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Always love to see unique lists garner some attention for themselves. It gets old seeing "Max Flyrants, Minimum Troops" so many lists do lately.

 jy2 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:
Best Nids at Texas Wargamescon went to a Tyranid list based on Endless Swarm. One of my buddies who plays Tau lost to him. The basic list looked like this:

Spoiler:

Tyranid CAD:
Swarmlord

Malanthrope
Malanthrope

30 TGants
Tervigon

Dimacharon

Trygon

Endless Swarm:
20 HGants (TS)
20 HGants (TS)
20 HGants (TS)
10 TGants
10 TGants
10 TGants

Blew me away that he beat Tau in the kill points mission. (Tau won kill points like 16-4, but Tyranids won Maelstrom and tertiary).

The Changes to the ITC missions definitely create a niche for lists like this. Still an extreme RPS list, but congrats to him. I believe he finished 4-1. I didn't see a single other Tyranid player in the GT, but I may have missed one or two. I played nids in the Team event, and Orks in the Narrative.

I've always liked the Endless Swarm and depending on the missions, they can do very well. It is surprising to see him do so well with so little mobility however, but this type of list is potentially very good in Maelstrom objectives against all but the most extreme ObSec armies.

I would classify the list as extremely mobile. The Trygon comes in, in your opponent's deployment zone, and you can choose to bring respawned units out of that, or walk them on. Hormies are pretty darn mobile with a 6" move, a D6 + 3" run, and fleet.

The bigger problem is that it requires the opponent to play along somewhat and eliminate units completely, and a list with ignores cover or sufficient volume of fire can take out Swarmy and the malanthropes. Without those the list becomes a pushover. The Table I watched him playing on had multiple LOS blocking pieces of terrain that allowed him to hide them out of LOS. Also it helped somewhat that his Tervigon was a CFex conversion, and his Malanthropes were Tyrant conversions, because they were significantly smaller than you normally see.

My buddy playing Tau made some serious mistakes against this list (targetting the Trygon rather than the Dimacharon, Eliminating units completely, not playing aggressively enough in the Maelstrom). I think if you know how it works, it might not be nearly as effective as it was in this situation.

Other than tau what armies can still ignore cover reliably?

 NightWrench wrote:
Other than tau what armies can still ignore cover reliably?

Skitari can reduce cover saves by 1. Eldar can remove stealth and shrouded with a psychic power. The new marine vindicator squad can ignore cover. The Sicarin ignores jink saves. One of the new knights has a hellstorm flamer.

Just had another test game. It was me running the Space Marines Battle Company against iNcontrol running Pentyrant Tyranids.

I ran:

2x Demi-Companies:

Ko'sorro Khan
Chaplain
6x5 Tactica squads - 4x w/meltas, 2x w/plasmas, all w/meltabombs, 5 razorbacks, 1 drop pod
2x5 Assault squads - 2x flamers each in 2 drop pods
2x5 Devastator squads - 2x missile launchers each in 2 razorbacks (1 w/TL-lascannons)
1x Ironclad dreadnought in drop pod

1st Company Task Force:
2x5 Assault terminators
1x5 Shooty terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher

iNcontrol ran:

5x Dakka flyrants w/Egrubs
Malanthrope
4x Lictors (separate)
5x Spores
2x Mawlocs


Pregame Analysis: IMO, Pentyrant is the hard-counter to Battle Company Space Marines. Pentyrant lists work really well against MSU so they should do well against my marines. However, with almost my entire army being ObSec, I should be able to take the Maelstrom Secondary. With the superiority of Tyranid firepower and the lack of AA for Marines, Tyranids should be able to take the Primary. Basically, the game is going to boil down to this - how well can I survive Tyranid shooting? If I can survive, I should be able to win this game even without killing a whole lot of bugs. It not, then Tyranids have the potential to table my army. I would give bugs the edge in this game because they are better able to achieve the Tertiaries (and in particular, First Blood) than my Marines.


Summary coming out later.

tag8833 wrote:

 NightWrench wrote:
Other than tau what armies can still ignore cover reliably?

Skitari can reduce cover saves by 1. Eldar can remove stealth and shrouded with a psychic power. The new marine vindicator squad can ignore cover. The Sicarin ignores jink saves. One of the new knights has a hellstorm flamer.

Also, wave serpents, though not as common anymore, can still ignore cover with their initial volley. And then you've got deathstar armies (centstar, Librarian Conclave) going for Perfect Timing. Finally, IG/AM can give orders to ignore cover and I believe the wyvern can ignore cover as well.

Oh, and there's the dreaded DE/Eldar combo with D-scythe wraithknights coming in from deepstrike without scatter via their Webway portal DE ally. That's a nasty combo that you will see in tournament play.

tag8833 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:
Best Nids at Texas Wargamescon went to a Tyranid list based on Endless Swarm. One of my buddies who plays Tau lost to him. The basic list looked like this:

Spoiler:

Tyranid CAD:
Swarmlord

Malanthrope
Malanthrope

30 TGants
Tervigon

Dimacharon

Trygon

Endless Swarm:
20 HGants (TS)
20 HGants (TS)
20 HGants (TS)
10 TGants
10 TGants
10 TGants

Blew me away that he beat Tau in the kill points mission. (Tau won kill points like 16-4, but Tyranids won Maelstrom and tertiary).

The Changes to the ITC missions definitely create a niche for lists like this. Still an extreme RPS list, but congrats to him. I believe he finished 4-1. I didn't see a single other Tyranid player in the GT, but I may have missed one or two. I played nids in the Team event, and Orks in the Narrative.

I've always liked the Endless Swarm and depending on the missions, they can do very well. It is surprising to see him do so well with so little mobility however, but this type of list is potentially very good in Maelstrom objectives against all but the most extreme ObSec armies.

I would classify the list as extremely mobile. The Trygon comes in, in your opponent's deployment zone, and you can choose to bring respawned units out of that, or walk them on. Hormies are pretty darn mobile with a 6" move, a D6 + 3" run, and fleet.

The bigger problem is that it requires the opponent to play along somewhat and eliminate units completely, and a list with ignores cover or sufficient volume of fire can take out Swarmy and the malanthropes. Without those the list becomes a pushover. The Table I watched him playing on had multiple LOS blocking pieces of terrain that allowed him to hide them out of LOS. Also it helped somewhat that his Tervigon was a CFex conversion, and his Malanthropes were Tyrant conversions, because they were significantly smaller than you normally see.

My buddy playing Tau made some serious mistakes against this list (targetting the Trygon rather than the Dimacharon, Eliminating units completely, not playing aggressively enough in the Maelstrom). I think if you know how it works, it might not be nearly as effective as it was in this situation.

Trygon coming in isn't really great mobility. At the earliest he comes in on T2 and you cannot use the hole until T3 or later. Sure, hormagants are fast....but they can be stopped in their tracks by enemy assault units. Their "mobility" can be "controlled" by certain armies.

When I talk about mobility, I mean that you can reach the far-away objective in just 1 turn. Lictors can do it. Mawlocs can do it. Deepstriking units can do it. Flyers/jump infantry can potentially do it as they can move up to 18" (non-flying) and more importantly, they can move over screening units. Ground-based units, no matter how fast they are (unless they are Slaaneshi-fast) just don't have that type of mobility. Sure, they have good ground control, but that isn't the same thing as having good mobility.

 jy2 wrote:
Just had another test game. It was me running the Space Marines Battle Company against iNcontrol running Pentyrant Tyranids.

I ran:

2x Demi-Companies:

Ko'sorro Khan
Chaplain
6x5 Tactica squads - 4x w/meltas, 2x w/plasmas, all w/meltabombs, 5 razorbacks, 1 drop pod
2x5 Assault squads - 2x flamers each in 2 drop pods
2x5 Devastator squads - 2x missile launchers each in 2 razorbacks (1 w/TL-lascannons)
1x Ironclad dreadnought in drop pod

1st Company Task Force:
2x5 Assault terminators
1x5 Shooty terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher

iNcontrol ran:

5x Dakka flyrants w/Egrubs
Malanthrope
4x Lictors (separate)
5x Spores
2x Mawlocs


Pregame Analysis: IMO, Pentyrant is the hard-counter to Battle Company Space Marines. Pentyrant lists work really well against MSU so they should do well against my marines. However, with almost my entire army being ObSec, I should be able to take the Maelstrom Secondary. With the superiority of Tyranid firepower and the lack of AA for Marines, Tyranids should be able to take the Primary. Basically, the game is going to boil down to this - how well can I survive Tyranid shooting? If I can survive, I should be able to win this game even without killing a whole lot of bugs. It not, then Tyranids have the potential to table my army. I would give bugs the edge in this game because they are better able to achieve the Tertiaries (and in particular, First Blood) than my Marines.

So I have been playing quite a few games with white scars gladius strike force (9 so far with another 5 scheduled between tomorrow and sunday) and have gone 7 and 2 vs good opponents, those loses coming to nicks daemons (of course lol) and turbo 997s nids. It was a pretty brutal game where he took it 18 to 16 in nova format, that said it was my 2nd game with the army and I think the changes I made can make the matchup winnable.

Currently my scars list is the following

Khan
chaplin with auspex
command squad with 5 melta guns in pod
command squad with 5 melta guns in pod
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
5 assault marines with 2 flamers in pod
5 assault marines with 2 flamers in pod
5 devs in razorback
5 devs in razorback

5 scouts
5 scouts
5 scouts

inquisitor with 3 servo skulls and combi melta
1850

Khan goes with a cmd squad or assault marines, and the chappy and inq go with a cmd squad. Every squad combat squads every single game

So in nova format, its pretty much impossible to keep me from maxing turn by turn primary. as for 2ndaries, I have been able to get linebraker in all but 1 of my games, I always take marked for death as well (vs the penta flyrant list its usually the malenthrope) but I pretty much give up all 3 2ndaries by turn 2 lol. So the game comes down to if I can keep the bug player from getting more then 6 on his primary and he can keep me from getting the last 2 points on my 2ndary. I feel like the matchup is 60/40 in the nid players favor but this can change depending on how many psy screams he gets.

 krootman. wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Just had another test game. It was me running the Space Marines Battle Company against iNcontrol running Pentyrant Tyranids.

I ran:

2x Demi-Companies:

Ko'sorro Khan
Chaplain
6x5 Tactica squads - 4x w/meltas, 2x w/plasmas, all w/meltabombs, 5 razorbacks, 1 drop pod
2x5 Assault squads - 2x flamers each in 2 drop pods
2x5 Devastator squads - 2x missile launchers each in 2 razorbacks (1 w/TL-lascannons)
1x Ironclad dreadnought in drop pod

1st Company Task Force:
2x5 Assault terminators
1x5 Shooty terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher

iNcontrol ran:

5x Dakka flyrants w/Egrubs
Malanthrope
4x Lictors (separate)
5x Spores
2x Mawlocs


Pregame Analysis: IMO, Pentyrant is the hard-counter to Battle Company Space Marines. Pentyrant lists work really well against MSU so they should do well against my marines. However, with almost my entire army being ObSec, I should be able to take the Maelstrom Secondary. With the superiority of Tyranid firepower and the lack of AA for Marines, Tyranids should be able to take the Primary. Basically, the game is going to boil down to this - how well can I survive Tyranid shooting? If I can survive, I should be able to win this game even without killing a whole lot of bugs. It not, then Tyranids have the potential to table my army. I would give bugs the edge in this game because they are better able to achieve the Tertiaries (and in particular, First Blood) than my Marines.

So I have been playing quite a few games with white scars gladius strike force (9 so far with another 5 scheduled between tomorrow and sunday) and have gone 7 and 2 vs good opponents, those loses coming to nicks daemons (of course lol) and turbo 997s nids. It was a pretty brutal game where he took it 18 to 16 in nova format, that said it was my 2nd game with the army and I think the changes I made can make the matchup winnable.

Currently my scars list is the following

Khan
chaplin with auspex
command squad with 5 melta guns in pod
command squad with 5 melta guns in pod
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
5 assault marines with 2 flamers in pod
5 assault marines with 2 flamers in pod
5 devs in razorback
5 devs in razorback

5 scouts
5 scouts
5 scouts

inquisitor with 3 servo skulls and combi melta
1850

Khan goes with a cmd squad or assault marines, and the chappy and inq go with a cmd squad. Every squad combat squads every single game

So in nova format, its pretty much impossible to keep me from maxing turn by turn primary. as for 2ndaries, I have been able to get linebraker in all but 1 of my games, I always take marked for death as well (vs the penta flyrant list its usually the malenthrope) but I pretty much give up all 3 2ndaries by turn 2 lol. So the game comes down to if I can keep the bug player from getting more then 6 on his primary and he can keep me from getting the last 2 points on my 2ndary. I feel like the matchup is 60/40 in the nid players favor but this can change depending on how many psy screams he gets.

To add to what Krootman said, I think kill points is another area Flyrant heavy Tyranids can gain some ground in NOVA format. Lictors/Mawlocs and all can be deepstruck out of reach and beyond extreme dice or a Flyrant exploding itself on perils (Like last game -_-) they really have no way of dealing with them.

DONT ROLL 1s NEWB!

 jy2 wrote:
Trygon coming in isn't really great mobility. At the earliest he comes in on T2 and you cannot use the hole until T3 or later. Sure, hormagants are fast....but they can be stopped in their tracks by enemy assault units. Their "mobility" can be "controlled" by certain armies.

When I talk about mobility, I mean that you can reach the far-away objective in just 1 turn. Lictors can do it. Mawlocs can do it. Deepstriking units can do it. Flyers/jump infantry can potentially do it as they can move up to 18" (non-flying) and more importantly, they can move over screening units. Ground-based units, no matter how fast they are (unless they are Slaaneshi-fast) just don't have that type of mobility. Sure, they have good ground control, but that isn't the same thing as having good mobility.

The Trygon gives you good mobility on turn 2. He is generally coming in on 2 due to the Swarmlord's bonus. After that, you are relying on the endless swarm feeding things either from your board edge or the Trygon Tunnel.

A Hormagant moves on average 13.25" assuming you are rerolling run moves of 3 or less. If we assume the Trygon tunnel is placed anywhere that is outside of 13.25" from your board edge that means it is giving you mobility to 551 square Inches of board. In Dawn of War and Vanguard, your deployment edge is giving you 954 squard inches of board mobility. Add them up and that is 1505 square inches or roughly 44% of the board. That isn't bad. Basically, you are looking at better mobility on turn 1, and turn 5, and slightly less mobility, but more board control on turn 2-4 compared to a deep strike based mobility list.

All of this depends on you making some of your 4+ rolls for the swarm, which would terrify me a bit with this list, however, in ITC missions you are generally looking at 2-3 objectives to focus on, if you keep one in your deployment area (generally a requirement of the missions), and put the Trygon tunnel near the other, you are doing pretty good. Basically, I would play the list by making sure my 44% single turn mobility accounted for the important areas of the board.

 jy2 wrote:
Just had another test game. It was me running the Space Marines Battle Company against iNcontrol running Pentyrant Tyranids.

I ran:

2x Demi-Companies:

Ko'sorro Khan
Chaplain
6x5 Tactica squads - 4x w/meltas, 2x w/plasmas, all w/meltabombs, 5 razorbacks, 1 drop pod
2x5 Assault squads - 2x flamers each in 2 drop pods
2x5 Devastator squads - 2x missile launchers each in 2 razorbacks (1 w/TL-lascannons)
1x Ironclad dreadnought in drop pod

1st Company Task Force:
2x5 Assault terminators
1x5 Shooty terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher

iNcontrol ran:

5x Dakka flyrants w/Egrubs
Malanthrope
4x Lictors (separate)
5x Spores
2x Mawlocs


Pregame Analysis: IMO, Pentyrant is the hard-counter to Battle Company Space Marines. Pentyrant lists work really well against MSU so they should do well against my marines. However, with almost my entire army being ObSec, I should be able to take the Maelstrom Secondary. With the superiority of Tyranid firepower and the lack of AA for Marines, Tyranids should be able to take the Primary. Basically, the game is going to boil down to this - how well can I survive Tyranid shooting? If I can survive, I should be able to win this game even without killing a whole lot of bugs. It not, then Tyranids have the potential to table my army. I would give bugs the edge in this game because they are better able to achieve the Tertiaries (and in particular, First Blood) than my Marines.


Summary coming out later.

Summary:

In the deployment phase, I scout my transports up 12" to get as close to the objectives as I can (thanks to Khan). Tyranids go first.

Tyranid 1 - Flyrants take off. With their shooting, they kill 5 of my transports and take some hull points off a couple more. First Blood to Tyranids as expected. Also, his 2 Maelstrom objectives were to kill 2 units and so he easily achieves it.

Marines 1 - I need to kill 1 unit and have a unit in my opponent's deployment edge. I drop my ironclad onto his home objective. I get 2 Skyfire objectives. However, I don't have a good shooting unit on either of them. I focus on his Warlord and manage to take off 2W from him. However, fortunately for him, he passes his grounding test (I was ready to assault his Warlord with my terminators). I only achieve 1 Maelstrom objective (unit in his deployment edge).

Tyranid 2 - Mawloc comes in and kills 10 marines, 1 transport and put 1HP on a drop pod as well!!! This turn, he takes out the rest of my transports and kill a few guys. However, he achieves neither of his Maelstrom objectives due to my ObSec guys.

Marines 2 - 1 unit of Assault marines come in. Moved around, put 1-2 wounds on a flyrant. Terminators fail their charge. My ironclad actually makes his assault against the flyrant but dies to a Smash attack (I absorbed his Egrub overwatch with a tactical unit). I do, however, grab both of my Maelstrom objectives.

Tyranid 3 - He is kicking my ass. Flyrants focus on my ObSec infantry and kill most of them (the non-terminator ones). My opponent does make a mistake and charge his lector into my assault marines, only to lose him to my 2 Wall of Death flamer Overwatch (and also giving me one of my Maelstrom objectives, which was to kill an enemy unit). I have 1 devastator squad, 2 assault marine units and a few models from my tacticals remaining (and all of my terminators). He gets one of his Maelstorm objectives (kill 1 unit).

Marines 3 - I don't have much offense left. Shooting puts another wound on a flyrant but fail to ground it. I do insta-kill another lictor with my cyclone terminators. Once again, assault terminators fail another charge. At least I get both of my Maelstrom objectives once again (kill 1 unit and have 1 unit in his deployment zone).

Tyranid 4 - He goes for the killing blow. Mawlocs come out again (after burrowing last turn) on top of my terminators. He kills 3 in 1 unit and 3-4 in another. This turn is brutal as he wipes out 2 terminator squads, 1 of my assault marines and both of my HQ's, including my Warlord. I only have 1 terminator left, 1 unit of devastators, 1 tactical marine, 1 unit of assault marines and 2 drop pods.

Marines 4 - I concede. It turned out that I wouldn't have been tabled by Turn 5, but nonetheless, my Marines have lost convincingly.


Post-Game Thoughts: This is just my 1st game running the Battle Company and I don't think my list was very good (I didn't know you could run Devastator Centurions instead of Devastator marines!). Yet, it could be potentially very good with some more optimization and a little more experience. However, it ended as I kind of suspected. Pentyrant is a great counter to Battle Company marines because it is very effective in dealing with MSU armies. In this game, my Chapter Tactics didn't really help me all that much. I was running White Scars which gives each and every one of my units with Chapter Tactics Hit-&-Run. However, Geoff's army didn't really look to do much assaulting. Rather, he just blasted me away from the air. Against his army, I should have chosen the Red Scorpions Chapter Tactics, which would have given all my tactical squads and veteran sergeants FNP. Or even Red Hunters, which could have potentially given my army Skyfire for 1 turn.

Anyways, the point I want to make is that as good as the Battle Company is (it gave me 525-pts of free transports!!!), Tyranids have the tools to deal with them. Marines are resilient due to their numbers. However, they just don't hit very hard and will generally have problems against flyer armies. I believe the Battle Company will be a top-tier army. However, Tyranids do have the tools to not only take them on, but to give them problems as well.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 krootman. wrote:

So I have been playing quite a few games with white scars gladius strike force (9 so far with another 5 scheduled between tomorrow and sunday) and have gone 7 and 2 vs good opponents, those loses coming to nicks daemons (of course lol) and turbo 997s nids. It was a pretty brutal game where he took it 18 to 16 in nova format, that said it was my 2nd game with the army and I think the changes I made can make the matchup winnable.

Currently my scars list is the following

Khan
chaplin with auspex
command squad with 5 melta guns in pod
command squad with 5 melta guns in pod
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
10 tac marines in rhino
5 assault marines with 2 flamers in pod
5 assault marines with 2 flamers in pod
5 devs in razorback
5 devs in razorback

5 scouts
5 scouts
5 scouts

inquisitor with 3 servo skulls and combi melta
1850

Khan goes with a cmd squad or assault marines, and the chappy and inq go with a cmd squad. Every squad combat squads every single game

So in nova format, its pretty much impossible to keep me from maxing turn by turn primary. as for 2ndaries, I have been able to get linebraker in all but 1 of my games, I always take marked for death as well (vs the penta flyrant list its usually the malenthrope) but I pretty much give up all 3 2ndaries by turn 2 lol. So the game comes down to if I can keep the bug player from getting more then 6 on his primary and he can keep me from getting the last 2 points on my 2ndary. I feel like the matchup is 60/40 in the nid players favor but this can change depending on how many psy screams he gets.

This is my next Battle Company list that I am going to try and I think it's going to be very brutal.


Demi-Company #1:

Captain - Auspex, Storm Shield

5x Tacticals - Melta, Meltabombs, Razor
5x Tacticals - Melta, Meltabombs, Razor
5x Tacticals - Plasma, Meltabombs, Razor

5x Assault Marines - 2x Flamers, Meltabombs, Drop Pod

3x Devastator Centurions

Demi-Company #2:

Chaplain - Auspex

5x Tacticals - Melta, Meltabombs, Razor
5x Tacticals - Melta, Meltabombs, Razor
5x Tacticals - Plasma, Meltabombs, Razor

5x Assault Marines - 2x Flamers, Meltabombs, Drop Pod

3x Devastator Centurions

Scout Formation:

5x Scouts
5x Scouts
5x Scouts

CAD:

Librarian - Lvl 2, Auspex

5x Sniper Scouts
5x Sniper Scouts

Drop Pod
Drop Pod




Automatically Appended Next Post:

tag8833 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Trygon coming in isn't really great mobility. At the earliest he comes in on T2 and you cannot use the hole until T3 or later. Sure, hormagants are fast....but they can be stopped in their tracks by enemy assault units. Their "mobility" can be "controlled" by certain armies.

When I talk about mobility, I mean that you can reach the far-away objective in just 1 turn. Lictors can do it. Mawlocs can do it. Deepstriking units can do it. Flyers/jump infantry can potentially do it as they can move up to 18" (non-flying) and more importantly, they can move over screening units. Ground-based units, no matter how fast they are (unless they are Slaaneshi-fast) just don't have that type of mobility. Sure, they have good ground control, but that isn't the same thing as having good mobility.

The Trygon gives you good mobility on turn 2. He is generally coming in on 2 due to the Swarmlord's bonus. After that, you are relying on the endless swarm feeding things either from your board edge or the Trygon Tunnel.

A Hormagant moves on average 13.25" assuming you are rerolling run moves of 3 or less. If we assume the Trygon tunnel is placed anywhere that is outside of 13.25" from your board edge that means it is giving you mobility to 551 square Inches of board. In Dawn of War and Vanguard, your deployment edge is giving you 954 squard inches of board mobility. Add them up and that is 1505 square inches or roughly 44% of the board. That isn't bad. Basically, you are looking at better mobility on turn 1, and turn 5, and slightly less mobility, but more board control on turn 2-4 compared to a deep strike based mobility list.

All of this depends on you making some of your 4+ rolls for the swarm, which would terrify me a bit with this list, however, in ITC missions you are generally looking at 2-3 objectives to focus on, if you keep one in your deployment area (generally a requirement of the missions), and put the Trygon tunnel near the other, you are doing pretty good. Basically, I would play the list by making sure my 44% single turn mobility accounted for the important areas of the board.

Just 1 trygon hole doesn't give the army good mobility. There are a number of issues with it:

1. Only 1 unit can come out of it at a time.

2. With just 1 hole, armies like MSU, summoned units or horde armies can easily surround the hole, thus preventing you from using it as a deployment edge.

3. Without flyrants in the army, and if you put it deep inside my deployment zone, then Synapse - or rather, the lack of Synapse - then becomes a problem. What good is the unit if it comes in, gets shot and then falls back? Even if you fall back into Synapse, you will auto-regroup but won't be able to do anything for another turn.

I'd feel better about the "mobility" of an Endless Swarm army if it ran 2 trygons as opposed to just only 1. Running 2 trygons in such a list just gives the army more flexibility IMO. But in any case, kudos to the player for making his Endless Swarm Swarmlord/dima list work. That is no small feat.

I tried out a harridan for the first time yesterday, practicing for the ukgt championships.

1500 pts eternal war mission
My list was
harridan
2 flyrants
3 lictors
Malanthrope
4 mucolids
I played vs eldar

Farseer
4 x 4 scatter jetbikes
1 x 5 scatter jetbikes? Number may be off here
9 hornets.

He had first turn.

Even with 2 up cover, i was tabled turn 1.

I think i give up with nids right now. I just cant bear the upset of losing to eldar anymore!

Edit: that was a bit abrupt. I think it was a combo of alot of bad luck and the sheer horror of losing the harridan, 2 flyrants and malanthrope in 1 round of shooting.

What im wracking my head around is trying to manage a good TAC nid list that comes in at 1500 pts.

Is anyone else attending any of the heats and considering taking nids? If so, what are you thinking of running?

I think MSU is a must. Big expensive units ( like harridan ) are a big no go with all the d and mass fire power around unfortunately!

 jy2 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Just had another test game. It was me running the Space Marines Battle Company against iNcontrol running Pentyrant Tyranids.

I ran:

2x Demi-Companies:

Ko'sorro Khan
Chaplain
6x5 Tactica squads - 4x w/meltas, 2x w/plasmas, all w/meltabombs, 5 razorbacks, 1 drop pod
2x5 Assault squads - 2x flamers each in 2 drop pods
2x5 Devastator squads - 2x missile launchers each in 2 razorbacks (1 w/TL-lascannons)
1x Ironclad dreadnought in drop pod

1st Company Task Force:
2x5 Assault terminators
1x5 Shooty terminators - 1x Cyclone Missile Launcher

iNcontrol ran:

5x Dakka flyrants w/Egrubs
Malanthrope
4x Lictors (separate)
5x Spores
2x Mawlocs


Pregame Analysis: IMO, Pentyrant is the hard-counter to Battle Company Space Marines. Pentyrant lists work really well against MSU so they should do well against my marines. However, with almost my entire army being ObSec, I should be able to take the Maelstrom Secondary. With the superiority of Tyranid firepower and the lack of AA for Marines, Tyranids should be able to take the Primary. Basically, the game is going to boil down to this - how well can I survive Tyranid shooting? If I can survive, I should be able to win this game even without killing a whole lot of bugs. It not, then Tyranids have the potential to table my army. I would give bugs the edge in this game because they are better able to achieve the Tertiaries (and in particular, First Blood) than my Marines.


Summary coming out later.

Summary:

In the deployment phase, I scout my transports up 12" to get as close to the objectives as I can (thanks to Khan). Tyranids go first.

Tyranid 1 - Flyrants take off. With their shooting, they kill 5 of my transports and take some hull points off a couple more. First Blood to Tyranids as expected. Also, his 2 Maelstrom objectives were to kill 2 units and so he easily achieves it.

Marines 1 - I need to kill 1 unit and have a unit in my opponent's deployment edge. I drop my ironclad onto his home objective. I get 2 Skyfire objectives. However, I don't have a good shooting unit on either of them. I focus on his Warlord and manage to take off 2W from him. However, fortunately for him, he passes his grounding test (I was ready to assault his Warlord with my terminators). I only achieve 1 Maelstrom objective (unit in his deployment edge).

Tyranid 2 - Mawloc comes in and kills 10 marines, 1 transport and put 1HP on a drop pod as well!!! This turn, he takes out the rest of my transports and kill a few guys. However, he achieves neither of his Maelstrom objectives due to my ObSec guys.

Marines 2 - 1 unit of Assault marines come in. Moved around, put 1-2 wounds on a flyrant. Terminators fail their charge. My ironclad actually makes his assault against the flyrant but dies to a Smash attack (I absorbed his Egrub overwatch with a tactical unit). I do, however, grab both of my Maelstrom objectives.

Tyranid 3 - He is kicking my ass. Flyrants focus on my ObSec infantry and kill most of them (the non-terminator ones). My opponent does make a mistake and charge his lector into my assault marines, only to lose him to my 2 Wall of Death flamer Overwatch (and also giving me one of my Maelstrom objectives, which was to kill an enemy unit). I have 1 devastator squad, 2 assault marine units and a few models from my tacticals remaining (and all of my terminators). He gets one of his Maelstorm objectives (kill 1 unit).

Marines 3 - I don't have much offense left. Shooting puts another wound on a flyrant but fail to ground it. I do insta-kill another lictor with my cyclone terminators. Once again, assault terminators fail another charge. At least I get both of my Maelstrom objectives once again (kill 1 unit and have 1 unit in his deployment zone).

Tyranid 4 - He goes for the killing blow. Mawlocs come out again (after burrowing last turn) on top of my terminators. He kills 3 in 1 unit and 3-4 in another. This turn is brutal as he wipes out 2 terminator squads, 1 of my assault marines and both of my HQ's, including my Warlord. I only have 1 terminator left, 1 unit of devastators, 1 tactical marine, 1 unit of assault marines and 2 drop pods.

Marines 4 - I concede. It turned out that I wouldn't have been tabled by Turn 5, but nonetheless, my Marines have lost convincingly.


Post-Game Thoughts: This is just my 1st game running the Battle Company and I don't think my list was very good (I didn't know you could run Devastator Centurions instead of Devastator marines!). Yet, it could be potentially very good with some more optimization and a little more experience. However, it ended as I kind of suspected. Pentyrant is a great counter to Battle Company marines because it is very effective in dealing with MSU armies. In this game, my Chapter Tactics didn't really help me all that much. I was running White Scars which gives each and every one of my units with Chapter Tactics Hit-&-Run. However, Geoff's army didn't really look to do much assaulting. Rather, he just blasted me away from the air. Against his army, I should have chosen the Red Scorpions Chapter Tactics, which would have given all my tactical squads and veteran sergeants FNP. Or even Red Hunters, which could have potentially given my army Skyfire for 1 turn.

Anyways, the point I want to make is that as good as the Battle Company is (it gave me 525-pts of free transports!!!), Tyranids have the tools to deal with them. Marines are resilient due to their numbers. However, they just don't hit very hard and will generally have problems against flyer armies. I believe the Battle Company will be a top-tier army. However, Tyranids do have the tools to not only take them on, but to give them problems as well.

So I rematched turbos 5 flyrant list this past weekend with my gladius , I ran the following list

2 demi compaines
Khan
Chaplin with auspex
2 10 man tac rhinos
4 5 man tacs razorbacks
2 5 man cmd squads 5 meltas in pod
2 5 man assault squads 5 man 2 flamers in pod
2 5 man devs in rbs

1st company formation
3 units of 5 sternguard in pods

Inq with combi melta and 3 skulls

So we played 2 games using the nova packet, he rolled no shreaks which is something important to note but we felt this could happen in a gt so he wanted to test it.

Game 1:
I went first, he started all the flyrants on the board, I podded in 1 cmd squad and 3 sternguard. I auspexed a flyrant hoping to alpha one off the board. I actually killed 2 using a combination of 2+ ammo with sternguard (using the dev doctrine to reroll 1s) and my 5 melta cmd squad auspexing another flyrant. He rolled bad so we reracked.

Game2: he went first we played the relic mission, and while I didnt alpha strike any of his flyrants I was able to grab 17 out of 19 points by turn 4 and we realized there was no way he could catch up.

Long story short, the new additions to my list enables me to alpha a flyrant turn 1 which is important and gives the bug player cause for concern if I go first, almost forcing him to null deploy, ensuring he won't have enough time to remove me off objectives. The more shreaks you roll the easier the match becomes. I do not think it is the auto win hard counter match up we originally thought it was.

 Wilson wrote:
I tried out a harridan for the first time yesterday, practicing for the ukgt championships.

1500 pts eternal war mission
My list was
harridan
2 flyrants
3 lictors
Malanthrope
4 mucolids
I played vs eldar

Farseer
4 x 4 scatter jetbikes
1 x 5 scatter jetbikes? Number may be off here
9 hornets.

He had first turn.

Even with 2 up cover, i was tabled turn 1.

I think i give up with nids right now. I just cant bear the upset of losing to eldar anymore!

Edit: that was a bit abrupt. I think it was a combo of alot of bad luck and the sheer horror of losing the harridan, 2 flyrants and malanthrope in 1 round of shooting.

What im wracking my head around is trying to manage a good TAC nid list that comes in at 1500 pts.

Is anyone else attending any of the heats and considering taking nids? If so, what are you thinking of running?

I think MSU is a must. Big expensive units ( like harridan ) are a big no go with all the d and mass fire power around unfortunately!

I actually played against iNcontrol and his Harridan Tyranids at a 2500-pt GT tournament. He brought 4-5 flyrants, the Harridan, malanthrope, lictors and mawlocs. I brought a really nasty Eldar list with the seer council.

I actually played against Geoff's Tyranids in the tournament, but due to some atrocious dice on my part, lost the game to him. First of all, Geoff got lucky and got the fly-off-the-table-edge for his Fighter Ace....on his Harridan! Secondly, I had some pretty bad dice. Almost all of my scatterbike units failed the Morale tests when they had to take it, and I believe 2 went off my table edge because of this. My Warp Spiders came in, mishapped and then I roll a . But despite my dice and no-skyfire in my list, I ended killing most of his flyrants (but I couldn't touch the Harridan due to Fighter Ace) and would have won the game had it ended on Turn 5. Alas, my luck was not to be as the game went on to 6 and there I lost it.

Geoff went on to win his first ever GT, going 5-0.

Do not run the Harridan unless you are playing in at least 2K or above. He is just too expensive. I agree that MSU is one of the most competitive Tyranid builds, but really it depends on what you go up against. In larger tournaments - where there are more variety on armies - MSU is the way to go IMO. However, in smaller tournaments where it is much less RPS, then you can take more risks in running the more expensive units.

So curiosity when people are talking MSU nids, what are the builds? Is it just 3-5 flyrants and a bunch of MSU chaff? Or are we looking at something else that is truly MSU (in which a flyrant is not really MSU in my mind).

 krootman. wrote:

So I rematched turbos 5 flyrant list this past weekend with my gladius , I ran the following list

2 demi compaines
Khan
Chaplin with auspex
2 10 man tac rhinos
4 5 man tacs razorbacks
2 5 man cmd squads 5 meltas in pod
2 5 man assault squads 5 man 2 flamers in pod
2 5 man devs in rbs

1st company formation
3 units of 5 sternguard in pods

Inq with combi melta and 3 skulls

So we played 2 games using the nova packet, he rolled no shreaks which is something important to note but we felt this could happen in a gt so he wanted to test it.

Game 1:
I went first, he started all the flyrants on the board, I podded in 1 cmd squad and 3 sternguard. I auspexed a flyrant hoping to alpha one off the board. I actually killed 2 using a combination of 2+ ammo with sternguard (using the dev doctrine to reroll 1s) and my 5 melta cmd squad auspexing another flyrant. He rolled bad so we reracked.

Game2: he went first we played the relic mission, and while I didnt alpha strike any of his flyrants I was able to grab 17 out of 19 points by turn 4 and we realized there was no way he could catch up.

Long story short, the new additions to my list enables me to alpha a flyrant turn 1 which is important and gives the bug player cause for concern if I go first, almost forcing him to null deploy, ensuring he won't have enough time to remove me off objectives. The more shreaks you roll the easier the match becomes. I do not think it is the auto win hard counter match up we originally thought it was.

No, it is definitely not an auto-win for Tyranids. Flyrant-spam have the tools to deal with ObSec-spam marines. However, they will always be playing the catchup game if there are Maelstrom (or progressive) objectives involved. I'm not as familiar with the Nova missions, but with the ITC missions, you roll for your Maelstrom objectives. Usually, 2 of kill points, 2 are objectives and 2 are positional objectives (i.e. have 3 units in your deployment edge without an enemy unit contesting, have 1 unit in your opponent's deployment edge). Depending on what you roll on the Maelstrom objectives, usually ObSec-spam marines will still have the advantage in objectives-based objectives whereas flyrant-spam will have the advantage in kill-objectives. As long as the missions have a KP-based mission objective, then flyrant-spam Tyranids will have a good chance against ObSec marines. However, it the missions are mainly objective-based, then marines will still have a slight advantage against Tyranids. In the case of the latter, bugs need to nearly table the Space Marines in order to get the win. Otherwise, they will almost always be down in points.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 winterman wrote:
So curiosity when people are talking MSU nids, what are the builds? Is it just 3-5 flyrants and a bunch of MSU chaff? Or are we looking at something else that is truly MSU (in which a flyrant is not really MSU in my mind).

It is a build similar to OrdoSean's #Lictorshame build:

Flyrants
Lictors
Mucolids
Rippers
Mawlocs

Basically, it consists of spamming some of the most cost-effective units in the Tyranid codex. Now there are other MSU Tyranid builds, but the one that Sean Nayden ran is by far the most successful.

BTW, this would be a 1850 Tyranid MSU that I sometimes run, using 4 flyrants:


Hive Fleet Leviathan:

Dakka Flyrant - Egrubs
Dakka Flyrant - Egrubs
Dakka Flyrant - Egrubs

Malanthrope

Mucolid
Mucolid
Mucolid

CAD:

Dakka Flyrant - Egrubs, Fighter Ace

Lictor
Lictor
Lictor

Mucolid
3x Rippers - Deepstrike

Mawloc
Mawloc
Mawloc

Bastion - Comms

 jy2 wrote:

It is a build similar to OrdoSean's #Lictorshame build:

OK, that's what I thought, just wondered/hoped someone cooked something else up. Been looking at taking advantage of the 3 detachments in order to make an all out MSU army and was looking for inspiration.

 winterman wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

It is a build similar to OrdoSean's #Lictorshame build:

OK, that's what I thought, just wondered/hoped someone cooked something else up. Been looking at taking advantage of the 3 detachments in order to make an all out MSU army and was looking for inspiration.

Feel free to share your thoughts with us if you come up with such a list.


There are a number of factors I think any MSU list will need:

1. Offense. You need to still be able to hit your opponent and to hit them hard. Flyrants are the most consistent source of offense for the bugs and hence, the foundation for most bug armies.

2. Resiliency. MSU units are usually fairly easy to kill, which is why you need some cheap but resilient "chaff" in your MSU army. Rippers can hide. Mucolids, who cares if they die. Lictors can go-to-ground in ruins for the 2+ and while doing so, can take a inordinate amount of punishment relative to their cheap cost. Mawlocs are the cheapest cost/wound MC in the book. And flyrants, well, they are flyers which makes them tough to kill.

3. Mobility. You need to have some mobility in your army.

4. Redundancy. MSU lists usually involve spam for reasons of redundancy. Thus, if you kill any single 1 unit, the army can still continue functioning at a high level/output.

5. Ability to take ground objectives as well. While you won't out-wrestle ObSec armies for ground or Maelstrom objectives, you still need the bodies to seize objectives from other armies. In this regard, mobility of scoring bodies is also very important. You might not be able to take the objective away from your opponent, but the ability to place your scoring units in far-away objectives gives you an advantage over an opponent who isn't able to do the same thing.


There are multiple ways of building MSU Tyranids, but IMO, #Lictorshame+flyrant-spam hits a homerun when it comes to MSU bugs. They satisfy all of the traits that I listed above and they are a proven, successful build.

However, I think that another MSU build that can be considered is the Endless Swarm. Throw in 2 malanthropes, 2 trygons and some flyrants and I think that it can actually be very good.

I'm really enjoying my 3 Tyrant / Superbeast/ 2 Tervigon list, adding in the three individual Biovores really gives it a massive amount of flexibility (and reliability) over the Mawloc.

So I really really like 5 flyrants in nova format...but I keep feeling like the rest of the points I can use is meh at best...sooo I came up with the following list

Levl
Flyrant
flyrant
flyrant
malenthrope
mucloid
mucloid
mucloid

Levl
Flyrant
flyrant
flyrant
mucloid
mucloid
mucloid

Daemon allies
HOT lvl 2 with disc
HOT lvl1
10 horrors
1845

16 dice, and gives me the abilty to summon daemons to hold objectives and give me some kind of ground and backfield presence.

I plan on giving it a test run sometime this week or next week. I dont actually plan on taking this to nova as ill be using my sms, but I am sure going to try it.

Oh and a 6 flyrant list placed 2nd at the togit rtt I was at this weekend that had alot of good players playing (navatti, nayden, and some other players who regularly do well at gts. )

Competitive tyranids in 7th edition......1850/240 + malanthrope

 Iechine wrote:
I'm really enjoying my 3 Tyrant / Superbeast/ 2 Tervigon list, adding in the three individual Biovores really gives it a massive amount of flexibility (and reliability) over the Mawloc.

I actually plan to run a cc-flyrant in my next Tyranid build! But alas, no tervigon, not yet.

 krootman. wrote:
So I really really like 5 flyrants in nova format...but I keep feeling like the rest of the points I can use is meh at best...sooo I came up with the following list

Levl
Flyrant
flyrant
flyrant
malenthrope
mucloid
mucloid
mucloid

Levl
Flyrant
flyrant
flyrant
mucloid
mucloid
mucloid

Daemon allies
HOT lvl 2 with disc
HOT lvl1
10 horrors
1845

16 dice, and gives me the abilty to summon daemons to hold objectives and give me some kind of ground and backfield presence.

I plan on giving it a test run sometime this week or next week. I dont actually plan on taking this to nova as ill be using my sms, but I am sure going to try it.

Oh and a 6 flyrant list placed 2nd at the togit rtt I was at this weekend that had alot of good players playing (navatti, nayden, and some other players who regularly do well at gts. )

Too bad in the ITC format, we are limited by:

1. Each formation is 0-1 so no dual of anything.

2. No CtA allies, so no daemon summoning for bugs.

However, if I were to go by Nova rules, I would go something like this:


2x Leviathan's:

6x Dakka Flyrants w/5x Egrubs
6x Mucolids

Lord of Change - Lvl 3, 1x Greater Gift

3x Nurglings


I've got 1 less warp charge but another dangerous FMC. More importantly, I've got mobile summoning as well as more reliable summoning (with 1 caster as opposed to 3 casters to dip into the Warp pool).

 Wilson wrote:
I tried out a harridan for the first time yesterday, practicing for the ukgt championships.

1500 pts eternal war mission
My list was
harridan
2 flyrants
3 lictors
Malanthrope
4 mucolids
I played vs eldar

Farseer
4 x 4 scatter jetbikes
1 x 5 scatter jetbikes? Number may be off here
9 hornets.

He had first turn.

Even with 2 up cover, i was tabled turn 1.

I think i give up with nids right now. I just cant bear the upset of losing to eldar anymore!

Edit: that was a bit abrupt. I think it was a combo of alot of bad luck and the sheer horror of losing the harridan, 2 flyrants and malanthrope in 1 round of shooting.

What im wracking my head around is trying to manage a good TAC nid list that comes in at 1500 pts.

Is anyone else attending any of the heats and considering taking nids? If so, what are you thinking of running?

I think MSU is a must. Big expensive units ( like harridan ) are a big no go with all the d and mass fire power around unfortunately!

I actually think this year might be the death of the GT in the UK. The Bristol event pack is such crap it's unbelievable. The only shining light of hope is the Northern Warlords event pack, which as an actual competitive pack, for a competitive event, ran by competitive players. I wouldn't beat yourself up to much about it Wilson.

Too bad in the ITC format, we are limited by:

1. Each formation is 0-1 so no dual of anything.

2. No CtA allies, so no daemon summoning for bugs.

However, if I were to go by Nova rules, I would go something like this:


2x Leviathan's:

6x Dakka Flyrants w/5x Egrubs
6x Mucolids

Lord of Change - Lvl 3, 1x Greater Gift

3x Nurglings


I've got 1 less warp charge but another dangerous FMC. More importantly, I've got mobile summoning as well as more reliable summoning (with 1 caster as opposed to 3 casters to dip into the Warp pool).

Thats not a bad list, you could somehow maybe drop e grubs from 1 more flyrant and add portal on the loc for more random single horror units lol.

I am actually looking forward to playing itc format after bfs.

That list is prostituting the game.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
That list is prostituting the game.

This is the tactics section, not the background section.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
That list is prostituting the game.

Lol. It isn't a list that I would recommend to people, but it is a list that I might playtest against good friends who bring equally lol-able lists.

 jy2 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
That list is prostituting the game.

Lol. It isn't a list that I would recommend to people, but it is a list that I might playtest against good friends who bring equally lol-able lists.

Thanks the Emprah !

 997Turbo wrote:
Competitive tyranids in 7th edition......1850/240 + malanthrope

Wish cotez still worked, and congrats on doing well with the 6 flyrants btw!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jy2 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
That list is prostituting the game.

Lol. It isn't a list that I would recommend to people, but it is a list that I might playtest against good friends who bring equally lol-able lists.

he this is the only bug list id currently tell people who want to be competitive to run! But I am lucky in the sense that my play group is all people who are on the same page competitive wise, and are all testing for the same event. We have been getting some fantastic test games in.

Hi all

New player here, a couple of friends and I are new to 40k and i'm looking for some advice on beating necrons and chaos. I've been buying models for approx a month now and have amassed a fair few.

My current list is

2x flyrant w/ egrubs 2x tldwblw
1x dakkafex
Children + spawn of cryptus
1x tyrannocite
1x tyrannofex
10x hormagaunts
10 termagaunts
1x malanthrope
3x zoanthrope

1x living artillery with 3x warriors w/ venom cannon
3x biovores
1x exocrine


however I also have an extra carnifex, hive crone and ~24 extra hormagaunts but can't bring them into my list yet as we're trying to play 2k points

My friends play necron (decurion attachment)

He currently has (that I know of)
1x ctan (the one with the gaze)
1x ghost arc
1x annihilation barge
1x doom scythe
20x warriors
5x immortals + overlord

5x pretorians in the formation which lets them reroll hits/wounds
1x stalker for the formation.

He may join with my chaos collecting friend to bring in a few oblits and a helldrake.

My current question is how on earth do I beat that list of necrons? Do you guys have any opinions on how I can improve my list?

Wow! I can't believe we're almost at 10K milestone! It's good to see the Tyranid community bonded together like this.

hoovadanunu wrote:
Hi all

New player here, a couple of friends and I are new to 40k and i'm looking for some advice on beating necrons and chaos. I've been buying models for approx a month now and have amassed a fair few.

My current list is

2x flyrant w/ egrubs 2x tldwblw
1x dakkafex
Children + spawn of cryptus
1x tyrannocite
1x tyrannofex
10x hormagaunts
10 termagaunts
1x malanthrope
3x zoanthrope

1x living artillery with 3x warriors w/ venom cannon
3x biovores
1x exocrine


however I also have an extra carnifex, hive crone and ~24 extra hormagaunts but can't bring them into my list yet as we're trying to play 2k points

My friends play necron (decurion attachment)

He currently has (that I know of)
1x ctan (the one with the gaze)
1x ghost arc
1x annihilation barge
1x doom scythe
20x warriors
5x immortals + overlord

5x pretorians in the formation which lets them reroll hits/wounds
1x stalker for the formation.

He may join with my chaos collecting friend to bring in a few oblits and a helldrake.

My current question is how on earth do I beat that list of necrons? Do you guys have any opinions on how I can improve my list?

Necrons are tough but the army that your opponent is running isn't really optimized. I think your list can deal with his, even if you can't quite wipe out his units. Play to the objectives via board control. His units, other than the c'tan and praetorians, aren't overly aggressive and so will back away from your units. The c'tan and praetorians, you can tarpit them with your gribblies. This is my recommendation for units to use:

2x Flyrants
Dakkafex
Tyrannofex
Tyrannocyte (can put either the dakkafex or t-fex in here depending on how he sets up)
Malanthrope
Termagants
Hormagants
2x zoans (in separate units of 1 each)

Living Artillery Node formation

I would swap out the Cryptus stealers for another dakkafex + more hormagants or for just more hormagants.

Advance with your army. Pound his 20-warrior brick with your biovores. Exocrine can go after the praetorians. Kill off his praetorians with focused fire between flyrants, dakkafex and exocrines if they are in range. Tarpit his C'tan with gants. Play to the objectives. You don't necessarily have to kill off his army to win (except in the case of VP missions). You just need to be able to control the objectives and to keep his guys away from them.