Monstrous Creature Woes

[corlinjewell]

So the last few games a my FLGS, I have come up with some monstrous creature heavy lists, and they have beaten my vanilla marines soundly.  My question is, how do you go about taking these guys down?  It seems to me that they have absolutely no weaknesses (even if they are expensive, if they munch on just one tactical squad, they make back most of their points).  Do I just sacrifice units to them (which isn't very viable when my opponent goes Nid-zilla and brings two winged tyrants and two trygons)?  Plus, the new cover save rules for them hurt a lot (its a monstrous creature, shoot at the exposed spots guys). What are your guys' thoughts?

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I've always gone heavy on plasma and lascannons, so I generally don't have any issues.  Flyrants can be trouble, of course, because you need Skyfire first and failed grounding checks second, but between a TFC and some las&plas, the other big'uns aren't too terribly hard to handle.

 

In fact, I'd like to see what your average army list looks like before I give any specific suggestions; I'll try to tailor them to the style of your army to avoid disrupting your playstyle too much.

[Creeger]

I've used a quad gun to knock them down and snipers to finish them off in past games. Though I've never had to deal with 4 at once. I would think your opponent would be getting troop light with so many flashy units.

[corlinjewell]

He does go pretty troop-light, but what happened is he placed them on his back-field objetive (which was in area terrain) and had them go to ground.  As I tried to move towards them, his heavies intercepted whatever I sent there, and then he deep-striked his Trygons on my back-field.  It also worked out that he got Iron Arm on both of his Flyrants, so that added an extra level of frustration.

 

@DeusEx

 

Here's what I have in my collection:

 

HQ:
Librarian (Force Stave, usually run with codex powers)
Captain (Relic, Shield, Art Armor)

Working on a 4x Plasma Command Squad, which I imagine will help a lot

 

Elites:

6x Sternguard (2x Combi-plas, 2x combi-meltagun right now)

 

Troops:

2x Tactical Squads (Usually with missile launcher, flamer/meltagun, and combi-weapons

Scout squad (combi-melta, MB, Shotguns, and a HB

I also have two transports which can run as Razor or Rhino

 

Fast Attack;

5x Vanguard (had the models lying around)

LSS

 

Heavy Support:

Predator (can run as dakka or combi)
Stormraven (Can run any weapon option)

[DarkGuard]

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned. Missile launchers. Lots of them. They murder Tyranids. They scythe down the little ones, instant kill the medium ones and knock wounds easily on the big ones. Every Nids player I know (and myself), build armies that are designed to weather missile spam. It's missile spam that prevents medium sized armies from being truly viable.

 

So just take loads of missile launchers, they're useful against a lot of other things as well. And for Flyrants, take any AA you can, and once it's grounded, then stick a ton of missiles on it.

[Robert2004]

Stay away from them and always op to fail any morale checks as this would usually give you a chance to run away, turn around and shoot them! You could outfit your stormraven with a melta and lascannon and go hunting for them, or at least knock them out of the sky!

 

Remember that the missiles it carries are concussive, which means they fight at i1 until the end of the NEXT assault phase, so if they assault you, at least you'll get in your hits before they smash you out!! Handy little number that.

 

Another option is just bolter fire, force the saves!

[Kierdale]

The plasma command squad should help out. Mine did a good job of bug stomping the one time I took them against Nids.

As has been mentioned: snipers always manage to put a few wounds on MCs. They can't be relied upon to take them down completely, but they do contribute.

[Azash]

Back when i started playing 40k one of my friends ran CSM's and was fond of ramming 2 Deamon Princes down my throat. I got my but kicked more times than I could count by those things because I was new and MC's are a pain. However as it went on I got really good at killing them now I don't stress them at all.

 

Killing MC's can sometimes get overcomplicated but really its pretty simple. You need a few things.

 

1. Long Range - kill the buggers before they get to you or at least knock them down there wounds by 50%.

2. High Str - they have high toughness so you need high str

3. Low AP - generally they don't get much better than an 3+ save most are worse with invulns in the 4 and 5 range.

4. Lots of shots - they got lots of wounds so you need lots of shots.

 

Generally speaking this all means units that can shoot.

 

Looking at your list these are the things that stand out as good MC killers to me.

 

Predator - run that thing as an Auto/las Predator. Your shooting 4 shots the worst of which is St 7 AP 4. Most MC's being T6 AR 4..... you get the idea.

Tactical Missile Launchers - Just as Darkguard said these are great they will wound on 3's and make them take an invuln most of the time.

Sternguard - Close in killers. Hellfire rounds wound on a 2+ at rapid fire range with 6 SG that means 12 shots 8 hits and 6 wounds....making them roll lots of saves is a perfectly acceptable way to kill them off. That's not even factoring in the combi plasma and combi melta.

Storm Raven - This thing should be able to gut MC's. It has 4 str 8 AP 2 concussive missiles! These should be reserved for MC's especially the flying variety. Once they are on the ground, wounded and going I1 use that captain to beat them them with a relic blade!

Las/Plas Razorbacks - they got all 3 of the things you want to kill MC's with. Range, high ST low AP and lots of shots (3 inside of 12 inches TL).

Libby w/ Null Zone - When they get close to your line use this power to make them reroll invuln saves.

 

Basically as they come at you; you whittle them down with long range fire focusing on the most destructive to your list. As they get closer you open up on them with your shorter range weapons from things like your sternguard squad. They should be held back and move up and engage ensuring you strike first and do the maximum amount of damage. A good thing to do is hide them in a Razorback they are protected until they are needed from things like deep striking MC's or massive blast templates.

 

The last gasp is when they get close and are very near death. Don't assume just cause they are bolters you have no shot. If you roll enough dice (and a full tactical squad on rapid fire is allot of dice) your bound to get allot of hits and some wounds....if he fails one or two maybe you finish him off :)

 

Things I would think about investing in if MC's are going to something you come up against regularly....

 

Sniper scouts - rending and wounds anything on a 4+ regardless of toughness

Hamminators - str 8 2+ 3++ they work good in combination with your Storm Raven's concussive as the missiles negate an MC's greater initiative.

ADL w/ Quad gun - 4 st 7 ap 4 shots has sky fire and inctercepter. Works great against the flying MC's and good against the running/crawling ones too.

[Grizzly_bear]

This is a great thread to read as I had trouble with a flyrant before. With ADL if I was to stick a devastater squad next to it can you use the sgts sig to up the BS to 5 or is it still the BS4?

 

Oh and on topic, a relic contemptor with duel KAC and a CML makes short work of flying monsters.

[Captain Idaho]

Calgar enjoys beating up Tyranid MCs too. 6 edition rules, thanks to the way you can stay hidden in a unit in this edition (unless you charge a character MC).

 

Even in Challenges Calgar smashes face even against Trygons. Hitting on 3s, wounding on 2s with re roll failed wounds will be hard to survive more than 2 phases.

[Ishagu]

I recently played a 1k game against Tyranids and I butchered them. This is the list I used:

 

Chapter Master, Plasma Pistol, Artifacer Armour, Relic Blade, Orbital Bombardment

 

Command Squad, Apothecary, 4 Plasma Guns

 

Tactical Squad, Plasma Gun, Missile Launcher, Sgt with bolt pistol and chainsword + Rhino

 

Sgt Telion, 4 Sniper Scouts, 1 Missile Launcher

 

Stormraven, Multi Melta, Lascannon

 

Predator, Autocannon, Heavy Bolters

 

 

Build on this for bigger games

[DarkGuard]

Correction Azash, against Nids MLs will wound MCs on 2s. I can't think of many T7 MCs (probably one or two in Chaos), Wraithlords and their ilk would be harder to wound, but the ML is a still a good weapon against them.

[Disruptor_fe404]

The only ones I can think of are flyrants with Iron Arm.

[Zombie P]

Dark eldar talos and cronos engines. Can get fnp quickly too, which can cause so end of head aches.

 

My de list runs 3. They have no invun so they fall to massed fire quite quickly. plasma command squads make short work of them.

 

ZP

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Yeah, but quad plasma makes short work of almost everything.  Still a good idea though, especially if you ally in a Dark Angels Librarian and pop Prescience on them.  So much for overheat.

[DarkGuard]

The only ones I can think of are flyrants with Iron Arm.

 

Admittedly, Swarmlord with Iron Arm and Tervigons with Iron Arm are supposed to be common these days.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

The thing about Iron Arm is that its not reliable. It's not a primaris, so there's no way of knowing they'll get it; thus the threat it poses is a worse case situation worth planning for, but we don't need to have a 100% solution for it.

[Axagoras]

With the number of rolls on biomancy nids can do it is guaranteed to be on 1-2 of the monsters. Usually its on all of them. So I use a mortis contemptor to put them in their graves.

[Azash]

With the number of rolls on biomancy nids can do it is guaranteed to be on 1-2 of the monsters. Usually its on all of them. So I use a mortis contemptor to put them in their graves.

 

They are a great unit since they do well against the majority of unit types (fliers, MC's, light armor, and infantry).

[Axagoras]

yep, only MCs in a 2+ give it trouble (or stuff with a 3+ cover/invul or better)