When 6th edition came out, broodlords were on the top of my "let's try this out" list. Everyone was raving about how amazing new psychic powers were on broodlords, basically forcing me to try them out and see what all the raving was about. I had a long list of reasons to hate the broodlord and feel bad when I saw people putting them in lists in 5th edition. If that changed, I wanted to see it.
Now, I could go into all of my games with genestealers and broodlords in general… but honestly let’s just keep this experience rant short.
Broodlord Psychic Potential:
*Starting note: Broodlords cannot take any of the Primaris Powers, so whatever he roles, he is stuck with… and that hurts*
Biomancy
He can use 4/6 of the powers here.
Iron arm. He can wound models on 2’s and maybe instant kill T4 with a bit of luck. The wounding on 2’s thing I’ll cover below.
Enfeeble: Again, allows the broodlord to wound things on 2’s. This also allows the genestealers that survived this long to wound on 3’s. It also increases the survivability of the unit as a whole. *two thumbs up*
Endurance: Here is why endurance is probably the coolest thing on the broodlord, like, ever. We have always had the tervigon, but we would seldom use it on genestealer units. It was always a privilege that was limited to the tervigon/ trygons/ gants. They needed the FnP, genestealers were usually outflanking and they didn’t need it. Now, all of a sudden, we are not putting unnecessary focus on the genestealers Feel no Pain? It just happens to get it because the broodlord is there? And IWND in the broodlord himself to boot??? It is a great power to get.
Warpspeed: He has fleet, he has the initiative, he can get 1-3 extra attacks. A pretty “please don’t roll this” power in my opinion, when using my comparison to 4 genestealers.
Can’t use leech life or hemorrhage… honestly, he didn’t lose anything by not being able to get these powers anyway, but it does suck rolling on a chart, replacing a useful psychic power for something you can’t use.
Telekinesis
He can use 4/6 of these powers. Note: this was the discipline everyone took because they were *guaranteed* at least one power they could use. No longer. And to save myself some time because I know there is going to be SOMEONE who is going to try and correct me, a “beam” is a witchfire subtype that automatically hits, page 69 in the rulebook.
Gateway of Infinity: Cool psychic power. However, we all know exactly how effective deepstriking is for close combat units. I would just get a spore if I wanted this effect. I am dead serious; this power is not for him and his unit. HOWEVER, it does have the advantage of deepstriking onto an objective last turn, so not totally a waist of a power.
Objuration Mechanicum: such an obvious marine themed power, just look at the name. God, I can’t even say that and tell myself I am saying it right. Anyway, I am not sure how much this would actually effect most other units. Definitely hits overwatch below the belt, and haywire grenades against a vehicle is always nice, but it doesn’t feel like the greatest power in the world to get.
Shockwave: ummmmm… not sure what to say on this ability . It doesn’t support genestealers very much… or support anything really. It can do some damage to large hoards, but really it isn’t that fantastic.
Telekinetic Dome: 5++ is always cool. Feel no pain is better. And this “bounce back” effect is so gimmicky it’s not even funny. This was the only power in this discipline worth taking and it was (please do not swear) compared to the other books that have more useful powers.
Can’t use crush, which is fine since he is a challenge giver. Vortex of doom is both witchfire and warp charge 2, so he definitely can’t use that. (am I the only one that feels that the ‘6’ powers are all just absolutely terrible in comparison to the rest of the powers)
Telepathy
3/6 powers.
Dominate: Opponent is forced to take enough leadership tests, even at leadership 10, he is bound to fail one of them. However, even with 3 leadership tests… there is only about an 8% chance of failing 1 leadership test at leadership 10. When it happens it’s great, when it happens when you want it to happen FANTASTIC. Chances are though, they will fail their move test but still a shoot you down.
Mental Fortitude: helps when you are out of synapse. Tactically fall back anyone? Combat tactics for the win?
Terrify: This is really cool, but doesn’t affect ATSKNF and that irritates me. If it could touch ATSNKF this would be likely the most amazing power there is, because even where it is now you can sweeping advance a Bloodthirser (you have to win combat, but hey… its cool okay >_>)
Can’t use some pretty AMAZING abilities in this one, I am sorry, but he is missing out. Then again, so are most of the psykers in our codex. Invisibility and Hallucination are fantastic, but both warp charge 2. Puppet master, if he could use it… just a great ability.
Tyranid Powers
Aura of despair: near irrelevant in any metagame
Hypnotic Gaze: this used to be an absolute (please do not swear) ability, now I honestly believe it is one of the greatest abilities you can have on a broodlord. It was (please do not swear) because it was a character killer and it was easy to just keep characters out of the way. Now you can challenge characters, if they accept, then roll off or they can’t attack and if they decline, they can’t attack.
So, basically, going through the psychic powers, I have made the points that the broodlord has a good power itself, and then a chance to get some good random powers and that some of them can be very good.
Here is where the argument now begins for me.
Earlier I was saying you can get 3 genestealers for about his cost. It is slightly more true to say 4 genestealers, being in total closer to its actual points cost. 3 Toxin Sacs genestealers or 4 vanilla.
WS: Broodlords have higher weapon skill than their genestealer counterparts. What does this mean exactly? Well it means that they hit WS6 in 3’s. Useful in challenges against good models, not much else.
BS: uhhhhh…
S: S5 is…. Eh. Now you look at me and think “How is higher strength ever a bad thing” and, honestly, much of the time it isn’t. However, if you are using toxin on those genestealers, your genestealers are actually doing more damage overall than the broodlord, with their 4+ with rerolls both mathematically getting more wounds total, but the rerolls adding additional rending wounds to their damage output. If you are using vanilla genestealers, see the attack section. Iron arm was mentioned as an example of a “good power” for the broodlord because it allows the broodlord to gain a 2+ to wound and possibly instant death. The instant death requires a passed leadership test then a 3 on a D3, and it has to come up when you want it to (during a challenge with a T4 multiwound model that doesn’t have eternal warrior. So, not often I am sorry to say) But more prominent to my argument: wounding on a 2+ doesn’t actually mean much. Longfangs destroy my trygons NOT because they wound on 2’s, but because they ignore my armor. I’ll cover this idea more in the attacks section as well.
T: Broodlord is T4. Most of the time, that’s exactly what he is. When you shoot into a unit, you roll against T4 for convenience, and of course it’s part of the rule “Majority Toughness”. This means that you have to lose 3 genestealers in a broodlord commando squad before you can benefit from the broodlords toughness. So, if your opponent kills 2 genestealers in one round of shooting, the other 2 and your broodlord will still be Toughness 4. Only once you have very few models left do you get to benefit from increased toughness. Now, Iron arm was brought up here as well. For the most part, the broodlord is kept in the front of the unit to cut down on the number of guys who die from bolters thanks to the broodlord armor, while also getting the broolord close enough to be in combat quickly. He doesn’t benefit from increased toughness until he has already taken wounds and your unit is dead.
W: Short and sweet. Broodlord has 3 wounds, for his cost you can take 3-4 genestealers. Genestealers have more wounds.
I: Yea, similar to the WS section, this only matters against characters with I6. I hear DE are pretty cool with that.
A: Now here is where my rant really takes off. Broodlord has 4 attacks, 5 on the charge (possible to become 6-8 with warp speed). 3 toxin sealers have 6 attacks, 9 on the charge. 4 normal stealers have 8 attacks, 12 on the charge. Now, really, with these attacks here is an important thing to remember. Close combat effectiveness is defined in 2 ways: Number of attacks and penetrating abilities. If you don’t have one of these, you are likely not good at close combat… and if people have defined you as such, there is probably something unique (and when you don’t have penetrating abilities, it’s probably because you have outstanding amounts of attacks) Pyrovores have no close combat skill because they have 2 attacks. Old wraiths weren’t effective because they had like 6 attacks each but didn’t have any rending. Eldar warlocks aren’t effective because they just don’t have the number of attacks to deal with most enemies, even though they wound on 2’s. The tervigon WAS a (please do not swear) MC in CC 5th edition, but with the addition if smash and warp speed (volumes of attacks and consistent wounding that penetrates everything) it became very good in close combat.
My point? Genesealers are scary because they have a high volume of rending attacks. NOT because they wound consistently. So when for the same cost I can get 9 attacks (more than the broodlord is capable of) that reroll to wound (more consistent than a broodlord who isn’t wounding on 2’s) and getting additional rends off the failed wounds, which of course means more guys that just straight up die if they don’t have an invuln. For the same cost I can get 12 attacks which rend themselves (which is almost twice as likely as a broodlord with its 6/7/8 attacks) I don’t prefer the broodlord as a combat facilitator.
Ld: ummmmmmm
Sv: This is a pretty nice niche of the broodlord. 4+ armor is really nice until you play against grey knights. Even with 4+ armor though, you will spend most of your time sticking close to cover/ inside cover to offset the very probable penetration rate that will happen, mostly from the genestealers vs bolters. 4+ armor isn’t something genestealers have normally (which for the cost of a broodlord you can also get 2 y genestealers and a normal genestealer to add to the units you have of them, and keep that same cost… just saying
)
Why do I not like the broodlord? I dislike him because his rules don’t appeal to me. He doesn’t add anything to my genestealer units that they themselves don’t do themselves very often. He *can* but you have to remember, that is literally a dice roll to see if it gets 1, maybe 2 powers, that it can use effectively.
I understand my statement was a bit harsh, when I said “The Broodlord is back to being useless”. In truth, it does have merits this edition. Character rules help it a lot. But, those same rules don’t justify his cost to me. The Psychic disciplines don’t increase his overall value to me most of the time because he seldom gets anything I feel actually effects the game in a way that justifies his cost anymore than last edition.
Finally, the broodlord is always attached to genestealers, it has to be. Genestealers were amazing back in the time they could outflank and assault. Now that they can’t, it is very hard to bring myself to use them. Not just because they ability to assault out of reserves was amazing, but also because they effected opponents deployment. They marched more important things up the middle of the board rather than the flanks, allowing me to take advantage of that.
Is the broodlord “bad”? No, and I was wrong to say that. Is it “expensive”, yes, quite.
D:
low blow
