Few things excite the mind quite as much as new Codexes packed with possibilities for the future of your favourite armies, and this week is even more momentous than most – the first Codex of the new edition is hitting pre-orders alongside a heap of new Tyranid miniatures.
There are brand-new units, updates to old favourites, and more, so it’s time for a quick look at the week’s headline events.
We have a lot to get through, so let’s jump right in with the big one.
Codex: Tyranids
All new editions need to start somewhere, and this time, it’s the honour of the Tyranids to begin our calendar of Codex releases with the 120-page Codex: Tyranids.
This is the definitive companion for all Tyranid players, replacing the Index with a fully fleshed-out collection of exciting Detachment rules, glorious miniature showcases, and fascinating lore.
There are datasheets for 47 Tyranid units, six full Detachments with unique abilities, rules, Enhancements, and Stratagems, and all-new Crusade content. To really show off your supplication to the swarm, a luxury special edition version of the Codex will also be available, featuring entirely unique cover art, foil details, and fetching purple gilt page edges.
Norn Emissary
The Hive Mind is usually content to direct its swarms from afar, but when a more personal touch is needed, the Norn Emissary is deployed to act as its eyes, ears, and claws on the battlefield. These towering monstrosities are spawned for a single specific purpose, and pack epic levels of speed, strength, and raw psionic power into a single deadly package.
Should your prey prove to be more slippery than expected, assemble the kit as a Norn Assimilator and drag their cowardly hides into the dirt with razor-sharp toxinjector harpoons. This variant trades psychic powers for all-out damage.
Deathleaper
The Hive Mind knows the value of covert assassination when softening up planets for the incoming swarm. When failure is absolutely not an option, the specialised bioform known as Deathleaper is deployed to sow fear and chaos behind enemy lines, using the accumulated experience of a thousand spawnings to plunge its targets into pure terror before hacking them apart.
Lictor
When panic and sabotage need to be sown on a wider scale, Lictors are the Hive Mind’s weapon of choice. They are agile and stealthy creatures, and slip through the defensive lines to slaughter valuable targets
Neurolictor
Neurolictors are a new sub-species of Lictor only starting to appear across the galaxy. This bioform trades raw close combat prowess for insidious mental abilities and projects a psychic miasma that overcomes the enemy and shatters their discipline.
Genestealers
For as long as there has been Warhammer 40,000, there have been Genestealers. The original Tyranid bioform gets a much-deserved makeover with a new kit that reimagines their iconic look in glorious high detail. This time around, you get a full complement of Ymgarl Genestealer heads if the face-tentacle vibe is more your speed.
Termagants
The multitudinous foot soldiers of the Tyranid swarm get some love, as the revitalised Termagants first seen in the Leviathan boxed set get a bonus sprue of special weapons. The box also includes a single Ripper Swarm.
Hormagaunts
The Hormagaunts have been refreshed with incredible new sculpts. Few opponents can stand up to a seemingly endless tide of chittering teeth and claws, and as an added bonus you get a single Ripper Swarm with each box to form into an even smaller, meaner unit.
Biovore
The Biovore has a new spring in its step and is ready to launch Spore Mines all over your next battlefield. These indirect fire platforms have long been the Hive Mind’s answer to distant foes, and you can also build them as flame-spewing Pyrovores to turn long-range shooting into close-quarters dominance.
Combat Patrol: Tyranids
Start your new army with Combat Patrol: Tyranids, a curated collection of units that give you a solid foundation for larger, greater swarms. They’re also an excellent choice for pick-up games of Combat Patrol, leveraging the speed and skill of a Winged Tyranid Prime to pick off critical enemy units while 20 Termagants, five Barbgaunts, three Von Ryan’s Leapers, and a massive Psychophage advance across the field. You also get two Ripper Swarms. Because you can never have too many Ripper Swarms.
Datasheet Cards: Tyranids
This pack of new and updated Datasheet Cards complements Codex: Tyranids. With all of your detachment rules occupying just a single double-page spread, these cards speed up your games with useful unit information at hand without needing to leaf through the Codex. These cards supersede the index cards available online.
Tyranids Dice Set
The Fourth Tyrannic War began with Hive Fleet Leviathan, and now you can celebrate their commitment to eating everything in sight with a pack of 16 Leviathan-themed dice, cast in swirly purple plastic and sporting their pips, and the Tyranid faction logo, in white ink.
Arvus Lighter
The Arvus Lighter is back! The little shuttle that could is vital for rapid deployment, ferrying critical operators around the battlefield in (relative) safety while poor landlubbers trudge through the mud to point lasrifles at berserk Space Marines. This complete resin kit can be included in Solar Auxilia armies of Warhammer: The Horus Heresy, and is as much a status symbol as a critical component in your battle plans.
Tyranid Invasion 2023 eShorts Week & Subscription
Another Black Library eShort Week is here to deliver bite-sized literary delights, and this time it’s a Tyranid extravaganza. Five short stories from Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tammy Nicholls, Danie Ware, Nicholas Wolf, and Richard Swan provide deeper insights into those who fight the all-consuming menace.
Each story can be bought separately as they release, but to get all five for the price of four, opt for the full-week subscription.
Word Bearers Boxed Set Collection
The Word Bearers trilogy by Anthony Reynolds follows the arch-traitor Space Marines as they navigate the 41st Millennium in search of ever-greater power, using every means at their disposal. Even the really, really gnarly ones.
To celebrate this groundbreaking trilogy, all three books – Dark Apostle, Dark Disciple, and Dark Creed – are now collected in one beautifully presented special edition boxed set. Bound in maroon cloth covers with foil details, they are held in a classically decorated sleeve – but with only 1,000 signed and numbered copies available, you’ll need to secure yours fast.
The Rose in Darkness
Sister Augusta of the Order of the Bloody Rose returns to the pages of Black Library in The Rose in Darkness by Danie Ware, author of many fantastic Adepta Sororitas stories. Augusta has been sent to retrieve an important relic from the shrine world of Opal, only to find the planet in the throes of its most holy celebration.
Despite the seeming piety of the world, dark political machinations wait just below the surface, and the Bloody Rose will soon have its work cut out eliminating a many-armed, many-clawed cult rising from the depths.
Blackstone Fortress: The Omnibus
Journey into the depths of a Blackstone Fortress with this omnibus collection of two novels, a short story anthology, and two extra short stories from some of your favourite Black Library authors. The sinister space station discovered by all manner of rogues and adventurers promises many dark technological secrets, and daring characters like the disgraced Rogue Trader Janus Draik must contend with its lethal defenders to scrape any semblance of rewards from its cold, forbidding halls.
Defender of the Imperium, Master of the Maelstrom & Angron: The Red Angel
Two new French novels and one in German arrive, telling the tales of terrible Chaos champions and a rather reluctant Commissar caught between xenos hordes and the fell powers of the warp. Defender of the Imperium and Huron Blackheart: Master of the Maelstrom arrive in French-language for the first time, while Angron: The Red Angel rages its way into a German-language edition with both physical and digital eBook versions.
The Warhammer+ team are reeling from the arrival of Hive Fleet Leviathan, so while they prepare themselves for the battle, we’re continuing our trek through the Mortal Realms and the Dawnbringer Crusades. Loremasters pulls back the curtain on Thalia Vedra – the Lioness of the Parch and all-round figure of adoration – while Battle Report brings new heroes from the first Dawnbringers book into an all-out clash between the Soulblight Gravelords and the Sylvaneth.
Meanwhile, we’ll be rummaging deep inside Codex: Tyranids here at Warhammer Community, dissecting new units and Detachments under an Ordo Xenos microscope, before crowning the week with an absolute banger of a Warhammer Preview Online from the NOVA Open. There’s new stuff to see from almost all of your favourite Warhammer games, so don’t miss it.
