Tyranids and those darned Tervigons!

So my best frield that I play 3 times a month or more plays Tyranids, and he LOVES his Tervigon. For those that don't know, it's a monstrous creature with many wounds, can regenerate, and every turn spawns a bunch of Tervigants (which aren't that great but after 4 turns and he's spawned 45 of them, they get really annoying) He's recently figured out that legally he can have an army with FIVE of them (they can count as troop types when in a unit of Tervigants at the start of the game) and at the moment, I only have to deal with one till he has the money for more. Anyone have any suggestions to stopping this swarm tactic? I whooped him last game with 2 units of 9 Bloodbrides, 10 Reavers, 5 Hellions, a talos, a cronos, 2 units of 5 kabalites, a succubus and Lelith, but I got lucky cause he rolled doubles on his spawn roll. (which depletes the spawning)

Ehm...Lances and Splinter Cannons, what else...

Venoms.
Or any massed splinter fire

So probably good to stay out of CC with them? Trueborn, Scourges and the like?

More like Venoms and Ravagers.

Well, I currently have 4 raiders, 2 venoms and no ravagers. Bleah, I'm at 175 models, over $1500 and now I have to spend MORE! I have 2 razerwings, any good?

Venoms are the answer to pretty much every question about Tyranids, as they ignore toughness and most Nid MCs have at most a 3+ save.

You can use your razorwing with necrotoxins to blow away those giants since its ap 5

As everyone else said. It isnt a bad idea to throw a combat unit their way either though. tervigons are pretty pathetic in CQC, IF you can reach them behind their swarms, and our ID weapons work great here. More importantly though and the true propose behind this is that nids players will divert their swarms of gants to defend those tervis which pretty much defeats their effectiveness.

Not really sure if this is how you're playing it, but he can take one troop tervigon for EVERY termagant unit - so he can only have 5 if he takes them in both HQ slots too. Should he do this, rejoice! For you will not be facing pesky flyrants!

Tervigons have a save of 3+ and 6 wounds, so as far as splinter weapons are concerned think of them as a squad of 6 marines. Without a razorback, even! Easy-peasy. A small wych squad with both a shardnet and hekatrix with agonizer will tie it up and kill it in a few rounds, too.

Also, the flip side of them spawning gribblies is that they - the gribblies - take 3d6 S3 hits when the terigon dies, so focus on taking them out first.

I'd just say drown them in Splinter and Dissintergrator cannon fire. If you shoot anything, especially nids, with enough Poison it will die!

Btw what is your list so we can better help you

I regularly play a friend who has nids, Archons with huskblade and sould trap are gold against them.
Stick him with some incubi or grots in a raider with aethersails and go flat out turn 1 towards him.
Vect is also a beast against nids, with his 7 attacks on the charge and an ap3 power weapon that wounds on a 3+.
If you take a couple of wounds off with fire vect will kill them fairly easily, I normally get 4-5 wounds in each round of combat with him.

My current list:
30 Wyches
20 Kabalites
15 Scourges
12 Reavers
10 Hellions
5 Wracks
10 Mandrakes
5 Harlequin
15 Incubi
2 Succubus
1 Lelith
1 Haemunculi
1 Urien Rakarth
1 Drahzur
1 Archon
2 Lhmesaen
2 Sslyth
4 Ur Ghouls
3 Medusae
4 Raiders
2 Venoms
2 Razerwing Jetfighters
3 Cronos / Talos

I'm gonna get me 2 Ravagers tomorrow, since that seems a consensus model that will help me. I think in all the games I've played him, he's only killed 8 Wyches in 5 games, and the latest game I switched it up and made them Bloodbrides for that extra attack.

Yeah, I went a little nuts when I started the hobby, but I also landed a nice ebay auction that half that stuff is from and paid a little over half retail for it.

Please do not double post. If you need to add something to your previous post use the 'edit' function. Cheers - Cavash.

Hmm... nids.

Usually the advice for dealing with a swarm army is to group up and blow away one unit at a time. Then towards the late game seize or contest his objectives.

I gotta second bringing a Razorwing or other flyer with missiles. They really, really put the hurt on hordes unless they spread out as much as possible, which causes problems for the nid player in CC.

Thanks for the help, all! My friend and I ran a 500pt game this evening, I utilized some Splinterborn in a Venom and an Archon (with a Court, I wanted to try them out) in another, and my unit of SP took out half of his spawns before falling, and my Archon took out his Tervigon in one attack!

Just be careful. Sometimes it's possible to lose regular opponents if you tailor too much. They gotta stand a chance too.

Nids are my other favorite army and Tervigons well-played are tough. I think they're a little stronger on defense than offense. We're a scary army for Nids, with all the poison and Str 8 weaponry we have.

One thing to remember is that when you take out the Tervigon, it puts a hurtin' on the swarms of termagants near it. Every termagant brood within 6" takes 3d6 Str 3 ap - hits. That'll whittle them down quite a bit if it doesn't eliminate the swarm entirely. Most people keep them close to the Tervigon because that way they can take advantage of poison and adrenal of the mother creature.

Liquifier guns are also really good against the hordes of gaunts, as they only have an armour save of 6.