Good day my beautiful pink friend!
I noticed that you have mentioned fexstars on occasion and thought that surely the tyrranostar is far superior. Below is the load out I was thinking of.
Tfex - rupture cannon and regen with desiccator larvae - 295
Tprime - dual boneswords, pair of scything talons and regen - 105
The obvious bonus is a strength ten gun that on average always hits, and 2+ save from the Tfex armoured shell. This means you can allocate anything ap3 or worse to the Tfex and get a save and anything ap2 or better to the prime as a wound battery and then double regen those wounds back. Seems ideal to pressurize opposing objectives and tank hunting.
Is this the sex? Or more like Anne widdecombe of 40k.
Is it worth the approximately eighty odd extra points for more wounds, better gun and better save or is this a star too far?
Cheers for your pink tinged insight
UNCLE BAD TOUCH
First off, let's get one thing straight: the Carnifex is the only MC that a Prime can attach to, because it's the only one you can field in a unit of more than one model. (That's the requirement for an IC to be able to join with something; well, that or it being an IC itself.) Tyrannofexes, Tervigons, Harpies, Trygons, and Mawlocs are all illegal units to join. A Hive Tyrant can be part of the same unit as a Prime if you have one or more Tyrant Guard around for the two of them to mutually hook up with, but the Prime can't join a Tyrant by itself.
Odd thought: what if a Prime and Tyrant are joined to a Guard unit and all of the Guard are wiped out? What happens? The Tyrant isn't allowed to leave the unit, as per the FAQ, but presumably the Prime "falls off" the Tyrant since it no longer has anything it can legally be attached to. Extra credit question: has this ever happened in a game even once in the history of the world?
Above and beyond the technicalities of the matter, however, the Prime and 'Fex suit each other reasonably well. Suited up properly (Whip/Sword+Toxin, Quad Devourers, Regen on both of them) you have a very dangerous pair. The unit is T6 (since you use the highest if there is no majority) and can gain cover with little trouble (remember, a unit can take cover saves if 50% or more of its members have cover, and the Prime does not need the one-half physical coverage that the Carnifex does, just the minimal obscurment common to all infantry units.) This is the heart of the unit's power: high survivability combined with lots of regenerating wounds and cover to make one of the toughest kills in the game, especially for the not-unreasonable price of 330pts. More importantly, the two units cover each others' weaknesses; the Carnifex puts out brutal anti-infantry firepower with its Devourers and can quickly whittle down hordes to nothing and even put significant hurt on MEQs and MCs; only 2+ save units and T7+ are safe from it. At the same time, in melee it can deal out major damage to elite units, inflicting ID to Marines and making even Wraithlords and Land Raiders weep when it hits. The Prime, on the other can, can cut through the swarms of mid-range infantry, like Tactical Squads, that can annoy a Carnifex for several turns and the Lash Whip insures that his big pal will get a chance to swing before being killed off. This is why I don't recommend the naked Carnifex as a partner for the Prime: it leaves a major vulnerability (horde infantry) and takes away an option for suppression fire, which otherwise gives the unit much better options in many situations.
A couple other notes: first, Fexstars only work in smaller games. They are reliant on having time to let Regen do its work, which at higher point totals becomes less likely, as there is more firepower on the table. Taking up valuable HQ and HS slots is also an issue; you will want to field two Fexstars if you can, and this means taking two HQ slots and two HS slots, as you need equal numbers of Fexes and Primes in each unit (to maximize the combination of cover and T6) and running the Fexes as an actual unit of 2+ means not having all unique models to distribute wounds to- hence Regen is not getting its full use. In certain rare situations it can be justifiable, but it is generally a very poor idea.
This is, of course, only one way to use a Carnifex, and I'll be talking about other options in the near future here for those of you who are interested in getting the most out of the models you bought during 4E (and don't want to convert them t Tervis/T-Fexes/Harpies).
