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It skews things heavily and whilst it has a bonus in that it makes middle-weight elite style units more viable since they are no longer having to compete purely against big infantry blocks; it has the other flipside of making the game more of a middle skirmish in appearance from what it was before. It also means that, esp in AoS, you are kind of encouraged to have lots of command models per boxed set you build. This can, to me, appear very silly when you've things like cavalry where there's perhaps 5 models to a set and of those 5, 3 are command models (Slaanesh is even worst, they have 4 to a set of 5).
That has zero impact. Only thing you are encouraged is more unit leaders. Banners, musicians etc you should build max regardless are you minimum or maximum size. You have 1 per 5 and unit is 10 to 30? You build 2 if you are 10, you build 5 if you are 30. Either way you go for maximum.
Yes and no. See banners and musicians don't actually give multiple bonuses for having multiple in the same unit. The only bonus you have having more than one is that if one is killed you don't lose the bonus of having them until they are all killed. However visually it looks totally stupid to me to have a block of infantry where over half are "command" style models with musical instruments, banners and such. It just looks wrong. So I tend to stick to the Old World style of 1 command squad per "unit". Visually it looks right and honestly barring a few sniper abilities, most of the time you control what models are removed from the unit when you take damage so you can just leave banners/musicians for last.
I honestly dislike GW's entire attitude on this front. I can also tell that they are changing it because a lot of newer models (not all) are steadily dropping those kind of support unit. Banners and musicians are steadily vanishing, not totally but steadily from most units. The result is that I suspect, as said, in the future AoS won't have them as part of units, but will instead have them as leader type models. With units having other kinds of support model that "blend" into them more visually.
Eg the new Blissbarbs for Slaanesh don't have musicians or banners, but they have a guy with a magical ammo container. He appears once every X models and blends in, esp as you've 9 regular troops to 1 of him in the first block and then 1 in 10 for any reinforcements (since you have 1 leader in the first block but have no further leaders if you reinforce a unit)
Flipsiders wrote: ...How would giving each Hive Fleet bonuses to specific monsters reduce fluffiness and variety? You appear to have found the two criticisms that work least effectively against this suggestion, then chosen to use them both in your argument.
The problem is WAAAC types cherrypick one 'best' Fleet, then spam the monster it brings. Which ends up with nothing but say Behemoth Zoanthropes on the tables for the whole edition. Which is not really fluffy (or fun to face if they are made OP by this).
IMO better way to do it would be to give different Fleets different troop options if you have X warlord, like in AoS (or 40K 5th edition, but alas, taking cues from the best written and balanced set of Codexes ever seems to be banned by GW for 4 editions now)...
Flipsiders wrote: ...How would giving each Hive Fleet bonuses to specific monsters reduce fluffiness and variety? You appear to have found the two criticisms that work least effectively against this suggestion, then chosen to use them both in your argument.
The fluff tells you that Tyranids are masters of adaptation and reform their armies to fight new threats, and yet every Kronos army is going to be shooty, every Hydra army is going to be a horde, every Behemoth army is going to be melee, and so on. Having creature-specific buffs exacerbates this problem- if Jormungandr gets a special bonus to Raveners, either Jormungandr Raveners will overperform or everyone else's Raveners will underperform, and either way you'll probably only see Raveners in a Jormungandr army.
These synergies pigeonhole you into a narrow set of options and are detrimental to game balance. The main reason I usually play Kraken or Leviathan is to be able to take whatever units I want without being indirectly penalized by not maximizing synergies.
Hive fleet bonus's should be thematically powerful traits that are based on the fluff.
Kronos is supposed to be the anti-chaos fleet, but only got buffs to shooting, a WL trait that causes double perils, and a relic gun that ignores invuns (but only has -1ap).
The relic is the only one that is actually anti-deamon and its the one that noone uses.
I would personally change kronos alot going by the fluff. Changing the WL trait to a 2 part ability like: Any units summoned to the battlefield with reserve points must be placed outside of 12" from any kronos unit within synapse range of this WL, and the Shadows of the warp ability has its range increased by 12" on this model.
Trait can continue to be reroll hit rolls if the model did not move and mabey -1 to be charged if standing in light cover?
Relic can still ignore invuns, but needs to get 2d6 shots that count infantry units as though they were 5 models larger for blast purposes.
Strat should be 5++ against mortals on a unit.
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Tyran wrote: Saying 5th edition were the best written and balanced set of Codexes ever in a Tyranid thread is certainly a way to start a bar fight.
It was, though. Yes, Kelly's and Cruddace books sucked, but I have said that a zillion times now about their output so I gave it a rest this time
Eihnlazer wrote: I would personally change kronos alot going by the fluff. Changing the WL trait to a 2 part ability like: Any units summoned to the battlefield with reserve points must be placed outside of 12" from any kronos unit within synapse range of this WL, and the Shadows of the warp ability has its range increased by 12" on this model.
Eh, any anti-X rules are just bad. Either they make subfaction OP against given army X or the whole faction outside of the bonus is subpar against it. The traits should be as generic as possible, something preventing deep strikes yes, anti-summoning no. Bonus to deny range yes, bonus to deny range against daemons no, to sum it up briefly, IMO.
Tyran wrote: Saying 5th edition were the best written and balanced set of Codexes ever in a Tyranid thread is certainly a way to start a bar fight.
It was, though. Yes, Kelly's and Cruddace books sucked, but I have said that a zillion times now about their output so I gave it a rest this time
And Ward, and those three together make at least like half of the 5th edition books.
All of them, in fact. Those three wrote 100% of the codexes released during 5th.
Unless we're talking about the codexes that were active during 5th (which would include 3rd, and 4th edition codexes as well), but that kind of makes it sound like the balanced codexes was the ones not yet given the 5th ed. treatment...
For the record I like a lot of the 5th codexes. But I do consider them to be pretty uneven, and I'm not sure if I agree with them being balanced. Could be wrong though!
Either way the coming Nids-changes seems solid and interesting!
Tyran wrote: Saying 5th edition were the best written and balanced set of Codexes ever in a Tyranid thread is certainly a way to start a bar fight.
It was, though. Yes, Kelly's and Cruddace books sucked, but I have said that a zillion times now about their output so I gave it a rest this time
And Ward, and those three together make at least like half of the 5th edition books.
And Thorpe. Never forget Thorpe.
Kelly is worse than all of them and I will die on this hill
Eh, this isn't the thread for that particular argument. But I'd say any codex that can still cause seething anger in the players of the faction 14 years after its release is a hard thing to beat.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Eh, this isn't the thread for that particular argument. But I'd say any codex that can still cause seething anger in the players of the faction 14 years after its release is a hard thing to beat.
Tyran wrote: Saying 5th edition were the best written and balanced set of Codexes ever in a Tyranid thread is certainly a way to start a bar fight.
It was, though. Yes, Kelly's and Cruddace books sucked, but I have said that a zillion times now about their output so I gave it a rest this time
And Ward, and those three together make at least like half of the 5th edition books.
And Thorpe. Never forget Thorpe.
Kelly is worse than all of them and I will die on this hill
Eh, this isn't the thread for that particular argument. But I'd say any codex that can still cause seething anger in the players of the faction 14 years after its release is a hard thing to beat.
Sorry, but if someone is feeling seething anger over a codex, especially after a decade, the problem isn't with the codex.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/17 11:43:34
You know you're really doing something when you can make strangers hate you over the Internet. - Mauleed
Just remember folks. Panic. Panic all the time. It's the only way to survive, other than just being mindful, of course-but geez, that's so friggin' boring. - Aegis Grimm
Hallowed is the All Pie The Before Times: A Place That Celebrates The World That Was
Tyran wrote: Saying 5th edition were the best written and balanced set of Codexes ever in a Tyranid thread is certainly a way to start a bar fight.
It was, though. Yes, Kelly's and Cruddace books sucked, but I have said that a zillion times now about their output so I gave it a rest this time
And Ward, and those three together make at least like half of the 5th edition books.
And Thorpe. Never forget Thorpe.
Kelly is worse than all of them and I will die on this hill
Eh, this isn't the thread for that particular argument. But I'd say any codex that can still cause seething anger in the players of the faction 14 years after its release is a hard thing to beat.
Sorry, but if someone is feeling seething anger over a codex, especially after a decade, the problem isn't with the codex.
Well, let's put it another way. This person could have spent, I dunno, thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of time that are negatively impacted or even invalidated by said codex. Think there's no reason to seethe then? I know I know, it's toy soldiers, but you don't get to shut down somebody's negative feelings about something.
ETA: sorry for the off topic rant. I hope that little reddit teaser is true, it sounds awesome. Nids have never had enough attacks outside of Genestealers.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/17 13:59:56
Lol You like attacks? You get LOTS of attacks You like hitting better? You get to hit better
You better not have made nothing but devil gaunts... Cause you might as well throw them in the bin and take fleshborers
Hope you also put impalers on your hive guard...
Although the shock is amazing against vehicles
This makes me theorize we are going back to the 4th edition termagant paradigm of weapons being sidegrades of each other, rather than the current one of devourers blatantly dominating all the others.
This makes me theorize we are going back to the 4th edition termagant paradigm of weapons being sidegrades of each other, rather than the current one of devourers blatantly dominating all the others.
That's pretty generally what they've been doing since the start of 9th. Best example is making all Intercessor options cost the same points and buffing Auto & Stalker bolt rifles.
We might see something like:
Fleshborer 12" Pistol 1 S4 AP -2
Devourer 12" Assault 2 S4 AP 0
As usual the "best" option might come down to which hive fleet trait or other rules are available to combo with.
Lol You like attacks? You get LOTS of attacks You like hitting better? You get to hit better
You better not have made nothing but devil gaunts... Cause you might as well throw them in the bin and take fleshborers
Hope you also put impalers on your hive guard...
Although the shock is amazing against vehicles
This makes me theorize we are going back to the 4th edition termagant paradigm of weapons being sidegrades of each other, rather than the current one of devourers blatantly dominating all the others.
That isn't really an accurate description of the 4th edition weapon options paradigm, though.
Spinefists were more of a default back then than devourers are now.
In most cases gaunts were a troop tax selection, their damage output was useless, so everybody built spinefists to save points.
Devourers were passable in certain matchups, but you mostly needed foreknowledge of your opponent/list tailoring for it to make sense.
Fleshborers were mathematically subpar in so many cases that they weren't worth the extra point compared to a spinefist.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/17 21:24:38
You know you're really doing something when you can make strangers hate you over the Internet. - Mauleed
Just remember folks. Panic. Panic all the time. It's the only way to survive, other than just being mindful, of course-but geez, that's so friggin' boring. - Aegis Grimm
Hallowed is the All Pie The Before Times: A Place That Celebrates The World That Was
Tyran wrote: This makes me theorize we are going back to the 4th edition termagant paradigm of weapons being sidegrades of each other, rather than the current one of devourers blatantly dominating all the others.
Maybe Termagant weapons will be amalgamated into a single statline, and you'll use strats to differentiate them.
Tyran wrote: This makes me theorize we are going back to the 4th edition termagant paradigm of weapons being sidegrades of each other, rather than the current one of devourers blatantly dominating all the others.
Maybe Termagant weapons will be amalgamated into a single statline, and you'll use strats to differentiate them.
Hey now, you can't say things like this. SpikeyBits will run with it.
You know you're really doing something when you can make strangers hate you over the Internet. - Mauleed
Just remember folks. Panic. Panic all the time. It's the only way to survive, other than just being mindful, of course-but geez, that's so friggin' boring. - Aegis Grimm
Hallowed is the All Pie The Before Times: A Place That Celebrates The World That Was
xttz wrote: That's pretty generally what they've been doing since the start of 9th. Best example is making all Intercessor options cost the same points and buffing Auto & Stalker bolt rifles.
We might see something like:
Fleshborer 12" Pistol 1 S4 AP -2
Devourer 12" Assault 2 S4 AP 0
As usual the "best" option might come down to which hive fleet trait or other rules are available to combo with.
So- Fleshborers got you higher S, Devourers got you more shots, Spinefists got you a bit of AP.
But I'm not convinced that GW will do something like that again, simply because Spinefists and Devourers are also weapon options for Warriors and Raveners. As it stands Spinefists can work for both as the number of shots they get is based on the creature carrying them, but downgrading Devourers to make them a sidegrade to Fleshborers would render them utterly worthless on anything bigger than a Gaunt.
Unless, of course, GW splits up the weapon profiles to create a Devourer profile for Gaunts and another for the mid-sized creatures. Doesn't seem that farfetched, considering it's what they did for monstrous creature weapons (ie the Devourers and Deathspitters that look exactly like their Warrior equivalents, but are more powerful).
catbarf wrote: But I'm not convinced that GW will do something like that again, simply because Spinefists and Devourers are also weapon options for Warriors and Raveners.
*cough* Chosen *cough* Chaos Terminators *cough*
"Termagants/Tyranid Warriors/Ravners are equipped with 'Tyranid Bio-Weapons' that may fire using one of two profiles during the shooting phase..."
And yes, they could create new weapon version of existing things. Sometimes it comes across as lazy (the heavy venom cannon!) and other times they come up with something that sounds cool and seems like a logical extension of what came before (the stranglethorn cannon).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/17 23:39:54
Part of the reason I want new Raveners models is that I hate how they have the same ranged weapons as Warriors but somehow they are completely inside their bodies when Warriors need to carry sizeable ones. If i remember first Raveners had to carry their devourers etc. I would like them to either have their ranged options removed or made visible or changed to something else like 'thorax bio hive'' etc. which would have much shorter range etc. than Warrior weapons.
Shadow Walker wrote: Part of the reason I want new Raveners models is that I hate how they have the same ranged weapons as Warriors but somehow they are completely inside their bodies when Warriors need to carry sizeable ones. If i remember first Raveners had to carry their devourers etc. I would like them to either have their ranged options removed or made visible or changed to something else like 'thorax bio hive'' etc. which would have much shorter range etc. than Warrior weapons.
Reason number one I dislike weapons on hands designs on Nids... Looks awful and not something I imagine a constant evolving biocreature to have. The fact some look like pistols is even worse.
Integrated with body and design should be the way to go.
Shadow Walker wrote: Part of the reason I want new Raveners models is that I hate how they have the same ranged weapons as Warriors but somehow they are completely inside their bodies when Warriors need to carry sizeable ones. If i remember first Raveners had to carry their devourers etc. I would like them to either have their ranged options removed or made visible or changed to something else like 'thorax bio hive'' etc. which would have much shorter range etc. than Warrior weapons.
Reason number one I dislike weapons on hands designs on Nids... Looks awful and not something I imagine a constant evolving biocreature to have. The fact some look like pistols is even worse.
Integrated with body and design should be the way to go.
You misunderstood me. I am not against integrated weapons. I am against integrated weapons pretending to be the very same weapons that are not integrated.
