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Hey folks!

Had a narrative game of 40k recently and while we had a blast, the rules on certain units certainly didn't help. Chiefly, I'm talking about the Tyranid Lictor and his cousin, Death Leaper. These units are, to put it bluntly, not good. Lictors have only as many attacks as a Primaris Marine does most of the time that it matters (3). The attacks that hit aren't horrible (2+ to hit, S6, AP-1, 2 dmg), but aren't stellar either. I think GW has, to put it lightly, totally misjudged what the Lictor was going to be capable of doing, and what was important to the game when they made it and made its stratagems. Here's what a Lictor is supposed to do;

- Hunt characters (successfully killing them is another matter)
- Eat brains and learn enemy secrets
- Alerts the Hive Mind to where the juicy targets are

Here's what the Lictor currently does;

- Prevents overwatch for supported units. (+1 to charge and no Overwatch strat - Blood of Baal, plus intrinsic reroll charges)
- Tags enemy units so they have to Fall Back in order to shoot.
- Allows an infantry unit that already has a reserve rule to deploy at the same time as the Lictor (functionally, this just means Genestealers held in reserves through an Infestation node, but otherwise is no different from any other deep strike rule)

Really, none of these things are really that great, and none of them are accomplishing the things that Lictors are known for. So here's my solution:

Solution - Give the Lictor character-like abilities without being a character:

Make it that a Lictor can do Heroic Intervention as though it were a character. I'd even argue to give them a 6" pile-in move towards any enemy (not just the closest), that this move ignores intervening models, and that the Lictor can make attacks against any enemy unit within 1" of it and not just the units it charged. This allows a Lictor to "slip" past enemy positions like in the fluff to get at those weak characters. While the Lictor wouldn't be any better at killing those characters, it would definitely make players nervous when multiple Lictors are facing them, as two Lictors sneaking into contact with a character might just do the job!

Really, I can't see a better solution than this. All the rest involve preventing units from falling back from it, or increasing its deadliness - neither of which really catch the Lictor's theme.

What do you think?

Would there be any real issues with making lictors characters?

They are supposed to be chameleonic ambush-predators, and chameleonic skin would easily allow them to blend in well when there are other targets to aim at - why would you be looking for a lictor if hormagaunts are at your door?

Heroic intervention would also work with their ambushing.

One option would be for them to only be allowed to deploy anywhere within 3" of cover, and that can include within 1" of an enemy. You want to avoid lictors, you stay out of the long grass. Such a deployment method would allow you to impart some control of an enemies deployment and use of the board - so they would be best limited to, say, 3. If an enemy character strays too close to a rock in the heat of the battle, that rock might just reach out and eat his brains. It will also allow a good disruption to back-of-board artillery and heavy guns, but the lictor should also be good at killing non-heavy characters (as in techpriests and meks, not chapter masters and warbosses), so they are more for ambushing key targets than the most powerful guy out there.

I considered it, but avoided it mainly so that Lictors don't count as a character by other rules in the game. They totally could be made characters to help facilitate this improvement.

As for "deep strike right near a tree", I wouldn't want to do that. In all my years of playing with similar rules in similar editions (like the dreaded "draw a map and mark where the model is" rule), no one has ever liked it when a Lictor just instantly showed up. It's not fun when it's practically guaranteed.

 Yarium wrote:
I considered it, but avoided it mainly so that Lictors don't count as a character by other rules in the game. They totally could be made characters to help facilitate this improvement.

As for "deep strike right near a tree", I wouldn't want to do that. In all my years of playing with similar rules in similar editions (like the dreaded "draw a map and mark where the model is" rule), no one has ever liked it when a Lictor just instantly showed up. It's not fun when it's practically guaranteed.

I was thinking that he would still appear in your movement phase, as per normal deepstriking. But instead of the stipulation of "not within 9" of an enemy model", they would have "not outside of 3" of terrain".

So not suddenly turning up in the opponents turn or anything, just a change in the rules of where a lictor can appear. They shouldn't be cropping up in the middle of an open field, they should be jumping out of trees.

Even if you insist they remain outside of 1" so they have to charge and get overwatched, it's fair to say that if you stand too close to the trees when fighting tyranids, you stand the risk of a lictor being in there!