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Hello Dakka!

I have recently started up a Nidz army, and there seems to be many mixed opinions amongst Nid players on which bugs are competitive, what builds are competitive and whether or not the army can stand up in todays tournaments.

So instead of talking to Nid players about what they think is scary, I wanted to ask the rest of the Dakka community what bugs (or Nid builds) they find difficult/scary to go up against.

Essentially I want you to picture yourself at a tourny, you've been told you're up against a Nid player, what Bugs/Build are you hoping not to see? (Or do you just think, "Yeah - a Nid player, this game's a gimme").

All thoughts from all quarters/armies encouraged an appreciated.

Eh, I would think the worst nid army to come across is one thats made entirely to fight the kind of army you're fielding. All mech army? Nids using heavy anti mech (lol as if they really had heavy antimech) can wreck you. Running infantry heavy? Well hope they don't go swarm heavy.

To be quite honest here, based on everything I've read and opinions that have been stated, the best thing for nids is gants with tervigon and tyrant support, and hive guards. Tyrant is based on how you want to run it. Flyrant? Use gargoyles to screen. Walking tyrant? Roll armored carapace and at least 2 tyrant guards. Everything thats not a hiveguard and is an elite choice is considered bad, because it's not a hive guard. Genestealers are ok, but you need to handle them delicately because if they find themselves in no mans land before CC they will drop fast and hard. Fexes are too expensive and generally regarded as do not use. Trygons are pretty good as CC monsters.

It's all about synergy with nids, everything must compliment something else or you WILL fail against an experienced opponent.

If your wondering what's the deal with hiveguard, they are pretty much required because the metagame is so mech heavy. You might think zoenthropes can do the job, but they are pretty unreliable with all the tests they have to take and pass just to hurt something. On the other hand, hivegaurds can shoot anything in range without LOS, and with 2 shots strong enough to pop just about anything (obviously taking out a monolith or raider isn't the easiest thing in the world, but transports tend to get popped well enough), and they also kill most infantry with one shot due to high strength.

Nids have really terrible antimech abilities. Oh and the tyrannofex is a bit too expensive.

Edit - Also, you must try to throw as many threats at your opponent at the same time as possible. This helps when dealing with people who know what a hivegaurd is capable of, and considers nuking them first.

Hiveguard
Boatload of Gaunts backed by a Tervi
Tyrannofex cannon.


What is the point limit of the Tourney?

As a guard Player I do not fear the nids.

Same goes as an Ork player.

As a SM/SW Player I have some... Concerns. That is mainly how to get enough shots down-range to table my opponent within Time/turn limits. My SW have an easier time at this due to Razor-spam(3 T-L Asscannons, 3 T-L Lascannons, Storm Bolter WG in most squads, and a fair number of Bolters: 4/squad + Plasma: 3 squads, I also take a Dakka Pred for additional anti-infantry). My SM has their Crusader, Tac-Termies, 3 Dreads(2 Asscannon/Storm bolter, 1 MM/HF), and gun-line. Even with all the fire-power I bring Hordes can be tricky.

Thanks for the responses so far...

@ Necroshea: Very comprehensive run-down. The only thought I'de initially want to throw out there is Ymgarl Genestealers for 1 elite slot. Although these guys won't necessarily scare every army out there, the ability to multi assault mech (using the Str 5 rending) or take out those long fangs (or equivalent) that are camping out of range of bugs might scare some players? Though I fully agree that Hive Guard are generally great (though AP 4? don't really bother MEQ that much...)

@ Retrias: Tyrannofex is a new one - I'm interested in trying it out, but it is a bit pricey... Currently playing 1,000 looking to increase to 1,500 in the near future

@ Kommissar Kel: Interesting, I would have thought Orks would be a good match up for Nidz, but I suppose it depends on the armies (and generals)... I agree that IG, especially leafblower probably wouldn't be too worried about most Nid armies, but surely the Hivemind has something to throw their way that they have trouble dealing with? (3 x 2 Hive Guard and 2 x 3 Biovores maybe?)

Please keep the comments coming, I'm really keen to learn this army inside out and want both my enemies thoughts as well as the thoughts of fellow Nid players.

a ton of basic genestealers with adrenal glands and a brood lord. sure 2-3 squads might die but not after wiping out some things.
plus outflanking fleet genestealers? bleh. I believe its only 170 points for a squad of 10 genestealers with adrenal glands. imo thats plenty cheap.

all the while you have some crazy monster creatures stomping down the middle while you have a genestealer infestation outflanking you.

that imo is a bloody battle ready to happen.

I don't care about swarms of little guys with some big creature supporting them. my basic marines still have a chance in close combat with them should shooting fail.
with genestealers all i have is shooting in CC i go to hell.

I'm a Tyranid player, but I know people willl always cringe when my 16 genestealers flank right beside their army. Especially if they can catch a unit near the board edge.

GamzaTheChaos wrote:a ton of basic genestealers with adrenal glands and a brood lord. sure 2-3 squads might die but not after wiping out some things.
plus outflanking fleet genestealers? bleh. I believe its only 170 points for a squad of 10 genestealers with adrenal glands. imo thats plenty cheap.

all the while you have some crazy monster creatures stomping down the middle while you have a genestealer infestation outflanking you.

that imo is a bloody battle ready to happen.

I don't care about swarms of little guys with some big creature supporting them. my basic marines still have a chance in close combat with them should shooting fail.
with genestealers all i have is shooting in CC i go to hell.

I think I'm a little bit biased towards genestealers. I mean, they are the embodiment of an obsidian dagger, meaning very lethal, but easy to break. Their stats are good, and there's no doubting their effectiveness is CC, but...damn they are ugly to me. I'm a fan of the overlapping chitin on nids, and genestealers without them are like a turtle without a shell to me, just ugly looking.

I'm serious, I have like...62 genestealers in plastic bags ready to be traded off, because I simply hate the way they look. If I could find an awesome looking conversion I would jump on the idea, but until then I simply refuse to field them, much less model and paint them.

I love Genestealers. All of my games, it would be a single squad of Outflanking GS with a BL that would make or break the game for me. They're always universally met with a "wtf" moment and are DEVASTATING if you get the right table edge (key to this is to goat your opponent towards both, as many tend to park tanks or heavy weapon squads near a corner, so you'll always have a target). I personally own 50 of the buggers and I still dont think it's enough. They're best ran au naturale though, as their points are not cheap for a 5+ armor save model, and adding only marginally increase their effectiveness, while (relatively) massively increasing their cost. The Broodlord is almost manditory for the points you pay. Hypnotic Gaze is devastating, especially with the BL's Leadership.

Nids are largely afraid of small arms fire. with an average of a 5+ save on almost everything bar MCs, even the humble boltgun will make ass of your day if you dont have cover. For Anti-tank work, you will need one of the monstrous creatures. Zoanthropes look good on paper, but in practice they will falter against Land Raiders, the only things you'll actually want to shoot with the S10 AP1 Lance power, as Land raiders can just fire both of it . Everything else has a low enough armor save to be handled by a squad of charging Genestealers or a MC whacking it in the rear armor. And Trygons are your friends.

Necroshea wrote:
I think I'm a little bit biased towards genestealers. I mean, they are the embodiment of an obsidian dagger, meaning very lethal, but easy to break. Their stats are good, and there's no doubting their effectiveness is CC, but...damn they are ugly to me. I'm a fan of the overlapping chitin on nids, and genestealers without them are like a turtle without a shell to me, just ugly looking.

I'm serious, I have like...62 genestealers in plastic bags ready to be traded off, because I simply hate the way they look. If I could find an awesome looking conversion I would jump on the idea, but until then I simply refuse to field them, much less model and paint them.

I'm with you on that one. Stealers have always seemed flat-out fugly to me. Now, ymgarl genestealers, those are a lot better...

I hate going up against things like this:

x2 Tyranid Primes with boneswords
2x3 hive Guard
2x4 Warriors with adrenal glands
4xX Ripper Swarms
x3 Trygon Prime

I went up against this.... SOOOO many wounds. The ripper swarms were just a distraction, and the hive guard popped my transports, trygons popped up behind me, warrior units wrecked face everywhere... it was horrible

Boba Fex wrote:I'm with you on that one. Stealers have always seemed flat-out fugly to me. Now, ymgarl genestealers, those are a lot better...

I don't follow. Ymgarl's look like standard stealers, but have feeder tendril heads if im not mistaken. The heads are a definite improvement over the original heads, but the rest of the model is still damn ugly

Infiltrating genestealers took out my defiler in my first match vs. nids, so I keep an eye out for them, but carnifexes don't scare me, khorne lord + 10 khorne bezerkers w. skull champ FTW!

Necroshea wrote:

Boba Fex wrote:I'm with you on that one. Stealers have always seemed flat-out fugly to me. Now, ymgarl genestealers, those are a lot better...

I don't follow. Ymgarl's look like standard stealers, but have feeder tendril heads if im not mistaken. The heads are a definite improvement over the original heads, but the rest of the model is still damn ugly

Ha, sorry, should have clarified more. The ugliest part of a 'stealer, to me, is the head. The body is meh. Plus when I picture the ymgarls, I tend to think of the ones with the big shoulder pad looking armor (can't find a pic). So IMO the ymgarl stealers are, at least somewhat, better.

Hive guard, thropes, Tfex's, tervies and trygon primes all get shot as quickly as possible.

Along with any synapse if they run plenty of gaunts.

So at the moment, it sounds like the 'Stealers and Hive Guard have it for the scariest bugs (at least for their points).

The Tfex (surprisingly?), Tevigon and Trygon also get a mention above the rest, though don't seem as prominent as the top two.

I'm a bit surprised the Ymgarl's don't scare people as much, though I suppose they might either a) fall into the same group as 'Stealers, or b) considered fine, as long as that means less Hive Guard - go for it!

Any more comments on what Bugs scare you?

I miss the old codex, when the carnifex was the scary bug, it was fun having six of them.

Nobody - Even the cheap screamer killer fex was nasty.
Also, they had EW back then if you were in synapse, something they need back.

The Tfex (surprisingly?), Tevigon and Trygon also get a mention above the rest, though don't seem as prominent as the top two.

I'm a bit surprised the Ymgarl's don't scare people as much, though I suppose they might either a) fall into the same group as 'Stealers, or b) considered fine, as long as that means less Hive Guard - go for it!

The Tfex has a S10 assault 2 cannon, thats pretty nasty against armour.
Tervigon can lock off an objective by sitting on it and spawning FNP gant shields. (also gives enough throw away units to be a problem)
Trygon, how would it not be a problem? Fastest MC in the book sans a flyrant, tons of attacks and overall, great stats.
Not to mention it can bring units in behind it.

Ymgarls are far too costly to make them a reliable unit.
Saves alone wont keep them alive, and since you cant take the same thing twice in a row, you cant tailor them in combat to fight how you need them.
Not to mention they take up elites which generally are for hives and thropes.

Mawloc can work as a really big fire magnet, especially when it just ate the opponents LFs or HWS .

Ymgarls are intimidating because they keep your opponent in the open and away from cover, leaving them open to heavy gaunt fire, but also lose you some HG.

Trygon is really popular, as it is a big scary monster that adds shooting and powerful CC to your nids. It will either draw fire from the rest of your army or just wreck face when it hits your opponent.

The Carnie's only useful loadout is 2 TL devourers, and even then is not that great. This bug is a rare sight now.

Tervigon has got to be one of the best units in the dex, and can spawn mass upgraded gaunts and give units FNP thanks to Catalyst. The ability to be a troops choice and sit on objectives is great as well.

T-fexes are ok, but very expensive and tend to rarely pay back points, as well as lacking synergy with most nid builds.

HG are your anti-mech, the only AT in the book really. Zoeys just don't cut it anymore thanks to the amount of hoods on the boards these days.

Hope that helps!

Mr Nobody wrote:

I miss the old codex, when the carnifex was the scary bug, it was fun having six of them.

Yeah, when I first got into nidz, I originally wanted to go with 2 Trygons and a brood of 2 Carnifexes because I loved the models. After reading the dex though, settled on the Trygon. May get some fex's later to convert into Tervy's if the rumoured new models don't sound like they're coming out soon enough for my liking.

Jackal wrote:

The Tfex has a S10 assault 2 cannon, thats pretty nasty against armour.
Tervigon can lock off an objective by sitting on it and spawning FNP gant shields. (also gives enough throw away units to be a problem)
Trygon, how would it not be a problem? Fastest MC in the book sans a flyrant, tons of attacks and overall, great stats.
Not to mention it can bring units in behind it.

Ymgarls are far too costly to make them a reliable unit.
Saves alone wont keep them alive, and since you cant take the same thing twice in a row, you cant tailor them in combat to fight how you need them.
Not to mention they take up elites which generally are for hives and thropes.

Agree on all accounts. I suppose I just think the Tfex is also a bit expensive, and probably just like the 'idea' of the Ymgarls to be honest...though I think in groups of 5 they could be a good answer to Long Fang spam (charge in on appearance with additional toughness to stay in combat until opponents turn, then go with additional attacks to finish off in their turn so they can't shoot you. Repeat.) - Nice in theory, but will have to trial it to see if it actually works, and would prob require you to find some additional AT on top of your 2 Hive Guard broods...

Thanks for all the comments people - I think this is really helpful (and I hope other Nid players find it helpful too!).

Of course the Tfex is expensive mate
T6, W6, 2+

Keep in mind it doesent end there though.
Take cluster spines and desiccator larvae for free.
You then have something that can blast chunks out of armour with relative ease, and since it cant fight all that well, you have a large blast and template weapon you can fire.

Failing that, dont upgrade its gun and keep acid spray.
You then have 2 template weapons (one with more range) and a large blast to choose from.
Not its best use, but still amusing.

Again, but this time taking a borer hive.
However, this time you have an assault 20 weapon, a large blast and a template.



The last 2 arent the best builds, but they are still pretty amusing to use.

Yeah - I think if I did take it I would have to go with the rupture cannon.

It might actually be worth even more these days with GK and DE codexes just coming out, just for the extra heavy hitting range and the 2+ save vs the DE poison spam.

Trygons are definately one of the more psychologically scary things in the book. Having a MC with 6 wounds, rerolls to hit, S6 and a gun deepstrike ANYWHERE without mishap (unless you go off table) was scary enough to cause my friend to charge his entire 1000 point necron army at it. Predictably he lost, because he realised I could catch him on the run and he would not get WBB. Against veteran players they dont do much, but against inexperienced ones, they can be pretty damn scary when they do come.