# CSM vs. Horde Nids



## Malferion (Mar 9, 2011)

One of my friends has gotten himself a tyranid army which consists mostly of gaunts and genestealers, with a Carnifex and a Tervigon. I have been quite unsuccessful every time i have played this army, so i was wondering what suggestions any of you might have?

Thanks


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

Simple really, if you just want to beat him, take chosen, with 5 flamers, and go OLOLOL your bugs died. Back them up with some CSM with Plasma guns, and powerfists to kill the big bugs


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## Supersonic Banana (Jul 23, 2010)

I find missile launcher havocs usefull v. nids
just template the little ones and then ask the big ones if they want to smoke some krak


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

I could be wrong, but aren't the Big 'uns packing 2+ armour saves? If so Krak is useless, might as well spam autocannons then.


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## lokis222 (Mar 14, 2009)

with exceptional circumstance, i am pretty sure the save is 3+ these days.


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## lokis222 (Mar 14, 2009)

Lord Sven Kittyclaw said:


> Simple really, if you just want to beat him, take chosen, with 5 flamers, and go OLOLOL your bugs died. Back them up with some CSM with Plasma guns, and powerfists to kill the big bugs


Flamers work. As do blast markers or weight of fire. Get in tanks and stay mobile. It is really hard to keep up with nids and if you move 7 or more inches inches, almost impossible to hit you in CC. 

That tactic falls apart once the anti tank comes out, but with only a few MC and gants/genies, you wont have too many worries.


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

I thought of mentioning just rhino-ing up, but gants can pop them on a charge with FC. Drive by with rhino's will be a slower victory, and cuts into your number of flamers/templates that you can bring. obliterators wouldn't be bad (Are they ever?) They normally don't want to be close, but 3 TL'd flamers will own bugs. And you have las/plas for the warriors/Fexes/Tyrant/Terv


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Berzerkers are always good, and you can't go wrong with defilers, and flamers....avoid expensive anti elite stuff in that its not hard for a DP or Terminators to go down to massed infantry. After a DP will only ever kill 4-5 tops.


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

LukeValantine said:


> Berzerkers are always good, and you can't go wrong with defilers, and flamers....avoid expensive anti elite stuff in that its not hard for a DP or Terminators to go down to massed infantry. After all you can only ever kill 4-5 tops.


Well a even a base unit of MoK termies at 5 strong makes 20 on the charge, so thats like what, 10 dead?


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## lokis222 (Mar 14, 2009)

You are really better off avoiding tervigon buffed gants. On the other hand, tervigons do not get cover saves from gants because of the MC rules and only have a 3+ armor. Hit that six times with lasers, plasma, or missles and all gants in 6 inches take 3d6 wounds that can only be saved on a 6+.


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## lokis222 (Mar 14, 2009)

You don't want to be in CC with tyranids as a rule.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

10 CSM with Icon of Khorne and 2 Flamers ~180ish? 

Fairly decent with 40 S4 Attacks on the charge.


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## lokis222 (Mar 14, 2009)

Vaz said:


> 10 CSM with Icon of Khorne and 2 Flamers ~180ish?
> 
> Fairly decent with 40 S4 Attacks on the charge.


Not to be argumentative, but 180pts of gants is 38 gants. Supported by a tervigon, they have counter-attack, furious charge, and poison attack. So, you hit a group of them and wipe them the first attack. They counter, hit you with another 15 gants and shoot you first. Then, hit you for thirty attacks at S4 that hit on 4s and rerolling all missed wounds. 15 of those attacks hit. Wound on a 4+. About 10 wounds. 3+ save means 3.33 die. Then, it is a slug match. 75 points of gants have tied up and probably hurt your 180pt unit. Then, the tervigon spawns more of them. That attack and do the exact same thing. 

Pro tip: Kill Mamafex.


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## uber (Feb 28, 2011)

1. let him go first. against nids counter-deployment is key. you want to make sure you put the max space between your stuff and his MC's. also you want to put your big guns such that you give yourself a nice killing zone to lash stuff into. 



2.the best way is to use dual lash DP's and go for the terv first and foremost. tri-gons are nasty, but if you deploy properly you can give yourself a couple of turn relief while they run towards you. so fly your DP's in and lash the terv. he has a power that will make you roll 3D6 for psychic tests, but the range is only 18", so you have 6" of free lash to play with. chances are the terv will be hidden from fire, so you will have to lash it out into LOS. once you can see it hit that fucker with everything you've got. if you take it out early, not only do you get the nice gant-splosion, but you can break synapse. if you do that then there is a chance he will lose control over the tri-gons.

once the terv is out then focus on the MC's. if you can get some chosen to outflank with melta you can take one out pretty easily. 

the way i would use my forces is the following:

focus all big guns on the MC's
keep men in rhinos at all cost and use them to get gants to chase
once the MC's are down throw your DP's at his troops. gants really are no match for a DP, let alone two. i've had gants swarm my princes and they just laughed and killed them all.

flamers on troops are great. 
you can shelf the cult troops, as regular csm are way cheaper and you can spend the points on termies or more firepower.

by turn 3 you should have most of the MC threat neutralized which will then allow you to focus your guns on hive guard, warriors, or anything that will give csm trouble.

make em come to you, then make em pay.


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## lokis222 (Mar 14, 2009)

uber said:


> he has a power that will make you roll 3D6 for psychic tests, but the range is only 18", so you have 6" of free lash to play with.


It is 12". :angry: Stupid codex.....


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

uber said:


> once the terv is out then focus on the MC's. if you can get some chosen to outflank with <plasma> you can take one out pretty easily.


Fixed your post for you. After all melta's are useless against T6 Mc's compared to plasma, unless he loads up on warriors.


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## Fallen (Oct 7, 2008)

i find 3 trip-las preds are great, they kill the MCs and generic CSMs bubble wrap the tanks with flamers, meltas & PFs. perhaps some chosen with 5 flamers to clear out most of the little bugs.

but just spam as much S8+ and AP3- stuff to take out the MCs. then its just clean up time.


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## uber (Feb 28, 2011)

LukeValantine said:


> Fixed your post for you. After all melta's are useless against T6 Mc's compared to plasma, unless he loads up on warriors.



plasma wounds on 3+ while melta is 2+. people tend to favor melta anyway, but i have both on my chosen squad.


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## Supersonic Banana (Jul 23, 2010)

How about a khorne lord with daemon weapon? There's potential for 17 attacks there.
Other than that I usually run rot princes against them.


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## Malferion (Mar 9, 2011)

i actually used a khorne Lord with a damon weapon and he wounded himself then got instant deathed by a stupid carnifex that I lashed twice and managed to only move it five inches total.
Would a defiler be effective against this army?


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## clever handle (Dec 14, 2009)

keep a defiler out of combat with the big 'uns & it'll tie up as many of the little fuckers as they can throw at it. Gants / gaunts can't hurt the thing & if you give it the 4 combat arm load out you'll be killing 3-4 per turn. This wont remove a max sized squad but it will prevent them from doing anything else for the game. And the battle cannon for one or two turns beforehand will really thin the numbers.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

lokis222 said:


> Not to be argumentative, but 180pts of gants is 38 gants. Supported by a tervigon, they have counter-attack, furious charge, and poison attack. So, you hit a group of them and wipe them the first attack. They counter, hit you with another 15 gants and shoot you first. Then, hit you for thirty attacks at S4 that hit on 4s and rerolling all missed wounds. 15 of those attacks hit. Wound on a 4+. About 10 wounds. 3+ save means 3.33 die. Then, it is a slug match. 75 points of gants have tied up and probably hurt your 180pt unit. Then, the tervigon spawns more of them. That attack and do the exact same thing.
> 
> Pro tip: Kill Mamafex.


Means they're not tieing up your valuables - your Rot Princes, Obliterators, and Plague Marines and the like.


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## Fallen (Oct 7, 2008)

defilers, dreadnoughts and other things are alright against nids, keep away from the MCs but other than that, be rending, theres nothing the rest of the army can do against them


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## Mundungu (Jul 23, 2010)

My local Meta has a ton of Nids (last tourney, there were 7 nids out of 16 players). As was said, shoot down the Tervigon asap. This should trim the size of the gaunt squads down. Odds are, they will be in range since the Nid player wants their gaunts to get the adrenal glands and poison sacs buff. Lash the Tervigon away until you are ready for it. Also, while some may say vanilla marines are best, I have great success with Noise Marines. Blast Masters are great, as always, in a lash list. They also ID the thropes that appear in most of the lists here. Finally, Sonic Blasters reap nid horde. The cost of a Noise Marine with Sonic Blaster may be steep, but when your 10 man squad puts out a small blast and 27 other bolter shots, you'll be glad to have them.

Finally, don't worry about finishing off gaunt squads. Once they are 5 or less, let them charge you. You'll wipe them out.


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## clever handle (Dec 14, 2009)

I'm usually one to advocate noise marines but against nids I'm not sure they're your best bet.

point for point they are only more effective than bog standard marines in that 12"-24" range. Closer than that you are better served with more bolters. 10 noise marines w/ SBs is 250 points - that puts out 30 shots up to 24" away. 250 points of regular CSM is 16 - sure at 12" - 24" they're putting out slightly more than half as many shots, but in the <12" range you're putting out slightly more shots. While it may not seem like a big deal & maybe isn't since most nids can assault from outside the 12" range you still have 50% more bodies allowing you to take a few wounds without drastically being reduced in effectiveness. Just food for thought - I run a slaaneshi warband & have always had great success with my pink marines & would love to see more players use them, but there are advantages of both schools.

... thinking as I type this I guess the I5 helps against FC li'l bugs...


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