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One of the goals of ProHammer was to enable players to use any of the classic codexes from 3rd - 7th edition by utilizing the ProHammer rules. I've wanted to avoid dabbling with Codex creation - as it can be such a heavy lift. However, prompted by this thread, I've decided to take a stab at creating a new "classic" codex for select armies. Like ProHammer, these "classic" codexs would start with the codex that seemed to best represent army in lore and gameplay diversity, but then pull from other editions of the codex as needed to round out rosters and normalize point costs. The intent is that these "classic" codexes will stand on their own and can be used with any edition of the classic rules OR alongside ProHammer.

We're starting with the Tyranids.

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Codex: Tyranid Classic (v1.0) (google doc)
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Design Direction

The Tyranid Classic codex started with 4th edition Tyranids, which was notable for the wide range of unit customization options and subtle force organization mutators available to players. The 5th and 6th edition codexs however introduced a significant number of new units and some fun toys (like Mycetic Spores, aka drop pods). The intent of this classic codex is to start with the 4th edition book, porting in new unit additions, and applying some of the same customization logic to the newer units. Overall, by 6th and 7th edition things had tended to get quite a bit cheaper points wise, and so base unit prices were adjusted to be closer to an average between the 4th, 5th, and 6th edition prices.

Please take a look and let me know if you have any feedback or specific questions!

P.S. I was curious how long it would take to create a Codex in this manner, and having drafted this I estimate it was about 25-30 hours worth of work to get it pulled together.

At first glance, you seem to be missing Maleceptor, Toxicrene, Exocrine, Haruspex, Neurothrope, Sporocyst and Mucolid spores.

And of course the lack of Swarmlord, Deathleaper, Old One Eye (admittedly that one can be any Carnifex with the correct upgrades) and Parasite.

Yes - I left out all the unique characters - and to be honest I didn't have a sense of where to draw the line on newer models.

6th edition added the Haruspex + Exocrine (which I didn't include). The others were all burried in campaign books during 7th IIRC.

To be honest - it was starting to seem like unit bloat and the units I left off didn't really reflect a unique battlefield role. I felt I cut it off at a reasonable point. But please tell me if there's a compelling reason to include those that are missing.

Administrative comments: instinctive misspelled in several places, Ravener labeled Ravenor, the Abnett character.

Content comments:

Warriors/Shrikes
Interesting choice to make the tyranid prime the upgrade character for warriors. You've given him the ability to take wings, which he was not able to do when introduced in 5th as an IC. I always wanted him to have them so he could join shrikes. Restoring the ability of warriors to take wings kind of solves that problem because shrikes were just warriors with the winged biomorph originally. Not sure why they got their own codex entry in 5th since they never had a model, just some wings you could get from FW. Shrikes are kind of redundant in your document because of winged warriors though the shrikes are cheaper. A base warrior with wings is 29. A shrike is 21. Is scoring and a better save worth 8 ppm?

I'd consider removing shrikes as an entry and having warriors with wings count as fast attack. But this could get messy if you keep the prime as an upgrade character. Take wings go fast attack. Add prime, now you're HQ. If you make him an IC again then it's less of a problem.

In 4th originally, you could take a unit of Warriors as an HQ choice, and I sort of liked the idea of tying them counting as an HQ to having one of them being upgraded to the Prime (but still working as part of a unit of 3 minimum).

I kept the Shrike & Warriors different for a few reasons. I did make it so Warriors with Wings would still count as Troops - so in theory you could have an all-flying army. Broken? not sure - but seems fun. The Shrike have slightly different biomorph options and can't be quite as strong - but they are a little cheaper.

Mass customisation is always going to be a tricky one to balance as amongst the options there are going to be optimal mix/maxed paths that need to be correctly priced, but the more those are pushed up the more the sub-optimal 'fluff' choices suffer.

And/or you find yourself with something like the old vehicle rules where everything except the min/maxed options are overpriced.

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In terms of flying troops they were a thing in 5th (blood angels) without anything going too badly wrong - _jump_ troops rather than 6e actual flying that is.

As you could score from within transports there were always armies that could go further faster, and many fast bike armies.

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The psychic powers need an activation phase to use in earlier editions.

Curious to see how the wider availability of psychic scream pans out, seems like something you might risk a few extra points on the zoanthropes (rather than the limited broodlord access) in the hopes of getting a big aura of -6, and then half your opponents army runs off the board from taking 25% casualties.

I'd also question the change to paroxysm - it completely disables some units (i.e. ork shooting)

 Mezmorki wrote:
Yes - I left out all the unique characters - and to be honest I didn't have a sense of where to draw the line on newer models.

6th edition added the Haruspex + Exocrine (which I didn't include). The others were all burried in campaign books during 7th IIRC.

To be honest - it was starting to seem like unit bloat and the units I left off didn't really reflect a unique battlefield role. I felt I cut it off at a reasonable point. But please tell me if there's a compelling reason to include those that are missing.

The Exocrine provides plasma in an army that mostly lacks ranged AP2.
The Sporocyst is all about denying terrain by being able to spam wave after wave of Spore Mines and/or Mucolid Spores.
The Maleceptor is a giant psyker.
The Toxicrene has struggled to find a well written role in the rules, but in the lore it is a walking bio-chemical factory that goes around poisoning everything on its path.
The Neurothrope is an upgrade to the Zoanthropes in the same way the Prime is an upgrade to the Warriors (or the Broodlord to the Genestealers), it makes Zoanthropes better.
The Parasite spams Rippers by killing people (also in 9th is no longer an unique character so you can have many flying around).

The Swarmlord is supposed to be very very smart and the Deathleaper is supposed to be a terror weapon, which admittedly are roles that have always struggled to be properly represented on the tabletop.

IMHO the weird one is the Haruspex, that thing never had a well defined battlefield role aside of being very hungry.

 Tyran wrote:

The Exocrine provides plasma in an army that mostly lacks ranged AP2.

I'd be tempted to just make the weapon profile available as one of the primary weapons on the Tyrannofex. Stat wise it's close enough. Could merge the two profiles and have the relevant biomorph upgrades to either build a Tyrannofex as is or a Exocrine.

The Sporocyst is all about denying terrain by being able to spam wave after wave of Spore Mines and/or Mucolid Spores.

Isn't that the point of (a) Biovores; (b) Spore Mine Clusters; and (c) Harpy (with the spore mine cysts)? This is what I mean about bloat and redundancy in models.

The Maleceptor is a giant psyker.

Seems duplicative with Hive Tyrants - which are also giant psykers and cut into the territory of zoanthropes as well.

The Toxicrene has struggled to find a well written role in the rules, but in the lore it is a walking bio-chemical factory that goes around poisoning everything on its path.

There's already Venomthropes that play around with poison/toxins, gas clouds, etc..

The Neurothrope is an upgrade to the Zoanthropes in the same way the Prime is an upgrade to the Warriors (or the Broodlord to the Genestealers), it makes Zoanthropes better.

Maybe could be considered.

These are just some thoughts to consider. I guess the point is that everything doesn't need to be it's own unit all of the time.

 Mezmorki wrote:


Isn't that the point of (a) Biovores; (b) Spore Mine Clusters; and (c) Harpy (with the spore mine cysts)?

Biovores and Harpies are more about dropping Spore Mines on enemy units with area denial being a consolation price if they miss. They are primarily offensive while the Sporocyst is more defensive.

Seems duplicative with Hive Tyrants - which are also giant psykers and cut into the territory of zoanthropes as well.

Hive Tyrants have guns and claws. They are psykers but they aren't all about psychic power.

There's already Venomthropes that play around with poison/toxins, gas clouds, etc..

Venomthropes are more defensive in nature, giving cover and defensive grenades while Toxicrines are more aggressive, actively seeking to get into their prey's face to melt it. They both play with similar tools, but with different applications. Also the Toxicrine is a monster while Venomthropes are infantry.

This is what I mean about bloat and redundancy in models.

It is a tricky balance, but I wouldn't say redundancy is the same as bloat. Redundancy creates robustness because you no longer have one single point of failure and you are not limited to one single set of capabilities for a role.

E.g. a Devastator Squad and a Predator make each other redundant, but because on is a tank and the other is an infantry, they have different operational capabilities even if their roles overlap with each other.

Custom codex that's so cool !!!!

I don't think more choice = bloat especialy when it's for units that doesn't do the same things. i'm pretty new to this but as long at it recycle part of stuff found somewhere else but different it make rules easy to remember.

Is there a reason to not include characters ?

Imagine unified codex each made by multiple people, that's would be amazing i wish i could do it. i need more experience first. Way more