Mechanized GSC or Infantry GSC?

[sath]

Brand new player to 40k and GSC is the army I'm going to pursue. With everything, collecting said models and designing my army will ultimately dictate how my force behaves. But, I have to admit I'm a little overwhelmed.

I've been reading various perspectives involving our trucks and I've been seeing a rather divisive response. I would like to know if current players are shifting to a more infantry based army to contend with 9th ? Is shooting more of a focus oppose to melee?

Thanks in advance. Cheers!

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Welcome to the hive! So I can tailor my response, do you play casually or competitively?

[sath]

Well for the time being it will be casually as I get used to the game. However, I will aspire to try to play in tournaments/leagues as well

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Personally, I'm skewing more towards infantry with GSC due to the limitations of which models I actually have.

I think in a casual environment, I think either option is viable. For competitive, that's going to drastically change based upon the meta.

For GSC, the advantages of infantry are
1. Lots of hard hitting units
2. Lots of ways to buff your units to be more deadly
3. You can spec into melee or shooting or both
The disadvantages of infantry are:
1. Very CP heavy. 9e limited the number of CP we can have
2. You need to bring a lot of threats. That's a lot of time and money buying building and painting
3. Your army is fragile
4. Your army is slow and can therefore be screened outm


The advantages for a mechanised force are:
1. Fast moving
2. Decent shooting
3. Not as CP dependent
The disadvantages of a mechanised force are
1. No counter punch if you get in melee
2. Again, expensive
3. Not as much infantry so scoring is harder.


Please note: GSC is not an easy army to play well. It's a bit of a glass cannon and requires you to use your hard hitting units to remove threats from your opponents force. I've found it rewarding if played well but can lead to very lopsided games. I usually either lose or win big with no in between.

[sath]

Thanks for that. And yeah, on the Art of War podcast, I was a bit shell shocked as to the amount of guys he employed in his list. 100 + boys is daunting. It actually had me consider my choice. Guard have numbers too, but they also have tanks.

Thanks for the imput, though!

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Yeah... 100+ models sounds a bit high, but I haven't played much 9e yet unfortunately.

GSC can ally in guard, but guard does it better with their doctrines.

What drew you to GSC as your starting army?

[beetlejuice]

Just get like 6 starting boxes and a broodcoven plus jackal alphus. You’ll have most of the characters and a base of the only worthwhile units in the codex atm (neophytes, acolytes and ridgerunners). Then spend time learning the army and the units and go from there. GSC is a very high skill cap army so don’t expect it to be plug and play when you hit the table.

[kazetanade]

If you haven't started, I would recommend against it - it's expensive and not efficient purchases, with a lot of stacking. GW placed too much emphasis on damn Iconward everywhere.

Your minimum effective army looks like below:

- 20 Acolytes with 8 Saws or other weapon (you can split the units up, but most variations will have up to these numbers in some config)

- 50 Neophytes with 10 Mining Lasers/Seismic (no one has used Seismic competitively but one day they might be useful) and some variation of special weapons.


- 20 to 40 Neophyte/Brood brothers that are basically chaff.

- 1 to 2 Kellermorphs

- at least 1 set of HQs if nto 2 (not counting Iconward cuz he's everywhere)

- Ridgerunners (some variation of 3 to 9)

The Start collecting is alright in that it gives you 10 Neos, 5 Acos, 1 Ridgerunners, 1 Iconward. Past the first box, you need to discount the Iconward and see if it still makes sense, if it does then up to 6 is still effective.

The kill team box for AdM/GSC is OK since it gives you 1 Kellermorph, 5 Acos, 1 Iconward, terrain. Discount the Iconward again and share the AdM and sell the terrain for it to make sense.

The wolf/GSC box is OK too but for very specific buy, not general purpose.

Lots of buy for this army and I don't recommend it to a new player as it will be even more frustrating than Nids.

If you can find it, at least 1 to 2 sets of Deathwatch:Overkill will settle your basic needs. 4 special GS is a waste, and 4 Abbys each is also a bit of a waste, but the value of the 2 sets of HQs and 2 sets of Troops each will pretty much make the set valuable, assuming SM side is sold. I still get notifications on ebay on them sometimes. With 2x DWO, your SC can be focused on special weapons/alternate builds like shotgun Neophytes, special weapons, seismic (cuz mining lasers are in DWO), Metamorphs (hahahaha sure), Saws + Icon + other mining weapons.

[beetlejuice]

You could always convert the extra iconwards into cult icon carriers or just extra acolytes but sure it’s not ideal...

[niiai]

I am in the prosses of collecting Alex sugested list. I have traded 1 alpha for 1 prims as I like my conversion. When the index came I build two primuses. Then the codex nerfed them. I was planning on calling them Jessey and James (one is female) because nobody exspects team rocket.

I build one iconclad into a kellermorph. I still have 3 on spruce.

Regarding starting GSC. I think it is the most complicated army you can start at the moment. Exspensive, very narrow builds and bad unit priced in the codex. Also, when the new marine codex comes a lot of our weapons will change. :-p

[sath]

I am drawn to the GSC because of the overall lore of the army. The model range as well is incredible. I suppose in a way, as I just started with a start collecting box - sticking with those would be the way to go.

[kazetanade]

I'd say get 3 Start Collecting and if you can, 1 DWO GSC set.

Otherwise, 3 SC and the HQ box and you can decide how you wanna take it from there.