Carnifexes in lists.

[niiai]

Edit: Corrected some mistaces.

Some thoughs on Carnifexes. I would love to get some feedback.

Sugested builds:

4 Scything Tallons 82 points

4 Scything Tallons, Adrenal Glands, Spore Cysts, Club Tail 99 points

4 Devourers, with Brainleach Worms, Monstruss Acid Maw, Spore Cysts 115 points

4 Devourers, with Brainleach Worms, Enchanted Sences, Spore Cysts 115 points

2 x Deathspitters with Slimer Maggots, 1 Heavy Venom Cannon, Enchanted Sences, Spore Cysts 126 points

Some thoughts:

- Spore Cysts are always worth it as carnifexes often do their job unless they get shot. Reducing the chances of hitting them makes them less apealing targets are carnifexes only have on damage bracket, killing them halfway has no inpact. If you do not take spore cysts and are planing on melee vs infnatery Spine Banks are worth it.

- You want to keep carnifexes cheap as they are relativly fragile for their cost.

- Adrenal glands make sence if you want to advance with carnifexes. The 1 charge helps you make you charges.

- If you are in range with your guns, it makes little to advance because of the -1 to hit.

- Tusks are a bit expensive for an extra attack on a charge, a club tail is a better option against most targets.

- On a shooty carnifex enchanted sences make sense. Monstrus acid maw are an good option utelicing their many attacks and high S.

- Heavy venom cannons are not woth it if you only use the carnifex for long range shots each round. The cost of the heavy venom cannon are not worth it withouth the enchanged sences. The cannon has bad synergy with range 18 and melee weapons unless you screen them.

- Living battering ram is a supricingly good rule, that does not get uteliced by shooting 'fexes.

- Bio Plasma are bad on BS+4

- Math hammer tell us crushing claw is for the most bad, when scything tallons have a re-roll against the intended target, and very bad vs the unintended target.

Thornback I wanne love you with your improved battering ram rule. But Vicius Hunter come sup rarely and i best with full shooting. And then you have the 25 point strangelthorn cannon that is very bad. The mandatory chiting torns is also an odd inclution straining my relationshop with them.

Screamer Killers has a superior range weapon to the regular Bio-plasma. The terify rule comes into play rarely. Can take adrenal glands and Spore Cysts. At 120 points, with one less tail attack, it measures up badly with the 99 point 'regular' Carnifex mentioned above.

If you are taking carnifexes consider Old One Eye in your lists. If you manage charging him with a carnifex the carnifex hits on 2+. While expensive Old One Eye has strong synergy with screening units. The character rule means they can not shoot him. As long as you screen him there are no good solutions against him, except he is 200 points that has little inpact vs gunlines before turn 3. A melee weapon that can threaten T7 and T8 in melee is something we are lacking in 8th edition. Especially if it is something that comes towards you fast headed for melee. The crushing claw is very good on him. Scything tallons on the charge go through other things like butter.

- Carnifexes has some interesting rules with Kraken, Behemot, Jhormunghard, Leviathan and Kronos.

Kraken lets you advance faster, but charging after leaving melee is very good with living battering ram. Behemot just ensures you carnifexes makes their charges. Jormungandr gives then a 2+ save against shooting, something that makes them much better for their cost. Leviathan is almost as good as Jormunghandr, if you can keep them within synapse. That is a big if. On the upside, you can get the bonus in melee, something Jormungandr can never claim.

Kareken stratem is better used on other bigger units early, and later on you can not charge if you advance with carnifexes. Behemot stratagem can be OK if you need a mortal wound, but they are best on swarm of 30, giving more wounds. Jormungandr is mute. Leviathan war on all fronts is hard to activate, but does have some saving grace with crushing claws, or monstrus acid maw, but is othervice weak. (It is generally very hard to trigger unless you build around it.)

Kronos carnifexes benefit a lot with enchanted sences and the re-roll 1 to hit. This gives them a BS of almost 2. (Lacking 1/3 to get the whole way to 2+ from 3+.) The Kronos rule with anything 3+ to hit is amazing. The longer range on weapons benefit them. But the genral rule of a gunline is the side that will loose if you just stand stil and shooting at each other is insenteviced to advance on the other side. Carnifexes with gun will be much better if your opponent advances on you, then if you have to advance on them.

[localcultist]

My thoughts:

"4 Scything Tallons, Adrenal Glands, Spore Cysts, Club Tail 99 points"
IMHO You miss out a lot on head upgrade. Give it Tusks, should be worth it with LBR. Also please don't compare this and Screamer without factoring in bioplasma - taking bioplasma is just plain bad, but more expensive scream is something worth considering - You get decent melee AND potentially devastating shooting - not bad deal at all

"4 Devourers, with Brainleach Worms, Monstruss Acid Maw, Spore Cysts 105 points"
That guy seem to be geared towards shooting ONLY, could use different head upgrade like...

"4 Devourers, with Brainleach Worms, Enchanted Sences, Spore Cysts 115 points"
Just keep it out of getting tarpit in melee with other units. Short range of shooting doesn't mean You should throw this guy into CC, so get useful upgrade instead of something that will hinder (or just not help) Your shooting.

"2 x Deathspitters with Slimer Maggots, 1 Heavy Venom Cannon, Enchanted Sences, Spore Cysts 126 points"
This seem to be good build for Carnifex as HVC platform. Inability of taking it is what broke Dakkabacks for me, the STC is underwhelming and unnecessary. Also this one seem to be good for Kronos army, as other shooting variants have shorter range... (that reroll is effectively another +1 to BS)

[niiai]

I left Tusks out above. I think tusks are a horrible idea. You pay 8 points to get an aditional attack on the charge only. We are already paying 2 points for the tail attack to get an universal extra attack. Chances are that melee fexes will get shot up before they make it into melee, so making them even better in melee sounds unvice.

I like the enchanted sences / acid maw argument discussion. With one less BS you are on averadge loosing 4 hits each salvo. The trade off is that it suddenly becomes so much better in melee. It shred armour, and has some damage. Usualy a shooty carnifex can be easaly tied up in combat vs something with a wound pool and armour saves, without being able to do anything about ut. Acid Maw makes the carnifex much better as an independent operator.

[acehilator]

Fexes should run as Kraken, so are you charging each turn anyways. With Spore Cysts they are decently tanky, if your opponent commits enough firepower to kill them will mean that your other monsters went largely unmolested. Doesnt't really matter if your opponent shot 297 or 321 points off the board at that point.

Regarding Acid Maw vs Enhanced Senses for Dakkafexes, I really don't understand why so many people are considering the Maw. Yes, it buffs your melee attacks nicely. But if you get attacked by a dedicated melee unit you won't survive it anyways most of the time, and against being tarpitted by a 20+ unit of whatever it doesnt't help either. Also, with the nerfs to Conscripts and Commissars, Termagants are now probably the best bubblewrap unit in the game, so use them. In short, Enhanced Senses all the way.

[Rye]

Mar 12, 2018 13:40:52 GMT acehilator said:

Fexes should run as Kraken, so are you charging each turn anyways. With Spore Cysts they are decently tanky, if your opponent commits enough firepower to kill them will mean that your other monsters went largely unmolested. Doesnt't really matter if your opponent shot 297 or 321 points off the board at that point.

Regarding Acid Maw vs Enhanced Senses for Dakkafexes, I really don't understand why so many people are considering the Maw. Yes, it buffs your melee attacks nicely. But if you get attacked by a dedicated melee unit you won't survive it anyways most of the time, and against being tarpitted by a 20+ unit of whatever it doesnt't help either. Also, with the nerfs to Conscripts and Commissars, Termagants are now probably the best bubblewrap unit in the game, so use them. In short, Enhanced Senses all the way.

I agree. Always enchanced senses. They also allow you to advance and fire at a 4+ so you can effectively make it up the board as kraken. I do enjoy mixed melee/shooty fexes for small games. Advance and fire devourers and get into charge range t2.

[infornography]

I am in the camp of enhanced senses on a dakkafex or tusks on a meleefex. Always with the spore cysts. If I wanted some minor charge deterrent on a dakkafex I'd give it a tail, but probably not even that.

[niiai]

I do not know if kraken is the best for carnifexes. Most things should be dead after 2 rounds of combat, if so that behemot charge becomes much more important. That 2+ Jormungandr save seems good on shooting fexes.

[Kuku]

On melee fexes : I think bone mace is absolute mandatory on them, only 2 pts for a bonus attack that is totally decent, that's like 10% more damage output (roughly, didn't do the math) for less than 3% of the cost of the model. If you kill literally anything in the game with this then it's worth it (and probably also paid for the bone mace of the other carnifexes that died before making it to melee).

The tusks are more of a problem ; You go from 5 to 6 attacks (without counting the tail) in charge so you have a ~20% bonus damage for about less than 10% of the cost of the model. It only works if you charge but with Kraken it is less of a problem, which is by faaaaar the best for melee fexes. But in the process you lose some of the cheapness of the carnifex, and if he dies before making it to melee then it becomes more of a problem. I'm not sure about this one. Perhaps in a list that would draw a lot of attention on other things it could work, dunno. I love the idea of having 7 attacks in charge with the tail tho, finally something a little bit scary !

Also, do you have some feedbacks on sporecysts on melee fexes ? It would go 94 points for the carnifex with bone mace and that, but would it be worth it ?

Generally speaking, I've hard a hard time finding the carnifexes worth it ; running 3 of them is going to cost you some points, and with the heavy weapons metagame they often vanish quicker than I'd like. On the opposite, I think running OOE alone with a lot of hormagaunts/genestealers is a very good idea, if you can choose your fights with the speed of your army and protect him from ennemy shooting & some specialized melee units that would kill him before he can kills them if he gets charged, he's a beast.

[niiai]

I have only run OOE so far and some others so far. OOE is good.

Are there other carnifex builds that I have not covered?

[snakezenn1]

I like mine with double talons and spore cysts or the typical double TL dev and spore and ES. I find the -1 to hit and 2+ armor save makes them both pretty survivable.

[kazetanade]

Dont hate on the Acid Maw. Acid saves lives!

Original consideration, i think losing 4 hits from double devs isnt enough to be a strong case for ES on them. Having the melee option to chew through potential nonmelee threats gives you more flexibility.

Melee threats are a bad comparison, because fexes die to them regardless of melee or no. A Fex that got charged is on the losing end regardless of whatever his headpiece is.

Maw isnt another defensive option, its an offensive one.

The *real* argument against Maw instead of ES is the prevalence of -1 to Hit in every army. That's turns your 4 less into 8 less and thats too big an amount to ignore. You're not bring ES to make them do better, you're bringing them to make sure they aren't useless.

[niiai]

I think they are both contenders. It depends on the list.

Are there any good builds except the 5 mentioned above?

What is also the best heavy venom chassis? Is it the carnifex with -1 to hit and no brackets, or the flying hive tyrant with 4+ and a natural shooting target?

[calbanite]

I really really like the idea of having Acid Maw on my "gun fexes" but Kaz's point about there being so much -1 to hit armies rolling around is true. My meta is nothing but DG and the occasional disgruntled Ork player so taking ES allows me more volume of successful hits in order to chew through DG's dumb saves and literally all the Boyz.

Then again. The Fexes usually don't get a second look due to the 72 Genestealers and Scythed Hierodule I have running across the table =/

I always run OOE though. He's what I wished the Melee Tyrants should have been. OOE kills things dead if escorted properly with chaff and force fed CP so he hulks out and really needs to delete someone.

[N.I.B.]

Bone Mace. Always Bone Mace.

[folders]

I have 2 carnifexes and run them both with heavy venom canon and scything talons and i think that gun is awesome! Equip both with enhanced senses and you have a couple of great knight and landraider destroyers! God bless em!