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Starting to amass a small tyranid army, but there's one strange thing I've noticed. In all nidzilla and majority of vanilla tyranid lists, carnifexes are normally given guns and planted in cover to blast away. Fluff-wise, this isn't how I imagined tyranids, much less carnifexes, to be played. I'm just wondering if there is any viability in playing a CC carnifex or will that just result in said carnifex plodding up the field and being labelled "fire magnet" (and is that necessarily a bad thing?) ?

I'll respond by saying that you should read my article on equipping Carnifexes:


dakkadakka.com/GamingArticles/tabid/57/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/5/Tactica-Carnifex-Equipping-Your-Carnifex.aspx


One thing to add to the article is that in Cities of Death games, CC Carnifexes can be of use. Otherwise, don't touch 'em.

But even then Yak, it'd be a Talons/Venom Cannon combo as opposed to straight X2 Talons, or Talons/Crushing Claws. Right?

And to summarize part of that excellent article - Carnifexes are too slow for HTH. Escalation only makes them slower. This is why you avoid them.

orchewer - As far as fluff goes, yes, the idea of Gun and Dakkafexes has never sat well with me either. In fact, the find the very idea of Zilla 'Nids to be offensive. 'Nids are all about swarms of little bugs supported by a bunch of bigger bugs. The current Tyranid Codex is a complete failure in that regard, as the only viable strategy for 'Nids is the Zilla list or the 'Stealer Shock list, both of which are not 'hordes of gribbleys forming a carpet of bodies'.

BYE

And if you have far too much money, fielding a couple of dozen CC Fexes in an Apocalypse game would be a whole lot of fun

But otherwise, they're just not effective - until GW give us a biomorph that allows Fleet or Infiltrating or similar, next codex maybe...

dont they get to deep strike here pretty soon?

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 09/14/2007 9:30 PM

orchewer - As far as fluff goes, yes, the idea of Gun and Dakkafexes has never sat well with me either. In fact, the find the very idea of Zilla 'Nids to be offensive. 'Nids are all about swarms of little bugs supported by a bunch of bigger bugs. The current Tyranid Codex is a complete failure in that regard, as the only viable strategy for 'Nids is the Zilla list or the 'Stealer Shock list, both of which are not 'hordes of gribbleys forming a carpet of bodies'.

I think this is inaccurate hyperbole.

IMO the Tyranid codex is one of the most successful of the 4th edition era codices.  There are several ways it can be played.  The horde of gribblies approach is absolutely viable.  As is nidzilla, as is a mixed force using some medium bugs, such as stealer shock, though I've seen large numbers of warriors and raveners used to very good effect as well.

The nidzilla army is probably a little too good.  Combine that with the fact that it requires MUCH less painting than the traditional horde, and you suddenly have an easy-to-build tournament contender, and it's seen all over the world, often played by people who previously played other armies.   IME people who build multiple armies LOVE an army which can be built to be effective with a low model count.  And nidzilla is exactly this army. 

Almost no one was talking about Stealer Shock last year.  Go back to January and you'll see people complaining that the only list that was any good is nidzilla.  It wasn't true then and it's not true now.  Now that Jon, Bill, and the guys have made big splashes in the midwest with stealer shock, some people are starting to recognize that build.  But it still doesn't mean that's the only viable option.

I do agree that it's a shame close combat fexes aren't effective.  There should be some way to make them good, and that is one place (along with duel twin-linked Devorers) where the Tyranid codex design failed.

As my supply of painted Gaunts increases, I get closer and closer to my desired list, which is a Flyrant, 2 Gunfexes, 3 Dakkafexes, 3 Zoanthropes, and about 80 Gaunts. Maybe you'd like to see the big to small ratio skewed even more towards small bugs, but that list does seem to fit your description fairly well. There are 16 Gaunts per Carnfex...

To the OP: I was in the exact same boat as you are, I always pictured a Carnifex as being the "Screamer Killer" of previous editions. 2X Scything Talons, Bio Plasma, etc. I wish that model could work, but it really can't, at least not in a strong list. It's not a terrible model, it will chew up infantry pretty well, maul any tank it can get near, and it's pretty cheap, but as has been said, it's just too slow. Anything that moves 6" and assaults 6" is immediately limited to second tier as an assault option.

In the end, I just dealt with it, and painted Dakkafexes. Yes, it annoys me, or at least it did initially. I would love to be painting those big Carnifex talons, instead of the doofy little T-Rex arms with Devourers. Hell, I'd love to be painting those Crushing Claws, they're about the coolest weapon on the sprue. But, at the end of the day I want a strong list, so I paint what works. I'm happy with the color scheme I came up with, I've enjoyed putting dead Guardsmen on the bases, I got over the lack of menacing looking bio-weapons.

I actually prefer the Starship Troopers theme for Tyranids, which encourages all kinds of weird mutated bugs (including giant shootie artillery bugs). They're a biological hivemind army, that's their theme - not hordes of little guys. Sure, that ought to be a viable army, but they ought to have thought Hormagaunts through if they expected people to take them.

Still, there are a number of effective builds with Tyranids, but unfortunately just like every other army in 40k they all begin with "enough anti-tank to shake 3-falcons/predators/hammerheads a turn."

If they wanted Tyranids to be more in-your-grill they ought to have given them more, but shorter-ranged anti-tank options (more 18"-24" power guns). Unfortunately they gave them almost no effective anti-skimmer options and they're all on Carnifexes and Tyrants.

The problem with CC Carnifexes is really that they're just too ridiculously slow to do their jobs. At minimum, it'll take them three turns to get to grips to the enemy, and that assumes optimal deployment with 24" separating the forces. If the opponent deploys their tanks further away, it can take four turns. And if the opponent bothers to move at all, its conceivable that a CC fex could NEVER make it into assault with an enemy vehicle.

What they need is to be faster. A fleet upgrade that's incompatible with shooting weapons, or perhaps incompatible with the BS +1 upgrade would do the trick.

In my old Nid army I ran two CC Carnis, but I had to work hard to make them effective. Some games they wouldn't get to assault.
Then the new dex came and made shooting a much better option.

I do have some of the new Carnis kitted out for CC though. I don't use them, but damn they look nasty.

I decided to go against the flow and equip my carnies with talons and deevourers. They are a whole lot less broken and look a lot better. Overall I am happy with them.

Posted By Longshot on 09/16/2007 1:00 PM

Still, there are a number of effective builds with Tyranids, but unfortunately just like every other army in 40k they all begin with "enough anti-tank to shake 3-falcons/predators/hammerheads a turn."

Now that is the exact nub of the argument.

Unfortunately, that is the very first thing I think about when I'm making or adjusting a tourney list.

That stealer shock list that recently won a GT was very nice, but the guy said himself, in his blog, that if he'd met a skimmer list he'd have been wiped from the table. It's unfortunate, but I really do think you need some VCs on your fexs if you're going to be playing competitive mech tau/mech eldar lists.

In my area there is a great nidzilla list that is based around one awesome CC fex, it is a huge points sink but attraccts so much fire it allows him to get the rest of his army into a better position.

It is the T7, 2+save, regenerating, 5 wound crushing claw, scything tail, scything talon, bioplasma, miasma, configuration. In his opinion it doesn't need to survive or get to CC. And if it does it is often engaged by turn 2 or three as the enemy is usually coming towards you as well.

I don't play nids with any regularity so I can't speak to it overall but he is a very sucessful player in the area.

Orion

You can put the same things on a gunfex if you want to. Pointless pointsink.

You can safely assume that your guy sucks. Being successful in an area doesn't really mean much. You should see the chumps who are successful in my area when I don't make a tournament (or really when any of the top tier players aren't there - there's a really sharp divide, here, between the competitive players and the nubcakes).

Posted By Orion_44 on 09/17/2007 7:37 AM
In my area there is a great nidzilla list that is based around one awesome CC fex, it is a huge points sink but attraccts so much fire it allows him to get the rest of his army into a better position.

It is the T7, 2+save, regenerating, 5 wound crushing claw, scything tail, scything talon, bioplasma, miasma, configuration. In his opinion it doesn't need to survive or get to CC. And if it does it is often engaged by turn 2 or three as the enemy is usually coming towards you as well.

I don't play nids with any regularity so I can't speak to it overall but he is a very sucessful player in the area.

Orion

So why are opponents shooting at it? Right there you've shown that the people who are playing him are making very basic tactical mistakes.

A souped up CC Carnifex is essentially 250+ points that your opponent can avoid until he wants to deal with it. So he obliterates the rest of the army and then takes care of the Carnifex at the end of the game, if necessary.

 

quozl:

It's worth noting that C99's list actually did have two gunfexes in it, too. Even stealer shock uses VCs.

These are basically the reasons that he takes this fex in the first place. If someone is shooting it then they are not shooting what matters and outside of escalation (which is somewhat rare in tourneys) he just moves it straigt to the objective and can usually get into some type of combat.

As for being competitive in any give area it certainly varies. I would not say this guy sucks and I have played in tourneys for years and all over the U.S. as well. I have only been in this area for about 2 months and he did well in a local tourney I didn't play in. As I have noted before I don't really have a problem with zilla lists as I run lots of pathfinders which seem to do well against them. Just for the players in this area he is considered one of the top local players. I beleive he may change the amount of points in this fex if he had more of his models painted.

I think one other reason he has this large point target that is at the fore of his army is to intentionally bait experienced players to ignore this fex for too long or to split fire. It won't always work but when was the last time anyone here played a game where they didn't make at least one mistake?

Orion

I've never let a move6-assault6 critter get in assault when I didn't want it to.

He may not be a terrible player. Lots of people are good tactical players, but make crappy list decisions. Nothing wrong with that.

What we are saying is that NO ONE that has half a brain will shoot at the CC carni because he only moves 6", and in escalation has to start WAAAYY in the back.

Something that moves 6" and can't shoot is fairly easy to avoid, therefore, you don't bother with it until the rest of their army is dead.

Its really funny to read this from a Necron perspective. If the Nids are sitting back and blasting I break out the celebratory motor oil. What I fear from a Dakka fex is that it'll charge into melee. If it wants to sit back and spray Immortals or warriors with its dakkablasters I don't have an issue with that. (Say 8 shots, 6 hits, every one will be a wound with the living ammo reroll, 2 saves failed, one WBB failed)

What I dread is the big nids charging into combat and thus stealing my ability to shoot at the stealers, whose charge will break me.

Then again I play shooty crons, with a minimum of porting, maybe if my list had more ability to pull guys from combat I wouldn't mind the Fex charge as much.