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This is new rule I have came up with for Ripper and Sky-slasher swarms.

Devourering Swarm

When in CC, add uip them number of unsaved wounds the ripper/Sky-slasher swarm unit has caused and subtract the number of unsavedwounds that the unit has suffered. At the end of either turn, the unit may lose this number of wounds to gain a number of modelos, the toatl wounds of which must be equal to this number. The new models are deployed within 6" of the rippers, or the ripper's last position if they expended all of their remaining wounds, and may be in locked in combat with the enemy unit. Any models that can not be deployed because of impassable terrain, models in the way, they would be deployed more than 6" away, or becasaue you have run out of models, are lost. Edit: The models spawned have only their basic Biomorphes and may not have any upgrades

The following units are disallowed

The Swarmlord
Tyrant Guard
The Parasite of Mortrex
Lictors
Deathleaper
The Doom of Malan'tai
Ymgarls Genestealers
Mycetic Spores
Ripper Swarms
Sky-Slasher Swarms
Spore Mines
Old One Eye

Eg

Ten Ripper Swarm bases are locked in combat with 30 IG conscripts. The Rippers inflict 10 wounds and has suffered 6 wounds from the Conscripts. The ripper swarm unit may now immediately lose 4 wounds to set up models with total wounds equal to 4, ie, 4 Hormagaunts, or a Carnifex. The new models can be deployed anywhere with 6" of the rippers or the rippers last position, if they expended all of their remaining wounds.


Hopefully this will make rippers worth taking as anything other than meatshields.

Fex would be a little OP I think.

Gants would be fine. Or actually when gants or horms win melee then spawn some rippers? Maybe rippers give no KP and take no FA slot and have 'scout'?

You have to give up wounds to gain models. So with the 6 wounds the unit had already lost, and the 4 it gave up, that is 3 and 1/3 bases dead already. Plus the models only have the basics, and no upgardes.

Those bits at the end would be OP. Gants spawn new rippers who spawn new Gants. Unending tide.

Besides, with their low stats, they won't be killing eoungh to do this every turn. They won't be churning out 3 Carnifexes every other turn.

I think it's a little odd if they can suddenly spawn a Carnifex, but it would definitely make them more worthwhile. I was thinking that instead they could spawn more rippers though...

The Devouring Swarm - For every point that a unit of Ripper Swarms wins a combat by, they way add a single base of Ripper Swarms to their unit.

Eg, 10 Ripper Swarm bases are locked in combat with 30 IG conscripts. The Rippers inflict 10 wounds and has suffered 6 wounds from the Conscripts. The Ripper Swarm unit now gains 4 additional Ripper Swarms as a result.

I'd say this makes a little more sense, and probably won't be that bad since Rippers still aren't very good and shouldn't winning combat most of the time anyway.

Congratulations! Your RIPPER evolved into RAVENER!

I really, really like Andilus' suggestion. It might not make quite as much sense in some ways (there's more fluff suggesting Rippers are larvae than that they can reproduce), but there's fewer balance concerns and it has a rules precedent (Parasite of Mortrex).

Deadshot, if you're keen on the 'growing up' aspect, there needs to be more balances to avoid Guard and suchlike drowning in cheap Carnifexes sooner than you can say '4ed Nidzilla'.

Suggestions:

- Rippers must commit to being 'X larvae' pre-game. If they're Trygon larvae, they can't take advantage of an opportunity to spawn a single Termagant to flit away and claim an objective.

- Sky-slashers must grow up into some sort of Winged creatures.

- As opposed to instant growth, a pupa stage is specifically mentioned in the fluff. Pupating is not something that can be done in the middle of a brawl! This comes to mind:

When consolidating after winning a CC, a Ripper unit may attempt to pupate. The success of this depends on having Biomass available! The Tyranid player first decides how many permitted models, of what kind, they wish to spawn; the number of models to spawn may not exceed the number of W remaining on the ripper unit. The Tyranid player rolls a D6 for every Wound lost by either side in the CC (except for wounds lost to Instant Death - these attacks don't leave anything for the rippers to eat! The W lost by models that have been killed by Sweeping Advance do count, though), whilst their opponent counts how many Wounds the spawned unit(s) would have and rolls this many dice. If the Tyranid player rolls more 6's, the Rippers pupate! The Ripper unit loses 1W for each model in the unit they are spawning (no saves or FNP apply), and a Mycetic Spore model is placed for each unit they are spawning, representing the cocoon.

At the start of each subsequent Tyranid turn, roll a D6 for each such cocoon still in play. If it scores more than the individual unit member's W characteristic (or a natural 6), the unit spawns exactly as if the Mycetic spore had entering play that turn with the unit inside.

eg

Ten Ripper Swarm bases are locked in combat with 30 IG conscripts. The Rippers inflict 10 wounds and has suffered 6 wounds from the Conscripts. The Conscripts flee. The Tyranid player decides to spawn a unit of two Carnifexes! The Guard player rolls 8D6 - 1 for each Carnifex W - and the Tyranid player rolls 16D6 - 1 for each dead body to nom. The bugs roll more 6's, and spawn a MS cocoon, and inflict 2W on the Rippers.

Every turn, the Tyranid player has to roll a 5+ for the Carnifexes to pop out to play. First roll is a 3, not enough; the IG pop the cocoon with a Krak missile, and the spawning is prevented. Should've made Hormagaunts, greedy!

This places more barriers in the way for players trying to get free Tervigons etc. Food for thought (pun intended)

They don't evolve, they immerse themselves in digestion pools and reconfigure into other units.

This is the reason they can't turn into rippers. They can't turn into unique characters, obviously, or lictors, because they must start in reserve. So do spods.