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So im still learning tyranids, and i often play my friend who plays GKs. List is 2 squads of termagaunt squad (2 of 10), 3 trygons (ive played with exchanging these for mawlocs or tyranofexes in the past games) 2 primes, 2 tervigons, 10 genestealers, 6 hive guard, and the doom in a spore pod, he has purifier/pysfilemen dread spam with a unit of pallys. The game doesnt go too bad until his pallys drop in...boy oh boy how on earth do i deal with these things? any mc i throw at them gets ID from the halberds even with shadows half the time, and i have virtually no ap 2 shooting, to make things worse they come with a grandmaster, and god do those grenades give me a tough time..."you're now I1" "you now attack your own guys" "you now have 1 attack" etc etc. so genestealers dont do much for me either. Only chance i had was the doom who sadly only gets one spirit leach off before usually getting ID by his autocannon dreads. I have ways of exchanging some models and proxys and stuff so i would like to ask the great people of dakka: how on earth do my bugs deal with these guys?

All comments are read and appreciated
-E

They are only marines. Only there are less of them.

Use zoanthropes/hiveguards vs the transports, use termagaunts with the assault 3 gun to shoot at them. After a while things start to die.

100 points = 30 shots.

Defiler37 wrote:So im still learning tyranids, and i often play my friend who plays GKs. List is 2 squads of termagaunt squad (2 of 10), 3 trygons (ive played with exchanging these for mawlocs or tyranofexes in the past games) 2 primes, 2 tervigons, 10 genestealers, 6 hive guard, and the doom in a spore pod, he has purifier/pysfilemen dread spam with a unit of pallys. The game doesnt go too bad until his pallys drop in...boy oh boy how on earth do i deal with these things? any mc i throw at them gets ID from the halberds even with shadows half the time, and i have virtually no ap 2 shooting, to make things worse they come with a grandmaster, and god do those grenades give me a tough time..."you're now I1" "you now attack your own guys" "you now have 1 attack" etc etc. so genestealers dont do much for me either. Only chance i had was the doom who sadly only gets one spirit leach off before usually getting ID by his autocannon dreads. I have ways of exchanging some models and proxys and stuff so i would like to ask the great people of dakka: how on earth do my bugs deal with these guys?

All comments are read and appreciated
-E

My buddy had this same issue with my Paladins vs his Tyranids.

The best thing you can do is throw massive firepower at them and watch them eventually fall due to statistics.

Try 60 termagaunts or so with Tervigons

Screen them out and then shoot them to death. Tarpit them with fearless gants when they get too close and insta-kill them with hive guard shooting when they're still out.

Lemme just say, most Paladin units have FNP. It makes it almost impossible to kill one since they have 2 wounds also. Oh yea I'm that GK player Defiler 37 was talking about btw.

Most paladin units actually don't have fnp, seeing as it is stupid-expensive, and all it does is make them more resilent against attacks that shouldn't be directed at them anyway.

Having a unit of paladins get hit with paroxysm (Repeatedly.) and then charged with a carnifex (or fexen) sucks. It sucks a lot.

Also, just pointing it out that you don't need to kill them to remove them as a threat. If they are ever unsupported then you can surround them or otherwise block them, with a spawned line of Termagants. He cannot move his Paladins through your line and if the Paladins shoot at them, they cannot assault another target. If he cannot apply enough firepower from other sources (IE- wasting Psyfledreads or supporting squads) then he cannot move his Paladins out, and you should be able to tie them up for a fair few turns.

Good ideas actually, thank you all , another question: i was considering running a swarm lord with a few tyrant guard with lash whips to deal with these guys, seems like combined with paroxysm and shadows it would give them a tough time ID me, as usual though, my main concern is those darn grenades...hmmm thoughts?

loota boy wrote:Most paladin units actually don't have fnp, seeing as it is stupid-expensive, and all it does is make them more resilent against attacks that shouldn't be directed at them anyway.

I'd have to disagree with you here, if you're running Draigowing you need FnP to keep your squads up as everything needs to be as resilient as possible.

Anyway, to answer the OP's question, if it's only one squad of Paladins you could always just try either tarpitting them or ignoring them all together? That unit must be costing him at least 300pts. (maybe even 500 if he's using the Grandmaster with them).

Hive guard are probably better off taking down his transports to get all those nasty purifiers on foot and with a 2+ armour save on the Paladins you'll be hard pressed to ID any.

I'd go for something like a big squad of Gargoyles or Termegaunts to tarpit them if possible.

Iranna.

same way you'd deal with other marines....

paladins are not "that" scary, but if you want to charge them in close quarters i'd suggest finding everything that strikes before (or at least the same time as) the halberds.

genestealers are still not bad (and 4-1 points wise to a paladin) but you'll need a way to get them there....

carnifex are a nice way to go for the ID (same with hive tyrant but not as good), otherwise - hormagaunts!!! there are only so many saves you can make and when 30 hormagaunts charge you with furious charge and poison they make a mess of just about anything!!!

pop transports witih hive guard, then focus fire on paladins with hive guard
their shooting is somewhat mean, but not for the points you spend on them.
best bet is to swarm them, leave a single large unit in synapse and all other units outside of synapse, all non-synapsed units will fall back after combat and re-rally on your turn when they enter synapse.

this will minimize casualties from no retreat and prevent the squad from directing attacks properly, you can even use this tactic with bigger non synapse units like trygons and carnifexes, as long as they aren't in synapse and just joined combat this turn they can't be attacked should fail the 2 leadership test and fall back.

even better you can park the doom of malentai nearby and continue draining and shadow warping it every turn as long as you leave one flank outside of synapse for your pile in troops.

I would avoid the Doom, great as he is, and Tervigons. Use Warriors, Primes, the Parasite, Trygon Primes, and Shrikes. Thses are Shadow in the Warp creatures, so cause 3D6 psychic tests. However, unlike Tyrants, Zoanthropes, The Doom and Tervigons, are not psykers, and therefore not weak to GK attacks.

The Psyout Grenade, the 1 that reduces you to Int 1, only affects Daemons and Psykers in a unit, so only those psykers above, Tyrants, Doom, Zoanthropes, Tervigons and Broodlord are endangered by them.

Psyotroke, the funny effect ones, are annoting, so are Rad Grenades.





Summarising, lots of warriors and Equivilents, and Trygon Primes. Avoid MCs, because thwey will get ID, and Hordes. They will get munched by Purifiers. use the Genestealers as infiltrators or outflanking, and rip those Psyflemen a new one.

Meh, its a bugs life for us out there....

Try the swarmlord, he munches them for breakfast, obviously he could use EW, but hes one of the only units in the tyranid army with an invul, and he will ID the grandmaster fairly easily, thereby taking out his grenades(i think). Give him T-guard with LW and you will make a pretty effective fighting unit

The Swarmlord is not only vulnerable to ID, but also a psyker, and vulnerable to Stormraven Missiles, Daemonbane, Psyout grenades, and other stuff. I would normally recommend him, but not against GK, unless you are desperate.

Iranna wrote:

loota boy wrote:Most paladin units actually don't have fnp, seeing as it is stupid-expensive, and all it does is make them more resilent against attacks that shouldn't be directed at them anyway.

I'd have to disagree with you here, if you're running Draigowing you need FnP to keep your squads up as everything needs to be as resilient as possible.

Anyway, to answer the OP's question, if it's only one squad of Paladins you could always just try either tarpitting them or ignoring them all together? That unit must be costing him at least 300pts. (maybe even 500 if he's using the Grandmaster with them).

Hive guard are probably better off taking down his transports to get all those nasty purifiers on foot and with a 2+ armour save on the Paladins you'll be hard pressed to ID any.

I'd go for something like a big squad of Gargoyles or Termegaunts to tarpit them if possible.

Iranna.

In a draigo wing, then yes, you will be putting fnp on them, seeing as there isn't anything else for the small arms to shoot at. But in the case that the op has said they are being used, as a 5-man deathstar unit, then you wouldn't put fnp on them, because there are other(better) places for the enemy to fire his lasguns/bolters/shootas or whatever at that would acheive much better results then shooting at paladins and hoping to ping off a wound.

Please do not spam the forum with .gifs. Thanks! ~Manchu

Hi

I play Draigowing (no FNP) and I think your best options are:
a) ignore
b) tarpit
c) blast with S8 weapons (you are instantly killing paladins)
d) multi-assault with genestealers and MC creatures
e) shoot everything into them (as long as they don't have FNP)

Reasoning: Paladins can take a punishment, and they are OK in close combat when supported by an IC, however, they have poor shooting for the points invested in the models and are horribly slow! Six inches movement plus a possible run is all you can expect from Paladins.

Example: I had a game where 53% of my army was tied in paladins and I was down 1 kill point to the opponents 7! Luckily for me, my opponent decided to get greedy and do an all out attack against my paladins, resulting in a tie game!

The biggest issue with Tyranids is that you can't tank shock Paladins (which is their biggest weakness to my knowledge).

Remember, a good paladin list will have at least 40% of its army invested in Paladins, so every turn you have them running around on the map or engaging sacrificial units only is a turn that you are playing against 1/2 a Grey Knight army (aka, kill the support units first).

Grey Knights are a hard counter for Tyranids and any tactics solution isn’t going be completely fool proof, especially when the Paladins in question have FNP and probably take full advantage of Wound Allocation Shenanigans.

You don’t want to fully engage the Paladin unit with your key units (like doom, Hiveguard etc) as that is playing into the GK player’s trap. He wants you to engage his deathstar as much as possible as that is where he can do the most damage.

My advice would be to use fearless powerblob unit to stall his deathstar whilst you focus on the reason of the army.

Edit: Fixed typo

Grey Therion wrote:Hi

I play Draigowing (no FNP) and I think your best options are:
a) ignore
b) tarpit
c) blast with S8 weapons (you are instantly killing paladins)
d) multi-assault with genestealers and MC creatures
e) shoot everything into them (as long as they don't have FNP)

Decent plan that would work well for most armies, fails for Tyranids unfortunately.

A) Ignoring; doesn't work for Capture and Control and Seize ground, as it basically concedes objectives to the paladins. Would work okay if you were in vehicles and could play keep away.
B) Considering how fast the Paladins will cut through....anything, this won't work. Doubly so in kill point missions. Tarpitting paladins would be dicey for anything outside of an 13AV Dreadnought or greater number of TH/SS terminators, maybe squads of stubborn guard blobs.
C) Don't have many S8 weapons, which is a primary failing of the nids in general. We have Hive Guard, heavy venom cannons and the Tyranno-fex. I hate Tyrannos, heavy venom cannons have no good platforms, and the HG have to deal with the 2+ save and the fact that they will be tasked with breaking open tanks. Personal experience shows that even HG won't bother Paladins much. Takes on average 5-6 HG firing to drop 1 paladin, figure you only have 6-9 HG, and you'd be LUCKY to kill 2 paladins a turn this way. LUCKY.
D) Multi-assaults are the Nids bane really. Butchering a MC just rolls down the line to the stealers, butchering stealers nibbles at your MCs.
E) Distinct lack of nid guns makes this weak.

What does that leave really? Well, everything. A combination of all of the above is your best bet. Keep them at arms length if possible, slow them down/drag them out of place with tarpits (more like speed bumps) if necessary. Chip away at them with available HG fire when they don't have more pressing targets, maybe throw a few volleys of devourer or fleshborer fire at them to melt a couple wounds off. If worst comes to worst, then it's time to hopefully tackle the depleted paladin squad with a couple MCs and a tide of genestealers. Something else to note; Paladins are unlike most other squads in the game in my experience because there is literally NOTHING that can sweep them off the board in 1 phase. Almost every single unit in the game has a hard counter that will wreck it, and Paladins will not suffer from this to the same degree as most other units.

Remember though, the goal of the game ISN'T to kill the paladins, it's to win the mission. That doesn't always mean killing paladins.

If you take tervigons you have to take gants as troops. Rather than just the basic 10, try 20 with devourers. That's 60 S3 shots from one unit.

SITW can be annoying for them as they can't get all their powers off in CC - inc force weapons, so tyrant, zoanthropes but keep them alive to support the assault.

Try to time the assault so fast units such as genestealers do not go in alone. Have them assault at the same time as mass gants, tyrant etc and you can swamp the one unit with mass wounds.

Hive guard are good for killing tranports and units up to Armour 12. If they run ven dreads etc with 12+ armour and ignoring shaken/stunned, then just concentrate on killing the stuff you know you can kill and try tying these up for the game in mass gants.

FNP etc will not save them against ID from an implant attack. See POM, broodlord etc.

Zoanthropes can help chipping away at Paladins.

I hear a lot about these DevGants, but I'm dubious.... S4 AP-, at BS 3? Doesn't sound too impressive, especially when you're doubling the cost of said Termagant.

Wouldn't it be more effective to just drown them in bodies, rather than rely on subpar shooting? Unless someone has some crazy amount of success with them?

Its basically tripling your firepower, but only doubling the cost. While they are extremely vulnerable to return fire, they have one of the best ranged weapons available on a troop choice. Also, at only 10pts each they are still reasonably cheap and provide fantastic output for the cost. Also the range increase helps slightly in terms of defense.

Nothing to build an army on, but mixing in a squad alongside regular Termagants is a nice way to boost firepower while still looking like a non-threat, and thus surviving.

Hmm. I'll definitely give them a try.

I would normally be a lot more comfortable using some mcs along with shadows and a unit of stealers but the catch is: the usual A: those darn grenades, charging with stealers kinda sucks when you go at int 1, or get only 1 attack, not to metnion he just gave them blind grenades and counter-attack, so i lose my bonus for charging and he gains another attack! And B: he has a brotherhood banner, so he isnt even affected by shadows for the sake of his force weapons, just needs to wound my trygon/swarmlord/prime/tyrant or whatever once and poof, its gone.

Yeah, it hardly seems fair

I would spam Broodlords to combo with the Doom of Malan'tai to force a bunch of wounds and then end him with the Swarmlord and 3 Tyrant Guard. Paroxysm too!

Avoiding the problem doesn't solve the problem, this is probably your best bet at taking them on

However, the Broodlord's aura of Despair happens in the assault phase and you will only get 1 use out of it, because it will wear off at the end of his turn.

I'd say it's worth it considering the combo is mostly extra synergy. 4 Broodlords striking at I7 with rending will produce results and the Doom of Malan'tai is a great source of AP2, not to mention he's a steal at 90 points IIRC. Also, if the Swarmlord can get a Paroxysm and Leech Essence off, the genestealers are gonna wreck face

That's where I'd place my bet

if you gie the Broodlords Implant Attacks-this means their rending wounds will also inflict ID. Great, right?