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Hot damn! Strength 10 guns on our largest unit?

That's really something!

/s

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Hot damn! Strength 10 guns on our largest unit?

That's really something!

/s

And those are DIRE Bio-Cannons

Well they picked a perfect work to describe them!

[EDIT]: Hey wait a sec...



So... how come the weapons on the Heirophant Bio-Titan have a lower a strength?

It doesn’t have the “strats cost 3-4 times as much to use” but that some other titans do, so there is that…

Looks for the silver linings…

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Well they picked a perfect work to describe them!

[EDIT]: Hey wait a sec...



So... how come the weapons on the Heirophant Bio-Titan have a lower a strength?

They missed a "0" on the Heirophant

/s

I don't have a Heirophant but the TFex gun may well be bigger, that's a chonky gun.

But the stats for the Heirophant cannons are incredibly stupid regardless. In fact, most of these titan weapons (Warlord excepted, naturally) seem pretty meh. It's not surprising that the Titans are likely to suck in game, but it's annoying that they seem to have not even gotten the relative strength right.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Psychophage article https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/02/the-psychophage-will-eat-your-brain-and-then-the-rest-of-you/

Some cool rules here. I'm a little perplexed at why a big beastie like this would only hit at S6 though.

Probably to differentiate it from Haruspex. One is for softer, smaller targets, especially psykers, and other is for bigger, tougher ones like tanks, bunkers etc.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Well they picked a perfect work to describe them!

[EDIT]: Hey wait a sec...



So... how come the weapons on the Heirophant Bio-Titan have a lower a strength?

Because it has D6+6 attacks? Because the model has 2 of them?

Think about it. 2d6+12 attacks at BS 3+ S10, AP -3, D3 is going to put some hurt on things. Let's think about Knights as a target. Hitting on 3s, Wounding on 5s, Saving on 5s (AP -3 puts Sv3+ into the Invulnerable Save territory) yields an average of 9.33 Wounds.

Sure, you're not dunking a Knight every turn, but that is respectable before we get to close combat.

 alextroy wrote:
Because it has D6+6 attacks? Because the model has 2 of them?

Think about it. 2d6+12 attacks at BS 3+ S10, AP -3, D3 is going to put some hurt on things. Let's think about Knights as a target. Hitting on 3s, Wounding on 5s, Saving on 5s (AP -3 puts Sv3+ into the Invulnerable Save territory) yields an average of 9.33 Wounds.

Sure, you're not dunking a Knight every turn, but that is respectable before we get to close combat.

It's going to blend anything with a TEQ profile. Once you factor in double Blast plus sustained hits from the standard Tyranid detachment trait a Hierophant will average between 20-30 attacks.

Even into vehicles, if instead you pick the lethal hits detachment bonus the sheer volume of shots will get quite a few wounds through.

Edit: I assume it's more specialised for anti-elite because we'll have a new giant bug in the future that is more focused on killing Titanic stuff.

Art from the Crusade

Overview of the Leviathan unit datacards. There seems to be some kind of embargo on showing these in Leviathan reviews, which could mean WarCom plan to post them soon as rumoured.

https://www.goonhammer.com/goonhammer-reviews-warhammer-40000-10th-edition-bonus-leviathan-unit-datasheets/

A couple of Tyranid strats from battle reports posted today:

Adrenal Surge 1CP
Used in fight phase, critical hits trigger on unmodified 5+ instead of 6+

Rapid Regeneration 1CP
6+++ FNP for any friendly unit, or 5+++ if it's in synapse range

So having seen the sprues on fauxhammer, gants only come with fleshborers, so do we think that the 3 weapon options aren't tied to the visual weapon or is a 2nd kit likely to follow like the assault intercessors?

Gw doesn't give rules without models so either there's no rules for anything but fleshborer or there will be models for others.

 xttz wrote:
Overview of the Leviathan unit datacards. There seems to be some kind of embargo on showing these in Leviathan reviews, which could mean WarCom plan to post them soon as rumoured.

https://www.goonhammer.com/goonhammer-reviews-warhammer-40000-10th-edition-bonus-leviathan-unit-datasheets/

A couple of Tyranid strats from battle reports posted today:

Adrenal Surge 1CP
Used in fight phase, critical hits trigger on unmodified 5+ instead of 6+

Rapid Regeneration 1CP
6+++ FNP for any friendly unit, or 5+++ if it's in synapse range

Probably embargoed until they go live for download, which according to Valrak's list is:

- The entire month of June will be hyping up free products that you can download
- 2nd of June: core rules and quickstart guide
- 5th of June: Leviathan datasheets
- 8th of June: Tyranid datasheets
- 9th of June: SM datasheets
- 12th of June: non-codex SM datasheets
- 13th of June: Chaos SM datasheets
- 14th of June: Imperium datasheets
- 15th of June: Xenos datasheets
- 16th of June: GT packs and points list
- 20th of June: Datasheets for Combat Patrol
- 23rd of June: Boarding Patrol and Crusade material

... on monday.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Probably embargoed until they go live for download

I don't know what the Spanish word for embargo is, and apparently neither does this Twitch channel:

Neurotyrant - can join Tyrant Guard or Neurogaunts

Prime - gets a 4+ fight on death, and can join Gargoyles or Warriors (which now have two datasheets)

Psychophage

Barbgaunt

Embargo means the same in Spanish than it does in English.

gimme a sec and i'll try to translate the special rules at least.

NeuroTyrant:
Whiplash node? Psy ability - when leading a unit add 1 to their hit rolls, if their target it's battle shocked add +1 to wound also.
Synaptic regulators: in your command phase choose up to 2 units at 12" until your next turn they either remain in sinaptic range or give sinaptic range (cropped too much so can't read it properly.)
Psychic Terror: Psy ability - something about reducing in -1 the enemy battleshock test as long a neurotyrant remains in the table.

Prime:
XTTZ pretty much nialed it's description also gives sustained hits to any weapon of a unit it leads.

Psychopage:
Bioestimulis: Aoe Feel no pain
Feeding Frenzy: +1 to vs units under starting strength +1 to wound if under half starting strength.

Barbgaunt:
Just Blast and Heavy on their weapons nothing they didn't revealed yet.

That's pretty much all.

Dudeface wrote:
So having seen the sprues on fauxhammer, gants only come with fleshborers, so do we think that the 3 weapon options aren't tied to the visual weapon or is a 2nd kit likely to follow like the assault intercessors?

Im expecting a multipart non snap fit kit for termas to come with more options. But for me the barbs and neurogaunts are the only must haves of the nids and those probably will remain unchangeable.

This is a bit of old news at this point, since the pics have been out for like a month, but there's something I deeply dislike about the Psychophage's design: it has pointy talons on the ends of its ambulatory limbs.

Which is obviously terrible design for anything that wants to traverse natural surfaces without sinking itself into them.

The community has been using that sort of design out of necessity for, like, decades, but I forgave it because it usually entailed conversions being banged out with the limited limb options from monster + midsize kits.

I believe the Tfex/Terv was the first (and only?) official kit to include something like that (instead of hooves or feet), and I was a bit disappointed at the time, although they did split the difference and give it one set of hooves. The Psychophage doubles down on the stupidity. Do not send that fellow to fight in a rainstorm...

 Altruizine wrote:
I believe the Tfex/Terv was the first (and only?) official kit to include something like that (instead of hooves or feet), and I was a bit disappointed at the time, although they did split the difference and give it one set of hooves. The Psychophage doubles down on the stupidity. Do not send that fellow to fight in a rainstorm...

Heirophant.

 Altruizine wrote:
This is a bit of old news at this point, since the pics have been out for like a month, but there's something I deeply dislike about the Psychophage's design: it has pointy talons on the ends of its ambulatory limbs.

Which is obviously terrible design for anything that wants to traverse natural surfaces without sinking itself into them.

The community has been using that sort of design out of necessity for, like, decades, but I forgave it because it usually entailed conversions being banged out with the limited limb options from monster + midsize kits.

I believe the Tfex/Terv was the first (and only?) official kit to include something like that (instead of hooves or feet), and I was a bit disappointed at the time, although they did split the difference and give it one set of hooves. The Psychophage doubles down on the stupidity. Do not send that fellow to fight in a rainstorm...

Yeah I have always hated that as from a biomechanical point of view it is terrible for anything larger than small insects. I know that insectile limb feel was what GW was going for but it just doesn't work on big creatures.

Also what I don't like about the Psychophage or Neurotyrant is they have upper jaws with teeth...but no lower jaws. All the tentacles and toothed flaps of the Psychophage do not form a proper bite with the upper jaw. GW seems to have forgotten that you cannot bite something if you have no lower jaw.

Ha, I never really thought about that. I suppose in the case of the Psychophage one could make the case that the tentacles and toothy jowl-flaps are muscular/elastic enough to pulverize something against the upper jaw. But the Neurotyrant looks totally wacky. It appears to have two sets of upper teeth and no lower jaw.

 Altruizine wrote:
Ha, I never really thought about that. I suppose in the case of the Psychophage one could make the case that the tentacles and toothy jowl-flaps are muscular/elastic enough to pulverize something against the upper jaw. But the Neurotyrant looks totally wacky. It appears to have two sets of upper teeth and no lower jaw.

Exactly why I didn't like the Neurotyrant model when I first saw it. I think GW were trying for just Giger-esque organic disturbing and just included various organic details in an attempt to get that feel, but it just feels stupid if someone stops to think about it a bit more. The true damage from an animal bite is often more from the bite force rather than the teeth being razor/scalpel sharp. Those toothed tentacles would be like a barbed whip. Damaging yes, but not as fearsome as say a crocodile or hippo bite.

3 times Norn Emmisary is mentioned in the book (from Reddit):
''With the skies darkened, day and night had no meaning. The defenders fought on doggedly, yet their casualties mounted and the fortress they manned became ever more heavily damaged. All the while, the three Norn Emissaries stalked through the fighting with eerie alien grace, closing inexorably upon objectives only they knew. One of them struck on the eighth day of the siege, having compressed its mass into the seemingly impossible confines of a decommissioned turbolift shaft then crawled steadily upwards for untold hours. The towering monstrosity burst into the Erythrad Peak command sanctum, where it slaughtered hundreds of screaming strategos and command adepts and destroyed scoroes of irreplacable cogitator banks. The beast would have escaped to strike again elsewhere, had it not been for an unnamed Chapter serf who selflessy sealed the blood-drenched sanctum and trigged the plasmic denial charges, reducing the entire peak to a glassy crater.

The second Emissary - whose distinctive scars identified it to Imperial strategos as the infamous Fiend of Hag Rift - surged from a Trygon tunnel to attack the White Templars' gene-seed vault. It was supported by swarms of lesser warrior organisms and a pair of Neurotyrants. In response, marching from the Chapter's Vaults of Repose came almost a score of White Templars Dreadnoughts who held back the Tyranids in an increasingly desperate and one-sided struggle. Almost all of the ancient warriors were slain - a dreadful loss for the Chapter - but their sacrifices bought time for Colonel Uveda of the Ortegan Grenadiers to launch a massive counter attack and drive the Tyranids back. When the vengeful Chapter Master Stavro arrived at the head of a White Templars strike force, the Fiend of Hag Rift was badly wounded and its swarm devestated. Yet the malevolent monster escaped to fight another day.
For all the butchery and horror wrought by its fellows, it was the third of the Norn Emissaries that struck at the most crucial target. Scaling the snow-whipped peak of the tallest mountains in the Heights of Artorus, the creature lurked in wait amidst rock and ice for its prey to emege. Below lay the wide-open square of the Ascendorum, a great plaza wrought from a mountainous plateau, dotted with braziers, statuary, sheild generatorums and flak batteries. In better times, the White Templars had mustered on this open space to perform rituals and bestow honours beneath the starry vaults of Sanctum's skies. Now, Lord Solar Leontus was crossing the open plaza astride Konstantin with his entourage about him. The Norn Emissary knew its prey's psionic spoor. Its black eyes followed him. Its ropes of muscle and tendon tensed, and then it leapt out into thin air. The Norn Emissary dropped towards the plaza, sword-like talons extended, angling its huge mass to slam down directly atop Leontus. From below came screams as someone spotted the danger and many amongst Leontus' entourage raised weapons. The Lord himself looked up, registering his doom descending upon him too swiftly to be avoided.

Missiles streaked in and struck the Norn Emissary in the flank when it was scant feet above Leontus' head. The impacts blossomed into concussive fireballs. Their force hurled the huge Tyranid aside even as their shock waves unhorsed the Lord Solar and threw him and many of his companions flat upon the flagstones. The Norn Emissary bucked in the air, ichor gouting from its wounded flank, and turned its tumble into a cat-like landing with a grace nothing so huge should posses. It hissed as the gilded gunship that had fired upon it streaked overhead, then banked sharply with a flare of engines and came in for another pass. The craft's rear ramp whined open as it flew closer, and hulking warriors clad in ornate auramite armour dropped from it one after another to slam down in the plaza with enough force to crack stone. The gunship's weapons blazed again. This time the Emissary was ready. Leaping and swinging huge talons in a scything arc, it tore the cockpit from the gunship and sent it spiralling down the mountainside in flames.

The emissary wheeled and surged with serpentine speed towards Leontus, who was still staggering to his feet. Blood ran down his pale face from a bad scalp wound. Though he fumbled to draw his blade, the Norn Emissary's prey was in no condition to defend himself. The monster reared above him.

The newly arrived golden warriors moved with incredible speed and merciless focus. Those of the Lord Solar's retinue not swift enough to clear a path were smashed aside with bone-breaking force as Trajann Valrois and his Custodians raced to interpose themselves between Leontus and his would-be xenos assassin. The Norn Emissary was just paces from its victim when a hammering volley of bolt fire from the Custodian's guardians spears arrested its charge. The monster staggered then lunged with a shriek, snatching up the nearest Custodian and tearing one arm from his body before swinging him by the other and hurling him away.

Trajann Valoris stepped in and aimed a mighty stroke with the Watcher's Axe that shattered several of the Emissary's talons. The towering xeno-beast feinted back then sprang past Valoris and attempted to snatch up Leontus. The Lord Solar had, by now, recovered his wits, however, and hurled himself backward to escape the monster's grasp. Bodyguards and chanting priests pressed forward, raking the Norn Emissary with fire from lasguns, pistols, and a handful of plasma weapons. The monster swatted its attackers aside like insects and sent broken bodies tumbling across the plaza.

The next instant it reeled and screeched as several Custodians' blades hacked into its flesh. Eyes still fixed unerringly on the retreating Lord Solar, the Norn Emissary lashed about itself with blistering speed. A custodian was borne aloft and ripped bodily in two. Another was kicked so hard that his head cleared the plaza and vanished over the precipice before his blood-spurting body had even toppled. Yet another was stomped into the flagstones, even his toughened bone structure and auramite armour not enough to prevent his death. The golden wall between the Norn Emissary and its prey was thinning.

All the while Leontus defenders and the remaining Custodians were pouring fire into the colossal alien abomination. A scything blow of the Watcher's Axe slit the cable-like tendons of the beast's right ankle and set it limping. A plasma blast - either skullfully placed or incredibly lucky - melted the right side of the Emissary's face into a fused mass of cooked flesh. Bolt rounds fired by Custodians blasted chunks of chitin and showers of ichor from the creature's limbs and body.

Still the Norn Emissary fought on. Its whipping tail broke another Custodian's neck and sent his body cluttering away across the plaza. A final, desperate effort saw the beast hurl itself forward, jaws grasping to close upon Lord Solar Leontus like a trap slamming shut. Yet Valoris was there at the crucial moment, Watcher's Axe swinging in a meteoric arc to embed itself in the side of the Norn Emissary's skull and smash its head aside. The xenos monster crashed to the ground, crushing more than a score of Leontus' aides under its bulk, yet its last strike at the Lord Solar had been fended off by the Captain-General of the Emperor's own bodyguards. Valoris and his one surviving Custodian kept their weapons levelled at the monster as it twitched and heaved, but it did not try to rise again. Ichor flooded from its grievious wounds, steaming as it cooled and began to freeze upon the cracked flagstones of the plaza.

Lord Solar Leontus looked gravely around at the carnaged, then up at the stern-faced demigod who had interceded to save his life. Expression sombre, Leontus raised his hands and wordlessly offered the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes the sign of the Aquila. Valoris returned the gesture, and then calmly set about checking his wargear and reloading the Eagle's Scream. The life of the Lord Solar had been saved at terrible cost, and the defenders of Sanctum had received reinforcements, but there was still a world's worth of war to be waged.''

So the Norn Emissary is some kind of Tyranid John Wick?

Dudeface wrote:
So having seen the sprues on fauxhammer, gants only come with fleshborers, so do we think that the 3 weapon options aren't tied to the visual weapon or is a 2nd kit likely to follow like the assault intercessors?

I'd go with a full kit coming with the codex for my guess, but we might also consider the possibility that it's a legacy option to accommodate people with old gaunts. The very recent combat patrol had thirty six of the blighters and it can't be a good look for GW to invalidate options a lot of people only bought in the last year. Although I guess in that case the datasheet might be better served showing "gaunt weapons" instead of fleshborers.

 Souleater wrote:
So the Norn Emissary is some kind of Tyranid John Wick?

Probably. The Nom Emissary sounds like a fat Lictor. In this day and age where the power levels of hero characters have been cranked up sky high, a poor little Lictor isn't a credible threat anymore, so GW needs a monstrous creature version of that so as not to sound even sillier than their fluff normally does.

There was a Datacard for termagants a while back showing that they still had the three different weapons.

Probably an accurate take on the Lictor, sadly. They could just give us a cool plastic kit with adjusted stats to let it return to it’s days of being an unholy terror in the enemy back field…but no, they’ll make a new unit and continue the model bloat.

That or perhaps they've simply split the concept of a lictor. So instead of getting a Lictor we get the new trio of mini-lictors designed to operate in small groups and then a larger character lictor that's your solo character hunter.

It might even be a duel kit situation, a lictor and the Norn Emissary is the new "deathleaper" variant in terms of being just a bit more special.

The artwork we've seen a couple of pages ago and the fluff above suggest that the Nom Emissary is way too large for an alternate Lictor build.

 Overread wrote:
That or perhaps they've simply split the concept of a lictor. So instead of getting a Lictor we get the new trio of mini-lictors designed to operate in small groups and then a larger character lictor that's your solo character hunter.

It might even be a duel kit situation, a lictor and the Norn Emissary is the new "deathleaper" variant in terms of being just a bit more special.

The Norn Emissary sounds like a straight-up replacement of the Dimachaeron both in general concept (ambush predator/infiltrator aiming at high-level individuals) and in size and form- Pretty much an uber-Lictor that dumped the scouting and reconaissance aspects to go after the enemy command structure.

The Dimachaeron appears to have evolved for a single purpose: to slaughter those identified among their prey as leaders in the midst of battle, spreading terror and dismay among the ranks of all who resist the Hive Mind's advance. Bristling with blade-arms studded with sickle-like claws, it can slice a fully armoured Space Marine in two and is able to leap a Leman Russ Battle Tank without breaking stride. When stalking its prey the Dimachaeron dispenses with the slow, stealthy approach of the Lictor and instead relies on sheer brutality and animalistic rage, leaving a gore-soaked trail of carnage behind it.[1]

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dimachaeron

It's cute how those excerpts are a one-two punch of the best and worst of 40K fluff.

The first one is short, sweet, and evocative. Giant pervert peepers skulking around on obscure sidequests instead of fighting? Hell yeah. One of them going full Bishop up an elevator shaft? Hell yeah. A nameless nobody self-destructing to save the day for the bad good guys? Ok, cool enough.

And then the second one comes in with pure, unfiltered "I'm 12 years old and what is this?"

Jumping off a mountain to assassinate a foe. Custards intervening with milliseconds to spare no less than *three* times in one short vignette. A Custodian getting his head kicked off.