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So I have a 2K battle against nids this Wednesday and it looks like he's running 2 flyrants, 3 tervigons, 3 zoanthropes and a bunch of gaunts. Frankly I'm worried because I don't know what to take since most of my daemons lose out hard to some part of his army.

Any suggestions on what I should take?

Tyranids have also given me a major problem for a long long time. It's always good to take some Horrors and Fateweaver, though you shouldn't depend on psychic shooting. I think actually a Keeper of Secrets and 2 Slaaneshi Daemon Princes w 3 Biomancies and Lash Whips would be pretty good (basically your versions of the Flyrants), a Grimoire, a Portaglyph generating Horrors, and Fateweaver, and a Soul Grinder with Phlegm. Screamers could also be good with their Slash Attack.

The really hard part is getting around the Gaunts to assault the stupid Tervigons. They should fall easily to Daemon Princes.....I would favor Swooping over them to get a couple AP3 Vector Strike wounds on them, and then next turn (if you are not Grounded and already assaulted by the bugs) you should be on the back side and able to assault them. Nurgle Princes with Baleswords could definitely kill any Nid creature, but I sure do like that Lash Whip. It's only 12" range but you might be able to Vector, then either shoot the Tervigons to death or target the Flyrants too. And Fateweaver should be constantly Grimoired to a 2++ save, and he can Skyfire with 3/4/or 5 D6 Flickering Fire shots, or Beam things, or Blast things with that 2 warp charge Tzeentch power.

I could also see KuGath actually coming in handy with his 24" necrotic missiles, though many people prefer the GUO. Most of the time it's good to deepstrike those guys, but Nids invariably come at you, so either of them could start on the board in that case spewing out Blessings and Maledictions too. Plus then you can get Baleswords.

At 2000 points, I assume you'll have double FOC. Not sure what you have to run but how about something like this:

Fateweaver (warlord)
Winged and Armored Daemon Prince of Slaanesh / Mastery 3 / 2 Greater Rewards / 1 Lesser Reward (might make him more shooty)
2 Winged Armored Daemon Princes of Nurgle/ Mastery 3 / Exalted Reward / Greater Reward

Phlegm Nurgle Soul Grinder

Plaguebearers and Daemonettes (poison is good vs big stuff, I5 and many attacks good vs small stuff), 4 units of 13 Troops each, and put a Champion in each one.

You'll have a nice little airforce that should be pretty tough to take down, and with tag-team Vector Striking you'll be killing the Tervigons pretty quickly hopefully. I might recommend even keeping the Soul Grinder in Reserves IF he has Hive Guard and is deploying/going first, but otherwise keep it on the table from the start (in cover of course). Troops should pretty much all start in Reserves, though you don't always need to deepstrike them.

Good luck!

Tactics will change in November though.

Nurgle princes and GUO should have an easy time. Baleswords will take down any monsters without ironarm. Take a decent sized unit of hounds/seekers/screamers to clear out termigants.

Ironarmed monsters will be hard to take out without large numbers of Nettes or seekers. A list i would take for this would be:-

Fateweaver
GUO 1xGreater, 1xExalted (grimoire), ML3

11 Horrors
11 Horrors
18 Plaguebearers

Prince DoN, Wings, Armour, ML3, 1xGreater gift, 1xExalted Gift (portalglyph)
Prince DoN, Wings, Armour, ML3, 1xGreater gift


This comes to 1610, remaining 390 points either get another prince, some hounds/screamers/seekers into the mix and the remaining points from after that unit to fill out troops.

If you got a smart tyranid player then you got a real problem. Tyranids can simply put a big blob of 3 tervigons with termagaunts in the middle of the field. With 2 flyrants and (probably) a few trygons behind them it's really hard to vector strike because you simply cannot place the model behind this big group.

The tyranid player just moves forward and at sum point you have to deal with them. in combination with an extra spawn of 3x3d6 guants from the tervigons it's really hard for the daemon player to controle the board.

the best way to take on tyranids? go full tzeentch and shoot the crap out of them with simple S5 shooting. In combination with reroll warp storm table you can make the tyranid army crumble until it is the right time to get in the fight! But be patient...

Hmm well i would say you have the up in cc against his flyrants since it sounds like he is using the standard tl devourers. Keep in mind all your psychic powers will be risky close in because of Shadow in the warp. Id pay big attention to if his tervigons are bringing toxin sacs. If it were me i'd try to get your prince on the ground and run in my spawn gaunts to wound you on the 4+. Nids week to poison and ap3. If you have anything like psychic hood that will help when he goes for his iron arm rolls.

Slaanesh units smash Tyranids - against the little ones they have enough attacks to take them down and god forbid they leave a Monstrous Creature open for a Daemonette or Seeker charge.

I generally use a few smaller Horror units or a Skull Cannon to punch a hole in the gaunt lines and then assault through it with Seekers.

Fateweaver shines in this matchup since his individual dice reroll (or warpstorm reroll) gives you a pretty good chance to nuke one of their psykers (on 2d6 there is a 50% chance to roll a 6 - then a 1 in 6 chance for the reroll to net you an 11). Overall a 10% chance each turn.

For psyker defense grab a small unit of Fiends (4 or 5 is usually enough) to inflict a -4/5 ld penalty on his tests.

Given how slow most tyranid armies move - I would also recommend outflanking some units or at least deep striking them to put him in the awkward position of having to advance to get to your units but having a lot of pressure in his backfield.