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So yesterday I was at GW, and I faced a nids army. It had 3 trygons, a lot of gaunts, some things with wings( he said they were 6 points if that helps), and things that give nids cover saves woth 6 inches i think? Also another IC i dont remember his name, clearly nids are not my specialty. But anyway we were playing 2k pts. I had 2 Daemon Princes Tzeentch, WoC, Waptime, and wings. 3 oblits, deflier, vindicator, 2x10 CSM 2 flamers IoCG, and a fist. And 2x10 berzerkers in rhinos. Anyway, I got destoryed in annihilation. My problem, i think, is lack of fire power, but I worked with what I had. What do you guys think would help against nid(hordes in general) I was think havocs with ACs for the trygons, and maybe HBs for everything else, what do you think? Thanks, Rod!

Vindicators for the guants, Plauge marines with x2 plasma each for the trygons.

Las-pred or obliterators for hive tyrants.

Havocs are trash. Tzeentch daemon princes are a point sink.

Take two lashies with wings and you should be fine against MCs.

Samus: What good are a few plasma shots a turn?
Against a trygon it wont do alot, and that FNP means nothing since it will ignore it.

Not a chaos player, but i'd imagine the AP3 bolters of thousand sons would work pretty well.
Ignores the saves of trygons.
On the turn they pop up you get a nice chance to go all out with shots since they cant charge when they strike.

Oblits would also do well, gives you a nice chance to sit back at range and drop shots.

As samus said, vindi's will work well for gaunts.
Also works well for bunched up units and mid-zilla.

6 point winged things are gargoyles.
Just flying termigants, nothing to worry about, small arms tears through them.



Deployment is another thing you need to think about.
Does this player use alot of deep striking? if so, keep units spread out alot to deny him placement.
If he can only drop them infront of a gunline then your doing fine.

Also, make sure you keep the back of the board covered to stop units getting through your lines.


Yet another thing to think about: Either borrow or buy the nid dex.
Its allways a good idea to check what your against before you fight it.

Trygons are tough to deal with. Having 6 wounds at T6 is the real killer. Multiple missile launchers combined with double tap plasma for finishing the job is really the best solution. You may need to send in small sacrificial units so you have more time to shoot them down.

AP3 bolters sound good but they still only wound on 6's. Not the most reliable of guns I have to say.

Lash can also be used to great effect. Keep using it so that you only have to face 1 MC a time. It will be extremely frustrating for the nid player.

While thats true lukus, thousand sons are still mobile while firing.
Missiles cant move and fire, meaning restricted mobility against an army that will be chasing you about.

The bolters also serve as decent anti-infantry against anything with a 3+ or worse save, meaning mid sized nids lose thier saves.


Also, with missiles your throwing in havocs for it, since missiles from tac squads will mean dedicating a whole unit or more at a time.
You then have a small unit that will be a target for any deep striking unit, and cant move away from it without lose of fire power.
Not only that, but havocs chew up an important HS space that could be used for vindi's or oblits.


anyways, thats just my experiences as a nid player.
I rather go against small elite units targeting my TMC's than a few large units that can multi-task.


Another quick thing lukus: The guy is running 3 trygons, in most cases lash usually is a pain.
But when you have 3 MC's with fleet, you wont slow them enough to have any decent effect.

I think that your list is pretty solid, but you seemed to have gotten overwhelmed by a well designed list.

When we look at it tactically, we see a army designed to hit in two waves. Gargoyles + fleeting hormagaunts followed by trygons. This is supported by venomthropes that shield the swarm for the first turn and make them very painful to assault. This likely supported by the swarmlord which can buff the cc troops and has the synapse range to cover the whole swarm.

Lynchpins for this list are the low amount of synapse control and the venomthropes. These two units allow the army to function. By destroying these two units you can more easily destroy the list.

With destroying synapse and removing cover saves the priority, lets examine the units you have and what they should be doing

The demon princes must have Lash. I know it makes you a sterotypical chaos player but lash will allow you to break up the the waves of tyranids and destroy the synergy that makes this list work.

By lashing units out of synapse range, especially gargoyles who have low leadership and will lurk if the pass, you can force a break in his waves.

Also by lashing trygons more than 18" away (they have fleet) you can prevent an assault for a turn and give you more time to shoot.

You can even try to lash synapse creatures, but remember that synapse range is a 12" bubble (18" for the Swarmlord) and you will have to deal with shadows of the warp in that area.

And shoot you want to do, delay the assault for as long a you can. Swarms get shot to death even by bolters and every wound you take off a MC with a lascannon or plasma cannon is one less that you have to hit in assault.

As far as assaults go, when you have to assault do whatever possible to multi assault a unit of swarmy nids and a MC. Then direct all your attacks at the swarm. This way you can dump a ton of fearless wounds on the MC even if you couldn't touch it in the actual assault.

Finally,

I would swap meltas and plasmas for all flamers and keep the DCCW's on the defiler. Also the khorne bezerkers are not really that useful vs nids I would drop them for thousand sons which will hurt MC's with bolters and tarpit them in assault.

Jack brings up some good points. TBH I haven't played against chaos for a while so I may be a bit rusty. I'm just trying to apply what I know from my regular opponents (IG and SM).

Lukas: Thanks
Theres a regular chaos player i go against.
The main problems i have from him are HS funnily enough.

1: Vindicator - Real pain in the arse for nids.
Causing instant death to anything other than a MC.
Ignoring saves on everything.
Large plate.
I tend to keep units out of the way of these, but the short range does meaning getting close to fire. (which is its only downside)
You could however take a defiler for the cannon, it can also hold its own in combat too. (keep away from fex's, S9 hurts alot)

2: Obliterators.
The ultimate everything hunter for chaos.
either 3 units of 2, or 3 units of 3.
Either way, you want 3 units so they can work together or pick apart different units.
With lascannons wounding on a 2 against gons it means it will wound and it wont get a save.
A quick 1st turn volley from 9 lascannons should see a trygon near death (4-5 wounds gone)



I did also underestimate zerkers and overestimate hormigants.
While not super amazing, zerkers still kick the gak out of horms in CC.
And while locked into combat with a large unit, it makes a good section of the map a no go zone for other nids (unless joining the combat)
With a 3+ save and much better stats, zerkers will chew through horms.

Thanks for the responses so far. Another mistake I made was adding too much terrain and it seemed like all it did was block my shots and most of his units got move through cover. Im thinking the BC only defiler would be more effective than a vindicator simply because I dont even need S10 on anything an the defiler has HtH abilites. Is there anyway to get around using lash? Because ive seen people refuse to play someone who used lash against them. I also used 8 TSons i forgot to mention, who never really were in range of a trygon while he wasnt in combat. One last thing, could anyone give me a list or general idea of models i should include? Thanks!

TBH, don't panic after a first game loss against an army/list you haven't faced.

I've only been playing 5 months and every time I face a new codex, I get wooped and feel unable to beat it. Happened to me first game vs DE, same with Eldar.

People tend to play timidly the first game against a new foe, and make more uninformed or unwise choices. THB your list could work fine against nids, it's just a metter of different targeting priority and positioning than you're used to.

Demolisher plates crush 'nid infantry blobs. Oblits can 1-shot venomthropes. Trygons can be tedious, but keep your princes together and tag team them with warptime.

hyv3mynd wrote: Oblits can 1-shot venomthropes.

This is gold. Ive come up against nid players that blob their infantry with venomthropes protecting them, and i had to develop tactics to deal with them, because as a guardsmen, you cannot rely on your lascannons to hit and kill venomthropes and leave the gaunts defenceless. (in the end i used a Collosus str 6 ap 3 artillery piece to ignore their venonthrope cover save and blow them to hell) but with chaos, you can sturdily rely on your lascannons to hit, so at the start of ur turn, tag those venonthropes, then chew up the unproteced gaunts with your bolters. Keep in mind that thousand sons can fire their bolters at 24 because of slow and purposeful, so they can be ultimately MUCH better than normal CSM squads.

As a nid player, you need to destroy his synapse. His HQ and Tervigons should be priority for any high S shots. Tervigons will take out a lot of gaunts around them when they die so you get a twofer.

Once synapse is gone, Nids struggle a lot. They are generally low Ld without it, so use that to your advantage.

I wouldn't rely heavily on Lash as a lot of people are saying. This does depend on the make-up of the army but if they have more than a few synapse creatures, it makes it incredibly more difficult to pass your tests on 3d6 if they are close.

Target priority is your biggest concern. Venomthropes die to S8 yes, but they aren't as hardy as other Nids. Bolter fire will bring them down relatively easy. I'd save your high S shots for bigger nids and knock the Venomthropes out with small arms fire. The 5+ cover hurts you more when it's made against high S shots than small arms against this type of army. You really want all the high S shots you can to be against MCs.

The big key for Chaos against Nids is to weaken them with fire from a distance and finish them off in CC. Don't let them get the charge. You need to be aggressive and charge them first. They will get into CC with you, it's a fact. You just need to deny the enemy a charge bonus and give it to yourself.