E&Cs Leviathan list includes the Malanthrope.

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Interesting things from the new Codex:

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Having read the codex I don't think any new creatures are really needed.

The Pyrovore is a heavy flamer biovore
The hive guard is an anti tank biovore (with different looks)
Both will be too hard to show apart from the biovore.

The Harpie is a Harridan light.

The Tervigon is just a tansport bug (are they still in the list? or have they been moved into an assault beast role?)
If it is added then just say that for each assault beast in the swarm you may add one termigaunt stand to the swarm when spawning, kind of like aurgumented summoning

The Tyrannofex is just another name for our existing mage fauna.  It is a gun beast larger than a carnifex.  Sounds like an exocrine.

The Venomthrope could have a use (all stands within 5cm are at -1 to hit).  Though the problem is in the building.  I've used rippers with old epic zoanthrope heads as zoanthropes and stealer tenticle heads as malenthropes, so it should be possible to make them like the malenthrope, but make them shorter and give them tenticle arms.

I like the new fluff on Hormies, they are one of few tyranids that can breed independentlly.  Which makes sense.  They are one of few bioforms that are not a composite of several creatures.  I assume that they are, like rippers, all female and do not need their eggs fertilised to lay them.

One beasts I want them to retcon now is the stupid Narvhals.  It makes a space time corridor between star systems, by latching onto a target star's gravitational field.  This sounds like necron technology.  Why can't nids still use the warp like other races, and just use the power of the hive mind as a massive Gellar field?


The new fluff on how the hive mind works is interesting

Leave creatures to their own devises and let them carper around killing things

If some control is needed they send in warriors to instill the will of the hivemind and the lesser nids then start acting out known tactitcs.

If this doesn't work then tyrants are used, which have the ability for independant thought, so they canuse what the hive mind knows and adapt its battle plans

If this fails then even more idependant and snarter tyrants are used (swarm lord).

I like this.  It exaplins why tyrants are used in larger battles, they are able to thinbk for themselves and improvise, based off of what the hive mind already knows.  I assume the hivemind needs a brain on the ground to organise things.

However the hive has gone battle star on us and the tyrants are now like toasters.  Each one has it own set of memories and skills and if it should die in battle, or is absorbed at the end of the war, hten it can be grown again with the same memories.  Tyrants have lost some of their facelessness.

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Tyranid air marshal

I'm still waiting on delivery for my codex but the impression I got was that the 9.2.1 list would remain pretty much as it is with only minor alterations and the Leviathan list (or another) would look to encompass the new style Tyranid fleets by incorporating new species (Leviathan has the Malanthrope for instance) and replacing the rarer old creatures (In Leviathan Assault spawn are replaced with Fex variants).

It depends somewhat on the background information and in which fleets the various new species make an appearance.

The Tervignon lends itself to spawning based rules, something like a modifier (+1 to the spawning roll), spawning re-roll or automatic spawning of a single termagant stand.

Hormagaunts laying eggs and senitent Hive Tyrants. I no longer like this new codex. At all.  

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"Don't use finesse, if force will solve the problem."

- Lieutenant General Michael O'Neal

Agreed.

But Little Timmy must have his Special Character.

In general agreement with Ragnarok.



I thought that the VT would be an interesting capability to include in the list. I also thought that the Pyrovore could be accounted for by just paying an upgrage to get the "Ignore Cover" ability to keep things easy.

Other than that, most things in the new codex seems to be handled already by the existing list.

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Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Oh, yeah, I forgot all about him...  

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"Don't use finesse, if force will solve the problem."

- Lieutenant General Michael O'Neal

The little B*stard!

Then you don't like the previous Codices too? Because this two fluff tidbits aren't new.

IIRC 2nd Edition Codex already talks about a planet infested with nothing but Hormagaunts.
And Hive Tyrants where intelligent Cads since then too.

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To me Hormies and scything taloned gargoyles (which have yet to appear) are creatures that could easily be gene tweaked to be able to reproduce, since they are only made from a single creature, unlike a spine gaunt which is made from 2 creatures or a deathspiter which has 3 or 4 creatures plus the beast that carries it!

As for the sentient tyrants I have no problems with them having higher level brain functions.  What I don't like is that they can be reborn with all of their memories when the Hivemind wants it.

At the moment it is:
The Hive mind watches the battle unfold through the eyes of a million bugs.  It muses upon the fact that the prey things use a large amount of... what was it that the infiltrators called them... Oh yes that was it "armoured vehicles".  They were taking a terrible toll from the poor gaunts, what a waste of biomass, it would take weeks for the rippers to eat all of that dead flesh.

Hang on a moment, thought the hive mind, tyrant Bob has been used to fight against armoured vehicles before.  He will know what to do.  I shall recreat him again

what it should be is:


The hive mind felt though its many bodies that the prey things had deployed armoured killers against one of its swarms.  With a slight flexing of its might it imbued the closest tyrants with the knowledge of how to kill these meatless prey

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Tyranid air marshal

AFAIK the Swarmlord is a unique (but reincarnateable) creature. "Generic" Hive Tyrants cant be reborn. But i have to read the Codex to verify this.

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last 2 sentances of the tyrant fluff

"However, it does render a Hive Tyrant practically immortal.  No matter how many times a Hive Tyrant is killed, sooner or later it will always come back."

So yeah, they are immortal.

Also Warriors are made from the DNA of tyrants they work for to better help the telepathic bond between them.

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Tyranid air marshal

Okay, got a Codex, read a bit over lunch... UGH.

Just reading over the ret-conned First Tyrannic War stuff... man... the Swarmlord literally bellows a challenge to Marneus Calgar and meets him in personal combat... *UGH*!!!

I'll be going through the whole thing and see what we can assimilate, but, man, it really comes off as bizarre fan-fiction wankery so far.

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They retconned the 1st Tyrannic War...I may just cry, and I haven't cried for decades.

If I recall correctly Marneus was leading the fleet in orbit in destroying the Tyranid Bio-ships, whilst 3rd and ? Co Captains stormed the polar fortresses.

This made sense- Marneus is the Commander in Chief, so needed to be in a position where he can see the big picture and command all forces (in orbit), plus the huge bio-fleet in orbit was of bigger concern than ominously silent polar fortresses.

So all racial commanders are now mustache twirling 2d Bond villains- who always come back. Can't wait for the dastardly Necron Lords.