Codex Tyranids: Summary in first post

[Darkwynn]

People will not be running Harpies. At T5, 4+ save and no eternal they are horrible.

I don't think they are horrible, if you set them up and use them correctly they can be very efficient. Popping around in the backfield and playing pop shots they can be very effective. Then moving them over units when its time can be devastating.


Toughness 5 they are not going to die that often from Instant death. You will have one or two Str weapon on your opponents side and if you are smart enough you can keep the harpy away in distant.

Now that being said, I do like having three hive guard for the price of the harpy to get 6 Str 8 Ap4 shots.

I am going to be writing a post on some of the units that I view as stars and some of them as Point pit falls this upcoming week.

[Crevab]

Are you sure? Those posts always seem to go over so well

[Bigred]

Oh you know Darkwynn, he loves the drama...

I'm surprisingly going to be going Tervigon/Alpha Warriors/Termas myself. So now I need to find the best conversion idea for making a Tervigon...

[Darkwynn]

Are you sure? Those posts always seem to go over so well

one way or another someone will have their arms up flailing around the room screaming at their computer because of me

[Vepr]

If rumors and conjecture hold true it is rather sad to see the Tyrant, Carnifex, and warriors go the way of the dodo. It makes sense from a sales perspective for GW but still depressing. I was thinking we would get a lot of viable choices from Cruddace not no brainers and "you can always play them in friendly games..." units.

Instead of Nidzilla everyone running nids will be Tervigon, Hive Guard, gaunt spam it sounds like.

[MVBrandt]

You'll actually want a couple of fexes in the meatball of a Tervigon list IMO. That list in a perfect world is going to want to have 4-5 tervs, 2-3 fexes, 9 hive guard, and a relatively minimum # of starting tervs. Spam gaunts up to fill out the ball and keep fexes as your anti-landraider/etc. when things get sticky. At 5 s9 attacks that re-roll to hit even aagainst vehicles, they have synergistic value in such a list.

[MVBrandt]

I don't think they are horrible, if you set them up and use them correctly they can be very efficient. Popping around in the backfield and playing pop shots they can be very effective. Then moving them over units when its time can be devastating.


Toughness 5 they are not going to die that often from Instant death. You will have one or two Str weapon on your opponents side and if you are smart enough you can keep the harpy away in distant.

Now that being said, I do like having three hive guard for the price of the harpy to get 6 Str 8 Ap4 shots.

I am going to be writing a post on some of the units that I view as stars and some of them as Point pit falls this upcoming week.

I don't think it's instant death alone that makes the Harpy questionable. It's one toughness less and one armor save less than the Carnifex at the same price points-wise, and we've all seen the feel on that.

The problem lies in the fact that 4 marine heavy bolters kill one statistically if it's not covered. There are plenty of other analogues, such as multilasers from chimera walls.

Vindicators and S10 guard weaponry are all becoming more common in the competitive metagame.


In any event, having looked at the German translated pdf now, here's my $.02 to help the rumor mill for any that haven't read it ...

HQ
Hive Tyrant - Some cool abilities, mainly the psychic scream and the "addons" such as +1 reserves. Unfortunately, he's a combat monster that's either highly vulnerable flying, or highly slow guarded. What made the Tyrant "great" in 4th edition wasn't just that they were cheap, but that you could equip one with very high potency ranged weaponry and advance w/ the meatball. *IF* he got into combat he was competent anyway and that was nice, but he could earn his points back if he didn't. I think he was made that way b/c as a higher points cost combat monster, he wasn't really a good option. I think we're seeing that again. As cool as some of his tricks are, the tyrant isn't going to see a lot of tourney level play as a result of a "bad" "x" result in the equation of defense+offense+points efficiency. People will put him to good use on occasion, don't get me wrong. He's just not at all "optimizable." The incredibly high base cost renders him such.

Swarmlord - LOL. A 280 base points w/out guard (and you'll need to buy him guard) walking target who only has any real durability if he gets in combat, and otherwise is just as durable as a regular hive tyrant? He has a ton of cool rules, but he's like Logan Grimnar without the ability to attach him to a squad and stick him in a land raider or drop pod. In other words, he's crap.

Tyrant Guard - No appreciable change, but more expensive, and with the increased Tyrant cost even more "mandatory" for walkers. Anything with "Tyrant" in the name for HQ got a raw deal with this dex.

Tervigon - New "best" choice in the game. For 195 points you can field a 6 wound creature that's probably going to be able to get cover behind warrior size models (based on hunched looking gaunt pooping picture and the fact that until we get a real model we have creative license), is a monster and so can effectively deal with most vehicles when they get close (esp. av10/11 rear), is fearless and projects synapse and shadow in the warp, has furious charge and poisoned attacks, and we're not even started on what makes him cool. Most important about this guy is that at that points cost he has Catalyst, and gives poisoned attacks, counter-attack, and furious charge to all gaunt units with a model w/in 6". Catalyst being key, b/c when you have a list full of monsters and little bugs and a bunch of T6 transport-popping hive guard with feel no pain every time you want to shoot at them, as well as cover ... you find yourself questioning the validity of shooting the Hive Guard. This is going to be a keynote combination / punch, purely because of the fact that the Hive Guard (I'll get to them) are the* key unit of our codex. Extremely statistically reliable, almost impossible to "stop" transport killers. The new dex is lethal to infantry ... you can almost presume that when units get out of their transports, they're going to do one thing at most and then die, no matter what they are ... Nob Bikers, thunder hammer terminators, thunderwolves, whatever. All are basically toast, no worries, no afterthoughts. Tervigon not only provides you with a gaunt-pooping, often SCORING monster, he's synergistic with the keynote of the Hive Guard due to Catalyst, which is a freakin' awesome psychic power. What else can flame-proof gaunts (gaunts get feel no pain against flamers and heavy flamers)?

Alpha Warrior - This guy will actually be pretty decent, in a number of builds. The main reason for this is not offensive potency, but the fact that you can attach him to Warrior Squads and "proof" them against some lascannon/battlecannon/meltagun/etc. wounds. Alternately, you can stick him in a giant gaunt squad for reliable/non-targettable synapse. There are a lot of potential uses, most of them asymmetrical. He's not a hammer at all, even fully upgraded. He has cheap regen too (10 points), which might be a cute way to occasionally get "back" those instant death avoidances.

The Parasite of Mortrex - In lists where you are using a large mob of gargoyles, take this guy. Clever combat masters will be able with large garg broods to always avoid getting that fist base to base with the Parasite ... rather, they'll always be able to assault one of their regular gargs into base contact with the fist, so that it can't punch their 160 point T4 "hero." He'll make people - esp. guard - think twice about outflanking hijinks, and the ability to turn enemies into rippers is just fun. It's always fun to turn things into other things after all ... gift of chaos, zogwart, etc.

Elites
Hive Guard - Best unit in the Codex. They aren't combat capable, really, but they aren't combat "bait" either ... i.e. not a lot of things will just run right through them, so they'll usually survive a charge that gets pulled off on them long enough for you to bail them out with your plethora of combat-capable units (every single unit in the dex used properly is capable at combat when factored with their points cost and other uses). What makes them amazing is a) they knock things out of transports with extreme statistical reliability; b) they can be combined with the infantry and monstrous cover rules as well as feel no pain to create an "everyone has cover and my transport killers have feel no pain" meatball combined with termagants and tervigons and fexes; c) they're probably the best statistical AV13 and lower popper in the game now, for their points, and for the fact that they don't have to take a psy test to use their ability. T6 also makes them immune to basically everything when combined with cover save rules and (again) FNP. Just as template weapons and ordnance barrage weapons never actually bothered a good Tyranid in 4th edition, the same will be true in this edition, and Hive Guard's yet one more reason why.

Lictors - Better, but I think that the prevalence of melta makes them more questionable. One can argue that you're happy to have them shooting at your "stealthy" lictors in cover w/ meltaguns, but I think for the lictors to do much of value they'll be doing it anyway. Smart players aren't going to WANT to get close to you, which means they won't have anything else to shoot at, and so it's "Marbo syndrome," but without a demo charge. That is to say, that there will be plenty of things hanging around in their transports and other things not firing anyway, who can shoot at the lictors b/c "why not." If you just want to keep the lictor with your main army and pop him out where they are ... well, there are better choices than a lictor at this point. I think they're BETTER than they were ... cheaper and more durable. Unfortunately, losing the ability to assault out of deep strike is both fluff STUPID (A HA, I SURPRISED YOU, NOW SHOOT ME FIRST AND THEN I SHALL CHARGE YE) and bad for their viability.

Death Leaper - I actually like this guy. There are a couple of elite choices that are pretty damned cool, but they compete with hive guard, which means they won't see a lot of tourney use I don't think. His special rules are all cool enough that you don't have to drop him and hope he doesn't die like you do with the regular Lictors. "It's after me!" will be really useful for opponents where the army uses a certain character's leadership, and especially useful for psyker armies, where you can just permanently reduce a psyker's (eldrad? rune priests w/ jotww? etc.) LD by d3 at game start. Combined w/ the new shadow, this will enable you to actually shut down key psykers that would otherwise do some nasty things to you. It's also great at overcoming the plethora of psychic hoods you'll see in the tourney scene due to the powers of the new nids and wolves. At 140 points he's as expensive basically as a full hive guard squad, and he competes with them for a slot. For that reason, he won't see as much use as he otherwise should, b/c he's badass. Wish they made lictors fast attack ... that slot is kind of "meh."

Venomthrope - The first true "WTF?" choice other than the Swarmlord maybe, but far more so. It's a T4 (means vulnerable to everything S8+) model that gives an ENORMOUS FREAKING BUFF to every bit of the army near it (defensive grenades, 5+ cover, dangerous terrain to charge at). It costs as much as a Chimera. It's totally worth throwing a few missiles at them to get rid of them, or really throwing whatever at them, and at T4 it is NOT a fire soak ... at all. And it competes with Hive Guard for a slot (sensing a theme here?). Plus they make you pay points for various combat abilities on a 2 attack model with WS3. You also are paying for BS4 in the base cost but it has no shooting attacks. This units SUCKS.

Zoanthrope - Cool, better than they were. At no 2+ save and only 2 wounds each they are bolter bait ... ask yourself if you would pay 65 points for 2 basic space marines with a heavy weapon and their regular armor ... you wouldn't, b/c they'd just die. With only a 3+ invul, the zoanthrope at only 3 wounds is small arms bait par excellence, and its best weapon is within small arms range. They also ... *drumroll* ... compete for a slot with hive guard, for basically the same roll. You're going to need to rely on MONSTERS to crack open Land Raiders. Don't take Zoanthropes hoping for them to do it. Especially don't take them at a tourney scene that will be heavy with PSYCHIC HOODS AND RUNE PRIESTS ... and other things. These guys are a really unfortunate red herring, b/c at a new and improved BS4 and a modest 60 points, they on face look like the best anti-tank weapon in 40k, which statistically they are. Unfortunately, they're just too fragile and will get shut down by certain armies you run up against who just hood or rune weapon away all their casts.

The Doom of Malan'tai - This guy actually has a really potent value, and it's not his SX AP1 large blast at all. Every turn, w/out a psychic test or anything, in the shooting phase, every enemy unit within 6" of him has to take a LD test on THREE d6. They suffer a number of wounds THAT CANNOT BE SAVED (except invul) equal to the amount they fail the test by. Each wound gives Malan'tai some wounds of his own, but don't get too excited about that part, he's T4 with a 3+ invul only. Most importantly, you can give him a landing spore. So, think about that. Now realize he competes with Hive Guard for a slot and be sad that you won't see more use of the MYCETIC SPORE OF DOOM (aka, my drop pod just landed in the middle of your army safely, start taking LD tests on 3d6).

Pyrovore - Cool new model, worst rules of any model in all of 40k. This is officially the WORST MODEL IN THE GAME rules wise. Completely confused. It has a heavy flamer, TWO WOUNDS (not 3), a 4+ armor save, and OMG IT IGNORES ARMOR WITH S5 ... but it has a single WS3 attack. And if you kill it, it blows up in a fashion that is most statistically harmful to ... gaunts and grots. Yay.

Ymgarl Genestealers - Cool rules, potent unit, kind of expensive, totally boofed the job when they say that if you can't deploy the ENTIRE unit in the prenominated terrain piece due to enemies, it's simply destroyed. Competes with better ELITE choices ... EVEN if you discount Hive Guard. Not as bad as the Pyrovore or Venomthrope, but not great either, at all. Regular genestealers are about as likely to get off a charge before dying, for cheaper, and Lictors are actually better "surprise" units just b/c they don't run the risk of dying due to enemy .... movement ....

TROOPS

Warriors - At first, I was like "omfg this is terribul INSTANT DEATH OHNOEZ." I still kind of am ... I think "warrior centric" armies would be bad. Nevertheless, with a fair number of useful weapon options and a lot of close combat punch possible for not too much (re-rolling all rolls to hit due to 2 pairs of sytals is actually "free" at the cost of your shooting weapon), a small squad or two of Warriors in some builds will be useful, esp. if protected by a the inclusion of an Alpha Warrior to shrug off things like Vendettas. Think of them like Tau Crisis Suits that are more combat oriented and SCORE.

Hormagaunts - Cool, good. They compete with Termagants, which for FREE in the builds where you'll see lots of Terms can have COUNTER-ATTACK, FURIOUS CHARGE, AND POISONED WEAPONS. So, compare 5 point poisoned, furious, counter-attacking, s4 ap5 shooting termagant to 6 point non furious non counter attacking non poisoned non beast charging hormagaunt. Do the math.

Rippers - No. Funny, but, no. Still don't score, still vulnerable to instant death, no cool special rules, and they actually eat themselves outside synapse ... prior to this they actually behaved outside of synapse. LOLfest unit. Stupid.

Genestealers - Good unit, by all counts. 140 points for 10 of them, they can outflank or infiltrate, they're fleet, they have their same stats albeit the 5+ save. Thumbs up. Also, for 3 points, they re-roll to wound vs. marines. Dat's cool.

Landing Spore - Cool, T4 makes it kinda not like a drop pod in that it isn't going to stick around, but at least now Nids can deep strike.

Termagant - YAY! When I first hear "not fleet, S3 AP6 weapons" I thought "omg world ending." But, with rumors, some things are wrong (like S3 ap6, sorry they're still not fleet tho). More importantly, TERVIGONS (themes return)
1) Every Term squad = 1 Tervigon can be bought as a Troop. This is very good.
2) Term squads near Tervs with proper equipment = poisoned attacks, furious charge, counter-attack. This is exceptional.
3) Tervigons poop tons of Terms statistically if you have 3-5 of them, so you don't need to buy more than 30 or so Termagants, and you don't need to upgrade any of them, so they stay at 5 points. This is awesomesauce.

FAST ATTACK

Winged Warriors - 5 points more than regular warriors, worse save, wings. I don't think we'll see a lot, but they're cool.

Raveners - With the new models, I was really hoping for something special here, but all I really see is more of the same. They gained an extra wound and got a little cheaper, and that is good, but they gain no ability to assault the turn they arrive (via Trygon hole or something), they are squishier against high strength and just as squishy against low strength. Basically, if you liked and used Raveners in 4th edition rules with 5th edition, you'll still like and use them, but more. If you didn't, you might think about using them, but then won't use them. The models are cool, the rules are just not really anything special. Points are better spent elsewhere. If you have a few to spare on T4 3 wound models with combat potency, you'll probably buy Warriors.

Flying Rippers - Are you serious?

Gargoyles - 180 points for 30. You'll at least think about taking a squad w/ the Terror of Mantrax, and deep striking them on a Lictor, at some point in your new 5th edition Nid career. You'll also then think about putting feel no pain on them when they land, so that they're actually hard to kill. You'll giggle maniacally about it at least once while you do it.

Harpy - Terrible unit for 160 points. Terrible, terrible, terrible unit. T5 W4 Sv4+ with only 2 attacks yet combat enhancements like the frag/initiative thing. BS3, WS3, S5 ... ugh. This guy is utter crap. They must have gone "ok he's worth 100 points, but we have to give him wings, how much are those for the Tyrant ... ok 160 points." This choice along with the Pyrovore makes me wonder about Cruddace's qualification for writing an organic-based, non-mech list.

Spore Mine Cluster - If you have points and slots to spare, these may be worth taking with the extra points, just a few of them, b/c they can totally screw over certain opponents' plans in Dawn of War missions, and where they like to infiltrate, or just in general. Since you can't come w/in 1" of an enemy model, I'm pretty certain that means you can't DEPLOY w/in 1" of them, so have fun and deep strike them all over places you DON'T want your opponent to be. Depending on the points level, you're basically paying for the ability to manually shape your opponent's deployment. Their explosion is irrelevant. Their ability to deep strike after selecting deployment zones and turns but before deployment is killer good.

HEAVY SUPPORT
Carnifex - Like with the Warriors, I'm actually thinking this guy has a place, especially in something like the gaunt farm. At 5 attacks on the charge with S9 and re-rolling to hit, he's statistically reliable against FAST MOVING HIGH ARMOR VEHICLES (sounds like: Land Raider), and of course against anything smaller also. Combine them with a list that has a bunch of high wound scoring monsters that can grant feel no pain to key units at key times, and is able to reliably deal with everything BUT land raiders, and I'm sensing some synergy. They don't get bio-plasma in the base cost. They're overcosted, and I don't like that one bit, BUT they may have some synergistic use in the new dex. Keep them the hell away from missiles if they don't have cover, terminators, etc. Basically, if you were one of those great nid players who ran a 4th ed into 5th ed. meatball where your fexes always had cover and you didn't have any trouble earning their poitns value b/c you played them so well, you're going to be pushed and challenged MORE to earn their value in this dex, but you CAN do it if you play them right.

Old One Eye - Sorry, he kinda sucks. No more durable than a regular fex, with better stats but not better for what the fex does, and a ton more expensive. LD bubble ability seems kind of silly in the world of synapse. He has better regen but he doesn't have a whole lotta wounds ... woulda made more sense and still been cost proper if he had 6w instead of 4. I'm confused by him. Again, I wonder what Cruddace is thinking when he writes this, or if they even really playtest it.

Biovore - Still crap. Sorry, it is. Your Tyranid army will laugh infantry in the open OFF THE BOARD. As such, spending 135 points on a unit that can't fight in combat if it has to when most of your other units either excel at it or can shoot and do it effectively is dumb.

Trygon / Trygon Prime - Trygon Prime is overcosted for what you get IMO. Trygon is cool but no assault out of deep strike blows. The tunnels are ultra gay. Like, horrible bad useless crap. The odds and fact that you can't do it the turn he arrives and the fact that you can't assault out of them, and the fact that an enemy can just go DRIVE ON TOP OF THEM to shut them down, and many other things makes them look like a rule that was written to be cool but failed on the practicality front. Dumb da dumb dumb dummmmmb.

I think the Fex is actually probably better than the Trygon, just b/c he's better at cracking open vehicles, and can fight all the things you'd ever want the Trygon to fight in combat. The only monster in the book that's really built to tackle things like Terminators and Nob Bikers and such is the Swarmlord, so ... yeah ... it's not like you'd buy the Trygon to beat up people in combat ... everything else does it for less. You wouldn't buy him over a drop pod fex to beat up vehicles in combat (or even a non drop pod fex), b/c the fex beats up vehicles in combat better. Basically, the Trygon is feggin' bad, but that doesn't mean he won't get good use against opponents who really aren't well built to handle OMG 6w monsters.

Mawloc - Cheap Trygon with weaker rules, and as far as I can tell is killed by DS'ing into impassable. I suppose he'd be cool for popping infantry squads in the open, including marines/termies, who aren't in their vehicles ... but ... I'm trying to make this clear ... you won't have trouble with any of those anyway. Your only "need" will be to dedicate points and slots to opening transports. You don't need units that kill infantry in the open as their paid-for "specials" like the Mawloc's.

Tyrannofex - His points make him bad. He's cool, has lots of wounds, has a 2 shot S10 gun ... but he's BS3. He's also a land raider costed monster that can't transport guys and is pathetic in combat.

Dat's my $.02.


Things that make obvious sense -

Tervigon, which is "meant" to be combined Fex + Trygon, is a great unit that you'll see lots of and in GW's perfect world requires a $100 investment to build. Smart people will use spare gaunt pieces and green stuff, and a Fex.

Hive Guard - New metal model that costs $20 and people will want 9 of them. Really clever people may convert their old Tyrant Guard into them, since Tyrant Guard will be less frequent/good now.

Things that make NO SENSE AT ALL -

Pyrovore - Cool new model, horrifically bad stats. Biovore stats also being bad means most players will go "um, why would I buy that? Monsters are better AND cooler!"

Venomthrope - Cool new model, horrifically bad due to extreme fragility. Again, why the new model GW but crap stats?

Swarmlord - See my above. At least they didn't invest in a SWARMLORD mold.

Harpy - /Facepalm par excellence.

Rippers - Still crap, for all the same reasons.

Biovores - Still crap, for all the same reasons.



There are some others I alluded to above. If not mentioned, the verdict is still out.


Note: Most people will find a "use" they can talk to or theorycraft over for a lot of the units I think are crap. That's fine. You can theorycraft a use out of Sisters Repentia (CREEED!). Doesn't mean they're taken by many or acknowledged by brains as "good."

[Lord Azaghul]

*All notes made while reading the leaked info, and from a guard players perspective

Wow that hive tyrant is terrifying!

It looks like it’ll be tough for most players to pick the right stuff without making him so expensive he actually becomes a draw back.

I did see a few things that reminded me of some VC/DoC magic items/lore (pyker tests mainly) I hope that pykers don’t become what magic has become in fantasy, the HQ’s in this army are really scary. As I read it seems like the whole freaking army is a pyker! From a strickly ‘on paper’ perspective that really looks over the top

Outflank: the options in this army just got a lot scarier – good bye linar 40k! (good ridance too!). It really looks like this army had the potental to shake up the game. (Parasite of Mortrex!!!)

Mawloc: I hope the player can not intentionally place the Deep Strike on top of an enemy unit!

I also see some indirect fire weapons…

The Doom of Malan’tia!!! –aaahhhhh!

Other strange things: I don’t see the need to have all the anti inititive stuff when the overall INI of the army is already very high!

Overall: Dooooooommmm! The army is kind of scary. I do see lots of options, and its hard to tell what builds and prefences will come to the top, a lot of things look really good on paper but don’t always turn out that way! However it well be good to NOT see tyrnid players just line up everything on one side and push toward you, the army is now a lot more dynamic. I’m not sure what the armies weakness' will be but on paper the new army looks like a shooting/pyker/assult monster!

I’m kind of surprised many current ‘nid players aren’t too happy with the book. It looks like an overall upgrade - at least on paper.

[Vepr]

The more I read the more worried I get. It seems like a lot of the nids are way over priced or just plain useless. It sounds like we have a couple of really good units but they are backed up by cannon fodder and either stupid expensive units or completely useless units.

Did a nid eat Cruddace's dog or something?

I can see now why they thought something was wrong at the printers. If it was the same place that did the Ork, IG and SW codex they probably stopped printing and asked "Is this for the same game?"

[MVBrandt]

Nice, Vepr. I think you sum up my feelings pretty well. Some really really good units, some key units, but it looks like an Old Dex. There's already a best build or two, instead of the 50+ great builds that Cruddace's guard dex presented. Not that it's a bad dex, just that I think everyone is rightfully a little disappointed.