point of tyranid prime in warrior squads?

[andersp90]

So a warrior squad consists of 1 prime and 2-5 warriors, but as far as I can tell, the prime has no special rules or stats attached to it, so its just a warrior in all but name?
Am I missing something or is that really the case? And if so, why bother? 

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Oct 28, 2023 13:47:17 GMT andersp90 said:

So a warrior squad consists of 1 prime and 2-5 warriors, but as far as I can tell, the prime has no special rules or stats attached to it, so its just a warrior in all but name?
Am I missing something or is that really the case? And if so, why bother? 

The prime is the sargeant so I think it's the only one that can get upgrades in crusade. Other than that, no functional differences.

[gauntlet]

The Primes purpose on the datasheet is a pathetic attempt to say, we did not f-up this edition of Warhammer 40k. Look! the datasheet does represent the options on the model sprue.

[piersonsmuppet]

Eh, it’s better than having a character take a body from the unit and force players to buy another box for 1 model or depend on 3rd party sites like ebay. They probably could’ve just made the melee/ranged unique rule “if this unit contains a Tyranid Prime”… purpose found. I hope they change the name to something like Alpha Warrior in future editions, sharing a name with the character is a bit wonky imo.

[gauntlet]

Or they could have specified unit composition 3-6 warriors. One warrior may be upgrade to a Tyranid Prime. so that you can either
Buy one box, make all three warriors
Buy one box, 2 warrior and 1 prime.
Buy two boxes, 6 warriors
Buy two boxes, 4 warriors, and two primes to use as lone character from separate Prime datasheet.
Buy two boxes, 5 warriors, and one prime upgrade, or use the Prime separately.
(the sargent prime would not be as good as the separate datasheet Prime.)

But if they had time and testing resources to do the above, they might have had time to include options for sytals, boneswords, lashwhips, adrenal glands, venom sacs.

Botched!

Adding the Prime sargent took about 1 minute, to type into unit composition database, minimum effort, no testing repercussions, which is why it's was allowed there.

[Jbizzy]

Warriors should have been our lieutenants, characters to lead gaunts. Gives synapse and some other buff.

[j0rdan]

Oct 29, 2023 16:10:01 GMT Jbizzy said:

Warriors should have been our lieutenants, characters to lead gaunts. Gives synapse and some other buff.

I've been saying exactly this since 4th edition lol. I've yet to see a single piece of lore that describes anything else.

[piersonsmuppet]

Unfortunately, we got Neurogaunts instead. Poof goes the lore…