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Hi all

To begin with my most common opponent in warhammer is Tyranids, most notably a 100% null-deployment nid player.
Now I was trawling the internet for little tips and hints on how to maximise my dark Eldar when suddenly I realised a pattern. Nearly every post about Tyranids v's DE was always going on about how DE unfairly obliterate 'nids in every engagement their in.
I started to think about it and in my current games, against mentioned Nid player, we both have about a 50% chance of winning the game which in honesty is something I really like as the battle near the end always come down to less than 5 troops which is both fun and tense.

So what I am wondering is how do Dark Eldar obliterate Tyranids as it seems that the majority of the internet makes it sound like I should be steam rolling nids in every game. I mean I don't want to win more or less than I do now as currently we have evened out in ability, it's just I am curious as to why a lot of people say that DE should decimate nids in the field.

From what I can kinda work out myself is that...
-Nids have nearly no invuls so flesh gauntlets/lances and disintegrators tear into Tyrants and warriors.
-Poisoned weapons decimate nearly all nids
-Pain tokens from spore (don't do this myself but its RAW so guess it can be included)
-DE have abundance of S8 weaponry to pop those multi-wound non-mc's

Now those are good advantages I will agree but most benefits are shooting phase, and null deployment enables shooting-free Tyranids assaults. So is null-deployment the Achilles heel to Eldar? or is there a dark Eldar strength I am missing?

poisoned weps... nuff said

Not just poisoned weapons. A whole lot of poison weapons

Quickly.

That and dark lances go through anything the 'nids have.

I count 4 people who did not read the OP.

At the OPer: What does the Nid player run? Null deployment lists often rely solely on units that can be reserved and either Outflank or Deep Strike, but any units that don't would be nice to know, as well as how many units he has able to boost reserve rolls etc.

Nids struggle to pop vehicles via shooting, and DE lists tend to be fully mechanized.

While a null-deploying Nid player may get to assault when he comes in, you should be able to make him hit on a 6. Plus you have a huge range advantage against Nid lists that take the most common anti-vehicle stuff: Hive Guard and Zoanthropes. Other stuff, like Carnifexes and Tyrannofexes, are far too expensive when there are Venom Cannons all over the place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OP, out of curiosity, could you post both lists?

He can't assault from Deep Strike (with any units) so the only assaults would be coming from outflankers... and if you can't figure out to avoid those assaults, there's something wrong.

I've run null deployment nid lists and while they're somewhat fun, there's no way to get into assault without getting shot at least once.

By being speedy and shooting from Raiders while running away at top speed. Take Shredders, splinter cannons, and splinter racks, then shoot the 'Nids to death; poisoned weapons means you shouldn't have to worry about Monstrous Creatures.

Poison weapons will decimate Nids...

High T means nothing against venom spam and Wracks....

The only sticking point i've had with DE vs Nid has been the pure horde armies.

MC spam dies nastily to DE, and unfortunately almost all the good powerful units in the Nid Dex (the tank/artillery equivilents) are MC's or High T.

There are good infantry units. Devourergaunts can be vicious if they can volley on you, for example, but most Nid all-comers lists will have some big, potent High T MC's , which DE excel in killing.

DE don't do massed firepower as well though (barring specially kitted out units for that purpose) , and can be overwhelmed by swarm-tides, unless they can keep mobile.

Yes it would be interesting to know his list.
From what I read, a hord-style+ null-deployment nids army will be less vulnerable to the DE shooting than ay other type of nids army, but it iis still a uphill batte for the nids player

I could see having a problem with this list... it'd be interesting anyway.



Tyrant outflanks the Hormagaunts (who can glance the paper planes on a charge) everyone either deep strikes or outflanks, completely horde army... just over 100 models at 1850. Heck, every model can at least glance a paper plane.

If you're tailoring to DE instead of even a partially all-comers list, drop the zoeys for Ymgarl Genestealers - more models and they're pretty awesome in CC.

Well I just run witches (2 squads of 5) and kabalites (two squads of 10 with blasters and cannon) in transports (venoms raiders) with ravager and razorwing support. Sliscus and archon as hq's. I don't run incubi anymore as genestealer rending hurts them quite bad.

Tyranid guy is.

Deepstriking hive tyrant (wings, lashwhip and bonesword)
Outflank warriors (hive commander special rule)
He pods in the doom plus another pod with two Zoans.
Than the rest are just outflanking genesteale squads. (two of them, about 8-12 each)

Finally there is either a mawlock or trygon (varies each game)

I guess I need to move my transports around the game more as currently I just move 12" but not directly away from the enemy.

My general response to null deployment armies (of any kind) is to try to go second....and then not deploy myself.

But my usual 2000 pts includes 20 wyches, 40 warriors, 5 incubi, an Archon, 7 Raiders, 2 DL Ravagers, and 1 Dissy Ravager. Outflankers etc that come on without anything to attack have a bad day.

Ascalam wrote:

DE don't do massed firepower as well though (barring specially kitted out units for that purpose) , and can be overwhelmed by swarm-tides, unless they can keep mobile.

Thats because DE players choose not to. There are lots of potent options along those lines:
20 man warrior squads w/ 2 Splinter Cannons (add Shredder just for the lolz)
10 man Scourge squad w/ 4 Splinter Cannons (or Shredders just for the lolz and cuz its cheaper)
Large units of Hellions
Kabalite Trueborn w/... I think you get the point

Problem is mech meta has convinced players that they need to fit as many cheap S7/S8 weapons into their lists as possible at the expense of pretty much all else.

Well I just run witches (2 squads of 5) and kabalites (two squads of 10 with blasters and cannon) in transports (venoms raiders) with ravager and razorwing support. Sliscus and archon as hq's. I don't run incubi anymore as genestealer rending hurts them quite bad.

Tyranid guy is.

Deepstriking hive tyrant (wings, lashwhip and bonesword)
Outflank warriors (hive commander special rule)
He pods in the doom plus another pod with two Zoans.
Than the rest are just outflanking genesteale squads. (two of them, about 8-12 each)

Finally there is either a mawlock or trygon (varies each game)

I guess I need to move my transports around the game more as currently I just move 12" but not directly away from the enemy.

What you need to do is keep your units towards the center of the board. This means the Doom is going to have a field day, but at least you dont have to worry about the Genestealers hitting you the turn they come in, likewise the warriors are going to be in a tough spot.

I'm aware of that I did mention 'barring specially kitted out units' like the one you mentioned

You just don't tend to see them in all-comers lists, as you'd be expecting mech-everything, like you said....

Against several hundred gaunts bombing along downtable even those units can be insufficient. It's kind of the same thing with a Green Tide.

No matter how many shots you pump out, there will still be some that reach you, and when they do DE boats and armour are paper, and T3 sucks (though PFP can help a bit with this )

That many models can severely reduce the DE's strongest suit, mobility. They can literally blanket the battlefield with bodies, leaving precious few places to park yourself that you'd want to be.

I've done this with orks VS DE, and seen it done with nids, despite a splinter cannon heavy force.

several things:

A MC's main defense is not it's armor, it's the T6. That's why poisoned weapons are scary.
Re-rolls to wound tears through little guys. that's why poisoned weapons are scary.
If that tyrannofex or whatever simply refuses to fail a save, you have dark lances.
your CC units are faster than theirs most of the time, and if you can make them come to you through a hail of poisoned weapons, and assault through cover, you're doing it right.
if you move your transports 12", (and you can afford to do this b/c you're fast) they need 6's to hit, and flickerfields or whatever they're called can negate some of the stray hits that peg you.

SnaleKing wrote:
Re-rolls to wound tears through little guys. that's why poisoned weapons are scary.

Sadly most if not all Poison Guns DE carry have no S values. And only units leaders have poison CC weapons besides wracks

I play Nids as my primary army, and the simple answer to your question is venoms.

Not sure what points you're running, but sounds like 1-1.5k?

At 1.5k, a DE player can have 8 venoms all with double cannons, three of them with trueborn with blasters and three ravagers.

That's 96 poison shots (all of which ignore stealer armour btw), 9 dark lance shots and about 9 blaster shots...

Against a typical nid list, poison will kill all Hive Guard on turn 1 (unless the nid player got T1 and gave them all FnP), and drop 1 monstrous creature (usually a Tervy), all at 36" range.

If the nid player is playing null deployment, all DE vehicles can be flat out and off the edges of the board on T2, making it:
a) hard to deep strike that tyrant without mishap/going off the board
b) hard to assault off the flank (but even if you do you're at 6's to hit with a 5+ flicker field save)
c) coming in piecemeal
d) all vehicles have 4+ flat out saves

The DE player then proceeds to wipe the Nid units off the board as they arrive.

If a nid player tailors his list specifically for DE, they start to get a more even chance of defeating a list like this, however it starts getting away from an all-comers list, whilst the venom spam list is well suited as an all-comers list (read Batt reps by Mercer).

So yeah - a tough one for nids, though if you as the DE player are unlucky in your turn, a good Nid list can also bring down DE very fast...

Ascalam wrote:I'm aware of that I did mention 'barring specially kitted out units' like the one you mentioned

You just don't tend to see them in all-comers lists, as you'd be expecting mech-everything, like you said....

Against several hundred gaunts bombing along downtable even those units can be insufficient. It's kind of the same thing with a Green Tide.

No matter how many shots you pump out, there will still be some that reach you, and when they do DE boats and armour are paper, and T3 sucks (though PFP can help a bit with this )

That many models can severely reduce the DE's strongest suit, mobility. They can literally blanket the battlefield with bodies, leaving precious few places to park yourself that you'd want to be.

I've done this with orks VS DE, and seen it done with nids, despite a splinter cannon heavy force.

I wouldnt really consider it a specially kitted unit, at least for me. I try to include at least one "death to all infantry" unit like that in pretty much all my lists. Every list has infantry, so you cant go wrong with it, and in most cases your anti-mech options will be overabundant and underutilized, so you won't seriously suffer from missing a blaster/darklance or whatever, and sometimes... your best bet for destroying the unit of terminators that just fell out of that smoking hulk of a landraider is a ridiculous number of shots rather than a small handful of low ap ones... If you're worried about mobility though, you can take a warrior squad w/ shredder and splinter cannon in a raider with splinter racks or whatever they're called. Statistically the math kinda balances out and it works out to be roughly as good as the 20 man unit from all the rerolls (plus you're more likely to be in close range of the target).

Fair enough

I tend to run across lists that are all tanks (IG for example) with very very few troops (the minimum to allow that many tanks), Mekbash Orks (only non-machines are the 2 big meks), and Space Marines that hide everything in LR's, usually in termie armour.

Generally i have enough firepower from my warriors and venoms/razorwing/etc to gun down the very few actual warm bodies that survive having their heavy armoured rides destroyed, but the mech meta gets pretty extreme.

I usually have a raider 'cleanup crew' with a disintegrator, and kabalites/trueborn aboard with splinter cannons, shredders etc

I would consider a 'mutilate all infantry' unit to be specially kitted out though They are great at frying infantry, but useless for anything else

Wow, I feel for you and your meta man, that sounds harsh in the extreme O_O.

Yeah, it can be a bit of a git, unless i assume i'm tankhunting near exclusively.

It can be hilarious when i take my orks and deffrolla the parking lots though

Does anyone else read "ascalam" as "assclam"?


....or am i just weird ?

Hey, i type it that way myself sometimes, though that's not how it was intended

Ascalam from black ascalam- a drug mentioned in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series

I like how the OP has good, close fought battles against Nids, but come here to learn how table them easy-mode. That's the spirit!

On a more serious note, null deployment is probably the best Nid strategy against DE.