Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 azreal13 wrote:

What continues to get under my skin, no matter how much I might distance myself, is the massive squandering of potential, the difference between what 40K is and what it could be feels almost criminal.

My sentiments exactly. I think the problem is the company culture and being (no offence) pretty much an inbred British firm. They sell their products globally but they don't make any attempts to headhunt/recruit the best (or even competitive) people in their field. It's an old boys club where everything will always be done 'like it's always been done'. What they need is a new company structure and a dozen ambitious games designers who'd quickly re-work the whole 40K product from the ground up, all the while respecting traditions and the GW brand. Despite that being what they need that's not what they want, so it'll never happen. Noone at GW has any ambition.

I can guarantee you if GW was an American company the game would be very different today.

NamelessBard wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

But yeah, Fexes have Rage. That's good...

I think coraje means fearless, not rage.

"Coraje" can mean rage, but also "courage" (or something of that ilk) as well. So yes, I was trying to think of another rule similar to it and forgot about fearless. Youre probably right, fearless seems much more likely.

I'm kind of in a shock at the moment. Can only remember one question - in what way is the Venomthrope better?

 Therion wrote:

This part of your post is outright bullgak. I don't know how far Dakka search goes, but if it goes back to the Tau release you'll find me and some other guy saying every single competitive Tau army will have 3 Riptides and 10 or more people arguing against that fact, calling Riptides overpriced if not outright bad for what they can do. Tau had a very mixed response. Some believed it to be strong, but a lot of people declared that they'll quit (just like Nid people do now) ...

And many of us did quit!
It was very obvious at that point that the Codex was horribly designed, and the fact that Riptides and some other things turned out to be op only served to reinforce the point.

 N.I.B. wrote:
I'm kind of in a shock at the moment. Can only remember one question - in what way is the Venomthrope better?

It's 10pts cheaper, and gives out a bubble of Shrouded (+2 to cover saves) rather than just a fixed 5+ cover save like before. It means nearby units can get 2+ or 3+ cover saves pretty easily.

Venomthropes are one of the few bright spots discovered thus far.

 N.I.B. wrote:
I'm kind of in a shock at the moment. Can only remember one question - in what way is the Venomthrope better?

It gives Shrouded, rather than a straight up 5+ cover, so therefore it will stack with area terrain etc

Yeah, Riptides were pretty much the starting point of me retreating from 40k. Sure, I struggled on for a couple of months, attended some tournaments / campaigns in June but yeah... I've played about 2 games of 40k since then.

And yet, I still find myself reading these darned rumour threads!

 Souleater wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
To the studio, other armies are proper protagonists and antagonists that get to have proper 'heroes' and 'villains'. Meanwhile Tyranids are just an animalistic adversary to be overcome. It's heroic and cinematic to have some level 1 librarian taking down a Trygon or Tervigon with a single swing of his force weapon, so that's acceptable. It's also heroic and cinematic for some SM officer suffer enormous blows from a Carnifex that should have pulverized him and keep fighting, so that's acceptable also. The EW rule is an expression of cinematic heroics/villainry.

I strongly suspect that you are correct. Even if this isn't The Studio's intent it has very much become the mind set of many Marine players.

If Tyranids were a third-party faction controlled by a GM or a random set of 'action cards' or some kind of flow chart that would be fine. But they aren't. I'm a player so why don't my monsters get to be heroic? Or are GW only interested in the kind of mainstream action movie cinematic experience?

How can anybody deal so poorly with iconic units such as 'stealers and Tyranid Warriors?

It frustrates me that GW can on the other hand produce a game like Space Hulk were both players can win or lose, where the two sides are both so different yet balanced...all while on the edge of their seats. The Marine player in SH knows he could lose. He knows that each marine can kill a dozen or more 'stealers but be torn apart at a stroke if he screws up or bad luck befalls him.

But that's because GW always like to narrate a story from the eyes of "someone". Since Tyranids don't feel like talking, you're not going to see a tyranid being heroic, since no one is there to talk about that heroism. You'll only see the same old trend : a bunch of guardsmen expressing their fear towards what killed their entire battalion or whatnot.
The Swarmlord (and his encounter against calgar) was a good idea to actually try to go beyond that.

 Compel wrote:
Yeah, Riptides were pretty much the starting point of me retreating from 40k. Sure, I struggled on for a couple of months, attended some tournaments / campaigns in June but yeah... I've played about 2 games of 40k since then.

And yet, I still find myself reading these darned rumour threads!

You're one of the many people we're discussing about. You're still a fan, and if GW just suddenly decided to start designing good games you'd start buying their products again. Alas, they don't, and you won't

N.I.B. wrote:I'm kind of in a shock at the moment. Can only remember one question - in what way is the Venomthrope better?

Cheaper and shrouded. Seems like Hive Guard was nerfed a bit too which weakens the competition in the same force organisation slots.

 Gloomfang wrote:
Might want to rethink Crushing Claws on tervigons. They are kinda pointless as they ar AP2 armourbane unwieldy. Better off just using Smash.

Monstrous Creatures ignore Unwieldy. And isn't the Tervigon like Initiative 1 anyway?

One thing bugging me is the Instant Deathability of the Crone/Harpy. I wont dare get them into a fist fight even outnumbering another MC, because it would just take one smash attack to delete the 130-150ish points.

One thing bugging me is the Instant Deathability of the Crone/Harpy. I wont dare get them into a fist fight even outnumbering another MC, because it would just take one smash attack to delete the 130-150ish points.

They should never land. If they do, they are dead anyways.

NamelessBard wrote:

 xttz wrote:

 Gloomfang wrote:
Might want to rethink Crushing Claws on tervigons. They are kinda pointless as they ar AP2 armourbane unwieldy. Better off just using Smash.

Isn't Armourbane 2D6 for pen rolls? I'd think S7+2D6 from 3 base attacks is better than S10+1D6 re-rolled from 2 base attacks.

It is slightly better. But not 15 points better is the issue.

The whole point of taking crushing claws on tervigons was because the bonus attacks from that plus the decent chance of getting Warp Speed through biomancy meant a ton of S10 attacks via smash. Now that all the bonus attacks are gone, it's really hard to justify.


On the whole, I'm reserving judgement until I have codex in hand and can lay everything out, but overall a lot of things that I liked about the army seemingly are gone, vastly diminished, or have failed to be brought up to a playable level.

Falling somewhere in the middle here myself- in play style, Tyranids look a lot more like they are seeing a return to the (high performance) play style of 3rd/4e bugs and seeing Fexes and many troops cheaper is a great shot in the arm. I used ONLY the Tyranid psychic powers for a couple of editions and it was fine- not that I don't enjoy the BRB powers too, I certainly do. But I suspect it still will be viable to take only bug powers. Significant point drops are going to be HUGE. I am very disappointed in the lack of love for Stealers and Lictors, I do agree that they have languished for too long and I have no idea what the writers are thinking by either not fixing or further disabling units when they need some help. Same with the Sororitas book and some others I could name. Hive Guard didn't need a nerf and cost increase either. Random 3 point boost for Rippers is funny too. I do think that this book is going to win a lot of games for sure, but it's only because we gained a couple units' worth of points back. I feel for those whose armies took a hit. But then Tervigon spam is really, really boring. Did we really expect it to stick around? My list got better, but I will probably leave more models at home than I would like. Probably a stronger book honestly, but an amazing amount of missed opportunity.

Second hand info from friends of friends but in response to the 'god old boys club' or whatnot: Yes, that's exactly the vibe that GW ex-employees tend to come away with. A bunch of UK super-dorks with no idea what people really want and some sort of idiotic stubbornness to complement their willful ignorance.

I will also add- Being able to Fleet your MC's is a big deal guys.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Imposter101 wrote:
So lets go through this wonderful release;

* No 2+ armour saves for Hive Tyrants except an artefact which can only be used every other turn
* Some units no longer in synapse eat themselves, meaning suicide for low leadership units
* The loss of Ymargl Genestealers, Spores, the Doom of Malantai, the parasite of mortex,
* The Pyrovore is still garbage
* A bunch of meh artefacts
* The loss of Biomancy

And lets sum this up, the codex has gotten even worse with this recent edition. This is the kind of thing that makes me think GW's writers despise it's fanbase. I mean, the Tyranids do now have the honour of being the army which has got terrible updates two times in a row.

The exocrine, if I'm recalling the rumours correctly, has an Assault 6 S7 AP2 gun, which can also be fired as a large blast.

Nid players would have killed for some good, long range anti-MEQ/TEQ like that with the other book.

*cough* 24 inches. *cough*

According to rumors on Crushing Claws (and the list I posted is a test list for a reason) they were 2x strength, armorbane, unwieldy. If they're just armorbane I wouldn't take them. Sadly the entire 'dex isn't up yet, and you can really only trust scans and your own eyesight.

As to Venomthropes, yes cover can be ignored by Tau. But if you fail to kill the markerlights, that is your fault and yours alone. Flyrants murder Pathfinders and marker drones, and 6 riptides is honestly a weak list. When in doubt, kill their troops while spawning. It usually works. Plus, hide Venoms out of LoS for extra fun.

 jifel wrote:
According to rumors on Crushing Claws (and the list I posted is a test list for a reason) they were 2x strength, armorbane, unwieldy. If they're just armorbane I wouldn't take them. Sadly the entire 'dex isn't up yet, and you can really only trust scans and your own eyesight.

As to Venomthropes, yes cover can be ignored by Tau. But if you fail to kill the markerlights, that is your fault and yours alone. Flyrants murder Pathfinders and marker drones, and 6 riptides is honestly a weak list. When in doubt, kill their troops while spawning. It usually works. Plus, hide Venoms out of LoS for extra fun.

S+1, Ap2, Armourbane and Unwieldy

They wouldn't force an MC to go at I1 anymore, but there is no reason to take them on tervigons for the reasons that Maelstrom808 summarized. With the Carnifex, Adrenal glands in a infinitely better buy.

 Therion wrote:


I can guarantee you if GW was an American company the game would be very different today.

And we would have an equal amount of protesting that they changed it, so it sucks. Look at D&D. Similarly long-entrenched franchise with so much history and an emphasis on storytelling. Fourth edition came out, pulled vancian spellcasting in order to fix the ancient linear fighter, quadratic wizard problem, and the internet exploded in rage and hate. To the point where an internally balanced system with decent promise was allowed to die a lingering death in favor of 'rebooting' D&D and bringing back the level 1 oneshot and scaling issues. It's entirely possible GW watched Hasbro suffer with 4e while Paizo raked it in with Pathfinder and decided it validated their approach of never really changing big things.

Ontopic: The issue is that venomthropes are so squishy random Thunderfire cannons or Smart Missiles can still smack them down really easily. Firing an Ion Accelerator blast is frankly overkill for just two T4 5+ wounds. I don't see the buff making a substantial difference in their utility.

 jifel wrote:
According to rumors on Crushing Claws (and the list I posted is a test list for a reason) they were 2x strength, armorbane, unwieldy. If they're just armorbane I wouldn't take them. Sadly the entire 'dex isn't up yet, and you can really only trust scans and your own eyesight.

As to Venomthropes, yes cover can be ignored by Tau. But if you fail to kill the markerlights, that is your fault and yours alone. Flyrants murder Pathfinders and marker drones, and 6 riptides is honestly a weak list. When in doubt, kill their troops while spawning. It usually works. Plus, hide Venoms out of LoS for extra fun.

Yes, 6 is weak. 3 is more than enough to cripple your list. And out of sight works so well for SMS.

Please stay on-topic.

@GreyH: If you want to post things about D&D that are wrong so that I can argue with you, we have a forum for that.

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 Imposter101 wrote:
So lets go through this wonderful release;

* No 2+ armour saves for Hive Tyrants except an artefact which can only be used every other turn
* Some units no longer in synapse eat themselves, meaning suicide for low leadership units
* The loss of Ymargl Genestealers, Spores, the Doom of Malantai, the parasite of mortex,
* The Pyrovore is still garbage
* A bunch of meh artefacts
* The loss of Biomancy

And lets sum this up, the codex has gotten even worse with this recent edition. This is the kind of thing that makes me think GW's writers despise it's fanbase. I mean, the Tyranids do now have the honour of being the army which has got terrible updates two times in a row.

The exocrine, if I'm recalling the rumours correctly, has an Assault 6 S7 AP2 gun, which can also be fired as a large blast.

Nid players would have killed for some good, long range anti-MEQ/TEQ like that with the other book.

*cough* 24 inches. *cough*

Most marine weapons are only 24" anyway so they'll need to come into range of the Exocrine. Sure, there are weapons that outrange this guy but they normally camp backfield (Devs, Long Fangs) or are squishy vehicles, ripe targets for Carnifexes with Fleet to lung across the board at and shred to bits.

 jifel wrote:
Using my Very flawed knowledge of Spanish, here's my idea of a 2000 point list... it ain't bad folks, it ain't bad.

Hive Tyrant: (Wings, 2x TL Devourers) 230
Hive Tyrant: (Wings, 2x TL Devourers) 230
Tyranid Prime (maw claws of Thyrax) 135
30 gants 120
30 gants 120
Tervigon (Toxin, Adrenal, Crushing Claws) 235
Tervigon (Toxin, Adrenal, Crushing Claws) 235
3 Venomthropes 135
Crone 155
Tyrannofex (Rupture Cannon)205
25 Gargoyles (Adrenal Glands) 200

A lot of wounds and models being set down there. Tactics? Venomthropes/prime in the center, and every MC and one gant each is within 6" until I'm on their doorstep. Lovely stuff! Look at that. Just kill the pathfinders early and even Tau have trouble dealing with this lot. With Venoms, you should have a 3++ cover, like always. I threw the crone in there, but I'm not sure if its good, it'll be close. The missiles and VS rock, but it's not tough. But, I think if its in Area terrain and within 6" of the Venomstar it'll do just fine with that cover. (The best part is, I'm two models away from having this list, once I assemble some magnetized Crushing Claws. Then it's one Venom and a Crone for me! Compare it to the old 2000 point lists, it looks fun and dangerous with more stuff on the board.

2 sky rays kill your tyrants without blinking.

Riptide with velocity tracker and target lock murders your crone.

The rest is just mop up. Try again.

 Ravenous D wrote:

 jifel wrote:
Using my Very flawed knowledge of Spanish, here's my idea of a 2000 point list... it ain't bad folks, it ain't bad.

Hive Tyrant: (Wings, 2x TL Devourers) 230
Hive Tyrant: (Wings, 2x TL Devourers) 230
Tyranid Prime (maw claws of Thyrax) 135
30 gants 120
30 gants 120
Tervigon (Toxin, Adrenal, Crushing Claws) 235
Tervigon (Toxin, Adrenal, Crushing Claws) 235
3 Venomthropes 135
Crone 155
Tyrannofex (Rupture Cannon)205
25 Gargoyles (Adrenal Glands) 200

A lot of wounds and models being set down there. Tactics? Venomthropes/prime in the center, and every MC and one gant each is within 6" until I'm on their doorstep. Lovely stuff! Look at that. Just kill the pathfinders early and even Tau have trouble dealing with this lot. With Venoms, you should have a 3++ cover, like always. I threw the crone in there, but I'm not sure if its good, it'll be close. The missiles and VS rock, but it's not tough. But, I think if its in Area terrain and within 6" of the Venomstar it'll do just fine with that cover. (The best part is, I'm two models away from having this list, once I assemble some magnetized Crushing Claws. Then it's one Venom and a Crone for me! Compare it to the old 2000 point lists, it looks fun and dangerous with more stuff on the board.

2 sky rays kill your tyrants without blinking.

Riptide with velocity tracker and target lock murders your crone.

The rest is just mop up. Try again.

That list and tactic is just begging for some ignores cover templates to eat it alive. Heldrakes, LRR, Hellhounds, Markerlight Tau spamming blasts. Hell, with Escalation out now its asking for a D-Blast to one shot your army.

 The Shadow wrote:

NamelessBard wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

But yeah, Fexes have Rage. That's good...

I think coraje means fearless, not rage.

"Coraje" can mean rage, but also "courage" (or something of that ilk) as well. So yes, I was trying to think of another rule similar to it and forgot about fearless. Youre probably right, fearless seems much more likely.

In the Eldar Codex Fearless has been translated as Coraje so it should stay constant... but then in that same Codex they use two different words to translate Stalker so everything is possible due to the high level of care used to translate things to Spanish

M.

 jifel wrote:
But if you fail to kill the markerlights, that is your fault and yours alone.

Do explain this further. I'm curious as to going second and being marker-lit off the table is somehow the fault of the non-Tau player.

 Deadshot wrote:

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 Imposter101 wrote:
So lets go through this wonderful release;

* No 2+ armour saves for Hive Tyrants except an artefact which can only be used every other turn
* Some units no longer in synapse eat themselves, meaning suicide for low leadership units
* The loss of Ymargl Genestealers, Spores, the Doom of Malantai, the parasite of mortex,
* The Pyrovore is still garbage
* A bunch of meh artefacts
* The loss of Biomancy

And lets sum this up, the codex has gotten even worse with this recent edition. This is the kind of thing that makes me think GW's writers despise it's fanbase. I mean, the Tyranids do now have the honour of being the army which has got terrible updates two times in a row.

The exocrine, if I'm recalling the rumours correctly, has an Assault 6 S7 AP2 gun, which can also be fired as a large blast.

Nid players would have killed for some good, long range anti-MEQ/TEQ like that with the other book.

*cough* 24 inches. *cough*

Most marine weapons are only 24" anyway so they'll need to come into range of the Exocrine. Sure, there are weapons that outrange this guy but they normally camp backfield (Devs, Long Fangs) or are squishy vehicles, ripe targets for Carnifexes with Fleet to lung across the board at and shred to bits.

yeah its actually 30" range cause you get to move, so with 12" deployment, thats 42" of table on a walking dude....

my ENTIRE army is 24" as gk, its not noticable when everything can fire on the move
in other news,
I literally think this codex is the best thing since riptides, as a genuine compliment.

more meat for the dreadknights!

 GreyHamster wrote:
And we would have an equal amount of protesting that they changed it, so it sucks.

You're missing Theron's point entirely.

 Deadshot wrote:

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 Imposter101 wrote:
So lets go through this wonderful release;

* No 2+ armour saves for Hive Tyrants except an artefact which can only be used every other turn
* Some units no longer in synapse eat themselves, meaning suicide for low leadership units
* The loss of Ymargl Genestealers, Spores, the Doom of Malantai, the parasite of mortex,
* The Pyrovore is still garbage
* A bunch of meh artefacts
* The loss of Biomancy

And lets sum this up, the codex has gotten even worse with this recent edition. This is the kind of thing that makes me think GW's writers despise it's fanbase. I mean, the Tyranids do now have the honour of being the army which has got terrible updates two times in a row.

The exocrine, if I'm recalling the rumours correctly, has an Assault 6 S7 AP2 gun, which can also be fired as a large blast.

Nid players would have killed for some good, long range anti-MEQ/TEQ like that with the other book.

*cough* 24 inches. *cough*

Most marine weapons are only 24" anyway so they'll need to come into range of the Exocrine. Sure, there are weapons that outrange this guy but they normally camp backfield (Devs, Long Fangs) or are squishy vehicles, ripe targets for Carnifexes with Fleet to lung across the board at and shred to bits.

Good point.
Have an exalt for your intelligence

 easysauce wrote:
yeah its actually 30" range cause you get to move, so with 12" deployment, thats 42" of table on a walking dude....

Of course if you move the shooty shooting guy who does nothing but shoot and has no reason to exist beyond shooting drops down to BS3.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:

 jifel wrote:
Using my Very flawed knowledge of Spanish, here's my idea of a 2000 point list... it ain't bad folks, it ain't bad.

Hive Tyrant: (Wings, 2x TL Devourers) 230
Hive Tyrant: (Wings, 2x TL Devourers) 230
Tyranid Prime (maw claws of Thyrax) 135
30 gants 120
30 gants 120
Tervigon (Toxin, Adrenal, Crushing Claws) 235
Tervigon (Toxin, Adrenal, Crushing Claws) 235
3 Venomthropes 135
Crone 155
Tyrannofex (Rupture Cannon)205
25 Gargoyles (Adrenal Glands) 200

A lot of wounds and models being set down there. Tactics? Venomthropes/prime in the center, and every MC and one gant each is within 6" until I'm on their doorstep. Lovely stuff! Look at that. Just kill the pathfinders early and even Tau have trouble dealing with this lot. With Venoms, you should have a 3++ cover, like always. I threw the crone in there, but I'm not sure if its good, it'll be close. The missiles and VS rock, but it's not tough. But, I think if its in Area terrain and within 6" of the Venomstar it'll do just fine with that cover. (The best part is, I'm two models away from having this list, once I assemble some magnetized Crushing Claws. Then it's one Venom and a Crone for me! Compare it to the old 2000 point lists, it looks fun and dangerous with more stuff on the board.

2 sky rays kill your tyrants without blinking.

Riptide with velocity tracker and target lock murders your crone.

The rest is just mop up. Try again.

That list and tactic is just begging for some ignores cover templates to eat it alive. Heldrakes, LRR, Hellhounds, Markerlight Tau spamming blasts. Hell, with Escalation out now its asking for a D-Blast to one shot your army.

Heldrakes aren't that great against Nids. swarms limit where it can land, maybe it kills a venomthrope. Wasted turn. Hellhound? please. Markerlights can be killed in every form they come in by Flyrants. True, a Riptide with CnC commander is a big problem for this list, but I admit it's not perfect. Land Raider Redeemers need to get close, and would die well before that. Not mentioned, but serpent shields ignore cover yes, but that doesn't effect the 3+ armor fortunately. Venomthrope star might be more viable with a pure MC rush, we'l have to see.

Skyrays won't be able to get my Flyrants until they're in the air, and aren't a very popular choice frankly. Not concerned. There is no situation where my Flyrants are in LoS when I deploy. Kill markerlights, and skyrays aren't that good anymore. Hide flyers turn one, then pop out and kill markerlights. If his are hidden, great. They're heavy, so if he pops out they'll be pretty ineffective. Haywire missiles and Tyrannofex can do mean things to vehicles, Flyrants can glance out vehicles.

Again, this isn't perfect. But, I like the idea. I'll playtest it, refine it, change it, drop things and add things. I could very well drop the Crone for 3 biovores (poof markerlights) and some upgrades. We'll find out. But we essentially have the codex, anyone else want to throw some ideas for lists out?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 jifel wrote:
But if you fail to kill the markerlights, that is your fault and yours alone.

Do explain this further. I'm curious as to going second and being marker-lit off the table is somehow the fault of the non-Tau player.

If your Flyrants are in LoS of the markerlights turn one, either you or the table has a problem. Still, you can usually survive one turn of markerlights. True though, getting second turn against a good Tau list is just bad for everyone, so perhaps my original statement was a little too strong.