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Perhaps he meant Tyrant Guard?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Perhaps he meant Tyrant Guard?

I hope so.

Aren't hive guard cannons assault weapons, allowing you to shoot and assault in the same turn?

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Aren't hive guard cannons assault weapons, allowing you to shoot and assault in the same turn?

Yes, but they are only S4 irrc. Making it really hard for a Hive Guard to wreck a rhino in CC.

ghoulio wrote:
Venomthrope - Why is the Venomthrope WS3 and BS4 but has NO guns and can't ever use guns?

Celestine had BS7 and her only shooting weapon was a sword that acted like a heavy flamer. Well, now she can shoot grenades and gun emplacements, but I don't think they had that in mind when they choose to give her BS7. It's more a fluff thing or something.

Sure, but if you're within assault range and can see your target something has gone wrong with your plan (usually). Just like Biovores - I never try to get them in assault.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
It's very strange - in the "lore", Lictors are described as the ultimate ambush predators, but the only thing they get from this is a sort of enhanced Deep Strike and no ability to assault on that turn (which invariably results in the death of the Lictor).

"He came from out of nowhere! A gigantic, sneaky alien monstrosity, covered in claws and spikes! I barely had time to empty my gun into him while he just stood there, then change the clip, then give him another burst when he ran at me! Terrifying."

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Aren't hive guard cannons assault weapons, allowing you to shoot and assault in the same turn?

Yes, but they are only S4 irrc. Making it really hard for a Hive Guard to wreck a rhino in CC.

S5. But still, the Hive Guard must have missed something fierce in the shooting phase if the Rhino that close to them is still alive.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

ghoulio wrote:
Venomthrope - Why is the Venomthrope WS3 and BS4 but has NO guns and can't ever use guns?

Celestine had BS7 and her only shooting weapon was a sword that acted like a heavy flamer. Well, now she can shoot grenades and gun emplacements, but I don't think they had that in mind when they choose to give her BS7. It's more a fluff thing or something.

Aren't there points costs associated with the stat line as well? It's possible they didn't want Celestine (who's already cheap for what she does) to be like 60 points. Of if you leave her BS at 3 or even 0, you have to jack up her other stats and abilities to give her a fair cost and then she becomes stupid-busted.

Just a guess, but I think it's a fair attempt at balancing a character.

What's hilarious is when people waste a character on a gun emplacement. I see so many idiots buy Kharn and stick him on a gun because of his high BS. He's NEVER going to kill as much that way as he will hacking people to bits in close combat. And no, it's not hard to get him there.

I thank them for losing the game because of a bad internet-born strategy.

Ian Sturrock wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
It's very strange - in the "lore", Lictors are described as the ultimate ambush predators, but the only thing they get from this is a sort of enhanced Deep Strike and no ability to assault on that turn (which invariably results in the death of the Lictor).

"He came from out of nowhere! A gigantic, sneaky alien monstrosity, covered in claws and spikes! I barely had time to empty my gun into him while he just stood there, then change the clip, then give him another burst when he ran at me! Terrifying."

Quote of the freaking day. So true about our poor Lictor.

rigeld2 wrote:
You run and assault Rhinos with Hive guard? Instead of shooting them with the Str8 gun? From out of LoS?

wat

Impaler Cannons are Assault 2. You can shoot and assault.

 Absolutionis wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
You run and assault Rhinos with Hive guard? Instead of shooting them with the Str8 gun? From out of LoS?

wat

Impaler Cannons are Assault 2. You can shoot and assault.

Yeah, but with Assault 2 S8 guns, you rarely need to charge an AV11 transport. Unless you run squads of 1.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Absolutionis wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
You run and assault Rhinos with Hive guard? Instead of shooting them with the Str8 gun? From out of LoS?

wat

Impaler Cannons are Assault 2. You can shoot and assault.

Yeah, but with Assault 2 S8 guns, you rarely need to charge an AV11 transport. Unless you run squads of 1.

But if you have the chance to assault a Rhino, chances are you shot at it already and didn't destroy it. You may as well charge it.

This is beyond the point, though.

rigeld2 wrote:
You run and assault Rhinos with Hive guard? Instead of shooting them with the Str8 gun? From out of LoS?

wat

If in range, yes. I don't always park them behind a wall. I play them pretty forward and apply pressure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Aren't hive guard cannons assault weapons, allowing you to shoot and assault in the same turn?

Yes, but they are only S4 irrc. Making it really hard for a Hive Guard to wreck a rhino in CC.

Sorry guys, I meant run as in movement phase 6" movement, not the shooting phase shooting option. And Hiveguard are Str 5.

Topic....

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Hive Tyrants - The commanders of the army, and the iconic tyranid monstrous creature (aside from the carnifex) should be BS4. Tyranid primes are BS4, tyrants should be too.

No arguments. Tyrants being less than BS4 is just wrong.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Tyrannofexes - Currently their S10 gun is very strong on paper but very weak in execution. Being an assault 2 weapon, it doesn't have weight of fire enough to bring down vehicles through hull points in a single attack, relying on a "6" penetration roll to instead kill a tank (in 5th edition, a 5 or 6 would kill a vehicle for an AP4 weapon). Additionally, with BS3, it only hits with 1 of those shots on average, even further reducing it's capability for it's designed role. The gun needs a higher ROF or the creature needs a better BS. I vote for better BS, since that will keep its role at anti-tank and not suddenly make him a thunderwolf cavalry assassin, etc.

This is where I'd like to see additional effects. The fluff for the Rupture Cannon says that it relies on both projectiles hitting to create an implosion effect at the point of dual contact, which causes catastrophic damage. Leave the RoF where it is, though I'd argue a BS bump is justified given the specialised role of the creature. However, a special rule where if both projectiles hit, the weapon counts as AP1 would be a good way to represent the guns effect. Either hitting would be damaging - an armour peircing 'cannonball' would be very destructive, but not enough to warrant higher AP, same with a corrosive burst. Both hitting together creating the implosion effect? Give the hits AP1 to make destruction on a single successful volley assured.

ghoulio wrote:
Dammit...I had forgotten just how amazing lictors were in 2nd lol. I miss them and I REALLY hope they are really worth taking (still some of my fave models period in any range).

Funniest instance of a Lictor not just shredding everything in its path was against a Chief Librarian in Terminator Armour. The two of them sat there for most of the game hammering away and one another. The Lictor kept winning, but that 3+ on 2d6 armour (and 4 wounds!) kept the Libby alive.

Big fan of Lictors being playable again. One of my favorite models and my army never left home with out one or two.

I stopped playing my nids when the current codex came out, due to a broken heart.

 Janthkin wrote:
Topic....

Literally over three pages of discussion on nid BS.

Can we lock this thread, or spit it to a new "Discussion regarding the Ballistic skill of specifically engineered combatants" topic?

In other news - got my harradin for Christmas, the new casts are superb and I am hoping to get him completed with the new bugs when they drop next month.

I have halted all other nid work to see what weapons/units/biomorphs will be worthwhile in the new book.

davethepak wrote:

 Janthkin wrote:
Topic....

Literally over three pages of discussion on nid BS.

Can we lock this thread, or spit it to a new "Discussion regarding the Ballistic skill of specifically engineered combatants" topic?

In other news - got my harradin for Christmas, the new casts are superb and I am hoping to get him completed with the new bugs when they drop next month.

I have halted all other nid work to see what weapons/units/biomorphs will be worthwhile in the new book.

You are a very lucky gamer! The Harridan is definitely the first NON-SM forgeworld model I would buy... if I had the spare cash.

davethepak wrote:
Literally over three pages of discussion on nid BS.

It's better than 3 pages of discussion on whether a photo of a page of White Dwarf that contains a small photo of a page in the Codex says T3 or T5.

Let's throw in some fresh content then:

Exocrine size comparison to Tervigon:


Crone from different angles:



Carnifex Brood box:


Swarm box:

Sooo, this probably goes without saying but why are smaller models (exocrine) $15 more than larger ones (tervigon)?

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Sooo, this probably goes without saying but why are smaller models (exocrine) $15 more than larger ones (tervigon)?

More parts. That and it has been stated that instead of the annual price hike GW will now just price new releases higher than comparable models that are already out (not sure if debunked or not, the rumor is at least a year old).

Exocrine is smaller than I thought it'd be. Still love it.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Sooo, this probably goes without saying but why are smaller models (exocrine) $15 more than larger ones (tervigon)?

GW no longer raises prices for everything each yeah. Now they raise prices with each release.

Those Harpy wings are much smaller than I thought they'd be. Thankfully I was planning on replacing them anyways.

The tail is disappointingly short as well. Perhaps I got used to people using the Trygon as a base model for Harpy conversions with a long serpentine tail. Perhaps it's also that GW makes stubby tails for all fliers.

Wow, for the price I definitely expected the exocrine to be bigger. That's disappointing.

The swarm box doesn't look too bad for $170 (right? or is it higher?), but that's way too many crappy hormagaunts for my liking. Should have just been all termagants.

Just wanna say again that I really don't like the new box art. I thought the themed backgrounds looked better (not as good as actual artwork like the old boxes but whatever). It also looks really weird when you have some boxes on the shelf still using the old style and these mixed in with them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Absolutionis wrote:
Those Harpy wings are much smaller than I thought they'd be. Thankfully I was planning on replacing them anyways.

The tail is disappointingly short as well. Perhaps I got used to people using the Trygon as a base model for Harpy conversions with a long serpentine tail. Perhaps it's also that GW makes stubby tails for all fliers.

I honestly think part of the problem is that they're limited to how many sprues they can have per release. The harpy probably needed to fit on two sprues or something, so they couldn't get too big or elaborate or else it wouldn't all fit. The model is already ridiculously expensive as-is so making the kit any bigger would make the cost stupidly high...no one's going to pay superheavy prices for a mediocre flyer.

It's the same reason why I think the riptide looks like ass, the wraithknight has a tiny head, and every single Space Marine flyer looks like a "chibi"/stumpy version of a real flyer. Either that or they're deliberately making the models look silly.

The crone looks evil

On a side note is GW actually giving us a good deal for what we get now?

For example tactical squad,

£22.50 - old

£25 new.

That's a price rise of £2.50, for a far superior kit

Number of components is also critical,

New kit has 179 parts

Where as the old had around 110 (could not find exact number, had to count!)

So that's almost a 70 part imcrease! About 63%.

For a 10% price hike a 63% increase in bits is very good IMHO

Any way if the swarm box is lagit it works out to £103 so GW will bump that up to £110.
Each model works out at around £1.15 a remarkably good deal. (And yes the carnifex is also £1.15!)

The Exocrine most likely has the same number of sprues as the Tervigon. What is trades in height, it gains in girth. But yeah, the higher price is just their new way of raising prices.

That large tailspike on the Crone is probably the source of its higher strength Vector Strike. The tail is longer than its body, so I think that's perfectly in proportion. The wings are in a forward sweeping motion, so its wingspan would be bigger if the wings were fully extended.

The Wraithknight's 'tiny' head is a classic design choice to give it a sense of scale btw. I.e. if they made the head larger, the model would look smaller. Just look at any large comic book character like the Hulk or Juggernaut: 'tiny' heads.

It doesn't seem to affect the wraithlord much, though. Or the titans.

That's because the Wraithlord is much smaller. The Revenant Titan's head is also much smaller in proportion to its body when compared to the Wraithlord (whose head is almost one third of its height) and not that different in proportions to the Wraithknight.

But alas, getting off-topic.

 Sidstyler wrote:


I honestly think part of the problem is that they're limited to how many sprues they can have per release. The harpy probably needed to fit on two sprues or something, so they couldn't get too big or elaborate or else it wouldn't all fit. The model is already ridiculously expensive as-is so making the kit any bigger would make the cost stupidly high...no one's going to pay superheavy prices for a mediocre flyer.

Pretty sure this theory makes no sense. From business perspective, first step is making a cool model, this is going to increase sales. If the unit has bad rules, well, just give them good rules. Your crazy if you think Harpy is getting a makeover with this codex, and would be getting ignored if someone from GW's modelling team hadn't decided to model it. They aren't just sitting there like hmmm, can't make this model too big, the rules just aren't good enough to justify selling it

Hell its a dualkit so people have to only want either it or the Crone and its going to sell. It is going to cost them nowhere near as much as you think per kit to spread the stuff out over a third sprue just to make the wings bigger if they desired - and if it did, they would just charge for it, and people WILL buy it.