I have fielded my purple plague twice now using the latest rules and I agree with those who question the 2-1 ratio. I don't see any problem with people being able to field 3 - 4 biotitans in 3-4K games. Like most things there is a trade off involved in maxing out on war engines. If you do this you seriously limit either the number of swarms you can take or the size and combat power of your swarms. ALso, the fact that they lack both void shields and regenerate makes the tyranids titans fairly weak compared to regular imperial or eldar titans (in the hands of people good at rolling holo-field saves). I realise that they have a couple of extra DC but the smaller of the two titans is pretty easy to squash. Reducing its armour save to 5+RA was a kick in the guts for tyranid players.

Summary:
1-1 is good, 2-1 is bad
Current titan situation is all good (but the 5+ needs to change IMHO)

Is this still the "official" Tyranid list? I've been away for awhile, and now I see Jormungandr, Leviathan and Onachus lists now.

It is.

Leviathan is a "Modern" list, based on the latest 40k 'dex. Onachus is a Biotitan list. Can't remember about Jormungandr, but it may be a different phase, or another modern list.

_________________
SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Jormugandr is 'my' official list - not sure how official 9.2.1 is since it's tourney-approved anywhere, is it? Never liked 9.2.1 and since I don't own any of the those horrible old figures I don't really care about it!

_________________

His army is all proxy stuff from other companies, which looks similar in aesthetic to tyranids, but there's little that you can look at and immediately say "That's an xxxx".

9.2.1, despite its faults, is probably much more balanced than Jormugandar, purely down to the fact that it's been in development for 7 years and Jormugandar is very new.

On the other hand, the fact that 9.2.1 has been in development for 7 years also tells us that it's been repeatedly mis-managed.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

What is needed is a clear stance on core design decisions.

Spawning and re spawning, regeneration, BTS management, synapse rules, force construction rules, everything was done, undone and redone, and more often than not, such established choices were abandoned for philosophical reasons. There are also other choices that are important, like deciding to stick with old and traditional unavailable models or go for new and updated unavailable models.

For example, I remember regen was abandoned the first time because it wasn't "feasible" and realistic enough, before GW introduced it in mass in the 40K rule-set. Depending on how close we want to be to 40K (and then again, a nidzilla and a horde list don't feel the same at all).

As unpleasant as it may sound, I think what should be done is adoption of a clear stance on these core issues, and then redesign.
As long as we can't agree for example on the core special rules (how do we want BM to affect nids ?), we won't ever be able to do something good with it.

7 years work have only ended in large dissensions. I think a lot of good ideas have been tried and tested, in the core list or some others. If we can convince most nid-interested players to focus on the core list for 2011, given the experience accumulated, i think we should be quite able to have a much more satisfying list before long.

Wow, I didn't realize the can of worms I was opening here.

I don't mean to stick my nose in other peoples' business, but I think the other three lists should at a minimum be marked as "Experimental" to avoid any confusion. That said, I think it's a shame that there are so many splinter lists now, as each alternate list takes away focus from the core list. It would be nice if eveyone could hold off on alternate lists, and instead get the core list nice and polished.

I used to lurk in here quite a bit, and I've managed to cobble together most of a Version 9 army, so hopefully I'll be able to get a game in here soon and test out the rules for the first time.

@Hena -- I do like the "1 Synapse per 2 common brood" idea.

The reason these new lists came about was because 9.2.1 hadn't been updated in several years, despite the constantly raised concerns. Writing new lists was the only way to try something different.

Also, quite a few people (myself included) just don't like the direction of the "official" list at all.

Pick a flaw in 9.2.1 and you can probably find one of the other lists that tries to fix it. The problem is there are very slight flaws in most of the special rules leading to many lists with slightly different fixes. 9.2.1 is probably the closest list to completion (as it has been for over a year) but those little things just wind people up and require major work to fix minor things. I think 9.2.1 is pretty good but has inelegant oddities.

For clarification, Onachus is most definitely experimental and is more akin to a Phase III list, not a Bio-titan list.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.