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Post by kurtangle2 on Jul 16, 2019 19:11:10 GMT
Don't play more than 40 genestealers, it's a trap I've played with 100 and it worked well and was lots of fun. However, I wasn't playing ITC. I think playing too few genestealers is a trap in my experience. I either play 0 or loads. Having an army consisting or 100 genestealers (but even 80) means you're effectively giving your enemy the easiest time deciding what to kill since every single shot it fired at them and thus not wasted (i.e. they suck at tanking anti-infantry shots and since you only have them as your target, they're going to get targeted anyway). Have you seen Tyranids winning tournaments (be them either ITC or ETC)? No, because Genestealer are much easier to deal with since they have to start off the table and for when (assuming THEY ARE STILL THERE) they hit, they're greatly diminished in numbers. I just won't repeat myself: if you wanna compete with Tyranids, go GSC. Or just hope they fix them somehow in CA 2019 (I doubt they will) |
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Post by kazetanade on Jul 16, 2019 19:26:23 GMT
Surly 60 stealers is just giving away secondaries? Mark them and a flyrant and you get 8 points with reaper? ITC is capped to 4pts per objective. Now, in your original list with 3 Flyrants, the enemy would score: BGH/MFD: 4 (3 Flyrants + SL) Reaper: 4 (2 Genestealers, 1 Horma, 1 Termagant, 1 Ripper, approx anyway) Objective Secondary: Recon, Ground Control, Engineer, Old School, etc. With a 60 GS list, the enemy scores: Reaper/MFD: (3 GS and 1 Horma/Swarmlord/HG respectively, the HG being hard to score without a rapid moving interceptor to get around LOS Blockers). HeadHunter: (SL, Flyrant, Broodlord, Malanthrope). The BL and Thrope are extremely difficult to score without a dedicated Character hunter of some kind. OR, Kingslayer (SL as the Warlord, I think? I hope it's the Malanthrope, because he doesnt die). Objective Secondary: Recon, Ground Control, Engineer, Old School, etc. In terms of denying objective, the 60GS list does better, because you combine damage into obsec bodies, fulfilling a dual purpose, but he can only score off 1 of those purposes. He's then forced into trying to score off much harder targets thereafter, instead of tasty Flyrants. HOWEVER, 60 GS has its own sets of problems: With SL and 60 GS, you have just invested 1000 points into a once a turn gimmick with a SPECIFIC target profile. I have only ever considered running 60GS on a relatively empty board in a Knight heavy meta, because there is only enough anti-infantry guns to take out 1 GS squad and I wouldnt have been able to hide them anyway. At this point, I would say you need to invest fully into the aggressive playstyle. My choice was to remove the HG altogether due to range issues and make use of GSC to further double down on the aggressive play. Another extremely viable approach is 100 GS, like mentioned by kerrigan. Why does 100 GS work? It's due to two things. 1. The principle of Multiple Threat Overload. There are VERY few armies equipped with enough anti-infantry to kill 100 5++ blenders in 1 turn, but every army can easily kill 20-40, depending on army. Now, assuming there is a magic box in the middle and 4 Ls, 1 in each corner, you can effectively hide 3-4GS units, 2 of them right on the line ready to go. This is the best setup for a non-SL GS list, because by starting on the line you can actually get into combat purely with Opportunistic Advance. If you even have SL then of course you could launch even more, assuming SL has a safe place to hide and can get to the magix box to block LOS shortly after. So T1 you've got 60-80/100 GS hidden or protected. or the very worst, they're all on the line but with the Malanthrope giving them -1 to hit which is why you can soak most of an army's shooting into 20 guys. And on your turn, you launch 40 of them into combat and either clear screens (one of those units is capable of completely obliterating a screen or 2, then Overrunning into something else or far away from retaliation, then FIght Again in order to trap something else where it's safe-ish or going to force him to lose shooting guns). There's another 60 Genestealers in his face and after the first rush, he should be a few important guns down, and suddenly he doesnt have enough damage to substantially hurt what's left on the board, and you just overwhelm his ability to handle what's being thrown at him. It's similar to how some GSC lists play, like No One and his Acolyte spam where you are immediately faced with something like 45 Acolytes all with 7" rerollable charges, and your screens obliterated by a 20 man with flamers (for something like 65 Acolytes to deal with within 1 turn before they start to really wreck your face). 2. The Genestealer itself is actually the 2nd or 3rd best glasshamer output unit in the game in terms of points to output (my maths could be old). The only army I fear that melee charge more than a Nids into my face is a Harlequins infantry charge, where 12 models do as much damage as a max Genestealer unit before its d3 damage weapons, while having -3 to hit, -1 to wound, sv 3++ fnp 6+++ at the worst case...*shudder* Or what I heard but havent seen is that Khorne Bezerker charge into combat, with 3 or 4x fight activations. Anyway; As long as you're wounding on a 5+, you can kill any vehicle without an invul (if my memory is right). You do enough damage to render most elite units crippled and non-lethal. You of course kill infantry very well (although Guardsmen are broken in that the trade is always in favour of the guardsmen getting killed in melee). And assuming you get into a Knight, you'll nearly kill it with 2 units of Genestealers - a smite and scream in the psychic phase would have meant that its dead. a smite and scream + 1 unit will kill a Leman Russ (again a bad trade due to everything IG being super cheap for its value). So with 100 of them, if you manage to get into combat with most things and break them down or degrade them to the point that they're weak, then he basically will never outscore you as you leisurely hunt your Kill, Kill More, Hold, Hold More, and secondaries and tertiary objectives once the army is broken. finish up remaining points in hard to score stuff, like a pack of Zoanthropes or 2 pack of Zoanthropes, that does support damage. The *BIGGEST* drawback to this type of list is really simply, available terrain. If the enemy can see 80% or 90% of your deployment from his deployment, then you have an issue running this type of list, and although you can live through a lot of punishment with the -1 messing up some level of rerolls, the game gets quite a bit difficult if he's prepared for anti-infantry and kills like 50 Genestealers upfront. If you have decent terrain that lets you start and hide near the board centre, then this becomes extremely strong. For me, facing double or even triple Avenger gattling guns was not rare, and with 12+14+exploding hits of Avenger then 2d6 of Battle Cannon and a wave of other abuse, I could lose 40 to 60 models in Turn 1 on occassion, and its playing against lists like that with no cover that it gets really difficult to pull off. |
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Post by kurtangle2 on Jul 16, 2019 19:32:27 GMT
Comparing GSC to Tyr Genestealer is not only unfair but rightfully stupid.
GSC can clear screen with 5 CP (40D6 S3 autohits or even proper Neophyte builds) whilst having one (if not the most) cost efficient damage output per model in forms of Acolytes. Also aside from Overwatch you're 100% sure to hit with them in full strenght.
Genestealers ARE one trick pony, that's why you're not seeing more than 40 in people's list when playing them alongside GSC. If you go first you hit your enemy in full strenght, if you go second you're doomed to lose atleast 20/30 to shooting armies. That's a 50% gamble that I could see working, but I would NEVER play more than 40 just because I could go second...it's already a loss (in terms of points investement) at that point.
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Post by kazetanade on Jul 17, 2019 2:15:47 GMT
Before this turns into a shouting match of who is more right than the other: OP the point of my exposition is not go convince you of why Genestealers are better than other things. It's to explain to you the principles behind which makes it work. You can take the same principles and apply it to GSC, which are safer but comes with its own set of problems. If you want another view, mattblowers is a consistent tourney goer and performer (but not top table) who has a lot of experience with mass GS lists. He started before I moved away from HG, and reading his thoughts was what shaped my decision to do so. The key thing here is whether what we're talking about is actually able to help you, which I hope it can. One thing that I have felt since last year is that no matter what list we play, we give away large amounts of vp, at least in ITC. Its good to think about how to restrict how much we give, but as a playstyles it's more important that we ourselves play and strategize in a way that maximises our ability to score rather than restrict others from scoring. All you need is 1vp more (and 1 model left) than the other guy to win. If you are OK with mixing armies or have access to it, I would* recommend dashing into GSC, because it gives you a good toolbox to work with. |
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Post by Master Chief on Jul 17, 2019 9:30:30 GMT
Wow Kazetanade, very nice reply! By my own experience I have a few genestealers less (just 80 with 2 Broodlords), but I prefer everything to be better defended (Tyrant guards for Swarmlord or for the Flyrant and venomthropes for my infantry). But yeah, I agree on everything you said, and you did it in an amazing way. Just a couple of days and I will have some time to explain my way of playing MY genestealers sling army.  |
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Post by mattblowers on Jul 17, 2019 11:19:52 GMT
Comparing GSC to Tyr Genestealer is not only unfair but rightfully stupid. GSC can clear screen with 5 CP (40D6 S3 autohits or even proper Neophyte builds) whilst having one (if not the most) cost efficient damage output per model in forms of Acolytes. Also aside from Overwatch you're 100% sure to hit with them in full strenght. Genestealers ARE one trick pony, that's why you're not seeing more than 40 in people's list when playing them alongside GSC. If you go first you hit your enemy in full strenght, if you go second you're doomed to lose atleast 20/30 to shooting armies. That's a 50% gamble that I could see working, but I would NEVER play more than 40 just because I could go second...it's already a loss (in terms of points investement) at that point. This is simply factually inaccurate. My play time has been down lately, but massed genestealers are actually a very solid list. When I play massed genestealers regularly last season I consistently had a winning record in every event I ran them in. I even went 3-2 in a major ITC and was a couple points from going 4-1 but lost to a ruling when the judge misunderstood the FAQ. I chose to go second in most games. The list focused around oustscoring my opponent rather than being more killy. I got bored with the list eventually, but it is solid. |
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Post by killercroc on Jul 17, 2019 14:28:41 GMT
To be fair Genestealers are a one trick pony, that trick just happens to be murderating anything they get into combat with. My Stealers are screen clearers but then move on to assault and kill anything they can get their hands on, and if they get focus fired by my opponent then that's just stuff not shooting at the rest of my army. And it's not like stealers are the easiest to kill either, if something hits on 3+ and wounds on 3+ it's still an average of 67 shots to kill 20 stealers which is a lot of firepower and more likely than not you're going to have stealers left to do some more combating.
I personally just play with 40 Stealers cause my opponents complain about them too much, I think I have somewhere around 100 but cannot remember... but I consistently go second and still kind myself pulling off more wins than loses.
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Post by xsquidz on Jul 17, 2019 14:36:24 GMT
To be fair Genestealers are a one trick pony, that trick just happens to be murderating anything they get into combat with. My Stealers are screen clearers but then move on to assault and kill anything they can get their hands on, and if they get focus fired by my opponent then that's just stuff not shooting at the rest of my army. And it's not like stealers are the easiest to kill either, if something hits on 3+ and wounds on 3+ it's still an average of 67 shots to kill 20 stealers which is a lot of firepower and more likely than not you're going to have stealers left to do some more combating. I personally just play with 40 Stealers cause my opponents complain about them too much, I think I have somewhere around 100 but cannot remember... but I consistently go second and still kind myself pulling off more wins than loses. Yeah and if you have cover (like if you go 2nd) that makes them better versus small arms fire and you can put catalyst on 1 unit as well. 5++ and then a 5+++ is not bad at all. Give them a -1 to be hit with a malenthrope behind them and its pretty effective. I won a 40+ man local tournament using a list with 80 genestealers last year and all the stuff mentioned above. No they are not autowin by ANY means but are very good against some armies especially with Kraken. |
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Post by killercroc on Jul 17, 2019 14:46:16 GMT
If anything with how often one goes second they should always use prepared defenses, give those Stealers a nice 4+ against those small arms fire but everything else gets to too making your whole army more resilient, effectively boosting your survivability against anything AP 0 or -1. I don't own a Malenthrope however, just some Venomthropes I always take, they're cheap and cover a large area but tend to get shot first. Catalyst is good but you cannot always get it off since you have to wait til your turn, b ut yeah the 5++ then 5+++ does make them a pain to kill.
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Post by kociamafia on Jul 17, 2019 17:04:09 GMT
Comparing GSC to Tyr Genestealer is not only unfair but rightfully stupid. GSC can clear screen with 5 CP (40D6 S3 autohits or even proper Neophyte builds) whilst having one (if not the most) cost efficient damage output per model in forms of Acolytes. Also aside from Overwatch you're 100% sure to hit with them in full strenght. Genestealers ARE one trick pony, that's why you're not seeing more than 40 in people's list when playing them alongside GSC. If you go first you hit your enemy in full strenght, if you go second you're doomed to lose atleast 20/30 to shooting armies. That's a 50% gamble that I could see working, but I would NEVER play more than 40 just because I could go second...it's already a loss (in terms of points investement) at that point. This is simply factually inaccurate. My play time has been down lately, but massed genestealers are actually a very solid list. When I play massed genestealers regularly last season I consistently had a winning record in every event I ran them in. I even went 3-2 in a major ITC and was a couple points from going 4-1 but lost to a ruling when the judge misunderstood the FAQ. I chose to go second in most games. The list focused around oustscoring my opponent rather than being more killy. I got bored with the list eventually, but it is solid. Out of curiosity - How many stealers did you run ? Ballpark of 80 or 100+ ? What was your list ? |
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Post by mattblowers on Jul 18, 2019 11:43:23 GMT
This is simply factually inaccurate. My play time has been down lately, but massed genestealers are actually a very solid list. When I play massed genestealers regularly last season I consistently had a winning record in every event I ran them in. I even went 3-2 in a major ITC and was a couple points from going 4-1 but lost to a ruling when the judge misunderstood the FAQ. I chose to go second in most games. The list focused around oustscoring my opponent rather than being more killy. I got bored with the list eventually, but it is solid. Out of curiosity - How many stealers did you run ? Ballpark of 80 or 100+ ? What was your list ? The list wavered between 100 and 120 genestealers. The list was 2 battalions. I ran Swarmlord and a malanthrope in every list. Sometimes I ran flyrants, sometimes I ran broodlords. I started a whole thread about broodlords and how I thought they were underwhelming. With their new points cost, they might be OK now. The variables: -sometimes I ran hiveguard, but mostly not. -sometimes I ran with a unit or two of rippers for scoring. -my most successful lists included 1-3 biovores that I would keep shifting and out of synapse so they only ever hit on 6s. this allowed me to use the spore mines to limit my opponents movement, -especially on big things. -a few times I ran a unit with toxin sacs for 2 damage on 6s. That mostly didn't work out because of how hard it was to pull off correct positioning. If I ran it now, I would run it with neurothropes for some rock hard hiddable synapse. |
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Post by xsquidz on Jul 18, 2019 13:20:46 GMT
If anything with how often one goes second they should always use prepared defenses, give those Stealers a nice 4+ against those small arms fire but everything else gets to too making your whole army more resilient, effectively boosting your survivability against anything AP 0 or -1. I don't own a Malenthrope however, just some Venomthropes I always take, they're cheap and cover a large area but tend to get shot first. Catalyst is good but you cannot always get it off since you have to wait til your turn, b ut yeah the 5++ then 5+++ does make them a pain to kill. If you can get a malenthrope and if its allowed in your area its an auto include IMO over venomthropes (which die way too easy), it has 9 wounds so snipers (since its a character as well) will take a long time to get it so its pretty much gold for at least 2 turns giving your army the -1 to be hit. Its all about mitigating the damage if you go 2nd with this list. 80+ genestealers. Being that they are troops as well is so good for objectives as well. |
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Post by kociamafia on Jul 18, 2019 13:51:59 GMT
Out of curiosity - How many stealers did you run ? Ballpark of 80 or 100+ ? What was your list ? The list wavered between 100 and 120 genestealers. The list was 2 battalions. I ran Swarmlord and a malanthrope in every list. Sometimes I ran flyrants, sometimes I ran broodlords. I started a whole thread about broodlords and how I thought they were underwhelming. With their new points cost, they might be OK now. The variables: -sometimes I ran hiveguard, but mostly not. -sometimes I ran with a unit or two of rippers for scoring. -my most successful lists included 1-3 biovores that I would keep shifting and out of synapse so they only ever hit on 6s. this allowed me to use the spore mines to limit my opponents movement, -especially on big things. -a few times I ran a unit with toxin sacs for 2 damage on 6s. That mostly didn't work out because of how hard it was to pull off correct positioning. If I ran it now, I would run it with neurothropes for some rock hard hiddable synapse. Oh, nice. More than I thought. I havent tried Biovores but I guess one can put them in auxiliary Kronos detachment so they are permanently outside of synapse (+ kronos strat ) For 100/120 stealers I think broodlord is worth it |
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Post by Master Chief on Jul 18, 2019 14:27:20 GMT
Honestly I was playing a broodlord before when it was 162 points and I was quite happy of it. But honesty I think that now at 115 points broodlords are worth it even if you play no genestealers! |
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Post by kociamafia on Jul 18, 2019 14:35:44 GMT
Honestly I was playing a broodlord before when it was 162 points and I was quite happy of it. But honesty I think that now at 115 points broodlords are worth it even if you play no genestealers! Well for +10 pts Patriarch is much better, but yeah Broodlord can be a nice blender at least, albeit squishy as all hell. |
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