Getting my Butt Kicked-Advice Going Forward!

[honeyb34r]

So I just switched to 40k from Fantasy with my husband and roomate, my army of choice was tyranids and they've chosen Astra Militarum and Tau. We've been playing games from 750-2000 and want to go up to 2500. Our game of choice is 2v1 them vs me. But I have been getting massacred and am hoping for help on turning the tide. (I do later plan on fighting other armies too)

My Current Model Selection
HQ
Winged Hive Tyrant-converted TL Dev and scything

Troop
3 Warriors 1 venom cannon
6 Ripper Swarms

Fast Attack
Hive Crone

Heavy Support
2 Carnifex - not glued, but using crushing claws and devourers
Biovore
Tyrannofex - not glued and can't decide which gun is best!

Anything you can't physically see on the model I swap out to point fill.

Yes, I know magnets are the way to go, but the guys that are glued well.. Too late. Magnets for the rest I hope.

I had heard nids were melee kings, but being new I think I made the wrong choices, and I'm in need of help. I REALLY want to build a monstrous creature army with little or no small guys, but I'm reading that may not be very smart. I love love love smashing people in melee, but need to figure out how to live to see the fight.

[jimmyp]

With tyrannofex the acid spray is the only weapon you want "torrent strength 6 ap4"
Only carnifex put on twin linked devourers with brainleeched worms. Forge world ones are awesome. With carnifex they are great at hammer and wrath d3 hits vehicles with just the ap2 strength 9 or 10 with adrenal glands. Crushing claws is only good for armourbane if you want that.
Use electroshock grubs on flyrant and maybe tyrannofex to use haywire against vehicles especially high armour "land raiders"
Got venomthrope malanthrope to get shrouded rule is essential.
Hope this helps mate

[jimmyp]

Also i would go for barbed strangler on the warriors its large blast and causes pinning test which is nice if it happens. you need some termagants in your list, rippers are good if you deep strike them to hold objectives and are hard to see as well. With termagants i usually go for 15 in a brood and have 5 devouers, 10 fleshborers. put devourers at the back so when you go fwds the fleshborers are killed first. sorry if my grammer is bad i have dyslexia lol

[gigasnail]

MC spam is good; especially MC/FMC spam backed up by malanthropes/venomthropes and shrouding. nids aren't melee kings by any stretch, unfortunately. good short to medium range shooting with decent CC ability.

acid spray on tfex is the only way to go with them, the other guns are really bad. brainleech worms on fexes and flyrants; egrubs on flyrants as well as tfexes also, for sure.

you don't 'need' gants if you're using rippers, that's half the point of rippers.

[N.I.B.]

Do you play single CAD? Multiple CAD? Would be unfair if you play single CAD but your opponents can double up on their HQ and other slots because they co-play.

Ok with Formations? Forgeworld stuff?

Tyranid CC is enough to wreck Astra Militarum and Tau. As you noticed, the hard part is getting there. CC isn't really a competitive way to play the game for Tyranids, due to logistics. You can say it's Tyranids on hard-mode. Either you accept it and take the beating, or give in to the double Flyrant/Dakkafex spam.

Insist on playing mostly Maelstrom games, it will make it easier to go outside the formula.

[honeyb34r]

Ok, so I tried out some of this stuff last night. Here's what I  ran.
 
Flyrant w/dev, e grubs, norn crown, regen
tyranid prime regen (put in my carnifex unit)
warriors 3 barbed strangler, adrenal glands
warriors 3 "
venomthropes 3
venomthropes 3
carnifex 2 crushing claws (they run lots of tanks) regen, devourer, adrenal glands
Tfex acid spray, regen


My hive tyrant got smushed by the end of the first round (I usually swoop and jink with him, not sure if I'm doing it wrong?) But the rest of the game went pretty good. I kept a unit of venoms next to my t fex and one next to my carns, and tried to keep the venoms out of sight. I got lucky on my regens and everyone made it to shooting range/melee. But in the end they tabled me. We played objectives and i cleaned up right until the last round.

The barbed strangler was a total win, I will be making that switch. Acid spray was good, but there was some debate on template placement. Am I allowed to place it more or less wherever I want within range? I wanted to place it covering more than one unit and they didn't think I was allowed, the rules weren't much help. LOVED the thropes. We're still deciding whether or not we will allow forgeworld, but I think it's going to be a no.

I'm not totally sure what CAD stands for, I'm guessing detatchments? I would be allowed to field 2 if I had a legal detatchment, but I don't yet. They are each fielding their own, but the astra militium doesn't have a valid HQ so they've been fielding an allied one. And I think we're good with formations, but I'd bet none of us are sure what that means yet

So, I guess I look at getting more carns with devourers, and another flyrant. Should I fill out my unit of biovores, or abandon them? They don't seem to be very hard hitters, but they do have great range. Also, shrikes, they seem needed to keep my Harpy under control and maybe for some bubble wrapping, opinions? I was also thinking of expanding my warrior collection for synapse, but the warriors seem pretty meh outside of their one long range wep.

[tain2002]

to my knowldge,

torrent, the thin end has to be a maximum of 12" away and has to be closer than the big end to the firing model, and you can definitely flame more than one unit, each unit takes the number of hits to how many from that unit are under the template,

so may be 4 from one and 3 from the other but not 7 from both.

correct me if i'm wrong anyone?

also run both of your fex'es with 2 twin linked devoures w/ brain leach worms, 24 s6 twin linked shots a turn will ruin any things day, even most tanks will die in a turn, ones that have av12 or lower on the sides or rear, and if they dont charge them, then they will die.

[honeyb34r]

If I run with 2 TL devourers on my fexes what melee attacks do they get? Their Hammer of Wrath, tail if I pay for it...and that's it right?

The argument on the Torrent was that if I'm targeting a unit the template should be placed for maximum coverage of that unit, and not manuvered as I see fit. We all agree that all models under the template would get hit, it was where the template would go we were wondering

[tain2002]

they would still get d3 hammer of wraths @ s9 AP-, and 3 attacks base + 1 if you charge @ S9 AP 2 (AP 2 because they have the smash rule). they still get to make Close combat attacks even though they have 2 ranged guns.

and you can place the template as you see fit as long as you respect the rules but the models still get removed from closest to the attacker first, so you cant target specific models in a unit with a flamer. (but maximum coverage is always best)

do you play using the missions and objectives or do you just play to kill each other?

[jimmyp]

fexes are monstrous creature so have 3 "4 on charge" strength 9 ap2 attacks even without extra weapons. plus d3 hammer and wrath too

[honeyb34r]

We've been just playing to kill while we learn. But we've played one game with objectives, and after seeing how that went I will be pushing for more I think missions are in our future, but we need to find them wherever they are first lol

Thank you for clearing up the Torrent placement for us. And the attacks for fexes as well! I had assumed if he had no scything/crushing claws he wouldn't be able to hit.

We probably won't play again until the weekend, but I'll be tweaking my team until then and see how things go!

[tain2002]

yea good stuff, best way whilst learning.

its worth noting that once you start using the missions (p142) you will be alot more competitive, nids suffer a little in a straight up kill game.

[jimmyp]

Yeah look up the smash rule it explains everything, buying extra mele weapons is not really needed. Don't worry took me a while to find all this stuff out too lol. Carnifexes are awesome with twin linked devourers adrenal glands.

[Deleted]

2 v 1 AM AND Tau against nids? wow.

I don't know if your friends have read about the relative codex powers, but tau is like.....I really want to say hands down the hardest fight for tyranids. They have so many tools to circumvent the mechanics we use just to stay competitive.....I mean I don't want this to devolve into a Tau is OP thread, but their power independent of our codex is evidence the game isn't exactly balanced. Heck the blog BOLS just put up an article detailing how their supplement has driven their entire gaming group nuts(daboarder actually replied to a comment I posted going on my tau whine lol).

And AM isn't as one sided(imo) but it's also a hell of a gunline army and can be challenging.

My advice? Lots of outflank. You need to close the gap as fast as possible. Beyond that, for tau, learn what units have markerlights ASAP and hunt them down with bloody prejudice because allowing them to rack up markerlights is a mistake(if you let it happen, say goodbye to flyers, cover saves, and you might be taking some extra ignores cover missiles to the face on a given turn).

Going flyer heavy would almost certainly be beneficial, but deployment with your flyers would be key. You don't want them to come up the board turn one and get nuked by a bajillion strength 7 AP:2 shots. But then again at least only 1 in 6 of those would hit barring...them using markerlights.

Neither of those armies is terribly savvy in close combat. So once you have em locked watch them die in droves. OH ALSO, pinning. Pinning against those armies is your friend. So, barbed stranglers on heavy warriors. Biovores if you have room(if they like guardsmen/fire warriors, a direct hit from a biovore will total a squad).

[coredump]

I am away from my books, so I am only 95% sure about this stuff...

Flamers: You must maximize the 'hits' on the unit you are targeting, if a vehicle, you must maximize area covered. If you can do that, and still hit another unit, golden. But... max number is max number. If you target marines, and the most you can possibly cover is 6, then it doesn't matter how you do that, if you can shoot one way and get 6 marines and 4 scouts, or shoot the other way and get 6 marines and 1 scout... use the first way.

Also.... this is situation dependent, because of this, oftentimes it is better to target the unit in 'back', that way you have to shoot over a second unit while trying to hit the 'target' unit. This does not work as well for torrent flamers, but you can still do it if you control range well enough. (This is also how you hit 2 vehicles with an egrub template)


Fexes: Double devourers is the way to go. If you are worried about lots of vehicles, particularly land raiders and monoliths, you can throw AG on them. I would probably not take CC fexes unless I was 'playing a theme' or if I was taking 4-6 fexes I might toss in 1-2 as CC.
As mentioned, a charging fex gets D3 S9 *Hits* from HoW, then another 4 S9 AP2 attacks at Init. (with AG you get a better charge distance, and the
'standard' attacks are S10. Aside from land raiders or monoliths, it will be a rare vehicle that can survive that...
Remember, if you don't wreck the tank, and it doesn't move, you get to hit is *again* on his turn. (but no HoW)
Don't bother with tail weapons, unless you have 10pts left over, no where to put it, and you are feeling froggy.

Rippers: Usually handled in broods of 3 with DS. This lets you grab objectives and drop them where you need them. Also keeps them off the board (protected) for a couple of turns.
You *can* run them in larger broods (5ish) with the intent of dropping them to tarpit something, like a devastator squad, or centurions, etc.

Tfex: Acid Spray. Magnetize if you want in case the 'next' codex changes things.

Melee: Nids are better at melee than most...(and definitely better than AM/Tau) but melee is not that strong right now. We are better off shooting, and maybe some assault when needed. (Fex into tanks, etc.)

Point limits: If you can at all avoid it, don't 'points fill', just get them to play smaller armies. Its already 2v1, having to take sub-optimal units just makes it worse.

HT: Always 2 TlDev, usually egrubs. Eventually you may want to experiment with Regen, but not yet. Some folks are experimenting with a CC flyrant, but don't worry about that yet.
Try and get a second devilflyrant.

Norn Crown: most of those relic things (whatevers..) are not worth it. Norn crown definitely not.

Regen: As mentioned, it *may* be worth it on a HT/Warlord, nothing else.

warriors: 3 per brood, BS (maybe VC) no other upgrades.

Venoms: Made of win... but you don't need 3/brood. I would go with 1-2 broods with only 1 venom each. You can go more, but its more and more points.11

" astra militium doesn't have a valid HQ": Um... what does this mean? The player never bought one? Its only 5 gaurdsmen model, or maybe less.

Detachments: Assuming you are playing Battle Forged, every unit will be in a detachment. There are lots to choose from. Some are called 'Formations', but that really doesn't mean anything. A detachment is a group of named models, or Force slots (troops, elites, etc). The most common are the two in the BRB. CAD Combined Arms Detachment, and AD Allied Detachment. But you can find other ones in various codices, or GW publications. There are 15 Nid formations/detachments in 3 electronic publications called Rising Leviathan 1/2/3.

CAD: The only requirment for a CAD is 1 HQ unit and 2 troops units. You can easily fill that.

Biovores: are good, they are better against AM/Tau, they are great when part of a Living Artillery Node formation. (Rising leviathon #2).

Shrikes: I sometimes use them in the same role as warriors. 3+BS, in the backfield for synapse and sitting objectives. They can be used offensively, but you need to be careful because the die easily. Go CC, take 4-5, all have ST, 1-2 have LW/BS, rest have RC. Maybe some upgrades, but don't go crazy.
You don't, however, need them to keep the harpy/crones in check. First, don't take harpies, second, crones are Ld10, so even if out of synapse, they will rarely fail. even if you fail, you can still vector strike.


As for tactics... need more info. If you want better tactical feedback, the best thing you can do is write up a battle report of your next game, just some info about what happened each turn. It lets us talk about target priority and other tactics, as well as spot any glaring rules that need clarifying. If you want me to see it send a PM.

If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to ask.

Good luck, and welcome to The Hive.