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Inform this player that the tables are there for playing games, not bending fellow hobby-goers over. Playing lengthwise AND only having 3 or so pieces of terrain, against a short ranged / assault army.. That's not just stacking the deck, it's dealing someone uno cards.

-Redacted-

Verviedi wrote:
Riptide now has 2 twin-linked missile pods and an ion accelerator.

with a riptide, the support systems are arguably more important than what it is armed with.

**edit** oh, and that is an invalid build. the riptide can only have one secondary weapon system. Don't get me wrong, there is the ability to fire it twice, but it carries its own opportunity cost (and the reason why I enjoy that particular weapon so much).

**edit** **edit** Oh and again, Missile Pods are not a valid secondary system. Missile Pods are 36" Str7 AP4 Assault 2. SMS is 30" Str5 AP5 Ignores Cover, (and another special rule) Heavy 4
if your opponent tried this, he pulled another one on you. I'd suggest refusing another game.

Check the tyranid thread for a viable core build.

You're likely to want:
2 Flyrants, twin devourers with BL, electroshock grubs
venomthropes
zoanthropes
troops - cheap gaunts or deepstriking rippers in some combination
2 hive crones
carnifexes with devourers

this gives you a good viable core

-Redacted-

For what its worth, try taking a mawloc in a game to see what damage it does to a castle style army.
Should cause enough disruption to atleast get the tyrant into them aswell.

I would consider a 2nd flyrant though.
It seems they always have and always will be a solid choice in a nid army.

That would also increase the targets and add another FMC to the list.

Yes, tau can deal with FMC's, however, with this guys list, it is not built for shooting things down, so any FMC you can take is a bonus.


Due to poor terrain and board edges, you need either speed or target saturation (both if you can) as this has always been a strong point for nids.

Also, take a look at JY2's threads on here.
He is the go to guy for nids and you will learn a ton just by reading some of his stuff.

 Jackal wrote:
For what its worth, try taking a mawloc in a game to see what damage it does to a castle style army.
Should cause enough disruption to atleast get the tyrant into them aswell.

I would consider a 2nd flyrant though.
It seems they always have and always will be a solid choice in a nid army.

That would also increase the targets and add another FMC to the list.

Yes, tau can deal with FMC's, however, with this guys list, it is not built for shooting things down, so any FMC you can take is a bonus.


Due to poor terrain and board edges, you need either speed or target saturation (both if you can) as this has always been a strong point for nids.

Also, take a look at JY2's threads on here.
He is the go to guy for nids and you will learn a ton just by reading some of his stuff.

I like the idea of FMC spam.

Verviedi wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Check the tyranid thread for a viable core build.

You're likely to want:
2 Flyrants, twin devourers with BL, electroshock grubs Another one? $60
venomthropes How many?
zoanthropes How many?
troops - cheap gaunts or deepstriking rippers in some combination I have them.
2 hive crones Price gouged to the max. $130
carnifexes with devourers I have one, and will make another

this gives you a good viable core

The second Flyrant is good to have, but I only have one and it is fine most of the time.

1 Venomthrope is all you need.

Zoanthropes are optional - not really necessary if you have enough synapse.

1 Crone is really all you need. If you have two, you will kill most of the good targets early and they will have little to do in the late game except vector strike.

Dakkafexes are always good.

Definitely look into the Mawloc against Tau. If I were you, I would buy a Venomthrope right away (not too expensive), a Crone and maybe a Mawloc at some point later down the road. Forget the Zoans - I've never seen mine pull their weight, so they basically are just cheap synapse pegs.

Asmodas wrote:

Verviedi wrote:

The second Flyrant is good to have, but I only have one and it is fine most of the time.

1 Venomthrope is all you need.

Zoanthropes are optional - not really necessary if you have enough synapse.

1 Crone is really all you need. If you have two, you will kill most of the good targets early and they will have little to do in the late game except vector strike.

Dakkafexes are always good.

Definitely look into the Mawloc against Tau. If I were you, I would buy a Venomthrope right away (not too expensive), a Crone and maybe a Mawloc at some point later down the road. Forget the Zoans - I've never seen mine pull their weight, so they basically are just cheap synapse pegs.

Depends on how long you want the Shroud to last for or spread as to if one VT is enough.

Being Synpase pegs for cheap IS pulling there weight, for the zoanthrope. If you do not need the anchor, don't bring them.

zoans act as backfield synapse and give you warp charge

I think part of your problem is having things in reserve as was already mentioned.

First thing you should do is ignore those Hammerhead. Go for everything else he has first.

The Riptide you have two options for. Either Ignore it or tarpit it with gaunts. If you can multi-assault it and another unit, always do that and hope for a sweep. Otherwise just pin it in place with your expendable units.

Dont Outflank the Tervigon. March up up the board and spawn gaunts as needed.

Drop the HVC from the Carnifex and go for 2 Devourers. Use that same loadout on the HT as well.

Think about picking up Biovores. They give you much needed range and they also melt fire warriors. They allow you to take out Markerlight units at long range.

Hide the Venomthrope out of LOS and out of Range as much as possible to start. Keep your gaunts in front of your bigger monsters. As was pointed out 25% is needed for a cover save. So you will have a 3+ cover on your Terv / Carn. This requires the Tau to dedicate MLs to remove cover which means they have less to boost there BS with.

Go first when you can and Run everything you can the first turn. Close as much distance as possible to put the pressure on. If you go first, pull the Venom in behind for a rolling cover save. The Tau will have to shoot it, which is less shots at other stuff. Swoop the HT and use the Devs to go for the suit units. Try to Onslaught the Carni for more of the same.

A Mawloc will greatly put pressure on as well.

Fragile wrote:
I think part of your problem is having things in reserve as was already mentioned.

First thing you should do is ignore those Hammerhead. Go for everything else he has first.

The Riptide you have two options for. Either Ignore it or tarpit it with gaunts. If you can multi-assault it and another unit, always do that and hope for a sweep. Otherwise just pin it in place with your expendable units.

Dont Outflank the Tervigon. March up up the board and spawn gaunts as needed.

Drop the HVC from the Carnifex and go for 2 Devourers. Use that same loadout on the HT as well.

Think about picking up Biovores. They give you much needed range and they also melt fire warriors. They allow you to take out Markerlight units at long range.

Hide the Venomthrope out of LOS and out of Range as much as possible to start. Keep your gaunts in front of your bigger monsters. As was pointed out 25% is needed for a cover save. So you will have a 3+ cover on your Terv / Carn. This requires the Tau to dedicate MLs to remove cover which means they have less to boost there BS with.

Go first when you can and Run everything you can the first turn. Close as much distance as possible to put the pressure on. If you go first, pull the Venom in behind for a rolling cover save. The Tau will have to shoot it, which is less shots at other stuff. Swoop the HT and use the Devs to go for the suit units. Try to Onslaught the Carni for more of the same.

A Mawloc will greatly put pressure on as well.

Just converted Ugo (Carnifex) to have duel twin linked devourers with BrainLeech worms.
LEVEL UP!

-Redacted-

Nothing is an auto-lose. There is always a chance. That being said, You did accept a game of cards against a stacked deck. So, lets start breaking down what went wrong, most of which has already been covered.

The Board: You let your opponent dictate every decision. Upon agreement to play a game, that board should have been reset and regenerated to ensure fair placement of terrain and deployment zones. Don't ever let this happen again.

The Hammerhead: Illegal placement as per the fact it is hanging over. He either chooses for it's destruction or auto-reserves it. Also, for future use, remember the fact that backing a model into a corner makes it much easier to kill. Just hitting that Hammerhead from an angle that isn't directly head on ensures side armor values and a much easier time to kill.

The Units:
Flyrant: Good. Send that sucker down range and start hunting their more important vehicles.
Tervigon: Bad. In small games, the Tervigon has a niche as a durable HQ and swarming the opponent in bodies. That does not happen in large games. Swap this out for another Flyrant for more target saturation.
Venomthrope: Good, but only to a point. These things can keep your swarm alive, but you have to keep them out of sight as much as possible. Tau remove cover saves fairly well on their own, and will rip them apart given half a chance.
Carnifex: Not bad, but really confused. You gave it an expensive upgrade for durability, but then gave it a pointless gun for what it has to do. You can't outshoot Tau. Tau can easily outshoot you. If you want this thing to be rolling, either keep it bare with a few biomorphs and run it up with your horde to assault, or toss it some brain leech worms and let it run rampant as an actual gun platform without the regeneration and pointless cannon. At range, the Hammerheads will just shrug at the giant silly monster who thinks hes contributing before putting a round through its skull and putting it down for good.
Termagants: Not too bad. Your problem is in the fact your running a 1-2 ratio. Realistically, you need to flip that, or abandon the policy. Tau can strip models at that range fairly well, and losing twice the points per model quickly adds up when they hit overkill. Run them stock and you can field far more than you currently can, which is a big bonus when you run them in small groups and suddenly they can't overkill more than they should. In the long run, they will give you far more on the return.
Hormagaunts: Good. Keeping them stock gives you plenty of bodies to saturate the field.
Zoanthrope: Good. Keep it singular and don't bother shooting. It really is a waste of time. Pick your other powers and start using it for it's real purpose as a battery. Toss out buffs to the horde as you go, and you'll find that it will give you plenty of support when you need it most.

I'd say biovores could be useful, large AP 4 blasts will mop up fire wariors quiet well.

2 devourer tyrants are better than 1. If you cant get them 100% out of line of sight (because your opponent is screwing you on terrain) then bring a bastion (put a venomthrope in it - or the biovores!) That will allow you to get 2 tyrants completely obscured turn 1.

I'm guessing a harradin isn't within budget but it would clean house pretty quick. Take 60 termagants in units of 10 to score objectives.

The skyblight formation could be a good option for you.

-Redacted-

The Biovore, you mean? Get Pyrovore models and substitute them. Really great model.

-Redacted-

OK, you got the whole terrain and deployment rules down.
The units you are planning on while not bad, could definately be better.
I understand if you're playing with what you have available.
But I strongly suggest you take the following:

- 2x Flyrants with Twin linked Brain leach Devs + Electro shock grubs: These are auto-take, take this build every game for all time. Any vehicles AV 11/12 or less use the devourers. AV12/13+ use the electroshock grubs. Also since its a flamer template you can hit multiple vehicles if they placed their tanks close together.

- 1x Hive Crone: Fast, has a flamer that ignores cover and has haywire missiles. The crone will anhiliate mass amounts of fire warriors and other T3 enemies with the drool cannon. Haywire missiles for Vehicles or other flyers.

- 2x Malanthropes: This is a Forge World model. I don't know if your club allows Forge World or not, every local group is different. If they do allow it, get them, and then weap with joy.
A Malanthrope is a Venomthrope on steroids. He brings to the party [Shrouded], [Synpase], [Fleet] so he is fast, [Preffered Enemy] you will mow down Tau and all of this for a very, low, low price. Check out his rules in Imperial Armour 4: The Anphelion project (Second Edition).

- 2x Dakka-Fexes + Adrenal Glands: A Carnifex + 2x Twin-Linked Devourers, there is no such thing as too much dakka dakka. Adrenal glands are there to keep them moving up the board as quickly as possible. The high volume of shots will mow down Riptides and Fire warriors and everything between. For everything else, there is close combat S9 attacks. The Carnifex is hands down the best can opener Nids have. Point that battering ram at the Hammerhead and its brown pants time for every Tau in a 10 mile radius.

- 2 x Ripper broods with Deep Strike: They fulfill your troops requirement. They are small and easy to hide behind terrain. They do not require a baby sitter with synapse. Yes, they will start eating themselves taking an average of one wound per turn that they are not in synapse. But they are in no danger, as they have enough wounds to comfatably last through the game while holding an objective. The strategy here is to deep strike a ripper brood on an objective, put it in cover near the objective and forget about it. They will hold it and be very difficult to remove in cover due to how small the models are. This only works if you use the rest of your army to put pressure on your opponent to make Rippers on objectives the least of their worries.

Put those 4 units in your army, as the core, each and every game. Then fill out your army with other killy units to distract from the rippers.

I'd suggest the following list: It's a 2K list, shave off some models for lower points games.

HQ
1x Flyrant + 2x Twin-Linked Devourers + Electroshock Grubs
1x Flyrant + 2x Twin-Linked Devourers + Electroshock Grubs

TROOPS
3x Rippers + Deep Strike
3x Rippers + Deep Strike

ELITES
1x Malanthrope
1x Malan thrope

FAST ATTACK
1x Hive Crone
7x Shrikes + Adrenal Glands + Toxin Sacs + Flesh Hooks + Rending Claws
20x Gargoyles

HEAVY SUPPORT
3x Carnifex + 2x Twin-Linked Devourers + Adrenal Glands
1x Exocrine

Verviedi wrote:

Spoiler:

Alright. Trying this:

Tau Wreckage

Pregame
•Instead of one mega hell blob, take two units of 15 Hormagaunts and one unit of 10.

•Play Dawn of War deployment.

•Follow rulebook terrain rules.

•Play Maelstrom.

•Try to deploy and go first.

Deployment
•Keep Tervigon in reserve so it can outflank into FW blobs and Miasma them.

•Deep Strike rippers to kill blobs.

•Space out blobs to block submunition spam.

•Hide thropes out of LOS

•Set up Flyrant out of LOS, but able to get to Hammerhead side armor early.

•START FLYRANT IN SWOOPING MODE.

Turn 1
•Keep blobs in cover while moving up. Run to approach FW teams. Onslaught devilgaunts so the FW teams can be dakkaed.

•Do the same with one Hormablob. Keep Venom within 6", and move other Hormablob within 12". Use Zoanthrope to provide synapse.

•Catalyst Venom if possible.

•Keep Thropes out of LOS of camperheads and Piranhas.

•Use Zoey to WB closest thing. If unable to do without being Railgun'd, avoid doing this.

•Use Carnifex as fire magnet. Dakka the Piranhas.

All great but i'd plain ignore the hammerhead. It's not that killy if you play around it. But it's quite durable with 13-12. If you get the rear armor shots, why not. But if you have just the side - i'd rather shoot something else.

-Redacted-

Verviedi wrote:
TDE

to satisfy my own curiosity, 2 questions.
1. What Tyranid models do you have, and how many of each? What is your Tyranid Inventory?

2. How much are you willing to spend on models, how often?

You seem to have problems when people suggest getting x model(s), usually over cost as far as I see. This is an expensive hobby, but the costs can be spaced out a bit over time. If you have a hard time justifying financial outlay, why play this game?

Verviedi wrote:

wtnind wrote:
I'd say biovores could be useful, large AP 4 blasts will mop up fire wariors quiet well.

2 devourer tyrants are better than 1. If you cant get them 100% out of line of sight (because your opponent is screwing you on terrain) then bring a bastion (put a venomthrope in it - or the biovores!) That will allow you to get 2 tyrants completely obscured turn 1.

I'm guessing a harradin isn't within budget but it would clean house pretty quick. Take 60 termagants in units of 10 to score objectives.

The skyblight formation could be a good option for you.

I will certainly spend $50 on a single ugly model.

You can get old biovores on ebay for like $15-20.

We all "get it" about how expensive this stuff is, but that doesn't really invalidate the advice people are giving you. You can either play with what you have, and understand that you are at a disadvantage, or put together a plan to slowly expand your army over the space of a year or so. One model a month will not kill your bank account (I hope).

 carldooley wrote:

Verviedi wrote:
TDE

to satisfy my own curiosity, 2 questions.
1. What Tyranid models do you have, and how many of each? What is your Tyranid Inventory?

2. How much are you willing to spend on models, how often?

You seem to have problems when people suggest getting x model(s), usually over cost as far as I see. This is an expensive hobby, but the costs can be spaced out a bit over time. If you have a hard time justifying financial outlay, why play this game?

was thinking the same.
Everytime we suggest something you link us the price of it we dont own your wallet nor manage your bank
Theres not much more we can do But the above questions would be good to have answered if you would like to see thread progression.

-Redacted-

Verviedi wrote:
Neither my parents nor I trust eBay.

Then I would suggest trading here, or on another trading thread. Sometimes you can get stellar deals as people clean out their collections. You might be surprised what people will trade for. Personally, the only thing I might trade you is a Lictor. I have a trade thread here on dakka, I'd recommend that you check it out and others like it. If you want to build a rep trading, I'd suggest trying bartertown instead (the rep system is automated and easily updated). In my experience, people seem to post the same trade threads across multiple sites, so going to another site is no great loss. I cannot recommend warseer, on account that most trades on that site are focused in Europe, but dakka and bartertown are focused more on the US of A.


mods, if suggesting another trading site is against forum rules, I apologize and by all means feel free to edit this post.

Ebay, and conversions.

-Redacted-

Verviedi wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Ebay, and conversions.

m
Neither my parents nor I trust Ebay.

why not? its a site used by millions and in general has a good record, yeh sometimes a deal may go awry but to simply state you dont 'trust' it is a little silly. its not a single person, do you distrust the company? the people you buy stuff from? the fact their logo is multicoloured....

you get $20
that therefore limits your ability to buy what you want.
you can either save up, buy what people suggest
or go on ebay, buy some maybe pre-painted, maybe pre-assembled, or you may even get some in box simply cheaper. you can then re-paint, convert or set them on fire at your altar, whatever floats your boat.

choice is yours

Okay, I understand. It can be difficult when you are a kid starting out. I remember getting $20 allowance per week and trying to build an army (back in '93ish when Nids first came out, lol).

Thus, we should be looking at cost efficiency. Your army needs more MCs (you've got plenty of gribblies already - I'm guessing you got the swarm box), so you should look at the MCs that will give you the most bang for your buck. That will be the second Flyrant, a second Dakkafex, or a Mawloc. Each retails around $55, so it should take you three weeks to save up for one of them. Personally, I would give the Mawloc a try, as it is a lot of fun and you already own one of each of the other models (I typically enjoy adding a new model to my army before getting a second of one I already have, but that is because I enjoy painting and modeling so much, and I get bored painting the same model over and over. YMMV.). But the Flyrant is realistically the best choice as it will give you a large increase in your overall firepower, and of course doubles as mobile synapse, plus can tank hunt in a pinch with e-grubs.