The usefulness of lictors?

[daboss]

What is the real point to them? If you use their rule for deploying 2" away from a model, then they will get shot or chopped in the next turn. They cannot assault when they enter, and do not have that many shots. Is there any reason to get them?

[coredump]

Is there any reason...?? Yes.

Is it a good enough reason...?? Not really.

[nurglitch]

There's plenty of point to taking Lictors, particularly if what you want to do is win games. If you're expecting them to be a deathstar to win the game for you, though, you're bound for disappointment.

Some reasons to include Lictors include

1. The opportunity to place 2-6 S6 Rending shots behind just about any vehicle. With the advent of hull points, and the loss of the -1 penalty to penetration rules by AP-, the Flesh Hooks saw an increase in effectiveness. Notably, shooting attacks with Rending have retained the AP2 from 5th edition.

2. The opportunity to deploy I6 Assault Grenades, or the equivalent in Flesh Hooks, to lock down enemy units for a follow-up charge next turn. That not only protects another Tyranid unit from a phase of shooting, but also from overwatch and the I1 penalty. Thanks to Move Through Cover and Fleet they're good at moving around the battlefield, weathering regular fire and overwatch fairly well so long as you can keep them in area terrain for the stealth save. Getting out of combat, presuming the Lictors survive (and they do tend to get beaten to death by IG), is easy with I6 Hit & Run. Between 4 and 12 WS6 S6 Rending attacks can make a hash out of all sorts of things that other Tyranids tend to bounce off either because they don't have a high enough strength to reliably wound, or their initiative is too low (see the intiative penalty).

3. Contest objectives. They're fast, and get to land anywhere. Hold them back, and charge in after other Tyranid units to help out with counter-charges, and to help mop up enemy units faster, and then move on using Hit & Run.

Oh, and the whole "Go to ground in enemy player's turn, go Fearless in your own turn" thing is cool with them too.

The question is, why would you wan to spend 65-195pts to do this? Essentially because #1 & #2 are exclusive options to be taken depending on your opponent's army and #2 is what you'll want to do with them most of the time. Which is to say use turn 2 to set up turn 3, either by shooting, or biding your time. When something really has to die, use #1, and when you need the charge bonuses, make sure that you set up in cover and away from Ignore Cover units. Sometimes it's honestly best to deploy them in the umbra of a Venomthrope, or behind a unit of Tyranids, where position takes priority over cover save. Sometimes you deploy for #1 or #2, but it works out as #3. The #3 is kind of a back-up plan.

The trick, insofar as I've found one, is to resist the urge to throw them down in the hope of killing something that doesn't really need to die, or going for the turn 3 charge for broke when they can also act to bolster Tyranids that charged on turn 2. And most of all, you need to build the rest of the army so that you have target saturation so that they're not the only unit threatening the enemy on turn 2, and not the only one in range of enemy short ranged weapons. They work well with Mycetic Spores, Genestealers, Hive Commander, and so on precisely because they become a redundant part of the army getting in the enemy's face rather than a single point of failure attempting a pin-point strike.

[Nightmare20]

Or just use Deathleaper.

[fleetofclaw]

Basically everything you've mentioned can be accomplished by other units much more cost effectively. I'm not talking the same methods, but essentially the same results. There is no way Lichtors should cost more than a pretty tooled up Shrike (BS/LW &TS) and rending claw Raveners and Ymgarls make Lichtors look like an insane ripoff.

Are they worthless? Of course not. But their effectiveness is not commiserate to their cost, and I'm not talking about pure pt for pt killiness.


Sent from my Nexus S 4G using proboards

[Nightmare20]

Well I sure like the odds for deathleaper's rending hits for friendlier games. Ive only used the doom in one game so far and hes already showing his brokenness. I managed to kill 7 assault marines on the first turn he showed up.

[coredump]

Feb 26, 2013 3:23:30 GMT nurglitch said:

1. The opportunity to place 2-6 S6 Rending shots behind just about any vehicle. With the advent of hull points, and the loss of the -1 penalty to penetration rules by AP-, the Flesh Hooks saw an increase in effectiveness. Notably, shooting attacks with Rending have retained the AP2 from 5th edition.

Just to be clear, rending is *not* AP2 against vehicles.
Also, all AP3-6 in 6E is treated the same as AP- was in 5E, so that is *not* an increase in effectiveness.
6 shots, 3 hits, 1-2 hull points removed (assuming AV10), even taking into account the possibility of a Pen and then a 6... a very small chance of actually doing anything useful against that vehicle.
Congrats on spending 195 points and taking 2 HPs off of a rhino...

What could 3 Zoans have done to that Rhino? Or a brood of Yealers?

2. The opportunity to deploy I6 Assault Grenades, or the equivalent in Flesh Hooks, to lock down enemy units for a follow-up charge next turn.

So turn 2 they show up.
Turn 3 they get shot up, but lets say they survive
Turn 3 they assault, fight on your turn
Fight on their turn
Turn 4 a second unit can assault without worrying about Init. (And a 33% chance they don't show up on turn 2... so you have to wait until turn 5....)
So you spent 200pts to help some other unit assault better. (Assuming the lictors can survive the two turns of CC)

Again, what if they were just Yealers to start with... you don't need the follow up unit.

Thanks to Move Through Cover and Fleet they're good at moving around the battlefield, weathering regular fire and overwatch fairly well so long as you can keep them in area terrain for the stealth save.

T4 and 5+ save... is *not* good at weathering fire. If you must keep them in area terrain, they will not be good at moving around the battlefield. Even in cover, they have a whopping T4 and 4+ save. Many of our units have MTC and Fleet...

. Between 4 and 12 WS6 S6 Rending attacks can make a hash out of all sorts of things that other Tyranids tend to bounce off

Or yealers, with 24 rending attacks. And Lictors need to worry about Pfists and other S8+ wounds.

3. Contest objectives. They're fast, and get to land anywhere. Hold them back, and charge in after other Tyranid units to help out with counter-charges, and to help mop up enemy units faster, and then move on using Hit & Run.

Fast?? They have fleet, so they get an extra 1-2" per turn.
Yes they can land anywhere, and then sit there for a turn and get shot up. So you really *have* to put them out of LoS or at least in cover. So it makes it much harder to be within 6" of that vehicle...
If you really want something you can 'hold back' and contest objectives, grab some gargoyles. (Heck, even raveners would be a better choice; for contesting, for 'fast', *and* for counter charging.)

#2 is what you'll want to do with them most of the time. Which is to say use turn 2 to set up turn 3,

Except turn 2/3 is arrive and act like sitting duck, turn 3/4 is setting up turn 4/5. For 195 points??!!??


They aren't worthless... they have lots of wounds (but no EW), have Hit and Run, and can be placed anywhere. They are adequate for many rolls, but the reality is that they are not the best choice for those rolls.

[Jabberwocky]

To be fair hit and run does make them quite fast at repositioning, assuming you find weak units to charge.

I vastly prefer deathleaper as for 140 points, if going second, you can guarantee linebreaker and almost guarantee an objective contested.

Even if he does nothing else all game, that is a 4VP difference which is massive.

If it's purge the alien or the enemy is swarming over objectives to block him out, you bring him in safe near tied up units and use him just to support assaults.

[cibissum]

With how they are forced to deploy they can be fun or fluffy, but going so far as to say useful is a bit of a stretch. By no means pyrovore level of bad but like everything else in the elite section it's going to be compared to Hive Guard and Ymgarls and be found wanting. They can do damage, but aren't the most durable creature out there and somewhat expensive for something that can be fairly easily shot up prior to combat, especially with the inclusion of overwatch in 6th.

That said, I personally like them and recently have had the vain idea of one day bringing down an aircraft with the fleshhooks. Not very likely, but I think it'd be hilarious.

[nurglitch]

The fact is that the Tyranid Elite section is filled with specialist units, which can be seen by the lack of customizability - they all fill different roles, even the Pyrovore, and putting them in an army is a matter of deciding whether that role can be better filled elsewhere, needs reinforcement, or leverages the army.

[jahatch42878]

With the changes lack of charge when they arrive, their real advantage is "being placed" on the table.. no scatter, no misfire/mis-deepstrike.... so, you have an an enemy solo or heavy weapon team that is ruining your day? you have a flank that needs reinforcements? you have a center objective that needs to be disrupted before your troops get there? that is the advantage... you are not going to reliably kill everything... your flesh hooks are not going to rend every game.. and yes, deathleaper is a better choice (but more expensive than 2 lictors, so take your choice)... but I really think 1-2 lictors or deathleaper (if you have the force slot) is basically a hiccup for your enemy to have to deal with or a back up plan for you as the battle gets going... if they lock something down and kill it or manage 2 glancing hits on a vehicle great, but as long as you don't yet your sights too high they are fun and flexible.

The other option is go all out with mycetic spores and your troop de-jour, ymargls, lictors, deathleaper, (mawloc?) or trygon subterranean assault, flyrants, (harpy?), and gargoyles, and just clear out your deployment zone on turn 1 and put your enemy on their back foot right off the bat then bring in your reserves in batches (depending on your rolls) in small areas and wipe out a section of table before moving on to another part (so don't deep strike piecemeal, but attack one quadrant till it's broken then move on (unless all your reserves arrive turn 2) and see what happens.. it might not work all the time, but it will be a more exciting battle than trudging across the table getting shot up for 3 turns and really does represent the overwhelming 'nid assault!!! (even if it means you aren't brining all your Tervigons to that battle).

[Space is pretty big]

Lictors are pretty much (please do not swear)... thats all... no real soul searching needed.

All these little deployment tricks are really not that much leverage... accept maybe against Tau, but what isn't leverage against Tau?

Don't get me wrong, you wanna play theme armies, or fluff based games as opposed to pure strategy based games then, well heck you can play a pyrovore if thats your motivation.


With lictors, if you play to play, they're ok; you play to win, throw 'em in the bin.

[ZergLord]

I've used to be a defender of Lictors in 5th edition, but sadly I don't think they're worthy anymore. Now when cover saves are nerfed they're outshone by Ymgarl Genestealers in every way.

Use Deathleaper or Ymgarls instead.

[nurglitch]

Who's defending Lictors? They still won't sleep with you, no matter how much you white-knight them on the internet.

Nobody talking about how to win games of 40k should start by picking their favourite units and trying to shoe-horn them into a winning strategy. That's not how strategy works. You need to start with the winning conditions and work your way backwards to the material that you should include in that list if you want to satisfy those conditions. Lictors may be part of that material, and they may not be.

The right question to be answered isn't whether Lictors are useful, but when and where are they useful. We know they're useful when you need a unit with their particular blend of rules, characteristics, and points to compliment the other units in an army. Which, I think, is why so many people have such a low opinion of the unit, because they don't understand the armies that Lictors enhanced, and typically just swap them into armies that Lictors do not enhance, and so their experience is naturally negative - using the wrong tool for the wrong job will tend to make the tool look bad if you're not positioned to consider the purpose and use of the tool within the context of the job.

[vecuu]

The only benefit Lictors have over Ymgarl is that they aren't dependent on the placement, quantity, and quality of Area Terrain.

I know a lot of Tournaments can be extremely skimpy with Area Terrain simply due to not having enough to fully fill up over a dozen tables. It's an issue I have run up with Ymgarls in the past.

That being said, with regards to disrupting gunlines, durability, threatening AV10, and dishing out damage the turn they show up, I have to give the lead to Ymgarl.

If Lictors had an extra point in Toughness or Armor save, if Flesh Hooks got a significant boost, if Lictors got a chunky point decrease, or if they got the ability to assault the turn they showed up, you might see Lictors being taken over Ymgarl. Heck, maybe if Pheremone Trail worked when Lictors were in reserves, you would at least see them as a cheap alternative to Hive Commander. As they are, however, Ymgarl simply beat out Lictors in the role of deep enemy territory disruption in almost every way.