SM vs Tyranids - need advice

wow the monstrous creature retinue? what a pain to kill.....okay so a tyrant is 3-4 wounds (I don't have my codex on me) and the tyrand guard has 2 each.....assuming the oppenent takes 3 thats 9.
9 plus carnifex is about 13-14 monstrous creature wounds depending on the biomorphs......

plasma cannons are the most ideal weapons for armor death on nids....in a pinch you can still shoot at swarms and deal a good bunch of damage. I tend to field 4 on a devi squad....the get hot rule will not kill you that much since you have 1/6 chance of getting it....and then you still get your save.....your opinion on if plasma cannons are worth the death but considering what you';re shooting at it evens out.....aka if the plasma cannon kills 3 genestealers you're a happy camper. having 4 can take down entire swarms still. And they still hurt monstrous creatures...possible 3-4 wounds each round of shooting. I would give them some body guard marines if the opponent has shooty fexes or tyrant.

to deal with swarms just rely on the bolters.....if the termagaunts are that much trouble do the drop pod method....if you have faith in them. Drop a good 5-10 (I forget how much a pod can hold...codex is upstairs and I'm lazy) man squad of bolter marines and depending on the 12 inch double tap range....which should be fine for drop podding thats double the bolter shots. You may lose the squad in a bad situation however but it kills genestealers quite easily.

another option is landspeeders assault cannon configs....you're shooting out 7 shots of AP4 strength 5-6 with 4 shots rending....thats seven dead bugs each turn....and they do work once in a while against heavy creatures. I have three of them and the majority of the swarms never make it to the my marines.

flamer assault squads are good for hordes still....they move faster than most nids too if you plan on assaulting while you're at it(only viable against the gaunt types.)

my two cents on fighting nids so much at my GW

i have three/four guns for you, of which you cannot get enough of against nids.

heavy bolter, assault cannons and plasma guns/pitols i play nids alot and i have not lost for a very long time. i play most tournements at WHW and do well so i play at a good standard.

alot of people will say this is beardy but as you cant put a nid army that isnt incredably beardy (very, very good at what it does) i find this hard to take, like you i to was once getting my backside chewed by those infernal nids.

nids are great and i have always loved facing them but most guns they have are strength 10 or ap3 and they are the best close combat army in the game by some way IMO!!!

the reason i use these weapons are because:

a) the HB & AC's come on landspeeder tornado's (something that can match them for speed)
b) other than AC's you can have loads of them very very cheaply.
c)the HB & AC's are multiple shot quite high strength and low enough AP.

this might sound nasty but i rub my hands togethrer when people by lots of extended carapase and they still dont get saves.

i use the plasma to take down the big stuff, usally in an assualt squad with a character because of there speed and theres a chance to get 4 plasma pistols in that squad.
but always get rid of the fast stuff first which is easy enough to do with these guns.

last but not least i deploy way back into my deployment zone so that even if i lose first turn there not on me and i should still get a good round of shooting in on them hope fully to by which time there shouldnt be much small stuff left.

good luck i hope this isnt to strong for you, like i said i got sick of loseing to them too!!!



purge the alien scum!!!

Great suggestions!

These are all great suggestions! A couple of questions though - someone said take a Librarian with a Force Weapon and an FC - what is an FC?

Also, I'd like to take a Librarian with a jump pack to help get him where he needs to be, but since he's an IC, even if I surround him with an assault squad he can still get picked out whenever he's in base-to-base with something, right? But if I give him a familiar he gets I 6 and gets to go first, or at least simultaneously. So I could jump in, do my attacks first, and maybe kill enough guards that the rest of the assault squad survives for another round.

A Codicier w/ Jmp Pack and Familiar costs 130pts - thats 3/4 Initiative 6 attacks that have the potential to instakill. If I add Termi Honors that's another attack. This is sounding pretty good!

So I could tie up either the 'fex or the Tyrant and 3 guards with the librarian assault unit - and focus plasma cannons on the one that's not being assaulted.

Hmm, I'm going to have to ponder this some more. I'm thinking about taking on 'nids in CC again and that's just crazy...

And the assault squad /librarian combo eats up a lot of points...

Thanks for all the helpful advice guys!

A strategy that worked for me when I played my friend's tyranids army. I deployed all my infantry squads in my deployment zone, each had its own APC on standby right next to them. Meanwhile my bikes and land speeders sat on my flanks to defend my flanks until further orders. I had my Terminator chappy ready to teleport in, my venerable dread was loaded on a drop pod as well as two assult squads that were ready to mop up any remeaining nids after what i did. When my friend began to cross the table I opened fire with my entire army. Thats 2,500 points worth of Space marines shooting. Thankfully it was a great round of shooting and i managed to thin out his ranks a little. Since nids move fast I decided to put my plan into action. The inf squads got the order to mount up into their APCs. The majority of the nids were withing range of my tanks if they went full throttle. My transports drivers put the pedal to the metal, with the land raider at the tip of my spearhead, and tank shocked the incomming nid horde. This too killed a bunch of them. Anything that could break my tanks open was targeted by ever heavy weapon i had. The tank shock really messed up his synapse and then I ordered my bikes and speeders to execute a pincer attack on both flanks of the nids that were left over from the tank shock. When I began to land my reserve forces behind his army, the crossfire made the game pretty much over.
Basically when fighting nids you want maximum firepower for maximum destruction. Dont let them get in close with you or its not going to be pretty. Of couse the tech priests of my chapter dont like this tactic. They still finding nid arms and guts in the undercarriage of the company rhinos.