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my son is kicking my ultramarine butt with his tyrannid hoarde. the hive tyrant and carnifex are just too much to handle and while lascannons can work the low number of shots takes too long. any suggestions? dsf

Get some sternguard with their specialist ammo. One of the options is poisoned so that will rip through the tyranids. Sniper rifles wound on 4+ so that will help chip away at those larger tyranids. Dreadnoughts may help too, since they have gotten a little more durable. Last, remember that all your space marines carry krak grenades which can be used in CC against monstrous creatures.

Tell him to put wings on his HT.

And make sure the HT and the fexes all have two TL devourers...

Gravgunz

In addition to the good suggestions above (sternguard, snipers, grav) there is also Chaplain Cassius. You may be accused of list tailoring by including him. But if you stick him in a drop pod of sternguard, they will erase pretty much any nid they land next to.

Sternguard are a good, solid answer to most of life’s problems. Adding a squad of them to your army is a good idea overall, not just to squash bugs.

A bike squad loaded with grav guns is another generically useful unit. Good for taking out all sorts of hard targets.

Sniper scouts have a chance to wound the big nasties on the table, although with lower BS then normal, it takes a while for the wounds to pile up. The can still contribute to downing high-T targets, which is more then some units can claim.

And pick up some of the Tyranic War Veterans. Nice minis. Don’t bother with the dataslate for their special rules, just field them as sternguard.

Since the changes to Smash, Nids can have some trouble with AV13 walkers. An Ironclad is a big threat to nearly anything not a Carnifex.

All good suggestions.

Sternguard are tyrannid murderers. If you want to have some real fun, try adding some Heavy flamers and dropping them somewhere. Not the most competitive, but who doesn't love firing 5 heavy flamers into a horde of bugs?

Grav gun bikers are crazy against MCs (AND if they cause a wound, they reduce the models Initiative to 1 until the end of the next assault phase. This can combo with an IC carrying the burning blade, as it almost guarantees blinding).

Ironclads are super hard to deal with as AV13 is much beefier now. You can lose the melta and get two HFs, too, which makes the Ironclad even more useful against infantry heavy armies.

Land Raiders are another good tool (esp. LRCs or LRRs) for dealing with tyranids. Proper targetting early game (i.e. killing as many tank-killers as possible) essentially leaves you wiht a giant, impenetrable box. Remember, as well, that you can tank shock and shoot now, so Land Raiders become even more devastating at disrupting positions and killing infantry.

Finally, if you go pods, use DWML. Esp. if you drop in dreads. The DWML can fire the turn it enters in 7th, and a S5 large blast, it can really do a number on hordes (and t-shirt saves make the AP- a non-issue).

The flamers against hordes are no longer what they used to be, you can only kill to the max reach of the flamer now.

Thunderfire Cannons are your friend, and in 2 drop pods of sternguard. Combat squad them on arrival and rapid fire, wounding on 2+... That bug that was giving you trouble is no longer giving you trouble.

Absolutely bother with the Tyrannic Veterans Dataslate. There is nothing that will kill hordes faster than 3+ Stormtalons with Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons, a dedicated transport Land Raider Crusader and a maximum compliment of War Vets led by Cassius. The Stormtalons also confer Ignores Cover to the Veterans. So wounds on 2+ and removes cover saves means all sorts of hordes are dead. Spend the remainder of your points to deal with MCs. Or just use these to shoot a lot and bring them down the old fashioned way. Negates the Venomthrope and Malanthrope bubbles.

Combat Squad some tacticals so Sergeant and Assault Weapon are in one with a Rhino and a Missile Launcher is in the other 5 man group, hold objectives with the missile launcher, fire krak at the MCs and make drivebys on the MCs with the Rhino, Sergeant and Assault Weapon firing out of the top hatch with Plasma and Combi-plasma or whatever combo is choice. Two groups of that, plus some bikes using two Assault Weapons, a Combi-whatever on the Sergeant and a Multi Melta attack bike and that's a good sized and very fast group, most of which can't be tarpitted (hiding in metal bawkses).

Tyranids, consume!!!

Are you bringing the faith of the god emperor??


I have seen many games with centurions kicken monstrous creature ass so i recommend bringing them.

 xttz wrote:
Since the changes to Smash, Nids can have some trouble with AV13 walkers. An Ironclad is a big threat to nearly anything not a Carnifex.

I agree, close combat dreads can really give MCs a spanking now.

Why bring centurions or dreadnoughts? They're so over priced and do almost nothing at all but attract a lot of fire power. With centurions LR is a must so they don't footslog. That comes to a base total of 440 points! They could kill a swarm lord and still not make their points back and chances are the LR will get snipped by anti armour units or the gaunts will get in the way of the centurions and if you're really lucky they'll have poison sacks for your t5. Lets see how many armour saves you can make before they die of suffocation in the gaunt pile! With the assaults they have no good ranged at all for hordes or anything else unless you're right in their face which is hard considering that they're such a fire magnet. Honestly anything a centurion squad can do as for fire power a devastator squad can do better and be cheaper. Dreadnoughts are a bit better but are by no standards good. You pay a lot of points for one model which can tie up a gaunt squad up but requires a drop pod to get there and it'll take forever to kill all the gaunts. Did I mention that they cant assault after deep strike? The Tyranids can easily adapt to having a hulking piece if metal put right on their doorstep by slapping him to death with one of many MC's. Not to mention that if the gaunts want to run they will like 99% of the time. Save the slots they take up for more important things.

 Hashbeth wrote:
All good suggestions.

Sternguard are tyrannid murderers. If you want to have some real fun, try adding some Heavy flamers and dropping them somewhere. Not the most competitive, but who doesn't love firing 5 heavy flamers into a horde of bugs?

Tyranid horde builds aren't competitive either. At least not outside Maelstrom. Sit back and pick off synapse and Venomthropes, bring dreadnoughts and lots of tanks. gg

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Absolutely bother with the Tyrannic Veterans Dataslate. There is nothing that will kill hordes faster than 3+ Stormtalons with Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons, a dedicated transport Land Raider Crusader and a maximum compliment of War Vets led by Cassius. The Stormtalons also confer Ignores Cover to the Veterans. So wounds on 2+ and removes cover saves means all sorts of hordes are dead. Spend the remainder of your points to deal with MCs. Or just use these to shoot a lot and bring them down the old fashioned way. Negates the Venomthrope and Malanthrope bubbles.

This.

The Saint Tylus Battleforce Formation Detachment is tailor-made for murdering tyranids.

A 1500 point force would be...what?

Ortan Cassius
1 x Tyrannic War Veterans Squad (10)
3 x Tyrannic War Veterans Squads (10) with Meltabombs
3 x Storm Talons with Typhoon Missile Launchers

The storm talons can start on the board due to Aerial Superiority - use them with Krak Missiles to blow away tyranid warriors or monstrous creatures, or frag missile the little bugs. Either way, 40 veterans will make a right mess of whatever's left; engaging monstrous creatures as handily as hormagaunts, and gain ignore cover when combining fire with the gunships.

The only chapter tactics doctrine which matters is Devastator - time it right and you twin-link overwatch fire against charging enemies. With hellfire shells that's truely disgusting.

Tyrannic War Veterans are the bee's knees against tyranids. Against A.N.Other army, they're sternguard you can buy in a formation (which isn't a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination) but against tyranids, they gain Preferred Enemy and Zealot, making them about half as good again as normal sternguard both at range and in close combat (indeed they're better than stock vanguard up close)

If you are having trouble with Tyranid MCs, remember that most of them are T6 3+ save. This means that plasma and missile launchers wreck those MCs.

Take out Venomthropes first, then synapse, then watch as the brood falters.

 Hansisaf wrote:
If you are having trouble with Tyranid MCs, remember that most of them are T6 3+ save. This means that plasma and missile launchers wreck those MCs.

Take out Venomthropes first, then synapse, then watch as the brood falters.

I hope by Venomthrope you mean Malanthropes...

Silly goose! Venoms where so 2 months ago!

 Nevelon wrote:
Sternguard are a good, solid answer to most of life’s problems.

This is one of those 40k related things that you can say without any context at all and it will still make sense. Example:

Me: "Dad, there's a spider in the kitchen."

My Dad: "My Sternguard minis are in the basement."

Well, Space Marines are pretty strong, so search on Warhammer 40k tactica for answers.

if you're not packing grav guns you should be. they're pretty much tailor made for MC killing.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Get some sternguard with their specialist ammo. One of the options is poisoned so that will rip through the tyranids. Sniper rifles wound on 4+ so that will help chip away at those larger tyranids. Dreadnoughts may help too, since they have gotten a little more durable. Last, remember that all your space marines carry krak grenades which can be used in CC against monstrous creatures.

Screw the snipers, they sound good on paper but suck immensely.

Sternguard on the other hand, are absolutely top drawer.

Take two squads, take Tigurius (or any librarian) to buff them, and watch them die, it only because everything takes a wound on a 2+ regardless of toughness.