I hadn't picked up on Hamman's World being a specific Kraken tendril. 9.2.1 is potentially the earlier fleet then.

I have to disagree on force composition regarding Kraken and Leviathan. In the Tyranid Codex p21 is the following quote about Leviathan when the ork wars start occuring.

"Indeed, outlying planets have begun to file reports that include pict-captures of assault organisms larger than ever before"

If we go over the general information about each hive fleet
Behemoth - Brute force fleet, little long ranged shooting, may even lack the larger Bio-Titans (Scythed Hierodules present, Hierophants probably not)
Kraken - Lots of smaller forces, swarm list. DNA alien links implies the introduction of new species (Biovore, Zoanthrope, Tyrant Guard) and ranged weapon variants (Carnifexes)
Leviathan - Combines the above fleets. Number of smaller sub-fleets like Kraken but with the brute force compositions of Behemoth and getting all the bigger assault beasts.

In short Leviathan is shaping up to be more like the Tyranid equivalent of an Armoured Company, lots of Fexes, Assault Spawn and Bio-Titans. At least when they get into ork space.

Apocalypse Book, p147 bottom right. Tyranid Invasion Patterns, 4. Heavy Assault Wave, "also HARUSPEX, MALEFACTOR, EXOCRINE, DOMINATRIX species"

I agree with all this. One good, flexible, main list for the tyranids is best - like exists here with the community developing Net-EA list. Praise Chroma

The existence of E&C's Leviathan list and his expressed desire to keep the new shiny units exclusively for himself and his list should not stop the official Net-EA list from using many units which have every right to be generally available to tyranid players.

Players doing their armies with newer units, older units or a mix of the two is something best left for individual players to choose themselves as is the case now - people can theme in one direction or another if they so desire or choose to field generally from the list - such themeing choices are present in very many army lists in epic and other GW systems and are fine. If an individual player happens to theme his own army strictly to a particular style of creatures and avoid some others then it causes him no harm whatsoever if these others exist in the same list as they do currently - everyone can field an army selection for themselves that they are happy with.

An artificial, arbitrary, split from high countermanding existing freedom of choice and forcing players to choose between either fielding older style tyranid units and newer style units like E&C proposes is uneeded, unnecessary and bad for tyranid playtesting even if there were a strong background or W40k army list support reason for it when there distinctly isn't - the background is vague and undefined, interpretable in different ways and gradually added to over time rather than newer background needing to be seen to replace older background.

People are free to play Leviathan or any list they so desire, but lets not cripple the flexible main list here on account of it please.

I agree.  A flexible list should allow you to field whatever you like.  If you wish to theme an army then you can exercise some self restraint.

For e.g. I could easily theme an Ulthwe army from the swordwind list by going guardian heavy and limiting myself on aspects and void spinners.  The varient lists were added later as a means of expanding on the topic and making things a bit more interesting but they were hardly neccessary due to a very good, flexible all round list to start with (And to base varients from).

Why is there no aircraft but just skimmers?

Random Question Yes!  

_________________
My NetEA Lists:
Fir Iolarion Titan Clan List
Dark Angels List

Always looking to Trade!
Angel's Trade Thread

Because a beastie getting about by flapping it's wings is very many times slower than any true aircraft and best represented in epic by being a skimmer.

And Tyranids can't fart hart enough that they can fly as fast as conventional aircrafts.

_________________
We are returned!
http://www.epic-wargaming.de/

Ah, make sense.


They should eat more Mexican food.  

My   to you both gentlemen.

_________________
My NetEA Lists:
Fir Iolarion Titan Clan List
Dark Angels List

Always looking to Trade!
Angel's Trade Thread

I saw this asked on the first page but never answered. Why does the Vituperator have planet fall and there is no space craft in the list?

I believe it is open for future development. Essentially you are paying for a skill that is not being used.

_________________
Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

Actually, you're not paying for it, and in the Phase IV list, you can't use it; but it's there to "future-proof" the units for variant lists.

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

On the subject of the Vituperator, where did it come from?

I get that the Hydraphant is because of the Hierodule/Hierophant shrink leaving the larger Bio-Titan model in need of a name. I haven't seen any information about a larger Harridan that transports standard troops, it's always mycetic spores for a planetfall.

Basically, Jervis added it back when the Tyranid range was going to get a make-over... but it's never been mentioned again in anything, not even a passing reference.

The Harridan has been repeatedly described as the "largest flying Tyranid encountered" multiple times across editions of 40k, without even a hint of something larger, as GW often hints at.

There's no model for it, though some people (including myself) have made one or two, and I'm beginning to think that perhaps it could be dropped from the "core" Tyranid list and make a reappearance in a Bio-Titan list or something.

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Didn't FW have a model for it at one time a fair while ago?

There was one on eBay just recently I thought...

_________________
Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

That was the Forge World Harridan... in "true scale" to match their 40k model.

And it was much better looking than the GW/Epic Harridan!

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Recent background has invented a new smaller Tyranid flyer called the Harpy and has repeatedly the Harridan is biggest.

Rather than dropping the Vituporator from the list surely the obvious easy solution is just to re-name what you currently call the Harridan a Harpy and re-name the Vituporator a Harridan? This keeps the two sizes of flying creature whilst neatly solving the matching the background problems.

From a modelling perspective I will be using the FW Harridans as Harridans, since I like to have my armies true scale, but this would then necessitate converting an even bigger tyranid flyer which I wasn’t looking forward too attempting too much – if you did this I could just use older metal Harridans as Harpies.

I should be playing a 5k tyranid vs LaTD battle later and taking notes to post up a report.