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PredaKhaine wrote:
Or a powerful psyker could take direct control.
Eldar could re-direct the nids through trickery

Nope and nope. The Shadow in the Warp causes all but the most powerful psykers to go insane or die outright, while the more powerful psykers use all their ability to block it out. The only psyker in any of the fluff that's been able to interact with the hive mind at all has been Tigerius, and that's only temporarily reading it.

PredaKhaine wrote:
DE could herd them using poisened shooting and pain

This makes very little sense.

PredaKhaine wrote:
Necrons could chase them (IIRC nids don't like necrons). There's also not much meat on a necron....

This makes even less sense.

PredaKhaine wrote:
An ethereal could control them through pheromones or whatever it is they've got

Wouldn't do a thing. It only affects Tau.

While IG genestealer cults make alot of sense (just make em look infested!) I like the idea of using Tau and tyranids as allies. By this i mean that Earth cast scientists have come up with a way to manipulate or copy the hiveminds signal, or maybe they have psychic beacons like in Starcraft. This would even work out fluffwise because the Tau are always trying to find the edge through science, and having your enemies fight your enemies does not seem like that bad of an idea.

Well one could just let tyranids ally with another tyranid army .tyranids HQs are high cost , so I doubt we would see 3 tyrants in most games and the extra elit slot could help them balance their army lists

I'm quite happy that one of the factions in 40K is not allowed to take allies. When Codex:Tyranids is written for 6th edition the writer will have to bare in mind that the bugs will have to be able to stand up to all threats on their own without access to friends to cover their glaring weaknesses or bolster their strength. My money is on Matt Ward writing the new Nid codex.

 generalchaos34 wrote:
By this i mean that Earth cast scientists have come up with a way to manipulate or copy the hiveminds signal, or maybe they have psychic beacons like in Starcraft.

Tau are a completely non-psychic race, and the only psychic allies they have are the Nicassar, who are primarily interested in simply allying with the Tau for protection.

So I fail to see how Tau would manage to do something with psychics that even the actual psychic races have failed to do, when they've got little to no understanding of how it works.

Also, get Starcraft references out of my 40k.

I'm all for Genestealer Cults as Tyranid allies, I just don't think opening up Guard to them is the way to do it. I've seen two types of people try to do this - people tha tput the effort into making them actually look like a Genestealer cult, and are doing it for fluff reasons. And people doing it to fit a Hydra or Manticore into their Tyranid army.

As it is, Tyranids don't need allies in 6th, and it is detrimental to them. In a 1500pt army, a Tyranid player will struggle to take all of the Tyranid toys he wants anyway, and those toys have synergistic elements that make the army as a whole work better - synapse, psychic powers, innate buffs to other units. Taking those out to fit in a Manticore might give you some additional firepower, but it makes the Tyranid portion of the army inherintly weaker.

 -Loki- wrote:

PredaKhaine wrote:
Or a powerful psyker could take direct control.
Eldar could re-direct the nids through trickery

Nope and nope. The Shadow in the Warp causes all but the most powerful psykers to go insane or die outright, while the more powerful psykers use all their ability to block it out. The only psyker in any of the fluff that's been able to interact with the hive mind at all has been Tigerius, and that's only temporarily reading it.

You mis-read me - those are two different points. What is to stop the Eldar (using tricks) leading the tyranids with a bait unit straight into another force? Re-directing enemies away from a craftworld is Eldar bread and butter.

PredaKhaine wrote:
DE could herd them using poisened shooting and pain

loki wrote:
This makes very little sense.

Ok - cut off from the hive mind, tyranids revert to 'instinctive behaviour' - nothing to stop DE on raiders harassing them into a conflict with another local force. To justify a playing a random friendly game.

PredaKhaine wrote:
Necrons could chase them (IIRC nids don't like necrons). There's also not much meat on a necron....

loki wrote:
This makes even less sense.

See above point for DE and swap it round. Nid's go out of their way to avoid Necrons. It's not really serious - again it would be to justify playing a fun game

PredaKhaine wrote:
An ethereal could control them through pheromones or whatever it is they've got

loki wrote:Wouldn't do a thing. It only affects Tau.

It's an excuse to put two armies on the table.


Thanks for both missing and then not quoting my actual point from this post - here it is again

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

I'm in this to have fun with friends - if someone asked me if they could use nids and allies I'd play against it because it would be fun.
The fluff and rules are both there to help people enjoy the game.
Games are not shining examples of canon fluff - most of the time game fluff is to attempt to justify why you're playing that particular game against those particular opponants.
Or am I having the wrong kind of fun?

Also, that post was written before comp play was mentioned and it was in response to the previous post.

 Super Ready wrote:
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.

I completely agree with this.
The theme in all of my posts on the previous page was I'd play against it for fun. If you play comp, you have to stick to the rules. I don't think they will be given allies, but it would be cool to have proper genestealer cult armies again - I found them fun to play against in 2nd. There was even a pdf at warhammer world recently detailing a squad and a character for Genestealer cult armies for a campaign. It looked like it would've been fun had I had time to go.

In a friendly game - I've even play against chaos using actual dinobots as proxies (swoop as a helldrake, the other 4 as maulerfiends) with a masterpiece grimlock as a warhound titan. Fortress Maximus as a reaver titan.
For no other reason than it would be fun

I completely agree. In a friendly atmosphere, I don't see a problem with Nids taking allies.

Fluff wise, I feel it doesn't make sense for Nids to take allies.

As others have said, you take allies (in a competitive environment) to make up for weaknesses. Tyranids make up for weaknesses by evolving new types of bugs. If the codex is made with that in mind, I'm sure we really will not need allies.

 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.

Divination called and wants it's title back.

Tyranids would NEVER ally with any race currently in the game. It simply doesnt happen. The "possibility" of necrons is pure bull. Tyranids actually have a section in one of their codexes saying they specifically avoid Necrons in all forms as they can gain very little to nothing from them. Same with Demons. You cant reason with the hive mind, you cant control the hive mind. Try to imagine communicating with something that has no language and no discernible goal except to kill you and tell me how that works. You cant herd them, the hive mind simply tells them to attack. Instinctive Behavior is largely an in-game thing as Synapse webs normally cover most of a planet.

Genestealer cults would be the only option for allies. Either put them as a sub section of the codex and say "may take as allies" or write them directly into the the slots.

Tyranids allying with Tyranids is also a horrid idea in both game and fluff. The hive minds would either merge or ignore each other, but wouldnt work together. It would be detrimental for two hive fleets to converge on the same world and act independently. In game its even worse, as Tervigon spam is already a stupidly strong list for just two units. Guess what allies would get you? more Tervigons. 3 FHT is just a waste of points. ~850-900 points tied up into 3 MCs that arent even particularly hard to kill or killy in melee?

Tyranids just need a new codex. They dont need any new models (though they will get them), they just need to make the other 2/3 of the army that no one takes viable again. It will largely have the same playstyle, but with a bit more variety. Hopefully they nerf the Tervigon abomination into the ground.

Agree - no allies for tyranids! it just doesn't make sense. I would like to see good internal balance for the dex so most units are good choices, and the tervigon go up in cost, removed from HQ, only taken as 0-2 and have some of its abilities removed (its psychic powers should be on the hive tyrant - just read the two entries and see who should have such powers)(also spawn spinegaunts and hormagaunts (with point increase as required)).

To address the 'what should nids get since they don't have allies' problem, nids should have some other options in how they play that are different than other armies. Challenges should be able to be ignored if desired. I wouldn't let anything but a tyrant issue a challenge (if them). Nids don't care about pride, shame, revenge, honour, etc, mean nothing - they just want to kill everything for more biomass.

I like the idea someone had of having an extra floater slot that can be applied anywhere so you could have 4 elites or 4 fast attacks, etc. Just put in restrictions to avoid spamming so as above - tervigon: a choice of 0-2, trygon could be 0-3, etc.

I would also like to see tyranids approach objectives differently as they don't care about territory or devices, etc. They only want to wipe out the creatures on the planet so all the biomass can be consumed. Objectives that might mean something to marines or eldar or tau mean nothing to nids. This would be the most difficult so I wouldn't expect it to ever happen but it would make them operate differently than other forces. Not sure how to do this but nid objectives should be tied to destroying the enemy force as that is what is hampering the consumption of the planets biomass (and may add to the biomass pile). Think about a game with a few objectives, at the end of the game if the nids hold the objectives without destroying the enemy forces which may still be positioned all around them they win the game but they haven`t accomplished anything useful. It is about trying to bring more of the fluff into the game mechanics if possible.

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

Its kind of fluffy, but not especially. Genestealer cults arent nearly as organised or well armed as IG. Also, since when do nids need stormbolters? And do IG even have that many?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

 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.

Divination called and wants it's title back.

Ok well how about we amend it 'Biomancy, the best discipline for Nids'?

 -Loki- wrote:
Nope and nope. The Shadow in the Warp causes all but the most powerful psykers to go insane or die outright

Most certainly not.

While psykers can often be "scared" of the Shadow in the Warp, they are not outright killed by it.

Indeed, the Astropaths in one of hte latest Cain novels (I think the latest at this point, but I'm out of the loop) expressed relief that they had been covered by the Shadow in the Warp, as they no longer felt the whispering of daemons in their ear.

 Melissia wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Nope and nope. The Shadow in the Warp causes all but the most powerful psykers to go insane or die outright

Most certainly not.

While psykers can often be "scared" of the Shadow in the Warp, they are not outright killed by it.

Indeed, the Astropaths in one of hte latest Cain novels (I think the latest at this point, but I'm out of the loop) expressed relief that they had been covered by the Shadow in the Warp, as they no longer felt the whispering of daemons in their ear.

5th edition codex, page 7.

For creatures without a latent psychic ability, this mental miasma manifests a pervasive dread, instilling a primal malaise that can never be truly expelled. For highly psychic races such as the Eldar or luckless psykers caught within it's enervating effect, the horror is magnified tenfold. Should the psyker attempt to use his otherworldly abilitiesthe cerebral cacophony worsens even further, pitching all but the strongest into incurable insanity where the psyker will repeatedly chant phrases in a tongue too alien to properly pronounce.

I'll retract psykers dying, as I simply can't remember where I found the refence for that. All but the strongest simply going insane? Yeah, official fluff. I'll take codex fluff over a semi serious Black Library book any day.

Genestealer cult allies would be great. I would settle for a change in the FOC under 2000pts to double the amount of elite slots though

 HerbaciousT wrote:

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

Its kind of fluffy, but not especially. Genestealer cults arent nearly as organised or well armed as IG. Also, since when do nids need stormbolters? And do IG even have that many?

Everyone needs more stormbolters and IG have them on their tanks (at least they used to when I played last). I'd like to see nids with some form of bio-stormbolter if they can't have allies.

Ric Ringo wrote:
I'd like to see nids with some form of bio-stormbolter if they can't have allies.

So, like, a high rate of fire, decent strength, medium ranged weapon?



Tyranids can take more of these than Guard and Space Marines combined can take Storm Bolters. Hell, one squad of Termagants is generally bigger than a whole Grey Knights army, so they can take more than them too. Sure it's got 6" less range and no AP, but AP 5 isn't terribly good anyway, and Tyranids can easily deploy these via Spores, so range is hardly an issue.

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.

I'd agree with that if it were not totally wrong. "Fluff wise" it already HAS happened. The Genestealer cults of old (RT through 3rd ed. - haven't looked at any nid codexes after that) had hybrids who could operate all manner of imperial equipment. There were varying levels of hybrids and some could even drive tanks. That's the whole point of the cults. They are infiltrators. Most of the cult are not full on genesteelers and could actually pass for human. The idea was that the cults infiltrated the society and tried to make sure THEY were the ones in control of law enforcement and as much of the military as possible so that the actual Tyranids would have an easier go of it. The nids show up, the planet tries to respond, and BAM their PDF is suddenly in a shambles because, for some reason, a full scale assault has been launched on them by many of their own units.There were even normal humans in the cults who were often mind controlled by the Patriarch or Magos.

If you want a more recent example there's an audio drama (think it's already been mentioned in this thread) were a wounded Hive Tyrant formed a physical link with a human (might have been a tech priest - I don't quite remember) and the two of them were actually working together in a kind of symbiotic relationship. It wouldn't take much imagination to extend any of either of these examples to include Orks, Eldar, etc. There even use to be Stealer cults that had turned to Chaos.

TL;DR:

You're wrong for multiple reasons and probably haven't seen much nid fluff beyond "NOM NOM NOM ....."

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

If Tyranids got Guard allies, the Guard would have to get some kind of penalty to make it fluffy. Like limited vehicle movement or reduced BS to represent that they're basically morphing into mutants and can't operate a complicated machine or fire a gun as accurately.

If Tyranids got Guard allies, the Guard would have to get some kind of penalty to make it fluffy. Like limited vehicle movement or reduced BS to represent that they're basically morphing into mutants and can't operate a complicated machine or fire a gun as accurately.

Like I said, a lot of the cultists were fully human. Not turning into anything. Even if a hybrid were driving a tank or whatever, they were NOT drooling mentally handicapped mutants. They retained their human intelligence and gained a limited link to the HIve Mind as well as super human strength, speed etc. That was part of the point of hybrids. I don't even play nids anymore, so I'm not sure why it matters, but imo Nids taking allies through the cults makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than something like the inquisition/Grey Knights working with ANY non-imperial army ...

Then how about the fact that they have to hide in secret limits the amount of toys they get? And they can be taken as an allied detachment for Tyranids but never the other way around.

I might as well jump out of the closet now and say I don't want to see the Doom + Detta spam + fields of Gants. It would be the most broken setup in the game.

 -Loki- wrote:

Ric Ringo wrote:
I'd like to see nids with some form of bio-stormbolter if they can't have allies.

So, like, a high rate of fire, decent strength, medium ranged weapon?



Tyranids can take more of these than Guard and Space Marines combined can take Storm Bolters. Hell, one squad of Termagants is generally bigger than a whole Grey Knights army, so they can take more than them too. Sure it's got 6" less range and no AP, but AP 5 isn't terribly good anyway, and Tyranids can easily deploy these via Spores, so range is hardly an issue.

Rather, if the Tyranids are going to get new guns, I think the ones that every Tyranid player wants are guns that can penetrate that dreaded 3+ or better save. That and a decent heavy anti-tank gun. The rupture cannon would be good were it not on an expensive model with mediocre BS (and if it didn't run in complete contrast to the rest of the T-fex's arsenal in purpose), and the Warp Lance while AWESOME is short ranged and the Eldar and Grey Knights laugh at it with all their "feth your psykers" shenanigans.

Tycho wrote:
I'd agree with that if it were not totally wrong. "Fluff wise" it already HAS happened. The Genestealer cults of old (RT through 3rd ed. - haven't looked at any nid codexes after that) had hybrids who could operate all manner of imperial equipment. There were varying levels of hybrids and some could even drive tanks. That's the whole point of the cults. They are infiltrators. Most of the cult are not full on genesteelers and could actually pass for human. The idea was that the cults infiltrated the society and tried to make sure THEY were the ones in control of law enforcement and as much of the military as possible so that the actual Tyranids would have an easier go of it. The nids show up, the planet tries to respond, and BAM their PDF is suddenly in a shambles because, for some reason, a full scale assault has been launched on them by many of their own units.There were even normal humans in the cults who were often mind controlled by the Patriarch or Magos.

If you read more than one comment in the thread, you'd be seeing people saying Genestealet Cults are the exception - the only exception.

Old fogeys don't have to act like old fogeys to prove a point - some of us are just as old.

Tycho wrote:
If you want a more recent example there's an audio drama (think it's already been mentioned in this thread) were a wounded Hive Tyrant formed a physical link with a human (might have been a tech priest - I don't quite remember) and the two of them were actually working together in a kind of symbiotic relationship. It wouldn't take much imagination to extend any of either of these examples to include Orks, Eldar, etc. There even use to be Stealer cults that had turned to Chaos.

Non studio material is not counted for fluff discussions for this very reason. They're a different take on the 40k universe. We don't see Lasguns blowing Chaos Marine heads off regularly, but Dan Abnett says they do.

As for Chaos Genestealer Cults, there used to be Chaos Worshipping Orks too. Some fluff falls by the wayside for good reason.

Tycho wrote:
TL;DR:

You're wrong for multiple reasons and probably haven't seen much nid fluff beyond "NOM NOM NOM ....."

Many being one - Genestealer Cults. Which people in the thread have already mentioned.

I kind of hope the new dex gives me a way to deal with Venom spam Dark Eldar...it's still pretty much a "hahaha you lose!" list for my bugs. :(

 -Loki- wrote:
For highly psychic races such as the Eldar or luckless psykers caught within it's enervating effect, the horror is magnified tenfold. Should the psyker attempt to use his otherworldly abilitiesthe cerebral cacophony worsens even further, pitching all but the strongest into incurable insanity where the psyker will repeatedly chant phrases in a tongue too alien to properly pronounce.

This is not reflected anywhere else in the lore, thus I consider it suspect.

Nor is it representative of anything on the tabletop either, where your common everyday psyker is completely uneffected by it and is capable of joining the battlefield without any problems.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I consider that nothing more than the bullgakking throwaway line that it is.

 Melissia wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
For highly psychic races such as the Eldar or luckless psykers caught within it's enervating effect, the horror is magnified tenfold. Should the psyker attempt to use his otherworldly abilitiesthe cerebral cacophony worsens even further, pitching all but the strongest into incurable insanity where the psyker will repeatedly chant phrases in a tongue too alien to properly pronounce.

This is not reflected anywhere else in the lore, thus I consider it suspect.

Nor is it representative of anything on the tabletop either, where your common everyday psyker is completely uneffected by it and is capable of joining the battlefield without any problems.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I consider that nothing more than the bullgakking throwaway line that it is.

If it's in the codex it must be true, just like Blood Angels and Necrons. And psykers within 12" I believe are affected, its 3D6 for psychic tests. Oh and why not throw out everything that Matt Ward has written about too, cause, y'know, he is Matt Ward.

You realize that many people still refuse to accept that, right?

 Melissia wrote:
You realize that many people still refuse to accept that, right?

Some refuse to move on from Rogue Trader when Space Marines were psychoctic berzerkers. Doesn't mean the fluff hasn't.

I mean, I refuse to beleive the Sisters of Battle aren't a bunch of high class call girls, but that dang annoying codex says differently. I refuse to beleive it, it's just not fitting my image of 40k.

Eh, Sisters probably should replace the corset look with a gothic armor plate look, to be closer to their inspiration.

But the thing is, I was referring to a relatively minor aspect of the lore which has been contradicted by every other piece of lore written since, not a major defining aspect of a faction's lore. I can (and did) provide fluff examples that contradict your piece of lore. It'd be hard for you to provide examples of Sisters of Battle being prostitutes.