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I love the tyranid models, but because of their abysmal state their codex is in (even my orks dont fear tyranids at all) i never bought the codex or the models.

One of the biggest problems i have with Tyranids is how easily their MCs are removed from the table. I have a harder time killing the spider from Necrons than i do killing pretty much all tyranid mcs. So rather than buff the hell out of them and further feed the Nidzilla lists, which personally i find a bit unfluffy to only have big bugs and very little if any swarms, how about we make the MCs harder to attack when they are swarmed?

Hormagaunts, Termagants, Genestealers, and Gargoyles have a rule called Menacing Swarm.

Menacing Swarm:
--On their own, the smaller sized units in the Tyranid hive are not much of a threat. But in numbers, they can give a gunner pause. When a Monstrous Creature, Warriors Venomthropes, Hive Guard, Zoanthropes, or Raveners are targeted by a shooting attack in the shooting or psychic phase and have 15 or more models with this special rule within 12", they must immediately take a 3D6 Leadership test before rolling To Hit. If passed, they may roll normally. If failed, the sheer number of the smaller forces got the better of them. The attack is resolved on the closest unit with this rule instead of the initial target as a result. Units with Fearless, Monster Hunter or Skyfire and firing at Swooping Monstrous Creatures ignore this rule.

The idea is to effectively give MCs, Warriors, Venomthropes, or Raveners a ton of ablative wounds, since their main problem is durability not offensive capability. Its not a surefire protection, but its still one hell of a bonus. The reason i added Warriors and Raveners is because i feel they suffer the same way MCs do - theyre strong, but squishy. Theyre still larger than the 4 units i mentioned and are usually never in the same numbers or even close. Venomthropes, Zoanthropes, and Hive Guard i added because it makes no sense that Warriors benefit but they dont.

My wording could be better i admit, but since i dont actually own a tyranid dex and cant offer other suggested fixes very accurately, i didnt really care lol. The idea is what matters. The point is to make the majority of ranged weapons have significantly less odds of wiping synapse or other important MCs from the board early on in the game, without making them a god on their own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aaaand somehow this got posted in tactics lol stupid computer. Can i get a mod to move this to Suggested Rules? Thank you

That would actually be very cool. One thing I found when playing Nids is that people try to one shot my Warriors and Venom thropes with high strength weapons right from turn 1 since the synapse and shrouding they provide tends to be a large part of what keeps my army alive, this would make them more survivable and make the army more effective for longer, so I'm definitely good with this.

When target priority was a thing, this would have made sense.

Honestly? Monstrous Creatures just need to be able to be placed into the smaller creature units. Maybe make Warriors, Carnifexes, etc be able to get "allocated" to these units ala Guard advisors and get a Look Out, Sir! as though they were an IC when within a large enough unit?

perhaps the next iteration of Synapse could be an auto-pass Look out Sir! (or steal the Sacrificial Pawn rule from Privateer Press).

Autopass look out sir really wouldnt do anything unless the MCs were attached to a unit, or theyre given a rule that lets them share wounds to other units (which basically is this rule on steroids). If they were simply stuck into a Brood and only "counted" as an IC then it wouldnt help nearly as much as you think since a single unit of gaunts can get cleaned up pretty quick. Legit ICs in other armies can jump to a different unit when his gets thinned down too much - my orks do it all the time. This psuedo target priority rule lets multiple units protect them at once, as well as non-Tyrants (gotta remember a few MCs dont even want to be near gaunts most of the game, but while they are there it would be awesome to have this perk).

Target Priority as a whole is dumb and i never liked it. Modify it slightly and make it unique to an army and it adds a large element to the game. Most armies it makes no sense that you have to pass a LD test to shoot something behind a unit (such as you fail a LD test and have to shoot my FW with that lascannon instead of my crippled 1wound remaining Riptide behind them purely because of range to target) but with something as grotesque and massive as the Tyranids, it does make sense. Its a fear-induced panic themed rule, without being Fear because otherwise majority of Imperials wouldnt give a gak and thats unfair.

Tyranids are suppose to be a swarm army, but they arent because their important/crucial MCs get picked off too easily. Even if you buff them enough to survive a little bit, they still get bopped off long before the swarms do and make the swarms pretty much useless afterwords. Make them too strong, now nidzilla is even more prominent because the MCs are godly creatures.
I wanted to make them vastly more durable in the shooting phase WITHOUT making their defenses ridiculous. Face it if a Riptide was as crucial to the Tau that a Tyrant is to Tyranids, the Riptide wouldnt last that long either (longER but not that long).

It also improves the bigger non-MC creatures in the same fashion. Warriors when they actually DO reach melee are devastating, but they never, ever get there thanks to S8 Ap3 weapons (or S8 AP4 in the case of my ion weapons)

My mate came up with an idea that we kinda like and have house ruled since, it's a bit out there so bare with me.

All Tyranid monstrous creatures get independent character (infantry), this allows all Nid mc to join units with the infantry type only, so not each other, but they may still be shot normally, the big difference is that they get look out sir, which we limited to 4+ for normal mc and 2+ for synapse creatures, we felt that this represented the hive mind literally moving the fodder in the way of enemy fire.

While it hasn't increased thier survivability massively, it has increased the amount of mixed armies we have seen, for example prior to this change, we never saw full 30 man gaunt units, now we do. After playtesting we have allowed standard medium creatures to join units too, so zoans, warriors etc. With the caveat that only one unit may join another at any time, this then led to people taking 6 troop choices of gaunts, all quite large units to protect the key creatures, I'll finish by saying that on the table this looks amazing, walking tyrants (really) amongst hordes of gaunts, warriors intermixed with gargoyles with wings, it really looks awesome and actually upped the level of nids to competive from toilet bowl.

I think it'd be cool if Tyranid MCs had a rule similar to what lone characters had in 8th Ed WHFB.

Basically if the model was in so many inches of a friendly unit, they could make LoS saves.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I think it'd be cool if Tyranid MCs had a rule similar to what lone characters had in 8th Ed WHFB.

Basically if the model was in so many inches of a friendly unit, they could make LoS saves.

Yep, I think that's where he got it from

I'd love to see this WITHOUT LOS saves. Call it 'Independent Creature'. That way you still get a chance to put wounds on the big'un if you play closest-model games or have a big enough torrent of fire to clear a path. Gives it a bit of counterplay.

 raverrn wrote:
I'd love to see this WITHOUT LOS saves. Call it 'Independent Creature'. That way you still get a chance to put wounds on the big'un if you play closest-model games or have a big enough torrent of fire to clear a path. Gives it a bit of counterplay.

We tried it like that, but it didn't work out too well, that's why we allowed the look out sir mechanic.