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 Altruizine wrote:
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.

The last one is just bad on all counts - it's pretty symptomatic for writing from people that have no experience in writing combat scenes, or even sports or other dynamic things. You get no sense of what is actually happening from it, something jumps around, at one moment it's getting deflected by rockets, the next it's near enough to get hit by an axe, then it falls and crushes twenty people... how big is this thing, what is its mass, speed etc.? Just a total confusion of movements and momentum, leading to an incoherent scene. It begs to be made into a comic that is as close as possible to the description to really drive home the absurdity.

The Iron Within WHTV Animation is pretty similar.

When it’s Drukhari vs the PDF troops there’s lots of back and forth in the combat. Both sides get to do cool stuff and harm the enemy.

The second the Marines arrive the Xenos turn into a bunch of morons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
“ 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…”

Unhorsed…? An explosion powerful enough to deflect a monster falling at close to terminal velocity should have hospitalised the guy at minimum! 😄😄

4 Custodians dead and another armless, possibly dead. Not bad considering in fluff how rare Custodians are meant to be. Their replacement rate is not exactly stated but I can't imagine it would be that great, otherwise the Emperor would not have needed SM at all if he could have just produced Custodes.

Wonder if the Hive Mind has ever captured and dissected a Custodian yet? Back in 3rd edition, it hinted that the design for Tyrand Guards came about as a result of assimilating Space Marines.

Some more 4th Tyrannic War lore from Arbitor Ian's video, via reddit:

A few fun bits:

New Tyranid bioships called Mindflayers that unleash some sort of psychic attacks.

The Ecclesiarchy denounced the Tyranid invasion as fake news despite Imperial military command emphatically stating otherwise. This inevitably leads to armed conflict between imperial forces as invasion-deniers were attacking anyone with a brain. Many continued to refuse to believe that the Tyranids were invading while Tyranid spores were raining down on the sky above them. Love the satire.

Norn Emissaries aren't "one-of-a-kind" like Swarmlords, and they seem to be some sort of super assassin type of creature. I presume GW's gonna unveil this new Tyranid bioform sometime soon.

At the end of the lore segment, it's stated that the 4th Tyrannic War has only just begun, and the Raven Guard had discovered a Death Star sized Tyranid bioship (the size of a moon) unlike anything they've ever seen before. The lore ends there.

Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/13zxsm3/4th_tyrannic_war_lore_official_content_creator/
Video: https://youtu.be/bc4_UraU4NI

Tsagualsa wrote:

The Norn Emissary sounds like a straight-up replacement of the Dimachaeron

We may even have it old name kept as High Gothic where Norn Emissary is a common Low Gothic nickname.

 Shadow Walker wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

The Norn Emissary sounds like a straight-up replacement of the Dimachaeron

We may even have it old name kept as High Gothic where Norn Emissary is a common Low Gothic nickname.

As long as they get rid of the stupid chest-maw-stinger on the Dimachaeron they could call it Shirley for all i care

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

The Norn Emissary sounds like a straight-up replacement of the Dimachaeron

We may even have it old name kept as High Gothic where Norn Emissary is a common Low Gothic nickname.

As long as they get rid of the stupid chest-maw-stinger on the Dimachaeron they could call it Shirley for all i care

Yeah, never was a fan of it, and the model as a whole(also resin). Hopefully, new one will be better than it, and also better than the art shown in Leviathan. I also hope that it is not a single big model we are getting, and there is a proper super heavy/titan scale one for us.

Kind of funny they went with "mindflayer"... isn't that one of WotC's copyrights?











(disclaimer for any pedants tempted to slip into internet IP lawyer cosplay to tell me a word cannot be copyrighted: yes, i am aware)

 Altruizine wrote:
Kind of funny they went with "mindflayer"... isn't that one of WotC's copyrights?

(disclaimer for any pedants tempted to slip into internet IP lawyer cosplay to tell me a word cannot be copyrighted: yes, i am aware)

Mindflayers specifically have a utterly ridiculous and convoluted history of legal fights between more than a handful of parties over the years, if you ever want to spend an afternoon or weekend going down a stupid legal rabbithole...

 Shadow Walker wrote:
I also hope that it is not a single big model we are getting, and there is a proper super heavy/titan scale one for us.

Since Necrons got both the Silent King and the Monolith (how big is the Void Dragon?) I would be surprised if Tyranids won't also get at least two big releases, especially since we heard multiple times now that the Tyranid refresh would be the biggest they have ever done so bigger than Necrons

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:
Kind of funny they went with "mindflayer"... isn't that one of WotC's copyrights?

(disclaimer for any pedants tempted to slip into internet IP lawyer cosplay to tell me a word cannot be copyrighted: yes, i am aware)

Mindflayers specifically have a utterly ridiculous and convoluted history of legal fights between more than a handful of parties over the years, if you ever want to spend an afternoon or weekend going down a stupid legal rabbithole...

Yeah, I'd heard something about that (maybe even here, from you, if it's something you remember posting about in one of the many threads about GW and IP).

I get a kick out of the company who tried to rip the words Space Marine out of the hands of a children's author just going "F--- it, we have mindflayers now"

 Shadow Walker wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

The Norn Emissary sounds like a straight-up replacement of the Dimachaeron

We may even have it old name kept as High Gothic where Norn Emissary is a common Low Gothic nickname.

As long as they get rid of the stupid chest-maw-stinger on the Dimachaeron they could call it Shirley for all i care

Yeah, never was a fan of it, and the model as a whole(also resin). Hopefully, new one will be better than it, and also better than the art shown in Leviathan. I also hope that it is not a single big model we are getting, and there is a proper super heavy/titan scale one for us.

I don't mind the idea of a chest maw/stinger. My issue with it was that, and this was going by photos, it was so oddly proportioned and posed. It was a huge hulking upper body with a huge chest weapon on long skinny legs. It just didn't look proportioned right.

Don't think I'd seen it in here but confirmation of base sizes:

The small ones (neurogants) 25mm, termagants 28mm, Von Ryans 40mm, Barbgaunts 40mm, screamer killer 90mm, and 50mm the Prime and Neurotyrant.

From a contenty person on reddit with the box.

Dudeface wrote:
Don't think I'd seen it in here but confirmation of base sizes:

The small ones (neurogants) 25mm, termagants 28mm, Von Ryans 40mm, Barbgaunts 40mm, screamer killer 90mm, and 50mm the Prime and Neurotyrant.

From a contenty person on reddit with the box.

Time to rebase your termas guys.

Conceptually I think GW is struggling with new ideas/niches for Tyranid creatures that don't already overlap with existing ones to some degree, especially the close combat creatures.

The latest Tyranids seem to be mostly this "more of the same". Leapers are like a variant Lictor. Neurotyrant seems a different Zoanthrope, in the role of C&C rather than psychic artillery. A CC Carnifex vs. the Haruspex... I don't know, but they just don't fire the imagination the same way the old ones did.

Iracundus wrote:
Conceptually I think GW is struggling with new ideas/niches for Tyranid creatures that don't already overlap with existing ones to some degree, especially the close combat creatures.

The latest Tyranids seem to be mostly this "more of the same". Leapers are like a variant Lictor. Neurotyrant seems a different Zoanthrope, in the role of C&C rather than psychic artillery. A CC Carnifex vs. the Haruspex... I don't know, but they just don't fire the imagination the same way the old ones did.

What do you mean by CC Carnifex? If a Screamer Killer then it was there since the very beginning.

To be fair it can be hard to think of new niches in a game that already has an army which covers pretty much all the questions an opposing army can as of it.

I think some of the ideas are also niche concepts - eg the neutrogaunts and barbedgaunts are clearly not really aiming to replace other synapse options nor hiveguard or such. What they are doing is providing alternatives that might be as good/not as good; but which would easily fit into a "swarm army" theme.

That's what I feel we've got with some of the new stuff. It's not so much about providing new tools for the army, but new niches to build army types.

With them you can build an army that has way more gaunt class models and covers more options and features, without having to splice in more warriors or hive guard for those roles.

 Shadow Walker wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
Conceptually I think GW is struggling with new ideas/niches for Tyranid creatures that don't already overlap with existing ones to some degree, especially the close combat creatures.

The latest Tyranids seem to be mostly this "more of the same". Leapers are like a variant Lictor. Neurotyrant seems a different Zoanthrope, in the role of C&C rather than psychic artillery. A CC Carnifex vs. the Haruspex... I don't know, but they just don't fire the imagination the same way the old ones did.

What do you mean by CC Carnifex? If a Screamer Killer then it was there since the very beginning.

I meant the introduction of the Haruspex 40K model seemed a little redundant back you could construct a Carnifex geared for CC, and now they have split the Screamer Killer off from the Carnifex. The old Epic Haruspex was a tank sized assault creature that squired short range acid.
The ultimate result though is similar. You get a big monster that runs around, one with bio-plasma and another with its tongue and maw attacks. I would say that despite these differences they occupy a similar design space.

Iracundus wrote:
and now they have split the Screamer Killer off from the Carnifex.

It was probably one of the stupidest things they have done. SC is just a Carnifex variant, same as Thornback. Making them separate from the Carnifex entry is idiotic, and only increases datasheets bloat.

I dunno, its one way to make a new unique looking model without bloating the game side of things.

Hormagaunts, Gargoyles and Termagants (and now Neurogants, Leapers and Barbgants) are canonically just variants of the same gaunt template and yet have been different datasheets since forever.

Lore wise you can justify a lot of model and datasheet bloat with nids as just being variants of existing critters.

Would have been better to use the 3rd edition "Build a Tyranid" rules. Yes, I know there were abuses possible, but that just means reworking the system not throwing it out.

 Shadow Walker wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
and now they have split the Screamer Killer off from the Carnifex.

It was probably one of the stupidest things they have done. SC is just a Carnifex variant, same as Thornback. Making them separate from the Carnifex entry is idiotic, and only increases datasheets bloat.

And yet if the Carnifex was just a single entry, there would be the same claim about "how can you not have that many of them? there's so many types!!!!". They're splitting things off. We've seen that in the Leman Russ now.

There's an upside to it. It lets there be special rules actually impacting that specific genotype of Carnifex.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
and now they have split the Screamer Killer off from the Carnifex.

It was probably one of the stupidest things they have done. SC is just a Carnifex variant, same as Thornback. Making them separate from the Carnifex entry is idiotic, and only increases datasheets bloat.

And yet if the Carnifex was just a single entry, there would be the same claim about "how can you not have that many of them? there's so many types!!!!". They're splitting things off. We've seen that in the Leman Russ now.

There's an upside to it. It lets there be special rules actually impacting that specific genotype of Carnifex.

The Carnifex was a single entry. I remember an interview with Jes Goodwin saying the whole point was being able to build the Carnifex however you wanted with all those biomorph options and weapon choices. Then Forgeworld got in with things like new claw arms etc... The Carnifex was basically the Leman Russ hull, and the armament choices made the variants.

Iracundus wrote:
and now they have split the Screamer Killer off from the Carnifex.

You may want to take a glance at the current and preceding Tyranid Codexes. That's not new.

The carnifex was always a jack of all trades, but that did also hamper it a little. It's stats were never perfect for any one role it was given; and various editions tried to cover that by basically giving the option to buy more biomorphs to improve its stats in select ways.

In the end many people did use them in very separate roles - even if you magnetized them you'd be putting the extra eyes head on any fex using lots of guns etc...


All GW has done with the screamer is take one build variation out of the mix and give it its own entry. The bonus there is that they can also give it unique stats that fit the role perfectly without needing to buy on additions and such.


I could see GW doing that for hte fex overall. Taking 1 modular kit and breaking it into several named kits.You could still use the classic model or you could get the new, more dynamic kits; meanwhile the rules would go from giving you 1 core jack fex to a handful of variations suited to their specific roles.

Get your jaws on lads….we’ve a preview to win!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/05/warhammer-40000-global-battle-decide-the-fate-of-a-world-and-unlock-massive-reveals-in-the-battle-for-oghram/

Inaugural global campaign. Which side (Maureens or Tyranids) will get their next wave of releases shown off first.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Get your jaws on lads….we’ve a preview to win!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/05/warhammer-40000-global-battle-decide-the-fate-of-a-world-and-unlock-massive-reveals-in-the-battle-for-oghram/

Inaugural global campaign. Which side (Maureens or Tyranids) will get their next wave of releases shown off first.

With the powers of cynicism and jadedness, i peer through the veil of time and predict that the Tyranids will win a hard-fought victory, driving home the 'fact' that stakes have never been so high for the Imperium™ and winning the reveal for the faction whose Codex is listed next on the roadmap, instead for the one that is listed after it

So if we win they will show our models in Autumn on Monday not on Tuesday? So hyped

 Shadow Walker wrote:
So if we win they will show our models in Autumn on Monday not on Tuesday? So hyped

Considering the lead times involved, the results of this battle are going to show up in printed books at about the beginning of the lead-up phase for 11th edition.