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Back to the original point. There are a few things you can do if you know a Mawloc is coming

Spread out your units. Keep everything 2 inches a part to minimize the impact from its template.

Keep troops in Fish. While it can wreck a fish, its better to loose one fish than 6-12 warriors.

Once it has appeared you have a few options.
Drive a fish full of warriors over, with Marker Light support 6-12 warriors with rapid fire should be able to do a few wounds.
Plasma/missle pods. This will help a ton.

Concentrate fire. If the mawloc is the biggest immediate threat take it down at all costs. Especially since it can have regenerate. Nothing is more depressing than having a Mawloc with 1 wound left go to the next turn and get back 1-2 wounds.

Alerian wrote:

I am trying to give the OP tactics that will work against a Mawloc destroying everything he has, by not allowing the Mawloc easy access to DSing near his valuable units.

I would completely agree with you on this.

Even with the limitation the Mawloc is still dangerous. I think that this is how it was meant to actually intended now that I look back on it. Really, if a unit like the Mawloc was meant to be able to DS on units, it should be up around 250 pts. + IMHO.

Melchiour wrote:

Back to the original point. There are a few things you can do if you know a Mawloc is coming

Spread out your units. Keep everything 2 inches a part to minimize the impact from its template.

Keep troops in Fish. While it can wreck a fish, its better to loose one fish than 6-12 warriors.

Once it has appeared you have a few options.
Drive a fish full of warriors over, with Marker Light support 6-12 warriors with rapid fire should be able to do a few wounds.
Plasma/missle pods. This will help a ton.

Concentrate fire. If the mawloc is the biggest immediate threat take it down at all costs. Especially since it can have regenerate. Nothing is more depressing than having a Mawloc with 1 wound left go to the next turn and get back 1-2 wounds.

I will try this out.

Thanks for all the ideas guys, I actually can't wait to play my next game with nids.

Even if the Mawloc can DS on units, some of these ideas will really help to take them out.

Alerian wrote:Just because you are in the minority doesn't mean you are wrong. I was in the minority a few months ago when I said that Deffrollas can be used during a Ram, and low and behold...GW FAQ'd that the minority was right, and that INAT was wrong....Deffrollas can indeed be used during a ram. But I digress...

I am trying to give the OP tactics that will work against a Mawloc destroying everything he has, by not allowing the Mawloc easy access to DSing near his valuable units. This requires a proper understanding of the DS rules according to pgs 11 and 95.

Played properly, the tactics I am giving a are viable. If he allows his opponent to cheat and play it the "popular" rather than the "legal" way, then they will not work.

So when GW releases the Tyranid FAQ and says the Mawlocs can be placed on an enemy unit, you will agree that you are/were wrong?

I believe the whole point, of the Mawloc sacrificing it's combat ability, compared to the Trygon, is for the ability to deepstrike onto enemy units.

That would make the most sense, because otherwise, there would be no reason to take one over a Trygon.

I would completely agree with you on this.

Even with the limitation the Mawloc is still dangerous. I think that this is how it was meant to actually intended now that I look back on it. Really, if a unit like the Mawloc was meant to be able to DS on units, it should be up around 250 pts. + IMHO.

Well, if that's true, then why would the person who wrote the codex, be playing it in the way, that he can deepstrike on to units? As someone else has already pointed out in this thread.

and 250 points is absurd.

250 points is high, but the really absurd thing is the Mawloc going around and murdering the best units you have, from heavy troops to tanks.

The next off-topic poster in this thread gets a brief suspension.

QUIT BRINGING YMDC TOPICS INTO THE TACTICS THREADS.

If you feel you must discuss the rules, link to a thread in YMDC.

Though I don't play tau, I do play tyranids, sometimes running mawlocs x3. Tbh, the most effective tactic against this beast is simply spreading out. I find the mwloc to be the most useful when someone turns and fires with their whole army at it, because it's giving my swarms yet one more turn to close.

As soon as i saw the title of this post i cringed, i knew YMDC was going to spill over.

However under the assumption that the mawloc can DS directly onto your units, your best bet i'd say is to have a unit designated to hold it up in CC, the mawloc has 3 attacks at strength 6, and even though he will smush several of them a turn, with a large enough unit you will hold him up long enough that he cannot burrow again. The only problem with this is another unit charging into the fray, then i would not know what to suggest but to try and finish it off with rapid fire weapons.

Phish Skills wrote:As soon as i saw the title of this post i cringed, i knew YMDC was going to spill over.

However under the assumption that the mawloc can DS directly onto your units, your best bet i'd say is to have a unit designated to hold it up in CC, the mawloc has 3 attacks at strength 6, and even though he will smush several of them a turn, with a large enough unit you will hold him up long enough that he cannot burrow again. The only problem with this is another unit charging into the fray, then i would not know what to suggest but to try and finish it off with rapid fire weapons.

The mawloc has hit and run and can pretty much leave CC when it chooses. Holding it up via CC will not do much.

/facepalm. All i do nowadays is read my tyranid codex. How did i miss that.

I fail, scratch that last.

You could achieve that by having miniatures on all sides of him...

If I could manage to get a nice big cheap unit of kroot tied up with him, and surrounding him completely, it might work, though at that point it would probably die.

You know its really funny that people are so scared of mawlocs while they actually can NOT jump into some units hurting them with that pieplate of theirs. It depends on the situation BUT in most cases the wording is too stupid. It places 5" round template (the large one) but mawlocs base is larger than 5" from front to tail so if a piece of that base ends on a model and not in the template... BAM... a mishap. Or something like that i dont remember it exactly why.

Man - Farsight could actually be useful in this instance. I never thought about that.

I was thinking about what I would do if I were facing nids - I had this thought that if you end up diverting a lot of your infantry to killing the thing, then the gaunts and stealers will eat you up in CC much more quickly as they will have not been taking casualties.

The best options I can think of are - either 2 units of suits that can divert fire for a turn, or 2 or more units of Stealth suits - a much, much cheaper option, not as effective with the burst cannons, but they can redeploy quickly enough to get in a fusion shot as well.

The final though I had against nids is that a whole stack of drones could come in handy against them - unless your friend is running a whole stack of shooting Fex's or termagants, then drones would be ok for shooting up the gribblies at a very cheap points cost, especially if they are wounding on 2+ or 3+. Plus, you can use them as an assault screen which will easily break or die leaving the enemy open to rapid fire the next turn.

Plus everyone has lots of drones - why not use them?

The Bringer wrote:

L0rdF1end wrote:
I dont know how but my mate always rolls that hit. Its not logical since theres only a 33% chance or just over of actually getting that HIT result.

Other options include hugging the table edges, always and option for Tau with your range. He'd be wary of trying to come up under anything hugging a table edge for risk of scattering off the table.

About that, he uses them in conjunction with the one Lictor special character, and so he gets an automatic hit (or something like that.)

Well that makes the prime target the Lictor. Plus this isnt going to work all the time, the Lictor needs to be on the board for at least a turn before his trail can be used. That's turn three at the very fastest.

I was wondering why you were having trouble with Mawlocs and then I realized you're a Tau player, things make more sense now...

Just kidding, seriously though you shouldn't be having too much problem with Mawlocs in a solid list. Each Mawloc should only have the ability to burrow 2 times a game, maybe 3 if the game lasts long enough. That's 2 str 6 ap 2 templates from a 200+ point creature over the course of the entire game.

What you might be doing is not spreading your lines out enough, make sure you scrutinize your 2 inch spacing liberally and often. If you keep your lines more spread, you shouldn't be losing a lot of units when the Mawlocs come up from deep strike. You should be able to fire them down on the turn they have to stand in front of your lines especially with TAU, and don't concentrate all of your MC killing firepower in a particular spot.

That's all the tips and ideas I've got.

Oh, besides kill the Death Leaper.

Mawlocks only have 3 attacks with a not so great weapon skill. They are pretty vulnerable to being charged and killed in CC, unless you're playing Tau.

Here is my favourite tactic against anything that uses large blasts: Get a piece of carton or plasticard. Cut it into a sort of rectangular form where one long side is 6", one short side is 2" and one short side is roughly 1.25". Mark them properly. Use this hadny measurement tool for standard movement and to make sure your models stay at least 1.25" apart, preferrably in a square grid. That will limit any large blast to hitting 5 models. If your models are in a line the limit becomes 3 hits. Geometry math ftw. If a 200p model causes a total of 5x S6 AP2 hits two or three times in a game, it sure does a decent job, but it's nothing to lie sleepless over. It's just damage taken, it could just as well be an imperial tank dropping pie plates on you.

[cheezyness] The first thing you must conquer is your fear of the enemy. [/cheezyness]

Sadly even a large kroot squad wouldn't stop the hit and run, as the model ignores the models it's in combat with. However, surrounding the combat with the kroot squad would work. As the squad isn't in combat, so stops the Mawloc from being able to disengage =D

Also lighting it up with a pathfinder squad then opening fire with Fire Warriors would be my option. Unless you're playing loads of battlesuits ofcourse.

Hope this helps =D

Oshova

I play Tau and faced a Tyranid army with a Mawloc just recently. There is no way you can account for the creature. In a 5 turn game, the Mawloc will be able to deep strike twice. Whether she is on target or not depends on luck normally.

First off I do spread my army out a bit. The reason is that I do not want to get my pieces boxed into a corner by the MCs of the Tyranids. Secondly, if there are tall buildings, you can put units on the top floor to avoid the problem. You do need all your units on the table as soon as possible to knock out as many Tyranids as you can. Since most Tyranids are short range or assault only, try to move your pieces away from them. I take 3 units of Broadsides, so there is really no chance that the Mawloc will take out all of them. If you put 2 GD with 2 BS, that means that even if you take hits, the Broadsides have a good chance of surviving. Hopefully the morale check is passed. Usually the BS are very close to the table edge, so any attack by the Mawloc has a good chance of taking it off the edge of the table.

Tau are not a top tier army at the moment but they can shoot. So keep firing as much as possible and stay on the move to keep your units away from the opposing cc creatures. I am currently running 3 TL flamers on 3 V8's to help keep the bugs under control. The point is that once the units are on the table, very few are so fast that they can be repositioned substantially. If you have ML, it should be easy to take out a Mawloc or any other MC. The +3 saving throw is a real weakness. The Tyranids are not as good a list as SW as far as I am concerned and they seem to struggle against IG and certain SM armies. Personally, I wondered if GW deliberately toned them down as they want SM or IG type armies to be the main tournament winners. With all the models they are producing, it would make sense.

This is one case where plasma is your friend. MP are also very helpful as they are S 7.

Think of the Mawloc like two Chapter Master orbital bombardments, slightly less powerful but aimable if a lictor has been nearby for a turn.
Sure, they're nasty, and you want to take out the ability to use them reliably (either the lictor or the mawloc model itself). But you wouldn't panic at orbital bombardments... and the mawloc, unless something is giving it synapse (which lictors can't do), has a decent chance of assaulting your guys instead of reburrowing, which although not great for you is a waste of the model from your opponent's perspective.
Take out the lictor, or synapse, and you remove a significant amount of the control your opponent has over his mawloc.

best way i found to deal with them is to play ninja tau. Put your only unit in the back corner and hope he goes off the table, i played my friend that way and both of them scattered off. He was mighty pissed.