Evan from FTGT is here with the scoop on all the Shield of Baal leaks today!
The Shield of Baal rules for Tyranids have been leaked (finally – been on the lookout since Monday) and there are a couple gems in there right off the bat. My two favorites are the Skytyrant Swarm and the Sporefield.
The former allows a Flying Hive Tyrant to be joined to two units of gargoyles for 20-60 ablative wounds to get him across the board. The other provides recycling Spore Mines and Mucolid Clusters.
Additionally to joining the units of Gargoyles, the Flyrant in the Skytyrant formation gains 6″ to his synapse range. To me, this pushes my close combat flyrant from a bit tough to pull off to a reality as, with 20+ added wounds, he should be making combat. Combined with trailing back to a Malanthrope or Venomthrope and the unit is tough to remove.
The Sporefield strikes my fancy in part because it is cheap, checking in at a bottom end of 90 points. The units in the formation recycle on a 4+ and can infiltrate, in addition to deep striking. The whole Ongoing Reserves and Deep Strike/Outflank thing is a little shady (though the Mawloc gets to DS out of Ongoing Reserves all the time – precedent). This formation essentially creates some strong board control and movement denial tactics. It also recycles 15 point units that have to be dealt with, forcing wasted fire.
With these two leaked formations, I’ve tweaked the list I was planning a bit to take advantage and came up with the following:
- CAD:
- Hive Tyrant: Wings, 2xTL Devourers, Electroshock Grubs
- Hive Tyrant: Wings, 2xTL Devourers, Electroshock Grubs
- Malanthrope
- 3 Rippers: Deep Strike
- 3 Rippers: Deep Strike
- Carnifex: 2xTL Devourers
- Carnifex: 2xTL Devourers
- Tyrannocyte
- Tyrannocyte
- SkyTyrant Formation:
- Hive Tyrant: Wings, Reaper of Obliterax, Scything Talons, Old Adversary
- 10 Gargoyles
- 10 Gargoyles
- Sporefield Formation:
- 6 Spore Mines
- 5 Spore Mines
- 5 Spore Mines
- Mucolid
- Mucolid
- Mucolid
The Sporefield infiltrates into the midfield and denies movement areas and threatens elements of the opposing army that wants to move forward. The SkyTyrants Swarm chains up to the Malanthrope holding things down in the back and moves into the midfield while the two regular flyrants do their thing, as do two dakkafexes dropping from the sky.
Personally, I’m pretty excited for what these formations bring. For the rest of the leaked images, including the Tyranid Detachment (+1 min troop, +1 Optional HQ, reroll Instinctive Behavior results – kind of meh in my opinion) and Warlord Traits (better and usable than the codex options), check out the thread on DakkaDakka or hit up Forge the Narrative for the rest of the leaks!
What about the new Tyranid Rules catches your eye?
About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
Bio: Virginia restless, miniature painter & cat dad. He blames LEGOs for all this, as there was something about those little-colored blocks that started it all. Spikey Bits sprung from Rob staying motivated to hobby on his backlog of projects, while sharing his knowledge with others during the early blogging era.
LEGO maniac and scale model hobbyist in the 80s turned miniature wargamer and trading card player ever since. He’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition), but Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and minatures made of pewter and resin.
