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 Overread wrote:
Yeah I like that take on stealth - no need to write things down on paper and keep it secret and it really lets you mess with your opponent

Even if you do have to write it down to make one the official choice so you can't change it on the fly; it can still let you do all kinds of mindgames on your opponent and make them do things that they otherwise wouldn't to avoid the potential threat

If only Mandrakes has been a threat to literally anything at all.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Yeah I like that take on stealth - no need to write things down on paper and keep it secret and it really lets you mess with your opponent

Even if you do have to write it down to make one the official choice so you can't change it on the fly; it can still let you do all kinds of mindgames on your opponent and make them do things that they otherwise wouldn't to avoid the potential threat

If only Mandrakes has been a threat to literally anything at all.

Hey, that's not fair, they were made of metal and had sharp edges, if you stepped one one they were at least as dangerous as Legos

They still came off the worst!

But in recap, I’m optimistic we might see Lictors return to being close combat horrors. There to make a mess, but not necessarily survive it.

 Altruizine wrote:
I thought there was a 3rd edition Lictor? I know I have three versions of it, including the current one, which going by the codex art -- seen left -- was the 4th edition release.

edit: yeah, these:

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/File:Lictor.jpg

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/File:Third_Edition_Lictor.jpg

*Whoosh

We ignore the 3rd edition model because it was so ugly it might as well not exist. But that's not as funny when we have to explain the joke But now you know

And damn you guys, I took my 2nd ed Codex out and went back to the good old days!

Carnifex with Acid Blood Biomorph (for a mere 5pts!): If wounded or killed in close combat, all models in base contact get a auto-hit at a Strength equal to the creature's Toughness (in this case, 8), at -5 AP (because of how AP worked back then).

Regenarate was good but pricy (10pts per wound, so +100pts here). I would often go for Toughened Exoskeleton for +1T in that case. The Carnifex was a tank and quite dangerous back then!

As someone who has recently painted a 3rd ed Lictor and Hive Tyrant, I can attest to the “quality” of the sculpts.

Not a good time for the nids.

 Nevelon wrote:
As someone who has recently painted a 3rd ed Lictor and Hive Tyrant, I can attest to the “quality” of the sculpts.

Not a good time for the nids.

Getting the 3ed tyrant to bloody stand was a disaster. That thing was so fiddly and top heavy.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
As someone who has recently painted a 3rd ed Lictor and Hive Tyrant, I can attest to the “quality” of the sculpts.

Not a good time for the nids.

Getting the 3ed tyrant to bloody stand was a disaster. That thing was so fiddly and top heavy.

I much preferred FW's take on the 3rd Ed Tyrant aesthetic. Size made it feel like a real beast, too.

3rd ed was a really strange bag for tyranids. I feel like the gaunts to warriors did really really well out of it. Zoanthropes too.

However Carnifex and Tyrant I was never a fan of their designs. Even though I think they fit in certain themes (I think the tyrant head looks good on a winged one); they just didn't win for me. Raveners too were a bit like that.

I think the issue was those models had some very oversized parts to them. Raveners had enlarged heads and upper scything blades; Tyrant too looked like its head was too big for the body.


4th edition I feel was the best all round and established the design that really carried Tyranids forward to today.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
As someone who has recently painted a 3rd ed Lictor and Hive Tyrant, I can attest to the “quality” of the sculpts.

Not a good time for the nids.

Getting the 3ed tyrant to bloody stand was a disaster. That thing was so fiddly and top heavy.

I much preferred FW's take on the 3rd Ed Tyrant aesthetic. Size made it feel like a real beast, too.

Don't think I've ever seen that model but damn, it's easily ten times better.

 Platuan4th wrote:

Mandrakes in 3rd Ed had you place three Mandrakes/Markers that could move around but not attack or charge and when you chose to reveal them, you picked one to be the real unit, removed the other two, and deployed the models around the one you chose.

A slight annoyance when you had three units of Mandrakes, as you needed three lots of three guys who had to look distinctive, yet when the unit description is 'living shadow' there's not much room for colour variation!

3rd edition Raveners were a bit goofy but at least, unlike the current ones, they held their ranged weapons instead having them hidden in their thorax, and somehow still magically being as powerfull and having the same range as the Warriors equivalents.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
3rd edition Raveners were a bit goofy but at least, unlike the current ones, they held their ranged weapons instead having them hidden in their thorax, and somehow still magically being as powerfull and having the same range as the Warriors equivalents.

But at least they got models in 3rd Ed, unlike, say, Lictors.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But at least they got models in 3rd Ed, unlike, say, Lictors.

Because it was GW's masterplan, foretold by their prognosticators so we are now even more hyper excited for an incoming new model which they will, in their infinite wisdom we mortal could not even comprehend, not show until a second or possibly even third wave.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
3rd edition Raveners were a bit goofy but at least, unlike the current ones, they held their ranged weapons instead having them hidden in their thorax, and somehow still magically being as powerfull and having the same range as the Warriors equivalents.

But at least they got models in 3rd Ed, unlike, say, Lictors.

Which isn't always a blessing. The Red Terror got a model at the time effectively in the shape of an alternate Ravener, when its artwork and fluff had it as a towering monstrosity as large or larger as the Trygon ended up. One edition later we might have seen a properly sized plastic version, possibly as an alternate build to the Trygon. Instead it came before the plastic revolution and has yet to get an update, if it ever happens.

I loved my Red Terror, especially when it nibbled on stuff the model couldn't possibly swallow whole. But damn if it didn't try. So cute. Shame GW never allowed it to grow to its full size.

Tyranids don't have a wealth of hero models and I could well see the Red Terror return one day - considering that we've basically got all the others back in some form - Old One Eye, Parasite, Doom. Heck with a Neurothrope and the new Tyranid on the horizon the Doom is sort of kind of back in two forms; whilst Old One Eye I'd argue has slipped back a bit and the Screamer Killer has kind of stepped up.

I think in part because the Screamer Killer is more iconic and classic, whilst Old One Eye was basically just a Carnifex with one eye missing and that was about it. It never really stood out in a big way by having a unique look or just being the classic look.



So I could well see Red Terror return; perhaps its just waiting for the Trygon kit to hit its age and get replaced (which could be a long while); or GW could give it an upgrade sprue or components.





As for Raveners I rather liked them having thorax weapons and the new plastic kits do more to show them off than the 2nd range of metal kits did. I'd say the only thing I miss from the 1st generation of them is that the 1st gen did have suitably long tails. The 2nd and 3rd itterations have had much shorter tails and whilst they fit on the base well, they do feel just a touch small/short. I'd have liked to see more coils and curves, though I also appreciate that doing that in plastics is not easy without them all being coiled cobras.

 Overread wrote:
Tyranids don't have a wealth of hero models...

I wish they had less.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Tyranids don't have a wealth of hero models...

I wish they had less.

I wish they had more.

See the way I see it Tyranids can certainly have unique biostrains and rare units that are simply not produced in vast numbers and thus operate similar to how other armies might have a hero or great leader.
They might start out like Old One Eye - a unique evolution - which creates the leading story. Or perhaps just the first world where a thing is seen (eg the Parasite) being the naming convention since most Tyranid lore is either narrators voice or reports from other races that encounter them.
But from then on can be generic creations of that strain of Tyranid; just in very limited numbers so that most armies might only field one of them (at least at the scales we play the game). So we get all the benefits of having access to hero units that other factions do.

From having unique models and one off sculpts through to having unique rules, mechancis and twists on things that can bring new things to the table without having to build an entire whole core of the army around them; which might well then either break the army balance by filling too many tactical weak points; copycatting other units and just being flat out better or just bloating the range.

I look at it as a form of "rapid prototyping".

The Red Terror was created for a specific purpose, when the Hive Mind came up against an enemy in an environment it hadn't yet considered or found a counter. The Red Terror proved useful, and thus "production model" burrowing creatures were created - Raveners and Trygons and the like.

But The Red Terror isn't a personality. It doesn't sit back going "Yes! My progeny! Now they burrow to my enemy's ultimate doooooom!". It's just a tool, and, by this stage, an obsolete one superseded by the aforementioned "production model" burrowers. The Red Terror, by rights, should never appear again. It served its purpose, and the Hive Mind used it to find a solution to a specific problem and now has the more advanced creatures to use should that situation ever reemerge or to adapt to new strategies.

The Swarmlord, which is too personal a name for my liking, shouldn't be a personality, reborn across battlefields like some Tyranid version of Skeletor screaming "I'll get you next time Calgar! Next time!" every time he gets defeated and reabsorbed. It should be a niche tool that's used for particularly large or complex conflicts, where a level of in-the-field synaptic control beyond the capabilities of regular Hive Tyrants is required.

But it's not a "hero" in the sense that other armies have their leaders. The Tyranids need to be as faceless as possible. That's the horror of the Hive Mind. It has no compassion or empathy. It doesn't care who or what you are. It just wants to consume, and all its various creations are but tools to be used for either specific or general tasks, with new ones created when new situations arise and just as easily discarded when the problem is resolved or the tool fails to meet the requirements of its task.

Thing is Tyranids don't control their DNA like a scientist in a laboratory. Whilst they can store and create units with DNA of specific types, they also display a natural degree of variation. Gaunts produced in vast numbers are not perfect genetic copies of each other. There is genetic drift that happens during the Tyranid reproduction process.

Tyranids rely on this to generate new strains and seem able to take strains and recreate them, but at the same time those new strains will continue to have genetic drift; which where benefits arise lets them constantly keep evolving to new situations.


Of course this requires that they encounter specific situations to evolve for them. Even though they can share information through their mind link; they also appear to have a lot of individuality and different fleets have different focuses.


Tyranids strike me as being very alien in that we don't know how a lot of their stuff functions at even a basic level in detail. They seem to have elements of them that are very animalistic/instinctive coupled to what we'd consider more higher level thinking functions.

It's a kind of crazy duality that makes them hard to predict.





But within that I can see reason for them having strains that are hard to recreate. Perhaps the specific conditions that allowed the Red Terror to evolve are rare to encounter and thus it never quite recreates the same unit. Or perhaps its generation is more difficult to genetically recreate perfectly. So each Fleet might only be able to create a very limited number of them.

Again we'd end up with "The Red Terror" as identified by Imperial Scientists. A leader unit that perhaps has lesser versions of itself created or derivative ones - but the Red Terror remains at the head.


It's a hero in the game rules in that its a unique 0-1 with unique stats that fits in a leader role and slot in the army structure.

However as a Tyranid Hero I'd argue it should indeed not be just 1 for the whole race; just super limited when deployed to battlefields by hive fleets.



The only one that should stand out is the Swarmlord; even then I cna agree its a bit odd within the whole Swarm. Narrative wise I can see why GW want it because it can be used to create stories and links; even if the poor thing is mostly used for big named heroes of other factions to fight to show off

Well one concept does not exclude the other in my opinion.

They can be a faceless basic level animal ( lesser creatures with no synapse independence and that revert to animal behaviour if abandoned/ left behind)
They can also be high level intelligent creatures ( vanguard nids, lictors, gene stealers, Zoes, brood lords that can act independently away from the hive mind and dont revert to animals)
They can have hero creatures too, more by accident than replication ( vanguard Nids that cracked a hard nut in a very specific way on a specific battle that is remembered by the imperium) ( all nid narrative fluff is done by a Imperium point of view).

I dont see a contradiction there.

Except that the Tyranid lifespan is essentially nothing. Once they win they all get turned into biogoo and reabsorbed to be turned into other things come the next conflict. The Swarmlord doesn't return to the bridge of the USS Hive Mind and scream "Set course for Terra! Buffet speed!"

Tyranids are disposable by nature, as they are simply the weapons, organs and limbs of a greater intelligence. It'd be like claiming the index finger on my left hand is a "hero".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Except that the Tyranid lifespan is essentially nothing. Once they win they all get turned into biogoo and reabsorbed to be turned into other things come the next conflict. The Swarmlord doesn't return to the bridge of the USS Hive Mind and scream "Set course for Terra! Buffet speed!"

Tyranids are disposable by nature, as they are simply the weapons, organs and limbs of a greater intelligence. It'd be like claiming the index finger on my left hand is a "hero".

Very limited and selective way to look at it.
Genestealers, broodlords can infect a planet years before any Nid official presence ( hibernation too etc)... Theres also the idea that the planet changes itself gradually when first discreet organisms "land"... this to me says that genetically the lesser life of a planet starts to change at a cellular level too.

Not all nids are the same and not all organic menace is the same, theres more layers than that. IMO.

Indeed. While a big part of tyranid bio-organisms may be seen as just disposable weapons, it's also possible to see it as that's not the case of all of them assuming very specialized roles and asking for more ressources to spawn.

It may be very possible these aren't being "recycled" in the food soup at the end of the planet invasion cycle and rather get back on the ships with whatever method the Hive Mind has, simply because it's too costy to waste them that way.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Except that the Tyranid lifespan is essentially nothing. Once they win they all get turned into biogoo and reabsorbed to be turned into other things come the next conflict. The Swarmlord doesn't return to the bridge of the USS Hive Mind and scream "Set course for Terra! Buffet speed!"

Tyranids are disposable by nature, as they are simply the weapons, organs and limbs of a greater intelligence. It'd be like claiming the index finger on my left hand is a "hero".

And yet I'd wager you've a hand that you favour for things like writing. Even though you can learn to use the other hand for the same exercise, we often favour one hand over the other. So if you were given a choice to lose one, even though in theory they are the same, you'd likely always choose one over the other.

Tyranids are also not fully disposable in nature - Hive Ships can be untold millennia old; whilst Norn Queens are likely similar. Hive Tyrants are likely preserved between many battles and many could be very old indeed.

What's more true is that the Swarm preserves what it requires and renders down what it does not; so long as rendering it down is more cost efficient than transporting it in a live state.

So for a vast overwhelming majority its true. A gaunt to a carnifex is "disposable". They can be rendered down and later replicated and replaced.
But when we talk about unique evolution strains; specific powerful/notable/hard to replicate creatures then we see a difference.


There's a risk with Tyranids, more so than other factions, of boiling down their lore to its simplest terms and applying them wholesale to the whole force. More so because we don't honestly get much lore from within the swarm itself and most observations are in combat situations. Heck we don't even have a single clue what the huge planet-sized creation they've built is for. We can see it projecting a huge Shadow in the Warp, but beyond that we really don't know what it does, what its for, why its there or what it means.

I'm not sure I've seen a Tyranid surface-to-orbit transport since a very old piece of 2nd Ed lore, or any fluff support for anything but all the ground-based critters getting reabsorbed.

The fluff also makes it clear that the Swarmlord is spawned again and again, and isn't a single individual that goes into hibernation between battles. I do remember Hive Ships described as containing Warriors in hibernation, the 'cocooned officers of monsters yet to be born' or something like that, but they could just be spawned on the ship rather than retrieved from every conquest.

So I mean, this seems like a theory that at best is unsupported by the fluff, or might be contradicted.

And I dunno, even referring to your hand as an analogy to Tyranid creatures seems way too large-scale. Got any favorite white blood cells? Any slightly more effective neurons you particularly regard as important?

 catbarf wrote:
I'm not sure I've seen a Tyranid surface-to-orbit transport since a very old piece of 2nd Ed lore, or any fluff support for anything but all the ground-based critters getting reabsorbed.

The fluff also makes it clear that the Swarmlord is spawned again and again, and isn't a single individual that goes into hibernation between battles. I do remember Hive Ships described as containing Warriors in hibernation, the 'cocooned officers of monsters yet to be born' or something like that, but they could just be spawned on the ship rather than retrieved from every conquest.

So I mean, this seems like a theory that at best is unsupported by the fluff, or might be contradicted.

And I dunno, even referring to your hand as an analogy to Tyranid creatures seems way too large-scale. Got any favorite white blood cells? Any slightly more effective neurons you particularly regard as important?

I might well be remembering a few scant bits of earlier lore. It's a downside to an evolving lore that sometimes bits of the old stuff get stuck in the mind even if they aren't repeated as much in latter publications. It can also be that sometimes the latter parts aren't repeated or are repeated in side content (video games or such) not the core narrative.

Certainly we know that Genestealer Cults will migrate on ships and preserve their forces world to world if they are left untouched by the greater swarm. There's also stories of individual uplifted Cult members being brought to the world that the Tyranids built and interacting with it which appeared to increase their connection to the swarm on a greater level.

So we know that the concept of individual preservation and importance is present within the swarm, even if it manifests greatest in the Genestealer Cults end of things. And accepting that if the Swarm arrives at a world it is far more likely to absorb the greater number of cultists into its whole.


So the behaviour is there.

It is very likely that if the Red Terror came back as a new model it wouldn't be a "hero" unit like the Parasite of Mortex.

 catbarf wrote:
I'm not sure I've seen a Tyranid surface-to-orbit transport since a very old piece of 2nd Ed lore, or any fluff support for anything but all the ground-based critters getting reabsorbed.

The fluff also makes it clear that the Swarmlord is spawned again and again, and isn't a single individual that goes into hibernation between battles. I do remember Hive Ships described as containing Warriors in hibernation, the 'cocooned officers of monsters yet to be born' or something like that, but they could just be spawned on the ship rather than retrieved from every conquest.

So I mean, this seems like a theory that at best is unsupported by the fluff, or might be contradicted.

And I dunno, even referring to your hand as an analogy to Tyranid creatures seems way too large-scale. Got any favorite white blood cells? Any slightly more effective neurons you particularly regard as important?

Genestealers do hibernate.
Not a favourite blood cell but in a hand fingers comparison some may say thumbs is more important than other fingers But even on our own organisms theres plenty we dont know about and how they interact.
What Im saying here is that in the universe of what tyranids are I can speculate they are more than just the units you see mentioned on a given codex and even on that small selection of organisms we know about, some can hibernate and live long lives.

On a comical note everyone can see what they want and thats totally fine but the fluff is based from an imperial only perspective, with that said... what imperium names has unique heroes may well be just a normal stock Nid on every fleet they just dont know that.

Must be specially hard to write fluff when they dont "talk" or "communicate" outside the Hive... there was the Zoats has "negotiators" IIRC but thats not a thing now.

I think that's one thing I love about Tyranids - because their lore isn't written by themselves about themselves; they have the most alien of lores and presentations. What we know is almost guesswork and deductions from other races. It gives them a huge amount of scope to do something really alien and odd that we don't see the logic in because we can only see a corner of the picture through a dirty lens.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Very limited and selective way to look at it.

You're right, I'm not looking at vanguard organisms that infect worlds long in advance. But that's done to limit the defences (if not outright remove them) by the time the Hive Fleet arrives for dinner time. Everything in service of a singular goal, devised by a singular, irrepressible hive mind.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Not all nids are the same and not all organic menace is the same, theres more layers than that. IMO.

But not individuals. Not personalities. Not "heroes".

At best I could see it like "resurrection" from Battlestar Galactica, but the Cylons weren't a hive mind.

 Overread wrote:
And yet I'd wager you've a hand that you favour for things like writing. Even though you can learn to use the other hand for the same exercise, we often favour one hand over the other. So if you were given a choice to lose one, even though in theory they are the same, you'd likely always choose one over the other.

A Tyranid would just regrow the hand.

 Overread wrote:
Tyranids are also not fully disposable in nature - Hive Ships can be untold millennia old; whilst Norn Queens are likely similar. Hive Tyrants are likely preserved between many battles and many could be very old indeed.

Well going by the organism metaphor, the Hive Ships are vital internal organs in that they carry what's needed for the next meal... except even they can be replaced if need be. Whatever the case, they're still just faceless limbs of a greater organism. And why would they preserve Hive Tyrants?

 Overread wrote:
What's more true is that the Swarm preserves what it requires and renders down what it does not; so long as rendering it down is more cost efficient than transporting it in a live state.

Tyranid ships do store living creatures in stasis, both for defensive purposes and because they are giant factories building armies on the way to the next conflict.

 Overread wrote:
A gaunt to a carnifex is "disposable".

I'd wager that neither think that way, because neither truly think. They are purely instinctual creatures, and when under the control of the Hive Mind they would pay no attention to one another because they don't need to. The Hive Mind knows where they are.

 Overread wrote:
But when we talk about unique evolution strains; specific powerful/notable/hard to replicate creatures then we see a difference.

Why would they be hard to replicate? The Tyranids absorb everything and take everything that works and discard the rest. Unique evolution strains would either be purposeful adaptations to overcome an unforeseen or new obstacle, or mutations that the Hive Mind might attempt to quarantine (wasn't there a Hive Fleet that got disconnected from the Hive Mind... it's been a while).

 Overread wrote:
There's a risk with Tyranids, more so than other factions, of boiling down their lore to its simplest terms and applying them wholesale to the whole force. More so because we don't honestly get much lore from within the swarm itself and most observations are in combat situations. Heck we don't even have a single clue what the huge planet-sized creation they've built is for. We can see it projecting a huge Shadow in the Warp, but beyond that we really don't know what it does, what its for, why its there or what it means.

Because the Tyranids aren't complex. The Tyranids are a single dominant will that has a level of malevolence but at the same time is driven by a single all-encompassing drive: To consume all.

Everything it does works towards this goal. Genestealer Cults corrupt worlds to render them defenceless to the eventual Hive Fleet. They don't do it out of "loyalty" or because they "believe" in the goals of the Tyranids. They do it because they are genetically programmed to do it that way. Every creature is designed for either a specific task or type of combat (or mundane task within the fleets, like red/white blood cells), or has proven to be so generally useful across numerous battlefields that the Hive Mind keeps it in "production". That device you describe? Sounds precisely like what I'm talking about: The Hive Mind is making something new to combat a specific threat or overcome an obstacle (it's ability to futz with the Warp is quite effective, so now it's trying to make something that can extend that effect across a larger area - and if that "prototype" works, you can guarantee it'll start to make more of them!).