Lots of cool ideas there, Xyphal. Some disorganized thoughts:
Xyphal wrote:
Gargoyles - Blind venom:
Works with shooting weapons if the squad only targets 1 unit, applies -1 to hit for a whole turn.
Seems fine.
Hormagaunts - Acid blood:
Active all the time. deaths cause mortal wounds on X+. Max 3 mortal
Makes it worthwhile even if facing 15 primaris + chapter master reroll
Probably fine. Assuming X = 6, you'd need to lose an average of 18 gaunts to deal 3 mortal wounds. I assume this would only work in the fight phase? Slightly curious as to why this would be a hormagaunts-specific thing. Thematically, my mind goes to genestealers with their xenomorph influence, and I believe Acid Blood was available to lots of things back when it was a piece of wargear. Maybe it should just go back to being wargear? Or an optional strat? It's nice to have, but I don't think I'd want to spend any extra points on hormagaunts just to let them kill 1.5 extra marines in the fight phase.
Rippers - Biomass ingesters:
A model can be consumed by monstruous tyranid units to regain D3 lost wounds
I'm not aware of any existing lore stating that this is a thing that rippers do/are used for, but it's a cool idea. Rule of cool says go for it. My only concern is does this perhaps become a bit much in combination with the stratagem that lets you heal an
MC? And isn't there a Blood of Baal chapter tactic that lets you heal 1 wound on
MCs automatically each turn? So we'd be talking about healing 5 wounds on average each turn.
Stratagem - Munition depletion:
Can only be used once for every tyranid infantry squad lost. Apply -1 to shooting to an enemy unit this phase.
Keep in mind the max negative to hit possible in 9th is -1.
I'm not totally clear on what this one is meant to convey/simulate. If you're imposing a to-hit penalty to a unit because they're running low on ammo and have to be more sparing with their shots, then it's a bit weird that the same unit is suddenly fine on the following turn after presumably having used even more ammo.
Minor aside: if tyranids were to get "doctrines" themed around the stages of invasion, I could see an ammo depletion rule being tied to one of the later stages. Maybe have it reduce the maximum range of enemy weapons to represent them waiting to see the whites of the tyranids' eyes. No wasting ammo on long shots.
Psychic power - The horror:
Force a morale check on a unit. Get those morale combos going.
Not sure how useful this would really be. In the psychic phase, you'll have only done a couple of smites and maybe a mawloc's worth of damage to the enemy army. Even if you take a couple debuff auras of some sort, it seems pretty unlikely that you'll be able to make an enemy unit fail a morale test. And if they do fail it, how does that interact with the normal morale test they'll be taking at the end of the turn?
Also, I'm fuzzy on my bug powers, but isn't The Horror pretty decent as-is?
I would also like to point out the stratagems below:
Astra militarum (October 2017): Send in the next wave - Valhallan infantry destroyed, redeploy from table edge full strengh
costs points
Tyranids (November 2017): Infinite swarm - gaunts hormagaunt or gargoyle destroyed , redeploy from table edge full strengh
costs points
Drukhari (March 2018): Black cornucopians - Wracks alive, redeploy from table edge full strengh
Orcs (November 2018): unstoppable green tide - Boyz half strengh, redeploy from table edge full strengh
Chaos space marines (March 2019): Tide of traitors - cultists alive, redeploy from table edge full strengh
I wound find only fair the oldest codex get an updated version of the stratagem that does not cost points and puts the alive requirement.
No objection here. Just a quick note that I
think the rule of thumb you're seeing is that "healing" a unit does not cost points whereas adding a new unit (even if it requires another unit be destroyed) does cost points. Changing it to be similar to the Green Tide is probably the best fit for gaunts.
