Seeking help for: Facing Tyranids and Adapting to 7th

Alrighty folks. My only opponent is a Tyranid Player, and a master of the fifth element: Rulebending. He tends to take 2 Tervigons, Hive Guard, Biovores, At least one Burrower (Mawloc) At least 2 Non- HQ Flyers. HQ he loves the Swarmlord and the Flyrant. Occasionally takes a squad of three Dakkafex's. This in addition to a couple of squads of Termagaunts, Lictors and Ravenors. This list is his toned down, friendly difficulty army. I dare not mention his winmaxed army.

I do not possess a 7th ed. Rulebook, and I need to be up to date with it to truly win. I have mustered a single win in all our games, and almost won last night except for a turn with which he scored Domination and Ascendency in one turn. So I have some questions, besides general tactica. His fav. Tactic is to keep a "toe in cover" Where he will grant his models a cover save for having a sliver of it's base, on the base of the Terrain (Usually a Vertical Hill glued onto thin cardboard.) Basically, he is claiming a cover save from the hill that is behind him due to the fact that he is on the Hill's physical base. This seems highly illogical.

The other scary tactic he brings is he loves to cast Peroxism and the Horror.

I seek the guidance of other Deldar players.

Poison. Poison him to death.
On a side note yes if he is area terrain he can and will get a cover save with his monstrous creatures, just make sure he rolls for move through cover.
And in summary bring more poison tons of poison. poison poison poison.

I think you should start by telling him that there is no such thing as area terrain anymore and if he wants cover from a hill then his model needs to be 25% obscured by it.

Then poison him to death.

A lot.

He's taking serious advantage of your lack of rulebook there. As Count said, if your model can see more than three-quarters of its target, no cover saves going on. I'd make sure you are 100% on the rules before you play someone that wicked, tricksy and false.

And poison. He'll soon learn not to rely on monsters.

Just to expand slightly on this issue, there are certain terrain types which offer a cover save just for being 'in' the terrain, Ruins being the most common example. A hill however is not one of these and your opponent sounds like he should know better.

If poison isn't enough, out-monster him. Nids really don't like to face us in combat. ichor injectors, flesh gauntlets etc all have the lethal dose rule, which means for any 6's you roll it's instant death if he fails his save. Talos take this to the next level because an ichor injector on a talos wounds on a 2+ at AP2 with instant death on 6's. Tervigons, Trygons, Mawlocs etc all work on the basis that they're tough and have a lot of wounds. A pair of Talos with splinter cannons is a scary prospect for them at range (and we have better range), and even scarier up close.

Poison, Dark Artisans, and Necrotoxin Missiles.

For really reals.

The cover thing has been covered so I won't go there, but you should REALLY get (or borrow) a copy of the rules. They are mostly what they were in 6th, but the numerous differences are subtle and easily missed. Stuff like being able to shoot blasts/templates with Skyfire on FMCs, or no longer roling Night Fighting on Turn 5.

About his army, I'd agree with your opponent. It IS quite a toned down list, and for DE it should be quite easy to handle. Fill him up with poison. The big, synapse ones first, then the rest. I'm sure you can figure out which is more dangerous and most in need of dying

Sigmaril wrote:

They are mostly what they were in 6th, but the numerous differences are subtle and easily missed.

Couldn't agree more, and some of those subtle differences have massive in game effects. Deep strike is an example, it's now 'counts as moving at combat speed' instead of cruising speed, which means a raider full of splinter rifle warriors can now fire 20 shots up to 12" at full BS, instead of only hitting on '6's. I tried deep striking raiders under 6th ed and it was worthless as a tactic, even with splinter racks. Now i almost always take two full raiders and they can put serious hurt down when they arrive (statistically speaking they should kill a wraithknight if you can drop them both within 12"!)

Mr Ghoti here posted a reply to a similar question a few months ago that really helped me out
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t10877-tyrannids-shroud-cloud

You have a very similar situation as I do. I only have a few players I regularly play against, one being Tyranids. Rules, or should I say interpretation of rules, is always the topic of conversation during our games. We try our best to play the game as intended , however, if we are both on opposite sides of the rule, we just roll for it. 123, I get it, 456 he gets it. Once the game is over, we spend the time figuring out who was actually right. (Just for the record, I'm always right, hehe) It speeds up the game and seems like most fair way of dealing with the issue

It's pretty much impossible to lose to Nids with Dark Eldar if you bring a strong list. Sounds like you need like 6 more venoms.

Flyrant spam can wreck even dark eldar

Nah. My buddy brought a 5 flyrants list. Snap shooting venoms, ad razor wings with lances and splinter cannons own them.

Not to mention if we max deploy away we negate their shooting for a turn or 2 depending on deployment.

Nids are ez mode to a good DE list.

Power to you, I don't know if I would be able to handle that many flyrants at 1850

Really easy.

Spam venoms and razor wings. Use your mother points for haywire scourge and target tanks with those.

Snap shoot flyers with venoms pump lances and splinter cannon from razor wings into flyers.

Profit.

Also, make sure your opponent sucks, since that will rarely work against qualified opposition

Really. Let me hear your resume. I've got an exceptional track record at both GTs and RTTs.

Who are you? Probably just an Internet scrub with his keyboard as a shield.

Let's keep the flaming and e-peen waving out of The Dark City shall we? Thanks - Count Adhemar

So I'm confronting him about the whole cover issue, which I'm very upset about right now, as he has been cheating me for months on the issue. It works better for him too because since his squads are so small, he can have 2 or 3 in one area whereas my footsloggers can barely fit in one. On another note, I brought a lot of competition in my last game, the score being 16-22 at the end. He got a turn where he scored Ascendency and Domination and rolled well for both. On the topic of venoms, I'm a broke 40k player. I inherited a 3rd ed. Army from my father with 5 raiders and a ravager. Besides 60+ Warriors, I have a squad each of the old wyches, mandrakes, and Beast Pack w/ 5 Beasts. Also, a squad of 4 Incubi, plus several Haemonculi and Archons. Old Reavers too. I don't have any new stuff, so Venoms, Grotesques and Wracks are out of the question. Do have some questions on said squads though. I noticed my Huskblade/ Shadowfield Archon completely sucked, didn't kill a single thing. Also, I ended up getting screwed over in Melee combat with my Khymera's, as They engaged some Hive Guard but had to split their attacks up between the models due to base to base contact. So tips on getting the max out of my Wyches, HQs, and Beast Packs?

Count Adhemar wrote:

I think you should start by telling him that there is no such thing as area terrain anymore and if he wants cover from a hill then his model needs to be 25% obscured by it.

There is area terrain look in the main rulebook pg 190 ish.

django_unchained wrote:

Really. Let me hear your resume. I've got an exceptional track record at both GTs and RTTs.

Who are you? Probably just an Internet scrub with his keyboard as a shield.

I do too you probably just play horrible nid players. I go against 5 flyrants with pure DE and it is 60-40 towards me more so if I go first.

Cronex13 wrote:

Also, I ended up getting screwed over in Melee combat with my Khymera's, as They engaged some Hive Guard but had to split their attacks up between the models due to base to base contact.

Did I mention you should really read the rules? Your Khymeras roll combined, making a wound pool. Your opponent then picks a model in base contact with one of the khymera. This model then takes ALL the wounds from the wound pool, until he is dead, in which case he picks another to take the rest, or there are no more wounds to take.
The example you used is only true in case you're fighting against more than one unit at the time (which you should proably try to avoid).

django_unchained wrote:

Really. Let me hear your resume. I've got an exceptional track record at both GTs and RTTs.

Who are you? Probably just an Internet scrub with his keyboard as a shield.

Newsflash. We are all just internet scrubs with keyboard shields here. In fact it was your superior attitude I was offended by in the first place, leading to the, admittedly, quite trollish post I left.
I fail to see the relevance of my resume, but since you asked: I attend 8-10 tournaments a year on average. I do not have an "exceptional track record". I mostly chuck that up to not having an inflated internet ego, though, besides having good and qualified opponents.

Bleaksoul Brethren wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

I think you should start by telling him that there is no such thing as area terrain anymore and if he wants cover from a hill then his model needs to be 25% obscured by it.

There is area terrain look in the main rulebook pg 190 ish.

No, there are some terrain pieces that are similar in effect to area terrain but area terrain, as a game term, does not exist in 7th edition.

Don't hills count as open terrain now for movement purposes anyway? I'm fairly certain I read that. Now I'm going to have to go search it out.

Hey Archons. Please quit trying to kill each other? I don't care who is better than who, you are all helping me quite a bit. Yeah, I technically did charge into 2 different units because his swarm lord was in there. I was going to charge my archon with husk blade but him and the in cubic had no room after the beasts. That bit was probably fair. Um, so I've been considering running a succubus instead of an archon for kicking his broodlords ass, initiative 8 will help. Thinking an archite glaive might do well?

I thought Archons were supposed to try and kill each other. I mean you know it makes us stronger than ever....Right?!!?

I'm not very familiar with the Swarm lord, but is it an independent character? If he is than he would be part of the squad for charging purposes, unless he was outside of the 2" coherency distance. Which would mean unless you got something in base contact with it, it wouldn't be part of the combat.

Base to base was the problem though. He had like 2 of his guard in the front, swarmy, and another behind. I had to surround him because apparently the first model has to charge towards the closest enemy model