The Chime of Eons - The Great Devourer (Fifth Bite!)

“They are coming! I feel them scratching inside my mind, scratching, screaming, running, so many - so, so many voices. They are coming for us - flesh, body and soul!”

- an unnamed victim (4ed Codex)

This article proceeds in bite-sized chunks, but I've just been informed by the FFG people that the image-limits formerly in place have been expanded considerably (and some time ago) which means these bites can be a lot bigger than before.

That's great timing, as we now have a big hunk of tyranid to chew on: the Army Units!



TYRANID ARMY UNITS

Adamant Hive Guard

Telepathic gun beasts, the Hive Guard combine the long range firepower of their tank-busting Impaler Cannons with the psychic ability to see through the eyes of other tyranid organisms, and in doing so provide long range fire support that doesn't need a clear line of sight to its targets.

They're guards in the sense that this is a relatively simple organism that can be hatched in a hurry, to provide rearguard defence when a Hive Ship comes under attack. As they're not units deployed often in an aggressive role, they tend to be brought out in the latest stages of an invasion, to defend spore chimneys and capillary towers.

The LCG, clearly, has taken the name of the unit and derived stats and ability from this, without any reference to the fluff. In fact, bodyguarding Termagants is a really weird thing for a Tyranid unit to do in general: the swarms are there to soak up enemy firepower and to entangle enemy formations in close combat so that deadlier bioorganisms can move in without suffering shooting casualties.

A fluffier read on this unit might have been to give balanced attack and defence stats (say 1/2/2 ranged for 5) and have the unit have the ability to be readied at cost of exhausting another tyranid unit at the same planet. As it stands, what we've pretty much got is the tyranid version of a Tau unit, interesting in gameplay terms and feeding the overall mechanical strength of Termagant swarm decks, but bearing no relation to the game fiction.


Biovore Spore Launcher

At their introduction in the wargame, tyranids were very much a close combat centred force, with almost all units lacking any ranged attack option. This changed with time, and the biovore was the first artiller option.

A biovore is a slow moving and lumbering biomorph with a spore launcher growing from its back, which it uses to lob spore mines high into the air, which then drift down over the enemy army.

Spore mines, or "floaters" (also a nicely British euphemism for the defecations that don't flush easily, it must be pointed out) don't impact-detonate like most artillery shells do, but drift across the battlefield seeking out heat and movement. Once within proximity of non-tyranid life forms they detonate, showering poison or acid, or sometimes just fragmenting from a bio-explosive payload.

A tyranid preliminary barrage, therefore, isn't the howl of howitzers and the thundering impact of shells, but a deceptively gentle affair that can turn no man's land into a floating minefield.

The card art here is horribly ugly, but to be fair, so was the miniature from the wargame. The card's effect is very odd, lacking both the long range of the unit and any representation of the odd nature of spore mine barrages. Also, there's no good reason why this unit improves Termagant tokens.

I'd like to have seen a 3-cost unit with 1/0/4 Ranged with "Reaction: After this Unit declares its ranged attack, deal 3 Indirect damage to enemy units at this planet."

Like the Hive Guard, this card seems to be a victim of top-down thinking, with the card's design built to support a termagant swarm strategy rather than to represent the unit named.


Burrowing Trygon

The relative scale of the card here is nice, as a Trygon really is an impressive beast in the wargame and the fiction - an enormous serpentine monster that uses a combination of acid secretion, powerful jaws and a bio-static melting charge to force its way through the ground, regardless of whether it is mud, rock or plasteel in its path.

The Trygon is a siege engine, creating a path for the tyranid horde to follow. They're not especially intelligent creatures, however, and can be baited by misdirections and feints.

The card's design here is nice in the big ass stats, as the arrival of a Trygon should be something frightening. Notable, however, is the odd discounting mechanism that is exactly opposite to the fiction: the Trygon should arrive first, and then be accompanied by a swarm of smaller creatures. Likewise, command presence is misplaced, and it is absolutely insane for a Trygon not to be an Ambush unit.

My own take would have been for a 6-cost 0/5/5 creature with Ambush, that has "Reaction: After this Unit is deployed, move any number of units you control with the Termagant trait to this planet."
It'd remain a big and impactful play, but one much more in keeping with the fiction.


Hunter Garygoyles

The Gargoyle is a variant of the highly mutable Gaunt family (that Hormagaunts and Termagants also emerge from). They have a lighter exoskeleton and have flight for their main means of movement, so they are slightly weaker and more fragile than ordinary termagants, with relatively atrophied limbs that make them poor in agility when not in flight.

They're usually deployed in the first wave of attack, their flight giving them the means to bypass hampering terrain and to close with the enemy far faster than land-based gaunts. The Hive Mind doesn't really expect them to survive, but a large part of standard tyranid combat strategy is to tie up enemy infantry with tooth-and-claw combat so as to deny them the use of small arms as other forces approach.

The game role here doesn't really fit that fiction, though the designation of "Hunter" suggests that these aren't vanguard gargoyles of the usual sort, but rather aerial clean-up crews who are deployed on already infested worlds to hunt down stragglers and survivors.

The most obvious criticism - that they lack Flying - is in fact one that doesn't bother me here. Gargoyles tend to operate at quite low altitude, and are perfectly counterable with small arms fire, so they don't deserve the protections that keyword affords, nor are they good anti-flyer forces (as they lack the airspeed to engage true flying vehicles).

My actual objection is broader, relating to how the game is trait-categorising tyranid organisms. For my own part, I'd like to have seen the Hive Fleet traits gone (as they're somewhat redundant when all the tyranids in a single deck are by definition part of the same Hive Fleet), as well as the Creature designation that is universal. Instead, I'd like to have seen a "family" based trait: termagants, hormagaunts and gargoyles could have all had a Gaunt trait for example. This would have enabled later cards to meaningfully reference those traits, for example with attachment cards that represent biomorphs that suit that family, or event cards representing the relative strengths of that family (which in the case of Gaunts is mutability, massive numbers and ease of production). This to me would have been a fluffier approach, and more satisfying mechanically.
With 4 cards criticised in a row, a short pause here to explain - these criticisms are out of love for the LCG and the source material!

Broadly, the tyranid experience has proved to be a masterpiece of good game design, and the LCG as a whole remains the best way to experience the 40k mythos. I actually love the way Hunter Gargoyles play in the LCG, and recognise that a compromise has to be struck between representation of fiction and great game design! The designers (or designer, to be more accurate) have done a really good job here!

Praise out of the way, lets get back to complaining!


Ravenous Haruspex

Historically IRL, a Haruspex was in Ancient Rome a practitioner of Haruspicy: divination through the examination of entrails.

In the wargame, its a very big creature that eats stuff. Actually though, its pretty well named, as the consumption of biomass is partly for the precious genetic information encoded within. In a very indirect way, a Haruspex is the way the Hive Mind "reads entrails".

This card is well implemented, showing this to be a big and strong beast that has a very functional purpose, and emphasising the other aspect of bioconsumption: the accumulation of raw material to build further tyranid organisms.A high card cost puts it more often in the later stages of the game, which in turn match this unit's role in a tyranid invasion.

Amusing to me is that warlord card Cato has such a similar ability, albeit capable of many small meals and more times in a battle. That suggests to me that Cato is also munching his way through corpses, but is more of an epicurean, just sampling the odd bite here and there rather than wolfing down whole bodies.


Ripper Swarm

The flavour text pretty much describes this unit, though its notable that this units role and function is so different from that of the Ravenous Haruspex when logistically they fulfil pretty much the same function for the Hive Mind.

0-cost is appropriate for such simple organisms, though Limited is only justifiable by game balance reasons, not in the fiction. I'd have like to have see this be 0/0/1 without Limited, and with a +1R icon for when you win command struggles. That would have been a nice way of making the Tyranid economy game much more distinct, rather that just being a poor man's Recon Drone.


Scything Hormagaunts

Hormagaunts are like termagants, small and expendable biomorphs that the Hive Ships turn out in vast numbers. Unlike ordinary termagants their hands are replaced with scything talons, and they are engineered with exceptionally powerful hind legs that let those close distance to melee rapidly.

The infestation ability here isn't especially anything to do with Hormagaunts: I think what the designers are getting at is that once a planet is swarmed with Hormagaunts, its probably infested as well.

Of course, there's no great reason why hormagaunts have better HP than termagants, or why they have a command icon. Its difficult in the context of the LCG to distinguish between a swarm of quite-quick bug-soldiers who have a short ranged gun, and a swarm of very-quick bug-soldiers who don't have a gun but are nastier in close combat.


Shrieking Harpy

As a Trygon is to a Termagant, a Harpy is to a Gargoyle.

These are sinuous flying monstrous creatures that release spore mine bombs, accompany gargoyle swarms into battle and engage enemy skimmers and flyers.

Notably, the fiction describes them as being somewhat fragile, and with a tendency to prefer to avoid protracted assaults.

In a way, this card is an example of what can go wrong in fiction representation when you take the approach I normally espouse: seeking to represent the unit with its rules, rather than looking at the big picture. The "shriek" ability here is a sensible way to represent the disorienting scream of the harpy, but in emergent play the result is that this Unit is actually at its best when deployed in the thick of a huge battle, where it will be exhausting as many units as possible, and is typically aimed in attack at the Warlord, which is odd for a unit that is meant to be suited to hit and run combat skirting around a battle's edge.

In the wargame, interestingly, the Harpy was originally a winged tyranid warrior. That unit has been renamed the Shrike, and a new concept/fiction was attached to the Harpy.

The LCG is a little odd, in that because of the way flying is handled light interceptor flyers are often depicted as being big endgame plays. What's the most fearsome statline in the game? The Heldrake, which is a light flyer that can be downed with moderate AA fire. What's the tyranid's resilient answer to a huge ass army? A light flyer that is notable for its agility and is specifically called out as being unsuited to protracted engagements...


Strangler Brood

I like the design direction of defining units by their primary armament, as it gives a really nice feel of narrative to a card. Its actually better, in my mind, to represent most wargear this way than with a separate attachment card, both in terms of playability and in representation of the fiction. Its just plain silly, for example, that you can put a Banshee Power Sword on any unit save Howling Banshees, or that the Godwyn Pattern Bolter is an upgrade to space marines who ought to be carrying it as part of their standard armament. Attachments that represent something special or exceptional, that's great, but for general wargear the approach taken by this card is far fluffier.

A barbed strangler is a weapon combining seed sac and muscled tube, with the fired seeds bursting into life when they contact flesh, rapidly feeding and consuming the hapless victim and using the biomatter to create fleshy barbed tendrils that hook nearby foes.

I like the way the LCG has abstracted this effect - by entangling foes at small arms range, its easier for termagants to reach the enemy with larger numbers intact, and thus their attack power is increased.

If I were going to pick, I'd go back to the trait design of tyranids as a whole, and wish that this buff was of all units with a Gaunt designation, or even better if the whole game recognised Melee as a keyword, and this attack buffed that.

Even so, with the game as it stands, I like this card a lot!


Swarm Guard

As far as I'm aware, there's no Tyranid unit in the wargame called a Swarm Guard, and in fact the art here is of a Tyrant Guard, an organism whose purpose is to defend and protect the Hive Tyrant from attack.

Notable in the fiction of the Tyrant Guard is that xenobiologists have speculated that these organisms were developed based on Space Marine DNA, given that they have a fused ribcage with a carapace that is reminiscent of the black carapace of space marines. That doesn't make a huge amount of sense, when you think about it, as while the geneseed could be said to be responsible for a space marine's fused ribcage, the lack carapace is a non-organic material inserted surgically. Its a bit like saying that the tyranids developed venom cannon after absorbing the DNA of a lascannon toting Guardsman.

Another thing that doesn't really make much sense is an organism that is designed to bodyguard a swarm. How do you do that, exactly?

Clearly though, this was a card led by broad design concept of the faction first, to help boost the "sliver-lite" theme of termagant tokens. This being a new concept, I'd have loved to see some new art to represent a unique new biomorph: maybe something with big slab-shields for hands for the termagants to cower behind in their advance. Even that wouldn't make much sense, of course, but it'd be better than copying the image of an existing unit and changing one word in its name to change its role.


Termagant Horde

I've ranted on about pluralisation before, and it seems weird that a horde of termagants is represented by a 0/1/1 single "Termagant" unit and a 0/1/3 unit. An "s" on the end of the name of the token unit and I'd have been happy. The flavour text is amusing, as it should have the suffix "...except in some games of the Conquest LCG."

Anyway, we've described Termagants in the 40k fiction already: they're little fellas found in big numbers, armed with one of the crappiest guns in the wargame, with close-combat stats no better than an Imperial Guardsman, but without the modest armour or big guns of that troop type.

Interestingly (well, to me anyway), the word "termagant" has its origins in a medieval Christian misconception of Islam. Christians at that time wrongly believed that Muslims worshipped a god called Termagant, who was violent and overbearing. The metrical romances often use this term, and later the English language added a new meaning to the word: a termagant was a shrewish woman or a bully. Even in the modern era, show-offs who like to flaunt archaic vocabulary still use the word to describe bullies, though normally now male ones.

Its an odd choice of word for GW to attach to the foot and line soldier of the Tyranids. Its evidenced in other unit names that someone in GW really likes old words and the way they sound, and more or less plucks them at random to stick onto GW army units. This approach actually more or less works, as you end up with such cool things as the Haruspex and the Lictor, though sometimes there's the odd misfire, such as the titanic Dominatrix.

The Termagant is somewhere inbetween this: its a really weird appellation that somehow sounds right for the unit.

Interestingly, parallel words used interchangeably at the time included Tervagant and Termagaunte - a nice pointer to the Tervigon unit and the Gaunt subspecies of the Tyranids.

Language is fun!


Termagant Sentry

Not much more to say about the fluff of this, though its kind of weird to refer to hollow passages within a bio-ship as being arterial.

On a tangent, its interesting to note that the wargame has had termagant sentries in its past. One edition of the game had a variant game called "kill team" written in, which involved one player having a team of commando-like specialists, and the other having a big ass army that was inactive until sentry units could raise the alarm. Termagants were the designated sentry unit for Tyranids.

On another tangent, does anyone else think that if a sentry only notices the enemy when his buddies get killed, he is the worst damn sentry ever?

It'd be interesting to see more sentry / garrison -type troops out of the other factions, and I hope this is a design space that FFG are looking at.


Termagant Spikers

The standard armament for termagants is the Fleshborer, that fires the Fleshborer beetle. Its not a great gun, it must be said.

The spike rifle has got a longer barrel than a fleshborer, and a longer range. The ranged trait is more or less appropriate here, though its not entirely clear why all the other Termagant tokens gain this keyword too.

My main complaint here is that the art doesn't actually seem to show Termagants with spike rifles. Even allowing for the massive variation in appearance of depictions of tyranid weaponry over the years, the barrels are too short and the weapons too compact to be recognisable as spike rifles.


Toxic Venomthrope

In game terms, this is a fantastically designed card: the tyranid take on the 2-for-2 command capper, tying into the infestation mechanic.

However, there's something odd going on here in that there's also the Synapse Unit Venomthrope Polluter, and there's little thematic unity between the mechanics of these two cards. I'd much rather have seen the Synapse Unit have this card text, but otherwise have its own stats and synapse status. Instead, we've got an overlap of concepts without an overlap of mechanics, which is a little jarring. What is also odd is that this card synergises best with the Zoanthrope and the Lictor, and poorly with the Polluter itself.


Tyranid Warrior

Tyranid warriors are the core of the army in the fiction and wargame, providing both harder hitting weapons than the rank and file, and a Synapse for the Hive Mind to control its minions.

The LCG representation of this is nicely abstract, with the 2/2/4 stats and no special ability text hard to complain about. I've already said that the term "Synapse Unit" is misused in the execution of the Tyranids in the LCG: technically many of the designated synapse units aren't synapse creatures for the Hive Mind, and some of the Army Units (like this one) are. However, as a player, I do like how the faction has mixed up the core mechanics of the game, even while the fiction-lover in me finds this nomenclature inaccurate and irritating.

One nice thing here is the unit cost: 3 resources. As mentioned before, 3 used to be pushed out as the number of the Hive Mind, a nice contrast to the five and ten man units of other factions in the wargame, giving a nicely alien feel to the army. Tyranid Warriors used to come in threes, and to have the unit cost 3 resources, with 3 copies in the deck is nicely satisfying for me. I only wish that their stats were 3/3/3 as well, and that the art showed three tyranids!

Even so, while I'm thinking it was almost certainly unintentional, I'm very glad this unit costs the tyranid number of resources!


Virulent Spore Sacs

An excellently fluffy card, with the only oddity being the command icon, but thats something we have to concede as necessary for game balance. Its also interesting to see the Drone trait rolled out: this is the second non-Tau card to carry that, though interactions with that trait are thus far limited to cards that Tyranids can't access.

"Spore sacs" aren't referenced as such in the fiction, though there are spore mines, mycetic spores, mieotic spores and mucolid spores.

These look to be spore mines, for sure, and a Tyranid invasion will often seed the atmosphere with these prior to an attack. They're part of the infestation process, so the special ability here is well placed, and their emergent role in game exactly matches their role in the fiction: preparation for tyranid nastiness to come.


Volatile Pyrovore
To my shame, I underestimated the efficiency of this card in the warpack reviews. However, I blame this on the wargame: a combination of appalling uselessness in that game with one of the most phallic guns in the game on one of the worst looking units in the tyranid army... well, subconsciously I wasn't prepared to like this unit.

Painfully, my new found awareness of how good this unit is now means I have to look at this card all the damn time, and that's not something I want to be doing!

The pyrovore is more or less a biovore that has a flamethrower instead of a mortar. Its also got the classic flaw of flamethrower units in a tendency to explode when you shoot at it.

The big throbbing gun on its back ejaculates spurts of sticky hot stuff, and if you whack it too hard, there's mess everywhere.

Damn, I hate this stupid unit!


Ymgarl Genestealer

We're going now from a card that I am predisposed to hate to one that I am predisposed to love.

Happily for your eye-strain and sanity, I'm not going to go into the full genestealer mythos here and now: luckily for you FFG has previewed a genestealer as the next tyranid Warlord, so we'll be saving some material for there.

Still, let's look specifically at the Ymgarl!

In the original Rogue Trader rulebook, a sizeable section was taken up by the bestiary. Within this bestiary were tyranids and zoats, and also an entirely separate issue for the Genestealer.

This beast was described as being native to the Moons of Ymgarl, but had spread through space on the back of warp-drifting space hulks and through genetic infection of its victims. The fiction was spun to make genestealers more or less space-vampires (though there was actually an actual Vampire within the bestiary itself, it wasn't nearly as interesting).

As Rogue Trader came and went, many of the beasts in the bestiary were never seen or heard of again. The Ancient Slann and their Inheritance faded from the wargame (though they stuck around in Warhammer Fantasy), the Ambulls and Grox were relegated to being a still existent setting element but ones without wargame representation, and cool beasts like the Psychenuin disappeared into obscurity.

However, genetic space vampires are cool, and genestealers remained popular. and the Space Hulk board game in 1989 made the genestealers more like the xenomorphs of the Aliens moveies as well as establishing their rep as a truly fearsome wargame unit.

Genestealers stuck around, and their fluff was smooshed onto that of the tyranids, revealing that they were Hive Mind organisms all along, dispatched ahead of the Fleets as vanguards and infiltrators. A whole genestealer mythos was developed, which I promise we'll look at in more detail when the new Warlord arrives!

The "Moons of Ymgarl" origin was considered to be retconned for a while, but then was triumphantly reintroduced in the 4ed Codex: Tyranids. Here it was explained that the Ymgarl Genestealers were the first contact with genestealers, and that in-fiction the Imperium thought that this was their place of origin till the Battle of Macragge, where genestealers were seen fighting in the forefront of the tyranid invasion. In response to this revelation, the Salamanders space marines purged the Moons of Ymgarl, but could never be successful in eradicating the strain as a whole, as they were already so spread across the galaxy.

That same codex also introduced the idea that the tentacled face of the original Rogue Trader rulebook description was a variant biomorph typical of the Ymgarl strain, and gave us rules for the "feeder tendrils" and their abilities.

Of course, this wonderful RL history of retconning, adaptation and unretconning is what makes me especially predisposed to like a card like Ymgarl Genestealers.

I can forgive the fact that the stats for this card are goddamn huge for a single genestealer, and that the special ability text has absolutely no bearing on the fiction. I'm just happy to see a Ymgarl Genestealer in the tyranid core set!


TYRANID EVENTS

Clogged With Corpses

It is actually biologically impossible for me to dislike this card.

All round, its design is perfect. The art is fantastic, the title is poetically grisly, its role and balance in the game is perfectly judged and most importantly of all, its fluffy as hell.

Even the flavour text tells you exactly what this card represents, which is why I'm filling this space with gushing about how much I love the card.

Clogged With Corpses. Its even fun to say!


Consumption

A great card, emphasising the scale of the tyranid threat, and the disregard they have for the lives of even their own troops - everybody, friend or foe, is just biomatter to be broken down and reused.

There's a great tidbit in the later tyranid codices within the Hive Fleet Naga write ups, where tyranid inflitration ahead of the fleet helped establish the Cult of Veiled Oblivion. As the Ulumeathic League (the local planets loyal to the Imperium) came under attack, the worlds under threat called to each other for aid, but the prosperous world of Silax refused, ostensibly because it was prioritising its own defences. In fact, Silax had been corrupted extensively by the Cult, with even the Planetary Governor a member. As Hivefleet Naga approached Silax, the Cult revealed itself, plunging Silax into civil war and leaving it open to tyranid invasion.

The tyranids landed, and the Cult prepared to receive their reward. Naga duly obliged, and set its forces to killing every human on the planet, without any differentiation between the Cult and the loyalists. Everyone was biomatter. Everyone was consumed!

Coming back to the card, I'd have liked this card to cost 6R, but to give back 1R for each unit destroyed. Its fine as it is, but I'd liked the "consumption" aspect to be played up more.


Dark Cunning

A straightforward concept, executed in a mechanically interesting way, I have to say that my only real criticism here is lack of imagination in the way the card is named.

Its just so terribly generic!

On a broader level, I love how it punishes players for underestimating the tyranid threat. This is in keeping with the fiction, as (along with orks) the Hive Fleets have often been dismissed by Imperial commanders as being little better than beasts, only for the malevolent genius of the Hive Mind to pull a surprise move.

Also, its very nice that this card works so well with Savage Warrior Prime - a very fluffy combo!


Predation

In the sense of an individual card representing something in the fiction, Predation is somewhat lacking. What's the narrative here? Who is preying on who, and why does that create this game effect?

It also doesn't make a lot of sense - infestation isn't infection, and planets that are adjacent on the array aren't in any particular way adjacent spatially.

On the other hand, the flavour text helps us realise that this is a card representing the flavour of the faction as a whole: one world after another is infested, as the Hive Mind consumes whole Sectors at once.


Spawn Termagants

Way I see it, there's two geeky options for playing this card.

One is to say in your best Starcraft voice "Need to Spawn More Termagants". The other is to make straining noises like you're plopping out a small hard turd each time you drop down a token.

The artwork depicts the underside of our Gravid Tervigon, though conceptually it makes more sense to think of the Norn Queens churning out hundreds of termagant eggs before flooding the sector. In play, the card nicely shows how cheap and disposable Termagants are!

Spore Burst

The picture shown is of a Mycetic Spore, which is the fleshy tyranid equivalent of the Space Marine Drop Pod. Of course, whereas the Space Marines are deploying a small force of elite soldiers with laser-like precision, the Tyranids prefer to blanket a planet in so many Mycetic Spores that the skies darken, with the rationale that even if planetary defences take out eighty percent of them the remaining forces will still be enough to capture a planet. Then, once a planet is won, there's no reason why the broken remains of failed spores can't be gathered up, poured back in the digestion pools, and recycled for reuse.

The game mechanics here are clearly a mirror the Drop Pod Assault card, which is a nice design symmetry. I like that that the Spore Burst is a deploy action rather than a combat action, as that helps reflect the different tactical roles of the two strategies in the fiction.

I'm not so keen on the cards coming from the discard pile, as this suggests re-use and recursion rather than deployment of fresh troops. However, I understand the need to make this card mechanically distinct enough from Drop Pod Assault that it doesn't feel like a resell of used ideas. Likewise, while it doesn't make too much sense that Mycetic Spores (which are used in the opening stages of invasion) can only be aimed at an already infested planet, this is a sensible game balancing mechanism that stops this card costing 3R and being impossible to include. The requirements of having a great game come first, and when the fluffiness is adequate, thats good enough for me.



CONCLUSIONS

Overall, in fluff and fiction terms FFG has done excellently again in introducing a new faction to the game. Great game design aside, we have here Tyranids that play like Tyranids, with an excellent representation of the complementary strategies of big swarms and smaller numbers of monstrous linebreakers. The infestation mechanic, the mutable gaunt tokens, all these things make for a very tyranid-like experience. Meanwhile, the Synapse dial is a great way of pointing out that this faction is different in how it makes war.

There are little things that bug me, like the selection of Traits, the chosen nomenclature of Synapse units and of course the old bugbears of scale and keywords. However, these really are little things, and criticisms made of a product that is really quite excellent.

But we're not done yet! The Hive Mind may have shown us its horrors, but stalwart defenders (and not so stalwart aggressors) arise to take on this threat!

One more episode of the Chime of Eons remains for this expansion! See you all shortly!