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Hey guys, the only army that's been giving me difficulty lately is tyranids with the following: 20 devilgants, the swarm lord, 2 tervigons, warriors with a tyranid prime, a trygon and a doom of malanti as a core. I play the flying circus variant. I usually run plaguebearers, pink horrors, daemon princes, fateweaver.

I'm wondering what tactics I should be utilizing here. Any input is greatly appreciated.

could swap out the plaguebearers and/or pink horrors for daemonettes. Or get some seekers in there. Basically any slaaneshi rending demons will make mincemeat of those high toughness bugs. I'd like to see what a full squad of daemonettes would do to swarmlord, particularly if they're prescienced or given Invisibility

Thanks for the good feedback. I do usually bring 20 daemonettes. They're great, but typically get focused pretty quickly. I've debated giving them the grimoire. I only own 10 seekers, I think I Would need to pick up another 10 for them to be worth fielding at all.

How would you recommend I play my daemon princes vs this? They usually land, kill something then get punked by the swarmlord unfortunately... :(

Flamers!

He wants to drop a Horde on your head and shoot you?

Drop Flamers on his Hordes head and roast them to death.

Who cares if they have to take a T test or get FnP, they're T3 anyway and you'll cause buckets and buckets of wounds, so it's nbd in the end. You can probably wipe out a 20 strong unit of packed together Gaunts with 6 or 7 flamers. Sure it's unconventional, that doesn't mean it couldn't work!

As for the big baddies? Something Khorny. Bloodthirster maybe? He wants to bring a big psychic monster that blocks psychic powers? Bring a bigger monster that says "F*** you" to Psykers of all kinds

Bloodthirsters dont have crazy bonuses vs psykers
Grinders are better than dealing with hordes IMO since they cant really be killed by most small things and can have pie plates of justice (give them ignore cover with your heralds!)

Dealing with the swarmlord is a tough. Daemonettes or run from him are basically your 2 options. You can try to use a LoC with 2++ but even then youre risking a lot. Next codex nids will be different so dec 7 most of this advice will be useless

A daemon prince of nurgle with baelsword will kill any nid that didn't roll iron arm in one round of combat. Their major drawback (no sweeping advance) doesn't apply to fighting nids anyway (fearless).

There are 2 ways go deal with swarmy, 1 is to fly around at 24" with fatewever and a loc and shoot him full of holes (beware too much/little flickering fire if he rolled endurance) .

Then there's the other option which is to wait till you get +1 invulnerable saves or cast forewarning on a tzeentch daemon prince, grimoire him and send him to fight swarmy. You have a 2++ but no rerolls due to swarmy cancelling out tzeentch reroll 1s.

Or you could just ignore him and focus on downing his troops. Always save the refill during opponents turn for the doom ld test, the ability to reroll a 5 or 6 on that test could save your bacon


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jakl277 wrote:
Bloodthirsters dont have crazy bonuses vs psykers
Grinders are better than dealing with hordes IMO since they cant really be killed by most small things and can have pie plates of justice (give them ignore cover with your heralds!)

Sadly the ignores Cover power in divination only affects the psyker and his unit.

I find slaanesh deals with nids and the masque works wonders on swarmy reduce his movement one turn then shoot with horrors then fiends and any rending model to finish him, as for devilgaunts flamers are your friend.
So I'd use manly slaanesh a smattering of tzeench and maybe a touch of khorn (skull cannon/grinder), mix and match is the key.

Skullhammer wrote:
I find slaanesh deals with nids and the masque works wonders on swarmy reduce his movement one turn then shoot with horrors then fiends and any rending model to finish him, as for devilgaunts flamers are your friend.
So I'd use manly slaanesh a smattering of tzeench and maybe a touch of khorn (skull cannon/grinder), mix and match is the key.

If you are playing an effective flying circus I would look for ways to adjust your current army rather than throw in lots of random stuff that will be good only against a few opponents i.e. flamers. The bottom line is that you can't beat a full strength swarm lord so you either have to soften him up with shooting (Lord of Change & Kairos from outside 12") first or deal with everything else instead and ignore him (play the mission). And remember, you could roll purge the alien in which case you're laughing!

There aren't that many things that can knock you out of the sky as Tyranids.

wtnind wrote:

Skullhammer wrote:
I find slaanesh deals with nids and the masque works wonders on swarmy reduce his movement one turn then shoot with horrors then fiends and any rending model to finish him, as for devilgaunts flamers are your friend.
So I'd use manly slaanesh a smattering of tzeench and maybe a touch of khorn (skull cannon/grinder), mix and match is the key.

If you are playing an effective flying circus I would look for ways to adjust your current army rather than throw in lots of random stuff that will be good only against a few opponents i.e. flamers. The bottom line is that you can't beat a full strength swarm lord so you either have to soften him up with shooting (Lord of Change & Kairos from outside 12") first or deal with everything else instead and ignore him (play the mission). And remember, you could roll purge the alien in which case you're laughing!

There aren't that many things that can knock you out of the sky as Tyranids.

One Month Later...

D*** Hive Guard and Flying TMCs ruling the sky.

Just vector strike his big things all day and make sure your big guys are in terrain so things charging them go last. Your nid opponent is a real chump for running that setup btw.

 juraigamer wrote:
Just vector strike his big things all day and make sure your big guys are in terrain so things charging them go last. Your nid opponent is a real chump for running that setup btw.

Sigh I always forget to vector strike things... :( . What do you mean he was a chump? Is that like a straight hard counter to the tzeentch circus daemon list?

Mostly because he has every good unit possible crammed into that list. Sure doesn't play for fun, or fluffily.

(for reference, I run a 2k point nid list with 16 warriors, 12 raveners, both with rending claws, 3 frag spine fexes, a warrior prime, the parasite of mortex, a bazillion ripper swarms and a few hormagaunts. Yes it wins games, and yes it has no guns)

 juraigamer wrote:
Mostly because he has every good unit possible crammed into that list. Sure doesn't play for fun, or fluffily.

(for reference, I run a 2k point nid list with 16 warriors, 12 raveners, both with rending claws, 3 frag spine fexes, a warrior prime, the parasite of mortex, a bazillion ripper swarms and a few hormagaunts. Yes it wins games, and yes it has no guns)

I sure hope your not talking about the Tyranid player. If I were going against a flying circus with nids I would not feel bad bringing anything from the nid dex. If you feel bad for the flying circus, you should just feel bad. The daemon codex is a good fun dex and I worry that people run flying circus don't pay attention to other builds.

Also I'm playing against flying circus tomorrow at 2k and I don't feel bad for bringing:

swarmlord, 2 tyrant gaurd
Flyrant with two tl dev
Terv, toxin, adra, 3 rolls
30 horm with poison,
20 genestealers with broodlord
doom pod,
16 devil pod,
trigon, toxin
Deathleaper

Roll biomancy and buble wrap the big bugs, deathleaper nerfs psyker. Ground flying mc's, or enfeeble twice or three times and instakill mc's with devorers. Swarmlord exsists and Shadow in the warp.

I don't feel bad and I will not feel bad.

DufenDorgen wrote:
I sure hope your not talking about the Tyranid player. If I were going against a flying circus with nids I would not feel bad bringing anything from the nid dex. If you feel bad for the flying circus, you should just feel bad. The daemon codex is a good fun dex and I worry that people run flying circus don't pay attention to other builds.

Also I'm playing against flying circus tomorrow at 2k and I don't feel bad for bringing:

swarmlord, 2 tyrant gaurd
Flyrant with two tl dev
Terv, toxin, adra, 3 rolls
30 horm with poison,
20 genestealers with broodlord
doom pod,
16 devil pod,
trigon, toxin
Deathleaper

Roll biomancy and buble wrap the big bugs, deathleaper nerfs psyker. Ground flying mc's, or enfeeble twice or three times and instakill mc's with devorers. Swarmlord exsists and Shadow in the warp.

I don't feel bad and I will not feel bad.

This is a pretty fluffy list with lots of sub optimal units i.e. hormagants, genestealers, devilgants, deathleaper. I think the last guy was complaining about players taking nothing but good units, which is pretty stupid considering the OP is playing flying circus (how many bad units does a circus have? ZERO!).

 juraigamer wrote:
Just vector strike his big things all day and make sure your big guys are in terrain so things charging them go last. Your nid opponent is a real chump for running that setup btw.

Yeah what are you talking about? Tyranids have a handful of good units. Why would you call him a chump for using them? You're the one giving yourself a disadvantage by playing Tyranids mediocre-bad units. Unless of course you've discussed this with your opponent and he intends to do the same.

Tyranids are subpar by almost all standards and without Biomancy access they'd be garbage and would be instant losses to just about every army out there in 6th edition today. I played Tyranids since 3rd edition, and will continue to play them, but I'll tell you, I got really sick of losing every single game (or just about) I played from 5th edition. It was only when 6th dropped when I started to get some wins.

I'm by no means a WAAC player and I'm not a bad player. The only tournament I've taken part in I was 3rd overall. I still refuse to take units in the Nid lists I build even if they are fluffy just because they're downright terrible.

That being said, it's still important to discuss with your opponent what level of lists/game you want to play...

Op hasn't given what he was running for reference, since his opening post stays he was having trouble vs it, we could only assume he was: bad at 40k or his list was highly sub optimal.

Whats your setup daemon guy.

I'd say vector strike the swarmlord as he has no invul outside of CC. Also, dance around him with your superior mobility. Punk the tervigons early to avoid having more gants on the table and possible extra wounds from them exploding. Because you know they are going to be near gants. Get a unit with the grimoire into CC with him, then get two deamon princes into CC with swarmy.

Also, hi.

Mike94656 wrote:
I'd say vector strike the swarmlord as he has no invul outside of CC. Also, dance around him with your superior mobility. Punk the tervigons early to avoid having more gants on the table and possible extra wounds from them exploding. Because you know they are going to be near gants. Get a unit with the grimoire into CC with him, then get two deamon princes into CC with swarmy.

Also, hi.

He's generally T7+ with FnP...and he wipes the floor with Princes.

Avoidance is the best route.

Note, meant if princes have iron arm up as well.

Mike94656 wrote:
Note, meant if princes have iron arm up as well.

That could be a fair fight.

I just wouldn't bank on it because most players run swarmy with a lash guard or prime or both...and he has an 83% chance of getting iron arm.

And he makes you reroll invulns and can instant death you.

It's not impossible to beat him in CC...I've had Nobs do it to me.

But in general, don't try to out-CC the Swarmlord...he is currently god-like and almost holds up to Horus in combat (given Iron Arm)

How does the swarmlord negate Tzeentch rerolls??

Is it precedence of his forcing re rolls of successful saves?

GoliothOnline wrote:
How does the swarmlord negate Tzeentch rerolls??

Is it precedence of his forcing re rolls of successful saves?

Ah...they reroll all failed invulnerable saves?

If so then I guess there is no reroll for better or worse.

 ductvader wrote:

GoliothOnline wrote:
How does the swarmlord negate Tzeentch rerolls??

Is it precedence of his forcing re rolls of successful saves?

Ah...they reroll all failed invulnerable saves?

If so then I guess there is no reroll for better or worse.

I think that is something that has to be either talked about with the player you are having a game with, and deciding either you re roll your failed saves, first and then reroll your successful ones, or vice-versa, or a mix of each... thats actually kinda aggravating when you think about it lol


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Like, you roll 9 dice, and you fail 1, so you would reroll your 8 successful, lets say failing another, then would reroll your 2 failed saves?

Or roll 9 dice, fail 1, reroll said fail because of Tzeentch, then roll all 9 dice again due to the Swarmlords reroll of successful saves?

Or cancel each other out...

I would say that it is the Tzeentch players decision ultimately as to how his wounds get resolved as he is the one rolling his dice but... I could be wrong..

GoliothOnline wrote:

 ductvader wrote:

GoliothOnline wrote:
How does the swarmlord negate Tzeentch rerolls??

Is it precedence of his forcing re rolls of successful saves?

Ah...they reroll all failed invulnerable saves?

If so then I guess there is no reroll for better or worse.

I think that is something that has to be either talked about with the player you are having a game with, and deciding either you re roll your failed saves, first and then reroll your successful ones, or vice-versa, or a mix of each... thats actually kinda aggravating when you think about it lol

Nearly every FAQ question I have ever seen that comes to rerolls for better and worse at the same time says to ignore all rerolls and accept the first result.

ie: old fateweaver versus banisher...GK banishers also force all nearby daemons to reroll passed saves.


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I thought they only rerolled failed saving throws of 1...am I wrong?

Unless you've got a 2++, you should reroll all successful saves and all saves of 1 for Swarmlord vs Daemon of Tzeentch. If you do have a 2++ you might as well not bother rerolling, because you'd be required to reroll everything making your first roll pointless.

Also, GoliothOnline, you can never reroll a reroll, your examples are not following this rule.

My apologies, I am thinking of tzeentch situations I would have a 2++ as the only thing I run Tzeentchian is the Screamerstar lol




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Also, then how would you do it?

If it were the case. Would it simply even out and no rerolls occur?

2++ rerollable? Either no rerolls at all or roll once, grab all the dice and reroll them, there's no functional difference apart from the second one taking longer.

Point is, do not try to go for broke and beat the swarmlord in CC.
Even if you have a 2++ re-rollable, you won't have it two round of combat later (shadow in the warp) and you'll only have a 2++ for those two rounds.

If he does not have iron arm, skarbrand beats him every time.
If he does, only go after him if he's got a wound down with skarbrand.
Otherwise, avoid him and kill his other units.

Vector striking works wonders. Tying him up, not so well...
possibly maledictions/warpfires that have a range outside of 12" as well.

thisisnotpancho wrote:
If he does not have iron arm, skarbrand beats him every time.

If he doesn't have Iron Arm, hasn't Enfeeble'd Skarbrand, doesn't have a Prime in the unit, and there's no difficult terrain you have to charge through and Skarbrand gets the charge.

Is the swarmlord a character?