Advice vs tyranids

[Varyn]

Hi there everyone

 

I was hoping for some general advice when fighting tyranids. I'm currently using grey knights with imperial fists allies.

 

The army I'm playing against looks something like this:

 

Hive Tyrant, Twin-linked devourer with brainleech worms(x2); Wings;

2 zoanthropes

2 Hive Guard, Impaler cannon;

75 termagaunts

3x Tyranid Warriors, barbed strangler and devourers

Biovore

 

I'm not sure how best to deal with the flyrant. I don't really have anything with sky fire, including fortifications. Is it a safe option to simply shoot it with as many multi shot and twin linked weapons as I can and hope to kill it with grounding tests?

 

This is what I've come up with so far, I'm a bit limited on unit types as I've only just started collecting again.

 

GK grand master

5 GK terminators, psycannon

5 GK strike squad, psycannon

Razorback TL heavy bolter, Psybolt ammo

 

Allies

 

SM librarian

6 tac marines, heavy bolter

6 tac marines, heavy bolter, combi plasma

Dreadnought, assault cannon, heavy flamer

 

I also have a SM captain with jump pack, 5 vanguard vets and 5 scouts with bolt guns.

 

Apologies if this feels a bit 'rate my list' I'm mostly looking for tactics and I thought the best way to get some advice is to show what I've got and what I'm up against. Any advice would really be appreciated, my friend is a lot more battle experienced than me, so I'd like to give him a really good game!

[jocke01]

The new tyranids aren't that scary, kill most of his synapse and you will cripple his army.

 

If you want to take down flyrants then stormtalons work well but you only really need to force them too take as many grounding tests as possible, if they land they will be at most on 3W and then you should be able to shoot them down. Any skyfire will work fine.

 

Missile launchers will do great vs tyranids. They will always wound on 2+ and will insta kill both warriors and zoans and should be able to finish of a grounded tyrant. (thinking of a dev squad with 4 missiles here).

 

If you can get some force weapons in close combat vs a grounded tyrant you can also just force him to death since they don't even get a inv save.

[Reinholt]

As someone who also plays Tyranids, here are my thoughts on seeing that list:

 

1 - You should obliterate the Zoanthropes and Warriors first. Breaking his synapse will partially deal with the Flyrant because he will have two options: use the Flyrant optimally to attack you, or hold it back to prevent the rest of his army from breaking. Neither is a good option. Your best defense is serious offense directed at all the other synapse.

 

2 - Once this is achieved, either the Flyrant is trapped in the back, or the rest of his army breaks, and you can really kill it at your leisure.

 

3 - As a general rule, the army is super fragile with regard to synapse. Virtually every game against Tyranids should be regarded by you as an exercise in murdering the pants off his synapse creatures, unless he brings a better list (where few creatures are synapse vulnerable - this list will basically be flyrants, MCs, min warriors, maybe one blob of gaunts, maybe some genestealers); that will be much more difficult to defeat. If you kill his synapse, it will be basically impossible for him to win a game with his current list.

 

4 - To that end, every piece of advice I can give beyond that is situationally dependent, but basically involves making sure you have the mobility and shooting power to slaughter the warriors / zoanthropes with extreme prejudice, and then enough left to deal with the Flyrant after that.

[Rogue]

I've found that zoanthropes have an irritating habit of making 3++ saves. My current inclination is to hammer them with lots of low value firepower (like bolters), and save the bigger guns for flattening warriors and the like.

[Varyn]

Thanks for the replies, as far as I'm aware, the warriors don't have good range on their bio weapons so I shouldn't have much trouble storm boltering them to death. I'll try to focus my attention on the synapse creatures and toast any termagaunts that get close, I'm a little concerned that 75 termagaunts can kill my troops pretty quick by their huge volume of fire. I'll just have to make sure the synapse nearby dies!

 

I think getting some more heavy support us a good idea, missile launcher devs or las cannon centurions perhaps.

[Rogue]

Tyranids don't seem to have much of a 2+ save any more, and krak missiles do enough to get the kill on T4, so I'm not sure what lascannon bring to the table here. Plus, launchers can flick over to frag when necessary.

 

On that, you don't have a lot of templates in your current list - it's the same mistake I made last time out. Heavy bolters (especially IF ones) are effective, but I really missed the option to drop a couple of big blasts to tidy up the little ones (who do roll a lot of dice when they get into range). I'm pondering dropping a couple of deathwind pods into the middle of the gaunts and templating them to death...

[Varyn]

I'm not sure where I could really add template weapons, I guess I could swap the terminator psycannon for an incinerator? Or on the grand master the same. It seems to be better to change my GK units to incinerators rather than my fists units to flamers.

 

I see your point about the missile launchers vs las cannons,I think a devastator squad with 4 ML would be a good investment, you get 2 ML in the devastator box right?

[Rogue]

Just the one launcher in the devastator box (it pairs with the single multimelta on the sprue).

 

I follow you in wanting to hang on to the heavy bolters in the allied detachment - I'm not sure flamers are the answer anyway, as they only cut in when the Nids are almost on top of you anyway. Could the dreadnought become a whirlwind? Or a thunderfire?

 

I don't know the Knights codex at all, so I can't make any suggestions there.