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I recently played a game of 40k against my frineds Nids.

I dont have much experience fighting against Nids but from
what I had gathered you kill the synaps creatures first then mop up the rest.

What I discovered is that yes you do kill the big bus first, but when it came
to dealing with the little Nids I found they lacked punch.

Is it just me or are Nids just pants at CC I was using my ork shoota boyz mobs
at max size(30) and found that even if I was charged I still managed to win most combats.

IS this a common problem with the Nids or was this a once off?

Yeah, the wee bugs are awful in combat due to crap for toughness and saves. Termagants barely slow you down, being Guardsmen with a 6 save instead of a 5, while Hormagaunts aren't as dangerous as Guardsmen with laspistol and CCW.

Genestealers are scary, but once you're in cover, you swing first, negating their biggest advantage, and once that's done, they're T4, Sv 5+ models. They die in *droves* unless they swing first.

They're really not good at close combat at all, save some big guys and, oddly, Warriors. Anything with a save of 5+ or worse shouldn't be in CC if at all possible.

Played right, they can be great. Imagine 20-30 hormagaunts with toxin sacs, given preferred enemy or furious charge by Swarmy, maybe with a few psychic buffs...

But getting it to all come together, that's the trick.

The Tyranids are a short range army, not necessarily an assault army.

If you really want to see a terrifying assault see some Endless Swarm'd pimped out hormagaunts. Wave after wave of furious charging, poisonous hormagaunts that simply come back in from reserves whenever you wipe them out.

The warrior/shrike/ravener melee brick is also very scary in assault if properly kitted out for it, but it's expensive.

More concerning perhaps, are screamer killer carnifexes with crushing claws and catalyst on them. D3 hammer of wrath attacks each, toxin sacs for pennies, an additional attack for having scything talons and claws, 4+ regeneration, feel no pain, and a mace tail from three, fleeted, four wound, toughness six, S10 models with armor bane and AP1 and frag-grenades. Add other kits and kaboodles at your leisure.

Quite expensive, but the charge essentially destroys nearly any unit it comes into contact with (vehicles often just crumple from the hammer of wrath hits alone) and can survive nearly anything you throw at it. If I'm fortunate they even have preferred enemy.

Sky-light gargs are also quite capable of simply drowning you in dice and while both are model spam armies, the Tyranids can keep on replenishing their cannon fodder while you can't replace any losses (Ork anti-infantry shooting and general resilience per point is however, amazing so it's still very much possible to win).

Overall though, if you can't handle them properly, the Tyranids may disappoint, and the Orks are one of the punchier armies around, so your choice of armies let you survive assault better than most others would.

SBG wrote:
Played right, they can be great. Imagine 20-30 hormagaunts with toxin sacs, given preferred enemy or furious charge by Swarmy, maybe with a few psychic buffs...

But getting it to all come together, that's the trick.

Yeah, but that's similar to saying that an assault marine squad is great, once you add in plasma pistols, power weapons, a jetpack Chaplain, then your allied Farseer buffs...

You have to eyeball them in a naked environment first. Of course, when you keep in mind that toxin sacks nearly double the cost of 'gaunts, and then the Swarmlord tax, you'll find out that I can take 60 Hormagaunts and a standard Hive Tyrant for the same cost and get more out of 'em. Upgrades for bugs are often a trap, and upgrades on the squishy guys is *very* dangerous... for you, not your foe. It's easy to invest too many points on units that are, at the end of the day, more fragile than guardsmen. Eggshells with hammers are fine for elites or fast attack, but your troops need to be *durable*, and that's more wounds per point, not more killpower. Let everything else do the heavy lifting, your troops are there to hold objectives.

I run orks and my brother run a swarm list with about 80 to 100 Hormagaunts. When we play (1500 to 1850 pts) my boys tend to shred the gaunts pretty well with the mix of fire power and CC on the charge. But where the nids seem to shine is that second wave of MC's. Once the gaunts wear down your lines a little bit those carnifex and other biggies seem to sweep in and clean up pretty well. If you can mess up that timing and put holes in their synapse their CC effectiveness seems to really fall off.

Sounds pretty accurate, you might see more upgraded gaunts with the "endless" formation, because the expense is easier to justify. But little bugs are there to grab and hold (even if what they are holding are your troops) and the Big Bugs are supposed to "clean up".

A weird way to look at it, is that gaunts are "assault grenades" for Big Bugs". I think the "correct" answer to a 30 boy mob is a Mawloc

Brain leeches are another thing to watch out for. Though how you can avoid them? I don't know, they come mounted on Big Bugs, sometimes with wings.....