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I was just strolling through my codex, thinking about how to buff my list against monstrous creatures, but an initial survey didn't seem to get me anything that really stood out.

It seems like there are three groups of MC counters in the codex. The first is plasma spammers (oblits, c. plasma terminators, 6x chosen-plasma-deathstorm), but they suffer from problems of how to get into a good position, and how to survive the counterattack including that of a wounded, but not likely dead monstrous creature. The second is long-range shooting, but this seems rather pathetic, lascannon havocs costing as much as a monstrous creature, but only throwing off a wound or maybe two per turn of shooting (and that's the best option...) The third is with certain uber-killy units (like a DP or abaddon, or a blind fury khorne lord), but these can get rather expensive and, more importantly, you tend to be pretty limited in the number you can take.

Are MCs just one of those things like anti-flier duty that you have to handle strategically, rather than in the list-building (taking what I usually take, but playing it smarter), or is there a better way to handle these things with this codex?

Let me preface this by saying I'm not an expert on the entire C:SM codex, only the handful of units I work in as allies to my Daemons Army (or to my ATC list, which while primary CSM is just a Daemons Army in disguise, so that we can bring two Daemons Armies on one team)

I think you're dead on to it being a more strategic issue, rather than a direct counter. You nailed most of the more obvious ones. That said, there are a few options that pop up from time to time. Heldrake Vector Strikes do a good job. I've knocked off a Flyrant and a Lord of Change with dual Heldrakes coming on the board, 3 STR 7, AP 3 hits is pretty nasty against all of them but Riptides, DKs, and those who scored Iron Arm.

A Sorcerer with an Axe or Sword is also situationally good (doubly so if he's rocking Iron Arm). If it's an assault MC, you can sit him in terrain with his squad, and dare him to charge into instant death. If it's a non character MC, and you have the ability to survive his shooting (a tall task sometimes), you can be more aggressive, since he can't challenge out and remove your MC.

Tarpitting with Nurgle spawn is also an option, although not ideal.

The best solution is probably to bring in Daemons allies (point for point, there may not be a better MC killer than the Daemonette), but that's probably not the answer you want to hear.

PM with plague knifes are awesome against MC due to poison.
Or a MON sorcerer with Nurgle's Rot and stuff. Otherwise you could always bring a predator to the fight, because tri-las is really cheap.

anonymou5 wrote:Heldrake Vector Strikes do a good job...3 STR 7, AP 3 hits is pretty nasty against all of them but Riptides, DKs, and those who scored Iron Arm.

Yeah, I was thinking about vector striking, actually, but you note the problem. Most MCs are either Sv2+ or W6+. Doing 1 wound to a tervigon isn't that great when they have so many of them, and yeah, they'll kind of bounce off of the other ones you mentioned.

It's one of those things where if you're already taking helldrakes, then go ahead and vector strike with them, but I don't know if it's worth taking helldrakes just to handle monstrous creatures.

anonymou5 wrote:A Sorcerer with an Axe or Sword is also situationally good (doubly so if he's rocking Iron Arm). If it's an assault MC, you can sit him in terrain with his squad, and dare him to charge into instant death.

So, something else that struck me with sorcerers is that not all MCs have unwieldy weapons. Sorcerers only have W2, and are going to be relying on their ++ against monstrous creatures. You're not actually even ALL that likely to get a swing in. And when you do, they're only Ws4, and they're only S4 and they're only A2.

I guess it's not so bad if you get iron arm or invisibility, but you're not exactly guaranteed to get those abilities. I guess perhaps you need to look at them comprehensively. It's that you get to enfeeble and then psychic shreik and then hit them with a force axe, or whatever.

It certainly seems trickier than "I'm going to force weapon them", I suppose.

anonymou5 wrote:Tarpitting with Nurgle spawn is also an option, although not ideal.

Yeah, I was actually thinking about this as well. Perhaps it's fair to say that there is a 4th category, the "grind them down" category. A large pile of the CSM or god-warrior of your choice with fearless and krak grenades will slowly grind a MC down. Or spawn. And spawn aren't actually necessarily that horrible in this role. They can chisel a wound a turn off of a dreadknight, and a wound and a half if they roll poisoned.

I guess the problem is that you sort of need to be a nurgle player for this to really work, though, so as to avoid instant death. Otherwise, I suppose it would be one of those things where if you're already bringing spawn, you might as well go ahead and use them to chisel a wound or two off.

There's actually a batrep for the game where I killed a Lord of Change with Vector Strikes...

http://daemons40k.blogspot.com/2013/07/battle-report-mech-daemons-vs-grimoire.html

What Slaede kind of forgets to mention (and I mention in the comments), is that my Sorcerer locked down two Lords of Changes for two and one turns respectively, using Dominate on one and Hallucination on the other. So that kind of backs up your idea of looking at the Sorcerer comprehensively, because has access to so many powerful (if random) tools.

You're right about unwieldy weapons, but many MCs don't have grenades. So if you plop a Sorcerer in terrain, at worst he's going at the same time. Many players (in my experience) won't risk gambling a 300 point MC for a 110 point Sorcerer.

I think the DK is a poor example for Nurgle Spawn, because of the Force Weapon. But otherwise, yeah, they're a great tarpit (Barring DKs, Swarlord, Skarbrand, and anyone else with ID weapons)

 Ailaros wrote:

anonymou5 wrote:Heldrake Vector Strikes do a good job...3 STR 7, AP 3 hits is pretty nasty against all of them but Riptides, DKs, and those who scored Iron Arm.

Yeah, I was thinking about vector striking, actually, but you note the problem. Most MCs are either Sv2+ or W6+. Doing 1 wound to a tervigon isn't that great when they have so many of them, and yeah, they'll kind of bounce off of the other ones you mentioned.

It's one of those things where if you're already taking helldrakes, then go ahead and vector strike with them, but I don't know if it's worth taking helldrakes just to handle monstrous creatures.

anonymou5 wrote:A Sorcerer with an Axe or Sword is also situationally good (doubly so if he's rocking Iron Arm). If it's an assault MC, you can sit him in terrain with his squad, and dare him to charge into instant death.

So, something else that struck me with sorcerers is that not all MCs have unwieldy weapons. Sorcerers only have W2, and are going to be relying on their ++ against monstrous creatures. You're not actually even ALL that likely to get a swing in. And when you do, they're only Ws4, and they're only S4 and they're only A2.

I guess it's not so bad if you get iron arm or invisibility, but you're not exactly guaranteed to get those abilities. I guess perhaps you need to look at them comprehensively. It's that you get to enfeeble and then psychic shreik and then hit them with a force axe, or whatever.

It certainly seems trickier than "I'm going to force weapon them", I suppose.

anonymou5 wrote:Tarpitting with Nurgle spawn is also an option, although not ideal.

Yeah, I was actually thinking about this as well. Perhaps it's fair to say that there is a 4th category, the "grind them down" category. A large pile of the CSM or god-warrior of your choice with fearless and krak grenades will slowly grind a MC down. Or spawn. And spawn aren't actually necessarily that horrible in this role. They can chisel a wound a turn off of a dreadknight, and a wound and a half if they roll poisoned.

I guess the problem is that you sort of need to be a nurgle player for this to really work, though, so as to avoid instant death. Otherwise, I suppose it would be one of those things where if you're already bringing spawn, you might as well go ahead and use them to chisel a wound or two off.

I think you over estimate how many MCs have a 2+ save. Off-hand only the riptide and Dreadknight are the common ones. Granted, you will see a riptide in pretty much every tau army though. Pretty much the rest are 3+ saves (Tervigons, trygons, Tyrants) or have a 4+/5+ invul (Demons). The helldrake is amazing against everything, so you aren't losing anything even if you come up against a riptide or dreadknight, since you can just bake crisis suits/firewarriors or grey knights and direct heavier weapons into the 2+ save MCs,

You covered most of the good options in your original post. Plasma-terminators/oblits and long ranged chiseling of wounds 1 or 2 at a time via havocs, predators and/or marines with the odd heavy weapon...I'd shy away from chosen though, as they are just asking to be focused down, and have a pretty poor wound to point ratio.

Sorcerers won't last long enough to do enough damage. If you give him terminator armor, mark of tzeench and a force axe, it MIGHT be okay, but for the cost you might as well take something more effective. There's a really good chance he will get stepped on before he swings, or in the case of a tervigon or something, get stepped on AS he swings. I wouldn't suggest this.

Plague marines are....okay I guess. Poison sounds good on paper, but you need upwards of 48 attacks to drop a T6 W4 3+ save creature. Even a 10 man plague squad shooting then charging isn't very likely to kill a MC on the charge, and it's going to have a fun time burying plague marines in return. It can work, but expect a fair bit of damage in return.

I use barebones Forgefiends in my games and I find them really good against MC, I remember once in a tourney I killed a Wraithlord on full wounds in one turn of shooting, which was great (although this was in the edition before the Eldar codex update, but I think it would still do the same effect today). The only Trouble I have MC-wise is the famous Tyranid Nidzilla list, and that only because of Iron Arm...

happygolucky wrote:I use barebones Forgefiends in my games and I find them really good against MC, I remember once in a tourney I killed a Wraithlord on full wounds in one turn of shooting

anonymou5 wrote:There's actually a batrep for the game where I killed a Lord of Change with Vector Strikes...

What Slaede kind of forgets to mention (and I mention in the comments), is that my Sorcerer locked down two Lords of Changes for two and one turns respectively, using Dominate on one and Hallucination on the other.

Yes, but these are cases of being really lucky (well, assuming the LoC had a grimoire). The dominate especially. How many times would an opponent have to fail a Ld10 check in order to be shut down by that ability? Shooting against a dreadknight, a forgefiend is likely to do only .56 wounds. That's in the same range as heavy bolter havocs bad.

Still thinking about sorcerers, though, there are certainly a few things that could stand to be nasty, like psychic shreik with good rolling, or a well-timed enfeeble to drag something down into ID range from S10. I suppose the biggest problem is the number of rolls you have to make. You've got to pass the psychic test, and then you've got to pass your to-hit roll (where applicable) and your opponent has to fail their deny the witch roll. There's a lot that can go wrong in there, and that's before the power even manifests.

Anyways, I do kind of wonder which would be the best way to go about anti-MC duty with a sorcerer. On the TP side you have a decent chance to getting a force axe swing in with a sigil and invisibility. Likewise, hallucination isn't that bad either, nor is psychic shreik. Even more cleverly, you can go for puppet master and have one of your opponents' anti-MC weapons help you out. On the other hand, with biomancy you get several chances to use that force axe if you survive, from the EW and +S of iron arm to the -T of enfeeble, to the +A of warp speed.

Hmm...

Carnage43 wrote:I think you over estimate how many MCs have a 2+ save. Off-hand only the riptide and Dreadknight are the common ones. Granted, you will see a riptide in pretty much every tau army though.

And that's the problem. Half of the players at our store bring GK or Tau at the moment, and when they do, the bring at least two riptides or dreadknights. They're everywhere all the time. Meanwhile, there are zero tyranid players. I'm going to come across 2+Sv a lot more than any other monstrous creature type.

But once again, the other kind have their own problems. You're not going to vector strike a wraithknight to death before your fliers are getting shot down.

Is there any particular reason 2x 3 man oblit squads and a blackmace pimped out daemon prince will not work?

The 6 oblits will average a dead DK when they come down.

The DP will average a dead DK without even factoring in psychic powers. I would recommend softening the DK up unless you roll iron arm. The DP is also good against pretty much anything it touches and is one of the few citters capable of taking a flyrant, abadon, or a squad or berserkers in CC. The FMC is also fast enough to realistically catch one of these Jump MC.

Here are some example builds. They are expensive admittedly but with a DP you get what you pay for.

Daemon Prince (365pts)
Gift of mutation, 3x Mastery Level, Nurgle, Power Armour, Spell familiar, The Black Mace, Wings

Daemon Prince (335pts)
3x Mastery Level, Power Armour, Slaanesh, The Black Mace, Wings

Oh definitely a bit of luck (well not on the Vector Strikes, I targeted the LoC who was carrying the Grimoire, not the one benefitting from it). But LoCs are only leadership 9 (except for when making psychic tests). I was just showing an example of how there are a ton of options in Telepathy to Troll MCs (and everything else).

While I love Shriek and Puppet Master, I don't think they're that great on a Sorc, because he's only BS4. (interesting aside, the only thing I've ever shot against a Riptide, in many games against Tau, is puppet master. I've also only killed Riptides with sweeping advances, which I've done maybe ten times now. Heh). Those are powers for Princes (and Fateweaver). Unless you're bringing Divination in.

And yeah, a Black Mace Prince is the killer, although I prefer him Tzeentch to the other options. Fleshbane plus a toughness test for each wound inflicted (which is how it's usually ruled at tournies in my experience, YMMV) makes him an everything killer. But....so pricey.

ansacs wrote:Is there any particular reason 2x 3 man oblit squads and a blackmace pimped out daemon prince will not work?

Well, my problem with oblits here isn't that they're bad, so much as it's that they're inconsistent. They show up on turn 2... or 3... or sometimes 4. And then they have to scatter, but not so far they get out of double-tap range, or in a direction that gives the target a better cover save, or that mishaps. Either being destroyed, or being put in the time-out corner will basically nullify them. Even if they do land on time and on target, then they have to deal with interceptor fire sometimes, which only REALLY matters against tau, but still...

There are just a lot of question marks that float over them to be consistent enough of MC killers in my mind.

But that's not all - they're also expensive. You can buy going on three monstrous creatures for the price of 6 obliterators. This seems like another one of those things where if you have obliterators already, then certainly shoot them at MCs, but they're far from purpose built for the job, and you might need serious backup for them.

The super prince is certainly more reliable with regard to everything said above, but it's also got its own risks. For spending potentially a LOT of points (easily blowing past 250 points, and with psychic powers sailing past 300), for something that's not actually all that tough. In order to have anti-MC, you're bringing a unit that's more vulnerable to your opponent's anti-MC than your opponent is to yours.

I mean, we're talking about something that can be reliably killed by mass autocannon fire, which makes me a bit uncomfortable...

anonymou5 wrote:But LoCs are only leadership 9

Hmm. I suppose the problem that you have with psykers here, and against DKs and against TMCs is that they get better witch denial. And they're getting a 2+ to that with the LoC, right? Having to roll to hit and then have a half chance of just failing sounds... crummy...

I guess at least you'd be able to use the force weapon on them.

Ehh most MCs have 3+. Unless the Hive Tyrant took armor (which if im not mistaken he cant take armor and wings) hes a 3+, all the other nidzillas are 3+ unless its a junk one like Harpies which are 4+
Wraithknights are 3+ for some reason as well.

Swarmlord, Armored Tyrant, Riptide, or Dreadknight are all that have 2+ and 2 of those are dead rare to find (who the hell doesnt run a flyrant?)

However that doesnt help the issue lol as the only AP3 weapons i can think of are either pi plate, melee, or specialty weapon (i.e. one of a kind). Which against MC, all of those would have issues.

Your best bet might be to try and gak it to death, maybe autocannon havocs? im no pro at CSM but ive glanced at the dex and used them in an army swap game.

Yeah, and that's why the distinction doesn't matter very much. MCs with a 3+ tend to also have W6. For comparison, shooting plasma at a W4 2+/5++ and against a W6 3+ is 9 hits against both target types to take them down. Put another way, they have exactly the same durability. Different weapons will skew things one way or the other, but the problem of killing one kind of MC sort of stretches out to all of them.

I mean, there are some exceptions like the regenerating swarmlord, and the worse-than-average DP, but still...

As for chiseling with shooting, the best I could find was the 4x lascannon havok squad, throwing off about 1.5 wounds per turn of shooting. Autocannon havocs drop this down to .58 against 2+ and 1.2 against 3+. For the same price as most MCs, you can get roughly 14 CSM with bolters, who, at double tap range put down .5 or 1 wound on 2+ and 3+, respectively.

Really, you're looking for little more than a prayer to the dark gods for good rolls here. That or to have had your entire army shoot at them to bring them down to just one wound, and then to finish them off with the havocs (or bolters, or whatever).

LoCs max out at Mastery Level 3, assuming ML 3 Sorcerer, it's a 5+ Deny. The only Psychers in the game getting better than that are Fateweaver, Eldrad, and Ahriman (and really only Fateweaver sees the table in a competitive environment. Eldrad disappeared with the new book). There are other ways to get a 4+ or better obviously (the new Runes of Warning once a game, Flesh Hounds, Daemon Psychers with the Adamantine Will Gift...and of course Runic Weapon and Shadows), but in general it's a 5+ or worse with a ML3 Psycher. Still....an extra roll.

Yeah, and two 2/3ds chances of success is only a .44. Throw on rolling an 11 or 12 as a failure of the test in the first place, and it drops down to only .4.

That's worse than BS3... before you even get to do anything...

Also, something about chiseling wounds that I had neglected. 35 cultists with autoguns come in at about the price of a monstrous creature, and, assuming you have some possible way of surviving and getting them into range, all 35 of them double-tapping will take about 1 wound off of a dreadknight or 2 off of something with Sv3+.

In case you missed that, cultists are twice as good as CSM per point against monstrous creatures...

Against FMC, we have to factor in the extra damage from grounding tests. Gives a real incentive to have a wide range of shooting squads.

The old standby of a power fist champion won't work in normal squads but putting one or two on a rank and file chosen or terminator should keep it safe.

Oh, that's actually a good point, a couple of powerfists would go a long way in a terminator squad, especially if it's in a bigger unit of them. It would solve some of the problems of the obliterators as well, depending on how you fielded them. Hmm...

Also, I didn't quite give the CSM the credit they were due I think. If you're willing to inflate the squad to 310 (20 with two plasmas and a combi-plasma)... so nearly the price of two MCs, and you can get them unharmed into double tap range, and assuming they get charged the next turn, you'd be looking at putting down 3 wounds on a dreadknight, and 4.5 off of an Sv3+ monstrous creature. That would be hurt enough to then krak grenade it to death after the champ died.

Of course, that too has a lot of ifs. If you manage to get everyone into double tap, and if you can then survive with enough to take down the second monstrous creature that you'd need to to justify the cost...

---

Okay, so thinking about this more, something else struck me. The most overlooked unit in the codex - mutilators.

3 of them with MoK is only 180 points, so it has a points cost appropriate to a monstrous creature. On the charge, it morphs a pair of chainfists and throws down 15 attacks of them on the charge. That's 4.2 wounds that stick on a dreadknight, and 6.3 wounds taken off of a W6 Sv3+ monstrous creature. Put another way, they have just enough killing power to one-shot a monstrous creature.

Of course, this is all kind of silly, right? I mean, how do you get them into close combat with a monstrous creature? Deepstriking, they're just a cheaper, worse version of obliterators here. I guess you'd have to rely on the fact that they have such a bargain-level threat profile that your opponent just wouldn't bother shooting at them. Perhaps what they're best used for is in a countercharge role. The MC attacks your CSM, or whatever, and on the first turn the champ fights it out, saving the rest of the squad, and then in the next turn, you charge in with the mutilators and chop the monstrous creature into thin little ribbons.

This sounds so absurd... but it IS a way of one-shotting a monstrous creature... somehow...

Sorry, wrong thread. Please ignore this.

Invisible Maulerfiends with tendrils. Nasty buggers those are. The Swarmlord can smash one with one attack, hitting on 5's.

The best way to kill FMCs is a lot of dakka, you only need to hit to ground, then blast it with plasma,LCs, powerfists, melta, and missiles.

Ok so you're fighting Dreadknights and Riptides..

tbh the best methods I can think of Is either spending points on high Str, low AP Weapons (such as lascannons and plasma types, etc) or using volumes of fire, such as using all types of Autocannons, etc.

I would recommend the following units

-Lascannon Havocs (because you will be forcing your opponent to take Inv saves when you wound).
-Autocannon Havocs (at Str 7 yes he or she will get saves but the volume of fire will take a heavy toll on it).
-Plasma guns (likewise these guys will be on board mobile squads, assumingly so they will most likely be within rapid fore range and also forcing your opponent to take Invs once again).
-Forgefiends ( I cannot stress these guys enough, every game I have fought a MC with this unit, barebones this guy has taken out MC be it within a turn or two turns, and whilst you may have said that it has the range of a heavy bolter I have always found mine to be within range of everything just move it 6" and your golden).
-Oblits (yes there inconsistent but 2 squads DS with lascannons or melta weaponry at the ready is not gonna hurt either).

Just my take on it from past experience but if one weapon is great at taking out tanks then its great on taking out MC as well.