Tyranids

Hello everyone,

So whenever I play my tyranid friend, he gets really serious and brings the best list he possibly can. This includes;

Flyrant
Trygon
1-2 Tervigons
20 Devil gaunts (deep striking)
2-3 Zoan (deep striking)
Doom (deep striking)
lots of running gaunts, etc.

So on the weekend we played twice and I decided to try and build a strong competitive list, and throw a curve ball at him. I brought a farseer with runes of warding. Did that ever set him off. He did not like that one bit. (I brought eldar bikes, but would love to try pathfinders, does anyone have eldar ally feedback?)

Anyways, so I am wondering how to get a leg up on him and at least put up a fight. I am totally confused with how psychic powers work. But somehow he always manages to roll Ironarm for his flyrant. (Which is a pain!) Let's just say I will remember to bring a venomblade with my archon from now on!

I don't really know what my question is, just looking for some guidance!

My (1500) list this weekend was comprised of,
HQ
Archon - husk, soul trap, shadowfield
(Second game I brought a farseer)


Troop
3x Warriors in Raider
- Splinter racks

Elite
1-2 squads of trueborn (2 splinter cannons in each)
- Venom, splinter cannon

FA
6x reavers, 2 cluster caltrops

HS
2x Ravagers

On a side note, are bladevane attacks able to hit units in a middle flooring of ruins? Say there are 3 floors and an enemy is on the first or second floor.

Regarding Psychic Powers:
Make sure he rolls in front of you. If he rolls a 1 then great, he got Iron Arm. If he doesn't roll a 1 then he doesn't get it. There is no way to insure he gets Iron Arm. Then again Iron Arm isn't great vs Dark Eldar (Poison for the win) so we don't really care. Also he only gets as many rolls as he has psychic powers. So a Tyrant gets to roll twice, a Tervigon gets to roll one to three times (depends on if he spends points buying extra powers or not), Swarmlords get to roll four times, and so on. Runes of Warding do a number on Tyranid Psy lists. Zoenthrops lance is a psychic power so it hurts them a fair bit (nearly anything a zoe does is psychic).

Really if you want to be mean just spam Venoms. Venoms are sick vs Nids, even more then warrior gunboats thanks to their longer range (nids have little long range and his list is worse then most in this regard). Frankly max Warrior + Venom squads and Trueborn + Venom squads and you'll do well vs nids.

Thanks for the tips!

I just read the tactica vs deep striking armies. And it suggested castling in a corner. Looks really interesting. Would this be a good idea against this kind of list with 3 mycetic spores?

The trygon (if not deep striking) never made it past my turn 1 as I had no trouble killing him. I mainly had trouble with the deep striking units as they pretty much decide which vehicles they want dead. Then inflicting a S4 hit because my vehicles always tend to explode.

Haven't played against the swarmlord yet, but he has 1 coming in. Any additional thoughts on how I should handle him?

The Swarmlord is really only a CC monster and a good Psyker (he's the only level 2 psyker nids get). Don't CC against him and he'll die pretty easy to shooting.

Anyway, yeah if you're worried about the spores then just castle up in a corner using your less useful stuff as a shield. The other option is just to take so many venoms that he can pop a couple and you'll still have enough to run him over.

Thanks for all the help it is much appreciated!

Spores are perfect candidates for a Soul Trap equipped Archon to get a nice Strength boost from if you fancy going for that. Plus free kill points and pain tokens!

For advise on Farseer/pathfinder builds i made a thread a few days ago.
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t4818-pathfinders-farseer

Tyranids are quite an easy match up for us. Flyrant looks really scary but remember that to force grounding tests you only need to hit, so a single venom shoulde force two, and then he is simple darklance fodder. Dont let people fool you into dissies against 'nids as i think this is when you need them more then ever as each shot has a very good chance to plink a wound off a MC or cause instant death on a zoanthrope while dissies dont have this instant death threat. Clusters are interesting and i'd love to hear how they work out, i guess they can force quite a few saves on MC and kill a few gaunts but i'd say the real gem is that they can bladevane FMC! Well at least i dont know a reason why they carn't apart form fluff, which isn't even that hard to believe either. Doom is a distraction and will do nothing to your army as he doesnt hurt transports and has a tiny range on life leach. Kill zoans, well they could easily kill themselves... Kill trevigons with focussed darkmatter. Down flyrant and do same. Trygons only real threat is his lightning, as dont expect him to be standing still to charge next turn.

Oh, and DOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

alexwellace wrote:

Clusters are interesting and i'd love to hear how they work out, i guess they can force quite a few saves on MC and kill a few gaunts but i'd say the real gem is that they can bladevane FMC! Well at least i dont know a reason why they carn't apart form fluff, which isn't even that hard to believe either.

Isn't there something about flyers not being affected by auto-hitting things (which Bladevane is)?

Edit: Yeah here it is:

Quote :

Q: How do maelstroms, novas and beams – or indeed any weapon that doesn’t need to roll To Hit or hits automatically – interact with
Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures? (p13)
A: Only Snap Shots can hit Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures. Therefore, any attacks that use
blast markers, templates, create a line of/area of effect or otherwise don’t roll to hit cannot target them. This includes
weapons such as the Necron Doom Scythe’s death ray or the Deathstrike missile of the Imperial Guard, and psychic
powers that follow the rule for maelstroms, beams, and novas.

alexwellace wrote:

Flyrant looks really scary but remember that to force grounding tests you only need to hit, so a single venom shoulde force two, and then he is simple darklance fodder.

You only take one Grounded Test per firing unit that hits. So whether a venom gets 1 hit or 12 hits, it's still just 1 Grounded Test.

I'm assuming he means 12 shots from the venom and 8-12 shots from the unit inside. Which is technically 2 units.


But this particular tyranid player really prioritizes my bladevane reavers, so I always try to include them in my list. I think it is because a while back we played, and the first turn they clustered a zoanthrope easily killing it and knocking off synaspe to his biovores for the following four turns. Then they soaked up 15 termagonts shooting (with their +3 jink save) and they were then assaulted by the termagonts, but the reavers won combat and wiped the entire squad out winning the initiative test.

In my mind they earned their points back. I wish I had more because the past few games I have really noticed how versatile and annoying for your opponent they can be. Getting line breaker and really soaking shots with the +3 after turbo boosting.

Although if you haven't already, read Mushkilla's articles on Dark Eldar Reavers. It is a really good read!

EDIT: Also yeah you're right! That's a lot of bonuses from killing a sitting spore. I'll keep that in mind!

Hive Guard Impaler Cannons will destroy your skimmers FAST as there's no Jink save vs them.

Bring your Flickerfields...

Why bring flicker fields? Night shields are much better for handling hive guard (and nids in general!)

Not when the Deployment is Dawn of War...

And they seize Initiative...

Balisong wrote:

Not when the Deployment is Dawn of War...

And they seize Initiative...

In all deployments you start at least 24" apart. With night shields, Impaler Cannons have an 18" range and Hive guard move 6". Sooooo... seize or not, they should never be able to shoot you first turn if you brought your NSs (and personally I prefer never being shot to a 5++).

Flicker Fields are the only saves your vehicle will get vs them.

No Cover saves, and no Jink.

Pop, Pop, Pop will happen on the next turn.

Then if you are that scared of them you van focus down those hive guard and there is going to be room to maneuver around them, especially with NS, even if you can't shoot them down for whatever reason.

I think you are forgetting something called objectives...

When the Hive is Swarming a high priority objective such as The Relic there are higher priorities if you want to win.

Sometimes you have to focus on the Units threatening objectives that are critical to winning and if you waste time being defensive you will lose anyway.

As crap as a flickerfield is, it will at least allow a save to be rolled when there are more immediate priorities than focusing your fire on the Unit threatening them.

Winning is not always about playing defensively.

Except that nids are about the easiest match up for DE...

tabling them is actually easier in most cases!

I spoke too soon, with one of the Tervi powers (that almost never gets used esp. with rulebook powers now) there is the possibility that they might be able to shoot you first turn if for some reason you deployed at the very front of your DZ with all of your vehicles which out range them by at least a foot.

Although In all my games against tyranids I don't think I've ever lost a vehicle to Hive Guard (and I play against some good nid players, DE are just an awful match up for them). They're slow, short ranged, and die pretty quickly to Splinter fire. Night Shields really make them a non-issue for any list with a mediocre amount of ranged AI.

I also play my friends Nids regularly, im suprised your friend doesnt run a Tyrannofex, st 10 assault 2... can be pretty nasty for our whimpy transports.

Any tips i can offer would be, with regards to the doom, stay in your vehicle. I made the mistake last game of disembarking an 8 man warrior squad onto an objective and needless to say they either died or ran away... that 3+ invulnerable save can get pretty annoying. by the end of the game all he had left was a mawlok and the doom (2000pt game) and i still lost. mainly due to poor tactics and trying to table him. Anyway, the previous game i left everyone in vehicles and The doom was pretty much useless after that, and died quite rapidly to splinter fire (boy was he frustrated).

He also always fields a flyrant and to be honest it hasnt really been worth its points, its pretty easy to outmanouver, and i've never failed to cause a grounding test. my mates pretty unlucky though, on 2 occasions he has tried to charge me with the flyrant only to roll double 1's, LOL!

My advice would be, venom spam, blaster born (AP2 is priceless vs nidzilla) and an Archon with huskblade, shadowfield and soultrap. The look on his face when i told him the Huskblade caused instant death and he had to remove the Tyrannofex from the board..... Priceless!! and avoid Hiveguard at all cost, Nightshields are great for this!

Shadowfield84 wrote:

My advice would be, venom spam, blaster born (AP2 is priceless vs nidzilla) and an Archon with huskblade, shadowfield and soultrap. The look on his face when i told him the Huskblade caused instant death and he had to remove the Tyrannofex from the board..... Priceless!! and avoid Hiveguard at all cost, Nightshields are great for this!

All good suggestions! (He has a carnifex but always proxies it in as a tervigon)
Also I have to agree with the annoying hive guard, and being able to shoot through walls.

But make sure to pack a venom blade with the archon!

I was able to bring down the flyrant with my archon and 5 wyches' splinter pistols, and proceded to assault him. I failed to wound him first round, but thankfully my shadowfield held up against the MC. On his turn he casted iron arm which effectively made it so it was impossible for me to wound... The only plus that happened was that I held his MC until the end of turn 3.

I was so displeased, but the picturing the cinematics of an archon swinging his huskblade at this massive monster with wings was awesome.

Venom blade +2 poison!

Yep, I'm always a big fan of Huskblade in one hand and Venom Blade in the other.

Just want to add a related question, rather than making a new topic.

Just wondering if anyone knows any information about the impaler cannon that hive guard have.
First I'll quote the ruling in the Tyranid codex.

"The impaler cannon can shoot any target in range, regardless of whether there is line of sight to it or not. The target can only count the benefits of cover they are in or touching if it lies between them and the Hive Guard. Vehicles are always hit on the armour value facing the Hive Guard." (Pg. 47, Tyranid Codex)

My opponent originally told me that they cancel ALL cover saves, and of course I just took his word for it. But after reading the rule, questions that arrise are;

1. Does this cancel jink saves?

2. Is the Harlequin (or any special wargear) cover save canceled out?
a. 4+ cover save in the open.
b. 2+ cover save in forest.

3. Just to confirm, if I am in area terrain or ruins, I still am granted a cover save?
- "The target can only count the benefits of cover they are in or touching if it lies between them and the Hive Guard."

i would FAQ it and just try to be base to base with cover

Yes it cancels all special cover (Jink and Harlequin included). From the Tyranids FAQ:

Quote :

Q: Can a model take a cover save from wargear such as smoke launchers or an Ork Mekboy’s kustom force field against shooting attacks made by Hive Guard impaler cannons? (p47)
A: No.

Q: Can a unit take cover saves from any source other than the terrain they are in, or touching, against Wounds caused by an impaler cannon? (p47)
A: No.

Q: Can a model take a cover save from the Jink special rule against shooting attacks made by Hive Guard impaler cannons? (p47)
A: No.