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Spike Rifles-what Do You Think?

3K views 57 replies 15 participants last post by  Mr Shadow 
#1 ·
The new White Dwarf has 2 new weapons for gaunts and I just want to know whether I am the only one excited about having gaunts with an 18" AP 4 weapon.
 
#2 ·
Well, they still have to hit, they still have to wound. Only one of four gaunts will actually cause a wound, and marines still get their armour saves. One wound per 48pts of gaunts per turn. That's not very good. Additionally, these gaunts are very expensive. Also take into account that most enemy units have an effective range of 18" too, they move 6" and shoot 12". So unless you swamp the enemy in a gaunt horde after shooting he will be able to shoot the gaunts for sure.

Strangleweb gaunts are more interesting, but only against horde armies such as orks and other tyranids. Their range is a major problem though, you need an excellent timing (in order to charge the survivors of their attack) and lots of cover (in order to bring them close to the enemy alive).

jwu
 
#10 ·
And more specifically, that'd be WD 288US. Haven't seen them in the UK version yet.

But what I've heard, I'd much rather have had the Spike Rifles as normal Bio-weapons.
These are my stats for the Spike Rifle, as I would've wanted to see them, NOT the GW ones! Essentially longer range Spinefists, range 18", cost 2/4 for Gaunts, 6/8 for Warriors. Or maybe 3/5 G, 7/8 W?

On the other hand, the Strangleweb stats have sounded good.

Now only if the Devourers could force a Fall Back test on the enemy as they used to... ;)
 
#17 ·
I feel its a half assed attempt ot "improve" nids. Why improve the shooters. We deserve a Invur save. :angry: they hate us and fear us but we dont even stand up to lascannons. ***** is that.
 
#20 ·
Ok...You do realize that if that was the case that wed be basically, again unstoppable? Remember you can give HT BOTH warp field AND 2+ Armor save. Sure its 35 points. But Ill spend 35 points for a 2+/4+ save any day.

Lets think about that for a second.....2+/4+ save....On a HIVE TYRANT. The only thing that comes close to this would be a Bloodthirster. You could have TWO Tyrants for less points than a bloodthirster (each, not total). And warp blast! I mean god....thats so terrifying it hurts me.
 
#21 ·
Hey, I was intentionally vague there - of course it would need to limit the Tyrant in other ways. For a start I would expect purchasing an invulnerable save to cost a lot, and probably to cut back the normal armour save, or take up two psychic slots, or all three!

But it would be sweet justice against the Ork git who's currently loading up an Ork Dreadnought with 4 Custom Mega-Blasters specifically for the purpose of taking down my poor innocent little Tyrant. :angry:

As it is, I'm planning something special for him... ;)

-=Count Jasper=-
 
#22 ·
AA you mentioned only 1 in 4 will cause a wound - the way I see it, with BS of 4 2/3 will hit and 50% of what hits will wound. So, if 6 shoot and 4 hit, 2 will wound, leaving your wound ratio at 33% not 25%. While this limits their effectiveness on multiple crappy targets, (like a squad of guardians for instance), shooting something like a wraithlord or C'tan etc with a high T.

Also remember that SpikeRifle Gaunts Infiltrate.
 
#23 ·
Those "pure" spike rifle broods have BS3.

You can upgrade mutable gaunts to BS4 and give some of them spike rifles by using weapon beast mutants, but in the end they will score exactly as many hits per point than as the pure spike rifle brood gaunts, but you have less models on the table then and they cost more than a marine each then!

Those who can infiltrate also never can be BS4.

jwu
 
#24 ·
Wait...correct me if I am wrong, but re reading CA 04 (I wont post the exact text here for obvious reasons) but it listed the profile of the "weapon beast" brood containing between 4-8 models as being subject to the mutable genus rules.

I therefore assumed you could use the rules to modify them just assuming they already had a bioweapon?
 
#25 ·
It's still questionable if you can modify these, as you ALWAYS begin the creation of a mutable genus species with the base creature which is described in the mutable genus tables. Since the WD article/CA2004 do not extend these rules in a way that allows you to equip these gaunts with spike rifles or stranglewebs, you can't copy them with the mutable genus rules. Note that e.g. termagaunts are listed as mutable genus species in the codex. This just means that you can mutate some of them to e.g. weapon beasts or hive node gaunts, nothing else. If you want a termagaunt with S4, then you have to copy it with the mutable genus tables, and change the detail. This has nothing to do with the termagaunts from the codex army list then anymore, and if the tables do not enable you to copy a spike rifle gaunt, then you can't create a modified version of it. You may not take an existing gaunt species and modify it, whatever you create has to be made completely with the tables.

However...even if you could do this, then they are still hardly better than the un-upgraded version.
This way you'd get one hit per 21 points then, compared to one hit per 24 points of the unupgraded gaunts. That's an increase of 14.2%. On the other hand, their point cost will increase 16.7%, so it's a bad deal.

jwu
 
#26 ·
Originally posted by ArchonAstaroth@Jan 14 2004, 13:15
Note that e.g. termagaunts are listed as mutable genus species in the codex. This just means that you can mutate some of them to e.g. weapon beasts or hive node gaunts, nothing else.
This is not, in fact, the case.

Mutable Genus means exactly that. The entire genus is generated from the mutable base list in the back of the book. Termagaunts and Hormagants are nothing more than Gaunts with the appropriate upgrades.

The unique "one-off" mutation options you mention can be applied to any model, even fixed genus Tyranids. The only restriction is the wound ratio and the fact that Old One Eye and the Red Terror cannot be mutated. That's it.

If you want a Weapon Beast Lictor you can do it. You just have to have no more than 3 species in your army because of the Wound Ratio issue.
 
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