Post by jaysic on Feb 22, 2015 7:56:17 GMT
So, after doing the math for how good fully upgrade genestealers are in a vacuum, I thought "Let's see how they do in practice" and took the following list the monthly tourney at the LGS. 14 fully upgraded genetealers should, on the charge, kill pretty much everything in the game. They clock in at 23 points each, and they die like crazy. I'm hard pressed to find anything else in 40k that is such a catch-all blender as these guys. Point for point, they are just over twice as murderface as fully kitted RC shrikes. With that in mind.
HQ
Melyrant (Wings, AG, OA, LW/BS)
Troops
13x Genestealers (AG, TS, ST), Broodlord (ST)
13x Genestealers (AG, TS, ST), Broodlord (ST)
14x Hormagaunts
14x Hormagaunts
Children of Cryptus (Warlord)
3x Rippers, DS
Elite
2x Malanthrope
Heavy
Carnifex (AG, CC)
Carnifex (AG, CC)
Comes to 1846
First game Hammer and anvil. Kind of an eternal war mission, but you scored every round. There were 7 objective markers of various points values, that totaled up to 11 points. Once it was scored, you got 1 VP and the value ticked down by 1.
Played against my buddy greg's necrons, my first time against the new Dex. Had 2 Doomarcs (Ghost arc varient thing), 2 Ghostarcs with full squads in them, 2 stalkers, annh barge, deathmarks, squad of immortals, overlord, 2 squads of 4 tomb blades (bike things with S7 ignores cover).
I lost this game to rolls. And not "Oh I lost a game and my dice seemed to be (please do not swear) me so I'm blaming the rolls" type rolls. Turn 1 I get hit with 5 wounds on my malanthrops from ignores cover, ap4 tomb blades. I fail 4 of the 5 3+, lost a Mal. 2+ jink Melyrant got hit by 5 wounds from a ghost arc. 4 fails. S10 blast hits my other mal. I roll a 1, ID. Carnifex without shrouding takes 5 wounds from the stalkers. 4 fails. The ignore covers blast that killed my mal also took out 8 genestealers from scatters. While this was going on I won the primary though, so yay 3 of the 9 possible points. I didn't harm a single model. The only thing I did was successfully pin the Immortals turn 1 with the horror from my Melyrant.
Game 2 I played against some eldar. WK, 6 Jetbikes, 6 FireDragons w/ exarch in a typical wave serpent, 5 wraithguard, 6 war walkers (6 BL, 6 SL), 9 Warp Spiders, 2x 10 guardians with BL, Avatar.
This was a pretty fun back and forth game. Maelstrom was primary, KP secondary, and 4 tertiaries. We both made a few flubs, and it was a pretty fun back and forth game. I dominated the Primary, won KPs by 1, and took all secondaries. The deployment was table corners (36x24) with a 12" arc cut into the side by the center. I got a nice infiltrate off with the children of cryptus down his flank out of LOS. The squad took down 10 guardians and the fire dragons before being mowed down to the Spawn by the other guardians and the SL WarWalkers. One squad of turbo Genestealers minced the Avatar as well as the Wraithknight and only lost 5 of their number (4 to the avatar, 1 to overwatch from the WK). The other squad derped around chasing the warp spiders and failed 8" charges 2 turns in a row, but were scoring maelstrom objs in the process with some whipping the tail end of the squad around.
Game 3 I played my buddy Zach. He was testing his GT list and wanted to splash some summoning in. Dawn of War, Primary was essentially just EW mission that was for 3 mission points, then there were 6 secondaries. He had a Farseer, Spirit Seer, 3 Warlocks (1 on bike), 3 jetbikes, two of 5x Dire Avengers in a standard wave serpent, WK, 6 Hawks, 1 of each IK. He had proclaimed that he rolled all the demonology spells he wanted (4,5,6) as well as invis on the Spiritseer. He was already apologizing about his list when we got to our table. For the first time that day I didn't get nightfight. He got first turn and I didn't seize. By the end of the game I had 5 Hormgaunts (squad of 4, squad of 1), my Melyrant with 3 wounds left, the Spawn of Cryptus with 1 wound left, 1 base of rippers that was fleeing. He had 3 screamers, a Bloodthirster, both Wave Serpents (1 still had guys in it), and the Melta-IK with 2 HPs left.
Genestealers were the MVP with the Carnifexen getting special notice. The Melyrant IKed the WK (which netted me a "Headhunter" secondary) but that was all he did. I did roll Catalyst for the first time in the day, but it did not affect the game at all. One group of turbostealers got shot up pretty bad by a waveserpent and the meltaknight, then got charged by it. They tore 2 HPs off of and it killed all by the BL with the attacks/stomps. On the bottom of the turn my BL took 2 more off before dying. His other WK failed a 7 inch charge to what was left of some screening hormagaunts, and in return, got charged by both Fexen. Their HoW did 3 HP. He gibbed one with the D weapon, and the other wiffed his attacks did 1 HP in return. He was killed the following turn before striking. The other turbostealers came in and did another 4 HP to it after striking at i1, then it stomped them all to death and exploded. My Children of cryptus unit got shot up, failed moral (infiltrated out of synapse, didn't think I needed it), rallied, went to ground, got dominion denied all day, before finally the last 2 stealers and himself made it into the jetbike/warlocks/spirit seer summoning mega unit with a pitiful amount of leftover screening horms. It ate them all alive, save for the Farseer, who periled, got a 1, failed moral, but still turned into a bloodthirster. Luckily it was too late in the game, and he didn't do anything other than show up. The spawn then survived a counter charge by 3 Dire Avengers (they were being turned into heralds and (please do not swear) throughout the game) and murdered their faces too. Having cleared that corner, I got an objective with the 4 Horms and the Spawn, along with linebreaker. My single surviving horm from the other squad contested the center (and highest worth) obj from a wave serpent, and my melyrant (who went into flight mode to escape the meltaknight who gibbed my malanthropes) hopped down into jump mode bottom of 5 and scooped and obj to counteract the one his IK had on the other side of the table. Won the primary 1-0 for 3 VPs, achieved all secondaries. Ended up with 21 of 29 possible VPs, tying a blood angel player for 2nd.
I think the list needs some tweaking. In game 2 I laughed as I had to discard "Ovewhelming Firepower" from the maelstrom deck, since I could never kill a unit in the shooting phase. I didn't even think about it when I made my list.
The Children of Cryptus did well...when they could infiltrate to a good spot. The PE from the warlord trait is nice, but doesn't make up for the lack of AG/TS. I'm thinking I drop them, put my horm squads to 12 strong, and add a Tervigon with ESG, CC, AG. Will give me a little more longevity, I feel, since the 2 games I got to really play out had me stretched thin on the board. While I only NEED synapse for the hormagaunts most of the time, having dominion denied when you want to be fearless on the Genestealer broods is brutal. The horror only came into effect against the Eldar in any meaningful way, and I think the Terv will help with another catalyst roll. He can also kill drop pods reliably with that setup and poop out at least 1 unit to sit on objectives / speed bump people, and can even threaten an IK in a pinch.
Interested in testing this out and seeing how the list evolves. Worst case scenario I think I see at least 1 fully kitted stealer squad in my TAC lists, though exact # and inclusion of the Broodlord is not assured.
HQ
Melyrant (Wings, AG, OA, LW/BS)
Troops
13x Genestealers (AG, TS, ST), Broodlord (ST)
13x Genestealers (AG, TS, ST), Broodlord (ST)
14x Hormagaunts
14x Hormagaunts
Children of Cryptus (Warlord)
3x Rippers, DS
Elite
2x Malanthrope
Heavy
Carnifex (AG, CC)
Carnifex (AG, CC)
Comes to 1846
First game Hammer and anvil. Kind of an eternal war mission, but you scored every round. There were 7 objective markers of various points values, that totaled up to 11 points. Once it was scored, you got 1 VP and the value ticked down by 1.
Played against my buddy greg's necrons, my first time against the new Dex. Had 2 Doomarcs (Ghost arc varient thing), 2 Ghostarcs with full squads in them, 2 stalkers, annh barge, deathmarks, squad of immortals, overlord, 2 squads of 4 tomb blades (bike things with S7 ignores cover).
I lost this game to rolls. And not "Oh I lost a game and my dice seemed to be (please do not swear) me so I'm blaming the rolls" type rolls. Turn 1 I get hit with 5 wounds on my malanthrops from ignores cover, ap4 tomb blades. I fail 4 of the 5 3+, lost a Mal. 2+ jink Melyrant got hit by 5 wounds from a ghost arc. 4 fails. S10 blast hits my other mal. I roll a 1, ID. Carnifex without shrouding takes 5 wounds from the stalkers. 4 fails. The ignore covers blast that killed my mal also took out 8 genestealers from scatters. While this was going on I won the primary though, so yay 3 of the 9 possible points. I didn't harm a single model. The only thing I did was successfully pin the Immortals turn 1 with the horror from my Melyrant.
Game 2 I played against some eldar. WK, 6 Jetbikes, 6 FireDragons w/ exarch in a typical wave serpent, 5 wraithguard, 6 war walkers (6 BL, 6 SL), 9 Warp Spiders, 2x 10 guardians with BL, Avatar.
This was a pretty fun back and forth game. Maelstrom was primary, KP secondary, and 4 tertiaries. We both made a few flubs, and it was a pretty fun back and forth game. I dominated the Primary, won KPs by 1, and took all secondaries. The deployment was table corners (36x24) with a 12" arc cut into the side by the center. I got a nice infiltrate off with the children of cryptus down his flank out of LOS. The squad took down 10 guardians and the fire dragons before being mowed down to the Spawn by the other guardians and the SL WarWalkers. One squad of turbo Genestealers minced the Avatar as well as the Wraithknight and only lost 5 of their number (4 to the avatar, 1 to overwatch from the WK). The other squad derped around chasing the warp spiders and failed 8" charges 2 turns in a row, but were scoring maelstrom objs in the process with some whipping the tail end of the squad around.
Game 3 I played my buddy Zach. He was testing his GT list and wanted to splash some summoning in. Dawn of War, Primary was essentially just EW mission that was for 3 mission points, then there were 6 secondaries. He had a Farseer, Spirit Seer, 3 Warlocks (1 on bike), 3 jetbikes, two of 5x Dire Avengers in a standard wave serpent, WK, 6 Hawks, 1 of each IK. He had proclaimed that he rolled all the demonology spells he wanted (4,5,6) as well as invis on the Spiritseer. He was already apologizing about his list when we got to our table. For the first time that day I didn't get nightfight. He got first turn and I didn't seize. By the end of the game I had 5 Hormgaunts (squad of 4, squad of 1), my Melyrant with 3 wounds left, the Spawn of Cryptus with 1 wound left, 1 base of rippers that was fleeing. He had 3 screamers, a Bloodthirster, both Wave Serpents (1 still had guys in it), and the Melta-IK with 2 HPs left.
Genestealers were the MVP with the Carnifexen getting special notice. The Melyrant IKed the WK (which netted me a "Headhunter" secondary) but that was all he did. I did roll Catalyst for the first time in the day, but it did not affect the game at all. One group of turbostealers got shot up pretty bad by a waveserpent and the meltaknight, then got charged by it. They tore 2 HPs off of and it killed all by the BL with the attacks/stomps. On the bottom of the turn my BL took 2 more off before dying. His other WK failed a 7 inch charge to what was left of some screening hormagaunts, and in return, got charged by both Fexen. Their HoW did 3 HP. He gibbed one with the D weapon, and the other wiffed his attacks did 1 HP in return. He was killed the following turn before striking. The other turbostealers came in and did another 4 HP to it after striking at i1, then it stomped them all to death and exploded. My Children of cryptus unit got shot up, failed moral (infiltrated out of synapse, didn't think I needed it), rallied, went to ground, got dominion denied all day, before finally the last 2 stealers and himself made it into the jetbike/warlocks/spirit seer summoning mega unit with a pitiful amount of leftover screening horms. It ate them all alive, save for the Farseer, who periled, got a 1, failed moral, but still turned into a bloodthirster. Luckily it was too late in the game, and he didn't do anything other than show up. The spawn then survived a counter charge by 3 Dire Avengers (they were being turned into heralds and (please do not swear) throughout the game) and murdered their faces too. Having cleared that corner, I got an objective with the 4 Horms and the Spawn, along with linebreaker. My single surviving horm from the other squad contested the center (and highest worth) obj from a wave serpent, and my melyrant (who went into flight mode to escape the meltaknight who gibbed my malanthropes) hopped down into jump mode bottom of 5 and scooped and obj to counteract the one his IK had on the other side of the table. Won the primary 1-0 for 3 VPs, achieved all secondaries. Ended up with 21 of 29 possible VPs, tying a blood angel player for 2nd.
I think the list needs some tweaking. In game 2 I laughed as I had to discard "Ovewhelming Firepower" from the maelstrom deck, since I could never kill a unit in the shooting phase. I didn't even think about it when I made my list.
The Children of Cryptus did well...when they could infiltrate to a good spot. The PE from the warlord trait is nice, but doesn't make up for the lack of AG/TS. I'm thinking I drop them, put my horm squads to 12 strong, and add a Tervigon with ESG, CC, AG. Will give me a little more longevity, I feel, since the 2 games I got to really play out had me stretched thin on the board. While I only NEED synapse for the hormagaunts most of the time, having dominion denied when you want to be fearless on the Genestealer broods is brutal. The horror only came into effect against the Eldar in any meaningful way, and I think the Terv will help with another catalyst roll. He can also kill drop pods reliably with that setup and poop out at least 1 unit to sit on objectives / speed bump people, and can even threaten an IK in a pinch.
Interested in testing this out and seeing how the list evolves. Worst case scenario I think I see at least 1 fully kitted stealer squad in my TAC lists, though exact # and inclusion of the Broodlord is not assured.
