A classic predator returns; Games Workshop has revealed a new Wahammer 40k Tyranids Deathleaper model, just days after fans rushed to pre-order the Warhammer 40k 10th edition launch box set. The new model for a classic Warhammer 40k monster was unveiled in a Warhammer Community article on Monday, along with a promise that “even more [reveals] are coming, and they’re coming soon…”
Games Workshop has started to publish free 10th Index army rules for the Warhammer 40k factions, and Tyranids were the first, so we already know how Deathleaper performs on the tabletop.
Deathleaper rules
Deathleaper is an Epic Hero, meaning you can only take one in your army. Like other Lictors, he’s a character assassin. The Precision Attacks weapon ability on his Lictor Claws and Talons allows him to target enemy characters, even when they’re protected by a bodyguard unit, and each time he makes a character kill you will gain 1CP from his Feeder Tendrils. Like Lictors, he Fights First in combat.
Defensively, he has a 4+ invulnerable save, Stealth, and Lone Operative, making him hard to hit and hard to hurt. Infiltrators allows him to start the battle in a position to cause maximum trouble.
His unique ‘Fear of the Unseen’ ability projects a 6” aura that worsens enemy Leadership by one. Enemies within 6” of the Deathleaper during their Command phase must make a Battle-shock test if they are below starting strength (rather than below half strength).
This gives him a secondary role as a disruption agent, contending your opponent’s backfield and stripping away enemy units’ ability to contend objectives or use 40k Stratagems.
The sight of Deathleaper should be welcome to Tyranid players, not just because the mini is cool itself, but because it probably heralds the galaxy’s hungriest bugs getting a range overhaul similar to the reinventions that Death Guard and Necrons received when they were the title fighters of Warhammer 40k starter sets. Lictors are the first entities from the hive fleets to land on a planet, after all…