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A friend of mine is going to be building an army of 'nids at the same time as I build up my BA army. He says that my planned list doesn't have enough shooting capabilities, and that I'll die to any Tau army, and that I "need" shooting to take on units such as TEQ and MCs. My list:

HQ: Libby w/ Jump pack, Shield/Lance: 125
Honor Guard w/ Jump Packs, 4x meltagun: 205

Elites: 3x Priest w/ Jump Pack

Troops:
3x 10 man Assault squads w/ 2x meltaguns, powerfists: 235 each (705)

Fast Attack: Vanguard Vet squad (5) w/ 4x Pw, Sergeant has PF: 235

I'm thinking about putting flamers and a PW in one assault squad, then using the remaining points to put plasma guns on the Honor Guard in place of the meltas. Good or bad idea?

Edit: Forgot to add about what I'd be up against. He says he's going to pour as many points into Mawlocs/Trygons as he can, and then fill the rest with an HQ and Genestealers.

Edit #2: forgot to add why this is scary. He says he's going to wait until I land my assault squads, then kill them with the Mawlocs. I'm not totally sure that it would work out exactly that way, but he seems adamant. Is this really a threat?

If you have a few power weapons/lascannons/meltaguns (and it appears that you do!), I wouldn't worry about the big bugs too much. Genestealers are scary (I use them to great effect!) but if you shoot them, they will die. Quickly.

Don't know too much about diversification in the list, just what I fear as a nids player. Take away his armor saves and/or hit the bugs with high STR weapons and they won't last long.

Your guys will win in assaults vs his troops, always remember that.
Keep the melta-guns in the Honor Guards, they are better at killing MCs and more importantly, warriors or the Doom of Malanti
Drop the Vanguard Vets, and replace them with Drop Pod Sternguards. Their hellfire rounds do wonders.
Your bolt pistols and assaults will destroy the genestealers. There is no need for flamers.
The whole Mawlocs thing is overdid, as that tactic will only work for less than 40% of your squads.
Drop lance for Sword, it is way better.

Alternatively, you could field a different type of list, one that focuses on METAL BOXES!!!

stick all you squads in fast razorbacks and baal preds.

Overall, it seems like your friend is bragging alot about his new army. Nids are not that great, and I would rather face off against them anytime in a Tournament.

But he'd just buy a Chaos army and take away my Metal Bawkses. I think that Steal Rehn is a great idea, as long as you give a suitable speech to your "Battel Brodahs! Spess Mehrins!"

Edit: I haven't read the codex, but Gw's site has the 'stealers at WS 6. That seems a bit much for a WS 4 Spess Mehrin.

Re-edit: Nvm, just looked up the rulebook page. WS 4 vs WS 6 has me hitting on 4+.

With the near impossibility of getting cover saves for Mawlocs, a meltagun heavy BA army will shred them. Since your army is more maneuverable, and he's claiming to be playing a low firepower army, just drop early and out of his assault range.

Either he'll back off to get out of the murder hole you've created, or he'll rush at you mindlessly. If he backs off, go find something else to murder. If he rushes you, assault the lead elements. Don't ever forget to multiassault whenever possible against Tyranids. If you can butcher eight to ten termagants while in combat with the Mawloc, he won't be able to do enough damage back to win the combat and just may lose the MC to the No Retreat wounds.

Also, bear in mind that genestealers and mawlocs don't have assault grenades. If you can force him to assault through difficult terrain, you'll be swinging your powerfist at his initiative, and swinging all your ASM before him.

On the other hand, there are fifteen billion hypotheticals that end with the complete annihilation of your army. When in doubt, play. YMMV.

I like my honour guard with plasma guns just for these scenarios. They will give the ability to shoot and not be charged.*
Someone just said BA troops will kill 'nid troops which I really fail to believe, exception being tervigon. They will hit before you with toxin sacs and rending claws.
Also never drop pod against 'nids, that is what they want you to do, even with sternguard.
The monsters you should be ok with.
I would usually take the classic powerweapon and 2 flamers assault squad to give one squad some antiinfantry capabilities.*
Multiassault with monsters and swarms is plain funny and slightly broken.

You have to boxing clever against this army, actually I think DoA always need to be, but you should ok if you pick you fights carefully and in numbers.
The numbers is especially important as you want to take out whole synapse creatures rather than a few wounds off many, also it will prevent them swarming you if you block the way with 20 not 10 men.

*actual changes thus answering the given question.

Meltaguns will deal with big gribbles, flamers will deal with hordes.

A Furioso with Blood Talons will hurt him as well.

Or, join up with the Necrons. Mat Ward can do it, why can't us reletivly normal people.

Death Company! We need Death Company! Astorath, Death Company and DC Dreads with Blood Talons!
Also, the whole point is Blood Angels don't spend all their time shooting. This is why all their transports are fast or can deep strike, assault squads are troops,and they get discounts on transport.
Honestly, if he says you can't face off against Tau, he really doesn't know BA.

I just got an updated list from him. it'll go along the lines of:

HQ: Hive tyrant w/ ?

Troops:
30x TermaGaunts w/ ?
30x Hormagaunts w/ ?
10x 'stealers w/ ?


Elite:
Lictor w/ pheromones, ?
Lictor w/ pheromones, ?

Heavy:
2x Carnifex w/ mycetic spore, ?
Trygon w/ ?
Mawloc w/ ?

Not really sure about the extra stuff he's giving his units. He plans to put one objective in the corner of his deployment zone, and put the tyrant on it to make sure I don't go near it. Then, infiltrate the lictors and stealers in my deployment zone, and put them on the objective there. Deep strike the 'fexes near the lictors, then pop the diggers up underneath my troops. Follow with a wave of gaunts to mop up. I can see a few flaws in his plan, and I'm not sure about his synapse creatures. I'm reasonably sure that the only one is the Tyrant.

*I have no idea of the wargear/ mutations he's taking, other than spores and pheromones.

He can't take 2 Carnifex with spores - you can only take a spore if you have a single carnifex in the brood. He could take 2 broods and 2 spores, but he'd have to drop one of his other HS choices. He could make the Trygon a synapse creature - but with only those two having Synapse, everything will be out of synapse (besides the stealers) PDQ. That is a pretty horrible list - especially since he has nothing to deal with vehicles outside of CC.

Right. Stealers get blasted in every single game I play V 'nids, and if he's sticking it to you in close combat he doesn't realise most of the time he's not going to be able to assault or hit you, due to your fast type Rhino variants (Which don't exist).
Trygons can be scary (Why can a huge bug shoot 12 shots from some hidden weapon?) but a common mistake is leaving them in line of fire. Infernus pistols and meltaguns will mop them up really quickly.
Never played V Mawlocs though.
Honestly, if you want an assault army throw in some DC. I've got a 5 man unit and in total they can churn out 20 attacks on the charge, alongside I 5, Str 5, WS 5 and FNP. Against 'nids this many hardcore attacks will slaughter A LOT.
Pretty sure it's cheating putting an objective in a deployment zone.

Well, he isn't really that good at the game, as far as I can tell, but he has the advantage of experience. Unfortunately, he designs army lists that would only work if he rolled all ones for leadership and all sixes for everything else. Which he wont. That's one of the reasons I'm asking for advice on dakka. His tactics work, but only on paper, in a perfect world.

And as for the carnifexes w/ spores, I don't even think he has the codex yet. Just some old models he couldn't sell when he switched his army for the fourth or fifth time.

Edit: also, any suggestions to help his list building skills. Not that he'll listen, but I feel obligated to save him from himself.

Edit 2: disregard that. He is unable to comprehend that anyone on the internet could *possibly* have anything worthwhile to say, that would *possibly* be better advice than his.

That list is terrible.

Flamers for the little bugs - I've lost 12-15 termagants to one squad with flamers before, in one shooting phase. If you hit a bug swarm with 8 wounds (super easy), and they're out of synapse... they will likely run.

Kill the stealers with guns, that's easy. Stay out of combat with them if you can

Lictors are so much fun (I have several myself) but they are almost useless. In combat, they're sort of mediocre... they can't assault from deep strike. Shoot them, they'll die. They have 5+ armour and are T4.

The big bugs... without cover saves, they'll die to your power weapons and big guns. Speaking of which, the Tyrant should die quickly without a tyrant guard to give him cover.

Make sure he rolls his instinctive behaviour rolls, he might 'forget' to. No one should bring that few synapse bugs, and he might be banking on you forgetting about IB rolls.

Good luck!

He's kind of not as good at list building as he thinks. I tried to explain the flaws in his list, but he just argued something about: "lictors are monsters and they ignore armour... Trygons are monsters and they ignore armour... Mawlocs will kill your whole unit in CC by popping up under them... you can't see my lictors... my little bugs will totally not run away...

I didn't even bother trying to explain synapse, as I'm "inexperienced", and therefore have [sarcasm] no clue what I'm talking about [/sarcasm].

Any ideas about taking on his flawed logic? He basically says that "you need to do well in all phases." I can understand this (sort of), but isn't it better to kill 25 units in assault, than to kill 10 in assault and 10 in shooting?

usually not actually

against most armies, it is best to mulch a unit down to 1 or 2 models in close combat and be stuck in close combat (and unshootable) in the opponents turn.

as for BA vs Tyranids, its an unhill battle. depending on how many trygons and mc's you have to deal with.

If worse comes to worse, try and bring down several assault squads onto one at a time, in order to carry the day you really need to kill them before they murder too many marines or tyranids will win by attrition.

nkon117 wrote: "lictors are monsters and they ignore armour...

No, they're not.

Trygons are monsters and they ignore armour...

True statement.

Mawlocs will kill your whole unit in CC by popping up under them...

... Sort of.

you can't see my lictors...

... what?

my little bugs will totally not run away...

...

Dude REALLY needs to buy a codex.

Any ideas about taking on his flawed logic? He basically says that "you need to do well in all phases." I can understand this (sort of), but isn't it better to kill 25 units in assault, than to kill 10 in assault and 10 in shooting?

The point is usually that if you're 100% reliant on CC, you'll get shot to hell on the way in and not actually "kill 25 units in assault". If you have the ability to kill some in shooting and some in assault, that's a more reliable build.

I managed to get through to him that a generally low ranged shooting is not a big downside if you have FC/FNP. Also, I'm thinking of dropping meltas and PF on one squad, to put in flamers/ Pw, Using the left over points to upgrade the honour guard to plasma guns. They're not going to assault off of deep strike, so I might as well shoot the feth out of something.

i play nids, and marines, with my marines i played against blood angels, he had something like 2 stormravens, 2 dreads, assault squad with priest thingie, death comp. and mephiston. in turn five i had only an immobilized rhino without weapons left.... and my list was quite well, i thought... morale: stormraven is killingly fast, mephiston is another threat and with what he has he surely must be able to kill some lictor sized guys, and death comp. is perfect is guess. and to the tyranid player: get a prime, 2x 20 gene's, some hormagaunts, 2 trygons ipv mawloc's and carni's and maybe a tervigon spawning some more scoring units while the rest does omnomnom :p hope this helps

nkon117 wrote:"lictors are monsters and they ignore armour... Trygons are monsters and they ignore armour... Mawlocs will kill your whole unit in CC by popping up under them... you can't see my lictors... my little bugs will totally not run away...

Lictors have rending, which sometimes ignores armour. sometimes. It's not something to rely on. Also, lictors do not have the night fight rule, only Deathleaper has that.

Odds are that his little guys will take off once shot at. I think you'll do OK.

Ok, thanks. He has more experience in WHFB, but switches his army every so often, and so he isn't as good as he thinks he is at each army.

Edit: Btw, is it acceptable to use a hand flamer as a flamer if I don't give the model a chainsword, and clearly state what I intend it to be used as? For some reason, GW doesn't sell flamers, but does sell meltas and plasmaguns.

Just wanted to thank you guys for all the help on tailoring my list to beat his, but it turns out that my beating some common sense into him backfired: He's switching to Vanilla Marines. No advice is needed against them, as he will most likely switch for something else within a week. The advice I've got from dakka has killed at least four of his army ideas now, lol.

Most of the advice can be boiled down to "He needs to buy a codex."

Mephiston is great at killing big bugs. Ironically I play 2 armies; BA and nids!
my stealers are very nasty and are deadly in assault so shoot them quickly (even a few bolt pistols with a few flamers will take care of them. Also dreads with talons are great against tyrants and sub str 7 guys (can't damage him!).
gaunts are like flys, you could wack them with the handle of a chainsword and they die. Be careful with DC, he can draw them away with a 'fex and they will die!
Careful of deathleaper, he can appaer anywhere then dissapear ... he's great at assasinating captains, libbys, etc and great at getting rippers to deep strike onto any objective!

When I faced this they used two brain bugs, put a template on my terminators and only the Sgt. was left. Then the Stealers came behind my static forse and that was over so fast. I never landed any MM shots or ML shots, so lets just say I should have ended the game turn 3 but I let it play out till all I had left was one dreadnaught.

Had my deepstrike gotten closer then I might had had a chance. Moral of the story, keep your distance from the MC and line of sight them to kill them. Beware the stealers at your back door. And no worries on those monkeys with thier 5+ armor, toughness 4.... BA pone those monkeys.