BY ANDY CHAMBERS AND PAULE JURANIC

Back in the old days, the Tyranids had a dizzying profusion of weapon-beasts in their bio-armoury that were available as metal miniatures. These rules now allow you to field additional bio-weapon symbionts for your Tyranid armies.

SPIKE RIFLE

The spike rifle is a Tyranid weapon used almost exclusively by the Gaunt genus. It is made up of a muscle-lined bony tube which contains a row of forward-pointing spikes growing from the rear of the tube. The spikes resemble harpoons more than anything else, as they are barbed and have a razor-sharp edge to them. Inside they are criss-crossed by acidic veins and toxin sacs. When the spike rifle is fired a powerful muscle contraction hurls the first spike in the row at the target. The slightest scratch can be fatal.

The spike rifle has a longer range than the Gaunts' other common weapon symbiont, the fleshborer, and is appearing in greater numbers in the hive swarms all the time. This is something of a mixed blessing. Though a hit from a spike rifle can be less dangerous than one from a fleshborer, the harpoon-like spike still hits with a great deal of force behind it and will punch through armour more easily than the fleshborer's living ammunition.

STRANGLEWEB

The strangleweb is a weird spider-like composite weapon-symbiont which fires a mass of sticky mucus-like strands which wrap themselves tightly around the target and immobilise it. The harder a victim struggles, the tighter the webs become, so if the victim continues to struggle it can eventually be strangled or crushed by the mesh of threads. Gaunt weapon-mutants are most commonly created with stranglewebs so that they can capture live specimens to be returned to the hive ships for dissection and gene splicing. Some Gaunt's stranglewebs have been encountered which secrete strands coated in debilitating poisonous enzymes.

Next: Tyranid Weapon Broods