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Hey, this is my first post. I have been playing warhammer for like 10+ years, I am a pretty good general of my army. I have a friend who is also a very skilled player I need a little insight into getting an advantage.

We have played eachother many many times, the other day was the first time he has beaten my eldar ever, we have drawn more times than I can count and I have beaten him maybe 3 times. He runs a list with lots of gaunts, different kinds. The poison ones really fethed my game around, thats the only reason he won because I had no Idea they had poison and I put a 700 point squad within 12 inches of them by accident.

This was my approximate list:

Farseer jetbike spear doom fortune stones witnessing warding

karandras

7 warlocks jetbikes 3 destructors 2 spears enhance embolden

10 wraithguard spirit seer conceal

2x 5 pathfinders
2x 8 dire avengers exarch cannons bladestorm

2x fireprism
3x dark reaper exarch crack shot tempest launcher.


His list approximately was:

Hive tyrant bonesword whip 2x tyrant guard
2x hive guard
2x trygons - the ones that make gaunts
the 90 pt elite that makes stuff take leadership tests and gains wounds
the big monster that has 12 shots like 6 wounds, maybe called a Prime?
3 large squads of gaunts

the big guy and the 90 pt guy were in pods

Im not too familiar with tyranids even tho I play him a lot, thats one of my largest problems. Im looking for some tips tricks, i dont want to change my list too drastically but I will definitely entertain ideas.

Thanks

Well you learned the hard way that poison eats wraith units for breakfast. Those little termigants get whatever momma bear has(her toxin sacs) so they are quite dangerous. Genestealrs will love to mess with you as well.

Hive guard are a priority, as they ignore your cover.

Your heavies are good, but really only useful for killing gaunts. The prism can shoot the tyrant and hive guard if you needed, but pie plates clean the little ones.

Shoot the tervigon as fast as possible. If you get wraithcannons on an MC, you can likely Instagib them. Also, it is risky, but assaulting the big stuff with your seer council can work by forcing wounds. Watch for the shadow in the warp. It is beardy, but you can use doom to re roll ANY wounds, not just failed ones. Good combo with wraithcannons, as you only need one six.

Primes pump out a bunch of shots at close range, and love to appear in the backfield and pop your heavies. Have a plan to deal with this when it happens.

Pathfinders are incredibly good at killing MC's. Never, ever, under any circumstance waste their shooting on the little ones. They should be shooting any big nasty in range(tervigons get priority).

Karandras can only do so much to bail the wraithguard out of combat. Have a plan should they get caught up in a fistfight.

The dires on foot are not really that good. Bladestorm can only really kill swarms of bugs, which is nice, but that is it. A single(full) squad in a serpent can respond where needed, instead of hoofing it and getting shot. Plus a wave serpent, S6 is good against all bugs.

Doom of malantai is a hacker(and in the fluff he already sucked one craftworld dry) so he can spore in and eat those wraithguard or dark reapers easily. Kill him ASAP, if you allow him to rampage he is unstoppable. Having the ability to double him out with S8 is huge. A squad of fragons in a serpent might be a good idea. Not much he can do against armor as runes of warding shuts the psyker part down.

Thanks, this was exactly what I was looking for.

In my game my seer council first wiped out two entire squads of gaunts with flamer templates and then charged the tervigon in the back field killed him quickly and proceded to charge into the HT on turn 5 (it ended early) Had I killed that HT I would have won the game, instead I messed up with the challenge and challenged him instead of letting him challenge me and then declining it, would have gotten a lot more wounds on him.

His tervigons put out in the range of 60 gaunts for the game, almost all of which I managed to kill via fire prism pie plates.

My snipers were very effective at taking out the prime and wounding the HT and another tervigon.

Im not sure I can fit a WS for my DA aswell as a squad of FDragons/WS with 5 troop choices I could see dropping one squad in order to get a WS for the other, I managed to get a hit on a s9 ap2 prism template ontop of the doom to instagib his 7 wounds but that was after he took out a DA squad and my dark reapers.

Before the reapers died they did quite a lot of damage, they took out about 15 gaunts and a 4 man warrior squad.

The thing with my DA is that pretty much every table we play on there are buildings with plenty of room to stash a squad of DA and my objective marker and then put my snipers on the roof of said building.

Yeah, getting a serpent for the DA's and a squad of fragons in a transport is obviously cost prohibitive. Fragons are a bit too much of a suicide jack to kill the MC's, better to have a more adaptive unit.

Nice use of the council, although watch those boneswords(they cause instant death!) on the farseer. I forgot tervigons are garbage in CC, so rushing the council in there is a great idea!

Meching up the avengers will give the doom fewer targets. Any of which that survive will tear him to ribbons. Keep those targets spread out, or within support range to minimize the damage the doom will cause. Plus, a generic serpent is a good all rounder against bugs(nothing can really hurt it short of assault and those hive guard)

A trygon(non prime) wont do a ton of damage to reapers. Wounding on 2's against 3+ armor means at least somebody in the squad should live. Then either ignore his short range, or gun down accordingly. Try to commit to bringing a big bug down if you shoot at it. 6 wounds is hard to dig through, and plan for him to pass 2 of 3 saves unless you have AP2 or 1 at your disposal.

does anyone else have any more tips or strategies? Or a website that specializes at such a thing?

OK, so first, the gaunt spawners are Tervigons. The big guy with lots of shot is most likely a Trygon Prime. Of everything mentioned, only the Gaunts and the Doom can take a Spod.

That being said, transports are great as they negate the Doom. Also, remember, your tanks are fast, so they should easily stay out of the 24" range of the Hive Guard. Doom allows cover saves, so any unit that is not on the table should either be in cover (such as the rangers), has Conceal (Wraithguard) or Jink (jetbikes). I would also recommend dropping the Pathfinder upgrade, the only real benefit that Pathfinders have is an additional +1 to Cover Saves (rolls of 6 to hit are AP1 and Precise). Runes of Warding will help shut down his psychic powers. I would also recommend swapping out 1 Fire Prism with a Night Spinner. He'll get his armour save, but can really slow down his army as any unit hit counts as being in both difficult/dangerous terrain. I would also recommend dropping the Dark Reapers and with the points saved by not upgrading the rangers, you can take 3 War Walkers armed with 2 Scatter Lasers. lower BS, however, with 24 Str 6 shots, your averaging 9 Wounds against gaunts/genestealers (not taking into account saves) and 6 wounds against the big guys (before saves). If he is using the Doom's standard psychic power, then Str8 will inst-gib him however, he still has a 2/3 chance of passing his invul save. I'd add more, but I have to be up early for work.

Pathfinders also get ap1 on 5+ also extra to cover, well worth 5 points per model. They did work on his big mosters. From my experience dark reapers are invaluable, 3 reapers can take 5 times their points in a game easily.. and if I wanted to I could do a hell of a lot more wounds than 9 to a gaunt squad with my reapers.

Ill have to ask him about his trygon prime, cause he used a spore thing to drop it in my back yard

Only certain Elites, most Troops, and Carnifexes (if by themselves) can take Spods.

Trygons and trygon primes can deep strike on their own, no spore required. They burrow or something IIRC.

The extra chance for AP1 is really good for finders against MC's as few(if any) big bugs have an invul short of close combat, but have a ton of wounds and good armor.