also useful as synapse links and the Malans are also strip miners.
Most new players overlook these creatures, but they are essential!
They are also unexpectedly tough and have regen, so don't be shy.

So sayeth Sun Tzu: On deadly ground, fight!
May seem obivous, but Terrain is often overlooked.
Engage enemy range attackers within the cover of cities, ruins and forests.

Prime Time
You're heroes are extremely powerful units, especially when leveled and equipped with items.
The Prime is an armor shattering machine.
The Hive Tyrant may be the best hero in the game.
The Tervigon is the best support hero in the game!
Have the Tervigon heal the other two and watch them tear apart the enemy's toughest units.
Be sure your heroes are being given HP, armor and damage boosting items.

Cannon Fodder
Termagaunts and such are intended to soak up overwatch shots and attacks.
Then your more powerful units emerge from behind them and attack.
Your Tervigon hero can actually spam Termagaunts when it isn't healing.

So sayeth Sun Tzu: Be like water, flow past strength and wash away weakness!
Don't play the AM's game by battering at their Leman Russ while their Basilisks pound you.
If you can, use your flyers, ambushers, Broodhives and cunning to hit the squishest first.

Monstrous Express
Early on Carnifex units are useful for soaking damage and countering armor, especially when upgraded with Bone Maces and supported by Thorpes. Tyranid players usually have an entire city dedicated to churning out monstrous creatures. Later, this city can be used to churn out Trygon and Tyrannofex.

Large Economy, yet Small Specialized Cities
Often Tyranids will have at least 3 cities, each without a population upgrade; one dedicated to monstrous creatures, one dedicated to infantry, and one dedicated to Thropes, heroes and flyers (if necessary).

A Tale of Two Cities
This compartmentalization allows you to trade cities more easily than other factions. If an avalanche is coming for one of yours, use your Broodhives to destroy one of theirs. No other faction can afford to trade cities like the Tyranids can.

Slap! Slap! Stifle.
Don't allow your enemies to sit idle and build up. Use your powerful heroes supported by units to aggressively disrupt their expansion.

Slash and Burn
Your Malans should often be strip mining the world to boost biomass. Likewise, recycle scrubby units so that they can rise like a Phoenix as a more powerful creature.

The Cake is a Lie!
Tyranids massively benefit from aggressive R&D. Consider early building a 2nd Thrope building to fuel this research. Don't forget to use your Thropes in the field, since they generate research points when they level.

He who hesitates is lost!
Once you have the pieces in place to win the game... win it! A common mistake is to be overly timid, and allow the AM to achieve their highest levels of technology.

Nemesis Factor
Thanks to Broodhives, you can attack enmass anywhere. Don't randomly choose who to wipe out or harass! Target the AM first, and then the Necrons. You can leave the bumbling Orks and plucky Space Marines for later. They don't pose the same kind of endgame threat like the AM and Necrons do. Defeating the AM begins the moment the game starts, not when you randomly stubble into their unstoppable juggernaut of destruction.

The sum of all fears...
The Hivemind's endgame is unstoppable, the trick is getting there. At first you must be a lurking menace, then a vexing pest. Yet ultimately, you're a time bomb the other factions must disarm before you reach critical mass.

Quite possibly the best post ever on this forum - great stuff man, salute!

[Antpile]

Really don't underestimate the zoanthropes. I just hit my friend's leman russ for 20 damage with one a few hours ago. He wasn't pleased.

[Stone]

Originally posted by H3avy:

I just realised that most tyrand infantry have no ap. What should I use for anti armor since I am being bum rushed with the armored steel boot of the AM.

This is gonna be fixed in a upcoming patch. One of the Devs have addressed units having no AP and that they're already looking into fixing it and some units not doing the correct damage.

[Quasicide]

Originally posted by JDPUK:

Quite possibly the best post ever on this forum - great stuff man, salute!

Thank you for your kind words.

The real credit goes to the Wonder Pets! They brought a lot of joy to the Hivemind after they were devoured by the Swarm and assimilated. Like the Hive's new theme song says...

Wonder 'Nids! Wonder 'Nids!
We're on our way,
To help a friend and save the day.
We're not too big,
And we're not too tough.
But when we work together,
We've got the right stuff!
Go Wonder 'Nids!
Yay!

- Cheers!

[Skoll]

Originally posted by RS ⎝Stoniest⎠™ 【Stone:

This is gonna be fixed in a upcoming patch. One of the Devs have addressed units having no AP and that they're already looking into fixing it and some units not doing the correct damage.

Got a link?