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There are a couple of gamers I run into from time to time and they always bring their Nidz. I most often see them at tournaments and they tend to win a lot of them. Here is what I most often see in their core lists:

2x Flyrant - 2x twin linked devourer w. brainleech ammo

3x Tervigon
3x 10x termagant
15x termagant

3x Biovore

Doom - Mycetic Spore

3x Hive Guard

3x Zoie - Mycetic Spore


Everybody is having problems beating these two armies. I am currently running Necrons with allied CSM by the way.

I am looking for general weaknesses that can be exploited.

Nids are the counter to crons. Its like saying how do i beat GK with Demons in melee. There isnt much you can do. Crons lack good AP3 at range and in quantity.

What you have to do is pretty much obliterate the flyrants with everything then move on the zoans, then worry about the gaunt swarms. Spyders work very well at taking down tervigons as scarabs destroy gaunts easily and spyders rip tervigons apart, even with IA. Reserve the rippers to keep them from the flyrants.

 zephoid wrote:
Nids are the counter to crons. Its like saying how do i beat GK with Demons in melee. There isnt much you can do. Crons lack good AP3 at range and in quantity.

What you have to do is pretty much obliterate the flyrants with everything then move on the zoans, then worry about the gaunt swarms. Spyders work very well at taking down tervigons as scarabs destroy gaunts easily and spyders rip tervigons apart, even with IA. Reserve the rippers to keep them from the flyrants.

If I can offer a bit of advice on this, scarabs do not destroy gants. If they charge then they'll kill a unit, while a single Enfeeble + counter charge will ensure the Scarabs end up in the army case immediately. And while Spyders do well vs. tervigons, the gants will then come help out Momma with enough poison to end that fight in one turn. I would advise Gloom Prisms however.

I play Nids and my brother plays Necrons with CSM allies so I guess I have a lot of experience with this.

I run a slightly different list and, in my opinion, a lot more competitive list then the Nid's list above.

2 Flyrants (1 warlord, other with HC)
2 Tervigons
2x10 Gants
Doom in Spod
2 Zoans in Spod
3 Dakkafexes in 3 Spods

It's a lot more shooting and a lot more Turn2 pressure.

Anyway, I can consistently beat him with the list because I can simply spawn more troops and apply a lot of pressure in shear number of TL S6 shots from all the MCs. There are very few things that is preventable as a Necron player, but the following will definitely approve your odds.

Always go second. This seems brutal because most Nids list, especially mine, will have a Beta Strike army. Turn 2 all the stops are pulled out and that's when they need to do the damage. If they don't, they start realizing really fast that the enemy will simply endure. Going second is huge for Necrons because it allows your flyers to come in 18-48 inches and drop off your troops to contest and capture any objectives on the board (almost). I can't tell you how many times I'll be dominating the board, almost tabling him, only to tie or lose on Turn5 by a run-by Scythe to land his troops next to mine or on their own objective.

This being said, spread your objectives out as much as possible. Nids have some mobility, but most of it comes from their gargoyles (which I don't use) and their flyrants. Aim all your flyers and other weapons (if you ground them) on the Flyrants. After that, you not only kill their mobility, but hinder his aggressive synapse as well. I have podded zoanthropes to ensure more aggressive synapse creatures. If you can spread out the objectives, the Nids player simply can't be everywhere at once. He spreads his synapse and his dakka too thin. You have a huge advantage with your Scythes and troop transports. USE IT!

Finally, most Nids weapons, short of the Zoanthrops and Smash Attacks, can deal with AV13 from your barges effectively. Yes, Hiveguards can, but they are slow 6" moving infantry with 24" range. They are terrible in 6th. Sorry. Nids that still use them need to move on. Mini-rant. Anyway, keep your back towards the table edge. Keep that in mind when they deepstrike in as well. AV13 on all sides is huge. I have a hard time dealing with the barges and it generally leads me to ignoring them all game and just taking all the shots. Yes, I can run my MCs towards them, but with lack of mobility it generally leaves me out of Synapse and almost out of the rest of the game trying to run back to other threats.

Hope those 3 tips help. Some games it'll look like a slaughter and he'll still end up with a win. Yes, sometimes the game doesn't end on Turn5 and I get to shoot at his freshly disembarked warriors, but other times, there is 1 left in a group with good LOS and they rest pop back up... Ugh.

Good luck.

That's definitely some great advice! Thanks.

Nids have gotten pretty brutal with the rise of Biomancy in 6th, but the psychic choir list still has an age old tyranid issue...no real ability to deal with high armor at range. Necrons have a large amount of mobile AR13 at their disposal (well, mobile in the sense that an annihilation barge is still pretty deadly with it's twin-linked tesla even if it moved 12" and is snap firing), and it should be abused. Ghost arks with warrior occupants (and a cryptek or 2 can't hurt), annihilation barges, and even catacomb command barges have a place against nids. Staves of Light, normally overlooked, are good here, as AP3 is golden against pretty much all the bugs.

The war will be won and lost, however, on whether or not you can deal with his Flyrants. Ground and annihilate as quick as possible (or tie up with wraiths).

As for the CSM element...not to hot on CSM, though if you're keeping it cheap and adding a Helldrake, that'll be helpful vs. Nids.

What are you running with your crons? I haven't played nids yet with my current cronair list but I feel pretty confident I could deal with them. Here's what I run at 1850:

HQ: Overlord , Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Sempiternal Weave

Royal Court
3x Harbinger of Despair

Elite: 5x Deathmarks + NS
5x Deathmarks + NS
5x Deathmarks + NS

Troops: 5x Warriors + NS
5x Warriors + NS
5x Warriors
6x Warriors

Fast Attack: Heavy Destroyer

Heavy Support: Doom Scythe
Doom Scythe

Heavy Support: Annihilation Barge

Aegis Defence Lines + Comms Relay

That's a lot of TL tesla destructors and most of them are flyers that are hard to touch. I run a harbinger with each of the deathmark units who fly around in a NS ready to surprise an unsuspecting unit with an AP2 S8 flamer that wounds on 2's. 2 DSs with the death ray can mess up any thing on the ground. Iron arm can still be a problem for the tesla destructors but the death rays should be able to handle that once they fail a grounding test.

Shoot Flyrants first with Barges, then Tervigons. Keep wraiths out of enfeeble range.

Pray like hell he doesn't get too many Iron Arms. If he doesn't, you'll actually be pretty effective against the big guys with tesla. Once you drop the Tyrants/'Gons, the army will fall apart pretty quick.

Saythings post is fairly spot on.

I'm 6-0 with my nids in tourny play in 6th edition, and my absolute worst game was against necrons.

My opponent's list, roughly.

Necron Lord on command barge, warscythe
2x10 warriors in ghost arks
5 immortals, nightscythe
5 crypteks, all destruction, all with lances, all in a single unit. A pseudo-devastator squad.
6 Wraiths, 2 whips
3 Annihilation barges

1500 points

The barges, ghost arks and crypteks killed my winged tyrant, a trygon and a tervigon in the first 2 turns. i got super SUPER lucky with the remaining tervigon keeping iron arm up (@T8+ no less), it basically allowed him to survive 3 turns of sustained fire from the 3 barges and ghost arks and snag the relic and win the game at the bottom of turn 5. The trygon managed to smash (literally) the wraiths apart with a little help from some hive guard in melee (haha) and then proceed to beat up the 2 warrior squads after my hive guard lucked out and blew up both ghost arks, one after the other.

If his list had of been the super tight destroyer lord + wraith + NS troops + max annihilation barges he would have buried me in 2-3 turns. Luckily the weak points in his list and a lot of luck allowed me to just barely squeak through with a win. Annihilation barges are criminally good for 90 points.

This is a lot of fantastic advice. Remember mostly what I am looking for is how to exploit any Tyranid weaknesses... especially for the units I have listed above. Thanks again!

Some thing I did not see was Target priority. It is pretty simple really.

1) Shoot the big ones: These guys are all damage beasts, and often are also synapse anchors.

2) Synapse anchors: These guys make the nid's fearless, and are what allow the player to actually control the army. Common ones are Tyrants, Trevigon, Zoanthrope and Primes.

3) Keep a fire lane: Don't let anything make it charge range, nids are still a solid CC army, and most list are unconcerned body lose or the problems of a disorderly charge.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This is a lot of fantastic advice. Remember mostly what I am looking for is how to exploit any Tyranid weaknesses... especially for the units I have listed above. Thanks again!

Heldrake?

Post the list that you use, we could see what you should change specifically instead of giving general advice.

I have a close friend that plays a very similar list of nids.

Spammed tesla destructors is a no-brainer and I've adopted a fully mechanized list to negate his Doom. With jink and AV13, only his hive guard and zoanthropes are a threat, and I make sure to focus his zoanthropes the moment they're in range. Hive guard are kinda meh.

I try to maintain a gun line with ghost arks and anh barges with heavy destroyers sniping MC's, paying attention to the terrain, hoping the nids get bad run rolls and slowly pulling the line back as they come at me. I imagine that if zoanthropes are deep struck they'll pop a vehicle, but then they're in rapid fire range of most everything; for the purpose of negating deep striking units, it wouldn't be a bad idea to bring a group of wraiths to sit back and jump them when they drop, or failing that hold the wraiths back until after the nids have been whittled down by gauss flayers and tesla weapons. If you use wraiths I'd recommend holding them back or using them like a tactical scalpel (much like H Destroyers) to eliminate MC's.

I could see how extra TL TD's from flyers could help, particularly against the Flyrant, but it makes sense to me to max out on anh barges beforehand, as flyers may not come into play until turn 3, and by then the nids will be on the front porch.

Also, I've noticed that no one has mentioned bringing tomb blades w/ particle beamers. I've only just recently had them available and only had a chance to play one game with them, but managed to kill 25-30 bunched-up gaunts with a single volley of five blasts. I still need to experiment with them more, but they show potential for filling a swarm-thinning role.

I've considered spyders with gloom prisms to shelter my vehicles with 4+ deny the witch from zoanthropes and other psychic abilities, although that only seems practical when using more than one to provide better coverage, which means too many heavy support slots are being filled up if you're just using one force org. chart.

 McNinja wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This is a lot of fantastic advice. Remember mostly what I am looking for is how to exploit any Tyranid weaknesses... especially for the units I have listed above. Thanks again!

Heldrake?

Post the list that you use, we could see what you should change specifically instead of giving general advice.

In my opinion, Nids are one of the few armies Heldrakes don't excel against. Everything that is a high priority target is multiwound and T6. Their best use is vector striking the larger beasts. Nids might be one of the few armies that its better for the Heldrake to take the Hades Autocannon over the baleflamer.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

 McNinja wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This is a lot of fantastic advice. Remember mostly what I am looking for is how to exploit any Tyranid weaknesses... especially for the units I have listed above. Thanks again!

Heldrake?

Post the list that you use, we could see what you should change specifically instead of giving general advice.

In my opinion, Nids are one of the few armies Heldrakes don't excel against. Everything that is a high priority target is multiwound and T6. Their best use is vector striking the larger beasts. Nids might be one of the few armies that its better for the Heldrake to take the Hades Autocannon over the baleflamer.

Well, the Heldrake has to be in Reserves, so turn one you could ground the larger monsters, then if the HD comes in turn 2 you could flame the dickens out of it/them. I suggested the HD because of the Baleflamer, mainly because it would assist mightily in taking out those gaunt swarms.

To be fair, if you ground something turn 1, it will get back in the air before the Heldrake comes in turn 2... you have to ground it that same turn, which is never really reliable. And even then, "flaming the crap out of it" is horribly ineffective. AT BEST you have a 50% chance to cause one single wound. You'd be better off targeting ground units.

Here is the problem now with shooting the big ones:

If they get Iron Arm for two or more MCs you could be wasting a lot of valuable fire power.

MCs get a good cover save if just a small portion of their base is touching terrain... Again you could be wasting a lot of fire power.

Tervigons are kind of broken along with the Doom. We just have to deal with it though.

Here is my current 1850 point list:

Overlord - Weave, Phase Shifter,MSS, Warscythe - CCB

5x Warrior - Night Scythe
5x Warrior - Night Scythe
5x Warrior - Night Scythe

9x Canoptek Scarab

Anni Barge
Anni Barge
Doom Scythe

Daemon Prince (Nurgle) - Wings, Power Armor, Black Mace, Level 3 Psyker, Spell Familiar

10x Cultist - Autoguns

Heldrake - Bale Flamer

Thoughts?

Maybe try to take a whirlwind (SM allies). They are great anti swarm vehicle and for only 65 points. If you have a few of these you could use them for the swarms and get heavier weapons for the big bugs. Or a giant can of bug-spray, might do it.

Bug spray...

LOL !!

 McNinja wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
This is a lot of fantastic advice. Remember mostly what I am looking for is how to exploit any Tyranid weaknesses... especially for the units I have listed above. Thanks again!

Heldrake?

Post the list that you use, we could see what you should change specifically instead of giving general advice.

Using CSM as well with my crons in following list:

1 Destroyer Lord w/ Semp Weave, Mindshackles
1 Chaos Sorcerer w/ Force Axe, Meltabombs (Telepathy)


5 Necron Warriors w/ Nightscythe
5 Necron Warriors w/ Nightscythe
5 Necron Warriors w/ Nightscythe
10 Chaos Cultists w/ flamer

5 Canoptek Wraiths w/ Whipcoil
5 Canoptek Wraiths
5 Canoptek Wraiths
1 Helldrake w/ Baleflamer

1 Annihilation Barge
1 Annihilation Barge
1 Annihilation Barge

It will be a good match against Nids, but i'm not really scared of the match up...

Nice! I like all the fire power and AV13... Should make some Tyranids cry.

 Insane Smile wrote:
Maybe try to take a whirlwind (SM allies). They are great anti swarm vehicle and for only 65 points. If you have a few of these you could use them for the swarms and get heavier weapons for the big bugs. Or a giant can of bug-spray, might do it.

They are 85 in C:SM maybe cheaper in the DA codex, about everything else is.