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As a non-tyranid player, I'm wondering how people tool up their Carnifex and Hive Tyrant. Mostly, I want to know how people operate them.

Fore-armed is fore-warned.

Tyrants are not normally ran in competitive list simply due to high point cost and being 'easy' to counter. Carnifexes are usually ran in groups of two-sometimes three as mobile gun turrents since thier melee weapon options do not do much to improve thier already impressive stat-line capabilities in hand to hand.

Tyrants, if ran solo will usually sport wings, making them jump infrantry and will typically sport a Heavy Venom Canon for AT duties or a Brain-leech worms-Devourer as an universal heavy weapon. Foot Tyrants are becoming rather uncommon, since Tyrant guard are almost mandatory for survival. All Tyrants are major melee threats regardless of how they're equiped, as MC is nothing to sneeze at in close quarters! Tyrants can also get ahold of one of two upgrades that let them 1) outflank a troop choice in addition to adding a 1 to reserves, and 2) providing preferred enemy bubble in his presence. They can (but rarely do) buy a heavy/unique flamer template that can be rather lethal. They also have access to two psychic powers, usually Leech Essence (short range shooting attack that can help them recover lost Wounds) and Paroxysm (that can debuff a units Weapon Skill and Ballistic skill down to 1). The Horror and Psychic Scream (the first being a morale check the second an AOE) are less commonly taken due to the Tyrant wantting to get into melee and the fact few armies will ignore the closeness of one either! All-in-all, a very powerful HQ, but one that is avoided, especially in smaller games due to point sink and point returns.

The Carnifexes suffer in a similar vein, but have the added option of taking up to three! in a single unit and sport the highest strength of any Tyranid in the 'dex. While not as outright killy as the Trygon is (giant snake that deepstrikes can have synapse and shoots a fair bit) The 'Fex is no joke. Packing the best of the Tyranids heavy weapons, a MC and the 'Fex's resilent nature pretty much makes them the go-to Battle Bug in the army. A Tyrannofex may pack the biggest gun, but the Carnifex is the Dakka-workhorse of the Codex. You will usually see them up front firing away at the most effective target for what they're equiped for. The most common and favorable setup is dual Brain-leech worms-Devourers which throws out a torrent of strength 6 shots. The downside to the unit other than cost? Range and Ballistic Skill. With a fex exceptions(Venom and Strangler heavy weapon types) the 'Nids tend to have a moderate range in shooting and are only fairly accurate at shooting (BS3). The pay off is that they can keep moving while firing everything, and are beasts in melee.

If you spot aTyranid player leaving behind any unit so it can shoot, jump on it and kill it, since it will either not have synapse (or any battle-buddies around) to rely on or will crumble if beaten in hand to hand (most non-synapse units have a low leadership). Mind a unit like the Carnifex will still kill in hand-to-hand if taken lightly, but then you could always shoot at it, so it has to take a morale check, too!

Bloody makes some good points

Regular Hive Tyrants lose out on thier use when you put them next to HQ's like Tyranid Primes and the swarmlord or even Tervigons.

I tend to avoid regular tyrants in favour of the above mentioned, except in 2500-3k point games that im runniing a large number of reserves since Hive commander and the Swarmlord's reserves roll modifiers stack.

Carnifex's are actually the most accurate shooters in the Codex since all it's guns are Either twin-linked or scatter based, which direct hit 50% of the time and even with scatter will still often land on thier targets.

twin-linked BS3 is 75% hit ratio where say a marine's BS 4 is 66% hit rate.

In anycase Shooty Fex's are almost always better than CC oriented one's as a Gun equiped Carnifex will still kill anything that is not a dedicated assault unit in CC.

2x twin linked Brainleech worm Devourers is awesome.
though for 5pts more im often running 1x twin linked Brainleech worm Devourers, 1 set scything talons and Bio plasma. but thats to counter my local Meta (lots of Terminators that deepstrike, they dont like str 7 ap 2 blasts)

one thing Bloody did get wrong. carnifex's are fearless. even outside synapse so shooting it wont cause morale checks

Karnac wrote:
one thing Bloody did get wrong. carnifex's are fearless. even outside synapse so shooting it wont cause morale checks

wow... I hadn't noticed that either.

rigeld2 wrote:

Karnac wrote:
one thing Bloody did get wrong. carnifex's are fearless. even outside synapse so shooting it wont cause morale checks

wow... I hadn't noticed that either.

yeah the real question is does the fearless override the Instinctive Behaviour. Im on the fence.

Karnac wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

Karnac wrote:
one thing Bloody did get wrong. carnifex's are fearless. even outside synapse so shooting it wont cause morale checks

wow... I hadn't noticed that either.

yeah the real question is does the fearless override the Instinctive Behaviour. Im on the fence.

No - IB is a Leadership check, Fearless auto-passes Morale and Pinning checks.

Karnac wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

Karnac wrote:
one thing Bloody did get wrong. carnifex's are fearless. even outside synapse so shooting it wont cause morale checks

wow... I hadn't noticed that either.

yeah the real question is does the fearless override the Instinctive Behaviour. Im on the fence.

I say no because your Instinctive Behavior isn't a moral check, when you lose synaptic control over a unit it is not them panicking.

One thing "regular" Tyrants have over the Swarmlord is that they are a core component in a truly fearsome deathstar unit.

- Tyrant with Armoured Shell/Regeneration/Lash Whip/Old Adversary
- 3x Tyrant Guard with Lash Whips
- Tyranid Prime with Regeneration/Lash Whip

This unit can do hilarious things with wound allocation, and can apply Krak Missiles to the Tyrant (who will get his save) and the Prime (who can take a couple of hits and regenerate). This unit can soak up a sickening amount of firepower and emerge unscathed.

The Swarmlord can be swapped into this unit too, exchanging resilience for power and synergy.

The other major option for a Tyrant is Wings, Hive Commander and either quad-talons or quad-Devourers. This is a cornerstone to the Reserves list, but really only excels in that sort of list.

I often see bad mouthing to Carnifexes due to them being overpriced compared to the Trygon - which is true to an extent. The Trygon gains deep striking without the need of a spore, fleet which is a huge bonus, and has a shooting attack without needing to sacrifice its scything talons, which is very handy. These are things the Carnifex pays for, and loses things due to upgrading, that the Trygon gets in a mere 30 points extra.

That said, against my primary opponent, I've had a lot of fun with Carnifexes. They have a few benefits over Trygons that I find invaluable. First, they're short. Really short. While the Trygon proudly rears up, it might as well have a bullseye on its chest. It needs those 6 wounds to soak up every single long ranged anti tank shot fired at it. The Carnifex, however, is short enough that a lot of cover can actually completely hide it - it's only slightly taller than a Tyranid Warrior not counting the chimneys on its back, and those don't count for LoS.

The other, as said above, is its heavy weapons. Forget the scything talons. They're helpful if you get into combat with a fast tank, but any player even half thinking will not let the Carnifex catch it. My regular opponent runs Dark Eldar, but not Venom spam. He runs a few Riader-born Wych squads, a unit of Scourges and a unit of Hellions. The units that give me the most trouble are ironically the Scourges and Hellions.

I can shoot a Raider down easily enough with Zoanthropes and Hive Guard leaving Wyches stranded and ready for my Tyrant and Hormagaunts to munch on, but Scourges sit safely back at 36" away and kick out a ridiculous number of poisoned shots, and his Hellions always make mince-meat out of any Hormagaunts I throw at them. A Carnifex sitting back drilling Stranglethorn shots into his Scourges almost always saves my ass. He'll either lose enough to start making them ineffective even after one shot, or sometimes even get pinned. If I manage to pin them, it's a free pass to get my Gargoyles into combat.

Carnifexen took a hit from the nerf bat in this edition as they are overcosted for what you get - I think the designer was pushing the new bugs such as Trygons and Tyrannofexen, and wanted to encourage more horde lists with the introduction of the Tervigon.

There are lots of armies that can paste a Tyrant and it's Tyrant Guard with shooting before they ever reach an assault so personally I don't see much value in a foot slogging Tyrant. The Flyrant with Hive Commander is a better choice in my opinion if you want to run an army with lots of broods held in reserve.

Trygon and Carnifex are similar price:

Trygon has 50% more wounds, higher weapon skill, higher initiative, more attacks, re-rolls misses, has fleet, and has deep strike...

Carnifex has the option to take guns, can pay for the option to deepstrike (taking an extra kill point with him), and can take multiples in one squad if you don't mind walking. Oh, and the biggest one, the ability to be joined by a SC.

Other than putting a Prime with a Fex and making a Fexstar, or maybe some Apocalyspe fun with giant broods of fexen, there seems to be little point to the Fex in this edition. I agree that "try to sell Trygons" was the apparent underlying book writing fundamental that was at work here.

Tyrants, on the other hand, despite being expensive for what they do, at least have the option to buff the entire army. Ancient adversary and hive commander can both form the basis of an army strategy.

-Myst

Mysticaria wrote:Other than putting a Prime with a Fex and making a Fexstar, or maybe some Apocalyspe fun with giant broods of fexen, there seems to be little point to the Fex in this edition.

if you're playing on a bare table, I agree.

Again, the absolute best benefit the Carnifex has going for it is its short stature. Half obscuring or hiding a Carnifex completely for a few turns as it makes its way up the table isn't hard at all. You don't count the chimneys on its back or and scything talons sticking up above the body for LoS. There's not much terrain, short of sticking a few Bastions on the table, that can hide a Trygon. it needs those wounds since it's going to eat every single krak missile and lascannon shot the enemy has.

The only way I can really recommend taking Carnifexes is to go all-out: 2 units of 2 or 1 unit of 3, run with minimal upgrades. Podding in 2 is a decent idea as well, but not one I have tried personally.

All good points here. I guess I'll add in my .02. I run two trygons from 1000-2000 points with adrenal glands. I've tried deep striking them- its cool at first but after one game any opponent catches onto them and they'll be shot down once they come up. I've found running them up the field is more effective. They have fleet, so watch out for that, and their IB isn't all that bad compared to Lurk. It forces them to charge the closest visible unit. So with that knowledge in mind its possible to just bait them around IF they fail their test. At Ld 8 though I've never failed an IB test with them. Another trick I've been playing is to keep them near a venomthrope and cast FnP on them while they move up. This makes them actually much more survivable. They get cover against las/plas (their biggest enemy) and cover/FnP against missle spam. Just something to watch out for. Adrenal glands are nice for AT duty (specifically Land Raiders)

As far as Tyrants go, I have been running mine simply because it's painted and its a nice model. I have a carnifex model in a box ready to be made into another tervigon. I'm increasingly liking the idea of just running 1-2 tervigons as my HQ with another 1-2 as Troops. It's cheap and effective. The HT has some nice upgrades, but as stated, it gets expensive fast.

I say if you have a diversified list with fast moving assault units, then take the Swarmlord. If you are running more big bugs - like lots of tervigons - then a Flyrant with devourers and hive commander is your best bet.

I would go with a Trygon Prime. It allows you to deep strike and put Shadows in range of psyrifleman dreads.

It really does depend on the kind of list as to whether people bring Tyrants or Carnifexes. Some points that have been missed so far:

- A Carnifex is extremely vulnerable to JotWW thanks to it's really low initiative.

- A Carnifex brood of 2 teams up well with 2 Primes thanks to the now available cover saves wound allocation, Regen on the Primes and FnP giving Tervigons. This unit has a hell of a lot of resiliency. Slow and expensive though. But you can count on it to survive most of what your opponent throws at it.

Tyrants w/ Guard may be slow but they are equally quite resilient. I wouldn't advocate using one beneath 1500pts however as they get expensive quickly. I personally use mine as a buff to my other threats. If you throw everything you have at your opponent (40 infiltrating stealers, 8/9 Hive Guard and as many Gaunts as you can find) target priority becomes an issue. Chances are your Tyrant will live long enough to give your opponent a serious headache. This is of course the downside to the Winged Tyrant. He is so deadly and fast he will eat a ton of Krak missiles. A walking one...not so much.

Best part of both tyrant and fexes is TL devourers. You can have 12 twin-linked S6 shots per model which is great to support a hive guard heavy foot slogging list. Okay they're AP- so you suffer on the damage chart but look to immobilise tranports etc even for a turn rather than killing outright and then finish them when you get into CC. S6 is also great for taking out dangerous T3 units such as scarab swarms, wyches, banshees etc.

CC fexes need spores to come in - if you walk them across the board they are too easily avoided. I agree thier hunched shape gives them a decent chance of cover though. CC fexes; I still smart at the cost of Necron spyders for only a small drop in the stat line and a unit that can get a cover save almost anywhere.

Tyrant is a support unit rather than an out and out combat machine. Hive commander gives you the important +1 reserves for outflanking/reserves lists and isn't handicapped like lictors are here. If you walk on, then OA can be great for boosting units without scything talons. Not saying he's not too expensive, but he does what no other unit in the codex does.

What are peoples thoughts on using gargoyles, say 20 or so as a screen for a Flyrant? Gets the 4+ cover and rush the unit forward to get into CC quickly. Flyrant equipted with strictly CC weapons LW/BS and ST.
Along with this army he has stealers outflanking (take Hive commander) A tervigon as troop choice and using hive commander to outflank it. This way you have basically your entire army up front right away. Then deep striking 2 Trygons. About a 1750 pt army could be viable no?

I use a Flyrant to escort and control my Harpy squadron. can I really don't use Carnifexes that much.