So I want to throw a few Tyranid creatures at a Deathwatch team that are not currently available in rulebooks. Specifically, I was looking to have a climactic battle against a Tervigon and swarms of lesser Tyranid and wanted to get your opinions regarding its overall power and abilities. I have created a profile using preexisting rules and traits as well as new powers derived from the Warhammer 40,000 Tyranid 5th Edition codex:

This is a quick mockup and I'm sure there are mistakes/typos in there that will need to be corrected. My concern currently is if this looks viable and not overpowered/underpowered. Essentially the statline is the Hive Tyrant with its combat skills and speed reduced and its overall toughness increased. I would appreciate any input you may have with this creature.

It looks nice to me. I didn't scourge it for play balance, but I think it should be fine.

I BELIEVE YOU FOCUSED TO MUCH IN CLOSE COMBAT CAPABILITIES(AMBIDEXTEROUS,COMBAT MASTER,CRUSHING BLOW, TWO WEAPON WIELDER,SWIFT ATTACK, LIGHTNING ATTACK,), THAT THE TERVIGON DOESN´T HAVE, YOU ALSO GAVE IT A BETTER NATURAL WEAPON THAN THOSE IT ACTUALLY STARTS WITH ALTHOUGH YOU CAN UPGRADE IT TO THE SCYTHING TALONS YOU GAVE IT. YOU ALSO GAVE IT STINGER SPINES, WHICH IT DOESN´T HAVE ACCES TO, I BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE SLOWER, HAVE AN AGILITY OF 10 AND IT SHOULD BE ABLE TO AFFECT INDIVIDUAL TYRANID ELITES WITH ITS PSYKIC POWERS(WITH THE CORRESPONDING TWEAKING OF THE EFFECTS), THE ONSLAUGHT POWER SHOULD BE A SHOOTING ATTACK WITH A RANGE OF 30MTS, BESIDES THAT I BELIEVE YOUR JOB IS QUITE COOL!!!

LORD SHARICK said:

I haven't seen that much caps lock in a post since 1998

LORD SHARICK said:

Reducing its Agility is something I will do, as it has an Initiative of 1 in the tabletop game and makes sense.

Giving the Tervigon Scything Talons makes sense for the profile as it has two sets normally but due to the tabletop rules the effects of that weapon biomorph are different from just having a weapon. In the roleplaying game Scything Talons just act as a non-primitive weapon to inflict damage and do not affect the Tervigon otherwise.

The Tervigon comes stock in the tabletop with "Stinger Salvo" and the Stinger Spines are meant to reflect that. I thought "salvo" sounded a bit dumb as its a single-target attack. In actuality I'm considering raising the damage capacity a bit, as the tabletop damage is S5 (pretty high) and its Ballistic Skill is low enough that it likely won't hit that often so when it does it should scare the victim.

I think you have a good point regarding Onslaught affecting single Elite Tyranid, but I wanted to focus the Tervigon on the fact that it is the overseer of great swarms of lesser Tyranid rather than a booster for the already potent Warriors and other Elites. While it would make sense, I feel that limiting the ability to Hordes-only will give the encounter a more true-to-40k feel and will restrict gamemasters who want to use it only to make their vicious Elites more dangerous.

Anywho, I'll get the stats updated when I can to reflect things. Thanks for your input!

A nasty beast, indeed.

For ease of use as a GM, I'd dump the razor sharp quality on the ranged weapons and just add a bit more PEN. Anything you can do to make your GMing life easier and with less maths is a bonus. I'd consider maybe boosting ranged capabilities a bit. Safe to say that anyone in melee with this thing is probably dead meat, so the party will obviously need to face it at range and obviously need to be 'allowed' the chance of doing so. However, while utterly brutal in close combat, it might not pose enough of a ranged threat. Still: It's a bad, bad boy!

Charmander said:

You clearly don't read the 'comments' section on Fox News...

Siranui said:

Thanks for your input. I was thinking of altering the damage capacity of the Stinger Spines already, as it seemed a little underpowered considering the 15-19 total damage reduction the average Power Armor-wearing Space Marine has.

This new profile includes the Agility score change and damage modifications:

I really wish this forum allowed post edits, as it's a bit awkward to post such a huge image again. Ah well.

Any additional comments or suggestions are welcome!

PierreTheMime said:

You can edit immediately, but not long term- it took me several posts to find the edit button :-p

Overall I think your beastie is coming together nicely. Really digging the horde buff power

Siranui said:

Excellent. I can see Tervigons as priority targets for Deathwatch marines during invasionsboarding actions so it's great you've thrown this together.

Especially as the codex mentions tervigons being one of the organisms left awake on bioships while in transit wandering the larger corridors birthing Termagants as a response to intruders. And being psychic presumably it would send the signal that would awaken warriors. So in boarding actions on dormant bioships trying to stealth past patrolling tervigons would be important with failure resulting in a substantially number of foes.

Good job on making the Tervigon "match" the table-top counter part. I have to agree with your decisions about making this a beast in meleecrap (but hard-hitting) with shooting. These things are meant to **** face in melee but lack shooting support (as with most montrous infantry from the Tyranids). Also, helping hordes is a GREAT idea, this is what it does in the table-top version,you SHOULD reflect that in this RPG. What happens to the hordes when it dies though? In table-top, bad things happen to those in range of the beast when it is destroyed, this should be reflected in the RPG version (sincey are trying to reflect everything else).

MexicanNinja said:

It's already there undr Psychic Backlash at the bottom of the rules!

Battybattybats said:

I wasn't able to view the page, I was at work and it wouldn't load. Had to ask, in case it wasn't there!