Post by Space is pretty big on Jul 7, 2012 9:03:25 GMT
Err, this is kinda a weird complaint, but Tyranids are no longer Tyranids...
Not talking about rules or stats or balance. I'm actually fine with the new edition. 'Crons may of gotten the biggest slice of cake, but it seems a lot of other armies got nerfed in ways we can take advantage of (vehicle rules, no more fearless wounds, enemy movement.)
As for our new challenges, we actually have a few neat counter measures. I'm thinking 6th will be the advent of ripper swarms for example, due to overwatch.
Still, the problem I'm having is, can we call our selves 'nids anymore?
Now I'm not talking about fluff here, more so the tone of how the army was played in prior editions. The mechanics, not the back story.
When you boiled us down, we were always the fastes non skimmer army, and we excelled in combat. Our draw backs were poor armor and crapy shooting.
In terms of unit choice it was always something kinda different from most armies. The Fex was the ultimate strength monster. It never had much in the way of special abilities, just shear basic power point.
Other armies had units that could do all sorts of neat tricks like move around enemy units, or special attacks that caused leadership madness, or mindfields.
Meanwhile, again, we usually just boiled down to really good simple stats.
Stealers had a bunch of combat stats. Sure they had rending but never anything as random as poison or leadership changers and so on. Tyrants had powerful psychic shots, but never any really out there abilities attached like causing tanks to spin around.
What we were was dependable. We exchanged all the really wacky possible abilities for things that always just worked: high WS, fast movement, Good Toughness, cheap expendable units.
We were kinda the ying to the marines yang, as they had the same thing, only instead of combat and speed it was shooting and durability, with the WS and Sv to accommodate.
Now we seem to have lost that. We have all these wacky abilities that we maybe might be able to use once in a while. Sure it's a neat trick when they do work, but you can't depend on them anymore.
We still have a bit of the old basic stats left in us, but with so many random restrictions on our army due to 6th ed rules (no assault from outflank, overwatch, random charge) we now depend on a ton of compensating measures.
In a way, synapse was always for us a leash, that forced a restriction on an army of otherwise lone soliders.
Fexes, Warriors, Gaunts, all with just their basic abilities were a massive threat. Not from some special power, but just from their stats alone.
I liked playing the dependable army, the army of assurances over possible random coolness.
The newest codex, especially in light of the newest edition doesn't really stand out for me from all the others. Everyone has wacky psychic rules, some random super power that rarely ever works, some random stat nullifier that only can be used in very rare circumstances that can usually be negated, some awkward attack gimmick that threatens only one other specific type of unit and isn't worth the cost of the model.
So, I don't really see 'nids as being nids anymore and, almost think we might as well call them something new.
Not talking about rules or stats or balance. I'm actually fine with the new edition. 'Crons may of gotten the biggest slice of cake, but it seems a lot of other armies got nerfed in ways we can take advantage of (vehicle rules, no more fearless wounds, enemy movement.)
As for our new challenges, we actually have a few neat counter measures. I'm thinking 6th will be the advent of ripper swarms for example, due to overwatch.
Still, the problem I'm having is, can we call our selves 'nids anymore?
Now I'm not talking about fluff here, more so the tone of how the army was played in prior editions. The mechanics, not the back story.
When you boiled us down, we were always the fastes non skimmer army, and we excelled in combat. Our draw backs were poor armor and crapy shooting.
In terms of unit choice it was always something kinda different from most armies. The Fex was the ultimate strength monster. It never had much in the way of special abilities, just shear basic power point.
Other armies had units that could do all sorts of neat tricks like move around enemy units, or special attacks that caused leadership madness, or mindfields.
Meanwhile, again, we usually just boiled down to really good simple stats.
Stealers had a bunch of combat stats. Sure they had rending but never anything as random as poison or leadership changers and so on. Tyrants had powerful psychic shots, but never any really out there abilities attached like causing tanks to spin around.
What we were was dependable. We exchanged all the really wacky possible abilities for things that always just worked: high WS, fast movement, Good Toughness, cheap expendable units.
We were kinda the ying to the marines yang, as they had the same thing, only instead of combat and speed it was shooting and durability, with the WS and Sv to accommodate.
Now we seem to have lost that. We have all these wacky abilities that we maybe might be able to use once in a while. Sure it's a neat trick when they do work, but you can't depend on them anymore.
We still have a bit of the old basic stats left in us, but with so many random restrictions on our army due to 6th ed rules (no assault from outflank, overwatch, random charge) we now depend on a ton of compensating measures.
In a way, synapse was always for us a leash, that forced a restriction on an army of otherwise lone soliders.
Fexes, Warriors, Gaunts, all with just their basic abilities were a massive threat. Not from some special power, but just from their stats alone.
I liked playing the dependable army, the army of assurances over possible random coolness.
The newest codex, especially in light of the newest edition doesn't really stand out for me from all the others. Everyone has wacky psychic rules, some random super power that rarely ever works, some random stat nullifier that only can be used in very rare circumstances that can usually be negated, some awkward attack gimmick that threatens only one other specific type of unit and isn't worth the cost of the model.
So, I don't really see 'nids as being nids anymore and, almost think we might as well call them something new.
