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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So uh….which one is which?

Also, anyone able to spill the beans on the new Termagant weapons?

It is very subtle, but the one on the right is the new one.

Shardlauncher is blast/heavy 18” d3 shots 4+ S5 no AP 1 dam
Spike heavy 24” 1/4+/4/-1/1
Strangleweb assault/dev wounds/torrent 18” d6/-/2/0/1

I was a bit relieved to see their stats. I was worried that the sharlauncher was going to be like the barbs, and offer up some battlefield control. Which would be a must have. These are just different flavors of damage. And even if they are situationally nice, are they worth the mechanical price of separately rolling them and bogging down the game?

Spike Rifle seems characteristically naff!

 Nevelon wrote:
These are just different flavors of damage. And even if they are situationally nice, are they worth the mechanical price of separately rolling them and bogging down the game?

I think that launcher and web are ok to have but spike is rather pointless.

Yah, the spike rifle is a bit of a “why?” Maybe if you could do a whole squad of them. It might be worth tossing one into a squad of devgaunts. But probably not worth the effort of singling out a separate guy to roll. But if you are using them to camp an objective, they do have AP, slightly better range and the +1 to hit from heavy if they don’t move. But only a single shot. Pass. Might not even bother to strip and repaint the 2 old metal one I have to match my modern scheme.

Strangleweb is tempting. It’s the only assault option, so meshes better with fleshborer/spinefist squads. Yes, it’s S2. Which sucks. But DevWounds with d6 autohits? Might get some 6’s to wound. And then you get to skip the whole armor thing. Plus works on overwatch.

Shardlauncher is the new option. Not assault, but that’s pretty much the only drawback compared to the basic guns it would be replacing. Pretty much a straight upgrade over a devourer. The only time you could argue against that is if shooting at a unit less than 5 models after you moved, where the 2 guaranteed shots vs the d3 might be preferable. The loss of assault might not even be a big deal in you are replacing a fleshborer. Sure, if you advance you can’t use it, but when you don’t it’s some pretty nice shooting. Point less S here.

My hot take is that in Dev squads, you will want the sharlauncher, maybe a spikerifle, but that’s more of a lateral, not an upgrade.

For fleshborer and spinefist squads, you probably want a strangleweb as it adds some felxability to the squad, but not required.

If you just want to field your old legacy horde, you can do so and not feel too left behind. Although will want to source some shardlaunchers for your Devigaunts.

See this is why I dislike the "no points upgrades" style GW has gone for this edition. In past editions those weapons would have been closer to special weapons.

A paid for addon that you'd include in some units and not others. They'd cost something in points, but would give you a nice bonus that would make them feel weighty and worth taking and worth keeping alive during the game - and similarly worth sniping of if the opponent has such a weapon.


Of course the upside to them being bland is that old armies don't feel left out; esp as you only get 1 set of options per boxed set and because of the limits and all you'd never actually be able to reto-fit your previous broods with them (Because each new set you'd buy also needs the very same weapons).

 Overread wrote:
See this is why I dislike the "no points upgrades" style GW has gone for this edition. In past editions those weapons would have been closer to special weapons.

A paid for addon that you'd include in some units and not others. They'd cost something in points, but would give you a nice bonus that would make them feel weighty and worth taking and worth keeping alive during the game - and similarly worth sniping of if the opponent has such a weapon.


Of course the upside to them being bland is that old armies don't feel left out; esp as you only get 1 set of options per boxed set and because of the limits and all you'd never actually be able to reto-fit your previous broods with them (Because each new set you'd buy also needs the very same weapons).

I’m thinking I might need a new box not for the new guns, but to have more spinefists than the 10 in my swarm right now. With the “shoot us, we surge forward” rule from the Unending Swarm detachment they might end up in CC during my opponent’s shooting phase, so could get a lot us use out of the pistol trait on their guns. (not that I wound’t build the new toys if I had them)

I do want a shardlauncher for my devs, but not $45 for one upgrade bad. And with 90+ of the little shooty buggers in the swarm, how many more do I need to adequately carpet the battlefield?

 Overread wrote:
I suspect we'll see each new codex do this. Faction symbol on the background of their 9th edition and then a new work of art for their limited edition.

Clearly just having a different cover material and less text wasn't shifting limited editions enough

Mavbb. Maybe noj. Aos has had similar but not every book.

You know, I may take the Spike Rifle after all. It’s free, and looks sweet. He can always be the first to go splat.

Yeah the special guns are not that great, but still like that they brought back the spike rifle and strangle web!

When it was revealed, I ran to eBay to get the old metals to add to my old squad. I was stuck at 25 of the old plastic ones and wanted to eventually bring them to 30 (not that we can field that many in one squad anymore, meh!) so I managed to score 3 of each special gun, finally "finishing" these guys.

A full squad of spike rifle would have been good (as an option), but as a single special weapon it's not really noteworthy. Wonder if I'll bother at all for all my old Gants, probably not!

But I love that the Termagants, of all unit, are now more "tactical" than the no-longer-tactical Marines with a few special weapons and a "heavy" weapon per squad!

Tactigants!

I do kinda think the spike rifle would have been better as a whole-unit option. Give a back-line objective camper unit some range to poke things with.

If they wanted to make them actually special, they should have given them better stats.

The spike rifle as a single heavy shot could ahve been something like: 24" A1 S6 AP-1 D2.

lethally harpooning whatever it sees.

I would give 30" range to spike.

The Spike Rifle and Strangleweb look cool enough that I would break my prohibition against Tyranids which hold their guns if they could be fielded as a whole-unit weapon. But alas, they cannot, and thus I won't bother with Termagants at all.

But Tyranids have been holding their guns since way back when they first appeared ^

 Overread wrote:
But Tyranids have been holding their guns since way back when they first appeared ^

People are always able to play with a sub-set of an faction if they don’t like the looks/idea of some parts of it. It might be a little odd to try to build a nid army with just inbuilt weapons, but would be doable.

Nids index deleted from the Downloads as expected.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Overread wrote:
But Tyranids have been holding their guns since way back when they first appeared ^

People are always able to play with a sub-set of an faction if they don’t like the looks/idea of some parts of it. It might be a little odd to try to build a nid army with just inbuilt weapons, but would be doable.

Yep that's how I do mine. Guns in hands looks bad.

 Overread wrote:
But Tyranids have been holding their guns since way back when they first appeared ^

Yeah, but thats never been a look that I liked. I previously built my nids melee only (sans whatever inbuilt shooting attacks they may have had like the bioplasmic scream on carnifexes/screamer-killers, drool cannons, and the electric spines on Trygons, etc.). I eventually softened that to include more "organic" guns that were integrated into tyranid bodies in a more direct way (biovores, etc.).

At the end of the day, I like my nids alien and feral/nautralistic, holding their guns like humans would is inefficient but also seems kind of "forced"/"artificial" and also kind of silly.