Looking for hope for GSC- Masters of secondaries?

[wormlord666]

I am desperately looking for ideas to get my Cult working in 9:th. I have only tested 2 games so far and it´s been tough.

My conclusions are that we will not stand a chance against most armies if it is a game of who-can-shoot-the-most, or even who-can-kill-the-most. But the game is not about that. The game is about scoring points, and mayby we can do that...

A Pauper princes patriarch can be one of the few who can pull of 3 psychic rituals if he gets lots of small dudes to take his wounds with 2+ loyalty test. Mayby even a Locus can pitch in. Thats 15 p. Not many armie have a 15 p secondary.
We should have strategems and tricks to get in position for linebreaking/engage on all fronts for 10+ points
If we do some decoy scrambling we get another 10. 

Thats 35 points. Then we have to find ways ways to get 40-45 points on primaries (or at least stop opponent from getting them). If we can pull that of we have 80 points (plus painting score of 10. ) That should be enough.

We have to be able to kill key units and stop movemnet. That will slow the opponent down and prevent them from scoring. 4AE spell might be useful. Demo-Bikes and Ridgrerunners can be useful for killing those hard enemies. I can even se use for a flamerbomb killing the enemies scoring units. 



There must be ways but it will take a skilled player to manage all this...

[niiai]

What do we have that is stil viable in the kill department?

Ridgerunners should be very good stil.

Did goliats or mortar teams get better?

What are our current good melee options?

[wormlord666]

Ridgerunner are strong in vehiclekilling. They did even get stronger with vehicle-move-and-shoot.
Democharghes are expensive in CP and points. But killy. And they can block movement at the same time.
Acolytes are almost as deadly as before (we will miss the delivernace strat for +1 to wound), just harder to get in position and to get to survive.
Abberrants always kills what they fight, but now they are supercostly and harder to get in to combat with and lost the fight in death ability from specialist detachment so I don´t see that doing much.
Mortar teams? I dont know. They are brigadefiller and they got blastweapons so mayby there is room for them. You migh expect some opponents leaving, scouts, rangers, grots etc on far away objectives. Mortars may help there. But are they killy? No, not when compared to what we are facing.

Patriarchs can become nasty with traits and buffs, but i suppose a Whitscar biker or a Spacewolf hammerdude will outperform a Patriarch in terms of killing so it´s tough.

But again, we don´t need to kill more, just the right stuff at the right time. We dont mind beeing tabled in T4 either if we did all what we needed to do and got 90 points. So I still have hopes. Just that my Nids look easier so we´ll see if i'd rather stay with them...

[niiai]

Right, just checking. Do not want to de-rail the way the tread is heading.

But mortal teams are cheap. They can sit on an objective and poke at what they have sitting on their objective.

[Hive Bahamut]

All about cat n mouse. Killing is now secondary.

Repair Teleport Homer
Engage on all fronts
Behind enemy lines etc.

The psychic ones are a trap for GSC in my opinion, if you want a free 15 just take the survive until endgame on 3 characters and just bounce them around the board.

[niiai]

I have not seen the objectives yet. But while GSC and Nids have amazing psykick powers I would asume they are ballanced for the cheaperst psyckers in the game. Those would be IG psyckers (did not Forge World have some cheap chaos psykers back in the day?), or units that just happens to be psyckers. Grey Knights, Thousand Sons. Perhaps Zoanthropes but they are very bad outside the smite so I doubt it.

From a game balance perspective you balance for the ekstremes, because that is what will be exploited. Paying under 100 points for a psyker and do those is not worth it in my opinion.

[kazetanade]

T.Homer and BEL aren't easy. Homer needs the unit to survive a turn in the enemy deployment zone, so 3 turns to max score. Surviving is hard, since whatever gsc drops is squishy.

BEL is easy turn 2 and 3. No idea how you'll manage 4 and 5.

You can't stack BEL and EAF, same category I think.

Trucks + BC Neophytes might have play, it's cheap and lots of anti tank anti elite. Pair with riderunners for some crazy laser tag. Ridge runners with 5+++ is a real doozy too.

Neophytes are now just better termagants in all ways. If they can do Raise the Banner, so can GSC. 120 troop lists are still competitive.

Domination is real play, although Mids do that better because of 2 extra movement abilities.

Abby's should be able to go toe to toe with any unit trying to sit midfield. Basic unit without hyps is 320 from 280, manageable 15% or less increase. With 6++ 4+++rr1s and exploding unmodified 5+ in combat, BC Abby's have some real play.

The tip about the secondary to survive is legit. You just need 3 Patty's, because the patty is the most expensive model in the codex bar Goliath blenders, it has to be 3 most expensive models.

[gorsameth]

Its a very situational secondary. The fact that it needs to be the same psyker is a big issue because it has to survive there for 3 turns and you risk getting denied.
If it was 5 cp per time you do it I would like it, and it might be to easy then, but its way to all or nothing for me.

[gorsameth]

Jul 29, 2020 17:12:20 GMT kazetanade said:

T.Homer and BEL aren't easy. Homer needs the unit to survive a turn in the enemy deployment zone, so 3 turns to max score. Surviving is hard, since whatever gsc drops is squishy.

BEL is easy turn 2 and 3. No idea how you'll manage 4 and 5.

You can't stack BEL and EAF, same category I think.

Trucks + BC Neophytes might have play, it's cheap and lots of anti tank anti elite. Pair with riderunners for some crazy laser tag. Ridge runners with 5+++ is a real doozy too.

Neophytes are now just better termagants in all ways. If they can do Raise the Banner, so can GSC. 120 troop lists are still competitive.

Domination is real play, although Mids do that better because of 2 extra movement abilities.

Abby's should be able to go toe to toe with any unit trying to sit midfield. Basic unit without hyps is 320 from 280, manageable 15% or less increase. With 6++ 4+++rr1s and exploding unmodified 5+ in combat, BC Abby's have some real play.

The tip about the secondary to survive is legit. You just need 3 Patty's, because the patty is the most expensive model in the codex bar Goliath blenders, it has to be 3 most expensive models.

3 patty's means 3 detachments, means your giving up 4 CP minimum for 2 Patrols. 

Linebreaker is nice since you can build for it without to much investment, if you drop 2 units on turn 3 you have hopefully done some damage and given your opponent other stuff to worry about that they can reasonably survive into turn 4 and maybe turn 5. Getting 12 VP's with possible 15 feels good to me.

Needing all 5 turns to cap Engage on all Fronts makes it iffy for me. Its easier to hide something in a back corner then across all 4 quarters.

Raise the Banner is probably a default pick, especially in missions with 2 somewhat safe objectives. we can have lots of bodies to control objectives with, holding 2 objectives for 5 turns and then having to scrounge together 5 points from the rest feels doable.

Deploy scamblers feels like a safe pick if Raise the Banners can be problematic. Its only 10 but its very reliable to get those 10 which is not something to discount.

Against an army with snipers or psychic defence I would probably sooner pick Pierce the Veil then Ritual. sure you need 4 casts instead of 3 to max it but getting 8 points for 2 instead of 0 feels safer. But I would likely only go for a psychic Secondary if there were no viable kill objectives to pick.

[Hive Bahamut]

The trick GSC has to get around the most expensive is quite easy. Patriarch is 7PL. Most of the codex is 4 or less. Just pick 2 4PL characters and hide them.

The teleport homer one seems easy as well. I messed it up in my game because I had to put magus elsewhere and never planned it out, but easy to hide 1 25mm base in their zone.

PS: Lurk in the Shadows is great on a Goliath contents sitting on an objective. I struggled to use this strat in 8th, it will be gold in 9th.

[kazetanade]

It only takes a stray ILOS platform to screw those plans up... But ok, if it works it works, ILOS may not feature as much as I think.

Isn't Lurk in Shadows for infantry only?

I thought most expensive is based on points, not just PL. Basically if you have tanks, only the Patty out costs. If you run full Infantry, then maybe, assuming you don't need those characters.

[gorsameth]

I suspect there to be some ILOS weapons for those who can bring them but are you going to shoot the unit sitting in the corner of your deployment zone or the one sitting behind a building on an objective?
The one of an objective is likely worth more VP.

[kazetanade]

Jul 30, 2020 9:38:47 GMT gorsameth said:

I suspect there to be some ILOS weapons for those who can bring them but are you going to shoot the unit sitting in the corner of your deployment zone or the one sitting behind a building on an objective?
The one of an objective is likely worth more VP.

Highly likely the one I am less likely to be able to remove in another way. That's usually the guy in my deployment zone, since my brawlers are on the midfield within striking distance of most objectives...

It's about objective denial, so whichever will hurt the enemy most really.

[Hive Bahamut]

Fixed for clarification. Yes it was supposed to be what is in Goliath.