40k: The (Tyranid) Elephant in the Room

Codex: Genestealer Cult is out and exploding the 40K meta. It’s time to acknowledge the elephant in the room: Codex: Tyranids sucks.

Now let me be clear – I started playing Warhammer 40,000 20 years ago, and I started with Tyranids. It was the tail end of 2nd edition, and soon rolled into 3rd. I’ve played a Tyranid army at least once every edition…and each iteration seems to be getting worse. Now, in 7th, it’s even more apparent, as what was meant to be a minor sub-faction of the Tyranid race has now arisen as one of the most powerful armies in the warhammer 40k meta, and even then plays PERFECTLY in line with their fluff. Codex Tyranids, on the other hand….does not.

The Tyranid Problems

So what are the hallmarks of the Tyranid race, that need to be addressed in what will hopefully be a much improved new codex?

• Without Number – Tyranids strike in massive swarms, millions-strong with Gaunts and Gargoyles and Rippers. While the current ‘dex does allow this, doing so (as with most horde-style 40k armies) is almost prohibitively expensive in real world money. The easiest way to rectify this would be to sell Gaunt models en masse – cut them down to single part miniatures like their 2nd edition iteration (although obviously make them sleeker and cooler looking – hell, 3rd edition’s revamp of the entire Tyranid army gave them this appearance naturally “evolved” from the old versions, so just do that again!) and sell them in like 50-model boxes for $50. Cheap and easy – even the most die-hard kitbash or conversion lover isn’t going to convert every. single. Termagant.
  • Genestealer Cult, on the other hand, well….actually has this problem as well, but it’s HEAVILY alleviated by the affordable Deathwatch: Overkill box (and the Genestealer parts of which that can be bought on Ebay). Sure you have to buy the $40 boxes of Neophyte and Acolyte Hybrids if you want the special weapons….but Overkill gives you nearly 50 models for the cult at a bargain price. It’s even better than a “Start Collecting” box.
• Shoot the Big Ones – Tyranids used to have the PINNACLE of monstrous creatures. You see that plastic Carnifex box in your closet (or on the web store)? The one with SO MANY BITS? Those USED to have a purpose. The Carnifex was reimagined for 4th edition as the end-all, be-all of customizable killing machines. Every single biomorph and bit there had rules, and you could tailor the beast for nearly any role in your army. We need that again. Moreover, we need our monstrous creatures to be survivable, capable units again. Part of the reason monstrous creatures now suck is survivability – T5 or T6 with a 3+ save and no way to improve upon that is simply…not worth the points, in 7th edition. Nearly every army can spam S6 or better weaponry with ease, and with no way to improve that 3+ carapace to a 2+ (which we ALSO used to be able to do) and no access to invulnerable saves (c’mon…..spore clouds? psychic barriers? parasitic shot-stopping bugs of some sort?) very few Tyranid monstrous creatures can survive.
  • Genestealer Cult does not have any monstrous creatures, but it DOES have plentiful heavy and special weapons, access to a ton of high-strength AP1 and 2, and the means to ensure those reach enemy lines through Cult Ambush, transports, and other shenanigans.
• Leaders of the Swarm – Tyranids have almost always had Synapse to worry about, it’s a big part of their rules, and largely works in its current iteration. However, some questionable “leaders” show up in the HQ slot in the current codex – namely Deathleaper and Old One Eye. While I love the callback to the old editions’ “special characters” and they can be effective units (although survivability is STILL an issue for Old One Eye, whose fluff touts the beast as being nigh-unkillable), nobody in their right mind chooses these two when they need their HQ choices to provide that all-important Synapse. However, at the other end of the spectrum, a huge number of Tyranid players see exactly one viable option for their HQ: the Flyrant, and oftentimes…it comes down to bringing A LOT of Flyrants and just spamming them repeatedly. No codex should have only one viable HQ choice.
  • Genestealer Cult has four HQ choices, all of which are useful and necessary to the army as a whole. The Patriarch is a balls-out killing machine AND a powerful psyker. The Magus is a cheap-yet-powerful psyker choice that can choose from some very useful disciplines. The Primus is a midrange killing machine who can wreck most non-special characters in a challenge, and provides a nice buff to a squad he joins. And the Acolyte Iconward provides a bubble of useful abilities that can seriously improve units around him. All of them play into the themes of the army, and all of them are competitive choices for a list.
• The Outliers – Tyranid armies also have a lot of choices for more specialized units, one-off creatures that provide unique abilities to the army. Zoanthropes and Venomthropes got a revamped kit and both work very well….but what about Lictors? The unit GW seems to love to hate, these creatures exist in the fluff as chameleonic killing machines that stealthily rove ahead of the main swarm, picking off targets and killing enemy leadership. In-game though….they don’t do much of anything. Low wound count, low toughness, crappy AP on their weapons and a middling shooting attack in the form of flesh-hooks….they’re far from the invisible killers the fiction speaks of. If only ONE unit got revamped in the next codex, it needs to be the Lictor. Give it stealth+shrouded, or an invulnerable save representing hyper-fast reflexes like Purestrain Genestealers now get. Or better yet: let it assault after deep striking. After all, the creature isn’t LITERALLY deep striking (i.e., arriving via a teleporter or dropping in from orbit) – the Deep Strike rule for the Lictor specifically represents it revealing itself, the chameleonic scales on its body changing color as it steps out of cover to attack an enemy….there’s no reason for it to be disoriented afterwards (as I imagine teleporting or dropping from orbit would do).

~What would you suggest GW do to bring the Hive fleets up to snuff with a new edition just around the corner?

Author: Sam Nolton

Sam is a tabletop wargamer specializing in Warhammer 40,000, and Age of Sigmar. He began writing for BoLS in 2015.