The Parasite of Mortrex 9th and 8th ed custom rules

[hiveprime]

Howdy ladies, men, germs and everything in between, I made some cool custom rules for the parasite and my folks say they're good and fun so give them a whirl, advice, changes and tactics would be appreciated

The Parasite

WS 2+
BS 4+
M 18" 140 PTS
S 6 SYNAPSE
T 5 SHADOW IN THE WARP
W 7 AIRBORNE (HTH)
A 4 CHARACTER
LD 10
Sv 3+

Grasping talons: S6 AP-1 D2 - MELEE

Ovipositor: S6 AP-3 D D1 - MELEE
(this weapon always wounds on a 2+ against all models that do not have the vehicle keyword in addition to this only one attack can be made with the Ovipositor)

Implant parasite: if the parasite of mortrex wounds an enemy model in the fight phase with it's Ovipositor roll a d6, if the roll is equal to or higher than that model's remaining wounds it is consumed from the inside out by the ripper parasites injected and thus is slain. if the roll is not higher than the wounds remaining then the model has been injured and not pierced and instead suffers the normal damage of this weapon. For any models slain, place ripper swarm bases equal to the number of wounds of the model slain within 3" of the slain model, this can be in combat with the slain model's unit.

The Perfect Organism: this model may only be used once per army

Host Organism: rippers within 24" of the parasite of mortrex get +1 to thier hit and wound rolls

Unimaginable velocity: The Parasite of Mortrex can fall back in the same turn in which it charged. Additionally always fights first in combat even if it was charged. This model can fall back over other models.

Unthinking swerve: this model has a 4+ invulnerable save.

The sarge is acting strangely... : any enemy infantry that arrives using a rule that allows them to arrive to the battlefield after deployment has happened may harbour a squad member infested with ripper parasites, on the roll of a 4+ the squad has an infested member. choose a model and roll a d6, if the roll is equal to or higher than that model's wounds characteristic, it bursts into a shower of blood and is slain, place d3 ripper bases within 3" of the slain model if this happens. If a model is infested and does not die via this rule, it loses wounds equal to the result of the d6, additionally place the same number of rippers within 3" of the model, this model can be elected to be executed by It's squad in an attempt to slow the infestation, if this happens, the number of rippers placed is halved (rounding up) but the model that was infested dies outright and this cannot be modified

[purestrain]

I smiled reading this. 24" is a huge range, 12 seems good. grasping talons arent good on him for the same reason they arent good on lictors, not enough attacks. give him something akin to "Parasite talons: Str User ap-2 1d: Reroll hits of 1, if this model successfully wounds a model in a unit with this weapon, ripper units can reroll their wound rolls against that unit while they are in engagement range of said unit(s).

[killercroc]

I like the Parasite and like to see some community input for him since GW doesn't seem all that interested, though looking over it I would recommend a few alterations to make him be a touch more realistic but balanced

Things I would change:

Movement speed is rather high, even the fastest lightest skimmer in the game the DE Venom only goes 16", Marine skimmer goes 18" cause we all know that Imperium tech is far superior to Eldar stuff. For a flying character to be almost as fast as a flyer that's pretty big, I would say drop him down to 16" to be same as the Tyrant or 14" which is more similar to fast big things like biker or jump pack infantry.

Talons, I agree with purestrain they just aren't good enough especially for a named character that only makes 3 attacks with them, they won't do all that much. Though I'd say S: User AP: -2 Dmg: 2. just because damage 1 on named models has pretty much universally gone away. Herohammer!

Ovipositor, I would change it to just cause mortal wounds instead of 1 flat. How it is now has a lot of extra rules around it that aren't necessary. I'd recommend that if the weapon wounds it causes D3 mortal wounds and for each model slain this way place a ripper base. This better reflects the parasite doing it's fly-by and tail whipping multiple enemies or landing and injecting one bigger guy, It's a faster and simpler rule and follows the fluff still. As the current rule is written there lays a bit of opportunity for some abuse. As I read it, if you spawn the number of bases equal to the number of wounds on the model, so if you hit some big named character or monster on it's last wound you can be spawning huge amount of rippers for just the single last hit. I mean it's not realistic but if you get Mortarion down to his last wound and this thing tail pokes him that spawns 18 Ripper bases which is silly.

His Host Organism aura is far too large, mainly because nothing in the game has a 24" buff aura and that would kick up his expected points a lot. I'd say drop it to 6" which is the normal aura range for pretty much everything. Rippers can still tunnel next to the Parasite and charge along side it and the ones spawned from the tail will immediately gain its effect. But 24" is unreasonable.

I do like his Velocity the idea to this as it matches the fluff perfectly with how speedy he is and nothing can hold him down, should be able to pop in and out of combat and not get tied down. Though I'm not sure if it was a Typo that he can fall back the same turn he charged, because fall back is in the movement phase that would have already passed. If this was suppose to be "The Parasite of Mortex can charge in the same turn in which fell back in" then that's understandable and what I would recommend. Always fighting first is fine, same as the fall back over models, because he has Fly.

I like the Invuln save, GW seems to be really weird with handing these out and armies either get them all over or nowhere, so an Invuln works well for him due to his speed.

The sarge rule would need some changes, it should be the opponent that selects which model is rolled for. I know with what the rule is worded as it seems like it should be the squad leader, but letting the Nid player pick a sergeant or special weapon trooper as the target is pretty un-fun for the opponent. The rest of the rule is overly complex for more theatricals than practicals, while fun it's a lot of "if this than that" for warhammer. I'd simplify to work like the Parasite tail so rules stay similar across the board, on a 4+ the unit takes D3 mortal wounds and if any models are slain this way place a Ripper swarm. Shows the Parasite could have gotten to more than one member of a squad but doesn't instantly kill a high wound reserved unit. A character could come from reserves too, so a 4+ then a D6 could reasonably kill a lot of high point models just from arriving and that's not very fun for the opponent to lose a 100 point model "because fluff"

I do like the idea and intent behind it even if most of my suggestions are effectively ways to nerf him down, it's just that when you wanna insert missing units or custom things you wanna try and keep them in line with how the game currently functions, as the more outlandish the custom thing is the less likely you'll get people to agree to try it out. Toning it down still kept it a powerful character with rules relating to his fluff, but within the expected levels of power in 40k.

[hiveprime]

Okay, so update, I gave him 6 attacks and this weapon, what do you think?

Parasitic hooks: S6 AP-2 D2 - MELEE
( if a model is slain by this weapon the toxins secreted from this bio weapon's chitin infect the carcass of the model slain, roll a d6, on a roll of 1-4 the squad realise the horror about to befall them and turn thier fire to the corpse, no rippers are placed, on a roll of a 5-6 the squad's naivety gets the better of them and the ripper parasites grow to maturity. A ripper base is placed) additionally for every hit roll of 6 an additional attack can be made with this weapon, these additional attacks cannot confer additional attacks.

I also changed the aura of host Organism to 12"

You are correct, that was a typo the rule should say that he can charge in the same turn he fell back in

Movement is now 14" too

The sarge rule now states that the opponent gets to choose which model is infested

The Ovipositor should say that the amount of ripper bases should be equal to the wounds remaining before the Ovipositor wounded

Also I'm glad you smiled, I love writing rules for warhammer I'd love to work with them to write nids stuff but idk how to get there lol the feedback is appreciated (especially since this is the first set of rules I ever wrote)