Best tactics vs. Nids.

[Montoya]

Hello  all, 

 

Long time lurker, newly joined member.

 

I've been playing BA since late 6th edition.   With the emergence of 8th, a new (old story wise) foe has risen to scourge me.   The tyrannids.   

 

From what I have seen, really 2 main builds.   One being the swarm (which is MUCH more effective now in eighth ed.   Damn I hate genestealers!!!), and the other being monster spam.

 

What I have found some success with are as follows:

 

Death Company.   It's been said already on this forum, but by far the top unit for us in this edition.    Love me a unit of these with Lemartes deepstriking in.

 

I recently tried a contingent of allied AM using a squad of conscripts, a commissar and two manticores.    The reason for this is my principal opponent really only has one strategy that he continually falls back on.   Hive Guard and biovores with a Malanthrope behind LOS blocking cover.   I struggled with this for a while, but then decided that perhaps the best way to beat him was to play his own game. 

 

That manticore can also give flyrants a bad day with their high strength missiles.

 

Both these have had good success.   But that said, I'm interested in what everyone has found successful against our most hated of foes.

 

    

 

[Ornithologist]

The guy in my group who plays nids normally runs 2 dakkafexs and like 40 to 45 genesteelers. 

 

Oddly enough, I have not played him since the codex came out, so I am not sure what right now will work.

[Indefragable]

Shoot the stabby ones and stab the shooty ones.

 

Simple, classic, effective.

 

That being said, you want to be careful either charge moves. Normally Scouts and such are effective speed bumps, but units like Genestealers can often use them as a springboard to get into juicier meat faster. Maintain your cool, play smart, and know when to shoot something to oblivion and when you can charge yourself to finish a unit off.

 

Advantages we have are mobility (all them jump packs) and the ability to be fairly shooty for such a stabby army. Sang Guard have angelus boltguns at worst and DC can all be armed with Bolters. Whittle things down before charging in or shoot unit A and charge unit B.

 

Basically it’s a fencing match. Use mobility, feints, and Red Thirst to fight at the time and place of your choosing.

[Bonzi]

It boils down to a couple play styles and a couple army compositions Nids can do now. You can face ultimate speed blitz cc armies whose speed in crossing the board is a match for our own or you can face dakka bugs, whose shooting can make an Astra Militarum player jealous. These styles can come in horde bugs or monster mash. The Nids codex has become crazy flexible.

 

Against CC blitz of any kind you need scouts. You need to infiltrate and put up a screen 9" in front of his battle line. There won't be enough room behind this line and your dz for the Nids to deepstrike into. His blitz cc units will only be able to move up to your scouts, murder them, and then consolidate 3" past... putting the nid units on the 50 yard line instead of in CC with units in your deployment zone. Yes, you have to sacrifice scouts to slow them down, they're that fast. After that you have to counterpunch with fast units like DC hard....very hard...but luckily that is what BA do.

 

Vs gunbugs you're down to target priority and tying up units just like you would vs Astra Militarum. Be aware Nids have fearless screening units and their Overwatch will hurt. Tough units or units that can negate Overwatch are a must.

[Morticon]

The gun bugs are the hidden gem of the dex.  Hiveguard received massive boosts in terms of BS, range and AP.  No LOS is just incredibly difficult to deal with too.   

For BA solutions for them are:

 

1:  Scorpios Whirlwind - good AP, wounds on 3s, and 2dam a pop.  

2: Inceptors - with the ability to strike in 18" we can wipe out a squad a time -but, you're likely to struggle to get in within a turn or two because of all the bug screens.

3: Whirlwinds/Hyperios /Rapiers - similar to the Scorp, just not as good - cheaper though! 

4: Sternguard  Pod -suffers same prob as inceptors, but equally good.

 

 

In terms of dealing with the hordes - smashing a flank, i feel, is the best way to go.  You limit the amount of counter charge, but can still reposition with wings of fire.  A 10 man DC or VV charge (even ASM + Rage) with a reroll to hit will see you smashing a big horde.  

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I play shooty Kraken. Chameolic Mutation, and a Malenthrope are staples in all my lists.

 

I usually run 3 blobs of termagaunts, 2x 10 1x30 I almost always bring 2-3 Flyrants that deepstrike as well as an Exocrine to deal with armor. Everything else varies.

 

The whirl winds are no joke, even hitting my big bugs of 4s I have found that LoS ignoring mortors really do a number on things. So things like Whirl winds and Hyrdas allied in are good bets.

 

If you drop a squad of DC or non shooty unit and crash them into one of my blobs, I'm activating Caustic blood, and you are assured to lose several models before my gribblies swing.

 

I'm then going to counter them by dropping either one or two Flyrants in, Psychic Scream + Smite + Dakka whatever is left over. Aggressors are a great counter since If I drop within 12" you can activate Auspex scan and do some residual damage before I wipe 1-2 units.

 

I find T7+ is harder to deal with though.

 

I have the option of a Swarm Lord first turning a 30 man blob of gene stealers into your lines, even if you screen with scouts. In some cases it's better to give up a squad and hard counter them with interceptors and Bolter DC.

 

It depends on the mission with regards to what I do. Sometimes I'll just have a squad of warriors take pop shots at your back line with a venom cannon and stay crow's nested on an objective.

 

My bug lists are very strong and I've only won or tied with them in games over 750 points.

[Panzer]

My Tyranid opponent had to activate Caustic Blood three times before he killed anything worth mentioning last time I played against him. :D

 

But yeah Tyranids are strong. Termagaunts with dakka from hell or melee gaunts who can, with help of the mortal wounds on 6s Stratagem, can easily wipe out something like TWC in one turn.

I'm actually more scared of the different kind of Gaunts than I am of the big bugs (tho the dakkafex is quite scary as well!).

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I usually keep them within range of the tervigon to bring them back, She gets targeted a lot.

 

But every game my opponent swings into my termagaunts and I activate caustic blood, if they kill 10 plus, I've done about 3 mortal wounds minmum, one game my opponent killed 25 of them and I wiped his unit, then brought 10 right back. Pretty nasty.

[Panzer]

Yeah I faced that in my last match. A huge unit of gaunts sitting on the objective (Open War mission, one model picks it up and when it's dead the marker gets dropped right there until another model picks it up. Who has it at the end of turn 5 wins the game). Impossible to shift that unit with what we had in our list. Especially since he kept casting the 5+ FnP power and kept bringing them back with the Tervigon as well lol

When I finally managed to charge the Tervigon with my Librarian Dread he was already basically dead (one wound remaining thanks to his own psychic powers) and bounced off of the 4++ and -1 damage trait. Game Over. :D

[Montoya]

Some interesting and good thoughts to try there guys.   I've planned on trying some whirlwinds, but hesitated because of the relatively low S vs. the large bugs.   But I will give them a go next time. 

 

I have been doing the DC drop blob, but hadn't factored in scout "speed bumps" to slow up the genestealer horde.  Will have to try that one next time. 

[MinamotoKansuke]

I played an interesting game vs Nids yesterday. He was using a mix of small bugs (Genestealers with some Gaunts) and bigger ones (Swarmlord, walking Hive Tyrant, Carnifex, Trygon Prime for the Stealers).

 

Honestly I find them hard to deal with. I deployed so that he cannot deepstrike and fight anything of value, because I knew whatever charges first (my DC or his genestealers from the Trygon tunnel) will probably wipe the other side out, so it was a waiting match. I was shooting him as much as I could until it was safe for me to charge out in force. Once I did I nearly wiped him out, but I was short one turn so I didn't manage to table him, and by that point he racked up too many points from objectives.

 

Tyranids are tough :)