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So, in preparation for an upcoming tournament (and after reading lots of battle reports from tournaments) I'd like to start a discussion for Tyranid players. How to effectively deal with Wave serpents?

To begin discussion I'd like to throw my list up as a starting point. I've been very happy with it so far and while I'd be happy to take suggestions for amendments to the list via PM, I'd rather not discuss the list here.

HQ
Flyrant dual Devourers
Swarmlord
-Tyrant Guard

Elite
Doom of Mala'Tai
-spod
2 Zoanthrope

Troops
23 Termagants
15 Termagants
Defensive Tervigon
-TS, 2 Psychic powers, Scything talons, cluster spines
Aggressive Tervigon
-AG, TS, 2 Psychic powers, Crushing claws, cluster spines

Heavy support
Trygon
Trygon

Total 1850

So, to pick up where I left off with my original thought: How do Tyranids deal with Wave serpents?

If you leave them to their own desires, each will be putting out 2 TL-laser shots which then TL the serpent shield that fires D6+1 S7 shots a turn, most of which will hit. Follow this up with a Jink save of a 4+ AND you have to try to penetrate a AV 12 front. That leaves a lot of hurt, especially if you're facing 4 of them (which I gather is one of the more competitive builds).

If you CAN threaten them, and force them to use the shield then they can reduce penetrating hits to a glace on a 2+ even after the Jink save. So most shooting you'll be LUCKY to remove 1 HP at best.

Tyranids (my favorite army for many reasons) don't really have a good way to deal with such a prevalent unit, until I was thinking about it. What about our 5th Ed. friends the Hive guard? Yes, 24" range hurts, but if you move 6" you've got a 30" range which you don't need LOS, that sounds pretty good! As an added bonus, the Impaler cannon also ignores cover saves (besides actually touching or being in area terrain) so you can ignore that pesky Jink save.

Now, I'm not necessarily advocating for the age old 3 X 3 of Hive guard as I dislike spamming good units. What I'm suggesting is for Tyranid lists to adopt a unit of 3 in order to give the rest of your list something to do!

The Mathhammer looks like this:
Unit of 3 Hive guard shooting at 1 Wave serpent
6 shots, 4 hit ( 5 if granted PE from Swarmlord)
50% chance to glance, 25% chance to penetrate, 25% chance to do nothing
No Jink save, so that means unless they risked immobilization in difficult terrain no cover either.
That's a minimum of 3 HP of damage if the serpent shield is up, AND if they reduce the penetration to a glance. If they fail the shield roll then you also have a chance to blow it up.

Now, while not the only answer to wave serpents ( I can think of others including Ymargl genestealers, Brainleech devourers from Flyrants and/or Carnifexen, Zoanthropes, Tyrannofex) I believe that they might be the BEST answer that Tyranids have. They also provide added utility against Tau for ID potential against Crisis suits, Terminators, and other similar T4 units.

Regarding my list posted, I think I could add them in for the added pressure on the mobility of Eldar, but I'd definitely change the dynamics of the list.

Your thoughts would greatly appreciated to turn this into a great discussion! I also realized that the window for this discussion is limited by the upcoming release of a new codex.

Seems to me you have ample anti Wave serpent weapons. The best way to take down wave serpents it to get them in their rear armour (Sounds dirty...) and Trygons, Flyrants and podding Zoanthropes are all great at that. Note, get pod for Zoanthropes, no excuse for them not to be really. I'd personally want to swap the Swarmlord for another flyrant, because eldar could simply avoid/ignore/gun down the Swarmlord to easy for my tastes. Think, your warlord is 7 6's away from being dead. So my advise would be to drop gribblies down to base units of 10, make both tervigons defensive (Crushing claws just aren't worth it, either your over kill on a tank any how or you are mediocre at infantry) and get a spore for the Zoanthropes. Zoanthrope warp lance in the rear will auto pen a wave serpent, a flyran flying over and shooting the rear does 3/4 glances. You have to have multiple ways of dealing with them, other wise your buggest threat (The hive guard) will be shot of the board first turn (Each serpent puts out 4 TL strength 6 shots and an average of 4 TL strength 7 shots at range=better then you).

Mass gargoyle units with AGs. Can catch and smash a wave serpent no probs. Equip them with TS as well and you have an all rounder unit which can take out wraith units with ease as well... a serpent shooting at said gargoyles will kill around 6 a turn without cover (lets face it - if you have 60+ gargoyles they wont be in cover), and the gargoyles will be on the serps by turn 2. At best the serps will have 2 turns of shooting averaging 12 gargoyles total per serp. For fully upgraded gargoyles that means the serps will kill only 96pts worth each on average.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Mass gargoyle units with AGs. Can catch and smash a wave serpent no probs. Equip them with TS as well and you have an all rounder unit which can take out wraith units with ease as well... a serpent shooting at said gargoyles will kill around 6 a turn without cover (lets face it - if you have 60+ gargoyles they wont be in cover), and the gargoyles will be on the serps by turn 2. At best the serps will have 2 turns of shooting averaging 12 gargoyles total per serp. For fully upgraded gargoyles that means the serps will kill only 96pts worth each on average.

So you're advocating devoting 480 points of Gargoyles (60 with AG+TS) to nullify wave serpents? If the opponent is fielding 4 wave serpents that's 48 dead Gargoyles at the end of his 2nd turn of shooting. Less if you give them Endurance (but then again, if you're giving endurance to your Gargoyles, you're not giving it to another pivotal model).

I don't know if that's really an effective way to deal with wave serpents....If you happen to be taking 60 Gargoyles with AG+TS in the tournament anyways they could work, but I wouldn't add them to a list for the reason of taking out WS.

The Hive Guard would be a very nice way to deal with wave serpents, having enough weight of fire with an S8 weapon that ignores cover to kill any wave serpents it catches when put in units of three. Sadly it only has bolter range and is hampered by only having a 4+ save, which any Eldar player worth his salt is going to push through and wipe them out before they can do much. Made even worse because the damn Serpents can shoot damn near across the map.

My preferred vehicle hunters are trips zoans in a spore and my two flyrants.

I like hiveguard but rarely do they manage to get close enough. People know the range and target them quick.

roxor08 wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Mass gargoyle units with AGs. Can catch and smash a wave serpent no probs. Equip them with TS as well and you have an all rounder unit which can take out wraith units with ease as well... a serpent shooting at said gargoyles will kill around 6 a turn without cover (lets face it - if you have 60+ gargoyles they wont be in cover), and the gargoyles will be on the serps by turn 2. At best the serps will have 2 turns of shooting averaging 12 gargoyles total per serp. For fully upgraded gargoyles that means the serps will kill only 96pts worth each on average.

So you're advocating devoting 480 points of Gargoyles (60 with AG+TS) to nullify wave serpents? If the opponent is fielding 4 wave serpents that's 48 dead Gargoyles at the end of his 2nd turn of shooting. Less if you give them Endurance (but then again, if you're giving endurance to your Gargoyles, you're not giving it to another pivotal model).

I don't know if that's really an effective way to deal with wave serpents....If you happen to be taking 60 Gargoyles with AG+TS in the tournament anyways they could work, but I wouldn't add them to a list for the reason of taking out WS.

So 4 WS costing 580pts have taken out 384pts of gargoyles and now the nids they havent been shooting are now on top of them... I'd take that any day of the week! And if they dont shoot at the gargoyles they will be caught and ripped apart. You are forcing your opponent to waste his firepower on units where he will very rarely make his points back...


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Plus I would suggest 75 ideally for this tactic.

Poly Ranger wrote:

roxor08 wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Mass gargoyle units with AGs. Can catch and smash a wave serpent no probs. Equip them with TS as well and you have an all rounder unit which can take out wraith units with ease as well... a serpent shooting at said gargoyles will kill around 6 a turn without cover (lets face it - if you have 60+ gargoyles they wont be in cover), and the gargoyles will be on the serps by turn 2. At best the serps will have 2 turns of shooting averaging 12 gargoyles total per serp. For fully upgraded gargoyles that means the serps will kill only 96pts worth each on average.

So you're advocating devoting 480 points of Gargoyles (60 with AG+TS) to nullify wave serpents? If the opponent is fielding 4 wave serpents that's 48 dead Gargoyles at the end of his 2nd turn of shooting. Less if you give them Endurance (but then again, if you're giving endurance to your Gargoyles, you're not giving it to another pivotal model).

I don't know if that's really an effective way to deal with wave serpents....If you happen to be taking 60 Gargoyles with AG+TS in the tournament anyways they could work, but I wouldn't add them to a list for the reason of taking out WS.

So 4 WS costing 580pts have taken out 384pts of gargoyles and now the nids they havent been shooting are now on top of them... I'd take that any day of the week! And if they dont shoot at the gargoyles they will be caught and ripped apart. You are forcing your opponent to waste his firepower on units where he will very rarely make his points back...


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Plus I would suggest 75 ideally for this tactic.

LOLOL That is SOOO many Gargoyles. But soooooo awesome.

The other problem is that the units inside can also just choose to disembark and shoot, so we haven't accounted for the damage they'd do.

What else would you run with this list?! If you're playing a standard 1850 game, over 500 of that is devoted to your fast attack. I wonder what a list would look like.....**as he builds a list one battlescribe**

Now I need more Gargoyles Muahahahaha!

2 units of Ymegarl Genestealers are your best bet against wave serpents, unless you play on tables without any area terrain. Another unit that has a nice chance is the Mawloc and it synergizes well with ymegarls (can burrow turn one and come up turn two when your ymegarls are also arriving, possible clearing some terrain if enemy troops are in the way if necessary). Multiple Mawlocs force your opponent to respond and if they want to shoot them they have to show their rear armor to your backfield shooting units (flying hives are great at killing them if they can get rear armor).

Tervigons should deal with serpents through simple area denial.

He can't reliably mass wounds on a TMC with just serpents, which you are basically free to spawn, giving those new gants a 12" move, which with the appropriate placement and movement of your gants and MCs, will allow your beasties to close and kill.

At the very worse, he keeps shooting your gants so that you can't so the above, in which case you both end the game how you started, at full strength, with exceptional placement on your part getting you line breaker.

Hq
Parasite (in a gargoyle unit for ultra protected synapse, also will spawn lots of rippers against non meq armies)

Prime with AG, TS, dual boneswords, death spitter. (Put in termagaunt unit for 13 extra wounds and synapse)

Troops
13 termagants

25 hormagaunts
TS

25 hormagaunts
TS

25 hormagaunts
TS

Elites
2 zoans

2 zoans

1 zoan

Fast attack
25 gargoyles
AG, TS

25 gargoyles
AG, TS

25 gargoyles
AG, TS

Total:1850

The idea behind the list is not to give the enemy anything juicy to shoot at with heavy weapons. Zoans are the only real thing that would be worth heavy weapons shooting at and the 3++ save would irritate them. 5 zoans will die but its not a huge loss at 60pts each with the firepower required to get past 5 3++ saves (10 if not higher than st8). The real reason they are there is synapse.
Talking about synapse the prime and parasite present two synapse bubbles which will be exceptionally difficult to get rid of (the prime can join a unit of hormagaunts if only a few termigants are left and the parasite can jump to a different unit of gargoyles if his are hit hard).
Av 14 and flyers can just be ignored since they will never make their points back with 8pt models being the only target.
The big weakness is a necron scythe spam as the list has no method of preventing necrons dropping scoring units in the last game turn.




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Also, if worried about tanks change some of the horms ts to ag.


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TAC lists invest in anti tank and anti meq by their nature. This list utterly neutralises these guns/weapons. Powerfists/weapons, high strength guns, low ap guns, poison, hawire etc... all wasted points by your opponent. While this list is ineffective against flyers, raiders and monoliths it is highly effective against everything else and can just ignore those high point vehicles it cant harm, whilst a large proportion of an opponents list will be highly ineffective at reducing 170 models in an 1850pt game.

How will this hold up against Wave serpent spam, let alone Tau of any flavor.

Every shot hit is a dead model. 4 Wave serpents can put out 40 shots in a 5 turn game EACH. Over all 4 that's an average of 160 dead models over 5 turns. All he has to do is blow you off the board!

You'll likely get kicked out of competitive play on top of it because it'll take you an hour just to deploy and take turn 1...

I commend you trying to think out of the box but this is a little out there...

I've seen 60 Gargolyes used as part of a swarm/threat overload Nid list. Its not actually enough, you would need to full max them out to actual get them to connect against a top tier list. I saw it run against Serpent Spam and Tau and they just got taken off, both games they went first, surged forward, the Eldar/Tau army realigned and gave itself room and then removed about 2/3 of both units. Because you remove from the front this left the remainder needing 10"+ charges (which would have just been suiciding against the Tau overwatch, and long odds to actually hurt thing against Serpents). Because these were team format games the Nid player then backed off and took the mid strength loss rather than throw everything forward and probably get tabled. I think 90 might actually scare some people, as that would have the numbers to actually connect, but at that stage you are starting to cut into the essentials (Tervigons and Flyrants).

roxor08 wrote:
How will this hold up against Wave serpent spam, let alone Tau of any flavor.

Every shot hit is a dead model. 4 Wave serpents can put out 40 shots in a 5 turn game EACH. Over all 4 that's an average of 160 dead models over 5 turns. All he has to do is blow you off the board!

You'll likely get kicked out of competitive play on top of it because it'll take you an hour just to deploy and take turn 1...

I commend you trying to think out of the box but this is a little out there...

Assuming standard WS load-out, each turn at 24", on average, against Gargoyles and Gants you are looking at:
Scatter Lasers - 14.22 hits, for 11.85 wounds
Shuriken Cannons - 10.67 hits, for 8.889 wounds
Shield - 16 hits, for 13.33 wounds, which after factoring in armour saves, is knocked down to 11.11 wounds.
So about 32 wounds per turn.

If the unit is in cover (which as Nids they should be), the numbers change slightly;
Scatter Lasers - 7.901 wounds
Shuriken Cannons - 5.926 wounds
Shied - no change.
Or about 25 wounds per turn.

Wave Serpents will put out between 7 and 14 shots each, so anywhere from 28 to 56 shots, however, 1/9 of the shots will usually miss so you are looking at approximately 25-50 hits, of which approximately 21 to 41.5 will wound.

Lots of warriors with rending claws in pods. It has serious competitive issues against s8+ shooting or death star units with s8 cc attacks, but mass S7 eldar/tau shooting has to chew through all 3 wounds.

The tough part is coming up with a TAC list--not tailoring.

It is easy to tailor a list to play a specific build, but it is also super lame. Some things that are worth considering that are both good AND useful in a TAC list:

Flyrants--get behind them, hit with strength 6.
Pods with Carnifex--same basic idea. A bit expensive though.
Pods with Zoeys--they actually don't have bad odds of rolling Puppet Master. That helps vs. Serpents
Pods with Doom--lots of Serpent lists have Wraithknights and/or some ground game such as Hawks/Spiders. Doom helps here.
Ymgarls--morph the +1 attack, multi-charge Serpents.
Hive Guard--not bad if you can get them close enough.

Of course, Tervigons and Termagants are solid staples of a competitive Nid list. They can hurt Serpents if they can make it to combat. Mawlocks and Trygons are solid additions to Nids, and they can do the same. Finally, it is worth considering a Biovore or two to kill off the DA/Guardians that pile out after Serpents pop.

Finally, it is worth strongly considering a Skyshield Landing Pad with Nids. More and more tourneys are allowing them, and 75 points is a steal. The 4++ gives Nid units the resilience they need to weather some of the crazy fire coming from Tau/Eldar lists these days.

Your maths is off roxor. As Happyjew says... 25 to 32 wounds a turn. Now the tyranids are not just going to be sitting there taking shots and having a picnic. After 1 to 2 turns of eldar shooting the nids will be on top of them and that shot count will decline, rapidly. Do you think even 50-60 models will make a difference when that wave hits? There are 170 models on the board, more when the rippers come out... and if you are ploughing that many shots into the gargoyles, using your shield, you are losing a serp a turn to warp lance. That 25 to 32 just dropped to 17 to 24. Then 12 to 16. 12 to 16 on this horde? Thats like trying to clear a beach of sand a shovel at a time.
Consider the fact that its not a shooting range, its a battlefield and the enemy will be taking casualties too!

P.s. sorry about all the edits, morning wake up mind... :-p

Deploying ~400 pts of Gargoyels against an army of Eldar is just a nice gift to the Eldar player. The Tyranids are not 'on top of them' turn 2, because eldar are fast, at least as fast as our infantry, but they can shoot their weapons while doing it. One of the great strengths of the Eldar is that they can put out such a high volume of medium strength/low strength shots, they can wipe a horde of 60-70 models off the board in no time.

Now this could work if you build your list around the Gargoyle swarm, taking (flying) Hive Tyrants, (flying) Warriors, Spods etc. so they all arrive roughly at the same time. But this list won't look anything like a standard Tyranid army list.

The Tyranid answer to Wave Serpents for me was Hive Guard.
Of course that's because my opponent only had one, and I stole the initiative so moved Hive Guard forward and actually killed something with them quickly for once, rather than my usual three turns of shooting to kill a single normal Dread, which is in fact finished off by a Dakka Fex anyway.

Gargoyles are reliably moving at least 16" a turn. If WS move that fast they are only shooting 1 gun at full bs. Therefore you are reducing their effectiveness. Each serp kills 6 to 8 a turn. Call it 7. Thats only 56pts of gargoyles a turn. It doesnt matter how fast they are, there is nowhere to go - the board is crammed with models, limiting their movement.
If running 75 fully upgraded gargoyles you are talking 600pts. If the enemy focuses their entire firepower on the gargoyles for two turns, assuming the enemy got first turn, then they may wipe two of the units out and take the other unit below half strength... assuming they have taken zero damage from the zoans themselves. The rest of the tyranid army on the other hand will be untouched. Will have to weather one turn of shooting at worst, minus whoever the surviving gargoyles and parasite charge and casualties from the zoans. Then 75 horms, prime and terms will be assaulting. And that is against a list which has a huge amount of anti horde shots.
If you want more bodies, trade the zoans for 15 more upgraded gargoyles, 20 more upgraded hormagaunts and 4 more termigants.
That will leave you with Prime, Parasite, 90 fully upgraded gargoyles, 95 partially upgraded hormagaunts, 17 termagants and lots of spawned rippers. That's 204+ models in a 1850pt game, most of which can screw over most things and 2 synapse bubbles which will be exceedingly difficult to eliminate.
Try scatter lasering that mass!
If facing serp spam choose ag rather than ts on the horms and bingo - 187 models in the army who can harm a serpent.

Would be the same match up a demonic bum rush 60 dogs/120 wounds + 60 deamonettes=180 very fast wounds for 1,500

Ymgarls as mentioned before are good for popping vehicles rear armour, but don't take +1 attack, take +1 str instead. 3 attacks at S5 is better than 4 attacks at S4. I also would probably not multi charge, instead id use 2 groups of 5/6 just for tactical versitility

5 x 3 = 15 attacks = 10 hits = 3.33 pens/glances (and serpent shield wont help)
5 x 4 = 20 attacks = 13.33 hits = 2 glances (requiring 6s)

I'd probably go with 6/7 just to increase the odds (looking at the math).

Poly Ranger wrote:
Gargoyles are reliably moving at least 16" a turn. If WS move that fast they are only shooting 1 gun at full bs. Therefore you are reducing their effectiveness. Each serp kills 6 to 8 a turn. Call it 7. Thats only 56pts of gargoyles a turn. It doesnt matter how fast they are, there is nowhere to go - the board is crammed with models, limiting their movement.
If running 75 fully upgraded gargoyles you are talking 600pts. If the enemy focuses their entire firepower on the gargoyles for two turns, assuming the enemy got first turn, then they may wipe two of the units out and take the other unit below half strength... assuming they have taken zero damage from the zoans themselves. The rest of the tyranid army on the other hand will be untouched. Will have to weather one turn of shooting at worst, minus whoever the surviving gargoyles and parasite charge and casualties from the zoans. Then 75 horms, prime and terms will be assaulting. And that is against a list which has a huge amount of anti horde shots.
If you want more bodies, trade the zoans for 15 more upgraded gargoyles, 20 more upgraded hormagaunts and 4 more termigants.
That will leave you with Prime, Parasite, 90 fully upgraded gargoyles, 95 partially upgraded hormagaunts, 17 termagants and lots of spawned rippers. That's 204+ models in a 1850pt game, most of which can screw over most things and 2 synapse bubbles which will be exceedingly difficult to eliminate.
Try scatter lasering that mass!
If facing serp spam choose ag rather than ts on the horms and bingo - 187 models in the army who can harm a serpent.

I think that maybe I'm not getting the responses I hoped for. I should have explicitly stated that I was looking for suggestions that would still apply to a TAC list....Your suggestion of a major list overhaul will still get smashed to smithereens against ANY IG list with ordinance, thunderfire cannons will have a hayday, flamers will enjoy this....anyways I hope I get my point across.

Don't get me wrong I appreciate the "thinking out of the box" mentality, but I think it's a little farther off from what I was hoping.

Even if I did take your suggestion of taking Zoanthrope, you need 3 in a spod to threaten a Wave serpent because I highly doubt that a half decent Eldar player will let a Zoan with Warp lance get within 24" of his Wave serpents (that's 18" range, 6" move). I prefer to use Zoans as biomancy trade outs anyways. They can pass around Endurance to units to help them survive longer....which I think is more useful than having a long shot chance of penetrating any type of heavy armor...remember, there are 4 rolls that have to be successful for your Zoans to achieve a successful armor penetrating hit. (5 if you include the vehicle damage table)...

I think that as this discussion goes on, I'm further convinced that Hive Guard may be our only ranged option to destroying Wave serpents....

The other concerning thing to me is taking your turn with that many models on the board.....There's no way you could honestly get past turn 3 with that type of army. Then you get into the whole discussion of shared play time.....which I won't even get into......

After doing the maths I totally agree that hive guard are the best ranged option to take down a WS. A zoan passing the psy test, getting past a 6+ DtW, hitting, pening, getting past the 4+ jink AND blowing up a WS (6 rolls ;-).. for destroyed anyway)is only an 8.5% chance.
And you are totally correct in bringing up the point that a horde that large takes up an unfair proportion of game time.
However, theoretically it should work against most TAC armies and just drown the WS in bodies. But I completely understand that it is in the opposite direction of what you are looking for.

So, how then, do we as Tyranid players use Hive guard to threaten said Wave serpents?

The only way I can really think of is by using cover (in any form) and making sure FnP is always active?

You can always just hope for an objective based game and do what we do best. Capture them.