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If somebody brings in a Tyranids army with 3 Flying Hive Tyrants and 4 Hive Crone/Harpies (2 CAD, self-allying), what will you do? Is there some way to bring down these flying monstrosities? Quad Gun, Wave Serpent, Dreadknight, what could possibly counter it?
Please let me know. Thanks.

I'd start with taking some of the Skyfiring fortifications. Beyond that, it depends on the army.

Yeah, it depends on who's asking. In general, a Quad laser, and Synapse hunting are very strong answers. Anything past that is codex specific.

For me, strategic placement of Night Scythes, A-barges, and that's about it. Remember that Hive Crones are only T5 with a 4+ save.

Start by taking as much skyfire as you can. Don't forget Dev squads can take Flakk missiles. Then I'd try and bring down the Flyrants ASAP. Not sure, but I don't think Crones provide synapse, do they?

 jreilly89 wrote:
Start by taking as much skyfire as you can. Don't forget Dev squads can take Flakk missiles. Then I'd try and bring down the Flyrants ASAP. Not sure, but I don't think Crones provide synapse, do they?

Crones and Harpies do not. They are LD10, so not being in synapse doesn't hurt that much, but yeah.

If you are talking list-tailoring, it depends largely on codex.

If you are talking about one of your TAC lists that gets surprised with this, target priority and position is the name of the game.

My experience against Harpies is limited, but if you aren't taking a Vehicle heavy list, you can probably ignore them until you deal with his Hive Tyrants.
Identify which Tyrants are more shooty and which are melee equipped. Focus on the melee one(s) as quickly as possible.
When I say focus, I mean shoot everything you have on the field. Snap Shots may be laughable, but throw enough dice and you may cause a wound.
If you bring down one flyer after spending most of your shooting, I would ration out the rest of the shooting to try and get a wound on each of the others. If you are lucky, you wound each one and they take a grounding test at end of Shooting. If you are REALLY lucky, they all ground, lose a wound, and are chargeable.
Position. He will likely be trying to reach your juicy backfield targets. If you space out your models, you can prevent him from placing his Flying Tyrants next to said targets.
If you have squads that can handle it, and a pair of cajones, position them forward so they can charge any FMC that fails a Grounding Test. It requires a lucky break, but if done properly, it can quickly take the wind from his sails.
Don't forget he must spend a turn as Gliding (aka, no longer need Snap Shots to hit) if he wants to charge anything.

 Farseer Pef wrote:
If you are talking list-tailoring, it depends largely on codex.

If you are talking about one of your TAC lists that gets surprised with this, target priority and position is the name of the game.

My experience against Harpies is limited, but if you aren't taking a Vehicle heavy list, you can probably ignore them until you deal with his Hive Tyrants.
Identify which Tyrants are more shooty and which are melee equipped.

1) Harpies are very poorly equipped to hunt vehicles. Vector Strike got nerfed and neither the spore mine attack nor the HVC are reliable ways of putting hull points on tanks, let alone wrecking or exploding one. Hive Crones do much better against tanks with their haywire rockets and increased strength vector strikes but also come with a template weapon to deal with infantry lists.
2) If your opponent is bringing 3 flyrants and all the fixins, there won't be a "melee" tyrant. 2x devs with BLW and electroshock grubs is kind of the accepted build.

Those things being said here's a better guide for target priority:
Any Flyrant without active Catalyst > Hive Crone (s), especially if you have a flyer that must go unharassed > Flyrant with active Catalyst > Harpies.

Flyrants are the teeth of this list with Haywire, volume of shots and good psychic potential and ridiculous mobility as well as providing synapse lynchpins for the smaller gribblies. If you can take out all three, you've pretty much won.

As a side note, you do not have to self ally/2CAD to access what you listed for the Tyranid player's army. 1CAD and Skyblight Formation is enough. If he's using it though, make sure he pays his 3x brood of gargoyles "tax" (not really a tax as gargs are awesome especially in skyblight)

Nurgle princes with baleswords insta death all the big bugs.
Poisoned attacks (dE, nurgle demons )
Twin linking a pask punisher squad?


It really just depends who you play but i use balesword princes. Chuck some shooting at them to ground them then charge amd mob up.

jakl277 wrote:
Nurgle princes with baleswords insta death all the big bugs.
Poisoned attacks (dE, nurgle demons )
Twin linking a pask punisher squad?


It really just depends who you play but i use balesword princes. Chuck some shooting at them to ground them then charge amd mob up.

Grounding tests are done only at the end of the turn, and it's just 1 per model. The chances are pretty low to melee those guys.

Skyfire is his best bet (or even aircraft). Crones and Harpies are only 4+, and almost every AA weapon in the game is AP4. They'll Jink, though - which is awesome (no templates/blasts, rest at BS1). Maybe just forcing Jink saves, while you clean the rest of his army, could be an interesting strategy.

My biggest fear when it comes to my night scythes is that my opponent 'finds' a skyfire nexus under on of those objectives. It's a long shot but, hey, mass skyfiring bolters can do the job...so don't forget to roll for those mysterious objectives!

A stormtalon with typhoon missile launcher is a good answer to flyrants. The more you get the merrier.
basically anything str 8 ap3 skyfire will put the odds on your side.