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ok, so as BA/C:SM what are the best ways to deal with these fraggers?

Grav weaponry. Preferably on Bikes, Cents.

ok, how do BA handle them :3

Depends on which ones you're facing. Daemon FMC spam is a different beast to Tyranid walking/tunneling MC.

Nids, deamons are not as bad. (yay force weapons)

TH/SS termies make short work of Monstrous Creatures. Grav weaponry can work, assuming that it isn't a C'Tan. Sniper squads aren't a horrible option either.

TH/SS termies are your best bet. Mephiston makes short work of most others. Goes before them and instantly kills them.

With Swarmlord, that's more difficult. He'll kill Mephiston unless you get iron arm as well. In that case I say stay away from him and kill the rest of your army. Keep mephiston relatively close, though, say 16-18" away, just in case he ever rolls an 11 or 12 on iron arm. If that ever DOESN'T go up, get in there and wreck him with your force weapon.

Powerfists that cant be challenged out. We have lots of units that can run this way.
1) sang guard
2) death co
3) termis/assault termis
4) honour guard
5) an assault squad with libby (with force axe) and priest, both the sarge and priest with fists. Deny the challenge and you still have 2 models causing serious pain for the mc.
6) vanguard vets.

All the above units can run fists that cant be challenged out. If prepared, close combat mcs are one of the few things BA excel at killing.

Hey PolyRanger, would you say a tactical termie unit would be good to take against an mc heavy tyranid army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The reason I ask, is I've got a set on the shelf and have some games coming up with a mate who plays nids.

 raiden wrote:
ok, how do BA handle them :3

I play against a Chaos Daemon FMC spam army all the time, and I gotta say, BA are fighting an uphill battle in such an engagement. The Demon Princes and Bloodthirsters I usually face go first (Initiative 8 and above), usually have instant kill weapons (Nurgle Greater Reward weapon FTW), and have a ridiculously high WS (9s and 10s). So, even when I do manage to force a FMC out of the air and assault it with my TH/SS termies, they're hitting on 5s (huge issue) and are more than likely denied their FnP rolls because of the Instant Death nature of the AP2 wounds coming their way. As bad as all that sounds, TH/SS termies are still one of the best bets against the Flying Circus, but it doesn't always end well...

Mephiston, sadly, doesn't get the benefit of his high initiative or WS, and usually dies before getting a chance to use his Force Weapon. This has made me think of changing up his normally awesome book powers (sacrilege) for some rolls on the biomancy tree. 2 powers in particular would give him a fighting chance in the Demon Prince/Bloodthirster duels...Endurance for Eternal Warrior, and Warp Speed for a chance to strike first (or at least at the same time). I'm not saying this is THE answer for Mephiston...I've yet to even try it...but it is something I may try to help level the playing field.

The unit that HAS been working REALLY well for me in these games is my Plasma Gun toting Jump Pack Honor Guard. They run alongside (or behind) a unit of Sanguinary Guard that has a Dark Angel Bike Librarian with a Power Field Generator. The PFG gives both squads a 4++, and the Librarian buffs the Honor Guard with Prescience, making them super lethal, even against Flyers. The FnP from the Novitiate in the Honor Guard squad also makes the 2 units super hard to deal with as they move around the battlefield. Allying in the DA for the PFG Libby has been a big win for me thus far...

Full disclosure, I don't have a great win-loss record against my buddies FMC Daemons, but they are one of the top tier armies, and each game is a super fun bloodbath. Win or Lose, neither of us have many models on the table by the end of the game, which is what you'd expect when 2 armies have the same "hack you in the face with an axe" game-plan. My advice would be go into this type of match-up with low expectations on winning, but high expectations on having a blast. You won't be disappointed.

Jamo wrote:
Hey PolyRanger, would you say a tactical termie unit would be good to take against an mc heavy tyranid army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The reason I ask, is I've got a set on the shelf and have some games coming up with a mate who plays nids.

A termie unit will work, but it wont be the best option due to lack of speed to get in combat with the mcs rather than little bugs. A savvy opponent wilp just tarpit the unit with gants. The best options I find are the assault marine squad mentioned above, th/ss termies or death co assaulting from a hovering raven or landraider or a sang guard/hon guard unit with 2 fists (and priest for sang). The sang guard/ hon guard option is expensive mind, and you will lose expensive models before you strike.

Librarian
Jp, force axe (sword and shield powers)
125
Priest
Jp, pf
100
Assault squad
10 man, pf, 2 flamers
225

400 pts for a mobile unit that excels at both MC hunting AND horde hunting. If you get challenged, deny. The opponent will choose the st10 ap2 force weapon. That will mean you still have 6 st 9 ap 2 attacks and 25 st5 attacks. The unit also has fnp. The casualties the MC causes will be cheap 18pt marines.
The most important point though is that you ideally want is to get 2 units with hidden fists into the same combat. This will wipe out a tervigon in one round.

nm, found a way, sternguard w/ 2+ poisoned bring them down. (since most only have a 3+ armor)

 raiden wrote:
nm, found a way, sternguard w/ 2+ poisoned bring them down. (since most only have a 3+ armor)

Pretty much this, Sternguard is the ultimate Swiss army knife of all Marines (well most of them).
I have never regretted a squad since they can deal with almost anything, at least if you have combi-weapons.

Other than that, a DC with hidden PF/TH can deal with mostly anything and Meltaguns in Assault squads are cheap and effective.
Or you can have a flying Dreadnought with S6 force weapon

I'd run Mephiston.

yeah, lets put mephy vs something w/ ap2 attacks >.>...

From a Tyranid player's standpoint, the things that i tend to avoid in CC/kill with dakka are:
- terminators (any flavor honestly). I find shooty ones tend to do more damage, because if they have th/ss dudes I just tarpit them forever with a nigh-endless stream of gribblies.
-anything that has loads of melta bombs. It still bothers me that my rampaging death monster politely sits still so Joe the Guardsman can zip-tie a melta bomb around his neck
- sizable units of PF death company (usually around 8 is the threshhold for 'oh crap' on my part) 12 of them in a LRR or 11+a chappy would be SUPER annoying. If points are an issue don't forget power maces. concussive is still definitely a thing.

Things I dont particularly care about:
- force weapons are a cute thing that end up hurting the user 90% of the time (Woo! Shadows!!!), and failing more often than not. Remember that you still have to wound my t6+ MC in order to activate that thing. (maybe)
- remember that not everyone spams flying tyrants. If mephiston ever gets charged by/charges LW/BS tyrant/prime/warriors/etc, its I1 town for him, population DEAD.
- sanguinary guard: OH LOOK! I1 astartes whose armor I ignore anyway!! OMNOMNOMNOMON.

Things that are annoying/cant do much because lol tyranid AA?
-stormravens are super difficult to kill for tyranids, and they have the things that generally hurt them well (those S8 AP1 missiles, assault/lascannnos, multimeltas).
-Having double-melta assault squads is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because S8 AP1. Bad because now you're in assault range you FOOOL!!!
-Baal pred w/ AC. never underestimate the power of a twin-linked assault cannon against anything t6+. I've lost more tervigons/trygons to assault cannons that to hammernators.

Odd things that might work well:
-LC preds Having a fast predator with at least a TL lascannon hitting me every turn would be a pain, especially if the dude went all out and took a pair of tri-las predators. Not as bad as ravens though.
-LR spam: Even though I -have- MC, it doesnt mean that they will work against raiders. Redeemers are the worst for me to fight, because of flamestorms/TL-AC/multimelta, but the good ol' godhammer still works decently enough.

Closing thoughts: If your opponent does what everyone else does and spams flyrants/tervigons, then DC/hammernators in stormravens are pretty go to choises. same with jump double-melta units. Blenderdreads of both flavors are still super potent, because S6 lightning claws on a WS6 armor 13 dread is still something to be feared in CC. Derp I forgot to mention furiosos on the ravens.... thats a thing too... derp. Anyway... thats a fairly comprehensive list of what a decent nid player feels is annoying/dangerous from what BA can field.

Addendum: as far as sterngard go, most of the time i'll just have my flyrant vector/dakka them away asap, to minimize damage. Unless you field a ton of them, they are usually just a turn 1/2 priority for me to murder with my fast killy things.

Sternguard have not failed me yet on killing MCs, the only problem is they only kill 1 before they become toasted, i would add more but if i do that it would take fro the rest of my list and we cant have that can we.

 raiden wrote:
yeah, lets put mephy vs something w/ ap2 attacks >.>...

Mephy absolutely rolls any MC that doesn't have a 2+ save (or a 2++ re-rollable or similar) that doesn't have Eternal Warrior (i.e most of them unless they have Iron Arm). He is almost always hitting first, re-rolling ones and wounding on 2's and only needs to get a single wound through to get a kill. In return its very rare for a single MC to have the damage output to one shot him, most Nid MCs have 2-5 attacks base, Daemons etc a little higher maybe but still very unlikely to hit and wound with everything.

The real answer is weight of fire, otherwise you dedicate too much of your army to strong STRNG/AP shots and can't contend with the higher model count of 6th which marines already have problems with.


One of the reasons why Tau are so effective is that even their most basic troop gets a 30'' inch range and can even rapid fire if the FMC is looking to charge next turn.

Strng 5 is probably going to wound 50% or at least 33% of the time and can force a lot of saves, moreover the increasingly triple burst cannonx2 buffmander squad is going to be able to force a LOT of saves due to MH and is going to be able to out-maneuver your MC.

tldr volume of fire is an effective answer to single MC's and more importantly multiple MC's AND to many other problems other armies provide.