Thoughts on GSC Units

[mattblowers]

With my limited play experience, here are my thoughts on the units.

Acolyte hybrids: I love these units. The free hand flamers are pretty decent. The heavy mining tools are great IF you can make combat, but I think blasting charges might be the goto.

Neophytes: So far my favorite unit. The amount of firepower this can put out on the turn they drop is crazy. You can pick up what you want. I think a primus per unit is mandatory. If you are dropping two units on a turn I think you need a Nexos in the unit to use Perfect Ambush 2x. Three units of 20 are the backbone of my army.

Aberrants: These are a brick. Your bully unit. They are extremely hard to shift. I think they need the Abominant and "Prowling Agitant" for movement shenanigan's. That combines with One With the Darkness allow you to make the unit hard to engage except on your terms. It's expensive but I love the unit.

Goliath Rock Grinders: I actually love these. I take 3x. So far they have done nothing of note. However they are a distraction carnifex. Your opponent has to deal with them or they will make for a bad day. This leaves your other units unmolested. I usually jump out to a big lead in the first 3 turns that my opponent struggles to come back from. These are something I will definitely play with going forward as to the number or if we have better alternatives. Some AM battle tanks might get better results since I am just using them for bait.

Characters:

Magus: I don't see the use. Never took one, never missed it. Maybe if I played more psychic heavy armies.

Primus: auto include. I take 3 in every list.

Nexos: required for at least 1 for the reason on the neophyte above

Iconward: this seems to want to be good and I want to like it, but so far I'm not too impressed. It's OK.

Biophagus: I really like it. I wish it could go in the aberrants, but still very good.

Locus: I think it has potential but haven't run one yet. The fights first makes someone second guess charging a unit, but likely they just shoot them off the table instead.

The rest of the characters seem pretty "meh".

Your thoughts?

[No One]

mattblowers said:

Biophagus: I really like it. I wish it could go in the aberrants, but still very good.

It can.

The rest of the characters seem pretty "meh".

Sabos are great for infiltrate and lone op, plus strong close range damage (and some plink indirect). Sanctus and keler also have some possible use for similar lone op and infil/3" DS util reasons, but sabo's my default at the moment.

Aberrants: These are a brick. Your bully unit. They are extremely hard to shift. I think they need the Abominant and "Prowling Agitant" for movement shenanigan's. That combines with One With the Darkness allow you to make the unit hard to engage except on your terms. It's expensive but I love the unit.

D6" isn't much in the way of movememnt shenanigans. Inscrutable for infiltrate's way better.

Another strong unit combo is jackals+alphus with prowling: very strong moveblock, damage, and then threat to force your opponent to maybe move suboptimally.

Ridgerunners also combo well with neos for the AP and just generally being a solid shooting unit, especially if you can use APA on them.

[mattblowers]

Jul 6, 2023 14:37:12 GMT No One said:

D6" isn't much in the way of movememnt shenanigans. Inscrutable for infiltrate's way better.

I disagree. I wish it were just a normal move and not D6". Let's say they drop 9" away to charge you. Now your a minimum of 10" away, but typically you will be out of charge range. Same goes with shooting: you force your enemy to move within 6" to shoot or you pop One with darkness and now your farther than 12" and can't be shot. Most units that want to shoot you don't want to be close. Or, if you can't stay out of 12", simply Return to Shadows. It makes it really tough on your opponent. I like it far better than a 50% chance to get 1 CP, although that is good. It's dictating on your opponents turn. Straight 6" would be too strong, ask Eldar.

[No One]

mattblowers said:

I like it far better than a 50% chance to get 1 CP, although that is good.

It's the infiltrate what you take it for, gives a lot of early pressure that's otherwise lacking. The CP's also...there I guess.

Wasn't giving too much thought to the opponent wanting to play around worse case, especially with darkness, true. But then you do something like charge them and they can just end outside 1". Seems solid but better on jackals and infil on abbies. Edit: Actually it's only within 9", so there's a 3" window against shooting where even that combo does nothing.

[mattblowers]

Jul 6, 2023 15:54:23 GMT No One said:

It's the infiltrate what you take it for, gives a lot of early pressure that's otherwise lacking. The CP's also...there I guess.

Not 100% sure how that is super effective for them. I use this as my bully unit. I'm likely going to get on a middle objective just by running out of my deployment zone. I don't think this is the best use of that part of the enhancement. You aren't going to score middle objectives until turn 2 so getting there quicker isn't that much of an advantage. I'm not opposed to it, though. I briefly considered using it on them.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Jul 6, 2023 17:29:54 GMT mattblowers said:

Jul 6, 2023 15:54:23 GMT No One said:

It's the infiltrate what you take it for, gives a lot of early pressure that's otherwise lacking. The CP's also...there I guess.

Not 100% sure how that is super effective for them. I use this as my bully unit. I'm likely going to get on a middle objective just by running out of my deployment zone. I don't think this is the best use of that part of the enhancement. You aren't going to score middle objectives until turn 2 so getting there quicker isn't that much of an advantage. I'm not opposed to it, though. I briefly considered using it on them.

In my last game, I rolled one less than I needed to score no man's land objectives across all my advance rolls turn 1. I think having an infiltrate almost guarantees that you can get the central objective or an objective closer to your opponents drop zone.

[mattblowers]

Jul 6, 2023 18:19:14 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

Jul 6, 2023 17:29:54 GMT mattblowers said:

Not 100% sure how that is super effective for them. I use this as my bully unit. I'm likely going to get on a middle objective just by running out of my deployment zone. I don't think this is the best use of that part of the enhancement. You aren't going to score middle objectives until turn 2 so getting there quicker isn't that much of an advantage. I'm not opposed to it, though. I briefly considered using it on them.

In my last game, I rolled one less than I needed to score no man's land objectives across all my advance rolls turn 1. I think having an infiltrate almost guarantees that you can get the central objective or an objective closer to your opponents drop zone.

The question is whether it is the best use for an abby in a unit of aberrants. I like moving in my opponents turn all game better, but if I start failing rolls to reach an objective, I might be convinced to change my mind.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

mattblowers how are you kitting out your neophytes for damage?

[mattblowers]

Jul 6, 2023 20:54:22 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

mattblowers how are you kitting out your neophytes for damage?

I've been running 4 mining lasers and 4 grenade launchers in 2x units and 4 seismic cannons in and 4 shredders in another. I like both combos and I don't really have a strong opinion that is well formed yet. The reason I am running these combos is because those are the models I have built. I also find them quite good. I think four flamers are interesting but shredders can really do some work and that is what I have built. What is your preference?

Also with acolytes how are you running them? The demo charges are something my buddy has been running and really likes but it does make them a one hit wonder.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

I haven't tried GSC yet, but I was leaning towards heavy investment in mining lasers. Looking at it, split squads could be interesting. I'm thinking that grenade launchers are the way to go.

Need to explore acolytes. Im more excited that my 20 abberants and 2 abominants can see the light of day without being laughed off the table.

[autoxidation]

This thread has motivated me to build my half of DeathWatch Overkill that’s been sitting unbuilt in my closet for… some time. Might grab a combat patrol some time to round out a small force.

[No One]

mattblowers said:

Not 100% sure how that is super effective for them. I use this as my bully unit. I'm likely going to get on a middle objective just by running out of my deployment zone. I don't think this is the best use of that part of the enhancement. You aren't going to score middle objectives until turn 2 so getting there quicker isn't that much of an advantage. I'm not opposed to it, though. I briefly considered using it on them.

Why bully midfield when you can bully in their DZ . Very fun with redeploy and jackals. Only 2 games in, but both times almost forced my opponent to skip their T1 (or T2 going 2nd) movement, while dealing a decent amount of damage.

Also with acolytes how are you running them? The demo charges are something my buddy has been running and really likes but it does make them a one hit wonder.

I'm running one with demo+primus and rest with saws. Demo squad with APA and primus is an absolute nuke, but it's CP intensive (and with primus support not exactly cheap either, so targets to trade well on are also limited). I could absolutely see a 2nd one and just accept they'll be closer to just 'OK' damage and more using them for tunnel crawler's move blocking/objective steals etc and demos just let them do some reasonable damage. While the buffed squad is more being 'I don't like that unit, it dies'. But even the CP for that could be tight if you want to do something like e.g. interrupt: nexos, but I don't think you want to take a lot of nexos', so it's more do you want double RI options or double tunnel crawlers.

Even less appealing if you're running neos I think, because they make better tunnel crawlers with 20 man, and they'd compete with APA, nexos, and primus as well (though I think you could definitely leave those Chars behind without a utility plan: more neos probably come out about the same for damage, but you also get more bodies and CA).

[mattblowers]

Jul 7, 2023 1:43:01 GMT No One said:

Even less appealing if you're running neos I think, because they make better tunnel crawlers with 20 man, and they'd compete with APA, nexos, and primus as well (though I think you could definitely leave those Chars behind without a utility plan: more neos probably come out about the same for damage, but you also get more bodies and CA).

I agree with almost all of this. I think 3x primus is almost auto-include for me, at least in the index. They just make units so much more reliable. I think a Nexus is a must for every unit past 1 that you plan to alpha strike. They just turn it up to an 11.

I haven't run jackals at all, I don't know what role they would take in my list. I should probably give them another look.

[No One]

mattblowers said:

I think a Nexus is a must for every unit past 1 that you plan to alpha strike. They just turn it up to an 11.

One of nexos seems essentially auto include, but the fact only one can use the strat ability per turn means you definitely get some diminishing returns. I could see two, but it's the sort of thing that feels difficult to get proper value out of, either shoe-horning you in to a set drop order/CP spend, or risking just wasting 50 pts.

[mattblowers]

Jul 7, 2023 13:20:16 GMT No One said:

but the fact only one can use the strat ability per turn means you definitely get some diminishing returns.

Definitely missed that. 1 it is.