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I really dislike the Tyranid Prime and general useless-ness of Warriors so here are some changes I'd like to propose:

Tyranid Prime is removed as a unit choice. Tyranid Warriors gain the following special rules

Swarm-conduit: Tyranid Warriors may be selected as either Troops or HQ choices. Tyranid Warrior squads selected as HQ (or taken as part of a formation) may be selected as your Warlord. All models in the unit are considered to be your warlord and gain the Warlord Trait generated at the beginning of the game (Every model gains any special rules you may have rolled and any abilities that remain in play will do so until the last tyranid warrior from the unit is killed). The opponent only counts as having Slay The Warlord if all Tyranid Warriors are removed as casualty.

Will of the Hive Mind: Any model within the Synapse Range of Tyranid Warriors or Tyranid Shrikes (including the Warriors and Shrikes themselves) do not suffer Instant Death when hit with a weapon of twice the strength of their Toughness. They can still suffer Instant Death from a weapon or attack with the special rule (including D Weapons).

While I disagree with removing the Tyranid Prime (I think he should just be cheaper and have options to be a Shrike/Ravener/Lictor alpha), I rather like the rest of this.

Why would Warriors give out Instant Death protection but greater creatures such as Hive Tyrants wouldn't?

Frozen: Because it's only protection against Instant Death as a result of double-strength. The Hive Tyrant, being T6, is immune to that already.

Yeah, I'm only half on board with this. For the base Warriors, I'd make the unit a Brotherhood of Psykers Mastery Level 1. For the Prime, I'd make them "Prime Warriors", and it's a unit of Primes that follow the same special rules you've listed, minus the faux-Eternal Warriors.

Another possible solution might be to just make all the medium bugs T5. They could still be IDed, but only by S10, full-power D and things that actually have the Instant Death special rule. (Mini-D could still do 3 wounds in one shot, but that's not technically Instant Death...)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I do like the Psychic Warriors suggestion, though. Considering that only the Tyranid-specific powers are available, that's not exactly OP, even if they all get Catalyst or Warp Blast. (Both are good, neither is OP.)

Maybe primes could get the Doom's treatment and become Warrior sergeants? And Primes could be the Psykers within the unit.

Also the semi-ID immunity is to buff other models too like Biovores, Zoanthropes, Venomthropes and (most importantly) Ripper Swarms. The fluff reason for Warriors doing this but Tyrants can't is because the Warriors are multiple synapse creatures thinking in coherency, exerting a greater will if not intelligence (basically they can shout something louder, but not necessarily smarter).

Here's what I'd do, and several of these changes go beyond the Warriors and include general wargear.

Make them BS4 and T5, 25pts base cost each with Flesh Hooks as standard and the Prime becomes a 20pt charcter upgrade with Psyker ML1, similar to the Neurothrope.

Boneswords are 10pts and gain Shred, Bonesword & Lashwip is 15pts and Swifstrike now is a -3 penalty to the opponents Initiative (to a minimum of 1).

 Imateria wrote:
Here's what I'd do, and several of these changes go beyond the Warriors and include general wargear.

Make them BS4 and T5, 25pts base cost each with Flesh Hooks as standard and the Prime becomes a 20pt charcter upgrade with Psyker ML1, similar to the Neurothrope.

Boneswords are 10pts and gain Shred, Bonesword & Lashwip is 15pts and Swifstrike now is a -3 penalty to the opponents Initiative (to a minimum of 1).

I really like these thoughts. This seems simple and elegant

 Battlesong wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
Here's what I'd do, and several of these changes go beyond the Warriors and include general wargear.

Make them BS4 and T5, 25pts base cost each with Flesh Hooks as standard and the Prime becomes a 20pt charcter upgrade with Psyker ML1, similar to the Neurothrope.

Boneswords are 10pts and gain Shred, Bonesword & Lashwip is 15pts and Swifstrike now is a -3 penalty to the opponents Initiative (to a minimum of 1).

I really like these thoughts. This seems simple and elegant

Thanks. My main thought is that if I want to run 3 Warriors with decent upgrades then it's 170pts+, which is silly. These changes make them a bit tougher (no one shotting with strength 8 anymore), a bit better at shooting (I can't see a reason why any synapse creater shouldn't be decent at shooting with the direct line to the hive mind) and not quite as expensive to run kitted out (3 Warriors with Deathspitters and Boneswords would be 120pts, with T5, W3 and 4+ armour I'd say that was reasonable).

Because that's what Venomthropes need. To be immune to doubling out so that the entire army gets 2+ cover saves until you fail several 2+ saves against Lascannons...

A points drop does seem like a great idea, though.

As for a unit as Warlord, getting the traits feels a bit wonky. I could see making a Unit be warlord, possibly, but its not a character, and shouldn't get the WL traits.

The idea of one of them becoming a character for a cheap upgrade, though, would immediately make him viable to be the Warlord.

What needs to be done is rip Instinctive Behaviors out of the army and instead replace it with a buff for being in range of a synapse creature.

I do also agree with being able to buy Brotherhood of Psykers for Warriors, but make the base warriors cheaper without it. You could then run them as "brutes" or proto-zoanthropes.

Isn't the synapse buff Fearless on dirt cheap hordes?

Bharring wrote:
Isn't the synapse buff Fearless on dirt cheap hordes?

Yes, but with a massive downside if you're not in that 12". Compare to other bubbles, such as Supportive Fire. where if you're not in that bubble you get no benefit, but no other massive downside.

Plus having sometimes-fearless tarpits isn't exactly a fun and exciting army trait. Those dirt cheap hordes aren't good for much else. Other horde armies get to mix in characters, special weapons, or have other units interact with them (AM Orders). Gaunts are all identical, and just walk forward and die.
Synapse is a missed opportunity to make them behave differently depending on what other creatures are nearby (as a sort of tyranid equivalent of the AM order system). That could make the army much more interesting to play.

Bharring wrote:
Because that's what Venomthropes need. To be immune to doubling out so that the entire army gets 2+ cover saves until you fail several 2+ saves against Lascannons....

We've already got Malanthropes for that, which are nice but hardly broken.

 Imateria wrote:
Here's what I'd do, and several of these changes go beyond the Warriors and include general wargear.

Make them BS4 and T5, 25pts base cost each with Flesh Hooks as standard and the Prime becomes a 20pt charcter upgrade with Psyker ML1, similar to the Neurothrope.

Boneswords are 10pts and gain Shred, Bonesword & Lashwip is 15pts and Swifstrike now is a -3 penalty to the opponents Initiative (to a minimum of 1).

Sounds ok, except for the lash whip thing. Is that -3 to every enemy in the same combat if a single lash-whip is involved? Even giant combats involving multiple units?

Or do you mean like old lash-whips, where it worked on enemies in base contact. I can't be the only one who found it incredibly awkward back when they worked this way. Getting into debates with my opponents all the time about which models should be positioned where when piling in (some people would devote a great amount of time and effort to carefully blocking their own models movement with other models, so only one or two guys end up in base contact with lash-whip equipped things).

One of the few things I like about the current codex was changing lash-whips to just give I+3 instead.