The following list has given our gaming group a few headaches.

It wins 60-70% of its games (out of about 15 or so), and I was wondering if it was a list issue, or just that the right strategies have not been discovered.

Dedicated lists to kill it (barrages, snipers) don't succeed all the time, and random lists have a real hard time.

Any input would be welcome!

Tyranid Onslaught, 2995 POINTS
Tyranids (110929)
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NORMAL ASSAULT SWARM [230]
2 Tyranid Warrior, 5 Termagant, 4 Hormaguant, Gargoyles

NORMAL ASSAULT SWARM [220]
2 Tyranid Warrior, 4 Termagant, 4 Hormaguant, Gargoyles

NORMAL ASSAULT SWARM [220]
2 Tyranid Warrior, 4 Termagant, 4 Hormaguant, Gargoyles

NORMAL ASSAULT SWARM [220]
2 Tyranid Warrior, 4 Termagant, 4 Hormaguant, Gargoyles

NORMAL ASSAULT SWARM [200]
2 Tyranid Warrior, 4 Termagant, 4 Hormaguant

NEST SWARM [245]
4 Termagant, Zoanthrope, Biovore

NEST SWARM [260]
4 Termagant, Dactylis, Zoanthrope

GENESTEALER SWARM [150]
6 Genestealer

GENESTEALER SWARM [150]
6 Genestealer

DOMINATRIX SWARM [625]
1 Dominatrix, Hierodule

HARASSMENT SWARN [225]
1 Harridan and 0-4 Gargoyles

SUBTERRANEAN SWARM [250]
1 Trygon and 2 Raveners

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Basically the EUK gaunts=grots rule is too powerful and slants the list heavily in that direction, while many other options are pretty poor.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

A view completely at odds with playtesting, tournament results or facts

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What goals are the Nid player getting to win? Of the wins I've had with Nids they have all been 2 - something as by turn 3 I've not got lots of models left. If it goes to turn 4 I'm normally trying to find a way not to loose.

Nid's are showing a WLD % of 30, 32, 39 (Yes 101%, I know, there is a rounding issue somewhere ) in EUK championship events.

All the lists used can be seen by selecting Tyranids on this page - http://epic-uk.co.uk/ukepicachampionship/albyr.php

And Rug, MikeT uses a much bigger swarm list that that and finishes his games, lots of marching makes for a really quick turn one

And in general, never start a FF, even vs a hormagaunt heavy brood, unless your pretty sure you can do enough damage to kill the synapse. On more than one occasion I won assaults at britcon without ever rolling an attack dice when the resolution dice went bad on my opp and mine went well (opp rolling snake eyes to my 5 when he went in +3).

And once your started killing a formation, carry on till its synapse-less. Half measures won't work as they rally better than most armies.

my advice would be to aggressively destroy as many of his weaker activations as possible, also keeping an eye on potential teleporters tunneling up under you..... keeping them at arms length gives them the opportunity to advance from cover to cover and they get up in your face quickly, it goes against instincts, but I think you need to be aggressive against tyranids and not let them get to a position where they dictate the assaults, because they do it better than anyone else...... I've never won against MikeT's nids, but the games where I've gotten stuck in early have been much closer than the ones where I've tried to play a fighting retreat.....

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What zombo said.

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While the abundance of "grots" is time consuming to wade though, I find the EUK 'nid list overall kinda weak; I've yet to lose a game to it (have played against it both casually and at tournaments).

I agree that the list is skewed towards a reliance on "grots" as your route towards success, as most other choices look kinda sub-par (Harridans excepted - they are amazeballs even after their eleventh hour downgrade before final release).

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Really? Have a look at the tournament lists for the list and are there many hive tyrant builds? Many bio-titan builds? Many builds that don't just flood the table w/ gants and warriors (and harridans)? At least back your flippant comments w/ numbers and facts.

As for beating OP's list, it's not that hard really. In general, this kind of list can only get 3 of the GTS goals: TSNP, DTF and T&H. It will have a really hard time reaching and holding the blitz, it can't project force far enough to go after the last few bits and pieces of a BTS. So with that in mind, how can you not lose to nids? TSNP is really easy to take away from the nid player as they aren't even that horde-y (compared to say Orks) so any later marchers or air assaults can do it. For the other two you will definitely need to confront the nids where they like to be confronted and that is the middle of the board.

Anything you can do to delay the nids getting to the half of the table is generally a good tactic against them. They are crap, crap shooters in the EUK list (and wonderful in the NetEA list, go figure) so any kind of rough rider screen or other shenanigans that stops them from marching the first turn is good. Another good target is of course the harridans as they provide the little movement this list has. Besides that you must realise that to beat the EUK nids you need to assault them at some point as firepower is not enough over 3 turns to zap them all. To do that you need to pick the right assault angles so that you can do the casualties where they count. So fly in w/ your wave serpents, thunderhawks or whatever from the side where the 4th or 5th kill will be a warrior. You'll start most assaults at +1 against nids because they will likely outnumber you but not by 2x (after all the gants die anyway) and nids are terrible at putting BMs on things. Also, they have very few inspiring characters. For instance, an aspect warrior fm should be wrecking fms every turn as they will be up 3 or 4 for every assault (add the fact that you can skim screen the nids). So pick your fights, stop them capturing the middle objectives, and kill their BTS and potentially go for their blitz as well late in the game.

Source: myself who finished 2nd in the Clapham tournament (16 players!) with nids and all my opponents down my club who can beat the crap out of me because they know how to play against nids.

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I agree, he didn't say that the list itself is overpowered, just that it leans heavily on the "grot" units for its playstyle to the exclusion of other units (because the "grots" are amazeballs and a number of the other units are sub-par). I don't think that's an unfair characterization of the list.

Noteworthy - I think it's a better 'nid list than the NetEA one, weird Ravener stats and mis-mashing of 40k eras notwithstanding.


Again, agreed. It's all about the Engagements.

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Don't think so (I have about 15 or so games w/ the EUK list by now).

But if you boost everything else and keep gants as grots then it might get too good. I think inexperience plays a big part in losses to nids, though. I have a hard time surprising and winning at the club w/ the EUK list these days.

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I think that Carlos has covered most of the pros and cons of the EUK list. It is built around the infantry with the monsters coming a close second. However the monsters are orientated towards close combat, this is not an army that is going to sit off from the enemy and pound them. No this army is going to get close and personal.

It has been simplified considerable on the special rules front to remove spawning of any kind and hopefully increase game speed and remove a degree of book keeping.

How do you play against them? Well firstly, defence in depth, you need to layer your army up against the Nids so that you have as much mutual support as possible. Next manoeuvre, if you get boxed in by the Nids you are dead. Finally, pick the weak point and hammer your way out and through. I would expect the Nids to set up across a wide frontage which will march forward to compress you into an area where they can throw multiple formations at you. You need to try and stop this.

The big monsters are nasty close combat beasts, as a player of the army you are trying to get them into position to engage, as an opponent you are running away from them as much as possible whilst slowing them up with cheap scout formations.

The one type of unit that has lost out in the EUK list is the medium beasties (armoured vehicles). These will need looking at again to try and make them more appealing as an option.

The worse opp for a nid is an army that doesn't need to hammer their way through because they are so fluid that it's impossible to box them in. "Be like the Eldar", even if you're not playing Eldar.
Even the EUK horde list can't really cover the whole table at 3k pts by the way. So there will be gaps. Another good tactic is to go for corner deployment (nids have SR1 so you can usually pick this!) and set your objectives on opposite corners. If nids at 3k have a hard time covering a 180cm line, they have a much much harder time covering a 216cm line (do the math). As for target priority go:
1 - Harridans (kills their mobility and ability to put final BMs on fms that are about to break)
2 - Genestealers (v/ vulnerable and nid players use them to help pin enemy fms before assaulting the turn after)
3 - Any other fms that are about to be engaged. As mentioned try to drill a side of the fm and then assault that same side so your casualties will go on warriors instead of endlessly plowing gants. Aircraft are phenomenal at this, btw!

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