[Prepirate1]

There's a popular Tyranid unit build aptly named "The Death Star", as it is a slow moving, shot soaking, assault winning unit that moves through crucial areas of the board pummeling any enemy units within reach. The build looks loosely like this

1 hive tyrant
armored shell (2+ armor)
old adversary (gives a 6" perferred enemy bubble)
paroxysm,
life leech,
lashwhip and bone sword
TL devs
regen

3 tyrant guard with lash whips

1 tyranid prime
2 bone swords
death spitter
regen
adrenal glands

As the unit is growing quite popular, I was wondering if anyone had any horror stories concerning close or deadly encounters with this unit?

 

[Prepirate1]

I played a 1850 pt seize ground mission with three objectives on the board. Ultramarines Vs. Tyranids (classic) Two rhinos waited in reserves, a sterngaurd and terminator squad waited for the deepstrike and I had a predator, scouts, and devastator squad on the board. First two turns involved shooting, as these units had castled within run-range of an objective, it wasn't until the third turn when things picked up as one rhino came in and the termies deep struck, though all of this is irrelevant. What I'm getting at is that while my tac squads where pounding bolter lead into gaunts and holding objectives, my terminators where dealing with gun guard and a tervigon the "death star" had tore through my back line destroying an entire devastator squad (310 points with 4 LC), my predator (auto las) and a rhino which I had put to block them from reaching my scouts who were contesting an objective. I pulled away with the win thanks to a late game deep strike from my sterguard who contested an objective, though paid a heavy price.

 

[Lord Reevan]

honestly I've never seen that unit used before or mentioned and I'm going through a lot of serious builds at the moment. seems decent though. Only thing is from what I'm seeing there's no inv. save so plasma death on them will win, or any ap 2 weapon basically.

but on about Deathstars I suppose. I never really had any problems with deathstars as try and have a load of my units buffed enough to take them out with relative ease. For example I have an honour guard unit with blood champ, chapter banner, power weapon, flamer and a fist, totalling 260pts. Went up against 7 thunder hammer storm shield terminators- 280pts I think it was? Anyway by the time they got to strike back only one guy was standing and he only took out one guy. my other assault squds do better than that often enough too. I'm sure roughly the same tactic would apply to that unit.

 

[Deneris]

I played a 1850 pt seize ground mission with three objectives on the board. Ultramarines Vs. Tyranids (classic) Two rhinos waited in reserves, a sterngaurd and terminator squad waited for the deepstrike and I had a predator, scouts, and devastator squad on the board. First two turns involved shooting, as these units had castled within run-range of an objective, it wasn't until the third turn when things picked up as one rhino came in and the termies deep struck, though all of this is irrelevant. What I'm getting at is that while my tac squads where pounding bolter lead into gaunts and holding objectives, my terminators where dealing with gun guard and a tervigon the "death star" had tore through my back line destroying an entire devastator squad (310 points with 4 LC), my predator (auto las) and a rhino which I had put to block them from reaching my scouts who were contesting an objective. I pulled away with the win thanks to a late game deep strike from my sterguard who contested an objective, though paid a heavy price.

Thing is, you still managed to win, so you basically dealt with this "deathstar" in the best possible way- Have units that it can "chew" on while your scoring units secure the objectives.