So, what exactly is wrong with the Tyranids?

[HouseLyrander]

I keep hearing they're the worst faction. I've heard mention of an overemphasis on melee and a lack of good anti armor. But are there other reasons?

[Khalagar]

The nids over all, aren't *terrible* but they are the weakest faction besides maybe Orks IMO. The Nids have some decent strategies involving cheese fueled by their broodhives, but it's just a gimmick and you will get absolutely creamed end game by any other army in a standing fight, besides maybe Orks? Even Orks might give you trouble honestly. Late Game SM are weak compared to Necrons and AM but will still cause Nids a nightmare of trouble.

• Extremely squishy, even their best end game units will get absolutely shredded by a single Heavy Weapons Team / Devastator / Heavy Destroyer etc. A single shot from a Heavy Weapons Team will nearly one shot a Carnifex and will do 60+% of a Trygons health
  
• Very low armor pen. Their heroes are their only real early game armor pen, and things like Lictors and Carnifex can do decent damage to tanks but will die in a single turn. Zoanthropes are their best anti armor unit, but can only attack once every other turn so . . .
  
• No Super heavies, at all. End game, Nids are totally outclassed in a standing fight. It takes like 8-10 shots from a Tyrannofex (the "best" end game unit for Nids) to kill a single land raider depending on the unit levels, and land raiders are the baby tier Super Heavy. If an end game army shows up with 5 super heavies (which is an absurdly LOW amount for an end game army) the nids will need like 40-50 Tyrannofex to do anything to them. And by comparison, the other units will two shot a Tyrannofex. If the enemy has Tesseract Vaults and Baneblades, you just cry
  
• Abysmal ranged damage. Almost all Nid units have a range of 1. Which would be fine, if they did damage to compensate. But they don't. Zoanthropes are the exception and do good damage, but only once every two turns so it evens out to be pretty meh too. The only real ranged units the Nids have is the Exocrine which sucks, and the Tyrannofex. So end game, you just build 400 Tyrannofex and basically nothing else besides a few Trygons for Broodhives and Carnifex for fodder
  
• Nids have too many bad units. Most Nid units are flat out bad and should never be built, like Hormagaunts and the Haruspex or what ever it's name is. Even at a tile range of 1, I see zero reason to use Exocrine over more Tyrannofex spam. They cost the same, but Exo do half the damage even at point blank range, pure mediocrity
  
• Carnifex require a crap ton of research to even be remotely viable. Right off the bat, the other factions have strong walkers and units that can at least do stuff. The basic Carni is a joke that's VASTLY out classed by Lictor. After you spend dozens of turns researching upgrades for it, it's still going to die, but it's *sort of* okay. But it takes so much more research just to be remotely competitive

[Overspool]

^ Unfortunately everything that this guy just said. I love them, but man do they suck lmao I've played about 150 hours worth of Nid matches. What I've found to work is lictor spam early and blitz AM bases as soon as you find them. Then crone spam and do the same thing while you prepare to tyranaspam. If you can get lictors up fast enough in 1 turn productions, you can stop the midgame for a lot of people, but if you get caught doing it you will lose them all.

I should say that I spam crones not because they are good per say, but because they can travel far per turn and really apply pressure to cities while you are trying to move your main killers in.

Kill AM bases ASAP in any match. Do NOT let them get tanks out, you will lose every match that they make it to late game. Tyranids have nothing to compete with them.

[Ond]

Like Khalagar I always play on very hard, one of each faction, huge map and FFA. All map settings at default.

The only viable way to play them seems to be spam free fodder every 3 rounds with the Tervis (aim to have two fast), and deal damage with a prime and a few lictors. You need to superzerg, and you need to make sure your lictors never take overwatch hits, as they are your most reliable damage, but die very fast.

Quite fiddly, as you need to advance very slow with a huge blob of mostly free units, and you will constantly have your fodder insta killed to overwatch. Tyrants are fantastic as finishers, but also needs to be carefully used to get kills, but no return fire towards the end of your round.

[Durak]

Agree with the posters above me.

Tyranids need a decent range unit like the biovore in the tabletop and a balance pass especially for monstrous creatures. The Carnifex for example, described as a "living battering ram" in the lore, would profit from a "crush" ability like the Gargantuan Squiggoth has (can't remember the exact name atm) to give him some more frontload damage to break up enemy lines.

Especially the Tyrannofex needs a buff to take him to the level of the other top-tire units.

[KDubya]

Maybe if you changed around some of the penalties for being out of synapse range. Losing morale is fine, losing movement is crippling as is losing health. If they were all lose morale that'd be a lot easier.

Or if that is not acceptable maybe a tech that increases synapse range for units in addition to cities.

Either change would let Tyranids be more mobile and thus use their mobility to overcome the other races firepower advantage.

Maybe give all the Tyranid units the ability to move through forests and terrain features without losing movement.

[Ond]

Another improvement for the Tyranids that would be easy to implement and makes a lot of sense, would be to give them HP regen per turn, like the Necrons.

They are organic, and all organic creatures heal naturally, unlike machines and undead :)

[coki187]

I think they're very accurate to their table top counter parts, stat and ability wise at least. I think a way to improve them and keep it accurate to the table top would be to reduce some cost so they can build a bigger swarm and change the way Rending works, so Rending claws buff offer a bigger boost. On the table top, Rending has several effects, one being it ignores armor and grants a bonus to damage to vehicles. But, on the table top, this is random to get, so in the game, it's a static dmg boost instead. Having Rending with some kind of armor pen would help them a lot.

[Kabookie]

Tyranids are top tier imo and needs some changes.
Their units are either op or rubish. Example zoanthrope. Tyranids research the fastest and have the best econ.

[Tigeryan]

Absolutely imbalanced. I've been kicking the Tyranid AI's chitin-plated butt for 100 turns (killing 2 - 3 stacks of boss units each turn and losing very few units in exchange) and he's still producing what I can just estimate is 5 - 6 boss units each turn, despite me having control of 80% of the map. A 200-turn exercise in frustration.

[Noodlesocks]

Originally posted by Tigeryan:

Absolutely imbalanced. I've been kicking the Tyranid AI's chitin-plated butt for 100 turns (killing 2 - 3 stacks of boss units each turn and losing very few units in exchange) and he's still producing what I can just estimate is 5 - 6 boss units each turn, despite me having control of 80% of the map. A 200-turn exercise in frustration.

You got screenshots of your cities?