Who's played with the new nids (either as nids or against)? I've read some posts that whine about the meta-game changing or that nids have lots of useless units that no-one would ever pick. But as someone who doesn't have the book yet, or who's group doesn't have a nid army between them... what's the truth about the new book? Good, bad, balanaced or meh?

Since the release was only a few weeks ago, have managed to have 3 games so far;
1st - 6000pts Tyranids vs Chaos Marines (included Scythed Heirodule and a Heirophant)
2nd - 2000pts Tyranids vs Chaos Marines (who had both Ahriman and Abbadon)
3rd - 2000pts Tyranids vs Necrons

Not enough games really to tell, but found the following units effective/poor
Trygon - very scary to normal troop units which normally need 6's to wound with shooting and close combat
Mawloc - burrow attack really worries Heavy Weapon squads, but is actually very poor in combat.
Gargoyles - need to learn how to use these, short range and quite weak.
Zoanthrope - real Tank killer need them in pairs, worth killing as soon as possible, need to consider dropping in with Mycetic Spore
Genestealers - still worth it, either big mobs of 16+ or min objective grabbers of 5
Lictors - take in pairs, good choice to have if using Mawlocs / Trygons / Mycetic Spores for the locator beacon effect, always deploy in cover and go to ground to get 2+ save.

Still Need to see how good the following are: Swarmlod, Tervigon, Hive Guard Brood, Screamer Carnifex, Biovore?

Have a couple of other players at the club, who use their Tyranids in different ways than mine:
Ian - uses a lot of Tyranid Warriors and Carnifexes
Patrick - has a Winged Tyrant and Winged Warriors and shed load of Gargoyles
Will try and have a chat with them next monday and get their views.

Only just played my first game using the new nid codex last night.

I went through 7 draft army list designs before settling on the final all comers list:

Prime, 2boneswords, AG, Regen

3 Zoes
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard

Tervigon, AG/TS, Regen, Cluster spines, Catalyst
Tervigon, AG/TS, Regen, Cluster spines, Catalyst
10 Termagants
10 Termagants
22 Toxic Horms
23 Toxic Horms

Many of my first army list iterations tried to make use of the Hive Tyrants but I found that they were too expensive to justify and dertermined that the same number of points spent on gaunts would acheive better results.

Carnifexes were ruled out when I tallied up the cost of the Dualled armed TL brainleech variety.

And a similaiar story with the Trygon / Trygon Prime.

Started to see a pattern here - all the MCs were just far too expensive (pointswise) for the rolls I wanted them to fulfil, same no. of points on gaunts were more effective and durable (IMO).

Zoanthropes were an obvious choice and I toyed with the idea of a mycetic spore for them but cut it out to save points. The DoM / in Mycetic spore was considered but I threw it out on the bases that knowledgable opponents would be targetting it at earliest opportunity - no external warrior rule in a Nid army and all it would take would be a lucky LasCannon shot.

The Tervigons were pimped out - I wanted them to last and were designed in mind to sit on rear objectives - whilst the rest of my troops munched on the opponent over on there board edge.

Looked at the genestealers and was very tempted to include a unit, but felt that (almost) 2 hormies for 1 genestealer was a better buy.

The Prime was a cheap HQ (so that tervigons would count as troops) with a plan to join the Zoes and absorb any instant kill shots.

This filled out my 1500points exactly.

My pick up game was against a well informed and experience player who only plays Tau.

His list
2 Hammmerheads
2 Broadsides (drone)
2 FW squads
Pathfinder and DFish
2 Piranhas with meltas
around 5 - 7 various suits including the HQ.

My opponent conceded the game at the bottom half of the sixth turn.

My Zoes were targetted from the very start, ended the game with one left with 1 wound. The prime took a hammerhead S10 hit and fied immediately but saved a Zoe which I valued more in this game.
The Hive Guard were outstanding and kept the Hammerheads at bay. They aren't very killy in assaults, had trouble taking down 2 drones with 1 HG towards the end of the game.
The Tervigons were also outstanding, 1 out 1 success on the regeneration attempt. 1 birthed 12 gaunts and exhausted itself, the second managed two birthings and around a total of 20 gaunts combined. Total forgot about the cluster spines the whole game. Tervigons were quite apt at taking out Hammerheads in CC.
Termagants filled there role and died in droves, the AG, TS upgrades were really beneficial. I'll be sure to leave a trial of gaunts within 6 of the Tervi whilst the rest push ahead towards the enemy lines in future games.
Hormies whilst a little slower than the previous editon faired really well but then I was casting FnP on them on a regular basis throughout the game.

Looking forward to trying this list again, especiallly against a MEQ list.

Thanks guys. Interesting about the MCs being priced out of your lists.

I wonder what a warrior heavy list would play like. A tyranid army to me feels like it needs to have tyranid warriors in it.. probably nostalgia for advanced space crusade spreading its tendrills across my brain.

Anglewing talked about fielding an entire warrior army in another post. Maybe he had a chance to try it out.

I've only played 2 games so far. Much of the crying over on warseer has a point to it I fear.

Some stuff is below average, the pyrovore for example. Some stuff is just overshadowed by other units that can do the job better for the points eg carnifex versus trygon.
Some point values don't make sense eg harsh increases for tyrants, carnifexes and warriors. Some weapon and biomorph upgrades make you slightly worse yet cost more. Some weapons are simply worse or have been changed for no apparent reason either background or rule wise. Many units have rules that are very situational and won't do much eg lictor reserve bonus, tyrgon hole. Some rules are stupid, eg lictor now has to test for synapse and cannot assault from deployment, the mawloc can't actually use his cool subterranian attack unless it happens to scatter into a unit, by RAW. The biovore now has to test for synapse (but on the otherhand spore mine launcher is now assault)so it has to move with the rest of your army unless babysitted.
Some old models and options will have to be 'counts as' too.
Many rules have been taken away, eg move through cover isn't an army wide rule anymore. Eternal warrior has been taken away, and will hurt you depending on the enemy. I played orks yesterday and the large quantity of power claws tore my army to bits in short order. It was the heaviest defeat I've ever had with the nids (tabled in exchange for a few bikers, nobs and a commando unit) but that was mainly down to lack of experience, out of practice and my fixed army list now sub par in the new codex. (I didn't have any of the new good stuff at all)

The internal balance seems out of whack. I reckon lots of stuff simply won't be taken as the other half of the book is much better. Some may say that the old stuff is bad and the new models are good simply for money grabbing, but that quite isn't true as the venomthrope and pyrovore are very mediocre to useless, which seems madness from a new model sales point of view. I won't be seeing anyone buying 3 pyrovores to make them work okay.

However, there are lots of new things to play with, and I can cost up some of my armourcast models as a tyrannofex or tervigon. I'm actually looking forward to second wave releases.

The book itself is arranged badly requiring much flicking back and forth, but as the new rules are learnt this will be reduced.

Overall, there will be a few really good builds, but it encourages nidzilla again, this time with trygons (you know, the new expensive plastic kit......) I've only had to do a little rearranging and counts as, so not bad from my point of view. The book though feels like a first draft that needs playtesting to iron out the kinks and inconsistancies.
Roll on the FAQ.

I haven't tried to create a warrior heavy list yet, but I will do in the future, so watch this space.

Hmmmm... there's a thread on warseer on the topic of "reverse power creep" or something like that. This certainly sounds like a codex which isn't an immediate trump of all before it. Maybe that's a good thing?

If the codex did "go wrong" what do you think caused it. A delibrate attempt to avoid power creep or just poor or inexperienced writing (was it the new guy who wrote it?)

I like books that make you think and use combinations or try different stuff. This book has quite a bit of that, but quite a few obvious 'bad' and 'good' choices that will dictate most lists. I'm happy that this book isn't a fantasy daemon level of stupidity and thats very good.
As for the codex going 'wrong', I really think it was down to not enough playtesting. This book will probably be just right for the gaming environment in the studio, but given that the community has sniffed out the mediocre, must haves and mistakes so quickly I reckon it's another case of twin lash. ('we didn't think anyone would take two...') but on a codex scale. I won't blame the writer as we won't know what constraints and brief he was given.
They did do good at scaling back some of the obvious power of the old book (cheap twin devourer MC's, feeder tendrils etc) but most of it goes too far. I do applaud the attempt to reduce wound allocation abuse, even though my old warriors are waving their lash whip / bonesword combos in anger.
Spare a thought for my pretty, converted flying tyrant though. He got hit with a big stick in 5th ed main rules and got hit with another bigger stick in the 5th ed codex. I fear he will be sat in his box until the next apoc game comes round.

*I haven't fielded a nid list yet*.. still completly on a whitescars kick but

mortiferum wrote:Started to see a pattern here - all the MCs were just far too expensive (pointswise) for the rolls I wanted them to fulfil, same no. of points on gaunts were more effective and durable (IMO).
Looked at the genestealers and was very tempted to include a unit, but felt that (almost) 2 hormies for 1 genestealer was a better buy.

The Prime was a cheap HQ (so that tervigons would count as troops) with a plan to join the Zoes and absorb any instant kill shots..

Angelwing wrote:The internal balance seems out of whack. I reckon lots of stuff simply won't be taken as the other half of the book is much better.

those reflect my feelings as of my 2nd, 3rd 4th and 5th glances at the list, I've tried sketching out 4 or 5 1500s...and they all, after tweaking and covering gaps, look the same..
I have a horrible sensation that after the warseer general mode dies down (the next winge comes along) you'll have the web masses start saying "its the most balanced in the universe" it has good things and bad things,less broken things than the old one... and then the 3rd stage after a few template lists of the stuff highlighted above and a few combos start kicking in..it will be "its a crap list apart from X Y and Z" and every list forum will have "its sh1t you don't have all X,Y and Z"
In other words..I'm trying to elevate it above the chaos dex of lash Pms oblits (with radical being zerks in a raider) but really struggling..that doesn't mean tourny bad.. it just means boring.

the mawloc can't actually use his cool subterranian attack unless it happens to scatter into a unit, by RAW

where does it say you cant ds onto a unit by choice?

Models are impassable terrain and you cannot aim your DS into impassable terrain (scatter can take you into it).

There were a couple of multi page arguments on warseer about this. I agree with Matt. Unless the Mawloc rules state it can be placed on top of an enemy model before the scatter roll, it can't. Even though logic seems to point to it being that way, it will have to wait for an errata or FAQ to specify it.

It may well be that the author intended the Mawloc to be able to DS directly into enemy units. However, the rules forbid it whch means he should have created an override for the Mawloc. If he did mean it, you have to hope the FAQ corrects it or the argument will never go away.

I think the intent is definately there.. lol id just wrap up if my opponent said i couldnt.. like a kid taking his football away lol

Hed my first game against the new nids on Monday ( 1750pts )

my fairly hard CSM twin lash army ( practice for Warp Storm ) got raped................

the synergy in the unit he used was just to hard to stop,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, that said I would pick 2 specific targets to kill; turn1
Zoanthropes and the the Doom...............

Dooms psychic effect killed 30% of my infantry and 3 Oblits making me take Kd tests on 3 dice..............

Zoes nailed thye LR turn 1 and a rhino turn 2.............. and the big Gribblies killed everything the Dommm didn't

His list was............

Tervigon ( core )
HiVe Tyrant
Lictor
2 Zoanthropes
2 Trygons
Hormagants
termagaunts
Genestealers ( Broodlord )
2 pods

The Tyrant took no part in the game as he fluffed his D/S roll and died turn 2................

He could probably swap the tyrant for another tervigon and would probably drop the lictor for something else.............

some othe stuff is pants but and experienced player could soon find a list thats as hard as nails................