Tyranid Unit of the Week 10th Ed The Parasite of Mortrex

[Brother Nathan]

++The Parasite of Mortrex++

 

 

 

 

 

We have a new unit of the week! going for our most recent Model not from this edition. So whats your thoughts on this lone winger? worth it? Miss its lost its 'the' on its datasheet...

 

 

 

To compliment a list, or to build a list around? Will the beta rules affect your list(s)? And at what points restrictions?

What size unit? Will you be running multiple units?

What Enhancements, Hyper Adaptations and Stratagems do you prefer and how much does it depend on the above choices?

Are you buffing this unit? If so, how?

[Brother Nathan]

lm looking forward to trying this but am sceptical. its lost synapse  and is slower.. better normal attacks, ovipositor is worse..ripper spawning is simpler though less likely and unit infection is gone. rippers can be set up in engagement range...curious... and opponents unit must take a battle shock test...each fight phase... few interesting overlaps there...

deepstrike lone operative(12 inch to shoot) and stealth(-1 to be hit)... all good... 

no bodyguard...(i was hoping to run it in gargoyles...)

its stat line is ok. ill mis an easy objective flip with it and infecting 2 squads in a turn. but what can we do... 

deepstrike somewhere away from opponents so they can shoot or charge it even rapid ingress...  take an un contested objective?

tarpit an non cc unit... not in itself but if the spawn rippers works its then joined by d3 rippers, they can half opponents oc and be a more viable counter target for your opponents attacks back. only the minus 1 to hit to help his survivability. 

so against marines...

6 limbs attacks. 5 hits. str 5. 3 wounds. 1.5 wounds... meh. 

ovipositor 1 hit. 2+to hit, 3+to wound, -2 to save... 3d.  grumbles on a calculator...1 in 3 change of killing a marine. and therefore spawning rippers... not great...however... hyper adaptions... swarming instincts critical can actually greatly benefit the parasite when it does crit. 2 hits with the onmi... very likely to kill a marine. but all this worth the cost? dosent force multiply at all. unreliable spawn. non objective flip. 

 

i mean iv one in my list but id rather now have another squad of hormagaunts now... 

now im looking at it im way off it now. like i intend to build one out of a winged warrior and a neurotyrant but but now iv thought of it... nah. 

[ZeroWolf]

I used one recently and it didn't do much sadly...though it still performed better than the Winged Prime! I'm hoping it gets some tweak in the codex. Not asking for an overwhelming cheap death dealer, but something would be nice

[Arson Fire]

It has some uses.

It's one of our cheaper characters, which is good in smaller 1k point games if you don't want to pay heaps for your warlord. The only cheaper warlord is the winged tyranid prime, which is sadly trash. Although this might change soon with that new detachment that lets deathleaper be a warlord.

 

I wouldn't want to send the parasite into combat against anything scarier than basic infantry, but it can bully a light squad off an objective. Plus Lone Operative makes it hard to remove.

It's certainly not a model that you can charge straight down the middle of the table into the enemy army, but I've had some success with sneaking it around flanks and grabbing poorly held objectives.

[Xenith]

Used it once so far, and even with lone operative, it died fast. It just doesn't have the (any) oomph and is quite squishy. Should not be able to target it unless it's the only model in that combat, or should be able to go with gargs. 

 

As you say, the offensive stats are poor, the ovipositor is unlikely to do anything against most armies, and as we're learning, failing battleshock doesn't actually mean all that much.

 

Hopefully it gets a boost in the new codex! 

[ZeroWolf]

I think battleshock is one of my letdowns with this edition. The only thing worthwhile about it is the OC dropping to 0...when I've gotten battleshock to actually go off in the first place. However, I'm not sure on the right way to tweak battleshock that won't cause other issues.

 

Would the parasite fare any better if you could take three of then. It'd lose lone agent and wouldn't be a character but the stats would work for unit level.

[Marshal Mittens]

It's cheap and it looks cool. I don't think it's very good, but in a fun friendly game, it's a cool looking cheeky little model, and it can make its points back some games. 

 

I like it. 

[TheNicronomicon]

Seems maybe useful for deep striking to take a board quarter or lightly (preferably un)protected objective. Might even be worth it to swoop in, spawn a couple ripper swarms, and make the objective a little quagmire 

[Brother Nathan]

with ripper squad size changes it may add some to the value of parasite- i cant possibly field all mine now without using parasites...

[Brother Nathan]

10 points off... is it enough? i think i mis its old movement charastic more than anything

[Xenith]

Still no dice here, too weak. It really needs DEVASTATING WOUNDS on its Ovipositor. 

[Brother Nathan]

that or give its normal attacks a rending chance to cause it instead. it feels terrible rolling it and as soon as that 1 attack fails to hit knowing thats the chance failed...too easily nothing for its whole stick. 

[Xenith]

I'm in a Crusade campaign at the moment and might have a go at taking one - if it can get a weapon upgrade on the Ovipositor, it might just become worth it, like extra attack, AP, or Damage. 

[Brother Nathan]

Those would all likely make it a far superior weapon option. How likrly is it to do such?

[Xenith]

It's a D6 roll, but you get two rolls, and I'd say there are 3 desirable traits, ap, damage and attacks, so 75% chance to get one good result, 25% to get two, 25% chance get nothing useful - however you can then just fire the unit and try again and eat the lost XP.