Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal brings the action to the Red Scar where the Blood Angels are fighting the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Leviathan. It features a whole swathe of new rules for Tyranid players that embody the Hive Mind’s latest adaptations.
This article was originally published on the Warhammer-community site.
Hive Fleet Adaptations
Codex: Tyranids introduced the idea of Hive Fleet Adaptations. For example, Tyranids from Hive Fleet Gorgon get Adaptive Toxins to help kill their prey in close combat.
Now, Blood of Baal lets you create your own Hive Fleet and you get to choose its Hive Fleet Adaptations!
The new book includes a list of cool rules and you get to select two of these abilities – if you’ve ever dreamed of being a Norn-Queen, your day has come. Try Hypermetabolic Acceleration and Senses of the Outer Dark for a Hive Fleet that’s all about munching in melee – they’ll help you get where you’re going faster and potentially mitigate the effects of Overwatch when you get there.
Those Space Marines thought that they were special with their ability to use Successor Chapter Tactics but the Hive Mind was watching, copying and adapting. It was also working out its brain muscle…
Hive Fleet Psychic Powers
As the different Hive Fleets adapt in various ways, they also develop distinctive psychic powers. Now, psyker-beasts from Behemoth, Kraken, Leviathan, Gorgon, Jormungandr, Hydra and Kronos can select a power specific to their Hive Fleet.
As they battle through the Red Scar, Hive Fleet Leviathan have been using Hive Nexus to keep their creatures from reverting to Instinctive Behaviour.
And, of course, they still have the Shadow in the Warp to affect all of those new psykers that are popping up everywhere during the Psychic Awakening. Plus, they have some new tactics up their tentacled sleeves.
Stratagems
As part of its endless adaptation, the Hive Mind has also developed a range of new Stratagems with which to overwhelm any prey that tries to offer opposition. From the smallest Hormagaunt to the largest Trygon, every close combat creature can benefit from Aggressive Adaptation.
Whatever type of swarm you use, you’ll find Stratagems to support your style of play. There are also some new upgrades for you to choose from.
Bio-artefacts
The Tyranids splicer-beasts have been busy and have come up with a range of new Bio-artefacts that can be taken by your Characters instead of those in Codex: Tyranids. Give your Hive Tyrant with heavy venom cannon the Pathogenesis Bio-artefact and watch them blast your enemies into bite-size chunks from even further away.
Whichever Bio-artefact you choose, you’ll be able to sow the death of countless worlds, and there’s still more generosity from the Hive Mind in Blood of Baal.
Adaptive Physiology
A Tyranid Warlord can usually select a Warlord Trait, but with Blood of Baal, your leader-beasts will have another option. Rather than determining a Trait, you can select an Infantry unit or a Monster in your army and give it an Adaptive Physiology instead. These represent a range of gene-spliced abilities that the Tyranids use in order to secure victory.
Stick an Infantry unit with Dynamic Camouflage on an Objective in cover and laugh your skittering Tyranid laugh as your enemy has to try to shift them the hard way.
That’s just a taste of what’s in the new book for the Tyranids, we’re sure that you’ll discover some amazing combinations that will have you harvesting entire planets in no time! The Great Devourer is just getting ready for the main course.
Blood of Baal, the next chapter in the Psychic Awakening saga, is available to pre-order from Saturday. Get your Tyranids ready to consume all of the biomass in the Baal System by picking up the Start Collecting! Tyranids box now.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
