Showcase: Tyranid Carnifex

Remember when the Carnifex use to be a huge monster? With the arrival of new Tyranid Heavy-weights such as the Toxicrene and Tyrannofex, the humble Carnifex seems a touch small now. It’s a good job you can take them as broods of three now then! After the jump, more close ups and a group shot of nine Carnifexes!

This Carnifex came with the Deathstorm boxed game. In the game the Carnifex is called the Beast of Phodius. I didn’t want to arm my one like the Beast of Phodius (Barbed Strangler and Scything Talons) so I choose two pairs of Deathspitters with Brain Leech worms. I already own two Carnifex with this weapon load out so I thought I third would be excellent. Imagine the Brood unleashing 36 twin linked strength 6 shots. It’s going to make a mess and anything still alive is going to have to get through toughness 6 and 4 wounds a piece! The brood is going to hard to remove.  It’s a shame you can’t fit the Brood into a Tyrannocyte. A monstrous creature count’s as 20 models and that’s the capacity of the pod. 

The new oval base fits the Carnifex really well. I could easily fit some small Tyranid decorations onto the base to add interest (these hive node parts are on the Genestealer sprue, you get four per box of Genestealers).

As promised at the start of this post, here is a picture of all nine of my Carnifex models. I’ve actually owned more. I had the original Screamer Killer carnifex from 2nd edition back in 1995 and I had the 3rd edition version as well. Those have been sold off a long time ago. My Carnifex scheme has changed since I first started adding these creatures to my swarm. Initially they had no purple and I used a green for a spot colour. You can still see some green in places. I also used to cover the carapace in bright yellow patterning. I did this for a large proportion of my collection (including 120 gaunts!) I’ve toned it right back down now as you can see from the first three models on the left of the front row. I would love to repaint the carapace and back chimneys to match the newer styles. Then I’d like to mount them all on these oval bases. Maybe I will one day. Maybe.