Tyrannids & Shroud Cloud

I play fairly relaxed games against a friend. He normally brings a flyrant with the 12 TL S6 shots, and always brings the Venomthropes with the poison cloud that provides shroud to units within 6"s. Recently he has added FW Malenthropes and the Tyrannid drop pods to the mix.

I am struggling to figure out a way to deal with the shroud. With the venomthropes providing shroud to essentially massive 30 model units, along with warriors being an Aegis Defense line, I can't just put enough firepower in to get through 2+ cover saves.

I feel as though my only real option is to look outside Dark Eldar for ignores cover units.

Has anyone faced a similar force? The wound pool he has with the 2-4+ cover saves just completely shuts down Venoms or Raiders with warriors. I just can't put enough firepower in to cut through any real units.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?

Thanks!

The knee jerk reaction is to drop in more flamer templates against his bugs. Liquifier guns and Medusae would clear a path, ignore cover but then get eaten.
Play the range game with Dark Lances, waiting for the venomthropes to leave cover. One failed save and those Venomthropes are toast. No "look out sir", they aren't characters.
What about the other stuff that doesn't stay within 6 inches of the 'thropes? Move your whole army over to that and blow it to hell.
Focus on the Hive Tyrant. Loss of synapse turns the nids into instinctive self-mutilating fiends. Have you got aircraft to do some dogfighting?

Grotesques and Reavers ignores cover fairly well.

Assault generally.

Going by math hammer, you need 36 Splinter Rifle/Cannon shots to down a 2+ cover Venomthrope with their 2 wounds.
Or 11 Dark Lance shots.

Regardless, shoot those first and your life will get soooooooo much easier. Target them until they go away. Then you can fire on everything else.

And if he's drop-podding them into your face? Feel free to assault them. Otherwise shoot the things that are suddenly up in your grill and ignore the rest of his army until you're done with them. (By "ignore" I mean stay out of range or LOS until you want to kill them).
Working off memory here but Tyranid Warriors don't have all that much ranged threat power. Ignore 'em  'till the venomthrope is dead.

It is all about compartmentalizing, I'm slowly learning. Bring overwhelming firepower to bear against a small portion of their force at a time. This way you're guaranteed to end it while staying out of LoS or range of the rest of his army until such a time as you decide they want to die as well. Piece by piece.

Based on a recent gamne, my answer is the Vindicare Assassin.

The problem with shooting the Venomthrope is if the player brings a MC per 'thrope then with barely any strategic placement, the 'thrope will at least be getting a 3+ Cover Save from shooting throug the MC. Assuming you can see the 'thrope at all. Played against the new Toxicrene formation last night and that stuff is mean.

Thanks for the feedback/ideas.

Re: concentrating on the Flyrant. I've tried that in previous games, but I find it next to impossible to put down. And it takes most of my firepower for 2+ turns to do so. 6s to hit, 4s to wound, 3s for armor save, and he generally has feel no pain cast on it from the psychic phase. So an additional 5+ roll.

Re: grotesques/reavers. I used those last time. Reavers did well. Grotesques were ok. The Flesh Gauntlet was ok, but realistically with an armor save it didn't do great. I was hoping for lethal dose but rarely got it, and it was always saved.

The army I played last time was a: Flyrant (12 TL S6 shots), 2 Malenthropes (Venomthrope but better with 3Ws, same shroud cloud and T5, so I can't instant death it with lances), 3 spore drop pods. One with a Thyranix (the one that spawns more units), 1 Carnifex, and 20 shooty guys with 60 shots out of them total. Add another 30 gaunts, 3 warriors and a biovore AND an Aegis Defense Line with the 2 Malenthropes, warriors and biovore). The pods came down at the middle of the map, spread out across the board so that he had threat range completely covered across the board (add the fact the pods can move and have 15 S5 shots). I tried to concentrate my firepower but found the cover saves to be very hard to deal with.

I ran 2 squads of 3 reavers (blaster/CC), 5 identical squads of warriors with Venom+SC, (plus one blaster in the warrior squad), 1 additional venom+SC, 1 Ravager with DLs, Grotesque Formation (2 squads of Grotesques with a Hammy) - all in 2 raiders, and a Succubus.

In previous games (before the drop pods came out), I found it still very hard to deal with the cover saves. That is the part I can't find a counter too. Pouring shots in just doesn't chip away enough on them. When I look at his overall wound pool, I just can't pour enough into it, especially with the shroud.

Any thoughts or ideas would be great for dealing with this. Has anyone faced a similar list?

Thanks.

So what was the Malanthrope or Venomthrope's actually giving cover to? It seems he is camping units that have no threat to you behind an ADL. Outside of the Biovore (not the best anyway) those other units they potentially are giving cover to behind the ADL are zero threat. So let him give cover to units that aren't doing much and deal with those units when they come out from behind the ADL. Nids don't have the best range, and if he is dropping in front of you with his Pods, you can bring all of your firepower to bear on him.

Don't concentrate on the units you cant kill (the ones with the Spore Cloud behind the ADL) and concentrate on those ones that you can.

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Any thoughts or ideas would be great for dealing with this.

Maybe a Razorwing? If they are hugging each other let them eat 4 rockets. Splinter Cannon on it will also help with flyrant - 6 shots 3+ to hit 4+ to wound, 2 shots  3+ to hit 2+ to wound no armor save.

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Outside of the Biovore (not the best anyway)

It is actually very interesing and strong unit. Hidden gem in my opinion.

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2 Malenthropes

Are they Synapse creatures? Maybe just concentrate on taking out synapse creatures.

Biovores are good, just not the best unit against us. Its good at killing infantry in the open, something no one needs help with against our infantry.

Darkterra wrote:

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The army I played last time was a: Flyrant (12 TL S6 shots), 2 Malenthropes (Venomthrope but better with 3Ws, same shroud cloud and T5, so I can't instant death it with lances), 3 spore drop pods. One with a Thyranix (the one that spawns more units), 1 Carnifex, and 20 shooty guys with 60 shots out of them total. Add another 30 gaunts, 3 warriors and a biovore AND an Aegis Defense Line with the 2 Malenthropes, warriors and biovore). The pods came down at the middle of the map, spread out across the board so that he had threat range completely covered across the board (add the fact the pods can move and have 15 S5 shots). I tried to concentrate my firepower but found the cover saves to be very hard to deal with. .....

I agree with SCPY, your opponent doesn't have a whole lot of synapse coverage and half of it - the Warriors and Malenthropes are just sitting behind the ADL and not posing a threat. Concentrate on the synpase creatures that you can kill, the Flyrant and the Tervie, and it sounds like they will both be out on the board, away from the coverage of the 'thropes. Instinctive Behaviour can then have a big effect on the other units outside of the ADL.

The snotpods are a great distraction once they have disgorged their load - I always take them - but that's about it. They are only BS2, they no longer have tentacles, and while they have 5 guns each now, they are a Monstrous Creature and there is debate (hopefully to be FAQ'ed) about whether or not they can actually fire all 5 per turn, or just 2.

As for the Malenthropes, I would try WWP'ing the 2 Grotesquerie units (with LG's) behind the ADL and let one keep the Warriors occupied and the other hit the Malenthropes.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

We tend to play Maelstrom missions, and he tends to have at least 2 of the objectives within easy reach of the ADL. So while I can ignore the ADL and the items behind it, ultimately the points start to stack against me as the game goes on. I can't get any points for those objectives unless I decide to not ignore them anymore, and he tends to keep getting points for any cards he has. So can ignore, but eventually it creates a good lead for him.

I've used the Razorwing before with the missiles. It is ok at wiping out some level of force. As for the Flyrant, the Razorwing might be able to take a wound or two off it (if lucky) but next turn that Razorwing is either dead or jinking to stay alive (and losing effective shooting). His flyrant is 12 S6 twin linked. Average of 9-11 hits, 4s to glance and 5s to pen the razorwing. So not good odds.

I have tried to collapse synapse before as that seems to somewhat effective. In maelstrom missions it is a bit harder to always concentrate on that and I find it to be very challenging to really collapse synapse. 30 guants can be spread out fairly far on a table to still have access to synapse and yet still be a threat to items.

I've considered the idea of WWP in a set of Wraithguard with D-scythes to deal with them but have been trying to stay pure Dark Eldar at this point.

The real problem is the shroud capability can be heavily exploited by spreading a large mass out. All it needs is a single guy inside the 6" range and the entire unit has shroud.

Would you go after the venom/malenthropes in an maelstrom game or try to just collapse synapse outside of the ADL.

Re: spore pods. Didn't know of the debate. We played that it was the 3 shots, 5 times. So the worst part of that is it could technically core through multiple units. It hits the closest unit first. Once that is dead the next set kick into the next closest. And at S5, it can technically (via bad luck), rip through multiple raiders/venoms.

Thanks again.

Hey there! I actually play Tyranids, and let me tell you, a malanthrope/venomthrope is INDEED one of our best friends! 2+ jinking Flyrants (flying hive tyrant), 2+ cover gaunts in ruins with feel no pain, and the fact that our army basically can wrap ourselves in a blanket around any objective and you will never get near it.

Tyranids are harder to deal with now than people realize, but there are a few key points as always to dealing with armies like this:

1. Venomthropes/Malanthropes first!
-I usually bring one malanthrope to save points, and allows mostof my army (if I set up correctly) to benefit from the shrouded bubble. If you opponent brings a venomthrope this will be a ton easier, T4, 4+ save, 2 wounds, just focus it doen and it'll pop. The malanthrope is a ton tougher at T5, 3+ save, 4 Wounds and is a synapse creature! I can hide it on my flank and support my army from there with a very sturdy model. If you don't focus down the malanthrope first and foremost, perpare to have a tough game! (although liquifiers definitely tear through most tyranid models like butter!)

2. Shoot the big ones!
- Target key points of synapse second, if not first, if you are going first and the opponent has a synapse creature on a flank that ISN'T shrouded, TAKE IT OUT! his flank will falter, many of his units on that side should be going to ground or eating itself, and he'll have to spend an entire turn usually rallying his army, giving you the chance to re-position.

3. Assault the bugs!
- Now I know what you are thinking, your mind goes to fluff and assaulting the tyranids is the worst thing you could possible do, right! Wrong! we have piss poor armor (like DE), mediocre toughness (save for our MC's), and can't use cover in combat! deny the tyranids their charge bonus, and they don't grab extra attacks, the haruspex doesn't eath things, the bonus from furious charge is wasted, the whole shebang! This is especially nasty in the late game (after step 4 here), where you have all of your cc buffs active. Drown the opponent in attacks, and watch him fail his 6+, 5+, and 4+ saves!

4. We are a mobile army! Use it!
- stay in your venom/raiders! gaunts without adrenal glands (which shouldn't be taken if they want to save points) cannot harm our vehicles, and DE DEFINITELY out-ranges Tyranids. Sit in your boats and blast away with 36" poison and Darklances for 2 turns, then flat out to the other side of the table to do it again. chances are he has his synapse/big bugs/melee tanks behind screens of gaunts, and he won't be able to re-position them in time to regain an intervening model cover save (imperative for survival in most cases). This means you can target his Venomthropes/malanthropes/synapse creatures freely, as at this point in the game he has moved them up out of cover to maintain his shrouded bubble (if you haven't already killed it, that is!)

5. Watch the skies!
- The new spore pods are NASTY, with it dropping a minimum on turn 2 in your face, hardly mis-happing, and sporting 15 BS2 S5 shots into the closest thing. If he disgorges something near you like this (and pray that it isn't a double flamer template Tyrranofex), jink as much as you can, then proceed immediately to step 4 of this guide, re-positioning far away from him, making the pod nearly useless. Drag out the turns in a cat + mouse chase as much as you can, whittling down his cover save bubbles, heavy hitters (points-sinking MC's like Carnifexes), Synapse creatures (Tervigons are LOVELY for this, spawning more disposable troops, but if it dies, almost ALL of the gaunts near it die too), and warlord.

5. Flyrants and you.
- Compared to the Flyrant, our fliers are trash. The immovable staple of nearly every tyranid list should contain at least 2 flyrants. (3 now that our new detachment allows it!) if you want to watch him squirm, either start chucking massive amounts of poisoned shots its way hoping to hit so that he tries to jink (making his shooting not nearly as deadly), or bite the bullet and get a firestorm redoubt. That beast with that many skyfiring lascannons will make him jink almost every time. Lastly, if you DO for some reason manage to ground the flyrant, pump every last shot you have into it. if he is in shrouded, he has 2+ jink even on the ground, but a dead flyrant is a massive points sink and threat eliminated. (sometimes an 8th of his army, if he sports 3 maybe even a third of his army)

Have fun and shoot the big ones!

Tough fight there, what you can put in is a firestorm redoubt. It will give you some cover if you dont have first turn. A bunker for some dudes PLUS 2 Heavy Icarus platforms. They get the option of shooting at the closest enemy Flyer if there is one on the board, then it goes to the closest enemy unit or interceptor.

So that is 4 twin linked (need 5s to hit) s9 ap2 shots. Make the flyrant jink and he is no where as scary. Sounds like he doesnt have much that can destroy that bunker either so that can be your rock. With proper placement this CAN be your closest unit to those pods as well if you are able to reposition your army quickly. Making him waste all those shots in later turns.

Taking some Medusa in raiders is also decent. their templates are auto removing most nid models.

^Firestorm Redoubt^ If you take it, you will win almost every air battle besides Fying Bakery or any other Flying Circus (which only good counter is another flying circus or hydra spam).

Take the Magos Biologis upgrade on it from the stronghold assault book and it's bs3 twin linked. Best offer against the flyrant, as he will be forced to jink off the wound. and as I pointed out earlier, a jinking flyrant is only a nuisance. A big, scary, undying (especially if the warlord trait is personal, and he rolled it will not die, with his regeneration) gribbly.

Tough matchup... the Tyranids have climbed their way back to the upper echelons of raw power lately so I can imagine it is a difficult matchup. If your averse to running the actual Wraithguard models you could always convert up some Grotesque count-as-Wraithguard- using perhaps the Chaos Blightkings models (ala Spellcheck int he project log section) to give a more armored appearance to them and get the D-Scythes in that way. Just an idea.

Remember that FMCs cannot jink the turn they've been grounded!

One way to ignore cover is the new grenade launchers and the Archangel of pain... just be sure that the MODELS in the units you hit are not fearless. Also you can WWP with a unit of grots to better use the terror-bomb.