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SBG wrote:
Carnifexes. Always brought out for those pesky fortresses, re: Maccrage. Oooooh so exciting...


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It appears the 'Skyblight Swarm' will have gargoyles and Crones. Going by the picture, anyway.

If the formation is solid, I'll have to buy a Crone.

GW's plan involves making me obtain new models, I see! Haha...

Mhmm...I went and bought lictors after finding the last data slate online...proof that free rules promotes model buying right there!

So...a warrior on he front...a swarm of crone and gargoyles...and another image of hormagaunts


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And as fast as they put those pics up...they took them down?

I can't find them now...

I feel clever for purchasing 8 metal lictors and Deathleaper a year ago for about 25% of retail.

I just like the models, the dataslate was a huge bonus!

I'll be getting this slate for sure if there's Warriors in it. They just don't see enough table time as it is.


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Annnd pics are gone.

Ugh. Why a preorder on a digital release in the first place??? Just give us the download already!

They must be working on the page right now...pics keep appearing and disappearing

I've got a three game tournament tomorrow, 1650 points, its only a small local event but I'll still post up my results and thoughts.

Given the sample pictures of the new formations I think that Nids just got a big boost (and IB just started sucking a lot less).

One of the best formations of all time was Endless Swarm and WoN Hormigaunts were scary good. Dropping the 20+ per unit requirement is gold.

and WoN warriors? Are you kidding me?

While in danger of sounding pessimistic, I'm questioning that there is any real strength to be found. What are the core strengths of the Tyranids in the 6th edition codex? Is there anything that we do better than any other army? One might think that melee is where nids strengths come in but to be honest Chaos can do that more easily(no synapse to worry about) and they have better psykers and more good options complete with allies. What is our niche? What beneficial aspect do we have that no one else does? Fearless? With ATSKNF, Daemons, mob rule, etc this is not so special. Melee? Many armies have great melee units, you just don't see them often because melee is sub-par in 6th and they have other options. Mobility? ...not by a long shot. Hords? Nope. Orks, IG and Chaos can all beat us in that department as well.

What is it we do better than others? Is there anything or are we just trying to make the best of things without any real strength to rely on?

Just trying to be realistic. What core advantages do you feel the Tyranids have at this point?

What do you mean?

We're rocking more USRs than anyone else.
MCs up the wazoo
The ability to produce a horde if we choose
One of the best psychic tables out there.
Combat monsters
Synergistic beasts like zoeys, venoms and lictors
Speed...so comparable to slaanesh
Tons and tons of shooting...tons of it.
The ability to mix various units.

When it comes down to it...Tyranids play like a mix of daemons, grey knights, and Eldar.

From the free preview ---

This looks REALLY good!

And now the endless swarm is back!

Uggg... The one I saw cut off the bottom. So no WoN warriors and only a 50% chance for a respawn. Still not bad as the old formation cost 200pts or you had to add +3pts to each termi (and they could only cost 8pts each).

Might toss a monkey wrench into Mathhammer on gaunt/gant costs.

It sounds a good incentive to play horde.

Just realized we got one of our old broken combo's back!

WoN gaunts/gants and Trygon Tunnels!

I don't think I have been able to use that combo in something like a decade...

 Gloomfang wrote:
Just realized we got one of our old broken combo's back!

WoN gaunts/gants and Trygon Tunnels!

I don't think I have been able to use that combo in something like a decade...

Darn...beat me to it.

Very good. A half chance to come back for free is still amazing. Makes it worth upgrading the broods with bio morphs too - who wants to shoot a unit that will just pop right back?

It stands to point out that since formations are separate detachments, no troop tervigons with this formation.

Speaking of, there is a photo of a tervigon in the free sample, hinting we are getting a tervigon formation of some kind as well.

Looks like this data slate will focus on masses of bodies, with the heavy hitters coming in the third and final sheet. I'm very happy with these so far.


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 ductvader wrote:

 Gloomfang wrote:
Just realized we got one of our old broken combo's back!

WoN gaunts/gants and Trygon Tunnels!

I don't think I have been able to use that combo in something like a decade...

Darn...beat me to it.

YES. Or more fittingly a trygon prime for synapse! Huzzah!

Definitely happy as well, also noteworthy that you can't hive commander these units.

Add necrons it the lists of armies we can copy thanks to this formation and regeneration.

 ductvader wrote:
Definitely happy as well, also noteworthy that you can't hive commander these units.

Why not? They are still troops? They don't get to come back on with Outflank, but they can get it the first time out.

I feel the sudden urge to buy lots of devilgants and 2 more Trygons.


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 Gloomfang wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Definitely happy as well, also noteworthy that you can't hive commander these units.

Why not? They are still troops? They don't get to come back on with Outflank, but they can get it the first time out.

You have to select a unit from the same detachment as the Hive Tyrant.

 Gloomfang wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Definitely happy as well, also noteworthy that you can't hive commander these units.

Why not? They are still troops? They don't get to come back on with Outflank, but they can get it the first time out.

Hive commander states from the same detachment...is a formation from the same detachment?

Not being snarky...real question.

 ductvader wrote:

 Gloomfang wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Definitely happy as well, also noteworthy that you can't hive commander these units.

Why not? They are still troops? They don't get to come back on with Outflank, but they can get it the first time out.

Hive commander states from the same detachment...is a formation from the same detachment?

Not being snarky...real question.

Yeah formations count as part of the army but a separate detachment from the primary. So to field the endless swarm you'll still need 2 troops choices in the primary FOC for your list.

 tetrisphreak wrote:

 ductvader wrote:

 Gloomfang wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Definitely happy as well, also noteworthy that you can't hive commander these units.

Why not? They are still troops? They don't get to come back on with Outflank, but they can get it the first time out.

Hive commander states from the same detachment...is a formation from the same detachment?

Not being snarky...real question.

Yeah formations count as part of the army but a separate detachment from the primary. So to field the endless swarm you'll still need 2 troops choices in the primary FOC for your list.

Probably looking for some warriors I'd think

 ductvader wrote:

 Gloomfang wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Definitely happy as well, also noteworthy that you can't hive commander these units.

Why not? They are still troops? They don't get to come back on with Outflank, but they can get it the first time out.

Hive commander states from the same detachment...is a formation from the same detachment?

Not being snarky...real question.

Forgot about the same detachment rule. Codex is still pretty new and stuff like that trips me up on occasion.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
From the free preview ---

This looks REALLY good!

So, let's see. 150 + 80 + 90 = 320 (+mods if any) per Endless.

RUn 'em naked and you could take two of these for 640.

That's ... quite respectable.

 ductvader wrote:
What do you mean?

We're rocking more USRs than anyone else.
MCs up the wazoo
The ability to produce a horde if we choose
One of the best psychic tables out there.
Combat monsters
Synergistic beasts like zoeys, venoms and lictors
Speed...so comparable to slaanesh
Tons and tons of shooting...tons of it.
The ability to mix various units.

When it comes down to it...Tyranids play like a mix of daemons, grey knights, and Eldar.

Well I could go through the list but suffice to say that for all those things (except perhaps number of MCs) other armies can do them better. The only upside I can find is that none of them can do all of them except for nids. Point being that there is not just one or even a few things we can call the 'strength of the new nids'. So if we cannot effectively specialize shouldn't we generalize and come at things from a Jack-of-all Trades perspective? Preferring units that serve for a multitude of functions and creating lists that do not focus on just one or two things but rather actually focus on creating options and being adaptable. It's much easier to exorcise synergy tactically when more options are available. Deployment options like Hive Commander, DS, infiltrate, etc are very useful for an all comers list even if you know you won't always use them.

IE, naked hormagaunts are only really good for tying up other units but add TS and they can both tie them up and/or kill them depending on what you're looking at. Add AG instead and they can are better at getting to units to tie them up, are a little better at killing on the charge and can quickly glance transports to death (after surrounding them).

Devilgants are great shooty but Toxic Devilgants have more options. Lets see you soot the 10 man Tac Sqaud and on average 5 die, you assault the squad and kill 3-4 more. Now there's an average of 1-2 of them left at the end of your turn and your devilgants can't be shot and have only 1-2 models left to kill on your opponents turn. That kind of thing. Or you opponents doesnt want to VS your HT with his Daemon Prince because he doesn't want to get grounded to close to the Toxic Devilgants...

I'm not saying take all options or anything of the sort but rather options that increase their tactical usefulness and if at all possible expand it to areas outside of their main focus. A small unit of assault Shrikes is hindered very little by losing one attack and adding a barbed strangler but this doubles their options tactically.

I'm saying we don't need to be the strongest, just the most adaptive.


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...and while I was writing, and new star appeared on the horizon....

(Jeopardy Theme Music)

Alex: Welcome back. We left of on Abandons turn to make a selection, what would you like Abandon?

Abandon: I'll take hords at 1850 Alex!!!

Incoming noob question but, in the bigger tournaments are dataslates allowed? I can see these being awesome for making nids a diverse and competitive army. Not attempting to rain on the parade but in all honesty if the dataslates are not allowed maybe nids should be the exception? Think about it, as an army that can't take allies at all what would be the most logical AND fluffy solution to make nids more competitive? Let them take dataslates always. BOOM. Mind, blown. It makes nids on par with those top tier armies where they have to a to actually think 'damn, if I instagib that MC I might have X amounts of hordes on me next turn. If I splat the hordes the mc will destroy my shinny riptide/wraith knight/insert shiny thing you don't want to lose. What do you guys think? Illusions of grandeur or something that should be implemented?

P.S. by allowing this GW effectively increases their sales of nids. BOOM. Mind, blown x2.

TL;DR let nids take unrestricted formations always for lack of allies.

Speneticus wrote:
Incoming noob question but, in the bigger tournaments are dataslates allowed? I can see these being awesome for making nids a diverse and competitive army. Not attempting to rain on the parade but in all honesty if the dataslates are not allowed maybe nids should be the exception? Think about it, as an army that can't take allies at all what would be the most logical AND fluffy solution to make nids more competitive? Let them take dataslates always. BOOM. Mind, blown. It makes nids on par with those top tier armies where they have to a to actually think 'damn, if I instagib that MC I might have X amounts of hordes on me next turn. If I splat the hordes the mc will destroy my shinny riptide/wraith knight/insert shiny thing you don't want to lose. What do you guys think? Illusions of grandeur or something that should be implemented?

P.S. by allowing this GW effectively increases their sales of nids. BOOM. Mind, blown x2.

TL;DR let nids take unrestricted formations always for lack of allies.

Right now not many big tournaments are allowing formations because they're concerned about players abusing the OP ones (really just the tau one). I run RTTs at my game store and I'm pretty open about letting players use them - it's official GW product so why not? I think we will see a lot more acceptance of these once those new imperial titans hit the table. It's the Wild West right now.

Also I suspect that if 7th edition is truly slated for May 2014 as 40k radio has predicted, lords of war, stronghold, and dataslates will all be specifically mentioned in the BRB and settle the debate then. That's another reason why I'm letting it all in now.

Shorter answer - run it past your TO and see what they'd do. Nids unable to ally does make them a more fair recipient of dataslate love, I think.

SBG wrote:
I feel clever for purchasing 8 metal lictors and Deathleaper a year ago for about 25% of retail.

I just like the models, the dataslate was a huge bonus!

I'll be getting this slate for sure if there's Warriors in it. They just don't see enough table time as it is.


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Annnd pics are gone.

Hah! For that reason I am happy to have 4 of the 2nd edition lictors (did have 5 but one got mixed with a 3rd ed. lictor to make Deathleaper) in addition to my 2 4th ed ones.

And would you believe I got 3 of the 2nd edition lictors for £5?

Ok, I cannot be the only person who noticed this / is excited / hopeful about this.

There is a TERVIGON in the ebook sample of Rising Leviathan II.

I don't care that it has crushing claws. If I can buy a tervigon outside of FoC (formation detachment yay!) that doesn't have a 30 gaunt tax, I'm running it EVERY SINGLE GAME EVER.

Megamanrocks wrote:


Ok, I cannot be the only person who noticed this / is excited / hopeful about this.

There is a TERVIGON in the ebook sample of Rising Leviathan II.

I don't care that it has crushing claws. If I can buy a tervigon outside of FoC (formation detachment yay!) that doesn't have a 30 gaunt tax, I'm running it EVERY SINGLE GAME EVER.

It probably won't be scoring or it will still require the gant tax. We will see In a week.