These come to us via our main man on the rumors, Natfka over at Faeit 212, commentary by your’s truly!
First of all, here’s the text in its entirety:
Tyranids. Seen much of these lately on the tabletop? Not so much for a while now, but they are still out there. Here are a few rumors giving us a loose time frame for a codex release, as well as some new units.
Please remember that these are rumors, early rumors at that, so please apply as the author mentions.
via the Faeit 212 inbox (no permission given to give a name)
Q4 2013 40k goes to Eldar supposedly, so will be early/late Q4 2013/Q1 2014. May be Q3 2013. Not entirely sure. There will be a codex release and there may be a WD/model release earlier. That would push the codex back though.
Kit released for harpy that will make a second FMC – current playtest name hydra. Harpy will remain anti-infantry, hydra to be anti flyer/vehicle.
Synapse will go back to giving eternal warrior – and instinctive behavior will be radically changed.
For other new kits – nothing major. Prime plastic kit, shrike upgrade pack, and lastly, a new MC that is built off of infiltrating and will have a snacking rule similar to the fantasy ghorgon.
next two Rumors should be taken with even more salt then normal – there will be multiple large plastic kit that is a multiple option kit that can make warriors/zoanthropes/lictors, one that can make venomthropes/raveners, and one that will make biovores/pyrovores and one for tyrant guard/hive guard. The finecast models are getting changed up a bit – will move to plastic. Also, some of these kits may be condensed into one box. Secondly – Ward is writing the dex. Extra salt here folks – extra salt.
Once again, keep in mind this is a long ways off and these are playtest rules.
Let me tell you, this makes me a happy little bug lover! Nids are my favorite army to play, but the introduction of DE and GK last edition made them no fun for me, and largely not viable as a real tournament winner, IMO.
This edition, they are rock solid and really, only Eldar/Dark Eldar can give them fits anymore. Mech Deldar is a bear to take on with bugs, and I doubt that will ever change much. I am OK with that though, no army is without bad match-ups and as weaknesses go, DE are not the most common army at most tournaments so I can live with it.
Now why am I excited about these new play-test rumors? If true, they will DRAMATICALLY increase the Bugs ability to deal with things they currently struggle with.
- For one, EW with synapse is so huge, I don’t know where to begin. The main thing that put me off with Grey Knights vs. Bugs was the fact one of their basic mooks could one-shot my big beasties. That is lame. A basic infantryman should not be able to kill an MC worth many times it’s points with a single shot in an army that relies largely on MCs to function. It was a fundamental weakness (just as an army that relies fundamentally on Poison weapons undermines a Toughness based army at a basic level). Getting EW back will make that match-up less of a headache, and it means that Nid beasties, if played well and kept within Synapse, will be something to fear again. GK will still be really good at killing them with Hammerhand and Weapons that ignore most Nid armor, but it won’t be so absurdly lop sided. Poison weapons still suck, but I don’t want an invincible unit, just a powerful tool that when used well, does its job and kicks some ass.
- This also means that you will actually see Tyranid Warriors and Shrikes again! Think about how awesome Warriors, Shrikes, Lichtors, and Ravenors become with EW!? Their susceptibility to instant death is always what held them back from being good units (and in the case of Warriors and Shrikes, their high points cost). With the preponderance of str8 weapons out there, they were just too much of a liability to play in anything but casual games.
- The rumored Hydra and the rumored changes to the Pyrovore (making it an AA unit) means Nids will have the ability to effectively fight Fliers instead of just using tricks to counter them, such as board control, etc. Right now, really, the only way to fight enemy fliers with Bugs is the Flyrant, and he is easily killed by other Fliers.
- Plastic kits speak for themselves, really. Nids have really weird models with lots of spikes, crazy long and oddly angled arms, tails, weapons, etc. Having these models in plastic will make them so much nicer to make, especially Lichtors and such.
In total, these rumors tell me we will have units that will all be viable. Maybe not all great, but playable where we now have a lot of units that just well and truly blow, and others that are so good they are auto-includes. That is what a good dex does, IMO: provides you with multiple, viable builds that play the way the army is represented in the background. The example I always use of this is Dark Eldar. They play the way they read, and they do it in many different ways that all adhere to cool themes. Phil Kelly nailed it with that book.
Matt Ward writing it (if this turns out to be true) means we will likely end up with shitty fluff (Tyranids riding space surfboards while pimp slapping the Chaos Gods and blowing lines of warp dust with Draigo) and rules that lean towards the OP if the past is any indication. He is also responsible for the abortions that are the Grey Knights and Fantasy Daemons books, the two most game breaking, unfun piles of doo doo ever to come out of GW. But, Mr. Ward is also the architect for 6th from everything we have heard and he wrote Codex: Space Marines which in my opinion, is the best codex ever written, and Necrons, which I like a great deal. 6th is a great edition too–took a while for me to warm up to it–but I can honestly say it is the best edition yet. So, I reserve judgement on Mr. Ward’s latest work until I have it in my greedy little hands!
I can’t wait to see what we actually get! What are you guys excited for?
I would absolutely love to see Flying Hive Tyrants alter the force org, making Shrikes or Gargoyles troops – even if it was only one unit per Hive Tyrant! All flying Nid list? Hells yeah!
Hell yeah, you could paint them as flying monkeys and have the Tyrant as the wicked witch! hahaha
But for real, a flying Nid list would be sweet.
I’d love to see an option for winged Tyrant Guard !! Sounds like something Ward would do too.
would they move with their Flyrant like a FMC, or would the Flyrant just have to go into Gliding to slow down for them?
sounds pretty fun to play, but the fluff on it would be hilarious from sheer ludicrousness, or just plain stupid like Matt Ward’s fluff usually is.
and yes, it sounds pretty Wardy
It’d be awesome if they could zoom or glide.
I think that the old Nidzilla list will be making a comeback as MCs can run around with impunity and 6 wounds. I also think most games will go from 1850 to 2000 points ( which is all we play down here, anyway) as the line between lots of efficient troops and maxed out power units and Death Stars has to be pushed towards DS to keep up.
Just looking at these rumors and the Dark Angel rules, it makes the CSM codex feel old already. All of 3 months now and CSM is already behind overall. CSM is about taking black mace and Heldrakes, regardless of Chaos god and blasting the opponents. Dark Angels seem to have discarded power armor and veterans completely. And quite frankly 20 deathwing and 12 rave wing plus either command squad looks like they will deal serious pain across the game board.
So back to the Nids. I like the idea of armies getting a shot in the arm but I also think it contributes to an ever escalating war of awesomeness that leads to… Sisters of Battle for the win BABY!
If these rumours are true the best selling model if GW make ome will be the doom, as an EW doom will be so broke that even Mat Ward might be embarrass note I said might lol
I would be nice to see all the mid size nids coming out to play again.
Glad you have warmed up to 6th. I am having the worst time with it. None of the list that I enjoy seem viable. It is not doing anything for me. Not quitting by any stretch but I just cannot get excited about tournaments when nothing I build seems to work right. I am done crying now.
As for the Nid stuff I am glad. We have several guys who play them who be glad to hear this. Long over due in my opinion. The last codex did not do for them what they needed.
Hopefully Doom will get a nerf .
i think a simple faq could fix them right now! let the prime get in the pod! give ic back to the tyrant, cheapen the fex, let genies assault/infiltrate. basically remove the nerf bat from the nid rectum…
i used to love them but now the just blow. krak missiles kill the whole army! only 300 pts for a flyrant that gets shot down and killed by bolt pistols? sweet. BS. ill be happy to see them get the matt award!
Haha…. nids are still awesome though. The Doom just gets better and better the less transports there are on the table and a Swarmlord deathstar with iron arm is a problem for most enemies.
Be careful what you wish for regarding change, as I think it might be quite easy to really nerf the army… for instance fearless troops are so good in this edition that maybe unit sizes for everything will come down or they remove fearless to give marines some chance to win combat against gaunt units.
GW never does a few minor tweaks. They always change things around wholesale so you have to rebuild a big chunk of your army. That’s what we should expect to see when the codex hits, if not before. All I really hope is that the new choices with good rules have correspondingly awesome models and that I don’t have to retire my favourite dudes for something that looks much worse.
I want to see the Horvigon – a tervigon for hormagants! Then I may start using my homies.
Giving the army EW again will make them too good IMO. I actually dread this. As they are currently, and with Iron Arm giving them EW, they really don’t need it. There was a reason why they took out EW for bugs (and also why they don’t let genestealers consolidate into another combat anymore either). Perhaps 1 or 2 units should get EW but not the whole army. Even daemons are rumoured to be losing EW.
But if they do, you can be sure to see a lot of bug players show up at tournaments again.
What I want are options again. Like the ability for the MC’s to purchase +1W, +1T, tail weapons, fangs, etc. like they did back with 4th Ed. nids. The new Chaos Marines give characters options to buy wargear. Could this be the beginning of a new trend?
I agree on every point you just said 🙂
GW needs to do something to fix warriors, they are some of the coolest things in the codex for fluff/appearance IMHO, but they suck.
I wish Warriors were T5 with a 3+ armor save… They really deserve it !
YES. even if the points cost goes up to 40, I’d take it.
they should basically be the Tyranid version of terminators
EW coming back? Yes please. Cruddace ditching EW from Synapse was, in my opinion, the biggest sweeping nerf Nids got with that crap codex. But I’m not holding my breathe, I’d be shocked if we saw an update in 2013 with so many other armies needing new codexes. Which is ok since I’m murdering with Nids in 6e just fine.
Not too keen on Matt Ward writing it. If it becomes a cheese army like 5th ed GK, I might ditch them because I’ve found that cheese is boring on both sides. Besides, DE are really cool too, and from what I’ve heard fun to play 🙂
I’m excited for the rumored Hydra and the rumor of Warriors being usable again, they’re just so cool! too bad they’re so damn expensive. Also I like Zoanthropes, Lictors, Shrikes, and Raveners being good since they are also really awesome for fluff and appearance. I just hope the FOC changes enough that I can run all of them 😀
I’m so happy to hear everything here (except the writer, but that seems expected since he hasn’t done much since the 6th ed rulebook)
I think Ward did a good job with Necrons… Hopefully he will do well on this project as well.
I can’t wait for some new Nids! I love that army and have since second ed!