Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This is just a weird trend i've noticed in the listings of online Canadian 40k used models, but /almost every single carnifex/ i've ever seen online (like, maybe 1-2 outliers) have scything talons and the long cannon (venom or strangle, cant remember which is the longer barrel). Was this a meta pick in a previous edition? Why on earth am I seeing so many of them? All different people, different paint schemes, it doesn't matter. It's always built like that aside from a very rare oddball.

I dont think theres any meta reason, not in the last several editions. Casual gamers probably just don't want to fully commit to ranged or melee. I can see people who don't worry about minmaxing just thinking a big cannon and some big talons looks cool.

Wysiwyg isnt a rule and tourny players are the vast minority of players. When you see second hand models chances are they are built the way the player felt like building it for fun.

 vaklor4 wrote:
This is just a weird trend i've noticed in the listings of online Canadian 40k used models, but /almost every single carnifex/ i've ever seen online (like, maybe 1-2 outliers) have scything talons and the long cannon (venom or strangle, cant remember which is the longer barrel). Was this a meta pick in a previous edition? Why on earth am I seeing so many of them? All different people, different paint schemes, it doesn't matter. It's always built like that aside from a very rare oddball.

May date back from 3rd Ed where the metal fex model came with a sprue that had 1 set scything talons, 1 set rending claws and 1 of each venom cannon and barbed strangler so talons plus gun was standard as claws didn’t real do anything useful for a fex?

Yeah I think it was a combination of box art plus being a reasonable build in earlier editions.

All fair points! Just kinda baffled its never the crushing claws, or devourers, or anythin else. But yeah, box art probably has a lot to play.

 vaklor4 wrote:
All fair points! Just kinda baffled its never the crushing claws, or devourers, or anythin else. But yeah, box art probably has a lot to play.

Well, specifically talking about used models, Crushing claws and devourers weren't actually options in the box originally, iirc.
The monstrous weapons sprue got replaced at some point.

In 3rd those weapons weren't options for fexes, and in the 2004 codex, devourers were pretty terrible options for carnifexes. They were S -1, but capped at S6 and had AP-, so they were really bad at scratching vehicles. And got # of shots off the base attacks of 2, which was not great. 4 shots, with twin linked just provided rerolls.

Also the crushing claws are small and don't look great while the devourers are super weedy and ineffective looking.

If I had a choice between massive bio cannon or 2 arms that looked 3/4s too small for the size of the model I would go with the massive bio canon.

The only crushing claws that look good at the Fex scale are the ones on the stone crusher. I have seen some people people the Tervigon crushing claws on the fex to make it look better. Especially when building OOE.

 vaklor4 wrote:
All fair points! Just kinda baffled its never the crushing claws, or devourers, or anythin else. But yeah, box art probably has a lot to play.

Crushing Claws have generally suffered from being very pricey and having some sort of really crippling downside that offsets their utility. In 4th/5th edition they offered D3 attacks (not bad) but forced the barer to swing at initiative 1 (very bad). 6th/7th the claws granted armorbane which made them better against vehicles as intended, but the Carnifex already had very high strength so the benefit was only really noticeable against very heavy vehicles (both these editions were also rather unkind to vehicles, so the claws didn't have many targets in a typical meta). In the current edition the claws are better than they have been, but they still have a rather painful -1 to hit penalty on a model that hits on a 4+ normally. Scything Talons in contrast offer the ability to reroll hit rolls of 1, so they are more accurate while having the same damage and AP.

Now regarding Devourers, they are generally run in pairs for maximum firepower. A hybrid Carnifex using a single set of Devourers just isn't as efficient by comparison (especially seeing as the twin-devourer configuration can still get some melee bite from an Acid Maw).

That being said, devourers might be the reason you do see so many biocannon + talon Carnifexes. The kit only comes with 1 pair of devourers per Carnifex, so if someone is building a duel-devourer config they might go ahead and build another one with a Heavy Venom Cannon to offer something against heavier targets.

Voss wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
All fair points! Just kinda baffled its never the crushing claws, or devourers, or anythin else. But yeah, box art probably has a lot to play.

Well, specifically talking about used models, Crushing claws and devourers weren't actually options in the box originally, iirc.
The monstrous weapons sprue got replaced at some point.

In 3rd those weapons weren't options for fexes, and in the 2004 codex, devourers were pretty terrible options for carnifexes. They were S -1, but capped at S6 and had AP-, so they were really bad at scratching vehicles. And got # of shots off the base attacks of 2, which was not great. 4 shots, with twin linked just provided rerolls.

Wat.

You are wrong on both counts. Claws and devourers were absolutely in the box. The sprue has never changed. Plus twin devourer fexes were common as muck back then, especially in Nidzilla lists. The ability to pump out 8 shots that rerolled everything vs non-vehicles due to living ammo was what made them good.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Voss wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
All fair points! Just kinda baffled its never the crushing claws, or devourers, or anythin else. But yeah, box art probably has a lot to play.

Well, specifically talking about used models, Crushing claws and devourers weren't actually options in the box originally, iirc.
The monstrous weapons sprue got replaced at some point.

In 3rd those weapons weren't options for fexes, and in the 2004 codex, devourers were pretty terrible options for carnifexes. They were S -1, but capped at S6 and had AP-, so they were really bad at scratching vehicles. And got # of shots off the base attacks of 2, which was not great. 4 shots, with twin linked just provided rerolls.

Wat.

You are wrong on both counts. Claws and devourers were absolutely in the box. The sprue has never changed. Plus twin devourer fexes were common as muck back then, especially in Nidzilla lists. The ability to pump out 8 shots that rerolled everything vs non-vehicles due to living ammo was what made them good.

No, fexes didn't have twin linked devourers. If they did I wouldn't have had to convert one and Forgeworld would never have to sell them themselves.

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-WW/Tyranid-Twin-linked-Devourers

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

Voss wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
All fair points! Just kinda baffled its never the crushing claws, or devourers, or anythin else. But yeah, box art probably has a lot to play.

Well, specifically talking about used models, Crushing claws and devourers weren't actually options in the box originally, iirc.
The monstrous weapons sprue got replaced at some point.

In 3rd those weapons weren't options for fexes, and in the 2004 codex, devourers were pretty terrible options for carnifexes. They were S -1, but capped at S6 and had AP-, so they were really bad at scratching vehicles. And got # of shots off the base attacks of 2, which was not great. 4 shots, with twin linked just provided rerolls.

Wat.

You are wrong on both counts. Claws and devourers were absolutely in the box. The sprue has never changed. Plus twin devourer fexes were common as muck back then, especially in Nidzilla lists. The ability to pump out 8 shots that rerolled everything vs non-vehicles due to living ammo was what made them good.

No, fexes didn't have twin linked devourers. If they did I wouldn't have had to convert one and Forgeworld would never have to sell them themselves.

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-WW/Tyranid-Twin-linked-Devourers

Incorrect.
https://www.bitsandkits.co.uk/tyranid-carnifex-paired-bio-guns-b-p-1964.html?sesid=frjigtv004psrrut1m1jfueku2
The very top of the sprue.
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0315/14/warhammer-40k-shield-baal-deathstorm_1_f659b0b002c5f3f784d7bb75ef584d49.jpg

codex Nids 4th ed page 46 wrote: Weapon symbiotes- .... Twin-linked Devourer +10pts.

Plus your point makes no sense, otherwise you could claim Marines never came with Boltguns. FW sell them too, right?

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

Voss wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
All fair points! Just kinda baffled its never the crushing claws, or devourers, or anythin else. But yeah, box art probably has a lot to play.

Well, specifically talking about used models, Crushing claws and devourers weren't actually options in the box originally, iirc.
The monstrous weapons sprue got replaced at some point.

In 3rd those weapons weren't options for fexes, and in the 2004 codex, devourers were pretty terrible options for carnifexes. They were S -1, but capped at S6 and had AP-, so they were really bad at scratching vehicles. And got # of shots off the base attacks of 2, which was not great. 4 shots, with twin linked just provided rerolls.

Wat.

You are wrong on both counts. Claws and devourers were absolutely in the box. The sprue has never changed. Plus twin devourer fexes were common as muck back then, especially in Nidzilla lists. The ability to pump out 8 shots that rerolled everything vs non-vehicles due to living ammo was what made them good.

No, fexes didn't have twin linked devourers. If they did I wouldn't have had to convert one and Forgeworld would never have to sell them themselves.

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-WW/Tyranid-Twin-linked-Devourers

Incorrect.
https://www.bitsandkits.co.uk/tyranid-carnifex-paired-bio-guns-b-p-1964.html?sesid=frjigtv004psrrut1m1jfueku2
The very top of the sprue.
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0315/14/warhammer-40k-shield-baal-deathstorm_1_f659b0b002c5f3f784d7bb75ef584d49.jpg

codex Nids 4th ed page 46 wrote: Weapon symbiotes- .... Twin-linked Devourer +10pts.

Plus your point makes no sense, otherwise you could claim Marines never came with Boltguns. FW sell them too, right?

Those are just devourers, not twin linked ones.

Well, there is no hope for you if you are not going to take a quote from what is quite literally printed in the codex...

If you have 2 singles of a weapon on either arm, they were a twin linked single weapon. Or do you not think the Deathspitters on the same bloody sprue are twin linked either?

 Grimtuff wrote:
Well, there is no hope for you if you are not going to take a quote from what is quite literally printed in the codex...

If you have 2 singles of a weapon on either arm, they were a twin linked single weapon. Or do you not think the Deathspitters on the same bloody sprue are twin linked either?

Not unless they're connected in some way. You can glue 4 single devourers into 4 arm slots and count them as twin linked because the rules say.so, but they're not physically connected so they aren't modelled as twin linked. This isn't complicated.

Twin-linked devourers were a pair of two single devourer arms as far as I can remember. That's how they always were.

Twin-linked deathspitters were one pair of single deathspitter arms.

A standard dakka fex or a walking tyrant has two pairs of devourer guns. This was in the previous editions known as having two twin-linked devourers.

The special FW TLD arms combine two pairs of devourers into one physical pair of arms for use in Flyrant kits where wings occupy one pair of arm sockets, leaving only one pair of arm sockets free.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Well, there is no hope for you if you are not going to take a quote from what is quite literally printed in the codex...

If you have 2 singles of a weapon on either arm, they were a twin linked single weapon. Or do you not think the Deathspitters on the same bloody sprue are twin linked either?

Not unless they're connected in some way. You can glue 4 single devourers into 4 arm slots and count them as twin linked because the rules say.so, but they're not physically connected so they aren't modelled as twin linked. This isn't complicated.

The twin-linked rule was never connected to modeling, especially not on xenos models.

 Lance845 wrote:
Wysiwyg isnt a rule and tourny players are the vast minority of players. When you see second hand models chances are they are built the way the player felt like building it for fun.

Tourney players aren't the only ones who can read what a weapon does, read what it's called in the build guide, and put the weapon they like on the model.

Modelers are the vast minority of players, when you see a second hand model chances are they are built the way the player felt like using them for fun on the tabletop.

 vaklor4 wrote:
This is just a weird trend i've noticed in the listings of online Canadian 40k used models, but /almost every single carnifex/ i've ever seen online (like, maybe 1-2 outliers) have scything talons and the long cannon (venom or strangle, cant remember which is the longer barrel). Was this a meta pick in a previous edition? Why on earth am I seeing so many of them? All different people, different paint schemes, it doesn't matter. It's always built like that aside from a very rare oddball.

Sounds like the build from the Deathstorm box set. My guess is a lot of people bought that box and set up the Carnifex as instructed.

Sim-Life wrote:No, fexes didn't have twin linked devourers. If they did I wouldn't have had to convert one and Forgeworld would never have to sell them themselves.

Sim-Life wrote:Those are just devourers, not twin linked ones.

Sim-Life wrote:Not unless they're connected in some way. You can glue 4 single devourers into 4 arm slots and count them as twin linked because the rules say.so, but they're not physically connected so they aren't modelled as twin linked. This isn't complicated.

I'm sorry, but you are completely wrong here, Grimtuff has it right. The paired Devourers on the Carnifex sprue counted as a single twin-linked weapon in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Ed codices; there was no option to take two single Devourers. If you put four Devourer arms on a Carnifex, that gave you two twin-linked Devourers in the rules. The Forge World twin-linked Devourers were intended for use with Flyrants, which only have one weapon slot open since the other is occupied by wings. You thus got two twin-linked Devourers by having one on each arm.

I can take a picture of the relevant codex entries if you won't take our word for it.

Voss, I can also confirm that the plastic Carnifex sprue has never been altered. The Carnifex in 3rd Ed used the original plastic monstrous weapons/biomorphs sprue with a pewter body; then when it was replaced in 4th Ed, we got the plastic Carnifex that still persists today.

I have to second Catbarf, twinlinked for Tyranids has always been two of the same weapon.


PS Hydracast makes some neat twinlinked devourers and deathspitters which can be used for a single arm slot (flying Hive Tyrant) or for a duel arm slot carnifex (they can't so easily duel arm hold in the hive tyrant because of the angle of the arms - the fex has a hunched forward design and the tyrant an upright).