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I am having my first tournament this weekend, which is 1000pts. I heard a rumour today that there will be a Tyranids army with 5 monstrous creature, with which four will be airborne ( 2 flyrants with devourers, 1 harpy and 1 hive crone), the last one is Mawloc ! While he may just have 2 hordes of 10 hormaguant to fill in the troop choice. I am a new player that do not actually have experiences in fighting Nids, let alone flying circus full of Nidzilla in such a low point games, so I seek help in the forum. Hope anyone would pop out any ideas in terms of tactics against such horror.

Our list for the tournament is finalised. I am playing Ultramarines all the way from my first site on 40k game. I am bringing sternguard with combi-melta and combi-Flamer, Devastator with 2 LC and 1ML , 1 Stormraven with LC and MM, 1.5 full tactical squad with Flamer, combi-Flamer, HB, PC, rhino and droppod as transports, all Sgt. have melta bomb, and Tigirius commanding my whole army. If the Nidzilla is on ground, swarming to me, I think I won't have headache, but they are mostly airborne, so the only thing at my disposal can reliably kill them is the lone stormreaven which understandably gonna to be glanced out of sky by 20+ S6 devourer maggots, 2 haywire bugs, and any possible vector strikes , maybe after he fired his 1st round and take maybe 2 wounds from 1 flyrant. And the final monstrous serpent is going to pop out from the underground and eat anything in its way! So I desperately need advices, any idea or experience pop out will be highly appreciated. I hope I won't get tabled. And really hope it is just rumour

Ally in orkses with trakktor cannonz

Ok. The initial thought by myself at this moment is if I go first, I drop pod my 5 sternguard supported by Tiggy near one of his flyrant on the first turn, preferably the warlord one, and shoot melta or hellfire bolt into it, hopefully with the perfect timing and prescience blessing I could kill it while it is gliding before his 1st turn, and Stormraven come in 2nd turn to deal with the other one, and his army may fall apart due to lost synapse, and all rest flying monsters maybe forced to charge me. If I am going 2nd, then pray the Emperor would bless me and try get re roll snap shot (from CT, and psychic, and warlord trait) into the air until I got tabled.

Another issue is that how to maximise the buff from Tiggy, his blessing is roughly 12 inch only, so maybe I cannot stretch myself thin? Because I definitely need re roll buff for more than one squad at the same time in such a fight. So I am being torn apart by idea to let him support sternguard alpha strike opponent flyrant (which I am pretty sure that he will hide it out of LOS from my LC on 1st turn) if I go 1st or stay near the Devastator squad to re roll snap shot for more than one turn. Any suggestions?

Can Ultramarine psykers take telepathy? I have very good experiences with Psychic Shriek vs. Tyranid FMCs. In average a Psychic Shriek will deal 1 wound on a leadership 10 model, if you roll Terrify you can lower it by 1 and use the synergy of multiple Shrieks on the same target. Generally the chance for hurting a Ld 9 model with at least one wound is 62.5%.

Weapons that Space Marines have against MCs: grav weapons, sternguard special ammo, plasma weapons, skyhammer? missiles from stormtalons, ironclad ccws, th/ss termis, powerfists, autocannon pred, assault cannons, the best though is an iron arm/force weapon buffed Iibrarian = instant death MC.

Take your pick m8.

 koooaei wrote:
Ally in orkses with trakktor cannonz

Thanks for the advice, I hope I had played orks after I know that the Great Devourer can TRULY build such an army within 1000pts, I understand that 2 mobs of 15ork Loota maybe the strongest answer, but lists for tournament had been firmed. So I can only work out how to use the certain army at my disposal in this specific game.

Besides, I just liked Ultramarine from my first site back in the Oxford GW store.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Murenius wrote:
Can Ultramarine psykers take telepathy? I have very good experiences with Psychic Shriek vs. Tyranid FMCs. In average a Psychic Shriek will deal 1 wound on a leadership 10 model, if you roll Terrify you can lower it by 1 and use the synergy of multiple Shrieks on the same target. Generally the chance for hurting a Ld 9 model with at least one wound is 62.5%.

Thanks for the reply, any marine Liberians can take Telepathy, let alone Tiggy, that is one of my consideration as well, if I can go 1st and strike before the winged hive lord take into the air. Once it is airborne, Tiggy has to roll a 6 to hit it due to witchfire.

In that sense, maybe some Nova power from Telekinesis or Pryomancy is better? Since 2d6 auto hit on anything in 9 inch, only strength 4 though. What do you think? Which one maybe better?

Thanks in advance

You will have a very tough time against that list, it's a very difficult one to counter at 1k points for most armies. Even if you get the alpha strike he will most likely have his flyers bubble wrapped in cover for a 3+ cover save.

Will the mission be determined on the day? He has the edge in mobility and survivability so will likely win anything maelstrom or kill points related.

Can you find 15 points to at least make your one ML Dev have flakk missiles? That would at least give you one other AA option without revising your entire list.

Neophyte2012 wrote:

Thanks for the reply, any marine Liberians can take Telepathy, let alone Tiggy, that is one of my consideration as well, if I can go 1st and strike before the winged hive lord take into the air. Once it is airborne, Tiggy has to roll a 6 to hit it due to witchfire.

In that sense, maybe some Nova power from Telekinesis or Pryomancy is better? Since 2d6 auto hit on anything in 9 inch, only strength 4 though. What do you think? Which one maybe better?
Thanks in advance

2d6 auto hits with S4 would mean 1.17 wounds in average against S6, and then probably still a save. I'd say you'd get your wound a bit more reliable with such a nova power, but less deviation to higher or lower amounts of wounds. A good roll with Psychic Shriek can remove a FMC at full wounds without any save allowed afaik. I tend to Shriek, also since you have a chance to roll Invisibility in Telepathy which will allow you to protect your key units from the FMCs.

 BladeTX wrote:
Weapons that Space Marines have against MCs: grav weapons, sternguard special ammo, plasma weapons, skyhammer? missiles from stormtalons, ironclad ccws, th/ss termis, powerfists, autocannon pred, assault cannons, the best though is an iron arm/force weapon buffed Iibrarian = instant death MC.

Take your pick m8.

Thanks, my list actually build with the consideration of against a few heavy tanks or foot slogging monsters such as around 3 Leman Russ, less than 2 Wraith Knight / Ripetide, since I did not expect large number of tough target, so I take 3 combi-melta and a PC, as well as 2 LC and 1 ML, and a claimed the strongest flyer in 40k (which will be out numbered more than 3:1, not counting the harpy since it do not do good in air to air) with TLLC and TLMM. But now suffering headache against 8 T6 3+save wounds and 8 T4 4+ save wounds in the sky and 6 T6 wounds underground waiting to eat anything not a vehicle in its way.

I've had a thought about this and have some more constructive feedback on tackling this list

I would stick Tiggy with the devs, if you put him with the stern guard for the turn 1 drop he will cost you slay the warlord and his buffs for the rest of the game. I would put him with the devs on the 1st floor (or higher) of a ruin and roll on telepathy to prescience buff them all game. Being on the 1st floor or higher of the ruin will protect them from the mawloc.

The target priority should be flyrants first, try to focus one down and not split your shots between them if possible. If they jink it will lower their damage output by quite a bit (average of 3 hits with the Tl devs instead of 11) so forcing jink is good.

The damage of a harpy or crone is pretty low vs marines as you get a save against everything apart from VS, just make sure you spread out to avoid taking too many template hits.

The mawloc does most of it's damage with terror from the deep (s6 ap2 ignore cover large blast) when it arrives from ds reserves so spread out to avoid losing too many men to this. As already mentioned, being off the ground will protect you from this as well. In cc he isn't too scary, 4 attacks at ws3 on the charge although they are s6 ap2.

Two units of gaunts will be fairly easy to take down, especially if you catch them out of synapse.

Your only chance is to focus his warlord with massed AA and then kill the second flyrant if you still have the ressources to do so because once that is done, your oponent is out of synapse

My suggestion is to get 3 of those hunter AA tanks. Put your tacs in rhinos and give them flak missiles. The rhinos will get popped for sure but you get a free turn of holding that opjective and then you can take shots at the flyers.
Take 3 stormtalons with typhoon and you ve got a shot at winning. otherwise, brace for a slow and unpleasant deffeat as he unloads dices at your helpless army.

Terror from the Deep wrote:
You will have a very tough time against that list, it's a very difficult one to counter at 1k points for most armies. Even if you get the alpha strike he will most likely have his flyers bubble wrapped in cover for a 3+ cover save.

Will the mission be determined on the day? He has the edge in mobility and survivability so will likely win anything maelstrom or kill points related.

Thanks for the reply anyway, I really have headache now. The organiser of the tournament determined the games will be scouring, purge the alien and big guns never tired.
He is likely only have around 20 hormaguants for troops due to 5 monsters in 1000pts, so I bet he is planning to wept enemy army to win the game anyway. While hopefully his hormaguants may not be sufficient to properly wrap both his flyrants while keeping out of LOS of my 2 LC, ML, and PC. But hopefully, Emperor have mercy on this fight

With all those MCs, if my math is right, he cannot fit a Venomthrope in there at 1000 points (about 480 for two Flyrants, 290 for Crone and Harpy, and 140 for Mawloc = not enough left over for anything but base troops).

Try to focus down one Flyrant on the first turn, as it may not even be shrouded, just jinking. Then kill his troops and focus on objectives. The flyers can't score when they're in the air. They will have to come down to score, and then you can kill them. Just ignore the Crone and Harpy and focus on the Flyrants and his troops until they are all dead. A single Mawloc isn't much of a threat, either, unless you are really bunched up. It's a coin flip whether it hits, and it is not that dangerous in assault, so don't let yourself get psyched out by it.

Terror from the Deep wrote:
I've had a thought about this and have some more constructive feedback on tackling this list

I would stick Tiggy with the devs, if you put him with the stern guard for the turn 1 drop he will cost you slay the warlord and his buffs for the rest of the game. I would put him with the devs on the 1st floor (or higher) of a ruin and roll on telepathy to prescience buff them all game. Being on the 1st floor or higher of the ruin will protect them from the mawloc.

The target priority should be flyrants first, try to focus one down and not split your shots between them if possible. If they jink it will lower their damage output by quite a bit (average of 3 hits with the Tl devs instead of 11) so forcing jink is good.

The damage of a harpy or crone is pretty low vs marines as you get a save against everything apart from VS, just make sure you spread out to avoid taking too many template hits.

The mawloc does most of it's damage with terror from the deep (s6 ap2 ignore cover large blast) when it arrives from ds reserves so spread out to avoid losing too many men to this. As already mentioned, being off the ground will protect you from this as well. In cc he isn't too scary, 4 attacks at ws3 on the charge although they are s6 ap2.

Two units of gaunts will be fairly easy to take down, especially if you catch them out of synapse.

Thanks for the advice, taking out the flyrants first would definitely help me in the game. IMO , the best chance to do this maybe lay in the 1st turn if I go 1st, by that time the 1 or 2 hive tyrant maybe forced to be in glide mode, but I have to assume he hiding such key unit out of LOS of my long range fire power until they are airborne, and that is why I give a serious consideration of drop pod Tiggy backed sternguard, to flush his warlord out with TL and ignore cover melta shot and hellfire round. But I admit that it is a huge huge gamble, and need to get the 1st turn. Anyway, I would seriously consider your advice, put Tiggy with Devastator and all the way reroll snap shot to anybody near him.

Btw, is it a good idea to drop pod the TAC squad with HB, Flamer and combi-Flamer to toast the guants, while the airborne hive tyrants are left for the lone Stormraven and reroll snap shot Dev and sternguard jumping out of Rhino?

Thanks again for all your hints,

Tac marines in the pod will make it objective secured so is a good idea in this matchup. Your tac squad should delete a gaunt squad a turn if they get close, I wouldn't worry about dropping near them - you should try and get the pod onto an objective to maximise your scoring potential. It would take a flyrant or 2-3 turns of another MC smashing to kill it so would take away some of his precious resource.

The rhino should give the sternguard a bit more protection particularly from the mawloc terror from the deep attack - I would keep them close to the devs so they can jump out when the flyrants get within 18 inches to unleash their TL devourers. That would also keep them in range of tiggy for buffs as well. Only drawback is that you are not stretching his army as much... but may have to be done

Terror from the Deep wrote:

The mawloc does most of it's damage with terror from the deep (s6 ap2 ignore cover large blast) when it arrives from ds reserves so spread out to avoid losing too many men to this. As already mentioned, being off the ground will protect you from this as well. In cc he isn't too scary, 4 attacks at ws3 on the charge although they are s6 ap2.

Mawlocs are pretty cheap, and have plenty o' wounds which make them great for charging into that AA / heavy weapon unit to give the rest some breathing space though, so depending how he likes to play he might charge just to keep threats to the flyers minimal.

 Nem wrote:

Terror from the Deep wrote:

The mawloc does most of it's damage with terror from the deep (s6 ap2 ignore cover large blast) when it arrives from ds reserves so spread out to avoid losing too many men to this. As already mentioned, being off the ground will protect you from this as well. In cc he isn't too scary, 4 attacks at ws3 on the charge although they are s6 ap2.

Mawlocs are pretty cheap, and have plenty o' wounds which make them great for charging into that AA / heavy weapon unit to give the rest some breathing space though, so depending how he likes to play he might charge just to keep threats to the flyers minimal.

yep he's a good tarpit but as a target priority I would generally rank him below the flyrants

Terror from the Deep wrote:

 Nem wrote:

Terror from the Deep wrote:

The mawloc does most of it's damage with terror from the deep (s6 ap2 ignore cover large blast) when it arrives from ds reserves so spread out to avoid losing too many men to this. As already mentioned, being off the ground will protect you from this as well. In cc he isn't too scary, 4 attacks at ws3 on the charge although they are s6 ap2.

Mawlocs are pretty cheap, and have plenty o' wounds which make them great for charging into that AA / heavy weapon unit to give the rest some breathing space though, so depending how he likes to play he might charge just to keep threats to the flyers minimal.

yep he's a good tarpit but as a target priority I would generally rank him below the flyrants

Yep, if both the two flyrants are slain, even at the cost of Tiggy, Sternguard and the Stormraven, I won't be concerning Mawloc by that moment, because he does not have other synapse, and his hormaguants are expecting to start eating each other or charging to my wall of flame. So I will not be suffering a humiliating epic defeat. Which is what I am looking for, of course, winning will be way better

Best counter is going to be Telepathy. As already mentioned, psychic shriek is good at putting wounds on monsters (if not outright killing them in one go) while the other powers enhance your durability (Shrouding, Invisibility). Dominate could also potentially prove devastating if it managed to disrupt a Tyrant, as each one represents a fourth of the army and the bulk of the offensive power (Harpy and Crone are both fairly ineffective against power armored units due to the nature of their weapons, Hormagaunts lack the numbers to really threaten anything, and the Mawloc is designed more to tie-up threats rather than destroy them outright - Terror from the Deep notwithstanding).

Also speaking of the Mawloc, it is limited to only hitting models on the lowest level of a ruin, so if your table has any you can avoid the Terror from the Deep attack by putting your fellows on the upper levels (though this does make them a bit more vulnerable to the Crone or Harpy's template and blast weaponry respectively).

Neophyte2012 wrote:

because he does not have other synapse, and his hormaguants are expecting to start eating each other or charging to my wall of flame.

Truthfully, the list actually isn't really that synapse dependent. Apart from the Mawloc, all of the monsters are Ld 10 and are more or less unaffected by their instinctive behaviors. The Hormagaunts also can also bypass IB: Feed by going to ground every turn they have the ability to, as units that have gone to ground do not test for instinctive behavior.

If you know there are people playing eldar and tau as well, a stalker isn't a bad choice (it can skyfire against skimmers!)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Are you still based in Oxford?

Asmodas wrote:
With all those MCs, if my math is right, he cannot fit a Venomthrope in there at 1000 points (about 480 for two Flyrants, 290 for Crone and Harpy, and 140 for Mawloc = not enough left over for anything but base troops).

Try to focus down one Flyrant on the first turn, as it may not even be shrouded, just jinking. Then kill his troops and focus on objectives. The flyers can't score when they're in the air. They will have to come down to score, and then you can kill them. Just ignore the Crone and Harpy and focus on the Flyrants and his troops until they are all dead. A single Mawloc isn't much of a threat, either, unless you are really bunched up. It's a coin flip whether it hits, and it is not that dangerous in assault, so don't let yourself get psyched out by it.

Thanks for the hints and encourage.
Your calculation is right, other than the the 5 monsters, he only have less than two dozen of scything talon small bugs for troop. Nothing else.
I was shocked by such a list at first sight because I realised even in 1000pts, Tyranids player can bring up a flying circus which out number my lone Stormraven 3:1 (not counting harpy because of not good at AA), and each one possess the statistical capability of single handily glancing StormRaven out of the sky within one turn (d3 S6 or S8 VT + 12 S6 TL shots or 2 TL haywire flying bugs). And now I release that everything actually comes down to the way of taking out his dual flyrants ASAP , preferable before my Stormraven got shot down

You've got a bad matchup. It isn't going to be easy for your list. The best bet of pure marines vs FMCs is to spam out as many combat-squaded units in transports as possible, since your list is locked, I think the key thing is going to be where you place your drop pods.

There is a lot of good advice here. Here is mine.

Tiggy with the Devs on turn 1
Be very careful drop podding anything in his backfield. If you give him a chance to fight 1/2 or 1/3 of your army he will beat you. The only reason you should consider alpha striking is that you are certain you will kill a flyrant. Even then it is dubious.
Drop Pods are hard for Tyranids to kill. Put them on objectives if you've got a chance.

Keep your everything off the ground that you can. 2nd level of ruins is safety. Combat squad everything that you can. Overkill is your friend, and all of the template weapons won't hit as hard if the squads are smaller.

The Tyranid players will make whatever squad tiggy is with a priority. So if you start him with the Devestators, and they take too much fire jump him over to the Sternguard. If you TL them, they can put wounds on a FMC (hellfire). Use your Tac Squads to kill the gants. Don't worry, they have to come to you, and are close combat only, so you've got a chance to shoot them up before they get there. If you can make him land his FMC's to claim objectives, you can kill them on the ground. Eternal war is not your friend in this regard.

Grounding checks are both your friend and your foe. If you ground an FMC, then it can assault you.

Also Syanpse is your friend, and the enemy of every tyranid player. He will forget about it at various times during the game. If at the start of his turn any of his units are more than 12" from a flyrant, make sure he makes a synapse check. Most likely the Gants, will spend a turn or 2 eating themselves unless he is a very careful player. 1000 points is hard to get enough synapse in the list. The other thing synapse can help you with is preventing the Crone from shooting. He has to fail a leadership 10, but if he does, All the crone can do is vector strike.

Neophyte2012 wrote:
[(d3 S6 or S8 VT + 12 S6 TL shots or 2 TL haywire flying bugs).

Vector Strikes count as having fired a single weapon, so either D3 vector strike hits + 6 S6 TL shots/1 Tentaclid or 12 S6 TL shots/2 Tentaclids. In most cases, the Tyrants are probably going to elect to fire their devourers over anything else, though the Crone will probably vector strike when possible (conserves tentaclids and has a higher chance of doing serious damage).

 Murenius wrote:

Neophyte2012 wrote:

Thanks for the reply, any marine Liberians can take Telepathy, let alone Tiggy, that is one of my consideration as well, if I can go 1st and strike before the winged hive lord take into the air. Once it is airborne, Tiggy has to roll a 6 to hit it due to witchfire.

In that sense, maybe some Nova power from Telekinesis or Pryomancy is better? Since 2d6 auto hit on anything in 9 inch, only strength 4 though. What do you think? Which one maybe better?
Thanks in advance

2d6 auto hits with S4 would mean 1.17 wounds in average against S6, and then probably still a save. I'd say you'd get your wound a bit more reliable with such a nova power, but less deviation to higher or lower amounts of wounds. A good roll with Psychic Shriek can remove a FMC at full wounds without any save allowed afaik. I tend to Shriek, also since you have a chance to roll Invisibility in Telepathy which will allow you to protect your key units from the FMCs.

Actually, psychic shreik is not auto-hit. It's a witchfire, thus you got to roll as usual. In this case hitting only on a 6.

If you really want to have at least some chances vs a skyblight and don't want to ally anything more effective than you got the only option i see is spam stalkers or...the second one - don't remember how it's called. The problem is you're gona spend 150-200 points on a dedicated anti-air that can't do much to anything else other than skimmers. I'd probably try to just avoid flyrants. Yep, they bring quite some punch but they also cost 240 for one. Kill other stuff and get maelstorm points. That's the key to victory vs elitist cheeze armies.

 koooaei wrote:

Actually, psychic shreik is not auto-hit. It's a witchfire, thus you got to roll as usual. In this case hitting only on a 6.

And since Psychic Shriek doesn't have a weapon profile nor does it roll to wound, missing does nothing.

 koooaei wrote:
That's the key to victory vs elitist cheeze armies.

Really? Two Tyrants are elitist cheese?



To the OP, my advice is to beat him on objectives. His Tyrants can only kill so much in the 5 turns. His Harpy and Crones can only kill so much as well with
virtually no AP on the board. They cant just hop down and assault defenseless space smurfs like they used to, so play the objectives game. If his Tyrants fall
then he's going to have a hard time.

Im sorry, havnt you seen the nids tactics thread? There HARMLESS! They cant beat anyone. A couple of tac squads and your good.

Listen sonny, ive been playing 40k since Bush Sr was in office. Now I've always thought monstrous creatures were tough to kill. People have been screaming about them for years. Ever since WLs were made of metal, and up until now with RTs. According to the nids player's no matter how many MCs they cant win. So no worries man. S'all good.

 Iechine wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
That's the key to victory vs elitist cheeze armies.

Really? Two Tyrants are elitist cheese?



To the OP, my advice is to beat him on objectives. His Tyrants can only kill so much in the 5 turns. His Harpy and Crones can only kill so much as well with
virtually no AP on the board. They cant just hop down and assault defenseless space smurfs like they used to, so play the objectives game. If his Tyrants fall
then he's going to have a hard time.

Aaaaand that's exactly the same advice i've given

Yep, a unit is considered cheezy when you can't deal with it bringing your tac list. It doesn't mean you can't play around it, eh. Elitist means low body count. 4 creatures taking >80% points of the entire army is clearly an elitist approach.

Low body count is elitist...what?