Finally Bought the Codex. The Positive view!

[chicop76]

Well at first I was thinking the codex was rather bad till I actually read it. It have some better options that simply wasn't there before. In my opinion I would say in some ways this codex is better than the last, won't go as far as to say better than 4th nids.

Anyway the nids needed to be nerfed in some areas and was buffed in some. Since I want to stay positive I want to hit the good. I might mention negative a bit, but my main focus would be the units I liked or stand out. Anyway if I didn't mention a unit I thought it's negatives out weighed the positives.

Before I begin since there are so many reviews about the codex I want keep reviewing what has been said already. However I may repeat some stuff, but will focus on the good.

Hive Tyrant:

After looking it over I would say winged is your best option here. Honestly if you want a walking Tyrant you should just take a Swarmlord. With 2 powers you have a 50% chance of getting warp blast which will help a lot with anti-air. Speaking of anti-air this is the only real viable model for ant air in my opinion, the goal is to shoot flyers in the rear.

After looking at the weapon options it seems that 2 twin devourers is your best bet. Sure you can take melee weapons, but this option with increased bs is really too good not to take. Another nice option is the Thorax. The Thorax gives you a flame template which can be of 3 types. Personally I would opt to go with the strength 3 template with shred and rend that can do some good against hard targets. The options of switching through 4 weapons is nice. You can shoot 12 times, flame and shoot 6, drop two templates, etc.

Miasma wouldn't be a bad option, but I think it wouldn't really be a good one. However you can possibly have 2 flame weapons that wound on 2s which you can switch from shooting 6 strength 6 shots 2x., not to mention following up with vector strikes.

Besides the options mentioned. I think taking hive commander would be a good one to take. All I can say is remember Tervigons can be troops and they now spawn gaunts after they move. Which means you can have two units outflanking instead of one.

As a note I wouldn't suggest running two winged tyrants. It seems good, but you should consider your other HQ options. However running two winged tyrants is not a bad ideal.

Swarmlord:
Besides being really expensive he does a lot. As a master 3 psyker he have a good chance of getting really useful powers you will need. I would say take bodyguards with him to keep him alive and hopefully you pull out fnp to help keep the unit alive.

The main reason I would take him is due to MC shooting or Preferred enemy which some units can benefit nicely with those types of buffs. Also getting your guys in on a 2+ reserve roll due to him is very helpful.

For the most part he support your army and if anyone is foolish enough to get close he will kill most models in combat. However unless you running a lot of reserve units I wouldn't run him.

Tervigon:

All I hear is complaining that the model is more expensive. In all actually it is cheaper. It's cheaper since you are not taking max psychic powers and one or two weapon options to hike up your gaunts. You can look at itas more eexpensive since you don't get what you use to get for a little less. Anyway I still see reason to run 3 still in your army.

First off you might have to run this guy as a HQ option now. Taking 30 gaunts to one tervigon is not super cheap. Remember you are paying 30 LESs points for a full squad of 30, but you are paying an extra 230 points to field 3 tervigons. To get around the price problems you may have to run them as HQ instead. I would say two as HQ with one as a troop would actually get you the same as before, but cheaper. I know you losing anti air options if you do that. However I plan to probably run one as HQ with two as troop to cut in cost. From experience 3 works well for me.

The good thing about spawning after you move is that you can easily get full movement with your Tervigons., before you would lose movement due to moving your tervigons after you spawned everything. Now it will conjust your army a little less. Also you are saving time by moving one model than spawning, instead of spawning a bunch of models and than move them foward. They can still shoot and run which is good.

The only upgrade I see taking is the flame template weapon. Got to love a rending shredding flamethrower.

Looking over troops you only really have Tervigons and gaunts again. On the bright side devil gaunts are much cheaper and you can outflank them if you take a tyrant or try to get them to come through a Trygon tunnel.

Lictors^:

They are surprisingly better. You have options and can actually use the trail ability.

You have the option to infiltrate them. The good news is you can disrupt scouting armies, like they would scout up any way against nids. Anyway you can cover a distance of 12" from your 18 " and be able to accurate deepmstrike a model 1" away from a target, Mawlock anyone.

The good news with proper terrain placement you can get 2+ Cover saves easy in area terrain.

In a pinch you can get behind or near artillery vehicles and shoot them in the rear or assault them and rend them to death.

From my experience you usually wind up gtg a lot and get the other army to stop shooting your other bugs. In a pinch you can fire your flesh hooks with snap shots.

Zonathropes:

Helps with synapse and also helps with psychic love. One of the few models with two psychic models. You either warp blast or use a support power pretty much.

I think this codex edition really will encourage you to run a lot of zonathropes. I would say two squads would be helpful.

Hive Guard:

You need vehicle killers and cover denial weapons, they kill pathfinders dead. For the like of me I fail to see why you will pay more for a worst weapon. If 13/14 armour is out there your Zonathropes or MCs can deal with it.

Fast Attack:

So much to be said for this slot and so little. Basically I personally like spore mines even more, although screwing up deployments was nice. Before I go further I looked at both flyers. Honestly you just Better off with winged hive tyrants. Anyway if I would run fast I would probably run the mines. Besides that your flyers besides vector striking really doesn't do much and can't really deal with other flyers. They not bad, but unless you really want a nid air force I wouldn't bother.

Going to the mines they are great for several reasons, only reason I would run a harpy or Biovore.
1. You can move them in 3" in any direction and assault at half range. The good thing about this is before they would randomly just be on the board. Now when they assault and blow up you are actually getting a lot of models in the explosion.

2. They screw up over watch. What you do is keep them near units while you advance up. The enemy have a choice of killing them or shoot at the nids pushing uo. Once you can assault with another unit make the decide rather if they want to shoot the mines or the gaunts. Personally I would assault with the gaunts first and than the mines. I personally think the mines would do more than regular gaunts in combat anyway. Also who cares if you blow up your own guys.

I think with tervigons, Biovore, and harpies you can cause over saturation and cause your opponent difficulties. You can potentially pump out 9 units a turn on top of what you already have. Quite frankly I think this is a huge strength in the new material. To be able to control where the bombs go help mitigate overwatch a lot. Also you force your opponent to waste shots at free units. I mean in 3 turns you can have 27 extra units on the table. Oh I forgot you can pump out 11 due to 2 tervigons as HQ, so 33 extra units in 3 turns.

Trygon Prime:

This guy can shoot 12 times and drop a flame template that wounds on 2s, not to mention you can control mishap a bit, if swarm lord blesses this guy than he can 're roll 1s to hit and wound. Besides being shoot like your hive tyrant he is a good melee monster and also give out more synapse.

Mawlock:

I actually hated last edition Mawlock and felt I had to take 3 to make them really viable. Now you telling me he can use his template twice on a target, come on. If you didn't kill them the first time you will probably do so the second time. If you mishap it is a joke since you can go back in reserves or actually do yourself a favor and set up another ds attack next turn. If you roll a one it dies, but you probably earned back its points when you hit your target.

All that being said. I think it's more balanced and in many ways better. However I wouldn't use it as a vehicle killer though. For starters think about landing on top of O#Shova and his friends with this guy or that annoying group of broadsides. I really think the Mawlock is almost actually an auto take option now.

Exocrine:

Basically an accurate Mawlock that can't deny cover. However it is great for dealing with other armies MCs if they are stupid enough to get within 24" of this guy.

I think it's a great model, except the range makes it better than ok. Anyway decent player would blow this guy away. However if you have 3 of these guys it forces you to either kill them or the advancing troops. If I decide to use one I would probably use 2 or more. If the other side have no MCs it than comes across as a waste of points to me.

[John Bower]

Nicely written, I think so many people have dissed the codex and it's nerfs without really giving it a fair crack of the whip. It's not the first time a dex has come out like that either, CSM players were crying over their Heavy Metal when that hit until they started spamming Heldrakes.
Sure we got no 'spam' units, in my opinion a good thing, I wish all the codexes would balance out like this. The likes of Tau and Eldar got OP units. And if I remember rightly Eldar still boohooed over their loss of Runes of Warding.
I'll make no secret that when I first read what was written by people who had the dex I thought 'oh no, come on GW, we already got it rough, we didn't need more nerfs', but then on Sunday I played against them, and that was the decider for me to actually buy the dex. Glad I did too, I don't think it's as bad as people make out, sure we took some hits (a lot of hits) but when you read the rules properly we took quite a few buffs indirectly too, that SiTW thing now is lethal to psykers, and can actually make Jetseers think twice about where they want to be, remember the -3 ld is for psykers, not just psychic tests. Venomthropes in conjunction with cover are a good force multiplier now, yeah okay its' 'models within 6" of them' but remember only 1 model in a unit has to be shrouded to give it to the whole unit. It's a case now of using them in synergy, finally. People cried out for that and when it came they still cried. WTF?

[Esseldal]

I think you make some really good points and I agree the book isn't awful- I just think people are upset because there are some really obvious problems from the last book that didn't get fixed.

1. Assault Grenades- so, so many of the Tyranid units would be so much better with this simple fix. I think genestealers are actually better than a lot of people are giving them credit for, in spite of no grenades, but these would make Raveners work, would make genestealers an assault unit to fear rather than a broodlood delivery system, etc.

2. Tougher Tyranid Warriors- as it is, with so much good strength/low AP/ignores cover out there, they are dead men walking. Needed to be tougher, have a better armor save (or an option for one) or cheaper.

3. Trygon holes. Seriously, how did they not see this one?

Aside from those issues, I think there's a lot of good stuff in there- as you point out- it's a case of learning how GW intends the army to be played, which unfortunately (in the case of 'stealers, for example) may not be the way the fluff suggests or that players want the army to play, especially longtime vets who want their 'stealers "Space Hulking" their way around the board murdering units in close combat.

Time will tell...!

[chicop76]

Thanks Guys. Just tiered of hearing negative reviews or half attempted positive reviews. I think the army strength is gonna be outflanking and deepmstriking. Trying to run across the board is simply not going work.

I am in different with the Venomthorpes. I read on thread where sticking a Tyranids Prime with a Venomthorpe would be a good ideal. Personally I think that is a good ideal if you want to go the Venomthorpes route. The toughness 5 stops things like seeker missiles wiping out the unit. Also getting FNP with regeneration will help it stay on the board a bit longer, I do question taking regeneration though. It is better, but the price tag is still a lot.

I just feel I have to compare vs Tau and Eldar to see if I can win or not. Both Tau and Eldar can kill the Venomthorpes relatively easy unless you stick a warrior with them. Even than they can kill it quite easily. If synapse was eternal warrior l than it would be really awesome or it at least was toughness 5. However it is really cheap for what it does. If it didn't fight with Lictors, Hive Guard, Zonathropes, than I would say go ahead and field them.

I don't think stealers are bad at all really. The problem is they are sooo much a threat they are very high priority. Sure they been nerfed and buffed throughout the years. I was surprised that no one ran them last edition with iron arm Broodlord and endurance as a possibility for that unit.

The problem with stealers you need to take the heat off them so they can actually do something. You are forced to take a Broodlord in the squad to keep them alive. They would be good with Lictors as a support. Lictors is another unit which is shoot before it touches you type thing. Also deep striking t rygons and Mawlock will help the stealers be able to do something. Also throw in spore mine support with harpy and and hive tyrant winged as back up.

The biggest hurdle is dealing with infiltrate and getting blasted and outflank which you have to wait a turn to do something. In the past they was w ayy over powered. When one unit of stealers can wipe out 1k of marines by themselves that's too much.

The warriors are not bad either. For their cost they are pretty good. The problem is they don't contend well with strength 8 and above. You kinda have to remind yourself how often you will see strength 8 and higher spam. Also which people rather shoot at the warriors or the dakka fex. They have 3 wounds and are troops with synapse. With the Tervigon fix running 2 units of them isn't a bad ideal. They can provide decent fire support and you can rotate them out to keep them at full strength. I admit I won't be using them, but if you complain about synapse if you take a lot of warriors than synapse isn't really an issue.

We can deal with serpent spam with hive guard for example and the vector 8 flyer. I seriously believe that Tyranids can be a challenge for any army. The main problem I am seeing so far is to make an all comers list. 5 flyers and a bunch of hive guard would easily counter serpent spam for example.

Tau giving you problems you can deepmstrike M awlocks and Trygon, they don't have enough interceptor to kill them all.

Making an actual viable all comers list is where I see where it will be challenging.

[GravesDisease]

On the subject of overlooking and discounting: When it comes to synapse i think many people don't think just how much of an increase an extra 6 inches is. In terms of area (either through norn crown or dominion) you are getting +125% bonus coverage to your synapse. (7.07 ft^2 vs 3.14 ft^2).

[chicop76]

On the subject of overlooking and discounting: When it comes to synapse i think many people don't think just how much of an increase an extra 6 inches is. In terms of area (either through norn crown or dominion) you are getting +125% bonus coverage to your synapse. (7.07 ft^2 vs 3.14 ft^2).

12" synapse is nice when you figure that is about 27" of coverage as a line. I think the crown is a bit expensive. Besides the Miasma and the preferred enemy I think I wouldn't really use any artifacts.

The synapse coverage is technically better than before. However I am still debating if the new IB is better or worst than 4th edition IB. However in 4th you ran to the nearest creature that was synapse. All I can really say about IB is roll a lot of 6s.

[D6Damager]

Also which people rather shoot at the warriors or the dakka fex. They have 3 wounds and are troops with synapse.

Easy answer is always shoot the synapse creatures first when possible. The army will crumble without them. This is why I think eventually players will start moving towards infiltrating genestealers as troops. They don't need synapse and they don't have to spend 3 turns crossing the table and getting shot at.

If I see a unit of Warriors in the backfield babysitting a unit of hiveguard or biovores (or both)...I know what I'm shooting at.

[chicop76]

Easy answer is always shoot the synapse creatures first when possible. The army will crumble without them. This is why I think eventually players will start moving towards infiltrating genestealers as troops. They don't need synapse and they don't have to spend 3 turns crossing the table and getting shot at.

If I see a unit of Warriors in the backfield babysitting a unit of hiveguard or biovores (or both)...I know what I'm shooting at.

People are really taking this to the extreme. It's the same thing as it was in 3rd-4th almost. The biggest difference is they are not running towards the synapse model.

Dakkafexes wasn't ignored due to the damage they did. Are you gonna gamble they will revert to IB or simply kill it. However I had several Zonathropes, Warriors, and 2 hive tyrants. The problem with breaking synapse when the army has a lot it won't stop the Jon synapse creatures from eating your face.

Which boils down you will target what is doing the most damage. A good example is the Exocrine, it's kinda silly to ignore so my like that if 2 tyrants, trygon prime, 3 Zonathropes happen to be parked near it.

[Tynskel]

I think the change to Fall Back move was fine, because the old IB test didn't work in 4th edition. Falling back to the Synapse creature, aka, continue moving forward?

[chicop76]

I think the change to Fall Back move was fine, because the old IB test didn't work in 4th edition. Falling back to the Synapse creature, aka, continue moving forward?

Not always. Sucks if the nearest synapse was on the other side of the board and you had to cover 2-3ft to get there. To be fair in 3rd it was much harder to shoot thing in the back row, while in 4th all you needed was a leadership check.

This one is way more random and it can actually benefit you in some cases. It is borderline deliberating as 3rd and 4th.