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Howdy gents,


I have yet to face tyranids with CSM and I'm wondering the best way to take them out? I have access to every unit in the CSM codex except noise marines and 1k sons. I'd love to know, thanks in advance guys!

Noise marines and Helturkeys, and anything with flamers. If vs Nids, you'll also need anti-MC.

vs Nids, Maulerfiends are exceptionally good (with whips). There are very little the Nids can do to counter it, probably only the Zoanthrope. That's because their MC need to halve their A characteristic to attack you, and then you remove two of those attacks, suddenly that Trygon with six attacks is only left wih a single one.

Try to avoid combat, Tyranids are bad at shooting contests IMO, sure they have high volume of shots, but your armour save is good enough to not worry to much about it.

Lastly, bring some anti air, you want to bring down the flying Hive Tyrant as quickly as possible.

I've played against horde Nids 3-4 times now as chaos marines. We play at 1250 pts and the usual list that I play against is

Hive tyrant warlord
the doom in a spore
Tervigon as troops
12 hormagaunts with toxin sacs
Then multiple termagaunt squads ranging from 15-20 per squad all with devourers

This list has tabled me twice and I drew once. The first time I had no where near the right set up with an army of 19 against 60+. Since then I've been trying to build a list to run against this and so far I'm stuck. Cant match them body for body and ya you get your save but when you have to take 10-15 wounds on 7-10 man squads it doesn't take long before you get dropped.

I'm now trying to build my list with a lot of mech. 2 heldrakes a land raider with destroyer blades to keep a troop and hq choice alive and a bastion with a squad of cultists to man the guns. At 1250 pts your options are very limited. I do think maxed squads of regular chaos marines could wreck the nid list but I don't own that many marines.

It's an inredibly frustrating list to go against as chaos marines. At least with my usual nurgle list its a rough fight.

I don't see how they can take down Helturkeys honestly at all, burning them like that is not a fun thing for them.

Target the tervigons first, have some obliterators wait for the doom.

Hive Tyrant not flying is slow, kill tervigon turn 1, burn gak, kill the doom, kill the hive tyrant, not hard.

2 Heldrakes at 1250 is a lot to put into flyers. Oblits would do amazing for you filling the role of Anti MC as well as Anti Horde. Mark of Nurgle is suggested.

I could see Noise Marines doing well behind an Aegis with double blast master. I've never played a real game against nids so I can't speak from experience, but I'd imagine like any other horde like army cover is huge for them. And ignoring that cover is icing on the cake.

Ignoring cover does help. I allied a riptide with support commander for that reason and was able to get the draw. I'm starting to think people don't understand how difficult it is to kill that list. Toughness 6 monsters with multiple wounds and regen is a bitch and while you are shooting that the doom drops next to a high count squad and kills them. I never roll well on the 3d6. I fail to see how you keep 20-30 bodies alive against 60+ there is always cover and always failed rolls. Saying its simple because on paper x beats y them a beats b doesn't mean anything. If you have the end all list for hordes as chaos marines list it for me. Ill try it out next game because as of now I feel stuck. Mathammer and statistics are great but that isn't how this game works even though the forums seem to think so.

Cultists cost as much as grots, Chaos can do horde these days too.

His major weakness is most of his army has no AV

Try:
(165) Sorc. w/ Lv 3, Brand, Term.
(140) 2x Oblits

Deep strike behind him. He'll have his meat shield up front, so everyone gets shots on MC's. Sorc. can pull Iron Arm and Give Oblits FnP also, plus brand will light hordes on fire.

(340) 2 Heldrakes

He can't hit em with anything he has

(95) Pred w/ Hbolter Sponson and Warpflame gargoyle
(95) Pred w/ Hbolter Sponson and Warpflame gargoyle
(125) Maulerfiend

EDIT: could swap 2 Pred for 1 Helbrute w/ HFlamer and pick up another oblit.

Troops can't touch either.

(145) 10 C:SM w/ 2x flamers
(145) 10 C:SM w/ 2x flamers

Troops. You need em.

1250

Edit: Formatting, swapped for Pred

That's actually really close to the list I'm currently working on. The hellbrute keeps letting me down so I was gonna use nurgle bikes to charge in with the maulerfiend.

The last game the d'striking sorcerer did amazing for me but I didn't get iron arm.

I'm not sure sorc is the way to go... especially lvl 3. Tzeetch DP with Black Mace will rape any Tyranid monster/swarm like a boss. Wings/Roll Bio.

As a former nid player and a current chaos player i can tell you flamer weapons wreck nid horde cod3x actually has a very decent list for you though those blits should prolly be nurgle though and against nids a lord is a better idea shadow is as much of pain for psykers as runes of warding only difference is shadow is a 12 inch bubble and yes the black mace will wreck as well as the burning brand the best armour you will see is 3 and no natural invuls from them if you can deny the cover and armor you will wreck them you could also tarpit his gants with some nurgle spawn

My current list to try and ruin nid horde at 1250 that I just put together is this,

Lord (PA,MoN, AoDG)
Plague Marines x5 x2 flamers
Land Raider (Destroyer blades) Transport for lord and plagues
heldrake - baleflamer
Nurlge bikers x3 x2 flamers
Daemon Prince of Nurgle (Wings)
cultists x10
Forgefiend (x2hades,1 ectoplasma)
Aegis Defence lines

Essentially creating multiple forward moving threats in the land raider which only the hive tyrant and tervigon can even damage (Minus a couple things that may have rending) and the destroyer blades making it so I can cause wounds just by tank smashing into the horde granted not a lot of wounds but wounds are wounds when there are 60+ models on the table plus in certain objective games I can rush that squad forward to take the back field objective that always gets placed in the enemy deployment zone. While the Land Raider rushes forward so does the DP with Nurgle Bikers, the bikes are there as extra bullet sponges and with them all being MoN the bikes benefit from the Shrouded the DP has making it a very difficult unit to try to hit and wound with T-6 all around. Send the DP right at the Hive Tyrant as that is always the warlord however my DP isn't so if I do lose I don't give up an extra VP. I do get that the Mace is very awesome and great but the DP is S-6 to start and being a MC all attacks are Ap2 so I don't see the need for it when you are S-6 Ap2 with 5A base, I get the usefulness but with that list I'm at 1253 and there really isn't much I can cut out save maybe for dropping the Forgefiend and getting a Vindicator in its place. Then place the Cultists behind the aegis with the forgefiend as to kill any forward still living units and also to keep The Doom from getting easy kills as the aegis will grant cover saves against spirit leech (Look it up if you don't believe me cover saves can be taken against that annoying power in the Nid FAQ) if he tries to deep strike near them which he will as thats the only group The Doom can even affect first turn he drops in and since it won't affect the fiend and since his power gaining ability should be mitigated a forgefiend is a perfect firing platform with 8 str8 ap4 shots going into The Doom. At that point its just keeping as much alive as possible and ripping up as much as possible.

On a side note even though it seems Nids can't wound the heldrake or other AV12 yes they can, Devourers on 20 gaunts is an insane amount of shots and ya you need 6's trust me it happens that you still end up having to take 4-6 5+ invulns and that doesn't always work out the way it should. Just wanted to make sure people get how annoying 50 DevilGaunts really are and that on paper "O well they need 6's to hit and 6's to wound so he can't hit your Drake/Armor so don't worry about them" (and yes I do realize they need rear armor to make this happen however it almost always happens that that many models gets into a good spot to shoot rear armor) that argument is crap and I'm over hearing it from the geniuses who base everything in this game on numbers and seem to forget that Chance has a massive role in this toy soldier game.

very unique list i like it if you cant afford the black mace you could have some fun with the burning brand the torrenty fun of it is just so much fun

The Burning brand is awesome, I could probly drop the Aura on the Lord and cut out one or two more other upgrades to fit the brand in on the DP to make a 3x flamer fast moving Hammer unit to rush at the Hive Tyrant (The guy I play never uses his with wings always the 2+ armor) and hormagaunt squad. Burn the Gaunts charge the squad challenge Tyrant wreck its face if it accepts otherwise go to town on the little guys. I may just do that now, thanks for the suggestion, and yes I realize having the Winged DP moving with bikes will slow its movement a bit compared to usual but its not like a 12" move is terrible plus against a horde like that they always deploy as far forward as the game will allow so you don't have to go very far to get at them anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The other list I've been toying around with for the past couple of weeks is a Chaos with Tau allies. I love the Riptide suit and the way it looks is awesome and I chaosified it a bit and made a small Tau strike force that got sucked up in a Nurgle Plague storm while trying to take out a Lord and they now have sided with the Chaos marines force I built... anyway here is that list,

Lord (MoN, AoDG)
Plague Marines x5 (x2 flamers) (Rhino) Lord goes into the Rhino with the plagues
DP (MoN, ML1, Wings)
Bikers x3 x2 flamers (MoN)
Heldrake (Baleflamer)
Cultists
Aegis Defence lines

Tau Commander (Multi-spectrum sensor suite, Command/Control Node, Vectored Retro Thrusters)
Riptide x1 shielded missile drone (Early warning override, twin linked plasma, Ion accelerator)
6 firewarriors

Essentially the same kind of set up except the lord and plagues stick to the outskirts of the board to avoid drawing fire while moving to take backfield objective or other required area. DP and bikes move straight in to kill warlord and burn horde guys also with ML1 on the DP he rolls on the nurgle power and even if you end up with the primaris power you still have a great multi wounding ability to kill the hordes that he ends up around. Heldrake does its usual thing. Cultists hang out in deployment behind aegis to stay alive longer. Commander joins riptide and drone to create cover ignoring death machine, they hang back waiting for the doom to drop in and when he does use interceptor riptide to murder the doom before it can do anything and then you have a very mobile heavy shooting unit to kill squads in mass numbers. and the firewarriors hang out around the cultists or push forward to take an objective that needs grabbing, Not a very in depth strategy but it should put out enough damage in high numbers to kill the horde troops and keep your own alive long enough to win. It is a little gimicky though and will require a bit of luck on deployment and making sure the Riptide kills the doom first drop in is very crucial but it would definitely be a very fun list to run. I've ran similar versions of it the past few weeks and even though the best I've gotten with it was a draw it was a blast to play and the Riptide Commander combo always scares the crap out of my opponent especially when they don't realize how much it can do.

I mainly stay away from the lord because a Tyrant or a Terv w/ Iron Arm usually eats him. You aren't gonna out melee Nids at 1250. I prefer nurgle Oblits but points, where would you drop? Not worth losing the bare bones I'm running. DP is WAAAY to expensive at that pt level. Srsly bro, what would drop for 150 to replace the Sorc? See thats the issue