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It seems the most common elite selection carnifex is the quad-devourer bug, with BS upgrade.  But is this the only good selection? 

As they are out of the game until they get within 18" and they crawl along getting to that range, I'm considering arming my new Carnifexes (replacements for the smileys) with a BS and TL devourers, and just keeping the BS at 2.

Yeah, they have a hard time hitting anything, but with three of them firing, chances are they will put down one big template every turn, and against most troop types that means make your armour sv or die.  It also gives you a decent shot at messing with lighter armoured vehicles. 

As the range is twice that of a Devourer, that means three template placements you wouldn't get with the quad devourer bug.  And by the time you get the elitefexes to 18", chances are the extra devourer shots are just gravy.

But then again, I've just played one or two games since the new edition came out.  So, thoughts?  (The rest of the troops in my army would be pretty predictable -- the two tyrants, two heavy fexes plus zoanthropes, two huge units of spinagants).

I'm not hating on the idea.

Won't work... to take a carnifex as shock troops (elites), it has to be *under* 115 points.. the Barbed strangler and TL devourer puts it at exactly 115. You'd have to take a pair of scytals or rending claws to get it under 115.

Especially with that in mind, I'm not keen on the idea of barbed stranglers on elite fexes. I'd leave the barbed strangler for the heavy fexes. A dakkafex has an effective range of 24" when figuring in movement, which isn't too bad... T6 combined with decent terrain should get them within range fairly unharmed, especially with three of 'em.

I say give it a shot. I don't think it will work, but who knows?

I usually have something to shoot at by turn 2, but lets say turn 3.

So you are trading 4 turns of 9 hits of a S6 gun, or 36 hits of a S6 gun, for...
6 turns of 1 hit of a S8 gun. Even assuming you average 2 models per shot, that means '12 shots'

Is a S8 shot 3x better than a S6 shot? Especially when the S6 gets to reroll wounds?

Posted By coredump on 04/06/2007 3:56 AM
I say give it a shot. I don't think it will work, but who knows?

I usually have something to shoot at by turn 2, but lets say turn 3.

So you are trading 4 turns of 9 hits of a S6 gun, or 36 hits of a S6 gun, for...
6 turns of 1 hit of a S8 gun. Even assuming you average 2 models per shot, that means '12 shots'

Is a S8 shot 3x better than a S6 shot? Especially when the S6 gets to reroll wounds?

So, you just move the devourerfexes up into range and shoot with them?

Posted By Gabe on 04/05/2007 10:10 PM
Won't work... to take a carnifex as shock troops (elites), it has to be *under* 115 points..

 

Is that a fact?  I guess I missed that in the codex.

bugsy,

Don't know if you remember it, but yak made a thorough write up of Carnifex options:

TACTICA CARNIFEX: EQUIPPING YOUR CARNIFEX

Bugs,

My point is you are removing a TLDev for a BS.
Assuming you would have gotten 4 rounds of shooting from the TLDev, and 6 rounds from the BS.... that is where my comparison comes in.

There is not 'moving up' because you removed the 2nd TLDev

Posted By coredump on 04/06/2007 7:41 AM

There is not 'moving up' because you removed the 2nd TLDev

Sorry, I don't follow that.

No problem.

As you stated, often an elitefex has two TLDev. You are talking about taking off the ES and one TLDev, and replacing it with a BS.

I am comparing the two. What is the difference between the one TLDev you took off, and the BS you put on.
I assumed the Dev would be able to shoot for 4 turns, and the BS would be able to shoot for 6 turns. And the results are above. What may not be obvious, is that the numbers are for all 3 Elitefexes shooting.

Now, upon thinking about it, it is actually even worse than I thought. Lets look at the full picture. Again, assuming the TLDev gets to shoot for only 4 rounds, and the BS gets to shoot for all 6 rounds.

Fex with 2xTLDev BS of 3,
TLDev
4 shots, 3 hits
2xTLDev, 6 hits
Shooting for 4 rounds, 24 hits
3 Fex, 72 Str 6 hits.

Fex with TLDev, BS, BS of 2
TLDev
4 shots, 2.22 hits
Shooting for 4 rounds, 8.88 hits
3 fex, 26.6667 Str 6 hits
BS
1 shot, .333333 hits
Shooting for 6 rounds, 2 hits
3 fex, 6 Str 8 hits.
Now, lets assume that each BS shot actually hits 2 models on average. That would be the same as 12 hits.

So, by trading one TLDev and the ES for a BS, you are trading 45 Str 6 hits for 12 Str 8 hits.
Do you think that is worth it?

Well, I guess there's enough long-range shooting with the two heavy carnifexes and the HT.

But those devourers are so weedy looking.    Don't get me wrong, I always loved the concept of the devourer as a weapon and I'm glad that the weapon is finally making a comeback.  But they are just too small for the body.  A big part of 40k for me if aesthetic appeal.  Anyone have suggestions on biggifying the devourers?

So what all do you guys do with these devourfexes?  Move up to 18" and stand there shooting? 

On mine, I've taken deathspitters, cut off the barrels at the armored bits on top, and put devourer heads on the end of the cut. Makes them look more like properly monstrous weapons.

I haven't modeled it yet, so it may end up looking as crap, but...

I have never liked that Tyranid guns looked like guns, held in tyranid hands. I always felt they should be part of the arm.

Anyway, I am planning on taking a couple of 2nd Ed screamer-killers, cutting the scything tallon down a bit, and putting on 2-4 devourer barrels on there, making it look like one huge gun. I am not sure if I will go with two or 4 modified talons....

I also like it because they were smaller, kinda like elite Carns should be smaller...

Posted By bugswarm on 04/06/2007 7:47 PM

Well, I guess there's enough long-range shooting with the two heavy carnifexes and the HT.

But those devourers are so weedy looking.    Don't get me wrong, I always loved the concept of the devourer as a weapon and I'm glad that the weapon is finally making a comeback.  But they are just too small for the body.  A big part of 40k for me if aesthetic appeal.  Anyone have suggestions on biggifying the devourers?

So what all do you guys do with these devourfexes?  Move up to 18" and stand there shooting? 

 

Yep. Especially with a Godzilla list Tyranids are really a super-shooty army. You just move within range and blast the beejeezus out of enemy units. If they try to charge your Monstrous Creatures to tie up your shooting you counter-charge them with Genestealers, Raveners, Spinegaunts (or whatever else you're taking to protect your MCs from being charged).

I've seen several different variations in ordrer to make the Devourer arms look less 'weedy'. Some involve using part of the Crushing Claw arm to make super fused twin-linked Devourer arm.

I think the bigger issue is that if you use two sets of Devourer arms they don't really properly fit on the body without one set pointing at the ground. I saw some neat fixes for this at Adepticon this year where people took the Scything Talon arm and cut the talon off the arm and then mounted a Devourer barrel at the top of the wrist (so the Devourer is almost at a 90 degree angle to the arm). Since the Scything Talon arms are pointing 'up' the Devourer comes off the top and points straight ahead. It's kind of hard to explain but it looks pretty good.

Or you can always drill out a new set of arm holes like Moloch did for his dakkafex.

 

 

I have also seen people turn one gun into one TLGun, by either splitting the devourer barrel and adding some green stuff, or by adding another dev barrel entirely. Sort of like having 2 barrels on a single gun. Even fits the fluff of having them 'linked'.

Worked really well on the HT, since they then used the top arm sockets for the wings.

Call me crazy, but I have always like the twin sything talon carnifex. I just like the old second edition screamer killer.

Anyway, this is a super cheap carnifex, and more often than not I just use it to absorb fire from squads. I don't even care if it dies as long as I can use it to sheild a unit of genestealers and draw fire from my hive tyrant and brood lord.

Isn't it easier to just ignore it for fire and then kill it with a power fist?

As a monstrous creature, the Carnifex can be used to block line of sight to your other units.

Posted By cuda1179 on 04/07/2007 1:13 PM

Call me crazy, but I have always like the twin sything talon carnifex. I just like the old second edition screamer killer.

Anyway, this is a super cheap carnifex, and more often than not I just use it to absorb fire from squads. I don't even care if it dies as long as I can use it to sheild a unit of genestealers and draw fire from my hive tyrant and brood lord.

Crazy. 

Seriously though, the problem is the Dakkafex for roughly the same points cost will do everything you just described (draw fire and block LOS) while at the same time really decimating enemy units through shooting.

If you're taking an elite Carnifex there really is little reason not to take a Dakkafex, unless you don't care for it aesthetically.

I just finished my Zilla Nids army, and played them for the first time this past week; MVPs were hands-down the Dakkafexes. They ripped holy heck out of everything but heavy armor at range, and still did well in CC when assaulted. Like the man says, they're a no-brainer.

Dakkafex doesn't do anything for me as a name. I think I like Yakfex better. As the kids these days might say: "people would be all like 'WHU?' when I tell them I'm using Yakfexes."

In which case they must be fuzzy, horned and be ridden by small Asian men, or Ewoks. Hence, Yakfex.

I am strongly considering replacing one TL devourer with scything talons instead.

Yes I know that is weaker, really I dont care.

The current carnifex rules are a joke, there are only two types of fex dakkafex and gunfex, that accounts for 99% of armies out there with the rest being a few crushing claw monsters that appear from time to time in noob armies. So much for all the options.

The trouble is its too damn easy, a no brainer and a real game wrecker. Monsters are too good, and vehicles are too fragile.

So I am thinking of using one dakkafex with reinforced chitin as heavy support. One elite fexes with devourer, talons and +1BS and one gunfex. Maximum, and have the rest swarm.

If the codex had been written to make all of the various weapons equally viable, you might have a point. But it wasn't. It was written to make only a few of the many options worth taking. Not much of a surprise there, as that's often the way the 40K codexes are written -- without a lot of thought put into making each option equally viable on its own merits. It's a shame, but there it is.