Dealing with Nids

Played my first few games against nids a little while ago. I really struggled to take down the shear volume of troops they could throw at me (genestealers and gaunts). Added to this their hypermobility and deepstriking it has been a challenge for my index army.

With the new codex release coming I had a few basic ideas of possible counterplays

1) Meeting them head on - Our newly buffed melee units like wyches should be able to go toe to toe with the likes of genestealers now. I'm not sure how good talos and grot are but if they're decent they could be a viable option too. (have wondered about hellions as horde killers for a while)

2) Staying mobile - using transports (perhaps with screaming jets to avoid alpha striking) to try and keep our troops safe while they rain splinter fire on them. (feel like this one might be very risky and require a lot of luck and clever positioning)

3) Hold up in a corner - use a small number of units to screen for our glass cannons and hope we last long enough/do enough damage to win.

4) healthy combo of several of the above


I'm personally thinking the melee heavy option sprinkled with some big guns might be a good way to go. I've not played any test games and I'm gonna wait for the book. I'd love to get some of you guys and gals thoughts and ideas on this.

I think that wyches will still struggle against genestealers, the sheer volume of attacks will still wipe a squad, it’ll be whoever strikes first. I think shredders are good vs gaunts, poison vs genestealers, and have some road bumps, like 1.squad of wyches, let them kill that squad, then hit back with shooting and your own larger melee squads

Agree with the above :

Wyches against Genestealers = first one to attack wins.

Spamming DL : death to all the big bugs

Alternatively, you can spam Hellions. They will MULCH through Carnifexes and the likes. They shine against poor armor, multiple wounds targets

Shredders are tempting to deal with the small bugs

To stop the deep striking, you have to deploy in a way that prevents them from getting near your good stuff. So measure twice as you are dropping units on the table. It might actually be better if you spend some time just trying different deployments that deny DS near you.

To keep your stuff alive if they go first - put cheap throw away units at the front. When the genestealers charge, they'll get caught up with the cheap stuff and likely kill it all. That way they are in the open when it is your turn to shoot. Show no mercy, genestealers have garbage saves.

For the big stuff - Dark Lances. Take all you can and those things will drop like flies.

Splinter weapons for days against nids. It's probably the best army for us to face. They are not vehicles, so we still wound on 4s regardless of their T.

Large foot units of obsidian rose kabalites might be useful. They are our cheapest unit so they would be great for bubble wrap.

merse24 wrote:

Splinter weapons for days against nids.  It's probably the best army for us to face.  They are not vehicles, so we still wound on 4s regardless of their T.

maybe not so much this edition, we need 72 shots to take down a carnifex, 96 if they have sporewhatever-1tohit ,and 126 shots for the big bugs, sure its still better than most other armies but not as reliable as in previos editions. i'd stay with darklight

AzraeI wrote:

merse24 wrote:

Splinter weapons for days against nids.  It's probably the best army for us to face.  They are not vehicles, so we still wound on 4s regardless of their T.

maybe not so much this edition, we need 72 shots to take down a carnifex, 96 if they have sporewhatever-1tohit ,and 126 shots for the big bugs, sure its still better than most other armies but not as reliable as in previos editions. i'd stay with darklight

Poison is so cheap now though.. A couple 20 man squads of warriors with cannons can put out that many shots a turn easy for 270ish points.. Dark light is probably more efficient, but massed loosen is cheaper than its been in awhile and its a viable option.

I think the main thing to keep in mind when facing nids is pretty much all our weapons can hurt their entire army. Yeah, you probably want to use blasters/dark lances on the nid monsters, especially since there will be no vehicles to target, but say you've got a monster down to 3w after shooting all your available blasters, well splinter fire can do a pretty good job of finishing the job.

I posted this on another thread but having now seen the weapon profiles for the Talos chain flails I thought they could be good at killing nid hordes. Thoughts?

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We're one of the better armies for dealing with Nids - the key is a strong, aggressive counter attack and DE can definitely do that especially with Wych Cult units. Genestealers are strong however the match-up vs Wyches is not favorable to them point for point; even so, they'll still kill whatever they touch on the charge, so bubble wrap as best you can with transports, Flyers or a Kabalite screen.

Oh and don't bring haywire blasters.

I had wyches go toe to toe with genestealer in the index, and they did just fine. With the succubus to back them up, they mulched trough them. They should do even better now.

What is his list? I mean general list type.

Lotsof gants, lots of stealers, lots of warrior kin (Biovores, Hive Guard, etc..) lots of Mawlocks/trygons. etc..

Tyranids IMO can play the most different playstyles out of everyone, when going against nids its very hard to make a general TAC list for all nid players, everyone plays them differently.


I think you need to just relay on shoot for DE, b.c even if the nid players is also full shooting, we will out shoot them especially with fire and fade, and agents of vect stratagems.

Take Black Heart Ravagers/archon for re-rolls and black heart venoms/raiders for your transports.

With that said, having a couple Wych cult units isnt bad, tying up Hive Guards, and having couter charge units for genestealers can be helpful.

Prophets of flesh could make for a pretty good tarpit, and could be an effective screen against nids. If you combine them with wyches, you could also have an answer for the heavy artillery shenanigans they can pull off and either first turn charge or countercharge them.

GreyArea wrote:

I posted this on another thread but having now seen the weapon profiles for the Talos chain flails I thought they could be good at killing nid hordes. Thoughts?

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A talos with chain flaila might be our best option for hordes honestly. A unit of three puts out 30 attacks wounds on 2s or 3s and reroll wounds... And you have the macroscalple for back up against heavy infantry.. I like it!

Hordes are more rare for Tyranids this edition. The key units to worry about are going to be the hive guard and biovores- both of which ignore los and have good range. And of course the hive tyrant, which I can't think of a great response to with this book aside from a couple ravagers.

Flayed Skull stratagem is great vs the Hive Tyrant.

Wont have problems with Hive Tyrants soon, they are getting the 0-1 per detachment treatment.

Agree with what people are saying above. Most of the Nid army is actually perfect for a Dark Eldar player to face off against because we dont care about their Toughness and know that no vehicles will be coming along with the Nids. Wyches are my prefered screening unit (especially against a melee heavy army with Genestealers) because of their 4++ in combat they should at least lock down the Nids melee horde for a turn or two giving your shooty elements the time they need to deal with the rest of the Nid army.

One unit I would be sure to watch out for is Hive Guard. With their ability to fire twice, and the light armor on all of our gunboats, Hive Guard are a serious threat to anything in the Dark Eldar army. Remember, Hive Guard dont need line of sight to fire, so they will be well hidden. The Screaming Jets stratagem seems like the perfect answer to this to both keep our damage dealing vehicles out of danger until they will have a chance to fire and to get our damage dealers into a position where they can target some of the Nids back line units.

Another nice trick against Nids that I plan to try out now that the codex has been released is to give a Haemonculus the Helm of Spite and use the Crucible of Malediction stratagem to potentially put out a decent amount of mortal wounds to their Hive Tyrants and Broodlords. Most of the tyranid psychic powers are closer range along with their shooting weapons as well so I think there is a pretty good chance to get multiple psykers inside of the Malediction bubble.

Leninade wrote:

Hordes are more rare for Tyranids this edition. The key units to worry about are going to be the hive guard and biovores- both of which ignore los and have good range. And of course the hive tyrant, which I can't think of a great response to with this book aside from a couple ravagers.

None of them fight really well, just throw some reavers/vehicle at them to stop them from shooting, with flying movement reaching the 24-28 and rerolling charges you can probably reach his back line turn 1 or maybe turn 2 if the table is very cluttered and you cannot place your units anywere the first turn.
Also all those mortal wounds are not that bad for us since our thoughness is usually crap anyway.

amishprn86 wrote:

Wont have problems with Hive Tyrants soon, they are getting the 0-1 per detachment treatment.

Fact or rumour?

Count Adhemar wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

Wont have problems with Hive Tyrants soon, they are getting the 0-1 per detachment treatment.

Fact or rumour?

Rumor, but GW pulled the FAQ right after adepticon when there was over 20 Tyranid lists with 5-7 Flyrants and many in top 50, some in top 10.

7 of top 10 were 7 flyrants.

Talked to the manager at my GW store, and he suggested (though still rumor) that it would be a likely FAQ or Chapter approved change.

Well, as @amishprn86 said, they delayed the March FAQ until after Adepticon so hopefully they'll be sorting out this issue.

I can't see them leaving the Hive Tyrant issue another six months.