Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am posting this list as it is my potential first nids list (I play a bunch of other armies but never nids). I particularly like the forgeworld models for nids and so am trying to come up with a list which can hold it's weight against serpent spam CWE, MSU Marines, and AV13 Necrons. I don't need to win tournaments but as long as I have a decent chance I am fine. I mostly play with BAO style rules.

Due to my inexperience with nids I would appreciate some critiques and modifications that might be necessary to make something like this list work. I think the list looks alright if a bit frail against armies with plentiful monster hunters. Thanks for your help.

+ HQ +
* Hive Tyrant (240pts) Electroshock Grubs, 2x Twin-linked Devourer , Wings
* Hive Tyrant (240pts) Electroshock Grubs, 2x Twin-linked Devourer , Wings

+ Elites +
* Malanthrope (85pts)
* Malanthrope (85pts)

+ Troops +
* Ripper Swarm Brood (45pts) 3x Deep Strike
* Ripper Swarm Brood (45pts) 3x Deep Strike
* Ripper Swarm Brood (45pts) 3x Deep Strike

+ Fast Attack +
* Dimachaeron (200pts)
* Dimachaeron (200pts)

+ Lords of War +
* Barbed Hierodule (565pts)

I actually like the dima but a lot of people dont really due to it being kinda slow with no shooting.

I think that what you need to make it worthwhile is to have a lot of shooting and use it as a bodyguard to this blob of shootyness, I dont know if 2 of them would be worthwhile on this job though.

I dont know what the stats for the hierodule is maybe its shooty but potentially you could exchange the hierodule and one dima for a living artillery dataslate and 2 dakkafexes it would leave you with about 75pts to spare for more rippers or something.

Imagine your army, then imagine a gunline 6" or less from their board edge camping. (Tau or Wave serpent spam)

It wont make it. Your list is slow and has no firepower. The two tyrants can get in but there is only so much they can do for the multiple turns it would take for your assault heavy army to reach the opponent.

Gunlines arent as powerfull as they used to be since the new maelstrom objectiveswere added, now a list requires a decent mobility to get those moveable objectives.

I do agree that you need either more mobility or more shooting (or both) though to be competitive.

fartherthanfar wrote:I actually like the dima but a lot of people dont really due to it being kinda slow with no shooting.

I think that what you need to make it worthwhile is to have a lot of shooting and use it as a bodyguard to this blob of shootyness, I dont know if 2 of them would be worthwhile on this job though.

I dont know what the stats for the hierodule is maybe its shooty but potentially you could exchange the hierodule and one dima for a living artillery dataslate and 2 dakkafexes it would leave you with about 75pts to spare for more rippers or something.

The Barbed Hierodule is a GMC with 2x6 shots Str10 AP3 biocannons, it also has T8 W6 Sv3+ and is fairly small as far as GMC come. Essentially my ranged output is 12 S10 AP3 BS3 shots and 24 S6 BS4 shots all one relatively tough models. One of the cool abilities of the Barbed Hierodule is that it can either shoot and run or run twice, so it is actually reasonably fast.

My game plan for the list would essentially boil down to them acting as board control and distractions as they are extremely scary to let into melee. The real lifting is probably going to be the hierodule and flyrants. If the opponent goes after the flyrants and hierodule then I might actually get full usage of the dima...really my biggest concern for this list is actually against grav gun/cannon space marines. They can very easily take out a MC a turn and will almost always out score me. Centurion star is probably going to be a pain, hopefully I can keep my malanthropes alive.

Iechine wrote:Imagine your army, then imagine a gunline 6" or less from their board edge camping. (Tau or Wave serpent spam)

It wont make it. Your list is slow and has no firepower. The two tyrants can get in but there is only so much they can do for the multiple turns it would take for your assault heavy army to reach the opponent.

Was there any constructive advice in this statement? I will go ahead and answer but really it isn't helpful unless some solution or idea is proposed to alleviate the concern. Unless you have specific experience playing this army against said armies and can share?

I feel sorry for my opponent in trying to play a gunline in 7ed with maelstorm objectives.

MC with leap are not as slow as you might think as always moving 6" even in terrain is significant. I also likely have shrouded, ~30% chance for infiltrate (why would I not roll strategic warlord traits?) and ~30% chance for catalyst on each flyrant. My ground pounders are not as easy to kill as you might believe. Though I will state for the record that they are very likely to end up side tracked with capturing objectives and never get near a gunline most of the time. In fact most games these days I don't even want to approach a gunline, rather I just work on the objectives and send some distractions their way to keep them turtled in their "gunline" shell.

BTW I can tell you from experience from playing serpent spam armies that the dima have a decent chance to see a close combat or two as the serpents will be needed for focusing on the hierodule and flyrants who can each pop a serpent a turn if they get the right positioning or I don't jink. This leaves the dima essentially 3-4 turns to advance at ~9.5" a turn before I can seriously consider finishing even one of them. This is of course somewhat mute as I would never leave all my serpents sitting at board edge as they are needed to wrack up pts in maelstorm. Tau are are capable of tabling the list as described if they are very specific builds which are very poor in BAO style missions due to non existent mobility.

cool, the barbed hierodule sounds fun, 565 points is still pretty steep but can probably work in a list like yours. (whats the range on the gun? can you give it regeneration?)
I still think 2 Dima is maybe too much and you might want to exchange one for more shooting. Maybe an Exocrine or Biovores... or try to squeeze in 2 teams of 2 Hive Guard (I can't believe im proposing Hive Guards again in this edition but they do give us some decent shooting against the Jinking vehicules, I really wish they had Symbiotic Targeting tho)

Dakkafexes would be really good but only one wouldnt really cut it but at 1850pts you could exchange one dima for 2 dakkafexes which would be a good choice.

The Hierodule has no options. You could take a scythed one instead for more stabbyness but I think the barbed subspecies is generally easier to use.

It's definitely a shooty platform; the gun has as good a range as anything in the tyranid army list. In close combat its stats are disturbingly similar to the Wraithknight for twice the price. Yes it has stomp but stomp's not THAT good. At range, it has enough firepower to quite realistically put said wraithknight down in one volley of biocannon fire.

It's good at tanking light-to-medium gunfire, but not big stuff. T8, 3+ armour save and feel no pain means that 3 Forgefiends will basically spend the entire game firing hades autocannon rounds into it before it goes down.

By comparison, lascannons kill it not all that much slower than a tervigon.

It's a nice unit. It's a very, very nice unit in a tyranid army, because being able to reliably put 6 S10 hits on a vehicle on the other side of the board gives the bugs a tank-hunter they desperately need.

A Hierophant is more of an assault platform, because it's twice the price and has only the same firepower (mostly due to its insane toughness against anything sub lascannon/railgun), but it's little brother we're talking about here.

I haven't used Dimachaerons. They look awesome models, but I'd add my concern that they may not make it to the enemy. That said, a bio-titan's a damn good distraction. I wish they were characters, though - they seem tailor-made for picking out and murdering independent characters but have no way to target them.

I can't remember if they made the Malanthrope a synapse creature or not? My main concern is that you've got limited synapse to cover your backfield.

I think locarno24 pretty much nailed the hierodule.

The malanthrope gives out shrouded an is a synapse creature with T5 W4. They will hopefully help to keep my hierodule and dima alive while providing synapse. They are the real priority targets of my ground troops as their deaths will remove shrouded and synapse. They are not the easiest targets but 2-3 serpent will kill one pretty reliably. If I get rid of a dima I would probably be better served with another malanthrope and a shooty MC to replace it. The dima and malanthrope models are the primary reasons I would want to collect nids.

wow, the hierodule seems really cool. I wonder why people arent talking too much about him if he solves such a primordial problem with Nids (long range anti vehicule), I guess the pricetag is the reason, it could probably use a 2+Arsv for that price, but its a cool beasty.
I would totally play it with a Dima to bodyguard it cuz people will definitely want to get it tied up and thats a lot harder if a Dima is close by.

Grav guns spam will nuke it though, but you cant have everything.

The main problem is just that - he costs more than a baneblade, and whilst biocannons have an insane rate of fire he is only BS3.

If you've played either with or against chaos space marines, think of him as a super-duper-forgefiend-on-steroids.


Grav guns will indeed kill anything. It's a problem with gargantuan creatures that stuff designed as counters to Riptides and Wraithknights does a real number on them. On the other hand, stuff like autocannons (including Hades, Psybolt and Exterminator versions) that can glance a knight to death will do little more than tickle thanks to your saving throw.

It's a disparity that shows up even more with a hierophant, which is T9 and has a 2+ save plus Feel No Pain.

A Krak Missile hit has a 16% chance of glancing the frontal glacis plate of a baneblade, whilst a lascannon hit has a 33% chance - about double.
A Krak Missile hit has a 4% chance of wounding a hierophant, whilst a lascannon hit has a 28% chance - seven times more effective.


If you like the Dimachaeron model, don't drop one! If you want to drop anything, maybe drop a tyrant? You could probably fit in a Tyrannofex for additional Strength 10 dakka with a bit of work.

The hierodule is a funny beasty. In most other armies he would be pretty mediocre as his shooting is good but not great. He is tough but not really 560 pts tough. However in nids I feel he fits extremely well due to filling a niche that is not easy to fill and adding to the MC saturation in a nidzilla style list.

An interesting trick you can pull to make the hierodule more effective is to put him in an ammo dump purchased with a fortification as he can then reroll 1's for all his shooting. You could even have him shoot a quad gun for you. With his size you might even be able to claim proper cover from a bunker and hide a venomthrope or Biovores in the bunker.

Cover saves are generally a good idea - forests are a good one, too.

Just remember that moving through terrain robs gargantuan creatures and superheavy walkers of their speed advantage...

I have to say I like the list, would still love to see some dakkafexes in this list since I think that they would fit very well but im sure you can have a lot of fun with it.

let us know how it plays