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G'day. I'm catching up with an old friend in a few months and we will be playing games at the 1500 pt level. He plays tyranids, but don't ask what he has I don't know yet.

I'm building a c:sm army. So far I have two full tac squads in rhinos. 2 bike squads. Two stormtalons. Two tfcs.

What other units would be good to add to go against nids? The main reason I ask is although we play friendly, my mates fairly competitive so I want to put in a decent game for him.

Any advice on heavy, fast and elite as well as hq would be good. What wepon loadouts for the units i have already? I'm currently leaning towards white scars traits. Would khan be good for outflank? Also, gene stealers, if he brings them how should I respond and with what unit?

Thanks for any advice guys, much appreciated.

I am tyranids player, I was tend on many genestealer as I can take and hoards of beast. My weakness is template weapon like flamer and blast. My best guess is flyer unit because I don't think tyranids have skyfire weapons.

Hope this help.

>Taking as many Tactical, Sternguard, and Dev squads w/ML. You have range, weight of fire, and the durabilty to back it up. Nothing says screw you NIDS like Dev squads with ML.

Take Plasma and Grav on your bikes/tacticals to deal with the MC's. A devastator unit with missile launchers is great at killing the big bugs, putting blasts out on the little bugs, and ID'ing the medium bugs. Have at least 3 to 4 scoring units, as objectives are nids' strength and you'll need to out-score him to win a game.

Aside from that, avoid CC with the fast ones and good luck.

The few times I've crossed paths with 'nids, my Typhoon/HB speeders have been gold. Bikes with grav guns are also a good call.

If you want to wreck his day, Cassius in a drop pod of sternguard will do ugly things to whatever you shoot at.

Templates hurt bad. If he's got a good list he's probably bringing a Flyrant and 2 Tervigons. You'll need something to handle those.

Heldrakes work great for VS against Flyrants if they don't have IA. Otherwise Obliterators work awesome because tyranids have no way to handle 2+ saves.

Again, Templates will be your friend against Nids.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
Take Plasma and Grav on your bikes/tacticals to deal with the MC's. A devastator unit with missile launchers is great at killing the big bugs, putting blasts out on the little bugs, and ID'ing the medium bugs. Have at least 3 to 4 scoring units, as objectives are nids' strength and you'll need to out-score him to win a game.

Aside from that, avoid CC with the fast ones and good luck.

3 squads of Devs kitted with ML with a Libby for prescience should pretty much seal the game. Luck isn't even needed in that game. Combat squad everything, unless its purge.

Thanks guys

So, ml devs seem to be the way to go. Along with them I'll have my tacs and bikes with plasma and grav respectively.

What other units are good to include in my list?

I'm thinking typhoon speeders or even hf speeders? Mobile enough to stay away from hordes.

Cheers

If you take HF speeders, just be sure to kill what you shoot at. It doesn't take much to pull them out of the sky...

Speeders aren't worth it - free gants can glance them out of the sky relatively easily.

Yeah a bit of a gamble hey. I might go with your earlier advice Nevelon and opt for the typhoons.

Again, 3 squads of devs with ML is pretty much a guarenteed win. Anything else you add is just icing on the cake. You won't need rhinos when you have power armor. Just let your Tacs shoot the small guys and your Devs deal with the synapse granters. Take 2 Libbys and put each with a squad of Devs.

If anything take Dreadnaughts. Autocannons for the lulz and then throw them into a squad of gants and laugh as they can't even do anything about them.

Missile Launcher are good cause they cover two bases.
a) Fires a template
b) Can wound and insta-kill bigger bugs.

You have two ways of killing off his waves of bugs.
1) Anything that fires a template of any shape.
2) Anything that gets a high number of shots.


I don't know what the guys up farther was talking about saying bugs cant deal with 2+ armor.... Any big bug, and most people take a lot, will mow through 2+ like it wasn't there, because all monstrous creatures attack at ap2.

ML devs is pretty much tailoring.

I would suggest 2 sniper scout units to bring your troop count up, and then whatever you feel you need.

Of note, your bike squads should be 5-6 bikes strong. I suggest a biker captain/CM to make them troop as well.

You lack heavy anti tank, so make sure to sprinkle in some melta guns in your bike units and/or your tactical squads. Also consider making your rhinos into lascannon razorbacks, that way you can still take your tacticals, but with lascannon and melta gun, then combat squad.

Finally, you don't have any melee unit. A 5 man TH/SS termie unit will kill anything big, while a unit of vanguard vets can handle any little guys with no problem.

Speeders are good, but there's 2 ways to run them. The first is assault cannon and heavy bolter, these guys kill all the things on the field that are not heavy vehicles. There is also ML and multi-melta, a great long range support setup that can kill any vehicle and put the hurt on enemy big things. Better than devastators.

 juraigamer wrote:
ML devs is pretty much tailoring.

I would suggest 2 sniper scout units to bring your troop count up, and then whatever you feel you need.

Of note, your bike squads should be 5-6 bikes strong. I suggest a biker captain/CM to make them troop as well.

You lack heavy anti tank, so make sure to sprinkle in some melta guns in your bike units and/or your tactical squads. Also consider making your rhinos into lascannon razorbacks, that way you can still take your tacticals, but with lascannon and melta gun, then combat squad.

Finally, you don't have any melee unit. A 5 man TH/SS termie unit will kill anything big, while a unit of vanguard vets can handle any little guys with no problem.

Speeders are good, but there's 2 ways to run them. The first is assault cannon and heavy bolter, these guys kill all the things on the field that are not heavy vehicles. There is also ML and multi-melta, a great long range support setup that can kill any vehicle and put the hurt on enemy big things. Better than devastators.

Bikes would be a nice addition, and they use a slot that is left wide open to you at this point. FA. Put some plasma on, it has enough range where should feel safe.

Nids are really good from 18 inches and less, once they start getting close you should try to back off and cushion your troop picks with space. Fire, back up 6. You could probably do this twice before they are in rapid fire distance. There shouldn't be a lot of small bugs left by the time they get to you provided you have enough bolters.

Sheeple keep hounding on templates. The thing about them is this. If your close wnough to use it. The bugs are close enough to you to do some serious damage.

Think about playing IF chapter tactics too, Bolter Drill is gold (re-roll to-hit 1's with Bolter type weapons).

Another point is that they are guaranteed to get close.

I would think about playing IF 3rd company (the about to be released E-book) and profit from re-rolling *all* failed to-hit and to-wound rolls at half range with all bolter type weapons instead of the vanilla re-roll of to-hit 1's.

Another bonus to this is when playing other armies you have tank hunters on those aforementioned Devastator squads.

Edit:
I disagree that taking ML Dev's is tailoring, because they are ultra flexible imo. Give them Flakk missiles as well and they can happily be used to at least force pinning checks on any FMC's your mate has.

Best part about ML Dev's is that they are useful against any army. Being able to choose between Str 8 Krak, Str 7 Skyfire Flakk, Str 4 Blast on the fly. Also, don't forget to forfeit your Sergeant's shooting so that one of your heavy weapons can fire at BS5.. What's not to like?

I'm now taking 2 full squads of Dev's in every list I field. I truly believe they are that useful (I combat squad them most of the time, allowing 2x 5 man Bolter squads to run off and cause more trouble, or splitting them up into two individual 2x HW fire teams for pseudo split fire).

Yeah I've been thinking about if traits. Admittedly for this list the tank hunters isn't gonna help, but if I start building devestators it would be nice for other games.

Then there's bolter drill which is very nice indeed.

The kitted up Chap master on a bike. Excellent against MCs... just keep him away from horde or he will die a death of a thousand cuts, especially against poisioned attacks.

STERNGUARDS!!!!!!!

2 heavy weapons of your choice per squad and Hellfire rounds for anti-MCs, add Pedro to make them scoring.

Enjoy!

@Skabfang

When you say you use two units of devs in your regular force, what configuration and loadout are you giving them. I'm interested in introducing them but want to know if they're worth using full time.

Thanks everyone, very insightful.

Jamo wrote:
@Skabfang

When you say you use two units of devs in your regular force, what configuration and loadout are you giving them. I'm interested in introducing them but want to know if they're worth using full time.

Thanks everyone, very insightful.

They are. 2 squads of ML devs, very versatile, just take our word on it. The reasons have been explained already.

Straight to the point! I like it !!!