Overall unhappy with the Tyranid update. The new stuff has excellent detailing and design choices for the most part, but they've left several very important models (Hive Tyrant, Warriors and Carnifexes) with a 20 year old level of detailing and aesthetic. Those models are iconic parts of most swarms, and now (by comparison) look worse than even the most basic troopers, while leaving them at home both starts locking you into certain army builds, and just feels wrong. Additionally, the Winged Prime model is included in every starter or collectors' set released this edition, but as well as looking twenty years better than the unit it's intended to lead, there's no Winged version of that unit in model or in rules at all. It puts the army in a weird, half-finished space.
Then there's the prices. I know it's GW, but $10 per model for a unit type you might have 30-90 of in an army is just insulting, even by their standards. Additionally, the new "big" monster isn't any bigger than the previous larger monsters, but is priced on par with an Imperial Knight, which is nearly twice as big as the new bug (The Norn is about 10cm tall, not counting the scenic base, while a Knight is 10 inches tall).
Overall, this could have been one of the most impressive range updates ever put out by GW, but ignoring some of the most crucial models for the best loved unit types, and releasing four flavours of Lictor and a Bigger Batman of the Tyrant instead, coupled with a suspect pricing model on the basic infantry for a horde army, ends up making it one of the most irritating instead - we can see what GW is currently capable of doing with the Tyranid design space, but it's basically impossible to build a functional "typical" Tyranid army using only the newer, much better models.
In the end, it doesn't feel worth the effort or expense.
