heavy shooting army, which one~?

[hildan]

Hello all,

First off a little about myself, i currently have a Customishy Space Marine Chapter that specalises in hit and run tactics, using hand to hand combats. this is fun to play but im looking at getting something comlpetley different.

I want a different army allthogther (not space marine) and one that uses heavy fire power and or huge monsters to to overwhelem an enemey, im looking at a 500 point initally but will build up as and when,

but i dont know what kind of army specalise in firepower / vechicles / or monsters that do the quivilant.

if any one has a good indication as to a heavy fire pwoer army with suggestions on certian models it woul dbe great, gives me something to look into and think about / save up some cash :)

Thank you for yout time and help

[Absolutionis]

The Imperial Guard are a very shooty army and very good at it.
The Tyranids have huge monsters and regularly use them.

However, the Eldar have both. The Eldar have a wide array of guns with unique properties. Their range may not be spectacular, but they are very shooty. Additionally, the Eldar Avatar and the Wraithlord count as monstrous creatures. Plus, the Wraithlord has the highest toughness of any non-Apocalypse creature in all of 40k.

[hildan]

Thanks for the reply,

Unfortunatly i have little knowleadge of eldar, only that theres eldar and dark eldar, but assume theres variations like chapters?

which would you recomend for a monster / shooter chpater?

[Absolutionis]

As an aside, the only armies that use monstrous creatures are Eldar, Daemons, Chaos, and Tyranids. Again, this is assuming you're not including Apocalypse models. Daemons don't do much shooting, and Chaos is very close to specialist Space Marines.
As much as Tyranids seem like an army for close combat, most of their monstrous creatures are often equipped with guns. I regularly employ a monstrous creature HQ that shoots 12 twin-linked reroll-to-wound shots.
Also, Eldar are admittedly difficult to use. Many of their models cost a lot. The units do superbly for the role they're designed for and they're mediocre at best for everything else. Also, Eldar are very mobile.

Eldar and Dark Eldar are different armies the same way that Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines are separate armies. Eldar used to have "chapters" (called Craftworlds), but no longer have them.

Eldar have rather shooty models such as the Dire Avengers and Fire Dragons and the rather flashy Fire Prism.
Just note that many Eldar units' guns have shorter range than usual. They make up for this by arguably being the second most mobile army in the game (second to Dark Eldar). Eldar also tend to rely on close combat a lot.
Eldar guns are rather strong, fairly accurate, and many of their weapons tend to shoot more than once. Additionally most of their weapons are either assault or mounted on something.

[hildan]

hmm, well i will have a look through the eldar 'Dire Avengers and Fire Dragons and the rather flashy Fire Prism' if thats what you would recommend.

I just went and had a look through the dark eldar and seems the codex for 5th (which is what i play) isnt out till late this year early next.

Thanks for you help and ill check out these mentiond craftworlds

[Alzer]

Most Tyranid use shooty lists, compromising primarily of big monsters totting piles of guns, (it's called nidzilla).

For Eldar monster-shooty I'd field Iyanden, which is based on wraithguard/wraithlords, very very tough, and very devastating shooting, fluff-wise they use the most MCs. I believe the craftworlds are covered in the 4ed codex, and they are all perfectly viable to field in the codex (it's a fluff thing, just use certain units to be a certain craftworld)
Dark Reapers fit in with the shooty theme, and they're wonderful if you face a lot of heavy infantry.

Imp Guard are rather powerful these days if you wanted to go tank-crazy, their troops aren't as efficient in shooting as eldar, but by gawds are there more of them.

Also, why does everyone forget that Necrons have Monstrous creatures...

[Absolutionis]

Ah yes, the Necrons have the C'tan. I always forget about those.
Even so, you could only field a single C'tan, and the original poster wants monstrous creatures.

[Alzer]

Necrons can actually field 10 MCs in one list with tomb spyders + C'tan. Extra spcial melee oriented though so doesn't really fit.

for shooting Hildan, have you considered Tau at all? they're one of the more obvious shooting choices out there as well.

[hildan]

Hi,

I did originally consider the Tau, but from my brief look it seems like there mecha orineatated, ideally i would like chaos demons with guns :S but choas space marines are to similar to what i have.

thye Tyranids i used to collect many many years ago, second edition. has much changed since then?

[redbeef88]

Have you seen the current Nid Carnifexes? They look waaaay more awesome than they did in 2nd Ed >:D
I highly recommend them to match your 'demons with guns' description.

[hildan]

sorrys whats NID ? seems to keep getting mentiond

[Absolutionis]

Nids = Tyranids

Tyranids are famous for having the brunt of their force be composed of monstrous creatures. Additionally, all of their viable weapons are guns.
Tyranids are a surprisingly shooty army. My Hive Tyrant is an HQ monstrous creature that can pour out 12 twin-linked reroll-to-wound shots in a volley.

However, they don't really have much range, and their most useful troops choices are arguably meant for close combat or cannon fodder.

Tyranids are, however, the stereotypical "monstrous creature" army in 40k with their Hive Tyrants and Carnifexes.

[hildan]

Ahh as in trya-NIDS :S should of noticed that really.

so would you recomend a nid army? any particular units good with guns, or just extremelly brilliant?

you mentiond a hive tyrant that can shot 12 times, which seems impressive.

however the carnifix thing doesnt appear to have any guns, unless it has some sort of venom attack?

would a 500 point army of these creatures be a reasonable one? or is it something that requires a high level points game to get the real benefits?

my 500 hit and run Space Marines is effective at this point level.

[redbeef88]

a good start would probably be to have a look through the open-copy codexes in your local gamesworkshop or hobby shop.
You'll find that many of the weapon variations in each army (not just Tyranids) can only be found in the codex instead of the online store where the same few models are recycled over and over.
In terms of the Carnifex and Hive Tyrant, they have a really big stack of options to make them a close-combat, anti-Monolith nightmare, or a shooty monster from hell :) My personal favourite is what I named a 'Blastfex' - with twin-linked deathspitters, a barbed-strangler and spinebanks.

[Dtram]

You probably already have some answers but I'll put in my two cents.

Theres the Iyanden craftworld of Eldar which uses alot of Wraithguard and Wraithlords, their colour scheme is mainly yellow with blue details.

Umm, pretty much most other craftworlds are your shooters, Ulthwe have alot of psychers, Biel-tan make use of alot of Aspect warriors, so if you had lots of Dire Avengers you'd be having ALOT of shots a turn, so thats something to look into (Dire Avengers are troops btw).

Other then Eldar, you could try Imperial guard, but coming from SM the models might be a bit boring, but thats preference, but they are very good at shooting, last game I played was on a small board with 1000 points, he had guard I had Eldar, he didn't move a single model all game and he won (grenade launchers cause absoloute havoc, and the order systems are very nice).

Umm, tyranids easily overwhelm enemies as they are mostly CC based, people will say Orks do the same thing, maybe better, but Orks can also be very shooty unlike most tyranids. On that note, Orks with lots of Lootas and big shootas are good to overwhelm.

Umm... That covers your swarm armies (besides Eldar, not really swarm, but with Dire Avengers you'll sure have alot of models).

Hope that helps in some way.

[hildan]

so to summarise,

for creature shooters the main opinions seem to be

Eldar
Tyranids

However eldar arnt overlly creaturey and the tyranids arent overly shootery :S

this isnt as easy as i originally thought

[Alzer]

Overly shooty? No most "strong" tyranid builds are based almost solely around shooting, the common competitive army has 6-8 monsters with nothing but guns. Then for troops you can have cannon fodder with guns, or melee specialists. As a whole they'd come out about even for total shooting as eldar would most days. If you want some more solid ideas, I'd suggest going to the Tyranid and Eldar subforums and asking around a but, or paging through some posts and army lists to get an idea. The modeling/painting section can give you some ideas on how things could look as well.

[hildan]

I think the tyranids are more of what i was looking for, definatly monsterus and seem to be guns heavy. just worred bad experiances from second edition, but will take you advice and have a snoop around the sub forums.

thanks for your help

[Absolutionis]

The one thing you may want to keep in mind that Tyranids somewhat lack a very good troops choice. The only exception is that Genestealers are amazing troops choices. However, Genestealers cannot shoot.

If you have some old Tyranid models, you may be better off going the route of Tyranids.