snakezenn, no they do have the special rule for that. To me synapse creatures should buff other Nids and be versatile not self buffing and to be honest I don't think they need a specific buff.
Halollet, what did you have in mind when you said that you request assistance keeping it updated? The snake needs a head and currently you are final decision maker. I dont have a lot of time but if no one else wants to (and you don't) I will see what I can do. The thing about it though is that I don't want to drag the project in another direction so it really suits me to make comments to explain my reasoning and suggested changes without sitting on the final decision (and editing, thanks a lot for that work).
I think we are getting close to having the rules down for the first version. I will make a list of things I would want/need to change and end with replies to others. I'm not thinking of going much into point cost changes for now. This is the longest reply I have ever made on the Hive and it did take some time to write, I hope it helps.
Fandex commentsSynapse, Should be a flat amount like 2. If it's flat the Marine player won't have he's 4 missiles do 4 wounds for bad rolling or the Nid player lose 12 wounds to bad rolling. It's a very large margin and it makes ID weapons an unreliable bonus instead of a strategy.
Shadow in the Warp, The no generation part is too powerful. I suggest ”if a non-Tyranid psyker is withing SitW, decrease by one that models roll to harness the warp and rolls on the Perils of the warp chart”. Example: Powers are cast on 5+ (normally) and a 2 becomes 1 on the Perils chart.
With removing WC, I can move my Flyrant within 12” of their Seer council and negate all of their Denies as well as their manifest if their not 12” (more with items) away from ANY of my synapse creatures on the table. Shadow in the warp shouldn't be a psyker counter by itself just a extra, we have our deny rolls as well.
Instinctive behavior (feed), Change the WS to +2 but make Hormagaunts WS 2 and become WS 4 under synapse while larger Feeders gain WS 5.
Keep in mind that +1 to WS is nowhere as good as +1 to BS. That said its a nice way to buff but until they change the melee chart you want to consider the difference.
Instinctive behavior (Hunt), Small critters with hunt should be BS 2+1, Like WS 5 Hormagaunts, BS 4 Gargoyles feels wrong.
Having WS 2 BS 2 Gargoyles would make them good in synapse and without they still function.
Instinctive behavior (lurk), It's near useless especially compared to the other IB's and many of the lurkers have move through cover already. I suggest lurk give stealth. Lictors already have stealth but they should not have IB-Lurk at all.
This leave only 2 lurking units in the codex, Termagants and Venomthropes, We should take a look at the instinctive behavior distribution for the units but I will not discuss it further in this post.
Rending claws, I like the rule but I would not implement it that way. I would leave the rending claws at 6 and make a profile for Ripping/splitting Claws that rends on a 5+ and make it a thing for the mentioned units. It may not be the best name.
Scything talons, does one pair reroll to hit rolls of 1 or give a single reroll? Make it reroll 1s. With “mastercrafting” you have to roll each models attacks separately and it's a time consuming mess.
Maybe having a single pair give nothing and the second reroll 1's. Scything Talons are oftentime the best and free melee option as is. MCs Generic AP 2 being the problem.
An alternative is letting the Scything talons give extra attacks. I saw it somewhere else on the Forum and think its a better way to do it.
Crushing Claws, Both models that can have this is Initiative 2 and AP 2. All they gain is +1 S and Armourbane which is fine for 15 points without Unwieldy. I think they did it for an upcoming removal of blanket AP 2 on MCs but we have the luxury of changing Crushing claws if and when they do.
Boneswords, see ”On the Boneswords” in the reply section. Having the first pair unchanged and the second giving a 5++ in close combat seems fitting for 15 points.
second pair of Boneswords could also boost the ID effect. Maybe ID(4+).
Lashwhip & Bonesword, Boneswords with L&W should give the 5++/ID(4+) bonus.
Barbed Strangler Weapons, My suggestion:
Barbed Strangler 24” S 5 AP 5 Assault 1, Large Blast, Pinning
Stranglethorn Cannon 36” S 6 Ap 5 Assault 1, Large Blast, Pinning, Ignore cover
S 5 fits the 15 points Barbed Strangler. Range 24” synergies with the 18”/24” weapons on the Warriors. Rending makes the barbed strangler go through Terminator armour and it shouldn't, even if the vines go for weak points. The Tyranid way has always been causing a bucket of saves.
The description doesn't fit ignore cover, it's just a large version that break terrain instead of the target, not ignoring it. Maybe a semi-sentience makes them grow over and around Terrain.
Bio-electric pulse, A Range of 9" is weird I know you have done it to balance it but give it 12" and 10 attacks instead, S 6 makes up for it.
Does Shock give glancing hits on top of penetration rolls? I know it's a gargantuan but with no AP it's best at wrecking vehicles.
A rule that's probably too complicated, is letting it have a number of attacks equal to 12 - range to the closest model in the target unit. 3 attacks if 9" away or 9 attacks if 3" away. Had the idea and wanted to share it, mostly.
Side note: There's already a Shock special rule, I suggest calling it Static to differentiate, again not the best name.
Deathspitter, The current Deathspitter profile is too good to be a 5 points upgrade, make it range 18” or S 4 (I prefer 18”). good rules, The Reaperspitter is does the Venom cannon once did.
A wish I have is for the return of the all blast Warriors but I think that's nostalgia. Old blast profile: Deathspitter 24” S user+1 Ap 5 blast
Make The Reaperspitter an Basic Bio-cannon option as well. Warriors need the option for taking out light vehicles.
Impaler Cannon, Make it have another profile with Skyfire and Strength 7 like the Space marine missile launchers have. Strength 8 on Fliers with Ignore cover and BS 4 is really good especially as it can fire on ground targets as well.
Fleshborer Hive, giving a special rule to up the Hive is a great idea and blind is good.
Strength 5 is huge buff with 20 attacks, It's better than the Acid Spray. Make it strength 4, With Blind it still has it's niche. Otherwise up the point cost for it.
Grasping Tongue, At 9" you wouldn't shoot it because it increases the charge range. 9" to 12" is a risky charge and so electing to shoot and wait may be the better choice. Only under 6" would I shoot as well. Maybe that's as intended? You could also give it 2 shots at range 6” while letting it regain only up to 1 wound (how it's written already.)
Rupture Cannon, Here's my suggestion:
Rupture Cannon 48” S 10 AP 2 Assault 1, blast
From a design point I dislike ranged D on the Nids, especially for non-Gargantuans, leave that for the Eldar.
To be honest, a description for attaining the highest strength stat in the game by firing Lice and Plants is worthy to be ignored. That said, my profile represents the Lice covering the target area without harm and the Plant seeds Chemical reaction Imploding the area for devastating effect.
Strangle Web, This is a great idea. I would make it be a 10 points upgrade instead of 5. Would a Gaunt unit of 30 with 3 Stranglewebs (15 points) give -6 to the charge roll? I say that it shouldn't stack or only give -1 if it do. If it's -1, it might be 5 points.
Venom Cannon Weapons, Here's what I would do:
Venom Cannon 24” S 6 Ap 3 Assault 2
Heavy Venom Cannon 36” S 9 Ap 3 Assault 3
+3 Strength, +1 A and increased range is good as it opens up a lot of new targets to reliably shoot at.
S 9 ap 2 assault 3 is like having 3 Las Cannons and shouldn't cost 20 points. Range 36” is already half the long side of the board and this way it equals the Barbed Strangler weapons. We want the Tyranids to come up the board not camp in a corner.
Tyranids, that have always overwhelmed their foes, with high powered low quantity shots seems wrong from a design point. They force 2+ save models to take a bucket of saves and die. Firing a single AP 2 shots is a Space Marine thing. Let the Venom Cannons be AP 3.
If you really want to, you can make the Heavy Venom Cannon AP 2 Assault 2 but i feel AP 3 Assault 3 fits better let the Rupture Cannon be the AP 2 Weapon.
Acid blood, The text is a difficult read*, I would write it like so:
For each Wound a model with the acid blood biomorph lose in close combat, the unit inflicting the wound must immediately make a number of initiative tests as shown below, for Each failed test the unit suffers a single Strength 5 AP2 hit with the Ignores Cover special rule.
non-monstrous creature cause a single initiative test
Monstrous creatures cause d3 initiative tests
Gargantuan Creatures cause d6 Initiative tests
*realised you have just added to GWs writing if you want to keep it just change " one initiative test" to "a number of initiative tests" and add the chart above.
I'm not sure if ap 2 is fitting, is the blood really that acidic and if so why isn't the model using acid to attack? On the other hand negating armor save makes the game-flow faster.
Having initiative rolls for it seems unnecessary die rolling, do the enemy even know it's posionous? Making it auto-hit is a lot easier to point balance and makes the game-flow better. Just change “initiative test” to “hits” but you need to lower its strength. Maybe giving it poison 4+.
Acid Maw, I feel this is too powerful but its only the Pyrovore so I will discuss it under a Pyrovore entry. In short having acid shouldn't grant extra attacks.
Implant Attack, in need of clarification. my suggestion: “Models with this upgrade that would cause a enemy model to lose a wound in close combat will instead cause it to lose two wounds.”
Tail biomorphs, I dislike Smash counting on the tail attacks. When it does all tail attacks are AP 2 regardless of their own AP. It's an inherent problem with MCs but there's no reason to extent it. If you really want, special rules can carry over with the exception of smash. I strongly suggest keeping the independent tail rules as is. With Smash and your upgrades they would need to be 15 points at least.
10 points makes you question if you need what they give you. I think that's what tails should be and my suggestions below are for tails without further special rules.
Bone mace, I like the rule but On one hand Bone Maces are Carnifex only and they have Thresher Scythes as the other option so letting it stay S 8 Tankhunter makes it the single target tail for the Fex.
On the other it's better than the Toxin spike at killing infantry with it's ID on T4. So it depends on your wish to use the bone mace on other models in the future.
Prehensile Pincer, make it ap 4. visually fitting that the highest AP go to the pincer weapon and it's not the best as is.
Thresher Scythe, make it ap 5 otherwise good. Rending is redundant with AP 2 from Smash.
Toxin spike, Give it instant death on 5+(6?) or make it AP 3 if you want something close to smash. Poison doesn't really make it a unique weapon, it just wound reliably.
Toxic Miasma, So bad you had all but forgotten but here it rears its cringe worthy presence for all to remember :/
Honestly I think removing the rule works best but I could use others thought on it.
Here's some brainstorm, mostly because I can't decipher what GW wanted to do with the rule.
- Up the range to be all non-nid models engaged with the user. still largerly useless.
- Make it target a unit and do 1 hit for each model in it, still a one-time use.
- An one-time Explosion 3" from user and retaining Strength 3, poisoned and ignore cover.
- A Template S 1 AP – Poison(2+), flamer for the Venomthrope that then have a purpose beside being near other units.
I like the explode concept but the flamer concept makes it have a role beside giving cover.
The Miasma Cannon, If you keep the Venom Cannon at AP 3 this needs AP 3 as well, its a Venom Cannon on crack. Increase the points to 30.
The Ymgarl Factor, under "Bio-Artefacts of the Tyranids" you mention the protective carapace on 2+ save models to have FNP but under "Tyranid Bio-artifacts" and in the point section you write ”Change Protective Carapace to “The model has +1 toughness”". Go with the toughness bonus and remove the FNP.
The Reaper of Obliterax, This needs to be ap 2, that would make it an Artifact. Something unique and diffferent to it's siblings. You can remove +1 Strength or increase the price(not needed) but as is it's just a Bonesword/Whip that cause wounds reliably, for the price it's better to get 2 normal Bonesword/Whips. With AP 2 the Reaper does something the normal bonesword cannot and would be the perfect reason to put a Reaper-Prime in your warrior brood. On a MC AP 2 is redundant because of the inherent AP 2 but they still get Shred.
PS: Would love to remove the blanket MC AP 2 but we cant change the general rules here.
The Missing Artifact, There's only 5 and a Warrior on the Artifact page. We could swap the Warrior picture for a 6st bio artifact and have the normal codex number.
I'm thinking a ranged AP 2 weapon, Especially as I have suggested removing them elsewhere.
Psychic powers, This will be a longer list of needed and prefered changes but to start off I want to say that I like what you have done with it and that Yarlun was right in not having 3 charts with 4 powers.
I dislike the reuse of power 1-3 on both charts, if it's to make a hybrid of the two ideas it's brilliantly done, kudos, but I dont think it improves the charts.
My initial problem was that there wasn't enough powers for 2 charts but going through 4th, 5th and 6th edition powers there's a lot of variation even if the names are largely the same.
O is Offensive and S is Support along with the number or P for Primaris.
O,P - Aura of despair, OP, get it? (leaves stage). On a more serious note it's too powerful on one unit. A unit of 6 Zoanthropes gives -6 to leadership while any single psyker only gives -1.
Make it cumulative for each UNIT casting it then add Nova to the description.
It should only target the user so start the sentence with “The psyker gains,”
O,1 - The Horror, As written it's bad but keeping a bad roll could be a good thing otherwise make it ignore the Fearless special rule.
O,2 - Catalyst, Not an offensive power at all. I strongly wish for replacing it with 6th ed ”Leech Essence”. With Leech Essence you retain some of the defensive power but through offense. You could also copy the ”Life Leech” from the 7th core rule book as we don't have access to Biomancy anyway.
O,3 – Paroxysm, Put 4th ed The Horror(roll leadership to charge the psyker) here. It makes 3/6 of the Offense powers synergy with O,P and the Support chart be a bolster/debuff table.
O,4 – Feast, No need to have the ”if it did not have it already” part, having smash twice makes no difference.
O,6 - Warp Blast, Great rule idea, I really like it. Make the reroll work on Warp burst as well.
Burst, ML 3+ seems a bit underwhelming give it a Large blast and AP 3. It's only the Swarmlord and upgraded Hive Tyrants.
Lance, ML3+ having D is a risky thing. Those 25 points are very well spent on any Tyrant and What happens if a Zoan brood with Neuro fires lance? Hopefully not 6 D with reroll to hit.
I would change the chart to this:
ML 1 18” S 8 AP 3 Assault 1 Lance
ML 2 18” S 10 AP 2 Assault 1 Lance
ML 3 18” S 10 AP 1 Assault 1 Lance, Piercing(d3 wound/hull points)
Piercing keeps to the D concept without that ”6! you are dead”. Lance ML 1 is nerfed so it balance with burst ML 1 S 8 lance is pretty okay in comparison to S 4 blast.
Giving ML 3 the D, pigeon hole the Tyrant and Neuro to go ML 3 and roll on Offense. D is just that powerful a thing to have. It also makes Flyrants really good as 18” is a fair distance on FMC template.
Side note, I would not have the Neuro ML 3, its not the Doom of Malantai incarnate, just a strain evolved from the concept and its not a unique character. the Doom as an HQ could be nice though.
S,1 - Horror, Horror is worse on the Support chart as it doesn't synergise with the other powers like it does in the Offensive chart.
Here's the effect of Catalyst in 4th ed, replace it for that? Maybe calling it Frenzy.
”If the test is successful, The Tyranid player can nominate a single tyranid unit that is within 24” of the creature using the power. Models in the affected unit will strike back in close combat even if killed before their turn to attack in Initiative order. The dead models are removed once they have made their attacks.”
S,2 - Catalyst, Fits right in here. Swap the number with S,1 for ease of rememberance.
S,3 - Paroxysm, set the debuff at 2 instead of 1d3. Then there's no need to have a die on top of the card or remembering 3 different paroxysm rolls, its especially hard for the opponent.
With a set debuff you won't experience uselessly dropping WS 5 to 4 against your generic WS 3 models. You also won't decrease BS 3 to 0 and deny shooting so there's a price for the consistency.
S,4 – Onslaught, is it on purpose that it must run before it shoots? Otherwise delete ”then” from the paragraph.
Rewrite the last paragraf, currently its hard to quick-read the rule. Here's a try: ”Whilst this power is in effect the target unit gains rage, if the unit is made up of monstrous or gargantuan creatures it gains rampage instead.”
S,5 – Endure, It may be a WC 2 power but not sure. At least I think having a WC 2 power as number 6 would be fitting so I would make it number 6.
S,6 - Regenerate, This should be number 5 then.
/end, With that I will end my 5 page long commenting on the fandex (smiley)
I still want to discuss the unit section as I want to propose ideas like, wings taken up an arm slot, and the promised changes to the Malanthrope (removing Regenerate and Grasping tail, possibly 80 points)
Replies.On the Feeder Tendrils, I seem to remember Halollet writing he wanted the Hive's ideas what they should be doing.
The problem with giving preferred enemy is that scything talons already rerolls 1s so they will very often become redundant point sink. I'm not a fan of giving per model upgrades a fixed per unit price. To me they always end up as under- or over-costed, for reference see the Grey knights Psybolts ammo. I will give the idea some more thought when we have figured out what the Tendrils should do though.
As to what they do I suggest they reroll 1s on the to-wound roll. The Feeder Tendrils gives knowledge about the victim and with it the feeder knows where the enemy's weak points is. When done this way it won't interfere with Scything Talons or other sources for preferred enemy as well as being an unique upgrade.
On the Hive crone, That! All of this:
I had a similar idea, changing drool cannon to 2 modes: current template or assault 2 24" S6 AP4 gunk: fmc's fail grounding on 1-3, fliers hit must test for vector locked on a 1-3.
I would also give tentaclids fleshbane. If I'm re-rolling to hit against an fmc with them, why not make them effective versus fmc's.
AND ANOTHER THING why wouldn't tentacles work like missiles? A flyer can shoot off 4 missiles at once, it's not like the crone is actively firing the self-guided squid things.
I first thought the Drool cannon was too good but then remembered ork Traktor Kannons.
What does ”Vector locked” do? Makes them unable to turn the 90 degrees?
I suggest changing its range to 18” and rewriting the FMC part to ”FMC's suffer -1 to their grounding test”.
While on the Hive Crone, do we want a Born in the sky rule that make it ignore grounding checks? I'm unsure if it makes it too good for it's points but let's brainstorm first.
On the Swarmlord, I'm against the thorax weapon, variation should come from normal Tyrants and the Swarmlord should be all about melee and psychic not shooting. Points for him seems fair. I would leave him without Adrenal glands for now but I would fit his role.
On the Boneswords, Blade parry is a GREAT idea.
This way we could have warriors (and tyrants for that matter) with 4++ in close combat and that one hidden marine with the powerfist would get way less troubling for us.
4++ in combat is too much for a single pair. I say having the second Pair give a invul(5++). This way having the second pair of swords have a meaning but still make the Swarmlord the best swordsman.
I would not call the ability blade parry as its the name of the Swarmlords ability but calling it deflect could work for now.
Second pair of L&W could give something but what? I don't think 2xL&W needs to be.
On the Psychic barrier, If we decide to do this Boneswords wil be in contest with the Psychic Barrier so I thought why not having the Psychic barrier only work against shooting attacks?
That way Zoanthropes can't be a tarpit unit against low AP attacks so will need to be protected from melee, after all they have no arms.
Tyrants Barrier would also fit the points better and he gains melee invul from Boneswords.
This is more of an afterthought so it might have unforeseen issues.
On Shadow of the warp, I dislike the peril idea the whole reason for the Shadow in the warp is to isolate the prey. If the Prey worlds psykers can take a peril and get their message of reinforcement out it makes every description of SitW false. I know this may come off as fluff complains but to me the battles represent a ”narrative” and perils doesn't fit what is already written at all. It should be harder to manifest powers as well as perilous to try, going for both might be to much but i dont think so if it only affects the psychic phase.
Keeping it simple is best for the flow of the game and lowering the enemies dice for perils and manifestations by one should accomplice that. A -3 to leadership can work instead of lowering the perils die but the debuff needs to be for perils only.
On Perils for Nids, No we should not have the normal perils but it works fine as the chart is generic. We shouldn't complicate things where it's not necessary. Channeling the Hive minds power is a strain and perilous for the individual creature. The Hive minds unimaginable power may fry the creatures brain and cause it to cease all functions which gives the explanation for the 1 roll and the other rolls could be explained similarly.
On the Lictor Flesh hook idea, Why not make it a Deathleaper exclusive rule? He pretty much only have ”it's after me!” and ”where is it?” as is and all the fluff is about character hunting.
I would give it a special set of flesh hooks with a artifact name. They would be like the normal hooks but with precision shot(?+) and a special rule for it along the line of ”Both models must roll a d6 and add their unmodified strength, If the Deathleaper wins the enemy model is dragged into close combat and placed in base contact with the user. Neither combatents counts as charging and no overwatch may be made.”
But thats a lot of text and a very unusual thing in 40k rules so I don't think it's a good thing to add. It is a fun thought though
While on him we should remove pheromone trail on the Deathleaper and the Lictors, reason in the next bit.
On the Mawloc, Great idea Price.
Lets do away with pheromone trail and homing lictor and put the effect under Synapse. That way Lictors aren't defined as attachments to the Mawloc and the Mawloc gets independence(Still a Nid).
The enemy won't have the mawloc precision striking his far corner and for a target in front of the swarm the Mawloc won't kill your own models.. Only difficulty will be to tell the Mawloc to let go of his favorit Lictor.
Tyranid chapter tactics, I had this unfinished thought of giving special rules to the different hive fleets based on playing styles like the Marines have their Chapter tactics. I think we should focus on making a working version first but what do you think of the concept?
I made some fast examples:
Behemoth tactic: Something generic like +1 rolls on the IB chart.
Leviathan tactic: Units from the Gaunt strain regain 1d3 models each friendly turn.
Jormungadr tactic: May reroll reserve rolls.
Kraken tactic: Psykers can reroll Denies.
Gorgon tactic: May change their Warlord trait each friendly turn.
A thread to add, After writing this I saw this thread:
thetyranidhive.proboards.com/thread/50186/wishlisting-tail-biomorphsThere's no need to link them to this thread just take notes of their discussion and consider it when making changes
PS: It's very long so I apoligise for any spelling mistakes and errors beforehand.