A new edition of Warhammer 40K means new models — and for some of the 40-year-old wargaming franchise’s creatures and characters, that means updates they’ve not had in generations. For one big new beastie in particular, it’s a glow up almost 30 years in the making.
One of the highlights of all the new 40K 10th edition miniatures revealed this past weekend at Warhammer Fest 2023 by Games Workshop was the latest version of the alien Tyranids’ funniest-named nightmare: the Screamer-Killer. A giant, four-limbed beast, the Screamer-Killer Carnifex has been part of the Tyranid model line since the race was re-introduced in 40K’s second edition in 1995 — a limited selection of early Tyranid designs and models existed for 40K’s original iteration, Rogue Trader, and in bespoke games like Space Hulk — and guess what? It screams, and it kills. ‘Nuff said.
The wider Carnifex class of Tyranids received major design overhauls in the third edition of 40K, pulling the unit away from its original, almost Doom-inspired aesthetic to something more in line with what the rest of the Tyranid army looked like. But even after another iteration in 2005 to revive the Carnifex-class as a plastic kit, the Screamer-Killer has gone unchanged design-wise until now — and with a return to a unique design that echoes all the way back to the that original four-arm-clawed creature.
It looks cool as hell, doing the typically Warhammer-y thing of taking an idea and ramping the aesthetic all the way up to 11, with the new design now towering over its originator by several magnitudes of scale. It’s seemingly matched on the tabletop as well, from the little we saw of the 10th edition in action at Warhammer Fest. But as Games Workshop’s design teams continue to pump out increasingly intricate models, it’s wonderful to see the company dig back into its classic roots to update designs with the justice they deserve.