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"Now they have wings…." would be a great meme to go along with the release of a winged Carnifex.

I always thought that we were missing mid-sized winged models (aka Shrikes), but I wasn't thinking big enough, a Carnifex could count as mid-sized these days.

It would be hilarious.

Has anyone checked if the hive tyrant wings fits on the carnifex body? I would love to add plastic wings to make 16" move carnifexes. Upgrade spruces incomming. :-)

We technically already have a winged Carnifex of sorts in the form of the Hive Crone (double talon + bone mace) and Harpy (scything talon + heavy bio cannons + spine banks + 4th edition spore cysts). Admittedly their rules aren't as good as those of a Carnifex right now, but as far as purpose and stats go they are similar enough.

If Harpies could take devourers, enhanced senses, and spore cysts I'd probably run them every game.

Just as a random thought, but does anyone know what the maximum leadership penalty we can inflict? It occurred to me that we actually have a LOT of things that penalize leadership and if moral does become more important in the upcoming edition it might behoove us to consider what sort of shenanigans we have access to.

Off the top of my head:

- Screamer Killers (-1)
- Haruspex/Rippers (-1 via stratagem)
- Custom Hive Fleet (-1)
- Abhorrent pheromones (-1)
- The Horror (-1)
- GSC Locus (-1)

I think Deathleaper might have had a debuff as well but I don't have my codex handy...

 Strat_N8 wrote:
Just as a random thought, but does anyone know what the maximum leadership penalty we can inflict? It occurred to me that we actually have a LOT of things that penalize leadership and if moral does become more important in the upcoming edition it might behoove us to consider what sort of shenanigans we have access to.

Off the top of my head:

- Screamer Killers (-1)
- Haruspex/Rippers (-1 via stratagem)
- Custom Hive Fleet (-1)
- Abhorrent pheromones (-1)
- The Horror (-1)
- GSC Locus (-1)

I think Deathleaper might have had a debuff as well but I don't have my codex handy...

Infrasonic Roar (Jorm Relic) (-1)
GSC allies -> unlocks Guard allies -> Primaris Psyker -> Terrifying Visions (-2)

Once again Flying Monstrous Creatures are left in a weird not-Flyer limbo.

I can see why, as our FMC are meant to charge. That also why the Helldrake is also not Aircraft.

I was goofing around you tube, and I saw a video with a spoiler. Overwatch will be a CP. That helps make Tyranids a force again. If this is true, then Stealers become the horror they are meant to be.

It isn't a rumor, it is confirmed.

 Tyran wrote:
It isn't a rumor, it is confirmed.

This made the Hive Mind happy! Or, maybe just hungry...,,

Stealers will be fine, but the more i look over it, the more im convinced i should just start taking 3 squads of Mieotic spores instead of 2 genestealer squads.

Stealers are 480 for 2 squads and susceptible to max blast hits, plus they dont really damage vehicles well.

The spores are also around 480 for 3 squads of 9, have scout deploy, and hurt everything equally.

If you have first turn, the spores will usually do way more damage and if you go second they will not only slow your opponent board presence greatly but make sure he doesnt shoot anything else of your army as they have to die.


Will they last for more than 2 turns? no, but my stealers rarely did either.

Meiotic Spores are subject to revision when the new Forge World indices release later this year. I wouldn't base any strategies around their current rules; but I do agree that the Overwatch change helps all flavors of spore mine greatly.

I intend to use my Biovores more. Missed spore mines just became a lot more useful, since they need to be targeted individually and will thus tend to absorb overkill, and can no longer be ignored to let Overwatch do the work.

Since Meiotics have a model, they should be fine. They cant really reduce their stats much as they are already pretty low.

They might raise the points cost up to 20 points a model at most. They are afterall a suicide unit that cant score objectives and have a 3" move.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Stealers will be fine, but the more i look over it, the more im convinced i should just start taking 3 squads of Mieotic spores instead of 2 genestealer squads.

Stealers are 480 for 2 squads and susceptible to max blast hits, plus they dont really damage vehicles well.

The spores are also around 480 for 3 squads of 9, have scout deploy, and hurt everything equally.

If you have first turn, the spores will usually do way more damage and if you go second they will not only slow your opponent board presence greatly but make sure he doesnt shoot anything else of your army as they have to die.


Will they last for more than 2 turns? no, but my stealers rarely did either.

Logic seems sounds. Interested in seeing how it goes.

It might be that the answer is neither Genestealers nor Spores at this point, and just taking 500 pts of good units.

Assuming units arriving from Strategic Reserves count as reinforcements, it looks like Pheromone Trail will actually be relevant again. Spend some CP to put a unit of Genestealers into reserve, DS a Lictor in turn 2, pop Pheromone Trail to deploy the arriving-as-reinforcements Genestealers with the Lictor instead of on a table edge.

 catbarf wrote:
Assuming units arriving from Strategic Reserves count as reinforcements, it looks like Pheromone Trail will actually be relevant again. Spend some CP to put a unit of Genestealers into reserve, DS a Lictor in turn 2, pop Pheromone Trail to deploy the arriving-as-reinforcements Genestealers with the Lictor instead of on a table edge.

The only restriction is the keyword <Infantry>, and so to me Genestealers feel like a waste. You don't think dropping a Lictor into some Obscuring terrain and the Hive Guard behind that terrain would be a better use? Or Pyrovores, who have 10" range flamers?

So i ran this list today againgst Tau:

Battalion-kraken

2x FHT/w brainleech and MRC. One with kraken relic, one with resonance barb. Both took voracious ammunition, and adrenals.

3x ripper swarms with one extra base

3 squads of meiotic spores 9 strong

Battalion-kronos

3x nuerothrope

3x ripper swarms 6 strong

3x biovore squads, 3 strong

Fortification network-kronos

3x sporocysts/w deathspitters




He was running the cept with +6" range to rapid fire weaponry.

He had a fireblade with 3 firewarrior squads and the missle tower, a squad of pathfinders, a stealth suit squad, a Riptide, a Y"varna suit, a stormsurge, 2 broadsides, a squad of crisis suits, and a coldstar commander with a few drones.




We played in a ruined city table with multiple ruins all across the table. Dawn of war deployment and I got first turn.


Kraken Mietoic spores are downright broken if you get the first turn. I dont see how they have gone this long without changing the wording on their explosion cause atm they are too strong. Granted nobody in their right mind would actually buy 27 of them from forgeworld since they are like 13 bucks apiece but still.

The fact that they have no actual range limitation on their damage is the scary part. I just have to get them within 3" of any of my opponents units and they will do anywhere from 0-54 mortal wounds (average of 19.5) no matter how far anything is from that first unit is just nuts.

Anywho, i managed to get 2 units up into my opponent on the first turn due to double kraken advance on one unit and metabolic overdrive on a second unit. Wiped out the stealth squad, 2 squads of firewarriors, and all the shield drones near his broadsides and the stormsurge.

He struck back by putting 9 wounds on one of my sporocysts, killing a full 6 man ripper squad and popping all of the regular spore mines I had spawned with my sporocysts and biovores.

Turn 2 i dropped in my hive tyrants near his riptide and sent the 6 remaining meiotic spores in to take out his crisis suits and last firewarrior squad. I managed to charge the riptide with one of my tyrants but only did 4 wounds or so.

He once again killed all my spawned mines with missles and then focused everything on my WL hive tyrant, bringing him down to 1 wound. I actually made a ton of saves so he should have been dead though.

Turn 3 sees me kill his coldstar commander who had flown up to kill my WL and do some damage to his broadside unit, killing one of them and wounding the second. I also got a few more wounds off the riptide with psychic scream.

He finished off my WL on his turn and dropped his Rvanna in my backfield, killing 2 of my neurothropes with those nasty flamers and then charging into one squad of my biovores to shut them down. Unfortunately for him he hadnt killed all my spore mines since he was running out of shooting.

Turn 4 i manage to get 6 spore mines into his Rvanna and smite it with my remaining neuro to kill it. I also get the last 3 wounds off his remaining broadside and get his riptide down to 1 wound.

He gave up at this point as a 1 wound riptide and stormsurge cant really score any points and i was up on maelstrom.

Madjob wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Assuming units arriving from Strategic Reserves count as reinforcements, it looks like Pheromone Trail will actually be relevant again. Spend some CP to put a unit of Genestealers into reserve, DS a Lictor in turn 2, pop Pheromone Trail to deploy the arriving-as-reinforcements Genestealers with the Lictor instead of on a table edge.

The only restriction is the keyword <Infantry>, and so to me Genestealers feel like a waste. You don't think dropping a Lictor into some Obscuring terrain and the Hive Guard behind that terrain would be a better use? Or Pyrovores, who have 10" range flamers?

Sure, that sounds reasonable. I don't know if I'd do it with Hive Guard since they normally are able to shoot on the first turn, but a trio of Pyrovores might be useful with it. Tyrant Guard are also an option if they end up with a reasonable price in the new edition, or maybe a full brood of Zoanthropes to drop near an optimal Smite target.

A full brood of Devilgaunts might be the most boringly practical choice, but using a Trygon to deploy them instead would save a significant amount of CP.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
The fact that they have no actual range limitation on their damage is the scary part. I just have to get them within 3" of any of my opponents units and they will do anywhere from 0-54 mortal wounds (average of 19.5) no matter how far anything is from that first unit is just nuts.

Not sure how you are coming to that conclusion. Each model is tested on whether it explodes or not by being within 3" of an enemy unit (the rule says 'A Meiotic Spore explodes' which is by definition in the data sheet a model, not the unit). So any model not within 3" of an enemy won't explode, effectively making the range 3".

Moot anyways since these things are getting new rules when 9th drops.

Well the order of things is why they get away with it.

At the end of the charge phase, you check if they are within 3". If they are, they blow, all of em. After you check to see if they blow is when you start rolling to see what they do.

They dont only hit the unit they are within 3" of. The 3" range is just the proximety trigger to see if they detonate. The rule specifically says they then roll a D6 to see what they do, and the damage for each mine is dealt to the nearest enemy unit, wherever that is.


I do agree it might get reworked in the new edition of the FW though but atm thats how they work.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Well the order of things is why they get away with it.

At the end of the charge phase, you check if they are within 3". If they are, they blow, all of em. After you check to see if they blow is when you start rolling to see what they do.

They dont only hit the unit they are within 3" of. The 3" range is just the proximety trigger to see if they detonate. The rule specifically says they then roll a D6 to see what they do, and the damage for each mine is dealt to the nearest enemy unit, wherever that is.


I do agree it might get reworked in the new edition of the FW though but atm thats how they work.

Thanks for the explanation. But oh my goodness is that ever a weird interaction lol

 Eihnlazer wrote:

Kraken Mietoic spores are downright broken if you get the first turn. I dont see how they have gone this long without changing the wording on their explosion cause atm they are too strong.

[...]

Anywho, i managed to get 2 units up into my opponent on the first turn due to double kraken advance on one unit and metabolic overdrive on a second unit.

Part of the issue might be that you can't use krakens double advance stratagem on them. It doesn't work on units that have the FLY keyword.

Ahh, yeah thats a mistake on my part, but you can still easily get one unit of them into something by just double advancing them with metabolic overdrive.

And then the other two units are just dead in the water.

This was a tactic that was discussed years ago. The problem is that it ONLY works if you get first turn, so is wasted points like more than half the time. Then on the games it does work, it's highly telegraphed to anyone aware of and just involves screening to really neuter, which isn't hard when they have their full army to work with.

I dunno bout it. Might be better with less models on the board in 9th

actually its not too hard in ITC to keep one or 2 units out of LOS. Might be pretty easy in 9th too with the obscured rules.

Ok, let's do a quick summary of 9th changes and what they mean for us:

- New morale rules... ok we never cared about morale and we are not going to care about it now.

- Aircrafts:... What, aircrafts?

- Blast rules: Ouch, those really hurt. We like big blobs of hormagaunts and genestealers. We also like 9 bug units of warriors. We are clearly going to suffer this, and we don't have many blast weapons on our own to exploit this.
Our drop pod could have become a seriously good chaff clearer though.

- Cut them out stratagem: Useless. Only counts models within 1", so you can't even make use of our numbers.

- Get out of tripoint stratagem: Hurts, but we can live with it. Against a good opponent tripointing wasn't going to happen in any case.

- Overwatch rules: Big win for us! We can now MSU much more without fearing harsh repercussions. Lictors and rippers become much more dangerous. Now we can charge whatever we want! Oh wait...

- New multicharge rules:... yeah, should be expected with new overwatch. This one is probably the one which will hurt more.

- Fly nerf: A net win for us. Yeah, the flyrants don't like it, but our opponents like it much much less.

- New terrain rules: More -1 to hit and more LoS blocking is something that we can exploit much better than our opponents.

- Cap on modifiers: Sorry for Deathleaper and the OOE ball, but all in all we win on this point. We almost never stack modifiers past the -1.

- Strategic reserves: Really really good for our playstyle. This opens a lot more options. Shock guards in outlfank? 3x3 zoans in outflank? Between this and the huge number of deepstrikers we have, we can dictate the flow of the game. We have yet to see if there is still a rule saying that half the army must start on the table.

- Limit on detachments: I always played mono fleet, but I know that I was in the minority. How will the Hyve comply with this? Are we going to sacrifice CP? Single battalion? I don't think that I can fit an army into a battalion, so depending on point changes I may go for a brigade.

i agree with most of what you said.

Malanthrope will mostly be useless now as you can take a squad of venomthropes and hide them behind obscuring terrain.

Kraken flyrants will still be fine, but only other fleets that will use them will be kronos walkrants/w HVC and jormy swarmlords.
I actually expect Hive tyrants to go down in points a bit on average since wings should drop back down to 20ish points.

Lictors should definately see a resurgence. Dakkafex will be great. Tyranocytes will mostly take barbed stranglers.

I actually expect basic spore mines to change into blast weapons with the poisoned 4+ rule like they used to be in the past, which will make them pretty decent againgst hoards. They might even get a point reduction too since they wont be mortal wounds anymore. Granted this would nerf biovores pretty hard but should drop their points cost as well.

Strategic reserves will be a bigger boon to nid survival and will make your opponent hold stuff back to potentially countercharge your reserved models. I would definately hold a 20 strong genestealer squad (not even nessecary to take kraken ones) in reserve for example.

I agree with a lot of what's above.

Change to the malanthrope's utility will shift a lot of lists. IMO in 8th they were one of the better HQ choices.

I am not sure about Dakkafex being so great....relative to other factions there are a lot of big shooty elite units that outclass them.

Reserve changes are indeed great, emphasize tyranid need to control the board for victory over smashing the enemy to pieces.

Until we know the full details of 9th's impact on horde....i am up on the air about the tervigon...was hoping its ability to spawn chaff would become useful as i love the fluff of it, but often a lacklustre gimmick.

-Morale changes. Synpase doesn't cover the board so still some scenarios. Recon/linebreaker rippers benefit I think less likely to lose the unit (napkin math on 3 man unit...8ed, 1 casualty, 1/3 chance to lose the unit, 9ed 1 casualty, 1/6 chance to lose the unit). Hurts sling shot stealers a bit, lose small amount could spike a bunch of 1s and be much more crippled. Also still some details with how negative morale mods affect combat attrition rolls, if they do horror could be a bit more useful then now (thin I know but still)

Tripoint: is what it is, been hints that the strat is only tip of iceburg and staying locked in combat is a thing of the past. We have tools though, overrun into saftey, etc.

Blast rules: Not going to get spun up on it until we see points for the blast indirect weapons. Also meta will have an impact here, people won't load up on wyverns in an MSU/elite favorable meta. We may be poised to be counter meta if that happens.

Detachments: todays reveal shows combat patrol is 2CP. I'd give up 2CP to keep my Kronos patrol I use now with kraken sling battalion. No question. Points increases though will be the bigger decider.

Malanthrope/Venomthrope: Less necessary but still valuable. Agree Venomthropes will probably be the goto.

Look out sir: Not as hard a hit for us as others but will still cause adjustments to how we play. I think broodlords stock goes down though.

Terrain: If you played ITC house rule using typical ruins...tbh we are worse off in ways. Where previously a hive guard would be out of LOS with great position, is now exposed unless it gives up significant range. Same issues with stealers, used to deny overwatch to Tau or hide with an overrun behind a wall, now much harder. Same time, we can more easily hide our monsters from alpha strike and seems like some other nice benefits so not all bad, just an adjustment if you were spoiled by the common house rule.

Reserves: Lictor phermone trail having a purpose? That alone is reason enough to be excited. Rest..well I am curious to see how many of the 8ed matched play reserve restrictions carry over. But in the end either way its huge, you can hide stuff for counter charge, hit board edges with models that previously had no option to do so. Very cool. Stock does down for models and fleets though with this.