Tyranid vs admech help

[Kyokii]

I've never played against admech with my tyranid in 9th edition, what should I look out for? I'm part of a multi day tournament and my first opponent is admech. My list consists of and is locked into the following

Kronos

Swarmlord, catalyst. Horror
Neurothrope, resonance barb, symbiostorm

10x hormagants
18x hormagants
3x rippers
2x20 termagants w/ devourers

5x hive guard w/ that ignore ap 1, 2
2x1 lictors

The hierophant w/ dermic symbiosis.





The admech is taking

Mars

Cawl
Daedolus
Manipulus

2x3 kataohron breaches, heavy grav
1x5 rangers, galvanic rifles

1x10 electro priests, staves
1x5 ruststalkers

1x5 serberys raiders
1x6 Sulphur hounds

1x4 kastelans, phosphor

1 archaeoper, chaff launcher

1 skorpius dune rider (likely will have the priests)


I barely know how to parse what all this is. I know the grav is going to be bad news for my hierophant and the bits are bad news for my entire army, as is the flier because of its massive mortal wound output. Hilariously, the hierophant has fly so, I believe, it can charge the plane; am I right? My big questions are weathering turn 1 and target priority. What should I be more focused on? I can clear the bubble wrap, but there isn't really any at all, it's pretty much just big guns and more gun. What stats should I be wary of?

[arsonfire]

Ad-mech are primarily a shooty army, although there are one or two things to watch out for in melee there.

The Kastelans are generally the top priority target in an ad-mech list. They have a ludicrous amount of S6 AP-2 D1 firepower. Something like 18 shots per model. Cawl is there to let them re-roll all hit rolls. One of the HQs will have the Divinations of the Magos warlord trait to give it an aura of exploding 6's to hit. They usually toss on a stratagem to inflict a mortal wound for each wound roll of a 6+ too. So despite arguably mounting an anti-infantry gun, they have enough firepower to severely damage or kill just about anything they're pointed at.
I find it's much better to gun down the Kastelans at range instead of charging them, as their overwatch is ridiculous. They can bounce a mortal wound back at the unit shooting them whenever they roll a 6 on their invul save, which is a bit annoying. But more bearable than the overwatch.

The Kataphrons are probably the next biggest shooting threat to deal with (I assume they're kataphron destroyers rather than breachers, since they have heavy grav which breachers can't take). They die relatively easily, so there's an argument for killing them first. Whatever works out easier I guess.

The electro-priests are a melee unit. The thing to watch out for with them is that their 5++ will increase to a 3++ for the rest of the game if they manage to kill a unit in melee. So be careful about throwing chaff in front of them. They're reasonably easy to kill before they get that 3++ though. You just need to get them out of the transport they'll be hiding in.

The Serberys Raiders are mainly a screening unit. They're not very powerful, but are somewhat tough. They have a pre-game scout move which they use to move forwards to try and block your movement and establish a mid-field presence. They have a very annoying stratagem where when you declare a charge on them they can move or fall back 12". Basically making them impossible to charge. They're a nuisance rather than a threat, you just have to make sure they don't try anything sneaky and get into your hive guard.
I haven't seen the sulphur hounds used so much, so can't comment much on them. They look similar to the serberys raiders but without the scout move. A bit more anti-infantry firepower, which ignores cover, but they don't look too scary to anything other than your gaunts.

I haven't played against the archaeopter. There are 3 variants and I'm not sure which is being used here. Given the mention of mortal wounds, I'm guessing it's the Fusilave with the bomb rack? It doesn't look too bad to me. You can shake off a few mortals. It has a stratagem to halve your movement after it bombs you, but it doesn't work on Titanic or Fly models, so isn't going to bother your hierophant. It might try to turn off your aura abilities, but losing a few extra gaunts to morale isn't a big deal, and it would likely be exposing itself to a charge from the hierophant if it got that close.

[beetlejuice]

That is rough man. One of the few opponents who can one shot the phant in turn 1. If you go first and get catalyst off and start tagging stuff you might be ok but full castle shooting you will hurt, especially wrath of mars from kastelans (10+ mortal wounds in addition to 72 shots with rerolls). Might even be worth 5 CP to reserve the phant lol (though you will be at risk getting screened off the board).

[Kyokii]

Well. Had the game and the stream is posted here
youtu.be/cvdpsEIwjhs

Overall, just what I expected. Admech went first and took roughly 1300 points off of my army.

[zimko]

The video doesn't show deployment. Did you have an option to start the Hierophant on the other corner to avoid the robots for a turn by out ranging them?

[Kyokii]

Apr 12, 2021 1:16:05 GMT zimko said:

The video doesn't show deployment. Did you have an option to start the Hierophant on the other corner to avoid the robots for a turn by out ranging them?

Sadly, the size of the phant, the 8" move of the bots gave them too large of a threat range to avoid on the board. It might have worked to reserve, but the hierophant is too large to reserve. Doing so would prevent it from shooting or charging after setup thanks to faq regarding models with bigger bases than allowed deployment.
Oh, also the bots were set up after the phant. I had far fewer units starting on table (gants in phant, 2 lictors and rippers in deepstrike)

[zimko]

Yeah that's a pretty bad matchup then. I hardly see Ad-mech taking Robots anymore because most things can avoid them. The Hierophant is just too big to avoid anything so Robots are the perfect answer to it. Even without robots though, ad-mech has plenty of options to kill a big monster like the Hierophant, especially with rerolls and 6+ explodes. It's a dumb codex and I hope they get nerfed.

[Kyokii]

Apr 12, 2021 1:54:14 GMT zimko said:

Yeah that's a pretty bad matchup then. I hardly see Ad-mech taking Robots anymore because most things can avoid them. The Hierophant is just too big to avoid anything so Robots are the perfect answer to it. Even without robots though, ad-mech has plenty of options to kill a big monster like the Hierophant, especially with rerolls and 6+ explodes. It's a dumb codex and I hope they get nerfed.

Sad but true, I knew that going in and, again, admech was the only army I was worried about one rounding the big balooka
Losing the roll off was harsh. Upside is I was able to keep what was left of my army out of sight. Dakkabots only shot twice total. Once on the phant, once on a lictor.
Was just my worst possible match up if he went first and that happened, such is life

[kazetanade]

That really just blows. So sorry to hear that.