Deathspitter
A Deathspitter is a Tyranid Bio-weapon. It is a highly complicated, multi-organism symbiotic weapon which launches corrosive maggot creatures through muscle spasms. Wherever the maggots strike, volatile fluids splatter across a wide area and sear any flesh and melt any armour it comes into contact with.[1][2]
The adaptive evolution of the Hive Fleet Hydra, slimer maggots of this Hive Fleet could burrow through the target's flesh and then starting the process of repeating fragmentation and regeneration. The victim literally burst out with the ever increasing mass of wriggling grubs.[5]
Previous Editions
In 2nd Edition the Deathspitter was commonly carried by Tyranid Warriors and is formed from three different creatures. Inside the weapon is a warm, wet brood-chamber where the maggot creatures grow which form the ammunition. They have a tough outer shell and are filled with highly corrosive and volatile fluids. Next to the brood chamber is the arming orifice where resides a spider-jawed creature which strips the maggot's carapace off and drops it into the firing colon. The colon reacts to the corrosive flesh of the maggot by producing a powerful spasm to launch the creature out of the weapon. The maggot then impacts with something, splattering over a wide area and killing with a combination of velocity, poison and corrosive slime. The slime can eat through flesh and armour with ease.[3]
Images
Tyranid Warrior with a Deathspitter[4]
Sources
- 1: Codex: Tyranids (4th Edition), pg. 30
- 2: Codex: Tyranids (3rd Edition), pg. 8
- 3: Codex: Tyranids (2nd Edition), pg. 54
- 4: Tyranid Warrior Brood
- 5: Codex: Tyranids (8th Edition), Bio-Artefacts of the Tyranids