tau and nids rip me appart

[Deleted]

So I'm now living with a tyranid and a tau player. These aliens have ruined everything. See I'm a 3rd edition kind of guy, I sure did love them line of sight rules. Also note my favourite heavy weapon is the heavy bolter. Anywho...

So I move in and I play the nids thinking this will be fun. All I see are big shooting carnifexes and hive tyrant and warrior and the bare minimum troops. Too top it off he sometimes chooses rippers as troops, winged = death too my troops. My heavy bolters didnt look so good anymore. Tau is the same problem, he loves his broardsides and shield drones all over the place. Oh and the nid guy loves to play on a heavy terrain 4' by 4' board, I wonder why? He loves to rub it in how he gets his carnifexes with barbed stranglers too shot my men to dust and then into assaults ripping my lines apart.

This is where you come in. Knowing I will face tough to kill enemies as these. Not numerous but powerful. What do I counter it with? I'd love to beat the nids at their own game. I don't mind being on a board I stuggle on and at least I have nearly got draws but... well I kinda want to at least get a draw. Something important to note is the mission is always seek and destroy. We don't play often so a stand off is attractive to them with both armies lining up to slug it out.

Should I set up two different sorts of guard to counter each or do you think a universal sort of army list could do the job. I'm not a big fan of lascannons, I only have 3 at the moment and they die fast. But I need all the fire power I can get. I take out synapse and the carnifex lurks and shoots still. An all lascannon army I presume might be the advice but is there nothing else I can do? I droptroop a sentinel with hunter killer on tau to take a tank out and that seems quite successful. My poor tanks really struggle with the big guns I'm facing. Mortars seem to do ok on the dense terrain but since the troops arn't the problem thats no solution. Any sound tactics, things to include in my army, anything, that could help me out? Other than stop playing them

[Deleted]

Ratling snipers!....lay sum up in a forest agenst a carnifex and watch as the carnifex pops wounds out of him. Sniper rifles allways wound on 4+ regardless of toughness so they should help

[Deleted]

hmm good point. I do have 10 but get unlucky. The maths isn't as bad as I think they are. I think I'll go with some rough riders with lances too for them occasions I need to stall the enemy. I like tanks so a russ and a demolisher should fill my treads needs... I think I'm slowly becoming a treadhead after collecting guard for the infanty. Lets through a chimera in there for treadness. droptrooping sentinel and maybe anti tank squads with light infantry so they infiltrate. Would help me position them most effectivly, but maybe just a points sink. That sounds like a fun army even if it could do rubbish. A game is about having fun though right?

[Mabus]

A death watch kill team would solve all your problems! you might loose a bit of your army's character but you will slaughter any tyranid unlucky enough to get within rapid fire range of these fellas.

[Deleted]

Speaking of losing a little character...take an assassin, perferably the callidus. At the begining of the game you can redeploy ANY enemy unit up to 6 inches. This will help ALOT and is very abusive. She also pops out of nowhere and that nueral shredder is very deadly against gaunts and fire warriors. She can move and assault the turn she comes in, and she allows NO armour saves of any type. She is good against nids, but she is the Tau's greatest threat. Against the tyranids you could also take what me and my friends call "Crackhead" aka the eversor assasin. He is the ultimate close combat killing machine. He'll beat up anything and he blows up when he dies. Cool, huh?
Also, the Tyranids will always have a psyker in the army, and thats when the Culexus assasin comes in. He kills hive tyrants and warriors and brags about it while he's doing it. To use an assassin you also need to take an inquisitor, who can also take a deadly array of henchmen and weaponry. I'm almost certain that you can find what you are looking for if you thumb through the daemonhunters/which hunters codex. I almost always take them as allies with my Imperial Guard. I hope this helps.
oh...and you really should talk to your roomates about their sportsmanship when it comes to small tables with lots of terrain. Everyone wants a fair chance.

[Deleted]

Yeah sounds like the board is ALWAYS stacked against you, which strikes me as a tad unsportsmanlike.. but anyway, All the advice so far is great, snipers and assassins really are brutal(I always take em xD). Also you might try demo charge suicide squads(they blat anything if your lucky), also some deepstriking stormies could really put the pinch in just the wrong place.

Also if your having LOS trouble consider taking a basilisk(or three..) to drop the pain on big bugs/battlesuits.

Really though I would be questioning the board setup first :] good luck, The Emperor Protects.

[Mabus]

I HATE CALLIDUS ASSASINS! I had a game against a friend who has one a week or so ago and the b***h managed to kill a whole Storm trooper squad! I lost patience and shot her with a lascannon after that, it was a good game!

[Colonel Grammissar Azalar]

Kill All Synapse Creatures, Nids then need to take Leadership to see if they stay or do one.

[Deleted]

Little update: I have not had a go at nids again since but I played tau the other night. Little 500 point game. I know he is a fan of kroot and he knows I'm a fan of fitting a tank into 500 points so we ended up me fielding almost totally anti infantry and him fielding a rail gun hammerhead and smaller troops.

Long story slightly less long we played alpha recon, he got my transport down in turn 2 which made life harder. I however had already killed all the kroot and firewarriors and was left with a tank and his war geared to the teeth HQ. My rough riders and his HQ met mid board and I took the HQ out. By now though he had cleverly took all weapons capable of taking that tank out (500 points spent badly on anti tank meant that was easy really) other than a sentinel with multilazer weapon (good luck sentinel). Realising his tank would camp in my deployment zone and no real power to take him out I ran everything forward but nothing made it in time. I didn't loose much at all though so it went better than past encounters. Just my rough riders and transport took the toll and I didn't want to lose the riders but after rapid firing my army at that HQ and causing 33 lasgun wounds I only killed the shield drones. stupid 2+ save with feel no pain wargear to blame. The 33 wounds sure was good fun though. 40 men rapid firing roughly.

Anywho I ramble so all I really wanted to say was thanks for the advice and be sure I'll give it a try. Now to plan what to put on a lord guy hq to get the assassin on the field

[Deleted]

in a small game like this against the tau, you could put on your Inquisitor Lord a psycannon give him a sage, giving him BS5. shield drones can't take saves against the psycannon, even invulnerable saves! Your Inquisitor Lord will hit on a 2+ and wound on a 2+. fun stuff! try it!

[Mabus]

Reading that makes me want to start using my Tau again!

[Deleted]

Tau do seem fun to play but if he fields mobile tau then its not fun to play against, boring if anything. So make a fun army to play against and the emperor might not mind you playing them Then again I would probably make tau mobile if I was to play them. Nice change from my quite static guard