Struggling with assault in 6th

[forteh]

All throughout 5th ed. my nids would rape face against just about anything in assault, I would quite happily throw 6-8 toxinstealers at 5 man terminator squads without thinking about it and mostly come out on top.

Ive only played two 6th ed. games with the nids so far and Ive found that I have zero effect in assault, particularly with stealers (both toxin and yealers). Admittedly Ive only been playing against my friends new SW army but surely 6 yealers should be able to murder 5 long fangs in close combat? Both games Ive been annihilated within 2 turns - losing 1 to overwatch and the rest to failed armour saves.

Perhaps its my unlucky rolling and failing to get any significant number of rends (the only normal wounds I caused were all promptly saved). One massive nerf (or debuff if you like) that nids have suffered is that now everyone with a pistol and a knife has 2 attacks, add the SW counterattack onto that and heavy weapon marines have more attacks than my elite slot yealers! Has anyone else found this and can it be countered shy of not assaulting?

Having used nids primarily as an assault army since '95 (or whenever the 2nd ed. codex came out) I suddenly find I cant kill anything with what used to be one of the best assault units in the game

Ok it means Ive got to change my game plan but how can this have happened?

[Davor]

Haven't played yet, but thinking of using Rippers to soften or tie up the units. Have Rippers or Gants take Snap Fire shots. Then have the Stealers/Yealers charge in.

One idea to at lest think of. Sorry I couldn't be more help right now.

[Deleted]

Try upping the size of the brood a bit and using the +1A on the charge against HWS. +1T won't help much against them unless it's all HB anyways and the extra attacks will help get those rends.

[WestRider]

That sounds like bad rolling to me. 6 Yealers aren't exactly likely to "murder" 5 Long Fangs, tho. Running the numbers very quickly, and assuming you're charging into Cover and morphing for Toughness, it looks like the Long Fangs should average about 2 kills on the first round, between Overwatch and their extra Counter-Attack swings. In return, the remaining Yealers should kill 1-2, drawing, if not winning the Combat. Remember, Overwatch doesn't count for Combat Res.

Next Turn, you morph for Attacks, drop another 1-2, the remainder probably do nothing. Unfortunately, you're likely to then win in your own Turn.

7 Yealers is probably about right for Charging Long Fangs in Cover, really.

Also keep in mind that Long Fangs are really a pretty nasty Unit to Charge, especially in Cover. They've got Counter-Attack and BP/CCW*, so they dish out way more damage than most Heavy Weapons Units do.

Further, it sounds like you were getting lucky back in 5th, which may have biased your planning. 6 toxic Stealers will generally fight to about a standstill with 5 Tactical Terminators. Who wins that fight is more or less a coin toss, and the winner is unlikely to have more than one or two Models left.

*Remember that a Pistol counts as having a Melee Weapon for purposes of the bit on Pg.51 about everyone with no melee weapon getting one for free. They need to actually have two CCWs listed in their Army List entry to get that extra Attack.

[killme304]

What happened is stealers themselves got hit square in the face with the nerf bat. All the ways we used to get around protecting the brood (outflanking, hiding and getting the charge on them) went out the window, overwatch is the worst bit for stealers. Now there is almost no way to get to combat without casualties. You have to bring more of them or don't bother using them at all.

I used to love stealers, but they took such a hard kick to the crotch, that I don't use them anymore.

[fleetofclaw]

Assault is for the fast and / or the resilient in 6e. Fast pretty much means non-foot. For me Raveners IMHO have replaced genestealers. They're way faster (way), and are more survivable (being able to cruise through cover means cover saves, 3 wounds, etc etc), where two overwatch wounds would mean losing 6 attacks on a charge for genestealers, on Raveners that's not the case. Resilient means either plentiful wounds for cheap, or plain ol' hard to kill. Hormogants just aren't point effective enough for how fragile they are. Obviously t3 and a t-shirt save is laughable, but most squads that count are hitting them on 3's as well. WS3? Really? All they DO is assault and they have WS3? Not for those points baby. They're not fast enough to match gargoyles or Raveners to fall in the fast category, and their upgrades are too expensive; plain ol' inefficient. And lets face it, squads with ZERO shooting just don't hack it unless they're really mean in combat, being able to overwatch an incoming charge, or being able to drop some wounds on a squad on the way in is worth more than a measily 2 attacks on the statline.

All that said, yes, genestealers took it in the chin, and simply "taking more" isn't the right answer. It means finding more effecient models that match the 6e playstyle. Whenever I build lists I find myself staring at my Tervs and Termagants for troops. I'm considering doing one last hurrah with genestealers and just field all 40 of them. We'll see.

[forteh]

Cheers for the responses guys, I think it's just going to have to be a change around in play style and learn to use stealers differently

My last game I tried having a brood of 10 hormies for each 6 stealers, primarily to act as an cover/overwatch shield, they actually performed better than the stealers (killed 4 fenrisian wolves after receiving the charge - the stealers never made it into combat) and it just didn't work. I did take a brood of 3 Raveners in the same game, I had a first turn drop pod with 10 grey hunters in by back field (which shot up a brood of stealers before they even moved), I used the raveners to assault them (my only previous experience with raveners resulted in 5 dead terminators by turn 2 so I expected them to do ok), unfortunately it took them 5 turns to kill all of the hunters

I think perhaps my game sense hasn't adjusted yet to 6th or even to space wolves, never played against them before so I've probably just got too high expectations. I do know that they seem ridiculously killy, more attacks than tyranids, more toughness, more armour, pyschic defence through the roof and tonnes of 3++ saves that never seem to fail.

It was a squad of missile launchers that I charged with the yealers and yes I stupidly morphed +1T, in hindsight I did a lot wrong in that game - I should have outflanked the tervigon and had a monstrous creature + gribblies plough straight into his table edge gunline! (20 grey hunters, 10 HB long fangs & 5 ML long fangs). All that said his rolls were incredible, 5 consecutive deny the witch rolls against warp lance/haemmoraghe with his thunderwolf lord - Grrrrr!

Ill play around with bigger broods, unfortunately it soon becomes a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. Flyrant and more raveners I think!

[N.I.B.]

I think your problem is that you're still fielding Genestealers. This is 6th ed, hellooo? Sink those points into a Tervigon with Gants instead.

Ymgarls are still great though.

[forteh]

Its been the ymgarls that have twice been mullered by longfangs in assault in 2 separate games!
Will have to keep the stealers for broodlord commando units, I shall return 30 of them back to the spacehulk box

[nurglitch]

Long Fangs don't have Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, only the Pack Leader does. They upgrade their Bolt Pistols to Heavy Weapons. So they only have two attacks each with Counter-Attack.

[WestRider]

Aug 16, 2012 11:17:55 GMT nurglitch said:

Long Fangs don't have Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons, only the Pack Leader does. They upgrade their Bolt Pistols to Heavy Weapons. So they only have two attacks each with Counter-Attack.

Good catch, I didn't notice that was a swap, rather than just buying the Heavy Weapon like my Havocs do. I've only actually made it into Assault with Long Fangs once, and only the Pack Leader lived to strike back, so it had never come up for me.

[rpricew]

I run 8 man units of Ymgarls... either 1 or 2 depending on the point level (2 units at 2K and 1 unit for anything less) They always do good killing whatever they hit (mostly on their assault turn)

[infornography]

I run a 10 man ymgarl unit. I have rarely been disappointed by them and they are often my MVP unit. Use +1T on the assault to soak overwatch. +1 Attacks on the opponent's round to finish them off. Or +1 S to take down light tanks.

[coredump]

With only 6, you really need to be careful of the target. With 8 (or 10) there are many more valid targets.

[forteh]

Thanks again for the input, a case of I was expecting too much from a mere 5-6 man squad; I've got 8 of the tentaclefaces modelled so will run it as a minimum in future