The Mantis Killer

[Akranadas]

Mission Briefing

Commander, we have a priority target. A Lictor has been spotted in a critical area and must be eliminated. This creature is a camouflage expert and has likely been preying on the population, and weakening our defenses for several weeks. 'Chapter records indicate that Lictors are among the most stable of Tyranid genotypes. We also suspect that this Lictor may have spawned from a primary hive.
Destroy it and we will be a major step closer to finding the bio-toxin we need to attack the Hive Fleet. And be on guard, Commander. Lictors are ferocious predators. Do not underestimate this opponent.

Primary Objectives:
- Eliminate the Lictor
-

Secondary Objectives:
-
-

[darkheron]

Looking for a legitimate non-glitch strategy for this battle on Primarch difficulty that does not involve scouts.

Sticking Avitus in a tower and using blind grenades whenever possible is very helpful but he does so much damage in blind grenade downtime that it is very hard to keep my people alive. Trying to stun then drop a det pack on him right now, but that is pretty tough and last time I blew up the hut Avitus was in as well hehe.

Any other ideas?

[konfeta]

Get the scout? :)

There isn't much to say about this. Have Thaddeus to close in the distance when he readies his fleshhook and pack a lot of Rosarius/Stimpacks. It helps if you clear the map first and break open all the boxes so you can replenish it. You could also do the Array missions to get the Drop-Pod/Orbital Bombardment beacons.

*Oh, and NEVER, NEVER Garrison buildings. It's utterly worthless.

[Ryouichi]

It was a pretty easy fight on Captain, though I haven't gotten to that in Primarch yet.

It helps if you have a Chapter Banner to use the Rally ability with.

[darkheron]

Well, no items have dropped that give the Rally ability. Actually, not a single commander item has dropped yet at level 11 hmm. Usually I have one by level 6 or so. Thanks for reminding me of that heh.

@konfeta
You have done this on Primarch without scouts? I am doing what you say with Thaddeus, but tbh he is killing my guys so fast that a squad is down in 15 seconds or less, so it's difficult to maintain enough damage to make progess on his health without having to rez squads. I am trying for the highest scores possible so I want to do this with as few deaths as possible. I can beat the battle, but I end up with a resiliance of 1 star. I was just wondering if there was some trick that would make the battle more manageable without all the dying.

I tried blind grenade then dropping a det pack on him but he seems immune to it as it didn't move his health even a little bit. Actually I got two det packs on him last try and he is not even dented by them. I'll go get orbital bombardment, but his extreme resistance to the det packs makes me wonder if this will work.

[konfeta]

Yes. I did it with 3 squads, actually, my Cyrus was hanging back in case I needed a revival, which never occured. On Primarch.

So I had Thaddeus, Avitus, and FC; Avitus dropped in some turrets. I pretty much cycled invulnerability tanking from Thaddeus's jump ability and FC's Charge, using Medpacks/Rally between the cooldowns, and Rosarius on emergency.

Rally really helps.

[Ryouichi]

I just beat it with 3 star resilience. Would have had 5 but the god damn lictor kept knocking my retreating Tarkus down halfway through.

Set up heavy bolters and Avitus, then engaged melee with FC with heals. Tarkus near the back ready for Rosarius if necessary. Cyrus popping off HPS every now and then and throwing blind grenades whenever he could. Blind grenades do work, and while det pack is hardly useful with its long fuse, mastercrafted grenades (or normal ones) work well.

Just retreat anything that gets pounced on and keep blasting away.

[Surrealitycheck]

I solo'd this on Primarch with scouts, 5/5 resil. So long as you're conservative of Cyrus' abilities while clearing the rest of the map (liberal use of Thaddeus jump to kill the packs works), the Lictor is easy. It's made slightly faster by dropping in turrets, but High Powered Shot (doesn't matter what Sniper Rifle you have, it seems to have a percentile damage component against bosses: I've seen the same rifle do 300 damage per HPS to the Zoey, and nearly 4500 per shot against Idranel) will see you through. Blind 'nades/Det Packs will deal with the 'gaunt/Spore Mine spawn(s).

As a rule of thumb, Cyrus with the Abilities while Invisible perk will basically deal with any humanoid boss for you. Only very occasionally will he need support, and only on vehicle bosses will you need other methods (and even then HPS and Det Packs are good for whittling the HP down before you bring in the big guns).

[darkheron]

Well level 18 now and still no commander items have dropped, so no rally. Using flee helps a good bit, I don't usually use that, but I think it might be necessary to do this with a decent resil score.

@SurraletyCheck
Of course you can do it with scouts. The scouts are absurdly overpowered in the campaign, hence the reason I like trying the campaign without them.

Anyway thanks to everyone for all the advice. I'll try for perfect resil on the next campaign run. Hopefully I have a banner next time. Think I'm gonna try a melee spec'd Tarkus next time. That seems pretty useless even with the Sweeping Advance upgrades, but ya never know until you try I guess :)