Old One Eye
-Courtesy of Master Titan BT
Old One Eye, our beloved and oldest Carnifex born of Hive Fleet Behemoth and ever so named from a traumatic injury caused by a Plasma shot that pierced his eye and brain. His sole existence is baffling to all escaping death throughout numerous battles via superior regeneration capabilities.
Pros:
-St 10!!!!
-Rapid Regeneration
-Alpha Leader
-Berserk Rampage!!!
-Monstrous Creature
Cons:
-Slow-No Fleet or Mycetic Spore!!
-No invulnerable save
-Extremely high points cost
-Just as easy to kill as any other Carnifex
-No Synapse or SitW abilities
-High target priority from enemy heavy weapons
Special Abilities:
Rapid Regeneration: An improved ability to regenerate lost wounds. 1/3 chance to regenerate unsaved wounds. He has a fairly low amount of wounds so if you get the chance to roll for RR then you're lucky.
Alpha Leader: Grants nearby units the ability to utilize OOE Leadership which is most likely an improved leadership value for lesser Tyranid units.
Berserk Rampage: Now, here is where OOE shines and becomes the most enticing reason to include him in your army lists. For every successful To Hit roll OOE makes with his initial set of attacks (base attacks+charging+Crushing Claws), he gets to make one additional attack. All of his attacks, including his extra attacks, benefit from his Scything Talon reroll, but he always strikes at I1 due to his Crushing Claws**.
OOE gets 4+D3 attacks, plus an extra attack if he charges. This produces anywhere from 5 to 8 initial attacks, and for each successful hit from these attacks, he gets to make another attack. That means you can potentialy get up 16 attacks with S10 that ignore armor saves and roll 2D6 for armor pen. Although it is rare to get the full 16 in normal combat, you automatically get the full 16 against any immobilized or stationary vehicles. Seeing as how he rolls a minimum of 12 on his armor penetration rolls, that is going to be one dead vehicle!
OOE Tactics:
Obviously the best thing to do is to get him into CC as soon as possible. Keeping within Synapse is key to keep him going towards your intended target, otherwise he may be chasing/Raging toward an undesirable unit. Now, you can bet that your opponent is going to fire Lascannon, Plasma, and Missile Launcher equivalent weaponry at him and he will be dropped very easily without granting him cover saves by shielding him with other units. Which units should you use? Venomthroapes, Gargoyles, and Shrikes. Another option, though a bit pricey, is a 2 bug squad of shooty Carnifexes (example tactic below.) Be sure to utilize cover as much as possible and ensure you Run in every shooting phase to help advance him toward the enemy. Avoid enemy heavy weapon firing lanes to protect him. Have a Tervigon nearby? Use Catalyst to grant OOE FNP along with a cover save, depending on the AP of course!
OOE is great for running up a flank as he is perceived as a great threat in which your opponent will tend to avoid and end up "funneling" his army towards the middle of the table for the rest of your army to munch on. He can't do it alone, so some faster units like Gargoyles covering him will help out. Add a squadron of Carnifexes with him and your opponents flank doesn't stand a chance!
Anticipating an opponent with a lot of Outflanking units? OOE is a great outflanking counter unit. Keep him ~12.1+ inches away from the tables edge and when your opponent comes in on the table you will be too far away for him to assault you but in your next round you can assault him which is what you want out of him. The is especially helpful when there are objectives in your deployment zone.
A setup that I like to use is running up a flank with OOE behind a pair of Carnifexes in a single squadron with Stranglethorn Cannons and TL-Devourers. Ensure that you place OOE behind the Carnifexes to grant him cover. You can also put Gargoyles in front of them to help give them all cover. Its all about model placement. You don't have to worry about shooting through Gargoyles with the Carnifexes weaponry as your opponent is most likely benefiting from a superior armor save.
Although he can bring extreme power to bear on the enemy, OOE suffers from several issues. First, he is painfully slow. He doesn't have Fleet and he can't take a Mycetic Spore, so he may never even make it into combat. Second, he is the second most expensive unit (before upgrades) in the codex, and is relatively expensive considering his limitations. Finally, he is no tougher to harm than an ordinary Fex, but costs substantially more to field. Rapid Regeneration may not even come into play as he could go down in a single turn of shooting. 4 Kraks without cover or FNP = dead OOE.
**On the issue of OOE's Crushing Claws and the Living Battering Ram rule: Some players question why OOE has the Living Battering Ram rule when he can't benefit from it due to his Crushing Claws and wonder if it was just an oversight or if he is supposed to be able to benefit from the extra initiative. The most likely explanation is that when Robin Cruddace wrote the entries for the special characters, he copied and then modified the entry for the unit the special character was based on (in this case, the Carnifex entry). As evidence of this, all of the "special" units have all of the special rules that their normal counterparts have, and some, like OOE, retain things like the BS3 from the normal Carnifex profile, even though OOE can't shoot (this is also seen in the case of the Venomthrope and the Hormagaunt).
RAI and possible explanations aside, the rules for Crushing Claws are explicit in their effect: "A Tyranid with Crushing Claws gains an extra D3 Attacks in close combat(...) but strikes at Initiative 1, regardless of any modifiers." (pg. 83 Tyranid codex). That means that no matter how much we may want to believe that OOE should get at least some attacks at I3 on the charge, he does not get them as far as RAW are concerned. There is no provision within the rules whatsoever that would even begin to suggest that any of OOE's attacks should be done at any initiative other than 1. Therefore, as frustrating as it might be, the Living Battering Ram rule is 100% useless to OOE.
If you really want to, you are free to try and get your opponent to take pitty on poor OOE and use modified rules for him, but this should be reserved for friendly games only and will almost never carry over into a competitive or tournament game.
-GaleRazorwind