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Last night, I played a very typical game within my gaming group. This ended up being my third game with Tyranids and my opponents fourth game with his Dark
Eldar. Our lists are as follows:

Tyranids (Me) -

HQ:

Tyranid Prime -
Two Boneswords
Deathspitter

Tyranid Prime -
Rending Claws
Scything Talons

Elites:

Lictor x3

Zoanthrope x3

Troops:

Warrior x4 -
Deathspitter
Scything Talons

Warrior x4 -
Rending Claws
Scything Talons

Genestealers x8 -
Scything Talons
Toxin Sacs

Genestealers x8 -
Scything Talons
Toxin Sacs

Hormagaunts x16 -
Toxin Sacs

Hormagaunts x16 -
Toxin Sacs

Fast Attack:

N/A

Heavy Support:

Tryannofex -
Rupture Cannon

Trygon -
Prime Upgrade

Mawloc

Dark Eldar (Opponent) -

HQ:

Absudel Vect (sp?)

Ancient Homunculus -
Scissor Hands
Splinter Pistol

Elites:

Incubi x8 -
w/ Raider - Flickerfield

Trueborn x8 (I believe) -
4 Blasters
4 Shard Carbines
w/ Raider - Flickerfield

Troops:

Warrior x10 -
Splinter Cannon
w/ Raider - Flickerfield

Warrior x10 -
Splinter Cannon
w/ Raider - Flickerfield

Wytch x10 -
Hecatrix (sp?) w/ Aginiser
Hydra Gauntlet x2
w/ Raider - Flickerfield

Wytch x10 -
Hecatrix (sp?) w/ Aginiser
Hydra Gauntlet x2
w/ Raider - Flickerfield

Fast Attack:

Reaver x3 -
Cluster Caltrop

Heavy Support:

Ravager -
3 Dark Lances

Ravager -
3 Dark Lances

Ravager -
3 Dark Lances

*NOTE*: Some units of both lists might be wrong in some sort of way but this is the best recollection of the lists I can remember.

This game ended up being pretty demoralizing. I ended up only killing two Incubi, a Raider and only destroying 2 Dark Lances on two of the three Ravagers. The game ended on Turn Three with me giving it to the Dark Eldar player.

I honestly felt like I could do nothing to him. With his 15 Dark Lances and him rolling a 6 on Combat Drugs giving his Wytches and Incubi FnP, it felt like I was not playing the same game he was. So I was left wondering is it that my list is to blame (if I do not play Tervigon/Hive Guard, I am just going to auto lose?), or is Dark Eldar = Auto Lose for Tyranids, or maybe I just can't play table top games? I have been playing for almost a year and have about ~60 to 70 games but my win ratio is like 9% with only 5 wins that I can remember (I also play Tau and Necrons). My local gaming group basically plays Space Marines of some sort, Imperial Guard, Chaos Marines, with a single player owning Orks, Plague Marines, and Nurgle Deamons, and another player owning Mixed Deamons and Dark Eldar (the player I played). All of the players down here really only play lists that would win at tournaments but none of them get lists off of the web (everyone here thinks getting advice from the web is the worst idea ever for WH40k).

Among the three armies I have, I have had the most success with Tau (played approximately 30 games each with both Tau and Necrons and I have 4 wins with Tau and 2 wins with Necrons) so maybe I should just ignore the Tyranid/Necron Codex until 6th Edition or a new Codex?

Maybe just tough it out, continuing to lose games until I play better?

What do you guys suggest? I figure I would still be considered a new player so which armies would be best for me to sit aside and the other to be playing?

Thanks.

The problem is that you don't have enough shooting. Gone are the days of the assault nids. In the new meta, shooting for nids is just as important as assault. While it's good that you have 1 t-fex, what you really need are hive guards to help take out their transports. Forget the mawloc. He will contribute next to nothing and then get killed very easily. What you could use are biovores instead. Pop his vehicles and then punish him with large blast templates....templates that would kill off his wyches and warriors with ease.

His list is actually more assaulty than yours. If he's using Vect, you basically have 3 choices: 1) take the Swarmlord, 2) take tervigons so you can create gant screens to hold off his assaults or 3) do both #1 & #2.

DE is a tough matchup for nids but it is not an auto-loss, at least not if your tyranid army is balanced.

jy2 wrote:What you could use are biovores instead.

Really? I've never really heard anyone promote biovores and I'm not sure they are such a good choice, given the other options available.

Especially instead of a mawloc, which I think has it's place. It will get killed as easily as a Trygon, it just performs a different role to a Trygon and should not be expected to do the same thing.

I think in a list that utilizes both Hive guard and T-fexes then biovores are a great addition. You have paid a lot of points for a gunline that excels against vehicles, but what happens when they are popped? You need something that can now hit the contents. Assaulting is option number 1, biovores are option number 2. Biovores are cheap and effective against light infantry or hordes while a dedictaed assault unit will cost a lot of points (which you probably don't have if you have 6-9 hive guard and 2 T-fexes.

Now I know t-fexes are pretty great at close range as well, but the last place you want them is in assault.

after reading both of your lists I can already see that you will lose unless something is wrong with the dark eldar player. I am not shure how to to say this structured so I will try to break it into points.

a) Your list is cool, it is very old school, but it is very depended on having a statick oponent. You lack shooting, and you lack fast moving units. You only have one tyranofex. (I am not going to go heavaly into tyranofex theory, I like him, but you will build your list around him, ask me another time.) In short you will spend 2 to 3 round running towards your oponent. This of course asuming that the oponent stand still, something moast competive lists do not do. Also you have a lott of close combat only unit witch is bad since 5th edition is mech time. (There are exeptions, ask me another time.) In short, you will charge him turn 3, but since all charges happens at the same time you will destroy his transport (rhino etc.) open it up, get bolters etc. back, and then on turn 4 you will charge him. If you go first, this involes you will get shot for 3 turns before you get the charge, so moast of your army will be quite dead.

b) Dark eldar are very good. They are best in every way exept they cost a little bitt and die VERY easaly (as oposed to regular eldar who costs a lott but die only quite a lott.) The dark eldar pays this premium, what they get back is (if it is not a carnival of flesh list) they get the abilaty to controll the fight. They have long range, mobilaty, and very good guns. They are in short your lists very worst enemy since where you would usualy get a charge on turn 3, they will just drive 24" away and now you have to start over again. Your list is like shooting fish in a barrel.

c) Yes you have genestealers, but they arive withouth backup. If the d eldar se the genestelaers they will shot them turn 1, and then move back to the rest of the army. Think a bit about timing in your list, in what waves will you hit him (this is something a tyranid player can controll very well, use it to your advantage.) This is the same with lictors. Will they just turn up in aria terain and shoot 6 shots and never be seen again? Why do you take the uynits you do? They are cool units, but try to focus on the narative in the list. How does the hivemind munch his enemies and frighten them?

d) if you have poked around here on dakka you have seen that I'm having a jihad against the frustration of tyranids. I have no good awsers for an all commers list. But I can point you in the right direction.

e) Your list could be imrpoved a lott as it is from getting a hive tyrant (probably wuth wings, but I don't like it one bit) to get +1 on the reserves roll. Ditch a lott of your units to get drop spores. Now you only get the 3rd turn charge, but at the very least you will arive at the battle lines intact. In sutch a list you would start nothing on the table and I would remove the tyranofex (yes it is your only ranged gun, but you don't want to start a lone tyranofex on the table due to zynapse and laser cannons dark lances etc. A tyranofex should be shooting from round one and he does not belong in your list as it is now.)

f) There are other ways to go with the list. Tyranofex and zoanthropes as anti tank. Great idea, but the tyranofex could not hit a barn if it was standing in it, and the zoanthropes is the best gun in the game but it is only range 18. Get a tervigon with onslaught to give the zoanthropes the abilaty to runn and shoot. Also pick up some hive guards for anti tanks guns (now you can charge the people inside the transports on turn 3 instead of 4) Even the biovore is a decent gunn vs IG and space wolves, and it has 48" range. Quite a bargain for ouer short ranged codex.

g) The bread and butter units for the tyranids is sadly: Tervigon (feel no pain, it can charge tanks and walkers and kill them, it gives you scoring units, and it is stabel reliable zynapse) hive guards because they can take transports and trevigons because usualy they are very agresive. Not againt a dark eldar though.

Though be told, all of that would help a lott, but I am not shure I could come up with a tyranid list that could beet that dark eldar list in the hands of a good player. Dark eldar looses to imperial guard mech gunnline. Tyranids loose to dark eldar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also see 3 people promote the biovore in 3 posts in a row. The biovore is not amasing. They are sometimes good. But it fills a gap the tyranid codex has.

Hive command ability, allowing things like spods, Tyrgons and 1x outflanking troop choice to come in generally earlier than you will get foot slogging shooting into range of vehicles that want to stay at long range.

Biovores; Please take into account T4 with a 4+ save. Combine this with the Lurk trait and LD6 - Name me a cheap synapse provider with a gun capable of 40" +

A Trygon is just as good as an anti-tank gun as a T-fex, only that it wont shoot from the first turn. Str 10 vs str 5 you say? It say 3 times as many shots and you will be able to hit rear armour and assuming that is 10, I am pretty confident the math hammer equates to much the same. The difference is that the Trygon can go on to charge into more vehicles and rip them to shreds. The Trygon is cheaper but needs support from the Hive Tyrant.. but then arguably everything, to work effectively, needs support such as this.

Other armies have Wargear, to a greater extent Tyranid's have synergy.

yeah you are probably goning to lose its like SW vs inqusitoin footroops just not quite as baD.

Against a skilled opponent you won't be getting rear armour shots with the trygon unless you are risking mishaps from the table edge.

I have found that if you take T-fexes, take a gunline element and a separate close combat element. In essence split your forces into 2 distinct groups. If you take zoanthropes you need to create a combined arms force that works better together than it does separately.

Razerous wrote:

jy2 wrote:What you could use are biovores instead.

Really? I've never really heard anyone promote biovores and I'm not sure they are such a good choice, given the other options available.

You just need to be flexible and see the possibilities.

Razerous wrote:Especially instead of a mawloc, which I think has it's place. It will get killed as easily as a Trygon, it just performs a different role to a Trygon and should not be expected to do the same thing.

Mawlocs and trygons are not good against DE due to their vulnerability to poisoned attacks and their inability to get adequate cover. Lastly, the DE player can just tie up your 200pt trygon with his much cheaper wyches.


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I've had quite some success with my shooty-nids ever since I started using biovores. I've played against DE 3 times, with 2 wins (almost tabled one of them) and 1 draw. And if you think shooty nids are good only against other shooty armies, my biovore-nids have even tabled a dual-nob biker army before. Check out 3 of my batreps using my biovore nids: Tournament, vs 2500 Dark Eldar and vs Witch Hunter Immo-spam.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it is a mistake to try to take him in assault as your army currently is. His FNP incubi will just murder your infantry and his wyches will tie up your trygon and cc-beasts. Then there's Vect....

Unless you get units that can buff up your army - tervigons, hive tyrant with Old Adversary, the Swarmlord, etc. - you will lose to him in assault as well as shooting.

Zyllos wrote:rolling a 6 on Combat Drugs giving his Wytches and Incubi FnP,

only Wyches roll on combat drugs. Perhaps he had his ancient homoculus with his incubi giving them FNP

You need more shooting, as has already been said. DE transports are cardboard boxes, but if you cant shoot them down you are never going to win. YOU MUST shoot down as many DE transports as you can. Otherwise they will just continue to run circles around you and shoot you to death.

I'm just going to pipe in with a bit of support for biovores, they are one unit I usually take and I dont tend to regret it.

Admittedly Im good at rolling hits for them .

Ive used them vs dark eldar, IG and orks and found them to be really useful at damaging units that have been popped out of a transport.

The ability to fire long range and out of line of sight is pretty damm useful.

Also, Hive guard are better then zoanthropes vs dark elder in every way. You need the extra range/no-LOS needed more then the ability to pop AV-14.

Don't despair, dark elder are pretty cheesy and seem to have every tool to defeat a nid list.

Thanks for the replies.

Where to start...I know the Lictors are on everyones 'bad' list because of no assault when coming in. Figured coming into cover popping a transport (I know the average is like 25% to do anything against AV10) then getting 3+ cover, they would survive with just a couple of things shooting them and then they would shoot/assault something else the next turn but this game ended the turn after they came in (I basically only had the Lictors, 4 Warriors, and Zoanthropes in combat with Wytches on Turn 3 left on the board).

About the Hive Tyrant, I have been grossly unimpressed with him (at least with no Tyrant Guard). Every game, even with Venomthropes, he always dies on Turn 1. But with Tyrant Guard, I guess he would survive beyond Turn 1. Just those stupid guards are 60 points base.

The suggestion of Biovores I honestly thought of also, but everyone in my gaming group said they are one of the worst units in the Codex (especially the guy who played Tyranids for a while when the new Codex came out, he just gave up on them). But they do seem good against a mostly T3 army with low armor saves (or high in number) but I would like to build a list before I come down there and have no idea how Biovores work against other lists. Maybe that doesnt matter...

About the genestealers, another unit my gaming group says is worthless because they work off reserve (again, everyone thinks using reserves is the stupidest idea to ever do), I was thinking about Inflitrating them but all of the area cover was far away from his units or was within 18" (or 12" in sight) so I decided to Outflank, it was just all of his units was at the 17" to 18" mark and I rolled a 3 and 4 for fleet rolls. But about genestealers with no backup, what exactly do you mean by that? If you mean other Outflanking stuff, I really have no control over that (as it is a random dice roll). Really, the only reason I Outflank stuff is in hopes to get an assault off the turn they show up so they do not get just completely shot off the board.

About the Trygon/Mawloc, my Trygon came up on rare armor of a Ravager and it only destroyed a Dark Lance (between my rolls and his Flickerfield). The Mawloc covered 2 Raiders and 1 Ravager with 1 glance on the Ravager and 1 penatrating hit on a Raider. I think I rolled a 1 for the penatrating hit and the Ravager Flickerfielded the other. Ya, the Mawloc is been unimpressive as while the S6 AP3 large blast is nice, it just blows in combat (why did they remove the two sets of Scything Talons?) so I can see myself not playing them anymore. But the Trygon has also been very unimpressive for me. Tunneling for me has never resulted in me shooting and killing something and it just dies after that and running across the board, at least for the 3 games I have played, has also resulted in it just dying before getting to combat. So I am still up in the air about these two models...

About Old Adversary, I kinda feel that thing is a waste except for himself (and Tyrant Guard) as he moves slower than the rest of your army and most of my stuff has Scything Talons anyways. But I know the Tervigon giving FnP would be nice but in the situation I played against, it would have only mattered against his Splinter Cannons, Splinter Pistol, and Shard Carbines and while they do place lots of wounds against anything, at least I still get a 3+ save with most stuff, the FnP does nothing against Dark Lances and Power Weapons. But the extra Termagaunts as a way to shield others from getting into assault against Vect and Wytches, that would help.

Really, the list I built is generalized. 3 MCs with some shooting and templates, some S5 shooting from Warriors which then assaults the target they shoot at afterwards (which can also damage AV10 armor). Hormagaunts for just either piling in wounds or slowing down expensive close combat units. I played Lictors for the surprise later in the game that can pop transports from rear armor and getting a 3+ cover save. And while most disagree with me about Genestealers at my location, I like them. But I am unsure about what size to run them as. They tell me down here if you run them, you need to run in vary large squad sizes. The only issue is then I need to find more points from other locations to fill those in.

I would be happy with these changes to my list, baring points costs as I do not have my Codex with me:

Changing the other Warrior Squad to run exactly the same way as the Deathspitter squad. I liked the idea of multi-wound rending models but sense they do not have fleet, it hard to get them into combat without just getting blown out. Remove the Lictors for Hive Guard. Maybe removing the two Tyranid Primes for a Tyrant with Guard but then I would need to remove the Warriors as I think Deathspitters are not good without the +1BS from the Prime. Removing the Mawloc to get either another Tyrranofex, Trygon, or Biovores. The Zoanthropes, while I agree they are over-kill for Dark Eldar, are useful against other lists.

My suggestions (obviously you cannot do what everyone says at the same time)

-gargoyles are great, upgraded are better, and if you have a tyrant giving them preferred enemy they will pretty much maul anything.

-Feel no pain is an exceptional boost

-I dont really like warriors or tyrannofexes

-biovores can be excellent, you have to remember that EVERY TIME the template doesn't hit something they spawn a mine, mines get in the way and pretty much every shot is going to hit/kill /something/
Against blood claws or any model with rage, they are hilarious, they get in the way of infantry movement, and can cut down on options.
Alot of people complain that biovores are bad, as are any unit that you cant spam and win, you dont leave them behind, you take them along with your assault units, the guns are assault so why not? The soften up targets and are reasonably cheap if you aren't using the support slots. Against current meta (vehicle spam) they aren't the greatest if they can't drop bombs on infantry but as long as you remember to keep moving and dropping your mines they can be rather disruptive.

I was the DE player that Zyllos played against. Cover is the most important thing for 'Nids. Positioning is just so important that it will make or break you from the git-go. I don't care how many wounds your fat monsters have. There are two types of targets for my Dark Lances against 'Nids: Warriors and MC's. Dark Lances will chew through MC's very fast. So, to counter this, you can either not play them or fields tons of them (which is generally not good since 'Nids MCs got nerfed beyond redemption). Shooting Dark Lances at Warriors feels almost like cheating. In all honesty, everyone on here is right. DE is one tough matchup for 'Nids. But, I think a change in his list would help a ton. For example, 9 Hive Gaurd would help tremendously. I know they aren't the be all/end all answer but they would be an extremely good start. I like the Biovore idea too. However, if I played those, I would want to play all 9. All the other Heavy support in that codex sucks anyway. I have yet to actually play with 'Nids, but Genestealers don't look that bad to me. I know they catch a lot of flak on the Internet and at my gaming group, but they don't look that bad to me. And I would field a metric ton of Gargoyles with Toxin Sacs. Those guys are gross for how cheap they are. Aren't they like... 7 points with Toxin Sacs or some garbage? You realize how many of those you can field?! I know those aren't an answer to Dark Eldar transports, but I think they are pretty good nonetheless.

Gargoyles are a great addition, but they need to be in a fast moving list so they stay in synapse range. It's also worth giving them Adrenal glands AND toxin sacs. 8 points per bug, but they can now damage AV 10, as well as re-roll wounds against T4 on the turn they charge.

I would say something like:

Swarmlord
2 guard w/ lashwhips

2x Hive guard
2x Hive guard
2x Hive guard

15x stealers
15x stealers

20x gargoyles
Adrenal + Toxin

20x gargoyles
Adrenal + Toxin

Trygon

Trygon

3x Biovores

Now that comes in just under 2k. Swarmlord is in there for long range synapse. Genestealers infiltrate, everything else rushes. So now they can shoot your hive guard and try to knock out your ranged transport poppers, but the reality is if they stay still your genestealers will be on them turn 2, gargoyles turn 3 and hopefully the trygons turn 4. Meanwhile biovores sit back and just deal with the contents of each tranport you open.

@Lukus83;

Lovin' the list, but how in all buggery do you hold onto objectives? A Dark Eldar venom spam at this pts level could drop all of your scoring units in one turn of fire, and be out of range of retaliation from the hive guard. Not saying it's a bad list, quite the opposite in fact, but I am very interested to hear how you would deal with 108 poisoned shots coming at you T1.

Oh, and dark lances.

Yeah, big weakness right there. Possibly take out the biovores and throw in a small unit of gaunts to stay in reserve and come on later...or just table your opponent, lol.

Actually you could dump the Swarmlord. He's taking up a lot of points and in a list as fast as this I could see the Parasite having a use. Combine with a cheap Prime for hive guard synapse and you have just freed up a lot of points for more troops.

My personal opinion: Trygons aren't that good. And neither is the Swarmlord. Why not just play a Hive Tyrant?

What is it about trygons and the Swarmlord you don't like?

Granted the Swarmlord is slow and painfully expensive, but he adds utility, an extra wound and an extended synapse range. Like I mentioned above the Swamlord can be swapped out for a cheaper HQ if points are tight, but they won't be as useful...literally just synapse for the shooters.