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So some very good Nid players have fallen to Reecius ( nice guy) who makes a slew of mistakes and still wins ( of course games ended early in his favor). I think we could put our heads together and beat that list ... what say you guys.

For reference

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/576215.page

I'll throw this out for fun

- 1750 Nids -

Dakka Fyrant, Hive Commander 250
Tyranid Prime, Toxin Sacs, Maw-claws of Thorax, Devourer 145 (outflanking)

Zoanthrope 50
Zoanthrope 50
Venomthrope 45


7 Warriors; 6 Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler 255 (outflanking)
20 Termagants, 10x Devourers 120
30 Termagants 120
Tervigon, Electroshock Grubs 205

Hive Crone 155
Hive Crone 155

Tyrannofex, Acid Spray, Shattershard Beetles, Adrenal Glands 200

I think the keys to winning are to take out any markerlight support, farseer and commander. Hope for first turn, and get some early disruption. The list above does give a hoot for IB. It has multiple critical targets that the Tau/Dar list must deal with. Outflanking. onslaught and fast flyers are the key here of course. No, I have no Mawlocs. I think there is list out there that might use Mawlocs that could work but I feel you are gambling to much on them. I want a list that can hurt with a lot of units. The T-Fex is a bit expensive but I'm hoping to get one onslaught and a lot of T6 wounds are nice. So anyone with better ideas. We cannot just sit down and let Reecius get away with this, lol.

The hive crones are dead when they come in unless you kill all his interceptor because of your 4+ armour.

Mawlocs are really fantastic and I think you should always have 1 or 2 to just kill broadsides and units that were placed together, and then hope you don't kill them all so you get to come in again.

Actually, had all 3 games ended early (i.e. on Turn 5), Reece would have lost. He got lucky that all 3 games went on to T6.

Hive Crones can start on the table. When the leave and return it will about where and if the venomthrope is still alive. I did not notice that Reecius was pretty sure of himself in the games and that he did not press with his army. A smart Nid plauyer could have taken advantage of that and been less aggressive. It is okay to hide your troops if you have to, play a little defensively and push for the end game. And my mistake JY2 - I mwant exactly that - had the games ended early Reecius would have lost. Also mr. 'bigpig' screwed up with his spore mines or would have won. That said, with all the mistakes Reecius made he still won.

I still think reliance on Mawlocs to beat Tau, Eldar DE or Necrons is not a good policy. Any list (even if we are now considering how to beat Reecius' list) should still be TAC and useful at a tournament with other lists it will face. That said no one is offering alternatives here. We have seen the two Nawloc list against him. What might have been etc., doesn't really matter. It lost in the end.

The Key is MTO (Multiple threat overload) AND getting into close combat ASAP.

So;

Dual Flyrants

Tervigon
30 Gants
4x 14 Hormagaunts

Zoan
Zoan
Venomthrope

Exocrine
Dual Dakkafexes
Dual Biocores

1750. Yummy?

 felixcat wrote:
Hive Crones can start on the table. When the leave and return it will about where and if the venomthrope is still alive. I did not notice that Reecius was pretty sure of himself in the games and that he did not press with his army. A smart Nid plauyer could have taken advantage of that and been less aggressive. It is okay to hide your troops if you have to, play a little defensively and push for the end game. And my mistake JY2 - I mwant exactly that - had the games ended early Reecius would have lost. Also mr. 'bigpig' screwed up with his spore mines or would have won. That said, with all the mistakes Reecius made he still won.

I still think reliance on Mawlocs to beat Tau, Eldar DE or Necrons is not a good policy. Any list (even if we are now considering how to beat Reecius' list) should still be TAC and useful at a tournament with other lists it will face. That said no one is offering alternatives here. We have seen the two Nawloc list against him. What might have been etc., doesn't really matter. It lost in the end.

Agree on mawlocs. They're a red herring IMO. If your opponent gets a multi level ruin, they can protect their key units (see Reece vs blackmoor). Plus, they can no longer burrow turn 1 and you risk splitting your forces and threats playing the reserve game. Then only 33% chance to hit (let's not bring lictors into this) and if you land on any vehicle aside from a venom it's almost guaranteed mishap. Competitively speaking, I think it's such an unreliable unit that has a 16% chance to kill itself every time you use it, it's really silly.

Tyranids need as many guarantees as possible in a competitive setting.

Two words:

Genestealer Spam

Two more words:

The Horror

Good luck boys!

Oh, and a big unit of outflanking tyranid warriors!

Would this tactic work, what do you think? (I'm sketchy on the points as I don't yet have a codex, but I did read through it and have watched plenty of batreps. Still just theorycrafting here, though)

Grabbing a Bastion with Coms Relay.

Then outflanking large group of warriors to his deployment zone, with a Tyranid Prime in there with them. Two Mawlocs and 3 Biovores, a Flyrant and 3 Hive Crones or 2 Crones and a unit of Raveners. If all works out, you should have a Flyrant, Crones/Raveners, a Prime and 9 Warriors and 2 Mawlocs in their deployment zone by T2.

Of course, get a Venomthrope and/or a Zoanthrope to guard your deployment zone and protect your small scoring troops of Gaunts.

Well a bastion is always a good idea now. My list uses t outflanking warriors and hopefully an onslaughted T-Fex - I have to hope they get in reasonably soon. I refuse to use a Mawloc though. And now T-Fexes are so much cheaper I want to use them. If you get onslaught you go to town.

I'm talking LOTS of genestealers. Like fill your troops slots with them!

5 copies of the horror raining down on a tau gunline is not a pleasant thought.

 felixcat wrote:

Well a bastion is always a good idea now. My list uses the horror and outflanking warriors - I have to hope they get in reasonably soon. I refuse to use a Mawloc though. And now T-Fexes are so much cheaper I want to use them. If you get onslaught you go to town.

Why refusing to take Mawlocs? I always found them the most interesting of the TMC.

The army is too slow, you need speed and quantity in his face quickly. And avoid the mistake of going second vs him. You need that first turn to cover the ground.

I think the Manufactorum Genestealers combined with a maxed out carnifex list could be pretty useful against Reece's studio army. (prime in a unit of 3 carnifex for the synapse)

I am not sure how they setup that terrain before the batreps however. Do they set 2 LoS blockers down and then take turns or do they have a third party do it? This would change whether the data slate would be useful or not. It may be better just to take a spawner and gaunts as troops anyways. I just really like the idea of the genestealers in the enemy lines GtG for 2+ cover and popping up when synapse comes near.

Unfortunately such a list would prove nothing and subvert the overall goal of the challenge as the list is utterly unbalanced and could never win a GT. Would be a fun game though.

I think that 4+ save T below 7 MC might be the wrong direction to take when designing an army that can compete with Tau. Tau just have too much S7 AP4 firepower (or S5 so many shots I overwhelm you with dice).

I also feel that despite the weakness in KP MSU is better if you have a source of fearless or can get the troops back in the fight. Tau can markerlight up a unit or two but MLing a cheap 5 man unit will be a waste of their MLs.

I really think target saturation will win out here. I also think we need to be thinking outside the synapse bubble. I'm a rookie, I don't even own a codex (bought not received). it seems like games come down to one synapse creature remaining to none remaining. So why are we using so many synapse reliant units? Stealers are le squish but with the vanguard options available they seem viable, if not necessary. I play tau against a few (read 3) nid players and it comes down to the same scenario.

Here is what I plan to do with my first nid army. I don't have the dex so this isn't a list but a strategy.

The idea is to present scoring threats in as many possible locations simultaneously. I plan on do this with manufactorum stealers. The intent is not to be aggressive, but the opposite. I plan to play them skulking in the shadows, trying to avoid drawing attention. I don't know enough about lictors and deathleapers yet, but they may be a force multiplyer for this kind of tactic.

I plan to fill my troop FOC with gaunts and a tervigon. These will tend the backfield, while the tervigon pops out as many babies as she can before menopausing. Hopefully I can keep her completely out of LOS. I suppose warriors are troops now to and much like Aaenion I plan to pack 9 warriors in for outflanking.

I don't know enough about HQ's or FA's to have a plan there yet. Flyrants seem to be the way. I don't know anything about crones except that they can land. I like the idea of an expendable FMC that can get into combat when and where he wants T2. But I don't know the rules or stats for the crone to know if that's a complete waste or sheer genius.

For heavy I want fexes coming right up the middle with whatever appropriate synapse creature in tow (maybe even a swarmy?) It's a force that cannot be ignored, lumbering closer by the turn.

The idea is to present a large amount of targets that MUST be dealt with. Can't ignore the stealers, or they grab objectives late game. Can't ignore the warriors or they rip you apart and grab objectives. Can't ignore tervigon and gaunts or you control your backfield. The births are just a bonus. They could run upfield if a target presents itself, but its not the primary purpose. They could even move up with the fexes to make a scoring living fortress. And finally, you definitely can't ignore the fexes, because they will eat you.

I understand I need/really want certain psychic powers but I don't know what they are or how to get them. So I'm blind there.

I realize there are nuances I don't yet understand but it's seems viable from a layman's perspective.

For those of you who bothered reading all that, sorry it was long winded, but I have put a lot of thought into this. I'm in the process of trading off my Tau for nids. I'm sick of the tau play style, love the models, not fun to play.

2 things to keep in mind.

Reece is not a Taudar player. He is a good player but isn't really experienced in running Tau. There are certainly other, more experienced Taudar generals out there.

The studio Taudar army isn't even considered fully optimized. Yes, it is a very good TAC army. However, it can be even more deadly.



I'd like to go up against it again once my Tyranids are done....but I'm afraid it's not going to be there after the LVO. They're going to raffle off the army at the LVO.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Two words:

Genestealer Spam

Two more words:

The Horror

Good luck boys!

Oh, and a big unit of outflanking tyranid warriors!

Stealer spam doesn't work to well unfortunatly if you don't kill the Ethereal first. It can put Stuborn on units and the -2ld won't come into effect for the pinning test.

The key to defeating Taudar is taking out or reducing the impact of the 3 pillars that make it so strong. The Ethereal, the farseer and the buffmander. Only slightly less important is the marker light units.

Think of it as killing the synapse creatures in a Nid army.

One thing, if you take the deathleaper as an HQ choice you can actually make the ethereal much less effective (if you get a little lucky).

The ethereal has to grant his leadership to all tau within 12". No choice, has to. If you roll a 5 or 6 you force all tau within 12" of the ethereal to be ld 7!

The thing is you can tailor a list to beat the studio taudar list, but realistically it would flop against some other popular tournament builds. The big picture is that you may defeat the FLG studio army, but people are looking for a big tournament victory from nids. The list needs to beat Reece, then to on to face daemons, SM bikers, serpent spam, and necron Air Force. LVO may be the best chance for magic as a bunch of serious competitors are crunching lists for this event, and the meta hasn't adjusted to accommodate the new nids yet; a lot of the competition will be unpracticed against or unprepared for them.

For the record I still believe stealers to be a bad idea. 6th Ed made them bad with worse cover, FnP, overwatch, pulling casualties from the front, and no assaults from reserves. Not a single thing in the new book made them more viable. The horror is straight up useless against fearless units, daemons, and tau/IG that can ignore pinned results. They're still an overcosted unit with a 5+ save that needs to survive a full shooting phase and an overwatch at minimum, and still hit with enough force to win decisively because they loose battles of attrition due to a poor save.

If you want to defeat more armies than the FLG studio taudar, you need units that produce results against the most opponents. Gimmicks like MSU stealers, Mawloc spam, 9 fexes, etc are too rock/paper/scissors and subject to being out listed or outplayed.

I think the focus should be on high RoF, twin linked, and units guaranteed to do damage. Dual flamer tfexes don't roll to hit. Hive crone vector strikes auto hit and ignore cover. T/l devourers always perform. Diversified devourer gaunt units can now dakka while paying less for the front ranks. Tervigons now are too expensive and lost a lot of utility with biomancy, I don't honestly think they contribute enough anymore to earn a place in the field. Tyranids don't want to play the waiting game and swarm objectives. Armies like serpent spam will win out the long game and grab objectives better with bikes.

 dementedwombat wrote:
One thing, if you take the deathleaper as an HQ choice you can actually make the ethereal much less effective (if you get a little lucky).

The ethereal has to grant his leadership to all tau within 12". No choice, has to. If you roll a 5 or 6 you force all tau within 12" of the ethereal to be ld 7!

Yes they test with HIS leadership for morale. Due to Stuborn HIS leadership ignores penalties. Does no good, put it on the Farseer.

If I am wrong please correct me as I would LOVE to be wrong on this.

Tervigons now are too expensive and lost a lot of utility with biomancy, I don't honestly think they contribute enough anymore to earn a place in the field.

I think this is will be a debated conclusion. Granted they are not OP like they were. Still, the ability to spawn gants, the fact they are an MC, the fact they are synapse, and the ability to at least have a shot at a decent psychic power keep them viable. i would not use more than one mind you.

Tyranids don't want to play the waiting game and swarm objectives. Armies like serpent spam will win out the long game and grab objectives better with bikes.

Well mission and list will determine the right strategy for a particular match up. I think you need options for deployment and flexibility in tactical application. I will not only be playing against serpent spam.

what about........

Double flyrant
Triple Crone
Double Exocine
one squad of 20 spinefist gaunts, 4 squads of 10 spinefist gaunts, 1 squad of 4 warriors with deathspitters and boneswords
one venomthrope


With 5 flyers on the board that cant be interceptered you have some fast anti-infantry/anti-AV. Obviously harpies will be targetted and downed but that will let your ground troops move up.

Double exocrines will be able to move up unmolested backed up by warriors and screening gaunts, The venomthrope making the warriors and exocrine extremely hard to kill for anything that doesnt ignore cover, and the few people that do will have to worry about your fliers first.


With 5 squads of gaunts and a squad of warriors you have six scoring units, albiet not hard to kill. Your opponent wont have time to shoot at them however since your flying threats need to be put down first.

Mawlocs are one of the best units in the codex, they where in 5th and they are much better now.

A lot of the lists I see people putting together at the moment are awful and are in pretty much no way competitive.

I've watched all the flg batreps and those nid lists are horrific.

People should try out some of the other units in the codex before dismissing them.

Nids either need to be run as fast attack heavy with outflanking units or in swarms with venomthrope cover. I see too many lists being run which don't have any synergy, it's tragic.

I agree that Nids seem the most synergistic army to date. Your list needs focus or it falls apart. Simple as that.

 Gloomfang wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
One thing, if you take the deathleaper as an HQ choice you can actually make the ethereal much less effective (if you get a little lucky).

The ethereal has to grant his leadership to all tau within 12". No choice, has to. If you roll a 5 or 6 you force all tau within 12" of the ethereal to be ld 7!

Yes they test with HIS leadership for morale. Due to Stuborn HIS leadership ignores penalties. Does no good, put it on the Farseer.

If I am wrong please correct me as I would LOVE to be wrong on this.

The previous FAQ stated that Stubborn was in fact affected by deathleaper's ability as it changed base ld for the game and was not a "modifier"...I am unsure of the current rendition.

The same I would assume. It's a special rule not a modifier (although they are similar).

Shingen wrote:
The same I would assume. It's a special rule not a modifier (although they are similar).

Special rules are modifers

Unless it states otherwise it wont matter against stubborn models, just like weaken resolve etc.

Honestly, I already thought about putting out a challenge to Reecius. Problem was getting everything together before the LVO and the army went away. Best thing would have been a chance to also meet Jim (And challenge him to a "Take the Worst" game. I know it sounds wierd, but nothing seems more entertaining to me than tons of Tyranids on the field, and just as quickly ripping each other to shreds in a poorly thought out fashion. And Pyrovores everywhere.) and pick up some Tyranid terrain. Honestly, I think I have just about cracked the lock on Tyranid alpha strike.

Don't have my book with me, but this will hopefully work for sheer overload.

HQs:
2 Hive Tyrants with Hive Commander and Stranglethorn Cannons. These should start in cover, preferably LOS blocking, and prepare to move up the board.

Troops:
2-3 5x Genestealer Units. These guys come on late game for objectives without needing synapse
2x Tyranid Warrior broods. These will be the outflankers, and should be run into cover, with spacing to mitigate damage. Run stock and shoot. Bring them in medium amounts. Get these into assault as quickly as you can. Bring a guy or two geared for assault if you wish.

Fast Attack
1x Gargoyle Brood. Throw as many bodies into this as possible, and deepstrike. Put it out wide, and multi-assault if you can.
2x Shrike Broods. Run small, but with CC weapons. Keep it behind the gargoyles and ram it home behind them into assault.

Heavy Support:
2x Mawlocs. Click and kill. Don't have to pick the biggest target, but use them to wipe out the problems. Make sure that you can kill whatever your under, and make them loom over your opponent's army. You want these things to make him go "OMG SHOOT IT".
1x Trygon Prime. Keep this alive, because this is your strongest synapse unit. Use it to support, but don't get overconfident.

Fortification:
Comms Relay. You want all this coming in at the same time.

 jy2 wrote:
Actually, had all 3 games ended early (i.e. on Turn 5), Reece would have lost. He got lucky that all 3 games went on to T6.

There's actually a more probable chance the game will continue to turn 6 than end on turn 5. Therefore, had the game ended, it would have been YOU who was lucky... Probability was in Reece's favor to continue the game, therefore you can't really call the game continuing luck...

Dalymiddleboro wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Actually, had all 3 games ended early (i.e. on Turn 5), Reece would have lost. He got lucky that all 3 games went on to T6.

There's actually a more probable chance the game will continue to turn 6 than end on turn 5. Therefore, had the game ended, it would have been YOU who was lucky... Probability was in Reece's favor to continue the game, therefore you can't really call the game continuing luck...

But that's 3 games. The laws of probability dictates that one of those games should have ended on Turn 5, thus making Reece $100 poorer.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Honestly, I already thought about putting out a challenge to Reecius. Problem was getting everything together before the LVO and the army went away. Best thing would have been a chance to also meet Jim (And challenge him to a "Take the Worst" game. I know it sounds wierd, but nothing seems more entertaining to me than tons of Tyranids on the field, and just as quickly ripping each other to shreds in a poorly thought out fashion. And Pyrovores everywhere.) and pick up some Tyranid terrain. Honestly, I think I have just about cracked the lock on Tyranid alpha strike.

Don't have my book with me, but this will hopefully work for sheer overload.

HQs:
2 Hive Tyrants with Hive Commander and Stranglethorn Cannons. These should start in cover, preferably LOS blocking, and prepare to move up the board.

Troops:
2-3 5x Genestealer Units. These guys come on late game for objectives without needing synapse
2x Tyranid Warrior broods. These will be the outflankers, and should be run into cover, with spacing to mitigate damage. Run stock and shoot. Bring them in medium amounts. Get these into assault as quickly as you can. Bring a guy or two geared for assault if you wish.

Fast Attack
1x Gargoyle Brood. Throw as many bodies into this as possible, and deepstrike. Put it out wide, and multi-assault if you can.
2x Shrike Broods. Run small, but with CC weapons. Keep it behind the gargoyles and ram it home behind them into assault.

Heavy Support:
2x Mawlocs. Click and kill. Don't have to pick the biggest target, but use them to wipe out the problems. Make sure that you can kill whatever your under, and make them loom over your opponent's army. You want these things to make him go "OMG SHOOT IT".
1x Trygon Prime. Keep this alive, because this is your strongest synapse unit. Use it to support, but don't get overconfident.

Fortification:
Comms Relay. You want all this coming in at the same time.

Similar to the idea I had, but I put 2-3 Hive Crons for FA and Biovores to pepper the field with Spore Mines and use them for board control.