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No one in my gaming group save IG players can even come close to handling Nids. CSM are getting tabled, Eldar are getting crushed, etc. The games aren't even close. What should we be collectively looking out for?

I find nida vs orks quite fun. Usually nids end up beibg the gunline.

Guiliman takes nids down.

I have not played vs chaos.

But the classic strategy vs nids is to shoot and fall back. Rince and repeat. Do not try to alpha strike them. Gaunts and spore mines stop that.

Have some example lists from all involved parties? It is hard to give advice without having a rough idea what people are running. Especially the Tyranid lists, as their playstyle can vary drastically depending on unit composition and Hive Fleet Adaptation. Building to counter a Kraken 'stealer shock/rush-style list won't help much against a Kronos artillery battery for instance.

As a general piece of advice, I'd look towards mechanized lists when fighting Tyranids. While most of the Tyranid anti-tank options got significantly better than their prior forms, they can't really spam them as efficiently as some of the other factions since the vast majority are tied to expensive monstrous creatures with the exception of Hive Guard. Transports also allow some shelter from melee alpha strikes by taking the charge and then allowing the squad inside to disembark and do what they will (though keep an eye out for Hormagaunts - they basically exist to encircle things and keep them tied up all game). Most of the melee bugs are also fairly inefficient against high toughness models in one way or another as well.

Are you losing to hordes of haunts, alpha striking genestealers, or lots of carnifexes? Need a bit of detail about the builds you are struggling against.

My guess would probably be you either need better anti horde or you need better screening/denial.

The issue for me is mass carnifex with HVC/deathspitter.

I've seen people getting run over by hordes and losing to artillery.

Basically, there's one player who goes Nidzilla/artillery shooty nids a lot and one that goes mass buffed hordes a lot.

I'll second this. Nids just first turn charge and wipe everything out. Anything not killed is tied up in combat via pile ins and consolidates. Bubble wrapping is tough because Flyrants can just blast holes in your bubble wrap and get genestealers in the gaps, once they're in it's often game over. Swarmlord with Kraken stealers can charge anywhere on the table.

Myself and two of my friends have all played against Nids and won, that would be:
World Eater + Night Lords army,
Tank heavy Imperial Guard army and
Mixed infantry + vehicle Ork army.

All of us have been playing 40k for 10+ years, all of us thought that Nids are a hard army to fight and none of us thought they were OP.


As far as what to do with them? Use the fact that they are only strong in numbers against them, I sent Magnus and 3 units of Zerkers into the centre of my opponents spawn which forced him to mobilize his army to remove me from his spawn; this left me able to cap several objectives and deal with the units he had left to sit on objectives, harass units etc. What also helped was exploiting the lack of invulnerable saves on most of his MC models which dropped like flies to heavy ordnance.

As a Nid player, the hardest matches for me have been against Alpha Legion chaos and, shockingly, GK/IG. Those damn Psilencers are good vs our hordes and our monsters, and IG are good at killing everything.

Nids have each edition gotten stabbed in the back, making their old units cost far to much to help the new models sell. When 8th edition rolled out and they made an extremely througough internal balance the tyranids suddenly had so many viable option. There is no 'one nid list' it has far to many playable styles a strategy against one list will not work against another one.

Martel732 wrote:
The issue for me is mass carnifex with HVC/deathspitter.

I've seen people getting run over by hordes and losing to artillery.

Basically, there's one player who goes Nidzilla/artillery shooty nids a lot and one that goes mass buffed hordes a lot.

If your iddue is carnifexes with HVC and deathspitters I can't really tell you what to do. That particularly fex comes very badly out on most math hammers. My sugestion is to run an ork blob with a claw in it an come into CC with it. Or any group of cheap infatery.

Long ranged dreads can outshoot them. There is so much you can use to stop them.

If you play BA then i suggest the following:

1) Against hordes and genestealer a BA LC termie squad is simply too much for them to handle. It also deals nasty things to flyrants.

2) Against nidzilla you either clear the screen and put them in melee where they suffer, or pack enough high AP weapons to drop those fexes. Since you play a BS3+ faction, that -1 to hit isn't a big issue.

In general, surprisingly, when it comes to assault specialists tyranids don't keep the pace. They don't have the durability for it.

If you can catch a Flyrant with LC Termies then you are amazing.

kellymatthew37 wrote:
If you can catch a Flyrant with LC Termies then you are amazing.

I suppose you've never heard of deep strike.

Kuklops wrote:
I'll second this. Nids just first turn charge and wipe everything out. Anything not killed is tied up in combat via pile ins and consolidates. Bubble wrapping is tough because Flyrants can just blast holes in your bubble wrap and get genestealers in the gaps, once they're in it's often game over. Swarmlord with Kraken stealers can charge anywhere on the table.

The way to deal with this (as a drop genestealer player) is to spread targets out. The 'nid player is going to get to charge whatever target they want, and unless that target is a vehicle or Magus, the 'stealers will kill it. Accept that, play expecting it. Deny multi-charges into valuable targets by having them spread out, and behind chaff. Remember that the Swarmlord has to be within 6 of the 'stealers to give them the double move, so try to position such that he doesn't get a good charge target unless he gives up the double move. Let the 'stealers eat something, then destroy them with shooting and counter charge them.

Genestealer Tyranids are a very glass hammer build, one that can run out of steam quickly. Deny charges by hiding in tanks, shoot 'stealer units down to less than 10 models to deny the extra attack, charge them when you have the chance.

If the concern regards gaunt hordes that tie you up, consider the Death Guard. They have multiple options for eating hordes alive, and can barf out mortal wounds from a wide variety of sources to threaten the big monsters.

You can also use pink horrors. A squad of 30 near a Herald and a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch that's buffed with Flickering Flames should be able to delete a 30-unit mob of hormagaunts or termagants, and possibly even a 20-unit mob of genestealers, in one turn of shooting, with the wrap-up provided by flamers and exalted flamers. It gets even uglier if a warlord with Daemonspark is nearby.

Eldar and IG have beat me. Eldar went with "that" list. The pysker spam tourney list that intercepts DS units. He used interrupt with reroll wounds on his Dark Reapers and they annihilated my GS. I had a few left, they failed the charge.

IG beat me (partly do to my bad play) but he played a bunch of tanks with cheap 10 man units to screen. he had the tactic that lets him reroll the number of shots on variable dice for tanks or something. I forget the name.

Some tips:
Don't traget the synapse creatures only, it doesnt matter this edition.
Kill the GeneStealers first, no matter what. Kill the Hive Tyrants 2nd. Kill other hormigants and termie 3rd.
Focus fire one unit all the way down, generally the closest unit to you.
Deny DS units with proper deployment. Deploy in phase lines so that when your front line gets into combat, they can fall back and the guys behind them can shoot.
Use CP and stratagems early, like turn 1, even if you burn through like 75% of them. Its worth it.
Nids are fast, especially with Kraken.

Edit: in a tourney setting, play the objectives not the army. Pick good secondary objectives, Headhunter and Big Game Hunter are usually good if they go Nidzilla. The Reaper is good if they go swarm heavy.

Actually what you just said is how i win games. I bait people into going for Genestealers, or Hive Guards.

Outside of Flyrant spam we automatically lose to IG. Just bring a detachment of IG with artillery. We literally have no answer to well screened artillery.

Oddly enough i have heard of deep strike. However despite your attitude tword it, you still have to make a 9 in charge aginst a model that gets 24 shots a 4 plus invul and can simply leave combat then shoot and smite and scream at you. While your unit costs just as much if not more.

I struggle a lot against tyranids with my drukhari, and if they start first no way I can win the game. With SW it's also hard but not impossible, while my orks are still inferior but they can handle the bugs quite well.

My experience is codex vs index since none of my armies have a codex yet, but IMHO tyranids are not even remotely as OP as AM.

 Blackie wrote:
I struggle a lot against tyranids with my drukhari, and if they start first no way I can win the game. With SW it's also hard but not impossible, while my orks are still inferior but they can handle the bugs quite well.

My experience is codex vs index since none of my armies have a codex yet, but IMHO tyranids are not even remotely as OP as AM.

Traditionally DE has truble with IG. DE is a mobile glass cannon. IG is a an durable armie with superior range.

DE has tarditional been an enemy of nids because of the poison on troops vs MC's.

Orks vs nids depends on how much shooting the nids have. One of you will by default me the CC army. If the nids is shooty it will be orks, if it is stealer shock it will depend on who gets the charge.

 Niiai wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I struggle a lot against tyranids with my drukhari, and if they start first no way I can win the game. With SW it's also hard but not impossible, while my orks are still inferior but they can handle the bugs quite well.

My experience is codex vs index since none of my armies have a codex yet, but IMHO tyranids are not even remotely as OP as AM.

Traditionally DE has truble with IG. DE is a mobile glass cannon. IG is a an durable armie with superior range.

DE has tarditional been an enemy of nids because of the poison on troops vs MC's.

Orks vs nids depends on how much shooting the nids have. One of you will by default me the CC army. If the nids is shooty it will be orks, if it is stealer shock it will depend on who gets the charge.

And i wish it went back to that way.... GW took away all DE tools to deal with Hordes, tho i table Parking lots even faster now than i every have, I'm not scared of IG tanks, i'm scared of Guardsmen......



How i handle Tyranids as DE (Great insight tho for other armies) Disclaimer, i have a friend that loves comp nids (he did the Flyrant spam ONLY while playing 7th) and i am too a heavy nids player. I would like to play against nids more honestly, they are always fun games (only a few in 8th so far, like 6-7 vs nids).

But what people need to know about nids are they are easy to counter lol. Let me explain (this might be long)

Nids normally are an Odd take on a TAC lists, Even if they spam a few units, unless its extreme (like; 9 Sporecyts; 7 Flyrants; 15 Carnifex's, etc..) Tyranids will normally have Genestealers, some form of AT, and a few other large units maybe a mix of small units. Those units can be Gants (all types even rippers) or Fex's, or HT's, Biovores, Hive Guard, Harpies, etc...

If looking at the normal (even high comp lists) there are Hammers, Glass Cannons/Hammers, and Artillery (Biovores/Hive Guard/Sporescyts i'm calling them Artillery to make it easier) Tyrants, Swarmlord, Trygons, Ravagers are more Hammers/Anvils; Hgants, Genestealers are more Glass hammers, etc... You get the idea.

What makes nids good ATM is that all these units are viable, even in a competitive setting and they can mix in many different units, you can even spam 2-4 units and be highly effective. They have good Range, melee, they have Glass and Anvils. Some units are Both, like the Flyrant, with a 4++, good shooting and melee, combine with Psychic, its no wonder people take 3+ at times.

How does this make them easier to counter? Well 2 things, Target Priority, and Deployment. Each army/list has a different set of Priorities, its not about killing Synapse anymore (literally almost 0 point in doing that most the time).

For my DE, I know i can get away from Gants (H/T gants i can out range always) i know Hiveguard are going to be hard to hit and behind everything but they will do high damage to me, the HT has high potential to do more damage as well. The units like Biovores and Mawlocks? I can ignore completely, i can move over the Spores, and away from Mawlocks, they might do a couple points of damage, but why waste my shots at them? When HTs and Hive Guard will do 90% the damage. Then there are Genestealers, these guys are only trouble in large numbers, i need to make sure to hurt them, but i dont need to over kill, my Poison shots are for these guys. I need to Deploy in a way that they cant get a full charge on me, BUT bait them into trying to get a charge turn 1 to out position them, if he can get 4-5 on a squad (remember they will kill something, give them what YOU want to die) and waste a viable charge, then do that. You need to MAKE them want to move where you want too, Using my 2 Flyers is perfect for this.

Deployment (this is a picture, it works for corners, long ways, short ways etc.. just a very fast paint job to get the point across).

Details under picture


So looking at the pic, this is a deployment to stop DSing and turn 1 charges from 30+ movement units as well as Baiting out DSing (like Mawlocks, or even units like CSM and Jump, or Flyrants).

I have 2 Flyers and the units i want to throw away (I use beasts, b.c if a melee turn 1 charge doesnt go for them, they will extremely hurt theirs back, if they do go for my beasts then i will save my army for cheap and hopefully hit back). You want to put enough space that units like Flyrants, 10man squads can not go anywhere "Behind" or "inside" your lines, and ALWAYS make sure to also have 1 side covered (if not both, thats harder for dawn of war deployment). give yourself room to find an out if you need too.

It looks simple, but at the very ends are my Big hitters, my Ravagers, inside are my Troops in vehicles (I use elites only so for me its elites, same thing tho). And my Flyers are DS and Charging Blockers. This will "bait" DSing to 1 side (if your lucky they will split their forces up and not focus fire, but more skilled players wont do that). Once they DS 2-3 units to a side, or move up to the middle (middle is also a bait spot, there is nothing there that matter and its where all my weapons can hurt them, a good player wont go their) Their goal will be to take out a couple of the Ravagers on 1 side and give them a good opening to sweep my army, but since you isolated his army and baited it out to kill only 1 unit (due to spacing, unless they use stratagems on Hive Guard, Genestealers, Flyrants, and other units like Harpies, etc.. cant get to the middle or the 2nd Ravager due to my Flyer), Now this might bait out all Tyrants to kill the Flyers (bait number 2) if this happens he will not have enough to kill any Ravagers or the other units (lets say he has 2 Flyrants DSing on 1 Flyer). At this point i won the game if that happens, i will kill those 2 units right away (1 Flyrant isnt enough to kill a Flyer, with -1 to hit and a 5++ 12 wounds, he wounds on 4+.. yeah it will take 2).
His best with 2 Flyrants and Hive guard 6man would kill a Flyer and a Ravager, he might hurt some other vehicles, but i dont care unless they are 1/2 wounded.

Once that happens, i'll for sure kill the Flyrants, try to kill Genestealers and make sure to go after the Hive Guard (I use Bombers, they are amazing, so he will need to kill them other wise i'm doing 4-5 MW's on a Hive guard unit and 2d3 3D shots), if both Flyers stay alive, i will 100% kill 6 Give Guard unless i roll below average on 12 3+'s and 5d3's, but even then i would kill 4-5 of them.


With that said, the Tyranid list i'm scared of is all Gants and Neurothropes, if he had 100 gants 4-5 Neurothropes and then lots of Single Biovores.. I couldnt win unless i just spam all Beasts (but then its not DE).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Like to add, my lists are ALWAYS 4 Ravagers, 2 Flyers, 3 units of Beasts and 2 Raiders with 4 units of Trueborns (DL's and PGL's only) everything is Lance but my Flyers are Bombers with Scythes. 3 Detachments, 1 Vandguard, 1 Outrider, 1 Spearhead, 2 Haemonculus as HQ's with Archon as WL, with new CA Haemi will DS now. Its about 1950pts, I give out some agonisers and electrowhips to fill in points I've only lost to Chaos with this list so far. (yes even against SM Razorback and Storm Raven spam). My goals are always to win with Deployment and baiting out bad movements from my opponents.

Thanks for the post, someone that really explains in the detail his tactics at last

Your list is unusual and quite extreme though and 60-90 gaunts plus 40 genestealers are always included in the lists I face. Their fast troops are hard to handle for drukhari. I don't own any flyers or beasts so I'm stuck on just bringing more venoms.

I'm not surprised you don't have trouble against SM tanks spam, you've got tons and tons of anti tank. What about an ork green tide? Especially the fast ones with stormboyz and/or massive use of kommandos plus teleporting boyz. Which is another enemy that I really struggle to play against with my drukhari.

What kind of beasts do you play? Just clawed fiends and a beastmaster?

I dont have anyone that plays Green tide around me. Tho i would relay on my Fly ability and stay on top of Buildings and just put my Beasts in the way 1 unit at a time.

It would be very hard to win with my lists without better movements.

Im not scared of 60 gants, i can get away from them, i would take care of the things i cant get away from and then just attrition down the gants out of 12" range. Its only when there are 100+ gants that have table control (like the Orks Greentide) that i would be worried about.

I play 2 units of 3 RWF and 1 unit of 3 Clawed Fiends, the Claw Fiends are very scary, tho they hit on 4+, they are high str and 2D each with AP. Great against Primaris Marines.
RWF even tho they are 14pts now, i find them very useful a 12" 3W fly unit? Heck yeah!

So do you think marines can adapt this approach?

Martel732 wrote:
So do you think marines can adapt this approach?

It depends a bit. DE tends to have more models then marines, because you are mostly paying for the weapon and BS 3, while marines pay for more T and better saves.

In the example the table is very narrow. With fever models it is harder to bottle the neck up. Many nid list willk exploit an opening and use gaunts in a worm to remove chaff.

The DE example is particurarly good because the 2 flyers help denying a big aria that genstealers can't charge.

But the general idea vs tyranids (unless he shoots more then you) is to draw a battleline and have him come to you.

Amishprn, thanks for the great post. I do something very similar when playing against Nids with my Craftworld army. Generally you want to spread your deployment, giving them a few obvious DS targets to bait out their genestealers. I use Wave Serpents and bare bones jet bikes for this (I play Biel Tan, so they are far from useless if they don’t get attacked), and try to make them attack me. If I can get them to charge me on the first turn, I usually win. If they are smart and hold off on charging until they get a better target, it’s a toss up. The nice thing about those units, too, is that they fly, so if by chance they survive they can just leave combat and still shoot.

Bring thunderfire cannons. (or just IG artillery in spades). /thread

Martel732 wrote:
So do you think marines can adapt this approach?

I'm not sure but I think so, but SM have flyers, artillery/tanks and expendable units as well. You can try using a couple of flyers instead of bombers/jetfighters, predators instead of ravagers and scouts instead of the beasts. Something like the specific DE list posted above can be done with SM IMHO. SM don't have super efficient screeners, I know, but even the beasts are among the best screeners in the game so scouts, tac marines or maybe intercessors can replace them in order to use the same approach.

My SW collection is basically close combat oriented so I can't really try this style of playing with them.

 Marmatag wrote:
Bring thunderfire cannons. (or just IG artillery in spades). /thread

That TFC stratagem may be decent VS genestealer footslog charging hordes. The 1st wave of rushing bugs crashing into your line is usually inevitable if you did not get the 1st turn, but it can at least slow down the 2nd wave of Nidz to buy your Guilliman gunline a breath to handle a portion of the immediate threat.