There are issues / things that don’t fit with having Tyranid Warriors as Infantry or having them as Light Vehicles. It is impossible to satisfy everything or everyone.

They have been changed by the Army Champ to count as Light Vehicles for good in-game in-list reasons, lets give it a chance and a fair amount of playtesting as it is now and see – some playtesters have much preferred it as it is now, while some of the people coming on disliking it because it seems an odd way to classify them have not actually playtested it - and it is how the army as a whole that plays that is the important thing.

Again, I'm not sure that it is clear to me what these "good in-game reasons" were:

Chroma's response has generally been 'fluff talks about shooting the big ones' (which is not necessarily 'in-game') and 'Heavy Infantry is a good idea' -- which may be a good design decision, but it seems one to be made at a higher ..um. pay grade. (nb. tongue is decidedly in cheek.

9.2.1 may be a brilliant end-list. But it has provoked the strong negative reactions because it

A) fixed a range of things that weren't clearly broken.  

and

B) fixed so many things that it's difficult to tell what actually was broken in the first place.

Now it is true that there has been a fair amount of playtesting of 9.2.1.  But B suggests a problem with this rationale -- which is that the wave of 'fixes' was dramatic enough to wash away the work invested in playtesting 9.1.

I wouldn't go so far as Jeridian to say "this list is a dog, I'm not going to bother testing it."  But I'd point out that the qualitative changes between 9.1 and 9.2.1 tended to obviate the previous testing efforts.  More importantly, they tend to raise questions about whether it is worth expending time doing incremental tests on 9.2.1.

If 9.1>>9.2.1 made significant changes to a major 'leg' of the Tyranid OOB, will 9.xxx >> 10.0 see the elimination of spawning and synapse creatures altogether?  

If so, perhaps we should get to work testing Chroma's latest ideas right now.

By the way: Have you looked at the size of the models in Epic?
Tyranid Warriors are roughly twice the size of a Termagant. Lictors are trice the size of a Termagant. A Space Marine (Mk7 armour) is only a fraction of a milimeter taller than a Termagant (and ironically the Space Marine is this same fraction smaller than the current Imperial Guard trooper    ). An Ogryn reaches a Tyranid Warrior to its shoulders and a Lictor to its hip.

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BlackLegion: It's well known that the Tyranid plastics are massively overscaled.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

A Tyranid Warrior is still a great deal bigger than a Gaunt at 40k scale as well... or in Dawn of War II...  

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Sure, but I just don't think it's enough to class them as LV. I just don't see the point in taking Warriors as LV, the other synapose options are better.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Here's a 40k model size comparison of a Termagant, a Terminator, and a Tyranid Warrior.

Front view:

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Here's a 40k model size comparison of a Termagant, a Terminator, and a Tyranid Warrior.

Side view:

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I think it makes perfect sense and, more importantly, it's a good thing for game-balance reasons. My 2 games with v9.1:

- vs. Space Marines > No BTS for my opponent despite a very high number of Tyranid casualties (The Synapse creatures were practically all that was left on the table).

- vs. Imperial Guard > BTS scored this time... but only after 5 turns! Again, impressive casualties on the 'nid side, but the Synapses proved hard to hit/kill.

Now, I've only played 2 games with v9.2 as well (seeHERE and HERE) and my opponent scored the BTS each time, mostly because I still have to get the numbers right on my swarm composition.

Here's one of my comments on Warriors from my second report.

They're great as LV. It feels right because the opponent has to choose between targeting the AVs/LVs in order to get at the Warriors (thus leaving the bulk of the formation intact and ready to assault) or targeting the Infantry in order to reduce the swarm's efficiency in assault.

Rough Riders, Jetbikes and SM Bikes are infantry despite being "big" models. To be a LV first you have to be actually a vehicle.

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I think there are merits to the present LV status as well. In my 3 games with LV Tyranid Warriors, I have included Biovores, bio-assault spawns and zoanthropes as well. I never fielded these in earlier versions.

As for Tyranid Warriors being worse, they are also faster, meaning that you can diversify your swarms according to speed. With the speed increase of bio-assault spawns as well and the Infiltrating Raveners, you have very deadly and fast swarms if you do not include Hive Tyrants.

When I play Tyranids now, my swarms are more engineered than they were before.

Just my 2 cents,
Fredmans

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But Epic is a higher level and more abstracted system than W40k and Tyranids are different manner of beast than the other armies.

If in reflecting them and coming up with a balanced and representative list for Tyranids we bend some of the standard ways for representing models (with notes in the list mentioning and clearly explaining this), is that really such a bad thing? Surely as players we can cope and live with treating them as light vehicles for the good of the list?

As already discussed plenty here there are good reasons in terms of relative size and 'shoot the big ones' that support and justify this - it's not being done on whim with no background/model justification (not like someone going "right then these here Grotz stands in my fan sublist are going to be Light Vehicles y'hear, 'cos I fancy screening my Buggiez as well as the Boyz") - but it has been implemented for rules and list/army balance reasons and it does seem to have positive feedback on the change and the army selections fielded since from some players gaming with it.

As explained over and over again, the "Light Vehicle" rule is being used to *represent* Tyranid "Heavy Infantry".  

No one is saying that Tyranid Warriors are "vehicles", it's using the rules in a new way instead of making up a new special rule that would do, essentially, the same thing.

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I realize that you don´t want to turn the Tyranid Warriors into vehicles, you just want to bring in "shoot the big ones", ok. But can´t you do that from infantry status??

Anyway, I´m convinced  

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