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Combining the shadow in the warp with the swarm lord’s ability to add one CP to the cost of the auto-pass morale strategem (assuming there still is one) cost could be quite effective.

If they removed the Once per Game limit to the auto pass morale strat, yes.

As you say, such a thing may no longer exist.

Shadow in the Warp is going to be one of the two rules that define all Tyranid armies for 10th. The rule that every detachment has, no matter the theme or structure of the army, or whatever other rules they get.

How lame is that?

Given everything they could have done, and all the great rules we currently have, they chose to take our middling anti-psyker rule and turn it into a one-per-game thing and this is one of the two rules we get until 11th.

I said right at the start of this whole 10th palaver that I was less concerned about what we are getting, and more worried about what we were losing. Well, today 'Nids got a little more vanilla flavoured. A little more greyscale. Are we sure Cruddace isn't writing our books again?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Well, today 'Nids got a little more vanilla flavoured. A little more greyscale. Are we sure Cruddace isn't writing our books again?

I assume that was a joke because we heard from "Robin in the rules studio" today. Great to hear that he's back in the saddle for our favorite bugs

I think its too early to panic. This is the start of a new edition so a lot of things are going to shift around. If perhaps we've weaker tools and stats starting to happen that could be a very good thing. A big complaint of the previous edition was it was getting too lethal.

It's a hard thing to balance in because everyone wants their army(ies) to be strong on the table; but at the same time a healthy game wants the game to last beyond turn 2. So having some options get weaker or shift around isn't outright bad.

We also can't easily debate these things in isolation until we know more about the army; about how things work; synergies that might be present. etc.

 Overread wrote:
I think its too early to panic.

It's not panicking. It's despair over a tremendously boring new rule, a core rule, a defining rule. Over losing rules that were both mechanically clever and elegant, but also so linked to the fluff of the army that they did that rare thing where something was powerful because it was fluffy, and not the opposite. Shadow of the Warp is now how GW defines Tyranids for 10th. This is how GW sees Tyranids.

It's so dull it makes me want to claw my ovipositor out with a rusty rending claw!

 Overread wrote:
A big complaint of the previous edition was it was getting too lethal.

This has nothing to do with lethality.

 Overread wrote:
I think its too early to panic. This is the start of a new edition so a lot of things are going to shift around. If perhaps we've weaker tools and stats starting to happen that could be a very good thing. A big complaint of the previous edition was it was getting too lethal.

It's a hard thing to balance in because everyone wants their army(ies) to be strong on the table; but at the same time a healthy game wants the game to last beyond turn 2. So having some options get weaker or shift around isn't outright bad.

We also can't easily debate these things in isolation until we know more about the army; about how things work; synergies that might be present. etc.

The strength of the rule is irrelevant, because it's stunningly boring.

You get to make one decision per game. I literally don't know how many turns are in a game anymore, but, like... 5? So a Tyranid player is going to be choosing between five values/outcomes in every game they play.

Meanwhile, a player using Oath of Moment will be choosing between that many or more outcomes on every turn of the game. There's an insane gap in terms of fun/engagement/interactivity between these two army rules.

At the very least Shadow should let you pick one unit per turn to roll a battle shock test.

I think the new Shadows in the Warp gets even worse when there's inevitably--assuming Space Marines don't just flat out come out of the box with it--going to be something that completely or partially invalidates it as an option, like auto passing battleshock tests, being immune to morale, etc.

I dunno, the ability just seems too easy to ignore or blunt, unless there's a wrinkle that's not being shown like if synapse creatures could be given auras to reduce LD or something.

Reminds me of 4th when there was a chunky section of the rulebook dedicated to resolving close combat...and Space Marines essentially got to ignore the worst parts of it with ATSKNF.

 Altruizine wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think its too early to panic. This is the start of a new edition so a lot of things are going to shift around. If perhaps we've weaker tools and stats starting to happen that could be a very good thing. A big complaint of the previous edition was it was getting too lethal.

It's a hard thing to balance in because everyone wants their army(ies) to be strong on the table; but at the same time a healthy game wants the game to last beyond turn 2. So having some options get weaker or shift around isn't outright bad.

We also can't easily debate these things in isolation until we know more about the army; about how things work; synergies that might be present. etc.

The strength of the rule is irrelevant, because it's stunningly boring.

You get to make one decision per game. I literally don't know how many turns are in a game anymore, but, like... 5? So a Tyranid player is going to be choosing between five values/outcomes in every game they play.

Meanwhile, a player using Oath of Moment will be choosing between that many or more outcomes on every turn of the game. There's an insane gap in terms of fun/engagement/interactivity between these two army rules.

At the very least Shadow should let you pick one unit per turn to roll a battle shock test.

Mind you, Shadow is one of two faction rules. Synapse is the other.
'Boring' might not to be everyone's taste, but it doesn't have to stack up on its own against Oath, because 'nids are simultaneously buffering their units against battleshock.
Different armies are going to rely on different levels of passive or active effects.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Shadow in the Warp is going to be one of the two rules that define all Tyranid armies for 10th. The rule that every detachment has, no matter the theme or structure of the army, or whatever other rules they get.

How lame is that?

Given everything they could have done, and all the great rules we currently have, they chose to take our middling anti-psyker rule and turn it into a one-per-game thing and this is one of the two rules we get until 11th.

I said right at the start of this whole 10th palaver that I was less concerned about what we are getting, and more worried about what we were losing. Well, today 'Nids got a little more vanilla flavoured. A little more greyscale. Are we sure Cruddace isn't writing our books again?

Shadow of the Warp has been one of the crappiest, most boring and uninspired abilities in the game's history for at least 15 years. To frame it in your words, if your concern is "what we're losing" the answer is "nothing" because at absolute worst the new iteration is a neutral change to what we had before and at best it's simply a better rule. The rest of your post is histrionic. The early codices always get more stuff as the edition goes on.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
... if your concern is "what we're losing" the answer is "nothing"...

We lost Synaptic Link, one of best interactions of fluff and rules I've seen GW manage in decades (the other is the adaptive physiology rules, which are kinda-sorta still there, for one specific detachment, again, not a defining part of Tyranids, just one detatchment). And in its place our faction-defining rule is this bland piece of gak rule.

So don't tell me we've lost nothing.

"Early Codices always get more stuff" is a lame excuse.
"Shadow of the Warp was always gak though" is a worse excuse.

Shadow in the Warp isn't our main army-wide ability, though. Synapse is.

Having a bonus to leadership tests plus magnified stratagems is a pretty significant ability, and that's going to drive a lot of moment-to-moment decision-making about positioning and prioritization.

SitW is then a once-per-game ability on top of that. Not nearly as impactful turn-by-turn as deciding what to target for Oath of Moment, but it has the potential to be a game-changer if morale ends up actually being relevant.

Just seems a little myopic to me to hyperfocus on what SitW does. Synapse + SitW are the two defining army characteristics of Tyranids going all the way back to the beginning, and this is a more impactful implementation of the latter than we've ever had.

Yes, and what we lost to get the most boring version of SitW ever committed to paper was something that was fantastic. Doesn't even matter if it's powerful, or useful. It's boring.

Synaptic Links on the other hand introduced a new element of position and manoeuvre to Tyranids, something the game as a whole needs more of. It opened up all sorts of new strategies, and made your army feel like more of a single organism responding to threats rather than individual units. It was a rule that better represented the Hive Mind aspect of the Tyranids than any any before it (and, so far, any since).

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I find an iteration of SitW where you actually get to make a decision- and potentially a very significant one at that- much less boring than a passive penalty to psychic powers.

What you describe for synaptic links is what I see Synapse doing in 10th, much moreso than it did in 9th.

I understand the view that nids just got a little more plain, I'd agree they did, I'd also imagine most factions likely will. But it is a huge boost in accessibility, the whole daisy chaining ability triggered off a unit that radically alters how things work isn't necessarily easy for new players to grasp.

I think it was less the Synaptic Link rule and more some of the other layered rules that used them: Synaptic Imperatives and then unit-specific link rules like Will of the Hive Mind, or Warp Siphon or Vicious Insight.

In previous editions of this game loyalist Marines got to reroll morale tests because GW didn’t think them running like whipped dogs was themeatic.

I am pretty sure as someone above said that either on launch or after a few months of ‘player’s reporting that Marines don’t quite live up to the novels’ they will simply get to reroll morale tests.

Or they will get to use Insane Bravery more often than other armies.

Neither would make them immune to battleshock, of course but it would mean - yet again - the most popular army…the one whose players most often complained about morale not mattering…will be amongst the least affected.

This is my gut feeling based the rules we have seen so far.

To be fair, they're not really running away with Battleshock, more becoming suppressed.

Overall I don't think that "Oath of Moment" really captures the identity of Marines. A rule called They Shall Know No Fear that plays with leadership or how they control objectives or something like that would be a better substitute, but I suspect they don't want to create a new morale system and then immediately create an army that ignores it (it's also why Synapse doesn't do that either).

Really Oath of Moment should be the attachment ability and Doctrines should be their core rule. Flipping those around makes far more thematic sense. This whole "Oath of Moment" feels like it's been pulled out of very recent history and they're trying to convince us that it's simply intrinsic to how Marines operate.

I mean imagine if "Red Wunz Go Fasta" was the main Ork rule, but "WAAAAGH!" became a detachment rule. That's how I feel about Oath vs Doctrines in 10th.

 Souleater wrote:


This is my gut feeling based the rules we have seen so far.

Incorrect. As nothing in rules we have seen indicates that(marines get no morale rules, no immune to battleshock rules) it can't be based on what we have seen which indicates opposite.

It's your gut feeling based on your fears. Simple as that.

Maybe it comes true gw being gw but it isn't based on what we　have seen so far.

tneva82 wrote:

 Souleater wrote:


This is my gut feeling based the rules we have seen so far.

Incorrect. As nothing in rules we have seen indicates that(marines get no morale rules, no immune to battleshock rules) it can't be based on what we have seen which indicates opposite.

It's your gut feeling based on your fears. Simple as that.

Maybe it comes true gw being gw but it isn't based on what we　have seen so far.

It bears repeating that both Marines and Tyranids will get their codex in short order. What we're currently seeing is basically the 'get you by' version of their rules. I recommend waiting for the Codexes to gauge where 10th is really going, for some reason i don't think they worked their arses off for cards that they knew were getting replaced within half a year.

I'd be very surprised if we don't see carbon copies of these faction and detachment rules in the upcoming Codices.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'd be very surprised if we don't see carbon copies of these faction and detachment rules in the upcoming Codices.

For the record, i agree with you that Oath of Moment and Doctrines should be flipped around from Faction and Detachment, and Synapse would be a better Faction for Tyranids than SitW. Having Doctrines be the unifying thing between Codex-compliant chapters is just logical, i have no clue why they did it the other way around.

Synapse IS tyranid faction rule. As is shadow. Those are all tyranids regardless of detachment.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Theoretical indeed.

I’d venture the natural counter to OoM is ‘oh Noes…don’t shoot me. Not the sacrificial prawn’. As in when you’re playing against Maureens, just accept one unit a turn is gonna get particularly wrecked, and plan around that.

Keep it pg please.

I am a little concerned because some armies like Knights and Custodes don't really have sacrificial prawn units. Sisters might be it for custodes but knights?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think its too early to panic.

It's not panicking. It's despair over a tremendously boring new rule, a core rule, a defining rule. Over losing rules that were both mechanically clever and elegant, but also so linked to the fluff of the army that they did that rare thing where something was powerful because it was fluffy, and not the opposite. Shadow of the Warp is now how GW defines Tyranids for 10th. This is how GW sees Tyranids.

It's so dull it makes me want to claw my ovipositor out with a rusty rending claw!

 Overread wrote:
A big complaint of the previous edition was it was getting too lethal.

This has nothing to do with lethality.

I think it's pretty interesting. It's not something you fire off wildly with abandon. And it's far beyond more engaging than -1 to psychic tests and extra MW on perils. And Synapse is way better than just ignore morale.

Imperatives got sacrificed on the altar, but you're likely to see more interesting abilities on datasheets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Altima wrote:
I think the new Shadows in the Warp gets even worse when there's inevitably--assuming Space Marines don't just flat out come out of the box with it--going to be something that completely or partially invalidates it as an option, like auto passing battleshock tests, being immune to morale, etc.

I dunno, the ability just seems too easy to ignore or blunt, unless there's a wrinkle that's not being shown like if synapse creatures could be given auras to reduce LD or something.

Reminds me of 4th when there was a chunky section of the rulebook dedicated to resolving close combat...and Space Marines essentially got to ignore the worst parts of it with ATSKNF.

We've seen everything the marines can get from army rules. We've seen their datasheets. There is no ASTKNF. When even Nids don't get immunity then no one does.

Will there be an auto-pass? Probably, but with 0CP to start you better start saving early.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


We've seen everything the marines can get from army rules. We've seen their datasheets. There is no ASTKNF. When even Nids don't get immunity then no one does.

Will there be an auto-pass? Probably, but with 0CP to start you better start saving early.

Except we've just gotten the CSM spotlight and ol' Abby has an aura which grants rerolls to leadership and battleshock tests. It seems naive to think that Space Marines specifically and every other army in general won't have access to shenanigans that will blunt or entirely eliminate Shadows in the Warp. There's the possibilities of banners, icons, vox casters, psychic powers, etc. being able to interfere even if there's no army rule that says they get to ignore the effect.

Which makes the ability kind of a dumb.

Imagine if armies got the ability to shift OoM from any unit targeted within 6" of an HQ to any other unit on the board, and could just flat out eliminate it once per game or with 1CP. Suddenly it sounds a lot less attractive, doesn't it? It's like that.

Maybe Shadows in the Warp will be super amazing, but all signs point to it being mediocre garbage, and GW's rules have long, long ago lost the benefit of the doubt.

So…one army has one model which can provide re-rolls.

Therefore Shadow in the Warp is rubbish?

The hyperbole is strong with this one.

Altima wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


We've seen everything the marines can get from army rules. We've seen their datasheets. There is no ASTKNF. When even Nids don't get immunity then no one does.

Will there be an auto-pass? Probably, but with 0CP to start you better start saving early.

Except we've just gotten the CSM spotlight and ol' Abby has an aura which grants rerolls to leadership and battleshock tests. It seems naive to think that Space Marines specifically and every other army in general won't have access to shenanigans that will blunt or entirely eliminate Shadows in the Warp. There's the possibilities of banners, icons, vox casters, psychic powers, etc. being able to interfere even if there's no army rule that says they get to ignore the effect.

Which makes the ability kind of a dumb.

Imagine if armies got the ability to shift OoM from any unit targeted within 6" of an HQ to any other unit on the board, and could just flat out eliminate it once per game or with 1CP. Suddenly it sounds a lot less attractive, doesn't it? It's like that.

Maybe Shadows in the Warp will be super amazing, but all signs point to it being mediocre garbage, and GW's rules have long, long ago lost the benefit of the doubt.

Here's what you do -- target Abaddon's unit and expose him before you use SitW. Tactics!

Also I am unsure how GW will handle colliding player activations in the same phase, but on your own command phase SitW is completely unimpeded if Abby has chosen a different ability on his turn.

And given that breaking a unit turns strats off and the Obscuration strat is used when you target then breaking them on your turn when the other aura is off will allow you to target a unit they might not want you to.

Just the multiple levels of choice here is well beyond the binary some people seem to think it is.

@tneva82: While fear would surely be an entirely appropriate reaction to the topic of Morale, my statement is more laced with mild cynicism.

Over various editions, loyalist Marines have been lightly touched by Morale. People are excited by the idea of morale actually mattering in Xth at the moment but I'm old, and sceptical about Marine players feeling the same way once their own troops start losing Objectives, etc. when Battleshock actually starts doing something to them. At that point I expect folks to start complaining that it isn't 'lore friendly' or the like.

GW has in the past addressed such concerns by adding new rules for Marines. My suspicion - and it is only that, but a very strong one - is that the same thing will happen again.

The slightly rambling 'why I feel this from what we've seen so far' is stuff like the Rupture Cannon going from 'very consistent' to 'rather swingy'. While the Marine equivalent got a solid buff and kept consistency. Or that the Screamer-Killer that has to run across the board has lower T and Wounds than the shiny new Dreadnought shooting at it.

And the response is generally 'but we don't know points' - which is true but misses my point. A Tyranid big tough stompy thing should probably be as least as tough and faster than the Marine big stompy thing that gets to shoot it in the face with multiple guns. I get the impression (which may be entirely unfair, of course) that when folks allude to lower cost they're actually saying that the NPCs shouldn't be a tough as the Heroes.

See also Monoliths getting their 'No - you move!' Deep Strike rule stolen by Marines. Marine flyers being as fast as but more heavily armed and armoured transports than Eldar dedicated fighter-bombers. Again I heard 'but points!' and yet again my response is that Marines just shouldn't be as fast as e.g. glass-cannon Eldar.

Here's another example. The original No Retreat! rule was designed to speed up drawn out melee combats and represent heavily-outnumbered troops being buried under an avalanche of enemies. And it worked. A squad of Space Wolves would munch half a squad of Hormaguants in a single round, might lose one or two models to the enemy and then they might lose a model to No Retreat! But in the next edition the rule was completely reversed and we had an edition of exploding gaunts. Lost combat? Never mind! Take way more casualties because you're Fearless! instead!

So, this isn't me claiming that the sky is falling** or that Nids are unplayable. That would indeed be rubbish. It's a slightly Grimdark-world-weary raised eyebrow at the idea that Marines wont' get something added to offset Battleshock.


*probably just loyalist ones.
** although I would appreciate a few more 'you don't know all the rules yet, pipe down!' comments to people being positive. Sauce for the goose, Mr Saavik.