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my friend needs help. Advice on tactics to use against the new Bug codex with his older edition Sisters of battle. Do the nuns with guns stand a chance against the new creepy crawlies in the new Nid codex? better to hide in rhinos till you know where the bugs will pop up, or march across knowing that something big is bound to pop up next to or behind you?

He has enough transports for all the girls and a few Immoliators with both weapon options, plenty of Hvy flamers and Multimeltas and special weapons and Serafins...but no Pipeorgan tank or walkers... any thoughts on how to go about winning or tie with the bugs without becoming bug food... game is in 3days...

Older addition as in the PDF 3rd ed codex?

If so just take max squads of redemptionists with priest that have evisorators (sp?) and use every faith power in the book on them.

There is nothing like a unit of dirt cheep minions with invuln saves, 3+ attacks each, power weapons on 6s, and some jank form of WBB. Oh yea did I mention they could fleet of foot too...

Hes using the most recent Witchhunters codex...and we know that the bug player is running three Trigons...

Get some large sister squads and load a few evicerators for the sister superiors and then add a priest w/ evicerator.
4 attacks that you can boost to S8 if needed be. Also double melta up on all your sisters squads.

Get a DH Inquisitor and 2 mystics to make sure your sisters get nice shots on Trygons if they decide to deepstrike close on you. Hit the trygons with divine guidance, your bolters will need to wound on 6s but might as well make thoe wounds AP 1.

Mass Immolators work nicely by forcing his bugs to hit you on 6s while mass flaming his stuff and you get reroll wounds on the Immos. Take a few squads of celestians with x 2 melta.

Personally I disagree with thehod, about large sister squads with eviscorators and priests. They are not the wave to go against nids. They will get bogged down in CC and annilated without doing much. Termagaunt screens will absorb botler fire only to be replaced by tervigons sptting out more and then by turn 2 you will be in CC.

Tell your friend to mech up instead. My first suggestion would be to take 3 exorcist missile launchers for killing MCs but since your friend doesn't have them immolator spam can work quite well too. And even though I am partial to the exorcists, I think immo spam may actually work better against many of the new nids builds.

I would suggest a minimum of 3 sister squads in rhinos to have some tough scoring units. give them a good loadout vs all comes with melta, heavy flamer (its so cheap there is no reason not to take it) a VSS for faith and a book of st lucius. Optional is the brazier of holy fire (basically a CCW that is a 1 shot flamer) I'd personally go with the brazier to better kill hordes when nessessary.

A Cannoness with celestions in an immolator with all the trimmings for an HQ. Then fill out the rest of the army with celesitians in immolaters and heavy support immolaters.

A great tactic I've found against swarm nids with a mech sister army like this is to tank shock them into neat little piles and then flame them to death.

He is playing a sisters army with no Exorcists? Tell him to buy three of those and give it another shot.

Three things that wreck nids:

1) Stength 8 AP4 or lower ( AP3 is even better for MC hunting.)
2) Templates
3) KEEPING THE HELL OUT OF CLOSE COMBAT

Honestly, the majority of my wins with 'nids since the latest codex release has boiled down to

1) Carnifex's with two sets of TL Devourers
2) Outflanking Genestealers with the Broodlord upgrade
3) Zoanthropes doing what they can to be FRIEKING AWESOME

You won't have to worry about the Zoe's too much as sisters, but the other two can present problems. You can mitigate this by staying mech, and bringing the hurt to them. Two Exorcists can pretty much wipe out a Warrior or Ravener squad, a single Trygon/Mawloc or a brood of Carnifexes (Carnifi? I know Codex = Codices, but I refuse to call them Carnifeces) in one round of shooting.

Tell him to stay back, keep his girls in Immolators with twin heavy flamers and fffs bring some Exorcists. Use the Exorcists to take out the closest multi-wound threat and wait for him to get close enough to wreck his day with those heavy flamers. Oh, you have a bunch of stealers to flank? Well, take this template, boo-yah.

Anyways. If you don't have any exorcists just play hide-and-seek with the big stuff until you get rid of the little stuff and then try and take them down with whatever heavy support you do have.

I find it strange no one said, rending faith flamers...

brazier with 2 flamers puts out a lot of rending wounds, not to mention you could take a squad with even more flamers...

Pete

I find it strange no one said, rending faith flamers...

brazier with 2 flamers puts out a lot of rending wounds, not to mention you could take a squad with even more flamers...

cause against nids flamers alone are good enough. Rending is overkill. Flamers go through most nid armor and heavy flamers go through almost everything else. The rending is redundent.

Against the myriad of T6 MC's str 8 weaponry that has ap 2 or 1 is better than rending STR 4 weaponry.

Well he has the girls and transportation...Tank shock and Immoliators seem good at herding Nids to their doom... not sure if hes ever actually used that tactic before. all his tanks have HK's on them, to help drop the bigger bugs...if he keeps on moving i guess he would have to worry about his rear flank since it s moving with his units...any other thoughts?

I have played a couple games with my tyranids against sisters.

Exorcists destroyed me! Big time. It is very very hard to maintain a cover save of any kind for a trygon. Two exorcists can just about kill an uncovered trygon in a single go. Lob a meltagun or two into him to finish him off.

Everything in transports. Another thing that ruins nids.. Nids have a lot of things that can show up on your door step and then hurt infantry, but not a lot of tank kill. Protect your sisters with immolators, give your sisters meltaguns and the rest will take care of itself.

Just use this list . Seriously exorcists help with the multiple mc issue, and you fall back on melta's and divine guidance to take off the last few wounds. A real easy conversion is to take a whirlwind and decorate it up with sister's logo's and use that as an exorcist if cost is a factor. Stay in the vehicle until you have a good target to flame. Also remember that 10 sisters with a flamer/heavy flamer, can just shoot the flamer and heavy flamer, and then assault in for 20 attack's, keeps giant gaunt mobs under control. You thin them out with the flamage and then lock the rest down in hth and whittle them away. That can also help to protect your sisters from a counter attack coming at you.

HQ
1 Canoness w/ eviscerator, book of st. lucius
3 Celestians w/ bolters
2 Celestians w/ melta guns
1 Immolator w/ smoke

Elite
3 Celestians w/ bolters
2 Celestians w/ melta guns
1 Immolator

3 Celestians w/ bolters
2 Celestians w/ melta guns
1 Immolator

3 Celestians w/ bolters
2 Celestians w/ melta guns
1 Immolator

Troops
7 Battle Sisters w/ bolters
1 Battle Sister w/ heavy flamer
1 Battle Sister w/ flamer
1 Veteran Sister Superior w/ bolter, book of st. lucius

7 Battle Sisters w/ bolters
1 Battle Sister w/ heavy flamer
1 Battle Sister w/ flamer
1 Veteran Sister Superior w/ bolter, book of st. lucius

7 Battle Sisters w/ bolters
1 Battle Sister w/ heavy flamer
1 Battle Sister w/ flamer
1 Veteran Sister Superior w/ bolter, book of st. lucius

1 Infantry Platoon
1 auto-cannon
1 chimera w/ multi-laser, heavy flamer

1 Infantry squad
1 auto-cannon
1 chimera w/ multi-laser, heavy flamer

1 Infantry squad
1 auto-cannon
1 chimera w/ multi-laser, heavy flamer

Heavy Support
1 Exorcist
1 Exorcist
1 Exorcist

I've played against two very different Nid armies with my SoB recently. The horde type army with the stealers, tervigon, couple of MC's is easily dealt with by a typical mech list.

The all deepstriking all MC list is a different beast and, frankly, a nightmare to deal with consistently. The high toughness/low model count makes flamers much less effective. As your friend doesn't have the Exorcists, he simply has to get as much melta weaponry into his list as possible. A pair of flying Canonesses would be a good choice too as they are quite capable of taking out Trygons/Hive Tyrants etc in assault. Regular SoB with the right acts of faith (Spirit of the martyr, Hand of the Emperor) Can happily tarpit and damage the big bugs too. Just be prepared for a nasty close-quarters fight.

Without an exorcist, I'd say bring a 4-multimelta retributor squad or two. A reliable 4 shots a turn [as opposed to the random exorcist] at a respectable range. Just keep your army TOGETHER! A couple dominion squads in immolators with 4x flamers should handle the hordes pretty well. Heavy Bolter retributors wouldn't be bad either, using acts of faith. Lots of wounds on the big bugs with 6's being Ap1. Come to think of it since they need 5+ to wound, that makes half your wounds into ignoring-armour wounds that don't get fnp.

The problem with 4 retributors is small model count exposure to enemy fire (unless you buy extra bodies). Exorcists can fire over a rhino wall or terrain wall without exposing their juicy hull. Retributors have to be able to seen to shoot something.

Also, they don't get a lot of improvement in effectiveness vs MC. See math:


Multimeltas: 4 Shots. 3 Hits. 2.5 Wounds. 2.5 Cover Saves.
Heavy Bolters: 12 shots, 9 hits. 1.5 Wounds. 1.5 AP1 Wounds. 1.5 Saves, 1.5 Cover Saves.

Exorcist: 3.5 Shots. 2.62 Hits. 2.1875 Wounds. 2.1875 Cover Saves.

(To be fair, MM rets have the advantage for tanks and HB rets have the advantage for Light Infantry. I don't know about you, but I have few problems with anti-infantry or short range Anti-Tank.)

Points wise:
HBx4 = 129 pts
MMx4 = 169 pts
Exorcist = 135 pts

IMHO, There are really only 2 heavy choices in the WH codex. Exorcists and Immolators (and Immos only for Immo Spam).