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Post by wisdomseyes1 on Jul 30, 2012 16:46:19 GMT
Fluffy side-note: I think the Hive Tyrant is the only explicit exception. They are the same 'sub-species' as the Dominatrix, with Tyrants being a group of tiny males tending to/directed by a much larger female. Technically, the smaller 'nids are mix gender, at least the hormagaunts are confirmed in this, but if broods of termagants can survive generationally on worlds outside synapse range of the Hive mind(aka, worlds that have purged a hive fleet from their system successfully) I would think they would also be capable of breeding as well. There is no suggestion that hormagaunts have gender in the fluff. Asexual reproduction is very likely. Then again, asexual reproduction would make evolution mid battle impossible. |
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Post by scorpio on Jul 30, 2012 16:46:24 GMT
I think you are right in the way tervigons should be played but you are also proving his point that with 5th edition, we now only use about 25% of the codex to be effective. I hope with a new 6th ed codex for Nids we will see some more adaptability In the swarm and make all the units worthwhile.
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Post by wisdomseyes1 on Jul 30, 2012 16:55:21 GMT
I think you are right in the way tervigons should be played but you are also proving his point that with 5th edition, we now only use about 25% of the codex to be effective. I hope with a new 6th ed codex for Nids we will see some more adaptability In the swarm and make all the units worthwhile. Well that is a bit unfair to say. Most of our codex is "effective", cost effective? Somewhat. Rules that were meant to be cool and avantagous but ended up beig worthless and poorly written? (see lictors, subteraibian assault, ext)? Oh most definitely. |
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Post by maeloke on Jul 30, 2012 18:09:33 GMT
I think you are right in the way tervigons should be played but you are also proving his point that with 5th edition, we now only use about 25% of the codex to be effective. I hope with a new 6th ed codex for Nids we will see some more adaptability In the swarm and make all the units worthwhile. If the rumors about the CSM dex are to be believed, they're really going in for added customization on units in 6e (10 man CSM squad ranges from 140 points up to 400+ with options!). Not too much of a stretch to hope for similar treatment for our guys... once that new codex hits in 2017. |
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Post by biomassbob on Jul 30, 2012 18:29:25 GMT
2017? Being a little optimistic aren't we?
I'm not a fan of the tervigon and won't run them, though I believe they are one of the best units in the dex. If it had been handled differently I might have used them but they represent everything wrong in how the dex was done (philosophy and execution of the dex). Perhaps in a future nid dex I might find tervigons acceptable depending on how the design philosophy of the army/units and the new dex is handled.
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Post by greatescape13 on Jul 30, 2012 18:34:25 GMT
2017? If it had been handled differently I might have used them but they represent everything wrong in how the dex was done (philosophy and execution of the dex). Perhaps in a future nid dex I might find tervigons acceptable depending on how the design philosophy of the army/units and the new dex is handled. Can you unpack that Biomassbob? Why and how are the representative of this? Give us more, please. Cheers. |
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Post by maeloke on Jul 30, 2012 20:31:50 GMT
2017? Being a little optimistic aren't we? The hive mind has no concept for your hu-man optimism! Can you unpack that Biomassbob? Why and how are the representative of this? Give us more, please. I'm with biomassbob on this. I don't know if he wants to expand on his comparison to the whole codex, but tervigons are definitely one of the best units available to us, and it's obnoxious because it's a design oversight. The base tervigon statline is mediocre for both CC and ranged combat, and combined with the ability to spawn, augment, and encourage the use of the worst (cheapest, weakest) unit in our codex, it was pretty obviously intended for a supporting role. Maybe it would crush the occasional vehicle, sure, but mostly spawn gribblies and psyker them towards the enemy. Unfortunately, in their effort to open up tyranid tactics to more layered gameplay (as I understand older ‘nids could be pretty one-dimensional), they made the tervigon the single most versatile unit in the codex. The unit performs at about 80% for tyrant duties (synapse, psyker, SITW), 80% on carnifex duties (smash, maim, devour), 80% venomthrope duties (support the swarm), and 80% troop duties (hold terrain, survive). This has been made all the more pronounced with the 6e changes, where psychic options allow them to shoot and debuff. Gameplay is variable and opponents change. A carnifex or a tyrannofex or a squad of hormagaunts might be great sometimes… but if you want to have the best army in the greatest number of situations, the tervigon is simply the best unit to take. It can adequately fill almost any role. And oh look, you can have up to 5 of them? There goes the neighborhood. |
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Post by biomassbob on Jul 30, 2012 21:21:03 GMT
I agree with pretty much everything maeloke said. I'll add that I was and still am unhappy with the way our dex was released and currently stands. Regarding the tervigon: IMO, its existence was to replace the old 'without number' rule and give nids a 'transport-type' beast. I'm not a fan of the idea of the tervigon and would have preferred digestion pools that you could place in your deployment zone or something else (others will disagree and that's fine). As a transporting MC bringing gribblies to the front area is fine (which would be in fluff but not in games and should be more than termagants being transported) but not as an all round combat beast as well in the battle. You'd think a creature that is moving a bulk of critters somewhere would be faster than those critters (maybe its supposed to be a 'tervigon uses less energy moving vast distances than the termagants moving by themselves - of course than wouldn't the creature be made for speed and transport capacity and not have a host of combat capabilities (more on this later).
It is the execution that really bothers me. Last edition spinegaunts were the cheap gaunt as meatshields so many nid players had many of these. With the new dex came the tervigon and a price change so that termagants were cheaper than spinegaunts rather than just make them the same cost as there isn't much difference between the weapons now. That meant players having to tear off many arms of gaunts or buy boxes of gaunts - it was a jerky thing to do. And please don't say 'but GW is a model company and needs to make money' as that doesn't wash. Former nid players will buy new stuff and add more of the older stuff to their armies if the rules/units are decent, and newer nid players will buy stuff anyways. Additionally, hormagaunts could not be spawned. Why not? Why can there be endless termagants but not hormagaunts from tervigons? It would have been simple and if a cost increase for spawning hormagaunts was necessary than fine. I could somewhat understand if the hormagaunt had kept the 12" charge range but this was dropped.
Next, read the entry for the Hive Tyrant and then the entry for the Tervigon, and then look at their psychic powers and how they work (or don't) in game terms. The psychic powers on the Tervigon should have been on the Hive Tyrant as this is its job. And a tervigon can have 3 psychic powers while a tyrant only has 2 max (with 2 of the 4 choices being garbage). The introduction of the swarmlord (which should have been a mere upgrade of the tyrant with all base tyrants having 18" synapse and 4 psychic powers).
The tervigon became a common include (usually more than one) in many nid lists understandably and in 6th it looks as though you will need a few tervigons to make strong lists, but we will have to wait until the newness of 6th edition dust settles. That is why I don't care for this unit and dislike GWs execution of the tervigon in game terms.
It was badly done along with the unnecessary tyrannofex (a role the fex should have had) and hive guard (an anti-vehicle role warriors should have had with shooting along with its CC role). On top of this, for those that liked it, it took over 2 years to get a model of a unit GW made a central unit of the dex.
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Post by scorpio on Jul 30, 2012 21:34:45 GMT
I think the 2 year wait is simply because GW has it's preferences and Nids aren't one of their favourites. I agree with your points biomassbob and also think if they were bringing out a tervigon, why couldn't they let it spawn hormagaunts as well? At least give them an actual rule for them laying eggs as it says in the fluff. I hope this will come in the new codex when we get it.
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Post by Psychichobo on Jul 30, 2012 22:17:21 GMT
I'm actually pretty grateful they didn't let the Terv produce hormagaunts - at least in 5th ed, Terv-backed Termagants were very effective in CC and could savage most units when properly supported. Hormagaunts would've been significantly more brutal and would've invalidated termagants as a spawning choice. I do agree on the naffness of the Gaunt weapon choices though. Before, Spinefist, Fleshborer and Devourer were all each individually useful weapons and worked towards different playstyles. Now it's just Fleshborer or Devourer really. maeloke: I disagree about older nids being one-dimensional. The beloved 4th ed Nid dex was ridiculously versatile and celebrated for it, with reserve, flying, CC and shooty builds all being viable. I often feel this dex is far more cumbersome in its attempts to provide the same amount of diversity. GW always had this strange idea that the 4th ed Nids were confusing to new players, since it was based around taking a Nid base model and outfitting it for particular roles - the Carnifex could be CC, short range burst fire, long range sniping, etc and had a million upgrades. Same with the Tyrant and the Warrior. In fact, same with Gaunts, Hormagaunts, Stealers, Raveners, etc. The general idea for the 5th ed dex was to make it so that the single model with multiple roles became different models with single roles. Though arguably the same in principle, in practice it just meant you became limited in terms of how you'd create your anti-tank/CC/flyer/etc. Therefore, any unit that wasn't properly priced or designed (like the Pyrovore or aforesaid Tervigon) got stuck being that way, useless or unusually powerful. The power level of the new dex did increase appropriately, and the old dex would never have stood up to the current lot of armies, but it was mostly a case of poor design and lack of understanding of the meta. I often feel (admittedly rather conspiratorially) that the wait for new models was due to uncertainty regarding how well the dex would sell after it's initially poor reception. |
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Post by t⊗theark on Jul 30, 2012 22:43:36 GMT
Then again, asexual reproduction would make evolution mid battle impossible. I just want to harp on this point - Tyranids don't evolve anymore than the tau coming out with the xv-9 was or the eldar rediscovering the Lynx class vehicles. Evolution works by things failing less bad than other species, the hivemind actually conciously improves on the biology of the species with a purpose. Funnily enough, tyranids are intellegently designed. |
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Post by maeloke on Jul 31, 2012 0:50:53 GMT
maeloke: I disagree about older nids being one-dimensional. The beloved 4th ed Nid dex was ridiculously versatile and celebrated for it, with reserve, flying, CC and shooty builds all being viable. I often feel this dex is far more cumbersome in its attempts to provide the same amount of diversity. I'll yield to your expertise. I picked up nids after the 5e codex was released, so my knowledge of the swarm before then is mostly memories of my CSM getting nommed - every list I saw back then was pretty CC-focused. |
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Post by wisdomseyes1 on Jul 31, 2012 3:10:35 GMT
I don't think it's the tervigon that is an oversight, as much as the author didn't really think so much into the other units.
As Mae said, the tervigon was supposed to be a support roll. All 5th edition, that's exactly what it was. It spawned and augmented our weakest unit, because it was it was that, our weakest unit. The actual increase it gives to termagants in particular isn't actually all that impressive, but the augmentation it gives to all units in our codex (feel no pain/ it is a scoring unit/ spawns scoring units) that made it good last edition.
Now, comparing it to other monstrous creatures, we look at the carnifex... Same cost, one supports the army as a whole, has 2 extra wounds, and is scoring. One needs to be in synapse to function (needed), has massive strength that is totally pointless, is expensive, and you can take more of them... Which of course you can take 5 tervigans or 9 fexen.
Trygon? Well he has 6 attacks, 3 on the smash. Tervigon has 3 attacks, 2 on the smash. Both of them have the same strength, but trygons get talons and ws5. Tervigon has, well 40 less points, and 15 less points to make up the attacks. They have the same survivability, but tervigon is flexible where the trygon has to, and likely will do the same thing all the time. The tervigon also doubles as synapse and psychic defense, a 40 point upgrade on the trygon.
What would make this better? Well, carnifexen should be about 20 points cheaper... And really they should be less. They are good at 1 thing and they aren't even good at that. They also have the unfluffy devourers build and aside from the hive tyrant who is better in every way, carnifexen are the only unit in our codex that can take it, a great powerful machine gun of anti infantry... But you have to pay for the fex itself. At 4 wounds, it doesn't last long. The author likely looked at 4e and decided he would keep their board feel but increase the cost and take away some of the things they had.
Hormagaunts should have some basic form of coming back when the unit dies off, or be able to be given an expensive (3 or 4 point) upgrade that REQUIRES them to come back when the unit dies. It meets up with the fluff, and goes with what people have always complained about: the loss of the endless hoard.
Tervigans spawned gants should not be scoring OR the tervigon itself shouldnt be scoring, the combination of the 2 makes for what we call in magic "card advantage" but I guess in 40k we would call it "FOC advantage" requires you to take a troop to take another troop that makes 2-3 troops, just small units that have the whole purpose to hold things and die.
Thorax swarm shouldn't be unwound with armored shell and wings. I have never felt the desire to take the thorax, because comparatively its worthless. The points for the tyrant itself is to much, or the points for its upgrades. I would want a 10 point reduction on wings, armored shell, and the tyrants base cost. Just 10 points.
The cannons are so poorly constructed, it makes them near unusable and in turn makes the harpy useless.
If the lictors are going to start in reserves, for the 50 some odd points they better be spectacular at killing things, small units. They beacon was also poorly thought out, they should be deployed on the start of a turn before reserve rolls (following reserve rules to come in, but in its own sub phase) and be able to use that. Take away the bonus to reserves. More attacks, lower strength, rending. Shrouded for a 5+ cover in the open, and the death leaped has both stealth and shrouded. This idea they pop out of nowhere and get shot at without issue is just hogwash. There is no rule to even represent the fact the soldiers turning around to see them, it's just straight up "oh, ima shoot you now, saw you coming a mile alway"
That's getting a bit off topic though. My point is that when factoring in what the units are, not much thought was given to their cost or what would happen when they actually did. It's not JUST the tervigon that was an oversight, it was most of our codex. When we compare out monstrous creatures to infantry, they win out in close combat, but not so much in anything else. The cost of the monsters themselves is based on their effectiveness in close combat compared to others (200 points of marines has a hard time against a trygon) unless they are just plain wrong (tfex was based on 2 s10 shots, and actual armor.... But not much play testing went into it)
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Post by liquid405 on Jul 31, 2012 3:48:50 GMT
Hehe carful guys, if you keep hating the Tervigon because of how commonly it's used, you're going to become Tyranid Hipsters! Sippin' Moka-screechos at Claw-bucks while Typin' on Krakin'-book pros.  Damn. You got me. I am *such* a tyranid hipster. My unit of choice is Tyranid Warriors. You have probably never heard of it. |
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Post by vecuu on Jul 31, 2012 13:25:51 GMT
Good points, wisdom.
The Tervigon as a model and fluff aspect doesn't bother me, but I dislike the self-reliance that so many Nid players have with simple Tervigon spam. I was at a local RT tournament this past winter, and of three Nid players, I ran the fewest Tervigons at a whopping single one. The others ran two and three Tervigons respectively at 1750 points. That is a huge point and model investment, and absolutely ruins list versatility. I think the primary issue is the gameplay versatility that a Tervigon brings. You hear complaints in a lot of games about "Jack of all trades, master of none." The Tervigon is "Jack of all trades, so take him if you can't make up your mind on what else to take, because a Tervigon can probably do okay."
All this being said, I typically ran one Tervigon in 5th, and have yet to play any 6th (working at a camp atm), but when I get the oppourtunity to, I see little to no reason to run fewer than two Tervigons now. As has been mentioned: Tervigons now are a cross between a support unit and a Carnifex. That's effect and scary.
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