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So lictors suck. We all know it.

But I think making them not suck could be incredibly easy, and make them fit into the tyranid playstyle a lot better.

In previous editions they had the Pheromone Trail special rule which was meant to help other deep strikers come in more precisely around them (let's not talk of the fact that the way they were actually designed the rule was basically useless, we're going to make something useful of it instead)

So here's my fix to lictors and Deathleaper

Hidden Hunter: Remove the last sentence.

Add the following ability:

Pheromone Trail: Friendly <HIVE FLEET> units within 6" of this model may re-roll either or both dice when making a charge roll if they entered the battlefield as reinforcements this turn.

Done. The lictor regains an essential part of its old flavor and gains an actual in-game purpose by providing a vital boost to reserve units.

(As for the Pheromone Trail Stratagem, yeet that thing right out of the codex, it was basically useless to begin with)

tl;dr Give lictors a 6" 'Ere We Go aura that only affects units coming in from reserves.

I like it. It's simple, fluffy, and useful.

I do wonder if it's perhaps a bit too niche/useful to units that it arguably shouldn't be this edition though? There's already a hive fleet that gives you a (slightly worse) version of the charge reroll aura you're suggesting, so lists that want to focus on rerollable charges coming out of reserves will likely find either the hive fleet benefit or the lictor to be redundant.

In the past, lictors paired well with things like genestealers that could outflank or infantry units that used the Hive Commander ability to outflank. Nowadays, most <Hive Fleet> deepstrikers are things with wings or the ability to burrow that arguably shouldn't be quite so good at blood hounding the lictor's pheromones as creatures on the surface. But maybe that's me making assumptions about the smelliness of alien bugs.

I kind of like the idea of lictors allowing a single infantry or swarm unit to outflank (arrive within 7" of the board edge and 9" away from the enemy). The idea being that they laid down the pheromone trail for a bunch of bugs to follow an unguarded alternative approach. That's probably potent enough to raise the lictor's cost by an undesirable amount, however, and arguably steps on ravener/trygon/spore pod toes.

IMO lictors should get broodlord stats and be more capable of launching an ambush.

They're the size of a broodlord yet have always had mediocre stats.

They're supposed to be super stealth predator-esque Killing machines.

Hellebore wrote:
IMO lictors should get broodlord stats and be more capable of launching an ambush.

They're the size of a broodlord yet have always had mediocre stats.

They're supposed to be super stealth predator-esque Killing machines.

You make a good point there. They certainly don't feel as lethal as they look. On the other hand, their stats are about where I'd expect them to be if their job is to kill a low wound character like a comissar or a runtherd. They're in that same awkward position as non-vindicaire, non-eliminator, non-Raven Guard snipers where they're roughly good enough at killing squishy characters to pull it off with some luck but not killy enough to do that job reliably or to meaningfully threaten tougher characters. Except the lictor has the added downside of needing to make a longbomb charge after deepstriking to even have a shot at those characters in the first place.

Maybe normal lictors should be more buff/deepstrike oriented while death leaper should be the super lethal tyranid assassin? It's weird that GSC dudes are way better character hunters than lictors.

giving lictors the ability to make a unit outflank near them is just another version of what both the trygon and even the tyrannocyte already do better. So i think boosting other units that already deepstrike would be more interesting.

As for making it redundant with behemoth trait, stuff like that is bound to happen. The Ulthwé craftworld trait is a great example for something with tons of redundancies (there is a psychic power, a warlord trait, and a vehicle wargear that all do the same thing)

I'm sorry, I don't like hearing someone who looks like Deet trying to make Tyranids more effective. This is making my Dark Crystal side cry. Can you just change to like, the Emperor for this discussion, or Bobby Kotich?

/joke

The only thing lictors need is more and better attacks.

They should be infiltrating glass canons that murder whatever they come in contact with and make your opponent fear their arrival

I mentioned something along these lines in the 'units that have lost their way' thread. But personally I look to the Callidus assassin for inspiration for what a Lictor should be.
Certainly they shouldn't be quite as good as a Callidus. But I think there are a lot of similarities in how they should work.

Offensively I think their number of attacks should be increased to 5 to match, their grasping talons AP should be -2 (not quite as good as the Callidus' phase sword). They should not get the phase swords ignore invuls ability, as there's no real justification for them to have that.
Defensively, they already have the same toughness as a Callidus, fewer wounds, and a 5+ armour instead of 4++ invul. They do get a -1 to hit natively, where the Callidus has to pay a CP to get that, so they're better in that regard at least.
Probably the most important defensive ability they lack is that they are not characters, despite being single infantry models. Which is kind of unusual now that I think about it.

So overall they're squishier than the assassin. Which seems pretty weird when you put the models side by side. But that's ok I guess. They're not really there to absorb rockets to the face. I don't see too much reason to increase their defensive stats. Despite being oddly weak, their main problems lie elsewhere.

The Callidus' deepstrike D6 + 3" ability is exactly how I think a lictor should be able to get the drop on an enemy.

Regular Lictors should not have the Callidus' ability to make stratagems cost extra CP of course. Although it is the sort of ability I might think to see on Deathleaper.

Given all that, they should cost a fair bit more than they currently do. I'd think about 60 points for a normal lictor. Cheaper than the Callidus' 85, but that's ok because they would lack several of the Callidus' main abilities (ignoring invuls, making stratagems cost more, and being characters, along with having no invul and a weak save).


I haven't given so much thought to Deathleaper. He's basically meant to be a slightly better lictor, with some sort of gimmick around terrorising an enemy character and making them suck.
One possibly fitting ability for Deathleaper would be to pick an enemy character at the start of the game, and shut down its aura abilities so long as Deathleaper is alive.
That's almost certainly too powerful like that, although it would be fun to put a check on some of the lists which have a single character like Bobby G or that new iron hands guy buffing a whole army.

I feel like the d6 + 3" deepstrike is the main thing I want to see on the lictor. An extra attack or two would be nice. More AP on his attacks probably isn't necessary (you make rending claws pointless if you make the default AP on his other weapons too good). But being able to actually get him into combat is the most frustrating aspect of his current rules.

If my lictor charges in and then somehow miraculously fails to gank the heroic company commander who fights tooth and claw for his life, fair enough. That's a cinematic struggle that will have both of our blood pumping. But a lictor who drop down, fails a charge, and then gets blasted apart in shooting on my opponent's turn is anticlimactic as heck.

So yeah. Good call there. A better deepstrike should really be the Lictor's big thing. Heck, that was a huge part of their kit in previous editions (albeit tied to terrain).

Turning off auras is messy, but giving Death Leaper the Callidus's CP antics seems like a flavorful representation of his thing. Not only does it match the disruption to a warlord's ability to command by making it potentially take more out of him, but the uncertainty about just how much that stratagem will really cost you actually invokes the paranoia a lictor should inflict really well. Very flavorful. Do support.

That's fair.
I agree that the D6 + 3" thing is a core part of what I'd like to see.

I'd argue that there's a sort of redundancy to their rending claws already. Situations where you would want to use them over the grasping talons are already few and far between.
It's a problem that has been hanging over the tyranid faction since 6th edition actually. When they removed the tyranid faction ability where their melee weapon rules stacked with each other.
But that's harder to fix without making wider changes to the faction.

Should've seen this thread before I started a new one on this subject. I love the change to Pheromone Trail. In regards to the other parts of their rules, adding an extra bit about turning off Overwatch from units charged by Lictors on the turn they arrive from DS would be something that's necessary especially now that Overwatch is so accurate nowadays. I also would love it if they could come stock with Toxin Sacs and maybe an ability that Grant's a MW on wound rolls of 6+ when targeting models with the Character keyword. Makes them the assassins they were always meant to be.

I want to be able to field them in groups of up to 3 per unit once again. It’s silly that with their feeble stats they are solo models.

v0iddrgn wrote:
Should've seen this thread before I started a new one on this subject. I love the change to Pheromone Trail. In regards to the other parts of their rules, adding an extra bit about turning off Overwatch from units charged by Lictors on the turn they arrive from DS would be something that's necessary especially now that Overwatch is so accurate nowadays. I also would love it if they could come stock with Toxin Sacs and maybe an ability that Grant's a MW on wound rolls of 6+ when targeting models with the Character keyword. Makes them the assassins they were always meant to be.

Simply improving the profile of their talons would probably accomplish the same thing as a mortal wound on 6+ rule while also being more reliable. Relying on a 6+ to wound with a model that only has a few attacks is unreliable. If you need those mortal wounds for them to do their job, then you're creating an unreliable failure point for them.

Turning off overwatch is an interesting idea. It makes sense as a feature for their chameleonic skin, but I'm not sure it fixes their real issues. Generally, overwatch doesn't seem to be the main problem for lictors. Their main issues are:

A.) Failing the charge out of deepstrike and then getting shot to death on your opponent's turn feels pretty lame and anticlimactic.
B.) It's not unlikely for them to fail to kill even a 3 or 4 wound character let alone something like a captain or farseer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:
I want to be able to field them in groups of up to 3 per unit once again. It’s silly that with their feeble stats they are solo models.

Eh. IIRC, even when you could buy three of them per slot, they still broke up into their own units during deployment. Taking multiples per slot was just a way of fielding more of them in the old force org systems. I'm also not sure that taking three of them really solves their problems. Taking three of them individually right now doesn't really make them work reliably, and that configuration gives you three times as many chances to get into combat.

Treating lictors as a sort of tyranid assassin seems like a good fit. Give them a calidus style deepstrike so that they can make the charge more reliably. Give them (or at least Death Leaper) a first turn CP sabotaging ability like the calidus's to represent them messing with the mind of the enemy commander. Give them a Culexus style "only hit on 6+" rule that lasts until the end of the turn they arrive (or until the start of their next turn?) to reflect their chameleonic skin. Give them 1 or 2 more attacks or improve their talons just slightly so that they can kill characters a bit more reliably.
Up the price accordingly, but they can probably be in roughly the ballpark of an assassin with those changes.

A kit like that would let lictors tackle a key enemy unit and survive to be a problem at least until the following player turn but would then leave them susceptible to reprisals on the following turn.