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Thanks for the advice thrawn.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/03/tyranids-vs-grey-knights-batrep.html

I don't know if this helps at all but it was interesting to read and tyranids won.

Just remember what the faq says about lash whips. They bring you down to I1 before other modifiers are applied.

kungfujew wrote:Just remember what the faq says about lash whips. They bring you down to I1 before other modifiers are applied.

Which really, really bites against Halberds. Good grief, are grenades too much to ask for?

I can never get through the paladin deathstar. Wound allocation cheese.
I had a list, 2 fully upgraded, fully sized gargoyle broods, followed by 2 fully upgraded, fully sized genestealer broods, followed by 2 tervigons dishing out on first assault
They ALL made it (bar a couple Gargoyles) into combat unscaved, and none of them came out of it. managed to take out about3-4? they still had a dreadknight in reserve and another unit on other board egde. i did have a trygon to come in.
I conceded after watching the slaughter.

Bradford1111 wrote:I can never get through the paladin deathstar. Wound allocation cheese.
I had a list, 2 fully upgraded, fully sized gargoyle broods, followed by 2 fully upgraded, fully sized genestealer broods, followed by 2 tervigons dishing out on first assault
They ALL made it (bar a couple Gargoyles) into combat unscaved, and none of them came out of it. managed to take out about3-4? they still had a dreadknight in reserve and another unit on other board egde. i did have a trygon to come in.
I conceded after watching the slaughter.

The point is, you shouldn't even try. By trying to kill a fully upgraded DS unit you're playing to his advantage.
Instead, feed him cheap screening units and play the mission. Assuming, of course that the mission isn't annihilation, but in Annihilation Draigowing has large advantage.

Bradford1111 wrote:I can never get through the paladin deathstar. Wound allocation cheese.
I had a list, 2 fully upgraded, fully sized gargoyle broods, followed by 2 fully upgraded, fully sized genestealer broods, followed by 2 tervigons dishing out on first assault
They ALL made it (bar a couple Gargoyles) into combat unscaved, and none of them came out of it. managed to take out about3-4? they still had a dreadknight in reserve and another unit on other board egde. i did have a trygon to come in.
I conceded after watching the slaughter.

If you don't have a demolisher cannon up your sleeve, you should ignore the living feth out of Draigostars, because it will take nothing less than one to kill a fully kitted out tenpack of paladins.

I have played lots of games versus GK with my Tyranids and I believe I have won more than half those games. The wins werevall very close and tough to pull off but it can be done. Maybe I wasn't always playing versus a hardcore tournament veteran but then again GK have many many advantages over Tyranids so in my mind a win against any GK army is big.

Other posters have described many of the big advantages GK have versus Tyranids. Fortunately Tyranids have a few tricks up their sleeve as well and you must take advantage of these to have a chance to win. I run my army with a good portion of reserved units:

—Outflanking genestealer Broods with Broodlords (see my note below)
—Yrmgarl genestealer Brood
—Devilgants in mycetic spore
—Winged Hive Tyrant with Hive Commander option
—Outflanking Warrior Brood

The Broodlord has two psychic powers it can cast in the assault phase - one lowers the enemy unit's leadership by -1 (Aura of Despair) while the other can prevent an enemy model in base contact from fighting (Hypnotic Gaze).

I take a Brood of 6-8 Yrmgarl genestealers and their primary purpose is to hunt psyflemen. They have a good chance to penetrate dreadnaught armor with +1S and their rending attacks... If nothing else they can tarpit a psyfleman for several turns and also act as a major distraction as well. Psyflemen are very tame versus other GK units in assault so generally there should be no hesitation to charge them when possible.

Devilgants as already noted can lay down a heavy salvo with their devourers... I run my Brood in a spore so I can take an uncontested shot at exposed units. I also try to keep them outside of the GK assault range... If they are shot and break then I try to position a synapse creature close by to bring them to halt so they can regroup the next turn. A large Brood of gants backed up by synapse can actually win an assault versus a small GK squad such as Strike Knights since they are I4.

I typically start with my Hive Tyrant in reserve to lessen the number of turns my opponent can shoot it. My Tyrant has the Hive Commander option so all my reserves come in with +1. He is there to speed up reserves and later cast Paroxsym on enemy GK units to weaken their shooting and melee abilities.

I outflank my Warriors so they can grab objectives and extend my synapse bubble. Mine are armed with poisoned bone swords and lash whips, so they are also quite good in melee when push comes to shove.

Lash whips are a big equalizer versus GK, even when armed with halberds since Tyrants and Warriors are strking at a higher initiative (when not charging into cover).

As mentioned SitW is also another effective deterrent versus GK - but you do have to get close for it to work against them, so always be very careful.

You have to be very cautious when assaulting GK, especially when they have psykotropic and/or rad grenades, or their Librarian has successfully cast Sanctuary. Often it's futile in many cases. So you have to first weaken strong GK melee units such as Paladins, Purifiers and Grey Knight terminators. You can beat them by wearing them down a bit with some shooting first then assault them with multiple units if the opportunity presents itself. I try to avoid big Paladin deathstars as they are currently the kings of melee... If properly equipped they can chew through most any unit quickly. Many Tyranid units are faster though so typically it's easy to avoid them in melee.

The GK Stormraven can be a major problem for Tyranids as one salvo of mindstrike missile can wipe a Tyrant off the table in one shooting phase. I use Hive Guard and a Tyrannofex to shoot down these fliers... And if their fliers are moving flatout for the cover save then they aren't shooting much and you still have a chance to drop them at range.

The main thing is to wisely use your movement phase. As I said above Tyranids tend to be faster in general - movement is the one phase you can really dominate if you play it wisely.

Thanks a ton!

To get guys out of cover, I like a Biovore brood. It either hits with 3 pie plates or litters the board with floating mines. If the gk shoot the mines it is not shooting you., If a mine explodes from contact or shooting with in 2 inches it normally catches 2 or 3 models and wounds on a 4. One of the best units to harass a GK player with becuase GK might as well be stock marines against them.

barnowl wrote:To get guys out of cover, I like a Biovore brood. It either hits with 3 pie plates or litters the board with floating mines. If the gk shoot the mines it is not shooting you., If a mine explodes from contact or shooting with in 2 inches it normally catches 2 or 3 models and wounds on a 4. One of the best units to harass a GK player with becuase GK might as well be stock marines against them.

Sorry for bringing this back up but I've never heard someone recommend Biovores against anything other than greentides, other blobnids, and bodycount guard before. I think I'll try this out.

It sounds crazy, but try out a Pyrovore led into combat by a venomthrope. Other than that, Hive guard, Shrikes, Toxic gargoyles, and genestealers.

Hunchkrot wrote:It sounds crazy, but try out a Pyrovore led into combat by a venomthrope. Other than that, Hive guard, Shrikes, Toxic gargoyles, and genestealers.

Using a pyrovore? That might just be so crazy that it might work. Nobody is going to expect it at the very least.

Kain wrote:

barnowl wrote:To get guys out of cover, I like a Biovore brood. It either hits with 3 pie plates or litters the board with floating mines. If the gk shoot the mines it is not shooting you., If a mine explodes from contact or shooting with in 2 inches it normally catches 2 or 3 models and wounds on a 4. One of the best units to harass a GK player with becuase GK might as well be stock marines against them.

Sorry for bringing this back up but I've never heard someone recommend Biovores against anything other than greentides, other blobnids, and bodycount guard before. I think I'll try this out.

Use Biovores against ANYTHING. They are an awesome unit.

Mattlov wrote:

Kain wrote:

barnowl wrote:To get guys out of cover, I like a Biovore brood. It either hits with 3 pie plates or litters the board with floating mines. If the gk shoot the mines it is not shooting you., If a mine explodes from contact or shooting with in 2 inches it normally catches 2 or 3 models and wounds on a 4. One of the best units to harass a GK player with becuase GK might as well be stock marines against them.

Sorry for bringing this back up but I've never heard someone recommend Biovores against anything other than greentides, other blobnids, and bodycount guard before. I think I'll try this out.

Use Biovores against ANYTHING. They are an awesome unit.

AV12 Venerable dreadnoughts say hi.

Biovores are a lot of fun when you take a lot and can fill up the enemy's side of the board with mines. They can help you guide the direction of big, infantry heavy armies like guard and orks.

Im always against paladin spam.
Even with nothing but stealers. plain, toxic or AG, no matter what you give them, still dont come out on top.
MC are just aweful with them. Tervigon? dead. Trygon pops up! dead. Hive tyrant turn 1, dead.
I havent tried whats suggested above, lots of gargs/terms overload them with shooting.
Zoans dont work, when thier in range they just cant pass the tests. HG for transports.
but still, no chance. so many painful experiences with them. and ive never played above 1500 with them! 2-3000?! AHHHHH

I've never tried it, don't have the models, but always wondered how 9 warriors with 2 primes attached would fare against a fully tooled Paladin squad. I'm sure they'd lose but with AG/TS/boneswords you should be able to do some serious damage. Only concern is that SITW rarely seems to make any difference whenever I play GK. They always manage to make 3/4 of their psychic tests even on 3d6. The warriors need to get there intact though and not suffer from shooting, but the warrior squad will be cheaper and so you can have other screening units to take the shots.

Unlikely to be the best solution, but one that would be interesting to try out if someone fancies a bit of mathhammer ...

If you choose not to take pods, you should try a venomthrope. Lash whips, defensive grenades, dangerous terrain, and the 5+ cover save will all be invaluable to your army, especially if you go horde.

So to commemerate my lack of work for six weeks, I've decided to go and play a game with no points limit, but with force organization slots still in play against a GK player. Yes, I know I'm crazy, but I know he's going to shell out Crowe, three maxed out purifier squads, three psybolter razorbacks, Draigo and three paladin deathsquads, three venerable psyfledreads, three psyfledreads, and three stormchickens. To give me something of an edge he's decided to let me tailor to some extent, so what should I bring to bear against this formadible looking list? Remember, points are no object.

9 HVC + TL Dev carnifexes
27 BS+LW Shrikes w/Adrenal Glands
114 decked out stealers + 6 Broodlord
30 ymgarl stealers
Swarmlord + 3 LW guard
Hive Tyrant with OA, HC, HVC, TL Devs, armored shell, 3 LW guard

The more I look at it the cooler it looks... Yes, I know there's lots of multi-wound models, but I think it's worth it. It'd be fun no matter what.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That or 5 Tervigons, 90 devilgants, 9 Hive Guard, 27 Shrikes, and 9 carnies (armed as above for the last two)

That is probably the first time I've ever seen someone recommend HVCs on anything. Hrm..

They aren't great, but they'll ID paladins and pen Rhinos/Razors... Just suffer a -1 on the damage result.

Plus, in a cost doesn't matter fight it seems like the time to have fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you don't like em, just get another set of TL Devs.
The 36 inch range is still decent.

I can almost see the piles of dead bugs that are going to gather at those Paladin's feet, heh.

9 Fex's with TL devs actually put out a scary amount of damage.
Nearly as scary as the points cost lol.

But in a serious sense, thought about outshooting them?
Cant use a FW at range, so MC's are safe to some degree.
Just run gunline nids and some garl stealers for dread hunting.

While it sounds crazy, nids actually come out better in a firefight than they do in combat with them (stealers being an exception)

Thropes, well, ignore them against GK's.
They wont get a shot to land and will die before doing anything worthwhile.
If he does run a landraider, throw a MC at it.



Edit: on a serious but crazy note, having no points restriction is pretty nice.

Tyrant: TL dev x2 with full upgrades (armoured shell etc)
Tyrant: TL dev x2 with full upgrades (armoured shell etc)

3 hive guard
3 hive guard
3 hive guard

30 devilgants with all upgrades
30 devilgants with all upgrades
30 devilgants with all upgrades
30 devilgants with all upgrades
30 devilgants with all upgrades
30 devilgants with all upgrades

9 Ravs with devs and full upgrades
9 Ravs with devs and full upgrades
9 Ravs with devs and full upgrades

3 Fex's: TL dev x2, full upgrades
3 Fex's: TL dev x2, full upgrades
3 Fex's: TL dev x2, full upgrades

132 TL S6 shots from the MC's each turn.
540 S4 shots from the gants!
81 S4 shots from the ravs.
18 S8 shots from the hives.


Armour means nothing when your getting smashed by that weight of shots.
TL devs can pop normal transports, but hives will do it better. (does give you plenty of chance though)

Who says that Heavy Venom Cannons can't work? A buddy of mine used one on a Tyrant and 2 on Carnifexes. He didn't seem to have any problems popping my transports all to pieces.

-1 damage if not open topped, so 6 to wreck it, 5 to immob it. (both do just the same imo)

Nothing wrong with that to be honest.
Its got the strength there to do the damage, but theres just soo much more in the nids dex that does it better.

Reivax26 wrote:Who says that Heavy Venom Cannons can't work? A buddy of mine used one on a Tyrant and 2 on Carnifexes. He didn't seem to have any problems popping my transports all to pieces.

If every shot hit, and every shot penetrated (extremely unlikely to say the least) you would average 3 dead rhinos PER GAME with a tyrant and 2 carnifexes with HVCs. Spending 600+ points and having your average result being 2-3 dead rhinos is abysmal.

Which should I be more worried about? The paladin death squads or the purifiers?

I suggest the following...

Overwhelm the Grey Knights by numbers, its what they lack in. Get a lot of Troop choices with lots of firepower - you need firepower to take them down.

Take the Swarmlord - it will tear the Grey Knights apart!