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So the other day I played a nid player with 3 trygons, alot of guants and gargoyles, a few zoanthroapes, and whatever those things are that grant the 6 inch cover saves. We played 2000 points. I was using my chaos. I play orks also. What are some good tactics against a tyranid army?

I have all these models for my chaos army: Abaddon, a Chaos Lord, 2 Daemon Princes, 5 terminators, 25 CSM, 20 berzerkers, 8 TS, 3 obliterators, 1 vindicator, 1 defiler, and 2 rhinos.
I have an unfinished ork army, but I am going for a kan wall, so how do kan walls fare against orks?
Thanks, Rod!

Well, depending on how his army is deployed, you can always take out the synapse creatures. Are Trygons synapse? If not, it looks like his list just has the zoanthroapes and a carnifex. Kill those and you win!

First thing first, you really need to mech up. Every infantry squad should be riding around in a Rhino. That by itself will help alot as it gives you more mobility and protection, especially if you're moving 6"+

Plasmacide Terminators can be a useful squad, deepstrike them next to a big TMC and blast away.

Berserkers with Power Fists will be an even match for a Trygon, especially if you can wound it up front.

With the Oblits, use Lascannons/Plasma Cannons to weaken units and follow up with a rapid fire/charge from your troops.

Daemon Princes can kill a Trygon IF its weakened and you get the charge in thanks to swinging @ I5. Mark of Tzeentch or Nurgle will help you stay alive longer.

Against the little guys, the Vindicator/Defiler will thin them out and then counter assault with your troops.

If I remember right, both the Zoas and the Venomthropes (the cover save ones) are T4 so the two ordnance weapons can get an insta-kill on both. Yeah you gotta get by the saves but if they're close the small stuff, even a miss can be helpful.

Leave Abaddon and the Chaos Lord at home. Thousand Sons are also subpar but if you have to use them, try Warptime and Force Weaponing a Trygon.

Grakmar wrote:Well, depending on how his army is deployed, you can always take out the synapse creatures. Are Trygons synapse? If not, it looks like his list just has the zoanthroapes and a carnifex. Kill those and you win!

Trygons can be synapse, if you upgrade them to a prygon prime, and carnifexes are not synapse. However your idea of taking out the synapse creatures is a pretty good idea. Generally the idea of 'shoot the nids' isn't gonna work since they wont run away as they'll be in syanpse range. If you use heavy weapons to take out the Synapse creatures his battleline should go into dissaray. As mini-gun said zoans and venoms are low T (well compared to the bigger nids) and should be reletavely easy to take out, bear in mind though the zoan's 3+ inv save.

Defilers and Missile launchers are gonna be very useful as nids hate those blast markers. Also having a big scary war engine that can compete in CC with TMC isn't half bad either.

You also have to think that nids aren't unbeatable in CC. A khrone beserker squad, on the charge, could easily take out a unit of gaunts. Also things like powerfists can still be a scare for the bigger 'nids. The same goes for your orks, slugga boyz have more attacks as a hormagaunt, along with better toughness and furious charge.

Minigun suggested the idea of meching up. To be honest i don't think this will work and you'll be better off spending your points on more guns, or more specialist CC troops. The powers from the zoanthropes and the trygons can easily destroy a few tanks a turn, and that's a lot of points out the window.

It looks like, with the trygon and gargoyles, that he's trying to distract you from his main battleline, this is a common tactic for 'nid players, and a pretty good one too. Try not to be fooled. Gargoyles are not all that good in CC and your Khrone beserkers, who have nothing else to do, can easily finish them off. Besides, unless those trygons are primes, then they'll be out of synapse range and will just Lurk. The trygons are a bit of a problem. However as it seems they are the only MC he has, then you can afford to loose your lascannons on them. Remember, a trygon won't be able to charge on the turn it surfaces, it will be able to fire it's bio-electric pulse, but that's not you're main worry. You still have a turn to kill, wound or even just pin it. It may also be worth feeding them some cannon fodder, chaos spawn may work, and as for orks, if you have unit of 30 gretchin, with three runtherds with grabba sticks, you'll be able to reduce the trygon's attacks from 6 to 3. With all those grots and only 3 attacks, it'll be tied up for a while.

So to summarise, take out his synapse creatures advancing with the main battleline, then target any units you think are out of synapse range as a priority and use bolters, missile etc. to make them run away. Don't panic if something appears at your end of the table, use your CC untis to finish off things like gargoyles, and turn you're heavy weaponry/snipers on the big things, or simply feed them some grots.

Good Luck!

"B sucks, take A" is nice advice for the Army List forum, but this is tactics. How about the original poster describes what it is about the Tyranids that is giving him trouble so we can give him tactical advice?

Firstly, consider that Tyranids only have a few specialized units with Assault Grenades. Make sure that your infantry units are in difficult terrain so that the Tyranids get an I1 penalty when they charge.

Secondly, if a Tyranid unit is next to you and you have the option of standing and shooting or charging, consider either standing and shooting, or even moving away (particularly with Obliterators and Terminators that can move and shoot effectively). There's no point in ever giving a Tyranid player a round of close combat they didn't work for.

Simply shooting Synapse creatures isn't the greatest advice since the modern Instinctive Behaviour rules mean that many Tyranid units will do what a player wants them to anyways. You need to remove Synapse from non-Fearless creatures and then shoot them before moving onto the next Synapse creature in order to force Morale checks. So kill the naturally Fearless creatures first, then rotate through Synapse and Non-Fearless bugasaurs.

Simply shooting Synapse creatures isn't the greatest advice since the modern Instinctive Behaviour rules mean that many Tyranid units will do what a player wants them to anyways.

Big exception here is gargoyles -- lurking gargoyles are 8 point termagants that don't score.

Also feed isn't as minor an issue as some people think. Feed can keep your shooty carnifexes from shooting and your hormagants from claiming an objective or staying tucked safely in cover.