Tyranid Basics

[Rogue]

I played against Tyranids last night (at 750pts), and feel like I was completely blind-sided. In five turns, my 30-odd marines were all but removed from the table by firepower alone (and one brief assault from a winged tyrant). It felt as if every time he fired, he was using buckets of dice - two of his gaunt squads were putting out 21 shots from 7 guys (at 18"), and 10 twin-linked from the other 5. That's more than 30 dice from a squad about the size of a full tactical, but that costs around 70pts. Ouch. Couple that with a flying tyrant who was putting out something like 8 twinned shots wounding on 2s, or a flying attack that ignored armour and cover, whilst the tyrant himself could only be hit on a 6+, and could fly on and off the table with impunity, and there was nowhere to hide...

 

At the risk of sounding like sour grapes, I did have some shocking dice during the game (one zoanthrope soaked up everything I fired on turn 2 - including 4 lascannon, a plasma gun, 5 rapid firing bolters and a psychic shriek - without losing a single wound), but to get whacked by Nids before they even reach charge range really hurts. 

 

So, flakk? A flyer of my own? Pie-plates of some kind? I'm open to ideas.

[Stickeh]

I find flakk far too expensive to be worth the points. The real trick with FMC's is to force grounding tests with chaff units (such as a combat squadded tac squad) and hit them hard when they eventually hit the ground. Using heavy weapons whilst it's still flying is a waste of firepower.

 

You can't really plan for bad dice, but zoanthropes fall well to small arms or any high ROF weaponry, while their 3++ gives them a fair amount of survivability against heavy weapons.

 

Flyers of your own are a fair shout, but if he's running a hive tyrant with wing and 2 x TL devourers with brain leech then you'll have to plan their arrival to counter the tyrant, else he'll probably down a flyer a turn with 12 twin linked S6 shots.

 

Termagants are probably the best troop choice available to Nids (not saying much) but they're short ranged, T3 save 5+ models, a Thunderfire cannon, missile devs, or even enough boltguns will take them out.

[Axagoras]

run hyperios platforms and rapier batteries with quad heavy bolters

[Rogue]

A stalker looks handy, combining a high rate of fire with a good chance of causing damage. On the other hand, can you justify taking such a specialised tank against just a single flyer?

 

Thinking about hordes, has anyone tried dropping a few drop pods armed with deathwind launchers into the path of the gaunts? I figure that even with the short range, good placement could mean one template in the face, then another to the back as they go past.

 

Drop a couple, maybe stick a dread in there - could it work?

[netminder69]

Well, the Stalker has Interceptor so at least it's capable of attacking ground targets unlike the Hunter.

[thepowerofwar]

Last time I checked the stalker has a split fire but not interceptor

[Stercus]

If I needed to clear a lot of gaunts or similar, I'd be looking to use either one or both of these as a speed bump:

Ironclad, two heavy flamers, drop pod. 180 pts, loads of dead horde.

5 sternguard, 2 hvy flamers, drop pod. 175 pts, loads of dead horde.

Chances are they'll only last a turn or two after dropping in front of a tide of gribblies, but they'll buy time for the rest of your guys, and toast a whole load of xenos (or guardsmen if you roll that way).

Regarding bringing down fliers, I have little clue.

[Axagoras]

best way to stop the hordes is to kill the tervigon so its not making more of them, for anti flier use hyperios platforms. seriously as marine players you have to be open to using forge world or your just wasting your time

[netminder69]

Last time I checked the stalker has a split fire but not interceptor

You're right. Crap, what the heck was I thinking of?

[Redtoof]

At the risk of sounding like sour grapes, I did have some shocking dice during the game (one zoanthrope soaked up everything I fired on turn 2 - including 4 lascannon, a plasma gun, 5 rapid firing bolters and a psychic shriek - without losing a single wound), but to get whacked by Nids before they even reach charge range really hurts. 

 

Ah, so that's who's getting all my Zoanthrope's succesful saves. You just have to look at my ones with a missile launcher and they fall over.

[netminder69]

This has all been useful info. My escalation league is starting this month and out of the 30 some odd players, biggest army choice is space/chaos marines (lumping gray knights, wolves, and the various angels in here). Second biggest is tyranids. Then there's 2 or 3 players of the other choices. So this will be of great use for this noob.

[Brother Navaer Solaq]

I have a tactica question and this thread seems a good place to put it.

 

Q. if a venomthrope (cover save creature) is bubble wrapped by gaunts can you still target it if lets say a unit of outflanking marines in rhino get within range of it? You are not forced to target the gaunts in front of it are you?

 

I think pie templates are terrible against nids because of the cover save creature. flame templates are great though.

 

Q. Is a dreadnaught the best thing to use against MC like tervigon or is it better to use a lone character tooled to kill MC?

[darthjmb]

take out synapse if you can if they are easy targets if you  break synapse then you break the army (coming from an nids player)

[darthjmb]

I have a tactica question and this thread seems a good place to put it.

 

Q. if a venomthrope (cover save creature) is bubble wrapped by gaunts can you still target it if lets say a unit of outflanking marines in rhino get within range of it? You are not forced to target the gaunts in front of it are you?

 

I think pie templates are terrible against nids because of the cover save creature. flame templates are great though.

 

Q. Is a dreadnaught the best thing to use against MC like tervigon or is it better to use a lone character tooled to kill MC?

you can still target it as long as you have line of sight, Q2 if you are talking bout using GK against nids then dreadknight to take out MC because they strike and normal initiative with 2 power fists where if you wound in CC they don't have a single invulnerable or they shouldn't have one at all if they do your opponent is lieing 

[Fibonacci]

 Q. if a venomthrope (cover save creature) is bubble wrapped by gaunts can you still target it if lets say a unit of outflanking marines in rhino get within range of it? You are not forced to target the gaunts in front of it are you?

As long as it has not joined the gaunts (I don't think it can but am not 100% sure) you can target it.  It will get a 5+ cover save from shooting through the gaunts which will then be boosted to 3+ by its own Shrouded rule.

[Captain Idaho]

I think we need to clarify ways to counter Mawlocs. My gut reaction is leave your objective campers in reserve if possible or get cheap Rhinos to hide them in.

 

Aside from that there ain't much we can do.

 

Killing Tervigons? Long ranged firepower can take off a few wounds but you'll need a dedicated hit squad really.

 

On that note, Drop Pods and outflanking squads are vital.

[Grizzly_bear]

Surely it's hell fire rounds just to cause so many saves...?

[Captain Idaho]

And how are you going to deliver those hellfire rounds? We need to think about things like delivery systems. Drop Pod is the best way to get Sternguard to hit a Tervigon.

 

However it's possible to have a canny opponent who might bubble wrap a Tervigon first turn to stop a first turn assassination. Without rapid fire you'll be hard put to kill a 6 wound creature even with fire support from anti tank weapons.

 

I'd suggest in this case to have either an alternative or be able to alternate who drops in first. An Iron Clad can clear the area for a later drop, for example.

[Brother Navaer Solaq]

thanks for reply. i will have to check if the venomthropes are IC or not.

 

Against tervigon i would still go with space wolves (rune priest and JOW). Poison weapons work, but those damn cover save bubble always save it's hid.

[Disruptor_fe404]

Venomthropes are not Independent Characters.

 

Some pie plates (Barrage weapons!) count cover from the template's center, which might help. In general, Venomthropes are going to get a 3+ cover save from the bubble wrap that should be around them.

 

Podded Ironclads with two heavy flamers are actually a solid counter against a fairly large number of 'Nid units. I fancy one'll last a little longer than Sternguard, but that's pretty meta-dependent.

 

I quite enjoy the turn-by-turn mini-game of optimising my chances to capitalise on a grounded Flyrant. Very satisfying when pulled off.

 

Mawlocs are a standout choice in this edition. Amusingly, I've found that Rhinos are actually a viable stopgap against them! Not perfect, obviously, but pretty cheap and very entertaining if the 'Nid player rolls poorly! Bonus points for using the Rhinos to get an extra chance at grounding a Flyrant. If you have ruins to deploy into, put your guys one level up so they can point and laugh at the Mawloc (for a little while, anyway).

[Brother Navaer Solaq]

Q. Can the mawloc or Monsterous creature go up the ruins if there is space to place the model after rolling the dice for movement?

[Disruptor_fe404]

Yes. In fact, we house rule that they can do it even without there being space (but that's not quite borne out by the rules, I think).

 

My point about the ruins was that the Mawloc S6 AP2 blast from underground thing can't touch them if they aren't on ground level.

[GreyCrow]

Interesting compendium guys ! I have the opening game of a month-long campaign tournament at 1000 points starting with the 'Nids and as far as I recall, I don't remember having fought them ever... or perhaps once in 7th edition.

 

I have a relatively mobile and offensive army for a Space Marine army (Raven Guard CT), and was thinking that this might have been a good way to destabilize the opponent, rushing to his face with the entire army to blow up his valuable units like synapse creatures, then I read about the Termagaunts, they super high volume of shots as well as the Mawlocs and other goodness the bugs have access to.

 

I'm using a very mechanized force, (Rhinos and Razorbacks on all the tactial squads) so I guess I'll keep my units inside of vehicles if he has Mawlocs... That'll protect them from most small arms fire as well. I'll trow my Attack Bikes, Assault Marines and Landspeeder above ground level as well to avoid the Mawloc...

 

In terms of strategy, perhaps the best idea would be to place the objective markers (if we get to place them, I have no idea how this is going to go) on two different areas of the board in order to force him to spread his force, then concentrating all my own units in a single half of his army and rampaging through it as much as possible before the other half moves in. Then use the more mobile units to zip around to counter his maneuvers.

[Ming]

I have the "Standish Standoff" 1650 point event this weekend, and in the process of building a list for it practiced against Bugs.

 

Pyrotiggy and sternguard in a drop pod are a great way to immediately chip away at the bugs' key units if they are horde based. Otherwise, go with Bio-Tiggy instead (if the opponent is all big bugs). Divine-Tiggy is better for cent-star accompaniment.

 

My list has quad ML devs and typhoons to also bash the horde, or put wounds on the big bugs with krak missiles. Rhinos for the Devs are included in case there are Mowlocs. I'd have included a Thunderfire if I'd had the model.

 

That's all about I'm going to say until after the event...