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So I've been fighting Nids for the last three weeks and can't seem to take them down due to their large wound pools high toughness and regenerate ability. I play vanilla marines and I just can't seem to feild the amount of firepower it requires to take even a unit of warriors down much less a carnifex brood or flyrant. Any suggestions would be amazing.

Grav weapons and melta, generally. If your opponent is blowing 30pts on regen for his MC's then you can afford to concentrate points into expensive but effective units, such as Centurions.

Warriors = Krak missiles and pretty much everything S8.

Everything else = Grav.

Don't even need Grav. Plasma does it just fine too. But a Grav Bike Squad is pretty much the killer. Thunderfire Cannons also takes out a lot of bugs very fast.

I wouldn't bother with Centurions. I never had a problem dealing with them after the first couple of trial runs. They're tough but easy to negate if they're in your regular oppponent's army. Eventually they become a waste.

Grav is best for the lack of Gets Hot GD-BS that can happen. Eliminating that nonsense gives better definitive results than relying on 15 point upgrades on models that might explode from simply using their weapons.

As stated earlier, for Warriors and the likes, just use Krak Missiles and the likes of anything str 8+ They will fold like Origami.

If you have any Mechanicus you can bring an Ordinatus Ulator.

It auto-hits both flyers and ground units, is STR 8 vs MCs, and has the Instant Death and Ignores Cover special rule.

Any TMC, flying or not, in a 7" line from the front of the thing dies on a 2+ with no save.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you have any Mechanicus you can bring an Ordinatus Ulator.

It auto-hits both flyers and ground units, is STR 8 vs MCs, and has the Instant Death and Ignores Cover special rule.

Any TMC, flying or not, in a 7" line from the front of the thing dies on a 2+ with no save.

You will of course be a complete troll for doing this and no one will want to play you again, leave things like the Ulator to large scale games where opponants can bring their own strength D supper heavies to the party as well (so never against Nids).

Marines aren't short of options to deal with Nids so lots of grav high strength weaponry will do the job.

I propose you try brought down the Nids supportting units first, such as venomthrope, with these unit intact, their MCs are way tougher, best choice maybe TFC or more reliably use suicide dual HF Ironclad dreadnought, now they have give attacks when being charged (2 specialist melee weapons), and being AV13, so most MC outside of a brood of Carnifex would have to be careful when come into combat with it. Two well placed HF template would have a good chance to delete two venomthrope models. Then you can fire your other high strength weapons.

Malenthrope is going to be a big headache to most Marines, since it is high toughness, 3+ armor, more wounds than venomthrope, and marines lack viable high strength AP2/3 ignore cover weapon. So best bet is to fish "perfect timing" in Divination table then go with a squad of Devastator / grav centurion. Or roll on telepathy and suicide droppod in and psychic sherik that Ld10 MC.....

 TheMuppetMaster wrote:
So I've been fighting Nids for the last three weeks and can't seem to take them down due to their large wound pools high toughness and regenerate ability. I play vanilla marines and I just can't seem to feild the amount of firepower it requires to take even a unit of warriors down much less a carnifex brood or flyrant. Any suggestions would be amazing.

What Chapter Tactics are you running?

I am a relatively new player who pretty much asked this same question only a few days ago, although I'm a Chaos Marine player I can confirm plasma guns work great.
Rapid fire range is the key though.
I lost my game but it was close and I took down two Hive tyrants and one Toxicrene, with wounds also on the two Carnifex he took.
Do marine scouts with sniper wound on 4+?

Huron black heart wrote:
I am a relatively new player who pretty much asked this same question only a few days ago, although I'm a Chaos Marine player I can confirm plasma guns work great.
Rapid fire range is the key though.
I lost my game but it was close and I took down two Hive tyrants and one Toxicrene, with wounds also on the two Carnifex he took.
Do marine scouts with sniper wound on 4+?

Yep that's how the sniper rule works. Only doesn't if something is a GMC creature like a wraithknight, tyranid hierophant/hierodule/harridan. Then it wounds on a 6

 Kanluwen wrote:

 TheMuppetMaster wrote:
So I've been fighting Nids for the last three weeks and can't seem to take them down due to their large wound pools high toughness and regenerate ability. I play vanilla marines and I just can't seem to feild the amount of firepower it requires to take even a unit of warriors down much less a carnifex brood or flyrant. Any suggestions would be amazing.

What Chapter Tactics are you running?

I play Crimson Fists, so Imperial Fist tactics


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm supplementing my force with plasma Devs and two drop pod dreads with heavy flamers and trying that. Also all my squads in Razorbacks with lasma set up an seeing how that works. Grav just seems so expensive I'm going to try cheaper options first then grave next.

Plasma cannons isn't a great heavy weapon, against MC, las or ML are much better.

 TheMuppetMaster wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 TheMuppetMaster wrote:
So I've been fighting Nids for the last three weeks and can't seem to take them down due to their large wound pools high toughness and regenerate ability. I play vanilla marines and I just can't seem to feild the amount of firepower it requires to take even a unit of warriors down much less a carnifex brood or flyrant. Any suggestions would be amazing.

What Chapter Tactics are you running?

I play Crimson Fists, so Imperial Fist tactics


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm supplementing my force with plasma Devs and two drop pod dreads with heavy flamers and trying that. Also all my squads in Razorbacks with lasma set up an seeing how that works. Grav just seems so expensive I'm going to try cheaper options first then grave next.

Grav, while expensive, is also super effective. The ability to Wound on the same value as the target's armor save is huge.

Rather than Plasma Devastators, have you considered drop podding Combi-Plasma Sternguard? You can unload the plasma shots right off, then switch to Hellfire(Poison 2+) rounds to follow up the next turn.

Agreed. Tyranids lack 2+ saves for the most part, so if you can bypass toughness 6, you are essentially 'just' shooting at space marines.

Sternguard (or Tyrannic War Veterans) can make a fine mess of a bugs very efficiently.

Also, Note that Carnifex can be attacked in melee with krak grenades. Not something you should aim for, but something you shouldn't forget.

Tyranid Warriors.... yeah, Krak Missiles. In fact, Missile Launchers are a good weapon for bugs generally - taking wounds off on a 2+, able to switch to frag rounds for swarm clearance, and able to cause instant death if facing multiple warriors, zoanthropes and venomthropes.

What I've been running is 4 units of scouts with HB and Hellfire shells and vanguard vets with Pedro Kantor. I play pretty lore driven and have had some good success with the vets and scouts. But can't seem to wipe even one unit.

Well that's your issue then. Hate to say it, but if you're unwilling to take alternate options due to a commitment to keeping lore-driven, you will find taking on certain opponents to be extremely challenge. For future note, make sure to reference this in other starting posts... otherwise you'll just get the same list-driven changes as stated above. People give those suggestions because they work, but also tend to push playgroups towards playing tourney-competitive builds that are definitely NOT lore-driven.

Of course... who ever said you can't do something with a challenge!?!

So, let's try to limit ourselves to basic dudes, since that seems to be what you're doing. If you're looking for help without modifying your list though, post your current list and maybe some tactical help can occur.

I'd recommend trying to focus-fire single monsters at a time, and keep a power fist hidden in a squad. Try to get as much use of those Hellfire (that's the fleshbane ammo?) rounds as you can, because just dealing lots of wounds will eventually get through the 3+ save, and if you can deal 4 wounds in a single round you'll take them out. Regeneration only works if they're alive AND if they've suffered wounds. Wounding 5 monstrous creatures for 1 wound each means they get 5 opportunities to bring back the wounds. If you have put 4 wounds and killed one monster, and wounded 1 other, they get only 1 roll to bring back a wound.

Remember to use those Krak grenades in close combat! Getting S6 with your basic dudes for no cost against Monstrous Creatures is terribly effective when you have no other options.

Keep things combat-squaded if possible. If you get charged, your goal should be to have that unit die as quickly as possible so you can shoot the monstrous creature next turn. If that Tyranid Monster is at 1 wound left, charging in with your own guys on your turn may help too.

Remember that non-Flying Tyranid Monsters are very slow as well. If you can move quickly through use of Rhinos and/or Razorbacks, you will be able to stay out of their reach. In this case you may be able to just slowly whittle them down, or just avoid them entirely and play a game of "snatch the objectives". That may sound boring, but trust me, the game will quickly become a lot more interesting when you both have a lot of units available at the end of the game!

Good luck!

 Imateria wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you have any Mechanicus you can bring an Ordinatus Ulator.

It auto-hits both flyers and ground units, is STR 8 vs MCs, and has the Instant Death and Ignores Cover special rule.

Any TMC, flying or not, in a 7" line from the front of the thing dies on a 2+ with no save.

You will of course be a complete troll for doing this and no one will want to play you again, leave things like the Ulator to large scale games where opponants can bring their own strength D supper heavies to the party as well (so never against Nids).

Marines aren't short of options to deal with Nids so lots of grav high strength weaponry will do the job.

Hey man, no need to get aggressive. I was just suggesting the last word in Imperial anti-nid weapon systems.

 TheMuppetMaster wrote:
What I've been running is 4 units of scouts with HB and Hellfire shells and vanguard vets with Pedro Kantor. I play pretty lore driven and have had some good success with the vets and scouts. But can't seem to wipe even one unit.

Do you have access to the Sentinals Of Terra rules? When defending against a close-quarter enemy coming at you, Close-ranged bolter drill (reroll misses at half range or less) may do more good than 'normal' bolter drill (reroll '1's in all circumstances).

Other than that, as discussed, concentrate, concentrate fire.

Also, whilst you want to stick to scouts and veterans, consider a few weapon tweaks. Tyranid Warriors (one unit you mention having problems with) are as tough as terminators to bolter fire, but since they have a 4+ save and multiple wounds, not a 2+ save, they are very vulnerable to stuff like Krak missiles - a missile launcher is never a bad investment when facing 'nids, and your scout squads can pack them in for relatively few points.

Agree on combat-squadding. Split up into multiple, mutually supporting units - put a single big block and the carnifex or warrior brood will eat the lot of it - what you want to do is have them charge a small unit, overkill it, and then be stuck in the open in rapid-fire range for you to exact painful and repeated vengeance.

Also, much as it pains me to offer the advice as a bug player myself, do you have access to an Inquisitor model?

Inquisitors are dirt cheap and - whilst not devastating themselves - are excellent support units. The Tome of Vethric is a seriously cheap relic that - against tyranids - gives the bearer and his unit Monster Hunter. An ordo xenos inquisitor can take Rad grenades - dropping a monster's toughness. An ordo hereticus inquisitor can take a psyocculum, making his unit BS10 against psykers....nasty against a lot of big bugs, especially with monster hunter too.

Not as of yet but that's really interesting. I haven't really looked at other portions of the imerium.

One thing I was also wondering, would a unit of assault termies with a termie librarian using Force be a good choice? My concern is the unreasonably high initiative of nids.

I tried grav cannons and scared the pants off my buddy lol I found that a unit of devis with 2 grav and 2 plas cannons works nicely on both swarms and MCs. Thanks for the tips!

 TheMuppetMaster wrote:
Not as of yet but that's really interesting. I haven't really looked at other portions of the imerium.

One thing I was also wondering, would a unit of assault termies with a termie librarian using Force be a good choice? My concern is the unreasonably high initiative of nids.

I tried grav cannons and scared the pants off my buddy lol I found that a unit of devis with 2 grav and 2 plas cannons works nicely on both swarms and MCs. Thanks for the tips!

Unreasonably high? The only 4 are above 5, most are at 4 and the hardest hitter is at a 2. Force weapons are very very nasty against all TMC except Swarmlord against which it is only nasty. No Save, ID hist against a 200pt ish unit , and you wonder if it is effective? I hate seeing a hidden force weapon with my TMCs. You can pretty much bank on a 7+" clear bubble around that unit and that it will be target one for flyrants.

Force works very well.
Tyranid initiative can be pretty much completely ignored by just standing in cover and letting them charge you.
Almost nothing in the codex has assault grenades, so they will nearly always strike last.

Although the things you would want to use force on tend to have awful initiative anyway.

Much as i hate to say it, Grav guns. Kraks too but theyre for some reason harder to spam even though theyre inferior.

I hate gravs. Dont mind that they can rip up MCs and immobilize vehicles, i hate that they are such a cure-all for everything that isnt a boy/gaunt.
But, thats about all vanilla marines got to deal with high toughness.

Last time I faced nids my TML/HB speeders were the MVP of the game. Krack missiles for big bugs, and switch to frags and HB for the little gribblies.

Cassius in a pod full of sternguard also did rather well.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Much as i hate to say it, Grav guns. Kraks too but theyre for some reason harder to spam even though theyre inferior.

I hate gravs. Dont mind that they can rip up MCs and immobilize vehicles, i hate that they are such a cure-all for everything that isnt a boy/gaunt.
But, thats about all vanilla marines got to deal with high toughness.

I second this. Get grav, because you'll never stop all those MCs with regular Imperial heavy weapons. Because they are terrible. And MC/GMCs are god-mode in 7th ed.

Arson Fire wrote:
Force works very well.
Tyranid initiative can be pretty much completely ignored by just standing in cover and letting them charge you.
Almost nothing in the codex has assault grenades, so they will nearly always strike last.

Although the things you would want to use force on tend to have awful initiative anyway.

I will second that force is very effective. Most of the big heavy hitters such as a carnifex have weak initiative. A libby with a force sword with a bike/assault squad to give him movement up the field will allow him to take them down.

If you want, you could also bring in a small GK force via the nemesis strikeforce detachment. A GK libby and terminator squad runs 275 points (stock everything). That is 6 models with Force/AP3 melee weaponry, all with 2+ armor, and can deep strike turn 1 due to the formation. You have hammerhand stock (+2 strength), force, and then whatever powers you roll for the libby. Plop that anywhere and your opponent is guaranteed to have to deal with it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you have any Mechanicus you can bring an Ordinatus Ulator.

It auto-hits both flyers and ground units, is STR 8 vs MCs, and has the Instant Death and Ignores Cover special rule.

Any TMC, flying or not, in a 7" line from the front of the thing dies on a 2+ with no save.

Thats extremely expensive overkill

I think he's looking for realistic solutions

Which is Grav, Grav and more Grav

deredeo dreadnaught with a hellfire carronade. blasts all your nid worries away before lunchtime

 TheMuppetMaster wrote:
So I've been fighting Nids for the last three weeks and can't seem to take them down due to their large wound pools high toughness and regenerate ability. I play vanilla marines and I just can't seem to feild the amount of firepower it requires to take even a unit of warriors down much less a carnifex brood or flyrant. Any suggestions would be amazing.

Librarious conclave + psychic shriek will burn down his whole army. That formation is stupid.

 TheMuppetMaster wrote:
So I've been fighting Nids for the last three weeks and can't seem to take them down due to their large wound pools high toughness and regenerate ability. I play vanilla marines and I just can't seem to feild the amount of firepower it requires to take even a unit of warriors down much less a carnifex brood or flyrant. Any suggestions would be amazing.

Thing I can't remember is this, does synapse raise LD to 10 of just give fearless? if LD changes then nevermind what I have to say

Carnifex and other mid range leadership Nids (LD 7 and lower) use Psychic Shriek. It kills Carnifex's like crazy. It works on LD 8 and Higher Nids as well just not so much. Lastly its effective on Warriors and Ravangers.

Flyrants are always problematic, it gets the best of both worlds/rules: monstrous and flyer. Nothing short of skyfire with ignores cover will be 100% effective. If your seeing 3 or more, flyers are not the answer.