A solid opening for black?

Basically, if white plays 1. D4 I always feel I do poorly replying with the same for black, if there are some more unique openings that could gain the upper hand against opponents at my nooby level, I'd appreciate reading them. Thank you.

Try one of the Indian defences.  1...Nf6 is the most popular reply to 1.d4

What's your chess personality?  (Slow/positional, or wild/tactical?)  I used to play c6 against either d4 or e4, usually getting into Caro-Kann positions.

I suppose I lean more towards the tactical side, I'm not very good at slowly pulling down my opponents defences, perhaps that's what seperates me from a higher rating. I have gotten some very nice checkmates (imho), so I'm hoping to be able to get in to those positions more frequently (by a better opening and better positional play).