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Armies are as follows:

My Nidz
Prime (LW/BS, DS)
4 x Warriors (DS)
10 x Hormies
10 x Hormies
1 x Zoey
1 x Zoey
2 x Hive Guard
15 x Gargoyles
15 x Gargoyles
1 X Trygon Prime (Note - Somehow left my Trygon at home - So we proxied a treeman on a large blast template and just assumed everyone could see him and he would never be in cover)

Tau (As best as I can remember)
Hq Suit
2 x Broad sides
1 x Tank with Railgun (hammerhead?)
2 x 6 Fire warriors in Piranha’s
1 x 8 Firewarriors
1 x 3 sniper drones and spotter

The mission was an objective mission with three objectives. I placed my two centrally, whilst my opponent placed his near one corner.

The battle is a pitched battle, and the Tau are going first. The green dots in the setup pics highlight where the objectives are.

With the Space Wolves down to a few marines, and the Nidz thought to be wiped out in the previous battle, The Tau decided the time was ripe to pick over some valuable crystals they had identified in the area.

Unfortunately for the Tau, the Nidz were far from gone and they would need to eliminate the alien threat if they were to secure any of these precious crystals.

With this in mind, the Tau Broadsides advanced onto the hill to get a good look at the surrounding terrain, whilst the two devilfish transports hid behind the imperial firebase and the Hammer head and firewarriors over looked their closest objective on the opposite flank.





Turn 1

Tau – First turn didn’t see much activity, with the Tau repositioning the Hammerhead and Devilfish transports. The long range guns then took some pot shots at the advancing horde, killing a couple of gargoyles and wounding the Trygon.





Nids – Typical mass advance. The Hive Guard try to shoot the Hammerhead, but are just out of range.



Objectives – Tau 0, Nids 1 (KP – Tau 0, Nids 0)

Turn 2

Tau – The Tau start the extermination of the Nid hoard. The Hammerhead and Devilfish do more repositioning, and the firewarriors pop out to help kill gargoyles.
Massed Tau fire destroys all of one gargoyle brood, and reduces the other to a single gargoyle. Meanwhile the Broadsides put another wound on the Trygon.



Nids – Again – mass advance. Lone Gargoyle moves in and assaults the Tau firewarriors. Zoey lances and wrecks a Devil Fish whilst the Trygon kills three firewarriors. The Hive Guard go for a run to ensure the hammerhead can’t scoot out of range again next turn.





Lone gargoyle manages to stay alive in the assault, tying up the firewarriors and preventing them from firing next turn.

Objectives – Tau 0, Nids 2 (KP – Tau 1, Nids 1)

Turn 3

Tau - Shooting continues – All of 1 hormagaunt brood are wiped out, and the other is reduced to half strength. The Zoey also takes a wound. The firewarriors manage to kill the last gargoyle, and consolidate away from the closing hormagaunts.



Nids continue to advance – Hive Guard advance and shoot at the Hammerhead, but fail to do anything. Warriors light up the firewarriors and kill most of them, the remainder fleeing the battle.

Zoey Lances the remaining Devilfish, wrecking it. Whilst the Trygon shoots down the remaining fire warriors.
(Not sure why we moved the other devilfish, it must have been getting in the way somehow and we later replaced the ‘wreck’ with scenery to mark the difficult terrain)



Objectives – Tau 0, Nids 1 (KP – Tau 3, Nids 4)

Turn 4

Tau – All the Tau firepower goes into the remaining Tyranid troops, killing off the last hormagaunts and pringing the warrior squad down to a single wounded warrior and the Prime (with only 1 wound left!)

(Must have missed a photo for the Tau turn here...)

Nidz – The Nidz then retaliate with the Hive Guard wrecking the Hammerhead. The Warriors assault and kill the Tau HQ, and then consolidate into the ruins towards the objective (only roll a 3 for consolidate, barely getting me into the terrain and not allowing me to get very close to the objective, which I’ll need to reach next turn in case I don’t get a 6th turn...) Trygon and Zoey both run forward to try and distract the Broadsides from taking out my last troops.



Objectives – Tau 0, Nids 0 (KP – Tau 4, Nids 6)

Turn 5

Tau – Seeing their only chance at claiming an objective was on the flank with the Trygon, the Tau poured all their firepower into it and just managed to take it down with the combined fire of broadsides, Firewarriors and drones. The firewarriors move up into the front devil fish wreck towards the objective.



Nidz – Warriors move out of difficult terrain a whole, 2 inches! They then proceed to run another inch, falling about 4-5 inches short of claiming the objective... I needed to roll better then that! Remaining firepower goes into the broadsides, downing one with a lucky hive guard shot.



Objectives – Tau 0, Nids 0 (KP – Tau 5, Nids 6)

Game ends in a tie! (But Nidz claim a minor victory on KP's).

Scorecard
Prime - Helped warriors shoot up fire warriors, and then killed the enemy HQ in cc - B-
4 x Warriors (DS) - As above - B-
10 x Hormies - Soaked up fire and died - C-
10 x Hormies - Soaked up fire and died - C-
1 x Zoey - Took out two devil fish - B
1 x Zoey - Did nothing for the whole game except provide synapse - D-
2 x Hive Guard - Took out a hammer head and a Broad Side - B+
15 x Gargoyles - Took a lot of fire and died - C-
15 x Gargoyles - Took a lot of fire, but last gargoyle managed to tie up an 8 man fire warrior squad for 2 turns - C+
1 X Trygon Prime - Shot up some firewarriors, but ultimately didn't impact on the game other then to draw a lot of heavy fire from the Broadsides that would otherwise be IDing my warriors - C


Comments on the battle and tactics are all welcome as usual - Obvious mistakes I can see for my Nidz are:

1. Keep the objective in mind
2. Seriously, keep the objective in mind

Although I was probably a bit unlucky not to make it to the objective with my warriors, I shouldn't have left claiming the objective to a dice roll.

Anyway, It was a lot of fun. Coupled with my previous game against Space Pups, and another game I'm yet to write up against Space Pups, I think I'm starting to get a better handle on my army now, and a few things I would like to change.

But before I say what I think I should change/tweak - I want to here fromm Dakka on what they think of my army and the battle in general.

Thanks!

The days of nids as a pure-assault army is over. Nowadays, the shooting phase is just as important for nids as the assault phase. Get more shooters in the form of hive guards. You also need to consider ranged AT in the form of heavy venom cannons or a tyrannofex rupture cannon, though I wouldn't recommend the t-fex unless you're playing at 1500+. All the new armies can and will outshoot you.

jy2 wrote:The days of nids as a pure-assault army is over. Nowadays, the shooting phase is just as important for nids as the assault phase. Get more shooters in the form of hive guards. You also need to consider ranged AT in the form of heavy venom cannons or a tyrannofex rupture cannon, though I wouldn't recommend the t-fex unless you're playing at 1500+. All the new armies can and will outshoot you.

I don't agree. While I do run 6 Hive Guard in most builds, it is often my Genestealers that end up getting to vehicles and getting through them. The only thing that may give me trouble are Land Raiders, but depending on your meta, YMMV. Course, I do run Stealer Shock with 58 Genestealers and their Broodlords, backed up by a brood of Venomthropes + Prime and Tervigons flinging FNP, so it makes sense that my stealers usually get into the thick of things.

I just don't agree that Nid-assault is over.

puma713 wrote:

jy2 wrote:The days of nids as a pure-assault army is over. Nowadays, the shooting phase is just as important for nids as the assault phase. Get more shooters in the form of hive guards. You also need to consider ranged AT in the form of heavy venom cannons or a tyrannofex rupture cannon, though I wouldn't recommend the t-fex unless you're playing at 1500+. All the new armies can and will outshoot you.

I don't agree. While I do run 6 Hive Guard in most builds, it is often my Genestealers that end up getting to vehicles and getting through them. The only thing that may give me trouble are Land Raiders, but depending on your meta, YMMV. Course, I do run Stealer Shock with 58 Genestealers and their Broodlords, backed up by a brood of Venomthropes + Prime and Tervigons flinging FNP, so it makes sense that my stealers usually get into the thick of things.

I just don't agree that Nid-assault is over.

Have you ever played against a fast, fully mech army? Witch Hunter immo-spam, Mechdar, Dark Eldar venom-spam, IG leafblower, land-raider spam, grey knight storm storm-bolter spam, dual lash chaos....there's just a lot of builds that will give stealer shock trouble. While it may have success against some armies, stealer shock is not a balanced army. Rather, it is a gimmicky army a la nob bikers, TWC space wolves or assault terminator-spam (i.e. Deathwing). It'll do great against armies not prepared for it, but against well-balanced armies, it will tank.

jy2 wrote:
Have you ever played against a fast, fully mech army? Witch Hunter immo-spam, Mechdar, Dark Eldar venom-spam, IG leafblower, land-raider spam, grey knight storm storm-bolter spam, dual lash chaos....there's just a lot of builds that will give stealer shock trouble. While it may have success against some armies, stealer shock is not a balanced army. Rather, it is a gimmicky army a la nob bikers, TWC space wolves or assault terminator-spam (i.e. Deathwing). It'll do great against armies not prepared for it, but against well-balanced armies, it will tank.

There are a lot of builds that will give any other build trouble. What's you're point? It sounds like you thought of any sort of tough build you could and said, "Well what about this?" That's silly. I don't see those lists (save for the Dark Eldar you listed and on occasion Leafblower) in my meta, otherwise my list might be a bit different. Sounds like you're taking your meta (and the internet meta) and applying it to the entire world of 40K, which both presumptious and illogical. Stealer shock works in my meta against balanced lists. As an aside, though - how do you think I deal with Leafblower? They castle up in a corner and I just run at their guns? Really? Maybe I clump up together too, to give their Manticores good shots.

Also, it is not a "gimmick" to fill your troop slots with fast moving, close combat monsters when you have other troop selections backing them up. It is called balance. You'd think if it didn't say Space Wolves or Imperial Guard, you'd called it unbalanced. How do you know what my list is? How do you know how I play it? How do you know if something is balanced unless you know exactly how it works, in and out?

Other people have thought the same way you did, then as their flamers were proven useless from FNP and stacking the Broodlord (when I can), they look on distraught as 7-9 of the 16 Stealers that were there before go ahead and eat through that unit. The fact that people -think- it is unbalanced is wonderful. That's what catches most people - even "balanced" lists - off guard. I guess, whenever I'm winning in my next game, I should just remember that you said this particular list would tank, so I should start losing to keep up the internet status quo.

Nice first battle report!

As to not derail this thread, I'll be brief.

@puma713:

If stealer-shock works in your locale, great. I'm looking at it from an all-comer's perspective and frankly, it's got a lot of weaknesses that can be exploited by certain armies, just like nob bikers. While that may sound very general - yes, all armies have weaknesses that can always be exploited - it stands out particularly in certain lists. These type of lists will either do really well (i.e. it has the potential table the opponent) as I imagine yours probably do in your local meta, or it'll lose pretty badly to a balanced list. Having hive guards do help to make your army better, but make no mistake, chasing around vehicles moving at cruising speed is not very efficient, not to mention getting tank-shocked and then flamed. Even if you had a tervigon to give FNP, that would be at most 1 unit being more durable while the rest of the genes are being targeted.

Thanks for the comments guys!

@jy2: I agree I need to sharpen up the shooty aspect of my army. I just find it hard to fit everything in I want at 1k and still have decent synapse. I'm toying with the idea of replacing the zoeys with another hive guard brood, and hoping to not run up against any land raiders. Also trying to see ways of fitting in a venom cannon at this low points level.

@puma713: I don't believe assault nids days are numbered, but like you said, even you run 6 hive guard which does give your assault nids the fire support they need. There are however definitely underperforming units in my list that need need tweaking or replacing.

Keep the comments coming guys, I'm relatively new to nidz so I welcome the advice. Will also be posting my next battle soon against space pups.