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I still don't know how fast it can move... If it can move 12" and charge another 12" it's obviously going to cover a lot of ground quickly. On the other hand if it can only move 6" and charge another 6" then there are ways to effectively handle it.

G

It moves 12 and assaults 6

It can also fleet 2D6 if it fires no weapons, or fire one weapon and fleet D6

So the bio Titan has an effective charge arc of 18-24" and can leave combat at will. It's really worth all those points. If you have a fairly static army it's going to roll right through your ranks. So first off your army must be mobile to have a chance. Something tells me it won't get to use the new warpfield or else we will probably see a large number of bio Titan armies from the heart of Texas coming out to make a statement how broken is the Heirophant... heh. Anyways you need speed to play keep away so it doesn't roll you like a cheap cigar. There are not many units that can take it out with one punch but I believe the nemesis force weapon is one answer and you'll need fragmentation grenade launchers to maintain the higher initiative, you'll also need to mastercraft the nemesis force weapon to make every hit count. Then finally you'll need to roll a six to wound and pass your psychic test.

Of course there are attacks that bypass S versus T and you'll need a lot to soak the Titan. Sniper rifles are out because as stated you need to roll a 6 to wound. So you can ask yourself if you want to build an army designed to take out the Heirophant or play the odds knowing you'll probably never face off against it. If you tailor your list then you'll have to make sure you can beat other competitive builds and you never know what exactly you are going to see at the gladiator. As has been noted there will be one mission that nerfs the bio Titan and hopefully that will be an early mission.

One way to kill it quickly (again assuming it won't have a 3+ invulnerable save) is to move in quickly with meltaguns and soak it at short range. IG quickly comes to mind but you'll need to hit it with everything you've got and not expose yourself to the rest of the Tyranid army. This tactic means you would have to go for the big kill early on or else it will blast apart all your transports. I would probably run an Eversor assassin as well since the neural gauntlet is one of those weapons that bypasses S versus T... You'll have to kill it in one player turn or else regen kicks in and the beast will rear it's ugly head again. If the Eversor could drop a few wounds that could well be your final insurance policy after you soak it with all the meltas. What I like about this strategy is you are taking the fight to the bio titan's doorstep rather than playing keep away all game.

Rending is another way to bypass S versus T...

G

Green Blow Fly wrote: Something tells me it won't get to use the new warpfield or else we will probably see a large number of bio Titan armies from the heart of Texas coming out to make a statement how broken is the Heirophant... heh.

I have a feeling that we will see a lot of Heirophants from the heart of Texas anyways.

One way to kill it quickly (again assuming it won't have a 3+ invulnerable save) is to move in quickly with meltaguns and soak it at short range.

G

Wow, that would be tough to do...12" range is going to be hard to get close.

And just for your info, 20 Meltaguns at BS 3 will do 5 wounds, and at BS 4 will do 6.66 wounds, and that is shooting 20 MELTAGUNS!

Does the thing really have a WS of 9 and defensive grenades? If so, the THSS termies and daemonettes will need 5s to hit! THSS termies with pedro buff will average 1 hit each, 3 THSS termies will deal 1 wound, so you need 30 THSS pedro termies to deal 10 wounds. If it also has a 3++ save then your talking 3 rounds of CC, if it doest kill any termies in CC ever , get away from them, or regenerate. Also, 30 THSS termies cost 1200 points!

Ya, it will be very interesting to see which of the new nid abilities this thing gets.

Green Blow Fly wrote:There are not many units that can take it out with one punch but I believe the nemesis force weapon is one answer and you'll need fragmentation grenade launchers to maintain the higher initiative, you'll also need to mastercraft the nemesis force weapon to make every hit count. Then finally you'll need to roll a six to wound and pass your psychic test.

You're I1 because it has Lash Whips, which make you I1 (nothing about grenades). And if it doesn't stomp you and you get really really lucky, a successful NFW blast will be good for D3 wounds.

So the basic conclusion is try to avoid it like [insert obvious metaphor] and focus on taking out their scoring units...

Easier said than done, but it does sound like the best option...

Unfortunately a Nemesis Force Weapon wont work either. As I quoted earlier:

From the Gargantuan Creature Rules: "All gargantuan creatures are immune to the Instant Death rule. [new sentence:] In addition, because they are so large and powerful, they are not affected by ANY attack that would normally kill a model automatically (like a Force Weapon, an attack that kills as a result of failed characterisitc test, etc.)."

It's an older rule, hence why it puts into two separate categories "things that cause instant death" and "force weapons". It lists force weapons as "something that can kill automatically". So with this wording it cock-blocks all current force weapons, as well as the older wording of force weapons.

The ruling of Warp Field will be huge. I don't think they want it to have a 2+/3+ and they better tell people fast so they know whether to buy one or not. In the past An'Garrath has been able to take it down in combat, though An'Garrath hasn't been to reliable vs. more conventional armies.

The Bugs can take the Bio-Titan, 150 Gants and still have 250pts for synapse. 150 Gants is not easy to take down with a Bio-Titan running around. It can shoot two different targets with 8 str 10 ap 3 shots per turn as it moves forward 12", then assaults anything it wants. Remember you only have 17 slots in the force org chart and this thing will engage 17 targets over a 6 turn game. OUCH!!

Toughness 9 is huge. str 8 weapons will need a 5+ to wound and str 9 lascannons need a 4+ to wound. That's tough. It takes up a huge footprint on the tabletop so things can't get away and as a GC it can't be tarpitted.

I only ever managed to kill one once. I had 6 ironclad dreadnoughts assault it at once. It's stomp attack dodn't kill any of them and they inflicted bigtime damage. One Ironclad was immobilised and we had no idea how to play the immobilised dread. The dread couldn't push back after assault (as per the rules) and the Bio-Titan doesn't move away after assault, the enemy does. We had no clue and diced it. The dread stayed and the Bio-Titan was brought down from the next charge of the Ironclads. This was a lucky occurance and it won't happen again.

I truely feel that unless the mission screws the Bio-titan, it's won't lose a game in the gladiator. I'm not sure if it will get max points every game, which is what you need to win the gladiator, but it won't lose.

I don't know the rules for this but don't Ctan ignore invunerable saves + armour.

A C'tan could ignore it's saves, but trying to do 10 wounds to a T9 model would be a stretch for either of them (especially the ciever as he'd need 4's to wound). Also they'd have to walk the field agains the afforementioned 16 S10 shots. Doesn't seem at all plausible.

The clear problems with the thing is that no weapon can One-Shot it, it gets wounds back, shoots hard enough to make back it's points without fighting, cannot be locked in combat and can cover ground like a fiend. The 3++ doesn't matter much to most armies as they couldn't handle the thing as-is, it really only matters if you're thinking about running Ang'grath to counter it.

Ingore the Heirophant and go for phase out...

The rules for the nemesis force weapon states it kills the model outright... I'm not sure how that would interact with the rule for the bio Titan but it looks like it would be possibly negated as well. If the Grand Master has a stormshield it's possible he could survive the initial onslaught and swing back.

G

Mastershake wrote:
The clear problems with the thing is that no weapon can One-Shot it...

What about attacks that don't kill it, but turn it into something else? Psychic powers are out unless they do damage, so no Jaws, but what about Daemonic Gifts. You've got a 1/6 chance of turning it into a chaos spawn?

Redbeard wrote:

What about attacks that don't kill it, but turn it into something else? Psychic powers are out unless they do damage, so no Jaws, but what about Daemonic Gifts. You've got a 1/6 chance of turning it into a chaos spawn?

Been suggested twice actually. Again, it cannot be killed "...an attack that kills as a result of failed characterisitc test, etc". So no boon, no mutation, no zogwort, no nothing.

But "killed" is an important distinction. It's been ruled, in many cases, that transformation is not killing. You can squig Abbadon, although he's immune to instant-death.

Turning it into a spawn won't work because all gargantuan creatures are immune to psychic powers with no strength value, both friendly or enemy. From the Apocalypse book, under the "special rules" paragraph in the gargantuan creatures section:

Because of their massive bulk (and multiple brains!), gargantuan creatures are less suceptible to psychic powers. they are not affected by psyshic powers (either friendly or enemy) with the exception of those that have a Strength value, which may affect them normally.

Which means that the Slaanesh demon lord can't actually use warptime. Yay for poor design.

But for Chaos Daemons, it's not a psychic power, it's a daemonic gift...

Redbeard wrote:But "killed" is an important distinction. It's been ruled, in many cases, that transformation is not killing. You can squig Abbadon, although he's immune to instant-death.

So you don't get a KP or any VPs when you squig/spawn it? I don't thnk anyone plays that way.

Furthermore,

Codex: Chaos Daemons, Pg. 73, Boon of Mutation wrote:If the test is failed, the target is...removed as a casualty.

So it's pretty clear that it's "killed", even though EW doesn't work on it because the model is just removed.

Zogwart, on the other hand...

Codex: Orks, Pg. 61, Zogwart's Curse wrote:The target model is replaced with an angry Squig...

So it would work against the Hierophant if not for the

Choose an Independant Character model...

part of Zoggy's rule.

Ah, but the Daemons power specifically states that the model is "removed as a casualty" and replaced with a spawn. So as a casualty, yes, he is "killed".

EDIT: Dang, Iron_Chaos_Brute beat me to it.

Edit: everyone else covered it already

Or if you meant the warptime thing, it says in IA:Apocalypse that it is a psychic power. I can't see anything that makes an exception for Zarakwhatsisface, so as a gargantuan creature he isn't affected by it.

DE archon with agonizer( wounds on a 4+) power weapon or poison blades wounds on two but can take a save, combat drugs, goblet of spite( evens the weapons skill so both oppenent hits on three) and sheild field....

Yeah first time he fails his shadow field save hes dead , like most other models

Poisoned weapons only ever wound a GC on a 6.

(This really is the "feth your rules, we're playing my way" model)

People keep reposting the same stuff. It's like no one bothered to read the GC rules first

EDIT- And I agree with grankobot, this is a "feth your rules, we're playing my way" model.

Would definitely be nice to get a ruling by the Adepticon people on the Warp-field issue.

10man Firedragons
+Wave serpent
+Spirit stones
+TL-shuriken cannon

X 4

= 1080 (1200 with decent serpent weaponary).

Although, str8 vs T9 (Wounding on 5's) & 5+ coversave & 10 wounds... eesh. All 40 (assuming none got taken down) only do 5.96 wounds. Which is not enough.

But does Works against any kind of army imaginable.. 12pts extra, minus one fusion gun and you get a heavy flamer. 15pts extra and you can now reliably take out monoliths.

Bring one yourself

If I did my math-right, Daemonettes might be the best option.
You can afford 89 of them for the same price.
Assuming you get the charge (thats a far assumption I think) the TGC would strike before you (thanks to Lash Whips) with 8 attacks = 5.3 hits = 4.4 wounds = 3 dead
This leaves 86 alive @ 4 attacks each = 344 attacks = 172 hits = 28.7 Rends = 9.6 wounds.

Even if you don't kill him on the first turn and he regenerates a wound or two, the 2nd charge will see him off.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If I did my math-right, Daemonettes might be the best option.
You can afford 89 of them for the same price.
Assuming you get the charge (thats a far assumption I think) the TGC would strike before you (thanks to Lash Whips) with 8 attacks = 5.3 hits = 4.4 wounds = 3 dead
This leaves 86 alive @ 4 attacks each = 344 attacks = 172 hits = 28.7 Rends = 9.6 wounds.

Even if you don't kill him on the first turn and he regenerates a wound or two, the 2nd charge will see him off.

EDIT: Thanks to Spore Clound and Toxic Miasma you will lose a fair number of Daemonettes at the end of the turn but you'll still have enough to finish him off.

Something about stomping attacks on all models

Well, shouldn't you be able to use a huge amount of meotic spores and ds them around the thing and then pop a mawloc right under it? Dosen't Terror from below state that the unit suviving the mawloc attack must be moved away from the blast, but if it cannot becouse of impassible terrain, it is destroyed? Ofc if i haven't got the rules wrong this would require large amount of luck with scatter and reserve rolls but if you use lictors and hive commander tyrants it could work! If it does your hole army are deployed and their biggest bug is dead!

Ofc I might be wrong