Initial Impressions of 9th Codex

[beetlejuice]

Mar 18, 2022 5:12:36 GMT masterofillusion said:

Ever since "Fall Back" changed to "Fall in whatever direction you feel like, man" fall back and charge rules have been very very good.

exactly this, this is how custodes bikes and PP character get into your backlines

[dkng]

Mar 18, 2022 7:38:44 GMT SNA said:

I've never seen so many bad takes in my life as this thread. People complaining about this codex must be absolutely terrible at this game AND terrible at understanding Tyranids. Hive Guard got nerfed? Bloody good thing, they were an overpowered and un-niddy crutch that made us play like a stupid Imperial Guard gunline, not like an onrushing swarm of bio-engineered ripping, tearing, gribbly monsters.

This codex is so insanely powerful the tourney guys are already massacring Custodes and Harlequins in 2 turns with test games, and they haven't even figured out how to fully optimize yet. And more importantly than raw power, it PLAYS like Tyranids. No more pathetic reliance on named character gimmicks like the stupid Swarmlord double move, instead everything is just faster! No more spamming cowardly ranged units that hide behind walls and shoot things out of line of sight, now you can play hordes of melee beasts, carnifexes, warriors, get into the midfield, trade and smash face. Adaptive Hive Fleet traits are amazing, our relics and abilities are INTERESTING, our units are tough without needing cheesy rules like capping wounds per turn, our damage is amazingly consistent without needing cheese like ignoring invulnerable saves.

I've already seen solid lists for Leviathan, Behemoth, Gorgon, Kraken AND Hydra that play differently and use totally different sets of units and are ALL viable and fun. This codex is probably the one of the best successes of 9th edition in terms of variety and gameplay. It's something of a masterpiece really. And half this thread is complaining about the changes because they want to keep playing like our idiotic 8th ed codex forced us to play to have a chance? Are you guys making early april fool's jokes?

Shout out to nameless for being the voice of reason. The rest of you need to unlearn the (please do not swear) version of the faction we were stuck with last edition and embrace the most real representation of Tyranids we've had in over a decade, maybe ever. The complaints that this codex is "weak" are utterly mindblowing to me when, even without the Octarius War and Crusher Stampede supplements which may or may not be legal, testers are ANNIHILATING top meta armies right now with this book alone. Get a grip you whiners.

+1 man

Btw can you provide any links to those lists you mentioned?
I’d be grateful.

[Hive Bahamut]

Mar 18, 2022 7:38:44 GMT SNA said:

I've never seen so many bad takes in my life as this thread. People complaining about this codex must be absolutely terrible at this game AND terrible at understanding Tyranids. Hive Guard got nerfed? Bloody good thing, they were an overpowered and un-niddy crutch that made us play like a stupid Imperial Guard gunline, not like an onrushing swarm of bio-engineered ripping, tearing, gribbly monsters.

This codex is so insanely powerful the tourney guys are already massacring Custodes and Harlequins in 2 turns with test games, and they haven't even figured out how to fully optimize yet. And more importantly than raw power, it PLAYS like Tyranids. No more pathetic reliance on named character gimmicks like the stupid Swarmlord double move, instead everything is just faster! No more spamming cowardly ranged units that hide behind walls and shoot things out of line of sight, now you can play hordes of melee beasts, carnifexes, warriors, get into the midfield, trade and smash face. Adaptive Hive Fleet traits are amazing, our relics and abilities are INTERESTING, our units are tough without needing cheesy rules like capping wounds per turn, our damage is amazingly consistent without needing cheese like ignoring invulnerable saves.

I've already seen solid lists for Leviathan, Behemoth, Gorgon, Kraken AND Hydra that play differently and use totally different sets of units and are ALL viable and fun. This codex is probably the one of the best successes of 9th edition in terms of variety and gameplay. It's something of a masterpiece really. And half this thread is complaining about the changes because they want to keep playing like our idiotic 8th ed codex forced us to play to have a chance? Are you guys making early april fool's jokes?

Shout out to nameless for being the voice of reason. The rest of you need to unlearn the (please do not swear) version of the faction we were stuck with last edition and embrace the most real representation of Tyranids we've had in over a decade, maybe ever. The complaints that this codex is "weak" are utterly mindblowing to me when, even without the Octarius War and Crusher Stampede supplements which may or may not be legal, testers are ANNIHILATING top meta armies right now with this book alone. Get a grip you whiners.

So you assume people are bad because half of the codex got invalidated in an edition of raw power codexes like Admech, Drukhari, Custodes, Harlequins, Tau etc? Tyranids have had such bad internal balance since at least 5th, we were hoping for "all the options" instead of "here is HOW TO PLAY NIDS 9th."

Being forced to play "how you see Nids" has to be one of the dumbest arguements ever. People still cling onto some weird Starship Trooper hordes of melee, when Tyranids are NOT melee oriented, they have always been a xenos-generalist. I would argue almost 0 viable melee outside of FW the last few editions if you remove Swarmlord.

"our units are tough without needing cheesy rules like capping wounds per turn, our damage is amazingly consistent without needing cheese like ignoring invulnerable saves"

Except that they aren't. A few extra Wounds and +1save when everything has picked up a point of AP and damage. All the troops are hilariously overcosted except Warriors (again, GW dictacting which playstyle) and what does "cheese rule" mean when it comes to durability? 2++ reroll invis was cheese, capped 4++ is hardly that. Rules like *transhuman, no rerolls etc are actually innovative ways to manipulate dice instead of everything is just 2/4++ (oh wait..)


"Shout out to nameless for being the voice of reason. The rest of you need to unlearn the (please do not swear) version of the faction we were stuck with last edition and embrace the most real representation of Tyranids we've had in over a decade, maybe ever"

This comes across as extremely condiscending and assuming you have wracked up some hidden knowledge. We relearn Nids every edition because GW can't figure them out. I literally never had more than 1 of any monster because of how terribad they have always been. This edition changes that for sure, but this codex still comes preloaded with a lifespan.


I would have preferred to see all units with a little more viability after so much effort went into Force org Swapping.

This codex being better than the last is like how 8th index was better than 7th. Kind of hard to screw up an improvement. Heck, removing IB alone would probably have done it.

Crusher Stampede is IMO more broken than this codex, and if it and Leviathan both need to die for a nice longevity book I am fine with that.

Obsec monsters is a sweet idea, and I imagine this books shining grace. I feel like Leviathan was a horde test and Stampede was a monster test. We know which one bandwagoners hopped onto, and so which one made it. (Hint, Adaptive Physiologies)

I don't think anyone thinks the book is bad, but comparing to the Auto includes of the last few books and the power of the indirect it feels like an NPC faction.

Also, how did Nids AND GSC end up with trash secondaries?

[kazetanade]

They're fluffy secondaries though. I actually like spore seeding as a concept.

Also mentioned elsewhere, but I did not notice the just insane amount of spore mine that can be shat out now. 2d3 per Biovore, 6 from a sporocyte (who is not a fortificati9n anymore), a bunch from Harpies- it's an interesting take on the 8th Ed meme list, where you deny scoring using spores.

I only have one question: does it survive tripsurge tau?

[vortexdr]

I think the fact our fearless aura is now only 6" is being downplayed by quite a few people. That's massive especially with some quite low leadership across the board. I do like the new codex apart from not being able to use my fexes in groups but low leadership along with only a 6" fearless aura does have me worried and makes a lot of units look worse.

If you're going again Dark Eldar and all their fight last will be tough.

[parzaius]

Only Tyranid Players would look at a codex filled with nerfs and say "I'm GLAD all that stuff that was good is now weakened, completely useless, or gone!" I didn't realize Nids came from the Stockholm galaxy.

Other factions got their best units improved even more. Some factions got upgrades across the board with zero nerfs. The top-end factions got buffs AND their points went DOWN. But no, let's just ignore the obvious, intentional slights. Thank goodness the best stuff in the codex is just straight-up gone instead of simply getting overshadowed by how all our horrible stuff is suddenly usable.

Mar 18, 2022 13:49:10 GMT vortexdr said:

I think the fact our fearless aura is now only 6" is being downplayed by quite a few people. That's massive especially with some quite low leadership across the board. I do like the new codex apart from not being able to use my fexes in groups but low leadership along with only a 6" fearless aura does have me worried and makes a lot of units look worse.

If you're going again Dark Eldar and all their fight last will be tough.

Also this.

Synapse is half-range and units have to stay super clumped up because of anti-swarm 9e rules. Instinctual Behavior is gone, but the army is so tethered now that you're going to have to bring WAY more over-costed synapse models than ever before. It's just as well that Rippers, Genestealers, and gants got dumpstered: you're basically going to have to bring warriors as your troops just for the added synapse bubbles.

And that reminded me of ANOTHER Tyrant nerf: Their synapse went from 18" to 6". That's one hell of a reduction to layer on top of the cavalcade of other Tyrant nerfs.

If you completely, totally, and fully love this codex, that's great. The thing has a lot in it to like. But that doesn't mean a whole lot of their stuff didn't get crushed in the "Make them buy new models by invalidating the old" initiative. It's more shameless now than it's ever been.

[bigbadbalou]

One thing I didn't see mentionned here yet, it seems like that our new army is going to be WAY less CP dependent. It seemed like it was a big problem before, as our army was super CP hungry, since most tricks we had to help out our previous codex were linked to strat, which often lead to running out of CP by turn 2-3. Now, a lot of previous strat seems to be baked in the datasheet of the units and free to use almost on all your army (I think they are mostly used within synaptic link?) or linked to imperatives or to other things that doesn't cost CP each turn (relics for example). Leaving us way more CP to us elsewhere. I didn't read through all the new strat, but most seems to be on 1 or max 2 CP. Again a good economy for us.

All in all, i'm super excited for the new codex. It seems though that most of the bad side of the new codex, or "nerf", that people claims are not related to the codex itself. Most of the time, people are not complaining that the codex is weak or low tier, they are complaining that they lost something that was possible to do previously. And I think that's a normal thing to do, especially since we don't have the exact final codex release. But everybody needs to realize that the codex is going to be an entirely different beast. Of course, if you liked the swarmlord's ability, for example, and relied on it every match, and you see the new codex in which it lost it's double move ability, you will de facto think it has been nerf. But this is without considering all the other abilities it gained. Like with fallback and charge. This is not only good in itself, but it will also proc the +1 for S on the charge of the behemote fleet and other ability that is used when charging, opening way more damage that just the fact of fallback and charge.

And actually, that is one thing that I will love in the new codex, there is A LOT of synergies to have between the units now (which was lackluster before). Each units by it's own are usually somewhat good/medium, but in a whole, they will get the buff that they need when they need it more often than not. To run the army will feel a lot more like an army that needs to move and act together, rather than different models having a role in which it can do it alone because it's a good unit by itself.

I have a feeling that the new codex will really reward nid's players who will lead a more diverse army (unit wise) with more finesse rather than just brute strengh of using the strongest/most cost effective unit in the army. I guess we will see in time.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Mar 18, 2022 13:24:45 GMT kazetanade said:

They're fluffy secondaries though. I actually like spore seeding as a concept.

Also mentioned elsewhere, but I did not notice the just insane amount of spore mine that can be shat out now. 2d3 per Biovore, 6 from a sporocyte (who is not a fortificati9n anymore), a bunch from Harpies- it's an interesting take on the 8th Ed meme list, where you deny scoring using spores.

I only have one question: does it survive tripsurge tau?

I thought biovores seeded 1d3 per model in a unit? Did I miss something that allows for 2d3?

Not going to lie, I'm going to be kitbashing another biovore/pyrovore (to get me up to 6 total) and basing more mines based upon these leaks. I'm doing water bases for the spore mines so they take quite a bit of time.

[asvic]

Mar 18, 2022 14:18:20 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

Mar 18, 2022 13:24:45 GMT kazetanade said:

They're fluffy secondaries though. I actually like spore seeding as a concept.

Also mentioned elsewhere, but I did not notice the just insane amount of spore mine that can be shat out now. 2d3 per Biovore, 6 from a sporocyte (who is not a fortificati9n anymore), a bunch from Harpies- it's an interesting take on the 8th Ed meme list, where you deny scoring using spores.

I only have one question: does it survive tripsurge tau?

I thought biovores seeded 1d3 per model in a unit? Did I miss something that allows for 2d3?

Not going to lie, I'm going to be kitbashing another biovore/pyrovore (to get me up to 6 total) and basing more mines based upon these leaks. I'm doing water bases for the spore mines so they take quite a bit of time.

d3 per model, and only one unit from army can start this action, so 3d3 mines from vores max.

[kazetanade]

Mar 18, 2022 14:18:20 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

Mar 18, 2022 13:24:45 GMT kazetanade said:

They're fluffy secondaries though. I actually like spore seeding as a concept.

Also mentioned elsewhere, but I did not notice the just insane amount of spore mine that can be shat out now. 2d3 per Biovore, 6 from a sporocyte (who is not a fortificati9n anymore), a bunch from Harpies- it's an interesting take on the 8th Ed meme list, where you deny scoring using spores.

I only have one question: does it survive tripsurge tau?

I thought biovores seeded 1d3 per model in a unit? Did I miss something that allows for 2d3?

Not going to lie, I'm going to be kitbashing another biovore/pyrovore (to get me up to 6 total) and basing more mines based upon these leaks. I'm doing water bases for the spore mines so they take quite a bit of time.

yes, it's called a typo. I mistyped 2d3 XD oopsie.

[Aux]

Mar 18, 2022 7:38:44 GMT SNA said:

I've never seen so many bad takes in my life as this thread. People complaining about this codex must be absolutely terrible at this game AND terrible at understanding Tyranids. Hive Guard got nerfed? Bloody good thing, they were an overpowered and un-niddy crutch that made us play like a stupid Imperial Guard gunline, not like an onrushing swarm of bio-engineered ripping, tearing, gribbly monsters.

Shout out to nameless for being the voice of reason. The rest of you need to unlearn the (please do not swear) version of the faction we were stuck with last edition and embrace the most real representation of Tyranids we've had in over a decade, maybe ever. The complaints that this codex is "weak" are utterly mindblowing to me when, even without the Octarius War and Crusher Stampede supplements which may or may not be legal, testers are ANNIHILATING top meta armies right now with this book alone. Get a grip you whiners.

I have to agree here. I'm ecstatic about this codex. We get to use models we havent used in years and mix it up.

[dkng]

Yeah the Mine spawning sounds nice but is 135 points worth it? I mean take 5 Warriors with 10 point to spare or spawn 3-9 mines? And when you’re done with littering the battlefield with floating tumors you’re left with a brick that does 0,75 mw a turn with no buffs on it. Buuut... add some to hit buffs and rerolls and the MW count starts rising. I begin to see a clear way for me to build my army - Mortal Wounds spam. Maleceptor, Zoans, Fexes, Biovores, Parasite. Is it going to be successful? No idea XD But this will be my way to go.
Btw - am I blind or there is no profile for the mines in the Codex leak? We’re assuming 1 MW on detonation and a paper-thin statline without Fly right?

[bolk]

Mar 18, 2022 7:38:44 GMT SNA said:

I've never seen so many bad takes in my life as this thread. People complaining about this codex must be absolutely terrible at this game AND terrible at understanding Tyranids. Hive Guard got nerfed? Bloody good thing, they were an overpowered and un-niddy crutch that made us play like a stupid Imperial Guard gunline, not like an onrushing swarm of bio-engineered ripping, tearing, gribbly monsters.

This codex is so insanely powerful the tourney guys are already massacring Custodes and Harlequins in 2 turns with test games, and they haven't even figured out how to fully optimize yet. And more importantly than raw power, it PLAYS like Tyranids. No more pathetic reliance on named character gimmicks like the stupid Swarmlord double move, instead everything is just faster! No more spamming cowardly ranged units that hide behind walls and shoot things out of line of sight, now you can play hordes of melee beasts, carnifexes, warriors, get into the midfield, trade and smash face. Adaptive Hive Fleet traits are amazing, our relics and abilities are INTERESTING, our units are tough without needing cheesy rules like capping wounds per turn, our damage is amazingly consistent without needing cheese like ignoring invulnerable saves.

I've already seen solid lists for Leviathan, Behemoth, Gorgon, Kraken AND Hydra that play differently and use totally different sets of units and are ALL viable and fun. This codex is probably the one of the best successes of 9th edition in terms of variety and gameplay. It's something of a masterpiece really. And half this thread is complaining about the changes because they want to keep playing like our idiotic 8th ed codex forced us to play to have a chance? Are you guys making early april fool's jokes?

Shout out to nameless for being the voice of reason. The rest of you need to unlearn the (please do not swear) version of the faction we were stuck with last edition and embrace the most real representation of Tyranids we've had in over a decade, maybe ever. The complaints that this codex is "weak" are utterly mindblowing to me when, even without the Octarius War and Crusher Stampede supplements which may or may not be legal, testers are ANNIHILATING top meta armies right now with this book alone. Get a grip you whiners.

And Carnifexes being faster than Genestealers fits into this oh so fluffy codex of yours how exactly?

[beetlejuice]

Mar 18, 2022 15:14:28 GMT dkng said:

Yeah the Mine spawning sounds nice but is 135 points worth it? I mean take 5 Warriors with 10 point to spare or spawn 3-9 mines? And when you’re done with littering the battlefield with floating tumors you’re left with a brick that does 0,75 mw a turn with no buffs on it. Buuut... add some to hit buffs and rerolls and the MW count starts rising. I begin to see a clear way for me to build my army - Mortal Wounds spam. Maleceptor, Zoans, Fexes, Biovores, Parasite. Is it going to be successful? No idea XD But this will be my way to go.
Btw - am I blind or there is no profile for the mines in the Codex leak? We’re assuming 1 MW on detonation and a paper-thin statline without Fly right?

T3 1W 6+. Roll d6, 2-4=1MW, 5+=D3 MW

[bolk]

Mar 18, 2022 14:09:59 GMT bigbadbalou said:

One thing I didn't see mentionned here yet, it seems like that our new army is going to be WAY less CP dependent. It seemed like it was a big problem before, as our army was super CP hungry, since most tricks we had to help out our previous codex were linked to strat, which often lead to running out of CP by turn 2-3. Now, a lot of previous strat seems to be baked in the datasheet of the units and free to use almost on all your army (I think they are mostly used within synaptic link?) or linked to imperatives or to other things that doesn't cost CP each turn (relics for example). Leaving us way more CP to us elsewhere. I didn't read through all the new strat, but most seems to be on 1 or max 2 CP. Again a good economy for us.

All in all, i'm super excited for the new codex. It seems though that most of the bad side of the new codex, or "nerf", that people claims are not related to the codex itself. Most of the time, people are not complaining that the codex is weak or low tier, they are complaining that they lost something that was possible to do previously. And I think that's a normal thing to do, especially since we don't have the exact final codex release. But everybody needs to realize that the codex is going to be an entirely different beast. Of course, if you liked the swarmlord's ability, for example, and relied on it every match, and you see the new codex in which it lost it's double move ability, you will de facto think it has been nerf. But this is without considering all the other abilities it gained. Like with fallback and charge. This is not only good in itself, but it will also proc the +1 for S on the charge of the behemote fleet and other ability that is used when charging, opening way more damage that just the fact of fallback and charge.

And actually, that is one thing that I will love in the new codex, there is A LOT of synergies to have between the units now (which was lackluster before). Each units by it's own are usually somewhat good/medium, but in a whole, they will get the buff that they need when they need it more often than not. To run the army will feel a lot more like an army that needs to move and act together, rather than different models having a role in which it can do it alone because it's a good unit by itself.

I have a feeling that the new codex will really reward nid's players who will lead a more diverse army (unit wise) with more finesse rather than just brute strengh of using the strongest/most cost effective unit in the army. I guess we will see in time.

Again, we who are reserved about the codex see the good stuff in this, but again we see GW obviously dictating what they want Tyranids players to buy. The last few years they've sold plenty of Hive Guard, Tyrants, Swarmlords, Genestealers and Warriors. Except for Warriors all those took significant hits.

We love to try out new lists and new ways to play the army, but not because some units obviously are worse than others. I for one am sick of Tyrant Spam for example, but removing so many options from it instead of making the previous lackluster units in the faction better and then worth considering, is just bad rules writing.