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So, I'm a fledgling Warhammer 40k player, and a buddy of mine has declared that in a very short time, after I have the last of my troops assembled and painted, I will have the honor of sending my Tyranids up against his Chaos Space Marines for my first ever battle. Here's the basic set up.

Walter:
4000pts+ of Chaos Space Marines

Me:
1 box Tyranid Warriors
2 boxes Carnifex Brood
1 box Hormagaunts
1 box Tyranid Battleforce

Now, I have all my tyranids set up with toxin sacs and adrenal glands, except for the Termagants, which are bare bones. My Carnifexes are screamer killers with dual talons, and my tyranid warriors are bonesword and talon melee killers.

The problem is, I can't come up with any viable tactics for deployment that will give me even a shred of a chance to survive. Please Help.

Does he have a lot of ranged stuff, oblits, vinidcators, defilers etc, or is he going for CC heavy, transports and landraiders type?

If its the former then pie plates will smother your bubblewrap of homragaunts and termagaunts, enabling him to keep you at arms length with shooting before you can close the gap. If he likes the CC though, he's going to have to close with you as quick as you want to get grips with him, which will work in your favour. Your best bet is too shield the big guys with the little ones, hopefully tie up what you want to hit then smash in with the heavy hitters. You've not got the means with what you have to shoot him at all really, so protect your valuable stuff with the critters.

If he hasn't got a lot of longer range stuff, especially templates, then you can try to concentrate your forces to one side or the other, ensuring that your stuff isn't too spread out without support from other nearby units (synapase especially). Do you play with a lot of terrain? Obviously this will help massively, and worht bringing as much along as you can find or proxy. Using the battleforce stealers as ymgarls could also work to keep him away from terrain and give you a chance to influence his deployment, as well as tie something up early and give you time to close.

If i've stated the obvious, or gone over stuff that youve discounted or already thought of then I apologise, but I figure I'd just chuck a load of stuff at you and see if some sticks.

Well, from what i know, hes a major fan of the blood god, and he showed me a Daemon Prince and a few tanks of his. So, running through things, I'm going to guess hes going to probably go big, nasty, and lots of template weapons. My major line of thought has been to run in as quickly as possible and engage with my heavy melee units. What would you suggest for a decent spread so i can keep troops close enough to be in synapse range, while spread out enough so I dont get them wiped out. I can't really trust on any cover, simply because he is such a good friend, but completely sadistic enough to play chaos space marines and torture a new player with template weapons...

I am in a very similar position but am CSM and regularly play tyranids , i will tell you of some things that i fear as csm player when playing him :
-Tervigons : if they arent killed quickly they just keep spawning termagants which is a pain
-Trygons can be quite nasty when he gets them in my deployment zone and starts taking out my HS , havocs , oblits , etc
-Mawlocs : These are and if you want to template Large blast kill some marines ( go for the chosen if he is using any ) that are sitting on objectives
-Flyrant /hive tyrant /swarmlord : This is a CC monster and often kills my characters
hormogaunts: if you are planning on using these then i suggest toxin sacs , which is really helpful if hes running plague marines especially
Ymgarls : can be such a nasty suprise when they come from cover , they can be really hard hitting and go vulnerable places
Tyrant gaurd : need these to protect your hive tyrant (a reall pain to fight ) or your hive tyrant will get shot to gak on turn 1
Zoanthrope : If hes bringin armour i think this is your best bet , thats what my mate uses anyway .

This is just of my personal experience of playing tyranids with csm and i might be woefully wrong with some of these but just my two cents .
And if you do not have units i mentioned sorry , just ignore it then

Oddly enough, that makes me feel better. I've been constantly under the impression through all the stuff ive been trying to read on tactics that tyranids were woefully insufficient when fighting any type of space marine army.
Im working on getting most of those models you mentioned.

I'm gonna second Ronan on tervigons, they can be a real pain especially when they roll iron arm. I'd take two as the base of any nid list. I find that nids are pretty well off at low points if you do it right. Most armies, especially space marines don't bring enough stuff until points hit about 1500. Bring a couple of biovores to sneak in wounds on marines, or murder cultists/IG.

Just so we're clear, you're not going to play against his full 4000pts right?

Tyranids and Biomancy is potent, if you are going against Pie plates do what orks do, dont get lazy with the spacing on your gaunts, make sure they are 2 inches apart on all sides, that way even a large blast template wont hit many at all. trygon primes were my favorite thing to run,

yeah and in 6th ed tyranids and psychic powers especially biomancy is a fearsome combination

Almarine wrote:
I'm gonna second Ronan on tervigons, they can be a real pain especially when they roll iron arm. I'd take two as the base of any nid list. I find that nids are pretty well off at low points if you do it right. Most armies, especially space marines don't bring enough stuff until points hit about 1500. Bring a couple of biovores to sneak in wounds on marines, or murder cultists/IG.

Just so we're clear, you're not going to play against his full 4000pts right?

No, because I may be able to top out with 1000pts, and if I had to fight his forces, I'm pretty sure I'd manually run my troops off the table to spare them the anguish. On the psyker spells though, I didn't think that tyranids could use other psyker abilities than what they have, kind of like how they don't have allies except for other tyranids.

With the introduction of 6th edition new psykick diseplines were introdused. Tyrands greeted them with open tallons.

Before the game starts you can trade in all of your psykick powers for an equal amount as you know. This is very powerfull for us as we are psykick mastery 1, but know multiple powers we have good chances of getting usefull stuff.

Biomancy on tervigon and hive tyrants are good, as is telepathy or telekinese on zoanthropes. If you can see your oponent does have a landraider just elect to not exchange the zoanthopes power.

Don't forget to take the rippers that came with your warriors and battalion. Their main function is to hold things up while your other units get into place.

I expect them to be spared the high strength blast firepower, as your opponent will probably use it on juicier targets such as the warriors and fexes.

It's a good thing that you reminded me of those rippers. I've been looking at them for a while now, and at 20pts a model, I think that an adrenal gland, toxin sac, and tunnel swarm combination, might just give me an edge on some of his more vulnerable units. Do you guys think a fairly large group of rippers popping onto a flank and quickly taking several models might work for a quick diversion of his firepower to keep my synapse creatures safe for a turn or two?

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
It's a good thing that you reminded me of those rippers. I've been looking at them for a while now, and at 20pts a model, I think that an adrenal gland, toxin sac, and tunnel swarm combination, might just give me an edge on some of his more vulnerable units. Do you guys think a fairly large group of rippers popping onto a flank and quickly taking several models might work for a quick diversion of his firepower to keep my synapse creatures safe for a turn or two?

I don't think this is a good idea really. If you tool them up to be a threat they can be dealt with easily. They are expensive, fragile, and even if you do get to charge they are still really low initiative and will die quickly... not to mention the fact that they really need to be in synapse or they can disintigrate quickly.If you want to go this route, you are better off using a spore and dropping in some hormogaunts. They'll have higher initiative, more attacks, scything talons, and possibly rage. Even that strategy I haven't seen very often, because the opponent has a whole turn to react from the time you arrive until the time you assault, and their are too many options that they can use to hurt the squishy tyranids.

Best use for rippers is to take them cheap, say a units of 3 at 10 points each for a total of 30 points for a unit. They can get in the way, and can take care of an overwatch if you need to in the right circumstance. I'm also working on possibly using them in a reserve based army with an Aegis Defense Line just because they can be completely out of sight and will prevent from getting tabled on turn one, then all reserves can arrive on turn two.

-Myst

What is the Aegis Defense Line?

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
What is the Aegis Defense Line?

its a fortification you can take for 50 points which can give your units a 4+ cover save and can be uprgaded to have either a quad gun , comms relay or icarus cannon .
Quad gun is good help for taking out flyers

Well...the battle happened, and things weren't pretty. I forgot to mention that I had a Hive Tyrant, and I tried to use it accordingly. It was a 1000pt battle, and just like you guys thought, it was pie plates galore. To sum it up, I got lucky and got everything out round 2. The bad news was, it was all biomass by turn 4. He's offered me a rematch, which I have accepted, except now hes confessing that he is using this as a rather steep learning curvefor me for dealing with SM in general. We have a new date set up for another battle, except now hes telling me that this one, all he is bringing are tanks and the rest will be going into a few troops. This got me thinking on a clever little strategy. I do not know these chaos tank stats, but if I bring up my Tyranid warriors in range, can my dual boneswords manage to wreck those tanks fairly easily? They ignore armor saves, and its a 3d6 leadership test or ID.

they ignore armor saves on infantry/monstrous creatures/etc, damaging vehicles is different. boneswords hit at the strength of the model, which for warriors off the top of my head are S4, plus a d6 for armor penetration. read the rules for assaulting vehicles on page 76 of the rulebook. warriors aren't good for destroying tanks (though because you will be striking at rear armor, you can glance transports to death a lot easier in 6th now). hive guard are your go-to for standard tank killing.

Best bet for tanks:
Hive guard spam. (armour 10-12)
Zoanthrope in pod (armour 12-14)
Gargoyles with AG (rear armour 10)
Trygons deepstriking. (smash attacks)

If he is bring a lot of light tanks you need to have Hive Guard. I have been using nids for over 10 years and have seen my share of battles. One thing I never leave home without is Hive Guard. They are expensive models and you usually need 2 groups of 2 in 1000-2000pts games. They are needed to pop vehicles so your creatures can feast on the insides. Sorry to say but warriors are not your answer to vehicles I would simply proxy them as hive guard your next match. I doubt your friend would mind. Nids suffer from a few set backs compared to a lot of armies(no invul saves on big creatures, expensive HQ's, template and pie plates kill, etc). Once you find a style that you can appreciate stick with it an try mastering it. Don't expect to win every battle but expect that you will learn quickly and adjust your lists and strategies.
Trygons are amazing models and CC gods. With smash options and AP2 attacks they can destroy vehicles and infantry with ease. That being said they draw a lot of fire so pairs typically are the way to run them. Tervigons are your friends. Some will argue otherwise but every list I run has 2 of them. Gargoyles are a lot of fun as well. With cheap upgrades they become a serious threat.
I f I ever run Carnifex's it is a dakka fex. Meaning I load it up with Twin linked devourers and shoot. It's pretty great in CC but with only 4 wounds it is tough to get them up field quick enough.
HQ wise look to your Hive Tyrants in games above 1500. Either wings with shooting or armoured shell with CC. I prefer Flying myself as I like the look with a swarm or gargoyles screening.
The tyranid prime is the way to go in low points games so you can load up on much needed units as tyrants are very expensive.
Hope this helps.

I second what skycapt44 said, use a tyranid prime as your HQ. You can proxy one of your warriors as a prime. This will free up points to take more models.

In terms of killing vehicles Hive Guard are one of the best units in the codex for that task. However, massed infantry can also kill light vehicles. Rippers, gaunts, gargoyles with AG can all take out vehicles with rear armor 10 or less.

If you do not mind losing some games, I would gain experience with the units that you already own. Remember to spread out your infantry so that the blasts only effect two or three models.

If you are interested in purchasing stuff, then you may want to consider hive guard, a tervigon, or 30 gargoyles. One aspect of 40k is that units become more effective if they are used in the right combination. In many cases spamming a particular type of unit is very effective. (just like your opponent is taking lots of vehicles) 6+ tervigons is a decent core of a 2000 point army. Alternatively you could also go the swarm route and get 60+ Gargoyles, and 150+ gaunts.

It would probably be worth reading a Tyranid tactica, and browsing some army lists to give you ideas about the army.

Yeah it's a pretty useless "learning curve" battle if you don't have anything to hurt his tanks with. I'd suggest proxying your warriors as hive guard.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Well...the battle happened, and things weren't pretty. I forgot to mention that I had a Hive Tyrant, and I tried to use it accordingly. It was a 1000pt battle, and just like you guys thought, it was pie plates galore. To sum it up, I got lucky and got everything out round 2. The bad news was, it was all biomass by turn 4. He's offered me a rematch, which I have accepted, except now hes confessing that he is using this as a rather steep learning curvefor me for dealing with SM in general. We have a new date set up for another battle, except now hes telling me that this one, all he is bringing are tanks and the rest will be going into a few troops. This got me thinking on a clever little strategy. I do not know these chaos tank stats, but if I bring up my Tyranid warriors in range, can my dual boneswords manage to wreck those tanks fairly easily? They ignore armor saves, and its a 3d6 leadership test or ID.

What did you list look like? and how did you tool up your tyrant?

Warriors for as cool as they are suffer badly from being 30pt + a piece T4 with a 4+ save model which makes them expensive for being instagib to S8 weapons. If you run them with a Prime they start to get better as the prime can soak alot of that S8 thanks to being T5.

Lets see what we have to work from:

1 Tyrant (walking or winged, I will assume walking)
2 fexes (Sk build)
6 warriors
16 Termagants
28 Hormigants
8 Stealers
2+ ripper bases not worth worrying about.

Lets look at some load outs:
Termigants: If you are not running Devilgaunts (devourers) leaving them bare is good to go.

Hormigants: Toole up are pretty killy but still die fast. Toxin and and ag run the price up on them but on the charge get 3 attacks at S4 and rerolls to wound against marines.

Stealers: Run them as Ymgrals.

Warrors: Dual boneswords and Rending claws maybe a bit of waste on these guys unless you are going to assault vehicles with them and need the extra d3 for armor pen. Same goes for the Prime. Really is worth keeping the devourer. TS are abit of a point sink, put again double your chances to get that ID hit in.

Carniefexes: Your big scarey Assault brood. It really is is pretty scary. Did you remember the frag spines? They count as assault grenades, which makes charging in to cover a non-issue for these guys. TS and AG are really not worth it on them anymore, most of the time. BioPlasma is pretty useful as it gives an assault shot before you charge and has one of the best AP values in the codex.

Tyrant: 3 ways to go with this guy; Armoured Walker, Flyrant, Swarmlord. Skipping swarmlord, as it will not add much to what you have and be a huge target. Same issue I see running it as a Flyrant. I would kit the Armoured Walker with Armor shell, Hive Commander, BS+LW, and Stranglethron cannon (AI) or twinlinked devourerers (AA).

My list based on the limits:
HQ:
Armoured Walker BS+LW, Hive Commander, Stranglethorn. TK or Biomancy powers 255
Warrior Prime Dual BS+ Rending claws, Regen 105

Elite:
8 Ymgral stealers 184

Troops:
16 Termigants 80
14 Hormigants TS+AG 140
14 Hormigants TS + AG 140
5 Warriors Dual BS+ Rending Claws 225

Heavy:
2 Screamer Killers 2x ST,Frag Spines, Bioplasma 370

TOTAL POINT: 1499

You have enough to do a reasonable 1500 point force.

Tactic wise:

Warrior Approach 1:
Run the Prime with Warrior brood for a nice 6 strong WS6. Thanks to Hive Commander, and a change in the FAQ, you can outflank this entire brood to get a hard hammer in the opponents back field early. This is also why I like to run devourers or Deathspitters in stead of Rending claws with BS.

Termigants sit back and hold your home side objective or move up and take a midfield object were they go to ground.Anything gets in 12" of them they snapshot.

Warrior Approach 2:
Like 1 outflank the Warrior brood, but with out the Prime, it is now less hammer and more objective hunter.

Attach the Termigants to the Prime to make them a more active and aggressive objective/unit hunting squad. The Termigaunts be come a fearless blob and the Prime gets 16 extra wounds to get the BS death were it needs to be.


Both approaches:
Your Carnifexes take point and charge down the field towards the heaviest armor, but avoid any tarpits like plague Zombies. While each hit is hard they only get 8 swings and go last. Expect these guys to get pounded.

Either following or flanking aim the 2 hormigaunt broods at his fastest troop selections. With 42 attack s on the charge for the full brood these guys can take out other Tarpit units. Do not worry to much about keeping them in Synapse range just be try to keep the Tyrant where he can catch them if they break. Remember Bounding Leap gives you 3 run dice and fleet lets you re-roll all or any of your charge or run dice, so these guys should be moving 10-12" every turn and able to hit the 8-10" assault. Any brood that survives to turn 4 goes after objectives and eats dirt.

Ymgrals are need to be assign a terrain piece either near the parking lot or fire support to get the best disruption when they come on the board. Nothing fancy here just eat face till they die.

Tyrant ends up playing a support and control role in this list. Use the Stranglethorn to slow down, disrupt troops and help pre-clear objectives. Use the psychic powers to boots the other broods. He is still big enough and tough enough to act as mid field hammer if you need it to. Use the Carniefex brood to provide cover against any AP 2 fire as much as you can.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
You did ask for a 1000 list:

HQ:
Warrior Prime Dual BS+ Rending claws, Regen 105
Warrior Prime Dual BS+ Rending claws, Regen 105

Troops:
15 Termigants 75
14 Hormigants TS+AG 140
14 Hormigants TS + AG 140
5 Warriors Dual BS+ Rending Claws 225

Heavy Support:
Screamer Killers 2x ST,Frag Spines, Bioplasma, Regen 210

Pretty much like the other list tactics wise. Carnie on point, 1 prime in with a pack of hormigaunts and 1 prime in to beef up the Warriors. This will give you 3 solid assault assault teams and light screen unit of hormaguants. The Termigaunts stay home and hold an objective.

Do you have gaunts of any kind or gargoyles? Give them adrenaline glans and try to use the S4 is cc against them.

 conker249 wrote:
Tyranids and Biomancy is potent, if you are going against Pie plates do what orks do, dont get lazy with the spacing on your gaunts, make sure they are 2 inches apart on all sides, that way even a large blast template wont hit many at all. trygon primes were my favorite thing to run,

Zoanthropes my friend, Zoanthropes and Winged Hive Tyrants are the bane of many armies in 6th. Even in 1k battles I don't roll less than 6 anymore because Psycic hood doesn't cancel out powers that beef up your own stuff anymore.

With The Swarmloard rolling on Telepathy and Zoanthropes rolling Biomancy for two of them and one with base powers they can beef up your army and wipe out tanks. Better yet as always with Nids is the combined effect. With a big squad of 30 feel no pain Hormagaunts (With a 5+ Cover from Venomthropes) in front you can make your Warriors invisible by way of the Swarmlord and behind that squad of 30 gaunts they'll have a 2+ cover save and feel no pain from the Zoanthropes as well which pretty much ensures they make it up the field and your synapse will always be strong.

Also Winged Hive Tyrants with feel no pain and iron arm is pretty ruthless. Your on the right track with the toxin sacs, just combine it with an enfeeble from the Zoanthropes and suddenly your Hormagaunts are re-rolling their to wound of a 2+ and not even TH/SS Terminators can do anything to them if they have been reduced to strength and toughness 2. Keep in mind Invisibility also enhances CC so if your opponent is reduced to WS 1 they are hitting your Hormagaunts on a 5+ or an invisible squad of Screamer Killers with Feel no pain and regen... OMG! I need to start writing another list.

Thank you guys for your tips, and I really like the tactics involved. Some of you rattled off some units that I do not have yet, though I do admit I have been looking into hive guard and zoanthropes for future aquisitions. I ran over the battle in my mind a few times, and thinking on it, proxying 2 tyranid warriors as primes might just give me an edge in melee. Also, are there any advantages to drop podding a squad in? As i think over outflanking the prime and warrior brood, an odd thought popped in my head. I could talk him into a 1,500pt match, and take my Hive Tyrant, loaded out with lash whip, bonesword, scything talons, armored shell, implant attack, and hive commander. Also, take my Carnifexes and outfit them with only Toxin Sacs and Bio-plasma, and then put them in Mycetic spores armed with Venom Cannons. That is a 750pt package, however, I don't think he knows that Mycetic Spores can fire. Do you think this could also work, when you consider that youll outflank a sizable number of heavy melee troops, have a massively armored Tyrant with hormagaunts and termagaunts to the front, and quite suddenly have two heavy melee carnifexes and two venom cannons right in the center of your tank formation? And Sorginak, if you write a list centered on Screamer Killers, you better share it with me! I'll try and write up the list i just spouted in a bit.

Ya, Primes are nice to give the Warriors WS 6 and keep an outflanking squad of Gaunts on track so they don't charge the wrong thing. Sucks you can't assault from outflank anymore, but good use of cover and psychic powers can make up for that.

I'd Drop in the Warriors from the pod so depending on scatter you can place them behind it for quick and effective cover for a turn while still having them in position to assault the next. Especially if you drop in the Carnifexes, Carnifexi... Carnafexon spaced out properly providing cover. That Strategy gets really sweet in Apocalypse when you take the formation for both and they combine fire for a str 7 ap 2 hellfire template, but as far as 1500 battles I'd say ya that sounds solid just make sure you have enough on the board turn 1 to survive so he doesn't pull out a quick cheap victory with a few defilers.

The Armored Shell Tyrant is good for that and maybe have a Carnifex following him up for the 2 on the 1- 2 punch while getting a cover save from him.

Ya, Screamer Killer Lists are brutal, but mostly in Apocalypse where they shine. I do like the idea of making them invisible though. Try proxing your Tyrant as the Swarm Lord a game as the Mastery level 2 is nice. In a small list like that most people won't bring enough firepower to deal with him and two carnifexes and if you roll biomancy you can give both feel no pain and regeneration.