Everyone, it is thursday, and you all know what that means.
No, not that you perverted little buggers, its time to talk about bugs silly.
Fun with Tyranids: Sarge is Acting Weird
Today we will be talking about the often ignored HQ choice the Tyranids have, known as The Parasite of Mortrex. He is a little flying bugger that has some really really cool abilities as long as you can get him across the field. Regardless of how hard he is to keep alive he has some really lulz worthy abilities that can really make playing him as your HQ as tons of fun.
First of all, he has wings so that makes him a jump infantry, giving him an awesome 12″ movement which gives him some great mobility. He also is obviously a Synapse creature and because of his rending claws has the rending special rule. Also with the Implant Attack special rule, any wound rolls of 6 automatically cause instant death regardless of toughness, which of course means they rend as well meaning they are AP2 which is just awesome. Sure it doesn’t get past those pesky invulnerable saves, but still it is definitely something, can really mess with your opponents.
He has this special rule called Implant Parasite which does some really cool stuff, so let us look at that. Every Casualty that the Parasite causes there must be taken a toughness test. For each one of those tests which is failed, the corpse explodes and d6 ripper swarms appear within 6 inches of the Parasite. Even better, as long as said swarms are within 24″ of the Parasite, thanks to the Host Swarm ability, they function as if they were within synapse. So this is a super synapse creature when it comes to ripper swarms. Now grant you ripper swarms aren’t that amazing in close combat, or out of it for that matter, but when you spawn enough of them they can throw out a lot of attacks. Each ripper swarm throws out 4 attacks before the charge, which means if you spawn a lot of these little buggers its a lot of attacks which could do fun things.
Seriously, as if that wasn’t enough, there is in fact more that is just so worth the lulz. Any enemies that deploy via the outflank rule, thanks to “The Sarge is Acting Strangely”, has a chance of carrying ripper parasites in them. Essentially one model within each unit deploying this way takes a toughness test. If failed the model dies (even if in a transport, it assumes the model staggered out to die, brutal no?) and spawns rippers just as if the parasite had killed the dude, which is just funny as hell. Sure it is a little gimmicky, but seriously if it ever does happen it would just be funny as hell to see.
Just as a note though, this guy can be instant deathed as it is only Toughness 4, though it does have 3 woulds. So basically if you want this guy to live, put him in a squad of gargoyles or shrikes. The gargoyles will be cheaper and give you more wounds to work with, and more shots helping you out, but at the same time wont do as much damage as they would take more woulds with their lower toughness and worse options when it comes to weapons. Regardless put it in a squad of something with wings so that it can survive, and it will do a lot for you.
So yeah, this guy is a little on the gimmicky side of things, but still a really cool synapse creature, and can do lots of fun things in the right squad. Basically as long as you can get him across the field into close combat, lots of fun will ensue. Good god will you need a lot of ripper swarms though if he does, I mean UGH, all that painting.
Still, fun HQ choice and can do lots of fun stuff, try the bugger out I say, there will be much NOMNOMNOM.
This is ERW signing off.
NOM