Warhammer 40k Tyranids Faction Focus Showcases Some Truly Terrifying Bugs
| Tags: General
| Author Bence Loksa
After the Space Marines, their major enemy gets the spotlight before the start of the 10th Edition of Warhammer 40k.
Why would you need some high-and-mighty or vile reason to destroy the galaxy if you could just say you were very hungry? Usually, a Snickers is enough to calm everyone down in instances like that – but not the Tyranids, who are hellbent on getting all the biomass they can lay their hands (claws? tentacles?) on. In a recent Warhammer Community post, Games Workshop have shed some light on the monstrosities of the Tyranids, who will be a truly terrifying foe to face in the next edition of the tabletop game.
Faction Rules showcased in the Warhammer 40k Tyranids Faction Focus
Where Space Marines have Tactical Doctrines, Tyranids have Synapse: a powerfool tool to keep your smaller, simpler Tyranid units from fleeing – or in the new edition, suffering Battle-shock. While the rank and file troops of the space bugs have relatively low Leadership characteristics, if they are next to a bigger monster which channels the Hivemind, they can be more resilient than some other troops.
The new Synapse Army Rule lets Tyranids roll with 3 D6 dice instead of 2 when they take a Battle-shock test – provided they are in 6” of one or more Synapse unit from your army. But that’s not the only use for the Synapse units in the new edition.
As I said, they also serve as conduits for the Shadow in the Warp, and they can unleash the Hivemind’s wrath upon the whole battlefield once per game. With the new Shadown in the Warp Army Rule, in either player’s Command phase, you can force enemy units to take a Battle-shock test – and if they fail, their effectiveness in holding objectives is nullified.
These two abilites make it so that the Tyranids are truly a force to be reckoned with, as they can manipulate the ebb and flow of battlefield supremacy.
Unit Spotlights of the Warhammer 40k Tyranids Faction Focus
The first unit showcased in the Faction Focus is the Genestealers, a vital part of any Tyranid invasion as they lay the grounds for the Hive Fleet’s arrival. The new Genestealers are the epitome of the “simplified, not simple” philosophy of the 10th Edition: they lost their forward deployment ability, their Infestation node power and the 4+ Invulnerable Save against melee attack, but gained a new keyword called Scouts 8”, which let’s them make an 8 inch pregame move, and they also got a different Vanguard Predator ability.
The new skill of the Genestealers let’s them reroll a Wound roll of 1, or the entire Wound roll if they are in the range of an objective marker – which means that Genestealers should be a premier unit for storming objectives and pushing opponents off of it, while some backup troops take it for the Hivemind. Genestealers also received and extra Wound, have a better Weapon Skill, but lost one AP on their Claws in order the balance things out. Still, they can take a bigger beating, which means they can take on bigger enemies on the battlefield.
The other unit that GW showed us was none other than the Swarmlord himself, who is still the leader the swarm needs to take down it’s toughest opponents. The Swarmlord lost 3 Wounds but received 2 extra pips of Toughness, while also shedding his weakness of Bracketing, meaning that the monster will be as deadly on 1 Wound as on 10. With the changes to the way Psyschic Powers work, the Swarmlord now only knows Synaptic pulse, a powerful ranged weapon akin to a flamer or similar weapon. His Bone Sabres received a bit of a nerf all around, only having 2 AP and 8 Attacks.
But the new abilities of the Swarmlord more than make up for it. Other than being a Synapse and Leader Character, he also grants 1 CP in every Command Phase if he’s on the battlefield, and can make one of your opponent’s Stratagems more expensive for the rest of the game, which is an incredibly strong ability. He also has a bigger Synapse range of 9”, so he can lead even bigger troops.
While the Swarmlord lost some tools, Maling Presence seems like an incredibly strong tool to disrupt your opponent, which should not be taken lightly.
Weapon Spotlight of the Warhammer 40k Tyranids Faction Focus
Only one gun was showcased in the Faction Spotlight: the Tyrannofex’s Rupture Cannon. One of the best anti-tank guns of the swarm, the Rupture Cannon gained 4 pips of Strenght, which increased the characteristic to a whopping 18, so it should wound on 2+ against basically anything. In exchange of that buff, it now only has 2 shots instead of 3, and got a bit more unreliable, as it now deals 2D6 damage instead of D6+4 – but if you roll well enough, it can exceed the damage it dealt in 9th Edition. Also, the new Heavy keyword makes it so that it can hit on a 2+ instead of a 3+ if your Tyrannofex didn’t move before shooting – and with a 48” range, he really doesn’t have to.
Stratagem Spotlight of the Warhammer 40k Tyranids Faction Focus
Games Workshop also showed a new Stratagem of the Tyranid Faction called Endless Swarm, which really speaks for itself. This Stratagem can be used in your Command Phase on a unit with an Endless Multitude keyword, for example Termagants, Hormagaunts and the new Neurogaunts, which come in the Leviathan Starter Box at the beginning of the 10th Edition. With the Stratagem, two units in Synapse Range can revive up to D3+3 units, meaning that if you don’t wipe a squad of Tyranids, they will just keep coming back again and again until the Tyranid player has CP left – which shouldn’t be a problem with the Swarmlord’s new ability. This Strat makes it really hard to table the Tyranids, which is a great fluff element for the Faction.
Overall, Games Workshop didn’t show as much new stuff coming for Tyranids as they did with the Space Marines – but that just means that when the 10th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 drops, it will be even sweeter to find some new combos for the ever-growing swarm. The next Edition of Warhammer 40k is looking better and better with each Faction Focus and article Games Workshop releases – don’t forget to follow ESTNN if you don’t want to miss any of the new stuff for 10th Edition!