Am I Doing This Wrong? Tyranids versus Space Marines

[Genosse]

Hi everyone, I'm playing my second game of Gladius with all DLC, I'm having a really tough time and want to see what I can do better.

I'm playing as the Tyranids on Hard and two issues really stand out to me. First, it seems like my units are totally unworkable versus the Space Marines. I've definitely made some mistakes in terms of not building enough cities to have a strong tech base, but Marine armor chews through my heroes and monstrous units in about one volley, whereas I'm just getting some exocrines online and other than that have no effective armor penetration.

First question - what units am I missing as Tyranids to counter Space Marine dreadnoughts and predators?

Second, the enemy has tons of units but I could swear several times enemies seem to fire twice in one round, adding to their advantage in numbers and tech. Is this a difficulty thing or something else? I thought hard just gave them a loyalty bonus but maybe I'm wrong.

Thank You for your feedback!

[SilasOfBorg]

Originally posted by Genosse:

Hi everyone, I'm playing my second game of Gladius...

Originally posted by Genosse:

I'm playing on Hard

There's your problem. Play on easy or medium until you've learned how to play to the Tyranid's strengths more effectively.

There are others in this group who can share the finer points of playing Tyranids, I haven't got much experience with them yet.

[kane]

Yeah what Borg said play on easy even give you're self a loyalty bonus to learn the game then move up.
Tunnels are you're best friend find enemy city get a tunnel near it also the nids are best with a lot of cites but i will say i do not have a lot off play time with the nids so other people will be able to help you better.

[Genosse]

Thanks for the advice! I think the loyalty disparity held back my city cap and hurt my long term competitiveness.

[Godwin]

Just finished a game as Orkz, but yeah, coz the Tyranids came out, I had given the Tyranid opponent a very large loyalty bonus vs a moderately large loyalty bonus for the rest of the opponents (me vs all 4 others).

But the Space Marines AI were roflstomping the Tyranids in my game when I got there.
So yeah, I'd say the Tyranids really suffer from lack of armor penetration. And the amount of Zoathropes the AI made was pretty mental. A few Lictors and I saw one Exocrine, but basically they got steamrolled by the Space Marines.

[Genosse]

The only unit I found that was decent against SMs was the Lictor and by the time I got them I was toast. It seemed like almost all Tyranid units lacked hitpoints and armor, hardly the monsters I imagine them to be in the lore, but what do I know?

Get the Tervigon hero for sure, his heal ability kept me in the fight longer than I should have been.