And Here We Go........

I wont actually be putting points costs in as that would be frowned upon but instead will use the skaven slaves for refrence and indication so if you know that well good for you.

Intial Thoughts

Hi all, now as some may recall (those who read the forum) I said I was going to review the new codex once mine arrived. Now thanks to KendokaJim (James/Jim) I managed to have a quick glance through a couple of weeks ago, and well my opening thoughts on it were "Wow what apile of goblin trash" I mean it seemed as if they put the tyranids at the top of the nerf tree, pushed them, and watched them hit every branch on the way down, then for good measure hit with the nerf bat too. ok that may be an exxageration but they did get hit hard.

I mean my first thought comes to the removal of tyranids being able to use biomancy and the other lists but biomancy mainly, this was a big hit, to me this is what helped the 5th ed codex be enjoyable. It helped keep everything you needed alive by giving you access to things which the "Nid" codex lacked, things like eternal warrior, feel no pain, and It will not die. Yeah the other benfits were nice like the added toughness and strength (T9 MC's were hilarious) but it was the those special rules that really shone for tyranid players but now we're stuck with our new book powers, admittiedly they're not awful but they could have been better or just allowed us access the BRB powers but it is how it is.

My second thought was about our Monstrous Creatures, they used to be damn expensive points wise for example a 5th ed Tyrant with the usual load out, wings and two sets of twin linked devourers would set you back the cost 130 skaven slaves (will be abbreviated as "SS") but now its had a 2.5 SS decrease base and kitted the same will be 115 SS and for more added goodness he got a BS increase and is also a psyker level 2 so all in all the tyrant got buffed. Another example of points decrease is the tyrannofex I mean good god what were they thinking 125 SS worth of MC, yeah ok it had a 2+ save a T6 with W6 but still thats pricey considering it could be insta gibbed by any wandering psyker with force weapon but good news its dropped in price and is now only 87.5 SS thats a huge drop ok it can still be insta gibbed but at least its more appropiately costed. the same can be said for carnifex's and now broods of them are even more scary .

I cant believe I didnt talk about this first, oh well I'll do it now. There were a lot of removals of units from the old codex that did not cross over to the new codex, things like Doom of malantai, parasite of Mortrex, Ymgarl Genestealers and the one that shocked me most our DROP SPORE!!! I think a lot of this has something to do with GW's legal battle with chapter House studios but I'm not 100% sure but feel free to look it up. so now every tyranid player has to foot slog across the board to get where they need to go, so they are now an extremly slow army or at least you would think that, i thought that this was the end for my tyranids but then i read something that shimmered a bit of hope for nids everywhere. Adrenal glands give both FLEET AND FURIOUS CHARGE!!!! I was like WTF!! this s*%t is awesome, and more good news these biomorphs are readily available to most critters so a now appearingly slow army will not be as slow as you think.

right instead giving you all a massive time consuming wall of text to read ill stop here and let you digest my initial thoughts on the codex. So to close things up, is this codex bad? No, no it's not but it's not exactly good in comparrison to the other realeases such as Tau, Eldar or space marine but it is good in its own unique way, play testing will help to pick out what shines in this book so expect me to start showing up more with tyranids lol

Any questions or thoughts I'll be glad to hear them so post away guys please and if you think i should or shouldnt carry on with this "post series" then let me know as well, as I said all comments welcome. And in the next few days I'll post an in depth post about the HQ section of the book thanks for reading.

I think the idea of this dex is to get hordes of little nids in action agene.
In all the story’s you you ever read there are always tones of these things swarming over the battle field tying up the enemies gun lines while the big nids come and smash em up.

You hardly ever saw the little blighters in 4th or 5th but now you can have 120 basic nids for under a 1/3rd of a typical 1500 point list and still have the points left for the big stuff.

Also heard rumblings that forge world might be making the drop spores.

Adrenal glands sound nice but fleet is no guarantee of getting there faster as it only allows you to re-roll run and charge dice.

Nice write up Tony, good to see some actual positive points about the new codex rather than focus on the doom and gloom.

My thoughts are as follows...

BDA is right, there's probably going to be more focus on hordes of the little blighters supported by large elites and monstrous gribblys. The theme of tyranids has always been quantity over quality....great for fluff, and great for GWs bank account hahaha!

I'm in two minds about the new flying beasties, I'm leaning towards the Crone, since although it's more expensive than the Harpy it comes with a str 8 vector strike and the drool cannon making it a flying can opener. On the other hand the harpy comes with the option of swapping the twn linked stranglethorn cannon with a twn linked venom cannon for ONLY 5PTS!! Oh and venom cannons no longer get a -1 str reduction on vehicles (I can't tell you how happy I was to read that!!!)
So yeah I'm conflicted...would like to try both of them tbh.

And on the subject of fast attack options...raveners have had their day. I see no reason to take them anymore since anything raveners can do shrikes can do better and with more options, andrenal glands, bio weapons, synapse etc..

And not to forget the stupid data slates from the looks of it it contains yem genestealers again good work tony

Been through the book and data slates, and just loving it. Instinctive Behaviour is now terribad!! Which actually means that you now need to build around Synapse: no more "I'll leave the Raveners out so that they can get Rage for free".

Venompthropes are the new necessary unit, dishing out shrouded to all units within 6", and a unit of 2-3 offers a pretty good coverage.

I think I disagree about the little guys being what the Codex is all about. Actually, Fexes are affordable now, Mawloc is awesome, Tervigon are weaker but still an awesome buy, Tyrannofexes are still very expensive but are a stupidly durable unit, the Exocrine is very good at shooting, Tyrant, Harpies are brilliant FMC... The little guys provide some much needed cover to the big boys, and that's what the fluffy is about. So cheap you can launch wave after wave, they get the opponents units stuck in (yeah Hormies), but their damage output is not good enough.

Raveners and Shrikes are definitely not the same units. Shrike are here to provide synapse to the fast units, a bit of fire support and are very good against elite opponents when equiped accordingly (but then they get VERY expensive). Unfortunately, being synapse, T4 (instant death against St8), they have a massive target on their head. Raveners are better in CC, especially against GEq and vehicules, faster and very easy to get cover to; they're the unit the opponent will ignore, being not a "priority" compared to the other units, and be in CC turn 2-3 max. And I can field the Red Terror! Mouhahaha!!

Regarding Data slates, they're pretty fun. Deathleaper and Lictors provide an interesting Ld reduction against the oppponent; Genestealers slates aren't brilliant, having to set up closer doesn't really help as they can't charge anyway, but the Broodlords ability and the prefered enemy given is pretty good; Gargoyles carrying Spore Mines sounds pretty fun, spore mines being pretty good in this edition, but you don't really want to use slow gargoyles to be honest.

Still haven't had a game yet though... All are guesses, reading and forum droolings