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Hi, im angry_gretchin and i was wondering if anyone knows anything about the new tyranid codex and any tactics against them with CSM?

From what I have read on other threads, Plasma Plasma Plasma

KK

Lotsa small arms fire (bolters, nurgles rot) to kill the swarm. Flamers is never a bad idea here. Berserkers. Thousand Sons. Havocs with heavy bolters.

WARNING! This is entirly made up by a guy who can`t spell entirelly, so never trust it or quote it! WARNING!

From what I've heard, they still need to wait out for the new Codex till January.
So hold your horses, new tactics will be made against them once everyone can actually read the rules.

Well, I read the new Nids codex.
Nidzilla seems to be dead since Carnifexes are too expensive for what they can achieve.
Nids have new special characters with neat special rules.
Those big bugs can be annoying.
My guess is that the new Nids will use pods (similar to SM drop pods) in order to bring their broods close to the enemy front ranks.
On the other hand, they lost almost all biomorphs and their shooting will become even worse
so that they will hardly take down any tanks.
Go for a mech CSM army...

wuestenfux wrote:On the other hand, they lost almost all biomorphs and their shooting will become even worse so that they will hardly take down any tanks.

Hive Guard? Venom Cannons can kill tanks now? Gaunts are viable, especially with a Tervigon? That doesn't sound like worse shooting to me. As for the bio-morphs, they only lost the ones that didn't do anything in this edition anyway.

Just go Mech, grab some combi-flamers and make sure everyone has both CC weapons. All CSM (exluding TS, who don't help anyway) are atleast as good in combat as an Assault Marine squad. We'll be fine.

The usual junk. Lash, Oblits, PMs, Zerks, Termicide will still chew through Nids.

DarkHound wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:On the other hand, they lost almost all biomorphs and their shooting will become even worse so that they will hardly take down any tanks.

Hive Guard? Venom Cannons can kill tanks now? Gaunts are viable, especially with a Tervigon? That doesn't sound like worse shooting to me. As for the bio-morphs, they only lost the ones that didn't do anything in this edition anyway.

The venom cannon is S6, small blast, while the heavy version is S9, small blast.
Shots will eventually scatter and get an additional -1 on the penetration table,
i.e., -3 for glancing and -1 for penetrating.
That's not very scary.

wuestenfux wrote:The venom cannon is S6, small blast, while the heavy version is S9, small blast.
Shots will eventually scatter and get an additional -1 on the penetration table,
i.e., -3 for glancing and -1 for penetrating.
That's not very scary.

"Shots will eventually scatter..." Yes, Terminators will eventually roll 1's. Does that mean they aren't extrodinarly durable to anti-infantry?

Blast weapons are not particularly inaccurate, with a 33% chance to stick and failing that a ~65% to not scatter far enough for it to matter. That is a 75% accuracy, which is scary. However, this isn't the scariest bit. Hive Guard will shoot you even out of LoS, and failing that there are the floating brains. No, 'Nids ranged anti-tank is on par with most everyone else now. However, we've been fighting everyone else fine so far. This update is going to make 'Nids more fun to play against, but I doubt it'll be particularly balance breaking. I think it'll find itself a comfortable in the meta-game and nothing more, just like the Space Wolves.

OK. Can't wait to play against new tyranids!

Hive Guard will shoot you even out of LoS, and failing that there are the floating brains.

I read diagonally through the new codex and talked to a veteran Nids player.
However, I overlooked the Hive Guard entry.

DarkHound wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:On the other hand, they lost almost all biomorphs and their shooting will become even worse so that they will hardly take down any tanks.

Hive Guard? Venom Cannons can kill tanks now? Gaunts are viable, especially with a Tervigon? That doesn't sound like worse shooting to me. As for the bio-morphs, they only lost the ones that didn't do anything in this edition anyway.

Just go Mech, grab some combi-flamers and make sure everyone has both CC weapons. All CSM (exluding TS, who don't help anyway) are atleast as good in combat as an Assault Marine squad. We'll be fine.

I think TS has a invulnerable save? Then MC will have a hard time killing them while they have AP 3 guns. I think they will be very good against carnifexes.
What`s that drop pod thing anyway?

Well, TS will wound Carnifexes on 6+ with their special bolter ammunition.

The Pods have rules similar to the SM drop pods. But they are MCs with S6 and T6.

I've read conflicting reports on the pods some that say they are t4 w/ 3 wounds.

No, Thousand Sons are bad now and they will continue to be bad. Without that second close combat weapon they are terribly vulnerable in any kind of close combat. They shoot AP3 bolters, but anything you'd fire bolters at has a 5+ save (and/or a cover save). While an MC may get bogged down in Thousand Sons, he is certainly making his points back with every kill. They are blighting expensive, and they won't be hurting him back (except on the tiny chance you can get a Force Weapon off).

About the drop pods, I've only ever heard they were T6.

About the drop pods, I've only ever heard they were T6.

As far as I remember, pods are MCs with S6 and T6.

wuestenfux wrote:

About the drop pods, I've only ever heard they were T6.

As far as I remember, pods are MCs with S6 and T6.

Do they get a move/assault capability in subsequent turns after landing?

I guess they can move as normal infantry.

Just curious. Never know when GW is gonna decide that the nid pods are treated as MCs for the purpose of being shot at and assault, but may not move or initiate assaults. Thats a little more dangerous too when each Nid brood brings its own baby MC. Remember how many wounds they had by chance?

Dedicated Transports

Yes.

Yes, there are.

Spore Capsule

You may buy a Spore Capsule for lots of units: it may transport 1 Monstrous Creature or up to 20 Infantry.

The Spore Capsule is Deep Striking, and the unit within disembarks. It may neither move nor attack. It may still shoot.

The Capsule has WS and BS 2. It has Toughness 5 or 6 and 3 Lifepoints. It has, if i remember correctly, 3 attacks S 6.

It has a Assault 6 Strength 6 shooting attack with a range of 6 inches.

From 40kOnline.

Thousand sons are actually good Carnifax killers in CC. The sorcerer has 4 attacks with his bolt pistol on a charge. With the mark of Tzeentch a sorcerer can use 2 psychic powers a turn so the sorcerer can activate warptime and then active his force weapon killing the carnifax after scoring a single wound. My 1750 rouge trader list has a squad of 8 thousand sons + the sorcerer in it primarily for the job of killing MEQ, but they do very well against big nids. The squad killed 3 carnifexes in a single game.

schadenfreude wrote:Thousand sons are actually good Carnifax killers in CC. The sorcerer has 4 attacks with his bolt pistol on a charge. With the mark of Tzeentch a sorcerer can use 2 psychic powers a turn so the sorcerer can activate warptime and then active his force weapon killing the carnifax after scoring a single wound. My 1750 rouge trader list has a squad of 8 thousand sons + the sorcerer in it primarily for the job of killing MEQ, but they do very well against big nids. The squad killed 3 carnifexes in a single game.

My Sorcerer Lord has killed Carnifexi before, but that doesn't mean he's good at it. You are very unlikely to get the charge given Slow and Purposeful, so you'll only have 3 attacks to work with. He has a 10.8% chance per swing of downing the Carnifex, so statistically it'll take 3 rounds of close combat to kill a Carnifex, while a CC Carnifex by this edition's standard will down about 2 Thousand Sons a turn. 6 scoring bodies for a Carnifex? I'll take the equivalent (138 points) in Lascannons, thank you.

I will sooo be checking this thread in the new year. Im looking at quite a number of battles against the new nids, and am rarely successful against them (although Im yet to play them seriously in 5th ed).

schadenfreude wrote:Thousand sons are actually good Carnifax killers in CC. The sorcerer has 4 attacks with his bolt pistol on a charge. With the mark of Tzeentch a sorcerer can use 2 psychic powers a turn so the sorcerer can activate warptime and then active his force weapon killing the carnifax after scoring a single wound. My 1750 rouge trader list has a squad of 8 thousand sons + the sorcerer in it primarily for the job of killing MEQ, but they do very well against big nids. The squad killed 3 carnifexes in a single game.

I hate matchups like this, yes, some units can do better than others against specific enemies, if your opponent can identify and negate or avoid the threat which is surprisingly easy in CC, the point is moot.

Most early tyranid armies will be MC based, with a smattering of lictors, this is mostly a function of just having the models already. They can also apparently field a very scary number of CC swarms that wound on a 4+ against /anything/ as well as probably the best medium range anti-tank in the game. Against large swarms you need to kill the synapse and then engage with medium armor where the un-synapsed bugs /must/ attack the closest enemy, a single dreadnaught can shut down an entire army should he be the closest unit and you wipe the board of synapse.

new stuff is: They have a few guns excellent at popping transports and lots of ways to get into your backfield now with deep strikers, tunnelers, improved lictors, ect. No eternal warrior and low toughness makes high str weapons and instant death weapons natural enemies, beating bugs is probably going to be properly filling your backfield with enough high str weapons to bring down the bigger bugs and then some armor to weather the un-synapsed swarm going nuts on you on the later turns. This is making the assumption that the hive tyrant isnt amazingly tough and the other synapse bugs on the board are lower toughness. Also the big anti tank guns are 18-24" range so playing tag like a tau player or focus firing them down before they get in rage of your big guns should work too.

With spore mines being nonscoring units in every way, you can expect a few of them to deepstrike onto you (if the option is still available) or at least some solid long range support from biovores which will focus on your big guns as well as some serious threats deep striking into your back ranks (if you have any)

Probably need to wait for the codex.

Megaswarms of hormis and gargs supported by medium range AT and some tough synapse filler seems to be the best list I can come up with with the limited info we have.
I think ironclads and similiar CC dreadnaughts being immune to ranged fire once in CC but able to wade into the swarms with no risk of poisoned wounds are going to be a problem for bugs.

Pods S6
Can they assault or is it just for a ranged weapon?

Pods S6
Can they assault or is it just for a ranged weapon?

No, pods are MCs:

Dedicated Transports

Yes.

Yes, there are.

Spore Capsule

You may buy a Spore Capsule for lots of units: it may transport 1 Monstrous Creature or up to 20 Infantry.

The Spore Capsule is Deep Striking, and the unit within disembarks. It may neither move nor attack. It may still shoot.

The Capsule has WS and BS 2. It has Toughness 5 or 6 and 3 Lifepoints. It has, if i remember correctly, 3 attacks S 6.

It has a Assault 6 Strength 6 shooting attack with a range of 6 inches.

From 40kOnline.

OK

Good thread OP... its not too early, we know a lot actually...

First off... I hate to say this because of your avatar... but I think plague marines might be headed for the case.

it sounds like everything in the entire army is going to have poison, which will negate your once useful T5. You'll still have an equivalent 2+ save versus non rending, non MC attacks, but points equivalent CSM will likely become the more survivable choice.

Also, against almost all nid units, winning or losing combat will not be close. Any unit in your book will crush gaunts, no troops choice you have will beat warriors/raveners/tyrants/trygons (except maybe charging berzerkers). In this case, fearless becmes overcosted. Just fall back from losing combat so the rest of your army can shoot, and fearless does nothing to a winning combat.

I don't know what lash is going to do for you, as the entire nid army, which will probably be semi-MSU is going to deep strike/pod/tunnel into your lines. Things will be plenty close enough for you to initiate charges/use blasts... and there will be too many units to successfully push enough models out of CC range. Not to mention the hive tyrants and zoans with shadow in the warp that will come down right in your face.

Strength 8 sounds a lot more important than plasma to me. Choppy troop warriors, shooty as hell zoanthropes, and raveners are nearly immune to small arms fire, but all of them are quite vulnerable to anti-tank.

I would probably go the way I'd go with space wolves...

Float power fists in CSM units and put them in rhinos with 2 meltaguns. that way you can take 2 melta shots when the nids arrive, then two more before charging them after they've wrecked your rhino. With choppy marines and a power fist, there are a few more combats you look like you can win.

If you have enough rhinos and can properly screen obliterators, then their twin linked meltaguns will be excellent warrior/zoan/rav killers, their plasma cannons will do well against genestealers and hormagaunts and their twin linked plasma guns (do they still have those?) will eat up MCs.

The vindicator is VERY tempting here. Armor 13 is just high enough to be a problem for nids on the turn they land(outside of zoans). And a well placed shot can scoop entire units of hive guard/zoanthrope/warrior/ravener.

I haven't yet run the numbers on what a choppy demon prince can do against the various MCs, or even if it can survive charging into units of ravs and warriors or even hormagaunts. Going simultaneously with 20 poisoned hormagaunts will get you 11 armor saves for your trouble. Those hormagaunts are points equivalent and a scoring unit. So it isn't really looking like fighting MCs with MCs is the answer here.

Boy, CSM need a shot in the arm... :(

Personally I've always found it quite difficult to count chickens before they hatch.