Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Dakkafex's and Dakka Flyrants will murder 5 man power armored squads that are advancing.

Here is an interesting thought, what about using cyclones instead of assault cannons? How effective could the army be if it did all its fighting from the very back of it's deployment zone? The steelers would need to charge across a much greater distance to get close and the dakka fexes would be effectively out of the game for an additional turn or two before they managed to get in range. The best part is that this whole time you can be shelling them with 48" range, move and fire weapons. Heck, you can even start the terminators out in the middile of your deployment zone somewhere (so as not to allert your opponent to your plan) and then just walk them backwards the first turn or two. If you play some games with deployment and overload one corner with the majority of your force, the nids will probably have even longer to go in order to get all their units into the fight giving you even more time to shoot them.

Sound viable or am I just out of my mind?

fury of the anchients is not the only thing you can use to chip away at the stealers in the back of an advancing nidzilla wall. its like i said. take bikers with flamers or a speeder with hvy flamer. either will make short work of the stealers and neither has to have direct line of site. either way i think the flamer armed units will work much better than FotA. just my opinion.

Just a note: it is not your opinion, it is your assessment of the situation. Opinions are a very narrow field of data, much more so than people seem to think. Your assessment can be proven incorrect; opinions can not.

At anyrate, the main trouble I can see with using the missile launchers instead of assault cannons is that you get significantly less shots, and of course no rending. Two termies with cyclones shoot 12 times in a 6 turn game at most. Two termies with assault cannons shoot 48 times. While the increased range is nice, shooting for merely two turns with the assault cannons puts you at 16 shots, with the chances at rending auto wounds putting you farther ahead. Maybe if you opponant really clumps up his stealers you could get more hits with frag missiles, but that is perhaps asking more than is reasonable.
Saddly, there is a reason no one really uses cyclone missiles, despite how cool of an idea they are.

Fury of the Anchients is pretty cheap when you look at it. A Libby with the power probably costs less than a speeder and a handful of bikes (I am unfamilier with bike cost off hand). While I like highly mobile fire power as much as the next guy, a 'zilla list probably has enough firepower to drop any light vehicle that gets within the needed 9" to flame anything, or at least before they can flame much. FotA on the other hand can hit things first turn every time, and likely can hit multiple units each turn, and has a chance to cause pinning if some unfortunate critter gets out of synapes. The pinning is of course a minor advantage, but the others are pretty strong.

point taken. i just think that the amount of points he has wrapped up in HQ would be better spent on ap2 weaponry or weapons with a longer range than 24". the libi with hq costs over 350 pts. more killpower for those 350 is all i am suggesting. you can take a unit of dev. w/ 4 las cannon for less point and you have a much longer range unit that has higher str and AP 2. AC are very versitile though.

As has been stated before, missile launchers are ap3, not two. Sure, they'll help you hurt dakkafexes a turn earlier, but any Gunfexes, Zoanthropes, and more importantly Flyin g Tyrants will walk all over you with a 2+ save.

true. the OP did say that the dakkafex really hurt him. what about this list.

Epistolary command squad.
epistolary w/ FotA, MoH, Bp and Familiar
attatched epistolary w/ FotA, Vot, Bp iron halo and Familiar
6 man Veteran command squad w/ apothecary, vet with fist, champion and 2 plasma rifles, all of the above have furious charge.

4x 6 marine las plas squads

2x5 termis each w/ 2 AC

2x5 dev squads w/ 2 las cannon in each.

Both librarians have fury so they can both hit the hidden stealers. they also have a In 7, str 5 charge and one of them gets to reroll everything with 1d3 extra attacks. this would enable him to beat even souped up tyrants to the punch in melee and the same with stealers. They would have no trouble clearing their kill zones. Not to mention being able to force weapon two monster's per turn.
Lots of ap 2 weapons.

At anyrate, the main trouble I can see with using the missile launchers instead of assault cannons is that you get significantly less shots, and of course no rending. Two termies with cyclones shoot 12 times in a 6 turn game at most. Two termies with assault cannons shoot 48 times. While the increased range is nice, shooting for merely two turns with the assault cannons puts you at 16 shots, with the chances at rending auto wounds putting you farther ahead. Maybe if you opponant really clumps up his stealers you could get more hits with frag missiles, but that is perhaps asking more than is reasonable.
Saddly, there is a reason no one really uses cyclone missiles, despite how cool of an idea they are.

I think your analysis of the situation is somewhat lacking. Just looking at the number of shots that each weapon gets is hardly a good view of its performance on the battlefield. A shuriken catapult gets two shots compared to a lac cannon’s one shot, but it isn’t better at killing monstrous creatures. Now, I’m not saying that you are wrong and that the cyclones are better than assault cannons, but let’s look a bit deeper than just the number of shots.

So I ran some math on the situation and the number come out like this for terminators shooting at a fex with T6 and a 3+ save.
Cyclone = .55 wounds per turn of shooting
Assault cannon = 1 wound per turn of shooting (.33 non rending wounds, .66 rending)

The standard deviation on both weapons is fairly large due to the low rate of fire on the cyclone and the reliance on rending for the assault cannon, so things are more or less a wash there.

The real point of contention is how long will each weapon be likely to be shooting? If you go first, chances are you won’t be able to shoot the first turn with assault cannons (or you’ll have to move forward to do so and that just seems like a bad idea to me when going up against nids). If you go second, you’ll probably be in range starting on your first turn. While missing the first turn of shooting isn’t such a big deal, what is really important is getting killed (or not). If you are shooting fexes from 24” away, it’s possible (and likely) that they will move 6” towards you on their turn and shoot. This means that after your first turn of shooting, they will be in range to shoot back and will remain there till they are dead (or you are). Nothing cuts down on your firepower like losing the guys that are shooting. In addition, if his fexes hold their position (and you move back to 24” away), he can move up his steelers to a forward position. At that point, you’ll have to shoot the steelers or risk getting charged. With the cyclones, this doesn’t become an issue till much later in the game after you’ve had plenty of opportunity to thin the ranks of either the steelers or the fexes. As an additional note, if you deploy in such a way as to make your opponent come to you, he will have to make a choice. He can either fleet the steelers to get to you faster and leave the fexes behind, or he can not fleet the steelers and take longer to get to you. If the steelers fleet, you can shoot them and deal with the fexes later. If the steelers stay with the fexes, you’ll have additional time to work on the fexes before you have to deal with the steelers. In either case, it puts the nid player an undesirable tactical situation.

In the end, I don’t think this is an issue that can truly be answered by theoryhammer and it’s going to have to be worked out on the field. The assault cannons are more deadly to their target than the cyclones, but they are also more deadly to their user because the short range of the weapon places you within range of the enemy. Cyclones do less damage, but allow their users to stay out of range of return fire. I do contend, however, that with the proper placement of models, proper retreat tactics, and proper target selection, that cyclones could be just as effective (or possibly more so) than assault cannons.

When I first saw your list, I thought that you have a chance against Godzilla. You just need to use better tactics and target priority.

And you are right, never deep strike, you want as much shooting as you can get, for as long as you can.

The Godzilla/Genestealer combo is very deadly because the ‘Nid player does not have to worry about synapse, and Genestealers will kill anything they can get their claws on.

A Godzilla/Genestealer player has 2 options.

#1. Use the TMCs as a wall and hide the genestealers behind them.

#2. Rush the genestealers at you as fast as they can go.

Tactic #1 is easy to counter. The effective range of this army (for the most part) is 18”+6” move. Now the Godzilla wall will be 24” away. So that means that they can move 6” and with most of the shooting 18”, they can not shoot you the first turn (be sure you set up 1” back from your deployment edge to insure that you are out of range). Then you move back 4” on your turn and unload. Now it is time for threat assessment. You need to take down the Winged Tyrant as fast as you can. That thing can move 12”+18” shooting, or will get into assault on turn 2 to cause all kinds of havoc, so it needs to die. Then if you have any genestealers exposed you need to kill them as well. Then with anything left over, take down the TMCs. With them moving 6” forward, and you moving 6” backwards, the TMCs will not be a real threat for 3 more turns. You can pick them apart, and then you should have the upper hand for the rest of the game.

Tactic #2 is harder to counter. This tactic is tough to beat because it makes you choose to either shoot at the genestealers, or to shoot at the big bugs. Again you will want to use the walking backwards while shooting. Only you will want to start a little farther back in your deployment zone, to account for FoF. About 3”-6” will do it, and you can adjust your fall back move based on their FoF rolls. Then you use the same target priority, and shoot the crap out of the genestealers. If the Genestealers get into combat with you, you will be hard pressed to get out of it, so they must die!

A few tips:
Never think about using a sacrifice squad to move forward to flame some bugs. #1. You never, ever want to give them a free 6” assault move. #2. You never want them locked in combat so they can’t be shot. #3. You never want to give them an additional consolidation move.

Never move closer to them. See above. Time is on your side, you do not want them in combat for as long as possible.

Stand out in the open. Tyranids have very little shooting that can get through your armor. You stand out in the open and the Emperor’s armor will protect you (Especially terminator armor that they can’t get through with shooting).


Spread out. You spread out and space yourself out so you minimize the damage from barbed stranglers.

Always stand at the back of the board. Standing at the back of the board will buy you as much time as possible.

Phoenix wrote:

I think your analysis of the situation is somewhat lacking.

So I ran some math on the situation and the number come out like this for terminators shooting at a fex with T6 and a 3+ save.
Cyclone = .55 wounds per turn of shooting
Assault cannon = 1 wound per turn of shooting (.33 non rending wounds, .66 rending)

Assault Cannons are much better because not only are they going to be shooting at TMCs, but you need to kill Genestealers as well. The Cyclone Missile launcher can't kill both nearly as well as the AC.

As far as range goes, that is never an issue. Since the Nids will be moving as fast as possible toward you, you will never have problems with them being out of range.

In the new rules assult cannons will be next to useless so dont spend to much money on ac terminators tho

New assault cannon kills 1 MEQ/round of shooting. Cyclone kills 5/9 MEQ/round of shooting. Hardly worthless.

I did not mention the cyclone at all, there will simply be better options for fighitng nidzilla with marines overall. SM terminators will suffer if the new edition stays as it is.

But if you want to compare it against a T6 3+ you will see the ac suffers against even the cyclone.

What about

-dumping one of the initial elite AC Termie squads to retain the libby

-get one more tac squad, upgrade plasma on each tac squad to increase firepower on the cost of not having marine no 6 if need be (since neither leadership with the chapter master nor scoring should be too much of a consideration in the given matchup: Once those dakkafexes are in range you'll lose a 6 man tac squad as fast as a 5 man one imho)

-buy a single whirlwind from the spare. For 85 points with no heavy support used atm you can hardly go wrong plus this single blast template will hopefully make you opponent think twice before clumping his stealers behind the mcs. The sooner those stealers are gone, the easier it should get...

my 2 cents, Khorneflakes

P.S.: Shifting ACs from 6/9 rends + 18/9 normal hits to 4/9 rends + 20/9 normals hits with rumoured 5th will make them... what? From slightly better than a twin-linked LasCannon to slightly less proficient at killing vehicles while still beeing Heavy 4 S6 for use against hordes? Next to useless, yep...

I find that termies are not as good at killing Nids as bike units.
I play both Deathwing and Ravenwing. My ravenwing army has an easier time dealing with steelers and the big bugs. I have the movement and the guns on my side.

Deathwing on the other hand is limited to moving 6" a turn which is easy to be caught by steelers. I have some luck at taking down the bigger bugs but rending is not as great as you would think.

I am not saying to change codexes. The SM codex is good and the list is fine. I try not to use termies under 1850 points enless I am playing Deathwing.

MM attack bikes are better at removing the bigger bugs and have the same range as the termies but twice the movement. Turbo-boosting as a last ditch move to get away is nice too. 2 squads of 3 will be enought to remove a MC a turn at least. I figure there are at least 3 wounds to 4 wounds per MC. Each squad runs under 200 points each.

I enjoyed the advice on this topic and I agree there is more than one way to skin a Nid.

I am surprised you have good results with Ravenwing.

MM range is 24" and even then you are also only doing one shot a turn. If you are lucky, you need to have about 6 of them to bring down one big bug.

The 24" range also puts you in range of the Dakkafexes, which are shooting a lot of shots at strength 6 with a re-roll to wound.

Land Speeders are good but, they are very fragile to TMC shooting. They are good at picking off the genestealers that get ahead of the rest of the army.

Deathwing is a lot weaker than Space Marines do to the single Assault Cannon.

No point in having a second Assault Cannon if you're Pinned.

Blackmoor pretty much nailed my response to Phoenix about Assault Cannons vs Rockets. More shots = better when not shooting at an AV rating.

It's interesting you should say that, because a Cyclone armed Terminator can put out three shots: two Storm Bolter shots and a Frag Missile. These shots aren't as strong as those of an Assault Cannon, but the Frag Missile at least has much longer range, which good for shooting laterally in your deployment area as much as across the board into your opponent's.

Nurglitch wrote:No point in having a second Assault Cannon if you're Pinned.

I have heard about the possiblity of a squad being pinned...I have just never seen it.

You have to hit with a BS 3 Barbed Strangler, then you have to kill a model with a 2+ save, and then they have to fail a LD 10 check, but who knows? Miracles can happen.

You can pin a squad of Terminators using a Barbed Strangler, particularly if you have several models with Psychic Scream within 18". Both Tyrants and three Zoanthropes would give the Terminators an effective Leadership of 5 to pass the test. Still, Leadership 7 and 8 fail pretty reliably.

Better yet, force the squad to take multiple pinning tests using Barbed Stranglers, Biovores, or Deep Striking Spore Mine Clusters (three Clusters of three Frag Spore Mines each, or maybe Bio-Acid, is pretty cheap). Over multiple tests even Leadership 9 and 10 will fail.

Hardly a miracle, you just have to use tactics rather than just rolling dice and getting lucky.

How many choir lists do you see these days anyway compared to standard nidzilla? Getting walking Screams within range is a bother. And biovores. . . well, there is another thread dedicated to them, so let's not bring them in here.

Really though, barring multiple Screams (because I am really unconvinced that it is worth the bother), sure, you will pin a squad now and then, but 1) it seems mroe likely that the squad will be dead by then anyway, since eahc test requires a casualty and 2) I doubt each squad will spend half the time pinned, which is what would need to happen to outweigh the dual AC advantage.

They don't need to spend half the game pinned, just half the time that the Tyranids are in range. Trying to pin the Terminators is certainly worth the bother because if you don't pin them you've still caused a casualty, and if you have pinned them then you've caused a casualty and have a free-hand to concentrate on other units for a turn.

I can imagine simply having the chance of being pinned makes the Codex: Space Marine Terminators less useful (i.e.: reliable) than Codex: Dark Angels Terminators. Still, the guy's using the former and probably isn't looking for advice for his opponent...

Edit: Incidentally, and thanks to Horrorficies and Terrorficies, Dark Eldar can pin Codex Terminators rather easily and without causing casulaties. But that's neither here nor there.

The reason I don't mention storm bolters is that the don't do much of anything to most MC's that Tyranids toss out. Even still, it is only 3 shots (2 st4 and 1 str8) a turn, instead of 4 str6 rending.
I am a big fan of bolters, but they just are not as good as assault cannons. Now, if you could shoot the missiles at one target, and the bolters at another, THAT could be cool.

Oh, and by the way, you can only cause one pinning check a turn. So you are REALLY unlikely to pin anything human other than guardsman. A shame, really.

Nurglitch wrote:Edit: Incidentally, and thanks to Horrorficies and Terrorficies, Dark Eldar can pin Codex Terminators rather easily and without causing casulaties. But that's neither here nor there.

Only when they are in deep strike formation.

Usually only the first shot, since most times you follow it up immediately with a plasma cannon template...and there aren't 4 extra termies there for the -4 bonus anymore.

Wehrkind: With regard to your first message the Cyclone-wielding Terminator can toss out three shots. These three shots can be two Rg24" S4 AP5, and one Rg48" S8 AP3 or these three shots can be two Rg24" S4 AP5 and one Rg48" S4 AP5 Blast. So you can either use the krak shot to take on the Monstrous Creatures, a turn or two before an Assault Cannon would be able to (or even to shoot at the incoming Monstrous Creatures while retreating away from them), or the frag shot to take on any lurking Genestealers.

Of course, if you're playing Codex: Space Marines then you don't have to choose between Assault Cannons and Cyclones (although two Cyclones would be handy). You can take one of each.

Your second message is incorrect. The rules state, on p.32 of the Rulebook, that: "A unit may be called upon to take multiple Pinning tests in a single turn."

Maybe I am thinking of morale tests and pinning when it comes to taking only one. I will check.

The problem with the missiles is this: Assuming every krak missile hits, wounds and is not saved, how many shots does it take to kill a TMC?

As to frag: how often does a frag missile hit 2 or more models, and how does that number + 2 storm bolter shots compare to the number of hits and wounds from an assault cannon.
Personally, I would rather have 4 st6 ap4 hits, than 3+ Str4 ap 5 hits. I would imagine any 'nid player worth his salt keeps his genies outside of 1" from each other most of the time, meaning getting more than 1-2 partials which then need a 4+ to even hit before wounds is rough.

Blackmoor wrote:As far as range goes, that is never an issue. Since the Nids will be moving as fast as possible toward you, you will never have problems with them being out of range.

My point with range isn't so much that you have to worry much about your targets being out of range, the point is that with the shorter ranged weapons, you will be in range to take return fire from your targets.

It's multiple pinning checks (1 per enemy unit causing the pin check) and only 1 morale check.

Pin check, take immediately.

Morale check, take after shooting is done by everyone.