Newbie VS. Tyranid Swarm

Hey there, I am so new to DE its not even funny I need a couple tips for a war with my tyranid cousin, any help would be nice. I'm just not really sure how to deal with nids, they are a completely new concept. thanks to Christmas my cousin is sporting a brand new tyranid swarm threatening my way of life as I know it. I was so excited that I myself had finally started a DE army, I was so busy reading through my codex I barely have time to prepare for an attack. I am a veteran eldar player and know my way around aggressive strategy, but with a lack of psykers at my disposal this time im stumped. Here is the list of my dark eldar party so far

1 Archon
1 Medusae
1 Sslyth
1 Ur-Ghul
1 Lhamaean
1 Raider
1 venom
3 reavers
6 incubi
10 Kabalites
10 Wyches

My cousin has:

1 Hive tyrant with wings
1 Ripper swarm
1 Lictor
1 Venomthrope
1 Trygon Prime or The Mawloc
12 Hormagaunts
20 Gargoyles
24 Termagants

Any advice would be much appreciated

The only two synapse creatures he has are the tyrant and prime, assuming he makes it a prime. If you take out those two (easier said than done) you can almost make his units do what you want them to. Low Ld models like gargoyles and haunts will go to cover and hormagaunts will just run at the closest thing to them. If toucan manipulate the nids like that, you can make them charge and shoot what you want them too, meaning you could say, soak up a charge with a bait unit the. Send in your wyches to rip up the said unit. Take out the venomthrope early, as that 5+ cover save, defensive grenades and miasma will kill you (basically, you you charge him, you lose guys). Nids do not like splinter weapons, and so these will rip through gaunts and gargoyles, but the monstrous creates will be better shot by things like dark lances and the other assorted heavy weapons. I would have recommended the husk blade-soul trap combo but there is nothing easy to kill in that list...

I have a lot of experience with nids, especially fast combat lists like the one your cousin has. He doesn't seem to have that much heavy shooting stuff, so from a player with little experience with DE, I would run circles around him in raiders and venoms and shoot the crap out of him.

Thanks a bunch Amuse Me! what if he were to make a mawloc instead? Any difference in strategy there?

Well you definitely need to flesh out your model list, but the best advice is lots and lots of splinter cannons if you can.

short answer is that you're screwed until you get some more models. Suggest you do an allied force with your eldar to balance your army.

you need more raiders and venoms (particularly venoms since he is a tyranid player)

Get yourself 2 or 3 more venoms and you should be able to totally own him more often than not.

The best unit against nids is trueborn with 2 splinter cannons in a venom with night shields and dual splinter cannon. Castle up in one corner and blow him away as he tries to get to you.

Sounds like a plan Silverglade. starting a list with some venoms and some more kabalites thanks for the help I cant wait to show the nids the power of the dark kin   

10 Kabalites in a Raider with a Splinter Cannon, Night Shields, and Splinter Racks.

Archon and 4 Incubi in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons

2 squads of 5 wyches to score objectives and lay low.

Maybe buy 10 more kabalites if you plan to play your cousin most of the time

I second what the other two guys said. I'm not in tune enough with the DE stuff to recommend units. In response to your question, if he takes a mawlock (which would be stupid considering the amount of synapse coverage he has), it will be dropping a large blast template every second turn, S6 Ap3 which will instant death your archon (look out sir? Not sure if that applies). Mawlocks don't have much hitting power in combat, they only have 3 attacks at WS 3, so they can pop a venom if they wanted to. If you charge the mawlock with a tar pit unit, it will be there for a long time, and mawlocks cannot burrow if they are engaged in combat. An agoniser in the tar pit unit could help shave a few wounds off. <edit> Mawlocks do have hit and run, but with DE initiative it shouldn't be too much of an issue (Mawlock I is 4)

Dire Darkblade wrote:

1 Archon
1 Medusae
1 Sslyth
1 Ur-Ghul
1 Lhamaean
1 Raider
1 venom
3 reavers
6 incubi
10 Kabalites
10 Wyches

My cousin has:

1 Hive tyrant with wings
1 Ripper swarm
1 Lictor
1 Venomthrope
1 Trygon Prime or The Mawloc
12 Hormagaunts
20 Gargoyles
24 Termagants

Any advice would be much appreciated

hey mate, welcome to the dark city and dark eldar!

first things first here, you havent really got a huge amount of models to play with and might struggle a bit to get more than a 1k game rolling. i'd try and stick to 750pts for the time being, just learn how the army + game works first of all.

the beautiful thing about dark eldar is that we have access to two things that make tyranids cry themselves to sleep:
-dark lances
-poison

they're an army that relies on relatively high toughness to survive, both of our main tools ignore this.
the key to defeating them is to hit their big gribblies quickly with as much dark lance and poison fire as you can.
you dont have much in the way of dark lance in your model collection, and your troops selection is a bit limited too.
we're definitely an army that relies on our troops, they're so fragile that we need lots of them, and they need their rides!

as a starter, you're gonna need to take:

-Archon, huskblade, soul trap, shadowfield + PGL
-x4 incubi, venom + extra cannon.
-10 warriors, cannon. mounted in a raider with night shields + splinter racks (dark lance)
-x5 wyches
-x5 wyches (these are not good choices as they really really need a transport!!)
-x3 reavers (1 blaster)

the idea with this is that the warriors stay in the raider and pour fire out while tha archon and incubi go forward and stab the stuff that comes running at you.
the reavers have a lance that can hurt the big beasties (as does the transport) but this is a really sub-optimal list.
ideally, when you next expand your army, you'll need a couple more transports, a ravage and some more warriors.
hope that helps mate, have fun learning the army!

Thanks a bunch csjarrat, this is a pretty detailed strategy and sounds well thought out and tailored to my situation, thanks again everyone for all the extremely helpful advice! I've challenged him to a duel this Thursday, I'll be sure to let you all know how I do. wish me luck!

GOOOOD LUCK! Also since you're in the states, which coast? East or west?

west coast friend

nice, i need to move out that way =(

Its really nice here, weathers always nice

Sorry guys postponed the battle till tomorrow