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I played against a Tyranid list that included 2 flying Hive Tyrants and a Harpy. I had a pretty standard Ultramarines Battle Demi Company with Drop Pods and Razorbacks. I had absolutely zero surface-to-air capability, and had to snap shot everything against the flyers. Beyond the 3 flyers, all I really had to deal with were 2 large broods of hormagaunts and a melee Carnifex, but I felt like I could handle those with all of my tactical marines and devastators. The Tyrants and Harpy immediately swooped my positions and harassed my army throughout the game.

I think I made the mistake of focusing too much firepower towards the flyers, at some points I was tossing 15+ dice (heavy gravs) at them just to try to bring one down. I probably dedicated 3 turns of my devastators and razorbacks just shooting at them. I ended up getting overwhelmed by the hormagaunts and carnifex and spent the last two turns with all of my troops in a huge melee blob.

Should I have really just ignored the flyers and focused on wiping out what I could on the ground and holding objectives?

There's a definite risk-reward with Nid Flying Circus in that you can deal out lots of damage, but can't contest objective easily. With the Space Marines and lots of transports that are all ObSec, you can easily reach a critical mass that is all but impossible for the Tyranid Flying Circus to deal with while staying in the air, yet will be shot down horribly if they land. Do what you thought - get to objectives and just hold them, and you'll win. Only shoot once you have no reason not to be moving anywhere. Also, once you score a wound on a flying monstrous creature, don't be afraid to switch targets. Cause as many grounding checks per turn as possible.

Good luck!

Play the mission.
If you are going for annihilation, try ignoring them until later on. Fliers can take a lot of shooting for little impact, where-as using that firepower against an easier-to-kill unit can have more effect.

For objective games, hover fliers can score, so need dealing with. From memory, ANY hit can cause a grounding test, so use small-ish arms to do that, and use your bigger guns elsewhere, until it is down.

Mysterious objectives have a chance to be skyfire positions. If you can find one of them, get over to it, fast.

Also, you have the first couple turns until they arrive. use that time to thin the rest of the army.

Ignore them.

Its now wounds not hits for grounding tests, iirc. It was hits in 6th?

But I agree with the consensus; only shoot at the fliers when the is no reason not to and focus on the ground war.

Next time, change it up from a Battle Demi-Company to a Pinion Demi-Company with the full complement of Scout Squads and put Missile Launchers with Flakk into your Devastator Squad and put the Grav-Cannons into your Tactical Squads.

Sounds stupid, right? Remember that Pinion allows you to use the Scout/Veteran Scout Sergeants to grant Ignores Cover to each any squad in the Pinion. So those Devastators with Flakk can gain Ignores Cover and remove the Hive Tyrants and Harpy from the field early on if you want to.

At the same time, you then have 4 other Scout Sergeants to confer Ignores Cover to your Tactical Squads and a Scout Squad to mess with the ground game(especially helpful if they have any Venomthropes).


Edit note: While I realize that the topic is "no AA capability", doing something like this could potentially force the Tyranid player to shift up their list or rethink it given that you shut down the air game pretty handily.

Otherwise as Martel and Skinnereal say, just ignore them for the most part.

Do nothing. Kill the entire ground force of the enemy, and move your units as quickly as possible to every objective on the board. Any objective that's in cover, simply go to ground on it. Any that's not, hold with transports if possible. If he drops something into hover to contest a point, fire everything at it.

Quite simple to deal with, not a satisfying win, but you should probably win.

Ignore them until something has to jink. By then you already have to snap shot might as well give it a go.

Play the mission. Flyers can't contest objectives.

Stick your units on objectives and rack up maelstrom points.

You should've been easily able to wipe his ground forces, leaving him with just the three flying monsters. Your army would have, what, like 20 individual units? He can't take them all on, and can only shoot 2-3 things per turn. Play the mission, snap-shot when you don't have a better target.