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For a bit of fun, I thought I would re-do our good old Carnifex in an effort to make it a scary unit again. I've tried to differentiate between melee and ranged builds (right now there is essentially zero tradeoff by giving your Carnifex guns). They would be surprisingly fast if you want to go for a melee build, but equally capable of hunkering down at medium or long range if you like. I've tried to make guns that aren't Devourers more attractive too.

Carnifex Brood
Unit cost: 100 points
Unit composition: 1 Carnifex
Unit type: Monstrous Creature

WS: 4
BS: 2
S: 10
T: 6
W: 4
I: 2
A: 4
Ld: 8
Sv: 3+

Weapons & Biomorphs: Two pairs of Scything Talons (range -, S User, AP 6, Melee, Bladewhirl*)
*A model equipped with a pair of Scything Talons re-rolls rolls a 1 To Hit in the Fight subphase. A model equipped with two pairs of Scything Talons re-rolls all failed rolls To Hit in the Fight subphase.

Special Rules: Fearless, Instinctive Behaviour (Feed), Living Battering Ram, Furious Charge, Feel No Pain (4+), Rage

Options:
May include up to four additional Carnifexes (100 points each)
If a Carnifex Brood numbers at least three Carnifexes, it may upgrade one Carnifex to a Carnifex Alpha for +50 points

Any model may replace any pair of Scything Talons with:
- Brainleech Devourers (range 18”, S6, AP -, Assault 6, twin-linked) 15 points
- Acidburst Deathspitters (range 18”, S7, AP3, Assault 3, twin-linked) 15 points
- Crushing Claws* (range -, S User, AP1, Melee, Armourbane, Instant Death) 15 points
- Venom Cannon* (range 36”, S9, AP4, Assault 3) 25 points
- Barbed Strangler* (range 36”, S6, AP5, Assault 1, Large Blast, Shred, Rending) 25 points
*No more than one of these options may be taken on each Carnifex

Any model may purchase any of the following Biomorphs:
- Adrenal Glands (Fleet, +3” to all Run and Charge moves) 15 points
- Acid Blood (Whenever this model loses a wound in the Fight subphase, immediately resolve a S5 AP3 attack against that unit, hitting on a 4+ and allocated as if it were a melee attack made by the Carnifex) 10 points
- Bio-plasma (range Template, S7, AP2, Assault 1, Containment Field*) 15 points
- Enhanced Senses (+1 BS) 10 points
- Spine Banks (Assault Grenades) 5 points
- Regeneration (At the start of each of your turns roll a D6; on a 4+ this model regains a wound lost earlier in the battle) 20 points
- Toxin Sacks (Poisoned 2+) 5 points
- Toxic Miasma (At the Initiative 1 step in the Fight subphase, all enemy models in base to base contact with a Carnifex with Toxic Miasma suffer an automatic S1 AP- hit with the Poisoned 4+ special rule) 15 points
*Containment Field: If a Carnifex with Bio-plasma is equipped with two pairs of Scything Talons, its Bio-plasma gains the Torrent special rule

Special Rules:

Living Battering Ram: A model with the Living Battering Ram special rule may Run an additional D6” in the Shooting Phase. Additionally, it inflicts D3 Hammer of Wrath attacks instead of the usual 1, and these are resolved at AP2.

Carnifex Alpha: A Carnifex Alpha gains +1 WS, +1 BS, +1W, +2 Leadership and the Precision Strikes special rule. As long as the Carnifex Alpha is alive, Carnifex Broods within 24” of it automatically pass Instinctive Behaviour tests and may roll 3D6 instead of 2 when Charging, discarding the lowest)

Reduce the FNP to a 5++ and I'm fine with it.

I really like it. Particularly making non-devourer guns relevant. Also bringing back the 5th edition scything talon rules. I have no idea why GW removed those.

Does '*No more than one of these options may be taken on each Carnifex' mean that you could take a venom cannon along with a barbed strangler? Or that only one out of the three options may be taken?
My 4th edition sniperfexes hope they can get both weapons (even though it no longer looks like a great build).

Screamer-killer spam might be kinda broken. You could get a loot of S7 AP2 torrent templates for 115 ppm, and on a pretty awesome close combat platform.
Would probably add adrenal glands to that build for speed, bringing them to 130. Then just zoom around the board, burning away anything not in a vehicle.

Why give it Fearless and Instinctive Behaviour, wouldn't the former negate the latter? You've also given Furious Charge to a S10 model, it litterally has no effect on it what so ever now. And whats the point of Spine Banks?, being a Monstrous Creature it already has Move Through Cover and at I2, I really don't care whether I'm dropped down to I1 on the turn I charge, I'm almost certainly going last regardless.

Overall I'm liking the tone of the changes, it would be interesting to see a fully reworked codex given how far you've gone with the updates here.

100 points for a S10 model is kinda crazy - GW has been, in general, reducing the number of models that have access to S10 attacks to make T5 stuff more valuable.

I agree with raverrn's point about S10. Make it base S9 and you're probably fine, especially with Armourbane being available.

Also, I'd propose changing your bio-plasma to the current profile (R12 S7 AP2 Assault 1 Blast), but with something like Containment Field, such that if it's the only shooting weapon, it becomes either R24 or Assault 2 (still with Blast). My reasoning on that is that S7 AP2 templates are mean, and torrents are even meaner. Auto-hits that have AP2 and Ignores Cover are no joke.

well, if you wanted to make a larger gap between ranged and melee 'fexes why not drop them to S: 5 and give their melee weapons S: x2? that way there's an actual trade off.