Hello fellows,

my group is currently facing a full scale Tyranid invasion and thus I have to come up with Tyranids forces. After going through some of the books like the Mark of Xenos and The Jericho Reach I wonder about the stats. At first I am pretty irritated about the Armour Points! Although in some descriptive texts is written "multiple layer of protective armour" the best protection is a rating of AP 10 (or 12?)

I wonder about the scaling. I could understand that a Tyranid Warrior might be comparable to a Space Marine Power Amour but shouldn't the AP increase somehow with the size? A massive or enormouse Tyranid has just a protection of 10? A Carnifex is 'just' as good protected as a Space Marine at his chest plate?

I agree that these huge Tyranids have plenty of Hit Points and even Unnatural Toughness (x3) but in the end a single Space Marine is capable of dealing with these creatures, taking a lascannon or a Melta Weapon. So why use vehicles with heavy weapons if Space Marines suffice? I cannot fully follow the scaling.

Cheers,

-- TechVoid.

TechVoid said:

Well, Space Marine armour is made out of mega-hard cerimite (sp?), while 'nid armour is organic; it makes sense to me that it would take a drastic increase in thickness to equal Astartes armour.

TechVoid said:

It's my take on it that the Unnatural Toughness and high Wounds are meant to represent the effects of their great size.

TechVoid said:

You also have to take into consideration the basic tactic of Tyranids: overwhelming numbers. Even Elite subspecies like Warriors are likely to be encountered in groups; from a pure 'game balance' point of view, a Warrior Brood that started with stats comparable to Space Marines, then scaled up directly proportunate with their size, wouldn't make for a very fun game (either in the RPG or the TT game)- the mid-level baddies would virtually assure a Total Party Kill almost every time.

That's my two cents, anyway…

Dear Adeptus-B,

I agree with your comments since I think quite similary.

Furthermore I wonder how to use this overwhelming factor of the Tyranids, e.g. during a Planet Invasion. Is every Horde of Termagants, Hormagants and maybe even Gargoyles supposed to be Endless as described in the Mark of the Xenos? I think this also leads to a thin line between epic and total party kill. I'd say that on an open field the hordes are supposed to be of a maximal Magnitude of 60. Thus the Players have to argue that they use cover, e.g. within the ruins of a city, that not the full Horde can attack them, reducing the Endless Hordes to an effective Magnitude of 40, 30 or even 20.

And in addition to that, how about grapling? Can Hordes to that? A Space Marine is overun by Horde of Termagants and they put him literally down due to their mass?

Furthermore I wonder about the ranged attacks. I guess that Tyranids are supposed to be melee opponents but some BS values are that low. Together with the rules from BC with a -10 to BS for a Full Auto Attack, these buddies will not hit anything. Any comments and gaming experiences on that? Comments?

Cheers,

-- TechVoid.

I think the overwhelming factor of Tyranids depends on the Situation. As you say you're on a full invasion, it also depends on the current whereabout of the killteam relatet to the invasion.

If they have the bad luck to get right into it, I'd say it's as overwhelming as everyone fears when they hear of Tyranid Invasion and the only possibility to survive is extraction. Fast extraction. Or maybe killing/surpressing the hive mind.

If they have the luck to be at a position where they only face the advances of the invasion you have more options. You can still have them be overwhelming for the role playing factor, remember that the magnitute does not represent the actual amount of creatures. What I like to do is, I'm not telling the players the magnitude and to express the overwhelming factor the fighting just becomes more epic (even if they roll average). Like how many of them are there - "As far as you can see" (which doesn't have to be that far, like in a building e.g.). You can also use the environment to express really good rolls and how they kill large groups but little magnitude (perfect volley doesn't only hit the enemys, but a prometheum tank that explodes and rips apart lots of enemys).

Remember that you can use more than one horde. So if they are in a city it could be three magnitude 30 hordes attacking from multiple fronts. This would make it more like an overwhelming assault.

I'd also point out that I've found that using a horde of hormagaunts or termagaunts with a hive tyrant or three or four warriors mixed in so it causes Chaos as to how they take the enemies down.

I also thought about using multiple hordes: Maybe one for the melee, one for ranged and even one flying, like Gargoyls.

But as I pointed out, I try to simulate the overwhelming factor thus the hordes are supposed to be endless. Furthermore I think about how to 'shift' the mission objectives. In a 'classical' roleplaying encounter the battle is over when the opponent is dead. In this case, the players should achive something although they are attacked from all sides: Reach a control panel to secure an area, reach a cogitator to activate the self defence system or let the Techmarine repair a generator to get the void shield back online.

Cheers,

-- TechVoid

Speaking of Tyranids…what ways can the Imperium in the Jericho Reach possibly save a planet from being overrun by the Great Devourer at present? The reason that I am asking is that I'm thinking up a campaign focused on the Tyranids, my previous Tau-Chaos camapaign was left in the cold since I couldn't figure out a way to get them involved in the way that I wanted with a reasonable explination, and I'm wondering how I could end the campaign with the players feeling they have actually achiveved something?

I am of course not looking for a way to turn the entire tide or destroy Hive Fleet Dagon, but a way in which I can end the game so that the players feel they have managed to at least temporary save Castobel from being outright devoured and given the planet some hope of resisting, even if the chances would still look pretty grim for the planet.

It would feel bad if I ended the campaign by saying: "You did well guys. But none of it made any difference, even in the short term and on a local level, as there are simply to many Tyranids around. Cheers!"

Well,

I guess to stop the Great Devourer would be a real epic campaign. Besides that, I guess there are multiple szenarios to succeed against the Tyranids. Destroying a Genestealer Infestion as described in the Introduction adventure and even bringing down a Hive Ship. That said I guess it comes down to kill the big beast that the lesser Tyranids fall into disarray.

Furthermore, iirc, even the Tau have noticed the Tyranid threat and Commander Flamewing (Mark of the Xenos) is looking forward to work together with the Imperium to stop the advance of the Great Devourer. Maybe this would be chance to stop your ongoing campaign and switch to the Tyranids.

On the other hand, I guess as much as the Tyranids are terrifying they are interesting. Spontaneously I'd think about these szenarios:

The Kill Team answers to an emergancy call from a space ship and notices a Genestealer infestion. Although this encounter did not pose a threat (or maybe) to the Kill Team, they start to learn that the Genestealers seemed to be part of the cargo. Tracking its back the ship's origin they find a planet with a huge Tyranid Experimental Lab.

They must learn that this Planet / Lab is run (or protected) by an Inquisitor who starts to send infested ships throughout the sector to make the Imperial Guard and / or Planetary Defence Forces learn to fight the Tyranids. Think about an Radical Isstvan Inquisitor as described in the Radicals Handbook.

Alternatively the Lab can be run by an Mago Biologis who views the whole subsector as a huge experimental playground. At this point the Kill Team has to learn that this is known to the Inquisition or even the Deathwatch itself. If they start to shut down the facility they are stopped: Where do they think there experimental ammunition is coming from. Maybe this leads them to a moral dilemma, depending on the style of your group, how 'human' they are playing theire marines.

Furthermore as the Imperium studies the Tyranids, they are starting to understand the Space Marines better. The Kill Team is called to a Tyranid Thread and encounter slaughtered Space Marines. As soon as they also encounter Tyranids they notice that their Toxic quality has significantly increased since the Tyranids have adapted themselves to the physiology of the Space Marines.

At first they have to overcome this highly dangerous thread and furthermore stop the whole Tyranid fleet with communicating to the rest of the Great Devourer to not spread the knowledge about the evolved lethal Toxic Qualtiy.

Cheers,

-- TechVoid.

Lots of good ideas. Thanks.

I've been sketching a little on different ideas and some, I think at least, very good ideas have come up for me to play around with. I think that I will make this float rather well. Thanks again.