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Hi everyone, new to the forums as a poster but have been anonymously scrolling through the vault of information available to me.
My wife has started playing Chaos Space Marines and effectively gave me her Tyranid army to play. I've read through the strengths of the Tyranids thread but I don't recall anyone touching on a definite method to defeat long range armies. So I'd like to inquire of the community here for their input or a link to where I can find details already discussed to avoid a rehash of the same information.

The issues I'm having so far?

Thunderfire Cannons - Extremely cheap for what it does and effective even on Monstrous Creatures.
Tau

Problems I have: I do not have any of the dataslates, and based off the formation requirements I've read about - I don't want to sink that much money into models for the specific formations. I am also not a tournament player personally but like having options open to me. So right now simply Codex options is what I am limited to.

This is a list I've devised on my own list that I *think* will put a lot of pressure on long range armies:



The idea is a lot of things come onto the table ideally all at once. The genestealers, if necessary can either outflank, infiltrate or capture objectives.

The Lictors, along with the two genestealer groups I intend to infiltrate can distract a lot of fire. The point of the stealers is to buy lictors time to live to get the rest of my army neatly into place. Depending on exactly what was brought to the table, Flyrants can walk the forces up to ensure synapse coverage until the cavalry arrives or one (maybe two if I keep one of the other synapses out of reserves) goes up to give additional target saturation to ensure the livelihood of the lictors.

As I was writing this post I also pondered about bringing one of the Tyrants down to being a footrant to free up 35 points possibly. Though I am not sure what unless I downgraded him to a Tyranid Prime and attached him to a set of Gaunts (since Hormagaunts would then not be outflanking due to Instinctive Behavior problems) that is in his own right beefy.

The last idea I had was to remove the Hormagaunts and a flyrant to get a Tyranid prime attached to a Hive Guard brood of 3 and the Norn Crown. I look forward to your thoughts!

I find Gargoyles are good for dealing with ranged opponents - they're cheap, fast and force your opponent to deal with them while your other forces move up the board behind a moving 5+ cover meat shield. Flyrants are also good for this. That's really the key to making Tyranids work in any capacity, threat overload.

Biovores would be a better bet than Lictors for ranged power- you're paying 50pts for a homing beacon- that's 2 more pie plates you could be laying down. I also second the gargoyles- they move fast, can deep strike if need be(and shoot up a squad when they land), and screen other more valuable units such as your Shrikes and Ravenors.

Of course, what are all the models available to you?

My collection is as follows:

Hmm, don't have my book handy but the gargoyles, crone, and the Ravenors should probably be your fast attack. 2 flyrants of course. Mawloc, Biovore, and not sure about the last heavy support. Troops- the Genestealers would be good to infiltrate/outflank in close, but you might include a tervie and devilgants as a "home base" type unit.

Yeah, deep strike and Outflank are good ways to get threat overload. I personally like Mawloc, and Trygon Prime lets you deep strike Synapse.

That lets you use things like Ravagers and Hive Commander'd outflanking Broods of gaunts. That puts a lot of threats in the backfield. Let Big Wormey, or your Mawloc have a little talk with the artillery, and you will be on the way to victory.

I love Genestealers, but they are still kinda over priced So plain vanilla gaunts are your best bet for Troops. Tervigons are still good, but they got a serious price raise, so while one is still a good add in, more than one is hard to justify...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, I had a chance to look at you horde of figs, and use a pencil and paper...

A suggested list, based on what you have...

HQ: Winged Dakka'rant 230

Troops: Termigants x 30 120
Troops: Termigants x20 80
Troops Hormigaunts x15 75
Troops: Tervigon, Thorax Hive 205

Elites: Hive Guard x2 110
Elites: Lictor Brood x2 100
Elites: Venothrope 45

Fast: Gargoyles x10 60
Fast: Crone 155

Heavy: Tyrgon Prime 230
Heavy: Mawloc 140
Heavy: Dakafexen x2 300

Total cost 1850

This not a super list, but it is a winnable one, personaly I'd replace the Hive Guard with Zoeys (and save 10 pts)( and buy an upgrade)

A second Winged Dakka'rant is a easy choice, though its Not easy to see what to take out... Dropping down a Brood of gaunts and getting Hive Commander looks like an easy move that helps put pressure on the other side's backfield. (I'd likely use the x30 Brood to Outflank myself...)

Then deepstrike the Tyrgon Prime, set a tunnel marker, Mawloc the heck out of something and create enough chaos to run your main force down the field intact.

Well you have everything you need to run an Endless Swarm, Add a broodlord and you have Broodlord hunting pack.

Raveners and Gargoyles are a solid turn to assault, and the Crone is right with them. The Flyrant can provided the the forward Synpase.

You also have enough warriors to run a Synapse node to get the 18" range warrior broods.

Though I have to admit, I am thinking Trygon, lictors, endless swarm with raveners, gragoyles and crone leading the charge. Use the VT, Warriors and Flyrant for Synpase.