The Tyranid Archive - 2nd Generation (1995)

http://www.modernsynthesist.com/2012/02/tyranid-archive-2nd-generation.html
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
In honour of 40k's 25th Birthday this year, I'm working at an ongoing series called "The Tyranid
Archive," which is meant to be a historical look back on where Tyranids came from and how far
they've come. Here's our next installment.

2nd Generation (1995), also known as Warhammer 40k

The second generation of Tyranids was ushered in by the army's first codex. What a lovely tome that
was, allowing everything from Warriors through to Lictors, Zoanthropes, Carnifexes, and Hive Tyrants
access to Tyranid-specific Wargear called "biomorphs." As this was second edition, these biomorphs
were not your simple +1 Str improvements, they were mad abilities like feedback-causing forcefields
and ranged bioplasma attacks that you could mix and match on some of the larger creatures. They
were as far beyond our current biomorphs as a conversion beamer is beyond a bolt pistol.

But I digress. This series is meant to be about the evolution of Tyranid models, not about the unique
rules that we loved and lost along the way. However, it was a theme of the 2nd Edition of 40K that
you could give units some pretty amazing options. This was also the era before force organization
charts, when there were suggested ratios for how much of your force should be made up of troops or
heavy support, and Hive Tyrants were limited to something like 1 per 1000 points, but you were still
able to do mad, broken things like fielding 4 Lictors in one army. Come to think of it, 2nd Edition
seems to be the last time that anyone would want to have 4 Lictors in one army.

Yes, second edition gave birth to the Tyranid army in earnest with the introduction of the Tyranid
Codex. We received our first plastic kits in the form of Genestealers (though these probably first
appeared in a space hulk revision), Termagants, and Warriors.

Plastic Genestealers

Plastic Termagants with Fleshborers

 Plastic Warriors with Boneswords, Deathspitter

Heck, GW even introduced metal versions of the Termagants and Warriors to allow for more options.

Metal Termagants W Fleshborers, Strangle Webs, And Spike Rifles

Metal Warriors W Devourer, Bonesword & Spinefist, Bonesword & Lash Whip
 Metal Warrior W Venomcannon

Though we had to put up with the big, floppy, rubber-suit-looking warrior banana claws, the Tyranids
had finally started to receive some half-way decent shooting support, which was further bolstered by
the introduction of the first real general for the swarm: the Hive Tyrant.

Metal Hive Tyrant W Barbed Strangler, Bonesword & Lash Whip (Inset: Venom Cannon)

He was a combat monster who could load up on biomorphs, psychic powers, combat weapons, AND
some of the longest ranged weaponry we'd yet seen. Well, some of biggest guns we'd seen until a
later release expanded the range to include the Biovore and Zoanthrope, two "gun beasts" that
would become mainstays of hive fleets everywhere.
 Metal Biovore W Spore Mines

Metal Zoanthrope

With all this added shooting, the close-combat nature of the Nids was not forgotten. Second edition
saw the introduction of the one the sneakiest weapons in the Tyranid arsenal, the Tyranid Lictor. I
still believe that all of the fear of lictors that remains these days has been carried over from way back
in the day when a lictor could really tear you a new one. Lictors have never measured up to the
terror their were in 2nd Ed., a fact that I believe is illustrated by the fact that I stripped all four of my
lictors to repaint them for third edition, then never bothered getting around to it as each subsequent
iteration of the Tyranid codex has made them less and less impressive.
 Metal Lictor

Fun Fact: I once heard that when Jes Goodwin and another artist were coming up with the concept
for the Lictor, they were heavily inspired by The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

Our combat organisms were also bolstered by a leap-y, cannon-fodder, combat unit to run along
beside the cannon-fodder, shooty termagants: the hormagaunt.

Metal Hormagaunts
Fun fact: these METAL models were the tippiest Tyranid models of all time until the 3rd edition
Zoanthrope came around. I think they may have been the first models to force the invention of the
practice of gluing washers to the bottom of bases to weight models.

What's that you say? Those Hormagaunts look a little something like Alien Xenomorphs from the
Alien movies? Why--fiddledy-dee--whatever do you mean?

In second edition, the Tyranids received their first air support in the form of Gargoyles. These metal
models were hell for mounting on flying stands as they'd easily tip over, often snapping off the flight
stands when they did so. That being said, they were kind of hell on the battlefield as well, coming
equipped flamespurts, one of the first tyranid weapons to use the flamer template and, as far as I
recall, the only shooting weapon that would force all those covered by the template to move to the
edge of the template if they survived. What's more, the gargoyles could fly high: essentially
disappearing one turn only to deep strike back onto the board the next.

Metal Gargoyles

Then there were the models that were so aesthetically impressive and whose rules were so inspiring
that I forgot to add them to this post and no one noticed they were missing until GW cheakilly recast
them in finecast: the Ripper Swarm. The only thing to write home about when it came to ripper
swarms in second edition is that they could eat any terrain that was organic, removing it from the
board. A friend bought me a pack of these as a birthday gift because he knew I didn't have any. I
asked him if I could return it in exchange for something useful like a pewter warrior.

Ripper Swarms. The Unloved Child of the Second Edition.

To round things out, we had the reintroduction of my favourite model, the Screamer Killer, now as a
living creature rather than a biological walker with armour values. He was now called a Carnifex, he
had ten wounds and a 2+ armour save that was rolled on 2 dice (effectively rolling it out of 12, which
was how Terminator armour used to operate...though in 2nd Edition we used armour save modifiers
of -2, -3, etc, rather than the current system of an AP of X negating saves entirely--but I digress). He
had a shooting attack in the form of Bioplasma (36" range), and he could make four close combat
attacks at Str 7 or combine all four to make a single attack at Str 10. Basically, it was his job to kick ass
and take names, which made it all the more hilarious when one of my female friends, upon seeing
the model with all those curving, hug-y arms dubbed him "the love bug."

Metal Carnifex

And, with the exception of some Genestealer Cult models that I'm not really sure where to slot-in
yet, that was the full Tyranid line in second edition. However, second edition was a bit of an Age of
Wonders. Not only did you ludicrous rules and wargear that meant special characters who could
carve their way through entire armies (don't believe it? I once had to spend half a Tyranid army
bringing down Dark Angel Commander Azrael), but there was also Epic, with models so small that
you could field entire Space Marine companies on a budget, and imaginations were coming to life in
the western United States, where a company was granted a license from Games Workshop to dream
bigger than anyone else ever had...