Tyranid points update leak-proved false

[Brother Nathan]

Pinch of salt incase its incorrect but seen this doing the loops... 

 

And incase want to compare also attaching previous.

New leaked

Previous current

Thoughts

Edited January 30 by Brother Nathan

[Brother Nathan]

so as before for those interested

 

Barbgaunts -10(back to 10 ppm

deathleaper +15

exocrine +35

gargoyles +25 (10ppm

hausperax +25

hive guard -10 (33.3 ppm)

malceptor +30

norn asimilator-35

norn emmisary-10

phsycophage -20

pyrovore +15(thats up 50%)

screamer killer -50!!!

swarmlord -20

toxicrine -30

trygon -20

tyrannofex -15

vonryans leapers -10 (22ppm

 

so net down 115

[Xenith]

Thanks for sharing!

 

Some of my thoughts:

 

As usual, this stinks of tournament players ruining it for the rest of us by taking 3x maleceptor and 3x exocrines in every list.

 

GW, if you're listening, those units are spammed not because they're overpowered, but because the rest of the units are underpowered, and they are the best of what's left. The exocrine is maybe the exception and could be 150pts.

 

Screamer killer is the big drop there and is now absolutely better than a carnifex, but lacks the free move and additional model. The psychophage is interesting and ~100pts for 12 wounds isn't bad.

 

They're realising they overreacted with the tyrannofex - yes, it has great overwatch, but that also costs the resource of CP, which were worth roughly 20pts each in 9th ed, so maybe 40pts this edition with how scarce they are. They already increased the cost of swarmy and base tyrant to account for the value of additional strats. TFEX needs dropping back down to 200-215, but could realistically be 170 and people probably still wouldn't take them. 

 

3 hive guard statistically kill something like 4 objective camping cultists out of LOS per turn, so need further drops or the impaler cannon boosting to S6 AP-2 D2 Ignores cover. As they are, ~70pts is maybe right. 

 

Drop to emissary and assimilator is appreciated, but they still have no real damage output, with the emissary's job to sit on an objective and do nothing and not die for as long as possible, and it's already been nerfed due to the change to devastating wounds, which now ignore it's special rule. Could be 260, or have the CHARACTER rule added. 

[Brother Nathan]

I do think much of thjs does seem like good internal balance but fail to see how it will roll out compared to other armys... if this is the standard they are balancing then all the other armys bar the true bottom ones must be going up a fair bit... ill likely try the sk and phyco at these points. May be hard to not rely heavily on zoans now though

[Malakithe]

This is just telling me to drop all big stuff and spam nothing but gaunts.

[Brother Nathan]

If and i mean if this ends up being accurate i suspect itll be a lot more mid bugs. Screamers barbs and vonryans looking f

Good. Phyco worth a try out though its still a bit too random. However i feel like nids are going to struggle for it. Was planning to sub in my chaos for a while so may be the time if so.

[Xenith]

22 hours ago, Brother Nathan said:

Was planning to sub in my chaos for a while so may be the time if so.

 

And this is the crux of the pointless 'balance' passes that GW is doing - increase in cost of the only decent units in nids means 'top' players will jump to other factions, meaning nids don't do well in tourneys, meaning they need to drop the points...meaning players might jump back.

 

I think they really really need to let the ship level for a year or so after everything has been released and then see where armies sit.

[Karhedron]

It is a tricky dilemma as there is both internal and external balance to consider. If Faction X is consistently topping all the tournaments then obviously the external balance is out of whack and needs correcting.

 

But if a faction is only bringing one type of list to tournaments then that also suggests a problem with internal balance. It is not much fun for players of all factions if the only viable build for Nids is Nidzilla for example.

 

Yes it is a moving target but I think point increases for units that get regularly spammed as well as cuts for those that are never seen is better than leaving factions to languish with just one or two competitive builds until all the codices are out.

[Brother Nathan]

Nids arnt in the worst state. When i restarted crusher was so dominant that near no other lists existed and the swarmlord geanstealer bomb. Whilst we now have several decent builds theres a playstyle that all top builds still follow... scoring over kills. Primarily every list is using certain stuff to score secondarys... sporemine or ripper singles for eg being the least interesting but most common. Said spores comming from single biovore.

Nids nerfs have hit our killy units

The exocrine least for me was our only reliable ranged firepower. And hausperax is probably our best cc unit. Whilst they dont win games nids are going to have to focus on that scoring milarkey to keep up

[Xenith]

I guess you can tell through my posting that I have a chip on my shoulder with this  though I should really get over it. We'll see how things play out .It would be interesting to be the board control/horde army that attritions it's way through other armies, however much of our other stuff doesn't have any kind of damage output to be able to do this - so the nerfing of the things we do have that can do damage is painful, and feels like we're being relegated to NPC's who just sit about on objectives and take punches. It's nice to actually be able to hurt the opponent occasionally. 

 

As karhedron has said, it's more a sign of poor internal balance where so few units can reliably deal damage, and only 20% of the book is being used competitively. In this instance, I feel that the problem would have been better solved by dropping points on inefective units and making them better, as opposed to jacking them up on the few average-to-good units we have and making them worse. Like, the exocrine is nice, one of the best units, but it still wounds rhinos on a 5+. 

That said, in the belief that these might be true I've been keeping an eye out for another screamer killer and psychophage. 105pts for the latter might make 2 a decent choice! 

[Zoatibix]

I know there’s an issue with printed cards and codexes, but I do feel that improving poorly performing units to give us a choice would be better than just making stuff dirt cheap. 
 

But I’m old school ‘Hulk Smash’ kinda player. 

[Mogger351]

6 hours ago, Zoatibix said:

I know there’s an issue with printed cards and codexes, but I do feel that improving poorly performing units to give us a choice would be better than just making stuff dirt cheap. 
 

But I’m old school ‘Hulk Smash’ kinda player. 

This is the biggest issue for me with modern GW balance passes: it's a race to the bottom, it's buy more, shove more on the table rather than making the unit worth the points by changing the profiles.

[Brother Nathan]

some things that does work for... point costs being right is important, ie stealers i think are a tad on the high side and other gaunts should be slightly cheaper, especially neurogaunts, but then you look at neurogaunts and have to ask what exactly are they there for? low survivability low damage and no range output, not core, not cheapernough, not a booster  poor bodyguard, unit champion doing nothing... just a synapse spreader. if say each neurogaunt chamption say buffed the neurotyrants abilitys or some such... sure or it had a stealers cc ability, like nothing amazing but somethng to support other than dying for the cause...  i dont have any and only want for the models... but in rules i dont see any point in them..

[Xenith]

1 hour ago, Brother Nathan said:

in rules i dont see any point in them..

 

Again, sit there, occupy table space and have no further impact on the game other than passively scoring. I guess they're now one of the cheaper options for strat res to del with homers or other missions?

[Blade of Sigismund]

On 1/9/2024 at 10:44 PM, Brother Nathan said:

some things that does work for... point costs being right is important, ie stealers i think are a tad on the high side and other gaunts should be slightly cheaper, especially neurogaunts, but then you look at neurogaunts and have to ask what exactly are they there for? low survivability low damage and no range output, not core, not cheapernough, not a booster  poor bodyguard, unit champion doing nothing... just a synapse spreader. if say each neurogaunt chamption say buffed the neurotyrants abilitys or some such... sure or it had a stealers cc ability, like nothing amazing but somethng to support other than dying for the cause...  i dont have any and only want for the models... but in rules i dont see any point in them..

 

I run 3x11. Their place is in the game mechanics and the cost: they are extremely cheap, take up a good amount of space, and spread synapse over a wide area. This makes them extremely good for deep-strike and reserve denial in your deployment zone, and freeing your other units to move up the table. It keeps the gaunts in synapse while keeping key synapse units out of range and line of sight of enemy firepower. They do not contribute damage, but they help make it nearly impossible for the enemy to outflank you or deep strike on your side of the table. Controlling half the table and keeping your synapse in range for 135 points isn't bad at all in a game that revolves around controlling space. 

 

A point on internal balance:  remember that a list is determined by the sum of all units, not the cost of individual units. What I mean by this, is that a unit going up does not mean it isn't strong anymore, it simply means that the balance will need to be made up from somewhere else in the list. This doesn't mean that inefficient units are unplayable, just that you become less efficient by spamming them.

 

I feel this is where the balance issue is. Every 'competitive' Nid list I see is either Endless Swarm, or 3x each of the most undercosted monsters plus some filler. Plus 35-50 points for exocrine or haruspex doesn't make them unfieldable, it just means that running 3 of them might not be the best choice. 

 

Apart from a handful of units, I would like to see the raw damage output of a few units go up. However, the way the army is designed to function, they really seem to be pushing towards the neurolictor to push damage of small units up. Gaunts and genestealers are all functionally chip damage without the neurolictor effect.

[Brother Nathan]

So this has proved by the dataslate to be false... sigh...