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Do you think the Tyranids will be compensated in their next codex for their lack of allies?

I think GW f**ked this one up. I only play Nids but would love to venture out and buy some allies, without having to commit the hundreds of dollars it takes to build a completely separate army. They have lost my business.

Maybe they'll add rules for a genestealer cult, or some form of spawning pool?

I think that'll be cool. I never played 5th edition, but I heard that you were allowed to have swarms without end that would come back after they died. I think that's a really cool idea to bring back.

I have two friends that both really loved their armies but began to venture into buying allies and now they have so much fun using their two armies together and I'm sitting here wishing I could add some spice into the mix.

Well, they ARE friends... ask them if they mind house-ruling that you can take Allies anyway? Just consider it "Desperate Allies" and don't go looking for game-breaking combos that'll sour them against ever agreeing to it.

Who would the bugs ally with that they wouldn't try and eat!?!?!

Surely they could ally with Tau.
After a mind-control mix-up, they get on so-so, and just well enough to fight together....

Malik_Raynor wrote:
Who would the bugs ally with that they wouldn't try and eat!?!?!

In one of the BA audio books, a tech priest manages to 'hack' into a hive tyrant and control it (although the downside is it controls him right back iirc)
Or a powerful psyker could take direct control.
Eldar could re-direct the nids through trickery
DE could herd them using poisened shooting and pain
Necrons could chase them (IIRC nids don't like necrons). There's also not much meat on a necron....
An ethereal could control them through pheromones or whatever it is they've got

In a friendly game, I'd play against nids and allies

The only thing I can remotly understand as nids with allies, is necrons as desperate allies.

And even that just representing they are both THERE and just don't care much of each other's actions much, not that they are actually cooperating.

 BoomWolf wrote:
The only thing I can remotly understand as nids with allies, is necrons as desperate allies.

And even that just representing they are both THERE and just don't care much of each other's actions much, not that they are actually cooperating.

So you couldn't see the eldar appearing from a webway portal just before the battle to ensure the winner is the side they picked? to prevent the obligatory disater for their respective craftworld?

Tigurius is apparently a good enough psyker to hack into the hive mind. Is it too much of a stretch to think he may be able to overwhelm a singular force of Nids? He wouldn't even need to control them, he could just blind them to him and let them carry on

PredaKhaine wrote:


Tigurius is apparently a good enough psyker to hack into the hive mind. Is it too much of a stretch to think he may be able to overwhelm a singular force of Nids? He wouldn't even need to control them, he could just blind them to him and let them carry on

Tyranids is the shadow in the warp, basically when someone "hack" a hivemind they basically get overwhelmed by the psyker signals of any and every synapse creature that ever had contact with the hivemind.

That would be a headache enough to make you drink for a week.

Warhammer wikia wrote:
Tigurius has recently turned his talents to divining the threat of the Tyranids. His predictions about their movements have been so accurate that it would appear he has been able to psychically contact the Tyranid Hive Mind -- a feat that has driven lesser individuals irreparably insane.

Thats where I got that from - as a reason for justifying using tyranids with allies in a friendly game against your mates I think its fine

Edit: Apologies for not being able to quote any official sources - no books atm.

With 6th edition Tyranids got some of the best Psykers in the game. All with access to biomancy, the best discipline in the game. Flying Hive Tyrants alone make up for your lack of allies.

 BoomWolf wrote:
The only thing I can remotly understand as nids with allies, is necrons as desperate allies.

And even that just representing they are both THERE and just don't care much of each other's actions much, not that they are actually cooperating.

Actually, this wouldn't happen. The Silent King returned and started wakinp up all the Tomb Worlds because he found out about the Tyranids. He has a dream of returning all necrons to biological bodies and here comes a race that devours all biological life. That kinda screws up the Silent King's dream

On topic: I hope tyranids get some FOC shenanigans to compensate for lack of allies. Because it makes no sense at all tyranids allying with anything, you could create some crazy armies. Tyranid players would be able to field bugs in several new ways, and probably buying more Tyranid models, pleasing GW. Well, but that's me being too damn optimistic

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
The only thing I can remotly understand as nids with allies, is necrons as desperate allies.

And even that just representing they are both THERE and just don't care much of each other's actions much, not that they are actually cooperating.

Actually, this wouldn't happen. The Silent King returned and started wakinp up all the Tomb Worlds because he found out about the Tyranids. He has a dream of returning all necrons to biological bodies and here comes a race that devours all biological life. That kinda screws up the Silent King's dream

What if he puts the necrons in the tyranids?

PredaKhaine wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
The only thing I can remotly understand as nids with allies, is necrons as desperate allies.

And even that just representing they are both THERE and just don't care much of each other's actions much, not that they are actually cooperating.

Actually, this wouldn't happen. The Silent King returned and started wakinp up all the Tomb Worlds because he found out about the Tyranids. He has a dream of returning all necrons to biological bodies and here comes a race that devours all biological life. That kinda screws up the Silent King's dream

What if he puts the necrons in the tyranids?

...then may the God-Emperor, Chaos Gods and Eldar Gods have mercy for the Galaxy

I wouldnt mind seeing a genestealer cult ally or perhaps bringing some of the older rules back and making them a separate hive fleet ally type thing. Overall i havent had a problem with no allies. Maybe making each hive fleet have slightly different bonuses. Like the old chaos codex used to do. For example night lords themed army had night vision or something like that. been too long cant remember exactly.

It's not that my friends wouldn't be okay with letting me take allies. They don't care. It's when I play at tournaments that I get bummed out.

I'm not saying Tyranids need allies, because fluff-wise, it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense (but neither does some of the current allies).

It would just be cool to see some sort of compensation such as a wacky FOC where maybe we can take additional HQ, Elite, or Heavy slots below 2000 points.

Who would the bugs ally with that they wouldn't try and eat!?!?!

In the "good ol' days" of 2nd ed., the nids had the Zoat Empire. The Zoat race acted as heralds and ambassadors for worlds the Hive Fleets hadn't gotten to yet. They were also scary powerful.

Then there's the old Genestealer cults. They could take certain IG tanks/weapons and even had their own Limo with rules and everything.

In the absence of anything Zoat'like in the current game, I would allow a Tyranid player to work up rules for taking some IG as Allies and treating them like Genestealer cults. I don't think
I'd have them be Battle Bro's, and you would have to be careful about what units you could use, but that would be a fairly fluffy army that I would play against in friendly games.

EDIT:

It's when I play at tournaments that I get bummed out.

OOps. We cross-posted. IDK what you would do about tourneys. Hopefully the new nids book will bring back some of the "old allies", or at least make it so that you don't feel you need them.

 gpfunk wrote:
With 6th edition Tyranids got some of the best Psykers in the game. All with access to biomancy, the best discipline in the game. Flying Hive Tyrants alone make up for your lack of allies.

Oh yes, I just love mastery level 1 psykers with Biomancy, so much better than Mastery Level 3-4 with Divination. In all seriousness, Tyranid psykers aren't great in terms of their psychic power, the primary advantages Tyranids have when it comes to psykers over other armies (except Daemons, Daemon psykers can do everything Tyranid psykers can do, but better) is the proliferation of psykers (In HQ, Elites and Troops rather than just HQ) and how their psykers can be used to buff and debuff to support their natural abilities.

I think they should be able to ally with themselves. Then they have the same FOC as everyone else.

My guess is they'll have Genestealer cultists as an option. Counting as Battle Brother allied units.

That said, simply having allies as an option is not an inherent advantage. Some codices gain nothing of value by taking allies, usually the stronger codices experience this.

Its only a weaker codex that benefits from taking allies.


I see the new nid codex having more skyfire options along with a general point re-balancing.

I don't think that the Tyranids will get any significant advantage for their trouble.

That being said, I think that whenever you do get a new Codex it will probably have Genestealer Cultist options, which may in some fashion allow you to take allied units, but it may also just be their own entry (like Looted Wagons) and allow you to use other models.

I could see tyranid's with daemons. Hivemind's got nothing on tzeentch xD

PredaKhaine wrote:

Tigurius is apparently a good enough psyker to hack into the hive mind. Is it too much of a stretch to think he may be able to overwhelm a singular force of Nids? He wouldn't even need to control them, he could just blind them to him and let them carry on

No. Tigurius mangaed to look into the Hive Mind, and he was lucky to survive. At the root of the Hive Mind is an utterly immortal, completely single minded hunger. Any ordinary Psyker that looked into the Hive Mind would claw his own eyes out at how utterly inhuman the entity is. The Hive Mind is so completely alien, so utterly unnatural, such a complete affront to all sapient life, even Daemons find its presence deeply distressing. Daemons, at the very least, and even Necrons to some degree, have emotion, motives and purpose.

Tyranids, and the Hive Mind, have absolutely no purpose other than to exist, and make sure nothing exists other than themselves, and they will let nothing stop them from doing that, solely because of the need to do so. They take no pride in their work, they feel no shame, pain, revenge, smugness, or anything. The Necrons do what they do to reclaim their lost empire and to have vengence on the living. Daemons do their work to gain the favour of their creators and to satisfy their own perverted whims. The Tyranids don't "want" to consume all life. They just do, because that is what they exist to do. Their hunger isn't just hardwired into the Tyranids, it IS the Tyranids. They are evolution and hunger incarnate, and their thought processes, if they can even be called that, are so horrifically, unfathomably single-minded that no sentient being in or out of existance can hope to stay sane.

Tigurius only survived because he only looked into the Hive Mind through the eyes of a dying Tyranid (I assume, the quote is not expanded upon). If he had actually tried to tap into the Hive Mind, his mind would have self-terminated out of the sheer wrongness of its existence.

In other words, allies would not work.

Awesome... But it still sucks. Something's gotta happen.

 Adamantium wrote:
Awesome... But it still sucks. Something's gotta happen.

Nids don't need allies, they're strong enough on their own tbh.

When they release a new tyranid's book, I bet it will have no glaring "weaknesses", as usually, one would fill an army's weakness with allies. Given they are not permitted allies, they will likely have an answer for everything in one book, in a jack of all trades, master of none kind of army style.

The fact that we cant take allies is one thing I really like about the Nids. Its very fluffy for the nids.
I like it when allies are taken for fluff reasons. Though of course I understand some people play for the win every time, and then you have tournaments and the like, so I do get why allies are taken to fill tactical gaps. I just prefer to sick to one codex at a time, unless its for fluff purposes (like SM and Guard, or Chaos SM and Daemons)

More on topic though, i really hope Tyranids still cant take allies if they get a new dex. I think that even with some tweaking, and the viscous culling of the pyrovore, they could have an excellent codex.

Genestealer Cult (IG based) makes perfect sense. It's fluffy and awesome and gives nids access to much needed stormbolters.

Fluff wise, Tyranids are never going to ally with anyone. Ever. It is not going to happen. You are never going to be able to take a bunch of Vendettas in your Nid list with the excuse that they're "a genestealer cult".

The only thing that can happen in the next dex to even it out is to make Tyranids not need allies, which is not exactly difficult to pull off. Considering GW will want to sell their new Tyranids, I imagine this will turn out to be the case.