Jump to content

Tips for Battling 'Nids


Greggoman

Recommended Posts

Depends on if he brings a nidzilla or a swarm army, or as I have been against, a mix.

 

Either way, know this. He may lose 80% of his models on the table and he can still win or at least draw. Flamers are really going to come out huge for swarms. Missile launchers are always great as you'll have a template or a high strength. Since your not punching through vehicles, lascanons, chainfists and thunderhammers are a waste of points. I don't pull mine out of my list before fighting nids, but that's because I try to create all comers lists.

 

I don't know your list so all advice is hypothetical, but my top favorite things are

 

Flamers

Long fangs with missile launchers

Rune priests with jaws to run down hordes and the occassional monstrous creature.

I would not dismiss power fists so easily when they are a great help in chewing through high wound/low toughness creatures such as Warriors and Raveners. Each power fist wound made against those is infact 3 wounds because of instant kill. Not to mention they help alot with monsterous creatures.

I didn't say anything about powerfists, in fact if anything you want them scattered around as best as possible. Check what I said again. Chainfists and thunderhammers are a waste of points. Since you are not fighting vehicles, a chainfists extra dice for armor pen is useless and and the thunderhammer shaken effect is useless too. You do get to knock down their initiative though, which I had actually forgotten about since I'm at work without my books.

 

Fists are absolutely necessary though as you won't stand a chance in assault against monstrous creatures like Trygons without them.

 

My last nids game I ran loganwing (my opponent lacks hive guards which are one of the most effective ways to pop rhinos. Note I said only one of the most, there are others like thropes.) So as a friendly gamer I agreed to play a footslog army. My only regret was only having 1 pf per unit, I should have had two at least per unit.

Nids are by far the codex that strugels the moast against the rules of 5th edition despite it being a cool codex.

 

Bring tanks, rhinos and some dreadnoughts.

 

You will generaly have the range on him, and unless he takes zoanthropes, hive guards, tyranofex, dakkafex, dakka tyrant he will have to charge your rhinos open, usualy the fastest turn 2, meaning that whatever is inside will not get charged before turn 3. That gives you 2 or 3 turns to shoot down everything he has.

 

Rhinos with plasma and/or flamers are good. Also, they hate chasing down your tanks, so as soon as they aproach just back off full speed and scatter. He must chase a few of them and the rest stand and shoot.

 

Landspeeders with rockets launchers and bolters are very good as you can take out big bugs with krak, use the frag as defensive weaponds and the bolter vs smaler once and late game you can move flat out making them hard to hit in CC and contest objectives. Also, dreadnoughts will keep big swarms loked down. 20 gargoyles? No problem, charge with the dread. Also give them heavy flamer. In short shoot a lott. Feed him some cheap targets while you back off and then shoot him again. Let him come to you.

I didn't say anything about powerfists, in fact if anything you want them scattered around as best as possible. Check what I said again. Chainfists and thunderhammers are a waste of points. Since you are not fighting vehicles, a chainfists extra dice for armor pen is useless and and the thunderhammer shaken effect is useless too. You do get to knock down their initiative though, which I had actually forgotten about since I'm at work without my books.

 

Fists are absolutely necessary though as you won't stand a chance in assault against monstrous creatures like Trygons without them.

 

My last nids game I ran loganwing (my opponent lacks hive guards which are one of the most effective ways to pop rhinos. Note I said only one of the most, there are others like thropes.) So as a friendly gamer I agreed to play a footslog army. My only regret was only having 1 pf per unit, I should have had two at least per unit.

 

 

Oops I saw thunderhammer and chainfist and then my mind filled out the blanks that were not there, sorry.

 

But as you said Thunderhammers do have their purpose, especially against Trygons and Hive tyrants which can save many lives. Though I dont think it is worth shunting them into the list if you already have Power Fists since the points can add up, so I agree with you Nrthstar.

I love my dreads, and I play them all the time, but against nids you have to be careful with them if your opponent is smart. You can lock in and cause some serious pain against most nids, but he may recognize that and while your ancient one is locked in combat with that horde he'll charge in a carnifex or trygon and it'll be game over. Remember his monstrous creatures roll 2d6 for armor pen. What you can do though is use an empty rhino or maybe thunderwolf Calvary if you have it to intercept it.
Ok cheers guys I'll play around with putting some powerfists in my list and then potentially a thunderhammer or two somewhere as my opponent told me he'd finished painting a flygrant

 

A flyrant, like most Tyranid monstrous creaturues except Tyrannofex gets absolutely murdered by missle launchers because of their 3+ save. So Long Fangs, Typhoon land speeders and Cyclone missile launchers can help quite alot againt the big stuff.

A rune priest with either tempests wrath or hurricane will make him think twice about flying the tyrant around, even with the fairly low chance of actually taking a wound. Plasma and missiles for the big stuff. 'Nids are primarily an assault army so stay in cover where possible as they have little in the way of frag equivalent (recently one of my hunter packs killed 18 out of 20 'gaunts before they got to strike 'cos they assulted through terrain. OK I got above average dice but the priciple is sound). Weight of fire combined with counter attack is a tactic wolves do well with but especially against bugs.

Some general advice,

 

Mech up. Punish him for wrecking your boxes in melee but expect to lose some to shooting (e.g. Hiveguard).

Stick everything that aren't in boxes - in cover (nids have next to zero assault grenade options).

I'd field Longfangs and a Runepriest. LFs targets the big ones, RP to JotWW any Carnifexes/Tervigons and to help shut down Zoans (if he fields them). I hate going up against these units when I field my 'Nids.

Should he field only 1 synapse creature per 500pts, it can be situationally wise to target them above anything else.

Few things in a 'Nid list can reliably hurt a Land Raider, that is not to say that you should field one though.

Fielding a raider is almost cruel and unusual punishment. If he's a newer player and he doesn't have a ton of models yet. His best bet of cracking it will be a thrope or a carnifex in melee. S9 plus 2d6 has decent odds of punching through a14, but puts his fex in a terrible position.

 

The only thing to watch out for with your rune priest. Shadows of the warp increases your odds of perils, and every warrior has it.

 

Honestly I am envious that you have a bugs game coming up. My friend doesn't get out often with his nids, and it's a great feeling to chew through swarm after swarm of creatures and then face off against their massive creatures. The games always feel very fluffy win or lose. And if you take ragnar watching his warrior born kick in and stack to the high heavens is amazing.

 

-Nrth

Most advice I can offer has already been given.

 

-Take transports, not drop pods if possible, so you can re-deploy.

-Although there are now many more Synapse creatures than there used to be. Your opponent (for whatever foolish reason) may have taken very many, so you may want to target them. But this is very unlikely that he would have few enough to make it viable.

-Shoot as much as possible, and try to stay out of close combat for as long as possible. Only assault if you need to, and stay away from the hordes of gaunts and stealers, period. There are very few units that do not have CC capabilities, Zoanthropes come to mind, so those are free game. 'Nids' drop pods can even do some damage in close combat.

Hmm unfortunately I don't have any options as of yet as I have to run the 1500pts I have as I've only had my SW army for 2 months now. So drop pods will have to be used. But I'm sure I can try and work it to my advantage by dropping 2 sets of 5 wolf guard termies to tie up a few squads.
Hey all just to report back, I had the game on friday and it was going well until turn 4, I had two of the three objectives, but what had been holding back the monstrous creatures got wiped out and soon so did the grey hunters and runepriests holding the objectives :lol: nevermind, maybe next time, I definitely learnt some things

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.