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Tarval, I am a little bit confused by your list.  You mention using combat squads, but also mention six man units and veteran squads with tank hunters, neither of which DA can take. 

Also, I'll admit that I don't have much experience against Nidzilla's, but heavy bolters seem like a wast to me.  They would only be good against the smaller bugs, and pretty useless against the larger nids w/ T6 or 7 and a 3+ or 2+ save.  I can definitely see their uses against the hordes of Hormagaunts you mentioned, but those don't seem to be the norm for Nidzilla forces.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By skyth on 04/12/2007 5:03 PM
But if the Raveners are out of sight, then they still cannot be taken as casaulties regardless of whether you hit them or not.

Do Monstrous Creatures block LOS to units behind them?  If so, I didn't know that...

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Yes. It's right in their rules.

Thanks, I don't have much experience vs. Monstrous Creatures in 4th ed.  Not many people around here play nids.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By skyth on 04/13/2007 5:59 AM

Posted By davidson on 04/12/2007 7:31 PM
You can't also take casaulties from a whirllwind when the target is out of LOS!

Don't get dumb with raw, or raw gets dumb with you.

If you bothered to read the rules, you would find out that is not true.  Barrage weapons are specifically exempted from the line of sight requirement for removing casaulties.  Blast weapons are not.

In relation to cover saves yes, but not removing caualties.

Not to be rude, but could you move this to YMDC (I want to know the answer, but its off this topic).  But while you are here, feel free to comment on how DA could beat a Nidzilla list or on the lists above.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Sounds like Ged said the same as me, just a little shorter.

Heavy bolters with AP of 4 will rip most of his army down with ease. This is why you buy them for dev units because they are so cheap. I myself use split fire to the T and that allows me to grind a unit down to nothing. Really no point in putting missle launchers in your Dev units because of the point sink and they are really not that good of a weopon for marines in the first place. 

This is why you need to focus on fast moving units first and formost. That way they do not tie up your units in hth and buy him time to move his bigger slower units up to reinforce the unit in hth already. If he is shielding his units with big bugs, all you really need to do it sink one with mass fire and then that allows you to mass fire at his small bug units behind it. Take a LD test on 10 to shoot the bugs behind it if you need to. Well, best of luck and I hope you find your gaming style

Thanks, I've been gaming for awhile, but I am having to relearn a lot of stuff with the new DA codex. We'll see, I need some more games under my belt.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ive had to do same thing, I just got back into my new Dark Angels codex this weekend, and boy, all my long range tactics have seemed to just fall to the wayside. No more min-maxed lascannon squads and what not. I've put a 2k dark angels list up in the army list section.

I think DA has an excellent chance of beating 'Zilla nids.

The mobility and firepower of bike squads combined with rending weapons on fast land speeders and a potential follow-up assault against the wounded big griblies with Deathwing should put most Tyranid armies to sleep. Like, permanently.

Good luck. There are few SM lists which can fight on even terms with Nidzilla. DA are starting with fewer, more expensive ACs and fewer, more expensive units. These are handicaps.

Well, in general Nids don't really fear SM armies, not just Nidzilla.

If you can't use your mobility to keep away from big bugs and use rending assault cannons on speeders and terminators with lightning claws effectively, I have no respect for you as a general.

A lower ratio of dangerous weapons to units does not necessarily translate into a handicap, especially considering the fact that any highly mobile, reasonably tough army tends to make a joke of zilla nids. I play an Eldar infantry force, and I welcome seeing 'Nids across the table from me. DA should do the same.

Rending makes a mockery of monstrous creatures. The fact that you can get "less total" assault cannons, however, doesn't equate to a weaker force, because you can make your assault cannons last longer and deploy more effectively than 'nilla marines.

Bike models actually defeat a lot of the purpose of tyranid shooting. The venom cannons don't have a high enough rate of fire, and will probably be busy glancing your skimmers. The barbed strangler will hit far fewer models on average, and devourers are your only real concern (after the HTs of course).

I have no reason to see it as anything less than an even matchup, until I see otherwise.

Are Lightning claws on termies really better vs. Nidzillas than, say, a Thunder hammer and Storm Shield. Even with the re-roll, you still need 6's to wound. It seems that the Assault Cannon and LC heavy armies are really relying on rolling lots of 6's to be effective.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

You'd be stupid to make an army list composed entirely of terminators with LCs and Assault Cannons.

There are going to be plenty of other weapons in any army variant. It's never advisable to rely on only a couple of weapons options.

To answer your actual question Ozymandias: No. I would recommend at least 2:1 LCs to PF/TH+SS. This is because against all buy Hive Tyrants, you strike simultaneous or better against his big gribblies. If you're focusing firepower the way you should, you should be able to take him apart piecemeal. Eg: hive tyrant too close to your units? you should have seen this coming and you can move your land speeders, 3 bikes with power fist, and 3 bikes with plasma gun to intercept. You might have terminators arriving from deep strike, or perhaps they're within assault distance already. Ideally you would fire at the bug until it has one or two wounds left, then charge with your 3 bikes w/ PF or terminators to finish it off. (sending bikes against a HT isn't really adviseable--moreso against a Carnifex)

Posted By ColonelEllios on 04/18/2007 4:04 PM
If you can't use your mobility to keep away from big bugs and use rending assault cannons

If you're in range to use the assault cannons, you're in range to get shot back.  Devourers make a mess of speeders and even terminators (Especially when you're taking the morale check on a 4 or 5)

Terminators get their base save against devourers...you can't ask for better than that.

You shouldn't be walking right into the middle of all his bugs. You have superior maneuverability and the ability to deep strike. Hit his flank, and laugh as at least two bugs usually won't make it in time if it's pulled off right.

On average each dakkafex will drop 1 terminator from firing.

In a godzilla list all the Monstrous creatures are generally clumped close together, not spread throughout the board, so flanking won't work all that well.

Plus 4 Terminators with 2 assault cannons will do an average of 1.48 wounds against a dakkafex in 4+ cover. 2.81 if it's in the open for some reason.

5 Dark Angels terminators with 1 assault cannon will do 1.30 wounds to a Carni in the open.

So it would take more than 3 squads to drop 1 Elite Dakkafex.

Protip Skyth: DA bikes and Terminators are fearless

I think perhaps some scout squads for clearing out the lesser nids (the swarm crappy nids) with the shotgun power.

Although I am not in favor of going LC and AC as a complete list against the nid zilla.  Perhaps the better move would be to go for what is cheap in the DA list (Scouts) for thinning the herd and then using terminators with thunderhammers and stormshields to crush the big nids. 

I certainly think bikes are a viable options against the huge nids especially since you can get two meltas.

Another option would be getting whirlwinds with the incendiary castellan missiles to further kill nids that are using cover (something I have found MOST annoying when fighting nids).

Ahhh...Forgot they were fearless.

Dunno about the bikes. If you're in range to use your melta, then you're in range to get charged by genestealers/Raveners.

But still, you have to remember, normal marines have trouble against godzilla lists.  With how weak the DA codex is compared to the normal marine codex, especially with the things that are good vs godzilla (Anything good vs Godzilla is more expensive and harder to get)

Well if you use the whirlwind incendiary shots (which ignore cover saves) then standard genestealers can be decimated before your bikes get close to the stealers (what is the save on a ravener? I know genestealers naturally are at 5+)   Generally these squads go from cover to cover until they get right in your doorstep, but with the incendiary whirlwind (two of them maybe) you should be able to chump up units like this by negating their cover completely and severely weakening the units before they get to you. 
Granted, the last thing you want to do is get really close to big nids in a nidzilla list, but with terminators fearless and able to take 5 thunderhammers at no additional cost I'd say getting them in the thick of assault would be a smooth move. Then again I haven't tried my DA's against a zilla list yet.

I really dont understand why you guys think the assault cannon it the answer to all your question. Either a win and win big or pack it up and go home weopon. 15 percent chance to do something with that weopon is darn near a waste of points imo. OHHH you got a six and that is rending ohhhh, that is just one wound and you are going to need more than that to do what you need to do to drop the big bugs. Bolters and heavy bolters are going shread his army before it ever gets to ya. If you are putting a assault cannon vs a Tyrant, you are on a down hill slop and falling fast

 

Most of the players I know run at least one unit of ravenors and two units of gens at most. You might see the gens heavy list once in awhile. Then again if you have ranged weoponry, you are going to shread him before he sees the light of day in night fight mission.

Best of luck to your mission,

 

Times I have taken a dread, it has ripped rav down and also carnies with ease.

Posted By Tarval on 04/18/2007 10:51 PM
I really dont understand why you guys think the assault cannon it the answer to all your question. Either a win and win big or pack it up and go home weopon. 15 percent chance to do something with that weopon is darn near a waste of points imo. OHHH you got a six and that is rending ohhhh, that is just one wound and you are going to need more than that to do what you need to do to drop the big bugs. Bolters and heavy bolters are going shread his army before it ever gets to ya. If you are putting a assault cannon vs a Tyrant, you are on a down hill slop and falling fast

Yeah, assault cannons kind of suck if you never roll any 6's.  On the other hand my bolters have taken down countless carnifexes without ever rolling a single 6.  In fact I don't even need 6's.  I take all my dice and fill in one of the pips to turn all the 6's into 5's.  And also I don't believe in math.

Thats the beauty of Math, it doesn't matter if you believe in it, it works the same anyway.

Rending is awesome, against a T6-7 2/3+ save bug, it is extremely valuable. But of course, if you don't believe in math, feel free to use Lasguns instead.

Well, my friend did it with shotguns which was awesome, of course, then his scouts got killed by other stuff, and then he lost the game, but there is a sense of awesome that comes from beating a zilla nid with next to zero chances.

Of course, I like to win so I go along with the thinking that giving yourself the best advantage possible is a good move. Although i like killing nids with melta guns rather than ACs. But playing DA, thats a good thing.

Posted By ATI on 04/18/2007 7:21 PM
Well if you use the whirlwind incendiary shots (which ignore cover saves) then standard genestealers can be decimated before your bikes get close to the stealers (what is the save on a ravener? I know genestealers naturally are at 5+)   Generally these squads go from cover to cover until they get right in your doorstep, but with the incendiary whirlwind (two of them maybe) you should be able to chump up units like this by negating their cover completely and severely weakening the units before they get to you. 

About half the Nidzilla lists I've run up against which use Stealers for their troops take extended carapace.

I thought the Incendiary rounds were going to be awesome too, until I realized they're only S4, AP5.  Stealers also come in moderate sized units, and in a Nidzilla list have enough room to spread out and reduce the number of hits they take from templates. 

The regular marine Castellan rounds really seem superior against Stealers.

I don't know, I've seen it both ways; stealers with and without the carapace. When its without I'd say go for the incendiary rockets. If the stealers have carapace go for regular.

ColonelEllios

It is pretty clear from your posts that you haven't played a single game against a competent Godzilla nid player.

Dark Angels cannot out maneuver Godzilla nids. The entire army tends to move in a swarm and can move and shoot. DA units are way over priced compared to their nid counter parts. The DA can be both out assaulted and out gunned at the same time by even the tamest Godzilla nid army.

DA have nothing on Godzilla nids! The two armies aren't even in the same league.

If your apparently super maneuverable bikes are in range of even a single Carnifex, the next turn the entire nid army is first going to shoot you, and then genestealers will assault any bits that are left.

It is amazing how many absurdly useless tactics get posted for fighting against Godzilla nids.

Its also amazing how godlike the zilla players think their armies are and yet they still lose games.

They can be beaten by a great deal of things. A guy down here plays zilla nids and is very good. He got wiped by a ravenwing army.
The bikes came in, shot, and assulted turn 1. Knocked out 2 carnies and wounded two more. Then the speeders and the bikes that survived the counterstrike took out the rest.

If that is a good nid player, I hate to meet a bad one.

So you beat someone that deployed horribly by winning the dice roll for going first?

Why exactly did he not screen his fex against your scouting bikes and what would have happened if he got first turn instead?