40K EDITORIAL: Are the Tyranids still Tyranids?
The Tyranids have been with us for a month, It now appears that one can indeed field a fairly strong force. But have the bugs lost their soul?
A guest editorial by Drunken Corgimaster
As the Competitive/Win-At-All-Cost/Uber-Plajaer gamers continue to ‘digest’ the Warhammer 40,000 Tyranid codex things are not turning out to be as bad for the Hive Fleets as initially reported. The new codex was met with howls of outrage before it even hit the shelves – this was something odd. Even more odd was the heavy criticism some of us received for suggesting that the gaming community as a whole could not know anything for certain about the codex before it was actually released. However, after several weeks of tabletop game play it seems that the panic is easing. Not being a competitive (or arguably even competent) player I have been forced to evaluate the gaming strength of the codex vicariously by looking at multiple on- line discussions and battle-reports. It now appears that one can indeed field a fairly strong force using certain Tyranid army lists. But are they still Tyranids?
Curiously enough, in most of the recent battle reports I have seen the Tyranid player still lost the game, but at least the match-ups were close calls. Fans of the Overmind can rest assured that it was a great game, or that it hinged on single die roll, etc., etc. For an example of this, take a look at a recent matchup played by the Virginia boyz from Forge the Narrative . Losses aside, the codex is probably not as bad as many of us first thought.
Obviously the glory days of early editions, when nigh-unstoppable Nids pounced from enemy unit to enemy unit to enemy unit are clearly not coming back anytime soon, but a person can apparently still get a good game out of the book. To do this, most hot lists have an HQ selection made up off a couple of Flying Hive Tyrants (aka “Flyrants”) with two sets of twin-linked, brain- leeched equipped, devourers. Deathleaper gets some love in online discussions, but has not appeared much in the super-competitive matches.
For troops, one often sees a couple of big 30-model swarms of Termagaunts unlocking a similar number of Tervigons. –By the way, never refer to a Tervigon as “He.” Tervigons birth them babies. How can they be males? If you insist on referring to them by male gender pronouns, you raise questions as to how old you are and if you’ve had the birds and bees properly explained. Guess what? You didn’t come out of your dad’s butt! Surprised? Consider taking the ant & bee world as a guide and just assume most Tyranids are sterile females except perhaps Venomthropes and Zoanthropes which seem to be wimpy male drones with big heads. Sort of like celebrities.
Beyond HQ and troops, competitive builds often see Crones as fast attack choices while the warp-firing Zoanthropes are a common elite selection. Heavy support shows more variety with Exocrines, Tyranofexes (Tyranofexi? -What’s the plural of that, Casanova Frankenstein? ), Biovores, and Devourer-packing Carnifexes. Trygons and Mawlocs frequently make appearances too. The Miasma cannon is a popular bio-artifact upgrade as well.
So what is the common link in this list? It should be obvious to just about anyone – outside of those who think the He-Tervigon is packing wood, of course. The central feature is shooting. Even Trygons and Mawlocs are sort of like giant, living, mega-artillery shells. These lists are maximized for ranged attacks and that is no real surprise given that we are playing 6th Warhammer 40,000. The latest incarnation of 40k favors blasting stuff from a distance. Assault has suffered in the current game and so it makes sense that Nid players need to optimize the fine art of gunnery. And that is where the problem lays.
Don’t get this article wrong, 6th Edition is an improvement. It admittedly leans somewhat too heavily on psychic powers for my personal taste. If I want a game with a bunch of Hogwarts hoodoo-voodoo I’d still be playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WFB). That or some collectable card game. Beyond the psychic stuff, 6th Fun stuff. As an actual historian and author of a book on firearms it makes sense to me that shooting is paramount. By the way, please buy my book! I need the money.
The increased power of missile weaponry has characterized the last millennia of military history. In the late medieval and early modern period, long-bows, guns, and cannons so dominated the battle field that they helped destroy the mounted knight and the feudal structure of Europe. With that in mind, I wish shooting in WFB was not so utterly pathetic. In any event, having gunning as a prime element of 40k makes perfect sense.
But the game is not meant to be hyper-realistic and so something is getting lost in the new Tyranid meta. The Tyranids represent the super-biological bug-like alien motif that graces much science fiction. From Starship Troopers’ Archanids, to Starcraft’s Zerg to Aliens’ Aliens the instectoid swarm is an epic and awe-inspiring enemy. Games Workshop’s Tyranids Edition represent our hobby’s version of this infamous fictional nightmare.
What makes these monsters so terrifying is the idea that they will physically rip your sci-fi heroes to pieces. They get up close & dirty and will actually consume humans, a notion that added extra terror to the movie Jaws (which a bunch of us saw as kids back in a lost world known as the 1970s). Sure, there might be a little squirting of acid saliva here or there, but for the most part the Sci Fi buggy monsters are supposed to come in waves, get gunned downed in mass droves, and try to overwhelm the more-technologically advanced troops in a crescendo of desperate melee fighting.
But THAT, ladies and gentlemen, ain’t no 6th Edition Tyranids! No, competitive builds from any army are often not very fluffy, but the Nid situation seems particularly out of whack. The obligatory 60 termagaunts aside, the new lists emphasize a small handful of big, elite, shooty monsters. Imperial Guard and Orks can outnumber such an army fairly easily. A handful of gunnery monsters might be sort of scary I suppose, but is it Tyranid? Are the new Tyranids still Tyranids?
Perhaps it is naïve to assume any melee force can really survive in the grim dark future of 6th Edition, but what might have been the solution? A point reduction for melee-only creatures seems pretty obvious. Is 14 points a fair cost for a Genestealer that is not likely to ever make it into melee? Frankly, I’d put my money on a 13 point Chaos Space Marine against that Genestealer any day. On the surface 5 points for a Hormagant sounds very reasonable and yet… we are not seeing them in competitive builds, are we?
Tournament Organizers (TOs) increasingly appear to be the saviors of 40k and perhaps they could play around with this issue a little. It might be an interesting experiment at a more-casual event to grant a 10% points bonus to Nid players who bring nothing but melee models and agree not use any shooting psychic powers. For example, an army led by a basic gun-free Hive Tyrant using no psychic shooting and backed with lots of Genestealers, Hormagants, and un-upgraded Ravenors and Carnifexes could field, say, 1650 points in a 1500 point tourney. It is food for thought at the very least. In all likelihood the complaining that the TO would have to endure from non-Nid players would probably not make it worth the hassle. It is possible, just possible even Chaos Space Marine players would grumble. Not that CSM fans have been complaining much for the last decade or so.
To conclude, I have been wrong about many Warhammer-related things in the past (- although I did predict that big GW stock drop). I hope I am wrong again and that the melee Tyranid build is viable in 6th Edition. Maybe there is a chompy, chewy, slashy, bitey list out there just waiting to make Tyranids out of Tyranids.
Am I just a dreamer? What do you think?
