Hi All.

After the release of Deathwatch, and what with the much increased likelyhood of now meeting Tyranids in battle, I was looking over the rules for the Nids in DW and the Lictor (my favourite Nid!!!) on Creatures Anathema and I came to the conclusion that the Lictor is falling a little under par.

I was hoping we could bounce some ideas around in this thread as to what to do with the little bugger to bring him up to scratch with his "brother" nids?

I also don't mind this thread being used to bring any other beasty (Nid or not) up to Deathwatch standards should you think it needs it.

So, to get started... the Lictor!

First we look at Tyranid Warriors with their Unnatural Toughness and 48 (!?) Wounds, along with either 1d10+14 Pen3 OR 1d10+12 Pen 5 Razor Sharp claws and an armour rating of 8, added to their capacity to use ranged weaponry this makes them pretty darn deadly in my book.

By contrast the Lictor has standard Toughness, a mere 25 Wounds, and has 1d10+14 ZERO Pen Tearing & Toxic Claws and a really quite pitiful armour of 2. Quite feeble by comparison in my humble option. Hell, even a starting marine with a "basic" Astartes Chainsword does more damage than that!

Now, as the Lictor currently stands it would be pointless to give it Razor Sharp claws as it currently has no Pen to double. Also, what would you think about giving it Unnatural Toughness and/or increasing its wounds to 30+ perhaps with an increase in armour to 6 or so? Obviously if its armour is set to 5 or less then it becomes a moot point vs the Marines standard issue Bolt weaponry.

I would suggest giving the Lictor the same Scything Talons as the Warrior, thus giving him a Pen 3 to help him a little way. Along with his Toxic quality this could make him a little more fearsome. Granted even though Marines have plenty of stats and such to avoid the Toxic quality the threat of failing the roll is always there making the marines think twice about underestimating the beast.

Also, Unnatural Toughness (maybe dropping its Toughness into the 40's too if you think this makes them too Tough), Armour of 6 and 30-35 Wounds along with it's Stealth make it much more survivable while still being worse than the Tyranid Warriors stats.

With their Stealth this could push them up to being a high end Elite / mini-Master where I think they belong. After all, Tyranid Warriors can fight in groups but the Lictor fights solo. Thus I think that when it does show up it should be a big deal.

Now, I haven't overlooked the fact that Licors can do 3 or 4 attacks per round but I think fighting one of these should be very deadly and very much a squad effort if not simply a great challenge for the Assault member of the squad. The Marines should be Parrying and Dodging like crazy to avoid these lethal beasts!

Any thoughts?

I might be wrong but aren't there already rules out for Lictors, in the Creatures Anathema book for DH?

That is what my post was talking about (please see the beginning of the initial posting).

Did you actually read any of it? (not meant in a offensive way, just genuinely wondering if you had or not).

.... Must admit not all the way through. I apologize and please disregard my previous post.

Serves me right for posting anything this time of night...

It's really not a problem Mr Crown. I'm only curious to know what you think?

I also like Lictor. But from my point of wiew it's a "heavy scout" unit. Sound strange but see it that way.

Maybe you can improve his natural weapons, but more than making the lictor an under tyrannid warrior I will play it with a more "Eldar" way.

Unnatural agility x2/3 (better dodge, exit blast radius, better concealment ...)

Free reaction dodge roll maybe 1 or 2

Give some PEN to his attack between 4 and 6

Body armour maybe 5 instead of 2

Maybe a jump ability like "fly" for entering and getting out of combat without test and opportunity attacks.

If ambushing (like waiting in the ground before bouncing) a succesfull roll of awarness from the player allows only dodge.

From my point of wiew they are highly mobile, fast and easy to evade dectection.

Very true on the mobility front, and I know people hate bringing up the TT rules with these RPG's but the Lictor has always been superior stat wise to the Tyranid warrior ever since 2nd ed.

The Lictor I proposed wasn't more powerful than a Warrior but would still cause the squad some problems if they weren't careful. I do like the idea of perhaps one or two extra Reactions, though this could be covered with Side Step and Wall of Steel Talents. Unnatural Agility x3 could be overkill as x2 seems to do the job more than adequately.

Some good ideas there, Thebigjul. Thanks for your input!

Yesterday was at work when answering your post and in the evening I've look at the lictor template in CA.

It already got Unnatural strenght and agility x 2 for a really elite unit maybe give x3 to both.

Maybe get up to 35 wounds and 4 armour.

Give all talents and trait needed to be more difficult to hit with range and melee weapons (if it does not get those already, don't remember now and once more at work), maybe consider them 1 size smaller for the purpose of aiming at them.

Do the same with dodge and parry action.

Give a PEN between 3 to 6

For fun give the burrower trait could be really nasty, Toxic if you need more damage.

And special ability:

Each PC or NPC making a melee attack against the Lictor who does 1 pt of damage or more got 50% chance to be mark with lictor's pheromone and became a tyranid beacon. Improve by 20% the horde size or/and always attack first by master and elite troops or/and always count as detected by tyranids hive beast (o +30% chance for tyranid to detect him)

I'm not for unnatural Toughtness because of the "scouting" mission lictor is made for, same for an armour of more than 5. We need to remember that the hive who produce them use the least to produce the better weapon needed. As scout design unit they need great speed concealement but not the armour and Toughness of a battlefield unit.

It is looking good. I too am looking to beef up some CA monsters and will follow this thread closely.

id give em a bit of pen on there attacks maybe 4/5 it give a minus to hit them with ranged attacks say -10bs doubling at long and extreme range

You could make the Lictors into a Horde. This would be a challenge.

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

That seems against the spirit of the Lictor. It's generally more of a solo hunter along the lines of the Predator ("Git to da choppa!").

I made a homebrew lictor for my game next weekend,

I only made a few minor alterations to the one in CA...

Upped the wounds to 35, movement to 12/24/36/72, gave it Pen 3 for his ripping claws, armor 4 all and the Tyranid trait,

With Toxic and Tearing, his damage is already significant, at least 15 damage per hit + 1d10 for toxic (ignore armor), its not pitiful, the apothecary in my group can reduce 20 on the chest at Pen 0, (10 for armor, 10 for his **** toughness) but toxic still hurts, and lets not forget that he can attack at least 3 times per round... i thought he was underpowered at first, (granted, he was a little...) but, as i prepared the encounter, the threat of the Lictor really started showing through with all his traits, skills and talents. Chameleonic Scales is brutal, and you can REALLY mess up your players if you go with feeder tendrils. It only needs minor alterations.

Really, all of this depends on what you want out of your lictor, I myself dont want a combat monster that can 1 round kill a marine, I plan on making the session 1 big, drawn out cat and mouse fight against the lictor and the Kill-team, having it strike and retreat while my players feel their way blindly in the jungle, I am aiming for a "death by a thousand cuts" scenario *evil grin*

It should however be noted that i have a mean houserule for armor degradation. Armor is treated in much the same way as cover, so, each time a hit fully penetrates the armor, it is no longer environmentally sealed and the AP for that location drops by 1, Repair Cement gets a new function as well, it seals the armor and adds 1 AP back, however, to represent the shoe-string nature of this solution, the restored AP is only good for 1 hit on that location, regardless of if the attack penetrates or not. i foresee a tense session next weekend

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Yes, yes it would...

*Pictures a hoard of twenty or thirty gaunts and replaces them with lictors.*

Very challenging indeed.

Hey broutefoin, please let us know how your home brew Lictor did against your players please. I'd love to know if it was a suitable challenge!

broutefoin said:

The 6/etc in the book appears to be an error anyway- it should actually be 17/34/51/102:

Agility Bonus 5

Unnatural Speed gives x2

Quadruped gives x2 (so x3)

Size (Enormous) gives +2

5x3+2=17.

Adamant said:

Wrong way around - size is added before multipliers are applied.

AB 5, +2 for Enormous, tripled for Unnatural Speed and Quadruped together, for total movement of 21/42/63/126

... with sprint, it can run at 252m.... Lictors need a sombrero and scream "ARRRIIIIBBBAAA!"

broutefoin said:

HOLY THRONE ON TERRA! It's Lictor "Speedy" Gonzalez!

-=Brother Praetus=-

N0-1_H3r3 said:

You're right, I'd missed that bit, was going by general "multiply, then add" order of operations.

As if they needed to be more insane... then there's Sprint...

Adamant said:

Yup... at full speed, that's just over 181km/h (half as fast again as a Cheetah) for 35 seconds before it becomes over-fatigued (with TB6, it can maintain 7 straight turns of sprinting; the eighth causes it to fall unconscious), at which point it's covered 1.764 kilometres.

Yeah... there's no way you can catch up with that if you're on foot.

Consider also that it has Assassin's Strike, so after it attacks, it gets an Acrobatics test (60% chance, including Unnatural Agility (x2)) to move 21m. If it only made a standard attack that turn, then it can attack, withdraw due to Assassin's Strike, and spend a half action to hide...

I'd probably stat it up as something like:

Lictor (Elite, 1-3)

WS 65, BS , St 65(x2), To 65, Ag 65(x2), In 40, Pe 45(x2), WP 40, Fe

Movement: 21 / 42 / 63 / 126

Wounds: 80

Skills: Acrobatics +10, Awareness +20, Climb +20, Concealment +20, Contortionist +10, Dodge +10, Shadowing +20, Silent Move +20, Survival +20, Swim +10, Tracking +20

Talents: Ambidextrous, Assassin Strike, Berserk Charge, Blind Fighting, Catfall, Combat Master, Crushing Blow, Furious Assault, Hammer Blow, Hard Target, Heightened Senses (All), Improved Natural Weapons, Leap Up, Lightning Attack, Lightning Reflexes, Rapid Reaction, Sprint, Step Aside, Swift Attack, Takedown

Traits: Chameleonic Scales, Darksight, Fear 2 (3 vs Ultramarines), Feeder Tendrils, Flesh Hooks, Improved Natural Weapons, Multiple Arms, Natural Armour 4, Natural Weapons, Quadruped, Size (Enormous), Strange Physiology, Sturdy, Toxic, Tyranid, Un-natural Agility (x2), Un-natural Perception (x2), Un-natural Speed, Un-natural Strength (x2)

Armour: Masking Screen (All 4)

Weapons: Rending Claws (1d10+12 R, Pen 5, Razor Sharp)

Chameleonic Scales, Feeder Tendrils and Flesh Hooks operate as in Creatures Anathema.

Masking Screen operates as the wargear in Deathwatch Core, except without the 'user penalties'.

You'll notice the fear rating has a +1 vs Ultramarines. This is not needed, but I intend on having pretty much all Tyranids cause at least Fear 1 to Ultramarines, due to their past history (Single Hormagaunts/Termagants need not apply).

If I may comment on the Fear vs. Ultras:

Could not the exact opposite argument be made aswell? Their experience in fighting Tyranids lowering the effects of fear on the Ultras when fighting them? What a man knows he rarely fears (as much). In fact, since Fear for Marines is bascially represented by them getting disoranized you would expect Ultras to keep their mind together better than others.

I am not saying this is the Holy Truth , but I think simply saying because they know the full potential of Nids they get shaken slightly worse than those unknowing is not necessarily all that sensible.

That's true, and something I was concerned about.

I tried to take into account an idea of 'paralysing fear' (or as close as you could get) tempered with a possibility of the hatred an Ultramarine would feel towards the Tyranids, both of which would cause a loss in squad cohesion, either being stunned into silence or charging into the fray like a man possessed.

Another possibility is that the Tyranids only have this effect on those that rolled 'Tyrannic War veterans' for their background, and/or offset the penalty by providing +1d5 damage if they pass their WP check, which can be passed throughout the squad in a similar way to other squad mode goodies.

Hmmm, I think giving the Lictor (or Nids as a whole) a special trait that does added cohesion damage against an Ultra is a better solution than increasing fear.