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That's what I'm afraid GW will do with Crusade 'Nids.

I've said it before - may have even been this thread - but I'm just certain that GW's interpretation of Crusade for the Tyranids will be ways of enhancing single creatures, as they "build a legend" or whatever, which is the opposite of what Tyranids should be.

Tyranids shouldn't build characters via veterancy. They're not 'heroes'. They're eminently disposable creatures who will all die once their task is completely anyway. There's no "I'll get you next time, Gadget!" from Hive Tyrants. No "Last time we faced one another I was but the learner, now I am the master!" from Neurothropes. They are all extensions of a singular Hive Mind. Individually they don't matter.

They should overcome obstacles by adaptation and mutation, but I'm sure that GW will just end up giving Tyranid HQs a bunch of titles that grant special rules ("Your Broodlord gained the 'Parasite of Mortex' title, and now causes an extra Mortal Wound on a To Wound roll of 6 in melee!").

I think that's too pessimistic, and not reflective of the examples we've had so far. Every crusade rule so far (except the Space Marines) has dived into some unique angle for the faction, and they aren't about building one particular character.

Death Guard have to gather virulence to construct and modify a plague. The Drukhari are about leveraging their spoils to take territory and build an empire in Commorragh. The AdMech scavenge alien parts to build strange, unique relics, and also (more significantly) to upgrade the equipment of their army.

While they can't ditch gaining experience and veterancy, because it's the central reward system of Crusade, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Tyranid's meta-currency will be bio-mass. It wouldn't surprise me if the meta-game for their Crusade rules is about the stages of an invasion.

While the individual characters don't matter, Tyranids are probably the best example of a faction that gets smarter and stronger with experience. It's not the same Hive Tyrant leading every battle, but the experience it gains is transferred to every replica. It would also would not surprise me if they have the most Battle Trait tables so far, to represent modifying particular strains of units in ways unique to that unit. But now I'm just speculating.

I'm being pessimistic because Tyranid players haven't had any reason not to be for a decade now. Cruddace somehow messed up two books in a row, and we don't even know who's responsible for the current one.

My ideal picture would be Tyranid units do not gain experience or rewards save Hive Tyrants (which exist as sub-entities within the hive mind endlessly respawning into new bodies, see Swarmlord). Instead specific strains gain experience, representing the adaptations added to deal with the particular war. So instead of hormagaunt unit A having it's own xp total along with hormagaunt unit B, and so on, the xp goes to 'hormagaunts'. It doesn't matter if they are wiped out or have a different unit number/size every game because it is the fleet putting adaptations on all the hormagaunts it spawns. Disallow the normal crusade upgrades entirely and give Tyranids extra charts with rewards against specific weapons/foes. The sort of thing that would be too niche for matched play but in a crusade league can be tailored to fight the other armies in the league.

Wouldn't it just mean that instead of having to upgrade one unit of hive guard depending on how it does in the game, all the hive guard units or all the dimas would getting upgraded at the same time, litteraly double or triple dipping on the speed of upgrades?

Yeah, I was thinking something similar in my post, but I didn't say explicitly because it's a pretty far departure from the normal systems. The problem is, mechanically, sharing experience leads to spamming the unit you invested in (even assuming you solve the issue of getting your investment multiplied). I think having some counter-balancing mechanic to dilute the power of upgrades based on the amount you bring would be too fiddly and prone to unintended outcomes.

A bigger problem than any of that is: what if the player doesn't want the same upgrades on every unit of Hormagaunts? Or a better example: Carnifexes. If the upgrades apply evenly, then you're penalized for using shooting and melee Carnifexes. I think for play experience, you're still better of upgrading separate units as patterns the Hive Fleet is replicating, rather than imagining they make literally all Hormagaunts to be the same.

If a player really wants to spam hormagaunts, or carnifex, or whatever it may be, let them. Rewards now aren't enough to incentivize people now to max out unit size whenever possible, and certainly if the rewards stacked so well as to overcome the inherent disadvantages of spamming one unit then there is a problem with the rewards.

Different wargear would obviously have to be a different 'strain' (like how Thornback and Screamer-Killers are) because otherwise the problems are like you said. Makes a lot more sense than 'oh the hive fleet devised these helpful adaptations but only on exactly one unit in any given force'.

NinthMusketeer wrote:My ideal picture would be Tyranid units do not gain experience or rewards save Hive Tyrants (which exist as sub-entities within the hive mind endlessly respawning into new bodies, see Swarmlord). Instead specific strains gain experience, representing the adaptations added to deal with the particular war. So instead of hormagaunt unit A having it's own xp total along with hormagaunt unit B, and so on, the xp goes to 'hormagaunts'. It doesn't matter if they are wiped out or have a different unit number/size every game because it is the fleet putting adaptations on all the hormagaunts it spawns. Disallow the normal crusade upgrades entirely and give Tyranids extra charts with rewards against specific weapons/foes. The sort of thing that would be too niche for matched play but in a crusade league can be tailored to fight the other armies in the league.

Karol wrote:Wouldn't it just mean that instead of having to upgrade one unit of hive guard depending on how it does in the game, all the hive guard units or all the dimas would getting upgraded at the same time, litteraly double or triple dipping on the speed of upgrades?

I still think this is an idea that can be made to work, it just needs be less powerful if it affects more units. Many armies already have secondary resources, like Virulence or Unforgiven Points, nids could have something like "Genetic Adaptation Points" that allows them to mutate a certain types of units in a specific direction - think StarCraft: Heart of the Swarm. It would essentially work just like custom jobs, except it would apply to the whole type of unit.

That said, there have been precedences of tyranids actually gaining experience and the imperium meeting swarms and monsters the have meat before. Tyranids absorb everything back into biomass once their job done, but during an ongoing conflict, there should be different levels of genetic enhancement and experience across the swarm that is currently ravaging the planet.

Started a new crusade on Friday, a friend and me are playing the Campaign from the Book of Rust. Which I legally acquired from someone who didn't give a gak about that narrative BS and let me cut out the pages from his book.

For those not familiar with it, the campaign is split in three phases with different settings, theaters of war and an epic mission for each. Winning the first two phases and losing the last draws the campaign, winning any other two phases wins you the whole campaign. Not really relevant outside of getting an extra goody for your crusade force. Note that all the characters and units have names, but since many of them are German and flavor getss lost in translation, I'll just call units by their datasheets.

So we played the first legendary mission "Rout on Okharium".

A small force of Dark Angels primaris lead by a master have been marching for weeks across the irradiated wasteland left behind by previous clashes between the defenders of Okharium and local ork warbands. After retrieving a lost artifact from the wastelands, their goal to join the defenders of Linkagar and from there return to the fleet. With all structures and outposts in the region razed by orks, imperial carpet bombing or the heretic's orbital bombardment supplies were running low and even the genetically improved super-soldiers were suffering from fatigue.
Since a few days, a squad of plague marines lead by a plague surgeon from the plague barge Pallidus Ascensorem was relentlessly herding a horde of poxwalkers towards the Dark Angels, denying them any rest or pause. Despite never getting tired, the high radiation levels, cutting winds and flying debris was cutting away at the exposed flesh of the poxwalkers, slowing them down to a crawl.

Deployment
The Dark Angel master decided to cross an abandoned ork outpost, hoping that the piles of scrap and the primitive structures would allow them to ambush their pursuers or at least delay them to give his troops a much needed rest. They fanned out, with the outriders scouting ahead, intercessors investigating a big ork structure which is protected by multiple barricades and the squad of helblasters remaining to guard their leader. Once they would clear the ork outpost, they would be in range for communication with Linkagar and could call in air support for extraction or fire support.

Unbeknownst to them, the Lord of Virulence aboard the Pallidus Ascensorem was already monitoring the scene. Suspecting the plague surgeon of trying to usurp him, he was keeping close tabs on him, ready to strike him down given any reason at all.

Turn 1
Luck is not on the Dark Angel's side. Not only have the death guard advanced and finally caught up to them, but straggling ork lootas open fire on them from hiding spots among the scrap heaps. While their accuracy is as bad as expected from orks, one bullet of the size of a fist smashes into one of the helblaster's helmets and takes him out of action him.
The slow and lumbering poxwalkers have no chance of catching any of the super-soldiers, but the plague marines open fire. The intercessors try to take cover behind walls of scrap metal, but one of their brethren gets hit by a grenade from a blight launcher, dissolving his armor, flesh and bone. The plague surgeon cares for neither friend or foe and makes a bee-line for a scrap heap on top of the ork structure.

The Dark Angels return fire and fell two of the bloated monstrosities that were nothing short of an insult to the emperor himself. With bad sight between all the scrap heaps, the outriders and intercessors fail to take down a poxwalker.

Turn 2
Seeing how the plague surgeon is abandoning his duties and the plague marines are getting gunned down by the false emperor's newest pawns, the Lord of Virulence loses patience and stomps towards the teleportarium, three hulking terminators with scythes following him without making a sound.
Meanwhile on the surface, one of the intercessors is wounded by an ork loota shooting him in the back, the plague marines advance steadily while firing away their guns. The cursed machine spirit of one of the plasma guns turns the biggest one of them, an ugly guy with a malformed head and a drooling maw in his gut, into a huge toxic bonfire, while the other two continue firing unphased, taking out all of the intercessors.
While taking cover from the traitors hiding out in a ruined building, the master's auspex scanner starts beeping. Staring at the display, he sees the warp distorting in the direction of their escape route. He orders his helblasters to open fire at his mark, and despite not seeing any targets yet, the well-trained Dark Angels follow the order. Four nightmarish terminators step out of the warp, just to be hit by plasma projectiles in the very moment they appear. To the masters bitter resentment, despite severely wounding one of the atrocities, none of them fall. He is unable to do anything when a spray of toxic and foul-smelling liquid starts melting the four battle brothers in front of him into a green, bubbling liquid.

Opening fire with his boltstorm gauntlet, the master tries to fall back to a better defensible position. He orders the outriders to establish communications and get that air support, so they kick up their engines and drive out of the outpost. The least he could do is to take as many of these traitors with him before he falls.

Turn 3
The ork loota that had already felled a helblaster earlier shoots the wounded deathshroud terminator and kills it. The few seconds where the Death Guard decide whether to go after the orks or kill the remaining Dark Angel is enough for the Master to escape out of scythe range. The Lord of Virulence still showers him in a deluge of toxins, but his gravis armor took the brunt of the attack. When he uncovers his eyes to assess the damage, the last thing he sees is an orange flash of corrupted plasma before everything goes dark around him.

Turn 5
The plague surgeon lets out a shout of triumph as he sifts through the scrap heap in what must have been a big mek's hoard. A beheaded figure in yellow artificer armor is lying among the scrap, parts of the armor already torn off. But he isn't here for pretty baubles. Using his Narthecium to open up the chest armor, he finds what he was looking for - an Imperial Fist captain's gene seed. Climbing to the highest point of the ork structure, holding his treasure above his head he offers it up to grand father nurgle, in exchange for a boon. Nurgle answers his prayers and the gene seed turns black and green. The hand holding it twists into a claw with long nails that are oozing poison. The plague surgeon remains laughing maniacally atop of the structure while aircrafts of the skitarii approach in the distance.

Aftermath
Due to the infighting between the traitors and the swift response of the forces from the Adeptus Mechanicus, the master of the dark angels and some of his brethren are rescued, where still possible the gene seed secured. For his heroic sacrifice that allowed his outriders to escape, the master was marked for greatness.
Just the relic carried by the master was nowhere to be found - and the librarians are right to fear for the worst, as that relic has now been integrated with the Lord of Virulence's armor, twisted and corrupted by the powers of nurgle.

Having stopped most of the fleeing dark angels by himself, the Lord of Virulence was commended by Lord Thraxoplaxmos himself. The plague surgeon can't help but take his commander's seething anger with a smile. That fool didn't know he was one step closer to daemonhood.

OT:

Sounds like a pretty fun game; I've got the BoR, but my plan was not to fight any of the BoR battles til my army grew a bit- like maybe the last game before we jump to Incursion scale, or based on your advice, more likely the first game after we make the jump.

Board size doesn't normally change between Combat Patrol and Incursion, but since I'll be using 15" tiles rather than GW's boards, I can add 3 tiles and fight on 45" x 45" - do you think that might be sufficient, or do you suggest jumping to a full 45" x 60"

Thanks for the report- it's nice to see a BoR mission play out.

45x45 should serve you well I think.

PenitentJake wrote:
Sounds like a pretty fun game; I've got the BoR, but my plan was not to fight any of the BoR battles til my army grew a bit- like maybe the last game before we jump to Incursion scale, or based on your advice, more likely the first game after we make the jump.

Board size doesn't normally change between Combat Patrol and Incursion, but since I'll be using 15" tiles rather than GW's boards, I can add 3 tiles and fight on 45" x 45" - do you think that might be sufficient, or do you suggest jumping to a full 45" x 60"

Thanks for the report- it's nice to see a BoR mission play out.

The problem with the board size comes from how you deploy in that mission - the defenders deploy within 12" of the center line and the attackers 9" from that deployment zone. If you have a table length of 45", you end up with just 2" of deployment zone for the attackers. It wasn't a big problem for me, as I just put all the terminators in reserve, but if you bring any vehicles at all, you're boned. So 45"x60" is probably better.

In general the BoR campaign seems to be handing out quite a bunch of extra goodies compared to regular crusade games, so if you want to kick-start your campaign play it earlier, otherwise playing it just before the jump to incursion is probably the best idea so you don't ruin the vanilla feel of the first few games.

Cool. I wonder if the next book in the series will still be in the Oblis Subsector, or if they'll be jumping the action.

It's an interesting dynamic they've set up with the Oblis Invasion Badge, since you could have new units join your campaign in Act 2, and some of them wouldn't have it.

It's been a while since I flipped through the BoR. I haven't been playing, or sadly even painting/ building. The Drukhari dex should have motivated me, but other things just seem to be getting in the way.

I'm counting on the Sisters to pull me back into hobby mode. Some of my forces will be able to fight in the Charadon Crusade, but others will be fighting in my own original campaign.

Eventually, the Crusades will merge, but it's going to take a while.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Having tried it, I would say the opposite. Tyranids are really unrewarding in crusade. The mechanics do not reward the play styles Tyranids generally go for, but mostly it is the theme. Having a unit with the 'veterans' reward or a 'digital weapons' relic doesn't work with the narrative of the army. Yeah you can re-fluff it as something else but that makes things a bit hollow. Couple that with a codex that does a piss poor job of representing the narrative of Tyranids as an army already and it is just a recipe for an unsatisfying experience. Because in crusade that narrative feel is a huge part of the picture.

I guess I feel almost the opposite. Tyranids love the psychic buffs, the weapon mods, and get a lot of mileage out of most of the battle honors (at least, to the extent anybody does). I mean, are you really bummed out if your tyranid warriors get +1 move? Reroll ones? Shoot while doing an action?

And the relics are Fantastic for tyranids. It's all invulnerable saves and stuff.

There are no invuln saves available to Monsters as a crusade relic.

I guess if you really want one invuln on a Tyranid Prime you might like the relic.

Oh darn, you are correct. Well, there are still a lot of good buffs available.

But I do understand. I've played Tau and Eldar in my Crusades so far, and I'm really jealous of the dedicated Crusade content.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That's what I'm afraid GW will do with Crusade 'Nids.

I've said it before - may have even been this thread - but I'm just certain that GW's interpretation of Crusade for the Tyranids will be ways of enhancing single creatures, as they "build a legend" or whatever, which is the opposite of what Tyranids should be.

Tyranids shouldn't build characters via veterancy. They're not 'heroes'. They're eminently disposable creatures who will all die once their task is completely anyway. There's no "I'll get you next time, Gadget!" from Hive Tyrants. No "Last time we faced one another I was but the learner, now I am the master!" from Neurothropes. They are all extensions of a singular Hive Mind. Individually they don't matter.

They should overcome obstacles by adaptation and mutation, but I'm sure that GW will just end up giving Tyranid HQs a bunch of titles that grant special rules ("Your Broodlord gained the 'Parasite of Mortex' title, and now causes an extra Mortal Wound on a To Wound roll of 6 in melee!").

Really dumb question: from a mechanics standpoint, what's the difference between Hive Tyrant Jimmy learning to become a "Synapse beacon" with extended range, and Hive Tyrant Jimmy going into the soup, and Hive tyrant Kyle coming out, who mutated to Become a "synapse beacon?" I suppose you'd want different battle scars, perhaps to reflect the biomass cost of recuperating the beast, but this is also a system where "Old one eye" exists.

I want to see GW pick up the narrative thread from the Blood of Baal PA where they mentioned the persistent nid planet; they were really, really vague about it, but it seemed like one of the splinters of a particular hive fleet might be starting to experiment with persistent specimens accumulating experience as an adaptation.

I can't wait for Nid and GSC bespoke Crusade content. every dex so far has really used the system to express the "culture" of the faction.

Why would "persistent specimins accumulating experience" as an adaptation be superior to "the entire race accumulating experience"?

I feel like individual experience is a weakness, not a strength, because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

But I digress...

Dunno, to me it seems kind of impractical to recall the entire hive-fleet after each battle to improve their claws by a bit and then send them out again.

 Jidmah wrote:
Dunno, to me it seems kind of impractical to recall the entire hive-fleet after each battle to improve their claws by a bit and then send them out again.

True, though it does make sense that any new bugs will be equipped with those claws and the old bugs with the old claws will be a dying breed who are run down in service and will be expected to be wiped out. Like evolution, the newest generation is the bestest (barring some calamity), but it doesn't mean the current generation just has to be culled.

Is there even something like "old" bugs? I know that some genestealer strains are considered unacceptable in the post invasion soup that gets feed to the fleets. But everything else that isn't Pylons or skeleton remains gets melted down and changed in to biomass by the tyranids.

This would make every new spawn of tyranids different from the prior one. As they even adjust them to stuff like climate changed cause by the fleets actions itself etc.

Yeah, in some ways it would be cool if the Crusade rules for Tyranids made new units better than the ones currently on your roster.

So in essence you'd bring in a fresh unit with the Battle Honor that your first unit "actually" earned, to represent the Hive Mind learning from your first unit's experience and producing the upgrade into the second unit.

So units don't actually gain XP by persisting - instead, any XP they earn makes bringing future units much better.

That'd probably be OP though.

Okay, but that's not functionally different than each squad just gaining experience. In your suggested system, you can just remove and replace the squad to apply that Battle Honor. Again, the problem with shared upgrades for a unit type is that players may want different combinations of upgrades on the same unit type. It makes for poor play experience and makes for a bunch of complicated balancing problems, plus it doesn't integrate well into the existing systems.

Really, the fact is you don't even need it. You can justify each unit gaining experience in Tyranid fluff easily enough by saying the unit represents a brood or strain. In actual biology, a population has variations so that when evolutionary pressure is applied some variation is already prepared. Adaptation is just that variation out competing other variations under new conditions, thus becoming most common. Likewise with Tyranids, they're not going to throw all their eggs in one basket. They canonically develop all sorts of specialized broods with minor differences (just look at Carnifexes). If one brood of gants develops better accuracy, and another brood in the same Hive fleet grows more powerful symbiote weapons, that's totally within the fluff that the Hive Mind would continue to produce both until one is clearly inefficient.

Right, though the unit also retaining battle scars doesn't make sense really - unless you just extrapolate from the Old One Eye fluff and just say "all Tyranids can be crippled now".

Ah, genetic defects. Rolling for battle scars happens between games, so you don't have to explicitly tie it to those particular models (especially since it only occurs if the entire unit was wiped out). There's always ways to justify the mechanics with fluff.

 DarkHound wrote:
Ah, genetic defects. Rolling for battle scars happens between games, so you don't have to explicitly tie it to those particular models (especially since it only occurs if the entire unit was wiped out). There's always ways to justify the mechanics with fluff.

Yes, you're right, you could bend the narrative into a pretzel to fit your "narrative" game.

Or the designers could design the narrative game to be narrative, even if it bends them over backwards.

Quite the conundrum which one I'd rather pay for...

But your suggestions aren't actually improving play or better representing the fluff. They're just more complicated for the sake of it.

The existing systems work just fine for Tyranids. The best variations in a brood of gants get expressed and become the norm as the pressures of combat cull the worst members (ie the unit adapts as it gains experience). If the best gants in a brood are wiped out, you may be left with weaker or defective gants to replace them (ie battle scars).

There are so many different factions that work in such different ways that you have to make some amount of abstraction for them. The central system needs to be universal so that the game has a common point of competition. You can nitpick, but the system is a consequence of being a shared game.

So just got the Admech dex in hand, and their tech system could be modified to work with biomorphs.

In this system, you scavenge "parts" - there are different types of parts; normally you have to determine both the part type AND the specific part from that type- this keeps the OP at bay. You CAN burn RP to choose type (moderate cost) or you can choose specific part (HIGH cost). These increase player Agency, but at a fair opportunity cost.

Parts are acquired via agendas, so the agendas do feel fluffy.

Weapon upgrades can also be given not just to sergeants, like usual, but to whole units (although again, at a pretty high RP cost).

Biomorphs could follow similar mechanics. The only issue is that it would feel "samey" - the agendas would be different, but what you do with biomass points when you get them should feel different too.

There definitely are persistent Nids- Old One Eye, the Red Terror, the Swarmlord... And there is mention of a planet in the Blood of Baal that seems to be experimenting with either persistent Nids or unabsorbed GSC; they kept it vague, but it is definitely there.

Curious about the release schedule again; I had really expected the Ork Beast Snagga box (and just the box) to preorder either this weekend (not happening, as we now know) or the 26th; it certainly will not prorder on the 19th- that will be wall to wall AoS.

Because they split the sisters release, we don't know yet what is coming on the 26th.

The reason this matters is that if all Sisters AND all Orks are out by the end of July, they could do both GK and Ksons in August- after all it is looking like one kit and one dex for each plus the battle box. Charadon Act 2 is also coming.

But IF that's the schedule, it means September is TBA. We're likely to find out about September at the end of July or early August.

Damn I wish they'd just put the information out. We know the next 3 dexes worth of releases and nothing beyond. Nor do we know how long it will take.

I'm totally getting the GK dex. I don't know about the box. That will mean I have Crusade content for all 3 orders militant. Not sure about Ksons; hadn't ever planned on them, but the box set would make it easy. Tough call.

I know I'm not getting Orks. They're cool and everything, but they're not really for me.

With all of that being sort of non-committal, I really want to know what's next.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sisters Crusade review on Goons!!!!

Repent!

https://www.goonhammer.com/codex-adepta-sororitas-crusade-review/

Goonhammer wrote:Types of Saints, ranked:

3. Potential

2. Living

1. Regular (dead)

Absolutely gut-busting.

Sisters of Battle stuff looks great. The league I'm in is 8 weeks (8 games), but I like the fact that they're willing to put such long reward tracks in. Sainthood should take 10-15 games to achieve (if you manage it at all). Likewise, AdMech tech parts seem hard to acquire and you'll be fortunate to get 1 per game, and you need to somewhat design your army to pursue them; Consequently, fully equipping a Techpriest, let alone upgrading your infantry, is a very long term goal, especially if you're hunting for a particular part. In my 8 weeks, I expect to upgrade my Vanguard's guns and maybe get one worthwhile gadget for my priest (barring some luck).

It'll be interesting to see what they do with the Ork codex. They're my second contemporary army (with about 500 points assembled from my old Assault on Blackreach and teenaged purchases). Maybe the metagame will be assembling a horde, and they'll do something interesting with the "add supply cap" requisition as a way to unlock new abilities representing your growing influence.

One word:

WAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!