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On 5/19/2017 at 9:46 PM, Lord Hanaur said:

I asked you if you have an army with 120 T8 wounds with 3+ saves and a 5+ invul.  I didnt ask you how hard it was to kill.  Most will be able to safely say no.  Most.

Wait, so when someone points out that t8 doesn't mean really even half as much as it did before you decide to focus just on that one fact rather than the context of everything you were saying before that? WTF does it matter if an army has 1000 t8 wounds if every weapon in the game can damage it now and quite literally every heavy weapon in the game wounds t8 on no less than a 5+ with the *vast* majority of them wounding on much lower rolls than that and ALL of them degrading the armor save of the knight. 120 wounds when just about every weapon you're going to direct at a knight is going to be doing multiple wounds in a shot, the majority of which will lower the Knights save to a 5+ just doesn't amount to the huge deal that you are making it out to be. You knew that was what I was saying but since that ran counterpoint to your little hissy fit you decided to focus on one line out of the multiple paragraphs of garbage you were spewing out about 120 t8 wounds with a 3+ save being op. Ell oh ell

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Warhammer 40,000 Faction Focus: Tyranids

Faction Focus returns with Reece telling us all about Tyranids.

Reece helps runs some of the biggest independent Warhammer 40,000 events in the world, including the Las Vegas Open and the recently announced Southern California Open. Like Frankie, he’s also been part of the playtest team for the new edition of Warhammer 40,000, putting in hundreds of hours to make sure this new edition will be great for all you gamers out there (Thanks Reece!).

He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Warhammer 40,000, so let’s see what he has so say…

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Reece: Tyranids have been a part of the fabric of the Warhammer 40,000 universe for decades. For me, I loved them from the first time I saw a Genestealer model* many moons ago. Reading the fantastic stories about them in the books and imagining the overwhelming power they brought to bear was incredible and really brought them to life for me. They scour entire galaxies of life, absorbing it all and using it to create even more and deadlier Tyranid bioweapons. The terror they inspire is primal: the fear of being eaten!

On the tabletop, Tyranids have had their ups and downs. Their most recent iteration has struggled to keep pace with some of the more powerful armies, and for many Tyranids players, the Winged Hive Tyrant with dual devourers has been the unit carrying all the weight of the faction on his back (its wings must be pretty tired!). I am here to tell you, that all of that changes in the new edition.

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I’d be remiss if I didn’t start out with my all time favourite Tyranid unit: the Swarmlord. He is an absolute beast now, as he should be! With a Toughness value of 6, 12 Wounds, a 3+ save and a 5+ invulnerable save (increased to a 4+ invulnerable save in melee) he is not easily taken down. This can be further enhanced by casting Catalyst on him (and did I mention he’s a potent Psyker, too?) to give him a 5+ save vs Wounds suffered.

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But it’s not just defence, oh no, Mr. Swarmlord brings the pain in combat as well. With a base of Strength of 8, 7 Attacks, hitting on a 2+, with an AP value of -3 and D6 damage a pop, the Swarmlord can lay low even Titanic units in a single round of combat. Truly a fearsome adversary.

However, his ability that I have found to be most useful is Hive Commander, which allows a friendly unit to move in the Shooting phase. This is incredibly powerful for the sudden added mobility. For Hormagants, with their blisteringly quick Movement of 8″, this means a potential 16″ move before attempting a charge. Or he could simply use it on himself and move up to 18″…

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That’s just one combo out of dozens, too!

Genestealers, who are the iconic Tyranid unit in my eyes, are absolutely lethal. Not only are they incredibly fast with an 8″ Move themselves, they can also charge after advancing. With their shiny new 5+ invulnerable save, they’re also hardy, and I often cast Catalyst on them too, because I am a mean, mean man.

But to really crank the power up to 11 with Genestealers, take them in units of 10 or more to trigger their Flurry of Claws special rule, bumping them up to 4 Attacks each. Combo this with the Broodlord (who is also, utterly deadly in melee) to also give them a +1 to hit in the Fight phase. That means a full unit of 20 has 80 Attacks hitting on a 2+. With their Rending Claws – which bump up to AP -4 on a 6 to wound – very few units in the game can withstand a full strength Genestealer charge!

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There’s so much to be happy about as a Tyranid player it is hard to cover it all. But we have a few more tidbits for you all before we close this article.

For one, due to the changes in the way damage works, medium sized Tyranids are much more enjoyable to play. A Tyranid Warrior with 3 Wounds and a Toughness value of 4 is so much more durable than he was, that it’s incredible. I’ve been using them as midfield Synapse providers who are both good with close range shooting and in melee.

And Synapse, hmm, what type of benefit does that provide? Nothing less than immunity to morale for friendly Tyranids units within range. Bring on the hordes of little gribblies!

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And lastly, just because I can’t help myself: I think Pyrovores may be one of the most improved units in the new edition, and a unit of them in a Tyrannocyte has won me many a game!

*Probably of Ymgarl

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So things are looking pretty good for my Hormie Horde, I'd say. Warriors probably still won't be quite what I want, but they're definitely better, just from the damage changes.

Pyrovores as "most improved" is kind of low-hanging fruit, tho. They just need to be halfway decent to claim that, given how bad they were before.

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That tyranid update is kind of crap... It's like the article was written like the first one but just released now. Oh well. Wish we had learned a bit about their shooting capabilities and maybe shadows of the warp. Not sure how warriors are more durable, unless they get something they didn't mention.

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16 minutes ago, PumpkinHead said:

Maybe my expectations were set too high. I didn't think this article covered as much as say elder.

The Eldar one talked about more Units, but in less detail. The only concrete details we got from that one were the 2+Sv for Phoenix Lords and the stats for the Wailing Doom. Nids got the full profile for the Swarmlord, some Stats for Hormies, Stealers, and Warriors, a glimpse at a Psychic Power, and a few of the special Rules for the SwarmLord and Stealers. Deeper, but less broad.

EDIT: Oh, and Synapse.

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The new Tyranids focus is crazy good. Swarmlord can take a IK knight out by himself 7 strength 8 attacks that do d6 wounds. Scary vs large targets. his auxiliary powers are good to a free move for a unit in the shooting faze before charging makes getting heavy hitter or large units into combat very easy.

H-gaunts and Genestealer are movement 8. Very Fast in combo with the swarmlord power that is a 8inch move+d6 run+8 inch move and 2d6 charge. that is a max 34 inch charge range.. That's crazy turn one.

Genestealser got the GSC treatment and can be made to hit on 2 and a full squad of 20 get 80 attacks with 6's being rend-4. A full unit hitting a IK will severely hurt it in one round of combat. To be finish off by something else.

Tyranids will be a fast combat army with mid range shooting. Should be fun to play and play against.

Can't wait for 8th to drop. Should be fun.

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Although I see we've moved onto Nids and their fun new toys, I wanted to comment on how I really love the changes to the transports and how I hope they tweak them still. As a SW player I always hated as a cc focused army having to wait a turn to charge once I got out of my rhinos. I would maybe make it in with 2/3rds of a squad (considering my rolling) and never feel that I could bring my full cc potential to bear. Now that I don't have to wait an entire turn before charging I feel so much more empowered to send my Wolves howling in instead of having to eat a whole turn of shooting and then overwatch. Also, another change I hope they make is so that if you have your non-open topped transport wrecked the squad inside can charge now whereas they couldn't before. I can't remember how many times my Grey Hunters have had to sit there while the enemy is right there and not be able to charge because, "Well we lost out transport last turn, so oh well". Finally, not having to risk your transports blowing up with one lucky shot and taking some key guys in your squad with it will be a welcome change. 

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Genestealers sound like they will be pretty good. I might take my Nids outta storage and get in a game or two when 8th drops. My favorite thing ever was 50 stealers on the table. They may play differently (outflank is what made that many awesome), but still sound like lots of fun.

Mostly I'm curious to see how transports/vehicles vs nid MCs ends up playing out. Now that they're on the same general ruleset, they should interact with the game more similarly.

The rule for Subterranean Assault also makes me pretty gleeful. I have always wanted the rule to work out along those lines. And as for Pyrovores in a Trannocite being good? In 8th if it wasn't for it being an elite slot, it could even be a reasonable choice. They aren't terribly priced for 3 flamers + 5 devourers. Not *well* priced, but against the right armies could actually pack a punch. In the other 99/100 games they'll be less worthwhile....

Synapse in general bothers me. Brought this up before, but the more ways there are to ignore morale (like synapse) the less effective the rule becomes. And almost everyone will have a "Synapse". Or some condition that allows them to ignore/heavily mitigate morale. Making it more like LD is now anyway. Yay.

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Considering how devastating morale is, then I hope every army has some way to mitigate it. Otherwise, there won't be any reason to play anything else but armies that can ignore it, or those with lots of models with large number of wounds (AoS morale is based on models lost, not wounds taken). I'd much rather see horde armies have ways to ignore morale because then they are balanced against the high wounds armies.

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Today we take a look at brutal urban combat in the 41st Millennium, and a little bit at how terrain works in the new game generally.|

 

 

Battles in the sprawling gothic hives of the Imperium provide many of the most iconic images of war in the 41st Millennium. To recreate battles like this in the new edition, you need look no further than the new Warhammer 40,000‘s Advanced Rules on  Cities of Death. These rules, like the Stronghold Assault rules we’ve seen already, are an optional add-on to theme your battles and add more variety to your games. In these types of games, certain units will thrive, while others will find their paths across the battlefield more limited.

So, speaking of cities… let’s chat about ruins.

The crumbling masonry of once-proud Imperial architecture has been a staple of Warhammer 40,000 battlefields for a while now. In the new Warhammer 40,000, they still will be, but the way they interact with the game will be a little different. Their impact takes the form of bonuses for units with certain keywords, and limitations for others.

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Infantry are the big winners here. They alone have the flexibility and dexterity to move easily between levels of a building, over ruined walls, through doors, hatches and windows, as well as taking advantage of holes blasted in the ruins themselves. They are also the only units that benefit from cover naturally, just for being in a ruin. Other units (monsters, vehicles etc…) will need to actually be obscured to gain any bonus.

In Cities of Death games, these bonuses get even better – if a unit does not move, its cover bonus from being in a ruin is increased from a +1 to their Armour Save to +2, representing the unit digging into cover and fortifying their position. This can make even a humble Guardsman squad difficult to shift, and a power armoured unit all but invulnerable.

It’s not just Infantry though, flying units will do very well in Cities of Death games, as they are able to leap from rooftop to rooftop easily. Some of these units will be Infantry as well! Imagine facing an entire army of Night Lords Raptors in the twisting streets of a ruined hive, and you start to understand what terror means…

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It’s not going all Infantry’s way of course. There are solutions to dug in enemies. Grenades for example. Any Grenade thrown at a unit in ruins will always count as having rolled the maximum number of shots (6, in the case of a frag grenade) and can reroll to wound thanks to the “Fire in the Hole” mission rule.

One last thing Cities of Death gets us is a new selection of Stratagems. One of our favourites is Sewer Rat, which lets you set up a sneaky unit of subterranean infiltrators in the enemy’s face during deployment or right on an objective.

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One war zone where the narrative certainly calls for Cities of Death battles is Ultramar. At the end of the Gathering Storm, we already saw the forces of the Traitor Legions launch their attack on the Ultramarines utopian* worlds. Now the great cities of every planet are either surrounded or active battlefields.

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With his home under siege, you better believe that the liberation of the 500 Worlds** are high on the list for Guilliman’s Indomitus Crusade

*Well, by Imperial standards anyway.
**Being in stasis for 10,000 years, it probably only feels like yesterday to Guilliman that he liberated them from the Traitor Legions the first time…

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