Editing Warhammer 40,000/6th Edition Tactics/Tyranids (section)

==Why Play Tyranids==
Because you're hungry!!!

(Cough) From a gameplay perspective, the Tyranid army is a tactically engaging force with a lot of strengths, as well as some weaknesses which must be dealt with in order to make the most of them. The army itself is noted for being able to purchase a variety of deployment options, including manipulation of Reserve Rolls if you take the Swarmlord,  the ability to reroll the table edge from Outflanking, and other options to complement conventional Deep Strike and Infiltration options; the Tyranids therefore have a degree of flexibility in building a force which operates in a manner besides simply lining their force opposite the opponent's guns. Likewise, they possess a fair amount of support units, capable of either buffing or debuffing units as need be, or otherwise acting as force-multipliers to the army as a whole. As much as they can now. No more access to the main rulebook psychic powers means no more iron arm, warp speed, or anything else we liked. Its only the tyranid psychic powers now, or nothing... (Although the 'nid only powers could be a lot worse)

In melee, the Tyranids operate off numerous cheap infantry, complemented by larger (and far pricier) Monstrous Creatures; the former are exceptionally point-efficient at taking out enemy infantry, and when properly supported will defeat almost anything in close-combat on account of their high initiative and mass of Poisoned/Furious Charge attacks. The Monsters *can* deal with heavier infantry (especially Trygons and the new Haruspex), but their lack of attacks for their cost generally make them more useful for finishing off vehicles or acting as a living shield to pull attacks away from your swarms. In some cases it is a good idea to make assaults into cover using heavy linebreakers like Trygons since the overwhelming majority of Tyranid units lack assault grenades. Warriors now have assault grenades, but still have a problem with ID. Your units will be Fearless most of the time, a mixed bag: unable to go to ground out of combat, but more importantly, ideal tarpits while in combat. Learning to screen your army and understanding which units to sacrifice to achieve victory is critical.

Tyranid shooting is primarily geared towards anti-infantry, with an abundance of Large Blast and rapid rate-of-fire weapons available to them. However, their anti-tank is either short-ranged, unreliable, of low Strength and AP, or any combination of the three; as a rule, Tyranids shouldn't try to kill vehicles by shooting, so much as disable them and render them vulnerable to being torn apart in melee, with  a few exceptions (Zoanthropes and Hive Guard). However, they now have a fresh option with the new bio-electric weapons. They have haywire, so vehicles aren't too tough to take out. But you still need hiveguard or the new flyer, the Hive Crone, to get it.

The current codex is a mixed bag. It's got one or two good builds (Flyrant + Hive Crones + Carnifexes) but most of your stuff just isn't worth taking in the current metagame. It can be great at the best of times and at worst is little more than a copypaste of the 5th ed. codex with more nerfs. Gone are some of the good units like Doom of Malan'tai and the Parasite of Mortrex, the ability to use psychic powers from a Discipline, and the option to use Mycetic spores (due to the Chapter House incident leading to GW not to make rules for any units which don't have their own models).  That said, Spore Mines are legitimately usable now, Gaunts are cheaper, Exocrine and Haruspex are actually quite decent ([[Games Workshop|of course GW would make the new units decent; another attempt to squeeze more money out of their customers]]), and almost all of the monsters are cheaper. However, perhaps most importantly, the Carnifex is now a viable choice due to a points drop and access to its old options. It's up to people's opinions as to whether the good outweighs the bad, some people like the changes, others think they will suffer for it. I guess we'll have to wait and see like last time.

Note: In a surprising show of mercy, GW is releasing a three-part set of Dataslates full of Formations that Tyranids can use in exchange for their disappointing lack of other forces.  Some aren't as good as others, but considering the situation, any hand helps.