Team Trial: The Animorphs

 

Inspired by my recent analysis on Animorphs, a series about a team that is known for their teamwork and group achievements as opposed to individual list of achievements, as well as my friend Thor's recent Death Prediction featuring two inseperable Teams; The Eds vs the Warners I wanted to try out a new blog series: Team Trial. This is a blog analyzing the Animorphs as a team rather than as individual combatants. If this blog gets a good reception, maybe I'll do more.

Five kids took an ill-advised trip through an abandoned construction site one night and came across the crash landing of an alien named Elfangor. Elfangor told the kids that the Earth was under the secret invasion of a race of aliens known as the Yeerks and gave them a power to fight back. This was the power to morph into any species they could touch, the power to morph. While the ranks of the Animorphs have been as low as arguably 4 to as large as arguably 23, this blog will focus on the iconic central team of six. 

The Animorphs all have their distinctive power of acquiring the DNA of other species and gaining the ability to morph them for up to two hours at a time. As such their physical stats vary based on their forms. However all of them have acquired their mighty Polar Bear morph, possibly the most powerful of the land predators on Earth today. Polar Bears can reach over 30 kilojoules of power with their charges, with bite force over 1200 PSI, and with the capacity to bring down large aquatic mammals. As such all the Animorphs should be able to reach wall level in attack potency and durability with their strongest morphs. In addition, all the Animorphs in their default morphs are depicted as defeating Hork-Bajir, often multiple Hork-Bajir, Hork-Bajir being the Yeerk Shocktroopers, tough enough to withstand being hit by a truck without much injury. For even more power, Jake and Marco acquired the Rhinocerous, powerful armored animals with a charge of 221 Kilojoules while Cassie, Rachel, Tobias, and Ax acquired the African Elephant, the largest land animal currently on Earth whose charge can reach above 125 kilojoules at least. Yet when they fought the Helmacrons who at the time were larger than them, Rachel's elephant morph was unable to do any injury, but when the other Animorphs thought the Helmacrons had killed Marco, in anger their shark morphs were able to tear through the Helmacrons, suggesting that they might reach above this. In terms of speed, their speed also varies between their morphs, however all of them have acquired birds of prey morphs that regularly reach dive speed above Mach 0.1, or the basis for subsonic speeds. 

Mentally all the Animorphs are skilled enough in combat to fight trained Yeerk soldiers with all the information of their host body, and often multiple of them at once. And while their intelligence levels and type vary, they are all at least intelligent enough to avoid arousing suspicion and revealing their identities despite controllers being secretly everywhere looking for them the entire series.

All Animorphs have the power to acquire the DNA of any living species that can touch, putting them briefly in a trance as they are acquired, before being able to morph that species at any point from then on. When Morphing, the Animorphs restore their bodies entirely, so long as the DNA itself wasn't damaged, allowing them to heal from any manner of injury that they can still concentrate through. Also while morphed the Animorphs can use the Andalite ability of "thought-speak", telepathic communication. While the individual morphs of the Animorphs vary; there are some morphs or kinds of morphs and thus abilities they tend to have in common. All of them have bird morphs for flight and aquatic morphs including Giant Squids for deep-sea missions. All of them have bug morphs for stealth including the cockroach for its sheer survivability. They all have access to canine and feline morphs which grants them enhanced senses and Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Rachel have access to Skunk morph for a smell attack. All of them have also acquired Hork-Bajir morphs, Hork-Bajir being powerful arboreal creatures with sharp blades for stripping trees of their bark and an extreme level of endurance, such that they can tear off the tops of their heads and expose their brains with seemingly no pain. They have many more morphs for more specialized purposes but generally they rely on their standard battle morphs for combat.

Jake is the team leader, described as a charismatic, athletic, and intelligent young man. He is known for his leadership and even as he begins to mentally break under the pressure of the world as the series goes on, is able to inspire loyalty and teamwork in the Animorphs, with the group falling apart the few times he's absent, inspiring them and holding them together with his bravery, responsibility, and cool-headedness. Jake successfully leads a team of six teenagers in a guerilla war against an advanced alien civilization eventually leading to the final defeat of that species main force personally through clever manipulation of an advanced race of AI that has existed on Earth since the early ages of man, two separate groups of Yeerks, another group of Animorphs, the free Hork-Bajir, the Taxxon renegades, and his own team in a 4D chess move, as well as saving an alien planet from the universe's ultimate warriors and deadliest killing machines in a one-off book before completely neutering the entire species outwitting the evil godlike entity that made them, defeating one of these warriors and acquiring them through clever use of the terrain. He was also able to outwit two separate military teams of Andalites despite Andalites being a highly advanced race compared to humans as well as being one of the better fighters of the Animorphs both in morph and out of morph. 

Jake's main battle morph is the Siberian Tiger, a well-balanced battle morph with a high level of power, speed, stealth, agility, and senses. Historically individual tigers have terrorized individual villages, being one of the few animals not scared off by fire, matching Jake's seemingly unbreakable bravery and will. Jake can sacrifice some versatility for greater power by using a Rhinoceros morph, a morph he used to tear through walls and which was basically immune to small gunfire. 

Even more impressive, however, Jake managed to defeat and acquire a Howler. Howlers are creatures made by Crayak, an evil godlike being that mentally fights the Elimist for control of the universe, to be the ultimate fighting machines. Howlers regularly committed genocide of entire alien races, being the ultimate warriors with the collective fighting memory of their entire race, with a single one able to fight off the battle morphs of all the Animorphs at once. In addition to their super stats and superhumanly high level of skill, Howlers have several other powers to aid their nature as the ultimate warriors. They have x-ray vision to see their enemies weak points, can track the trail of their prey, can regenerate from having their limbs or torso twisted 360 degrees, have claws, and worst of all have the howl, a debilitating sonic attack that disorient anyone who hears it. 

Cassie is the empathetic hippie heart and moral center of the Animorphs. She is known for her empathy and moral intuition, as well as having the greatest natural talent for morphing. She can morph particular body parts in order as opposed to them randomly changing and can do so faster and with less difficulty than normal, as well as having an easier time adjusting to various animal minds, possibly due to her greater empathy for other perspectives. Her empathy and compassion eventually starts the Yeerk Peace Movement, a movement of Yeerks wishing to no longer take involuntary hosts, and eventually fragments the Yeerks into two sides as the Yeerks and Taxxons find a different way to escape their biological limitations through morphing. She was also able to personally infiltrate the Yeerk Pool (The Yeerk Command Center) by herself and save the leader of the Yeerk Peace Movement, performed successful brain surgery on Ax, and was the one that eventually stopped the Veleek, a giant Saturnian hive organism by morphing from bird to human to whale in midair and crushing it under the whale's weight, a feat of speed-morphing thought impossible, a tactic she will repeat twice more in the series. Her morphing ability is strong enough that she has performed the seemingly impossible feat of morphing an animal before she's finished demorphing another animal and somehow helped Marco finish demorphing after he was caught mid-morph at the 2 hour limit. Eventually it's revealed that she's an "Anomaly", a person who will always know what events "should" have happened and has a resistance to alternate timelines. In Megamorphs 4 in a dark timeline where the Animorphs never got their powers, Cassie knew things weren't how they should be, and began to unravel the timeline, returning from death and killing Visser 3, aiding Jake and Ax in completely destroying the Yeerk forces on Earth even better than they had in the original timeline. 

Cassie's main battle morph is a wolf. The wolf is on the weaker side for a battle morph, but excels in endurance, being able to run all night, and its support abilities. The wolf has extremely good senses and excels at pack strategies, reflecting Cassie's naturally intuitive and cooperative nature. She also has an elephant morph for greater firepower, a pit viper morph for access to a stealthy poisonous strategy, and a giant anteater morph which she used against the race of tiny megalomanic aliens the Helmacrons. 

Marco is the sarcastic jokester of the team as well as the pragmatic realist. He points out the flaws, often the insanity, in his teammates' plans and keeping the others alive. Marco has a better tactical mind than even Jake, though lacks his force of will and charisma to lead as well an ability to be completely utilitarian in the achievement of his goals. Through clever tactical thinking and more than a dash of ruthlessness Marco manages to psychologically defeat Visser One, the highest-ranked Yeerk in the entire Yeerk Military multiple times and manages to save both his parents including his mother, the host of Visser One. Marco is the one who most consistently can understand the political maneuvering of both the Yeerks and the Andalites, helped Ax hack into the Pentagon for fun, managed to tag the super-speed empowered alien the Garathon with his cobra morph, a feat described as being almost like catching a bullet from midair, and was able to go through the a several years guerilla war with the least psychological damage thriving after the war due to his pragmatic and realistic mindset 

Marco's main battle morph is the Gorilla "Big Jim." This form gives him a lot of striking power while allowing him to retain thumbs and the ability to manipulate and use tools, befitting Marco's utilitarian temperament and intelligence. If he needs greater firepower, Marco also has a rhinoceros morph and has absorbed a Cobra morph giving him access to a deadly paralyzing venom. 

Rachel is the team's gusto and spirit. She's a fashionista who always somehow looks good yet is also the one enjoys the fight the most, with Marco nicknaming her "Xena: Warrior Princess." She acts as the team's initiative, their drive, with her catchphrase being "Let's do it!" Rachel has the most impressive combat feats of the Animorphs often fighting off whole squads of Hork-Bajir single-handedly, and during her final mission she, as a grizzly bear, fought evenly against several morph-capable yeerks including two lionnesses, one polar bear (alone a match for the Grizzly Bear), a cape buffalo and a cobra. She regularly shows crazy endurance like early on continguing to fight after having her paws sliced off, beating up a Hork-Bajir with her own severed arm, and tunneling her way out of a Kronasaurus' stomach. In Megamorphs 4's alternate timeline where the Animorphs didn't get their powers, she saved Jake and Marco from two controllers using just a baseball bat. Over the entire series, Crayak, an immortal malevolent godlike entity tries to seduce Rachel to the dark side and in her final book she foils his plan, a plan he was willing to sacrifice the entire Yeerk invasion on Earth for. 

Rachel's main battle morph is the Grizzly Bear, a morph with extreme levels of power and tankiness reflecting Rachel's drive to dive right into the heart of battle. It's an open question who'd win between Jake's Tiger and Rachel's Bear morph which comes up in a couple of books, but Jake subtly implies Rachel's stronger when he loses a one v one against David's Lion Morph, yet in the same book believes Rachel would be able to stop him. Rachel also has the Elephant morph for extra firepower, and she uses it more often than anyone else on the team uses their firepower morph. She temporarily acquired a crocodile morph which was a particularly powerful morph for battle, able to tank even her own Grizzly bear morph's strikes, but can no longer use it due to particular circumstances. 

Tobias was initially a bullied kid the other Animorphs let tag along mostly out of pity, seemingly unwanted by anyone before getting trapped in the form of a Red-Tailed Hawk. While he eventually regains his morphing ability, for the rest of the series Tobias is primarily a hawk, who acts as the aerial reconnaissance for the other Animorphs. Tobias was instrumental in freeing the Hork-Bajir from the Yeerks' control for which the next leader of the Hork-Bajir, the seer Toby Hamee is named after him. He also withstood several hours of torture by Taylor, Visser Three's choice of torturer, without going insane or dying and saved the other Animorphs several times even just as a Hawk without morphing capability. He also is kind of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs and also kind of killed Hitler, both long stories.

Tobias typically enters battle in his natural Red-Tailed Hawk where he acts as an aerial scout for the other Animorphs and strategically divebombs whichever of the others need helps, reflecting his silent protective presence. Tobias in his hawk morph is fast enough to rip at Visser Three's stalk eyes without being hit by his tail blade despite the Andalites superhuman reactions and sense of spacetime. For one v one matches, Tobias has numerous more powerful forms including the Elephant and Hork-Bajir. He also has a cape bull morph and has acquired Ax, an Andalite. Outside of combat, Tobias has a few other odd morphs including a Nartec, a Leatherface Atlantean with amphibious capabilities and the ability to easily survive the pressure of the deep as well as a Taxxon, an alien species that has an extreme capability to dig. 

Axmili-Esgarrouth-Ishthill or "Ax" is the younger brother of Elfangor, the Andalite Hero who gave the Animorphs their power who's story is about living up to Elfangor's legacy and acting as a bridge between the Humans and the Andalites. With his native Andalite advanced intellect as well as his combat prowess as an Andalite Cadet he provides the Animorphs lots of help both in and out of combat and is eventually considered one of their ranks. Through courage and loyalty, Ax helped humans be acknowledged as equals by the Andalites, scared off Visser Three several times, and was the one who won the war the Andalites and Yeerks had on the Leeran home planet by blowing up an entire continent. In the dark timeline where the Animorphs didn't gain powers, Ax launched a one-man guerilla war against the Yeerks and still almost succeeded single-handedly, albeit with far greater losses. He one-shot a crocodile the other Animorphs were having trouble doing anything to, learned enough humility to outwit an entire Andalite paramilitary group including one he was in love with, mentally broke Visser Two, accidentally advanced human science by centuries, and after the war was instantly promoted to Prince Rankin the military, becoming an Andalite Hero in the same league as Elfangor. 

Ax typically goes into battle in his normal Andalite form. This grants him access to his extraordinarily fast, powerful, and precise tail blade as a weapon, a level of advanced intelligence, as well as stalk eyes that can see things in 360 degrees and see further into the light spectrum. Ax can also morph into an Elephant for greater firepower, has a Taxxon morph for digging capabilities, and has a rattlesnake morph to gain access to poison which he almost used to poison and kill Visser Three in Ax's first book. 

More than their individual capabilities; the Animorphs are known for their teamwork and their capability as a team. They defeated the main Yeerk forces in the three-year-long guerilla war for Earth, pretty much winning the interstellar Andalite-Yeerk war. They also won the war for the Leeran Planet, they defeated Crayak's team of ultimate killers to save the Iskoort Planet, stopped the Nartecs (a race of inbred Atlanteans) from trying to conquer the world with nuclear weapons, created a slave revolt within the tiny megalomaniac race of the Helmacrons, destroyed several Yeerk Pools, and stopped Visser Four with the greatest weapon in the galaxy's history from changing the timeline to destroy human history. In Megamorphs 4 it's revealed that the Animorphs were a team arranged to gather together by the Elimist for their unique strengths such that when the reality-warping minion of Crayak the Drode tried to destroy them by reality-warping history so they never got their powers, they defeated the Yeerks even faster and the Drode himself eventually gave up in frustration.

In terms of weaknesses, the Animorphs do have individual weaknesses. Jake takes too much responsibility on his shoulders and apparently can't tell a joke to save his life. Cassie becomes too fixated on the deeper implications lacking pragmaticism and also is a terrible liar. Marco lacks a degree of willpower and determination, and also is comedically unlucky, especially with the ladies. Rachel is an impulsive hothead and is a rather impatient leader. Tobias is sometimes caught between his human and hawk half and is bad at social interactions. Ax is sometimes limited by his pride and strict alien warrior code of honor and gets comedically distracted by making sounds and experiencing tastes when he is morphed something with a mouth, especially cinnamon bun-zuh. However the Animorphs balance out each others personality weaknesses and their only collective weaknesses are weaknesses of the morphing technology. Morphing is taxing on one stamina and takes at dozens of seconds to go from one state to another, with the Animorphs very rarely getting to use more than 1 or 2 morphs in a fight. They also cannot use a morph for more than two hours at a time, or they will become trapped in it forever. 

Name: The Animorphs

Origin: Animorphs

Powers and Abilities: Shapeshifting, Regen (Low-Mid), Biological Copying (Acquiring new DNA), Telepathy, Flight, Aquatic/Amphibious/Arboreal Movement/Survival, Enhanced Stealth, Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Endurance, Various forms of Natural Weapons, Smell Attack (Skunk Morph), Superhuman Intelligence (Ax), Superhuman Skill (Howler Morph), Sonic Disorientation Attack (Howler Morph's Howl), Poison (Cassie, Marco, and Ax's snake morphs), Enhanced Digging (Rachel's mole morph and Tobias and Ax's Taxxon morphs), Adhesive attack (Cassie's Anteater morph), Superhuman Sense of Spacetime (Ax), Resistance to Psychological Manipulation (Rachel resisted Crayak and the Drode attempting to seduce her to the dark side), Resistance to Time Manipulation (Cassie is a temporal anomaly that unravels timelines that should not exist)

Weaknesses: Various psychological weaknesses, can not stay in morph for longer than 2 hours, morphing is stamina-intensive and in most cases requires one to demorph to go from one morph to another, though Cassie has a limited ability to get around this

Attack Potency: Up to Wall Level with combat morphs

Durability: Up to Wall Level with strongest morphs

Speed: Upper Human Level to Superhuman level for most in their combat morphs. Tobias is Subsonic in his normal combat morph as are the others in their fastest morphs.

Range: Melee range for most morphs. Higher for the Jake's Howler morph

Stamina: At least upper Human Tier, Superhuman for Rachel (The Animorphs have undergone numerous morphs in quick succession, especially after training when early even a few morphs made them extremely exhausted and have mentally held up under torture, undergoing horrific injuries from weapons like the Dracon Beam, and long-term mental exertion and strain. Rachel has the highest, resisting the mental attack of Crayak to control her and continuing to fight even after losing limbs)

Skill: At least Mid C Tier, likely High C Tier for the best fighters of the group, Mid A Tier for Howler Morph (The Animorphs regularly had to fight and beat trained Yeerk soldiers and late in the series had to defeat the elite Hork-Bajir of Visser Three, the bluebands. Jake with his Howler morph would have access to the collective combat knowledge of the entire Howler race)

Intelligence: At least Clever for each member, likely Brilliant for Jake and Marco, Type 2 Superhuman for Ax (All of them avoided being detected by the Yeerks for years and came up with plans to escape death in unlikely situations. Jake led them to an unlikely victory in a guerilla war with Marco being his tactical superior and helping Ax to hack into the Pentagon for fun. Ax has several superhuman feats such as modifying the Helmacron technology to shrink the Animorphs and pursue them, accessing Z-Space, and accidentally advancing human science several centuries)

Standard Equipment: Nothing Notable

So for this blog series idea the idea was after explaining the group, I would mention three villains or threats the team could likely take down together they couldn't alone, roughly in order of difficulty from "it's arguable if one member could solo" to "would be very hard even with all of them." There could also be a fourth villain from their own series if there's a villain fitting that description from their universe. And for Animorphs there is indeed one. So what threats could the Animorphs stop?

The Garatron. 

The Garatron is a one off villain from Book 37 - The Weakness, an inspector for the Yeerk Political Body the Council of Thirteen to investigate Visser Three's progress. During this book Jake is away from town and Rachel is in charge. The Garatron has super speed and reflects Rachel's own impulsive and short-term focused leadership style. The Garatron casually defeated the Animorphs several times via its high level of speed to the point even Andalites had trouble reacting to it. But, what if Jake was back in town leading the team?

I could simply say "well the Animorphs eventually defeated together even without Jake", but that's not quite fair. Most of the Animorphs distracted the Garatron while Marco in cobra morph used stealth to bite the Garatron when he moved close to his position, the fast metabolism of the Garatron killing him with poison quickly. In this scenario the Garatron would be focused on killing them directly and in an open environment, it would be harder for them to plan for the Garatron to get in any particular position, plus they wouldn't have Visser Three betraying the Garatron to rely on. However, I still think they could do it.

On a narrative level, the threat of the Garatron is meant to be contingent on Jake's absence and Rachel having to take leadership. Beyond that Jake's Tiger Morph is the most stealthy of the combat morphs outside maybe Tobias' hawk form. But even more so if Jake uses his Howler Morph, I definitely think he would be a big threat to even a Garatron. The Howler's regen and toughness mean it would be hard for a Garatron to do anything and with his skill Howler Jake would likely hit the Garatron, especially as while the Garatron is fast, it's very arguable if it could do something like outrun the soundwave of a Howler's howl.

In a pure one v one, the Garatron could still win depending on the environment by using something in the environment, but with the other five Animorphs for coordinated distractions, I think Jake could lead them into getting a hit on the Garatron. Even if Jake doesn't use his Howler morph, I think Jake would be able to replicate the stealth strategy they used against the Garatron even in less optimal conditions for it. 

I think the Animorphs together would beat the Bane from the Underland Chronicles with relatively low difficulty. I don't wanna downplay the power and speed of the Bane. The Bane is the same height as a T-Rex, something Ax though he was highly unfavored against in a 1 v 1 fight and has power feats to back that up basically accidentally killing gnawers as touch as a wolf or gorilla and he's as fast as the Animorphs stronger morphs.

That said, those are his only abilities. His skill is decent, but it's only on par with the weaker fighters of the Andalites with Jake, Rachel, and Ax being clearly better fighters than the Bane. He has decent psychological manipulation but far less than what the Animorphs are used to and can themselves do. Beyond that he's an overgrown manchild who would be easily outwit. He makes VISSER THREE look calm and stable by comparison. The Animorphs also have just a ton more abilities including the ability to regenerate from anything but a lethal blow onto them while he has no regen as well as things like poisons he has no resistance to.

Once again, I don't wanna downplay his sheer stats and if this was a one v one of the Bane vs any one of the Animorphs they'd probably be overwhelmed by his sheer stats. The Bane is stated to move nearly as fast as Rager Gregor who can move solidly faster than the eye at this point, in Animorphs terms as fast as Tobias, and would be comparable in mass and power to a battle morph. But the Animorphs have a ton of experience fighting giant monsters (Visser Three's Morphs) of similar size to The Bane and usually some kind of broken special ability as well as better mental capabilities. I think together they would win pretty handily.

I think the Animorphs could defeat Hama from Avatar: the Last Airbender with mid difficulty. This is sort of dependent on where they fight and what you think the physical stats of Benders from ATLA are but for this I'm assuming that they're fighting where Hama fought Katara, an empty forest during a Full Moon, and Hama who's a really good bender but also an old woman who only took attacks from Katara not trying to kill her at all, that she'd only scale to the physical feats of fodder benders. In which case beating Hama would be difficult though not impossible for the Animorphs.

Hama is most well-known for her development of blood-bending, controlling peoples' bodies via the blood in their bodies. However, she has only shown the ability to control two people at a time, possibly because she has only two hands and bending involves making bodily motions to control the elements. Via manipulation of the Animorphs' bodies, she could essentially use two of the Animorphs against each other at any time. There is some complication in that their minds remain normal, meaning the Animorphs can begin demorphing as Hama controls them, but morphing does take dozens of seconds even for experienced morphers. As such it would be a tactical battle of Hama trying to maneuver the changing Animorphs into trying to kill each other while protecting herself while they try to get to her without killing each other.

Hama can hypothetically go for the kill against any of the individual Animorphs at any point by removing the blood or water from their bodies or given she suggested that with the Full Moon she was stronger than any prior point her bending ability would be above her younger self who helped lift and freeze an entire battleship, she could just overwhelm any of the Animorphs with a massive surge of water, assuming she could draw them it from the forest around them, ripping it from the surrounding trees which may depend on how large her range is. However, against six opponents, it's more likely she'd be more concerned with defending herself rather than going for the offense against anyone in particular, using the two she is controlling at any one point to defend herself. It's also true that most partial offenses she uses the Animorphs can potentially regenerate from. If she cut off a limb with a water spray for instance from one of the Animorphs, especially from someone like Rachel, they could probably maintain consciousness and demorph. Morphs with the least amount of blood would likely be at the most risk meaning Tobias in his natural morph would probably be at the biggest threat of suddnly dying.

However, against six enemies who can regenerate from non-lethal damage, I think Hama would be particularly pressed. She does have an extreme level of reaction speed as a Bender and strong enough physical stats she might be able to withstand an attack from one of the Battle Morphs, especially a weaker one, but Ax's sheer intelligence and the silent coordination that thought-speak gives means that the Animorphs would constantly be able to plan around Hama's actions. It's also noted that bending, especially difficult bending like bloodbending requires some level of concentration something that could be disrupted just by all the sudden shapeshifting into bizarre and literally alien creatures and there's some argument about whether sufficient physical strength would allow you to pull away from the bending. Overall while Hama could easily beat any one Animorph in a fight not accounting for stealth tactics, I think she would get overwhelmed in a fight against all six.

I think the Animorphs may be able to beat a Xenomorph with high difficulty. This fight is a lot less complex than the last one, it's just that Xenomorph stats are much higher. Most real world animals only get into the low to mid wall level range while normal Xenomorphs have high wall level feats of ripping apart steel doors and elevators, and have upper-end subsonic that allows them do dodge bullets and move like a blur, basically recreating the Garatron's speed. Except instead of a being with ONLY the Garatron's tree, a Xenomorph also has power similar to the T-Rex, something Ax thought he would lose against 90% of the time. Beyond that Xenomorphs have several abilities including being a stealthy ambush hunter that impales opponents with its tail weapon. 

Even if Jake does use his Howler morph, fighting a Xenomorph would be difficult. The Howler probably has high enough stats it can at least keep up with a Xenomorph, but it would still be a very pressing threat. The Xenomorph can shoot acid and black genetically mutating goo. Morphing and Demorphing would be able to allow the Animorph to survive it, as they have dealt with acid before when they were shrunk tiny and nearly digested by stomach acid but it would still be an immense danger as Xenomorph acid can chew through ships meaning even a whale morph would not be safe from it.

A Xenomorph would be constantly a threat to any Animorph vaguely close to it pretty much regardless of what morph they're in, and they have little that they can do to hurt it directly given its speed, durability, and regen. The best chance is Ax's tail blade which is probably fast enough and powerful enough to slice off a limb from a Xenomorph, and Ax is a signifigantly better tail fighter than an average animalistic Xenomorph. That said it would be incredibly dangerous. Other possibilities including the Animorphs actually acquiring the Xenomorph, allowing them to use its abilities, though its a hive mind creature which have been historically difficult for the Animorphs to control when morphing and they would still need to get into physical contact with it in their normal form. The best odds for that would be Howler Jake using the Howl to stun the Xenomorph and then Tobias quickly grabbing it with his talon to acquire it. 

Win conditions for the Xenomorph in an Animorphs vs Xenomorph match would be to just blitz over to them and them hit them to the point of passing out and dying which is not as hard as it sounds given its sheer power and speed gap through the enhanced senses of Cassie and Tobias especially and the telepathy they share would give them some ability to avoid ambush and the Animorphs have a lot better endurance and tactical planning then most of its prey. On the other hand, the Animorph win cons are some combination of Jake's howler morph, one of the Animorphs, most likely Tobias acquiring it, Ax's tail blade, or Cassie crushing to with her whale morph which would be hard to set up as the Xenomorph could maneuver out of the way but would be enough force to crush it. While the stat gap is concerning, I think the Animorphs numbers, teamwork, and variety of abilities/win cons would allow them to get past a single subtier stat gap.