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Hi All

i've just swapped my beastmen for some nids, last night I had a quick look at what I got. Now what i've got as far as I can tell (wysiwyg) is as follows:

15 termagaunts - fleshborers
15 hormagaunt
19 Genestealers - rending claws
8 Genestealers - rending claws and Sything talons
Warrior - rending claws and sything talons
3 Warriors - Sything talons and deathspitters
Warrior - Sything talons and devourer
Warrior - Sything talons and venom cannon
Carnifex - Two sets of sything talons
Carnifex - Sything talons & crushing claws
Trygon
Trygon Prime (I think)

Now if i'm right, had to use the codex pics to guess the weapons on some of them, this comes to about 1554 points with no other upgrades like adrenal glands. I seem to be missing an HQ unless one of the warriors is a prime, but does anyone have any suggestions fro rounding out this list.

thanks
spank

I see you have nothing to fill an Elite slot, and the elite slot is the only place where you can really get any long range anti tank.
As such, either Hive Guard or Zoanthropes are absolutely necessary. Hive Guard are more reliable (Tougher to kill, more shots, don't need LoS).
Even at 1000 points or less, 2 squads of 2 Hive Guard are generally considered to be a minimum. If you can't get hold of any more models, I've used warriors with Venom Cannons as Hive Guard.
I'd advise using the Carnifexes as Tervigons, as after Hive Guard, these guys are arguably the best units in the codex.

Try taking the Tervigon as a HQ until you get more termagants.

Elite slot: Hive Guard or Zoanthropes, to your liking. (I'm also a big personal fan of the Ymgarl Stealers and Doom of Malan'Tai, but they are generally less reliable, and more ballsy fun)

Troops: Genestealers are great. Give them Toxin Sacs and either outflank or infiltrate. Broodlords are a pretty good investment against special characters too.
If you can get hold of more Termagants, you can run Tervigons as troops, which makes them scoring units, who produce yet more scoring units. Incredibly useful.
Warriors are versatile, and have alot of upgrade options, but they aren't very reliable. Even with 3 wounds each, they die pretty easily. Whether or not you use them depends on whether or not you want to play competitive or casual.

Heavy: Trygons are great. Run 2 of them (I usually run 2 ordinary Trygons without upgrades, but adrenal glands are a cheap enough investment and really help against heavier tanks)

Hope this helps.

Hey spankz, the dude with the giant talons is a prime. Ymgarls, as you know are a complete fething doom cannon.

@ Lorna: Yeah i'm not sure about them, the Ymgarls are fun and i'll probably will get some but as the morph rules only last the assault phase they seem a little like one trick ponies. I can see me using a squad of them but not more thn that as the compete with theother elite options.

@Hoernakek: thanks for the detailed response, it most appreciated.

I've heard about the importance of hive guard quite a bit and realise that them a Zoan represent the majority of the nid shooting.

I had planned on getting a Tervigon, but I do like the fex and i'm a sucker for WYWSIYG so won't be representing anything.

Now i'm new to nids (as the title suggests) and have only played against them a dozen times (Lorna got to be about that right?) so I may be way off base with this, but from looking a the codex and lurking in a few threads it's clear that their main weakness is ranged anti tank. It seems to me that they should be run in a similar manner to orks, rather than trying to make do with average shooting it surely make more sense to focus on combat and close the gap.

Now I know this isn't always easy given that most games seem to lack sufficent terrain but I've seen ork players overcome this in a number of ways.

Distracting units like deffakopta get up in the other players face allowing the rest of the horde to move forwards, wouldn't gargoyles be able to do comething similar.

Kommando's causing havoc from behind, stealers can to the same job.

Or just the good old fashioned meatshield.

I was thinking this over and would like peoples opinion, 3 bog basic fex with a venomtrope and a tervigon following, that's three high T models with 3+ armor, 5+ cover and feel no pain, sort of a nid version of a can wall.

It does work.

You got the amount of times played right, but it was never against a different list. T-Fexs are nice, but can be killed in a round of shooting.

Hive guard are about the best anti-tank in the book.

Infiltrating and outflanking, the stealers with broodlord is kinda disgusting.

The Tervigons aren't a bad idea, but you need massive amounts of termagant models or you lose out. They generate, on average, 10.5 gants a turn....each.

One way to run the 'Nids is as a giant "Fist". You place your termagants in front, right on the edge of your deployment, then Hive Guard behind, and your Tervigons behind those. Essentially, this creates a cover save for each of your units, as gants will screen Hive Guard, the Hive guard cover 50% of your tervigon, and the Tervigon provides FnP to the gants, making target priority very cyclical and difficult for your opponent.

On one hand, the termagants are going to be nasty in close combat if you don't kill them off, due to Tervigon buffing (please for the love of god give him adrenal glands&toxin sacs). On the other, the Hive Guard are going to de-mech you fast if you don't kill them. But they're T6 W2 and have 4+ armor/cover, so they're not going anywhere fast. On the other other hand, the Tervigon is making your termagants pretty darn powerful, and if he's nearby, he can make your termagants able to decommission a rhino with s4 on the charge.

This is the basis of most lists I play; however I recently experimented with zoanthropes walking up the board in front of the termagants, and I'll say it's oddly effective when paired with the dual threat of 3 Mawlocs turn 2 in your backfield.

One thing you must learn about nids is nobody knows what to shoot (except DE who are threatened by whatever is closest to them, as even fleshborers can glance a venom/raider). The psychological game of "I have 3 mawlocs (or trygons, or zoeys in a pod, or outflanking stealers, etc...) coming up turn 2 in your backfield and there's nothing you can do about it" paired with 100+ termagants backed by a few Tervigons making them awfully durable, and being very aggressive with whatever your preferred anti-tank is (zoanthropes in my case), can really scare most of your opponents into awfully bad decisions like clumping up their tanks or spreading their forces too thin. 'Nids are really a unique threat that, unlike what most people on Dakka will tell you, are actually an amazingly powerful and synergistic codex with lots of choice between multiple different heavy hitters in every force org slot.

As to your current models; Warriors are nice as extra synapse, but I don't usually recommend running big blobs of them, as they easily become obvious targets. Run them in groups of 4-5 with your preferred gear, covering your tervigons, allowing your HG to get a little closer, or be placed on the flanks. You want your little gribblies swarming forward, and the added synapse on the flanks or in front can help you get up towards squishy things like guard blobs fairly easily.

One issue with Carnifexes is where you deploy them. Podding them is too little too late, and they can get in the way or out of synapse very easily. I like them - but run them with 2x3 Hive Guard and maybe a group of Zoeys (more for the ap3, not the lance, but your opponent doesn't know that). They also don't particularly offer anything new or exciting that we don't get more viably elsewhere, like Mawlocs, Trygons, or T-fexes. And despite being a T6 W4 3+ Monstrous Creature, they go down pretty easily, and can be pretty disappointing. However, if you plan on fighting a lot of Necron AV13 or Dark Eldar AV10 spam, Heavy Venom Cannons are actually amazing, as their open-topped negates the worst part of the HVC (the second being that it's 1-shot and scatters), which still stinks.

Genestealers in my experience are amazing as outflankers, and not horrible as infiltrators, especially if you're infiltrating out of LOS within their table sidde/quarter because they weren't careful. Just take care not to let them assault speed bumps instead of the really juicy things like Russes, terminators, etc. Try multi-assaulting if you can, but also be careful of getting unfortunately tarpitted, like I was one time against 2 grots who held up my 'stealers in assault for 4 turns. Ymgarls are nice, but unless you want to go for a ballsy strategy like massive stealer shock, I'm not recommending it over your shooty options in the Elite slot.

Most people I know model their Hormagaunts with fleshborers/devourers and call them termagants, because hormagaunts aren't considered very amazing, but with a Hive Tyrant, you can make those babies outflank, and threatening them with 90 attacks on the charge coming from 12-18" from either board edge will get your opponent nice and clustered in the center like you want them to be. Just remember, they're not as good as termagants in Tervigon buff range, but you really don't need synapse - they're gonna do exactly what you want them to do outside of synapse anyways. In my opinion though, their upgrades are way too many points - I could have 2 hormies with Adrenal glands, or a space marine who could shoot them AND has the "all 4" statline to boot.

As a 'Nid player, just remember that what you do in the list-building stage will determine your entire game plan, and while most lists will appear pretty similar, they can vary wildly in function. 2 T-fexes and Hive Guard is a much different threat than 3 Carnifexes and Zoeys in spores, which is different than Zoeys and Mawlocs, which is different from 9 Carnies etc... Your main variance is coming in through your Heavy and Elite slots, where you get your fun toys. Troops are for gribblies. Fast attack is nice, with Gargoyles or Raveners both being relatively good choices (I prefer gargoyles, auto-wounding on 6's paired with a Hive Tyrant can get them a lot of auto-wounds, but raveners can be nice with rending claws, making them kind of like faster Genestealers). And don't be afraid of putting one of your (please have 2+) Tervigons as an HQ to save points. Trust me, you don't need 3 scoring MC's, 2 will do just fine when you have 100+ termagants, and I never understood why people thought spending 80 points on a Prime to make one more redundant tervi scoring was "saving" them any points...

My list suggestions would be buying 2 or 3 Tervigons, lots of termagants (~100 will be good, just hope some die turn 1 or 2 so you can keep spawning), and some Trygons/Mawlocs (honestly doesn't matter as they're the same size, get whichever is prettiest and just tell your opponent "this is a Mawloc/Trygon/Trygon prime"). The models are awesome, and you'll find yourself running them almost every game. You may want to also purchase/proxy any of the other units I mentioned; Hive Guard or Zoanthropes should be a high priority, and maybe a Hive Tyrant and some Tyrant Guard. Biovores are fun to play with, and are a single unit that will negate the viability of Green Tide against your list entirely, whilst also not being too awful against MEQ.


My final advice is to experiment with literally every single unit in the codex and see what you like and don't like about them. Harpies have done wonders for some players, but I can't justify the points when I could get gargoyles instead, which do much better in my experience. Podding zoanthropes has done miracles for some, but every time I do it, they get a bad scatter and Perils and derp their invuln save. Hive guard were awesome for my friend, until he used a lone T-fex and it actually blew up its points worth of rhinos and marines while the hive guard couldn't figure out which end of the gun to point at the enemy. The Hive Fleet is always adapting; so should you. Proxy stuff until you like how it works, and if you end up buying the models, you may have to adapt your strategy to fit the sheer size/shape of them (I know I did when they released the actual Tervigon model, which is beautiful, just massive). Play lots of different opponents, competitive lists like BA mech, IG mechvets/Leafblower, Space Wolves, GK pallys, GK purifiers, Necrons, Kan Wall/Orks, and DE venomspam, and you'll learn a lot about how you deal with each of those different threats. Well okay, they're not different at all because 5th ed transport&mech metagame, but you get the point. It's also good to play against more fun lists, like an all-scout Marine list, all-Grots, 84 Fire Warriors, and whatever other crazy stuff your opponent can come up with - it will help you learn just what your units are capable of, what they can do, how terrain effects your strategy, etc.

I can't force you to play the same way I do, and am only offering what I know of the codex after playing it for a year and analyzing each option in the codex, and playing against the best generals using the most competitive lists I can; I can't be sure that you'll find the same units effective as I do, but I promise if you really sit down and look at the codex for a while, things will start making sense, and you will start seeing some interesting links between units that might not be obvious on the surface. Make your hive fleet your own vile creation, and relish every single grimace your opponent gives when he loses yet another unit to your swarm. Oh, and grimdark grimdark.

@ Lorna: With Guardorders and plasma any monsterous creature can be brought down in a round of shooting, so I'm not that worried. Its the old adage "if they are shooting that then they aren't shooting something else"

@ Brother Taurinus: thanks for posting, I think I will be getting a tervigon seem to be a solid unit and buffs. I will have to invest in some termagaunts as well.

@uberjoras: Wow epic response, thanks for the time you taken on it.

From what you've said, it sounds a lot like nids do work like Orks, well my experience of them. Target saturation and multiple threat factors allowing you to confuse the oppistions target priority, which is made worse by units buffing/providing cover saves for each other.

please for the love of god give him adrenal glands&toxin sacs).

I assume this is for the benefit of the termagaunts rather than anything else.

As to your current models; Warriors are nice as extra synapse, but I don't usually recommend running big blobs of them, as they easily become obvious targets. Run them in groups of 4-5 with your preferred gear, covering your tervigons, allowing your HG to get a little closer, or be placed on the flanks. You want your little gribblies swarming forward, and the added synapse on the flanks or in front can help you get up towards squishy things like guard blobs fairly easily.

I'll probably be runnnig them as group, I have 6 (including a prime), they are already modelled but there is ebough variantion within the group to play some wound allocation shenanigans for small arms fire. I currrently have no tervigons, but will be getting at least one in the near future.

I'm disapointed about what you said about the carnifex, I won't be podding them but I thought my idea of runnig them with a tervigon and venomtrope might have worked. I'm probably going to drop the crushing claws so i can run them as a squad and keep them cheap as possible. In fact that was my plan with most thing actually. I come from an IG background and the motto that has always stood me in good steads is keep it cheap.

thanks for all the tips, I will probably be fighting IG and Marines for the most part. IG as I own them so can always run simulations and marines because that all anyone seem to play at my place.

I'll definatley play around with the codex as nids are now my second army and will need to be able to stand toe to toe with my guard which are around the 7000 point mark now.