[Heirodule]

Title says it all really, from what ive been hearing about the new codex, some of the new stuff seems daft and not thought through properly, whilst others seem to be great ideas.

The main culprits as far as im concernd are:

The Tervigon. This just dosnt seem to fit in with its rules. I think the idea is good, but giving it to an MC just dosnt seem right. For one, how does it produce these guants, theres potential for 50 guants to be spewed out, so the entire body would have to be filled with guants in order to have that much capactity. IMHO it would make much more sense to have i hive node like those from DoW2
doing the spawning and have the tervigon as a "medic" of sorts, a cross between a painboy and a tomb spider.

and..

The Harpy. From what i understand this is a flying MC that can take Heavy wepons. So essentially its a mini Harridan. It just dosnt seem right to have flying swarms of huge creatures going about the place, and if they did, surley theyd be CC based, not shooty.

Finally

The Broodlords. These were portrayed as being "the vanguard of a swarm" and being "the first one down on planet, with his retinue of genestealers" and other general bits impling he was an elite leader and there was only one of him. But now theres multiples suddenly appearing, so its gone from vanguard commander to a pumped up sargent. Just dosnt seem right.

So does anyone else share my veiws, or is there good reason for these new beastys that ive simply missed. Post your thoughts.

 

[Dragons]

Uhhh.. No.

We're talking about the hive mind here.. A 'being' that can and does custom create enough different types of tyranid that they can consume an entire planet's worth of bio systems. Think about how many THOUSANDS of species that must be created just consume a single earthlike planet. Everything from the microspores to the insect/rippers to the little to the big bugs adapted for Ocean, fresh water, ice, cold, desert and everything in between... on the fly. Now the fact that we are limited to a few dozen (score) variations of them for our army doesn't mean that there wouldn't be LOTS that are stranger than those that we have.

Tervigon --- Eats bio mass in HUGE quantities as it lumbers down the field and lays eggs that hyper mature and hatch gaunts.. the entire process takes about 1 minute and the gaunts springing into action immediately will burn out and die of 'old age' in about 30 more minutes... well after the battle.

There are lots of ways to 'explain' each of the 'nids you mentioned. With millions of possibilities on EACH planet.. Anything can be created by the Hivemind!

-Dragons

 

[Torden]

The Tervigon. This just dosnt seem to fit in with its rules. I think the idea is good, but giving it to an MC just dosnt seem right. For one, how does it produce these guants, theres potential for 50 guants to be spewed out, so the entire body would have to be filled with guants in order to have that much capactity. IMHO it would make much more sense to have i hive node like those from DoW2
doing the spawning and have the tervigon as a "medic" of sorts, a cross between a painboy and a tomb spider.

The tyranids are known for their advanced biological control and adaptation, thus rapid growth of one of their lowest sub-species is not out of the question.

and..

The Harpy. From what i understand this is a flying MC that can take Heavy wepons. So essentially its a mini Harridan. It just dosnt seem right to have flying swarms of huge creatures going about the place, and if they did, surley theyd be CC based, not shooty.

3 per army hardly counts as a swarm. This was always possible with a flyrant. The hive mother saw the effectiveness of it and decided to begin creating specialized versions as to not have to waste the resources to make full flying tyrants.

Finally

The Broodlords. These were portrayed as being "the vanguard of a swarm" and being "the first one down on planet, with his retinue of genestealers" and other general bits impling he was an elite leader and there was only one of him. But now theres multiples suddenly appearing, so its gone from vanguard commander to a pumped up sargent. Just dosnt seem right.

So does anyone else share my veiws, or is there good reason for these new beastys that ive simply missed. Post your thoughts.

Brood (group) lord (leader). They always seemed to be a sergeant role consuming an HQ slot. I always viewed them as the alpha dog of a pack of pant-stealers, not the leader in control of an entire army of biological monstrosities.

 

[Blood_Lord]

The Tervigon. This just dosnt seem to fit in with its rules. I think the idea is good, but giving it to an MC just dosnt seem right. For one, how does it produce these guants, theres potential for 50 guants to be spewed out, so the entire body would have to be filled with guants in order to have that much capactity. IMHO it would make much more sense to have i hive node like those from DoW2
doing the spawning and have the tervigon as a "medic" of sorts, a cross between a painboy and a tomb spider.

I could see this work. Like said before it eats the biomass of the world it's on. I can see this lumbering down the battlefield leaving a trail of greyish brown earth with nothing left except for a trail of termagants.

The Harpy. From what i understand this is a flying MC that can take Heavy wepons. So essentially its a mini Harridan. It just dosnt seem right to have flying swarms of huge creatures going about the place, and if they did, surley theyd be CC based, not shooty.

Well, from a game point of few I can see why they gave her the heavy weapons bearing and not make it an other cc monster. Fluffwise it seems illogical as she carries more (ie twin-linked) heavy weapons then any other. So yes it seems like a mini Harridan which isn't a bad thing in my book.

The Broodlords. These were portrayed as being "the vanguard of a swarm" and being "the first one down on planet, with his retinue of genestealers" and other general bits impling he was an elite leader and there was only one of him. But now theres multiples suddenly appearing, so its gone from vanguard commander to a pumped up sargent. Just dosnt seem right.

I can see them becoming less exclusive over time, but I can see your point with it 'just' being a 'pumped sargeant'. I think he really depends on how they explain it fluffwise, maybe the hive mind found them so usefull they started massproducting them...

 

[Heirodule]

This was always possible with a flyrant. The hive mother saw the effectiveness of it and decided to begin creating specialized versions as to not have to waste the resources to make full flying tyrants.

But the point im making is that there are lots of instances where the Hive Mind simply alters an exsisting species to fill a need, not make a new one. 2 examples, the Heriodules and Guants in general. The orginal heriodule was a cc specialist, but then it got shot with long range guns. So the hive mind, rather than create a new species, took the tallons off and replaced them with guns. Same species different mutations.

Same story with guants, one has guns, the other claws. They arnt diferent species, but theyre mutated and adapted to a differnt role.

To my mind thats what the harpy should be, a flying hive tyrant with a slight mutation. Flyrants are great, but they lack heavy guns, so lets give them some guns and call it the skyrant or something.

Brood (group) lord (leader). They always seemed to be a sergeant role consuming an HQ slot. I always viewed them as the alpha dog of a pack of pant-stealers, not the leader in control of an entire army of biological monstrosities.

I agree, they shouldn't command an army, but as you say theyre an alpha amung genestealers, so really there should only be 1 in the pack, or in this case swarm/army. the obvious explanation is that the genestealers are indipendant of each other with each brood having its own alpha, but i dont really see that for them, they work with each other, not agianst as a pack of dogs would.

Tervigon --- Eats bio mass in HUGE quantities as it lumbers down the field and lays eggs that hyper mature and hatch gaunts.. the entire process takes about 1 minute and the gaunts springing into action immediately will burn out and die of 'old age' in about 30 more minutes... well after the battle.

Is this something thats been mentioned in the codex or a theory you surgested? Because whilst that explains the guants hatching, why would it stop working half way through, but not die?

Regarding the rest of your post, im not saying that it isnt possible for the hive mind to produce such things, it just seems strange as to why the hive mind has created them in such a way.

Although this has changed my perception of the Tervigon from a nasty guant spawning hell beast, to an oversized chicken

Fluffwise it seems illogical as she carries more (ie twin-linked) heavy weapons then any other. So yes it seems like a mini Harridan which isn't a bad thing in my book.

This is the sort of thing i mean, instead of making the harridan smaller, why not just have a harridan? Theres already a beast that flys with heavy weapons, so why make one thats an intirely new design, but still does a similar/the same job?

 

[Blood_Lord]

I don't really care about the name. But fluffwise and gamewise it would be nice if they'd represent a similar genus... Though I think fluffwise is the most important.

 

[Zarathustra]

The Tervigon. This just dosnt seem to fit in with its rules. I think the idea is good, but giving it to an MC just dosnt seem right. For one, how does it produce these guants, theres potential for 50 guants to be spewed out, so the entire body would have to be filled with guants in order to have that much capactity.

Didnt any one tell you?
Nid unfold like swiss army knives. The gaunts can fleet and have such poor saves because they are mostly hollow. Rippers, gaunts and spore mines all use to the basic design of having large internal bladders. Gaunts as you seen them have had their bladders filled with compressed air so they look big and can function - otherwise it would take forever to crawl to the enemy. Spore mines have their bladders filled with explosive bio-oils. The rippers you see are actually empty, thats why they are small, after the battle they will gorge to fill their nutrient bladders.

 

[Phalanx]

A single tervigon can actually pump out a maximum of 108 termagants per game, to 50. Of course that would require 6 turns of rolling 4,5,6 and one turn of rolling 6,6,6, but its still possible. Just unlikely (1/30091839012864, or a 3.32x10^-12% chance). Either way, I can see why its weird.

As for the harpy... I have no problems with it. Why would it be a close combat unit? With wings you could stay out of the opponent's reach and rain death on them. If you charge then the enemy can rip apart your wings and you're screwed. It makes more sense for something like that with such thin wings to prefer to stay at range. I do wish they had given it an extra attack or two, though. 2 attacks isn't worth much.

 

[grantneodude]

This is the sort of thing i mean, instead of making the harridan smaller, why not just have a harridan? Theres already a beast that flys with heavy weapons, so why make one thats an intirely new design, but still does a similar/the same job?

Why create a smaller Harridan? Because you can make more of them for the same expenditure of resources. Remember the Harridan is also large enough that it can carry a Gargoyle brood into battle on it, so making one of those for a smaller scale battle could be construed as wasteful depending on the resources at hand. With this "cross" between a Flyrant, and a Harridan, you can get the same Heavy Weapon benefit of the Harridan, on a much cheaper, and easier to produce body. Why do you assume it's automatically not of the same genus as the Harridan? They both start with Har and thus could be of the same species (sorry couldn't resist), but more importantly they DO share a similar role, so why would they not be of the same genus? Far as I know we have no concept of what the Harpy looks like, other than that it's a flying thing with Heavy Weapons. I will admit that there's a propensity to want to name something after a distinguishing characteristic, but it doesn't have to be looks, it could be a Harpy after it's call.

 

[Leech]

The Tervigon. This just dosnt seem to fit in with its rules. I think the idea is good, but giving it to an MC just dosnt seem right. For one, how does it produce these guants, theres potential for 50 guants to be spewed out, so the entire body would have to be filled with guants in order to have that much capactity. IMHO it would make much more sense to have i hive node like those from DoW2
doing the spawning and have the tervigon as a "medic" of sorts, a cross between a painboy and a tomb spider.

The Harpy. From what i understand this is a flying MC that can take Heavy wepons. So essentially its a mini Harridan. It just dosnt seem right to have flying swarms of huge creatures going about the place, and if they did, surley theyd be CC based, not shooty.

The Broodlords. These were portrayed as being "the vanguard of a swarm" and being "the first one down on planet, with his retinue of genestealers" and other general bits impling he was an elite leader and there was only one of him. But now theres multiples suddenly appearing, so its gone from vanguard commander to a pumped up sargent. Just dosnt seem right.

I can see that you may not be entirely happy with some of what is in the new codex. I was a bit concerned too when I heard of some of the new stuff but I think it will be ok now. I will try and put you at ease, an unhappy Hierodule is a bad thing.

The Tervigon may seem silly in how it spawns loads of Gaunts all the time. It is likely that the Gaunts are still eggs or embryos when they emerge. They grow really fast, like the Alien did in Alien but with special-extra-growth-hormones. Or like this thing in the video, though Gaunts don't get that big.

[video=youtube;KSrFL4KtW3E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSrFL4KtW3E[/video]

The Harpy is one I have heard less about. However it is possible to have huge flying things on the lose. Tyranids would need dedicated flying creatures that aren't the size of a Harridan, the Harridan is a flying Bio-titan. Making something that large is difficult and they can be produced in far less numbers because of it. The Winged Hive Tyrants are always on synapse duty so they can't go too far from the swarms they command and can't be spared to chase down enemy scouts etc. The Harpy would be useful in all of this. It can pursue faster enemies easily and hit hard but setting it lose doesn't interfere with the Hive's orginisation as much. The shooty power is so that it can deal with several different kinds of threats and also act as a bio-bomber.

The demotion of the Broodlord is a bit annoying. However it can now be used more. I have thought about mucking ablout with spare parts to make several Broodlords but have not doen it because I could only use one. I think the fluff and idea of only one on the lose was silly and never properly explained. There could be loads of them about, however each one is a loner. Because it's like a Tyranid saboteur it makes sense it will show up to aid a swarm but won't lead one. It is like the Lictor in that way, it works apart from the swarm but shows up when prey is found.

Hope this helps.

 

[Dragons]

Regarding the rest of your post, im not saying that it isnt possible for the hive mind to produce such things, it just seems strange as to why the hive mind has created them in such a way.

Although this has changed my perception of the Tervigon from a nasty guant spawning hell beast, to an oversized chicken

LMAO.. I almost fell out of my chair... I think I can see a GREAT 'joke' conversion/modeling project coming!

Something to keep in mind though.. The Tyranid Swarm that is created by the Hive mind is several orders of magnitude larger than what WE (the players) get to put on the table. We have a limited number of VERY similar creatures so we can have an army 'ballanced' against an opponant with a different one.


The species of the hive mind are nearly limitless.. we players on the otherhand play with a VERY limited palate of the hiveminds resources.. I expect there are flyers from midge size to wasp to chihuhua to dog to human to horse to buffalo to shark to whale to LEVIATHAN sized flyers on up to the hive ships which some are PLANET sized... and hundreds of iterations between with every type of weapon... We just don't get to USE them all....


I expect the reason we have such creatures in such configurations is a play/ballance reason.. It's to fill a niche in the 'battle strategy' of the overall army (at least in the minds of the Developers)...

-Dragons

 

[Heirodule]

First of all thank you leech for that vid, thats much easier to comprehend now. One question though, is that actuallly how its described in the codex or do they say something else. But guants being spewd out from a tervigon at about the size of a ripper and growing works for me.

And thanks to all for the thoughts regarding the Harpy and broodlords.

Whilst ive been convinced about the broodlord, I still dont quite "get" the purpose of the Harpy, to me it just makes more sense to have a hevy gun platform on the ground, rather than in the sky where blowing the wings off results in an ACME style crash, but there we go.

Anyway thanks all for your help. :dance:

 

[TamCoan]

At the end of the day I really see this revision of the codex as a revinue driving rewrite. True that's what all codex rewrites should be as a company has to make money to stay in business, and I don't fault them for that at all. However much of what has been introduced and changed really has a large financial gain for GW. Most of the new units seem to exist to have us buy a trygon and carnifex model and combine them to result in the new MC.

The change to the brood lord should increase it's sales. In the previous edition no one used them. While I loved the concept, it simply wasn't worth ever taking over a tyrant. Plus any tyranid player has, at most, one brood lord on the shelf. With the new rules I can see anyone who runs stealers putting a brood lord in each group. That's 20 dollars/lord, which can add up quickly.

For the Harpy, I don't see the overall reasoning for it either. My buest guess is they wanted to present MCs in every slot of the tyranid list. For fast-attack they could either go with a giant ravener or giant gargoyle. Since the trygon is basically a giant ravener already they opted for a gargoyle. The harpy loadout looks like they wanted a tarpin bomber unit. Something that flies over the battle-field, pins units of infantry and allows the rest of the army to get into assault range.

 

[Dragons]

At the end of the day I really see this revision of the codex as a revinue driving rewrite. True that's what all codex rewrites should be as a company has to make money to stay in business, and I don't fault them for that at all. However much of what has been introduced and changed really has a large financial gain for GW. Most of the new units seem to exist to have us buy a trygon and carnifex model and combine them to result in the new MC.

except for the new units that are actually old units but now are in plastics.. Gargoyles and Raveners. Those two are a huge financial sink... for a couple of whiles likely won't be making a profit on them.

At the end of the day you are right they are a business... and the question is.. 'you gonna buy more?' For me it's a resounding 'YES' as GW has been VERY consistant with putting out a quality product over the last few years. Some of their business 'decisions' seem kinda odd.. but the product is still first rate IMHO.

Now back to the thread.. I expect your take on the Harpy is likely spot on. MC in Fast to pin and harras about fits the bill. Hopefully there will be some more Brood Lords too with better poses than the 'I'm HULKING out' pose!

-Dragons

 

[Torden]

I can see that you may not be entirely happy with some of what is in the new codex. I was a bit concerned too when I heard of some of the new stuff but I think it will be ok now. I will try and put you at ease, an unhappy Hierodule is a bad thing.

The Tervigon may seem silly in how it spawns loads of Gaunts all the time. It is likely that the Gaunts are still eggs or embryos when they emerge. They grow really fast, like the Alien did in Alien but with special-extra-growth-hormones. Or like this thing in the video, though Gaunts don't get that big.

[video=youtube;KSrFL4KtW3E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSrFL4KtW3E[/video]

The Harpy is one I have heard less about. However it is possible to have huge flying things on the lose. Tyranids would need dedicated flying creatures that aren't the size of a Harridan, the Harridan is a flying Bio-titan. Making something that large is difficult and they can be produced in far less numbers because of it. The Winged Hive Tyrants are always on synapse duty so they can't go too far from the swarms they command and can't be spared to chase down enemy scouts etc. The Harpy would be useful in all of this. It can pursue faster enemies easily and hit hard but setting it lose doesn't interfere with the Hive's orginisation as much. The shooty power is so that it can deal with several different kinds of threats and also act as a bio-bomber.

The demotion of the Broodlord is a bit annoying. However it can now be used more. I have thought about mucking ablout with spare parts to make several Broodlords but have not doen it because I could only use one. I think the fluff and idea of only one on the lose was silly and never properly explained. There could be loads of them about, however each one is a loner. Because it's like a Tyranid saboteur it makes sense it will show up to aid a swarm but won't lead one. It is like the Lictor in that way, it works apart from the swarm but shows up when prey is found.

Hope this helps.

That video is awesome and I think I may have to get some clear beads to mix into greenstuff to make the egg sac with the base having eggs everywhere with ripper-sized gaunts popping out!

 

[Leech]

First of all thank you leech for that vid, thats much easier to comprehend now. One question though, is that actuallly how its described in the codex or do they say something else.

I don't know, I don't have the codex yet. I think these things are often open to interpretation or variation. It's like when Daemons are supposed to appear and break into reality. It isn't entirely clear how this works or what it looks like. Do they step out or shimmer into view etc, I think it may of been described in many ways. You can use your own judgement as to how a Tervigon spawns Gaunts. If they could not all fit inside it then they must grow from some sort of Ripper or larvae organism.

 

[Lemt]

The way I would explain Gaunts myself is:
The tyranids release miriads of very small creatures (like roaches) that reproduce rapidly and feast on the planet's resources. When the Tervigons appear, they can release a special pheromone that drives the roaches to them, and the Tervigons gobble up the roaches. They use this biomass to quickly fabricate Gaunts. When the Tervigon rolls doubles, it means the roaches in the area are all eaten up. If other Tervigons are spawning still, then it means that their pheromones are being more effective in drawing the roaches to them. This also helps explain why the offspring production rate is random: it depends on how many roaches are eaten up.

I've finally seen the images in the Codex, so here's how things look like:

-Harpies: they look like huge gargoyles more than like Harridans. The only thing is the wings are proportionally much bigger than a gargoyle's, and they carry one weapon at each side. However, I can't make out if they have legs or each weapon takes up two arms because of the low image quality.

-Tervigon: This is very cloes, but some differences: It walks with the body MUCH closer to the ground, has three rows of chimneys instead of two, and the Termas seem to spawn from the belly. You could use a normal Carnifex head instead of a Tyrant's, since it doesn't have that huge horn.

-Tyrannofex: Like a Tervigon, but it has a huge gun under his head, pointing forward (so it runs paralelle to the body). The gun seems to be integrated into the body rather than underhung.

-Landing Spores: Not much to see here. The image quality is very very bad, so it could either be a picture of a Carnifex ripping his way out, or coming out of a maw the size of the Spore. The spore itself looks like a huge sack with lots of little spikes pointing upwards.

-The Swarmlord: A Tyrant with four boneswords. Shocking, I know.

-Doom of Malan'Tai: Like a Zoanthrope, but so much cooler. Take a Zoan. Imagine you see the brain all along the head, instead of just at the back, up to where the three little holes just before the face is. It has small chimneys in a single row at the top of the head, 5 of them, the one at the back being largest, and smaller the closer they are to the face. Then the top teeth come from the very edge of the carapace, with an underhung jaw hanging seemingly detatched. Finally, the tail is longer, and segmented all the way instead of smooth.

-Deathleaper: It is "THE" Deathleaper rather than "A" Deathleaper, hence why it is Unique.

-The Parasite of Mortrex: It's Gargoyle-ish, with lots of spikes pointing backwards (including a row at the top of the head), and small scything talons, with no Genestealer-ish claws. The tail ends in a spike, but more akin to a pike than a whip. He's got side.maws like a Trygon's, and the head is like a Warrior's instead of a Gaunt's.