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How would you defeat nids?
Topic Started: 11 Feb 2010, 05:16 AM (856 Views)
donanton
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Warrant Officer First Class
Hi folks, I've played a few games with nids and watched a bunch of battle reports and ive seen lots of massacres non tyranid armies. My 3 games have been effortless slaughterfests. This brought me to a question. How can nids with mawlocs/ deepstrikers be defeated? I would like to get some responses with pros and cons after your ideas. Post for any army you choose. Even if you play nids against nids!


Here's one idea.

IG: completely airborne veteran force with vendetas, demo charges, shotguns and as many flamers and hvy flamers as possible. 1st turn-with the vet squads loaded into valks, move everthing as close to the nids as possible and drop the vets in front of the nids and unload with as many assault weapons as possible, then assault. Use valks and vendettas to hammer the enamy rear and hunt for synapse/ deepstrikers. If you can load up on manticores. Basicly maximum nubmer of templates.
pros-first turn massacre if youre lucky
cons-youre stuck in first turn and theres alot more nids to come.
Edited by donanton, 12 Feb 2010, 04:21 AM.
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☺Dave38x
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DubDubDubDubDub
my thoughts on the matter: Battlecanons. Demolishers for deepstriking monsters. Also worth looking at would be the chemical hellhound because of that lethally easy to wound template weapon.
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Brambleten
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The Red Hood
Just guard or any?

for guard, i reckon you need a few heavy bolter teams to take out any stealers more efficiently than lasguns can. other than that, missile teams and executioners might be a good idea to make sure that mawlocs/trygons dont get saves.

as for using anyone else, unless they have Zoanthropes Land Raider Redeemers are your friends. (In fact, AV 14 is your friend, unless it gets hit with the Zoanthrope lance power thingy) maybe someone with a psychic hood to nullify powers from hive tyrants and others would be useful. other than that lots of guns, lots of big guns for the big beasties, and lots of template weapons. although not for guard. if nids are in template range of guardsmen, you have dead guardsmen.
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# Digits
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Shadowkin
Keep mobile. Sitting waiting for them is a sure recipe for disaster.

Always take out the zoanthropes earliest opportunity. Max the use of meltas / plasmas on tank sponsons too. If one pops out the ground - hit him with lots of AP 1/2.

Also, get yourself a vulcan megabolter (I know - apoc only) but real nid killer.
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Justedd_233
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Warrant Officer First Class
I was thinking the Eradicator Cannon would be useful for taking out hormagaunt hordes,
large blast, 36" range, S6 AP4 and no cover saves. could even take on Tyrants if you have
the lascannon/multi-melta combo

Games against nids are nail biters for the first two rounds, when you might have a shot
at assassinating the synapse units, but after that its just the inevitable close-combat
slaughterfest dogpile that never ends well.
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Oldgrue
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Second Lieutenant
Look at the current bug list again and I think you'll see that its terribly vulnerable to a maneuverable force. Al'Rahem is probably going to be as 'must have' as Marbo.

As much as its hard to accept the idea that walkers are more than an entertainment, sentinels are as fast or faster than most of the Tyranid army. I think the Missile Launcher and Autocannon are going to be the kings of 5e meta on anything smaller than a full MBT. A squadron of three should be able to engage most tyranid units effectively.

Cheap options for platoons are going to deliver significant return on investment. The 65 point infantry squad with Autocannon/Grenade Launcher is going to continue to be my go-to squad for s7/6 weapons, but I'll be fielding more Special Weapon platoons. Plasma Guns and Flamers will be my go to weapons rather than Meltaguns.

A Witch Hunter inquisitor is pretty much the only tool you have for reliably canceling the Zoanthrope psychic powers, and Sisters of Battle will certainly react interestingly with Tyranids, but not everyone has these in their stash.

A note on the Parasite: No matter how cool the tyranids get with their spawning new units the Parasite is a non-threat unless your opponent is a devious git. I run ripper swarms 5 models to a base after hoarding plastic rippers and still only have 10 bases. (drop me a pm if you have them in bulk!) The thing is a paper tiger, so don't worry about ouflanking.


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☺Dave38x
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for those of us who didnt understand all of that oldgrue, what do you mean wen you say 5e meta? i get the 5th ed bit, but not the meta bit...
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Justedd_233
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I can see a sentinel squad as an HQ assassin unit, but i only see it as a cc unit in the most desperate of situations.
A sentinel squad only has 3 S5 attacks, at WS3! Thats ok for tying down a mob of gaunts, but nothing else.
Edited by Justedd_233, 12 Feb 2010, 02:43 AM.
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donanton
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Brambleten
11 Feb 2010, 08:46 PM
Just guard or any?

I meant for any army, I'll reword my post.


Strange no one else suggested use of lascannons. Mainly for the cost or the fact that if there are tyrant guard, the hvy weap team will be dead by the time the tyrant can be downed?

Sounds like templates is still the main weapon against nids.

I was thinking medusas in squadron as the range will most likely be under 36" and s10 ap2 will insta kill or ignore saves for most nids. Or a colossus as it ignores cover saves but reduces your hit to a s6 ap4.
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☺Jasevx
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I asked this exact question to the author of the Nid codex, and his answer was play them at the same game, conscripts with flamers works everytime at GW HQ, its a numbers game
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hiveminion
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I haven't played the new Nids yet but I think focussed fire and (mechanised) mobility is key. With Trygons and Mawlocs and whatnot it seems important to be able to kill a T6 W6 creature in a single turn, especially if they can regenerate. Plasma and Melta (also handy against Warriors and the like), and keep moving 7" with vehicles that don't have to fire to avoid hits in close combat.

With mechanised/hybrid armies you can also screen your units with your vehicles to avoid them being assaulted, while still being able to fire from gaps between your tanks. Just be careful if there's a Mawloc about!
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de Selby
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Second Lieutenant
Here are some things nid players are afraid of (I'm letting you in on the Hive Mind's secrets):

Cover. Few of the new nids can take anything like assault grenades, and if you strike first their lack of armour saves hurts.

Strength 8. Lots of mid range beasts in particular are now vulnerable to instant kill. Warriors in particular fear battlecannons at range and power fists in CC. Remember these models are terminator-expensive.

Vehicles (still). The new anti armour options are a boon but mechanised armies can still push us around.

Small nids are afraid of flamers, obviously. Remember that many (termagaunts and their variants particularly) aren't actually any good at combat, and they (and any MC sent in to support them) suffer horribly from No Retreat wounds.

Many big nids (tyrants, fexes) are so slow that they can be avoided: this is what makes the zippy trygon so attractive. But even a trygon can be taken down with anti-tank weapons, and it can be tarpitted too. Damage limitation is the name of the game there. And instakill the Doom of Malatai first chance you get, for goodness sake.
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Oldgrue
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Re: Metagame (the numbers behind the game) - The melta used to be king, but look at the last couple of Codexes:

The prevalence of the S8 weapon has increased, but each army responds to it differently. Space Wolves hardly field enough armor to be threatened by it while the Saga of the Bear or Thunderwolf make s8 weapons less priority than a volume of fire.
Imperial Guard have so much firepower as to make trading long to mid range fire a losing proposition for most armies.
Tyranids have very few priority targets for S8 weapons. Warriors, Raveners, and much of the Elites are t4, but they're not critical enough to really warrant fielding lots of them.
This pattern suggests to me that the Plasma Gun style weapons are the weapon of choice as the game progresses.

Tyranid troop choices will tend to be weighted to T3, with Stealers and Warriors likely being a smallish unit, so the s8 weapon is less effective than blast and template weapons. Raveners and Shrike (flying warriors) are attractive, but there are likely higher priority targets for those high S weapons. The Heavy and HQ sections are heavily weighted to T6, making them the choice targets for Melta/heavy weapons.

Warriors and Raveners might be terminator expensive, but equating them to terminators is a fatal mistake. Rending, poisoned attacks, and 3A are a hateful combination before their high I. To be fair, very little doesn't worry about S8 large blast - marine or no.
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☺Dave38x
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DubDubDubDubDub
and at 1500 points there are 6 battlecannons in my list... seeya nids!
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☺lavadude360
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Lieutenant
Punisher cannons, with that many shots you're gonna do damage. I think basically you have to out horde them. Lots of shots and the law of averages tell you that damage will be done.

Dave
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☺Dave38x
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DubDubDubDubDub
heavy flamer sponsons on said punisher would also be a wise move... multiple broods in one turn if you play it right.
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Roesor
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Recently fought the new nids. Lots of hormagaunts and three units of Zoanthropes. and some big thing and some gargoyles.
Gargoyles are a waste of space.
Two squads of hormagaunts a attacked a ten man squad of marines and with 120 attacks only killed 9 O.o Then got charged by a dreadnought which obviously, they cannot harm.
If I had had two Crusaders and two full Crusader Squads it would have been one hell of a game, as it was the list I had sucked [arse] but did ok I reckon, and we ran out of time, but I had more KP but I still reckon it could have gone either way.
Yeah two Crusaders each with a 14 man squad with and idependent in them. Take Blessed Hull to prevent Lance psychic power from the Thropes from having full effect. I also had a Techmarine with 4 Gunservitors, which was good fro thinning out the Hormagaunts. I'll build my other Raider and try that out I reckon, kill the Thropes first to try and break up that synapse crap, then if I've stil got my raiders tank shock the Hormagaunts...if I get around to it I'll say how it goes.
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gun drone 3.0
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!st think to look for is cover if you can get most of your unit's in good cover and in high places then a mob of ravengers and gants don't look so powerful.
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de Selby
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Oldgrue: The point I'm making is that nids have 'elite' choices that are as expensive and offensive as terminators (or more so), but considerably more brittle. Even if the tournament metagame doesn't include any warriors or raveners, it's likely to include zoanthropes and the Doom, and many players will still bring raveners or warriors with boneswords for the coolness. S8 is widely available, and it works on MCs and (in an all-comers list) vehicles. You'll never be sorry you brought strength 8.

Anyway I was thinking more about monstrous creatures last night, as I expect the most powerful tyranid armies to include lots of MCs (and an indeterminate number of crappy termagants making up the numbers) rather than being true hordes like orks. I present the following tyranid anti-tactica, take it or leave it:







Here are a few notes I made on tyranid monsters and target priority (AKA 'shoot the big ones' or 'where do I point my big guns?').

In 5th edition the new nidzilla is likely to include tyrants, tervigons, and trygons and trygon sub-species. These notes deal specifically with monstrous creatures, but may be applied to some of the less monstrous choices in the army list too.

The high priority targets can be divided into two classes: immediate and strategic threats. As the name suggests, immediate threats have the capacity to rapidly damage your army and will do so until they are neutralised. They win by killing. Strategic threats are less overtly offensive but can still deliver victory for the tyranid player unless challenged. They win by surviving. Victory for the tyranids' opponents is secured by identifying and eliminating first the immediate threats, then the strategic threats, then mopping up. If neccessary, some monsters can be engineered into tarpit combats to buy time.

Immediate threats:
The trygon and trygon prime are severe threats to almost any army. They are premiere monstrous creatures: attractive to tyranid players due to their high speed, high offence and high survivability. Every turn a trygon spends on the field is likely to cause painful casualties, so bringing them down is an immediate priority. Not much beyond the obvious can be said about this, except to remember that the tyranid player will attempt to present multiple threats in an attempt to spread wounds around several monsters and avoid removing models, whereas your attacks should ideally be concentrated on one beast at a time.

Less common fast moving threats may be flying tyrants, harpies, or carnifexes in spore pods (keep them away from vehicles). How 'immediate' they may be depends on their capacity to damage your army. The Doom of Malantai deserves an honourable mention here as a prime non-MC 'immediate threat'.

The shooting capabilities of some MC's, such as the tyrannofex, may make them an Immediate threat to high-value units. Consider how well your army will surive a few turns of fire from these creatures and prioritise them if it will most likely not. Apply the same principle to tyranid elite anti-tank units.

Strategic threats:
The tervigon is attractive to tyranid players chiefly because of the bonuses it confers on other units, and its high survivability for a troops choice. This makes the tervigons and their supporting gaunts the first choice scoring formations in a tyranid force, and thus a strategic threat to victory despite their relatively limited offensive capability. Work out what you need to bring down to secure victory, and make sure you dedicate the necessary firepower before the end of the game. In close combat, remember that gaunts supporting a tervigon will be relatively easy to kill and may thus result in No Retreat wounds for the MC if you can engineer a favourable multiple unit combat.

Other, slower MCs such as the carnifex and tyrannofex, despite their potential offence, often present a strategic threat only if they are likely to contest objectives at the end of the game. Many tyranid players consider slow, expensive MCs something of a point sink that can be ignored or neutralised at leisure. Prioritise them accordingly.

Others:
Tyrants. A walking tyrant is a common sight in tyranid armies. Even without expensive wings or tyrant guard, the tyrant (or the Swarmlord) is a high value unit with good abilities and survivability. Do not underestimate it's offensive and psychic power. It remains slower and easier to counter than a trygon however, and is unlikely to be the most immediate threat.

Mawlocs. A lesser trygon variant with some intriguing special capabilities. Although their deep strike attack gives them considerable offensive power (and should discourage castling), repeated hits from a deep striking mawloc may in some ways be considered (like the weather or a preliminary barrage) as a fact of life that can be planned around but not prevented. The mawloc may not spend enough time in one place to bring down efficiently: if there are other threats on the table then consider whether or not the mawloc presents a strategic threat to deep strike in and contest an objective late in the game, and prioritise accordingly.


The above are of course only guidelines, presented from the perspective of preventing a nidzilla player following a winning plan. In a real game, any model may be promoted to the position of most immediate threat, if and when it threatens to wreck your own plan for victory!



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Severian
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Colour Sergeant
To keep it short

* High strenght weaponst insta kill tougness 4
* loads of templates

Vulcan is your friend in this

A tactic I spied the other day is to ally with Demon Hunters and take the Inquisitor with 2 mystics. If a mawlock or Doom (or any deepstriker) deepstrikes within 4D6 from your Inquisitor's unit you may nominate a unit within 12 to immediately (out of turn) fire on the deepstrikers. You then get your own shooting phase that follows on that. You thus get one shooting phase before he ever gets to fire and 2 shooting phases before he can charge. Gives you a fair chance of killing a tougness 6 6 wound creature before he eats you.

It is a bit of a one trick pony but works a charm on nids and demons.
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