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My son is getting very despondant in his attempts to beat nids, so being a good dad and stuff I thought I would ask all you players out there the following question, and knowing what good folk you all are I know you will help this little lad out.

He plays SMs normally 500 point army or games that only last 40 mins max and if you were in his position what is the first thing you would put on your list and why?

Thanks in advance folks, your going to make him one happy bunny.

Hmm. What does he currently have?

I would put a flamer and ML in each tatical squad of 10. The flamer is nasty up close and the ML allows you to get either a blast marker out or a single powerful shot to take down the big bugs. If he owns any vehicles (Razerbacks work well here) he should take them as Nids struggle against any type of vehicle, plus that bring another hvy wep. to the table.

I'm sure somebody else will give a better more detailed answer.

I would say LR Redeemer.
range is not a problem when half of tyranids are probably trying to get close to you lol.

If they stay out of range in fear of getting roasted , the scare tactic itself just earned Redeemer it's worth.

The problem is, to fit a LR Redeemer into a 500pts list, you have to take minimum scout squads and cheap HQ for the rest of your army. So, as long as the OPs son isn't going to play larger games, that may be a bit too much for this point level.

I, personally, like a simple Dreadnought in 500pts. For 105pts you get a CC unit that bashes nids left and right and can't be harmed by most of their basic units. A good nid player will probably sacrifice a cheap gaunt unit to tarpit it, but hey, that's one unit out of the way for the rest of your army. If you put HF and TL-HF on it and it gets into firing range before a sacrifical nid unit charges it...well, there will be so much roasted nid lying around...

I would say the size is quite probably the biggest problem. At 500 points, Space Marines struggle to fit anything in, whereas hoard armies like Orks and Tyranids can do just fine. I would suggest helping him build up to a larger force would go a long way. At 1000 points, I believe a Space Marines army could easily give a swarmy Nid army a good run for its money.

Elric of Grans wrote:I would say the size is quite probably the biggest problem. At 500 points, Space Marines struggle to fit anything in, whereas hoard armies like Orks and Tyranids can do just fine. I would suggest helping him build up to a larger force would go a long way. At 1000 points, I believe a Space Marines army could easily give a swarmy Nid army a good run for its money.

Agreed.

take the games up a notch.

Also, Hellfire rounds were made to kill nids (big bugs that is) so some sternguard or some sniper scouts with a heavy bolter couldn't hurt.

thanks for the replies so far,

He has got a load of stuff and does play games up to 2000 points, he has just purchased a LR and is thinking which varity to use crusader or redeemer. From the posts so far I am beginning to suspect that his playing partner is liking to keep the points down to 500 because this will favour his nids over the SMs (am i right?).

He was speaking to the folk at his local GW store and they seemed to favour placing the heavy bolter option on the LR, thoughts please before we put it together.

wolfshead57 wrote:He was speaking to the folk at his local GW store and they seemed to favour placing the heavy bolter option on the LR, thoughts please before we put it together.

I think a multi melta option would be better ( no codex, dunno if legal)

because it suddenly turn from heavy infantry / infantry killer
into a threat to tanks and monstrous creatures.

Luna, you don't need a multimelta on a Land Raider when you can take them on Land Speeders, which are much faster and will bust tanks on turn 1 or 2.

Land Raiders, while dangerous firing platforms, are primarily transports, which is why Crusaders are used more than the vanilla or Redeemer variants.

Vindicator, it useful for fighting Tyranids. It once saved one of my squads from a Broodlord and his friends outflanking to grab an objective. It works even better if you put the rest, or most of, the army around it. Just make sure to move the rest of the army a bit away when it shoots, making a C shape pointing away from the target. This leaves enough stuff in the way to slow down or even stop any surprises that might show up after shooting. It's S10 AP1 blast is better aimed at swarms rather than MC, as if it hits the MC it might be a S10 AP1 blast, but it's still only one hit.

Also Dreadnoughts seem to work, Assault Cannon and Heavy Flamer, as good guards for the Vindicator. You should probably avoid charging Genestealers with it. As well as the Carnifexs with the Claws, but everything should stay away from those to begin with.

Also, Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields seem to work well against MC, but avoid the smaller guys as they will force them to take many saves and that will kill them. Maybe give them a Land Raider Crusader so they can drive up to the MC, jump out then smash them with the hammers.

But, it all depends on their playstyle and what they currently have. Giving them something that's good at assaulting like the Terminators might not be good if they play more defensively and just like to shoot at them instead. But, they could also provide a good counter attack, but the Vindicator could also do that.


Something that generally helps when versing Tyranids is to always keep moving if it wouldn't be better to stay still, to try to delay their CC as long as possible. But, they can get into CC very quickly. Also, try to keep everything together that way everything in the army can support everything else, because if a unit or vehicle is off by itself, they will probably go for that first because it would be generally easier to kill.

wolfshead57 wrote:
He was speaking to the folk at his local GW store and they seemed to favour placing the heavy bolter option on the LR, thoughts please before we put it together.

The "heavy bolter option" is called a godhammer pattern land raider, and, while useful, is less effective vs hordes than the redeemer or crusader. The redeemer has a TL assault cannon and a flame template that shreds anything it touches except terminators, while the crusader has a TL assault cannon, a huge transport capacity, and roughly 12 million bolter shots, which also do bad things to tyranids. The godhammer has a TL heavy bolter, and 2 TL lascannons, which, while decent at vehicle/MC sniping, is less effective at close range, which is where tyranids try to be and where your assault troops want to get.

Heavy flamers must i play orks and nids are my main oppenent i have 24 burna boyz and that will rip any guant

Also heavy bolters are a must rapid firing with a GOOD Bs is always lethal

I've always had trouble with Lysander. Eternal Warrior, that accursed shield of cheese.
Land Raiders are hard to scratch open with my smaller bugs.
Rhinos tank shocking the bigger bugs can work. I have a Carnifex that is terrified of rhinos now. The
very first time he was run over by a rhino, I did the math in my head on the Armor Penetration, tried
Death or Glory! and then managed to stun the thing. I forgot that even after the almost certain penetration
result it's still a 50% chance that I'll actually stop the thing. My only comfort is that those windshield wipers
aren't NEARLY big enough to take care of those bug guts.
The second time it happened I thought, "can't happen twice can it?" Yeah so now he runs from them.
Phoenix Lords hit before Stealers. I've always found this inherently flawed in the threads of the universe.
I know you said marines, but they give me a lot more trouble. Of course that Apoc game where they ALL
showed up might have scarred me a little...

At 500 points, Marines are going to have problems with most anything. Necrons are the same way.

With SM's your options are kinda limited at 500 pts to deal with nids. Depending on your foes list, hes probably running a lot of gaunts and maybe a few warriors and a tyrant. Or just a bunch of genestealers and a broodlord. Either way, Flamers are huge against nids in tac squads. Also, power weapons are a MUST. Power fists wreck in lower point games. Shooting nids is prefered as they are far better in assault.

Lastly, avoid running a lot of heavy AP weapons at low levels against Nids.

I'd say if you wanted to be uber cheese and waste a nids player, start a chaos army. run abaddon and 2 6 man squads of CSM. Just run abaddon into everything and win. Abaddon is the best single charecter in 40k. i've ran him through a carnifex and then a dakkafex w/ 2 guards in a row and not taken a wound, and then proceeded to kill off 10 genestealers and finally a second carnifex before I had 2 wounds on him. Hes stupidly powerful and bound to make your foe weap in low point games lol.

At 500 point games, a Thunderfire Cannon or two will be a major threat to Nids. While I despise the TFC for being so fragile in larger games, it can absolutely brutalize any non-MEQ army at the 500-750 point level.

Whats the fuss about MEQ there expensive in points and can be taken down easily with a flamer a good dice rolling a TFC is a good choice but i still think heavy flamer and lots of flamers if you could as it stops cover save which is a plus

Also TFC are quite expensive in money for use in only a few games :(

Dakka-Dakka-Waaaagh! wrote:Whats the fuss about MEQ there expensive in points and can be taken down easily with a flamer a good dice rolling a TFC is a good choice but i still think heavy flamer and lots of flamers if you could as it stops cover save which is a plus

I don't know why you mentioned MEQs...we are talking about killing Nids...

Flamers, bolters, heavy bolters. Pretty simple.

wolfshead57 wrote:My son is getting very despondant in his attempts to beat nids,...help this little lad out....He plays SMs normally 500 point army or games that only last 40 mins max and if you were in his position what is the first thing you would put on your list and why?happy bunny.

A bit about me, I have been playing for years and I own and play both a Tyranid Army and Space Marines as well regularly. I'd be happy to offer up some advice. FYI, the Space Marine codex is generally considered superior to the much outdated tyranid one, your son shouldn't have to much issue.

I could do a better job with more specifics. It would be good to know what is giving him a tactical challenge? What kind of Tyranids is he facing.

Failing that here is some advice at 500 pts.

A discussion of the game and how to win it starts with missions! It may not even be unit composition or army structure. A lot of 40k games are won by position and timing. There are 3 (and really 2) missions, these are Multiple Objectives, 2 Objectives and Kill Points (known short as KP). Winning the game depends on playing to the mission all the time. Because of these missions good armies tend to have: as many scoring units as possible, some mobility to get to objectives and as few KP as possible. Tougher troops are almost always better than more numerous ones. Trying to keep this simple, (younger players loose sight of the missions, and that's the surest path to failure) understand the mission. Beating Tyranids at 500 points shouldn't be hard. Here is a rough simple list I would suggest that should give tyranids a run in any 500 point game:

HQ: Space Marine Captain as much gear as points are left.
TROOP: 5x Marines, Razorback w/ Heavy Bolters
TROOP: 5x Marines, Razorback w/ Heavy Bolters
TROOP: 5x Marines, Razorback w/ Heavy Bolters

The tactics are relatively simple, keep all the marines IN the razorbacks and drive away from the tyranids every turn to deny them assaults, and or get to objectives. Be sure to shoot at the same unit, till it is dead, starting with the troop choices first. 3 Heavy Bolter Razorbacks should be able to pretty much knock out 500 pts of tyranid troop choices easily. They should move 6 inches, every turn and all fire at the same target. The captain should ride along with one of the squads until the last moment and only be used for a last ditch assault called a counter charge.

This would also be a great start to a mechanized marine army, and not to hard to build and paint at 500 points. A tyranid army might look like this (rough counts):

HQ: Hive tyrant with 2x2 devourers or close combat stuff, and probably wings.
TROOP: 8 Genestealers
TROOP: 8 Genestealers

Assuming something like this, the marines should win all the mission based scenarios to better mobility, and because they can gun down the stealers easily with the razorbacks in about 4 turns.

The KP match will be harder, there the issue will be stopping the hive tyrant from getting KP by killing the transports. Always move them at least 6! In that game everything should shoot the Hive tyrant till it is dead, as it will be almost required to charge strait at the marines to try and make use of its CC ability because the marines are impervious to its shooting (in their vehicles).

Good luck to you and your son, post more info and you'll get better builds and battle plans!

This may be more effective in larger games but since 'nids are generally low Ld i find that nid players deploy thier army around snapsyse creatures (snapsyse creatures allow all units within 12" to automaticly pass all panic tests, i think) so by elimanating those Snapsye creatures with a well placed hunter-killer missile, thier entire army falls apart and with some well placed bolter fire the whole army runs screaming for mummy, or Hive mind.

Again it depends on what the tyrannid "pain" is. At 600 points one carnifex upgraded with 2+ AC can be a real pain to take out. But without volume of fire, a slightly tweaked genestealer list can spell easy ruin for SMs.

The best is add heavy bolters for anything but MCs. My best all-purpose would be to fit in a predator with TL-Las and heavybolter sponsons. The volume of fire will take out stealers or warrior synapse while the TL Las gives you one good shot each turn at a MC.

The other possibility would be to take a librarian for the HQ. They have some great killer psychics to ruin a tyrannid assault.

If you want a great multiple solution. Look at either 2x HB landspeeders or MM/HF landspeeders. 3 speeders dropping 18 S5 shots will cut through a bug army fairly fast and still leave you enough for 2 troop choices in vehicles and an HQ. Put the two troops in razorbacks (esp. if you convert to TL Plas/Las for weapons) That gives you a real answer to MC bugs.

Like mentioned above... bugs probably want to get up close and personal so do what marines do best, shoot them all up before they get that close.

Cheese Elemental wrote:Luna, you don't need a multimelta on a Land Raider when you can take them on Land Speeders, which are much faster and will bust tanks on turn 1 or 2.

Land Raiders, while dangerous firing platforms, are primarily transports, which is why Crusaders are used more than the vanilla or Redeemer variants.

1) He already is getting the LR model , nothing is said about Land speeders . Thus he is asking what should the LR have , not what the LS should have.

2) A LR that can kill infantry is great , he really dont need anymore . Attaching multi melta means he have just that much extra targets to threaten.

Your points really have nothing to do with what i said earlier.

I back up the multi melta on a LR being a great idea, particularly on LR vs LR games, it's invaluable.

Fighting Nid's I love the Reaper Autocannon. It's tough enough to cut through bigger bug's and has 2 tled shot's.

Well Your son i'm assumeing is loyalist try that Assualt Cannon or Autocannon's.

Stormbolter spam perhaps?

Thanks for all your help folk certainly given him (and me) lots to think about. I guess its time to open the wallet again.