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Hi Guys,

I am currently trialing out a new Nid list for upcoming 1,500 point tourneys, so please read, enjoy and comment

My Nid army for testing is as follows:

HQ
Tervigon - Catalyst, Toxin, Adrenal

Elite
2 Zoeys in a pod with TL deathspitters (deepstriking)
2 Hive Guard
2 Hive Guard

Troops
20 Genestealers with toxin
20 Genestealers with toxin
Tervigon - Catalyst, Toxin, Adrenal
12 Termagants

The Tau army consisted of (aproximately):

HQ
Suit with Plasma, missiles, upgrade to fire both and upgrade to BS 5

Elite
3 suits with plasma, missiles and the ability to fire both
3 suits with fusion blasters (deepstriking)

Troops
8 Firewarriors with Devil Fish (disruption pods)
6 Firewarriors
10 Kroot with 5 kroot hounds

Fast Attack
5 pathfinders with Devilfish (disruption pods)

Heavy Support
2 Hammerheads (disruption pods)
3 Broadsides with missiles and the ability to fire both.

Mission - Capture and Control
Setup - Dawn of War

The Tau commander turned towards the squad leader - "We need to repair our satellite in this quadrant. We have report of many Tyranids in the area though. Bring a squad in a devil fish with me under the cover of darkness, and we'll try to spot their position before we move in to repair our satellite."

Board Setup (objectives are green flags)



The Tau got first turn, and decided to place their HQ and a Firewarrior unit in Devil fish as far forward as possible. The idea being to push my Nids back as far as they could, and pull back on the first turn.

The Nids then setup with the troops Tervy overlooking my objective and the HQ Tervy central. The Genestealers infiltrated down each side of the board, allowing me to be close to the Tau side and within catalyst range of my Tervies. (Some hormagaunts are being used as proxy stealers, I didn't quite have forty... yet.)



The Nids then succeed in stealing the initiative!

Nids T1

The Tervies both successfully cast Catalyst on both stealer broods. The HQ Tervy pumps out 4 gants and runs dry (2 1's and a 2! ), however the other Tervy spawns 11 and keeps going.

Hive Guard move up behind the LOS blocking terrain, along with the Troop Tervy, whilst the HQ Tervy moves up behind some woods. The Stealers all close towards the middle.

Shooting sees the first Hive Guard unit spotting the Devil fish - 4 hits, 2 pens one glance, all saved by disruption pods... The 4 gants take pot shots at his HQ but he saves the 1 wound they cause. Everything else wither runs or fails night vision.



Tau T1

The Tau come on primarily over their objective, and start lining up Stealers in their sights. 6 Firewarriors, 4 Suits, 3 broadsides, 2 hammerheads, 5 pathfinders and two devil fish all open up on the Stealer brood on my left. Feel no Pain ensures he only brings 15 down, with the last five passing their LD.



Objectives - Nids: 1, Tau: 0

"Oh my god!, they're all around us! Shoot, shoot, shoot!!!"

Nids T2

The Zoeys fail to arrive. The Troop Tervigon puts catalyst on the hiveguard, whilst the HQ puts it on the large stealer brood.

The 5 remaining stealers advance towards the Tau, Whilst my Tervies hug the cover. My Troops Tervy spawns another 10 gants and keeps going.

Firing sees me put a lot of glancing/penetrating hits on the devil fish, but it saves all of them.

The five stealers multi assault the pathfinders and firewarriors, killing 3 firewarriors for no return. Both units than break and are swept by the stealers... leaving them open to return fire with no FnP...

Tau T2

The Kroot arrive on his table edge to deal with any surviving stealers.

The Tau reposition slightly, and fire into the masses. The 5 stealers are quickly gunned down by a Devil Fish, whilst the rest of the Tau shooting results a few gants going down, mainly due to the very survivable large brood of stealers with FnP and Cover.



Objectives - Nids: 1, Tau: 0

Nids T3

The Zoeys still don't arrive.

I decide that I'm going to need to get my gants and Tervies in the game if I'm going to win this, so I start sending everything forward. The HQ Tervy puts FnP on the stealers, whilst the other one puts it on Hiveguard and pumps out another 8 gants.

Shooting sees my Hive Guard blow up 1 Hammer head, whilst my other unit fails again to have an impact on the devil fish.

Assault sees the stealers assault the other hammer head getting 9 swings, and ripping off the main gun.



Tau T3

The Fusion blaster suits come in near my HQ Tervy, whilst the rest of the Tau reposition to take on my last stealer brood. One Devil Fish picked up the Kroot, whilst the other dropped off the 8 Fire Warriors to shoot up Stealers.

Firing sees the suits and broadsides take the HQ Tervy down to 2 wounds.The rest of the army focus fires on the stealer brood and take down 10 of them. The remaining stealers pass their morale check.




Objectives - Nids: 1, Tau: 0

Nids T4

My Zoeys finally arrive and drop down in the middle of the Tau lines. Stealers advance on the broadsides whilst the HQ Tervy and gants size up the newly arrived suits. The Tervy puts FnP on himself, whilst the other one fails. The troop Tervy pumps out 6 gants and then runs dry (That's 35 gants from one tervy). The gants advance with the Tervy and the hive guard behind.

Shooting sees the Spod immobilise, stun and shake a devil fish, whilst the Zoeys fail to do anything to his suits with their lances. One unit of Hive guard fires at the hammer head, taking its missile pods off, whilst the other one shoots at his suits and fails to do anything.

Assaulting sees the Stealers clean up the Broadsides for no loss, whilst the HQ Tervy and gants take down the fusion suits. Other gants assault his hammer head but fail to do anything.



Tau T4

The Tau reposition to try to take down as many stealers and gants as possible.

Shooting from the suits and firewarriors takes down the last of the stealers, whilst the Kroot jump out and combine fire with the devil fish to take out a handful of gants.




Objectives - Nids: 1, Tau: 0

Nids T5

The Nids move forward except for one unit of hive guard and one gant squad that stays on my objective.

Firing from my Zoeys ID's one suit, whilst the Spod kills a couple of Firewarriors. Firing from my gants takes down a handful of Kroot, whilst my other gants shoot into the back of the hammerhead for no effect. His Fire Warriors pass their morale.

My gants than assault the back of the hammerhead, but still have no effect. My Zoeys assault his suits to try and take out their shooting for a turn - they fail to do anything and take three wounds killing one. The remainder than makes all his Fearless saves, tying them in combat.



Tau T5

Tau reposition their tanks, with the hammerhead lining up for a tank shock next turn. Firewarriors advance onto their objective, whilst Kroot move to engage more gants.

Firing from the kroot saw another gant brood taken down.

In assault, the suits finished off the zoey.




Objectives - Nids: 1, Tau: 1

The game then goes onto T6

Nids T6

The Nids advanced to put as much fire power on the kroot and fire warriors as possible.

Termagants and Hive Guard moved to ensure the hammerhead would have to tank shock to contest.

Firing from the gants, Tervies and one hive guard brood took down enough kroot and firewarriors to force a morale check on both units. Firing from the other Hive Guard brood failed to have any impact on his other hammerhead.



Tau T6

The Kroot and Fire Warriors consolidated onto their home objective, Whilst the hammer head tank shocked my hiveguard and gants. One of the hive guard attempted DoG, glanced, but failed to stop the tank, allowing it to sit near my objective. Another devil fish lined up for another go in case we went for another turn.

Firing didn't see much happen.




Objectives - Nids: 0, Tau: 1

We rolled for a seventh turn, and rolled a 2 - Victory to the Tau!


As always - would love to hear from Dakka in regards to the game, what you liked, what you didn't like, as well as C + C on the tactics and armies used. I will be providing my reflections on the game at a later date.

Hope you enjoyed!

Good report. It is very clear and i like to have same vision angle for pictures. It is better to see the evolution. But in addition some closer photos to show some events can be interesting to.

A question, where did you get your Tervigons ?

Great report!.Could do with some close up photos so we can get a better look at your nids,also i like the scenery.
@tetsuo666 the tervigon on the right looks like a chapter house one.

Nice job. however commanders (tau) can't ride in a devilfish

Nice report! Pathfinder aren't and elite slot just so your friend knows. Also Fusion Blasters are AP1, wouldn't they have caused instant death to your Tervy instead of just wounding him?

darkcloud92 wrote: Also Fusion Blasters are AP1, wouldn't they have caused instant death to your Tervy instead of just wounding him?

Why would they do that? A weapon doesn't cause ID just because it's AP 1.

darkcloud92 wrote:Also Fusion Blasters are AP1, wouldn't they have caused instant death to your Tervy instead of just wounding him?

Tervigons are T6 so they aren't going to get IDed by any shooting weapon (without a special rule).

oh ok I did not know terivgons were toughness 6, that's why I asked. Pretty harsh match up, I favored nids up until they lost so many of the steelers to tau rapid fire. Perhaps you were a little to eager in moving on the steelers?

great battle to the end the Tau managed to hold out against the.swarm.

one thing I noticed. to the nid player, genestealer broods are fearless, and do not require moral tests

Benn Bloodmane wrote:great battle to the end the Tau managed to hold out against the.swarm.

one thing I noticed. to the nid player, genestealer broods are fearless, and do not require moral tests

Not by default - only if they're under synapse.

rigeld2 wrote:

Benn Bloodmane wrote:great battle to the end the Tau managed to hold out against the.swarm.

one thing I noticed. to the nid player, genestealer broods are fearless, and do not require moral tests

Not by default - only if they're under synapse.

My bad. Just double-checked it.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for reading/commenting.

@ tetsuo666: Thanks. The HQ Tervy is a Chapterhouse one (as flyingsquirrels pointed out), the other one is custom built by myself from a carnifex kit. I prefer the overall 'design' of my custom one, though the CH one is much cleaner and has much better detail.

@ flyingsquirrels: Looks like close ups will be a winner in future reports! thanks

@ Shas'o Kias: Thanks - The Tau commander didn't actually ride in the devilfish, however after re-looking at the photo I can tell why you may have thought this. He is actually perfectly hiding behind the tower of the powerplant in the photo

@ darkcloud92: Thanks - That was my error on the path finders - I made an incorrect assumption. All through this game we thought it was going to be a nids 'whitewash'. The reason I didn't win however (which I'll go into later) was probably more that I wasn't eager enough...

@ Benn Bloodmane: Thanks - it was very intense and fun for us.

So - what went wrong for the Nids?

Well, first of all I want to give credit to my opponent for playing a great game. Although he was humble about it afterwards, he had a very clear strategy that won him the game.

1. He deployed his objective as far back as possible and then deployed his commander and devil fish as far forward as possible to put as much distance between the Nids and his objective/army as possible
2. His army came in on the one side, and focused fire on the stealer unit on that side. This meant that only 5 stealers were in range next turn, minimising my counter attack and getting 1-2 extra turns of distance between him and the second stealer unit
3. He continued to focus fire, eliminating threats as and when needed, without spreading his fire thin over multiple targets

So what did my Nids do wrong?

1. I probably should have deployed one stealer unit along his board edge. I could have probably forced him to tank shock/fly over me with his tanks, and may have forced his other ground units to be delayed if he couldn't deploy them. This would have offset the problem of not being able to cast catalyst on the stealer unit lining his board edge
2. I should have pushed up much more aggressively with my Tervies and gants. Playing with this army for the first time, I was nervous about him targeting the tervies and killing them early on. As the game progressed though, I realised that he couldn't afford to take his sights of my stealers until they were all gone, so my Tervies and gants could have pushed up the board relatively unhindered and hit him as he was finishing off my last stealer brood.

Overall, I was fairly happy with the list. I will probably try the same list again a few times before I make any alterations, but some things which I may change are:
1. remove Toxin from my stealers: toxin just seems to make these guys too deadly, and they wipe out units and then get shot, rather than locking in combat for a turn.
2. Swap out the Zoeys for something else: This may just be a knee-jerk reaction to them not performing in this game, but they are currently tying up 170 pnts which could possibly be put to better use elsewhere...

I'm eager for c+c on this, as I will be putting it through some tourney action - so please let me know what you think

Thanks for reading as always!

slice'n'dice wrote:
The Nids then setup with the troops Tervy overlooking my objective and the HQ Tervy central. The Genestealers infiltrated down each side of the board, allowing me to be close to the Tau side and within catalyst range of my Tervies. (Some hormagaunts are being used as proxy stealers, I didn't quite have forty... yet.)

That's too many units for DoW. 2 GS and a troop tervy is 3 troops.

DoW, 3rd paragraph. You can Infiltrate troop units, but as long as there's only 1 HQ and 2 troops.

It would've hurt you a bit, either by putting the GS on your edge, or necessitating an Outflank.

@ Brothererekose: Ah, after re-reading this - you are absolutely right! I'll remember that in future. In this game, I would have probably not deployed the Tervy or gants, and deployed the HQ Tervy and both Stealer broods. Given how long it took me to move up my Tervies, it probably wouldn't have changed this game much, but if I had of been more aggressive moving them up (Like I should have been) then they would have been about a turn in front of where they should have been.

Thanks for the rules spot! Always welcome.

Thanks for this, I enjoyed the report.

Awww... I expected the tyranids to win this one, maybe next time

I run a very similar Tyranid list and a couple changes I'd make to the list;

Drop toxin sacs - These units are 100% guaranteed to die by the end of the game. I usually suffer 25-50% casualties against the average opponent before I manage to get into combat (Less for bad opponents and more for good opponents) meaning that's 30-60 points wasted. The two 'hammer' broods are meant to take a lot of damage and force the opponent to deal with them, allowing you to dictate the fight. They're meant to take the spring out of the enemy's step and keep them flat-footed for turns 4+.

Drop the 12 gants and make the second Terv an HQ again. You save 60 points here as well, with the 120 from the TS you're up to 180. You don't gain much from the Terv as a troop. Generally speaking, you'll have plenty of troops (at least 4 per game).

These points can be spent several ways, depending on what you feel you need. If you want more AT, you can pick up 2 hive guard and a Zoe, with a few points left over to throw ST on the Tervigons. You can pick up a 'commando' Broodlord squad, 5 GS + BL with TS, ST and IA on the BL. This makes a great scalpel to your two hammers, giving you a much smaller footprint for 12" infiltrations where available and a unit great for outflanking when you don't want ~300 points stuck in reserve waiting to come in. You could spend 180 points on a large brood of Gargoyles to give you cover saves and a decent second wave behind your hammers.

Also, take deathspitters off the pod. If you're going to give it a gun give it a large pie plate so it doesn't miss as often.

As for the game, I wouldn't ever infiltrate that far to the flanks against a shooting army. If he comes in on one corner like he did he can force you to run four feet across the table, essentially cutting a fifth of your army out of the game. Try to put the blobs offset on each side of the center of the table so they can the center together turn 1/2, or their respective corners turn 3/4 if they're hiding.

It looks like you were way outside 18" on both infiltrations, any reason why?

ALWAYS advance with everything. Try to put objectives close to the middle of the board so you can pick them up as you move forward. Tyranids don't do well sitting back, and everything in our army (Bar Zoeys) is solid to good in CC. Get accustomed to letting your Tervigons get stuck in, they're awesome at grinding down squads with no power weapons, and can keep things like tac squads with PF tied up for long enough for your assault elements to wipe out the more dangerous things.

Also, spawning gaunts while in CC then having them assault in at I5 is hilarious and extremely effective.

Overall, I think with more practice you'll be happy with your list. Personally I'd drop the pod, I hate waiting for my Zoeys to show up. In DOW it sucks walking them on, but usually by turn 2/3 you've got plenty of targets, which is when they'd be showing up anyways in the pod. Personal preferance on that though.

@ Tortured-Robot: Thanks - glad you enjoyed it

@ Grimnarsmate: Yeah - we'll evolve and do better next time

@ Traceoftoxin: All very good advice - the toxin is definitely going to get dropped, what else I change is really going to be tested out over the next couple of months... Another option I'm considering in addition to the ones you've listed is replacing toxin, the Zoeys in Spod, the gants and a couple of stealers with 2 Hive Guard and a T-Fex. This would give me a lot more anti tank capability, and the ability to threaten from range with the T-Fex... I think I'll find the T-Fex too expensive at this points level, but it's worth testing out...

Your tactics advice is sound too, and like you said, with a bit more practice with this build I'm sure it will perform better. My main concern has and always will be venom spam DE, but I'm hoping 40 FnP stealers will be an effective counter for this...without moving the army away from an allcomers list.

[quote=slice'n'dice@ Traceoftoxin: All very good advice - the toxin is definitely going to get dropped, what else I change is really going to be tested out over the next couple of months... Another option I'm considering in addition to the ones you've listed is replacing toxin, the Zoeys in Spod, the gants and a couple of stealers with 2 Hive Guard and a T-Fex. This would give me a lot more anti tank capability, and the ability to threaten from range with the T-Fex... I think I'll find the T-Fex too expensive at this points level, but it's worth testing out...

Your tactics advice is sound too, and like you said, with a bit more practice with this build I'm sure it will perform better. My main concern has and always will be venom spam DE, but I'm hoping 40 FnP stealers will be an effective counter for this...without moving the army away from an allcomers list.

I did not see the Tau grabbing that OBJ...When they Zoeys dropped down in their lines I was like "There goes the neighborhood!"

But otherwise Damn Good Report!

And who said Tau was bad?... Mmhmmm???