Dealing with Baseline campers

[Always check the Shadows]

Brothers of the first i seek advice after a second chastening experience at the hand of the Tyranids, most specifically Hive Guard camping behind LoS blocking terrain, but i am sure this will apply to other indirect fire units.

 

Basically my opponent uses a Genestealer heavy list with up to 9 Hive guard camping out of sight behind LoS blocking terrain in his deployment zone. The impaler cannons are deadly against bikes, and most things to be honest, but when they can shoot twice with a 2CP stratagem, i found a unit a turn melting away. In the battle i had today then took out my 5 man Black Knights, a Dark Talon and took a 6 man bike squad down to 2!In only 3 turns!

 

I asked one of the staffers at Warhammer World his opinion and he just laughed and responded with Dark Angels do have an issue with things like that! Great help.

 

I am looking for options. Inceptor squads come to mind as quite cheap and can deep strike but the only other option we have going for us is Deathwing and i am not certain the damage output is high enough for standard termies and the knights will take 2 turns to get stuck in!

 

Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

 

[Berzul]

I do not know the stat line of the Hive Guard, but I wonder if they would be susceptible to Whirlwinds. Maybe tagged together with a few units of Landspeeders? If packed with some heavy flamers you could —with anti grav up-wash—, move very quickly into good positioning, over the lines of genestealers, to fire at them. Boosted by some heavy batteries of non-LoS requiring missiles

[Always check the Shadows]

The first time i faced them i tried a Whirlwind. However a Vengeance launcher is wasted as they have 3 wounds so you waste a wound every time you kill one and a Castellan Launcher means they have a 4+ save.

 

The problem is when you take an all-comers army we don't seem well equipped to deal with them.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Welcome to 8th :P

 

Sorry, I can't help much either. I would take 3WWs and Typhoon Speeders that can move enough to get line of sight with 48" missiles.

 

Always help set up terrain too :D

[robofish7591]

Personally, I have found whirlwinds to be pretty underwhelming... although, on paper the whirlwind scorpius looks pretty good.  As for non-forgeworld stuff, plasma inceptors with weapons of the dark age have never let me down.  The tend to die from gets hot, but 90% of the time they take their target with them.  That issue could be solved by taking a master with a jump pack though.

[Berzul]

Or, you could go with 3 Jump Pack Masters, packing Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers, one with Master of Maneuver, and have them just jump around charging into them in close combat

[Interrogator Stobz]

You might need to clear a massive bunch of chaff first, that's what the WWs are for, just helping out the next stage.

I wouldn't target anything tough with them.

[jbaeza94]

For those asking hive guard stats

bs3 t5 w3 sv4

Impaler cannon, 36" heavy 2 s8 ap-2 Dd3, no cover save bonus, no line of sight required.

 

Its the best anti tank/high t ranged unit nids have.

[shabbadoo]

Whirlwinds with vengeance launchers are decent, and are certainly fun to use to reach out and touch various things with its 72" range. Otherwise typhoon launcher equipped speeders will kill them with fewer shots efficiently enough. Those are probably the best ranged options. Plenty of things can get to them and kill them in close combat. It just depends on how much of your resources you want to expend/sacrifice doing so.

[G8Keeper]

Deep striking deathwing. Shoot twice to clear the chaff and have a few thunder hammers in there.

Our flyers.

Drop podding company veterans.

Scouts

 

All of these are capable of at least tying them in close combat. The good thing is there's usually only 1 or 2 pieces of LoS terrain in a deployment zone, so you can often out range/manoeuvre them.that being said, they are a pain in the bum as you are more often than not going to have to eat 1 or 2 turns of fire from them.

[Neuralshock]

Try dark talons, with mw bomb and rift cannons, you'll peel a bunch

[PhilB]

Hive Guard go down pretty quick to damage 3 plasma. The problem is getting to them; plasma Inceptors with a Phobos Lt. or jump-pack Master are pretty good here, don't expect them to live after they drop down and clear out those Hive Guard though...

[sneakybamsen]

Whirlwinds are not killy enough, they will do no good against up to 9 hive guard.

 

That said, who decides the mission and the table? I've heard of casual gamers allowing their opponent to do both to the opponents massive advantage. Not saying it has to be the case here, just something to think about.

 

Now, back to the topic at hand - how to beat hive guard with impalers. Outrange them till you can clean them out. Yes, we have a lot of weapons with less range than impaler cannons, but we also have some really fast units. Dark Talons, Ravenwing in general will be able to keep their distance until they can pounce on the hive guard. If you want a particular unit to do it, inceptors with plasma (remember supercharge and WftDA), otherwise 2-3 darktalons perhaps supported by a stormraven will quickly make short work of them, and be a massive bonus against the stealerspam.

 

All that aside, stealerspam with impaler cannon hiveguard doesn't sound all that casual to me. Perhaps ask him if he can tone down his list a bit?

[Zustiur]

If their combat stats are bad enough, just drop some assault marines in to tie them up for the rest of the game. Don't worry about killing them. Just stop them shooting.