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Scions of Iron armylist does the same. You can build a ground pounding Space Marien army with the rulebook armylist. But the Scions of Iron simply do this better (even if you don't use the new units like Land Raider Crusaders, etc).
Aye, but in reverse you can't make as powerful an Air Assault list with Scions, both lists have different 'main' playstyles.
My worry with various Tyranid lists that exist primarily to support different model ranges are that they will generally have the same playstyle (fast, stabby horde) with a few token stat line differences, or worse they will go out of their way to tinker with all the Special Rules to be radically different for the sake of it.
I believe it is possible to produce a Tyranid 'core' list that has a selection of slightly abstracted unit types (gun beast, combat beast, gun war engine, combat war engine, etc), which makes balancing a lot easier, that the Tyranid player can then 'slot' their model range into. Indeed, the newer invented models such as Tervigons could be easily substituted in a 'counts as' for one of these abstract stat lines.
Rather than having to keep up with every new model produced or the Tyranid ethos of constant evolution, you make the brackets for a particular stat line abstract enough that the Tyranid player can fulfil it with a selection of existing model choices.
In much the same way the Ork player doesn't try to keep up with the dozens of potential Ork vehicle variants with minor negligible stat changes and special rules, they have an abstract 'Ork Gunwagon' that allows the Ork player to use their selection of models.
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Some, like the Harpies, already have good proxiesavailable.
Do you mean the Harridan? As it exists in the lists already, they are nice models for it (if a little small). I'll admit I haven't kept up with 40k Codex's, so are Harpies a new model type for Tyranids?
Besides which I see nothing wrong with variant lists introducing new models
if the variant list can justify it's existence as a new playstyle not just to shoehorn in the new model.
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Fact is, several of the official lists had some updates applied to bring them up-to-date when they were released for Epic:Armageddon.
Eldar lost Harlequins as they weren't in 40k at that time.
Orks lost Weirdboyz as they were restricted to Feral Orks in 40k at that time.
IG had Vultures and Valkyries added as they were new to 40k at the time.
So it's an established precendent that a list can be updated when it's created for Epic
The thing you miss out is that GW had the means, motive and will to produce a full and readily available model range for their new Epic lists. Tyranids (and indeed all Epic from now on) are in the situation where there is no full model range from GW, players will either hunt down the old models, or track down alternative model ranges- I'd argue the best solution to this is to create a list that allows both of these players to use it, getting the 'feel' of Tyranids regardless of their model choice.
