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I've seen it thrown around a few times that lictors are a pretty mediocre elite slot choice.
They seem sound to me. 65 pts for 3 wounds and 3 CC rending attacks (plus 2 rending shooting attacks which are basically CC) that can appear pretty much anywhere.

I understand that offensively they may not be as effective as, say, hive guard, and they're just as squishy as warriors (more so with 5+ Sv), but they can give you that +1 to reserve rolls that the HT usually has to pay 25 pts for, or pop up behind enemy lines and tie up his techmarine or whatever, or at the very least cause a big enough distraction to allow the rest of your force to skitter slightly farther across the table.

Maybe I'm just in serious denial about this all since I've got a couple of the buggers on the way. Are they really as meh as everyone seems to let on?

They have some potential. You can use them in conjunction with Mawlocs so that they don't scatter. Also, their placement allows you to stick them right next to or behind an LOS blocking vehicle, use your rending shots to take it out (or at least keep it stationary), and then have a nice little wall protecting you the first turn they arrive.

The biggest threat to their viability is the same thing that threatens Warriors, S8+ shooting. So you really want to have an idea of how your going to deal with that going in. One notion is to just spam a bunch of those multi wound T4 bodies, hoping to overwhelm that kind of firepower, or a combination of those and the T6 TMCs, as Missles and the like want to shoot at both. Honestly, with the way the meta has adapted back to more Plasma, and the Grey Knight S7/S6 spam, that build might be more viable now then it use to be, but most Nid players still have nightmares of running it against something like 3x6xMissle Long Fangs with 9xLaz/Plas razorbacks.

I've heard more enthusiasm for them in 6th Ed than in 5th.

ShadarLogoth wrote:Honestly, with the way the meta has adapted back to more Plasma, and the Grey Knight S7/S6 spam, that build might be more viable now then it use to be, but most Nid players still have nightmares of running it against something like 3x6xMissle Long Fangs with 9xLaz/Plas razorbacks.

Clang wrote:I've heard more enthusiasm for them in 6th Ed than in 5th.

Interesting. Well this definitely makes me feel better about buying some! But the S8 spam is definitely their biggest weakness it seems like

I was thinking of popping them up behind enemy lines at about the same time my Trygon prime emerges (and maybe a podded DoM) to take some of the fire away from them.

They're a bit better now, but honestly there are better uses of your slots and your points available in our codex. Ymargl genestealers are still better at popping right the feth out of nowhere and seriously messing someone up by a huge margin. Lictors may be quite survivable against shooting with their cover save bonuses, but they crumple like paper in assault and are seriously screwed over if the other guy has template weapons. I once tried a deep strike ambush with a brood of them to pop some battle wagons with their tendrils...ended up scattering near a burna boy mob, the result was a lot of very crispy lil' cthulhus.

Lictors scatter? I...could be wrong, but I thought they didn't scatter?

They don't scatter they just pop up were ever you want so I don't know what Kain is refering to. I plan on using a pack of 2 in my next game to see how they run, but I am not a competative player and just think it looks like a fun unit for the afermentioned reasons (popping rear armor on vehicles, psych warfare, linebreaker, DS assist) really on paper they are much more viable and kind of a multi trick pony in the right list now... but it remains to be seen on the tabletop for now.

ShadarLogoth wrote:
Lictors scatter? I...could be wrong, but I thought they didn't scatter?

...I think I know why I lost so horribly...

..Damned cheaters...

 Laughing God wrote:
it looks like a fun unit for the afermentioned reasons (popping rear armor on vehicles, psych warfare, linebreaker, DS assist) really on paper they are much more viable and kind of a multi trick pony in the right list now... but it remains to be seen on the tabletop for now.

This. I've been trying to counter armor-heavy SM and was hoping that bringing in some more tactical units rather than spamming MC's would be helpful. Really they aren't supposed to be offensive as much as they are disruption units

And yeah, they deffinitely don't scatter. Sorry Kain

DeathLeaper is very nice in this edition, being able to pull 2+ cover saves, on top of his usual skills. Being a charcter has also made him a great character hunter which was always the lictor strong point.

Standard Lictors did get better, but I think you really need to run in 3's. Still really good for hunting small squads or solo characters. Just don't try and assault TH/SS termi's as you don't have enough attacks.

Their +1 to reserves rule is still fairly useless.
It only comes into effect the turn after the lictor shows up on the table, meaning minimum turn 3.

The tyrants one on the other hand, works as long as the tyrant is still alive, so it's pretty rare (and indicative that something is horribly wrong) for you to not have it on turn 2.

If you want something to buff other units in your army, you are better off with venomthropes.
If you want a powerful unit to arrive from reserves and kill something, you are much better off with ymgarls.
Lictors try do to both, and don't really succeed at either.

I have been putting off commenting on this thread becasue as much as I like Lictors, they are a pain to use properly (except Deathleaper who I love and use in all my 6th Ed. lists).

1) Lictors have to be used in Broods of 2-3. A single lictor is just not that usefull.

2) The 1+ to reserves almost never matters.

3) In deepstrike heavy lists they are great (especally if you have a Tyrant that makes it likely that you will get most of your units on turn 2.) The ability to not scatter if you are within 6" makes things like DSing Shrikes and Raveners much less risky. They can also do the guided missle trick with Mawlocs.

4) Lictors kill mech gunlines. They are great at wiping out whole mech squadrons, riffle dreads and artillary. They are pretty good at killing dev squads and heavy weapons squads too.

5) Line up your shots. When you deploy make sure you are within 6" of some charater or specal weapons guy you want to kill. They will be forced to allocate to them first.

6) Taking objectives in cover. As one of only 2 units with assault grenades in the entire Nid dex Lictors are good for digging out units in cover. The bonus is that once they get in cover they are hard to dig out as they have Stealth and they are not always Fearless. Don't be scared to GtG as the worse case is that you will have to fight at normal initative if you get charged.

Thats it off the top of my head. For the points of Deathleaper I could take 2 Lictors. Might have to think about trying a unit of 3 again.

Lictors are 4th place in a slot that gives you 3 choices.
It's not that they are bad, it's that they are over-shadowed by other elites.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Lictors are 4th place in a slot that gives you 3 choices.
It's not that they are bad, it's that they are over-shadowed by other elites.

-Matt

For right now I agree. It may change over time. Hive Guard have taken a drop in my opinion so I replaced them with Deathleaper. If they give pyrovores AA ability then they will shoot up to the top.

At 2K 2FoC then Lictors are probably worth taking a real look at for a unit of 2.

Not being able to assault the turn they come in just kills it for me. I love deathleapers rules. They are the best names of rules in the tyranid codex.

But then he appears from reserve and dies horribly to massed fire. 2+ cover save or not just too squishy.

And agreed. by taking deathleaper/lichtors what am i dropping from my normal elite selection?

zteknon wrote:
Not being able to assault the turn they come in just kills it for me. I love deathleapers rules. They are the best names of rules in the tyranid codex.

But then he appears from reserve and dies horribly to massed fire. 2+ cover save or not just too squishy.

And agreed. by taking deathleaper/lichtors what am i dropping from my normal elite selection?

Honest question. Why are you putting him where he can get shot by mass fire? Its better to have him out of LoS and then charge in on the next turn then to just have him get 2 fleshhook attacks and die. I hear the same complaint about Mawlocs too.

Deathleaper (and Lictors in general) are scalpels, not hammers.

 Gloomfang wrote:

zteknon wrote:
Not being able to assault the turn they come in just kills it for me. I love deathleapers rules. They are the best names of rules in the tyranid codex.

But then he appears from reserve and dies horribly to massed fire. 2+ cover save or not just too squishy.

And agreed. by taking deathleaper/lichtors what am i dropping from my normal elite selection?

Honest question. Why are you putting him where he can get shot by mass fire? Its better to have him out of LoS and then charge in on the next turn then to just have him get 2 fleshhook attacks and die. I hear the same complaint about Mawlocs too.

Deathleaper (and Lictors in general) are scalpels, not hammers.

This.

You can put him (them) anywhere on the field. Seems to me there's always a tank somewhere with AV 10 rear armor they can hide behind (and disable in the process). I suppose all foot lists could be slightly more problematic, but those lists by necessity are forced to spread out pretty early. There is almost an area to exploit.

 Gloomfang wrote:

3) In deepstrike heavy lists they are great (especally if you have a Tyrant that makes it likely that you will get most of your units on turn 2.) The ability to not scatter if you are within 6" makes things like DSing Shrikes and Raveners much less risky. They can also do the guided missle trick with Mawlocs.

I don't really get this one. The not scattering within 6" thing, same as the +1 to reserves, only happens on the turn after the lictor arrives. So there is a very high chance you won't get to use it.


I hadn't thought of the non-scattering allowing easy flesh-hook sniping of characters/special weapons though. That one's not bad.

Yeah I know you can put him anywhere. Just saying the way it usually works out for me. Put him behind a wall and people just move around it. Dont get me wrong. A whole army shooting him and leaving the rest of the army alone isnt a bad deal.

Just wish he could assault the turn he infiltrates.

Arson Fire wrote:

I don't really get this one. The not scattering within 6" thing, same as the +1 to reserves, only happens on the turn after the lictor arrives. So there is a very high chance you won't get to use it.

It might not be useful every game, but if a Lictor is on the board and you have a unit coming in out of DS then it allows you to be much more aggressive with your DSing units.(Hence why I said DS heavy lists).

Also there are some units that can DS more than once. The Mawloc or any unit that has a psyker with the Gate of Infinity power.

Personally I love it when my Swarmlord gets GoI and I have Deathleaper on the board because I can make sure I don't loose my Prime or any of my TG.