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Well, I'll start by saying I've been through the forum history and learnt some techniques for fighting the Guard but I've still got a few problems I could use a hand with.

Basically, we play a lot of annihilation missions and I can never seem to make any real headway against the Guard, they just seem to have a cheap and easy solution to anything I might throw at them. We don't tend to use fixed lists much, but there are some general units that the Guard player will always take in our 1500 point battles, they are as follows:

-Veterans, maxed out with plasma guns, inside Vendettas itself armed with triple lascannons and heavy bolters - two of these taken to fill troops choices

-Command squad with maxed out plasma guns, Master of the Fleet and an Astropath

-Marbo

-Leman Russ, standard version with battle cannon

Stormtroopers, maxed out plasma/melta deepstriking

There are normally other units as well but these are the main problems I face.

Put simply I can't figure out how to keep enough of my Tyranids alive to do any damage. If I take MC's, the outflanking Vendetta/Plasma Vet squads can incinerate any one or two of them in a single turn, obviously before anything can retaliate and by that point they've easily earnt their points back. The same goes for deepstriking Stormtroopers.

If I go swarm, the battle cannons can simply dismantle too many of the group in just one or two rounds of shooting and Marbo can take down more very easily, up to and including wiping out entrie Warior/Ravener/Shrike units via instant death (Same goes for the battle cannon).

I've tried a lot of ways to deal with this army, but it comes down to the fact that much of his army can arrive from nowhere, deal ferocious damage and even if I take some of them down afterward, I've suffered crippling damage to my killing power/Synapse and the army becomes less than functional.

So, any ideas?

Hi GMR

Sorry I don't play nids so can't really give any specific advise, I do play guard though an your friends list sounds mean.

can't tyranids deep strike a lot of stuff? can you not drop the nid version of a melta?

guard most of the time are about range, your friends list sounds like it doesn't have anything to deal with you if you get in his face. IG vehicles are are weak on the backs so if you can assault them you'll only have to deal with AV10-11

sorry couldn't be more help.

keep your troops 2" apart, and in a line. this will limit the number of nids he can take out in a single shot from the russ to 2-4.

@SpankHammer

Thanks for the advice, every bit of information is useful!

It is possible to deepstrike quite a few units, but the Master of the Fleet in the IG army makes sure they're going to come in later in the game, by which point most of the forces I already have on the table have been whittled away.

Deepstriking can work, but almost any unit you put in the pod or burrow up with is going to be short on Synapse now that the FAQ has ruled Tyranid Primes can't enter pods. Zoanthropes are reliably lethal, but almost never survive until the round after they arrive.

Still, it is a tactic I've only used sparingly (Lack of models to represent Spores), so I'll definitely try and work on it.

@ Brunius

Certainly possible, and definitely effective, but moving upwards of 60 models in that way is sure going to take a while!

If its a friendly game then lack of models is no reason not to try something, i've seen plastic cups used as drop pods before.

I've subscribed to thread just because I'm interested in my armies weaknesses. Hope some one is able to help.

GMR wrote:

-Veterans, maxed out with plasma guns, inside Vendettas itself armed with triple lascannons and heavy bolters - two of these taken to fill troops choices

-Command squad with maxed out plasma guns, Master of the Fleet and an Astropath

-Marbo

-Leman Russ, standard version with battle cannon

Stormtroopers, maxed out plasma/melta deepstriking

There are normally other units as well but these are the main problems I face.

Put simply I can't figure out how to keep enough of my Tyranids alive to do any damage. If I take MC's, the outflanking Vendetta/Plasma Vet squads can incinerate any one or two of them in a single turn, obviously before anything can retaliate and by that point they've easily earnt their points back. The same goes for deepstriking Stormtroopers.

If I go swarm, the battle cannons can simply dismantle too many of the group in just one or two rounds of shooting and Marbo can take down more very easily, up to and including wiping out entrie Warior/Ravener/Shrike units via instant death (Same goes for the battle cannon).

I play guard and 'nids, so heres my two cents.

-Hive guards and zoan's for the valks, zoans get an invulnerable save against the LC's. Pop the flying cans asap. Cheap, reliable, effective.

-Trygon Prime, deepstriking near the Russ or HQ, is nasty as all hell. 12 Str5 18" shots and enough wounds and T6 to avoid instagib and keep alive even with plasma HQ. Two are better, but expensive.

-I like using Hormagaunts, even though they are out of favor right now. Everyone goes termagants because of Tervigons, but for the cost 15-20 Hormies with Adrenal and toxin can chain-assault through almost anything, including tanks (except 11 or higher rear armor). The Move/run on 3d6/charge makes it very easy for them to hit units before too much shooting. Do not Spod these. Double bonus that if your synapse dies, they keep charging.

-Warriors/Raveners/Shrikes are fun, and look cool, but need to be used with other units. Use small squads of warriors to give synapse to a squad or two of gaunts. Raveners make decent suicide troops, but have a very hard time reaching the enemy. I havent used shrikes yet, the low wounds, low AP and cost dont make up for the jump infantry bonus, IMO.

-Fex's make great linebreakers, even better with a dakkafex in a spod. Make him choose between trying to kill a Trygon or a Shooty Fex in his rear area. Hard to get across a field, but you could use a basic one as an expensive fire magnet.

-Use the Tyrants psychic powers! Being able to reduce a unit of stormtroopers to BS1 WS1 for both your and his turn is massive!

Biovores and spore mines work wonders on IG.

IG need space to deploy, spore mines can deny plenty of space.

Biovores will force IG to spread even further, making assaults that much faster and easier for the Tyranids. Do not aim them at vehicles.

I have also found the parasite to be really fun (and useful!) against IG, but that may be because of my opponents.

GMR wrote:the Guard, they just seem to have a cheap and easy solution to anything I might throw at them.

This is true, except for monstrous creatures.

GMR wrote: If I take MC's, the outflanking Vendetta/Plasma Vet squads can incinerate any one or two of them in a single turn.

So, one of the dirty secrets about guard is that there are very few ways to points-effectively take down monstrous creatures. In this case, a vendetta with a 3x plasma vet squad costs 245 points (without any other upgrades). You can buy 1 and 2/3ds of a monstrous creature for each one of his dedicated anti-monstrous creature weapons. Use this to your advantage.

If you just have a single MC here and there, then yes, he's going to be able to pick them off. What you need is force cohesion. Instead of presenting an easy kill all alone, keep your forces in such a way where you attack in globs of tyranid. His vets pop out and ace an MC, but then the other MC charges and destroys the vendetta and the nearby squad of termagaunts kills off the vets. Now you have an MC left, and your opponent has nothing to kill it with.

As for the little ones with battlecannons, the answer is proper spacing and tervagons. Properly spaced, battlecannons will not be able to kill more termagaunts than you produce each turn (usually, depending on luck with termagaunt rolls). Given that you can move, fleet, and assault straight out of the tervigon, all you need to do is get the MC even vaguely close to his stuff and you'll be charging in anew every turn with another group of dudes. Once you get to this point, the battlecannons are completely useless. Yes, this involves spawning a lot of potential KP, but you've got to rememebr that the guard is a very high KP army, so you actually get a fair amount of leeway with this.

As for the tanks themselves, guard tanks are really fragile to assault. Once you get a monstrous creature in his lines, you should be able to easily neutralize a tank a turn a MC.

So, I'd take whatever list you're taking and add two tervagons (and perhaps a few high-strength screener MCs, depending on the rest of your list), and go to town.

I like all the advice I'm hearing, Alairos' idea of multiple MC's paid dividends in my last battle, turns out multiple Carnifexes supported by Venomthropes can be hard to stop!

That said, I also pulled out a completely ridiculous army that pretty much curbstomped the Guard, so it could just be luck! The basics of my victorious army were as follows:

Hive tyrant, Hive commander

Swarmlord

Lictors x3

Lictors x3

Deathleaper

Tyrant Guard (2 for each)

Termagants

A very strange, not particularly efficient build, but the fact that all my reserve bonuses were there, cut through his Master of the Fleets negative bringing my guys in by turn 3 easily.

Also it turns out a squad of Lictors appearing behind a Leman Russ and unloading 6 rending flesh hook shots into it's rear armour tends to cause a hell of a lot of damage. Can take down Vendetta's pretty nicely too.

@Razgryz

I like some of the ideas you've got there Trygon Prime is pretty much unstoppable if you can get it past it's arrival turn.

And about the Shrikes, I say try them, but don't expect much when bolters are laughing all the way through your armour save. If they hit though they hit very hard and can do so much faster and more tactically than the standard Warriors.

iv seen this scenario against tau countless times before... the best way iv seen it turn out (with a few changes) would be this: COUNTLESS hormagaunts. FLOOD the field with them, and keep them spaced.somwhere in the proximity of 100- 150. then you should probably take the swarmlod with a full retinuse of tyrant guard, thatll absord LOTS of firepower. just simply swamp his line, mabey with a fex or 2 armed with heavy venom cannons lining the rear guard laying down so suppresive fire. keep tervigons handy so you can pop out termigaunts when needed to fll gaps or rapidly rush a weak point in there lines.

it also wouldnt be a terrible idea to thrw a few venomthropes into the fray to keep them in cover at all times... they can hide your fexes from the sweeping vendettas

Well one thing to get learn quickly is that you are going to lose units much faster than against most opponents which can be daunting if you aren't use to it. The good news is that once you make it to close combat, you won't lose a model (maybe exaggerating a little)!

When going up against a guard force (or Orks or Tau) I tend to face them the same way..which is to control their deployment. This is key to winning games like this with Tyranids. Units that can outflank will almost always force your opponents to be 13-18" away from the table edge and one outflanking unit will give you control of both flanks in some cases. Another unit that I think is great is the biovore...yes I said it. Especially in Dawn of War (how I hate that deployment) you can easily control areas of the field with spore mines and they work extremely well against geq's. So at this point you've taken out 2-3' of their deployment zone and now the rest of your army only has kill the herded forces...like shooting fish in a barrel.

Lastly, I've seen my Trygons get wiped in one turn of shooting too many times against guard to not ds them behind some cover. Make sure you are within 13" but put some terrain between you and your targets so you get a save. You will still draw fire, just take half the wounds (theoretically).

And remember Hive Guard don't need LoS to fire at tanks...really pisses guard players off at my flgs...that's 2 kp's they won't be getting from me.

Good Luck