I have been sitting on some information for a week now about upcoming Tyranid models I've been forgetting to report on.
My contact who allowed me to successfully report Catalyst becoming a psychic power that gave Feel No Pain and the Tervigon's 3D6 spawning ability MONTHS before the release of the Tyranid codex has started talking with me again and has had a few things to report about Tyranid:
First of all, apparently some Tyranid second wave models had to be redone into Finecast so that put an even further delay on anticipated models.
Second, there is currently (well, as of last week) no concrete date set for the models to be released but a general timeframe will be late this summer and early fall.
Third, all the models are done, and many are painted and have had their photos taken for promotional usage, but the release of the models will be staggered among several second waves.
Fourth, the Harpy model has been done for a long LONG time, but apparently there is something that has been holding it back from being released (educated guess is that whole summer of fliers thing that might still happen).
Fifth, the Harpy's rules are looking at getting amended along with several other large flying non-vehicle models ala White Dwarf (who my contact is also affiliated with) some time in the future. These might just be optional rules or a preview of what's to come with 6th, but you never know; they could make White Dwarf useful again. That would be a good way to get people like me to resubscribe.
I think that was it.
As a Tyranid player myself, I HOPE the Harpy gets amended a bit, because I use 2 of them now and sink 340 points into basically 2 lascannon shots which don't hurt vehicles as easily. That is NOT a good investment and I'd like to see them become less of a liability in the army.
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The fact that the models are done is somewhat old news anyway. They have been done for a while and other rumor providers have reported that part months ago.
I don't know why they're waiting so long to release them. If I were to take a stab at the logic, it's because Dark Eldar doesn't have as much staying power as Tyranid as far as the base of players go who will buy the models, so they needed to get the Dark Eldar stuff out quickly while the army was still hot (Dark Eldar hadn't been updated for a LONG time and customer response to the new book was better than most other books)... So Dark Eldar took the stage while Tyranid took the far back burner... GW doesn't like to release products too close to one another because of how we the customers work. GW needs to give us time to replenish our expendable income so we can buy more stuff from them. So with each Dark Eldar wave, Fantasy wave, and now that the Grey Knights came out, Tyranid have had a hard time trying to squeeze in their releases.
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I don't think the Harpy was ever a metal model or had to be converted to Finecast.
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but yes, the Tervigon/T-fex as a combined kit is currently expected.
