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Looking for ways to effectively deal with Vendettas with my bug army but I'm finding a whole lot of nothing. Any suggestions?

Well, you could always take some allies with AA units.


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Or an aegis line with a quad gun.

Try again Peregrine, bugs get no allies and cannot use a quad gun.

They have allies now?

Nids with an aegis line lol

I really do try to play my army according to the will of the Hive Mind it it says to consume everything and respectively, what are allies? and what's an aegis line?

Allies? seriously? Haven't read 6th as in depth as I knew 5th yet but how do we have allies? I gotta get home and look that up now.


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Backlash wrote:
Try again Peregrine, bugs get no allies and cannot use a quad gun.

That's what I thought.

Bugs have a natural lack of AA in our lists. Flyrants with TL devourers works well as you have the mobility to get access to flyers rear armor. Our abundance of psykers also helps as we can roll TK table for Objuration mechanicum. Thats how i have always delt with them.


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Dont get it twisted, we cant use a quad gun but we can still take an ADL. I like to sit my tervigons behind one and spawn gaunts 6" past it. a favorite tactic.

Backlash wrote:
Bugs have a natural lack of AA in our lists. Flyrants with TL devourers works well as you have the mobility to get access to flyers rear armor. Our abundance of psykers also helps as we can roll TK table for Objuration mechanicum. Thats how i have always delt with them.

But it's still only snap shots so you need to roll a six to hit than a high roll just to glance on rear armor... seem pretty ineffective.

My friend uses 3 hive guard. Likely to get at least one 6 and their gun prevents the cover save from jink. Flyrants also provide good AA.

Also FMCs like the tyrant have skyfire they FAQed it.

 Dumah12 wrote:
My friend uses 3 hive guard. Likely to get at least one 6 and their gun prevents the cover save from jink. Flyrants also provide good AA.

Also FMCs like the tyrant have skyfire they FAQed it.

Ah, Just found it, don't know how I missed that one. TY very much!

Backlash wrote:
Try again Peregrine, bugs get no allies and cannot use a quad gun.

That's kind of the point...

I am surprised Nids dont have a permanent flyer model of some sort. Flyrants are damn nasty dont get me wrong (i HATE facing those things with Ironarm) but the crash landing is its issue. As an ork player i just unload so many shots at it, its bound to crash and once it does i'll unload even more shots at it.

I think hive guard are your best bet. Yea they hit on 6s but 4 to glance 5 to pen AV12 and cannot jink it. Not the best, but probably most practical in nid codex.

They can't use a quad gun but they can still take them. Quad gun gets 4 TL S7 shots with skyfire.

That shoots at BS 2 and at the closest target. No thank you.

 BryllCream wrote:
They can't use a quad gun but they can still take them. Quad gun gets 4 TL S7 shots with skyfire.

No, they can't. See the FAQs:

Q: Are Tyranid units inside buildings (i.e. the Bastion) subject to
instinctive behaviour tests? Furthermore, are they able to manual fire
emplaced weapons or weapon emplacements?
A: No to both questions.

 Niiai wrote:
That shoots at BS 2 and at the closest target. No thank you.

No, it doesn't. A quad gun is a gun emplacement which is different from an emplaced weapon. Emplaced weapons (like the heavy bolters on a bastion) are part of buildings. Gun emplacements, like quadguns or Icarus lascannons, are Battlefield debris and can only be fired by a model in base to base contact with them.

As said, the new FAQs completely answer this.
The Nids need to find other ways for air defense. The key lies in the (shooty and flying) units itself.

A new codex is what they need. The Harpy will probably get something like Impaler Cannons, or Hive Guard will get Skyfire if they stand still or something.

How about spam tervigons and ignore flyers?

It works well for every good nid player since 6th. I don't know why its being ignored.

Because its a lame tactic, not fun and takes 0 strategy or skill. Most challenging part is just remember which tervi has which power...flyrant and tervi spam is boring.

 Peregrine wrote:
Well, you could always take some allies with AA units.


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Or an aegis line with a quad gun.

Doesn't work. Tyranids literally cannot use either.

All we have is the Flying Hive Tyrant, which was FAQ'd to having Skyfire.

Flyrants only get Skyfire while Swooping (in air), not gliding (jump infrantry). You have to have good planning if you want to get behind an enemy flyer while Swooping. Even if you do be behind them, you leave yourself right smack dab in the middle of their army. I've simply ignored flyers. They hurt but your 12 TL S6 shots hurt their troop choices or their light AV.

I've found that I do best when I ignore enemy flyers (as in don't bother trying to kill them unless you get a really good target of opportunity) and instead work to minimise their options (or kill their cargo if they're transporting something). All of those points I could have spent in ineffective anti-flyer units can instead be spent on more lethal ideas.

One thing I am itching to try is 9 Zoanthropes with Telekinesis. 18 rolls on the table gives a fairly good chance at getting Objuration Mechanicum several times, allowing the Zoanthropes to flay enemy flyers (and other vehicles as well of course) in short order. It's not even like a one-trick pony unit either, since OM can really mess up infantry at key moments and you can also bring Telekine Dome to the party. Crush is better than it looks, too. I'm a few Zoanthropes short of this though, sadly.

 Abandon wrote:

Backlash wrote:
Bugs have a natural lack of AA in our lists. Flyrants with TL devourers works well as you have the mobility to get access to flyers rear armor. Our abundance of psykers also helps as we can roll TK table for Objuration mechanicum. Thats how i have always delt with them.

But it's still only snap shots so you need to roll a six to hit than a high roll just to glance on rear armor... seem pretty ineffective.

You can't always just ignore flyers....

3 Helldrakes cannot be ignored or they can and will own everything in the Nid list. Same thing with Necrons if they take 4 or more flyers. There is too many shots headed your way to just shrug it off.

Your best hope is to try and stay out of firing arcs due to the way flyers move when zooming. Spread your forces out and play for the quicker objectives for early points lead.

Heldrakes I agree on, but with Necrons the more flyers they have the better. Unless its killpoints of course...

Options:
1. Flyrant w/ dual brainleechs. S6 vector and 12 shot tl S6 shooting won't wreck AV12 fliers in one go usually (although it can happen) but they are a start. AV11 and 10 though are easy prey.
2. Old Advesary + Hive Guard. Reroll 1s isn't amazing but it helps. And at S8 ignore cover saves when they do hit they tend to do work.
3. Non flying MCs w/ dual brainleech (eg Tyrant or Carnifexes). An under appreciated option. Frustrating against AV12 at times (roughly 33% chance of at least one HP damage per round of shooting) but against AV10 (75ish% chance of at least 1 hull point and 10% chance of blowing it up via pen as examples) or AV11 it will surprise you. At the very least you will often get them to jink which helps a bit.
4. Objuration Mechanicum. This is contentious due to the hard to hit rule and subsequent FAQs. But if its allowed to affect fliers in your games it's something to shoot for with your psychers.
5. Board control. You don't have to use tervigon spam to dictate flier movement (although it certainly helps). Its very dependent on the flier (eg range of arc of fire on the weapons, etc) and situation (eg deployment type and terrain) but always be looking to see if you can block off the ideal flight path with a termagant spawn or gargoyles or whatnot.
6. Tempo control. Fliers can leave an army vulnerable early game. If you can get some sort of shock troop or threat onto an opposing army you can dictate what that flier has to do when it comes in. If he has to commit to killing a flying tyrant or trygon or something like that in his deployment zone it may set him up for a bad line of flight afterwards (like say exposing rear arc to your anti-flier options). This is especially true with multiple fliers.

Thing is you don't just rely on any one thing. Use as much of the above as possible. I don't run a FMC at the moment (FW tournys) but I've got 36 tl S6 shots, 12 S8 PE shots that ignore cover, at 2k I have 3-4 zoathropes that can go for Objuration if its allowed, and more and more I am pushing into my opponent despite running a more shooty oriented force. Just my two cents.

winterman pretty much listed everything. A tactic I like is getting a lot of stuff in their deployment zone (primarily devilgants, Spores with TL Deathspitters, Dakka Flyrants and Dakkafex [in a spore of course]) Now that all the fliers have lost outflanking and deep striking they'll be forced to come in from your opponent's deployment zone, be unable to shoot at the majority of your army (except Heldrakes with their super butt-flamers) then come crashing down on your turn with the abundance of twin-linked dakka going after their rear armour.

There's a decent amount of bad info and overreaction in this thread.

You can't always just ignore flyers....

3 Helldrakes cannot be ignored or they can and will own everything in the Nid list. Same thing with Necrons if they take 4 or more flyers. There is too many shots headed your way to just shrug it off.

Your best hope is to try and stay out of firing arcs due to the way flyers move when zooming. Spread your forces out and play for the quicker objectives for early points lead.

What exactly are in good Nid lists that fear Helldrakes again? Toughness 6 MCs like Tervigons are wounded on a 4+ from that whopping one hit from the Baleflamer. In addition, Tervigons are often buffed with either Iron Arm or Endurance, which means either a 5+ or 6+ to wound from the Drake, or a 5+ FNP followed by it will not die. The Vector Strikes can hurt, but they are far more limited than the flamer. The opponent that fears the Helldrake least is a well run Nid list.

Cron Flyers are more of the same. A Tesla Destructor averages 3 wounds on a toughness six MC. Which means that it takes, on average, six Night Scythes firing on a Tervigon to take it down. Again, we aren't factoring in Psychic Powers. Against Iron Arming MCs, Destructors are trash.

Anyone who has played Crons knows that the Destructors are also very limited versus hoards. The 4-5 wounds they put out can still be saved due to a lack of AP. Nids with three Tervigons (pretty standard fare) are spawning an average of 72 gants. This is in addition to what they are already bringing. Finally, Flyrants (again, pretty common) are scary for Night and Doomscythes.

The worst flyer for Nids is the Vendetta, and you typically only see 1-2 of them. The answer is really to try to glance it to death and mitigate what it can do. In a 6 turn game, you have to assume that the Vendetta will get 3-4 chances to shoot. At four passes, you have 12 total TL Lascannon shots, averaging about nine hits. Between cover, iron arm, endurance, and it will not die, the results are not as good as you might think.

Overall, the real answer is that a good Nid build CAN ignore most flyers. A competitive Nid core of about 1300 points:

2x Flyrants or 1 Flyrant and Swarmlord
3x Tervigons with 3x powers
3x10 Gants

This still leaves between 550 and 700 points (depending on the level) to play with. Flyers should not be a major problem.